than the three hundred and forty-seven might have been killed had not one Indian, friendly to a man named Pace, informed him of the plot. Pace had informed the governor, after rowing in haste down the river.
Six of the council were slain, George Thorpe, Nathaniel Powell, John Berkeley, Samuel Macock, Michael Lapworth, and John Rolfe, this Rolfe having married an Indian named Pocohontas.
The unrest occasioned by this disaster was sure to put many Indians to flight, and there would be trouble along the paths.
Yet the news included more than the story of massacre and that was that several ships had arrived, bringing more settlers. It was a chance that could not be missed.
'We will go, Abby. Peter has two boats finished and a third well along in the building. If we all pitch in to help, that boat should be ready for the river in a few days. We will go down the river ... the Cape Fear, I believe they call it now ... and go up the coast to Jamestown.
'Peter wishes to sell his boats, and there should be a market for them there. We can carry our furs, robes, and grain.'
We were three large boats and one canoe when we started, with Kin, Brian, and Yance in the canoe, Jeremy, Pim, and myself in the first boat with the women, Kane O'Hara and Tom Watkins in the second, Jubal and Wa-ga-su in the last and most heavily loaded.
We went up the coast from the rivermouth, staying inside the banks when possible, and came finally to the Bay of Chesapeake and the Potomac River.
We came to the landing at Jamestown to see three ships in the river and much busied they were with lowering cargo to boats-and one ship lying close in alongside a dock, being a craft of such shallow draft.
A man of some presence watched us come close along and called out, 'What have you there?'
'Corn and hides,' I said, 'and some furs. We be seeking out someone who would buy.'
'Corn? You will be speaking to the governor of that. We have had losses here.'
'Aye,' I said, 'we heard of that and came along to help. We ask but a fair market price. As for that,' I added, 'we would sell the boats, too.'
Climbing up on the dock, I was followed by Brian and Kane O'Hara. He glanced from one to the other of us. 'It is that you plan to settle here?'
'No. We've good places yon, and crops put in, but we heard your troubles and had this grain put by.'
'If you sell your boats, how then will you get home?'
'Overland,' Brian said. He was a fine, handsome lad who spoke well, indeed.
'That is, some of us would, sir. My mother, sister, and I would ship for England.'
'I am Captain Powell,' he said, 'William Powell. We are on short rations here, and the governor will be pleased to see you.'
He bade me come with him to meet the governor, Sir Francis Wyatt, an uncommonly shrewd man, and intelligent enough to ask few questions. I spoke him fair, using my own name, and hoping the years would have erased it from memory, as it seemed to have done.
'We are obliged, Captain,' he said to me. 'You could have come at no better time. Now what are you asking per bushel?'
'As I told Captain Powell,' I said, 'we came to help, not to profit by your troubles. We will take the fair market price and no more.'
'Commendable,' Wyatt said dryly, 'and unusual.' He turned to Powell. 'Will you see they are put up properly?' Then he smiled at me. 'If you would wait outside?
I wish to speak to Captain Powell.'
Here it comes, I thought. The next thing is an order for my arrest. We went outside, but I did not move from the door. Inside, I could hear Powell say, 'Do you believe them, Sir Francis?'
'Believe them? I have no idea whether they are telling the truth or not, Captain. I have a colony on the verge of starvation, and am not inclined to ask any questions at all. They have grain. We need grain. They will sell it at a reasonable price. I will pay their price. Furthermore, I will let them go back to their homes with thanks, and hope they come to us again. Such men we can use.'
'I could use them,' Powell said grimly. 'Did you look at them, Sir Francis?
That's the strongest, toughest, most able lot of men I've seen in many a year.
At least two of the older ones have been soldiers or I miss my guess.'
He shook his head. 'I have an idea who they are, Sir Francis. I think it's that lot we've been hearing about, from up at the edge of the mountains.'
'It well may be.' Sir Francis got to his feet, for I heard his chair shove back.
'Make no report on this, Powell. In London they will only want to know that we fed our people. How it was done will not interest them.
'We will buy their grain. We will house them at the expense of the colony, and we will speed them on their way. Who knows when again we may need help?'
Powell chuckled, then said, 'Sir Francis, if we've to fight the Indians again, just let me recruit that lot. I'd ask no more.'
Powell came out. The cabin he then took us to was well-built and strong, and there was a small tavern, or what passed for one, close by.
'Captain Sackett,' Powell said, 'there are presently three ships in port, two of them loading for the West Indies. The third has just recently come in, but I don't much like her looks. I'd hesitate, if I were you.'
'What's wrong with her?'
Powell studied his nails thoughtfully, then he said, 'She's too heavily armed for a merchant ship, and if I ever saw a craft with a pack of rascals for crew, that's it. And that Captain Delve-'
'Delve, did you say? Jonathan Delve? A kind of a taunting look to his eyes?'
'You know the man?'
'I know him,' I said grimly, 'and I don't like him. I'd heard he was a pirate, and I agree with your judgment of him.'
Powell looked thoughtful. 'We're not heavily armed here, and a ship like that could be a trouble to us, so I want nothing more than to see him gone.'
When Powell was gone I explained to the boys who Delve was. That he had survived so long was evidence of his cunning.
'Kin,' I suggested, 'the man does not know you or Brian. Go down along the river and see what you can learn, but stay away from him and don't get into trouble.'
'He's an evil man,' Abby said.
'He is that, and I would like it better if you and he were not on the same sea.
He has been a pirate, and probably is yet, and more than likely has come in for supplies while he looks over what ships may be worth the taking.'
'Did you see his vessel?' Jeremy asked, wryly. 'She's got thirty-six guns, and she's fast.'
'Fast she may be,' Yance said quietly, 'but she's at anchor now. They don't move very fast with an anchor in the mud.'
'What are you suggesting?' Pim asked.
Yance grinned slowly, looking up from under his thick brows. 'Well? If she worries us, let's take her, and remove the worry.'
I shook my head. 'That would be piracy on our part. So far as we know he has done nothing.'
'If you'd have sent me,' Yance said, 'I'd have seen to it.'
'That's why I didn't send you, Yance.' I smiled at him.
Yet but part of my thoughts at this moment were upon Jonathan Delve. The presence of the man and his ship were but a minor irritation compared with the fact ... and it was a fact ... that Abby and I would soon be apart.
My mind almost refused to accept it. She had been so much a part of my life that I could scarcely imagine being without her, though I fully understood how she felt.
Noelle was but ten. Her feminine associations had been good. Yance's wife, although a gay, fun-loving girl as exuberant as he himself, had come from a sedate, religious upbringing. Kane O'Hara's wife, of Spanish background, was even more so.
Peter Fitch's Catawba wife moved with a grace and conducted herself with a decorum that would have done
