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.”