“Why, ’tis Kyt!” she cried—“Kind Kyt, the poet!” whereat, much to the amusement of her admiring audience, she stepped lightly toward him and, throwing her head back, asked outright, “Saw you ever so comely a youth?” then, with a coquettish, bantering look at the cittern-player, “Good-night, Roger Prat, I’m going,” and she led Marlowe away into the darkness.
“Gyll!” he exclaimed, “Gyll Croyden! Is’t really thee? How camest thou to leave thy Bankside realm, thy conquest of rakes and gallants?”
She laughed anew at this and shrugged her shoulders. “How camest thou, Kyt Marlowe, to leave thy Blackfriars, and thy conquest of play-house folk, for the wild Virginia voyage?”
The poet laughed as carelessly as herself. “Because ’tis wild,” he answered. “Indeed, I know no other reason.”
“It is my own,” she said. “I grew stale in London.”
“Not thy voice, Gyll. Methinks ’tis all for that I like thee.”
She pouted, then smiled contentedly. “Come, Kyt, away into the bow. I’ll sing to thee alone.”
And in another part of the ship Vytal was recalling one of the rules of sailing, “That every evening the fly-boat come up and speak with the Admiral, at seven of the clock, or between that and eight; and shall receive the order of her course as Master Ferdinando shall direct.”
“To-morrow at seven of the clock,” he repeated, “or between that and eight.”