Truly I seemed to be in sore straits. If there was but some way out of it with honor, most gladly would I have welcomed it. For I could not let myself be taken now, and separated from Lucille, just when I had found her again. If I was sent back to England under arrest as a traitor (though I never admitted I was one, for I had no mind to betray my own country) I might count on a long imprisonment, if not death, and I would never see my love more. Then I hoped that a plan of escape might come to me, and so, after all, foil Simon.
“The matter need not be decided now,” I said as though I had my case all prepared, but only waited convenience to try it. “There is no occasion for haste, as I promise I will not run out among the red devils howling for our scalps. Let it rest.”
“Suppose you are killed?” suggested Simon. “What then becomes of the warrant?”
“Why, you may keep it, Simon,” I said. “There is no law that will reach the dead.”
“But I am under oath to a dead man to see the warrant properly served on a live man,” expostulated the sailor, “and you are the person mentioned.”
“’Tis a serious matter,” spoke up the Captain, “and one, the like of which I never knew before. To be strictly within the law I must arrest you, though you need not hand over your sword, nor suffer imprisonment. For we need your counsel and stout arm in the defense of the block. The Indians have only tasted blood, and want more. Our stubborn defense has roused them to a pitch of fury, and they will soon be swarming about our ears again.”
“Then I am to consider myself a prisoner,” I said, as calmly as I could; for I did not like Captain Carteret’s easy compliance with Simon’s demands.
“A prisoner, if you please,” replied the Captain. “The other details may wait until the more pressing matter of the Indian attack is settled. After that we may have no need of captors or prisoners, either.”
“’Tis very likely,” I said grimly, “seeing that we have but seventy fighting men left to stand against more than seven hundred.”
But I was not as easy as I pretended about the matter of the royal warrant. I knew it would not dared be ignored by Carteret, and Simon would see to it that the Captain did not fail to execute it.