CHAPTER XIII
IN THE TOBACCO HOUSE
The third tobacco house was built upon a point of land jutting into thelarger inlet, and screened off from the wide expanse of fields by a beltof cedars. It was a lonely, retired spot, and the high, dark, windowlessstructure with its heavy, low-browed door had a menacing aspect.Landless expected to find the men within the building, instead ofoutside attending to their work, and he was not disappointed. As hewalked through the doorway into the pungent gloom, the three started upfrom the debris of casks, sticks, and pegs, amidst which they had beensquatting, with their heads ominously close together.
Landless strode up to Roach. "You murderer!" he said.
The convict recoiled; then with a bestial sound, half snarl, half bellowof rage, he gathered himself for a rush. Landless awaited him with bentbody and sinewy, outstretched arms; but the mulatto interposed. Layinghis long, beautifully shaped, yellow hands upon Roach, he forced himback against a cask, and, pinning him there, whispered in his ear. Theface of the wretch gradually resumed its usual expression of lowbrutality, though an ugly sweat broke out upon it, and the mouth openedand shut as though he had been running. He turned upon Landless with ahalf threatening, half cringing air.
"So you've found out what I was about last night, eh, pardner? Butyou'll keep a still tongue. You're not one to peach on your comrade aswas in hell or Newgate with you, and as crossed the ocean with you tothis d--d Virginia, and as has always liked you, and has the same spiteas you have against the man what bought us. You say naught, comrade, andyou'll not stand to lose by it."
"I go from here to give you up to Colonel Verney," said Landless.
The wretch gave a snarl of rage and fear. Luiz Sebastian laid a soothinghand upon his shoulder.
"If I thought that," snarled the convict, "you'd never live to reachthat door."
"I shall live to see you hanged," said the other coolly.
Here the mulatto slipped something into Roach's hand. "So you'll give meup?" said the latter in a peculiar voice.
"I have said so."
"Then, by the Lord! I'll be even with you!" Roach cried with savagetriumph. "Do you see this, and this, and this?" fluttering a mass offolded papers before the other's eyes. "Ah! I was wise, I was, when Icouldn't hide everything about me, to take the papers, and leave theweapons. I've got you now. Here's the lists that the old fool who isdead and gone to hell had hidden behind the gold! Here's enough to hangyou and your d--d Cromwellians higher than Haman. There will be morethan one giving up, I'm thinking! I've got you under my thumb, and I'llsqueeze you!"
"You cannot read; you do not know what those papers contain," saidLandless steadily.
"But I can," put in Trail smoothly. "I was but just running them over toour friend whose education has been so sadly neglected, when you camein."
Landless drew a pistol from his bosom, cocked it, and leveled it at themurderer. "You see," he said with an ominously quiet eye and voice, "youwere not altogether wise to leave the weapons. Now, give me thoselists."
"Damnation!" cried the convict, and Luiz Sebastian glided towards thedoor.
Landless, quick of eye and active of body, saw the movement, and sprangbackwards to the opening before the other could reach it. He covered thethree with his pistol.
"I will shoot the first of you that stirs," he said sternly. "You,Roach, lay those papers upon that bit of board, and push them towards mewith your foot."
"I'll go to hell first," was the sullen reply.
"As you please. I will give you until I count twenty. If those papersare not in my hands, then I will shoot you like the dog you are."
The murderer uttered a dreadful curse. Landless began to count. Roachmade an irresolute motion of the hand that held the lists. Landlesscounted on, "fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen--" With another oathand a grin of rage Roach dropped the papers upon the board at his feet."Now push it towards me," said Landless.
With a brow like midnight the other did as he was bid. Still coveringhis men, Landless stooped quickly, and took up the precious papers,assured himself that they were all there, and placed them in his bosom.
"Now," he said, leaning his back against the doorpost, and regardingthe three baffled rogues with a grim eye, "I have a few words to say toyou. I speak first to you, Trail, and to you, Luiz Sebastian. Thesepapers have told you little that you did not know before. It was not theinformation that you gained from them that made them so valuable; it wasthe possession of them, the possession of actual proofs of thisconspiracy which you might hold over our heads, or, if the notion tookyou, might sell to Colonel Verney?"
"Senor Landless sees the thing as it is," said Luiz Sebastian.
"Well, you no longer possess these proofs, and are therefore just whereyou were yesterday."
"Listen, Senor Landless," said Luiz Sebastian gloomily. "This plot doesnot please us. It is too much in the hands of those who call themselvessoldiers and martyrs, whom our master calls fanatic Oliverians, and whomI, Luiz Sebastian, call accursed heretics. The servants have no say inthe matter; they are to follow like sheep where these others lead. Theslaves are not even to know of it until the last moment. A handful of uswho have white blood in our veins are let into the secret, that we mayincite the blacks when the time is come; but are we consulted? Are ouropinions asked, our wishes deferred to? I, Luiz Sebastian, who have beenthrough three insurrections in the Indies, and who know how such thingsshould be managed; has my advice been craved as to this or that? Youmake us promises. Mother of God! how do we know that those promises willbe kept? By St. Jago! the insurrection may arrive, and the planters beput down, and next year may find us slaves still, with but a change ofmasters!"
"It is too late now for such questions," said Landless steadily. "Youmust accept the conspiracy as it is. In liberating themselves, these menwill of necessity free you even as they will free me, who am not, as youknow, of their class. I shall take my chance, as I think you will takeyours."
The mulatto played with a tobacco peg, striking it against his great,white teeth. At length he said slowly and with a sinister upward glanceat the figure by the door, "Certainly, Senor Landless, it seems ourbest, our only chance, for freedom."
And with this Landless had perforce to be content. He turned to themurderer, saying sternly, "Now for my word with you. I hold your life inmy hands, for I heard you last night in the marsh, and Porringer and Isaw you stealing from the creek this morning, and I can swear that youknew of the gold hidden in the hut. You have it on you at this moment. Icould hold you here with this pistol until the overseer should come andsearch you. But I let you go, choosing rather your safety than theendangerment of that which was dearer than life to the man you murdered.The unsupported assertion of a murderer as to the contents of paperswhich he had not got to show, might not go for much, but I prefer thatyou should not make it. I have warned you;--you had best make yourescape at once."
"If you hold your tongue, there's no reason why I should run."
"Oh, yes, there is! There is a reason in the hut on the marsh."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that clasped in the hand of the man you murdered is the missinghalf of that torn lock upon your forehead."
With a yell Roach sprang to the door only to be confronted by the muzzleof Landless' pistol.
"Wait a moment," he said composedly. "Oh, you need not be afraid! Iintend to let you go. But you don't leave this tobacco house until afterI have left it myself."
"Curse you!" cried the other, foaming at the lips.
"You are ungrateful. I not only promise not to witness against you, butI aid you to escape."
"For reasons of your own," suggested Trail.
"Precisely; for reasons of my own. If you are taken, I will hold mytongue just so long as you hold yours. If you escape now, I will praythat my day of reckoning will yet come. And it will be a heavyreckoning."
"Ay, that it will!" cried the murderer with brutal fury. "You've got theupper hand now; but wait! Ev
ery dog has his day, and I'll have mine! andwhen it comes, I'll do for you! I'll smash your beauty! I'll draw moreblood from you than ever the whip of the overseer did! I'll use youworse than I used that old man last night, who writhed and struggled,and tried to pray! I'll--"
With white lips and blazing eyes Landless sprang forward, and clappedthe mouth of the pistol to the ruffian's temple. Roach recoiled, thensunk upon his knees with an abject whine for mercy.
Landless let his hand drop, and moved slowly back to the door. "You hadneed to cry for mercy," he said in a low, distinct voice, "for you werenever so near to death before. I let you go now, but one day I shallkill you. Until which day--take care of yourself!" Still with his faceupon them he passed out of the door, then turned and walked away with asteady step, but with a heart bleeding for the loss of his friend, andheavy with forebodings for the future.
In the tobacco house the murderer, the forger, and the mulatto satstricken into silence until the last crisp footfall had died away. Thenamidst a torrent of curses Roach made for the door. Trail plucked himback. "Where are you going?" he cried.
"I don't know! To the devil!"
"The bloodhounds will be upon your trail before noon."
The wretch cried out and struck his hand against the wall with a forcethat laid the knuckles bare and bleeding.
"There is a way," said Luiz Sebastian slowly, "a way that only I know.You must take to the inlet here, and swim up it until you come to themouth of the brook yonder in the forest. You must wade up that brookuntil you come to a second, and up that until you come to a third. Whenyou have gone a mile up that one, leave it, and strike through thewoods, going towards the north. Another mile will bring you to a villageof the Chickahominies upon the Pamunkey.[1] They are at odds withGovernor and Council, and they will hide you. Moreover, I once did theirsachem a service, and they are my friends."
"I'm off," said Roach, breaking from the detaining grasp.
"Wait," said Luiz Sebastian. "There is time enough. Woodson will notcome for a long while. When he does, he shall find Senor Trail andmyself busily at work there outside, and we will say that you left us,and went down the inlet a long time before. But now we want to talk toyou."
"Be quick then," growled the other, "I've no mind to swing for thisjob."
Luiz Sebastian brought his handsomely malevolent face close to theother's hideous countenance.
"Would you not like to ruin that devil who but now robbed you of yourhard-earned property?"
"Would I not?" cried the murderer with a tremendous oath. "I'd giveeverything but life and gold to do it, as that cunning devil well knew.I'd give my soul!"
"Would you like to be shown how to get more gold than old Godwyn'sstore, twenty times told? To get your freedom? To have some black, sweethours in which to work your will on them at the house yonder? To plungeyour arms to the elbow in the master's money chest; to become drunkenwith his wine; to strike him down, and that smiling imp his cousin, andthat other devil, Woodson; to hear the women cry for mercy--and cry invain? You would like all this?"
"Show me the way!" cried the brute with a ferocious light in hisbloodshot eyes. "Show me the way to do it safely, and I'll--" He brokeoff and threatened the air with malignant fists.
"Go to the village on the Pamunkey," said Luiz Sebastian with his mostfeline expression. "I will come to you there the first night I can slipaway, I and our friend, the Senor Trail. There we will have our littleconference. Mother of God! Senor Landless may find that others can plotas well as he and his accursed heretics."
[Footnote 1: The modern York.]
Prisoners of Hope: A Tale of Colonial Virginia Page 13
