A low moan rose in her heart, and whether or not it escaped her lips she never knew.
On the settle lay John Vytal, prostrate and unconscious, his left arm extended to the floor, to which his half-sheathed sword had fallen, the belt having been unbuckled that his corselet might be unloosed. His fingers tenaciously grasped the scabbard. The right hand lay across his breast, which had been bared that a chirurgeon, who stood near by, might listen to the heart-beats. Under the head of the wounded man a folded cloak had been placed as a pillow, and his morion, having been removed, revealed a great black and gray flecked mane of hair, brushed back to cool his forehead. The brow itself, streaked with crimson, showed a deep line from temple to temple where the helmet had cut into it. The face, as though chiselled in bronze, was still stern and relentless save for a grim, triumphant look of victory that shone in the sharp features like the cresset-light across his sword.
Marlowe stood erect, watching him, until suddenly a voice, inarticulate, low, and questioning, seemed to break the spell that bound them all to the depths of anxious silence.
Marlowe turned. “Thank God!” he said, “you are saved. Speak to him.” And, with all the relief in the poet’s voice, there was a note of pain; for he had read her eyes.
“Captain Vytal.”
The soldier stirred as though in an abyss of sleep, his breast heaving slightly.
“John Vytal.” The name was spoken in a low voice, yet, far away in the world that sound and sight fathom not by utterance or gaze, but only by their meaning, one spirit was calling to another.
The captain opened his eyes slowly.
“Thanks be to Heaven!” And Marlowe turned to Eleanor. “Your salvation is his as well.”
Vytal’s lips parted. “Salvation? What mean you by salvation?” He forced himself to sit upright, and his voice rose harsh as a night wind. “Has Mistress Dare been nigh to danger?”