“But who comes here?
How now?”
—MARLOWE, in _The Jew of Malta_.
“Master Christopher Marlowe hath disappeared.” The assertion came from
Ananias Dare, who at noon joined a number of his fellows idling in the
town.
“Ay,” said a gossip following him, “and Gyll Croyden is nowhere to be
found.”
“Marlowe gone!” exclaimed one.
“Gyll Croyden missing!” ejaculated another.
“The poet and his love,” insinuated the gossip. The women exchanged
glances; the men were grave with apprehension.
“By St. George, ’tis a strange hap,” said a soldier.
“Some ill hath overtaken them as retribution,” declared the Oxford
preacher.
“Let us institute a search,” suggested several simultaneously. “We may
find them.”
“Nay, they’ve not been seen for many hours.”
“But we should try.”
“Well, then, ’twill keep us fro’ twiddling our thumbs. Ho, Prat! Give
us aid. ’Ods precious! Where’s the merry-andrew gone? Was she not _his_
light o’ love as well?”
“Yes,” laughed the gossip, “but saw you not Prat’s look when I told you
she had disappeared? He and his bear have gone a-roaming in the forest.
Poor clown!”
Many shook their heads with indulgent pity. “Come, let us go in search.”
But Ananias Dare, who, being in the turmoil of a struggle against
himself, had said little, now stayed them. “They are not in jeopardy. We
ourselves have more to fear. Last night I saw a ship bear away to the
east. My masters, I doubt not they have clandestinely deserted us. They
have gone.”
“Deserted us!” The exclamation was not from one only, but all, and an
angry muttering ran through the company.
“These poets have no courage.”
“She was afraid to stay. The parson bade her marry.”
“We are well rid of them.”
“Ay, but ’tis an outrage.”
Then a new-comer spoke in sharp, condemnatory tones, not against the
subjects of their talk, but against their own contumely. It was Vytal.
“Yes, Christopher Marlowe hath gone,” he said, “for your sake, not his
own. A Breton shallop came from the north, and he, for a cause beyond
your ken, hath taken passage therein. In England, he will gain audience
with the queen, and persuade her Majesty to send us aid. The thing is
done. Now make the best of it.”
Ananias started forward. “And you knew he was going?”
“I knew it.”
“Yet you dared to withhold the knowledge from us?”
Vytal’s lip curled. “’Twas no great daring, but only kindness. I held
you to your trust, and so shall till death.” They started toward him,
wrathful, riotous. “Oh, you seek to end the matter now? I am at your
service. Here, Hugh, to my side!” The giant, hurling aside all who
sought to oppose him, obeyed, with broadsword drawn.
Ananias fell back from the front ranks swearing, his retreat seeming to
affect the others with a like discretion.
“I have fought for you and by your side,” said Vytal, a new note of grief
in his voice; “yet with death you would repay me.”
“Ay, he fought for us well,” cried Rouse, fervently, and the words were
echoed in embarrassed whispers through the crowd.
Slowly they turned and left him.
* * * * *
For several hours a stout vagabond wandered aimlessly through the woods,
now and then addressing an unresponsive companion. “She’s gone; my
laughing Gyll is gone! Come, your Majesty, get you into the barge; we’ll
go to Roanoke.” The heavy craft, bulky and awkward as its occupants,
moved on and on through the night until at last it touched the southern
shore of Roanoke. “Behold that glade, your Majesty; it is the very spot
where you danced with her while I piped, and the Indians looked on with
wonder. But, body o’ me! those days are gone. King Lud, thou’lt dance no
more.” And the vagabond clasped arms with his comrade. “Those days are
dead; let ’em be forgot.”
Thus together, hither and thither, round and about, the strange pair
wandered, until they came to a ravine margined with a natural arbor of
grapes whose tangled vines clambered to the trees and lay like sleeping
snakes in a near-by opening. To these the bear paid no attention, but
sniffed about the trunks of trees for fruit of another kind. One of the
arbors, however, interested the soldier.
“It was here,” he said, “that her wit right bravely saved her from
Towaye, and she clipped the locks o’ her sunny head a-weeping.
Lack-a-day, those times are mine no longer. Let ’em be bygones, Roger
Prat, and think no more on ’t, I do beseech you.”
Suddenly he paused and leaned forward. A long rope shone lustrous amid
the tendrils of the arbor. “Body o’ me! ’tis the very strand!” and,
extricating it, he looked about to make sure that even the bear had not
discovered his secret. Then, as King Lud disappeared in the woods, he sat
down for a moment on the ground, and, gently laying the shining curls
across his knees, stroked them again and again, murmuring inaudibly as
they moved restlessly in the breeze or caught in his clumsy fingers,
while, with a bewildered expression, he rolled his eyes. At last he
thrust the golden braid into the bosom of his doublet, and for once the
new mournfulness of his round, red face was not absurd. But presently he
frowned and rose jerkily to his feet. “Yes, that pygmy Rouse is right,”
he muttered. “Ye’re daft, Roger Prat—daft, indeed.”
Thereafter, calling to the bear, he spent the day in returning
laboriously to Croatan, on whose shore the animal, sufficiently tamed to
rove at large, left him, and, still with an unsatisfied appetite, loped
off into the forest.
* * * * *
In the evening Eleanor Dare sat in her dining-room with Vytal. “Then he
has actually gone?”
“Yes, on a Breton shallop. He waited for months, hoping that the chance
would come at last.”
“But he never told me,” said Eleanor.
“Nay, for perhaps the power was not in him.”
She looked deeply thoughtful. “Oh, I comprehend it all now, but then I
considered the farewell one of his vagaries. I thought he was bidding
good-bye to me only—you understand—yet now his words come back to me
with double force. Captain Vytal, we have lost a friend.”
“Yes,” said the soldier, “in truth a friend. It is my duty, however, to
tell you that we have regained an enemy;” with which he told her briefly
of their meeting with Frazer, of the latter’s pretensions, trickery, and
escape. At mention of the duel’s climax, he coldly chid himself without
forbearance as he would have censured any other in his place. “There will
be a second attempted invasion,” he said, “to repel which we must harbor
all our strength. In some unaccountable way this fellow hath escaped
Manteo, who but just now has returned, after a futile search. Moreover,
Mistress Dare—” But he paused abruptly. He would say no more. From her
and from all he must withhold for always the conviction that, by some
terrible mischance, John White had come to Roanoke again and gone.
For a moment her eyes questioned him, but, finding no answer, she forbore
to voice the query, and quickly dismissed the subject as he willed. Her
eyes flashed. “We must, at all cost, defeat them, and assert our rights
so strongly as to preclude the possibility of repeated threats.”
“We shall.”
“Oh, captain, I pray you give me work to do in our defence. Idleness
palls upon me in times like these. Give me opportunity, if needs be, to
suffer for the common good.”
He looked deep into her eyes. “You are one of the few,” he said, slowly,
“who are worthy to suffer, and, therefore, ’tis for you I fear.”
To this she would have replied in all the bravery of her hopeful
womanhood, but suddenly her expression changed. “Who is that?” she
whispered, gazing at a near-by window; and then, as a head was thrust
in at a casement, she laughed with evident relief, for the long nose of
King Lud, who stood without on his hind-legs, was sniffing the air of the
dining-hall.
In another second the animal had dropped to his natural posture, and was
for shambling off to Roger’s cabin, but Vytal’s quick eyes had caught
sight of a whitish object suspended from the animal’s neck. Uttering a
short call by which Prat was wont to summon his pet, Vytal opened the
door, and saw King Lud irresolutely awaiting him. With a warning gesture
to Eleanor, bidding her remain in the house, he went out and stroked the
bear’s head; then, bending down, untied a thong of deerskin and took from
under the shaggy throat the object he had noticed. Returning, he held
it in the light, while his brow, contracting, darkened. “It is the very
horn,” he said, “of Frazer’s using. But there is more, too,” and he drew
a crumpled scrap of paper from the muzzle of the instrument. Spreading
it out on the table, he read the first words, whose letters, all small
capitals, were formed by innumerable perforated dots pricked through the
paper evidently by the sharp point of a weapon.
“TO MISTRESS DARE—”
Vytal looked up at Eleanor. “It is probably unfit for your perusal;
therefore, with your permission, I will read it first myself,” and, as
she inclined her head, he did so.
“TO MISTRESS DARE,—This promise writ with my poniard: I will
return anon, my love. The king lives, waiting for his royal
consort. It may be a day, it may be a year, or several years,
but in the end, I swear to you, that I will come and claim mine
own. Yet, if at any time our friend, Captain Vytal, seeks to
capitulate and surrender the colony to my liege sovereignty,
let him blow thrice upon this horn—which he will remember
is an effective signal in time of need. Written, or rather
perforated, in some haste, but no flurry, very near you at
Croatan, by the Crown Prince of England, yet your humble slave,
“ARTHUR DUDLEY.”
Vytal tore the paper into shreds. “Once more,” he said, “this mountebank
hath grossly insulted my queen.” Eleanor’s cheeks flushed vividly.
By a supreme effort he withdrew his eyes from the crimson token of her
love and stared fixedly through the casement into the outer darkness of
night. “_Our_ queen,” he added, in a low, metallic voice, “Elizabeth.”
Book III
CHAPTER I
“The restless course
That Time doth run with calm and silent foot.”
—MARLOWE, in _Doctor Faustus_.
On the shore of Roanoke, under the eastern cliff, a young Indian
stood alone, listening. Tall and straight as a spear, his dark form,
undraped, save at the loins, suggested, in the moment of immobility, a
bronze statue, fresh from a master-hand. The attentive poise, the keen,
expectant eyes, the head thrown back, implied in every muscle and outline
a mystery, for the whisper of whose voice he waited breathless. But,
as the desired sound was not forthcoming, the spell broke suddenly. He
moved, and the all-unconscious pose was lost in activity. With light
steps that seemed to fall upon an ethereal roadway, even less solid than
the shifting sands, he went to a copse of trees beneath the cliff and,
bending forward, scanned the long vines and grasses that ran wild beneath
his feet. Through the canopy of green above him a host of sun-rays made
their way, and, separating into a myriad golden motes, played in and out
amid the maze of cedar-roots that met his eyes. A breeze, laden with the
fragrance of numberless shrubs and vagrant flowers, stirred the straight
black strands of his hair, to which the sun lent a lustrous gloss like
the sheen of a raven’s wing. Was it only the air, fresh and warm with
midsummer balm, that filled him to the flood with ardent life? Was it
merely the sun that kindled those lights in his eyes, and only the free
flux of animal spirits that possessed him? The eagerness of his quest
gave answer, and even the song-birds, now in silence watching him from
high above, seemed to divine that here was no intruding fowler, no mere
hawk more powerful than themselves.
Again he paused, listening, and now the intent look changed to an
expression of apprehension and dismay. The statue of Hope was transformed
to a figure of Alarm; the pleasure of seeking to the disquietude of a
search in vain.
Suddenly, however, from the branch of an oak-tree, in the heart of whose
shadow he stood, a voice came down to him, blithe, merry, triumphant, and
the voice, for all its melody, was not a bird’s. “Dark Eye, the White
Doe is here.” He looked up, smiling, and somewhat mortified, but not
long, for in a minute the maid, who had outwitted him in their game of
hide-and-seek, stood on the ground, her laughing eyes and words bantering
him without mercy. “Oh, what availeth the speed and craft of Dark Eye
when the White Doe hides?”
“Virginia,” he said, pronouncing the name with difficulty, “thou art no
white doe, but a spirit of the woods.”
As a description of her appearance his observation was not amiss. The
little Virginia Dare, a child no longer, seemed rather a spirit than
a maid. Yet in the gentle curves of her form and the expressive depth
of her hazel eyes there was already a promise of maturity. They were
a pair of rovers, these two, without guile, without one marring trace
of worldly comprehension, without that indefinable, but ever-apparent,
disingenuousness of face and voice that comes when the fruit of knowledge
has been tasted; they were deer, revelling in their forest freedom, and
sea-gulls, loving the water. Sylvanites, barbarians, brother and sister,
going and coming as they willed, they were always together, and, as yet,
in no way conscious of themselves.
And the guardian angel was Eleanor. To her the freedom of their
companionship was a source of constant joy. Had she not done well to
leave their Eden unbounded by convention? Could she not thus in a measure
regain what she herself had lost, and allow Virginia the happiness which
had been withheld from her? “Yes,” she answered, in one of her reveries,
“it is well.” And from the day of that first decision, Virginia, always
clad in white draperies, loose and clinging, went barefoot, hatless, and
unrestrained. The years of restriction were yet in the future.
Indeed, as the two now stood together on the shore—primordial beings, all
unblemished by a past—that future, though approaching, seemed far away.
“Come,” said Virginia, after she had taunted him sufficiently to please
her whim, “you so nearly found me that I will grant reward for the
tedious quest.”
She went to the base of the cliff, while he, enchanted by her every
motion, and striving to guess the nature of the guerdon, followed her in
silent wonder. Near the cliff she paused and took a shell, pink, shallow,
and translucent, from an old wampum-pouch that, in their childhood,
he had given her. Next, she plucked from a vine that rambled down the
cliff-side a cluster of grapes, green as their own leaves, and almost
bursting. “There,” she said, casting them on a strip of mossy ground;
“now wait,” with which she trod upon the cluster with her bare feet;
then, as their luscious juice ran freely, held them aloft, and the shell
beneath, so that into it the sparkling drops fell one by one until they
overflowed the brim.
And now, after touching the nepenthe to her lips, she held out the
delicate chalice to him and bade him drink.
As though participating in some magic that would presently enchant them
both, he tasted, and would have emptied the shell delightedly, but on a
sudden he started and, letting fall the fairy cup, pointed to the sea.
With a cry of astonishment, Virginia and her comrade ran to a winding
path which led to a higher vantage-point, and in a moment they stood upon
a headland, side by side, he transfixed, she trembling with excitement.
“’Tis a ship,” she said, breathlessly. “I can just remember the white
wings. In one of these ships my grandfather sailed away, and they say
that I saw him go. In another went Master Kyt, but I saw not the wings
that bore him from us. I wonder if Master Kyt is returning? How many
years have passed since he departed?” She held up her hand and counted
them on her tapering fingers. “’Tis five—”
But for once the Indian was not heeding her. “Look,” he said, “there is
not one ship only.”
Turning again to face the sea, she saw two distinct white clouds, one in
the middle distance, one just surmounting the horizon.
“Come,” suggested Virginia, “let us give the signal to our people who
fish in the sound.” So saying, she led him along the palisade until they
reached Vytal’s deserted hut, near which the old culverin still remained
on guard and ready-primed. “This is the way,” she commanded—“Captain
Vytal showed me,” and, when he had obeyed her instructions, a deafening
roar went seaward from the land. “Oh, ’tis a terrible sound,” cried
Virginia, covering her ears with her hands; “but that is enough, and
now let us go down to meet the townsmen as they land and tell them
the tidings before they spy those wings themselves.” As she started
away, first one, then another musket-shot, each fainter than the last,
answered her signal from the south. With a long succession of alarums,
the fishermen repeated the first startling report back and back even to
Croatan.
By the time Virginia and the Indian reached the northern shore several
barges were already within sight.
Vytal, leading in a canoe, was the first to land.
“Two ships are coming!” cried Virginia. “Where is my mother?” But the
soldier strode past her, making no reply, his eyes ablaze with a light
that long ago had left them as though forever.
Hugh Rouse, stepping ashore from the next canoe, leaned forward from
his great height and seized Virginia by the arm as though to crush her
with a single grasp. “What were those words of thine?” he demanded, with
unprecedented ferocity. “Speak them again!”
“A ship is coming,” she said, half fearfully; “nay, two.” But the last
words were unheard, and the giant, turning to face the many approaching
barges, roared out, “A sail!”
“A sail! A sail! A sail!” was the wild cry which, repeated again and
again, with increasing frenzy, went ringing from the foremost craft to
the very last. And, before long, the headland on the eastern coast was
overrun by mad men and women who, with tears streaming from their eyes
and kerchiefs frantically waving, gave free vent to their overwhelming
joy. The floodgates of emotion, so long forced to withstand a mighty
strain, had been shattered in an instant; and now the torrent,
tempestuous, whirling, wild, upleaping, uncontrollable, burst from their
very souls.
Salvation was at hand.
All believed so, and the belief possessed them utterly, from those who
stood at the edge of the headland transfixedly gazing seaward, to those
who shouted with gladness, and the others who, standing yet farther
back, bowed their heads while the preacher voiced their thanksgiving to
God. In the foremost line, silent and rigid, stood Vytal; in the last,
Eleanor Dare, with her daughter, praying. But soon Virginia, slipping
her hand from her mother’s, rejoined the Indian, to chide him laughingly
for having let fall the shell, which now lay in fragments far below.
For to these two alone the sails meant little, seeming no more than the
wings to which they had likened them. To the White Doe and Dark Eye there
was no far-distant home ever calling for its own. Unlike their English
neighbors, these two were no foster-children, but inheritors of the land
by right of birth. This was their country, this their home. Only here
could their happiness mature, and seemingly only apart from the colony
could they live as their hearts desired. For that uncertain, wavering
shyness and sign of an uncomprehended fear, which long ago Marlowe had
noticed, still softened Virginia’s eyes with a mystic veil. She was
not beloved by the settlers save as a pet bird whose grace and beauty
they admired. For she lacked the magnetism of her mother, yet received,
perhaps, more frequent praise. There was still that difference between
Eleanor and Virginia which Marlowe had defined as the difference between
spirituality and mysticism. The one was in all ways a solace, the other
pretty to look upon, but never restful, and this lack of restfulness,
more than all else, explains her unpopularity in the settlement of
laborers.
To-day, feeling more restless than ever, “Look,” she said, “Roger
Prat shall pipe to us.” With which she led her companion by the hand
through the babbling throng to Roger, who, arm-in-arm with his bear, was
swaggering here and there, discoursing bombastically on the approaching
ships, as though he himself deserved thanks for the benefit.
“How now, Goodman Prat,” inquired Virginia, as they joined him; “art
going to leave thy flute silent at such a time?”
He turned and, with head on one side, surveyed her narrowly. “The pipe
pipeth no more,” he said, “for the necessary wind hath gone out of my
heart.”
“Lungs,” corrected Virginia, with a silvery laugh.
“Lungs,” he assented, gravely; “but, White Doe, see here!” He pointed to
a small tabor that hung by his side. “I have brought this drum wherewith
to celebrate. Hark to Roger’s tattoo!” And, drawing from his belt a pair
of drum-sticks, he marched about, with a rat-a-tat-tat-tat-too. “Sing,
ho, the taborin, little taborin,” he cried, “merry taborin,” and his
sticks danced furiously on the drum. He was thinking of England, and of
the chance that he might return to forgive Gyll Croyden.
But Virginia, pouting, turned away. “That is not music,” she said to the
Indian. “He is changed.”
Hers was the only frown that, until now, had crossed a face that morning.
Hilarity laid hold on the jubilant throng, and turned all save the most
serious ones to children.
Musket-shots rang out in celebration; cheer on cheer filled the air,
until, growing hoarse with their incessant huzzahs, planters, soldiers,
traders, wives, daughters, sons, and even lonely widows and orphans,
still kept waving their arms to the distant ships in silence. And still
Roger, with King Lud in his wake, went the round, now gesticulating in
the air with both of his drum-sticks, next pointing with one to the
sails, and again setting the pair ajig on his tabor in clamorous acclaim.
Suddenly, however, catching sight of Vytal’s face, he desisted and
hastened to the captain’s side. Vytal spoke in a low voice that none but
Prat and Hugh Rouse might catch the tenor of his words. “An I mistake
not, those ships are not our friends.” Roger and Hugh turned, in dismay,
to look once more across the water.
Rouse, shading his eyes with a great hand, swore roundly beneath his
breath.
“Body o’ me!” exclaimed Prat, who for once could say no more.
Vytal had spoken truly. For now that the ships came slowly within range
of the watchers’ vision, the fact became obvious to one and another on
the headland that these were not vessels of English build.
Gradually a desperate silence assumed sway over the colonists, while they
advanced anxiously to the cliff’s edge. “They are enemies,” whispered one.
“Ay, ’fore Heaven, they are not of friendly countenance.”
Then a voice rose trembling in a high key, and Ananias, terror-struck,
covered his eyes. “Oh, my God! the two are Spaniards from St. Augustine.
Look! Look! One is the _Madre de Dios_!”
Vytal turned quickly to the settlers. “Yes, they are Spaniards,” he said,
harshly, “and one is the _Madre de Dios_. She hath been defeated once;
’tis for us to sink her now.”
A low groan ran through the throng. Alarm had stifled hope. But, as none
gave answer, Vytal spoke again. “Let those who are afraid return and
seek safety at Croatan. I and my men will meet them.”
“Yea,” laughed Prat, “right gladly meet them.”
But already half the number had deserted, and, led by Ananias, were
now stampeding toward their barges on the southern shore. Only the
fighting-men and Eleanor remained on the headland. Suddenly an
ejaculation from Prat caused Vytal to turn. The foremost of the Spanish
vessels stood tentatively with flapping sails, as though undecided, and
in another moment a long, rakish-looking craft, propelled by several
rowers, had left the ships, and was making its way to the shore. In the
prow an officer, gaudily dressed, stood erect, waving aloft a pike, from
the blade of which a white flag floated lightly on the breeze. Slowly the
long-boat drew nearer, until its stem swished on the sand. Then, stepping
out, the Spanish officer, wearing no visible arms, turned to one and
another with a lordly insolence, and finally accosted Vytal in English.
“I am the admiral,” he said, “of our little fleet, and would speak with a
person in command.”
“I,” said Vytal, “govern the colony.”
On hearing this the Spaniard started perceptibly and scrutinized the
bleak, impassive face with heightened interest. “May I inquire,” he
asked, with a curious mingling of autocratic condescension and true
respect, “concerning your Excellency’s name?”
“’Tis the Wolf,” replied Roger Prat, impulsively, before Vytal could
answer.
The admiral smiled. “Ah, the Wolf! ’tis well for me I seek only an
armistice at your hands—a short and friendly truce. We are in sore
straits. Having but recently escaped wreckage, we are now like to die of
thirst and starvation. I have here the usual conditions of an armistice,
which I submit for your consideration,” and he handed Vytal a sheet of
paper which conveyed, in English, his proposal:
“I. That we be permitted to buy victuals.
“II. That we be allowed to lie off the coast of Virginia
without annoyance or molestation until our ships, which are in
leaky state, shall have been repaired.
“III. That we be granted the right to come ashore in small
bodies for the procuring of lumber and implements necessary
in this work of repair, and for supplies, all of which
commodities, including any others that may be offered and
desired, shall be purchased at a just rate.
“IV. That we, on our part, shall come to land unarmed, your
soldiers to have the full privilege of searching us.
“V. That your right and title to Roanoke Island, and such
adjacent territory as you inhabit, shall in all ways be
respected by us.”
Vytal, having read the document aloud, handed it back to its author.
“This hath been quickly framed,” he said, scanning narrowly the other’s
face; “or else it was writ before you sighted Roanoke.”
The Spaniard laughed uneasily. “I perceive,” he said, “that his
Excellency, the Wolf, hath eyes which read a man’s soul. Yet I myself
indited these proposals at seeing your company on the headland. ’Twas in
no way preconceived, and that is truth.”
“How many men do you command?” asked Vytal, with slow deliberation.
“Threescore soldiers,” was the quick response.
“’Tis well,” said Vytal, “and we are trebly strong.”
“Trebly!” ejaculated the admiral, unguardedly.
“Nay,” observed Vytal, inwardly numbering the Indians as allies. “Much
more than trebly.”
The Spaniard covered his surprise with a yawn. “I trust you will make
haste,” he said, “for while you delay we starve.”
“So be it,” assented Vytal, curtly, and turned on his heel.
The admiral bowed and withdrew to his long-boat.
“’Tis our only chance,” said Vytal to Eleanor. “We must arm every man,
red and white, that, in the event of treachery, we may die fighting.”
“Think you, then,” she asked, anxiously, “their force is so much the
stronger?”
“Beyond doubt, madam, they far outnumber us.” His face grew tense, and
for a moment almost desperate. “If they gain knowledge of our weakness,
we are lost.”
He spoke hurriedly to Rouse. “Go instantly to Croatan. Ask Manteo to
bring his tribesmen here without delay. Say that I have sent you. Speak,
then, to our own people. Adjure them, in God’s name, to proceed hither
within the hour. Make known the conditions of the armistice. If fear
still deters them, and they suspect treachery on the part of our enemies,
make no threat, but say that only within this palisado can we hope for
safety. At Croatan they could not possibly withstand invaders. Here
the fortifications are ready built. Let the people bring all available
provisions for a siege, yet mention not the word ‘siege.’ Say merely that
until the Spanish depart we remain here to trade with them.” He turned to
Prat. “Do you, Roger, go with Hugh, and by your wit compel them to obey.
My whole trust is in you both. Make haste!”
Without a word they started off, the giant with great strides, the
vagabond with rolling gait, and for once not garrulous, but genuinely
grave.
Vytal, returning to the headland, spoke to Dyonis Harvie, who stood near
by. “You, Dyonis, assume command of the fortress, where the women and
children will look to you for their defence.”
* * * * *
For many minutes Eleanor and Vytal stood in silence, motionless. From
far away came the sound of the surf droning on the beach, with which,
from beyond the screen of woods between them and the town, a low hum of
preparation was blent monotonously. At last they walked to the brow of
the cliff whereon stood the watchful culverin, and looked down at the
lengthening shadows on the shore.
Small groups of Spaniards and Englishmen were gathered together here and
there busy in trade.
“They buy and sell most peacefully,” observed Eleanor.
“Yes,” said Vytal, “they traffic as friends.”
CHAPTER II
“Here, man, rip up this panting breast of mine,
And take my heart in rescue of my friends.”
—MARLOWE, in _Edward the Second_.
On the fourth night after the ships’ arrival, the colonists and Hatteras
Indians, all of whom, at Vytal’s command, had come from Croatan,
congressed near the fortress of Roanoke. In the centre of the square
a camp-fire of great logs and dried branches roared and crackled
cheerfully, while encircling the blaze sat red men and white, some half
prone in sleep, others upright and talking. Somewhat apart from the
main gathering, and just beyond range of the firelight, were Vytal and
Manteo, while, midway between them and a number of sleeping soldiers,
sat Virginia Dare and her Indian comrade. Not far away lay Hugh Rouse,
sprawled near the outer border of embers, and snoring loudly, while next
to him sat Roger Prat, blinking at the fire. In the fortress most of the
women and children, under Dyonis Harvie’s protection, were slumbering
peacefully, while Dyonis himself sat yawning in the doorway. Each of the
three entrances to the town was guarded by one or more pickets, well
armed. At the northern gateway, which led to Vytal’s cabin, a single
sentry stood alert; at the southern and nearest, by which Eleanor had
made egress that night when Frazer and Towaye had captured her, another
soldier kept careful watch; at the main portal on the eastern side two
sentinels paced to and fro with muskets loaded. Furthermore, a body of
twelve arquebusiers lay far below on the beach, to make sure that from
the Spanish ships no landing was attempted.
To trade at night, or leave the town without Vytal’s permission, was
forbidden. And perhaps only one person at Roanoke rebelled inwardly
against the latter restriction. This was Virginia Dare, whose nature
demanded absolute freedom. “Oh, tell me, Dark Eye,” she said, as the
silence and bondage became unbearable, “why are we compelled to remain
here like prisoners?”
“It is the will of our father, the Wolf,” replied the Indian. “He seeks
to protect his children.”
She made an impatient gesture. “Come, Dark Eye, let us ask Roger Prat if
we may not go down to the sea for another shell and for my father. Dost
know he strangely disappeared to-day and has not been seen again?”
“Thy father disappeared?” exclaimed the Indian.
“Yes, within the forest. But come!” and together they joined the soldier.
“Goodman Prat, I pray you give us liberty. Not all the armies of the
world can find us an we hide. There are caves, ravines, arbors—”
“Yes,” interposed Prat, dreamily, “arbors, grape-arbors.”
“Come,” she persisted, “take us past the centronel.”
With a jerk of his head, as though awaking from reverie, Roger looked
up at her. “Nay, White Doe, it is impossible. Will you not sit here and
comfort me? I am depressed.”
Poutingly, she granted his request, and, patting the grass beside her,
indicated an adjacent seat for the Indian. “How now, Roger?” said she.
“Why so glum and owlish? Is ’t because your friend King Lud is absent?”
For a moment Prat surveyed her in silence, rolling his eyes, until
at length, “Nay,” he replied, “I am well accustomed to his Majesty’s
peregrinations. Oftentimes for a whole week he roves, and never a sight
of him. ’Tis but three days now since he went a-nutting. Nay, nay, ’tis
not o’ the bear I think—not o’ the bear.”
“Of what, then?”
But, giving no answer, he only blinked and blinked at the fire, so
mournfully that many, noticing his look, long remembered it.
Vytal watched him silently.
“He hath even forgot,” observed Manteo, “to smoke his pipe of uppowac.”
The soldier made no response, but asked, finally: “Art sleepy, Manteo?”
“Nay, most wakeful.”
“I, too, am so; but sith for two nights no sleep hath come to me, ’tis
essential that I rest. Do you keep watch, and, if aught occurs beyond the
ordinary, arouse me instantly.” Whereupon, stretching himself at full
length, Vytal folded his arms across his eyes.
Nearly all were now lying asleep, and the fire burned very low. Only
Virginia Dare, Dark Eye, and Roger Prat seemed wide-awake.
The low tread of the sentinel at the nearest gate told them that safety
was assured. The stillness of the town, profound and all-pervading, was
broken at rare intervals only by the screech of an owl or the low murmur
of voices, while the dreary monotone of the distant surf seemed as it
were to accompany the dirge of silence.
Suddenly, however, the sentry’s voice, in a low challenge, caught the
quick ear of Virginia, but, as Prat turned apprehensively, she laughed
aloud. Then Roger himself shook with merriment. “Body o’ me! he hath
challenged King Lud, and, I’ll warrant, is now calling himself a fool.
Behold his Majesty!” And, sure enough, there was the well-known bulky
form loping on all fours through the entrance. As it came near the circle
of firelight the cumbrous shadow flattened out.
“He’s not overjoyed to see you,” laughed Virginia, and she would have
gone forward to pat the shaggy head, but Prat restrained her.
“Nay, wait. ’Tis a trick of his. He knows well he hath been a deserter,
and is full of shame. Look you—his eyes are shut; the prankish monarch
pretends to be indifferently asleep. Now take no notice, but out of the
corner of your eye watch him. He always comes to me in the end, an I pay
no attention to his whimsicality.”
Virginia, pleased at any diversion, cast a sidelong glance at the long
snout which lay tranquilly between the paws, more in the position of a
dog’s nose than a bear’s. “For once,” she observed, “his Majesty is not
sniffing at us.”
“’Tis his game,” declared Prat. “Now watch, and I’ll turn my back
impertinently.”
For some time the huge pate lay motionless. “He’s really asleep,” said
Virginia.
“That may be,” allowed Roger, “for I doubt not his three days’ roaming
has wearied him considerably. He’s a cub no longer, and has, I’ll swear,
lumbago, like myself. Let him lie. But here’s a great brute who’s slept
too long.” And Roger poked Hugh Rouse viciously with his foot. Yawning,
the giant rolled over, and surveyed them stupidly. “Numskull!” exclaimed
Prat, “thank the Lord we look not to you for protection. I’d sooner
trust King Lud, though for the moment even he’s a-dreaming.”
Virginia, amused at his raillery, cast another look behind her. “Nay,”
she whispered. “See, he has crawled nearer.”
“Oh, has he, indeed!” said Roger. “I’ll give him his deserts in time.
But first this dwarfling here must explain himself.” He glanced down
at Rouse. “How now, sirrah?—think you we are safe at home in England?
Do your weighty dreams increase our numbers, that are in reality so
desperate small? Think you the Spanish force could not swallow us up as
thy great maw would engulf a herring? Poor fool, sleep on in thy fond
delusion,” and, raising his brows in feigned contempt, Roger turned to
the silent Indian and Virginia. “Now the lord chancellor shall have the
honor of punishing his renegade monarch right merrily.”
He rose, turned, and swaggered toward the ungainly shadow.
As if the animal had readily divined his intention, the great nose
shifted now this way, now that, irresolutely. “See!” cried Roger, “he
creeps away like a beaten hound,” and Virginia saw the bowlder-like
shadow rolling off toward the palisade.
“Villain!” cried Prat, “come hither,” with which he ran forward
wrathfully.
But just as he was about to cuff the upraised snout with the palm of
his hand, the awkward figure rose, and a glistering light shone for an
instant in the fire-glare. With a groan Roger stumbled, and would have
fallen, but now a mass of dark fur was flung at his feet, and a man,
who had emerged from beneath it, started, quick as a flash, toward the
gateway. Uttering a loud oath of pain and anger, the soldier sprang
across the bearskin, and, although mortally wounded, contrived to grasp
the stranger. Then, with a great effort, for at each moment the blood
spurted from his breast, he threw his captive heavily to the ground.
Again and again his antagonist’s short blade flashed and buried itself in
his arm; yet, flinging himself bodily on the writhing form, Roger held
the spy a prisoner.
Even as he fell, a cry from Manteo awoke Vytal, while the others,
startled by the commotion, leaped to their feet in wild confusion. Then,
above the turmoil, rose Vytal’s voice piercingly: “’Tis naught!” For a
single glance at the struggling pair and the empty bearskin had told him
that a spy was caught.
As the excited colonists gathered about the grappling couple, Roger
rolled over in a swoon, and Vytal looked down at the captive, who was in
an instant held firmly by Manteo and Rouse.
“It is Frazer,” he said, calmly. “Bind him, and take him to the fort.”
“Nay,” was the prisoner’s rejoinder, in a low, musical voice, “’tis his
Highness, the Crown Prince.”
CHAPTER III
“Oh, must this day be period of my life?”
—MARLOWE, in _Edward the Second_.
As Vytal turned from Frazer his face changed. The look of cold hate gave
way to an even deeper expression of sadness, which, mellowing his bleak
visage as the sunset glow softens the outlines of a rock, bespoke tender
concern and apprehension.
Around Roger a crowd had gathered, to the centre of which Vytal gravely
made his way.
The soldier lay prone and silent, the bearskin, which had been folded,
forming a pillow for his head. He had evidently regained consciousness,
yet from his bared chest a stream of blood welled slowly. Frazer’s weapon
had pierced a lung.
Beside him knelt Hugh Rouse, imploring him to speak. “Call me names,
Roger; berate me an you will for sleeping; but say ’tis no mortal wound.”
A chirurgeon who stood near by shook his head. “’Tis, indeed, mortal,” he
declared.
And Roger’s eyes rolling up to the chirurgeon’s face seemed to repeat,
“Yes, mortal.”
As the firelight was now obscured by the crowd, several soldiers,
snatching resinous branches from the blaze, held them aloft to look once
more upon their comrade’s face. Vytal bent over the dying man. “Dost know
me, Roger?”
Slowly the lips parted as the round head shifted restlessly. “Yea, well;
and always I shall know you. Body o’ me! not know Captain Vytal—I, Prat,
who have followed him through thick and thin? ’Tis impossible.”
He raised his head and smiled at Rouse. “And you, too, my dwarfish
soul—how could I mistake that shock o’ flaxen hair?” He passed a hand
over the giant’s head affectionately; then, rising with pain to one
elbow, turned again to Vytal.
“You have saved us,” said the captain, “but at what a cost!”
Prat made a deprecatory gesture. “Ay, thank God! saved you,” he replied;
“yet have a care. This Frazer hath heard me prating to Rouse anent our
weakness. You’ll look to it, no doubt, he conveys not the information to
that peacock, the Spanish admiral. But, ah me, the young wild-slip hath
killed King Lud. My last pet is departed. Oh, why did I not know his
Majesty would never crawl away like a whipped cur? In troth ’twas most
unnatural. Yet the darkness favored him—the darkness—i’ faith ’tis even
darker now.” With an effort, he put a hand to his belt, and, drawing
out the flute that for so long had been silent, held it to his lips.
But, without sounding a single strain, he let it fall with one of his
old grimaces. “Nay,” he muttered, “not a note; ne’ertheless, when I’m
gone, ‘Be merry, friends; a fig for care and a fig for woe; be merry,
friends.’” He sank back exhausted and closed his eyes.
“He is dead,” groaned Hugh.
But Roger, with a drawn smile, eyed him sideways. “Not dead by any means,
poor dullard. No, not yet dead.”
At this his face brightened for a moment, and he groped in the breast of
his doublet near the wound. Several fine threads of gold were woven round
his fingers, but no one saw them. “Take nothing from me,” he said; and
then, withdrawing his hand, smiled almost bitterly. “’Tis just as well I
die, for my life, as the song saith, hath been lived to ‘please one and
please all,’ everlastingly ‘please one and please all, so pipeth the crow
sitting upon a wall.’ Welladay, let the crow pipe on, but Roger pipeth no
longer.”
His bulging eyes flashed suddenly in the cressets’ glare. “Nay, I’m no
piper, but a fighting-man,” whereupon, rising once more with a great
effort to one elbow, he drew his broadsword and for a moment held it
aloft. Then slowly, as the flame died out of his eyes, he pointed with it
toward the palisade. “Bury me over there,” he said, eagerly, “beyond the
town—over there in the glade, Captain Vytal, near the western shore. ’Tis
where she danced, you’ll remember, and King Lud cut capers before the
Indians. There I’ll lie in peace, and think o’ the old mirthfulness, and
sometimes the sound of your guns will come to remind me I’m a soldier.”
He held out the heavy blade to Vytal. “Lay it unsheathed beside me,
captain; also the flute and uppowac pipe.” Once again his head fell to
the bearskin pillow. “You might shroud me,” he added, feebly, “with all
that remains of poor King Lud.”
“It shall be done as you require,” said Vytal, hoarsely.
And now there was silence save for the light rustle through the forest of
a new-come breeze, which fanned the tearful cheeks of the watchers and
set the many torches flickering so that their light wavered uncertainly
across the dying man. Roger’s eyes were closed, yet once more his lips
parted. “‘Be merry, friends,’” and, with an old, familiar smile, he died.
* * * * *
When at last day dawned a striking scene was visible on the shore.
In the prow of his long-boat, not over twenty feet from the beach, stood
the Spanish admiral, while from the brink of the water Vytal spoke to him.
Farther up the strand twelve musketeers were ranged in line with weapons
aimed, not at the long-boat’s crew, but at a single figure that stood
against the cliff. This form, slight and graceful, was nevertheless
distinctly masculine in bearing. With eyes blindfolded, mouth gagged, and
hands fettered behind his back, the man awaited his fate calmly.
But the fate was yet unknown. The musketeers stolidly awaited the last
signal from their leader, and the signal was delayed.
“You perceive,” said Vytal to the admiral, “that your friend’s life is
in imminent danger. At a word from me he falls, but at the word I desire
from you he lives and shall be saved.”
The Spaniard bowed haughtily. “Name your conditions,” and with a sweep of
their oars the rowers drew nearer to the shore. Vytal turned and glanced
upward at the headland, from which the colonists were looking down in
silent curiosity. Foremost of all stood Eleanor Dare watching him.
He faced about again to address the admiral. “The condition is this: that
you abandon to us the _Madre de Dios_ in exchange for the prisoner. Your
spy hath broken our truce. There are but two available indemnities—the
one your ship, the other his life as forfeit. I bid you choose.”
An ironical smile crossed the Spaniard’s face. “Do you consider his life
of so great value?” he asked, banteringly.
“Nay,” said Vytal, “I but seek to estimate your own valuation. This
fellow hath boasted of a royal guardian—even the King of Spain.”
The admiral bit his lip. “But how am I to make certain that you act in
good faith?”
Vytal turned sharply to the musketeers and raised his hand, while his
lips parted. The marksmen’s eyes came down closer to their aim, and there
was a concerted click.
“Stay!” cried the Spaniard, in alarm. “I agree to your proviso.”
Vytal’s hand fell, and the sharp-shooters stood at rest. “To-night,” said
the soldier, “we shall be ready to man your vessel.”
Slowly the long-boat withdrew, and now Eleanor, having come down from the
headland, stood at Vytal’s side. Her face was flushed with excited hope
and admiration. “You have worked our salvation, captain.”
“Nay,” he returned, harshly, “not yet.”
CHAPTER IV
“This fear is that which makes me tremble thus.”
—MARLOWE, in _Edward the Second_.
The stern discipline of that evening was broken by one of the colonists,
who, having earlier entered the town from the western wood, now reeled
through the streets, crazed by inebriety and fear. As the gates were not
yet closed, he was permitted once more to leave the enclosure, which he
did by the eastern entrance. Beyond the palisade he paused for a moment,
swaying heavily, and gazed down at the shore.
The moon, in its first quarter, was sinking behind a film of gray clouds.
A few traders, Spanish and English, stood bargaining on the beach. The
two vessels, without lights, lay motionless at anchor. A number of canoes
were hauled up on the sand, their birch-bark sides shining like silver in
the moonlight. The man, looking up and down the coast, recognized Vytal’s
gaunt figure in the distance, and he realized hazily that the soldier was
inspecting the coast-guard before returning to the town.
But the blear eyes wandered back to that line of silver craft, and now,
with uncertain gait, the lonely man descended from the headland. Then,
with a wave of his hand to the contemptuous traders, he stepped into one
of the canoes, and, unsteadily seating himself, made his way along the
coast with wavering sweeps of his paddle.
On coming at last to that part of the beach where Vytal was giving
instructions to the arquebusiers, he paused, and, keeping his canoe
several paces from shore, spoke quickly to the soldier. “I am going,”
he said, pointing with his paddle to the eastward, “away, anywhere, far
away.”
Vytal turned in surprise. “You’re mad.”
The other smiled absently, and, waving his wooden blade, held it out
toward the forest. “Yes, delightfully mad. Devilish Winginas over
there—saw them my own self when I started to go away to the mainland.
Long line of red demons waiting—demons ’stremely like those Ralph
Contempt described—all waiting to capture the town. You’d better have a
care and come away. I’m going away—anywhere—any place whatever, out into
the darkness—through the inlet—over the sea—away from it all, from all
the danger and trouble, all the nightmares and remorse. I’ve spent my
life retreating, now I’ll retreat once more—once more.” The moonlight,
falling across his face, showed a look so despairing, haunted, and yet
drunkenly cheerful, that for a moment Vytal stood transfixed, staring at
him, as at an apparition of the night. The bloodshot eyes were wide open
and wet with maudlin tears; the hair was dishevelled and damp with the
sweat of terror. Yet even now there was a certain weird beauty in the
face, a peculiar and exquisite refinement. But from behind the beauty a
despicable soul looked out of the eyes, so that even Vytal shuddered as
he saw their glance.
Courage stood face to face with naked Fear.
With a look of disgust, Vytal glanced about for another boat, but none
was near them.
Slowly the canoe drifted from the shore, its occupant bidding farewell to
Vytal with a laugh that died in a wail. “Return, or I shoot,” said the
soldier, sternly.
But at this the paddle splashed frantically, and the canoe, now whirling
about, now darting out to sea, went farther and farther from the land.
Vytal, for once, hesitated. To shoot was perhaps to kill the man, while
to refrain from shooting was almost to countenance his suicide. As a
compromise between these two alternatives the soldier took an arquebus
from one of his men and fired in the air.
For a second the canoe paused in its outward course, then shot far
seaward, and the man, wildly waving his paddle, either in triumph or
expostulation, staggered to his feet. At this the frail craft so careened
and trembled that before he could stand fully erect a torrent of water
rushed in across the gunwale, and Vytal, aghast on the shore, just
distinguished his figure, as, with a piercing cry, he tottered, fell
sideways, and sank beneath the surface.
“He cannot swim,” said one of the arquebusiers, “any better than a gobbet
of lead.”
Hastily Vytal waded into the water, and, although there were no traces
of the unfortunate drunkard, would have struck out toward the upturned
craft, had not a deep voice at this instant restrained him. Turning, he
saw Hugh Rouse standing on the shore, beckoning to him apprehensively.
“Captain, a force of Winginas attacks the western palisado.”
Vytal turned to one of the musketeers. “Bring hither a canoe and search
for his body. He is drowned in the swift undertow;” then, with a last
searching glance across the silver water, Vytal retraced his steps to the
beach.
“To the town, Hugh! I follow immediately.” He turned to the arquebusiers.
“It rests with you,” he said, “to hold the Spaniards back from land. Ask
no reinforcements. We cannot spare them. Nor yet seek to retreat within
the enclosure. You will be refused admittance. Your post is here. Knowing
that some of you are the men who would have mutinied on the fly-boat long
ago, I give you this opportunity to retrieve yourselves,” and, leaving
them, he made his way speedily to the town.
As he passed within the main portal it was closed and barricaded, Rouse
and a score of the ablest soldiers being left to defend it.
He stopped at the fortress, before which Dyonis Harvie stood on guard,
heavily armed. Eleanor was in the doorway. Seeing Vytal, she came out
into the square and spoke to him. “Is it well?”
“An hour will show,” he answered, quietly.
“Then you fear treachery?”
“No, I do not fear it.”
“But you suspect it?”
“Nay, madam, I am fully aware that a general attack is intended. A force
of Winginas already threatens our western wall.”
She hesitated, seeming loath to speak her mind, yet compelled by a
certain distrust to make known her anxiety. “I hope,” she said, as though
half to herself, “that none of the colonists will seek to leave by the
_Madre de Dios_ until the issue is certain.” Her voice faltered. “It is
my duty to tell you that Ananias plans—”
But Vytal shook his head gravely. “Mistress Eleanor, Ananias Dare is
dead!”
“Dead!” she gasped, in a vague, incredulous bewilderment. “Dead!”
“Yes; drowned.”
A high flush of crimson came to her cheeks and suffused itself quickly
about her temples; then as suddenly died, leaving her wan and pallid.
Vytal, averting his face, while in silence she re-entered the fortress,
went slowly to Dyonis Harvie. “Is the prisoner well guarded?”
“Ay, most carefully—in a cell below the fort.”
“Your main duties are to protect the women and keep him there;” with
which Vytal turned quickly away toward the western palisade.
Save for the light of the stars and of a wavering flambeau here and
there, the town was in darkness. And but for the occasional reports of
muskets, as the inland pickets fired into the forest at an unseen foe, no
unusual sound broke the silence of night.
Yet each minute of that night, winged or halt, slow or quick-fleeting,
was to every man big with import and terrible endeavor. The very air that
filled their lungs seemed impregnated with suspense.
Here was no camp-fire and lounging throng in the main square, but only
gloom and solitude, for the colony, broken up into small commands, stood
in alert attitudes, with straining eyes, at every entrance.
The armistice was apparently at an end, yet some few consoled themselves
with the fond delusion that the Winginas’ intermittent attack had not
been inspired by the Spaniards. One or two of these sought Manteo to
question him concerning the numbers of his hereditary foemen, but Manteo
was not in the town. And, furthermore, not one of his tribe could be
found save a few of the women. The Hatteras Indians had disappeared, men
and boys, mysteriously.
“They have deserted us,” said some of the colonists, despairingly; but
the leaders knew that, by Vytal’s command, Manteo held his men in waiting
far within the western forest. Thus at a signal the friendly tribesmen
could be called upon to fall on the Winginas’ rear and decimate them from
an ambush.
Yet Vytal rightly conjectured that this attack of the hostile savages was
a Spanish feint to draw off his soldiers from the coast; and even now, as
he concentrated the pickets in a body to meet a concerted onrush from the
woods, a great clamor of arquebuses and heavy pieces arose from the shore.
The Spaniards were landing. A general assault had begun from land and
sea. The sound of cannonading, continual and deafening, came from the
water, while from the woods the whir and whistle of arrows proclaimed a
more insidious attempt.
Vytal returned to the main entrance. It was already besieged. The
coast-guard had been overwhelmed. Despite their first stubborn stand,
they had gone down like corn-stalks before a hurricane. There was
no resisting the stampede. But the gateway, defended by Rouse and
his unflinching score, still remained a barrier. Through innumerable
loop-holes the defenders had thrust their fire-arms; and now an incessant
volley of lead poured out from behind the palisade like a torrent of hail
driven sideways by the wind. Still more effective, however, were the
culverins on two high flankers that stretched out on both sides of the
entrance. These cumbrous weapons, incessantly vomiting huge missiles, so
enfiladed the aggressors that a sortie was deemed expedient.
Rouse let the gate swing back quickly, and Vytal, leading a dozen men,
sought, by the sheer vigor and unexpectedness of his attack, to press the
enemy back over the cliff which they had scaled. This seemed his only
chance. By so bold a move he intended to convey the impression that large
numbers within the town only awaited a signal to reinforce him. For,
although Frazer, disguised as the bear, had overheard Prat’s observation
concerning the colony’s weakness, there had been, Vytal believed, no
possible means of communication between him and the Spaniards.
The one chance, then, seemed to lie in the exaggeration of Roanoke’s
forces, by manœuvres implying fearlessness and strength.
As Vytal surprised the foremost body of attackers by his sudden sortie,
the flanker culverins necessarily became silent, while the men at the
palisade loop-holes likewise ceased from firing.
Now on the headland there was a general mêlée, and to distinguish
Englishmen from Spaniards was impossible. Only the lofty figure of
Vytal, towering above all the combatants, kept the anxious watchers from
despair. Sable forms, spirits of the night, met and fell, while, above
all, coruscant swords and pike-blades flashed in the calm light of stars;
and here and there a face, anguished or triumphant, being lighted up by
fitful cressets, seemed not a human countenance, but only, as it were, an
expression, bodiless, the mere look of a ghost haunted by reality.
Suddenly, a new glare, high and lurid, broke the gloom. The tree-trunks
of the western palisade were now themselves flambeaus, ignited by
stealthy Winginas, who, having overcome the outposts, had gained the town.
With a loud cry, Hugh Rouse warned Vytal, whereat the captain fell back
to the main entrance. “Quick!” he said to Rouse. “Give the signal to
Manteo,” and Hugh started toward the western wall.
In another instant the savage enemy would have been surrounded by
Manteo’s men, according to the preconceived arrangement, but Rouse was
unexpectedly delayed.
From the small gateway which led to Vytal’s cabin a soldier rushed out
to meet him with drawn sword. Even in the faint starlight there was no
mistaking that scarred face, with its indrawn eye and yellow teeth, as
the lips parted in a smile. The man was Sir Walter St. Magil.
Without a word they met, and their swords crossed, to kill, immediately.
But Rouse, taken by surprise, found himself on the defensive, and, before
he could swing his heavy weapon effectually, the other’s point pried into
his sword-hilt, which, being wet and slippery from the moisture of his
fingers, slid from his grasp, and fell with a thud beside him.
Nothing daunted, the giant closed in, unarmed, upon his antagonist with
so impetuous a rush that St. Magil could not thrust again before a huge
pair of arms encircled him completely. His own arms, benumbed by the
sudden pressure, hung lifeless, while at one side his sword dangled
uselessly.
Their faces touched, their chests, thighs, and legs were locked together
as though with iron bonds. And St. Magil’s breath came in short, quick
gasps, hot on the other’s mouth. But at last, gradually, the herculean
arms closed tighter and yet tighter about their prey, until suddenly
Rouse, hearing a low, cracking sound, knew that his adversary’s arms and
perhaps a rib or two were broken.
Then, and then only, Hugh released his grasp, and, leaving St. Magil
groaning on the ground, rushed away to give Manteo the signal for a
counter-attack.
That moment’s delay, however, was fatal. For even now a great cry went
up from the fortress, and a large force of Spaniards who had effected
a landing far to the south surrounded it on every side. They had come
through the southern gate, by which Eleanor long ago had gone in search
of herbs for Virginia.
The fort became like a thing alive. From its ramparts a volley of
musket-balls rained on the steel headpieces below, while from every
aperture long streaks of flame shot out venomously, and in the middle of
every streak a ball.
The defenders, under Dyonis Harvie, were offering a brave resistance. The
Spaniards hung back behind a natural breastwork of hillocks.
But suddenly a small man, unnoticed, crept close to the fort’s rear and
from one side surveyed the muzzle of a culverin inquisitively. The gun
roared, and then, quick as thought, before it could be recharged, the
watcher whistled thrice. Instantly the aggressors sprang up from their
cover and assaulted the rear entrance.
But the man who had first crept forward was not content with open
onslaught.
In a few minutes the entire rear wall of the fort was enveloped in flames
that curled up over the ramparts, and Simon Ferdinando, the incendiary,
was groping in a subterranean vault. “Make haste,” said a boyishly
excited voice. “I am here,” and in a moment Frazer, having been liberated
by Simon, had entered the main armory.
The fortress no longer belonged to England.
Frazer glanced about the mess-room with a quick, searching scrutiny. It
was half filled with a coarse crew of his own arquebusiers, who, bridling
their ribald tongues half mockingly as he entered, awaited his commands.
A number of women were cowering in one corner. Before them lay the last
of their immediate defenders, lifeless or mortally wounded, Dyonis Harvie
prone in the foremost line, his wife, on her knees beside him, imploring
him to live.
As Frazer looked at the women he bowed to two, about whom the others were
gathered in despair. “The king is come, Mistress Dare, according as he
promised years ago. He claims his queen.”
He turned to the soldiers. “Bear these two to the hovel in which Vytal
lived. Do with the others as you will. The town is ours.”
CHAPTER V
“Some powers divine, or else infernal, mixed
Their angry seeds at thy conception.”
—MARLOWE, in _Tamburlaine_.
It was not long before Frazer stood alone with Eleanor and Virginia Dare
in Vytal’s secluded cabin beyond the palisade, and about the cabin a
Spanish guard.
The small room was fitfully lighted by a cresset that had been thrust
into a chink in the log wall. Opposite the door stood Eleanor, with
Virginia at her side, while before her, just within the room, Frazer
leaned easily against the door-post, talking in low tones. In the
mother’s eyes there was a calm determination, in the daughter’s as little
fear, but no resolve.
“Then you object,” said Frazer, languidly, “to being crowned a queen?”
She made no answer. He turned his headpiece about in hand, pouting like a
young boy.
“I should have preferred your heart’s love,” he declared, plaintively,
“but that, perchance, will come later.” His manner, changing, became
forceful. “Oh, believe me, the end hath come. We have played several
games, you and I, but this is final; and now, by God! I win! D’ you
hear—I win! England will never send you aid. This I know from St.
Magil, who hath lately been there. Marlowe, the poet, ne’er e’en saw
her Majesty to tell her of your plight. His end came far too soon.
’Twas defending the name of that trull, Gyll Croyden, he died in a brawl
at Deptford—these poets will be rakes to the very end.” He paused,
then spoke slower, with renewed emphasis: “Vytal is surrounded at the
main entrance. At a single word from me our force, which now holds the
fortress, will go to increase the overwhelming numbers that hem him in.
Whether or not I give that word rests entirely with you. Your beloved
Ananias is no more. Come, my beauty, I will make you my wife. There!
What more can you desire? Oh, you smile ironically; you think we know
not the colony’s weakness. Did I not hear the jovial Prat proclaim it
on the house-tops to his friend the ox? You think I did not convey the
information to St. Magil. Pah! ’twas an easy signal. Well I knew that
if I came off alive Vytal would range his men before me and offer to
hold me as an hostage for our ship. The signal was prearranged. Had you
outnumbered us, I was to sink down as if in fear before the musketeers;
but were you weaker, I was to stand erect. I stood erect. They knew
then, as they know now, the hopeless condition of your colony. Your
colony, Mistress Dare!” He let the words sink deep into her heart. “Your
colony—are you going to cause their complete annihilation by refusing to
accept my hand?”
He smiled, and added carelessly: “Then there is John Vytal.”
For a moment her eyes flashed, while she drew herself up proudly, but at
his last words her chin sank on her breast and a flood of tears blinded
her.
Virginia grasped her hand, and, bending forward, gazed up into her face
perplexedly. “O my mother, will you not save the colony and Captain
Vytal?”
Frazer nodded to Virginia approvingly. “I doubt it not,” he said, “for
your mother is by no means heartless.”
Eleanor raised her head and gazed at him so expressionlessly that he
started perceptibly; all life, all beauty, all consciousness, mental,
spiritual, and physical, seemed suddenly to have left her face.
She went forward to him like one walking to death in sleep, and the only
words that seemed, as it were, to drip and continually drip relentlessly
on her brain, were these: “The end, the end!”
He sprang forward and covered her hand with burning kisses. “Thou’rt
mine, Eleanor—mine at last.”
But suddenly he paused, startled. A low rustle, or trampling sound, as of
innumerable bare feet rushing across the town, had caught his ear. And
the voice of Hugh Rouse, far away, called loudly: “Quick, Manteo, this
way! Thank God, we may yet save Vytal!”
On this Eleanor drew back with a cry of gladness, and Frazer hesitated. A
Spanish soldier appeared at the door. “Shall we reinforce them?”
“Nay, keep your men around this cabin.” He turned to Eleanor, snapping
his fingers carelessly. “Foh! a _fico_ for the battle! You see I value
your love higher even than our cause, and whether you will or not, I
shall force it from you.” With this he started eagerly toward her, arms
outstretched and eyes brilliant.
But Eleanor, quick as lightning, drew from her bosom a small poniard and
held its point to her breast. “Another step,” she said, calmly, “and I
stab myself.”
He paused, in genuine amazement. His supreme self-love had never dreamed
of this—that a woman would rather kill herself than become his wife.
“I no longer need to save others,” added Eleanor, triumphantly; “it is
myself I save.”
For a moment he stood abashed, the very picture of chagrin; but then the
light of a new impulse leaped into his eyes.
“Ay, but there shall be another,” he cried, “demanding your sacrifice,”
with which, before she had divined his intent, he grasped Virginia in his
arms and carried her to the doorway. “She is almost as beautiful,” he
sneered, “and much younger.”
“Stay!” and Eleanor, swaying as if she must fall, cried out again in
anguish, “Stay, I implore you—stay!”
He turned, laughing. “Nay, Mistress Dare; first throw away thy poniard.”
With a strenuous effort to stand erect, she obeyed, and the weapon fell
at her feet. Evidently satisfied, he now released his hold on Virginia,
and, swaggering forward, with an air of bravado, put an arm about
Eleanor’s waist, while the daughter, utterly dazed, stood speechless,
watching him.
“My dear love,” he murmured, caressingly, “rebel not against fate. We
shall be very happy as king and queen.” It seemed as if there were a tone
of real tenderness in his voice, while gently he led her to the door. But
her own voice was silent as the grave, and again her whole being seemed
hopelessly inert.
Before passing out he bent over her, and, with both arms, crushed her to
him in a tense embrace. Then he started back and his face went pale as
death.
A loud clash of steel, a roar of many voices, a whirlwind seemingly, and
Vytal stood facing them in the doorway.
Like a flash Frazer drew his rapier, but too late.
The soldier, infuriated beyond control, thrust deep and deep again.
Frazer fell.
Vytal turned to Eleanor. “Come away, quick, by the rear entrance. Manteo
and Rouse have overcome his guard.”
The wounded man groaned pitifully. “I pray you send me a priest,” he
pleaded. “There is yet time for a short shrift. Your heretic parson will
do an there’s none other.”
“I have no messenger at hand,” said Vytal, “and cannot go myself.”
At this moment, however, a slight dusky figure stood in the doorway, to
which Frazer motioned feebly. It was Dark Eye.
“Send him,” said Eleanor, mercifully.
“Nay, for he must guard Frazer.”
“But the man is dying.”
“Nevertheless,” said Vytal, bitterly, “he is not yet dead.”
“Then let Dark Eye bind his arms, though it seems cruel.”
Vytal assented, and in a moment the captive lay bound hand and foot with
thongs of hide from the Indian’s girdle.
Virginia came to her mother. “I will go with Dark Eye.”
Eleanor rested a hand on her daughter’s head, and turned to Vytal. “Is it
safe?”
“Yes, with him.”
Together Virginia Dare and Dark Eye left the room, only hesitating for a
moment beyond the threshold to turn and wave farewell. “Have no fear,”
said Manteo’s son. “The Winginas are put to flight; the Spaniards have
left the town. Later we meet you on the shore.” The cresset flared high;
its radiance fell across those two slight figures side by side in the
near darkness.
The old world and the new had plighted troth, and here were the symbols
of an everlasting union.
In another instant the picture had vanished—White Doe and Dark Eye were
hidden in the forest.
“Now come,” said Vytal to Eleanor, and together they left the cabin. “We
have won,” he declared; “yet lost completely.”
She glanced up at him with renewed apprehension, questioningly. In
silence he led her to the shore. “See,” he said, and she looked up to
the headland. A sheet of flame sprang heavenward from the town. “And
look!” Two shadows were receding slowly southward. “Those are the enemy’s
vessels.”
“Then we are exiles once again.”
The soldier inclined his head. “Yes, exiles. England will never know of
our existence; history will account us futile in all our endeavors, and
inexplicably lost.” His voice sank lower. “Five Englishmen remain alive
besides myself.”
A cry escaped her lips. “’Tis impossible!”
“Nay, ’tis true.”
“But why, then, do the Spaniards beat a retreat?”
“Because Manteo’s force, though fatally delayed by Hugh’s encounter with
St. Magil, arrived in time to surprise them, and because Frazer kept his
guard apart from the main attack.”
She rested her hands on his arms and came very close to him. The glare of
the burning town illuminated his face, showing an expression that even
she had never pictured. The stern tensity was relieved, the despotic
tyranny of his mouth, the imperial crown of deep-cut lines on his brow,
the portentous fire of his eyes—all had been subdued beneath the touch of
love. Drawing her closer, he kissed her forehead reverently.
The darkness of night had lost its meaning. The merciless fire was seen
no more save as they found it reflected in each other’s eyes.
They were one.
Yet it was all so essentially natural that they experienced no surprise
nor wonder in the realization of their unity. It seemed but the end of
a primordial beginning, the reversion to their souls of a pre-natal
heritage, which but for a season had been withheld that by sorrow and
suffering its perfection might be assured.
For long they stood in silence, their very beings seeming to co-blend,
each the other’s complement, both a perfect whole.
At last Eleanor spoke, and he felt her tremble with the words. “Let us
never again speak the name ‘Frazer’ even within ourselves.”
“Nay, never,” he said. “I thank God he hath gone from out our lives.”
But Vytal’s thanksgiving was premature.
Frazer lived. In the cabin on the cliff above them he lived and moved.
Slowly, and with great pain, he contrived, by working his way on knees
and elbows, to reach the wall, high up in which the torch still sputtered
fitfully. Then, although a stream of red had marked his passage across
the room, he placed his bound hands between the logs and, with a
strenuous exertion, raised himself until he stood unsteadily upon his
feet. And now it was not only the cresset’s light that flashed in his
blue eyes. A look of victory surmounted the expression of pain, as,
stretching out his arms, he held the wrists immediately over the torch’s
flame. The fire scorched and blistered his white skin, burning deep
and slowly. At the last his teeth, gnashing in agony, met through his
underlip, but still he allowed the flame to work its will. For the thongs
that bound him, being damp with blood and perspiration, had not yet been
severed.
Finally, however, burning like fuses, they parted slowly and fell to the
floor. Then, bending forward, he unbound his ankles, stifling a moan
as his scorched fingers untied the knots. Suddenly he was free; and,
hastening as best he might to a lifeless Spanish soldier who had been
killed in guarding him, he was in a moment not only liberated, but armed
as well with a musket ready primed.
Having thus provided himself, he once more fell to his hands and knees
and crawled, like some dying animal, into the forest. With a superhuman
stoicism and determination, he descended by the winding path that led
from Vytal’s cabin to the shore, while a circuitous trail of blood marked
his progress.
At the wooded margin of the beach he paused and, leaning against a tree,
staggered to his feet.
Two figures stood before him, distinctly visible in the light of the
consuming flames.
But, as he raised his weapon, one of the figures moved.
Vytal had heard a rustle of leaves, yet the warning sound came all too
late.
A short tongue of fire flashed beneath the branches, almost
simultaneously a musket-shot rang out, and Eleanor fell prostrate on the
sand.
A cry like the death-note of a soul rose from Vytal, and then the
soldier’s face, in the first instant terribly anguished, was transformed
to the face of wrath incarnate. His eyes were blue flames.
He rushed to the strip of woods, with sword quivering.
But Frazer lay dead, his face, lighted softly by the stars, showing no
malevolence in its smile, more than ever boyish, guileless, and amused.
CHAPTER VI
“My heart is as an anvil unto sorrow,
Which beats upon it like the Cyclops’ hammers,
And with the noise turns up my giddy brain.”
—MARLOWE, in _Edward the Second_.
“Thus shall my heart be still combined with thine
Until our bodies turn to elements
And both our souls aspire celestial thrones.”
—MARLOWE, in _Tamburlaine_.
Vytal turned automatically and, with his old martial tread, crossed
the sand to Eleanor. At her side he knelt for a moment transfixedly in
silence, then sank down upon her and grasped her to him as if in an
effort to revivify her lifeless form by the sheer might of his love and
grief.
But now a dark shadow, seemingly no more tangible than the shadow of
Death, emerged from the forest and stood over them.
“My brother, grieve not; perchance life is yet within her.” The Indian
bent down and listened. “I hear no breath,” said Manteo, at last, “nor
heartbeat. Her kirtle is stained with blood.”
“Ay,” said Vytal, “she hath left me.”
The Indian pointed westward. “Come, my brother, let us bear her to my
people. They have gone to the main, and your countrymen with them. There,
far from the sea and evil ships, they will live in peace. Thy Spanish
enemies all have retreated before my men. Come, my brother, the voice of
the forest calls you. There is no other way. Did not the stars at thy
birth foretell that thou shouldst be a queen’s defender and the brother
of a king? A queen’s defender thou hast been; the brother of a king I
beseech thee to be always. Am I not that king of the prophecy? Is not the
depth of the forest, solitary and ever dark, the fitting home for one in
whose soul all happiness lies buried? My brother, come!”
Vytal returned his gaze in silence, neither granting nor denying the
earnest plea.
“John Vytal, you number but six Englishmen in all. To remain is to murder
thyself, e’en though thine enemies, Ferdinando and St. Magil, have
retreated hastily in a canoe to the Spanish vessel. On the mainland we
shall be safe, if upon thee we can depend. The man of God and Margery
Harvie, the White Doe and Dyonis, all have started thither under the
guardianship of thy servant, Hugh Rouse, who believed you wholly safe
with my people. Thus, with thee, there are but three warriors in all.
Shall the greatest of these not go, as he hath always gone, to the place
where he is most needed?”
“Ay,” said Vytal, vaguely; “that is here. Let us defend the town!”
But Manteo pointed to the palisade, across which the first dim light
of dawn was slowly breaking. A gray mist or dust was rising from the
enclosure and floating softly out to sea. “Those are the ashes of your
Roanoke settlement,” said Manteo, “which the breeze would bury far away.
The fortress lies smouldering, and much of the palisade as well. All is
lifeless.”
Vytal watched the gray veil unwind itself across the headland. This,
then, was a fitting symbol of the climax in which all the fortitude,
patience, endeavor, exertion, prayer, and yearning of years had
culminated. Ashes! All gray ashes—the hope of England and of himself.
Finally he turned to Manteo, with a deeper consciousness, and stooped
to raise Eleanor in his arms. But the Indian, who had watched her face
intently, restrained him. “Wait, my brother, there is yet hope. I will
instantly seek two herbs in the forest. ’Tis possible the one will heal
her wound, the other awake her from sleep,” and, so saying, he entered
the woods.
Once more Vytal knelt beside her, while slowly the dismal drone of the
surf seemed to creep nearer, until, entering his brain, it wore all
thought away. To reason was impossible, to strive for reason a torture
that racked him through and through.
Yet at last, appearing to have aroused somewhat from his stupor, he drew
his rapier, and, passing his fingers over the blade, muttered: “The
bodkin, the little bodkin!” with which—worse, far worse, more terrible
than any cry or moan—a laugh, a loud, harsh laugh, came from the broken
heart of the man who had rarely been heard to laugh before.
He let the rapier-hilt fall softly to the sand, yet held the point in one
hand, and with it touched the artery of his wrist. He was conscious now
of one thing only—utter failure! He felt certain that Eleanor, with all
his hopes, had left him. It was but the natural result of his life-long
battle against Fate.
“I am alone,” he said.
For many minutes the rapier-point, moving imperceptibly, scratched his
skin. Yet he made no thrust, for the horribly incongruous hilarity of
his expression gradually died away, leaving his face once more grave and
unrelaxing.
Suddenly he rose and stood as if on guard, not against himself, but
another. At this he called aloud, as though Rouse stood near. “Quick,
seek Manteo and the tribesmen! Bid Dyonis protect his charges to the
end. See to it that Frazer is shackled heavily. We win!” His eyes
flashed. “Send to me Roger Prat and Marlowe. They are men. Ho! Marlowe,
come, come quickly to my aid! Is ’t possible thou hast forgot that night
on the bridge when side by side we fought to save her?” He paused, thrust
into the darkness, then reeled and let fall his blade. “O my God—I
dream.” And, sinking down once again beside Eleanor, he looked first
into her pallid face, and then at the shroud of ashes that was borne
out lightly to be folded with the veil of the sea. Both mists, gray and
commingling on the water, seemed the cerements of his dead ambition. For
not only the sea had failed him, but the land as well. And this was his
only message to England—an ephemeral breeze, ash-laden, from the West he
had come to win.
* * * * *
The cries of many birds, awakening, filled the air. The stars, paling
slowly, died. The breeze stirred summer’s heavy foliage mournfully.
Vytal shut the light from his eyes, and from his ears the sounds of
morning. With head bowed he then relived his life. And the moments when
he had been with Eleanor rose pre-eminent above all other memories.
He thought of the court, of how by his glance toward her he had been
deprived of knighthood. He recalled vividly the fight on London Bridge,
and once more saw her standing in the Southwark gateway. He remembered
their meeting on the fly-boat, and first saw her praying in the
lanthorn-light, then leaning on the bulwark, when they two had been alone
in a world of mystery. At the last she was bending over him as he lay
in the armory after the battle of the ships. Once again her voice was
calling, “John Vytal.”
The repetition of that far-off tone seemed a living echo from his heart.
“John Vytal.”
He moved slightly, and, as if in a waking sleep, looked down at Eleanor;
then started, and, bending closer, strove for an answer to the dream.
In very truth her eyes were open.
“Eleanor.”
“Yes, I live.”
His hand swept across his forehead. “O God, ’tis a dream—again a dream.”
Yet now another hand touched his brow, and, where sight had failed, that
single touch convinced him.
“I am not alone,” he said.
She grasped his hand feebly. “Nay, not alone. I think ’twas a trance.
All the grief, the sudden happiness, the terror, the joy, o’ercame me.
Yet—yet—I am sore wounded.” Her eyes closed; she breathed with an effort.
“Whence came the shot?”
“From Frazer, even as he died.”
An expression, first of pain, then of absolute peace, crossed her face;
but she made no rejoinder, for strength again had failed.
He brushed back a strand of hair from her forehead, stifling a deep moan.
For once his very soul seemed falling to an abyss of fear. Fatalism was
overcome by yearning, the power of endurance by the acute agony of doubt.
Uncertainty laid an icy chill upon his spirit—the spirit of a child lost
in the universe. Essential grief stood face to face with essential joy,
each expecting, yet despairing of the victory. And the result of this
meeting seemed to ravage the elements of being.
Once more Eleanor gazed up to his anguished face.
“Strength returns,” she said, with a wan smile.
He trembled and turned toward the forest, consumed by impatience of the
soul. “Manteo hath gone for healing herbs,” he said. “O God, spare her to
me!”
Long he stood with head bowed and eyes gazing into her face; long he
stood, a bleak rock of the shore, stern, rigid, fixed, striving to force
upon himself the utter calm of self-surrender and finality.
But at the last she stretched out her arms and drew him closer to her.
“God is good,” she said. “In my heart he tells me I shall live.”
Yet even now, as the spirit of promise seemed to be breathed into their
souls, Eleanor, reading Vytal’s face, realized that beneath all his
silent hope that word “failure” had not been obliterated from his great
masculine heart. For the colony of Roanoke was no more.
“Dost not see,” she asked, brokenly, “that success is ours?… Of a
surety, never again will Spaniards seek to land on this Virginia shore.”
Her words were scarcely audible. “Their leader is dead, their lesson
learned.… Future generations will find here a perfect security … because
we, the first, have suffered … and yet won.” She raised herself to one
elbow, bravely subduing her faintness, and pointed toward the headland.
“Look.”
The two mists—the mist of ashes and of the ocean—were gray no longer. The
first flush of morning suffused itself over sea and land.
Eleanor’s eyes sought Vytal’s, but now from the light he turned and
looked steadfastly at the broad, deep forest of the west, with prophetic
resignation in his gaze, as at a world not wholly lost, yet only by
others to be won.
Her hand touched his gently.
“I am not alone,” he said; “nay, not alone.”
THE END
FOOTNOTES
[1] Incredible as it may seem, this despicable deed of cruelty has been
authentically recorded by writers of the time.
[2] As there is absolutely no reliable record of Marlowe’s personal life
and dwelling-place at this time, I have felt justified in attributing his
generally acknowledged absence from London to a Virginia voyage.
[3] See Hakluyt’s Voyages.
[4] It was a common belief of the time that a river ran all the way from
Virginia to Florida.
[5] Backgammon.
[6] This prelude was written in scorn of his predecessors, and to herald
his own conception of a loftier English drama.
[7] From the personal account of Governor White, in _Hakluyt’s Voyages_.
[8] He had been created a peer by Raleigh’s preferment, and was the first
to receive a title in America.
[9] See White’s personal account of his failure in _Hakluyt’s Voyages_.
[10] “The report of an English spy at Madrid to Lord Burleigh certifies
that about this period a young man calling himself Arthur Dudley was
then resident at the court of Spain, who had given it out that he was
the offspring of Queen Elizabeth by the Earl of Leicester.”—Strickland’s
_Lives of the Queens of England_. See also Ellis’s _Letters_, Second
Series; and Doctor Lingard’s translation from the _Records of Simanca_.
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fall into rank with vigorous step. It has poetic grace, too, a
musical and witching rhythm here and there.—_New York Tribune._
BY E. F. BENSON
THE PRINCESS SOPHIA. Post 8vo, Cloth, $1 25.
A fantastic tale of a principality broken down by the gambling
of its people and rulers.
THE CAPSINA. An Historical Novel. Illustrated. Post 8vo, Cloth,
Ornamental, $1 50.
The stirring scenes in Greece during the Greek War of
Independence, in 1820-1821, are pictured in a graphic and vital
way by Mr. Benson. An interesting romance of a period of which
far too little is written.
THE VINTAGE. A Romance of the Greek War of Independence. Illustrated.
Post 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 50.
“The Vintage” is a story of adventure in the best sense of
the term; the Greek and Turkish characters are extremely well
portrayed; there are many thrilling incidents, and (most
important of all) the love-story is wholly uncommon.—_Oakland
Tribune._
THE JUDGMENT BOOKS. A Story. Illustrated. Square 32mo, Cloth, $1 00. (_In
Harper’s Little Novels._)
An odd, suggestive story.… The tale is well told, the conceit a
striking one.—_Hartford Courant._
LIMITATIONS. A Novel. Post 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 25.
A real novel, with depth as well as sparkle, and no small
degree of literary merit.—_Chicago Tribune._
BY A. CONAN DOYLE
THE REFUGEES. A Tale of Two Continents. Illustrated. Post 8vo, Cloth,
Ornamental, $1 75.
THE WHITE COMPANY. Illustrated. Post 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 75.
MICAH CLARKE. Illustrated. Post 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 75; 8vo,
Paper, 45 cents.
THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES. Illustrated. Post 8vo, Cloth,
Ornamental, $1 50.
CONTENTS: A Scandal in Bohemia, The Red-headed League, A Case
of Identity, The Boscombe Valley Mystery, The Five Orange Pips,
The Man with the Twisted Lip, The Blue Carbuncle, The Speckled
Band, The Engineer’s Thumb, The Noble Bachelor, The Beryl
Coronet, The Copper Beeches.
MEMOIRS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES. Illustrated. Post 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1
50.
CONTENTS: Silver Blaze, The Yellow Face, The Stock-Broker’s
Clerk, The “Gloria Scott,” The Musgrave Ritual, The Reigate
Puzzle, The Crooked Man, The Resident Patient, The Greek
Interpreter, The Navy Treaty, The Final Problem.
THE PARASITE. A Story. Illustrated. Post 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 00.
THE GREAT SHADOW. Post 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 00.
BY THOMAS HARDY
DESPERATE REMEDIES.
TWO ON A TOWER.
THE WOODLANDERS.
FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD.
WESSEX TALES.
A LAODICEAN.
TESS OF THE D’URBERVILLES.
JUDE THE OBSCURE.
THE HAND OF ETHELBERTA.
A PAIR OF BLUE EYES.
THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE.
THE TRUMPET-MAJOR.
UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE.
RETURN OF THE NATIVE.
THE WELL-BELOVED.
Uniform Edition. Illustrated. Crown 8vo, Cloth, $1 50 per
volume.
WESSEX POEMS, and Other Verses. Illustrated by the Author. Crown 8vo,
Cloth, $1 75.
LIFE’S LITTLE IRONIES. Tales. Post 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 25.
A GROUP OF NOBLE DAMES. Illustrated. 12mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 25.
FELLOW-TOWNSMEN. 32mo, Cloth, 35 cents.
Hardy has an exquisite vein of humor.… He has a reserve force,
so to speak, of imagination, of invention, which keeps the
interest undiminished always, though the personages in the
drama maybe few and their adventures unremarkable. But most
of all he has shown the pity and the beauty of human life,
most of all he has enlarged the boundaries of sympathy and
charity.—_New York Tribune._
HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
_Any of the above works will be sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any
part of the United States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price._