. The stars were yet shining when I left the
house, and, after a word with my man Diccon, at the servants' huts,
strode down the bank and through the gate of the palisade to the wharf,
where I loosed my boat, put up her sail, and turned her head down the
broad stream. The wind was fresh and favorable, and we went swiftly down
the river through the silver mist toward the sunrise. The sky grew pale
pink to the zenith; then the sun rose and drank up the mist. The river
sparkled and shone; from the fresh green banks came the smell of the
woods and the song of birds; above rose the sky, bright blue, with a few
fleecy clouds drifting across it. I thought of the day, thirteen years
before, when for the first time white men sailed up this same river,
and of how noble its width, how enchanting its shores, how gay and sweet
their blooms and odors, how vast their trees, how strange the painted
savages, had seemed to us, storm-tossed adventurers, who thought we had
found a very paradise, the Fortunate Isles at least. How quickly were
we undeceived! As I lay back in the stern with half-shut eyes and tiller
idle in my hand, our many tribulations and our few joys passed in review
before me. Indian attacks; dissension and strife amongst our rulers;
true men persecuted, false knaves elevated; the weary search for gold
and the South Sea; the horror of the pestilence and the blacker horror
of the Starving Time; the arrival of the Patience and Deliverance,
whereat we wept like children; that most joyful Sunday morning when we
followed my Lord de la Warre to church; the coming of Dale with that
stern but wholesome martial code which was no stranger to me who had
fought under Maurice of Nassau; the good times that followed, when
bowl-playing gallants were put down, cities founded, forts built, and
the gospel preached; the marriage of Rolfe and his dusky princess;
Argall's expedition, in which I played a part, and Argall's iniquitous
rule; the return of Yeardley as Sir George, and the priceless gift he
brought us,--all this and much else, old friends, old enemies, old toils
and strifes and pleasures, ran, bitter-sweet, through my memory, as the
wind and flood bore me on. Of what was before me I did not choose to
think, sufficient unto the hour being the evil thereof.

The river seemed deserted: no horsemen spurred Along the bridle path on
the shore; the boats were few and far between, and held only servants
or Indians or very old men. It was a