“Their blood and yours shall seal these treacheries!”
—MARLOWE, in _Edward the Second_.
“Browsing soul! I cannot contemplate so much obtuseness without longing
to prod thee to some show of wakefulness with my sword!”
It was Roger Prat who spoke, and Hugh Rouse who gave no answer. They
were lying at full length on the brow of a low cliff, looking out across
the water. It was night. Not a star shone. The town lay seemingly
asleep behind them. A large culverin stood close to one side, also
peering through a fringe of grasses. The two ships, at anchor within
musket-range, carried no lights.
“Had it not been for your ox-brained stupidity, we might have been
laughing at Master Contemptuous even now.” The giant rolled over and
surveyed his vituperative companion with a yawn. “Now, had I been there,”
Roger persisted, “instead of cooling my heels at the pleasure of these
knaves, had I been there in place of a numskull, Master Frazer would have
been _here_. Dolt!”
“Have a care, Roger! I’ll brook little more of thy poet-aping names.
’Twas Marlowe taught them to you, and ever since, like a magpie—”
But the other was shaking with mock laughter. “Brook little more!” he
gasped; “brook little more, indeed! And think you I fear the threat of
one who lets a laughing infant tweak his nose and run away without so
much as spanking the child? I can see him smiling now, as he floated off
in the canoe. Why, ’twas in the self-same craft you brought! Now, that
was considerate of thee, gull.”
“Leave off, Roger.”
“Wherefore?”
“Think you I like to remember the escape?” There was a note almost
pitiful in the gruff voice, a pathetic growl that sounded like a moan.
“An I were a wench, Prat, I’d weep for sheer vexation.”
Roger curiously eyed him, and, strangely enough, the idea of this giant
weeping failed to touch his bubbling sense of the ludicrous. With an
unprecedented consideration of Hugh’s feelings, he changed the subject.
* * * * *
Five miles to the southward another couple held converse. They stood on
the deck of a Spanish vessel—by name the _Madre de Dios_—apart from a
company of soldiers.
“The man we sent to await him,” said one, “has returned alone. Yet our
esteemed prince was to have left Roanoke this morning.”
“Then what think you, St. Magil?” asked the other, who was evidently a
Spanish officer of no mean rank. “I fear his wayward highness has come to
harm, and is a prisoner in their fort. Shall we not push forward without
further delay?”
“By all means let us hasten to the attack. Towaye, the Indian who guided
me from Roanoke, has gone with provisions to meet his highness near the
town.”
* * * * *
In the main cabin of an English ship still a third couple conversed with
as much import in their words as the second.
“There is yet no sign?”
“Not yet, Captain Vytal.”
“They will carry no lights, Dyonis.”
“Nay, sir, I look for a black shadow, and listen for the ripple under its
bow.”
* * * * *
As though the hand of Death were on them, the ships and the town lay
still. Only a single circle of light, like a watchful eye with a dark
iris, shone through an aperture in the fortress wall. The central disk
was a cannon’s muzzle.
On the ramparts of the fort a man stood alone, looking out across the
water. It was Christopher Marlowe, alert, restless, and impatient.
Below him, in the armory, a small gathering of women and soldiers, under
the immediate command of Captain Pomp, sat about in groups, waiting.
In one corner, apart from the rest, Eleanor Dare and her father talked
in low tones, while Margery Harvie, on a bench beside them, crooned a
lullaby to an infant that lay sleeping in her lap.
From time to time another woman, who sat at a table across the room,
even now jesting with several soldiers, looked at the central figure of
this group with an expression in which resentment and admiration were
curiously blended. Gyll Croyden had frequently looked at Eleanor thus,
and always as though from a distance greater than the actual space which
lay between them.
Suddenly the child, who had been christened Virginia, in honor of
England’s possession, awoke, crying feebly, and Eleanor, with much
concern, took it in her arms. Her expression, as she looked down into the
little face, suggested varied emotions. There was a mother’s love in her
eyes, a deep maternal devotion; but, mingled with this, another, less
obvious, expression seemed to betray some depth of feeling at odds with
the first, and possibly stronger, though more subtle and indefinable.
She turned to her father. “Must we wait forever here? It seems an
eternity, and I grow fearful lest—”
The kindly governor interrupted her. “Nay, there is naught to fear, my
little one. They will doubtless attack the ships at first, thinking us
all unwatchful, or vigilant only in the town. It is for that reason, you
know, that Captain Vytal, seeking to repulse and overwhelm them at the
first onset, has manned the _Admiral_ and concealed over seventy men
below. Of a surety the enemy will attack this vessel first, as it lies to
the south and is the larger prize. Yet, mark you, they will be utterly
unable thus to cut off our last means of retreat.”
But his attempt to reassure her failed. “I fear many will be killed,” she
said, half to herself, and he saw that her eyes were moist with unshed
tears.
“Let us pray it may not be so, Eleanor. Our people seem to have caught
Vytal’s unflinching courage; moreover, the men, well armed and galliated,
will find our foe all unprepared for so sudden a resistance.”
To this a new voice, gentle but masculine, made rejoinder, and the Oxford
preacher stood beside them. “You have said ‘Let us pray’; with your
Excellency’s permission I will do so.” In a moment the whole company were
on their knees, while the preacher invoked the aid of the God of battles
in simple words.
The infant in its mother’s lap was crying more pitifully now than
heretofore. And, without warning, as the soldiers resumed their games
again and Gyll Croyden her babble, a convulsion seized it, distorting the
diminutive features cruelly.
Eleanor, rising, rocked it to and fro in her arms. The mother’s love was
now unquestionably predominant. Handing the child to Margery Harvie, she
spoke a few words to her father: “There is an herb which Manteo has shown
me; boiled in water, it will restore her at once. I must get it.”
“Nay, but—”
“Oh, there is no danger. It grows but just behind the palisade. I go
myself, for I alone can find it.”
“I will go with you.”
“No, stay here. Your presence is needed to encourage them. I will
take two soldiers, if you so desire,” and she beckoned to a couple of
fighting-men who sat near by. “Bring a lanthorn, concealed as best you
can beneath your cloak.”
She led the way to a rear entrance. As the soldiers unbarred the open
door, a woman’s voice addressed her. “I go with you an I may. Two women
are safer than one alone.” It was Gyll Croyden.
Eleanor turned and looked into her face for an instant, then accepted her
offer. “I thank you.”
In another minute they were hastening silently to the palisade in single
file, one of their guardians leading, the other bringing up the rear.
With difficulty they groped their way to the southern entrance of the
town, and, after a word to the sentry stationed there, passed out. Soon
Eleanor, by the aid of the soldier’s lanthorn, was plucking leaves from a
bush that grew not over a furlong from the town.
They started to return, but paused, breathless, hearing a rustle of
leaves behind them.
Then, suddenly, a low whir, as of a bird’s wing, and the rearmost soldier
fell on his face, dead. A long, slender arrow, the like of which they had
never seen, quivered between his shoulder-blades, a shimmering reed in
the lanthorn light.
They broke into a run.
Again the whisper of Death, and their second escort, struck in the hip,
staggered and fell to his knees. At this Gyll Croyden, crying aloud
for help, started forward again, but Eleanor had stopped to succor the
wounded man.
In that moment the two women heard a quick step behind them, and, before
they could turn about, their arms were seized and pinioned at their
backs. A silken kerchief fell like a thick veil over Eleanor’s eyes and
tightened, but not so suddenly as to shut out the sight of a short,
half-naked Indian, who was engaged in blindfolding Gyll Croyden. Then a
voice, evidently from the man who had bandaged her own eyes, spoke in a
low tone, and she recognized the accents with dismay.
They were Frazer’s. “To the ravine, Towaye, and await me there.” His
voice sank to a whisper, yet not too low for Eleanor’s quick ears.
“Remember, no harm to them an you value life.”
By now the wounded guardsman, having dragged himself toward Ralph, wildly
drew his sword; then, painfully struggling to his knees, thrust in blind
desperation, but only succeeded in pricking Frazer’s arm.
The youth turned, and, overestimating his opponent’s strength, despatched
the kneeling soldier with no compunction nor instinctive mercy. He was
a man who would demand little quarter, and who, for all his boyish
fribbling, gave less.
“Quick, Towaye!” But once more Gyll cried out, though Eleanor stood
impassive by her side. The youth frowned. “Gag them,” and he hurried to
Eleanor. “My love,” he whispered, “the king wins.”
* * * * *
On the water a dense shadow moved slowly toward Roanoke. Like Destiny it
glided forward, silent, inexorable, black.
Without resistance, it came closer and yet closer to its quarry, until at
last the shadow met a shadow like itself, as cloud meets cloud. And as
from clouds, a guttural oath of thunder burst suddenly forth in fury to
smite and profane the ear of night.
The shadow was a panther of the sea, stealing on a prey seemingly
tranquil and asleep—a wild beast of the desert coming to claim by the law
of might an oasis in the waste.
The crucial moment, so long awaited, had come at last.
Two ships became alive and fought for Roanoke Island.
* * * * *
“Captain Vytal, they are here!”
“How near, Dyonis?”
“So near that in another instant they will board us.”
“To arms, then!”
“Ay,” and a whisper ran from mouth to mouth along the deck. There was a
low click as of pistol-triggers cocking, and fifty dark shadows, which
had lain prone behind the bulwark, rose, each to one knee.
The ships lay breast to breast, feeling each other’s sides. And suddenly
the glare of a hundred new-lit torches illumined the Spanish deck; but
the _Admiral’s_ bulwark shielded her ambush from the light.
Without warning, a line of steel corselets and morions, flashing in the
radiance, started forward from the _Madre de Dios_, started, rolled on,
and rose to the bulwark as a silver wave rises in the moonlight, superb,
brilliant, invincible, vaunting itself before the sable shore. And, like
moon-rays playing across the crest, a hundred swords flashed high.
The silver surf, crashing, broke. Hidden rocks had awaited it in
darkness. Baffled, it lashed them, rose, fell, dispersed, concentrated—a
wild seethe of tormented fury.
The wave was foam: there was momentarily no concertion, no detail.
Chaos rose above order, anarchy above method, chagrined amazement above
victorious triumph.
The surprise was complete. At both ends the Spanish line wavered. Here
the counter-attack began more suddenly than in the centre.
Vytal at one end, Dyonis Harvie at the other, turned both flanks of the
enemy. It was a manœuvre that gave the lie to chaos. Method lurked in
the seeming madness. The Spanish cannoneers, having heard the sounds of
a hand-to-hand conflict, at the first surprise rushed to their comrades’
aid. The culverins and minions, nosing the _Admiral’s_ hull, were for a
moment deserted. The impulse had been foreseen; hence the flank movement.
Vytal’s first tactic, bold and open, succeeded. Fortunately, the _Madre
de Dios_ was not a man-of-war, but only a Biscayan carack, transformed
temporarily and diverted from her commerce between St. Augustine
and Spain. Thus her ports were few, and the guns below deck, being
inconsiderable in number, were easily seized to prevent bombardment. A
score of English, pursued by the now witting gunners, gained the command
of these pieces. In an instant the guns were spiked, their silence
maintained with iron gags, their deep throats choking.
Harvie, with his men, defended them. Vytal returned to the bulwark. The
Spanish cannoneers, finding recapture impossible, likewise joined the
main body.
Then for a time mere carnal bloodshed followed. The steel sea had leaped
back upon itself. The Spanish aggressors became defenders on their own
decks. The ranks of both sides were broken. Each man fought for himself.
Here it was sword against sword; there pike and pike. Here pistols and
arquebuses, mouthing each other, thundered spitefully at closest range;
there a piece of brass ordnance on deck shone in the torch-glare, itself
a flame that belched flame and shot out clanking chain-shot, gobbets of
iron or missiles like dumb-bells—twin deaths. Here it was hand-to-hand,
men glutting the lust of their inborn hatred by sheer brute force,
weaponless; there a crimson poniard gleamed dully for a second, and a
figure lurched backward to the slippery deck. Here, whirring, a garish
firebrand fell to an upturned face and burned away the look of anguish;
there a sword bled a shadow.
But strategy worked in silence and darkness. The first tactic of Vytal
was answered by St. Magil. A man made his way to the bow of the _Madre de
Dios_, shielding a torch. The wind favored his project.
There was a flash of light across the strip of water from prow to prow,
a tongue of flame in the air, and the firebrand fell flaring to a mat
on the _Admiral’s_ beak-head. The man, cowering, watched it, safe in
the knowledge that his vessel lay immediately to windward of the foe.
Gradually the unnoticed fire spread to the bowsprit’s mat, and thence to
the false stem of wood. At the same moment a number of chains and ropes
were flung out like the tentacles of a polypus from the Spanish yards to
the rigging of the _Admiral_. At the ends of these groping fingers, irons
like talons grappled with halyards and naked spars.
The ships were locked in a death-grip.
With a sudden, concerted rush, as though the flames encouraged it to
advance, the sea of shining morions and corselets rose once more, surged
forward, broke over the _Admiral’s_ bulwark, undulating, clashing,
roaring, as the receding line of English fell back before it inch by inch.
The _Admiral’s_ deck was now a heaving sea of molten silver.
But the eyes of St. Magil, looking across to it from the outer shade of
the _Madre de Dios’s_ bow, suddenly grew grave and lost their triumph.
The wind had changed. Fate intervened. Vytal was backed by the elements.
The insidious fire, of Sir Walter’s own kindling, had recoiled. The
_Admiral_ carried no sails, the _Madre de Dios_ many. The fire returned
to feed itself. Leaving behind it a burning skeleton superstructure,
from which small spars fell flaming on the combatants amid a maze of
ropes that glowed like fuses over all, it glided back, a venomous snake,
to the Spanish vessel, or, rather, like a hundred snakes, for the very
grapple-ropes by which St. Magil had bound his enemy were golden serpents
now writhing to the shrouds.
Suddenly a tongue of fire, licking the Spanish bowsprit and spritsail
yards, lolled listlessly for an instant, as though satiated and fatigued,
then shot up all the more greedily to the foretop.
And now a wavering sheet of flame rose and swayed like an immense golden
flag, as though the fire itself had flung to the breeze a royal emblem of
destruction.
But at the instant, when only the bowsprit and spritsail yard had as
yet succumbed, St. Magil had hastened amidships. Here he commanded the
few Spaniards who had not yet forced their way to the English vessel to
cut the grapples and cast off immediately. But the intertwining fingers
that he himself had stretched out to enfold the prey held tenaciously.
Snarled inextricably, they lay across from ship to ship, high and low, a
hopeless tangle of fetters.
When finally the sheet of flame unspread itself aloft, St. Magil
desisted. His men would have rushed then to the _Admiral_, preferring the
chance of battle to a furnace death; but he controlled with desperate
power.
“Cut away the bowsprit and foretop-gallant-mast!”
The men, following him, ran to the forecastle. “The foretop-gallant-mast
is too high. It burns!”
“The foretop-mast, then, quick! and cut the halyards!”
A sudden descending flare, as if the heavens had opened to envelop the
striving seamen, and the flag of flame lay roaring at their feet. The
fire had struck its colors. They grasped the burning canvas and flung it
overboard.
“To the attack!” And St. Magil, at last drawing his sword for open fight,
led them in the main contest.
Two score Englishmen, in double file, stood side by side on the
_Admiral’s_ deck repelling a superior force that strove to exterminate
them. The front line fought with swords; the rear with pistols and
musketoons, whose barrels looked out between friendly shoulders before
them. Thus the swordsmen, ranged alternately with the musketeers, were
slightly in advance, and must needs bear the brunt of the onslaught.
In this file Vytal held a central position. Beside him, either by
accident or purpose, stood Ananias Dare, and beyond the assistant, Dyonis
Harvie, who had been recalled. In a line at their feet lay their fallen
comrades and opponents, forming, in the final throes of death, a ghastly
rampart across which the living fought.
Again and again the onrush and repulse. The double file was a wall of
stone.
St. Magil himself, springing into the middle breach of his foremost
rank, armed with a broadsword, made bold to attack the man whom he held
responsible for the unflinching resistance. Vytal, who now carried
a heavy blade himself, met his chief antagonist with stern, almost
business-like precision, as he had encountered all the unknown soldiers
that had come before.
Suddenly St. Magil turned aside to Ananias Dare and thrust viciously. The
stroke threatened death. Vytal parried it. For many minutes, that seemed
years, he had been defending two men at once. St. Magil fell back to
the rear ranks with a lifeless arm. A Spanish officer of high rank took
his place and, with a rallying cry, led his men once more against the
battered English wall.
Steel in torment clashed and rang on shields that thwarted its desire.
Leaden bullets, like driven sleet, shot from both sides, buried
themselves with a monotonous thud in heavy cotton targets. Every man but
one had only himself to guard. Save with Vytal, there was no trust but
the cause and the individual.
The Spaniards persisted. They had been held at the last assault, but not
repelled. They were on the brink of victory, eight score against less
than four; the issue could not be doubtful.
Ananias Dare, although brave with a slight excess of wine and the
knowledge that Vytal stood beside him, wavered. St. Magil’s thrust
had shattered his puny courage. He gave way and fell back to the line
of musketeers. Vytal and Dyonis Harvie closed in before him. But the
disastrous effect of even one man’s retreat was not so easily averted.
His sword had proved of little service, but the influence of each man on
all had been incalculable. A single bolt in the precise mechanism had
broken. The machine shook, grated, and threatened to fall in pieces.
The line tottered. Ananias, perceiving with terror the result of his
cowardice, sought to retrieve himself by rallying his fellows with a
cry. But despair rose above encouragement in the call. His eyes, wild
and horror-struck, looked over Harvie’s shoulder at the force that must
surely in another instant overrun him. He was thinking only of himself
then, not of the cause nor of his countrymen. His headpiece had fallen
off, revealing a dishevelled mass of silken hair, wet with the sweat of
fear. His lips dripped foam. The end, he believed, had come.
Yet Vytal, with a sharp word, delayed it. The voice, deep and resonant
with desperate command, reawakened hope and energy. The attackers neither
gave way nor succeeded in advancing.
Had Vytal lost? It seemed to him impossible. He had never known the word
save once, in youth, when a rigid cordon of steel like this had encircled
him in the streets of Paris. The memory of that massacre, in which his
parents had been murdered by Catholics, like these, redoubled his fury.
He flung himself against the line of bristling swords that, impassable
as a vast _cheval-de-frise_, checked him at every quarter. The knowledge
that he held another life in trust—a detestable life—nevertheless, must
he not preserve it?—quickened his every fibre for a new attempt. But
above and beneath all a woman’s name seemed to reverberate through his
whole being like the war-cry of a soul.
He thrust, thrust, and thrust again. The swords met, slithered, and the
Spanish officer fell groaning on the rampart of dead.
The enemy’s line gave way. The English started forward. But St. Magil,
nursing his wounded arm in the rear, met the emergency with a new tactic.
Hoarsely he bade a dozen men to stand upon the bulwark, each with a
torch in hand. The manœuvre favored him. The English fell back apace.
A line of wavering light blinded their eyes. The firebrands’ dazzling
glare rendered their thrusts and parries far wilder and more uncertain
than before. Vytal’s face, illuminated vividly by the maddening light,
grew doubly tense and desperate. Wounded in the left arm by the slash
of a cutlass, his corselet dented in many places, his eyes haggard and
lips white, his grizzled brow and close-cut beard clotted with sweat and
blood, he nevertheless stood there still, a grim, unconquerable Death. He
fell to his knee, and fought so; then, staggering, rose again and towered
indomitable. Still the word “lose” had no meaning for him save when
applied to an enemy. And even now, on the very verge of defeat, his rage
and iron will thus applied it in the turmoil of his depths to St. Magil.
Dyonis Harvie fell beside him wounded in the throat. Vytal turned
to a musketeer who had stepped forward in the opening. “Mark the
torch-bearers!” and then, louder—“The torch-bearers!”
A few shots rang out with new purpose amid the havoc, and three Spaniards
lurched backward from the bulwark, flinging toward the English with a
last derision the sputtering cressets as they fell. St. Magil turned to
the men nearest him. “Replace them!” And three soldiers, leaping to the
bulwark, reinforced the lurid line of flambeaus which had worked so much
disaster.
The ammunition of the English marksmen had given out. Vytal noted the
silence. “Your cutlasses! Stand close to me! We are Englishmen.… There!…
Good!… Hold fast!… Death is not defeat, surrender is!… We … win … dying!”
His words took the place of bullets, his voice of the steel blades which
were now but streaks of crimson on the deck.
“_Dying!_”
But no; suddenly from the near shore, on which a little knot of women
stood wringing their hands in grief, a canoe shot out toward the _Madre
de Dios_. It held one man. Then a second craft glided swiftly from the
land as though in pursuit, and this, too, was propelled by a single
paddle. Next, yet a third boat, and a fourth—but these were barges—joined
in what seemed a chase, and each contained ten soldiers from the fort.
In a moment the foremost craft had gained the Spanish vessel, and Frazer
was climbing up a rope to the top deck. Marlowe, from the second canoe,
followed close upon his heels, livid with fury. Frazer turned to cut the
rope, but, finding himself too late, rushed through a network of burning
stays and spars to the scene of the last stand. In a second he was lost
in the mêlée. Marlowe, once on the deck, forbore to pursue him farther,
and turned to Captain Pomp, who, with twenty soldiers, was scaling the
vessel’s side from the barges. “Not a word, any of you, concerning
Mistress Dare. Are your arms ready?”
“Ay.”
They advanced rapidly, Marlowe and Captain Pomp leading through a whirl
of smoke—all but one, who broke away, and, creeping into the darkness,
gained the forecastle. Then, swinging himself like a monkey across to
the _Admiral’s_ bow, this deserter disappeared in the English hold. It
was Ferdinando, who had been left by Vytal under the surveillance of the
guard, and who, in the confusion, had been carelessly permitted to join
the party of rescue.
Marlowe attacked the enemy’s rear. A hoarse cheer rose from Vytal’s
company. The Spaniards had been hemmed in, but Frazer spoke hurriedly
to St. Magil. “Their fort is utterly deserted. Send a score to land. We
shall win the town.”
At a whispered command twenty men from the end of the Spanish line
wheeled, and, cutting their way past Marlowe, scrambled down into the
barges. The poet could not bring himself to order a pursuit. The sight of
his friend fighting there, grimly, against so great odds, deterred him.
He must save Vytal.
Two barges glided out from the _Madre de Dios_ across the golden water
which, reflecting the flaming tracery of the rigging, lay between them
and land. But suddenly from the brow of a low cliff there came a roar of
thunder, and an iron ball struck the foremost barge.
The Spaniards in the second turned back to the ship, others swimming in
their wake. “We have underestimated their force,” said one; “the whole
cliff is fortified.” And, as if to emphasize his words, a second ball
splashed in the water at his side.
It was for this that Prat and Rouse had waited, each, through the
long moments, commanding the other’s patience. They could not fire
at the carack, fearing to hit friends, but the course of a separate
landing-force had been purposely covered by their culverin. Here Vytal
had stationed them for the final defence; here, apart from all their
fellows, two men held no mean portion of a continent.
Seeing the Spaniards returning, Frazer sought to reassure them; but
in the middle of his remonstrance St. Magil bade them reinforce their
comrades on the _Admiral_.
They strove to obey, but could not. Their friends, retreating in
disorder, fell back before the concerted attack of Vytal and Marlowe.
Many, who at the first had been hemmed in, lay lifeless across the
scuppers, weltering in a stream of blood that could find no outlet to the
sea. Others, more fortunate, now stampeded back over the Spanish bulwark
and formed a compact phalanx for defence.
The tide had turned. The English, reforming their ranks, were on the
point of advancing with a rush. Frazer, however, had foreseen the issue.
“Cut the grapples!” The ropes, now severed by fire, held in few places.
In a moment the _Madre de Dios_ began to fall away. At this instant
a small, stooping figure scurried like a rat from the _Admiral’s_
forward hatches and sprang across the widening strip of water to the
Spanish ship. Vytal saw the man. “Who is that?” And some one answered,
“Ferdinando.”
Marlowe blanched. “My God! the powder in the hold—a dozen kegs of
Benjamin! Is it possible that—”
But Vytal, wounded though he was and blinded with sweat, had already
gained the hatches. With his sword he fought the last foe—a long,
slow-burning fuse, whose spark shone like a glow-worm in the darkness.
Severing the slow-match with a stroke of his weapon, he ground his heel
into the spark and glanced about sharply to make sure of no further
danger. Then, regaining the deck, he looked first at Dyonis Harvie, who
was being lowered by Captain Pomp into a cock-boat, and next out across
the water with haggard but victorious eyes. “It is well,” he said, in
a low voice, for he could just distinguish the _Madre de Dios_, like a
beaten hound, dragging herself away into the gloom.
Suddenly, as if life had ended with the necessity for action, he fell
back senseless into Marlowe’s arms.