“Ah, life and soul, still hover in his breast,
And leave my body senseless as the earth.”
—MARLOWE, in _Tamburlaine_.
“Dearest, the king wins.” When Frazer had spoken these words, prior to
the meeting of the ships, Eleanor Dare and Gyll Croyden were led away
into the forest by Towaye, the Indian. They gave no outcry, each having
across her mouth a bandage of silk, nor was resistance possible, their
hands being firmly tied behind them. Yet Gyll, at last, would have thrown
herself upon the ground and refused positively to walk farther had she
not feared a worse fate at the hands of their escort. Moreover, she heard
Eleanor’s footsteps rustling just ahead without cessation, and her heart
took courage of the example.
Finally, after they had followed a narrow trail seemingly for miles,
Towaye, who brought up the rear of the single file, halted. Then,
unblinding their eyes and unshackling their wrists, probably by another’s
command, he bade them be seated on the trunk of a fallen elm to rest
themselves. Each was but a shadow to the other, so deep lay the darkness
in the forest. But the shadows were not long motionless, for presently,
with a word, Towaye told them to rise, and, binding their hands now
before them, yet leaving their eyes unbandaged, pushed them once more
ahead of him on the trail. Thus they walked for an hour in silence until
commanded to turn aside, at which, after entering a small clearing, they
were once more permitted to halt.
Apparently they had now reached their destination, for the Indian,
striking two stones, one against another, set fire to a heap of dry
leaves, on which he threw an armful of brushwood. As the glade was
illuminated the women glanced about them quickly, for they were not
long allowed to remain in the opening. Leading them to the clearing’s
margin, near a deep ravine, Towaye drew aside a hanging curtain of
grape-vines and motioned them into a natural arbor whose walls and roof
were formed by an inextricable tangle of tough tendrils, which rendered
the stronghold as impervious as though it had been enclosed by stone.
The curtain, drawn back and twisted like a portière, left open a narrow,
brambly entrance, through which the near fire cast its glare to light up
the interior. Large clusters of grapes hung in profusion on every side
and carpeted the earth, their rich fragrance filling the air as they were
trod under foot by the two who entered.
The Indian, and doubtless Frazer, too, had been here earlier in the
day, for just within scope of the firelight was the carcass of a young
deer, while on the ground a pannier of various provisions lay beside the
arbor’s entrance. Furthermore, a long riding-cloak had been spread out
like a rug in the natural cell.
“Master Frazer is most thoughtful of our comfort,” observed Gyll, seating
herself thereon, with a laugh. But Eleanor, sinking down, fatigued and
despairing, made no answer. Meanwhile their captor was methodically
cutting from the deer a steak, which he presently held over the fire
on the prongs of a green crotch. Soon the meat sizzled and grew black,
whereupon, turning to his captives, the Indian held it out, and, with a
gesture, bade them eat. Gyll laughed. “Are we to devour it whole, Towaye?”
The Indian, who, thanks to his sojourn in England, understood their
language, considered the question for a minute; then, evidently
suspecting that Gyll thus sought to obtain a weapon, smiled craftily,
laid down the meat, and proceeded to cut it up with a knife of Frazer’s
resembling a Toledo poniard. Next, taking the pieces in his fingers, he
piled them on a pewter plate which he drew from the pannier, and offered
his guests the savory dish with a grunt of hospitality.
Again Gyll laughed. “But our hands are tied.”
Towaye shrugged his shoulders, and, squatting on the ground, held his
wrists together, then raised the dark fingers to his lips. “This way,”
he said, “prisoners eat.” And now, turning away, he busied himself in
preparing his own meal of venison.
Gyll, with a wry face, stood upon her feet, and, reaching to the low
roof, plucked a bunch of grapes—necessarily with both hands at once—which
she offered to Eleanor. Then, having provided herself with another
cluster, she sat down again and bit off the grapes one by one, with
evident relish. Eleanor, however, only looked out listlessly to the
crackling fire, her hands clasped, her fingers intertwined with feverish
strength. Tears fell slowly on the forgotten fruit in her lap, causing it
to shine like a cluster of inestimable rubies in the firelight. Her face,
even now like a child’s, but very spiritual for all its witchery, was
more sad than fearful, more given over to an expression of deep distress
and hopelessness than to terror and apprehension. Her hazel eyes, moist
and lustrous, seemed to have gained a new depth, which for the first
time reached to her very soul. Their look was a prayer. “My little one,
my little Virginia,” again and again she repeated inwardly, half to
herself and half to a Higher Power—“My little Virginia.” Like the dull
surge of heavy, monotonous surf, her thoughts beat upon her brain, now
in comprehending supplication, now in mere unconscious repetition, until
suddenly the despair of her eyes became less passive and more intense.
Another name sprang into the ceaseless, unutterable murmur and all but
escaped her pale lips—“John Vytal.”
Gyll Croyden lay, with elbows on the ground and chin in hand, watching
her. The two faces presented a striking contrast, Eleanor’s as we have
seen it, Gyll’s an almost indescribable paradox, so suggestive was it
of contradictory emotions. The whole expression showed, first, that
she had utterly forgotten her plight and surroundings. Eleanor’s face
absorbed her thoughts, thoughts which were, apparently, at odds. In her
unaccustomed silence there was consideration of her companion’s feelings;
in her eyes an unmistakable admiration and kind of wonder; while about
the corners of her mouth a look of ironical amusement played unforbidden.
Adding an expression more serious—if the word is permissible in
connection with so gay a face—her brows were contracted defiantly. And,
stranger than all, a keen observer would have noted an unwonted sadness,
very subtle, that lay neither in this feature nor in that, but rather, as
it were, behind them all.
At last, however, the defiance assumed sway; the consideration was
forgotten. “Kyt says all men love thee,” she observed, critically;
“now, wherefore, I wonder?” and, as Eleanor turned to her in silent
surprise, “Wherefore do they love thee? Thou hast no merry jest of good
comradeship, nor yet those subtler, intoxicating ways to madden a man
and enslave him. See! hast ever looked at men like this?” She tossed
her curls back and smiled roguishly, with a full consciousness of her
beauty. “Or this?” She leaned forward, arms outstretched languorously,
lips slightly parted, lashes drooping, as though to veil and soften the
light of her eyes. And the eyes were now shimmering, alluring, full of a
mystic, though physical, enthralment.
Eleanor drew back, with a tremor of repulsion.
“Oh, you recoil,” said Gyll, laughing, with a somewhat hollow mirth;
then, mockingly: “And why should you hold aloof? ’Tis better to be a
woman than a statue—and not so wonderful a statue, after all. Believe
me, ’tis the mere poetry of the thing entrances addle-pated Kyt—the mere
delusion. ’Tis the rhythm wherewith he describes you to himself. He
writes of you in plays, he calls you so-and-so in this and that. ’Tis
all fancy. There is no real _you_. Indeed, I doubt if you are more than
a dream to any man. Now, _I_ am an actual, vivid desire.” And so she
prattled on until, at last pausing, as the firelight grew dimmer, she
stretched out her arms and buried her head in them on Frazer’s cloak.
Eleanor’s eyes, cast down on the graceful figure, grew more tender. “I am
so sorry for you,” she said, “poor—” but Gyll had sprung to her feet.
“Sorry? Sorry?” she demanded, with railing sarcasm. “Your sympathies,
Mistress Dare, would better be directed toward yourself. Sorry! Oh—and
_poor_! Hast never seen my wardrobe—the rich broidered stomacher, the
rare silk and sarsanet, the fine linen of my smocks, the gold-fringed
roundels, drawn out with cypress, the silken simar lined with furs?
Methinks the governor’s lofty daughter herself has no such raiment. And
then the ear-rings of silver and pearl, the necklaces—oh, _poor_! An
this be poverty, I rest content to be a pauper. Poor, indeed! Poor!” and
she laughed as at an absurdity.
Eleanor could not comprehend the tone. She never knew whether Gyll had
wilfully misinterpreted the adjective, or whether its true meaning had
sunk down into the woman’s heart and only hardened it the more. “I pray
you keep silent,” she said, in a low voice; “incontinent laughter and
vanity seem little suited to our condition.”
Gyll responded with a grimace that was by no means pretty, and puckered
up the corners of her mouth, which had never been made for sarcasm.
Nevertheless she obeyed with silence, as gradually the present
circumstances were borne in upon her again, recalled, no doubt, by
Eleanor’s words. She looked down at Towaye, who sat near the entrance,
busily occupied in extracting the marrow from a shank of venison. Then
her eyes fell to the pannier behind him, and particularly upon one of the
objects it contained. She lay down again upon the ground, and, gazing up
at the gnarled and braided branches of the arbor’s roof, appeared to have
forgotten her outburst. At last, with a seeming purpose wholly foreign to
her usual manner, she whispered a suggestion in Eleanor’s ear, concluding
with, “It is at least a chance.”
“Yes, but, failing, the result would be terrible, unimaginable. Besides,
he is too cautious.”
Gyll shook her head knowingly. “Wait and see.”
Then, seating herself near the grassy threshold of the arbor, she spoke
in a louder tone, still addressing Eleanor. “Master Frazer is well
provided. I see that his friends have sent him wine from the ship. A
bottle’s neck looks temptingly out of the pannier. Wine, wine! ’twas for
gods that grapes were grown. Hast ever felt the thrill, the pleasant
effects of the golden liquid?” She paused, listening. Towaye was no
longer gnawing his marrow-bone. “Venison and wine! ’Tis the dinner of
kings; and, besides, when one dies of thirst as we do—” her voice fell
lower, but purposely not too low for the jailer’s ears. “Wait. I can
reach it.”
She moved nearer to the entrance, intentionally rustling leaves and
grasses as she did so. Her bandaged hands reached out. But the Indian’s
dusky arm, with quick stealth, forestalled her. It was for this that she
had hoped. Greedily, yet half fearfully, Towaye seized the bottle. She
saw him turn it about in his fingers for an instant, inspecting it from
neck to bottom much as a child surveys a new toy, wonderful and strange
beyond comprehension. And, as a child, he seemed half in fear because
of the mystery. To avoid temptation, he turned about toward the arbor,
and Gyll noticed the awe underlying his desire. Presently he spoke. “In
England Manteo said, ‘Drink not. There is an evil spell in wine. The
sunlight therein is angry at being imprisoned and not free as on the
water. Behold how it affects the English, turning them to madmen. Learn,
and drink not.’ These were the words of Manteo. He is a wise counsellor.”
Gyll laughed. “Wise, I doubt not,” said she, “but deceived. Wine is
rather the cure for madness—the madness of thirst, suffering, cold, and
all that tortures men. I pray you give it to us.”
Seeming reassured by her words, and yet more by her apparent desire to
drink the mysterious liquid herself, Towaye grunted a refusal. “It is not
for women,” he said, cunningly. “It is for men.”
She bit her lip to refrain from smiling, and drew back beyond the circle
of firelight.
Taking Frazer’s poniard in his right hand and still holding the bottle in
his left, Towaye hesitated. Yet suddenly an inborn passion, until to-day
latent in him, but common to all the human race, predominated. His mouth
watered; he must taste the forbidden fruit. The women heard a little
crash, and the glass neck fell off under a blow from the poniard’s blade.
Frazer’s own weapon, left as a precaution with the Indian, had turned
against him.
Towaye drank, and drank again. Gyll peered out and saw his head fall back
slowly as, gradually inverting the bottle until it stood bottom up, he
drained its contents to the dregs.
At this moment Gyll Croyden did an unaccountable thing. Raising her bound
hands to the crown of her head, she surprised Eleanor by untying a short
scarlet ribbon that confined her hair, and instantly a radiant cascade of
gold rippled and rioted downward, completely enveloping her. “Watch now a
piece of play-acting. ’Twould delight Kyt’s heart.”
Towaye rose and entered the arbor. His features were distinctly visible,
for the fire, being on the ground partly to one side of the opening,
cast its gleam up even to the roof of grapes and obliquely athwart the
intruder’s face. His hands, now empty, were half outstretched, palms
forward, fingers bent as though to grasp something.
Eleanor drew back with a cry of terror. For a moment the dark form, naked
save for an apron of deerskin, stood motionless. Then, with a guttural
monosyllable in his own tongue, Towaye started forward. Slowly Gyll arose
and faced him. The fire, with a final high flare, lit up her hair. The
long tresses, falling in ripples below her knees and completely veiling
her face, shone like a flood of sunlight. But for the minute his savage
eyes and heavy steps were directed to Eleanor.
Gyll spoke, and the Indian stopped short to look at her. “Towaye,”
she said, in a voice that sounded far away behind the golden curtain
of her hair, “hark! You stand before the Daughter of the Sun. Advance
no farther, or the fire that inflames your brain shall burn your body
also.” She paused. Her knowledge of Indian theology was hopelessly scant
and indefinite. She had heard that somewhere, in some part of this vast
America, there was a people who worshipped the sun. Might not a like
heliolatry be induced here, even though the Hatteras tribe acknowledged
no such deity? “I, the Daughter of the Sun, command you! Leave me!”
She thrust her hands through the shining locks and held them aloft as
though to weave a spell. “See, Towaye. Even now the spell of the Sun
enthralls thee. Thy legs tremble and waver.” She swayed slightly to and
fro to increase his own unsteadiness. “Thy brain whirls as the flame of
a camp-fire. Thy thoughts clutch at dreams. In an instant thou shalt be
consumed.”
The Indian groaned and staggered backward. Her voice came lower. “Leave
me, Towaye! The Daughter of the Sun hath spoken!”
He stepped back, until his knees weakened suddenly and he sank moaning to
the ground. His head lay against the viny side of the natural doorway;
his gleaming body stretched across the threshold. Long the heavy lids
blinked with a great effort to keep awake; but the mind, utterly
unaccustomed to the fumes of wine, succumbed at last. He fell asleep.
Gyll pulled her skirts above the knee, and, beckoning to her companion,
would have stepped over the prone figure had not Eleanor detained her.
“It cannot last. We shall lose ourselves in the woods and he will readily
overtake us. Then—”
“Ay, you are right,” said Gyll. “I had not thought of that; ’twould
indeed be madness.” And the two women, once more seating themselves in a
corner, surveyed the human barrier before them.
As the firelight waned, Gyll lay on her back again, looking up at the
tracery of interlaced grape-vines which were now but vague arabesques
on the leafy ceiling. The Indian’s head rested on a similar vine, which
formed a pendent arc, a shadowy crescent, beneath his neck. With a
sidelong glance at the recumbent figure, and particularly at the head’s
posture, Gyll saw that the low-hanging vine on which the cranium rested
was about three inches thick and very strong; moreover, it was braided
like a woman’s hair. “Like a woman’s hair.” Several times her thoughts
repeated the simile, and grew more daring with the repetition. She
whispered to Eleanor, and then, a second time lifting her skirts well
above the knee, stepped over Towaye and out of the arbor. Her tread was
wonderfully light and soundless. Near the fire she stooped and picked
up something from the ground that lay near a birch bow and a bundle of
flint-headed arrows. Eleanor saw her bending figure, the petticoats still
raised to prevent their rustling on the leaves, the red silk hose, the
golden cataract of hair, and remembered that picture always.
Gyll returned. Frazer’s poniard was in her hand. Once within the arbor
she appeared to hesitate as with a new purpose, and lifted her weapon as
though to strike the swarthy breast, but could not. Her poised arm seemed
paralyzed. Eleanor, who uttered a low whisper of horrified remonstrance,
need not have done so. The impulse was there, but the masculine nerve and
implacability were lacking. She resumed her first purpose. Cutting the
silken band about her fellow-prisoner’s wrists, she requested Eleanor to
respond in kind. Their hands were at last free. Gyll hesitated, turning
the bandages about in her fingers. “Nay,” she said at last, “he could
easily tear them.”
For a moment she smoothed out her tresses on her knee, passing a palm
over them caressingly. Tears fell and mingled with the gold. Her bosom
was heaving. Catching up the long strand in a mass, she held it to
her lips and kissed it passionately. But then her weeping ceased with
a little gulp of determination, and she held out the curling ends to
Eleanor. “Hold them thus,” and she raised the poniard quickly to her
head. In an instant the tumbling cascade had become a river of gold
on the ground, glimmering in the light of the outer embers. With deft
fingers Gyll twisted the locks tightly, but left both ends loose as
they had fallen. Then she passed the coil over the Indian’s head until
it reached his throat. Next she twined it above and beneath the stout,
depending branch that formed his pillow. At the nape of his neck she
braided the loose strands firmly together, while in and out amid the
tresses she intertwined the galloon of ribbon which had previously decked
her head. Finally she made fast this strange bond with a hard knot in
the ribbon whose scarlet ends were at last bound high above him to an
overhanging vine. Then, with a signal to Eleanor, who was now lost in the
excitement of the moment, being not a whit behind the other in courage,
Gyll stepped across the barrier, and, with the poniard and birch bow in
her hands, led the way to the glade’s entrance.
In a moment they had regained the trail. Here they paused, listening,
undecided whether to hide in the dense jungle or to follow the pathway.
Towaye, however, only snored in sleep. He had moved slightly on feeling
the ringlets touch his throat, but the wine still possessed him.
Night and day met. The intermediate hour of dawn brought a dim gray light
to the tree-tops. Like a silver-green ocean the high surface of birch
and willow foliage, stirred by the whisper of a morning breeze, murmured
response from its distant border where the surf of leaves broke slowly
into spray.
The sun rose and fathomed the forest obliquely where it could. By the
slant of its rays the women gained some knowledge of their position,
and, keeping the sun on their right, followed the trail in a northerly
direction. For an hour they went on without stopping or turning to look
behind.
But at last they came to a sudden halt, hearing a step even lighter than
their own just beyond a bend in the trail ahead of them. Drawing to one
side behind a wild hedge-row in the forest, they waited, breathless. The
low rustle ceased. The person approaching them had evidently come to a
stand-still. Then, through the brambles, they saw a figure, dusky and
bare save for a girdle of deerskin. The head was hidden by an oak-branch.
Gyll’s lips came close to Eleanor’s ear. “’Tis Towaye!”
“No; he is too tall.”
The man stepped forward a pace and stood like a stag, listening. Eleanor
grasped Gyll’s arm, compelling silence, while Gyll herself nervously
tightened her hold on the dagger’s handle.
Again the Indian advanced, and now turned toward them. Seeing his face,
the two women rose to their feet behind the wall of briars. “Manteo!”
* * * * *
An hour later the cressets of the fortress armory cast their glare across
many grave and apprehensive faces whose concern was heightened by an
enforced silence.
“Say nothing of Mistress Dare; he will consider it his duty to go in
search of her, and must not.” The words were Marlowe’s.
Out in the hallway, Governor White, pale and haggard, was giving orders
to a small company of soldiers, who, though worn out with fatigue, were
re-arming themselves as though for a second combat. “To the south! O my
good men, hasten! We must pursue. Even now, perchance, we are too late.
But stay … Who comes? … No … there is no need … Ah, my daughter Eleanor,
you are here!”
Thus, at the very moment of the governor’s out-starting, which, to his
despair, had been so long delayed by the battle, Eleanor returned.
“My father!” Her eyes were moist with tears, her hands caressed him, but
even now she could not wait. The armory’s door stood open. “Virginia,
little Virginia,” she said in the old, half-mechanical way, yet still
very anxiously.
“She is asleep and well.”
“And—” But she could not voice the question of her heart.
The governor smiled in his kindly, unknowing way. “Yes; Ananias, too, is
safe. Yet a terrible battle hath been fought.”
She stood for an instant mute and motionless, the dread anguish of
uncertainty in her eyes. Then she hurried into the armory.
Here the first sight that met her searching glance was her child
sleeping in Margery Harvie’s arms. She bent over and kissed it on the
forehead—once; then turned to a group of men who stood in a corner
encircling a central, recumbent figure that was resting on a bare settle
of oak.
A low moan rose in her heart, and whether or not it escaped her lips she
never knew.
On the settle lay John Vytal, prostrate and unconscious, his left arm
extended to the floor, to which his half-sheathed sword had fallen, the
belt having been unbuckled that his corselet might be unloosed. His
fingers tenaciously grasped the scabbard. The right hand lay across his
breast, which had been bared that a chirurgeon, who stood near by, might
listen to the heart-beats. Under the head of the wounded man a folded
cloak had been placed as a pillow, and his morion, having been removed,
revealed a great black and gray flecked mane of hair, brushed back to
cool his forehead. The brow itself, streaked with crimson, showed a deep
line from temple to temple where the helmet had cut into it. The face,
as though chiselled in bronze, was still stern and relentless save for a
grim, triumphant look of victory that shone in the sharp features like
the cresset-light across his sword.
Marlowe stood erect, watching him, until suddenly a voice, inarticulate,
low, and questioning, seemed to break the spell that bound them all to
the depths of anxious silence.
Marlowe turned. “Thank God!” he said, “you are saved. Speak to him.” And,
with all the relief in the poet’s voice, there was a note of pain; for he
had read her eyes.
“Captain Vytal.”
The soldier stirred as though in an abyss of sleep, his breast heaving
slightly.
“John Vytal.” The name was spoken in a low voice, yet, far away in the
world that sound and sight fathom not by utterance or gaze, but only by
their meaning, one spirit was calling to another.
The captain opened his eyes slowly.
“Thanks be to Heaven!” And Marlowe turned to Eleanor. “Your salvation is
his as well.”
Vytal’s lips parted. “Salvation? What mean you by salvation?” He forced
himself to sit upright, and his voice rose harsh as a night wind. “Has
Mistress Dare been nigh to danger?”
Neither Marlowe nor Eleanor made answer, but Gyll Croyden, who now had
joined the group, replied, laughing: “Ay, that have we both. Master Ralph
Contempt and Towaye snared us cunningly, but a wench’s wit outdid them,
and, alas! a wench’s hair.”
She stroked her close-cut curls dolefully.
Vytal staggered to his feet, and, facing Marlowe, questioned him like a
judge of the Inquisition: “Wherefore didst thou not make this known to
me?”
The poet met his gaze unflinchingly. “I thought—”
“Thought!” The word was repeated in a frigid, biting tone. “Thought!
’Twas not your right to think. The daughter of our governor was in
jeopardy.”
“Yes, captain, and our colony also. I deemed it advisable not to pit one
duty against another. On coming ashore after the battle I would have told
you, but you had swooned.”
Vytal looked at him in silence; then, finally sinking down again to a
sitting posture, “You were right, Kyt,” and his eyes met Eleanor’s—“’Twas
for our colony.”
“I pray you rest,” she said. “Your strength is spent.”
But he sat bolt-upright and made as if to rebuckle his sword-belt in a
dazed, automatic way. “Nay, madam; it is unimpaired.”
* * * * *
At about this time a solitary man, far to the southward, struck inland
from the shore. It was Frazer, returning from a defeat to what he
believed was to be the scene of a conquest which should retrieve it.
On coming to the glade, however, and to the arbor in which Eleanor and
Gyll Croyden had been imprisoned, he stood still before the threshold in
mute astonishment. There, near the ashes of a fire, lay Towaye, basking
in the sunlight, sound asleep. Amazedly the youth started forward and
peered into the arbor. It was empty. Assuring himself of this, he stamped
and swore roundly, but, with a second glance at the slumbering Indian,
his expression changed. A sense of humor asserted itself above chagrin
and even astonishment in the boyish eyes. “How now?” he laughed. “’Tis
a court masque. Lo, a golden necklace and beribboned peruke garnish our
Lucifer!” He shook Towaye none too gently with his foot. The Indian,
rolling over, rubbed his eyes and strove to sit upright, but his bond
held him fast to the stout grape-vine. “I dreamed that I tried once
before,” he said, in sleepy bewilderment; “but the Daughter of the Sun
hath woven a spell.”
“Fool!” ejaculated Frazer.
“Nay, no fool. ’Twas she and the captive sunlight which, escaping its
bondage, entered my body at her command and overpowered it.”
Frazer’s eyes, falling on an empty bottle, brought him comprehension, and
his thoughts went back to another bottle which but recently had worked
his own failure. The remembrance decreased his severity. He unbraided
the peruke, “like a barber,” he said, and bade the Indian join him in
pursuing the women.
At this Sir Walter St. Magil, who had followed him from the shore,
entered the opening. “I have come in search of you.”
“Unbidden!” returned Frazer, hotly.
St. Magil smiled. “You will not remonstrate on hearing the cause.”
“Nay, for I have not the time. No cause delays me.”
“Whither go you, then?”
Frazer made no answer.
“Ah, for some _liaison_, I doubt not. Mark me, a woman will work your
downfall.”
The youth laughed carelessly, and would have gone away, but his friend
detained him. “A ship from Spain has joined the _Madre de Dios_. We
return across the seas. Philip will invade England.”
Frazer started, trembled. His cheeks flushed, a new light shone in the
blue eyes. The whole expression read: _Ambition_.
“Invade England!”
“Yes; with an armada so great that the issue is foregone. Naturally, your
Highness”—the title came half ironical, half serious—“will want to step
first on English soil, no more as Ralph Contempt or Frazer.”
“Nay, no more.” The echo sounded dreamy.
“Now,” pursued St. Magil, “we have bigger fish to fry than these of
Virginia. Roanoke is but a minnow, England a whale.”
Frazer’s lips parted, smiling. “I have had many names,” he said, “but the
whale unpleasantly suggests a new one—Jonah! Now, a minnow—” but he was
only babbling words detached from thoughts, all-expectant, bewildered,
glad, eager, like a child on Christmas Eve.
“Your Highness,” observed the other, “will make a merry—”
“Hush, Sir Walter, you tempt Fortune.”