death passed in 1603, enjoying after a season a certain liberty,
visited there by his dear lady and his friends, among whom was Henry,
Prince of Wales, who did not hesitate to publish that no man but his
father—whom he detested—would keep such a bird in a cage. He beguiled
the time in literary and scientific pursuits, distilling his essences
and writing that stupendous work of his, “The History of the World.”
Thus old age crept upon him; but far from quenching the fires of
enterprise within his adventurer’s soul, it brought a restlessness that
urged him at last to make a bid for liberty. Despairing of winning it
from the clemency of James, he applied his wits to extracting it from
the King’s cupidity.
Throughout his life, since the day when first he had brought himself to
the notice of a Queen by making of his cloak a carpet for her feet, he
had retained side by side with the dignity of the sage and the
greatness of the hero, the craft and opportunism of the adventurer. His
opportunity now was the straitened condition of the royal treasury, a
hint of which had been let fall by Winwood the Secretary of State. He
announced at once that he knew of a gold mine in Guiana, the El Dorado
of the Spaniards.
On his return from a voyage to Guiana in 1595, he had written of it
thus:
“There the common soldier shall fight for gold instead of pence, pay
himself with plates half a foot broad, whereas he breaks his bones in
other wars for provant and penury Those commanders and chieftains that
shoot at honour and abundance shall find here more rich and beautiful
cities, more temples adorned with golden images, more sepulchres filled
with treasure than either Cortez found in Mexico or Pizarro in Peru.”
Winwood now reminded him that as a consequence many expeditions had
gone out, but failed to discover any of these things.
“That,” said Ralegh, “is because those adventurers were ignorant alike
of the country and of the art of conciliating its inhabitants. Were I
permitted to go, I would make Guiana to England what Peru has been to
Spain.”
That statement, reported to James in his need, was enough to fire his
cupidity, and when Ralegh had further added that he would guarantee to
the Crown one-fifth of the treasure without asking any contribution
towards the adventure either in money or in ships, he was permitted to
come forth and prepare for the expedition.
His friends came to his assistance, and in March of 1617 he set sail
for El Dorado with a well-manned and well-equipped fleet of fourteen
ships, the Earls of Arundel and Pembroke standing sureties for his
return.
From the outset the fates were unpropitious. Disaster closed the
adventure. Gondomar, the Ambassador of Spain at Whitehall, too
well-informed of what was afoot, had warned his master. Spanish ships
waited to frustrate Sir Walter, who was under pledge to avoid all
conflict with the forces of King Philip. But conflict there was, and
bloodshed in plenty, about the city of Manoa, which the Spaniards held
as the key to the country into which the English adventurers sought to
penetrate. Among the slain were the Governor of Manoa, who was
Gondomar’s own brother, and Sir Walter’s eldest son.
To Ralegh, waiting at the mouth of the Orinoco, came his beaten forces
in retreat, with the terrible news of a happening that meant his ruin.
Half-maddened, his anguish increased by the loss of his boy, he
upbraided them so fiercely that Keymis, who had been in charge of the
expedition, shut himself up in his cabin and shot himself with a
pocket-pistol. Mutiny followed, and Whitney—most trusted of Sir
Walter’s captains—set sail for England, being followed by six other
ships of that fleet, which meanwhile had been reduced to twelve. With
the remaining five the stricken Sir Walter had followed more at
leisure. What need to hurry? Disgrace, and perhaps death, awaited him
in England. He knew the power of Spain with James, who was so set upon
a Spanish marriage for his heir, knew Spain’s hatred of himself, and
what eloquence it would gather in the mouth of Gondomar, intent upon
avenging his brother’s death.
He feared the worst, and so was glad upon landing to have by him a
kinsman upon whom he could lean for counsel and guidance in this the
darkest hour of all his life. Sitting late that night in the library of
Sir Christopher Hare’s house, Sir Walter told his cousin in detail the
story of his misadventure, and confessed to his misgivings.
“My brains are broken,” was his cry.
Stukeley combed his beard in thought. He had little comfort to offer.
“It was not expected,” said he, “that you would return.
“Not expected?” Sir Walter’s bowed white head was suddenly flung back.
Indignation blazed in the eyes that age had left undimmed. “What act in
all my life justified the belief I should be false to honour? My danger
here was made quite plain, and Captain King would have had me steer a
course for France, where I had found a welcome and a harbour. But to
consent I must have been false to my Lords of Arundel and Pembroke, who
were sureties to the King for my return. Life is still sweet to me,
despite my three-score years and more, but honour is sweeter still.”
And then, because life was sweet, he bluntly asked his cousin: “What is
the King’s intent by me?”
“Nay, now,” said Stukeley, “who shall know what passes in the King’s
mind? From the signs, I judge your case to be none so desperate. You
have good friends in plenty, among whom, although the poorest, count
myself the first. Anon, when you are rested, we’ll to London by easy
stages, baiting at the houses of your friends, and enlisting their good
offices on your behalf.”
Ralegh took counsel on the matter with Captain King, a bluff,
tawny-bearded seaman, who was devoted to him body and soul.
“Sir Lewis proposes it, eh?” quoth the hardy seaman. “And Sir Lewis is
Vice-Admiral of Devon? He is not by chance bidden to escort you to
London?”
The Captain, clearly, had escaped the spell of Stukeley’s affability.
Sir Walter was indignant. He had never held his kinsman in great
esteem, and had never been on the best of terms with him in the past.
Nevertheless, he was very far from suspecting him of what King implied.
To convince him that he did Sir Lewis an injustice, Ralegh put the
blunt question to his kinsman in King’s presence.
“Nay,” said Sir Lewis, “I am not yet bidden to escort you. But as
Vice-Admiral of Devon I may at any moment be so bidden. It were wiser,
I hold, not to await such an order. Though even if it come,” he made
haste to add, “you may still count upon my friendship. I am your
kinsman first, and Vice-Admiral after.”
With a smile that irradiated his handsome, virile countenance, Sir
Walter held out his hand to clasp his cousin’s in token of
appreciation. Captain King expressed no opinion save what might be
conveyed in a grunt and a shrug.
Guided now unreservedly by his cousin’s counsel, Sir Walter set out
with him upon that journey to London. Captain King went with them, as
well as Sir Walter’s body-servant, Cotterell, and a Frenchman named
Manourie, who had made his first appearance in the Plymouth household
on the previous day. Stukeley explained the fellow as a gifted man of
medicine, whom he had sent for to cure him of a trivial but
inconvenient ailment by which he was afflicted.
Journeying by slow stages, as Sir Lewis had directed, they came at last
to Brentford. Sir Walter, had he followed his own bent, would have
journeyed more slowly still, for in a measure, as he neared London,
apprehensions of what might await him there grew ever darker. He spoke
of them to King, and the blunt Captain said nothing to dispel them.
“You are being led like a sheep to the shambles,” he declared, “and you
go like a sheep. You should have landed in France, where you have
friends. Even now it is not too late. A ship could be procured...”
“And my honour could be sunk at sea,” Sir Walter harshly concluded, in
reproof of such counsel.
But at the inn at Brentford he was sought out by a visitor, who brought
him the like advice in rather different terms. This was De Chesne, the
secretary of the French envoy, Le Clerc. Cordially welcomed by Ralegh,
the Frenchman expressed his deep concern to see Sir Walter under
arrest.
“You conclude too hastily,” laughed Sir Walter.
“Monsieur, I do not conclude. I speak of what I am inform’.”
“Misinformed, sir. I am not a prisoner—at least, not yet,” he added,
with a sigh. “I travel of my own free will to London with my good
friend and kinsman Stukeley to lay the account of my voyage before the
King.”
“Of your own free will? You travel of your own free will? And you are
not a prisoner? Ha!” There was bitter mockery in De Chesne’s short
laugh. “C’est bien drole!” And he explained: “Milord the Duke o
Buckingham, he has write in his master’s name to the ambassador
Gondomar that you are taken and held at the disposal of the King of
Spain. Gondomar is to inform him whether King Philip wish that you be
sent to Spain to essay the justice of his Catholic Majesty, or that you
suffer here. Meanwhile your quarters are being made ready in the Tower.
Yet you tell me you are not prisoner! You go of your own free will to
London. Sir Walter, do not be deceive’. If you reach London, you are
lost.”
Now here was news to shatter Sir Walter’s last illusion. Yet
desperately he clung to the fragments of it. The envoy’s secretary must
be at fault.
“’Tis yourself are at fault, Sir Walter, in that you trust those about
you,” the Frenchman insisted.
Sir Walter stared at him, frowning. “D’ye mean Stukeley?” quoth he,
half-indignant already at the mere suggestion.
“Sir Lewis, he is your kinsman.” De Chesne shrugged. “You should know
your family better than I. But who is this Manourie who accompanies
you? Where is he come from? What you know of him?”
Sir Walter confessed that he knew nothing.
“But I know much. He is a fellow of evil reputation. A spy who does not
scruple to sell his own people. And I know that letters of commission
from the Privy Council for your arrest were give’ to him in London ten
days ago. Whether those letters were to himself, or he was just the
messenger to another, imports nothing. The fact is everything. The
warrant against you exists, and it is in the hands of one or another of
those that accompany you. I say no more. As I have tol’ you, you should
know your own family. But of this be sure, they mean that you go to the
Tower, and so to your death. And now, Sir Walter, if I show you the
disease I also bring the remedy. I am command’ by my master to offer
you a French barque which is in the Thames, and a safe conduct to the
Governor of Calais. In France you will find safety and honour, as your
worth deserve’.”
Up sprang Sir Walter from his chair, and flung off the cloak of thought
in which he had been mantled.
“Impossible,” he said. “Impossible! There is my plighted word to
return, and there are my Lords of Arundel and Pembroke, who are
sureties for me. I cannot leave them to suffer by my default.”
“They will not suffer at all,” De Chesne assured him. He was very well
informed. “King James has yielded to Spain partly because he fears,
partly because he will have a Spanish marriage for Prince Charles, and
will do nothing to trouble his good relations with King Philip. But,
after all, you have friends, whom his Majesty also fears. If you
escape’ you would resolve all his perplexities. I do not believe that
any obstacle will be offer’ to your escape—else why they permit you to
travel thus without any guard, and to retain your sword?”
Half distracted as he was by what he had learnt, yet Sir Walter clung
stoutly and obstinately to what he believed to be the only course for a
man of honour. And so he dismissed De Chesne with messages of gratitude
but refusal to his master, and sent for Captain King. Together they
considered all that the secretary had stated, and King agreed with De
Chesne’s implied opinion that it was Sir Lewis himself who held the
warrant.
They sent for him at once, and Ralegh straightly taxed him with it. Sir
Lewis as straightly admitted it, and when King thereupon charged him
with deceit he showed no anger, but only the profoundest grief. He sank
into a chair, and took his head in his hands.
“What could I do? What could I do?” he cried. “The warrant came in the
very moment we were setting out. At first I thought of telling you; and
then I bethought me that to do so would be but to trouble your mind,
without being able to offer you help.”
Sir Walter understood what was implied. “Did you not say,” he asked,
“that you were my kinsman first and Vice-Admiral of Devon after?”
“Ay—and so I am. Though I must lose my office of Vice-Admiral, which
has cost me six hundred pounds, if I suffer you to escape, I’d never
hesitate if it were not for Manourie, who watches me as closely as he
watches you, and would baulk us at the last. And that is why I have
held my peace on the score of this warrant. What can it help that I
should trouble you with the matter until at the same time I can offer
you some way out?”
“The Frenchman has a throat, and throats can be slit,” said the
downright King.
“So they can; and men can be hanged for slitting them,” returned Sir
Lewis, and thereafter resumed and elaborated his first argument, using
now such forceful logic and obvious sincerity that Sir Walter was
convinced. He was no less convinced, too, of the peril in which he
stood. He plied those wits of his, which had rarely failed him in an
extremity. Manourie was the difficulty. But in his time he had known
many of these agents who, without sentimental interest and purely for
the sake of gold, were ready to play such parts; and never yet had he
known one who was not to be corrupted. So that evening he desired
Manourie’s company in the room above stairs that had been set apart for
Sir Walter’s use. Facing him across the table at which both were
seated, Sir Walter thrust his clenched fist upon the board, and,
suddenly opening it, dazzled the Frenchman’s beady eyes with the jewel
sparkling in his palm.
“Tell me, Manourie, are you paid as much as that to betray me?”
Manourie paled a little under his tan. He was a swarthy, sharp-featured
fellow, slight and wiry. He looked into Sir Walter’s grimly smiling
eyes, then again at the white diamond, from which the candlelight was
striking every colour of the rainbow. He made a shrewd estimate of its
price, and shook his black head. He had quite recovered from the shock
of Sir Walter’s question.
“Not half as much,” he confessed, with impudence.
“Then you might find it more remunerative to serve me,” said the
knight. “This jewel is to be earned.”
The agent’s eyes flickered; he passed his tongue over his lips. “As
how?” quoth he.
“Briefly thus: I have but learnt of the trammel in which I am taken. I
must have time to concert my measures of escape, and time is almost at
an end. You are skilled in drugs, so my kinsman tells me. Can you so
drug me as to deceive physicians that I am in extremis?”
Manourie considered awhile.
“I... I think I could,” he answered presently.
“And keep faith with me in this, at the price of, say.. two such
stones?”
The venal knave gasped in amazement. This was not generosity; it was
prodigality. He recovered again, and swore himself Sir Walter’s.
“About it, then.” Sir Walter rolled the gem across the board into the
clutch of the spy, which pounced to meet it. “Keep that in earnest. The
other will follow when we have cozened them.”
Next morning Sir Walter could not resume the journey. When Cotterell
went to dress him he found his master taken with vomits, and reeling
like a drunkard. The valet ran to fetch Sir Lewis, and when they
returned together they found Sir Walter on all fours gnawing the rushes
on the floor, his face livid and horribly distorted, his brow
glistening with sweat.
Stukeley, in alarm, ordered Cotterell to get his master back to bed and
to foment him, which was done. But on the next day there was no
improvement, and on the third things were in far more serious case. The
skin of his brow and arms and breast was inflamed, and covered with
horrible purple blotches—the result of an otherwise harmless ointment
with which the French empiric had supplied him.
When Stukeley beheld him thus disfigured, and lying apparently inert
and but half-conscious upon his bed, he backed away in terror. The
Vice-Admiral had seen afore-time the horrible manifestations of the
plague, and could not be mistaken here. He fled from the infected air
of his kinsman’s chamber, and summoned what physicians were available
to pronounce and prescribe. The physicians came—three in number—but
manifested no eagerness to approach the patient closely. The mere sight
of him was enough to lead them to the decision that he was afflicted
with the plague in a singularly virulent form.
Presently one of them plucked up courage so far as to feel the pulse of
the apparently delirious patient. Its feebleness confirmed his
diagnosis; moreover the hand he held was cold and turgid. He was not to
know that Sir Walter had tightly wrapped about his upper arm the ribbon
from his poniard, and so he was entirely deceived.
The physicians withdrew, and delivered their verdict, whereupon Sir
Lewis at once sent word of it to the Privy Council.
That afternoon the faithful Captain King, sorely afflicted by the news,
came to visit his master, and was introduced to Sir Walter’s chamber by
Manourie, who was in attendance upon him. To the seaman’s amazement he
found Sir Walter sitting up in bed, surveying in a hand-mirror a face
that was horrible beyond description with the complacent smile of one
who takes satisfaction in his appearance. Yet there was no fevered
madness in the smiling eyes. They were alive with intelligence,
amounting, indeed, to craft.
“Ah, King!” was the glad welcome “The prophet David did make himself a
fool, and suffered spittle to fall upon his beard, to escape from the
hands of his enemies And there was Brutus, ay, and others as memorable
who have descended to such artifice.”
Though he laughed, it is clear that he was seeking to excuse an
unworthiness of which he was conscious.
“Artifice?” quoth King, aghast. “Is this artifice?”
“Ay—a hedge against my enemies, who will be afraid to approach me.”
King sat himself down by his master’s bed. “A better hedge against your
enemies, Sir Walter, would have been the strip of sea ’twixt here and
France. Would to Heaven you had done as I advised ere you set foot in
this ungrateful land.”
“The omission may be repaired,” said Sir Walter.
Before the imminence of his peril, as now disclosed to him, Sir Walter
had been reconsidering De Chesne’s assurance touching my Lords of
Arundel and Pembroke, and he had come to conclude—the more readily,
perhaps because it was as he would have it—that De Chesne was right;
that to break faith with them were no such great matter after all, nor
one for which they would be called upon to suffer. And so, now, when it
was all but too late, he yielded to the insistence of Captain King, and
consented to save himself by flight to France. King was to go about the
business of procuring a ship without loss of time. Yet there was no
need of desperate haste, as was shown when presently orders came to
Brentford for the disposal of the prisoner. The King, who was at
Salisbury, desired that Sir Walter should be conveyed to his own house
in London. Stukeley reported this to him, proclaiming it a sign of
royal favour. Sir Walter was not deceived. He knew the reason to be
fear lest he should infect the Tower with the plague by which he was
reported stricken.
So the journey was resumed, and Sir Walter was brought to London, and
safely bestowed in his own house, but ever in the care of his loving
friend and kinsman. Manourie’s part being fulfilled and the aim
accomplished, Sir Walter completed the promised payment by bestowing
upon him the second diamond—a form of eminently portable currency with
which the knight was well supplied. On the morrow Manourie was gone,
dismissed as a consequence of the part he had played.
It was Stukeley who told Sir Walter this—a very well informed and
injured Stukeley, who asked to know what he had done to forfeit the
knight’s confidence that behind his back Sir Walter secretly concerted
means of escape. Had his cousin ceased to trust him?
Sir Walter wondered. Looking into that lean, crafty face, he considered
King’s unquenchable mistrust of the man, bethought him of his kinsman’s
general neediness, remembered past events that shed light upon his ways
and nature, and began now at last to have a sense of the man’s
hypocrisy and double-dealing. Yet he reasoned in regard to him
precisely as he had reasoned in regard to Manourie. The fellow was
acquisitive, and therefore corruptible. If, indeed, he was so base that
he had been bought to betray Sir Walter, then he could be bought again
to betray those who had so bought him.
“Nay, nay,” said Sir Walter easily. “It is not lack of trust in you, my
good friend. But you are the holder of an office, and knowing as I do
the upright honesty of your character I feared to embarrass you with
things whose very knowledge must give you the parlous choice of being
false to that office or false to me.”
Stukeley broke forth into imprecations. He was, he vowed, the most
accursed and miserable of men that such a task as this should have
fallen to his lot. And he was a poor man, too, he would have his cousin
remember. It was unthinkable that he should use the knowledge he had
gained to attempt to frustrate Sir Walter’s plans of escape to France.
And this notwithstanding that if Sir Walter escaped, it is certain he
would lose his office of Vice-Admiral and the six hundred pounds he had
paid for it.
“As to that, you shall be at no loss,” Sir Walter assured him. “I could
not suffer it. I pledge you my honour, Lewis, that you shall have a
thousand pounds from my wife on the day that I am safely landed in
France or Holland. Meanwhile, in earnest of what is to come, here is a
toy of value for you.” And he presented Sir Lewis with a jewel of
price, a great ruby encrusted in diamonds.
Thus reassured that he would be immune from pecuniary loss, Sir Lewis
was ready to throw himself whole-heartedly into Sir Walter’s plans, and
to render him all possible assistance. True, this assistance was a
costly matter; there was this person to be bought and that one; there
were expenses here and expenses there, incurred by Sir Lewis on his
kinsman’s behalf; and there were odd presents, too, which Stukeley
seemed to expect and which Sir Walter could not deny him. He had no
illusions now that King had been right; that here he was dealing with a
rogue who would exact the uttermost farthing for his services, but he
was gratified at the shrewdness with which he had taken his cousin’s
measure, and did not grudge the bribes by which he was to escape the
scaffold.
De Chesne came again to the house in London, to renew his master’s
offer of a ship to carry Sir Walter overseas, and such other assistance
as Sir Walter might require But by now the knight’s arrangements were
complete. His servant Cotterell had come to inform him that his own
boatswain, now in London, was the owner of a ketch, at present lying at
Tilbury, admirably suited for the enterprise and entirely at Sir
Walter’s disposal. It had been decided, then, with the agreement of
Captain King, that they should avail themselves of this; and
accordingly Cotterell was bidden desire the boatswain to have the craft
made ready for sea at once. In view of this, and anxious to avoid
unnecessarily compromising the French envoy, Sir Walter gratefully
declined the latter’s offer.