John Vytal: A Tale of the Lost Colony

Handsome, dark faces, prescient with some mystery of the sea, were revealed slowly as the gray light spread. Umbrous eyes, that seemed sleeping, though unclosed, and whose looks were dreams begetting dreams, gazed out to the eastern line. For the sun had not yet risen.

Then, as the sound of the men’s deep voices died away across the sea, a woman’s voice rose higher, in limpid, silvery tones, yet with words that seemed incongruous in the still gray hour of dawn. For the sun had not yet risen.

But the truest singer of them all lay in the bow, shrouded by the daybreak mist, and silent in the depths of slumber.

For the sun had not yet risen.

Thus Christopher Marlowe—an impression, a song, a vivid but fleeting picture—passed from the life of a new-world people.

CHAPTER XXIII

“Master Christopher Marlowe hath disappeared.” The assertion came from Ananias Dare, who at noon joined a number of his fellows idling in the town.

“Ay,” said a gossip following him, “and Gyll Croyden is nowhere to be found.”

“Marlowe gone!” exclaimed one.

“Gyll Croyden missing!” ejaculated another.

“The poet and his love,” insinuated the gossip. The women exchanged glances; the men were grave with apprehension.

“By St. George, ’tis a strange hap,” said a soldier.

“Some ill hath overtaken them as retribution,” declared the Oxford preacher.

“Let us institute a search,” suggested several simultaneously. “We may find them.”

“Nay, they’ve not been seen for many hours.”

“But we should try.”

“Well, then, ’twill keep us fro’ twiddling our thumbs. Ho, Prat! Give us aid. ’Ods precious! Where’s the merry-andrew gone? Was she not his light o’ love as well?”

“Yes,” laughed the gossip, “but saw you not Prat’s look when I told you she had disappeared? He and his bear have gone a-roaming in the forest. Poor clown!”

Many shook their heads with indulgent pity. “Come, let us go in search.”

But Ananias Dare, who, being in the turmoil of a struggle against himself, had said little, now stayed them. “They are not in jeopardy. We ourselves have more to fear. Last night I saw a ship bear away to the east. My masters, I doubt not they have clandestinely deserted us. They have gone.”

“Deserted us!” The exclamation was not from one only, but all, and an angry muttering ran through the company.

“These poets have no courage.”

“She was afraid to stay. The parson bade her marry.”

“We are well rid of them.”

“Ay, but ’tis an outrage.”

Then a new-comer spoke in sharp, condemnatory tones, not against the subjects of their talk, but against their own contumely. It was Vytal. “Yes, Christopher Marlowe hath gone,” he said, “for your sake, not his own. A Breton shallop came from the north, and he, for a cause beyond your ken, hath taken passage therein. In England, he will gain audience with the queen, and persuade her Majesty to send us aid. The thing is done. Now make the best of it.”

Ananias started forward. “And you knew he was going?”

“I knew it.”

“Yet you dared to withhold the knowledge from us?”

Vytal’s lip curled. “’Twas no great daring, but only kindness. I held you to your trust, and so shall till death.” They started toward him, wrathful, riotous. “Oh, you seek to end the matter now? I am at your service. Here, Hugh, to my side!” The giant, hurling aside all who sought to oppose him, obeyed, with broadsword drawn.

Ananias fell back from the front ranks swearing, his retreat seeming to affect the others with a like discretion.

“I have fought for you and by your side,” said Vytal, a new note of grief in his voice; “yet with death you would repay me.”

“Ay, he fought for us well,” cried Rouse, fervently, and the words were echoed in embarrassed whispers through the crowd.

Slowly they turned and left him.

For several hours a stout vagabond wandered aimlessly through the woods, now and then addressing an unresponsive companion. “She’s gone; my laughing Gyll is gone! Come, your Majesty, get you into the barge; we’ll go to Roanoke.” The heavy craft, bulky and awkward as its occupants, moved on and on through the night until at last it touched the southern shore of Roanoke. “Behold that glade, your Majesty; it is the very spot where you danced with her while I piped, and the Indians looked on with wonder. But, body o’ me! those days are gone. King Lud, thou’lt dance no more.” And the vagabond clasped arms with his comrade. “Those days are dead; let ’em be forgot.”

Thus together, hither and thither, round and about, the strange pair wandered, until they came to a ravine margined with a natural arbor of grapes whose tangled vines clambered to the trees and lay like sleeping snakes in a near-by opening. To these the bear paid no attention, but sniffed about the trunks of trees for fruit of another kind. One of the arbors, however, interested the soldier.

“It was here,” he said, “that her wit right bravely saved her from Towaye, and she clipped the locks o’ her sunny head a-weeping. Lack-a-day, those times are mine no longer. Let ’em be bygones, Roger Prat, and think no more on ’t, I do beseech you.”

Suddenly he paused and leaned forward. A long rope shone lustrous amid the tendrils of the arbor. “Body o’ me! ’tis the very strand!” and, extricating it, he looked about to make sure that even the bear had not discovered his secret. Then, as King Lud disappeared in the woods, he sat down for a moment on the ground, and, gently laying the shining curls across his knees, stroked them again and again, murmuring inaudibly as they moved restlessly in the breeze or caught in his clumsy fingers, while, with a bewildered expression, he rolled his eyes. At last he thrust the golden braid into the bosom of his doublet, and for once the new mournfulness of his round, red face was not absurd. But presently he frowned and rose jerkily to his feet. “Yes, that pygmy Rouse is right,” he muttered. “Ye’re daft, Roger Prat—daft, indeed.”

Thereafter, calling to the bear, he spent the day in returning laboriously to Croatan, on whose shore the animal, sufficiently tamed to rove at large, left him, and, still with an unsatisfied appetite, loped off into the forest.

In the evening Eleanor Dare sat in her dining-room with Vytal. “Then he has actually gone?”

“Yes, on a Breton shallop. He waited for months, hoping that the chance would come at last.”

“But he never told me,” said Eleanor.

“Nay, for perhaps the power was not in him.”

She looked deeply thoughtful. “Oh, I comprehend it all now, but then I considered the farewell one of his vagaries. I thought he was bidding good-bye to me only—you understand—yet now his words come back to me with double force. Captain Vytal, we have lost a friend.”

“Yes,” said the soldier, “in truth a friend. It is my duty, however, to tell you that we have regained an enemy;” with which he told her briefly of their meeting with Frazer, of the latter’s pretensions, trickery, and escape. At mention of the duel’s climax, he coldly chid himself without forbearance as he would have censured any other in his place. “There will be a second attempted invasion,” he said, “to repel which we must harbor all our strength. In some unaccountable way this fellow hath escaped Manteo, who but just now has returned, after a futile search. Moreover, Mistress Dare—” But he paused abruptly. He would say no more. From her and from all he must withhold for always the conviction that, by some terrible mischance, John White had come to Roanoke again and gone.

For a moment her eyes questioned him, but, finding no answer, she forbore to voice the query, and quickly dismissed the subject as he willed. Her eyes flashed. “We must, at all cost, defeat them, and assert our rights so strongly as to preclude the possibility of repeated threats.”

“We shall.”

“Oh, captain, I pray you give me work to do in our defence. Idleness palls upon me in times like these. Give me opportunity, if needs be, to suffer for the common good.”

He looked deep into her eyes. “You are one of the few,” he said, slowly, “who are worthy to suffer, and, therefore, ’tis for you I fear.”

To this she would have replied in all the bravery of her hopeful womanhood, but suddenly her expression changed. “Who is that?” she whispered, gazing at a near-by window; and then, as a head was thrust in at a casement, she laughed with evident relief, for the long nose of King Lud, who stood without on his hind-legs, was sniffing the air of the dining-hall.

In another second the animal had dropped to his natural posture, and was for shambling off to Roger’s cabin, but Vytal’s quick eyes had caught sight of a whitish object suspended from the animal’s neck. Uttering a short call by which Prat was wont to summon his pet, Vytal opened the door, and saw King Lud irresolutely awaiting him. With a warning gesture to Eleanor, bidding her remain in the house, he went out and stroked the bear’s head; then, bending down, untied a thong of deerskin and took from under the shaggy throat the object he had noticed. Returning, he held it in the light, while his brow, contracting, darkened. “It is the very horn,” he said, “of Frazer’s using. But there is more, too,” and he drew a crumpled scrap of paper from the muzzle of the instrument. Spreading it out on the table, he read the first words, whose letters, all small capitals, were formed by innumerable perforated dots pricked through the paper evidently by the sharp point of a weapon.

Vytal looked up at Eleanor. “It is probably unfit for your perusal; therefore, with your permission, I will read it first myself,” and, as she inclined her head, he did so.

Vytal tore the paper into shreds. “Once more,” he said, “this mountebank hath grossly insulted my queen.” Eleanor’s cheeks flushed vividly.

By a supreme effort he withdrew his eyes from the crimson token of her love and stared fixedly through the casement into the outer darkness of night. “Our queen,” he added, in a low, metallic voice, “Elizabeth.”

Book III

CHAPTER I

On the shore of Roanoke, under the eastern cliff, a young Indian stood alone, listening. Tall and straight as a spear, his dark form, undraped, save at the loins, suggested, in the moment of immobility, a bronze statue, fresh from a master-hand. The attentive poise, the keen, expectant eyes, the head thrown back, implied in every muscle and outline a mystery, for the whisper of whose voice he waited breathless. But, as the desired sound was not forthcoming, the spell broke suddenly. He moved, and the all-unconscious pose was lost in activity. With light steps that seemed to fall upon an ethereal roadway, even less solid than the shifting sands, he went to a copse of trees beneath the cliff and, bending forward, scanned the long vines and grasses that ran wild beneath his feet. Through the canopy of green above him a host of sun-rays made their way, and, separating into a myriad golden motes, played in and out amid the maze of cedar-roots that met his eyes. A breeze, laden with the fragrance of numberless shrubs and vagrant flowers, stirred the straight black strands of his hair, to which the sun lent a lustrous gloss like the sheen of a raven’s wing. Was it only the air, fresh and warm with midsummer balm, that filled him to the flood with ardent life? Was it merely the sun that kindled those lights in his eyes, and only the free flux of animal spirits that possessed him? The eagerness of his quest gave answer, and even the song-birds, now in silence watching him from high above, seemed to divine that here was no intruding fowler, no mere hawk more powerful than themselves.

Again he paused, listening, and now the intent look changed to an expression of apprehension and dismay. The statue of Hope was transformed to a figure of Alarm; the pleasure of seeking to the disquietude of a search in vain.

Suddenly, however, from the branch of an oak-tree, in the heart of whose shadow he stood, a voice came down to him, blithe, merry, triumphant, and the voice, for all its melody, was not a bird’s. “Dark Eye, the White Doe is here.” He looked up, smiling, and somewhat mortified, but not long, for in a minute the maid, who had outwitted him in their game of hide-and-seek, stood on the ground, her laughing eyes and words bantering him without mercy. “Oh, what availeth the speed and craft of Dark Eye when the White Doe hides?”

“Virginia,” he said, pronouncing the name with difficulty, “thou art no white doe, but a spirit of the woods.”

As a description of her appearance his observation was not amiss. The little Virginia Dare, a child no longer, seemed rather a spirit than a maid. Yet in the gentle curves of her form and the expressive depth of her hazel eyes there was already a promise of maturity. They were a pair of rovers, these two, without guile, without one marring trace of worldly comprehension, without that indefinable, but ever-apparent, disingenuousness of face and voice that comes when the fruit of knowledge has been tasted; they were deer, revelling in their forest freedom, and sea-gulls, loving the water. Sylvanites, barbarians, brother and sister, going and coming as they willed, they were always together, and, as yet, in no way conscious of themselves.

And the guardian angel was Eleanor. To her the freedom of their companionship was a source of constant joy. Had she not done well to leave their Eden unbounded by convention? Could she not thus in a measure regain what she herself had lost, and allow Virginia the happiness which had been withheld from her? “Yes,” she answered, in one of her reveries, “it is well.” And from the day of that first decision, Virginia, always clad in white draperies, loose and clinging, went barefoot, hatless, and unrestrained. The years of restriction were yet in the future.

Indeed, as the two now stood together on the shore—primordial beings, all unblemished by a past—that future, though approaching, seemed far away.

“Come,” said Virginia, after she had taunted him sufficiently to please her whim, “you so nearly found me that I will grant reward for the tedious quest.”

She went to the base of the cliff, while he, enchanted by her every motion, and striving to guess the nature of the guerdon, followed her in silent wonder. Near the cliff she paused and took a shell, pink, shallow, and translucent, from an old wampum-pouch that, in their childhood, he had given her. Next, she plucked from a vine that rambled down the cliff-side a cluster of grapes, green as their own leaves, and almost bursting. “There,” she said, casting them on a strip of mossy ground; “now wait,” with which she trod upon the cluster with her bare feet; then, as their luscious juice ran freely, held them aloft, and the shell beneath, so that into it the sparkling drops fell one by one until they overflowed the brim.

And now, after touching the nepenthe to her lips, she held out the delicate chalice to him and bade him drink.

As though participating in some magic that would presently enchant them both, he tasted, and would have emptied the shell delightedly, but on a sudden he started and, letting fall the fairy cup, pointed to the sea. With a cry of astonishment, Virginia and her comrade ran to a winding path which led to a higher vantage-point, and in a moment they stood upon a headland, side by side, he transfixed, she trembling with excitement.

“’Tis a ship,” she said, breathlessly. “I can just remember the white wings. In one of these ships my grandfather sailed away, and they say that I saw him go. In another went Master Kyt, but I saw not the wings that bore him from us. I wonder if Master Kyt is returning? How many years have passed since he departed?” She held up her hand and counted them on her tapering fingers. “’Tis five—”

But for once the Indian was not heeding her. “Look,” he said, “there is not one ship only.”

Turning again to face the sea, she saw two distinct white clouds, one in the middle distance, one just surmounting the horizon.

“Come,” suggested Virginia, “let us give the signal to our people who fish in the sound.” So saying, she led him along the palisade until they reached Vytal’s deserted hut, near which the old culverin still remained on guard and ready-primed. “This is the way,” she commanded—“Captain Vytal showed me,” and, when he had obeyed her instructions, a deafening roar went seaward from the land. “Oh, ’tis a terrible sound,” cried Virginia, covering her ears with her hands; “but that is enough, and now let us go down to meet the townsmen as they land and tell them the tidings before they spy those wings themselves.” As she started away, first one, then another musket-shot, each fainter than the last, answered her signal from the south. With a long succession of alarums, the fishermen repeated the first startling report back and back even to Croatan.

By the time Virginia and the Indian reached the northern shore several barges were already within sight.

Vytal, leading in a canoe, was the first to land.

“Two ships are coming!” cried Virginia. “Where is my mother?” But the soldier strode past her, making no reply, his eyes ablaze with a light that long ago had left them as though forever.

Hugh Rouse, stepping ashore from the next canoe, leaned forward from his great height and seized Virginia by the arm as though to crush her with a single grasp. “What were those words of thine?” he demanded, with unprecedented ferocity. “Speak them again!”

“A ship is coming,” she said, half fearfully; “nay, two.” But the last words were unheard, and the giant, turning to face the many approaching barges, roared out, “A sail!”

“A sail! A sail! A sail!” was the wild cry which, repeated again and again, with increasing frenzy, went ringing from the foremost craft to the very last. And, before long, the headland on the eastern coast was overrun by mad men and women who, with tears streaming from their eyes and kerchiefs frantically waving, gave free vent to their overwhelming joy. The floodgates of emotion, so long forced to withstand a mighty strain, had been shattered in an instant; and now the torrent, tempestuous, whirling, wild, upleaping, uncontrollable, burst from their very souls.

Salvation was at hand.

All believed so, and the belief possessed them utterly, from those who stood at the edge of the headland transfixedly gazing seaward, to those who shouted with gladness, and the others who, standing yet farther back, bowed their heads while the preacher voiced their thanksgiving to God. In the foremost line, silent and rigid, stood Vytal; in the last, Eleanor Dare, with her daughter, praying. But soon Virginia, slipping her hand from her mother’s, rejoined the Indian, to chide him laughingly for having let fall the shell, which now lay in fragments far below. For to these two alone the sails meant little, seeming no more than the wings to which they had likened them. To the White Doe and Dark Eye there was no far-distant home ever calling for its own. Unlike their English neighbors, these two were no foster-children, but inheritors of the land by right of birth. This was their country, this their home. Only here could their happiness mature, and seemingly only apart from the colony could they live as their hearts desired. For that uncertain, wavering shyness and sign of an uncomprehended fear, which long ago Marlowe had noticed, still softened Virginia’s eyes with a mystic veil. She was not beloved by the settlers save as a pet bird whose grace and beauty they admired. For she lacked the magnetism of her mother, yet received, perhaps, more frequent praise. There was still that difference between Eleanor and Virginia which Marlowe had defined as the difference between spirituality and mysticism. The one was in all ways a solace, the other pretty to look upon, but never restful, and this lack of restfulness, more than all else, explains her unpopularity in the settlement of laborers.

To-day, feeling more restless than ever, “Look,” she said, “Roger Prat shall pipe to us.” With which she led her companion by the hand through the babbling throng to Roger, who, arm-in-arm with his bear, was swaggering here and there, discoursing bombastically on the approaching ships, as though he himself deserved thanks for the benefit.

“How now, Goodman Prat,” inquired Virginia, as they joined him; “art going to leave thy flute silent at such a time?”

He turned and, with head on one side, surveyed her narrowly. “The pipe pipeth no more,” he said, “for the necessary wind hath gone out of my heart.”

“Lungs,” corrected Virginia, with a silvery laugh.

“Lungs,” he assented, gravely; “but, White Doe, see here!” He pointed to a small tabor that hung by his side. “I have brought this drum wherewith to celebrate. Hark to Roger’s tattoo!” And, drawing from his belt a pair of drum-sticks, he marched about, with a rat-a-tat-tat-tat-too. “Sing, ho, the taborin, little taborin,” he cried, “merry taborin,” and his sticks danced furiously on the drum. He was thinking of England, and of the chance that he might return to forgive Gyll Croyden.

But Virginia, pouting, turned away. “That is not music,” she said to the Indian. “He is changed.”

Hers was the only frown that, until now, had crossed a face that morning. Hilarity laid hold on the jubilant throng, and turned all save the most serious ones to children.

Musket-shots rang out in celebration; cheer on cheer filled the air, until, growing hoarse with their incessant huzzahs, planters, soldiers, traders, wives, daughters, sons, and even lonely widows and orphans, still kept waving their arms to the distant ships in silence. And still Roger, with King Lud in his wake, went the round, now gesticulating in the air with both of his drum-sticks, next pointing with one to the sails, and again setting the pair ajig on his tabor in clamorous acclaim.

Suddenly, however, catching sight of Vytal’s face, he desisted and hastened to the captain’s side. Vytal spoke in a low voice that none but Prat and Hugh Rouse might catch the tenor of his words. “An I mistake not, those ships are not our friends.” Roger and Hugh turned, in dismay, to look once more across the water.

Rouse, shading his eyes with a great hand, swore roundly beneath his breath.

“Body o’ me!” exclaimed Prat, who for once could say no more.

Vytal had spoken truly. For now that the ships came slowly within range of the watchers’ vision, the fact became obvious to one and another on the headland that these were not vessels of English build.

Gradually a desperate silence assumed sway over the colonists, while they advanced anxiously to the cliff’s edge. “They are enemies,” whispered one.

“Ay, ’fore Heaven, they are not of friendly countenance.”

Then a voice rose trembling in a high key, and Ananias, terror-struck, covered his eyes. “Oh, my God! the two are Spaniards from St. Augustine. Look! Look! One is the Madre de Dios!”

Vytal turned quickly to the settlers. “Yes, they are Spaniards,” he said, harshly, “and one is the Madre de Dios. She hath been defeated once; ’tis for us to sink her now.”

A low groan ran through the throng. Alarm had stifled hope. But, as none gave answer, Vytal spoke again. “Let those who are afraid return and seek safety at Croatan. I and my men will meet them.”

“Yea,” laughed Prat, “right gladly meet them.”

But already half the number had deserted, and, led by Ananias, were now stampeding toward their barges on the southern shore. Only the fighting-men and Eleanor remained on the headland. Suddenly an ejaculation from Prat caused Vytal to turn. The foremost of the Spanish vessels stood tentatively with flapping sails, as though undecided, and in another moment a long, rakish-looking craft, propelled by several rowers, had left the ships, and was making its way to the shore. In the prow an officer, gaudily dressed, stood erect, waving aloft a pike, from the blade of which a white flag floated lightly on the breeze. Slowly the long-boat drew nearer, until its stem swished on the sand. Then, stepping out, the Spanish officer, wearing no visible arms, turned to one and another with a lordly insolence, and finally accosted Vytal in English. “I am the admiral,” he said, “of our little fleet, and would speak with a person in command.”

“I,” said Vytal, “govern the colony.”

On hearing this the Spaniard started perceptibly and scrutinized the bleak, impassive face with heightened interest. “May I inquire,” he asked, with a curious mingling of autocratic condescension and true respect, “concerning your Excellency’s name?”

“’Tis the Wolf,” replied Roger Prat, impulsively, before Vytal could answer.

The admiral smiled. “Ah, the Wolf! ’tis well for me I seek only an armistice at your hands—a short and friendly truce. We are in sore straits. Having but recently escaped wreckage, we are now like to die of thirst and starvation. I have here the usual conditions of an armistice, which I submit for your consideration,” and he handed Vytal a sheet of paper which conveyed, in English, his proposal:

Vytal, having read the document aloud, handed it back to its author. “This hath been quickly framed,” he said, scanning narrowly the other’s face; “or else it was writ before you sighted Roanoke.”

The Spaniard laughed uneasily. “I perceive,” he said, “that his Excellency, the Wolf, hath eyes which read a man’s soul. Yet I myself indited these proposals at seeing your company on the headland. ’Twas in no way preconceived, and that is truth.”

“How many men do you command?” asked Vytal, with slow deliberation.

“Threescore soldiers,” was the quick response.

“’Tis well,” said Vytal, “and we are trebly strong.”

“Trebly!” ejaculated the admiral, unguardedly.

“Nay,” observed Vytal, inwardly numbering the Indians as allies. “Much more than trebly.”

The Spaniard covered his surprise with a yawn. “I trust you will make haste,” he said, “for while you delay we starve.”

“So be it,” assented Vytal, curtly, and turned on his heel.

The admiral bowed and withdrew to his long-boat.

“’Tis our only chance,” said Vytal to Eleanor. “We must arm every man, red and white, that, in the event of treachery, we may die fighting.”

“Think you, then,” she asked, anxiously, “their force is so much the stronger?”

“Beyond doubt, madam, they far outnumber us.” His face grew tense, and for a moment almost desperate. “If they gain knowledge of our weakness, we are lost.”

He spoke hurriedly to Rouse. “Go instantly to Croatan. Ask Manteo to bring his tribesmen here without delay. Say that I have sent you. Speak, then, to our own people. Adjure them, in God’s name, to proceed hither within the hour. Make known the conditions of the armistice. If fear still deters them, and they suspect treachery on the part of our enemies, make no threat, but say that only within this palisado can we hope for safety. At Croatan they could not possibly withstand invaders. Here the fortifications are ready built. Let the people bring all available provisions for a siege, yet mention not the word ‘siege.’ Say merely that until the Spanish depart we remain here to trade with them.” He turned to Prat. “Do you, Roger, go with Hugh, and by your wit compel them to obey. My whole trust is in you both. Make haste!”

Without a word they started off, the giant with great strides, the vagabond with rolling gait, and for once not garrulous, but genuinely grave.

Vytal, returning to the headland, spoke to Dyonis Harvie, who stood near by. “You, Dyonis, assume command of the fortress, where the women and children will look to you for their defence.”

For many minutes Eleanor and Vytal stood in silence, motionless. From far away came the sound of the surf droning on the beach, with which, from beyond the screen of woods between them and the town, a low hum of preparation was blent monotonously. At last they walked to the brow of the cliff whereon stood the watchful culverin, and looked down at the lengthening shadows on the shore.

Small groups of Spaniards and Englishmen were gathered together here and there busy in trade.

“They buy and sell most peacefully,” observed Eleanor.

“Yes,” said Vytal, “they traffic as friends.”

CHAPTER II

On the fourth night after the ships’ arrival, the colonists and Hatteras Indians, all of whom, at Vytal’s command, had come from Croatan, congressed near the fortress of Roanoke. In the centre of the square a camp-fire of great logs and dried branches roared and crackled cheerfully, while encircling the blaze sat red men and white, some half prone in sleep, others upright and talking. Somewhat apart from the main gathering, and just beyond range of the firelight, were Vytal and Manteo, while, midway between them and a number of sleeping soldiers, sat Virginia Dare and her Indian comrade. Not far away lay Hugh Rouse, sprawled near the outer border of embers, and snoring loudly, while next to him sat Roger Prat, blinking at the fire. In the fortress most of the women and children, under Dyonis Harvie’s protection, were slumbering peacefully, while Dyonis himself sat yawning in the doorway. Each of the three entrances to the town was guarded by one or more pickets, well armed. At the northern gateway, which led to Vytal’s cabin, a single sentry stood alert; at the southern and nearest, by which Eleanor had made egress that night when Frazer and Towaye had captured her, another soldier kept careful watch; at the main portal on the eastern side two sentinels paced to and fro with muskets loaded. Furthermore, a body of twelve arquebusiers lay far below on the beach, to make sure that from the Spanish ships no landing was attempted.

To trade at night, or leave the town without Vytal’s permission, was forbidden. And perhaps only one person at Roanoke rebelled inwardly against the latter restriction. This was Virginia Dare, whose nature demanded absolute freedom. “Oh, tell me, Dark Eye,” she said, as the silence and bondage became unbearable, “why are we compelled to remain here like prisoners?”

“It is the will of our father, the Wolf,” replied the Indian. “He seeks to protect his children.”

She made an impatient gesture. “Come, Dark Eye, let us ask Roger Prat if we may not go down to the sea for another shell and for my father. Dost know he strangely disappeared to-day and has not been seen again?”

“Thy father disappeared?” exclaimed the Indian.

“Yes, within the forest. But come!” and together they joined the soldier. “Goodman Prat, I pray you give us liberty. Not all the armies of the world can find us an we hide. There are caves, ravines, arbors—”

“Yes,” interposed Prat, dreamily, “arbors, grape-arbors.”

“Come,” she persisted, “take us past the centronel.”

With a jerk of his head, as though awaking from reverie, Roger looked up at her. “Nay, White Doe, it is impossible. Will you not sit here and comfort me? I am depressed.”

Poutingly, she granted his request, and, patting the grass beside her, indicated an adjacent seat for the Indian. “How now, Roger?” said she. “Why so glum and owlish? Is ’t because your friend King Lud is absent?”

For a moment Prat surveyed her in silence, rolling his eyes, until at length, “Nay,” he replied, “I am well accustomed to his Majesty’s peregrinations. Oftentimes for a whole week he roves, and never a sight of him. ’Tis but three days now since he went a-nutting. Nay, nay, ’tis not o’ the bear I think—not o’ the bear.”

“Of what, then?”

But, giving no answer, he only blinked and blinked at the fire, so mournfully that many, noticing his look, long remembered it.

Vytal watched him silently.

“He hath even forgot,” observed Manteo, “to smoke his pipe of uppowac.”

The soldier made no response, but asked, finally: “Art sleepy, Manteo?”

“Nay, most wakeful.”

“I, too, am so; but sith for two nights no sleep hath come to me, ’tis essential that I rest. Do you keep watch, and, if aught occurs beyond the ordinary, arouse me instantly.” Whereupon, stretching himself at full length, Vytal folded his arms across his eyes.

Nearly all were now lying asleep, and the fire burned very low. Only Virginia Dare, Dark Eye, and Roger Prat seemed wide-awake.

The low tread of the sentinel at the nearest gate told them that safety was assured. The stillness of the town, profound and all-pervading, was broken at rare intervals only by the screech of an owl or the low murmur of voices, while the dreary monotone of the distant surf seemed as it were to accompany the dirge of silence.

Suddenly, however, the sentry’s voice, in a low challenge, caught the quick ear of Virginia, but, as Prat turned apprehensively, she laughed aloud. Then Roger himself shook with merriment. “Body o’ me! he hath challenged King Lud, and, I’ll warrant, is now calling himself a fool. Behold his Majesty!” And, sure enough, there was the well-known bulky form loping on all fours through the entrance. As it came near the circle of firelight the cumbrous shadow flattened out.

“He’s not overjoyed to see you,” laughed Virginia, and she would have gone forward to pat the shaggy head, but Prat restrained her.

“Nay, wait. ’Tis a trick of his. He knows well he hath been a deserter, and is full of shame. Look you—his eyes are shut; the prankish monarch pretends to be indifferently asleep. Now take no notice, but out of the corner of your eye watch him. He always comes to me in the end, an I pay no attention to his whimsicality.”

Virginia, pleased at any diversion, cast a sidelong glance at the long snout which lay tranquilly between the paws, more in the position of a dog’s nose than a bear’s. “For once,” she observed, “his Majesty is not sniffing at us.”

“’Tis his game,” declared Prat. “Now watch, and I’ll turn my back impertinently.”

For some time the huge pate lay motionless. “He’s really asleep,” said Virginia.

“That may be,” allowed Roger, “for I doubt not his three days’ roaming has wearied him considerably. He’s a cub no longer, and has, I’ll swear, lumbago, like myself. Let him lie. But here’s a great brute who’s slept too long.” And Roger poked Hugh Rouse viciously with his foot. Yawning, the giant rolled over, and surveyed them stupidly. “Numskull!” exclaimed Prat, “thank the Lord we look not to you for protection. I’d sooner trust King Lud, though for the moment even he’s a-dreaming.”

Virginia, amused at his raillery, cast another look behind her. “Nay,” she whispered. “See, he has crawled nearer.”

“Oh, has he, indeed!” said Roger. “I’ll give him his deserts in time. But first this dwarfling here must explain himself.” He glanced down at Rouse. “How now, sirrah?—think you we are safe at home in England? Do your weighty dreams increase our numbers, that are in reality so desperate small? Think you the Spanish force could not swallow us up as thy great maw would engulf a herring? Poor fool, sleep on in thy fond delusion,” and, raising his brows in feigned contempt, Roger turned to the silent Indian and Virginia. “Now the lord chancellor shall have the honor of punishing his renegade monarch right merrily.”

He rose, turned, and swaggered toward the ungainly shadow.

As if the animal had readily divined his intention, the great nose shifted now this way, now that, irresolutely. “See!” cried Roger, “he creeps away like a beaten hound,” and Virginia saw the bowlder-like shadow rolling off toward the palisade.

“Villain!” cried Prat, “come hither,” with which he ran forward wrathfully.

But just as he was about to cuff the upraised snout with the palm of his hand, the awkward figure rose, and a glistering light shone for an instant in the fire-glare. With a groan Roger stumbled, and would have fallen, but now a mass of dark fur was flung at his feet, and a man, who had emerged from beneath it, started, quick as a flash, toward the gateway. Uttering a loud oath of pain and anger, the soldier sprang across the bearskin, and, although mortally wounded, contrived to grasp the stranger. Then, with a great effort, for at each moment the blood spurted from his breast, he threw his captive heavily to the ground. Again and again his antagonist’s short blade flashed and buried itself in his arm; yet, flinging himself bodily on the writhing form, Roger held the spy a prisoner.

Even as he fell, a cry from Manteo awoke Vytal, while the others, startled by the commotion, leaped to their feet in wild confusion. Then, above the turmoil, rose Vytal’s voice piercingly: “’Tis naught!” For a single glance at the struggling pair and the empty bearskin had told him that a spy was caught.

As the excited colonists gathered about the grappling couple, Roger rolled over in a swoon, and Vytal looked down at the captive, who was in an instant held firmly by Manteo and Rouse.

“It is Frazer,” he said, calmly. “Bind him, and take him to the fort.”

“Nay,” was the prisoner’s rejoinder, in a low, musical voice, “’tis his Highness, the Crown Prince.”

CHAPTER III