A Lion to Guard Us Read online

  “Do you know what people are saying about it? They are saying it is brass on the outside and gold underneath.”

  She looked at the lion’s head in Jemmy’s hands. “How could that be?”

  “They say Dr. Crider had his gold melted down and made into a door knocker.”

  “Why?”

  “So he could take it to the New World in secret,” said John Rolfe.

  “But—that’s foolish,” she said.

  “Speak low,” he said. “Someone might be listening.”

  “It’s only a brass door knocker,” she replied. “It used to be on our house in London. How could people think it might be gold?”

  “Someone might have told them.”

  “Who?”

  John Rolfe looked at Jemmy.

  “Oh,” she said.

  “And if people believe the knocker is gold,” said Master Rolfe, “they can make trouble.”

  “It’s only brass.”

  “But if they think it’s gold, they might try to take it from you.”

  He left her.

  She whispered to Jemmy, “Put it away.”

  “What?”

  “The knocker. Put it away.”

  “Why?”

  “Do as I say!”

  “Crosspatch,” he said. But he put the knocker into his pocket.

  In the morning she took it from him. When no one was looking, she hid it in one of their sea chests.

  They went up on deck.

  “I want the knocker,” he said.

  She asked him, “Did you tell Anne and David it was gold?”

  He looked down.

  “Did you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “They thought their ball was so good. I said my lion’s head was better because it was gold.”

  “And now people think it is gold. Don’t you see? They’ll try to take it away from you.”

  Robert Waters came up to them. “Could I see the door knocker?” he asked.

  “I put it away,” said Amanda.

  “You’d better have someone take care of it for you,” he said. “I’ll keep it safe if you like.”

  “It’s only brass,” she said.

  He looked at Jemmy, then at her. She was not sure he believed her.

  XV

  The Storm

  The talk went on for days. Was the lion’s head gold? Was it only brass? Had it been Dr. Crider’s? Where had it really come from?

  Then it was forgotten. There was something that mattered more. There was the storm.

  It began with a few low clouds. The air was heavy and hot. It seemed to press down until everyone felt restless. Some grew angry without knowing why.

  A young gentleman came out of his room and threw his dish across the hold. “The food on this ship isn’t fit for pigs!” he shouted.

  Mistress Hopkins talked in a loud voice, “They said we would be in Virginia in five weeks. Now it’s the end of July. Seven weeks we’ve been at sea. How much longer will it be, I’d like to know?”

  Amanda was on deck with Jemmy and Meg when the wind sprang up. It was a fierce, hot wind that burned their faces and tore at their clothes.

  There was a long, blue flash of lightning, and thunder shook the ship.

  They ran for the hold. Jemmy went ahead. Amanda helped Meg down the ladder.

  It was dark as night in the hold. Someone lighted candles.

  Amanda found a box for them to sit on, but Jemmy would not sit down.

  “I’m not going to stay here,” he said. “There’s no air to breathe.”

  Robert Waters came by and gave him a pat on the head. “Don’t you fret,” he said. “It’s just another storm. It will soon blow over.”

  But it was more than just another storm.

  A sailor came down to look for leaks. “In all my days at sea,” he said, “I’ve never seen such as this.”

  The waves were higher than the ship, he told them. The deck was deep in water. The wind was tearing the sails to bits.

  The ship rolled from side to side, and the people were thrown back and forth. Boxes and chests were thrown back and forth with them.

  The hold had been closed against the storm.

  “Thank heaven we’re safe here,” said Master Hopkins.

  “You call this safe?” cried Mistress Hopkins as she dodged a sliding chest.

  “At least, we’re dry,” said Master Hopkins.

  “We won’t be dry for long,” she said.

  The hold had begun to leak.

  “To the pumps!” called John Rolfe. “All hands to help pump out the water!”

  “I’ll help,” said Amanda.

  “Not you,” said John Rolfe, and she went back to Jemmy and Meg.

  For two days the ship was tossed and shaken in the storm. Amanda and Jemmy and Meg clung together.

  They heard Master Hopkins’s voice. “The ship is sinking, the ship is sinking!”

  “Are we sinking?” asked Jemmy.

  “No,” said Amanda.

  “How do you know?” asked Jemmy.

  “Listen to me,” she said. “I—I’ll tell you a story!”

  “What?”

  “I said I’ll tell you a story!”

  “We couldn’t hear it.”

  “I’ll make you hear.”

  Above the roar of the wind and rain, Amanda shouted, “There were two sisters and their brother. They were on a ship—and there was a storm. Can you hear?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “It was a great storm. It went on and on. And then—”

  “What?” asked Jemmy.

  “It was over, and there was—there was land.”

  “Where?” asked Jemmy.

  “In the middle of the sea. They got off the ship—and they were safe on land.”

  He was quiet then. Both he and Meg were quiet for a long time.

  There was another day of storm, and another night, and the ship stayed afloat. But there were new leaks. The pumps could not keep the water out of the hold.

  People began to climb up the ladder and onto the deck. Amanda felt the water rising over her feet. She pushed Jemmy and Meg up the ladder ahead of her. They were on deck, and the rain and waves swept over them.

  Amanda was thrown off her feet. She reached out for Jemmy and Meg. Only Jemmy was there.

  “Meg!” she cried.

  “She’s gone!” cried Jemmy. “Meg, Meg!”

  They tumbled across the deck and came up against the animal pen. It was broken now. The animals were gone.

  “I see her!” said Jemmy.

  Meg was there. She was holding on to a wooden bar of the pen.

  “Don’t let go!” said Amanda.

  Now she and Jemmy were holding on to the pen. A woman was there beside them. She screamed each time the ship rolled.

  It seemed to Amanda that hours went by. Then she felt a kind of stillness about her. She lifted her head. A little light had broken through the clouds.

  A cry went up, “Land!”

  There was another cry, “Rocks! We’re on the rocks!”

  The Sea Adventure rose and fell. There was a grinding, splintering crash, as if she were breaking into a thousand pieces.

  XVI

  Ashore

  Amanda was on her feet. Something strange had happened. The deck no longer shivered and tipped beneath her. She could stand. She could walk.

  She tried to look over the rail. The wind blew spray into her face.

  “Get up, Meg,” said Jemmy. “We’ve stopped.”

  John Rolfe and Mistress Rolfe were at the rail.

  “Now I see,” he was saying. “The ship is caught between two rocks.”

  “Then we can’t sink,” said his wife.

  “But the ship may break apart,” he said. “We must get to shore.”

  People were running across the deck. Sailors were making the small boats ready.

  Admiral Somers shouted through a horn, “Women and children into the fir
st boat!”

  Amanda and Jemmy and Meg crowded in with the others. Men were there to row.

  The boat swung down over the side. A wave lifted it high and carried it away.

  Amanda was between Jemmy and Meg. They were on their knees in the bottom of the boat.

  “I see land!” shouted Jemmy.

  Amanda saw it, too. It was like a long shadow through the rain.

  “There’s land,” she said, with her mouth close to Meg’s ear.

  Meg didn’t answer. She was hiding her face under Amanda’s arm.

  Amanda held her breath as the boat dipped and rocked from one wave to another. They reached the shallow water near the shore. There the waves were not so high, the roar of the storm not so loud. She began to hear voices of the people about her. She heard a woman ask, “Is this Virginia?”

  A sailor answered, “This is an island. The admiral says this is Bermuda.”

  The woman set up a wail. “Bermuda is where the devils are!”

  Another woman wailed with her, “The devils made the storm and wrecked the ship. They’ll never let us land!”

  “Devils or not,” said the sailor, “I mean to land this boat.”

  Amanda watched the shore. Now she could see a white strip of land next to the water, with green woods beyond.

  The boat scraped the sand. The men helped the women and children out.

  Amanda and Jemmy and Meg started up across the beach. It was hard for them to walk on land. They were used to the ship that kept moving under their feet.

  Meg had hold of Amanda’s dress. “This is your land,” she said.

  “My land?” said Amanda.

  “The one you told us about.”

  “That was just a story,” said Amanda. “I didn’t know there would be land here.”

  “Yes, you did,” said Meg.

  XVII

  The Island

  On the island, at least, the storm was over. The small boats had brought everyone ashore. People were resting on the sand.

  Admiral Somers walked among them. He spoke to them and shook their hands. “We’ve been through the storm and shipwreck,” he said, “with not a life lost.”

  “What of the other ships?” asked Master Hopkins.

  “I pray they are safe,” said the admiral. “If they rode out the storm, they may be sailing on to Virginia.”

  Someone had built a fire. People sat about it, drying their clothes. Most of them were ladies and gentlemen. There was no room for Amanda and Jemmy and Meg.

  They found their own place. They lay down on the side of a sandbank and were soon asleep.

  They slept the rest of the day and all that night. The morning sun was in their eyes when they woke.

  Amanda sat up. She still felt tired, and her back ached. People were up and about. Their voices sounded far away. Beside her, Meg was saying, “There’s salt in my eyes.”

  Jemmy was on his feet. Amanda heard him say, “The little boats went out to the wreck. See what they brought.”

  She saw the heap of rope and canvas and boxes and barrels on the shore.

  “I think one of our chests is there,” said Jemmy.

  Amanda hoped so. They needed a change of clothing. The clothes they wore were stiff with salt.

  A man came by. “Can you clean fish?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said. She tried to get up and fell over. He set her on her feet.

  She followed him to the flat rocks near the water. She felt as if she were learning to walk again.

  There were fish spread out on the rocks. A man came up with another pailful.

  “The harbor is full of them,” he said.

  He gave Amanda a knife, and she split fish and cleaned them.

  Robert Waters came up with a pail in his hand. “If anyone is thirsty,” he said, “I found pools of rainwater up there in the rocks. And see what else I found.”

  He showed them the pail nearly full of eggs.

  “Almost as big as hen’s eggs,” he said. “They are from the white birds you see along the shore.”

  “We’ll live like kings here,” said an old sailor, “if the devils don’t get us first.”

  “There are wild pigs in the woods,” said Robert Waters, “and they have no fear of me. It’s like they never saw a man before.”

  “You saw no devils?” asked the old sailor.

  Robert Waters shook his head.

  “Since I was a boy, I’ve heard of the Bermuda devils,” said the sailor. “Now I think there are no devils here and never were. Sailors from Spain found these islands long ago. They wanted Bermuda for themselves, so they told tales to keep everyone else away.”

  Master Waters took the knife from Amanda. “I’ll clean fish for a while. Go and have some food.”

  A kettle was boiling over the fire. The ship’s cook stood by with a long spoon in his hand.

  Amanda and Jemmy and Meg waited in line. Each one was given a wide, thick leaf from a palm tree. Onto each leaf the cook spooned a piece of fish and two eggs.

  They went to the edge of the woods, out of the hot sunlight. Amanda helped Jemmy and Meg take the fish off the bones.

  “This is good,” said Jemmy. “Isn’t it good, Amanda? Is there more?”

  “We’ll see,” she said.

  Meg rolled up her leaf and made a nest for her two eggs. “They’re pretty,” she said.

  “Poor little Meggie,” said Amanda. “Your dress is all shrunk. It’s up to your knees.”

  “So is yours,” said Meg. “You look funny.”

  “We all look funny,” said Jemmy, but no one laughed. They couldn’t laugh yet, thought Amanda. They felt beaten and tired. The sound of the storm was still in their ears.

  XVIII

  The Smallest House

  Now that they were on land, Sir Thomas Gates was their governor. He set them to work.

  The moved away from the harbor where the sun beat down on the sand. They built a village among the trees. Some of the houses were tents. Others were made of rocks, logs, and branches.

  The children helped cut the long leaves from palmetto trees and spread them in the sun. When the leaves were dry they were used to make roofs.

  Governor Gates told Amanda and Jemmy and Meg, “You are to live with the Hopkins family.”

  Mistress Hopkins said to Amanda, “I have my own children to look after. Why must I look after three more?”

  “You needn’t look after us,” said Amanda.

  “I must,” said Mistress Hopkins, “as long as the governor says we are to share our house with you.”

  Amanda went to the governor. “If it please you,” she said, “my brother and sister and I want to live by ourselves.”

  “You must live with someone else,” he said, “until we can build more houses.”

  “We can build our own,” she said.

  “Can you, indeed?”

  “Yes, sir,” she said.

  “Try if you like,” he told her. “You’ll find it not so easy.”

  They cut branches and carried rocks. They began to build their house at the edge of the village, under a cedar tree.

  They put up a wall of sticks, rocks, and mud. When it fell over, people laughed.

  But others came to help. Before many days the house was done. It was the smallest one in the village, but there was room for them to sleep, and there was a place for their sea chest. They were proud of their house. Amanda made a broom of palmetto leaves, and she swept the dirt floor every day.

  Jemmy said, “We’re going to stay here, aren’t we?”

  “No. We’re going to Virginia,” said Amanda.

  “Some of the men say we’re going to stay in Bermuda. They say no one else lives here, and we can have all the land we want and plenty to eat—”

  “We’re not going to stay here,” said Amanda. “The sailors are putting a deck on one of the small boats, and it will sail to Virginia.”

  “How many will that hold?” said Jemmy.

  “We’ll not
all be going,” Amanda told him. “Only a few will go. Then they’ll send a ship back for us.”

  They went down to the bay where men were at work on the small boat. Master Ravens was there. He was a tall man with great arms and a thick neck. He was to be captain of the boat.

  Amanda asked him, “How long will it take you to sail to Virginia?”

  “A week,” he said. “Maybe two.”

  “When you see our father, will you tell him we are safe in Bermuda—Jemmy and Meg and I?”

  “That I will,” he said.

  “His name is James Freebold.”

  “I know,” said Master Ravens. “I’ll not forget.”

  The boat sailed late in August. Amanda was there with the others to wave good-bye. The boat looked so small in the great ocean. It looked so very small.

  XIX

  A Fire at Night

  On a summer evening Amanda and Jemmy and Meg sat outside their doorway. Amanda was sewing a shirt for Jemmy. Meg was making a hat of green palmetto leaves. Jemmy was rubbing the door knocker with a cloth.

  Robert Waters and Chris Carter came by. Barefooted, with their long black beards, they looked like wild men. They stopped for a look at the lion’s head.

  “It was in our chest,” said Jemmy, “and the salt water made spots on it.”

  “Shall I take them off for you?” asked Master Carter.

  “I can do it,” said Jemmy.

  The two men went away, but in a little while Master Waters came back alone. “Do you like palmetto berries?”

  “Yes,” said Jemmy.

  “Do you know the place where the men dug the new well? I saw berries on a tree a little farther on.”

  After Master Waters had gone, Jemmy said, “I’m going to get some berries.”

  “We’ll all go,” said Amanda.

  They walked through the woods. Meg was skipping.

  Amanda asked her, “Where did you learn to skip?”

  “I don’t know,” said Meg. “It just happened to me.”

  They went as far as the new well and a little farther. They found no palmetto berries, but they found something they had never seen before. It was a big, smooth rock with moss on its sides.

  Jemmy climbed up on it and jumped off.

  “I want to jump,” said Meg.