A DARK DEED
Three weeks passed, weeks in which Landless saw the mender of nets some
eight times in all, making each visit at night, stealthily and under
constant danger of detection. Thrice he had assisted at conferences of
the Oliverians from the neighboring plantations, who now, by virtue of
his descent, his intimacy with Godwyn, and his very apparent powers,
accepted him as a leader. Upon the first of these occasions he had set
his case before them in a few plain, straightforward words, and they
believed him as Godwyn had done, and he became in their eyes, not a
convict, but, as he in truth was, an Oliverian like themselves, and a
sufferer for the same cause. The remaining interviews had been between
him and Godwyn alone. In the lonely hut on the marsh, beneath starlight
or moonlight, the two had held much converse, and had grown to love each
other. The mender of nets, though possessed of a calm and high serenity
of nature that defied trials beneath which a weaker soul had sunk, was a
man of many sorrows; he had the wisdom, too, of years and experience,
and he sympathized with, soothed, and counseled his younger yoke-fellow
with a parental tenderness that was very grateful to the other's more
ardent, undisciplined, and deeply wounded spirit.
Upon the night of their eighth meeting they held a long and serious
consultation. Affairs were in such train that little remained to be
done, but to set the day for the rising, and to send notice by many
devious and underground ways to the Oliverian captains scattered
throughout the Colony. Landless counseled immediate action, the firing
of the fuse at once by starting the secret intelligence which would
spread like wildfire from plantation to plantation. Then would the mine
be sprung within the week. There was nothing so dangerous as delay, when
any hour, any moment might bring discovery and ruin.
Godwyn was of a different opinion. It was then August, the busiest and
most unhealthy season of the year, when the servants and slaves,
weakened by unremitting toil, were succumbing by scores to the fever. It
was the time when the masters looked for disaffection, when the
overseers were most alert, when a general watchfulness pervaded the
Colony. The planters stayed at home and attended to their business, the
trainbands were vigilant, the servant and slave laws were construed with
a harshness unknown at other seasons of the year. There were few ships
in harbor compared with the number which would assemble for their fall
lading a month later, and Godwyn counted largely upon the seizure of the
ships. In a month's time the tobacco would be largely in,--a weighty
consideration, for tobacco was money, and the infant republic must have
funds. The ships would be in harbor, and their sailors ready for
anything that would rid them of their captains; the heat and sickness of
the summer would be abated; the work slackened, and discipline relaxed.
The danger of discovery was no greater now than it had been all along,
and the good to be won by biding their time might be inestimable. The
danger was there, but they would face it, and wait,--say until the
second week in September.
Landless acquiesced, scarcely convinced, but willing to believe that the
other knew whereof he spoke, and conscious, too, that his own impatience
of the yoke which galled his spirit almost past endurance might incline
him to a reckless and disastrous haste.
It was past midnight when he rose to leave the hut on the marsh. Godwyn
took up his stick. "I will walk with you to the banks of the creek," he
said. "'Tis a feverish night, and I have an aching head. The air will do
me good, and I will then sleep."
The young man gave him his arm with a quiet, protecting tenderness that
was very dear to the mender of nets, and leaning upon it, he limped
through the fifty feet of long grass to the border of the creek.
"Shall I not wait to help you back?" asked Landless.
"No," said the other, with his peculiarly sweet and touching smile. "I
will sit here awhile beneath the stars and say my hymn of praise to the
Creator of Night. You need not fear for me; my trusty stick will carry
me safely back. Go, lad, thou lookest weary enough thyself, and should
be sleeping after thy long day of toil."
"I am loth to leave you to-night," said Landless.
Godwyn smiled. "And I am always loth to see you go, but it were selfish
to keep you listening to a garrulous, wakeful old man, when your young
frame is in sore need of rest. Good-night, dear lad."
Landless gave him his hands. "Good-night," he said.
He stood below the other at the foot of the low bank to which was
moored his stolen boat. Godwyn stooped and kissed him upon the forehead.
"My heart is tender to-night, lad," he said. "I see in thee my Robert.
Last night I dreamed of him and of his mother, my dearly loved and
long-lost Eunice, and ah! I sorrowed to awake!"
Landless pressed his hand in silence, and in a moment the water widened
between them as Landless bent to his oars and the crazy little bark shot
out into the middle of the stream. At the entrance of the first
labyrinthine winding he turned and looked back to see Godwyn standing
upon the bank, the moonlight silvering his thin hair and high serene
brow. In the mystic white light, against the expanse of solemn heaven,
he looked a vision, a seer or prophet risen from beneath the sighing
grass. He waved his hand to Landless, saying in his quiet voice, "Until
to-morrow!" The boat made the turn, and the lonely figure and the hut
beyond it vanished, leaving only the moonlight, the wash and lap of
water, and the desolate sighing of the marsh grass.
There were many little channels and threadlike streams debouching from
the main creek, and separated from it by clumps and lines of partially
submerged grass, growing in places to the height of reeds. While passing
one of these clumps it occurred to Landless that the grass quivered and
rustled in an unusual fashion. He rested upon his oars and gazed at it
curiously, then stood up, and parting the reeds, looked through into the
tiny channel upon the other side. There was nothing to be seen, and the
rustling had ceased. "A heron has its nest there, or a turtle plunged,
shaking the reeds," said Landless to himself, and went his way.
Some three hours later he was roused from the heavy sleep of utter
fatigue by the voice of the overseer. Bewildered, he raised himself upon
his elbow to stare at Woodson's grim face, framed in the doorway and lit
by the torch held by Win-Grace Porringer, who stood behind him. "You
there, you Landless!" cried the overseer, impatiently. "You sleep like
the dead. Tumble out! You and Porringer are to go to Godwyn's after that
new sail for the Nancy. Sir Charles Carew has taken it into his head to
run over to Accomac, and he's got to have a spick and span white rag to
sail under. Hurry up, now! He wants to start by sun up, and I clean
forgot to send for it last night. You're to be back within the hour,
d' ye hear? Take the four-oared shallop. There's the key," and the
overseer strode away, muttering something about patched sails being good
enough for Accomac folk.
Landless and the Muggletonian stumbled through the darkness to the wharf
behind the quarters, where they loosed the shallop, and in it shot
across the inlet towards the mouth of the creek.
"I will row," said the Muggletonian with grim kindness; "you look worn
out. I suppose you were out last night?"
Landless nodded, and the other bent to the oars with a will that sent
them rapidly across the sheet of water. A cold and uncertain light began
to stream from the ashen east, and the air was dank and heavy with the
thick mist that wrapped earth and water like a shroud. It swallowed up
the land behind them, and through it the nearer marshes gloomed
indistinctly, dark patches upon the gray surface of the water. The
narrow creek was hard to find amidst the universal dimness. The
Muggletonian rowed slowly, peering about him with small, keen eyes. At
length with a grunt of satisfaction he pointed to a pale streak dividing
two masses of gray, and had turned the boat's head towards it, when
through the stillness they caught the sound of oars. The next moment a
boat glided from the creek and began to skirt the shores of the inlet,
hugging the banks and moving slowly and stealthily. It was still so dark
that they could tell nothing more than that it held one man.
"Now, who is that?" said the Muggletonian. "And what has he been doing
up that creek?"
"Hail him," Landless replied.
Porringer sent a low halloo across the water, but if the man heard he
made no sign. The boat, one of the crazy dugouts of which every
plantation had store, held on its stealthy way, but being over close to
the bank presently ran upon a sand bar. Its occupant was forced to rise
to his feet in order to shove it off. He stood upright but a moment, but
in that moment, and despite the partial darkness, Landless recognized
the misshapen figure.
"It is the convict, Roach!" he exclaimed.
"Ay," said the Muggletonian, "and an ill-omened night bird he is! May he
be cursed from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head! May there
be no soundness in him! May--What are you about, friend?" he cried,
interrupting himself. "There's no need of two pair of oars. We have
plenty of time."
Landless bent to the second pair of oars. "He came down the creek," he
said in a voice that sounded strained and unnatural.
The other stared at him. "What do you mean?" he demanded.
"Nothing: but let us hasten."
Porringer stared, but fell in with the humor of his companion, and the
shallop, impelled by strong arms, shot into the creek and along its mazy
windings with the swiftness of a bird.
Landless rowed with compressed lips and stony face, a great fear tugging
at his heart. Porringer too was silent. The vapor hung so heavily upon
the plains of marsh level with their heads that they seemed to be
piercing a dense, low cloud. The light was growing stronger, but the
earth still lay like a corpse, livid, dumb, cold and still. There was a
chill stagnant smell in the air.
Arriving at the stake in the bank below the hut, they fastened the boat
to it, and stepping out, moved through the dense mist to where the hut
loomed indistinctly before them, looking in the blank and awful
stillness like a forlorn wreck drifting upon an infinite sea of
soundless foam.
"The door is open," said Landless.
"Ay, I see," answered Porringer. "Does he wish to die before his time of
the fever, that he lets this graveyard mist and stench creep in upon him
in his sleep?"
They spoke in low tones as though they feared to waken the sleeper whom
they had come to waken. When they reached the hut, they knocked upon the
lintel of the door and called Godwyn by name, once, twice, thrice. There
was no answer.
"Come on!" said Landless hoarsely, and entered the hut, followed by the
other. The cold twilight, filtering through the low and narrow doorway,
was powerless to dispel the darkness within. Landless groped his way to
the pallet and stooped down.
"He is not here," he said.
The Muggletonian stumbled over a sheaf of oars, sending them to the
floor with a noise that in the utter stillness, and to their strained
ears, sounded appalling.
"It's the darkness of Tophet," muttered Porringer. "If I could find his
flint and steel; there are pine knots, I know, in the corner--God in
Heaven!"
"What is it? What is the matter?" cried Landless, as he staggered
against him.
"It's his face!" gasped the other. "There upon the table! I put my hand
upon it. It's cold!"
Landless rushed to the fireplace where he knew the tinder-box to be
kept, and then groped for and found the heap of pine knots. A moment
more and the fat wood was burning brightly, casting its red light
throughout the hut, and choking back the pale daylight.
The familiar room with its familiar furnishing of chest and settle and
pallet, of hanging nets and piles of dingy sail, sprung into sight, but
with it sprung into sight something unfamiliar, strange, and dreadful.
It was the body of the mender of nets, flung face upwards across the
rude table, the head hanging over the edge, and the face, which but a
few short hours before had looked upon Landless with such a bright and
patient serenity, blackened and distorted. Upon the throat were dark
marks, the print of ten murderous fingers.
With a bitter cry Landless fell upon his knees beside the table, and
pressed his face against the cold hand flung backwards over the head of
the murdered man. Porringer began to curse. With white lips and burning
eyes he hurled anathemas at the murderer. He cursed him by the powers
of light and darkness, by the earth, the sea, and the air; by all the
plagues of the two Testaments. Landless broke the torrent of his
maledictions.
"Silence!" he said sternly. "_He_ would have forgiven." Presently he
rose from the ground, and taking the body in his arms, placed it upon
the pallet, and reverently composed the limbs. Then he turned to the
fireplace. It was easy to see that the hiding place had been visited.
The spring was broken, and the lid had been struck and jammed into place
by a powerful and hasty hand. Landless wrenched it off. Before him lay
the pistols; but the gold and papers were gone. He turned to the
Muggletonian, standing beside him with staring eyes.
"Listen!" he said. "There was gold here. The wretch whom we passed but
now knew of it--never mind how--and for it he has murdered the only
friend I had on earth. There will come a day when I will avenge him.
There were papers here, lists with the signatures of Oliverians,
Redemptioners, sailors,--of all classes concerned in this undertaking,
save only the slaves and the convicts. There were letters from Maryland
and New England, and a correspondence which would provide whipping-post
and pillory for other Nonconformists than the Quakers. All these, the actual
proofs of this conspiracy, are in his--that murderer's--hands,--where they
must not stay."
"What wilt thou do, friend?" said the Muggletonian eagerly. "Wilt thou
take the murderer aside in the gate to speak with him quietly, and smite
him under the fifth rib, as did Joab to Abner the son of Ner, who slew
his brother Asahel?"
"God forbid," said Landless. "But I will take them from him before he
knows their contents. One moment, and we will go."
He crossed to the pallet and stood beside it, looking down on the shell
that lay upon it with a stern and quiet grief. One of the cold white
hands was clenched upon something. He stooped, and with difficulty
unclasped the rigid fingers. The something was a ragged lock of coarse
red hair.
"You see," he said.
"Ay," said the Muggletonian grimly. "It's evidence enough. There's but
one man in this county with hair like that. Leave that lock where it is,
and that dead man holds the rope that will hang his murderer."
"It shall be left where it is," said Landless, and reclosed the fingers
upon it.
He took a piece of sail-cloth from the floor, and with it covered the
dead man from sight. Next he turned to the hollow above the fireplace,
and took from it the pistols, concealing them in his bosom. "I may need
them," he said. "Come."
They left the hut and its dead guardian, and rowed back through the
summer dawn. The sky was barred with crimson and gold, the fiery rim of
the sun just lifting above the eastern waters, the mist, a bridal veil
of silver and pearl drawn across the face of a virgin earth.
They rowed in silence until they neared the wharf, when Porringer said,
"You are leader now."
The other raised his haggard eyes. "It is a trust. I will go through
with it, God helping me. But I would I were lying dead beside him in
yonder hut."
They left the boat at the wharf, and went towards the quarters. Meeting
one of the blowzed and slatternly female servants, Landless asked where
they might find the overseer. He had gone to the three-mile field half
an hour ago, after bestowing upon the two dilatory servants a hearty
cursing, and promising to reckon with them at dinner-time. "Where was
the master?" He had gone to the mouth of the inlet with Sir Charles
Carew, who had grown impatient, and had sailed away under the Nancy's
patched sail. The under overseer was in the far corn-field, two miles
off.
"Are all the men in the fields, Barb?" asked Landless.
Barb informed him that they were, "as he might very well know, seeing
that the sun was half an hour high."
"Have you seen the man called Roach?"
No: Barb had not seen him; but she had heard the overseer tell Luiz
Sebastian to take two men and go to the strip of Orenoko between the
inlet and the third tobacco house, and Luiz Sebastian had been calling
for Roach and Trail.
Landless thanked her, and moved away without offering to bestow upon her
that which Barb probably thought her information merited.
"Do you find Woodson," he said to the Muggletonian, "and report this
murder, saying nothing, however, of what we know. I myself will go to
the tobacco house."
"Had I not best come with thee to hold up thy hands?" said Porringer. "I
would take up my text from the thirty-fifth of Numbers, and from
Revelation, twenty-second, thirteen, and deal mightily with the
murderer."
"No," answered Landless. "Woodson must be seen at once, or we ourselves
will fall under suspicion. And, friend, ask that thou and I may be the
ones to bury _him_."