Aristotle - "Politics"

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - "The Valley of Fear"

Thomas Carlyle - "History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 10"

G. K. Chesterton - "Utopia of Usurers and other Essays"

To Have and To Hold:

M >> Mary Johnston >> To Have and To Hold:




"Looking for simples once more, learned doctor?" I demanded.

He mowed and jabbered, twisting this way and that in the grasp of
the Indian.

"Loose him," I said to the latter, "but let him not come too near
you. Why, worthy doctor, in so wild and threatening a night, when
fire is burning and wine flowing at the guest house, do you choose
to crouch here in the cold and darkness?"

He looked at me with his filmy eyes, and that faint smile that had
more of menace in it than a panther's snarl. "I laid in wait for you,
it is true, noble sir," he said in his thin, dreamy voice, "but it was
for your good. I would give you warning, sir."

He stood with his mean figure bent cringingly forward, and with
his hat in his hand. "A warning, sir," he went ramblingly on.
"Maybe a certain one has made me his enemy. Maybe I cut myself
loose from his service. Maybe I would do him an ill turn. I can tell
you a secret, sir." He lowered his voice and looked around, as if in
fear of eavesdroppers.

"In your ear, sir," he said.

I recoiled. "Stand back," I cried, "or you will cull no more simples
this side of hell!"

"Hell! " he answered. "There's no such place. I will not tell my
secret aloud."

"Nicolo the Italian! Nicolo the Poisoner! Nicolo the Black Death! I
am coming for the soul you sold me. There is a hell!"

The thundering voice came from underneath our feet. With a
sound that was not a groan and not a screech, the Italian reeled
back against the heated iron of the brazier. Starting from that fiery
contact with an unearthly shriek, he threw up his arms and dashed
away into the darkness. The sound of his madly hurrying footsteps
came back to us until the guest house had swallowed him and his
guilty terrors.

"Can the preacher play the devil too?" I asked, as Sparrow came up
to us from the other side of the fire. "I could have sworn that that
voice came from the bowels of the earth. 'T is the strangest gift!"

"A mere trick," he said, with his great laugh, "but it has served me
well on more occasions than one. It is not known in Virginia, sir,
but before ever the word of the Lord came to me to save poor silly
souls I was a player. Once I played the King's ghost in Will
Shakespeare's 'Hamlet,' and then, I warrant you, I spoke from the
cellarage indeed. I so frighted players and playgoers that they
swore it was witchcraft, and Burbage's knees did knock together in
dead earnest. But to the matter in hand. When I had thrown yonder
stone, I walked quietly down to the Governor's house and looked
through the window. The Governor hath the Company's letters, and
he and the Council - all save the reprobate Pory - sit there staring
at them and drumming with their fingers on the table."

"Is Rolfe of the Council?" I asked.

"Ay; he was speaking, - for you, I suppose, though I heard not the
words. They all listened, but they all shook their heads."

"We shall know in the morning," I said. "The night grows wilder,
and honest folks should be abed. Nantauquas, good-night. When
will you have tamed your panther?"

"It is now the moon of cohonks," answered the Indian. "When the
moon of blossoms is here, the panther shall roll at the beautiful
lady's feet."

"The moon of blossoms!" I said. "The moon of blossoms is a long
way off. I have panthers myself to tame before it comes. This wild
night gives one wild thoughts, Master Sparrow. The loud wind,
and the sound of the water, and the hurrying clouds - who knows if
we shall ever see the moon of blossoms?" I broke off with a laugh
for my own weakness. "It's not often that a soldier thinks of death,"
I said. "Come to bed, reverend sir. Nantauquas, again, good-night,
and may you tame your panther!"

In the great room of the minister's house I paced up and down;
now pausing at the window, to look out upon the fast darkening
houses of the town, the ever thickening clouds, and the bending
trees; now speaking to my wife, who sat in the chair I had drawn
for her before the fire, her hands idle in her lap, her head thrown
back against the wood, her face white and still, with wide dark
eyes. We waited for we knew not what, but the light still burned in
the Governor's house, and we could not sleep and leave it there.

It grew later and later. The wind howled down the chimney, and I
heaped more wood upon the fire. The town lay in darkness now ;
only in the distance burned like an angry star the light in the
Governor's house. In the lull between the blasts of wind it was so
very still that the sound of my footfalls upon the floor, the
dropping of the charred wood upon the hearth, the tapping of the
withered vines without the window, jarred like thunder.

Suddenly madam leaned forward in her chair. "There is some one
at the door," she said.

As she spoke, the latch rose and some one pushed heavily against
the door. I had drawn the bars across. "Who is it?" I demanded,
going to it.

"It is Diccon, sir," replied a guarded voice outside. "I beg of you,
for the lady's sake, to let me speak to you."

I opened the door, and he crossed the threshold. I had not seen him
since the night he would have played the assassin. I had heard of
him as being in Martin's Hundred, with which plantation and its
turbulent commander the debtor and the outlaw often found
sanctuary.

"What is it, sirrah?" I inquired sternly.

He stood with his eyes upon the floor, twirling his cap in his hands.
He had looked once at madam when he entered, but not at me.
When he spoke there was the old bravado in his voice, and he
threw up his head with the old reckless gesture. "Though I am no
longer your man, sir," he said, "yet I hope that one Christian may
warn another. The marshal, with a dozen men at his heels, will be
here anon."

"How do you know?"

"Why, I was in the shadow by the Governor's window when the
parson played eavesdropper. When he was gone I drew myself up
to the ledge, and with my knife made a hole in the shutter that
fitted my ear well enough. The Governor and the Council sat
there, with the Company's letters spread upon the table. I heard the
letters read. Sir George Yeardley's petition to be released from the
governorship of Virginia is granted, but he will remain in office
until the new Governor, Sir Francis Wyatt, can arrive in Virginia.
The Company is out of favor. The King hath sent Sir Edwyn
Sandys to the Tower. My Lord Warwick waxeth greater every day.
The very life of the Company dependeth upon the pleasure of the
King, and it may not defy him. You are to be taken into custody
within six hours of the reading of the letter, to be kept straitly until
the sailing of the Santa Teresa, and to be sent home aboard of her
in irons. The lady is to go also, with all honor, and with women to
attend her. Upon reaching London, you are to be sent to the Tower,
the lady to Whitehall. The Court of High Commission will take the
matter under consideration at once. My Lord of Southampton
writes that, because of the urgent entreaty of Sir George Yeardley,
he will do for you all that lieth in his power, but that if you prove
not yourself conformable, there will be little that any can do."

"When will the marshal be here?" I demanded.

"Directly. The Governor was sending for him when I left the
window. Master Rolfe spoke vehemently for you, and would have
left the Council to come to you; but the Governor, swearing that
the Company should not be betrayed by its officers, constrained
him to remain. I'm not the Company's officer, so I may tell its
orders if I please. A masterless man may speak without fear or
favor. I have told you all I know." Before I could speak he was
gone, closing the door heavily behind him.

I turned to the King's ward. She had risen from the chair, and now
stood in the centre of the room, one hand at her bosom, the other
clenched at her side, her head thrown up. She looked as she had
looked at Weyanoke, that first night.

"Madam," I said under my breath.

She turned her face upon me. "Did you think," she asked in a low,
even voice, - "did you think that I would ever set my foot upon that
ship, - that ship on the river there? One ship brought me here upon
a shameful errand; another shall not take me upon one more
shameful still."

She took her hand from her bosom; in it gleamed in the firelight
the small dagger I had given her that night. She laid it on the table,
but kept her hand upon it. "You will choose for me, sir," she
declared.

I went to the door and looked out. "It is a wild night," I said. "I can
suit it with as wild an enterprise. Make a bundle of your warmest
clothing, madam, and wrap your mantle about you. Will you take
Angela?"

"No," she answered. "I will not have her peril too upon me."

As she stood there, her hand no longer upon the dagger, the large
tears welled into her eyes and fell slowly over her white cheeks. "It
is for mine honor, sir," she said. "I know that I ask your death."

I could not bear to see her weep, and so I spoke roughly. "I have
told you before," I said, "that your honor is my honor. Do you think
I would sleep to-morrow night, in the hold of the Santa Teresa,
knowing that my wife supped with my Lord Carnal?"

I crossed the room to take my pistols from the rack. As I passed
her she caught my hand in hers, and bending pressed her lips upon
it. "You have been very good to me," she murmured. "Do not think
me an ingrate."

Five minutes later she came from her own room, hooded and
mantled, and with a packet of clothing in her hand. I extinguished
the torches, then opened the door. As we crossed the threshold, we
paused as by one impulse and looked back into the firelit warmth
of the room; then I closed the door softly behind us, and we went
out into the night.



CHAPTER XIX IN WHICH WE HAVE UNEXPECTED COMPANY


THE wind, which had heretofore come in fierce blasts, was now
steadying to a gale. What with the flying of the heaped clouds, the
slanting, groaning pines, and the rushing of the river, the whole
earth seemed a fugitive, fleeing breathless to the sea. From across
the neck of land came the long-drawn howl of wolves, and in the
wood beyond the church a catamount screamed and screamed. The
town before us lay as dark and as still as the grave; from the
garden where we were we could not see the Governor's house.

"I will carry madam's bundle," said a voice behind us.

It was the minister who had spoken, and he now stood beside us.
There was a moment's silence, then I said, with a laugh: "We are
not going upon a summer jaunt, friend Sparrow. There is a warm
fire in the great room, to which your reverence had best betake
yourself out of this windy night."

As he made no movement to depart, but instead possessed himself
of Mistress Percy's bundle, I spoke again, with some impatience:
"We are no longer of your fold, reverend sir, but are bound for
another parish. We give you hearty thanks for your hospitality, and
wish you a very good night."

As I spoke I would have taken the bundle from him, but he tucked
it under his arm, and, passing us, opened the garden gate. "Did I
forget to tell you," he said, "that worthy Master Bucke is well of
the fever, and returns to his own to-morrow? His house and church
are no longer mine. I have no charge anywhere. I am free and
footloose. May I not go with you, madam? There may be dragons
to slay, and two can guard a distressed princess better than one.
Will you take me for your squire, Captain Percy?"

He held out his great hand, and after a moment I put my own in it.

We left the garden and struck into a lane. "The river, then, instead
of the forest?" he asked in a low voice.

"Ay," I answered. "Of the two evils it seems the lesser."

"How about a boat?"

"My own is fastened to the piles of the old deserted wharf."

"You have with you neither food nor water."

"Both are in the boat. I have kept her victualed for a week or
more."

He laughed in the darkness, and I heard my wife beside me utter a
stifled exclamation.

The lane that we were now in ran parallel to the street to within
fifty yards of the guest house, when it bent sharply down to the
river. We moved silently and with caution, for some night bird
might accost us or the watch come upon us. In the guest house all
was darkness save one room, - the upper room, - from which came
a very pale light. When we had turned with the lane there were no
houses to pass; only gaunt pines and copses of sumach. I took my
wife by the hand and hurried her on. A hundred yards before us
ran the river, dark and turbulent, and between us and it rose an old,
unsafe, and abandoned landing. Sparrow laid his hand upon my
arm. "Footsteps behind us," he whispered.

Without slackening pace I turned my head and looked. The clouds,
high around the horizon, were thinning overhead, and the moon,
herself invisible, yet lightened the darkness below. The sandy lane
stretched behind us like a ribbon of twilight, - nothing to be seen
but it and the ebony mass of bush and tree lining it on either side.
We hastened on. A minute later and we heard behind us a sound
like the winding of a small horn, clear, shrill, and sweet. Sparrow
and I wheeled - and saw nothing. The trees ran down to the very
edge of the wharf, upon whose rotten, loosened, and noisy boards
we now trod. Suddenly the clouds above us broke, and the moon
shone forth, whitening the mountainous clouds, the ridged and
angry river, and the low, tree-fringed shore. Below us, fastened to
the piles and rocking with the waves, was the open boat in which
we were to embark. A few broken steps led from the boards above
to the water below. Descending these I sprang into the boat and
held out my arms for Mistress Percy. Sparrow gave her to me, and
I lifted her down beside me; then turned to give what aid I might to
the minister, who was halfway down the steps - and faced my Lord
Carnal.

What devil had led him forth on such a night; why he, whom with
my own eyes, three hours agone, I had seen drunken, should have
chosen, after his carouse, cold air and his own company rather
than sleep; when and where he first spied us, how long he had
followed us, I have never known. Perhaps he could not sleep for
triumph, had heard of my impending arrest, had come forth to add
to the bitterness of my cup by his presence, and so had happened
upon us. He could only have guessed at those he followed, until he
reached the edge of the wharf and looked down upon us in the
moonlight. For a moment he stood without moving; then he raised
his hand to his lips, and the shrill call that had before startled us
rang out again. At the far end of the lane lights appeared. Men
were coming down the lane at a run; whether they were the watch,
or my lord's own rogues, we tarried not to see. There was not time
to loosen the rope from the piles, so I drew my knife to cut it. My
lord saw the movement, and sprang down the steps, at the same
time shouting to the men behind to hasten. Sparrow, grappling
with him, locked him in a giant's embrace, lifted him bodily from
the steps, and flung him into the boat. His head struck against a
thwart, and he lay, huddled beneath it, quiet enough. The minister
sprang after him, and I cut the rope. By now the wharf shook with
running feet, and the backward-streaming flame of the torches
reddened its boards and the black water beneath; but each instant
the water widened between us and our pursuers. Wind and current
swept us out, and at that wharf there were no boats to follow us.

Those whom my lord's whistle had brought were now upon the
very edge of the wharf. The marshal's voice called upon us in the
name of the King to return. Finding that we vouchsafed no answer,
he pulled out a pistol and fired, the ball going through my hat; then
whipped out its fellow and fired again. Mistress Percy, whose
behavior had been that of an angel, stirred in her seat. I did not
know until the day broke that the ball had grazed her arm,
drenching her sleeve with blood.

"It is time we were away," I said, with a laugh. "If your reverence
will keep your hand upon the tiller and your eye upon the
gentleman whom you have made our traveling companion, I'll put
up the sail."

I was on my way to the foremast, when the boom lying prone
before me rose. Slowly and majestically the sail ascended, tapering
upward, silvered by the moon, - the great white pinion which
should bear us we knew not whither. I stopped short in my tracks,
Mistress Percy drew a sobbing breath, and the minister gasped
with admiration. We all three stared as though the white cloth had
veritably been a monster wing endowed with life.

"Sails don't rise of themselves!" I exclaimed, and was at the mast
before the words were out of my lips. Crouched behind it was a
man. I should have known him even without the aid of the moon.
Often enough, God knows, I had seen him crouched like this
beside me, ourselves in ambush awaiting some unwary foe, brute
or human; or ourselves in hiding, holding our breath lest it should
betray us. The minister who had been a player, the rival who
would have poisoned me, the servant who would have stabbed me,
the wife who was wife in name only, - mine were strange
shipmates.

He rose to his feet and stood there against the mast, in the old
half-submissive, half-defiant attitude, with his head thrown back in
the old way.

"If you order me, sir, I will swim ashore," he said, half sullenly,
half - I know not how.

"You would never reach the shore," I replied. "And you know that
I will never order you again. Stay here if you please, or come aft if
you please."

I went back and took the tiller from Sparrow. We were now in
mid-river, and the swollen stream and the strong wind bore us on
with them like a leaf before the gale. We left behind the lights and
the clamor, the dark town and the silent fort, the weary Due Return
and the shipping about the lower wharf. Before us loomed the
Santa Teresa; we passed so close beneath her huge black sides that
we heard the wind whistling through her rigging. When she, too,
was gone, the river lay bare before us; silver when the moon
shone, of an inky blackness when it was obscured by one of the
many flying clouds.

My wife wrapped her mantle closer about her, and, leaning back in
her seat in the stern beside me, raised her face to the wild and
solemn heavens. Diccon sat apart in the bow and held his tongue.
The minister bent over, and, lifting the man that lay in the bottom
of the boat, laid him at full length upon the thwart before us. The
moonlight streamed down upon the prostrate figure. I think it
could never have shone upon a more handsome or a more wicked
man. He lay there in his splendid dress and dark beauty,
Endymion-like, beneath the moon. The King's ward turned her
eyes upon him, kept them there a moment, then glanced away, and
looked at him no more.

"There's a parlous lump upon his forehead where it struck the
thwart," said the minister, "but the life's yet in him. He'll shame
honest men for many a day to come. Your Platonists, who from a
goodly outside argue as fair a soul, could never have been
acquainted with this gentleman."

The subject of his discourse moaned and stirred. The minister
raised one of the hanging hands and felt for the pulse. "Faint
enough," he went on. "A little more and the King might have
waited for his minion forever and a day. It would have been the
better for us, who have now, indeed, a strange fish upon our hands,
but I am glad I killed him not."

I tossed him a flask. "It's good aqua vit‘, and the flask is honest.
Give him to drink of it."

He forced the liquor between my lord's teeth, then dashed water in
his face. Another minute and the King's favorite sat up and looked
around him. Dazed as yet, he stared, with no comprehension in his
eyes, at the clouds, the sail, the rushing water, the dark figures
about him. "Nicolo!" he cried sharply.

"He's not here, my lord," I said.

At the sound of my voice he sprang to his feet.

"I should advise your lordship to sit still," I said. "The wind is very
boisterous, and we are not under bare poles. If you exert yourself,
you may capsize the boat."

He sat down mechanically, and put his hand to his forehead. I
watched him curiously. It was the strangest trick that fortune had
played him.

His hand dropped at last, and he straightened himself, with a long
breath. "Who threw me into the boat?" he demanded.

"The honor was mine," declared the minister.

The King's minion lacked not the courage of the body, nor, when
passionate action had brought him naught, a certain reserve force
of philosophy. He now did the best thing he could have done, -
burst into a roar of laughter. "Zooks!" he cried. "It's as good a
comedy as ever I saw! How's the play to end, captain? Are we to
go off laughing, or is the end to be bloody after all? For instance, is
there murder to be done?" He looked at me boldly, one hand on his
hip, the other twirling his mustaches.

"We are not all murderers, my lord," I told him. "For the present
you are in no danger other than that which is common to us all."

He looked at the clouds piling behind us, thicker and thicker,
higher and higher, at the bending mast, at the black water swirling
now and again over the gunwales. "It's enough," he muttered.

I beckoned to Diccon, and putting the tiller into his hands went
forward to reef the sail. When it was done and I was back in my
place, my lord spoke again.

"Where are we going, captain?"

"I don't know."

"If you leave that sail up much longer, you will land us at the
bottom of the river."

"There are worse places," I replied.

He left his seat, and moved, though with caution, to one nearer
Mistress Percy. "Are cold and storm and peril sweeter to you, lady,
than warmth and safety, and a love that would guard you from, not
run you into, danger?" he said in a whisper. "Do you not wish this
boat the Santa Teresa, these rude boards the velvet cushions of her
state cabin, this darkness her many lights, this cold her warmth,
with the night shut out and love shut in?"

His audacity, if it angered me, yet made me laugh. Not so with the
King's ward. She shrank from him until she pressed against the
tiller. Our flight, the pursuing feet, the struggle at the wharf, her
wounded arm of which she had not told, the terror of the white sail
rising as if by magic, the vision of the man she hated lying as one
dead before her in the moonlight, the cold, the hurry of the night, -
small wonder if her spirit failed her for some time. I felt her hand
touch mine where it rested upon the tiller. "Captain Percy," she
murmured, with a little sobbing breath.

I leaned across the tiller and addressed the favorite. "My lord," I
said, "courtesy to prisoners is one thing, and freedom from
restraint and license of tongue is another. Here at the stern the boat
is somewhat heavily freighted. Your lordship will oblige me if you
will go forward where there is room enough and to spare."

His black brows drew together. "And what if I refuse, sir?" he
demanded haughtily.

"I have rope here," I answered, "and to aid me the gentleman who
once before to-night, and in despite of your struggles, lifted you in
his arms like an infant. We will tie you hand and foot, and lay you
in the bottom of the boat. If you make too much trouble, there is
always the river. My lord, you are not now at Whitehall. You are
with desperate men, outlaws who have no king, and so fear no
king's minions. Will you go free, or will you go bound? Go you
shall, one way or the other."

He looked at me with rage and hatred in his face. Then, with a
laugh that was not good to hear and a shrug of the shoulders, he
went forward to bear Diccon company in the bow.



CHAPTER XX IN WHICH WE ARE IN DESPERATE CASE


"GOD walketh upon the sea as he walketh upon the land," said the
minister. "The sea is his and we are his. He will do what it liketh
him with his own." As he spoke he looked with a steadfast soul
into the black hollow of the wave that combed above us,
threatening destruction.

The wave broke, and the boat still lived. Borne high upon the
shoulder of the next rolling hill, we looked north, south, east, and
west, and saw only a waste of livid, ever forming, ever breaking
waves, a gray sky streaked with darker gray shifting vapor, and a
horizon impenetrably veiled. Where we were in the great bay, in
what direction we were being driven, how near we might be to the
open sea or to some fatal shore, we knew not. What we did know
was that both masts were gone, that we must bail the boat without
ceasing if we would keep it from swamping, that the wind was
doing an apparently impossible thing and rising higher and higher,
and that the waves which buffeted us from one to the other were
hourly swelling to a more monstrous bulk.

We had come into the wider waters at dawn, and still under
canvas. An hour later, off Point Comfort, a bare mast contented us;
we had hardly gotten the sail in when mast and all went overboard.
That had been hours ago.

A common peril is a mighty leveler of barriers. Scant time was
there in that boat to make distinction between friend and foe. As
one man we fought the element which would devour us. Each took
his turn at the bailing, each watched for the next great wave before
which we must cower, clinging with numbed hands to gunwale
and thwart. We fared alike, toiled alike, and suffered alike, only
that the minister and I cared for Mistress Percy, asking no help
from the others.

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