In the evening one of these soldiers stood alone on the _Admiral’s_ high stern, a motionless figure, clean-cut against the sky. His eyes, blue like the deep sea, looked back toward the receding coastline, fixed on the dissolving land with a resigned fatality and regret. With the sun, westward, the two ships went down slowly over the horizon, leaving England a memory behind—a memory, yet very real, while the haven, far ahead, somewhere beneath the crimson sky, seemed but a dream that could not shape itself—a dream, a picture, bright, alluring, undetailed, like the golden painting of the sun. Tall and erect as a naked fir-tree the man stood on the top deck in the stern—still stood when night came and there was not even a melting horizon to hold his gaze—still stood as though to turn would be to wake forever from a vision beside which all things actual must seem unreal. But at last he turned resolutely and, drawing his cloak about him, glanced off toward the darkening west; then, with a word to one and another as he passed his fellow-voyagers, he sought the ship’s master to discuss plans for the maintenance and general welfare of the colony. As he was about to enter the main cabin a soldier accosted him. “The die is cast, captain.” “Yes, Rouse; we have done well in starting. May ill fortune throw no better.” “Nay,” observed the Saxon giant, in low tones. “But already I mistrust this Simon Ferdinando, the master of our ship.” “He is but a subordinate. We have the governor and his twelve assistants to depend on.” “Ay, captain, and you.” “I am one of the twelve.” “God be praised!” said Hugh, fervently. “But there’s mischief in Simon. I always mislike these small men.” “You forget our Roger Prat, no higher than your belt; and yet, Hugh Rouse, even you have no greater fidelity.” “’Tis true, but his breadth is considerable. Cleave him in twain downward, as he’s ofttimes said, then stand his paunch on the top of his head, and Roger Prat would be as tall as any of us. ’Tis merely the manner of measurement.” “In all things,” said Vytal, with a fleeting smile, and wishing to see this Ferdinando, the _Admiral’s_ master, in order to judge of the man for himself, he entered the main cabin.