“I am off at once—” he said.
“Odds end!” exclaimed Bame savagely, “Don’t stop to mouth words. Push along.”
“And where will you lodge?” asked the constable of Tabbard, who, rejoicing over the complete relief he had secured for his friend Kit, sat there apparently unconcerned.
“Here,” answered Tabbard.
Gyves turned and walked away from them. In going, Bame’s back was toward him, but he saw the smiling face of Tabbard, and striking his own breast, he made a motion with his hand as though to say, “The warrant you have in your pocket deliver to me a little later.”
Tabbard nodded his head understandingly, and the troubled arm of the law passed out of the old Jewry entrance.
Bame scrutinized the late companion of the constable for an interval without changing his position. Tabbard stared back at him with an expression of contempt and hatred, which changed to a smile of triumph as he thought with what exultation he could tear the warrant into shreds before Bame’s eyes. He itched to do it on the instant; but the other man wheeled round and sought a table in a retired corner, from where he continued his scrutiny of Tabbard. There was something about the latter man which jarred a chord in Bame’s memory, and suddenly he recognized him as the person who had been with Marlowe at the Dolphin. This recognition, connected with the fact of the lately interrupted meeting between Gyves and Tabbard, raised his suspicions, and his watching became like that of a hawk.
Tabbard took out the warrant. He opened it curiously and examined the seal. It was the only portion of the paper that assured him of the legal character of the writ. Words in Greek could have conveyed as much meaning as those printed and written on the paper. If he had been convicted of felony, Tabbard would have suffered the severe penalty; for the benefit of clergy would not have availed him. He could not read the Lord’s Prayer in English print.
He folded the paper and then began tearing it into small bits. These he scattered around him, feeling like a life convict taking the first breath of air outside the broken wall of the prison. As he ground the last pieces into the sand under his feet, he lifted his glass of Rheinish wine and threw his head back to drain the contents. The thought of “Sir Kit” was in his mind, a smile played upon his lips.
Could death strike us at the moment of accomplishing good for a friend or for the human race, we might not parley but pass with glorified faces into a peace assuredly in keeping with the joy kindled by the generous act. With few the end comes so gloriously. To the soldier, the martyr, the mother, such passing of the spirit is oft vouchsafed; the first, falling at the head of the victorious forces on the captured battlements; the second, amid flames at the stake; the last, with the first breath of her infant upon her lips already damp with the dew of dissolution.