CHAPTER XXVI IN WHICH I AM BROUGHT TO TRIAL
MY lord came not again into the hold, and the untied cords and thebroken chain were not replaced. Morning and evening we were brought aniggard allowance of bread and water; but the man who carried it boreno light, and may not even have observed their absence. We saw no one inauthority. Hour by hour my wounds healed and my strength returned. Ifit was a dark and noisome prison, if there were hunger and thirst andinaction to be endured, if we knew not how near to us might be a deathof ignominy, yet the minister and I found the jewel in the head of thetoad; for in that time of pain and heaviness we became as David andJonathan.
At last some one came beside the brute who brought us food. A quietgentleman, with whitening hair and bright dark eyes, stood before us. Hehad ordered the two men with him to leave open the hatch, and he heldin his hand a sponge soaked with vinegar. "Which of you is--or ratherwas--Captain Ralph Percy?" he asked, in a grave but pleasant voice.
"I am Captain Percy," I answered.
He looked at me with attention. "I have heard of you before," he said."I read the letter you wrote to Sir Edwyn Sandys, and thought it anexcellently conceived and manly epistle. What magic transformed agentleman and a soldier into a pirate?"
As he waited for me to speak, I gave him for answer, "Necessity."
"A sad metamorphosis," he said. "I had rather read of nymphs changedinto laurel and gushing springs. I am come to take you, sir, before theofficers of the Company aboard this ship, when, if you have aught to sayfor yourself, you may say it. I need not tell you, who saw so clearlysome time ago the danger in which you then stood, that your plight isnow a thousandfold worse."
"I am perfectly aware of it," I said. "Am I to go in fetters?"
"No," he replied, with a smile. "I have no instructions on the subject,but I will take it upon myself to free you from them,--even for the sakeof that excellently writ letter."
"Is not this gentleman to go too?" I asked.
He shook his head. "I have no orders to that effect."
While the men who were with him removed the irons from my wrists andankles he stood in silence, regarding me with a scrutiny so close thatit would have been offensive had I been in a position to take offense.When they had finished I turned and held Jeremy's hand in mine for aninstant, then followed the new-comer to the ladder and out of the hold;the two men coming after us, and resolving themselves above into aguard. As we traversed the main deck we came upon Diccon, busy with twoor three others about the ports. He saw me, and, dropping the bar thathe held, started forward, to be plucked back by an angry arm. The menwho guarded me pushed in between us, and there was no word spoken byeither. I walked on, the gentleman at my side, and presently came to anopen port, and saw, with an intake of my breath, the sunshine, a darkblue heaven flecked with white, and a quiet ocean. My companion glancedat me keenly.
"Doubtless it seems fair enough, after that Cimmerian darkness below,"he remarked. "Would you like to rest here a moment?"
"Yes," I said, and, leaning against the side of the port, looked out atthe beauty of the light.
"We are off Hatteras," he informed me, "but we have not met with thestormy seas that vex poor mariners hereabouts. Those sails you see onour quarter belong to our consort. We were separated by the hurricanethat nigh sunk us, and finally drove us, helpless as we were, towardthe Florida coast and across your path. For us that was a fortunate reefupon which you dashed. The gods must have made your helmsman blind,for he ran you into a destruction that gaped not for you. Why did everywretch that we hung next morning curse you before he died?"
"If I told you, you would not believe me," I replied.
I was dizzy with the bliss of the air and the light, and it seemed asmall thing that he would not believe me. The wind sounded in my earslike a harp, and the sea beckoned. A white bird flashed down into thecrystal hollow between two waves, hung there a second, then rose, asilver radiance against the blue. Suddenly I saw a river, dark andridged beneath thunderclouds, a boat, and in it, her head pillowed uponher arm, a woman, who pretended that she slept. With a shock my sensessteadied, and I became myself again. The sea was but the sea, the windthe wind; in the hold below me lay my friend; somewhere in that ship wasmy wife; and awaiting me in the state cabin were men who perhaps hadthe will, as they had the right and the might, to hang me at the yardarmthat same hour.
"I have had my fill of rest," I said. "Whom am I to stand before?"
"The newly appointed officers of the Company, bound in this ship forVirginia," he answered. "The ship carries Sir Francis Wyatt, the newGovernor; Master Davison, the Secretary; young Clayborne, the surveyorgeneral; the knight marshal, the physician general, and the Treasurer,with other gentlemen, and with fair ladies, their wives and sisters. Iam George Sandys, the Treasurer."
The blood rushed to my face, for it hurt me that the brother of SirEdwyn Sandys should believe that the firing of those guns had been myact. His was the trained observation of the traveler and writer, and heprobably read the color aright. "I pity you, if I can no longer esteemyou," he said, after a pause. "I know no sorrier sight than a braveman's shield reversed."
I bit my lip and kept back the angry word. The next minute saw us atthe door of the state cabin. It opened, and my companion entered, andI after him, with my two guards at my back. Around a large table weregathered a number of gentlemen, some seated, some standing. Therewere but two among them whom I had seen before,--the physician who haddressed my wound and my Lord Carnal. The latter was seated in a greatchair, beside a gentleman with a pleasant active face and light browncurling hair,--the new Governor, as I guessed. The Treasurer, nodding tothe two men to fall back to the window, glided to a seat upon my lord'sother hand, and I went and stood before the Governor of Virginia.
For some moments there was silence in the cabin, every man being engagedin staring at me with all his eyes; then the Governor spoke: "It shouldbe upon your knees, sir."
"I am neither petitioner nor penitent," I said. "I know no reason why Ishould kneel, your Honor."
"There 's reason, God wot, why you should be both!" he exclaimed. "Didyou not, now some months agone, defy the writ of the King and Company,refusing to stand when called upon to do so in the King's name?"
"Yes."
"Did you not, when he would have stayed your lawless flight, lay violenthands upon a nobleman high in the King's favor, and, overpowering himwith numbers, carry him out of the King's realm?"
"Yes."
"Did you not seduce from her duty to the King, and force to fly withyou, his Majesty's ward, the Lady Jocelyn Leigh?"
"No," I said. "There was with me only my wife, who chose to follow thefortunes of her husband."
He frowned, and my lord swore beneath his breath. "Did you not, fallingin with a pirate ship, cast in your lot with the scoundrels upon it, andyourself turn pirate?"
"In some sort."
"And become their chief?"
"Since there was no other situation open,--yes."
"Taking with you as captives upon the pirate ship that lady and thatnobleman?"
"Yes."
"You proceeded to ravage the dominions of the King of Spain, with whomhis Majesty is at peace"--
"Like Drake and Raleigh,--yes," I said.
He smiled, then frowned "Tempora mutantur," he said dryly. "And I havenever heard that Drake or Raleigh attacked an English ship."
"Nor have I attacked one," I said.
He leaned back in his chair and stared at me. "We saw the flame andheard the thunder of your guns, and our rigging was cut by the shot. Didyou expect me to believe that last assertion?"
"No."
"Then you might have spared yourself--and us--that lie," he said coldly.
The Treasurer moved restlessly in his seat, and began to whisper to hisneighbor the Secretary. A young man, with the eyes of a hawk and an ironjaw,--Clayborne, the surveyor general,--who sat at the end of the tablebeside the window, turned and gazed out upon the clouds and the sea,as if,
contempt having taken the place of curiosity, he had no furtherinterest in the proceedings. As for me, I set my face like a flint,and looked past the man who might have saved me that last speech of theGovernor's as if he had never been.
There was a closed door in the cabin, opposite the one by which I hadentered. Suddenly from behind it came the sound of a short struggle,followed by the quick turn of a key in the lock. The door was flungopen, and two women entered the cabin. One, a fair young gentlewoman,with tears in her brown eyes, came forward hurriedly with outspreadhands.
"I did what I could, Frank!" she cried. "When she would not listen toreason, I e'en locked the door; but she is strong, for all that she hasbeen ill, and she forced the key out of my hand!" She looked at the redmark upon the white hand, and two tears fell from her long lashes uponher wild-rose cheeks.
With a smile the Governor put out an arm and drew her down upon a stoolbeside him, then rose and bowed low to the King's ward. "You are not yetwell enough to leave your cabin, as our worthy physician general willassure you, lady," he said courteously, but firmly. "Permit me to leadyou back to it."
Still smiling he made as if to advance, when she stayed him with agesture of her raised hand, at once so majestic and so pleading that itwas as though a strain of music had passed through the stillness of thecabin.
"Sir Francis Wyatt, as you are a gentleman, let me speak," she said.It was the voice of that first night at Weyanoke, all pathos, allsweetness, all entreating.
The Governor stopped short, the smile still upon his lips, his handstill outstretched,--stood thus for a moment, then sat down. Around thehalf circle of gentlemen went a little rustling sound, like wind in deadleaves. My lord half rose from his seat. "She is bewitched," he said,with dry lips. "She will say what she has been told to say. Lest shespeak to her shame, we should refuse to hear her."
She had been standing in the centre of the floor, her hands clasped, herbody bowed toward the Governor, but at my lord's words she straightenedlike a bow unbent. "I may speak, your Honor?" she asked clearly.
The Governor, who had looked askance at the working face of theman beside him, slightly bent his head and leaned back in his greatarmchair. The King's favorite started to his feet. The King's wardturned her eyes upon him. "Sit down, my lord," she said. "Surely thesegentlemen will think that you are afraid of what I, a poor erring woman,rebellious to the King, traitress to mine own honor, late the playthingof a pirate ship, may say or do. Truth, my lord, should be morecourageous." Her voice was gentle, even plaintive, but it had in it thequality that lurks in the eyes of the crouching panther.
My lord sat down, one hand hiding his working mouth, the other clenchedon the arm of his chair as if it had been an arm of flesh.
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