“I am alone,” he said.
For many minutes the rapier-point, moving imperceptibly, scratched his skin. Yet he made no thrust, for the horribly incongruous hilarity of his expression gradually died away, leaving his face once more grave and unrelaxing.
Suddenly he rose and stood as if on guard, not against himself, but another. At this he called aloud, as though Rouse stood near. “Quick, seek Manteo and the tribesmen! Bid Dyonis protect his charges to the end. See to it that Frazer is shackled heavily. We win!” His eyes flashed. “Send to me Roger Prat and Marlowe. They are men. Ho! Marlowe, come, come quickly to my aid! Is ’t possible thou hast forgot that night on the bridge when side by side we fought to save her?” He paused, thrust into the darkness, then reeled and let fall his blade. “O my God—I dream.” And, sinking down once again beside Eleanor, he looked first into her pallid face, and then at the shroud of ashes that was borne out lightly to be folded with the veil of the sea. Both mists, gray and commingling on the water, seemed the cerements of his dead ambition. For not only the sea had failed him, but the land as well. And this was his only message to England—an ephemeral breeze, ash-laden, from the West he had come to win.
The cries of many birds, awakening, filled the air. The stars, paling slowly, died. The breeze stirred summer’s heavy foliage mournfully.
Vytal shut the light from his eyes, and from his ears the sounds of morning. With head bowed he then relived his life. And the moments when he had been with Eleanor rose pre-eminent above all other memories. He thought of the court, of how by his glance toward her he had been deprived of knighthood. He recalled vividly the fight on London Bridge, and once more saw her standing in the Southwark gateway. He remembered their meeting on the fly-boat, and first saw her praying in the lanthorn-light, then leaning on the bulwark, when they two had been alone in a world of mystery. At the last she was bending over him as he lay in the armory after the battle of the ships. Once again her voice was calling, “John Vytal.”
The repetition of that far-off tone seemed a living echo from his heart.
“John Vytal.”
He moved slightly, and, as if in a waking sleep, looked down at Eleanor; then started, and, bending closer, strove for an answer to the dream.
In very truth her eyes were open.