understood at that moment the need for men to build towns and cities and surround them with walls—not only to keep out the threat of Indians and wild beasts, but to maintain the illusion of control in a world that was too large to be tamed.
His contemplation was suddenly broken. Out at sea, two lights blinked in quick succession.
Matthew had been about to turn his face toward Fount Royal again, but now he stood motionless. A few seconds went by. Then, once again, the two lights blinked.
What followed next gave his heart a jolt. Not fifty yards from where Matthew was standing, a lighted lantern appeared and was uplifted. The lantern swung back and forth, and then disappeared-—concealed, Matthew suspected, by the midnight traveller's cloak. The man must have either crouched down to strike a match and flame the candle, or done it within the cloak's folds. Whatever and however, a signal had been answered.
Matthew lowered himself into the protection of the marsh grass, so that just his eyes were above it. He desired a closer view, and began to move quietly and carefully toward where the lantern had been revealed. It came to mind that if he stepped on a venomous reptile in his present posture, its fangs would strike a most valuable area. He got to within thirty feet of the dark-cloaked man and was forced to stop when the cover of the high grass ended. The man was standing on a stretch of hard-packed sand, just a few yards short of the Atlantic's foamy waves. He was waiting, his face aimed toward the ocean and his lantern hidden in the cloak.
Matthew also waited. Presently, after the passage of perhaps ten minutes during which the man paced back and forth but never left his station, Matthew was aware of a shape emerging from the darkness of the sea. Only when it was about to make landfall did Matthew make out an oarboat, painted either black or dark blue. There were three men aboard, all of whom also wore night-hued clothing. Two of the men jumped out into the surf and pulled the oarboat to shore.
Matthew realized the boat must have come from a larger vessel some distance away. His thought was:
'Greetin's!' the man who had remained in the oarboat called, his accent as far from being Spanish as Gravesend was from Valencia. He stepped down onto the sand. 'How goes it?'
The midnight traveller answered, but his voice was so low Matthew heard only a murmur.
'Seven this trip, ' the oarboater said. 'That oughta do you. Get 'em out!' He had delivered this command to the other two men, who began to unload what appeared to be wooden buckets. 'Same place?' he asked the midnight traveller, who answered with a nod. 'You're a man of habit, ain't you?'
The midnight traveller raised his lantern from the folds of his cloak and by its yellow glow Matthew saw his face in profile. 'A man of good habit, ' Edward Winston said sternly. 'Cease this prattle, bury them, and be done with it!' He dropped the lantern, which had been used to show the other man that he was in no mood for dawdling.
'All right, all right!' The oarboater reached into the bottom of his craft and brought up two shovels, and then he walked up the beach to the edge of the high grass. His path brought him within fifteen feet of Matthew's concealment. He stopped at a thatch of spiny palmettos. 'This where you want 'em?'
'It will do, ' Winston said, following.
'Bring 'em on!' the man ordered his crew. 'Hurry it, we ain't got all night!' The buckets, which appeared to be sealed, were carried to the designated place. The oarboater handed the two shovels to the other men, who began to dig into the sand.
'You know where a third shovel is, ' Winston said. 'You MIGHT employ it, Mr. Rawlings.'
'I ain't no damn Injun!' Rawlings replied tartly. 'I'm a thief!'
'I beg to differ. You are an Indian, and your chief is Mr. Dan-forth. I suggest you earn the coin he's paying you.'
'Very little coin, sir! Very little, for this night work!'
'The faster they're buried, the sooner you may go.'
'Well, why bury 'em anyway? Who the hell's comin' out here to find 'em?'
'Safe is better than sorry. Just lay one bucket aside and put the others under with no further argument.'
Muttering beneath his breath, Rawlings reached carefully into the palmettos and pulled out a short-handled shovel that had been hidden there. Matthew watched as Rawlings fell to digging at rhythm with his companions. 'What of the witch?' he asked Winston as he worked. 'When's she gonna hang?'
'Not hang. She'll be burned at the stake. I expect it shall be within the next few days.'
'You'll be cooked too then, won't you? You and Danforth both!'
'Just concern yourself with your digging, ' Winston said tersely. 'You needn't put them deep, but make sure they're well covered.'
'All right! Work on, my lads! We don't want to tarry long in this Satan's country, do we?'
Winston grunted. 'Here or there, it's all Satan's country, isn't it?' He gave the left side of his neck a sound slap, executing some bloodsucking beastie.
It took only a few moments for a hole to be opened, six buckets secreted within it, and the sand shovelled over them. Rawlings was a master at appearing to work hard, with all the necessary facial contortions and exertions of breath, but his shovel might have been a spoon, for all the sand it moved. When the buckets were laid under, Rawlings stepped back, wiped his brow with his forearm, and said, 'Well done, well done!' as if he were congratulating himself. He returned the implement to its hiding place amid the palmettos and grinned broadly at Winston, who stood nearby watching in silence. 'I expect this'll be the last trip, then!'
'I think we should continue one more month, ' Winston said.
Rawlings's grin collapsed. 'What need will you have of any more, if she's to be burned?'
'I'll make a need. Tell Mr. Danforth I shall be here at the hour.'
'As you please, your majesty!' Rawlings gave Winston an exaggerated comical bow and the two other men laughed. 'Any other communications to the realm?'
'Our business is concluded.' Winston said coldly. He picked up by its wire handle the seventh bucket that had been laid aside, and then he abruptly turned toward Matthew—who instantly ducked down and pressed himself against the earth—and began to walk through the grass.
'I've never seen a burnin' before!' Rawlings called after him. 'Make sure you take it all in, so's you can describe it to me!' Winston didn't respond, but kept on walking. His course, Matthew was relieved to see, took him along a diagonal line perhaps ten or twelve feet to Matthew's west. Then Winston had gone past, holding the lantern low under his cloak to shed some light on where he was stepping. Matthew presumed he would extinguish the candle long before he got within view of the watchman's tower.
'That tight-assed prig! I could lay him out with my little finger!' Rawlings boasted to his companions after Winston had departed.
'You could lay him out with your bloody breath!' one of the others said, and the third man guffawed.
'Right you are, at that! Come on, let's cast off this damned shingle! Thank Christ we've got a fair wind for a change tonight!'
Matthew lifted his head and watched as the men returned to their oarboat. They pushed it off the beach, Rawlings clambered over the side first and then the other men, the oars were taken up—though not by the big chief—and the vessel moved out through the lathery surf. It was quickly taken by the darkness.
Matthew knew that if he waited long enough and kept a sharp enough eye he might see some evidence of a larger craft at anchor out there—possibly the flare of a match lighting a pipe, or a stain of mooncolor on a billowing sail. He did not, however, have the time or the inclination. Suffice it to know that an oar-boat was not a vessel suitable for a sea voyage.
He looked in the direction Winston had gone, back toward Fount Royal. Satisfied that he was alone, Matthew got up from his defensive posture and immediately went on the offensive. He found the disturbed area beside the palmettos where the buckets had been buried, and—two painful palmetto-spike stabs later— gripped his hand on the concealed shovel.
As Winston had specified, the buckets were not buried very deeply. All Matthew desired was one. The bucket he chose was of common construction, its lid sealed with a coating of dried tar, and of weight Matthew estimated between seven and eight pounds. He used the shovel again to fill the cavity, then returned it to the palmettos and set off for Fount Royal with the bucket in his possession.
The way back was no less difficult than his previous journey. It came to him that he was most likely locked
