IX

Giles Arden, having ridden far as required the tale of miles from the

tavern of the Triple Tun, came, upon a sunshiny afternoon of early

spring, to an oak knoll where one might halt to admire a fair picture of

an old house set in old gardens. Old were the trees that shadowed it,

and ivy darkened all its walls; without sound a listless beauty breathed

beneath the pale blue skies; for all the sunshine and the bourgeoning of

the spring, the picture seemed but sombrely rich, but sadly sweet. To

the lips of a light-of-heart there was that in its quality had brought a

sigh: as for Arden, when he had checked his horse he looked upon the

scene with a groan, then presently for very mirthlessness, laughed.

"That day," he said to himself with a grimace--"that day when we forsook

our hawking, and dismounting on this knoll, planned for him his new

house! There should be the front, there the tower, there the great room

where the Queen should lie when she made progress through these ways!

All to be built when, like a tiercel-gentle to his wrist, came more

fame, more gold!"

The speaker turned in his saddle and looked about him with a rueful

smile.

"I on yonder mossy stone, and Sidney, chin in hand, full length beneath

that oak, and he standing there, his arm about the neck of his gray! And

what says monsieur the traitor? 'I like it well as it stands, nor will I

tear down what my forefathers built. Plain honor and plain truth are the

walls thereof, and encompassed by them, the Queen's Grace may lie down

with pride.' Brave words, traitor! Gulls, gulls (saith the world),

friend Sidney! For a modicum of thy judgment, Solomon, King of Jewry, I

would give (an he would bestow it upon me) my cousin the Earl's

great ruby!"

He laughed again, then sighed, and gathering up his reins, left the

little eminence and trotted on through sun and shade to a vacant,

ruinous lodge and a twilit avenue, silent and sad beneath the heavy

interlacing of leafy boughs. Closing the vista rose a squat doorway,

ivy-hung; and tumbled upon the grass beside it, attacking now a great

book and now a russet pippin, lay a lad in a blue jerkin.

At the sound of the horse's hoofs the reader marked his page with his

apple, and with a single movement of his lithe body was on his feet,

a-stare to see a visitor where for many days visitors had been none.

Declining autumn and snowy winter and greening spring, he could count

upon the fingers of one hand the number of those who had come that way

where once there had been gay travelling beneath the locked elms.

Another moment and he was at Arden's side, clinging to that gentleman's

jack-boot, raising to his hard-favored but not unkindly countenance a

face aflame with relief and eagerness. Presently came the big tears to

his eyes, he swallowed hard, and ended by burying his head in the folds

of the visitor's riding-cloak.

"Where is your master, Robin-a-dale?" Arden demanded.

The boy, now red and shamefaced because of his wet lashes, stood up, and

squaring himself, looked before him with winking eyes, nor would answer

until he could speak without a quaver. Then: "He sits in the north

chamber, Master Arden. This side o' the house the sun shines." Despite

his boyish will the tears again filled his eyes. "'Tis May-time now, and

there's been none but him above the salt since Lammas-tide. Sir John

came and Sir Philip came, but he would not let them stay. 'Tis lonesome

now at Ferne House, and old Humphrey and I be all that serve him. Of

nights a man is a'most afeard.... I'll fasten your horse, sir, and

mayhap you'll have other luck."

Arden dismounted, and presently the two, boy and adventurer, passed into

a hall where the latter's spur rang upon the stone flooring, and thence

into a long room, cold and shadowy, with the light stealing in through

deep windows past screens of fir and yew. Touched by this wan

effulgence, beside an oaken table on which was not wine nor dice nor

books, a man sat and looked with strained eyes at the irrevocable past.

"Master, master!" cried Robin-a-dale. "Here be company at last. Master!"

Sir Mortimer passed his hand across brow and eyes as though to brush

away thick cobwebs. "Is it you, Giles Arden?" he asked. "It was told

me, or I dreamed it, that you were in Ireland."

"I was, may God and St. George forgive me!" Arden answered, with

determined lightness. "Little to be got and hard in the getting! Even

the Muses were not bountiful, for my men and I wellnigh ate Edmund

Spenser out of Kilcolman. He sends you greeting, Mortimer; swears he is

no jealous poet, and begs you to take up that old scheme which he

forsook of King Arthur and his Knights--"

"He is kind," said Ferne, slowly. "I am well fitted to write of old,

heroic deeds. Nor is there any doubt that the man-at-arms who hath lost

his uses in the struggle of this world should take delight in quiet

exile, sating his soul with the pomp of dead centuries."

"Nor he nor I meant offence," began Arden, hastily.

"I know you did not," the other answered. "I have grown churlish of

late. Robin! a stirrup-cup for Master Arden!"

A silence followed, then said Arden: "And if I want it not, Mortimer?

And if, old memories stirring, I have ridden from London to Ferne House

that I might see how thou wert faring?"

"Thou seest," said Ferne.

"I see how bitterly thou art changed."

"Ay, I am changed," answered Sir Mortimer. "Your thought was kindly, and

I thank you for it. Once these doors opened wide to all who knocked, but

it is not so now. Ride on to the town below the hill, and take your rest

in the inn! Your bedfellow may be Iscariot, but if you know him not, and

as yet he knows himself but slenderly, you may sleep without

dreaming. Ride on!"

"The inn is full," answered Arden, bluntly. "This week the Queen rests

in her progress with your neighbor, the Earl, and the town will be

crowded with mummers and players, grooms, cutpurses, quacksalvers, and

cockatrices, travellers and courtiers whom the north wind hath nipped!

'Sblood, Mortimer, I had rather sleep in this grave old place!"

"With Judas who knows himself at last?" asked Ferne, coldly, without

moving from his place. The door opened, and old Humphrey, shuffling

across the floor to the table, placed thereon a dish of cakes and a

great tankard of sack, then as he turned away cast a backward glance

upon his master's face. Arden noted the look, that there was in it fear,

overmastering ancient kindness, and withal a curiosity as ignoble as it

was keen. Suddenly, as though the fire of that knowledge had leaped to

his own heart from that of his host, he knew in every fibre how

intolerable was the case of the master of the house, sitting alone in

this gloomy chamber, served by this frightened boy, by that old man

whose gaze was ever greedy for the quiver of an eyelid, the pressing

together of white lips, whose coarse and prying hand ever strayed

towards the unhealed sore. He strode to the table and laid hands upon

the tankard. "The dust of the road is in my throat," he explained, and

drank deep of the wine, then put the tankard down and turned to the

figure yet standing in the cold light as in an atmosphere all its own.

"Mortimer Ferne," he said, "I came here as thy aforetime friend. I will

not believe that it is my stirrup-cup that I have drunk."

"Ay, your stirrup-cup," answered the other, steadily. "Nowadays I see no

company--my aforetime friend."

"That word was ill chosen," began Arden, hastily. "I meant not--"

"I care not what you meant," said Sir Mortimer, and sitting down at the

table, shaded his eyes with his hand. "Of all my needs the least is now

a friend. Go your ways to the town and be merry there, forgetting this

limbo and me, who wander to and fro in its shadows." Suddenly he struck

his hand with force against the table and started to his feet, pushing

from him with a grating sound the heavy oaken settle. "Go!" he cried.

"The players and mummers are there. Go sit upon the stage, and in the

middle of the play cry to your neighbors: 'These be no actors! Why, once

I knew a man who could so mask it that he deceived himself!' There are

quacksalvers who will sell you anything. Go buy some ointment for your

eyes will show you the coiled serpent at the bottom of a man's heart!

Travellers!--ask them if Prester John can see the canker where the fruit

seems fairest. Nipped courtiers! laugh with them at one against whom

blow all the winds of hell, blast after blast, driving his soul before

them! Ballad-mongers--"

He paused, laughed, then beckoned to him Robin-a-dale. "Sirrah," he

said, "Master Arden ever loved a good song. Now sing him the ballad we

heard when the devil drove us to town last Wednesday."

"I--I have forgotten it, master," answered the boy, and cowered against

the wall.

"You lie!" cried Ferne, and the table shook again beneath his hand. "Did

I not exercise you in it until you were perfect? Sing!"

The boy opened his mouth and there came forth a heart-broken sound. His

master stamped upon the floor. "Shall I not also torture where I can?

Sing, Robin, my man! Fling back your head and sing like the lark in the

sky! What! am I fallen so low that my very page flouts me, kicks

obedience out-of-doors?"

Robin-a-dale straightened himself and began to sing, with bravado, a

fierce red in his cheeks, and his young voice high and clear:

"Now list to me, ladies, and list to me, gentles;

I've a story for your ears of a false, false knight,

Whom England held in honor, but he treasured Spain so dearly

That he sold into her hands his comrades in fight.

"'Twas before a walled city with the palm-trees hanging over;

He was Captain of the _Cygnet_, and it sank before his eyes;

The Englishmen ashore, they're taken in the pitfall,

Good lack! they toil in galleys or their souls to God arise.

"He sees them in his sleep, the craven and the traitor.

The sea it keeps their bones, their bloody ghosts they pass--"

"For God's sake!" cried Arden; and the boy, snatching with despairing

haste at the interruption, ceased his singing, and in the heavy silence

that followed crept nearer and nearer to his master until he touched a

listless hand.

"Ay, Robin," said Ferne, absently, and laid the hand upon his head. "And

the bloody ghosts they pass."

Arden spoke with emotion: "All men when their final account is made up

may have sights to see that now they dream not of. Thou art both too

much and too little what thou wast of old, and thou seest not fairly in

these shadows. I know that Philip Sidney and John Nevil have come to

Ferne House, and here am I, thy oldest comrade of them all. A sheet of

paper close written with record of noble deeds becomes not worthless

because of one deep blot."

Ferne, his burst of passion past, arose and moved from table to window,

from window to great chimney-piece. There was that in the quiet, almost

stealthy regularity of his motions that gave subtle suggestion of days

and nights spent in pacing to and fro, to and fro, this

deep-windowed room.

At last he spoke, pausing by the fireless hearth: "I say not that it is

so, nor that there is not One who may read the writing beneath the blot.

But from the time of Cain to the present hour if the blotted sheet be

bound with the spotless the book is little esteemed."

"Cain slew his brother wilfully," said Arden.

"That also is told us," answered the other. "Jealousy constrained him,

while constancy of soul was lacking unto me. I know not if it was but

taken from me for a time, or if, despite all seeming, I never did

possess it. I know that the dead are dead, and I know not to what

ambuscade I, their leader, sent them.... I fell, not wilfully, but

through lack of will. Now, an the Godhead within me be not flown, I will

recover myself,--but never what is past and gone, never the dead

flowers, never the souls I set loose, never one hour's eternal scar!...

Enough of this. Ride on to the inn, for Ferne House keepeth guests no

longer. To-morrow, an you choose, come again, and we will say farewell.

Why, old school-fellow! thou seest I am sane--no hermit or madman, as

the clowns of this region would have me. But will you go?--will you go?"

"It seems that you yourself journey to the town upon occasion," said

Arden. "Ride with me now, Mortimer. No country lass more sweet than the

air to-day!"

The other shook his head. "Business has taken me there. But now that I

have sold this house I at present go no more."

"Sold this house!" echoed Arden, and with a more and more perturbed

countenance began to pace the floor. "I did never think to hear of Ferne

House fallen to strange hands! Your father--" He paused before a picture

set in the panelled wall. "Your father loved it well."

"My father was of pure gold," said Sir Mortimer, "but I, his son, am of

iron, or what baser metal there may be. Now I go forth to my kind."

"Oh! in God's name, leave Plato alone!" cried the other. "'Tis not by

that pagan's advice that you divest yourself of house and land!"

"I wanted money," said Ferne, dully.

The man whom ancient friendship had brought that way stopped short in

his pacing to gaze upon the figure standing in the light of the high

window. For what could such an one want money? Courtier, no more

forever; patron of letters, friend of wise men, no more forever; soldier

and sea-king, comrade and leader of brave men never, never again,--what

wanted he so much, what other was his imperative need than this old,

quiet house sunk in the shadows of its age-old trees, grave with a

certain solemnity, touched upon with tragedy, attuned to a sorrowful

patience? For a moment the room and the man who made its core were

blurred to Arden's vision. He walked to the window and stood there,

twirling his mustachios, finally humming to himself the lines of a song.

"That is Sidney's," said Ferne, quietly. "I hear that he does the Queen

noble service.... Well, even in the old times he was ever a length

before me!"

"Why do you need money?" demanded the visitor. "What more retired--what

better house than this?"

The man who leaned against the chimney-piece turned to gaze at his

visitor with that which had not before showed in mien or words. It was

wonder, slight and mournful, yet wonder. "Of course you also would think

that," he said at last. "Even Robin thinks that the stained blade should

rust in its scabbard,--that here I should await my time, training the

rose-bushes in my garden, listening to the sere leaves fall, singing of

other men's harvests."

The boy cried out: "I don't, I don't! You've promised to take me with

you!" and flung himself down upon the pavement, with his head beside his

master's knee.

"I have bought me a ship," said Ferne, "together with a crew of beggared

mariners and cast soldiers. I think they be all villains and desperate

folk, or they would not sail with me. Some that seemed honest have

fallen away since they knew the name of their Captain.... We must

begone, Robin! If we would not sail the ship ourselves we must

begone--we must begone."

"Begone where?" demanded Arden, and wheeled from the window.

"To fight the Spaniard," said Ferne. "The Queen hath been my very good

mistress. John Nevil and Sidney have procured me leave to go--if it so

be that I go quietly. I think that I will not return--and England will

forget me, but Spain may remember.... For the rest, I go to search for

Robert Baldry; to seek if not to find my enemy, the foe that I held in

contempt, whom in my heart I despised because he was not poet and

courtier, as I was, nor knight and gentleman, as I was, nor very wise,

as I was, and because all his vision was clouded and gross, while I--I

might see the very flower o' the sun.... Well, he was a brave man."

"He is dead," whispered Arden. "Surely he is dead."

"Maybe," answered the other. "But I nor no man else saw him die. And we

know that these Spanish tombs do sometimes open and give up the dead.

I'll throw for size-ace."

"If he lived they would have sent him to Cartagena,--to the Holy

Office!" cried the other. "One ship--a scoundrel crew.... Mortimer,

Mortimer, some other ordeal than that!"

Ferne raised his eyes. "I call it by no such fine name," he said. "I but

know that if he yet lives, then he and what other Englishmen are left

alive do cry out for deliverance, looking towards the sea, thinking,

'Where is now a friend?'" He left the table and came near to Arden.

"'Twas a kindly impulse sent you here, old comrade of mine; but now will

you go? The dead and I hold Ferne House of nights. To-morrow come again

and say good-by."

"I will sail with you to the Indies, Mortimer," said the visitor.

There was silence in the room; then, "No, no," answered Ferne, in a

strange voice. "No, no."

Arden persisted, speaking rapidly, carrying it off with sufficient

lightness. "He was just home from Ireland and stood in need of the sun.

His cousin wanted him not; John Nevil was in the north and had helpers

enough. The slaying of Spaniards was at once good service and good

sport. Best take him along for old time's sake. Indeed, he asked no

better than to go--" On and on he talked, until, looking up, his speech

was cut short by the aspect of the man before him.

If in every generation the house of Ferne, father and son, could wear a

dark face when occasion warranted, certainly in this moment that of the

latest of his race was dark indeed. "And at the first pinch be betrayed.

Awake, or here, or there, in the torments of Spain or in another world!

Awake and curse me by all your gods! Speak not to me--I am not hungry

for a friend! I have no faith to pledge against your trust! The rabble

which await me upon my ship, I have bought them with my gold, and they

know me, who I am. For Robin--God help the boy! He had a fever, and he

would not cease his cries until I sware not to part from him. Robin,

Robin! Master Arden will take horse! Go, Arden, go! or as God lives I

will strike you where you stand. No,--no hand-touching! Can you not see

that you heat the iron past all bearing? A moment since and I could have

sworn I saw behind you Henry Sedley! Go, go!"

He sank upon the settle beneath the window, and buried his head in his

arms. For a long minute Arden stood with a drawn face, then turning,

left the house and left the place, for the knowledge was borne in upon

him that here and now friendship could give no aid. When, half an hour

later, he arrived at the Blue Swan in the neighboring town and called

for _aqua-vitæ_, mine host, jolly and round and given over to

facetiousness, swore that to look so white and bewitched-like the

gentleman must have gathered mandrakes from Ferne church-yard, or have

dined with the traitor knight himself.

That same afternoon, when the rays of the sun were lower, Ferne went

into his garden and lifted his bared brow, that perchance the air might

cool it. It was the quiet hour when the goal of the sun is in view, and

the shadows of the fruit trees lay long upon the grass. There were

breaches in the garden walls where they had crumbled into ruin, and

through these openings, beyond dark masses of all-covering ivy, sight

might be had of old trees set in alleys, of primrose-yellowed downs, and

of a distant cliff-head where sheep grazed, while far below gleamed a

sapphire line of sea. Tender quiet, fair stillness, marked the spot. Day

mused as she was going: Evening, drawing near, held her finger to her

lips. A tall flower, keeping fairy guard beside three ruinous steps,

moved not her slightest bell, but there came one note of a

hidden thrush.

Full in the midst of a grass-plot was set a semi-circular bench of

stone. To this Ferne moved, threw himself down, and with a moaning sigh

closed his eyes. There had been long days and sleepless nights; there

had been, once his brain had ceased to whirl, the growth of a purpose

slowly formed, then held like iron; there had been the humble pleading

for freedom, the long delay, the hope deferred; then, his petition

granted, the going forth to mart and highway, the bargaining, amidst

curious traffickers, for that rotting ship, for those lives, as

worthless as his own, which yet must have their price. This going forth

was very bad; like hot lead within the gaping wound, like searing

sunshine upon the naked eye. And now, to-day, not an hour since, Arden!

to mock, to goad, to torture--

Slowly, slowly, the sun went down the west, and the peace of the garden

deepened. Very stealthily the quiet stole upon him; softly, silently,

with spirit touch, it brought him healing simples. Utterly weary as he

was, the balm of the hour at last flowed over him, faintly soothing,

faintly caressing. He opened his eyes, and breathing deeply, looked

about him with a saner vision than he had used of late.

The lily by the broken stair slept on, but the thrush sang once again.

The bell-like note died into the charmed stillness, and all things were

as they had been. Thirty paces away, stark against the evening sky, rose

the western wall of Ferne House, and it was shaggy with ivy that was

rooted like a tree, wide-branched, populous with birds' nests, and high,

high against the blue a thing of tenderest sprays and palest leaves. The

long ridge of them kept the late sunshine, and so far was it lifted

above the earth, so still in that dreamy hour, so touched with pale

gold, so distant and so delicate against high heaven, that it caught and

held eye and soul of the man for whom Fate had borrowed Ixion's wheel.

He gazed until the poet in him sighed with pure pleasure; then came

forgetfulness; then, presently, he looked into his heart and began to

make a little song, amorous, quaint, and honey-sweet, just such a song

as in that full dawn of poesy Englishmen struck from the lyre and

thought naught of it. His lips did not move; had he spoken, at the sound

of his own voice the charm had cracked, the little lyric had shrunk away

before tragedy that was yet as fierce as it was profound, that had as

yet few other notes than those of primal pain.

With the final cadence, the last sugared word, the ivy sprays somewhat

darkened against the eastern sky. His fancy being yet aloft, he turned

that he might behold the light upon the downs, and then he saw Damaris

Sedley where she stood upon the lowest of the ruined steps, stiller than

the flower beside her, and with something rich and strange in her

bearing and her dress. Cloth of silver sheathed her body, while the

flowing sleeves that half revealed, half hid her white and rounded arms

were of silver tissue over watchet blue, and of watchet was the mantle

which she had let fall upon the step beside her. A net of wire of gold

crossing her hair that was but half confined, held high above her

forehead a golden star. In one hand she bore a silvered spear well

tipped with gold, the other she pressed above her heart. Her face was

pale and grave, her scarlet lip between her teeth, her dark eyes intent

upon the man before her.

Ferne sprang to his feet and started forward, very white, his arm

outstretched and trembling, crying to her if she were spirit merely. She

shook her head, regarding him gravely, her hand yet upon her heart. "I

attend the Queen upon her progress," she said. "This day at the Earl's

there is a great masque of Dian and her huntresses, satyrs, fauns, all

manner of sylvan folk. At last I might steal aside unmissed.... By the

favor of a friend I rode here through the quiet lanes, for I wished to

see you face to face, to speak to you--to you who gave me no answer when

I wrote, and wrote again!... I am weary with the joys of this day. May I

rest upon yonder seat?"

He moved backward before her, slowly, across the grass-plot to the bench

of stone, and she followed him. Their gaze met the while. There was no

wonder in his look, no consciousness of self in hers. In the spaces

beyond life their souls might meet thus; each drawing by the veil, each

recognizing the other for what it was. They took their seat upon the

wide stone bench, with the primroses at their feet, and above them the

empurpling arch of the sky. Throughout the past months, when he dreamed

of her, when he thought of her, he bowed himself before her, he raised

not his eyes to hers. But now their looks met, and his countenance of a

haggard and ravaged beauty did not change before her still regard. The

floating silver gauze of her open sleeve lying upon the stone between

them he lightly, with no pressure that she might notice, let rest his

hand upon it. In the act of doing this he wondered at himself, but then

he thought, "I am on my way to death...."

She was the first to speak.

"Seven months have gone since that day at Whitehall."

"Ay," he answered, "seven months."

She went on: "I have learned not to reckon life that way. Since that day

at Whitehall life has lasted a very long time."

Again he echoed--"A very long time." Then, after a pause: "I have made

for you a long, long life. If to have done so is to your irreparable

loss, then this, also, is to be forgiven.... Long life! now in the

watches of one night I live to be an old man! For you may forgetfulness

come at last!"

She turned slightly, looking at him from beneath the gold star. "Wish me

no such happy wishes! Let me not think that such wishes dwell in your

heart. Since that day at Whitehall I have written to you--written twice.

Why did you never answer?"

He looked down upon his clasped hands. "What was there to be said? I

thought, 'I have sorely wounded her whom I love, and with my own words I

have seared that wound as with white heat of iron. Now God keep me man

enough to say no farther word!'"

"I was benumbed that day," she said; "I was frozen. My brother's face

came between us.... Oh, my brother!... Since that day I have seen Sir

John Nevil--"

"Then a just man told you my story justly," he began, but she

interrupted him, her breath coming faster.

"I have also made other inquiry; on my knees, on my face, in the dead of

the night when I knew that thou, too, waked, I have asked of God, and of

our Lord the Christ who suffered.... I know not if they heard me, there

be so many that clamor in their ears...." With a quick movement she

arose from the stone seat and began to pace the grass-plot, her hands

clasped behind her head, the gold star yet bright in the late, late

sunshine. "I would they had answered me distinctly. Perhaps they did....

But be that as it may be I will follow my own heart, I will go my

own way--"

He arose and began to walk with her. "And thy heart led thee this way?"

he asked in a whisper.

She flashed upon him a look so bright that it was as if high noon had

returned to the garden. "Pluck me yonder lily," she said. "It is the

first I have smelled this year."

He brought it to her, trembling. "Presently it will close," he said,

"never to open again."

"That also is among the things we know not," she answered. "Think you

not there is one who revives the souls of men?"

"Ay, I believe it," he answered. They paced again the green to its

flowery margin.

"Give me yon spray of love-lies-bleeding," she said; then as it rested

against the lily in her hand, "Wounds may be cured," she said. "I have

heard talk here, there, at the court even, else, beshrew me, if I had

come this way to-day! I know that thou goest forth--" Her voice broke

and the gold star shook with the trembling of her frame. "I know that

thou mayst never, never, never return. I will pray for thy soul's

welfare.... See! there is a heartsease at my feet."

He knelt, but touched not the floweret, instead caught at the long folds

of her silver gown and held her where she stood. "For my soul's welfare,

thou balm from heaven!" he cried. "For only my soul's welfare?"

"No, no," she answered. "For the welfare of all of thee, soul and

body--soul and body!" She bent over him, and there fell from her eyes a

bright rain of tears, quickly come, quickly checked. "Ah, a contrary

world of queens and guardians!" she cried. "Oh, my God! if thou mightst

only make me thy wife before thou goest!"

He arose and drew her into his arms. "The story is true," he whispered,

to which she answered:

"I care not! Sayest thou, 'A thing was done.' Say I, '_Thou_ didst it!'

and high above the deed I love thee!"

Suddenly she fell into a storm of weeping, then broke from him, and

somewhat blindly sought the garden seat, sank down upon it, and buried

her face in her arms. He kneeled beside her, and presently she was

crouching against his breast, that rose and fell with his answering

emotion. She put up her hand and touched the deep lines of past

suffering in the face above her.

"I know that thou must go," she said. "I would not have thee stay. But,

Mortimer, if it were possible ... He forgave you long, long ago, for he

loved you above all men. I, his sister, answer for him. Ah, God wot!

brother and sister we have loved you well.... If I could keep tryst,

after all, if thou couldst make me thy wife before thou goest--or if

kindred and the Queen be too powerful, I could escape, could follow thee

as thy page, trusting thy honor ... Ah, look not so upon me! Ah, to be a

woman and do one's own wooing! Ah, think what thou wilt of me, only know

that I love thee to the uttermost!"

[Illustration: "'AH, LOOK NOT SO UPON ME!'"]

Ferne left her side, and moving to the garden wall, looked out over the

far-away downs to the far-away sea--the sea that, for weary months

had called and-thundered in his ears. Now he saw it all halcyon,

stretching fair and mute to the boundless west, the sinking sun, the

lovers' star. They two--could they two, lying with closed eyes, but

drift out over bar, floating away through golds and purples towards the

kiss of heaven and sea--flotsam of this earth, jetsam of age-distant

shores, each to the other paradise and all in all! How profound the

stillness--how deep the fragrance of the lily--what indifference, what

quiet as of scorn did the Maker of man, having placed his creature in

the lists, turn aside to other spectacles!... Should man be more careful

than his God? Right! Wrong!--to die at last and find them indeed words

of a length and the prize of sore striving a fool's bauble:--to die and

miss the rose and wine cup!--to die and find not the struggle and the

star!--to loose the glorious bird in the hand and beyond the portals to

feel no fanning of a vaster wing! What use--what use--to be at once the

fleeing Adam and the dark archangel at Eden's gates?

He turned to behold the woman whom now, with no trace of the

fancifulness, the idealism of his time, he loved with all depth,

passion, actuality; he set wrist to teeth and bit the flesh until blood

started; he moved towards her where she sat with her hands clasped above

her knee, her head thrown back, watching his coming with those deep eyes

of hers. He reached her side; she rose to meet him, and the two stood

embraced in the flattering sunshine, the odor of the lilies, the pale

glory of the failing day.

"My dear love, it is not possible," he said. "Flower of women! didst

dream that I would leave thee here blasted by my name, or that I would

carry thee where I must go? Star of my earth, to-day we say a clean

farewell!"

"Then God be with thee," she said, brokenly.

"And with thee!" he answered. Hand in hand they moved to the broken

wall, and leaning upon it, looked out to that far line of sea. Her

under-sleeve of silver gauze fell away from her arm.

"How white is thy arm!" he breathed. "How branched with tender blue!"

"Wilt kiss it?" she answered, "so I shall grow to love myself."

"Thou art the fairest thing the sun shines on," he said. "Thy lips are

like flowers I have never seen in the West."

"Gather the flowers," she said, and raised her face to his. "The garden

is kept for thee."

The sun began to decline, the earth to darken, swallows circled past.

"It grows late," she said, "late, late! When goest thou?"

"Within the week."

"By then her Grace will have whirled me leagues away.... I would I were

a queen. If thou goest to death--oh God! we'll not speak of that!--Give

me that chain of thine."

He unclasped it, laid it in her hands. Raising her arms, she drew it

over her neck.

"Seest thou thy prisoner?" she asked. "Forever thy prisoner!" From its

fellow of watchet blue she detached her floating silver sleeve. "It is

my favor," she whispered. "Wear it when thou wilt."

He folded the gauze and thrust it within his doublet. "When I may, my

lady," he said, with his eyes upon the sunset that held the colors of

the dawning. "When I may."

A sickle moon swung in the gold harvest-fields of the west, then a

great star came out to watch that reaping. The thrush was silent now,

but from a covert rushed suddenly the full tide of a nightingale's song.

With a cry the maid of honor put hands to her ears. "Ay me, my heart it

will break! Tell me that thou goest but to come again!"

He took her hands, pressing them to his heart, to his lips. "No, no, my

dearest dear, since God no longer worketh miracles! I go more surely

than ever went John Oxenham; I would not have thee cheat thyself, spend

thy days in watching, listening. I kiss thee a lifetime good-by.... Oh

child, seest thou how broken I am? I that myself loosed all the winds--I

that kneel, a penitent, before the just and the unjust, before my lover

and my foe! But when all's said, all's done, all's quiet:--the arrow

sped, the stone fallen, the curfew rung, the dust returned to dust! then

shall stand my soul.... A ruined man, a man in just disgrace, who hath

played the coward, who hath sinned against thee and against others, that

am I--yet our souls endure, and thou art my mate; queenly as thou

standest here, thou art my mate! I love thee, and in life, in death, I

claim thee still: Forget me not when I am gone!"

"When thou art gone!" she cried. "When thou art gone with all my mind

I'll hold myself thy bride! In those strange countries beneath the sun

if bitterness comes over thee"--she put her hand to her heart--"think of

thy fireside here. Think, 'Even in this wavering life I have an abiding

home, a heart that's true, true, true to me!' When thou diest--if thou

diest first--linger for me; where a thousand years are as a day travel

not so far that I may not overtake thee. Mortimer, Mortimer, Mortimer!

I'll not believe in a God who at the last says not to me, 'That path he

took.' When He says it, listen for my flying feet. Oh, my dear, listen

for my flying feet!"

"Star and rose!" he said. "If we dream, we dream. Better so, even though

we pass to sleep too deep for dreaming. For we plan a temple though we

build it not.... That falconer's whistle! is it thy signal? Then thou

must make no tarrying here. I will put thy cloak about thee."

He brought from the ruinous steps her watchet mantle, and she let him

clasp it about her throat. In the raised air of that isolate peak where

true lovers take farewell there are few words used at the last. Sighs,

kisses, broken utterance,--"Forever," ... "Forever," ... "I love

thee," ... "I love thee"; the eternal "I will come"; the eternal "I will

wait"! Possessors of an instant of time, of an atom of space, they sent

their linked hopes, their mailed certainties forth to the unseen,

untrenched fields of the future, and held their love coeval with

existence. Then, slowly, she withdrew herself from his clasp, and as

slowly moved backward to the broken stair. He waited by the stone seat,

for she must go secretly and in silence, and he might not, as in old

times, lead her with stateliness through the ways of Ferne House. Upon

the uppermost step she paused a moment, and he, lifting his eyes, saw

above him her mantled figure, her outstretched arms with the lily of

her body in between, the gold star swimming above her forehead. One

breathless moment thus, then she turned, and folding her mantle about

her, passed from her lover's sight towards the darkening orchard.

He stayed an hour in the garden, then went back to his great, old,

dimly lighted hall. Here, half the night, chin in one hand, the other

hanging below his booted knee, he brooded over the now glowing, now

ashen chimney logs; yet Robin-a-dale, who believed in Master Arden, and

very mightily in visions as beautiful as that which had been vouchsafed

to him going through the orchard that eventide, felt as light a heart as

if no shadowy ship awaited in the little port down by the little town,

whose people either cursed or looked askance. Waking in the middle of

the night, he thought he saw a knight at prayer--one of the old stone

Templars from Ferne church, where they lay with palm to palm, awaiting

with frozen patience the last trumpet-call that ever they should hear.

This knight, however, was kneeling with bowed head and hidden face, a

thing against all rule with those other stark and sternly waiting forms.

So Robin, being too drowsy to reason, let the matter alone and went to

sleep again.

X

The _Sea Wraith_, an ancient ship, gray and patched of sail, battered

and worn with a name for all disaster, sailed the Spanish seas as though

she bore a charmed life--and her crew that was the refuse of land and

sea, used to license, to whom mutiny was no uglier a word than another,

kept the terms of an iron discipline--and her Captain waked and slept as

one aware of when to wake and when to sleep.

There was fever between the decks; there was fever in black hearts; of

dark nights a corposant burned now at this masthead, now at that.

Mariner and soldier knew the story of the shadowy figure keeping company

with the stars there above them on the poop-royal. Did he keep company

only with the stars and with the boy, his familiar? The sick, tossing

from side to side, raved out curses, and the well saw many omens.

Dissatisfaction, never far from their unstayed minds, crept at times

very near, and superstition sat always amongst them. But they reckoned

with a Captain stronger for this voyage than had been Francis Drake or

John Hawkins, and stranger than any under whom they had ever sailed. He

was so still a man that they knew not how to take him, but beneath his

eyes vain imaginings and half-formed conspiracies withered like burnt

paper. He called upon neither God nor devil, but his voice blew like an

icy wind upon the heat of disloyal intents, and like the white fire that

touched now stem, now stern, so his will held the ship, driving it like

a leaf towards the mainland and the fortress of Nueva Cordoba.

The ship that seemed so aged and disgraced yet had a strength of sinew

which made her formidable. All things had been patiently cared for by

the man who, selling his patrimony, had labored against wind and tide to

the end that he might carry forth with him such an armament as scarce

had been the _Cygnet's_ own. Tier on tier rose the _Sea Wraith's_

ordnance; she carried warlike stores of all sorts that might serve for

battle by sea or land. If his money could not buy such men as stood

ready to ship with Drake and Hawkins, yet in his wild, sin-stained crew

he had purchased experience, the maddest bravery, and a lust of Spanish

gold that might not be easily sated. The qualities of a captain over men

he himself supplied.

In his confidence neither before nor after their sailing, yet the two

hundred men of the _Sea Wraith_ guessed well his destination, but for

themselves preferred the island towns--Santiago and Santo Domingo in

Hispaniola. There were wealth and wine and women, there the fringing

islets where booty might be hidden, and there the deep caves where

foregathered many small craft misnamed piratical. "Lord! the _Sea

Wraith_ would soon make herself Admiral of that brood, leading them

forth from those hidden places to pounce upon Santo Domingo, that was

the seat of government and as wealthy a place as any in the Indies!--the

_Sea Wraith_ and her Captain, that was a good Captain and a tall!--ay,

ay, that would they maintain despite all land talk--a good Captain and a

tall, 'spite of Dick Carpenter's dream--"

"What was Dick Carpenter's dream?" asked the Captain, seated, sword in

hand and hat on head, before a deputation from the forecastle.

The speaker fidgeted, then out came the clumsy taunt, the carpenter's

dream. "Why, sir, he dreamed he saw the women of the islands, sitting by

the shores, a-sifting gold-dust and a-weighing of pearls;--and then he

dreamed that he looked along the sea-floor, leagues and leagues to the

south'ard, until he saw the very roots of the mainland, and the great

fish swimming in and out. And a many and a many dead men were there,

drawn into ranks, very strange to see, for their swollen flesh yet hung

to their bones, and they beckoned and laughed; and Captain Robert

Baldry, that was once, on a Guinea voyage, Dick Carpenter's Captain, he

laughed the loudest and beckoned the fastest. And, Sir Mortimer Ferne,

an it please you, we've no longing to follow that beckoning."

"Thou dog!" said the Captain, with no change of mien. "Presently Dick

Carpenter and thou shall have food for dreams--bad dreams, bad dreams,

man! Thou fool, have I set thee quaking who, forsooth, would mutiny!

Begone, the whole of ye, and sail the whole of ye wheresoever I list

to go!"

Seeing that the _Sea Wraith_ obeyed him still, her crew believed yet

more devoutly that a secret voice spoke in his ear and a dark hand gave

him aid. It was later, when he began to feed them gold, that they who

owned caps threw them up for him, and they whose brains had only

nature's thatching shouted for him as for a demigod. A Spanish squadron

bound for The Havannah was met by a hurricane, several of its ships

lost, and the remainder widely separated. The hurricane past, forth from

an island harbor stole the _Sea Wraith_ that so many storms had

beleaguered. Gray as with eld, lonely as the ark, a haggard ship manned

by outcasts, she spread her vampire wings and flitted from her

enshadowed anchorage. An hour later, like a vampire still, she hooked

herself to a gay galleon and sucked from it life that was cheap and gold

that was dear; then descrying other sails, she left that ruined hulk for

a long and fierce struggle with a Portuguese carrack. The battle waxed

so fell that the carrack also might have been worked by men who had all

to win and naught to lose, and captained by one who bared his brow to

the thunder-stone.

Like harpies they fought, but when night came there was only the _Sea

Wraith_ scudding to the south, and that pied crew of hers knocking at

the stars with the knowledge that ever and always their judgment (even

though he asked it not) jumped with the Captain's, and that before them

lay the gilded cities and the chances of Pizarro. It was of his subtlety

that the Captain never used to them fair promises, spake not once a

sennight of gold, never bragged to them of what must be. Oh! a subtle

captain, whose very strangeness was his best lieutenant upon that

eldritch, nine-lived ship, through days and days of monstrous luck.

"Baldry's luck," quoth the mariner who had sailed with the _Star_, then

held his breath and looked askance at his present Captain, who, however,

could never have heard him up there on the poop-deck! Natheless that

night the man was ordered forward, and finding Sir Mortimer Ferne

sitting alone, save for the boy, in the great cabin, was bidden to talk

of Robert Baldry. "Speak freely, Carpenter,--freely! Why, thou art one

of his friends, and I another, and we go, somewhat at our peril, to

hale him from perdition! Why, thou thyself saw him beckoning to us to

hasten and do our friendly part! So praise thy old Captain to me with

all thy might. We'll fill an empty hour with stories of his valor!" He

put forth his hand and turned the hour-glass, and the carpenter began to

stammer and make excuses, which no whit availed him.

At last, one afternoon, they came to Margarita, and, the ship needing

water, they entered a placid bight, where a strip of dazzling sand lay

between the rippling surf and a heavy wood, but found beforehand with

them a small bark from the mainland, her crew ashore filling barrels

from a limpid spring, and her master and a Franciscan friar eating fruit

upon her tiny poop. The dozen on land showed their heels; the worthless

bark was taken, a party with calivers landed to complete the filling of

the abandoned casks, and the master and the friar brought before the

Captain of the _Sea Wraith_ where he sat beneath a great tree, tasting

the air of the land. An insatiable gatherer of Spanish news, it was his

custom to search for what crumbs of knowledge his captives might

possess, but hitherto the yield, pressed together, had not made even a

small cake of enlightenment. He was prepared to have shortly done with

the two who now stood before him. The seaman cringed, expecting torture,

furtively watching for some indication of what the Englishman wished him

to say. A fellow new to these parts and ignorant, he would have sworn a

highway to El Dorado itself if that was the point towards which his

inquisitor's quiet, unemphatic questions tended; but he knew not, and

his lies fell dead before the grave eyes of the man beneath the tree. At

last he was tossed aside like a squeezed sponge and the Franciscan

beckoned forward, who, being of sturdier make, twisted his thumbs in his

rope girdle and prepared to present a blank countenance to those queries

of armaments and treasure which an enemy to Spain would naturally make.

But the Englishman asked strange questions; so general that they seemed

to encompass the mainland from Tres Puntas to Nombre de Dios, and so

particular that it was even as if he were interested in the friar

himself, his order, and his wanderings from town to town, the sights

that he had seen and the people whom he had known. The questions seemed

harmless as mother's milk, but the friar was shrewd; moreover, in his

youth had been driven to New Spain by flaming zeal for the conversion of

countless souls. That fire had burned low, but by its dying light he

knew that this man, who was young and yet so still, whose lowered voice

was but as sheathed steel, whose eyes it was not comfortable to meet,

had set his hand to a plough that should drive a straight furrow, was

sending his will like an arrow to no uncertain mark. But what was the

mark the Franciscan could not discover, therefore he gave the truth or a

lie where seemed him best, increasingly the truth, as it increasingly

appeared that lies would not serve. He also, seeing that with gathering

years he had begun to set value upon flesh and bone, wished to please

his captor. He glanced stealthily at the scarred and ancient craft in

the windless harborage, idly flapping her mended sails, before he said

aught of the great English ships that in pomp and the fulness of pride

had entered these waters now months agone. The Englishman had heard of

this adventure--so much was evident--but details would seem to have

escaped him. He knew, however, that there had been first victory and

then defeat, and he too looked at his ship and at the guns she carried.

[Illustration: "THE FRIAR PRESENTED A BLANK COUNTENANCE TO SIR

MORTIMER'S QUERIES"]

"The town was sacked, but the castle not taken," he said. "What, good

brother, if I should break a lance in these same lists?"

"It would be broken indeed," said the friar, grimly. "An it please you,

I will bear your challenge to Don Juan de Mendez."

"To Don Luiz de Guardiola," said the man beneath the tree.

"Pardon, señor, but Juan de Mendez is at present Governor of Nueva

Cordoba. Don Luiz de Guardiola has been transferred to Panama."

The Englishman arose and looked out to sea, his hand above his eyes

because of the flash and sparkle of the sun upon the water. The

Franciscan, having told the truth, wondered forthwith if falsehood had

better served his turn. Face and form of his interlocutor were turned

from him, but he saw upon the hot, white sand the shadow of a twitching

hand. Moments passed before the shadow was still; then said the

Englishman, in a changed voice:

"Since you know of its governors, old and new, I judge you to be of

Nueva Cordoba. So you may inform me of certain matters."

"You mistake, señor, you mistake," began the Franciscan, somewhat

hastily. "The master of the bark will bear witness that I came to

Margarita upon the _Santa Maria_, sailing directly from Cartagena, but

that, being ill, I chose to recover myself at Pampatar before proceeding

(as you now behold me, valorous señor) to Hispaniola, and thence by the

first vessel home to Spain, to the convent of my order at Segovia, which

is my native town. I know naught of Nueva Cordoba beyond that which I

have told you."

"Why, I believe thee," answered the Englishman, his back still turned.

"You go from Cartagena, where, Franciscan and Dominican, you play so

large a part in this world's affairs, to your order at Segovia, which is

an inland town, and doubtless hath no great knowledge of these

outlandish parts. Your tongue will tire with telling of wonders."

"Why, that is true," answered the other. "One lives not fifteen years in

these parts to carry away but a handful of marvels." Relieved by the

easiness of his examination and the courtesy of his captor, he even

smiled and ventured upon a small pleasantry. "You cannot take from me,

redoubtable señor, that which my eyes have seen and my ears have heard."

Ferne wheeled. "Give me the letter which you bear from your superior at

Cartagena to the head of your order at Segovia."

As he recoiled, the Franciscan's hand went involuntarily to the breast

of his gown, and then fell again to his side. The Captain of the _Sea

Wraith_ whistled, and several of the mariners, who were now rolling the

water-casks down the little beach to the waiting boats, came at his

call. "Seize him," ordered the Captain. "Robin, take from him the packet

he carries."

When he had from the boy's hand a small, silk-enwrapped packet, and had

given orders for the guarding of the two prisoners, he turned and strode

alone into the woods, which stretched almost to the water's edge. It was

as though he had plunged into a green cavern far below the sea. In slow

waves, to and fro, swayed the firmament of palms; lower, flowering

lianas, jewel-colored, idle as weeds of the sea, ran in tangles and

gaudy mazes from tree to tree. He sat himself down in the green gloom,

broke seal, unwrapped the silk, and read the letter, which he had

acutely guessed could not fail of being sent by so responsible a hand as

the friar's from one dignitary of the order to another. Much stateliness

of Latin greeting, commendation of the returning missionary, mention of

a slight present of a golden dish wrought in alacrity and joy by Indian

converts; lastly, and with some minuteness, the gossip, political and

ecclesiastical, of the past twelfth month. The sinking of the Spanish

ships and the sacking of the town of Nueva Cordoba by English pirates,

together with their final defeat, were touched upon; but more was made

of the yield to the Church of heretic souls, in all of whom Satan stood

fast. The Holy Office had delivered them to the secular arm, and the

letter closed with a circumstantial account of a great _auto-de-fé_ in

the square of Cartagena. Without the wood, upon the edge of white sand,

the men of the _Sea Wraith_ waited for their Captain. At last he came,

so quiet of mien and voice that only Robin-a-dale stared, caught his

breath, and gazed hard upon an ashen face.

Ferne's orders were of the curtest: Begone, every man of them, to the

_Sea Wraith_, and lie at anchor waiting for the morning. For himself, he

should spend the night ashore; they might leave for him the cockboat,

and with the first light he would come aboard. The two prisoners,--place

them in the ransacked bark and let them go whither they would or could.

He glanced in their direction, then turning sharply, crossed the sand to

stand for a moment beside the Franciscan.

"Prithee, thou brown-robed fellow, how looked he in a _sanbenito_--that

tall, fierce, black-bearded Captain that your Provincial mentions here?"

The parchment rustled in his hand.

The friar quailed before the narrowed eyes; then, the old flame in him

leaping up, he answered, boldly enough, "It became him well,

señor,--well as it becomes every enemy to Spain and the Church!"

The other slightly laughed. "Why, go thy ways for a man of courage! but

go quickly, while as yet in all this steadfast world I find no fault

save with myself."

He stood to watch the embarkment of the mariners, who, if they wondered

at this latest command, had learned at least to wonder in silence. But

Robin-a-dale hung back, made protest. "Go!" said his master, whereupon

Robin went indeed--not to the awaiting boat, but with a defiant cry end

a rush across the sloping sand into the thick wood. The green depths

which received him were so labyrinthine, so filled with secret places

wherein to hide, that an hour's search might not dislodge him. The

sometime Captain of the _Cygnet_ let pass his wilfulness, signed to the

boats to push off, awaited in silence the fulfilment of all his

commands; then turning, rounded the eastern point of the tiny bay, and

was lost to sight in the shadows of the now late afternoon.

The sun went down behind the lofty trees; the brief dusk passed, and the

little beach showed faintly beneath the stars, great and small, of a

moonless night. Above the western horizon clouds arose and the lightning

constantly flashed, but there was no thunder, and only the sound of the

low surf upon the shore. Robin, creeping from the wood, saw the _Sea

Wraith_ at anchor, and by the distant lightning the bark from Pampatar

drifting far away without sail or rudder. Rounding the crescent of

gleaming sand, he lost the _Sea Wraith_ and the bark, but found whom he

sought. Finding him, he made no sign, but sat himself down in the lee of

a sand-dune, and with a memory swept clear of later prayers, presently

began in a frightened whisper to say his

"Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John--"

Half-way down the pallid beach stood Ferne, visible enough even by the

starlight, now and then completely shown by one strong lightning flash.

His doublet was thrown aside, his right arm advanced, his hand grasping

the hilt of his drawn sword. But the sword point was lowered, his breast

bared; he stood like one who awaits, who invites, the last thrust, in

mortal surrender to an invisible foe. The lines of the figure expressed

a certain weariness and suspense, as of one who would that all was over,

and who finds the victor strangely tardy. The face, seen by the

occasional lightning flash, was a little raised, a little expectant.

Robin-a-dale, seeing and comprehending, buried his head in his arms and

with his fingers dug into the sand. Now and then he looked up, but

always there was the pallid slope of the beach, the intermittent break

of the surf that was like the inflection of a voice low and far away,

the stars and the groups of stars, strange, strange after those of home,

the lightning from the western heavens, the duellist awaiting with

lowered point the coming of that antagonist who had so fiercely lived,

so fiercely died, so fiercely hated that to the reeling brain of his

challenger it well might seem that Death, now holding the door between

betrayed and betrayer might not prevail.

The boy's heart was a stone within him, and he saw not why God allowed

much that went on beneath His throne. A long time he endured, half prone

upon the sand, hating the sound of the surf, hating the flash of the

lightning; but at last, when a great part of the night had passed, he

arose and went towards his master. The shadow of the dune disguised the

slightness of his form, and his foot struck with some violence against a

shell. The lightning flashed, and he saw Ferne's waiting face.

"Master, master!" he cried. "'Tis only Robin,--not him! not him!

Master--"

Stumbling over the sand, he fell beside the man whose soul cried in

vain unto Robert Baldry to return and claim his vengeance, and wrenched

at the hand that seemed to have grown to the sword-hilt. "You are not

kind!" he wailed. "Oh, let me have it!"

"Kind!" echoed Ferne, slowly. "In this sick universe there is no

kindness--no, nor never was! There is the space between rack and torch."

In the flashing of the lightning he loosed his rigid clasp, and the

sword, clanking against the scabbard, fell upon the sand. The lightning

widened into a sheet of pale violet and the surf broke with a deeper

voice. "Canst thou not find me, O mine enemy?" cried Ferne, aloud.

Presently, the boy yet clinging to him, he sank down beside him on the

sand. "Sleep, boy; sleep," he said. "Now I know that the gulf is fixed

indeed, and that they lie who say the ghost returns."

"It is near the dawning," said the boy. "Do you rest, master, and I will

watch."

"Nay," answered the other. "I have pictures to look upon.... Well, well,

lay thy head upon the sand and dream of a merry world, and I myself

will close my eyes. An he will, he may take me sleeping."

Robin slept and dreamed of Ferne House and the horns of the hunters. At

last the horns came so loudly over the hills that he awakened, to find

himself lying alone on the sand in a great and solemn flush of dawn. He

started up with a beating heart; but there, coming towards him from a

bath in the misty sea, was his master, dressed, and with his sword again

in its sheath. As he made closer approach, the strengthening dawn showed

the distinction of form and countenance. To the latter had returned the

stillness and the worn beauty of yesterday, before the bark from

Pampatar had brought news. The head was bared, and the light fell

curiously upon the short and waving hair, imparting to it, as it seemed,

some quality of its own. Robin, beholding, stumbled to his feet, staring

and trembling.

"Why dost thou shake so?" asked the Captain of the _Sea Wraith_. "And

thou art as white as is the sand! God forfend that the fever be

on thee!"

More nearly the old voice of before these evil days of low, stern

utterance! More nearly the old, kindly touch! Robin-a-dale, suddenly

emboldened, caught at hand and arm and burst into a passionate outcry, a

frenzy of entreaty. "Home! home! may we not go home now? They're all

dead--Captain Robert Baldry and Ralph Walter and all! And you meant no

harm by them--O Jesu! you meant no harm! There's gold in the hold of the

_Sea Wraith_ for to buy back Ferne House, and now that you've won, and

won again from the Spaniard, the Queen will not be angry any more! And

Sir John and Sir Philip and Master Arden will bid us welcome, and men

will come to stare at the _Sea Wraith_ that has fought so many battles!

Master, master, let us home to Ferne House, where, at sunset, in the

garden, you and the lady walked! Master--"

His voice failed. Sir Mortimer loosed the fingers that yet clung to his

arm. "When I am king of these parts, thou shalt be my jester," he said.

"Come! for it's up sail and far away this morning,--far away as Panama.

I am thirsty. We'll drink of the spring and then begone."

When they had rounded once more the wooded point they saw the _Sea

Wraith_, and drawn up upon the sand its cockboat. The sun had risen, so

that now when they entered the forest there was ample light by which to

find out the slowly welling spring, so limpid in its basin as to serve

for mirror to the forest creatures who drank therefrom. All the tenants

of the forest were awake. They hooted and chattered, screamed and sang.

Orange and green and red, the cockatoos flashed through the air, or

perched upon great boughs beside parasitic blooms as gaudy as

themselves. Giant palms rustled; monkeys slid down the swinging lianas,

to climb again with haste, chattering wildly at human intrusion;

butterflies fluttered aside; the spotted snake glided to its deeper

haunts. Suddenly, in the distance, a wild beast roared, and when the

thunder ceased there was a mad increase of the lesser voices. Sound was

everywhere, but no sweetness; only the mockery, gibing, and laughter of

an unseen multitude. From the topmost palm frond to the overcolored

fungi patching the black earth arrogant Beauty ruled, but to the weary

eyes that looked upon her she was become an evil queen. Better one blade

of English grass, better one song of the lark, than the gardens of

Persephone!

Ferne, kneeling beside the spring, stooped to drink. Clear as that

fountain above which Narcissus leaned, the water gave him back each

lineament of the man who, accepting his own earthly defeat, had yet

gathered all the powers of his being to the task of overmastering that

bitter Fate into whose hands he had delivered, bound, both friend and

foe; the man for whom, now that he knew what he knew, now that the

fierce victrix had borne away her prey, was left but that remaining

purpose, that darker thread which since yesterday's snapping of its

fellow strands had grown strong with the strength of all. Before the

water could touch his lips he also saw the mark one night had set upon

him, and drew back with a slight start from his image in the pool; then,

after a moment, bent again and drank his fill.

When Robin-a-dale had also quenched his thirst the two left the forest,

and together dragged the cockboat down the sand and launched it over the

gentle surf. Ferne rowed slowly, with a mind that was not for Robin, nor

the glory of the tropic morning, nor the shock of yesterday, nor the

night's despair. He looked ahead, devising means to an end, and his

brows were yet bent in thought when the boat touched the _Sea

Wraith's_ side.

As much a statesman of the sea as Drake himself, he knew how to gild

authority and hold it high, so that they beneath might take indeed the

golden bubble for the sun that warmed them. He kept state upon the _Sea

Wraith_ as upon the _Cygnet_, though of necessity it was worn with a

difference. For him now, as then, music played while he sat at table in

the great cabin, alone, or with his rude lieutenants, in a silence

seldom broken. Now, as he stepped upon deck, there was a flourish of

trumpets, together with the usual salute from mariners and soldiers

drawn up to receive him. But their eyes stared and their lips seemed

dry, and when he called to him the master who had fought with Barbary

pirates for half a lifetime, the master trembled somewhat as he came.

It was the hour for morning prayer, and the _Sea Wraith_ lacked not her

chaplain, a man honeycombed with disease and secret sin. The singing to

a hidden God swelled so loud that it rang in the ears of the sick below,

tossing, tossing, muttering and murmuring, though it pierced not the

senses of them who lay still, who lay very, very still. The hymn ended,

the chaplain began to read, but the gray-haired Captain stopped him with

a gesture. "Not that," he commanded. "Read me a psalm of vengeance, Sir

Demas,--a psalm of righteous vengeance!"