y
are few in number and scattered. Moreover, they might plot amongst
themselves but never with--a servant."

"Then you are concerned with the Nonconformists?"

"The Nonconformists are timid, and dream not that the day of deliverance
is at hand."

Landless began to laugh. "Do you mean to say," he demanded, "that you
and I, for I suppose you count on my assistance, are to enact a kind of
Pride's Purge of our own? That we are to drive from the land the King's
Governor, Council, Burgesses and trainbands; sweep into the bay Sir
William Berkeley and Colonel Verney, and all those gold-laced planters
who dined with him the other day? That we are to take possession of the
colony as picaroons do of a vessel, and hoisting our flag,--a crutch
surmounted by a ball and chain on a ground sable,--proclaim a republic?"

"Not we alone."

"Oh, ay! I forgot the worthy Muggletonian."

"He is but one of many," said the mender of nets.

Landless leaned forward, a light growing in his eyes. "Speak out!" he
said. "What is it that will break this chain?"

The mender of nets, too, bent forward from his settle until his breath
mingled with the breath of the younger man.

"A slave insurrection," he said.

CHAPTER VII

A MENDER OF NETS

"A slave insurrection!"

Landless, recoiling, struck with his shoulder the torch, which fell to
the floor. The flame went out, leaving only a red gleaming end. "I will
get another," said the mender of nets, and limped to the corner where
the shadow had been thickest. Landless, left in darkness, heard a faint
muttering as though Master Robert Godwyn were talking to himself. It
took some time to find the torch; but at length Godwyn returned with one
in his hand, and kindled it at the expiring light.

Landless rose from his seat, and strode to and fro through the hut. His
pulses beat to bursting; there was a tingling at his finger-tips; to his
startled senses the hut seemed to expand, to become a cavern,
interminable and unfathomable, wide as the vaulted earth, filled with
awful, shadowy places and strange, lurid lights. The mender of nets
became a far-off sphinx-like figure.

Godwyn watched him in silence. He had a large knowledge of human nature,
and he saw into the mind and heart of the restless figure. He himself
was a philosopher, and wore his chains lightly, but he guessed that the
iron had entered deeply into the soul of the man before him. The sturdy
peasants, indented servants with b