“My Lord Carnal goes upon the George, gentlemen,” said Master Pory. “He sent but now to demand if she sailed to-morrow. He is ill, and would be at home.” One or two glanced at me, but I sat with a face like stone, and the Governor, rising, broke up the council. I left the house, and the street that was lit with torches and noisy with going to and fro, and went down to the river. Rolfe had been detained by the Governor, West commanded the party at the neck. There were great fires burning along the river bank, and men watching for the incoming boats; but I knew of a place where no guard was set, and where one or two canoes were moored. There was no firelight there, and no one saw me when I entered a canoe and cut the rope and pushed off from the land. Well-nigh a day and a night had passed since Lady Wyatt had told me that which made for my heart a night-time indeed. I believed my wife to be dead,--yea, I trusted that she was dead. I hoped that it had been quickly over,--one blow.... Better that, oh, better that a thousand times, than that she should have been carried off to some village, saved to-day to die a thousand deaths to-morrow. But I thought that there might have been left, lying on the dead leaves of the forest, that fair shell from which the soul had flown. I knew not where to go,--to the north, to the east, to the west,--but go I must. I had no hope of finding that which I went to seek, and no thought but to take up that quest. I was a soldier, and I had stood to my post; but now the need was past, and I could go. In the hall at the Governor's house, I had written a line of farewell to Rolfe, and had given the paper into the hand of a trusty fellow, charging him not to deliver it for two hours to come. I rowed two miles downstream through the quiet darkness,--so quiet after the hubbub of the town. When I turned my boat to the shore the day was close at hand. The stars were gone, and a pale, cold light, more desolate than the dark, streamed from the east across which ran, like a faded blood stain, a smear of faint red. Upon the forest the mist lay heavy. When I drove the boat in amongst the sedge and reeds below the bank, I could see only the trunks of the nearest trees, hear only the sullen cry of some river bird that I had disturbed. Why I was at some pains to fasten the boat to a sycamore that dipped a pallid arm into the stream I do not know. I never thought to come back to the sycamore; I never thought to bend to an oar again, to behold again the river that the trees and the mist hid from me before I had gone twenty yards into the forest. CHAPTER XXXIX IN WHICH WE LISTEN TO A SONG IT was like a May morning, so mild was the air, so gay the sunshine, when the mist had risen. Wild flowers were blooming, and here and there unfolding leaves made a delicate fretwork against a deep blue sky. The wind did not blow; everywhere were stillness soft and sweet, dewy freshness, careless peace.