VALE
The overseer knocked the ashes from his pipe and stuck it in his belt.
"The master," he said curtly, getting to his feet as three cloaked
figures, followed by a negro bearing a torch, came up the hillside and
into the waste of stones beneath the crags. Advancing to meet them, he
took the torch from Regulus's hand and fired a mass of dead and leafless
vine depending from the cliff. In the bright light which sprang up,
filling the rocky chamber and burnishing the face of the crags into the
semblance of a cataract of fire, the parties to the interview gazed at
one another in silence.
Colonel Verney was the first to speak. "I am sorry to see that you are
wounded," he said gravely.
"I thank you, sir,--it is nothing."
The Colonel walked the length of the plateau twice, then came back to
his prisoner's side. "My daughter has told me all," he said somewhat
huskily. "That you and the Susquehannock sought for her and found her;
that you fought for her bravely more than once; that after the Indian
was slain you guided and protected her through the forest; that you have
in all things borne yourself towards her faithfully and reverently, not
injuring her by word, thought or deed. My daughter is very dear to
me--dearer than life, I am not ungrateful. I thank you very heartily."
"Mistress Patricia Verney is dear to me also," said Sir Charles, coming
forward to stand beside his kinsman. "I too thank the man who restores
her to her friends--to her lover."
"And I would to God," said the third figure, advancing, "that we could
save the brave man to whom so much is owed. If I were Governor of
Virginia--"
"You could do naught, Carrington," broke in the Colonel impatiently.
"The man is convict--outside the pale! A convict, and the head of an
Oliverian plot! Scarce the King himself could pardon him! And if he did,
how long d' ye think the walls of the gaol at Jamestown would keep him
from the rabble--and the nearest tree? No, no, William Berkeley does but
his duty. And yet--and yet--"
He began to pace the rocks again, frowning heavily, and pulling at the
curls of his periwig. "You are a brave man," he said at last, stopping
before Landless and speaking with energy, "and from my soul I wish I
could save you. I would gladly overlook all that is over and done with,
would gladly free you, aid you, help you, so far as might be, to
retrieve your past--but I cannot. My hands are tied; it is
impossible--you must see for yourself that it is impossible."
"None can see that so clearly as myself, Colonel Verney," Landless said
steadily. "I thank you for the will none the less."
"To take you back with me," the other continued, beginning to stride up
and down again, "is to take you back, bound, to certain death. And there
is but one alternative--to leave you here in the wilderness. Your
presence here is known only to those upon whose discretion I can depend.
They would hold their tongues, and none need ever be the wiser. But the
Settlements will be barred to you forever, and hundreds of leagues
stretch between this spot and the Dutch or the New Englanders. Moreover,
your description hath been sent to the authorities of each colony. And
you are wounded, and winter is at hand. It may be but a choice of
deaths! I would to God there were some other way--but there is none! You
must choose."
In the dead silence that ensued the Colonel moved back to the side of
the Surveyor-General, and the two stood, thoughtfully regardant of the
prisoner. The light from the partially consumed vines beginning to wane,
the overseer motioned to Regulus to collect and apply his torch to a
quantity of the fagots with which the ground was strewn. The negro
obeyed, and stood behind the light flame and curling smoke which he had
evoked, like the genie of an Arabian tale. Sir Charles, left standing in
the centre of the rocky chamber, hesitated a moment, then walked with
his usual languid grace over to where Landless leaned against a boulder,
his eyes, shaded by his hand, fixed upon the ground.
"Whichever you choose--Scylla or Charybdis--" said Sir Charles in his
most dulcet tones, "this is probably the last time you and I will ever
speak together. There have been passages between us in the past, which,
in the light of after event, I cannot but regret. You have just rendered
me an inestimable service. I have learnt, too, that you saved my life
the night of the storming of the Manor House. I beg to apologize to you,
sir, for any offense I may have given you by word or deed." And he held
out his hand with his most courtly smile.
"It becomes a dying man to be in charity with the world he leaves," said
Landless, somewhat coldly, but with a smile too, "and so I do that which
I never thought to do," and he touched the other's fingers with his own.
Sir Charles looked at him curiously. "You make a good enemy," he said
lightly. "Had it not been predestined that we were to hate each other, I
could find it in my heart to desire you for a friend. You remain in the
forest, I dare swear?"
"Yes," answered Landless, with his eyes upon the light in the glade
below. "I choose the easier fate."
"The easier for all concerned," said the other with a peculiar
intonation.
Landless glanced at him keenly, but the courtier face and the
inscrutable smile told nothing. "The easier for myself, whom alone it
concerneth," said Landless sternly.
Dragging himself up by the rock behind him, he turned to the two elder
men. "I have decided, Colonel Verney," he said slowly, "I will stay
here, an it please you."
"You shall have all that we can leave you," said the Colonel eagerly and
with some emotion. "Ammunition in plenty, food, blankets, an axe--it's
little enough I can do, God knows, but I do that little most willingly."
"Again I thank you," said Landless wearily.
Sir Charles caught the inflection. "You stand in need of rest," he said
courteously, "and, this matter settled, our farther intrusion upon you
is as unnecessary as it must be unwelcome. Had we not best descend,
gentlemen?"
"Ay," said the Colonel. "We have done all we could." Then, to Landless,
"With the moonrise we drop down the river--from out your sight forever.
I have told you frankly there is no hope for you amongst your kind in
the world to which we return. I believe there to be none. But have you
thought of what we must needs leave you to? Humanly speaking, it is
death, and death alone, in the winter forest."
"I have thought," said Landless.
"From my soul I wish that some miracle may occur to save you yet!"
"An ill wish!" said the other, smiling, "with but little chance,
however, of its fulfillment."
"I fear not," said the Colonel with something like a groan, "but I wish
it, nevertheless. Here is my hand, and with it my heartfelt thanks for
your service to my daughter. And I wish you to believe that I deeply
deplore your fate, and that I would have saved you if I could."
"I believe it," Landless said simply.
The Colonel took and wrung his hand, then turned sharply away, and
beckoning the overseer to follow, strode out of the circle of rocks.
Sir Charles raised his feathered hat. "We have been foes," he said, "but
the strife is over--and when all is said, we are both Englishmen. I
trust we bear each other no ill will."
"I bear none," said Landless.
Sir Charles, his eyes still fixed upon the pale quiet of the other's
face, passed out of the opening between the rocks, and his place was
taken by the Surveyor-General.
"I would have saved you if I could," he said in a low and troubled
voice. "I bow to a brave man and a gallant gentleman," and he too was
gone.
In the glade below, the movement, the laughter and the song sank
gradually into silence as the gentlemen adventurers, the rangers, Indian
guides, and servants composing the rescuing party threw themselves down,
one by one, beside the blazing fires for a short rest before moonrise
and the long pull down the river.
Among the crags, high above the twinkling watch-fires and the wash of
the dark river, there was the stillness of the stars, of the white frost
and the bare cliffs. In the northern heavens played a soft light, and
now and then a star shot. The man who marked its trail across the
studded skies thought of himself as of one as far withdrawn as it from
the world of lower lights in the forest at his feet. Already he felt a
prescience of the loneliness of the morrow, and the morrow, and the
morrow, of the slow drift of the days in the waning forest, the hopeless
nights, the terror of that great solitude--and felt, too, a feverish
desire to hasten that approach, to embrace that which was to be
henceforth bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. He wished for the
dash of oars in the dark stream below and for the rise of the moon which
was to shine coldly down upon him, companionless, immured in that vast
fortress from which he might never hope to escape.
The sound of cautious footsteps among the rocks brought his sick and
wandering fancy back to the present. Raising himself upon his elbow and
peering intently into the darkness, he made out two figures, one tall
and large, the other much slighter, advancing towards him. Presently the
larger figure stopped short, and, seating itself upon a flat rock at the
brink of the hill, turned its face towards the fires in the woods below.
The other came on lightly and hurriedly--another moment, and rising to
his knees, he clasped her in his arms and laid his head upon her bosom.
"I never thought to see you again," he said at last.
"I made Regulus bring me," she answered. "The others do not know--they
think me asleep."
She spoke in a low, even, monotonous voice, and the hand which she laid
upon his forehead was like marble. "My heart is dead, I think," she
said. "I wish my body were so too."
He drew her closer to him and covered her face and hands with kisses.
"My love, my lady," he said. "My white rose, my woodland dove!"
She clung to him, trembling. "Down there I was going mad," she
whispered. "But now--now--I feel as though I could weep." He felt her
tears upon his face, but in a moment she was calm again. "Do you
remember the bird we found the other day, all numbed with cold?" she
said. "It had been gay and free and light of heart, but it had not
strength to flutter when I took it in my hands and tried to warm it--and
could not. I am like that bird. The world is very gray and cold, and my
heart--it will never be warm again."
"God comfort you," he said brokenly.
"They have told me that at moonrise we leave this place--and you. They
say that it is all they can do for you--to leave you here. All!--Oh, my
God!"
"They have done what they could," he said gravely. "I recognize that.
And I wish you to do so too, sweetheart."
She looked at him wildly. "I have been silent," she said, pressing her
clasped hands against her bosom. "I have not told them. I have obeyed
what I read in your eyes. But was it well? Oh, my dear, let me speak!"
He took her hands from her breast and laid them against his own. "No,"
he said with a smile, "I love you too well for that."
From the woods across the river came the crying of wolves, then a
silence as of the grave; then a whisper arose in the long dry grass and
the leafless vines, and a cold breeze lifted the hair from their
foreheads. The whisper grew into a murmur, prolonged and deep, a sound
as of a distant cataract, or of the dash of surf upon a far away
shore--the voice of the wind in the world of trees. A star shot, leaving
a stream of white fire to fade out of the dark blue sky. From the forest
came again the cry of the wolves. In the camp below there seemed some
stir, and the figure seated on the rock turned its head towards them and
lifted a warning hand.
"You must go," said Landless. "It was madness for you to venture here.
See, the light is growing in the east."
With a low, desolate moaning sound she wrung the hands he released and
raised her face to his. He kissed her upon the brow, the eyes and the
mouth. "Good-by, my life, my love, my heart," he said. "We were happy
for an hour. Good-by!"
"I will be brave," she answered. "I will live my life out. I will pray
to God. And, Godfrey, I will be ever true to you. I shall never see you
again, my dear, never hear of you more, never know till my latest day
whether you are of this world still, or whether you have waited for me a
long time, up there beyond those lights. If it--if death--should come
Boon, wait for me--beyond--in perfect trust, my dear, for I will come
to you--I will come to you as I am, Godfrey."
He bowed his face upon her hands.
The breeze freshened, and the sound of the surf became the sound of
breakers. In the east the pale light strengthened. The figure below them
stood up and beckoned.
"The moon is coming," said Patricia. "Once before I watched for it--in
terror, with pride and anger in my heart. Then, when I thought of you, I
hated you. It is strange to think of that now. Kiss me good-by."
"I too will be strong," he said. "I will await the pleasure of the Lord.
Until His good time, my bride!"
Rising to his feet he held her in his arms, then kissed her upon the
lips and put her gently from him. For a moment she stood like a statue,
then with a lifted face and hands clasped at her bosom, she turned, and
slowly, but without a backward look, left the circle of rocks. Through
the opening he saw the slave come up to her, and saw her motion to him
to fall behind--another moment, and both dark figures had sunk below the
brow of the hill.
Stronger and stronger blew the wind, louder and louder swelled the voice
of the forest. Below, the wash of the river in its reeds, the dull
groaning of branch grating against branch, the fall of leaf and acorn,
the loud sighing of the pines, the cries of the owl, the panther, and
the wolf--above, the vast dome of the heavens and the fading stars. An
effulgence in the east; a silver crest, like the white rim of a giant
wave, upon the eastern hills; a pale splendor mounting slowly and calmly
upward--a dead world,--all her passion, all her pain, all toil and
strife over and done with,--shining down upon a sadder earth.
From beneath the shadowy banks there shot out into the middle of the
broad moonlit stream a long canoe, followed by a second and a third, and
turning, went swiftly down that long, bright, shimmering, rippling path.
In the last and smallest of the three boats a man rose from his seat in
the stern, and with his eyes upon the line of moon-whitened cliffs above
him, raised his plumed hat with a courteous gesture, then bent and spoke
to a cloaked and hooded figure sitting, still and silent, between him
and a burlier form. This canoe was rowed by negroes, and as they rowed
they sang. The wild chant--half dirge, half frenzy--that they raised was
suited to that waste which they were leaving.
The black lines upon the silver flood became mere dots, and the wailing
notes came up the stream faintly and more faintly still. For a while the
echoes rolled among the folded hills and the tall gray crags, but at
length they died away forever.
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[Transcriber's note: added omitted word "time" in "By this time his eyes"
on line 9427, original page 304, of this text.]