The Heart

I shook my head.

Captain Tabor laughed. "And yet she rode straight to the wharf with

you yesterday," said he. "Lord, what hidden springs move a woman!

I'll warrant, sir, had you known, you might have battened down the

hatches fast enough on her will, convict though you be, and, faith,

sir, but you look to me like one who is convict or master at his own

choosing and not by the will of any other." So saying, he gave me a

look so sharp that for a second I half surmised that he guessed my

secret, but knew better at once, and said that our business was to

deal not with what had been, but with what might be.

"Well," said he, "and what may that be, Master Wingfield, in your

opinion? You surely do not mean to hold the Golden Horn in midstream

with her cargo undischarged until the day of doom, lest yon old

beldame offer up her fair granddaughter on the altar of her loyalty,

with me and my hearties for kindling, to say naught of yourself and

a few of the best gentlemen of Virginia. I forfeit my head if I set

sail for England; naught is left for me that I see that shall save

my neck but to turn pirate and king it over the high seas. Having

swallowed a small morsel of my Puritan misgivings, what is to hinder

my bolting the whole, like an exceeding bitter pill, to my complete

purging of danger? What say you, Master Wingfield? Small reputation

have you to lose, and sure thy reckoning with powers that be leaves

thee large creditor. Will you sail with me? My first lieutenant

shall you be, and we will share the booty."

He laughed, and I stared at him that he should stoop to jest, yet

having a ready leap of comradeship toward him for it; then suddenly

his mood changed. Close to me he edged, and began talking with a

serious shrewdness which showed his mind brought fully to bear upon

the situation. "You say, sir," said he, "that Mistress Mary

Cavendish, in a spirit of youthful daring and levity, gave her

grandmother a list of the goods which my Lady Culpeper ordered from

England, and which even now is due?" I nodded.

"Know you by what ship?"

"The Earl of Fairfax," I replied, and recalled as I spoke a rumour

that my Lord Culpeper designed his daughter Cate for the eldest son

of the earl, and had so named his ship in honour of him.