"Must go to Jamestown gaol, where the one shall hang as surely as my name is William Berkeley. For the other--"
"Your Excellency has promised me my life," said Trail cringingly, but with an inscrutable something that was not fear in his sinister green eyes.
"An escort must be gotten together," said the Colonel, "and the day is far advanced. I advise keeping them here until the morning."
"See that you keep them straitly then," said the Governor.
"Trust me for that, your Excellency," said the overseer grimly.
"Then to work, gentlemen," cried the Governor, "for there is much to do and but little time to do it in. Major Carrington, you with Mr. Peyton will ride with me to Jamestown. Colonel Verney, you will know what measures to take for the safety of your shire. Woodson, have the horses brought around at once."
The Council broke up in haste and confusion, and its members, talking eagerly, streamed into the hall. Carrington was the last in line, and he paused before Landless. The under overseer and the slave Regulus were at a little distance replacing the cords about Trail's arms. The Surveyor-General cast a quick glance towards the door, saw that the last retreating figure was that of Mr. Peyton, and approached his lips close to Landless's ear.
"You are a brave man," he said in a low and troubled voice. "From my soul I honor you! I would have saved you, would save you now if I could. But I am cruelly placed."
"I have no hope for this life--and no fear," said Landless calmly.
Carrington paused irresolute, and a flush rose to his face. "I would like to hear you say that you do not blame me," he said at last with an effort.
Woodson appeared in the doorway. "The Governor is waiting, Major Carrington."
"If I can do ought to help you, I will," said Carrington hastily, and left the room. A moment later came the jingling of reins and the sound of rapid hoofs quickening into the planter's pace as the Governor and the Surveyor-General whirled away.
In an unused attic room of the great house lay Godfrey Landless, cords about his ankles, and his arms bound to his sides by cords and by a thick rope, one end of which was fastened to a beam on the wall. He was alone, for the Muggletonian, Havisham and Trail were confined in the overseer's house. Opposite him was a small window framing a square of sky. He had watched light clouds drift across it, and the sun pass slowly and majestically down it, and the sunset turn the clouds into floating blood-red plumes. He had been there since noon. Thick walls kept from him all sound in the house below--it might have been a house of the dead. Through the closed window came the low, incessant hum of the summer world without, but no unusual noise. He had heard the sunset horn, and the song of the slaves coming from the fields, and as dusk began to fall, the cry of a whip-poor-will.