For the Love of Lady Margaret: A Romance of the Lost ColonyWilson, William Thomas
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For the Love of Lady Margaret: A Romance of the Lost Colony
Wilson, William Thomas
Roanoke Colony -- Fiction
"He was round and fat as the bear," he answered, as though in scorn at
my excitement. "His face was big and red as the blood of the deer, but
he wore the dress of the squaw, and his head was white with the snows
of many winters."
"'Tis the priest!" I cried. "Ah, a precious crew!
"Show the Eagle what thou didst pick up from the trail when they had
passed," said Manteo to the Indian Occom.
"It was this," answered the other, and from his deerskin robe he
plucked out a little shining trinket, and held it out to me.
I took it with a cry of wonder. It was a little gold locket that I had
often seen around Margaret's neck; pressing the spring the face flew
open, and there, I beheld a little miniature of her, painted several
years ago when she was a merry, laughing girl. I gazed at it long,
wrapped in my own thoughts. Ah, my lady! the same light brown hair, the
same deep azure eyes and pink cheeks; time had brought little to thee,
only the ripening of the lovely fruit, only the bloom of a yet more
perfect beauty.
As I toyed with the little bauble, a spring snapped, and the back of
the locket flew open. I must have touched a secret spring in some way.
There in the recess was a paper. Hardly knowing what I did I took it
in my hand, and read the few lines that it contained. So Dunraven had
struck his last blow--by the grace of God I would wring his neck for
this, though I should follow him across the whole vast country that
stretched before me to accomplish it. The blackest perfidy of his dark
life lay before me as I read that note, and my very blood boiled in my
veins with rage.
"MARGARET:--I lie sick and wounded in this place to
which I have escaped from the prison. To-morrow I must sail for
Virginia, and I may never see thy bright face again. I would make
one last request in the name of the love I bear thee; for the love
of God, Margaret, have pity upon me as I lie here sick unto death,
and longing for one more glimpse of thee. Come, though it be only
for a moment--thou art a woman, and wilt pity me in this last
hour. If thou wilt come, but accompany this holy priest who bears
this note to thee.
"Farewell,
"THOMAS WINCHESTER."
I laughed bitterly as I replaced the paper in its hiding place. It had
done its work well, and I now knew why Margaret was here. That imp of
Satan, Father Francis, had carried this message, and she, in the pity
of her woman's heart, had accompanied him to some house where Dunraven
awaited her. Then they hurried her aboard his vessel and set sail,
thinking to be safe in this wild country. But fate, weary with the
smiles which she had bestowed upon him, had at last turned her frown,
and I, like a sleuth hound, was on their trail.
"Wilt sell the bauble?" I asked Occom.
"I would that my brother would give me one of the bright steel
tomahawks," he answered. "Then shall Occom be rewarded for his story,
and the Eagle shall keep the trinket."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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