Newgate, and intended coining English shillings is as false as Hell.
When shall his prosecution be pushed?”
“At once,” answered Tamworth.
“On what charge?”
“Perjury.”
“The penalty is what?”
“He can be tried either under the statute or the common law. Under the
latter, the punishment is death.”
“Let it be the latter,” said Peele and Shakespere before Marlowe could
answer.
“But to return to the suggestion of your concealment,” said Peele, “How
can you remain concealed for any length of time?”
“No one will look for me. All who know me will hear the account of my
death at Deptford.”
“But someone besides us and the wife of Frazer will doubtless encounter
thee.”
“Can I not lie safely housed until passage can be secured for the
continent?”
“But in what quarter?”
“Far from the old familiar places, Peele,” answered Marlowe. “Not at
the Black Bull, nor at Gerard’s Hall; nor at the Mermaid Tavern. And
are these names to be but memories? Why, it is not two weeks since we
secretly played Tancred and Gismund to the crowded galleries in the
Bull; and then the dance around the fir-pole in the high-roofed hall at
Gerard’s! That was not a month since, Peele. And verily my lips have
not yet dried from the last glasses of fine old wine drank with thee,
Nash, Jonson and the other merry wags at the round table within the
bow-window at the Mermaid.”
Peele rocked backward and forward without speaking.
“Ah well, such frivolity should have ended long ago,” Marlowe went on,
in a tone growing sterner with every word. “When mine enemy, Greene,
dying of his surfeit of Rheinish wine and pickled herring, besought
his friends in his Groat’s Worth of Wit [note 35] to abandon dissolute
companions and in solitude nourish their spirit’s fire, why should I,
despite his attack upon me, have not listened to his warning voice
addressed to others, and not have waited for a finger dipped in blood
to write, ‘Here endeth thy career?’”
A pause followed in which no one spoke, and again he continued: “’Tis
well that this has happened. Without it what could have stayed me from
wasting the hours which henceforth can be spent only in intellectual
effort? Now the devil is chained. I can not even sell my soul to
him. The world with its temptations lieth as distant as the fields of
Trasymene. Is it not a subject for congratulation? What campaigns may I
not enter; what conquests may I not gain?”
With the egotism of a god, knowing himself, and the source from which
he drew his inspiration, he continued his torrent of words:
“Tamburlaine was written with the collar of the university about
my neck; Faustus, while my hatred of the existing laws designed to
chain one’s belief, prevented a just appreciation of true religion;
the Massacre of Paris, with my mind disturbed from the effects of
continuous dissipation; Hero and Leander, while deep in Love’s young
dream; and so on with the list. But now what is there to clog or muddy
the fountains? Is my mind not broader; are not the impediments to
studious application and undisturbed contemplation removed? For twenty,
thirty, yea forty or fifty years, what is before me but the opportunity
to produce immortal and transcendent work? Nay, give me ten years in
solitude, O thou dread force, and under my hand all form, all thought,
shall find expression in written words!”
He fell forward on the table with outstretched arms and clenched hands.
Shakespere lifted him up; pityingly brushed back the hair from his
face, and said: “Forget the matter for a moment.”
No other words were spoken; still the rain pattered on the window
opening towards St. Michael’s, and no sounds came up from the narrow
walks in Crooked Lane.
At length Tamworth broke the silence. “I do not doubt, dear Kit, that
whatever may be thy aim, thy arrow will reach. But life can not be
maintained without capital or revenue. Your design being linked with
an ambition for personal immortality precludes the publication of thy
productions till after thy death or when hope of life is gone. Now,
where will come the fund for thy maintenance?”
“Thou canst not appear as an actor,” suggested Shakespere.
“And neither can the works you may produce be sold as thine,” said
Peele.
“Could they not be sold under some one else’s name?” asked Marlowe. “At
the proper time their authorship could be confessed and established.”
“But in whose name?” queried Peele.
“Why not thine; at least temporarily?”
“Bah,” ejaculated Peele, “I could not pass thy dramas off as mine. The
style, my dear fellow, the style. Henslowe would at once say, ‘What
Peele, this thy drama? Marry, and where didst thou steal this new fire?
Off with thee. It is none of thine. Leave it. I will look up the older
dramatists, Greek and Latin, from which I ween thou hast taken its
entire,’”
“Then why not as thine, Shakespere?”
“Mine,” exclaimed Shakespere, shaking with laughter which he could not
control, “Greater objections than those stated by Peele would arise.
Only a few years ago I held horses before the Curtain and Theater. I
write a play; Ho! Ho!”
He laughed so heartily that Tamworth joined with him.
“Stop,” said Peele, endeavoring to interrupt the sudden mirth, “The
suggestion is a good one. What does Henslowe know of your horseholding,
friend Will?”
“But,” answered Shakespere, “he knoweth that I came from the miserable
village of Stratford-on-Avon only six years ago, where there are few
books and nothing better than a grammar school. [note 36] Although
I can say ‘Stipendium peccati mors est,’ as being learned from thy
Faustus, Marlowe, I would die in the attempt to give its meaning.”
“He surely will not question thee about thy Latin or thy Greek,” said
Tamworth, joining in with the scheme, “and as thou hast never turned
a hand at such work, there are not, as in Peele’s case, fair-skinned
children of earlier birth to give the lie to the paternity of the later
ones of different complexion.”
“And am I to claim them as mine?” asked Shakespere.
“Only as may be necessary for the sale to theatrical managers,”
answered Marlowe.
“And perchance grow famous; for we know the depth and strength of thy
work.”
“Only for a time,” said Marlowe, impressively, “In the end all will be
clear.”
“So be it then,” said Shakespere.
“But thy handwriting, Marlowe, is too well known. Still,” continued
Tamworth, “the manuscript may be copied, and as I write a clear hand I
would gladly aid thee.”
“But where are you to live, Kit?”
“At Southwark?” questioned the latter.
“Nay,” exclaimed Tamworth, “the Rose is there, with many players who
know thee, and its numerous hangers-on. The heart of this city is far
better. I know of a retreat. No hunted deer ever found so secure a
covert. It is the building known as the Prince’s Wardrobe on the Old
Jewry. Its corridors are unfrequented except by the few tenants who,
through the benevolence of the present keeper, dwell in some of the
chambers. Its demolition, begun many years ago, has been stayed. Once
vacated because of notice of its contemplated razing, it is again
being occupied through the apparent inertness of its owners. But this
inaction is due to other causes--”
“I have heard of secret chambers there,” interrupted Peele.
“There are,” continued Tamworth, “It was once used as a palace, but its
early history is lost. Some of its stone walls are down, and above the
cleared ruins at one end, divers lordly buildings have been reared; but
the half portion towards St. Olave is intact. A question concerning
its title being now unsettled in the courts, no progress can be made
either in its repair or its destruction. Years may pass before the
question is finally determined. The receiver appointed by the courts is
a descendant of Sir Anthony Cope, who purchased the property from the
crown in 1548, and, due to my acquaintance with him, and late services
rendered, I now have a furnished chamber therein. The way out, or in,
may be easy of discovery, and my quarters are occasionally visited by
friends, but to me alone is known an inner room where you can dwell in
perfect safety.”
“Thy words are of good cheer,” exclaimed Marlowe, “and no delay must be
incurred.”
“Did you encounter no one upon entering here?” asked Peele.
“No; I came in at the side entrance. It was open. Crooked Lane was
deserted as far as I could see.”
“And on the road from Deptford?”
“No one who knew me appeared upon the road. At the Golden Hind as I
passed the tap-room door I caught a glimpse of the drawer, one of the
actors who had been with me early in the evening, and the wife of
Frazer.”
“Ah; she has not escaped then?” exclaimed Tamworth. “This is serious.
She may be held until after the discovery of the deed.”
“Undoubtedly she has been,” answered Marlowe, “I could not catch the
occasion of her resting in the tap-room, neither could I pause, for
discovery would have been certain.”
“Did she see thee?”
“I think not, for the drawer stood before her, so that only a portion
of her gown was visible to me. I mounted hurriedly in the inn-yard and
riding to the gnarled oak I waited under it, and in the thick fog for
at least an hour. She did not come.”
“She will testify against thee.”
“Never,” exclaimed Marlowe.
“Ah,” said Tamworth, prolonging the word and opening wide his eyes.
“Have no fears of that,” continued Marlowe, firmly, and then as though
to turn their thoughts into another channel, he continued: “The ride
over that country road was lonely beyond all comparison. I slunk by
the lights at Redriffe like one unarmed passing by the known lair
of a sleeping lion. At the moment they struck my face I could have
fallen from the saddle. But no eye of careless watcher was apparently
following their seams into the darkness; for no haloo broke the night.
The wood of oak and elm fencing the road this side the half-way house
was resonant with swaying limbs. A wind was coming from the river, and
the fog was like rain.”
“Was it dark?”
“So dark I could not see the ground.”
“Thy horse found the way and reached the bridge?”
“No, I turned not in towards it; but passing Bataille’s Inn, I
rode down to a waterman’s house close by the river’s bank. There I
dismounted, tied my horse and found the waterman. He was tying his
wherry at the foot of the landing. With much persuasion, I induced him
to row me across and, reaching the stone steps somewhere near the Swan,
I came here with all haste.”
“And when were you last at your quarters in Coward Lane?”
“Just before starting for Deptford.”
“Whatever is there must be left.”
“Nay,” exclaimed Marlowe, “I have much unfinished work there.”
“Doth not Nash lodge in the same tenement?”
“Yes, in the room adjoining.”
“Doth he know of these writings?”
“All about them. He is engaged with me in writing the tragedy of Dido.
I read him the two sestiads of Hero and Leander only two nights since.”
“Well then such things can not be taken unless Nash is numbered with
us.”
“’Twould not be well,” said Tamworth, “the lesser the number holding
the secret, the less fear of discovery.”
“Thy judgment is sound, Tamworth,” said Marlowe, “let Nash finish the
tragedy, and have him place the poem of Hero and Leander in the hands
of Chapman with word that it was my dying request that he complete it
[note 37].”
“Good,” exclaimed Peele, “and perchance embodying within it some golden
lines touching thy unfortunate demise.”
“Most excellent,” said Marlowe, smiling at the thought of reading of
his own death and the estimate of his own worth expressed in the poetic
language of a loving friend.
“These matters,” said Tamworth, “will be attended to as strictly as
bequests should be by an executor. We must at once reach my lodgings.”
“Leave the Count’s cloak and take this of mine,” said Peele, taking
down a short mantle from a hook against the wall.
A POINT OF CONFLUENCE.
_If ever sun stained heaven with bloody clouds,_
_And made it look with terror on the world:_
_If ever day were turned to ugly night_
_And night made semblance of the hue of hell, etc._
--_The Massacre at Paris, scene 2._
_Oh! I have passed a miserable night,_
_So full of ugly sights, of ghastly dreams,_
_That as I am a Christian, faithful man,_
_I would not spend another such a night,_
_Though ’twere to buy a world of happy days._
--_King Richard III, i, 4._
The human sea of London was at the period of its deepest calm. The
noisy idle white-caps of the night had been laid at rest, and not
yet had the strong billows of the trade current begun their steady
roll. The sun might already have lifted his rim slightly above the
Langdon Hills, but no evidence of his coming was as yet visible in
the labyrinth of London streets. One might have turned one’s face
upward in the drizzling rain and noticed the clouds with faint glow
suffused, but whether it was moonlight filtering through broken ranks
of driving vapor, or the gray of the dawn, could not for a time have
been determined.
It was at this hour that two men were passing into that ancient
street of the city known as the Old Jewry. Their heads were muffled
in their cloaks or capes; their nearer arms locked as they walked
abreast, and their steps were as swift as it was possible to take in
the darkness. They stumbled along without a link light or a lanthorn to
show the holes in the broken pavements, the turns of streets and other
impediments and intricacies of the way. It was not only unusual but a
matter to excite suspicion, for any person with even the weight of an
untattered coat on his back to venture thus through the quarters from
which these two men had come. Here and there, a lanthorn in the hands
of a bellman of the night blinked and wavered; and directly before
them, the flaring torch of a link-boy shot a shifting light along
black, dripping shop fronts and displayed the figure, close following
in its wake, of a solitary horseman.
No part of the city was deemed safe after the candles, burning in the
horn receptacles before the dwellings and shops, were extinguished.
The hour for such extinguishment was nine; and close following it, on
moonless and foggy nights, bludgeon-bearing thieves issued from reeking
alleys into the public streets, and assaulted belated passers. The
bellman, with his formidable halberd, might rush where he heard the
cry of the person assaulted, but long before he reached the spot his
lanthorn had warned the assaulter, and naught but the bleeding victim,
with rifled pockets, would meet his gaze.
But the solitary thief, or skulking pairs of rufflers, were not the
only menace against night walks. Bodies, numbering sometimes a hundred
men, having assembled in some obscure den, would sally forth at
midnight and rob the houses of whomsoever were reported to have money
or treasure. Murder at such times, either of defenseless citizens in
night robes within their houses, or inoffensive unfortunates stumbling
into the ranks of the lawless crews, was a crime of frequent occurrence.
The neighborhood of the junction of Poultry street and the street of
the Old Jewry was a favorite rendezvous of these thieves; for the
majority of the persons stirring late at night in that locality was
of the class wearing jewels or carrying coin, and the situation was
favorable for robbing without hazard. At the corner of the two streets
one could command a vision for many blocks in several directions. The
moving lights of the guardians of the night could thus be watched
without fear of the unexpected approach of the latter. While one thief
might be thus occupied, his fellows could halt, assault and rob the
incautious passer. The lofty buildings rendered the shadows deep upon
the pavements on all nights, and the wide portico of St. Olave, with
its great columns, made an excellent ambush. Behind this church ran
Cutthroat Lane--a narrow and never-lighted alley, into which one, with
but a few feet of separation from a pursuing officer, could enter
and vanish as though swallowed by the sea. It was a row of shackly
tenements, facing one side of this alley, that thus gave friendly
aid. Their doors were always ajar, even when winter storms prevailed;
and stairs, ascending to intricate upper halls, and descending into
connecting cellars, soon baffled all panting pursuers. Even the
cautious police who, in daytime, attempted to thread the ways through
which some desperado had eluded pursuit, were confused with blind
passages and daunted by a darkness and silence that imported evil.
On this particular night, five thieves were hanging like trembling
shadows about the portico of St. Olave. The night was almost spent
and not one groat had they raised. All the passing groups of men had
comprised too many members to warrant any attack and the one sole
traveler, whom they had seized at the mouth of Cutthroat Lane proved
to be a beggar. His unconscious body now lay face downward in the mud
of that lane. The chance of his recovery from the blow of one of the
disappointed robbers was a question for the doctors.
What business had beggars to be abroad at the hour when gentlemen were
returning from nightly revels? Who could distinguish a ragged cloak
from one edged with gold in such darkness? Gentlemen thieves were not
to be lightly imposed upon. A varlet who has no angels in his pockets
should be abed at dark. For such the sleep that knows no waking is a
blessing. This was the argument of the men who had halted the beggar.
As the two men, whose steps we have been following, entered the Old
Jewry, their approach was a matter of notice, and as they reached a
spot directly before the church, three of the thieves sprang out of the
shadows of its projecting entrance. The attack came so unexpectedly
that the two men had no chance for flight, and safety seemed to lie
only in such effort. In the first grapple, the taller man’s cloak was
torn from him, but this was of fortunate occurrence, for it enabled
him to draw his sword. His companion had been felled to his knees,
but, avoiding another blow aimed at his head, he rose to his feet and
staggered to one side. The drawn sword of his friend swung through the
air. It cut a face wide open in its career, and was again wielded in
like manner, but without effect. Then the wounded robber seized the
knees of the swordsman, only to be thrust through and through, as the
latter stumbled and fell in the embrace.
In the meantime, the other man assailed, tugging at the hilt of his
own sword which was kept from handy withdrawal by the folds of his
cloak, retreated backward into the middle of the street. Approaching
him was the robber who had delivered the first ineffectual blow. In the
tussle he had dropped his bludgeon, and he was now trusting to his own
strength to overpower this man before him. Suddenly another sword was
out of its scabbard. There was a quick thrust at the dark body between
outstretched hands which had almost grasped the swordsman’s neck. A
groan escaped from agonized lips, and the wielder of the sword felt
warm blood upon his sword hand. His victim had fallen heavily against
him, but he pushed him off like so much dead weight, and at that moment
he heard his friend’s voice:
“Run, Kit, for thy life!”
“I am with you,” came the answer.
He saw that two other shadows had joined the decimated group. These two
had been drowsing on the portico, and at length, aroused by the cries,
had come forth. He saw his companion turn and run, and he followed him.
The lights of the windmill tavern streamed across the way, for its
doors were open. They reached the fronting pillars of its portico, as
though a haven, and then paused. Both of them knew that they could not
venture in, and fortunately their assailants had given up the chase.
In the gloom, behind one of the columns, they stood panting. Near them
stood a man also in the shadows. Their swift approach had been observed
by him; but if he had apprehended the cause, it had not shaken him from
his intent to remain concealed. He might have heard the retreating
footsteps of their now baffled pursuers, and this should have disturbed
him; for the cause of the men who had almost brushed against him was
his cause. It was his duty to pursue the assailants; but there are
times when the public weal is forgotten--blotted out by thoughts of
one’s private welfare. And so it was with the man in the darkness of
the portico. The continuance of his ability to act for the public, nay,
possibly his existence, depended on different service than the arrest
of midnight marauders.
This man was Gyves, the constable, and he was waiting to see Bame leave
the tavern so that he might venture in, find Tabbard, and obtain by
persuasion or violence the warrant for the arrest of Marlowe. He had
waited there for hours, through the mist which had drifted across the
portico, and then later, while the drizzling rain had beaten in his
face and set him shivering. He had yet no knowledge of the destruction
of the writ, and no whisper of the sudden visit of the plague had
touched his ears. So it was that the paper, upon which he dreamed
his welfare hung, and the man whom he had for the past eight hours
yearned most to see, were both beyond power of production to him.
But despite all this, the arrest of Marlowe, which was his ultimate
object, required at that moment neither the departure of Bame nor
his possession of the writ. And furthermore no long weary walk nor
tiresome search in an unfamiliar quarter would have been necessary. He
could have reached out his hand and have arrested the two men under
the neighboring column for a disturbance of the peace. Even then a
sword was being sheathed by one of them, and Gyves had heard the late
outcry which of itself was sufficient to have justified him in taking
them into custody to await further investigation. One of the men was
Christopher Marlowe.
To us, with our limited vision, what a comedy is life. Over what scenes
of merriment could we not amuse ourselves were we robbed of hearts
and consciences and there were added to our remaining faculties the
power of unlimited sight alone; to see the struggles of one during a
whole life for a result which required only a few days’ effort along
another line than that pursued; to see the entanglement, in a single
web, of many with worthy designs, and their struggles liberating only
that one who as it appeared to us should have remained entangled; to
see the life pursuit for a will-o’-the-wisp; to see genius strangled,
and dullness triumphant. Perhaps the truth would then burst upon us,
that we are but the pawns and knights of the chess-board, moved by an
Omniscient hand toward the final victory of the whole.
As the three men held back in the shadows, three more men came forth
from the portals of the tavern; but only two of them walked. The third
was between the others, but instead of being like them, erect, he was
in a horizontal position. He lay upon a stretcher which the two men
bore. He was motionless, and a rough cloth covered his form.
Certain it was that the covering of the man upon the stretcher
should have concealed his face, but through some inadvertency it had
rolled down upon his breast so that his face was revealed. It was
expressionless and that of one from whom the soul had fled. A man with
flaming torch now ran out of the doors, as though to lead the way, and
as the light struck upon the form upon the stretcher, one of the two
men who had escaped the murderous, bludgeons of the thieves, clutched
his companion’s arm and gasped:
“My God! the dead man is Tabbard.”
Then, as the flaming torch illuminated the man in front, who, with back
toward the corpse, bore the stretcher, Marlowe, for he was the speaker,
sunk his fingers deep into the clutched arm, for at that moment he
heard a voice near him whisper:
“And Bame, Richard Bame, carries him.”
A shadow, shifting with the wavering of the torch, fell across
Marlowe’s face. The latter looked to ascertain its cause and also
the source of the last words spoken, and saw the outline of a man in
the coat of an officer slink from the portico into the rain and the
darkness. The torch now revealed an object close to the edge of the
pavement. It was a heavy cart with horses attached like the one which
had passed Tabbard early that night. His body was being borne toward
it.
IN THE PRINCE’S WARDROBE.
_But stay, what star shines yonder in the East?_
--_Jew of Malta, ii, 1._