The cabin was devoid of furniture save for a rough-hewn table and an upturned stool, about the legs of which the long sinews of a plant, having entered stealthily from without through numerous knot-holes, had twined themselves tenaciously. But there were few weeds growing within the hovel, for the earth, like adamant, offered no fertility even to the rankest vegetation. Suddenly the sunlight left the room, and a chilling miasma seemed to fill it. Marlowe shuddered. “Let us leave this grave. Its gloom gets into my brain. One man outlived his mates and dwelt alone in this vast country, daring to fight single-handed against Destiny—and this is the result—a few porous sticks bleached by the frivolous sunbeams, a delusive glow suggesting the divine spark—and oblivion!” So saying, the poet, wrapping his cloak closer about him, withdrew to the open air, where the governor, also dolefully affected, awaited him. Vytal came out slowly. “He is accustomed to scenes of death,” said the governor to Marlowe. “Death, with all its grim carnality, has grown familiar in the years of war.” “Yes, but the gloom of the story is in his heart, beside which the shadows of the room are as nothing. He feels these things down deep, but is ever silent.” They stood on the edge of the glade waiting for the subject of their conversation, who was walking slowly around the cabin. “He looks for further traces of the lost men,” remarked the governor. “No, it is for some other reason.” Marlowe was not mistaken, Vytal’s close inspection of the hut’s vicinage being from a widely different motive. Carefully he examined the glade’s border on all sides. To the west he found a wide, natural avenue in the forest that lost itself in the purple distance; to the north, a dense jungle seemingly impassable for man or beast; to the east, a double file of oaks and elms, growing with some regularity on the brow of a low cliff, their trunks surrounded by a tangle of underbrush that rose to the height of several feet and fell away again, to ramble through long grass in all directions. Being tall enough to look over this wild hedge-row, Vytal could catch a glimpse of the sound beneath him, and, from a vantage-point where a dead oak-branch left the view unobscured, he could just distinguish the two ships riding at anchor, within musket-range of his position. Turning then to the south side of the clearing, he came to a strip of woods, perhaps fifty yards in width, which separated the hut from the deserted settlement. Evidently satisfied by his observations, he rejoined his companions. “With your permission,” he said to Governor White, “I make this my dwelling-place.” The governor expostulated, being astonished at the voluntary choice of so dismal and isolated a habitation, but Marlowe understood. “I prefer it to any other,” said the soldier. “Have you not yet suspected that we are likely to meet enemies here on Roanoke?”