CHAPTER II IN WHICH I MEET MASTER JEREMY SPARROW


MINE are not dicers' oaths. The stars were yet shining when I left
the house, and, after a word with my man Diccon, at the servants'
huts, strode down the bank and through the gate of the palisade to
the wharf, where I loosed my boat, put up her sail, and turned her
head down the broad stream. The wind was fresh and favorable,
and we went swiftly down the river through the silver mist toward
the sunrise. The sky grew pale pink to the zenith; then the sun rose
and drank up the mist. The river sparkled and shone; from the
fresh green banks came the smell of the woods and the song of
birds; above rose the sky, bright blue, with a few fleecy clouds
drifting across it. I thought of the day, thirteen years before, when
for the first time white men sailed up this same river, and of how
noble its width, how enchanting its shores, how gay and sweet
their blooms and odors, how vast their trees, how strange the
painted savages, had seemed to us, storm-tossed adventurers, who
thought we had found a very paradise, the Fortunate Isles at least.
How quickly were we undeceived! As I lay back in the stern with
half-shut eyes and tiller idle in my hand, our many tribulations and
our few joys passed in review before me. Indian attacks;
dissension and strife amongst our rulers; true men persecuted,
false knaves elevated; the weary search for gold and the South
Sea; the horror of the pestilence and the blacker horror of the
Starving Time; the arrival of the Patience and Deliverance,
whereat we wept like children; that most joyful Sunday morning
when we followed my Lord de la Warre to church; the coming of
Dale with that stern but wholesome martial code which was no
stranger to me who had fought under Maurice of Nassau; the good