Prisoners of Hope: A Tale of Colonial Virginia. Mary Johnston

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ

      "The breaking heart!" she said in a triumphant whisper.

      A man lay, face downwards, in the coarse and scanty grass. One arm was bent beneath his forehead, the other was outstretched, the hand clenched. It was the attitude of one who has flung himself down in dumb, despairing misery. As they looked, he gave a long gasping sob that shook his whole frame, then lay quiet.

      A burst of revelry came down the lane. The man raised his head impatiently, then let it drop again upon his arm.

      Patricia turned and walked quickly back the way they had come. Betty and Sir Charles followed her; Margery, her whim gratified, had vanished into the darkness of the pines.

      No one spoke until they were again amidst the wet and rustling corn. Then said Betty with tears in her voice, "O Patricia, darling! there is so much misery in the world, fair and peaceful as it looks to-night. That poor man!"

      "That 'poor man,' Betty," answered Patricia in a hard voice, "is a criminal, a felon, guilty of some dreadful, sordid thing, a gaol-bird reclaimed from the gallows and sent here to pollute the air we breathe."

      "It was the convict, Landless, was it not?" asked Sir Charles.

      "Yes."

      "But, Patricia," said the gentle Betty, "whatever he may have done, he is wretched now."

      "He has sowed the wind; let him reap the whirlwind," said Patricia steadily.

      They went on to the house and into the great room where the myrtle candles were burning softly, the dimity curtains shutting out the night. Mrs. Lettice was at the spinet, with Captain Laramore to turn the leaves of her song book, and the Governor, with the chess table out and the pieces in battle array, awaited (he said) the arrival of the Princess of the Castle in the Air.

CHAPTER V

       Table of Contents

IN THE THREE-MILE FIELD

       Table of Contents

      In a far corner of the Three-mile Field Landless bent over tobacco plant after tobacco plant, patiently removing the little green shoots or "suckers" from the parent stem.

      His back and limbs ached from the unaccustomed stooping, the fierce sunshine beat upon his head, the blood pounded behind his temples, his tongue clave to the roof of his mouth—and the noontide rest was still two hours away. As, with a gasp of weariness, he straightened himself, the endless plain of green rose and fell to his dazzled eyes in misty billows. The most robust rustic required several months of seasoning before he and the Virginia climate became friends, and this man was still weak from privation and confinement in prison and in the noisome hold of the ship.

      He turned his weary eyes from the vivid gold green of the fields to the shadows of the forest. It lay within a few yards of him, just on the other side of a little stream and a rail fence that zigzagged in gray lines hung with creepers. At the moment he defined happiness as a plunge into the cool, perfumed darkness, a luxurious flinging of a tired body upon the carpet of pine needles, a shutting out, forever, of the sunshine.

      Suddenly he felt that eyes were upon him, and his glance traveled from the fringe of trees to meet that of an Indian seated upon a log in an angle of the fence.

      He was a man of gigantic stature, dressed in coarse canvas breeches, and with a handkerchief of gaudy dye twisted about his head. His bold features wore the usual Indian expression of saturnine imperturbability, and he half sat, half reclined upon the log as motionless as a piece of carven bronze, staring at Landless with large, inscrutable eyes.

      Landless, staring in return, saw something else. The rank growth of weeds in which the log was sunk moved ever so slightly. There was a flash as of a swiftly drawn rapier, and something long and mottled hung for an instant upon the shoulder of the Indian, and then dropped into its lair again.

      With a sudden lithe twist of his body, the savage flung himself upon it, and holding it down with one hand, with the other beat the life out with a heavy stick. The creature was killed by the first stroke, but he continued to rain vindictive blows upon it until it was mashed to a pulp. Then, with a serenely impassive mien, he resumed his seat upon the log.

      Landless sprang across the stream, and went up to him.

      "You are bitten! Is there aught I can do?"

      The Indian shook his head. With one hand he pulled the shoulder forward, trying, as Landless saw, to meet the wound with his lips; but finding that it could not be done, he desisted and sat silent, and to all appearance, unconcerned.

      Landless cried out impatiently, "It will kill you, man! Do you know no remedy?"

      The Indian grunted. "Snake root grow deep in the forest, a long way off. Besides, an Iroquois does not die for a little thing like a pale face or a dog of an Algonquin."

      "Why did you try to reach the sting with your mouth?"

      "To suck out the evil."

      "Is that a cure?"

      The Indian nodded. Landless knelt down and examined the shoulder. "Now," he said, "tell me if I set about it in the right way," and applied his lips to the swollen, blue-black spot.

      The Indian gave a grunt of surprise, and his white teeth flashed in a smile; then he sat silent under the ministrations of the white man who sucked at the wound, spitting the venom upon the ground, until the dark skin was drawn and wrinkled like the hand of a washerwoman.

      "Good!" then said the Indian, and pointed to the stream. Landless went to it, rinsed his mouth, and brought back water in his cap with which he laved the shoulder of his new acquaintance, ending by binding it up with the handkerchief from the man's head.

      A guttural sound from the Indian made him look up. At the same instant the whip of the overseer, descending, cut him sharply across the shoulders. He sprang to his feet, the veins in his forehead swollen, his frame tense with impotent anger. The overseer, having gained his attention, thrust the whip back into his belt.

      "If you don't want to get what will hurt as bad as a snake bite," he said grimly, "you had best tend to your tobacco and let vagrom Indians alone. That row is to be suckered before dinner-time or your pork and beans will go begging. As for you," turning to the Indian, "what are you doing on this plantation? Where's your pass?"

      The Indian took from his waistband a slip of paper which he handed to the overseer, who looked at it and gave it back with a grudging—"It's all right this time, but you'd better be careful. It's my opinion that Major Carrington lets his servants run about a deal more than's good for them. Anyhow, you've no business in this field. Clear out!"

      The Indian arose and went his way. But as he passed Landless, suckering a plant with angry energy, he touched him, as if by accident, with his sinewy hand.

      "Monakatocka never forgives an enemy," came in a sibilant whisper too low to be heard by the watchful overseer. "Monakatocka never forgets a friend. Some day he will repay."

      The red-brown СКАЧАТЬ