“Where are you taking the body?” he asked.
“To St. Nicholas,” came the answer.
“’Tis unfit for Christian burial,” he exclaimed.
He was about to say more, but glances from several members of the group froze his utterance. The glances meant violence. They came from the eyes of men who recognized him as a member of the sect which not only cursed their profession but was endeavoring to crush them out of existence. He swung his horse’s head around and dug his heels in the animal’s flanks. For his own good, his flight had been well timed, for all that reached him were their merited execrations.
At the Golden Hind he learned of the events of the past twenty-four hours, and as he talked in the tap-room, through the center came the coroner. Anne was with him. She was to accompany the officer to the house of the sheriff. The meeting between uncle and niece was not without an exhibition on her part of something approaching filial affection. In his own household he had ever presented himself as devoid of all the sterner and harsher traits which made him an object of dislike and hatred in the outer world, and great sympathy and love had existed between them. Her elopement had shaken these sentiments in him, but this meeting had revived them. They conferred apart while the good natured coroner attempted to drown the heat of his late exciting session by many deep bowls with Dodsman and several obsequious and admiring loungers.
Many were the questions with which Bame plied his niece. Whom had she married? How came she here? Where had her husband fled? All were answered except the last, she maintaining even with Bame that Marlowe was the dead man.
At the conference between Bame and Anne, it was decided that he should journey at once to Canterbury and inform her father of her unfortunate situation. There appeared no other plan by which she could be released. Bame and Crossford should stand as sureties for her future appearance. The former agreed to bring about a reconciliation. But then there was a matter which to her seemed of more pressing importance. She required a courier for the opposite direction, that is, toward London. It took some deliberation to formulate her story and as much more to determine whether it were safe to convey even this story to Bame. The question of safety concerned Marlowe only. Her road for the meeting on the following Sunday evening at the church of St. Olave was blocked as effectually as though prison bars held her in. The promise for her appearance there had gone from her freely. Neither she, nor Tamworth, had suggested any means or method for further communication between herself and Marlowe, should their meeting, as proposed, be prevented. The thought of his being a fugitive from justice had appalled her as to its far reaching consequences to herself. It was only in some foreign country, unknown to herself, that she had pictured him. Tamworth’s communication had scattered her fears. The order of the coroner for her detention had again plunged her into a deeper pit of despair. Here was the opportunity to convey the reason of her inability to meet him as promised, and to post him of her future. She realized that it was a dangerous matter to run anyone into contact with Marlowe, but here she apprehended no danger. Up to the time of her departure from Bame’s house, she knew that Bame was a stranger to the man in question. It was not only unlikely but highly improbable that he, a devout Brownist, should know the licensed player, and unlicensed writer. Thus reasoning, she placed the man she loved into the hands of his most implacable enemy.
It was one of her husband’s friends, she said, who would be at the entrance of the parish church of St. Olave at ten o’clock on the evening of June —. The meeting had been arranged before the duel at the tavern. It concerned his departure from England. His flight, she continued, would prevent the meeting. It was a matter of great concern, and at the moment of the separation between herself and husband she had promised to meet the man who would be in waiting for him. Would Bame act in her behalf? The statement was plausible, but Bame saw more in it than her words conveyed. However, whether the meeting was of her own concertion, with a nameless man or with her husband, whom Bame had never seen, did not seem of importance. What message was he to bear?
She wrote, in few words, of her predicament and prospects; she sealed it, and delivered it to Bame. The missive ran thus: “I have word of thy present safety and rejoice; for my situation had made me fearful of thine own. To thy request for me to meet thee, I returned my promise; but now the hope of compliance hath vanished. I am held as a witness. If the termination of my imprisonment is dependent upon thy arrest, I pray that I may never be at liberty. However, I have hope of an early release, and of going to my father’s house in Canterbury. In the meantime be content, I pray thee, with the assurance of my love. The bearer is to be trusted. He is my uncle and will return here with thy answer. Let it be of where I can find thee later. Sealed with my love. Anne.”