CHAPTER III
“Such reasons make white black,
And dark night day.”
—Marlowe, in Edward the Second.
Morning broke fair, and seemingly the wind, which had freshened, was defending its two charges by driving the clouds from a threatening course. Throughout the day Vytal saw no more of Eleanor Dare. In the evening he returned to the Admiral with a heavy heart and thoughts intent on the elucidation of the mystery, until, on passing a window of the room of state, he saw beneath a hanging lamp of Italian workmanship a face that so startled him as to command his whole interest and attention. It was the face of Sir Walter St. Magil. Vytal looked again, to prove his first glance correct, and then stood for a moment in doubt before entering. But the next words made him, against his will, a listener by the command of duty. Stepping to a vantage-point in adequate darkness, from which he could survey the whole cabin and hear the sentences of his late antagonist, he waited; for an oath from Ferdinando, followed quickly by a cautioning gesture from St. Magil, betrayed the covert importance of their conversation.
“It is against the first duty of a sailing-master,” declared Simon, frowning and toying nervously with the upturned corners of a chart, or map, that lay before him on the table; “I mislike the suggestion strongly.” At this St. Magil’s face, scarred upon the left cheek, from the dagger which Vytal had flung at him, and blighted yet more evilly by the indrawn eye, grew scornful and supercilious.
“Oh, an you are so faint-hearted,” he returned, “we must bide our time. ’Twill matter little in the end to us, but to you, now,” and he leaned forward across the table impressively, “it will matter more. ’Twere well, though, to discuss the thing in Spanish; even the arras hath ears.”
“Matter to me, Sir Walter—how so?” queried the master, conforming with the other’s suggestion regarding their speech. But Vytal fortunately understood the foreign tongue, thanks to many a campaign against the Spaniards.
St. Magil hesitated and looked away with a calculating air, then, smiling, replied lightly, “Well, say to the tune of a thousand crowns.”
Ferdinando’s small eyes glistened like a rat’s. “On your word, Sir Walter?”
“On my word, Simon, a thousand crowns if the boat arrives not in Virginia.” There was emphasis on the condition.
“’Tis done, then.”
“At an exorbitant price,” added St. Magil. “But we pay it willingly. To-night, then”—his voice sank so low as to be almost inaudible to Vytal at the open window—“to-night, then, we leave them behind. The fly-boat’s pilot, another of my beneficiaries, will play havoc with her steerage-gear. This is their chart, which I procured. The plan has been well arranged. ’Tis for you to clap on sail and leave them.”
“Mary save me!” exclaimed Ferdinando, shuddering. “I fear they will perish.”
“Nay, good Simon, this Bay of Portugal holds many ships, some of which will doubtless succor the fly-boat.”
“Or, being Spaniards, sink her!”
“Yes, there is that chance, I allow. I have told the pilot, in case of attack, to surrender, proclaim himself my servant, and so save the rest from death.”
“And so,” whispered Ferdinando, “deliver them to a bondage worse than death.”
St. Magil shrugged his shoulders. “It is but a choice of evils,” he avowed. “In Virginia they would fare yet worse. With them to strengthen it the colony would resist our men from St. Augustine, whereas now I look for a quick surrender. There will be no fight.”
“We lead our countrymen into a trap, Sir Walter, God forgive us!”
“Our countrymen!” ejaculated St. Magil. “I took you for a Spaniard, Ferdinando.”
“By parentage only,” responded the master. “But you are an English knight.”
“Ay, English,” allowed St. Magil, gnawing his mustache with a row of yellow teeth, “and I would save the English from their worst enemies. I mean not Spaniards, but themselves.” He rose from the table, and, stretching his arms abroad, yawned aloud.
“A thousand crowns,” muttered Ferdinando, “or say five hundred, the other half being laid aside for masses for my soul.”
St. Magil laughed sleepily. “It might pay,” he drawled, “to turn priest, if all else failed,” with which he leaned forward on the table, being in truth overcome by fatigue, and, with his face between his outstretched arms, was soon breathing heavily.
Ferdinando left the cabin.
Vytal, eluding him, entered it. The room was a long one, considering the size of the ship. Its walls, hung with arras, creaked occasionally as the vessel pitched and rolled, but the creaking, muffled by the heavy hangings, sounded ghostly and added to the gloom which the wavering lamp in no way dispelled.
Vytal stood over St. Magil, his lank, stern figure seeming like the form of Death in Death’s own room. His dark, olive cheeks were pallid and drawn, his hand tensely gripping the hilt of his rapier, the so-called “bodkin.” And his eyes, cast down on the sleeper, held disdain mingled with their fury.
But Vytal only gazed and gazed at the treacherous soldier beneath him, until at last, withdrawing his gaunt hand from the rapier-hilt, he held it with open palm above the other’s shoulder, as though, by awakening his enemy, to throw away his own advantage that both might meet on even terms. But his eye fell on the crude chart which Ferdinando had been examining. Silently he folded it and concealed it inside the breast of his doublet. Then, as if with an actual physical effort, he turned and left the apartment.
The fly-boat, now cast off from the Admiral, slowly fell astern, until her light seemed no more than a will-o’-the-wisp and she a shadow piloted thereby in whimsical manner. The sea fretted under a stiffening breeze, and not a star shone. The Admiral, although careening drunkenly, made good progress, for, obedient to shouted commands of Ferdinando, her crew were flinging aloft an unwonted spread of sail.
On deck Vytal met Hugh Rouse, whom he questioned tersely concerning the whereabouts of Roger Prat.
“He is in the forecastle, captain, with King Lud, the bear.”
“Fetch him, Hugh. Quick!” And the giant, with darkening brow, hastened forward. In a moment he had returned with his companion.
“Give full heed,” commanded Vytal, glancing sharply about to make sure he was unheard by others. “There is a plot afoot to desert the fly-boat. That plot at all hazards must not be disclosed. We should lose by immediate accusation, as we know not who are loyal. My plan is this: I shall jump into the sea; you two then give outcry as if a man by accident had fallen overboard. Ferdinando will of necessity heave to. In the mean time, as though distracted, fire a piece and blow on trumpets, as the sailing rule demands. Thus the fly-boat will have time to come up to us, and then—but leave that to me.” He turned to one and the other to make certain of their comprehension, and found it. They were accustomed, these two men, to their captain’s succinct commands in moments of emergency. But Roger Prat stepped forward with an expression indicative of disobedience. “Nay, captain,” he said, with a broad grin, “I am the hogshead and will float; ’tis better so. Under your favor, I go myself. The outcry being thine, will have more effect.” And before Vytal could hinder him, the short, grotesque fellow, winking and wagging his head at Rouse, flung himself, with a loud cry, into the sea.
In three minutes the ship was in an uproar. Men ran hither and thither, fore and aft, in a confusion of useless endeavor. The women, startled by the commotion, gathered for the most part amidships near the main-mast, while others, among whom were the first to learn the cause of the excitement, sought the high, castellated stern, from which they might look off with straining eyes, intent on catching sight of Roger Prat, who had already gained a widespread popularity. Hugh Rouse, at a word from Vytal, went quickly to the master’s mate, then at the helm, and informed him of the occurrence. Without hesitation, the mate and his assistants put the helm hard down, throwing the vessel into the wind. For an instant she stood poised, a breathless creature, her sails flapping, and then, minding her rudder still further, started back over her course. In the mean time, Rouse, who had hurried forward, gained the poop, and, waving a torch he had procured from one of the sailors, shouted with the full power of his lusty lungs to the crew of the fly-boat.
“Fool,” cried a voice behind him, “there is no need of that!” Turning, he saw St. Magil peering out across the water.
But the two ships were now rapidly approaching each other. Seeing this, Rouse desisted and turned to St. Magil with an agitated air, concealing suspicion fairly well, considering his honest, open countenance and utter incapacity for strategy. In this the darkness aided him. “I know not what to do,” he declared. “It is my friend who hath fallen overboard.” He held the torch high for an instant, so that its fitful glare fell upon St. Magil’s face, and then, instinctively realizing that it might betray the look of hate and distrust in his own eyes, he flung it far out into the water. There was this about Hugh Rouse which is rare in men of slow wit: he recognized his disadvantage. “I thought, Sir Walter, that you were in London.”
“So I was,” returned the sinister knight, “a few days ago,” and, suppressing an oath—for the fly-boat, having been alarmed by a flourish of trumpets, was now within hailing distance—he hurried away to seek Simon Ferdinando.
But Vytal had forestalled him. Immediately after Prat’s prompt action, he himself had gone quickly to the master. “The unfortunate man,” he said, “is one of my followers. With your permission, Ferdinando, I go to his rescue myself. The least we can do is to lower the ship’s boat.”
Simon, evading his glance, looked hesitatingly at the choppy sea. “I mislike risking several lives,” he muttered, as though to himself, with feigned prudence, “for one man.”
“I will go, then, alone,” avowed Vytal, quietly, “or with one other. Here, Rouse,” and he turned to his lieutenant, who had joined him. “We go to Roger’s assistance.” But still he looked at Ferdinando, as if deferring to the master by awaiting his assent. Simon, finding no plausible excuse for further delay, and fearing to arouse the other’s suspicions, made a pretence of ready acquiescence amounting almost to eagerness.
As Vytal turned away he found himself face to face with Marlowe. “I go with you,” said the poet.
Vytal nodded. “Quick, then!” And in another instant they had started out in the small boat upon their errand of rescue.
The sea, running higher and higher, tossed about the stanch little craft like a cockle-shell, but the brawny arms of the three rowers, holding her stem to the waves, managed to urge her slowly forward. The fly-boat now lay alongside the Admiral, almost within rope-throw, and both vessels hung as close as could be in the wind, their bowsprits bobbing tipsily, their canvas half empty and rattling.
The rowers strained their eyes and hallooed loudly, but there was no sight of the missing man nor any sound in answer save the flap, flap of the great square sails, the rush of the wind, the crash of the spray from broken foam-crests, and shouts from the swaying decks.
The rowers, now under the Admiral’s stern, were pointing the nose of their sea-toy toward the fly-boat. “Roger hath perished,” said Hugh, hoarsely. “God save his brave soul!”
And then, in weird contrast to the grave words, there came to the ears of the three men a laugh and an incoherent call out of the near darkness. It was as though the blade of Hugh’s oar had spoken. In amazement the men ceased rowing and gazed toward the black stern, from whose invisible water-line the sound had undoubtedly come. All steerage of the cock-boat being momentarily neglected, she swung round until a wave, catching her abeam, with all but disastrous results, washed her yet nearer to the grim hull. “Have a care!” cried the voice; “hold off!” And the rowers saw a dark thing bobbing up and down close to the ship. In another moment a man, grasping the end of a long rope in his hand, was clambering, with the aid of his comrades, into the small boat. “Did ye not see,” he said, immediately assisting at one of the oars, “that I grabbed a hawser as I jumped? ’Twas made fast, thank the Lord, somewhere amidships, and here have I been dangling out behind as comfortable as can be—” but his words belied him, for, even with the assertion on his lips, his last remaining strength failed suddenly, and the inimitable Roger Prat fell back senseless.
“To the fly-boat—quick!” said Vytal.
The cockle-shell was now but a dancing shadow, only a little darker than the sea to those who looked down on it from the Admiral’s stern far above. Yet in the eyes of one man, at least, that riotous black spot was a thing by all means to be avoided. “Simon, it is the solution of our problem. That man you say is John Vytal, and, I add, the most cursed mischief-maker under heaven. Had I known they were coming, he and his slavish crew, we might have been driven to no such pass.” The speaker lowered his voice and went on as he had begun, in the Spanish language. “But the chance is ours—yours.”
“How mine?” The question issued with a shivering sound from the other’s teeth.
“Let me see. One thousand crowns,” returned St. Magil, still leaning over the bulwark to gaze down like an evil buzzard on the bobbing shadow beneath him, “and another thousand—and, if it must be, yet another thousand.” He turned, smiling, to note the effect of his offer. “All this if you leave that insignificant cock-boat behind us, and it comes not safe to Virginia.”
“It is impossible.”
“Wherefore?”
“Captain Vytal is one of the governor’s assistants. The desertion will be reported, and I, Sir Walter, answerable to the lords of her Majesty’s most honorable privy council.”
“Most honorable idiots!” exclaimed the other. “’Tis easily explained. They are lost—we have waited—we cannot find them—where are they? I see no sign whatever of the boat,” and, smiling yet more blandly, he turned his back to the bulwark. “It is as simple as that—just turn your back.”
“Before God, I will not!” and Simon started away, as if he would end the matter there and then.
“You find no difficulty in forsaking the fly-boat,” sneered St. Magil.
“Nay, for that at least can live. But this plaything must surely perish if deserted in so rough a sea.”
“No, Simon, it will gain the fly-boat.”
Ferdinando returned to the bulwark and looked down once more at the object of their discussion. He could see it battling now against great odds, for the shadow made no headway in any direction and both ships were slowly leaving it in their wake.
“Keep your purse. I’ll not play the assassin for you or any other man,” and again the master would have left. But he heard a quick step behind him, and turned suddenly. A slender gleam crossed his sight, and he felt himself pressed back against the bulwark. The menacing glimmer seemed to get into his eyes and into his soul, bringing terror to both.
“For two thousand, then,” he said, hoarsely, “’tis done.”
“Thank you, my good Simon. Thank you, and all this for turning your back.”
There was a double meaning in the words, and Ferdinando shuddered at thought of it.
“We will go now and give orders to the mate,” said St. Magil—“together.”