“‘Nay, Captain Vytal,’ said the queen, her lip curling with that smile of hers which is silent destiny itself—‘nay, she is not for you; nor yet is knighthood either. Our boons are not lightly thrown away, so lightly to be received.’ And then, says the tale, she paused with a frown, to cast about for an alternative to the benefit she would, a moment before, have conferred most graciously. From her dark expression the courtiers supposed that ignominy would take the place of compliment in the soldier’s cup. But at this instant her Majesty’s favorite, Sir Walter Raleigh, ‘Knight of the Cloak,’ made bold to intervene on his friend’s behalf. ‘An I may venture,’ he said, in a low voice, ‘to argue the case before so unerring a judge, I would assert from my own experience that this man’s first sudden sight of a divine radiance has dazzled and blinded him, so that perforce he must seek a lesser brilliancy to accustom his eyes to the perfect vision. The moth, despairing of a star, falls to the level of a candle.’ Then her Majesty turned to Sir Walter with a changing, kinder look. And before she could glance again at the captain to seek for an acquiescence to the flattery (which, I believe, would have been sought in vain, for the soldier is said to be desperate true), before she could harbor a second resentful thought, the knight spoke again. ‘There is an augury about this Captain Vytal,’ he declared, ‘a prophecy sung at his birth by a roving gypsy maid. “He shall be,” said she, “_a queen’s defender—the brother of a king_.” I pray your Majesty leave him free to prove the truth of this prediction. There is but one queen to whom it can refer, for there is one queen only under heaven worthy of the name. Of the king I know not, but it may be that the king, too, is our most gracious sovereign, Elizabeth, for while in beauty and grace she is a queen, in majesty and regal strength no monarch is more kingly. “_A queen’s defender—the brother of a king._” It has all the presumption of a prophet’s words. For the latter condition is impossible; none can ever rise so high as to be honored by your Majesty with the name of brother’—Sir Walter’s voice sank almost to a whisper—‘indeed,’ he added, daringly, ‘none would choose the name. But—a queen’s defender—that means more.’ “Her Majesty turned to the soldier. ‘Would you be your queen’s defender to the end?’ she demanded, sternly, but now without menace in her voice. “‘To the death.’ “‘Appoint him,’ she said to Raleigh, ‘where you will. The spurs are yet to be won by the defence.’” Marlowe paused, his story finished. “And thus, you see,” he added, as Vytal made no rejoinder, “I was right in saying that more than one fair face had hazarded your welfare.” “No, you were wrong.” The poet’s dark eyes opened wide with a query, but he said nothing in words, for the feeling of pique had already passed with his airy rebellion against the other’s trenchant monosyllables.