“… hath wronged your country and himself,
And we must seek to right it as we may.”
—MARLOWE, in _Edward the Second_.
Entering immediately, Vytal found the room empty save for one man who sat
before a long table in a peculiar posture and apparently half asleep. A
silver flagon stood before him, its brim covered by two almost feminine
hands, whose fingers were intertwined and palms held downward, as though
to conceal or guard the contents of the cup. His head was bent forward
until one cheek rested on the back of his clasped hands, while the
other showed a central flush on a background of white, delicate skin.
The man’s eyes were not closed, but maintained their watch on the door
with an evident effort, for the lids blinked drowsily as though soon
they must succumb to sleep. The light of a three-branched candelabrum,
flickering across the table, showed a face naturally fair, but marred
by dissipation. The hair, light brown and of fine texture, hung down
over a narrow forehead, and half concealed a well-formed ear. The eyes,
always first to suffer from inebriety, showed but a trace of their
lost brilliancy when the effort to keep awake was strongest. There
was an aspect so pitiable in the man’s whole attitude that Vytal, his
face softening, shrank back as though to proceed no further with his
interview. But overcoming the first shock occasioned by so weak and
forlorn a personality, the soldier went forward, with grim determination.
“Is this Master Ananias Dare?” he demanded.
“Yes,” came the answer, falteringly, “Master Dare, at your service,” and
the slim fellow, attempting to rise, swayed and fell back again into his
chair. “Rough sea,” he muttered. “Great waves—mad boat.”
Vytal drew a chair to the table, and moving the candelabrum to one side,
sat down opposite the drinker. “I come to inquire concerning a plot of
which you have knowledge.”
The effect of this unexpected statement was curious. “Plot!” exclaimed
Ananias—“plot!” and he laughed a thick, uncomfortable laugh. “Now I know
the boat is certainly mad. Who said ‘plot’? Oh, who said ‘plot’?” His
voice, wailing, sank almost to a whisper. “I cannot believe it. I really
cannot believe such extraor’nary statements. Have a cup o’ wine; ’tis
wine belies our fears. I thank thee, good wine—I thank thee for so great
a courage. Oh, who said ‘plot’?” and, lurching forward, he pushed a great
silver tankard toward Vytal.
“’Tis wine,” returned the soldier, fixing his gaze on the pitiful
assistant, as though to force the words home with look as well as voice,
“’tis wine brings danger. Another cup now, and mayhap you are fatally
undone.” He wished to play upon the other’s cowardice, and turn, if he
could, one weakness into strength to withstand another. The time was
short in which to elicit the desired information, and the task not easy.
“Danger! there’s no danger to me!” declared Ananias, unexpectedly. “Oh
nay; how strange—danger—none whatever! ’Tis not for this I drink so deep;
’tis my wife—induces the condition!” His head fell forward again to his
hands, that now covered an empty cup. Quickly Vytal hid the half-full
tankard beneath the table.
“’Tis she,” said Ananias, again looking up sleepily, “my cousin, my
peculiar wife. Why did I marry her—oh, why?”
Vytal’s face grew tense, the veins on his forehead big like thongs.
“She is different,” pursued Dare—“so different! ’Twas the queen did it. I
sued so long, so very long, while Mistress Eleanor White would have none
of me. And then, one day, coming to me like a child—yes, like a child,”
he repeated, weeping remorsefully, “she said: ‘If thou’lt rest content
with friendship for a time, perchance in the coming days I’ll learn to
love thee, cousin, but now I cannot. My father alone is in my heart.’
That was after the queen had talked with her in private, and before she
knew of my love for these big flagons—mad flagons!” He grasped the cup
between his hands as though to caress or crush it. “And I was so wild of
love and jealousy that I said, ‘Yes; I swear to be no more than friend.’”
He was retrospecting as if to himself, and paying no heed to the
listener, whose struggle for the mastery of his own emotion had turned
him for the time to stone.
“I was so wild of jealousy, for there was my Lord of Essex courting
her—Oh, this boat—this boat—’tis, in troth, mad—its reel gets into my
head—Ah, why did she marry me? ’Twas because the queen promised that her
father should come to Virginia and be governor—her beloved father—instead
of going to the Tower for some trivial offence. And she was kind to me,
yet so cold that I durst not even touch her hand—but then I grew more
brave with wine. Her little hand was mine despite remonstrance, the wine
imparting courage to hold it fast. No bravery, say you, in wine? Ha, you
know not.” But Vytal had risen, and the sword-hilt was a magnet to his
hand. “Nay, you go too soon,” said Ananias, waving him back. “The plot I
come to is of deeper import. I’ve been too garrulous—always so exceeding
voluble, they say, with wine.” Once more, with a strenuous effort after
self-command, Vytal turned back to the table, pallid as death.
“She’s different now—oh, sadly different—I think ’tis Master Marlowe, the
poet, turns her head. I saw him with her, and she entranced. I’m no more
to her than _you_. And she is most miserable. To-night she came and said:
‘The voyage is very dangerous. Oh, would we’d never come!’ ‘Yes,’ quoth
I, ‘’tis even more dangerous than you think.’ ‘Oh,’ said she, with a
scorn that’s hers alone, ‘you are drunk,’ but I assured her ‘No,’ and hid
the cup like this beneath my hands. Oh, why do I care, why do I care when
she sees the wine?” The maudlin remorse came into his voice again and
into his watery eyes. “‘What mean you?’ she asked, ‘by more dangerous?’
‘Oh, the pilot will run us into Portugal,’ said I. ‘How comical! And
there’ll be twenty men on deck before the dawn to do it. ’Tis most
extraor’nary!’”
At this Vytal started again to his feet. “Wilt swear it?” he demanded,
fiercely. The drunkard leaned back and stared at him, seeming for the
first time to strive for a sober moment.
“Nay.”
“How do you know it, then?”
The vague eyes blinked with a more definite consciousness than
heretofore. “I heard them plotting.”
“And will not inform us on your oath. Then you jeopard your own safety,
Master Dare. Silence now is culpable, treasonable.”
“Oh no, no—what a mad boat—rolling about so—I, treasonable; how strange!
Then I’ll swear, an you will, ’twas the pilot.”
“You’ll swear?”
“Most certainly, I’ll swear.”
“Where are the twenty men? Do you know that?”
“Nay, how should I know?”
“Did you not overhear the pilot give directions? Think you they are in
the forecastle?”
“No, not there—not by any means there.”
“In the hold, then, hiding?”
“Ay, that’s it. In the hold. Down in the dark hold—oh, ’tis most
uncomfortable in the hold—what a mad boat—rocking so—always rocking.
’Sdein! Where’s the tankard?” Rising unsteadily, he looked about on the
table in stupid surprise, then, sinking back again, missed his chair and
fell heavily to the floor. “Ah, ’tis here, the wine—such brave wine!”
and, crawling forward on his hands and knees, he sat down half under the
table, holding the tankard to his lips. “Such courageous wine!”
Vytal went to the cabin door. “Heaven guard her,” he prayed, and hastened
to the stern. Here he found the pilot and Marlowe. With a gesture, he
drew the poet aside, and in a few words made known the truth.
“’Tis against great odds,” observed Marlowe, his eyes lighting up, “that
we fight again together.”
“Nay,” declared Vytal, “there shall be no fight. Wherefore desecrate a
rapier with so niggardly a foe?”
Marlowe smiled. “The bodkin would fain stitch only satin doublets,” he
remarked. “How, then, will you defeat these hirelings?”
“Thus,” and leading the way to the forecastle, the soldier emitted a
short, low whistle in one note. Soon Roger Prat stood before them.
“He comes like a devil from a stage-trap!” observed Marlowe, in
astonishment.
Roger laughed proudly and bowed like a juggler after the performance of a
cunning trick.
“Tell Hugh,” said Vytal, in a short whisper, “to overpower the pilot
when again I whistle thus, and with a stout rope to make fast his arms;
but first procure another helmsman you can trust. For your own part, go
to the hatches above the hold. If the pilot gives outcry, and his crew
strive to pass you, warn the first man whose head appears, and if he heed
not the warning, run him through. They can come but singly. ’Tis within
your power to withstand them all.”
“Of a verity, captain, well within it; but the work is tame. They stand
no chance.”
“Mark you, no bloodshed if you can help it. And tell Hugh the same. At
the sound of the whistle, then, some time before daybreak.”
“Thank you,” and Roger went his way.
“Wherefore does he thank you?” asked Marlowe.
“Oh, ’tis ever so; a thousand thanks when I give him work like this to
do.” And for a moment the eyes of both followed Prat, whose rotund figure
could be seen beneath the ship’s lanthorn. He was walking on tiptoe,
which gave him a grotesque appearance, and the end of his long scabbard
was just visible as he held it out behind him to prevent its chape from
dragging on the deck. “A peculiar fellow,” remarked the poet, to whom all
men were books demanding his perusal.
“A man!” said Vytal. And they waited for many minutes in silence.
“Let us make sure,” suggested Christopher, at last, “that the men are in
their places.”
Vytal turned to him with a look of resentment, or, more accurately, an
expression of wounded pride. “You know them not.”
“Yea, well. But plans miscarry.”
“I repeat, you know not the men;” with which, as though to deride the
other then and there with proof of his absolute reliance, Vytal whistled
the short note shriller and louder than before. Even as it died away
there came a deep oath from the stern and a sound as of metal clanking
on the deck. In another second there was a pistol-shot, then a desperate
silence. “Let us hasten,” cried Marlowe, “to their assistance!”
“Nay, let us rather go and question the prisoner.”
This expression of confidence was fully repaid by the sight that met
their eyes. For there on the deck, near the helm, flat on his back, lay
the bulky pilot, so bound with a rope winding from head to foot that he
could not move so much as a finger in remonstrance. As Vytal and Marlowe
arrived on the scene, Hugh Rouse, smiling broadly, held a light over the
prone figure as though to exhibit his handiwork. “A ceroon of rubbish,”
he said. “Shall we cast him into the sea?”
“Nay, let him lie here.”
Vytal turned to the pilot’s substitute at the helm, who had come thither
at the request of Roger Prat. “Loyal?” he queried, taking the lanthorn
from Rouse and holding it high, so that the rays fell athwart the new
steersman’s face.
“Ay, loyal; the fly-boat’s mate, sir, at your service.”
“What proof?”
“None, save this,” and leaning forward he whispered the name “Raleigh” in
Vytal’s ear.
“Your own name?”
“Dyonis Harvie.”
“He speaks truth,” exclaimed Vytal, in an aside to Marlowe. “Sir Walter
Raleigh made mention of the man.” Then turning to the mate again: “To
Roanoke we go. Here is a copy of Ferdinando’s chart. You are master now.
See you pilot us safe and sound to the good port we started for. Heed no
contradictory orders. I am Captain John Vytal an you need proof of my
authority.”
Harvie’s honest face lighted up on hearing this, his sunburned brow
clearing with relief. “Sir Walter Raleigh bade me seek you, captain, in
case of need. ’Tis well you come thus timely.”
Vytal turned back to the prisoner. “Have you aught ready in extenuation?”
The pilot’s eyes opened slowly while he looked up for an instant at
his interrogator with sullen hate in every lineament of his mottled
face. Then his eyes, blinking in the light, closed again, and his lips
tightened to lock in reply.
Vytal turned away indifferently. “And now to Roger at the hatches; but
do you, Hugh, stay here and guard the pilot,” whereupon he led the way
toward the hold.
“’Tis strange,” observed the poet, “that we heard no sound from Roger
Prat.” But Vytal, making no reply, went forward, without so much as
quickening his pace.
Coming to the hatches, however, they found no one, only a deep murmur of
voices greeting them from below.
“Ah,” said Marlowe, who could not suppress a small show of triumph on
finding the other’s surpassing confidence seemingly misplaced, “I said
’twould be well to make sure your orders were fulfilled.” And then, as
the gravity of the situation grew more apparent to him: “Forgive me; ’tis
ill timed. I fear the good fellow has come to harm.”
But Vytal only laughed a short, easy laugh. “I repeat once more, you know
not the man. Throw open the hatch. On guard!”
With only the delay of a second in which to unsheath his sword, Marlowe
obeyed; and the dull murmur of voices grew louder as it rose unimpeded to
the two above. But no one appeared in the hatchway.
“They lie in wait to entrap us,” opined the poet, and then, with a hand
on Vytal’s arm: “Stay, I pray you! It means certain death!” For the
soldier had stepped forward as though to descend.
Vytal smiled. “That night on the bridge you counted not the cost. Your
impetuosity, methought, was gallant as could be. I go alone, then.”
“Nay, nay, I stand beside you. Know you not that Kyt Marlowe is two men—a
dreaming idler and a firebrand as well? Cast the firebrand before you, an
you will. ’Twill burn a path for you, I warrant,” and with that the poet,
now all impulse, leaped toward the hatchway, brandishing his sword. But
this time Vytal’s was the restraining hand.
“No; I but tried you. We are none of us to be caught in a stupid snare,
if snare it be.” And bending over the hold, to Marlowe’s astonishment,
he called for Roger Prat. Then, to the poet’s still greater amazement,
Roger’s head appeared in the opening, and a fat finger beckoned Vytal
still closer to the hatch.
“All’s well, but show no mistrust of them;” and then aloud, that the men
below might hear him, “Ay, Captain Vytal, ’tis Roger and many others
at your service, eager for the fray;” whereat, looking back down the
ladder, Prat called to the men to follow him. In a moment a motley
company, of perhaps twenty, were standing on the deck, ranged in a group
behind their spokesman. There were soldiers here, armed with pikes and
bearing for defence leathern targets on their arms. There were mariners,
too, with dirks and pistols.
“We are ready, you see,” observed Roger, with a covert wink. “Ready and
eager to defend the ship.”
“Brave men all,” said Vytal, masking his contempt with a look of
gratitude. “I thank you. But it is too late. The rank treason is already
thwarted, the pilot a captive, to whom justice shall be meted out in
no small measure. You have lost the chance to fight, but your desire,
believe me, shall not soon be forgotten.”
There was a double meaning in the last words that caused many an eye to
seek the deck confusedly. “’Twill be well,” resumed Vytal, with a look
at Prat, “to leave your arms here in case of another fell attempt to
surprise us. Perchance you might not hear the alarm, and so your weapons,
were they with you, would be lost to us. Here we can give them to the
hands of those who hasten first to the defence. I bid you good-night.”
One by one the men, not without hesitation, laid down their arms. It was
the only chance they had to prove their good faith, and Roger Prat, as
though to vindicate his own position, unbuckled his great scabbard with
much ado and laid it down beside the rest. Then the men turned upon their
heels and dispersed sheepishly, Roger, to maintain his rôle, going with
them to the forecastle.
“Now,” observed Vytal, turning to Marlowe, “you know my men at last.”
“But I do not understand—” began the poet.
“Nay, not the details. Nor I. He will explain later; see, he returns even
now to do it,” and Roger Prat stood once more before them. He was holding
his sides and shaking with silent laughter, after the repressing of which
he told an extraordinary tale.
“I heard the whistle,” he said, “and stood on guard. Master Pilot,
being bound, I now suppose, by Hugh, could give no outcry save one of
much profanity. But then a pistol-shot rang out, and I started forward
a pace with some alarm. No doubt it grazed Hugh’s elephantine ear. A
stimulus—a mere stimulus! But as I started forward—and for that step,
captain, you should put me in irons, I do assure you—as I started forward
carelessly, the hatch was flung open, and, before I could turn, I was
seized from behind. I thought Roger Prat was then no longer Roger Prat,
but Jonah ready for the whale. Yet I struggled, and being, as you know,
of some bulk and weight, succeeded in pushing my captor backward to the
hatch. The next instant one of us tripped, and I found myself bounding
downward along the ladder, at the bottom of which, thank Heaven, I lay
down comfortably on the man who had fallen behind me. For him ’twas a
less desirable descent.” And again Prat shook convulsively with laughter,
his elbows out and hands pressed close against his sides. “And then,” he
resumed, with an air of bravado, “I overcame the score.”
“Overcame the score!” exclaimed Marlowe.
“With wits, Master Poet. ‘’Slid!’ cried I. ‘Why treat a comrade thus?
In the name of Sir Walter, ’tis most unreasonable.’ ‘Which mean ye?’
they cried. ‘There are two Sir Walters!’ ‘Sir Walter St. Magil, of
course,’ said I. ‘Here I come from the _Admiral_ to give ye aid, and
find myself hurled headlong to the nether world. The pilot’s killed, the
plan defeated, and now we are like to decorate the yard-arm. There’s
forty men concealed on the orlop deck, awaiting us unkindly.’ At this
’twas all I could do to look mournful and keep from laughing outright,
for the knaves fell back terror-struck and babbled their fears to one
another. Then I hung my head as if in thought. ‘I have it!’ cried I, at
last; ‘we’ll play the part of brave defenders. There’s one trusts me,
for I gained his confidence at St. Magil’s suggestion. ’Tis Captain John
Vytal, the devil’s own.’ (Oh, forgive me, sir, for those dastard words.
Yet they added force to my parley.) ‘A ready-witted fellow,’ I heard one
say, and ‘’Tis a chance,’ remarked another gull. Thus they assented, and
we have twenty brave souls, Captain Vytal, new recruited. Hang them, I
say. Hang the lot at sunrise, except one, and him you cannot. ’Tis the
one I landed on in my descent. His neck is broke too soon and cheats the
gallows. Forgive me for that—oh, forgive me for that. Ha, ’twas a comical
proceeding.” And again the fit of merriment seized him, exhaustingly, so
that at last, for very mirth, he sat down on the deck, laughing until it
pained him and the tears rolled down his rubicund cheeks.
The laughter, being of the most contagious, irresistible kind, spread
to Marlowe. “Thy mirth,” said the poet, “is like to an intrusive flea.
It invades the inmost recesses of our risibility, and tickles us into
laughter.”
The sun, just peering over the horizon, saw an unusual sight across the
water. First, a man in the stern of a solitary ship bound like a bale
of cloth and propped against the bulwark under the eye of a giant who
yawned sleepily, and, stretching a pair of great arms abroad, spoke now
and then in monosyllables to a robust seaman on duty at the helm; then,
a corpulent soldier, shaking like an earthquake, and sitting on the
deck amidships, his short legs wide apart; next, a face of sensitive
poetic features not made for humor, but now submitting to it as though
under protest, yet very heartily; and, lastly, the tall, stern figure
of an evident leader, who stood near the others, but seemingly aloof in
thought, being, for some reason, little moved by the gale of mirth.
The dawning light of the next day showed a picture widely different in
conception.