The poet watched him, and saw the keen, unfathomable eyes for once cast down in self-reproach.
“Failed!” The soldier straightened himself and looked about at the shore and water as at a new world.
Now, suddenly, his eyes, flashing the old fire of their indomitable resolve, met Marlowe’s. “Failed, but in the end I shall succeed.”
A short sigh of relief escaped the poet’s lips; not that he had doubted, but that he had awaited, seemingly an age, this reassertion of power. “Yes,” he said, “yours was not really failure. Can Fate be thwarted? Nay; yet for a time little men, elated and audacious in their puny grandeur, may break its august decrees and laugh at the inevitable. Vytal, read yourself; interpret the cryptograms your sword hath hewn; translate your nature into words, and, even though you withhold the meaning from us all, you will have attained to the consummative pinnacle of manhood.” The poet’s fervid eyes, gazing at his friend, became orators.
For a moment Vytal’s face softened, while a fleeting smile crossed it sadly. “I must return now to the town.”
“And I,” said Kyt, “to my birthland. You have been a ‘queen’s defender.’ This much of the gypsy’s prophecy has been fulfilled. I will tell her Majesty, and, in gratitude, I doubt not, she will send hither assistance to you all. Yet, Vytal, my soul is consumed with fear for you and Mistress Dare.”
Vytal shrugged his shoulders. “I have not yet worthily defended her, but the day will come.”
“Yes,” returned the poet, “of a certainty the day will come. Ne’ertheless, have a care, I pray you, when again you meet this Frazer. His strategy is unsurpassed, his cunning resourceful and never spent. I could feel happy even now, in leaving, were the actor dead and his incongruous blue eyes closed, his lips uncurled. Well, I tarry no longer. The moment hath come for me to go. I pray you say nothing of my departure. Let them think that I have been slain by some wild beast, or if, by ill-luck, they see the sail, let them believe I have deserted.”
Vytal shook his head. “That I will not. When you are gone I shall tell them of your sacrifice. They must know the truth. A surreptitious leaving and elopement shall not be their charge against you.”
The poet’s face grew troubled. “But they will blame you,” he objected; “they will kill you for your share in the concealment of my plan.”