WESTMINSTER
ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE AND CO
2 WHITEHALL GARDENS
1900

1900. Copyright in the U.S.A. by
Houghton Mifflin & Co

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE
[I]In which I Throw Ambs-Ace [7]
[II]In which I Meet Master Jeremy Sparrow[16]
[III]In which I Marry in Haste[26]
[IV]In which I am Like to Repent at Leisure[36]
[V]In which a Woman has her Way[49]
[VI]In which we Go to Jamestown[58]
[VII]In which we Prepare to Fight the Spaniard[69]
[VIII]In which Enters my Lord Carnal[80]
[IX]In which Two Drink of One Cup[92]
[X]In which Master Pory gains Time to Some Purpose[108]
[XI]In which I Meet an Italian Doctor[116]
[XII]In which I Receive a Warning and Repose a Trust[128]
[XIII]In which the “Santa Teresa” Drops Downstream[135]
[XIV]In which we Seek a Lost Lady[143]
[XV]In which we Find the Haunted Wood[151]
[XVI]In which I am Rid of an Unprofitable Servant[161]
[XVII]In which my Lord and I Play at Bowls[172]
[XVIII]In which we Go out into the Night[185]
[XIX]In which we have Unexpected Company[196]
[XX]In which we are in Desperate Case[206]
[XXI]In which a Grave is Digged[216]
[XXII]In which I Change my Name and Occupation[226]
[XXIII]In which we Write upon the Sand[238]
[XXIV]In which we Choose the Lesser of Two Evils[250]
[XXV]In which my Lord hath his Day[261]
[XXVI]In which I am Brought to Trial[272]
[XXVII]In which I Find an Advocate[281]
[XXVIII]In which the Springtime is at Hand[294]
[XXIX]In which I Keep Tryst[306]
[XXX]In which we Start upon a Journey[322]
[XXXI]In which Nantauquas Comes to our Rescue[333]
[XXXII]In which we are the Guests of an Emperor[348]
[XXXIII]In which my Friend becomes my Foe[362]
[XXXIV]In which the Race is not to the Swift[375]
[XXXV]In which I Come to the Governor's House[385]
[XXXVI]In which I hear Ill News[397]
[XXXVII]In which my Lord and I part Company[409]
[XXXVIII]In which I go upon a Quest[419]
[XXXIX]In which we Listen to a Song[430]

CHAPTER I
In which I Throw Ambs-ace

THE work of the day being over, I sat down upon my doorstep, pipe in hand, to rest awhile in the cool of the evening. Death is not more still than is this Virginian land in the hour when the sun has sunk away, and it is black beneath the trees, and the stars brighten slowly and softly, one by one. The birds that sing all day have hushed, and the horned owls, the monster frogs, and that strange and ominous fowl (if fowl it be, and not, as some assert, a spirit damned) which we English call the whippoorwill, are yet silent. Later the wolf will howl and the panther scream, but now there is no sound. The winds are laid, and the restless leaves droop and are quiet. The low lap of the water among the reeds is like the breathing of one who sleeps in his watch beside the dead.

I marked the light die from the broad bosom of the river, leaving it a dead man’s hue. Awhile ago, and for many evenings, it had been crimson,—a river of blood. A week before, a great meteor had shot through the night, blood-red and bearded, drawing a slow-fading fiery trail across the heavens; and the moon had risen that same night blood-red, and upon its disk there was drawn in shadow a thing most marvellously like a scalping knife. Wherefore, the following day being Sunday, good Mr. Stockham, our minister at Weyanoke, exhorted us to be on our guard, and in his prayer besought that no sedition or rebellion might raise its head amongst the Indian subjects of the Lord’s anointed. Afterward, in the churchyard, between the services, the more timorous began to tell of divers portents which they had observed, and to recount old tales of how the savages distressed us in the Starving Time. The bolder spirits laughed them to scorn, but the women began to weep and cower, and I, though I laughed too, thought of Smith, and how he ever held the savages, and more especially that Opechancanough, who was now their emperor, in a most deep distrust; telling us that the red men watched while we slept, that they might teach wiliness to a Jesuit, and how to bide its time to a cat crouched before a mousehole. I thought of the terms we now kept with these heathen; of how they came and went familiarly amongst us, spying out our weakness, and losing the salutary awe which that noblest captain had struck into their souls; of how many were employed as hunters to bring down deer for lazy masters; of how, breaking the law, and that not secretly, we gave them knives and arms, a soldier’s bread, in exchange for pelts and pearls; of how their emperor was for ever sending us smooth messages; of how their lips smiled and their eyes frowned. That afternoon, as I rode home through the lengthening shadows, a hunter, red-brown and naked, rose from behind a fallen tree that sprawled across my path, and made offer to bring me my meat from the moon of corn to the moon of stags in exchange for a gun. There was scant love between the savages and myself,—it was answer enough when I told him my name. I left the dark figure standing, still as a carved stone, in the heavy shadow of the trees, and, spurring my horse (sent me from home, the year before, by my cousin Percy), was soon at my house,—a poor and rude one, but pleasantly set upon a slope of green turf, and girt with maize and the broad leaves of the tobacco. When I had had my supper, I called from their hut the two Paspahegh lads bought by me from their tribe the Michaelmas before, and soundly flogged them both, having in my mind a saying of my ancient captain’s, namely, “He who strikes first ofttimes strikes last.”

Upon the afternoon of which I now speak, in the midsummer of the year of grace 1621, as I sat upon my doorstep, my long pipe between my teeth and my eyes upon the pallid stream below, my thoughts were busy with these matters,—so busy that I did not see a horse and rider emerge from the dimness of the forest into the cleared space before my palisade, nor knew, until his voice came up the bank, that my good friend, Master John Rolfe, was without and would speak to me.