Prisoners of Hope: A Tale of Colonial VirginiaJohnston, Mary
History
Prisoners of Hope: A Tale of Colonial Virginia
Johnston, Mary
Virginia -- History -- Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775 -- Fiction
like an egg shell, and the Indian dropped across the body of his victim.
Landless, springing back to the post he had quitted, found Sir Charles
in desperate case, but as coolly composed as ever, and with the air of
the Court still about him despite his bared head and torn and
bloodstained clothing, treating those who came against him to an
exhibition of swordsmanship such as the New World had probably rarely
witnessed. Landless, striking down a cutpurse from Tyburn, saw him run
the Turk through, and saw behind him the nightmare visage and the raised
club of Roach. He uttered a warning cry, but the club descended, and the
handsome, careless face fell backwards, and the slender debonair figure
swayed and fell. Landless caught him, saw that he was but stunned, and
letting him drop to the floor at his feet, wrenched the sword from his
hand, and stood over him, facing Roach with a stern smile.
The murderer raised his club again.
"We've met at last!" he cried with a taunting laugh. "Do you remember
the tobacco house, and what I said? I says: 'Every dog has its day, and
I'll have mine.' It's my day now!"
"And I said," rejoined Landless, "'I let you go now, but one day I will
kill you.' And _that_ day has come."
With an oath Roach brought down the club. Landless swerved, and the blow
fell harmlessly; before the arm could be again raised, he caught it,
held it with a grasp of steel, and shortened his sword. The miscreant
saw his death, and screamed for mercy. "Remember Robert Godwyn!" said
Landless, and drove the blade home.
The sword was a more effective weapon than the gun, and with it he kept
the enemy at bay, while he glanced despairingly around. There were as
many dead as living within the room by this. The floor was piled with
the slain; they made traps for the living who in the wild surging to and
fro stumbled over them, and fell, and were slain before they could rise.
Three fourths of the dead belonged to the insurgents, but the attacked
had suffered severely. Of the thirty men with whom the defense had
commenced there now remained but twelve, and of that number several were
wounded. The Colonel was bleeding from a cut on the head, the under
overseer had a ball through his arm, Sir Charles still lay without
movement at Landless's feet.
Forced, together with almost all of his party, by the mad rush of the
assailants to the further end of the room, the master had seen with
agony the women left well-nigh defenseless. Followed by Woodson,
Havisham, Regulus, and young Whittington, he had all but cut his way
back to them, when a fresh influx from the hall of slaves and whites who
had been engaged in plundering the house, drove them apart again.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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