XII

During the afternoon came an order to Captain Powell that the sick youth

should be taken to Sir Mortimer Ferne's apartment in the house where

lodged Master Arden. Thus it was that in the cooler air before sunset a

litter was borne through the streets of Cartagena. In addition to the

bearers and some other slight attendance there walked with it Sir John

Nevil and Captain Powell, Giles Arden and Sir Mortimer Ferne. Sometimes

the latter laid his hand upon the youth's burning forehead, sometimes

upon the lips which would have babbled overmuch. Bearers and escort

stared and stared. One who had been about the spital, and had seen a

brother brought from under the shadow of death, repeatedly stumbled

because he could not take his eyes from the friar become English

gentleman--become friend of so great a gentleman as Sir John Nevil.

The little procession turned one corner, then another. Sir Mortimer

touched Nevil's arm. "There's a shorter way--down this narrow street we

are passing."

"Ay," Nevil answered; "but let us go by the way of the market-place."

His thought was that none too soon could occur general recognition that

Sir Mortimer Ferne dwelt in the English camp and walked with English

leaders. The square, as it proved, was no desert. The hour was one of

some relaxation, relief from the sun, and from the iron discipline of

Drake, who, for the most part of the day, created posts and kept men at

them. Carlisle was there seated in the shade of a giant palm, watching

the drilling of a yet weak and staggering company whose very memory that

burning calenture had enfeebled. At one side of the place, which was not

large, others were examining a great heap of booty, the grosser spoils

of rich men's houses, furniture of precious woods, gilt and inlaid

cabinets, chests of costly apparel, armor, weapons, trappings of

horses,--all awaiting under guard assortment and division. In the centre

of the square a score or more of adventurers were gathered about the

wide steps of a great stone market-cross, while from a point opposite to

the street by which the party from the hospital must make entry advanced

with some clanking of steel, talking, and sturdy laughter no lesser men

than Francis Drake and some of his chiefest captains. Carlisle left

watching the drilling and walked over to them. The adventurers lounging

below the cross sprang up to greet their Admiral. A sudden puff of

evening wind lifted Drake's red cap, and bearing it across to a small

battery where a gunner and his mates examined a line of Spanish

ordnance, placed it neatly over the muzzle of the smallest gun. Frank

laughter arose; the gunner, with the red cap pressed against his hairy

breast, and grinning with pleasure at his service, came at a run to

restore to the great Sir Francis his property. Drake, whom the mere

soldier and mariner idolized, found for the gunner both a peso of silver

and jesting thanks; then, when he had donned the cap, turned and loudly

called to the passing company. "Come over to us, John Nevil," cried the

sea-king. "No, no, let us have your companions also, and that sick youth

we have heard of"

"You do not understand," muttered Ferne, hastily, to Nevil. "This place

likes me not. Go you and Arden--"

Sir John shook his head. Alone with Drake that morning, he had told in

its completeness the story that in many details was strange to him who

was seldom in England, seldomer at court, and who had heard the story in

a form which left scant room for pity or any dream of absolution. Once

and again the great sea-captain had softly sworn to himself, and at the

end Nevil had gone forth satisfied. Now he saw that Drake must have

timed this meeting in the square, and with a smile he ignored the

entreaty in the eyes of the man who, if his friend, was also his

captive. He motioned to the bearers, and presently the company about the

market-cross was enlarged.

Drake, after his hearty fashion, clapped his arm about Sir John's

shoulder, calling him "dear Nevil." Arden, with whom he had slighter

acquaintance, he also greeted, while Powell was his "good Powell, his

trusty Anthony." There was a slight shifting in the smaller group, Nevil

by a backward step or two bringing into line the man who stood beside

the litter. Drake turned. "Give you godden, Sir Mortimer Ferne! Our

hearty thanks, moreover, for the good service you have done us."

He spoke loudly, that all might hear. If beneath the bluff

good-fellowship of word and voice there was any undercurrent of coldness

or misliking, only one or two, besides the man who bowed to him in

silence, might guess it. By now every man about the market-cross was at

attention. Rumors had been rife that day. Neither at home in England nor

here in Spanish dominions was there English soldier or sailor who knew

not name and record of Sir Mortimer Ferne. Among the adventurers about

the market-cross were not lacking men who in old days had viewed,

admired, envied, and, for final tribute, contemned him. These broke

ranks, pressing as closely as was mannerly towards the group about the

litter. All gaped at Drake's words of amity, at Sir John Nevil's grave

smile, and Carlisle's friendly face, but most of all at that one who had

been the peer of great captains, but who now stood amongst them

undetached, ghost-like, a visitant from the drear world of the

dishonored dead. The palm-trees edging the square began to wave and

rustle in the wind; the youth upon the litter moved restlessly, uttering

moaning and incomprehensible words. Drake was speaking to Arden and

others of the gentlemen adventurers.

"What ails you?" murmured Nevil, at Ferne's ear. "There is sweat upon

your forehead, and you hold yourself as rigid as the dead. Your touch is

icy cold."

"I burn," answered the other, in as low a tone. "Let us go hence."

Nevil motioned to the bearers, who raised the litter and began again

their progress across the square. Drake turned from those to whom he had

been speaking. "Will ye be going? You shall sup with us to-night, John

Nevil! Master Arden, I do desire your better acquaintance. Captain

Powell, you will stay with me who have some words for your ear. Sir

Mortimer Ferne, I trust you will recover your servant, as you have

recovered so many of our poor fellows"--his voice dropped until it was

audible only to the three or four who made his immediate circle,--"as

you have wellnigh recovered yourself."

Generous as he was, he had not meant to go so far. He had yet his

doubts, his reversions, in mind, to those sheer facts which none denied.

This was a recreant knight--but also a man who had suffered long and

greatly, who, if eye and intuition could be trusted, suffered now. He

hesitated a moment, then abruptly held out his hand.

All saw the gesture, and a sudden hush fell upon the company. If these

two touched hands, then in that moment would be spanned the distance

between the star in the ascendant and the wavering marsh-light, between

the sea-colossus and his one-time rival, now so long overwhelmed and

chained to sterile earth.

In the short silence the wind seemed to take with a rushing sound the

palm tops overhead. Then Ferne spoke. "With all my heart I thank you,"

he said. "I may not take your hand until you know"--he raised his voice

so that all who chose might hear--"until you know that here where I

stand, here before this cross, died in the torment of fire that Captain

Robert Baldry who was my private foe, who lay beneath my challenge,

whom I betrayed to his agony and to his martyr's death.... Ah! I will

hold you excused, Sir Francis Drake!"

With the deep exclamation, the involuntary recoil, that followed on the

heels of such an avowal, there appeared to descend upon the place a dark

shadow, a veritable pall, a faint murk of driven smoke, through which

men saw, to-day, the spectacle of nigh four years agone.... The silence

was broken, the spell dissolved, by Robin-a-dale's feeble cry from the

litter: "Master, master; come with me, master!"

Drake, who, with a quick intake of his breath, had drawn sharply back,

was the first to recover. He sent his lightning glance from the

frowning, the deeply flushed and horror-stricken, countenances about him

to the man whose worn cheek showed no color, whose lips were locked,

whose eyes were steadfast, though a little lifted to the blue sky above

the cross. "Now death of my life!" swore the sea-king. "The knave did

well to call you 'Master.' Whatever there may have been, here is now no

coward!" He turned to the staring, whispering throng. "Gentlemen, we

will remove from this space, which was the death-bed of a brave man and

a true martyr. This done, each man of you will go soberly about his

business, remembering that God's dealings are not those of

men;--remembering also that this gentleman is under my protection."

Doffing his red cap, he stepped slowly backward out of the wide ring

about the market-cross. His example was followed by all; a few moments

and the last rays of the sinking sun lay only upon bare stone and earth.

Some hours later, Robin-a-dale asleep in the bed, and his master keeping

motionless watch at the window, Arden entered the room which had been

assigned to Sir Mortimer Ferne, and crossing the floor, sat himself down

beside his friend. Presently Ferne put forth his hand, and the two sat

with interlacing fingers, looking out upon the great constellations.

Arden was the first to speak.

"Dost remember how, when we were boys at school, and the curfew long

rung, we yet knelt at our window and saw the stars come up over the

moorland? Thou wert the poet and teller of tales--ah! thy paladins and

paynims and ladies enchanted!--while I listened, bewitched as they, but

with an ear for the master's tread. It was a fearful joy!"

"I remember," said the other. "It was a trick of mine which too often

brought the cane across our shoulders."

"Not mine," quoth Arden. "You always begged me off. I was the

smallest--you waked me--made me listen, forsooth!... Welladay! Old times

seem near to-night!"

"Old times!" repeated the other. "Pictures that creep beneath the shut

eyelid!--frail sounds that outcry the storm!--Shame's most delicate,

most exquisite goad!... You cannot know how strange this day has been

to me."

"You cannot know how glad this day has been to me," replied Arden, with

a break in his voice. "Do you remember, Mortimer, that I would have

sailed with you in the _Sea Wraith?_"

"I forget nothing," said the other. "I think that I reviled you then....

See how far hath swung my needle!" He lifted his school-fellow's hand to

his cheek in a long, mute caress, then laying it down. "There is one at

home of whose welfare I would learn. She is not dead, I know. Her

brother comes to me in my dreams with all the rest--with all the

rest,--but she comes not. Speak to me of Mistress Damaris Sedley."

A short pause; then, "She is the fairest and the loveliest," said Arden.

"Her beauty is a fadeless flower, but her eyes hold a history it were

hard to read without a clue. One only knows the tale is tragical. She is

most gentle, sweet, and debonair. The thorns of Fortune's giving she has

twisted into a crown, and she wears it royally. I saw her at Wilton six

months ago."

"At Wilton! With the Queen?"

"No; she left the court long ago. You and the _Sea Wraith_ were scarce a

month gone when that grim old knight, her guardian, would have made for

her a marriage with some spendthrift sprig of more wealth than wit. But

Sidney, working through Walsingham and his uncle Leicester, and most of

all through his own golden speech, got from the Queen consent to the

lady's retirement from the court, and so greatly disliked a marriage.

With a very noble retinue he brought her to his sister at Wilton, where,

with that most noble countess, she abides in sanctuary. When you take

her hence--"

Sir Mortimer laughed. "When I take the rainbow from the sky--when I leap

to meet the moon and find the silver damsel in my arms indeed--when

yonder sea hath washed away all the blood of the earth--when I find

Ponce de Leon's spring and speak to the nymph therein: 'Now free me from

this year, and this, and this, and this! Make me the man that once I

was!' Then I will go a pilgrimage to Wilton."

He rose and paced the room once or twice, then came back to Arden at the

window. "Old school-fellow, we are not boys now. There be no enchanters;

and the giant hugs himself in his tower, nor will come forth at any

challenge; and the dragon hath so shrunken that he shows no larger than

a man's self;--all illusion's down!... I thank thee for thy news of a

lady whom I love. I am full glad to know that she is in health and

safety, among old friends, honored, beloved, fairer than the fairest--"

His voice shook, and for the moment he bowed his face within his hands,

but repression came immediately to his command. He raised his head and

began again with a quiet voice, "I will write to her a letter, and you

will be its bearer--will you not, old friend? riding with it by the

green fields and the English oaks to noble Wilton--"

"And where, when the ships have brought us home, do you go, Mortimer?"

"To the Low Countries. Seeing that I go as a private soldier, John Nevil

may easily gain me leave. And thou, Giles, I know, wilt give me money

with which I may arm me and may cross to the English camp. I am glad

that Philip Sidney becomes my general. Although I fight afoot, in the

long trenches or with the pike-men and the harquebusiers, yet may I joy

to look upon him, flashing past, all gilded like St. George, with the

great banner flying, leading the wild charge--the shouts of his horsemen

behind him--"

Arden sprang to his feet, pushed the heavy settle aside, and with a

somewhat disordered step went to the bed where lay Robin-a-dale. "He

will recover?" he asked, in a low voice, as Ferne came to his side.

"Ay, I think so," answered the other. "He will sleep throughout the

night, and the morn should find him stronger, more clear in mind.... I

am going now to the spital--no, no; I need no rest, and I have leave to

come and go."

The two descended together to the door of the great hall, whence Ferne

went his solitary way, and Arden stood to watch him out of sight. As the

latter turned to re-enter the house, he was aware of a small band of

men, English and Spanish, proceeding from Drake's lodging towards the

citadel, which, robbed of all ordnance and partly demolished, yet

sheltered the Governor, his officers, and sundry Spanish gentlemen.

To-day the envoy from the wealthy fugitives and owners of buried gold

had returned, and, evidently, to-night Drake and the Spanish

commissioners had again discussed the matter of ransom.

Arden, within the shadow, watched the little torchlit company of English

soldiery and Spanish officials cross his plane of vision. There was some

talking and laughter; an Englishman made a jest, and a Spaniard answered

with a proverb. The latter's voice struck some chord in Arden's memory,

but struck it faintly. "Now where have I heard that voice?" he asked,

but found no answer. The noise and the light passed onward to the

citadel, and with a brief good-night to a passing sentinel he himself

turned to take his rest.

The next day at noon Ferne deliberately, though with white lips and

half-closed eyelids, crossed the market square, and sought out Sir John

Nevil's quarters. By the soldiers in the great hall he was told that Sir

John was with the Admiral--would he wait? He nodded, and sat himself

down upon a settle in the hall. The guard and those who came and went

eyed him curiously; sometimes whispered words reached his ears. Once,

when he had waited a long time, a soldier brought him a jack of ale. He

drank of it gratefully and thanked the donor. The soldier fidgeted,

lowered his voice. "I fought under you, Sir Mortimer Ferne, at Fayal in

the Azores. You brought us that day out of the jaws of death, and we

swore you were too much for Don or devil!--and we drank to you that

evening, full measure of ale!--and we took our oath that we had served

far and near under many a captain, but none like you--"

Ferne smiled. "Was it so, soldier? Well, may I drink to you now who

drank to me then?"

He drew the ale towards him but kept his eyes upon the other's

countenance. The man reddened from brow to bared throat, but his words

came at once, and there was moisture in his blue eyes. "If my old

captain will do me so much honor--" he began, unsteadily. Ferne with a

smile raised his jack to his lips and drank to him health and happy life

and duty faithfully done.

When, after stammered thanks, the man was gone, the other waited hour

after hour the appearance of Sir John Nevil. At last he came striding

down the hall to the stair, but swerving suddenly when he caught sight

of Ferne, crossed to the settle, and gave him quiet greeting. "Sir

Francis kept me overlong," he said. "How has gone the day, Mortimer?"

"The fever lessens," answered the other. "There are not many now will

die.... May I speak to you where there are fewer eyes?"

A few moments later, in Sir John's room, he took from his doublet a slip

of paper. "This was brought to me some hours ago. Is it an order?"

"Ay," said Nevil, without touching the out-held paper. "An order."

Ferne walked to the window and stood there, looking out upon the

passers-by in the street below. One and all seemed callow souls who had

met neither angel nor devil, heard neither the thunderbolt nor the still

small voice. Desperately weary, set to a task which appalled him, he

felt again the sting of a lash to which he had thought himself inured.

There was a longing upon him that this insistent probing of his wound

should cease. Better the Indians and the fearful woods, and Death ever

a-tiptoe! better the stupendous strife of the lonely soul to maintain

its dominion, to say to overtoppling nature, to death, and to despair,

_I am_. There was no man who could help the soul.... This earthly

propping of a withered plant, this drawing of tattered arras over a

blood-stained wall, what was it to the matter? For the moment all his

being was for black, star-touching mountains, for the wild hurry of

league-long rapids, the calling and crying of the forest;--the next he

turned again to the room with some quiet remark as to the apparent

brewing of a storm in the western skies. Nevil bent upon him a

troubled look.

"It was my wish, Mortimer, to which Drake gave ready assent. It is, as

you see, an order for your presence to-night, with other gentlemen

volunteers, at this great banquet with which the Spaniard takes leave of

us. Shall I countermand it?"

"No," answered the other. "My duty is to you--I could not pay my debt if

I strove forever and a day. You are my captain,--when you order I obey."

A silence followed, during which Sir Mortimer stood at the window and

Sir John paced the floor. At last the former spoke, lightly: "There will

be a storm to-night.... I must go comfort that knave of mine. At times

he doth naught but babble of things at home--at Ferne House. This morn

it was winter to him, and in this burning land he talked of snowflakes

falling beneath the Yule-tide stars; yea! and when he has spoken pertly

to the sexton he needs must go a-carolling:

"'There comes a ship far sailing then,--

St. Michael was the steersman;

St. John sate in the horn;

Our Lord harped; Our Lady sang,

And all the bells of heaven rang.'"

He sang the verse lightly, as simply and sweetly as Robin had sung it,

then with a smile turned to go; and in passing Nevil laid a slight

caressing touch upon his shoulder. "Until to-night then, John!--and,

by'r Lady! seeing that you will be at the top of the board and I at the

bottom, I do think that I may hear nothing worth betraying!"

Sir John uttered an ejaculation, and would have taken again the folded

paper, but the other withstood him, and quietly went his way to kneel

beside Robin-a-dale, give up his hand to tears and kisses (for Robin was

very weak, and thought his master cruel to leave him so long alone), to

the youth's unchecked babble of all things that in his short life

appertained to Ferne House and to its master.

Sir Francis Drake and Alonzo Brava had come to a mind in regard to the

ransom for the town. If the English gained not so large a sum as they

had hoped for, yet theirs was the glory of the enterprise, and Drake's

eye was yet upon Nombre de Diòs. If the Spaniards had lost money and men

and had looked on day by day at the slow dilapidation of their city, yet

they had riches left, and the life of the Spanish soldier was cheap, and

that ruined portion of the town might be built again. Agreements had

been drawn as to the ransom of the city of Cartagena and signed by each

leader,--by Brava with the pious (but silent) wish that the fleet might

be miraculously destroyed before the drying of the ink; and by Drake

with one of his curious mental reservations, concerning in this case the

block-house and the great priory just without the city. Matters being

thus settled and the next morning named for the British evacuation of

Christendom, needs must pass the usual courtesies between the then

stateliest people of Cartagena and the bluntest. Alonzo Brava, in all

honesty, invited to supper with him in his dismantled citadel Sir

Francis Drake, Sir John Nevil, and all officers and gentlemen within the

English forces. Drake as frankly accepted the courtesy for himself and

all who might be spared from the final labors of the night.

In the late evening, by a stormy light which, seen through the high,

wide, and open windows, seemed to pit itself against the approaching

darkness, Brava, motioning to right and left, seated himself with his

principal guests at the head of the table, while his chamberlains busied

themselves with serving the turn of lesser names. Captains and

officers, gentlemen and volunteers of wealth and birth, fell into place,

while the end of the table left was for needier adventurers, scapegrace

and out-at-elbow volunteers. Noiseless attendants went to and fro. Great

numbers of candles, large as torches, were lighted, but the prolonged

orange glare which entered the western windows seemed to have some

quality distinct from light, by virtue of which men's features were not

clearly seen. Distant thunder rolled, but when it passed one heard from

the gallery above the hall Spanish music. The feast marched on in

triumph, much as it might have done in any camp (where Famine was not

King) beneath any flag of truce. Here the viands were in quantity, and

there was wine to spill even after friend and foe had been loudly

pledged. Free men, sea-rovers, and soldiers of fortune, it was for them

no courtier's banquet. Only the presence at table of their leaders kept

the wassail down. Now and again the thunder shook the hall, making all

sounds beneath its own as the shrilling of a cicada; then, the long roll

past, the music took new heart, while below it went on the laughter and

the soldier wit, babble of sore wounds, of camp-fires, and high-decked

ships--tales wild and grim or broadly humorous. At the cross-table

opposite and a little below Sir John Nevil, who was seated at Brava's

left hand, was a vacant seat. It awaited (the Governor explained) the

envoy whom he had sent out to hardly gather the remainder of the ransom

of Cartagena. The length, the heat, and danger of the journey had

outwearied the envoy, who was a gentleman of as great a girth as spirit.

Later, despite his indisposition, he would join them.

He came, and it was Pedro Mexia. From Nevil and Arden and several of Sir

John's old officers of the _Mere Honour_ burst more or less suppressed

exclamations. Nevil, from his vantage-point, sent a lightning glance far

down the table, where were gathered those whose rank or station barely

brought them within this hall, but what with the massed fruit, the

candles, this or that outstretched hand and shoulder, he could not see

to the lowest at the table, and he heard no sound to match his own or

Arden's ejaculation. Mexia, who had lingered with his own wine-cup and

associates, now, after the moment of general welcome, seated himself

heavily. His first gaze had been naturally for Francis Drake, the man

whose name was waxing ever louder in Spanish ears, but now in the act of

raising his tankard his eyes and those of the sometime conqueror of

Nueva Cordoba came together. For a second his hand shook, then he tossed

off the wine, and putting down his tankard with some noise, leaned

half-way across the table.

"Ha! we meet again, Sir John Nevil--and after four years of mortal life

we be a-ransoming yet! You see I have not lost your tongue--although I

lost my teachers!" He laughed at the tag to his speech, being drunk

enough to make utter mischief, out of sheer good nature.

"Doth Master Francis Sark still teach you English?" asked Nevil, coldly.

"Francis Sark--who is Francis Sark?" maundered the fuddled envoy. "There

was the fool Desmond, who overreached himself trying to bargain with

Luiz de Guardiola. Those who do that have strange fates!"

Arden from a place or two below put in lightly: "Well, our Sark equals

your Desmond. And so he bargained with Don Luiz de Guardiola?"

Mexia's eyes wandered to the other's face. "Ha, señor! I remember your

face at Nueva Cordoba! Have we here more of our conquered?" His speech

began with the pomp of the frog in the fable, but at this point became

maudlin again and returned to the one-time Governor of Nueva Cordoba's

dealings with his creatures. "Why, Desmond was a fool to name such a

price. One hundred pesos, perhaps--but four thousand! But Don Luiz

smiled and paid down the silver, and the fool that was traitor to us and

traitor to you and traitor to himself told all things and was hanged for

his pains." Up went his tankard to his lips, and as it descended wine

was spilt upon his neighbor's sleeve. The victim drew away with a

smothered oath, and Brava eyed with displeasure his drunken associate.

"Why, for what could the man ask such a price?" Arden asked, with light

surprise.

In a moment the other's large and vacuous countenance became sober

enough. "For a trap to catch flies," he said, shortly, and turning his

shoulder to all but the men of highest rank, again wetted his throat,

then let his empty tankard touch the board with a clattering sound.

From the first he had drawn attention, and now at the drumming of the

tankard most faces turned his way. Nevil spoke to Drake beneath his

breath; the latter bending towards Alonzo Brava, addressed him in a very

low tone. Brava, deeply annoyed, on the point of signalling his

servitors to "quietly persuade from the table his drunken guest,

listened, though still frowning. A final whisper from Drake:

"In no way toucheth your honor, a private matter--favors--ransom--"

The governor, leaning forward, playing with his wine, gave some sign of

acquiescence--perhaps, indeed, may have had his own indifferences to any

blackening of the character of Don Luiz de Guardiola, now nourishing at

Madrid like a green bay-tree.

Mexia was displaying profound skill in the nice balancement of his

tankard as the servant behind him refilled the measure. "Ha, Don Pedro!"

cried Drake, with his bluff laugh, "art on that four-years-gone matter

of Nueva Cordoba? Methinks Sir John Nevil brought off a knightly

sufficiency of credit--"

"Sir John Nevil--Oh! Ay!" said Mexia, and with both hands carefully

lowered the tankard to the level of the table. "Did Sir Mortimer Ferne

bring forth such a--what's the word?--knightly sufficiency? Now I've

often wondered--'Tis true I had my grudge against him also, but in such

matters I go not so far as De Guardiola, who brands the soul.... I told

Don Luiz as much four years ago. 'Why, I kill my man,' quoth I, 'and go

on my way singing.'"

"And what said he to that?" queried Arden, lightly and easily drawing on

Mexia, who, in his cups, became merely a garrulous old man.

"Why," continued the envoy, "he said, 'Mayhap the dead do not remember.

So live, my foe! but live in hell, remembering the brand upon thy soul,

and that 'twas I who set it glowing there!'"

A murmur ran the length of the table. Mexia suddenly found himself of a

steadier brain with somewhat stronger interest in rencontres new or old.

"Ha! Sir Mortimer Ferne and his knot of velvet! Don Luiz ground _that_

beneath his heel.... Well, the man's dead, no doubt. I've wondered more

than once if he lived or died; if he beat out his brains as he strove to

do; if, thinking better o't, he merely held his tongue and nursed his

broken body; or if he cried aloud that which the old serpent De

Guardiola made him believe, and henceforth travelled life's highway a

lazar!... And that's a curious thought: leper to himself--leper to his

world--leper's cry--leper's mantle, with the cloth across his face--and

beneath it, all cleanliness, with not a soul but God to know it!" He

gave his small, chuckling laugh. "Oh, I, too, have thoughts; I, too,

watch the play,--Pedro Mexia, señors, is not so gross of wit as he is

thought to be!"

Nevil leaned across the table. "Leper to himself, and to his world! But

to God all cleanly beneath that mantle which he drew over his forehead

and his eyes! What do you mean? Sir Mortimer Ferne declared himself a

coward and a traitor!"

"So!" said Mexia. "Well! 'Twas falsely sworn. Desmond was the man."

Sir John turned with rapid speech to his host. Alonzo Brava addressed

Mexia, who roused himself to a fair appearance of sobriety. "Worthy Don

Pedro, all here, on both sides, have heard somewhat of this story. I

understand that the English hidalgo concerned is dead. Don Luiz de

Guardiola is in Spain. We all know that a simple vengeance never

sufficed for him who was of those who by their cruelties have brought

such defamation upon our name in the Indies. I see not that you do

injury to Spanish honor by giving to our friends of one night as much as

you know of this history."

"Your relation will make us so greatly your debtor, Don Pedro," said

Drake, "that to-morrow, ere we sail, we will think of some such token as

may justly show our appreciation of the trouble we now give you. Wilt

drink with me?"

The tankards clinked, the wine went down, and the flattered Mexia turned

his round, empurpled countenance to Nevil. "Why, see you," he said,

"'twas easy for Desmond to find the secret door in the upper room in

the Friar's house, and, stealing down by the stair between the walls to

listen at the hidden grating until he had by heart your every plan--but

'twas not so easy to escape to us! It lacked half an hour of sunset when

be brought that news which since noon Don Luiz had sought with fury to

wring from the other."

"From the other?"

"From Sir Mortimer Ferne."

An Englishman cried out, "Then were there two traitors?" but Mexia, who

by now was somewhat in love with his part of raconteur, had a grim

smile. "There was one Don Luiz de Guardiola.... Oh, I will tell you what

you wish to know, señors! Be not so impatient. It was without the room

where lay his prisoner that he gathered from Desmond news indeed; and it

was from that room that he sent Desmond away, and wrote very swiftly

order after order to his lieutenants. Then he went to the other door and

called out Miguel, who says, 'Now and then he raves, but nothing to the

point!' to which Don Luiz: 'I am going to stand beside him. You are

skilful. Make him babble like a child, scarce knowing what he says.

What I wanted from him matters no longer; but make him speak--words,

broken sentences, cries!--I care not what. Make him aware that he holds

his tongue no longer, make him struggle for silence there beneath

my eyes.'

"'He calls on God at present,' answers Miguel. 'I thought these

Lutherans held with Satan.'

"'When I sign to you--thus,' goes on De Guardiola, 'bring him with

suddenness into a short swoon. Then at once dash water upon his face and

breast. When he cometh to himself, which (look you) must be shortly,

busy yourself with putting away your engines, or be officious to loosen

his bonds, keeping a smiling mien as of one whose day's work is done; in

short, in what subtle fashion you may, do you and your helpers add to

that assurance that I myself shall give him. Do your part well and there

will be reward, for I have at heart a whim that I would gratify.' So we

went into the next room."

"We!" said Nevil deeply, and "By God, this man was there!" breathed

Drake, and Arden ground his teeth. The silence which had spellbound the

company broke sharply here or there, then, breathless, men again bent

forward, waiting for the last word of the story whose ending they

already guessed. Alonzo Brava, a knightly soul enough, sat grim and red,

repentant that he had given loose rein to Mexia's tongue. Mexia,

undisturbed, genial with his wine, and of a retrospective turn of mind,

went smoothly, even dreamily on with his episode of a four-years-past

struggle. He had scarcely noticed the slip of the tongue by which he had

included himself with Luiz de Guardiola and his ministers.

"Well.... He lay there indeed, and called upon God; and now and then he

cried to men and women we knew not of. But when he saw that De Guardiola

was in the room, he fell silent--like that!

"'Tell me this--and this--and this,' says Don Luiz at his side. 'Then

shall you go free. You are your Admiral's dearest friend; you are high

in the English council. Even before you became my prisoner was there not

a general attack planned for to-night? Tell me its nature and the hour.

What force will be left upon the ships? What will be the word of the

night? Tell me if you know aught of a secret way by which the battery

may be flanked!'

"Well, he was silent, and Don Luiz stamped upon the floor. 'You are too

slow of speech, señor. Miguel, make him speak. I have no time to

loiter here!'"

Mexia moistened his lips with his wine. "What do you ask with your white

faces and great eyes, señors?... Oh, yes, he was made to speak--to cry

out to the Lutheran's God, to gasp his defiance to Don Luiz waiting with

folded arms--to wander, as they sometimes do, thinking friends about

him, making appeal to the living and the dead to pluck him out of hell!

at last, with froth upon his lips, to murmur like a child who knows not

War nor one of its usages; like a heretic who communes with God

direct.... I am no better than I am, but I know courage when I see it,

and I tell you, Don Alonzo, that in his torment and his weakness that

man was strong to sweep clear his mind of aught that was to De

Guardiola's purpose. If nature must give voice to her anguish, then,

with bound hands, he kept her far from the garden of his honor. This

until the very last, when he lost knowledge indeed of what the tongue

might say, and bit at his bound arms struggling to hold his peace. Then

De Guardiola signed for the turn of the screw."

At the end of the table, a few moments before, a man had left his place

with no noise, and stooping was now slowly making his way behind the

forward bent row of guests, towards the table of honor. Mexia, making

full stop, drank his wine, and, leaning back in his chair, stared

thoughtfully before him. Amongst his auditors there was an instant of

breathless expectation, then Drake cried impatiently, "Make a

finish, man!"

"There is no more," said Mexia. "He never told, never betrayed. When he

awoke from that momentary swoon there was surcease of torment, there

were Miguel and his fellows making ready to take leave of the day's

work; his bonds were loosed, wine held to his lips; Don Luiz stood over

him with a smile, and still smiling sent for the Commandant of the

battery. All that Desmond had brought to Don Luiz was told over, orders

were written and sent in haste, naught was left undone that De

Guardiola's guile might suggest. He believed--he could not choose but

to believe--that in his madness of words and half-conscious utterances,

from very failure of will and weakness of soul and lack of knightly

honor, he had refused to endure, and had betrayed the English to

surprise and death."

The man who had moved from his seat was now so near to the notable

guests that when, drawing himself up, he placed his hand upon Arden's

shoulder, he came face to face with Pedro Mexia. The latter, uttering a

strangled cry, threw up his hands as though to ward off an apparition.

With a sudden spring, one booted foot upon Arden's heavy chair, the

figure leaped upon the table, disarranging all its glittering array, and

for a second facing the company which had arisen with excitement and

outcry. The next, like a dart, he crossed the intervening space and

threw himself upon Mexia, dragging the bulky form from the table and

hurling it to the floor. Weaponless, the assaulter had used his hands,

and now with a knee upon Mexia's breast he strove to throttle him. When,

Spanish and English, those that were nearest of Don Alonzo's guests were

upon him, the face that he turned over his shoulder showed an

intolerable white fury of wrath. "Thy sword, John Nevil!" he gasped.

"Thou seest I wear none! Arden, thou'rt no friend of mine if thou

flingst me not thy dagger!... Ah dog! that companied with the hell-hound

of the pack, loll _thy_ tongue out now! Let _thy_ eyeballs start from

the socket--"

When the two men were separated, the one lay huddled and unconscious

against his chair, and the other stood with iron composure, glancing

from the unconscious envoy to his host Alonzo Brava. "I know not who you

are, señor," spoke the latter, with anger hardly controlled, "but you

have broken truce and done bodily injury to my guest, who not being able

at the moment to speak for himself--"

"Your pardon, señor, for any discourtesy towards my host," answered

Ferne. "And I would give you satisfaction here and now if--if--" He

looked down upon his empty hands. The gesture was seen of all. Made by

him, it came as one of those slight acts which have a power to pierce

the heart and enlighten the understanding. Unconscious as it was, the

movement rent away the veil of four years, broke any remnant of the

spell that was upon the English, set him high and clear before

them--the peer of Francis Drake, of John Nevil, of Raleigh and of

Sidney. This was Sir Mortimer Ferne, and there was that which he lacked!

Up and down the room there ran a sudden sound of steel drawn swiftly

from metal, leather, or velvet sheaths. "My sword, Sir Mortimer Ferne!"

"Mine!" "And mine!" "Do mine honor, Sir Mortimer Ferne!" "Sir Mortimer

Ferne, take mine!"

Ferne's hand closed upon the hilt which Nevil had silently offered, and

he turned to salute his antagonist, whose pallor now matched his own.

"Are you that English knight?" demanded Brava with dry lips. "Then in

courtesy alone will we cross blades--no more!"

The steel clashed, the points fell, and Spaniard and Englishman bowed

gravely each to the other. "I thank you," said Ferne hoarsely. "With

your permission, señor, I will say good-night. You will understand, I

think, that I would be alone."

"That we must all understand," said Alonzo Brava. "Our good wishes

travel with you, señor."

Sir Mortimer turned, and from the younger, more heedless adventurers

broke a ringing shout, a repeated calling of his name until it echoed

from the lofty roof, but his friends spoke not to him, only made an

aisle through which he might pass. His arm was raised, Nevil's sword a

gleaming line along the dark velvet of his sleeve. The face seen below

the lifted arm was very strange, written over with a thousand meanings.

The poise of the figure and the light upon the sword increased the

effect of height, the effect of the one-night-whitened hair. There was,

moreover, the gleam and shadow of the countenance, evident forgetfulness

of time or place, the desire of the soul to be out with night and storm

and miracles. The English drew farther back, and he went by them like an

apparition.

Later in the night Nevil and Arden, after fruitless search, came upon a

space where the wall of Cartagena rose sheer above the water. To-night

the sea roared in their ears, but the storm had gone by, leaving upon

the horizon a black and rugged bank of cloud rimmed by great beacon

stars. Down through a wide rift in the clouds streamed light from a

haloed moon. Beneath it, seated upon the stone, his hands clasped about

his knees and a gleaming sword laid across them was the man they sought.

His head was lifted and the moon gave light enough by which to read the

lineaments of a good knight and true, brave, of stainless honor, a lover

of things of good repute, pure gold to his friends, generous to his

foes, gentle to the weak, tender and pitiful of all who sinned or

suffered. He heard their footsteps on the stone, and, rising, went to

meet them. "It hath been a wonderful night," he said. "Look, how great

is the ring about the moon! and the air after the storm blows from far

countries.... They have come to me one after another--all the men of the

_Cygnet_, and the _Phoenix_, and the land force. Henry Sedley sat beside

me, with his arm about my shoulder; and Captain Robert Baldry and I have

clasped hands, foregoing our quarrel. And the crew of the _Sea Wraith_

went by like shadows. I know not if I did wrongly by them, but if it be

so I will abide God's judgment between us when I, too, am dead. And I am

not yet for the Low Countries, Arden! I am for England--England,

England!"

They leaned against the parapet and looked out upon the now gleaming

sea, the rack of the clouds and the broken cohorts of the stars. They

looked out to the glistening line where the water met the east.

"Homeward to-morrow!" said Arden, and Ferne asked, "What are thy ships,

John?" and Nevil answered, "The one is the _Mere Honour_, the other I

have very lately renamed the _Cygnet_. Wilt be her captain, Mortimer,

from here to Plymouth Port?"

* * * * *

The Countess of Pembroke, in mourning for her parents, was spending a

midsummer month in leafy Penshurst. It was a drowsy month, of roses

fully blown and heavy lilies, of bees booming amongst all honey flowers,

of shady copses and wide sunlit fields; and it was a quiet month because

of the Countess's mourning and because Philip Sidney was Governor of

Flushing. Therefore, save for now and then a messenger bringing news

from London or Wilton or from that loved brother in the Netherlands, the

Countess, her women, and a page or two made up the company at Penshurst.

The pages and the young gentlewomen (all under the eye of an aged

majordomo) moved sedately in the old house, pacing soberly the gardens

beneath the open casements; but when they reached the sweet rusticity of

the outward ways, fruit-dropping orchards and sunny spaces, they were

for lighter spirits, heels, and wits. With laughter young hand caught at

young hand, and fair forms circled swiftly an imaginary May-pole. Tall

flowers upon the Medway's brim next took their eye, and they gathered

pink and white and purple sheaves; then, limed by the mere joy of work,

caught up and plied the rakes of the haymakers. The meadows became

lists, their sudden employment a joust-at-arms, and some slender youth

crowned the swiftest workwoman with field flowers, withering in the

nearest swathe. All wove garlands, then made for the shade of the trees

and shared a low basket of golden apples. One had a lute and another

sang a love ditty with ethereal passion. They were in Arcadia,--silken

shepherdesses, slim princes in disguise,--and they breathed the

sweetness, the innocent yet lofty grace which was the country's

natal air.

"Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother," kept much, in her gentle, filial

sorrow, to her great chamber above the gardens, where she wrote and

studied, and to her closet, where before an eastern window was set the

low chair beside which she kneeled in prayer for her living and her

dead. She prayed much alone, but once a day, when the morn was young,

she sent for one who was named her gentlewoman indeed, but to whom all

her train gave deference, knowing of the love between this lady and

their mistress. The lady came, beautiful, patient, with lips that smiled

on life, and wonderful dark eyes in which the smile was drowned. The

Countess took her morning kiss and the fair coolness of her pressed

cheek, then praised the flowers in her hands, all jewelled with the

dew--a lovely posy to be set amongst the Countess's little library of

pious works. Then on this as on other days the two fair women read

together, their soft voices making tremulous music of the stately Latin.

The reading done, they kneeled side by side, dark hair against light,

praying silently, each her own prayers. It was a morning rite,

poignantly dear to them both; it began and helped upon its way the

livelong lingering day. They arose and kissed, and presently the

Countess spoke of letters which she must write. "Then," said the other,

"I will go sit by the fountain until you wish for me."

"The fountain!" answered Mary Sidney. "Ah, Damaris! I would that thou

mightst forget the fountain. I would that other blooms than red roses

were planted there!"

"That would not I!" the other answered. "I love the fountain. And once a

red rose meant to me--Paradise!"

"Then go thy ways, and gather thy roses," said the Countess fondly. "I

would give thee Heaven an I could--so that thou stayed upon earth with

thy fairing!"

The Countess sat herself down to write to Philip Sidney, not knowing

that he was so near the frontier whence no living messenger, no warm and

loving cry could ever draw him back. Damaris, a book in her hand, passed

through the silent, darkened house out to the sunlit lawns. Her skirt

swept the enamelled turf; she touched the tallest flowers as she passed,

and they bloomed no worse for that light caress. Poetry was in her every

motion, and she was too beautiful a thing to be so sad. She made no

parade of grief. Faint smiles came and went, and all things added to her

birthright of grace. She was the Countess's almoner: every day she did

good, lessening pain, whispering balm to the anguish-stricken, speaking

as with authority to troubled souls. Back from the hovel to stately

houses she went, and lo! the maid of honor, exquisite, perfect as a

flower. Men wooed, but might not win her. They came and went, but to her

it was no matter. In her eyes still burned the patient splendor with

which she waited for the tide to take her, bearing her out beyond the

shallows to one who also tarried.

With a gentle sound the fountain rose and fell in a gray stone basin.

Around it were set the rose-trees, and beyond the roses tall box and yew

most fantastically clipped screened from observation the fairy spot.

Damaris, slowly entering, became at once the spirit of the place. She

paced the fountain's grassy rim to a rustic seat and took it for her

chair of state, from which for a while, with her white hands behind her

head, she watched the silver spray and the blue midsummer sky. A lark

sang, but so high in the blue that its joyous note jarred not the

languor of the place. Damaris opened her book--but what need of written

poesy? The red roses smelled so sweet that 'twas as though she lay

against the heart of one royal bloom. She left her throne and trod the

circle, and in both hands she took the heavy blossoms and pressed them

to her lips. The odor was like warm wine. "Now and for all my life,"

said Damaris, "for me one faded rose! Afterwards, two in a garden like

this--like this!"

The grass was so green and warm that presently she lay down upon it, her

head pillowed upon her arm, her eyes gazing through the fountain mist

and down the emerald slopes to where ran the elmwood avenue. She gazed

in idleness, through half-shut eyelids, wrapped in lullabies and drowsy

warmth. Hoof-beats between the elms troubled her not. When through the

mist of falling water and the veil of drooping leaves she saw riding

towards the house a youth clad in blue, the horse and rider seemed but

figures in a piece of tapestry. Her satin eyelids closed, and if other

riders presently showed in the tapestry she saw them not, for she was

sound asleep. She dreamed of a masque at Hampton Court, long ago, and of

the gown she had worn and how merry she had been, and she dreamed of the

Queen. Then her dream changed and she sat with Henry Sedley on the sands

of a lost sea-coast, stretching in pale levels beyond the ken of man.

The surf raced towards them like shadowy white horses, and a red moon

hung low in the sky. There was music in the air, and his voice was

speaking, but suddenly the sea and its champing horses and the red moon

passed away. She stirred, and now it was not her brother's voice that

spoke. Green grass was beneath her; splendid roses, red and gold, were

censers slowly swinging; the silver fountain leaped as if to meet the

skylark's song. Slowly Damaris raised herself from her grassy bed and

looked with widening eyes upon an intruder. "I--I went to sleep," she

said. "Is't Heaven or will this rose also fade?" She closed her eyes for

a moment, then, opening them, "O my dream!" she cried. "Go not away!"

The sunlight fell upon his lifted head, and on his dress, that was as

rich as any bridegroom's, and on a sword-knot of silver gauze. "Look you

thus in Heaven, O my King?" she breathed.

Sir Mortimer approached her very slowly, for he saw that her senses

strayed. As he came nearer she shrank against the wall of bloom. "Dear

heart," he said, "I am a living man, and before all the world I now may

wear thy silver sleave." But the rose you gave me once before hath

withered into dust. I could not hold it back. "Break for me another

rose--_Dione_!"

She put out her hand and obeyed. Into her eyes had come a crescent

splendor, upon her lips the dawn of an ineffable smile; but yet

troubled, yet without full understanding, she, trembling, held out the

flower at arm's length. But when Ferne's hand closed upon hers, when she

felt herself drawn into his arms and his kiss upon her lips, his whisper

in her ears, she awoke, and thought not less of Heaven, but only that

Heaven had come to earth.