“What, rebels, do you shrink and sound retreat?”
—MARLOWE, in _Edward the Second_.
We come now to a mile-stone in the road of Time, a mere pebble it may
seem to some, but to the colony of Roanoke it marked a sudden turning in
Life’s pathway.
Perhaps nothing is more unaccountably inconsistent than the action of men
under new and strange conditions. As there is no precedent to predict the
issue, reason falls back upon itself, and fails; the unexpected happens.
Even keen perception and an intimate knowledge of human nature confound
the rule with its exception, trying to solve the problem by its proofs,
or to prove it by the solution.
The colonists of Roanoke had fought bravely for their rights. Surely
men like these could be abashed by nothing. But to make war against
a present, actual enemy and against obscure, slow-moving Destiny are
different matters. Many are fitted for one or the other contest, few for
both.
On a morning early in September numerous planters and soldiers, led by
Ananias Dare, stood before the house of Governor White. The governor
himself was in his doorway, listening sadly to their appeal.
“We have been so weakened in numbers,” said Ananias, “that there is but
one chance left. It is true the Spanish ship has not reappeared, but who
shall say that a force far more powerful may not at any time return
against us? The _Admiral_ and fly-boat go back, as you know, to England,
necessarily in charge of Captain Pomp, who alone is fitted to command
them, and of several mariners. This, however, is not enough. Let us _all_
return.”
The governor looked from the face of his son-in-law to the many others,
and, with dismay, found only agreement in their expressions. “What mean
you?” he asked, helplessly. “Cannot all the planters and chartered
officers wait yet longer? Others will come, I doubt not, from England
without our seeking. To return as the earlier settlers did will cast
discredit not only on us, but upon this great land of which a part is now
our country’s.” He paused, seeking vainly for looks of acquiescence.
“Nay, we can return anon,” said Ananias, “with more husbandmen to
superintend the raising of our crops; with more soldiers to defend us,
and artificers to enlarge our town; with additional supplies, of which we
are in so sore a need—” he broke off suddenly, his wife appearing at an
open window near the door. The child was in her arms. There was a long
silence, but at last the governor spoke again.
“Some must, of a surety, stay. This dominion is a charge not to be
forsaken utterly. Who, then, must needs depart?”
Ananias hesitated, seeing the question repeated in Eleanor’s eyes. For
a time, as the governor searched their faces, no man gave answer, a
few because the plan really pained them, more merely realizing that it
would wound another. Moreover, they felt a certain shame born of the
prearranged suggestion. At this moment Christopher Marlowe and Roger
Prat, having left Vytal in the fortress, joined the group, curious to
learn what was going forward.
At length Ananias summoned up his courage. “_We_ must go,” he said, in a
voice that strove to hide eagerness beneath a tone suggesting sacrifice.
“You and Eleanor, I, and as many others as choose to accompany us.”
The governor’s kindly eyes grew moist. “I go?” he asked, falteringly—“I?”
He questioned them with a sorrowful look that embraced the whole
gathering; but the men nodded their heads gravely. “Who, then,
would remain to govern and foster you? I should be the stigma and
laughing-stock of England. Our charter is in my name and in the names of
my twelve assistants. Who, I ask you, has the right to become governor in
my stead?”
To this the voice of all gave response, with one accord: “John Vytal.”
“Yes,” echoed Ananias, “John Vytal. He is best fitted for it; you for the
request at court. Your influence, your—” but he was suddenly interrupted.
A clear, feminine voice spoke from the window, and Eleanor handed her
child to Margery Harvie, who stood within the room. “It shall not be!
Leave our colony, our home? Leave that which we have bought with so much
blood and suffering? Desert our sacred trust? Cancel by cowardice the
debt we owe to God and the queen? Oh, my friends, we came not hither
for this. I beseech you, I command you, consider, and fling not your
honor thus away!” Her eyes were flashing now, their first cold scorn of
Ananias lost in love for the people, yet in burning indignation at their
unforeseen demand. One hand was on the sill, the other on the casement at
her side. Her cheeks, first pale with contempt for the spokesman, were
flushed now with deep crimson; her voice was all the more eloquent of its
tremor. “Can you not look beyond the present? Can you not see that, as my
father says, many more will follow us from England? Sir Walter Raleigh
hath promised that new expeditions and increased numbers shall share our
home if we succeed. _If we succeed!_ Can there be an ‘if’ before that
word ‘succeed’? Was there an ‘if’ in your hearts when you fought against
our Spanish foe? Nay, nay, my brothers. Failure must not be within our
ken. Have you no care for the great future? Is it no joy to think that
by our own efforts a vast nation may build upon the cornerstone we lay?
Who knows? Are we not perchance sowing that England and all the world may
reap some unimaginable benefit thereby? The land is fair—you know better
than I its bounteous offerings and boundless scope—and, being fair, shall
we then desecrate it with the smirch of cowardice? Oh, my friends, I pray
you reconsider!” Her voice sank lower in the final plea.
A dull murmur ran through the group, whether of approbation or
disapproval she could not tell.
Marlowe started. “It will kill Vytal,” he muttered, as though to himself,
and, on hearing this, the stout soldier beside him looked bewildered.
“Kill Vytal!” repeated Roger. “Gad, man, what mean you?” But now his
eyes, rolling up to look at Eleanor, showed that suddenly he had
understood.
Then Roger Prat seized the thread of the Fates in his own impulsive hand
and wove it into a strange pattern, whether for ill or good, none could
tell.
Swaggering forward, he elbowed his way through the crowd until he stood
before the governor. Then he spoke in a low voice. “It cannot be averted.
I have seen men thus bewitched on the eve of battle. I have cursed,
laughed, coaxed, scolded, all without avail. And I, you know, have great
influence, both with sword and—and tabor, which is scarce less to be
considered. But retreat gets into their quaking hearts. The mischief is
irreparable. Therefore, under your favor, acting for Captain Vytal, I
will divide them as is my custom in a war—they who would go and they who
would remain. Thus we can know men from chickens.”
The governor, sighing, hesitated. “Must it be?” he asked, half aloud.
“We shall see,” said Prat, and White inclined his head in permission.
Roger turned and faced the gathering. “Divide yourselves, my masters. His
Excellency commands that they who would desert—I mean return—stand still,
while they who would remain at Roanoke under Captain Vytal come nearer.”
The crowd wavered, only Marlowe and Dyonis Harvie stepping forward.
“Ah,” observed Prat, “a goodly throng! One, two, and I make three; then
the captain, Hugh Rouse, and King Lud make six. Body o’ me! ’Tis indeed
an invincible company left to defend the settlement.” He wagged his head,
and, turning to the governor, stood at salute between Christopher and
Dyonis. “We are ready, your Excellency.”
There was something so pathetically appealing in the humor which had
marshalled three men as though they were an army that the consciences of
many on-lookers smote them, until first one, then another and another,
went forward and stood beside the military file. Before long some
threescore were elbow to elbow, back to breast, in a double line, not
unlike in formation and precision that which but a few days before had so
bravely defended the _Admiral_.
Prat stepped out from the ranks, and, wheeling, faced the company. One
hand was on his sword-hilt, the other he waved aloft. “Thank you,”
he said; “I shall play to you my own new song called ‘Roanoke’ in
reward for this, and you shall see King Lud dance for very joy. Your
consciences, moreover, shall tickle you, which spitefully pricked
before.” Then, pushing his way through the double file, he stood before
the rear group, who, headed by Ananias Dare, hung their heads in sullen
silence. “The rear-guard,” said Prat, surveying them with contemptuous
irony, “hath also its uses. It makes our front the more glorious by
comparison; it inspires thankfulness in our hearts that we are not of it.
A lion, now, might not be half so proud had he not a frightened hare to
look upon.” His manner grew more serious. “You are determined to leave?”
“Yes, determined,” replied Ananias, who like most weak natures had his
moments of fitful obstinacy.
And the men, in concert, echoed, “Yes.”
Once more Eleanor spoke. “There shall be no strife,” she said. “We cannot
stay you. Go, then; but my father and I remain.”
“Nay, nay,” came from the voices not of those who were to leave, but of
the others who had elected to cast in their lot with Vytal’s. “Nay, the
governor must go to seek assistance, and return hither for our salvation.
That is sure.”
Eleanor’s voice broke. “My people, you hurt me to the quick.”
Prat, doffing his cap, turned to her. “It must be,” he said, mournfully.
“Oh, indeed, it must be! I have collogued with them, I have lost at dice,
I have harangued them, but all in vain.” He went forward, wheeled about
again, and addressed the group of volunteers. “Comrades, I have but one
suggestion.” He cast a sidelong glance at Ananias. “Master Dare must
stay. We cannot spare the governor’s assistant.” The men smiled grimly.
“And, if I may say so, Mistress Dare should likewise remain among us as
a—a kind of hostage from his Excellency, her father, to assure us that he
will return with aid.”
This was the moment in which Roger meddled with Fate.
The governor’s benevolent face went a shade paler as he looked at the
corpulent soldier. “Then you, too, Prat, are against us?” But Roger only
wagged his head and rolled his eyes as who should say, “Interpret the
action as you will, I, at least, feel no compunction.”
Eleanor scanned his face, a new flush mounting to her cheeks. Her mind
was in a turmoil. Great forces strove one against another in her heart;
on the one side her powerful filial devotion, which impelled her to
depart from England with her father; on the other her love for the
colony, her unflinching resolution to stand by it, her scorn for the
husband who sought only selfishly to escape; and, with all these—but
no; she would not define that control even to herself. Yet deep, vivid,
merciless, a name in her soul defined it whether she would or not.
She said nothing, but withdrew from the window to caress her child. A
tear fell on little Virginia’s forehead, and then soft fingers wiped it
away as though to obliterate the symbol of Sorrow’s baptism.
And now a low, broken murmur rose from without.
“Yes, as a kind of hostage,” said one.
“A token of good faith,” added another. “And she shall be as a queen unto
us.”
“Then, surely,” observed a third, “his Excellency will come back with
succor.”
“It is well.”
“And the _brave_ Master Dare must share our fate.”
“Ha! That is best of all.”
“Roger Prat speaks wisely.”
“Ay,” echoed many, “your round head, Roger, is not all whim.”
He laughed and rejoined Marlowe. “Your master will be angry,” said the
poet.
“Not in his heart, Master Christopher.”
The gathering dispersed, casting amused glances at Ananias, who, now
pale, mortified, and desperate, entered the house for his only antidote
against remorse and fear.
The governor made way for him on the threshold and stood for some minutes
watching the retreating figures of his colonists. Then he, too, withdrew
slowly, and his step for the first time suggested infirmity, his face age.
* * * * *
On the following morning Vytal met Eleanor Dare near the shore. “You are
going?” he asked.
“No.”
“’Twould save you from many hardships.”
“I count them blessings. Few women are allowed to suffer in so good a
cause. Their pain shows no result.”
“Nay, Mistress Dare, the effect lies too deep perchance for mortal
eyes to see it. I was once wont to consider women so many smocks and
kirtles that clothed the air, but lately mine eyes have read the truth.”
His manner was in no way passionate, but only deep with reverence and
admiration. The passion lay iron-bound within him. Only his eyes could
not utterly conceal its presence; and, looking up to them, she became
once more a child. With all others she was a woman, often imperious and
always perfectly at ease, yet with this man she was forever forced to
assume the defensive, not against him, but herself. She looked up at
him now for the first time with a glance of analysis. Until to-day she
had never considered Vytal’s character in detail. Hitherto he had been
a force, intangible, but dominant, like the tide or wind. But now that
emergencies and crises had revealed her heart to her mind, against all
that mind’s resistance, he, too, became actual, and despite herself she
knew him to be the one man whom she could love. Yet the word “love” was
unutterable even in her depths. She called it by no name, nor applied a
word to his own devotion. Only the thought came to her, as she met his
look, that this inexplicable, taciturn Fate bending over her would become
a child like herself beneath the touch of a requited—but even then she
interrupted her thoughts with speech. “I could not have consented to
leave our colony, even if Roger Prat—” she hesitated.
Vytal’s manner grew more stern. “Roger Prat? What has he to do with it?”
She looked troubled. “Oh, naught, believe me—I think he—but no—I mean—”
“What?”
“He believed ’twas for the best, and so he demanded that I—should stay.”
Vytal grasped his sword-hilt. “Is ’t possible he dared to interfere? Do
you mean ’twas Prat suggested hostages? Can it be my own man who hath
exposed you to the hazard of remaining?”
“No, stay, Captain Vytal. Harm not the fellow. Dost not—” But she broke
off suddenly, her head drooping to hide the deep flush which had mounted
to her cheeks.
“’Twas impertinence,” declared Vytal, as though to himself. “Nay, more,
it was profanation to thwart the will of Heaven, by which you would have
been saved from this cruel life.”
She looked up at him again, a wistful doubt in her eyes. “Then you—would
have—me return?”
He drew himself to his full height in the old soldierly way, as though
facing an ordeal. “I would.”
“Wherefore?” The word came in a low whisper, as though a woman’s heart
were sinking with the voice to endless silence.
“I consider _your_ happiness, and not—” He paused and turned to leave.
She spoke no detaining word, but only stood watching him as he walked
away to the fortress, and her eyes were no longer haunted by misgiving.
* * * * *
“Roger.”
“Ay.”
“Hereafter ignore the dictates of impulse save in matters of your
calling. Obey my commands alone, or seek another friend.”
“But, captain—”
“Stay, I ask no explanation nor apology. The thing is done.”
* * * * *
At sunrise the whole colony, save the governor and his daughter, having
assembled on the shore, was divided into two parties—those who were
lading cock-boats and barges with provisions prior to their departure,
and those who merely assisted in the embarkation with a secondary
interest, listless and mutely sad.
Soon, like the pinions of two great sea-fowl, wide-spread to bear them
upward from a billow, the sails of the fly-boat and _Admiral_, mounting
from yard to yard, held all eyes at gaze.
Prat, watching them with a wry face, turned to Marlowe, who stood beside
him. “Damned portents!” he exclaimed.
“Nay, Roger, they are but vultures awaiting to bear away the corpse of
Courage.” Prat eyed him with a kind of wonder. “Or,” pursued the poet,
carelessly, “those sails are the flags of truce we wave to Destiny.”
“Master Kyt,” asked Roger, with a look of unprecedented embarrassment,
“is ’t a hard thing to write poesy?”
Marlowe, still in abstraction, failed to note the preposterous suggestion
that underlay the query. He made answer seemingly to himself. “’Tis easy
to indite the ‘Jigging Conceits of Rhyming Mother Wits,’” he observed,
quoting from the prelude to his “Tamburlaine.”[6] “It is within man’s
compass to make a ‘mighty line’ or so; but to write poetry is impossible.”
“Nay, but you yourself, Master Christopher—”
“No, not I, nor any one can scan the lines engrailed by a golden pen on
the scroll of sunset, or echo the music of a breeze.”
The soldier looked mournful, his chin sinking on his chest until a triple
fold submerged it. “I would fain have invented a poem myself,” he avowed,
gloomily. “And, indeed, have written a song of the men of Roanoke.
Lack-a-day! ’tis but a jigging mother of rhyme, I fear, and poorly done.”
Marlowe surveyed him in silence for a moment, then laughed gayly and
turned away.
At the same moment a flutter of white scraps, like torn paper, fell to
Roger’s boots.
The gathering that lined the water’s edge was now divided in the centre,
and Governor White walked between the ranks, smiling to one and another
on either side to conceal the sadness of his farewell. As he came
half-way to the shore, Marlowe went forward and stopped him. Holding out
a heavy packet, the poet spoke in a low voice. “I pray you see to it
that this is delivered to Edward Alleyn, an actor of plays, who dwells
in the Blackfriars, or, if he be not readily found, then, I pray you,
leave it at the sign of ‘The Three Bibles,’ in charge of Paul Merfin, a
bookseller. It was from his shop that I joined John Vytal in the fight
for your daughter’s honor. I doubt not you will leave this there as my
reward. The packet contains certain stage conceits begun in England and
finished here.”
“It shall be delivered,” said the governor. “I am, indeed, happy thus to
be made a humble sharer in the building of your fame.”
The poet smiled. “Fame!” he said. “’Tis not for that I sing.”
And now Governor White made his way to the water, while many gathered
sorrowfully around him to place letters in his charge.
Eleanor went down to the sea hand-in-hand with her father. Those who were
to leave had already boarded the two vessels, with the exception of a
sailor and Captain Pomp, who stood, befeathered hat in hand, beside the
governor’s small-boat.
As John White was about to step over the gunwale of this craft, Vytal
approached him. “Since it must be,” said the soldier, “I have sought
at least to exonerate you from all slander in England and charges of
desertion. The Oxford preacher hath writ this,” and he handed a scroll of
paper to the governor. It read as follows:
“May it please you, her Majesty’s subjects of England, we,
your friends and countrymen, the planters in Virginia, do by
these let you and every [one] of you to understand that for the
present and speedy supply of certain our known and apparent
lacks and needs, most requisite and necessary for the good and
happy planting of us, or any other in this land of Virginia, we
all of one mind and consent have most earnestly entreated and
incessantly requested John White, Governor of the planters in
Virginia, to pass into England for the better and more assured
help, and setting forward of the foresaid supplies, and knowing
assuredly that he both can best and will labor and take pains
in that behalf for us all, and he not once but often refusing
it for our sakes, and for the honor and maintenance of the
action hath at last, though much against his will, through our
importunacy yielded to leave his government and all his goods
among us, and himself in all our behalfs to pass into England,
of whose knowledge and fidelity in handling this matter, as all
others, we do assure ourselves by these presents, and will you
to give all credit thereunto, the 25 of August, 1587.”[7]
Eleanor had already said good-bye in private, but once more she kissed
her father, pressed his hand, whispered in his ear, and then, as he
stepped into the cock-boat which awaited him, returned to her baby, that
lay crowing in its nurse’s arms.
“Body o’ me,” said a voice near by. “The prow hangs a-land. Dame
Cock-boat refuses to be gone. Hi, little Rouse, come help them.”
The two joined their fellow, who, under Captain Pomp’s directions, was
striving to launch the craft, which had been nearly deserted by an
ebb-tide.
“Whist!” said Roger in Hugh’s ear, “we’ll make Master Dare give aid.”
Hugh looked at the assistant and saw a sorry picture. “’Tis a ghost,” he
exclaimed, “not a man in flesh and fell.”
“The corpse of Courage,” added Prat, after the poet’s manner.
The man they discussed seemed like a ghost indeed, that would fade with
the mist when the sun rose higher. His face, pallid and haggard, was
turned toward the cock-boat as to a last resort.
“He would leave,” observed Rouse, while, side by side with Roger, he
pushed the governor’s craft slowly forward. For a moment the keel ceased
grating on the shingle, and Prat turned to Ananias. “Oh, Master Dare, I
pray you give us aid! ’Tis a most unconscionable task!” At which one or
two others near the cock-boat exchanged winks and covert smiles. They
showed no mercy. Dare, between the two soldiers, was forced himself to
cut the last thread between danger and safety.
The prow fell free, and finally the boat was floating. Then the
on-lookers saw Ananias stagger, or, rather, almost spring forward,
having, they supposed, lost his balance as the craft shot out from land.
But Hugh’s immense hand, grasping his belt, pulled him backward to save
him (the by-standers believed) from a ducking. Rouse and Prat walked away
arm-in-arm. “Well done, midget; I had not thought so dense a brain would
fathom his intention.”
Slowly the _Admiral_ and fly-boat sailed away, their hulls, bulwarks,
and deck-houses vanishing beyond the inlet from the ocean until only the
shrouds remained, and now the whole colony had left the shore, save one
woman. Long she watched the sails that, like white clouds, seemed to grow
smaller, and at last dissolve entirely beneath the eastern sun.
Finally a naked horizon met Eleanor’s eyes at the edge of a brassy sea,
and she turned back to the town.