Sir Mortimer

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.

THE END



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