Serpent Never Sleeps by Scott O’Dell Page B

find the princess Pocahontas and persuade her to grace the colony with her presence once more. Captain Newport has already spoken of her. I speak of this again because it is of the utmost importance."
    "The first task, sir, I will set myself," Henry Ravens replied. "Though I fear it more difficult than getting our cockleshell across the western sea."
    On his way through the cheering crowd, Anthony sought me out. Impulsively, my heart stopping, then starting up again, I grasped his hand to hold him back, as Samuel Sharpe's wife had held him back.
    "You're crying," he said.
    "It's not tears," I said. "It's rain."
    "Let me see." He kissed my cheek. "The rain is salty," he said, and held my hand tight in his. "The sooner we reach Jamestown, the sooner this awful mess will end. And one day, much sooner than you think, we'll return to England, for the king has a short memory and a merciful heart. And Robert Carr, with his preening self-importance, may well be dead. We'll both be back at Foxcroft by the River Dane at another masque, a more peaceful one, I am certain."
    He went on with this pretty speech while I clung to him. Then, suddenly he was gone, and his footsteps were lost in the sound of the rain and the wind threshing in the palmetto trees.

THIRTEEN
    Gates' Gift
slipped away before dawn two days later under the light of a moon in a cloudless sky. From the reef where the
Sea Venture
lay I watched the pinnace disappear.
    That day Governor Gates began the building of a ship, which he named
Deliverance.
He called men together, including Francis Pearepoint's gentlemen, and explained how necessary it was for them, no matter how lacking their skills, to put a mighty effort into the building.
    "We do not know if our fleet has arrived in Jamestown," he said, "and if it has, how many are fit for another voyage. We can't rely on Jamestown for any help at all. Without a ship we could be here for years, forever, stranded, helpless, forsaken."
    Even more of the men wished to stay on the island than had in the beginning. The thought of starving in Jamestown or being scalped by Indians was less appealing than ever.
    The governor now fully regretted the softness he had shown to Hopkins. He displayed his regret in the
way he bit off his words and fixed a contemptuous eye upon Francis Pearepoint, whom he regarded as the one most dedicated to his destruction.
    He put Richard Frobisher, one of the ship's carpenters, in charge of the new ship.
    Frobisher sent out a crew to dismantle the wreck and bring ashore every timber that could be used. He sent men into the woods to saw up the best cedars and shape them into planking. Others were set to work on the salvaged sails. After two days, the keel was laid and the
Deliverance
took shape, a bark half the size of the lost
Sea Venture.
    Then a lone sail was sighted far in the west. Admiral Somers, who was out exploring the numerous islands, reported that it belonged to the pinnace, that Captain Ravens had not been able to pass through the tangled chain of reefs.
    On the third afternoon, he told us that Ravens had made his way at last through the maze of reefs and was headed off into the western sea.
    Although it would take two weeks or more for the pinnace to reach Jamestown and as long for a rescue ship to return, the Puritans and the others who were impatient to leave built a beacon fire on a mount they called St. David's Hill. The beacon was lit every night as a symbol of devotion.
    The building of
Deliverance
went fast for a few days. Then the work slowed down. Sir Thomas thought the men were bone-lazy. To set an example,
when the bell rang for work he was at the ship in his old clothes, tools in hand, eager to undertake any task however menial.
    His efforts failed. Those he thought shiftless were, in truth, a secret band of conspirators bent on delaying the work and destroying the ship if possible.
    The day he learned of the conspiracy, he rounded up the ringleaders, six of them, who under