John Vytal: A Tale of the Lost Colony

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:

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

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

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