“By Heaven, Gyll!” exclaimed Christopher, “one might think our governor was Lord of Misrule and the whole voyage but a Whitsun jollification. Wherefore these absurdities?”
“To entertain the savage people,”[3] quoth Gyll, leading him off tyrannically. “On my word, Kyt, ’tis so! We would win them by fair means, you see.”
“And you me by the same pleasantries,” returned Marlowe, more lightly, as her mood captured him. “Mistress Croyden, thou’rt a savage thyself, a sweet savage, Gyll, and they’re all for winning thee, I suppose.”
She smiled complacently, with a full consciousness of the charm that made her popular, and Marlowe laughed at the expression of childlike vanity.
Then for an instant his brow clouded, his flattery became more lavish and exaggerated.
A tall, unmistakable figure had passed them in the darkness, like the person of a dream, and Vytal, having gone to the fly-boat, was even now in eager search.
The vessel, a small but cumbrous thing of the Dutch galliot type, with mountainous stern and stolid bow, offered little encouragement to the seeker. For its lights only revealed vague faces, while its masts and shadows, decks and turnings, seemed to form an agglomeration of dark hiding-places in which any one might all-unwittingly stand concealed. But for the moon, now sailing high, recognition would have been impossible.
The soldier, moreover, customarily so direct of method, felt a certain embarrassment and helplessness in this unprecedented adventure. Having until now avoided women with a real indifference, his present want of practice gave him the awkward feeling of a raw recruit. He was momentarily at a loss as to the best manner of procedure. Since he knew none aboard the vessel of whom he could inquire concerning Eleanor Dare, the chance of his meeting her, without special purpose, seemed slight. He considered the expedience of accosting at random some stranger, who might perhaps at least know the girl by sight. Weighing this plan in his mind, he approached a company of the voyagers, who, gathered in a circle about the main-mast, were kneeling devoutly, while an Oxford preacher read the evening prayer. It was in harmony with the tranquil evening—the picture of those forty or fifty men and women beneath a dim lanthorn, that, deepening the shadows beyond its scope, lit up here and there a face reverent with supplication. And to the earnest piety in the pastor’s voice, the restless water from stem to stern added a mystical whisper of unknown things.
At length, as a prayer for the general welfare of the colony drew to a close, Vytal, who had been standing on the outskirts of the circle, his head bowed and bared, raised his eyes to the preacher. Then, from the minister’s uplifted gaze and hands outstretched in benediction, his glance wandered to the background of suppliant figures, whose faces, as they rose at the conclusion of the service, were distinctly visible. Soldiers were there, and gentlemen, mariners, planters, and cooks, musicians, carpenters, masons, and traders, and, in the foremost line of the circle, a little knot of women and children. Toward these Vytal turned his gaze. They seemed workers of a spell—co-workers with the murmurous sea, and the vague shadows, in subduing and softening the picture.
Vytal started and instinctively stepped forward. The whole scene had dissolved now, save for one predominant figure. Seemingly as though merely to form a background for her, these men and women knelt there; as though to shine upon her alone, the lanthorn had been hung above her head; as though the shadows, daring not to cross her, were there to obscure all other faces that hers might be the better seen; as though to her the sea whispered, for she alone could understand.