Part 17 (1/2)

He took a piece of sail-cloth from the floor, and with it covered the dead man from sight. Next he turned to the hollow above the fireplace, and took from it the pistols, concealing them in his bosom. ”I may need them,” he said. ”Come.”

They left the hut and its dead guardian, and rowed back through the summer dawn. The sky was barred with crimson and gold, the fiery rim of the sun just lifting above the eastern waters, the mist, a bridal veil of silver and pearl drawn across the face of a virgin earth.

They rowed in silence until they neared the wharf, when Porringer said, ”You are leader now.”

The other raised his haggard eyes. ”It is a trust. I will go through with it, G.o.d helping me. But I would I were lying dead beside him in yonder hut.”

They left the boat at the wharf, and went towards the quarters. Meeting one of the blowzed and slatternly female servants, Landless asked where they might find the overseer. He had gone to the three-mile field half an hour ago, after bestowing upon the two dilatory servants a hearty cursing, and promising to reckon with them at dinner-time. ”Where was the master?” He had gone to the mouth of the inlet with Sir Charles Carew, who had grown impatient, and had sailed away under the Nancy's patched sail. The under overseer was in the far corn-field, two miles off.

”Are all the men in the fields, Barb?” asked Landless.

Barb informed him that they were, ”as he might very well know, seeing that the sun was half an hour high.”

”Have you seen the man called Roach?”

No: Barb had not seen him; but she had heard the overseer tell Luiz Sebastian to take two men and go to the strip of Orenoko between the inlet and the third tobacco house, and Luiz Sebastian had been calling for Roach and Trail.

Landless thanked her, and moved away without offering to bestow upon her that which Barb probably thought her information merited.

”Do you find Woodson,” he said to the Muggletonian, ”and report this murder, saying nothing, however, of what we know. I myself will go to the tobacco house.”

”Had I not best come with thee to hold up thy hands?” said Porringer. ”I would take up my text from the thirty-fifth of Numbers, and from Revelation, twenty-second, thirteen, and deal mightily with the murderer.”

”No,” answered Landless. ”Woodson must be seen at once, or we ourselves will fall under suspicion. And, friend, ask that thou and I may be the ones to bury _him_.”

CHAPTER XIII

IN THE TOBACCO HOUSE

The third tobacco house was built upon a point of land jutting into the larger inlet, and screened off from the wide expanse of fields by a belt of cedars. It was a lonely, retired spot, and the high, dark, windowless structure with its heavy, low-browed door had a menacing aspect.

Landless expected to find the men within the building, instead of outside attending to their work, and he was not disappointed. As he walked through the doorway into the pungent gloom, the three started up from the debris of casks, sticks, and pegs, amidst which they had been squatting, with their heads ominously close together.

Landless strode up to Roach. ”You murderer!” he said.

The convict recoiled; then with a b.e.s.t.i.a.l sound, half snarl, half bellow of rage, he gathered himself for a rush. Landless awaited him with bent body and sinewy, outstretched arms; but the mulatto interposed. Laying his long, beautifully shaped, yellow hands upon Roach, he forced him back against a cask, and, pinning him there, whispered in his ear. The face of the wretch gradually resumed its usual expression of low brutality, though an ugly sweat broke out upon it, and the mouth opened and shut as though he had been running. He turned upon Landless with a half threatening, half cringing air.

”So you've found out what I was about last night, eh, pardner? But you'll keep a still tongue. You're not one to peach on your comrade as was in h.e.l.l or Newgate with you, and as crossed the ocean with you to this d--d Virginia, and as has always liked you, and has the same spite as you have against the man what bought us. You say naught, comrade, and you'll not stand to lose by it.”

”I go from here to give you up to Colonel Verney,” said Landless.

The wretch gave a snarl of rage and fear. Luiz Sebastian laid a soothing hand upon his shoulder.

”If I thought that,” snarled the convict, ”you'd never live to reach that door.”

”I shall live to see you hanged,” said the other coolly.

Here the mulatto slipped something into Roach's hand. ”So you'll give me up?” said the latter in a peculiar voice.