“I trust we may prove this, too,” said the poet, regarding his companion with marked admiration.
“We shall.”
It was now nearly midnight, and the wind left a long, rolling sea, in which the fly-boat lay wearily, like a landsman in a hammock, uncomfortably asleep. The decks were deserted save for the burly figure of the pilot at the helm, the two shadows near the main-mast, and a ghost-like sailor here and there on watch. The Admiral’s dim light had gone down over the horizon.
“Desolation,” muttered Marlowe. “All desolation. It seems as though the God—if God there be—were sleeping.”
“There is a God,” said Vytal, simply.
The poet smiled sceptically, and would have rejoined at some length, but a cloaked figure came to them out of the darkness. It was Eleanor Dare. Marlowe started back as though struck without warning, and turned to Vytal with a jealous look. But the glance of enmity passed as quickly as it came, leaving only deep affection and sympathy in the poet’s face. Instinctively he made as though to withdraw, and they, to his regret, offered no remonstrance. “You will find me,” he said, “with the steersman. It may be well to watch him closely.” And he left them.
“Captain Vytal,” began Eleanor, “you must act with all speed. Indeed, I know not but that even now I am too late.” Despite her ominous words, she was speaking coldly, with a calmness almost mechanical. “We are in the hands of traitors paid by Spain.”
“I know it well, Mistress Dare.”
“You know it?”
“Yes;” and he told her very briefly the facts within his knowledge.