Part 10 (1/2)
”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, wors.h.i.+pful 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 wis.h.i.+ng 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.”