CHAPTER XIV
In which we Seek a Lost Lady
Beside the minister and myself, nothing human moved in the crimsonwoods. Blue haze was there, and the steady drift of coloured leaves, andthe sunshine freely falling through bared limbs, but no man or woman.The fallen leaves rustled as the deer passed, the squirrels chatteredand the foxes barked, but we heard no sweet laughter or ringing song.
We found a bank of moss, and lying upon it a chaplet of red-brown oakleaves; further on, the mint beside a crystal streamlet had been troddenunderfoot; then, flung down upon the brown earth beneath some pines, wecame upon a long trailer of scarlet vine. Beyond was a fairy hollow, acuplike depression, curtained from the world by the red vines that hungfrom the trees upon its brim, and carpeted with the gold of a greatmaple; and here Fear became a giant with whom it was vain to wrestle.
There had been a struggle in the hollow. The curtain of vines was torn,the boughs of a sumach bent and broken, the fallen leaves groundunderfoot. In one place there was blood upon the leaves.
The forest seemed suddenly very quiet,--quite soundless save for thebeating of our hearts. On every side opened red and yellow ways, sunnyglades, labyrinthine paths, long aisles, all dim with the blue haze likethe cloudy incense in stone cathedrals, but nothing moved in them savethe creatures of the forest. Without the hollow there was no sign. Theleaves looked undisturbed, or others, drifting down, had hidden anymarks there might have been; no footprints, no broken branches, no tokenof those who had left the hollow. Down which of the painted ways hadthey gone, and where were they now?
Sparrow and I sat our horses, and stared now down this alley, now downthat, into the blue that closed each vista.
"The _Santa Teresa_ is just off the big spring," he said at last. "Shemust have dropped down there in order to take in water quietly."
"The man that came upon her is still in town,--or was an hour agone," Ireplied.
"Then she hasn't sailed yet," he said.
In the distance something grew out of the blue mist. I had not livedthirteen years in the woodland to be dim of sight or dull of hearing.
"Some one is coming," I announced. "Back your horse into this clump ofsumach."
The sumach grew thick, and was draped, moreover, with some broad-leafedvine. Within its covert we could see with small danger of being seen,unless the approaching figure should prove to be that of an Indian. Itwas not an Indian; it was my Lord Carnal. He came on slowly, glancingfrom side to side, and pausing now and then as if to listen. He was solittle of a woods-man that he never looked underfoot.
Sparrow touched my arm and pointed down a glade at right angles with thepath my lord was pursuing. Up this glade there was coming toward usanother figure,--a small black figure that moved swiftly, lookingneither to the right nor to the left.
Black Lamoral stood like a stone; the brown mare, too, had learned whatmeant a certain touch upon her shoulder. Sparrow and I, with small shamefor our eavesdropping, bent to our saddle-bows and looked sidewaysthrough tiny gaps in the crimson foliage.
My lord descended one side of the hollow, his heavy foot bringing downthe dead leaves and loose earth; the Italian glided down the oppositeside, disturbing the economy of the forest as little as a snake wouldhave done.
"I thought I should never meet you," growled my lord. "I thought I hadlost you and her and myself. This d--d red forest and this blue haze areenough to----" He broke off with an oath.
"I came as fast as I could," said the other. His voice was strange, thinand dreamy, matching his filmy eyes and his eternal, very faint smile."Your poor physician congratulates your lordship upon the success thatstill attends you. Yours is a fortunate star, my lord."
"Then you have her safe?" cried my lord.
"Three miles from here, on the river bank, is a ring of pines, in whichthe trees grow so thick that it is always twilight. Ten years ago a manwas murdered there, and Sir Thomas Dale chained the murderer to the treebeneath which his victim was buried, and left him to perish of hungerand thirst. That is the tale they tell at Jamestown. The wood is said tobe haunted by murdered and murderer, and no one enters it or comesnearer to it than he can avoid: which makes it an excellent resort forthose whom the dead cannot scare. The lady is there, my lord, with yourfour knaves to guard her. They do not know that the gloom and quiet ofthe place are due to more than nature."
My lord began to laugh. Either he had been drinking, or the success ofhis villainy had served for wine. "You are a man in a thousand, Nicolo!"he said. "How far above or below the ship is this fortunate wood?"
"Just opposite, my lord."
"Can a boat land easily?"
"A creek runs through the wood to the river. There needs but theappointed signal from the bank, and a boat from the _Santa Teresa_ canbe rowed up the stream to the very tree beneath which the lady sits."
My lord's laughter rang out again. "You're a man in ten thousand,Nicolo! Nicolo, the bridegroom's in town."
"Back so soon?" said the Italian. "Then we must change your lordship'splan. With him on the ground you can no longer wait until nightfall torow downstream to the lady and the _Santa Teresa_. He'll come to lookfor her."
"Ay, he'll come to look for her, curse him!" echoed my lord.
"Do you think the dead will scare him?" continued the Italian.
"No, I don't!" answered my lord, with an oath. "I would he were amongthem! An I could have killed him before I went----"
"I had devised a way to do it long ago, had not your lordship'sconscience been so tender. And yet, before now, our enemies--yours andmine, my lord--have met with sudden and mysterious death. Men stared,but they ended by calling it a dispensation of Providence." He broke offto laugh with silent, hateful laughter, as mirthful as the grin of adeath's-head.
"I know, I know!" said my lord impatiently. "We are not overnice,Nicolo. But between me and those who then stood in my way there hadpassed no challenge. This is my mortal foe, through whose heart I woulddrive my sword. I would give my ruby to know whether he's in the town orin the forest."
"He's in the forest," I said.
Black Lamoral and the brown mare were beside them before either movedhand or foot, or did aught but stare and stare, as though men and horseshad risen from the dead. All the colour was gone from my lord'sface,--it looked white, drawn, and pinched; as for his companion, hiscountenance did not change--never changed, I believe--but the tremblingof the feather in his hat was not caused by the wind.
Jeremy Sparrow bent down from his saddle, seized the Italian under thearmpits, and swung him clean from the ground up to the brown mare'sneck. "Divinity and medicine," he said genially, "soul healer and bodypoisoner, we'll ride double for a time," and proceeded to bind thedoctor's hands with his own scarf. The creature of venom before himwrithed and struggled, but the minister's strength was as the strengthof ten, and the minister's hand held him down. By this I was off BlackLamoral and facing my lord. The colour had come back to his lip andcheek, and the flash to his eye. His hand went to his sword hilt.
"I shall not draw mine, my lord," I told him. "I keep troth."
He stared at me with a frown that suddenly changed into a laugh, forcedand unnatural enough. "Then go thy ways and let me go mine!" he cried."Be complaisant, worthy captain of trainbands and Burgess from a dozenhuts! The King and I will make it worth your while."
"I will not draw my sword upon you," I replied, "but I will try a fallwith you," and I seized him by the wrist.
He was a good wrestler as he was a good swordsman, but, with bitteranger in my heart and a vision of the haunted wood before my eyes, Ithink I could have wrestled with Hercules and won. Presently I threwhim, and, pinning him down with my knee upon his breast, cried toSparrow to cut the bridle reins from Black Lamoral and throw them to me.Though he had the Italian upon his hands, he managed to obey. With myfree hand and my teeth I drew a thong about my lord's arms and boundthem to his sides; then took my knee from his chest and my hand from histhroat, and rose to my feet. He rose t
oo with one spring. He was verywhite, and there was foam on his lips.
"What next, captain?" he demanded thickly. "Your score is mounting uprather rapidly. What next?"
"This," I replied, and with the other thong fastened him, despite hisstruggles, to the young maple beneath which we had wrestled. When thetask was done, I first drew his sword from its jewelled scabbard andlaid it on the ground at his feet, and then cut the leather whichrestrained his arms, leaving him only tied to the tree. "I am not SirThomas Dale," I said, "and therefore I shall not gag you and leave youbound for an indefinite length of time, to contemplate a grave that youthought to dig. One haunted wood is enough for one county. Your lordshipwill observe that I have knotted your bonds in easy reach of your hands,the use of which I have just restored to you. The knot is a peculiarone; an Indian taught it to me. If you set to work at once, you will getit untied before nightfall. That you may not think it the Gordian knotand treat it as such, I have put your sword where you can get it onlywhen you have worked for it. Your familiar, my lord, may prove of use tous; therefore we will take him with us to the haunted wood. I have thehonour to wish your lordship a very good day."
I bowed low, swung myself into my saddle, and turned my back upon hisglaring eyes and bared teeth. Sparrow, his prize flung across hissaddlebow, turned with me. A minute more saw us out of the hollow, andentered upon the glade up which had come the Italian. When we had gone ashort distance, I turned in my saddle and looked back. The tiny hollowhad vanished; all the forest looked level, dreamy and still, barren ofhumanity, given over to its own shy children, nothing moving save theslow-falling leaves. But from beyond a great clump of sumach, set like atorch in the vaporous blue, came a steady stream of words, happilyrendered indistinguishable by distance, and I knew that the King'sminion was cursing the Italian, the Governor, the _Santa Teresa_, the_Due Return_, the minister, the forest, the haunted wood, his sword, theknot that I had tied, and myself.
I admit that the sound was music in mine ears.
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