Cate of the Lost Colony - Lisa Klein [78]
“Be silent, Mistress Vickers, for your own good,” the surgeon admonished her.
“Hush, Mama!” the boy pleaded. His eyes were wide with pain and alarm.
“Leave her be; she is distressed,” I said out of pity for her and the boy.
“But she is calling out to the saints!” the surgeon said.
“See if there are some spirits in the house. That may quiet her,” Alice said.
I went to the cupboard and threw it open. There, nestled among some empty jars were candle stubs, a cross with a figure nailed to it, and a small statue of a woman in a blue robe.
Alice was looking over my shoulder. “The Virgin!” she whispered.
“Oh blessed Mary, Saint Joseph, and holy John the baptizer, save my son,” cried Betty. “Afflict me instead, for I have done wrong by living among the ungodly—” Her words dissolved into tears and she dropped her head to her son’s chest.
Thus it was revealed that Betty Vickers was a papist.
The surgeon, a man without prejudice, cut the boy’s leg off out of mercy, but Edmund died in the night.
The next morning Bailey had every cupboard, trunk, and bedstead in the village searched. The yield was two Latin psalters, a set of rosary beads, another statue, and two brass crosses, all found among the possessions of Ambrose Vickers and his kin. Ambrose and his nephew had gone to Chesapeake, but the grieving Betty and her brother were brought forth and shackled.
“We have sheltered papists in our bosom, and therefore we do not prosper,” shouted John Chapman angrily. His hair, which had turned white in the last year, flew about his head.
Murmuring rose and then the cries began. “Flog them!” “No, hang them!”
Seeing Betty in chains horrified me. I couldn’t speak up, for I didn’t even know what to say. It was one thing to object to the torture of a simpleton, another to defend an admitted papist. It was Ananias who demanded that judgment be postponed until Cooper’s party returned, so Ambrose and his nephew could be questioned, too. Betty and her brother were put under guard. Little Edmund was buried at the base of a tree far removed from the cemetery where George Howe and all those who died in the winter had been laid to rest.
A week later, eight men of the original forty-one straggled back to the island in a leaky shallop. Manteo was with them. Their tale was a disturbing one. They had reached Chesapeake without incident and begun their work. Then the eight men had gone upriver in the shallop to explore, and when they returned a week later, the pinnace was gone. Five bodies were found dead on the shore and in the camp. Christopher Cooper was one of the dead. Everything useful had been taken from the camp.
Bailey drew his conclusion at once. “It was the Indians. You have betrayed us,” he said, confronting Manteo.
“Musket shot killed them,” Manteo said, staying calm. “Their own betrayed them.”
Griffen Jones, a Welshman and a farmer who was the leader of the eight explorers, nodded. “Manteo is right. There were malcontents among us. While we were exploring, they must have decided to chance a return to England. They shot the ones who tried to resist. And they didn’t stay to bury their bodies,” he said, his mouth tense with anger.
“But they had no provisions for a sea crossing,” said Ananias in disbelief.
“With luck they could make the Azores in a few weeks’ time and find passage on another ship,” said Bailey. He clenched his fists as if to keep the rest of his power from slipping through his fingers.
“Who planned this? I want to know who betrayed us,” said Ananias. “Now we’ve lost thirty-two men and the pinnace to boot!”
Thirty-two men. With those who had already died, I counted forty-five lost, almost half of our original number. Now there were barely enough men to defend the fort. On the other hand, there were fewer mouths to be fed if the next winter should prove harsh.
And then John Chapman suggested