To Have and to Hold Part 31

"In what sort did he become their chief?" she cried. "In such sort, gentlemen, as the bravest of you, in like straits, would have been blithe to be, an you had had like measure of wit and daring! Your Honor, the wind before which our boat drave like a leaf, the waves that would engulf us, wrecked us upon a desert isle. There was no food or water or shelter. That night, while we slept, a pirate s.h.i.+p anch.o.r.ed off the beach, and in the morning the pirates came ash.o.r.e to bury their captain.

My husband met them alone, fought their would-be leaders one by one, and forced the election to fall upon himself. Well he knew that if he left not that isle their leader, he would leave it their captive; and not he alone! G.o.d's mercy, gentlemen, what other could he do? I pray you to hold him absolved from a willing embrace of that life! Sunk s.h.i.+ps of Spain! Yea, forsooth; and how long hath it been since other English gentlemen sunk other s.h.i.+ps of Spain? The world hath changed indeed if to fight the Spaniard in the Indies, e'en though at home we be at peace with him, be conceived so black a crime! He fought their galleons fair and knightly, with his life in his hand; he gave quarter, and while they called him chief those pirates tortured no prisoner and wronged no woman. Had he not been there, would the s.h.i.+ps have been taken less surely? Had he not been there, G.o.d wot, s.h.i.+ps and s.h.i.+ps' boats alike would have sunk or burned, and no Spanish men and women had rowed away and blessed a generous foe. A pirate! He, with me and with the minister and with my Lord Carnal, was prisoner to the pirates, and out of that danger he plucked safety for us all! Who hath so misnamed a gallant gentleman? Was it you, my lord?"

Eyes and voice were imperious, and in her cheeks burned an indignant crimson. My lord's face was set and white; he looked at her, but spoke no word.

"The Spanish s.h.i.+ps might pa.s.s, lady," said the Governor; "but this is an English s.h.i.+p, with the flag of England above her."

"Yea," she said. "What then?"

The circle rustled again. The Governor loosed his wife's fingers and leaned forward. "You plead well, lady!" he exclaimed. "You might win, an Captain Percy had not seen fit to fire upon us."

A dead silence followed his words. Outside the square window a cloud pa.s.sed from the face of the sun, and a great burst of suns.h.i.+ne entered the cabin. She stood in the heart of it, and looked a G.o.ddess angered.

My lord, with his haggard face and burning eyes, slowly rose from his seat, and they faced each other.

"You told them not who fired those guns, who sunk that pirate s.h.i.+p?"

she said. "Because he was your enemy, you held your tongue? Knight and gentleman--my Lord Carnal--my Lord Coward!"

"Honor is an empty word to me," he answered. "For you I would dive into the deepest h.e.l.l,--if there be a deeper than that which burns me, day in, day out.... Jocelyn, Jocelyn, Jocelyn!"

"You love me so?" she said. "Then do me pleasure. Because I ask it of you, tell these men the truth." She came a step nearer, and held out her clasped hands to him. "Tell them how it was, my lord, and I will strive to hate you no longer. The harm that you have done me I will pray for strength to forgive. Ah, my lord, let me not ask in vain! Will you that I kneel to you?"

"I fix my own price," he said. "I will do what you ask, an you will let me kiss your lips."

I sprang forward with an oath. Some one behind caught both my wrists in an iron grasp and pulled me back. "Be not a fool!" growled Clayborne in my ear. "The cord's loosening fast: if you interfere, it may tighten with a jerk!" I freed my hands from his grasp. The Treasurer, sitting next him, leaned across the table and motioned to the two seamen beside the window. They left their station, and each seized me by an arm. "Be guided, Captain Percy," said Master Sandys in a low voice. "We wish you well. Let her win you through."

"First tell the truth, my lord," said the King's ward; "then come and take the reward you ask."

"Jocelyn!" I cried. "I command you"--

She turned upon me a perfectly colorless face. "All my life after I will be to you an obedient wife," she said. "This once I pray you to hold me excused.... Speak, my lord."

There was the mirth of the lost in the laugh with which he turned to the Governor. "That pretty little tale, sir, that I regaled you with, the day you obligingly picked me up, was pure imagination; the wetting must have disordered my reason. A potion sweeter than the honey of Hybla, which I am about to drink, hath restored me beforehand. Gentlemen all, there was mutiny aboard that s.h.i.+p which so providentially sank before your very eyes. For why? The crew, who were pirates, and the captain, who was yonder gentleman, did not agree. The one wished to attack you, board you, rummage you, and slay, after recondite fas.h.i.+ons, every mother's son of you; the other demurred,--so strongly, in fact, that his life ceased to be worth a pin's purchase. Indeed, I believe he resigned his captaincy then and there, and, declining to lift a finger against an English s.h.i.+p, defied them to do their worst. He had no hand in the firing of those culverins; the mutineers touched them off without so much as a 'by your leave.' His attention was otherwise occupied. Good sirs, there was not the slightest reason in nature why the s.h.i.+p should have struck upon that sunken reef, to the d.a.m.nation of her people and the salvation of yours. Why do you suppose she diverged from the path of safety to split into slivers against that fortunate ledge?"

The men around drew in their breath, and one or two sprang to their feet. My lord laughed again. "Have you seen the pious man who left Jamestown and went aboard the pirate s.h.i.+p as this gentleman's lieutenant? He hath the strength of a bull. Captain Percy here had but to nod his head, and hey, presto! the helmsman was bowled over, and the minister had the helm. The s.h.i.+p struck: the pirates went to h.e.l.l, and you, gentlemen, were preserved to order all things well in Virginia. May she long be grateful! The man who dared that death rather than attack the s.h.i.+p he guessed to be the Company's is my mortal foe, whom I will yet sweep from my path, but he is not a pirate. Ay, take it down, an it please you, Master Secretary! I retreat from a most choice position, to be sure, but what care I? I see a vantage ground more to my liking. I have lost a throw, perhaps, but I will recoup ten such losses with one such kiss. By your leave, lady."

He went up to her where she stood, with hanging arms, her head a little bent, white and cold and yielding as a lady done in snow; gazed at her a moment, with his pa.s.sion written in his fierce eyes and haggard, handsome face; then crushed her to him.

If I could have struck him dead, I would have done so. When her word had been kept, she released herself with a quiet and resolute dignity. As for him, he sank back into the great chair beside the Governor's, leaned an elbow on the table, and hid his eyes with one shaking hand.

The Governor rose to his feet, and motioned away the two seamen who held me fast. "We'll have no hanging this morning, gentlemen," he announced.

"Captain Percy, I beg to apologize to you for words that were never meant for a brave and gallant gentleman, but for a pirate who I find does not exist. I pray you to forget them, quite."

I returned his bow, but my eyes traveled past him.

"I will allow you no words with my Lord Carnal," he said. "With your wife,--that is different." He moved aside with a smile.

She was standing, pale, with downcast eyes, where my lord had left her.

"Jocelyn," I said. She turned toward me, crimsoned deeply, uttered a low cry, half laughter, half a sob, then covered her face with her hands. I took them away and spoke her name again, and this time she hid her face upon my breast.

A moment thus; then--for all eyes were upon her--I lifted her head, kissed her, and gave her to Lady Wyatt, whom I found at my side. "I commend my wife to your ladys.h.i.+p's care," I said. "As you are woman, deal sisterly by her!"

"You may trust me, sir," she made answer, the tears upon her cheeks. "I did not know,--I did not understand....Dear heart, come away,--come away with Margaret Wyatt."

Clayborne opened the door of the cabin, and stood aside with a low bow.

The men who had sat to judge me rose; only the King's favorite kept his seat. With Lady Wyatt's arm about her, the King's ward pa.s.sed between the lines of standing gentlemen to the door, there hesitated, turned, and, facing them with I know not what of pride and shame, wistfulness of entreaty and n.o.ble challenge to belief in the face and form that were of all women's most beautiful, curtsied to them until her knee touched the floor. She was gone, and the sunlight with her.

When I turned upon that shameless lord where he sat in his evil beauty, with his honor dead before him, men came hastily in between. I put them aside with a laugh. I had but wanted to look at him. I had no sword,--already he lay beneath my challenge,--and words are weak things.

At length he rose, as arrogant as ever in his port, as evilly superb in his towering pride, and as amazingly indifferent to the thoughts of men who lied not. "This case hath wearied me," he said. "I will retire for a while to rest, and in dreams to live over a past sweetness. Give you good-day, gentles! Sir Francis Wyatt, you will remember that this gentleman did resist arrest, and that he lieth under the King's displeasure!" So saying he clapped his hat upon his head and walked out of the cabin. The Company's officers drew a long breath, as if a fresher air had come in with his departure.

"I have no choice, Captain Percy, but to keep you still under restraint, both here and when we shall reach Jamestown," said the Governor. "All that the Company, through me, can do, consistent with its duty to his Majesty, to lighten your confinement shall be done"--

"Then send him not again into the hold, Sir Francis!" exclaimed the Treasurer, with a wry face.

The Governor laughed. "Lighter and sweeter quarters shall be found. Your wife's a brave lady, Captain Percy"--

"And a pa.s.sing fair one," said Claybourne under his breath.

"I left a friend below in the hold, your Honor," I said. "He came with me from Jamestown because he was my friend. The King hath never heard of him. And he's no more a pirate than I or you, your Honor. He is a minister,--a sober, meek, and G.o.dly man"--

From behind the Secretary rose the singsong of my acquaintance of the hold, Dr. John Pott. "He is Jeremy, your Honor, Jeremy who made the town merry at Blackfriars. Your Honor remembers him? He had a sickness, and forsook the life and went into the country. He was known to the Dean of St. Paul's. All the town laughed when it heard that he had taken orders."

"Jeremy!" cried out the Treasurer. "Nick Bottom! Christopher Sly! Sir Toby Belch! Sir Francis, give me Jeremy to keep in my cabin!"

The Governor laughed. "He shall be bestowed with Captain Percy where he'll not lack for company, I warrant! Jeremy! Ben Jonson loved him; they drank together at the Mermaid."

A little later the Treasurer turned to leave my new quarters, to which he had walked beside me, glanced at the men who waited for him without,--Jeremy had not yet been brought from the hold,--and returned to my side to say, in a low voice, but with emphasis: "Captain Percy has been a long time without news from home,--from England. What would he most desire to hear?"

"Of the welfare of his Grace of Buckingham," I replied.

He smiled. "His Grace is as well as heart could desire, and as powerful.

The Queen's dog now tuggeth the sow by the ears this way or that, as it pleaseth him. Since we are not to hang you as a pirate, Captain Percy, I incline to think your affairs in better posture than when you left Virginia."

"I think so too, sir," I said, and gave him thanks for his courtesy, and wished him good-day, being anxious to sit still and thank G.o.d, with my face in my hands and summer in my heart.

CHAPTER XXVIII IN WHICH THE SPRINGTIME IS AT HAND

TIRED of dicing against myself, and of the books that Rolfe had sent me, I betook myself to the gaol window, and, leaning against the bars, looked out in search of entertainment. The nearest if not the merriest thing the prospect had to offer was the pillory. It was built so tall that it was but little lower than the low upper story of the gaol, and it faced my window at so short a distance that I could hear the long, whistling breath of the wretch who happened to occupy it. It was not a pleasant sound; neither was a livid face, new branded on the cheek with a great R, and with a trickle of dark blood from the mutilated ears staining the board in which the head was immovably fixed, a pleasant sight. A little to one side was the whipping post: a woman had been whipped that morning, and her cries had tainted the air even more effectually than had the decayed matter with which certain small devils had pelted the runaway in the pillory. I looked away from the poor rogue below me into the clear, hard brightness of the March day, and was most heartily weary of the bars between me and it. The wind blew keenly; the sky was blue as blue could be, and the river a great ribbon of azure sewn with diamonds. All colors were vivid and all distances near. There was no haze over the forest; brown and bare it struck the cloudless blue. The marsh was emerald, the green of the pines deep and rich, the budding maples redder than coral. The church, with the low green graves around it, appeared not a stone's throw away, and the voices of the children up and down the street sounded clearly, as though they played in the brown square below me. When the drum beat for the nooning the roll was close in my ears. The world looked so bright and keen that it seemed new made, and the brilliant suns.h.i.+ne and the cold wind stirred the blood like wine.

Now and then men and women pa.s.sed through the square below. Well-nigh all glanced up at the window, and their eyes were friendly. It was known now that Buckingham was paramount at home, and my Lord Carnal's following in Virginia was much decayed. Young Hamor strode by, bravely dressed and whistling cheerily, and doffed a hat with a most n.o.ble broken feather. "We're going to bait a bear below the fort!" he called.

"Sorry you'll miss the sport! There will be all the world--and my Lord Carnal." He whistled himself away, and presently there came along Master Edward Sharpless. He stopped and stared at the rogue in the pillory,--with no prescience, I suppose, of a day when he was to stand there himself; then looked up at me with as much malevolence as his small soul could write upon his mean features, and pa.s.sed on. He had a jaded look; moreover, his clothes were swamp-stained and his cloak had been torn by briers. "What did you go to the forest for?" I muttered.

The key grated in the door behind me, and it opened to admit the gaoler and Diccon with my dinner,--which I was not sorry to see. "Sir George sent the venison, sir," said the gaoler, grinning, "and Master Piersey the wild fowl, and Madam West the pasty and the marchpane, and Master Pory the sack. Be there anything you lack, sir?"

"Nothing that you can supply," I answered curtly.