A Lion to Guard Us

by Clyde Robert Bulla

  She climbed the rock. She jumped off and fell into the bushes.

  Amanda went to her. “Did you hurt yourself?”

  “No,” said Meg. She began to pull at her buttons.

  “Meg!” said Amanda. “What are you doing?”

  “I can’t jump in all these clothes.” Meg was out of her dress. She kicked off her shoes. Barefooted and in her petticoat, she climbed the rock and stood there.

  “Look at me!” she shouted. “I’m a bird!”

  She jumped, with her long hair flying.

  Amanda looked in wonder. Meg was playing. Here on this island, in the clear, bright air, she had learned to play!

  Jemmy was shouting, “I’m a bird, too!” He climbed the rock and jumped after her. Again and again they jumped.

  “Come and jump, Amanda,” said Jemmy.

  “Oh, no,” she said. It was such a long time since she had played. She was sure she had forgotten how.

  They walked slowly home. The sun was nearly down when they came to their house.

  Jemmy looked into the sea chest. “Where is the knocker?”

  “Where did you put it?” asked Amanda.

  “Back in the chest.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I thought I put it back,” he said.

  He looked in the grass outside the house. Anne Hopkins came down the path.

  “What are you looking for?” she asked.

  “My lion’s head,” he said.

  “Maybe someone took it.”

  “Who?” he asked.

  Anne didn’t answer.

  “Maybe you took it,” he said.

  She pulled her lips in. “Do you think I would ever steal or tell a lie? I mean to go to heaven!”

  September passed, and part of October.

  Every night a fire was lighted on the north tip of the island. It was to guide the ship that would come from Virginia.

  But when November came, Admiral Somers said, “We need not light the fire any longer. I fear the boat never reached Virginia. If it had, a ship would have come by now.”

  XX

  A Quarrel

  Winter on the island was like no winter Amanda had ever known before. The days were fair. Warm winds blew in from the sea.

  In the north harbor men were building a ship. Part of it was made of wood from the wrecked Sea Adventure. Part of it was made of cedar that had been cut on the island.

  Almost every evening Amanda and Jemmy and Meg took a walk down to the north harbor to see the ship that was being built.

  “It looks like a fish with the bones picked clean,” said Jemmy.

  There was a long, wooden keel with wooden ribs fastened to it. It did look like the bones of a fish, thought Amanda.

  Before the ship was finished, Admiral Somers said, “We must build another one.”

  “Why?” asked the men.

  “This ship will not hold all our people and the things we want to take,” said the admiral. “And there is another reason. If one ship should be lost, the other might still reach Virginia.”

  Some of the men were angry. “We have worked hard,” they said, “and now more work is put on our shoulders.”

  A cloud seemed to fall over the island. Men began to meet in small groups. They talked together, and their voices were low and secret.

  A quarrel broke out on the north harbor.

  Amanda and Jemmy and Meg met Mistress Hopkins outside her house. Mistress Hopkins talked to them about what had happened.

  Some of the men said they were tired of building ships. Why should they go to Virginia, they said, when they had a good life here?

  “We must go to Virginia,” said Admiral Somers.

  “The people there need our help, and we were sent to help them.”

  “Go if you will,” said Robert Waters. “Some of us mean to stay.”

  He and seven others stopped work. They went to live on the other side of the island.

  “It doesn’t surprise me,” said Mistress Hopkins. “Robert Waters was always one to make trouble.”

  Anne Hopkins was in the doorway.

  “Is Master Waters gone?” she asked.

  “Yes,” said his mother.

  “And he isn’t coming back?”

  “So he says,” said Mistress Hopkins.

  “Then I can tell,” said Anne. “I was afraid of him before, but now I can tell.”

  “Tell what?” asked her mother.

  “He took the lion’s head.”

  “How do you know?” asked Amanda.

  “I saw him go into your house while you were gone,” said Anne, “and you never saw the lion’s head after that.”

  “Master Waters was good to us,” said Amanda. “He helped build our house. I don’t believe he would take the door knocker.”

  “You don’t have to believe me,” said Anne, “but I know what I saw.”

  Amanda and Jemmy and Meg went home.

  “Do you think Master Waters took the door knocker?” asked Amanda.

  “He used to say someone might steal it,” said Jemmy. “He used to say he wanted to keep it for me.”

  “Do you think he has it now?” asked Amanda.

  “I don’t know,” said Jemmy.

  XXI

  Waiting for Jemmy

  One by one the men came back, until only Chris Carter and Robert Waters were left.

  Work went on at the north harbor. Both ships were finished.

  “We may reach Virginia in a week,” said the admiral, “but it could be longer. We must carry enough food and water to last six weeks.”

  Men began loading the ships with fresh water, pickled eggs, salt fish, and salt pork. Word was given to everyone in the village, “Be ready to sail on the tenth day of May.”

  “What of Master Waters and Master Carter?” someone asked.

  “They chose to stay,” said Admiral Somers, “so let them stay.”

  Two days before the tenth of May, Amanda and Meg got up in the morning to find Jemmy gone.

  They were only a little anxious. Sometimes he went to the beach to see the sunrise. Sometimes men took him fishing.

  But by evening he had not come home.

  Amanda went to Governor Gates. “My brother is gone,” she said.

  “The boy who likes to roam about the island?” said the governor. “Go home. He may be there now.”

  But Jemmy did not come home that night.

  The next morning Amanda and Meg set out looking for him. They looked along the beach and in the woods.

  “This island is too big,” said Meg. “There are too many places.”

  Back in the village, they went from house to house. “Have you seen Jemmy?” asked Amanda. “Will you help us find him?”

  People were packing their boxes and sea chests and helping load the ships. Only a few left their work to look for Jemmy, and they stopped looking when evening came.

  “But Jemmy is lost!” cried Amanda.

  “How can we look in the dark?” said one of the men, and Amanda and Meg were soon left alone.

  They went back to their house.

  Meg asked, “Will the ships sail tomorrow?”

  “I think so,” said Amanda.

  “Even if Jemmy isn’t here?”

  “He will be here,” said Amanda. “Go to bed.”

  “Aren’t you coming?”

  “Not yet,” said Amanda.

  “I want to stay up with you.”

  They sat in the doorway. Amanda tried to see out into the night.

  “What if Jemmy doesn’t come back?” asked Meg.

  “Then we’ll stay here till we find him.”

  “But the ships are going tomorrow.”

  “They will go without us.”

  “Will they let us stay?”

  “If they don’t, we can hide,” said Amanda. “We can hide till the ships are gone.”

  “How will we ever get to Virginia?” asked Meg.

  “We’ll think about that later,” said Amand
a. “We can’t leave Jemmy, can we?”

  “No,” said Meg. “Amanda, do you hear a sound that’s like talking?”

  “It’s the wind. It makes that sound in the cedar tree.” Amanda stood up. “Oh, Meggie, it’s so dark out there! If Jemmy did come back, how could he find us?”

  She went into the house and felt on top of the sea chest for their one candle. She found it. “Wait here,” she said.

  Their cook fire was out. She went up the path until she saw a few coals still burning in someone else’s cook fire. She knelt by the coals and lighted the candle.

  She went back to Meg. She stood in front of the house and held the candle high.

  Almost at once she heard footsteps. The candle shook in her hand. She almost dropped it.

  “Jemmy?”

  It was Jemmy. She could see him against the darkness.

  “Amanda, I got it,” he said.

  “What?” she asked.

  “The knock-knock,” he said.

  XXII

  The Other Side of the Island

  It was the tenth of May. The two ships had sailed. From the deck of the larger ship, Amanda and Jemmy and Meg looked back at the island.

  “It’s nearly gone,” said Amanda.

  “It looks so little,” said Meg.

  “It looks little from here,” said Jemmy, “but it’s a big island. You’d know, if you’d been lost there.”

  “Tell about being lost,” said Meg.

  “I told it already.”

  “You told Amanda. I went to sleep. Now tell me.”

  So he told his story again. He had gone into the woods to find Robert Waters. “I knew there wasn’t much time before we sailed,” he said. “If Master Waters did have my lion’s head, I wanted it back.”

  But he had lost his way. When night came, he had to sleep in the woods.

  “In the morning I called and called, and they found me—Master Waters and Master Carter. They took me to their camp. I said I wanted the lion’s head. Master Waters said he was keeping it so nobody would take it from me. He said we might get back to England one day, and then we could sell it for money.”

  “Did you tell him it wasn’t gold?” asked Amanda.

  “Yes, but he didn’t believe me. Master Carter told him to give it back. Master Waters wouldn’t, and they started to fight. While they were fighting, I went into the tent and found the knocker. I took it and ran.”

  Once he had thought Master Waters was after him.

  “I hid under a bush,” he said. “I hid till after dark; then I came on. I didn’t know where I was till I saw the candle out in front of our house.”

  “Why didn’t you tell us where you were going?” asked Amanda.

  “I didn’t know it would take so long,” he said.

  “You made us all worry, Jemmy.” Yet she was proud of him. Whatever he did, it seemed she was proud of him.

  The two ships were crowded. They were more crowded than the Sea Adventure had been. But the sea was calm, and the voyage was easy. In less than two weeks, they were in sight of land.

  The ships sailed side by side into the waters of a bay.

  Captain Newport had sailed these waters before. “Chesapeake Bay,” he said.

  Amanda saw a rooftop on shore. A flag was flying from it.

  “Is it Jamestown?” she asked.

  “No,” said the captain. “That is the fort on Point Comfort.”

  They stopped at Point Comfort. Two other ships were there.

  Captain Newport and Admiral Somers began to point and talk together in great excitement. The ships they saw were two that had sailed with the Sea Adventure!

  A man rowed out from shore in a canoe. Sailors threw him a rope and pulled him aboard.

  He was a gray-haired Englishman. “Have you come from England?” he asked.

  “From Bermuda,” answered the admiral. “I am Admiral Somers, and our ship the Sea Adventure was wrecked there.”

  The man cried out. “This is a great miracle! We thought you were lost!”

  “What of the other ships that sailed with us?” asked the admiral.

  “All but one came safely to Virginia.”

  “Where are they now?”

  “Gone back to England, except for those you see here, and they will leave soon.”

  “What of Jamestown?” asked Captain Newport.

  The Englishman shook his head. “Ah, there’s a sad tale.”

  Amanda was listening. She drew near.

  “There was war between the English and the Indians,” the man said. “Our people were ill and starving. It was a terrible winter. Once five hundred of us lived in Jamestown. Now only a handful are left. Some went away into the woods. Some are dead. We hear that more ships are on the way from England. I pray they will come in time to save our poor colony.”

  “We are here,” said Admiral Somers. “Let us go to Jamestown with all speed.”

  XXIII

  The Lion’s Head

  The ships sailed up a river with woods on either side. It was the River James, said Captain Newport.

  Amanda and Jemmy and Meg were on deck. Jemmy was watching for Indians. Meg was watching for deer.

  “What are you watching for, Amanda?” she asked.

  Amanda hardly heard. She was saying over and over to herself, Let Father be safe, let him be well . . .

  They came in sight of Jamestown.

  “It’s on an island,” said Master Rolfe.

  “Almost an island,” said the captain.

  The town was inside a wall made of tall tree trunks. A few gray rooftops rose above the wall.

  Captain Newport shouted through a horn, “Halloo!”

  Only an echo came back.

  A party of men landed just down the river from Jamestown. Amanda watched them make their way along the shore.

  “What are they doing?” she asked a sailor.

  “They are making sure it is safe for us to land,” he answered.

  Soon the men were in the town, looking out over the wall. They were making signs to let the captain know there was no danger.

  “The river is deep here,” said the captain. “We can bring the ships all the way to shore.”

  The ships came up almost under the wall. Admiral Somers and Captain Newport crossed the plank from their ship to the shore. Ladies and gentlemen began to cross after them.

  Amanda and Jemmy and Meg waited their turn. Someone made way for them, and they walked across the plank.

  On shore, they followed the others to a gate in the wall. It was open, and they went through. They saw a square of log houses, a church, and a long shed that might have been a storehouse. The roof was off the shed. The church door was broken.

  There was an open yard in the middle of the town. A few thin, wild-looking men were there. They had gathered about the admiral and the captain.

  Amanda looked quickly at their faces and turned away. She looked into houses, one after another. All were empty.

  Halfway around the square she went, looking, looking—

  She pushed open the door of a house and drew back. A man was there.

  He lay on the floor. His clothes were in rags, and he was so thin the bones of his face stood out.

  He was changed. He was so terribly changed, yet she knew him.

  “Father,” she said.

  He turned toward her. His eyes were staring, and he said something that sounded like, “They’ve gone away!”

  “Father, it’s Amanda,” she said.

  Still his eyes stared. He didn’t know her. She wanted to cry out, Look at me! Remember me!

  Jemmy and Meg were in the doorway. They came slowly inside.

  “Is it Father?” whispered Meg.

  “Is it, Amanda?” asked Jemmy.

  “Yes, but he doesn’t—he doesn’t—” She knelt and tried again. “It’s Amanda and Jemmy and Meg.”

  Jemmy came closer. He had taken the lion’s head out of his pocket. He was holding it up for Father to see.


  And Father saw it! He was looking—first at the lion’s head, then at their faces. He spoke their names. “Amanda. Jemmy. Meg.”

  Amanda dried her eyes on her sleeve. She said to Jemmy and Meg, “Go to the admiral, go to the captain. Ask them to come here, and then you go to the ship. Bring food—anything you can find. Bring water.”

  They started off.

  “Run!” she said.

  She took Father’s head in her lap. He reached up a hand to her, and she held it. She had thought it might be cold, but it was warm.

  She was not afraid now. They were here to care for him—she and Jemmy and Meg—and help was on the way.

  He was looking toward the door. She looked to see what he had seen. Above the door latch was a peg, and Jemmy had hung the knocker there. The lion’s head had caught the light and made a brightness in the room.

  Historical Note

  On June 2, 1609, the Sea Adventure, with eight other ships, sailed from Plymouth, England. The small fleet was bound for Virginia, then an English colony in the New World. Two years before, settlers had founded the village of Jamestown there. Now many were ill, they faced starvation, and they were at war with the natives.

  The ships from England were bringing help and supplies. For weeks they sailed together, but on July 23 a storm drove them apart. Three days later the Sea Adventure was wrecked off an island in the Bermudas, about six hundred miles from Virginia.

  There were men, women, and children on board. All landed safely. In the nine months they lived there, they built two ships, and in May, 1610, they sailed to Virginia. They brought food from the friendly island—salt fish and pork, palm cabbage, cactus pears, and the pickled eggs of wild birds.

  They found Jamestown almost deserted. After the winter of 1609-10, known as the Starving Time, only a few settlers were left. The colonists from Bermuda fed and cared for them. Before the food was gone, three ships came from England with more supplies and new settlers, and Jamestown was saved.

  Stories of the Sea Adventure were published in England. Some of them were read by a man who wrote plays for the London theater, and he wrote a play about a storm at sea and a shipwreck on an enchanted island. The play was The Tempest. The man was William Shakespeare.