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[Illustration: JOHN VYTAL]


JOHN VYTAL

A Tale of
The Lost Colony

by

WILLIAM FARQUHAR PAYSON


[Illustration]






New York and London
Harper & Brothers Publishers
1901

Copyright, 1901, by Harper & Brothers.

All rights reserved.


    “He was one of a lean body and visage, as if his eager soul,
    biting for anger at the clog of his body, desired to fret a
    passage through it.”

                                                    THOMAS FULLER




Foreword


No epoch in American history is more essentially romantic than that
in which, for a few years, less than one hundred colonists from
England lived on the island of Roanoke, off the coast of old Virginia.
Nevertheless, although the history of our continent, from the landing of
Columbus to the end of the Spanish-American war, has been exhaustively
exploited in fiction, the pages dated 1587-1598 seem to have been
left unturned. Yet the life of the Roanoke colony contained not only
adventure, hazard, and privation in a far greater degree than the maturer
settlements of later years, but also an underlying emblematical element,
and in its end an insoluble riddle. In being thus both _mystical_ and
_mysterious_, it paramountly inspires romance.

The mystery has filled many pages of history, but always as an enigma
without solution. The fate of the colony is utterly unknown, historians
of necessity relegating it to the limbo of oblivion.

Bancroft, for one, concludes his account of the colonization thus:

    “The conjecture has been hazarded [by Lawson and others] that
    the deserted colony, neglected by their own countrymen, were
    hospitably adopted into the tribe of Hatteras Indians, and
    became amalgamated with the sons of the forest. This was the
    tradition of the natives at a later day, and was thought to
    be confirmed by the physical character of the tribe in which
    the English and the Indian race seemed to have been blended.
    Raleigh long cherished the hope of discovering some vestiges
    of their existence, and though he had abandoned the design of
    colonizing Virginia, he yet sent, at his own charge, and, it
    is said, at five several times, to search for his liege-men.
    But it was all in vain; imagination received no help in its
    attempts to trace the fate of the colony of Roanoke.”

Opposing this view, many authorities believe that a massacre occurred by
which many of the English suffered at the hands of hostile savages. In
the ensuing story, however, I have ventured to explain the oblivion of
the colony’s end in a way which I believe has not yet been suggested.

After this preamble I hasten to assure the reader—perhaps already
surfeited with historical novels—that he shall find scarce more of
history in the whole tale following than in the foreword just concluded.
The “manners and customs” also are rigidly suppressed. I have made bold,
though, to use several of the colonists’ names which have been preserved,
but the conception of character is my own.

                                                                 W. F. P.




John Vytal

A Tale of the Lost Colony




Book 1




CHAPTER I

    “… framed of finer mould than common men.”

                    —MARLOWE, in _The Jew of Malta_.


It is not to yesterday that we would take you now, but to a day before
innumerable yesterdays, across the dead sea of Time to a haven mutable
yet immortal. For the Elizabethan era is essentially of the quick,
although its dead have lain entombed for centuries. The world of that
renascent period, alight with the spontaneous fire of intellectual and
passionate life, shines through the space of ages as though then, for the
first time, it had been cast off from a pregnant sun.

Overcoming the remoteness of the epoch by an appreciation of this vivid
reality, we pause at the outset near the great south gate of London
Bridge as it stood three centuries ago.

On a certain April afternoon the massive stones and harsh outlines
served to heighten by contrast the effect of lithe grace and nonchalance
apparent in the figure of a young man, who, leaning lightly against
the barbacan, presented a memorable picture of idleness and ease. Yet
a fleeting expression in the youthful face belied the indolence of
attitude. For in more ways than one “Kind Kyt Marlowe” resembled the
spring-tide, whose tokens of approach he intuitively recognized. His
eyes, usually soft and slumberous with the light of dreams, now and again
shone brilliant like black diamonds. With all his careless incontinence,
he possessed a latent power, a deep, indeterminable force, portending
broad hot days and nights of storm.

His face, mobile dark and passionate, showed an almost alarming
intensity. His brow, lofty but not massive, was surmounted by silken hair
so black as to appear almost purple in the sunlight. He wore no beard,
a small mustache adding to the refinement of his features, save for the
fulness of his lips, which it could not hide. Taken as a whole, his face
was the face of a man who had no common destiny; of a man who would
drain the cup and leave no dregs, be the draught life-elixir or poison;
of a man, in short, who might all but transcend his humanity by the
fulness of life within him, or be suffocated and overwhelmed by the very
superabundance of that life. For there are some seeming to be born with a
double share of vitality, a portion far greater than was meant for man;
and when this vitality, maturing, begins its re-creation, threatening
all feebler forms with a new revolutionary condition, then the error is
apparently discovered and the entire share of life recalled.

Christopher Marlowe was one of these men, but as he leaned against the
Southwark Gate, that afternoon in early life, looking up the High Street
through the gathering dusk, his eyes showed little more than the cheerful
glow of a wood-fire, the mere hint of an unrestrainable flame underlying
their expression.

Soon, however, the poet’s reverie was broken. The afternoon’s
bear-baiting being over, and Southwark’s amphitheatre empty of its
throngs, a number of the earliest to leave were now upon the High Street,
known then as Long Southwark. Seeing them approaching him on their way to
London, Marlowe turned and walked in the same direction.

At the sign of “The Three Bibles” books and broadsides were for sale. It
was this small, antiquated den on London Bridge that the author sought
with the unconscious step of one who follows a familiar way.

He had but just entered the low-studded, gloomy shop, and greeted Paul
Merfin, its owner, when the scabbard of a sword clanked on the threshold,
and a man of great stature, accoutred as a soldier, darkened the doorway.
With no prelude of salutation, the new-comer demanded of Merfin, in a
voice of anxiety, “Tell me, hast seen—?” Then for the first time he
became aware of Marlowe’s presence, and, lowering his heavy tones to a
whisper, finished his query in the bookseller’s ear.

“Nay,” was Merfin’s answer, “I have seen nothing of him.”

The soldier’s face grew yet more uneasy. “Ill fortune!” he exclaimed; “it
is always so,” and he would have left the shop had not Marlowe detained
him.

“Stay,” said the poet, “I could not but hear your question, for your
whisper, sir, being no gentler than a March wind, nips the ear whether we
will or no. So you, I take it, are that giant, Hugh Rouse, who follows
the Wolf. Of you twain I have heard much, and wondered if the tales from
the South were true that told of so great a courage. I have seen the man,
show me now the master.”

“Would, sir, that I could, but I know not where the master is. And who,
may I ask, are you, that show so deep an interest?”

“Not one to be feared,” returned Marlowe, smiling; “an idle poet who has
sung of braver men than his eyes have yet beheld, and would see a man
still braver than the song—Kyt Marlowe, at your service, good my Rouse,”
and so saying, the poet, with a hand through the big soldier’s arm, led
the way from the shop out to the High Street of Southwark. “Had you not
another comrade in the wars, a vagabond of most preposterous paunch and
waddling legs? I have heard that he, too, follows milord, the Wolf.”

“There is such an one,” said Rouse, “but, alack! he also is missing. I
pray you, though, call not our leader ‘Wolf’ again; none save fools and
his enemies so name him.”

“But I have heard that he is ferocious as a wolf, lean and very gray. The
sobriquet is not ill-fitting.”

“Nay,” said the soldier, “in truth it fits most aptly in description of
his looks, for though he is but five-and-thirty, his head and beard are
grizzled, that before were black as night.”

“’Tis not strange,” observed the poet, leading his new acquaintance
toward a favorite hostelry; “campaigning in the South ages many a man
before his time.”

“Ay, but that is not all.”

“What more, then?”

“It is briefly told,” answered the soldier. “His father was sent by her
Majesty, our queen, with messages to Henry of Navarre, in whose army we
two fought side by side. The envoy and his wife, who were passing through
Paris—”

“What!” interrupted the poet, “were _they_ his parents? I had forgot the
story. It was the night when Papists murdered Huguenots, the night of
St. Bartholomew. An Englishman and his wife were slain ere their son, who
had come from the South to warn them, could intervene. He saw his mother
struck down, saw the sword and the bared breast in the glare of a dozen
torches, and saw his father killed, too, after a brief struggle. Then
the youth, who had cut his way nearer to the scene, found himself beset
on all sides by a bristling thicket of steel that no man could divide.
He fell. The Catholics laughed and left him for dead across the bodies
of his parents. But the lad was not so easily undone. He rose, despite
a wound beneath the heart, and, dripping blood, carried the two dead
forms to the Seine, where, in the shadow of the Pont Neuf, he weighted
his burdens with stones and buried them beyond the reach of desecration.
The tale came to me as come so many legends of the wars from nameless
narrators. That youth, then, is—”

“John Vytal,” concluded the soldier, gravely. “He had fought before then
at Jarnac and Moncontour; but now he warred against the Catholics with
redoubled fury. ’Twas through him, I tell you, came the victorious peace
of Beaulieu and Bergerac, and the fall of Cahors.”

“Find me this man!” The words burst from the young poet in a voice of
eager, impetuous command. “I must see him!”

“He was to have been at the ‘Tabard’ two hours since,” returned the
soldier, despondently, “but came not.”

“Then let us return thither and wait for him a year, if need be. He will
come at last, ’tis sure.”

The narrow way on the bridge near by was now choked with its evening
throngs, and, as daylight began to fade, a babble of many tongues rose
and fell in the streets of Southwark, with which the creaking song of
tavern signs, aswing in the evening breeze, blent an invitation to
innumerable stragglers from the bear-fight.

“Eh, now,” said Rouse to one of these who joined him, “do you honor the
‘Spurre,’ Tom Watkins, or the ‘King’s Head’?”

“Nay, neither, Hugh; they lack that mustiness and age which make the
inn. For this there’s none like the ‘Tabard,’ that being a most ancient
hostel. D’ye know what ‘Tabard’ is?”

“Nay, poorly; some kind o’ garment, I’ve heard.”

“It is, Hugh; a jacket with no sleeves, slit down from the armpits and
winged on the shoulders. Thou’lt see it on the tavern sign. Only the
heralds wear the things to-day, and call ’em coats-of-arms in service.
Now, d’ye see, it’s meet that I, a breeches-maker, should mind me of
other attire as well, and not go breast-bare about the town. So, Hugh
Rouse, I make my breeches by day, and I put on my tabard by night, thank
the Lord, and I’m a well-arrayed coxcomb, ye’ll allow. But here we are;
get you in.”

The speaker, a thin fellow of middle age and height, laughed over this
oft-repeated joke till his sallow face looked like a tangle of his
own leathern thongs, showing all its premature wrinkles, and his bent
shoulders shook convulsively; yet there was no sound in the laughter save
a kind of whispered crackle like the tearing of stiff paper.

On entering the inn, Marlowe and the soldier sought an obscure corner,
but Thomas Watkins, the breeches-maker, being a character of no small
popularity among the worthies of the borough, and one who had the
commiseration of many, for good and sufficient reasons, seeing the
tap-room already well filled, remarked thereon to the host, after his
usual manner of forced joviality. “How now, have I allowed myself to
be forestalled and beaten in our race from the gardens to your spigot?”
He surveyed the tables, with their dice-boxes, cards, and foaming cups,
feigning an astonished air. Several of the guests looked up at him,
laughing, with a certain indulgent, almost pitying, amusement. Simon
Groat, the tavern-keeper, smiled, too, in fat good-humor.

“’Tis not often so,” he returned; “you know the saying, Thomas, that the
breeches you make yourself are unusual easy for quick running to the
tavern, and uncommon broad and thick in the seat, that you may sit on our
ale-bench by the hour with small wear to them.” The crowd laughed yet
more heartily at this, though many had heard the same stock jest before.
“But now, to tell truth, Tom, ye’re the very first from the gardens.”
He lowered his voice. “These be soldiers, as you see. Some arrived at
Portsmouth from the Low Countries last month, and already must sally
forth again, most madly, methinks, on the perilous Virginia voyage.”

The breeches-maker glanced about him for the first time with a close
attention to the room’s occupants. For the most part they were unknown
to him, several wearing the unmistakable air of fighting men. But his
scrutiny was suddenly interrupted by the entrance of others more familiar
in appearance. Leading the new arrivals into the tap-room came a short,
nervous man, very thin both of body and voice. As he saw Watkins,
his face, which had been eager, showed disappointment. “Faugh!” he
ejaculated, turning to Groat; “Tom’s told you.”

The host looked as surprised as a very bland, corpulent person can. “Nay,
Peter, what’s he told me?”

The expression of Peter Sharp, needle-maker by trade, news-monger by
preference, grew eager again. “That’s like Tom,” he declared. “Some
observation concerning the ale-tap instead of a good story, I’ll
warrant.” He turned to his fellow-guests, with the exception of those who
had entered behind him. “Were none of ye there,” he asked, “to see a most
astounding bear-baiting?”

The soldiers looked up with interest from their games. Marlowe and Rouse
in particular showed a keen attention to the speaker. “Alack!” whispered
Rouse, “I knew he’d do it.” But his companion, all ears for what was
coming, made a cautious gesture commanding silence, and said nothing.

“This is how it happened,” began the needle-maker, now sure of an
attentive audience. “First, Old Sarcason—by Heaven, the gamest bear,
as I thought, that ever entered ring!—came badly off. The wards must
needs grab every dog’s tail and pull it might and main to hold them
back from killing him. But Harry Hunks gave better fight, and nearly
hugged a mastiff pup to death. And Little Bess of Bromley, too—ye should
have seen her punish Queen Elgifa, a noble slut in her day. I’ve rarely
seen so great sport at public baiting; but Bruin and his wards were on
their mettle. The French ambassador was there. At the end they had a
new pastime in store for us. And here came the trouble. Leading a small
brute—him they call King Lud—faith, little more than cub, but strong as
iron and uncommon savage, being a son of Old Sarcason and Little Bess—out
they come with him, and blind his eyes. Then, tying him fast to the post,
they flog his hide, each with a leathern whip, till the blood runs.[1]
Whereat down jumps from a seat near the ring a man we knew not, tall and
travel-stained, and says that they should stop their ‘wanton sport.’ And
following him into the ring jumps a clownish fellow of low stature and
round paunch, like a stage jester in appearance. They both carried arms,
the first a rapier, the mountebank a broadsword half his own length. We
thought, then, it was all arranged, some new-conceived buffoonery to
finish the baiting. Quick as can be, the two, with drawn swords, went
forward and untied the bear, about whose back a lash still whistled. ‘Tie
him up,’ says the tall man, pointing to one of the floggers. And suddenly
’twas done before we knew it. There stood Sir Knight of the Whip tied
to the post in place of King Lud, and writhing most horribly, while the
pot-bellied little clown danced about him, plying the self-same lash for
dear life. In the mean time the other—of high station, I take it, despite
his weather-worn garb—calmly unblinds the bear and turns him toward
the sight at the whipping-post. The wards stood speechless, for Master
Long-man held his rapier ready, and a pistol stuck out at his belt.”

The needle-maker paused for breath, and, having a certain dramatic
instinct, called for a flagon of ale, in order to postpone his climax.
The other inmates of the tavern now listened to the nervous little
storyteller with keen interest and some excitement. The pair in a corner
waited breathlessly for the end. From time to time as the narrative had
proceeded the bigger of the two could scarcely suppress his agitation,
but, being restrained by Marlowe, he managed to voice the alarm he felt
by no more than some occasional smothered ejaculation, such as, “I knew
he’d do it!” or, “In troth, he was ever thus!”

“But the most astonishing incident is yet to come,” resumed Peter Sharp,
wiping the ale-foam from his lips. “No sooner did King Lud see what
was going forward than along he shambled slowly toward the clownish
fellow, and, standing up on his hind legs, put a great paw on each of the
little man’s shoulders, and looked at him in a most friendly way as dogs
do. Whereat the mountebank dropped his whip and spoke to his superior
officer, as I took the other to be. Then Sir Soldier, drawing out a fat
purse and turning to the Master of the Sports, who was even now coming
into the ring in great dismay, nodded and delivered the purse into his
hands. At that the stout retainer made a comical bow to all the people
around the ring, as who should say, ‘I hope we have amused you,’ and,
leading King Lud by his chain, calmly walked out of the arena. From this
we felt all the more sure that it had been part of the performance. But
I could not believe that the angry and amazed looks of him who had been
flogged in Bruin’s place, and of the wards, were feigned. Moreover,
when the tall man left, he says to us all: ‘Call ye yourselves men and
watch such sports as these? Get ye to your kennels with the other dogs.’
Whereupon he, too, walked from the ring slowly. It was all done with
such despatch by him, and such a ready wit by his servant, that they
befooled us utterly. Thinking it a comicality, no man in all the audience
took action, and the few below us in the ring, being so terrified and
bewildered by the sudden remonstrance and show of arms, stood dumfounded.
But even then, I think, they might have regained their senses in time
to send the twain to jail had not the Master of the Sports advised
against pursuit, being, as I believe, well requited for King Lud and not
unfamiliar with his purchaser.”

The needle-maker raised his cup and drank deep, while a buzz of
conversation began about him. A look of unspeakable relief had come to
the faces of the soldier and the poet in the corner.

Toward this pair the eyes of a group across the room were frequently
directed. Among the latter company one figure was particularly
noticeable, being that of a very young man, of medium size, bearing
himself not ungracefully, and wearing a riding-cloak thrown off over
one shoulder above an inconspicuous doublet of dark red satin, which,
together with his silken hose and velvet, befeathered hat, revealed the
civilian. The man nearest to him, many years his senior, was, by name,
Sir Walter St. Magil; by profession, unmistakably a soldier. He, too, was
of medium height and aristocratic carriage, though with a face rendered
exceedingly ill-appearing by a cast in one of his eyes which drew the
pupil so far in toward the nose as to leave but a half of it visible.

As the needle-maker concluded his tale this man smiled knowingly, and the
smile had more of meaning in it than of mirth or pleasantness. “There
is but one,” he said, that all might hear him—“but one with a brain so
addled as to be capable of such folly. And that man, my masters, is none
other than John—”

But the sentence died on his tongue, half spoken. For Hugh Rouse, who
until now had taken no part in the general conversation, came forward
from his corner like a great mastiff from its kennel.

“Nay, Sir Walter,” he objected, “I pray you make no mention of the man’s
name; it will do no good.”

For an instant the other’s brow clouded, but, controlling himself with
ease, he returned, suavely: “Oh, an you, as the man’s friend, desire it,
I keep silence. Ne’ertheless, fool, I call him, name or no name, thus to
interrupt a bear-baiting.”

Little satisfied with this forbearance, Hugh, whose honest face had been
for the moment almost threatening, reluctantly resumed his seat in
the corner near Marlowe. “Ah, Hugh Rouse,” observed the latter, in an
undertone, “your name neatly fits its owner. But you did well.”

In the mean time, Sir Walter St. Magil, whose remarks had been so
unceremoniously interrupted by Rouse, was talking in a low voice with his
young companion. “The man,” he said, so low that none but the immediate
listener could hear him, “is Vytal—John Vytal. We’ve fought together in
the Low Countries, but—” and here his voice sank to a whisper, while he
glanced furtively about him, “he’s not one of _our_ men.”

“Nay, I supposed not,” rejoined the young man, in a careless voice,
contrasting strongly with his elder’s caution; “therefore, why consult
this fellow’s pleasure?”

“Because we might but stir up mischief by opposing the brawling giant.
Well I know him, for he is Vytal’s follower. As I live, the man has but
few friends, yet those few would die for him.”

“Some day the opportunity may be theirs,” observed the other, smiling
almost boyishly.

“Yes,” assented St. Magil, in a grimmer tone, “but now we must have
patience. For the moment let us guard Vytal’s name as carefully as we
conceal your own. Which reminds me—I’d almost forgot—what name dost go by
now?”

“’Tis ‘Frazer’; but give heed! That tale of bear-flogging has set these
louts at odds.”

He spoke truth, for Peter Sharp, the needle-maker, now not over-steady,
thanks to the never-idle tapster, was indulging in an argument with
Watkins, the breeches-maker, concerning his favorite entertainment.
Entering with them into the discussion, though with less volubility
and heat, were Samuel Gorm, a bear-ward, and Alleyn, a young actor of
plays and interludes. It was not, however, until Peter expressed the
astonishing opinion that “none save a fool would enter a play-house,
whereas, every man worthy of the name was at one time or another to be
seen in the Paris Gardens,” that Hugh Rouse rushed into the argument in
his customary reckless manner.

“Hast been,” he asked, vehemently, “to the ‘Curten’ and seen Master
Alleyn, here, go through his acting? ’Sdein! The smell of powder, the
sight of a musketoon, the glisten of pikes—and what not?—oh, they
befool me finely!” The soldier turned to Marlowe, his broad face
red with enthusiasm to the roots of his flaxen hair. “It befools me
finely,” he repeated. “I remember real rage and blows. Hand goes to hilt
instinctively. Now, in this new invention writ by you, Master Marlowe,
there is good cause for excitation.” He paused, and, draining his cup,
glanced at the actor. “I’faith, Alleyn, when you trod on Bajazeth’s neck
to mount his throne, I stood there, too. When you caged the caitiff, I
baited him betwixt the bars. When ye fought with him, I cried, ‘Couragio!
Bravo! Tamburlaine! Well thrust!’ and when you conquered, ‘Thank God!’
says I, ‘’twas most brave work. There’s no blade in Spain or England
can send a knave so quick to hell.’ And that was but a play called
‘Tamburlaine,’ Master Alleyn, all conceived by Marlowe and thee—a pen and
a sword together.”

Hearing Rouse thus expatiate on the wonders of the drama, the youthful
civilian, then known as Frazer, seemed to catch the somewhat turbulent
manner of the soldier, and retorted with a sneer of mingled patronage
and amusement: “Ay, my good Pike-trailer, you may be thus easily gulled,
being of so hot a nature, but we, the less fiery, see through the
play-actor’s pretensions.” To this Rouse made no response, having, in
truth, an unready wit, and a tongue that, as he occasionally realized,
was quick enough to embroil him in controversy, but slow to rescue him
therefrom with the preservation of an honorable peace. Marlowe, on the
other hand, was naturally far less clumsy in wordy wars, and stood
willing to espouse his new friend’s cause in an argument which he, as
playwright, was so well fitted to maintain.

“How now,” said he to Frazer, “would not a soldier be the first to cry
out against mere mimicry of that he holds most noble?”

“Indeed, Master Poet,” returned Frazer, with an expression less haughty,
but none the less amused, as he turned to his new opponent, “I know
not, being unfamiliar with men-at-arms; yet I still maintain that the
contest being real, as in a bear-fight, the excitement to the majority
is greater. The play is but an imitation, and many actors, with all
deference to you, Master Alleyn, no more than strutting mimics. I’ve
seen stage kings, upon their exits from the inn-yards of their mighty
conquests, go home as shambling hovellers. I’ve seen mock heroes, who
erstwhile have trailed their pikes and rung their rowels to the tune of
Spanish oaths, go white as death at sight of poniard drawn in earnest.
But bear-baiting is real. The bear’s a bear, the dog a dog. They know
none other rôle than this—to fight to kill, and not for plaudits. Roar,
growl, slobber, grasp of shaggy arms, clinch of naked teeth—by all the
gods, these things are real! Here, Jack Tapster, another flagon to the
bear!”

For a moment there was silence following the outburst of enthusiasm.
This young Frazer had not a little dash of the reckless, roystering
sort, causing the audience to forget his sinister companion, looking
on askance with that eye which lay half behind his nose as though in an
effort to hide itself from those who might be capable of reading its real
expression. The tap-room’s occupants were strongly influenced by what
they deemed an eloquent description of their favorite sport. But Marlowe
was one of the few who saw deeper.

“Even so,” said he, with a sudden outburst of young conceit. “There’s
more than battle in my ‘Tamburlaine.’ There’s love, parentage, death
in the play. Each day I feel most miserable when Zenocrate expires.
A bear dies—that is but the death of a bear. Zenocrate’s death is a
queen’s demise—a scene—a picture—call it what you will—’tis art, and in
bear-baiting, I tell you, there is no art.”

“Ay, Marlowe,” observed Rouse, “excellent well said. I cannot find words
as thou canst.”

“Art!” exclaimed Frazer, “art! Is that a paint-brush in thy dainty
scabbard, Sir Poet?” And again he laughed with a curiously boyish
merriment.

“Ay,” returned Marlowe, “and its crimson color grows dim. The paint-brush
would fain find a palette to mix on and daub afresh, Master Princox.”

“A _palate_!” ejaculated Frazer, laughing with genuine mirth; “that
sheath must hold an axe then. It’s by the palate wine goes to the
stomach, and an axe, so I’ve heard, to the block.”

“Ha, but thy wit,” rejoined Marlowe, “‘wol out,’ as Geoffrey Chaucer
said. Nay, though, perhaps it is because you watch fearfully the doings
near block and gallows that you know so well their manners. Wit—foh! It
is easy to play the game of words as Tarlton does. I call it but juggling
phrases, and robbing language of its meaning, as a vagabond juggles
stolen coin.”

“Ay, juggles phrases,” echoed Rouse, with admiration.

“But we’ll see a nobler conjury,” pursued Marlowe, upon whose hot blood
the insolent bearing of Frazer was having its effect. “The artist’s brush
shall paint the juggler’s tongue a deeper red—the—” The poet’s threat,
however, uttered while he rose and drew his sword, was interrupted
by Simon Groat, the host, who came forward with hands uplifted in
expostulation.

“Gogsnouns!” he exclaimed. “Not so, my worshipful guests. Take ye the
‘Tabard’ for a tilt-yard? Nay, nay—I pray you—here, tapster, a quietus
for all—open the ale-tap wide. Free flagons, gentles, an it please you
to wait and drain them. You’ll find more space without—down by the
bridge-house there is room for—”

And now Sir Walter St. Magil, the apparent adviser of young Frazer, lent
his aid to Simon Groat in calming the turbulent disputants. “Ay, Master
Frazer,” said he, “respect thine host—the quarrel’s idle, gentlemen, if
you’ll permit me.”

“But the swords,” declared Marlowe, “shall not be.”

“Nay,” cried Frazer, in whose veins the Canary wine ran riotous. “Your
artist’s brush would fain paint—”

“Fool!” roared Rouse, “you’ll pay high for the picture,” and so saying
the big fellow pushed aside tables and chairs, while Marlowe stood on
guard with rapier drawn. But at this instant, in a window behind Frazer,
yet plainly visible to Rouse and Marlowe, the face of a man appeared.

“Fools all!” he said, in a voice that clipped words and shot them from
him like bullets. “Sots! Ye’re the bears! Why this babble of plays, when
you only enact a bear-baiting yourselves, and that poorly? ’Twere nobler
to be a bear or bull-dog than an ass.” Whereat, as suddenly as it had
come, the face of the speaker disappeared from the tap-room window.

Marlowe and Rouse turned one to another in the silence of astonishment.
And the name on the lips of both men, although they gave it not even a
whispered utterance, was “Vytal.”




CHAPTER II

    “Our swords shall play the orator for us.”

                         —MARLOWE, in _Tamburlaine_.


It would be difficult adequately to describe the expressions of
amazement, in face and gesture, of those who had had this fearless
effrontery thrown at them. Its effect on Marlowe and Rouse was
instantaneous. Both went back immediately to the table they had quitted,
refraining from any further show of fight. The youth called Frazer was
the first to speak.

“Who’s the insolent fellow?”

“If I should fetch him,” observed St. Magil, as no answer was
forthcoming, “you would see a most extraordinary man.” He went to the
window. “Nay, he’s gone. ’Tis always thus—up and down from hell’s mouth
like the devil in the play. But I can describe that face as though even
now it was here before me, and, mark you, I saw it not when its mouth
defied us at the window. He is well called the Wolf.”

“Nay,” interposed the poet, “save because many fear him. I drink to the
man!” and Marlowe turned to Rouse.

“To the man I follow!” said the good Hugh, simply; and they drank. But
the cups of Frazer and St. Magil for once stood untouched upon the table.

Before the conversation had gone further the tap-room door opened,
admitting a short, stout woman of middle age and rubicund visage.
Glancing quickly about from one to another, her eyes at length rested
on Thomas Watkins, who, having had his usually prominent place in the
tavern gossip usurped by those of higher degree, and holding no small
measure of ale within him, sat fast asleep and snoring. The sight of the
breeches-maker in this position so enraged the new-comer that she awoke
him by the startling method of boxing his ears soundly, and commanding
him to follow her without delay. With a pained air, yet much alacrity,
the poor leather-seller obeyed his orders. It was, indeed, his life-long
obedience to his wife’s decrees that won him the pity of his fellow-men.

“There’s a customer at the shop, Tom Sot,” declared the shrew, leading
her husband to the bridge, “who wants you. And lucky we are if he be
honest, for I must needs leave him there to guard it while I come here
and get you. But Sloth’s your name, and always will be. Had ever woman
such a lazy clod to depend on?”

Thus she railed at the now miserable Watkins until they came to their
shop at the sign of “The Roebuck,” on London Bridge. Finding it empty,
the breeches-maker, with much alarm, looked up and down the street
through the gathering darkness. The narrow way on the bridge was almost
deserted save for a watchman slowly approaching from the London end with
horn-sided lanthorn, and halberd in hand, who cried out monotonously his
song of the familiar burden:

    “Lanthorn and a whole candle-light!
    Hang out your lights! Hear!”

And just across the bridge stood another man near the parapet, his tall
frame sharply defined against the sky. It was to him that Watkins went
in the hope of obtaining information concerning his departed customer.

“Can you tell me, sir, did any man just leave my shop at the sign of ‘The
Roebuck’ there?”

“A man did,” replied the stranger. “I am he.”

“And you were left to guard it, sir, in Gammer Watkins’s absence,”
complained the breeches-maker.

“I have guarded it. ’Twas but five minutes ago that I came out, and
I’ve kept a close eye upon your doorway through every one of those five
minutes. I tell you, Thomas, the time that has passed since I went out of
your shop with a new pair of breeches is much longer.”

The leather-seller looked up keenly into the speaker’s face. “Salt and
bread!” he exclaimed; “’tis Master Vytal!”

“Yes, Tom, or Captain Vytal, as you will, being now a fighting man from
the Low Countries.”

“Oh, sir, your presence brings me pleasure and consolation, I may say.
How the times have changed in these few years—within, sir, and without!
Have you heard about Queen Mary, how we have been delivered from her
plots these two months past in a very, I may say, forcible way? Have you
heard—?”

“Ay, Tom, all that, and more, too, on the road from the coast. But one
thing I have not heard—how long will it take you to make me a pair of
breeches?”

“But a short time, _Captain_ Vytal. I was ever handy and quick with work
for you.”

“And so, Tom, I have come back to you.”

“Ay, sir, but, alack!—the old days cannot come back. There are many,
many changes since the good old times. The world, it seems to me, grows
petty.”

“What! call you it petty when a queen comes to the block?”

“Nay, but look you, Captain Vytal.” He pointed to the top of the
Southwark Gate. “See those heads spiked above us. They be thirty in
number, yet all are but the pates of seminary priests who have entered
England against the statute. Now this old bridge has had much nobler
heads upon it, crowning the traitor’s gate. The head of Sir William
Wallace looked down on the river long ago, and later the Earl of
Northumberland’s. Some I have seen—Sir Thomas More’s, the Bishop of
Rochester’s—”

“By Heaven!” broke in Vytal, “you are in no pleasant mood, Tom, on seeing
me.”

“’Tis not you, captain. ’Tis”—his voice sank lower—“she,” and he pointed
toward his shop. “Have you a wife yourself?”

“Nay, Tom, nor never shall have.”

“’Tis well. The thousand new statutes that are imposed upon us by her
Majesty, the queen—God preserve her!—since you left, are not one whit
so hard to bear as them her majesty—God preserve _me_!—Gammer Watkins,
imposes.”

“There are two sides to every difference, Tom. Now, a little less at the
‘Tabard’—but tell me, do the citizens grow uneasy beneath these numerous
decrees?”

“Nay; many are but slight annoyances seldom put in force. The wearing of
a rapier longer than three feet is forbidden _by law_; the wearing of a
woman’s ruff too large is prohibited _by law_. And our caps should be of
cheaper stuff than velvet _by law_, and we must not blow upon horns or
whistles in the streets _by law_—’uds precious, there is no end to it.
But there is no statute against the flogging of blinded bears, captain—I
had almost forgot this afternoon’s exploit of thine. I saw it not, for
when they had brought King Lud to such a pass I could not sit there, but
went to the bear-house in the garden to show a country lad Old Sarcason
at closer quarters. Yet I might have known it was you when Peter Sharp
described the adventure.”

Vytal laughed. “I’m sorry you so soon forgot. I meant the thing to be a
lasting lesson. But come, I want a pair of breeches. I go again abroad,
but westward now, to the new country.”

They walked across to the shop. “I fear,” said Watkins, his voice sinking
to a whisper, “you should not tarry long. Those bear-wards will not
readily forgive you.”

“Now, Thomas, what has that to do with breeches?”

“Nothing, indeed,” returned the leather-seller, with a dry, crisp laugh.
“Oh, but you never change, Master Vytal.”

They were but just within the shop when the needle-maker came hurrying to
the bridge excitedly, with young Frazer, Marlowe, Alleyn the actor, Gorm,
and a dozen others at his heels, St. Magil slowly following in the rear.

“They seek the jackanapes who dared to curse them from the window,” said
Peter Sharp. “’Tis he, they say, that spoiled the bear-fight. His man,
Rouse, hath started out in search, and they, being no more threatened by
the giant, are bent on scouring the town. Oh, ’twill be brave sport to
see the Wolf well harried.” The needle-maker looked keenly at Watkins,
behind whom Vytal, unknowingly, stood concealed by the shadows of the
shop.

Watkins forced a laugh. “Ay, brave sport,” said he; “but ’tis not to the
town he’s gone; he hath started out toward Lambeth.”

“Toward Lambeth!” cried young Frazer, who by now stood face to face with
Watkins. “Ho, for Lambeth, then; but first let us stop and invite the
bear-wards thither. ’Tis in part their right to end the quarrel.”

Here, perhaps, the danger would have been averted had not a new quarrel
arisen of far more serious consequence, and, indeed, so fraught with
import that, although but incidental, we recognize it as one of those
contentions in which the very Fates themselves, seeming to join, brawl
like shrews until their thread is snarled and the whole fabric of a human
life becomes a hopeless tangle.

As Watkins closed the door of his shop, Sir Walter St. Magil turned
back toward the ‘Tabard’ in ugly mood. The wine, which at first had
exhilarated him, being now soured by his disapproval of Frazer’s
rashness, only added to his ill-humor. Young Frazer, on the other
hand, who walked beside him, had grown merrier and even less cautious
than before. Now that the Canary wine had fired his brain, other
considerations were cast aside, all policy forgotten. The air of
refinement and courtliness which, being so well assumed, had previously
seemed genuine, left him suddenly. He became but an ill-bred roysterer,
singing, as he started back, various catches of ribald songs, while Gorm,
the bear-ward, arm-in-arm with Peter Sharp, followed not over-steadily,
and several other tipplers, who, from their windows in the bridge houses,
had seen the gathering before Watkins’s leather-shop, hurried out to
bring up the rear with a chorus of vulgar jesting.

At the Southwark Gate Peter Sharp, the needle-maker, who by now was
leading the motley throng with an apish dance, having caught the
spirit of hilarity, came to a stand-still and turned to the bear-ward,
who was shambling after him as steadily as his bandy legs and tipsy
condition would allow. “’S bodikin!” he exclaimed. “Now tell me, jovial
Bruin-baiter, didst ever see so remarkable a sight?” He pointed ahead of
him to a young girl approaching the gateway on the High Street, escorted
by a man who was evidently her servant. “Here’s a wench with a ruff,
indeed!”

The girl of whom he spoke was now within the scope of the light cast by a
number of lanthorns the revellers were carrying. Seeing them, and hearing
the needle-maker’s rude observation, she hesitated timidly; then, bidding
her servant follow her, turned toward a side street, with the evident
intention of escaping insult by taking barge across the Thames from the
nearest water-gate.

“A ruff that wears a wench, I should say,” corrected Frazer.

“Yes, and by donning such extreme attire,” declared the needle-maker,
assuming an air of official importance, “she breaks the queen’s decree.
It is but the duty of all good citizens like myself to stop these
outlandish practices. Do you detain her, Gorm, while I fetch shears
and cut the thing as the law demands.” Whereupon the mischievous Peter
ran back quickly, and Gorm, with a coarse oath, staggered forward to
intercept the girl.

“Yes, a ruff that wears a wench,” repeated Frazer, evidently pleased with
his own facetiousness.

“Let be,” commanded St. Magil, and would have passed on but for his
youthful comrade, who, pushing the bear-ward aside, laid hold on the
girl’s arm, and, taking a lanthorn from one of the by-standers, held
it before her face. At this her servant drew his sword and rushed upon
Frazer savagely. But a steady rapier-point, unseen in the dark, met him
full in the breast, so that he fell forward groaning, and the weapon was
with difficulty withdrawn.

“Nay, now, Sir Walter,” said Frazer, laughing as though nothing had
happened, “this is no wench and ruff, but rather a flower, I should
say, whose outer petals, drooping, form a collarette about its budding
centre. It is, indeed, well to cut the petals. I shall keep them as a
token;” and, leaning forward, he would have kissed the girl full upon the
lips, but she stepped back quickly, with her face behind her upraised
arm, and tried to elude his grasp. “Is there not _one_ gentleman?”
she cried; and then, in answer, a voice above all the laughter said,
sharply, “Yes, one.” It was Vytal. A few strides had brought him from the
breeches-maker’s shop to the gateway, only the lodge of the bridge porter
standing between “The Roebuck” and Long Southwark.

The girl now stood immediately beneath the great stone arch of the gate,
her eyes flashing in the lanthorn-light. For one instant Vytal looked at
her, and the light fell on his face, too. “My God!” he whispered; “it is
you, come to me at last!” But whatever expression his face wore then, it
meant only one thing to the crowd who watched it, particularly to the
bear-ward, who had been suddenly sobered by the adventure, and to the
needle-maker, who had returned, long shears in hand.

“’Tis the very knave we seek!” exclaimed the two, in a voice of
astonishment. “Yes,” added Gorm, “and now for the reckoning.” So saying,
he ran heavily away toward the river and along its bank to the Paris
Garden.

“Ay, ’fore Gad!” ejaculated Frazer; “but there are other debts to pay.”

“One moment,” said the soldier; whereupon, leading the girl by the hand,
he took her back to Watkins’s leather-shop, and without another word
ushered her across the threshold. Standing then before the doorway by
which she had entered, Vytal drew his rapier, while Frazer, throwing his
riding-cloak to St. Magil, who saw with annoyance that a grave quarrel
was now inevitable, came forward, with ease and grace regained, for the
fracas had sobered him, too, and sober, he appeared, as we have said,
a gentleman. His peculiarly boyish and almost innocent face, with its
beardless chin and compressed lips, showed valor and determination, to
which the ever-amused, patronizing look of his eyes added a certain
bantering expression.

The crowd, whose numbers were steadily increasing, stood concentrated to
one side near the Southwark Gate, giving the combatants as wide a berth
as the bridge afforded between its double file of buildings. St. Magil
held the on-lookers back, his own rapier drawn in case of interference.
But at present there seemed to be small chance of this, for Hugh Rouse
was beyond earshot, and Watkins, who alone in the crowd espoused the
captain’s cause, could do naught but argue his case in the deaf ears
of the by-standers. The leather-seller’s sallow face grew paler, for
although he had no doubts as to the ability of Vytal’s sword-arm, he had
seen the hasty departure of Gorm, and knew its meaning. Unfortunately
Alleyn, who might have been of assistance in case of need, had left at
the first signs of bad blood, being a peaceable man by nature. We should
mention, however, in addition to Watkins, as exceptions to the general
ill-feeling, two men who watched the scene with a partial interest. These
were Merfin, the bookseller, and Marlowe, who stood across the street
under the sign of “The Three Bibles.” The young poet was looking at Vytal
with eyes aflame, for suddenly the great martial heroism of his dramas
had become corporate and vivid in this man. It did not occur to him to
interfere, as, breathless, he watched the fight. The conclusion of the
contest was foregone in his mind, and only the dramatic element intensely
absorbing.

“Now, _couragio_! my brave world-reformer!” cried Frazer. “I will show
you that civilians are not all dullards at the art of fence. But before
we cross I’d have you remember that I could send you before a justice an
I would. There’s a statute against ruffs that are too big, and, in troth,
still another against rapiers over-long. Now yours, Master Vytal, is one
of these.”

At this the excited Peter Sharp, who must needs have his say when
the occasion offered, cried out from his position in the front rank
of the audience: “Nay, ’tis a mere bodkin, and I should know, being
needle-maker; but you will prove it, I doubt not.”

“Dolt!” rejoined Frazer, turning to Peter and the rest, “I meant that not
so literally. Mark you, all rapiers are too long, an they play against
the queen’s decrees, be they bodkins or the length of quarter-staffs.”
And, looking at St. Magil, he smiled.

“Now, meddler,” resumed Frazer, turning back to Vytal, who maintained his
guard in silence, “I’ll teach you the _stoccata_, as ’tis done before
the queen. The _stoccata_—’tis thus!” Whereat the youth, with a quick
wrist, thrust skilfully. But his blade was parried with apparent ease.
“’Slid!” he exclaimed, betraying himself yet more the braggart, as he
realized the dexterity of Vytal, nevertheless a brave braggart, which
is an uncommon combination. “Body o’ Cæsar! but you know the special
rules! Now this, for instance, the _imbroccata_,” and he thrust again
more viciously in tierce. For several minutes the rapiers crossed and
recrossed, quick, slender gleams dancing in the lanthorn-light. “And
this, the _punto_,” said Frazer, still persisting in his rôle of master,
while Vytal, more than ten years his senior, spoke no word, but only
fenced and fenced, controlling the other’s point and awaiting
an opening. “And the _reverso_—there—there—there again, and the
_passada_—thus—’Slud! the bodkin stitches quickly—the tool’s full of
tricks—God! I’m undone—”

But no, for at this instant the rapier of St. Magil came darting forward
like a snake to parry the thrust from his friend’s breast, and now it was
two, side by side, against the one who held the doorway. The crowd stood
breathless, spellbound. Never had they seen such play of weapons.

Vytal drew a dagger with his left hand; his antagonists instantly
responded. But he was willing to risk that, considering the increase
of his own advantage greater than the addition to theirs. And now the
rapiers played, with an under meaning, as it were, in the vicious
poniards. Here was a contest between men who knew the art, and lived by
it, and could live by naught else now but a successful practice of their
knowledge. Up and down, to and fro, the rapiers made their way, now fast,
now slower, like silver moon-rays on the river below, while hither and
thither, prying about for an open spot, the flat poniards ran with far
more venom though less grace.

And still Vytal held his ground, even gaining at the last, for St. Magil
breathed heavily, and the youth beside him had gone white as death.

But it was then that several new-comers, led by Gorm, the bear-ward,
entered the bridge street by the Southwark Gate. Having broadswords
ready drawn and curses on their lips for Vytal, their intention was
evident. One the people recognized as him who had been flogged instead
of the blinded bear he had been flogging. Their onrush against the
soldier, however, was delayed for an instant by the sight of the furious
fight before them. On seeing them, Vytal’s face grew graver. “Curs!” he
muttered, and then, in a voice just loud enough to rise above the clash
of steel, “Watkins, seek Rouse!—the ‘Tabard!’”

At this, the breeches-maker, upbraiding himself for his demented
negligence, strove to break through the throng, but could not. In
despair, he groaned aloud. Just then, however, Vytal found Frazer’s hilt
with his rapier-point, and, maintaining his guard for the instant with
dagger alone, threw the weapon high in air, and across the street, where
it fell, ringing, at the feet of Christopher Marlowe. And Vytal’s voice
rose above the clamor of invective in a short, sharp cry: “Hugh! Roger!
To me!” For the bear-wards from the garden were now opposing his rapier
with their heavy blades. Yet he still held the door, rendering entrance
to the breeches-maker’s shop and to the girl within it as difficult as
ever. He heard a voice from across the threshold imploring him to save
himself, if he could, by leaving the shop-door—and that low voice, coming
to him from behind the barrier, then again from an upper window, where
the girl watched with wonder his gallant defence of her, only nerved his
arm to the more strenuous endeavor.

We have said that the rapier of which Vytal had deprived Frazer fell at
the feet of Marlowe. It came like an invitation to him—almost a command.
Similarly inspiration had come more than once to fire his genius and
kindle the flame that irradiated his poetry, but here for the first time
inspiration shone to show him another outlet for his ardor; the lustre
of mere portrayal paled before the forked lightning of those swords at
work, while his thoughts, at first suggesting some future depiction of
the scene, gave way to hot impulse. His blood ran riotously in his veins,
and as he leaped forward to Vytal’s side with Frazer’s rapier ready, all
his art was the art of fence, all his spirit the spirit of action.

But his opportune aid, though immediately appreciable in holding back the
soldier’s assailants, was soon diverted by the latter to another course.

“Quick!” said Vytal, in a low voice. “Go you in by the door behind us.
Up—” his words came disjointedly, being broken by some extra-hazardous
thrust or parry demanding unusual attention—“up, there—through the
shop—ah, they almost had you—control his point another minute—take her
with you through the porter’s lodge—it can be done—quick!—and then
whither she will—to some place—of safety—but remember the place—meet me
at the ‘Tabard’ later.”

“Meet you!” ejaculated Marlowe, still with eyes on every movement of the
adversaries. “No man could hold out singly—against—this army. I came to
save your life—not for some intrigue.”

“An you call it that,” returned Vytal, who was now pressed closer than
ever by St. Magil, Frazer, and the cursing bear-wards, “’twere better—to
fight against me! Could you defend the door, I’d go myself—quick!—the
game fails us—Save her—’tis what I fight for—see—ah, they have us; we’re
lost an you tarry longer—quick—quick, into the shop—” and with that,
Vytal, assuming a more aggressive method than hitherto, so drove back his
opponents, by the sheer determination and boldness of his attack, that
Marlowe, finding space to retreat, and being persuaded by the other’s
vehemence, pushed the shop-door open behind him, and, with his rapier
still in play, stepped back across the threshold. Once within the shop he
closed the door, to which Vytal fell back again slowly, and, maintaining
his old position, made further ingress for the moment impossible.

But the odds were now almost hopelessly against the soldier. Frazer had
borrowed a broadsword, and, together with St. Magil and three of the
bear-wards, who out of six alone remained unwounded, sought to break
through Vytal’s wonderful defence. Fortunately only St. Magil and his
companion were dexterous swordsmen. It was the numbers, not the skill,
of his additional opponents that Vytal feared. But Frazer’s broadsword,
although somewhat unwieldy in an unaccustomed hand, by its mere weight
had nearly outdone the light rapier opposing it. The soldier, therefore,
sought to keep this heavy blade entirely on the defensive, realizing that
if once Frazer were allowed to swing it freely it would doubtless strike
through the cleverest rapier parry that could possibly seek to avert its
downward cleavage.

Few contests have shown a shrewder scientific skill in fencing than Vytal
now pitted against the superior force of his antagonists. Thrusting
viciously at Frazer, he appeared to neglect his own guard, save where
he opposed his poniard against St. Magil’s rapier. By this feint he
accomplished a well-conceived end, rendering Frazer’s great sword merely
a defensive weapon, and exposing his breast invitingly to the foremost of
the unsuspecting bear-wards, who lunged toward the opening so recklessly
as to neglect his own defence. In that instant Vytal’s rapier, like
lightning, turned aside from its feigned attack on Frazer and pierced the
bear-ward’s breast.

As the mortally wounded man fell back, momentarily hindering the
onslaught of his friends, the voice of Gammer Watkins reached Vytal from
within the shop. “Fool!” she cried to him, “you fight for naught. The
bird ha’ flown already with another—ha, the coxcomb robs you of your
game—”

But it was for this that Vytal waited. His plan concerning the girl’s
safety being now successfully executed, left him free to act entirely
for himself. He saw the folly of attempting to hold out longer against
so great odds, with no hope of an actual victory. His strength, although
not yet seriously impaired, must inevitably sooner or later be exhausted,
whereas his opponents could harbor their own by alternately falling back
to rest and regain their breath while others in turn kept him occupied.

With this realization, Vytal set his back against the door, seeking to
open it and enter the shop, but the latch held it against him. He dared
not call to Gammer Watkins for fear of betraying his plan of escape to
his adversaries, and so, to their amazement, with not a trace of warning
he flung the poniard from his left hand into the face of St. Magil, and,
darting that hand behind him, lifted the latch. Instantly he was within
the shop, followed by Gorm, Frazer, and as many of the throng as could
make their way with a headlong rush after him. They were now like hounds
lusting for the blood of a stag at bay, excepting two among the foremost
to enter, whether they would or not—namely, the terrified breeches-maker
and the watchman, who, lanthorn in hand, had witnessed the contest with a
gaping interest instead of seeking to end it as the law demanded.

From the shop’s entrance straight to its rear wall ran a dark passage,
at the end of which a window opened high above the Thames. Beside this
passage a narrow stairway led to one or two upper chambers. Mounting
quickly to a step midway on the staircase, the breeches-maker was
followed by many others, who, eager to gain view of so desperate a
conflict and to see the final harrying of the prey, pulled one another
down from the coveted vantage-point, trampling on the weaker ones that
fell. The watchman, gathering up his long gown, had succeeded in arriving
at the breeches-maker’s side, thanks to his official superiority, and
now, as he held his lanthorn out at arm’s-length over the passage, the
dim light through its horn screens fell upon Vytal and others in the
hallway, who, headed by Gorm and Frazer, were pressing their game with
redoubled fury. The staircase groaned and creaked beneath its trampling
burden, the house seeming to echo the clash and whisper of steel, while
now and again a bitter oath rang out above the varied clamor. For the
rage of Vytal’s enemies only increased as it became evident that the
number of those capable of direct attack was necessarily limited by the
narrow passage.

Thus he still remained unscathed.

Assuming again the defensive until he had fallen back to a spot
immediately beneath the watchman’s overhanging light, he suddenly struck
upward with his rapier, and, knocking the lanthorn from its holder’s
grasp, brought to the shop utter darkness save for a glimmer of starlight
that shone faintly through the rear window.

Then, after the first bewildering moment of gloom, when hoarse cries
for lights drowned softer sounds, and the staircase voiced its strain
with new groans under the stampede, and each swordsman mistook his
neighbor for the enemy, with the result of blundering wounds in the black
passage—after that moment of havoc there came a lull, a loud volley of
oaths, and the breeches-maker’s laugh was heard crackling like dry wood
amid the roar of an angry flame. For one instant even the patch of sky
framed by the casement was obscured, and those looking toward the window
saw it filled by a dark form that came and went as a cloud across the
moon.

Vytal, having gained the sill, had leaped far out into the Thames.




Book II




CHAPTER I

    “What star shines yonder in the east?
    The loadstar of my life.”

               —MARLOWE, in _The Jew of Malta_.


“The 8th we weighed anchor at Plymouth, and departed thence for Virginia.”

With this terse statement of fact an old-time traveller is content to
record the beginning of a memorable voyage.

It was on the 8th of May, 1587, that two ships—one known as the
_Admiral_, of a hundred and twenty tons, the other a fly-boat—set sail
westward from the coast of England. There was also a pinnace of small
burden carried on board the larger vessel, and ready to be manned for the
navigation of shallow waters; but this, like a child in arms, was a thing
of promise rather than present ability.

The aim of the voyage is briefly outlined: to establish an English colony
in Virginia, where previous attempts at settlement had resulted in
desertion and no success; to find fifteen men who had been left the year
before to hold the territory for England; to plant crops; to produce and
manufacture commodities for export; to extend commerce and dominions; to
demand the lion’s share between possessions of France and Spain—the great
central portion of a continent; and thus in all ways first and last to
uphold the supremacy and majesty of England and the queen.

The ships had been provisioned at Portsmouth and Cowes, where many of
the colonists embarked, including among the notable ones two Indians,
Manteo and Towaye by name, who, several years before, had been brought to
England from Roanoke by Arthur Barlow. At Portsmouth, among others, three
soldiers came aboard, booted and spurred as though from a recent journey
in the saddle; the one slim, tall, and bronzed by the sun; another no
shorter, but broad and heavy in proportion; the third laughable in
aspect, being fat, as if, like a stage buffoon, he had stuffed a pillow
in his doublet, and leading, much to the astonishment of the passengers,
a bear-cub that copied his own waddling gait, and followed on a chain of
bondage with remarkable fidelity.

In the evening one of these soldiers stood alone on the _Admiral’s_ high
stern, a motionless figure, clean-cut against the sky. His eyes, blue
like the deep sea, looked back toward the receding coastline, fixed on
the dissolving land with a resigned fatality and regret.

With the sun, westward, the two ships went down slowly over the horizon,
leaving England a memory behind—a memory, yet very real, while the haven,
far ahead, somewhere beneath the crimson sky, seemed but a dream that
could not shape itself—a dream, a picture, bright, alluring, undetailed,
like the golden painting of the sun. Tall and erect as a naked fir-tree
the man stood on the top deck in the stern—still stood when night came
and there was not even a melting horizon to hold his gaze—still stood as
though to turn would be to wake forever from a vision beside which all
things actual must seem unreal. But at last he turned resolutely and,
drawing his cloak about him, glanced off toward the darkening west; then,
with a word to one and another as he passed his fellow-voyagers, he
sought the ship’s master to discuss plans for the maintenance and general
welfare of the colony.

As he was about to enter the main cabin a soldier accosted him. “The die
is cast, captain.”

“Yes, Rouse; we have done well in starting. May ill fortune throw no
better.”

“Nay,” observed the Saxon giant, in low tones. “But already I mistrust
this Simon Ferdinando, the master of our ship.”

“He is but a subordinate. We have the governor and his twelve assistants
to depend on.”

“Ay, captain, and you.”

“I am one of the twelve.”

“God be praised!” said Hugh, fervently. “But there’s mischief in Simon. I
always mislike these small men.”

“You forget our Roger Prat, no higher than your belt; and yet, Hugh
Rouse, even you have no greater fidelity.”

“’Tis true, but his breadth is considerable. Cleave him in twain
downward, as he’s ofttimes said, then stand his paunch on the top of
his head, and Roger Prat would be as tall as any of us. ’Tis merely the
manner of measurement.”

“In all things,” said Vytal, with a fleeting smile, and wishing to see
this Ferdinando, the _Admiral’s_ master, in order to judge of the man for
himself, he entered the main cabin.

With Ferdinando he found John White, the governor appointed by Sir Walter
Raleigh, at whose expense the voyage had been undertaken. The governor,
whom Vytal had met but once before, was a man of medium stature and
engaging personality. His expression, frank and open, promised well for
sincere government, but his chin, only partly hidden by a scant beard,
lacked strong determination. Ferdinando, on the other hand, to whom Vytal
was now introduced for the first time, so shifted his eyes while talking,
much as a general moves an army’s front to conceal the true position,
that candor had no part in their expression; while his low forehead
and close brows bespoke more cunning than ability. He was, moreover,
undoubtedly of Latin blood; therefore, in the judgment of Englishmen,
given rather to strategy than open courage. Nevertheless, his reputation
as a navigator had not yet suffered. That he relied much on this was made
evident by his first conversation with Vytal. In answer to the latter’s
questions concerning matters that bore directly on the management of the
little fleet, Ferdinando replied, “Since Sir Walter Raleigh has wisely
left the management to me, you need have no fear, I assure you, regarding
your welfare.”

“What, then,” asked Vytal, “if you object not to the inquiry of one who
studies that he may duly practise, what, then, are the main rules we
observe?”

To this the master made no answer, but, with an air of indulgent
patronage, handed Vytal several sheets of paper well filled with writing.
The soldier glanced over them, and read among others the following
orders: “That every evening the fly-boat come up and speak with the
_Admiral_, at seven of the clock, or between that and eight; and shall
receive the order of her course as Master Ferdinando shall direct. If to
any man in the fleet there happen any mischance, they shall presently
shoot off two pieces by day, and if it be by night two pieces and show
two lights.”

       *       *       *       *       *

When Vytal had read these and many similar articles he turned slowly to
Ferdinando. “A careful system. Is it all from your own knowledge?”

“From whose else, think you?”

“I make no conjecture, but only ask if it be yours and yours alone.”

“It is,” replied Simon, and turning to John White, the governor, who had
said little, he added, “Your assistant, worshipful sir, seemingly hath
doubt of my word.” White turned to Vytal questioningly.

“Nay,” observed the soldier, “I would show no doubt whatever,” and so
saying he left the cabin.

Similar conversations followed on subsequent evenings, Ferdinando
boasting much of his seamanship; and once the governor went out with
Vytal from the room of state. “You mistrust our ship’s master, Captain
Vytal, although you would show it not on considering the expedience of
harmony. Wherefore this lack of faith?”

“Because the orders and articles are framed exactly upon the plan of
those issued by Frobisher in 1578, when he sought a northwest passage,
and by Sir Humphrey Gilbert in 1583, changed, of course, to suit our
smaller fleet. The worthy Ferdinando has effected a wise combination; he
has done well—and lied in doing it.”

The governor looked up into Vytal’s dark face for the first time,
searchingly. “How came you to know?” he queried.

“I remember things.”

“But where—”

“I forget other things,” was Vytal’s answer. “An you’ll permit me I’ll
leave you. There’s a man’s face under that light”—he was walking toward
it now alone—“a familiar face,” he repeated to himself, and the next
minute exclaimed in amazement, “’Tis the man who fought beside me on the
bridge!”

“Ay,” said the poet, smiling, “’tis Kyt Marlowe,[2] at your service in
reality.”

Vytal scrutinized him keenly, Christopher returning the gaze with a look
of admiration that increased as his eyes fell once more on the so-called
bodkin at the soldier’s side. “You are readier with that implement than
with your tongue,” he observed, finally.

“The most important questions,” returned Vytal, “are asked with an
upraised eyebrow, an impatient eye.” There was an abrupt cogency and
gravity of manner about the soldier that sometimes piqued his fellows
into an attempted show of indifference by levity and freedom of
utterance. They made as though they would assert their independence
and disavow an allegiance that was demanded only by the man’s strong,
compelling personality, and seldom or never by a word. He was masterful,
and they, recognizing the silent mastery, must for pride’s sake rebel
before succumbing to its power. Marlowe, with all his admiration, born of
the soldier’s far-famed prowess and imperious will, proved no exception
to this rule.

“I marvel,” he observed, with a slight irony and daring banter, “that so
dominant a nature is readily subject to the coercive beauty of women’s
faces. Even the Wolf’s eyes may play the—”

“What?”

“The sheep’s.” It was a bold taunt, and the poet was surprised at his own
effrontery. But like a child he saw the fire as a plaything.

“Explain.” The word came from Vytal quietly and with no impatience.

“Oh, there have been other beguiling faces, so I’ve heard. A tale is
told—” he hesitated.

“Of whom?”

“Of you.”

“What is it?”

“A tale vaguely hinting at a court _amour_. ’Tis said the queen would
have knighted a certain captain for deeds of valor in the south; but
at the moment of her promising the spurs, she found him all unheedful
of her words, found him, in fact, with eyes gazing off entranced at a
girlish face in the presence chamber, the face of her Majesty’s youngest
lady-in-waiting. To those who saw our Queen Elizabeth then and read her
face, the issue was seemingly plainer than day, blacker than night.

“‘Nay, Captain Vytal,’ said the queen, her lip curling with that smile
of hers which is silent destiny itself—‘nay, she is not for you; nor yet
is knighthood either. Our boons are not lightly thrown away, so lightly
to be received.’ And then, says the tale, she paused with a frown,
to cast about for an alternative to the benefit she would, a moment
before, have conferred most graciously. From her dark expression the
courtiers supposed that ignominy would take the place of compliment in
the soldier’s cup. But at this instant her Majesty’s favorite, Sir Walter
Raleigh, ‘Knight of the Cloak,’ made bold to intervene on his friend’s
behalf. ‘An I may venture,’ he said, in a low voice, ‘to argue the
case before so unerring a judge, I would assert from my own experience
that this man’s first sudden sight of a divine radiance has dazzled
and blinded him, so that perforce he must seek a lesser brilliancy to
accustom his eyes to the perfect vision. The moth, despairing of a star,
falls to the level of a candle.’ Then her Majesty turned to Sir Walter
with a changing, kinder look. And before she could glance again at the
captain to seek for an acquiescence to the flattery (which, I believe,
would have been sought in vain, for the soldier is said to be desperate
true), before she could harbor a second resentful thought, the knight
spoke again. ‘There is an augury about this Captain Vytal,’ he declared,
‘a prophecy sung at his birth by a roving gypsy maid. “He shall be,” said
she, “_a queen’s defender—the brother of a king_.” I pray your Majesty
leave him free to prove the truth of this prediction. There is but one
queen to whom it can refer, for there is one queen only under heaven
worthy of the name. Of the king I know not, but it may be that the king,
too, is our most gracious sovereign, Elizabeth, for while in beauty and
grace she is a queen, in majesty and regal strength no monarch is more
kingly. “_A queen’s defender—the brother of a king._” It has all the
presumption of a prophet’s words. For the latter condition is impossible;
none can ever rise so high as to be honored by your Majesty with the name
of brother’—Sir Walter’s voice sank almost to a whisper—‘indeed,’ he
added, daringly, ‘none would choose the name. But—a queen’s defender—that
means more.’

“Her Majesty turned to the soldier. ‘Would you be your queen’s defender
to the end?’ she demanded, sternly, but now without menace in her voice.

“‘To the death.’

“‘Appoint him,’ she said to Raleigh, ‘where you will. The spurs are yet
to be won by the defence.’”

Marlowe paused, his story finished. “And thus, you see,” he added, as
Vytal made no rejoinder, “I was right in saying that more than one fair
face had hazarded your welfare.”

“No, you were wrong.”

The poet’s dark eyes opened wide with a query, but he said nothing
in words, for the feeling of pique had already passed with his airy
rebellion against the other’s trenchant monosyllables.

“The face in court,” avowed Vytal, as though half to himself, “and the
face in the Southwark Gateway, belong to one and the same woman. I ask
you outright wherefore you met me not at the ‘Tabard Inn’? Whither went
the maid?”

“Now there,” replied Marlowe, his eyes cast down, “_I_ must play the
silent part. In truth, I know not.”

“Know not?”

“Nay, for when we had come safely from the porter’s lodge, she demanded
that I should take her to a barge, that she might go thereby to London.
We had no more than set foot within the boat, and I was questioning her
as to the directions I should give the waterman, when another wherry
came beside us, seemingly just arrived from across the river, and a man
in that, scrutinizing us, slowly spoke to her. Then, thanking me, and
bidding me thank you for that which she said was beyond all payment,
she entered the wherry with the other, and was quickly conveyed toward
London.”

For several minutes Vytal was silent; then at last he asked, quietly,
“Did the man call her by name?”

“By the name of Eleanor.”

“And she said no more of me?”

“Yes, much, as we went toward the river; much concerning your gallantry;
and from the barge wherein she sat, beside her new-found friend, she
cried back to me that with all speed they would send you aid to the
bridge. ’Tis evident the assistance came.”

Vytal made no denial. The method of his escape was but a trifling detail
of the past. He shrugged his shoulders. “’Tis well I strive not only for
reward.”

“Was it not reward,” asked the poet, “to look once upon that face with
the eye of a protector?”

“Yes,” said Vytal.

“And to see her bosom heave gently to the rise and fall of the universal
life-breath tide, which alone hath poetry’s perfect motion, and to note
its trouble in the rhythm as in the breast of a sleeping sea—was that not
recompense?”

“Yes.”

“And her eyes—the privilege to tell of them, to wonder vainly, and
seek with all poetic fervor for words that hold their spirit—is it not
invaluable reward?”

“Yes,” said Vytal.

“They might well,” declared the poet, “be the twin stars of a man’s
destiny.”

“Yes,” and the two men, standing amidships near the rail, looked at each
other steadfastly, Marlowe at the last turning his gaze downward to the
starlit water. It seemed to Vytal as though a spell held his eyes fixed
on the poet’s face, across which the lanthorn gleams fell uncertainly,
intensifying a shadow that came not only from outward causes. And the
spell possessing Vytal, portended some new condition—change—tidings—he
could not tell what.

Suddenly Marlowe, as if by an impulse, caught his arm. “Vytal, she is
there.” He pointed to the light of the fly-boat far behind. “She came
aboard at Plymouth with a slim, weak-seeming fellow whom I take to be
her brother, for his name, like hers, is Dare—Ananias Dare, one of the
governor’s assistants. ’Twas he who met her at the bridge. Vytal, she is
there.”

The soldier followed his gaze. “There!” The word came in a vague tone of
wonder, as from a sleeper at the gates of a dream; and with no comment,
no reproach, no question, Vytal went away to be alone.

For many minutes after he had gone, Marlowe stood looking into the
shrouds, but at last, as though their shadows palled on his buoyant
spirit, he wandered along the deck, singing to himself a song of
genuine good cheer. And soon, to his delight, the notes of a musical
instrument, coming from somewhere amidships, half accompanied his tune.
Eagerly he sought the player, and came on a scene that pleased him.
For there against the bulwark sat a stout vagabond cross-legged on the
deck, strumming merrily on a cittern, as though rapidity of movement
were the sole desire of his heart. The instrument, not unlike a lute,
but wire-strung, and therefore more metallic in sound, rested somewhat
awkwardly on his knee, for his stomach, being large, kept it from a
natural position. The player’s fat hand, nevertheless, with a plectrum
between the thumb and forefinger, jigged across the strings, his round
head keeping time the while and his pop-eyes rolling.

“’Tis beyond doubt that Roger Prat,” said Marlowe to himself, “Vytal’s
vagabond follower, and avenger of King Lud, the bear.”

Ranged around this striking figure were many forms, dark, uncertain,
confused in outline, and above the forms faces—faces vaguely lighted by
an overhanging lanthorn, and varied in expression, yet all rough, coarse,
uncouthly jubilant with wine and song.

In the middle of this half-circle a woman sat predominant in effect. Her
hair, riotous about her neck, shone like gold in the wavering gleam; her
red lips were parted witchingly. She was singing low a popular catch, in
which “heigh-ho,” “sing hey,” and “welladay,” as frequent refrains, were
the only intelligible phrases.

On seeing Marlowe she rose, even the refrains becoming inarticulate in
the laughter of her greeting.

“Why, ’tis Kyt!” she cried—“Kind Kyt, the poet!” whereat, much to the
amusement of her admiring audience, she stepped lightly toward him
and, throwing her head back, asked outright, “Saw you ever so comely a
youth?” then, with a coquettish, bantering look at the cittern-player,
“Good-night, Roger Prat, I’m going,” and she led Marlowe away into the
darkness.

“Gyll!” he exclaimed, “Gyll Croyden! Is’t really thee? How camest thou to
leave thy Bankside realm, thy conquest of rakes and gallants?”

She laughed anew at this and shrugged her shoulders. “How camest thou,
Kyt Marlowe, to leave thy Blackfriars, and thy conquest of play-house
folk, for the wild Virginia voyage?”

The poet laughed as carelessly as herself. “Because ’tis wild,” he
answered. “Indeed, I know no other reason.”

“It is my own,” she said. “I grew stale in London.”

“Not thy voice, Gyll. Methinks ’tis all for that I like thee.”

She pouted, then smiled contentedly. “Come, Kyt, away into the bow. I’ll
sing to thee alone.”

And in another part of the ship Vytal was recalling one of the rules of
sailing, “That every evening the fly-boat come up and speak with the
_Admiral_, at seven of the clock, or between that and eight; and shall
receive the order of her course as Master Ferdinando shall direct.”

“To-morrow at seven of the clock,” he repeated, “or between that and
eight.”




CHAPTER II

    “In frame of which nature hath showed more skill
    Than when she gave eternal chaos form.”

                              —MARLOWE, in _Tamburlaine_.


Although on the second night there came but little wind, the _Admiral’s_
master found it necessary to strike both topsails in order that the less
speedy fly-boat might come up for his orders, as the rule demanded. But
even with this decrease of canvas the sun had set and darkness fallen
before the two ships lay side by side. At last, however, being lashed
together with hawsers, so that men might pass from one to the other
without difficulty, they drifted beam to beam—two waifs of the sea,
seeking each other’s companionship on the bed of the dark ocean, like
children afraid of the night. But that night, at least, was kind to
them, though only the lightest breeze favored their progress. The sea
lay smooth as a mountain-guarded lake, save where the two slow-moving
stems disturbed its surface, awakening ripples that rose, mingled, and
dispersed, to seek their sleep again astern. And the ripples played with
the waiting beams of stars, played and slumbered and played again, but
beyond the circle of this night-time dalliance all was rest. Here the
ripples were as smiles on the face of the waters, and the gleams were the
gleams of laughing eyes; but there, far out, the sea slept, with none of
this frivolous elfinry to break its peace.

Yet even now, up over the ocean, as a woman who rises from her bed and
seeks her mirror to see if sleep has enhanced her beauty, the moon rose
from behind a long, low hill of clouds, rose flushed as from a passionate
hour, and paled slowly among the stars.

From the _Admiral’s_ deck a young man watched her. “It is Elizabeth,” he
said, “leaving Leicester for her people’s sake. Roseate love gives place
to silver sovereignty. The woman is sacrificed that we may gain a queen.
’Tis well that Mistress Dare owes no such costly relinquishment to the
state. Few compel the love of men like Vytal—and yet—and yet I would
have—”

But a laugh at the poet’s side interrupted him, and a girl of comely
figure thrust her arm through his own. “Moper,” said she. “Come now;
Roger Prat hath brought his bear to show us, and there will be no end
of merrymaking. We have I know not what aboard—two morris-dancers,
hobby-horses, and the like conceits of May-time.”

“By Heaven, Gyll!” exclaimed Christopher, “one might think our governor
was Lord of Misrule and the whole voyage but a Whitsun jollification.
Wherefore these absurdities?”

“To entertain the savage people,”[3] quoth Gyll, leading him off
tyrannically. “On my word, Kyt, ’tis so! We would win them by fair means,
you see.”

“And you me by the same pleasantries,” returned Marlowe, more lightly,
as her mood captured him. “Mistress Croyden, thou’rt a savage thyself, a
sweet savage, Gyll, and they’re all for winning thee, I suppose.”

She smiled complacently, with a full consciousness of the charm that
made her popular, and Marlowe laughed at the expression of childlike
vanity.

Then for an instant his brow clouded, his flattery became more lavish and
exaggerated.

A tall, unmistakable figure had passed them in the darkness, like the
person of a dream, and Vytal, having gone to the fly-boat, was even now
in eager search.

The vessel, a small but cumbrous thing of the Dutch galliot type, with
mountainous stern and stolid bow, offered little encouragement to the
seeker. For its lights only revealed vague faces, while its masts and
shadows, decks and turnings, seemed to form an agglomeration of dark
hiding-places in which any one might all-unwittingly stand concealed. But
for the moon, now sailing high, recognition would have been impossible.

The soldier, moreover, customarily so direct of method, felt a certain
embarrassment and helplessness in this unprecedented adventure. Having
until now avoided women with a real indifference, his present want
of practice gave him the awkward feeling of a raw recruit. He was
momentarily at a loss as to the best manner of procedure. Since he knew
none aboard the vessel of whom he could inquire concerning Eleanor Dare,
the chance of his meeting her, without special purpose, seemed slight.
He considered the expedience of accosting at random some stranger, who
might perhaps at least know the girl by sight. Weighing this plan in his
mind, he approached a company of the voyagers, who, gathered in a circle
about the main-mast, were kneeling devoutly, while an Oxford preacher
read the evening prayer. It was in harmony with the tranquil evening—the
picture of those forty or fifty men and women beneath a dim lanthorn,
that, deepening the shadows beyond its scope, lit up here and there a
face reverent with supplication. And to the earnest piety in the pastor’s
voice, the restless water from stem to stern added a mystical whisper of
unknown things.

At length, as a prayer for the general welfare of the colony drew to
a close, Vytal, who had been standing on the outskirts of the circle,
his head bowed and bared, raised his eyes to the preacher. Then, from
the minister’s uplifted gaze and hands outstretched in benediction, his
glance wandered to the background of suppliant figures, whose faces, as
they rose at the conclusion of the service, were distinctly visible.
Soldiers were there, and gentlemen, mariners, planters, and cooks,
musicians, carpenters, masons, and traders, and, in the foremost line
of the circle, a little knot of women and children. Toward these Vytal
turned his gaze. They seemed workers of a spell—co-workers with the
murmurous sea, and the vague shadows, in subduing and softening the
picture.

Vytal started and instinctively stepped forward. The whole scene had
dissolved now, save for one predominant figure. Seemingly as though
merely to form a background for her, these men and women knelt there;
as though to shine upon her alone, the lanthorn had been hung above her
head; as though the shadows, daring not to cross her, were there to
obscure all other faces that hers might be the better seen; as though to
her the sea whispered, for she alone could understand.

Vytal stood motionless, watching her with hunger in his eyes.

Her beauty, of that rare kind which disarms criticism even while
suggesting it, was not a flash to startle fleetingly the observer, but
a subtle charm, with all those deeply suggestive qualities of form and
feature which weave themselves into the very heart of memory. Hers was
no brilliant contrast of color in hair and brows and cheeks, but rather
a perfect harmony. The light brown of her hair blent with her hazel eyes
and with the fine straight lines above them. Her color came and went with
each change of expression, like the transitory flush of earliest morning;
but generally her face was of a clear cream tint, which died away softly
in the russet hair.

The worshippers were now separating, and she, by the side of a thin,
weak-looking man, who, from Marlowe’s description, was probably her
brother, came near to Vytal.

He stepped back into a dense shadow, turning half away.

“Nay,” he heard her say, coldly, “you know I would be alone oftentimes at
evening. Solitude and reverie are indispensable to some natures, and mine
is one of these. I shall be safe, and if need be you can find me when
you will up there in the stern.” With that she left her companion. But
at first Vytal could not bring himself to follow her. She had expressed
a wish: it was his law. Yet, as the minutes went by, seeming hours, he
began to grow fearful lest some harm should befall the girl, and so set
out in quest of her.

There, on the top deck, that she might have no roof above her head, but
only the sky, she stood leaning against the bulwark and gazing down into
the water far below. This bulwark, although much lower and narrower than
those of the Spanish type, which on galleys were sometimes three or four
feet thick, walling in the lofty sterns like castle ramparts, was, as may
be imagined, no unstable support for so light a burden. Nevertheless,
Vytal, considering the possibility of a sudden wave causing the ship
to lurch violently, and wanting this or any other excuse, no matter
how preposterous, to render justifiable his intrusion on her desired
solitude, stepped to the girl’s side.

She turned slowly toward him, and, stroking back a lock of hair from her
forehead, looked up into his face. “And so you are truly here in flesh
and fell,” she said, with a certain wonder, yet no surprise, as though
her thoughts had not been interrupted, but rather realized, by the actual
appearance of their subject. It was as if she had known, with no need of
ordinary information to give her knowledge. And strangely enough her lack
of surprise brought Vytal no astonishment, but only a slight perplexity
and gladness. He had dimly surmised that she would know, but could not
explain the reason of her intuition. And yet, while wanting words, he
only gazed at her, a look of regret crossed his face.

“You seem not overjoyed, Mistress Dare.”

To this she made no answer, but withdrew her eyes, and he saw their
long lashes almost touch her cheeks as she looked down once more into
the water. “I implore your pardon,” he said, a low note of pain in his
never-faltering voice. “But I had not deemed your reverie so sacred.
’Twas a man’s rough error,” and he turned away.

“Stay. In going you are guilty of the only error. I would not have you
leave me with the word ‘ingrate’ on your lips. Nay, make no denial. I
must, in truth, have seemed ungrateful.” She fully believed—and perhaps
there was vanity in the supposition—that he had followed her, that even
the ocean’s breadth had not deterred him, and the belief deprived her
somewhat of her perfect self-command. She was looking up at him now,
her hazel eyes wide open, helpless in expression and for the moment like
a child’s. “I have not yet said ‘I thank you.’” He made a deprecatory
gesture. “No,” she persisted, with a glance more free. “Oh, why are brave
men ever thus, turning away when we would offer them our feeble words of
gratitude, while they who merit not a smile of recompense bow low, and
wait, and wait, for unearned thanks? Yet what can I say? That you are a
knight worthy of the name? That I have never seen a nobler play of arms?
That you saved my—honor? And then, after all this, am I to repeat ‘I
thank you, I thank you,’ as I would to some fop stooping for my fan.”

“Faith,” he returned, “’tis the duty of some to pick up fans; ’tis but
the duty of others to—”

“Defend a fashionable ruff,” she concluded, smiling, “against lawful
shears. Yes, I suppose you would put it that way. ’Twas such a little
thing—so trivial—a rapier against scissors! Oh, perhaps I am wrong”—her
tone grew bantering to cover her recognition of a certain grim power in
the man. “It may be you boast by the mere belittlement of your action.
The most arrant braggadocio lies often in a mock-modest ‘It was naught,’
a self-depreciative silence. Thank you, then, sir, for the timely
preservation of my ruff.” And she laughed, as the ripples under the bow
were laughing, with a fairy music. Yet a tone of sadness, deep as the
sea, underlay the feigned amusement in her voice.

“The ruff was a flower’s calyx,” he said.

“Nay, now, that ill-fits you, sir. I had not thought to find flattery
from such an one.” She raised her eyebrows with unaccustomed archness, as
though by look to maintain her usually perfect dignity, which her words,
whether she would or no, seemed bent on frittering away. “Why, ’twas far
better put by the villain who insulted me: ‘A bud’s outer petals fallen,’
or some such pretty speech. And you but steal his—”

“Nay, madam, you know well it was—”

“Oh, original, then—’tis little better. So readily conceived a metaphor
has doubtless been made a hundred times concerning ruffs. You pay the
best compliments with your sword. No, no; be not so crestfallen. We are
but newly met, that’s all. You do not understand—forgive me, Master—how
now, have I not yet learned your name?”

“’Tis John Vytal.”

“John Vytal,” she repeated, slowly. “It were easy to play on the name and
show its meaning, but to them who’ve seen you I doubt not it needs no
interpretation.” He would have questioned her then, but she hastened back
to the first subject. “One thing piques my curiosity—the manner of your
escape. Were the retainers of Sir Walter Raleigh so speedy to bring you
succor?”

“No, I saw them not. Once you had gone I stayed no longer.”

“Stayed no longer?” She opened her large eyes very wide in surprise.

“Nay.”

“You speak as though you could have left at will.”

“The will was there, madam.”

“But the way—the way?” she demanded, impatiently.

“And the way, too.”

“Your brevity is badinage,” she declared, with an imperious toss of her
head.

“Your badinage cruelty,” he returned.

“Oh, you are not all silence and swordsmanship,” she laughed, with a
trace of the persistent raillery in her voice. “But I have asked you
concerning your way of escape.”

“From the cruelty?”

“No.” The word came impatiently, as though she were wholly unaccustomed
to resistance. “I see you parry in more ways than one.” And her fingers
played about the hood-clasp beneath her chin.

“Less hopefully in one way than another, Mistress Dare.”

At this her manner, curiously changing, became graver, the assumed
archness and petulance for the moment leaving her. “You speak of
cruelty,” she said, in a very low voice, again turning to gaze down at
the sea, “and of hope. Sometimes, Captain Vytal, they are synonymous;”
and then, before he could make rejoinder, she added, quickly, “I pray you
tell me of the escape?”

“’Twas through a window overlooking the Thames,” he answered, in
bewilderment. “And I swam ashore.”

“Ah, I see. I thought perhaps you had followed us through the porter’s
lodge.”

“No; the way was blocked.”

“Tell me,” she asked, “was it your plan, our reaching safety as we did,
or Master Marlowe’s?”

“Neither his nor mine.”

“Neither! Whose, then?”

“At least, in a way, neither. You see, I remembered the story of the
porter’s lodge. In 1554 Wyatt gained that building by mounting to the
leads of an adjoining house, and thus made his way onto the bridge. Hence
I knew there must be passageway to the Bankside.”

“And you remembered even while your sword demanded so much attention?”

“It came to my mind.”

She smiled with a kind of wonder in her eyes, and then a hint of irony.
“Of course the plan was not yours—it was clearly Wyatt’s.”

“Another rebel’s,” observed Vytal, for the first time looking off across
the water with a trace of abstraction in his face.

“Rebel? How mean you rebel?”

“Naught, but that it seems my fate to be at odds with the world.”

“For instance, to rebel against bear-baiting,” she suggested, glancing
at him sideways. “I heard of that, and recognized the rebel from
description.”

“Readily, madam, I doubt not. They called me a long, lean wolf, a
grizzled terror, with the usual flattery.”

“Yes,” she said, nodding her hooded head and pursing her lips, “they did.”

“And very truly,” he averred.

“Oh, fie, sir! You seek a contradictory opinion.”

“You know I do not.”

“Nay, then perhaps you are not sure of it.” His simplicity and directness
vexed her. She seemed strangely distraught by nervousness, and her manner
was unnatural.

“You wound me, Mistress Dare.”

“Hast so much vanity?” she queried.

“And the wound,” he went on, disregarding her uncontrollable banter, “is
not from your words, but manner more. Somehow the mere being with you
brings me pain.”

“Our interview is of your own seeking, Master Vytal.”

“I had not thought,” he declared, in a tone almost angry, “that one with
such a face, such a voice, could be so unkind,” and once more he started
as if to go.

But she put out her hand with a detaining gesture. Her manner again grew
serious, more like the deep, far-reaching, silent sea than its near-by
surface, flurried by the ship.

“Oh, forgive me again! It seems as though I must ever ask forgiveness
from you—from you to whom I owe so much. Believe me, there is a woman’s
heart beneath all this—I have not said that to any man—’tis my reward to
you—and the woman’s heart knows pity—that, too, is a reward—make what
you can of it.” She was speaking tremulously now. “Only—remember—that
hope is cruel—that a little pain may avert a deeper suffering—this was
my intention—believe me, I pray thee believe, John Vytal—I am deeply
grateful underneath the mask. Fate brought us together in a moment. And
then you followed—followed, I suppose—” she hesitated, her breast heaving
and tears gathering in her eyes.

“No,” declared Vytal, anxious in his bewilderment to console her as best
he might, and looking down at her for the first time as at a child. “No,
I knew not you were coming. I believed that I was saying farewell.”

The tears lingered on her lashes without falling. An unreadable
expression came into her face, whether entirely of relief, as Vytal
thought, or with a slight trace of regret and shame, deep-hidden, she
herself could not have told.

“I thought you had found out,” she almost whispered at last.

“Nay, I had no chance to seek you. I was pledged to come. Otherwise I
would have sought till—”

“Stay,” she exclaimed, imperatively, “you must not speak so!”—and then,
in lower tones—“but if of my coming you had no knowledge, is it not yet
more the work of Fate?”

“Or of God.”

“Nay, God is good.” There was naught in her voice now save sadness blent
with doubt. “Perhaps I misread a face—perhaps a name is but a name, and
stands for nothing—perhaps—Oh, sir, is it wrong to speak only in riddles?
What have we said? What has led us to so strange a conversation in so
short a time? Come, let us talk of the voyage, the sea, the all-pervading
night. The night conceals so much, being merciful, but when the day
comes all this mercy and mystery will go—these ocean whispers, this
unutterable darkness, the stars, the moon, even the scent of the salt
will be understood. We shall say ’tis healthful, invigorating, and no
more; but to-night it is the subtle odor of some sea-forest in a world
below, or of flowers in a coral glade. To-morrow the ship will be of wood
and iron, whereas to-night—who comprehends this long, slow-moving shadow
and those silver, moonlit wings above that bear it forward to some far
haven of dreams? To-night we are spellbound; in the morning, if the wind
still sleeps, we shall call the spell a calm.” She paused, and, leaning
back against the bulwark, still looked up into the mist of shrouds. The
moonlight, ensilvering each listless sail, fell full upon her face,
giving the unshed tears an Orient lustre, and the cheeks a pallor of
unreality. Under the edge of her hood the moonbeams strove to make their
way, but could not, and so the gentle but less timid breeze brought
down a strand of her hair to turn it paler and more ethereal, till it,
too, was no more than a moon-spun thread. Her little hands were clasped
together and her lips just parted, as though she were about to answer
some voice that she alone could hear.

“You are a spirit,” said Vytal.

And then—then she laughed, and the laugh, although fraught with sadness,
transformed her instantly. She became a child with it, a sweet, lovable,
beautiful child—all reality, innocence, and health. The laughter in her
lips converted these fastnesses of expression to its playground, and,
romping, chased away all visionary looks. Her cheeks, dimpling, lost
their pallor in a blush. One hand smoothed back the straying lock, the
other drew her hood yet lower, while her hazel eyes looking up from
under it seemed to possess the magic brown of a russet-bedded brook with
sunlight playing beneath its surface—and the sunlight was this wonderful
transforming laughter.

“You are a child,” he declared, with more of passion in his voice and
less of silent wonder. The tone startled her; the grave look came back
into her face, and she stepped from the moonlight into the shadow of a
sail.

“Nay,” he said, with an incomprehensible sadness in his voice. “Now you
are a woman. The sky and the sea are no more changeable.”

“A woman,” she whispered, compressing her lips and turning white,
as though nerving herself for a strenuous effort of will—“a woman,
and—and—but no, wait, sleep, dream, and dreams will bring you
happiness—look you, the sky seems clear—the sea is tranquil. Yet come!”

With a hand on his arm she drew him across the deck into the dense shadow
of the rigging. “See, it is but a step from light to darkness, and
then—look—the sky!”

He followed the direction of her gaze, and saw again the long ridge of
cloud, from behind which the moon had risen. The hill was a mountain now,
and black with storm.

“It comes all too quickly,” she said, shivering, and gave him her hand.
It was very cold. Bending low he kissed the fingers, and then, holding
them in his firm grasp, looked down into her eyes as though to read their
meaning if he could. But still making no answer in any way, she trembled.
His mute bewilderment and uncomprehending pain were becoming unendurable
to her.

“Oh, mayhap it were kinder,” she whispered, finally, half to herself,
“and yet I cannot see that deep face show greater pain. Nay, let us not
hasten the storm ourselves; it comes whate’er we do, then perchance”—she
was forcing a show of cheerfulness into her manner—“perchance, after all,
you may not mind so much. Good-night, oh, good-night—” and before he
could realize it her hand was withdrawn from his and her hooded figure
had gone away into the shadows.




CHAPTER III

    “Such reasons make white black,
    And dark night day.”

         —MARLOWE, in _Edward the Second_.


Morning broke fair, and seemingly the wind, which had freshened, was
defending its two charges by driving the clouds from a threatening
course. Throughout the day Vytal saw no more of Eleanor Dare. In the
evening he returned to the _Admiral_ with a heavy heart and thoughts
intent on the elucidation of the mystery, until, on passing a window of
the room of state, he saw beneath a hanging lamp of Italian workmanship a
face that so startled him as to command his whole interest and attention.
It was the face of Sir Walter St. Magil. Vytal looked again, to prove
his first glance correct, and then stood for a moment in doubt before
entering. But the next words made him, against his will, a listener by
the command of duty. Stepping to a vantage-point in adequate darkness,
from which he could survey the whole cabin and hear the sentences of his
late antagonist, he waited; for an oath from Ferdinando, followed quickly
by a cautioning gesture from St. Magil, betrayed the covert importance of
their conversation.

“It is against the first duty of a sailing-master,” declared Simon,
frowning and toying nervously with the upturned corners of a chart,
or map, that lay before him on the table; “I mislike the suggestion
strongly.” At this St. Magil’s face, scarred upon the left cheek, from
the dagger which Vytal had flung at him, and blighted yet more evilly by
the indrawn eye, grew scornful and supercilious.

“Oh, an you are so faint-hearted,” he returned, “we must bide our time.
’Twill matter little in the end to us, but to you, now,” and he leaned
forward across the table impressively, “it will matter more. ’Twere well,
though, to discuss the thing in Spanish; even the arras hath ears.”

“Matter to me, Sir Walter—how so?” queried the master, conforming with
the other’s suggestion regarding their speech. But Vytal fortunately
understood the foreign tongue, thanks to many a campaign against the
Spaniards.

St. Magil hesitated and looked away with a calculating air, then,
smiling, replied lightly, “Well, say to the tune of a thousand crowns.”

Ferdinando’s small eyes glistened like a rat’s. “On your word, Sir
Walter?”

“On my word, Simon, a thousand crowns if the boat arrives not in
Virginia.” There was emphasis on the condition.

“’Tis done, then.”

“At an exorbitant price,” added St. Magil. “But we pay it willingly.
To-night, then”—his voice sank so low as to be almost inaudible to
Vytal at the open window—“to-night, then, we leave them behind. The
fly-boat’s pilot, another of my beneficiaries, will play havoc with her
steerage-gear. This is their chart, which I procured. The plan has been
well arranged. ’Tis for you to clap on sail and leave them.”

“Mary save me!” exclaimed Ferdinando, shuddering. “I fear they will
perish.”

“Nay, good Simon, this Bay of Portugal holds many ships, some of which
will doubtless succor the fly-boat.”

“Or, being Spaniards, sink her!”

“Yes, there is that chance, I allow. I have told the pilot, in case of
attack, to surrender, proclaim himself my servant, and so save the rest
from death.”

“And so,” whispered Ferdinando, “deliver them to a bondage worse than
death.”

St. Magil shrugged his shoulders. “It is but a choice of evils,” he
avowed. “In Virginia they would fare yet worse. With them to strengthen
it the colony would resist our men from St. Augustine, whereas now I look
for a quick surrender. There will be no fight.”

“We lead our countrymen into a trap, Sir Walter, God forgive us!”

“Our countrymen!” ejaculated St. Magil. “I took you for a Spaniard,
Ferdinando.”

“By parentage only,” responded the master. “But you are an English
knight.”

“Ay, English,” allowed St. Magil, gnawing his mustache with a row of
yellow teeth, “and I would save the English from their worst enemies.
I mean not Spaniards, but themselves.” He rose from the table, and,
stretching his arms abroad, yawned aloud.

“A thousand crowns,” muttered Ferdinando, “or say five hundred, the other
half being laid aside for masses for my soul.”

St. Magil laughed sleepily. “It might pay,” he drawled, “to turn priest,
if all else failed,” with which he leaned forward on the table, being in
truth overcome by fatigue, and, with his face between his outstretched
arms, was soon breathing heavily.

Ferdinando left the cabin.

Vytal, eluding him, entered it. The room was a long one, considering
the size of the ship. Its walls, hung with arras, creaked occasionally
as the vessel pitched and rolled, but the creaking, muffled by the heavy
hangings, sounded ghostly and added to the gloom which the wavering lamp
in no way dispelled.

Vytal stood over St. Magil, his lank, stern figure seeming like the form
of Death in Death’s own room. His dark, olive cheeks were pallid and
drawn, his hand tensely gripping the hilt of his rapier, the so-called
“bodkin.” And his eyes, cast down on the sleeper, held disdain mingled
with their fury.

But Vytal only gazed and gazed at the treacherous soldier beneath him,
until at last, withdrawing his gaunt hand from the rapier-hilt, he held
it with open palm above the other’s shoulder, as though, by awakening
his enemy, to throw away his own advantage that both might meet on even
terms. But his eye fell on the crude chart which Ferdinando had been
examining. Silently he folded it and concealed it inside the breast of
his doublet. Then, as if with an actual physical effort, he turned and
left the apartment.

The fly-boat, now cast off from the _Admiral_, slowly fell astern, until
her light seemed no more than a will-o’-the-wisp and she a shadow piloted
thereby in whimsical manner. The sea fretted under a stiffening breeze,
and not a star shone. The _Admiral_, although careening drunkenly, made
good progress, for, obedient to shouted commands of Ferdinando, her crew
were flinging aloft an unwonted spread of sail.

On deck Vytal met Hugh Rouse, whom he questioned tersely concerning the
whereabouts of Roger Prat.

“He is in the forecastle, captain, with King Lud, the bear.”

“Fetch him, Hugh. Quick!” And the giant, with darkening brow, hastened
forward. In a moment he had returned with his companion.

“Give full heed,” commanded Vytal, glancing sharply about to make sure
he was unheard by others. “There is a plot afoot to desert the fly-boat.
That plot at all hazards must not be disclosed. We should lose by
immediate accusation, as we know not who are loyal. My plan is this: I
shall jump into the sea; you two then give outcry as if a man by accident
had fallen overboard. Ferdinando will of necessity heave to. In the mean
time, as though distracted, fire a piece and blow on trumpets, as the
sailing rule demands. Thus the fly-boat will have time to come up to
us, and then—but leave that to me.” He turned to one and the other to
make certain of their comprehension, and found it. They were accustomed,
these two men, to their captain’s succinct commands in moments of
emergency. But Roger Prat stepped forward with an expression indicative
of disobedience. “Nay, captain,” he said, with a broad grin, “_I_ am the
hogshead and will float; ’tis better so. Under your favor, I go myself.
The outcry being thine, will have more effect.” And before Vytal could
hinder him, the short, grotesque fellow, winking and wagging his head at
Rouse, flung himself, with a loud cry, into the sea.

In three minutes the ship was in an uproar. Men ran hither and thither,
fore and aft, in a confusion of useless endeavor. The women, startled by
the commotion, gathered for the most part amidships near the main-mast,
while others, among whom were the first to learn the cause of the
excitement, sought the high, castellated stern, from which they might
look off with straining eyes, intent on catching sight of Roger Prat, who
had already gained a widespread popularity. Hugh Rouse, at a word from
Vytal, went quickly to the master’s mate, then at the helm, and informed
him of the occurrence. Without hesitation, the mate and his assistants
put the helm hard down, throwing the vessel into the wind. For an instant
she stood poised, a breathless creature, her sails flapping, and then,
minding her rudder still further, started back over her course. In the
mean time, Rouse, who had hurried forward, gained the poop, and, waving
a torch he had procured from one of the sailors, shouted with the full
power of his lusty lungs to the crew of the fly-boat.

“Fool,” cried a voice behind him, “there is no need of that!” Turning, he
saw St. Magil peering out across the water.

But the two ships were now rapidly approaching each other. Seeing this,
Rouse desisted and turned to St. Magil with an agitated air, concealing
suspicion fairly well, considering his honest, open countenance and utter
incapacity for strategy. In this the darkness aided him. “I know not what
to do,” he declared. “It is my friend who hath fallen overboard.” He held
the torch high for an instant, so that its fitful glare fell upon St.
Magil’s face, and then, instinctively realizing that it might betray the
look of hate and distrust in his own eyes, he flung it far out into the
water. There was this about Hugh Rouse which is rare in men of slow wit:
he recognized his disadvantage. “I thought, Sir Walter, that you were in
London.”

“So I was,” returned the sinister knight, “a few days ago,” and,
suppressing an oath—for the fly-boat, having been alarmed by a flourish
of trumpets, was now within hailing distance—he hurried away to seek
Simon Ferdinando.

But Vytal had forestalled him. Immediately after Prat’s prompt action, he
himself had gone quickly to the master. “The unfortunate man,” he said,
“is one of my followers. With your permission, Ferdinando, I go to his
rescue myself. The least we can do is to lower the ship’s boat.”

Simon, evading his glance, looked hesitatingly at the choppy sea. “I
mislike risking several lives,” he muttered, as though to himself, with
feigned prudence, “for one man.”

“I will go, then, alone,” avowed Vytal, quietly, “or with one other.
Here, Rouse,” and he turned to his lieutenant, who had joined him.
“We go to Roger’s assistance.” But still he looked at Ferdinando, as
if deferring to the master by awaiting his assent. Simon, finding no
plausible excuse for further delay, and fearing to arouse the other’s
suspicions, made a pretence of ready acquiescence amounting almost to
eagerness.

As Vytal turned away he found himself face to face with Marlowe. “I go
with you,” said the poet.

Vytal nodded. “Quick, then!” And in another instant they had started out
in the small boat upon their errand of rescue.

The sea, running higher and higher, tossed about the stanch little craft
like a cockle-shell, but the brawny arms of the three rowers, holding her
stem to the waves, managed to urge her slowly forward. The fly-boat now
lay alongside the _Admiral_, almost within rope-throw, and both vessels
hung as close as could be in the wind, their bowsprits bobbing tipsily,
their canvas half empty and rattling.

The rowers strained their eyes and hallooed loudly, but there was no
sight of the missing man nor any sound in answer save the flap, flap of
the great square sails, the rush of the wind, the crash of the spray from
broken foam-crests, and shouts from the swaying decks.

The rowers, now under the _Admiral’s_ stern, were pointing the nose of
their sea-toy toward the fly-boat. “Roger hath perished,” said Hugh,
hoarsely. “God save his brave soul!”

And then, in weird contrast to the grave words, there came to the ears of
the three men a laugh and an incoherent call out of the near darkness.
It was as though the blade of Hugh’s oar had spoken. In amazement the
men ceased rowing and gazed toward the black stern, from whose invisible
water-line the sound had undoubtedly come. All steerage of the cock-boat
being momentarily neglected, she swung round until a wave, catching her
abeam, with all but disastrous results, washed her yet nearer to the grim
hull. “Have a care!” cried the voice; “hold off!” And the rowers saw a
dark thing bobbing up and down close to the ship. In another moment a
man, grasping the end of a long rope in his hand, was clambering, with
the aid of his comrades, into the small boat. “Did ye not see,” he said,
immediately assisting at one of the oars, “that I grabbed a hawser as I
jumped? ’Twas made fast, thank the Lord, somewhere amidships, and here
have I been dangling out behind as comfortable as can be—” but his words
belied him, for, even with the assertion on his lips, his last remaining
strength failed suddenly, and the inimitable Roger Prat fell back
senseless.

“To the fly-boat—quick!” said Vytal.

The cockle-shell was now but a dancing shadow, only a little darker than
the sea to those who looked down on it from the _Admiral’s_ stern far
above. Yet in the eyes of one man, at least, that riotous black spot was
a thing by all means to be avoided. “Simon, it is the solution of our
problem. That man you say is John Vytal, and, I add, the most cursed
mischief-maker under heaven. Had I known they were coming, he and his
slavish crew, we might have been driven to no such pass.” The speaker
lowered his voice and went on as he had begun, in the Spanish language.
“But the chance is ours—yours.”

“How mine?” The question issued with a shivering sound from the other’s
teeth.

“Let me see. One thousand crowns,” returned St. Magil, still leaning
over the bulwark to gaze down like an evil buzzard on the bobbing shadow
beneath him, “and another thousand—and, if it must be, yet another
thousand.” He turned, smiling, to note the effect of his offer. “All this
if you leave that insignificant cock-boat behind us, and it comes not
safe to Virginia.”

“It is impossible.”

“Wherefore?”

“Captain Vytal is one of the governor’s assistants. The desertion will
be reported, and I, Sir Walter, answerable to the lords of her Majesty’s
most honorable privy council.”

“Most honorable idiots!” exclaimed the other. “’Tis easily explained.
They are lost—we have waited—we cannot find them—where are they? I see no
sign whatever of the boat,” and, smiling yet more blandly, he turned his
back to the bulwark. “It is as simple as that—just turn your back.”

“Before God, I will not!” and Simon started away, as if he would end the
matter there and then.

“You find no difficulty in forsaking the fly-boat,” sneered St. Magil.

“Nay, for that at least can live. But this plaything must surely perish
if deserted in so rough a sea.”

“No, Simon, it will gain the fly-boat.”

Ferdinando returned to the bulwark and looked down once more at the
object of their discussion. He could see it battling now against great
odds, for the shadow made no headway in any direction and both ships were
slowly leaving it in their wake.

“Keep your purse. I’ll not play the assassin for you or any other man,”
and again the master would have left. But he heard a quick step behind
him, and turned suddenly. A slender gleam crossed his sight, and he felt
himself pressed back against the bulwark. The menacing glimmer seemed to
get into his eyes and into his soul, bringing terror to both.

“For two thousand, then,” he said, hoarsely, “’tis done.”

“Thank you, my good Simon. Thank you, and all this for turning your back.”

There was a double meaning in the words, and Ferdinando shuddered at
thought of it.

“We will go now and give orders to the mate,” said St.
Magil—“_together_.”




CHAPTER IV

    “Whose eyes being turned to steel
    Will sooner sparkle fire
    Than shed a tear.”

          —MARLOWE, in _Edward the Second_.


Eleanor Dare stood alone near the bulwark of the fly-boat, her thoughts
shapeless, until at last a dark object, also without form, rose and
fell on the water within range of her unseeing vision. Slowly her
consciousness grew more acute, and the thing became real to her. Slowly
it took shape and became a boat, a ship’s cock-boat, contending with
all its little bravery against the waves. She heard, with an increasing
heed to them, the shouts of men from the deck of the _Admiral_, and
noticed for the first time that the governor’s ship, having stood back
upon her course, was now abreast of the fly-boat. But soon her eyes,
with a renewed attention to the realities of her surroundings, saw the
_Admiral_ stand away again to the westward. She perceived with surprise
that, considering the gale, the larger vessel carried an unwarrantable
spread of canvas; and realized, not without alarm, that the fly-boat, if
thus outsailed for many hours, must soon be left astern far beyond the
regulation distance. And as to the small boat: was its present plight
merely the unfortunate result of an attempt to bring some message from
one ship to the other, or was it the outcome of a fell design on the part
of Ferdinando? This last suspicion in Eleanor’s mind was not without
foundation, for she had already entertained misgivings.

Suddenly a yet graver fear came to her. For the fly-boat’s pilot, who at
first had luffed his vessel up into the wind, imitating the example of
the _Admiral’s_ master, now sent her plunging ahead again, paying no heed
to the rowers, who struggled vainly in the fly-boat’s wake. Realizing
this, Eleanor, at last fully aware of the small boat’s predicament, and
alive to the demands of the moment, hurried aft to remonstrate with
the helmsman. She was not certain that the pilot’s intentions were
treacherous, nor that the cock-boat had been seen. Furthermore, being
ignorant of the rowers’ identities, she supposed them to be but mariners
of the _Admiral’s_ crew. But they were men elevated for the moment to
a position of supreme importance by mortal danger, the leveller of all
degrees.

With good policy, on her way aft, Eleanor gave the alarm to all she
passed, and thus brought many with her to the pilot. The latter, a burly
seaman, whose unkempt red hair and beard swathed his pock-marked face
like a flaming rag, showed much astonishment at seeing a number of his
passengers, led by a woman, excitedly running toward him, as fast as
might be, considering the lurch and reel of the clumsy ship.

“There is a small boat astern of us,” said Eleanor, arriving first at the
helm. “Ferdinando must have forgotten her. There hath been some mistake.”

The pilot turned, with a grunt of incredulity, and glanced off in the
direction of her outstretched hand. “I see naught,” he returned, gruffly.
“’Tis an illusion of the sight.”

But at that instant a voice came after them over the water from the
darkness far astern. They heard but a feeble note, an inarticulate
sound, yet the voice of Hugh Rouse, stentorian and resonant, had flung
out the incoherent cry from his great lungs in full power, to beat its
way against the wind. With constantly failing strength it overtook
the ship and died a mere whisper on eager ears. But there could be no
mistake; a score of men had heard. For an instant the pilot hesitated and
glanced at the little company furtively under his fiery beetle-brows.
Then, with a hoarse command to his crew, he shoved the helm hard down,
and once more turned the fly-boat into a stupid, tentative thing, hanging
in the wind, drowsily expectant and poised in awkward fashion, like a fat
woman on tiptoe looking for her child.

And the child went to her slowly with faltering steps. Tumbling over
the ridges of water and picking herself up again, nothing daunted, the
cock-boat came finally into view. In a few minutes the rowers were on the
ship’s deck. Vytal, whose sinews were of steel, and Hugh Rouse, a great
rock of hardihood, showed small fatigue, but Roger Prat, who had just
recovered consciousness, leaned heavily against the bulwark, striving to
force a jest through chattering teeth, while the water still dripped from
his clothes.

Marlowe stood apart, seemingly all-forgetful of his exertion, his dark
eyes intent on the face of Eleanor Dare.

Many torches, now, in the hands of inquisitive voyagers, were throwing
lurid streaks of flame across the gloom. Their light fell full upon
Eleanor, revealing to the poet a realization of his dream. In all the
rich colors of his limitless fancy he had pictured her often to himself
since the night of their flight from London Bridge. The picture now was
corporate, and Fancy inadequate before the Real. The many proffers of
assistance, the come and go of hasty figures, the general commotion and
curiosity were lost to Marlowe’s heed.

At last, when the by-standers had separated, he approached her, and,
speaking her name, bowed low. As though awaking from a deep reverie, she
turned, and gradually recognition came into her eyes.

“Ah, Master Marlowe, it is you; I had not thought to see you again so
soon.”

“How so, Mistress Dare; did I not tell you I might come?”

“Yes; now I remember you hinted that, if in the morning the wind blew
west, you would follow it. The responsibility of decision was too great
for you.”

“Perhaps; moreover, there is much wisdom, methinks, in leaving our
destiny to the wind, for the human heart is no less fickle and wayward in
its guidance of our steps, and following that, we blame ourselves, yet
who would arraign the breeze as purposeless and false?”

She made no answer at first, but looked off across the stretch of water,
now growing wider between them and the _Admiral_. “I trust,” she said at
length, half to herself, “that we shall have no cause to complain against
the breeze. ’Twas but last night I thought a storm menaced our advance.
Ah, well, ’tis a hazardous voyage at best. I wonder that you, who were
not forced to come, should court so many perils.”

“Not forced,” he said, lowering his voice; “what, then, is force? Ay,
madam, ’tis force and the hazard bring me here. The very peril compels
me.”

He sought to hold her glance, but could not, for again she was looking
off to the larger ship.

“You consider the risk so grave, then?” she queried, with a troubled air.

“The gravest, madam,” he answered, a look of reckless pleasure crossing
his face; “with glittering danger so woven through the warp and woof of
future days as to seduce a man’s best wisdom and seem a golden fleece. We
court the danger for the danger’s sake.” His words came as an undertone
to her thoughts, disturbing, but not breaking, abstraction, until
suddenly, as if with an impulse, he questioned her. “I would fain ask
you, Mistress Dare, concerning your departure that night from Southwark,
and your friend in the barge, a man—” he broke off, for he had put the
question with no need of further inquiry.

“That is readily answered,” she replied, nevertheless, with hesitancy.
“You see, I durst not return to Lambeth through the borough, and thus
expose us both again to danger, although I knew that my father would
entertain misgivings and grave fears for my safety. When you know him
better you will recognize his deep solicitude for every person’s welfare;
how much more, then, for his daughter’s?”

“Know him better!” exclaimed Marlowe, in surprise. “But I have never seen
him.”

“Indeed, you must have met him. My father is the governor of this
colony—Governor John White.”

“But—but _you_,” ejaculated the poet, in bewilderment, “are Mistress
Dare.”

“Being the wife,” she declared, with an almost imperceptible tremor in
her voice, “of Master Ananias Dare, one of my father’s twelve assistants.
It was he who came in the barge that night on his way to join us at
Lambeth, and, seeing me in such sorry plight, decided to retrace his way
with me to London.”

“A wife!” and then Marlowe said a strange thing, as though wording a
second thought that rushed to him on the heels of his first shock.
“It will kill him.” He was speaking of another man even in that
moment—thinking and speaking of another man. For the intensity of that
other, the naked soul, the dominant will, the inexorable fatality were
compelling, by sheer force, the homage of his immediate circle. It was
simply the irresistible power of a great character at work. And there is
no human influence so near omniscience.

She paid no heed to his low exclamation, but, with a few irrelevancies,
left him.

He had but little time to seek the meaning of her abrupt departure, for
at this moment Vytal joined him and tersely revealed the facts regarding
the plot of St. Magil. The poet showed more surprise on hearing of St.
Magil’s presence than on having his instinctive suspicions verified
concerning Ferdinando’s treachery.

“Dost thou know the extent of this treason?” he asked.

“Nay, therein lies the rub. The pilot is doubtless far from clean-handed,
and, for aught we know, several others among us, in greater or less
degree, conspire to work our ruin.”

“Yes,” observed Marlowe, thoughtfully, “in St. Magil’s words, as you
o’erheard them, I seem to hear the whisper of a wide conspiracy in which
even the Spaniards of St. Augustine will play their part. But tell me,
would not decisive action here and now defeat them more surely than
cautious measures?”

“I think not,” replied the soldier, turning in the direction of
approaching footsteps. “Who comes?”

“’Tis I, captain, a wet dog, at your service.”

“Get you below, Roger, for warmth, and a change of garments.”

“’Tis impossible, sir; such as I find adequate attire most difficult to
borrow. Hast never seen me in a moderate doublet? The sight, they say,
is worthy of a stage play. Moreover, the only warmth of interest now lies
in the oven of Sheol, wherein, ’tis my ardent hope, Master Pilot will
soon be roasting by your command.”

Vytal smiled. “Justice demands patience,” he said. “Do you, then, seek
Hugh, bidding him go among the mariners with eyes and ears awake. And
likewise make investigation for yourself. Find an you can the limits of
the plot, map out its course, survey the field. Bring proofs. ’Tis better
so.”

“Justice!” muttered Roger to himself, starting away—“’tis always
justice!” Joining Rouse, he thrust his hand through the big soldier’s
arm. “A stoup of liquor, Hugh, will loose my tongue, and fit it well for
questions. ’Tis to be all questions now, and never an answer from our
lips. Big lout, think’st thou it is in thee to hint a query and induce
reply with never a trace of eagerness? Nay, but follow me, King Lud’s
Lord Chancellor—Heaven preserve his forsaken Majesty—ay, sirrah, follow
me, and praise good fortune for the chance. Be mute. Keep tongue between
teeth, and thy great paw well within a league of sword-hilt.” And so the
garrulous Prat ran on, after his usual important manner, until they had
gained the forecastle.

In the mean time Vytal and Marlowe, near the main-mast, were striving,
by discussion and induction, to obtain a more comprehensive grasp of
the situation. The soldier had long suspected St. Magil of treasonable
intrigues, the nature of which, however, was undiscoverable. In the
Low Country camps for the last three years there had been rumors of
treachery, with which Sir Walter’s name had been vaguely associated. Some
had openly pronounced him a spy in the pay of Philip of Spain, while
others had as firmly declared him loyal to Henry and Elizabeth.

“We are his match at least in sword-play,” observed Marlowe, finally.
“’Twas proved conclusively upon the bridge.”

“We are his match,” returned Vytal, with a quiet confidence, “in all
things.”

“I trust we may prove this, too,” said the poet, regarding his companion
with marked admiration.

“We shall.”

It was now nearly midnight, and the wind left a long, rolling sea,
in which the fly-boat lay wearily, like a landsman in a hammock,
uncomfortably asleep. The decks were deserted save for the burly figure
of the pilot at the helm, the two shadows near the main-mast, and a
ghost-like sailor here and there on watch. The _Admiral’s_ dim light had
gone down over the horizon.

“Desolation,” muttered Marlowe. “All desolation. It seems as though the
God—if God there be—were sleeping.”

“There is a God,” said Vytal, simply.

The poet smiled sceptically, and would have rejoined at some length, but
a cloaked figure came to them out of the darkness. It was Eleanor Dare.
Marlowe started back as though struck without warning, and turned to
Vytal with a jealous look. But the glance of enmity passed as quickly
as it came, leaving only deep affection and sympathy in the poet’s
face. Instinctively he made as though to withdraw, and they, to his
regret, offered no remonstrance. “You will find me,” he said, “with the
steersman. It may be well to watch him closely.” And he left them.

“Captain Vytal,” began Eleanor, “you must act with all speed. Indeed, I
know not but that even now I am too late.” Despite her ominous words,
she was speaking coldly, with a calmness almost mechanical. “We are in
the hands of traitors paid by Spain.”

“I know it well, Mistress Dare.”

“You know it?”

“Yes;” and he told her very briefly the facts within his knowledge.

“It is worse than that. St. Magil withheld the full truth from
Ferdinando. There is a conspiracy afoot to land us on the coast of
Portugal. Before morning some twenty men in Sir Walter’s pay will come
upon the deck and overpower the mariners now here. I tell you, in order
that you may summon as many soldiers hither from below, and save us.”

“I thank you,” he said, “but it cannot be.”

“Cannot be!”

“Nay, for we know not who is loyal. My men and I must meet the knaves
alone.”

“Alone! God forgive me! It is the second time I place your life in peril.”

“On the contrary, the second time you make it worth the living. But how
came this knowledge to your ears?”

She hesitated only for an instant, and then answered him, with an icy
chill in her tone, “From my husband.”

“Your husband!” There was no tremor in the voice, but only a harsh
finality, like the sound of a sword breaking. And for a moment, in which
a lifetime seemed to drag itself ponderously by, there was utter silence.

“Take me to Master Dare,” said Vytal, at last, mechanically. “We shall do
well to confer together concerning the matter.”

She looked up at him with wonder and surprise. “You would see him?” she
asked, as though her ears had deceived her; then, with a new bitterness:
“I fear you will gain but little by the interview. My husband is”—her
voice sank lower, with a note of deep shame in it, the shame of a great
pride wounded—“is not himself.” Then, turning, she led the way down to
a large cabin in which the captain and the governor’s assistants were
accustomed to hold conference pertaining to the colony and voyage. “He is
there,” and she left Vytal at the cabin door.




CHAPTER V

    “… hath wronged your country and himself,
    And we must seek to right it as we may.”

                  —MARLOWE, in _Edward the Second_.


Entering immediately, Vytal found the room empty save for one man who sat
before a long table in a peculiar posture and apparently half asleep. A
silver flagon stood before him, its brim covered by two almost feminine
hands, whose fingers were intertwined and palms held downward, as though
to conceal or guard the contents of the cup. His head was bent forward
until one cheek rested on the back of his clasped hands, while the
other showed a central flush on a background of white, delicate skin.
The man’s eyes were not closed, but maintained their watch on the door
with an evident effort, for the lids blinked drowsily as though soon
they must succumb to sleep. The light of a three-branched candelabrum,
flickering across the table, showed a face naturally fair, but marred
by dissipation. The hair, light brown and of fine texture, hung down
over a narrow forehead, and half concealed a well-formed ear. The eyes,
always first to suffer from inebriety, showed but a trace of their
lost brilliancy when the effort to keep awake was strongest. There
was an aspect so pitiable in the man’s whole attitude that Vytal, his
face softening, shrank back as though to proceed no further with his
interview. But overcoming the first shock occasioned by so weak and
forlorn a personality, the soldier went forward, with grim determination.
“Is this Master Ananias Dare?” he demanded.

“Yes,” came the answer, falteringly, “Master Dare, at your service,” and
the slim fellow, attempting to rise, swayed and fell back again into his
chair. “Rough sea,” he muttered. “Great waves—mad boat.”

Vytal drew a chair to the table, and moving the candelabrum to one side,
sat down opposite the drinker. “I come to inquire concerning a plot of
which you have knowledge.”

The effect of this unexpected statement was curious. “Plot!” exclaimed
Ananias—“plot!” and he laughed a thick, uncomfortable laugh. “Now I know
the boat is certainly mad. Who said ‘plot’? Oh, who said ‘plot’?” His
voice, wailing, sank almost to a whisper. “I cannot believe it. I really
cannot believe such extraor’nary statements. Have a cup o’ wine; ’tis
wine belies our fears. I thank thee, good wine—I thank thee for so great
a courage. Oh, who said ‘plot’?” and, lurching forward, he pushed a great
silver tankard toward Vytal.

“’Tis wine,” returned the soldier, fixing his gaze on the pitiful
assistant, as though to force the words home with look as well as voice,
“’tis wine brings danger. Another cup now, and mayhap you are fatally
undone.” He wished to play upon the other’s cowardice, and turn, if he
could, one weakness into strength to withstand another. The time was
short in which to elicit the desired information, and the task not easy.

“Danger! there’s no danger to me!” declared Ananias, unexpectedly. “Oh
nay; how strange—danger—none whatever! ’Tis not for this I drink so deep;
’tis my wife—induces the condition!” His head fell forward again to his
hands, that now covered an empty cup. Quickly Vytal hid the half-full
tankard beneath the table.

“’Tis she,” said Ananias, again looking up sleepily, “my cousin, my
peculiar wife. Why did I marry her—oh, why?”

Vytal’s face grew tense, the veins on his forehead big like thongs.

“She is different,” pursued Dare—“so different! ’Twas the queen did it. I
sued so long, so very long, while Mistress Eleanor White would have none
of me. And then, one day, coming to me like a child—yes, like a child,”
he repeated, weeping remorsefully, “she said: ‘If thou’lt rest content
with friendship for a time, perchance in the coming days I’ll learn to
love thee, cousin, but now I cannot. My father alone is in my heart.’
That was after the queen had talked with her in private, and before she
knew of my love for these big flagons—mad flagons!” He grasped the cup
between his hands as though to caress or crush it. “And I was so wild of
love and jealousy that I said, ‘Yes; I swear to be no more than friend.’”
He was retrospecting as if to himself, and paying no heed to the
listener, whose struggle for the mastery of his own emotion had turned
him for the time to stone.

“I was so wild of jealousy, for there was my Lord of Essex courting
her—Oh, this boat—this boat—’tis, in troth, mad—its reel gets into my
head—Ah, why did she marry me? ’Twas because the queen promised that her
father should come to Virginia and be governor—her beloved father—instead
of going to the Tower for some trivial offence. And she was kind to me,
yet so cold that I durst not even touch her hand—but then I grew more
brave with wine. Her little hand was mine despite remonstrance, the wine
imparting courage to hold it fast. No bravery, say you, in wine? Ha, you
know not.” But Vytal had risen, and the sword-hilt was a magnet to his
hand. “Nay, you go too soon,” said Ananias, waving him back. “The plot I
come to is of deeper import. I’ve been too garrulous—always so exceeding
voluble, they say, with wine.” Once more, with a strenuous effort after
self-command, Vytal turned back to the table, pallid as death.

“She’s different now—oh, sadly different—I think ’tis Master Marlowe, the
poet, turns her head. I saw him with her, and she entranced. I’m no more
to her than _you_. And she is most miserable. To-night she came and said:
‘The voyage is very dangerous. Oh, would we’d never come!’ ‘Yes,’ quoth
I, ‘’tis even more dangerous than you think.’ ‘Oh,’ said she, with a
scorn that’s hers alone, ‘you are drunk,’ but I assured her ‘No,’ and hid
the cup like this beneath my hands. Oh, why do I care, why do I care when
she sees the wine?” The maudlin remorse came into his voice again and
into his watery eyes. “‘What mean you?’ she asked, ‘by more dangerous?’
‘Oh, the pilot will run us into Portugal,’ said I. ‘How comical! And
there’ll be twenty men on deck before the dawn to do it. ’Tis most
extraor’nary!’”

At this Vytal started again to his feet. “Wilt swear it?” he demanded,
fiercely. The drunkard leaned back and stared at him, seeming for the
first time to strive for a sober moment.

“Nay.”

“How do you know it, then?”

The vague eyes blinked with a more definite consciousness than
heretofore. “I heard them plotting.”

“And will not inform us on your oath. Then you jeopard your own safety,
Master Dare. Silence now is culpable, treasonable.”

“Oh no, no—what a mad boat—rolling about so—I, treasonable; how strange!
Then I’ll swear, an you will, ’twas the pilot.”

“You’ll swear?”

“Most certainly, I’ll swear.”

“Where are the twenty men? Do you know that?”

“Nay, how should I know?”

“Did you not overhear the pilot give directions? Think you they are in
the forecastle?”

“No, not there—not by any means there.”

“In the hold, then, hiding?”

“Ay, that’s it. In the hold. Down in the dark hold—oh, ’tis most
uncomfortable in the hold—what a mad boat—rocking so—always rocking.
’Sdein! Where’s the tankard?” Rising unsteadily, he looked about on the
table in stupid surprise, then, sinking back again, missed his chair and
fell heavily to the floor. “Ah, ’tis here, the wine—such brave wine!”
and, crawling forward on his hands and knees, he sat down half under the
table, holding the tankard to his lips. “Such courageous wine!”

Vytal went to the cabin door. “Heaven guard her,” he prayed, and hastened
to the stern. Here he found the pilot and Marlowe. With a gesture, he
drew the poet aside, and in a few words made known the truth.

“’Tis against great odds,” observed Marlowe, his eyes lighting up, “that
we fight again together.”

“Nay,” declared Vytal, “there shall be no fight. Wherefore desecrate a
rapier with so niggardly a foe?”

Marlowe smiled. “The bodkin would fain stitch only satin doublets,” he
remarked. “How, then, will you defeat these hirelings?”

“Thus,” and leading the way to the forecastle, the soldier emitted a
short, low whistle in one note. Soon Roger Prat stood before them.

“He comes like a devil from a stage-trap!” observed Marlowe, in
astonishment.

Roger laughed proudly and bowed like a juggler after the performance of a
cunning trick.

“Tell Hugh,” said Vytal, in a short whisper, “to overpower the pilot
when again I whistle thus, and with a stout rope to make fast his arms;
but first procure another helmsman you can trust. For your own part, go
to the hatches above the hold. If the pilot gives outcry, and his crew
strive to pass you, warn the first man whose head appears, and if he heed
not the warning, run him through. They can come but singly. ’Tis within
your power to withstand them all.”

“Of a verity, captain, well within it; but the work is tame. They stand
no chance.”

“Mark you, no bloodshed if you can help it. And tell Hugh the same. At
the sound of the whistle, then, some time before daybreak.”

“Thank you,” and Roger went his way.

“Wherefore does he thank you?” asked Marlowe.

“Oh, ’tis ever so; a thousand thanks when I give him work like this to
do.” And for a moment the eyes of both followed Prat, whose rotund figure
could be seen beneath the ship’s lanthorn. He was walking on tiptoe,
which gave him a grotesque appearance, and the end of his long scabbard
was just visible as he held it out behind him to prevent its chape from
dragging on the deck. “A peculiar fellow,” remarked the poet, to whom all
men were books demanding his perusal.

“A man!” said Vytal. And they waited for many minutes in silence.

“Let us make sure,” suggested Christopher, at last, “that the men are in
their places.”

Vytal turned to him with a look of resentment, or, more accurately, an
expression of wounded pride. “You know them not.”

“Yea, well. But plans miscarry.”

“I repeat, you know not the men;” with which, as though to deride the
other then and there with proof of his absolute reliance, Vytal whistled
the short note shriller and louder than before. Even as it died away
there came a deep oath from the stern and a sound as of metal clanking
on the deck. In another second there was a pistol-shot, then a desperate
silence. “Let us hasten,” cried Marlowe, “to their assistance!”

“Nay, let us rather go and question the prisoner.”

This expression of confidence was fully repaid by the sight that met
their eyes. For there on the deck, near the helm, flat on his back, lay
the bulky pilot, so bound with a rope winding from head to foot that he
could not move so much as a finger in remonstrance. As Vytal and Marlowe
arrived on the scene, Hugh Rouse, smiling broadly, held a light over the
prone figure as though to exhibit his handiwork. “A ceroon of rubbish,”
he said. “Shall we cast him into the sea?”

“Nay, let him lie here.”

Vytal turned to the pilot’s substitute at the helm, who had come thither
at the request of Roger Prat. “Loyal?” he queried, taking the lanthorn
from Rouse and holding it high, so that the rays fell athwart the new
steersman’s face.

“Ay, loyal; the fly-boat’s mate, sir, at your service.”

“What proof?”

“None, save this,” and leaning forward he whispered the name “Raleigh” in
Vytal’s ear.

“Your own name?”

“Dyonis Harvie.”

“He speaks truth,” exclaimed Vytal, in an aside to Marlowe. “Sir Walter
Raleigh made mention of the man.” Then turning to the mate again: “To
Roanoke we go. Here is a copy of Ferdinando’s chart. You are master now.
See you pilot us safe and sound to the good port we started for. Heed no
contradictory orders. I am Captain John Vytal an you need proof of my
authority.”

Harvie’s honest face lighted up on hearing this, his sunburned brow
clearing with relief. “Sir Walter Raleigh bade me seek you, captain, in
case of need. ’Tis well you come thus timely.”

Vytal turned back to the prisoner. “Have you aught ready in extenuation?”

The pilot’s eyes opened slowly while he looked up for an instant at
his interrogator with sullen hate in every lineament of his mottled
face. Then his eyes, blinking in the light, closed again, and his lips
tightened to lock in reply.

Vytal turned away indifferently. “And now to Roger at the hatches; but
do you, Hugh, stay here and guard the pilot,” whereupon he led the way
toward the hold.

“’Tis strange,” observed the poet, “that we heard no sound from Roger
Prat.” But Vytal, making no reply, went forward, without so much as
quickening his pace.

Coming to the hatches, however, they found no one, only a deep murmur of
voices greeting them from below.

“Ah,” said Marlowe, who could not suppress a small show of triumph on
finding the other’s surpassing confidence seemingly misplaced, “I said
’twould be well to make sure your orders were fulfilled.” And then, as
the gravity of the situation grew more apparent to him: “Forgive me; ’tis
ill timed. I fear the good fellow has come to harm.”

But Vytal only laughed a short, easy laugh. “I repeat once more, you know
not the man. Throw open the hatch. On guard!”

With only the delay of a second in which to unsheath his sword, Marlowe
obeyed; and the dull murmur of voices grew louder as it rose unimpeded to
the two above. But no one appeared in the hatchway.

“They lie in wait to entrap us,” opined the poet, and then, with a hand
on Vytal’s arm: “Stay, I pray you! It means certain death!” For the
soldier had stepped forward as though to descend.

Vytal smiled. “That night on the bridge you counted not the cost. Your
impetuosity, methought, was gallant as could be. I go alone, then.”

“Nay, nay, I stand beside you. Know you not that Kyt Marlowe is two men—a
dreaming idler and a firebrand as well? Cast the firebrand before you, an
you will. ’Twill burn a path for you, I warrant,” and with that the poet,
now all impulse, leaped toward the hatchway, brandishing his sword. But
this time Vytal’s was the restraining hand.

“No; I but tried you. We are none of us to be caught in a stupid snare,
if snare it be.” And bending over the hold, to Marlowe’s astonishment,
he called for Roger Prat. Then, to the poet’s still greater amazement,
Roger’s head appeared in the opening, and a fat finger beckoned Vytal
still closer to the hatch.

“All’s well, but show no mistrust of them;” and then aloud, that the men
below might hear him, “Ay, Captain Vytal, ’tis Roger and many others
at your service, eager for the fray;” whereat, looking back down the
ladder, Prat called to the men to follow him. In a moment a motley
company, of perhaps twenty, were standing on the deck, ranged in a group
behind their spokesman. There were soldiers here, armed with pikes and
bearing for defence leathern targets on their arms. There were mariners,
too, with dirks and pistols.

“We are ready, you see,” observed Roger, with a covert wink. “Ready and
eager to defend the ship.”

“Brave men all,” said Vytal, masking his contempt with a look of
gratitude. “I thank you. But it is too late. The rank treason is already
thwarted, the pilot a captive, to whom justice shall be meted out in
no small measure. You have lost the chance to fight, but your desire,
believe me, shall not soon be forgotten.”

There was a double meaning in the last words that caused many an eye to
seek the deck confusedly. “’Twill be well,” resumed Vytal, with a look
at Prat, “to leave your arms here in case of another fell attempt to
surprise us. Perchance you might not hear the alarm, and so your weapons,
were they with you, would be lost to us. Here we can give them to the
hands of those who hasten first to the defence. I bid you good-night.”

One by one the men, not without hesitation, laid down their arms. It was
the only chance they had to prove their good faith, and Roger Prat, as
though to vindicate his own position, unbuckled his great scabbard with
much ado and laid it down beside the rest. Then the men turned upon their
heels and dispersed sheepishly, Roger, to maintain his rôle, going with
them to the forecastle.

“Now,” observed Vytal, turning to Marlowe, “you know my men at last.”

“But I do not understand—” began the poet.

“Nay, not the details. Nor I. He will explain later; see, he returns even
now to do it,” and Roger Prat stood once more before them. He was holding
his sides and shaking with silent laughter, after the repressing of which
he told an extraordinary tale.

“I heard the whistle,” he said, “and stood on guard. Master Pilot,
being bound, I now suppose, by Hugh, could give no outcry save one of
much profanity. But then a pistol-shot rang out, and I started forward
a pace with some alarm. No doubt it grazed Hugh’s elephantine ear. A
stimulus—a mere stimulus! But as I started forward—and for that step,
captain, you should put me in irons, I do assure you—as I started forward
carelessly, the hatch was flung open, and, before I could turn, I was
seized from behind. I thought Roger Prat was then no longer Roger Prat,
but Jonah ready for the whale. Yet I struggled, and being, as you know,
of some bulk and weight, succeeded in pushing my captor backward to the
hatch. The next instant one of us tripped, and I found myself bounding
downward along the ladder, at the bottom of which, thank Heaven, I lay
down comfortably on the man who had fallen behind me. For him ’twas a
less desirable descent.” And again Prat shook convulsively with laughter,
his elbows out and hands pressed close against his sides. “And then,” he
resumed, with an air of bravado, “I overcame the score.”

“Overcame the score!” exclaimed Marlowe.

“With wits, Master Poet. ‘’Slid!’ cried I. ‘Why treat a comrade thus?
In the name of Sir Walter, ’tis most unreasonable.’ ‘Which mean ye?’
they cried. ‘There are two Sir Walters!’ ‘Sir Walter St. Magil, of
course,’ said I. ‘Here I come from the _Admiral_ to give ye aid, and
find myself hurled headlong to the nether world. The pilot’s killed, the
plan defeated, and now we are like to decorate the yard-arm. There’s
forty men concealed on the orlop deck, awaiting us unkindly.’ At this
’twas all I could do to look mournful and keep from laughing outright,
for the knaves fell back terror-struck and babbled their fears to one
another. Then I hung my head as if in thought. ‘I have it!’ cried I, at
last; ‘we’ll play the part of brave defenders. There’s one trusts me,
for I gained his confidence at St. Magil’s suggestion. ’Tis Captain John
Vytal, the devil’s own.’ (Oh, forgive me, sir, for those dastard words.
Yet they added force to my parley.) ‘A ready-witted fellow,’ I heard one
say, and ‘’Tis a chance,’ remarked another gull. Thus they assented, and
we have twenty brave souls, Captain Vytal, new recruited. Hang them, I
say. Hang the lot at sunrise, except one, and him you cannot. ’Tis the
one I landed on in my descent. His neck is broke too soon and cheats the
gallows. Forgive me for that—oh, forgive me for that. Ha, ’twas a comical
proceeding.” And again the fit of merriment seized him, exhaustingly, so
that at last, for very mirth, he sat down on the deck, laughing until it
pained him and the tears rolled down his rubicund cheeks.

The laughter, being of the most contagious, irresistible kind, spread
to Marlowe. “Thy mirth,” said the poet, “is like to an intrusive flea.
It invades the inmost recesses of our risibility, and tickles us into
laughter.”

The sun, just peering over the horizon, saw an unusual sight across the
water. First, a man in the stern of a solitary ship bound like a bale
of cloth and propped against the bulwark under the eye of a giant who
yawned sleepily, and, stretching a pair of great arms abroad, spoke now
and then in monosyllables to a robust seaman on duty at the helm; then,
a corpulent soldier, shaking like an earthquake, and sitting on the
deck amidships, his short legs wide apart; next, a face of sensitive
poetic features not made for humor, but now submitting to it as though
under protest, yet very heartily; and, lastly, the tall, stern figure
of an evident leader, who stood near the others, but seemingly aloof in
thought, being, for some reason, little moved by the gale of mirth.

The dawning light of the next day showed a picture widely different in
conception.




CHAPTER VI

    “Die life, fly soul, tongue curse thy fill, and die!”

                               —MARLOWE, in _The Jew of Malta_.


The trial of the pilot for the instigation of mutiny was conducted in the
fly-boat’s main cabin with strict secrecy, in order that faint-hearted
ones might be spared the disheartening anxiety which a knowledge of the
conspiracy would have brought to them. The ship’s commander, Captain
Pomp by name, who had appeared greatly flurried and genuinely amazed on
hearing Vytal’s story, presided at the inquiry. Beside him at the long
table sat Vytal on the one hand and Ananias Dare, now sober but forlorn,
on the other.

The pilot, brought in by Hugh Rouse, came stolidly, without a struggle,
and during the trial faced his judges with defiance, turning now and then
an expectant look on Ananias Dare. For, preceding this investigation,
the assistant had gone to the deck at sunrise and held a conversation in
whispers with the guilty man, telling Hugh, who would have questioned
his authority, that he but sought to elicit further information from the
captive. What he had actually said was this: “An you betray me, we’re
both lost. Make no accusation at the trial. Even though I testify against
you, I will save you in the end.”

But the pilot’s eyes gazed at him with little trustfulness. “You swear
it?”

“I swear it.”

“So be it, then. But at the last an you fail me, Master Sot, look to your
own salvation.”

The trial proceeded in a perfunctory manner, and would have been but
a routine affair save for the increasing nervousness of Ananias, who
concealed the cause by holding both hands to his head as though only
the night’s intemperance had unstrung him; and by the sudden appearance
of Roger Prat, who, with the captain’s permission, held a whispered
conference with Vytal. “I pray you, captain, make no charge against the
others. I have charmed them with a flute and tabor. They are hot against
the pilot, being but hirelings, and, like sheep, easily led. We can count
our force the richer by a score. ‘I have saved your necks,’ said I,’and
have talked with Captain Vytal. An we oppose him we surely dangle from
the yard-arm. Welladay, welladay, I know what I know,’ and I sang them a
song, then played at dice, and lost three angels a-purpose, then drank
and warmed their chicken hearts. In another week they will be ready to
die for us,” and, making a grimace at the sullen pilot, as who should
say,“Be more cheerful, sir,” Roger swaggered from the cabin.

On the testimony of Vytal, who told of St. Magil’s conversation with
Ferdinando concerning his bribe to the pilot, and on the oath of Ananias
Dare, who testified to having heard the defendant plotting with St.
Magil, the culprit was speedily condemned. The pale face of Dare, the
faltering voice, the nervous effort with which he forced himself to
stand erect while bearing witness, were readily set down to his bibulous
tendencies, already well known to the fly-boat’s captain.

In a grandiose manner Captain Pomp arose and drew himself up to his full
height.

“Incarcerate the prisoner,” he said to Rouse, “in the hold. At midnight
I shall send for him. Our sentence is that he shall be hanged at the
yard-arm until dead.” Whereupon, with an important air, not devoid of
true dignity, he bowed to Vytal.

“It is well,” said the soldier. And the three judges filed slowly from
the room.

At the hour of midnight, when the voyagers were sleeping in their cabins,
a sailor appeared in the hatchway of the hold, and soon the pilot stood
beneath the main-mast, guarded by two dusky figures with drawn swords.
A third approached him gravely. It was the Oxford preacher, offering
consolation. But his offices were undesired. The pilot greeted him with a
low curse, then laughed scornfully.

Vytal, who had come hither, realized the stubborn nature of the condemned
man, and drew the pastor aside.

The moon, now full, had risen high, eclipsing with her brilliancy a host
of stars. The sea lay glassy, a pool of shining mercury, its currents
gliding on in silence, faster than the ship herself. The stillness was
profound, broken only by the far-off cry of an unseen gull.

The night was a night for serenades of love, for lutes, for ardent
whispers, for anything but work like this.

The noose was thrown over the pilot’s head carelessly, as though the
sailor were casting a quoit upon a peg. The captive opened his lips as
though to speak, but the rope was tight-drawn, and the effort ended
in a gulp, vainly. Suddenly there was a guttural, inarticulate cry, a
choking sound, and a bulky form went up half-way to the yard-arm. In
that instant, hurrying, uncertain footsteps scraped along the deck,
and Ananias Dare reeled into the silent circle. He gesticulated and
moved his arms, striving to point steadily at the swaying figure in
the moonlight. But he uttered only a gibberish of broken, unmeaning
syllables, and then, lurching to the bulwark, went deathly sick in
unrestrainable nausea.

The figure above, still rocking slightly from the upward swing, held out
a thick forefinger and pointed to the new-comer, while a smile, ghastly
in the moonshine, and triumphant even in the last agony, crossed its
bestial face.

Vytal turned and looked at Ananias, who was now but a mumbling,
terror-stricken heap upon the deck. Vytal had looked at the man before,
but now for the first time seemed to gaze _into_ him.

“Ugh!” muttered Roger Prat, shuddering. “Goodman Thong did his work well,
but the pilot has done his duty even better.”

The sun, several hours later, peering through the grayness, saw a heavy
thing, limp and motionless, depending from the yard-arm of a lonely
ship. It was a man of revolting countenance, black from strangulation,
and pitted with the marks of a disease. Over the brow a shock of coarse
red hair hung in strands like streaks of fire, and from the chin a ruddy
beard flared across the chest. On one of the broad shoulders sat a great
white gull, its beak buried in the flame.

But soon a sailor appeared on deck, whistling cheerily in the morning
watch. He cut the thing down, and, grumbling over its weighty bulk, cast
it headlong into the sea.




CHAPTER VII

    “What shall I call thee? brother?”

                 —MARLOWE, in _Tamburlaine_.


The voyage of the fly-boat proceeded thenceforward more uneventfully. The
men who had been planning insubordination, now that their ringleader had
been so summarily disposed of, changed their front and avowed themselves
genuinely the followers of Vytal and the captain. For this transition
Roger Prat, winning them with his humor and good-fellowship, was largely
responsible, and after his own humbly boastful manner took no care to
conceal the fact from Rouse, whom he loved in a railing, mocking fashion.

Vytal and Marlowe were much together, the dull days affording them
the chance for many conversations, by the aid of which their intimacy
grew and deepened into a strong friendship. There was that in the poet
which appealed to Vytal—the facility of expression, the fervor and the
impetuosity, all of which his own nature had lost in the grim realities
of war and privation. Also, there was sometimes a profundity in Marlowe’s
thought which touched his silent depths.

Neither of the two saw Eleanor Dare again while on the voyage, save for
an occasional glimpse of her, when, with her maid-servant, who was the
wife of Dyonis Harvie, she came upon the deck for a breath of air.

Ananias approached the two men now and then with whispered protestations
of his innocence, that grew more calm and earnest in his sober moments.
Finally, however, he vaguely confessed a slight complicity, to Vytal
only, and followed the acknowledgment with a convincing assurance that at
heart he had ever been loyal to his father-in-law, Governor White, and to
Sir Walter Raleigh. Vytal, hiding his contempt, received this assertion
with a promise to leave the matter as it stood so long as there were no
signs of further culpability, and gave the assistant his hand with a
strong effort. He then instructed his men to preserve a like secrecy.

For many weeks the ship pursued her solitary course without once sighting
the _Admiral_. It was feared by many that Ferdinando’s vessel had met
some misfortune, and foul play was suggested by but a few of the most
suspicious voyagers.

Only one incident in all these weeks seems worthy of record.

Vytal was standing alone at mid-day, down on the orlop deck, examining
the ship’s cables and spare rigging, when a light footstep, almost
inaudible, approached him from behind. Turning, he saw the Indian,
Manteo, who, it will be remembered, was returning to Virginia after a
stay of several years in England. He held a finger to his lips and looked
about him cautiously. “We are betrayed,” he said, in a low voice, “by the
son of a warlike country. Ferdinando leaves his children to perish. The
great ship seeks us not, but would make her way to my land alone.”

Vytal scrutinized the impassive face for the first time with a deep
interest. He had seen the Indian’s tall figure, now and again, standing
silently aloof in the bow, his dark eyes always gazing off to the
westward. But until now he had not seen those eyes alert and troubled,
the supple form prescient with meaning.

“What brings you this suspicion, Manteo?”

“I know it as birds know that winter comes, as vultures that a warrior is
dead.”

There was a marked similarity in the bearing of the two men. They were
both tall, dignified, and slow to speak, both evidently perceptive,
strong, and masterful, both almost childlike in their direct simplicity.
Perhaps each realized the likeness, for into the eyes of both there came
a look of understanding that gave promise of a bond between them stronger
than the stout cables the one had been examining, stronger even than the
other’s ties of blood.

“My brother,” said Manteo, at length, “you, too, know the truth, but in
a different way. I came to thy country as Master Barlow’s interpreter,
many moons ago. I return to my people, but I have learned among thine to
interpret more than words. Thus, and by my own heart, I know that we are
left behind. I have spoken.”

“You have spoken no lie.”

“I am Manteo, and lie not.”

“My brother,” rejoined Vytal, “listen.” And he told the chief the tale
succinctly, omitting only the complicity of Ananias Dare. “An you learn
more,” he said, in conclusion, “you will tell me, I trust, and none
other.”

“Only to thee have I spoken, or shall speak. For thou art a chief, as I
am, among men.”

There remains no more to be told concerning life on the fly-boat. As
to the voyage of the _Admiral_, it is recorded on accessible pages of
history. An excerpt from these may not be inadmissible as a record of
bare fact. In the journal of John White, the colony’s governor, we find
the following true description of the voyage:

    MAY.

    The sixteenth, Simon Ferdinando, Master of our _Admiral_,
    lewdly forsook our fly-boat, leaving her distressed in the bay
    of Portugal.

    JUNE.

    The nineteenth we fell with Dominica, and the same evening we
    sailed between it and Guadaloupe.

    …

    The twenty-eighth we weighed anchor at Cottea and presently
    came to St. John’s in Mosquito’s Bay, where we spent three days
    unprofitable in taking in fresh water, spending in the mean
    time more beer than the quantity of water came unto.

    JULY.

    …

    About the sixteenth of July we fell with the main of Virginia,
    which Simon Ferdinando took to be the Island of Croatan, where
    we came to anchor and rode there two or three days: but finding
    himself deceived, he weighed, and bore along the coast.

    The two-and-twentieth of July we arrived safe at Hatarask.…

    The twenty-fifth our fly-boat and the rest of our
    planters arrived all safe at Hatarask, to the great joy
    and comfort of the whole company: but the Master of our
    _Admiral_—Ferdinando—grieved greatly at their safe-coming: for
    he purposely left them in the bay of Portugal, and stole away
    from them in the night, hoping that the Master thereof … would
    hardly find the place, or else being left in so dangerous a
    place as that was, by means of so many men-of-war, as at that
    time were abroad, they should surely be taken or slain, but God
    disappointed his wicked pretences.

Here the account of the days at sea ends. Thus the fly-boat, thanks to
the watchfulness and care of Dyonis Harvie, came at last to her haven.




CHAPTER VIII

    “Triumph, my mates, our travels are at end.”

               —MARLOWE, in _Dido, Queen of Carthage_.


The landing and unlading of the fly-boat was a task requiring much
exertion. But now that the dangers of the ocean were past, every man,
woman, and child of the little colony lent aid with a hearty will. They
were in high spirits. The mid-day sun shone down in summer warmth, the
skies were blue and cloudless. The island of Roanoke, emerald green in
all its summer verdure, seemed a veritable land of promise. A number of
the most youthful colonists ran along the shore to prove their freedom
from the confines of the deck—ran, calling to one another, and sang for
sheer happiness. Others, more devout, gathered about the preacher, who
offered a prayer of thanksgiving. Some, with whom labor was at all times
paramount, went busily to and fro in the small boats and the pinnace,
which had again been manned, conveying the cargo from ship to shore. The
main body, who had arrived earlier on the _Admiral_, came down with tears
of joy in welcome, and a babble of questions concerning the fly-boat’s
voyage. The scene was varied. Here stood Hugh Rouse with a great bag of
salt on his broad shoulders; here Roger Prat, arm-in-arm with his newly
regained friend, the bear, and pointing at Rouse with some remark to King
Lud of raillery; here Marlowe, the poet, surveying with eager eyes the
luxuriant foliage farther inland and listening with enthralment to the
songs of forest birds; there Gyll Croyden running toward him joyously,
with a fresh-plucked nosegay of unknown, fragrant flowers in her hand;
here Ananias Dare overlooking a couple of sailors who rolled a cask of
wine across the beach; there Simon Ferdinando, important with a hundred
directions, and furtive as he glanced toward Vytal; here Governor White,
for a moment leaving the management to his assistants, and here, too,
beside him, his daughter Eleanor, her face pale as if with illness, her
long cloak still about her. She was clasping his arm with both hands, as
though to make sure of no renewed separation. “Father, I thank God we are
once more together. The days were very long, and almost unendurable.”

But there was no rejoinder, for John Vytal stood before them, with a
question of evident importance on his lips. “Where is Sir Walter St.
Magil?”

“In truth I know not,” and the governor’s kindly face turned to the men
at work near by. “He hath gone out to the _Admiral_, perhaps.”

Vytal left them with a grave, almost indifferent bow to Eleanor, and,
boarding the pinnace, was about to return to Ferdinando’s ship in quest
of St. Magil; but he felt a hand on his arm drawing him gently backward,
and, turning, he saw Manteo, the Indian, who drew him aside beyond a bend
in the shore. “My brother, he hath gone.”




CHAPTER IX

    “From forth her ashes shall advance her head,
    And flourish once again that erst was dead.”

                —MARLOWE, in _Dido, Queen of Carthage_.


Vytal frowned and bit his lip. “When did he go, and whither?”

“When, I can say, for I have heard. It was yesterday, the day after the
great ship and our father, the governor, came to Roanoke, before we
ourselves arrived. But whither I know not, save that it was toward the
great forest of the South.”

“Alone?”

The Indian’s brow clouded. “Nay, I grieve that he went with Towaye, my
kinsman, who came from England on the _Admiral_. I await thy word to
follow the trail by which Towaye, for some unknown purpose, guides thine
enemy.”

“I thank you, but I am glad that he is gone. He has no knowledge of
the fly-boat’s arrival, and thus will miscalculate our strength. He is
bound, an I mistake not, for the Spanish city of St. Augustine. Is it not
accessible from here by land?”

“It is,” replied Manteo, “for men of a kindred race came hither that way
at the beginning of the world, and were slain as foes. But the trail
hides itself as the trail a dead man follows. It runs through an endless
forest, our forefathers have said, and over the face of angry waters.
The white man must be brave, though evil, and my kinsman but one of many
guides. For passing through Secotan, five-and-twenty leagues to the
southward, they must go, with many windings, as serpents go, to the land
of Casicola, lord of ten thousand. Also they must pass the Weroances,
Dicassa, and Toupee Kyn, of whom our men know nothing save the sound of
their names, which comes like an echo without meaning. And they will come
to La Grande Copal, where there are stars in the earth your people call
jewels, and buy with cloth.”

Vytal’s face grew more troubled as the Indian proceeded. “It is
impossible that he has gone so far.”

“Yes, but there may be yet another way. The river called Waterin[4] is a
trail itself, leading perhaps to the Spanish towns.”

Vytal seemed but half satisfied. “Are you sure he has left the island?”

“No, but I will see.”

“Go, then, Manteo.”

“I return not,” said the Indian, “until I know,” and in a minute he was
lost in the adjacent woods.

For a week the foremost consideration in Vytal’s mind, after the cargo
had been landed, was to ascertain, if possible, the whereabouts of
the fifteen men who, being the stoutest spirits of an earlier colony,
had been left the year before to hold the territory for England. The
inadequacy of this arrangement, by which a garrison that would not
have sufficed to defend a small fortress was left to guard a boundless
acquisition, is perhaps unparalleled in history. But to many of the newly
arrived colonists the utter futility of the plan was not apparent. They
had not yet experienced the desperate hardships of an infant settlement,
nor realized the extent and latent ferocity of the savage hordes that
overran the continent. Furthermore, the magnitude and nature of the
territory which fifteen men had been appointed to hold was by no means
appreciated. Nevertheless, in the minds of men who had played their games
of life against odds and could justly estimate the hazards of existence,
the likelihood of finding the little company seemed very small. Vytal,
for one, felt far from sanguine, but the kindly, impractical governor,
although he had already searched the whole Island of Roanoke in vain,
still held out hope of ultimate success.

“I doubt not we shall find them yet,” he said one evening to Vytal, “on
some adjacent island.”

The soldier shook his head. “Let us go once again and inspect the site of
their settlement.”

“It is a most dismal scene,” declared the governor, leading the way to a
road running inward from the shore. “But my men can soon make the place
habitable.”

“Habitable!” exclaimed a voice behind them; “’tis a perfect Eden,” and
the speaker joined them.

“Ay, Master Marlowe,” returned the governor, glancing at the new-comer
with a look of indulgent admiration. “But Eden is forsook.”

“’Tis the old story,” observed the poet, “of an enforced exodus, but
wherein lay the fatal sin? Are birds evil? Nay, but their little fate in
a falcon’s guise destroys them.”

The governor looked at him askance. “I have heard of your loose theology,
sir, but pray you to restrain it here. We are a lonely people, and need
God.”

The poet made no answer. The unquestioning faith of men like Vytal and
the governor—the faith direct, plain, and utterly free from the cant
he hated—caused him at times to covet their deep simplicity; again, he
would rail against religion, and wander with vain eagerness through the
mazes of a complex Pantheism. But at last, poetry, pure and undefiled by
sophistries, would return to him with her quieting, magical touch, and
restore the sunshine to his world. “Dreamed you ever of such verdure?”
he said, at length. “Nature is prodigal here, a spendthrift in a far
country.”

They were now on an eminence dominating the bay and sea. Vytal stood
still and looked inland, then turned and faced the water. He spoke no
word, but only gazed off to the distant shore. At last, catching sight of
the busy group beneath him, he turned again and rejoined the others. “He
knows it all,” thought Marlowe, “even better than I, yet says nothing.”

The road, overgrown with weeds and scarcely visible in places, led them
at last to a number of huts in a wide clearing at the north end of the
island. Here a scene of decay and desolation met their eyes. The sun, now
setting, shot long, slanting rays across the oval, as though to exhibit
every detail of the picture in one merciless moment and then be gone.
“’Tis an impious revelation,” said Marlowe, glancing about drearily at
the numerous deserted huts. “Look at that hovel; ’tis but the corpse of
a house. And that! Its windows leer like the eye-holes of a skull. And
this one, the least decayed. It stands to prove itself a home, with the
mere memory of protection. How vacantly they stare at us, like melancholy
madmen! Come, let us begone.” He would have started back, but seeing
that Vytal and the governor had not yet finished their more practical
investigation, followed them in silence.

Most of the hovels had been torn down to within about eight feet of the
ground. The small boards which had served to barricade their windows
were scattered about like the fallen slabs of graves, while here and
there a door, evidently unhinged by violence, lay flat against the earth,
as though, if raised, it would reveal the entrance to a subterranean
vault. The roofs, which were but the ceilings of the first stories,
yawned wide to the sky, save where a few mouldering, worm-pitted rafters
deepened the inner gloom. Melons grew about walls and thresholds in
rotting profusion, while a hoard of parasitic weeds and wild grape-vines
ran in and out between the logs. Some of the cabins, having fared yet
worse, were now but black heaps of charred timber, half covered with long
green tendrils, as if the fingers of Nature were striving to drag them
back to life. And near the middle of the clearing a large pile of logs,
rafters, bricks, and stone blocks showed that a fortress had been razed
to the ground.

The three men walked on with few words, until Vytal, standing at the
margin of the oval, called Marlowe’s attention to a narrow pathway almost
concealed by shrubs and fallen leaves. It led through the dense forest.
Impulsively, Marlowe started to follow it, but the governor would have
restrained him. “Have a care, Sir Poet; mayhap this is an Indian trail,
and leads to danger!”

“No,” called Marlowe, who, unheeding the other’s protest, had hastened
along the path to a distance of several rods. “Come.”

They followed him and, to their surprise, came presently out on a
second clearing, much smaller than the first. Here a cabin, entirely
unobservable from the main opening, stood more boldly than all the rest,
despite its isolation. It was entirely encircled by trees, save on the
western side, where a broad breach in the line of foliage admitted a
flood of relentless sunlight.

The three men started forward eagerly, for this house might even then
have contained a tenant. Its door was closed, its windows barred. The
roof had not entirely fallen, for a willow’s branches swept across it
with a thousand restless whispers, as though to a being within. But here,
too, lank weeds clawed the walls, and melons rotted before the threshold.

Vytal tried the door. It resisted his strong pressure. But Marlowe,
raising to the level of his shoulder a large stone, not unlike a
cannon-ball in shape and size, flung it against the oaken barrier. It
crashed through a decayed board and fell inside, first with a dull thud,
and then, as it rolled, a crackling sound like the snapping of dry twigs.
Vytal looked through the aperture, but could distinguish nothing for the
gloom, and Marlowe peered in with no better success. “It holds all the
shadows of the forest in its heart,” he said, thrusting a hand through
the hole. “There is a bar of iron across the doorway.” He dislodged the
metal rod, and letting it fall, pulled open the door, whose rusty hinges
creaked remonstrance as he entered.

Vytal and the governor, following him, found themselves standing on hard,
cold earth, to which the stone and iron bar had fallen.

A sudden gust of wind slammed the door behind them. Vytal stepped back
to reopen it and admit light into the gloomy interior, but the last rays
of sunshine crept now almost horizontally through a rift in the western
wall. “They desecrate a tomb,” said Marlowe, “by revealing its contents.
Look!” He pointed to a number of white streaks in a corner on the earth.
The sunbeams frolicked across them.

“They are the bones of a fellow-creature,” exclaimed the governor,
leaving the cabin with horror.

He spoke truth. In the corner lay a man’s bones, the skull, the body’s
frame, the limbs, all close together, but separate.

“There are two skulls!” ejaculated Marlowe.

“No; one is but the stone you threw.” Vytal was not mistaken, for the
stone had rolled among the white streaks, snapping some and crushing
others to a powder that shone like phosphorus in the sunlight.

The two men turned away from the ghastly sight in silence, to survey the
room. An old musket stood against the wall, its barrel poked through the
narrow chink, peering out at the forest. A rusty pike lay near by, its
long, wooden staff stretched out from the white finger-bones of its dead
possessor.

The cabin was devoid of furniture save for a rough-hewn table and an
upturned stool, about the legs of which the long sinews of a plant,
having entered stealthily from without through numerous knot-holes, had
twined themselves tenaciously.

But there were few weeds growing within the hovel, for the earth, like
adamant, offered no fertility even to the rankest vegetation.

Suddenly the sunlight left the room, and a chilling miasma seemed to fill
it. Marlowe shuddered. “Let us leave this grave. Its gloom gets into my
brain. One man outlived his mates and dwelt alone in this vast country,
daring to fight single-handed against Destiny—and this is the result—a
few porous sticks bleached by the frivolous sunbeams, a delusive glow
suggesting the divine spark—and oblivion!” So saying, the poet, wrapping
his cloak closer about him, withdrew to the open air, where the governor,
also dolefully affected, awaited him.

Vytal came out slowly. “He is accustomed to scenes of death,” said the
governor to Marlowe. “Death, with all its grim carnality, has grown
familiar in the years of war.”

“Yes, but the gloom of the story is in his heart, beside which the
shadows of the room are as nothing. He feels these things down deep, but
is ever silent.”

They stood on the edge of the glade waiting for the subject of their
conversation, who was walking slowly around the cabin. “He looks for
further traces of the lost men,” remarked the governor.

“No, it is for some other reason.” Marlowe was not mistaken, Vytal’s
close inspection of the hut’s vicinage being from a widely different
motive. Carefully he examined the glade’s border on all sides. To the
west he found a wide, natural avenue in the forest that lost itself in
the purple distance; to the north, a dense jungle seemingly impassable
for man or beast; to the east, a double file of oaks and elms, growing
with some regularity on the brow of a low cliff, their trunks surrounded
by a tangle of underbrush that rose to the height of several feet and
fell away again, to ramble through long grass in all directions. Being
tall enough to look over this wild hedge-row, Vytal could catch a
glimpse of the sound beneath him, and, from a vantage-point where a dead
oak-branch left the view unobscured, he could just distinguish the two
ships riding at anchor, within musket-range of his position.

Turning then to the south side of the clearing, he came to a strip of
woods, perhaps fifty yards in width, which separated the hut from the
deserted settlement. Evidently satisfied by his observations, he rejoined
his companions.

“With your permission,” he said to Governor White, “I make this my
dwelling-place.”

The governor expostulated, being astonished at the voluntary choice of
so dismal and isolated a habitation, but Marlowe understood.

“I prefer it to any other,” said the soldier. “Have you not yet suspected
that we are likely to meet enemies here on Roanoke?”

“Nay, the chance is slight. Manteo and Towaye have assured me of their
people’s friendliness.”

Vytal hesitated before he spoke again, but finally concluding that the
time had come for his disclosure, made known the main facts tersely
and without a word of incriminating testimony against the governor’s
son-in-law, Ananias Dare.

Governor White received the information in mute astonishment at first,
seeming loath to believe that any of his followers had planned so
base a conspiracy. But he had been aware before now of Ferdinando’s
untrustworthy character, and although the master had explained away his
desertion of the fly-boat by asserting that its pilot knew the course,
and had requested him not to shorten sail unnecessarily, the governor’s
first mistrust returned to him now with full force. “We must apprehend
this Ferdinando, and bring him to justice.”

“Nay, with your permission, I will leave him at large, yet watch him
carefully. Men of his mould defeat themselves. By close surveillance
we shall discover any mischief he may seek to brew among us. An open
punishment would affright the fellows who, being but tools, were on the
verge of mutiny. These men now are loyal enough, and, if well treated,
will fight for us. Otherwise they might desert.”

The governor’s kindly face was now more grieved than angry. “I had not
thought there was so caitiff a knave as Simon among our people. Think
you Sir Walter St. Magil will return with a force to menace our little
colony?”

“That is wellnigh certain, for St. Magil plays into the hands of Philip,
King of Spain. The Spaniards would extend their possessions northward,
and have found a friend to aid them. This man, believing he has decreased
our numbers by one-half, has gone to inform his patron’s subjects that we
stupidly wait here to be killed.”

“Whither has he gone?”

“That I cannot tell. At first I thought to St. Augustine, but the journey
by land is very difficult. The Spaniards await him, for all I know, in a
camp not half so far.”

The governor, deeply troubled, cast about for the best method of
procedure. “Would it not be well to pursue St. Magil, and overtake him if
possible before he reaches his destination? I have heard that Indians are
as quick and sure as hounds in a pursuit.”

“No. It is best to drill each planter in the use of arms; then, when our
homes are built, to fortify the town as best we may, and wait.”

“But we shall suffer heavy loss, even though successful in the end.”

“Not so much as if we run into a snare with no provision for defence. And
we shall teach them a lesson.”

“But at how great a cost to us? You, Captain Vytal, have not a child to
consider. I have. She is a woman, brave, ’tis true, and stout of heart,
but now not strong in body. You know my daughter, Mistress Eleanor Dare?”

“Yes.”

“I should go down to my grave broken-hearted were harm to come to her.”

“I understand.”

“No, you cannot, you who talk of wars as pastimes, you who have no child
to guard.”

“I understand,” repeated Vytal, breathing heavily, and Marlowe, to
relieve the tension, declared fervently, “We will defend the women to the
last man.”

Vytal turned to him as though he would have asked a question, but looked
away again in silence.

They were now nearing the workers on the beach, who made ready to return
for the night to their cabins in the fly-boat and _Admiral_, where they
were to sleep until the town had been rebuilt. Seeing the governor stop
to speak with one of the assistants, Marlowe turned to his taciturn
friend. “May I share that hermit’s hut with you?”

“I would share it with no other,” and Vytal looked down at the poet as
at a younger brother. Marlowe’s face brightened. He started ahead with a
buoyant step. “Now we shall live together, a pair of barbarians, heavily
armed against the world and waiting to see which must be the last man.”
He would have run on further in his reckless manner, but there came no
response to the outburst of defiant enthusiasm. Turning to ascertain the
reason, he was surprised to find that his companion, who had dropped
behind him, was at this moment entering the woods in company with Manteo,
the Indian.

“My brother, a tongue of smoke licks the sky far to the southward; yet
the forest burns not; the smoke is from the shore.”

“You think it is the camp of white men?”

“I do; for did I not see a ship asleep at anchor and the gleam of armor
under a hill?”

A look of intense satisfaction crossed Vytal’s face. “They are come,” he
said.




CHAPTER X

    “As had you seen her ’twould have moved your heart,
    Though countermined with walls of brass, to love,
    Or at the least to pity.”

                             —MARLOWE, in _The Jew of Malta_.


On the third night following Manteo’s return, Vytal and Marlowe were
together in the secluded hut of their choosing. The cabin contained but
one room, scantily furnished by two pallets of straw, a rough-hewn table,
a couple of chairs, and other bare necessities of a home’s interior.

The weather was foul, the sky lowering. Occasionally a gleam of distant
lightning shot through chinks in the hovel wall, straight across Vytal’s
face, as, deep in thought, he sat beside the table. A tempestuous wind,
shrieking like a shrew in heated brawl, seemed bent on extinguishing a
cresset which had been thrust between the logs, but succeeded only in
causing the light to flare uncertainly, as though the torch were being
brandished aloft by an unseen hand.

As the gale increased, Marlowe, who had been half reclining on his pallet
in a dark corner, rose and peered out through the hole in the door
which he had made with the skull-like stone. The aperture, jagged and
splintered at the edges, had purposely been left uncovered, as the hut’s
original windows were still barred.

“I’ faith, ’tis a murky night,” said Marlowe, striving to determine the
outlines of trees against the sky. “This wind’s a very nightmare to the
woods.” He turned slowly and sat down at the table. “’Tis well that most
of the colonists have built and occupied their homes. Troth, I pity them
who sleep aboard the ships at anchor.”

Vytal inclined his head, and Christopher smiled comprehendingly. Eleanor,
at least, was safe and unharassed—hence Vytal’s unconcern. Mistress
Dare, of whom lately they had seen nothing, was housed in the governor’s
new-built dwelling, beyond the strip of woodland whose high outline
Marlowe had just found indeterminate between this cabin and the town.

But Gyll Croyden was still on board the _Admiral_. Marlowe remembered
this, and his thoughts pictured vividly the two women in contrast—one,
as he supposed, all content and comfort; the other at the mercy of every
wind and wave that crossed her life.

Listlessly he toyed with a sheet of paper on the table, and, picking up a
pen, dipped it in an ink-horn at his side.

“_Comparisons are odious_,” he wrote, slowly, little dreaming that
the words, born of that fleeting contrast in his mind, were to become
proverbial the world over. But, on raising his eyes to Vytal’s face, he
found in the deep expression none of the odiousness of comparison, for in
his friend’s thoughts there was only one woman to be considered.

Again the poet smiled, as one who half gladly, yet half sadly,
understands, and once more his reflections shaped themselves in words.
He wrote, carelessly, “_Who ever lov’d that lov’d not at first sight?_”
and, letting fall the pen, handed the paper to Vytal. The soldier read
and re-read, but made no response whatever, for, even as his eyes were
raised from the writing, his look changed suddenly, and Marlowe, with
astonishment, saw him gazing transfixedly toward the battered door.

As a dream comes in the night-time to recall the thoughts of day, so a
face, seemingly visionary, appeared now to the two men. The jagged edge
of the door’s orifice framed it uncertainly, but the cresset’s light fell
across the features in vivid revelation.

Vytal’s lips parted as though he would have spoken, but it was Marlowe
who voiced the name.

“Eleanor—Mistress Dare!”

And now slowly, yet before the two could recover from amaze, the door was
opened, and, like a white dove from the heart of the gale, Eleanor came
within the cabin.

The door slammed, and then all was quiet, both men sitting spellbound,
for a single glance had told them that she was walking in her sleep. Her
eyes were open, but evidently unseeing, with that vaguely transcendental
look of the somnambulist; and she was clad only in a white simar of silk.
Her russet hair, with which the wind had rioted, hung in profuse disorder
about her shoulders and beneath her throat, where now it rose and fell
more gently with the undulation of her breast. Her hands, clasped
before her, added an effect of rest to the blind bewilderment of her
all-unconscious pose.

For a moment she stood mutely facing them and looking, as it were,
through them to a limitless beyond.

Vytal rose. “Mistress Dare, I pray you—” but as the name Dare seemed to
be borne in upon her mind she cried out terrifiedly, and, swaying, would
have fallen, had he not supported her and led her to his pallet of straw.

As his hand touched hers, Vytal started. “She hath a fever,” he said
to Marlowe. “Do you seek the chirurgeon. He sleeps on the _Admiral_
to-night—also her tire-woman, Margery Harvie, at the governor’s house.”

Hastily Marlowe started out, and the two were left alone.

In silence, Vytal covered Eleanor with his cloak, then, kneeling beside
her with all of a man’s tender concern and helplessness, held her hand.

Her mind was wandering now, and she spoke brokenly. The torchlight
revealed her expression to him, and every look betokened change of
subject in her thoughts, or, rather, change of subconscious impression,
for the words never forsook a central theme, around which her mind seemed
to revolve in desperate fascination.

Occasionally a glimmer of the distant lightning fell across the
listener’s face, showing it tense and deep-cut with the lines of a new
resignation.

“Oh, I am but a child,” he heard her say, as her speech grew more
coherent. “I pray thee, father, take me not to London … ’twill ne’er be
the same to me as this … these vagrant flowers … they grow not thus in
the streets of towns.” Her voice was tremulous with tears. “Is’t true,
father, that the queen … hath sent for thee … oh, then, thou’lt go … I
prove no hinderance … thou’lt go, and I’ll play at happiness in London.…
’Tis best.” She paused and tossed feverishly on the narrow pallet; but
at length, as Vytal’s firm grasp seemed to comfort her, she lay quite
still and spoke again. Several years had apparently elapsed in the life
she was re-living. “Alack, I knew we’d find no content in London.… What
is’t worries thee so, my father?” Suddenly a second cry escaped her.
“What sayest thou? Her Majesty would have me married! … and ’tis the only
way … nay, nay.… Will she not spare thee, father? Thou hast done naught
amiss.… ’Tis most unjust.… Ah, nay, in troth, I cannot … yet ’tis all for
thee … for thee … then tell her Majesty I will.”

Her look changed, and she smiled sadly, as though resigned, a second
person seeming to enter in upon her dream. “Ananias, it shall be as you
desire.… If thou’lt rest content with friendship for a time, perchance in
the coming days I’ll learn to love thee, cousin, but now I cannot.… My
father alone is in my heart.”

She broke off abruptly and grasped Vytal’s hand, as though upon that
grasp depended her salvation from a fate far worse than death. Evidently
behind all the foremost people of her delirium a dominant personality
influenced her mind—the same personality, perhaps, whose thrall had in
some strange way drawn her to the cabin. And now she fell to sobbing,
sobbing in anguish, and her helplessly childlike expression tortured
Vytal’s soul. “Oh, Ananias, I knew not of this great weakness.… I reck’d
not against thy love of wine … God pity me.…”

Then for long she lay moaning and whispering inarticulately, Vytal
kneeling beside her, scarcely more conscious than herself. The wind,
subsiding, wailed about the cabin, leaving the torchlight steadier
within. The damp earth, as yet unfloored, lent to the room a tomblike
chill, and leaves rustled across the rafters.

Eleanor, turning restlessly, gazed into a dark corner, as if yet another
figure had defined itself amid all the complexity of fevered thought.
“Margery, I must tell thee,” she said, with the impassivity of one who
has no interest in life. “I am with child.”

Then again all was silent save for the low moan and whisper of the wind
as it died slowly in the forest.

Vytal rose and went to the door, acutely realizing that to remain longer
beside the bed and hear these words of a breaking heart was not only to
torture himself, but to profane the soul that, all unknowing, gave them
utterance. “John Vytal, I love thee … thee only … always.”

He trembled, then mechanically opened the door, passed out, and, closing
it again, stood outside before it, fixed and rigid like a sentinel
on duty. Only incoherent phrases came to him now, inarticulate and
meaningless in language, yet fraught with so terrible a significance that
he strove to force upon his mind a condition utterly devoid of thought.

But with Vytal this was ever impossible, and so at the last, with a
great mental effort, he clutched at the consideration of outward and
practical necessity. Would Marlowe never return with aid? He listened
desperately for footsteps. Every slight rustle, every sound of wind and
wood that came instead, filled his ears and brain, until all the world
and existence seemed but a medley of sounds, trivial, but wonderfully
important; low, but always audible and intently to be heeded in the night.

When at last he heard a footfall he realized dimly that this was not what
he had expected; it was not from the woods, but from within the hut.

Slowly the door opened, and Eleanor stood looking into his face. Her
eyes, though bewildered, were calm and recognizing, while her whole
expression seemed indicative of consciousness regained. The somnambulism
and delirium, not unnatural to one in her condition, had left her very
feeble in body but mentally aroused. As Vytal realized this, the demands
of the moment became paramount to him, his own terrible lethargy being
broken to meet her needs.

“Mistress Dare,” he said, calmly, “I pray you rest here longer. I have
sent for aid.”

For a moment she made no response, but stood looking about her at the
room’s interior. The torchlight fell across a sheet of paper on the
table. First a single written sentence met her eye:

“_Comparisons are odious._”

She shivered and would have turned away, but there was more writing,
which seemed to speak to her, though she was not sensible of reading the
lines, even to herself:

“_Who ever lov’d that lov’d not at first sight?_”

She looked from the table out into the darkness, and then at Vytal. “Oh,
sir, tell me how came I hither—thus—at night!” She clasped his cloak
tightly about her, leaning against the door-post for support.

“You have been stricken, madam, with a fever. I pray you rest.”

At this a new apprehension came into her eyes. “Oh, John Vytal, have I
spoken in feverish way? Tell me, tell me—”

A quick denial sprang to his lips. He believed that deception then would
have been no lie, but to the man who had ever fought for truth, to the
simple, direct nature, even that deception was impossible.

“You spoke, madam; yet, believe me, your words I shall withhold forever,
even from myself.”

Long they stood in silence, conveying no thought one to the other, by
word, or look, or slightest gesture, their spirits, at the end of that
silent lifetime, seeming to meet and become one; yet even in the instant
of their acute conception of the union they stood apart, as if denying
the bond.

Finally he saw her tremble, and a keen realization of her own despair
rose above all thoughts of self. “Thank God,” he said, “our colony hath
need of us. There’s work to do—not for me only, but for you.”

Thereafter she passed him, inclining her head in vague assent, and with a
strenuous effort started out in the darkness toward the gate of the main
enclosure.

He could not follow, knowing that her silence prayed him to withhold
assistance, yet every instinct fought against his self-control.

“I will send the chirurgeon,” he said, “to your father’s house.”




CHAPTER XI

    “Now will I show myself
    To have more of the serpent than the dove;
    That is—more knave than fool.”

                    —MARLOWE, in _The Jew of Malta_.


Even the sanguine governor had by now given up all hope of finding any
survivor of the fifteen men who had been left to hold the territory
for England. The supposition became general that these unfortunates
had been massacred by a tribe of hostile savages, known through Manteo
as Winginas. The colonists were much surprised, nevertheless, when, on
a day early in August, their suspicions were seemingly verified in an
unexpected way.

In the afternoon Vytal sought Rouse at the fortress, which had been
rebuilt.

“Where is Roger?”

“I know not,” replied Hugh. “He is mad in this new country, more
addle-pated than before. An hour ago I saw him leading King Lud away into
the woods, and, following him, Mistress Gyll Croyden, after whom he runs
nowadays as the bear runs after him. They went, I think, to speed some
friendly Indians on their homeward way. But he is mad with his pipe and
tabor, his cittern and King Lud. I fear in his wagging head there is no
sense left.”

Vytal smiled. He knew men. “Come, we will go in search of them. I must
see Roger without delay.”

They started out together on the trail the Indians had taken, Vytal
telling briefly of St. Magil’s approach, and Rouse listening with more
of satisfaction than alarm. At length, after a long walk, they heard the
familiar notes of a flute gone wild, and pushing forward to an opening in
the woods that bordered on the water, came within view of a scene that is
wellnigh indescribable.

There, in the middle of the glade, sat Roger Prat on his tabor, piping
for dear life, while Gyll Croyden flashed in and out amid the shadows
in a dance even more fast and furious than the tune. But this was not
all; for there, in ludicrous contrast, stood King Lud, the bear, facing
her from across the sward, erect on his hind-legs and curveting clumsily
about. His nose sniffed the air; his fore-paws dangled idly on his shaggy
breast; but the bandy hind-legs danced with an awkward alacrity, while
he shambled hither and thither as though on a red-hot iron. Again and
again he revolved slowly in a cumbrous, rotary jump, maintaining his
equilibrium with the utmost effort of ponderous energy. And still the
flutist played his rollicking tune, the romp of the notes accompanying
occasional outbursts of musical laughter and warbled catches from
Mistress Croyden’s lips.

Mistress Croyden herself was undeniably the life and key-note of the
extravagant orgie, dancing, and dancing as only impulse led her, in
utter _abandon_ and unrestrainable liberty of motion, until her little
feet sped to no tune, but outstripped Prat’s endeavors—madly, riotously
leaped, tripped, pirouetted, glided, and were never still. She whirled
first, then ran forward as though on wings, then, bending low in mock
courtesy to her bulky partner, receded as if to vanish in the air.
Her curls, tumbling about her shoulders, shone like gold in the sun’s
last rays; her velvet cap had fallen to the ground as though it, with
decorum, had been thrown wildly to the winds.

She had not seen Vytal and Rouse, who held back within the wood, but the
sight of a long row of dusky faces looking at her wonderingly from the
water’s margin seemed only to increase the madness of her dance. The
Indians stood near their canoes, spellbound before departing. Indeed,
they could not depart until this preterhuman apparition, with its phantom
bear and spirit of a woman, had dissolved, as it surely must, like a
dream.

Suddenly, obeying some new whim, Roger slackened the speed of his
Pan-like music and subdued the strains to a more pensive melody. In
perfect accord with the change, Gyll Croyden fell to a slower motion, a
dance no more definite, but only less eccentric and vivacious. With a
sensuous, mystical step she seemed to sway and flow into the heart of a
new song that her bird’s voice lilted softly, and she looked no longer
at the bear. As if resenting this new indifference, King Lud fell to his
natural position with a growl, and, returning to Roger, sat disconsolate
at the player’s side. Then Gyll sank down breathless near him and used
the shaggy shoulder as a cushion for support, her curls shining against
the rough background of his coat, her song dying in a laugh.

She had no fear of the brute, for through all those days when his master
had been unexpectedly absent on the fly-boat, she and she alone had
ventured to attend King Lud, coaxing and scolding him into a condition of
amity and servitude. As the pipe, with a wailing _finale_, became silent,
Vytal and Rouse stepped into the opening.

Instantly Roger Prat, a somewhat sheepish trepidity in his bulging eyes,
jumped up from the tabor, and, thrusting the pipe with an obvious
attempt at concealment into his belt, bowed low before them. “Thus,”
he ventured, waving his fat hand at the dark figures on the water’s
edge—“thus we tame the redskins.”

“And a king,” added Gyll Croyden, stroking the bear’s nose with delicate
fingers. She was looking down at King Lud, for somehow her laughing
eyes persisted in avoiding the face of Vytal. Yet they were by no means
bashful.

Rouse looked down at Prat. “Vagabond,” he muttered, under his heavy
mustache, “Bubble-wit!”

But Roger only turned on the big soldier a glance of mimic scorn and
commiseration, mumbling some retort, in which “Ox” and “Blunderbuss” were
alone intelligible.

These courtesies were quickly interrupted by Vytal, who spoke a word or
two in low tones to Prat. Immediately that worthy was transformed. His
hand came forward from the flute to his sword-hilt. The merriment died
out of his face, while a look almost stern and forbidding, yet, curiously
enough, not at all incongruous, crossed his stubby features.

The Indians, one by one, withdrew to their canoes and vanished into the
deepening darkness. The three soldiers and Gyll Croyden, turning their
backs to the water, started homeward. But suddenly they heard a light,
grating sound behind them on the shore, and a voice, calling to them in
pure English, caused them to turn about again with extreme surprise.

A man, wearing a rusty steel corselet and bonnet, a sword, and shabby
leathern breeches, was dragging a canoe onto the beach. Having drawn
the prow with an evident effort to security among the weeds and tall
grasses that lined the glade, he came staggering forward to the amazed
on-lookers, and crying aloud, “At last! at last!” fell apparently
lifeless at their feet.

Quickly, with a woman’s eternal instinct, Gyll Croyden ran to the water,
took off her neckerchief, wetted it, and returned to the prone figure
with ready aid. Drawing off his heavy headgear, she then bathed the man’s
temples, and bidding Prat bring the helmet to her, filled with water,
presently dashed the cooling liquid in her patient’s face. “Poor boy!”
she exclaimed, for the face, despite its full beard and long mustache,
was very young.

Perhaps half an hour elapsed before signs of returning consciousness
rewarded her efforts. Then, slowly, a pair of blue eyes opened and looked
into hers, after which, painfully, the forlorn soldier stood upon his
feet.

A volley of questions rose to the lips of Gyll and Roger; but Vytal, who
had stood watching the mysterious stranger in silence, disappointed their
curiosity.

“It grows dark,” he said, addressing the youth. “An you, sir, can walk,
we had best hasten to the town.”

The other, seeming to have regained his strength with surprising
suddenness, declared, “If it be not too far, I can accompany you with
little aid.”

“The darkness matters not,” averred Prat. “See, I have brought a
lanthorn.” And, so saying, he lighted the sheltered candle with flint and
steel. Handing the lanthorn to Gyll, who, like a will-o’-the-wisp, led
the way into the forest, he then lent assistance to Rouse in supporting
the stranger. For several minutes they followed the trail without
speaking; but soon their ragged charge broke the silence. He spoke as
though to himself, in a voice suggestive of vague reminiscence. Presently
his words became more audible, the broken phrases more coherent. “A
year,” he said—“a year in hell!” And then, in a clear, low tone, “There
were fifteen men of us, just fifteen men, all damned save one.”

“My God!” ejaculated Rouse, halting suddenly; and Roger, coming likewise
to a stand-still, stood surveying the youthful, bearded face, with mouth
agape in mute amazement.

Vytal turned, but, fearing to break the spell of memory, said nothing.
And Gyll Croyden, who had half caught the meaning of the words, returned
to the group with her lanthorn. Holding the light high, so that its
dim rays fell athwart the stranger’s face, she, too, gazed into the
boyish blue eyes with wonder and impatience. As the features were thus
illuminated, Vytal’s expression changed. In a voice that surprised
its hearers by an unaccustomed vagueness of tone, which matched in
uncertainty the youth’s own accents, he demanded, slowly, “Your name,
sir; first, your name.”

The blue eyes met Vytal’s look squarely, but, blending with their
candor, a peculiar, veiled expression suggested to the keen observer an
incongruous amusement.

“Ralph Contempt.”

“Ralph Contempt!” echoed Roger, in an undertone. “It hath the sound of a
stage conceit.”

The stranger turned to him, smiling feebly. “You speak as though I had
christened myself. Believe me, it is a miracle that I remember the name
at all.” His phrases became wandering again, and he passed a hand across
his forehead. “Fifteen men,” he laughed aloud. “Fifteen to guard the
possessions of their gracious queen. Fifteen soldiers … very brave, I
assure you … fifteen in the middle of hell … but so brave, mark you,
that a horde of rampant devils, with firebrands and a myriad whistling
arrows, hesitated, really hesitated, in very fear before them. A thousand
red demons … and, oh, what a song the weapons sang! It laughs in my ears
even now.” He smiled with a look that only intensified the horror of his
words by its genuine gayety. “Fourteen men damned, dead and damned …
worse yet, one man alive to be played with … oh, ’twas a merry game in
hell! A game of pall-mall, a new kind of badminton … painted devils, you
know, and then the toy, the ball, the shuttlecock, the hobby-horse, call
it what you will—that crawling thing in the centre, scorched and sore
… behold, my masters, the toy!” He drew himself up to his full height
and looked from one to another, laughing. With the exception of Vytal,
the listeners could not but avert their glance—Hugh Rouse touching his
brow significantly; Prat, with a grave nod, concurring in the verdict.
Gyll Croyden turned away with tears in her eyes, and retraced her steps
on the homeward trail. It was not until she had forgetfully left them
in darkness, her light but a dim spark among the trees, that the others
followed her. Vytal walked on alone in deep thought, the unfortunate
bringing up the rear with lagging step between Prat and Rouse, who
maintained a gloomy silence. Occasionally the youth would laugh, and,
seeming to recall some incident of a terrible combat and captivity, would
travesty the same with the inconsistency of dementia.

It was late in the evening when the little party arrived at its
destination. A sentry, guarding the main entrance of the palisade, which
by now had been completed, peered through a chink in the upright logs.
Vytal, from without, uttered the watch-word, for the sentry’s ears alone.
Instantly they were admitted, the guardian of the town’s security
glancing curiously at the unknown figure of Ralph Contempt.

“In the morning,” whispered Prat, “you shall hear all.” And turning to
Vytal, he asked: “Whither, captain, shall we conduct the man? To a pallet
in the fortress near our own?”

“Nay, he will perhaps fare better with me;” then, to the subject of their
discussion, “I trust, Master Contempt, you will accept the hospitality of
myself and one other for a day or two at least.”

The youth bowed courteously. “I thank you,” he said, and, with that
laugh which seemed to deride Fate itself, or, perhaps more subtly, the
listeners, he added, “’Tis desirable to be a guest now and then, instead
of a plaything.”

He went with Vytal to the secluded house beyond the enclosure. In the
main room they found Marlowe sitting at a table, his arms thrown out over
the rough pine top, his head resting on them in an attitude of sleep. A
candle, sadly in need of snuffers, flickered across a page of manuscript
that lay crumpled in his hands.

On hearing Vytal enter, the poet awoke slowly; but, seeing the face
behind his friend, as it came within the candle-light, he rose from his
chair with an exclamation of surprise.

“The sole survivor,” announced Vytal, “of our fifteen men.”

“What!”

“But a plaything,” added Ralph, with a deprecatory wave of his hand. “A
mere babery for naked red-boys.”

Marlowe took up the candle and held it nearer the speaker’s face. Then,
with less surprise and more commiseration, “Forgive me,” he said, “for my
unmannerly welcome, but for the moment your features seemed familiar to
me, as though I had seen them in a dream.”

The new-comer returned his gaze with a dazed expression. “I _am_ a dream.”

The poet glanced at Vytal meaningly. “He needs rest; let him sleep on my
bed. I will make a couch of grasses for myself.”

When finally they heard the regular breathing of their guest, who lay
comfortably on Marlowe’s bed, Vytal told of the meeting on the shore and
of Ralph Contempt’s broken narrative.

“Poor devil!” mused the poet. “He whose bones we found scattered here was
far more fortunate.”

“I thought I knew this man’s face,” said Vytal. “’Tis strange that you,
too, should have imagined a recognition.”

“Nay, it was but the eyes that seemed familiar. Doubtless there are many
like them of Saxon blue, blighted by the undue levity of a disordered
brain. The fellow, most like, has been a wild thing, little better than a
beast. Saw you ever such a growth of hair on head and chin?”

“No, it ill becomes the youthful face—the face—” Vytal paused and fell
again to thinking.

“The face,” echoed Marlowe, looking over to the sleeper. “Perchance we
saw it before the man left England, before he came hither a year ago to
meet his doom.”

“It is probable,” allowed Vytal; “if, indeed, we saw the face at all.”




CHAPTER XII

    “That, like a fox in midst of harvest time,
    Doth prey upon my flocks of passengers.”

                          —MARLOWE, in _Tamburlaine_.


By noon on the following day the whole colony had heard the tale of a
desperate fight on this peaceful island, of an unimaginable, living death
amid savage captors, and of a miraculous deliverance.

“He fought ten, single-handed, and so escaped,” said one of the planters,
joining a number of his companions, who were hastening toward Vytal’s
house.

“He was half roasted,” declared another, shuddering, “and prodded with
stones red hot.”

“His house,” asserted a third, “was burned to cinders while he defended
it within this very clearing.”

Throughout the whole morning small parties, thus discussing the subject,
sought to gain a view of the man who filled their thoughts. Inquisitively
they came and, looking in at the doorway of the cabin, surveyed the
youth, who sat just across the threshold, mumbling to himself and bowing
to them with a pitiable smile of welcome. Then, silently, they would
return to their various labors, awe-struck and uneasy.

But at mid-day there was a larger gathering at Vytal’s door. Ralph
Contempt stood in the centre of the circle, describing rapidly his
misadventures with a new grasp of detail and some continuity of incident.
His mental powers had evidently been refreshed by sleep and sustenance;
his memory now offered a more vivid and coherent depiction of the fight,
bondage, and escape. His listeners, men and women, stood enthralled and
terrified, the cold fingers of fear insidiously touching their nerves
and heart-strings to play the shivering discord of alarm. Perhaps no
instrument was more perfectly attuned to the notes of apprehension
than the heart of Ananias Dare. He stood near the speaker, with an
ill-disguised attempt to suppress the terror that, like an east wind,
froze his marrow with an actual chill. He was entirely sober, and,
therefore, completely unmanned. His face, pallid and tense, was yet
beautiful, its terror strangely heightening the effect of beauty as
though by a magic but despicable art. For the expression, emasculated by
fright, was remembered long after by those who had read the reflection
of its fear in their own hearts. The shallowest eye can express the
deepest apprehension; the nature devoid of capacity for all other intense
emotion, may yet be keenly and desperately subject to the power of fear.
The study of cowardice reveals peculiar inconsistencies. For instance,
here stood Ananias, a man of insignificant psychal stature, surpassing
all his fellows in the height of his alarm. His eyes, often but vague
films beneath the fumes of wine, were now clarified and made brilliant by
the horror of their gaze.

And here, too, listening to the narrative of Ralph Contempt, stood Simon
Ferdinando, a coward of another sort, with eyes more furtive and less
intense, who seemed already to consider the question of escape, while the
other only remained paralyzed by the menace of a danger that might at any
time repeat itself. But Dare bore unmistakable traces even now of gentle
birth and a lost manhood, whereas Ferdinando appeared not unlike a
frightened rat looking for its hole. The one inspired contempt and pity,
the other contempt alone.

And the man who called himself Contempt wore an expression as he talked
according well with the appellation. Directing his words and gestures
toward these two, not pointedly, but in a subtle manner, he so worked
upon them and all the others that, when his repeated story of the
massacre was told and he paused breathless, a low, moaning sigh fell from
many lips, like the wail of a night wind. Then suddenly Ferdinando cried
out: “To the ships! To the ships! Must we, too, perish thus? Nay!” His
voice rose to a high pitch. “To the ships and England!”

“Ay, ay,” came hoarsely from the terrified group.

“Ay, away from this accursed country,” said Ananias Dare, who at last had
found voice to speak. But a new look, more pitiable than all the weakness
of his first expression, crossed his face. “Yet, stay!” he cried, as
though with a great effort, some latent nobility, the mere memory of a
dead courage, asserting itself.

Ralph Contempt turned to the others as if he had not heard. “A huge
devil,” he resumed, “brained my sole surviving comrade with an axe of
stone, whereat, dragging me by the hair, for I was bound by leathern
thongs, he rolled me among the burning timbers of my own house. Next,
another savage—” But he was interrupted by a second shrill cry from
Ferdinando:

“Even now the Indians may be on their way; even now it may be too late!”

“Yes,” moaned Ananias, his short-lived courage failing, “too late.”

“To the ships!”

It was the voice not of one man but of all, while panic-stricken they
turned and, with a rush, made for the main enclosure of the town. Only
the youth, who had caused the stampede, delayed, and he, smiling, started
to re-enter the hut. But on the threshold he paused and looked back
again. For he heard a new voice rising above the clamor of his retreating
audience, a voice that he recognized instantly. Seeing the men and women
hanging back before Vytal himself, who had met them at the narrow opening
in the palisade, he returned to the group leisurely, his eyes on the tall
figure and stern face in the gateway.

“How now?” demanded the soldier, quietly. “What means this panic?” Not
one gave answer. “What means it?” The words came more sharply than
before. But still there was no response, each being ready to cast on his
fellow the onus of explanation. And still they all hung back, their eyes
cast down.

Vytal looked at one and another with an infinite scorn, omitting only
the forlorn Ananias in his searching gaze; for a brief glance at the
governor’s son-in-law had shown him a figure of despicable shame.

“No man enters the town until the truth is told.” And, drawing his
rapier, he waited.

“The bodkin!” muttered Ferdinando, who, drawing back to the outskirts
of the group, sought to hide himself from view. At that moment Ralph
Contempt went to Simon and spoke a low word in the sailing-master’s ear.
Hearing it, Ferdinando started with an exclamation of surprise, and then,
in evident relief, maintained silence, obedient to the other’s mute
command. On this the youth, sauntering unconcernedly toward Vytal, spoke
that all might hear him:

“An none other can find his tongue, mine must needs confess itself
guilty.”

His manner became wandering, and he passed a hand across his brow. “The
tongue is an unruly member … very mischievous … so mischievous that
sometimes the painted devils put cinders on it, and the cinders sizzle to
hiss its prayers.”

Vytal scrutinized the speaker, first keenly, then with that look of
bewilderment which not until lately had been seen in the soldier’s face.

“These men fear a second massacre,” added Ralph, more sanely, “and would
return to England.”

Vytal’s expression went darker yet. “Fools!” he exclaimed, and then with
less severity, as a grieved look came into his eyes, “I had not thought
to find men turned to sheep—_men_!”

He emphasized the last word as though to convey its full meaning to
their hearts. His face, resolute, fearless, but more sorrowing now than
scornful, imparted some of its own courage to those about him. Ananias
Dare, for one, seemed to have lost much of his fear. Vytal alone had the
power to fortify his faint heart. In the soldier’s presence he was a
different man.

“I strove to stop them,” he said, “but the effort was vain.” Yet still
Vytal withheld his look from the assistant, for this weakling, all
unknowing, was the one man the mere sight of whom could cut him to the
quick.

“You will return to your duty—_all_!” It was not a question, but a quiet,
doubtless command. He stepped aside from the gateway. One after another
they filed past him, each more eager than his predecessor to hurry beyond
the paling and the captain’s view. Ananias Dare and Ferdinando brought
up the rear of this ignominious procession, the one slowly, the other
scurrying like a rat.

Within the enclosure they all separated silently, each seeming to desire
a temporary solitude in the pursuit of his work.

“They would defend the town most gallantly against attack,” observed
Ralph, dryly.

“They _will_,” returned Vytal, emphasizing the change of tense. “But
your story is told. They have heard enough. You will strive to forbear
hereafter.”

The youth smiled. “Forbearance is my chief virtue,” and he went away,
leaving his host alone in the cabin.

As he walked through the woods he came to a narrow creek that ran inland
from the sea; and, following this toward the shore, he chanced on a sight
that caused him to stop and smile with genuine light-hearted boyishness.
For there, in the middle of the shallow stream, her back toward him,
stood Mistress Gyll Croyden, bending low over the water. In one hand she
held a forked stick which now and again she darted viciously into the
muddy bed of the inlet, while with her other hand she held her skirts
above the knee.

“Is it possible,” called the youth, “that even a crab is so heartless as
to run away? Now, were I the crab—” but her expression, as she turned,
brought another peal of laughter from his lips. “Yes,” he said, “you are
caught instead of the shell-fish.”

At this the smile which had been rising to the surface of her eyes,
whether she would or no, culminated in a laugh as merry as his own. She
waded to the bank. “My patient is come to life at the wrong moment; but
sit you down, pretty boy, and talk to me. Well?” she said, dangling a
pair of white feet in the sluggish stream—“Well?”

“What is the meaning of your expectancy?” he inquired, stretching himself
at full length on the mossy ground. “You wait, I suppose, for a seemly
expression of gratitude. Thank you, then,” and, taking her hand, he
kissed it lazily. But she was pouting. “Oh, I am wrong. What is it, then?
Ah, I see. You wait to be told of your beauty, and how the sight of a
maid crabbing is beyond description. Methinks there’s another will tell
thee that, and more besides. I saw the mountebank to-day ogling thee with
eyes distraught and bulging.”

Gyll laughed. “’Tis Roger Prat. He hath no thought o’ me. He’s all for
the bear and Vytal.”

“Ah, well,” said Ralph, “thou’rt not so wondrous comely. I tell thee,
wench, for all thy prettiness, there’s one outshines thee as the moon
a will-o’-the-wisp. Nay, look not angry. ’Tis the governor’s daughter,
Mistress Dare. I’ve seen her at her window thrice this very day. My heart
goes wild of love for so fair a face, so unobtainable a damsel.”

At this Gyll made a wry face. “Pah! she loses her beauty quickly. When we
set out from England she was fairer far than now. I saw her go aboard at
Plymouth.”

“Ay,” laughed Ralph, “she was younger, but her face lacked its present
fire in the London days.”

“What!” cried Gyll, “you saw her there?”

“Nay, nay,” he returned quickly, “’tis a delusion of my addled brain.”

She looked down at his incongruous beard, and then into the youthful eyes
indulgently. “Poor boy!”

“Poor boy!” he echoed. “You call me nothing but ‘poor boy.’”

“Nay, nay, your Majesty,” she contradicted, mocking his assumed
haughtiness. “When have I said such a thing before?”

“Was it not when I—” But Ralph hesitated. “Oh no, perhaps not,” he added,
quickly, and rambled back to the praise of her appearance.

“If your Majesty will permit me,” she said, complacently, “I will pull on
my stockings.”

To this he made a strange rejoinder. “Mistress Croyden, you are a
prophetess, a sibyl who reads the future.”

She looked at him questioningly, with a kind concern, believing him again
bereft of reason. “Because I predict the donning of my hose? Is it, then,
so easy to be a prophetess?” She picked up a pair of red stockings and
wound them about her fingers.

“Consider that the premonition an you will,” he replied, knowingly. “’Tis
perhaps as fruitful.” He seemed to delight for the moment in propounding,
by voice and look, an enigma. But in the next instant he meandered on
after his usual manner, with flattery and idle jests.

In the evening, Gyll, meeting Marlowe in the town, pronounced Master
Ralph Contempt hopelessly insane. “Or,” she added, “a knavish actor, who
demands more sympathy than he merits, for he heard me say ‘poor boy’ when
we thought him lifeless in a swoon. But he is a ‘poor boy’ for a’ that.
Think of the tortures!”

       *       *       *       *       *

Following this, three days went by without incident, and still Hugh Rouse
and Roger Prat, stationed at the southern end of the island as outposts,
gave no warning.

Vytal changed. His taciturnity, which had increased of late, was broken
more often as the danger became imminent. His impassive face, in which
only Marlowe could read the quietude of self-restraint, grew eager with
the anticipation of an actual, tangible conflict between right and wrong.
Here was a condition all-absorbing, and, above all, a condition the
soldier could meet face to face with comprehension. He could cope with
_this_, at least. The spirit of action, always ready to assert itself in
him, but sometimes of necessity repressed, finally had become paramount
again, once more to resume full sway. His step became lighter, his deep
blue eyes less cold, and many, noting the alteration, wondered, only the
veteran soldiers and the poet dimly understanding their leader’s change.

“My brother, they approach.” It was the Indian who, having again
reconnoitred, vouchsafed this information on the fourth day after the
advent of Ralph Contempt.

Late in the evening, Vytal started homeward to seek Marlowe. The
night was dark and still, as though Fate, with finger to lips, had
set a seal of silence on the world, which the distant surf and a slow
rainfall on the sea of leaves intensified monotonously. But a new sound
suddenly broke the stillness. A cry, a single cry—plaintive, feeble,
and unutterably doleful—then a silence even deeper than before. Vytal,
pausing near the palisade, looked up at the dwelling of John White. A
rabbit, startled by the sound of the cry, darted across his pathway
into the woods. An owl, high above him, answered the voice with a
wailing screech. A deer, that had been watching his approach beyond the
gate, ran away timidly through the forest. He remembered all this long
afterward—the white flash of the rabbit, the owl’s response, the rustling
of leaves as the deer withdrew.

He waited. Again the cry, louder, but none the less pitiful and lonely.
The muscles of his face grew tense, the veins big like whipcords. He
turned, as though to lean against the paling, but then, as with a
strenuous effort, refused even that support, and stood motionless like
stone.

And now, as a side door directly before him opened, a flood of light fell
across the pathway from within. It shone in a pool of rain at his feet,
and played about his drawn face with profane curiosity. Ananias Dare
stood in the doorway looking at him. But suddenly the assistant lurched
back, and, snatching a silver cup from the table behind him, brought it
out, with reeling, splashing footsteps, to Vytal.

“Drink,” he mumbled, thickly. “Drink, good my captain, to the health of
my first-born child! A toast, sir, to my daughter—a deep toast, a very
deep toast—to the first English child—the first, mark you—is it not a
great honor?—the first English child born in America—world-wide America!”
He stood, all unheedful of the rain, bareheaded and half dressed, swaying
as though at any minute he might fall to the wet ground.

He offered the cup to Vytal. His hand shook, and the troubled wine
overflowed the brim. “Drink,” he repeated, laughing hilariously. “Such a
toast, such a child! You’ve heard her voice already. Damn it! Drink! Will
you?”

For an instant Vytal’s face went livid with a fury no man had ever seen
there until now. He clinched his fists; the nails bit into the palms.
“Desecrator!” And in another minute he was groping his way through the
darkness toward the gate, until, finding the path, his step became firm
and regular on the hard earth, as though he were marching, then died away
slowly in the woods.




CHAPTER XIII

    “With hair that gilds the water as it glides
    And …
    One like Actæon peeping through the grove.”

                     —MARLOWE, in _Edward the Second_.


Weeks passed, and still the Spanish, for some unaccountable reason,
delayed their invasion.

At noon on the last day of August, Vytal, accompanied by Manteo, started
southward on a short reconnoissance. Before going, he left strict
injunctions with Marlowe to admit none to the fortress save those who
knew the countersign. He had left the poet, who was now well skilled in
military methods, to maintain a watchful guard in the absence of Hugh
Rouse and Roger Prat. Furthermore, he gave Dyonis Harvie positive orders
to preserve a similar caution respecting the _Admiral_ and fly-boat, of
which the worthy mate was now temporarily in command.

On receiving this instruction, the seaman scratched his head in
perplexity. “There is one who pesters me,” he said, “with importunate
demands to come aboard, and as he is but a harmless lunatic—poor
soul!—who says he longs to be on the deck of an English ship, and to
imagine himself homeward bound, perhaps you will not refuse him.”

“You speak of Master Ralph Contempt?”

“Yes.”

“Even to him make no exception. Admit one, admit all. Only the few who
know our sign must learn the condition of these vessels.”

“And Simon Ferdinando?”

“For the form’s sake you cannot question his authority. But he is well
watched;” and Vytal rowed back to the shore. Here he met Marlowe.

“Our guest,” said the poet, “even now seeks admittance to the fortress,
longing, he pitifully declares, for the sight of weapons that can avenge
his comrades’ lives.”

“It is hard to forbid him entrance,” returned the soldier, “but there
must be no exception. The example is needed to maintain secrecy;” with
which Vytal joined Manteo in the woods.

Marlowe stood for a moment watching him, and then, turning, caught sight
of another figure even more of interest than his friend’s. Eleanor Dare
was walking alone on the shore. He started forward impulsively to join
her, but, remembering Ralph Contempt, whom he had left at the entrance of
the fortress, he returned to enforce the rule. Ralph, however, no longer
awaited him. Having stood idly, first on one foot, then on the other,
looking plaintively into the stolid eyes of an armed sentinel, the youth,
his patience exhausted, had wandered, with an apparent aimlessness, down
to the sea. At the water’s edge he stepped into a barge, and, with a long
pole pushing the cumbrous craft out to the _Admiral_, once more accosted
Dyonis Harvie. But, as the mate proved obdurate, he returned again,
looking off now and then to the southward as he went back leisurely to
land.

Then an unexpected circumstance favored him. He left the barge and struck
inland behind the town. Once within shelter of the forest, he hastened
by a circuitous route through almost impenetrable undergrowth to a point
directly behind but about a mile to the south of the fortress. Here a
stream, secluded from the sight of any one not on its immediate margin,
met his view. It was the continuation of the inlet in which Mistress
Croyden had been crabbing.

To his surprise, a canoe of birch-bark, a single paddle in the bottom,
floated idly, nosing the bank, and farther on, to his yet greater
astonishment, a small heap of clothing lay on the sprawling roots
of an oak-tree. He examined the apparel, and found a woman’s linen
undergarments, a long frock, kirtle, and richly garnished stomacher.
Fearing that some foul play had befallen the wearer, he glanced about
him, not without alarm. The spot, utterly sequestered, and only
approached by the inlet, or with much difficulty, as he had approached
it, by the woods, offered adequate concealment for deeds of violence.

But suddenly he heard a splashing sound from the near distance, and the
expression of his eyes as they looked through the foliage to a bend in
the stream, some fifty yards farther inland, changed instantly. For there
was Mistress Croyden, all unheedful of his proximity, disporting herself
to her heart’s content, the silver ripples of the water forming an
adequate covering for all save her head, which glistened in the sunlight,
a pond-lily of white and gold.

Ralph hurried forward along the border of the woods until he came within
easy speaking distance of the bather. A curtain of leaves hung before
him, but through the interstices he could see her plainly as she melted
like a water-nymph into the bosom of the stream. His eyes shone; his
lips parted as though he would have called to her, but hesitating, with
a new consideration in which she was evidently not the foremost subject,
he returned silently to the oak about which the clothes were scattered.
Stooping, he picked up all the garments, and, re-entering the forest,
hid them beneath the underbrush far within its shade. Then, with a smile
almost mischievous in his boyish enjoyment of the proceeding, he made his
way hastily to the town. On coming to the fortress he hallooed loudly and
called to Marlowe as if in impatience and alarm.

The poet, who had relieved the sentinel, and was seated, reading, near
the door, came out hurriedly. But before he could inquire concerning the
other’s clamor, Ralph, trembling with a well-assumed excitement, pointed
wildly in quite the opposite direction from which he had come, and seemed
to strive the while vainly for utterance. Marlowe, catching much of his
excitement, nevertheless bade him compose himself and speak. In this the
youth finally succeeded.

“They have taken her,” he said, lowering his voice that no chance
passer-by might hear; “they have taken her as they took me, by the hair
of the head. Oh, she will be a plaything—it is very sad.”

The vagueness of the announcement only added to Marlowe’s disquiet. “Who?
Where?”

“Oh, they have dragged her off. I saw them, the red devils, at the
northeast end of the island. The game is to be played again.” The words
seemed fraught with an under-meaning, but to the excited listener there
was no change. “The game is to be played,” repeated Ralph, now in a
dreary monotone, “with Gyll Croyden.”

“Gyll Croyden—Gyll!” And the impetuous poet, beside himself with alarm,
not stopping to hear another word, rushed away. When he had passed
through the north gate of the palisade, Ralph Contempt, who had watched
his headlong pursuit, turned, with an amused look, and entered the
fortress. In its main apartment, a long mess-room that served also as
an armory, he found a small company of soldiers, who sat about in groups
playing at cards and “tables.”[5] Believing that Marlowe had admitted
him, they made no remonstrance, and soon he was throwing dice and jesting
with the merriest, his eyes roving now and then over the massive oaken
walls and stacked muskets.

But as there was no great show of weapons here, he grew listless and
unheedful of the game. The heavier pieces, if such there were, must be
elsewhere.

Laying down his dice-cup with a yawn, he sauntered into the hallway,
closing the mess-room door behind him. But here he started back quickly,
as though to return to the armory, for some one who had just entered the
fort was approaching him with light footsteps. Recognizing the tread as
a woman’s, however, he went forward more easily and met the new-comer in
the middle of the hall. The light, coming from the door behind, threw
out her figure in relief, but failed to reveal her face. In the next
instant, though, when his eyes had become accustomed to the glare of the
entrance, he started back more suddenly but less perceptibly than before.
Then, quickly regaining his composure, he bowed low as to a woman and a
stranger.

As the light from the doorway fell full upon his face, it became the
other’s turn to show surprise. Instinctively she recoiled, a world of
meaning memory in her hazel eyes. But he gave no sign of notice.

“’Tis Mistress Eleanor Dare, I think,” he said, with a courtly deference.
“She hath been well described by all. These colonists laud her to the
skies. Moreover, I have watched her many times from beneath her window.”

“Your name, sir?” The voice contained no recognition or repulsion now,
but only a natural inquiry.

“Ralph Contempt, yours to be commanded.”

“Ah, Master Ralph Contempt, of whom I have heard much lately. The sole
survivor of that brave company which perished.”

“Madam,” he returned, in a lower tone of double meaning, “I, too, may
perish.”

“Why, sir, what mean you? Are you not safe and sound among your
countrymen?” There was an accusatory stress on the last word, but he only
answered with a shrug of his shoulders, and reassumed his old, wandering
manner.

“Are you, too,” he asked, vaguely, “a dream, as I am? But oh, how
different! Your eyes fire my brain, madam. Women have offered to die for
me—” he was running on now with a wild impetuosity—“it is refreshing to
meet one at least for whom I myself would die.”

She turned to him with a look of intense hatred and repugnance, but it
died suddenly; and, smiling, so that he might see the smile, whereas
the scorn had been concealed, she retreated slowly toward the door. He
hesitated for a moment, seeming to be drawn two ways, then followed
her. Once outside the fortress she sat down upon a rusty caliver which
had been found among the débris of the first settlement—sat down and
waited, fearing doubtfully that her magnetism might not avail to bring
him even to so short a distance from the secrets of the fort. But the
chape of his scabbard grated on the threshold, and in a minute he stood
bending over her with ardent eyes, yet evidently against his will.
Youthful _insouciance_, which, warring with a certain haughtiness and
scorn, played so often across his features, had left him a suppliant
before her, yet a suppliant who would, she felt, as a last resort, throw
supplication to the winds.

“Since the description,” he said, “I have dreamed of you often.”

The square before the fortress was now deserted, a large crowd having
followed Marlowe in his excited quest, for, despite her unpleasant
notoriety, Gyll Croyden was by no means unpopular in the colony. The
women might shake their heads and, justly enough, gossip as they would,
but the men had been glad now to take up arms and go in search of her.
And with many it was but the spirit of comradeship that inspired them.

“My queen!” The two words came in a low whisper, nevertheless with all
the colossal self-assurance by which the youth, now known as Ralph
Contempt, was long remembered.

The effrontery almost caused Eleanor to lose her hold on him. She rose
from the cannon as though, in all the majesty of her pure womanhood, to
smite and cast him from her with a mere glance from the very eyes that
held him spellbound. But she realized instinctively that this man must
at all costs be kept her prisoner until the return of Vytal. She felt
sure that he had come as a spy from the Spanish ranks, and that, if he
were allowed to rejoin them, it must mean disaster. She did not know
how far he had unravelled Vytal’s plan, or how deeply he had penetrated
the secrets of the ships and fortress. The welfare of the whole colony,
however, seemed at stake, and she must play for it against a keen,
resourceful opponent. This realization, quick-born and vivid, though
formless, caused her to sink down once more breathlessly to the caliver.
And then a deeper shade of trouble crossed her face. It was the look of a
penitent who seeks forgiveness before some invisible tribunal, with the
justifying excuse of unblemished innocence. She knew that in her heart
the judge’s name was Vytal, and that to him alone she was answering:
“It is for our colony—_our_ colony.” Her mind kept repeating this,
feverishly, for thus she always spoke of the settlement to herself. That
night, long months ago, when she had led Vytal to Ananias, and had fought
against her shame in order to reveal her husband’s condition—for had
not her duty to the colony demanded instant action?—that night saw the
beginning of her sacrifice.

But the word “sacrifice” was not now in her mind. It is rarely those who
name a crisis that live up to its demands. The details of the moment
must be paramount; the troubling, perplexing flux of thought on thought,
act on act, seeming chaotic in their onrush, must blind a person to the
perfect whole.

“My queen!”

She raised her eyes and looked into his own. He grasped her hand. For an
instant, as a last resort, she thought of alarming the soldiers, the dull
murmur of whose voices reached her from within. But recognizing the folly
of an outcry—for he could readily have escaped within the forest—she
forbore to give alarm, and only sat there, her head drooping, for the
moment seeming to yield. To voice her encouragement was impossible. While
she could force herself to remain impassive, by look and gesture drawing
on herself his sudden, passionate avowal, she could by no means bring a
word of answer to her lips. Fortunately, he seemed content for the moment
with his own reckless wooing, and so she merely listened and met his
eyes—met his eyes without remonstrance—that was all, and yet to her it
meant that her heart was guilty of a lie.

At length he would have had her go with him “for a walk,” he
said,“within the silent forest of dreams.” But to this she could not
bring herself, even though it would have beguiled him from the fort and
vessels.

“Nay,” she replied, “we are alone here.”

“But I have dreamed of you,” he persisted, “as walking beside me, your
hand in mine, through a vista of green and gold. And I dreamed that we
stood on the brink of a silver stream—stood, oh, so long—until at last
I carried you across. Yet, before that, I had called you queen—Queen of
England—was it not strange? But you broke my heart by refusing to call me
king. Come.”

She laughed, with desperate coquetry. “And for a whimsical dream must we
lose ourselves in the gloomy forest?”

He grew restless. “To the shore, then. Perchance the river should have
been the sea. I did not read the dream aright. It must, indeed, have
meant the sea, else wherefore the King and Queen of England?”

“No,” she answered, forcing a pout to her lips. “The sound of the surf
oppresses me. Have you not more faith in the music of your voice? I had
not supposed you lacked self-confidence.”

“Until now nor had I supposed so.” He kissed her hand, which was cold and
lifeless. “But now—”

“You do not realize,” she interposed, striving strenuously to fight down
the meaning regret in her voice, “how much I have given you.” At this he
seized her hand again, to cover it with kisses, and, growing more bold,
bent down to kiss her lips; but she recoiled quickly, and, eluding him,
stepped back until the cannon lay between them. Then she forced herself
to laugh.

He vaulted over the caliver. “Even this great piece,” he cried, “although
it were ready primed, could scarce deter me,” and, seizing both of her
hands, he leaned down to repeat his first attempt. But she hung her
head, and his lips only brushed the velvet of her cap. Then, raising her
eyes to his, by sheer force of will she dominated his desire, held it in
check, yet kindled it the more.

“Stay,” she objected, calmly, “you little comprehend the ways of women;
they must be wooed before they can be won.”

He started back with an impatient gesture. “They can wait, then, to be
wooed,” and, turning, he would have re-entered the fortress.

Had she lost him? Must the humiliation of it all be bitterly deepened by
failure? No. She felt her woman’s power, her tingling wit and intuitive
diplomacy rise quickly to meet the crisis. “I pray you, do not go, Master
Contempt. Have I been so very unkind?”

He turned back smiling, his self-conceit actually leading him to believe
that his own little ruse of apparent indifference had worked success.

A bold, flashing plan came to her. She would play upon the man’s two
conflicting desires at one and the same time. A double spell must shackle
him.

“I have it,” she suggested, in a yielding voice. “Let us row out to the
_Admiral_, and pretend we have left this dangerous land for good and all.”

His eyes sparkled. Fortune had showered him with favors. He felt less
compunction now in making love. She little knew, he thought, how
opportunely her suggestion came. He even feigned reluctance for the
moment, to hide the eagerness of his steps.

They walked to the shore.

“I have not been on board my father’s ship,” she told him, “since we
landed in the fly-boat. You have heard, no doubt, of our mishaps?”

“Yes, I’ve heard.” There was a twinkle in his eye. “But one thing I know
not, and that is the countersign. I fear Dyonis Harvie will forbid me the
ship.”

She laughed. “Nay, he is my tire-woman’s husband. You shall see.”

In a few minutes they were under the _Admiral’s_ side, and in one more
she had mounted to the deck.

“It is against Captain Vytal’s orders,” expostulated the mate, as Ralph
followed her. “Under your favor, Master Contempt must stay behind.”

But the youth was already beside them. “Nay, Dyonis,” remonstrated
Eleanor. “You forget ’tis the governor’s daughter who brings him.”

“I ask your pardon, Mistress Dare; but ’tis not that I forget too easily;
it is that I remember well a positive command.” And he made as though to
assist the subject of their talk down into the barge again.

“How now?” she demanded, imperiously. “Are any save my father’s orders
superior to mine own? I had not looked to find my maid-servant’s husband
so disloyal.”

At this the poor seaman wavered on the horns of a dilemma. Against
Mistress Dare, of all the colony, he could not persist further, for she
was regarded already as a kind of queen in the little settlement, who had
shown kindness to the very humblest in sickness and distress, and was
above all others most readily obeyed.

Harvie scratched his head. “You will explain, I pray, to Captain Vytal.”

“I will explain.”

The mate walked away mumbling to himself. Whereat, turning with a laugh
of feigned delight and mischief, Eleanor led her companion to the room
of state. “It is here,” she said, “that the king should hold his court.
And, besides, I am anxious to inspect the chamber in which my poor father
used to sit, head in hands, hoping against hope for my safe arrival.” She
paused. “Furthermore, there is wine within of a rare vintage.”

“Wine,” he said, eagerly—“golden wine. We shall drink to our realm, to
the England I pictured in my dreams. But no, first, first to our love.”

She felt his breath hot against her cheek. “And to solitude,” she added,
with an under-meaning in her thoughts. Then, daringly, for the game at
moments carried her away, “To an immemorial captivity in the room of
state.”

He had, however, thrown caution to the winds, being, as he believed,
at the very threshold of a double goal. Nevertheless, as they entered
the long apartment, he assumed his old, pitiable air. “It is cruel,” he
said, “to mention captivity to one who, having but just escaped so fell a
slavery, is again in direst bondage.”

“It was thoughtless,” she allowed, with subtle truth, “and reprehensible
to talk of victory when as yet we have neither of us won.”

He strove to encircle her waist with his arm, but once more, as if
with natural coquetry, she eluded him. “Not yet won?” he whispered,
passionately. “It is won; it shall be won—and by me.”

“Nay, sir, not so fast. You forget the wine; it is there.” She pointed to
a heavy sideboard of black oak near the wall, at the same time taking a
silver flagon from the table.

“Ah, the golden wine!”

He went to the sideboard, and, kneeling with his back toward her, thrust
a hand across the shelf of a lower cupboard. Finding a dusty bottle in
the corner, he withdrew it. “’Tis as old,” he said, closing the doors
and surveying the film of cobwebs, “as old as our love is new. Come,
dearest—” but, on turning, he broke off suddenly.

The flash of a white ruff, the soft whisper of slippers across a rug, and
he was alone—a prisoner.

But then—even then, as the key grated in the lock—he laughed like a boy
who has been caught in a game of blind-man’s-buff or hide-and-seek. Even
in the first moment of his plight, amusement and an uncontrollable sense
of the ludicrous sparkled in his blue eyes. Impulsively knocking off the
bottle’s neck against the sideboard, he picked up a silver cup which had
rolled to his feet from the cabin door and filled it to the brim.

“You remembered me,” he reflected, sipping the wine with a too-apparent
relish as though acting to himself. “You remembered me. That is one point
gained.”

In the meanwhile, Eleanor Dare, on the deck, was graciously explaining to
Dyonis her apparent unreasonableness and breach of discipline. “You will
guard the door until relieved.” And so saying, she returned in her barge
to the shore.

Early in the evening, Vytal, re-entering the town, was surprised to find
her evidently awaiting him at the fort.

“The man,” she exclaimed, breathlessly, without any prelude of greeting,
“the man you fought with on the bridge is here!”

“Frazer?”

“Yes, Frazer, known lately as Ralph Contempt.”

A sharp, sudden comprehension, all the keener for having been so long
deferred, sprang into the soldier’s face. “’Twas to set him a-land that
the Spanish vessel anchored to the southward. I knew the boy’s eyes.
’Twas his heavy beard deceived me.”

She smiled. “A woman knows from the heart,” she said, “while a man’s head
aches with perplexity. And, besides, whereas he only fought with you, me
he insulted.” Her cheeks flushed, her eyes revealing the pure hatred and
anger they had so long been forced to mask with smiles.

The look fired Vytal’s blood. But, following his first silent fury, an
expression which had never yet been in his eyes changed them to those
of a wounded animal, and he seemed for the moment almost ashamed.
The thought had cut him cruelly that his worst enemies on earth were
a mere careless stripling and a shallow drunkard, with not even the
boy’s bravery to commend him as a foe. There are a few men who regret
the lack of noble power in an enemy as deeply as the many deplore its
non-existence in a friend.

“Where is he?”

“I have imprisoned him in the _Admiral_.”

“You!”

“Yes.” Her look had a strange penitence in it and no triumph. He dimly
understood the reason, and an expression of pain crossed his own
features. But there was not a trace of condemnation in the deep-set eyes,
his faith being perfect. “Yes,” she added, in a whisper, as though half
to herself, “’twas for our colony I led him on. But oh, if by any chance
he should escape—”

“It would matter little,” broke in Vytal.

“How so?”

“He has failed. You have frustrated his plan to estimate our strength.
Even were he to return, he could impart naught of value to the others.
But stay, in what room have you imprisoned him?”

“In the main cabin.”

“That is well. His knowledge of the fortress would avail them nothing.
St. Magil, I doubt not, knows the force and number of our arms. ’Tis
mainly my new arrangement of the ships that holds the key to our defence.
Thus, Mistress Dare, even should he escape, which he must not, you have
accomplished that which I had not supposed within a woman’s range to
compass. I thank you—deeply.”

Her face brightened for the instant, but, as he walked away, she returned
to her home sadly, as though even the skilful winning of her first play
had brought only an ephemeral gladness.

Vytal had but just crossed the square when Marlowe, having entered the
town from the north, joined him. The poet was dishevelled from his hasty
pursuit through the forest and extremely agitated. “Gyll Croyden has been
captured by the Indians!”

“Who told you that?”

“Our guest.”

“And so you went in search of her?”

“Most naturally, for though she and I are naught save comrades, comrades
we shall be to the end.”

Vytal studied his face. “Our guest’s name, Kyt, is Frazer.”

“Frazer!” The poet started. “We are tricked. Tricked by a boy! Forgive
me. You must leave another to defend the fortress,” and Marlowe, drawing
his sword, held it out to the soldier. “Leave me the pen only, for I am
not worthy of this.”

But Vytal laid a hand on his shoulder kindly. “I was befooled myself.”

“Let us go to him,” suggested Christopher.

“Nay, I have just sent Hugh Rouse, who returned with me from his picket
duty. He will bring the fellow to the fort.”

“Let us wait in the armory, then. I long to see that bantering actor
pleading for our mercy. He would play excellent well upon the stage, with
his tales of torture and feigned idiocy.”

So they waited, waited long, and still Hugh Rouse did not return.

The cause of this delay is briefly told.

Hugh, having stepped into a canoe, had, with a few long sweeps of his
paddle, come to the _Admiral_; and the captive heard voices approaching
the cabin door. At this he rose from the table, and, with an air still
somewhat careless, yet of definite purpose, concealed himself behind the
arras with which the walls were hung.

Once more the key grated in its lock, and Frazer heard two men enter the
long cabin, which by now was enveloped in gloom. Seeming to stand near
the threshold, while their eyes were probably accustoming themselves
to the darkness, neither of these men spoke at first, but finally the
prisoner heard one whisper to the other and, with a deep oath, advance
farther into the room.

“He hides. Do you, Dyonis, guard the door.”

Harvie obeyed, while Rouse, growing more and more amazed, searched the
cabin without success. He might have searched until the crack of doom and
come no nearer to a trace of the cunning quarry.

For, even on their first entrance midway into the room, when Rouse had
supposed that Harvie held the door, and Harvie that the captive must
certainly be before them, the bird had flown. Softly, in that first
moment, the heavy arras undulated, as though a breeze were passing across
it from end to end of the apartment. Then, parting from the wall near the
entrance, it fell flat again—a motionless, innocent piece of tapestry in
darkness.

And, suppressing a laugh, Master Ralph lowered himself into Hugh’s canoe,
to paddle away under the cover of evening.

After propelling the light craft silently for several minutes, he
listened. An oath rang out in deep bass from the _Admiral’s_ deck.
Hearing this, he turned the prow of his canoe toward a narrow inlet,
and entered on a winding forest stream. The moon, just rising above the
trees, ensilvered his course with a radiance that found itself reflected
yet more brightly in his youthful eyes.

On and on he paddled with silent speed, until, coming to an abrupt bend
in the stream, he saw another canoe on the opposite shore. Looking about
him, he appeared to hesitate; but suddenly a golden thing, round like a
second moon, appeared over the edge of the lonely craft.

“You will find them,” he called, “on a direct line with your canoe, back
in the brushwood. Farewell, Gyll, and thank you.”

“Thank you!” came the answer, in exasperation, after him. “Here have I
been starving, fearing to move! Villanous—” but he was beyond earshot
now, as, running the prow of his boat onto a shelving bank in the
distance, he plunged straightway into the forest.




CHAPTER XIV

    “Their blood and yours shall seal these treacheries!”

                              —MARLOWE, in _Edward the Second_.


“Browsing soul! I cannot contemplate so much obtuseness without longing
to prod thee to some show of wakefulness with my sword!”

It was Roger Prat who spoke, and Hugh Rouse who gave no answer. They
were lying at full length on the brow of a low cliff, looking out across
the water. It was night. Not a star shone. The town lay seemingly
asleep behind them. A large culverin stood close to one side, also
peering through a fringe of grasses. The two ships, at anchor within
musket-range, carried no lights.

“Had it not been for your ox-brained stupidity, we might have been
laughing at Master Contemptuous even now.” The giant rolled over and
surveyed his vituperative companion with a yawn. “Now, had I been there,”
Roger persisted, “instead of cooling my heels at the pleasure of these
knaves, had I been there in place of a numskull, Master Frazer would have
been _here_. Dolt!”

“Have a care, Roger! I’ll brook little more of thy poet-aping names.
’Twas Marlowe taught them to you, and ever since, like a magpie—”

But the other was shaking with mock laughter. “Brook little more!” he
gasped; “brook little more, indeed! And think you I fear the threat of
one who lets a laughing infant tweak his nose and run away without so
much as spanking the child? I can see him smiling now, as he floated off
in the canoe. Why, ’twas in the self-same craft you brought! Now, that
was considerate of thee, gull.”

“Leave off, Roger.”

“Wherefore?”

“Think you I like to remember the escape?” There was a note almost
pitiful in the gruff voice, a pathetic growl that sounded like a moan.
“An I were a wench, Prat, I’d weep for sheer vexation.”

Roger curiously eyed him, and, strangely enough, the idea of this giant
weeping failed to touch his bubbling sense of the ludicrous. With an
unprecedented consideration of Hugh’s feelings, he changed the subject.

       *       *       *       *       *

Five miles to the southward another couple held converse. They stood on
the deck of a Spanish vessel—by name the _Madre de Dios_—apart from a
company of soldiers.

“The man we sent to await him,” said one, “has returned alone. Yet our
esteemed prince was to have left Roanoke this morning.”

“Then what think you, St. Magil?” asked the other, who was evidently a
Spanish officer of no mean rank. “I fear his wayward highness has come to
harm, and is a prisoner in their fort. Shall we not push forward without
further delay?”

“By all means let us hasten to the attack. Towaye, the Indian who guided
me from Roanoke, has gone with provisions to meet his highness near the
town.”

       *       *       *       *       *

In the main cabin of an English ship still a third couple conversed with
as much import in their words as the second.

“There is yet no sign?”

“Not yet, Captain Vytal.”

“They will carry no lights, Dyonis.”

“Nay, sir, I look for a black shadow, and listen for the ripple under its
bow.”

       *       *       *       *       *

As though the hand of Death were on them, the ships and the town lay
still. Only a single circle of light, like a watchful eye with a dark
iris, shone through an aperture in the fortress wall. The central disk
was a cannon’s muzzle.

On the ramparts of the fort a man stood alone, looking out across the
water. It was Christopher Marlowe, alert, restless, and impatient.

Below him, in the armory, a small gathering of women and soldiers, under
the immediate command of Captain Pomp, sat about in groups, waiting.
In one corner, apart from the rest, Eleanor Dare and her father talked
in low tones, while Margery Harvie, on a bench beside them, crooned a
lullaby to an infant that lay sleeping in her lap.

From time to time another woman, who sat at a table across the room,
even now jesting with several soldiers, looked at the central figure of
this group with an expression in which resentment and admiration were
curiously blended. Gyll Croyden had frequently looked at Eleanor thus,
and always as though from a distance greater than the actual space which
lay between them.

Suddenly the child, who had been christened Virginia, in honor of
England’s possession, awoke, crying feebly, and Eleanor, with much
concern, took it in her arms. Her expression, as she looked down into the
little face, suggested varied emotions. There was a mother’s love in her
eyes, a deep maternal devotion; but, mingled with this, another, less
obvious, expression seemed to betray some depth of feeling at odds with
the first, and possibly stronger, though more subtle and indefinable.

She turned to her father. “Must we wait forever here? It seems an
eternity, and I grow fearful lest—”

The kindly governor interrupted her. “Nay, there is naught to fear, my
little one. They will doubtless attack the ships at first, thinking us
all unwatchful, or vigilant only in the town. It is for that reason, you
know, that Captain Vytal, seeking to repulse and overwhelm them at the
first onset, has manned the _Admiral_ and concealed over seventy men
below. Of a surety the enemy will attack this vessel first, as it lies to
the south and is the larger prize. Yet, mark you, they will be utterly
unable thus to cut off our last means of retreat.”

But his attempt to reassure her failed. “I fear many will be killed,” she
said, half to herself, and he saw that her eyes were moist with unshed
tears.

“Let us pray it may not be so, Eleanor. Our people seem to have caught
Vytal’s unflinching courage; moreover, the men, well armed and galliated,
will find our foe all unprepared for so sudden a resistance.”

To this a new voice, gentle but masculine, made rejoinder, and the Oxford
preacher stood beside them. “You have said ‘Let us pray’; with your
Excellency’s permission I will do so.” In a moment the whole company were
on their knees, while the preacher invoked the aid of the God of battles
in simple words.

The infant in its mother’s lap was crying more pitifully now than
heretofore. And, without warning, as the soldiers resumed their games
again and Gyll Croyden her babble, a convulsion seized it, distorting the
diminutive features cruelly.

Eleanor, rising, rocked it to and fro in her arms. The mother’s love was
now unquestionably predominant. Handing the child to Margery Harvie, she
spoke a few words to her father: “There is an herb which Manteo has shown
me; boiled in water, it will restore her at once. I must get it.”

“Nay, but—”

“Oh, there is no danger. It grows but just behind the palisade. I go
myself, for I alone can find it.”

“I will go with you.”

“No, stay here. Your presence is needed to encourage them. I will
take two soldiers, if you so desire,” and she beckoned to a couple of
fighting-men who sat near by. “Bring a lanthorn, concealed as best you
can beneath your cloak.”

She led the way to a rear entrance. As the soldiers unbarred the open
door, a woman’s voice addressed her. “I go with you an I may. Two women
are safer than one alone.” It was Gyll Croyden.

Eleanor turned and looked into her face for an instant, then accepted her
offer. “I thank you.”

In another minute they were hastening silently to the palisade in single
file, one of their guardians leading, the other bringing up the rear.
With difficulty they groped their way to the southern entrance of the
town, and, after a word to the sentry stationed there, passed out. Soon
Eleanor, by the aid of the soldier’s lanthorn, was plucking leaves from a
bush that grew not over a furlong from the town.

They started to return, but paused, breathless, hearing a rustle of
leaves behind them.

Then, suddenly, a low whir, as of a bird’s wing, and the rearmost soldier
fell on his face, dead. A long, slender arrow, the like of which they had
never seen, quivered between his shoulder-blades, a shimmering reed in
the lanthorn light.

They broke into a run.

Again the whisper of Death, and their second escort, struck in the hip,
staggered and fell to his knees. At this Gyll Croyden, crying aloud
for help, started forward again, but Eleanor had stopped to succor the
wounded man.

In that moment the two women heard a quick step behind them, and, before
they could turn about, their arms were seized and pinioned at their
backs. A silken kerchief fell like a thick veil over Eleanor’s eyes and
tightened, but not so suddenly as to shut out the sight of a short,
half-naked Indian, who was engaged in blindfolding Gyll Croyden. Then a
voice, evidently from the man who had bandaged her own eyes, spoke in a
low tone, and she recognized the accents with dismay.

They were Frazer’s. “To the ravine, Towaye, and await me there.” His
voice sank to a whisper, yet not too low for Eleanor’s quick ears.
“Remember, no harm to them an you value life.”

By now the wounded guardsman, having dragged himself toward Ralph, wildly
drew his sword; then, painfully struggling to his knees, thrust in blind
desperation, but only succeeded in pricking Frazer’s arm.

The youth turned, and, overestimating his opponent’s strength, despatched
the kneeling soldier with no compunction nor instinctive mercy. He was
a man who would demand little quarter, and who, for all his boyish
fribbling, gave less.

“Quick, Towaye!” But once more Gyll cried out, though Eleanor stood
impassive by her side. The youth frowned. “Gag them,” and he hurried to
Eleanor. “My love,” he whispered, “the king wins.”

       *       *       *       *       *

On the water a dense shadow moved slowly toward Roanoke. Like Destiny it
glided forward, silent, inexorable, black.

Without resistance, it came closer and yet closer to its quarry, until at
last the shadow met a shadow like itself, as cloud meets cloud. And as
from clouds, a guttural oath of thunder burst suddenly forth in fury to
smite and profane the ear of night.

The shadow was a panther of the sea, stealing on a prey seemingly
tranquil and asleep—a wild beast of the desert coming to claim by the law
of might an oasis in the waste.

The crucial moment, so long awaited, had come at last.

Two ships became alive and fought for Roanoke Island.

       *       *       *       *       *

“Captain Vytal, they are here!”

“How near, Dyonis?”

“So near that in another instant they will board us.”

“To arms, then!”

“Ay,” and a whisper ran from mouth to mouth along the deck. There was a
low click as of pistol-triggers cocking, and fifty dark shadows, which
had lain prone behind the bulwark, rose, each to one knee.

The ships lay breast to breast, feeling each other’s sides. And suddenly
the glare of a hundred new-lit torches illumined the Spanish deck; but
the _Admiral’s_ bulwark shielded her ambush from the light.

Without warning, a line of steel corselets and morions, flashing in the
radiance, started forward from the _Madre de Dios_, started, rolled on,
and rose to the bulwark as a silver wave rises in the moonlight, superb,
brilliant, invincible, vaunting itself before the sable shore. And, like
moon-rays playing across the crest, a hundred swords flashed high.

The silver surf, crashing, broke. Hidden rocks had awaited it in
darkness. Baffled, it lashed them, rose, fell, dispersed, concentrated—a
wild seethe of tormented fury.

The wave was foam: there was momentarily no concertion, no detail.
Chaos rose above order, anarchy above method, chagrined amazement above
victorious triumph.

The surprise was complete. At both ends the Spanish line wavered. Here
the counter-attack began more suddenly than in the centre.

Vytal at one end, Dyonis Harvie at the other, turned both flanks of the
enemy. It was a manœuvre that gave the lie to chaos. Method lurked in
the seeming madness. The Spanish cannoneers, having heard the sounds of
a hand-to-hand conflict, at the first surprise rushed to their comrades’
aid. The culverins and minions, nosing the _Admiral’s_ hull, were for a
moment deserted. The impulse had been foreseen; hence the flank movement.

Vytal’s first tactic, bold and open, succeeded. Fortunately, the _Madre
de Dios_ was not a man-of-war, but only a Biscayan carack, transformed
temporarily and diverted from her commerce between St. Augustine
and Spain. Thus her ports were few, and the guns below deck, being
inconsiderable in number, were easily seized to prevent bombardment. A
score of English, pursued by the now witting gunners, gained the command
of these pieces. In an instant the guns were spiked, their silence
maintained with iron gags, their deep throats choking.

Harvie, with his men, defended them. Vytal returned to the bulwark. The
Spanish cannoneers, finding recapture impossible, likewise joined the
main body.

Then for a time mere carnal bloodshed followed. The steel sea had leaped
back upon itself. The Spanish aggressors became defenders on their own
decks. The ranks of both sides were broken. Each man fought for himself.

Here it was sword against sword; there pike and pike. Here pistols and
arquebuses, mouthing each other, thundered spitefully at closest range;
there a piece of brass ordnance on deck shone in the torch-glare, itself
a flame that belched flame and shot out clanking chain-shot, gobbets of
iron or missiles like dumb-bells—twin deaths. Here it was hand-to-hand,
men glutting the lust of their inborn hatred by sheer brute force,
weaponless; there a crimson poniard gleamed dully for a second, and a
figure lurched backward to the slippery deck. Here, whirring, a garish
firebrand fell to an upturned face and burned away the look of anguish;
there a sword bled a shadow.

But strategy worked in silence and darkness. The first tactic of Vytal
was answered by St. Magil. A man made his way to the bow of the _Madre de
Dios_, shielding a torch. The wind favored his project.

There was a flash of light across the strip of water from prow to prow,
a tongue of flame in the air, and the firebrand fell flaring to a mat
on the _Admiral’s_ beak-head. The man, cowering, watched it, safe in
the knowledge that his vessel lay immediately to windward of the foe.
Gradually the unnoticed fire spread to the bowsprit’s mat, and thence to
the false stem of wood. At the same moment a number of chains and ropes
were flung out like the tentacles of a polypus from the Spanish yards to
the rigging of the _Admiral_. At the ends of these groping fingers, irons
like talons grappled with halyards and naked spars.

The ships were locked in a death-grip.

With a sudden, concerted rush, as though the flames encouraged it to
advance, the sea of shining morions and corselets rose once more, surged
forward, broke over the _Admiral’s_ bulwark, undulating, clashing,
roaring, as the receding line of English fell back before it inch by inch.

The _Admiral’s_ deck was now a heaving sea of molten silver.

But the eyes of St. Magil, looking across to it from the outer shade of
the _Madre de Dios’s_ bow, suddenly grew grave and lost their triumph.
The wind had changed. Fate intervened. Vytal was backed by the elements.
The insidious fire, of Sir Walter’s own kindling, had recoiled. The
_Admiral_ carried no sails, the _Madre de Dios_ many. The fire returned
to feed itself. Leaving behind it a burning skeleton superstructure,
from which small spars fell flaming on the combatants amid a maze of
ropes that glowed like fuses over all, it glided back, a venomous snake,
to the Spanish vessel, or, rather, like a hundred snakes, for the very
grapple-ropes by which St. Magil had bound his enemy were golden serpents
now writhing to the shrouds.

Suddenly a tongue of fire, licking the Spanish bowsprit and spritsail
yards, lolled listlessly for an instant, as though satiated and fatigued,
then shot up all the more greedily to the foretop.

And now a wavering sheet of flame rose and swayed like an immense golden
flag, as though the fire itself had flung to the breeze a royal emblem of
destruction.

But at the instant, when only the bowsprit and spritsail yard had as
yet succumbed, St. Magil had hastened amidships. Here he commanded the
few Spaniards who had not yet forced their way to the English vessel to
cut the grapples and cast off immediately. But the intertwining fingers
that he himself had stretched out to enfold the prey held tenaciously.
Snarled inextricably, they lay across from ship to ship, high and low, a
hopeless tangle of fetters.

When finally the sheet of flame unspread itself aloft, St. Magil
desisted. His men would have rushed then to the _Admiral_, preferring the
chance of battle to a furnace death; but he controlled with desperate
power.

“Cut away the bowsprit and foretop-gallant-mast!”

The men, following him, ran to the forecastle. “The foretop-gallant-mast
is too high. It burns!”

“The foretop-mast, then, quick! and cut the halyards!”

A sudden descending flare, as if the heavens had opened to envelop the
striving seamen, and the flag of flame lay roaring at their feet. The
fire had struck its colors. They grasped the burning canvas and flung it
overboard.

“To the attack!” And St. Magil, at last drawing his sword for open fight,
led them in the main contest.

Two score Englishmen, in double file, stood side by side on the
_Admiral’s_ deck repelling a superior force that strove to exterminate
them. The front line fought with swords; the rear with pistols and
musketoons, whose barrels looked out between friendly shoulders before
them. Thus the swordsmen, ranged alternately with the musketeers, were
slightly in advance, and must needs bear the brunt of the onslaught.

In this file Vytal held a central position. Beside him, either by
accident or purpose, stood Ananias Dare, and beyond the assistant, Dyonis
Harvie, who had been recalled. In a line at their feet lay their fallen
comrades and opponents, forming, in the final throes of death, a ghastly
rampart across which the living fought.

Again and again the onrush and repulse. The double file was a wall of
stone.

St. Magil himself, springing into the middle breach of his foremost
rank, armed with a broadsword, made bold to attack the man whom he held
responsible for the unflinching resistance. Vytal, who now carried
a heavy blade himself, met his chief antagonist with stern, almost
business-like precision, as he had encountered all the unknown soldiers
that had come before.

Suddenly St. Magil turned aside to Ananias Dare and thrust viciously. The
stroke threatened death. Vytal parried it. For many minutes, that seemed
years, he had been defending two men at once. St. Magil fell back to
the rear ranks with a lifeless arm. A Spanish officer of high rank took
his place and, with a rallying cry, led his men once more against the
battered English wall.

Steel in torment clashed and rang on shields that thwarted its desire.
Leaden bullets, like driven sleet, shot from both sides, buried
themselves with a monotonous thud in heavy cotton targets. Every man but
one had only himself to guard. Save with Vytal, there was no trust but
the cause and the individual.

The Spaniards persisted. They had been held at the last assault, but not
repelled. They were on the brink of victory, eight score against less
than four; the issue could not be doubtful.

Ananias Dare, although brave with a slight excess of wine and the
knowledge that Vytal stood beside him, wavered. St. Magil’s thrust
had shattered his puny courage. He gave way and fell back to the line
of musketeers. Vytal and Dyonis Harvie closed in before him. But the
disastrous effect of even one man’s retreat was not so easily averted.
His sword had proved of little service, but the influence of each man on
all had been incalculable. A single bolt in the precise mechanism had
broken. The machine shook, grated, and threatened to fall in pieces.

The line tottered. Ananias, perceiving with terror the result of his
cowardice, sought to retrieve himself by rallying his fellows with a
cry. But despair rose above encouragement in the call. His eyes, wild
and horror-struck, looked over Harvie’s shoulder at the force that must
surely in another instant overrun him. He was thinking only of himself
then, not of the cause nor of his countrymen. His headpiece had fallen
off, revealing a dishevelled mass of silken hair, wet with the sweat of
fear. His lips dripped foam. The end, he believed, had come.

Yet Vytal, with a sharp word, delayed it. The voice, deep and resonant
with desperate command, reawakened hope and energy. The attackers neither
gave way nor succeeded in advancing.

Had Vytal lost? It seemed to him impossible. He had never known the word
save once, in youth, when a rigid cordon of steel like this had encircled
him in the streets of Paris. The memory of that massacre, in which his
parents had been murdered by Catholics, like these, redoubled his fury.
He flung himself against the line of bristling swords that, impassable
as a vast _cheval-de-frise_, checked him at every quarter. The knowledge
that he held another life in trust—a detestable life—nevertheless, must
he not preserve it?—quickened his every fibre for a new attempt. But
above and beneath all a woman’s name seemed to reverberate through his
whole being like the war-cry of a soul.

He thrust, thrust, and thrust again. The swords met, slithered, and the
Spanish officer fell groaning on the rampart of dead.

The enemy’s line gave way. The English started forward. But St. Magil,
nursing his wounded arm in the rear, met the emergency with a new tactic.
Hoarsely he bade a dozen men to stand upon the bulwark, each with a
torch in hand. The manœuvre favored him. The English fell back apace.
A line of wavering light blinded their eyes. The firebrands’ dazzling
glare rendered their thrusts and parries far wilder and more uncertain
than before. Vytal’s face, illuminated vividly by the maddening light,
grew doubly tense and desperate. Wounded in the left arm by the slash
of a cutlass, his corselet dented in many places, his eyes haggard and
lips white, his grizzled brow and close-cut beard clotted with sweat and
blood, he nevertheless stood there still, a grim, unconquerable Death. He
fell to his knee, and fought so; then, staggering, rose again and towered
indomitable. Still the word “lose” had no meaning for him save when
applied to an enemy. And even now, on the very verge of defeat, his rage
and iron will thus applied it in the turmoil of his depths to St. Magil.

Dyonis Harvie fell beside him wounded in the throat. Vytal turned
to a musketeer who had stepped forward in the opening. “Mark the
torch-bearers!” and then, louder—“The torch-bearers!”

A few shots rang out with new purpose amid the havoc, and three Spaniards
lurched backward from the bulwark, flinging toward the English with a
last derision the sputtering cressets as they fell. St. Magil turned to
the men nearest him. “Replace them!” And three soldiers, leaping to the
bulwark, reinforced the lurid line of flambeaus which had worked so much
disaster.

The ammunition of the English marksmen had given out. Vytal noted the
silence. “Your cutlasses! Stand close to me! We are Englishmen.… There!…
Good!… Hold fast!… Death is not defeat, surrender is!… We … win … dying!”

His words took the place of bullets, his voice of the steel blades which
were now but streaks of crimson on the deck.

“_Dying!_”

But no; suddenly from the near shore, on which a little knot of women
stood wringing their hands in grief, a canoe shot out toward the _Madre
de Dios_. It held one man. Then a second craft glided swiftly from the
land as though in pursuit, and this, too, was propelled by a single
paddle. Next, yet a third boat, and a fourth—but these were barges—joined
in what seemed a chase, and each contained ten soldiers from the fort.

In a moment the foremost craft had gained the Spanish vessel, and Frazer
was climbing up a rope to the top deck. Marlowe, from the second canoe,
followed close upon his heels, livid with fury. Frazer turned to cut the
rope, but, finding himself too late, rushed through a network of burning
stays and spars to the scene of the last stand. In a second he was lost
in the mêlée. Marlowe, once on the deck, forbore to pursue him farther,
and turned to Captain Pomp, who, with twenty soldiers, was scaling the
vessel’s side from the barges. “Not a word, any of you, concerning
Mistress Dare. Are your arms ready?”

“Ay.”

They advanced rapidly, Marlowe and Captain Pomp leading through a whirl
of smoke—all but one, who broke away, and, creeping into the darkness,
gained the forecastle. Then, swinging himself like a monkey across to
the _Admiral’s_ bow, this deserter disappeared in the English hold. It
was Ferdinando, who had been left by Vytal under the surveillance of the
guard, and who, in the confusion, had been carelessly permitted to join
the party of rescue.

Marlowe attacked the enemy’s rear. A hoarse cheer rose from Vytal’s
company. The Spaniards had been hemmed in, but Frazer spoke hurriedly
to St. Magil. “Their fort is utterly deserted. Send a score to land. We
shall win the town.”

At a whispered command twenty men from the end of the Spanish line
wheeled, and, cutting their way past Marlowe, scrambled down into the
barges. The poet could not bring himself to order a pursuit. The sight of
his friend fighting there, grimly, against so great odds, deterred him.
He must save Vytal.

Two barges glided out from the _Madre de Dios_ across the golden water
which, reflecting the flaming tracery of the rigging, lay between them
and land. But suddenly from the brow of a low cliff there came a roar of
thunder, and an iron ball struck the foremost barge.

The Spaniards in the second turned back to the ship, others swimming in
their wake. “We have underestimated their force,” said one; “the whole
cliff is fortified.” And, as if to emphasize his words, a second ball
splashed in the water at his side.

It was for this that Prat and Rouse had waited, each, through the
long moments, commanding the other’s patience. They could not fire
at the carack, fearing to hit friends, but the course of a separate
landing-force had been purposely covered by their culverin. Here Vytal
had stationed them for the final defence; here, apart from all their
fellows, two men held no mean portion of a continent.

Seeing the Spaniards returning, Frazer sought to reassure them; but
in the middle of his remonstrance St. Magil bade them reinforce their
comrades on the _Admiral_.

They strove to obey, but could not. Their friends, retreating in
disorder, fell back before the concerted attack of Vytal and Marlowe.
Many, who at the first had been hemmed in, lay lifeless across the
scuppers, weltering in a stream of blood that could find no outlet to the
sea. Others, more fortunate, now stampeded back over the Spanish bulwark
and formed a compact phalanx for defence.

The tide had turned. The English, reforming their ranks, were on the
point of advancing with a rush. Frazer, however, had foreseen the issue.
“Cut the grapples!” The ropes, now severed by fire, held in few places.

In a moment the _Madre de Dios_ began to fall away. At this instant
a small, stooping figure scurried like a rat from the _Admiral’s_
forward hatches and sprang across the widening strip of water to the
Spanish ship. Vytal saw the man. “Who is that?” And some one answered,
“Ferdinando.”

Marlowe blanched. “My God! the powder in the hold—a dozen kegs of
Benjamin! Is it possible that—”

But Vytal, wounded though he was and blinded with sweat, had already
gained the hatches. With his sword he fought the last foe—a long,
slow-burning fuse, whose spark shone like a glow-worm in the darkness.
Severing the slow-match with a stroke of his weapon, he ground his heel
into the spark and glanced about sharply to make sure of no further
danger. Then, regaining the deck, he looked first at Dyonis Harvie, who
was being lowered by Captain Pomp into a cock-boat, and next out across
the water with haggard but victorious eyes. “It is well,” he said, in
a low voice, for he could just distinguish the _Madre de Dios_, like a
beaten hound, dragging herself away into the gloom.

Suddenly, as if life had ended with the necessity for action, he fell
back senseless into Marlowe’s arms.




CHAPTER XV

    “Ah, life and soul, still hover in his breast,
    And leave my body senseless as the earth.”

                             —MARLOWE, in _Tamburlaine_.


“Dearest, the king wins.” When Frazer had spoken these words, prior to
the meeting of the ships, Eleanor Dare and Gyll Croyden were led away
into the forest by Towaye, the Indian. They gave no outcry, each having
across her mouth a bandage of silk, nor was resistance possible, their
hands being firmly tied behind them. Yet Gyll, at last, would have thrown
herself upon the ground and refused positively to walk farther had she
not feared a worse fate at the hands of their escort. Moreover, she heard
Eleanor’s footsteps rustling just ahead without cessation, and her heart
took courage of the example.

Finally, after they had followed a narrow trail seemingly for miles,
Towaye, who brought up the rear of the single file, halted. Then,
unblinding their eyes and unshackling their wrists, probably by another’s
command, he bade them be seated on the trunk of a fallen elm to rest
themselves. Each was but a shadow to the other, so deep lay the darkness
in the forest. But the shadows were not long motionless, for presently,
with a word, Towaye told them to rise, and, binding their hands now
before them, yet leaving their eyes unbandaged, pushed them once more
ahead of him on the trail. Thus they walked for an hour in silence until
commanded to turn aside, at which, after entering a small clearing, they
were once more permitted to halt.

Apparently they had now reached their destination, for the Indian,
striking two stones, one against another, set fire to a heap of dry
leaves, on which he threw an armful of brushwood. As the glade was
illuminated the women glanced about them quickly, for they were not
long allowed to remain in the opening. Leading them to the clearing’s
margin, near a deep ravine, Towaye drew aside a hanging curtain of
grape-vines and motioned them into a natural arbor whose walls and roof
were formed by an inextricable tangle of tough tendrils, which rendered
the stronghold as impervious as though it had been enclosed by stone.
The curtain, drawn back and twisted like a portière, left open a narrow,
brambly entrance, through which the near fire cast its glare to light up
the interior. Large clusters of grapes hung in profusion on every side
and carpeted the earth, their rich fragrance filling the air as they were
trod under foot by the two who entered.

The Indian, and doubtless Frazer, too, had been here earlier in the
day, for just within scope of the firelight was the carcass of a young
deer, while on the ground a pannier of various provisions lay beside the
arbor’s entrance. Furthermore, a long riding-cloak had been spread out
like a rug in the natural cell.

“Master Frazer is most thoughtful of our comfort,” observed Gyll, seating
herself thereon, with a laugh. But Eleanor, sinking down, fatigued and
despairing, made no answer. Meanwhile their captor was methodically
cutting from the deer a steak, which he presently held over the fire
on the prongs of a green crotch. Soon the meat sizzled and grew black,
whereupon, turning to his captives, the Indian held it out, and, with a
gesture, bade them eat. Gyll laughed. “Are we to devour it whole, Towaye?”

The Indian, who, thanks to his sojourn in England, understood their
language, considered the question for a minute; then, evidently
suspecting that Gyll thus sought to obtain a weapon, smiled craftily,
laid down the meat, and proceeded to cut it up with a knife of Frazer’s
resembling a Toledo poniard. Next, taking the pieces in his fingers, he
piled them on a pewter plate which he drew from the pannier, and offered
his guests the savory dish with a grunt of hospitality.

Again Gyll laughed. “But our hands are tied.”

Towaye shrugged his shoulders, and, squatting on the ground, held his
wrists together, then raised the dark fingers to his lips. “This way,”
he said, “prisoners eat.” And now, turning away, he busied himself in
preparing his own meal of venison.

Gyll, with a wry face, stood upon her feet, and, reaching to the low
roof, plucked a bunch of grapes—necessarily with both hands at once—which
she offered to Eleanor. Then, having provided herself with another
cluster, she sat down again and bit off the grapes one by one, with
evident relish. Eleanor, however, only looked out listlessly to the
crackling fire, her hands clasped, her fingers intertwined with feverish
strength. Tears fell slowly on the forgotten fruit in her lap, causing it
to shine like a cluster of inestimable rubies in the firelight. Her face,
even now like a child’s, but very spiritual for all its witchery, was
more sad than fearful, more given over to an expression of deep distress
and hopelessness than to terror and apprehension. Her hazel eyes, moist
and lustrous, seemed to have gained a new depth, which for the first
time reached to her very soul. Their look was a prayer. “My little one,
my little Virginia,” again and again she repeated inwardly, half to
herself and half to a Higher Power—“My little Virginia.” Like the dull
surge of heavy, monotonous surf, her thoughts beat upon her brain, now
in comprehending supplication, now in mere unconscious repetition, until
suddenly the despair of her eyes became less passive and more intense.
Another name sprang into the ceaseless, unutterable murmur and all but
escaped her pale lips—“John Vytal.”

Gyll Croyden lay, with elbows on the ground and chin in hand, watching
her. The two faces presented a striking contrast, Eleanor’s as we have
seen it, Gyll’s an almost indescribable paradox, so suggestive was it
of contradictory emotions. The whole expression showed, first, that
she had utterly forgotten her plight and surroundings. Eleanor’s face
absorbed her thoughts, thoughts which were, apparently, at odds. In her
unaccustomed silence there was consideration of her companion’s feelings;
in her eyes an unmistakable admiration and kind of wonder; while about
the corners of her mouth a look of ironical amusement played unforbidden.
Adding an expression more serious—if the word is permissible in
connection with so gay a face—her brows were contracted defiantly. And,
stranger than all, a keen observer would have noted an unwonted sadness,
very subtle, that lay neither in this feature nor in that, but rather, as
it were, behind them all.

At last, however, the defiance assumed sway; the consideration was
forgotten. “Kyt says all men love thee,” she observed, critically;
“now, wherefore, I wonder?” and, as Eleanor turned to her in silent
surprise, “Wherefore do they love thee? Thou hast no merry jest of good
comradeship, nor yet those subtler, intoxicating ways to madden a man
and enslave him. See! hast ever looked at men like this?” She tossed
her curls back and smiled roguishly, with a full consciousness of her
beauty. “Or this?” She leaned forward, arms outstretched languorously,
lips slightly parted, lashes drooping, as though to veil and soften the
light of her eyes. And the eyes were now shimmering, alluring, full of a
mystic, though physical, enthralment.

Eleanor drew back, with a tremor of repulsion.

“Oh, you recoil,” said Gyll, laughing, with a somewhat hollow mirth;
then, mockingly: “And why should you hold aloof? ’Tis better to be a
woman than a statue—and not so wonderful a statue, after all. Believe
me, ’tis the mere poetry of the thing entrances addle-pated Kyt—the mere
delusion. ’Tis the rhythm wherewith he describes you to himself. He
writes of you in plays, he calls you so-and-so in this and that. ’Tis
all fancy. There is no real _you_. Indeed, I doubt if you are more than
a dream to any man. Now, _I_ am an actual, vivid desire.” And so she
prattled on until, at last pausing, as the firelight grew dimmer, she
stretched out her arms and buried her head in them on Frazer’s cloak.

Eleanor’s eyes, cast down on the graceful figure, grew more tender. “I am
so sorry for you,” she said, “poor—” but Gyll had sprung to her feet.

“Sorry? Sorry?” she demanded, with railing sarcasm. “Your sympathies,
Mistress Dare, would better be directed toward yourself. Sorry! Oh—and
_poor_! Hast never seen my wardrobe—the rich broidered stomacher, the
rare silk and sarsanet, the fine linen of my smocks, the gold-fringed
roundels, drawn out with cypress, the silken simar lined with furs?
Methinks the governor’s lofty daughter herself has no such raiment. And
then the ear-rings of silver and pearl, the necklaces—oh, _poor_! An
this be poverty, I rest content to be a pauper. Poor, indeed! Poor!” and
she laughed as at an absurdity.

Eleanor could not comprehend the tone. She never knew whether Gyll had
wilfully misinterpreted the adjective, or whether its true meaning had
sunk down into the woman’s heart and only hardened it the more. “I pray
you keep silent,” she said, in a low voice; “incontinent laughter and
vanity seem little suited to our condition.”

Gyll responded with a grimace that was by no means pretty, and puckered
up the corners of her mouth, which had never been made for sarcasm.
Nevertheless she obeyed with silence, as gradually the present
circumstances were borne in upon her again, recalled, no doubt, by
Eleanor’s words. She looked down at Towaye, who sat near the entrance,
busily occupied in extracting the marrow from a shank of venison. Then
her eyes fell to the pannier behind him, and particularly upon one of the
objects it contained. She lay down again upon the ground, and, gazing up
at the gnarled and braided branches of the arbor’s roof, appeared to have
forgotten her outburst. At last, with a seeming purpose wholly foreign to
her usual manner, she whispered a suggestion in Eleanor’s ear, concluding
with, “It is at least a chance.”

“Yes, but, failing, the result would be terrible, unimaginable. Besides,
he is too cautious.”

Gyll shook her head knowingly. “Wait and see.”

Then, seating herself near the grassy threshold of the arbor, she spoke
in a louder tone, still addressing Eleanor. “Master Frazer is well
provided. I see that his friends have sent him wine from the ship. A
bottle’s neck looks temptingly out of the pannier. Wine, wine! ’twas for
gods that grapes were grown. Hast ever felt the thrill, the pleasant
effects of the golden liquid?” She paused, listening. Towaye was no
longer gnawing his marrow-bone. “Venison and wine! ’Tis the dinner of
kings; and, besides, when one dies of thirst as we do—” her voice fell
lower, but purposely not too low for the jailer’s ears. “Wait. I can
reach it.”

She moved nearer to the entrance, intentionally rustling leaves and
grasses as she did so. Her bandaged hands reached out. But the Indian’s
dusky arm, with quick stealth, forestalled her. It was for this that she
had hoped. Greedily, yet half fearfully, Towaye seized the bottle. She
saw him turn it about in his fingers for an instant, inspecting it from
neck to bottom much as a child surveys a new toy, wonderful and strange
beyond comprehension. And, as a child, he seemed half in fear because
of the mystery. To avoid temptation, he turned about toward the arbor,
and Gyll noticed the awe underlying his desire. Presently he spoke. “In
England Manteo said, ‘Drink not. There is an evil spell in wine. The
sunlight therein is angry at being imprisoned and not free as on the
water. Behold how it affects the English, turning them to madmen. Learn,
and drink not.’ These were the words of Manteo. He is a wise counsellor.”

Gyll laughed. “Wise, I doubt not,” said she, “but deceived. Wine is
rather the cure for madness—the madness of thirst, suffering, cold, and
all that tortures men. I pray you give it to us.”

Seeming reassured by her words, and yet more by her apparent desire to
drink the mysterious liquid herself, Towaye grunted a refusal. “It is not
for women,” he said, cunningly. “It is for men.”

She bit her lip to refrain from smiling, and drew back beyond the circle
of firelight.

Taking Frazer’s poniard in his right hand and still holding the bottle in
his left, Towaye hesitated. Yet suddenly an inborn passion, until to-day
latent in him, but common to all the human race, predominated. His mouth
watered; he must taste the forbidden fruit. The women heard a little
crash, and the glass neck fell off under a blow from the poniard’s blade.
Frazer’s own weapon, left as a precaution with the Indian, had turned
against him.

Towaye drank, and drank again. Gyll peered out and saw his head fall back
slowly as, gradually inverting the bottle until it stood bottom up, he
drained its contents to the dregs.

At this moment Gyll Croyden did an unaccountable thing. Raising her bound
hands to the crown of her head, she surprised Eleanor by untying a short
scarlet ribbon that confined her hair, and instantly a radiant cascade of
gold rippled and rioted downward, completely enveloping her. “Watch now a
piece of play-acting. ’Twould delight Kyt’s heart.”

Towaye rose and entered the arbor. His features were distinctly visible,
for the fire, being on the ground partly to one side of the opening,
cast its gleam up even to the roof of grapes and obliquely athwart the
intruder’s face. His hands, now empty, were half outstretched, palms
forward, fingers bent as though to grasp something.

Eleanor drew back with a cry of terror. For a moment the dark form, naked
save for an apron of deerskin, stood motionless. Then, with a guttural
monosyllable in his own tongue, Towaye started forward. Slowly Gyll arose
and faced him. The fire, with a final high flare, lit up her hair. The
long tresses, falling in ripples below her knees and completely veiling
her face, shone like a flood of sunlight. But for the minute his savage
eyes and heavy steps were directed to Eleanor.

Gyll spoke, and the Indian stopped short to look at her. “Towaye,”
she said, in a voice that sounded far away behind the golden curtain
of her hair, “hark! You stand before the Daughter of the Sun. Advance
no farther, or the fire that inflames your brain shall burn your body
also.” She paused. Her knowledge of Indian theology was hopelessly scant
and indefinite. She had heard that somewhere, in some part of this vast
America, there was a people who worshipped the sun. Might not a like
heliolatry be induced here, even though the Hatteras tribe acknowledged
no such deity? “I, the Daughter of the Sun, command you! Leave me!”
She thrust her hands through the shining locks and held them aloft as
though to weave a spell. “See, Towaye. Even now the spell of the Sun
enthralls thee. Thy legs tremble and waver.” She swayed slightly to and
fro to increase his own unsteadiness. “Thy brain whirls as the flame of
a camp-fire. Thy thoughts clutch at dreams. In an instant thou shalt be
consumed.”

The Indian groaned and staggered backward. Her voice came lower. “Leave
me, Towaye! The Daughter of the Sun hath spoken!”

He stepped back, until his knees weakened suddenly and he sank moaning to
the ground. His head lay against the viny side of the natural doorway;
his gleaming body stretched across the threshold. Long the heavy lids
blinked with a great effort to keep awake; but the mind, utterly
unaccustomed to the fumes of wine, succumbed at last. He fell asleep.

Gyll pulled her skirts above the knee, and, beckoning to her companion,
would have stepped over the prone figure had not Eleanor detained her.
“It cannot last. We shall lose ourselves in the woods and he will readily
overtake us. Then—”

“Ay, you are right,” said Gyll. “I had not thought of that; ’twould
indeed be madness.” And the two women, once more seating themselves in a
corner, surveyed the human barrier before them.

As the firelight waned, Gyll lay on her back again, looking up at the
tracery of interlaced grape-vines which were now but vague arabesques
on the leafy ceiling. The Indian’s head rested on a similar vine, which
formed a pendent arc, a shadowy crescent, beneath his neck. With a
sidelong glance at the recumbent figure, and particularly at the head’s
posture, Gyll saw that the low-hanging vine on which the cranium rested
was about three inches thick and very strong; moreover, it was braided
like a woman’s hair. “Like a woman’s hair.” Several times her thoughts
repeated the simile, and grew more daring with the repetition. She
whispered to Eleanor, and then, a second time lifting her skirts well
above the knee, stepped over Towaye and out of the arbor. Her tread was
wonderfully light and soundless. Near the fire she stooped and picked
up something from the ground that lay near a birch bow and a bundle of
flint-headed arrows. Eleanor saw her bending figure, the petticoats still
raised to prevent their rustling on the leaves, the red silk hose, the
golden cataract of hair, and remembered that picture always.

Gyll returned. Frazer’s poniard was in her hand. Once within the arbor
she appeared to hesitate as with a new purpose, and lifted her weapon as
though to strike the swarthy breast, but could not. Her poised arm seemed
paralyzed. Eleanor, who uttered a low whisper of horrified remonstrance,
need not have done so. The impulse was there, but the masculine nerve and
implacability were lacking. She resumed her first purpose. Cutting the
silken band about her fellow-prisoner’s wrists, she requested Eleanor to
respond in kind. Their hands were at last free. Gyll hesitated, turning
the bandages about in her fingers. “Nay,” she said at last, “he could
easily tear them.”

For a moment she smoothed out her tresses on her knee, passing a palm
over them caressingly. Tears fell and mingled with the gold. Her bosom
was heaving. Catching up the long strand in a mass, she held it to
her lips and kissed it passionately. But then her weeping ceased with
a little gulp of determination, and she held out the curling ends to
Eleanor. “Hold them thus,” and she raised the poniard quickly to her
head. In an instant the tumbling cascade had become a river of gold
on the ground, glimmering in the light of the outer embers. With deft
fingers Gyll twisted the locks tightly, but left both ends loose as
they had fallen. Then she passed the coil over the Indian’s head until
it reached his throat. Next she twined it above and beneath the stout,
depending branch that formed his pillow. At the nape of his neck she
braided the loose strands firmly together, while in and out amid the
tresses she intertwined the galloon of ribbon which had previously decked
her head. Finally she made fast this strange bond with a hard knot in
the ribbon whose scarlet ends were at last bound high above him to an
overhanging vine. Then, with a signal to Eleanor, who was now lost in the
excitement of the moment, being not a whit behind the other in courage,
Gyll stepped across the barrier, and, with the poniard and birch bow in
her hands, led the way to the glade’s entrance.

In a moment they had regained the trail. Here they paused, listening,
undecided whether to hide in the dense jungle or to follow the pathway.
Towaye, however, only snored in sleep. He had moved slightly on feeling
the ringlets touch his throat, but the wine still possessed him.

Night and day met. The intermediate hour of dawn brought a dim gray light
to the tree-tops. Like a silver-green ocean the high surface of birch
and willow foliage, stirred by the whisper of a morning breeze, murmured
response from its distant border where the surf of leaves broke slowly
into spray.

The sun rose and fathomed the forest obliquely where it could. By the
slant of its rays the women gained some knowledge of their position,
and, keeping the sun on their right, followed the trail in a northerly
direction. For an hour they went on without stopping or turning to look
behind.

But at last they came to a sudden halt, hearing a step even lighter than
their own just beyond a bend in the trail ahead of them. Drawing to one
side behind a wild hedge-row in the forest, they waited, breathless. The
low rustle ceased. The person approaching them had evidently come to a
stand-still. Then, through the brambles, they saw a figure, dusky and
bare save for a girdle of deerskin. The head was hidden by an oak-branch.
Gyll’s lips came close to Eleanor’s ear. “’Tis Towaye!”

“No; he is too tall.”

The man stepped forward a pace and stood like a stag, listening. Eleanor
grasped Gyll’s arm, compelling silence, while Gyll herself nervously
tightened her hold on the dagger’s handle.

Again the Indian advanced, and now turned toward them. Seeing his face,
the two women rose to their feet behind the wall of briars. “Manteo!”

       *       *       *       *       *

An hour later the cressets of the fortress armory cast their glare across
many grave and apprehensive faces whose concern was heightened by an
enforced silence.

“Say nothing of Mistress Dare; he will consider it his duty to go in
search of her, and must not.” The words were Marlowe’s.

Out in the hallway, Governor White, pale and haggard, was giving orders
to a small company of soldiers, who, though worn out with fatigue, were
re-arming themselves as though for a second combat. “To the south! O my
good men, hasten! We must pursue. Even now, perchance, we are too late.
But stay … Who comes? … No … there is no need … Ah, my daughter Eleanor,
you are here!”

Thus, at the very moment of the governor’s out-starting, which, to his
despair, had been so long delayed by the battle, Eleanor returned.

“My father!” Her eyes were moist with tears, her hands caressed him, but
even now she could not wait. The armory’s door stood open. “Virginia,
little Virginia,” she said in the old, half-mechanical way, yet still
very anxiously.

“She is asleep and well.”

“And—” But she could not voice the question of her heart.

The governor smiled in his kindly, unknowing way. “Yes; Ananias, too, is
safe. Yet a terrible battle hath been fought.”

She stood for an instant mute and motionless, the dread anguish of
uncertainty in her eyes. Then she hurried into the armory.

Here the first sight that met her searching glance was her child
sleeping in Margery Harvie’s arms. She bent over and kissed it on the
forehead—once; then turned to a group of men who stood in a corner
encircling a central, recumbent figure that was resting on a bare settle
of oak.

A low moan rose in her heart, and whether or not it escaped her lips she
never knew.

On the settle lay John Vytal, prostrate and unconscious, his left arm
extended to the floor, to which his half-sheathed sword had fallen, the
belt having been unbuckled that his corselet might be unloosed. His
fingers tenaciously grasped the scabbard. The right hand lay across his
breast, which had been bared that a chirurgeon, who stood near by, might
listen to the heart-beats. Under the head of the wounded man a folded
cloak had been placed as a pillow, and his morion, having been removed,
revealed a great black and gray flecked mane of hair, brushed back to
cool his forehead. The brow itself, streaked with crimson, showed a deep
line from temple to temple where the helmet had cut into it. The face,
as though chiselled in bronze, was still stern and relentless save for a
grim, triumphant look of victory that shone in the sharp features like
the cresset-light across his sword.

Marlowe stood erect, watching him, until suddenly a voice, inarticulate,
low, and questioning, seemed to break the spell that bound them all to
the depths of anxious silence.

Marlowe turned. “Thank God!” he said, “you are saved. Speak to him.” And,
with all the relief in the poet’s voice, there was a note of pain; for he
had read her eyes.

“Captain Vytal.”

The soldier stirred as though in an abyss of sleep, his breast heaving
slightly.

“John Vytal.” The name was spoken in a low voice, yet, far away in the
world that sound and sight fathom not by utterance or gaze, but only by
their meaning, one spirit was calling to another.

The captain opened his eyes slowly.

“Thanks be to Heaven!” And Marlowe turned to Eleanor. “Your salvation is
his as well.”

Vytal’s lips parted. “Salvation? What mean you by salvation?” He forced
himself to sit upright, and his voice rose harsh as a night wind. “Has
Mistress Dare been nigh to danger?”

Neither Marlowe nor Eleanor made answer, but Gyll Croyden, who now had
joined the group, replied, laughing: “Ay, that have we both. Master Ralph
Contempt and Towaye snared us cunningly, but a wench’s wit outdid them,
and, alas! a wench’s hair.”

She stroked her close-cut curls dolefully.

Vytal staggered to his feet, and, facing Marlowe, questioned him like a
judge of the Inquisition: “Wherefore didst thou not make this known to
me?”

The poet met his gaze unflinchingly. “I thought—”

“Thought!” The word was repeated in a frigid, biting tone. “Thought!
’Twas not your right to think. The daughter of our governor was in
jeopardy.”

“Yes, captain, and our colony also. I deemed it advisable not to pit one
duty against another. On coming ashore after the battle I would have told
you, but you had swooned.”

Vytal looked at him in silence; then, finally sinking down again to a
sitting posture, “You were right, Kyt,” and his eyes met Eleanor’s—“’Twas
for our colony.”

“I pray you rest,” she said. “Your strength is spent.”

But he sat bolt-upright and made as if to rebuckle his sword-belt in a
dazed, automatic way. “Nay, madam; it is unimpaired.”

       *       *       *       *       *

At about this time a solitary man, far to the southward, struck inland
from the shore. It was Frazer, returning from a defeat to what he
believed was to be the scene of a conquest which should retrieve it.

On coming to the glade, however, and to the arbor in which Eleanor and
Gyll Croyden had been imprisoned, he stood still before the threshold in
mute astonishment. There, near the ashes of a fire, lay Towaye, basking
in the sunlight, sound asleep. Amazedly the youth started forward and
peered into the arbor. It was empty. Assuring himself of this, he stamped
and swore roundly, but, with a second glance at the slumbering Indian,
his expression changed. A sense of humor asserted itself above chagrin
and even astonishment in the boyish eyes. “How now?” he laughed. “’Tis
a court masque. Lo, a golden necklace and beribboned peruke garnish our
Lucifer!” He shook Towaye none too gently with his foot. The Indian,
rolling over, rubbed his eyes and strove to sit upright, but his bond
held him fast to the stout grape-vine. “I dreamed that I tried once
before,” he said, in sleepy bewilderment; “but the Daughter of the Sun
hath woven a spell.”

“Fool!” ejaculated Frazer.

“Nay, no fool. ’Twas she and the captive sunlight which, escaping its
bondage, entered my body at her command and overpowered it.”

Frazer’s eyes, falling on an empty bottle, brought him comprehension, and
his thoughts went back to another bottle which but recently had worked
his own failure. The remembrance decreased his severity. He unbraided
the peruke, “like a barber,” he said, and bade the Indian join him in
pursuing the women.

At this Sir Walter St. Magil, who had followed him from the shore,
entered the opening. “I have come in search of you.”

“Unbidden!” returned Frazer, hotly.

St. Magil smiled. “You will not remonstrate on hearing the cause.”

“Nay, for I have not the time. No cause delays me.”

“Whither go you, then?”

Frazer made no answer.

“Ah, for some _liaison_, I doubt not. Mark me, a woman will work your
downfall.”

The youth laughed carelessly, and would have gone away, but his friend
detained him. “A ship from Spain has joined the _Madre de Dios_. We
return across the seas. Philip will invade England.”

Frazer started, trembled. His cheeks flushed, a new light shone in the
blue eyes. The whole expression read: _Ambition_.

“Invade England!”

“Yes; with an armada so great that the issue is foregone. Naturally, your
Highness”—the title came half ironical, half serious—“will want to step
first on English soil, no more as Ralph Contempt or Frazer.”

“Nay, no more.” The echo sounded dreamy.

“Now,” pursued St. Magil, “we have bigger fish to fry than these of
Virginia. Roanoke is but a minnow, England a whale.”

Frazer’s lips parted, smiling. “I have had many names,” he said, “but the
whale unpleasantly suggests a new one—Jonah! Now, a minnow—” but he was
only babbling words detached from thoughts, all-expectant, bewildered,
glad, eager, like a child on Christmas Eve.

“Your Highness,” observed the other, “will make a merry—”

“Hush, Sir Walter, you tempt Fortune.”




CHAPTER XVI

    “What, rebels, do you shrink and sound retreat?”

                         —MARLOWE, in _Edward the Second_.


We come now to a mile-stone in the road of Time, a mere pebble it may
seem to some, but to the colony of Roanoke it marked a sudden turning in
Life’s pathway.

Perhaps nothing is more unaccountably inconsistent than the action of men
under new and strange conditions. As there is no precedent to predict the
issue, reason falls back upon itself, and fails; the unexpected happens.
Even keen perception and an intimate knowledge of human nature confound
the rule with its exception, trying to solve the problem by its proofs,
or to prove it by the solution.

The colonists of Roanoke had fought bravely for their rights. Surely
men like these could be abashed by nothing. But to make war against
a present, actual enemy and against obscure, slow-moving Destiny are
different matters. Many are fitted for one or the other contest, few for
both.

On a morning early in September numerous planters and soldiers, led by
Ananias Dare, stood before the house of Governor White. The governor
himself was in his doorway, listening sadly to their appeal.

“We have been so weakened in numbers,” said Ananias, “that there is but
one chance left. It is true the Spanish ship has not reappeared, but who
shall say that a force far more powerful may not at any time return
against us? The _Admiral_ and fly-boat go back, as you know, to England,
necessarily in charge of Captain Pomp, who alone is fitted to command
them, and of several mariners. This, however, is not enough. Let us _all_
return.”

The governor looked from the face of his son-in-law to the many others,
and, with dismay, found only agreement in their expressions. “What mean
you?” he asked, helplessly. “Cannot all the planters and chartered
officers wait yet longer? Others will come, I doubt not, from England
without our seeking. To return as the earlier settlers did will cast
discredit not only on us, but upon this great land of which a part is now
our country’s.” He paused, seeking vainly for looks of acquiescence.

“Nay, we can return anon,” said Ananias, “with more husbandmen to
superintend the raising of our crops; with more soldiers to defend us,
and artificers to enlarge our town; with additional supplies, of which we
are in so sore a need—” he broke off suddenly, his wife appearing at an
open window near the door. The child was in her arms. There was a long
silence, but at last the governor spoke again.

“Some must, of a surety, stay. This dominion is a charge not to be
forsaken utterly. Who, then, must needs depart?”

Ananias hesitated, seeing the question repeated in Eleanor’s eyes. For
a time, as the governor searched their faces, no man gave answer, a
few because the plan really pained them, more merely realizing that it
would wound another. Moreover, they felt a certain shame born of the
prearranged suggestion. At this moment Christopher Marlowe and Roger
Prat, having left Vytal in the fortress, joined the group, curious to
learn what was going forward.

At length Ananias summoned up his courage. “_We_ must go,” he said, in a
voice that strove to hide eagerness beneath a tone suggesting sacrifice.
“You and Eleanor, I, and as many others as choose to accompany us.”

The governor’s kindly eyes grew moist. “I go?” he asked, falteringly—“I?”
He questioned them with a sorrowful look that embraced the whole
gathering; but the men nodded their heads gravely. “Who, then,
would remain to govern and foster you? I should be the stigma and
laughing-stock of England. Our charter is in my name and in the names of
my twelve assistants. Who, I ask you, has the right to become governor in
my stead?”

To this the voice of all gave response, with one accord: “John Vytal.”

“Yes,” echoed Ananias, “John Vytal. He is best fitted for it; you for the
request at court. Your influence, your—” but he was suddenly interrupted.

A clear, feminine voice spoke from the window, and Eleanor handed her
child to Margery Harvie, who stood within the room. “It shall not be!
Leave our colony, our home? Leave that which we have bought with so much
blood and suffering? Desert our sacred trust? Cancel by cowardice the
debt we owe to God and the queen? Oh, my friends, we came not hither
for this. I beseech you, I command you, consider, and fling not your
honor thus away!” Her eyes were flashing now, their first cold scorn of
Ananias lost in love for the people, yet in burning indignation at their
unforeseen demand. One hand was on the sill, the other on the casement at
her side. Her cheeks, first pale with contempt for the spokesman, were
flushed now with deep crimson; her voice was all the more eloquent of its
tremor. “Can you not look beyond the present? Can you not see that, as my
father says, many more will follow us from England? Sir Walter Raleigh
hath promised that new expeditions and increased numbers shall share our
home if we succeed. _If we succeed!_ Can there be an ‘if’ before that
word ‘succeed’? Was there an ‘if’ in your hearts when you fought against
our Spanish foe? Nay, nay, my brothers. Failure must not be within our
ken. Have you no care for the great future? Is it no joy to think that
by our own efforts a vast nation may build upon the cornerstone we lay?
Who knows? Are we not perchance sowing that England and all the world may
reap some unimaginable benefit thereby? The land is fair—you know better
than I its bounteous offerings and boundless scope—and, being fair, shall
we then desecrate it with the smirch of cowardice? Oh, my friends, I pray
you reconsider!” Her voice sank lower in the final plea.

A dull murmur ran through the group, whether of approbation or
disapproval she could not tell.

Marlowe started. “It will kill Vytal,” he muttered, as though to himself,
and, on hearing this, the stout soldier beside him looked bewildered.

“Kill Vytal!” repeated Roger. “Gad, man, what mean you?” But now his
eyes, rolling up to look at Eleanor, showed that suddenly he had
understood.

Then Roger Prat seized the thread of the Fates in his own impulsive hand
and wove it into a strange pattern, whether for ill or good, none could
tell.

Swaggering forward, he elbowed his way through the crowd until he stood
before the governor. Then he spoke in a low voice. “It cannot be averted.
I have seen men thus bewitched on the eve of battle. I have cursed,
laughed, coaxed, scolded, all without avail. And I, you know, have great
influence, both with sword and—and tabor, which is scarce less to be
considered. But retreat gets into their quaking hearts. The mischief is
irreparable. Therefore, under your favor, acting for Captain Vytal, I
will divide them as is my custom in a war—they who would go and they who
would remain. Thus we can know men from chickens.”

The governor, sighing, hesitated. “Must it be?” he asked, half aloud.

“We shall see,” said Prat, and White inclined his head in permission.

Roger turned and faced the gathering. “Divide yourselves, my masters. His
Excellency commands that they who would desert—I mean return—stand still,
while they who would remain at Roanoke under Captain Vytal come nearer.”

The crowd wavered, only Marlowe and Dyonis Harvie stepping forward.

“Ah,” observed Prat, “a goodly throng! One, two, and I make three; then
the captain, Hugh Rouse, and King Lud make six. Body o’ me! ’Tis indeed
an invincible company left to defend the settlement.” He wagged his head,
and, turning to the governor, stood at salute between Christopher and
Dyonis. “We are ready, your Excellency.”

There was something so pathetically appealing in the humor which had
marshalled three men as though they were an army that the consciences of
many on-lookers smote them, until first one, then another and another,
went forward and stood beside the military file. Before long some
threescore were elbow to elbow, back to breast, in a double line, not
unlike in formation and precision that which but a few days before had so
bravely defended the _Admiral_.

Prat stepped out from the ranks, and, wheeling, faced the company. One
hand was on his sword-hilt, the other he waved aloft. “Thank you,”
he said; “I shall play to you my own new song called ‘Roanoke’ in
reward for this, and you shall see King Lud dance for very joy. Your
consciences, moreover, shall tickle you, which spitefully pricked
before.” Then, pushing his way through the double file, he stood before
the rear group, who, headed by Ananias Dare, hung their heads in sullen
silence. “The rear-guard,” said Prat, surveying them with contemptuous
irony, “hath also its uses. It makes our front the more glorious by
comparison; it inspires thankfulness in our hearts that we are not of it.
A lion, now, might not be half so proud had he not a frightened hare to
look upon.” His manner grew more serious. “You are determined to leave?”

“Yes, determined,” replied Ananias, who like most weak natures had his
moments of fitful obstinacy.

And the men, in concert, echoed, “Yes.”

Once more Eleanor spoke. “There shall be no strife,” she said. “We cannot
stay you. Go, then; but my father and I remain.”

“Nay, nay,” came from the voices not of those who were to leave, but of
the others who had elected to cast in their lot with Vytal’s. “Nay, the
governor must go to seek assistance, and return hither for our salvation.
That is sure.”

Eleanor’s voice broke. “My people, you hurt me to the quick.”

Prat, doffing his cap, turned to her. “It must be,” he said, mournfully.
“Oh, indeed, it must be! I have collogued with them, I have lost at dice,
I have harangued them, but all in vain.” He went forward, wheeled about
again, and addressed the group of volunteers. “Comrades, I have but one
suggestion.” He cast a sidelong glance at Ananias. “Master Dare must
stay. We cannot spare the governor’s assistant.” The men smiled grimly.
“And, if I may say so, Mistress Dare should likewise remain among us as
a—a kind of hostage from his Excellency, her father, to assure us that he
will return with aid.”

This was the moment in which Roger meddled with Fate.

The governor’s benevolent face went a shade paler as he looked at the
corpulent soldier. “Then you, too, Prat, are against us?” But Roger only
wagged his head and rolled his eyes as who should say, “Interpret the
action as you will, I, at least, feel no compunction.”

Eleanor scanned his face, a new flush mounting to her cheeks. Her mind
was in a turmoil. Great forces strove one against another in her heart;
on the one side her powerful filial devotion, which impelled her to
depart from England with her father; on the other her love for the
colony, her unflinching resolution to stand by it, her scorn for the
husband who sought only selfishly to escape; and, with all these—but
no; she would not define that control even to herself. Yet deep, vivid,
merciless, a name in her soul defined it whether she would or not.

She said nothing, but withdrew from the window to caress her child. A
tear fell on little Virginia’s forehead, and then soft fingers wiped it
away as though to obliterate the symbol of Sorrow’s baptism.

And now a low, broken murmur rose from without.

“Yes, as a kind of hostage,” said one.

“A token of good faith,” added another. “And she shall be as a queen unto
us.”

“Then, surely,” observed a third, “his Excellency will come back with
succor.”

“It is well.”

“And the _brave_ Master Dare must share our fate.”

“Ha! That is best of all.”

“Roger Prat speaks wisely.”

“Ay,” echoed many, “your round head, Roger, is not all whim.”

He laughed and rejoined Marlowe. “Your master will be angry,” said the
poet.

“Not in his heart, Master Christopher.”

The gathering dispersed, casting amused glances at Ananias, who, now
pale, mortified, and desperate, entered the house for his only antidote
against remorse and fear.

The governor made way for him on the threshold and stood for some minutes
watching the retreating figures of his colonists. Then he, too, withdrew
slowly, and his step for the first time suggested infirmity, his face age.

       *       *       *       *       *

On the following morning Vytal met Eleanor Dare near the shore. “You are
going?” he asked.

“No.”

“’Twould save you from many hardships.”

“I count them blessings. Few women are allowed to suffer in so good a
cause. Their pain shows no result.”

“Nay, Mistress Dare, the effect lies too deep perchance for mortal
eyes to see it. I was once wont to consider women so many smocks and
kirtles that clothed the air, but lately mine eyes have read the truth.”
His manner was in no way passionate, but only deep with reverence and
admiration. The passion lay iron-bound within him. Only his eyes could
not utterly conceal its presence; and, looking up to them, she became
once more a child. With all others she was a woman, often imperious and
always perfectly at ease, yet with this man she was forever forced to
assume the defensive, not against him, but herself. She looked up at
him now for the first time with a glance of analysis. Until to-day she
had never considered Vytal’s character in detail. Hitherto he had been
a force, intangible, but dominant, like the tide or wind. But now that
emergencies and crises had revealed her heart to her mind, against all
that mind’s resistance, he, too, became actual, and despite herself she
knew him to be the one man whom she could love. Yet the word “love” was
unutterable even in her depths. She called it by no name, nor applied a
word to his own devotion. Only the thought came to her, as she met his
look, that this inexplicable, taciturn Fate bending over her would become
a child like herself beneath the touch of a requited—but even then she
interrupted her thoughts with speech. “I could not have consented to
leave our colony, even if Roger Prat—” she hesitated.

Vytal’s manner grew more stern. “Roger Prat? What has he to do with it?”

She looked troubled. “Oh, naught, believe me—I think he—but no—I mean—”

“What?”

“He believed ’twas for the best, and so he demanded that I—should stay.”

Vytal grasped his sword-hilt. “Is ’t possible he dared to interfere? Do
you mean ’twas Prat suggested hostages? Can it be my own man who hath
exposed you to the hazard of remaining?”

“No, stay, Captain Vytal. Harm not the fellow. Dost not—” But she broke
off suddenly, her head drooping to hide the deep flush which had mounted
to her cheeks.

“’Twas impertinence,” declared Vytal, as though to himself. “Nay, more,
it was profanation to thwart the will of Heaven, by which you would have
been saved from this cruel life.”

She looked up at him again, a wistful doubt in her eyes. “Then you—would
have—me return?”

He drew himself to his full height in the old soldierly way, as though
facing an ordeal. “I would.”

“Wherefore?” The word came in a low whisper, as though a woman’s heart
were sinking with the voice to endless silence.

“I consider _your_ happiness, and not—” He paused and turned to leave.

She spoke no detaining word, but only stood watching him as he walked
away to the fortress, and her eyes were no longer haunted by misgiving.

       *       *       *       *       *

“Roger.”

“Ay.”

“Hereafter ignore the dictates of impulse save in matters of your
calling. Obey my commands alone, or seek another friend.”

“But, captain—”

“Stay, I ask no explanation nor apology. The thing is done.”

       *       *       *       *       *

At sunrise the whole colony, save the governor and his daughter, having
assembled on the shore, was divided into two parties—those who were
lading cock-boats and barges with provisions prior to their departure,
and those who merely assisted in the embarkation with a secondary
interest, listless and mutely sad.

Soon, like the pinions of two great sea-fowl, wide-spread to bear them
upward from a billow, the sails of the fly-boat and _Admiral_, mounting
from yard to yard, held all eyes at gaze.

Prat, watching them with a wry face, turned to Marlowe, who stood beside
him. “Damned portents!” he exclaimed.

“Nay, Roger, they are but vultures awaiting to bear away the corpse of
Courage.” Prat eyed him with a kind of wonder. “Or,” pursued the poet,
carelessly, “those sails are the flags of truce we wave to Destiny.”

“Master Kyt,” asked Roger, with a look of unprecedented embarrassment,
“is ’t a hard thing to write poesy?”

Marlowe, still in abstraction, failed to note the preposterous suggestion
that underlay the query. He made answer seemingly to himself. “’Tis easy
to indite the ‘Jigging Conceits of Rhyming Mother Wits,’” he observed,
quoting from the prelude to his “Tamburlaine.”[6] “It is within man’s
compass to make a ‘mighty line’ or so; but to write poetry is impossible.”

“Nay, but you yourself, Master Christopher—”

“No, not I, nor any one can scan the lines engrailed by a golden pen on
the scroll of sunset, or echo the music of a breeze.”

The soldier looked mournful, his chin sinking on his chest until a triple
fold submerged it. “I would fain have invented a poem myself,” he avowed,
gloomily. “And, indeed, have written a song of the men of Roanoke.
Lack-a-day! ’tis but a jigging mother of rhyme, I fear, and poorly done.”

Marlowe surveyed him in silence for a moment, then laughed gayly and
turned away.

At the same moment a flutter of white scraps, like torn paper, fell to
Roger’s boots.

The gathering that lined the water’s edge was now divided in the centre,
and Governor White walked between the ranks, smiling to one and another
on either side to conceal the sadness of his farewell. As he came
half-way to the shore, Marlowe went forward and stopped him. Holding out
a heavy packet, the poet spoke in a low voice. “I pray you see to it
that this is delivered to Edward Alleyn, an actor of plays, who dwells
in the Blackfriars, or, if he be not readily found, then, I pray you,
leave it at the sign of ‘The Three Bibles,’ in charge of Paul Merfin, a
bookseller. It was from his shop that I joined John Vytal in the fight
for your daughter’s honor. I doubt not you will leave this there as my
reward. The packet contains certain stage conceits begun in England and
finished here.”

“It shall be delivered,” said the governor. “I am, indeed, happy thus to
be made a humble sharer in the building of your fame.”

The poet smiled. “Fame!” he said. “’Tis not for that I sing.”

And now Governor White made his way to the water, while many gathered
sorrowfully around him to place letters in his charge.

Eleanor went down to the sea hand-in-hand with her father. Those who were
to leave had already boarded the two vessels, with the exception of a
sailor and Captain Pomp, who stood, befeathered hat in hand, beside the
governor’s small-boat.

As John White was about to step over the gunwale of this craft, Vytal
approached him. “Since it must be,” said the soldier, “I have sought
at least to exonerate you from all slander in England and charges of
desertion. The Oxford preacher hath writ this,” and he handed a scroll of
paper to the governor. It read as follows:

    “May it please you, her Majesty’s subjects of England, we,
    your friends and countrymen, the planters in Virginia, do by
    these let you and every [one] of you to understand that for the
    present and speedy supply of certain our known and apparent
    lacks and needs, most requisite and necessary for the good and
    happy planting of us, or any other in this land of Virginia, we
    all of one mind and consent have most earnestly entreated and
    incessantly requested John White, Governor of the planters in
    Virginia, to pass into England for the better and more assured
    help, and setting forward of the foresaid supplies, and knowing
    assuredly that he both can best and will labor and take pains
    in that behalf for us all, and he not once but often refusing
    it for our sakes, and for the honor and maintenance of the
    action hath at last, though much against his will, through our
    importunacy yielded to leave his government and all his goods
    among us, and himself in all our behalfs to pass into England,
    of whose knowledge and fidelity in handling this matter, as all
    others, we do assure ourselves by these presents, and will you
    to give all credit thereunto, the 25 of August, 1587.”[7]

Eleanor had already said good-bye in private, but once more she kissed
her father, pressed his hand, whispered in his ear, and then, as he
stepped into the cock-boat which awaited him, returned to her baby, that
lay crowing in its nurse’s arms.

“Body o’ me,” said a voice near by. “The prow hangs a-land. Dame
Cock-boat refuses to be gone. Hi, little Rouse, come help them.”

The two joined their fellow, who, under Captain Pomp’s directions, was
striving to launch the craft, which had been nearly deserted by an
ebb-tide.

“Whist!” said Roger in Hugh’s ear, “we’ll make Master Dare give aid.”

Hugh looked at the assistant and saw a sorry picture. “’Tis a ghost,” he
exclaimed, “not a man in flesh and fell.”

“The corpse of Courage,” added Prat, after the poet’s manner.

The man they discussed seemed like a ghost indeed, that would fade with
the mist when the sun rose higher. His face, pallid and haggard, was
turned toward the cock-boat as to a last resort.

“He would leave,” observed Rouse, while, side by side with Roger, he
pushed the governor’s craft slowly forward. For a moment the keel ceased
grating on the shingle, and Prat turned to Ananias. “Oh, Master Dare, I
pray you give us aid! ’Tis a most unconscionable task!” At which one or
two others near the cock-boat exchanged winks and covert smiles. They
showed no mercy. Dare, between the two soldiers, was forced himself to
cut the last thread between danger and safety.

The prow fell free, and finally the boat was floating. Then the
on-lookers saw Ananias stagger, or, rather, almost spring forward,
having, they supposed, lost his balance as the craft shot out from land.
But Hugh’s immense hand, grasping his belt, pulled him backward to save
him (the by-standers believed) from a ducking. Rouse and Prat walked away
arm-in-arm. “Well done, midget; I had not thought so dense a brain would
fathom his intention.”

Slowly the _Admiral_ and fly-boat sailed away, their hulls, bulwarks,
and deck-houses vanishing beyond the inlet from the ocean until only the
shrouds remained, and now the whole colony had left the shore, save one
woman. Long she watched the sails that, like white clouds, seemed to grow
smaller, and at last dissolve entirely beneath the eastern sun.

Finally a naked horizon met Eleanor’s eyes at the edge of a brassy sea,
and she turned back to the town.




CHAPTER XVII

    “What we have done our heart-blood shall maintain.”

                            —MARLOWE, in _Edward the Second_.

    “Thy words are swords.”

        —MARLOWE, in _Tamburlaine_.


To those who, long afterwards, recalled the months and months that
followed Governor White’s departure there was no clear, consecutive
reminiscence in the mind’s eye. Only one or two vivid scenes, enacted
in those anxious days, graved themselves on memory. All else was but a
medley of hours and seasons, and even years, quick-changing, confused,
monotonous yet varied, listless yet portentous and pregnant—the fœtus of
the Future in the Present’s womb. Hope burned brightly, waned, flared
again, flickered, and seemed to die. For even Hope cannot live by Hope
alone forever; only grief is self-sustaining. And grief came to the
colony of Roanoke. Pestilence, tempests and privations, famine, drought,
and mortality, all conspired in turn against their one invincible enemy
whose name is Courage.

A desperate, absorbing question haunted the faces of men, women, and
children; a question first asked in words, next mutely from eye to
eye, then not at all. _When? when?_ The word holds all the meaning of
existence, and the meaning is a question. Despair is the death of Hope;
Resignation, the deep-cut grave. Yet from the grave a ghost returns to
whisper, “Then.”

The ghost of Hope still haunted Roanoke Island.

Surely some day the resigned yet watchful eyes would see a sail to the
eastward. First the settlers said “To-morrow,” then “Next month,” and at
last, “Within a year John White will bring deliverance.”

But summers and winters passed until two whole years had gone, and
speculation was eschewed by all as vain self-torture.

Crops failed; husbandry languished. Life at last came to a low ebb.
This may seem unaccountable when one considers that about threescore
able-bodied men, with perhaps a dozen women and children, were not
castaways without shelter, but well-housed settlers. Yet the fact remains
undeniable; and the cause is not far to seek. Hope had made the colonists
dependent on itself. They had looked for a speedy deliverance. Without
this expectation their industry, at the outset, after Governor White’s
departure, would not have waned, but increased. Perceiving no assistance
possible from an outside source, the little company, relying on its own
endeavors, would have striven to shape the future independently. But
that sail, ever in the mind’s eye, allured them. Save for two or three
men who were, above all, self-reliant, the colony, before now, would
have perished. Fortunately, one of these had learned to depreciate the
kindness of Destiny. In his mental vision there was no sail to the
eastward, nor ever would be unless a ship actually appeared on the
horizon. Experience, head-master of this school-boy world, could boast of
at least one graduate on Roanoke.

       *       *       *       *       *

“Manteo, the end is near. I have sought for over two years to ’stablish
ourselves firmly, so that, even were John White’s absence indefinitely
prolonged, we might yet survive. But your land considers us aliens. The
end is near.”

“Yes, my brother, for that reason I have come hither from the island of
Croatan. The English are not aliens, but friends and brethren. Our crops
shall be their crops, our habitation theirs as well. My name is Manteo,
yet also Lord of Roanoke.[8] Ask your people to come and be my children
on the isle of Croatan. Here the tongue of the earth cleaves to its
mouth. All things die thirsting. The springs of fresh water are spent and
run not; the dust chokes their throats, and still no cloud appears. Even
the sky panteth. I say to you, come away.”

“But, Manteo, wherefore? Is ’t any better at your abode?”

“It is; for at Croatan the forest waters bring laughter from the heart of
the world, and are never hushed. The whisper of Roanoke’s well-springs
is lip-deep and meaningless, while we of Croatan hear a spirit singing,
‘Come.’ The song is to you, for we are there already. I repeat it:
‘Come.’”

“But your crops are needed for your kinsmen.”

“Yes; ye are our kinsmen.”

“So be it. On the morrow, then, thy lot is ours as well.”

       *       *       *       *       *

At noon the colonists assembled near the fortress, while John Vytal spoke
to them. By the captain’s side stood Manteo, utterly impassive, and,
next to the Indian, Christopher Marlowe, seemingly wrapped in a high
abstraction. In the foremost line of the small half-circle Hugh Rouse and
Roger Prat were intently listening; while from a knoll, apart from the
group, yet well within earshot, Eleanor Dare watched the speaker. About
the foot of the mound a little girl, apparently about three years old,
played with drooping wild-flowers. Like a butterfly just from the cocoon,
she flittered hither and thither, with uncertain, hesitating motion, yet
a grace so light and aerial that seemingly a thread of sunlight could
have bound her, since no breeze was there to carry her away. Though
actual gossamer wings were unaccountably lacking, a gossamer spirit was
hers, ethereal, as if born of a maiden’s dream. Yet, as the wing of a
butterfly winces if the flower it touches droops, there was that in her
which told vaguely of sorrow, as though in the past, long before her
earthly life, her devotion for some one had been repelled. And now even
these strange wild ferns and unnamed blossoms of the field about her hung
their heads and turned away. Yet she was of them. Was the sadness an
inborn, unconscious memory, a dim result arising from the fact that her
father had been spurned, and that of the contempt and repugnance in which
her mother had held him, long months before Virginia’s birth, she was the
offspring?

These were the thoughts and questions in the mind of Marlowe as he turned
to watch the child at play. Her mystic sadness was not the effect of
an infancy amid hardship and affliction. He believed she would never
be touched by tangible sorrows. He pictured her as grown to womanhood,
yet never amenable to ordinary grief. No; it was only that the maiden’s
dream from which this child seemed sprung had ended with an awakening
from vague and roseate fancies to a cold, remorseless fact. The _soul_ of
the child had no father; she was not conceived of love. The world holds
many like her, beautiful and sound in body, and in spirit beautiful but
incomplete.

As the poet watched her playing about her mother’s feet, with all the
babble and waywardness of blithesome elfinry, his thoughts grew more
abstracted. He no longer saw the sunny head, the peony lips, and the
little oval face, mirthful but very pale; he no longer compared the
features to Eleanor’s, noting the surface likeness, the difference
underneath; he no longer drew a distinction between the spiritual deeps
of the mother’s eyes and the mystical prescience of the daughter’s, which
lay also beneath a veil of hazel light.

He was thinking of the little one as Virginia Dare, the first-born white
child of America. She became a symbol to him whose meaning he could but
dimly understand. He considered all the sacrifice by which she had come
into the world, the sacrifice and suffering in which she had been reared,
but by no poetic hieromancy could he read her meaning. A fate-spun thread
of gold joining the East and West; a mystery, a portent, a promise—all
these she seemed to Marlowe, yet in meaning so vague and futuritial as to
be beyond all interpretation not divine.

Suddenly, however, the poet’s thoughts forsook Virginia, both as the
child of Eleanor and of Fate. Vytal’s clear, short words had forced
themselves into his mind.

“Manteo hath asked us to make our abode with him and his people at
Croatan. In your name I have answered, ‘Yes.’ Here we wait and die,
one by one, of sickness, drought, and famine. My sword hath been ever
ready, and God grant may be always, to lead you and defend our trust.
But against disease and starvation not all the arms of Spain and England
could prevail. Yet, rather than desert this realm forever, mark you,
’twere better to leave our bones as centronels of the town. If we cannot
till the soil and wrest a livelihood therefrom, I say, let us mingle
with it our dust, that others, who come after, may sow their seed therein
and reap a harvest of fidelity. Even then we should at least have stayed
and been of use to men. We must leave an heritage behind us, a will and
testament, written perchance in blood, and ineffaceable. This is our
sacred duty. Yet there hath been talk among you of building a vessel and
taking to the sea. So soon as you begin I shall end the labor with fire
and the thing you term a ‘bodkin.’ Call me tyrant an you will; I care
not. Stab me at night, build your boats—even then I care not. My will, at
least, shall have stood to the last for duty.

“I see your eyes gaping with surprise. ’Tis because my voice in this
harangue sounds strange. You consider me—deny it not—a silent wolf.
Perhaps I am so. But sometimes words are needed for speakers of words.
Otherwise I would have said, ‘Come,’ and led you, without further parley,
to Croatan. But you would not have understood; you would have murmured.
Listen, then. We go to the island of Croatan on the morrow and live with
the Hatteras tribe. Let those who are fearful bury deep their most valued
possessions; but all may bring with them what they will. The vintners,
husbandmen, and gardeners must take their implements, the artificers
their tools. You, Hugh Rouse, and you, Prat, superintend the conveyance
of our ordnance, half of which shall be taken, and half left in the fort.
You, Dyonis, will make the barges ready and man the pinnace. You, Kyt
Marlowe, carve the name Croatan beside the main entrance to the town,
high up on a tree-trunk, in fair capitals, that, if the governor do ever
return, he may know of our whereabouts and come to Croatan.

“My friends, the exodus is unavoidable. Yet we still garrison a
hemisphere.”

He paused and scanned their faces, while for a moment all looked up at
him as though fearing to break the spell which for the first time in
their knowledge had given him tongue. But presently several men appeared
on the threshold of a neighboring cabin, in which Gyll Croyden lived,
and from which, until now, peals of incongruous laughter and the rattle
of dice had proceeded at frequent intervals. Foremost in the doorway
stood Ananias Dare, who, after hesitating a minute, joined the larger
gathering. “What is afoot?” he asked of those nearest to him.

“We shall be soon,” laughed Prat, “for to-morrow we leave Roanoke and
join the Hatteras Indians.”

“God’s pity! They will exterminate us.”

At this Manteo, who until now had remained immobile as stone, started
forward, but Vytal, with a word, restrained him, and, turning to the
assistant, spoke in a low voice, so that Eleanor might not hear his
accusation. “Master Dare, you insult a benefactor. Manteo is no murderer,
but a generous host. Bridle your tongue.” The tone was authoritative
and coldly harsh, but the very cowardice of Ananias, paradoxically
enough, gave him moments of obstinate courage. Many there are who fight
desperately to retreat: fear is bold in its own interests.

“Who gave you command?” he queried. “’Twas I suggested to the governor
that John Vytal should assume control. My voice, therefore, deserves
the heed of all; and I say build a ship. By all means let us haste
to England.” He turned at the last and addressed the women nearest
to him, while the hands of Prat and Rouse went impulsively to their
sword-hilts, and their glance hung on Vytal’s face, asking permission to
end the matter immediately with summary decision. But the captain only
scrutinized the group searchingly.

“Master Dare,” ventured Roger, “harangues the women. His words are not
for us. Oh ho, good dames, give ear. Ye’re to man a ship—_woman_ a ship,
I mean. Now, one shall be Mistress Jack-Woman, another Dame Captain,
another Sailing-Mistress. In troth, ’tis a lusty crew.”

Ananias turned on him angrily. “Sirrah, have a care, else you shall feel
the grip of a hand-lock within the hour.”

But Roger responded with a laugh. “Now, what’s a hand-lock, Master
Assistant? You’ve so often made mention of the thing as befitting my
exalted station, that methinks ’tis time it were proven real.”

He would have given his raillery free rein and run on further, but Vytal
interrupted him. “Desist, Roger; your tongue runs riot most unseemly. The
irons are real indeed, and here’s a hand shall lock them an you show not
greater deference to superiors.”

Ananias smiled at this with triumph, and resumed his appeal. “I ask you,
my masters, is it not far better to risk a thousand storms by sea than
encounter death by torture or slow starvation? I doubt not the Indian
chieftain is well meaning, but so also is Sir Walter Raleigh; yet to
what a pass hath his invitation brought us! The time is come to save
ourselves.” He hesitated, for at this moment his daughter, the little
Virginia, who had chased a humming-bird across the square, stopped
in her flight and looked up at him. When his eyes fell to hers he
winced perceptibly, and then his face, flushing for an instant, seemed
superlatively beautiful under the recall of a lost masculinity. But
suddenly his glance wandered to Eleanor, who stood aloof watching him,
and the old, drawn, pallid look reasserted itself, whereat, slowly, he
turned on his heel and, with eyes shamefully cast down, re-entered the
cabin of Gyll Croyden.

“On the morrow,” said Vytal, “we go to Croatan.”




CHAPTER XVIII

    “His looks do measure heaven and dare the gods:
    His fiery eyes are fixed upon the earth.”

                              —MARLOWE, in _Tamburlaine_.


Oftentimes the necessity for mere physical exertion alleviates the dull
pain of hopelessness and induces men to forget themselves. The renewed
activity may be long delayed and unsought, but when at last it comes the
change is everywhere apparent. For months the colony had been subject to
a kind of lethargy, a spirit of retrospection and dark foreboding, which
even the endeavors of Vytal and his men could not dispel. But on the day
of exodus there was not even an attempt at prophecy. The tangible present
became paramount. Each man, with a few exceptions, acted for himself,
and thus for all. Even selfishness, if it be positive, may result in a
benefit widespread beyond its own intent.

The sun, rising slowly, seemed at last to pause and balance itself on the
edge of the flaming sea, like an oven’s red-hot lid for a moment lifted
from its hole. The sky, papery, blue, and shallow—a ceiling painted azure
in clumsy imitation of the heavens—seemed so low as to shut out air. One
might almost have expected to see strips of the blue peel off in places,
cracked by the consuming heat. The bosom of the sea lay motionless, as
if the breath of life had gone forever; and the corpse of the earth was
carrion for the sun.

But the toilers persisted. The emigration had begun.

For hours and hours the boats proceeded on their way until day was nearly
gone, and at last, as if Fate would deride the colony, a cloud, for which
all had prayed so long, crept up over the horizon. A low, muffled roar
came across the water, and, in the distance, rain fell.

Ananias Dare, who, with Vytal, Marlowe, and Manteo, stood in the bow
of the pinnace, suggested that all should immediately return. But
Vytal refused. “It would be months,” he affirmed, “even under the most
favorable conditions, before our planters could replenish the storehouse.”

At this moment a louder roar than hitherto proclaimed the cloud’s
approach, and a pall of darkness covered the sea. The effect was
memorable. A second picture graved itself on observant minds. To the
east, stretching out interminably on one side, lay the sea, chopping
and black as ink. To the west, the land, sun-clad, extended broad and
limitless. Hope and Despair, Life and Death, were keeping tryst at the
brink of ocean. But not for long. Suddenly a jagged light gashed the
heavens, and, with a terrific detonation, a ball of fire fell to earth.
A great oak on the margin of the forest crashed and lurched forward, its
huge branches splashing in the sea. The spray, as it fell, leaped up and
wetted the pinnace, a few cold drops sprinkling the face of Ananias Dare.
With a groan the assistant sank down, cowering, to the deck. Again and
again the lightning flashed on every side, jaggedly tearing the sky as
though against its weave. Yet, as the sea had not responded with a burst
of wrath, but only writhed slowly, as if in pain too great for utterance,
the barges forged ahead with steady progress toward their goal.
Fortunately, there was but little wind. Merely a summer thunder-storm had
broken over them, the like of which they had never seen in England.

The rowers persisted stubbornly in their cumbrous crafts, while Dyonis
gripped the pinnace’s helm with phlegmatic pertinacity and looked only
toward Croatan. Near Dyonis, in the stern, sat Eleanor, her protecting
arm and cloak around Virginia, who, curiously enough, peered out at the
storm with not a trace of childish fear. Vytal, Marlowe, and Manteo
still stood in the bow, the former now and again calling orders to their
steersman, while Ananias, crouching, looked landward over the gunwale.
Still the long line of boats pushed on like a school of whales, Hugh
Rouse and Prat bringing up the rear with a barge-load of ordnance.

“There it goes, there it goes again,” said Roger, rowing for dear life.
“’Tis worse than a Spanish bombardment. I’ faith, midget, I am tempted to
shoot back. What say you?” and his heavy panting drowned the sound of a
low chuckle.

“Madman, row!” roared Hugh, “row, an you want not a watery grave this
minute!”

“Watery?” said Prat. “Damnable fiery, I call it. Our well-merited
brimstone boils early.” He broke off, puffing, and looked over his
shoulder down into the bow with much difficulty, owing to the shortness
of his neck. “O your Majesty, ’tis an unfortunate hap, yet I pray you,
sire, rest easy.” The bear, crouching in the bow, poked his snout forward
under Roger’s arm. “_He_ is not forever setting me to work,” muttered
Prat.

“Nay, nor me on edge by fleering raillery.”

“On edge!” cried Roger. “’Tis timely spoke. On edge, eh? Body o’ me! look
sharp, manikin! ’Tis the barge we set on edge; see there!”

His warning came just in time, for, owing to the sudden shifting of the
bear, a small stream of water poured in over the gunwale. Rouse and Prat
moved quickly to the other side, and the barge righted itself. King Lud
rolled over, growling angrily.

Then, as if to drown his voice, the thunder itself growled in a final
fit of rage and retreated, with low mutterings, toward the setting sun.
At last a ray of light shone faintly through a rift in the cloud and a
long shaft of gold glanced obliquely to the earth, beside which the now
distant gleam of forked and unsymmetric lightning seemed like a sign
of chaos fading before the advance of order. The rain, which for a few
moments had fallen in torrents, passed on, while only a shower of sunshot
drops, falling like diadems from the woodland’s crown, echoed the harsh
patter of a moment before.

“It is over,” said Marlowe, and, turning, he looked long at Eleanor, then
went down into the stern and spoke to her. A momentary flash like the
lightning shone in his eyes. “Thus would my love,” he declared, “consume
its object.”

She returned his glance meditatively. “Nay, that is not love.”

“’Twould, indeed, be mine.” He gazed off to the western sky in deep
abstraction, adding slowly: “Yet, ’tis not love I see before me; it is
death. Alas! I like not the stealth of death as it creeps seemingly
nearer and very near.” He paused, still looking away toward the sun,
which in another moment sank behind the forest of the mainland. And
Eleanor made no answer, but instinctively turned to glance at Gyll
Croyden in the boat behind them. Then, realizing that Marlowe was
following her gaze, she looked up at him again quickly. The spirit of
premonition had suddenly left his eyes; the moment of transcendency had
passed. He was smiling at Mistress Croyden.

But the little Virginia, peering up at Christopher from under her
mother’s cloak, whispered, “Death,” and again, with a bright smile,
slowly, questioningly, “Death?” as though striving to grasp the meaning
of a new and pretty word.

The treble voice, however, was suddenly drowned by a loud cheer from many
throats, the sound of which caused Virginia to look about like a white
rabbit from its hole and to pout at the rude interruption of her childish
reverie. But soon she darted out from the cloak and added her prattle to
the prolonged huzzah, for her bright eyes told her that once more she
could run about in chase of birds and quest of flowers.

The colonists had arrived at Croatan.




CHAPTER XIX

    “Hark to a motion of eternal league.”

         —MARLOWE, in _Dido, Queen of Carthage_.


In a week the English settlement had assumed an aspect that hinted at
permanent residence on the island of Croatan. The Indian town, with a
population of over one hundred, still offered shelter to the new-comers,
though a number of houses, after the white man’s fashion of building,
were already nearing completion. The village, girdled by trees, occupied
a wide and natural opening. The sites of houses had been chosen with a
certain regularity and crude symmetry as to position, which gave the
paths an almost street-like appearance. The dwellings themselves were
varied according to the tastes of their builders and the advantages of
their surroundings, some walled by strips of bark staked to the ground
and fastened together by thongs of hide; others, more pretentious, being
strengthened by numerous upright poles placed side by side in double
lines and bent over at the top, where they formed arched and lofty roofs.
The interior of the house which belonged to Manteo and his mother was
surprisingly spacious, measuring almost twenty yards in length, and in
width as many feet.

One summer morning a child stood wonderingly before the threshold of this
dwelling, regarding in silence another child in the doorway. The first
was Virginia, the second Manteo’s son, a dark, supple boy, whose unclad
body shone like bronze in the sunlight. Between the two, momentarily,
there was silence, each regarding the other with curious and bashful
eyes; until at last Virginia, stepping eagerly forward to the Indian lad,
held out her hand. For a minute he looked down at the delicate fingers
and little palm with a bewildered expression, as though at an object
clearly demanding his attention, but in no way understood. Not a smile
crossed his dark face; the perplexity was very sober, and the belief
that she desired some gift embarrassed him, for what had he to give? But
suddenly, as if with an intuitive impulse, he offered that which alone
seemed available—his hand. At this she laughed, and, turning her head,
now this way, now that, inspected the dusky present like a young bird and
held it fast.

“The White Doe,” said Manteo, who stood near by with Vytal, “shall be as
a bond between our peoples.”




CHAPTER XX

    “… Adieu!
    Since destiny doth call me from thy shore.”

              —MARLOWE, in _Dido, Queen of Carthage_.


At Croatan the springs ran freely, and the soil, being naturally
irrigated, bore sufficient crops for all. This the English sowers learned
gladly, after inspecting the work of their uncivilized brethren with
admiration for the bountiful result, if not for the crude and irksome
methods of cultivation. Here men, women, and children were alike tillers
of the soil, and although, with needless exertion, sticks were used
instead of ploughs and holes dug instead of furrows, the wide fields
beyond the town’s encircling strip of woodland showed an abundance of
maize, or guinea wheat; beans, pease, and tobacco. About a third of the
forest was composed of walnut-trees, from which the nuts were plucked
by the natives, to be used as seasoning in spoon-meat. Chestnuts, which
strewed the ground, were also gathered and made into a kind of bread.

The recent rains appeared to have reawakened nature; for not only had
all the crops of fruit and vegetables been revivified, but animal
life as well. Wild geese and turkeys, immense flocks of waterfowl and
penguins, swans, crows, and magpies, being affrighted now and then by
some unaccustomed sound, as a trumpet-call or accidental musket-shot,
would rise with a concerted flutter and whir like a great wind above the
forest. At these moments the varied clamor of their cries would fill the
air with an alarum so loud as to seem almost human in tone and power.

Beasts of the field, great and small, were also near neighbors of the
tribesmen. Black bear, deer, rabbits, opossums, wild hog, and foxes
abounded on every side. Thus all manner of palatable meat was to be had
for a single day’s hunting.

In life and custom the English soon became half Indian, the Indians half
English.

Yet, with all the outward sign of harmony, and despite the genuine
friendliness, a hope, deep down in the English hearts, strove to believe
that this condition was in no way final. The barrier of race was too
strong so soon to be removed. The Indians were on their own soil,
surrounded by their intimate kinsmen, and living much as they had always
lived; but the English were in exile. Thoughts of England haunting them
at moments brought restless longings. That which had been born and bred
in the bone must die with it. As the grave is the only portal to a life
divine, so Death is the sole power by which a new country is forced to
yield itself in full before the influx of aliens. The earthly land of
promise is for sons, not fathers. With the first generation it is a
trust, and only with the second a possession.

Many of the colonists, despite their new-found comfort and prosperity,
were yet unsatisfied. Their hearts yearned for England. Gradually they
went from bad to worse. Their turbulence, vice, and incontinence ran
riot as never before. Only a few labored steadily for the common good.
On these the others lived as parasites. Yet the minority averted the
colony’s dissolution. Eleanor Dare, for one, by a daily example of
fortitude, a never-failing sympathy, a detailed attention to the little
ills and troubles of her fellows, served, through her influence upon the
women, to maintain the industry of the men. While, however, it was she
who thus gradually turned sorrowful resignation to contentment, it was
Vytal who, by personal and continual contact with the planters, dominated
their wills and held them fast to duty.

The control of these two superior spirits, one feminine, the other
masculine, and each the other’s need, formed an almost perfect diarchy,
by which the colonists of Virginia were governed for many years.

The influence of a third dominant spirit is more difficult to define,
being that of Christopher Marlowe, whose temperament, ever varying and
mystical, was understood by few.

As months passed the poet became again enveloped in abstraction, until
at last his mind seemed to be concentrated on some definite purpose, of
which the existence was made evident by an unusual taciturnity and set
expression, while the purpose itself remained a mystery.

It had become the custom of Marlowe to absent himself daily from the
town, and to pursue his solitary way, morning after morning, to a
northeastern promontory that stretched out into the sea from an adjacent
island. On these walks he was always, by apparent intention, alone.
Standing on the shore, with face turned northward and eyes intent on
scanning the wide horizon, his graceful figure was ever solitary, his
reflections ever with no response save from his inward self. Thus for
months, without the exception of a single day, he went to the promontory,
until his patience was rewarded by the sight of that which he had so long
awaited. An instinct, a premonition, an inward certainty, call it what he
would, had told him that his determination must find an opportunity at
last. Therefore, when the chance to work his will finally offered itself,
he regarded it with small surprise. He called himself, not without a
certain vain though mournful loftiness, the agent of Destiny; hence,
when Destiny came to claim self-sacrifice at his hands, he met it with
familiar greeting.

Starting out to welcome that which he termed “Incarnate Fate,” he made
his way farther north, and having finally, as he told himself, “bound the
Parcæ with their own thread,” returned to Croatan.

It was all a mystical thrall, dominant and positive, yet vaguely
transcendental, as it is here described. The actual was resolved
instantly to the poetical in his mind, and in this, the beginning of
the final act of his life’s drama, he became that astral dreamer and
etherealist whom a few, by the perceptive comprehension of his poetry,
have recognized and understood.

On re-entering the town, Marlowe sought Eleanor Dare. She was sitting
near the threshold of her door with Virginia, who, slight, pale, and more
visionary than real, watched him with a curious eagerness and joy as he
approached; for Christopher and the Indian youth were, with the exception
of her mother, the sole favorites of her child heart. To her father
Virginia showed a peculiar devotion, but this was often broken by moments
of angry rebellion, while usually with Eleanor, and always with Manteo’s
son, she seemed perfectly in accord.

“Mistress Dare, I would speak to you now beyond the town, where no
interruption can break in upon my sorrow.”

Before Eleanor could reply, the child, looking up into Marlowe’s face,
asked, half wistfully, “What is sorrow?”

The poet gazed down at her and smoothed her hair. “That is a secret,” he
answered, kindly.

“Whose secret?” she demanded, pouting. “My mother’s?”

“Yes.”

“And yours?”

“Yes.”

“And my father’s?”

“Yes, perhaps.”

“And Captain Vytal’s?”

The poet inclined his head. “Ay, truly, his as well.”

“And is it the dark boy’s?”

“Nay, not yet.”

“Ah, then I am glad,” said Virginia, with a satisfied air, “for it would
not be nice if he, too, had a secret that I did not know. But please tell
me the secret about sorrow, Master Christopher.” She tripped over the
long name, pronouncing it with difficulty.

The poet smiled. “Sorrow is the secret of happiness, little White Doe;
and some day, when you have lived perhaps a million years up near the sun
and are entirely happy, you will say, ‘’Tis all because I guessed the
secret far down there.’”

She looked up at him, her eyes sparkling with pleasure. “Tell me now,”
she pleaded; but seeing that he had already forgotten, she turned and,
with a pout, ran off to seek her dusky playfellow. “Dark boy,” she said,
on finding him near by, “I am glad you do not know the secrets I don’t
know.”

For a moment Eleanor watched her as here and there in the distance she
flitted about the bronze figure.

“I can in no way comprehend her, Master Marlowe.”

“Nay, nor shall the day come in all the earthly future when she shall
understand herself. Thus are some of us prescient with meaning, yet
forever enigmatical, save to—save to—shall I say God?”

“Yes, to God,” replied Eleanor, simply; and, rising, she walked with
Marlowe into the fields beyond the town.

For several minutes they went on in silence, she in wonder waiting to
hear what he would say, he melancholy and wrapped in meditation. At last
they came to the edge of a wide wheat-field, over which the surface of
the sunlit grain swayed and rippled like a lake of pale and molten gold.
As the poet looked across it he smiled sadly, yet with a certain light
recklessness of manner that belied the former seriousness of his look.
“See,” he said, “the wheat inclines eastward; the wind is from the west.
I’d have thee remember, Mistress Dare, that if in the near future I am no
more to be seen, there is no deeper reason in’t than in this course the
wind doth follow. To America I came, for the wind blew hither from the
east. The wind is changed, madam, and so my way. ’Tis Fate ordains this
brief farewell.”

At these words Eleanor started perceptibly, her eyes opening wide
in amazement. “Farewell!” she exclaimed. “O sir, what mean you by
‘farewell’?”

He took her hand and, bending low, kissed it reverently. “I cannot say,
for, alas! many know the present meaning, but none the hidden prophecy,
of that word ‘farewell.’”

“Yet surely, Master Marlowe, you contemplate no—”

“Nay,” he rejoined, with a vague smile; “I shackle the Fates with their
own thread for but a single day, and not forever.” Turning, he walked
away on the margin of the wheat-field that now, no longer golden, swayed
and whispered beneath an umbrous pall; and Eleanor, seeming to be bound
by the spell of his mysticism, could only watch in silence his graceful,
receding figure while the tall wheat-blades bent forward and touched him
as he passed. When at last he was about to disappear, she would have
started after him, but at this instant Virginia, flitting as though from
nowhere to her mother’s side, called out to him, “Come back!” He turned.
“Please, Master Kyt, come back and tell me the secret.”

But Marlowe only shook his head, and, waving his hand, went forward with
light footsteps into the woods.




CHAPTER XXI

    “It lies not in our power to love or hate,
    For will in us is overrul’d by fate.”

                    —MARLOWE, in _Hero and Leander_.


As the poet made his way through the forest he came suddenly on a scene
that caused him to pause, laugh, quicken his pace, and turn aside to
another trail, by which he reached the shore. Here, shrugging his
shoulders, he sat down on the sand, looking back now and then as if
waiting to be joined by some one who occupied his thoughts. Whether or
not this person would come he could not be sure, since the scene just
witnessed had disclosed a new phase of the situation in which he had
placed himself.

In the clearing which he had just passed sat Gyll Croyden looking up
at Roger Prat, who stood before her in an attitude of indecision and
unaccustomed solemnity, while the bear regarded them drowsily from the
overhanging branches of a tree. What transpired between the man and
woman Marlowe could not definitely surmise, yet the result of their
conversation was to subvert completely his own future.

“Now, I tell you,” said Prat, after the sound of footsteps had died
away, “I am a peculiar personage.” He sank his chin deep into its triple
substructure surveyed her with perplexity. In his hand he held an Indian
pipe, whose wreaths of smoke rose and cast a veil before his face,
through which his troubled, protruding eyes looked out with ghostly
light.

“A peculiar hobgoblin,” corrected Gyll, laughing more from nervousness
than mirth—“a dear hobgoblin.”

He eyed her reproachfully. “Oh, you may deride me with unflattering
names,” he said, “but it makes no difference. Mark you, until now there
has been one thing only which could make Roger Prat turn on his heel and
run for dear life. This was the sight of a petticoat; but, alack! I am
changed, most miserably changed, and, by some perversity, my new courage
seems cowardice as well. For I take it that a really brave man nerves
himself to retreat before the bombardment of a wench’s eyes. ’Tis the
coward who succumbs.”

Gyll pouted. “Run away, then, and prove yourself a soldier.” But he shook
his head with ponderous gravity, and, curiously enough, the unprecedented
soberness of his manner spread to her. “Oh, you would stay. Now, I am
glad of that, Sir Goblin,” and, rising, she stood facing him, with a
hand on each of his bulky shoulders. “I am glad, Roger,” she repeated,
in a softer tone. “For dost know that, with all my gallants, with the
memory of all those faces upturned and kisses thrown to my window on the
Bankside, ’tis a common fighting man I would marry?—a great, cumbersome
roly-poly, a mountain, a heathen image, call him what you will, yet to
me he hath so light a heart, so quaint a way, so sturdy a courage, that
methinks he hath already won me.”

At this, either a recollection of her long-lost girlhood or a play
of mere wanton coquetry—she herself did not know which—caused her to
cast down her eyes, while the flush of her cheeks deepened vividly.
For an instant Prat seemed to sway, as though his legs with an effort
supported his corpulent body, and the perplexity of his look increased.
Instinctively he thrust the pipe-stem between his teeth, and, gazing up
at King Lud, blew a cloud of smoke into the branches. The bear looked
down through it, blinking and sniffing at his master, while for a moment
Roger himself was almost completely enveloped.

“Thou imp of Uppowac,” quoth Gyll, stepping back with a grimace, “is this
thy only response to my condescension?” and she made as though to start
away into the forest. But Roger, suddenly all-forgetful of his dilemma,
waddled after her.

“Nay, stay,” he called, apprehensively; “stay, and permit me to collect
my scattered wits.”

She turned and laughed with scornful badinage. “Stay?” she echoed; “and
wherefore, pray? Merely that you may blow tobacco fumes into my eyes and
blind them to the charm of your countenance?”

“Oh no,” he remonstrated. “In troth, I blew the smoke to hide the face of
his wondering majesty above. His red eyes and sniffing snout seemed to
condemn and scorn me. There, I’ll smoke no more,” and, knocking out the
pipe’s ashes, he restored it quickly to his belt.

Seeming to be mollified by this, Gyll sat down again on the grass, while
the new softness of her expression returned. “Prithee, Roger, make up
your mind on that which troubles it, for if again I start, I go, and
there’s the end.”

He gazed at her for a moment with solemn eyes, and now she smiled in an
almost womanly way instead of laughing wantonly. “Tell me, Gyll, dost
really—dost truly?—” but he broke off for want of a word.

“Truly what?” she asked, in a low voice.

His chin sank into its underfolds again, and he twirled a pair of
globular thumbs tentatively. “Dost truly have that feeling for me which
the poet would call ‘love’?”

The question touched her sense of the ludicrous keenly, yet his
astonishing earnestness underlying it must have reached a deeper sense,
for still she only smiled instead of laughing, and answered, “Yes.”

At this his rotund face grew brighter. “Come, then, to the Oxford
preacher, Gyll, before we change our minds;” and, nothing loath, she rose
quietly.

“Change our minds, Roger! I, for one, shall ne’er do that.”

“Nay,” he said, “nay, I pray you, do not change. Oh, that would be
dire misfortune;” whereon, picking up the end of King Lud’s chain,
which dangled from the tree, he tugged thereat until the beast, with a
good-humored growl, descended. For an instant the sight of her animal
friend brought the old, careless look to Gyll’s face—there was something
so drolly suggestive of Roger in the bear’s bandy legs and awkward gait.
A fit of devil-may-care recklessness seized her. The strain of even a
moment’s seriousness on such a nature being unendurable, breaks in the
end, and, as when a supporting rope is severed without warning the one
who has been held thereby falls suddenly, so the snapping of a moral stay
leaves one sprawling in abandonment.

Gyll went to the extreme of flippancy. “Come,” she said. “Look at King
Lud. Let him give us his blessing. Let him tie the knot with his great
paws upon our heads. I much mislike real parsons; we will have none o’
them. I’ll bind myself to no man. ‘Please one, please all,’ as the song
hath it—‘please one, please all.’” So saying, she was on the point of
profaning her troth by kneeling, with a laugh, before the bear, when
a glance at Prat restrained her. The soldier had started back with an
oath. His eyes, enraged as she had never seen them, were lowering, and
his breath came quickly. With one hand he ground the bear’s chain until
its links grated as if they must break in the tight-clinched fist, while
with the other he sought his hip, and the fat palm ignored his flute and
Uppowac pipe to cool itself on the metal of his sword.

Gyll drew back in amaze. “How now, goblin,” she asked, with not a little
terror; “art gone wholly mad?”

He said nothing, but slowly his expression altered until a mingling of
grief and cold repulsion told her of his inward change. “I would have
risked a wedding,” he said, at last, and drawing the bear to his side.
“I would have made you honest wife, and not ungladly, for I felt a kind
o’ love—ah, a deal o’ love—for you, Gyll; but I’m a peculiar personage,
and not irreverent to men o’ God and church-like things, be I rake or no.
Faith, ye’re a most heartless jade, who’ll ne’er be wife o’ mine. Ye’ve
shown yourself. For that I thank thee;” whereat he turned on his heel
and, leading away King Lud, disappeared in the forest.

For a moment Gyll stood listening, and once she called, but only the
clank, clank of the bear’s chain, growing fainter and more faint in the
distance, answered her unhappy cry. Finally, when the sound had died, a
flood of tears fell from her eyes, but quickly she brushed them away,
then, turning, walked in the direction of the shore, and forced from her
tremulous lips a song, popular at the time in Southwark:

    “Be merry, friends, and take no thought;
    For worldly cares now care ye naught,
    For whoso doth, when all is fought,
    Shall find that thought availeth not—
        Be merry, friends.”

Her voice sounded low, its lilt for once seeming artificial. The friends
she strove to cheer were her own thoughts—new, discomforting thoughts—yet
perhaps more truly friends than all their predecessors. She persisted,
however, in drowning the inward mutter of their realization with her
voice’s melody:

    “To take our sorrows mournfully,
    Augmenteth but our malady;
    But taking sorrows merrily
    Maketh them smaller, verily—
        Be merry, friends.”

And now the notes of a flute came to her from afar, half in accompaniment
of her tune:

    “Let the world slide, let the world go;
    A fig for care and a fig for woe!
    If I can’t pay, why, I can owe;
    And death makes equal the high and low—
        Be merry, friends!”

The last words came in faltering tones that utterly belied their meaning,
while from the distance the flute’s music ended in that wild wail which
now, more than ever, denoted a _finale_.

In a few minutes Gyll joined Marlowe on the shore. “Ah, you have come,”
he said, rising.

She laughed. “So it seems; but wherefore, Kyt, did you so mysteriously
arrange this meeting?”

He made an impatient gesture. “Wilt swear to say nothing of my tidings to
any in the town?”

“Yea, if it pleases your poetic soul thus to weave mysteries, I make no
remonstrance.”

He scrutinized her silently until, at last, being satisfied, he spoke
again. “I leave for England, Gyll, this very day.”

Her eyes opened wide, and she stared at him as at one demented. “Leave
for England, Kyt! Thou’rt mad!”

“Nay,” he returned, calmly. “Listen. For I know not how many days and
months I have scanned the sea far to the northward. For an eternity I
have seen naught save gulls and waves, but at last a sail hath come, as I
knew it would. Nor is it surprising that I waited expectantly, for while
in England I had heard that every year as many as five hundred ships
found their way to the great country which Martin Frobisher explored.
’Tis called Newfoundland, and off its banks myriads of fish are caught
by the men of Brittany, Normandy, and nearly all the provinces of
France. Was it not likely, therefore, that one of these fishing-vessels,
returning with its catch, should follow the coast of this continent
until it came to southern waters? Well, likely or not, the thing hath
happened. A Breton shallop lies to the north and awaits me, for I builded
a fire and signalled to it. Three mariners came ashore, and, to one who
understood the French language, I explained that I was a castaway. Thus
they think me a shipwrecked sailor, and I have allayed their curiosity.
Otherwise, no doubt, they would have come prying about Croatan. These men
have promised to land me on the coast of France or Ireland.” He paused,
seeming to question her with a look, but for answer she only threw an arm
about his neck.

“Oh, Kyt, art really going? I cannot believe ’tis true.”

“Ay, ’tis very truth.”

She looked up into his dark eyes with a troubled expression. “Tell me,
dreamer, why do you depart so secretly, and why, indeed, at all?”

“Secretly,” he answered, with renewed vagueness, “because in secret
Destiny works; I for to-day am Fate, and keep these colonists to their
duty as Vytal and Mistress Dare have done. Were they to know of the
vessel’s proximity, they would in a moment be havoc-struck. Ananias would
start an insurrection and incite them to seize the shallop. This must not
be. I go alone, or with—”

She interrupted him. “Why, why do you go?”

He raised himself to his full height. “Because a voice, calling me in
whispers, so decrees. I shall seek audience with the queen and Raleigh to
demand the forwarding of supplies and men to Virginia.” He paused, a look
of despondency crossing his face. “But would I could foresee success.
Alas! I cannot. Some godless curse rests on this colony, whose spirit
is in the very air we breathe.” He looked darkly into the distance, as
though the hitherto invisible had come within the range of sight. Then,
however, as he heard a sob from the woman beside him, his expression
changed. The earnestness of the moment seemed to pall upon him, and he
laughed carelessly.

Untying a silken kerchief from her neck, he held it aloft so that it hung
lightly on the breeze, its soft ends fluttering toward the sea. “This is
the true reason,” he said, inconsequently. “The wind blows eastward.”

Her eyes were smiling now behind her tears. “May not I go thither also?”
she asked, breathlessly. “I cannot stay behind. ‘Faith, all the colony
hath turned against me. The parson would have me married or banished,
were there chance of either fate. Besides—I’d be more comfortable in
Southwark,” she added, with a note of hardness in her ever-changing voice.

He pressed her hand pityingly. “As you like, Gyll. ’Tis but natural you
desire to return. Neither you nor I were made for this. Our parts were
writ to be played in London. I go aboard the shallop within an hour, but
it waits too far for you. To-night we’ll anchor to the southward. Do you
slip away and await me on the southern shore. Whate’er you do, remember
one thing: none must know of our departure. Nay, postpone thy thanks,
Gyll, for here comes Vytal by appointment.”

She turned, and, on seeing the soldier, who alone of all men inspired her
with awe, made her way quickly to the town.

As Vytal joined Marlowe, they spoke at once of that which paramountly
filled their minds. “I am ready to start,” said Christopher. “The shallop
lies north of Hatarask.”

“Then,” returned Vytal, “let us go to it at once. I will accompany you
thither.”

They walked along the shore. “We can speedily reach the place,” said
Marlowe, who was oppressed with the other’s silence; “I have left a canoe
on the northern beach.”

Vytal inclined his head, as who should say, “I supposed so.”

The poet’s eyes saddened. “Your muteness is hard to brook.”

“Nay, Kyt, I count it kind to both of us.”

“Wherefore kind?”

“Because, when the heart is sick, words but pain it more.”

“You regret, then, my departure?”

“For my own sake, deeply. We have been friends.”

“Ay,” said the poet, “friends. Friendship’s the reality; love but a
pleasant dream. I look back over the past five years and think of our
conversations. I recall, too, those few hours when I talked with Mistress
Dare. The difference is plain. Man and man enjoy the freer reverie. No
personal distraction mars their elemental thought. They become unbiased
lookers-on at life, unfettered by the stage directions. To them the
lover’s star hath varied cosmic meanings which far transcend its amorous
spell. To them all nature shows her heart, and not the mere reflection of
their own. Ay, only with man and man is meditation free—unless—of course,
unless—the dream of love hath proven true.” The last words came in a
voice of pain, which, however, passed as he added, mechanically, “But
come, here is the canoe.”

Following the poet, Vytal stepped into the craft, and with a single
stroke of his paddle sent it far out across the inlet. With long, slow
sweeps he propelled it on in silence, while Marlowe, facing him, gazed at
the sharp-cut features with a kind of worship in his eyes.

“Hath any yet known you, Vytal? Hath one single man or woman probed your
depths?”

Vytal shrugged his shoulders for reply, then said, in a voice that
sounded harsh even to himself, “We are come to your starting-point,” and,
as they landed, “Where is the ship?”

“Five miles to the north.”

“Let us hasten, then, by the shore.”

They walked for many minutes mutely, until Vytal spoke as though half to
himself: “I would have made the sacrifice in your stead, but for these
children of Croatan, these helpless colonists, who are in my charge.”

The poet’s eyes lighted up with their old fervor. “I know it well, for
partly I know you.” His eyes wandered. “Yet I cannot say that, were I
you, I would have left her even for friendship’s sake. I read you, I read
myself—you as mighty prose, I, it sometimes seems, as vainly garnished
poetry. Marlowe would whisper to her, ‘My soul sings thine,’ but Vytal
would say, ‘I love thee.’ Methinks in these very words lie our inmost
selves contrasted.” Turning again to look at his companion, he found the
dark face averted, but when at last he saw its deep-graven, premature
lines again, he found no change in the expression.

“I trust you will make every effort,” said Vytal, “to gain audience with
the queen.”

“Yes, I swear it, but I fear ’twill prove of no avail. White hath not
returned, nor shall I, nor shall any man. Tell me, hast not felt that,
with all thy power, thou and these people are foredoomed?” But as he
received no answer, Marlowe became resigned to the taciturnity of his
friend. After all these years he was forced to confess that even now,
in what he believed to be the final parting, he could not touch his
comrade’s depths, or even, touching them, elicit response save the look
and intense voice that told him of Vytal’s friendship. “Nevertheless,
there is but one man,” he resumed at length, as though to himself, “who
of all merits your fear. I speak of—” He broke off suddenly. “Hark! what
was that?”

They stood still, intently listening.

A low “Whist!” reached their ears from the adjacent woods.

“Foh!” exclaimed Christopher. “’Twas but the hissing of a snake.”

“Nay,” said Vytal, “wait!”

The words were no sooner spoken than the dusky figure of Manteo emerged
from the forest, and the Indian approached them with noiseless step. “My
brother, have a care. I waited that I might warn thee. Two men, lying
concealed to the northward, curiously watch the ship at anchor. The one
is Towaye, the other your countryman who named himself ‘Ralph Contempt!’”




CHAPTER XXII

    “I, and the Catholic Philip, King of Spain,
    Ere I shall want, will cause his Indians
    To rip the golden bowels of America.”

                —MARLOWE, in _The Massacre at Paris_.


“Ralph Contempt!”

The name transformed them instantly. The old perfervid recklessness
rekindled fire in Marlowe’s eyes, while the lineaments of Vytal’s face
contracted and grew sharper with rigid hate.

“Let one of us return,” suggested the poet, “and bring a force to help
capture him. It cannot be that he is alone with Towaye.”

Vytal dissented. “We should lose time by going to Croatan, and even the
absence of one would jeopard our chances. If we find we need assistance,
Manteo can seek it later. It is most probable that, alone or not, Frazer
will strive either to board the shallop and sail or to prevent you from
doing so.”

“How so? He has no knowledge of my intention.”

“Be not so sure. The conjectures of Frazer are as good as certainty.
Doubtless he has already guessed the meaning of the ship, for it would
not lie there idly waiting without reason. Quick! We must meet the two
and take them by ourselves. Lead us, Manteo, that we may come upon them
unobserved.”

Without a word the Indian re-entered the woods, and, coming to a trail
that ran parallel with the coastline, made a sign to the others, bidding
them avoid dry brushwood on the pathway that their tread might be
unheard. For some time they followed him, cautiously keeping on a strip
of mossy earth which bordered the trail and muffled their footsteps. It
was now high noon, and the sun shone in a clear sky. March, just dying
into April, had lost its harshness at sight of spring and grown more
tender, as a crabbed parent grows tender with the child of his old age.
The air, bracing and clear, seemed to fill their lungs with a breath of
immortal life, while the sea’s untroubled breast, just visible through
rifts in the arras of blossoms, bespoke a joy too deep for surface
emotion.

Finally, as their guide turned with finger to lips, Vytal and Marlowe
halted. Through a low interstice in the foliage a sight met their eyes
which, although expected, caused them to draw their weapons instantly,
for on the shore stood Towaye, with bow in hand, facing their cover, and
beside him Frazer, lying on the beach, idly patting the sand into little
moulds, as a child builds toy castles. The beach, sandy and shelving,
rose gradually on either side, until, terminating in two high ridges or
bulwarks of sand, it fell away again in long, flat sweeps to the north
and south. Thus Frazer and Towaye occupied a naturally fortified square,
two sides of which were formed by the sand-bank and two by forest and
water. To reach them unobserved was therefore impossible, and an open
encounter must necessarily ensue. As the odds favored the aggressors
by three to two, there appeared to be small hazard in boldly forcing
an issue. Unfortunately, however, Manteo was unarmed save for a wooden
truncheon, and Vytal carried only his rapier. But Marlowe, ready to
defend himself against Breton mutineers or pirates on the high seas, was
better provided, his rapier being supplemented by a pistol and poniard.
Ordinarily, with these weapons he would have found no difficulty in
placing Towaye _hors de combat_, but the occasion demanded unusual
strategy.

“Your dagger to Manteo,” whispered Vytal. “Cover Towaye with the firearm.
Nay, don’t shoot from here. You are too far for accuracy. If possible,
merely wound him. We must take the Indian alive and force him to reveal
Frazer’s motives. Where is the shallop?”

“Farther on beyond the headland.”

“Good! Now at them!”

Side by side the three emerged quickly from the woods. A sudden viperish
hiss from his ally caused Frazer to turn instantly, and the enemies stood
face to face. Swiftly Towaye started to raise his bow, but swifter still
Marlowe’s pistol sprang to a deadly aim. Yet the poet, fearing to kill,
withheld his bullet. In the next instant he would have changed his aim
and fired, but the risk of missing his opponent altogether and receiving
the arrow in his own breast held him motionless. Thus between these two
there was temporarily a deadlock, while both stood transfixedly waiting
for the slightest error of movement on the other’s part.

Vytal, however, being in the first second unimpeded, rushed toward his
adversary with rapier drawn.

“Halt!” The peremptory cry came from Frazer in a sharp note of menace,
as, guarding himself with a rapier in one hand, he now raised with the
other a small curved horn to his lips. Keeping it poised as though ready
at an instant to sound an alarum, he called threateningly: “Two hundred
Winginas lie within the forest waiting. A single blast means death to
each of you;” then, with a laugh, “I pray you reconsider the expediency
of attacking me now.”

Vytal stood still, controlling himself by a great effort. In his place
doubtless the poet and many another would have rushed forward with rash
impetuosity, but the campaigner’s trained hand could even compass that
which to a brave soldier in the heat of fight is the most difficult of
tactics, namely, the lowering of his sword.

The two men stood at gaze, Vytal fettered by the realization that his own
death would in all probability mean the decimation of the whole colony,
and Frazer by the rigid Fate before him.

For once the soldier hesitated. Instinct hinted that threats of alarum
were empty, but reason demanded caution. The possibility that an
overwhelming force lay near at hand in ambush was by no means slight.

Suddenly Vytal uttered a low order to Manteo, who thereupon, step by
step, retreated almost imperceptibly toward the woods.

“Halt!” Again the horn touched Frazer’s lips. “I forbid you,” he said,
“to arouse the settlers.” But Manteo only looked to Vytal for a sign.

“Remain,” said the latter, calmly, and the deadlock was now complete.

“It is strange, Master Frazer,” observed the poet, still covering Towaye
with his pistol, “that your horn forbears so long. In troth, I begin to
doubt its efficacy.”

Frazer laughed. “At any instant I am ready to prove it, Sir Poet. ’Troth,
’tis only a feeling of kindness that delays your doom, mingled perhaps
with a slight curiosity. Doom, say I? Yea, doom. This colony will perish.
Perchance you know not that John White, your governor, hath come to the
very shore of Roanoke and departed.[9] His own men played mutineers. He
could not seek you at Croatan. Ay, on my oath, ’fore God, a ship came and
went away. ’Tis common report in England. Roanoke is deserted, say they;
Virginia, a savage wilderness.”

Glancing at Vytal, whose face had gone livid as death, he laughed
derisively. “Therefore I blame you not, Sir Soldier,” he added, with
feigned contempt, “for planning this secret desertion.”

“Desertion!” cried Marlowe. “Fool! Think you John Vytal would desert?”
But his outburst was suddenly interrupted by Vytal. “Look to your lock!
Have a care, Towaye! an the arrow rises another inch, you fall.” Marlowe
regained his aim, yet his thoughts returned immediately to Frazer.
“Fool,” he repeated. “’Tis _I_ who—”

“Hush!” said Vytal.

But the warning was too late, and Frazer laughed once more. “Ay, hush
now, an you will, for the secret’s out. ’Twas for this I mentioned Vytal.
It shall now be my duty—I may say my delight—to detain _you_.”

With an oath Marlowe started as though he would have rushed upon the man
who so daringly taunted and harassed them. But a word from Vytal, more
sudden and apprehensive than before, again restrained him.

“Beware!”

Towaye’s bowstring was already pulled, and in the next second an arrow
grazed Marlowe’s cheek. With a cry to Manteo the poet rushed forward. “We
have him now! Quick! Bind his arms!”

“Halt!” For the third time Frazer’s lips seemed to kiss affectionately
the horn. “A move, a shot, and, by God, I blow!”

The poet, impotent with rage, stood still, and Manteo once more
haughtily obeyed the order. Even Vytal, in whose eyes a dangerous light
gleamed cruelly, made no advance. A bold plan was quickly maturing in
his mind. To hide it he exclaimed, as though chagrined, “Cursed horn, it
defeats us! I can fight against swordsmen, not musicians.”

Frazer started, seemingly with a new impulse. “So be it, then. I fear not
your little bodkin. Come, we will decide the issue with our blades.”

Vytal’s plan, however, prohibited a duel. “Nay, there is trickery in the
suggestion. Besides, I do not of a choice tilt with stage-jesters.”

At this Frazer appeared to become enraged as they had never seen him.
“Stage-jester!” he cried, hoarsely. “Dost know, sirrah, who it is you
thus address? Who am I?” The question came in a tone of high fury, and,
receiving no response, he answered it himself, as if the assertion
burst from him against his will. “I am not Frazer, not Ralph Contempt,
but Arthur Dudley. Dost hear? Arthur Dudley, the son of Elizabeth and
Leicester!” His manner, calming, became supercilious. “Gentlemen, you see
before you the heir apparent to the English throne.”

“Liar!” It was Marlowe who spoke, and then for a moment there was
silence, while Frazer’s lip curled scornfully.

“Oh, you doubt me, gentles. Yet I care not.” He took on a grandiose air,
whether natural or assumed, they could not tell. “I seek not to convince
such men as you. There is one even greater than my mother who knows the
truth. I speak of the King of Spain!”[10]

He paused, as an actor pauses to heighten the effect of a sensation. But
as Vytal only met his glance with a cold stare, he resumed, nonchalantly:
“We have tried once to invade England, on whose throne Philip would have
placed me, but we failed. Now that was but a first attempt. Mark you, the
end is not yet.” He stood erect, as if striving to match his height with
Vytal’s. “Perhaps you wonder why I have come twice to America? On this
point I will satisfy your curiosity. It is because we would lop off this
much of my beloved mother’s dominions and amputate a limb, as it were,
while waiting to seize the trunk. If all else fail, I shall at least be
the King of Virginia and St. Augustine.”

He said no more, but waited interestedly now as a spectator of the play
instead of an actor.

Inexorably Vytal stepped forward, bending his well-tempered weapon in
both hands like a bow.

Frazer smiled. “Ah, do you seek to break it and vow allegiance?” he
inquired, with mock graciousness, “or merely to prove it of Toledo make?
In the former case, I create you Knight of the Bodkin; in the latter,
believe me, I know well ’tis a supple blade.”

“Unluckily,” returned Vytal, wholly disregarding his banter, “it is my
duty to cross swords with you. Whether or not you have been so bold as
purposely to bring it on yourself by this outrage, I cannot tell. Yet
this one thing I know: a man’s duty and reverence are ever to his liege
sovereign. In the name of my queen’s honor I am compelled to fight. Save
for your scandalous insult I would have taken you alive, but now—to it!”

“Stay! First, I pray you, bid the poet and Manteo make no further attack
on Towaye, and ask them both to remain here. Only on this condition will
I throw aside the horn, trusting to your honor for fair play.”

Vytal inclined his head. “Manteo, stand by; and you, Kyt, control Towaye
with your aim, but shoot not unless he move.”

At this Frazer appeared satisfied. “Towaye, wait. I will end the
discussion with their leader first; later we can argue with the others.”
So saying, he let fall his horn to the sand beside him.

“I would to God,” muttered Marlowe, “I had killed him that day in the
‘Tabard.’”

Frazer caught the tenor of the wish and smiled again. “Sir Poet,” he
said, rolling back the sleeves of his doublet, “then we discussed the
baiting of a bear, and I waxed eloquent for the pastime. Again we are
in the same position, you disapproving from mercy to the animal, I
enthusiastic of very love for the sport. But now ’tis not a bear I would
fain see pestered; ’tis better still—a wolf!” Whereupon, as his arms were
now bared to the elbows, he raised his rapier and saluted the soldier
with an easy grace. “I wait!”

The weapons crossed, slithered, separated, and crossed again. Then Vytal
lunged, and Frazer, falling back apace, parried successfully, even as the
point touched his doublet. Next, in feigned alarm, his arm, wavering,
left the heart exposed, and Vytal thrust again. But the stroke was
answered with lightning speed, and, save for an even swifter parry, the
response would have been final.

Now, with extreme caution, weapons apart, now with seemingly rash bursts
of daring, the two fenced for several minutes, the advantage appearing
to change with every move.

To Marlowe, even more than to the principals, the moment was desperate.
For, being forced to guard Towaye, he could follow the contest only by
the sound of the rapiers, which, in rasping voice, told him that Frazer
had mastered the art of fence since their fight on London Bridge. With
astonishment and apprehension he wondered why the ring and slither were
so long continued, for his straining ears could not explain that which a
single glance, had he dared to risk it, would have made evident.

Behind Frazer the water shone like a vast burning-glass, while behind
Vytal the forest was a soft background of shade. The glare almost blinded
Vytal’s eyes; the shadows rested Frazer’s. And the latter made the most
of his advantage. With quick and varied sidelong springs he used the
reflected sunlight as a second weapon, more baffling than the first.
Nevertheless, with brows contracted and lids lowered, Vytal so screened
his eyes when Frazer, with steps aside, brought the glare into play, that
he contrived to gain despite the disadvantage.

Gradually his opponent fell back toward the water’s edge.

The weapons played faster and more furiously than before, the sound of
Frazer’s quick-drawn breath mingling itself with the hoarse whisper of
steel as the irresistible swordsman impelled him backward inch by inch.
Strangely enough, he had never once made a move toward the horn, and now
it lay well beyond his reach.

Suddenly at the water’s brink Vytal’s rapier, darting forward, zigzagged
about its foe like a flash of forked lightning, and Frazer fell to one
knee. At this Vytal would have thrust it home, but his great height
compelled him to lean so far forward that the water, in which he now
stood ankle-deep, cast up its glare directly into his eyes, and for
a second he was subject to a retinal blur, while splotches of silver
obscured his vision. At this instant Frazer, springing to an erect
position, lunged viciously, but the thrust was parried with blind
instinct, and Vytal’s half-closed eyes saw his adversary fall back,
steadily back, before him into the sea.

Now they stood up to their knees in water, Vytal gaining, until even
their scabbards were submerged. Again and again the soldier had striven
to turn his foe, but never had he met so dexterous and strategic an
opposition. Yet there seemed to be no doubt as to the issue, for at the
last Frazer, merely endeavoring to control the other’s point, was content
to recede on the defensive. And soon Vytal foresaw that his opponent,
who, besides being many inches shorter than himself, was also farther
from the shore, would in a moment be struggling in deep water, since even
now he was forced to keep his sword-arm at a high level for free play.
Having no desire thus to drown him, Vytal purposely fell back a pace, his
innate sense of justice forbidding him to avail himself of the advantage,
though he had well earned it, and even though his enemy, in the same
position, would have profited thereby with no compunction.

Yet even as he fell back a mocking laugh escaped from Frazer’s lips,
and Vytal, no longer generously hesitating, thrust with fatal intent.
Quicker still, however, Frazer dived beneath the water, and the soldier
now looked out across a circle of shining ripples that widened until they
passed him and reached the shore. And Frazer, with full-inflated lungs,
still remained below the surface.

Impassively Vytal turned, and, regaining the shore, amazed Marlowe by
blowing on the horn.

“God’s pity! why do you do that?” asked the poet, still holding his
pistol on a level with Towaye’s heart. “It means our massacre.”

“Nay,” said the soldier, “he would have tried to regain it were there
allies near. His threat was hollow. I seek to arouse the town.” He looked
at the two men before him as they stood facing each other, the poet
threatening, the Indian sullen, and added, mercilessly, “Fire!”

“To kill?”

Vytal turned to Manteo. “He is _your_ enemy, my brother.”

“To kill,” said the chief, “for he is a traitor to the men of his blood.”

The poet shuddered. “Do you, then, avenge them,” he said, handing
the pistol to Manteo, and the lord of Roanoke inclined his head. A
pistol-shot rang out. Towaye fell with a groan, mortally wounded.

A face rose to the surface of the water, invisible behind a rock,
and a pair of lips opened wide to admit air, then closed tightly and
disappeared.

“Now, make haste,” said Vytal to Manteo. “Get you over yonder ridge and
intercept our enemy if he lands there.” Without a word the Indian sprang
to the sand-bank, and, clearing it, was lost to view. Vytal turned to
Marlowe. “Stay here. He is a fox, and may retrace his course, supposing
that we have gone to the right and left in search of him. I guard the
northern shore,” and instantly Vytal disappeared beyond the second
bulwark.

“He is not a fox, but a fish,” muttered Marlowe, reloading his pistol.
Almost before the words were spoken a head appeared above the surface of
the water. The poet raised his weapon and took aim.

“Oh,” exclaimed Frazer, unconcernedly, as he waded inshore, “is this thy
boasted poetry, to shoot me like a dog?”

Marlowe impatiently drew a rapier, while Frazer came to the beach.

“Once more,” he said, “the crown prince must fight with a commoner.”
Then, feigning to thrust at Christopher, he suddenly swerved, and with
his left hand grasped the horn which he and Vytal in turn had let fall
near the water.

“This was the signal,” he declared, still menacing the poet with a
flashing blade. “Not one blast, but three!” And he blew thrice in rapid
succession.

Instinctively Marlowe turned toward the forest, expecting to see a horde
of savages rush therefrom upon him. But in that instant of error only
a single figure crossed his vision, fleet as Mercury, and, to his deep
mortification, even before he could change rapier for pistol, he saw
Frazer vanish in the woods.

In a fit of wild exasperation the poet started headlong in pursuit; but
he had scarcely crossed the beach when Vytal and Manteo, recalled by the
horn’s flourish, reappeared from beyond the ridges.

“There, in there!” cried Christopher, and would have rushed forward again
had not the soldier restrained him.

“How long is it since he escaped you?”

“One minute. You heard the alarum. He fled immediately.”

Vytal turned to Manteo. “Will you follow him?”

“Yes.”

“Hasten, then,” and the chief, with noiseless tread and eyes keenly
perceptive of every telltale twig and leaf, made his way into the forest.
“He understands the stalking of game,” observed Vytal. “It is best so.”

Marlowe’s face clouded dismally. “Ay, ’tis best so, and ’tis best that
I sail away. Twice this fellow hath outwitted me with the simplest
trickery. I am not worthy to remain.”

“Ah,” said Vytal, with an even deeper note of self-conviction, “these
things belong not to your calling. We do not require carpentry of
vintners, nor a crop of wheat from fighting-men. But to mine they do
belong, and, Christopher—” the voice sounded harsh and unreal—“I have now
failed at mine own work—failed!”

He prodded the little sand-hills of Frazer’s inconsequent building with
the point of his rapier. “Failed!” He seemed to be on the threshold of
new knowledge. A word hitherto utterly unknown and unregarded was being
cut deep into the granite of his character.

The poet watched him, and saw the keen, unfathomable eyes for once cast
down in self-reproach.

“Failed!” The soldier straightened himself and looked about at the shore
and water as at a new world.

Now, suddenly, his eyes, flashing the old fire of their indomitable
resolve, met Marlowe’s. “Failed, but in the end I shall succeed.”

A short sigh of relief escaped the poet’s lips; not that he had doubted,
but that he had awaited, seemingly an age, this reassertion of power.
“Yes,” he said, “yours was not really failure. Can Fate be thwarted? Nay;
yet for a time little men, elated and audacious in their puny grandeur,
may break its august decrees and laugh at the inevitable. Vytal, read
yourself; interpret the cryptograms your sword hath hewn; translate your
nature into words, and, even though you withhold the meaning from us all,
you will have attained to the consummative pinnacle of manhood.” The
poet’s fervid eyes, gazing at his friend, became orators.

For a moment Vytal’s face softened, while a fleeting smile crossed it
sadly. “I must return now to the town.”

“And I,” said Kyt, “to my birthland. You have been a ‘queen’s defender.’
This much of the gypsy’s prophecy has been fulfilled. I will tell her
Majesty, and, in gratitude, I doubt not, she will send hither assistance
to you all. Yet, Vytal, my soul is consumed with fear for you and
Mistress Dare.”

Vytal shrugged his shoulders. “I have not yet worthily defended her, but
the day will come.”

“Yes,” returned the poet, “of a certainty the day will come.
Ne’ertheless, have a care, I pray you, when again you meet this Frazer.
His strategy is unsurpassed, his cunning resourceful and never spent.
I could feel happy even now, in leaving, were the actor dead and his
incongruous blue eyes closed, his lips uncurled. Well, I tarry no
longer. The moment hath come for me to go. I pray you say nothing of my
departure. Let them think that I have been slain by some wild beast, or
if, by ill-luck, they see the sail, let them believe I have deserted.”

Vytal shook his head. “That I will not. When you are gone I shall tell
them of your sacrifice. They must know the truth. A surreptitious leaving
and elopement shall not be their charge against you.”

The poet’s face grew troubled. “But they will blame you,” he objected;
“they will kill you for your share in the concealment of my plan.”

“Let them try,” returned Vytal. “I care not; now, farewell.”

“Farewell.” The two separated abruptly, and Marlowe, with a light step,
artificially careless, made his way to the headland beyond which lay the
Breton shallop awaiting him.

In the evening, under cover of darkness, a canoe, propelled by one man,
came stealthily to the southern shore of Croatan, and went away again
with two occupants. Later these two boarded a vessel that hovered about
near the mainland. The ship, the canoe, the people were shadows—all
wraiths of unreality. But suddenly, after the vessel had crept away, far
to the eastward, and the land was seen no more, a low, weird song arose
at the first moment of light. It was from many voices, sailorly and
strong, but the tongue and the tune were strange save to the stalwart
singers.

    “Ann eoriou zo savet; setu ar flik-ha-flok!
    Krenvat ra ann avel; mont a reomp kaer a-rog;
    Stegna reeur ar gweliou; ann douar a bella;
    Va c’halon, siouaz d’in; ne ra med huanada.…”

    (“The anchors are up; hark to the _flik-flok_!
    The wind freshens; we speed on our course;
    The sails blow full; the land recedes;
    Alas! my heart voices only sighs…”)

Handsome, dark faces, prescient with some mystery of the sea, were
revealed slowly as the gray light spread. Umbrous eyes, that seemed
sleeping, though unclosed, and whose looks were dreams begetting dreams,
gazed out to the eastern line. For the sun had not yet risen.

    “Ann eoriou zo savet; setu ar flik-ha-flok!
    Krenvat ra ann avel; mont a reomp kaer a-rog…”

Then, as the sound of the men’s deep voices died away across the sea, a
woman’s voice rose higher, in limpid, silvery tones, yet with words that
seemed incongruous in the still gray hour of dawn. For the sun had not
yet risen.

    “Let the world slide, let the world go;
    A fig for care and a fig for woe;
    If I can’t pay, why, I can owe,
    And death makes equal the high and low—
        Be merry, friends!”

But the truest singer of them all lay in the bow, shrouded by the
daybreak mist, and silent in the depths of slumber.

For the sun had not yet risen.

       *       *       *       *       *

Thus Christopher Marlowe—an impression, a song, a vivid but fleeting
picture—passed from the life of a new-world people.




CHAPTER XXIII

    “But who comes here?
        How now?”

         —MARLOWE, in _The Jew of Malta_.


“Master Christopher Marlowe hath disappeared.” The assertion came from
Ananias Dare, who at noon joined a number of his fellows idling in the
town.

“Ay,” said a gossip following him, “and Gyll Croyden is nowhere to be
found.”

“Marlowe gone!” exclaimed one.

“Gyll Croyden missing!” ejaculated another.

“The poet and his love,” insinuated the gossip. The women exchanged
glances; the men were grave with apprehension.

“By St. George, ’tis a strange hap,” said a soldier.

“Some ill hath overtaken them as retribution,” declared the Oxford
preacher.

“Let us institute a search,” suggested several simultaneously. “We may
find them.”

“Nay, they’ve not been seen for many hours.”

“But we should try.”

“Well, then, ’twill keep us fro’ twiddling our thumbs. Ho, Prat! Give
us aid. ’Ods precious! Where’s the merry-andrew gone? Was she not _his_
light o’ love as well?”

“Yes,” laughed the gossip, “but saw you not Prat’s look when I told you
she had disappeared? He and his bear have gone a-roaming in the forest.
Poor clown!”

Many shook their heads with indulgent pity. “Come, let us go in search.”

But Ananias Dare, who, being in the turmoil of a struggle against
himself, had said little, now stayed them. “They are not in jeopardy. We
ourselves have more to fear. Last night I saw a ship bear away to the
east. My masters, I doubt not they have clandestinely deserted us. They
have gone.”

“Deserted us!” The exclamation was not from one only, but all, and an
angry muttering ran through the company.

“These poets have no courage.”

“She was afraid to stay. The parson bade her marry.”

“We are well rid of them.”

“Ay, but ’tis an outrage.”

Then a new-comer spoke in sharp, condemnatory tones, not against the
subjects of their talk, but against their own contumely. It was Vytal.
“Yes, Christopher Marlowe hath gone,” he said, “for your sake, not his
own. A Breton shallop came from the north, and he, for a cause beyond
your ken, hath taken passage therein. In England, he will gain audience
with the queen, and persuade her Majesty to send us aid. The thing is
done. Now make the best of it.”

Ananias started forward. “And you knew he was going?”

“I knew it.”

“Yet you dared to withhold the knowledge from us?”

Vytal’s lip curled. “’Twas no great daring, but only kindness. I held
you to your trust, and so shall till death.” They started toward him,
wrathful, riotous. “Oh, you seek to end the matter now? I am at your
service. Here, Hugh, to my side!” The giant, hurling aside all who
sought to oppose him, obeyed, with broadsword drawn.

Ananias fell back from the front ranks swearing, his retreat seeming to
affect the others with a like discretion.

“I have fought for you and by your side,” said Vytal, a new note of grief
in his voice; “yet with death you would repay me.”

“Ay, he fought for us well,” cried Rouse, fervently, and the words were
echoed in embarrassed whispers through the crowd.

Slowly they turned and left him.

       *       *       *       *       *

For several hours a stout vagabond wandered aimlessly through the woods,
now and then addressing an unresponsive companion. “She’s gone; my
laughing Gyll is gone! Come, your Majesty, get you into the barge; we’ll
go to Roanoke.” The heavy craft, bulky and awkward as its occupants,
moved on and on through the night until at last it touched the southern
shore of Roanoke. “Behold that glade, your Majesty; it is the very spot
where you danced with her while I piped, and the Indians looked on with
wonder. But, body o’ me! those days are gone. King Lud, thou’lt dance no
more.” And the vagabond clasped arms with his comrade. “Those days are
dead; let ’em be forgot.”

Thus together, hither and thither, round and about, the strange pair
wandered, until they came to a ravine margined with a natural arbor of
grapes whose tangled vines clambered to the trees and lay like sleeping
snakes in a near-by opening. To these the bear paid no attention, but
sniffed about the trunks of trees for fruit of another kind. One of the
arbors, however, interested the soldier.

“It was here,” he said, “that her wit right bravely saved her from
Towaye, and she clipped the locks o’ her sunny head a-weeping.
Lack-a-day, those times are mine no longer. Let ’em be bygones, Roger
Prat, and think no more on ’t, I do beseech you.”

Suddenly he paused and leaned forward. A long rope shone lustrous amid
the tendrils of the arbor. “Body o’ me! ’tis the very strand!” and,
extricating it, he looked about to make sure that even the bear had not
discovered his secret. Then, as King Lud disappeared in the woods, he sat
down for a moment on the ground, and, gently laying the shining curls
across his knees, stroked them again and again, murmuring inaudibly as
they moved restlessly in the breeze or caught in his clumsy fingers,
while, with a bewildered expression, he rolled his eyes. At last he
thrust the golden braid into the bosom of his doublet, and for once the
new mournfulness of his round, red face was not absurd. But presently he
frowned and rose jerkily to his feet. “Yes, that pygmy Rouse is right,”
he muttered. “Ye’re daft, Roger Prat—daft, indeed.”

Thereafter, calling to the bear, he spent the day in returning
laboriously to Croatan, on whose shore the animal, sufficiently tamed to
rove at large, left him, and, still with an unsatisfied appetite, loped
off into the forest.

       *       *       *       *       *

In the evening Eleanor Dare sat in her dining-room with Vytal. “Then he
has actually gone?”

“Yes, on a Breton shallop. He waited for months, hoping that the chance
would come at last.”

“But he never told me,” said Eleanor.

“Nay, for perhaps the power was not in him.”

She looked deeply thoughtful. “Oh, I comprehend it all now, but then I
considered the farewell one of his vagaries. I thought he was bidding
good-bye to me only—you understand—yet now his words come back to me
with double force. Captain Vytal, we have lost a friend.”

“Yes,” said the soldier, “in truth a friend. It is my duty, however, to
tell you that we have regained an enemy;” with which he told her briefly
of their meeting with Frazer, of the latter’s pretensions, trickery, and
escape. At mention of the duel’s climax, he coldly chid himself without
forbearance as he would have censured any other in his place. “There will
be a second attempted invasion,” he said, “to repel which we must harbor
all our strength. In some unaccountable way this fellow hath escaped
Manteo, who but just now has returned, after a futile search. Moreover,
Mistress Dare—” But he paused abruptly. He would say no more. From her
and from all he must withhold for always the conviction that, by some
terrible mischance, John White had come to Roanoke again and gone.

For a moment her eyes questioned him, but, finding no answer, she forbore
to voice the query, and quickly dismissed the subject as he willed. Her
eyes flashed. “We must, at all cost, defeat them, and assert our rights
so strongly as to preclude the possibility of repeated threats.”

“We shall.”

“Oh, captain, I pray you give me work to do in our defence. Idleness
palls upon me in times like these. Give me opportunity, if needs be, to
suffer for the common good.”

He looked deep into her eyes. “You are one of the few,” he said, slowly,
“who are worthy to suffer, and, therefore, ’tis for you I fear.”

To this she would have replied in all the bravery of her hopeful
womanhood, but suddenly her expression changed. “Who is that?” she
whispered, gazing at a near-by window; and then, as a head was thrust
in at a casement, she laughed with evident relief, for the long nose of
King Lud, who stood without on his hind-legs, was sniffing the air of the
dining-hall.

In another second the animal had dropped to his natural posture, and was
for shambling off to Roger’s cabin, but Vytal’s quick eyes had caught
sight of a whitish object suspended from the animal’s neck. Uttering a
short call by which Prat was wont to summon his pet, Vytal opened the
door, and saw King Lud irresolutely awaiting him. With a warning gesture
to Eleanor, bidding her remain in the house, he went out and stroked the
bear’s head; then, bending down, untied a thong of deerskin and took from
under the shaggy throat the object he had noticed. Returning, he held
it in the light, while his brow, contracting, darkened. “It is the very
horn,” he said, “of Frazer’s using. But there is more, too,” and he drew
a crumpled scrap of paper from the muzzle of the instrument. Spreading
it out on the table, he read the first words, whose letters, all small
capitals, were formed by innumerable perforated dots pricked through the
paper evidently by the sharp point of a weapon.

    “TO MISTRESS DARE—”

Vytal looked up at Eleanor. “It is probably unfit for your perusal;
therefore, with your permission, I will read it first myself,” and, as
she inclined her head, he did so.

    “TO MISTRESS DARE,—This promise writ with my poniard: I will
    return anon, my love. The king lives, waiting for his royal
    consort. It may be a day, it may be a year, or several years,
    but in the end, I swear to you, that I will come and claim mine
    own. Yet, if at any time our friend, Captain Vytal, seeks to
    capitulate and surrender the colony to my liege sovereignty,
    let him blow thrice upon this horn—which he will remember
    is an effective signal in time of need. Written, or rather
    perforated, in some haste, but no flurry, very near you at
    Croatan, by the Crown Prince of England, yet your humble slave,

                                                   “ARTHUR DUDLEY.”

Vytal tore the paper into shreds. “Once more,” he said, “this mountebank
hath grossly insulted my queen.” Eleanor’s cheeks flushed vividly.

By a supreme effort he withdrew his eyes from the crimson token of her
love and stared fixedly through the casement into the outer darkness of
night. “_Our_ queen,” he added, in a low, metallic voice, “Elizabeth.”




Book III




CHAPTER I

    “The restless course
    That Time doth run with calm and silent foot.”

                          —MARLOWE, in _Doctor Faustus_.


On the shore of Roanoke, under the eastern cliff, a young Indian
stood alone, listening. Tall and straight as a spear, his dark form,
undraped, save at the loins, suggested, in the moment of immobility, a
bronze statue, fresh from a master-hand. The attentive poise, the keen,
expectant eyes, the head thrown back, implied in every muscle and outline
a mystery, for the whisper of whose voice he waited breathless. But,
as the desired sound was not forthcoming, the spell broke suddenly. He
moved, and the all-unconscious pose was lost in activity. With light
steps that seemed to fall upon an ethereal roadway, even less solid than
the shifting sands, he went to a copse of trees beneath the cliff and,
bending forward, scanned the long vines and grasses that ran wild beneath
his feet. Through the canopy of green above him a host of sun-rays made
their way, and, separating into a myriad golden motes, played in and out
amid the maze of cedar-roots that met his eyes. A breeze, laden with the
fragrance of numberless shrubs and vagrant flowers, stirred the straight
black strands of his hair, to which the sun lent a lustrous gloss like
the sheen of a raven’s wing. Was it only the air, fresh and warm with
midsummer balm, that filled him to the flood with ardent life? Was it
merely the sun that kindled those lights in his eyes, and only the free
flux of animal spirits that possessed him? The eagerness of his quest
gave answer, and even the song-birds, now in silence watching him from
high above, seemed to divine that here was no intruding fowler, no mere
hawk more powerful than themselves.

Again he paused, listening, and now the intent look changed to an
expression of apprehension and dismay. The statue of Hope was transformed
to a figure of Alarm; the pleasure of seeking to the disquietude of a
search in vain.

Suddenly, however, from the branch of an oak-tree, in the heart of whose
shadow he stood, a voice came down to him, blithe, merry, triumphant, and
the voice, for all its melody, was not a bird’s. “Dark Eye, the White
Doe is here.” He looked up, smiling, and somewhat mortified, but not
long, for in a minute the maid, who had outwitted him in their game of
hide-and-seek, stood on the ground, her laughing eyes and words bantering
him without mercy. “Oh, what availeth the speed and craft of Dark Eye
when the White Doe hides?”

“Virginia,” he said, pronouncing the name with difficulty, “thou art no
white doe, but a spirit of the woods.”

As a description of her appearance his observation was not amiss. The
little Virginia Dare, a child no longer, seemed rather a spirit than
a maid. Yet in the gentle curves of her form and the expressive depth
of her hazel eyes there was already a promise of maturity. They were
a pair of rovers, these two, without guile, without one marring trace
of worldly comprehension, without that indefinable, but ever-apparent,
disingenuousness of face and voice that comes when the fruit of knowledge
has been tasted; they were deer, revelling in their forest freedom, and
sea-gulls, loving the water. Sylvanites, barbarians, brother and sister,
going and coming as they willed, they were always together, and, as yet,
in no way conscious of themselves.

And the guardian angel was Eleanor. To her the freedom of their
companionship was a source of constant joy. Had she not done well to
leave their Eden unbounded by convention? Could she not thus in a measure
regain what she herself had lost, and allow Virginia the happiness which
had been withheld from her? “Yes,” she answered, in one of her reveries,
“it is well.” And from the day of that first decision, Virginia, always
clad in white draperies, loose and clinging, went barefoot, hatless, and
unrestrained. The years of restriction were yet in the future.

Indeed, as the two now stood together on the shore—primordial beings, all
unblemished by a past—that future, though approaching, seemed far away.

“Come,” said Virginia, after she had taunted him sufficiently to please
her whim, “you so nearly found me that I will grant reward for the
tedious quest.”

She went to the base of the cliff, while he, enchanted by her every
motion, and striving to guess the nature of the guerdon, followed her in
silent wonder. Near the cliff she paused and took a shell, pink, shallow,
and translucent, from an old wampum-pouch that, in their childhood,
he had given her. Next, she plucked from a vine that rambled down the
cliff-side a cluster of grapes, green as their own leaves, and almost
bursting. “There,” she said, casting them on a strip of mossy ground;
“now wait,” with which she trod upon the cluster with her bare feet;
then, as their luscious juice ran freely, held them aloft, and the shell
beneath, so that into it the sparkling drops fell one by one until they
overflowed the brim.

And now, after touching the nepenthe to her lips, she held out the
delicate chalice to him and bade him drink.

As though participating in some magic that would presently enchant them
both, he tasted, and would have emptied the shell delightedly, but on a
sudden he started and, letting fall the fairy cup, pointed to the sea.
With a cry of astonishment, Virginia and her comrade ran to a winding
path which led to a higher vantage-point, and in a moment they stood upon
a headland, side by side, he transfixed, she trembling with excitement.

“’Tis a ship,” she said, breathlessly. “I can just remember the white
wings. In one of these ships my grandfather sailed away, and they say
that I saw him go. In another went Master Kyt, but I saw not the wings
that bore him from us. I wonder if Master Kyt is returning? How many
years have passed since he departed?” She held up her hand and counted
them on her tapering fingers. “’Tis five—”

But for once the Indian was not heeding her. “Look,” he said, “there is
not one ship only.”

Turning again to face the sea, she saw two distinct white clouds, one in
the middle distance, one just surmounting the horizon.

“Come,” suggested Virginia, “let us give the signal to our people who
fish in the sound.” So saying, she led him along the palisade until they
reached Vytal’s deserted hut, near which the old culverin still remained
on guard and ready-primed. “This is the way,” she commanded—“Captain
Vytal showed me,” and, when he had obeyed her instructions, a deafening
roar went seaward from the land. “Oh, ’tis a terrible sound,” cried
Virginia, covering her ears with her hands; “but that is enough, and
now let us go down to meet the townsmen as they land and tell them
the tidings before they spy those wings themselves.” As she started
away, first one, then another musket-shot, each fainter than the last,
answered her signal from the south. With a long succession of alarums,
the fishermen repeated the first startling report back and back even to
Croatan.

By the time Virginia and the Indian reached the northern shore several
barges were already within sight.

Vytal, leading in a canoe, was the first to land.

“Two ships are coming!” cried Virginia. “Where is my mother?” But the
soldier strode past her, making no reply, his eyes ablaze with a light
that long ago had left them as though forever.

Hugh Rouse, stepping ashore from the next canoe, leaned forward from
his great height and seized Virginia by the arm as though to crush her
with a single grasp. “What were those words of thine?” he demanded, with
unprecedented ferocity. “Speak them again!”

“A ship is coming,” she said, half fearfully; “nay, two.” But the last
words were unheard, and the giant, turning to face the many approaching
barges, roared out, “A sail!”

“A sail! A sail! A sail!” was the wild cry which, repeated again and
again, with increasing frenzy, went ringing from the foremost craft to
the very last. And, before long, the headland on the eastern coast was
overrun by mad men and women who, with tears streaming from their eyes
and kerchiefs frantically waving, gave free vent to their overwhelming
joy. The floodgates of emotion, so long forced to withstand a mighty
strain, had been shattered in an instant; and now the torrent,
tempestuous, whirling, wild, upleaping, uncontrollable, burst from their
very souls.

Salvation was at hand.

All believed so, and the belief possessed them utterly, from those who
stood at the edge of the headland transfixedly gazing seaward, to those
who shouted with gladness, and the others who, standing yet farther
back, bowed their heads while the preacher voiced their thanksgiving to
God. In the foremost line, silent and rigid, stood Vytal; in the last,
Eleanor Dare, with her daughter, praying. But soon Virginia, slipping
her hand from her mother’s, rejoined the Indian, to chide him laughingly
for having let fall the shell, which now lay in fragments far below.
For to these two alone the sails meant little, seeming no more than the
wings to which they had likened them. To the White Doe and Dark Eye there
was no far-distant home ever calling for its own. Unlike their English
neighbors, these two were no foster-children, but inheritors of the land
by right of birth. This was their country, this their home. Only here
could their happiness mature, and seemingly only apart from the colony
could they live as their hearts desired. For that uncertain, wavering
shyness and sign of an uncomprehended fear, which long ago Marlowe had
noticed, still softened Virginia’s eyes with a mystic veil. She was
not beloved by the settlers save as a pet bird whose grace and beauty
they admired. For she lacked the magnetism of her mother, yet received,
perhaps, more frequent praise. There was still that difference between
Eleanor and Virginia which Marlowe had defined as the difference between
spirituality and mysticism. The one was in all ways a solace, the other
pretty to look upon, but never restful, and this lack of restfulness,
more than all else, explains her unpopularity in the settlement of
laborers.

To-day, feeling more restless than ever, “Look,” she said, “Roger
Prat shall pipe to us.” With which she led her companion by the hand
through the babbling throng to Roger, who, arm-in-arm with his bear, was
swaggering here and there, discoursing bombastically on the approaching
ships, as though he himself deserved thanks for the benefit.

“How now, Goodman Prat,” inquired Virginia, as they joined him; “art
going to leave thy flute silent at such a time?”

He turned and, with head on one side, surveyed her narrowly. “The pipe
pipeth no more,” he said, “for the necessary wind hath gone out of my
heart.”

“Lungs,” corrected Virginia, with a silvery laugh.

“Lungs,” he assented, gravely; “but, White Doe, see here!” He pointed to
a small tabor that hung by his side. “I have brought this drum wherewith
to celebrate. Hark to Roger’s tattoo!” And, drawing from his belt a pair
of drum-sticks, he marched about, with a rat-a-tat-tat-tat-too. “Sing,
ho, the taborin, little taborin,” he cried, “merry taborin,” and his
sticks danced furiously on the drum. He was thinking of England, and of
the chance that he might return to forgive Gyll Croyden.

But Virginia, pouting, turned away. “That is not music,” she said to the
Indian. “He is changed.”

Hers was the only frown that, until now, had crossed a face that morning.
Hilarity laid hold on the jubilant throng, and turned all save the most
serious ones to children.

Musket-shots rang out in celebration; cheer on cheer filled the air,
until, growing hoarse with their incessant huzzahs, planters, soldiers,
traders, wives, daughters, sons, and even lonely widows and orphans,
still kept waving their arms to the distant ships in silence. And still
Roger, with King Lud in his wake, went the round, now gesticulating in
the air with both of his drum-sticks, next pointing with one to the
sails, and again setting the pair ajig on his tabor in clamorous acclaim.

Suddenly, however, catching sight of Vytal’s face, he desisted and
hastened to the captain’s side. Vytal spoke in a low voice that none but
Prat and Hugh Rouse might catch the tenor of his words. “An I mistake
not, those ships are not our friends.” Roger and Hugh turned, in dismay,
to look once more across the water.

Rouse, shading his eyes with a great hand, swore roundly beneath his
breath.

“Body o’ me!” exclaimed Prat, who for once could say no more.

Vytal had spoken truly. For now that the ships came slowly within range
of the watchers’ vision, the fact became obvious to one and another on
the headland that these were not vessels of English build.

Gradually a desperate silence assumed sway over the colonists, while they
advanced anxiously to the cliff’s edge. “They are enemies,” whispered one.

“Ay, ’fore Heaven, they are not of friendly countenance.”

Then a voice rose trembling in a high key, and Ananias, terror-struck,
covered his eyes. “Oh, my God! the two are Spaniards from St. Augustine.
Look! Look! One is the _Madre de Dios_!”

Vytal turned quickly to the settlers. “Yes, they are Spaniards,” he said,
harshly, “and one is the _Madre de Dios_. She hath been defeated once;
’tis for us to sink her now.”

A low groan ran through the throng. Alarm had stifled hope. But, as none
gave answer, Vytal spoke again. “Let those who are afraid return and
seek safety at Croatan. I and my men will meet them.”

“Yea,” laughed Prat, “right gladly meet them.”

But already half the number had deserted, and, led by Ananias, were
now stampeding toward their barges on the southern shore. Only the
fighting-men and Eleanor remained on the headland. Suddenly an
ejaculation from Prat caused Vytal to turn. The foremost of the Spanish
vessels stood tentatively with flapping sails, as though undecided, and
in another moment a long, rakish-looking craft, propelled by several
rowers, had left the ships, and was making its way to the shore. In the
prow an officer, gaudily dressed, stood erect, waving aloft a pike, from
the blade of which a white flag floated lightly on the breeze. Slowly the
long-boat drew nearer, until its stem swished on the sand. Then, stepping
out, the Spanish officer, wearing no visible arms, turned to one and
another with a lordly insolence, and finally accosted Vytal in English.
“I am the admiral,” he said, “of our little fleet, and would speak with a
person in command.”

“I,” said Vytal, “govern the colony.”

On hearing this the Spaniard started perceptibly and scrutinized the
bleak, impassive face with heightened interest. “May I inquire,” he
asked, with a curious mingling of autocratic condescension and true
respect, “concerning your Excellency’s name?”

“’Tis the Wolf,” replied Roger Prat, impulsively, before Vytal could
answer.

The admiral smiled. “Ah, the Wolf! ’tis well for me I seek only an
armistice at your hands—a short and friendly truce. We are in sore
straits. Having but recently escaped wreckage, we are now like to die of
thirst and starvation. I have here the usual conditions of an armistice,
which I submit for your consideration,” and he handed Vytal a sheet of
paper which conveyed, in English, his proposal:

    “I. That we be permitted to buy victuals.

    “II. That we be allowed to lie off the coast of Virginia
    without annoyance or molestation until our ships, which are in
    leaky state, shall have been repaired.

    “III. That we be granted the right to come ashore in small
    bodies for the procuring of lumber and implements necessary
    in this work of repair, and for supplies, all of which
    commodities, including any others that may be offered and
    desired, shall be purchased at a just rate.

    “IV. That we, on our part, shall come to land unarmed, your
    soldiers to have the full privilege of searching us.

    “V. That your right and title to Roanoke Island, and such
    adjacent territory as you inhabit, shall in all ways be
    respected by us.”

Vytal, having read the document aloud, handed it back to its author.
“This hath been quickly framed,” he said, scanning narrowly the other’s
face; “or else it was writ before you sighted Roanoke.”

The Spaniard laughed uneasily. “I perceive,” he said, “that his
Excellency, the Wolf, hath eyes which read a man’s soul. Yet I myself
indited these proposals at seeing your company on the headland. ’Twas in
no way preconceived, and that is truth.”

“How many men do you command?” asked Vytal, with slow deliberation.

“Threescore soldiers,” was the quick response.

“’Tis well,” said Vytal, “and we are trebly strong.”

“Trebly!” ejaculated the admiral, unguardedly.

“Nay,” observed Vytal, inwardly numbering the Indians as allies. “Much
more than trebly.”

The Spaniard covered his surprise with a yawn. “I trust you will make
haste,” he said, “for while you delay we starve.”

“So be it,” assented Vytal, curtly, and turned on his heel.

The admiral bowed and withdrew to his long-boat.

“’Tis our only chance,” said Vytal to Eleanor. “We must arm every man,
red and white, that, in the event of treachery, we may die fighting.”

“Think you, then,” she asked, anxiously, “their force is so much the
stronger?”

“Beyond doubt, madam, they far outnumber us.” His face grew tense, and
for a moment almost desperate. “If they gain knowledge of our weakness,
we are lost.”

He spoke hurriedly to Rouse. “Go instantly to Croatan. Ask Manteo to
bring his tribesmen here without delay. Say that I have sent you. Speak,
then, to our own people. Adjure them, in God’s name, to proceed hither
within the hour. Make known the conditions of the armistice. If fear
still deters them, and they suspect treachery on the part of our enemies,
make no threat, but say that only within this palisado can we hope for
safety. At Croatan they could not possibly withstand invaders. Here
the fortifications are ready built. Let the people bring all available
provisions for a siege, yet mention not the word ‘siege.’ Say merely that
until the Spanish depart we remain here to trade with them.” He turned to
Prat. “Do you, Roger, go with Hugh, and by your wit compel them to obey.
My whole trust is in you both. Make haste!”

Without a word they started off, the giant with great strides, the
vagabond with rolling gait, and for once not garrulous, but genuinely
grave.

Vytal, returning to the headland, spoke to Dyonis Harvie, who stood near
by. “You, Dyonis, assume command of the fortress, where the women and
children will look to you for their defence.”

       *       *       *       *       *

For many minutes Eleanor and Vytal stood in silence, motionless. From
far away came the sound of the surf droning on the beach, with which,
from beyond the screen of woods between them and the town, a low hum of
preparation was blent monotonously. At last they walked to the brow of
the cliff whereon stood the watchful culverin, and looked down at the
lengthening shadows on the shore.

Small groups of Spaniards and Englishmen were gathered together here and
there busy in trade.

“They buy and sell most peacefully,” observed Eleanor.

“Yes,” said Vytal, “they traffic as friends.”




CHAPTER II

    “Here, man, rip up this panting breast of mine,
    And take my heart in rescue of my friends.”

                        —MARLOWE, in _Edward the Second_.


On the fourth night after the ships’ arrival, the colonists and Hatteras
Indians, all of whom, at Vytal’s command, had come from Croatan,
congressed near the fortress of Roanoke. In the centre of the square
a camp-fire of great logs and dried branches roared and crackled
cheerfully, while encircling the blaze sat red men and white, some half
prone in sleep, others upright and talking. Somewhat apart from the
main gathering, and just beyond range of the firelight, were Vytal and
Manteo, while, midway between them and a number of sleeping soldiers,
sat Virginia Dare and her Indian comrade. Not far away lay Hugh Rouse,
sprawled near the outer border of embers, and snoring loudly, while next
to him sat Roger Prat, blinking at the fire. In the fortress most of the
women and children, under Dyonis Harvie’s protection, were slumbering
peacefully, while Dyonis himself sat yawning in the doorway. Each of the
three entrances to the town was guarded by one or more pickets, well
armed. At the northern gateway, which led to Vytal’s cabin, a single
sentry stood alert; at the southern and nearest, by which Eleanor had
made egress that night when Frazer and Towaye had captured her, another
soldier kept careful watch; at the main portal on the eastern side two
sentinels paced to and fro with muskets loaded. Furthermore, a body of
twelve arquebusiers lay far below on the beach, to make sure that from
the Spanish ships no landing was attempted.

To trade at night, or leave the town without Vytal’s permission, was
forbidden. And perhaps only one person at Roanoke rebelled inwardly
against the latter restriction. This was Virginia Dare, whose nature
demanded absolute freedom. “Oh, tell me, Dark Eye,” she said, as the
silence and bondage became unbearable, “why are we compelled to remain
here like prisoners?”

“It is the will of our father, the Wolf,” replied the Indian. “He seeks
to protect his children.”

She made an impatient gesture. “Come, Dark Eye, let us ask Roger Prat if
we may not go down to the sea for another shell and for my father. Dost
know he strangely disappeared to-day and has not been seen again?”

“Thy father disappeared?” exclaimed the Indian.

“Yes, within the forest. But come!” and together they joined the soldier.
“Goodman Prat, I pray you give us liberty. Not all the armies of the
world can find us an we hide. There are caves, ravines, arbors—”

“Yes,” interposed Prat, dreamily, “arbors, grape-arbors.”

“Come,” she persisted, “take us past the centronel.”

With a jerk of his head, as though awaking from reverie, Roger looked
up at her. “Nay, White Doe, it is impossible. Will you not sit here and
comfort me? I am depressed.”

Poutingly, she granted his request, and, patting the grass beside her,
indicated an adjacent seat for the Indian. “How now, Roger?” said she.
“Why so glum and owlish? Is ’t because your friend King Lud is absent?”

For a moment Prat surveyed her in silence, rolling his eyes, until
at length, “Nay,” he replied, “I am well accustomed to his Majesty’s
peregrinations. Oftentimes for a whole week he roves, and never a sight
of him. ’Tis but three days now since he went a-nutting. Nay, nay, ’tis
not o’ the bear I think—not o’ the bear.”

“Of what, then?”

But, giving no answer, he only blinked and blinked at the fire, so
mournfully that many, noticing his look, long remembered it.

Vytal watched him silently.

“He hath even forgot,” observed Manteo, “to smoke his pipe of uppowac.”

The soldier made no response, but asked, finally: “Art sleepy, Manteo?”

“Nay, most wakeful.”

“I, too, am so; but sith for two nights no sleep hath come to me, ’tis
essential that I rest. Do you keep watch, and, if aught occurs beyond the
ordinary, arouse me instantly.” Whereupon, stretching himself at full
length, Vytal folded his arms across his eyes.

Nearly all were now lying asleep, and the fire burned very low. Only
Virginia Dare, Dark Eye, and Roger Prat seemed wide-awake.

The low tread of the sentinel at the nearest gate told them that safety
was assured. The stillness of the town, profound and all-pervading, was
broken at rare intervals only by the screech of an owl or the low murmur
of voices, while the dreary monotone of the distant surf seemed as it
were to accompany the dirge of silence.

Suddenly, however, the sentry’s voice, in a low challenge, caught the
quick ear of Virginia, but, as Prat turned apprehensively, she laughed
aloud. Then Roger himself shook with merriment. “Body o’ me! he hath
challenged King Lud, and, I’ll warrant, is now calling himself a fool.
Behold his Majesty!” And, sure enough, there was the well-known bulky
form loping on all fours through the entrance. As it came near the circle
of firelight the cumbrous shadow flattened out.

“He’s not overjoyed to see you,” laughed Virginia, and she would have
gone forward to pat the shaggy head, but Prat restrained her.

“Nay, wait. ’Tis a trick of his. He knows well he hath been a deserter,
and is full of shame. Look you—his eyes are shut; the prankish monarch
pretends to be indifferently asleep. Now take no notice, but out of the
corner of your eye watch him. He always comes to me in the end, an I pay
no attention to his whimsicality.”

Virginia, pleased at any diversion, cast a sidelong glance at the long
snout which lay tranquilly between the paws, more in the position of a
dog’s nose than a bear’s. “For once,” she observed, “his Majesty is not
sniffing at us.”

“’Tis his game,” declared Prat. “Now watch, and I’ll turn my back
impertinently.”

For some time the huge pate lay motionless. “He’s really asleep,” said
Virginia.

“That may be,” allowed Roger, “for I doubt not his three days’ roaming
has wearied him considerably. He’s a cub no longer, and has, I’ll swear,
lumbago, like myself. Let him lie. But here’s a great brute who’s slept
too long.” And Roger poked Hugh Rouse viciously with his foot. Yawning,
the giant rolled over, and surveyed them stupidly. “Numskull!” exclaimed
Prat, “thank the Lord we look not to you for protection. I’d sooner
trust King Lud, though for the moment even he’s a-dreaming.”

Virginia, amused at his raillery, cast another look behind her. “Nay,”
she whispered. “See, he has crawled nearer.”

“Oh, has he, indeed!” said Roger. “I’ll give him his deserts in time.
But first this dwarfling here must explain himself.” He glanced down
at Rouse. “How now, sirrah?—think you we are safe at home in England?
Do your weighty dreams increase our numbers, that are in reality so
desperate small? Think you the Spanish force could not swallow us up as
thy great maw would engulf a herring? Poor fool, sleep on in thy fond
delusion,” and, raising his brows in feigned contempt, Roger turned to
the silent Indian and Virginia. “Now the lord chancellor shall have the
honor of punishing his renegade monarch right merrily.”

He rose, turned, and swaggered toward the ungainly shadow.

As if the animal had readily divined his intention, the great nose
shifted now this way, now that, irresolutely. “See!” cried Roger, “he
creeps away like a beaten hound,” and Virginia saw the bowlder-like
shadow rolling off toward the palisade.

“Villain!” cried Prat, “come hither,” with which he ran forward
wrathfully.

But just as he was about to cuff the upraised snout with the palm of
his hand, the awkward figure rose, and a glistering light shone for an
instant in the fire-glare. With a groan Roger stumbled, and would have
fallen, but now a mass of dark fur was flung at his feet, and a man,
who had emerged from beneath it, started, quick as a flash, toward the
gateway. Uttering a loud oath of pain and anger, the soldier sprang
across the bearskin, and, although mortally wounded, contrived to grasp
the stranger. Then, with a great effort, for at each moment the blood
spurted from his breast, he threw his captive heavily to the ground.
Again and again his antagonist’s short blade flashed and buried itself in
his arm; yet, flinging himself bodily on the writhing form, Roger held
the spy a prisoner.

Even as he fell, a cry from Manteo awoke Vytal, while the others,
startled by the commotion, leaped to their feet in wild confusion. Then,
above the turmoil, rose Vytal’s voice piercingly: “’Tis naught!” For a
single glance at the struggling pair and the empty bearskin had told him
that a spy was caught.

As the excited colonists gathered about the grappling couple, Roger
rolled over in a swoon, and Vytal looked down at the captive, who was in
an instant held firmly by Manteo and Rouse.

“It is Frazer,” he said, calmly. “Bind him, and take him to the fort.”

“Nay,” was the prisoner’s rejoinder, in a low, musical voice, “’tis his
Highness, the Crown Prince.”




CHAPTER III

    “Oh, must this day be period of my life?”

                  —MARLOWE, in _Edward the Second_.


As Vytal turned from Frazer his face changed. The look of cold hate gave
way to an even deeper expression of sadness, which, mellowing his bleak
visage as the sunset glow softens the outlines of a rock, bespoke tender
concern and apprehension.

Around Roger a crowd had gathered, to the centre of which Vytal gravely
made his way.

The soldier lay prone and silent, the bearskin, which had been folded,
forming a pillow for his head. He had evidently regained consciousness,
yet from his bared chest a stream of blood welled slowly. Frazer’s weapon
had pierced a lung.

Beside him knelt Hugh Rouse, imploring him to speak. “Call me names,
Roger; berate me an you will for sleeping; but say ’tis no mortal wound.”

A chirurgeon who stood near by shook his head. “’Tis, indeed, mortal,” he
declared.

And Roger’s eyes rolling up to the chirurgeon’s face seemed to repeat,
“Yes, mortal.”

As the firelight was now obscured by the crowd, several soldiers,
snatching resinous branches from the blaze, held them aloft to look once
more upon their comrade’s face. Vytal bent over the dying man. “Dost know
me, Roger?”

Slowly the lips parted as the round head shifted restlessly. “Yea, well;
and always I shall know you. Body o’ me! not know Captain Vytal—I, Prat,
who have followed him through thick and thin? ’Tis impossible.”

He raised his head and smiled at Rouse. “And you, too, my dwarfish
soul—how could I mistake that shock o’ flaxen hair?” He passed a hand
over the giant’s head affectionately; then, rising with pain to one
elbow, turned again to Vytal.

“You have saved us,” said the captain, “but at what a cost!”

Prat made a deprecatory gesture. “Ay, thank God! saved you,” he replied;
“yet have a care. This Frazer hath heard me prating to Rouse anent our
weakness. You’ll look to it, no doubt, he conveys not the information to
that peacock, the Spanish admiral. But, ah me, the young wild-slip hath
killed King Lud. My last pet is departed. Oh, why did I not know his
Majesty would never crawl away like a whipped cur? In troth ’twas most
unnatural. Yet the darkness favored him—the darkness—i’ faith ’tis even
darker now.” With an effort, he put a hand to his belt, and, drawing
out the flute that for so long had been silent, held it to his lips.
But, without sounding a single strain, he let it fall with one of his
old grimaces. “Nay,” he muttered, “not a note; ne’ertheless, when I’m
gone, ‘Be merry, friends; a fig for care and a fig for woe; be merry,
friends.’” He sank back exhausted and closed his eyes.

“He is dead,” groaned Hugh.

But Roger, with a drawn smile, eyed him sideways. “Not dead by any means,
poor dullard. No, not yet dead.”

At this his face brightened for a moment, and he groped in the breast of
his doublet near the wound. Several fine threads of gold were woven round
his fingers, but no one saw them. “Take nothing from me,” he said; and
then, withdrawing his hand, smiled almost bitterly. “’Tis just as well I
die, for my life, as the song saith, hath been lived to ‘please one and
please all,’ everlastingly ‘please one and please all, so pipeth the crow
sitting upon a wall.’ Welladay, let the crow pipe on, but Roger pipeth no
longer.”

His bulging eyes flashed suddenly in the cressets’ glare. “Nay, I’m no
piper, but a fighting-man,” whereupon, rising once more with a great
effort to one elbow, he drew his broadsword and for a moment held it
aloft. Then slowly, as the flame died out of his eyes, he pointed with it
toward the palisade. “Bury me over there,” he said, eagerly, “beyond the
town—over there in the glade, Captain Vytal, near the western shore. ’Tis
where she danced, you’ll remember, and King Lud cut capers before the
Indians. There I’ll lie in peace, and think o’ the old mirthfulness, and
sometimes the sound of your guns will come to remind me I’m a soldier.”
He held out the heavy blade to Vytal. “Lay it unsheathed beside me,
captain; also the flute and uppowac pipe.” Once again his head fell to
the bearskin pillow. “You might shroud me,” he added, feebly, “with all
that remains of poor King Lud.”

“It shall be done as you require,” said Vytal, hoarsely.

And now there was silence save for the light rustle through the forest of
a new-come breeze, which fanned the tearful cheeks of the watchers and
set the many torches flickering so that their light wavered uncertainly
across the dying man. Roger’s eyes were closed, yet once more his lips
parted. “‘Be merry, friends,’” and, with an old, familiar smile, he died.

       *       *       *       *       *

When at last day dawned a striking scene was visible on the shore.

In the prow of his long-boat, not over twenty feet from the beach, stood
the Spanish admiral, while from the brink of the water Vytal spoke to him.

Farther up the strand twelve musketeers were ranged in line with weapons
aimed, not at the long-boat’s crew, but at a single figure that stood
against the cliff. This form, slight and graceful, was nevertheless
distinctly masculine in bearing. With eyes blindfolded, mouth gagged, and
hands fettered behind his back, the man awaited his fate calmly.

But the fate was yet unknown. The musketeers stolidly awaited the last
signal from their leader, and the signal was delayed.

“You perceive,” said Vytal to the admiral, “that your friend’s life is
in imminent danger. At a word from me he falls, but at the word I desire
from you he lives and shall be saved.”

The Spaniard bowed haughtily. “Name your conditions,” and with a sweep of
their oars the rowers drew nearer to the shore. Vytal turned and glanced
upward at the headland, from which the colonists were looking down in
silent curiosity. Foremost of all stood Eleanor Dare watching him.

He faced about again to address the admiral. “The condition is this: that
you abandon to us the _Madre de Dios_ in exchange for the prisoner. Your
spy hath broken our truce. There are but two available indemnities—the
one your ship, the other his life as forfeit. I bid you choose.”

An ironical smile crossed the Spaniard’s face. “Do you consider his life
of so great value?” he asked, banteringly.

“Nay,” said Vytal, “I but seek to estimate your own valuation. This
fellow hath boasted of a royal guardian—even the King of Spain.”

The admiral bit his lip. “But how am I to make certain that you act in
good faith?”

Vytal turned sharply to the musketeers and raised his hand, while his
lips parted. The marksmen’s eyes came down closer to their aim, and there
was a concerted click.

“Stay!” cried the Spaniard, in alarm. “I agree to your proviso.”

Vytal’s hand fell, and the sharp-shooters stood at rest. “To-night,” said
the soldier, “we shall be ready to man your vessel.”

Slowly the long-boat withdrew, and now Eleanor, having come down from the
headland, stood at Vytal’s side. Her face was flushed with excited hope
and admiration. “You have worked our salvation, captain.”

“Nay,” he returned, harshly, “not yet.”




CHAPTER IV

    “This fear is that which makes me tremble thus.”

                         —MARLOWE, in _Edward the Second_.


The stern discipline of that evening was broken by one of the colonists,
who, having earlier entered the town from the western wood, now reeled
through the streets, crazed by inebriety and fear. As the gates were not
yet closed, he was permitted once more to leave the enclosure, which he
did by the eastern entrance. Beyond the palisade he paused for a moment,
swaying heavily, and gazed down at the shore.

The moon, in its first quarter, was sinking behind a film of gray clouds.
A few traders, Spanish and English, stood bargaining on the beach. The
two vessels, without lights, lay motionless at anchor. A number of canoes
were hauled up on the sand, their birch-bark sides shining like silver in
the moonlight. The man, looking up and down the coast, recognized Vytal’s
gaunt figure in the distance, and he realized hazily that the soldier was
inspecting the coast-guard before returning to the town.

But the blear eyes wandered back to that line of silver craft, and now,
with uncertain gait, the lonely man descended from the headland. Then,
with a wave of his hand to the contemptuous traders, he stepped into one
of the canoes, and, unsteadily seating himself, made his way along the
coast with wavering sweeps of his paddle.

On coming at last to that part of the beach where Vytal was giving
instructions to the arquebusiers, he paused, and, keeping his canoe
several paces from shore, spoke quickly to the soldier. “I am going,”
he said, pointing with his paddle to the eastward, “away, anywhere, far
away.”

Vytal turned in surprise. “You’re mad.”

The other smiled absently, and, waving his wooden blade, held it out
toward the forest. “Yes, delightfully mad. Devilish Winginas over
there—saw them my own self when I started to go away to the mainland.
Long line of red demons waiting—demons ’stremely like those Ralph
Contempt described—all waiting to capture the town. You’d better have a
care and come away. I’m going away—anywhere—any place whatever, out into
the darkness—through the inlet—over the sea—away from it all, from all
the danger and trouble, all the nightmares and remorse. I’ve spent my
life retreating, now I’ll retreat once more—once more.” The moonlight,
falling across his face, showed a look so despairing, haunted, and yet
drunkenly cheerful, that for a moment Vytal stood transfixed, staring at
him, as at an apparition of the night. The bloodshot eyes were wide open
and wet with maudlin tears; the hair was dishevelled and damp with the
sweat of terror. Yet even now there was a certain weird beauty in the
face, a peculiar and exquisite refinement. But from behind the beauty a
despicable soul looked out of the eyes, so that even Vytal shuddered as
he saw their glance.

Courage stood face to face with naked Fear.

With a look of disgust, Vytal glanced about for another boat, but none
was near them.

Slowly the canoe drifted from the shore, its occupant bidding farewell to
Vytal with a laugh that died in a wail. “Return, or I shoot,” said the
soldier, sternly.

But at this the paddle splashed frantically, and the canoe, now whirling
about, now darting out to sea, went farther and farther from the land.

Vytal, for once, hesitated. To shoot was perhaps to kill the man, while
to refrain from shooting was almost to countenance his suicide. As a
compromise between these two alternatives the soldier took an arquebus
from one of his men and fired in the air.

For a second the canoe paused in its outward course, then shot far
seaward, and the man, wildly waving his paddle, either in triumph or
expostulation, staggered to his feet. At this the frail craft so careened
and trembled that before he could stand fully erect a torrent of water
rushed in across the gunwale, and Vytal, aghast on the shore, just
distinguished his figure, as, with a piercing cry, he tottered, fell
sideways, and sank beneath the surface.

“He cannot swim,” said one of the arquebusiers, “any better than a gobbet
of lead.”

Hastily Vytal waded into the water, and, although there were no traces
of the unfortunate drunkard, would have struck out toward the upturned
craft, had not a deep voice at this instant restrained him. Turning, he
saw Hugh Rouse standing on the shore, beckoning to him apprehensively.

“Captain, a force of Winginas attacks the western palisado.”

Vytal turned to one of the musketeers. “Bring hither a canoe and search
for his body. He is drowned in the swift undertow;” then, with a last
searching glance across the silver water, Vytal retraced his steps to the
beach.

“To the town, Hugh! I follow immediately.” He turned to the arquebusiers.
“It rests with you,” he said, “to hold the Spaniards back from land. Ask
no reinforcements. We cannot spare them. Nor yet seek to retreat within
the enclosure. You will be refused admittance. Your post is here. Knowing
that some of you are the men who would have mutinied on the fly-boat long
ago, I give you this opportunity to retrieve yourselves,” and, leaving
them, he made his way speedily to the town.

As he passed within the main portal it was closed and barricaded, Rouse
and a score of the ablest soldiers being left to defend it.

He stopped at the fortress, before which Dyonis Harvie stood on guard,
heavily armed. Eleanor was in the doorway. Seeing Vytal, she came out
into the square and spoke to him. “Is it well?”

“An hour will show,” he answered, quietly.

“Then you fear treachery?”

“No, I do not fear it.”

“But you suspect it?”

“Nay, madam, I am fully aware that a general attack is intended. A force
of Winginas already threatens our western wall.”

She hesitated, seeming loath to speak her mind, yet compelled by a
certain distrust to make known her anxiety. “I hope,” she said, as though
half to herself, “that none of the colonists will seek to leave by the
_Madre de Dios_ until the issue is certain.” Her voice faltered. “It is
my duty to tell you that Ananias plans—”

But Vytal shook his head gravely. “Mistress Eleanor, Ananias Dare is
dead!”

“Dead!” she gasped, in a vague, incredulous bewilderment. “Dead!”

“Yes; drowned.”

A high flush of crimson came to her cheeks and suffused itself quickly
about her temples; then as suddenly died, leaving her wan and pallid.

Vytal, averting his face, while in silence she re-entered the fortress,
went slowly to Dyonis Harvie. “Is the prisoner well guarded?”

“Ay, most carefully—in a cell below the fort.”

“Your main duties are to protect the women and keep him there;” with
which Vytal turned quickly away toward the western palisade.

Save for the light of the stars and of a wavering flambeau here and
there, the town was in darkness. And but for the occasional reports of
muskets, as the inland pickets fired into the forest at an unseen foe, no
unusual sound broke the silence of night.

Yet each minute of that night, winged or halt, slow or quick-fleeting,
was to every man big with import and terrible endeavor. The very air that
filled their lungs seemed impregnated with suspense.

Here was no camp-fire and lounging throng in the main square, but only
gloom and solitude, for the colony, broken up into small commands, stood
in alert attitudes, with straining eyes, at every entrance.

The armistice was apparently at an end, yet some few consoled themselves
with the fond delusion that the Winginas’ intermittent attack had not
been inspired by the Spaniards. One or two of these sought Manteo to
question him concerning the numbers of his hereditary foemen, but Manteo
was not in the town. And, furthermore, not one of his tribe could be
found save a few of the women. The Hatteras Indians had disappeared, men
and boys, mysteriously.

“They have deserted us,” said some of the colonists, despairingly; but
the leaders knew that, by Vytal’s command, Manteo held his men in waiting
far within the western forest. Thus at a signal the friendly tribesmen
could be called upon to fall on the Winginas’ rear and decimate them from
an ambush.

Yet Vytal rightly conjectured that this attack of the hostile savages was
a Spanish feint to draw off his soldiers from the coast; and even now, as
he concentrated the pickets in a body to meet a concerted onrush from the
woods, a great clamor of arquebuses and heavy pieces arose from the shore.

The Spaniards were landing. A general assault had begun from land and
sea. The sound of cannonading, continual and deafening, came from the
water, while from the woods the whir and whistle of arrows proclaimed a
more insidious attempt.

Vytal returned to the main entrance. It was already besieged. The
coast-guard had been overwhelmed. Despite their first stubborn stand,
they had gone down like corn-stalks before a hurricane. There was
no resisting the stampede. But the gateway, defended by Rouse and
his unflinching score, still remained a barrier. Through innumerable
loop-holes the defenders had thrust their fire-arms; and now an incessant
volley of lead poured out from behind the palisade like a torrent of hail
driven sideways by the wind. Still more effective, however, were the
culverins on two high flankers that stretched out on both sides of the
entrance. These cumbrous weapons, incessantly vomiting huge missiles, so
enfiladed the aggressors that a sortie was deemed expedient.

Rouse let the gate swing back quickly, and Vytal, leading a dozen men,
sought, by the sheer vigor and unexpectedness of his attack, to press the
enemy back over the cliff which they had scaled. This seemed his only
chance. By so bold a move he intended to convey the impression that large
numbers within the town only awaited a signal to reinforce him. For,
although Frazer, disguised as the bear, had overheard Prat’s observation
concerning the colony’s weakness, there had been, Vytal believed, no
possible means of communication between him and the Spaniards.

The one chance, then, seemed to lie in the exaggeration of Roanoke’s
forces, by manœuvres implying fearlessness and strength.

As Vytal surprised the foremost body of attackers by his sudden sortie,
the flanker culverins necessarily became silent, while the men at the
palisade loop-holes likewise ceased from firing.

Now on the headland there was a general mêlée, and to distinguish
Englishmen from Spaniards was impossible. Only the lofty figure of
Vytal, towering above all the combatants, kept the anxious watchers from
despair. Sable forms, spirits of the night, met and fell, while, above
all, coruscant swords and pike-blades flashed in the calm light of stars;
and here and there a face, anguished or triumphant, being lighted up by
fitful cressets, seemed not a human countenance, but only, as it were, an
expression, bodiless, the mere look of a ghost haunted by reality.

Suddenly, a new glare, high and lurid, broke the gloom. The tree-trunks
of the western palisade were now themselves flambeaus, ignited by
stealthy Winginas, who, having overcome the outposts, had gained the town.

With a loud cry, Hugh Rouse warned Vytal, whereat the captain fell back
to the main entrance. “Quick!” he said to Rouse. “Give the signal to
Manteo,” and Hugh started toward the western wall.

In another instant the savage enemy would have been surrounded by
Manteo’s men, according to the preconceived arrangement, but Rouse was
unexpectedly delayed.

From the small gateway which led to Vytal’s cabin a soldier rushed out
to meet him with drawn sword. Even in the faint starlight there was no
mistaking that scarred face, with its indrawn eye and yellow teeth, as
the lips parted in a smile. The man was Sir Walter St. Magil.

Without a word they met, and their swords crossed, to kill, immediately.
But Rouse, taken by surprise, found himself on the defensive, and, before
he could swing his heavy weapon effectually, the other’s point pried into
his sword-hilt, which, being wet and slippery from the moisture of his
fingers, slid from his grasp, and fell with a thud beside him.

Nothing daunted, the giant closed in, unarmed, upon his antagonist with
so impetuous a rush that St. Magil could not thrust again before a huge
pair of arms encircled him completely. His own arms, benumbed by the
sudden pressure, hung lifeless, while at one side his sword dangled
uselessly.

Their faces touched, their chests, thighs, and legs were locked together
as though with iron bonds. And St. Magil’s breath came in short, quick
gasps, hot on the other’s mouth. But at last, gradually, the herculean
arms closed tighter and yet tighter about their prey, until suddenly
Rouse, hearing a low, cracking sound, knew that his adversary’s arms and
perhaps a rib or two were broken.

Then, and then only, Hugh released his grasp, and, leaving St. Magil
groaning on the ground, rushed away to give Manteo the signal for a
counter-attack.

That moment’s delay, however, was fatal. For even now a great cry went
up from the fortress, and a large force of Spaniards who had effected
a landing far to the south surrounded it on every side. They had come
through the southern gate, by which Eleanor long ago had gone in search
of herbs for Virginia.

The fort became like a thing alive. From its ramparts a volley of
musket-balls rained on the steel headpieces below, while from every
aperture long streaks of flame shot out venomously, and in the middle of
every streak a ball.

The defenders, under Dyonis Harvie, were offering a brave resistance. The
Spaniards hung back behind a natural breastwork of hillocks.

But suddenly a small man, unnoticed, crept close to the fort’s rear and
from one side surveyed the muzzle of a culverin inquisitively. The gun
roared, and then, quick as thought, before it could be recharged, the
watcher whistled thrice. Instantly the aggressors sprang up from their
cover and assaulted the rear entrance.

But the man who had first crept forward was not content with open
onslaught.

In a few minutes the entire rear wall of the fort was enveloped in flames
that curled up over the ramparts, and Simon Ferdinando, the incendiary,
was groping in a subterranean vault. “Make haste,” said a boyishly
excited voice. “I am here,” and in a moment Frazer, having been liberated
by Simon, had entered the main armory.

The fortress no longer belonged to England.

Frazer glanced about the mess-room with a quick, searching scrutiny. It
was half filled with a coarse crew of his own arquebusiers, who, bridling
their ribald tongues half mockingly as he entered, awaited his commands.
A number of women were cowering in one corner. Before them lay the last
of their immediate defenders, lifeless or mortally wounded, Dyonis Harvie
prone in the foremost line, his wife, on her knees beside him, imploring
him to live.

As Frazer looked at the women he bowed to two, about whom the others were
gathered in despair. “The king is come, Mistress Dare, according as he
promised years ago. He claims his queen.”

He turned to the soldiers. “Bear these two to the hovel in which Vytal
lived. Do with the others as you will. The town is ours.”




CHAPTER V

    “Some powers divine, or else infernal, mixed
    Their angry seeds at thy conception.”

                           —MARLOWE, in _Tamburlaine_.


It was not long before Frazer stood alone with Eleanor and Virginia Dare
in Vytal’s secluded cabin beyond the palisade, and about the cabin a
Spanish guard.

The small room was fitfully lighted by a cresset that had been thrust
into a chink in the log wall. Opposite the door stood Eleanor, with
Virginia at her side, while before her, just within the room, Frazer
leaned easily against the door-post, talking in low tones. In the
mother’s eyes there was a calm determination, in the daughter’s as little
fear, but no resolve.

“Then you object,” said Frazer, languidly, “to being crowned a queen?”

She made no answer. He turned his headpiece about in hand, pouting like a
young boy.

“I should have preferred your heart’s love,” he declared, plaintively,
“but that, perchance, will come later.” His manner, changing, became
forceful. “Oh, believe me, the end hath come. We have played several
games, you and I, but this is final; and now, by God! I win! D’ you
hear—I win! England will never send you aid. This I know from St.
Magil, who hath lately been there. Marlowe, the poet, ne’er e’en saw
her Majesty to tell her of your plight. His end came far too soon.
’Twas defending the name of that trull, Gyll Croyden, he died in a brawl
at Deptford—these poets will be rakes to the very end.” He paused,
then spoke slower, with renewed emphasis: “Vytal is surrounded at the
main entrance. At a single word from me our force, which now holds the
fortress, will go to increase the overwhelming numbers that hem him in.
Whether or not I give that word rests entirely with you. Your beloved
Ananias is no more. Come, my beauty, I will make you my wife. There!
What more can you desire? Oh, you smile ironically; you think we know
not the colony’s weakness. Did I not hear the jovial Prat proclaim it
on the house-tops to his friend the ox? You think I did not convey the
information to St. Magil. Pah! ’twas an easy signal. Well I knew that
if I came off alive Vytal would range his men before me and offer to
hold me as an hostage for our ship. The signal was prearranged. Had you
outnumbered us, I was to sink down as if in fear before the musketeers;
but were you weaker, I was to stand erect. I stood erect. They knew
then, as they know now, the hopeless condition of your colony. Your
colony, Mistress Dare!” He let the words sink deep into her heart. “Your
colony—are you going to cause their complete annihilation by refusing to
accept my hand?”

He smiled, and added carelessly: “Then there is John Vytal.”

For a moment her eyes flashed, while she drew herself up proudly, but at
his last words her chin sank on her breast and a flood of tears blinded
her.

Virginia grasped her hand, and, bending forward, gazed up into her face
perplexedly. “O my mother, will you not save the colony and Captain
Vytal?”

Frazer nodded to Virginia approvingly. “I doubt it not,” he said, “for
your mother is by no means heartless.”

Eleanor raised her head and gazed at him so expressionlessly that he
started perceptibly; all life, all beauty, all consciousness, mental,
spiritual, and physical, seemed suddenly to have left her face.

She went forward to him like one walking to death in sleep, and the only
words that seemed, as it were, to drip and continually drip relentlessly
on her brain, were these: “The end, the end!”

He sprang forward and covered her hand with burning kisses. “Thou’rt
mine, Eleanor—mine at last.”

But suddenly he paused, startled. A low rustle, or trampling sound, as of
innumerable bare feet rushing across the town, had caught his ear. And
the voice of Hugh Rouse, far away, called loudly: “Quick, Manteo, this
way! Thank God, we may yet save Vytal!”

On this Eleanor drew back with a cry of gladness, and Frazer hesitated. A
Spanish soldier appeared at the door. “Shall we reinforce them?”

“Nay, keep your men around this cabin.” He turned to Eleanor, snapping
his fingers carelessly. “Foh! a _fico_ for the battle! You see I value
your love higher even than our cause, and whether you will or not, I
shall force it from you.” With this he started eagerly toward her, arms
outstretched and eyes brilliant.

But Eleanor, quick as lightning, drew from her bosom a small poniard and
held its point to her breast. “Another step,” she said, calmly, “and I
stab myself.”

He paused, in genuine amazement. His supreme self-love had never dreamed
of this—that a woman would rather kill herself than become his wife.
“I no longer need to save others,” added Eleanor, triumphantly; “it is
myself I save.”

For a moment he stood abashed, the very picture of chagrin; but then the
light of a new impulse leaped into his eyes.

“Ay, but there shall be another,” he cried, “demanding your sacrifice,”
with which, before she had divined his intent, he grasped Virginia in his
arms and carried her to the doorway. “She is almost as beautiful,” he
sneered, “and much younger.”

“Stay!” and Eleanor, swaying as if she must fall, cried out again in
anguish, “Stay, I implore you—stay!”

He turned, laughing. “Nay, Mistress Dare; first throw away thy poniard.”

With a strenuous effort to stand erect, she obeyed, and the weapon fell
at her feet. Evidently satisfied, he now released his hold on Virginia,
and, swaggering forward, with an air of bravado, put an arm about
Eleanor’s waist, while the daughter, utterly dazed, stood speechless,
watching him.

“My dear love,” he murmured, caressingly, “rebel not against fate. We
shall be very happy as king and queen.” It seemed as if there were a tone
of real tenderness in his voice, while gently he led her to the door. But
her own voice was silent as the grave, and again her whole being seemed
hopelessly inert.

Before passing out he bent over her, and, with both arms, crushed her to
him in a tense embrace. Then he started back and his face went pale as
death.

A loud clash of steel, a roar of many voices, a whirlwind seemingly, and
Vytal stood facing them in the doorway.

Like a flash Frazer drew his rapier, but too late.

The soldier, infuriated beyond control, thrust deep and deep again.

Frazer fell.

Vytal turned to Eleanor. “Come away, quick, by the rear entrance. Manteo
and Rouse have overcome his guard.”

The wounded man groaned pitifully. “I pray you send me a priest,” he
pleaded. “There is yet time for a short shrift. Your heretic parson will
do an there’s none other.”

“I have no messenger at hand,” said Vytal, “and cannot go myself.”

At this moment, however, a slight dusky figure stood in the doorway, to
which Frazer motioned feebly. It was Dark Eye.

“Send him,” said Eleanor, mercifully.

“Nay, for he must guard Frazer.”

“But the man is dying.”

“Nevertheless,” said Vytal, bitterly, “he is not yet dead.”

“Then let Dark Eye bind his arms, though it seems cruel.”

Vytal assented, and in a moment the captive lay bound hand and foot with
thongs of hide from the Indian’s girdle.

Virginia came to her mother. “I will go with Dark Eye.”

Eleanor rested a hand on her daughter’s head, and turned to Vytal. “Is it
safe?”

“Yes, with him.”

Together Virginia Dare and Dark Eye left the room, only hesitating for a
moment beyond the threshold to turn and wave farewell. “Have no fear,”
said Manteo’s son. “The Winginas are put to flight; the Spaniards have
left the town. Later we meet you on the shore.” The cresset flared high;
its radiance fell across those two slight figures side by side in the
near darkness.

The old world and the new had plighted troth, and here were the symbols
of an everlasting union.

In another instant the picture had vanished—White Doe and Dark Eye were
hidden in the forest.

“Now come,” said Vytal to Eleanor, and together they left the cabin. “We
have won,” he declared; “yet lost completely.”

She glanced up at him with renewed apprehension, questioningly. In
silence he led her to the shore. “See,” he said, and she looked up to
the headland. A sheet of flame sprang heavenward from the town. “And
look!” Two shadows were receding slowly southward. “Those are the enemy’s
vessels.”

“Then we are exiles once again.”

The soldier inclined his head. “Yes, exiles. England will never know of
our existence; history will account us futile in all our endeavors, and
inexplicably lost.” His voice sank lower. “Five Englishmen remain alive
besides myself.”

A cry escaped her lips. “’Tis impossible!”

“Nay, ’tis true.”

“But why, then, do the Spaniards beat a retreat?”

“Because Manteo’s force, though fatally delayed by Hugh’s encounter with
St. Magil, arrived in time to surprise them, and because Frazer kept his
guard apart from the main attack.”

She rested her hands on his arms and came very close to him. The glare of
the burning town illuminated his face, showing an expression that even
she had never pictured. The stern tensity was relieved, the despotic
tyranny of his mouth, the imperial crown of deep-cut lines on his brow,
the portentous fire of his eyes—all had been subdued beneath the touch of
love. Drawing her closer, he kissed her forehead reverently.

The darkness of night had lost its meaning. The merciless fire was seen
no more save as they found it reflected in each other’s eyes.

They were one.

Yet it was all so essentially natural that they experienced no surprise
nor wonder in the realization of their unity. It seemed but the end of
a primordial beginning, the reversion to their souls of a pre-natal
heritage, which but for a season had been withheld that by sorrow and
suffering its perfection might be assured.

For long they stood in silence, their very beings seeming to co-blend,
each the other’s complement, both a perfect whole.

At last Eleanor spoke, and he felt her tremble with the words. “Let us
never again speak the name ‘Frazer’ even within ourselves.”

“Nay, never,” he said. “I thank God he hath gone from out our lives.”

But Vytal’s thanksgiving was premature.

Frazer lived. In the cabin on the cliff above them he lived and moved.
Slowly, and with great pain, he contrived, by working his way on knees
and elbows, to reach the wall, high up in which the torch still sputtered
fitfully. Then, although a stream of red had marked his passage across
the room, he placed his bound hands between the logs and, with a
strenuous exertion, raised himself until he stood unsteadily upon his
feet. And now it was not only the cresset’s light that flashed in his
blue eyes. A look of victory surmounted the expression of pain, as,
stretching out his arms, he held the wrists immediately over the torch’s
flame. The fire scorched and blistered his white skin, burning deep
and slowly. At the last his teeth, gnashing in agony, met through his
underlip, but still he allowed the flame to work its will. For the thongs
that bound him, being damp with blood and perspiration, had not yet been
severed.

Finally, however, burning like fuses, they parted slowly and fell to the
floor. Then, bending forward, he unbound his ankles, stifling a moan
as his scorched fingers untied the knots. Suddenly he was free; and,
hastening as best he might to a lifeless Spanish soldier who had been
killed in guarding him, he was in a moment not only liberated, but armed
as well with a musket ready primed.

Having thus provided himself, he once more fell to his hands and knees
and crawled, like some dying animal, into the forest. With a superhuman
stoicism and determination, he descended by the winding path that led
from Vytal’s cabin to the shore, while a circuitous trail of blood marked
his progress.

At the wooded margin of the beach he paused and, leaning against a tree,
staggered to his feet.

Two figures stood before him, distinctly visible in the light of the
consuming flames.

But, as he raised his weapon, one of the figures moved.

Vytal had heard a rustle of leaves, yet the warning sound came all too
late.

A short tongue of fire flashed beneath the branches, almost
simultaneously a musket-shot rang out, and Eleanor fell prostrate on the
sand.

A cry like the death-note of a soul rose from Vytal, and then the
soldier’s face, in the first instant terribly anguished, was transformed
to the face of wrath incarnate. His eyes were blue flames.

He rushed to the strip of woods, with sword quivering.

But Frazer lay dead, his face, lighted softly by the stars, showing no
malevolence in its smile, more than ever boyish, guileless, and amused.




CHAPTER VI

    “My heart is as an anvil unto sorrow,
    Which beats upon it like the Cyclops’ hammers,
    And with the noise turns up my giddy brain.”

                       —MARLOWE, in _Edward the Second_.

    “Thus shall my heart be still combined with thine
    Until our bodies turn to elements
    And both our souls aspire celestial thrones.”

                                —MARLOWE, in _Tamburlaine_.


Vytal turned automatically and, with his old martial tread, crossed
the sand to Eleanor. At her side he knelt for a moment transfixedly in
silence, then sank down upon her and grasped her to him as if in an
effort to revivify her lifeless form by the sheer might of his love and
grief.

But now a dark shadow, seemingly no more tangible than the shadow of
Death, emerged from the forest and stood over them.

“My brother, grieve not; perchance life is yet within her.” The Indian
bent down and listened. “I hear no breath,” said Manteo, at last, “nor
heartbeat. Her kirtle is stained with blood.”

“Ay,” said Vytal, “she hath left me.”

The Indian pointed westward. “Come, my brother, let us bear her to my
people. They have gone to the main, and your countrymen with them. There,
far from the sea and evil ships, they will live in peace. Thy Spanish
enemies all have retreated before my men. Come, my brother, the voice of
the forest calls you. There is no other way. Did not the stars at thy
birth foretell that thou shouldst be a queen’s defender and the brother
of a king? A queen’s defender thou hast been; the brother of a king I
beseech thee to be always. Am I not that king of the prophecy? Is not the
depth of the forest, solitary and ever dark, the fitting home for one in
whose soul all happiness lies buried? My brother, come!”

Vytal returned his gaze in silence, neither granting nor denying the
earnest plea.

“John Vytal, you number but six Englishmen in all. To remain is to murder
thyself, e’en though thine enemies, Ferdinando and St. Magil, have
retreated hastily in a canoe to the Spanish vessel. On the mainland we
shall be safe, if upon thee we can depend. The man of God and Margery
Harvie, the White Doe and Dyonis, all have started thither under the
guardianship of thy servant, Hugh Rouse, who believed you wholly safe
with my people. Thus, with thee, there are but three warriors in all.
Shall the greatest of these not go, as he hath always gone, to the place
where he is most needed?”

“Ay,” said Vytal, vaguely; “that is here. Let us defend the town!”

But Manteo pointed to the palisade, across which the first dim light
of dawn was slowly breaking. A gray mist or dust was rising from the
enclosure and floating softly out to sea. “Those are the ashes of your
Roanoke settlement,” said Manteo, “which the breeze would bury far away.
The fortress lies smouldering, and much of the palisade as well. All is
lifeless.”

Vytal watched the gray veil unwind itself across the headland. This,
then, was a fitting symbol of the climax in which all the fortitude,
patience, endeavor, exertion, prayer, and yearning of years had
culminated. Ashes! All gray ashes—the hope of England and of himself.

Finally he turned to Manteo, with a deeper consciousness, and stooped
to raise Eleanor in his arms. But the Indian, who had watched her face
intently, restrained him. “Wait, my brother, there is yet hope. I will
instantly seek two herbs in the forest. ’Tis possible the one will heal
her wound, the other awake her from sleep,” and, so saying, he entered
the woods.

Once more Vytal knelt beside her, while slowly the dismal drone of the
surf seemed to creep nearer, until, entering his brain, it wore all
thought away. To reason was impossible, to strive for reason a torture
that racked him through and through.

Yet at last, appearing to have aroused somewhat from his stupor, he drew
his rapier, and, passing his fingers over the blade, muttered: “The
bodkin, the little bodkin!” with which—worse, far worse, more terrible
than any cry or moan—a laugh, a loud, harsh laugh, came from the broken
heart of the man who had rarely been heard to laugh before.

He let the rapier-hilt fall softly to the sand, yet held the point in one
hand, and with it touched the artery of his wrist. He was conscious now
of one thing only—utter failure! He felt certain that Eleanor, with all
his hopes, had left him. It was but the natural result of his life-long
battle against Fate.

“I am alone,” he said.

For many minutes the rapier-point, moving imperceptibly, scratched his
skin. Yet he made no thrust, for the horribly incongruous hilarity of
his expression gradually died away, leaving his face once more grave and
unrelaxing.

Suddenly he rose and stood as if on guard, not against himself, but
another. At this he called aloud, as though Rouse stood near. “Quick,
seek Manteo and the tribesmen! Bid Dyonis protect his charges to the
end. See to it that Frazer is shackled heavily. We win!” His eyes
flashed. “Send to me Roger Prat and Marlowe. They are men. Ho! Marlowe,
come, come quickly to my aid! Is ’t possible thou hast forgot that night
on the bridge when side by side we fought to save her?” He paused, thrust
into the darkness, then reeled and let fall his blade. “O my God—I
dream.” And, sinking down once again beside Eleanor, he looked first
into her pallid face, and then at the shroud of ashes that was borne
out lightly to be folded with the veil of the sea. Both mists, gray and
commingling on the water, seemed the cerements of his dead ambition. For
not only the sea had failed him, but the land as well. And this was his
only message to England—an ephemeral breeze, ash-laden, from the West he
had come to win.

       *       *       *       *       *

The cries of many birds, awakening, filled the air. The stars, paling
slowly, died. The breeze stirred summer’s heavy foliage mournfully.

Vytal shut the light from his eyes, and from his ears the sounds of
morning. With head bowed he then relived his life. And the moments when
he had been with Eleanor rose pre-eminent above all other memories.
He thought of the court, of how by his glance toward her he had been
deprived of knighthood. He recalled vividly the fight on London Bridge,
and once more saw her standing in the Southwark gateway. He remembered
their meeting on the fly-boat, and first saw her praying in the
lanthorn-light, then leaning on the bulwark, when they two had been alone
in a world of mystery. At the last she was bending over him as he lay
in the armory after the battle of the ships. Once again her voice was
calling, “John Vytal.”

The repetition of that far-off tone seemed a living echo from his heart.

“John Vytal.”

He moved slightly, and, as if in a waking sleep, looked down at Eleanor;
then started, and, bending closer, strove for an answer to the dream.

In very truth her eyes were open.

“Eleanor.”

“Yes, I live.”

His hand swept across his forehead. “O God, ’tis a dream—again a dream.”

Yet now another hand touched his brow, and, where sight had failed, that
single touch convinced him.

“I am not alone,” he said.

She grasped his hand feebly. “Nay, not alone. I think ’twas a trance.
All the grief, the sudden happiness, the terror, the joy, o’ercame me.
Yet—yet—I am sore wounded.” Her eyes closed; she breathed with an effort.
“Whence came the shot?”

“From Frazer, even as he died.”

An expression, first of pain, then of absolute peace, crossed her face;
but she made no rejoinder, for strength again had failed.

He brushed back a strand of hair from her forehead, stifling a deep moan.
For once his very soul seemed falling to an abyss of fear. Fatalism was
overcome by yearning, the power of endurance by the acute agony of doubt.
Uncertainty laid an icy chill upon his spirit—the spirit of a child lost
in the universe. Essential grief stood face to face with essential joy,
each expecting, yet despairing of the victory. And the result of this
meeting seemed to ravage the elements of being.

Once more Eleanor gazed up to his anguished face.

“Strength returns,” she said, with a wan smile.

He trembled and turned toward the forest, consumed by impatience of the
soul. “Manteo hath gone for healing herbs,” he said. “O God, spare her to
me!”

Long he stood with head bowed and eyes gazing into her face; long he
stood, a bleak rock of the shore, stern, rigid, fixed, striving to force
upon himself the utter calm of self-surrender and finality.

But at the last she stretched out her arms and drew him closer to her.
“God is good,” she said. “In my heart he tells me I shall live.”

Yet even now, as the spirit of promise seemed to be breathed into their
souls, Eleanor, reading Vytal’s face, realized that beneath all his
silent hope that word “failure” had not been obliterated from his great
masculine heart. For the colony of Roanoke was no more.

“Dost not see,” she asked, brokenly, “that success is ours?… Of a
surety, never again will Spaniards seek to land on this Virginia shore.”
Her words were scarcely audible. “Their leader is dead, their lesson
learned.… Future generations will find here a perfect security … because
we, the first, have suffered … and yet won.” She raised herself to one
elbow, bravely subduing her faintness, and pointed toward the headland.
“Look.”

The two mists—the mist of ashes and of the ocean—were gray no longer. The
first flush of morning suffused itself over sea and land.

Eleanor’s eyes sought Vytal’s, but now from the light he turned and
looked steadfastly at the broad, deep forest of the west, with prophetic
resignation in his gaze, as at a world not wholly lost, yet only by
others to be won.

Her hand touched his gently.

“I am not alone,” he said; “nay, not alone.”


THE END




FOOTNOTES


[1] Incredible as it may seem, this despicable deed of cruelty has been
authentically recorded by writers of the time.

[2] As there is absolutely no reliable record of Marlowe’s personal life
and dwelling-place at this time, I have felt justified in attributing his
generally acknowledged absence from London to a Virginia voyage.

[3] See Hakluyt’s Voyages.

[4] It was a common belief of the time that a river ran all the way from
Virginia to Florida.

[5] Backgammon.

[6] This prelude was written in scorn of his predecessors, and to herald
his own conception of a loftier English drama.

[7] From the personal account of Governor White, in _Hakluyt’s Voyages_.

[8] He had been created a peer by Raleigh’s preferment, and was the first
to receive a title in America.

[9] See White’s personal account of his failure in _Hakluyt’s Voyages_.

[10] “The report of an English spy at Madrid to Lord Burleigh certifies
that about this period a young man calling himself Arthur Dudley was
then resident at the court of Spain, who had given it out that he was
the offspring of Queen Elizabeth by the Earl of Leicester.”—Strickland’s
_Lives of the Queens of England_. See also Ellis’s _Letters_, Second
Series; and Doctor Lingard’s translation from the _Records of Simanca_.

       *       *       *       *       *


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THE REFUGEES. A Tale of Two Continents. Illustrated. Post 8vo, Cloth,
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THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES. Illustrated. Post 8vo, Cloth,
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BY THOMAS HARDY

DESPERATE REMEDIES.

TWO ON A TOWER.

THE WOODLANDERS.

FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD.

WESSEX TALES.

A LAODICEAN.

TESS OF THE D’URBERVILLES.

JUDE THE OBSCURE.

THE HAND OF ETHELBERTA.

A PAIR OF BLUE EYES.

THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE.

THE TRUMPET-MAJOR.

UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE.

RETURN OF THE NATIVE.

THE WELL-BELOVED.

    Uniform Edition. Illustrated. Crown 8vo, Cloth, $1 50 per
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