Cate of the Lost Colony - Lisa Klein [68]
“Only yesterday he touched it and made an admiring noise over it,” Chapman charged. “He is the thief.”
“He is an idiot. How do you expect him to know right from wrong?” said Christoper Cooper.
“He is innocent; the boy is innocent!” protested Joan, her hands raised in appeal.
“Did you take the sword?” demanded Ananias. “What did you do with it?”
Georgie shook his head and spittle flew from his open mouth.
Bailey pulled a knife from his belt. “Do you know the penalty for thievery?” He grabbed Georgie’s hand, pinned it to the table, and put the blade to the back of his wrist.
Joan screamed and fainted. Georgie’s eyes were wide with terror. I could not believe Bailey was about to cut off the young man’s hand!
“That was my sword you stole,” Bailey said and drew the blade across the skin.
“Stop! Where is the proof?” I heard myself shout, but my voice was drowned out by Georgie’s howls as blood welled from the wound.
“They killed Georgie’s father!” the boy wailed. “They shot him in the chest with arrows. He was full of blood too. Now he is in the cold ground. Georgie is cold.” He shivered and turned pale.
I started forward but Eleanor grabbed my arm.
“Do not intervene, Cate.” And then she called to her husband, “Do something, Ananias!”
But before Ananias could act, Christopher Cooper grabbed Bailey’s arm. “Stop this torture,” he said. “Search the boy’s house first. Search every house.”
While Bailey and Cooper faced off over the shaking Georgie, Ananias and the other assistants began to search for the sword. They came back dragging a soldier I recognized as Graham’s gaming companion, the one who had spent ten years in prison.
“State your name,” said Cooper. He leaned closer to the man and sniffed. “And why are you drunk in the daytime?”
“He was on guard in the fort,” said Ananias, trying to be helpful.
“James Hind, sir,” said the soldier belatedly. “This is my own sword, I say.”
“A known thief,” said Bailey. “And drunk while on duty.”
“That is not the missing sword,” said Chapman, peering at the hilt of Hind’s sword.
“If he didn’t steal it, he most certainly stole the ale, for each man’s share is but three ounces a day,” said Bailey.
“Why, he is determined to punish someone today,” I said, not scrupling to lower my voice.
James Hind swayed and blinked at Bailey. “Are you calling me a thief? I am a man of honor, you scoundrel, and I shall prove it!” And with that he drew his sword and lurched toward Roger Bailey, who fell backward.
The crowd gasped with one voice. Every man, woman, and child knew the punishment for drawing a weapon upon the governor or his assistants was death. James Hind was undeniably guilty, so he was seized and put in the bilboes until he could be executed. Georgie was forgotten.
I had never been to a hanging. I knew noisy crowds gathered at Tyburn in London, shouting and jeering from the time the malefactor appeared until his lifeless body was carted away. I had no desire to see James Hind hanged. But I went along with everyone else to the gibbet that had been hammered together at the entrance to the fort. People were sober and wary, even doubtful about what they had seen. Had the man deliberately struck at Bailey, or had he only stumbled drunkenly while showing the sword to his accusers? For his part, James Hind shouted his innocence until the noose choked off his words and the breath behind them.
When James Hind was dead, the mystery remained unsolved. The sword John Chapman had been making for Bailey was not found anywhere near Fort Ralegh. I wondered if Bailey himself had taken it and then created the entire scene to demonstrate his power over us. No doubt he made many people afraid of him, but he only made me hate him.
Chapter 27
I Rediscover My Dreams
Roger Bailey began to lay out plans for the colony to move to Chesapeake, and no one dared contradict him, not even Ananias or Christopher Cooper. He came to John White’s house