The poet’s eyes lighted up with their old fervor. “I know it well, for partly I know you.” His eyes wandered. “Yet I cannot say that, were I you, I would have left her even for friendship’s sake. I read you, I read myself—you as mighty prose, I, it sometimes seems, as vainly garnished poetry. Marlowe would whisper to her, ‘My soul sings thine,’ but Vytal would say, ‘I love thee.’ Methinks in these very words lie our inmost selves contrasted.” Turning again to look at his companion, he found the dark face averted, but when at last he saw its deep-graven, premature lines again, he found no change in the expression.
“I trust you will make every effort,” said Vytal, “to gain audience with the queen.”
“Yes, I swear it, but I fear ’twill prove of no avail. White hath not returned, nor shall I, nor shall any man. Tell me, hast not felt that, with all thy power, thou and these people are foredoomed?” But as he received no answer, Marlowe became resigned to the taciturnity of his friend. After all these years he was forced to confess that even now, in what he believed to be the final parting, he could not touch his comrade’s depths, or even, touching them, elicit response save the look and intense voice that told him of Vytal’s friendship. “Nevertheless, there is but one man,” he resumed at length, as though to himself, “who of all merits your fear. I speak of—” He broke off suddenly. “Hark! what was that?”
They stood still, intently listening.
A low “Whist!” reached their ears from the adjacent woods.
“Foh!” exclaimed Christopher. “’Twas but the hissing of a snake.”
“Nay,” said Vytal, “wait!”
The words were no sooner spoken than the dusky figure of Manteo emerged from the forest, and the Indian approached them with noiseless step. “My brother, have a care. I waited that I might warn thee. Two men, lying concealed to the northward, curiously watch the ship at anchor. The one is Towaye, the other your countryman who named himself ‘Ralph Contempt!’”