Joan had native wit. Her being, simple-seeming, pushed forward complexes enough when it came to the touch. Aderhold marvelled to see her so skilful and wary, and still so quiet with it all that she seemed to act without motion, or with motion too swift for perception. She went unsuspected of all—a tall, fair youth with grey eyes and a manner of reserve, brooding aside over some loss of his own.
Giles Allen, John Allen, George Dragon—it was George Dragon, Aderhold came to see, who furnished the danger point.—Humphrey Lantern was no artist to put forward a self complete, yet not your home and most familiar self. He had no considerable rôle to play; he was merely George Dragon, an old soldier of the Dutch Wars, who since had knocked about as best he might, and now would try his fortune in Virginia. He was at liberty to talk of the good wars and the Low Countries all he wished. He sought the forecastle and the company of the ruder sort and he talked of these. But he was forgetful, and at times the near past would trip up the far past. Never the very near past, but Aderhold had heard him let slip that for part time since the good wars, he had served as a gaoler—“head man in a good prison,” he put it with a grim touch of pride. Aderhold thought that some one had given him usquebaugh to drink. When he cautioned him, as he earnestly did at the first chance, Lantern could not remember that he had said any such thing, but, being sober, he agreed that the least thing might be spark to gunpowder, and that their lives depended upon discretion. He promised and for some time Aderhold observed him exercising due caution. But the fear remained, and the knowledge that Lantern would drink if tempted, and drunken knew not what he said.
At first they had a favouring wind and seas not rough or over-smooth. The ship bore strongly on, and the spirits of most aboard were good. Now and then broke out revelry and boisterousness, but the men of weight kept rule among their followers, and Captain Hugh Bard would have order where he commanded. The wilder sort, of whom there were enough aboard, must content themselves with suppressed quarrels, secret gaming, a murmur of feverish and unstable talk and conjecture. There were those who, wherever they were, must have excitement to feed upon. Their daily life must be peppered with a liberal hand, heightened to a fevered and whirling motion with no line of advance. These were restless, and spread their restlessness upon the Silver Queen. But there was much stolidity aboard, and at first and for many days it counteracted.
The wind blew, the sails filled, they drove cheerily on. They came to the Canaries, on the old passage, then drove westward. Days passed, many days. They came to where they might begin to look for islands. And here a storm took them and carried them out of their reckoning, and here their luck fell away from them. The storm was outlasted, but after it there befell a calm. The wind failed, sank away until there was not a breath. Sullen and stubborn, the calm lasted, weary day after weary day. The sails hung lank, the water made not even a small lipping sound, the crowned woman at the prow stood full length and steady, staring at a glassy floor. The sea was oil, the sky brazen, and the spirits flagged like the flagging sails. Day after day, day after day...
At dawn one morning Aderhold and Joan leaned against the rail and looked at the purple sea. It lay like a vast gem, moveless and hard. The folk upon the ship were still sleeping. The seamen aloft in the rigging or moving upon the decks troubled them not, hardly looked their way.
“If you held a feather before you,” said Joan, “it would not move a hair’s breadth! They are to pray for a wind to-day. Master Evans will pray—all aboard will pray. Is it chained somewhere, or idle or asleep, or locked in a chest, and will we turn the key that way?”
“Did you see or speak to George Dragon yesterday?”
“No. Why?”
“Some of these men brought aqua vitæ or usquebaugh aboard with them. He games for it and wins. And then his tongue wags more than it should.”