Mary Parmele - "The Evolution of an Empire"

John Locke - "Two Treatises of Government"

Webster - "Webster's Unabridged Dictionary"

Victor Appleton - "Tom Swift And His Air Glider"

To Have and To Hold:

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




"I don't take you," I explained, "because I have need of you here.
Master Sparrow has gone to watch beside a dying man, and will
not be back for hours. As for myself, there's no telling how long I
may be kept. Until I come you are to guard house and garden well.
You know what I mean. Your mistress is to be molested by no
one."

"Very well, sir."

"One thing more. There was some talk yesterday of my taking her
across the neck to the forest. When she awakes, tell her from me
that I am sorry for her to lose her pleasure, but that now she could
not go even were I here to take her."

"There 's no danger from the Paspaheghs there," he muttered.

"The Paspaheghs happen not to be my only foes," I said curtly.
"Do as I bid you without remark. Tell her that I have good reasons
for desiring her to remain within doors until my return. On no
account whatever is she to venture without the garden."

I gathered up the reins, and he stood back from the horse's head.
When I had gone a few paces I drew rein, and, turning in my
saddle, spoke to him across the dew-drenched grass. "This is a
trust, Diccon," I said.

The red came into his tanned face. He raised his hand and made
our old military salute. "I understand it so, my captain," he
answered, and I rode away satisfied.



CHAPTER XIII IN WHICH THE SANTA TERESA DROPS DOWNSTREAM


AN hour's ride brought us to the block house standing within the
forest, midway between the white plantations at Paspahegh and the
village of the tribe. We found it well garrisoned, spies out, and the
men inclined to make light of the black paint and the seething
village.

Amongst them was Chanco the Christian. I called him to me, and
we listened to his report with growing perturbation. "Thirty
warriors!" I said, when he had finished. "And they are painted
yellow as well as black, and have dashed their cheeks with
puccoon: it's … l'outrance, then! And the war dance is toward! If we
are to pacify this hornets' nest, it's high time we set about it.
Gentlemen of the block house, we are but twelve, and they may
beat us back, in which case those that are left of us will fight it out
with you here. Watch for us, therefore, and have a sally party
ready. Forward, men!"

"One moment, Captain Percy," said Rolfe. "Chanco, where's the
Emperor?"

"Five suns ago he was with the priests at Uttamussac," answered
the Indian. "Yesterday, at the full sun power, he was in the lodge
of the werowance of the Chickahominies. He feasts there still. The
Chickahominies and the Powhatans have buried the hatchet."

"I regret to hear it," I remarked. "Whilst they took each other's
scalps, mine own felt the safer."

"I advise going direct to Opechancanough," said Rolfe.

"Since he's only a league away, so do I," I answered.

We left the block house and the clearing around it, and plunged
into the depths of the forest. In these virgin woods the trees are set
well apart, though linked one to the other by the omnipresent
grape, and there is little undergrowth, so that we were able to
make good speed. Rolfe and I rode well in front of our men. By
now the sun was shining through the lower branches of the trees,
and the mist was fast vanishing. The forest - around us, above us,
and under the hoofs of the horses where the fallen leaves lay thick
- was as yellow as gold and as red as blood.

"Rolfe," I asked, breaking a long silence, "do you credit what the
Indians say of Opechancanough?"

"That he was brother to Powhatan only by adoption?"

"That, fleeing for his life, he came to Virginia, years and years ago,
from some mysterious land far to the south and west?"

"I do not know," he replied thoughtfully. "He is like, and yet not
like, the people whom he rules. In his eye there is the authority of
mind; his features are of a nobler cast " -

"And his heart is of a darker," I said. "It is a strange and subtle
savage."

"Strange enough and subtle enough, I admit," he answered,
"though I believe not with you that his friendliness toward us is but
a mask."

"Believe it or not, it is so," I said. "That dark, cold, still face is a
mask, and that simple-seeming amazement at horses and armor,
guns and blue beads, is a mask. It is in my mind that some fair day
the mask will be dropped. Here's the village."

Until our interview with Chanco the Christian, the village of the
Paspaheghs, and not the village of the Chickahominies, had been
our destination, and since leaving the block house we had made
good speed; but now, within the usual girdle of mulberries, we
were met by the werowance and his chief men with the customary
savage ceremonies. We had long since come to the conclusion that
the birds of the air and the fish of the streams were Mercuries to
the Indians.

The werowance received us in due form, with presents of fish and
venison, cakes of chinquapin meal and gourds of pohickory, an
uncouth dance by twelve of his young men and a deal of hellish
noise; then, at our command, led us into the village, and to the
lodge which marked its centre. Around it were gathered
Opechancanough's own warriors, men from Orapax and
Uttamussac and Werowocomoco, chosen for their strength and
cunning; while upon the grass beneath a blood-red gum tree sat his
wives, painted and tattooed, with great strings of pearl and copper
about their necks. Beyond them were the women and children of
the Chickahominies, and around us all the red forest.

The mat that hung before the door of the lodge was lifted, and an
Indian, emerging, came forward, with a gesture of welcome. It was
Nantauquas, the Lady Rebekah's brother, and the one Indian -
saving always his dead sister - that was ever to my liking; a savage,
indeed, but a savage as brave and chivalrous, as courteous and
truthful, as a Christian knight.

Rolfe sprang from his horse, and advancing to meet the young
chief embraced him. Nantauquas had been much with his sister
during those her happy days at Varina, before she went with Rolfe
that ill-fated voyage to England, and Rolfe loved him for her sake
and for his own. "I thought you at Orapax, Nantauquas!" he
exclaimed.

"I was there, my brother," said the Indian, and his voice was sweet,
deep, and grave, like that of his sister. "But Opechancanough
would go to Uttamussac, to the temple and the dead kings. I lead
his war parties now, and I came with him. Opechancanough is
within the lodge. He asks that my brother and Captain Percy come
to him there."

He lifted the mat for us, and followed us into the lodge. There was
the usual winding entrance, with half a dozen mats to be lifted one
after the other, but at last we came to the central chamber and to
the man we sought.

He sat beside a small fire burning redly in the twilight of the room.
The light shone now upon the feathers in his scalp lock, now upon
the triple row of pearls around his neck, now upon knife and
tomahawk in his silk grass belt, now on the otterskin mantle
hanging from his shoulder and drawn across his knees. How old he
was no man knew. Men said that he was older than Powhatan, and
Powhatan was very old when he died. But he looked a man in the
prime of life; his frame was vigorous, his skin unwrinkled, his eyes
bright and full. When he rose to welcome us, and Nantauquas
stood beside him, there seemed not a score of years between them.

The matter upon which we had come was not one that brooked
delay. We waited with what patience we might until his long
speech of welcome was finished, when, in as few words as
possible, Rolfe laid before him our complaint against the
Paspaheghs. The Indian listened; then said, in that voice that
always made me think of some cold, still, bottomless pool lying
black beneath overhanging rocks: "My brothers may go in peace.
The Paspaheghs have washed off the black paint. If my brothers go
to the village, they will find the peace pipe ready for their
smoking."

Rolfe and I stared at each other. "I have sent messengers,"
continued the Emperor. "I have told the Paspaheghs of my love for
the white man, and of the goodwill the white man bears the Indian.
I have told them that Nemattanow was a murderer, and that his
death was just. They are satisfied. Their village is as still as this
beast at my feet." He pointed downward to a tame panther
crouched against his moccasins. I thought it an ominous
comparison.

Involuntarily we looked at Nantauquas. "It is true," he said. "I am
but come from the village of the Paspaheghs. I took them the word
of Opechancanough."

"Then, since the matter is settled, we may go home," I remarked,
rising as I spoke. "We could, of course, have put down the
Paspaheghs with one hand, giving them besides a lesson which
they would not soon forget, but in the kindness of our hearts
toward them and to save ourselves trouble we came to
Opechancanough. For his aid in this trifling business the Governor
gives him thanks."

A smile just lit the features of the Indian. It was gone in a moment.
"Does not Opechancanough love the white men?" he said. "Some
day he will do more than this for them."

We left the lodge and the dark Emperor within it, got to horse, and
quitted the village, with its painted people, yellowing mulberries,
and blood-red gum trees. Nantauquas went with us, keeping pace
with Rolfe's horse, and giving us now and then, in his deep musical
voice, this or that bit of woodland news. At the block house we
found confirmation of the Emperor's statement. An embassy from
the Paspaheghs had come with presents, and the peace pipe had
been smoked. The spies, too, brought news that all war-like
preparations had ceased in the village. It had sunk once more into
a quietude befitting the sleepy, dreamy, hazy weather.

Rolfe and I held a short consultation. All appeared safe, but there
was the possibility of a ruse. At the last it seemed best that he, who
by virtue of his peculiar relations with the Indians was ever our
negotiator, should remain with half our troop at the block house,
while I reported to the Governor. So I left him, and Nantauquas
with him, and rode back to Jamestown, reaching the town some
hours sooner than I was expected.

It was after nooning when I passed through the gates of the
palisade, and an hour later when I finished my report to the
Governor. When he at last dismissed me, I rode quickly down the
street toward the minister's house. As I passed the guest house, I
glanced up at the window from which, at daybreak, the Italian had
looked down upon me. No one looked out now; the window was
closely shuttered, and at the door beneath my lord's French rascals
were conspicuously absent. A few yards further on I met my lord
face to face, as he emerged from a lane that led down to the river.
At sight of me he started violently, and his hand went to his
mouth. I slightly bent my head, and rode on past him. At the gate
of the churchyard, a stone's throw from home, I met Master Jeremy
Sparrow.

"Well met!" he exclaimed. "Are the Indians quiet?"

"For the nonce. How is your sick man?"

"Very well," he answered gravely. "I closed his eyes two hours
ago."

"He's dead, then," I said. "Well, he 's out of his troubles, and hath
that advantage over the living. Have you another call, that you
travel from home so fast?"

"Why, to tell the truth," he replied, "I could not but feel uneasy
when I learned just now of this commotion amongst the heathen.
You must know best, but I should not have thought it a day for
madam to walk in the woods; so I e'en thought I would cross the
neck and bring her home."

"For madam to walk in the woods?" I said slowly. "So she walks
there? With whom?"

"With Diccon and Angela," he answered. "They went before the
sun was an hour high, so Goodwife Allen says. I thought that you"
-

"No," I told him. "On the contrary, I left command that she should
not venture outside the garden. There are more than Indians
abroad."

I was white with anger; but besides anger there was fear in my
heart.

"I will go at once and bring her home," I said. As I spoke, I
happened to glance toward the fort and the shipping in the river
beyond. Something seemed wrong with the prospect. I looked
again, and saw what hated and familiar object was missing.

"Where is the Santa Teresa?" I demanded, the fear at my heart
tugging harder.

"She dropped downstream this morning. I passed her as I came up
from Archer's Hope, awhile ago. She's anchored in midstream off
the big spring. Why did she go?"

We looked each other in the eyes, and each read the thought that
neither cared to put into words.

"You can take the brown mare," I said, speaking lightly because
my heart was as heavy as lead, "and we'll ride to the forest. It is all
right, I dare say. Doubtless we'll find her garlanding herself with
the grape, or playing with the squirrels, or asleep on the red leaves,
with her head in Angela's lap."

"Doubtless," he said. "Don't lose time. I'll saddle the mare and
overtake you in two minutes."



CHAPTER XIV IN WHICH WE SEEK A LOST LADY


BESIDE the minister and myself, nothing human moved in the
crimson woods. Blue haze was there, and the steady drift of
colored leaves, and the sunshine freely falling through bared limbs,
but no man or woman. The fallen leaves rustled as the deer passed,
the squirrels chattered and the foxes barked, but we heard no sweet
laughter or ringing song.

We found a bank of moss, and lying upon it a chaplet of red-brown
oak leaves; further on, the mint beside a crystal streamlet had been
trodden underfoot; then, flung down upon the brown earth beneath
some pines, we came upon a long trailer of scarlet vine. Beyond
was a fairy hollow, a cuplike depression, curtained from the world
by the red vines that hung from the trees upon its brim, and
carpeted with the gold of a great maple; and here Fear became a
giant with whom it was vain to wrestle.

There had been a struggle in the hollow. The curtain of vines was
torn, the boughs of a sumach bent and broken, the fallen leaves
groun underfoot. In one place there was blood upon the leaves.

The forest seemed suddenly very quiet, - quite soundless save for
the beating of our hearts. On every side opened red and yellow
ways, sunny glades, labyrinthine paths, long aisles, all dim with the
blue haze like the cloudy incense in stone cathedrals, but nothing
moved in them save the creatures of the forest. Without the hollow
there was no sign. The leaves looked undisturbed, or others,
drifting down, had hidden any marks there might have been; no
footprints, no broken branches, no token of those who had left the
hollow. Down which of the painted ways had they gone, and where
were they now?

Sparrow and I sat our horses, and stared now down this alley, now
down that, into the blue that closed each vista.

"The Santa Teresa is just off the big spring," he said at last. "She
must have dropped down there in order to take in water quietly."

"The man that came upon her is still in town, - or was an hour
agone," I replied.

"Then she has n't sailed yet," he said.

In the distance something grew out of the blue mist. I had not lived
thirteen years in the woodland to be dim of sight or dull of hearing.

"Some one is coming," I announced. "Back your horse into this
clump of sumach."

The sumach grew thick, and was draped, moreover, with some
broad-leafed vine. Within its covert we could see with small
danger of being seen, unless the approaching figure should prove
to be that of an Indian. It was not an Indian; it was my Lord
Carnal. He came on slowly, glancing from side to side, and
pausing now and then as if to listen. He was so little of a
woodsman that he never looked underfoot.

Sparrow touched my arm and pointed down a glade at right angles
with the path my lord was pursuing. Up this glade there was
coming toward us another figure, - a small black figure that moved
swiftly, looking neither to the right nor to the left.

Black Lamoral stood like a stone; the brown mare, too, had
learned what meant a certain touch upon her shoulder. Sparrow
and I, with small shame for our eavesdropping, bent to our
saddlebows and looked sideways through tiny gaps in the crimson
foliage.

My lord descended one side of the hollow, his heavy foot bringing
down the dead leaves and loose earth; the Italian glided down the
opposite side, disturbing the economy of the forest as little as a
snake would have done.

"I thought I should never meet you," growled my lord. "I thought I
had lost you and her and myself. This d-d red forest and this blue
haze are enough to" - He broke off with an oath.

"I came as fast as I could," said the other. His voice was strange,
thin and dreamy, matching his filmy eyes and his eternal, very
faint smile. "Your poor physician congratulates your lordship upon
the success that still attends you. Yours is a fortunate star, my
lord."

"Then you have her safe?" cried my lord.

"Three miles from here, on the river bank, is a ring of pines, in
which the trees grow so thick that it is always twilight. Ten years
ago a man was murdered there, and Sir Thomas Dale chained the
murderer to the tree beneath which his victim was buried, and left
him to perish of hunger and thirst. That is the tale they tell at
Jamestown. The wood is said to be haunted by murdered and
murderer, and no one enters it or comes nearer to it than he can
avoid: which makes it an excellent resort for those whom the dead
cannot scare. The lady is there, my lord, with your four knaves to
guard her. They do not know that the gloom and quiet of the place
are due to more than nature."

My lord began to laugh. Either he had been drinking, or the
success of his villainy had served for wine. "You are a man in a
thousand, Nicolo!" he said. "How far above or below the ship is
this fortunate wood?"

"Just opposite, my lord."

"Can a boat land easily?"

"A creek runs through the wood to the river. There needs but the
appointed signal from the bank, and a boat from the Santa Teresa
can be rowed up the stream to the very tree beneath which the lady
sits."

My lord's laughter rang out again. "You're a man in ten thousand,
Nicolo! Nicolo, the bridegroom's in town."

"Back so soon?" said the Italian. "Then we must change your
lordship's plan. With him on the ground, you can no longer wait
until nightfall to row downstream to the lady and the Santa Teresa.
He'll come to look for her."

"Ay he'll come to look for her, curse him!" echoed my lord.

"Do you think the dead will scare him?" continued the Italian.

"No, I don't!" answered my lord, with an oath. "I would he were
among them! An I could have killed him before I went" -

"I had devised a way to do it long ago, had not your lordship's
conscience been so tender. And yet, before now, our enemies -
yours and mine, my lord - have met with sudden and mysterious
death. Men stared, but they ended by calling it a dispensation of
Providence." He broke off to laugh with silent, hateful laughter, as
mirthful as the grin of a death's-head.

"I know, I know!" said my lord impatiently. "We are not overnice,
Nicolo. But between me and those who then stood in my way there
had passed no challenge. This is my mortal foe, through whose
heart I would drive my sword. I would give my ruby to know
whether he's in the town or in the forest."

"He's in the forest," I said.

Black Lamoral and the brown mare were beside them before either
moved hand or foot, or did aught but stare and stare, as though
men and horses had risen from the dead. All the color was gone
from my lord's face, - it looked white, drawn, and pinched; as for
his companion, his countenance did not change, - never changed, I
believe, - but the trembling of the feather in his hat was not caused
by the wind.

Jeremy Sparrow bent down from his saddle, seized the Italian
under the armpits, and swung him clean from the ground up to the
brown mare's neck. "Divinity and medicine," he said genially,
"soul healer and body poisoner, we'll ride double for a time," and
proceeded to bind the doctor's hands with his own scarf. The
creature of venom before him writhed and struggled, but the
minister's strength was as the strength of ten, and the minister's
hand held him down. By this I was off Black Lamoral and facing
my lord. The color had come back to his lip and cheek, and the
flash to his eye. His hand went to his sword hilt.

"I shall not draw mine, my lord," I told him. "I keep troth."

He stared at me with a frown that suddenly changed into a laugh,
forced and unnatural enough. "Then go thy ways, and let me go
mine!" he cried. "Be complaisant, worthy captain of trainbands and
Burgess from a dozen huts! The King and I will make it worth
your while."

"I will not draw my sword upon you," I replied, "but I will try a fall
with you," and I seized him by the wrist.

He was a good wrestler as he was a good swordsman, but, with
bitter anger in my heart and a vision of the haunted wood before
my eyes, I think I could have wrestled with Hercules and won.
Presently I threw him, and, pinning him down with my knee upon
his breast, cried to Sparrow to cut the bridle reins from Black
Lamoral and throw them to me. Though he had the Italian upon his
hands, he managed to obey. With my free hand and my teeth I
drew a thong about my lord's arms and bound them to his sides;
then took my knee from his chest and my hand from his throat, and
rose to my feet. He rose too with one spring. He was very white,
and there was foam on his lips.

"What next, captain?" he demanded thickly. "Your score is
mounting up rather rapidly. What next?"

"This," I replied, and with the other thong fastened him, despite his
struggles, to the young maple beneath which we had wrestled.
When the task was done, I first drew his sword from its jeweled
scabbard and laid it on the ground at his feet, and then cut the
leather which restrained his arms, leaving him only tied to the tree.
"I am not Sir Thomas Dale," I said, "and therefore I shall not gag
you and leave you bound for an indefinite length of time, to
contemplate a grave that you thought to dig. One haunted wood is
enough for one county. Your lordship will observe that I have
knotted your bonds in easy reach of your hands, the use of which I
have just restored to you. The knot is a peculiar one; an Indian
taught it to me. If you set to work at once, you will get it untied
before nightfall. That you may not think it the Gordian knot and
treat it as such, I have put your sword where you can get it only
when you have worked for it. Your familiar, my lord, may prove of
use to us; therefore we will take him with us to the haunted wood.
I have the honor to wish your lordship a very good day."

I bowed low, swung myself into my saddle, and turned my back
upon his glaring eyes and bared teeth. Sparrow, his prize flung
across his saddlebow, turned with me. A minute more saw us out
of the hollow, and entered upon the glade up which had come the
Italian. When we had gone a short distance, I turned in my saddle
and looked back. The tiny hollow had vanished; all the forest
looked level, dreamy and still, barren of humanity, given over to
its own shy children, nothing moving save the slow-falling leaves.
But from beyond a great clump of sumach, set like a torch in the
vaporous blue, came a steady stream of words, happily rendered
indistinguishable by distance, and I knew that the King's minion
was cursing the Italian, the Governor, the Santa Teresa, the Due
Return, the minister, the forest, the haunted wood, his sword, the
knot that I had tied, and myself.

I admit that the sound was music in mine ears.



CHAPTER XV IN WHICH WE FIND THE HAUNTED WOOD


ON the outskirts of the haunted wood we dismounted, fastening
the horses to two pines. The Italian we gagged and bound across
the brown mare's saddle. Then, as noiselessly as Indians, we
entered the wood.

Once within it, it was as though the sun had suddenly sunk from
the heavens. The pines, of magnificent height and girth, were so
closely set that far overhead, where the branches began, was a
heavy roof of foliage, impervious to the sunshine, brooding, dark
and sullen as a thundercloud, over the cavernous world beneath.
There was no undergrowth, no clinging vines, no bloom, no color;
only the dark, innumerable tree trunks and the purplish-brown,
scented, and slippery earth. The air was heavy, cold, and still, like
cave air; the silence as blank and awful as the silence beneath the
earth.

The minister and I stole through the dusk, and for a long time
heard nothing but our own breathing and the beating of our hearts.
But coming to a sluggish stream, as quiet as the wood through
which it crept, and following its slow windings, we at last heard a
voice, and in the distance made out dark forms sitting on the earth
beside that sombre water. We went on with caution, gliding from
tree to tree and making no noise. In the cheerless silence of that
place any sound would have shattered the stillness like a pistol
shot.

Presently we came to a halt, and, ourselves hidden by a giant
trunk, looked out on stealers and stolen. They were gathered on the
bank of the stream, waiting for the boat from the Santa Teresa.
The lady whom we sought lay like a fallen flower on the dark
ground beneath a pine. She did not move, and her eyes were shut.
At her head crouched the negress, her white garments showing
ghostlike through the gloom. Beneath the next tree sat Diccon, his
hands tied behind him, and around him my Lord Carnal's four
knaves. It was Diccon's voice that we had heard. He was still
speaking, and now we could distinguish the words.

Copyright (c) 2007. topbookz.net. All rights reserved.