CHAPTER XII
A DARK DEED
Three weeks passed, weeks in which Landless saw the mender of nets someeight times in all, making each visit at night, stealthily and underconstant danger of detection. Thrice he had assisted at conferences ofthe Oliverians from the neighboring plantations, who now, by virtue ofhis descent, his intimacy with Godwyn, and his very apparent powers,accepted him as a leader. Upon the first of these occasions he had sethis case before them in a few plain, straightforward words, and theybelieved him as Godwyn had done, and he became in their eyes, not aconvict, but, as he in truth was, an Oliverian like themselves, and asufferer for the same cause. The remaining interviews had been betweenhim and Godwyn alone. In the lonely hut on the marsh, beneath starlightor moonlight, the two had held much converse, and had grown to love eachother. The mender of nets, though possessed of a calm and high serenityof nature that defied trials beneath which a weaker soul had sunk, was aman of many sorrows; he had the wisdom, too, of years and experience,and he sympathized with, soothed, and counseled his younger yoke-fellowwith a parental tenderness that was very grateful to the other's moreardent, undisciplined, and deeply wounded spirit.
Upon the night of their eighth meeting they held a long and seriousconsultation. Affairs were in such train that little remained to bedone, but to set the day for the rising, and to send notice by manydevious and underground ways to the Oliverian captains scatteredthroughout the Colony. Landless counseled immediate action, the firingof the fuse at once by starting the secret intelligence which wouldspread like wildfire from plantation to plantation. Then would the minebe sprung within the week. There was nothing so dangerous as delay, whenany hour, any moment might bring discovery and ruin.
Godwyn was of a different opinion. It was then August, the busiest andmost unhealthy season of the year, when the servants and slaves,weakened by unremitting toil, were succumbing by scores to the fever. Itwas the time when the masters looked for disaffection, when theoverseers were most alert, when a general watchfulness pervaded theColony. The planters stayed at home and attended to their business, thetrainbands were vigilant, the servant and slave laws were construed witha harshness unknown at other seasons of the year. There were few shipsin harbor compared with the number which would assemble for their falllading a month later, and Godwyn counted largely upon the seizure of theships. In a month's time the tobacco would be largely in,--a weightyconsideration, for tobacco was money, and the infant republic must havefunds. The ships would be in harbor, and their sailors ready foranything that would rid them of their captains; the heat and sickness ofthe summer would be abated; the work slackened, and discipline relaxed.The danger of discovery was no greater now than it had been all along,and the good to be won by biding their time might be inestimable. Thedanger was there, but they would face it, and wait,--say until thesecond week in September.
Landless acquiesced, scarcely convinced, but willing to believe that theother knew whereof he spoke, and conscious, too, that his own impatienceof the yoke which galled his spirit almost past endurance might inclinehim to a reckless and disastrous haste.
It was past midnight when he rose to leave the hut on the marsh. Godwyntook up his stick. "I will walk with you to the banks of the creek," hesaid. "'Tis a feverish night, and I have an aching head. The air will dome good, and I will then sleep."
The young man gave him his arm with a quiet, protecting tenderness thatwas very dear to the mender of nets, and leaning upon it, he limpedthrough the fifty feet of long grass to the border of the creek.
"Shall I not wait to help you back?" asked Landless.
"No," said the other, with his peculiarly sweet and touching smile. "Iwill sit here awhile beneath the stars and say my hymn of praise to theCreator of Night. You need not fear for me; my trusty stick will carryme safely back. Go, lad, thou lookest weary enough thyself, and shouldbe sleeping after thy long day of toil."
"I am loth to leave you to-night," said Landless.
Godwyn smiled. "And I am always loth to see you go, but it were selfishto keep you listening to a garrulous, wakeful old man, when your youngframe is in sore need of rest. Good-night, dear lad."
Landless gave him his hands. "Good-night," he said.
He stood below the other at the foot of the low bank to which wasmoored his stolen boat. Godwyn stooped and kissed him upon the forehead."My heart is tender to-night, lad," he said. "I see in thee my Robert.Last night I dreamed of him and of his mother, my dearly loved andlong-lost Eunice, and ah! I sorrowed to awake!"
Landless pressed his hand in silence, and in a moment the water widenedbetween them as Landless bent to his oars and the crazy little bark shotout into the middle of the stream. At the entrance of the firstlabyrinthine winding he turned and looked back to see Godwyn standingupon the bank, the moonlight silvering his thin hair and high serenebrow. In the mystic white light, against the expanse of solemn heaven,he looked a vision, a seer or prophet risen from beneath the sighinggrass. He waved his hand to Landless, saying in his quiet voice, "Untilto-morrow!" The boat made the turn, and the lonely figure and the hutbeyond it vanished, leaving only the moonlight, the wash and lap ofwater, and the desolate sighing of the marsh grass.
There were many little channels and threadlike streams debouching fromthe main creek, and separated from it by clumps and lines of partiallysubmerged grass, growing in places to the height of reeds. While passingone of these clumps it occurred to Landless that the grass quivered andrustled in an unusual fashion. He rested upon his oars and gazed at itcuriously, then stood up, and parting the reeds, looked through into thetiny channel upon the other side. There was nothing to be seen, and therustling had ceased. "A heron has its nest there, or a turtle plunged,shaking the reeds," said Landless to himself, and went his way.
Some three hours later he was roused from the heavy sleep of utterfatigue by the voice of the overseer. Bewildered, he raised himself uponhis elbow to stare at Woodson's grim face, framed in the doorway and litby the torch held by Win-Grace Porringer, who stood behind him. "Youthere, you Landless!" cried the overseer, impatiently. "You sleep likethe dead. Tumble out! You and Porringer are to go to Godwyn's after thatnew sail for the Nancy. Sir Charles Carew has taken it into his head torun over to Accomac, and he's got to have a spick and span white rag tosail under. Hurry up, now! He wants to start by sun up, and I cleanforgot to send for it last night. You're to be back within the hour,d' ye hear? Take the four-oared shallop. There's the key," and theoverseer strode away, muttering something about patched sails being goodenough for Accomac folk.
Landless and the Muggletonian stumbled through the darkness to the wharfbehind the quarters, where they loosed the shallop, and in it shotacross the inlet towards the mouth of the creek.
"I will row," said the Muggletonian with grim kindness; "you look wornout. I suppose you were out last night?"
Landless nodded, and the other bent to the oars with a will that sentthem rapidly across the sheet of water. A cold and uncertain light beganto stream from the ashen east, and the air was dank and heavy with thethick mist that wrapped earth and water like a shroud. It swallowed upthe land behind them, and through it the nearer marshes gloomedindistinctly, dark patches upon the gray surface of the water. Thenarrow creek was hard to find amidst the universal dimness. TheMuggletonian rowed slowly, peering about him with small, keen eyes. Atlength with a grunt of satisfaction he pointed to a pale streak dividingtwo masses of gray, and had turned the boat's head towards it, whenthrough the stillness they caught the sound of oars. The next moment aboat glided from the creek and began to skirt the shores of the inlet,hugging the banks and moving slowly and stealthily. It was still so darkthat they could tell nothing more than that it held one man.
"Now, who is that?" said the Muggletonian. "And what has he been doingup that creek?"
"Hail him," Landless replied.
Porringer sent a low halloo across the water, but if the man heard hemade no sign. The boat, one of the crazy dugouts of which everyplantat
ion had store, held on its stealthy way, but being over close tothe bank presently ran upon a sand bar. Its occupant was forced to riseto his feet in order to shove it off. He stood upright but a moment, butin that moment, and despite the partial darkness, Landless recognizedthe misshapen figure.
"It is the convict, Roach!" he exclaimed.
"Ay," said the Muggletonian, "and an ill-omened night bird he is! May hebe cursed from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head! May therebe no soundness in him! May--What are you about, friend?" he cried,interrupting himself. "There's no need of two pair of oars. We haveplenty of time."
Landless bent to the second pair of oars. "He came down the creek," hesaid in a voice that sounded strained and unnatural.
The other stared at him. "What do you mean?" he demanded.
"Nothing: but let us hasten."
Porringer stared, but fell in with the humor of his companion, and theshallop, impelled by strong arms, shot into the creek and along its mazywindings with the swiftness of a bird.
Landless rowed with compressed lips and stony face, a great fear tuggingat his heart. Porringer too was silent. The vapor hung so heavily uponthe plains of marsh level with their heads that they seemed to bepiercing a dense, low cloud. The light was growing stronger, but theearth still lay like a corpse, livid, dumb, cold and still. There was achill stagnant smell in the air.
Arriving at the stake in the bank below the hut, they fastened the boatto it, and stepping out, moved through the dense mist to where the hutloomed indistinctly before them, looking in the blank and awfulstillness like a forlorn wreck drifting upon an infinite sea ofsoundless foam.
"The door is open," said Landless.
"Ay, I see," answered Porringer. "Does he wish to die before his time ofthe fever, that he lets this graveyard mist and stench creep in upon himin his sleep?"
They spoke in low tones as though they feared to waken the sleeper whomthey had come to waken. When they reached the hut, they knocked upon thelintel of the door and called Godwyn by name, once, twice, thrice. Therewas no answer.
"Come on!" said Landless hoarsely, and entered the hut, followed by theother. The cold twilight, filtering through the low and narrow doorway,was powerless to dispel the darkness within. Landless groped his way tothe pallet and stooped down.
"He is not here," he said.
The Muggletonian stumbled over a sheaf of oars, sending them to thefloor with a noise that in the utter stillness, and to their strainedears, sounded appalling.
"It's the darkness of Tophet," muttered Porringer. "If I could find hisflint and steel; there are pine knots, I know, in the corner--God inHeaven!"
"What is it? What is the matter?" cried Landless, as he staggeredagainst him.
"It's his face!" gasped the other. "There upon the table! I put my handupon it. It's cold!"
Landless rushed to the fireplace where he knew the tinder-box to bekept, and then groped for and found the heap of pine knots. A momentmore and the fat wood was burning brightly, casting its red lightthroughout the hut, and choking back the pale daylight.
The familiar room with its familiar furnishing of chest and settle andpallet, of hanging nets and piles of dingy sail, sprung into sight, butwith it sprung into sight something unfamiliar, strange, and dreadful.
It was the body of the mender of nets, flung face upwards across therude table, the head hanging over the edge, and the face, which but afew short hours before had looked upon Landless with such a bright andpatient serenity, blackened and distorted. Upon the throat were darkmarks, the print of ten murderous fingers.
With a bitter cry Landless fell upon his knees beside the table, andpressed his face against the cold hand flung backwards over the head ofthe murdered man. Porringer began to curse. With white lips and burningeyes he hurled anathemas at the murderer. He cursed him by the powersof light and darkness, by the earth, the sea, and the air; by all theplagues of the two Testaments. Landless broke the torrent of hismaledictions.
"Silence!" he said sternly. "_He_ would have forgiven." Presently herose from the ground, and taking the body in his arms, placed it uponthe pallet, and reverently composed the limbs. Then he turned to thefireplace. It was easy to see that the hiding place had been visited.The spring was broken, and the lid had been struck and jammed into placeby a powerful and hasty hand. Landless wrenched it off. Before him laythe pistols; but the gold and papers were gone. He turned to theMuggletonian, standing beside him with staring eyes.
"Listen!" he said. "There was gold here. The wretch whom we passed butnow knew of it--never mind how--and for it he has murdered the onlyfriend I had on earth. There will come a day when I will avenge him.There were papers here, lists with the signatures of Oliverians,Redemptioners, sailors,--of all classes concerned in this undertaking,save only the slaves and the convicts. There were letters from Marylandand New England, and a correspondence which would provide whipping-postand pillory for other Nonconformists than the Quakers. All these, the actualproofs of this conspiracy, are in his--that murderer's--hands,--where theymust not stay."
"What wilt thou do, friend?" said the Muggletonian eagerly. "Wilt thoutake the murderer aside in the gate to speak with him quietly, and smitehim under the fifth rib, as did Joab to Abner the son of Ner, who slewhis brother Asahel?"
"God forbid," said Landless. "But I will take them from him before heknows their contents. One moment, and we will go."
He crossed to the pallet and stood beside it, looking down on the shellthat lay upon it with a stern and quiet grief. One of the cold whitehands was clenched upon something. He stooped, and with difficultyunclasped the rigid fingers. The something was a ragged lock of coarsered hair.
"You see," he said.
"Ay," said the Muggletonian grimly. "It's evidence enough. There's butone man in this county with hair like that. Leave that lock where it is,and that dead man holds the rope that will hang his murderer."
"It shall be left where it is," said Landless, and reclosed the fingersupon it.
He took a piece of sail-cloth from the floor, and with it covered thedead man from sight. Next he turned to the hollow above the fireplace,and took from it the pistols, concealing them in his bosom. "I may needthem," he said. "Come."
They left the hut and its dead guardian, and rowed back through thesummer dawn. The sky was barred with crimson and gold, the fiery rim ofthe sun just lifting above the eastern waters, the mist, a bridal veilof silver and pearl drawn across the face of a virgin earth.
They rowed in silence until they neared the wharf, when Porringer said,"You are leader now."
The other raised his haggard eyes. "It is a trust. I will go throughwith it, God helping me. But I would I were lying dead beside him inyonder hut."
They left the boat at the wharf, and went towards the quarters. Meetingone of the blowzed and slatternly female servants, Landless asked wherethey might find the overseer. He had gone to the three-mile field halfan hour ago, after bestowing upon the two dilatory servants a heartycursing, and promising to reckon with them at dinner-time. "Where wasthe master?" He had gone to the mouth of the inlet with Sir CharlesCarew, who had grown impatient, and had sailed away under the Nancy'spatched sail. The under overseer was in the far corn-field, two milesoff.
"Are all the men in the fields, Barb?" asked Landless.
Barb informed him that they were, "as he might very well know, seeingthat the sun was half an hour high."
"Have you seen the man called Roach?"
No: Barb had not seen him; but she had heard the overseer tell LuizSebastian to take two men and go to the strip of Orenoko between theinlet and the third tobacco house, and Luiz Sebastian had been callingfor Roach and Trail.
Landless thanked her, and moved away without offering to bestow upon herthat which Barb probably thought her information merited.
"Do you find Woodson," he said to the Muggletonian, "and report thismurder, saying nothing, however, of what we know. I myself will go tothe tobacco house."
"Had I not
best come with thee to hold up thy hands?" said Porringer. "Iwould take up my text from the thirty-fifth of Numbers, and fromRevelation, twenty-second, thirteen, and deal mightily with themurderer."
"No," answered Landless. "Woodson must be seen at once, or we ourselveswill fall under suspicion. And, friend, ask that thou and I may be theones to bury _him_."
Prisoners of Hope: A Tale of Colonial Virginia Page 12
