“’Tis wine,” returned the soldier, fixing his gaze on the pitiful assistant, as though to force the words home with look as well as voice, “’tis wine brings danger. Another cup now, and mayhap you are fatally undone.” He wished to play upon the other’s cowardice, and turn, if he could, one weakness into strength to withstand another. The time was short in which to elicit the desired information, and the task not easy.
“Danger! there’s no danger to me!” declared Ananias, unexpectedly. “Oh nay; how strange—danger—none whatever! ’Tis not for this I drink so deep; ’tis my wife—induces the condition!” His head fell forward again to his hands, that now covered an empty cup. Quickly Vytal hid the half-full tankard beneath the table.
“’Tis she,” said Ananias, again looking up sleepily, “my cousin, my peculiar wife. Why did I marry her—oh, why?”
Vytal’s face grew tense, the veins on his forehead big like thongs.
“She is different,” pursued Dare—“so different! ’Twas the queen did it. I sued so long, so very long, while Mistress Eleanor White would have none of me. And then, one day, coming to me like a child—yes, like a child,” he repeated, weeping remorsefully, “she said: ‘If thou’lt rest content with friendship for a time, perchance in the coming days I’ll learn to love thee, cousin, but now I cannot. My father alone is in my heart.’ That was after the queen had talked with her in private, and before she knew of my love for these big flagons—mad flagons!” He grasped the cup between his hands as though to caress or crush it. “And I was so wild of love and jealousy that I said, ‘Yes; I swear to be no more than friend.’” He was retrospecting as if to himself, and paying no heed to the listener, whose struggle for the mastery of his own emotion had turned him for the time to stone.
“I was so wild of jealousy, for there was my Lord of Essex courting her—Oh, this boat—this boat—’tis, in troth, mad—its reel gets into my head—Ah, why did she marry me? ’Twas because the queen promised that her father should come to Virginia and be governor—her beloved father—instead of going to the Tower for some trivial offence. And she was kind to me, yet so cold that I durst not even touch her hand—but then I grew more brave with wine. Her little hand was mine despite remonstrance, the wine imparting courage to hold it fast. No bravery, say you, in wine? Ha, you know not.” But Vytal had risen, and the sword-hilt was a magnet to his hand. “Nay, you go too soon,” said Ananias, waving him back. “The plot I come to is of deeper import. I’ve been too garrulous—always so exceeding voluble, they say, with wine.” Once more, with a strenuous effort after self-command, Vytal turned back to the table, pallid as death.
“She’s different now—oh, sadly different—I think ’tis Master Marlowe, the poet, turns her head. I saw him with her, and she entranced. I’m no more to her than you. And she is most miserable. To-night she came and said: ‘The voyage is very dangerous. Oh, would we’d never come!’ ‘Yes,’ quoth I, ‘’tis even more dangerous than you think.’ ‘Oh,’ said she, with a scorn that’s hers alone, ‘you are drunk,’ but I assured her ‘No,’ and hid the cup like this beneath my hands. Oh, why do I care, why do I care when she sees the wine?” The maudlin remorse came into his voice again and into his watery eyes. “‘What mean you?’ she asked, ‘by more dangerous?’ ‘Oh, the pilot will run us into Portugal,’ said I. ‘How comical! And there’ll be twenty men on deck before the dawn to do it. ’Tis most extraor’nary!’”
At this Vytal started again to his feet. “Wilt swear it?” he demanded, fiercely. The drunkard leaned back and stared at him, seeming for the first time to strive for a sober moment.
“Nay.”
“How do you know it, then?”