The Witch

by Mary Johnston

  CHAPTER XXV

  THE SILVER QUEEN

  THE SILVER QUEEN, a ship neither great nor small, high-pooped,white-sailed, her figurehead a crowned woman, her name good forseaworthiness, ploughed the green water. Her sailors and theadventurers for new lands whom she carried watched their own islandsink from view, watched the European coast, saw it also fade, saw onlythe boundless, restless main. The ship drove south, for the Indies’passage.

  Mariners and all, she carried a hundred and sixty souls. Captain HughBard was the captain—a doughty son of the sea. Her sailors were fairaverage, tough of body, in mind some brutal, some weak, some good andtrue men. She was carrying colonists and adventurers to the New World,accessions to the lately established settlement at Jamestown. Amongthese men were sober-minded Englishmen, reputable and not ill-to-do,men who had warred or traded with credit in various parts of the world,who had perhaps joined in earlier ventures to American shores. Thesecarried with them labourers, indentured servants, perhaps a pennilesskinsman or two, discontented at home. The mass of those upon the SilverQueen were followers and indentured men. But there were likewiseadventurers going singly, free lances, with enough or just enough topay passage, men all for change and roving, or dare-devil men, or menwith wild fancies, hopes, ambitions, intents, or men merely leavingworst things for a conjectural better. Also there were a few whothought to practise their professions in the new settlement, a barberand perfumer, a musician, a teacher, a lawyer, and a divine. It was anaverage swarm from old England, in the early years of colonization.

  Aboard was but one woman, and she was not known as a woman. She wascalled John Allen, and went as the still-mouthed and loneliness-lovingbrother of the chirurgeon Giles Allen. In the first days the latter hadstated to a group, from which John Allen had risen and gone away, thathis brother was but now recovering from a melancholy brought about bythe death of one whom he had loved. Now those aboard were not beasts,but men with, in the main, answering hearts to lovers’ joys and woes.For the most part not over-observant or critical, and with their ownmatters much in mind, they took the statement as it was given them andallowed to John Allen silence and solitude—such silence and solitudeas were obtainable. Silence and solitude were all around upon the greatsea, but the ship was a hive adrift.

  Captain Hugh Bard was under obligations to Sir Richard. Clients of SirRichard—nothing known but that they were folk whom that knight waswilling to help from England—were sure of his blunt good offices.Moreover, the ship’s doctor fell ill, whereupon Giles Allen offered hisservices, there being much sickness among the colonists. The captainnodded, found that he had aboard a skilled physician, and took a likingto the man himself. Aderhold asked no favours for himself, and nonethat might arouse suspicion for her who passed as his brother. Butyet, with a refinement of skill, he managed to obtain for her what shewanted in that throng of men—a little space, a little distance.

  She never added difficulty to their situation. She was no fine lady.She was yeoman born and bred, courageous and sane. It was yet theevening glow of the strong Elizabethan age. Men and women were morefrank and free in one another’s company than grew to be the case in alater period. The wife or mistress, sometimes the sister, in the dressof page or squire, fellow traveller, attendant at court, sometimesfellow soldier, made a commonplace of the age’s stage-play or romantictale. If the masquerade occurred oftener in poem or play than in fact,yet in the last-named, too, it occurred.

  Joan had native wit. Her being, simple-seeming, pushed forwardcomplexes enough when it came to the touch. Aderhold marvelled tosee her so skilful and wary, and still so quiet with it all that sheseemed to act without motion, or with motion too swift for perception.She went unsuspected of all—a tall, fair youth with grey eyes and amanner of reserve, brooding aside over some loss of his own.

  Giles Allen, John Allen, George Dragon—it was George Dragon, Aderholdcame to see, who furnished the danger point.—Humphrey Lantern wasno artist to put forward a self complete, yet not your home and mostfamiliar self. He had no considerable rôle to play; he was merelyGeorge Dragon, an old soldier of the Dutch Wars, who since had knockedabout as best he might, and now would try his fortune in Virginia. Hewas at liberty to talk of the good wars and the Low Countries all hewished. He sought the forecastle and the company of the ruder sort andhe talked of these. But he was forgetful, and at times the near pastwould trip up the far past. Never the very near past, but Aderholdhad heard him let slip that for part time since the good wars, he hadserved as a gaoler—“head man in a good prison,” he put it with a grimtouch of pride. Aderhold thought that some one had given him usquebaughto drink. When he cautioned him, as he earnestly did at the firstchance, Lantern could not remember that he had said any such thing,but, being sober, he agreed that the least thing might be spark togunpowder, and that their lives depended upon discretion. He promisedand for some time Aderhold observed him exercising due caution. But thefear remained, and the knowledge that Lantern would drink if tempted,and drunken knew not what he said.

  At first they had a favouring wind and seas not rough or over-smooth.The ship bore strongly on, and the spirits of most aboard were good.Now and then broke out revelry and boisterousness, but the men ofweight kept rule among their followers, and Captain Hugh Bard wouldhave order where he commanded. The wilder sort, of whom there wereenough aboard, must content themselves with suppressed quarrels, secretgaming, a murmur of feverish and unstable talk and conjecture. Therewere those who, wherever they were, must have excitement to feed upon.Their daily life must be peppered with a liberal hand, heightened toa fevered and whirling motion with no line of advance. These wererestless, and spread their restlessness upon the Silver Queen. Butthere was much stolidity aboard, and at first and for many days itcounteracted.

  The wind blew, the sails filled, they drove cheerily on. They came tothe Canaries, on the old passage, then drove westward. Days passed,many days. They came to where they might begin to look for islands.And here a storm took them and carried them out of their reckoning,and here their luck fell away from them. The storm was outlasted, butafter it there befell a calm. The wind failed, sank away until therewas not a breath. Sullen and stubborn, the calm lasted, weary day afterweary day. The sails hung lank, the water made not even a small lippingsound, the crowned woman at the prow stood full length and steady,staring at a glassy floor. The sea was oil, the sky brazen, and thespirits flagged like the flagging sails. Day after day, day after day...

  At dawn one morning Aderhold and Joan leaned against the rail andlooked at the purple sea. It lay like a vast gem, moveless and hard.The folk upon the ship were still sleeping. The seamen aloft in therigging or moving upon the decks troubled them not, hardly looked theirway.

  “If you held a feather before you,” said Joan, “it would not move ahair’s breadth! They are to pray for a wind to-day. Master Evans willpray—all aboard will pray. Is it chained somewhere, or idle or asleep,or locked in a chest, and will we turn the key that way?”

  “Did you see or speak to George Dragon yesterday?”

  “No. Why?”

  “Some of these men brought _aqua vitæ_ or usquebaugh aboard with them.He games for it and wins. And then his tongue wags more than it should.”

  “I did not know.... Danger, again?”

  “Yes. He thinks he has done no harm, then is alarmed, penitent,protests that he will not—and then it’s all done again.... Poor humanweakness!”

  “And if—?”

  “We will not look at that now,” said Aderhold. “It would unroll itselfsoon enough.—Joan, Joan! I would that you were safe!”

  “I am safe. I would that you—”

  “I will match your ‘I am safe.’ I, too, am safe. Nothing here canquench the eternal, flowing life! But until we have lifted this leveland built more highly we shall feel its pains ... and feel them for oneanother. And now I ache for your danger.”

  The east was carmine, the sea from purple turned carmine—carmineeastward from the Silver Queen to the ho
rizon; elsewhere a burnishedplay of greens and blues, a vast plain, still, still! It flowed aroundand away to the burning horizon, and not a sail and not a breath, andno sound in the cordage overhead. The deepening light flowed betweenJoan and Aderhold, and in it, suddenly, the body of each was beautifulin the other’s eyes.... The sun came up, a red-gold ball. Neither mannor woman had spoken, and now, suddenly, too, with the full dayspring,the ship was astir, men were upon the decks. Gilbert Aderhold, JoanHeron stepped back into the violet shadow; here were Giles and JohnAllen.

  Up to these now came Master Evans, the minister bound for Jamestown,a stout, gentle-faced man in a sad-coloured suit. “Fast as thoughthe ship were in the stocks!” he said. “But if the Lord is gracious,we will pray her free! Breakfast done, we will gather together andmake hearty supplication.” He looked across to the sun, mailed nowin diamond, mounting blinding and fierce. The sweet coolness of theearlier hour was gone; wave on wave came heat, heat, heat! MasterEvans clasped more closely the Bible in his hand. “Thou sun whom forIsrael’s sake the Lord halted in thy course and held thee nailed fastabove Gibeon! Dost thou think if He chooses now to veil thy face withcloud and to blow thy rays aside, thou canst prevent? And thou hot andmoveless air, if He choose to drive thee against the stern of thisship and into the hollow of these sails, wilt thou make objection?Nay, verily! And why should He not choose? Here upon this ship are notinfidels and heathen, but his own servants and sheep! Wherefore we willkneel and beseech Him, and perchance a miracle may fall like manna.”

  He looked smilingly about him, then, pressing his Bible closely, wenton to other emigrants.... Later in the morning all upon the SilverQueen were drawn together to make petition for a prospering wind. Allsave the sick were there. Giles and John Allen stood with the others,knelt with the others. “Have we not a chronicle of Thy deeds,” prayedMaster Evans. “Didst Thou not make a dry road through an ocean for achosen people? Didst Thou not, at the Tower of Babel, in one hour shakeone language into all the tongues that are heard upon the earth? DidstThou not enable Noah to bring into the Ark in pairs all the beasts ofthis whole earth? Didst Thou not turn a woman into a pillar of salt,and give powers of speech to an ass, and preserve three men unsingedin a fiery furnace? Didst Thou not direct the dew on the one night tomoisten only the fleece of Gideon and not any of the earth besides, andon the next night to glisten over the face of the earth, but to leavethe fleece unmoistened? And are not we thy servants even as were Gideonand Lot and Noah?...”

  The calm held. A sky of brass, an oily sea, heat and heat, and nowmore sickness, and now an uneasy whisper as to the store of water! Thewhisper grew, for the ship lay still, day after day, as though she hadnever moved nor ever would do so. Panic terror came and hovered nearthe Silver Queen. Captain Bard fell ill, lay in fever and delirium....The mate took command—no second Captain Bard, but a frightened manhimself. There was aboard a half-crazed fellow who began to talk ofIll-Luck. “The ship hath Ill-Luck. Who brought it aboard? Seek it outand tie it to the mast and shoot it with your arquebuse! Then, mayhap,the wind will blow.” He laughed and mouthed of Ill-Luck, until crew andpassengers all but saw a shadowy figure. Time crawled by, and the calmheld and the panic grew.

  There came an hour when the bolt fell, foreseen by Aderhold. Before itran a whisper; then there fell a pause and an ominous quiet; then burstthe voices, fast and thick. It was afternoon, the sun not far from thehorizon, the sea red glass. Aderhold came up on deck from the captain’scabin. He looked about him and saw a crowd drawn together. Out ofit issued a loud voice. “Ill-Luck? What marvel there is ill-luck?”Noise mounted. The half-crazed fellow suddenly began to shrill out,“Ill-Luck! Ill-Luck! There she sits!” He burst from the throng andpointed with his finger. Away from the stir, on a great coil of ropenear a slung boat, there sat, looking out to sea, John Allen.

  The mate, with him several of the more authoritative adventurers andalso Master Evans, came out of the state cabin. “What’s all this? Whathas happened?”

  A man of the wilder sort aboard, a ruffler and gamester, was pushedforward by the swarm. “My masters, there’s one aboard named GeorgeDragon who, being somewhat drunk, hath let drop news that we hold hatha bearing upon this ship’s poor fortune! He saith that we carry escapedprisoners—runaways from the King’s justice—rebels, too, to religion—”

  “Ill Luck! Ill Luck! There sits Ill Luck!” cried the half-crazed one,and pointed again.

  The swarm began to speak with a general voice. “And we say that wewon’t get a wind, but will lie here until water is gone and we die ofthirst and rot and sink.... If we’ve got men aboard who are bringingmisfortune on us.... Twelve days lying here and not a breath! Thecaptain ill and twenty men besides, and the water low.... There’sScripture for it.... What’s the good of praying for a wind, if all thetime we’re harbouring his foes?... Held here, as though we were nailedto the sea floor, and the water low! The ship’s cursed.... We wantGeorge Dragon made to tell their names—”

  Suddenly George Dragon himself was among them—red-faced andwry-mouthed, but to-day thick-tongued also and stumbling. Helooked about him wildly. “What’s all this chattering? Talking likemonkeys!—Waked me up—but I won and he paid—good stuff—” He sawAderhold and lurched toward him. When he was near he spoke and imaginedthat none else could hear him. “Don’t look so grimly upon me, MasterAderhold!” he said. “I’ve dropped not a word, as I told you I wouldn’t.’Zooks! I’m not one to peach—”

  _Aderhold!_ With one sharp sound the name ran through the swarm. “NotAllen!—_Aderhold_....” There were those here from that port town andthe surrounding country,—those who had heard that name before. A mancried out, “Aderhold! That was the sorcerer who was to be burned!”Another: “They escaped—The sorcerer and apostate and the witch JoanHeron—”

  “Ill Luck! Ill Luck!” cried the Bedlamite. “There she stands!”

  John Allen had risen from the coil of rope and stood against the slungboat. The throng swung its body that way, hung suspended one longmoment, open-mouthed, wide-eyed, then with a roaring cry-flung itselfacross the space between. Aderhold reached her side, but the throngcame, too, hurled him down and laid hands upon her. One clutched hershirt and jerkin and tore them across. She stood a woman revealed.

  “The witch! The witch!” they roared and struck her to the deck.

  The mate was not the man that was the captain, but he knew what thecaptain would do, and where he was able he copied. The few superiorcolonists were not superior to witch-fear, but they had a preferencefor orderly judgement and execution. Master Evans was of a timidand gentle nature and abhorred with his bodily eyes to see violencedone. He believed devoutly that in the interests of holiness witches,infidels, and sorcerers must be put to death, but he would notwillingly himself behold the act which his religion approved. Therewere others aboard amenable to discipline, and bold enough to escapepanic over mere delay. The sorcerer and the witch were drawn from thehands of the more enraged. Their arms were bound across; they werethrust into the ship’s dungeon. With them went Humphrey Lantern, soberenough now—poor wry-mouthed man!... In the state cabin there washeld a council. “Keep the wretches close under hatches until Virginiais reached,” said the cooler sense. “Then let the officers of thesettlement hang them, on dry land and after solemn judgement. Or letthem be prisoned in Jamestown until a ship is sailing home, takenback to England, and hanged there. If, as may well be the case, theSilver Queen hath been cursed for their sakes, surely now that they areironed there below, and their doom certain in the end, the Almightywill lift the curse! At least, wait and see if the calm be notbroken.” Within the cabin and without were malcontents, but the soberercounsel prevailed. The mate agreed to keep the crew from mutiny, themoderate-minded adventurers to tame the wilder, more frightened andimpatient spirits.... That very night the calm vanished.

  The calm vanished in a wild uprush of clouds and stir of the elements.The heat and savour of brass, the stillness of death, the amazing blueof the sky, the splashed red o
f sunrise and sunset went away. In theirplace came darkness and a roaring wind. At first they went under muchcanvas; it was a drunken delight to feel the spray, to see the crownedwoman drink the foam, to hear the whistling and the creaking, to knowmotion again. But presently they took in canvas.... Twenty-four hoursafter the first hot puff of air, they were being pushed, bare-masted,as by a giant’s hand over a sea that ran in mountains. The sky wasblack-purple, torn by lightnings, the rain fell with a hissing fury,the wind howled now, howled too loudly!

  As the calm would not break, so now the storm would not break. Itroared and howled and the water curved and broke over the decks of theSilver Queen. A mast went, the ship listed, there arose a cry. The rainand lightning and thunder ceased, but never the wind and the furioussea and the darkened sky. The Silver Queen was beaten from wave towave, now smothered in the hollow, now rising dizzily to the movingsummit. The waves combed over her, they struck her as with hammers,her seamen cried out that there was sprung a leak, it came to be seenthat she might not live. The panic of the calm gave way to that of thestorm.

  And now they cried out wildly that the voyage was cursed, and that GodAlmighty who had plagued Israel for Achan’s sin was plaguing them forthat they kept aboard most vile offenders and rebels such as these!Those that were still for delay kept quarter yet a little longer, butwhile the wind somewhat lessened, the leak gained, and panic attackedthem too. The captain lay ill and out of his head, the mate was nostronger than they who wished clearance made. In a black and wildmorning, the livid sky dragging toward them, the sea running high, theylowered a boat and placed in it Aderhold and Joan and Humphrey Lantern.They might, perhaps, have held the last with them, carrying him inirons to Virginia, but when he found what was toward he cursed them sohorribly that no wizard could have thought of worse imprecations. Theyshivered and thrust him into the boat, where he knelt and continued hisraving. “Hush!” said Aderhold. “Let us die quietly.”

  The sailors loosed the small boat and pushed it outward from the SilverQueen. It fell astern, the black water widened between. The ship, madto get on, to put distance between her and the curse, flung out whatsail the tempest would let her carry. It made but a slight pinion, butyet wing enough to take her from that speck upon the ocean, the boatshe had set adrift.... Not she had set adrift, but Ignorance, Fear andSuperstition, their compound, Cruelty, and their blind Prætorian, BruteUse of Brute Force. There had been one pale ray of something else.Master Evans had insisted that there be put in the boat a small cask ofwater and a portion of ship’s bread.

  The Silver Queen hurried, hurried over the wild and heaving sea,beneath a low sky as grey as iron. The many gazing still lost at lastall sight of the open boat. It faded into the moving air, or it wasdrawn into the sea, they knew not which. But it was gone, and they madebold to hope that now God would cease to plague them.