In which I Keep Tryst
The sun dropped below the forest, blood red, dyeing the river its own
colour. There were no clouds in the sky,--only a great suffusion of
crimson climbing to the zenith; against it the woods were as black as
war paint. The colour faded and the night set in, a night of no wind and
of numberless stars. On the hearth burned a fire. I left the window and
sat beside it, and in the hollows between the red embers made pictures,
as I used to make them when I was a boy.
I sat there long. It grew late, and all sounds in the town were hushed;
only now and then the "All's well!" of the watch came faintly to my
ears. Diccon lodged with me; he lay in his clothes upon a pallet in the
far corner of the room, but whether he slept or not I did not ask. He
and I had never wasted words; since chance had thrown us together again
we spoke only when occasion required.
The fire was nigh out, and it must have been ten of the clock when, with
somewhat more of caution and less of noise than usual, the key grated in
the lock; the door opened, and the gaoler entered, closing it
noiselessly behind him. There was no reason why he should intrude
himself upon me after nightfall, and I regarded him with a frown and an
impatience that presently turned to curiosity.
He began to move about the room, making pretence of seeing that there
was water in the pitcher beside my pallet, that the straw beneath the
coverlet was fresh, that the bars of the window were firm, and ended by
approaching the fire and heaping pine upon it. It flamed up brilliantly,
and in the strong red light he half opened a clenched hand and showed me
two gold pieces, and beneath them a folded paper. I looked at his
furtive eyes and brutal, doltish face, but he kept them blank as a wall.
The hand closed again over the treasure within it, and he turned away as
if to leave the room. I drew a noble--one of a small store of gold
pieces conveyed to me by Rolfe--from my pocket, and stooping made it
spin upon the hearth in the red firelight. The gaoler looked at it
askance, but continued his progress toward the door. I drew out its
fellow, set it too to spinning, then leaned back against the table.
"They hunt in couples," I said. "There will be no third one."
He had his foot upon them before they had done spinning. The next moment
they had kissed the two pieces already in his possession, and he had
transferred all four to his pocket. I held out my hand for the paper,
and he gave it to me grudgingly, with a spiteful slowness of movement.
He would have stayed beside me as I read it, but I sternly bade him keep
his distance; then kneeling before the fire to get the light, I opened
the paper. It was written upon in a delicate, woman's hand, and it ran
thus:--
"An you hold me dear, come to me at once. Come without tarrying to
the deserted hut on the neck of land, nearest to the forest. As you
love me, as you are my knight, keep this tryst.
"In distress and peril, _Thy Wife_."
Folded with it was a line in the commander's hand and with his
signature: "The bearer may pass without the palisade at his pleasure."
I read the first paper again, refolded it, and rose to my feet. "Who
brought this, sirrah?" I demanded.
His answer was glib enough: "One of the Governor's servants. He said as
how there was no harm in the letter, and the gold was good."
"When was this?"
"Just now. No, I didn't know the man."
I saw no way to discover whether or not he lied. Drawing out another
gold piece, I laid it upon the table. He eyed it greedily, edging nearer
and nearer.
"For leaving this door unlocked," I said.
His eyes narrowed and he moistened his lips, shifting from one foot to
the other.
I put down a second piece. "For opening the outer door," I said.
He wet his lips again, made an inarticulate sound in his throat, and
finally broke out with, "The commander will nail my ears to the
pillory."
"You can lock the doors after me, and know as little as you choose in
the morning. No gain without some risk."
"That's so," he agreed, and made a clutch at the gold.
I swept it out of his reach. "First earn it," I said dryly. "Look at the
foot of the pillory an hour from now and you'll find it. I'll not pay
you this side of the doors."
He bit his lips and studied the floor. "You're a gentleman," he growled
at last. "I suppose I can trust ye."
"I suppose you can."
Taking up his lantern, he turned toward the door. "It's growing late,"
he said, with a most uncouth attempt to feign a guileless drowsiness.
"I'll to bed, captain, when I've locked up. Good-night to ye!"
He was gone, and the door was left unlocked. I could walk out of that
gaol as I could have walked out of my house at Weyanoke. I was free, but
should I take my freedom? Going back to the light of the fire, I
unfolded the paper and stared at it, turning its contents this way and
that in my mind. The hand--but once had I seen her writing, and then it
had been wrought with a shell upon firm sand. I could not judge if this
were the same. Had the paper indeed come from her? Had it not? If in
truth it was a message from my wife, what had befallen in a few hours
since our parting? If it was a forger's lie, what trap was set, what
toils were laid? I walked up and down, and tried to think it out. The
strangeness of it all, the choice of a lonely and distant hut for
trysting-place, that pass coming from a sworn officer of the Company,
certain things I had heard that day.... A trap ... and to walk into it
with my eyes open.... _An you hold me dear. As you are my knight, keep
this tryst. In distress and peril...._ Come what might, there was a risk
I could not run.
I had no weapons to assume, no preparations to make. Gathering up the
gaolers gold, I started toward the door, opened it, and going out, would
have closed it softly behind me but that a booted leg thrust across the
jamb prevented me. "I am going with you," said Diccon in a guarded
voice. "If you try to prevent me, I will rouse the house." His head was
thrown back in the old way; the old daredevil look was upon his face. "I
don't know why you are going," he declared, "but there'll be danger,
anyhow."
"To the best of my belief I am walking into a trap," I said.
"Then it will shut on two instead of one," he answered doggedly.
By this he was through the door, and there was no shadow of turning on
his dark, determined face. I knew my man, and wasted no more words. Long
ago it had grown to seem the thing most in nature that the hour of
danger should find us side by side.
When the door of the firelit room was shut, the gaol was in darkness
that might be felt. It was very still: the few other inmates were fast
asleep; the gaoler was somewhere out of sight, dreaming with open eyes.
We groped our way through the passage to the stairs, noiselessly
descended them, and found the outer door unchained, unbarred, and
slightly ajar.
When I had laid the gold beneath the pillory, we struck swiftly across
the square, being in fear lest the watch should come upon us, and took
the first lane that led toward the palisade. Beneath the burning stars
the town lay stark in sleep. So bright in the wintry air were those
far-away lights that the darkness below them was not great. We could see
the low houses, the shadowy pines, the naked oaks, the sandy lane
glimmering away to the river, star-strewn to match the heavens. The air
was cold, but exceedingly clear and still. Now and then a dog barked, or
wolves howled in the forest across the river. We kept in the shadow of
the houses and the trees, and went with the swiftness, silence, and
caution of Indians.
The last house we must pass before reaching the palisade was one that
Rolfe owned, and in which he lodged when business brought him to
Jamestown. It and some low outbuildings beyond it were as dark as the
cedars in which they were set, and as silent as the grave. Rolfe and his
Indian brother were sleeping there now, while I stood without. Or did
they sleep? Were they there at all? Might it not have been Rolfe who had
bribed the gaoler and procured the pass from West? Might I not find him
at that strange trysting-place? Might not all be well, after all? I was
sorely tempted to rouse that silent house and demand if its master were
within. I did it not. Servants were there, and noise would be made, and
time that might be more precious than life-blood was flying fast. I went
on, and Diccon with me.
There was a cabin built almost against the palisade, and here one man
was supposed to watch, whilst another slept. To-night we found both
asleep. I shook the younger to his feet, and heartily cursed him for
his negligence. He listened stupidly, and read as stupidly, by the light
of his lantern, the pass which I thrust beneath his nose. Staggering to
his feet, and drunk with his unlawful slumber, he fumbled at the
fastenings of the gate for full three minutes before the ponderous wood
finally swung open and showed the road beyond. "It's all right," he
muttered thickly. "The commander's pass. Good-night, the three of ye!"
"Are you drunk or drugged?" I demanded. "There are only two. It's not
sleep that is the matter with you. What is it?"
He made no answer, but stood holding the gate open and blinking at us
with dull, unseeing eyes. Something ailed him besides sleep; he may have
been drugged, for aught I know. When we had gone some yards from the
gate, we heard him say again, in precisely the same tone, "Good-night,
the three of ye!" Then the gate creaked to, and we heard the bars drawn
across it.
Without the palisade was a space of waste land, marsh and thicket,
tapering to the narrow strip of sand and scrub joining the peninsula to
the forest, and here and there upon this waste ground rose a mean house,
dwelt in by the poorer sort. All were dark. We left them behind, and
found ourselves upon the neck, with the desolate murmur of the river on
either hand, and before us the deep blackness of the forest. Suddenly
Diccon stopped in his tracks and turned his head. "I did hear something
then," he muttered. "Look, sir!"
The stars faintly lit the road that had been trodden hard and bare by
the feet of all who came and went. Down this road something was coming
toward us, something low and dark, that moved not fast, and not slow,
but with a measured and relentless pace. "A panther!" said Diccon.
We watched the creature with more of curiosity than alarm. Unless
brought to bay, or hungry, or wantonly irritated, these great cats were
cowardly enough. It would hardly attack the two of us. Nearer and nearer
it came, showing no signs of anger and none of fear, and paying no
attention to the withered branch with which Diccon tried to scare it
off. When it was so close that we could see the white of its breast it
stopped, looking at us with large, unfaltering eyes, and slightly moving
its tail to and fro.
"A tame panther!" ejaculated Diccon. "It must be the one Nantauquas
tamed, sir. He would have kept it somewhere near Master Rolfe's house."
"And it heard us, and followed us through the gate," I said. "It was the
_third_ the warder talked of."
We walked on, and the beast, addressing itself to motion, followed at
our heels. Now and then we looked back at it, but we feared it not.
As for me, I had begun to think that a panther might be the least
formidable thing I should meet that night. By this I had scarcely any
hope--or fear--that I should find her at our journey's end. The lonesome
path that led only to the night-time forest, the deep and dark river
with its mournful voice, the hard, bright, pitiless stars, the cold, the
loneliness, the distance,--how should she be there? And if not she, who
then?
The hut to which I had been directed stood in an angle made by the neck
and the main bank of the river. On one side of it was the water, on the
other a deep wood. The place had an evil name, and no man had lived
there since the planter who had built it hanged himself upon its
threshold. The hut was ruinous: in the summer tall weeds grew up around
it, and venomous snakes harboured beneath its rotted and broken floor;
in the winter the snow whitened it, and the wild fowl flew screaming in
and out of the open door and the windows that needed no barring.
To-night the door was shut and the windows in some way obscured. But the
interstices between the logs showed red; the hut was lighted within, and
some one was keeping tryst.
The stillness was deadly. It was not silence, for the river murmured in
the stiff reeds, and far off in the midnight forest some beast of the
night uttered its cry, but a hush, a holding of the breath, an expectant
horror. The door, warped and shrunken, was drawn to, but was not
fastened, as I could tell by the unbroken line of red light down one
side from top to bottom. Making no sound, I laid my hand upon it, pushed
it open a little way, and looked within the hut.
I had thought to find it empty or to find it crowded. It was neither. A
torch lit it, and on the hearth burned a fire. Drawn in front of the
blaze was an old rude chair, and in it sat a slight figure draped from
head to foot in a black cloak. The head was bowed and hidden, the whole
attitude one of listlessness and dejection. As I looked, there came a
long, tremulous sigh, and the head drooped lower and lower, as if in a
growing hopelessness.
The revulsion of feeling was so great that for the moment I was dazed as
by a sudden blow. There had been time during the walk from the gaol for
enough of wild and whirling thoughts as to what should greet me in that
hut; and now the slight figure by the fire, the exquisite melancholy of
its posture, its bent head, the weeping I could divine,--I had but one
thought, to comfort her as quickly as I might. Diccon's hand was upon my
arm, but I shook it off, and pushing the door open, crossed the uneven
and noisy floor to the fire, and bent over the lonely figure beside it.
"Jocelyn," I said, "I have kept tryst."
As I spoke, I laid my hand upon the bowed and covered head. It was
raised, the cloak was drawn aside, and there looked me in the eyes the
Italian.
As if it had been the Gorgon's gaze, I was turned to stone. The filmy
eyes, the smile that would have been mocking had it not been so very
faint, the pallor, the malignance,--I stared and stared, and my heart
grew cold and sick.
It was but for a minute; then a warning cry from Diccon roused me. I
sprang backward until the width of the hearth was between me and the
Italian, then wheeled and found myself face to face with the King's late
favourite. Behind him was an open door, and beyond it a small inner
room, dimly lighted. He stood and looked at me with an insolence and a
triumph most intolerable. His drawn sword was in his hand, the jewelled
hilt blazing in the firelight, and on his dark, superb face a taunting
smile. I met it with one as bold, at least, but I said no word, good or
bad. In the cabin of the _George_ I had sworn to myself that
thenceforward my sword should speak for me to this gentleman.
"You came," he said. "I thought you would."
I glanced around the hut, seeking for a weapon. Seeing nothing more
promising than the thick, half-consumed torch, I sprang to it and
wrested it from the socket. Diccon caught up a piece of rusted iron from
the hearth, and together we faced my lord's drawn sword and a small,
sharp, and strangely shaped dagger that the Italian drew from a velvet
sheath.
My lord laughed, reading my thoughts. "You are mistaken," he declared
coolly. "I am content that Captain Percy knows I do not fear to fight
him. This time I play to win." Turning toward the outer door, he raised
his hand with a gesture of command.
In an instant the room was filled. The red-brown figures, naked save for
the loincloth and the headdress, the impassive faces dashed with black,
the ruthless eyes,--I knew now why Master Edward Sharpless had gone to
the forest, and what service had been bought with that silver cup. The
Paspaheghs and I were old enemies; doubtless they would find their task
a pleasant one.
"My own knaves, unfortunately, were out of the way; sent home on the
_Santa Teresa_," said my lord, still smiling. "I am not yet so poor that
I cannot hire others. True, Nicolo might have done the work just now,
when you bent over him so lovingly and spoke so softly; but the river
might give up your body to tell strange tales. I have heard that the
Indians are more ingenious, and leave no such witness anywhere."
Before the words were out of his mouth I had sprung upon him, and had
caught him by the sword wrist and the throat. He strove to free his
hand, to withdraw himself from my grasp. Locked together, we struggled
backward and forward in what seemed a blaze of lights and a roaring as
of mighty waters. Red hands caught at me, sharp knives panted to drink
my blood; but so fast we turned and writhed, now he uppermost, now I,
that for very fear of striking the wrong man hands and knives could not
be bold. I heard Diccon fighting, and knew that there would be howling
to-morrow among the squaws of the Paspaheghs. With all his might my lord
strove to bend the sword against me, and at last did cut me across the
arm, causing the blood to flow freely. It made a pool upon the floor,
and once my foot slipped in it, and I stumbled and almost fell.
Two of the Paspaheghs were silent for evermore. Diccon had the knife of
the first to fall, and it ran red. The Italian, quick and sinuous as a
serpent, kept beside my lord and me, striving to bring his dagger to his
master's aid. We two panted hard; before our eyes blood, within our ears
the sea. The noise of the other combatants suddenly fell. The hush could
only mean that Diccon was dead or taken. I could not look behind to see.
With an access of fury I drove my antagonist toward a corner of the
hut,--the corner, so it chanced, in which the panther had taken up its
quarters. With his heel he struck the beast out of his way, then made a
last desperate effort to throw me. I let him think he was about to
succeed, gathered my forces and brought him crashing to the ground. The
sword was in my hand and shortened, the point was at his throat, when my
arm was jerked backwards. A moment, and half a dozen hands had dragged
me from the man beneath me, and a supple savage had passed a thong of
deerskin around my arms and pinioned them to my sides. The game was up;
there remained only to pay the forfeit without a grimace.
Diccon was not dead; pinioned, like myself, and breathing hard, he
leaned sullenly against the wall, they that he had slain at his feet. My
lord rose, and stood over against me. His rich doublet was torn and
dragged away at the neck, and my blood stained his hand and arm. A smile
was upon the face that had made him master of a kingdom's master.
"The game was long," he said, "but I have won at last. A long good-night
to you, Captain Percy, and a dreamless sleep!"
There was a swift backward movement of the Indians, and a loud "The
panther, sir! Have a care!" from Diccon. I turned. The panther, maddened
by the noise and light, the shifting figures, the blocked doors, the
sight and smell of blood, the blow that had been dealt it, was crouching
for a spring. The red-brown hair was bristling, the eyes were terrible.
I was before it, but those glaring eyes had marked me not. It passed me
like a bar from a catapult, and the man whose heel it had felt was full
in its path. One of its forefeet sank in the velvet of the doublet; the
claws of the other entered the flesh below the temple, and tore
downwards and across. With a cry as awful as the panther's scream, the
Italian threw himself upon the beast and buried his poniard in its neck.
The panther and the man it had attacked went down together.
When the Indians had unlocked that dread embrace and had thrust aside
the dead brute, there emerged from the dimness of the inner room Master
Edward Sharpless, gray with fear, trembling in every limb, to take the
reins that had fallen from my lord's hands. The King's minion lay in his
blood, a ghastly spectacle; unconscious now, but with life before
him,--life through which to pass a nightmare vision. The face out of
which had looked that sullen, proud, and wicked spirit had been one of
great beauty; it had brought him exceeding wealth and power beyond
measure; the King had loved to look upon it; and it had come to this. He
lived, and I was to die: better my death than his life. In every heart
there are dark depths, whence at times ugly things creep into the
daylight; but at least I could drive back that unmanly triumph, and bid
it never come again. I would have killed him, but I would not have had
him thus.
The Italian was upon his knees beside his master: even such a creature
could love. From his skeleton throat came a low, prolonged, croaking
sound, and his bony hands strove to wipe away the blood. The Paspaheghs
drew around us closer and closer, and the werowance clutched me by the
shoulder. I shook him off. "Give the word, Sharpless," I said, "or nod,
if thou art too frightened to speak. Murder is too stern a stuff for
such a base kitchen knave as thou to deal in."
White and shaking, he would not meet my eyes, but beckoned the werowance
to him, and began to whisper vehemently; pointing now to the man upon
the floor, now to the town, now to the forest. The Indian listened,
nodded, and glided back to his fellows.
"The white men upon the Powhatan are many," he said in his own tongue,
"but they build not their wigwams upon the banks of the Pamunkey.[1] The
singing-birds of the Pamunkey tell no tales. The pine splinters will
burn as brightly there, and the white men will smell them not. We will
build a fire at Uttamussac, between the red hills, before the temple and
the graves of the kings." There was a murmur of assent from his braves.
[1] The modern York.
Uttamussac! They would probably make a two days' journey of it. We had
that long, then, to live.
Captors and captives, we presently left the hut. On the threshold I
looked back, past the poltroon whom I had flung into the river one
midsummer day, to that prone and bleeding figure. As I looked, it
groaned and moved. The Indians behind me forced me on; a moment, and we
were out beneath the stars. They shone so very brightly; there was
one--large, steadfast, golden--just over the dark town behind us, over
the Governor's house. Did she sleep or did she wake? Sleeping or waking,
I prayed God to keep her safe and give her comfort. The stars now shone
through naked branches, black tree-trunks hemmed us round, and under our
feet was the dreary rustling of dead leaves. The leafless trees gave way
to pines and cedars, and the closely woven, scented roof hid the
heavens, and made a darkness of the world beneath.