The Indian pointed westward. “Come, my brother, let us bear her to my people. They have gone to the main, and your countrymen with them. There, far from the sea and evil ships, they will live in peace. Thy Spanish enemies all have retreated before my men. Come, my brother, the voice of the forest calls you. There is no other way. Did not the stars at thy birth foretell that thou shouldst be a queen’s defender and the brother of a king? A queen’s defender thou hast been; the brother of a king I beseech thee to be always. Am I not that king of the prophecy? Is not the depth of the forest, solitary and ever dark, the fitting home for one in whose soul all happiness lies buried? My brother, come!”
Vytal returned his gaze in silence, neither granting nor denying the earnest plea.
“John Vytal, you number but six Englishmen in all. To remain is to murder thyself, e’en though thine enemies, Ferdinando and St. Magil, have retreated hastily in a canoe to the Spanish vessel. On the mainland we shall be safe, if upon thee we can depend. The man of God and Margery Harvie, the White Doe and Dyonis, all have started thither under the guardianship of thy servant, Hugh Rouse, who believed you wholly safe with my people. Thus, with thee, there are but three warriors in all. Shall the greatest of these not go, as he hath always gone, to the place where he is most needed?”
“Ay,” said Vytal, vaguely; “that is here. Let us defend the town!”
But Manteo pointed to the palisade, across which the first dim light of dawn was slowly breaking. A gray mist or dust was rising from the enclosure and floating softly out to sea. “Those are the ashes of your Roanoke settlement,” said Manteo, “which the breeze would bury far away. The fortress lies smouldering, and much of the palisade as well. All is lifeless.”
Vytal watched the gray veil unwind itself across the headland. This, then, was a fitting symbol of the climax in which all the fortitude, patience, endeavor, exertion, prayer, and yearning of years had culminated. Ashes! All gray ashes—the hope of England and of himself.
Finally he turned to Manteo, with a deeper consciousness, and stooped to raise Eleanor in his arms. But the Indian, who had watched her face intently, restrained him. “Wait, my brother, there is yet hope. I will instantly seek two herbs in the forest. ’Tis possible the one will heal her wound, the other awake her from sleep,” and, so saying, he entered the woods.
Once more Vytal knelt beside her, while slowly the dismal drone of the surf seemed to creep nearer, until, entering his brain, it wore all thought away. To reason was impossible, to strive for reason a torture that racked him through and through.
Yet at last, appearing to have aroused somewhat from his stupor, he drew his rapier, and, passing his fingers over the blade, muttered: “The bodkin, the little bodkin!” with which—worse, far worse, more terrible than any cry or moan—a laugh, a loud, harsh laugh, came from the broken heart of the man who had rarely been heard to laugh before.
He let the rapier-hilt fall softly to the sand, yet held the point in one hand, and with it touched the artery of his wrist. He was conscious now of one thing only—utter failure! He felt certain that Eleanor, with all his hopes, had left him. It was but the natural result of his life-long battle against Fate.