CHAPTER XVIII
A CAPTURE
At noon the next day returned the search party, dispatched by theColonel on receipt of his daughter's information, and headed by Woodsonand Sir Charles Carew. In their midst, bound with ropes, and seatedbehind one of the mounted men, was Roach. His clothing hung from him intatters, and witnessed, moreover, to the quagmires and mantled poolsthrough which he had struggled; his arm had been injured, and was tiedwith a bloody rag; blood was caked upon his villainous face, scratchedand torn in his breathless bursting through thickets; his red hair fellover his eyes in matted elf-locks; his lips were drawn back in a snarlover discolored fangs; he panted like a dog, his thick red tonguehanging out. He looked hardly human. The man behind whom he rode wasLuiz Sebastian.
The party dismounted in the small square, in the midst of the quarters.It being the noon rest, the entire servant population was on hand, andleaving its cabins and smoking messes of bacon and succotash, ithastened to a man to the square, where, beneath the dead tree and itssinister appendage, stood the master, listening to Woodson's account ofthe capture, and to Sir Charles's airy interpolations. Roach, draggedfrom the horse by a dozen officious hands, staggered with exhaustion.Luiz Sebastian caught him by the arm and so held him during the ensuinginterview.
When the unusual bustle, the neighing of the horses, and the excitedvoices of the crowd brought the news of the capture to Landless,sitting, sunk in anxious thought, within his cabin, he rose and began topace to and fro in the narrow room. Past his door hurried men, women,and children on their way to the square. One or two beckoned him tofollow, but he shook his head. "If he betray me," he thought, "my fatewill come to me soon enough. I will not go to meet it."
In his restless pacing to and fro, he stopped before a shelf where,beside some coarse eating utensils and the heap of tobacco pegs, thecutting of which occupied his spare moments, lay a little worn book. Ithad been Godwyn's. He opened it at random, and read a few verses. With aheavy sigh he laid his arm along the shelf and rested his burningforehead upon it. "'Let not your heart be troubled,'" he said beneathhis breath; and again, "'Let not your heart be troubled.'" Herecommenced his pacing up and down the room. "'Peace I leave with you,My peace I give unto you.'" Going to the doorway, he leaned against itand looked out into a world of sunshine, and up to where the topmostbranches of a pine slept against the blue. "There may be peace beyond,"he said. "I have not found it here."
Down the lane came a murmur of voices; then the overseer's harsh tones;then a light and mocking laugh. Seized by an uncontrollable impulse heleft the cabin and directed his steps towards the square. As he passed acabin some doors from his own, a gaunt figure arose from the doorstepand joined itself to him.
"The murderer is here," said the sepulchral voice of Master Win-GracePorringer. "Verily the blood hath been taken out of his mouth, and hisabominations from between his teeth. Cursed be the shedder of innocentblood!"
"Amen," said Landless; then, "This capture is like to be our ruin. Thiswretch will not keep silence."
"But he has no proofs. Since you destroyed those lists there exists nota scrap of writing about this affair. And we have covered our tracks ascarefully as if we were the cursed heathen of the land upon thewarpath. Let him say what he will. The Malignants, besotted fools! willthink he lies to save his neck."
"A week ago they might have thought so," said Landless. "But not now.Something has gotten abroad. Already Governor and Council think theysmell a plot."
The Muggletonian caught his breath. "How do you know this?"
"No matter how: I know it."
Porringer raised his scarred face to heaven. "God," he said, "we are thypeople! Save us! Let destruction come upon them unawares; let them godown a dark and slippery way to death; make them to be as blind and deafadders that see not the foot of the destroyer! Yea, shake thy hand uponthese Malignants and make them a spoil to their servants!" He turned hisghastly face and burning eyes upon Landless. "Curse them with me!" hecried.
Landless shook his head. "Thou, and I look not alike at things, friend,"he said.
"Thou art a Laodicean!" cried the other wildly. "Thou hast not an eyesingle to the Lord's work as had thy father before thee. Thou wouldstnot smite the Amalekites hip and thigh, root and branch! One damselwould thou save alive, and for her sake thy heart is soft towards thewhole accursed brood! Look to it lest the Lord spew thee out of Hismouth! Woe, woe, to him that putteth his hand to the plough and lookethback!" He laughed wildly and tossed out his arms.
"I think thou hast eaten of the Jamestown weed!" said Landless fiercely."Collect thy senses, man! And speak something less loudly, or Roach'sbetrayal will be superfluous. As to myself, if I curse not, I act; andas for my motives for what you call luke-warmness, and I call commonhumanity, you will please to let them alone!"
The excitement faded from the fanatic's face, and he said more quietly,"You are right, friend. I was mad for a moment, mad to see that freedomwhich is so near us so imperiled. I meant not to quarrel with you whohave shown in the conduct of this work the discernment of a youngDaniel, yea, who have so borne yourself, that I have grown to care foryou as I never thought to care again for human being. I have prayed muchthat you should be brought from the twilight of Calvinism into the purelight wherein walk the disciples of the blessed Ludovick."
They reached the square and mingled with the motly crowd that lined itssides, leaving the centre occupied only by the murderer, his captors,and the master. Followed by the Muggletonian, Landless made his way towhere the yellow locks of young Dick Whittington towered above thecrowd. The boy saw him coming, and edging past a knot of blacks, methim in a little open space, whose only occupants were two or threewomen, and an Indian squatting upon the ground. Leaning against a pine,and fixing his gaze and, to all appearance, his attention upon thecentral group where the overseer was just finishing a circumstantialaccount of the chase, Landless said quietly:--
"You were of the party that took him?"
"That I was!" answered the boy gleefully. "Losh! but it was fun!" Hisblue eyes danced with impish delight; a noiseless laugh showed all hisstrong white teeth. "We went straight to the spot where you and MistressPatricia saw him by the lightning. There the dogs struck his trail andthe fun commenced. Over streams and fallen trees, and chinquepin ridges;through bogs and myrtle thickets and miles of grape vines--swounds! butit was hot work! Just look at the scratches on my face and hands! JoyceWhitbread wouldn't know me! The Court spark, he wore a mask and savedhis beauty. He's a well-plucked one, though, took the lead and kept it,and when it was over, treated us to usquebaugh at Luckey Doughty'sstore. Well, we run the fox to earth in a Chickahominy village. Lord!I'm sorry for the half king of the Chickahominies! He'll have to answerto Governor and Council for letting red fox burrow in his village. Foundhim squatted in a sassafras patch. Snarled and fought and tried to bitelike the beast he is. Woodson and the Court spark took him."
"Do you know what will be done with him now?"
"He'll be taken on to the gaol at the court-house."
"That is five miles from here," said Landless.
"Yes, near to the village where we took him. He'll be kept there untilthey can try him. And they'll make short work of him. He'll be food forcrows directly."
The throng pressed upon them, forcing them nearer to the group beneaththe dead tree. The overseer had finished his account, and the master wasclearing his throat to speak. Landless found himself upon the innerverge of the mass of spectators, directly opposite the murderer, andconfronted by him with a look so dark, wild and malignant, that he couldnot doubt the intention that lay behind those scowling eyes. LuizSebastian, still with the murderer's arm in his grasp, gave him apeculiar look which he could not translate. In the background he sawTrail's sinister face peering over the shoulder of an Indian.
"You dog!" said the planter, addressing himself directly to Roach. "Whathave you to say for yourself?"
The murderer made an uncertain sound with his dry lips, and hisblo
odshot eyes roamed around the circle from one staring face toanother, until they returned to rest upon the watchful, amber-huedcountenance beside him.
"Speak!" said his master sternly.
"I'll say nothing," was the dogged reply, "until I stands my trial. Idemands a fair trial."
"Remember that this is your last chance to speak to me, to speak to anyone in authority before you are tried. Of course you will hang for this.Have you anything to say? Do you wish to speak to me in private?"
The murderer raised his head, and shaking the tangled hair from abouthis face, cast at Landless, standing ten paces beyond the planter, sucha look of deadly and blasting hatred, that for a moment the blood rancold in the young man's veins. He set his teeth and braced himself tomeet the blow at plans and hopes and life that should follow such alook.
To his astonishment the blow did not fall. Roach changed the basiliskgaze with which he had regarded him to a vacant stare.
"I've naught to say," he whined, "except that I hopes your honor willsee that I has a fair trial--no d--d Tyburn or Newgate hocus-pocussing."
The master beckoned to the overseer. "Take him away," he said. "Take twoor three men and carry him on to the gaol."
He turned on his heel and walked to where Sir Charles Carew leanedagainst a tree, idly flicking the mud from his boots with his ridingcane. Landless standing near and listening with strained ears heard themaster say in answer to the other's lifted brows:--
"Nothing to be learnt in that quarter. If there's rebellion brewing, heknows nothing of it."
Fresh horses were brought from the stables. "You, Luiz Sebastian,Taylor, and Mathew," said the overseer, swinging himself into thesaddle. The men designated mounted, and Roach, bound and scowling, washoisted to his former seat behind Luiz Sebastian. The cavalcade started.As the horse that bore the double load passed Landless, the murderertwisted himself about in his seat, and, with a venomous look, spat athim. Luiz Sebastian smiled evilly.
The shaven head and fleshless face of Win-Grace Porringer protrudedthemselves over Landless's shoulder.
"What does it mean?" he muttered.
"God knows," answered the other. "Come to the trysting place to-night.We must act, and act quickly."
That night ten men met in the deserted hut on the marsh, having stolenwith the caution of Indians from their respective plantations. Five weremen who had fought at Edgehill and Naseby and Worcester, or had followedCromwell through the breach at Drogheda. Four were victims of the Act ofUniformity; darker, sterner, more determined if possible, than theveterans of the New Model. The tenth man was Landless. When, late atnight, he and Porringer crept stealthily back to the quarters, it waswith the conviction that this was the last time they should so stealthrough the darkness. The date of the rising had been fixed for thethirteenth of September; this night, by Landless's advice, it wasbrought forward to the tenth--and it was now the sixth.
Groping his way past the slumbering forms of the three other occupantsof his cabin, Landless threw himself down upon his pallet with a heavysigh.
"Liberty!" he said beneath his breath. "Goddess, whom I and mine havesought through long years, whom once we thought we held, and waked tofind thee gone,--once I thought thee fairer than aught beside; thoughtno price too great to pay for thee. But now!"
He hid his face in his hands with a stifled groan. When at length hefell into a troubled sleep, it was to see again a storm-tossed boat, anda woman's face, set like a star against the blackness of the night.
Prisoners of Hope: A Tale of Colonial Virginia Page 18
