He was thinking of the little one as Virginia Dare, the first-born white child of America. She became a symbol to him whose meaning he could but dimly understand. He considered all the sacrifice by which she had come into the world, the sacrifice and suffering in which she had been reared, but by no poetic hieromancy could he read her meaning. A fate-spun thread of gold joining the East and West; a mystery, a portent, a promise—all these she seemed to Marlowe, yet in meaning so vague and futuritial as to be beyond all interpretation not divine. Suddenly, however, the poet’s thoughts forsook Virginia, both as the child of Eleanor and of Fate. Vytal’s clear, short words had forced themselves into his mind. “Manteo hath asked us to make our abode with him and his people at Croatan. In your name I have answered, ‘Yes.’ Here we wait and die, one by one, of sickness, drought, and famine. My sword hath been ever ready, and God grant may be always, to lead you and defend our trust. But against disease and starvation not all the arms of Spain and England could prevail. Yet, rather than desert this realm forever, mark you, ’twere better to leave our bones as centronels of the town. If we cannot till the soil and wrest a livelihood therefrom, I say, let us mingle with it our dust, that others, who come after, may sow their seed therein and reap a harvest of fidelity. Even then we should at least have stayed and been of use to men. We must leave an heritage behind us, a will and testament, written perchance in blood, and ineffaceable. This is our sacred duty. Yet there hath been talk among you of building a vessel and taking to the sea. So soon as you begin I shall end the labor with fire and the thing you term a ‘bodkin.’ Call me tyrant an you will; I care not. Stab me at night, build your boats—even then I care not. My will, at least, shall have stood to the last for duty. “I see your eyes gaping with surprise. ’Tis because my voice in this harangue sounds strange. You consider me—deny it not—a silent wolf. Perhaps I am so. But sometimes words are needed for speakers of words. Otherwise I would have said, ‘Come,’ and led you, without further parley, to Croatan. But you would not have understood; you would have murmured. Listen, then. We go to the island of Croatan on the morrow and live with the Hatteras tribe. Let those who are fearful bury deep their most valued possessions; but all may bring with them what they will. The vintners, husbandmen, and gardeners must take their implements, the artificers their tools. You, Hugh Rouse, and you, Prat, superintend the conveyance of our ordnance, half of which shall be taken, and half left in the fort. You, Dyonis, will make the barges ready and man the pinnace. You, Kyt Marlowe, carve the name Croatan beside the main entrance to the town, high up on a tree-trunk, in fair capitals, that, if the governor do ever return, he may know of our whereabouts and come to Croatan.