Part 25 (1/2)

Her glance fell upon Landless's face, and there came to her a sudden realization that there were those in the world, to whom life was not one sweet, bright gala day. She gazed at him with troubled eyes.

”I hope you care to live,” she said. ”Death is very dreadful.”

”I do not think so,” he answered. ”At least it would be forgetfulness.”

She shuddered. ”Ah! but to leave the world, the warm, bright, beautiful world! To die on your bed, when you are old--that is different. But to go young! to go in storm and terror, or in horror and struggling as did that man who was murdered! Oh, horrible!”

The thought of the murdered man brought another thought into her mind.

”Do you think,” she said, ”that we had better tell that we saw the murderer at the first house to which we come, or had we best wait until we reach Verney Manor?”

Landless gave a great start. ”You will tell Colonel Verney that?”

She opened her eyes widely. ”Why, of course! What else should we do? Is not the country being scoured for him? My father is most anxious that he should be captured. Justice and the weal of the State demand that such a wretch should be punished.” She paused and looked at him gravely as he walked beside her with a clouded face. ”You say nothing! This man is guilty, guilty of a dreadful crime. Surely you do not wish to s.h.i.+eld him, to let him escape?”

”Not so, madam,” said Landless in desperation. ”But--but--”

”But what?” she asked as he stopped in confusion.

He recovered himself. ”Nothing, madam. You are right, of course. But I would not speak before reaching Verney Manor.”

”Very well.”

Landless walked on, bitterly perplexed and chagrined. The strife and danger of the night, the intoxicating sweetness of the morning hours when he knew himself believed in and pitied by the woman beside him, had driven certain things into oblivion. He had been dreaming, and now he had been plucked from a fool's paradise, and dashed rudely to the ground. Yesterday and the life and thoughts of yesterday, which had but now seemed so far away, pressed upon him remorselessly. And to-morrow!

He did not want Roach to be taken. Always there would have been danger to himself and his a.s.sociates in the capture of the murderer, but now when the vindictive wretch would a.s.suredly attribute his disaster to the man to whom the lightning flash had revealed his presence on the sh.o.r.es of the bay, the danger was trebled. And it was imminent. He had little doubt that another night would see Roach in custody, and he had no doubt at all that the scoundrel would make a desperate effort to save his neck by betraying what he knew of the conspiracy--and thanks to G.o.dwyn's lists he knew a great deal--to Governor and Council.

Patricia began to speak again. ”It imports much that men should see that there is no weakness in the arm the law stretches out to seize and punish offenders. My father and the Governor and Colonel Ludlow believe that there is afoot an Oliverian plot-- What is the matter?”

”Nothing, madam.”

”You stood still and caught your breath. Are you ill, faint?”

”It is nothing, madam, believe me? You were saying?”

”Oh! the Oliverians! Nothing definite has been discovered as yet, but there is thunder in the air, my father says, and I know that he and the Governor and the rest of the council are very watchful just now. But yesterday my father said that those few hundred men form a greater menace to the Colony than do all the Indians between this and the South Sea.”

They walked on in silence for a few moments, and then she broke out.

”They are horrible, those grim, frowning men! They are rebels and traitors, one and all, and yet they stand by and shake curses on the heads of true men. They slew the best man, the most gracious sovereign; they trampled the Church under foot, they made the blood of the n.o.ble and the good to flow like water, and now when they receive a portion of their deserts, they call themselves martyrs! They, martyrs! Roundhead traitors!”

”Madam,” interrupted Landless with a curious smile upon his lips, ”did you not know that I was, that I am, what you call a Roundhead?”

”No,” she said, ”I did not know,” and stood perfectly still, looking straight before her down the long vista of trees. He saw her face change and harden into the old expression of aversion. The slaves came up to them, and Regulus asked if 'lil Missy wanted anything. ”No, nothing at all,” she answered, and walked quietly onward.

Landless, an angry pain tugging at his heart, kept beside her, for they were pa.s.sing through a deep hollow in the wood where the gnarled and protruding roots of cypress and juniper made walking difficult, and where a strong hand was needed to push aside the wet and pendent ma.s.ses of vine. Regulus, fifty yards behind them, began to sing a familiar broadside ballad, torturing the words out of all resemblance to English.

The rich notes rang sweetly through the forest. Down from the far summit of a pine flashed a cardinal bird, piercing the gloom of the hollow like a fire ball thrown into a cavern. Landless held aside a curtain of glistening leaves that, mingled with purple cl.u.s.ters of fruit, hung across their path. Patricia pa.s.sed him, then turned impulsively. ”You think me hard!” she said. ”Many people think me so, but I am not so, indeed.... And there are good Puritans. Major Carrington, they say, is Puritan at heart, and he is a good man and a gentleman.... And you saved my life.... At least you are not like those men of whom I spoke. You would not plot against the good peace which we enjoy! You would not try to array servant against master?”

It was a direct question asked with large, straightforward eyes fixed upon his. He tried to evade it, but she asked again with insistence, and with a faint doubt lurking in her eyes, ”If these men are plotting, which G.o.d forbid! you know nothing of it? You have great wrongs, but you would take no such dastard way to right them?”

Landless's soul writhed within him, but he told the inevitable lie that was none the less a lie that it was also the truth. He said in a low voice, ”I trust, madam, that I will do naught that may misbecome a gentleman.”