“There is a plot afoot against His Majesty King Charles, and you but yesterday, that being also a day on which it is unlawful to unload a ship, discharged a portion of your cargo, toward its furtherance and abetting,” said I.

“Hell and damnation!” he cried out, “when I trust a woman’s tongue again may I swing from my own yard-arms.  What brought that fair-faced devil into it, anyway?  Be there not men enough in this colony?”

“And you keep not a civil tongue in your head when you speak of Mistress Mary Cavendish; you will find of a surety that there be one man in this colony, sir,” said I.

He laughed in that mocking fashion of his which incensed me still further.  Then he spoke civilly enough, and said that he meant no disrespect to one of the fairest ladies whom he had ever had the good fortune to see, but that it was so well known as to be no more slight in mentioning than the paint and powder wherewith a woman enhanced her beauty, that a woman’s tongue could not be trusted like a man’s, and that it were a pity that money, which were much better spent by her for pretty follies, should be put to such grim uses, and where were the gallants of Virginia that they suffered it, but did not rather empty their own purses?

I explained, being somewhat mollified, and also somewhat of his way of thinking, that men there were, but there was little gold since the Navigation Act.  And I informed Captain Tabor how Mistress Mary Cavendish, having an estate not so heavily charged with expenses as some, and being her own mistress with regard to the disposal of its revenues, had the means which the men lacked.

“But what was the news which brought you thither, sir?” demanded Captain Tabor.

“You know of the plot—­” I begun, but he broke in upon me fiercely.

“May the fiends take me, but what know I of a plot?” he cried.

“Can I not bring over gowns and kerchiefs and silken ribbons for a pretty maid without a plot?  How knew you that?  There is the woman’s tongue again.  But can I not bring over goods even of such sort; might I not with good reason suppose them to be for the defence of the cause of his most gracious Majesty King Charles against the savages, or any malcontents in his colonies?  What plot, sirrah?”

“The plot for the cutting down of the young tobacco plants, Captain Tabor,” said I.

His eyes blazed at me, while his face was pale and grim.

“How many know of the goods I discharged from the Golden Horn yesterday?” he asked.

“Three men, and I know not how many more, and two women,” said I.

“Two women!” he groaned out.  “Pestilence on these tide-waters which hold a ship like a trap!  Two women!”

“But the concern is lest a third woman know,” said I.

“If three women know, then God save us all, for their triple tongues will carry as far as the last trump!” cried Captain Tabor.  Perturbed as he was, he never lost that air of reckless daring which compelled me to a sort of liking for him.  “Out with the rest of it, sir,” he said.