The Heart

I explained, being somewhat mollified, and also somewhat of his way

of thinking, that men there were, but there was little gold since

the Navigation Act. And I informed Captain Tabor how Mistress Mary

Cavendish, having an estate not so heavily charged with expenses as

some, and being her own mistress with regard to the disposal of its

revenues, had the means which the men lacked.

"But what was the news which brought you thither, sir?" demanded

Captain Tabor.

"You know of the plot--" I begun, but he broke in upon me

fiercely.

"May the fiends take me, but what know I of a plot?" he cried.

"Can I not bring over gowns and kerchiefs and silken ribbons for a

pretty maid without a plot? How knew you that? There is the woman's

tongue again. But can I not bring over goods even of such sort;

might I not with good reason suppose them to be for the defence of

the cause of his most gracious Majesty King Charles against the

savages, or any malcontents in his colonies? What plot, sirrah?"

"The plot for the cutting down of the young tobacco plants, Captain

Tabor," said I.

His eyes blazed at me, while his face was pale and grim.

"How many know of the goods I discharged from the Golden Horn

yesterday?" he asked.

"Three men, and I know not how many more, and two women," said I.

"Two women!" he groaned out. "Pestilence on these tide-waters which

hold a ship like a trap! Two women!"

"But the concern is lest a third woman know," said I.

"If three women know, then God save us all, for their triple tongues

will carry as far as the last trump!" cried Captain Tabor. Perturbed

as he was, he never lost that air of reckless daring which compelled

me to a sort of liking for him. "Out with the rest of it, sir," he

said.

Then I told my story, to which he listened, scowling, yet with that

ready laugh at his mouth. "'Tis a scurvy trick to serve a woman,

both for her sake and the rest of us, to let her meddle with such

matters," he said, "and so I told that cousin of hers, Master Drake,

who came with her to give the order ere I sailed for England."

"Came any man save Ralph Drake with her then?" I asked.

"The saints forbid," he replied. "A secret is a secret only when in

the keeping of one; with two it findeth legs, but with three it

unfoldeth the swiftest wings of flight in all creation, and is

everywhere with no alighting. Had three come to me with that mad

order to bring powder and shot in the stead of silk stockings and

garters and cambric shifts and kerchiefs, I would have clapped full

sail on the Golden Horn, though--" he hesitated, then spoke in a

whisper--"my mind is against tyranny, to speak you true, though

I care not a farthing whether men pray on their knees or their feet,

or in gowns or the fashion of Eden. And I care not if they pray at

all, nor would I for the sake of that ever have forsaken, had I

stood in my grandfather's shoes, the flesh-pots of old England for

that howling wilderness of Plymouth. But for the sake of doing as I

willed, and not as any other man, would I have sailed or swam the

seas had they been blood instead of water. And so am I now with a

due regard to the wind and the trim of my sails and the ears of

tale-bearers, for a man hath but one head to lose with you of

Virginia. But, the Lord, to make a little maid like that run the

risk of imprisonment or worse, knew you aught of it, sir?"