I nodded, too choked with laughter for speech, and drew my sword. The next moment we were upon the men like wolves upon the fold.
They made no resistance. Amazed and shaken as they were, we might have dispatched them with all ease, to join the dead whose lamentations yet rang in their ears; but we contented ourselves with disarming them and bidding them begone for their lives in the direction of the Pamunkey. They went like frightened deer, their one goal in life escape from the wood.
"Did you meet the Italian?"
I turned to find my wife at my side. The King's ward had a kingly spirit; she was not one that the dead or the living could daunt. To her, as to me, danger was a trumpet call to nerve heart and strengthen soul. She had been in peril of that which she most feared, but the light in her eye was not quenched, and the hand with which she touched mine, though cold, was steady.
"Is he dead?" she asked. "At court they called him the Black Death.
They said" -
"I did not kill him," I answered, "but I will if you desire it."
"And his master?" she demanded. "What have you done with his master?"
I told her. At the vision my words conjured up her strained nerves gave way, and she broke into laughter as cruel as it was sweet.
Peal after peal rang through the haunted wood, and increased the eeriness of the place.
"The knot that I tied he will untie directly," I said. "If we would reach Jamestown first, we had best be going."
"Night is upon us, too," said the minister, "and this place hath the look of the very valley of the shadow of death. If the spirits walk, it is hard upon their time - and I prefer to walk elsewhere."
"Cease your laughter, madam," I said. "Should a boat be coming up this stream, you would betray us."
I went over to Diccon, and in a silence as grim as his own cut the rope which bound his hands, which done we all moved through the deepening gloom to where we had left the horses, Jeremy Sparrow going on ahead to have them in readiness. Presently he came hurrying back. "The Italian is gone!" he cried.
"Gone!" I exclaimed. "I told you to tie him fast to the saddle!"
"Why, so I did," he replied. "I drew the thongs so tight that they cut into his flesh. He could not have endured to pull against them."
"Then how did he get away?"
"Why," he answered, with a rueful countenance, "I did bind him, as I have said; but when I had done so, I bethought me of how the leather must cut, and of how pain is dreadful even to a snake, and of the injunction to do as you would be done by, and so e'en loosened his bonds. But, as I am a christened man, I thought that they would yet hold him fast!"
I began to swear, but ended in vexed laughter. "The milk's spilt.
There 's no use in crying over it. After all, we must have loosed him before we entered the town."
"Will you not bring the matter before the Governor?" he asked.
I shook my head. "If Yeardley did me right, he would put in jeopardy his office and his person. This is my private quarrel, and I will draw no man into it against his will. Here are the horses, and we had best be gone, for by this time my lord and his physician may have their heads together again."
I mounted Black Lamoral, and lifted Mistress Percy to a seat behind me. The brown mare bore the minister and the negress, and Diccon, doggedly silent, trudged beside us.
We passed through the haunted wood and the painted forest beyond without adventure. We rode in silence: the lady behind me too weary for speech, the minister revolving in his mind the escape of the Italian, and I with my own thoughts to occupy me. It was dusk when we crossed the neck of land, and as we rode down the street torches were being lit in the houses. The upper room in the guest house was brightly illumined, and the window was open.
