CHAPTER XXXV
In which I come to the Governor's House
I laid him down upon the earth, and, cutting away his doublet and theshirt beneath, saw the wound, and knew that there was a journey indeedthat he would shortly make. "The world is turning round," he muttered,"and the stars are falling thicker than the hailstones yesterday. Go on,and I will stay behind,--I and the wolves."
I took him in my arms and carried him back to the bank of the stream,for I knew that he would want water until he died. My head was bare, buthe had worn his cap from the gaol at Jamestown that night. I filled itwith water and gave him to drink; then washed the wound and did what Icould to stanch the bleeding. He turned from side to side, and presentlyhis mind began to wander, and he talked of the tobacco in the fields atWeyanoke. Soon he was raving of old things, old camp fires andnight-time marches and wild skirmishes, perils by land and by sea; thenof dice and wine and women. Once he cried out that Dale had bound himupon the wheel, and that his arms and legs were broken, and the woodsrang to his screams. Why, in that wakeful forest, they were unheard, orwhy, if heard, they went unheeded, God only knows.
The moon went down, and it was very cold. How black were the shadowsaround us, what foes might steal from that darkness upon us, it was notworth while to consider. I do not know what I thought of on that night,or even that I thought at all. Between my journeys for the water that hecalled for I sat beside the dying man with my hand upon his breast, forhe was quieter so. Now and then I spoke to him, but he answered not.
Hours before we had heard the howling of wolves, and knew that someravenous pack was abroad. With the setting of the moon the noise hadceased, and I thought that the brutes had pulled down the deer theyhunted, or else had gone with their hunger and their dismal voices outof earshot. Suddenly the howling recommenced, at first faint and faraway, then nearer and nearer yet. Earlier in the evening the stream hadbeen between us, but now the wolves had crossed and were coming down ourside of the water, and were coming fast.
All the ground was strewn with dead wood, and near by was a growth oflow and brittle bushes. I gathered the withered branches, and brokefaggots from the bushes; then into the press of dark and stealthy formsI threw a great crooked stick, shouting as I did so, and threateningwith my arms. They turned and fled, but presently they were back again.Again I frightened them away, and again they returned. I had flint andsteel and tinder-box; when I had scared them from us a third time, andthey had gone only a little way, I lit a splinter of pine, and with itfired my heap of wood; then dragged Diccon into the light and sat downbeside him, with no longer any fear of the wolves, but with absoluteconfidence in the quick appearance of less cowardly foes. There was woodenough and to spare; when the fire sank low and the hungry eyes gleamednearer, I fed it again, and the flame leaped up and mocked the eyes.
No human enemy came upon us. The fire blazed and roared, and the man wholay in its rosy glare raved on, crying out now and then at the top ofhis voice; but on that night of all nights, of all years, light andvoice drew no savage band to put out the one and silence the other forever.
Hours passed, and as it drew toward midnight Diccon sank into a stupor.I knew that the end was not far away. The wolves were gone at last, andmy fire was dying down. He needed my touch upon his breast no longer,and I went to the stream and bathed my hands and forehead, and thenthrew myself face downward upon the bank. In a little while the desolatemurmur of the water became intolerable, and I rose and went back to thefire, and to the man whom, as God lives, I loved as a brother.
He was conscious. Pale and cold and nigh gone as he was, there came alight to his eyes and a smile to his lips when I knelt beside him. "Youdid not go?" he breathed.
"No," I answered, "I did not go."
For a few minutes he lay with closed eyes; when he again opened themupon my face, there were in their depths a question and an appeal. Ibent over him, and asked him what he would have.
"You know," he whispered. "If you can ... I would not go without it."
"Is it that?" I asked. "I forgave you long ago."
"I meant to kill you. I was mad because you struck me before the lady,and because I had betrayed my trust. An you had not caught my hand, Ishould be your murderer." He spoke with long intervals between thewords, and the death dew was on his forehead.
"Remember it not, Diccon," I entreated. "I too was to blame. And I seenot that night for other nights,--for other nights and days, Diccon."
He smiled, but there was still in his face a shadowy eagerness. "Yousaid you would never strike me again," he went on, "and that I was manof yours no more for ever--and you gave me my freedom in the paper whichI tore." He spoke in gasps, with his eyes upon mine. "I'll be gone in afew minutes now. If I might go as your man still, and could tell theLord Jesus Christ that my master on earth forgave, and took back, itwould be a hand in the dark. I have spent my life in gathering darknessfor myself at the last."
I bent lower over him, and took his hand in mine. "Diccon, my man," Isaid.
A brightness came into his face, and he faintly pressed my hand. Islipped my arm beneath him and raised him a little higher to meet hisdeath. He was smiling now, and his mind was not quite clear. "Do youmind, sir," he asked, "how green and strong and sweet smelled the pinesthat May day, when we found Virginia, so many years ago?"
"Ay, Diccon," I answered. "Before we saw the land, the fragrance told uswe were near it."
"I smell it now," he went on, "and the bloom of the grape, and theMay-time flowers. And can you not hear, sir, the whistling and thelaughter and the sound of the falling trees, that merry time when Smithmade axemen of all our fine gentlemen?"
"Ay, Diccon," I said. "And the sound of the water that was dashed downthe sleeve of any that were caught in an oath."
He laughed like a little child. "It is well that I wasn't a gentleman,and had not those trees to fell, or I should have been as wet as anymerman.... And Pocahontas, the little maid ... and how blue the sky was,and how glad we were what time the _Patience_ and _Deliverance_ camein!"
His voice failed, and for a minute I thought he was gone; but he hadbeen a strong man, and life slipped not easily from him. When his eyesopened again he knew me not, but thought he was in some tavern, andstruck with his hand upon the ground as upon a table, and called for thedrawer.
Around him were only the stillness and the shadows of the night, but tohis vision men sat and drank with him, diced and swore and told wildtales of this or that. For a time he talked loudly and at random of thevile quality of the drink, and his viler luck at the dice; then he beganto tell a story. As he told it, his senses seemed to steady, and hespoke with coherence and like a shadow of himself.
"And you call that a great thing, William Host?" he demanded. "I cantell a true tale worth two such lies, my masters. (Robin tapster, moreale! And move less like a slug, or my tankard and your ear will cry,'Well met!') It was between Ypres and Courtrai, friends, and it's nighfifteen years ago. There were fields in which nothing was sowed becausethey were ploughed with the hoofs of war horses, and ditches in whichdead men were thrown, and dismal marshes, and roads that were no roadsat all, but only sloughs. And there was a great stone house, old andruinous, with tall poplars shivering in the rain and mist. Into thishouse there threw themselves a band of Dutch and English, and hard ontheir heels came two hundred Spaniards. All day they besieged thathouse,--smoke and flame and thunder and shouting and the crash ofmasonry,--and when eventide was come we, the Dutch and the English,thought that Death was not an hour behind."
He paused, and made a gesture of raising a tankard to his lips. His eyeswere bright, his voice was firm. The memory of that old day and itsmortal strife had wrought upon him like wine.
"There was one amongst us," he said, "he was our captain, and it's ofhim I am going to tell the story. (Robin tapster, bring me no more ale,but good mulled wine! It's cold and getting dark, and I have to drink toa brave man besides----)"
With the old bold laugh in his eyes, he rai
sed himself, for the momentas strong as I that held him. "Drink to that Englishman, all of ye!" hecried, "and not in filthy ale, but in good, gentlemanly sack! I'll paythe score. Here's to him, brave hearts! Here's to my master!"
With his hand at his mouth, and his story untold, he fell back. I heldhim in my arms until the brief struggle was over, and then laid his bodydown upon the earth.
It might have been one of the clock. For a little while I sat besidehim, with my head bowed in my hands. Then I straightened his limbs andcrossed his hands upon his breast, and kissed him upon the brow, andleft him lying dead in the forest.
It was hard going through the blackness of the night-time woods. Once Iwas nigh sucked under in a great swamp, and once I stumbled into somehole or pit in the earth, and for a time thought that I had broken myleg. The night was very dark, and sometimes when I could not see thestars, I lost my way, and went to the right or the left, or even backupon my track. Though I heard the wolves, they did not come nigh me.Just before daybreak, I crouched behind a log, and watched a party ofsavages file past like shadows of the night.
At last the dawn came, and I could press on more rapidly. For two daysand two nights I had not slept; for a day and a night I had not tastedfood. As the sun climbed the heavens, a thousand black spots, likesummer gnats, danced between his face and my weary eyes. The forest laidstumbling-blocks before me, and drove me back, and made me wind in andout when I would have had my path straighter than an arrow. When theground allowed, I ran; when I must break my way, panting, throughundergrowth so dense and stubborn that it seemed some enchantedthicket, where each twig snapped but to be on the instant stiff inplace again, I broke it with what patience I might; when I must turnaside for this or that obstacle, I made the detour, though my heartcried out at the necessity. Once I saw reason to believe that two ormore Indians were upon my trail, and lost time in outwitting them; andonce I must go a mile out of my way to avoid an Indian village.
As the day wore on, I began to go as in a dream. It had come to seem thegigantic wood of some fantastic tale through which I was travelling. Thefallen trees ranged themselves into an abattis hard to surmount; thethickets withstood one like iron; the streamlets were like rivers, themarshes leagues wide, the treetops miles away. Little things, twistedroots, trailing vines, dead and rotten wood, made me stumble. A wind wasblowing that had blown just so since time began, and the forest wasfilled with the sound of the sea.
Afternoon came, and the shadows began to lengthen. They were lines ofblack paint spilt in a thousand places, and stealing swiftly and surelyacross the brightness of the land. Torn and bleeding and breathless, Ihastened on; for it was drawing toward night, and I should have been atJamestown hours before. My head pained me, and as I ran I saw men andwomen stealing in and out among the trees before me: Pocahontas with herwistful eyes and braided hair and finger on her lips; Nantauquas; Dale,the knight-marshal, and Argall with his fierce, unscrupulous face; mycousin, George Percy, and my mother with her stately figure, herembroidery in her hands. I knew that they were but phantoms of mybrain, but their presence confused and troubled me.
The shadows ran together, and the sunshine died out of the forest.Stumbling on, I saw through the thinning trees a long gleam of red, andthought it was blood, but presently knew that it was the river, crimsonfrom the sunset. A minute more and I stood upon the shore of the mightystream, between the two brightnesses of flood and heavens. There was asilver crescent in the sky with one white star above it, and fair insight, down the James, with lights springing up through the twilight,was the town,--the English town that we had built and named for ourKing, and had held in the teeth of Spain, in the teeth of the wildernessand its terrors. It was not a mile away; a little longer,--a littlelonger and I could rest, with my tidings told.
The dusk had quite fallen when I reached the neck of land. The hut towhich I had been enticed that night stood dark and ghastly, with itsdoor swinging in the wind. I ran past it and across the neck, and,arriving at the palisade, beat upon the gate with my hands, and calledto the warder to open. When I had told him my name and tidings, he didso, with shaking knees and starting eyes. Cautioning him to raise noalarm in the town, I hurried by him into the street, and down it towardthe house that was set aside for the Governor of Virginia. I should findthere now, not Yeardley, but Sir Francis Wyatt.
The torches were lighted, and the folk were indoors, for the night wascold. One or two figures that I met or passed would have accosted me,not knowing who I was, but I brushed by them, and hastened on. Only whenI passed the guest house I looked up, and saw that mine host's chiefrooms were yet in use.
The Governor's door was open, and in the hall serving-men were moving toand fro. When I came in upon them, they cried out as it had been aghost, and one fellow let a silver dish that he carried fall clatteringto the floor. They shook and stood back, as I passed them without aword, and went on to the Governor's great room. The door was ajar, and Ipushed it open and stood for a minute upon the threshold, unobserved bythe occupants of the room.
After the darkness outside the lights dazzled me; the room, too, seemedcrowded with men, though when I counted them there were not so many,after all. Supper had been put upon the table, but they were not eating.Before the fire, his head thoughtfully bent, and his fingers tappingupon the arm of his chair, sat the Governor; over against him, and asserious of aspect, was the Treasurer. West stood by the mantel, tuggingat his long mustaches and softly swearing. Clayborne was in the room,Piersey the Cape merchant, and one or two besides. And Rolfe was there,walking up and down with hasty steps, and a flushed and haggard face.His suit of buff was torn and stained, and his great-boots werespattered with mud.
The Governor let his fingers rest upon the arm of his chair, and raisedhis head.
"He is dead, Master Rolfe," he said. "There can be no otherconclusion,--a brave man lost to you and to the colony. We mourn withyou, sir."
"We too have searched, Jack," put in West. "We have not been idle,though well-nigh all men believe that the Indians, who we know had agrudge against him, murdered him and his man that night, then threwtheir bodies into the river, and themselves made off out of our reach.But we hoped against hope that when your party returned he would be inyour midst."
"As for this latest loss," continued the Governor, "within an hour ofits discovery this morning search parties were out; yea, if I hadallowed it, the whole town would have betaken itself to the woods. Thesearchers have not returned, and we are gravely anxious. Yet we are notutterly cast down. This trail can hardly be missed, and the Indians arefriendly. There were a number in town overnight, and they went with thesearchers, volunteering to act as their guides. We cannot but think thatof this load our hearts will soon be eased."
"God grant it!" groaned Rolfe. "I will drink but a cup of wine, sir, andthen will be gone upon this new quest."
There was a movement in the room. "You are worn and spent with yourfruitless travel, sir," said the Governor kindly. "I give you my wordthat all that can be done is doing. Wait at least for the morning, andthe good news it may bring."
The other shook his head. "I will go now. I could not look my friend inthe face else--God in heaven!"
The Governor sprang to his feet; through the Treasurer's lips came along, sighing breath; West's dark face was ashen. I came forward to thetable, and leaned my weight upon it; for all the waves of the sea wereroaring in my ears, and the lights were going up and down.
"Are you man or spirit?" cried Rolfe through white lips. "Are you RalphPercy?"
"Yes, I am Percy," I said. "I have not well understood what quest youwould go upon, Rolfe, but you cannot go to-night. And those parties thatyour Honour talked of, that have gone with Indians to guide them to lookfor some lost person,--I think that you will never see them again."
With an effort I drew myself erect, and standing so told my tidings,quietly and with circumstance, so as to leave no room for doubt as totheir verity, or as to the sanity of him who brought them. Theylistened, as the ward
er had listened, with shaking limbs and gaspingbreath; for this was the fall and wiping out of a people of which Ibrought warning.
When all was told, and they stood there before me, white and shaken,seeking in their minds the thing to say or do first, I thought to ask aquestion myself; but before my tongue could frame it, the roaring of thesea became so loud that I could hear naught else, and the lights all rantogether into a wheel of fire. Then in a moment all sounds ceased, andto the lights succeeded the blackness of outer darkness.
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