Prisoners of Hope: A Tale of Colonial Virginia

by Mary Johnston

  CHAPTER XXV

  THE ROAD TO PARADISE

  The family and guests of Verney Manor were assembled in the great room.The day had been one of confusion, haste and anxiety; but it was past,and the stillness and forced inaction of the night was upon them. Withthe readiness of those to whom danger is no novelty they seized the hourand made the most of it. Sufficient unto the morrow was the evilthereof.

  The Colonel, weary from hard riding, but well satisfied with hisafternoon's work, had sunk into a great chair and challenged Dr. AnthonyNash to a game of chess. "Everything is in train," he told them, "andall quiet upon the plantations in this shire at least. I believe thedanger past. God be thanked!" Upon a settle piled with cushions layCaptain Laramore, with a bandaged shoulder, a long pipe between histeeth, and at his elbow a tankard of sack and an elderly Hebe in theperson of Mistress Lettice Verney. Patricia, sumptuously clad andbeautiful as a dream, sat in the great window with Betty and SirCharles. Her eyes shone with a feverish brilliancy, her white hands werenever still, she laughed and jested with her lover, touching this orthat with light wit. Once or twice she broke into song, rich,passionate, throbbing through the night. The gentle Betty looked at herin wonder, but Sir Charles was enchanted.

  Steps sounded on the stairs and in the hall. "Who is that?" cried themaster, taking his hand from his rook.

  "The overseer, probably," said Dr. Nash. "Check to your king."

  A loud scream from Mistress Lettice. The master leaped to his feet,knocking over the chess-table and sending the pieces rattling intocorners. Sir Charles, drawing his rapier, sprang to his side, thewounded Captain started up from amidst his pillows and the divinesnatched a brass andiron from the fireplace.

  Framed in the doorway, looking larger than life against the blackness ofthe space behind him, stood the arch plotter, the Roundhead, theconvict, the rebellious servant whom the Governor had sworn to hang.Blood dropped from his face, cut by the glass with which he had severedthe rope, to meet the blood upon his arms and chest, lacerated by hissavage straining at his bonds. For a moment he stood, blinded by thelight, then advanced into the room. His master seized him. "Stillbound!" he cried with an oath. "He is alone then! How did you get here?What are you doing here? Speak, scoundrel!"

  "I bring you this paper, sir," said Landless hoarsely. "Will you take itfrom me. I cannot raise my hands."

  The Colonel snatched the paper, glanced at it, read it with a face fromwhich all the ruddy color had fled, and held it out to Sir Charles witha shaking hand. "Read it," he gasped. "Read it aloud," and sank into hischair breathing heavily.

  Sir Charles read. "Damnation!" he cried, crushing the paper in his hand.Laramore started up with a roar of "My ship!" and then broke into atorrent of oaths. Mistress Lettice's screams filled the room until herbrother roughly silenced her by clapping his hand over her mouth. "Bythe Lord Harry, Lettice, I will throw you out to them if you do nothush! Gentlemen, in God's name, what are we to do?"

  "Barricade door and window and hold the house against them," said thebaronet.

  "Send for help to Rosemead and to Fitzhugh and Ludwell!" cried thedivine.

  "Five men and three women to hold this house against a hundred Indiansand negroes! And no help could come for hours and it is now nearly ten!Moreover, the messenger would have to pass through the savages lying inthe woods,--he would never reach Rosemead with his scalp on!"

  "I will be your messenger," said Nash rising, "and as every moment ismore precious than rubies, I had best start at once."

  "You, Anthony! God forbid!" cried the Colonel "You would go to certaindeath."

  "I would stay to certain death, would I not?" retorted the other. "Butmy mare, Pixie, and I can shew clean heels to the red villains, werethey as thick as chinquepins. Give me the stable-key, Verney. I know theway to the jade's stall, and she will follow her master through fire andwater without a whinny. I don't want a light. Not a soul on the placemust know that I have left Verney Manor."

  "Anthony, Anthony, I am loth to see you go, old friend!" cried theColonel.

  "Tut, tut, as well leave my scalp in the woods as in Dick Verney'sparlor! but I shall do neither. Hold the house as long as you can, andlook for Carrington, and Fitzhugh, and Ludwell, and myself with ahundred men at our heels before the dawn. Until then _vale_."

  He was gone. "And now the doors and windows," said Sir Charles.

  "The windows, save those in this room, are secured as they always are atnight. The shutters are heavy and strongly barred, and we have but todraw the chains across the doors. They will find it hard work to firethe house, for the logs are wet from this morning's shower. There isammunition enough, and the shutters are loopholed. If we were in force,we might hold out, but, my God! what can we do? Even with the overseerswhom we must manage to call to us, if we can do so without arousingsuspicion, we are not enough to defend one face of the house."

  "Are there no honest servants?"

  "How can I tell the true men from the knaves? To rouse the quarterswould be to show that we know, and to ourselves spring the mine which isto destroy us. And if we brought men into the house, who are leaguedwith the fiends outside, then would their work be done for them. Thereare a very few whom I know to be faithful, but how to secure themwithout giving the alarm--my God! how helpless we are!"

  "Perhaps I can help you, Colonel Verney," said Landless.

  In the midst of a dead silence the eyes of each occupant of theroom,--the master, the courtier, the wounded captain, the women,trembling in each other's arms,--were turned upon the speaker who stoodbefore them, haggard, torn and bleeding, but with a quiet power in hisdark face and steadfast eyes.

  "You?" said the master sternly, "What can you do?"

  "I will tell you," said Landless, "but I must be freed from these bondsfirst."

  Another pause, and then Sir Charles, responding to a nod from hiskinsman, walked over to Landless, and with his rapier cut the ropeswhich bound him.

  "Now speak!" said the Colonel.

  * * * * * *

  The quarters lay, to all appearance, wrapt in the profoundestslumber--no movement in the low-browed cabins, or in the lane or square;no sound other than the croak of the frogs in the marshes, the wail ofthe whip-poor-wills, and the sighing of the night wind in the pines. Allwas dark save in the east, where the low stars were beginning to pale.Below them glowed a dull red spark, shining dimly across a long expanseof black marsh and water, and coming from Captain Laramore's ship,anchored off the Point.

  One moment it seemed the only light in the wide landscape of darkness;the next the flame of a torch, streaming sidewise in the wind, cast anorange glare upon the dead tree in the centre of the square and upon thewindowless fronts of the cabins surrounding it. The torch was in thehand of the overseer, who went the rounds, striking upon each door, andsummoning the inmates of the cabin to the square. "The master wants aword with you," was all the answer he vouchsafed to startled, sullen, orsuspicious inquiries. In five minutes the square was thronged. White andblack, servant and slave, rustic, convict, Jew, Turk, Indian, mulatto,quadroon, coal black, untamed African--the motley crowd pressed andjostled towards that end of the square at which stood the master, hiskinsman, the overseer, and Godfrey Landless. Behind them on the steps ofthe overseer's house were the Muggletonian, Havisham, and Trail. Theyhad been unbound. In the Muggletonian's scarred face was stolidindifference, but Trail looked furtively about until he spied LuizSebastian, when he signaled "What is it?" with his eyes. The mulattoshook his head, and continued to shoulder his way through the pressuntil he stood in the front row, face to face with the party from thegreat house. On one side of him was the Turk, on the other an Indian.

  The master stepped a pace or two in front of his companions, and held uphis hand for silence. When the excited muttering had sunk into abreathless hush, he beckoned to Landless, and the young man stepped tohis side. There were many streaming lights by now, and men saw eachother, now clearly, now darkly, as the fit
ful glare rose and fell.

  "Now, my man," said the master in a loud, slow voice, "you will pointout to me, as you have agreed to do, every man concerned in the plotdiscovered this morning. And you whom he designates, I command you, inthe name of the King, to surrender peaceably. Your hope of pardondepends upon your doing so. Now, Landless!"

  "John Havisham," said Landless.

  "Taken redhanded," quoth the master. "Place him here, Woodson, in frontof us. When all are in line, I shall have a word to say to them."

  Havisham advanced with quiet dignity, passing Landless as if unaware ofhis presence. "I surrender," he said, raising his voice, "because I haveno choice. And I advise those of our number here present to do the same.Our plans known, our friends taken, betrayed and deserted by the man inwhom we trusted most, whom we called our leader, we have, indeed, nochoice."

  "Win-Grace Porringer," said Landless.

  The Muggletonian threw up his arms. "Iscariot!" he cried wildly. "Woe,woe to him by whom offenses come! Well for thee, son of Warham Landless,hadst thou never been born! By the power given to the Two Witnesses andto their followers I curse thee! Thou shalt be anathema maranatha!Famine, thirst, and a violent death be thy portion in this life, and inthe world to come mayest thou burn forever, howling! Amen and amen!"With a wild laugh he stalked to the side of Havisham, leaving Trailstanding alone upon the doorstep. The eyes of the forger met the eyes ofLuiz Sebastian in another puzzled inquiry, but the latter shook his headwith a frown. Not doubting that his name would be the next called, Trailhad already taken a step forward, but Landless's eyes passed him over,and rested upon the face of a man standing near Luiz Sebastian.

  "John Robert!" he cried.

  The man, a Baptist preacher suffering under the Act of Uniformity,turned a gentle, reproachful face upon him, and stepping from the crowd,joined himself to Havisham and the Muggletonian.

  "James Holt!" said Landless.

  A rustic, standing behind Luiz Sebastian, uttered a dreadfulimprecation. "You may hang me and welcome, your Honor," he cried as hetook his place, "if you'll just let me see this d--d Judas hungfirst!"

  Luiz Sebastian fixed his great eyes upon Landless. "If he calls myname," said the wicked brain behind the blandly smiling face, "shall I,or shall I not--? It is many minutes to moonrise yet."

  But Landless did not call him. He passed him by as he had passed Trail,and named another rustic at some little distance from the mulatto, thena Fifth Monarchy man, then a veteran of Cromwell's, then the plantationmiller and the carpenter, then two more Oliverians, then more peasants.Each man, as his name was called, stepped forward into the lengtheningline that faced the master and his party, standing with pistols leveledand cocked; and each man bestowed upon Godfrey Landless a curse, or alook that was bitterer than a curse.

  "Humfrey Elder!" called Landless.

  The old butler shot from out the crowd, as though impelled from acatapult. "Your Honor!" he screamed, "the man as says _I_ plot against aVerney, lies! I that fought with your Honor at Naseby! I that youbrought from home with you when Mistress Patricia was a baby, and thathas poured your wine from that day to this! I plot with theserapscallions and Roundheads! Your Honor, he lies in his throat!"

  "Fall into line, Humfrey," said his master quietly; "I will hear you outlater, but now, obey me."

  The watchful eyes of Luiz Sebastian were growing very watchful indeed.

  "Regulus!" cried Landless.

  Under cover of a burst of protestation from Regulus, the Turk whisperedto the mulatto, "By Allah! this is the slave you would not approach! Yousaid he would die for his master."

  "He is not of them," returned the other. "St. Jago! if I understand it!But what can it matter? The moon will rise in less than an hour."

  "Dick Whittington!" cried Landless.

  There was a moment's silence, broken by the mulatto, who had stepped outof line, and now stood facing the party from the great house. "I grieveto say, senors," he said in his silkiest tone, "that the poor Dick wasbut now taken with the fever, and lies in a stupor within his cabin.To-morrow, perhaps, he will be better, and will answer when you call."

  "That is your cabin, just beyond you there, is it not?" demandedLandless.

  "Assuredly," with a quick glance. "And what then?"

  Landless raised his voice to a shout. "Dick Whittngton!"

  "Mother of God! what do you mean?" exclaimed the mulatto. "Your voicecannot reach him, deaf and dumb from the fever, lying in his cabin atthe far end of the lane."

  "Dick Whittington!" again loudly called Landless.

  A cry arose from the crowd behind the mulatto and between him and hiscabin. The next instant there broke through them the figure, bound andgagged, of young Dick Whittington. As he rushed past the mulatto, thelatter, with a snarl of fury, grappled with him, but animated with thestrength of despair, the boy, bound as he was, broke from him and rushedto Landless, at whose feet he dropped in a dead faint. Upon the crowdfell a silence so intense that nature herself seemed to have ceased tobreathe. Luiz Sebastian, darting glances here, there, and everywhere,from eyes in which doubt was last growing into certainty, came uponsomething which told its own tale. The women's cabins were at somedistance from the square, and nearer to the great house, and from theone to the other was passing a hurried line of women and children withthe under overseer at their head.

  With the sight vanished the last remnant of doubt from the mind of themulatto.... Landless saw that he saw; saw the intention with which heslipped out of range of the pistols; saw the wicked light in his face;saw him beckon to the Indian and point to the forest; saw the glisteningand rolling eyeballs and the working lips of the throng of slaves whohad by imperceptible degrees separated from the whites, and were nowmassing together at one side of the square; saw the Turk with a knife inhis hand; saw Trail edging away from the group before the overseer'scabin--and sprang forward, his powerful figure instinct withdetermination, the set calm of the face with which he had met Havisham'squiet disdain and the imprecations of the other conspirators, broken upinto fire and passion, high and resolved. Blood was upon it still, andupon his arms and half naked breast; his eyes burned; and as he threw uphis arm in a gesture of command, he looked the very genius of war, andhe seized and held every eye and ear.

  "Men!" he cried, addressing himself to the line he had called intobeing. "Havisham, Arnold, Allen, Braxton! we fought in the same causeonce, fought for God and the Commonwealth! To-night we will fight again,and together; fight for our lives and for the honor of women! Comrades,I am no traitor! I have not sold you! You have cursed me without cause.Listen! Colonel Verney, will you repeat the oath you swore to me an hourago?"

  The master stepped to his side. "I swear," he cried, in his loud, manlyvoice, "by the faith of a Christian, by the honor of a gentleman, thatnot one of you whose names have been given by this man, shall in anyway suffer by having been privy to this plot. I will so work with theGovernor and Council that your bodies shall not be touched, nor yourtime of service increased. Bygones shall be bygones between us. Thisapplies to all save this man, the head and front of the conspiracy. HimI cannot save. He must pay the penalty, but he shall be the scapegoatfor the rest of you. You have my promise, the promise of a man who neverbreaks his word for good or evil."

  "In the woods yonder are Indians," cried Landless. "They wait but formoonrise, for the appointed hour, to fall upon the plantation. Youcalled me traitor! It is Luiz Sebastian and Trail who are the traitors,the betrayers! They are leagued with the Indians and with the slaves.Look at them, and see that I speak truth!"

  The look was sufficient. The dusky mass of slaves had swayed forwardwith one low, deep, bestial growl. Crouched for the spring, they wereyet held in leash by the menace of the pistols, leveled upon them andgleaming in the torchlight, and by the restraining gesture and voice ofLuiz Sebastian. In the crowd of servants, now quite separated from theslaves, was noise and confusion, and behind the Turk, standing midwaybetween the parties, was forming a phalanx of villainous
whitefaces--the dissolute, the convict, the refuse of the plantation,--and athis side, suddenly as though sprung from the earth, appeared the evilface and red hair of the murderer of Robert Godwyn.

  The silence of the Oliverians, stricken dumb by this new turn ofaffairs, was broken by Havisham's crying to Landless,--

  "What are we to do, friend?"

  "Make for the house and defend it and our lives," answered Landless,"but first I call upon all true men among you yonder to leave thosemurderers and join yourselves to us."

  "In the name of the King!" cried the Colonel.

  "In the name of God!" said Landless.

  Some seven or eight broke from the opposite throng and with loweredheads ran to them across the open space. Landless stooped, and liftingthe senseless figure at his feet swung it over his shoulder.

  "We are ready, Colonel Verney. Steady, men! Follow me!" He turned to thegreat house, rising vast and dark, two hundred yards away.

  A gigantic, coal black Ashantee chief broke from the throng oppositeand, uttering his war cry, bounded across the space between them.Another instant and he would have been upon them, and close after him ayelling pack of hell hounds--the overseer's pistol cracked, and theblack giant fell dead. A yell arose from the crowd, but they stoodirresolute. For firearms, so strictly kept from servants and slaves, sopreeminently pertaining to the dominant class, they had a superstitiousdread. Four pistols meant four lives picked from the foremost toadvance.

  "Let them go," cried the mulatto, with a taunting laugh. "Let them go!Let them go cage themselves in wooden walls where we will take them alltogether--rats in a trap. We will wait for the Chickahominies who haveguns, senors, and for the Ricahecrians whose scalping knives are verybright. Until moonrise, senors from the great house, and you others whogo with them! Mother of God! look well upon it, for it is the last youwill ever see!"

  Fifteen minutes later saw the house of Verney Manor garrisoned by somethirty desperate men. They had entered to find a scene of confusion--thehall and lower rooms filled with frightened women and crying children.Patricia with white cheeks and brilliant eyes had come forward to meether father, carrying a three days' child in her arms. Beyond her wasBetty, bending her sweet, pale face over the mother, caught up from herpallet and carried to the house in the arms of the under overseer.Mistress Lettice was alternately wailing that they were all undone andmurdered, and wringing her hands over the obstinacy of Captain Laramorewho, rapier in left hand, would stand guard at the door, instead ofkeeping quiet as the Doctor had said he must. The master's stern commandfor silence reduced the clamor of women and children to an undertone oflamentation. "We must to work at once," he said, "and apportion ourforces. There are about thirty men, are there not, Woodson? I shall takethe front with ten; Charles, thou shalt have one side, Woodson theother, and Haines the back. Laramore, thou must let us fight for thee,man, though I know thou findest it a bitter pill. Do you marshal themen, Woodson, and divide them into four parties, one for each face, andtell the women to leave off their whimpering and prepare to load themuskets. Haines, have the arms taken down from the racks and distributethem. Men and women, one and all, you are to remember that you arefighting for your lives and for more than your lives. You know what youhave to expect if you are taken."

  Sir Charles, followed by Landless, the Muggletonian and some three orfour others, entered the great room, which, with the master's room,occupied that side of the house allotted to the baronet. The waxcandles still burned upon the spinet, and upon the high mantel, and inthe middle of the floor lay the overturned chess table. Three of thefour windows were closely shuttered, but the fourth was open, and beforeit stood a graceful figure, looking out into the darkness.

  Sir Charles strode hurriedly over to it. "Cousin! this is madness! Youknow not to what danger you may be exposing yourself. Come away!"

  "I am watching for the moonrise," she said dreamily. "It is very nearnow. Look at the white glow above the water, and how pale the stars are!How beautiful it is, and how cool the wind upon your forehead! Listen!that was the cry of a jay, surely! and yet why should we hear it atnight?"

  "It is the cry of a jay, sure enough," said the overseer, pausing in hishurried passage through the room, "but it was made by Indian lips."

  "Come away, for God's sake!" cried the baronet.

  "Look! there is the moon!" she answered.

  Above the level of marsh and water appeared a thin line of silver. Itthickened, rounded, became a glorious orb. The marshes blanched fromblack to gray, and across the water, from the dim land to the greatsilver globe, stretched a long, bright, shimmering path.

  A knot of women appeared in the doorway, laden with powder-flasks andplatters filled with bullets. One, with only a stick wound with fadedflowers in her hand, left them and glided to the open window.

  "Margery!" said Patricia softly.

  The mad woman, pressing in front of her mistress, looked out into thenight and saw the white shining road cutting through the darkness andstretching endlessly away. She threw up her arms with a cry of rapture.

  "The road to Paradise! the road to Paradise!"

  An arrow whistled through the window and struck into her bosom--into herheart--the staff dropped from her hand, and she swayed forward and fellat her mistress's feet.

  The night, so placid, still and beautiful, was rent and in an instantmade hideous by a sound so long, loud, and dreadful, that it might havebeen the shriek of a legion of exultant fiends. It rose to the stars,sunk to the earth and rose again, unearthly, menacing, curdling theblood and turning the heart to stone.

  "The war-whoop," said Woodson. "Close the window, quick."