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Elizabeth drew a sharp breath of protest, but the minister met her eyes and gave her a private warning headshake, while his lips formed the word “Wait!” To Winthrop he said, “Will you refresh yourself, sir, and stay at my house till morning? While you’re here they’ll not dare pry. I’ll conduct the Feakes to their home.”

Winthrop rose. “I will stay,” he said. “I am a-weary. Take my halberdiers with you to keep order.”

Elizabeth rounded up her little girls, and came to stand before her uncle. “So this is farewell?” she said. “I - I can scarcely believe it. Will you give love to my Aunt Margaret? I shall think of her so often, and oh, Uncle - where is Jack?”

“I know not,” said Winthrop dully. “I’ve need of my son John now. I’ve sent to Ipswich for him, but I doubt he’s there.”

John alone, the beloved son, would know how to cope with the financial disaster and make plans for its alleviation. Winthrop pulled his attention back and kissed Elizabeth on the forehead. “God be with you,” he said. “I can do naught to help you, except - except hush this matter up, and remember you in my prayers.” He looked at the bed Robert had quitted. “I’m a-weary,” he said again. “A touch of ague. Farewell, niece. Farewell.”

Before dawn, while most of the town slept at last, and those who might have interfered were guarded by the halberdiers, the Feakes sailed from Watertown on Toby’s
Dolphin.
Telaka went with them. Mr. Phillips had so contrived it, after commanding one of the Governor’s guard to make the gaoler drunk. The minister had himself unlocked the prison’s iron gate and helped Telaka down the lanes and secreted her on the shallop. “May God forgive me for this and the lies I shall perforce tell,” said the minister to Elizabeth as they hurriedly piled into the boat such of the goods and chests as they could take. “But they will kill the Indian if she stays behind, and I cannot have that murder on my soul.”

“Oh, sir - “ Elizabeth whispered. “All these years here I never knew how kind you were I” She caught his hand and kissed it.

“There, there, child,” said the minister sadly, “May our Blessed Lord protect you, and lead you to a land where you may find contentment.”

Connecticut and New Netherland
1640-1655

A fair northwest wind blew all the night that the Feake family escaped from Watertown. And the next day it blew Toby Feake’s little
Dolphin
past the islands of the harbour and down the ocean side of Nantasket and the South Shore, until twilight, when Toby steered his shallop into Plymouth Bay.

“Why do we step here, Toby?” Elizabeth cried anxiously. “Oh, don’t put into Plymouth!” She was sitting on the half-opened hatch with the wriggling seventeen-month-old John in her lap, while keeping a watchful eye on her two youngest daughters who had been roped together for safety, then attached to the mast, where they squatted happily on the deck playing tick-tack-toe with some beans. Joan, who was seasick like her father and Telaka, was lying with them below in the cabin. The
Dolphin
was large for a shallop, nearly forty feet long, and stumpily built with a broad beam, but she was excessively crowded by five adults, the children, and the household gear the Feakes had managed to stuff in her before the flight. Toby was out of humour, had barely spoken to Elizabeth all day, and now ignored her question while he shouted over her head to the bow, “Ready wi’ the boathook, Ben! I’m straight for the pier. Mind that pinnace, you dunce!”

“Aye, sir,” called the Norfolk lad who acted as crew.

“Toby!” cried Elizabeth sharply. “Answer me! Isn’t this Plymouth? Why do you stop here?” She had not recovered from the terror of the night before. Still she felt hunted and threatened by the strange evil which had leapt at her without warning. Plymouth Colony she knew could be as harsh as the Bay, and it was much too near Watertown. Suppose that her uncle and the Reverend Mr. Phillips couldn’t hold them, and the enemies had hurtled off from Watertown to stop the Feakes. She pictured them galloping towards Plymouth - Job Blunt, the Warrens, the Knapps, Dolly Bridges - a horrible cavalcade streaming through the forests, yelling of witchcraft and vengeance.

“We stop here because we must,” said Toby sourly, watching Ben make the line fast to the iron ring on the pier. “We’re outa water and provisions, nor is there beer enough. D’ye expect me to sail dry all the way to Greenwich? There’s naught to be afraid of,” he added. “Watertown folk’ll not flout the Governor, and’ll have sobered today.”

Elizabeth knew the truth of this, but could not feel it, though the landing was quiet and their arrival excited no interest amongst a sprinkling of sailors and loungers.

“I’m sorry, Toby,” she said at length. “We were so hurried - I know you didn’t want to take us - but is there no other place to get supplies?”

“Naw,” said Toby. “Without I sail into Narragansett some days hence, if we’ve the winds, which I’ve no mind to. Quickest done soonest over for
this
voyage.” He jumped from the deck to the landing. “You’ve money, I trust, Aunt; Plymouth shops’ll not fit us out for charity.”

She nodded. Even in the panic of departure last night she had not forgotten to scoop up the contents of her heavy bride’s chest. Clothes, linen, Jack’s glove, Harry’s pin, Robert’s gold chain had all been flung into a sack, and the ninety pounds of her jointure she had hung from her belt in a leather pouch. She drew out two sovereigns. “Will this do? - and Toby - “

“Aye?” he said more amiably, pleased by the sight of gold.

“If we should buy lands down there, how do we pay the

Toby knitted his scraggy brows and scratched his nose while he ruminated. “Aye,” he said. “They want English coats an’ hardware. I’d best lay some in, though you’ve left me precious little room for cargo. Still, gi’ me two more sovereigns. I’ll see what I can do.”

“Be careful, Toby! Tell nobody who we are, and hasten, I beg of you. I’ll hide down in the cabin with the others.”

Toby, who shared none of her apprehensions, and whose gallantry and family loyalty ebbed with the day, merely shrugged; telling Ben to watch the boat, he shambled along Water Street towards a cluster of clapboarded buildings which looked far humbler than those of Boston.

While Elizabeth watched Toby, Robert stuck his head up through the hatch and said, “What is it, wife? Where are we?” His blinking gaze scanned the flat sandy shores, the huddled little town. “Surely ‘tis not Boston!”

“No, no - “ she said. “Plymouth. Boston’s far behind. Stay below, Rob, out of sight. I’m coming down.”

“Why?” he said, leaning on the hatch and retching a little. “ “Tis foul in the cabin. I want air. Joan and the Indian too, they’ve been seasick.”

“I know,” she said, relieved that he spoke sensibly, and that though his face was green and he looked ill, the confused wild light had gone from his eyes. “But there might still be danger. The less we’re noticed, the better. I’ll clean up the cabin.” She descended the ladder and he followed her. Danger? he thought. Aye, there had been some sort of danger; folk shouting, accusing, and threatening, but what about he did not know, nor how long ago -  except it seemed far past. No use thinking of it, and Bess knew what to do, if aught must be done. His stomach qualms were ceasing, he felt hungry and confident, for they were off to join Daniel. That he knew clearly. He ate bread and some pickled beef, then set about cleaning the reeking cabin. Joan, quickly recovering, helped too, but Telaka, whose legs were purple and swollen from the bonds they had put on her last night, could not yet move. She lay on a straw pallet with her face turned towards the bulkhead.

Night came on, the cabin freshened. Elizabeth fed the little girls. And still Toby did not return.

It was a soft spring evening; through the open hatch they could sec the stars quiver out like new shillings against the thin black sky. The water lapped softly against the
Dolphin’s
hull. There were voices and lanterns on other boats at anchor in the harbour, but except for Ben’s tuneless whistling as he patiently awaited Toby’s return, there was quiet on the
Dolphin.

Robert wished for sleep, the children were yawning, so Elizabeth bedded the little girls in the two narrow bunks and spread out on the planking the great feather bed they had brought. She tucked the baby beside his father on the feather bed, and was glad to see Robert’s arm circle his son, and that he kissed the dark, fuzzy little head. It was long since Robert had noticed his children and yet at times he could be the fondest of fathers. He’s better, she thought. The strangeness had again passed, had in some way been frightened out of him last night. But the memory of last night, which domestic efforts had held off, now wrenched her anew. Her fears swooped back. Why was Toby so long in coming? Could it be that he was in some sinister way detained?

She climbed the little ladder and peered cautiously over the hatch. The immediate shore front loomed dark and still, except down by the corner of the First Street where swung the sign of an ordinary. Candlelight flickered from its windows, and through the half-opened door came occasional bursts of male laughter.

Restless and uneasy, Elizabeth went up on deck to inhale the salty air, which smelled of clams and seaweed. Ben, who was curled up dozing on the bow, raised his head, and said, “What’s ado, Mistress?”

“Nothing,” she said. “Why,
why
doesn’t Master Toby come back?”

“Master’s not one to hurry hisself,” said the lad sleepily. “Wind’s died. Can’t sail till morn nohow. Don’t ye fret, mum - “ he added. Benjamin Palmer was only fourteen, but nimble and sharp-witted. He thought Elizabeth very pretty, also he had a good heart, which had been moved by her ordeal in Watertown.

“I know it’s silly,” she said, impelled to speech with anyone who did not have to be protected from worry, like Robert and the children. “But I feel eerie - a foreboding. Can’t stop it. Yet I had none before - before the trouble yesterday.”

Ben sat up and asked anxiously, “Has yer left eye bin itching ye? Or ha’ ye seen a spider ternight?”

“No,” said Elizabeth, half laughing. “I just feel something’s going to happen.”

“Naught bad, then,” said Ben with confidence, and curled up again with his head on a coil of rope.

Elizabeth sat down on the gunwale and stared out to sea, trying to quiet her unease with a dozen different musings. She thought of Jack, and wondered what he would say when he heard of the flight, but the thought of Jack always now brought in an accompanying image of the other Elizabeth - fair, complacent, genteel, an Elizabeth who could never conceivably get herself involved with hideous accusations and the threat of prison. There was no escape from pain in these thoughts, so she tried to envision the future - the axe-shaped Neck with white sands, the reunion with the Patricks, but these speculations were misty and juiceless. And all the time her ears were alert for any unusual noise on the shore.

At midnight she heard it, jumped, then felt ashamed, as she discovered it was but the tavern door opening wide to let out a crowd of men who came stumbling and raucous into the street.

Some of the men had lanterns. She saw several lights lurch around the corner and disappear, but two figures with a lantern detached themselves from the others and came towards the waterfront. Elizabeth soon recognized the stocky leader as Toby. Giddy with relief, she jumped from the boat to the pier, and waited there.

Toby’s gait was unsteady. As he neared her she heard the guttural chuckles he emitted when drunk. The other man hung back behind a great pile of dried fish nets.

“Well, Aunt... well...” cried Toby as he came up to her. “All ready and waiting to be taken?” He chuckled again, swinging his arms.

“I’m so glad you’ve come,” she said quickly. “Get on the boat and to sleep, you’re cup-shot. Where’re our goods.”

“Not so fast . . .” mumbled Tony swaying. “Oh-ho! Oh-ho! Didn’t ye hear what I said? Ye’re summoned! Governor Bradford wants you. They’ve sent from Watertown.”

Her stomach lurched. “What do you mean - “ she whispered, staring past him at the empty pier. “Toby, for God’s sake - “

“Come wi’ me, Aunt!” said Toby, putting a thick hand on her arm. “They’re waiting at the Governor’s, they’ve readied the gaol here.”

“No,” she whispered. “Toby, I don’t believe you. I’ll get Robert - “

But Toby grabbed her other arm and turning, propelled her forcibly ahead of him down the dock, where the man with the lantern suddenly stepped out from behind the nets.

“Here she is, constable I” cried Toby in a great voice. “Here’s the witch.”

“Shhh-h,” said the other man sharply, and put his lantern on the planks. “You’re frightening her.”

Elizabeth stared through a blur of panic. The light wavered upward over a very tall man in a leather jerkin. He had a shock of lanky brown hair that swung to his huge shoulders, and he looked down at her with a peculiar intensity.

“Will Hallet - ?” she cried in utter disbelief. “Is it you, Will?” Her knees gave way and she stumbled forward. He caught her against him, and held her tight against a broad hard chest where, even in her daze, she could feel a strong heart beating.

Toby gave a guffaw. “Fair diddled, wasn’t ye!” he cried, slapping his thigh. “Swallowed it whole, she did, Hallet! Thought ye was the guard come to gaol her! Ye shoulda seen her shaking.”

“Hold your tongue, you dolt,” said Will over Elizabeth’s head. “ ‘Twas a sorry jest. Come, Mistress, no need to fear. I’d not hurt you for the world.” He said the last words into Elizabeth’s hair, and she became aware that she was still clinging to him, that his arms supported her, that she was savouring a strong masculine smell of sweat, leather, and tobacco, and that her panic had given way to a delicious feeling of shelter.

“Sho-ho!” said Toby, gaping at them. “I didn’t know you were on hugging terms, but hug away. I mind me there’s a leetle jug o’ rum I hid ‘neath the stern sheets, I’ll hug
that - “
He made a smacking noise with his lips, zigzagged carefully down the dock, and disappeared into his boat.

Elizabeth straightened up, pulling herself from Hallet, His arms fell instantly and they confronted each other. He was in full manhood now, she saw, with a stubble of dark beard and a powerful long jaw. His blunt nose had lengthened too; there were furrows beside it. His cheeks had lost all boyish roundness. “How does this come about, Will?” she asked hurriedly to keep herself from staring at him. “How did you meet Toby?”