CHAPTER XVII
“What we have done our heart-blood shall maintain.”
—Marlowe, in Edward the Second.
“Thy words are swords.”
—Marlowe, in Tamburlaine.
To those who, long afterwards, recalled the months and months that followed Governor White’s departure there was no clear, consecutive reminiscence in the mind’s eye. Only one or two vivid scenes, enacted in those anxious days, graved themselves on memory. All else was but a medley of hours and seasons, and even years, quick-changing, confused, monotonous yet varied, listless yet portentous and pregnant—the fœtus of the Future in the Present’s womb. Hope burned brightly, waned, flared again, flickered, and seemed to die. For even Hope cannot live by Hope alone forever; only grief is self-sustaining. And grief came to the colony of Roanoke. Pestilence, tempests and privations, famine, drought, and mortality, all conspired in turn against their one invincible enemy whose name is Courage.
A desperate, absorbing question haunted the faces of men, women, and children; a question first asked in words, next mutely from eye to eye, then not at all. When? when? The word holds all the meaning of existence, and the meaning is a question. Despair is the death of Hope; Resignation, the deep-cut grave. Yet from the grave a ghost returns to whisper, “Then.”
The ghost of Hope still haunted Roanoke Island.
Surely some day the resigned yet watchful eyes would see a sail to the eastward. First the settlers said “To-morrow,” then “Next month,” and at last, “Within a year John White will bring deliverance.”
But summers and winters passed until two whole years had gone, and speculation was eschewed by all as vain self-torture.
Crops failed; husbandry languished. Life at last came to a low ebb. This may seem unaccountable when one considers that about threescore able-bodied men, with perhaps a dozen women and children, were not castaways without shelter, but well-housed settlers. Yet the fact remains undeniable; and the cause is not far to seek. Hope had made the colonists dependent on itself. They had looked for a speedy deliverance. Without this expectation their industry, at the outset, after Governor White’s departure, would not have waned, but increased. Perceiving no assistance possible from an outside source, the little company, relying on its own endeavors, would have striven to shape the future independently. But that sail, ever in the mind’s eye, allured them. Save for two or three men who were, above all, self-reliant, the colony, before now, would have perished. Fortunately, one of these had learned to depreciate the kindness of Destiny. In his mental vision there was no sail to the eastward, nor ever would be unless a ship actually appeared on the horizon. Experience, head-master of this school-boy world, could boast of at least one graduate on Roanoke.
“Manteo, the end is near. I have sought for over two years to ’stablish ourselves firmly, so that, even were John White’s absence indefinitely prolonged, we might yet survive. But your land considers us aliens. The end is near.”
“Yes, my brother, for that reason I have come hither from the island of Croatan. The English are not aliens, but friends and brethren. Our crops shall be their crops, our habitation theirs as well. My name is Manteo, yet also Lord of Roanoke.[8] Ask your people to come and be my children on the isle of Croatan. Here the tongue of the earth cleaves to its mouth. All things die thirsting. The springs of fresh water are spent and run not; the dust chokes their throats, and still no cloud appears. Even the sky panteth. I say to you, come away.”
“But, Manteo, wherefore? Is ’t any better at your abode?”
“It is; for at Croatan the forest waters bring laughter from the heart of the world, and are never hushed. The whisper of Roanoke’s well-springs is lip-deep and meaningless, while we of Croatan hear a spirit singing, ‘Come.’ The song is to you, for we are there already. I repeat it: ‘Come.’”
“But your crops are needed for your kinsmen.”
“Yes; ye are our kinsmen.”
“So be it. On the morrow, then, thy lot is ours as well.”
At noon the colonists assembled near the fortress, while John Vytal spoke to them. By the captain’s side stood Manteo, utterly impassive, and, next to the Indian, Christopher Marlowe, seemingly wrapped in a high abstraction. In the foremost line of the small half-circle Hugh Rouse and Roger Prat were intently listening; while from a knoll, apart from the group, yet well within earshot, Eleanor Dare watched the speaker. About the foot of the mound a little girl, apparently about three years old, played with drooping wild-flowers. Like a butterfly just from the cocoon, she flittered hither and thither, with uncertain, hesitating motion, yet a grace so light and aerial that seemingly a thread of sunlight could have bound her, since no breeze was there to carry her away. Though actual gossamer wings were unaccountably lacking, a gossamer spirit was hers, ethereal, as if born of a maiden’s dream. Yet, as the wing of a butterfly winces if the flower it touches droops, there was that in her which told vaguely of sorrow, as though in the past, long before her earthly life, her devotion for some one had been repelled. And now even these strange wild ferns and unnamed blossoms of the field about her hung their heads and turned away. Yet she was of them. Was the sadness an inborn, unconscious memory, a dim result arising from the fact that her father had been spurned, and that of the contempt and repugnance in which her mother had held him, long months before Virginia’s birth, she was the offspring?
These were the thoughts and questions in the mind of Marlowe as he turned to watch the child at play. Her mystic sadness was not the effect of an infancy amid hardship and affliction. He believed she would never be touched by tangible sorrows. He pictured her as grown to womanhood, yet never amenable to ordinary grief. No; it was only that the maiden’s dream from which this child seemed sprung had ended with an awakening from vague and roseate fancies to a cold, remorseless fact. The soul of the child had no father; she was not conceived of love. The world holds many like her, beautiful and sound in body, and in spirit beautiful but incomplete.
As the poet watched her playing about her mother’s feet, with all the babble and waywardness of blithesome elfinry, his thoughts grew more abstracted. He no longer saw the sunny head, the peony lips, and the little oval face, mirthful but very pale; he no longer compared the features to Eleanor’s, noting the surface likeness, the difference underneath; he no longer drew a distinction between the spiritual deeps of the mother’s eyes and the mystical prescience of the daughter’s, which lay also beneath a veil of hazel light.
He was thinking of the little one as Virginia Dare, the first-born white child of America. She became a symbol to him whose meaning he could but dimly understand. He considered all the sacrifice by which she had come into the world, the sacrifice and suffering in which she had been reared, but by no poetic hieromancy could he read her meaning. A fate-spun thread of gold joining the East and West; a mystery, a portent, a promise—all these she seemed to Marlowe, yet in meaning so vague and futuritial as to be beyond all interpretation not divine.
Suddenly, however, the poet’s thoughts forsook Virginia, both as the child of Eleanor and of Fate. Vytal’s clear, short words had forced themselves into his mind.
“Manteo hath asked us to make our abode with him and his people at Croatan. In your name I have answered, ‘Yes.’ Here we wait and die, one by one, of sickness, drought, and famine. My sword hath been ever ready, and God grant may be always, to lead you and defend our trust. But against disease and starvation not all the arms of Spain and England could prevail. Yet, rather than desert this realm forever, mark you, ’twere better to leave our bones as centronels of the town. If we cannot till the soil and wrest a livelihood therefrom, I say, let us mingle with it our dust, that others, who come after, may sow their seed therein and reap a harvest of fidelity. Even then we should at least have stayed and been of use to men. We must leave an heritage behind us, a will and testament, written perchance in blood, and ineffaceable. This is our sacred duty. Yet there hath been talk among you of building a vessel and taking to the sea. So soon as you begin I shall end the labor with fire and the thing you term a ‘bodkin.’ Call me tyrant an you will; I care not. Stab me at night, build your boats—even then I care not. My will, at least, shall have stood to the last for duty.
“I see your eyes gaping with surprise. ’Tis because my voice in this harangue sounds strange. You consider me—deny it not—a silent wolf. Perhaps I am so. But sometimes words are needed for speakers of words. Otherwise I would have said, ‘Come,’ and led you, without further parley, to Croatan. But you would not have understood; you would have murmured. Listen, then. We go to the island of Croatan on the morrow and live with the Hatteras tribe. Let those who are fearful bury deep their most valued possessions; but all may bring with them what they will. The vintners, husbandmen, and gardeners must take their implements, the artificers their tools. You, Hugh Rouse, and you, Prat, superintend the conveyance of our ordnance, half of which shall be taken, and half left in the fort. You, Dyonis, will make the barges ready and man the pinnace. You, Kyt Marlowe, carve the name Croatan beside the main entrance to the town, high up on a tree-trunk, in fair capitals, that, if the governor do ever return, he may know of our whereabouts and come to Croatan.
“My friends, the exodus is unavoidable. Yet we still garrison a hemisphere.”
He paused and scanned their faces, while for a moment all looked up at him as though fearing to break the spell which for the first time in their knowledge had given him tongue. But presently several men appeared on the threshold of a neighboring cabin, in which Gyll Croyden lived, and from which, until now, peals of incongruous laughter and the rattle of dice had proceeded at frequent intervals. Foremost in the doorway stood Ananias Dare, who, after hesitating a minute, joined the larger gathering. “What is afoot?” he asked of those nearest to him.
“We shall be soon,” laughed Prat, “for to-morrow we leave Roanoke and join the Hatteras Indians.”
“God’s pity! They will exterminate us.”
At this Manteo, who until now had remained immobile as stone, started forward, but Vytal, with a word, restrained him, and, turning to the assistant, spoke in a low voice, so that Eleanor might not hear his accusation. “Master Dare, you insult a benefactor. Manteo is no murderer, but a generous host. Bridle your tongue.” The tone was authoritative and coldly harsh, but the very cowardice of Ananias, paradoxically enough, gave him moments of obstinate courage. Many there are who fight desperately to retreat: fear is bold in its own interests.
“Who gave you command?” he queried. “’Twas I suggested to the governor that John Vytal should assume control. My voice, therefore, deserves the heed of all; and I say build a ship. By all means let us haste to England.” He turned at the last and addressed the women nearest to him, while the hands of Prat and Rouse went impulsively to their sword-hilts, and their glance hung on Vytal’s face, asking permission to end the matter immediately with summary decision. But the captain only scrutinized the group searchingly.
“Master Dare,” ventured Roger, “harangues the women. His words are not for us. Oh ho, good dames, give ear. Ye’re to man a ship—woman a ship, I mean. Now, one shall be Mistress Jack-Woman, another Dame Captain, another Sailing-Mistress. In troth, ’tis a lusty crew.”
Ananias turned on him angrily. “Sirrah, have a care, else you shall feel the grip of a hand-lock within the hour.”
But Roger responded with a laugh. “Now, what’s a hand-lock, Master Assistant? You’ve so often made mention of the thing as befitting my exalted station, that methinks ’tis time it were proven real.”
He would have given his raillery free rein and run on further, but Vytal interrupted him. “Desist, Roger; your tongue runs riot most unseemly. The irons are real indeed, and here’s a hand shall lock them an you show not greater deference to superiors.”
Ananias smiled at this with triumph, and resumed his appeal. “I ask you, my masters, is it not far better to risk a thousand storms by sea than encounter death by torture or slow starvation? I doubt not the Indian chieftain is well meaning, but so also is Sir Walter Raleigh; yet to what a pass hath his invitation brought us! The time is come to save ourselves.” He hesitated, for at this moment his daughter, the little Virginia, who had chased a humming-bird across the square, stopped in her flight and looked up at him. When his eyes fell to hers he winced perceptibly, and then his face, flushing for an instant, seemed superlatively beautiful under the recall of a lost masculinity. But suddenly his glance wandered to Eleanor, who stood aloof watching him, and the old, drawn, pallid look reasserted itself, whereat, slowly, he turned on his heel and, with eyes shamefully cast down, re-entered the cabin of Gyll Croyden.
“On the morrow,” said Vytal, “we go to Croatan.”