Prisoners of Hope Part 10

"Let us call it a revolution. Yes, it is in train as far as regards the Oliverians. We have but begun to sound servants and slaves."

"And you?"

"I am, for lack of a better, General to the Oliverians."

"And you believe yourself able to control these motley forces,--men wronged and revengeful, fanatics, peasants, brutal negroes, mulattoes (whom they say are devils), convicts,--to say to them, 'Thus far must you go, and no farther.' You invoke a fiend that may turn and rend you!"

G.o.dwyn shaded his eyes with his hand. "Yes," he said at last, speaking with energy. "I do believe it! I know it is a desperate game; but the stake! I believe in myself. And I have four hundred able adjutants, men who are to me what his Ironsides were to Oliver, but none--" he stretched out his hand, thin, white, and delicate as a woman's, and laid it upon the brown one resting upon the table. "Lad," he said in a gravely tender voice, "I have none upon this plantation in whom I can put absolute trust. There are few Oliverians here, and they are like Win-Grace Porringer, in whom zeal hath eaten up discretion. Lad, I need a helper! I have spoken to you freely; I have laid my heart before you; and why? Because I, who was and am a gentleman, see in you a gentleman, because I would take your word before all the oaths of all the peasant servants in Virginia, because you have spirit and judgment; because,--in short, because I could love you as I loved your father before you. You have great wrongs. We will right them together. Be my lieutenant, my confidant, my helper! Come! put your hand in mine and say, 'I am with you, Robert G.o.dwyn, heart and soul.'"

Landless sprang to his feet. "It were easy to say that," he said hoa.r.s.ely, "for, in all the two years I lay rotting in prison, and in these weeks of sordid misery here in Virginia, yours is the only face that has looked kindly upon me, yours the only voice that has told me I was believed.... But it is a fearful thing you propose! If all go as you say it will,--why WELL! but if not, h.e.l.l will be in the land. I must have time to think, to judge for myself, to decide--"

The door swung stealthily inward, and in the opening appeared the dead white face, with the great letter sprawling over it, of Master Win-Grace Porringer.

"There are boats on the creek," he said. "Two coming up, one coming down."

G.o.dwyn nodded. "I hold conference to-night with men from this and the two neighboring plantations. You will stay where you are and see and hear them. Only you must be silent; for they must not know that you are not entirely one with us, as I am well a.s.sured you will be."

"They are Oliverians?"

"All but two or three."

"I secured the mulatto," interrupted the Muggletonian.

"Ay," said G.o.dwyn, "I thought it well to have one slave representative here to-night. These mulattoes are devils; but they can plot, and they can keep a still tongue. But I shall not trust him or his kind too far."

The peculiar knock--four strokes in all--sounded upon the door, and Porringer went to it. "Who is there?" pa.s.sed on the one side, and "The sword of the Lord and of Gideon" on the other. The door swung open, and there entered two men of a grave and determined cast of countenance.

Both had iron-gray hair, and one was branded upon the forehead with the letter that appeared upon the cheek of the Muggletonian. Again the knock sounded, the countersign was given, and the door opened to admit a pale, ascetic-looking youth, with glittering eyes and a crimson spot on each cheek, who stooped heavily and coughed often. He was followed by another stern-faced Commonwealth's man, and he in turn by a brace of broad-visaged rustics and a smug-faced man, who looked like a small shopkeeper. After an interval came two more Oliverians, grim of eye, and composed in manner.

Last of all came the mulatto of the pale amber color and the gold ear-rings; and with him came the long-nosed, twitching-lipped convict in whose company Landless had crossed the Atlantic. His name was Trail; and Landless, knowing him for a villainous rogue, started at finding him amongst the company.

His presence there was evidently unexpected. G.o.dwyn frowned and turned sharply upon the mulatto. "Who gave you leave to bring this man?" he demanded sternly.

The mulatto was at no loss. "Worthy Senors all," he said smoothly, addressing himself to the company in general. "This Senor Trail is a good man, as I have reason to know. Once we were together in San Domingo, slave to a villainous cavalier from Seville. With the help of St. Jago and the Mother of G.o.d, we killed him and made our escape. Now, after many years, we meet here in a like situation. I answer for my friend as I answer for myself, myself, Luiz Sebastian, the humble and altogether-devoted servant of you all, worshipful Senors."

The man with the branded forehead muttered something in which the only distinguishable words were, "Scarlet woman," and "Papist half-breed,"

and the smug-faced man cried out, "Trail is a forger and thief! I remember his trial at the Bailey, a week before I signed as storekeeper to Major Carrington."

This speech of the smug-faced man created something of a commotion, and one or two started to their feet. The mulatto looked about him with an evil eye.

"My friend has been in trouble, it is true," he said, still very smoothly. "He will not make the worse conspirator for that. And why, worthy Senors, should you make a difference between him and one other I see in company? Mother of G.o.d! they are both in the same boat!" He fixed his large eyes on Landless as he spoke, and his thick lips curled into a tigerish smile.

Landless half rose, but G.o.dwyn laid a detaining hand upon his arm. "Be still," he said in a low voice, "and let me manage this matter."

Landless obeyed, and the mender of nets turned to the a.s.sembly, who by this time were looking very black.

"Friends," he said with quiet impressiveness, "I think you know me, Robert G.o.dwyn, well enough to know that I make no move in these great matters without good and sufficient reason. I have good and sufficient reason for wishing to a.s.sociate with us this young man,--yea, even to make him a leader among us. He is one of us--he fought at Worcester. And that he is an innocent man, falsely accused, falsely imprisoned, wrongfully sent to the plantations, I well believe,--for I will believe no wrong of the son of Warham Landless."

There was a loud murmur of surprise through the room, and one of the Oliverians sprung to his feet, crying out, "Warham Landless was my colonel! I will follow his son were he ten times a convict!"

G.o.dwyn waited for the buzz of voices to cease and then calmly proceeded, "As to this man whom Luiz Sebastian hath brought with him, I know nothing. But it matters little. Sooner or later we must engage his cla.s.s,--as well commence with him as with another. He will be faithful for his own sake."

The dark faces of his audience cleared gradually. Only the youth with the hectic cheeks cried out, "I have hated the congregation of evil doers, and I will not sit with the wicked!" and rose as if to make for the door. Win-Grace Porringer pulled him down with a muttered, "Curse you for a fool! Shall not the Lord shave with a hired razor? When these men have done their work, then shall they be cut down and cast into outer darkness, until when, hold thy peace!"

The company now applied itself to the transaction of business. Trail was duly sworn in, not without a deal of oily glibness and unnecessary protestation on his part. The man who held the little, worn Bible now turned to Landless, but upon G.o.dwyn's saying quietly, "I have already sworn him," the book was returned to the bosom of its owner.

Each conspirator had his report to make. Landless listened with grave attention and growing wonder to long lists of plantations and the servant and slave force thereon; to news from the up-river estates, and from the outlying settlements upon the Rappahannock and the Pamunkey, and from across the bay in Accomac; to accounts of secret a.r.s.enals slowly filling with rude weapons; to allusions to the well-affected sailors on board those ships that were likely to be in harbor during the next two months;--to the details of a formidable and far-reaching conspiracy.

The Oliverians spoke of the hour in which this mine should be sprung as the great and appointed day of the Lord, the day when the Lord was to stretch forth his hand and smite the malignants, the day when Israel should be delivered out of the hand of Pharaoh. The branded man apostrophized G.o.dwyn as Moses. Their stern and rigid features relaxed, their eyes glistened, their breath came short and thick. Once the youth who had wished to avoid the company of the wicked broke into hysterical sobbing. The two rustics spoke little, but possibly thought the more. To them the day of the Lord translated itself the day of their obtaining a freehold. The smug-faced shopkeeper put in his oar now and again, but only to be swept aside by the torrent of Biblical quotation. The newly admitted Trail kept a discreet silence, but used his furtive greenish eyes to good purpose. Luiz Sebastian sat with the stillness of a great, yellow, crouching tiger cat.

G.o.dwyn heard all in silence. Not till the last man had had his say did he begin to speak, approving, suggesting, directing, moulding in his facile hands the incongruous and disjointed ma.s.s of information and opinion into a rounded whole. The men, listening to him with breathless attention, gave grim nods of approval. At one point of his discourse the branded man cried out:--

"If the Puritan gentry you talk of would gird themselves like men, and come forth to the battle, how quickly would the Lord's work be done!

They are the drones within the hive! They expect the honey, but do not the work."

"It is so," said G.o.dwyn, "but they have lands and goods and fame to lose. We have naught to lose--can be no worse off than we are now."

"If the Laodicean, Carrington,"--began the branded man.

G.o.dwyn interrupted him. "This is beside the matter. Major Carrington is a G.o.dly man who hath, though in secret, done many kindnesses to us poor prisoners of the Lord. Let us be content with that."

A moment later he said, "It waxeth late, friends, and loath would I be for one of you to be discovered. Come to me again a week from to-night.

The word will be, 'The valley of Jehoshaphat.'"

The conspirators dropped away, in twos and threes, gliding silently off in their stolen boats between the walls of waving gra.s.s. When, last of all save Landless and the Muggletonian, Trail and Luiz Sebastian approached the door, G.o.dwyn stopped them with a gesture.

"Stay a moment," he said. "I have a word to say to you. We may as well be frank with you. I distrust you, of course. It is natural that I should. And you distrust me as much. It is natural that you should. I would do without the aid of you and the cla.s.s you represent if I could, but I cannot. You would do without my aid if you could, but you cannot.

Betray me, and whatever blood money you get, it will not be that freedom which you want. We are obliged to work together, unequal yoke-fellows as we are. Do I make myself understood?"

"To a marvel, Senor," said Luiz Sebastian.

"d.a.m.n my soul, but you're a sharp one!" said Trail.

G.o.dwyn smiled. "That is enough, we understand one another. Good-night."

The two glided off in their turn, and G.o.dwyn said to the Muggletonian, "Friend Porringer, that mended sail must be bestowed in the large boat before the hut against Haines' coming for it in the morning. Will you take it to the boat for me? And if you will wait there this young man shall join you shortly."

The Muggletonian nodded, piled the heap of dingy sail upon his head and strode off. The mender of nets turned to Landless.

"Well," he said. "What do you think?"

"I think," said Landless, raising his voice, "that the gentleman in the dark corner must be tired of standing."

There was a dead silence. Then a piece of shadow detached itself from the other heavy shadows in the dark corner and came forward into the torch light, where it resolved itself into a handsome figure of a man, apparently in the prime of life, and wearing a riding cloak of green cloth and a black riding mask. Not content with the concealment afforded by the mask, he had pulled his beaver low over his eyes and with one hand held the folds of the cloak about the lower part of his face. He rested the other ungloved hand upon the table and stared fixedly at Landless. "You have good eyes," he said at last, in a voice as m.u.f.fled as his countenance.

"It is a warm night," said Landless with a smile. "If Major Carrington would drop that heavy cloak, he would find it more comfortable."

The man recoiled. "You know me!" he cried incredulously.