He waited. Again the cry, louder, but none the less pitiful and lonely. The muscles of his face grew tense, the veins big like whipcords. He turned, as though to lean against the paling, but then, as with a strenuous effort, refused even that support, and stood motionless like stone. And now, as a side door directly before him opened, a flood of light fell across the pathway from within. It shone in a pool of rain at his feet, and played about his drawn face with profane curiosity. Ananias Dare stood in the doorway looking at him. But suddenly the assistant lurched back, and, snatching a silver cup from the table behind him, brought it out, with reeling, splashing footsteps, to Vytal. “Drink,” he mumbled, thickly. “Drink, good my captain, to the health of my first-born child! A toast, sir, to my daughter—a deep toast, a very deep toast—to the first English child—the first, mark you—is it not a great honor?—the first English child born in America—world-wide America!” He stood, all unheedful of the rain, bareheaded and half dressed, swaying as though at any minute he might fall to the wet ground. He offered the cup to Vytal. His hand shook, and the troubled wine overflowed the brim. “Drink,” he repeated, laughing hilariously. “Such a toast, such a child! You’ve heard her voice already. Damn it! Drink! Will you?” For an instant Vytal’s face went livid with a fury no man had ever seen there until now. He clinched his fists; the nails bit into the palms. “Desecrator!” And in another minute he was groping his way through the darkness toward the gate, until, finding the path, his step became firm and regular on the hard earth, as though he were marching, then died away slowly in the woods. CHAPTER XIII “With hair that gilds the water as it glides And … One like Actæon peeping through the grove.” —MARLOWE, in _Edward the Second_. Weeks passed, and still the Spanish, for some unaccountable reason, delayed their invasion. At noon on the last day of August, Vytal, accompanied by Manteo, started southward on a short reconnoissance. Before going, he left strict injunctions with Marlowe to admit none to the fortress save those who knew the countersign. He had left the poet, who was now well skilled in military methods, to maintain a watchful guard in the absence of Hugh Rouse and Roger Prat. Furthermore, he gave Dyonis Harvie positive orders to preserve a similar caution respecting the _Admiral_ and fly-boat, of which the worthy mate was now temporarily in command. On receiving this instruction, the seaman scratched his head in perplexity. “There is one who pesters me,” he said, “with importunate demands to come aboard, and as he is but a harmless lunatic—poor soul!—who says he longs to be on the deck of an English ship, and to imagine himself homeward bound, perhaps you will not refuse him.” “You speak of Master Ralph Contempt?” “Yes.”