“Oh,” exclaimed Frazer, unconcernedly, as he waded inshore, “is this thy boasted poetry, to shoot me like a dog?” Marlowe impatiently drew a rapier, while Frazer came to the beach. “Once more,” he said, “the crown prince must fight with a commoner.” Then, feigning to thrust at Christopher, he suddenly swerved, and with his left hand grasped the horn which he and Vytal in turn had let fall near the water. “This was the signal,” he declared, still menacing the poet with a flashing blade. “Not one blast, but three!” And he blew thrice in rapid succession. Instinctively Marlowe turned toward the forest, expecting to see a horde of savages rush therefrom upon him. But in that instant of error only a single figure crossed his vision, fleet as Mercury, and, to his deep mortification, even before he could change rapier for pistol, he saw Frazer vanish in the woods. In a fit of wild exasperation the poet started headlong in pursuit; but he had scarcely crossed the beach when Vytal and Manteo, recalled by the horn’s flourish, reappeared from beyond the ridges. “There, in there!” cried Christopher, and would have rushed forward again had not the soldier restrained him. “How long is it since he escaped you?” “One minute. You heard the alarum. He fled immediately.” Vytal turned to Manteo. “Will you follow him?” “Yes.” “Hasten, then,” and the chief, with noiseless tread and eyes keenly perceptive of every telltale twig and leaf, made his way into the forest. “He understands the stalking of game,” observed Vytal. “It is best so.” Marlowe’s face clouded dismally. “Ay, ’tis best so, and ’tis best that I sail away. Twice this fellow hath outwitted me with the simplest trickery. I am not worthy to remain.” “Ah,” said Vytal, with an even deeper note of self-conviction, “these things belong not to your calling. We do not require carpentry of vintners, nor a crop of wheat from fighting-men. But to mine they do belong, and, Christopher—” the voice sounded harsh and unreal—“I have now failed at mine own work—failed!” He prodded the little sand-hills of Frazer’s inconsequent building with the point of his rapier. “Failed!” He seemed to be on the threshold of new knowledge. A word hitherto utterly unknown and unregarded was being cut deep into the granite of his character. The poet watched him, and saw the keen, unfathomable eyes for once cast down in self-reproach. “Failed!” The soldier straightened himself and looked about at the shore and water as at a new world. Now, suddenly, his eyes, flashing the old fire of their indomitable resolve, met Marlowe’s. “Failed, but in the end I shall succeed.”