Part 5 (1/2)

”Stand by you and Jones will deal with me. Stand by him and you threaten me with your men, led by that fighting Standish of yours. Between you where does George Heaton stand?” asked Heaton sullenly, turning, nevertheless, to do Giles's bidding.

”You should have thought of this before,” said Giles, coolly. ”There never yet was wisdom and safety in rascality.”

Captain Jones, whose connection with the pilgrims was no more than that he had been hired by them to bring them to the New World, was a man whose honesty many of his pa.s.sengers mistrusted, but against whom, as against the captain of the Speedwell that had turned back, there was no proof.

He was coming out of his cabin to his breakfast when Heaton brought the boys to him; he started visibly at the sight of Giles, but recovered himself instantly and greeted the lads affably.

”Good morning, my erstwhile pa.s.sengers and new colonists,” he said. ”I have wondered that at least the younger members of your community did not visit the s.h.i.+p. Welcome!” He held out his hand, but neither Giles nor John seemed to see it.

”Master Jones,” said Giles, ”there is no use wasting time and phrases. This man, at your orders, stole out of the women's cabin on this s.h.i.+p the papers left by my father in his wife's care. He has given them up to you. The story has only now--yesterday--come to our knowledge. Give me those papers.”

”What right have you to accuse me, me, the master of this s.h.i.+p?” demanded Captain Jones, bl.u.s.tering. ”Have a care that I don't throw you overboard. Take your boat and be gone before harm comes to you!”

”You would throw more than us overboard if you dared to touch us,” returned Giles. ”Nor is it either of us to whom harm threatens. Come, Master Jones, those papers! My father, none of the colony, knows of your crime. What do you think will befall you when they do know it? Hand us the papers, not one lacking, and we will let you go back to England free and safe. Refuse----Well, it's for you to choose, but I'd not hesitate in your place.” Giles shrugged his shoulders, half turning away, as if after all the result of his mission did not concern him.

John saw a telepathic message exchanged between the captain and his tool. The question wordlessly asked Heaton whether the theft of the papers, their possession by the captain, actually was known, and Heaton's eyes answering: ”Yes!”

Captain Jones swallowed hard, as if he were swallowing a great dose, as he surely was. After a moment's thought he spoke: ”See here, Giles Hopkins, I always liked you, and now I father admire you for your courage in thus boarding my s.h.i.+p and bearding me. I admit that I hold the papers. But, as of course you can easily see, I am neither a thief nor a receiver of stolen goods. My reason for wanting those papers was no common one. I am willing to restore to you those which relate to your family inheritance, your father's personal papers, but those which relate to Plymouth colony I want. I can use them to my advantage in England. Take this division of the doc.u.ments and go back with my congratulations on your conduct.”

”I would liefer your blame than your praise, sir,” said Giles, haughtily, in profound disgust with the man. ”It needs no saying that my father would part with any private advantage sooner than with what had been entrusted to him. First and most I demand the Plymouth colony doc.u.ments. Get the papers, not one lacking, and let me go ash.o.r.e. The wide harbour's winds are not strong enough for me to breathe on your s.h.i.+p. It sickens me.”

Captain Jones gave the boy a malevolent look.

”A virtue of necessity,” he muttered, turning to go.

”And your sole virtue?” suggested Giles to his retreating back.

Captain Jones was gone a long time. The boys fumed with impatience and feared harm to the papers, but George Heaton grinned at them with the utmost cheerfulness. He had completely sloughed off all share in the theft and plainly enjoyed his superior's discomfiture, being of that order of creatures whose malice revels in the mischances of others.

It proved that the captain's delay was due to his reluctance to comply with Giles's demand. He came at last, slowly, bearing in his hand the packet enveloped in oilskin which Giles remembered having seen in his father's possession.

”I must do your bidding, youngster,” he said angrily, ”for you can harm me otherwise. But what guarantee have I, if I hand these papers to you, that you will keep the secret?”

”I never said that the secret would be kept; I said that you should suffer no harm. An innocent person is accused of this theft; the truth must be known. But I can and do promise you that you shall not be molested; I can answer for that. As to guarantee, you know my father, you know the Plymouth pilgrims, you know me. Is there any doubt that we are honourable, conscientious, G.o.d-fearing, the sort that faithfully keep their word?” demanded Giles.

”No. I grant you that. Take your packet,” said Captain Jones, yielding it.

”By your leave I will examine it,” said Giles unfastening its straps.

”Do you doubt me?” bl.u.s.tered the captain.

”Not a whit,” laughed John with a great burst of mirth, before Giles could answer.

”Why should we doubt you? Haven't you shown us exactly what you are?”

Giles turned over the papers one by one. None was missing. He folded them and replaced them in their case, buckling its straps.

”All the papers are here,” he said. ”John, we'll be off. This is our final visit to the Mayflower, Master Jones--unless I s.h.i.+p with you for England. Good voyage, as I hear they say in France. Hope you'll catch a bit of Puritan conscience before you leave the harbour.”

Captain Jones followed the boys to the side of the s.h.i.+p where they were to reembark in their rowboat. At every step he grew angrier, the veins swelled in his forehead which was only a shade less purple-red than his cheeks. His defeat was a sore thing, the disappointment of the plans which he had laid upon the possession of the stolen doc.u.ments became more vividly realized with each moment, and the fact that two lads had thus conquered him and were going away with their prize infuriated him.

Giles had swung himself down into the boat and was s.h.i.+pping the oars, but John halted for a moment in a stuffy corner to gloat over the captain's empurpled face and to dally with a temptation to add picturesqueness to their departure. The temptation got the upper hand of him, though John usually held out both hands to mischief.

He drew Bouncing Bully from his breast and levelled it.

”Stop! Gunpowder!” screamed the captain, choking with fear and rage, and pointing at a small keg that stood hard by.

”I won't hit it,” John grinned, delightedly. ”Let's see how my gunpowder is.” With a flourish the mad boy fired a shot into the wall of the tiny cabin, regardless of the fact that the likely explosion of the keg of gunpowder would have blown up the Mayflower and him with her.

The captain fell forward on his face, the men who were at work splicing ropes in the cubby-like cabin cowered speechless, their faces ashen.

John whooped with joy and fled, leaping into the rowboat which he nearly upset.

”What?” demanded Giles. ”Who shot? Did he attack you, Jack?”

”Who? No one attacked me. I shot. Zounds, they were scared! In that pocket of a cabin, with a keg of gunpowder sitting close,” chuckled John.

”What in the name of all that's sane did you do that for?” cried Giles. ”Scared! I should say with reason! Why, Jack Billington, you might be blown to bits by this time, s.h.i.+p, men, yourself, and all!”

”I might be,” a.s.sented Jack, coolly. ”I'm not. Giles, you should have seen your s.h.i.+pmaster Jones! Flat on his face and fair blubbering with fear and fury! He loves us not, my Giles! I doubt his days are dull on the Mayflower, so long at anchor. 'Twas but kind to stir up a lively moment. Here, give me an oar! Even though you said you would row back, I feel like helping you. Wait till I settle Bouncing Bully. He's digging me in the ribs, to remind me of the joke we played 'em, I've no doubt; but he hurts. That's better. Now for sh.o.r.e and your triumph, old Giles!”

CHAPTER VIII.

Deep Love, Deep Wound.

Constance had escaped from Humility Cooper and Elizabeth Tilley who had affectionately joined her when she had appeared on her way to the beach to await Giles's return.

Constance invented a question that must be asked Elder Brewster because she knew that the girls, though they revered him, feared him, and never willingly went where they must reply to his gravely kind attempts at conversation with them. ”I surely feel like a wicked hypocrite,” sighed Constance, watching her friends away as she turned toward the house that sheltered the elder.

”What would dear little Humility say if she knew I had tried to get rid of her? Or Elizabeth either! But it isn't as though I had not wanted them for a less good reason. I do love them dearly! I must meet Giles and hear his news as soon as I can, and it can't be told before another. Mercy upon us, what was it that I had thought of to ask Elder Brewster! I've forgotten every syllable of it! Well, mercy upon us! And suppose he sees me hesitating here! I know! I'll confess to him that I was wis.h.i.+ng I was in Warwicks.h.i.+re hearing Eastertide alleluias sung in my cousins' church, and ask him if it was sinful. He loves to correct me, dear old saint!”

Dimpling with mischief Constance turned her head away from a possible onlooker in the house to pull her face down into the proper expression for a youthful seeker for guidance. Then, quite demure and serious, with downcast eyes, she turned and went into the house.

Elder William Brewster kept her some time. She was nervously anxious to escape, fearing to miss the boys' arrival. But Elder Brewster was deeply interested in pretty Constance Hopkins, in whom, in spite of her sweet docility and patient daily performance of her hard tasks, he discerned glimpses of girlish liveliness that made him anxious and which he felt must be corrected to bring the dear girl into perfection.

Constance decided that she was expiating fully whatever fault there might have been in feigning an errand to Elder Brewster to get rid of the girls as she sat uneasily listening to that good man's exposition of the value of alleluias in the heart above those sung in church, and the baseness of allowing the mind to look back for a moment at the ”shackles from which she was freed.” Good Elder Brewster ended by reading from his roughened brown leather-covered Bible the story of Lot's wife to which Constance--who had heard it many times, it being an appropriate theme for the pilgrim band to ponder, sick in heart and body as they had been so long--did not harken.

At last she was dismissed with a fatherly hand laid on her s.h.i.+ning head, and a last warning to keep in mind how favoured above her English cousins she had been to be chosen a daughter in Israel to help found a kingdom of righteousness. Constance ran like the wind down the road, stump-bordered, the beginning of a street, and came down upon the beach just as the boys reached it and their boat b.u.mped up on the sand under the last three hard pulls they had given the oars in unison.

”Oh! Giles, oh, Giles, oh Jack!” cried Constance fairly dancing under her excitement.

”Oh, Con, oh, Con! Oh, Constantia!” mocked John, hauling away on the painter and getting the boat up to her tying stake.

”What happened you? Have you news?” Constance implored them.

”We heard no especial news, Con,” said Giles. ”I'm not sure we asked for any. We have this instead; will that suffice you?”