If the red varlets do swarm in upon
us, there are her twelve-pounders; they and the fort guns" -
I let him talk on. The George had not sailed. I saw again a firelit
hut, and a man and a panther who went down together. Those
claws had dug deep; the man across whose face they had torn their
way would keep his room in the guest house at Jamestown until
his wounds were somewhat healed. The George would wait for
him, would scarcely dare to sail without him, and I should find the
lady whom she was to carry away to England in Virginia still. It
was this that I had built upon, the grain of comfort, the passionate
hope, the sustaining cordial, of those year-long days in the village
above the Pamunkey.
My heart was sore because of Diccon; but I could speak of that
grief to her, and she would grieve with me. There were awe and
dread and stern sorrow in the knowledge that even now in the
bright spring morning blood from a hundred homes might be
flowing to meet the shining, careless river; but it was the
springtime, and she was waiting for me. I strode on toward the
stairway so fast that when I asked a question Master Pory, at my
side, was too out of breath to answer it. Halfway down the stairs I
asked it again, and again received no answer save a "Zooks! you go
too fast for my years and having in flesh! Go more slowly, Ralph
Percy; there's time enough, there's time enough!"
There was a tone in his voice that I liked not, for it savored of pity.
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