Book II
CHAPTER I
“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
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.