In the middle of the square was kept burning a great brazier filled with pitched wood. It was the duty of the watch to keep it flaming from darkness to dawn. We found it freshly heaped with pine, and its red glare lit a goodly circle. The Indian, pinioning the wrists of his captive with his own hand of steel, dragged him with us into this circle of light.
"Looking for simples once more, learned doctor?" I demanded.
He mowed and jabbered, twisting this way and that in the grasp of the Indian.
"Loose him," I said to the latter, "but let him not come too near you. Why, worthy doctor, in so wild and threatening a night, when fire is burning and wine flowing at the guest house, do you choose to crouch here in the cold and darkness?"
He looked at me with his filmy eyes, and that faint smile that had more of menace in it than a panther's snarl. "I laid in wait for you, it is true, noble sir," he said in his thin, dreamy voice, "but it was for your good. I would give you warning, sir."
He stood with his mean figure bent cringingly forward, and with his hat in his hand. "A warning, sir," he went ramblingly on. "Maybe a certain one has made me his enemy. Maybe I cut myself loose from his service. Maybe I would do him an ill turn. I can tell you a secret, sir." He lowered his voice and looked around, as if in fear of eavesdroppers.
"In your ear, sir," he said.
I recoiled. "Stand back," I cried, "or you will cull no more simples this side of hell!"
"Hell!" he answered. "There's no such place. I will not tell my secret aloud."
"Nicolo the Italian! Nicolo the Poisoner! Nicolo the Black Death! I am coming for the soul you sold me. There is a hell!"
The thundering voice came from underneath our feet. With a sound that was not a groan and not a screech, the Italian reeled back against the heated iron of the brazier. Starting from that fiery contact with an unearthly shriek, he threw up his arms and dashed away into the darkness. The sound of his madly hurrying footsteps came back to us until the guest house had swallowed him and his guilty terrors.
"Can the preacher play the devil too?" I asked, as Sparrow came up to us from the other side of the fire. "I could have sworn that that voice came from the bowels of the earth. 'T is the strangest gift!"
"A mere trick," he said, with his great laugh, "but it has served me well on more occasions than one. It is not known in Virginia, sir, but before ever the word of the Lord came to me to save poor silly souls I was a player. Once I played the King's ghost in Will Shakespeare's 'Hamlet,' and then, I warrant you, I spoke from the cellarage indeed. I so frighted players and playgoers that they swore it was witchcraft, and Burbage's knees did knock together in dead earnest. But to the matter in hand. When I had thrown yonder stone, I walked quietly down to the Governor's house and looked through the window. The Governor hath the Company's letters, and he and the Council--all save the reprobate Pory--sit there staring at them and drumming with their fingers on the table."