Before O'Reily could make a reply, the sailor on the watch cried out that there was a large ship bearing down upon them. Bacon sprung upon his feet, ordered Brian to alarm the soldiers, and walked hastily forward. At the first glance, he saw a crowd of warlike heads, and caught the reflection of the light upon their arms. A second look at the strange movements of the vessel, and the hostile preparations of those on board served to convince him that he was himself the object of their pursuit. Taking two of the first soldiers who made their appearance on deck, he silently entered the boat swinging from the tafferel of the sloop, motioned the two soldiers to follow him, and then ordered the boat to be let down with all silence and despatch. O'Reily seeing these preparations as he came on deck from the performance of his orders, sprung into the boat as one end struck the water; it was too late, and the circumstances too urgent for his master to order him back—the frail bark was pushed off, therefore, with muffled oars, and as much within the shadow of the approaching vessels as their destined course would permit. Scarcely were they without the protection of these, before they discovered the yawl of the ship full of armed men, rapidly gliding into the water, and in the next moment, they heard musket balls whistling over their heads, accompanied by the momentary gleam and then the quick report of fire-arms. Seizing an oar himself, and ordering Brian to follow his example, they pulled with all their strength for the shore; this once gained, he hoped that the protection of the forest and the increasing haziness of the atmosphere settling upon the high banks of the river, would effectually protect his retreat. But in spite of their utmost efforts, the superior power with which the yawl was propelled through the water was rapidly shortening the distance between them. Brian threw off his jerkin, and strenuously exhorted his master to trust himself to the mercy of the waves, though he knew not the nature of the threatened danger. On this point, Bacon himself could only conjecture, that it was some device of his old enemy to get him secretly into his power, and hence his anxiety to reach Jamestown at the present juncture. He knew nothing of the change which had taken place at the capital in his favour, but he knew his own power over the populace, and he preferred being made prisoner in public, to trusting himself to the tender mercies of Sir William Berkley. In spite of all his exertions, and the hopes of reward held out to the soldiers in case of success, their boat was cut off from the shore by the pursuers interposing between it and themselves. He saw that resistance would be madness, as the boat now wheeling exactly in front of them contained five times their number, and would doubtless, in case of a struggle, be promptly sustained by assistance from the ship, which was now nearer to them than their own vessel. His only course, therefore, was to submit with as much philosophy as he could muster. He was deeply mortified and chagrined however, for his presence seemed to him to be most urgently called for at the capital. These views were founded upon the information he had received, now two days old. Could he have known what had taken place at Jamestown only a few hours before, and only a few miles distant from his present position; could he have known that Sir William Berkley was at that very moment an adventurer upon the same waters, but a few miles below, and driven thence by the firmness of the patriotic citizens who belonged to his own party, he would doubtless have made a desperate resistance. Perhaps it was more fortunate for all parties that he was thus ignorant of existing circumstances at the capital, for had he fallen at this juncture, (which was most probable) the fate of the Republican party in the infant state might have been very different.
He and his party soon found themselves on board of the hostile ship, which was commanded by Capt. Gardiner, an Englishman—a devoted loyalist and adherent of Sir William Berkley. He was politely received by that officer, but informed that he must consider himself a prisoner until he could exculpate himself before the Governor in person, at Accomac. Until this moment Bacon had been partially reconciled to his mishap, trusting to his known popularity among the people of the city, which he knew would not be diminished by the eclat of his Indian victories; but now that he was informed of the present residence of the Governor, and the destination of the ship, his hopes were totally prostrated. He began to suspect that something was wrong with Sir William at Jamestown, from his present singular location, and was not a little uneasy at the secret and unusual measures he had taken to get him into his power. He knew the turbulent and impetuous temperament of the old knight, and how little he was given to consult right and humanity in too many of his summary measures of what he chose to call justice, to think that he would hesitate one moment to summon a court-martial of his own partizans—try, condemn, and execute him and his three unfortunate followers, if not the more numerous body, now also prisoners, in the sloop. As he stood upon deck in the midst of his guard, weighing these various aspects of his position, the ship was silently gliding within view of the lights from the city. He observed that the captain steered his course as far from the island as the channel of the river would permit, which confirmed his previous suspicions as to the state of popular feeling in the capital, and increased his uneasiness as to the secret designs of the Governor upon himself. From Captain Gardiner he could gain no satisfactory information—he merely replied to Bacon's demand for his authority, that Governor Berkley had commanded him to bring him (Bacon) to Accomac, and to deliver him dead or alive into his hands.
When it was too late, Bacon saw the rashness of the councils which had induced him to abandon his army, and trust himself among the numerous ships floating in the river, the commanders of which were known adherents of his enemies.
The reflections of our hero, as he paced the quarter deck toward morning, were bitter in the extreme. He saw all the bright hopes of his reviving spirits vanish like a dream, as the vessel now just emerging from the waters of the Powhatan, and propelled by a fresh morning breeze from the land, was plunging with every swell of the buoyant waves into the waters of the Chesapeake, and receding farther and farther at every plunge from the objects of his highest and dearest aspirations.
That portion of the magnificent bay into which they were now entering immediately ahead, was expanded and lost to the eye on the limitless waves of the ocean. On the starboard tack, like a black cloud joining the sea and the sky together, lay Cape Henry, and on the larboard, still more faintly pencilled against the horizon, lay Cape Charles. Between the two, the white bordered waves of the Atlantic rolled their swelling volumes into the Chesapeake.
The faint yellow tinge of dawn could just be discerned, like a moving shadow, now upon the waves and then upon the hazy clouds, dipping into their bosom, while hundreds of aquatic birds, interposed like a black cloud at intervals to intercept the view in the distance, or more suddenly flapped their wings from under the very prow of the vessel as they swooped along the surface of the stream and dipped the points of their wings like a flash of light into the sparkling waters.
A steady breeze was blowing from off the land, and the white sails of the ship swelled proudly and the tapering spars bent under its influence, as she ploughed up the waves foaming and falling in divided masses before her prow. On any other occasion than the present, Bacon would have enjoyed the prospect on this grandest of all inland seas, but now his mind was oppressed with gloomy doubts and forebodings. Every plunge of the vessel was bearing him more within the grasp of his relentless foe. But the mishap of his own personal adventure, every way unfortunate as it was both for himself and the cause in which he had engaged, was not that which weighed most oppressively upon his mind. Ever since the discovery of the miniature contained in the locket, he had been gradually giving way to his reviving hopes, and building upon that slender assurance bright and glorious superstructures of imagination. He had endured and lived, and fought and conquered with that hope, as the polar star to his otherwise dark and dreary course. Now again his destinies were almost wrecked by a storm from a quarter in which he had scarcely cast his eyes. How could he imagine that Sir William Berkley would be driven from the capital, by the stern and independent resistance of the unarmed citizens? How could he know that being thus driven from it he would yet retain a sufficient naval force to capture him and his escort upon the very eve of his triumphal entry into the city? These were the reflections which made him look with a feeling of dark misanthropy upon the glorious beauties of the Chesapeake. His ambition, his pride, and his conscience were satisfied; but his love for a bride, already once led to the very steps of the altar, was again thwarted upon the eve of what he had supposed and hoped would prove the final and happy fulfilment of his most ardent hopes. His feelings toward the devoted and interesting maiden, who had perilled and suffered so much on his account, were enthusiastic in the highest degree. She stood toward him not only in the relation of his betrothed, but his wedded bride; and the more endearing and captivating she became to him as he contemplated her in these relations, the more he cursed in his heart the hard-hearted and perverse old man who had been the cause of all his troubles.
Every chance of escape was intensely examined; not a word was suffered to fall unheeded from Captain Gardiner and his subordinates. He noted carefully the distribution of the prisoners in the vessel in which he was himself confined, as well as of those in the sloop following in their wake. He took careful observations of the most prominent objects on their route—the state of the tide in the river which they had just left. He examined the boats—how they were secured—the equipments and appearance of the crew on board, and resolved if he must fall in the midst of his reviving hopes, to die as became the conqueror of Bloody Run and the lover of Virginia Fairfax.