There were great fires burning along the river bank, and men
watching for the incoming boats; but I knew of a place where no
guard was set, and where one or two canoes were moored. There
was no firelight there, and no one saw me when I entered a canoe
and cut the rope and pushed off from the land.
Well-nigh a day and a night had passed since Lady Wyatt had told
me that which made for my heart a night-time indeed. I believed
my wife to be dead, - yea, I trusted that she was dead. I hoped that
it had been quickly over, - one blow. . . . Better that, oh, better that
a thousand times, than that she should have been carried off to
some village, saved to-day to die a thousand deaths to-morrow.
But I thought that there might have been left, lying on the dead
leaves of the forest, that fair shell from which the soul had flown. I
knew not where to go, - to the north, to the east, to the west, - but
go I must. I had no hope of finding that which I went to seek, and
no thought but to take up that quest. I was a soldier, and I had
stood to my post; but now the need was past, and I could go. In the
hall at the Governor's house, I had written a line of farewell to
Rolfe, and had given the paper into the hand of a trusty fellow,
charging him not to deliver it for two hours to come.
I rowed two miles downstream through the quiet darkness, - so
quiet after the hubbub of the town.
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