VII

They who saw the full promise of the night in one instant of time dashed

from their lips and lost in desert sands struggled fiercely with their

fate. Baldry's great figure at their head, Baldry's great voice shouting

encouragement, they strove to pass the trench, to rush upon and

overwhelm the masked batteries, the hidden marksmen. An effectual

_chevaux-de-frise_, the pointed stakes withstood them, tore them, and

threw them back. Effort upon effort, a wild crossing over the interlaced

bodies of the fallen, a forward rush upon the guns, a loud "'Ware the

vines!" from Baldry--another and a wider ditch, irregular and shallow,

but lined with thorns like stilettos, and strung from side to side with

lianas strong as ropes to entangle, to bring prone upon the thorns the

desperate men who strove in the snare. A small band won to the farther

side, but the shot was as a blast of winter among sere leaves, and

terribly thinned their ranks. All was vain, all hopeless; to advance,

destruction, to tarry in that arena amidst the deadly thunder of the

guns, no less a thing.

"Back, back!" shouted Baldry. "Back through the tunal--back to the

Admiral at the main battery! Here all's lost!"

Above the din rose his voice. Back to the one door of safety surged the

English, but the way was narrow from that pit into which they had been

betrayed. The guns yet spoke; men dropped with an answering groan or

with a wild cry to their comrades not to leave them behind in that fatal

trench, upon Death's harvest-field. How in the murk and rain of death

could the whole gather the maimed, know the living from the dead? Barely

might the uninjured save themselves, give support perhaps to some hurt

and staggering comrade. Happy were the dead, for the fallen whose wounds

were not mortal, perhaps the fate of the men of the _Minion_! Of the

company which had come with Robert Baldry through the tunal to take by

surprise the fortress of Nueva Cordoba hardly a third found again its

shelter, turned drawn faces to the sea, rushed from that death-trap,

through the bitter and fatal wood, towards hillside and plain, and the

Admiral's attack upon that fortification which with all their force they

had twice endeavored to storm and found impregnable.

Baldry himself? Surely he was among them!--in that shadowy pass was not

this his great form--or this--or this?

"Baldry! Robert Baldry!" cried Sedley, and there came no answer. High

and shrill as a woman's wail rang again the young man's voice. "Captain

Robert Baldry!"

"He's not here, sir," said a Devon man, softly. "God rest his soul!"

Sedley raised his white face to the stars, then: "On men, on! We've to

help Sir John, you know!" Tone of voice, raised arm, and waving hand,

subtle and elusive likeness to the leader whom he worshipped, upon whom

he had moulded himself--for the moment it was as though Sir Mortimer

Ferne had cried encouragement to their sunken hearts, was beckoning them

on to ultimate victory plucked from present defeat. A cheer, wavering,

broken, touched with hysteria, broke from throats that were dry with

the horror of past moments. On with Henry Sedley, their leader now, they

struggled, making what mad haste they might through the tunal.

In wrath and grief, set of face, hot of heart, they burst at last from

the tunal into the open with sky and sea, the plain, the town and the

river before them--the river where the ships lay in safety, the _Cygnet_

and the _Phoenix_ close in shore, the _Mere Honour_ and the _Marigold_

in midstream. The ships in safety--then what meant those distant cries,

that thrice repeated booming of a signal gun, that glare upon the river,

those two boats filled with rowers making mad haste up the stream, that

volley from the _Mere Honour's_ stern guns beneath which sank one of the

hurrying craft?

Turned to stone they upon the hillside watched disaster at her work. The

_Cygnet_ was a noble ship, co-equal in size and strength with the _Mere

Honour,_ well beloved and well defended. Now for one instant of time a

great leap of flame from her decks lit all the scene and showed her in

her might; it was followed by a frightful explosion, and the great ship,

torn from her anchorage, wrecked forever, a flaming hulk, a torch, a

pyre, a potent of irremediable ruin, bore down the swift current and

struck the _Phoenix_.... Once more the _Mere Honour's_ cannon thundered

loud appeal and warning. In the red light cast by her destroyer the

galleon began to sink, and that so rapidly that her seamen threw

themselves overboard. Yet burning, the _Cygnet_ kept on her way. Borne

by the tide she passed from the narrow to the wider waters; to-night a

waning star, the morn might find her a blackened derelict, if indeed

there was sign of her at all upon the surface of the sea.

Around the base of the hill swept the Admiral and his force. Vain had

been the attack upon the fortress, heavy the loss of the English, but it

was not the Spanish guns which had caused that retreat. Where were

Robert Baldry and his men? What strange failure, unlooked-for disaster,

portended that heavy firing at the rear of the fortress?... The signal

gun! The ships!

John Nevil and his company left attacking forever the fortress of Nueva

Cordoba, and rushed down the hillside towards plain and river. Forth

from the town burst Ambrose Wynch with the guard which had been left in

the square--but where were Robert Baldry and his men? Were these

they--this dwindled band staggering, leaping down from the heights, led

by Henry Sedley, gray, exhausted, speaking in whispers or in strained,

high voices? No time was there for explanation, bewildered conjecture,

tragic apprehension. Scarcely had the three parties joined, when hard

upon their heels came De Guardiola and all his men-at-arms. Nevil

wheeled, fought them back, set face again to the river, but his

adversaries chose not to have it so.

They achieved their purpose, for he gave them battle on the plain, at

his back the red light from the river, before him that bitter,

triumphant fortress. Hard and long did they fight in a death struggle,

fierce and implacable, where quarter was neither asked nor given. Nevil

himself bore a charmed life, but many a gentleman adventurer, many a

simple soldier or mariner gasped his last upon Spanish pike or sword.

Not fifty paces from the river bank Henry Sedley received his quietus.

He had fought as one inspired, all his being tempered to a fine agong of

endeavor too high for suffering or for thought. So now when Arden

caught him, falling, it was with an unruffled brow and a smile remote

and sweet that he looked up at the other's haggard, twisted features.

"My knighthood's yet to seek," he said. "It matters not. Tell my Captain

that as I fought for him here, so I wait for him in Christ His court.

Tell my sister Damaris--" He was gone, and Arden, rising, slew the

swordsman to whom his death was due.

Still fighting, the English reached the brim of the river and the boats

that were hidden there. The _Mere Honour_ and the _Marigold_ were now

their cities of refuge. Lost was the town, lost any hope of the fortress

and what it contained, lost the _Cygnet_ and the _Phoenix_, lost Henry

Sedley and Robert Baldry and many a gallant man besides, lost Sir

Mortimer Ferne. Gall and vinegar and Dead Sea fruit and frustrated

promise this night held for them who had been conquerors and confident.

They saw the _Cygnet_, yet burning, upon her way to the open sea; from

the galleon _San José_ it was gone to join the caravels. Wreckage

strewed the river's bosom, and for those who had manned the two ships,

destroyer and destroyed, where were they? Down with the _allegartos_ and

the river slime--yet voyaging with the _Cygnet_--rushing, a pale

accusing troop towards God's justice bar?... The night was waxing old,

the dawn was coming. Upon the _Mere Honour_ Baptist Manwood, a brave and

honest soul who did his duty, steered his ship, encouraged his men,

fought the Spaniard and made no more ado, trained his guns upon the

landing, and with their menace kept back the enemy while, boatload after

boatload, the English left the bank and reached in safety the two ships

that were left them.

The day was breaking in red intolerable splendor, a terrible glory

illuminating the _Mere Honour_ and the _Marigold_, the river and the

sandy shore where gathered the flamingoes and the herons and the egrets,

as the Admiral, standing on the poop of the _Mere Honour_, pressed the

hands of those his officers that were spared to him, and spoke simply

and manfully, as had spoken Francis Drake, to the gentlemen adventurers

who had risked life and goods in this enterprise, and to the soldiers

and mariners gathered in the waist; then listened in silence to the

story of disaster. Nor Robert Baldry nor Henry Sedley was there to make

report, but a grizzled man-at-arms told of the trap beyond the tunal

into which Baldry had been betrayed. "How did the Dons come to know, Sir

John? We'll take our oath that the trench was newly dug, and sure no

such devil's battery as opened on us was planted there before this

night! 'Twas a traitor or a spy that wrought us deadly harm!" He ended

with a fearful imprecation, and an echo of his oath came from his

fellows in defeat.

Michael Thynne, Master of the _Cygnet_, a dazed and bleeding figure,

snatched from the water by one of the _Marigold's_ boats, spoke for his

ship. "Came to us that were nearest the shore a boat out of the

shadow--and we saw but four or maybe five rowers. 'Who goes there?'

calls I, standing by the big culverin. 'The word or we fire!' One in the

boat stands up. '_Dione_,' says he, and on comes the boat under our

stern." He put up an uncertain hand to a ghastly wound in his

forehead.... "Well, your Honor, as I was saying, they were Spaniards,

after all, and a many of them, for they were hidden in the bottom of

the boat. '_Dione_,' says they, and I lean over the rail to see if

'twere black Humphrey clambering up and to know what was wanted....

After that I don't remember--but one had a pistolet, I think.... There

was another boat that came after them--and we were but twenty men in

all. They swarmed over the side and they cut us down. They must ha'

found the magazine, for they fired the ship--they fired the _Cygnet_,

Sir John, and it bore down with the tide and struck the _Phoenix_." His

voice falling, one caught and drew him aside to the chirurgeon's care.

The Admiral turned to Ambrose Wynch, who burst forth with: "Sir John

Nevil, as I have hope of heaven, I swear I did guard that man as you

bade me do! The room was safe, the window high and barred, the

door locked--"

"I doubt not that you did your duty, Ambrose Wynch," spoke the Admiral.

"But the man escaped--"

"At the nooning he was safe enough," pursued the other, with agitation.

"I, going the rounds, looked in and saw him sitting on his bed, smiling

at me like a woman--Satan take his soul! I left Ralph Walter in the hall

without, and you know him for a stanch man.... When we heard the _Mere

Honour's_ guns, and the town rose against us who were left within it,

and I and my handful were cutting our way out to join you, Walter got to

my side for a moment. 'He's gone!' says he. 'When I heard the alarum I

went to fetch him forth to the square with me--and he was not there!

When he went and how, except the devil aided him, I know no more

than you!'"

"Where is Ralph Walter?" said the Admiral.

"Dead on the plain yonder!" groaned his lieutenant, and sitting down,

covered his face with his hands.

From the main-deck arose a long, shrill cry. Arden drew a shuddering

breath.

"It's that boy Robin! Had they not bound him he would have thrown

himself overboard. I doubt you'll have to flog his senses back to him."

Robin-a-dale's voice again, this time from the break of the

poop;--Robin-a-dale himself upon them, his bonds broken, his eyeballs

starting, a wild blue-jerkined Ariel filled with tidings. In this moment

a scant respecter of persons, he threw himself upon Nevil, pointing and

stammering, inarticulate with the wealth of his discovery. The eyes of

the two men followed his lean, brown finger.... Above the quay where

boats made landing a sand-spit ran out from the tamarind-shadowed bank,

and now in the red dawning the mist that clung to it lifted. A man who

for an hour had lain heavily in the heavy shadow where he had been left

by De Guardiola's picked men had arisen, and with feeble and uncertain

steps was treading the sand-spit in the direction of the ships. Even as

Nevil and Arden looked where Robin's shaking forefinger bade them look,

he raised and waved his hand. It was the shadow of an old

familiar gesture.

Before the cockboat reached the point he had fallen, first to his knee,

then prone upon the sand. It was in that deep swoon that he was brought

aboard the _Mere Honour_ and laid in the Admiral's cabin, whence Arden,

leaving the chirurgeon and Robin-a-dale with the yet unconscious man,

presently came forth to the Admiral and to Ambrose Wynch and asked for

aqua vitae, then drew his hand across his brow and wiped away the cold

sweat; finally found voice with which to load with curses Luiz de

Guardiola and his ministers. The Admiral listening, kept his still look

upon the fortress. When Arden had ended his imprecations he spoke with a

quiet voice:

"I love a knightly foe," he said. "For that churl and satyr yonder, may

God keep him in safety until we come again!"

"Till we come again!" Arden cried, in the fierceness of his unwonted

passion. "Are we not here? Why is the boatswain calling? Why do we make

sail, and that so hastily?"

"Look!" said Ambrose Wynch, gruffly, and pointed to the west. "The

plate-fleet!"

Those many white flecks upon the horizon grew larger, came swiftly on.

Forth from the river's mouth, out to sea, put the _Mere Honour_ and the

_Marigold_, for they might not tarry to meet that squadron. None that

looked upon Nevil's face doubted that though now he went, he would come

again. But he must gather other ships, replace his dead, renew his

strength by the touch of his mother earth. Home therefore to England, to

the friends and foes of a man's own house! To the eastward turned the

prows of the English ships; the sails filled, the shores slipped past.

In the town the bells were ringing, on the plain were figures moving;

from the fortress boomed a gun, and the sound was like a taunt, was like

a blow upon the cheek. Swift answer made the cannon of both ships, and

the sullen, defiant roar awoke the echoes. Taunt might they give for

taunt. Three ships had the English taken, three towns had they sacked;

in sea-fights and in land-fights they had been victors! Where were the

caravels, where the ruined battery at the river's mouth, where the great

magazine of Nueva Cordoba? Where was Antonio de Castro?--and the galleon

_San José_ was lost to friend as well as foe--and Spaniard no more than

Englishman might gather again the sunken treasure. Thus spake the guns,

but the hearts of the men behind were wrung for the living and the dead.

The shores slipped by, the fortress hill of Nueva Cordoba lessened to a

silver speck against the mountains; swift-sailing ships they feared no

chase by those galleons of Spain. Islands were passed, behind them fell

bold coasts, before them spread the waste of waters. Beyond the waste

there was home, where friend and foe awaited tidings of the expedition

which had gone forth big with promise.

In the _Mere Honour's_ state-cabin upon the evening of that decisive day

were gathered a number of the adventurers who had staked life and goods

in this enterprise. Not all were there who had sailed from England to

the Spanish seas. Then as now England paid tithes of her younger sons to

violent death. Many men were missing whose voices the air seemed yet to

hold. They had outstripped their comrades, they had gone before: what

bustling highways or what lonely paths they were treading, what fare

they were tasting, for what mark they were making, and upon what long,

long adventure bound--these were hidden things to the travellers left

behind in this murky segment of life. But to the strained senses of the

men upon whom, as yet, had hardly fallen the upas languor of accepted

defeat, before whose eyes, whether shut or open, yet passed insistent

visions of last night's events, like an echo, like a shade, old

presences made themselves felt. Swinging lanterns dimly lit the cabin of

the _Mere Honour_, and in ranks the shadows rose and fell along its

swaying walls. From without, the sound of the sea came like an

inarticulate murmur of far-away voices. There were vacant places at the

table, and upon the long benches that ran beneath the windows; yet,

indefinably, there seemed no less a company than in the days before the

taking of the galleon _San José_ and the town of Nueva Cordoba. One

arose restlessly and looked out upon the star-rimmed sea, then in haste

turned back to the lit cabin and passed his hand before his eyes. "I

thought I saw the _Phoenix_," he said, "huge and tall, with Robert

Baldry leaning over the side." Another groaned, "I had rather see the

_Cygnet_ that was the best-loved ship!" At the mention of the _Cygnet_

they looked towards a door. "How long his stupor holds!" quoth Ambrose

Wynch. "Well, God knows 'tis better dreaming than awaking!" The door

opened and Sir Mortimer Ferne stood before them.

From the Admiral to the last ne'er-do-weel of a noble house all sprang

to their feet. "God!" said one, under his breath, and another's tankard

fell clattering from his shaking hand. Nevil, the calm accustomed state,

the iron quiet of his nature quite broken, advanced with agitation.

"Mortimer, Mortimer!" he cried, and would have put his arms about his

friend, but Ferne stayed him with a gesture and a look that none might

understand. Behind him came Robin-a-dale, slipped beneath his

outstretched arm, then with head thrown back and wild defiant eyes faced

the little throng of adventurers. "He's mad!" he shrilled. "My master's

mad! He says strange things--but don't you mind them, gentles.... Oh!

Sir John Nevil, don't you mind them--"

"Robin!" said Ferne, and the boy was silent.

Arden pushed forward the huge and heavy chair from the head of the

board. "Stand not there before us like the shade of him who was Mortimer

Ferne," he cried, his dark face working. "Sit here among us who dearly

love you, truest friend and noblest gentleman!--Pour wine for him,

one of you!"

Ferne made no motion of acquiescence. He stood against the door which

had shut behind him and looked from man to man. "Humphrey Carewe--and

you, Gilbert--and you, Giles Arden--why are you here upon the _Mere

Honour_? The _Cygnet_ is your ship." None answering him, his eyes

travelled to others of the company. "You, Darrell, and you, Black Will

Cotesworth, were of the _Phoenix_. What do you here?... The water rushes

by and the timbers creak and strain. Whither do we go under press

of sail?"

Before the intensity of his regard the men shrank back appalled. A

moment passed then. "My friend, my friend!" cried Nevil, hoarsely, "you

have suffered.... Rest until to-morrow."

The other looked steadfastly upon him. "Why, 'tis so that I have been

through the fires of hell. Certain things were told me there--but I have

thought that perhaps they were not true. Tell me the truth."

The silence seemed long before with recovered calmness the Admiral

spoke. "Take the truth, then, from my lips, and bear it highly. As we

had plotted so we did, but that vile toad, that engrained traitor,

learning, we know not how, each jot and tittle of our plan and escaping

by some secret way, sold us to disaster such as has not been since Fayal

in the Azores! For on land we fought to no avail, and by treachery the

Spaniards seized the _Cygnet_, slew the men upon her, and fired her

powder-room. Dressed in flame she bore down upon, struck, and sunk the

_Phoenix_.... Now we are the _Mere Honour_ and the _Marigold_, and we go

under press of sail because behind us, whitening the waters that we have

left, is the plate-fleet from Cartagena."

"Where is Robert Baldry?" asked Ferne.

"In the hands of Don Luiz de Guardiola--dead or living we know not. He

and a hundred men came not forth from the tunal--stayed behind in the

snare the Spaniard had set for them."

"Where is Henry Sedley?"

"He died in my arms, Mortimer, thrust through by a pike in that bitter

fight upon the plain!" Arden made reply. "I was to tell you that he

waited for you in Christ His court."

"Then will he wait for aye," said the man who leaned so heavily against

the door. "Or till Christ beckons in Iscariot."

They looked at him, thinking his mind distraught, not wondering that it

should be so. He read their thought and smiled, but his eyes that smiled

not met Arden's. "Great God!" cried the latter, shrank back against the

table and put out a shaking hand.

Slowly Ferne left the support of the wood and straightened his racked

frame until he stood erect, a figure yet graceful, yet stately, but

pathetic and terrible, bearing as it did deep marks of Spanish hatred.

The face was ghastly in its gleaming pallor, in its effect of a

beautiful mask fitted to tragedy too utter for aught but stillness. He

wore no doublet, and his shirt was torn and stained with blood, but in

last and subtlest mockery De Guardiola had restored to him his sword. He

drew it now, held the blade across his knee, and with one effort of all

his strength broke the steel in twain, then threw the pieces from him,

and turned his sunken eyes upon the Admiral. "I beg the shortest shrift

that you may give," he said. "It was I who, when they tormented me, told

them all. Hang me now, John Nevil, in the starlight."

The Admiral's lips moved, but there came from them no sound, nor was

there sound in the cabin of the _Mere Honour_. Not the _Cygnet_ or the

_Phoenix_ were more quiet far away, far below, on the gray levels of the

sea. At last a voice--Ambrose Wynch's--broke the silence that had grown

too great to bear. "It was Francis Sark," he said, and again

monotonously, "It was Francis Sark--it was Francis Sark." Another swore

with a great oath, "'Tis as the boy says--they've crazed him with their

torments!" Humphrey Carewe, a silent and a dogged man, who wore not his

heart upon his sleeve, broke into a passionate cry: "Sir Mortimer Ferne!

Sir Mortimer Ferne!"

To them all it seemed that the name broke the spell that was upon them.

The name stood for very much. Carewe's outcry called up a cloud of

witnesses--the deeds of a man's lifetime--and marshalled them against

this monstrous accusation of a sick and whirling hour. "You know not

what you say!" spoke Nevil, harshly. "Good and evil are blent in you as

in all men, but God used no traitorous or craven stuff in your making!

Rest now,--speak to us to-morrow!"

[Illustration: "'I BEG THE SHORTEST SHRIFT THAT YOU MAY GIVE'"]

Again he would have advanced, but the man at the door waved him back,

smiled once more with his lips alone. "Ah, you all are dear to me! But

do you know I prefer your hatred to your love! Give me your hatred and

let me go. I am not mad nor do I lie to you.... Before the sunset,

when I had borne torment through the day, I bore it no longer. They

loosed me and dashed water in my face, and Luiz de Guardiola said over

to me the words that I had spoken. Then he went forth and laid his

snares.... And so Robert Baldry is lost, he and a hundred men besides?

And Spaniards coming down the river took the _Cygnet_ because they knew

the word of the night?" A spasm distorted the masklike features, but in

a moment it was gone. "I should be a madman," he said, "for once I

walked before you with a high head and a proud heart. It seems that I

knew not myself.... Now, John Nevil, enact Drake and send me to join

Thomas Doughty!"

The Admiral answered not where he stood, covering his eyes with his

hand. "But Francis Sark--" began Wynch, in a shaking voice.

"I know naught of Francis Sark," Ferne replied. "As I have said so I

did. I ask no other court than this, no further mercy than my present

death.... John Nevil, for the sake of all that's dead and gone forever,

I pray you to keep me here no longer!"

He staggered as he spoke and put his hand to his head. "Mortimer,

Mortimer. Mortimer!" cried the Admiral. "Oh, my God, let this

dream pass!"

"Why, the matter needs not God," said Ferne, and laughed. "I am a

traitor, am I not? Then do to me what was done to Thomas Doughty. Only

hasten, for dead men wait to clutch me, and your looks do sear my

very brain."

Again he reeled. With a cry Robin-a-dale sprang towards him. Arden, too,

was there in time to support the sinking figure and guide it to the seat

he had pushed forward. Some one held wine to the lips.... Slow moments

passed, then Sir Mortimer's eyes unclosed. The boy hung over him, and he

smiled upon him, smiled with eye and lip. "Ay, ay, ay, Robin," he said,

"we'll to the court! And sweep away these rhymes, for the queen of all

my songs dwells there, and I shall look into her eyes--and that's better

than singing, lad! Ay, I'll wear the violet, and we'll ride beneath the

blossoms of the spring.... But there's a will-o'-the-wisp on the marsh

out yonder, and here they call it a lost soul--the soul of the

traitor Aguirre!"

"Master, master!" cried the boy.

Ferne laughed, touching the young cheek with long, supple fingers.

"Fame is a bubble, lad--let me tell thee that! But then it is

rainbow-hued and mirrors the sky,--so we'll ride for the bubble, lad!

and we'll stoop from the saddle and gather up Love! And when the bubble

has vanished and Love is dead there's Honor left!" He leaned forward,

seeing and hearing where was neither sound nor sight. There was gayety

in his face. To the men who stared upon him it was a fearful thing that

he who had lost his battle should wear once more the look which they had

seen a thousand times. He raised his hand.

"Do you not hear the drums beat and the trumpets blow--far away, far

away? Let me whisper--there's one that comes home in triumph.... Ay,

your Grace, 'twas I that took Santo Domingo in Hispaniola, and on the

mainland the very rich cities of Puerto Cabello, Santa Marta, La Guayra,

Cartagena, Nombre de Dios and San Juan de Ulloa. Manoa I reserve,--'tis

a secret city, and all who know a secret must keep it, else.... Robin!

Robin, rid me of these babblers. She's coming!--all in white--like blown

spray--but she bears no roses. Lilies, lilies!--white samite like her

robe--but her eyes are turned away. Let her pass, ye fools! She's the

word of the night!" He staggered to his feet, swaying forward, clutching

at the empty air as at a man's throat, and again his laugh rang through

the cabin. "So you twisted it from me, Spanish dog!--so I raved out my

heart as to a woman? Then, Don Sathanas, we'll go home together and all

the soldiery of hell shall not unlock our embrace!" He grappled with an

invisible foe--bent him backward farther and farther over the brink of

the world--went down with him into unplumbed darkness....

They judged not the Captain of the _Cygnet_ for a craven and a traitor,

for, day after day and day after day, he lay in the Admiral's cabin, so

ill a man that the coasts of Death seemed nearer than those of England,

and man's condemnation an idle thing, seeing that so soon he must face

another Justiciar. So near at times to that ultimate shore did he drift

that those who watched him saw the shadow on his face. When the shadow

was deep they waited with held breath; when it somewhat lifted they

sorrowed that the tide had brought him back. He was of those

changelings from a fortunate land to whom Love clings when Faith has

covered her head and turned away. They that in heaviness of heart loved

him still grieved that he might not touch the dark shore. Better, far

better, to lay hold of it so, to go quietly in the not unhappy

fever-dream, wandering of old days, recking naught of the new. So the

matter might be adjudged elsewhere, but in this world glozed

and softened.

The days went on and still Fate played with him, drew him forward,

plucked him back. What fancies he had; what wild excursions he made into

dizzy, black, and horror-haunted regions; what æons he lived beneath the

seas that stifled; by what winds he was whirled, through space, past

burning orbs that neither warmed nor lighted the all-surrounding night;

in what Titanic maze he was lost, lost forever, he and Pain that was his

brother from whom he might not part;--the sick brain made a hell and

languished in the world it had created! At other times, when the dark

coasts were near and the current very swift, pale paradises opened to

him where he lay for centuries, nor hot nor cold, neither waking nor

sleeping, not in joy and not in sorrow. Then the stopped pendulum swung

again, and the dreams came fast and faster. At times his brain turned

from its mad clash with gigantic, formless, elemental things to rest in

the beaten ways. They that listened heard the adventurer speak, heard

the courtier and the poet and the lover, but never once the traitor. Of

the fortress of Nueva Cordoba and of what had happened therein, of a

Spaniard, noble but in name, of an English knight and leader who had not

endured, who, where many a simple soul had stood fast to the end, had

redeemed his body with his honor, the man who raved of all things else

made no mention. Now with the sugared and fantastic protestation

demanded by court fashion and the deep, chivalric loyalty of his type he

spoke to the Queen of England, and now he was with Sidney at Penshurst,

Platonist, poet, Arcadian. Now he lived over old adventures, old

voyages, past battles, wrongs done and wrongs received, unremembered

loves and hatreds, and now he walked with Damaris Sedley in the garden

of his ancient house of Ferne.

Then at last he came to a land where he lay and watched always a small

round of azure wave and sky, lay idly with no need of thought or

memory, until after a lifetime of the sapphire round it occurred to him

to put forth a wasted hand, touch a sun-embrowned one, and whisper,

"Robin!" It was a day later, the ships nearing the Grand Canary, and

land birds flying past his circlet of sky and ocean, when, after lying

in silence for an hour with a faint frown upon his brow, he at last

remembered, and turned his face to the wall.