Chapter 15

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.