“Hush, Sir Walter, you tempt Fortune.”
CHAPTER XVI
“What, rebels, do you shrink and sound retreat?”
—Marlowe, in Edward the Second.
We come now to a mile-stone in the road of Time, a mere pebble it may seem to some, but to the colony of Roanoke it marked a sudden turning in Life’s pathway.
Perhaps nothing is more unaccountably inconsistent than the action of men under new and strange conditions. As there is no precedent to predict the issue, reason falls back upon itself, and fails; the unexpected happens. Even keen perception and an intimate knowledge of human nature confound the rule with its exception, trying to solve the problem by its proofs, or to prove it by the solution.
The colonists of Roanoke had fought bravely for their rights. Surely men like these could be abashed by nothing. But to make war against a present, actual enemy and against obscure, slow-moving Destiny are different matters. Many are fitted for one or the other contest, few for both.
On a morning early in September numerous planters and soldiers, led by Ananias Dare, stood before the house of Governor White. The governor himself was in his doorway, listening sadly to their appeal.