"You shall have no need," said the lady of the manor calmly. She paused
and her eyes went to the door in an intent and listening gaze, then came
back to the faces about her with a strange light in their depths.
"Rebel servants," she said in a clear, low voice, "I defy you! And you,
false slave, stand from before me. I need not your hateful aid." In
the moment of ominous silence that followed, she swayed towards the
door, her hand at her throat, her soul in her eyes. Suddenly she cried
out, "My father! Charles! help!"
From without came an answering cry, followed by a rush of men through
the door, and in an instant the room was filled with struggling forms as
the two parties threw themselves upon each other. The newcomers were
half a dozen blacks, the two overseers and Sir Charles Carew. The
overseers had pistols and Sir Charles his sword. With it he met the
rush of the youth with the hectic cheek, who came towards him in long,
hound-like leaps, brandishing a piece of wood above his head, and drove
the blade deep into the chest of the fanatic. The wretched man
staggered and fell, then rose to his knees. Flinging his arms above his
head, he turned his worn face towards the flood of sunshine pouring in
through the door, and cried in a loud voice, "I see!" A stream of blood
gushed from his lips, his arms dropped, and without a groan he fell
back, dead.
Landless, wrestling with the slave Regulus, at length succeeded in
hurling the powerful figure to the ground, where it lay stunned, and
turned to find himself confronted by Woodson's pistol and the point of
Sir Charles's rapier. A glance showed him the remaining conspirators,
overpowered, and in the act of being bound with the ropes that had lain,
coiled for use in packing, in the corners of the tobacco house. The
hectic youth lay, a ghastly spectacle, in a pool of blood across the
doorway. At his feet was the branded man, a bullet through his brain,
and near him the groaning figure of Havisham's mortally wounded
companion. The woman who had brought all this to pass stood unharmed,
white, with tragic, exultant eyes.
Sir Charles, serene and debonair, lowered his point. "Your hand is
played," he said with a fine smile. Landless's stern, despairing gaze
passed him and went on to the overseer. "I surrender to you," he said
briefly.
Woodson chuckled grimly and stuck his pistol in his belt. He was in
high good humor, visions of reward and thanks from the Assembly dancing
before his eyes. "I 've had my eye on you for some time, young man," he
said almost genially. "I 've suspected that you were up to something,
but Lord! to think that a woman's wit should have trapped you at last!
Haines, bring that rope over here."
Sir Charles went over to Patricia and offered her his arm. "Dearest and
bravest of women!" he said in a caressing whisper. "Come with me from
this place, which must be dreadful to you."
She did not answer him at once, but stood looking past him at the
picture of laughing water and waving forest framed in the doorway.
"I thought I should never see the sunshine again," she said dreamily.
"Did Margery give _you_ the message?"
"Yes, she met me under the mulberries. I would not wait to rouse your
father, but calling the overseers and the blacks from the fields, came
at once."
"I owe you my life," she said. "You and--"
Her eyes left the summer outside and came back to the shadowy forms
within the tobacco house. "I will go with you directly, cousin," she
said quietly, "but first I wish to speak to that man."
He shot a swift glance at her face, but drew back with a bow, and she
walked with a steady step up to Landless. "Fall back a little," she
said with an imperious wave of her hand to the men about him. They
obeyed her. Landless, left standing before her, his arms bound to his
sides, raised his head and looked her in the face. She met his eyes.
"You lied to me," she said in a low, even voice.
"Once, madam, and to save others," he said proudly.
"Not once, but twice. Do you think that now I believe that tale you
told me that night, that fairy tale of persecuted innocence? When I
think that I ever believed it I hate myself."
"Nevertheless, it is true, madam."
"It is false! Yesterday I thought of you as a gallant gentleman,
greatly wronged ... and I pitied you. To-day I am wiser."
He held her eyes with his own for a moment, then let them go. "Some day
you will know," he said.
She turned from him and held out her hands to Sir Charles. He hurried
to her and she clung to him. "Take me away," she said in a whisper.
"Take me home."
He put his arm about her. "You are faint," he said tenderly. "Come!
the air will revive you."
Supporting her on his arm, he guided her from the house. As they passed
the body stretched across the threshold, the skirt of her robe touched
the blood in which it was lying. She saw it and shuddered.
"Blood is upon me!" she said. "It is an omen!"
"A good one, then," said her companion coolly, "for it is the blood of a
fanatic traitor. Think not of it." He turned at the threshold and cast
a careless glance back into the tobacco house. "Woodson, get rid of
this carrion, and bring these men quietly to the great house, where your
master will deal with them."
*CHAPTER XXIII*
*THE QUESTION*
"We know all but two things, but those are the most important of all,"
said the Governor, tapping his jeweled fingers against the table.
"It is much to be regretted," said the Surveyor-General, "that the
presence of the young lady was so soon discovered. Otherwise--"
"Otherwise we might have had further information on more than one
subject," said the Governor dryly.
"We must make the best of what we have," continued Carrington calmly.
"After all, it is enough."
The Governor rose and began to pace the floor, his head thoughtfully
bent, his unwounded hand tugging at the curls of his periwig. "It is
not enough," he said at length, pausing before the great table around
which the company were seated. "Thanks to the gallant daughter of the
gallant Verneys,"--a bow and smile to Patricia, sitting enthroned in the
great chair in their midst,--"we know much, but it is not enough. These
rogues have set a day upon which to rise; they have appointed a place to
which they are to resort. That day may be to-morrow, that place any
point in any one of a dozen counties."
"I apprehend that the cockatrice was to be hatched near by," said Sir
Charles.
"It is the likeliest thing," answered the Governor, "seeing that their
ringleader belongs to this plantation. But we do not know. And there
may not be time to reach the planters, to give them warning, to arrest
these d--d traitors, scattered as they are from the James to
Rappahannock, and from Henricus to the Chesapeake. It might be best to
assemble the trainbands at this cursed spot if it can be found, and to
await their coming in force. But to know neither time nor place--to
start a hue and cry and have the storm burst before it reaches ten
plantations--to guard one point and see fire rise at another a dozen
leagues away--impossible! Gentlemen, we must come at the heart of this
matter!"
"It is most advisable," said Colonel Verney gravely. "Examine the
prisoners again," suggested Sir Charles.
"One of them is no wiser than we. You are certain as to this, Mistress
Patricia?"
"Yes, your Excellency."
"Humph! one does not know; three are dead, there remain, then, that
shaven and branded runaway and the two convicts."
"You will learn naught from the runaway, your Excellency!" called out
the overseer from where he stood at a respectful distance from the
company. "He 's one of them crazy fanatics that wild horses could n't
draw truth from. No Indian torture stake could make him speak if he did
n't want to,--nor keep him from it if he did."
"I know that kind," said the Governor, with a short laugh, "and we will
not waste time upon him, but will try if the convict--he who seems to
have been their leader--be not more amenable. Bring him in, Woodson."
When the overseer had gone, a silence fell upon the company gathered in
the master's room. The Governor paced to and fro, perplexity in his
face; the Colonel knit his grizzled brows and studied the floor; Dr.
Anthony Nash brought the writing materials displayed upon the table,
closer to him, and held a quill ready poised for dipping into the ink
horn, while the Surveyor-General with a carefully composed countenance
toyed with a pink which he took from the bowl of flowers before him.
Sir Charles leaned back in his seat and looked at Patricia who, seated
between him and her father, stared before her with hard, bright eyes.
Her lips were like a scarlet flower against the absolute pallor of her
face; her hair was a crown of pale gold. In the great chair, her white
arms resting upon the dark wood, her feet upon a carved footstool, she
looked a queen, and the knot of brilliantly dressed gentlemen her
attendant council.
The door opened and the two overseers appeared with Landless, who
advanced and stood, silent and collected, before the ring of hostile
faces.
"What is your name, sirrah?" said the Governor, throwing himself into
his chair and frowning heavily.
"Godfrey Landless."
"I am told that you are son to one Warham Landless, a so-called colonel
in the rebel army and hand in glove with the usurper himself."
"I am the son of Colonel Warham Landless of the forces of the
Commonwealth, and friend to his Highness the Lord Protector."
"Humph! And did you fight in these same forces yourself?"
"At Worcester, yes."
"Humph! the son of a traitor and rebel--traitor and rebel yourself--and
convict to boot! A pretty record! On what day was this rising to
occur?"
No answer. The Governor repeated the question. "On what day was this
precious mine to be sprung? And to what place were you to resort?"
Landless remaining silent, the Governor's face began to flush and the
veins in his forehead to swell. "Have you lost your tongue?" he said
fiercely. "If so, we will find a way to recover it."
"I shall not answer those questions," said Landless firmly.
"It is your one chance for life," said the Governor sternly. "Answer me
truly, and you may escape the gallows. Refuse, and you hang, so surely
as I sit here."
"I shall not answer them."
"Sink me if I ever knew a Roundhead so careless of his own interests,"
drawled Sir Charles. The Governor whispered to the master of the
plantation, then turned again to the prisoner.
"I give you one more chance," he said harshly. "When is this day? Where
is this place?"
"I shall not tell you."
"We will see about that," said his Excellency with compressed lips.
"Verney, send your daughter from the room. Woodson, you understand this
gear, having been in the Indies. This man is to tell us all that he
knows of this business. Call in a trustworthy slave or two to help
you."
Patricia uttered a low cry, and the Surveyor-General crushed the flower
between his fingers and turned upon the Governor. "Your Excellency! I
protest! This that you would do is not lawful! Surely such harsh
measures are not needed."
The Governor's fury exploded. "Not needful!" he exclaimed in a high
voice. "Not needful, when upon these questions hang the fortunes of the
Colony! when if we fail, to-morrow may usher in a blacker forty-four!
And not lawful! I am the law in this State, Major Carrington; I am the
King's representative, and this is my prerogative! and I say that by
fair means or foul this information must be gained. This is no time to
prate of humanity. We are to show humanity to ourselves; we are to
stamp out this lit fuse. Or does Major Carrington wish it to burn on?"
"No," said Carrington coldly. "I spoke hastily. You are right, of
course, and I will interfere no further."
An hour later Patricia stood before the hall window looking out upon the
dazzling water and the green velvet of the marshes with wide, unseeing
eyes. Her hands were clenched at her sides and upon each cheek burned a
crimson spot. Beside her crouched Betty Carrington who, upon the first
rumor of trouble at Verney Manor, had ridden over from Rosemead. Their
strained ears caught no sound from the room opposite other than the
occasional sound of the Governor's voice, raised in interrogation.
There came no answering voice. Patricia stood motionless, with eyes
that never wandered from the rich scene without, and with lips pressed
together, but Betty hid her face in the other's skirts and shivered.
The door of the master's room opened and both started violently. The
overseer strode down the hall and had laid his hand upon the latch of
the door leading to the offices, when his mistress called him to her.
"Do they know? Has the man told?" she asked with an effort.
Woodson shook his head. "He 's as dumb as an oyster. Might as well try
to get anything from an Indian. They 're going to try t' other--Trail."
He left the hall, but was back in five minutes' time with the forger.
They entered the master's room, and Patricia, seized by a sudden
impulse, followed them, leaving Betty trembling in the window scat.
Unnoted by all but one of the company, she slipt to a seat in the shadow
of her father's burly shoulders. He was leaning forward, talking to the
Governor, who sat very erect, his features fixed in an expression of
dogged determination. The Surveyor-General sat well behind the table,
and upon the polished wood before him lay a little heap of torn petals
and broken stems. At the far end of the room and leaning heavily against
the wall was the prisoner whose examination was just finished.
Sir Charles had seen the entrance of the lady of the manor, and he now
rose from his seat and came to her. "Not a syllable," he whispered in
answer to the question in her eyes. "Roundhead obstinacy! But I think
that this fellow will prove more malleable."
His prediction was verified. Ten minutes later the Governor rose to his
feet triumphant. "So!" he said, drawing a long breath. "We are, I
think, gentlemen, at the very core at last. The time, day after
to-morrow; the place, Poplar Spring in this county. And now to work!
Those of these d--d Oliverians whom we can reach must be arrested at
once. Swift messengers must be sent to all plantations far and near.
The trainbands must be called out. Time presses, gentlemen!"
"And these men?" said the Colonel.
"Must go to Jamestown gaol, where the one shall hang as surely as my
name is William Berkeley. For the other--"
"Your Excellency has promised me my life," said Trail cringingly, but
with an inscrutable something that was not fear in his sinister green
eyes.
"An escort must be gotten together," said the Colonel, "and the day is
far advanced. I advise keeping them here until the morning."
"See that you keep them straitly then," said the Governor.
"Trust me for that, your Excellency," said the overseer grimly.
"Then to work, gentlemen," cried the Governor, "for there is much to do
and but little time to do it in. Major Carrington, you with Mr. Peyton
will ride with me to Jamestown. Colonel Verney, you will know what
measures to take for the safety of your shire. Woodson, have the horses
brought around at once."
The Council broke up in haste and confusion, and its members, talking
eagerly, streamed into the hall. Carrington was the last in line, and he
paused before Landless. The under overseer and the slave Regulus were
at a little distance replacing the cords about Trail's arms. The
Surveyor-General cast a quick glance towards the door, saw that the last
retreating figure was that of Mr. Peyton, and approached his lips close
to Landless's ear.
"You are a brave man," he said in a low and troubled voice. "From my
soul I honor you! I would have saved you, would save you now if I
could. But I am cruelly placed."
"I have no hope for this life--and no fear," said Landless calmly.
Carrington paused irresolute, and a flush rose to his face. "I would
like to hear you say that you do not blame me," he said at last with an
effort.
"I do not blame you," said Landless.
Woodson appeared in the doorway. "The Governor is waiting, Major
Carrington."
"If I can do ought to help you, I will," said Carrington hastily, and
left the room. A moment later came the jingling of reins and the sound
of rapid hoofs quickening into the planter's pace as the Governor and
the Surveyor-General whirled away.
*CHAPTER XXIV*
*A MESSAGE*
In an unused attic room of the great house lay Godfrey Landless, cords
about his ankles, and his arms bound to his sides by cords and by a
thick rope, one end of which was fastened to a beam on the wall. He was
alone, for the Muggletonian, Havisham and Trail were confined in the
overseer's house. Opposite him was a small window framing a square of
sky. He had watched light clouds drift across it, and the sun pass
slowly and majestically down it, and the sunset turn the clouds into
floating blood-red plumes. He had been there since noon. Thick walls
kept from him all sound in the house below--it might have been a house
of the dead. Through the closed window came the low, incessant hum of
the summer world without, but no unusual noise. He had heard the sunset
horn, and the song of the slaves coming from the fields, and as dusk
began to fall, the cry of a whip-poor-will.
When the door had closed upon the retreating figures of the men who
brought him there, he had thrown himself upon the floor where he lay,
faint from physical anguish, in a stupor of misery, conscious only of a
sick longing for death. This mood had passed and he was himself again.
As he lay with his eyes following the fiery, shifting feathers of cloud,
he remembered that the gaol at Jamestown faced the south, and he
thought, "This is the last sunset I shall ever see." He had the strong
abiding faith of his time and party, and he looked beyond the clouds
with an awe and a light in his eyes. Verses learnt at his mother's knee
came back to him; he said them over to himself, and the tender, solemn,
beneficent words fell like balm upon his troubled heart. He thought of
his mother who had died young, and then of scenes and occurrences of his
childhood. All earthly hope was past, there could be no more struggling;
in a little while he would be dead. Dying, his mind reverted, not to the
sordid misery from which death would set him free, but to the long past,
to the child at the mother's knee, to the boy who had climbed down great
cliffs in search of a smuggler's cave. The unearthly light that rests
upon that time so far behind us shone strong for him--he saw every twig
in the rooks' nests in the lofty elms, every ivy leaf about a ruined
oriel, black against a gold sky; the cool, dark smell of the box alleys
filled his nostrils: the sound of the sea came to him; he heard his
mother singing on the terrace. He bowed his face with a sudden rain of
tender, not sorrowful, tears.
Something crashed in at the window, splintering the coarse glass and
falling upon the floor at a little distance from him. It was a large
pebble, to which was tied a piece of paper. He started up and made for
it, to be brought up within two feet of it by the tug of the rope which
bound him to the wall. He thought a moment, then lay down upon the
floor and found that he could touch the end of the string that tied the
paper to the pebble. He took it between his teeth and slowly drew it
towards him, then, rising to his knees, he strained with all his might
at the cords that bound his arms. They were tightly drawn, but when at
length he desisted, panting, he had so loosened them that he could move
one hand a very little way. With it and with his teeth he disengaged
the paper from the pebble and spread it upon his knee. There was just
light enough to read the sprawling schoolboy hand with which it was
covered. It ran thus:--
"I don't know as this will ever reach you. I am doing all I can. Luiz
Sebastian has not let me get at arm's length from him since I overheard
him and the Turk, and a sailor from Captain Laramore's ship and _Roach_
at the hut on the marsh, two hours ago. They would have killed me
there, but I ran, and he did not catch me until I was almost to the
quarters. He will kill me though in a little while, I know; he has a
knife and he is sitting on the door-step, and the Turk is with him, and
I can not pass them. He held his hand over my mouth and the knife to my
heart when Woodson went the rounds, and I could n't make no sound--Lord
have mercy upon me! I write this with my blood, on a leaf from your
Bible, while he sits there whispering to the Turk. He goes to his own
cabin directly and he will take me with him and kill me there, I know he
will. He goes to the stables first and I must go with him. If we pass
close enough, and if I can do it without his seeing me I will throw this
in at the window of the room where I know you are, if not--the Lord help
us all! ... Landless, for God's sake! before moonrise to-night the
Chickahominies and the Ricahecrians from the Blue Mountains will come
down on the plantation. With them are leagued Luiz Sebastian, the Turk,
Trail, Roach, and most of the slaves.... When all is over, the Indians
will take the scalps and Grey Wolf and will make for the Blue Mountains;
Luiz Sebastian and the others will seize the boats and put off for the
ship at the Point. Her crew will give her up and they will all turn
pirate together. The women go with them if they can keep them from the
Indians; the men are all to be killed.... I have told you all I heard.
For God's sake, save them if you can,--and remember poor Dick
Whittington."
Dropping the paper, Landless strained with all his might, first at the
cords which bound his arms, and then at the rope which fastened him to
the wall. Again and again he put forth the strength of despair--his
muscles cracked, great beads stood upon his forehead--but the ropes
held. As well as he could with his shackled feet he stamped upon the
floor; he called aloud, but there came no answering voice or sound from
below. He was at the end of the house over unused chambers, and the
walls and flooring were very thick. He clenched his teeth and began
again the battle with the cords which held him. All in vain. He
shouted until he was hoarse--it was crying aloud in a desert. With a
groan he leaned against the wall, gathering strength for another effort.
It was dark now and the moon rose at eleven.... There was a piece of
glass upon the floor, one of the splinters from the shattered window.
He remembered noticing it--a long narrow piece like the blade of a
knife. Sinking to his knees he felt for it, and after a long time found
it. He now had a knife, but he could not move the hand that held it six
inches from his side. Stooping, he took the splinter between his teeth,
and making the rope taut, drew the sharp edge of the glass across it.
Again and again he drew it across, and at length he perceived that a
strand was severed. With a thrill of joy he settled to the slow,
laborious and painful task. Time passed, a long, long time, and yet the
rope was but half severed. As he worked he counted the moments with
feverish dread, his heart throbbed one passionate prayer: "Lord, let me
save her!" Now and then he glanced at the blackness of the night
outside with a terrible fear--though he knew it could not be yet--that
he should see it waver into moonlight. Another interval of toil, and he
stood erect, gathered his forces, made one supreme effort--and was free!
There was not time for the cords about his arms, but he must get rid of
those which fettered his ankles. An endless task it seemed, but hand
and friendly splinter accomplished it at last: and he sprang to the
door. It was locked. He dashed himself against it, once, twice,
thrice, and it crashed outwards, precipitating him into a large, bare
room. He crossed this, managed to open its unlocked door with his free
hand, descended a winding stair and came into the upper hall. It was in
darkness, but up the wide staircase streamed the perfumed light of many
myrtle candles, and with it laughter, and the sound of a man's voice
singing to a lute.
*CHAPTER XXV*
*THE ROAD TO PARADISE*
The family and guests of Verney Manor were assembled in the great room.
The day had been one of confusion, haste and anxiety; but it was past,
and the stillness and forced inaction of the night was upon them. With
the readiness of those to whom danger is no novelty they seized the hour
and made the most of it. Sufficient unto the morrow was the evil
thereof.
The Colonel, weary from hard riding, but well satisfied with his
afternoon's work, had sunk into a great chair and challenged Dr. Anthony
Nash to a game of chess. "Everything is in train," he told them, "and
all quiet upon the plantations in this shire at least. I believe the
danger past. God be thanked!" Upon a settle piled with cushions lay
Captain Laramore, with a bandaged shoulder, a long pipe between his
teeth, and at his elbow a tankard of sack and an elderly Hebe in the
person of Mistress Lettice Verney. Patricia, sumptuously clad and
beautiful as a dream, sat in the great window with Betty and Sir
Charles. Her eyes shone with a feverish brilliancy, her white hands were
never still, she laughed and jested with her lover, touching this or
that with light wit. Once or twice she broke into song, rich,
passionate, throbbing through the night. The gentle Betty looked at her
in wonder, but Sir Charles was enchanted.
Steps sounded on the stairs and in the hall. "Who is that?" cried the
master, taking his hand from his rook.
"The overseer, probably," said Dr. Nash. "Check to your king."
A loud scream from Mistress Lettice. The master leaped to his feet,
knocking over the chess-table and sending the pieces rattling into
corners. Sir Charles, drawing his rapier, sprang to his side, the
wounded Captain started up from amidst his pillows and the divine
snatched a brass andiron from the fireplace.
Framed in the doorway, looking larger than life against the blackness of
the space behind him, stood the arch plotter, the Roundhead, the
convict, the rebellious servant whom the Governor had sworn to hang.
Blood dropped from his face, cut by the glass with which he had severed
the rope, to meet the blood upon his arms and chest, lacerated by his
savage straining at his bonds. For a moment he stood, blinded by the
light, then advanced into the room. His master seized him. "Still
bound!" he cried with an oath. "He is alone then! How did you get
here? What are you doing here'? Speak, scoundrel!"
"I bring you this paper, sir," said Landless hoarsely. "Will you take
it from me. I cannot raise my hands."
The Colonel snatched the paper, glanced at it, read it with a face from
which all the ruddy color had fled, and held it out to Sir Charles with
a shaking hand. "Read it," he gasped. "Read it aloud," and sank into
his chair breathing heavily.
Sir Charles read. "Damnation!" he cried, crushing the paper in his
hand. Laramore started up with a roar of "My ship!" and then broke into
a torrent of oaths. Mistress Lettice's screams filled the room until
her brother roughly silenced her by clapping his hand over her mouth.
"By the Lord Harry, Lettice, I will throw you out to them if you do not
hush! Gentlemen, in God's name, what are we to do?"
"Barricade door and window and hold the house against them," said the
baronet.
"Send for help to Rosemead and to Fitzhugh and Ludwell!" cried the
divine.
"Five men and three women to hold this house against a hundred Indians
and negroes! And no help could come for hours and it is now nearly ten!
Moreover, the messenger would have to pass through the savages lying in
the woods,--he would never reach Rosemead with his scalp on!"
"I will be your messenger," said Nash rising, "and as every moment is
more precious than rubies, I had best start at once."
"You, Anthony! God forbid!" cried the Colonel. "You would go to certain
death."
"I would stay to certain death, would I not?" retorted the other. "But
my mare, Pixie, and I can shew clean heels to the red villains, were
they as thick as chinquepins. Give me the stable-key, Verney. I know
the way to the jade's stall, and she will follow her master through fire
and water without a whinny. I don't want a light. Not a soul on the
place must know that I have left Verney Manor."
"Anthony, Anthony, I am loth to see you go, old friend!" cried the
Colonel.
"Tut, tut, as well leave my scalp in the woods as in Dick Verney's
parlor! but I shall do neither. Hold the house as long as you can, and
look for Carrington, and Fitzhugh, and Ludwell, and myself with a
hundred men at our heels before the dawn. Until then _vale_."
He was gone. "And now the doors and windows," said Sir Charles.
"The windows, save those in this room, are secured as they always are at
night. The shutters are heavy and strongly barred, and we have but to
draw the chains across the doors. They will find it hard work to fire
the house, for the logs are wet from this morning's shower. There is
ammunition enough, and the shutters are loopholed. If we were in force,
we might hold out, but, my God! what can we do? Even with the overseers
whom we must manage to call to us, if we can do so without arousing
suspicion, we are not enough to defend one face of the house.'
"Are there no honest servants?"
"How can I tell the true men from the knaves? To rouse the quarters
would be to show that we know, and to ourselves spring the mine which is
to destroy us. And if we brought men into the house, who are leagued
with the fiends outside, then would their work be done for them. There
are a very few whom I know to be faithful, but how to secure them
without giving the alarm--my God! how helpless we are!"
"Perhaps I can help you, Colonel Verney," said Landless.
In the midst of a dead silence the eyes of each occupant of the
room,--the master, the courtier, the wounded captain, the women,
trembling in each other's arms,--were turned upon the speaker who stood
before them, haggard, torn and bleeding, but with a quiet power in his
dark face and steadfast eyes.
"You?" said the master sternly. "What can you do?"
"I will tell you," said Landless, "but I must be freed from these bonds
first."
Another pause, and then Sir Charles, responding to a nod from his
kinsman, walked over to Landless, and with his rapier cut the ropes
which bound him.
"Now speak!" said the Colonel.
The quarters lay, to all appearance, wrapt in the profoundest
slumber--no movement in the low-browed cabins, or in the lane or square;
no sound other than the croak of the frogs in the marshes, the wail of
the whip-poor-wills, and the sighing of the night wind in the pines.
All was dark save in the east, where the low stars were beginning to
pale. Below them glowed a dull red spark, shining dimly across a long
expanse of black marsh and water, and coming from Captain Laramore's
ship, anchored off the Point.
One moment it seemed the only light in the wide landscape of darkness;
the next the flame of a torch, streaming sidewise in the wind, cast an
orange glare upon the dead tree in the centre of the square and upon the
windowless fronts of the cabins surrounding it. The torch was in the
hand of the overseer, who went the rounds, striking upon each door, and
summoning the inmates of the cabin to the square. "The master wants a
word with you," was all the answer he vouchsafed to startled, sullen, or
suspicious inquiries. In five minutes the square was thronged. White
and black, servant and slave, rustic, convict, Jew, Turk, Indian,
mulatto, quadroon, coal black, untamed African--the motley crowd pressed
and jostled towards that end of the square at which stood the master,
his kinsman, the overseer, and Godfrey Landless. Behind them on the
steps of the overseer's house were the Muggletonian, Havisham, and
Trail. They had been unbound. In the Muggletonian's scarred face was
stolid indifference, but Trail looked furtively about until he spied
Luiz Sebastian, when he signaled "What is it?" with his eyes. The
mulatto shook his head, and continued to shoulder his way through the
press until he stood in the front row, face to face with the party from
the great house. On one side of him was the Turk, on the other an
Indian.
The master stepped a pace or two in front of his companions, and held up
his hand for silence. When the excited muttering had sunk into a
breathless hush, he beckoned to Landless, and the young man stepped to
his side. There were many streaming lights by now, and men saw each
other, now clearly, now darkly, as the fitful glare rose and fell.
"Now, my man," said the master in a loud, slow voice, "you will point
out to me, as you have agreed to do, every man concerned in the plot
discovered this morning. And you whom he designates, I command you, in
the name of the King, to surrender peaceably. Your hope of pardon
depends upon your doing so. Now, Landless!"
"John Havisham," said Landless.
"Taken redhanded," quoth the master. "Place him here, Woodson, in front
of us. When all are in line, I shall have a word to say to them."
Havisham advanced with quiet dignity, passing Landless as if unaware of
his presence. "I surrender," he said, raising his voice, "because I
have no choice. And I advise those of our number here present to do the
same. Our plans known, our friends taken, betrayed and deserted by the
man in whom we trusted most, whom we called our leader, we have, indeed,
no choice."
"Win-Grace Porringer," said Landless.
The Muggletonian threw up his arms. "Iscariot!" he cried wildly. "Woe,
woe to him by whom offenses come! Well for thee, son of Warham
Landless, hadst thou never been born! By the power given to the Two
Witnesses and to their followers I curse thee! Thou shalt be anathema
maranatha! Famine, thirst, and a violent death be thy portion in this
life, and in the world to come mayest thou burn forever, howling! Amen
and amen!" With a wild laugh he stalked to the side of Havisham,
leaving Trail standing alone upon the doorstep. The eyes of the forger
met the eyes of Luiz Sebastian in another puzzled inquiry, but the
latter shook his head with a frown. Not doubting that his name would be
the next called, Trail had already taken a step forward, but Landless's
eyes passed him over, and rested upon the face of a man standing near
Luiz Sebastian.
"John Robert!" he cried.
The man, a Baptist preacher suffering under the Act of Uniformity,
turned a gentle, reproachful face upon him, and stepping from the crowd,
joined himself to Havisham and the Muggletonian.
"James Holt!" said Landless.
A rustic, standing behind Luiz Sebastian, uttered a dreadful
imprecation. "You may hang me and welcome, your Honor," he cried as he
took his place, "if you 'll just let me see this d--d Judas hung first!"
Luiz Sebastian fixed his great eyes upon Landless. "If he calls my
name," said the wicked brain behind the blandly smiling face, "shall I,
or shall I not--? It is many minutes to moonrise yet."
But Landless did not call him. He passed him by as he had passed Trail,
and named another rustic at some little distance from the mulatto, then
a Fifth Monarchy man, then a veteran of Cromwell's, then the plantation
miller and the carpenter, then two more Oliverians, then more peasants.
Each man, as his name was called, stepped forward into the lengthening
line that faced the master and his party, standing with pistols leveled
and cocked; and each man bestowed upon Godfrey Landless a curse, or a
look that was bitterer than a curse.
"Humfrey Elder!" called Landless.
The old butler shot from out the crowd, as though impelled from a
catapult. "Your Honor!" he screamed, "the man as says _I_ plot against
a Verney, lies! I that fought with your Honor at Naseby! I that you
brought from home with you when Mistress Patricia was a baby, and that
has poured your wine from that day to this! I plot with these
rapscallions and Roundheads! Your Honor, he lies in his throat!"
"Fall into line, Humfrey," said his master quietly; "I will hear you out
later, but now, obey me."
The watchful eyes of Luiz Sebastian were growing very watchful indeed.
"Regulus!" cried Landless.
Under cover of a burst of protestation from Regulus, the Turk whispered
to the mulatto, "By Allah! this is the slave you would not approach!
You said he would die for his master."
"He is not of them," returned the other. "St. Jago! if I understand it!
But what can it matter? The moon will rise in less than an hour."
"Dick Whittington!" cried Landless.
There was a moment's silence, broken by the mulatto, who had stepped out
of line, and now stood facing the party from the great house. "I grieve
to say, senors," he said in his silkiest tone, "that the poor Dick was
but now taken with the fever, and lies in a stupor within his cabin.
To-morrow, perhaps, he will be better, and will answer when you call."
"That is your cabin, just beyond you there, is it not?" demanded
Landless.
"Assuredly," with a quick glance. "And what then?"