Cate of the Lost Colony - Lisa Klein [104]
Graham finally broke the silence. “The biggest ship looks like a Spanish galleon. And the two smaller ones are English merchant vessels, I think.”
“The English ships have taken the Spanish one!” Jones said in a tone of triumph. “Let us signal them.”
“No!” I said. “What if the galleon has captured the others and now sails for Roanoke Island?” The arrival of the Spanish had been one of our greatest fears while we lived at Fort Ralegh. We were fortunate to have left there.
“I cannot make out their flags without a glass,” said Graham, squinting. “But they are bound northward, not for this shore.”
“We could sail the shallop up the sound and intercept the ships at Hatorask,” said Jones.
“And make ourselves known to them?” said Graham. “That is hardly wise. Manteo, what do you think?”
With a solemn, almost troubled look Manteo gazed out to sea, where the ships seemed all but motionless. Then he said, “It is a matter for the council to discuss.”
Meeting without delay, Weyawinga and her advisers decided to spy on the ships and report if they were bound for Roanoke Island. Graham and Tameoc set out with eight men, paddling their canoe so swiftly it resembled a seabird skimming the water.
When we left Roanoke Island, rescue had seemed impossible. Now with the appearance of the ships everything had changed. Three days of intense speculation followed while we awaited the canoe’s return. Hope alternated with uncertainty. Were the English or the Spanish in command of the ships? And if the latter, would they occupy the deserted fort or continue onward?
Ambrose Vickers was convinced we were in danger. “The Spanish will force the English captains to take them to Roanoke Island, and they’ll know at once we came here.” He looked accusingly at me, for I was the one who had made him carve the letters in the tree. “For our safety we ought to go to the mainland and hide.”
The soldiers were of the opinion that we could fight the Spanish with the help of the Croatoan.
“And what if they are English ships come to our aid?” Alice Chapman asked. “Would we leave here and go with them? Cate, will you take Virginia back to England to live with her grandfather?”
I did not want to face that terrible choice. “Let us wait until we know more,” I said.
That night Mika came to my house and told me stories about Algon the hunter, the great Ahone, and Rabbit the trickster. She had a round belly; before the harvest time she would bear a child. Graham, if given the chance, would not go back to England, I knew. He had laid his love for Anne to rest and found a new one.
“Do not go away, my friend,” Mika said. “I dreamed of a canoe swallowed by the waves. You must not be on it. I want you to stay here.”
When the men returned, Graham reported that the ships all flew the royal standard of Elizabeth and were sailing for Roanoke. Their purpose could only be to find us.
Jones shook his head. “After three years? I can scarcely believe it.”
“Think of the stores of food! The new cloth!” said Alice, smiling.
“The armaments and tools and hardware,” said Ambrose, his fear gone.
Jones wondered aloud what we had all been thinking, “Could it be John White at last?” Hopes, so long submerged, rose to the surface and broke like waves over us.
Betty’s eyes shone. “Perhaps my cousin and his family have come at last. I wrote to them three years ago. Oh, to think of new people joining us!”
The excitement began to distress Georgie, who rocked back and forth saying, “Is Papa coming back? Is my papa on the ship?”
Graham, when he finally spoke, was harsh. “Do you think any of our countrymen would choose to live as we do now? Would they wear hides and moccasins, delve in the dirt and hunt with arrows, sleep on animal pelts, and eat roots?”
He swept his arm in a wide arc encompassing our entire settlement within the Croatoan village. It was even more rustic than Roanoke had been. But it was now home.
Ambrose stroked his chin gravely. “I think they will judge our failures, for