“They might well,” declared the poet, “be the twin stars of a man’s destiny.”
“Yes,” and the two men, standing amidships near the rail, looked at each other steadfastly, Marlowe at the last turning his gaze downward to the starlit water. It seemed to Vytal as though a spell held his eyes fixed on the poet’s face, across which the lanthorn gleams fell uncertainly, intensifying a shadow that came not only from outward causes. And the spell possessing Vytal, portended some new condition—change—tidings—he could not tell what.
Suddenly Marlowe, as if by an impulse, caught his arm. “Vytal, she is there.” He pointed to the light of the fly-boat far behind. “She came aboard at Plymouth with a slim, weak-seeming fellow whom I take to be her brother, for his name, like hers, is Dare—Ananias Dare, one of the governor’s assistants. ’Twas he who met her at the bridge. Vytal, she is there.”
The soldier followed his gaze. “There!” The word came in a vague tone of wonder, as from a sleeper at the gates of a dream; and with no comment, no reproach, no question, Vytal went away to be alone.
For many minutes after he had gone, Marlowe stood looking into the shrouds, but at last, as though their shadows palled on his buoyant spirit, he wandered along the deck, singing to himself a song of genuine good cheer. And soon, to his delight, the notes of a musical instrument, coming from somewhere amidships, half accompanied his tune. Eagerly he sought the player, and came on a scene that pleased him. For there against the bulwark sat a stout vagabond cross-legged on the deck, strumming merrily on a cittern, as though rapidity of movement were the sole desire of his heart. The instrument, not unlike a lute, but wire-strung, and therefore more metallic in sound, rested somewhat awkwardly on his knee, for his stomach, being large, kept it from a natural position. The player’s fat hand, nevertheless, with a plectrum between the thumb and forefinger, jigged across the strings, his round head keeping time the while and his pop-eyes rolling.
“’Tis beyond doubt that Roger Prat,” said Marlowe to himself, “Vytal’s vagabond follower, and avenger of King Lud, the bear.”
Ranged around this striking figure were many forms, dark, uncertain, confused in outline, and above the forms faces—faces vaguely lighted by an overhanging lanthorn, and varied in expression, yet all rough, coarse, uncouthly jubilant with wine and song.
In the middle of this half-circle a woman sat predominant in effect. Her hair, riotous about her neck, shone like gold in the wavering gleam; her red lips were parted witchingly. She was singing low a popular catch, in which “heigh-ho,” “sing hey,” and “welladay,” as frequent refrains, were the only intelligible phrases.
On seeing Marlowe she rose, even the refrains becoming inarticulate in the laughter of her greeting.