Prisoners of Hope: A Tale of Colonial Virginia

by Mary Johnston

  CHAPTER XVI

  THE FACE IN THE DARK

  Patricia lifted her white face from her hands. "We rode that dreadfulwave?" she cried incredulously.

  "By God's mercy, yes," said Landless gravely.

  "Is there any hope for us?"

  Landless hesitated. "Tell me the truth," she said imperiously.

  "We are in desperate case, madam. The boat is half filled with water.Another such sea will sink us."

  "Why do you not bail the boat?"

  "The bucket is gone; the tiller also."

  She shivered, and Darkeih began to wail aloud. Landless laid a heavyhand upon the latter's shoulder. "Silence!" he said sternly. "Here! Ishall lay Regulus' head in your lap, and you are to watch over him andnot to think of yourself. There's a brave wench!"

  Darkeih's lamentations subsided into a low sobbing, and Landless turnedto her mistress.

  "Try to keep up your courage, madam," he said. "Our peril is great; butwhile there is life there is hope."

  "I am not afraid," she said. "I--" The pitching of the boat threw heragainst Landless, and he put his arm about her. "You must let me holdyou, madam," he said quietly. She shrank away from his touch, sayingbreathlessly, "No, oh no! See! I can hold quite well by the gunwale." Heacquiesced in silence, only lifting her into a more secure position. "Ithank you," she said humbly.

  The storm continued to rage with unabated fury. Flash and detonationsucceeded flash and detonation; the rain poured in torrents; and thewind whooped on the angry sea like a demon of destruction. The Bluebirdpitched and tossed at the mercy of the great waves that combed aboveher. Time passed, and to the darkness of the storm was added thedarkness of the night. The occupants of the boat, drenched by the rainand the seas she had shipped, shivered with cold. Regulus began to stirand mutter. "He is coming to himself," Landless cried to Darkeih. "Whenyou see that he is conscious, make him lie still. He must not moveabout."

  "Do you know where we are?" asked Patricia.

  "No, madam; but I fear that the wind is driving us out into the bay."

  "Ah!"

  She said it with a sob, for a sudden vision of home flashed across thecold and darkness; and presently Landless could hear that she wasweeping.

  The sound went to his heart. "I would God I could help you, madam," hesaid gently. "Take comfort! You are in the hands of One who holds thesea in the hollow of His hand."

  In a little while she was quiet. There passed another long interval ofsilent endurance, broken by Patricia's saying piteously, "My hands areso numbed with cold that I cannot hold to the side of the boat. And myarms are bruised with striking against it."

  Without a word Landless put his arm around her, and held her steadyamidst the tossings of the boat. "You are shivering with cold!" he said."If I had but something to wrap you in!"

  She drooped against him, and the lightning showed him her face, stilland white, with parted lips, and long lashes sweeping her marble cheek.

  "Madam, madam!" he cried roughly. "You must not swoon! You must not!"

  With a strong effort she rallied. "I will try to be brave," she saidplaintively. "I am not frightened,--not very much. But oh! I am cold andtired!"

  He drew her head down upon his knee. "Let it lie there," he said,speaking as to a tired child. "I will hold you quite steady. Now shutyour eyes and try to sleep. The storm is no worse than it was; and sincethe boat has lived this long in this sea, she may live through thenight. And with morning may come many chances of safety. Try to rest inthat hope."

  Faint and exhausted from cold and terror, she submitted like a child,and lay with closed eyes in a sort of stupor within his arms.

  There was less lightning now, and the thunder sounded in long boomingpeals, instead of short, sharp cannon cracks. The rain, too, had ceased;but the wind blew furiously, and the sea ran in tremendous waves.Regulus stirred, groaned, and struggled into a sitting posture. "Liedown again!" ordered Darkeih. "We 's all on de way to Heaben, but ifnigger shake de boat, we'll get dere befo' de Lawd ready for us. Liedown!" Regulus, muttering to himself, looked stupidly about him, thendropped his head back into her lap. In three minutes he was snoring.Darkeih's whimpering died away, and her turbaned head sank lower andlower, until it rested upon that of Regulus, and she, too, slept.

  Landless sat very still, holding his burden lightly and tenderly, andstaring into the darkness. Against the steep slope of the sea, a pictureframed itself, melted away, and was followed by others in longprocession. He saw a ruinous, ivy-grown hall, and an old, grave, formalgarden, where, between long box hedges broken by fantastic yews, therewalked a boy, book in hand. A man with a stately figure and a stern,careworn face met the boy, and they leaned upon a broken dial, and thefather reasoned with the son of Right and Truth and Liberty, andsomething touched upon the Tyrannicides of old. The yew trees droopedtheir sombre boughs about the figures, and they were gone, and in theirplace roared and swelled the Chesapeake.... The sound of the stormbecame the sound of a battle-cry. He saw a clanging fight where swordclashed upon armor, and artillery belched fire and thunder, and horseand man went down in the melee, and were trampled under foot amidstshrieks and oaths and stern prayers. The boy who had leaned upon thedial fought coolly, desperately, drunk with the joy of battle, stung tofierce effort by his father's eyes. The great banner, blazoned with theCross of Saint George, streamed in crimson and azure between the battleand the lonely watcher in the storm-tossed boat, and the vision wasgone.... The spires of a great city, where men walked with long facesand church bells made the only music, rose through the gloom, and he sawa dingy chamber in a dingy stack of buildings, and within it, bendingover great tomes of law, a man, impoverished and orphaned, but young,strong, and full of hope,--a man well spoken of and allowed to be on theroad to high preferment. The chamber wavered into darkness; but the cityspires flashed light, and the slow ringing changed to mad peals from joybells. Some one had been restored--to drop balm upon the bleeding heartof a nation, to bring light to them that sit in darkness,--so said thejoy bells.... He saw a loathsome prison, and the man who had sat in thedingy chamber lying therein under accusation of a crime which he had notcommitted. He saw him pining there, week after week, month after month,untried, forgotten, at the mercy of an enemy to his house whose day hadcome with the Restored One.... The prison vanished, and the waves thattossed around him were the waves of the Atlantic. A ship ploughed herway through them. He saw into her hold,--a horrible place of stench andfilth and darkness,--a place where hounds would not have kenneled. Menand women were there who cursed and fought for the scanty, worm-eatenfood that was thrown them. Some wore gyves: they were heavy upon thewrists and ankles of the man of his vision. He saw a face looking downupon this man, a handsome supercilious face, with insolent amusement inthe languid eyes and in the curves of the lips. The hatches werebattened down upon the cargo of misery, and the ship with its brutalcaptain and its handful of gold-laced, dicing, swearing passengersvanished.... He saw a sandy, grass-grown street, and a row of meanhouses, and a low, brick building with barred windows. There was a crowdbefore this building, and a man standing upon the platform of a pillorywas selling human flesh and blood. He saw the boy who had stood beneaththe yews of the old Hall, who had fought at Worcester beneath hisfather's eye; the man who had lain in prison and in the noisome hold ofthe ship, put up and sold to the highest bidder. He saw him carried awaywith other merchandise to the home of his purchaser. He saw a Virginiaplantation lying fair and serene beneath a Virginia heaven; and a wideporch, and standing therein an angelic vision, all grace and beauty,vivid youth and splendor.

  The picture vanished into the night that raved about him, and with along shaken sigh he let his eyes fall from the watery steeps to the faceof the woman who lay within his arms. He had not looked at her before,conceiving that she might be awake and feel his glance upon her. Now hecould tell from her breathing that she slept. He gazed upon the purepale face with the golden hair falling about it, in a passion of pityand tenderness. She moaned now an
d then in her sleep, or turned uneasilyin his arms. Once she spoke a few words, and he bent eagerly to catchthem, thinking that she had awakened and was speaking to him. Theywere:--

  "Ah, your Excellency! where I reign there shall be only good Churchmenand loyal Cavaliers--no Roundheads, no rebel or convict servants!" andshe laughed in her sleep.

  Landless shrank as from a mortal blow, then broke into a bitter laugh,and said to himself, "Thou art a fool, Godfrey Landless. It were but tooeasy to forget to-night what thou art and what thou must seem to her.Thou art answered according to thy folly." He sighed impatiently, andwithdrawing his gaze from the sleeping face, fell into a sombre reverie.

  He was roused to active consciousness by a sudden and death-like pausein the gale. The lightning showed the pall of cloud hanging low, black,and unbroken; but the wind had sunk into an ominous calm. He lookedanxiously around him, then softly disengaging himself from Patricia,leaned across her, and shook Regulus awake. The negro started up, stupidfrom sleep and from his wound.

  "What is it, massa?" he queried. "Wake mighty early at Rosemead.... Lawdhab mercy! we 's still on de Chesapeake!"

  "We will be in the Chesapeake in a moment," said Landless sternly, "ifyou stagger about in that way. Sit down and pull your wits together. Youare like to need them all directly." He touched Darkeih and said, as hereyes, wide with alarm, opened upon him, "Listen, my wench! Whateverhappens, you are to trust yourself to Regulus. He is a strong swimmerand he will take care of you. You hear, Regulus!"

  "What is it?" exclaimed Patricia, as he bent over her. "Why have youwaked Regulus? And oh! has not that dreadful wind died away?"

  "It has stopped, madam, stopped suddenly and utterly," he said gravely."But it will come upon us from another quarter, and it will bring thesea with it." He raised her, and held her with his arm. "Trust yourselfto me when it comes," he said gently. "If I can save you, I will."

  There was no time for more. Above them broke a new and more terriblestorm. A ball of fire shot from the cloud into the sea; it was followedby a crash that seemed to shake the earth. A cataract of rain descended.From the northeast there swooped upon them a wind to which the gale ofan hour before seemed a zephyr. It drove the boat before it as if shehad been the bird from which she took her name. It piled wave on waveuntil the sea ran in mountains. Athwart the storm came a dull boomingroar, and above the great hills of water appeared a long ridge crestedwith white.

  "It is coming," said Landless.

  Patricia looked up at him with great, despairing, courageous eyes. "Ihave caused your death," she said. "Forgive me."

  There came a vivid flash, and a loud scream from Darkeih. "De lan'! debressed, bressed, lan'!"

  Landless wheeled. Silhouetted against the lit sky he saw a fringe ofpines, and below it a low, shelving shore where the waves were breakingin foam and thunder. The Bluebird, driven by the wind, was hurryingtowards it in mad bounds. The great wave overtook her, bore her onwardwith it, and sunk her within fifty feet of the shore.

  Ten minutes later Landless, breathless and exhausted, staggered from outthe hell of pounding waves and blinding, stinging spray on to the shore.Unlocking Patricia's arms from about his neck, he laid her gently downupon the sand and turned to look for the other occupants of the haplessBluebird. They were close behind him. In a few minutes the two men,battling against wind and rain, had borne the women out of reach of thewaves, and had placed them in the shelter of a low bank of sand. AsLandless set his burden down he said reverently, "I thank God, madam."

  "And I thank God," she answered, in the same tone.

  He tried to shield her from the wind with his body. "It is frightful,"he said, "that you should be exposed to such a night. I pray God thatyou take no harm."

  "Would it not be more sheltered higher up the shore, under those trees?"

  "Perhaps, but I fear to risk you there with the lightning so near.Later, when the storm subsides, we will try it."

  He seated himself so as to screen her as much as possible from wind andrain, and a silence fell upon the party so suddenly snatched from death.Regulus stretched himself upon the sand and pulled Darkeih down besidehim. Within a few minutes they were both asleep. The white man and womansat side by side without speaking, watching the storm.

  By degrees it raved itself out. The rain fell in less and less volume,the lightning became infrequent, the thunder pealed less loudly, and thewind died from a hurricane into a breeze. In two hours' time from theswamping of the boat the booming of the sea, and a ragged mass of cloud,lit by an occasional flash and slowly falling away from a pale andwatery moon, were the only evidences of the tornado which had raged solately.

  "The storm is over," said Patricia, breaking a long silence.

  "Yes," said Landless. "You have nothing to fear now. Would you not liketo walk a little? You must be sadly chilled and weary with longsitting."

  "Yes, I would," she answered, with a sigh of relief. "Let us walktowards those trees, and see if forest or water be beyond them."

  He helped her to her feet, and they left the slaves sleeping upon theground, and moved slowly, for she was numbed with cold, towards thefringe of pines.

  Landless walked beside her without speaking. A while ago she had beensimply a woman in danger of death--something for him to protect and tosave. He had well nigh forgotten: he knew that she had quite forgotten.She was safe now, and was become once more the lady of the manor towhose soil he was fettered. He had remembered, and she was beginning toremember, for presently she said timidly and sweetly, but withcondescension in her voice;--

  "I am not ungrateful for all that you have done for me to-night, forsaving my life. And, trust me, you will not find your mas--my father,ungrateful either. We will find some way to reward--"

  "I neither merit nor desire reward, madam," said Landless, proudly andsadly, "for doing but my duty as a man and as your servant."

  "But--" she began kindly, when he interrupted her with sudden passion.

  "Unless you wish to cut me to the heart, to bitterly humiliate me, youwill not speak of payment for any service I may have done you. I havebeen a gentleman, madam. For this one night treat me as such."

  "I beg your pardon," she said at once.

  They reached the belt of trees and entered it. Outside, the brokenclouds had permitted an occasional gleam of watery moonshine; within theshadow of the trees it was gross darkness. Above them the wet branches,moved by the wind which still blew strongly, clashed together with aharsh and mournful sound, showering them with heavy raindrops. Theirfeet sank deeply in cushions of soaked moss and rotting leaves.

  "There is nothing to be done here," said Landless. "It is better beneaththe open sky."

  There came a last, vivid flash of lightning that for a moment lit thewood, showing long colonnades of glistening tree trunks, with here andthere a blasted and fallen monster. It showed something more, for withinten feet of them, from out a tangle of dripping, rain-beaten vineslooked the face of the murderer of Robert Godwyn.