In which we Go Out into the Night
The guest house was aflame with lights. As I neared it, there was borne
to my ears a burst of drunken shouts accompanied by a volley of
musketry. My lord was pursuing with a vengeance our senseless fashion of
wasting in drinking bouts powder that would have been better spent
against the Indians. The noise increased. The door was flung open, and
there issued a tide of drawers and servants headed by mine host himself,
and followed by a hail of such minor breakables as the house contained
and by Olympian laughter.
I made my way past the indignant host and his staff, and standing upon
the threshold looked at the riot within. The long room was thick with
the smoke of tobacco and the smoke of powder, through which the many
torches burned yellow. Upon the great table wine had been spilt, and
dripped to swell a red pool upon the floor. Underneath the table, still
grasping his empty tankard, lay the first of my lord's guests to fall,
an up-river Burgess with white hair. The rest of the company were fast
reeling to a like fate. Young Hamor had a fiddle, and, one foot upon a
settle, the other upon the table, drew across it a fast and furious bow.
Master Pory, arrived at the maudlin stage, alternately sang a slow and
melancholy ditty and wiped the tears from his eyes with elaborate care.
Master Edward Sharpless, now in a high voice, now in an
undistinguishable murmur, argued some imaginary case. Peaceable Sherwood
was drunk, and Giles Allen, and Pettiplace Clause. Captain John Martin,
sitting with outstretched legs, called now for a fresh tankard, which he
emptied at a gulp; now for his pistols, which, as fast as my lord's
servants brought them to him new primed, he discharged at the ceiling.
The loud wind rattled doors and windows, and made the flame of the
torches stream sideways. The music grew madder and madder, the shots
more frequent, the drunken voices thicker and louder.
The master of the feast carried his wine better than did his guests, or
had drunk less, but his spirit too was quite without bounds. A colour
burned in his cheeks, a wicked light in his eyes; he laughed to himself.
In the gray smoke cloud he saw me not, or saw me only as one of the many
who thronged the doorway and stared at the revel within. He raised his
silver cup with a slow and wavering hand. "Drink, you dogs!" he chanted.
"Drink to the _Santa Teresa_! Drink to to-morrow night! Drink to a proud
lady within my arms and an enemy in my power!"
The wine that had made him mad had maddened those others, also. In that
hour they were dead to honour. With shameless laughter and as little
spilling as might be, they raised their tankards as my lord raised his.
A stone thrown by some one behind me struck the cup from my lord's
hand, sending it clattering to the floor and dashing him with the red
wine. Master Pory roared with drunken laughter. "Cup and lip missed that
time!" he cried.
The man who had thrown the stone was Jeremy Sparrow. For one instant I
saw his great figure, and the wrathful face beneath his shock of
grizzled hair; the next he had made his way through the crowd of gaping
menials and was gone.
My lord stared foolishly at the stains upon his hands, at the fallen
goblet and the stone beside it. "Cogged dice," he said thickly, "or I
had not lost that throw! I'll drink that toast by myself to-morrow
night, when the ship doesn't rock like this d----d floor, and the sea
has no stones to throw. More wine, Giles! To my Lord High Admiral,
gentlemen! To his Grace of Buckingham! May he shortly howl in hell, and
looking back to Whitehall see me upon the King's bosom! The King's a
good king, gentlemen! He gave me this ruby! D'ye know what I had of him
last year? I----"
I turned and left the door and the house. I could not thrust a fight
upon a drunken man.
Ten yards away, suddenly and without any warning of his approach, I
found beside me the Indian Nantauquas. "I have been to the woods to
hunt," he said, in the slow musical English Rolfe had taught him. "I
knew where a panther lodged, and to-day I laid a snare, and took him in
it. I brought him to my brother's house, and caged him there. When I
have tamed him, I shall give him to the beautiful lady."
He expected no answer, and I gave him none. There are times when an
Indian is the best company in the world.
Just before we reached the market-place we had to pass the mouth of a
narrow lane leading down to the river. The night was very dark, though
the stars still shone through rifts in the ever-moving clouds. The
Indian and I walked rapidly on,--my footfalls sounding clear and sharp
on the frosty ground, he as noiseless as a shadow. We had reached the
further side of the lane, when he put forth an arm and plucked from the
blackness a small black figure.
In the middle of the square was kept burning a great brazier filled with
pitched wood. It was the duty of the watch to keep it flaming from
darkness to dawn. We found it freshly heaped with pine, and its red
glare lit a goodly circle. The Indian, pinioning the wrists of his
captive with his own hand of steel, dragged him with us into this circle
of light.
"Looking for simples once more, learned doctor?" I demanded.
He mowed and jabbered, twisting this way and that in the grasp of the
Indian.
"Loose him," I said to the latter, "but let him not come too near you.
Why, worthy doctor, in so wild and threatening a night, when fire is
burning and wine flowing at the guest house, do you choose to crouch
here in the cold and darkness?"
He looked at me with his filmy eyes, and that faint smile that had more
of menace in it than a panther's snarl. "I laid in wait for you, it is
true, noble sir," he said in his thin, dreamy voice, "but it was for
your good. I would give you warning, sir."
He stood with his mean figure bent cringingly forward, and with his hat
in his hand. "A warning, sir," he went ramblingly on. "Maybe a certain
one has made me his enemy. Maybe I cut myself loose from his service.
Maybe I would do him an ill turn. I can tell you a secret, sir." He
lowered his voice and looked around, as if in fear of eavesdroppers. "In
your ear, sir," he said.
I recoiled. "Stand back," I cried, "or you will cull no more simples
this side of hell!"
"Hell!" he answered. "There's no such place. I will not tell my secret
aloud."
"Nicolo the Italian! Nicolo the Poisoner! Nicolo the Black Death! I am
coming for the soul you sold me. There is a hell!"
The thundering voice came from underneath our feet. With a sound that
was not a groan and not a screech, the Italian reeled back against the
heated iron of the brazier. Starting from that fiery contact with an
unearthly shriek, he threw up his arms and dashed away into the
darkness. The sound of his madly hurrying footsteps came back to us
until the guest house had swallowed him and his guilty terrors.
"Can the preacher play the devil, too?" I asked, as Sparrow came up to
us from the other side of the fire. "I could have sworn that that voice
came from the bowels of the earth. 'Tis the strangest gift!"
"A mere trick," he said, with his great laugh, "but it has served me
well on more occasions than one. It is not known in Virginia, sir, but
before ever the word of the Lord came to me to save poor silly souls I
was a player. Once I played the King's ghost in Will Shakespeare's
'Hamlet,' and then, I warrant you, I spoke from the cellarage indeed. I
so frighted players and playgoers that they swore it was witchcraft, and
Burbage's knees did knock together in dead earnest. But to the matter in
hand. When I had thrown yonder stone, I walked quietly down to the
Governor's house and looked through the window. The Governor hath the
Company's letters, and he and the Council--all save the reprobate
Pory--sit there staring at them and drumming with their fingers on the
table."
"Is Rolfe of the Council?" I asked.
"Ay; he was speaking,--for you, I suppose, though I heard not the words.
They all listened, but they all shook their heads."
"We shall know in the morning," I said. "The night grows wilder, and
honest folk should be abed. Nantauquas, good-night. When will you have
tamed your panther?"
"It is now the moon of cohonks," answered the Indian. "When the moon of
blossoms is here, the panther shall roll at the beautiful lady's feet."
"The moon of blossoms!" I said. "The moon of blossoms is a long way off.
I have panthers myself to tame before it comes. This wild night gives
one wild thoughts, Master Sparrow. The loud wind, and the sound of the
water, and the hurrying clouds--who knows if we shall ever see the moon
of blossoms?" I broke off with a laugh for my own weakness. "It's not
often that a soldier thinks of death," I said. "Come to bed, reverend
sir. Nantauquas, again, good-night, and may you tame your panther!"
In the great room of the minister's house I paced up and down; now
pausing at the window to look out upon the fast-darkening houses of the
town, the ever-thickening clouds, and the bending trees; now speaking to
my wife, who sat in the chair I had drawn for her before the fire, her
hands idle in her lap, her head thrown back against the wood, her face
white and still, with wide dark eyes. We waited for we knew not what,
but the light still burned in the Governor's house, and we could not
sleep and leave it there.
It grew later and later. The wind howled down the chimney, and I heaped
more wood upon the fire. The town lay in darkness now; only in the
distance burned like an angry star the light in the Governor's house. In
the lull between the blasts of wind it was so very still that the sound
of my footfalls upon the floor, the dropping of the charred wood upon
the hearth, the tapping of the withered vines without the window, jarred
like thunder.
Suddenly madam leaned forward in her chair. "There is some one at the
door," she said.
As she spoke, the latch rose and some one pushed heavily against the
door. I had drawn the bars across. "Who is it?" I demanded, going to it.
"It is Diccon, sir," replied a guarded voice outside. "I beg of you, for
the lady's sake, to let me speak to you."
I opened the door, and he crossed the threshold. I had not seen him
since the night he would have played the assassin. I had heard of him
as being in Martin's Hundred, with which plantation and its turbulent
commander the debtor and the outlaw often found sanctuary.
"What is it, sirrah?" I inquired sternly.
He stood with his eyes upon the floor, twirling his cap in his hands. He
had looked once at madam when he entered, but not at me. When he spoke
there was the old bravado in his voice, and he threw up his head with
the old reckless gesture. "Though I am no longer your man, sir," he
said, "yet I hope that one Christian may warn another. The marshal, with
a dozen men at his heels, will be here anon."
"How do you know?"
"Why, I was in the shadow by the Governor's window when the parson
played eavesdropper. When he was gone I drew myself up to the ledge, and
with my knife made a hole in the shutter that fitted my ear well enough.
The Governor and the Council sat there, with the Company's letters
spread upon the table. I heard the letters read. Sir George Yeardley's
petition to be released from the governorship of Virginia is granted,
but he will remain in office until the new Governor, Sir Francis Wyatt,
can arrive in Virginia. The Company is out of favour. The King hath sent
Sir Edwyn Sandys to the Tower. My Lord Warwick waxeth greater every day.
The very life of the Company dependeth upon the pleasure of the King,
and it may not defy him. You are to be taken into custody within six
hours of the reading of the letter, to be kept straitly until the
sailing of the _Santa Teresa_, and to be sent home aboard of her in
irons. The lady is to go also, with all honour, and with women to attend
her. Upon reaching London, you are to be sent to the Tower, the lady to
Whitehall. The Court of High Commission will take the matter under
consideration at once. My Lord of Southampton writes that, because of
the urgent entreaty of Sir George Yeardley, he will do for you all that
lieth in his power, but that if you prove not yourself conformable,
there will be little that any can do."
"When will the marshal be here?" I demanded.
"Directly. The Governor was sending for him when I left the window.
Master Rolfe spoke vehemently for you, and would have left the Council
to come to you; but the Governor, swearing that the Company should not
be betrayed by its officers, constrained him to remain. I'm not the
Company's officer, so I may tell its orders if I please. A masterless
man may speak without fear or favour. I have told you all I know."
Before I could speak he was gone, closing the door heavily behind him.
I turned to the King's ward. She had risen from the chair, and now stood
in the centre of the room, one hand at her bosom, the other clenched at
her side, her head thrown up. She looked as she had looked at Weyanoke,
that first night.
"Madam," I said under my breath.
She turned her face upon me. "Did you think," she asked in a low, even
voice,--"did you think that I would ever set my foot upon that
ship,--that ship on the river there? One ship brought me here upon a
shameful errand; another shall not take me upon one more shameful
still."
She took her hand from her bosom; in it gleamed in the firelight the
small dagger I had given her that night. She laid it on the table, but
kept her hand upon it. "You will choose for me, sir," she declared.
I went to the door and looked out. "It is a wild night," I said. "I can
suit it with as wild an enterprise. Make a bundle of your warmest
clothing, madam, and wrap your mantle about you. Will you take Angela?"
"No," she answered. "I will not have her peril too upon me."
As she stood there, her hand no longer upon the dagger, the large tears
welled into her eyes and fell slowly over her white cheeks. "It is for
mine honour, sir," she said. "I know that I ask your death."
I could not bear to see her weep, and so I spoke roughly. "I have told
you before," I said, "that your honour is my honour. Do you think I
would sleep to-morrow night, in the hold of the _Santa Teresa_, knowing
that my wife supped with my Lord Carnal?"
I crossed the room to take my pistols from the rack. As I passed her she
caught my hand in hers, and bending pressed her lips upon it. "You have
been very good to me," she murmured. "Do not think me an ingrate."
Five minutes later she came from her own room, hooded and mantled, and
with a packet of clothing in her hand. I extinguished the torches, then
opened the door. As we crossed the threshold, we paused as by one
impulse and looked back into the firelit warmth of the room; then I
closed the door softly behind us, and we went out into the night.