To the Far Blue Mountains

"And the Flemish ship, then?" Pike asked.

"I give her to you," I said. "Sail, sell, or sink her, she's yours, but if you decide to sail her, come along down to Raleigh's land with such cargo as I am taking, trade goods for the savages, and powder, shot, and some food for us, and we'll make trade together."

"I never thought to have a ship nor become a merchant," Pike said, "but I shall do both."

So we parted there, clasping hands at the last, and I went about the galleon and shook each hand and thanked each man for his help, and we parted, one sailing south and one north with the first light.

Some of my men went with Pike, and some of Pike's with me, I taking only those who dared the new land.

We sighted three ships that gave us chase, but we, perceiving their intent, clapped on all sail and fled away to the westward, and having the wind of them we were well away and they gave up the chase, not knowing what we were or whether worth their effort.

Dearly now, I needed sight of the land. My charts were out upon the table, but what use a chart without a sighting? We had come from Newfoundland over to the coast, and followed it down some distance, but not nearly so far as Raleigh's land.

So we edged in close, and I caught a cape in my glass that had a familiar look, then a rivermouth and a queer tuft of trees, all marked on one of my charts. So I made us several days sail to the north of my thin sandy islands that divided the sounds from the sea at the place I sought.

Meanwhile, Lila made nothing of her story. She had barricaded herself in the galley with the keys to the storeroom in her pocket, and denied anyone entry or food until Handsel was in shackles and the key in her hands. Meanwhile she set to work to cook, letting the aroma of her cooking drift over the ship.

It has been said there were iron men aboard the wooden ships, and well there should have been-and for the most part they needed iron stomachs as well, to handle the cooking. Salt meat as hard as iron and biscuit full of weevils. Lila had cooked much for strong, hearty men and knew the weapon she possessed.

Two days it needed, and then they had brought her the key, led by a man named John Tilly, a fine seaman who liked not Handsel nor his kind. Although young, he had already been long at sea.

I was on the afterdeck, watching the sea, my glass ready to pick up any unusual thing upon the far waters, when Tilly came to me.

"Captain," he said, "we've a man aboard to whom you must speak. His name is Jago, and he comes from Anglesey as does the lass."

Something in his manner was odd, so I asked him, "Who is this Jago? Does he have a complaint?"

"None at all! From the first he stood beside me for taking Handsel. He is a fine seaman, Captain, and a good fighting man, but there is a strangeness on him at times and now there's a fear on him."

"A fear?"

"Of the waters ahead. He knows the coast you speak of, the place where we go. He has been in both the sounds and up one of the rivers, but it is the sea itself that he fears, the sea that lies off the coast of the place called Raleigh's land."

Of sailor's tales there is no end, nor of enchanted islands, vanishing ships, or mysterious places in the sea, and of this we who are of the Celtic race have understanding, so I had this Jago up to the deck and he was no kind of a priestly man, nor a poet, either, but a strong fellow of middle size with a square head upon a solid neck, and two fine, strong hands.

"You are Jago?" I said.

"So they have said since I was old enough to listen, and I've no choice but to believe them. However, one name is as good as another, and if you've another you like, call me it and I will come."

"Jago is a fine name, and it pleases me. Do you know these waters, Jago?"

"No, nor any man for long. They be not twice the same. But you are safe enough this week. Next you will be south too far. You must steer clear of fogs and land on no strange islands. You know there are islands?"

"I do. I spoke of them with a friend of mine named Peter Tallis. They were discovered by Juan de Bermudez in 1515, and are said to be enchanted isles."

"Well they could be. Where else does coral be found so far north? Where else so many dangerous reefs? Enchanted the isles may be, but they be a hell for mariners, with their ugly reefs rising unexpected-like from the depths.

"There and south of there is the sea of which I speak. Beware it. Many ships have vanished ... There's an opening there sometimes, it comes and goes, sometimes it is in fog, and sometimes a spot of bright sunlight, but those who sail through never come back. Beware of a day when there's no fish around, for then it's to open, and well they know it and off they swim."

"I'll take your advice, Jago. Now tell me, do you know a stretch of coast with long thin outer islands? Banks that form a natural breakwater for two great sounds into which rivers flow?"

"I know the place. 'Tis west and south ... two days more, I think."

"You've been there?"

"Twice, and once on a Spanish ship. I was a prisoner of them but spoke their tongue and am a good Catholic, so they used me as a seaman and I had freedom, of a sort ... until I escaped. If it is there you'll go, I can be taking you, and to whichever river you wish, for each has a different smell. One smells of freshness and the mountains, and two of swamps, and one of fish."

Far into the night I studied my charts.

It would be my second voyage to the sounds, and pausing in my study of the maps I thought again of that buried hulk in which I had taken shelter and where I had fought the alligator.

Whose ship might that have been? And what of its crew? If ships disappeared in these waters, as Jago said, then men vanished also. The Roanoke colony and Grenville's men ... gone.

Many were the tales that came from the sea, but I had little faith in enchanted isles or haunted ships or the like. Those were sailor's tales to be told in port to goggle-eyed landsmen, and rarely believed of themselves. Yet ... what Jago had told, Jago believed, and he was a no-nonsense sort of man, and a good seaman.

Many in the England of our good Queen Bess thought of this land as unknown, and indeed, much of it was, but where there are riches to be had, men will go, and the ships of Gosnold, Weymouth, Newport, and others had already cruised the coast. To the north were the ships of the French, and Cabot had sailed here, and Verrazzano, Corte-Real, and many another.

All the knowledge we had of such places was from the few men who could write and keep records, and how many could write? Among my crew, there were but three who could write, and if something happened to us, then what record could be left by the others?

I studied even my secret ones, which had far more detail, and I made a chart of my own from memory of what I had seen.

My plans must be simple, to be augmented with time. First, to find Tempany and Abigail, second to establish a trading post, third to cultivate friendship with the Indians, and fourth, to establish a base deeper into the country from which we could explore toward the mountains and to which I could retreat if a British ship with warrants for my arrest should come.

After a bit, I slept, awakening to go on deck for the morning watch. We had hove to during the night, simply taking in our sails and drifting.

Jago was on watch when I came on deck. "It will be a fair day, Cap'n, a fair day." He glanced at me. "Will we be making a landfall today?"

"Aye." I glanced toward the clouds that lay low along the horizon, and nodded to indicate them. "What do you make of them, Jago?"

"Cap'n," his voice shook a bit, "we'd better head in toward land. That's no natural cloud."

"Hail the men on deck," I said, "and shake out some canvas. Put a good man on the whipstaff for we'll be looking for our opening in the outer banks."

Taking my glasses, I studied the cloud. It seemed neither nearer nor farther off. The sky above was blue and lovely, but the white clouds, possibly a fog, lay close along the face of the sea, and once inside that cloud we should be able to go neither north, south, east, nor west.

The cloud hung there, turning slowly lighter as the sun arose. How easily, I thought, when the mind is prepared can one begin to believe!

It was only a cloud ... a bit of fog that would clear with the day.

Only it did not.

There was little wind, and we moved but slowly. I looked again at the fog bank and it seemed closer. Jago was staring at it, obviously frightened. With my glass I lifted a strong dark line, like a thread. Land!

"Aye," Jago said, "and none too soon."

Lila came on deck and walked to the rail and looked astern. As she stood there the fog seemed to thin toward the center and dimly we seemed to see an island.

A mirage? My chart showed no island there. It suddenly seemed clearer. Were those houses? Temples? I walked to the afterrail and stared.

"See it, Cap'n?" said Jago. "See? Look, but never speak of it, men will think you daft, as they have thought me. Look ... something moves! Do you see it?"

Indeed, I did, or thought I did. I pointed my glass toward it again, and the figures leaped at me. Men ... and women, all in strange costumes ... temples of a sort not seen before ...

"Captain," Tilly was speaking, "we're closing in on the shore. There seems to be an opening yon."

With an effort, I took my eyes away and looked shoreward. A long white beach, gleaming in the sun, a sandy shore stretching north and south as far as the eye could reach ... and yes, there seemed to be an opening.

"Jago?" I said. He did not turn and I spoke again, more sharply. "Jago!"

"Aye, aye."

Indicating the opening, I said, "Do you know that one?"

"I do that. She's shoal, Cap'n, but with the lead we can go in yonder."

He looked back over his shoulder, and I over mine. The opening in the mist had closed, the mist was thinning, the fair vision of a city was gone.

Was it a mirage? For a moment it had seemed we looked into another world, as through a magic window or door.

Was that where the vanished ships had gone? Through that door? Into that mirage?

Chapter 14

Cautiously, using the lead, I took the fluyt into the passage between the sandy islands, using only such sail as needed for steerage way. If we ran aground here and a storm blew up we would be at the mercy of wave and wind, and all my great hopes might vanish in what followed. If I ran aground, I wished it to be not too forcefully, that we might the easier escape.

Lowering a boat, we let it proceed before us, and thus found our way through and into deeper water, when we took the boat back aboard once more. Remembering my one-time meeting here with my old enemy Bardle, I had two guns prepared and gun crews standing by.

Blue, having the sharpest eyes, was posted aloft to look out for ships and savages, or any smoke which might hint of activity ashore.

Now that we were so close, Lila was silent, eyes wide with apprehension, fearful her mistress might have been killed, drowned, or otherwise lost. I scoffed at this, and kept still my own fears, for better than she I knew what dangers the country might hold.

Calling John Tilly aft, I told him I wanted the men to go below, two at a time, and arm themselves each with a cutlass, and then I wanted muskets charged and kept in a rack conveniently placed inside the door to the main cabin where they would be ready to hand.

Worried, I paced the afterdeck. I had armed myself with my sword as well as a brace of pistols, yet it was not of weapons I thought, for indeed, they were but a precaution. Captain Tempany was a fine seaman, and he'd a good crew aboard ... but supposing he had been overhauled and forced back by a Queen's ship because of his connection with me?

What if pirates had taken his ship? Or storms?

Hour by hour my anxiety grew, and still no sign of the ship.

Darkness came, and rather than venture on we let go the anchor to wait for daybreak.

The ship should be here, yet if I recalled rightly there were four big rivers flowing into the two sounds, and a number of lesser streams. There were any number of coves and inlets in which the ship might be lying. I tried to think of all the reasons we had not found her, all that could be done, yet nothing gave me rest.

Alone I stood by the rail, looking shoreward. Restless, unable and unwilling to sleep, I had told Tilly to let the crew rest and when I. Was ready to turn in I'd awaken one of them to take my place on lookout.

Hearing a step, I turned. It was Lila. She came to the rail and stood beside me.

"Will we find her?"

"I think so. If she is here, we'll find her."

"It is a vast land. I could not imagine it so big, so empty."

"There are Indians over there ... many of them." I paused. "Not so many people as in England, of course. The way they live, mostly hunting and gathering berries, roots, and nuts, they need much land to support only a few."

"They do not plant?"

"Some of the tribes do. They plant corn, a few other things. Mostly they live by hunting, fishing, and gathering, so they move from time to time, going to new areas where they can find more game, and more food."

"Our coming will change them, I think."

"I don't know, Lila. Perhaps it will. Yes, I believe it will, and perhaps not for the better. They have a way of life that is not ours, beliefs different than ours. We will learn much from them about this country, and they will learn from us, but I am not sure whether what they learn will be good for them.

"All I know is that it is inevitable. If not us, then somebody else, and all change is difficult, all change is resisted, I think. No people can long remain in isolation, and men will go where there is land, it is their nature, as it is with animals, with plants, with all that lives.

"Since the beginning of time men have moved across the face of the world, and we like to believe this is a result of our individual will, our choice, and it may be so, but might it not be that we are moved by tides buried in our natures?

Tides we cannot resist?

"Whole nations and tribes have moved, suddenly, always with some kind of an excuse. But was not the excuse sometimes found afterward? How do we know we make these moves by our own decision?

"Men like to believe themselves free from nature, free of the drives that move animals and plants, but wherever there is open space men will come to occupy it.

"The Indian himself has moved, pushing out other Indians. I heard of this on my previous voyage ... it is inevitable."

Long after Lila went to sleep, I paced the deck, wandering from bow to stern, alert for any moving thing upon the dark water. At last I awakened one of the men, a Newfoundlander I knew only as Luke, and left him on lookout.

Yet sleep did not come for a fear was on me, a fear for what could have happened to my love, she who had given up all for me to come to this far, strange place.

How deep, how strange is the courage of women! Courage is expected of a man, he is conditioned to it from childhood, and we in our time grew up in a world of wars and pressgangs, of highwaymen and lords sometimes as high-handed as they.

We grew up to expect hardship and war. But a woman?

I'd seen them follow their men to war, seen them seeking over battlefields to find their lonely dead, or the wounded who would die but for them. I have seen a woman pick up a man and carry him off the field to a place where he might have care.

Abigail, for all her life aboard ship with her father, had given up all a girl might have for the hardship of life in a new, strange land, without comforts, without the chance of care if she came to a child-bearing time. At least, no care other than I could provide.

At last I slept, and it was full dawn before my eyes opened again, and when I came out upon deck we got under way, making our way past the tiny coves and inlets, the rivermouths and the bays.

No ship ... nothing.

Had not two colonies disappeared here? Had not the men Grenville left vanished?

Into what limbo? To what awful death?

The green and beautiful shores took on a horror with their blank, unyielding, unspeaking faces. We looked, and our eyes told us nothing, for we could not see beyond the leaves, beyond the vines.

My eyes sought the stream where lay the old hulk where once I'd taken shelter.

What brought that vessel to its end? Where were its crew? Where its cargo? To what mysterious end had it come at last, in this lonely place?

How lonely? How many eyes might peer from behind that screen of branches? How many might lie in wait for our coming ashore?

The fluyt was alone. No help would be forthcoming if grief came to our side.

There was no warship to come, no signal could bring help. Whatever might be done we must do.

"Blue," I said at last, "let's go south to the other sound. They might be awaiting us there."

"Aye," he said gloomily, and I loved him for his sadness.

All aboard were strangely silent No voice was raised in ribaldry or song, no loud hails were given out. Men walked quietly, understanding my worry and my doubt.

We edged again past Roanoke Island and into the larger sound. We saw no sail, no masthead beyond the trees. Two large rivers opened into the sound. Cautiously, we ventured into the nearest. Scarcely had we entered the mouth of this river that flowed from the west than another appeared, flowing down from the north. We held to the center of the river, taking soundings as we moved, and passed the point where the two rivers joined. We had gone past it only a short distance when suddenly, Blue, who was aloft, shouted.

"Cap'n? There's a wreck on the starb'rd beam! Burned ship, two points abaft the beam!"

I ran to the rail. It was there, lying on the western side of a small inlet or rivermouth. The current was not strong, yet there were mudbanks on either side.

"I'll go ashore," I told Blue, "and do you stay with the ship. Drop the anchor and wait, but keep a sharp lookout."

John Tilly came with me, and six good men, armed with musket and cutlass.

As the boat drew nearer we could see the ship's bow was firmly wedged into the mudbank. Either she had come in under some sail, driving hard on the mud, or else there had been a good deal of a pile-up after she struck.

Only the hulk remained, burned near to the waterline with the charred butt of a mast overside and some broken spars about Tilly pointed. "She was under fire, Captain. See the hole?"

There was a hole in the hull, right at the waterline, and I could see the top of another just below the water's edge. She had been hard hit, probably aflame before she struck.

"They drove her in a-purpose," Luke said suddenly. "They were wishful of getting ashore, I'm thinkin'."

Suddenly, I had a rush of hope. We edged in close and made fast to the hull, then Tilly, Luke, and I climbed over the wreckage to the shore. There had been a hard rain, and what tracks had been left, if any, had been washed away.

Slowly, we wandered about. Nothing ... no single sign of anything that might have lived beyond the wreck, beyond the fire. Yet, the fact remained. Somebody could have made it ashore. There had been a daring lot aboard. For fearlessness in the face of danger, for ingenuity at survival, for skill in hand-to-hand combat, I could have wished Abigail in no better hands than those who sailed with her ... if they had lived long enough to help.

"Go back to the boat, Tilly," I said. "We have come too late."

"It was your ship then?"

"Aye, and a fine lot of men aboard, and the girl who was to be my wife, and her father, a good man, a fine man. All gone."

"They might still live, Barnabas."

It was the only time he'd ever used my given name, and I looked up at him, seeing the sympathy in the man.

Luke had started back to the wreck. Now he called out, "Cap'n ... look!"

I turned at his outstretched arm and pointing finger.

They stood there, a small and haggard band, on the edge of the forest. Some were still within the trees, but Jeremy Ring was there, and Sakim, and Black Tom Watkins, and--

She came from the forest and walked through the small group and stood there, staring toward me, a shabby, soiled, woebegone little figure.

Abigail ...

Chapter 15

Her face was burned by the sun, her nose was peeling, she was scratched and torn, and her dress was in tatters. She stood quietly looking at me, surrounded by her ragged, half-naked band ... all armed.

"I knew you'd come," she said simply. "I told them you'd come."

I went to her then across the sand, and took her in my arms, and so we stood for several minutes while the others filed past us, not looking, not speaking.

How many there were or who they were I did not know until later. At that moment I could think only of Abigail. Yet one question I did ask, and feared for the answer.

"Your father?"

"He is dead. He was killed in the attack. He told me to run her aground, to get away, and to wait for you. He told me that you'd come. He had great faith in you, Barnabas."

"I should have been here before, but so much has happened."

"Was it so very bad ... in Newgate?"

"Nothing. Nothing to this, to what you have been through."

We turned then and walked to the boat, hand in hand.

For the first time I looked around. Pim was there, a wicked scar across his face now, and Sakim, looking no different than I saw him last, only a little thinner.

And there, too, was Jublain, the companion of my first venture from the fens.

"We shall go aboard now," I said.

Hours later, when Abigail had bathed and changed to fresh clothing we found aboard (for there was much loot in the hold), the story was told.

Their voyage had been smooth, easy. They had crossed the Atlantic in sixty-five days, making their first landfall far to the north, and seeing no other sails until close in to the coast of Raleigh's land when they saw topm'sts over the horizon that soon disappeared.

Knowing that if I did join them it might be many weeks, they had looked about for a location for a trading post, aware that such was my intent. They found several, one of them on a creek just a little farther along the river from where we were now anchored.

It was a few square miles of solid earth among the swamps that lay all about, with thick forests of cypress, bays, and myrtles, laden with Spanish moss and tropical vines. It was a place with a good breeze down the river, easy of access by boat or canoe.

They had run some lines off to a couple of huge old cypresses, and going ashore, had begun felling logs and clearing land.

They had been so occupied when Nick Bardle and his men appeared. They had left the Jolly Jack anchored out of sight in a small bay, and had slipped through winding waterways to the river above the ship, crossing the river at night and concealing themselves under overhanging cypresses. Just before daylight they pushed off and drifted down upon the silent ship.

Unknown to Bardle, Jublain and seven others had slept ashore to be prepared for an early start, trimming logs for the fort they were to build. When the attack began they had already gone into the woods to select trees for felling.

With only an instant's warning, Tempany cut his lines and attempted to get away downstream, hoisting canvas, and trying to deflect his guns to bring them to bear on the boats. Yet this Bardle had expected, and suddenly the Jolly Jack appeared in the rivermouth, cutting off any retreat. A broadside toppled the mainm'st and holed the ship in three places. With water rushing in, no chance of escape, with her father badly wounded, Abigail had herself ordered the ship run aground.

Her father died within those last minutes, and as the ship struck, what was left of the crew jumped to the mudflat and headed for the surrounding jungle.

Sakim, one of the last aboard, touched off two guns aimed at the Jolly Jack, then helped Abigail to escape from the ship. Fleeing into the woods, they joined forces with Jublain and his hastily gathered men, but there was nothing to be done. Their ship was in flames, Tempany was dead, and escape into the swamp was their only chance.

The vast and dismal swamp covered over two thousand square miles, a dense forest of black gum, cypress, and juniper, tangled with Virginia creeper, honeysuckle, and reeds. Much of it was deep, dark water, threatening and still. Sunlight filtered through the boughs overhead, and only here and there was there solid ground.

A ship's boat had been taken into the swamp for use on some of the winding waterways in hauling logs to the building site. Into this they climbed, slowly gathering up a few stragglers, then escaping into the depths of the swamp.

The only food they had was a little brought ashore for the men working on the fort.

Yet there were many deer, occasional bears, and many kinds of birds. Using much ingenuity they had somehow managed to exist.

Bardle, after putting out the fires, had looted the ship, then set fire to what was left and finished the burning. He had hunted for them, but a few well-placed shots from the swamp itself had dissuaded him. After a while, he had sailed away.

"You have not seen him since?"

"No," Abigail said, "and we kept a good watch because we were expecting you. We did not know how you would come, or when, but we all believed in you."

"He will come back then," I said, "and we must prepare for that."

Long we talked that night, over the table and after, and I told her of my escape from England, and the part Lila played, but adding little about the difficulties on the island or my dealings with pirates. Yet as I spoke there came a little hint of warning: I had another enemy now in Duval ... and Hanberry, too, when it came to that.

"For me," I said at last, "there can be no question of returning. All that is behind me, and from this moment we must build a new life in this land."

With sadness, I looked at her. "Abigail, I thought of none of this when you agreed to come with me. I had no idea I would forever cut off from all we know of home, so I want to say now you are free to go. The fluyt is here. We've a good crew. Tilly is a most able sailing-master and he can return you to England."

She filled my glass with ale. "You talk foolishness. I am no child to want only the glitter and the glory. There are enough women in England for that, and for all else, and good people they be, but I made my commitment to you long ago. If you stay, I stay ... and I want to stay.

"Bad as it was out there in the swamp, I came to love it, although I, too, long for your blue mountains."

"But you must realize that I must avoid contact with other Englishmen. The order for my arrest will remain in force, and any ship that comes might bring those who would take me back. From now on we are not only exiles from England, but from Englishmen."

"So be it, then. I am content."

The night was filled with small rain. We had dropped down the river a bit and anchored out of the current in the sound. Because of the darkness and the rain I kept two men on watch, wary of what might befall.

Long I lay awake, considering what must be done. With Abigail to consider, I had also to think of ways to divert her, to keep her content with our life, and I thought of several. The first and most obvious I did not think of at all. Lila did.

At daybreak I was in the cabin, charts spread out upon the great table, studying the courses of the rivers. The place Tempany had chosen I liked full well, but it was a place known to Bardle, a place where we might soon expect trouble, hence it was in my thoughts to move.

Once again we set sail and returned to the northern sound.

We were seeking out a river of which I had some small acquaintance on my previous voyage when Lila came to me with John Tilly.

"Here he is," she said.

"I see ... and a good man, too."

"Of course he is a good man. He is a man of God."

"Aren't we all?" I said gently.

"I mean," she said severely, "that John Tilly is a minister of God."

Startled, I looked at him again. "Is this true, Tilly? I had no idea."

"You had no reason to suspect it. You found me upon a ship of pirates. I was a prisoner there until they discovered I was a capable seaman."

"Well, we can always use a man of God. Nice to have you aboard, Tilly."

"Captain Sackett," Lila said severely, "you do not seem to understand. John Tilly is a minister of God. As such he is empowered to perform marriages."

I do not think I am unusually dense, yet the thought that sprang immediately to mind was the wrong one. "Lila! You don't mean to tell me! You've found a man?"

She flushed. "That is not what I mean. I am thinking of you and Miss Tempany."

Well! For a moment I just stood there looking stupid, and then I said, "Of course ... of course, Lila. I was thinking of other things, I-"

"You had better go ask her," she said gently, then.

"The Reverend and I will discuss what is to be done."

I looked around at the grinning sailors. Jeremy, who was chuckling, Jublain with his mocking smile, and Pim Burke. "Don't look so damned superior!" I said irritably. "That's why she came out here. It is just what we've planned."

"She's down in the waist," Pim said, grinning like a pleased ape. "Tell her about it."

Abruptly, I turned my back upon the lot of them and went down the ladder to where she stood alone near the rigging, watching the riverbanks not so far off.

She looked up as I drew near. "You know he loved you very much," she said.

"Who?"

"Father. He spoke to me of it many times."

"He was a good man, a strong, kindly man."

We stood by the rail looking shoreward. A heron flew up from the swamp back of the trees and banked away on slowly flapping wings.

"I want to build a stockade," I said, "with the buildings all inside, a place on a hill with a good field of fire all around. It will have to be close to the river so ships and boats can come in close.

"Then I want to get a vegetable garden and some grain growing, and to plant a small orchard."

"I'd like that."

"By the way, there's a man up on the afterdeck you should know, a very special kind of man."

She turned and looked at me. "You mean there's somebody I haven't met?"

"Well ... you've met him, I'm sure, but not in his official capacity, and that's the only way to really know him. Come ... we'll go aft and see him."

"Now? I was enjoying this."

Taking her by the arm, we started toward the ladder to the afterdeck. We were almost at the top of the ladder, and John Tilly was waiting near the whipstaff with his Bible in his hand. Lila was there, and most of the crew were arranged in respectful rows on either side.

"What does this man do?"

"What does he do? Why, he marries people. He's a minister of the Church."

She stopped abruptly. "Barnabas ... ?"

"We mustn't keep the man waiting, Abigail. You can marry me now and resent at leisure."

"I shall never resent it or you." She looked around quickly. "Oh, Barnabas! You ... I must look a sight."

"You couldn't be lovelier. Come on now."

She looked up at me. "Why! You're laughing!"

"It is a fault I have. There is something about solemn occasions that always stirs my humor. I like them, I respect them, but sometimes I think we all take ourselves too seriously."

"You don't think marriage is serious?"

"Of course, I do. It is the ultimate test of maturity, and many find excuses for avoiding it because they know they are not up to the challenge, or capable of carrying on a mature relationship."

We stopped in front of John Tilly.

Out upon the sound a slight wind ruffled the waters. The morning sun was bright upon every wavelet, and on the shore-side trees the leaves stirred occasionally in the slight wind. Three gulls winged their way overhead on slow, easy wings.

The deck tilted slightly under our feet and Tilly's low, well-modulated voice began the service.

I looked at the girl beside me, saw her hair stir slightly in the wind. Her fingers clutched at mine and held on, very tightly.

She was far from home, her father was dead, and she was marrying a man whose future was bound to a strange, lonely land.

When the brief ceremony was concluded we walked to the taffrail and stood there together, not talking, just looking out over the water.

"This can only be our first home," I told her, "for later we must go to the mountains and build there. We must have a place to go when the Queen's officers come ... and they will."

That night we remained aboard the fluyt, which we now christened the Abigail.

We stood together under the stars, smelling the strange, earthy smells from the shore of rotting vegetation, of flowers and the forest, and some faint smell of wood-smoke from the fire of some of my men, who stayed ashore.

"My mother," I said, "made a prophecy before I was born. It is thirty years ago, I think, or near to that. A man was about to attack her, and before my father came, she told the man he would die by the sword of her son, in the ruins of a flaming town."

"Lila told me the story, as you told it to her. She also told me you had the gift."

I shrugged. "I think nothing of it. It comes and it goes, but my mother, I think, was only trying to frighten the man, for how could such a prophecy be?

That I should kill the man in the ruins of a burning town? I, who shall never see another town?"

"Who knows?" Abigail said. "Who can read what is in tomorrow's wind? Shall we go to the cabin?"

Chapter 16

Green lay the forest about us, brown and silent the moving river ... the land lay still, brooding, expectant. Now was the time for dreaming past, now was the time for doing.

Oh, what a fine and handsome thing it is to sit in taverns over flagons of ale and discourse bravely of what daring things we will do! How we will walk the unknown paths through lands of sylvan beauty, facing the savage in his native habitat, far from the dust of London crowds!

Warmed by wine, the rolling poetry of words and a fine sweep of gesture, a young man feels the world is his, with a pearl in every oyster, a lovely lass behind every window, and enemies who fade from sight at his very presence. Yet the moment of reality comes, and no eloquence will build a stockade, nor will a poetic phrase fend off an arrow, for the savage of the woodland has his own conception of romance and poetry, which may involve the dreamer's scalp.

Forever the dream is in the mind, realization in the hands.

An easy thing it had been when England lay about us to scorn the vanishing men of Roanoke, the disappearance of Grenville's men, for the giving up of Ralph Lane's colony. That was all very well for them. They had failed where we would succeed.

We had gone beyond help. If a man here should take a misstep on a path and fall with a broken bone, he need expect no doctor, no litter. If savages closed about him, no Queen's men would come with banners in bold ranks marching, nor would there be a skirl of pipes and the movement of kilts and the claymores swinging.

One would be a man alone, and alone he must fight and die, or fight and live.

The entry into a new land is a hard, hard thing as Black Tom Watkins said, and upon me lay responsibility for all of these who came with me. All men wish to be captains, but few men wish to shoulder the burden of decision, and in coming here with these others, I had staked a claim that I must wall against misfortune.

First, our food. We had come well-provided, but for how long? Well I knew how precious were the foods of home, so these must be carefully used, and we must hunt, gather, and plant, to prepare for the cold winter to come.

At once I drew a plan for a stockade, showed it to Jublain, John Tilly, and the others. A change was made here, an addition there, then the men went forth with axes. With Black Tom and Pim Burke I went to the woods, for meat Two were left with the ship's boat, and they were to fish.

We were twenty-seven men and two women, and to feed such a lot is never a simple thing.

Steadily, we walked into the woods, for I had no wish to hunt close to camp and so frighten away what game was near. Several times we saw wild turkeys, but it was deer I wanted, and more than one.

Yet each such venture was more than a hunt for food, it was an exploration, and after each venture of my own or others it was in my mind to note down what was observed and to piece together a map of the area for all to see.

Suddenly, we came upon deer, a half dozen of them feeding in a meadow, some hundred and fifty yards off. It was far to risk a shot upon which so much depended, so I began my stalk. Having hunted deer in England I believed these would be no different.

All were feeding. Indicating the one I would attempt to kill, I suggested to the others that they choose their target and shoot when I shot.

Slowly, silently I began moving upwind toward them. Suddenly I saw their tails begin to twitch, and knowing they were about to look up, I stood fast. Their heads lifted and they stared at me, but I made no slightest move, and waited.

Soon they decided I was harmless and resumed their feeding.

Moving on, I closed some fifteen yards closer before their tails began to twitch again. They looked about, looked longer at me for they must have realized that strange object out there was closer, then back to feeding. Again I moved, again I stopped.

Now I was within less than a hundred yards of my target, and lifting my gun, I took aim. My ball took the buck through the neck just forward of the shoulders.

He leaped, fell to his knees, then rolled over.

Tom and Pim had come closer also, and instantly, both fired. Pim's was a clean miss as his target, startled by my shot, made an abrupt move, paused, then began to walk away.

They came up to me and we waited, hoping the deer might stop not far off, but they continued to move on into the brush, and we let them go.

"The neck shot is best," I commented, "if chance allows. If shot through the heart or lungs they will often run a mile or more before dropping."

Tom was the most skillful butcher among us, so he began skinning the animals out, while Pim and I followed in the way they had gone. A deer will rarely travel more than a mile from his home grounds if it can be avoided, so we hoped they had but circled around. Whatever they had done, we saw them not again.

With our meat and the skins we returned to our camp, killing three turkeys on the way.

So there was meat that night, but scarcely enough, and I knew we must go far afield, must kill and dry the meat and prepare for the winter to come. Supplying my small force was to be no small problem.

The days went swiftly by, working, hunting, clearing and planting land. During this time I kept several men aboard the fluyt, now rechristened the Abigail, cleaning her up, making minor repairs, and adding to her armament two guns recovered from the burned vessel.

The stockade was completed and four swivel-guns were mounted on the walls. Two more of the recovered guns from the burned-out wreck were hauled to the hilltop where the stockade had been built and mounted to cover the river itself.

We saw no Indians, yet from time to time their tracks were seen, and twice we saw canoes passing swiftly along the river in the dark.

"I do not trust them," Jublain protested irritably. "These, if I mistake them not, are Chowanokes."

"I know nothing of them," I said.

"Nor I," he admitted, "but I served with a soldier who came with Lane, and he spoke of them with no favor. They were allied to Wingina, who was a chief to the south and a great enemy to all whites.

"If the Roanoke colony vanished, he would be the likely culprit."

"And not the Spanish?"

"Aye, mayhap the Spanish, too."

It was a lovely land, alive with flowers and richness of soil, but except when cutting logs we avoided the swamp. There were alligators there as well as snakes, and a dismal place it was. Yet it was the easiest way for us to procure the timbers we needed, for a tree felled there could be towed by a boat easier than it could be moved upon land. Nor had we any wish to make our position more obvious by cutting trees. Taken from the swamp they left no gaping holes, nor any sign of activity likely to be seen.

If the Indians left us alone we were content that it be so, although it was trade with them I most desired, I preferred that we make our own position secure first, for in dealing with a people of so vastly different a culture and background we must ever be wary, for their understanding is not ours, nor is it based on the same considerations.

Now I was indeed thankful for the long talks with Captain Tempany, with Coveney Hasling, and with others, for each had served to broaden my viewpoint and the depth of my understanding.

There was much to learn of people, much to learn of the art of government, which had suddenly become my responsibility. I had already learned to listen to the advice of others but to act only on my own beliefs, and to make my own decisions.

The days went swiftly by, but soon there was on my table a growing map of the area in which we lived. Along with it I began to note down what I knew of Indians and what signs we had seen of them.

What of Potaka? On my earlier voyage we had met, and instantly had become friends. He was an Eno, of a tribe from somewhere inland, I knew not exactly where. It had been a year, perhaps somewhat more, since I had seen him. The Eno were good hunters, but careful farmers and shrewd traders, and if any might have a surplus for trade it would be the Eno ... from the little I knew of the Indians about here.

Our catch of fish was excellent, so I put more men to that service, and soon we had racks of fish drying in the sun and had to maintain a guard to keep off the birds. We killed many pigeons, of a kind that roosted in great numbers in the trees and could be taken easily.

Inside our stockade but backed up against the outer wall were our cabins. One for Abigail, Lila, and me, another for an armory, one for the storage of meat, another for grain, a third for our trade goods, and the largest yet a barracks for the men, although we maintained a crew of seven men aboard the Abigail.

We ate at a common table for I wished no stories to circulate that better food was served us than was prepared for all.

When would winter come? It worried me that I did not know, and could only guess, which made for bad planning. Despite the poor success of our hunting, for we found little game, the fishing went well, and our crops came readily up, promising a late but good harvest.

At the table, I explained the situation. "There are Indians up the river whom I know, they are called the Eno. There are other Indians a little way off called the Tuscarora, and I do not know them but other Indians fear them and they are spoken of as fighters.

"There are Indians near us called the Chowanoke or Chowanoc, but they are a small tribe. It may be that we can arrange an alliance that will offer protection for both.

"Avoid Indian women. It may be some of you will wish to have Indian wives, but first you must learn the Indian way, and to approach the father first and agree upon the present you will give him.

"We are very few here, and must walk with care, always respectful of these people."

"They are savages," Emmden muttered, "only savages!"

"But people, just as you and I, and they have customs as good for them as ours for us. Treat them as equals."

Emmden looked his disgust, but spoke no word against my order. Yet his manner worried me. He had been a sailor aboard the Flemish ship and I liked not his manner, and I spoke of him to Tilly and Jublain.

"Aye," Jublain agreed, "yon's a surly dog, and he's found others of his kind.

They talk continually of going a-pirating and I doubt not they'd try if they could find men enough."

Despite the fact that our fort was on a low hill it was shielded from view by the tall trees that made up the forest around the hill. That hill was stripped of brush and trees that might offer concealment and prepared a good field of fire for our weapons.

Meanwhile, those of us who knew how to use the bow resumed its use in our hunting. In the fens we had grown up as archers, each of us skilled in hunting with bow and arrow, so among us we numbered ten skilled archers and some who were good enough. Our hunting, to save powder and lead, was now done with bows and arrows.

The English longbow was a formidable weapon and despite the coming of firearms we in the fens and others in rural parts of England kept our skill in its use, competing in shooting at fairs and sometimes at markets. In the fens, where hunting was less restricted, many a fenman kept meat on his table with the bow.

In the evenings we made arrows, improved our bows, and sharpened axes and saws against the work to be done. They were quiet, busy times but we were in better condition to survive than had those who came before us, for all were accustomed to work, and aware of the need for it.

Nevertheless, we cut mast timbers and piled them above the ground to season, and some of the men were riving shingles, working with a hoe and a maul to split them off the larger chunks or logs. It was in my mind that sooner or later a ship would come, and then we might sell our timber or trade to good effect.

Yet we had our own quarters to furnish as well, so we made stools, benches, and chairs as well as buckets, ladles, spoons, and baskets.

And then we found the Indian.

It was Abigail who saw him first. She had gone with Lila to the edge of the forest to gather herbs. The morning was warm and still, but under the trees that bordered the swamp it was dark, mysterious, and very still.

Abigail had stopped inside the edge of the timber, to listen. Somewhere out across the swamp a woodpecker was working on a tree. Out upon the ship someone was hoisting something with a block and tackle. She could hear the squeak and groan of it. At the fort she could hear someone sawing ... here all was very quiet.

She saw the big alligator first. He was a huge, old fellow, all of ten or twelve feet long and when she saw him only his eyes and snout were above water. He was moving toward the shore, moving toward where she stood with a purposefulness that told her he was coming for something, or somebody.

"Lila?"

"I see him."

He was coming toward her. Maybe if she threw something into the water ... ?

She stooped to pick up a stick or chunk of bark ... and then she saw the hand.

For an instant she stood silent, holding her breath. It was a hand, a man's hand, and it lay half-clutching the damp leaves at the edge of the brush.

The hand had an arm. Then, half-concealed by the low-hanging leaves, she made out the body. A man's body, a man terribly wounded, bloody.

"Mam? We'd better go. He's coming!"

"Throw something at it. Anything."

Abigail looked quickly around. There was nothing. Catching hold of the hand, she pulled. It was all she could do to stir the body, but she did, she drew him slowly from the brush.

"Lila? Help me!"

Suddenly, Lila screamed. She had never heard the Welsh girl scream and she dropped the hand and ran quickly.

The 'gator was a big one, and he was coming out of the water, evidently drawn by the scent of blood from the man's body.

Abigail, who had lungs of her own, screamed also.

There was a shout, then running feet, and I was the first to reach them, running, sword drawn, expecting to find Indians or Bardle men.

Jublain was only an instant behind me, and Watkins came from the woods further along the shore.

"Look out for his tail," I warned. Where had I heard that? "He'll use it to knock you into the water or break your legs."

The big beast stood, half out of the water, staring at us with gleaming reddish eyes, his jaws opening and closing. The smell of blood and death drew him, yet our increasing numbers must have brought some thread of caution into his brain, for he stared at us, his eyes going from one to the other until I thought he might charge.

At my feet was a broken, rotting chunk of wood, and picking it up, I dashed it against his head. My shot was good, and it struck hard. He snorted and made an angry dash of no more than two feet, then retreated slowly, reluctantly, into the water.

"What is it, Abby?" I asked.

"There's a man ... he's not dead, I believe."

I walked past to where her finger pointed, and Jublain, sword still in hand, came to stand beside me.

The wounded man was an Indian, and of a type I had not seen before. He was a big man, well made, but from the marks upon his body he had been wounded, then tortured, and had somehow escaped.

"Get four men," I said, "and have them bring a litter. We'll take him to the fort."

"A savage? Inside our fort?" Jublain protested. "If he lives he'll betray us."

"Nonetheless, we'll try to save him. He escaped them somehow; he's come a long distance. If a man in such condition can do so much, he deserves to live."

Chapter 17

That the Indian had lost much blood was apparent, for he had been shot with an arrow in the back of the head, the stone arrowhead almost burying itself in the bone behind one ear.

From the looks of his skull he had been struck with a club. His black hair was matted with blood. There were many minor wounds and burns.

When he was bathed and cleaned and his wounds treated as well we might, I spoke to him, in the few words of the Eno tongue that I had learned, and he grunted something in reply, from which I gathered that he understood.

Then, touching my chest, I said, "Barnabas," very slowly. Indicating Lila, who stood over him, I said, "Lila."

Then I pointed to him. "You?"

"Wa-ga-su," he said.

He was wary as a trapped animal, but he was not cringing.

"Abigail and Lila," I said. "Be very careful. We are strangers, and to him every stranger is a possible enemy. He does not know why he is here, or why we try to make him well. He may think that we make him well only to torture him again."

"What kind of Indian is he?" Lila asked. "He seems to understand you."

"Aye ... a word or two. Perhaps we can learn from him about the country to the west, for I do not think him an Indian of this area. I think he is from far away, for his stature is different, and even his facial structure, and he is of larger frame than the Eno that I have seen."

For three days, then, I saw him but rarely, for my work was great and the time of the season was short. Our gardens were growing, and there was hope in me that we would make a good crop. For I was worried about winter.

Of furs we had but few, for most of the skins were needed in the preparation of clothing for the winter. Yet we had the skins of several foxes and some small dark animals of the weasel type that were called mink.

On the fifth day after the discovery of the savage, I went to the room where he was kept and cared for. Jublain had come with me, and suddenly the Indian began to speak in broken Spanish. It was a language Jublain well knew, having been a prisoner among them at one time.

"He is a Catawba ... whatever that is, from the west." Jublain paused, listening. "From the edge of the mountains."

"Ah!" I exclaimed, with pleasure. This was what I had wished for. "Ask him about the mountains."

"He asks about you. How, he wonders, do you speak some words of his tongue?"

"Tell him I was once a friend of an Eno named Potaka."

The Catawba looked at me several times as Jublain explained how Potaka and I had become friends, and how we had traded there.

"Tell him we are his friends and we would like to be friends of his people. Tell him that when he is well enough we shall, if he wishes, help him to return to his people."

Several times I sat with him then, each time learning a few words or phrases that I might use in speaking his language. Yet I am afraid he learned my language more swiftly than I learned his. There came a day when I took him with me and showed him about the small fort.

Wa-ga-su looked at everything, but he was especially impressed with the cannon.

"Big voice!" he exclaimed suddenly.

"Aye," I showed him one of the balls, but he was not so impressed as I had expected.

"Too big for man," he said, "throw away too much!"

Of course, he was right. I explained to him that the gun was for use against stockades or ships, and when he seemed to question the presence of the gun inside the fort I told him ships might come of men who were not friendly to us.

"Wa-ga-su," I said, "someday I shall go to live in the mountains."

"Is good," he said. "I show you."

He drew lines in the dust to show me where his country lay, and the rivers that bordered it. He showed me as well the trading paths leading cross the country that were used by all Indians. Little by little, each of us learned more of the language of the other, and he warned me that his enemies would be searching for him, and even now might be lurking in the woods around us.

"What enemies come after you?"

"Tuscarora ... they are many. Great fighters."

"You are safe here, Wa-ga-su. And when you are well, we will take you to your people or put you far upon the way."

Little by little I got the story of his escape. They had captured him while hunting, had tortured him for three days, making each day worse. Then they had tied him to a stake for burning. Using his two feet he had edged a burning brand around, working with the still unburned end, and tilting it, got it to fall against the rawhide that held his ankles. His legs free, he had somehow gotten free his hands, sprang through the flames at the back, and run into the woods.

They had immediately followed, but he eluded them. Then, wounded, sick, exhausted, he had fallen down near the edge of the swamp, where, smelling blood, the alligator had come for him.

With the coming of night the great gates to our fort were closed and barred. The smaller gate which opened on the river side was also barred. Two sentries walked the walls at night, and a system of signals was arranged with those men who remained aboard the fluyt, where a watch was also kept.

Nothing in my nature permitted me to trust to fortune, for it was my belief that good luck came to those who work hard and plan well. So far we had remained free from trouble with Indians. Hopefully, it would remain so.

Each night a different man was officer of the watch, a duty I divided with Jublain, Pirnmerton Burke, and Sakim. On this night, Pim was on duty, and he awakened me at a few minutes past midnight.

"Barnabas? Can you come?"

"What is it?" As ever, I was immediately awake.

"I don't know. But you'd better come."

He disappeared soundlessly. I got up and began quickly dressing.

"What is it, Barnabas?" Abigail was awake.

"I don't know. But I fear it is trouble, for Pim is not easily alarmed."

Taking up my pistols, buckling on my sword, and then taking a musket, I slipped out into the night. Behind me I heard Abigail stirring about. I mounted the ladder to the wall.

A guard loomed beside me. It was a man I knew as a Newfoundlander, a good, sturdy man, Ned Tanner. "They're out there, Cap'n," he whispered, "and it is I who thinks there's a-plenty of them."

"Stand by, then."

Walking on around the walk below the wall to the other guard, I found Pim Burke.

"Tanner says there's a lot of them out there. What say you?"

"Aye," the guard, a swarthy, husky chap from Bristol, spoke softly. "They've something in mind, Captain. They've been all about below the walls."

Listening, I could hear the movements of men, but what they planned I could not guess. "Pim," I said, "do you go below and roust out six good men. Let the others rest, if they've the will to. It may be a long day before us."

Now to take a stockaded position is not an easy thing if the defenders be alert.

With cannon, it was a simple thing, without them almost impossible without negligence on the part of the defenders. Yet the very fact they had not yet attacked spoke of some preparation, which implied some knowledge of making war and strong positions. This implied there might be a white man among them.

The Spanish, who had settlements in the land of Florida, were not happy with England's attempts to settle Virginia, and it might be that a small party of Spanish were directing this effort. Of course, that was pure speculation, I had no facts.

A glance at the stars told me almost an hour had gone by since I had first been awakened. The ladder behind me creaked as the men climbed to their positions.

With moving about upon the walkway and listening, much time had passed, yet I had no idea of what they planned. Below me at least two and perhaps more of them were moving about, perhaps only seeking to find a way to enter.

I spoke softly. "What is it you want?" And I used the Catawba tongue.

There was abrupt silence.

"We do not sleep," I continued, "but we wish no trouble. If you would talk, come to us in the light, and we shall speak. If you come by night, we have no choice but to believe you enemies."

Again a silence. Then a voice, "Release the Catawba. He is ours."

"He is his own. You do not have him. We do not have him."

"Put him outside, and we will take him and go."

"He is a good man. He works beside us. We will not put him away. He has come to our village for protection."

"Then we shall take him. I, whom am Naguska, say this."

"You are a Tuscarora?"

"So it is."

"The Tuscarora are a proud people. They are fine warriors. But I am English. We do not surrender those who have come to us for aid."

"So be it." He seemed not too displeased. "You will die for it. All of you."

Then, surprisingly, he said in English, "You are a weak people, you English. And you tell lies about your country beyond the water. You are a small people. You cannot hunt. You have no fur. You have no big trees. You have only your big canoes and a hunger for things that belong to others."

"You speak English?"

"My father was English. He taught me many words before I saw his weakness. He was no warrior. He was no hunter. He could do nothing ... nothing that becomes a man."

"In our land only some men are warriors, and there is little game, so few of us are hunters. We obtain what is needed by barter."

"Bah! It is a woman's wayl A warrior takes what he needs!"

"Who was your father?"

"He was nobody. He could only scratch marks upon paper, upon bark, upon whatever he had. He told me they were charms, so we did not burn them, but they did him no good."

"He is dead?"

"Long ago. It is well that he died. I had great shame to have no other father."

"I thought with you it was the mother's brother who was important to the boy?"

"Well, it was so. My mother's brother was a great warrior!"

He seemed willing enough to talk, and while he talked there was no fighting. I whispered as much to Pim, but advised him to be doubly alert.

"Come to the gate by day, and come alone. I would speak with you, Naguska."

"By day? By day you shall all be dead. Or prisoners, to die by the torch."

"You said your father made marks upon paper and bark. Do you have that paper and the bark? I should like to see it."

"I have them. I know where they are hidden. My father was a weak man. He could use no weapon, he could not hunt. He was much laughed at for his weakness. With him always it was only what he could put upon paper."

I heard a series of strange sounds. I tried to identify them.

Suddenly, I knew! Ladders! They had ladders!

Along various spots in the wall were small bundles of grass and twigs that could be quickly lighted. Taking one from its cubbyhole, I struck a light and touched it off with a spark. As it sprang into flame, I held it over the wall In the brief flare of light a dozen savage, painted faces glared up at me, then the ladders started to rise.

An arrow struck near me. Aiming at the nearest man's chest, I fired.

They came with a rush.

Chapter 18

"Ladders!" I shouted the word so all would know what to expect.

Ladders. I had never heard of an Indian using such things, yet Naguska was only half Indian, and he might have learned many things from the father he seemed to despise.

There was a burst of firing. Somebody dropped another lighted bundle, and then another. Two Indians were attempting to take a wounded man away, and a ladder dropped into place near me. I grabbed the top of it and shoved it from the wall.

One man let go and fell off, another one rode the ladder back toward me.

My blade was there to meet his chest as he fell against the wall. For a moment his face was very near to me, and then I was drawing the blade clear.

Other men were climbing up from below. The whole lot of our men had been brought up by the firing but, suddenly, there was a lull.

"More bundles!" I shouted. "Don't let them get away with the ladders!"

Here and there a shot followed. Then all was silence. Around us the velvet of night lay gently. A faint breeze stirred in from die sea, and there was left a smell of burned wood, grass, and gunpowder.

Then there was another aroma ... fresh coffee! Some of the men had not tasted it, for the substance was new in England, yet Abigail had long been familiar with it from her travels on her father's ship in the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean.

There was a cup for each of us, and a pleasant, warming drink it was.

Jublain and Pim came to me. "Will they attack again, think you?"

"I do not know. The ladders failed only because we were alert, but they will think their medicine was bad. We must wait and see."

The attack had lasted only minutes, and now all was still. We drank more of the coffee and some men returned to their rest. A slow hour passed by, and then another. There was a faint gray fight in the east, or perhaps I but wished it so.

Watkins came to me beside the parapet. "There's two ladders outside near the gate. Request permission to go out and get them."

I hesitated. To open the gates was a risk, but I wished to keep as many ladders from their hands as possible. Always before Indians had failed to succeed in attacks against stockades unless they could get in before a gate was closed.

"How many men will you need?"

"Twelve, I think. Two men for each ladder, the others to stand by in case of attack."

"Very well. Only it must be done quickly. At the first move from them retreat within the gate and close it."

We waited ... the creak of the heavy gates was unnaturally loud in the stillness. Surely, the Indians could hear it, but what would they think? That we were pursuing them?

Yet Watkins and his men moved swiftly indeed. Within minutes the gates had swung shut again, and at least two of the ladders were within.

He came to me. It had grown a little lighter and his grin was easy to see.

"There was a third we could not carry so I almost cut the rawhide bindings through," he said. "Wait until they try climbing that one!"

Watching toward the dark line of forest, I thought of Naguska.

The threads that hold a man to leadership be thin indeed, and he had trusted his success to a new thing, an un-Indian thing, and it had failed. Some of them were sure to think that it was this strange thing that led to their defeat, they would blame him. I could not but feel regret for him, for he seemed an able man, although I was sorry he respected his father so little.

Yet, might it not be that he secretly loved him? That all this was a mask, a thing to shield him from such an emotion? For few of the Indians we had met thus far regarded the father with veneration, for the maternal uncle was he who drew the respect we gave to a father.

We waited, and waited, yet no further attack came, and slowly the sky grew lighter.

Here and there we saw patches of darkness on the grass, left by the blood of a victim, but there were no bodies, alive or dead. All had been spirited away in the darkness. We found four more ladders, one abandoned almost at the edge of the brush.

How well for us and all who lived behind stockades that this new way of war had failed them. I wondered how often it might have happened-that a truly great discovery was cast aside because of initial failure. The ladders were well-made, the uprights notched slightly, and the crosspieces bound in place with rawhide.

Abigail had breakfast ready when I came below. She had not waited for the main table to be set, knowing I would be hungry. I told her of Naguska, and she looked at me, smiling with amusement. "You are a strange man, Barnabas, for you seem almost regretful that he failed, when his success might have meant death to us all."

"It was a new idea to them, Abby, the ladders. And he must have argued many hours to convince his warriors of their worth." I reflected. "Yes, I do feel regret for him, and someday I hope we can meet again ... under other circumstances. I would know more of this father of his. How he came to be here and what his name was. And whence he came."

Sakim and Pim came in to share coffee with me, and I told them of my thinking.

"How strange it is to think that all our knowledge, all our skills can seem worthless to a people not accustomed to them."

Sakim shrugged. "It was ever so. Long ago I was on a ship to the Moluccas, and we stopped by an island to trade. No steel was known there, nor any metal at all. The tools, axes, knives ... all were of stone.

"One such was beautifully made and I wished it for something to take home with me, and offered to trade a steel hatchet for his of stone. He looked at my hatchet, turned it over, used it, looked astonished at how easily it cut, then returned it to me and took up his own. He would not trade. He wanted what was known and familiar, not this strange tool of whose properties he knew nothing."

Sakim sipped his coffee. "It is good," he said, "but thin to my taste. I must show you someday how it is made in my country."

He put down his cup. "I have come tonight to talk to you of that."

"Of your country? My father knew a little, but too little. Peter talked some of the Eastern lands, but I know too little except that spices come from there, and gold and tea and coffee and much else."

Sakim smiled, and turned his cup upon the table. "Much else, indeed." He looked at me, his black eyes amused and a little doubtful, I thought. "That young man, Naguska. I am very like him in that I, too, have learning that may be despised, as his was."

"How so? I despise no learning, Sakim. That you know."

"Perhaps, my friend, and that is why I have decided to tell you what I have told no man since my first captivity to Europeans. It was easier to let them believe I was a Moor, for all understood what was a Moor, and to explain what I really was ... it would have been useless, and worse, puzzling.

"Men do not like puzzles, Barnabas. They prefer categories. It is far easier to slip a piece of information into a known slot than to puzzle over the unknown."

"You are not a Moor? But you are a Moslem?"

"Many who follow Mohammed are not Moors, nor even Arabs. They were a conquering people, those Arabs who came out of their deserts after the death of Mohammed, and they carried the sword and fire to many lands, including Persia, one of the oldest, and I, who now call myself Sakim, came from a far place known as Khurasan, from the city of Nisphapur.

"It was the home of my father, and of my father's father as well, and who knows how many others? We were scholars, sometimes of the law, often of medicine, always of philosophy.

"In the study of medicine we were far advanced, for were we not the heirs of Greece? But we had learned from India as well, and from Cathay. In Bagdad alone we once had sixty-five hospitals divided into wards for the separate treatments of various ills and diseases, with running water in every room ... and that was in the eighth century ... eight hundred years ago."

"So what happened?" Burke asked skeptically. "I have seen none of this great medicine."

"Genghis Khan came ... you have heard of him? And something like a hundred years later, Timur the Lame. He who in the West is called Tamerlane.

"You think you have seen war ... Timur made pyramids of skulls and the streets ran red with blood ... several times over a hundred thousand were put to the sword. No man truly knows how many, but he killed all ... at first.

"Later, when he became wiser, he tried to save the artisans and the scholars, but too many had died. The hospitals were destroyed, the books burned, the teachers slain.

"Those two conquerors set civilization back five hundred years, my friends, and only a few survived. Several were ancestors of mine who fled into the hidden fastnesses of the Pamirs, and others into the far desert, the Takla-makan.

"There they treated the ill, they taught their sons and grandsons, and in time returned to Nisphapur and to Marv and to Meshed.

"In my time I studied in Nisphapur and in Marv, then in Isfahan and Constantinople, but by that time the urge was upon me to travel to the westward, so I set sail from Constantinople for Tripoli. Our ship was taken by pirates ...

I was enslaved ... was taken by other pirates then freed, and when we met I was a sailor, only wishing to go home."

"And now you are here," Abigail said.

"I am here," he said simply, "and would be used. My skills rust. I thought at first to say nothing, but when Wa-ga-su was brought in, I thought then to speak, but hesitated."

"We have little medicine," I said.

"There are herbs and there are minerals. I can make my own. Lately I have seen herbs in the swamps and along the hillsides like those I know."

"Collect them, then," I said "Gather your herbs. Find your minerals. What help you need, we will give. By the look of today there will be many times when a man is needed who knows of medicine."

I stood up. "It is a bright day, and much is to be done. Be careful, Sakim.

There will be Indians about. I give you one other chore ..." I pointed at Lila.

"Teach her what you can. She knows much of herbs. She will help you."

When Pim stood beside me in the yard he said, "Do you think he lies?"

"No ... I believe him. There are stranger lives men have led. We are fortunate, Pim. We have a surgeon, a physician! No doubt he will keep some of us alive. If he saves only one, it is good. Sakim and I sailed together before this, and he proved a good man. And loyal."

Each day now was a day of work, and Wa-ga-su was quick to see how little we knew, and how much we needed to know. He led us to likely spots in which to find nuts, berries, and edible roots.

In several places along the banks of streams we found thickets of blackberries, dewberries, and persimmons. We picked and picked until every receptacle we had was filled. Here and there we found nuts, although the season was still early for many of them.

Wa-ga-su drew in the sand a picture of his country for us, a vast area drained by the Catawba River, and lying between two other rivers. It lay at the farthest point, right at the foot of the mountains, and perhaps into the mountains themselves. That he did not make clear.

He showed us how to add the meal of ground nuts to thicken soup or stew, using walnuts, chestnuts, or hickory nuts, and how to search for and find clams along the shores.

John Tilly, who had been in command aboard the Abigail, went in a boat to search for clams and to catch fish out on the sound and along the sandy shores.

Suddenly Watkins came to me. "Barnabas." He spoke softly not to alarm the others. "Tilly's comin' back. He's comin' fast!"

We hurried to the river where Tilly had gone at once io the Abigail, dropping off two men. As we waited, he came to the landing with the other two.

"Ship off shore," he said shortly, "I made her out with my glass. The Jolly Jack ... of London."

Nick Bardle ...

My old enemy was returned. Once he had kidnapped me, several times had tried to kill me, and he had killed Brian Tempany, Abigail's father.

I went to look.

His vessel was not large but was heavily gunned, and highly maneuverable. He would have a large crew, perhaps three times the men we could muster.

"Tilly," I said, "get the Abigail in good position then prepare for battle."

We had six guns in the fort and we brought them all to bear on the river, leaving only the swivel-guns and our light arms to repel an overland attack.

Abigail looked pale and frightened. "Don't worry," I advised, "we'll handle him."

She nodded, but I could see she was worried, but no less than I, for if the attack stretched out too long we should lose much good working time before the cold weather set in. And during the past days, some of the leaves had begun to turn and there was frost upon the lowlands, and the morning mists were thicker.

I looked downstream where we would see Bardle's sails first, and I felt a little shiver go through me. I, too, was afraid, for it was no longer as it once had been, when only I could suffer from my mistakes. Now there were others, these who had entrusted themselves to me.

"I am not thinking of me," she said suddenly, "nor of you only. I am thinking of your son."

"My son ... ?" I looked at her stupidly. "What did you say? My son?"

I am sorely afraid I shouted those last words, and they all turned, those who stood along the wall watching, those who manned the guns.

And then as realization dawned, a cheer went up.

My son!

"Cap'n?" It was Jublain. "Here she comes!"

Her masts showed against the sky above the green of the forest, a thinning forest, where the leaves had begun to fall. Her masts, then her bow, then a fores'l.

"Tom," I called to Watkins. "Your gun only ... fire!"

Chapter 19

Watkins put his match to the touch-hole. There was an instant of pause, then the gun belched flame and smoke, leaping as if to spring, from its carriage, and we saw the ball strike the butt of the bowsprit and scatter splinters in every direction. There was a great splitting and a crash as the yard came down and the bowsprit hung all askew, held only by the rigging.

Taking our shot for a signal, the gunners aboard the Abigail let go with a four-gun broadside that caught the Jolly Jack head on.

Then, with the Jack broadside to us, we let go with the remainder of the fort's guns, only an instant before the Jack fired its own broadside.

A momentary advantage had been ours. Bardle had apparently only seen the Abigail, and if he knew of the fort's existence he did not guess it was armed as it was from the guns of the ships we had taken.

Watkins' first shot had taken them unawares, throwing them off just in time to permit the Abigail to fire.

The glory of the sunlit morning was blasted by cannon-fire, and the beauty of the oncoming ship was shattered by our fire. Before the powder smoke obscured the scene I saw a great section of the Jack's rail burst into fragments, and another ripping a hole in a sail. Others fell harmlessly into the water.

Great clouds of smoke billowed up from their guns and ours. There were splintering crashes, and the awful red lightning of the guns mingled with the thunder of them and the whine of flying splinters and the shouts and screams of men.

Through a haze of smoke I glimpsed the Jack falling back, guns firing. Suddenly the thunder of the guns ceased and there was an unbelievable silence. And then groans, cries, and calls for help.

Our massive gate was battered to splinters. One gun had been blasted from its carriage, and I saw Abigail and Lila bending over a man who lay sprawled on the ground. Then I saw another, as they ran from the first to the second.

Two men were being helped down ladders, both wounded. Another man, his arm dangling, was going down a ladder by himself.

Through the smoke I could see the topm'sts of the Abigail, and as the smoke lifted could see she had been hulled at least twice and was down by the head.

Men were working about the deck, so some at least had survived. Even as I looked, one of the guns fired another shot.

Jublain came to me. "Two dead, Barnabas, and seven injured ... one of them seriously."

He waved a hand at the gate. "I've started repairs, and we'll need them quickly if he tries to come back. I think the Abigail is in bad shape."

Jeremy King came up the ladder. "Jeremy, take Wa-ga-su. He can probably guide you through the swamp to a point where you can see the Jolly Jack. Take a telescope. I want a report on her condition as soon as possible. Don't let yourself be seen."

Through my own glass I studied the Abigail, and it gave me a twinge to see her.

I could never stand to see a fine ship damaged, for they are things of such beauty, white sails against the sky, prow lifting and dipping in the sea. They are living things.

One of the holes in her hull was barely above the waterline, the other higher, probably in the gundeck.

"Recharge all guns," I said. "Two gunners stand by, the rest get to work helping with the gate."

I went down the ladder to the common room. Sakim was there at work with Lila.

One man already had his arm set and was sitting to one side with a glass of ale in his hand. He grinned at me. "Good fight!" he said.

The only seriously injured man was a youngster. A fragment of metal from a bursting shell had ripped the side of his neck, another piece imbedded itself in his thigh. He had bled badly.

He looked up at me. 'Tm sorry," he said.

"Sorry? You did very well," I said. "Sakim will take care of you."

It had needed no more than a minute or two for me to see that Sakim worked swiftly, surely, and with confidence. I had no further doubts.

There had been a surplus of poles cut when the stockade was under construction, and from these a new gate was being made.

Food was being put on the table when a messenger came from the Abigail. The hole in the hull had been temporarily repaired and the water was being pumped out, but extensive repairs would yet be needed before she was seaworthy again.

There was no word from Pim Burke and Wa-ga-su regarding the Jolly Jack. Abigail was in our cabin meanwhile, and I sat down there.

"Did you mean it?" I said, "A son?"

"Well," she hesitated, "a child, anyway. I can't promise a son."

"It would be easier for a son," I said. "Here."

She nodded seriously. "You know, I never thought of that until now. It is one thing for a boy to grow up in this wilderness. But a girl? Here ... so far from everything. Could she become a lady?"

"Wherever she grows up," I said, "your daughter would be a lady."

We talked of that, and of other things, and with one ear listened for the trouble we knew would come.

Pim Burke came in. He accepted a flagon of ale and sat down opposite me.

The Jolly Jack's not badly hurt. Bowsprit gone, sprits'l and sprit-tops'l gone.

Some damage to the bow. Most of her bulwark amidships is gone, and up to when we left they'd buried three men over the side."

He swallowed some ale, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "Her main-tops'l yard is gone. Crashed to the deck. Several guns or gun-carriages damaged, but she's able to go to sea."

He paused. "I wonder if he knows how shallow the water is out there in the sound? He might run aground."

"I hope he doesn't," I said frankly. "I want him out of here."

"Aye, I was thinkin' on that." Pim looked up at me. "You plannin' to stay here?"

He paused again.

Outside the wind stirred slightly. I could hear the men working to repair the gate.

"I'm going to the mountains, Pim," I said, "when spring comes."

"They'll not all go with you, Barnabas," he said quietly. "There's been talk.

Some think we should take the Abigail and go a-pirating, and some are for trade, but many are restless now that the work's finished."

It was no hard thing to understand. They were far from others of their kind, and we'd seen no ships but Bardle's.

The sound was shallow. There were places where, if a man was careful, he could guide a vessel through the water and into the rivers in safety, yet there were shoals here and there, and floods from upriver kept them changing.

A large vessel could not well navigate in the sound unless during a time when the rivers were in flood. Abigail, if well-handled, could do it.

"Who's the leader of those who would be pirates?" I asked.

"Jonathan Delve."

I well knew the man. A good gunner, a fierce fighter, and a tall, sallow-cheeked man with a spotty black beard and always-watchful eyes.

"So Delve's their leader now?"

"Aye. He says nothing of you, mind you. Delve is a wily one, and you'll not catch him out. Only he's talking of going a-pirating ... of ships to be had off the coast. He's already come to me twice, wanting a boat with which to explore.

I think he's got something on his mind, Barnabas. I've watched him ... and listened. He's been on this coast before."

"How many of them are there?"

Pim shrugged. "It could be five, it could be more ... They're restless, like I said."

Pim paused, drank some ale, and then said, "Delve came up with something ... pointblank. Asked me if I'd ever heard of a man named Chantry."

"Chantry?"

"Aye. You mayn't have heard of him, being in the fens, like. He was talked about along the waterfront of Bristol, and in the dives. He was Irish, they say, but there seems some mystery about him. He had great skill with arms, but was a trading man ... or so it seemed. He put money in a voyage to America, and went along."

"What happened to him?" I asked.

"Well, he was lost ashore. Indians attacked a watering party and he was killed with the others and the ship pulled off ... only he wasn't dead."

"So?"

"He showed up again in Bristol, a-sailing of his own ship, but how he come by it or a crew, no man could say. He unloaded a few mast-timbers, sold some freshwater pearls and some dried fish, but when he pulled out of Bristol his ship was still deep in the water. There was a lot of talk. You know how it is around the harbor dives. Was it treasure he had aboard? Where did he get his ship and his treasure, if any? Where did he get a crew? And where had he been all that time?

"The next thing known is that he slipped out of harbor, and when we heard of him again he'd set himself up in western Ireland. Living like a King he is, him and the girl."

"Girl?"

"Aye. He was married to her, they say. Some say she was a Spanish lass, and some say an Indian. But she was beautiful, rarely, wonderfully beautiful ... and different."

"He was a lucky man, then. Fortune and a beautiful woman," I said.

"Aye," Pim said, "I should be so lucky! But that is not all of the story. There was gossip about it, and Delve has heard it all. Chantry had looted a Spanish galleon of its treasure, they say. Some say he captured it, some that he found it deserted but for the girl. He took a shipload of treasure from it."

"It's a good story."

"Aye, but the story that Delve likes is that he only brought back a small part of the treasure-that his ship wasn't large enough to take the whole, and that the biggest part of the treasure is still in the bottom of the ship."

"And where is the ship?"

"Run ashore on some island or other, laying there for the taking."

"How long ago was this?"

"Some years back ... maybe twenty ... I don't know. Point is, from the description they got, they think it is somewhere near here. The story is told of some barrier islands, and sounds into which rivers flowed."

I shrugged. "Pim, this whole coast is like that, for miles and miles."

Nevertheless I was remembering a ship in which I had taken shelter, a ship almost buried in sand on the shore of a river islet ... a ship that might be buried or swept out to sea by this time. I said nothing.

"Put a couple of men to watch the Jolly Jack, Pim. Have them report her every move." I got up, thinking of Delve, and well knowing the lure of gold. I might lose almost all who were with me, leaving us vulnerable for any attack.

Now many things that had been keeping their shadows in the back of my mind came to the fore. What future, beyond the promise of land, could I offer those with me?

Other colonists would eventually come ... but when? How long, I thought, must we wait? Most of us were young, but I think that no two men age at the same rate, or learn equal sums from experience. Some men learn by their years, others simply live through them.

I found Jublain at once. It took me only a moment to explain.

"Aye," he said gloomily, "I have had a feeling about Delve, but he has had a feeling about me, so I'd likely be the last he'd speak to."

That night, the Jolly Jack sailed away, to the great relief of all.

It was only later that I discovered Delve had spread the word very well indeed.

On the morning after, he came to me with three other men.

Delve hooked his thumbs in his belt. He was smiling, a kind of taunting, challenging smile it was. "We be going to hunt for gold," he said. "We've heard there's a treasure ship nearby, run aground and beached."

"I know of no such treasure ship," I replied.

Jeremy Ring and Jublain had come to stand beside me.

"Aye, well, mayhap you've your own reasons for not sharing your knowledge with us," he said, still smiling. "But mayn't we hunt on our own?" His sharp little eyes probed mine. "Unless you would try to stop us."

"Why should I do that? Go ahead. You've my permission, if it is needed. Only those who go do not return."

He chuckled. "Like that, is it? Well, it's not likely we'd need to return.

You'll give us food then?"

"For six days only. We can afford no more. After that you'll be on your own.

I'll give you rifles and ten balls per man, and the powder for it, and where you go after that is wherever you like, but I'll have no quitters with me."

I looked him square in the face.

"You'll stay now, or you'll go and not come back. You came knowing what lay ahead, and now at the smell of gold, which probably isn't there, you'd go. Well, go and be damned!"

"You talk very big for a man who'll soon be alone."

"He'll not be alone," said Jublain. "I'll be with him."

"And I," Ring added.

"You're fools then," he said. "There'll be few else."

"That may be," I replied, "but there may be more loyal men here than you think."

For the first time I saw doubt in his eyes, but he shook it off. The dream was more pleasant to believe than to doubt.

The taunting expression came to his face. He wanted to get back at me, to hurt me, worry me, anger me. "Well, Barnabas, if there's no gold I can always join Nick Bardle."

"Why not? There's always room on a gibbet."

He turned sharply away, and Jublain made as if to start after him. "He needs killing," he said, when I stopped him.

"No doubt, but here is a good time to be rid of any troublemakers. I want nobody with me who will not go the distance."

Yet there were steps I could take, and I took them. Recharging several pistols and a musket, I kept them at hand, and suggested to Jublain, Jeremy, and Pim that they stay close about.

Delve went to the edge of the wood with a dozen others and there was much talk going on.

"Pim," I said, "do you go to the Abigail. Tell Tilly what goes on, and tell him to stand by for trouble and allow no one aboard unless with an order writ by my hand."

Aboard the Abigail, I felt sure John Tilly would stand.

Pim was back within the hour. "They'll stand for you," he said, "every man of them."

"Good! Now let us close the gate."

We did so, and Jeremy went to the walls where he could keep a lookout, and a weather-eye on the dissenters.

When they were up and coming to the gate in a group, Ring called softly and I came up to the wall with him. Wa-ga-su came to me and wished to know what it was that had happened, and I explained to him. He shook his head in amazement, but went back to squat against the wall and watch.

Jonathan Delve was in the lead. When they came up to the gate and found it closed, they stopped, obviously surprised.

"Well, men, what is it?"

"Open the gate!" Delve shouted. "We want our belongings. We are going for the gold."

"It shall be as agreed," I said. "I think you go upon a fool's errand. Yet you shall have what I promised."

Then we lowered over to them the muskets and the food, and with much angry grumbling and shouting they marched away.

Some we did well without, yet others were good men led astray by a promise of gold. We stood together upon the walls, making a brave show of it, but we knew all too well that we were too few to defend the fort against a strong attack as Bardle might make. Not to mention the Indians.

"Do you think they know how many have gone? The Indians, I mean?" Jublain asked.

"If they do not know, they will. There will be tracks left, and they will follow and observe. I think our friends have not chosen wisely."

I was already thinking of what was to come. We had a winter to get through before we could march to the mountains.

In the following days we stayed close by, gathering food, drying the meat from our hunting, gathering clams along the shore, fishing. Always, two of us remained within the fort, and now the great gate was always closed, and we used the smaller gate. It was easier to open and shut as well as to guard.

"I fear for them." Tilly had come to the fort to eat, leaving Blue in command of the Abigail. "They will find much trouble at Roanoke, unless they have great luck."

The lost colony. Would the same fate overtake us?

There was time then to get out the maps and charts and pore over them, to speculate on what lay beyond the blue mountains and the best way to reach them.

Wa-ga-su had a quick intelligence, and grasped at once almost any idea that was not totally beyond the range of his experience. Our needs he understood at once.

He would guide us to his home country. He would show us a way into the mountains, but when we offered him a chance to go along, he refused.

"Have you thought of a voyage first?" Tilly suggested. "We have many timbers cut for masts, many skins, and much potash. It would be a valuable cargo."

"I cannot risk England," I said.

"Then what of the Spanish islands? Or France?"

Uneasily, I considered the subject. It was true we had a full and heavy cargo.

Our work would be for naught if we left it on the ground and went away to the mountains.

The decision would have to be mine. To go meant to move, to move meant to risk the sea, conflict, and possibly capture and death.

John Tilly wished to go. There were good reasons for it and Abby, I knew, would leave the choice to me.

The rain fell softly, whispering gently down upon our roofs, beating a soft tattoo upon our walls. It would be wet in the forest, wet upon the trails, and out beyond the Banks would be the cold gray wintry sea, rolling its combers down from the northland. The great breakers would be snarling along the sand. Again I seemed to feel the tip and bow of a deck beneath my feet.

Once more the lights of a harbor seemed to beckon to me, once more the sound of music and laughter.

Tomorrow, I promised myself, I would decide ...

Our walls were strong here, our food supply good. Out there? No wall could stand against the sea, and good ship though we had, there were ships that were faster, more heavily gunned.

The weight of the burden lay heavy upon me. Now that I must decide for others, my decisions came not so quickly, for any move might mean the death of my wife, of a friend, or the loss of our ship.

Yet each move one makes is a risk, and if one thinks too long one does not move at all, for fear of what may come, and so becomes immobile, crouched in a shell, fearful of any move.

I would sleep the night, I would think much upon what I might do, but I think the decision was already made.

We would go to sea once more.

Chapter 20

Our first task was to bring closer to the fort the Abigail, and to careen her there so her bottom might be scraped free of encrusted barnacles. If this was not done, not only would her bottom soon be damaged but her sailing speed would be slowed, and this we could not have. In many a situation to be encountered at sea, only speed could lead to safety.

By night I sat over my table, working upon our meager supply of paper to see what could be done as to armament and cargo. Again and again I went over the stowage of that cargo to keep our vessel seaworthy and in balance, for the stowage of cargo is no simple matter.

Tilly, Ring, and Jublain were often with me. Tilly was the most knowing as to stowage and the management of such cargo. Jublain knew the most of the use of ordnance, and Ring, to my surprise, knew much of marketing.

On the latter, I consulted often with Abigail, too, for she had made many voyages with her father and had heard him talk of trade and the market in many lands, and also the talk of those who consorted and traded with him.

Meanwhile I went over my charts and considered much as to exactly where we should go. England would have been my first choice, but England meant almost certain prison for me. It would likely be fully as dangerous for us to approach any other port in Christian Europe. Yet I thought much of the harbors of Brittany, where many ships were built, where we of the fens were known, and where there was ever a dearth of timber for the masts of ships. Yet Brittany was no market for potash, and I hoped to dispose of our cargo at one move. Into port quickly, a quick sale, a quick escape and back to our fort, should best suit all our purposes.

The coasts of Barbary were another thought, but they were notorious for pirates, who had little timber and who would be likely to take both our cargo and ship.

Yet I liked not the thought of supplying masts for pirates who had enslaved many an English seaman.

"What then of Ireland?" Abby suggested, and it gave me good pause.

What, indeed? There had been some building activity there, or so I had heard, in those parts not affected too much by the fighting.

Thus Ireland was a chance ... and Brittany, another.

Any voyage was a risk, for with every day of sailing we would be coming closer and closer to the shores of England and the danger from English ships.

Yet our ship was a fluyt, of a neutral country, a type of ship they would have little reason to attack or disturb. We might just bring it off.

"What do you think of England?" I asked the others.

Jublain shrugged. "I think it would be a mistake. It is too close, too dangerous. Mountjoy's ships would be around the coasts, for there was talk of Spanish soldiers helping the Irish. They would suspect every ship."

"Why not to England?" Pim Burke suggested cheerfully. "Barnabas need not appear.

We could sail right into Bristol harbor, sell for a good price where the masts are most needed, and the potash can be traded, and then be out and gone."

"It is too risky," Jublain objected.

Pim was always the daring one, willing to skirt the very edge of danger, yet his idea had merit.

"Why not Ireland?" asked Jeremy Ring. "I'd rather see the timbers go there than to Spain or to the Moors. We could take them to the Indies, but they would bring much less."

"That's true," I agreed. "I had been thinking of that."

Jublain was typical of the professional soldier. He fought always to win. No unnecessary risk, although he would hesitate at nothing when in combat, always playing the percentages. He was one to want the margin of safety always on his side, to take every precaution, then go ahead.

"Ireland it will be," I said, "for a first attempt. I know a bit of the Irish coast now."

"Where in Ireland?" Ring asked.

"Glandore is small. There would be no market there, but there's a place nearby ... called Kinsale. Do you know it?"

"Aye," Jublain said, "and a likely place it is. Well, why not? It is your neck they have measured for the hemp, not mine. Although crossing the ocean to any port at this time is a chancy thing."

"We'll sail to the Azores," I suggested, "by a warmer if longer route, and then to Ireland."

A word here or a word there, and the choice might have been otherwise. Upon such slender threads are the lives of men suspended.

Now there was much to be done. The hull of the Abigail had been well scraped and treated by the time our decision was made, and the loading of cargo begun: mast-timbers, shingles, potash, the few furs and hides we had taken, and a few freshwater pearls.

We had a supply of food, far more than needed to supply our ship, so like the squirrels we dug holes and buried some food in the cool ground-mostly nuts, that would care for themselves, buried in barrels and casks.

At last, we cast off from the moorings made to trees, and floated slowly downstream, putting on more canvas to catch the wind.

When I glanced back, the fort stood silent and alone upon its low hill. Wa-ga-su stood beside me. I wondered at his thoughts, this strong, quiet savage going out upon the water and sailing to a land he had never seen and could scarcely imagine. Yet he seemed calm.

"We will come back, Wa-ga-su," I assured him.

He said nothing, merely stared at the receding shores. This was not his country, yet it was a land he knew, and from it he knew the way to his own people.

John Tilly took over the watch and I went below.

Once more I got out my charts of the Irish coast, yet even as I stared at the chart I was not seeing it, for my thoughts had turned to Ireland itself rather than the chart before me.

In 1597 the Irish had rebelled against the English, and led by O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, as well as Red Hugh O'Donnell, they fought a shrewd and cautious campaign, attacking moving columns, staging ambushes and sudden raids upon camps. It was the kind of warfare for which the Irish fighting man was suited, and with which the Earl of Essex was unable to cope. Finally, a truce was declared and Essex returned to England to find the Queen in a fit over the truce. He was replaced by Lord Mountjoy, and beheaded not long after ... or so we had heard while in Wales.

What might have happened since then, we had no idea. Months had passed, and we had no recent news. Our best opportunity was to work in toward the coast of Ireland and try to bespeak a fishing vessel or a trader for information.

Glandore was no fit harbor for our commerce. Cork was too big, and the danger of being trapped in that harbor was greater, due to its conformation. Studying the chart and talking with Tilly and Ring, who both knew the coast, we decided upon Kinsale.

We set our course for the distant islands, and the seas were gentle, the winds not strong, but steady. Twice we sighted other sails, and once a ship headed to us, but the fluyt was a good sailor and we hoisted all her canvas and pulled swiftly away.

Gulls accompanied us, and porpoises dove and played around our bow, seeming to enjoy the company of the fluyt. Nearing the Azores we sighted too many vessels for comfort, and pulled away from them and set our course northerly.

"Do you know Kinsale, Jublain?" I asked.

"I know it. A good little place on the river Bandon with a fine, safe harbor."

He looked at me. "It is worse than Cork, if you're thinking of a trap."

"Aye, but quieter than Cork, I think, and an easier place."

He agreed, but with misgivings. Only Pim took the voyage lightly, for all were afraid for me. This I sensed, knowing the Queen wanted none of them but Black Tom Watkins, to whom the voyage was a very real danger.

Wa-ga-su had developed into an efficient seaman, intrigued by all the activities aboard ship, and aware of our apprehension as we neared Ireland.

It was my hope to come up out of the sea and sight the Old Head of Kinsale first. As it was a bold headland, with sharp cliffs, I'd no idea I could miss it. And I did not, for we sighted it at dawn and moved in at once toward the entrance. I could see the dark outlines of De Courcy Castle, and I had a man aloft and two in the bow to watch for rocks. There was one that lay two cable-lengths southwest-by-south from Hangman's Point, covered with three feet of water at low tide, and we slid past it easily on the west side.

Suddenly, Jublain hailed me. "Barnabas! Look!"

Look I did, and beheld a half-dozen ships lying at anchor before us ... and every one of them flying the flag of Spain!

More than that, the flag flying above the town of Kinsale was Spanish, too.

In the distance we heard the boom of cannon.

Jublain came quickly to the deck.

"Barnabas, I like not the look of this! It were better by far that we leave now.

At once!"

"How?" I protested. "Those are warships. If we attempt to leave, they will follow."

"What do you propose?" Tilly asked.

"That we brazen it out. That we approach boldly, as if all was planned. This would seem a bad time to be here, however, and a poor time for marketing timbers."

"May another man speak?" Jeremy said. "Look yon ... a fire has broken out in the town. I think Kinsale is under attack. But under attack by whom? The Irish, who are Catholic? I think not. Essex was here. He failed. Then Mountjoy was sent. It may be that the Spanish have sent a fleet to help the Irish, and they have landed here."

"A foolish place to choose," I said. "The fighting is to the north, I think."

"Who expects all men to move wisely?" It was Jeremy again. "And I doubt that these knew aught of Ireland. Spanish ships are here. The town is in their hands, and the town is under attack. Obviously it is under attack by Mountjoy and the English."

He paused. "Do you speak the Dutch tongue, Barnabas?"

"A few words. I fished once with a Dutch sailor who lived briefly among us."

"I speak it," Jublain said. "Tongues are as easy to me as blades, and when a man fights on the continent he speaks many tongues."

"Then we must convince the Spanish we are Dutch, until such a time as we can escape."

There was a shout from the bow: "A boat is coming!"

We were abreast of the Upper Cove, and the marking on my chart was for four fathoms. "Let's go forward," I said to Tilly, "and drop a rope ladder for the boat."

The officer who came aboard was elegantly dressed, but one glance at his cleancut jaw and his quick steps assured me that this was no perfumed popinjay.

"Captain Alonzo de Valdez," he said "What is your ship? And what do you do here?"

Jublain introduced himself, then said, "Our captain and owner is Barnabas de Sacketi. We were bound for La Rochelle and heard the Spanish fleet were needing supplies and spars. We directed our course to this place."

He looked from one to the other of us, his eye sharp and curious.

"The name of your vessel is what?"

"Abigail," I said, speaking in the Welsh I had from my mother. "It is named for my wife."

Abigail, looking lovelier than I'd seen her of late, came from the cabin. She held out a slender, white hand to Valdez, who bent above it gracefully.

After a few minutes of polite conversation, he said to Jublain. "Inform your captain that he comes at a bad time. Kinsale is beseiged by Lord Mounrjoy and the British."

"And the Irish?"

"Coming up behind him. There will be a battle shortly." He shrugged a shoulder.

"It does not look well. The Irish have won many battles, but their style is not ours, and at formal warfare ... I am not sure. Lord Mountjoy is formidable."

"Ask him about the timbers," I murmured to Jublain.

Jublain spoke to him and Valdez nodded. "Yes, I believe so." I understood enough to know what he was saying even before Jublain translated for me. I had been observing some of the vessels at anchor, three with damaged spars.

"It is possible we might purchase them," concluded Valdez.

When he was gone, we looked at each other and Jublain shrugged. "A fine young gentleman, and were it only up to him ... well, we might manage it. However, there is this in our favor. I think they wish no more trouble than they already have."

"We are armed," I said. "I saw him looking at the guns. He also noticed our position. If there is trouble with us, we could do much damage before they sank us." I hoped I was right.

Some of the noise of the guns was smothered by the bulk of Compass Hill.

What we could see of the town was much damaged. One street seemed to run around the hill, with steep, slippery lanes going up its side. Many of the houses were built with large balcony windows overlooking the harbor. On the opposite shore were two other villages which, Jeremy told me, were Cove and Scilly.

Actually, despite its approach, the harbor was large, commodious, and capable of handling a considerable number of ships.

Standing by the rail I studied the town and our situation. If the Spanish chose to take our ship and ourselves as prisoners, there was little we could do. We might run for the harbor entrance, but the guns of the ships ... warships all of them ... would surely do us damage beyond recovery.

Jublain had learned from Valdez that the force was under the command of Don Juan D'Aquila, and numbered 4,000 men.

We waited, a long, slow afternoon, for permission to go ashore, well aware of how delicate was the balance.

As it was obvious the Spanish ships themselves needed replacements for spars smashed in battle, our cargo might be timely. Yet what I feared was that they would simply take the ship, the cargo, and ourselves, throwing us all into irons.

It was dusk when Valdez returned. Obviously, he was disturbed, but not by us, as I first assumed.

"The timbers? May I see them?"

With him was a sturdy Basque, a craftsman, without doubt. And so he proved, for when we unbattened the hatches and took him below his manner was brusque, and no foolishness about him. He looked over the timbers, climbed down upon them, walked along them, and muttered to himself.

His report to Valdez was stated flatly, in a very few words.

Valdez was obviously pleased. He turned quickly to us. "He says your timbers are excellent! Just exactly what we need." Then his smile vanished. "The price?"

Aristocrats, I knew, did not like to bargain, yet our position was uncertain, and what we needed was good will if we expected to get out alive and with our fluyt.

I spoke briefly with Tilly, who knew better the price than I, and then I had Jublain tell him: "We appreciate your situation, but we would not wish to profit by it. Pay us what they would cost in Spain."

Unwittingly, I had not only said the right thing but had raised the price on the timbers, for they were at this time much more in demand in Spain than in England.

At our table I received an order from him. "For the money," he told me, "you must go ashore." He wrote down the directions. "Present this order at the ship chandler's shop and you will be paid at once."

He turned to go, then stopped and looked back. "Your wife is very lovely." He spoke in English, looking directly at me. "I would not have her life endangered.

When you have your money ... go. Go at once."

He went over the side and down the ladder to his boat, and they pulled away. He seemed in a very great hurry.

Our hatches open, we rigged our gear to get out the timbers and drop them in the water overside, where they would be towed to the ships needing them. We worked swiftly.

"Tilly," I said, "stand by to get under way immediately on my return. Get all the timbers they bought into the water as quickly as possible. We will heave in the anchor if there is time, and if there is not we'll simply cut loose. I have an idea Valdez was trying to tell us they are through here."

"The guns now are louder," Pim said. "You wish me to go with you?"

"No. I shall take Jeremy." Turning to Jublain, I suggested, "Tilly will work the ship, you will handle the direction of the fighting, if any. If I am not back by an hour after dusk, cut your anchor and get out ... fast. Do not worry about me."

I turned back to Ring. "Jeremy, bring two pistols as well as your blade."

He grinned under his moustache. "I have four tucked behind my sash, and a dagger as well."

Hurriedly, I went below. Abby was waiting, her eyes wide, her cheeks ashen. "Do not be afraid. And if I am not back by an hour after dusk, Jublain is to take the ship to sea. Do you understand?"

"We will wait."

"No." For the first time I spoke harshly to her. "You will go. It is you, and not only you, for now there is our son." I paused for a moment. "Get out ... get away. I will join you somehow."

For a moment I held her, then tore myself loose lest I should weaken.