“Even to him make no exception. Admit one, admit all. Only the few who know our sign must learn the condition of these vessels.” “And Simon Ferdinando?” “For the form’s sake you cannot question his authority. But he is well watched;” and Vytal rowed back to the shore. Here he met Marlowe. “Our guest,” said the poet, “even now seeks admittance to the fortress, longing, he pitifully declares, for the sight of weapons that can avenge his comrades’ lives.” “It is hard to forbid him entrance,” returned the soldier, “but there must be no exception. The example is needed to maintain secrecy;” with which Vytal joined Manteo in the woods. Marlowe stood for a moment watching him, and then, turning, caught sight of another figure even more of interest than his friend’s. Eleanor Dare was walking alone on the shore. He started forward impulsively to join her, but, remembering Ralph Contempt, whom he had left at the entrance of the fortress, he returned to enforce the rule. Ralph, however, no longer awaited him. Having stood idly, first on one foot, then on the other, looking plaintively into the stolid eyes of an armed sentinel, the youth, his patience exhausted, had wandered, with an apparent aimlessness, down to the sea. At the water’s edge he stepped into a barge, and, with a long pole pushing the cumbrous craft out to the _Admiral_, once more accosted Dyonis Harvie. But, as the mate proved obdurate, he returned again, looking off now and then to the southward as he went back leisurely to land. Then an unexpected circumstance favored him. He left the barge and struck inland behind the town. Once within shelter of the forest, he hastened by a circuitous route through almost impenetrable undergrowth to a point directly behind but about a mile to the south of the fortress. Here a stream, secluded from the sight of any one not on its immediate margin, met his view. It was the continuation of the inlet in which Mistress Croyden had been crabbing. To his surprise, a canoe of birch-bark, a single paddle in the bottom, floated idly, nosing the bank, and farther on, to his yet greater astonishment, a small heap of clothing lay on the sprawling roots of an oak-tree. He examined the apparel, and found a woman’s linen undergarments, a long frock, kirtle, and richly garnished stomacher. Fearing that some foul play had befallen the wearer, he glanced about him, not without alarm. The spot, utterly sequestered, and only approached by the inlet, or with much difficulty, as he had approached it, by the woods, offered adequate concealment for deeds of violence.