From time to time another woman, who sat at a table across the room, even now jesting with several soldiers, looked at the central figure of this group with an expression in which resentment and admiration were curiously blended. Gyll Croyden had frequently looked at Eleanor thus, and always as though from a distance greater than the actual space which lay between them.
Suddenly the child, who had been christened Virginia, in honor of England’s possession, awoke, crying feebly, and Eleanor, with much concern, took it in her arms. Her expression, as she looked down into the little face, suggested varied emotions. There was a mother’s love in her eyes, a deep maternal devotion; but, mingled with this, another, less obvious, expression seemed to betray some depth of feeling at odds with the first, and possibly stronger, though more subtle and indefinable.
She turned to her father. “Must we wait forever here? It seems an eternity, and I grow fearful lest—”
The kindly governor interrupted her. “Nay, there is naught to fear, my little one. They will doubtless attack the ships at first, thinking us all unwatchful, or vigilant only in the town. It is for that reason, you know, that Captain Vytal, seeking to repulse and overwhelm them at the first onset, has manned the Admiral and concealed over seventy men below. Of a surety the enemy will attack this vessel first, as it lies to the south and is the larger prize. Yet, mark you, they will be utterly unable thus to cut off our last means of retreat.”
But his attempt to reassure her failed. “I fear many will be killed,” she said, half to herself, and he saw that her eyes were moist with unshed tears.
“Let us pray it may not be so, Eleanor. Our people seem to have caught Vytal’s unflinching courage; moreover, the men, well armed and galliated, will find our foe all unprepared for so sudden a resistance.”
To this a new voice, gentle but masculine, made rejoinder, and the Oxford preacher stood beside them. “You have said ‘Let us pray’; with your Excellency’s permission I will do so.” In a moment the whole company were on their knees, while the preacher invoked the aid of the God of battles in simple words.
The infant in its mother’s lap was crying more pitifully now than heretofore. And, without warning, as the soldiers resumed their games again and Gyll Croyden her babble, a convulsion seized it, distorting the diminutive features cruelly.
Eleanor, rising, rocked it to and fro in her arms. The mother’s love was now unquestionably predominant. Handing the child to Margery Harvie, she spoke a few words to her father: “There is an herb which Manteo has shown me; boiled in water, it will restore her at once. I must get it.”
“Nay, but—”