"He shall not be harmed, sweet maid. I have a great ship, with larger and more destructive guns than were ever in Virginia. I have a crew loyal even unto death, and I could bombard and destroy their town, ere they harm either your brother, yourself or your mother."
He looked so earnest, so like a good angel of deliverance, that the impulsive Rebecca threw her arms about his neck, and he, pressing a kiss upon her fair young cheek, exclaimed:
"God bless you! There, I must go."
He conducted her home, went aboard his ship, and next morning the mysterious craft had disappeared from the harbor.
There were too many exciting incidents transpiring at Jamestown for the public to dwell long on the stranger. The same day on which the ship disappeared, the rumor ran about town:
"Bacon has fled! Bacon has fled!"
The rumor was a truth. Robert Stevens had gone with him, and although Mr. Lawrence explained that Bacon's wife was ill, and he had gone to visit her, yet Berkeley, ever suspicious, construed his sudden breaking of his parole into open hostility, and prepared to treat it accordingly.
CHAPTER XX.
BACON A REBEL.