She looked troubled. “Oh, naught, believe me—I think he—but no—I mean—” “What?” “He believed ’twas for the best, and so he demanded that I—should stay.” Vytal grasped his sword-hilt. “Is ’t possible he dared to interfere? Do you mean ’twas Prat suggested hostages? Can it be my own man who hath exposed you to the hazard of remaining?” “No, stay, Captain Vytal. Harm not the fellow. Dost not—” But she broke off suddenly, her head drooping to hide the deep flush which had mounted to her cheeks. “’Twas impertinence,” declared Vytal, as though to himself. “Nay, more, it was profanation to thwart the will of Heaven, by which you would have been saved from this cruel life.” She looked up at him again, a wistful doubt in her eyes. “Then you—would have—me return?” He drew himself to his full height in the old soldierly way, as though facing an ordeal. “I would.” “Wherefore?” The word came in a low whisper, as though a woman’s heart were sinking with the voice to endless silence. “I consider _your_ happiness, and not—” He paused and turned to leave. She spoke no detaining word, but only stood watching him as he walked away to the fortress, and her eyes were no longer haunted by misgiving. * * * * * “Roger.” “Ay.” “Hereafter ignore the dictates of impulse save in matters of your calling. Obey my commands alone, or seek another friend.” “But, captain—” “Stay, I ask no explanation nor apology. The thing is done.” * * * * * At sunrise the whole colony, save the governor and his daughter, having assembled on the shore, was divided into two parties—those who were lading cock-boats and barges with provisions prior to their departure, and those who merely assisted in the embarkation with a secondary interest, listless and mutely sad. Soon, like the pinions of two great sea-fowl, wide-spread to bear them upward from a billow, the sails of the fly-boat and _Admiral_, mounting from yard to yard, held all eyes at gaze. Prat, watching them with a wry face, turned to Marlowe, who stood beside him. “Damned portents!” he exclaimed. “Nay, Roger, they are but vultures awaiting to bear away the corpse of Courage.” Prat eyed him with a kind of wonder. “Or,” pursued the poet, carelessly, “those sails are the flags of truce we wave to Destiny.” “Master Kyt,” asked Roger, with a look of unprecedented embarrassment, “is ’t a hard thing to write poesy?” Marlowe, still in abstraction, failed to note the preposterous suggestion that underlay the query. He made answer seemingly to himself. “’Tis easy to indite the ‘Jigging Conceits of Rhyming Mother Wits,’” he observed, quoting from the prelude to his “Tamburlaine.”[6] “It is within man’s compass to make a ‘mighty line’ or so; but to write poetry is impossible.” “Nay, but you yourself, Master Christopher—” “No, not I, nor any one can scan the lines engrailed by a golden pen on the scroll of sunset, or echo the music of a breeze.”