To Have and to Hold Part 8

Moreover, a strong breeze had sprung up, blowing from the sea, filling her white sails, and rapidly lessening the distance between us. As yet we could only tell that she was indeed a large s.h.i.+p with all sail set.

Through the gates of the palisade now came, pellmell, the crowd without.

In ten minutes' time the women were in line ready to load the muskets, the children sheltered as best they might be, the men in ranks, the gunners at their guns, and the flag up. I had run it up with my own hand, and as I stood beneath the folds Master Sparrow and my wife came to my side.

"The women are over there," I said to the latter, "where you had best betake yourself."

"I prefer to stay here," she answered. "I am not afraid." Her color was high, and she held her head up. "My father fought the Armada," she said.

"Get me a sword from that man who is giving them out."

From his coign of vantage the watch now called out: "She's a long s.h.i.+p,--five hundred tons, anyhow! Lord! the metal that she carries!

She's rasedecked!"

"Then she's Spanish, sure enough!" cried the Governor.

From the crowd of servants, felons, and foreigners rose a great clamor, and presently we made out Sharpless perched on a cask in their midst and wildly gesticulating.

"The Tiger, the Truelove, and the Due Return have swung across channel!"

announced the watch. "They 've trained their guns on the Spaniard!"

The Englishmen cheered, but the b.a.s.t.a.r.d crew about Sharpless groaned.

Extreme fear had made the lawyer shameless. "What guns have those boats?" he screamed. "Two falcons apiece and a handful of muskets, and they go out against a man-of-war! She'll trample them underfoot! She'll sink them with a shot apiece! The Tiger is forty tons, and the Truelove is sixty. You 're all mad!"

"Sometimes quality beats quant.i.ty," said West.

"Didst ever hear of the Content?" sang out a gunner.

"Or of the Merchant Royal?" cried another.

"Or of the Revenge?" quoth Master Jeremy Sparrow. "Go hang thyself, coward, or, if you choose, swim out to the Spaniard, and s.h.i.+ft from thy wet doublet and hose into a sanbenito. Let the don come, shoot if he can, and land if he will! We'll singe his beard in Virginia as we did at Cales!

'The great St. Philip, the pride of the Spaniards,

Was burnt to the bottom and sunk in the sea.

the St. Andrew and eke the St. Matthew

We took in fight manfully and brought away.'

And so we'll do with this one, my masters! We'll sink her, or we'll take her and send her against her own galleons and gallea.s.ses!

'Dub-a-dub, dub-a-dub, thus strike their drums,

Tantara, tantara, the Englishman comes!'"

His great voice and great presence seized and held the attention of all.

Over his doublet of rusty black he had clapped a yet rustier back and breast; on his bushy hair rode a headpiece many sizes too small; by his side was an old broadsword, and over his shoulder a pike. Suddenly, from gay hardihood his countenance changed to an expression more befitting his calling. "Our cause is just, my masters!" he cried. "We stand here not for England alone; we stand for the love of law, for the love of liberty, for the fear of G.o.d, who will not desert his servants and his cause, nor give over to Anti-Christ this virgin world. This plantation is the leaven which is to leaven the whole lump, and surely he will hide it in the hollow of his hand and in the shadow of his wing. G.o.d of battles, hear us! G.o.d of England, G.o.d of America, aid the children of the one, the saviors of the other!"

He had dropped the pike to raise his clasped hands to the blue heavens, but now he lifted it again, threw back his shoulders, and flung up his head. He laid his hand on the flagstaff, and looked up to the banner streaming in the breeze. "It looks well so high against the blue, does n't it, friends?" he cried genially. "Suppose we keep it there forever and a day!"

A cheer arose, so loud that it silenced, if it did not convince, the craven few. As for Master Edward Sharpless, he disappeared behind the line of women.

The great s.h.i.+p came steadily on, her white sails growing larger and larger, moment by moment, her tiers of guns more distinct and menacing, her whole aspect more defiant. Her waist seemed packed with men. But no streamers, no flag.

A puff of smoke floated up from the deck of the Tiger, and a ball from one of her two tiny falcons pa.s.sed through the stranger's rigging. A cheer for the brave little c.o.c.kboat arose from the English. "David and his pebble!" exclaimed Master Jeremy Sparrow. "Now for Goliath's twenty-pounders!"

But no flame and thunder issued from the guns aboard the stranger.

Instead, from her deck there came to us what sounded mightily like a roar of laughter. Suddenly, from each masthead and yard shot out streamers of red and blue, up from the p.o.o.p rose and flaunted in the wind the crosses of St. George and St. Andrew, and with a crash trumpet, drum, and fife rushed into

"Here's to jolly good ale and old!"

"By the Lord, she's Englis.h.!.+" shouted the Governor.

On she came, banners flying, music playing, and inextinguishable laughter rising from her decks. The Tiger, the Truelove, and the Due Return sent no more hailstones against her; they turned and resolved themselves into her consort. The watch, a grim old sea dog that had come in with Dale, swung himself down from his post, and came toward the Governor at a run. "I know her now, sir!" he shouted. "I was at the winning of Cales, and she's the Santa Teresa, that we took and sent home to the Queen. She was Spanish once, sir, but she's English now."

The gates were flung open, and the excited people poured out again upon the river bank. I found myself beside the Governor, whose honest countenance wore an expression of profound bewilderment.

"What d' ye make of her, Percy?" he said. "The Company does n't send servants, felons, 'prentices, or maids in such craft; no, nor officers or governors, either. It's the King's s.h.i.+p, sure enough, but what is she doing here?--that 's the question. What does she want, and whom does she bring?"

"We'll soon know," I answered, "for there goes her anchor."

Five minutes later a boat was lowered from the s.h.i.+p, and came swiftly toward us. The boat had four rowers, and in the stern sat a tall man, black-bearded, high-colored, and magnificently dressed. It touched the sand some two hundred feet from the spot where Governor, Councilors, officers, and a sprinkling of other sorts stood staring at it, and at the great s.h.i.+p beyond. The man in the stern leaped out, looked around him, and then walked toward us. As he walked slowly, we had leisure to note the richness of his doublet and cloak,--the one slashed, the other lined with scarlet taffeta,--the arrogance of his mien and gait, and the superb full-blooded beauty of his face.

"The handsomest man that ever I saw!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the Governor.

Master Pory, standing beside him, drew in his breath, then puffed it out again. "Handsome enough, your Honor," he said, "unless handsome is as handsome does. That, gentlemen, is my Lord Carnal,--that is the King's latest favorite."

CHAPTER VIII IN WHICH ENTERS MY LORD CARNAL

I FELT a touch upon my shoulder, and turned to find Mistress Percy beside me. Her cheeks were white, her eyes aflame, her whole frame tense. The pa.s.sion that dominated her was so clearly anger at white heat that I stared at her in amazement. Her hand slid from my shoulder to the bend of my arm and rested there. "Remember that I am your wife, sir,"

she said in a low, fierce voice,--"your kind and loving wife. You said that your sword was mine; now bring your wit to the same service!"

There was not time to question her meaning. The man whose position in the realm had just been announced by the Secretary, and of whom we had all heard as one not unlikely to supplant even Buckingham himself, was close at hand. The Governor, headpiece in hand, stepped forward; the other swept off his Spanish hat; both bowed profoundly.

"I speak to his Honor the Governor of Virginia?" inquired the newcomer.

His tone was offhand, his hat already back upon his head.

"I am George Yeardley, at my Lord Carnal's service," answered the Governor.

The favorite raised his eyebrows. "I don't need to introduce myself, it seems," he said. "You've found that I am not the devil, after all,--at least not the Spanish Apollyon. Zooks! a hawk above a poultry yard could n't have caused a greater commotion than did my poor little s.h.i.+p and my few poor birding pieces! Does every strange sail so put you through your paces?"

The Governor's color mounted. "We are not at home," he answered stiffly.

"Here we are few and weak and surrounded by many dangers, and have need to be vigilant, being planted, as it were, in the very grasp of that Spain who holds Europe in awe, and who claims this land as her own. That we are here at all is proof enough of our courage, my lord."

The other shrugged his shoulders. "I don't doubt your mettle," he said negligently. "I dare say it matches your armor."