CHAPTER XXVIII
BREAD CAST UPON THE WATERS
Great trees, drooping from the banks of the Pamunkey, shadowed into inkyblackness the water below them; but between the lines of darkness slepta charmed sheet, glassy, fiery red from the sunken sun. Three boatsmoved silently and swiftly up the crimson stream, until, rounding a lowpoint, they came upon an Indian village, nestling amidst vines andmulberries, and girt with a green ribbon of late maize, when they swunground from the middle stream and made for the bank. They were rowed bystalwart servants, and in the foremost sat the master of Verney Manorand Sir Charles Carew. In the second boat was the Surveyor-General andDr. Anthony Nash, and in the third the overseer, and among the rowers ofthis last was Godfrey Landless.
As they neared the bank their occupants saw that the usual sleepyevening stillness was not upon the village above them. A shrill sound ofwailing from women and children rose and fell through the gatheringdusk, and in the open space round which the bark wigwams were built,dark figures moved to and fro in a kind of measured dance, slow andsolemn, and marked at intervals by dismal cries. As the boats touchedthe shore and the white men sprang out, a boy, stationed as scarecrowupon the usual scaffold in the midst of the maize fields, raised ashrill whoop of warning which brought the lamentation of the women andthe dance of the men to a dead stop. The latter rushed down to the riverside, brandishing their weapons, and yelling; but there seemed littlestrength in the arms that flourished the tomahawk; the voices soundedcracked and shrill, and the weak fury and noise died away when a nearerapproach showed the newcomers to be white. A very aged man, with a faceall wrinkles and a chest all scars, stepped from out the throng whichwas now augmented by the women and children.
"My white fathers are far from the salt water. Seldom do the Pamunkeyssee their faces coming up the narrowing stream or through the forest.They are welcome. Let my fathers tarry and my women shall bring themchinquepin cakes and tuckahoe, pohickory and succotash, and my youngmen--"
He paused, and a low wailing murmur like the sound of the wind in theforest rose from the women.
"Where are your young men, your braves?" demanded the Surveyor-General."Here are only the very old and the very young--they who have not seen aHuskanawing."
The Indian pointed to the crimson flood below. "There are my young men;there are my braves. Among them were a werowance and a sagamore. Theytwo have strings of pearl thicker than the stem of the grape vine; theyare painted with puccoon, and the feathers of the bluebird and thered-bird are upon them. They have hills of hatchets and of arrow heads,sharp and clean, and very much tobacco, and they sing and dance in thegreat wigwam of Okee, in the home of Kiwassa, in the land beyond thesetting sun. But the rest--they lie deep in the slime of the river; itis red with their blood; their wives wail for them; their village isleft desolate.... When the time of the full sun power was past thesmoking of three pipes, came up the Pamunkey, swift as the swallow thatskims its waters, the Ricahecrian dogs who, passing down towards thesalt water twelve suns ago, slew the young men of a village that liethbelow us. My young men went out against them, but a cloud came up andKiwassa hid his face behind it. They came not back, their boats weresunk, the Ricahecrians laughed and went their way, swift as swallows."
"Ask him," said the Colonel huskily.
"Had they a captive with them--a woman, a paleface woman?" demandedCarrington.
"With hair like the sunshine and a white robe. And a man, the color ofthe falling sycamore leaf, one of those who work in the fields of thewhite fathers. The arms of the woman were bound, but his were not--hefought with the Ricahecrian dogs."
"Luiz Sebastian!" said the overseer with a muttered oath. "I thought asmuch when we found that he was not with the drunken scoundrels whom wetook before they reached the Point. And we had better have killed himthan all the rest put together, for he is the devil incarnate."
"Let us get on!" Sir Charles cried impatiently. "We waste time whenevery moment is precious."
The Colonel, who had been speaking to the Surveyor-General, came over tohim. All the jovial life and fire was gone from his face, his eyes werehaggard and bloodshot, he stooped like an old man, but the voice withwhich he spoke was steady and authoritative as ever.
"Ay," he said. "We must on at once, but not all of us. Richard Verneymust not forget the danger of the state, in the danger of his child, norlet his private quarrel take precedence. I had hoped when we left theManor at dawn to have been up with the villains ere now, but it was notto be. This will be a long chase and a stern one, and how it will endGod only knows. We go into a wilderness from which we may never return.Behind us in the settlement is turmoil and danger, a conspiracy to beput down, the Chickahominies to be subdued, the strong hand neededeverywhere. Every man should be at his post, and Richard Verney,Lieutenant of his shire, and Colonel of the trainbands, is many leaguesfrom the danger which threatens the colony, and with his face to thewest. He must on, but Major Carrington must go back to do his duty tothe King, and Anthony Nash must not desert his flock. And you, Woodson,I send back to the Manor to do what you can to repair the havoc there,and to protect Mistress Lettice. My kinsman will go on with me; is itnot so, Charles?"
"Assuredly, sir," said the baronet quietly.
"I'd a sight rather go with your Honor," growled the overseer, "but I'lldo my best both by the plantation and by Mistress Lettice, and I lookfor your Honor and Mistress Patricia back in no time at all. We are totake the small boat, I reckon?"
"Yes, with four men to row you. We will press a boat and a crew from thenext Pamunkey village. Pick out your men, and let us be gone."
"Humph! There's one that I reckon had best go back with us. Does yourHonor know that you've got with you the head of all this d--dOliverian business, the man that Trail swore was their general--thatthey all obeyed as though he were Oliver himself?"
"No! How came he here?" cried the master, staring at Landless, who stoodat some distance from them with folded arms and compressed lips, gazingsteadily up the glowing reaches of the river.
"Found him in the boat when I stepped into it myself. I didn't sayanything then, for we were in a mortal hurry and he's a good rower. ButI reckon your Honor will send him back with me? He'll give you the slipthe first chance he gets."
"Of course he must go back," the master said peremptorily. "He shouldnever have been brought thus far. A dozen or so of these Oliverians mustswing as an example to the rest, and he, their leader, and a felon toboot, at their head. The service he did us last night can not helphim--he fought for his own life. The Governor has sworn to hang him, andI am accountable for his safe delivery at Jamestown. Bind him and takehim back with you, and send him at once to Jamestown under a strongescort." He turned from the overseer to the two gentlemen who were to godown the river. "Carrington, Anthony Nash, old friends, farewell--it maybe forever. Anthony, pray that I may find my child safe and spotless."
They embraced, and he wrung their hands, and, stepping hastily into theboat, sank down and covered his face with his cloak. TheSurveyor-General stood with a pale and troubled face, and Dr. AnthonyNash prayed aloud. The rowers took their places and the boat shot outinto the middle stream.
Landless, seeing the second boat filling, and supposing that the thirdwould receive its load in a moment, stepped towards it. As he passed theoverseer, standing a little to one side with two servants belonging toColonel Fitzhugh, a tenant of Colonel Verney, and an Indian fromRosemead, Woodson put forth an arm and stopped him.
"No, no, my man," he said with a grim smile but with a watchful eye, andnodding to the men to close in around them. "Your way's down, not up."
"What do you mean?" cried Landless, recoiling.
"I mean that the Doctor and the Major and I and these men go back to thesettlements to look after things there, and that you are going to renewyour acquaintance with Jamestown gaol."
For a moment Landless stood, turned to stone, within the other's grasp,then with a cry he broke from him and rushed to the water's edge. Th
eboat containing the master had turned her head up stream and was beyondcall; in the second boat the men held the oars poised while Sir Charles,with one foot upon the gunwale, gave a gravely courteous farewell to theSurveyor-General and the divine.
"Sir Charles Carew!" cried Landless. "I pray you to take me with you!"
Without moving, Sir Charles looked at him coldly, a peculiar smile justcurling his lip.
"I remember a day," he said, "when you said that I might wait untildoomsday and not hear favor asked of me by you."
"You are not generous," Landless said slowly, "but I ask the favor. Iask it on my knees. Let me go with you."
Sir Charles stepped into the boat and took the seat reserved for him. "Iregret," he said politely, "that it comports not with my duty as agentleman and an officer of the King to assist you in your very naturalendeavors to escape the gibbet. Push off, men."
The boat shot from the shore and up the darkening stream, hastening toovertake its consort. Sir Charles raised his Spanish hat and fluttered alace handkerchief. "To a happier meeting, gentlemen!" TheSurveyor-General and the divine returned the salute, and stood insilence watching the canoe with its brawny rowers and the slender,elegant figure in the stern. It caught up with the Colonel's boat andthe two grew smaller and smaller, until they became mere black dots andthe dusk swallowed them up.
Landless watched them too with a face set like a stone. The overseer,backed by two of the servants, approached him with caution, but therewas no need,--he submitted to be bound without a word, or struggle, orchange in the expression of his face. He turned mechanically towards theboat, but the overseer plucked him back. "Not yet," he said. "We are alldead beat, and we have not the need to hurry that have those who aregone on. The Major's commander now, and he says sleep here a few hours.I'll fasten you so that you can't get away, I promise ye! Fegs! it's apity that a man who can fight as you fought last night should have todie a dog's death after all! But you've only yourself to thank for it."
The red glow died from the river like the scarlet from cooling iron, andit lay dark and silent, dimly reflecting a myriad of stars. The slopingbank, the maize fields, tobacco patch and mulberry grove, the plateauupon which were ranged the wigwams of the Indians, the dark and endlessforest--all the wide, sombre earth--had their stars also--myriads onmyriads of fireflies, restlessly sparkling lanterns swung by legions offairies. There was no wind; the cataracts of wild grape descending fromthe tops of the tallest trees stirred not a leaf; the pines weresoundless. But the whip-poor-wills wailed on, and once a catamountscreamed, and the deer, coming to a lick close by, made a trampling overthe fern.
Landless, tightly bound to a great bay tree with thongs of deerskin,watched the night grow old with hard, despairing eyes. The stars paledand the moon rose softly above the tree-tops, silvering the worldbeneath. By her light he saw the little glade of which the tree to whichhe was bound marked the centre, and the recumbent forms of those whowere to return to the settlements stretched on Indian mats laid upon theshort grass. Worn out with the toil of the day and the storm and stressof the night before, they slumbered heavily. The watcher in their midstthought, "If I could sleep!" and resolutely closed his eyes, but thevision of a flying canoe and a brightness of golden hair, which hadvexed him, passing up the reaches of the river over and over and overagain, was with him still, and he opened them and raised them to thestars, thinking, "She may be above them now."
How still it was! no air, no breath, no sound--the thongs, that, woundmany times around his body, bound him to the tree, fell at his feet, afigure slipped from behind the trunk, laid a hand, in which was a knifethat gleamed in the moonlight, upon his arm, and whispering, "Follow,"glided over the grass, past the sleepers and into the forest.
Swiftly but cautiously Landless went after it. The overseer lay withinten feet of him; he passed him, passed the unconscious servants,crossed a strip of moonlight, entered the shadow of a locust, and allbut stumbled over a man lying asleep beneath it. He recoiled, and a twigsnapped beneath his foot. The sleeper stirred, turned upon his side, andopened his eyes. The moon, now high in the heavens, shone so brightlythat there was soft light even beneath the heavy branches of the trees,and by this light his Majesty's Surveyor-General and his Majesty'srebellious, convicted, and condemned servant recognized each other. Forone long minute they stared each at the other, then, without a word orsign to denote that he was aware that aught stood between him and themoonlight, Carrington lay down again, pillowed his head upon his arm andclosed his eyes. Landless was passing on with a light and steady stepand the ghost of a smile upon his lips when the apparently slumberingfigure put forth an arm and laid something long and dark across hispathway. He glanced quickly around, but the Surveyor-General laymotionless, with closed eyes. Stooping, he took up the object, whichproved to be a richly inlaid musket with flask and pouch. He pausedagain, but no sign coming from the quietly breathing form on the grasshe lightly and silently left it and the tiny encampment and entered theforest, where he found a dark figure leaning against a tree, waiting forhim. Without a word it moved forward into the dense shadow of theforest, and in the same silence he followed it. They were now in thickwoods, moving beneath interlocking branches and a vast canopy of wildgrape that, stretching from the summit of one lofty tree to that ofanother, formed a green and undulating roof upon which beat themoonbeams that could not penetrate the close darkness of the worldbelow. They came to a small and sluggish stream, flowing without noisebetween the towering trees, and stepping into the water, walked up itfor a long while with giant blacknesses on either hand and above themthe moon.
All this time the figure had stalked along before Landless withoutspeaking or turning its head, but now, the trees thinning, and theycoming upon a field of wild flax that lay fair and white beneath themoon, it quitted the lazy stream, and turning upon Landless as he toostepped upon the bank, showed him the bronze countenance and thegigantic form of the Susquehannock to whom he had once done a kindness,and with whom he had fought on such a night as this, in such a moonlightspace.
"Monakatocka, I thought it had been you," said Landless quietly.
With the never failing "Ugh!" the Indian took Landless's hand and withit touched his own dark shoulder.
"I too am grateful, and with far more reason," said Landless smiling. "Iwill be yet more so if you will bring me out upon the bank of the riverat some distance above yonder encampment."
"What will my brother do then?"
"I will go up the river."
"After the canoes in which sit the palefaces from whom my brotherflees?"
"After the canoe which those canoes pursue."
"If my brother wishes to take the warpath against the Algonquin dogs,"said the Indian quietly, "he must not follow the Pamunkey, but thePowhatan."
"They passed this village yesterday, going up the Pamunkey!" criedLandless.
"A false trail. Let my brother come a little further and I will showhim."
He stepped in front of the white man, and moving rapidly across thefield of flax, dived into the forest again. Following the stream in itswindings they came to where it debouched into a wide and muddy creek,which, in its turn, flowed into an expanse of water that lay like moltensilver beyond the fringe of trees.
"The Pamunkey!" exclaimed Landless.
The Indian nodded and led the way to a thicket of dwarf willow and alderthat grew upon the very brink of the creek.
"While the palefaces slept, Monakatocka was busy. Look!" he said,parting the bushes and pointing.
Within the thicket, drawn up upon the sloping mud, were two largecanoes, quite empty save for a debris of broken oars.
Landless gasped. "How do you know them to be the same?"
The Indian stooped and pointed to dark stains. "Blood. They had woundedamong them. And this." He put something into the other's hand. Landlesslooked at it, then thrust it into his bosom. "You are right. It is aribbon which the lady wore. But why have they left their boats, andwhere are they?"
T
he Indian pointed to the side of the larger canoe. "The hatchets of thePamunkeys were sharp. They fought like real men. This canoe could go nofurther. See, it is wet within--they had to ply the gourd very fast tokeep afloat so far. One canoe would not hold them all, so they hid bothhere. They knew the palefaces would follow up the river, so they carednot to stay upon its banks; the Pamunkeys, too, are their enemies. Theyhave gone through the forest towards the Powhatan. My brother cannot seetheir trail, for the eyes of the palefaces are clouded, but Monakatockasees it."
Landless turned upon him. "Will Monakatocka go with me against theRicahecrians?"
"Monakatocka has dreamt of the village on the pleasant river where hewas born. The arm of the white men cannot reach him here, in thesewoods, far from their wigwams and warriors and guns; it cannot pluck himback to be beaten. He toils no more in their fields. He is a real managain, a warrior of the long house, a chief of the Conestogas. Let mywhite brother go with him, across the great rivers, through the forest,until they come to the Susquehanna and the village of the Conestogas.There will the maidens and the young men welcome Monakatocka with songand dance, and my brother shall be welcome also and shall become a greatchief and shall take the warpath against the Algonquin and against thepaleface at the side of Monakatocka. In the Blue Mountains is Death. Letus go to the pleasant river, to the hunting grounds of the Conestogas."
Landless shook his head. "My thanks and good wishes go with you, friend,but my path lies towards the Blue Mountains. Farewell."
He put out his hand, but the Indian did not touch it. Instead, hestooped and examined the ground about him with attention, then,beckoning the other to follow, he moved rapidly and silently along theborder of the creek. Landless overtook him and laid his hand upon hisarm. "This is my path, but yours lies across the river, to the north."
"If my brother will not go with me, I will go with my brother," said theConestoga.
Prisoners of Hope: A Tale of Colonial Virginia Page 28
