"The bloodhounds will be upon your trail before noon."
The wretch cried out and struck his hand against the wall with a force that laid the knuckles bare and bleeding.
"There is a way," said Luiz Sebastian slowly, "a way that only I know. You must take to the inlet here, and swim up it until you come to the mouth of the brook yonder in the forest. You must wade up that brook until you come to a second, and up that until you come to a third. When you have gone a mile up that one, leave it, and strike through the woods, going towards the north. Another mile will bring you to a village of the Chickahominies upon the Pamunkey.[1] They are at odds with Governor and Council, and they will hide you. Moreover, I once did their sachem a service, and they are my friends."
"I'm off," said Roach, breaking from the detaining grasp.
"Wait," said Luiz Sebastian. "There is time enough. Woodson will not come for a long while. When he does, he shall find Señor Trail and myself busily at work there outside, and we will say that you left us, and went down the inlet a long time before. But now we want to talk to you."
"Be quick then," growled the other, "I've no mind to swing for this job."
Luiz Sebastian brought his handsomely malevolent face close to the other's hideous countenance.
"Would you not like to ruin that devil who but now robbed you of your hard-earned property?"
"Would I not?" cried the murderer with a tremendous oath. "I'd give everything but life and gold to do it, as that cunning devil well knew. I'd give my soul!"
"Would you like to be shown how to get more gold than old Godwyn's store, twenty times told? To get your freedom? To have some black, sweet hours in which to work your will on them at the house yonder? To plunge your arms to the elbow in the master's money chest; to become drunken with his wine; to strike him down, and that smiling imp his cousin, and that other devil, Woodson; to hear the women cry for mercy—and cry in vain? You would like all this?"