第78章

"You may trust me, sir," she made answer, the tears upon her cheeks. "I did not know, - I did not understand. . . .Dear heart, come away, - come away with Margaret Wyatt."

Clayborne opened the door of the cabin, and stood aside with a low bow. The men who had sat to judge me rose; only the King's favorite kept his seat. With Lady Wyatt's arm about her, the King's ward passed between the lines of standing gentlemen to the door, there hesitated, turned, and, facing them with I know not what of pride and shame, wistfulness of entreaty and noble challenge to belief in the face and form that were of all women's most beautiful, curtsied to them until her knee touched the floor. She was gone, and the sunlight with her.

When I turned upon that shameless lord where he sat in his evil beauty, with his honor dead before him, men came hastily in between. I put them aside with a laugh. I had but wanted to look at him. I had no sword, - already he lay beneath my challenge, - and words are weak things.

At length he rose, as arrogant as ever in his port, as evilly superb in his towering pride, and as amazingly indifferent to the thoughts of men who lied not. "This case hath wearied me," he said. "I will retire for a while to rest, and in dreams to live over a past sweetness. Give you good-day, gentles! Sir Francis Wyatt, you will remember that this gentleman did resist arrest, and that he lieth under the King's displeasure!" So saying he clapped his hat upon his head and walked out of the cabin. The Company's officers drew a long breath, as if a fresher air had come in with his departure.

"I have no choice, Captain Percy, but to keep you still under restraint, both here and when we shall reach Jamestown," said the Governor. "All that the Company, through me, can do, consistent with its duty to his Majesty, to lighten your confinement shall be done" -

"Then send him not again into the hold, Sir Francis!" exclaimed the Treasurer, with a wry face.

The Governor laughed. "Lighter and sweeter quarters shall be found. Your wife's a brave lady, Captain Percy" -

"And a passing fair one," said Claybourne under his breath.

"I left a friend below in the hold, your Honor," I said. "He came with me from Jamestown because he was my friend. The King hath never heard of him. And he's no more a pirate than I or you, your Honor. He is a minister, - a sober, meek, and godly man" -

From behind the Secretary rose the singsong of my acquaintance of the hold, Dr. John Pott. "He is Jeremy, your Honor, Jeremy who made the town merry at Blackfriars. Your Honor remembers him?

He had a sickness, and forsook the life and went into the country.

He was known to the Dean of St. Paul's. All the town laughed when it heard that he had taken orders."

"Jeremy!" cried out the Treasurer. "Nick Bottom! Christopher Sly!

Sir Toby Belch! Sir Francis, give me Jeremy to keep in my cabin!"

The Governor laughed. "He shall be bestowed with Captain Percy where he'll not lack for company, I warrant! Jeremy! Ben Jonson loved him; they drank together at the Mermaid."

A little later the Treasurer turned to leave my new quarters, to which he had walked beside me, glanced at the men who waited for him without, - Jeremy had not yet been brought from the hold, - and returned to my side to say, in a low voice, but with emphasis:

"Captain Percy has been a long time without news from home, - from England. What would he most desire to hear?"

"Of the welfare of his Grace of Buckingham," I replied.

He smiled. "His Grace is as well as heart could desire, and as powerful. The Queen's dog now tuggeth the sow by the ears this way or that, as it pleaseth him. Since we are not to hang you as a pirate, Captain Percy, I incline to think your affairs in better posture than when you left Virginia."

"I think so too, sir," I said, and gave him thanks for his courtesy, and wished him good-day, being anxious to sit still and thank God, with my face in my hands and summer in my heart.