He had lain for some hours in a state of mind that may be readily imagined from the late scenes through which he had passed, when at length he heard his own name softly whispered in his gloomy cell; the voice appeared to be in his immediate vicinity. He arose and followed the supposed direction of the sound, and again he heard it on the opposite side—proceeding from the still unclosed aperture in the wall. He answered in the same subdued whisper. "Come this way," said the voice of the old woman, the shadow of whose head he could now perceive darkening the partial light which broke through. "Come this way, Master Bacon. Tim Jones, the sentinel, has gone into my cabin to eat a chicken supper, and drink some aqua vitæ which I procured for him; his place is supplied by a soldier whom I engaged to be ready, as if by accident. He pretends to be asleep under the big tree yonder. Do you come forth and proceed round the opposite end of the house to that occupied by the other sentinel, until you come to the bushes at the end of the garden palings—there wait until I come to you—for your life do not stir, until I join you there."
Bacon succeeded in avoiding the notice of the sentry and in gaining the spot indicated by the old woman, where he had scarcely concealed himself, before the discharge of artillery from the betrayed fleet startled him from his recumbent posture. He supposed that his own capture had been ascertained at Jamestown, and that vessels had been despatched to rescue him. This idea had scarcely entered his mind, before he sprang over the palings and was running at his utmost speed across the garden toward the bay, for the purpose of procuring a boat, but his attention was instantly arrested by the appearance of the Governor and his suite collecting in the yard in front of the house. He was on the point of running into the hands of the sentinel whose temporary absence had afforded him the chance of escape, and who now sat with his weapon ready for action, securely guarding, as he supposed, the person who stood just behind him. The man hailed him as soon as he heard the rustling among the shrubbery, but the liberated captive had seen and heard enough to induce him to seek his hiding-place once more.
CHAPTER XI.
When Sir William Berkley embarked on board the ships, he left a company of picked soldiers, commanded by an officer of tried fidelity, together with the smallest of the vessels and her crew, with orders to bring the fugitive to Jamestown, dead or alive. In a short time that portion of the eastern shore, lately so full of bustle and activity, was wrapped in profound repose, unbroken save by the monotonous tramp of the sentinel, pacing before the door of the mansion, now the solitary quarters of the sole remaining officer.
Bacon had perceived from his hiding-place, that some unusual commotion was in progress between the quarters of the Governor and the ships lying in the offing, and he was seized with the most eager desire to know what it foreboded. For the first half hour, he lay in momentary expectation of the commencement of a naval action; at length he saw the glaring lights of the pine torches, skimming along the margin of the water, and dark shadows of moving crowds, as the boats floated to their destination. These movements he could not comprehend except by supposing that the crafty old knight had set on foot some secret expedition, for the capture of the newly arrived ships, the increased numbers of which he could easily perceive. But when the whole fleet set sail, with the exception of the small craft already mentioned, he was completely at fault. He was revolving these strange movements in his mind, when his kind preserver came again to his assistance. She was moving like an unearthly spirit along the garden palings, cautiously examining every bush, when he presented himself before her. She led him by a circuitous route, and one the farthest removed from the sentinel, to a lone cabin that stood some distance from the main building, and that had lately been occupied by the inferior officers attached to Sir William's cause; it had formerly been used as a negro cabin. After she had ushered him into the single room which it afforded, she pointed to a seat, and began stirring up the coals which had been left from the culinary operations of the late occupants. She was about sitting down to hear Bacon's account of himself, and doubtless of communicating her share of information for filling out the history, but recollecting that he had left his food untouched, she hastily covered the light, and went out, carefully securing the door on the outside, but soon returned with a remnant of Tim Jones' chicken supper, which she had no doubt preserved for her own use. This was speedily placed upon a rude table, and the fugitive urged to help himself in the midst of a torrent of questions.—Now she desired to know the fate of the Irishman—where they had landed after the shipwreck—who had so kindly nurtured and educated him—whether he knew any thing of his relations in England—if he remembered any thing of her features, or her home in the old country. What was his occupation. Why Sir William Berkley disliked him, in what position he stood with regard to the beautiful invalid, who had shown so much grief at the prospect of his immediate execution,—how he had managed to preserve the locket so faithfully—and a hundred other queries of like import, with the solution to which the reader is already acquainted, but which our hero answered with great impatience, interposing one of his own between every two of hers, and meanwhile doing ample justice to the provision she had set before him. The substance of the old woman's narrative was as follows:
"When Mrs. Fairfax, then Mrs. Whalley—"
"Merciful Heaven!" exclaimed Bacon, dropping his knife and fork—"was General Whalley her first husband? Then indeed he and the Recluse are the same person." The nurse stared at him a moment, but presently proceeded with her narrative.
"When Mrs. Fairfax, then Mrs. Whalley, left her infant son in my care, for the purpose of joining her husband, then an officer in the army of the commonwealth, I was entirely unacquainted with the opposition of her family to her marriage with General Whalley, and ignorant of the clandestine manner in which that ceremony had been performed, as well as the subsequent privacy of their movements, which they thought necessary for their safety.