Serpent Never Sleeps by Scott O’Dell

over and gave me a shake. "What?" he said. "What is the wonderful news?"
    "Stephen Hopkins, the one who helps the Reverend Bucke at the meetings, who quotes the Scriptures," I began, and I told him the story that Francis Pearepoint had told me. "Pearepoint and his gentlemen are prepared to join Hopkins and depose the governor."
    Anthony brightened. He had lost the awful ship's pallor. The island sun had bronzed his skin. He had gained strength. He was as handsome as he had been before, even handsomer, because the brutal treatment suffered on the voyage had left a look in his eyes I had never seen before. As if he now viewed the world not as a heedless youth but as a man.
    "Heartening news," he said, planting a kiss on my brow. "Bring me more when you come again."
    "Tonight, perhaps, or tomorrow."
    "I'll be here," he said, smiling, rattling his chains.
    The camp was astir and breakfast fires were burning bright when I got back. The Reverend Bucke rang his bell. Stephen Hopkins called the roll. Two men were missing and their names were duly noted. The Reverend Bucke gave a short talk about how important it was for everyone to pitch in and repair the habitations, huts made of cedar boughs and thatched with palmetto leaves, that the storm had blown apart.
    "God has given us a stint of halcyon nights and
sunny days," he said, "but Satan squirms at God's gift. Expect him to send another rain and a spiteful wind upon us. Therefore work hard, this threat in mind, I pray you, and do not stop the day until everyone is properly sheltered."
    Stephen Hopkins climbed onto the sandy mound that served as a pulpit. He prayed for a moment or two, then spoke about the limits of earthly power, freely quoting the Bible.
    "Sir Thomas Gates," he said in a quiet voice. "Once in Jamestown he'll rule with a gentle hand, no doubt, according to the king's instructions. But here he feels all-powerful, the king himself, privileged to treat us as he chooses. We are not his slaves to be driven from one harsh task to another. Instead, we are free men, free to do as we see fit."
    The Puritans and others of strong religious leanings, those who felt they had a covenant with God and the London Company, were silent as these words hung in the air. The rest of the camp muttered encouragement and urged him to go on.
    "'Can two walk together,'" he said, quoting Amos, the herdsman, "'except they be agreed? Shall a trumpet be blown in the city and the people not be afraid?' Sir Thomas walks one way and many of us walk the other. The trumpet has sounded and I am letting it be known that we're afraid."
    Before an hour had passed, Sir Thomas, who had not attended the morning sermon, heard the exact words Stephen Hopkins had spoken as he stood before
the camp, repeated to him by a pair of Puritans, husband and wife. Hopkins was immediately summoned, and witnesses were called who testified against him. At nightfall he was sentenced to death.
    Hopkins was treacherous, of course, guilty of outright rebellion, yet early the next morning two thirds of the camp hurried to his rescue. Led by Francis Pearepoint, Sir George Somers, and Captain Newport, they descended upon the governor, overpowered him with protests, and forced him to revoke the sentence. What's more, and it came quickly as I was about to call out Anthony's name, Francis Pearepoint raised his voice above the tumult.
    "Foxcroft!" he shouted. "Foxcroft!"
    His young gentlemen, who ranged behind him with their hands on the hilts of their swords, took up the name. Governor Gates stood with his back against a tree, squinting in the rising sun, covering his ears against the chant of "Foxcroft, Foxcroft."
    Sir Thomas grew pale. His page put a hand out to steady him. The governor pushed it away and glanced about the crowd until he made out the stiff figure of the king's guard.
    "Do you hold the key, Captain Fitzhugh?" he asked.
    Fitzhugh hesitated and was silent. He was pushed forward by rough hands to where the governor