Centuries of June by Keith Donohue

colony. Light beacons each night thence to guide our ship safely to you.”
    Four weeks later, Long Jane tended the bonfire on that first night and for many nights afterward from the highest spot on the islands. By day, she watched the horizon when she could, ever hopeful, all through October and into November till the December moon, but no bark appeared, and to no eye, nothing but sea and air. What became of Ravens and the seven sailors no one ever knew.
    During this time of waiting and watching, work began on another ship, tho divers mutinies took place among the mariners, some of whom were irreligious and of secret discontent, to spread disquiet regarding the colony in Virginia. Six men made themselves outlaws and outcastsby plotting to steal a boat and live by themselves on a nearby island, but no sooner had their conspiracy been hatched than the cock crowed, and all were banished from St. Catherine’s Beach. Only by their petitions through Mr. Strachey would they be readmitted to the company by the mercy of Sir Thomas Gates, the governour. In January, a Mr. Hopkins hatched a plot with others, and he was arrested and placed in manacles. Were it not for pleading his wife and young childers left behind in London, he, too, would have been ensconced forever. Lastly, a man named Robert Waters fell into an argument with a Mr. Edward Samuell over the matter of a poor-cut timber, and it ended when Waters struck a shovel behind Samuell’s ear and killed him. Gates ordered the two men, murdered and murderer, to be bound together and a guard of six attend them, but despite the horror of the sin, the guards cut the rope and led Waters into hiding in the woods beyond.
    It was Mr. Chard who first approached Jane about being the go-between. “We need someone who won’t be missed, lad, and someone who can be trusted. Take this food and follow the trail to the clearing where first we found the wild boars, and there turn east and travel about one hundred steps where you’ll find a bower, and behind the palms, there is a cave, and in that cave, you’ll find Robert Waters. Go to it, boy, and be quick and silent as a hare. You know Samuell had it coming.”
    For two weeks, she crept about the woods at morning and at night, through the winter cold and wind, to Mr. Waters a-hiding in the cave. The darkness so thick and the man no more than a shadow, she did not find him first but rather he found her, sneaking up and grabbing her, clamping a hand over her mouth. “And who be this?” he snarled at her and lifted his fingers so she might answer.
    “Long John Long. I’ve come to bring your supper.”
    “Set it down, boy, and sit where you are. Move not.” Waters fell upon the food, and in the pitch black of the cave, his slurping andchewing sounded like a rough beast or monster. “Tell me,” he said between bites, “what news. Am I to be stretched?”
    “They look for you, Mr. Waters, but cannot find you. You are hid as in a dog’s belly, and the good men of the crew will not let Gates hunt and hang you.”
    “Zounds, child, and why should I be? For it was no crime but an accident.”
    “That’s what they all say. Mr. Chard and the other mariners. They say Samuell provok’d the blow.”
    “Edward Chard is a good man and a stalwart judge. Would that he, not Gates, were king of this island.”
    So Long Jane played the go-between, a secret kept within her bigger secret of girl disguised as boy, bringing food and news to Mr. Waters. He often kept her long in the cave, anxious for some conversation, desperate for reprieve, and within two weeks, the governour relented, and Waters was freed. “I shall not forget your kindness, John,” he told him. “There will come a day when you are repaid.”
    And while Gates later granted Waters and the other mutineers clemency, not all escaped his government. A man named Paine was later hanged for some offense, justice meted swiftly, and Mr. Waters felt the phantom rope for weeks afterward. Six