CHAPTER XXVIII. THE END OF CAPTAIN AMHERST.

For weeks and weeks, it seemed to me, I was living over again the scenes through which I had passed in later years. Now I was charging at the battle of Sedgemoor, then before Judge Jeffreys, with my comrades. Next came wanderings, fightings, travelings. In my delirium I went through the witch press once more, with many a struggle to escape. I fought the French and Indians; I swam in the sea to save Lucille. I went down in great caverns of the ocean to bring her back to me, and saw her lying amid rainbow colored shells, tangled weeds weaving their long green sinuous lengths into her hair.

I fought the duel with Sir George, feeling his steel pierce my side like a big knife which was turned ’round and ’round. Horrible red Indians, with fierce painted faces came to torment me, though I fought them off time after time. I heard over again the explosion of the powder kegs; felt the mighty wind swoop down; was rocked to and fro by the blast.

I listened to my voice shouting out, only it did not sound like me, but as some one else afar off. At intervals 317I went floating through the air, a very bird on wings. Then I looked back to see a body that looked like mine lying on a bed. And the features were changed; the frame that had been robust was like a boy’s.

Then gradually all these things passed away, so that there was nothing but darkness and daylight; daylight and darkness. Ever through it all, a dear dim ghost of one I loved came and went--a woman. When she was near, whether it was day or night, I was at ease; her cool hand chilled the fever that burned in my brain. When she was gone it was dark, though it was day.

Out of all this peace came at length.

One day I opened my eyes seeing aright.

I was in a room which the sun entered to make bright and cheerful. The beams overhead reflected back the light, a fire on the hearth threw out a genial warmth, the kettle on the hob hummed and hissed, a great mother cat, by the chimney place, purred in contentment.

There was a movement in the room. A woman stood over me looking down. I seemed to know, rather than see, that she was the woman of my dreams--Lucille.

I glanced up at her. Her face was alight with love and tenderness. I tried to speak--to rise--but the strength, of which I used to boast, had left me. I could only murmur her name.

“Dear heart,” she whispered. “Thank God, you know me. Oh, Edward, it was so long--oh! so long--that I stood by you, only to hear you fighting all your battles 318over again, with never a sign to show that you knew I was near. Oh, I am so glad!”

Then, woman like, she burst into tears, which she tried in vain to check.

“My, my! What’s this?” called a cheery voice. “Come, Mistress Lucille, have you no better caution than to weep in here. Fie upon you. All hope is not gone yet.”

A woman in a gray dress with a spotless apron over it, bustled to my bed.

“I am not crying, Madame Carteret,” said Lucille with indignation in her tone.

“’Tis much like it,” said the other.

“Well, then, if I am, it is for joy. Edward--I mean Captain Amherst--is sensible again. He tried to speak my name, for he knew me when I turned his pillow.”

“Is it possible?”

Madame Carteret, wife of the Captain, in whose house I was, came over to look down on me. I smiled; it was all I could do, but that was as good to me as a hearty laugh, since I had come back from the land of terrible dreams. The Captain’s wife bustled away. Lucille, drying her eyes, smiling through her tears, came to stand near me.

“What has happened?” I whispered, but she prevented any more questions by placing her fingers on my lips. I kissed the rosy tips, whereat she drew them quickly away. Then I repeated what I had said.

319“Hush,” she replied. “You are not to talk. The doctor says you are too weak.”

Indeed I was, as I found when I tried to rise, for I fell back like a babe. Just then Madame Carteret came back with some broth in a bowl. It tasted so well that I disposed of all of it. She laughed as one well pleased.

The last drop gone I sighed from very comfort. Lucille, taking pity on the anxious look of inquiry I turned on her, related all that had transpired.

“I was coming through the corridor in the dark,” she said, “and I saw Simon strike at you. Oh I was so frightened! I screamed when his knife glittered. He started, moving his hand just a trifle as he heard me. Perchance that saved your life, for Doctor Graydon, who has been in long attendance on you, said that had the point gone an inch higher it would have touched the heart, and that would have been an end of Captain Amherst.”

I looked the love and devotion at Lucille I could not express in actions.

“Even at that,” she went on, “there was a grievous wound in your arm and one in your side. For six weeks you have been in that bed, knowing none of us, and at times so far away from us, that we feared to see you travel off altogether.”

“But I came back to you,” I said softly.

“Yes, dear; but you must not talk now. I will tell you the rest.

“After he had stabbed you Simon dropped his knife and 320fled. I ran to you, but you were as one dead. Captain Carteret and some of the men carried you into the house. We have nursed you ever since, Madame Carteret and I.”

I looked at Lucille’s face, noting that she had grown thin and pale, but yet more beautiful. I pressed her hand to my lips.

“Simon did not escape,” she went on after a pause. “Not long afterward his body was found in the woods, an Indian arrow through his heart. So now, dear, horrible as it all was, our enemies are gone. We have only ourselves left.”

Then while the shadows began to lengthen, the day to die, I fell asleep again. Not as before, disturbed by unpleasant dreams, but as a tired child. When I awoke in the morning I felt like a new man. The blood of health flowed through my veins; I felt the strength coming back to me. Lucille entered; a streak of sunshine. She smiled at me. I had propped myself up in bed, and that sign that I was on the mend seemed to give her pleasure.

“We must have Master Graydon in to see the improvement,” she said. “He will doubtless change the physic, giving you some herbs that will put you quickly on the way to recovery.”

“I pray so,” I answered, “for I am full sick of staying here like a woman.”

“Are you then so ready to leave us?”

“Only that I may make ready to stay with you forever,” at which Lucille blushed prettily.

321We talked, or rather Lucille did, and I listened, of many things. She told how she had heard I was to be in command of the military force of Elizabeth; that I was already considered the Captain. Every day since I had been wounded some of the men had called to see how I was. As for Captain Carteret, he had gone to London on business, and would not return to the Colony until spring.

Matters were progressing well in the town. The Indians had buried the hatchet, having had enough of fighting, and were at peace with the settlers. The crops, too, though suffering somewhat from the depredations of the red men, were plenty, so fertile was the land. The store-houses and barns were better filled than any year since the Colony had been in existence, and winter, which was already at hand, would find the village in good shape.

The repairs to the block house had been finished, the few houses in the town that had been burned by the Indians were being rebuilt. A band of settlers had come from Pennsylvania, so that we now numbered some two hundred men, and nearly half as many women.

It was late in November, the leaves were all off the trees, there had been little flurries of snow, the winds were mournful, and on every side one could see that winter was fairly come. I had been able to leave my bed. One afternoon, when the sun was setting behind a bank of gray clouds that promised a storm Lucille and I stood at the west window looking out.

322“It is going to snow,” said she, mournfully.

“I love the white flakes,” I said cheerfully.

“They are so cold, so cheerless, so dead, so cruel to the flowers and birds. Why do you love them?”

“Because they dance down so merrily. Because they cover up the dull brown earth from us until it blossoms out again. Because,” and I took her hand, “it was through a snow storm that I went to find my love.”

“Poor reason, Edward.”

“The best of reasons, sweetheart.”

Days came and went, bringing me back health and strength. Slowly I walked about the house until I came to venturing out into the snow when the weather was fine. I became acquainted with the towns-folk, a thing I had not had time to do before. To while away the hours, some of the men who had fought with me in the block would come in. Then, sitting beside the blazing logs on the hearth, we would fight the battle all over again.

Lucille was ever near me, her sweet face always in view, when I looked up, smiling with the love in her eyes.

The winter snows melted. Green grass and shrubs began to peep up through the warm earth. The buds on the trees swelled with the sap, bears crawled from hollow logs, the birds flew northward.

The songsters of early spring flitted about the house as I sat in front one day watching them gather material for their nests. It reminded me that I had better see to providing 323a nest for my song bird. Lucille sat near me. I had not spoken for a space.

“Are you watching the birds?” she asked.

“Aye. Thinking that I might well be about their trade.”

Lucille did not answer.

“Sweetheart,” I said softly, “’tis little time we have had for love since I found you the second time, and I would know whether you are of the same mind that you were. For I love you now; I will love you always, I love you more and more every day. Tell me: Do you love me yet? Has the time brought no change?”

How anxiously did I wait for the answer. Now that I was broken in strength, with not the prospect of attaining distinction in arms that I once had, sick, enfeebled in body, but not in spirit, could I hope that she still loved me?

“Tell me,” I whispered softly, “has time wrought no change, Lucille?”

She let the lids fall over her eyes, then with a little tremor, she looked into my face. Sweetly as the murmur of a south wind in the trees she said:

“Time has wrought no change.” A pause. “I love you, with all my heart.”

Then, ere she could answer more, I had her in my arms, from which she struggled to be free, at first, but, when she found I held her close, she was quiet. I kissed her on the mouth.

324“Don’t, Edward,” she cried in sudden terror, “some one is coming.”

I resumed my seat on the bench.

“I have something to tell you,” I said, after a little. “You must not call me Edward.”

“Oh, then,” with a mock air of admiration, “Captain Amherst, Your Excellency, I pray your pardon.”

“Nor yet Captain Amherst,” I went on, smiling.

“What then, may it please you, sir?”

“That is it.”

“What?”

“Sir.”

“Sir who or what?”

“Sir Francis Dane,” I replied, with as grand a manner as I could assume, having a deep cut in my side.

For a moment Lucille glanced at me, then I saw that she feared my mind was wandering again.

“Come into the house,” she said, soothingly, “’tis too chilling out here. Come in, and Master Graydon shall prescribe for you. Come, Edward.”

“Not Edward.”

“Well, then, Sir Francis Dane,” spoken as one might to a peevish child. “The strain has been too much for you, Ed--Sir Francis. Go and lie down, until you are recovered.”

I burst into a laugh, whereat Lucille seemed all the more frightened. I could not cease from laughing as I looked at her.

325She took me gently by the arm, and tried to lead me in, but I stooped over, kissing her.

“Do not be frightened, sweet,” I said. “I am not wandering in my mind. I have a secret to tell you.”

“Will it frighten me?”

“I hope not.”

Then I told her of the cause for my coming to America, because I wished to escape those who would imprison me for having fought on the side of the defeated King Monmouth. I was Sir Francis Dane, I said, but had taken the name of Captain Edward Amherst, as a measure of safety. When I had made an end I smiled down on her.

“Then it is good bye to Captain Amherst,” she remarked.

“Aye, ’tis the end of him,” I said.

“I am not sure but that I liked him better than I will Sir Francis Dane,” went on Lucille. “For the latter is much of a stranger to me.”

“Will you have to begin to love over again?” I asked.

“Nay,” was her only reply, in a low voice.

“Sir Francis, Sir Francis,” she continued, after a moment’s pause. “Hum, ’tis a rather nice name.” Then she seemed to be thinking.

“Why,” she exclaimed, suddenly, “it is a titled name, is it not? You must be a person of distinction over in England.”

“I was,” I replied, dryly. Sedgemoor had taken all the distinction from me, depriving me of lands and title.

“Hum, Sir Francis Dane. I wonder if he will care 326for plain Lucille de Guilfort,” with a playful air of sadness.

My answer was a kiss.

“I love you, Lucille,” I said fervently, when she had escaped from me.

“Well,” she remarked, plaintively, “I loved you as plain Captain Amherst, perforce I must do so, since you are now Sir Francis Dane, accustomed to being obeyed, I presume.”

“To the letter,” I answered, sternly.

“Now that is over,” I went on, “when are we to wed?”

“Not too soon. Wait until spring.”

“That will be in March.”

“Oh! ’Tis too early. There is much to be done. Linen to make up, dresses to fashion and, indeed, if it were not for the kindness of Madame Carteret I would have no gown now, but the sorry garment you found me in.”

“That is more precious to me than cloth of gold would be,” I replied. “The flutter of it, as the Eagle headed for shore, seemed to tell me you were there. But, since March is too early, it must be the next month,” I said, firmly.

“Let it be so,” she responded, with a little sigh. “In April then; the month of tears and sunshine.”

“Let us hope that ours will all be sunshine,” I suggested.

“We have had enough of tears to make it so,” was her reply, as she smiled brightly.

327That matter being settled we had much more to talk of, the day and many succeeding ones, seeming all too short for us. I was recovering slowly, and was able to be all about. I took an active charge of the military matters of the town, for my wound was healing, and I hoped in a short time that I would be nearly as strong as I was before. I took up my abode with the innkeeper, for Lucille said it was not seemly that we should dwell under the same roof longer. She, however, remained with Madame Carteret, weaving and spinning in preparation for the spring.

It was close to the first of April when news came one day that there was a ship down the bay, and that Captain Carteret had returned on her. This was a glad message for me, and I prepared to take a few of the men, marching down to meet him.