in such train that little remained to be
done, but to set the day for the rising, and to send notice by many
devious and underground ways to the Oliverian captains scattered
throughout the Colony. Landless counseled immediate action, the firing
of the fuse at once by starting the secret intelligence which would
spread like wildfire from plantation to plantation. Then would the mine
be sprung within the week. There was nothing so dangerous as delay, when
any hour, any moment might bring discovery and ruin.

Godwyn was of a different opinion. It was then August, the busiest and
most unhealthy season of the year, when the servants and slaves,
weakened by unremitting toil, were succumbing by scores to the fever. It
was the time when the masters looked for disaffection, when the
overseers were most alert, when a general watchfulness pervaded the
Colony. The planters stayed at home and attended to their business, the
trainbands were vigilant, the servant and slave laws were construed with
a harshness unknown at other seasons of the year. There were few ships
in harbor compared with the number which would assemble for their fall
lading a month later, and Godwyn counted largely upon the seizure of the
ships. In a month's time the tobacco would be largely in,--a weighty
consideration, for tobacco was money, and the infant republic must have
funds. The ships would be in harbor, and their sailors ready for
anything that would rid them of their captains; the heat and sickness of
the summer would be abated; the work slackened, and discipline relaxed.
The danger of discovery was no greater now than it had been all along,
and the good to be won by biding their time might be inestimable. The
danger was there, but they would face it, and wait,--say until the
second week in September.

Landless acquiesced, scarcely convinced, but willing to believe that the
other knew whereof he spoke, and conscious, too, that his own impatience
of the yoke which galled his spirit almost past endurance might incline
him to a reckless and disastrous haste.

It was past midnight when he rose to leave the hut on the marsh. Godwyn
took up his stick. "I will walk with you to the banks of the creek," he
said. "'Tis a feverish night, and I have an aching head. The air will do
me good, and I will then sleep."

The young man gave him his arm with a quiet, protecting tenderness that
was very dear to the mender of nets, and leaning upon it, he limped
through t