The Loadstar of My Life

The 8th we weighed anchor at Plymouth, christmas songs lyrics and departed thence for Virginia.”

With this terse statement of fact an first book of Adam and the eve old-time traveller is the first book of Adam and eve content to record the beginning of a memorable voyage.

It was on the 8th of May, 1587, that two ships—one known as the Admiral, of a hundred and twenty tons, the other a fly-boat—set sail westward from the coast of England. There was also a pinnace of small burden carried on board the larger vessel, and ready to be manned for the navigation of shallow waters; but this, like a child in arms, was a thing of promise rather than present ability.

The aim of the voyage is briefly outlined: to establish an English colony in Virginia, where previous attempts at settlement had resulted in desertion and no success; to find fifteen men who had been left the year before to hold the territory for England; to plant crops; to produce and manufacture commodities for export; to extend commerce and dominions; to demand the lion’s share between possessions of France and Spain—the great central portion of a continent; and thus in all ways first and last to uphold the supremacy and majesty of England and the queen.

[40]

The ships had been provisioned at Portsmouth and Cowes, where many of the colonists embarked, including among the notable ones two Indians, Manteo and Towaye by name, who, several years before, had been brought to England from Roanoke by Arthur Barlow. At Portsmouth, among others, three soldiers came aboard, booted and spurred as though from a recent journey in the saddle; the one slim, tall, and bronzed by the sun; another no shorter, but broad and heavy in proportion; the third laughable in aspect, being fat, as if, like a stage buffoon, he had stuffed a pillow in his doublet, and leading, much to the astonishment of the passengers, a bear-cub that copied his own waddling gait, and followed on a chain of bondage with remarkable fidelity.

In the evening one of these soldiers stood alone on the Admiral’s high stern, a motionless figure, clean-cut against the sky. His eyes, blue like the deep sea, looked back toward the receding coastline, fixed on the dissolving land with a resigned fatality and regret.

With the sun, westward, the two ships went down slowly over the horizon, leaving England a memory behind—a memory, yet very real, while the haven, far ahead, somewhere beneath the crimson sky, seemed but a dream that could not shape itself—a dream, a picture, bright, alluring, undetailed, like the golden painting of the sun. Tall and erect as a naked fir-tree the man stood on the top deck in the stern—still stood when night came and there was not even a melting horizon to hold his gaze—still stood as though to turn would be to wake forever from a vision beside which all things actual must seem unreal. But at last he turned resolutely and, drawing his cloak about him, glanced off toward the darkening west; then, with a word to one and another[41] as he passed his fellow-voyagers, he sought the ship’s master to discuss plans for the maintenance and general welfare of the colony.

As he was about to enter the main cabin a soldier accosted him. “The die is cast, captain.”

“Yes, Rouse; we have done well in starting. May ill fortune throw no better.”

“Nay,” observed the Saxon giant, in low tones. “But already I mistrust this Simon Ferdinando, the master of our ship.”

“He is but a subordinate. We have the governor and his twelve assistants to depend on.”

“Ay, captain, and you.”

“I am one of the twelve.”

“God be praised!” said Hugh, fervently. “But there’s mischief in Simon. I always mislike these small men.”

“You forget our Roger Prat, no higher than your belt; and yet, Hugh Rouse, even you have no greater fidelity.”

“’Tis true, but his breadth is considerable. Cleave him in twain downward, as he’s ofttimes said, then stand his paunch on the top of his head, and Roger Prat would be as tall as any of us. ’Tis merely the manner of measurement.”

“In all things,” said Vytal, with a fleeting smile, and wishing to see this Ferdinando, the Admiral’s master, in order to judge of the man for himself, he entered the main cabin.

With Ferdinando he found John White, the governor appointed by Sir Walter Raleigh, at whose expense the voyage had been undertaken. The governor, whom Vytal had met but once before, was a man of medium stature and engaging personality. His expression, frank and open, promised well for sincere government, but his chin, only partly hidden[42] by a scant beard, lacked strong determination. Ferdinando, on the other hand, to whom Vytal was now introduced for the first time, so shifted his eyes while talking, much as a general moves an army’s front to conceal the true position, that candor had no part in their expression; while his low forehead and close brows bespoke more cunning than ability. He was, moreover, undoubtedly of Latin blood; therefore, in the judgment of Englishmen, given rather to strategy than open courage. Nevertheless, his reputation as a navigator had not yet suffered. That he relied much on this was made evident by his first conversation with Vytal. In answer to the latter’s questions concerning matters that bore directly on the management of the little fleet, Ferdinando replied, “Since Sir Walter Raleigh has wisely left the management to me, you need have no fear, I assure you, regarding your welfare.”

“What, then,” asked Vytal, “if you object not to the inquiry of one who studies that he may duly practise, what, then, are the main rules we observe?”
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To this the master made no answer, but, with an air of indulgent patronage, handed Vytal several sheets of paper well filled with writing. The soldier glanced over them, and read among others the following orders: “That every evening the fly-boat come up and speak with the Admiral, at seven of the clock, or between that and eight; and shall receive the order of her course as Master Ferdinando shall direct. If to any man in the fleet there happen any mischance, they shall presently shoot off two pieces by day, and if it be by night two pieces and show two lights.”

When Vytal had read these and many similar articles[43] he turned slowly to Ferdinando. “A careful system. Is it all from your own knowledge?”

“From whose else, think you?”

“I make no conjecture, but only ask if it be yours and yours alone.”

“It is,” replied Simon, and turning to John White, the governor, who had said little, he added, “Your assistant, worshipful sir, seemingly hath doubt of my word.” White turned to Vytal questioningly.

“Nay,” observed the soldier, “I would show no doubt whatever,” and so saying he left the cabin.

Similar conversations followed on subsequent evenings, Ferdinando boasting much of his seamanship; and once the governor went out with Vytal from the room of state. “You mistrust our ship’s master, Captain Vytal, although you would show it not on considering the expedience of harmony. Wherefore this lack of faith?”

“Because the orders and articles are framed exactly upon the plan of those issued by Frobisher in 1578, when he sought a northwest passage, and by Sir Humphrey Gilbert in 1583, changed, of course, to suit our smaller fleet. The worthy Ferdinando has effected a wise combination; he has done well—and lied in doing it.”

The governor looked up into Vytal’s dark face for the first time, searchingly. “How came you to know?” he queried.

“I remember things.”

“But where—”

“I forget other things,” was Vytal’s answer. “An you’ll permit me I’ll leave you. There’s a man’s face under that light”—he was walking toward it now alone—“a familiar face,” he repeated to himself, and the next minute exclaimed in amazement, “’Tis the man who fought beside me on the bridge!”

[44]

“Ay,” said the poet, smiling, “’tis Kyt Marlowe,[2] at your service in reality.”

Vytal scrutinized him keenly, Christopher returning the gaze with a look of admiration that increased as his eyes fell once more on the so-called bodkin at the soldier’s side. “You are readier with that implement than with your tongue,” he observed, finally.

“The most important questions,” returned Vytal, “are asked with an upraised eyebrow, an impatient eye.” There was an abrupt cogency and gravity of manner about the soldier that sometimes piqued his fellows into an attempted show of indifference by levity and freedom of utterance. They made as though they would assert their independence and disavow an allegiance that was demanded only by the man’s strong, compelling personality, and seldom or never by a word. He was masterful, and they, recognizing the silent mastery, must for pride’s sake rebel before succumbing to its power. Marlowe, with all his admiration, born of the soldier’s far-famed prowess and imperious will, proved no exception to this rule.

“I marvel,” he observed, with a slight irony and daring banter, “that so dominant a nature is readily subject to the coercive beauty of women’s faces. Even the Wolf’s eyes may play the—”

“What?”

“The sheep’s.” It was a bold taunt, and the poet was surprised at his own effrontery. But like a child he saw the fire as a plaything.

“Explain.” The word came from Vytal quietly and with no impatience.

[45]

“Oh, there have been other beguiling faces, so I’ve heard. A tale is told—” he hesitated.

“Of whom?”

“Of you.”

“What is it?”

“A tale vaguely hinting at a court amour. ’Tis said the queen would have knighted a certain captain for deeds of valor in the south; but at the moment of her promising the spurs, she found him all unheedful of her words, found him, in fact, with eyes gazing off entranced at a girlish face in the presence chamber, the face of her Majesty’s youngest lady-in-waiting. To those who saw our Queen Elizabeth then and read her face, the issue was seemingly plainer than day, blacker than night.