Landless half rose, but Godwyn laid a detaining hand upon his arm. "Be still," he said in a low voice, "and let me manage this matter."
Landless obeyed, and the mender of nets turned to the assembly, who by this time were looking very black.
"Friends," he said with quiet impressiveness, "I think you know me, Robert Godwyn, well enough to know that I make no move in these great matters without good and sufficient reason. I have good and sufficient reason for wishing to associate with us this young man,—yea, even to make him a leader among us. He is one of us—he fought at Worcester. And that he is an innocent man, falsely accused, falsely imprisoned, wrongfully sent to the plantations, I well believe,—for I will believe no wrong of the son of Warham Landless."
There was a loud murmur of surprise through the room, and one of the Oliverians sprung to his feet, crying out, "Warham Landless was my colonel! I will follow his son were he ten times a convict!"
Godwyn waited for the buzz of voices to cease and then calmly proceeded, "As to this man whom Luiz Sebastian hath brought with him, I know nothing. But it matters little. Sooner or later we must engage his class,—as well commence with him as with another. He will be faithful for his own sake."
The dark faces of his audience cleared gradually. Only the youth with the hectic cheeks cried out, "I have hated the congregation of evil doers, and I will not sit with the wicked!" and rose as if to make for the door. Win-Grace Porringer pulled him down with a muttered, "Curse you for a fool! Shall not the Lord shave with a hired razor? When these men have done their work, then shall they be cut down and cast into outer darkness, until when, hold thy peace!"
The company now applied itself to the transaction of business. Trail was duly sworn in, not without a deal of oily glibness and unnecessary protestation on his part. The man who held the little, worn Bible now turned to Landless, but upon Godwyn's saying quietly, "I have already sworn him," the book was returned to the bosom of its owner.
Each conspirator had his report to make. Landless listened with grave attention and growing wonder to long lists of plantations and the servant and slave force thereon; to news from the up-river estates, and from the outlying settlements upon the Rappahannock and the Pamunkey, and from across the bay in Accomac; to accounts of secret arsenals slowly filling with rude weapons; to allusions to the well-affected sailors on board those ships that were likely to be in harbor during the next two months;—to the details of a formidable and far-reaching conspiracy.
The Oliverians spoke of the hour in which this mine should be sprung as the great and appointed day of the Lord, the day when the Lord was to stretch forth his hand and smite the malignants, the day when Israel should be delivered out of the hand of Pharaoh. The branded man apostrophized Godwyn as Moses. Their stern and rigid features relaxed, their eyes glistened, their breath came short and thick. Once the youth who had wished to avoid the company of the wicked broke into hysterical sobbing. The two rustics spoke little, but possibly thought the more. To them the day of the Lord translated itself the day of their obtaining a freehold. The smug-faced shopkeeper put in his oar now and again, but only to be swept aside by the torrent of Biblical quotation. The newly admitted Trail kept a discreet silence, but used his furtive greenish eyes to good purpose. Luiz Sebastian sat with the stillness of a great, yellow, crouching tiger cat.
Godwyn heard all in silence. Not till the last man had had his say did he begin to speak, approving, suggesting, directing, moulding in his facile hands the incongruous and disjointed mass of information and opinion into a rounded whole. The men, listening to him with breathless attention, gave grim nods of approval. At one point of his discourse the branded man cried out:—