For a week the foremost consideration in Vytal’s mind, after the cargo had been landed, was to ascertain, if possible, the whereabouts of the fifteen men who, being the stoutest spirits of an earlier colony, had been left the year before to hold the territory for England. The inadequacy of this arrangement, by which a garrison that would not have sufficed to defend a small fortress was left to guard a boundless acquisition, is perhaps unparalleled in history. But to many of the newly arrived colonists the utter futility of the plan was not apparent. They had not yet experienced the desperate hardships of an infant settlement, nor realized the extent and latent ferocity of the savage hordes that overran the continent. Furthermore, the magnitude and nature of the territory which fifteen men had been appointed to hold was by no means appreciated. Nevertheless, in the minds of men who had played their games of life against odds and could justly estimate the hazards of existence, the likelihood of finding the little company seemed very small. Vytal, for one, felt far from sanguine, but the kindly, impractical governor, although he had already searched the whole Island of Roanoke in vain, still held out hope of ultimate success. “I doubt not we shall find them yet,” he said one evening to Vytal, “on some adjacent island.” The soldier shook his head. “Let us go once again and inspect the site of their settlement.” “It is a most dismal scene,” declared the governor, leading the way to a road running inward from the shore. “But my men can soon make the place habitable.” “Habitable!” exclaimed a voice behind them; “’tis a perfect Eden,” and the speaker joined them. “Ay, Master Marlowe,” returned the governor, glancing at the new-comer with a look of indulgent admiration. “But Eden is forsook.” “’Tis the old story,” observed the poet, “of an enforced exodus, but wherein lay the fatal sin? Are birds evil? Nay, but their little fate in a falcon’s guise destroys them.” The governor looked at him askance. “I have heard of your loose theology, sir, but pray you to restrain it here. We are a lonely people, and need God.” The poet made no answer. The unquestioning faith of men like Vytal and the governor—the faith direct, plain, and utterly free from the cant he hated—caused him at times to covet their deep simplicity; again, he would rail against religion, and wander with vain eagerness through the mazes of a complex Pantheism. But at last, poetry, pure and undefiled by sophistries, would return to him with her quieting, magical touch, and restore the sunshine to his world. “Dreamed you ever of such verdure?” he said, at length. “Nature is prodigal here, a spendthrift in a far country.”