"His name?"
"Brian Sackett. I hear he has established very good connections there and has already a considerable background in the law."
"Excellent! I can give him the chance, at least, and if he does well, there can be much business. The trade is growing, and I foresee much settlement in Carolina and Virginia and with it a growing demand as well as a need for a market for their produce, whatever it may be."
"My father shipped several cargoes of mast timbers and potash while he was yet alive. Furs, of course. There is gold in limited quantity and some gems--very few."
Legare got to his feet. "And you? What of you?"
"I am for the land," I said. "All of this"--I gestured about--"is well and good, but I am a man of the forest and at home there. I have no great desire for wealth, and where I wish to live, there would be none to admire it.
"On the west of the blue mountains I have a cabin. I have a crop of corn which badly needs my attention now, and when this is done, I shall return. There is fruit and nuts in the forest, if one works hard enough, and there is fresh meat to have if one has the powder and lead.
"I have never wanted fine clothes or such a home. All I want of people are books. I love much to read, although a life in the wilderness leaves too little time for it. Still, by the firelight, and of an evening--"
Yet even as I spoke my thoughts were out there in the darkness. Where was Max Bauer? What now were the thoughts of Joseph Pittingel? And what had I done but frustrate them one more time, bringing us no nearer a conclusion.
They wanted me dead, and I was not dead. Not yet. Would they be out there in the dark? I thought not. They knew now of the maroons, our good friends, and they were no match for them by night.
They would await the coming of the day. They would suspect--
"I can offer you a carriage," Legare said, "to carry you back to Port Royal or whatever you prefer."
"Two hours of rest," I suggested, "and then a good horse."
"But--?"
"They will expect me to come by day, or they will expect me now. A carriage would be a death trap."
So it was arranged, and I went up to the bed they provided in a high-ceilinged room with mosquito netting all about the bed. The night was warm, but I slept well.
At an hour after midnight a black man came quietly to my bedside. "It is time, Captain. You will have coffee?"
It was waiting for me in a small, pleasant room, a slice of melon, a thick piece of bread, and some cold meat. I ate, drank the coffee, and the black man led me down a narrow passage. "The slaves' quarters," he said apologetically. "We will not be noticed this way."
"You have spoken to Henry?"
He glanced at me. He was a tall man, quite thin, with graying hair. "I have not," he said quietly. "You have helped the mistress. It is enough."
He paused a moment. "She is very good to us," he added simply.
In the shadow of a stable a black horse waited, restive, eager to be off and away. He was saddled and bridled, and two horse pistols were in scabbards on either side of the saddle.
The black man pointed the road for me. "There is no safety anywhere," he said quietly, "but you do not seem a man who is used to safety. Ride well."
He turned away and walked to the house, not looking back. For a moment I waited, shadowed by the black bulk of the stable. There was no sound in the night Inside the stable a horse stamped restlessly; I turned the black and rode past the corral and at the roadside paused, listening to the night
It was very hot and still. Frogs talked in a pond somewhere not far away, and there were countless small noises, made by creatures unknown to me.
Walking the black into the trail, I started for Santiago de la Vega, some distance away. My right hand touched a pistol, loosening it in the holster. Before we reached town, I should have need of it. This was not simply something I supposed. I knew it.
Chapter XV
The narrow road was a dim path through dark jungle broken here and there by open country turned from jungle to planting or grazing. The moon was rising, still unseen. The rail fences at some places took on a skeletonlike appearance.
A night hawk or some such creature flitted by overhead. Aside from the vague night noises there was no sound but the clop-clop of my horse's hoofs. Uneasily I kept turning in my saddle to look back, and my eyes searched ahead for a warning of any attack.
The jungle walled in the road on either side, no tree distinguishable from another. At last we cleared the jungle, and open fields lay on each side, all white and gray in the moonlight, yet I could not relax. Long ago I had learned the most innocent-seeming places were often the worst. My horse's ears pricked, and he broke stride a bit, then continued on. I drew both pistols and hoped my mount was familiar with shooting from the saddle.
At least he had warned me. They came suddenly from a bend in the road, one that scarcely seemed to be there, and some low-lying brush. But my horse had warned me in tune, and as the first man came off the ground, I shot him.
He loomed up just at the right place for me, and I shot into his chest at no more than twenty feet. The heavy slug knocked him back, and I dropped the gun into the scabbard, swinging my horse sharply away and clapping my heels to his flanks. He was a good horse, and he leaped away in fine style. From behind me a gun bellowed, and something whisked past my skull. Turning in the saddle, I held the other pistol for a moment, looking down the barrel at a looming figure in the trail behind me.
When I actually squeezed off the shot, I knew not, but the big pistol leaped in my hands with an angry bellow, and the man missed a step and fell. Then I was away and holstering that gun.
How many there had been, I could not guess, but I surmised at least four. They had expected a complete surprise, but I was too much the wilderness man not to trust to my horse, and a good one he was, so I had been warned in time.
He seemed eager to run, so I let him have his head, and we went down the road at a good pace, the wind in my face and with the comforting knowledge that my two pistols were still loaded and ready if trouble came again.
After a bit I slowed to a canter, then a walk, then a canter again to let my horse have his tune in cooling down. There was no sign of pursuit, so they were not mounted men. When light was gray in the eastern sky, I saw the first of the outlying huts that preceded Santiago de la Vega.
Riding by the King's House and turning into an open, paved court, I stepped down before a small inn whose sign invited travelers. A black boy took my horse, and I tipped him a shilling and suggested he feed and water the black.
" 'Tis the horse of Master Legare," he said. "I know him well, and he knows me."
It was spacious and cool inside, evidently an older house, and there were several bare tables about, and a man came along to the table where I sat and brought a tankard of rum.
"Very well," I said, "but it is food I want, and the best. But not," I added, "too heavy." For I had seen that these Spanish men and what Frenchmen there were around ate too heavily for the climate. My father had learned this from Sakim, that to remain cool it is better not to eat too much meat and food of richness.
He brought me some slices of cold meat then and some boiled eggs as well as slices of melon and plantain. I only tasted the rum, and it was not bad, but strong for my taste and too heady for a man in my position. From here on I must have my head about me, for whatever had been done until now showed little evidence of the fine hand of either Pittingel or Bauer. They had been clumsy efforts at assassination and ambush, but now they would know better, and their efforts would be more devious.
Nonetheless, all I wished for now was to have the business completed and be on my way back to Carolina and my own mountains. The air was heavy, hot and still, with a suggestion of storm. Mopping the perspiration from my face, I looked out the window.