“My God! the dead man is Tabbard.”
Then, as the flaming torch illuminated the man in front, who, with back toward the corpse, bore the stretcher, Marlowe, for he was the speaker, sunk his fingers deep into the clutched arm, for at that moment he heard a voice near him whisper:
“And Bame, Richard Bame, carries him.”
A shadow, shifting with the wavering of the torch, fell across Marlowe’s face. The latter looked to ascertain its cause and also the source of the last words spoken, and saw the outline of a man in the coat of an officer slink from the portico into the rain and the darkness. The torch now revealed an object close to the edge of the pavement. It was a heavy cart with horses attached like the one which had passed Tabbard early that night. His body was being borne toward it.
IN THE PRINCE’S WARDROBE.
But stay, what star shines yonder in the East?
—Jew of Malta, ii, 1.
But soft: what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the East—
—Romeo and Juliet, ii, 2.
Marlowe and Tamworth now followed the example of the constable and, having moved silently along the street, in a few moments were in the wide and dark hall of a large building near the church of St. Olave.
“Hold to my arm,” said Tamworth, “This is the Prince’s Wardrobe.”