The excited crowd surged forward, and a babel of voices arose. "Silence, all!" cried the Governor. "Let them play it out!"
My lord threw, and his bowl stopped perilously near the shining mark. As I stepped to my place a low and supplicating "O Lord!" came to my ears from the lips and the heart of the preacher, who had that morning thundered against the toys of this world. I drew back my arm and threw with all my force. A cry arose from the throng, and my lord ground his heel into the earth. The bowl, spurning the jack before it, rushed on, until both buried themselves in the red and yellow leaves that filled the trench.
I turned and bowed to my antagonist. "You bowl well, my lord," I said. "Had you had the forest training of eye and arm, our fortunes might have been reversed."
He looked me up and down. "You are kind, sir," he said thickly. "'To-day to thee, to-morrow to me.' I give you joy of your petty victory."
He turned squarely from me, and stood with his face downstream. I was speaking to Rolfe and to the few--not even all of that side for which I had won--who pressed around me, when he wheeled.
"Your Honor," he cried to the Governor, who had paused beside Mistress Percy, "is not the Due Return high-pooped? Doth she not carry a blue pennant, and hath she not a gilt siren for figurehead?"
"Ay," answered the Governor, lifting his head from the hand he had kissed with ponderous gallantry. "What then, my lord?"
"Then to-morrow has dawned, sir captain," said my lord to me. "Sure, Dame Venus and her blind son have begged for me favorable winds; for the Due Return has come again."
The game that had been played was forgotten for that day. The hogshead of sweet scented, lying to one side, wreathed with bright vines, was unclaimed of either party; the servants who brought forward the keg of canary dropped their burden, and stared with the rest. All looked down the river, and all saw the Due Return coming up the broad, ruffled stream, the wind from the sea filling her sails, the tide with her, the gilt mermaid on her prow just rising from the rushing foam. She came as swiftly as a bird to its nest. None had thought to see her for at least ten days.
Upon all there fell a sudden realization that it was the word of the King, feathered by the command of the Company, that was hurrying, arrow-like, toward us. All knew what the Company's orders would be,--must needs be,--and the Tudor sovereigns were not so long in the grave that men had forgot to fear the wrath of kings. The crowd drew back from me as from a man plague-spotted. Only Rolfe, Sparrow, and the Indian stood their ground.