Serpent Never Sleeps by Scott O’Dell Page A

return and soon," he said.
    Admiral Somers was silent. He put out his fishing line and told Tom Barlow to row toward a reef where a school of yellowtails roiled the water. Tom bent his back and rowed hard. He kept glancing at me, trying to make out how I felt about the governor and what he had done.
    Finally he said, "The governor has taken a lot from Paine and the rest. I don't blame him, do you?"
    "I question what will happen at Jamestown. Will he shoot everyone who acts up or disagrees? Now that he's shot one, it may get to be a habit."
    "We'll put a halter on him with obedience and love."
    "You may do so, but not I."
    "You'll change your mind once you gaze upon the wonders of the New World."
    "No," I said. "It's idle to think so."
    Tom set his jaw and rowed even harder toward the school of leaping fish.

FIFTEEN
    No one in either of the two camps had expected Sir Thomas Gates to act so suddenly and with such cold fury. He had mildly punished other traitors by sending them off to another island. He had intended to hang Stephen Hopkins but had been persuaded not to.
    The death of Henry Paine, therefore, came as a shock to everyone, to those who, though loyal to the governor, had accused him of being soft-hearted. And a lesson to Francis Pearepoint and his gentlemen, who had grandly thought to depose him.
    It encouraged the loyalists to take a stand behind Sir Thomas. It cautioned the dissenters to mend their ways lest they, too, should join the late Henry Paine. And it spread calm upon troubled waters.
    Hitherto Admiral Somers held prayers on Sunday morning, himself preaching a short sermon and Tom Barlow rendering a song or two in his resounding voice. Now we rowed to the main camp and listened to the Reverend Bucke while Sir Thomas stood by with a sharp eye, smiling kindly.
    Months passed, and the coming of spring coincided
with some happy events. Elizabeth Persons, maid to Mistress Horton, was married to Thomas Powell, Sir George's cook. Elizabeth was tall and plain and Thomas was tall and handsome, which was not a good combination, as time would prove. I lent Elizabeth my pretty palmetto fan, adorned with pearls that Tom Barlow had gathered on the shore and given me. The wedding took place beneath a bower of pink roses, with wild bursts of musketry.
    Then Mistress and John Rolfe's daughter was baptized and given a name. Mistress Horton, who, next to Emma Swinton, had the prevailing voice among our women, suggested three names for the baby—Mary, Celeste, and Ruth. But none of these was chosen. Governor Gates liked the name Bermuda, so this was the name she was called.
    Sir George and Sir Thomas met often and discussed the barks they were building separately. After a spring storm tossed
Deliverance
about on her beam-ends and the governor decided to put up a bulkhead to protect her, the admiral sent men into the hills to bring rocks and timber.
    When
Deliverance,
the big ship built to carry most of the people, and
Patience,
the small pinnace built for the rest, were launched, both camps turned out and happily feasted upon palmetto hearts, mussels, clams and lobster, turtle stew and roast pig. Tom Barlow played his viola and sang.
    During the following two weeks everyone helped to gather food. Terns were not so plentiful as they
had been the day we came to the island, but we managed to fill a barrel with their eggs. Turtles were coming ashore, scooping out deep holes and laying their eggs—as many as five hundred at a time—and covering them with sand for the sun to hatch. Of these, over six thousand were gathered and set down in brine. Fish of all kinds still swarmed the blue waters. Admiral Somers, Tom Barlow, and I caught more than a ton one afternoon, which were smoked and stored away for the voyage.
    Deliverance
and
Patience
rode at anchor five days, waiting for a westerly wind to take them through the narrow channel into the sea. On the tenth of May the wind shifted from the east. Admiral Somers and