John Vytal: A Tale of the Lost Colony

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

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:

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

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

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

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