But suddenly he heard a splashing sound from the near distance, and the expression of his eyes as they looked through the foliage to a bend in the stream, some fifty yards farther inland, changed instantly. For there was Mistress Croyden, all unheedful of his proximity, disporting herself to her heart’s content, the silver ripples of the water forming an adequate covering for all save her head, which glistened in the sunlight, a pond-lily of white and gold. Ralph hurried forward along the border of the woods until he came within easy speaking distance of the bather. A curtain of leaves hung before him, but through the interstices he could see her plainly as she melted like a water-nymph into the bosom of the stream. His eyes shone; his lips parted as though he would have called to her, but hesitating, with a new consideration in which she was evidently not the foremost subject, he returned silently to the oak about which the clothes were scattered. Stooping, he picked up all the garments, and, re-entering the forest, hid them beneath the underbrush far within its shade. Then, with a smile almost mischievous in his boyish enjoyment of the proceeding, he made his way hastily to the town. On coming to the fortress he hallooed loudly and called to Marlowe as if in impatience and alarm. The poet, who had relieved the sentinel, and was seated, reading, near the door, came out hurriedly. But before he could inquire concerning the other’s clamor, Ralph, trembling with a well-assumed excitement, pointed wildly in quite the opposite direction from which he had come, and seemed to strive the while vainly for utterance. Marlowe, catching much of his excitement, nevertheless bade him compose himself and speak. In this the youth finally succeeded. “They have taken her,” he said, lowering his voice that no chance passer-by might hear; “they have taken her as they took me, by the hair of the head. Oh, she will be a plaything—it is very sad.” The vagueness of the announcement only added to Marlowe’s disquiet. “Who? Where?” “Oh, they have dragged her off. I saw them, the red devils, at the northeast end of the island. The game is to be played again.” The words seemed fraught with an under-meaning, but to the excited listener there was no change. “The game is to be played,” repeated Ralph, now in a dreary monotone, “with Gyll Croyden.”