.. -*- encoding: utf-8 -*-

.. meta::
   :PG.Id: 43786
   :PG.Title: A Gentleman-at-arms
   :PG.Released: 2013-09-21
   :PG.Rights: Public Domain
   :PG.Producer: Al Haines
   :DC.Creator: Herbert Strang
   :MARCREL.ill: Cyrus Cuneo
   :MARCREL.ill: T. H. Robinson
   :DC.Title: A Gentleman-at-arms
              Being passages in the life of Sir Christopher Rudd, Knight
   :DC.Language: en
   :DC.Created: 1914
   :coverpage: images/img-cover.jpg

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A GENTLEMAN-AT-ARMS
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   .. _`SUDDENLY THERE WAS A ROAR OF MUSKETS, AND THROUGH THE SMOKE I SAW THE SPANIARDS RUSHING TOWARDS US`:

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      :alt: SUDDENLY THERE WAS A ROAR OF MUSKETS, AND THROUGH THE SMOKE I SAW THE SPANIARDS RUSHING TOWARDS US

      SUDDENLY THERE WAS A ROAR OF MUSKETS, AND THROUGH THE SMOKE I SAW THE SPANIARDS RUSHING TOWARDS US

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      A GENTLEMAN-AT-ARMS:

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      BEING PASSAGES IN THE LIFE OF
      SIR CHRISTOPHER RUDD, KNIGHT,
      AS RELATED BY HIMSELF IN THE
      YEAR 1641 AND NOW SET FORTH BY

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      HERBERT STRANG

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      WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
      CYRUS CUNEO
      AND T. H. ROBINSON

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      LONDON
      HENRY FROWDE
      HODDER & STOUGHTON

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      Title page

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      *First printed in 1914*

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   CONTENTS

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   `INTRODUCTORY`_

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   `THE FIRST PART`_

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CHRISTOPHER RUDD'S ADVENTURE IN HISPANIOLA,
AND THE STRANGE STORY OF CAPTAIN Q


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   `THE SECOND PART`_

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CHRISTOPHER RUDD'S ADVENTURE IN FRANCE,
AND HIS BORROWING OF THE WHITE PLUME OF
HENRY OF NAVARRE


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   `THE THIRD PART`_

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CHRISTOPHER RUDD'S ADVENTURE IN THE LOW
COUNTRIES, AND HIS QUAINT DEVICE OF THE
SILVER SHOT


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   `THE FOURTH PART`_

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CHRISTOPHER RUDD'S ADVENTURE IN SPAIN, AND
THE FASHION IN WHICH HE PLAYED THE PART OF
A PHYSICIAN


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   `THE FIFTH PART`_

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CHRISTOPHER RUDD'S ADVENTURE IN IRELAND,
AND THE MANNER OF HIS WINNING A WIFE


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   `POSTSCRIPT`_


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   LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

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   COLOUR PLATES BY CYRUS CUNEO

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`SUDDENLY THERE WAS A ROAR OF MUSKETS, AND
THROUGH THE SMOKE I SAW THE SPANIARDS
RUSHING TOWARDS US`_ (see p. `52`_) . . . *Frontispiece*

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`I BEHELD THE MAN KNEELING BEFORE AN OPEN
CHEST, GLOATING OVER IT, PLUNGING HIS HANDS
INTO IT`_

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`THE SIEUR DE LANGRES GAVE ONE CHOKING SIGH,
AND FELL AT THE KING'S FEET`_

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`RAISING HIS SWORD HIGH ABOVE HIS HEAD, HE
BROUGHT IT DOWN WITH A VEHEMENT STROKE`_

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`PINNING HIM DOWN UPON A CHAIR, I BADE HIM
STERNLY GIVE HEED TO CERTAIN CONDITIONS ON
WHICH I WOULD SPARE HIS LIFE`_

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`DOWN HE WENT UPON THE COBBLES, AND I STOOD
OVER HIM WHILE HE LAY AND GROANED`_

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`INSTANTLY RAOUL WAS AT DON YGNACIO'S THROAT`_

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`I FOUND MY LADY KNEELING BESIDE ME, HOLDING A CUP`_

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   DRAWINGS BY T. H. ROBINSON

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`I LAY HID UNTIL THE MAN HAD COME FORTH AND
GONE HIS WAY`_

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`HE CAUGHT THE SWIMMER AS HE WAS ON THE POINT
OF SINKING`_

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`THE SPANIARDS LEAPT INTO THE RAVINE AND
CLAMBERED UP THE OTHER SIDE`_

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`THE SWIFTNESS OF OUR ONSET TOOK THE SPANIARDS
ALL ABACK`_

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`WE OPENED THE CHESTS IN HIS PRESENCE`_

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`I FELT A SHARP PANG IN THE CALF OF MY LEFT LEG`_

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`A FIGURE SPRANG AT ME OUT OF THE DARK ENTRY`_

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`I SAW A MAN LYING IN A HUDDLED HEAP`_

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`WE CREPT SOFTLY AS FOXES TOWARD THE WALL`_

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`"SIR, YOU COME FROM THE ILLUSTRIOUS PRINCE
MAURICE OF NASSAU?"`_

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`RIGHT MERRY WERE THE CITIZENS AT THE SUCCESS
OF OUR ENTERPRISE`_

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`VOLMAR READ THE LETTER BY THE AID OF A LANTERN`_

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`I BEHELD THREE MEN AS BLACK BLOTS MOVING IN
THE DARKNESS`_

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`"TO-MORROW THE ORDER WILL BE GIVEN TO THE
CAPTAIN OF THE GUARD TO ARREST YOU"`_

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`I TOLD HIM VERY SHORTLY, AND NEVER IN MY LIFE
HAVE I SEEN SO PITEOUS A SPECTACLE AS THAT
LITTLE ROUND RUBICUND MAN`_

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`I FOUND SIR WALTER IN HIS GARDEN`_

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`HE THRUST INTO MY HAND SOME PAPERS`_

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`I MADE BOLD TO ACCOST HIM`_

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`I BETOOK MYSELF TO AN APOTHECARY'S`_

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`"OUT OF MY SIGHT, RAPSCALLION!"`_

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`SHOWING HIM MY DAGGER, I BADE HIM HOLD HIS
PEACE`_

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`HE PLIED THE WHIP RIGHT MERRILY`_

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`THEY DID BUT MOCK ME WITH JEERS AND HORRID
EXECRATIONS`_

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`"I WILL SURELY EXECUTE UPON YOU ANY VIOLENCE
OR INDIGNITY THAT MY FATHER MAY SUFFER"`_

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`GATHERING MY SPEED, IN FOUR LEAPS I WAS UPON HIM`_

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`HE CLUTCHED ME BY THE ARM AND POINTED TO A
REGIMENT OF DUSKY SHAPES`_

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`I CROSSED THE GUARD OF RORY MAC SHANE, AND
GAVE HIM THE POINT OF MY SWORD`_

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`"HOW NOW, MY BULLY ROOK!"`_

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HEADINGS ON PAGES . . . `17`_, `81`_, `129`_, `217`_, `311`_

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TAILPIECES ON PAGES . . . `75`_, `123`_, `209`_, `304`_, `382`_


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.. _`INTRODUCTORY`:

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   INTRODUCTORY

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The Rudds, like many another ancient family,
have come down in the world, as the saying goes.
They no longer live on the toil of others, but work
for their own livelihood.  They no longer own
manors, or follow their feudal lords to court in
armour; but here and there about the world, in
business, at the Bar, in the Army or administrative
offices, they worthily sustain the honour
of their name.

The present head of the family cherishes an
heirloom, which has descended from father to
son through three centuries.  It has no
commercial value; it would not fetch a shilling in
the auction room: indeed, the mere hint of selling
it would shock a Rudd.  It is a flat leather case,
discoloured, frayed at the edges, almost worn
out with age.  But upon its side may still be
seen faint traces of the initials C.R., and within
it lies a bundle of faded papers, with the following
inscription on the cover:

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*Certeyn Passages in the Life of Syr Christopher
Rudde, knyghte, related by himselfe in the
yeare of our Lorde 1641, and written down
by his grandsonne Stephen.*

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It is easy to understand why this old
manuscript is treasured by the Rudd family.  The
"certain passages" in their ancestor's life are
interesting in themselves, as narratives of
romantic adventure in various countries of the old
world and the new.  They give incidental pictures
of remarkable scenes and personages, and throw
not a little light on the manners and conditions
of bygone times.  Above all, they seem to me to
portray an English gentleman of the great age
of Elizabeth—a gentleman who had a proper
pride in his country without scorning others, and
was ever ready to draw his sword chivalrously
in the cause of freedom and justice.

The grandson, Stephen Rudd, professes to
have written these stories as they were told him
by his grandfather; but I cannot help suspecting
that he dealt with them somewhat as the
parliamentary reporters of the present day are said to
deal with the speeches delivered on the floor of
the House—arranging, giving form and coherence.
You can detect in the style echoes of the prose
of Elizabeth's day, but it is on the whole less
coloured, less vigorous, more formal, in the
manner of the Caroline writers; and it has not
the unconstraint of a man talking at ease in his
armchair.  The events related are separated by
wide intervals of time, and Stephen has filled up
the gaps with brief accounts of the course of
public affairs, as well as of the personal history
of his grandfather.  In printing these along with
Sir Christopher's stories, I have thought it best,
for the sake of uniformity, to modernise the
spelling: there would be no object in perplexing
the reader with such antique forms, for instance,
as *beesyde*, *woordes* and *tunge*.

Sir Christopher's first story plunges at once
into an adventure of his seventeenth year, and
it is perhaps advisable to preface it with a few
particulars of his earlier life.  He was born, it
appears, on July 15, 1571, the son of a country
gentleman who owned a manor on the outskirts
of the New Forest.  This was the year of the
discovery of the Norfolk plot against the life of
Queen Elizabeth, and the opening of a period of
great moment in the history of England and
Europe.  The boy was six years old when Drake
set sail on his famous voyage to the Pacific; and
during the next few years he must have heard
many stirring events talked about in his father's
hall—Alva's persecutions in the Netherlands, the
assassination of the Prince of Orange, the
buccaneering exploits of the English sea-dogs.  At the
age of twelve he entered William of Wykeham's
great school at Winchester, and we may imagine
how eagerly he discussed with his school fellows
such items of exciting news as filtered through
from the greater world.  It is not surprising that
his imagination was fired, that the lust of
adventure gripped him, and that at last the call proved
irresistible, bringing his schooldays to an abrupt
end, and luring him forth to a career of activity
and enterprise.

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HERBERT STRANG





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.. _`THE FIRST PART`:

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THE FIRST PART

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CHRISTOPHER RUDD'S ADVENTURE IN
HISPANIOLA, AND THE STRANGE STORY OF
CAPTAIN Q.

.. _`17`:

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   headpiece to First Part

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I

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I was a lank youth of sixteen years when I
fell into the hands of the Spaniards of Hispaniola—an
accident wherein my grandam saw the
hand of Providence chastising a prodigal son;
but of that you shall judge.

In the summer of the year 1587, riding from
school home by way of Southampton, I was told
there of a brigantine then fitting out, to convey
forth a company of gentlemen adventurers to
the Spanish Main in quest of treasure.  Sir
Francis Drake had lately come home from
spoiling the Spaniards' ships in the harbour of
Cadiz, and the ports of our south coast were
ringing with the tale of his wondrous doings;
and I, being known for a lad of quick blood and
gamesome temper, was resolved to go where
Francis Drake had gone aforetime, and gain
somewhat of the wealth then lying open to
adventurers bold to pluck the King of Spain's
beard.  Wherefore one fine night I stole from
my bed-chamber, hied me to the quay at
Southampton, and bestowed myself secretly aboard
the good ship *Elizabeth*.

Of my discovery in the hold, and the cuffs I
got, and the probation I was put to, and my
admission thereafter to the company of
gentlemen adventurers, I will say nothing.  The
*Elizabeth* made in due time the coast of
Hispaniola, and when Hilary Rawdon, the captain,
sent a party of his crew ashore to fill their
water-casks, I must needs accompany them;
'twas the first land we had touched for two weary
months, and I felt a desperate urgency to stretch
my legs.  And while we were about our business,
up comes a posse of Spaniards swiftly out of
the woods, and there is a sudden onfall and a
sharp tussle, and our party, being outnumbered
three to one, is sore discomfited and utterly
put to the rout, but not until all save myself
and another are slain, and I find myself on my
back, with a Spanish bullet in my leg.  And you
see me now borne away among the victors,
and when I am healed of my wound, I learn that
I am a slave on the lands of a most noble hidalgo
of Spain, one Don Alfonso de Silva de Marabona,
and an admiral to boot.

Now I had left home to spoil the Spaniards
and with no other intent; wherefore to toil and
sweat under a hot sun on the fields of a Spanish
admiral, however noble, was no whit to my liking.
Moreover, Don Alfonso proved an exceeding
hard taskmaster, and bore heavily upon me his
prisoner, a thing that was perhaps no cause for
wonder, seeing that of all who had suffered when
Master Drake sacked San Domingo, he had suffered
the most.  His mansion had been plundered
and burnt; his pride had been wounded by the
despite done to his galleons; and when a Spaniard
is hurt both in pride and in pocket, he is not
like to prove himself a very generous foe.  And
so I was in a manner the scapegoat for Master
Drake's offences, and had in good sooth to smart
for it.  My noble master made no ado about
commanding me to be flogged if he were not
content with me; and to rub the juice of lemons,
laced with salt and pepper, into the wounds made
by the lash, is a marvellous shrewd way (though
nowise commendable) of fostering penitence and
remorse.

But in this unhappy plight I was not left
without a friend.  One midday, when I was
resting from my toil in the fields, there came to
me a spare and sallow boy, somewhat younger
than myself, and spoke courteously to me in a
kind of French, the which I, being by no means
without my rudiments, made shift to understand.
I soon perceived that we had a something in
common, namely, a heavy and grievous grudge
against Don Alfonso de Silva de Marabona, the
which became a bond of unity betwixt us.
Antonio (so was he named) was nephew to the
admiral, and dependent on him—though his
father had been a rich man,—by him, moreover,
treated with great rigour.  Ere long I was well
acquainted with Antonio's doleful case.  It was
eleven years since his father the elder Antonio
had sailed away for Spain, being summoned
thither about some question of law concerning
his estates in Castile.  He took with him, in
the galleon *San Felipe*, a store of treasure
belonging to his brother the admiral, together
with a yet costlier freight for behoof of his
Catholic Majesty of Spain.  And there was
Antonio, a motherless infant of four years, left in
his uncle's charge, his father purposing to return
for him in the following summer, by the which
time he hoped to have set his affairs in order.

The stormy season of the year was at hand
when he departed, and divers of his friends
had warned him against the perils of the long
voyage.  But Don Antonio feared the elements
less than the French and English rovers who
then infested the seas, and he had indeed
chosen this time advisedly, for that it was
little likely to tempt the pirates from their
lairs.  It fell out, however, that he had not left
port above three days when a great tempest
arose, suddenly, as the manner is in those
regions, and to the wonted terrors of the
tornado was added an earthquake, with fierce
rumblings and vast upheavals of the soil, so
that the admiral made great lament about his
brother and the wealth he had in charge.  Don
Antonio came no more to Hispaniola; the
galleon *San Felipe* was heard of never more;
and his son had remained under the austere
governance of Don Alfonso, who showed him
no kindness, but ever seemed to look upon him
as a burthen.  When Antonio came to the age
of twelve, he inquired of his uncle whether the
estates of his late father would not one day be
his; but the admiral made answer that he had
long since purchased the property from his
brother, who had purposed sometime to quit the
island and spend the remnant of his days in
Spain.

Such was Antonio's story, as he told it to me.
He called his uncle a fiend; as for me, I called
him, in the English manner, Old Marrow-bones;
we both signified one and the same thing—that
we held him in loathing and abhorrence.  This
was our bond of union, and soon it became our
custom to meet daily and rehearse our woes
in consort.  Antonio was ever careful to keep
these our meetings secret, since he knew that,
coming perchance to the admiral's ears, they
would be deemed a cause of offence, and be
punished, beyond doubt, with many stripes.

But to dub your enemy with opprobrious
names brings you no contentment, and does
him no hurt.  In no great while I began to
consider of some means whereby I might
contrive to slip the leash of my illustrious master.
Having made Antonio swear by all his saints
that he would not betray me, I took counsel
with him; indeed, I essayed to persuade the boy
to put all to the hazard, and make his escape
with me.  But Antonio could not screw his
resolution to this pitch.  He was content to
throw himself with right good-will into the
perfecting of my plans.  And so it came to pass
that one fine day, about sunset, I took French
leave (as the saying is) and set off on my lonely
way to liberty.  I had nothing upon me save
my garments, and a long machete (so their
knives are called) given me by Antonio; but
as Samson slew countless Philistines with the
jawbone of an ass, and David laid Goliath low
with a pebble from the brook; so I, though I
did not liken myself to those heroes of old, yet
knew myself to be a fellow-countryman with
Francis Drake, and needed no doughtier
ensample to inspire me.

Following Antonio's wise and prudent counsel
I set my face towards the north-west angle
of the island, for the reason that, parted from
it by only a narrow strip of sea, there lay
the smaller island of Tortuga, where it was
possible that some countrymen of my own might
be.  Tortuga had been at some time a settlement
of the Spaniards, but they had now abandoned
it, and if an English ship should chance to have
put in to water there, or to burn the barnacles
off its hull, I might light upon the crew and
join myself to them, and so bring my tribulations
to an end.  And after near a week's trudging—with
herbs for my meat and water from the
streams for my drink—I came one day to the
further shore of Hispaniola, and with great
gladness beheld the strange hump-backed island,
like a monstrous tortoise floating on the sea,
for which cause it was named Tortuga.

A day or two I spent in roaming to and fro,
gazing hungrily seawards for a ship.  And when
none appeared, I bethought me that I should
certainly be none the worse conditioned—nay, I
might be a great deal the better—if I should
cross to the smaller island and there make my
abode.  Having once been the habitation of
Christian folk, methought it would retain some
remnants of its former plantations, so that I
need not want for food; and of a surety, with
a wider expanse of sea before me, I should be
in better case to spy a passing vessel than if
I remained on Hispaniola.  I was minded at
first to swim the channel—'twould be no great
feat—but, observing at the water's edge a pair
of ground-sharks lying in wait for a toothsome
meal, I gave up this design very readily, and
considered of some safer way.

There were woods growing almost to the
shore.  To a boy with his mind set on it, and a
sharp knife to his hand, the making of a raft
is a task of no great labour or hardship.  'Twas
the work of two days to lop branches meet for
my purpose, strip them, and bind them together
with strands of bejuca, a climbing plant of
serviceable sort; and on the third day I launched
my raft, and oared myself across the still water,
being companied by a disappointed shark the
better part of the way.  I went ashore in some
fear and trembling lest I should meet Spaniards,
or other hostile men; but I saw no sign of
present habitation, and wandered for near a
day without lighting on any traces of mankind.
But at length in my course I spied a heap of
wood ashes, and some rinds of fruit, and a little
beyond a broken hen-coop, whereby I knew that
men sometimes resorted to the island, as Antonio
had said.  It came into my mind that my late
companions of the *Elizabeth* had perchance set
foot here no long while before me, and I felt a
great longing to look on them again.  I wondered
where they might be, whether they had fought
the Spaniards on the Main and gained great
treasure, or whether they had given up their
quest and sailed away for home.

Some days I spent in solitude, never straying
far from the coast, lest I should be out of sight
if a ship came near.  There was food in plenty—such
is the bounty of Providence in those climes;
and of nights I ensconced myself in a little hut
I built of branches in a nook on the shore.

One evening as I roamed upon the cliff, and
with vain longing scanned the sea, on a sudden
I espied, moving among the tree trunks on my
right hand, a patch of red.  In great perturbation
of spirit I sprang behind a tree.  I had not
seen clearly what the object was: it might be
a man, it might be a beast.  In the wildernesses
about the middle of Hispaniola there were, I
knew, herds of wild dogs and boars, a terror
to human kind; and a fear beset me lest Tortuga
also were the haunt of savage creatures, which
might come upon me in the night.  Meseemed I
must at the least resolve my doubts, wherefore I
went forward stealthily, bending among creeping
plants, skipping from trunk to trunk, straining
my eyes for another glimpse of that patch of red.
For some little while I sought in vain, and I
was in a sweat of apprehension lest I should
stumble into danger; but after stalking for
near half-an-hour, as I supposed, of a sudden I
saw some moving thing among the trees within
a hundred paces of me.  Even as I watched, a
quaint and marvellous figure came forth into
a little open space—the form of a man, arrayed
from doublet to shoes in garments of bright red.
His head was bare; a rapier hung at his side;
and as I looked he plucked the weapon by the
hilts, and made sundry passes in the air, going
from me slowly into the woodland.  Never in
my life had I beheld a man so oddly apparelled,
and to find such an one here, on this lone island
of Tortuga, set me athrill with admiration.  I
deemed that I should have no security of mind
until I had learnt somewhat of this stranger, and
whether there were others with him; wherefore
with stealthy steps I followed him into the
woodland, and there, after near losing him, I saw him
enter a little hut set in the midst of a narrow
laund.  From behind a tree I watched the
red man.  He kindled a fire, and I looked for
him to cook his supper; but instead, he laid
himself down on a bed of dried grass, so that
the smoke from the fire might be carried by the
light wind across him, the which in a moment
I guessed to be his device for warding off the
insects; I had suffered many things from their
appetite in the nights I had slept in the woods
of Hispaniola.

Seeing that the red man had composed himself
to sleep, I returned quietly to my hut on the
shore, and when I fell asleep dreamed that I
beheld him defending at the rapier's point young
Antonio against the whip of the noble admiral
Don Alfonso de Silva de Marabona.  I rose with
the sun and stole back to the woodland, in hope
to see the man quit his sleeping-place and to
gain some light upon his manner of life and his
doings upon this lone island.  But the hut was
empty; its inhabitant was already astir.  Not
that day nor for several days after did I set
eyes on him again; but one high noon I had a
glimpse of him roaming along the cliff, and while
I was following, a great way off, he suddenly
vanished from my sight as 'twere into the earth.

The numbness of terror seized upon me; I
stood fixed to the ground, never doubting (being
then but a boy) that 'twas the foul fiend in his
very person who had descended into the bowels
of the earth.  But bethinking me that I had
discerned no horns upon his head, nor the tail
that was his proper appendage, but, instead, a
rapier such as mortal men use, I plucked up
heart to draw nigh to the spot where he had
disappeared.  And when I came to it, 'twas not,
as I feared, a chasm, horrid with blue flame and
sulphurous fume, but a short, steep path in the
cliff-side.

Gathering my courage, I trod with wary steps
until I came to a small opening in the cliff.  And
when I had overcome my tearfulness and ventured
to peep in, I was struck with a great amazement,
for I beheld a vast vaulted chamber.
There came some little daylight into it through
fissures in its further wall, and when my eyes
had grown accustomed to the twilight, and
comprehended the whole space, I saw there,
before and below me, the hull of a galleon,
lying somewhat upon its side, with a little water
about its keel.  And as I looked, I beheld the
red man how he waded to the vessel, whose
side he ascended by a ladder of rope, and then,
having gained the deck, he was no more to be
seen.

I stood rooted in amazement.  I durst not
follow the red man further, conceiving that in a
land where all save Spaniards were intruders,
the odds were that he was of that race, and that
to accost him, even to discover myself to him,
might put my life in jeopardy.  Besides, the
man's aspect, and my remembrance of the
fierceness of his sword-play as I saw it in my
dream, counselled wariness: he was not a man
to approach but with caution.  Moreover, I
was in presence of a great marvel, perceiving no
means whereby the galleon had come into this
vault.  Save for the narrow entrance, and the
jagged rents in the walls, the chamber was
wholly enclosed; nor was there any passage
whereby so great a vessel could have been
hauled in from the sea.

Perplexed and bewildered, I waited long, but
vainly, for the red man to show himself again.
Then, when from sheer weariness and hunger I
was in a mind to return to the cliff, I beheld him
rise from below deck, descend by the ladder,
and, again wading through the water, make
towards me.  Incontinently and in silence I
fled, but halted when I gained the cliff, and lay
hid until the man had come forth and gone his
way.  Whereupon I stole back and descended
to the floor of the vault, to quench, if I might,
my burning curiosity.

.. _`I LAY HID UNTIL THE MAN HAD COME FORTH AND GONE HIS WAY`:

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   :alt: I LAY HID UNTIL THE MAN HAD COME FORTH AND GONE HIS WAY

   I LAY HID UNTIL THE MAN HAD COME FORTH AND GONE HIS WAY

I walked about the vessel, and when I came
to the stern, I started back, smitten with stark
amazement.  Her name was painted in great
golden letters there; I read it: 'twas SAN
FELIPE, the name of the galleon wherein the
father of my friend Antonio had sailed from San
Domingo eleven years since, and which had
never more been heard of.

I thought of witchcraft, and questioned
whether 'twere not the very work of the devil,
for sure no mortal hands had brought the
vessel through solid walls into this rock-bound
chamber.  But the galleon itself was in truth a
thing of substance; thee were real shells at the
brink of the water; the water itself (when I
dipped my finger and licked it) was salt; beyond
doubt the vault had communication with the
sea.  And even while I stood there I perceived
the water to be rising; 'twas deeper now than
when the man had first waded through it to the
vessel.  In haste I made the full circuit of the
place, searching for an entrance, but in vain.
Save the fissures letting in the light, there was
not a hole through which a rat might wriggle,
nor could I find the passage by which the water
came.

In much perplexity, oppressed by the wonder
of it, I left the place by and by and returned to
my hut.  But I could not long withhold myself
from the cavern, the which lured and (in a
manner) beckoned me by some strange spell.
Next day I came again to it, and did as I had
seen the red man do—to wit, waded through
the water and climbed on board.  My feet had
scarce touched the deck when I beheld the red
form standing in the narrow entrance at the
further end of the vault.  Quick as thought I
slipped into hiding on the lofty poop and there
kept watch.  The man came aboard and
descended by the companion, and a little after I
heard the tinkling of metal.  I was drawn as
by strong cords to learn what he was doing, and
crept silently as a mouse after him to the cabin.
As I drew near I heard again the clink of metal,
and when I came to the door I beheld the man
kneeling before an open chest, gloating over it,
plunging his hands into it, bathing them in the
pieces of eight that filled it to the brim.

.. _`I BEHELD THE MAN KNEELING BEFORE AN OPEN CHEST, GLOATING OVER IT, PLUNGING HIS HANDS INTO IT`:

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   :alt: I BEHELD THE MAN KNEELING BEFORE AN OPEN CHEST, GLOATING OVER IT, PLUNGING HIS HANDS INTO IT

   I BEHELD THE MAN KNEELING BEFORE AN OPEN CHEST, GLOATING OVER IT, PLUNGING HIS HANDS INTO IT

Spellbound, I stood and gazed.  This
discovery did but deepen the wonder.  I questioned
whether this were Antonio's father, who had
never sailed to Spain at all, but by some strange
means, belike with the help of demons, had
brought the vessel hither.  And then, as I
mused, the red man seemed to become aware
by some subtle sense that he was not alone.
Suddenly he turned his head, espied me, sprang
to his feet, and, whipping out his rapier, leapt
with a fierce cry towards me.  I turned to flee,
being unarmed save for my machete, the which
was no match for a rapier.  But I was a thought
too late.  The red man was upon my heels ere
I could slip overboard, crying out upon me in
words which I was too busy saving my life to
heed.

Then began a hot chase round the deck of
the galleon, the which might have continued
until the pursuer, being the elder, became
exhausted, had not I espied, in my running, a
half-pike lying over against the bulwarks.  This
I snatched up, and put myself in a posture of
defence.  "Voleur! voleur!" cried the red man,
glaring at me; and now I had certainty he
was no Spaniard.  We fought, and doubtless I
had fared ill but for my youth and the exercise
I had had in this very opposition of pike against
sword upon the voyage in the *Elizabeth*.  I was
but sixteen; the Frenchman wore the grave
aspect of a man of fifty; and though he fought
as one well practised in the handling of his
weapon, 'twas with a stiffness and want of
sureness that bespoke disuse.

Yet 'twas a desperate fight.  Once and again
I came very near to lose my life, and escaped
the Frenchman's point solely by my nimbleness.
Twice, indeed, the weapon found my flesh;
there was blood upon my sleeve.  And then
came my opportunity.  The Frenchman in
lunging at me over-reached himself, and I brought my
pike down with all my strength upon his arm.
His rapier fell to the deck, and before he could
recover himself I sprang upon him, and, by a
trick of wrestling I had learnt in bouts at our
country fairs, threw him upon his back.

And there were we two, he stretched on the
deck, I pinning him down, and both of us breathing
hard, and gazing each into the other's eyes.
Then I spoke in French: what I said I know
not; but he smiled, a vacant smile that made
me sorry I had hurt him.

"Thou art one of my children," he said.
"How didst thou escape?"

By this, and the strangeness of his smile, I
knew that his wits were wandering, and deemed
it best to humour him.

"Yes, one of your children," I made answer,
understanding the word *enfants* as doubtless he
intended, as meaning his company, or crew.
"You were mistaken, sir; and I hope I have not
broken your arm."

"It is bruised, not broken," said the man,
lifting it and smiling upon me again.  "I do
not remember thy name, but thou shalt be
my corporal."

"Wherein I am mightily favoured," said I.
"Marvellously, too, I have forgotten your name,
mon Capitaine."

"My name!" he said, in manifest
puzzlement.  "My name!"  And then, smiling once
more, he said, "I cannot tell.  It is so long, so
long since I heard it.  My children called me
Captain, but that was before the storm.  I forget
many things; my children left me; they were
reft from me by the storm; they died—all but
you; and I cannot remember your name!  They
called me Captain; and in truth I am Captain,
by the choice and election of the great Condé.
Yes, the great Condé made me Captain, a stripling
from Quimperlé."

"Captain Q," said I, on the spur of the moment.

He looked puzzled; then the same smile, like
the empty smile of a babe, beamed upon his
face, and he said—

"Captain Q; and thou shalt be Corporal R.
Is it not so?"

"And so it is," I said.  "My name is Rudd;
I am an Englishman."

"And we will fight the Spaniards together, shall
we not?  They must never get my gold—never!"

"Indeed they shall not!" I replied.  "And
now let us go out into the open, and I will bathe
your arm at a brook.  'Tis pity we did not
remember each other sooner."

"Ah, but it is such a long time!" said Captain Q.

We went out together, and after I had bathed
his arm ('twas bruised from elbow to wrist) the
Captain invited me to his hut, and to a share of
his dinner of herbs.

Such was the strange beginning of a friendship
that endured for near forty years.  Though he
was by so much my elder, he dealt with me as
though I had been his brother.  We roamed the
shore together, together fished and snared animals
in the woods, and would have shared the same
lodging but that I preferred to keep my little
hut on the shore, where I had fresher air and
was within close call of any ship that should
chance to pass in the night.  Little by little I
pieced together the story of the rock-girt galleon
and of Captain Q.  He could not talk in orderly
sequence for long together, but whatsoever the
subject of our discourse, he would break off to
prattle of his childhood in the little village of
Quimperlé, and of his youth and manhood to
the time when destiny brought him to Tortuga.
He was a Huguenot, and had fought under
Condé at St. Denis, and under Admiral Coligny
at Jarnac.  After the dread day of St. Bartholomew
he fled from France, and became a corsair
in his own vessel, haunting the coasts of the
Spanish Main.  One day he fell in with the
galleon *San Felipe*, and took it after a long
fight.  His own ship being small, he put his
crew aboard the galleon, and the crew and
company of the galleon upon his ship, and
then sailed away for Tortuga, designing to land
there and divide the spoil.  And his little vessel,
with the Spaniards on board, had gone down
before his very eyes, having received sore damage
in the action.

Before the *San Felipe* made Tortuga she was
caught in a great storm, which swept upon her
suddenly and sent her masts by the board.
During a lull she was warped into a cove on the
Tortuga coast, and there refitted.  Then, as she
was being towed out, all hands busy in the
work, the sea was cast up by a great earthquake;
the cliffs on either hand were upheaved and flung
sheer upon the vessel, killing outright every man
upon it and in the boats save only the Captain
and two or three beside.  The Captain was
struck on the head by a fragment of rock, and
thrown senseless to the deck.  (And here, as he
told the story, he lifted his long, grizzling locks
and showed a great seam upon his skull.)  When
he came to himself all was at first mere
blankness to him.  He got upon his feet, lost in
amaze to behold the galleon encompassed by a
vault of rock, and tended the few men that had
survived the cataclysm, but they lingered for a
little and then all died, leaving him alone.

Little by little the past came back to him,
and he was not aware of any change in himself
save that his memory played him tricks.  But
I perceived that the shock and the blow on the
head had done his intellects more harm than he
knew.  He had long fits of silence, wherein he
would sit and gaze vacantly out to sea, or would
march with drawn sword into the woodland,
seeking an enemy that had come to steal his
gold.  Other whiles he would weave baskets of
grass, humming little songs, or babbling in
the manner of children.  He never ceased to
regard me as one of his whilom crew, and in
my pity I said nought to undeceive him.

He knew not how long he had dwelt upon
the island.  I asked him whether he had been
alone all the time, and why he had not
discovered himself to the French and English
pirates who had doubtless sometimes come
ashore.

He smiled cunningly, and said, "Could I
trust them?  They were not my friends.  Say
that I told them of the ship, and the great
treasure it contained, think you they would not
have desired it for their own, and taken it from
me, and left me poor?  I trusted La Noue"
(his thoughts were straying to his youth and
the siege of La Rochelle): "all men trusted him.
He was saved at Jarnac."

And then he fell a-musing.  At another time
he told me that he had been minded once to
join a party that had landed, telling them nothing,
with intent to return at some convenient season
for his treasure.  But he feared lest during his
absence it should be discovered, and he might
return only to find that the vessel had been
stripped bare.  The treasure was the sole thing
he clung to; he could not bring himself to part
from it even for a day; once a day at the least
he descended into the cabin and feasted his eyes
on the great store of gold and jewels.  He had
become a miser.  And so he carefully shunned
such men as had come ashore; and once he had
been near to starving, when a crew encamped
beneath the cliff wherein was the entrance to
his cavern, and remained there for several days,
he not daring to issue forth for food, lest he
should be seen.

I marvelled often that the Captain never
showed any distrust of me.  He took me often
into the cabin, and sometimes set me to count
the money piece by piece, and to display the
jewels on the lids of the chests.  Indeed, he
took, methought, a childish pleasure in thus
exhibiting his wealth, and when the precious
things were all set in array before him, he would
gaze from them to me with a simple pride and
contentation which I found infinitely moving.

.. vspace:: 3

.. class:: center medium bold

II

.. vspace:: 2

Thus many days passed.  I looked often out
to sea for a friendly ship, but none touched on
the island, and those that sailed by were Spanish
built, and I durst not hail them.

One night a great storm arose.  Rain fell in
floods, thunder roared all around, the sky was
by moments ablaze with lightning such as I had
never seen.  Driven from my hut, I wended my
way toilsomely through the blinding torrents to
the cavern, and took shelter for the remainder
of the night with Captain Q on board the galleon.
Towards morning the fury of the storm abated,
but the wind was still high, and when we left
our refuge and stood on the cliff, so that the
sunbeams might dry our drenched garments, we
espied a ship fast on the rocks a little distance
from shore.  The sea was tempestuous: mighty
waves smote and battered upon the vessel,
and I perceived very clearly that she was fast
going to pieces.

While we stood watching, and pitying the poor
wights gathered upon deck, a man sprang
overboard with a rope, and struck out for the land,
the waves buffeting him sorely, dashing over
him, so that many times he seemed to have
sunk to the bottom.  Stirred by the spectacle,
the Captain put off his caution and timorousness,
and stepped forth from behind the rock where
hitherto he had stood at gaze.  His red garb
flashed upon the eye of the swimmer, and
methought I heard a despairing cry for help.  On
the instant I ran down to the shore, with Captain
Q at my side.  Half witless as he was in general,
the Captain had all his faculties at this moment
of great need.  With me he plunged to his waist
into the sea, with no less calmness than a man
might wade a brook, and caught the swimmer
as he was on the point of sinking.  And as we
hauled him safe ashore, I lifted my voice in
a shout of joy: for the half-drowned seaman
was none other than Richard Ball, boatswain
of my own ship, the *Elizabeth*.

.. _`HE CAUGHT THE SWIMMER AS HE WAS ON THE POINT OF SINKING`:

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   :alt: HE CAUGHT THE SWIMMER AS HE WAS ON THE POINT OF SINKING

   HE CAUGHT THE SWIMMER AS HE WAS ON THE POINT OF SINKING

"Why, Dick, man," I cried, "'tis you!"

"God bless 'ee!" panted the man, and then,
unable to speak more, he pointed to the wreck,
and seemed to urge that something should be
done for his messmates there.

And now Captain Q once more showed the
mettle of a man.  Catching up the rope that was
looped about the boatswain's body, he called to
me to help him to lash it about a rock; and when
this was done, the crew and the adventurers
came along it one by one, hand over hand, from
the vessel, until all, to the number of thirty-seven,
were safe on shore.  Joyously I greeted them,
calling each man by name.  Hilary Rawdon,
the captain, came the last; and he had but set
his feet upon the strand when the hapless vessel
fell apart, and was swept away upon the waves.

Groans and cries of lamentation broke from
the shipwrecked mariners; their grief at the
loss of their vessel for a time outweighed all
thankfulness for their escape from death.  But
Hilary clapped me on the back, and wrung my
hand, and cried—

"Gramercy, lad, but 'tis good to see thee
once again.  Verily I believed thee dead, and
what was I to say to thy good folk at home?"

And then we fell a-talking eagerly, and the
other adventurers flocked about us, desiring to
know what had befallen me since the day when
I went ashore on Hispaniola and returned not.
And I was so rapt with joy at the sight of my
friends that I laughed, and for sheer gladness
greeted them again by name—"Tom Hawke,
old friend!" and "Harry Loveday, my
bawcock!"—and was so possessed by my ecstasy
that I forgot Captain Q until Hilary recalled
me to the present with a question—

"And who is our blood-red friend, old lad?"

I swung myself about.  The Frenchman was gone.

"'Tis Captain Q," I said, and was about to
tell more, when I caught myself up, in doubt
of what the Captain would say if his secret were
disclosed.  Having trusted me, peradventure he
would deem himself betrayed if I should make
any revelation.  'Twas borne upon me that I
must needs consult with him before telling any
whit of his story.

"Methinks your Captain Kew is of a backward
disposition, seeing that he hath departed
without our thanks," said Hilary.  "We must e'en
go after him, my lad.  But let us hear all that
hath happed to thee since we gave thee up
for dead."

I told how I was taken prisoner, and of my
captivity and servitude under Don Alfonso de
Silva de Marabona, and Tom Hawke, in his
boyish way, instantly caught at the name, and
wished he might live to pluck Old Marrow-bones
by the beard.  Then I told of my escape and
journey to Tortuga, where I had been, as I
guessed, a matter of a month.

"And your Captain Kew, what of him?"
asked Hilary.  "Is he of the Kews of Ditchingham,
and how came he here?"

And I saw that the secret must come out.  If
I did not myself tell it, my friends would certainly
not rest until they had discovered it for
themselves, and 'twas not unlike that Captain Q
would fare very ill at their hands, and lose all
the treasure whereby he set such store.  Better
that his story should be told by one who had
fellow-feeling for him than that all should be
left to chance.  So I took Hilary Rawdon aside
and acquainted him with my discoveries.

"Why, 'tis he that is the thief," cried Hilary
when he had heard all.  "We have as good a
right to the treasure as he."

"Some of it belongs by right to Antonio de
Marabona, whom his uncle has defrauded," I
replied.

"Tuts, lad, in this part of the world it belongs
to them that can take it.  Did we not sail
hither, I ask you, in quest of treasure?  Have
we not lost men and suffered shipwreck in this
very adventure against the Queen's enemies?
Should we not have captured this very galleon
had we come but eleven years ago?  Is not your
answer 'Yes,' and 'Yes,' and 'Yes'?"

He looked at me with triumph.  Certainly
there was no gainsaying his reasoning, though
the third of his questions had a smack of
inconsequence that bid for laughter.  But I made
a condition, as seemed to me just.

"Give me your word," I said, "that Captain
Q shall suffer no hurt, and shall have a fair
share of the treasure.  As for Antonio, I fear
me he must suffer for having been born a
Spaniard."

"He is no worse off than he was," said Hilary.
"The galleon, as he believes, lies at the bottom
of the sea; and I trow if you returned to him,
and brought him here, and restored to him what
was once his, Tom Hawke or Harry Loveday,
or one of the mariners, would incontinently
knock him on the head (being a Spaniard), and
all be as before.  And as for Captain Q, 'tis
the fortune of war, my lad; we take from him
what he himself took."

"Yet 'tis by his help that you, and Tom
Hawke, and Harry Loveday, and all the mariners,
are this moment alive," I said.

"True, old lad," said he, "and we must not
forget it.  But come, let us wend to this wondrous
vault of his, and see with our own eyes the marvel
you tell us of."

With us we took only Hawke and Loveday,
leaving the mariners to their devices.  This was
at my wish, for I feared lest the men, if they
in their present distress should learn of rich
treasure so close at hand, should forget gratitude
and discipline, and leap like hungry wolves upon
their prey.  They were good seamen, and honest
souls withal, but lawless and ill-taught, and
possessed with a marvellous scorn of men of
other race.  And now they stood upon the
beach and bemoaned their fate, and cursed the
day when they sailed out of Southampton on
this ill-starred and bootless quest.

We four went on to the cavern.  Captain Q
seemed to have expected us, for when we came
to the entrance, there was he, sword in hand,
ready to dispute our advance.  Tom Hawke,
a wild young spirit, was for rushing upon him
there and then, and beating him down by main
force, and indeed he stepped forward to cross
swords with the Frenchman.  But I could not
endure that my friend should be dealt with thus,
and calling Tom Hawke back (who indeed
already repented of his discourtesy), I proposed
that we should humour the Frenchman—call
him Captain, place ourselves at his orders, and
promise to attempt to make a passage for the
vessel, so that he might once more sail the seas
with a merry crew.

"I'faith, a right excellent conceit!" cried
Hilary.  "I salute you, Captain Q," he added,
with a profound bow.  "Unfold to him our
purpose, Kitt."

And I went before them and spoke to the
Captain, and when he understood he smiled
with pleasure, dropped his point, and, with a
commanding gesture that mightily became him,
bade us bring up his new company to set about
the work.

"Oui, certainement, mon Capitaine," said
Hilary; and when by and by the men, in sober
mood, came up, and the matter was put to them,
"Ay, ay, sir," cried Richard Ball, the boatswain;
"Ay, ay, sir," the men chimed in, and the Captain
led us into the cavern.

Cries of astonishment broke from the men's
lips when they saw that miracle of Nature, and
of admiration as they walked around about the
galleon and marked her noble lines.

"A rare craft indeed!" said Hilary.  "She
is worth a fortune to us, Kitt, even without the
treasure she contains.  And that same treasure,
my lad—I yearn to dip my fingers into it."

"Wait; let me bargain with Captain Q,"
I said, and I followed the Frenchman up the
ladder to the deck, and stood long in talk with
him.  When I returned to my friends I told
them that the Captain was willing to share a
great portion of his gold among them, if they
would bring the vessel to the sea and rig her
for a voyage.

"Vive le Capitaine Q!" cried Hilary, and
the whole company broke forth into lusty
cheers.  The Captain's eyes gleamed with
pleasure; he called them his children, vowing
to lead them a-roving and do great despite upon
the Spaniards.  But his face darkened when
Hilary offered to mount on board and inspect
the treasure.

"No, no," he cried; "that is for none to see
but my corporal."

And I persuaded my friends to accept the
denial for the time, and to accompany me in
a circuit of the cavern to find a spot where a
passage might be made to the sea.

The fore-part of the cavern, towards the cliff,
was much encumbered with fragments of rock,
large and small.  The sides were of rock; if
the fore-wall was of rock also, 'twas clear that
with all the tools we had at hand—pikes and
belaying-pins, and such-like gear—'twould be
impossible to open a passage.  With gunpowder
we might have blasted the rock but for the
water which flowed in at every tide, and so shut
us from access to the lower part of the wall.
But if this were of earth, the task was one that
could be compassed with time and patience.
'Twas our first concern to discover the thickness
of the wall, and to this end Richard Ball
clambered on to the loftiest of the rocky fragments,
and another man mounted upon his shoulders,
so that he might reach to one of the narrow
fissures that let the daylight in.  And then,
by passing a pike through it, he proved by the
report of a man without that the wall was no
more than six feet thick.

Next, our task was to remove a number of
rocks that lay without like a natural rampart
about the base of the cliff, and were washed by
a strong current.  Ropes, whereof the galleon
held a plenty, were fixed about them, and by
dint of much hauling, the rocks were displaced
one by one, and being removed, the sea entered
the cavern more freely, though 'twas clear that
the water in it would never be of depth enough
to float the galleon.

As soon as the tide was gone down, we essayed
to pierce a hole through the wall a little above
the water level.  To our great joy, we found
that this portion of the wall was of earth, and
before the tide rose again the men had cut a
narrow tunnel through to the base of the cliff.
It being night by the time this was done, the
men made for themselves beds of grass and
leaves upon the skirts of the woodland, being
divided into watches as on board ship.

With morning light we took up our task again.
We perceived that the ebb tide had carried away
a great deal of the loose earth, and so made
the tunnel wider.  The men toiled all day by
companies, increasing the passage both in width
and height, the sides and roof being shored up
with timber from the woods against a fall of earth
from above.  Captain Q watched the labour
with a childish curiosity, and, in pursuance of
my plan of humouring him, I now and then
prompted him with commands to give the men,
and they responded with obsequious and cheerful
cries of "Ay, ay, sir," winking to each other the
while.

So the work went on, day after day, until an
opening had been made of width enough for the
passage of the galleon.  There was a danger
now lest it might be espied from a passing ship,
the which to prevent, the men brought down
great armfuls of brushwood from above, and
arranged them to form a screen.  A sentinel was
posted at a point on the rising ground behind
the cliff to give warning of any vessel that
should approach.  While some of the men had
been employed at the hole, others, the more
skilful of the crew, were set to work to caulk
the seams of the galleon, to fell trees for new
masts and spars, and to repair the sails which
were found on board.  By the time this was
accomplished, nought remained but to dislodge
the rocks that still choked the passage-way from
the cavern.  Some of these were so large as to
require the labour of our whole company to
remove them.  We had hauled away many and
laid them at the foot of the cliff, when one day,
a week or more after the beginning of the work,
the sentinel gave out that he saw two vessels
beating up against the wind towards the
island.

"Maybe they are the Spaniards that were in
chase of us when we were wrecked," said Hilary.
"'Tis not unlike they have come to see what has
become of us.  Mayhap they saw us run aground,
and I doubt not would have been here before
but that the wind has been too strong against
them all this while."

Our whole company being gathered in the
cavern, arms were served out to the men from
the galleon's armoury in case the Spaniards
should land.  The news of their coming wrought
marvellously upon Captain Q.  He sharpened
his sword, donned a breastplate, and told the men,
with great exaltation of spirit, that the moment
was at hand when we should rove the seas and
deal doughtily with our enemies.

The vessels came slowly towards us, and
anchored a little westward of the cavern.  We
saw two boats put off from each, filled with men
wearing the leather hats and steel cuirasses of
the Spanish soldiery.  Spying at them with
Hilary, I reckoned that they must number sixty
or more.  They landed at a point near where
my hut had been, and 'twas soon plain from
their cries that they had come upon parts of
the wreckage of the *Elizabeth*.  Some of them
ascended the cliff, and went into the woodland,
doubtless to gather fruits; whereupon I quitted
the cavern, and stealthily made my way up, to
see what they were about.  I entered the woods
after them, and witnessed their stark amazement
when they lighted upon signs of the recent felling
of trees.  Anon they hasted back to their main
body on the beach; a council was held, and then
the whole company, save only a few men left
to guard the boats, set forth with the manifest
purpose to search for the woodcutters.

Thereupon Tom Hawke proposed we should
seize the boats and row out to the galleons and
board them.  But this bold device Hilary would
by no means countenance.  Besides that we
knew not what force of men there might still be
left on the vessels, we must needs go at the very
least two hundred yards in the open ere we
could win to the boats, in full sight of the men
on guard.  The alarm would be given, and the
Spaniards might be upon us before we could
put off.  But since the advantage is ever with
the attack, I made bold to put forward another
plan, to wit, that we should quit the cavern,
steal into the woods, and lay an ambush for the
men that were prowling there.  This proposal
was debated for a while among our assembly,
and being presently approved by all, Captain
Q, who comprehended everything with perfect
soundness of mind, set off with drawn sword
in the quality of leader.

We stole out of the cavern secretly by favour
of the brushwood screen, and followed him in
great quiet round the shoulder of the cliff,
winding about thence until we gained the wood.
There we stood fast, and I went alone among the
trees to discover the direction of the Spaniards'
march.  I crept in and out as a hunter might
stalk his quarry, and by and by perceived them
proceeding slowly, in close ranks, silently, and
with their matches already kindled.  I knew
that the course they were taking would bring
them in due time to a ravine, narrow, and of
no great depth, that wound through the
woodland, a little brook running along its bottom.
Bethinking me that, could we gain the further
side of the ravine, we should be in rare good
case to deal with the Spaniards, I sped back to
my friends, acquainted them with what I had
seen, and led them swiftly through the wood.

We had no sooner taken post in the copse I
had designed for our ambush, than we espied
the Spaniards coming directly towards us.  And
then 'twas Captain Q who made our dispositions.
However disordered his wits might be in common
matters, he lacked nothing in the parts of a
skilful commander.  Keeping ten with him, of
whom I was one, he bade the rest to steal down
the ravine, ascend the nearer bank at a
convenient spot, and, when they should hear sounds
of a fray with us, come with great speed and
fall upon the enemy in the rear.  Hilary departed
very willingly on this errand, and we ten
remained close in hiding with Captain Q.  I
marked how his eyes gleamed, and his lips
pressed firmly the one upon the other, and I was
fain to conclude he had a very great courage
and delight in battle.

His design was to wait until the Spaniards
came to the brink of the ravine, and then salute
them with a volley.  But just as it was the
vivid red of his garments that first drew my eyes
to him, so now the same brightness made our
situation known to the enemy before they came
within gunshot of us.  One of them spied him,
and cried out; the company halted and blew
upon their matches; then their captain called
to us in a loud voice to yield ourselves, and when
we made no answer, he bade his men advance.
They pressed forward until they were come
within a few paces of the ravine, and set up their
muskets on the rests to have good aim at us.
And then, to be beforehand with them, Captain
Q gave us the word to fire, the which we obeyed
all ten together, whereby a half-dozen of the
Spaniards fell; and while in all haste we primed
our weapons again, their captain divided his
company into two bands, and sent them to right
and left to scale the ravine and come through
the wood upon our flanks.  To a seasoned man
of war, as doubtless he was, the fewness of our
numbers was made apparent when we discharged
our guns.

There was not a man of us but knew we stood
in great peril.  The enemy was of Spain's finest
soldiery, and though by the grace of God we
English have beaten them many times on field
and flood, we have had proofs enough of their
valour.  If our friends should fail to come at
point to our aid, we could not by any means
prevail against them.  But Captain Q bade us
set our backs against trees, half of us facing to
the right, half to the left, and we stood there
ready to do what Englishmen might against our
Queen's enemies.

.. _`52`:

We could not hear their approach; doubtless
they hoped to creep close to us and then
overwhelm us in one general assault.  My heart
smote upon my ribs, and my lips grew wondrous
dry; 'tis no mean trial to a man to stand thus
awaiting an enemy whom he cannot see, and
knowing that in one swift moment he may be
at grips with death.  And suddenly there was
a roar of muskets, and immediately afterwards,
through the smoke, I saw the Spaniards rushing
towards us.  My musket was in its rest; blindly
and with fumbling fingers I set my match to
the touch-hole and pulled the cock, and, having
fired my shot, drew my sword and stood to
defend myself.  Our volley had checked the
onrush, but only for a moment, and I saw a
crowd of Spaniards leaping as it were straight
upon me.  Then Captain Q came to my side,
crying out that we would fight shoulder to
shoulder, and his presence and cheerful words
filled me with a new courage.

The enemy were yet a dozen paces from us,
and we had our swords outthrust to meet them,
when the air rang with English shouts, and a
great din of firing, and some of the Spaniards
fell on their faces, and rose not again.  The rest
came to a halt, threw a glance behind, and
beheld our men, with Hilary at their head,
springing like deer from the edge of the ravine.
This sight was enough for their stomachs.  The
Spaniards fled as one man, leapt into the ravine,
clambered up the other side, and made all speed
by the way they had come, to regain their boats.
Our men ran after them, and pursued them to
the verge of the woodland, and would have
continued to the very margin of the sea, but
Captain Q forbade them, fearing that, if the
enemy saw the smallness of our company, they
would rally, and on the open strand would have
us at advantage.  And so we did not show
ourselves much beyond the line of trees, but
stood there and watched the Spaniards as they
hasted down to the shore, and, embarking on
their boats, returned to the galleons.

.. _`THE SPANIARDS LEAPT INTO THE RAVINE AND CLAMBERED UP THE OTHER SIDE`:

.. figure:: images/img-053.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: THE SPANIARDS LEAPT INTO THE RAVINE AND CLAMBERED UP THE OTHER SIDE

   THE SPANIARDS LEAPT INTO THE RAVINE AND CLAMBERED UP THE OTHER SIDE

The tale of our loss was exceeding small.
One poor fellow was killed, four had received
hurts, but slight.  We were all wondrous merry
at the happy issue of our ambush, and Captain Q
put on the high look and swelling port of a
conqueror.

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III

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The enemy having departed, we wondered
what they would do, scarce supposing that they
would sail away without making another attempt
upon us.  Yet it appeared that this was their
purpose, for as soon as the boats were hoisted
aboard, the anchors were weighed, and the ships
stood away towards the west of the island.  This
put Captain Q in a fury.  He commanded the
men to make all speed to finish and complete their
task at the cavern, so that he might sail out and
pursue the vessels.  But this was mere foolishness,
and I humoured him with talk of other
fights in store.  Hilary Rawdon again dispatched
a sentinel up the hill, bidding him to post himself
at a spot whence he could see, with the aid of a
perspective glass, the channel between Tortuga
and Hispaniola.  It had come into his mind that
the Spaniards had perchance sailed away merely
to land on the southern shore of the island, with
the intent to march again upon us unawares.
But the man told us by and by that one of the
ships had heaved-to in the channel to the south,
while the other was making all sail to the westward.

"'Tis bound for St. John of Goave or San
Domingo, without doubt," said Hilary, "to bring
back a force sufficient to annihilate us."

"What grace have we before they can return?"
I asked.

"Maybe a week, maybe more.  'Tis always
'to-morrow' with the Spaniards.  They put off
both the evil day and the good, and many's the
time they have come to grief for no other reason
than their habit of procrastination.  We will
make all speed, Kitt.  'Twould be a sin to let
this great treasure fall into their hands through
any sloth of ours."

The men worked with right good-will, hauling
away the rocks from the entrance of the cavern,
until they left the passage clear.  But even at
high tide there was no depth of water sufficient
to float the galleon, and we must needs take
thought how to bring her to the sea.  We soon
proved, to our great joy, that she rested on sand,
and we had but to dig beneath her, and to cut a
channel, and with the flood tide we could haul her
out.  But we could not begin this work until the
next low tide, when the water in the cavern,
having now a free outlet, flowed away.  We
built a dam to prevent its return, and then, by
dint of toiling steadily, some resting while the
others worked, we contrived in two days to grave
out a dock wherein the vessel might ride.  The
work was done with great quietness, for the
enemy's galleon was anchored but a few miles
away, and 'twas very necessary that no sound
should provoke them to come and spy what we
were about.  The mariners knew how much hung
on their being left undisturbed until the ship
could be rigged and towed out to sea, and they
put a great restraint upon themselves.  There
was risk enough in the chance that a Spanish ship
might appear off the coast.  The spectacle of a
dismantled hull could not fail to attract her
notice, and if she should be a ship of war there
was little hope that the *San Felipe* would ever
sail the sea again.

To step the masts was no trifling business.
The stump of the old mainmast was broken off
low down and jaggedly, and 'twas a full day's
work for the most skilful of the *Elizabeth's*
carpenters to fit the stump for the pine stem they
had prepared.  The mast itself was but roughly
finished.  It was not stripped of its bark: the
time would not serve for niceties; Hilary indeed
doubted whether, with the utmost expedition, we
should have the vessel in navigable trim before
the galleons returned.  By good luck the stump
of the mizzen had not been snapped off so low
as the others; and a jury mast was rigged in a
third of the time the mainmast had taken.

The *San Felipe* had no boats, all she had
carried having been stove in during the
earthquake and washed away.  But a boat of some
sort was needful to tow the vessel out; wherefore,
while some men were scraping the hull, and others
rigging the spars, the rest hastened to the woods
and worked with might and main to fashion a
canoe of cedar.  Though we employed every
minute of daylight, the men taking turns to rest
in the hot hours, 'twas full ten days before the
work was done.  And then one afternoon, when
we were lying on the cliffs basking in ease we
had not known for many a day, the sentinel espied
three sail low down on the horizon to the west.

"Without doubt the Dons are coming back for
us," cried Hilary.  Then in French he asked
Captain Q, with a show of deference, to give us
his commands.

"We will sail forth and fight them," cried the
dauntless Captain.

"'Tis a brave saying," said Harry Loveday;
"but methinks 'twere best to sail out by night
and make what speed we may for home.  We
have the treasure, and though I am as ready as
any man to fight when there is somewhat to be
gained by fighting, I hold that in our present case,
with the enemy maybe four to one, 'twould best
beseem us to secure what we have.  'Twas for
treasure we came, not for needless knocks."

"There is much reason in thee, Harry," said
Hilary, "and I own if 'twere sure we should
escape these villain Dons and come safe to an
English haven, I might think thy counsel just.
But consider: the wind is light; our vessel is in
no trim to make good sailing; and if the wind
holds as at this present we could scarce run out
of sight of the Spaniards before dawn.  'Tis full
moon: we should be discerned from a great
way off; and when they see us they can run us
down.  Furthermore, the guns on our galleon
are light metal, and we have no great store of
powder and ball, so that we are in no case to fight
a war-ship, furnished, beyond doubt, with heavy
guns.  Remember, we barely outsailed the
Spaniards even when we were in our own well-found
(but ill-fated) *Elizabeth*; and if we could
not stand to fight two, as all agreed we could not,
how much less can we stand to fight three?"

While Hilary was thus reasoning, Captain Q,
who, having given his voice for fighting, was
confident we should obey without question, had
gotten himself away, so that we were left to
converse at our pleasure.  I well knew that, by dint
of my artifices of persuasion, I could bring the
Captain to believe that, whatsoever resolution we
might come to, it sprang from him.

"Well, then," said Tom Hawke in answer to
Hilary, "if we must not run, for fear of being
overhauled, what is left for us to do?  If we
cannot fight three Spanish ships on the high sea,
assuredly we cannot fight the crews of them on
land, and 'tis certain as to-morrow's sunrise that
we must be discovered here."

"What if Captain Q be right?" said I.  "Is
not the bold course the best?  If we bide here
and wait to be attacked, the event will be even
as Tom says: the don Spaniards outnumber us,
and with all the will in the world we can scarce
hold out against them.  But might we not attack
the vessel at anchor before the three others join
with her?  Aboard of her we might show a clean
pair of heels to the Dons."

"Why didst not speak before, Kitt?" cried
Hilary.  "The time is fleeting, and while we
still prate these vessels are sailing ever nearer.
In sooth, yours is the way, and we will obey
Captain Q's command."

We had cast down the dam that had been
raised, and the tide being at the flood, the sea
filled our dock, and we saw with great delight the
*San Felipe* float upright on her keel.  The most
of us got aboard her; the rest towed her out of
the cavern; then they also came aboard, and
Captain Q looked round with pleasure on his
company.

Having hoisted the sails (poor patched things
as they were), we set a course eastward along
the shore, the wind blowing from the north-east.
Our design was to round the island and come
with the wind down upon the galleon at her
anchorage off the south coast.  We hoped in the
night-time we might surprise her and take
possession of her, and then slip her cables and
make away before the three vessels we had seen
could beat up against the wind.

The wind being so contrary, we could make no
good offing, and were in some peril of running on
sunken rocks, to say nothing of that other peril
of meeting an enemy's ship or flotilla.  But by
sunset we came safe at the north-eastern corner
of the island.  We rounded the eastern side,
sailing large, and turned into the channel betwixt
Hispaniola and Tortuga even as the moon rose
upon our right hand.  A black night would have
most favoured our design of capturing the galleon;
but our master said we had first to come at her,
and being ignorant of the channel, he was right
glad to have some light upon the course.

The southern shore of Tortuga bends at its
middle somewhat to the north-west, so that for
a time the galleon was hidden from our eyes,
and we could keep the mid-channel without risk
of being seen.  But when we had come to that
point, our master was fain to steer somewhat
nearer to the cliffs: 'twould mayhap ruin our
scheme if we were espied too soon by the
Spaniards, wherefore he said we had best avail
ourselves of the shadows where we could.  Hilary
and I stood at the helm beside the master, and
we were troubled when we felt the keel graze a
sandbank.  At the fall of night the wind had
freshened, and we were making a fair speed, so
that if the vessel struck there would be but a
small chance of hauling her off, even if she did
not spring a leak and take water.  By good luck
and the care of our master we escaped these perils
of shoals, and drew nearer to our goal.

We did not doubt a good watch would be kept
on board the galleon, the which had taken up
her present station, as we reckoned, so as to
guard against any attempt of ours to cross to
Hispaniola on rafts or canoes.  Doubtless, also,
they would have their guns ready loaded and
their matches kindled; and maybe the vessel
was riding on a spring cable.  Hilary bade the
most of our men to lie down out of sight, so that
when the Spaniards should behold us, as they
must soon do, they might not take alarm from
a crowded deck.

"We must be wary, Kitt," said Hilary to me.
"'Twould be rank ill-luck if she should slip her
cable and stand away to meet the galleons out
of the west, and maybe fire a gun to give 'em
warning."

Being nearer shore, the *San Felipe* went more
slowly than when she was out in mid-channel.
We crept round the jutting points and across the
coves very stealthily, the men holding perfect
silence, so that the Spaniards on the vessel lying
at anchor had no warning of our approach and
nearness until, as we fetched about a low spit of
land, we came to a straight reach of the channel,
and beheld the enemy half-a-mile distant.  Since
secrecy was no longer to be maintained, Hilary
bade the master to steer full into the broad path
of the moonlight, so that we might be distinctly
seen.  With his perspective glass the sentinel on
the vessel would discover the *San Felipe* to be
of Spanish build, and we trusted that he would
suppose her to be a friend.  At Hilary's bidding
some of our men made ready their grappling-irons,
and so we drew nearer to the anchorage.

A light moved on the ship's deck, and we judged
that we must now have been seen.  As soon,
therefore, as we came within hailing distance,
Hilary commanded Richard Ball, who had some
Spanish, to go into the bows and question what
the vessel was.

"The galleon *Bonaventura*, of his Catholic
Majesty of Spain," came the answer to his shout.
"Heave-to, or we fire!  Who are you?"

"The galleon *San Felipe*, chased by corsairs,"
cried Ball.  "Can we anchor hereby?"

"Aye.  Heave-to; we will send a boat.  Are
the corsairs dogs of English?"

"English and French," says Ball, cocking an
eye at Captain Q, who was reclining below the
level of our bulwarks, so that his red garments
should not betray us.

"Cry that our helm is injured, and we will
lower sail," said Hilary.

This Ball did, and our master bade the men to
lower sail; but before 'twas done we had run
very near to the *Bonaventura*, and there was
enough way on our vessel to bring her alongside.
We had come within a cable length of the
Spaniard when we saw her boat let down, and
then, our helm being put up, we drifted still closer
upon the enemy.

"Bid them beware, or we shall be foul of
them," said Hilary.

And as Ball cried aloud, we heard much old
swearing on the *Bonaventura's* decks, the which
were at this time thronged with men.  The
captain (as Ball informed us) cursed our damaged
helm very heartily, it being answerable, as he
supposed, for this imminent risk of fouling.  But
in truth our helm was in right good trim, and the
master chuckled in merry sort as he ran the *San
Felipe* close alongside of the *Bonaventura*, their
bulwarks just touching.

And then, at the word from Hilary, our men
cast their grapnels aboard, and our whole
company, with machetes and half-pikes from the *San
Felipe's* armoury, leapt upon the *Bonaventura's*
deck.  Captain Q was the first to board, and the
Spaniards cried out in amazement when they
saw his tall red figure springing towards them,
rapier in hand, and with two score men behind,
all silent, for Hilary had commanded them to
hold their peace, lest the other vessels should be
near at hand.

The swiftness of our onset took the Spaniards
all aback.  Some of them, being unarmed,
shrank away from us; the rest gathered about
their captain at the mainmast, where they stood
to ward off our attack, and for some five minutes
held us at bay.  'Twas a hand-to-hand
encounter; there were no fire-arms used; steel
clashed on steel, and many shrewd knocks were
given and taken.  But, saving in point of
numbers, the odds were all against the hapless
Spaniards.  The very look of Captain Q, his
strange garb, his war-lit countenance, had some
part in daunting them, and as we pressed
vehemently upon them, Hilary and Tom Hawke in
the fore-front, they fell into a panic, and cast
down their arms, crying for quarter.  Hilary
bade our men instantly seize them and carry
them below, and within a little they were all safe
bestowed and battened under hatches.

.. _`THE SWIFTNESS OF OUR ONSET TOOK THE SPANIARDS ALL ABACK`:

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   :align: center
   :alt: THE SWIFTNESS OF OUR ONSET TOOK THE SPANIARDS ALL ABACK

   THE SWIFTNESS OF OUR ONSET TOOK THE SPANIARDS ALL ABACK

And now I espied their boat that had been
lowered making all speed to the westward, and I
asked Hilary whether we should not pursue them,
believing that their intent was to acquaint those
on the approaching galleons with what had
befallen.

"Let 'em go," cried he, with a laugh.  "If
they do fall in with the vessels and tell them their
tale, we shall be departed ere they can bring
them to us."

"And they will not reach them," said Tom
Hawke.  "See, the boat has run upon a reef."

'Twas even as he had said.  The crew strove
hard to pull the boat clear, but without avail,
and then they leapt overboard and waded
waist-deep towards the shore.  Not all of them came
safe to it.  On a sudden we heard a blood-curdling
scream, and then another.  Beyond
question some of the hapless men had fallen a
prey to ground-sharks.

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IV

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The *Bonaventura* having thus become ours,
we made haste to bring to her such useful stores
as the *San Felipe* contained, and the chests
holding the treasure.  I went with Captain Q
into the cabin, and observed with what pangs he
saw his chests in the hands of our men.  He stood
on watch when they were set on a cradle for
slinging on deck; and followed every movement
with a jealous eye until the chests were bestowed
in the cabin of the *Bonaventura*.  They were
three in number, two large and one small, and
when the two former had been removed, Captain
Q appeared content, and was for leaving the third
behind.  I remembered that I had never seen
this one open, and knowing what delight he took
in contemplating and fingering the contents of
the others, I could not but suppose that the
smallest chest held things of little worth.  Seeing
that the Captain appeared in a mind to leave it,
I asked him whether that was his intent, and
he replied that it held nought but old papers,
accounts, and bills of lading, and such-like
things, and told me very courteously that I
might have it for my own.  'Twas not a gift I
greatly valued, but I would not vex him by
refusing it, and so I made one of the men convey
it to the *Bonaventura*.

While the mariners were busied about
transferring the things from the one vessel to the
other, Hilary took counsel with his friends as
touching the disposal of the Spanish prisoners
now huddled in the hold.  I spoke for carrying
them with us, and putting them ashore either
on some island we should pass on our homeward
voyage, or on the coast of Spain when we had
crossed the ocean.  But Tom Hawke cried out
very stoutly against this.

"Why should we burden ourselves with
them?" he said.  "The ship will sail the lighter
without them; and bethink ye what a monstrous
deal of food they will consume!  Let us batten
them down in the hold of the *San Felipe* and so
leave them."

"As I live, a right good notion!" said Hilary.
"Be sure they will be found when the other
vessels come up, and 'twould please me mightily
an I could see the meeting.  'Twill be a cause of
delay also, for they will assuredly tell what has
befallen them, and every minute thus filled will
better our chances of escape."

"But they will increase our enemies' force,
and, moreover, we shall lose as many minutes in
carrying them from this vessel to the *San Felipe*,"
said I.

"Which we shall gain by the lightening of our
freight," replied Hilary.  "And we will e'en set
about it at once, while the men are still bringing
the goods aboard."

Whereupon the Spaniards were brought up in
small parties and conveyed to the *San Felipe*.
And then, all things being ready, the *Bonaventura*
cast off and made sail, beating up against the
wind as she retraced the course we had followed
before.

The sun was rising as she came out into the
open sea beyond the south-eastern corner of the
island.  'Twas Hilary's design to set a straight
course for England.

"There is treasure enough aboard," he said,
"and did we essay to gain more we might lose
what we have.  Remember the dog in the fable;
let us not lose the substance by grasping at the
shadow."

"I fear me we shall have trouble with Captain
Q," I said.  "His mind is set on taking up his
old trade of corsair, and he will not readily quit
these haunts of the sea-rovers."

"Then he will e'en be a Jonah, and we had
best cast him at once overboard," cried Tom Hawke.

"Nay, let us leave him to Kitt," said Hilary.
"Mind ye how Kitt wrought upon us with his
tongue when we discovered him in the hold?
Kitt shall be our ambassador."

As we made the north-eastern corner of the
island we espied, far away to the west, two
Spanish galleons making what speed they could
against the wind, and, we doubted not, coming in
chase of us.  At sight of them Captain Q was
beset by a great excitement, and called upon our
master to heave-to and await the villain Dons.

"Ay, ay, sir," was the ready reply.  But
seeing that the moment was now come when
I must employ my best arts to bring him to
accord with us (and, for all that Hilary had said,
I had no great faith in my tongue's persuasiveness),
I led him apart, and by degrees brought
him to an understanding of the resolution to
which we had come.  'Twas for some time a
question whether the Captain's passion for fight
or his avarice would get the better of it in his
unstable mind, but the balance turned in our
favour when I took him down into the cabin, and,
pointing to the treasure-chests, asked him whether
he could endure to risk the loss of things so
precious.  He stood in deep thought for a while;
then, heaving a great sigh, he yielded.

All that day the Spaniards continued to hold
us in chase, and when with the veering of the
wind they gained somewhat upon us, I marked
how the eyes of Captain Q lit up as it seemed
that we must fight in our own despite.  But they
dropped away again, and at nightfall were hull
down upon the sea-line, and when next morning's
sun arose they were nowhere to be seen.

From that time the Captain fell into a settled
melancholy.  'Twould seem that the sudden
changes that were come about in his life, after
eleven years of solitude, had put a strain upon
his already enfeebled intellect 'twas unable to
bear.  He sat for long hours on deck, gazing
towards the shores he would never see again,
silent, taking no heed of us or of aught that
happened around him.  Nay, he ceased to watch
over his treasure with the same jealousy, and
when Hilary and the other adventurers could no
longer curb their impatience, but demanded to
see the wealth which they were to share, he
consented, with a wan and feeble smile.  We opened
the chests in his presence, only Hilary, Tom
Hawke, and I being there with him.

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   WE OPENED THE CHESTS IN HIS PRESENCE

My report had prepared my friends to see gold
and jewels of great price, but they were none the
less amazed beyond measure when the contents
of the chests were displayed before them.  One,
the property of Don Alfonso de Silva de Marabona
(his name was writ in full upon the cover), held
enough to make us all rich beyond our dreams.
The other, consigned to his Catholic Majesty
King Philip himself, was filled with rare gems,
the value whereof we could not so much as guess.
"By my beard, Kitt," cried Hilary, "'twas a
rarely kind fate that sent thee as slave to thy
Admiral Marrow-bones.  We might have roved
the seas full ten years without getting a tithe of
this treasure."

"And it vexes me sorely to think that
my friend Antonio can profit nothing by it,"
said I.

"Reck nothing of him," cried Tom Hawke.
"What does that little chest of thine contain?
Let us see, old lad."

"'Tis only papers, as Captain Q told me," said
I, looking for confirmation at the Captain, who,
however, sat listless and inattentive in his chair.

"Well, let us see them," said Hilary.  "Maybe
they will give us the true value of this store of
gems."

We opened the chest, and Tom Hawke sniffed
and hemmed when he saw that it held indeed
nought but a few documents, somewhat
mildewed and yellow.  They were all writ in the
Spanish tongue, not one of us could read them;
and though Richard Ball had some skill in
speaking the language, he confessed when I asked him
that he could not even read his own native
English, and so was not like to be of service here.
We laid the parchments again in the chest, I
promising myself that when we came to port I
would have them overlooked by some one who
was well acquainted with the language of Castile.

The *Bonaventura* made quick sailing, and we
had fair weather until we came off the Azores,
where we suffered a heavy buffeting from a
storm.  Somewhat battered, our galleon sailed
into Southampton Water one day in March of
1588.  Captain Q had aged ten years in his
aspect during the two months' voyage.  He
rarely broke his silence, yielded with a patient
smile to my least suggestion, and seemed even
to have forgotten the treasure which had once
been so dear to him.  When it came to be
divided, a tenth share was set apart by general
consent for the poor witless gentleman, and
being well placed through the offices of an
attorney of our town, the Captain might live in
his own house and enjoy great comfort for the
rest of his days.  One-third was apportioned
among the mariners, every man of them becoming
possessor of means sufficient to keep him
luxuriously for his rank and condition.  An eighth was
allotted to me, and the remainder parted out
among Hilary and his fellow-adventurers.

As soon as might be I placed the documents
from my chest in the hands of a man well skilled
in the Spanish tongue.  And then to my great
joy 'twas proved that one of them had a vast
importance for my friend Antonio.  The story
told him by the admiral, his uncle, was false.
Don Antonio, so far from having sold his estates
in Hispaniola to his brother, had in fact purchased
the admiral's estates; the document in question
was a conveyance drawn up in due form according
to the law of Spain.  Having learnt this, I was
hot set to have the document conveyed to Antonio,
so that the wrong he had suffered might be undone.
It may well be conceived that, in that year when
the great Armada was being fitted out against
us, there was no communication between us and
Spain, and if I had waited until the two nations
were reconciled, 'tis like that the admiral would
have enjoyed his ill-got wealth for long years
undisturbed.  But I found means, through some
excellent friends, to dispatch the document to
Don Antonio's lawyers in Madrid (their name
being writ upon it) by way of Paris; and many
years afterwards, when I had a humble place at
her Majesty's court, I learnt through the Spanish
ambassador that right had been done.

Eighteen years ago, when I journeyed to
Madrid for behoof of Prince Charles, there
seeking a bride, ('twas on my return that King James
made me a knight), I found my old friend
Antonio a grandee of Spain, and a very stout and
(I must own) pompous gentleman.  He did not
recognise me: indeed, 'twas not to be expected
that he should, seeing that when he had known
me my cheeks were as smooth as the palm of
your hand, and the hair of my head thick and
strong; whereas now I am bearded like the pard
(as Will Shakespeare says), and my locks,
alas! are sparse and grizzled.  But when I made
myself known to him he clipped me by the hand, and
thanked me with exceeding warmth for what I
had been able to do for his good.  Moreover, he
told me that his own uncle Don Alfonso had been
aboard the foremost galleon of those two that
stood in chase of us when we sailed away that
day from Tortuga.  The noble admiral was cast
into a wondrous amazement when he came upon
the *San Felipe*, the which had been so long lost,
and lived ever after in a constant dread lest
his ill-doing should be brought to light.  This
wrought so heavily upon his mind that it became
disordered, and when the full tale of his crime
was brought in due time from Spain he sank into
a dotage and shortly after died.  Don Antonio
was pleased to give me, in remembrance of our
ancient friendship, a signet ring which had been
his father's, and I have it in my cabinet, not
caring overmuch to wear such gauds.

As for Captain Q, he dwelt for many a year
in the house we bought for him at Bitterne,
across the river.  I saw him often; his wits were
quite gone, poor gentleman! and he remembered
nothing of the strange happenings that brought
us together.  'Tis forty years and more since I
made a journey to the little village of Quimperlé
in Brittany, in hope that I might discover
somewhat of the family of one who must have been
a notable figure there in his youth.  'Twas a
bootless quest.  Some of the more ancient
inhabitants remembered a young Huguenot named
Marcel de Monteray who had fought in the wars
of religion, and had been, 'twas said, a captain in
the army of Condé; but he had never returned to
his native place, and all his kinsfolk were long
since dead.  Whether Marcel de Monteray and
Captain Q were the same person I do not know,
and never shall.  When I spoke the name in the
Captain's hearing it brought nothing to his
remembrance.  To all Southampton, as to me, he
was ever a mysterious personage.  As Captain Q
he lived, and when his time came to die (and he
was then of a very great age), as Captain Q he
was buried.

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Interim

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My grandfather told me that upon his return,
after near a year's absence, his parents' joy was
such that they forbore to upbraid and scold
him; indeed, they killed for him the fatted calf,
as it were, and made much of him.  His father
was for putting him again to school, but he
protested that he had had enough of schooling,
and desired nothing more than to follow a
man's vocation.  Thereto his father consented,
provided he first kept a term or two at one of
the Inns of Court, and learnt so much of law as
would suffice for a justice of the peace when he
should have come to man's estate.

It was in the summer after his return that the
great fleet upon which the King of Spain had
spent so much pains and treasure came at last
to invade our shores; and my grandfather,
being then at home, hied him to Southampton,
to learn the course of its progress.  He watched
enviously the English vessels sail out from the
haven, even the smacks and shallops being filled
with young lads and gentlemen of the county
eager to bear their part in the fray, or at the
least to witness the unequal combat between the
cumbersome great vessels of the Spaniards and
the light, nimble ships that my Lord Howard
commanded, with his lieutenants Drake and
Hawkins and Frobisher and the rest.  To serve
with those great seamen was not permitted him,
but he accompanied Sir George Carey when he
ran out in a pinnace on the night of July 24,
and found himself, as he wrote, "in the midst
of round shot, flying as thick as musket-balls in
a skirmish on land."  But for the strict command
of his father, doubtless he would have followed
the Armada up the Channel, and beheld how it
was stung and chevied, and finally discomfited
in the Calais roads.

About twelve months thereafter, claiming the
fulfilment of his father's promise, he joined
himself to the company that his friend and
captain Hilary Rawdon was raising for service
under King Henry of Navarre, whose fortunes
were at that time at a turning point.  King
Henry III, his cousin, had fallen to the assassin's
knife, and Henry of Navarre should then have
ascended the throne of France; but he was of
the Huguenot party, and the Catholic League
was bent upon crushing the Huguenots and
excluding Henry from the enjoyment of his
heritage.  The army of the League, commanded
by the Duke of Mayenne, held Paris; and Henry,
desiring to put an end to the religious struggle
that rent France asunder, and to make himself
master of a united kingdom, saw himself
constrained to fight for his crown.  His army was
choice and sound, but small, and in his extremity
he sought the help of Queen Elizabeth, who sent
him aid in money and men, and permitted
gentlemen to enlist voluntarily under his flag.
Many flocked to him, both as upholding his
rightful cause, and from the love of adventure,
and hatred of the Spaniards, with whom the
Leaguers were in alliance.  At that time my
grandfather, his age being but eighteen, was
moved rather by the latter considerations than
by the former, though in after years the justice
of a cause held ever the foremost place in his
mind.

Henry of Navarre had broken up the siege of
Paris and withdrawn with his army into
Normandy, hoping thereby to tempt the Duke of
Mayenne to follow him, and so enforce him to
a decisive battle.  Mayenne, on his side, issuing
forth from the city, had sworn to drive the
Bearnais into the sea, or to bring him back in
chains.  Such was the posture of affairs when
that adventure befell my grandfather which I
set down as he told it me, as now follows.





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.. _`THE SECOND PART`:

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   THE SECOND PART

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CHRISTOPHER RUDD'S ADVENTURE IN FRANCE,
AND HIS BORROWING OF THE WHITE PLUME
OF HENRY OF NAVARRE

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I

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When I survey the backward of my life, and
con over its accidents and adventures, my
thoughts are drawn as by a magnet to one point
of time—the moment when, through mirk and
darkness, benighted in a strange place, I saw
the glimmer of a light.

'Twas as foul a night as ever I saw: the sky
black as Erebus; the wind howling like
unnumbered poor lost souls; the rain, that smote
me full in the face as I rode, stinging my flesh as
each particular drop were a barb of fire.  I
pulled my cloak about me, and bent low over
the pommel, to gain some shelter from the
storm; but little comfort had I thereby, for
the rain beat in betwixt my neck and the collar,
and, moreover, my horse's hoofs cast up a
plentiful bespattering of mud from the sodden
road.

My outer man being thus discommoded, I
was yet more ill at ease in my mind, for I had
some little while suspected, and was now assured,
that I had lost my way.  I had ridden that
road but once before, when I made one of Hilary
Rawdon's troop that he took from Dieppe on
outpost duty to St Jacques.  By this time,
according to my recollection, I should have come
to the Bethune river, by whose bank the road
runs nearly straight to Arques; but having met
with some hindrance in my journey, night had
overtaken me or ever I was aware, and with
the darkness came the sudden bursting of the
storm.  What with the one and the other I
could not doubt that I had strayed into one of
the by-roads about Dampierre, and was now as
helpless as a mariner without compass or glimpse
of star.

I was musing how best to escape out of this
pother when, on a sudden lifting of my head,
I saw upon my left hand, level with my eyes,
the blurred twinkle of the light.  With a
muttered benediction I turned my horse's head
towards it, resolved, whether it shone from
prince's mansion or shepherd's cot, to beg shelter
there until the fury of the storm was abated.
But I had not ridden above five yards before
I found myself checked by a quickset hedge,
the which made me to dismount and lead my
horse up and down, seeking for some gate or
gap whereby I might approach the light.  Within
a little my groping hand taught me that the
hedge was neighbour to a low wall, and searching
further, I knew that the wall was ruinous, the
top being ragged and uneven where bricks or
stones had fallen away.  Then, touching a
gatepost, and so learning that the gate was
removed, I was on the point of leading my horse
through the gap when my good genius whispered
a hint of caution.  Hilary Rawdon had
dispatched me back on an errand of moment to
the King; I should prove but a sorry messenger
if, for my comfort's sake, I ran into any peril;
'twas meet that I should first find out what
manner of house this was; for all I could tell,
it might harbour an enemy.  With this thought
I led my horse across the lane ('twas no more),
and coming after a few paces to a clump of
trees, I hitched his bridle to a bough, took a
pistol from the holster, and made my way afoot
through the mire towards the beacon light.

The mud lay very thick, and there were
besides many obstacles in the path, whereon
I stumbled, being unable to see them for the
darkness.  Nevertheless, I picked my way among
them as well as I could, holding my sword close
lest it should clash upon a stone, and so
came to the house, the which I perceived now
to be of a good largeness.  The ray shone
through a chink in the shutter of a window
some few feet above my head.  The door was at
my left hand, at the top of a flight of steps.
Being resolved not to seek admittance until I
had learnt somewhat of the inmates, I clambered
upon the window-sill, the which being very wide
gave me good foothold, and setting my eyes to
the chink, I peered into the room.

My eyes were at first dazzled, from so long
being in the dark; but within a little I saw two
men seated at a table, between me and the
light, the which came from two large candles
set close together.  Their backs were towards me,
so that I could not tell with any certainty what
manner of men they were; but from their shape
I judged them not to be of the labouring kind;
and indeed the room, so much of it as I could
see, the chink in the shutter being but narrow,
appeared to be an apartment of some splendour.

Now I had been sent by Hilary Rawdon to
let King Henry know that the Duke of Mayenne
was moving towards him from the eastward
with a great army, without doubt intending to
give him battle, word having been brought to
St Jacques by a peasant that the duke was no
more than forty miles away.  The house whereto
I had come could not be above four or five miles
from the King's camp at Arques, wherefore it
might be supposed that these men were friends
of the King.  Yet it crossed my mind that they
might peradventure be Leaguers, and while I
was in any uncertainty I durst not seek shelter
with them, nor could I with any conscience
proceed on my way.  It behoved me, therefore,
to make some further discovery, if that were
possible, and having no satisfaction in what
I had seen, I descended from my perch, and
treading very warily, crept along the wall at my
right hand, purposing to make the circuit of
the house, in the hope to learn something more.
By good hap the rain had now ceased, the sky
was clearing, and, the month being August, the
darkness was not so deep as heretofore; indeed,
the stars were now visible, and there was a
lightness that seemed to foretell the rising of the
moon.

The house was all in darkness, save where
I had seen the light.  When I came to the corner
I saw a smaller building some dozen rods apart,
and there, as I passed it, I heard the sound
of horses drawing their halters, whereby I
guessed it to be the stables.  And I perceived
now many signs of disorder in the garden—statues
overthrown and broken, fragments of
wood and porcelain, and other things which
led me to believe that the house had lately been
put to the sack, and made me go with the more
caution.  Stealing through the garden to the
back of the house, I found a door, which, when
I pushed it, yielded an inch or two, but no more,
by reason of some barricade behind.  A little
beyond it, however, I came to a window
hanging loose upon its hinges; and after I had
waited a moment to be sure that I was neither
seen nor heard, I squeezed my body through,
and entered a small room which, when my eyes
became accustomed to the dimness, I perceived
to be empty.  There was a door at the left hand.
Holding my sword under my arm, I drew my
dagger, and crept across the room to the door,
which, when I came to it, I found to be ajar.
I pulled it towards me, desisting for a moment
when it creaked, and listening, with a fear that
the sound might have been heard.  But there
was nothing to alarm me, and having opened
the door just so wide as that I might pass
through, I came out into a long wide hall, which
I could not doubt led to the chief entrance.

Here I paused, as well to recover breath—for
my excitement had winded me—as to listen
again.  From my right came the low rumble of
voices, and in an interval of silence I heard on
my left hand, towards the main entrance, as
I guessed, the sound of deep breathing as of
a man asleep.  Though the storm had ceased,
there was still a slight moaning of the wind as
its gusts took the eaves, and trusting to this
to shroud my movements, I crept along the
passage in the direction whence I had heard the
voices, which came more clearly to my ear, yet
muffled, as I advanced.  Thus I arrived at a
door on my left hand, and perceiving this to be
open, I entered very stealthily, and saw that
I was in a large and lofty chamber divided in
two by a curtain.

I heard the voices yet more clearly now, but
not distinctly, so that I could not catch the words.
There were one or two shafts of light coming
through the curtain, which when I ventured to
draw near to it I found to be old and torn.  Peeping
through a rent that was just below the level of
my head, I saw, not two men, but four, seated at
the table, all masked, and wearing, as I perceived in
the case of the two men whose faces were towards
me, their cloaks being thrown back, the cuirasses
of men of war.  I listened very eagerly, to catch
something of their discourse, but they were at
a good distance from me, and spoke in low tones,
so that I heard but a word here and there, and
could not by any means piece them together.
This irked me not a little, but I durst not part
the curtain, for then I should have been in full
view of the men on the further side of the table,
whose backs I had seen when I peeped through
the shutter; and I was troubled, also, by having,
as it were, to strain one ear towards them and
the other towards the man at the end of the
hall, who might wake at any moment and, for
all I knew, come to this very room.  So in much
impatience and fearfulness I listened, and went
hot and cold when I caught the word "Bearnais,"
for that was the name by which the Leaguers
called the King, and I had reason to suspect by
this that these men were no friends of his.  And
by and by I heard other names, "Rosny"
and "Biron," the King's friends, and then all
again became confused, until one of the two that
had their faces from me leant back in his chair,
lifting his arms above his head as if to stretch
himself, and said very clearly, and yet without
raising his voice: "It were easy to snare the
game, but the keepers are wary."

While I was still wondering what these words
might mean, and vague surmise was making me
uneasy, I heard very faintly the neighing of a
horse, and a moment afterwards an answering
whinny, but this much louder.  The men had
given over talking, and he that had last spoken
still lay back in his chair, with his hands clasped
behind his head, and so he remained while a man
might count ten.  Then of a sudden he straightened
himself, flinging his hands apart, and leant
across the table, and said: "The second horse
is in the open."  The men over against him
looked at each other, their eyes glittering
strangely through the masks, and I waited to
see no more, for I could not doubt that the
second horse was my own, and it was time for
me to go.  As quickly as I might, yet with
great quietness, I stepped across the room
towards the door, and had but just got myself
out into the hall when I heard the grating sound
of chairs pushed back as when men rise in a
hurry, and saw a light flash through the doorway
as the curtain was parted.  With my heart in
my mouth I fled on tiptoe along the hall and
into the room I had first entered, and had not
even time to close the door behind me when the
men passed, their spurs ringing as they trod.
I heard them come to the great door, and one
of them kick the sleeping sentry, and then the
door was thrown open with a mighty creaking, and
I knew that they were betwixt me and my horse.

In a moment I skipped out by the window,
delaying just so long as sufficed to replace it as
it had first hung, and being now outside, stood
to consider of my course.  I saw with thankfulness
that the sky had again become clouded, so
that all was now near as dark as before.  Men
were calling to one another in the garden, and
since they could hardly as yet have discovered
the whereabouts of my horse, I thought I could
do no better than make my way back as straightly
as I could to the clump of trees where I had left
him, trusting to luck and the darkness.  I had
gone but a few steps when I stumbled against
a man, and believed myself undone; but he
said: "Do you see anything?" and composing
my voice I answered: "Nothing," and then
left him and sped on, scarce believing in my
good fortune.  So with many a stumble and
shrewd knock upon my shins, making all haste
yet moving with such quietness as was possible,
I came to the wall, and without waiting to seek
the gateway I scrambled over, and fell upon my
face in the mud.  For this I cared nothing, only
that in my fall my sword clashed against a stone,
and a shout from the enclosure warned me that
the alarm was given.  I was on my feet in a
trice, and sprang across the lane, in desperate
fear lest my horse might whinny again and
bring the enemy upon me ere I could loose him
and mount.  In my agitation of mind I could
not remember whether the clump of trees was
on my right hand or my left, but a break in the
flying scud gave me so much light as to show me
what I sought, and I had just reached it and was
plunging through the undergrowth when I heard
the clash of steel as the men scrambled over the
wall like as I had done, and their voices calling
one to another as they asked whether they saw
any man.

So dark was it in the copse that I could not
see my horse, and I doubt whether I should have
found him in time if he, hearing my approach,
had not whinnied and so led me in the right
direction.  I unloosed his bridle in haste, but
had no sooner vaulted into the saddle than a
man ran up behind me, and cried out to the others
that he had me.  I set spurs to my horse, but
at the moment of his springing forward I felt
a sharp pang in the calf of my left leg, and the
man let forth a vehement oath when the horse
carried me beyond his reach.  Bending low in
the saddle to shun the branches of the trees,
the which swept my cheeks and dealt me many
smarting wounds, I put my horse to the gallop,
incommoded by finding that one of my stirrups
was gone, and knowing never a whit whether I
was riding towards Arques or from it.  I came
out of the copse into a road, and hearing no
sounds of pursuit,—indeed scarce expecting any,
since the men were not mounted—I gave the
horse his head, and breasting an incline we
came to a small hamlet, where I did not scruple
to knock at one of the cottages until a window
was opened, and a peasant sleepily demanded
what I lacked.  From him I learnt that I was
but a stone's throw from the Bethune river,
which gave me great comfort, and so I spurred
on, and by and by came to the bridge by Archelles,
and so on until I gained the marshy plain below
Arques where the King was encamped, never
stopping until I was challenged by the outposts.

.. _`I FELT A SHARP PANG IN THE CALF OF MY LEFT LEG`:

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   I FELT A SHARP PANG IN THE CALF OF MY LEFT LEG

The day was now breaking, and since my
news was important—both that which I brought
from Hilary Rawdon and that which I had
discovered for myself—I demanded to be led
instantly to Rosny, with whom I had some slight
acquaintance, having been commended to him
in a letter by my Lord Seymour when I joined
Hilary Rawdon's troop.  Rosny at first seeing
me broke into a fit of laughter, the which was
not to be wondered at, seeing that my garments
were drenched through and through, and my
face was muddy both from splashes and from
my fall, and withal I walked somewhat stiffly
from the wound in my leg.  But he looked grave
enough when I told him in brief what news
I carried, and he would have me accompany him
at once to the King, whom he doubted not to
find already astir, though the morning was yet
young.  (I had not then heard the saying of
Pope Sixtus V, who foretold that the Bearnais
would come off conqueror because he did not
remain so long abed as the Duke of Mayenne at
table; but I knew of the King's habit of rising
early, the which was indeed a cause of grumbling
among the sluggards of his Court.)

King Henry smiled in his beard when Rosny
presented me to him, but heard me soberly
enough when I gave him Hilary Rawdon's
message, to wit, that the Duke of Mayenne was
drawing nigh with twenty-five thousand foot
and eight thousand horse to give him battle.

"What shall we do against so great a host
with our poor three thousand?" said the King
to Marshal Biron that stood by.  "Ventre-saint-gris!
Is it not hard to be a king without
a kingdom, a husband without a wife, and a
warrior without money?"

Here Rosny said that I had more to tell, and
the King, pursing his lips so that his long nose
seemed to touch his chin, bade me say on.  I
told him of my seeing the light, and of all that
followed thereafter, saving only the matter of
my wound, and when I had done, he said sharply
between his teeth—

"Well, what then?"

(His words in truth were "*Mais encore?*"
but 'tis meet I turn French into English in
telling my story now.)

"I know no more, Sire," I said in answer,
"but I suspect the men I saw were Leaguers,
and were plotting secretly to seize your person,
or to do some other mischief, and 'twere well to
send a party to take them, or if that be too late, to
go not from the camp without a strong guard."

"What!" cries the King; "shall I cage
myself like a song-bird, or tether myself like
a drudging ass?  Ventre-saint-gris! my dear
friends have already counselled me that I seek
refuge speedily in your country; but I tell
you that while I continue at the head of even a
handful of Frenchmen, such counsel 'tis
impossible for me to follow.  As for plots, a fig
for them all!  Did I not listen but yesterday
to a tale of a plot, as shadowy as yours?  There
may be such plots afoot; let there be.  The
assassin of my late cousin will not lack of imitators.
But shall we start at shadows, or flee like a
cook-wench at sight of a mouse?  The men you saw,
as like as not, were bandits, discoursing on the
spoils they expect to reap from the ambushing
of some rich Churchman.  Plots!  I am aweary
of the word."

This reception was so little like what I had
looked for that I felt abashed and, I own,
somewhat ruffled also.  The King's courage was
known of all men, but I hold that to neglect a
warning is not courage, but mere foolhardiness.
While I was meditating whether I should urge
the matter, the King suddenly hailed a burly
man that was riding slowly a few short paces
from his tent.

"Hola, Lameray," he said, "send a dozen
men to the château of St Aubyn-le-cauf—which
is beyond doubt the place of your adventure,
Master Rudd—and seize any man you find
therein.  Master Rudd will tell you more at
large," and with that he turned away, jesting
with Rosny.

The man whom the King had called Lameray
dismounted from his horse, which I perceived
to be much bespattered with mud, and coming
towards me with a sort of roll in his gait, he said,
in a full, harsh voice—

"Master Rudd will tell me more at large?"

There was certainly something of insolency in
his tone, and being already ruffled with the King's
manner of receiving my news, I did not feel
very amiably disposed towards this stranger,
who looked at me under his beaver with a glance
of mockery.

"Master Rudd, if it please him, will tell me
more at large," says the man again, while I was
still considering of how I should deal with him.

"You heard the King's command, Master Lameray——"

"Pardon—De Lameray," says he, interrupting me.

"De Lameray," I said, making a bow.  "The
château of St Aubyn-le-cauf, your nobility may
not be aware, lies something less than two miles
along the road towards Dampierre, and if you
hurry you may yet be in time to do the King's
bidding."

"And perhaps Master Rudd would be pleased
to accompany me?" he said, smiling upon me.

"No," I said shortly, and thinking that
perhaps his mockery sprang of my dirty and
dishevelled aspect, I left him there, and strode
away, with a bare acknowledgment of his
salutation, to the quarters I had formerly
occupied in the camp.  There, having bathed and
got me into clean raiment, and bound up the
wound in my leg, no great matter, and eaten
pretty ravenously, I set off to find Raoul de
Torcy, who was of my own age, and had been
my particular friend ever since I came to France.

"What news of the camp?" I said, after I
had greeted him, for having been absent for
a fortnight I knew nothing of what had happened
of late.

"The question I myself would ask," he said,
"for I only returned from Paris last night."

"From Paris?" I said.

"Yes.  I set off thither the very day after
you left us, having friends there who are also
very good friends of the King, and yet know all
the counsels of the Leaguers.  I rode thence
the day before yesterday, bearing news of a
plot to kill the King."

"Another?" I exclaimed.

"I know not what you mean by 'another,'
my friend; but there is assuredly one afoot,
and I rode apace with the news, and was chased
well-nigh all the way from Paris by a fellow that
had the very cut of a Leaguer.  But I shook him
off yesterday evening, just before the storm
broke, and came safe into camp, and little
enough I had for my pains."

"Why, did the King flout you too?" I asked.

"He laughed, and took it very lightly.
'Another?' says he, just as you did: 'I hear
of plots as regularly as I eat my dinner.'  And
then he went off arm in arm with Rosny and
paid no more heed to me."

Whereupon I told him of my own errand,
and of what I had seen at the château, and
how the King had received me.

"I love our Henry," said Raoul, with a
shrug, when I had made an end; "but I sometimes
question whether he be not too careless to
make a good king for France.  However, we
have done our part; if any ill befalls him, it
will not be for want of warning."

I asked him then who was this Monsieur de
Lameray that the King had dispatched to the
château, and he said he had never heard the
man's name; but encountering Jean Prévost
as we sauntered forth from his lodging, we put
the question to him, and he told us that the
Baron de Lameray had lately come into the
camp and offered his sword to the King, with
three score gentlemen well mounted and equipped.
He had been a Leaguer, but it was no more
uncommon then than now for warriors to shift
their allegiance, and Henry, who dearly loved
a good sword, had welcomed right heartily this
notable accession to his party, and smiled upon
him so graciously that certain of his well-tried
servants were displeased thereat.  Whereupon
Raoul shrugged again, complaining of the
fickleness of kings' favour.



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II

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On the night of that day, I rode with Raoul
and a dozen more to the lodging of the Marquis
de Contades in Dieppe, he having bidden us to
supper and a game of tric-trac.  The company
was very merry, but I was aweary with having
been up all the night before, and what with
our host's good cheer and the heaviness of the
air I could scarce keep my eyes open.  Ever
and anon I wandered to the window to cool
myself, wishing with all my heart that the
company would break up, whereof I had little
hope, such jovial entertainments being commonly
prolonged far towards morning.  Looking forth
one time into the silent and empty street, I saw
a shadow move in a doorway on the further side,
and felt a passing wonder as to who might be
lurking there so late, concluding that 'twas
some poor townsman on the lookout to earn a
few doits by holding a stirrup or some such petty
service.  When I returned into the room the
marquis rallied me on my air of weariness, and
on my telling him that I had been long without
sleep, he was pleased to admit my excuses, and
bade me get away to my bed.  I went down the
stairs very gladly, to walk to the inn where I had
left my horse and my servant, and had taken
a pace or two before I remembered the shadow
in the doorway.  I looked up then to see whether
the man was still there, and in that very moment
a figure sprang at me out of the dark entry, and
I saw in the starlight a long dagger uplifted
against the sky.  I had no time to draw my own
weapon, but my lucky remembrance of the man
having saved me from being taken wholly by
surprise, I dropped suddenly to the ground, and
my assailant stumbled over me in the vehemence
of his onset.  Before he could recover his footing
I was upon him, but could do no more than grip
his right arm, and we fell together.  There we
were, rolling over and over, and in the heat and
fury of the struggle I heard the footsteps of other
men on the cobbles, and a voice asking in a
hoarse and breathless whisper which was the
Englishman, and another answer: "'Tis no
matter; the fool has botched it; strike
anywhere!" and then the man I was gripping cried
out with pain, for one of the newcomers had
stooped and stabbed him, and as he loosened his
hold upon me he screamed again, and I knew that
in a moment one of these hacking swords must
find me out.

.. _`A FIGURE SPRANG AT ME OUT OF THE DARK ENTRY`:

.. figure:: images/img-099.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: A FIGURE SPRANG AT ME OUT OF THE DARK ENTRY

   A FIGURE SPRANG AT ME OUT OF THE DARK ENTRY

But as I grappled the assassin to me to shield
myself, there came to my ears a shouting and
the clink and clatter of spurred boots upon the
stones, and three of the four men above me took
instantly to their heels.  The fourth remained,
still bending over us, and I heard his pants, and
though I could not see his sword-arm, being
partly underneath the body of my first assailant,
I saw his other arm, lifted in the act to lunge.
The fingers of his hand being distended, in that
brief moment I observed that his little finger
was amissing.

My companions, called forth by the cries and
the sound of the scuffle, now came running up,
and the man, with a growl of rage, straightened
himself and sped away into the night.  I rose,
bruised and very scant of breath, and when I
told them in a word what had happened, they
were for pursuing the villains.  But the time,
though brief, was sufficient for them to make
good their escape, and it was vain to think of
overtaking them in the darkness of those streets,
with many crooks and corners and narrow alleys;
so they came back after going a few paces, and
while some asked me whether I was hurt, others
bent down to look at the fallen man, who was
stark dead.  A torch being brought from the
marquis's lodging, they saw the device upon the
man's coat, and some one cried that it was one
of De Lameray's men.  At this Raoul looked
at me, and I at him, but we said nothing to our
companions, having much food for thought.
The party being thus broken up, those of the
guests that belonged to the camp at Arques got
their horses and rode back with me, and when
we arrived at the camp Raoul accompanied me,
late as it was, to the lodgings of Rosny, to whom
we recounted, when we had roused him up, both
what had befallen and what our suspicions were.
He heard us gravely, and then bade us get to
our beds, saying that the matter must be looked
to in the morning.

I was glad enough to seek my couch, and fell
asleep instantly; but all on a sudden I awaked
and sat up with a start, a strange discovery
having come upon me in the midst of my sleep.
I was again peeping through the curtain at the
château of St Aubyn-le-cauf; again I saw the
man leaning back in his chair, and then
unclasping his hands as he rose; and now my
recollection acquainted me with something which
had scarce made any impression at the moment
of my actual beholding: the man's left hand
had lacked a finger!  I could not doubt that
the man in the château and he of the late
adventure in Dieppe were one and the same; and
I had now some inkling of the reason why my
life was attempted.  *Dead men tell no tales*.
My tale was already told, and the King had not
hearkened; but I had somewhat new to add to
it, and maybe he would not again turn me a
deaf ear.

I had but just broken my fast when a lackey
came to command my attendance on the King.
I found His Majesty with Rosny in his tent,
and the Baron de Lameray was there too, and
as I entered and made my obeisance he said
something under his breath that set the King
a-laughing.

"Well, my friend," said Henry, "what is
this I hear of tavern brawling in the streets of
my good town of Dieppe?"

"I know not what you may have heard,
Sire," I said, "nor can I answer for the doings
of others; but an attempt was made upon my
life last night," and then I told him the whole
story as I have told it you.

"And who were these would-be assassins?"
asked the King when I had done.

"The fellow that was killed, Sire, was said
to wear the livery of my lord here," I replied,
glancing towards Lameray; "and as for the
others, I know no more than that I saw the hand
of one of them, and it lacked a finger."

At this Lameray took a step forward, and
glaring very darkly upon me demanded whether
I hinted at him.  Whereupon I smiled very
pleasantly, and glancing at his hands, which were
cased in gauntlets, as the manner of the camp
was, I said—

"I have not the honour of knowing with
what afflictions Providence has been pleased to
visit Monsieur de Lameray."

The King laughed, and even Rosny's grave
face relaxed a little; but Lameray frowned, and
said with some heat: "I have already explained
to His Majesty that at the time of this fracas
I had not returned from the errand which he
was pleased to entrust to me, and of that the
gentlemen of my company can bear witness."

"And your château was empty, my good
Rudd," said the King.

"I scarce expected otherwise, Sire," I said,
"the men having had warning.  And as to that
matter, it is a slight thing, no doubt, but one
of those I saw there had suffered the same
misfortune as Monsieur de Lameray, if I take his
words aright: he had but three fingers on his
left hand."

The King cast a searching glance upon
Lameray, who did not change countenance, but
said with a sneer—

"It seems that Monsieur Rudd is beset with
visions of conspirators lacking a finger.  Maybe
he is little practised in the use of the sword."

"I wield my sword with the right hand,
Monsieur de Lameray," I said; and then the
King, whose countenance had regained its wonted
serenity, asked me why I had said nought of the
three-fingered man when I told him of what
I had seen in the château.  This question put
me in a confusion, for it was an ill matter to
explain to the King that his manner of receiving
my news had ruffled me, or that the remembrance
had not come to me until the middle of the night,
for that might very well seem to be a dream,
or even an invention.  I stammered in this
quandary, and, I doubt not, looked as much
embarrassed as I felt; and the King laughed
somewhat impatiently, and turning to Rosny
asked why he troubled him with these brawls
and midnight robberies.  Without waiting for
an answer he bade us depart, vouchsafing to me
no word save the bare command, but telling
Monsieur de Lameray that he would do well in
future to keep his lackeys more firmly in hand.

I returned to my quarters in high indignation,
marvelling also at the King's strange simplicity,
for I believed now with the utmost assurance
that the man I had seen in the château and he
I had seen in the street were Monsieur de Lameray
and no other.  And an hour or two after I found
that I was not alone in this suspicion, for Rosny
himself came to me and asked me to be wary,
and to acquaint him immediately of anything
I might see or hear further.  "We must put
things to the proof," he said in his brief way.
When I told him that Hilary Rawdon had
expected me to return to St Jacques after
accomplishing my errand, Rosny replied that I must
not do so, but remain at Arques.  "And see
that you do not stray from the camp alone, my
friend," he said, "if you value your skin as I
value mine."  And so he left me.


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III

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It is ill work kicking one's heels in camp when
no fighting is toward, and I was glad enough
when a servant of Jean Prévost's came to me in
the afternoon with a request from his master
that I would join him and a few more in a gallop.
I donned my doublet—the same which I had
worn on the night of my ride—and chancing to
put my hand into its inner pocket, I felt some
small thing which, when I took it out, I found to
be a thin roll of paper.  For a brief space I
looked at it in a kind of puzzlement, turning it
over in my fingers, at a loss to know how I had
gotten it.  And then, in a flash, it came back to
me.  I told you that before I lost my way near
the château of St Aubyn-le-cauf, I had already
met with some hindrance in my journey, and
I declare that the surprising events that had
happened afterwards had clean driven it from
my memory; but now I remembered it perfectly.
About two miles out of St Jacques, just as the
dusk was falling, and a drizzle of rain, I came to
a cross-roads, and saw a man lying in a huddled
heap by the roadside.  I got off my horse to
look more closely at him, and when I bent over
him, I saw that he was stretched in a pool of blood,
and there were great gashes in his doublet, not
such clean cuts as a rapier makes, but jagged
rents, the work of coarser instruments.  I spoke
to him, and he opened his eyes and groaned
feebly, and then endeavoured to speak; but he
was plainly very far gone, and I could make
nothing of his mutterings.  I looked around to
see if there was any house whereto I might
convey the man, who I supposed had been beset
by footpads, but there was no dwelling at hand,
and I was considering whether I should lift
him on to my horse, when he lifted his hand
painfully, and gave me a roll of paper.  I asked
him what it was, and what I should do with it,
and he tried to tell me; but though his lips
moved no articulate sound came from them,
and even as I looked at him he heaved a great
sigh, and his head fell back, and I knew that he
was dead.  What I might have done had not
my errand been urgent I cannot tell; but since
I could do nothing for him I delayed but to
compose his huddled limbs, and mounted my
horse again, thrusting the paper into my pocket,
where it had since lain forgotten.  Such things
happened often in the lawless and distracted
France of that time, so that it is no wonder it
went out of my head when I had matters of
greater moment to think of.

.. _`I SAW A MAN LYING IN A HUDDLED HEAP`:

.. figure:: images/img-105.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: I SAW A MAN LYING IN A HUDDLED HEAP

   I SAW A MAN LYING IN A HUDDLED HEAP

Having found the paper, I unrolled it to see
what it might be.  It contained a few words
plainly written, and yet I could not read them,
for they were of no tongue that ever I heard of,
and I was not long in concluding that they were
writ in what is called a cipher.  I rolled the
paper again and put it back into my pocket,
thinking to show it to Rosny by and by; but
meeting Raoul de Torcy as I left my lodging,
I spoke of it to him, telling him how I came by
it.  When I described the poor wretch who had
been thus done to death, Raoul said 'twas like
the horseman who had followed him from Paris,
and begged me to leave the paper with him, for
he had some skill in reading ciphers, and guessed
that if the man had been a Leaguer, as he
supposed, the writing might prove useful to
the King.

I rode out with Jean Prévost's party, and
after a hard gallop we were walking our horses
when we were overtaken by the King himself,
with Rosny and half-a-dozen more.  The King
looked over his shoulder as he rode by, and told
me with a laugh that he was going to my château,
as he called it, to look for the three-fingered
gentleman, or at least to lay the ghost.  I did
not relish his mockery, nor the quizzing of my
companions, who were importunate in asking
what he meant, but I forbore to tell them,
Rosny having charged me to say nothing of the
matter.  A little after we turned our horses and
rode slowly back.

I had not been above five minutes in my
quarters when Raoul burst into my apartment in
a great heat, and cried to me that he had read
the cipher.

"And what's more," said he, "it was intended
for me myself!  That poor fellow you
found murdered was not a Leaguer after all,
but had been dispatched from Paris hot upon
my heels by my friends there."

"And what is the message he brought in such
haste?" I asked.

"Why, hark to it," he said, thereupon reading
from the paper: "'The mischief purposed
against the King will be wrought by a feigning
friend, who has lately joined himself to the
royal forces.  We do not yet know his name,
but will acquaint you with that as soon as it is
discovered.'  Who should that be but Lameray?"

"Where is Lameray?" I cried instantly,
remembering that the King had ridden out but
sparely attended, so that if it was designed to
seize him no better opportunity could present
itself.  When Raoul told me that he had not
seen the baron all that day I sprang up in haste,
saying that it were well we should make inquiry;
and calling to my servant to saddle my best
horse, I went out with Raoul to seek Charles de
Martigny, who knew everything.  From him
we learnt that Lameray had ridden forth some
while before with his troop to hunt in the forest
of Arques across the river.  Martigny remarked
some excitement in our demeanour, and asked
whether I had some new grudge against the
baron; whereupon I told him what we had
learnt, saying when I ended, "'Tis to be hoped
he is hunting fair game."

"We must go and acquaint Rosny," said
Martigny at once.

"Rosny has ridden out with the King—to
lay the ghost of the three-fingered man," I
said, with a kind of scorn.

"What!" cried he.  "To St Aubyn-le-cauf?
That is not far from the forest of Arques."

"True," said I coolly.

"And the King may be at this moment in
the extremity of danger," he cried.  "What you
will do I know not, but as for me, I go straight
to Biron and ask him to gather a troop and ride
out instantly to defend the King."

"And be snubbed for your pains," said I,
telling him then of the warnings I had already
given.  "We should be admirable laughing-stocks
for the camp," I added, "did we discover
a mare's nest again."

This had some weight with both of them, for
a Frenchman of all men loves not to appear
ridiculous.  We concluded then to say nothing
as yet to Biron, but to ride across the river, we
three together, and see for ourselves the manner
of Lameray's hunting.  Within a few minutes
we set forth, and as we descended the further
side of the bridge of Archelles, we perceived
far away a cloud of dust on the road that skirted
the forest, and it moved in the direction of
St Aubyn-le-cauf.  It was plainly caused by
a numerous body of horsemen, and the same
thought flashed in the minds of all of us:
Monsieur de Lameray's hunting expedition was
a mere blind, and he was now riding to seize the
King.  That very instant I set spurs to my horse
and galloped down the road that ran alongside
the river, which would bring me to the château
sooner than Lameray, I hoped, even though he
had the start of me, he following a more winding
road, and remoter from the camp.  The King
should at least be warned, and if this third time
he slighted the warning, or it were proved
needless—well, I could but swallow my chagrin, and
resolve to mind my own business for the future.
My two companions galloped after me, but
I soon began to outstrip them, my steed being
a noble beast of Arab strain, and, indeed, the
envy of the camp.  Seeing them left behind,
so that they could not hope to be first with
the news, I turned in my saddle and called to
Martigny that he might now go to Biron, and
let him bring out a company if he chose.
Martigny, who was in some dudgeon, as I could
see, because he could not overtake me, reined up
and turned back towards the camp; but Raoul
held on his course, and he being my particular
friend, I allowed him to come up with me, and
we galloped on together.  I was glad of his
company, for he knew of a short cut across the
fields, and we sped on, leaping walls and ditches
at some peril of our horses' knees, until we
breasted a hillock, and saw the château lying
amid its gardens half a mile away.  And at that
same moment, far to the left, we caught the
glint of the setting sun upon a line of steel helmets,
making at full speed towards the same goal as
ourselves.  Luckily we were nearer, and putting
our horses to a fierce gallop down the slope, we
came betimes to the château, where we expected
to find the King.

But when we entered there was no man there,
and we were thinking that we had had our ride
for nought, when, looking from a window, we
saw Henry's white plume nodding among his
company as he approached leisurely from the
direction of Dampierre.  'Twas plain he had no
suspicion of danger, and I was in a ferment lest
Lameray should fall upon him before he could
gain what shelter the château afforded.  I ran
out immediately and leapt upon my horse's
back, and flew like the wind to meet the King.
As soon as I came to him I poured out my news
in a breathless flood, and he laughed right
heartily; but at this Rosny clutched at his
bridle, and saying sternly, "Are you mad,
Sire?" he made his own horse gallop, fairly
lugging the King's along with him.

"Can we defend the garden?" Rosny
whispered to me as I rode close beside him.  I
reminded him that the walls were ruinous and
there was no gate, and he pressed his lips together
and frowned with that fixed look he had when
confronted by a difficulty.  We said no more,
and presently coming to the garden wall at the
back, we found Raoul there, having opened a
small wicket-gate for us, and he cried to us to
haste, Lameray being not a quarter-mile up the
lane.  We passed through one by one, the gate
being not wide enough for two—eleven of us in
all—and then Henry, who, careless and pleasure-loving
as he was, was yet quick in counsel and
swift in action, asked whether the great door
was open.  When Raoul said it was, the King
bade us all ride our horses after him up the steps
into the great hall, the which we had but just
done, Rosny being the last to enter, when
Lameray and his men came pouring through the
gateway from the lane.  We slammed the door
in great haste, and slid the bolts, the King with
great readiness commanding some to bolt the
shutters of the windows also, and to see what
could be done to defend every part of the house.
And having given this order he removed his hat
and his purple cloak and set them on the table
in the very room where I had seen the men, and
catching sight of me as I slipped a bar into its
place at the window, he swore his customary
oath, and said, very pleasantly but with a touch
of malice—

"I shall owe you something for making me
sweat, my good Rudd, if this turns out to be
another of your hallucinations."

Before I could frame my lips to any reply,
there was a hammering at the great door and
a voice demanding admittance.

"Ask him what brings him here," said the
King to Rosny, who went accordingly to the
porter's wicket beside the door, and opening the
shutter demanded to know who knocked and
what his errand was.  Spying through a loophole
of the shutter of my window I saw that the
space in front of the château was thronged with
horsemen, in number full sixty, all armed and
accoutred.

"'Tis I, the Baron de Lameray," cried the
full harsh voice.

"And your errand, Monsieur de Lameray?"
said Rosny.

"That, with your leave, Monsieur de Rosny,
is for the ears of my master the King alone."

"Tell him he may come in—alone," said the
King, with a chuckle.

Rosny delivered the message, adding of his
own motion that the door should not be opened
until the baron had removed his men beyond
the wall.  At this, Lameray broke forth in
indignation, demanding to know whether the
King mistrusted him, and Rosny vouchsafing no
answer, he stood for a space gnawing his lip,
and then, casting a sharp and furious glance over
the front of the house, the which was shuttered
in all its lower part, he turned swiftly about
and led his men out through the gateway.  The
King laughed, and bade us throw open the
shutters, and when Rosny began to remonstrate
with him he smote his thigh and cried,
"Ventre-saint-gris!  Dost think I will be mewed up here
as though I were a craven?"  Accordingly we
opened the shutters, and the King began to
march up and down the floor, expecting Monsieur
de Lameray to return on foot.  And within a
minute we saw the baron coming alone through
the gateway, and the King commanded that the
door should be opened to him; but before this
could be done, Raoul de Torcy ran down-stairs
from an upper room whence he had been watching
all that passed outside, and cried that the men,
having tethered their horses in the copse beyond
the lane (the same where I had left my horse on
that night) were creeping round the wall towards
the back of the house.  And then Henry's face
took on a wonderful sternness, and bidding
Rosny still leave the door closed, he sent all of
us but two to keep a watch upon the back until
he should summon us.  He called to me as I
was going, and said, "I will borrow one of your
pistols, my friend," being unarmed save for his
sword.

We went to take up our posts, I directing
myself with Raoul to the window through
which I had made an entrance.  'Twas plain
we could not defend it, for the shutters as well
as the window itself hung loose upon their
hinges.  We therefore determined to quit that
room and raise a barricade against its door
that opened into the great hall.  We were
hauling tables and chairs to set against it when
we heard Lameray again speaking through the
porter's wicket, saying that his errand brooked
no delay, and asking that the King would himself
come to the door and speak with him.

"Open the door and let him in," cried the
King, with a smile.

Rosny began to draw the bolts, but at the
same instant there was a marvellous heavy thud
upon the back door, whose timbers groaned and
creaked, and as Raoul and I ran to it to see
whether its fastenings would hold we heard a
shot, and immediately afterwards the slamming
of the shutter of the porter's wicket, and some
one cried that Lameray had fired at Rosny, who,
however, expecting something of the sort, had
kept himself out of harm's way and was not
touched.  'Twas plain that Lameray and his
ruffians were resolved to put all to the hazard,
and I doubt not that the Duke of Mayenne had
promised them a very great reward if they should
either kill the King or take him alive.  And I
own I quaked with fear lest they should accomplish
their purpose, for we were but eleven, and
they sixty or more, and the defences of the place
were so paltry that it would be nothing short
of a miracle if we kept them out.

By this time the shutters of the front windows
had been closed and fastened again, so that the
house was in darkness save for a little light that
came from the upper floor.  While some of our
party were hasting to pile barricadoes against
the doors leading into the hall, their work being
greatly incommoded by the presence of the
horses, I bethought me that we might do some
damage among the enemy by firing at them out
of an upper window.  Accordingly I ran up the
stairs by myself, and found that there was but
one window opening on the back of the house,
where the attack was being made, Lameray
knowing very well that this side was not able
to withstand a stout assault.  I stood at the
window for a little to comprehend what was
proceeding beneath, and saw a crowd of men
gathered about the door, and others entering
the window into the room I had crossed on my
way to the hall.  Then, bending forward, I fired
my pistol into the midst of the throng, which
instantly fell apart, one man dropping to the
ground, and Lameray shouting to the rest to
save themselves and enter by the window.
They did his bidding, but very soon I saw some
issue forth and seize upon one of the broken
statues that strewed the garden, and this they
proceeded to carry through the window into
the room, designing, as I guessed, to employ it
as a battering ram against the inner door.  I
had charged my pistol again, and firing just as
the last of the men entered, I was lucky enough
to hit his right arm, which fell useless at his
side.

Since I could now do no more above, I hastened
back to the hall, and knew by the shouts and
the blows upon the door that the enemy were
making a very vigorous assault upon it.  I knew
that the timbers could not long endure so mighty
a battering, and the barricado that we had
raised against it would prove itself a very sorry
defence.  But the King, who was perfectly
calm, and wore as serene a countenance as if
he were playing a sett at tennis, stood in the
midst of the hall, speaking brief words of cheer;
and ever and anon our little party fired their
pistols through the door, setting the muzzles
close to the timber, not without effect, as we
knew by the groans and cries from without.
There came answering shots, the enemy desisting
from their battering for this purpose, and first
a horse near me screamed most pitifully, and
then the Sieur de Langres gave one choking
sigh, and fell at the King's feet with a bullet
in his breast.

.. _`THE SIEUR DE LANGRES GAVE ONE CHOKING SIGH, AND FELL AT THE KING'S FEET`:

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   :alt: THE SIEUR DE LANGRES GAVE ONE CHOKING SIGH, AND FELL AT THE KING'S FEET

   THE SIEUR DE LANGRES GAVE ONE CHOKING SIGH, AND FELL AT THE KING'S FEET

"Courage, my friends!" cried the King.
"They have us in a trap, but they shall not get
us until we have slain four for one."

"Navarre!  Navarre!" we shouted in consort,
the hall ringing with our cries, and from beyond
the door we heard confused shouts of "Guise!
Mayenne!  Lameray!"

I observed that Rosny stood in front of the
King, to protect him, which the King remarking,
he plucked Rosny by the sleeve and said, in
a gay and easy tone, "Nay, nay, mon cher,
what says the Psalmist?  'The Lord is my shield
and buckler.'  Wouldst usurp the prerogative
of the Almighty?"  Rosny stepped aside at
the King's urging, and I told him that Martigny
had ridden back to warn the Marshal de Biron,
and if we could only hold out for yet a little,
I made no doubt the marshal would come with
a troop sufficient to put our enemies to the rout.
But at that moment, as if to mock my words,
there was a loud crack, and we knew that the
woodwork of the door was giving way.  By good
hap a heavy table stood at the place where the
board was splintered, so that it was not driven
in; and four of our party firing together through
the door, we heard cries of pain mingled with
the jubilant shouts which had hailed this breach
in our defences.

But it was very plain that we could resist
but little longer, and unless Biron should come
within a few minutes, our case would be desperate
indeed.  In a fever of trouble I strove to think
of some way whereby we might save the King,
for I believed then, and I know now, that the
loss of so great a man would have been a sore
calamity for France and the world.  And as
I beat my wits on this matter, on a sudden I
chanced to remember Henry's hat and cloak
that lay on the table in the great salon, and a
device rushed into my mind.  I durst not tell
the King, who would assuredly have forbid it;
but I drew Rosny aside, and whispered it to
him.  A light beamed upon his troubled face,
and he bade me go, but secretly, lest the King
should observe me.  Accordingly I sought my
friend Raoul, and desired him to draw the bolts
of the great door as silently as might be, and to
be ready to throw it open at a word.  And then
I crept into the salon, and taking the plumed hat
and cloak from the table I donned them, and
returned into the hall.  Meanwhile Rosny had
informed the King that Biron had been warned,
and had led him up the stairs to a window in
the front of the house, whence they might
overlook a great space of the country and
peradventure spy the marshal coming.  The way
being thus cleared for me, I mounted my horse,
there in the hall, and giving Raoul the word, he
flung the door open, and I dashed out, my horse
leaping the steps at one stride.

The enemy were all at the rear part of the
house, so that there was none to see me as I
galloped at a headlong pace towards the lane.
But as I passed the stables they caught sight
of me, as I designed they should, and then there
was such a yell of consternation and rage as
I had never heard before.  A shot flew after me,
but fell short, and in a trice I swept through
the gateway, wheeled suddenly to the left, and
set my horse to an easy canter, for it was not
part of my plan to gallop clean away.  I heard
the shouts of the men as they swarmed after
me, and turning in my saddle, yet keeping my
face pretty well concealed, I saw them scurry
into the copse where their horses were tethered,
Lameray first among them.  The dusk of
evening and an autumn haze hung over the ground,
so that I had good hope they would be deceived
by the plume and the cloak, and not observe
that the form thus clad was not that of Henry
of Navarre, but of his humble servant Christopher
Rudd.

I had ridden but a few hundred yards up the
lane when they came dashing out of the copse
after me, Lameray again the first.  And now
that I had drawn them into pursuit, as I had
purposed, I gave my good horse his head, and
galloped on at a round pace.  Soon I left the
lane, leaping the hedge into a field, not for
easiness of going, but to entice the enemy after
me, and thereby give the King the opportunity
of riding forth with his party and reaching camp
before me.  The hunt followed my lead with
excellent witlessness; taking a flying look at
them I perceived that nearly every man of
them was joining in the chase; and my blood
tingles now, old man as I am, when I remember
the joy that leapt in my veins as I rode, springing
over hedges and ditches, the pack in full cry
after me.  Verily I believe that my horse was
as merry as I myself, though he may have
wondered where was the fox, not knowing that
I myself was the quarry of that hunt.

My steed, as I have said, was the envy of
the camp, and at the pace whereto I set him
he soon outdistanced all the pursuers save only
Lameray, who bestrode a fine roan but little
less in value than my own horse.  One by one
the others dropt off, but he still kept within the
same distance of me, and I wondered whether
he would have the temerity to pursue me up to
the very skirts of the camp and perchance into
the arms of Biron.  Glancing over my shoulder
(yet careful to shield my face with my arm),
I saw that a dyke I had just leapt had been too
much for every one of my pursuers but him, and
recollecting his insolency towards me, and the
attempt on my life, and above all, his slur upon
my swordsmanship, I resolved to try conclusions
with him, and prove upon his body the foul
traitor he was.  Accordingly I put my horse
at a low wall, barely clearing an unexpected
ditch that lay beyond it, and reining up, wheeled
about and awaited my enemy a dozen yards
upon the further side.  He came up at a wild
and reckless pace, and, traitor though he was,
I could not but admire the dexterity of his
manage as he leapt the wall at the very place
of my crossing.  Seeing me biding for him, with
no care now to shroud my countenance, he drew
his sword at the moment of leaping, and came
at me in a fury.  But his horse lost a little speed
in taking the ditch, and since I set spurs to mine
as soon as Lameray's alighted, we met with a
mighty shock, and my steed being lighter than
his was forced back upon his haunches.  In this
manner I escaped the point of his sword
outthrust towards me, and causing my horse to
swerve, I heard Lameray's snarl of rage as he
was carried a few paces beyond.  In a twinkling
he was about, and lifting his sword high above
his head, he brought it down with a vehement
stroke that, had it touched me, would assuredly
have cleft my head in twain, or my arm from the
shoulder.  But my good steed answered perfectly
to the pressure of my heel upon his flank, and
swerving, saved me by a hair's breadth.  And
then, at the same moment that I heard a great
shouting far away, I lunged swiftly, and by
good hap my point entered his throat.  With
one dreadful sob he fell backwards over the
crupper, and the traitor was no more.

.. _`RAISING HIS SWORD HIGH ABOVE HIS HEAD, HE BROUGHT IT DOWN WITH A VEHEMENT STROKE`:

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   :alt: RAISING HIS SWORD HIGH ABOVE HIS HEAD, HE BROUGHT IT DOWN WITH A VEHEMENT STROKE

   RAISING HIS SWORD HIGH ABOVE HIS HEAD, HE BROUGHT IT DOWN WITH A VEHEMENT STROKE

It needs not to tell how Biron, with three-score
of his choicest cavaliers, rode out from
camp with Martigny, having lost some little
time in saddling, and came full upon a portion
of Lameray's troop just as they returned to the
lane.  The King and his little band having
sallied forth, and being on the further side of
them, they were shut up as in a vice, and full
two-score of them were slain.  Nor does it
become me to relate all that King Henry said
to me when he sought me out, I having ridden
straight into Arques when I had taken Lameray's
sword as a trophy.  I might, if I chose, write
myself the Baron de St Aubyn in the peerage
of France, since thus royally did the King see
fit to reward me; but having been born an
Englishman I have no great love for outlandish
titles, though, maybe, if I enjoyed a marquis's
rank I might not be so squeamish.  Go to my
cabinet yonder; there you will find, set together
in one place, a white plume, a cloak, and a sword.
These the King was pleased to give me.  Peradventure
in years to come, when your  grandsons
visit you, you will set these relics in state
before them, and tell over again the story of the
lonely château and the Baron de Lameray.

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Interim

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A few days after this notable adventure, the
Duke of Mayenne encamped over against Arques,
and made sundry assaults upon King Henry's
entrenchments, being baffled at all points.  Then,
hearing that new forces were drawing near from
the east, and that five thousand good English
soldiers were upon the sea, he withdrew himself
into Picardy, the King marching close upon his
heels up to the very walls of Paris, the suburbs
whereof he took, and gave over to pillage.  But
winter coming on, he stayed not to open a siege,
but withdrew to Tours, sallying forth thence
when he heard that Mayenne was again afoot.
Many strong places in Normandy yielded
themselves up to him, and in the middle of March
in the next year he gave battle to Mayenne at
Ivry, where, when Fortune seemed to be turning
against him, he called cheerfully upon his nobles
and gentlemen, and they following him charged
into the thick of the fray, his white plume waving
in the midst.  And among the thirty horsemen
that came forth with him out of the mellay was my
grandfather, who bore ever after on his neck the
scar of a sword cut dealt him on that glorious day.

After this victory my grandfather accompanied
the King in his march upon Paris, to which city
Henry laid siege, straitly shutting it up all that
summer, so that they lacked food, and devoured
horses and asses, dogs and rats, and even little
balls of clay and powdered bones.  But the Duke
of Parma coming out of the Low Countries with
an army of Spaniards, the King was enforced to
strike his camp and haste to meet this doughty
foe.  Nevertheless there was no battle betwixt
them, for Henry was in no wise strong enough to
match the Duke, nor indeed was he equal to
him in the art of war, though none could be
bolder or more daring in the field.  Being
therefore outdone, he drew back his forces, and the
city was opened to the Spaniards, who threw
into it a plenty of victuals and lifted the people
out of their misery.

It were too long to tell of all the skirmishes,
the marchings and countermarchings, the
captures and surprises, wherein my grandfather
bore his part for three years from that time.  But
in July 1593, the King professed himself of the
Catholic faith, to the joy of the greater part of
the nation, and the confusion of his enemies.
City after city opened its gates to him; by
the end of that year France had peace, and many
of the English gentlemen that had fought for the
King returned to their own country, my
grandfather being among them.  He told me that the
main cause of his return was Queen Elizabeth's
displeasure with Henry for that he had changed
his religion, but it is known that the Queen
nevertheless withdrew not her support from him,
and methinks my grandfather himself no longer
held him in the same degree of respect, for he
abhorred a turncoat, and I know that he grieved
because, as all men knew, the King forsook his
faith without sincerity and for the mere bauble
of a crown.  My father was used to remind him
how Naaman the Syrian bowed himself in the
house of Rimmon, and is held of many to be
blameless; and how King Henry did in truth
by his conversion compose the French nation to
peace and order; whereat my grandfather would
cry, "How now! would you do ill that good may
come?" and so put him to silence.

However, having returned to London, my
grandfather obtained by the interest of a noble
friend the promise of a place among the Queen's
Guard.  Yet it was some while ere he entered
into this honourable office, for being sent by my
Lord Burghley upon an errand to Flanders,
he was led by chance, or more truly by the hand
of Providence, to employ his sword in defence
of the liberties of the commonweal there.  The
Provinces had been struggling for five and twenty
years against the oppression of the Spanish
King and his minions, of whom the Duke of
Alva in especial left a name for iron sternness
and cruelty.  Like as in the case of King Henry
of Navarre, Queen Elizabeth lent aid to the
suffering folk; many of her chiefest men were
captains in their army, and became governors of
their towns, and did many right honest and
praiseworthy deeds in their behoof.  And among
the stories that my grandfather told me, none
pleased me better than this that now follows,
wherein he relates a quaint and pleasant conceit
that he devised for the undoing of a traitor.





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.. _`THE THIRD PART`:

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   THE THIRD PART

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CHRISTOPHER RUDD'S ADVENTURE IN THE
LOW COUNTRIES, AND HIS QUAINT
DEVICE OF THE SILVER SHOT

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I

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I could wish that I had been born somewhat
earlier into the world, for then I had had no
cause, in these my latter years, to feel shame for
my country, nor to look into the future with any
disquietude.  This our England stood upon a
pinnacle of renown and majesty that year when
the Spaniards' Armada was shattered by the
winds of God and the shot of Sir Francis Drake.
Queen Elizabeth went down to her grave in a
blaze of glory; but in the reign of her successor
the lustre of our name was dimmed.  At this
present the sky is black with clouds, and there
is rumbling and muttering of thunder.  Pray
God our Ship of State may weather the imminent
storm!

Chiefly I could wish to have been of an elder
generation, because then I might have had a full
share in that great struggle for liberty which our
neighbours of the Low Countries long time
maintained with stout heart against the Spaniard.  I
did, indeed, ply my sword in their behoof, among
the voluntaries whom our queen suffered to
engage in that service; but I came late to it,
when a great part of the journey work was
already done.  Prince William, named the Silent,
had fallen to the assassin's knife while I was yet
at school; and by the hand of that pattern of all
princely virtues the foundations of the Republic
had been well and truly laid.  Yet had he
bequeathed a vast heritage of toil to his son, Prince
Maurice, whom I must hold to be the peerless
instructor of this age in the art of war.  By his
side I dealt many a dint for freedom, and it
would need a month of talking so much as to tell
over the sieges and stratagems, the ambuscades
and sharp encounters, wherein I bore my part
with that worthy prince.  But at the very
beginning of my service there befell me a
noteworthy adventure which I look back upon with
a certain joyous contentment; and that I will
relate, craving your patience.

In the autumn of 1593 I was sent for one day
to wait upon my Lord Burghley at Cecil House
in the Strand.  I found him exceeding sick in
body, with a look of death upon his aged
countenance; but his mind was sound and firm as
ever, and he laid his commands upon me with
all his wonted clearness and precision.

I had but lately quit the service of His Majesty
of France.  The Queen, my mistress, bore so ill
King Henry's submission to the Roman Church
as she could not endure the continuance of any
of her servants in his employment.  Thus I
chanced to be for the nonce at large, and ready
for the charge the Lord Treasurer committed to me.

Since the villainous treachery of Sir William
Stanley and Sir Rowland Yorke in delivering the
town of Deventer to the Spaniards, the
Netherlanders had harboured a natural suspicion and
distrust of the good faith of our English captains.
Especially was there a present dread lest the
town of Ostend should be betrayed by its English
garrison.  To clear our fame of this withering
blight, the Queen had determined to admonish
Sir Edward Norris, governor of that place,
bidding him to keep a wary watch upon his
captains and soldiers, to enforce them rigorously
in their duty, and to hang up without remorse
any that should be discovered in communication
with the enemy.  To this end she indited with
her own hand a letter to Sir Edward, the which,
together with his own formal despatch, the Lord
Treasurer delivered to me for conveyance to
Flanders.

This was a charge that jumped well with my
inclination.  I had no love for the soft air of
courts or the mincing manners of a carpet knight,
and having learnt from my Lord Burghley that,
my errand being accomplished, the Queen would
not stay me from serving Prince Maurice, I took
passage very willingly in a hoy bound for
Flushing, where I landed some time in the month of
October.

It needs not to tell of my journey to Ostend
and my meeting with Sir Edward Norris.  Having
delivered to him my letters, I departed as soon
as with good manners I might, and, accompanied
only by my servant, took my way to the camp
of Sir Francis Vere, the principal general of our
English levies since my Lord Leicester departed
from the Low Countries.  Sir Francis greeted
me right boisterously, and put a troop of horse
immediately at my command.

'Tis a matter well established that a man may
have all the qualities of a captain and leader of
men, and yet lack those higher parts that are
requisite in a general.  Sir Francis was in person
the very image and model of a man of war.  Of
good stature, with a well-knit body and a princely
countenance, his hair close-clipped and his brown
beard spread spade-shaped upon his breast, he
made a noble figure in his Milan corselet inlaid
with gold and his ruff of point-lace.  Bold and
resolute in action, he was nevertheless heady,
prone to anger, and full of whimsies, whereby
in great affairs he was apt to be looked on with
a certain mistrust, both in the council and in
the field.  I had not been long with him before
I perceived that he entertained a most violent
hatred and jealousy of Prince Maurice, and
looked upon the Netherlanders with a sour
contempt.

I learnt from him the posture of affairs in the
Low Countries at that time.  The Spaniards
had of late taken sundry strong places of note,
and were closely investing sundry others.  Prince
Maurice, being but ill provided, could do little
towards the relief of those beleaguered towns,
and while gathering strength thereto held
himself mainly to the defensive.  This loitering and
idleness provoked Sir Francis to wrath, who
would chafe and chide, and avouch that 'twould
be profitable to the country if the whole breed
of Nassaus were rid out of the way.

It chanced that one day I sallied forth with
a handful of men towards a small city then
besieged by the Spaniards, to discover if I might
the strength and disposition of the enemy.  For
reasons that will presently appear I had liever
not tell the true name of this place, but will call
it Bargen.

We rode forth one misty afternoon, and picked
our way not without trouble among the runnels
and made watercourses wherewith that flat and
marshy land abounds.  Perceiving no sign of
the enemy, I was tempted to approach more
closely to their lines than consorted with
prudence.  As we rode by a narrow bridle path
betwixt a patch of woodland and a field in
stubble, on a sudden, from among the trees,
cloaked in a measure by the mist, there sprang
upon us a troop of corseleted horsemen.  They
had, I doubted not, got wind of my approach,
and lain in wait under covert of the wood to cut
me off.

Some of our fine gentlemen that showed their
bravery at court were wont to boast that one
Englishman was a match for five Spaniards; but
such vainglorious brag is bemocked by those who,
as I myself, have encountered those doughty
warriors in the field.  The Spaniard may be a
paltry adversary on the seas, though even there
I have met with some that were no mean fellows.
Howbeit on land I found them valorous and
redoubtable foemen, whom to despise would
argue a pitiful ignorance and marvellous ill
reckoning.

I had with me six or seven stout fellows, good
swordsmen and well seasoned to war; but our
enemy numbered a full score, who smote upon
us like thunder and bore us down by sheer weight
and fury.  In my time I have been in many a
sore strait and hazard, but never stood I in such
jeopardy as when two of my men were cast
headlong from their saddles and the Spaniards
held the rest of us like rats in a trap.  We had
not time to wheel about and trust to the speed
of our horses; the utmost that we could do was
to back among the trees and play the man.
There was a mighty clashing of steel upon
armour as we gave stroke for stroke; but the
enemy beset us vehemently, and had well-nigh
encompassed us without hope of life, when, in
the twinkling of an eye, there leapt from the
depths of the wood a half-score of wild and
unkempt figures, that flung themselves with
exceeding heat and fury into the thick of the
mellay, making marvellous quick play with their
short knives, both upon the horses and the
bodies of the Spaniards, at the joints of their
harness.

This timely interposition put new heart into
my stout fellows, who plied their swords with
such manful resolution as made the Spaniards,
already confused and baffled by the waspish
newcomers, take thought for their safety and
seek to draw out of danger.  In short, within
two minutes such of them as had not fallen
betook themselves to flight, spurring their steeds
every man in a contrary direction.  My men in
the fervency of victory made to pursue them;
whereupon, being in no mind to be enticed further
within the enemy's lines, I halloed to them loudly
to refrain.  They reined up and cantered back
to me, save one headstrong and reckless fellow,
John Temple by name, who pressed hard on the
heels of the rearmost Spaniard, and was soon
lost to sight beyond the confines of the wood.

Very well content with this happy issue from
our troubles, I turned about to see more clearly
what manner of men were those that had wrought
our deliverance.  Their aspect and garb bespoke
them as boors of the country, for they wore
rough smocks, round fur bonnets, and breeches
of wondrous largeness and of a blue colour; yet
they had not on their feet the wooden clogs of
use and wont, but went barefoot for swiftness.
I was minded to offer them some recompense for
their service, and being as yet too new in the
country to have gained anything of their speech,
I bade one of my men, who had been long among
Netherlandish folk, acquaint them with my
purpose.  Whereupon a young man who had
hitherto held himself backward and aloof, stepped
forth, and addressing me in execrable French,
said—

"Sir, we covet no reward, having done that
which we have done in the service of our country,
and for behoof of those that serve her also."

Taking more particular note of this young man,
I perceived that neither in favour nor in speech
did he match the others of his company.

"Sir," said I, "we are beholden to you.  I
would fain know your name."

With some hesitancy he replied—

"Sir, call me Van der Kloof; 'twill serve as
well as another."

I gave him a hard look, to ensure that I might
know him again; but having made it a rule of
conduct never to pry or meddle with matters
that do not concern me, I forbore further question.
Whereupon the young man told me of his own
accord how that he had lain in the wood for a
good while, keeping watch on the Spaniards, our
late adversaries, who had come from the direction
of Bargen, and were going, as he thought, towards
the camp of Verdugo, the Spanish governor.  I
got from him sundry informations concerning
matters in Bargen, though not so much as I
should have liked.

The hour was now growing late, and John
Temple had not yet returned.  I had thought
that, when he found himself without support
from us, he would ride back without delay, and
his continued absence made me fear for his
safety.  Though by his stupidity or obstinacy
he deserved no better than to fall into the
hands of the Spaniards, I was loth to lose any
man of my charge; accordingly, we rode warily
some short distance after him.  But when we
found him not, we turned about and made
towards our own camp, only desiring Van der
Kloof, if he should meet with Temple, to bid
him follow hard after us.

We were within a bowshot of our camp when
Temple overtook us.  His horse was in a great
heat and foam, and the man himself was in a sorry
case, having a great gash in his cheek, his morion
gone, his doublet slashed and bedabbled with
blood.

"How now, sirrah!" I cried to him as he
rode among us.  "Art deaf, that thou didst not
hear my command, or a mere addle-pate, to go
alone into the midst of a host?"  And I rated
him very roundly, I do assure you.  The man said
not a whit in his proper defence, but pled that
being at the very heels of a Spaniard who had
dealt hardly with him in the fight, he could not
endure to leave him without giving him a Roland
for his Oliver.  The chase was longer than his
expectation; and the Spaniard, seeing him
persistent, on a sudden wheeled about and met him
face to face.  They two fought it out, and after
a long and laboursome bout, whereof Temple
bore many eloquent and grievous tokens, he
overcame his adversary and made his quietus.

And then he displayed before me the spoils
of this engagement, to wit, a fine Toledo blade;
a belt of good Cordovan leather, the pouch filled
with Spanish dollars; and a jewelled ring of gold.
And when I had told him that he might keep
these for himself, he brought forth from under
his belt a strip of paper, and put it into my hand.

"This I espied, sir," he said, "through a rent
in the don's doublet, and seeing there was writing
thereupon, being no scholar myself, I fished it
out for your worship's perusal."

Thinking 'twas some love billet that the
hapless Spaniard had worn against his heart, I was
in a manner loth to take it.  But I bethought
myself directly after that in time of war it behoves
a man to suspect all and trust none, and in this
mind I spread open the paper and bent my eyes
upon it.  And then I was not a little discontented
at the meagreness of what I read.  'Twas
nothing but a table of stores, writ in the Spanish
tongue: so many tubs of powder, so many chests
of the same, so many spare pikes, so many
double bullets for the calivers, so many bullets
for the matchlocks, so many round shot for the
sakers and culverins—in truth, I did not read
every article, being persuaded that the fellow
from whom the paper was taken was some
pitiful storekeeper, a man of no account.  Yet
I stowed it within my doublet, from a mere
habit of prudence, and rode on, telling the man
Temple jestingly that my share of the booty was
paltry by comparison with his.


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II

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It was dark when I came to my lodging, and
learnt from my servant that Sir Francis Vere,
some while before, had sent to seek me.  I made
haste to attend the general, whom I found alone
at his supper.

"Ha, Rudd," he cried to me in his great voice,
"I am glad to see thee, lad."  (He was but ten
years my elder, but let that pass.)  "How hast
fared?"

I rehearsed very shortly the particulars of my
excursion, and those few matters I had learnt
of the Dutchman; but held my peace as touching
the paper Temple had given me, deeming that
to be of no moment.  Sir Francis made me
compliments on my good hap in coming off with
a whole skin, and then, bidding me share his
meal, pushed a letter over the table towards me.

"Read that," said he, "and tell me your mind
upon it."

The letter, I found, was from Prince Maurice
himself, concerning Bargen, the place from before
which I had even now returned.  The Prince was
troubled in mind about its safety.  It had been
some two months besieged by the Spaniards,
and he was as yet unable to stir towards its
relief, being himself menaced by a greater force,
the which he believed to be looking for some
movement on his part thitherward, with the
intent to fall upon him as he marched.  The
city had hitherto made a good defence, but there
had come to his ears rumours of a weak-kneed
party in the council, and he feared lest, as the
labour and hardship of the defence waxed
greater, the tottering loyalty of these burghers
should fail utterly, and they deliver up their
city into the enemy's hands.  In this strait he
besought the aid of Sir Francis, requesting him
to use all endeavours to save the place, chiefly
by strengthening the hands of those burghers
among the council that were still trusty and
faithful.

"A murrain on him!" cried Sir Francis, as
I set the letter down.  "Why does he sit still,
this Prince Do-Nothing?  Did he strike a
blow I would give him a mighty backing, but
'tis not in me to play the nurse, and cosset
faint-hearts.  He must seek another man for
that job, one of his own slow Dutchmen, pardy!"

But it flashed upon me in a moment that the
Prince had shown wisdom and discretion in
seeking an Englishman for this part.  I had
learnt already that there was great jealousy
between the several cities; each was in a manner
a little republic; and the burghers of one city
would be apt to look with ill-favour upon any
man from another who should offer to teach
them their duty.  The like resentment would
not be stirred up by an Englishman, more
especially if he were commended to them as
one expert in war and cunning in counsel.  In
this I thought Prince Maurice had done wisely,
and so I told Sir Francis.  He looked at me
very sharply, fingering his beard, and then
smote upon the table and cried with a great
laugh:

"By the Lord Harry, thou art the man!"

I stared at him, at the first not understanding
his intent.  He laughed again, and said:

"Who so fit for this business as Master Christopher
Rudd, expert in war, as witness his exploits
with Henry of Navarre; cunning in counsel, as
witness his lecture and admonition at this very
table!  You shall go into Bargen; you shall
take in hand the instruction of the burghers;
you shall strengthen the weak hands and confirm
the feeble knees; a Daniel come to judgment!"

I did not relish his mockery, nor in any wise
covet the office he would thrust upon me.  But
his laughter stung me to a great heat (though I
showed it not), and, not counting the cost as an
older man had done, I determined in my mind
that I would do this thing, come of it what
might.  Whereupon, feigning to take him in
merry mood, I smote upon the table likewise,
declared 'twas a right royal jest, and vowed that
on the morrow I would make my way privily
through the enemy's lines into Bargen, and
instal myself tutor among the mynheers.  Sir
Francis applauded me, still in sport, not
supposing that I had spoken soberly and in earnest.

When I came to reflect upon it in my own
chamber I questioned whether I were not clean
witless, for the task I had taken upon myself
was fitter for a man well acquainted with these
burghers than for a man raw and untried.
Nevertheless, having put the halter about my
own neck, I could blame none but myself if I
was hanged withal, and from sheer pride of
soul I was steadfast to my purpose.

Accordingly, the next day, without any more
speech of Sir Francis, I went about quietly to
get myself a trusty Dutchman who should guide
me into Bargen.  By good fortune I lighted
upon a man that not only knew English, but
had himself gone in and out of the city by a
secret way, in despite of the Spaniards.  In the
dusk we set forth from the camp, with my
servant, and rode to a lonely mill some few
miles from Bargen, half ruined and burnt in a
foray the year before.  There we left our horses,
which the Dutchman engaged to lead back to
the camp, and went down to the river hard by,
where, in a clump of rushes, we found his raft
cunningly concealed.

It being now dark, we got upon the raft, and
oared ourselves warily and in silence down the
stream, until we came to a spit or nose of land
that was at this season partly submerged and
in winter-time wholly.  Here we stepped ashore,
being within a short bowshot of the Spaniards'
trenches.  At this hour of the night none but
the sentinels were stirring, and, as my guide
well knew, the guard hereabout was negligent
and unwary.

We crept softly as foxes toward the wall, and
as we crawled up the glacis a voice challenged
us, and I heard the click of a firelock.  My guide
made answer in a whisper, and immediately after
two rope ladders were let down from the wall,
upon which we nimbly mounted to the parapet.
There we were confronted by a posse of the
burgher guard, armed at all points, and my
Dutchman presented me to their captain, saying,
according to my instruction, that I was come
on business of great moment from Prince Maurice.

.. _`WE CREPT SOFTLY AS FOXES TOWARD THE WALL`:

.. figure:: images/img-143.jpg
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   :alt: WE CREPT SOFTLY AS FOXES TOWARD THE WALL

   WE CREPT SOFTLY AS FOXES TOWARD THE WALL

The Captain would have led me instantly to
the presence of the Burgomaster, but on my
assuring him that my errand was not so urgent
as that I should disturb that worthy gentleman's
rest so unseasonably, he offered to find me a
comfortable lodging for the night.  We went
together, my servant following, through the
dark and silent streets, the Captain telling me
that I should lodge in the house of the widow of
the late Burgomaster, who had been slain in a
skirmish the year before.  When I said that I
was loth to intrude upon the lady at so late an
hour, the Captain declared that Meffrouw
Verhoeff would deem it in no wise an intrusion;
indeed, he said that I should find a table ready
laid, my hostess having a son among the guard
for whom she watched on all those nights when
he was abroad.

Within a little I found myself at the entrance
of a house wherein a lamp shone.  At the
Captain's knock the door was opened, and a voice
asked, "Is it you, Jan?" the speaker not
perceiving at the first who we were.  The Captain
presenting me as an envoy from Prince Maurice,
and an Englishman, a soft hand caught mine,
and drew me into the house, and I made my
salutation to a little old lady, very comely and
personable, with a widow's cap and snow-white
ruff, who greeted me in English and bade me
very heartily welcome.  She would hear no
excuses upon the lateness of the hour; but led
me into her parlour, then left me while she
bestowed my servant, and returning, entreated
me to do honour to the viands with which her
table was sparely spread.

Mistress Verhoeff entertained me as I ate with
many particulars of the siege.  I was not long of
discovering that her small body was the seat of
a very fiery and unquenchable spirit; and in
truth, while she spoke of the brave deeds done
in defence of the city, her cheeks glowed and her
eyes sparkled so that she seemed young again.
There had been much suffering, she told me;
but her folk had learnt to suffer, and of a surety
could endure even more grievous afflictions than
had yet befallen them.

At these words methought there was trouble
in her voice, and I wondered whether she was
aware of the rumours whereof Prince Maurice
had made mention in his letter to Sir Francis Vere.

She spoke of her dead husband, and of her
living son, who was this night on guard at the wall.

"Had his father but lived," she said, "my
boy had beyond question held great place, in the
field or the council chamber; but now, alack! he
trails a pike among the common men."

While we were yet conversing, there was a
step without, and a young man entered to us.
He stood amazed to behold a stranger with his
mother, but upon her making me known to him,
he gave me a courteous salutation and sat himself
at the board.  Now I never lose the remembrance
of a face once seen, and at the first glance I could
have avouched that this young man was the same
that did me service two days before.  Yet the
form of his countenance was something changed,
and his apparel was wholly bettered, and when
he made not the least sign that he knew me, I
was tempted to doubt my memory had for once
cozened me.  We spoke of indifferent matters,
and then, with the intent to put him to the test,
I said bluntly—

"Sir, have you knowledge or acquaintance
of one Mynheer Van der Kloof?"

"I know no man living of that name," he
answered me.

"I crave your pardon, sir," said I, "but truly
I would fain meet that same mynheer again, that
I might renew my thanks for a timely service
he rendered me."

"What was that, sir?" the lady asked; and
her son seemed to wait upon my words with mere
curiosity.

I related my adventure of two days before,
and my hostess averred that Mynheer Van der
Kloof was no man of Bargen, seeing that neither
was there any family of that name in the city,
nor could any force of burghers have been without
the walls, the place having been straitly
invested for two months past.  This in my secret
thought I took leave to doubt, but I could not
in courtesy urge my opinion, and we left speaking
of the matter.  Shortly thereafter the lady
herself conducted me to my chamber, where I was
soon comfortably established between the sheets,
as white and fragrant as ever I slept in.


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III

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On the morrow, very early, I was waited upon
by a sergeant come express to conduct me to
the Burgomaster, whom the Captain of the
Guard had informed of my arrival.  I must
acknowledge that in the cold and sober light of
morning I felt myself to be in something of a
pickle.  I had announced myself as an emissary
from Prince Maurice, but I had no letter of
commendation in his hand, nor, in truth, had
I so much as set eyes on him.  Furthermore, I
was a stranger to all in the city, and being little
more than a boy,—my years were twenty-two,
though, like Portia in Will Shakespeare's play,
I was elder than my looks—being little more
than a boy, I say, I doubted of the reception I
should meet with among the grave and solemn
burghers of the city council.  I could but trust
to a bold front and mother wit to carry me
through my enterprise, and I took some comfort
from the reflection that Hollanders were said to
be somewhat dull and heavy.  Accordingly,
having trimmed myself with exceeding care, and
donned the fresh and sumptuous apparel, meet
for an ambassador, which my servant had
brought, I set forth with assured mien and
measured gait, looking neither to the right hand
nor to the left upon the gaping onlookers that
had gathered in the streets.

Being ushered with much solemnity by the
sergeant into the council-chamber, I found myself
in presence of a round dozen burghers clad in
brave attire, and seated at their table in order of
precedency, as I judged.  I cast a swift look
round as I gave them salutation, at the first
taking particular note of none but the
Burgomaster at the head of the table, whose aspect
tickled me with secret merriment.  He was a
round pursy little man, clean shaven, with
double chins resting on his chain of office, and
moist and vagrant eyes that did not meet my
gaze steadily.  I judged him to be pompous and
self-conceited, withal of little stability of mind,
and, as we say in our homely way, fussy.  With
hem and haw he addressed me in French, his
voice being thick, and speaking as there were a
pebble in his mouth.

"Sir, you come from the illustrious Prince
Maurice of Nassau?" he said.

.. _`"SIR, YOU COME FROM THE ILLUSTRIOUS PRINCE MAURICE OF NASSAU?"`:

.. figure:: images/img-149.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: "SIR, YOU COME FROM THE ILLUSTRIOUS PRINCE MAURICE OF NASSAU?"

   "SIR, YOU COME FROM THE ILLUSTRIOUS PRINCE MAURICE OF NASSAU?"

For answer I bowed.

"You bring a letter under his hand and seal?" he proceeded.

I hold that to speak truth is ever the best
course; wherefore, attuning my voice to a
confident serenity, I replied—

"Sir, I bear no letter, but I will in a few words
explain to the worshipful council my presence
in your city.  His illustrious Highness, tendering
your welfare, and moved by your stout and
manful resistance to the Spaniard, hath writ to my
General, Sir Francis Vere, requiring him to send
to you one of his captains, both as a witness of
his Highness' satisfaction, and with the intent
to lend you aid and support.  The choice fell
upon me, Christopher Rudd, unworthy though
I be, by reason of some slight knowledge in
warfare gained in the service of His Majesty of
France.  Such small skill as I am master of,
therefore, is yours to dispose of, albeit the
measures you have taken up to this present are
so aptly conceived and so doughtily executed that
I deem my part to be that of admirer rather than
counsellor."

This pretty speech appeared to give the
burghers some satisfaction, but I perceived that
the Burgomaster's right-hand neighbour, a lank
beetle-browed fellow of swarthy hue and Castilian
cast of feature, shot me a keen and questioning
glance out of his narrow eyes.  "This fellow is
worth the watching," I thought; but I let not
my eyes dwell upon him beyond the moment.

After some further debate I was made partaker
in their deliberations.  From one and
another I gathered information about the course
of the siege and the measures of defence they
had concerted, and I was not long of discovering,
by hint and suggestion, the rift that Prince
Maurice had suspected.  The most part of the
council were true men, bold and stout of heart;
but there were two or three that let fall doubts
and wagged their heads, with sighs and doleful
looks.  And I began to perceive a certain method
in this despondency, more especially on the part
of the lank man aforesaid, for which reason I
found myself intently observing all that he
spake.  He was most bitter and vehement in
denouncing the Spaniards, and prated very big
about withstanding them to the last breath; yet
these heroical counsels of his were ever
accompanied with a croak and quaver, as that famine
was a fouler enemy than the sword, and that all
those that escaped from the one or the other
would surely be hanged by the Spaniards.  By
this means, I perceived, he at once cunningly
magnified his own steadfastness and resolution,
and instilled dire apprehension and dismal
foreboding into the minds of his weaker brethren.

While I thus noted the strange policy of this
man, I took a certain amusement from the mien
and conduct of the worthy Burgomaster.  Now
he was at the top of resolution, now in the depth
of black despair; now breathing out fire and
fury, now lamenting the scant provision of
victuals and munitions, and questioning whether
any man's life was worth a doit.  The change
from one mood to the other was so sudden, as
the deliberations of the council swayed this way
and that under the dexterous handling of the
lank man, that I set the Burgomaster down as a
weakling, a reed shaken in the wind, and made
some question in my mind whether the destinies
of the town were safe under his governance.

Upon the breaking up of the council, I was
conducted by the Burgomaster and the Captain
of the Guard around the defences of the city,
being accompanied also by the lean and
black-browed councillor of whom I have spoken.
When I had taken note of all, it was dinner time,
and the Burgomaster bid me make that meal
with him in his own house.  This I was very
willing to do, since I found the little man a
continual entertainment.  The lank fellow and the
Captain of the Guard were my table-mates, and
we fared as handsomely as you could expect in
a beleaguered city.  In truth, it was not a
sumptuous repast; but the meagreness of the
fare was in some sort countervailed by the
bewitching presence of the Burgomaster's daughter.
Remember, I was but young; a bright eye and
a rosy cheek, when matched with a gracious
mien and a sweet and tuneable voice, cast a spell
upon me; and the fair beauty of Mistress
Jacqueline had made amends for meaner fare, even for
dry bread and indifferent water.

I perceived that the Burgomaster's lanky
friend bent an amorous eye upon the damsel,
spoke her fair and softly, and sought every way
to render himself pleasing in her sight; and that
the Burgomaster watched this underplay with
great contentment.  But I perceived also—and
I own it gave me a joy quite beyond reason—that
Mistress Jacqueline received these attentions
with a serene indifference, which I told myself
would have been a positive coldness and scorn
but for dread of her father's displeasure.

We walked away together, the Captain of the
Guard and I, and as we went I informed myself
discreetly on sundry matters whereon I had some
curiosity.  The lean lank rascal—so I called him
already—was named Mynheer Cosmo Volmar, a
Spaniard on his mother's side, president of the
gild of locksmiths in the city, and keeper of
the stores.  He was known to be paying his
court to Mistress Jacqueline, and had her father's
good will.  The lady had, however, been
betrothed aforetime to Jan Verhoeff, son of the
late Burgomaster and of the widow lady, my
hostess, and the match had been broken off by
her father when it was discovered, on the death
of Mynheer Verhoeff, that he had left but a
paltry heritage.  Of all the burgher families in
Bargen, the Verhoeffs had suffered the most
grievous loss during the war; yet the exceeding
smallness of the late Burgomaster's estate was
a cause of wonderment in the city.  The young
lovers bore their parting very hardly; and though
Mynheer Volmar's suit was approved and
furthered by her father Mynheer Warmond, the
present Burgomaster, Mistress Jacqueline had
as yet looked upon it but frostily.

These particulars were pleasing to me, for I
saw that I had come into a coil wherein affairs
of state and domestic matters were close
interwoven.  I was never so well pleased as when I
had a tangle to unravel; and the enterprise I
had taken upon myself in merry sport bade fair
to give me unlooked-for entertainment.


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IV

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On the afternoon of that day, the Spaniards
made a very hot assault at a breach in the wall
hard by the north gate of the city.  From the
commencement of the siege this had been the
chief mark of their ordnance, the which had cast
upon it as many as a thousand shot a day.  But
the burghers had diligently repaired by night the
mischief wrought in daytime, so that the damage
was but small; and the assaults which the
besiegers had already made upon the breach had
been repelled with no great difficulty.

Nevertheless, on this day the attack was
exceeding fierce.  The Spaniards swarmed into
the breach, and endeavoured mightily at push
of pike to bear down our defences.  Our burghers
met them with heroical courage, and quit
themselves well in the close fighting upon the wall.
I was not sorry that the assault had been
delivered so soon after my entrance into the city,
for I had thereby occasion to win the good favour
of the burghers by lending them aid, thereby
getting me a shrewd knock or two.  There was
no question of generalship or high strategy; it
was sheer journeyman fighting.  In this I
observed that the Captain of the Guard played a
right valiant part, and I saw with a good deal of
satisfaction that young Jan Verhoeff pressed
ever into the thickest of the fray, and plied his
pike with commendable spirit.  The tide of battle
carried me more than once to his side, and I
marked his face alit with the joy of the true
warrior.  We beat back the invaders, though not
without losing many of our ripest pikemen and
calivermen, a heavy toll upon our success.

It had not escaped my observation that the
city fathers were scarce so forward at this critical
moment as loyalty and good example required.
I saw neither the Burgomaster nor Mynheer
Volmar, but I learnt that certain of the council
had posted themselves very valiantly at such
parts of the defences as were not at that time
threatened.  As I returned with Jan Verhoeff
to his mother's house I overheard two burghers
speaking together of this witness to their rulers'
valiancy, and Jan shot a look at me that seemed
to question whether I nourished doubts of the
worthy fathers.  I said nothing on that head,
but spoke of the tough work we had been through,
the which I hoped would discourage the enemy
from attempting another assault for some time.
I said too that since he must be very weary, he
would be loth to serve among the night watch,
whereupon he told me that he was free for that
night, his turn of duty coming upon every second day.

I mention this because, in the middle of the
night, as I lay cogitating a scheme I purposed to
put next day before the Captain of the Guard,
I heard the young man, whose room was beside
mine, descend the stairs and go forth of the house.
This circumstance caused me to wonder
somewhat what his errand might be, for after the
fatigue of the day it must be a thing of moment
that could draw him from his bed.  But being
deeply concerned with matters of my own, I
gave over thinking of him, and only remembered
his going forth when I saw him pale and hard of
eye at our breakfast in the morning.  The good
lady his mother asked if he had not slept well.
"Passably," he answered, and said no more,
whereby I knew that, whatsoever his errand had
been, it was to be kept secret from his mother.

I lost no time in seeking out the Captain of
the Guard, to acquaint him with the fruit of my
cogitations in the night.  He had already
confessed to me that he had but small training in the
arts of war; wherefore, being already assured
of his fidelity and of his doughtiness in fight, I
had no squeamishness in offering him my counsel,
which a more tried warrior might have taken amiss.

I first pointed out to him certain weak places
in the defences of the city; to wit, the neighbourhood
of a mill, where the city wall had not been
strengthened because of some fancied assurance
that the mill race was protection enough; and
also the rampart by the church, where a thick
clump of trees without the wall offered good
cover to the enemy resolutely assaulting.  The
Captain was very quick to see these deficiencies
when I had mentioned them, and perfectly ready
to make them good.

From this I proceeded to a further matter.

"Sir," I said to him, "your men did right
nobly yesterday; yet methinks we should not
be content merely with having beat back the
Spaniards.  To endue them with a true respect
for us, and our men with a true respect for
themselves, it needs to repay them in their own coin:
I mean, to sally out and fall upon them unawares,
at some convenient spot of their camp."

He turned upon me a troubled countenance,
and said—

"Sir, I doubt not of the soundness of your
reasoning, nor of the good that would spring
from a successful sally; but I question if we
should prosper.  My men are stout of heart, and
behind their walls fight with sturdy resolution;
but they are not bred to war, being in the main
simple burghers that have taken up arms by
mere necessity: and beyond the walls I fear
lest their skill should not match with their
courage."

Whereupon I set myself with patience to
overcome his diffidence, confirming my
arguments with instances from the wars of King
Henry of Navarre.  Having brought him to my
mind, we repaired together to the council
chamber, where the council met every morning, and
I laid my scheme before the assembled fathers,
employing a rhetorical manner of exposition
for which I was beholden to my study of Cicero
his orations.  The little Burgomaster took fire
from my rhetoric, and, to my secret amusement,
began to deliver himself of sundry fine
sentiments in tune.  He swore that, were he captain,
he would do this and that, force a footing here
and seize a place of vantage there, and smite those
Amalekites (so he termed the Spaniards), even
as Joshua, the son of Nun.

This was my opportunity.  While his face
was still red with warlike ardour, and the fumes
of his valiance filled the air, I addressed him in
words wherein I sought to infuse deference
mingled with admiration.

"Worshipful sir," said I, "happy is the city
whose head is of so valorous and undauntable
a spirit.  With joy I hail you as leader of our
foray, whom to follow will make me proud, as I
doubt not it will make also the Captain of the
Guard and every man of this devoted garrison."

At this the Burgomaster bridled and looked
round upon the councillors with an assured and
dauntless mien.  The eyes of the Captain of the
Guard twinkled, but for me alone; and on the
dark countenance of Mynheer Volmar I observed
a sneer.

My plan was devised, in fact, to procure, if
we could, a quantity of food from the Spaniards'
camp, such as, in our present dearth, would be
exceeding acceptable.  I advised that our attack
should be made at dusk, when the enemy were
cooking their evening meal, and upon that part
of their camp where the cooking was chiefly done,
if we might judge by the number of the fires in
that quarter.  It was also, as I had perceived,
the quarter least amply defended, and most
easily assailable from our side.  By my scheme,
a strong muster of the burghers should engage
the attention of the Spaniards on the ramparts
near the church, while an elect body of two
hundred and fifty, with a support of equal
number, should sally forth at the mill, fall swiftly
upon the camp, lay hands on all that we could, and
retire into the city under cover of the support.

I will not try your patience with relating in
gross the history of this enterprise or of the many
others, small and great, wherein I had a part
while I sojourned in Bargen.  I mention it for
no other reason than because it was the first of
those that I devised, of which some came to less
happy issues, when the Spaniards grew more
wary.  In truth, my remembrance of the most
of these is but dim, and this the first would
hardly be so clear in my mind were it not close
inmeshed with the behaviour of Mynheer
Warmond the Burgomaster, who from that time
established for himself a name for valour which
his less courageous doings thereafter could not
wholly dim.

For all his brave words at the council, when it
came to the point the little man set forth sundry
doubts in respect of his fitness to lead our sally.
Being a man of full habit, and one that went
heavily upon his pins, he feared lest his tardiness
of gait should put a check upon us more nimble
footers.  Whereto I answered that, stayed up
and furthered by two sturdy burghers of proved
celerity, one on either side, and fired with his
own lusty spirit, he would out of question not
lag a yard length behind the nimblest of us.
Whereupon he confessed that he was never equal
to himself in the dark, and my answer was that
he had but to keep his eyes steadfastly fixed on
the lights in the Spaniards' camp before him.
In short, to every objection of this nature I had
my answer ready, nor would I allow that we could
have any assurance of success unless he were our
leader.

'Twas falling dusk, and mirky, when, all things
being ready, we issued forth of the gate in utter
silence, the Burgomaster toddling with scant
breath at my side.  We made such haste as that
we were nigh upon the Spanish trenches ere we
were discovered.  Having swiftly dispatched the
few sentinels that held watch at this quarter, we
sped over the trench and ran, as though 'twas
a race for a prize, across the space of open ground
that sundered it from the camp.  Here there
were but few of the enemy afoot, and they busied
for the most part with cooking, the main of the
force being gathered in front of the gate by the
church, where the burghers had been mustered
with blare of trumpet and tuck of drum to
deceive them.  These busy cooks, as soon as they
espied us, took incontinently to their heels,
sending up a great cry and clamour for help;
whereupon some companies of the enemy, which
had been standing to arms at no greater distance
than two or three furlongs, came towards us at
full stretch of legs, kindling their matches as they
ran.  I posted fourscore of our party to deal
with them, while the rest of us made diligent
perquisition in the enemy's pantry.  Thus we
gained time enough to seize as much victual as
we could carry, which done, at a blast of my
whistle we turned our backs upon the camp and
made all convenient speed towards our own walls.

Being cumbered with divers big and unwieldy
burdens, even with making the utmost expedition
we were not able to compass our safety before
the vanward of the enemy burst upon us.  With
the fourscore men aforesaid, some pikemen, some
arquebusiers, I held our rearward, having by me
the worshipful Burgomaster, whom indeed I had
been at pains to hold within reach.  At our first
coming to the camp, when the cookmen fled, the
little Burgomaster was like to split with his
heroical valiance and untameable fury.  Crying
havoc upon the Castilian dogs he brandished his
tuck with no small peril to his own party.  But
when it came to plundering, his warlike ardour
was assuaged in admiration of the flesh-pots.
He caught up a long chain of bag-puddings, such
as had not been seen in Bargen for many a day,
and cast it in a merry sport about his neck, as it
were insignia of his office.  Then, still holding his
tuck bare with his right hand, he seized with his
left a monstrous hog's ham, and so laden was
ready to decamp with his booty.

The Spaniards hotly pursuing us, I perceived
that the Burgomaster's valour was now all
melted away, and that he was beset by a shaking
fear and trepidation.  The ground over which
we ran was exceeding rugged, and the little round
man puffed and gurgled as he tripped upon
hindrances, striving to keep pace with our
covering party, but perilously encumbered by the
dangling puddings and the massy ham.  Beholding
his plight, one of the burghers in mere
kindness, or peradventure out of a licorous
appetite, sought to aid him by relieving him of
this part of his load; but the Burgomaster clung
to it the more closely, protesting vehemently
that he would not be robbed, and beseeching us
to succour and sustain him.

Running thus in the twilight, he struck his
foot upon a tussock of grass, and fell headlong,
and lay groaning and shrieking for help, unable
to rise by reason of his hands being engaged, the
one with his sword, the other with the ham; for
even in this extremity he clave manfully to his
weapon, and covetously to his provender.  I
stayed my steps to lift him up, and by this delay
saw myself overtaken by four or five of the
Spaniards, who came about to overwhelm us.
Summoning to me two of our pikemen that were
happily within call, I faced about with them to
beat off this attack upon our rear, knowing well
that if we could not scatter them we must needs
fly immediately for our lives, since we could hear
the shouts of a numerous body hasting towards
us from the camp.

At this pass did the Burgomaster achieve high
and imperishable renown.  The foremost of the
Spaniards, charging full upon us, thrust out his
sword towards the breast of Mynheer Warmond,
and had surely then let out his life but that by
good hap I interposed my own blade, and struck
the Spaniard's weapon from his hand.  But the
fury of his onset threw him clean upon the
Burgomaster, who, letting his sword fall, but cleaving
valorously to the ham, flung his arms about the
Spaniard's neck and brought him heavily to the
ground.  Behold then a spectacle whereat the
gods might laugh; upon the ground a marvellous
medley of legs, arms, bag-puddings and ham, out
of which issued a most admirable discordance of
Spanish and Low Dutch.

Being joined at this time by others of our
party, we were able to hold the pursuers at bay
while I sought to disentangle the Burgomaster
from his adversary.  This was no light
achievement, for the little man, clasping his foe in
strength of malice and with the tight embrace
of one drowning, yet never loosing the ham, could
scarce be persuaded that he was not in the article
of death.  Being at length put asunder, they
were both got upon their feet, and we hurried
them at a good round pace towards the wall.
Here our supporting party was drawn up, the
which directed a volley of bullets over our heads
at the pursuers; and these being further
discomfited by the shot from sundry culverins
parked within the ramparts, the pursuit was
checked, and we got safe within the city, having
lost but two or three.

Right merry were the citizens at the success of
our enterprise.  Some ran to the church tower
and set the bells a-ringing; others fired off cannon
until the Captain of the Guard peremptorily
forbade that wastage of powder.  Our plunder
was carried to the market square, and given in
charge of an officer appointed to dispense it for
the benefit of all.  From this ordinance the
Burgomaster's ham and bag-puddings were
exempt, they being considered meet and
convenient rewards of his prowess; moreover, he
straitly refused to give them up, and marched
through the street in a glow of triumph, bearing
proudly his spoils.

.. _`RIGHT MERRY WERE THE CITIZENS AT THE SUCCESS OF OUR ENTERPRISE`:

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   :alt: RIGHT MERRY WERE THE CITIZENS AT THE SUCCESS OF OUR ENTERPRISE

   RIGHT MERRY WERE THE CITIZENS AT THE SUCCESS OF OUR ENTERPRISE

The Spaniard who had fallen victim to
Mynheer Warmond's puddings and ham was proved
to be a captain of some note; and none having
seen the manner of his capture save myself,
who held my peace thereupon, the Burgomaster
won great praise for that he had taken with his
own hand, on the field of battle, one of the
enemy's captains.  He showed himself a very
glutton for applause, and I was careful to feed
his appetite to the full, because I saw that, having
this large conceit of himself, and a reputation
to maintain, he was the less likely to become
subject to the timorous and faint-hearted
members of the council.  A hero in his own despite,
he vexed me often with his thrasonical airs and
vainglorious trumpetings of his own virtue; but
I bore with him, believing that in so doing I
should best serve my cause.



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V

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For some while I have said nothing of Mynheer
Volmar, not because he holds any lesser place
in this history, but because he had no part in
the enterprise that I have just recounted, the
which nevertheless concerned him dearly, as you
shall see.

Mynheer Volmar had spoken of our enterprise
as a hair-brained adventure, the device of a very
madman, and a mere courting of disaster.  A
prophet, whether of good or ill, likes not that
his predictions should belie and mock him; and
Volmar, when his prophecies fell out so wide of
the mark, looked upon me, the begetter of the
design, ever more sourly than he was wont.  And
when the Burgomaster at our next council leant
rather upon my opinion than upon the opinion
of his familiar, I perceived by some sixth sense,
as it were, that Volmar entertained a violent
ill-will against me, albeit he was at great pains
to cloak his hatred under a guise of careless
indifferency.

For this reason I deemed it fitting to improve
my knowledge of that councillor.  I learnt from
my friend, the Captain of the Guard, that Volmar
was well-reputed in the city, having much goods
laid up, and yet being open-handed.  He was
charged with keeping the stores of munition and
with the defence of a certain portion of the walls,
and was very diligent in these offices.  It was his
custom, every Sunday forenoon about nine of
the clock, that day and hour having been
commended to him by one well skilled in astrology,
to fire off a culverin upon the Spaniards from the
parapet of his own ward.  The Captain of the
Guard, upon my asking what purpose might be
served by this quaint device, assured me with
great gravity that, a shot being fired at a moment
shown as propitious by the conjunction of the
planets, the Spaniards would never stir that day,
and the burghers might pay their devotions in
church without fear of disturbance.  I
marvelled at so strange a mingling of heathenish
superstition with Christian piety, but I forbore
to speak my mind upon it, deeming every man
entitled to believe as he listeth.

On the night but one following our sally I was
returning at a late hour, and alone, from making
a round of the defences.  When I came near the
house of Mistress Verhoeff, where I still made my
lodging, I heard the scuffling of a hurried footstep,
and espied, though dimly, a man slinking into
a narrow alley upon the further side of the street.
I saw this, without considering it; and I might
have thought of it no more but that I heard my
hostess' son stealthily quit the house maybe an
hour after.  Then putting the one thing with
the other, I began to wonder, and cogitate, and
question whether there were not something in
the wind.  It came into my mind that the man I
had seen afore had been disturbed at my coming,
and slunk away to escape me; and I began to
suspect that Jan Verhoeff and he were partners
in some secret night work, I knew not what.

I was in my own room, but not yet abed; and,
smelling a matter for inquiry, I crept down the
stairs, carrying my boots, and these I donned at
the door, and then followed the young man up
the street.  I had taken but a few steps when I
was aware that two figures were in front of me,
the one dogging the other close like a shadow.
They were proceeding towards the walls, to that
place where a breach had been made and was
now repaired in part.  The sky being clear and
bright with stars, I held the two men in sight
until they came near the breach aforesaid, where
the foremost vanished away, and the latter stood
fast, at some little distance, as he were keeping
watch.  So did I likewise.  There I stayed some
while, until the man, as though weary of waiting,
turned about and walked back by the way he
had come, and then, with the intent that I might
see him more closely, I hid myself behind a jutting
mass of masonry which the man must needs pass by.

I was now able to perceive, as he came towards
me, that he was lofty of stature, and, passing me
within a yard or two, his gait seemed to me to be
that of the lanky councillor Mynheer Volmar.
This was a whet upon my curiosity, for I weened
it strange that this man should be spying upon
his vanquished rival, whom in the fallen state
of his fortunes he had no cause to fear as pretender
to the hand of Mistress Jacqueline.

When he had gone beyond earshot, I took my
way to the wall, and there I was immediately
challenged by the sentinel.  On my giving the
word the man recognized me, and made me a
decent salutation.  I inquired of him whether
he had taken note of any strange movement or
stirring among the Spaniards, or of any roaming
person on our side of the wall; and he declared
that neither on the one side nor the other had
he seen aught, nor any person save only the
sentinel next to him on the defences.  Whereupon
I returned to my lodging, not a little perplexed.

On my descending next morning to break my
fast with Mistress Verhoeff as my custom was,
I found the good dame in sore affliction and
distress.  It had just been told her that her son
was at that time lying a prisoner in the bailey,
having been seized in the middle of the night by
a posse of halberdiers.  It was charged against
him, so 'twas reported, that he was a spy for the
enemy; for he had been discovered making his
way over the wall, and being searched, papers were
found upon him that gave colour to this accusation.

This news, following so sudden on what I had
seen overnight, set my wits a-jogging, and I
began to smell a rat, as we say.  But my
consideration of the matter was broken in upon by
the piteous outcry of my hostess, who with many
tears and lamentable entreaties besought me
to save her son.  She declared that the young
man's honesty was beyond impeachment; that
it was some monstrous error; that he was a true
man, like his father before him; and when I
asked what had taken him abroad at so
unseasonable an hour, on a night when his duty did
not call him to the ramparts, she protested that
some enemy must have lured and enticed him
forth, of set purpose to undo him.  I gave her
my honest opinion that the young man was
innocent, and engaged to do what I could on his
behalf, yet owning that I was at a loss what
means I might conveniently take.

After some deliberation I determined that I
must first visit the prisoner, and inquire for
myself into his case.  To this end I repaired to
the Burgomaster, by whose allowance alone would
the gates of the bailey be opened to me.  I was
not overmuch astonished when he denied my
request, averring that the young man was a
villainous rascal, whose guilt was manifest, and
whom he would assuredly hang as a warning to
all traitors.  By this I perceived that the
Burgomaster had judged the prisoner aforehand, the
reason whereof was his established misliking.
In my course through the world I have oft-times
observed that a man that has wronged his
neighbour will scarce pardon him; and I held
that the Burgomaster had done the lad a wrong
in crossing his love for no cause save a worldly
misfortune that time might cure.  I made bold
to inform Mynheer Warmond that in my country
a man is held to be innocent until he is proved
guilty; and then I was not a little incensed when
he, shifting his ground, roundly declared that
the less I meddled with this matter the better
for me.  There were already whispers against
me, he said, and the having taken up my abode
in the widow's house would incline some to
suspect that I was privy to the son's iniquity.
Indeed, he counselled me to seek a new lodging
without delay.

At this I could scarce hold my patience; but
reflecting that angry words could avail me
nothing, having also a shrewd notion as to the
fountain-head whence this slander and calumny
sprang, I swallowed my wrath, and by dint of
coaxing and wheedling got from the Burgomaster
the authority I sought.  So armed, I hasted to
the bailey, and being admitted, found the young
man herded with as pretty a set of rogues as ever
I saw.  The warder gave me leave, after the
passing of a trifle of money, to speak with the
prisoner in a room apart, and thither we betook
ourselves.

Now I did not love Mynheer Jan Verhoeff.
We had had little communication; in truth, he
shunned me, and when we met at table he seldom
opened his lips save only to engulf his food,
whereby I had come to look upon him as a morose and
lubberly fellow.  Furthermore, I misliked his
goings and comings secretly by night, and his
denial of the service he had done me; for I was
firmly persuaded that Verhoeff and Van der
Kloof were one and the same.  Wherefore, when
we were closeted in that little room of the bailey,
and he opposed a sullen and stubborn silence to
my proffer of help, I was ready to wash my hands
of his affair and let him hang.  But remembering
the widow lady his mother, and bethinking me
that his ungracious bearing perchance were
nothing but the austerity of an honest man
wronged, I curbed my impatience and set myself
to reason with him.

I showed him how his secret sallies by night,
whatsoever their purpose might be, must needs
breed suspicion in the minds of those burdened
with the defence of the city, and that if his
intent were honest, to reveal it could at the least
work him no harm.  And, hinting that I myself
harboured certain suspicions, the which he might
aid me to resolve, I at length prevailed upon him
to make full confession and disclosure.  And
this is what he told me.

Being near the Burgomaster's house one
evening (for what purpose I forbore to inquire),
he had seen Mynheer Volmar issue forth, and,
instead of making straight for his own house,
stand a while looking heedfully around, and
then proceed towards the ramparts, in the
furtive manner of one that avoids observation.
Bearing him ill-will as his supplanter in the graces
of Mistress Jacqueline, and suspecting he knew
not what, Verhoeff dogged him circumspectly
to the wall, and there beheld him sit upon a
culverin and gaze intently towards the trenches
of the enemy.  A sentinel was pacing up and
down, and to him Volmar addressed a few words
in a whisper, whereupon he stood fast, and
Volmar hastened to the embrasure of the parapet.
Immediately thereafter, Verhoeff caught the
sound of a low whistle, followed eftsoon by a faint
answer, as it were an echo, from below.  Then
Volmar drew some white thing from his pocket,
wound a cord about it, and, as it appeared to
Verhoeff, let it down into the moat.  In a little
there came again a dull and hollow sound, and
Volmar withdrew himself and returned into the
city, murmuring a word to the sentinel as he passed.

On the morrow Verhoeff took pains to inform
himself of the name of the sentinel at that place,
and was not astonished to find that he was of
Mynheer Volmar's household.  In that time of
trouble every man, whatsoever his rank and
condition, had his part in the city's defence.

From that day Verhoeff kept diligent watch
upon the councillor, and discovered that he hied
him stealthily to the ramparts every Wednesday,
and in like manner let down what was doubtless
a paper, the which was received by a man in the
moat beneath, and conveyed by him, swimming,
to the further side.

Here was treason, of a surety.  Verhoeff
debated with himself whether he should broach
it to the Captain of the Guard or the
Burgomaster; but he bethought him that he had not
as yet sufficient proof, and that, moreover, the
charge might be set down to the spleen and
malice of a beaten rival.  Wherefore he determined
to hold his peace until he had gotten some
clear and manifest proof of the treason he
suspected.

One Wednesday night, therefore, he slid into
the moat, and swam to the other side, intending
to lie in wait for the receiver as he returned with
the letter, and wrest it from him.  But making
wary approach to the spot over against the gun
whereon Volmar was wont to sit, he was
nonplussed to find three or four Spanish footmen,
awaiting their comrade.  Verhoeff kept himself
close until the swimmer joined them, and then,
recking nothing of his peril, followed the party
as they stole silently back to their lines.  While
they jested with the sentinel that challenged
them, he crept into the camp, and watched in
secret what should befall.  The footmen
proceeded together a few paces; then all but one
turned aside, they bidding him good-night, and
he continuing on his way towards a large tent,
the which, after a brief parley with some one
within, he entered.  Verhoeff swiftly stole to the
back side of the tent, designing to cut a hole in
the wall and spy upon what was done; but a
light shone from beneath a flap in the canvas,
which raising, he beheld a man in shirt and hose
sodden with water, standing before another in a
long night-robe, who was reading by the light
of a candle a paper which had beyond doubt
been brought by the swimmer from the city.
Having finished his perusal, this man said—

"Good.  Our friend within is diligent.  To-morrow
you will convey this to the Lord General
Verdugo.  Take your accustomed party, and
have a care, for this paper must not miscarry;
I know what a lusty fire-eater you are."

The swimmer laughed and made a salutation,
and so departed.

Verhoeff itched to lay hands on that paper,
yet durst not follow the man through the camp.
But a device came into his mind whereby he
might perchance obtain it.  He crept and
wriggled out of the camp, which was not guarded
so needfully as it behoved to be, and when he was
beyond the outward trenches he betook himself
with all expedition, not to the city, but towards
a hamlet where his father had held an estate in
the days of his prosperity.  There he gathered
half a score of trusty men that would serve him
faithfully for his father's sake, and with them
took post in a wood which the Spaniard must pass
next day when he carried the paper to his general.
And 'twas by the happy accident of his lying in
wait there that he was able to render me service
that day.  In despite of the captain's warning,
the messenger was tempted by the smallness of
my party to attack us, whereby Verhoeff's plan
to seize upon the letter was discomfited, for my
plight made him show himself sooner than he had
intended.

Being foiled, then, and baulked of his purpose
by the Spaniards' flight, he was fain to wend his
way back to the city, and entered it at dead of
night by a secret way known to him.  At my
appearance on the morrow thereafter he was
somewhat discommoded, being desirous that
his doings should not be published among the
burghers, and yet too high-stomached to entreat
my silence.  Hence he sought to brazen it out
with me, and had since held himself aloof.

From that time he kept a most vigilant watch
upon Volmar's doings, by night and day; and
it seemed that his patience would be rewarded,
for on this last night, having swum the moat,
he had found the Spaniard, that was go-between,
unattended, and after a fierce struggle
had overcome and slain him.  Searching among
his garments he discovered a leathern pouch,
the which, on his slitting it, yielded up a paper.
This he bestowed in his pocket, and crossed the
moat, but upon climbing the parapet fell clean
into the hands of a party of the burgher guard,
drawn thither either by the sound of his struggle
with the Spaniard, or, as seemed more like,
placed there advisedly by Volmar.

While he stood among his captors, protesting
and almost persuading them that he was a true
man and no traitor, Volmar himself appeared and
feigned great astonishment to see him.  One of
the guard related the cause and manner of the
arrest, whereupon the councillor declared roundly
that there had been some error, and proposed
that the matter should be put to the proof by
searching Verhoeff.  This being done, the letter
was brought to light, the which Volmar then tore
open and read by the aid of a dark lantern.  He
put on a grave and sorrowful look, and gave the
letter into the hand of the officer of the guard,
and he likewise read it, and immediately cried
out that Verhoeff was proved a villainous traitor.
Upon this Verhoeff in a fury declared that he had
wrested the letter from a Spaniard who had
brought it from the city, and from Volmar
himself, a saying that provoked a burst of scornful
laughter from the officer of the guard and a look
of pity from the councillor.  The officer
commanded that he should be instantly conveyed to
the bailey and placed under a strong guard, and
Volmar bestowed the letter in his doublet,
avouching that he would lay it before the
Burgomaster and council on the morrow.

.. _`VOLMAR READ THE LETTER BY THE AID OF A LANTERN`:

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   :alt: VOLMAR READ THE LETTER BY THE AID OF A LANTERN

   VOLMAR READ THE LETTER BY THE AID OF A LANTERN

This was the story in brief as Verhoeff told it
to me, and I made no doubt he spoke the truth.
But I saw that in youthful heat and imprudence
he had committed a grievous error in launching
an accusation against the councillor, more
especially because he was wholly ignorant of what the
letter contained; he had not read it, nor had it
been read aloud.  Moreover, the secrecy and
stealth of his own deeds, the quitting of the city
without leave asked, gave strength to the
suspicion and mistrust of the officer of the guard.
Yet I confessed that in my heart of hearts I did
not doubt Volmar was a villain and had
entrapped Verhoeff for his own ends; but how to
bring his villainy home to him, when he held all
the cards, as we say, it outdid my wit to determine.

Nevertheless I engaged myself to do all that
in me lay on behalf of the young man, and
bidding him be of good cheer I betook myself
to the council chamber, where the matter would
without doubt be deliberated upon.


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VI

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The burghers were in full session when I
entered the chamber, and I perceived that
thunder was in the air.  At my entrance they
cast very lowering looks upon me; there was
some whispering among them, and the Burgomaster
shot me a crooked glance, and seemed to
return a mute answer to something that Volmar,
his neighbour of the right hand, had just said.
Feigning blindness to these signs and tokens of
trouble, I moved with easy gait to my place at
the table, cast my hat upon it, and inquired of
the Burgomaster what was the news of the day.

"Sir, sir," said the little man, his pendent chin
shaking like the wattle of a turkey-cock, "this
levity ill beseems you.  You are aware that we
have a traitor in our midst, a viper warmed in
our bosom; you have even now come from
speech with him.  I pray the villain has
confessed his sins."

"Why no, Mynheer," I said smoothly, "the
villain is impenitent, and professes that he has
done nought save in love and loyalty to the city.
Surely the good repute of his family might
dispose you, sirs, to hesitate before you condemn
him unheard."

"His family, his family!" stuttered the Burgomaster,
whom I perceived to be in his most
exalted and arrogant mood.  "Hold, sir; peruse
this epistle, and say then whether he be not
deserving of the extreme penalty."

The letter came to me by the hands of the six
or seven councillors that sat between me and
the Burgomaster, of whom some scowled, some
glared, some looked compassionately upon me.
I took the paper and cast an eye upon it, and
immediately I understood that Jan Verhoeff
was in even worse case than I had supposed.
'Twas a very brief epistle, with no superscription
nor any signature at the end, written not by
any man within the city, but by an enemy
without.  It warned the nameless receiver that
the customary messenger having been slain, by
Dutch peasants as 'twas thought, and his
dispatch stolen, the last message had not come to
the general's hand; but the writer opined that
the city could not endure many days longer,
and urged the receiver to employ all his arts
upon he knew whom, and furthermore to certify
that person that when by his good offices the
city should be delivered up, his goods should be
spared to him, with a share of the general booty.

"Sir," said the Burgomaster, when I had read
the letter, "you behold a manifest proof of the
traitor's villainy.  He sends word of our hapless
state to the enemy; he employs cunning machinations
upon some ill-affected person in our city;
he is sowing treason in our good field."

I made bold to say that there was no proof
of the letter having been intended for Mynheer
Verhoeff, whereupon he bade me look upon the
cover, and when I did so I perceived, very faintly
inscribed there, the letters J.V.

As I was considering this, suspecting that those
letters had been inscribed upon the paper since
it was wrested from Verhoeff, Mynheer Volmar
spoke.  He said that, clear though the testimony
seemed to be, he would plead for mercy for the
young man.  His fortune being so much
diminished from that whereto he had been born, he
had without doubt been put to a fierce
temptation.  "And since," he proceeded, "I myself
suffer at his hands, inasmuch as he sought to
cast suspicion on me, whose whole concern is the
welfare of the city, I may most fitly raise my
voice in beseeching my brethren to remember
the services rendered in time past by the young
man's father, and, mindful of them, to deal
mercifully with the son; not to bring him to trial
and put him to open shame, but to hold him safe
in ward while the city is still compassed about,
and then to banish him without scandal to the
common weal."

Perceiving the drift of this, and divining that
Volmar had his own good reasons for cloaking
the matter, I said with some bluntness that 'twas
time to show mercy when guilt was proved.
Volmar took me up insolently, declaring that I
had no right nor title to speak on such a matter,
and that being a stranger, come among them
uncommended, and a house-mate with this
abandoned traitor, I had best walk warily and
manage my tongue, lest I found my own neck in
jeopardy.

At this discourse, and the murmurs of approval
that broke from certain of the councillors, I was
pricked to indignation, and might have said
more than wisdom warranted had not the Burgomaster,
plainly ill at ease, interposed himself as
peace-maker.  I had reason to bless his
intervention, because I was thereby hindered from
saying in my haste that which I should assuredly
have repented at my leisure.  For it happened
that the Burgomaster calling for the next
business, Volmar brought forth the list of stores that
it was in his duty to lay before the council every
week.  This he read out, the councillors harkening
with gloomy countenances to the tale of
diminished victuals and munitions of war.  When
he had made an end, the document strayed about
the table, and presently came to the hand of the
burgher next me, who held it in such manner
that I was able to see it clearly.  And then within
my soul I cried blessings on the Burgomaster,
in that he had checked my tongue, for so soon
as my eyes fell upon this paper, I knew in a
moment that the handwriting was the same as
that upon the paper which John Temple had
taken from the Spaniard, and which I had, even
now, folded in my pocket.

I veiled my eyelids, lest my eyes should betray
the joy of my discovery, for this did not rob me
wholly of my caution, and I knew that I must
first satisfy myself beyond doubt that the writings
were the same.  This could only be achieved by
setting the two papers one against the other for
comparison, and I saw not any means of doing
this secretly.  But within a little, chance gave me
the opportunity I sought.  The councillor that
had the paper set it down upon the table, and
joined with the others in talking of the trial to
which Jan Verhoeff was to be brought on the
morrow.  While they were thus engaged I laid
my hand upon the paper, and possessed myself
of it; then, affecting a perfect indifference to
the matter of their discourse, I rose from my
place and went to the window, and there, turning
my back upon the company, I drew from my
pocket the paper John Temple had given me, and
set it side by side with the other for just so long
as sufficed me to compare them, and prove the
writings to be in the selfsame hand.  Which
done, I took a turn about the chamber, and
coming in due time to my place I laid the second
paper where it had been before, and soon after
departed.

I saw myself now deeply engaged in a matter
after my own heart.  "'Tis Time's glory," saith
Will Shakespeare, "to unmask falsehood and
bring truth to light"; and here was I a
fellow-worker with Time.  I considered within myself
what course I should take.  I might at once
make disclosure of my discovery; but Volmar
was so slippery a fellow that I might easily trip
unless I had some further evidence of his villainy
to lay before the council.  Without doubt he
would have ready some plausible explanation,
the which might recoil upon me, being a stranger
and one not held in high esteem.  I resolved
therefore to bide my time and say nought until
I had my evidence all compact—unless indeed
Jan Verhoeff were in extremity of peril.

The young man was brought to trial at the
time appointed.  I was not present in court,
deeming it best to hold aloof until I could employ
my apparatus to good effect.  The only testimony
that I myself might have given, touching
the charge made against Verhoeff, was that I had
seen him steal to the walls by night with Volmar
at his heels, and this could not have turned to
his favour.  The evidence against him was so
slight and thin-spun, that in time of peace, and
before a just tribunal, it would not have been
held sufficient to hang a dog; but his present
judges being the magistrates of the city, with
the Burgomaster as president, and all men's
minds being sore troubled about the city's
welfare, the verdict was given against him, and
he was sentenced to be hanged on the tenth day
thereafter.

The news was brought to me in my room by
the young man's mother, who was utterly
broken with grief and shame.  She had never a
doubt of his innocency, and besought me with
many tears and supplications to save him.  I
had much ado to refrain from giving her positive
assurance that her son should not die; but I
deemed it better for my purpose that she should
suffer ten days of suspense and anguish than that
we should come under any suspicion by reason of
her serenity and ease of mind.  I put her off,
therefore, with unsubstantial words of comfort.
But my policy was undone that same evening,
for about the hour of supper there came to the
house a female figure close enshrouded in hood
and cloak; and asking speech with me, she was
admitted to the chamber wherein I sat with the
widow lady, and casting off her hood revealed
the wan, sorrowful face of Mistress Jacqueline,
the Burgomaster's daughter.

"Oh, sir," she cried, flinging herself upon her
knees and clasping her hands piteously, "oh, sir,
save my lover!  My father condemned him, but
he is, I know, the cat's-paw of wicked men.  Sir,
I beseech you, save my lover!"

I raised her up, and my resolution utterly
melted away.  I did for the sweetheart what I
had refused to do for the mother, assuring her
that Jan Verhoeff should not die, I myself would
prevent it; but it was necessary, for the due
punishment of those that conspired against him,
that none should so much as guess at anything
being adventured on his behalf.  At this the
women were mightily cheered, but the widow
bore me a grudge in that I had before withheld
this solace from her; and I cannot say but that
I deserved it.

I had no certain plan for establishing the treason
of Mynheer Volmar; but I was resolved to keep
a close watch upon him, deeming it likely that
in mere self-confidence he would take a false
step.  While with exceeding care I held myself
in the background, I contrived to learn all that
was requisite about his doings.  On Sunday I
made one of the throng of spectators that
witnessed his discharge of a single shot upon the
Spanish lines, the which, as the Captain of the
Guard had told me, was the charm whereby the
city was protected for that day.  I observed that
the shot was brought from the store by Volmar's
own servant; Volmar himself loaded the
culverin, trained it, and set the match to the
touch-hole.  The burghers, with their wives and
children, looked on as at a mystery, and when
the shot fell upon some loose earth near the
trenches, casting up a cloud of dust, they nodded
and smiled, and some clapped their hands; and
then they all went forthwith to church, Volmar
leading the way.

I was on the point of following them, thinking
no little scorn of such mummery as I had just
witnessed, when, on casting my eye over the
parapet, I observed a Spaniard move slowly
towards the spot where the ball had fallen.  He
stood for a brief space as if contemplating the
effect wrought thereby, and then returned within
the camp.

Now there was something in the Spaniard's mien
that bred a certain doubt in my mind.  He had
moved slowly, in the manner of a loiterer; and if
this was the true measure of his interest, why, I
questioned within myself, had he issued from the
trenches at all, to observe the spot where a ball
had fallen harmlessly, as one had fallen many a
Sunday before?  His demeanour was not that
of a man truly curious.  I sought in my mind
for some likely explanation of his strange action,
and the more I thought upon it, the more puzzled
and suspicious I became.  But there was nothing
to be done on the instant, so I spoke to the
sentinel on the parapet, bidding him acquaint
me if he saw any further movement among the
Spaniards, and then I found the Captain of the
Guard, whom I asked to issue the same command
to the men that should keep watch in turn for
the rest of the day.

At eventide, nothing having been reported to
me, I resolved to go forth myself so soon as it
became dark and examine the place where the
shot had struck.  It was an enterprise, I knew,
that stood me in some danger, for I might be
captured by the Spaniards, or by the burgher
guard on my return, and this would bring me
under suspicion, and was like to land me in the
selfsame nobble as that wherein Jan Verhoeff
already lay.  I thought for a while of securing
myself by acquainting the Captain of the Guard
aforehand with my purpose, but seeing that I
could have given him no reason for it save by
making a clean breast of my suspicions, the which
I was loth to do, I held my peace, resolving to
take my risk.

Jan Verhoeff had disclosed to me, when I
spoke with him in the bailey, the means whereby
he had left the city.  In the repairs that had
been made hastily in the wall battered by the
enemy, timber had been employed, and at one
place there were two massy logs with a narrow
space between, through which he had squeezed
himself, and so come within a few spans of the
moat.  Thither I made my way by a roundabout
course as soon as it was dark, and, choosing a
moment when no sentinel was within hearing, I
slipped into the moat, having left my boots at
the foot of the wall, and swam across as quietly
as an otter might have done.

On coming to the other side I bent my body
low, and crept towards the Spanish lines, holding
my dagger in my right hand.  I had observed
that the shot fell within a short space of the end
of a garden wall which had been almost razed
to the ground by the burghers' shots in the first
hot days of the leaguer.  To the right of this
stood the stump of a tree.  These were my
landmarks, for the shot had come to earth
somewhere between the tree and the end of the wall.
In the darkness I could not hope to see the pit
that the shot had made, but must find it by the
touch of my feet.

I crept along by the wall, noiseless in my
stockings, and coming to the end of it, bent
myself yet lower and groped towards the tree.
This I attained without having made any
discovery, whereupon I turned about and went
back, taking a course somewhat nearer to the
moat, and so came again to the wall, having
discovered nothing.  Yet once more I sought the
tree, now choosing a course nearer to the trenches,
in which direction I heard the dull murmur of
voices, yet not so near as to cause me any
present disquietude; and so I groped along the
ground until I came to a little hollow, where I
halted, thinking it a likely place.  There I dug
away the earth with my hands, making no more
noise than a mouse, and anon my fingers struck
upon something hard and cold and round, the
which, after a little more digging with hands and
dagger, I unearthed, and found to be a round
shot, as I had hoped.  With this in my hands I
stole along towards the shelter of the wall.

Hardly had I come there when I heard voices,
somewhat louder than those I had heard before,
and immediately after footsteps, coming towards
me.  I dare go no farther, but crouched behind
the brickwork, which was no more than three
spans high, holding my breath, and peering over
the jagged edge of the wall.  And I beheld three
men as black blots moving in the darkness
towards the very spot I had lately left.  One of
the three held a dark lantern, by whose light,
turned from the city, the others began to search
the ground.  I heard them utter words of
satisfaction when they came to the hole, and then
I could not forbear chuckling, for the men,
probing with their pikes, and finding nothing,
let forth cries of astonishment, together with an
oath or two.  They consulted one with another,
and one proposed that they should search around;
but this the man that held the lantern scouted,
declaring that he had no manner of doubt the
place where they then stood was the end of
their quest.  Nevertheless his comrades prowled
and probed, now to the right, anon to the left,
and once came so near me that I gripped my
dagger tight, ready to buy my safety with good
steel.  But they withdrew, and stood for some
while talking together of this strange thing, and
presently gat them back to their trenches, in
marvellous puzzlement.

.. _`I BEHELD THREE MEN AS BLACK BLOTS MOVING IN THE DARKNESS`:

.. figure:: images/img-189.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: I BEHELD THREE MEN AS BLACK BLOTS MOVING IN THE DARKNESS

   I BEHELD THREE MEN AS BLACK BLOTS MOVING IN THE DARKNESS

Thereupon I crept back to the moat, carrying
the shot, and having swum across and recovered
my boots, the which I could not pull over my
wet stockings, I clambered up between the balks
of timber, looked about to certify myself the coast
was clear, and hastened by the same circuit to
the widow's house.

There my servant was in wait for me, according
to my bidding.  I took him to my room, and
setting the round shot before him, commanded
him to examine it.  He was a handy fellow, and
had the rudiments of more trades than one.  It
was not long before he discovered, in the surface
of the iron, a knob or boss, exceeding small, the
which being touched, a narrow channel was
revealed, wherein lay a short tube of the
thickness of a finger.

"'Tis good locksmith's work, sir," he said with
admiration, putting the tube into my hand.  I
looked therein, and discovered a small roll of
paper, the which, upon my spreading it out, I saw
was covered with writing in the Spanish tongue,
and in the very hand of Volmar, but with no
name either at head or at foot.  I read the
writing with a vast curiosity and eagerness, and
what I read was this—


"*The victuals will last but one week longer.
One of my foes will be hanged; the Englishman I
go about to remove.  Attack the wall over against
the market.  I vouch that in ten days the city will
yield.*"


Here was proof of as pretty a piece of villainy
as the mind of man could conceive.  Verhoeff
was to be hanged; I myself to be removed; the
wall over against the market was that which
the Burgomaster had in charge, and the attack
was to be directed thereupon with the intent to
harass him and bring him to a frame of mind
meet for surrender.  A pretty plot indeed, and
one that I rejoiced to have the means of circumventing.

I dismissed my servant and sat myself down
to consider my ways.  'Twas necessary to my
purpose that Volmar should be utterly
confounded.  I could brook no chance of his
wriggling out of the full exposure of his guilt.
Wherefore it seemed to me inexpedient that I should
at once carry the traitorous letter to the council,
for he had many friends therein, whom he might
easily persuade that the writing was but a
cunning imitation of his own, done by myself
out of the despite and enmity I bore him; nor
indeed could I explain how I had come by the
paper, but by owning that I had gone from the
city without authority, a thing he would find
means to twist to my disadvantage.  The end
of my cogitation was that I resolved still to bide
my time, not doubting that within the week
something would happen to point my road clearly.

When I went abroad next day I perceived that
black care had seized upon the people.  The
scarcity of victuals was known of all, and as
the meaner folk felt the pinch of hunger more
dearly they broke forth into murmurs and
complaints.  Dark looks were cast upon me as I
took my way to the council chamber, and still
darker met me there.  Mindful of Volmar's
intent to have me removed, I looked for some
instant charge to be brought against me, as
though I were a Jonah in the city; but nought
was said openly, and I concluded that I must
be on my guard against some secret machination—a
knife in my back, or a stray bullet did I but
show myself upon the ramparts.  I was heedful,
therefore, that day and the days succeeding, to
go only in the middle of the street, and to keep
within the house after nightfall, not deeming it
any mark of valour to jeopardize the happiness
of three good folk and the safety of the city by
running into any needless danger.

As day followed day, I became aware that the
people's discontent and queasiness was being
fomented by the agents of Volmar, though that
two-faced villain was most fervent, at the
meetings of the council, in admonishing the burghers
to endure to the end.  Day after day the Spaniards
plied their artillery upon the walls, chiefly
upon that portion where the Burgomaster was
in charge of the defences.  The masonry was sore
battered, many of the burghers were slain or
maimed, and the Burgomaster himself, who
endeavoured still to sustain the reputation he
had achieved in that night sally, was struck
upon the elbow by a fragment of stone, whereby
the little man was afflicted more heavily in mind
than in body.  In his one ear, so to speak, Volmar
whispered counsels of despair under a mask of
encouragement; in the other I spoke words of
comfort and good cheer, assuring him that, could
he but resist a little longer, Prince Maurice would
come to his succour, as he had promised.  My
influence, I knew, was sapped by Volmar's
guileful insinuations, and I could not doubt that
finally I should be worsted unless I could prove
Volmar to be the traitor he was.

As the straits of the citizens waxed more
grievous, secret messengers were sent forth, to
implore aid of Sir Francis Vere and of Prince
Maurice; but these men never delivered their
messages, as was afterwards discovered, and
doubtless Volmar had found means to acquaint
the Spaniards with their errand, albeit by means
that never came to light.  Though I kept as
good a watch upon him as I could, and my
servant did likewise, we could not find him out in
aught that would give us a handle against him,
and with the passing of time I grew discomfortable
in mind, fearing lest Jan Verhoeff's ten days'
respite should slip away before I had my proofs
ready.  And I was the more uneasy because I
perceived that the ill-will of the burghers towards
me increased and spread day by day.  Their
good favour, which I had at the first procured
by my diligence in assisting the defence, had now
given place to mistrust and malignity, fostered
by Volmar's minions; and I knew that this
canker was eating ever more deeply into the souls
of the populace.


.. vspace:: 3

.. class:: center medium bold

VII

.. vspace:: 2

On the night of Saturday, a device came into
my mind whereby I might bring the truth to light
in a manner that could not be gainsaid.  It was
high time, for a great assembly of the citizens
had been holden that day, whereat sundry
burghers of good standing openly advised that
terms should be made with the enemy.  There
wanted but three days of the period set by
Volmar for the surrender of the city, and on the
Monday morning Jan Verhoeff was to die.  At
this assembly, when I essayed to speak to the
people, there arose a great uproar in one quarter
of the square, where I perceived certain of
Volmar's creatures to be gathered.  Amid the
clamour I heard cries of "Spy!" "Traitor!"
and sundry other scandalous appellatives; and a
stone being cast at me, the Burgomaster
commanded me to withdraw out of the throng, lest
a general riot should ensue.  Therefore, I say,
it was high time I did somewhat, and a device
came in happy hour into my mind.

To perform it I must needs make an accomplice,
albeit unwitting, of the Captain of the Guard.
He was a man of a most steadfast courage,
diligent in his duty, a staunch friend to me, and
one that would never yield to the enemy save at
the uttermost extremity: a pattern of that
loyalty and stubborn valour whereby his nation
has won liberty and immortal fame; a man
withal simple of soul, as witness his belief in the
astrological foolery whereof I have made mention.
I resolved to turn this very simplicity to account.

I repaired to his house, where he was supping
after the fatigues of the day, and after reminding
him that the next day was Sunday, I declared
that I had discovered a flaw in Mynheer Volmar's
talisman.  I affected to have a certain skill in
reading the stars, and my study of the heavens
had shown me that the customary Sunday truce
could only be assured by firing a shot of silver,
instead of an iron ball as was wont.

"I thank you, sir," said he, accepting my
statement with the faith of a child.  "We must
acquaint Mynheer Volmar withal; for there is
but little time to make the silver shot before the
Sabbath breaks."

"By your good favour, sir," said I, "this
matter must be held a secret 'twixt us two.  By
the opposition of Jupiter with Mars, and the
quartility of Saturn with Venus, I apprehend
that the imparting of this matter to any wight
whatsoever save only yourself will let loose
upon us and the city a myriad evil influences,
and all the good we may have of it will be utterly
undone."

This I enforced with a long discourse in which
I mingled the jargon of the astrologers with a
noble array of tags from my Latin grammar,
knowing that the captain had no skill in that
tongue.

"We will keep it close," he said, having heard
me gravely.  "Let us go forthwith and cast a
silver ball in the armoury.  I will employ thereto
some of my own plate; nothing of all my goods
would I withhold from the service of the city."

We went at once about this task, and the ball
having been cast, the Captain of the Guard took
it home with him, promising to bring it forth at
the due moment on the morrow.

"We must be ready to encounter some opposition
from Mynheer Volmar," I said on leaving
him.  "He is like to take ill aught that may
seem to bring in question his reading of the stars."

"Beshrew that," answered the captain.  "All
that pertains to the defence of the city is in my
charge, and things must be done as I command."

"Without doubt, sir," said I.  "Yet you
must look for wrath, yea, even stout resistance
on the part of Mynheer Volmar, and I know not
what ill consequence may ensue if he has his way."

And so I wrought the simple captain to a
strong resolution to defy Volmar, and bear down
any opposition he might make.

On the morrow I set forth betimes for the
ramparts.  Among the concourse of people going
afoot to witness the firing of the Sunday shot I
espied the Burgomaster and his daughter, and
accosted them with a civil salutation.  The
Burgomaster looked exceeding ill at ease, shunned
my eye, and presently turned me a cold shoulder,
conversing with a neighbour.  Thereupon Mistress
Jacqueline lightly touched my sleeve, and I fell
back a pace with her.  I observed that her face
was very wan and haggard, and was moved to
pity her.

"Sir," she said in a whisper, "shall Jan die
to-morrow?"

"Courage!" I said, in her tone.  "All will
yet be well."

"I have a thing to say," she proceeded.
"Last night I heard my father talking with—you
know whom.  To-morrow the order will be
given to the Captain of the Guard to arrest you."

.. _`"TO-MORROW THE ORDER WILL BE GIVEN TO THE CAPTAIN OF THE GUARD TO ARREST YOU"`:

.. figure:: images/img-199.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: "TO-MORROW THE ORDER WILL BE GIVEN TO THE CAPTAIN OF THE GUARD TO ARREST YOU"

   "TO-MORROW THE ORDER WILL BE GIVEN TO THE CAPTAIN OF THE GUARD TO ARREST YOU"

"So ho!" I said under my breath.  "I thank
you, mistress.  Time will show."

We said no more, but went on among the others.

When we came to the ramparts, Volmar's man
was even then bringing a shot from the storehouse,
and Volmar himself stood waiting by the
culverin.  But the Captain of the Guard, so
soon as he saw me, stepped forth with the silver
shot in his hand, and entered upon a discourse
with Volmar, acquainting him with his purpose
and the reason thereof, but not naming me as
the author.  While they conversed a dark and
wrathful look lowered upon Volmar's swarthy
countenance, and he protested stoutly against
any meddling with the course indicated by the
stars; but when the Captain of the Guard showed
himself resolute, Volmar shrugged his shoulders
with an air of disdain and stood aside, as one
that disavows all part and lot in an act of folly.
Seeing his man standing there still holding the
iron shot, he bade him set it down, and smiled
upon the gaping throng that gazed as upon some
high and mystic rite.

Now it was necessary to my purpose that
nothing should start a suspicion in Volmar's
mind or render him in any way uneasy; for which
reason I had up to this present held myself
backward among the press.  But it was also necessary
that I should possess myself of Volmar's shot;
wherefore, while all eyes were intent upon the
Captain of the Guard ramming the silver shot
into the culverin, I whispered my servant to go
privily and scratch a double cross upon the iron
ball where it lay, the which he accomplished
without being observed.

The Captain of the Guard, doing all things
with a portentous gravity of demeanour, had
now charged the culverin, and, to the great
wonderment of the populace, he beckoned me
forward and placed the burning match in my
hands and bade me fire the gun.  I had no skill
in artillery work, but I accepted the task with
becoming modesty, and trained the piece as near
as I could upon a flag that waved on the Spanish
trenches.  Then putting the match to the touch-hole,
I stood back, the shot flew forth, and the
sight of all was obscured by the thick smoke.
But a moment after a great shout broke from
the assembled multitude, and looking to see
what occasioned it, I beheld with amazement
that the flag no longer flaunted it upon the
trench.  My shot, fired at a venture, had, I
suppose, stricken the flagstaff in two.

The Captain of the Guard made me many
compliments on my skill, and the folk that stood
around looked on me somewhat more kindly,
taking the fall of the flag as an omen of good.
Volmar darted upon me a look of venom, and
then glanced in the manner of one fearful and
uneasy towards his own shot; but seeing it lie
where the man had placed it, he had no more
qualms or misgiving.  Then the good folk
departed cheerfully to church, and Volmar, bidding
his man carry the iron shot back to the
storehouse, joined himself to the throng and walked
by the side of Mistress Jacqueline, who cast down
her eyes and said no word in answer to his soft
speeches.

I went beside the Captain of the Guard, and
entered the church among the rearmost; but
during the singing of the psalm I slipped away
quietly to the storehouse, found the shot by means
of the mark that my servant had made upon it,
and conveyed it to my lodging.  Upon opening
it, I discovered a small roll of paper, with this
writing—

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"*The Burgomaster is come to a reasonable frame
of mind.  To-morrow the Englishman will be
arrested; on the next day in the Council I shall
declare that our scarcity of victuals and munition
forbids a longer resistance; and a trusty friend
will make formal proposition that we yield the city.*"

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Having now the game in my hands, I ate
my meagre dinner with a good relish, and
immediately thereafter set forth to visit
Mynheer Cosmo Volmar.  He had just risen
from his meal, very comfortably replete, for
notwithstanding the general shortness of
provisions he had contrived to procure himself a
sufficiency of good food and wine.  Secure in his
approaching triumph, he smiled in his beard
when I was ushered in, and bade me seat myself
with a courtesy that he had never shown me heretofore.

"Mynheer," I said gravely, "the city is in
parlous case.  The Prince is tardy in coming to
our succour, and I fear we can scarce hold out
another week."

"Why, sir," said he, "are you become
chicken-hearted?—you that came hither expressly to
encourage and sustain us!  Little you know the
spirit of our burghers if you suppose that, even
in this darksome hour, they will yield up the city."

"Truly the spirit of the most of them is
undaunted," I said; "and I could well believe
that, but for the malign presence and pestilent
contriving of traitors, they would endure even yet."

"Ah!  Traitors!" said he.  "Well, we hang
a traitor to-morrow, and his fate will teach a
wholesome lesson to any that be like-minded."

"It may be that others will hang with him,"
said I, fixing my eyes upon him.  "Will you lend
me your ear while I relate a story?  It chanced
that some few weeks ago, being set upon in the
country yonder by a troop of Spaniards, I and
my little company were only saved by the timely
help of certain peasants, whereby we put the
enemy to rout.  But a man of my party, pursuing
them, overtook and slew one of them, and possessed
himself of a paper that he carried in his
doublet."

Here I made a pause.

"Proceed, sir," said he, smiling.  "I protest
the beginning is very well."

"That paper," I continued, with measured
gravity, "I hold now in my pocket, together
with two others, the which have come into my
possession in strange wise since I entered your
city; and most strange, they are writ in the
selfsame hand as the first.  Moreover, they are one
and all of the same tenor, to wit, dwelling on
the dire straits whereinto this city has fallen,
and furnishing hints concerning a party within
the walls—a party of one or mayhap two or
three—that is plotting to render up the city into the
hands of the enemy."  While I spoke I fastened
my eyes intently upon him, and I saw the fashion
of his countenance suffer a change, and in his
eyes a look of hate and terror commingled.  I
went on:—"Sir, they are simple souls that
believe the stars order our lives and destinies,
and it were easy to persuade such that a shot,
whether it be of silver or of iron, fired under
planetary influence, should cast as it were a
spell even upon a ruthless foe.  Yet methinks
their simplicity would suffer a rude shock did
they know that a round shot may carry a message,
not from the heavens, mystically, but——"

And here my speech had a sudden end, for
Volmar, his face livid with rage and fear, leapt
from his seat, whipped out his sword, and flew
upon me with the ferocity of a wild beast.  But
that a stool stood between us, a stumbling block
to him in his fury, I had peradventure been
pierced to the heart or ever I could draw my own
weapon.  That obstacle gave me a bare respite.
My sword was out and met his clashing, and for
the space of five minutes we thrust and lunged,
parried and riposted, in the middle of the floor,
over the table, by the mantel, in the corners, as
the stress of combat carried us.  I had always
the advantage of him in that I was calm and
master of myself, whereas he was drunken with
rage, maddened by hate, and desperately fearful
of the gallows he had set up for Jan Verhoeff.
In mere swordsmanship he was not far from being
my equal; had he been in truth my equal, his
skill might have prevailed even over his fury.
Suffice it to say that after a hot bout of some five
minutes I struck his sword from his hand, and
pinning him down upon a chair, with my blade
at his throat, I bade him sternly give heed to
certain conditions on which I would spare his
vile and wretched life.

.. _`PINNING HIM DOWN UPON A CHAIR, I BADE HIM STERNLY GIVE HEED TO CERTAIN CONDITIONS ON WHICH I WOULD SPARE HIS LIFE`:

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   :alt: PINNING HIM DOWN UPON A CHAIR, I BADE HIM STERNLY GIVE HEED TO CERTAIN CONDITIONS ON WHICH I WOULD SPARE HIS LIFE

   PINNING HIM DOWN UPON A CHAIR, I BADE HIM STERNLY GIVE HEED TO CERTAIN CONDITIONS ON WHICH I WOULD SPARE HIS LIFE

These were, first, that he should write, at my
dictation, a full confession of his guilt and
treasons, such as should at the same time clear Jan
Verhoeff from the accusation made against him.
Second, that he should quit the city that night
by seven of the clock, and until then keep
within doors.  The clemency of these conditions
wondrously astonished him; and perceiving that
he was utterly at my mercy, he accepted them
without demur.  Within an hour I had his
confession, sealed, in my pocket, together with the
other papers in his hand.

You may wonder that I showed mercy to so
heinous a villain: hear my reasons.  I might
have slain him; but then I should have had no
confession, such as I needed to right Jan
Verhoeff.  I might have extorted the confession
from him, and then delivered him to the council
for formal trial and meet punishment; but then
many things would have come to light that it
were best to keep hidden, especially the questionable
part played by the Burgomaster, the which
for the sake of the city, and more also for the
sake of Mistress Jacqueline, I would fain leave
enshrouded.  Furthermore, I had now the hold
upon goodman Burgomaster that I needed to
assure the happiness of two young souls.

Leaving Volmar a shrunken heap in his chair,
and being fully assured that Bargen would be
no more troubled with him, I made my way to
Mynheer Warmond's house.  As I came to the
door, there issued forth the Captain of the Guard,
whose countenance put on a most sorrowful look
when he beheld me.  He halted upon the threshold,
heaved a sigh, then took me by the sleeve
and said—

"Sir, I hold a warrant for your arrest under
the hand and seal of the Burgomaster, and to be
executed at seven of the clock to-morrow morning."

"Let not that trouble you," said I, and had
he been my own countryman, in my gaiety of
heart I should have poked him in the ribs; such
a pleasantry is inexpedient with a Dutch burgher.
"Come for me here within a half hour, and I
avouch your warrant will be annulled."

He left me, wondering.

I entered to the Burgomaster, who fell
a-trembling when he saw me, and demanded with a
stammering tongue what my business was with
him upon the Sabbath.  I told him very shortly,
and never in my life have I seen so piteous a
spectacle as that little round rubicund man at
the hearing of my story.  His conscience pricked
him sore, in that he had harkened to ill counsels
and dallied with the thought of surrendering.
His lips quivered, his limbs shook as with palsy,
and with the back of his hand he brushed away
the tears that coursed down his fat cheeks.  He
besought me very earnestly to advise him what
he must do, mingling together in lamentable
outcry his good name and his daughter that loved him.

.. _`I TOLD HIM VERY SHORTLY, AND NEVER IN MY LIFE HAVE I SEEN SO PITEOUS A SPECTACLE AS THAT LITTLE ROUND RUBICUND MAN`:

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   :alt: I TOLD HIM VERY SHORTLY, AND NEVER IN MY LIFE HAVE I SEEN SO PITEOUS A SPECTACLE AS THAT LITTLE ROUND RUBICUND MAN AT THE HEARING OF MY STORY

   I TOLD HIM VERY SHORTLY, AND NEVER IN MY LIFE HAVE I SEEN SO PITEOUS A SPECTACLE AS THAT LITTLE ROUND RUBICUND MAN AT THE HEARING OF MY STORY

"Mynheer," said I, "there are two things you
may do.  The first is, to keep silence.  This
unhappy business is known wholly to none but
you, Cosmo Volmar, and myself—and in part to
my servant and Jan Verhoeff, who have their
reasons for holding their peace.  The second is,
to undo the wrong you have done your daughter
and her promised husband.  Thus you will both
preserve the reputation for courage you won at
the point of the ham bone"—(I could not
withhold this quip)—"and win a new renown
for fatherly indulgence and magnanimity of soul."

Upon this the Burgomaster looked somewhat
more cheerfully; but again his face fell, and he
turned away his eyes, as with a faltering voice
he told me that he had ordered my arrest.

"And here is the Captain of the Guard," said I,
as I heard his clanking step without, "come for
the cancelment of your warrant."

The Burgomaster was overcome with humiliation
when aware that I knew already of the
warrant.  He tore the paper passionately across,
and wept hot tears when he placed the captain's
hand in mine and bade him cherish me as an
honest man.  There was ever something of the
play actor about goodman Burgomaster.

And now I have told my story.  You may like
to know that the city did not yield to the
Spaniards, but held out for a good month beyond,
and was then relieved by Prince Maurice, who
advanced through a fierce rainstorm at the head
of a large and well-furnished army.  I was
presented to him on his entrance by Sir Francis
Vere, who with a grave countenance related how
he had chosen me, as one expert in war and
cunning in counsel, to assist the burghers in their
extremity.  When the Prince had thanked me
in the name of the United States of the Netherlands,
and invited me to continue in his service,
Sir Francis drew me aside and said in my ear—

"Thou'rt a cunning rascal, and be hanged to thee."

But I leave you to say whether 'twas cunning
that served me best.

The praises and blessings heaped upon me by
the two ladies, the mother and the sweetheart of
Jan Verhoeff, were dearer to me even than the
commendation of Prince Maurice.  Methinks it
is better to make two or three happy than to take
a fenced city.  In the spring of the next year Jan
wrote me word that he had been made councillor
and town clerk of Bargen, and was now the
husband of pretty Mistress Jacqueline.

I had almost forgot to say that such pricks of
conscience as beset me for permitting Volmar to
escape a traitor's doom were stilled but a few
days after he in secret quitted the city.  His
dead body was then discovered in the moat.
Whether he was drowned in swimming, or
removed (as he would have said) by the Spaniards
for that he had failed them, I know not; only I
believe in my heart that justice was done.

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   tailpiece to Third Part

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Interim

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Many a time and oft did my grandfather sing
the praises of Prince Maurice of Nassau, whom
he loved as a man, revered as a prince, and
admired as a warrior.  He told me that this stout
and worthy Prince had studied the art of war
from a boy up, and made many innovations in
the practice thereof, for the which this age is to
him much beholden; namely, he armed his horsemen
with the carbine instead of the lance, and
taught his soldiers the true use of the spade in
siege work.  Before his time men of war were
wont to scorn that humble tool, and to look upon
such as handled it as boors and rascals.  My
grandfather was with him in the three months'
siege of Groningen, and beheld with admiration
the work of his sappers and miners, how they
drove mines in the shape of the letter Y beneath
the walls of the city, and springing them one
night, the north ravelin was blown up into the
air with forty of the garrison, of whom one was
cast alive and sound at his very feet in the
besiegers' camp.

He told me too how in the summer of the year
1595, he came very near to losing his life.  Prince
Maurice had raised the siege of Grol, drawing
back before the troops of Christopher Mondragon,
a little old man of ninety-two, who had practised
war from his youth, yet without receiving a
wound.  The Prince laid an ambush for this
marvellous warrior, and set his cousin Philip to
accomplish it; but the old man heard of what was
toward, and took measures to counter it, so that
when, about daybreak, Count Philip sent forward
a handful of men to pounce upon the enemy's
pickets, they saw themselves faced by a great
number of Spanish horsemen drawn up in order.
Whereof when tidings were conveyed to Count
Philip, he donned his casque, and drew his sword,
and putting spurs to his horse, galloped into the
lane that divided him from the Spaniards, being
followed at the first only by four of his nobles,
and then by others of his horsemen, among whom
my grandfather was one.

And when they were shut in that narrow pass,
up started the Spaniards on the watery pasture
lands on either hand, and fired their guns at
them very hotly.  Count Philip was shot through
the body from a harquebus, which, by reason of
its closeness, set his clothes a-fire, and the flames
could not be quenched save by rolling him, all
wounded as he was, among the sand and heather.
When he sought to mount his horse and ride
away, his strength failed him, and he fell to the
ground and was taken prisoner and carried away
dying.  My grandfather, following in the charge,
was thrown from his horse in the disorder and
confusion, and only saved himself by crawling
through the hedge, and swimming the river that
ran by the margin of the field.

A matter of three months thereafter, my
grandfather was with Sir Francis Vere when
that valiant captain was sent by Prince Maurice
to take the castle of Weerd.  Upon Sir Francis
demanding that the warden of the castle should
yield it up, that doughty commander refused
him with scorn, albeit he had no more than a
score and six men at his back.  But when Sir
Francis opened upon the place with his artillery,
these folk fell into a panic and laid open
their gates.  Their captain claimed the honours
of war, but Sir Francis made answer that he
should have no honours but halters for the
stiff-necked simple men that had dared to defend their
hovel against ordnance.  Whereupon he made
the six and twenty draw lots with black and white
straws, and they that drew the white were
immediately hanged, save only the thirteenth, to
whom his life was given after that he had
consented to do hangman's work upon his fellows.
The noose was cast first about the neck of their
captain, but the rope parting asunder, certain of
Sir Francis' men held him under the water of
the ditch until he was drowned.  My grandfather
fell out with Sir Francis upon this matter, deeming
his truculency to be unworthy of a gentleman;
and when the troops went into winter quarters,
he took ship and returned to England, bearing a
richly gilt sword, the gift of Prince Maurice.

He then took up his place in the Queen's
Guard, but had accomplished scarce four months
in the royal service when that adventure befell
which follows next in order.  It was known that
King Philip was making ready a fleet of sixty
sail to invade Ireland, and Sir Walter Raleigh was
instant that the Queen's ministers should
destroy that fleet in Spanish waters, saying that
"expedition in a little is better than much too
late."  At that time the Spaniards were rejoicing
in that Hawkins and Drake had come to grief
in their enterprise against Panama, and were
dead of a broken heart.  Sir Walter's counsel
was deemed good, and the Queen, enraged with
the King of Spain for that he was abetting the
Irish rebel Tyrone, fitted out ninety-six sail to
convey 14,000 Englishmen to the harbour of
Cadiz, setting over them Lord Admiral Howard
and the Earl of Essex, and granting to Raleigh
the command of twenty-two ships.  Contrary
winds delayed their setting forth, the which, as
Sir Walter affirmed, caused him deeper grief than
he ever felt for anything of this world.  And
Providence so fashioned it that my grandfather
performed a hardy feat in Cadiz harbour a good
month before Sir Walter set sail, as you shall
now read.





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.. _`THE FOURTH PART`:

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   THE FOURTH PART

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.. class:: center medium bold white-space-pre-line

CHRISTOPHER RUDD'S ADVENTURE IN SPAIN,
AND THE FASHION IN WHICH HE PLAYED
THE PART OF A PHYSICIAN

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.. _`217`:

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   headpiece to Fourth Part

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.. class:: center medium bold

I

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It has never been my lot to hold great place,
whether in the employment of Queen Bess, or
of her successor, King James; and when I think
how sorely fortune hath buffeted some noble
persons that served those monarchs, I count
myself lucky in my obscurity.

Of all the noble men with whom I ever had
to do, Sir Walter Raleigh was in my computation
beyond compare the noblest.  It frets me still,
after forty years, that I was not of his company
on that famous voyage to Cadiz when, as he
writes in his History, "we stayed not to pick
any lock, but brake open the doors, and, having
rifled all, threw the key into the fire"; by the
which figure he signifies the capture and destruction
of that great town, with vast spoils both of
merchandise and money.  I was stayed but by
accident, or, more truly, by the hand of God,
who had other work for me, as you shall hear.

It chanced that one day, about Easter of the
year 1596, I had been to visit Sir Walter in his
house at Mile End, where he then lived to take
the country air, and because, being out of favour
with the Queen, his lodging in her great house
by the Thames was not much to his liking.  In
name he was still Captain of the Guard and
Warden of the Stannaries, but the former office
was performed by one Master John Best, and
the latter was, I think, in abeyance.  He had
but lately returned from his voyage to Guiana,
and was even then occupied with the writing of
the book wherein he relates his doings there,
together with certain wonders that I must hold
to be fables.  It is clean against nature that
men should have eyes in their shoulders and
mouths in their breasts.

I had visited him, I say, and sat talking very
late, finding him wrapt up in his project against
Cadiz, where a Spanish fleet was fitting out with
the intent to invade Ireland.  It was understood,
when I left him, that I should be one of his
company in the *Warspright*, provided I could
obtain leave from the Queen to quit my place
in the royal Guard for a season.  I rode back to
Westminster, and, having stabled my horse, was
proceeding on foot to my lodging, in a little
mean street by the river, when it seemed to me
on a sudden that I heard footsteps, as of one
dogging me.  It was very late, as I said; all
honest folks (myself excepted) were abed; and
having a modest love of myself, I halted and
whipped out my sword, peering into the darkness,
and stretching my ears for the sound that
had brought me to a check.  But all was silent
as the grave, and I laughed a little when it came
into my mind that peradventure 'twas no more
than the echo of my own footsteps.  Whereupon
I put up my sword and went on, my thoughts
being busy with the matters of Sir Walter's
glowing discourse.

While I was thus rapt away, building, I doubt
not, fantastical castles in Spain, on a sudden I
was set upon by a hulking fellow that threw
himself upon me out of a dark alley-way.  The
first warning I had of him was a sharp crack as
the bludgeon he aimed at me struck a shop-sign
that hung low over the street; but for this,
without question I had suffered a broken skull.  Even
so I lacked time to draw sword or dagger, for
the man flung aside his club and sprang upon
me, grappling me to himself with a grip of iron.
For a moment I yielded, out of policy, to his
embrace, being careful, nathless, to maintain my
footing; then, being very well practised in
wrestling, and having good command of my breath, I
dipt my arms about his middle and, with an
ease that amazed me, gave him the backfall.
Down he went upon the cobbles, and I stood
over him while he lay and groaned.

.. _`DOWN HE WENT UPON THE COBBLES, AND I STOOD OVER HIM WHILE HE LAY AND GROANED`:

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   :alt: DOWN HE WENT UPON THE COBBLES, AND I STOOD OVER HIM WHILE HE LAY AND GROANED

   DOWN HE WENT UPON THE COBBLES, AND I STOOD OVER HIM WHILE HE LAY AND GROANED

At this hour of the night it were vain to look
for any help from the watch, and I was in the
mind to leave the fellow where he lay.  Yet
having a certain curiosity to see what manner
of man he was, I felt in my fob for the steel and
flint I was wont to carry, and when I found them
not, only then remembered that I had left them
on Sir Walter's table; he had borrowed them of
me to light his pipe of tobacco, the which was a
wondrous strange thing in those days.  (That is
Sir Walter's pipe, yonder in my cabinet; he gave
it me for a keepsake a little while ere he
died.)  Having no light at command I resolved to bring
the man to my own door, but a few steps distant;
wherefore I stooped and hoisted him to his feet,
and then took him by the collar with one hand,
and with the other held my naked sword to his
posteriors, and so marched him before me up
the street.  When we came to my door, and my
servant opened to my knock, I thrust the man
in front of me so that he stood within the light
of the lamp.

He was a sorry knave, now that I beheld him
clearly: a very ragged Robin, as foul in person as
ever I saw.  But I understood now the reason
why I had so easily thrown him, for his countenance,
so much of it as I could discern through a
thick and tangled beard, was wan and sunken;
his eyes shone with that glitter which bespeaks
famine or fever; and his body, goodly in its
proportions, was bent and shrunken together.  In
good sooth I had no cause to be vain of my
prowess, and when the fellow turned his burning
eyes upon me, regarding me sullenly, yet with
no touch of fear, I was seized with compassion,
and bade my servant go fetch meat and drink.
He went about my bidding sluggishly, halting
ever and anon to cast a backward glance, as
though doubting the policy of playing good
Samaritan to so uncouth and villainous an oaf.
While he was absent I told the man that since
he would surely be hanged for his attempt upon
me, 'twere well he should eat and so fortify
himself against his destiny.  What I said in jest he
took in earnest; but whether it be true or not,
as I have heard tell, that with the hangman's
noose dangling before him a criminal has no
relish for food, certainly this man fell with very
keen tooth upon my viands, and cleaned the
platter with marvellous celerity.

Having dispatched my servant to bed, I sat
me on the table and questioned the man, why he
had waylaid me.  He was loth to speak, but by
little and little I drew from him his history, which
he related not as one seeking to move pity, but
by way of recompense, so it seemed to me, for
the hospitality he had received.  With his first
words I own my heart warmed to him, for his
speech smacked of my own country in the west,
though intermixed with many quaint outlandish
terms.  His story I will relate in brief.

His name was William Stubbs, and he was
born at Winterbourne Abbas, not a great way
from my own birthplace.  He had gone young
to sea, and made several voyages with Master
Cavendish, having indeed served as boatswain in
the *Desire* with that worthy seaman and
commander.  He had roved the Spanish Main, and
I proved his veracity in that particular by putting
to him sundry questions begotten of my own
knowledge.  'Twas plain that he had the
common fault of seamen, spending his gains more
quickly then he earned them, roistering it on
shore while his money lasted, and when all was
spent going to sea again in quest of more.  But
I perceived as he proceeded in his discourse that
he was better than most in natural wit, and had
made more profit of his adventures, in knowledge
if not in pelf.  He had a passable facility in both
the French and the Spanish tongues, and his
head was stuffed with a great quantity of curious
information, which made me wonder that he had
sunk so low as to become a common footpad.

The reason of that I learnt in order.  Being
on board the *Revenge* in that unlucky voyage of
Sir Richard Grenville, he fell with many of his
comrades into the hands of the Spaniards, who
dealt with him very scurvily, as their custom is,
and finally condemned him to the galleys.  For
three long years he was chained to an oar, and
suffered all the miseries of unhappy prisoners in
the like case.  But it befell one day that the
galley wherein he rowed fell foul of a Dutch
vessel, which opened upon it with valorous
broadsides, and after making havoc as well
among the slaves as the crew, finally rammed it
with great vehemency and stove a hole in its
side.  In the hottest of the fight, a round shot
broke the chain that held Stubbs to his oar, and,
seizing the moment when the Dutchman rammed
and all was confusion, he leapt overboard and
swam to that vessel, whose side he clambered up
by the main chains.  He came very near perishing
at the hands of the crew, who at first supposed
him to be a rascal; but when they learnt his true
condition, they hauled him aboard with
comfortable words, and brought him after many days
to their own country.  Thence he contrived to
reach London, only to fall on evil hap, for his
sufferings in captivity had sapped his strength,
and, when he sought employment in his own
trade he found no master mariner willing to
accept him.  Thus, reduced by sickness and
famine, in his desperate strait he bethought him
of conquering fortune on the highway, but was
now ready to believe, seeing the unhappy issue
of his first essay in that line of life, that he was
at odds with Fate, and must needs, as he said,
"kick the beam and ha' done with it."

When I heard this piteous story, and saw upon
the man's neck and wrists the scars that were
full proof, to all that knew the Spaniards, of his
having rowed in their galleys, my anger against
him was wholly quenched.  I told him heartily
that he should not hang for me, and then,
perceiving that my good food had wrought upon
his sickly frame, I bade him get himself into a
closet wherein my servant kept my boots and
sleep there for the night, promising to see him
again in the morning, and perchance do somewhat
to set him on his feet.  The man was clean
staggered by this kindness, as I could plainly see;
but he did not thank me; and when he had crept
into the closet and flung himself down heedless
upon the floor, I turned the key in the lock for
security's sake and went to my bed.

My servant was in a pretty fret and fume when
he found the man there asleep in the morning,
and eyed me with a disfavour that made me feel
guilty towards him: a good servant hath in
him something of the tyrant.  When I bade him
give my guest water for washing (whereof he was
in great need), and meat and beer, his silence
was a clear rebuke.  But when he came again
after doing my bidding he had somewhat to tell me.

"The rogue asked me your name, sir," quoth
he, "and when I told him, he asked further
whether you were akin to one Master Christopher
Rudd of Shirley."

"And what said you?" I asked, knowing my servant.

"I said, sir, that he were best wash himself."

"A proper answer," said I, laughing.  "When
he has eaten, bring him to me."

And when the man came before me, cleaned
of his foulness and with his beard trimmed, I saw
that he was a goodly fellow, and felt the more
sorry for him.

"You asked of one Master Christopher Rudd
of Shirley," I said; "what have you to do with him?"

"Are you his kin, sir?" he asked doubtfully.

"We are of one family," I said, "and now you
will answer my question."

And then he told me a story that filled me with
as much trouble as amazement.  Chained to him,
on his galley, had been a young Frenchman,
whom, even before their common misery had
made them friends, he had surmised to be a
man of rank.  When they had learnt to trust
each other, the Frenchman and he often talked
together of the chances of escape, and each
promised the other that, should fortune favour
him, he would use his endeavours for behoof of
him that was left.  Stubbs said that, for his part,
he feared he could do little, being an Englishman;
whereupon the Frenchman told him that he had
sundry good friends among the English, notably
Christopher Rudd, of whom indeed he had been
a close comrade in the service of King Henry of
Navarre.

At this I pricked up my ears, and inquired
eagerly for the Frenchman's name.  Thereupon
Stubbs rolled up his sleeves, and showed me,
branded upon his arm, the letters "R. de T.,"
confessing that he had forgot the name, which
indeed did not come easily to his tongue.  I
needed no more, but knew instantly that the
luckless galley-slave could be none other than
Raoul de Torcy, who had been my boon fellow
when I was in France, and my companion that
time when I had the good hap to win King Henry's
favour.  I bade Stubbs describe with circumstance
the look and character of the Frenchman,
and though he was unapt at such a task, his
uncouth phrases gave me the assurance I sought,
and I could have no manner of doubt that the
man now swinking and sweating in one of the
worst tortures ever devised by the wit of man
was indeed my dear friend.

I taxed Stubbs narrowly, to discover by what
mishap Raoul, a gentleman of France, had fallen
to so pitiful an extremity, but on this point it
appeared that Raoul himself was at a loss.  He
had been kidnapped one day in Calais, cast on
board a vessel, and carried to Cadiz: who were
his captors, and what moved them to it, were
matters hidden from him.

Cadiz being the place of Raoul's exile, I
instantly bethought me of my talk overnight
with Sir Walter Raleigh, and saw in his
projected enterprise a means of wresting my friend
from his bondage.  Accordingly I sent my
servant for my horse, purposing to ride again to Mile
End and acquaint Sir Walter with what I had
heard.  I gave money to Stubbs wherewith to
buy new raiment, bidding him return to my
house and await me, and above all to avoid any
debate with my servant, the which might easily
end in broken heads.

I found Sir Walter in his garden, smoking a
pipe of tobacco, and setting potatoes, the new
root that he had brought from the Indies, in the
earth in the manner they call dibbling.  He heard
me attentively, and let out a round oath or two,
and said that assuredly I might make the enlargement
of my friend my personal charge in the adventure.

.. _`I FOUND SIR WALTER IN HIS GARDEN`:

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   :align: center
   :alt: I FOUND SIR WALTER IN HIS GARDEN

   I FOUND SIR WALTER IN HIS GARDEN

"But you must know, Rudd," he said, "that
the project is as yet a secret, and indeed there
is no surety that the Queen will give consent
thereto.  Her Grace frowns on me most malevolently,
and there are many hindrances to surmount
ere I come by her august approval.  Were it not
better to ransom your friend?  I doubt not he
hath kinsmen that are ignorant of his plight, and
would bestir themselves did they but know it."

I answered him that Raoul had spoken to me
of an uncle, but as to ransom, Raoul himself
must have thought thereon.  Without doubt he
would have acquainted the Spaniards with his
rank, and their cupidity would not have refused
to bargain for his enlargement, unless, peradventure,
they had weightier reasons for holding him
a prisoner.  To this Sir Walter assented, and
confessed that he saw nothing for it but to wait
until the Queen's pleasure in the matter of the
intended voyage was known, and with that I
had to be content.

I returned to my lodging, sore downcast and
perplexed.  Stubbs was already there, new
clothed in decent garments, and very personable.
I fell a-talking to him, and in the midst a thought
came suddenly to me.  I knew the strange
waywardness of the Queen, how she would one
moment consent, the next deny her words with
hearty swearing; it might be months, or even
years, before Sir Walter had his way.  It troubled
me sorely to think that Raoul should endure his
wretched lot while her Highness played see-saw,
and I bethought me that I might at least voyage
to France and see the kinsmen who were, I
doubted not, mourning Raoul's disappearance,
and might perchance devise with them some
plan for his deliverance.  And since the testimony
of an eye-witness is ever more effectual than
report at second-hand, I resolved to take my
mariner with me, so as they might have from
his own lips the tale he told me.  I forbore to
ask consent of the Queen to my absence, being
resolved to hazard my place rather than my
design.

We set off next day, riding to Dover, where
we embarked upon a packet-boat, and so came,
after much tossing and discomfort, to Calais.
This being the port where Raoul had been
kidnapped three years before, as Stubbs told me, I
made discreet inquiry among the harbour people
whether they knew aught of that villainy, being
careful to name no names.  But none had any
knowledge of the matter, whereupon we rode on
at once to Dieppe, both because that was the
nearest port to Raoul's château, and because our
common friend Jean Prévost dwelt there, whom
I purposed to take into my confidence.

'Twas drawing towards evening when we came
to the town and reined up at the door of the
*Belle Etoile*, a hostelry that I knew very well.
The host, honest Jacques Aicard, remembered
me, though it was near seven years since he last
saw me, and welcomed me very heartily.  The
goodman's face was rueful when he ushered me
to a room.

"'Tis pity, monsieur," he said, "that I have
no better chamber to offer, but my best room
is bespoke.  But if monsieur will be content with
this for a night or two, be sure that he shall
have the best when my other visitor departs."

I assured him that the room would do very
well, since I did not purpose to make a long stay.

"Ah, monsieur," he said, "that is sad news.
I would that I had more guests like monsieur,"
a piece of arrant flattery whereat I smiled.  'Tis
true that honest Jacques loved an Englishman.

Having seen Stubbs also provided, I hastened
forth, and by good luck found Jean Prévost at
home.  He likewise welcomed me with great
heartiness, and, after our salutations, as he set
wine before me, he opened upon the very matter
which had brought me to him.

"Would that Raoul were with us!" he said.
"How we three laughed!  But I fear me we
shall never see him more."

"He disappeared; that I know," said I.
"Tell me how it befell."

"Why, three years ago he rode to Calais,
with the intent to sail to the Low Countries, and
use his sword against the Spaniards.  We have
never heard of him since.  Whether he was
wrecked, or fell in Flanders, we know not.  He
vanished utterly away."

"And what of his estate?" I asked.

"His uncle holds it, the Count de Sarney.
You have heard Raoul speak of him.  He was a
Leaguer, and there was a coldness between them.
Indeed, though their châteaux lie but five miles
apart, they had no dealings one with the other
for many years.  But the breach was healed
when Henry became king, and after that Raoul
had disappeared none was so busy as the Count
in seeking for him.  He sent emissaries at his
own charges to Flanders to inquire diligently in
all likely quarters, and 'twas a full year before
he entered upon his heritage.  He lives at Torcy,
much by himself, and we see little of him."

"Raoul lugs an oar in a galley at Cadiz," I
said with a very quiet voice.

Jean leapt from his seat as though a wasp had
stung him.

"A galley-slave!  Impossible!  Incredible!"
he cried.

"Both credible and possible," I said, and then
I told him all, as I have told you.

"Mon Dieu!" cried Jean, when I had made
an end.  "We must not wait while your Queen
dallies.  A ransom!  I know a score of his
friends who will give bonds for goodly sums——"

"Ay, truly," I said, interrupting him, "and
the first of them should be his uncle and heir."

Jean stopped in his restless pacing of the floor,
and looked at me very strangely.

"Why yes," he said, "his uncle, to be sure.
But the Count is close-fisted; 'twas indeed a
surprise to all the country-side when, after that
he had entered into possession of Torcy—an
estate of greater worth than his own—he showed
himself a very niggard."

"Think you that he would refuse his mite in
so good a cause?" I said.

Again Jean looked strangely at me, and for
a while was silent.  Then he said slowly—

"My friend, I ween we had best say nought
to the Count de Sarney."

"Nevertheless, I go to him to-morrow," I
replied.  "Miser he may be, and 'tis clean
against his interest, to be sure, to bring back
the lawful owner of Torcy, and thereby dispossess
himself.  Yet if his duty be put to him,
as I shall put it, I doubt not he will comply."

"I will go with you," said Jean.

"Nay, I am minded to go alone, or rather
with none but my mariner.  'Twill be better so.
Be assured I will acquaint you with the issue.
And I beg you, Jean," I said earnestly, "that
you speak no word of what I have told you, at
least for this present time."

"I will be mute as a fish," said he, "but I
shall think the more."


.. vspace:: 3

.. class:: center medium bold

II

.. vspace:: 2

On the morrow, early in the morning, we
saddled our horses, Stubbs and I, a thing we
always performed ourselves, Stubbs somewhat
fumblingly, I own, until practice gave him
deftness and ease.  'Twas thirty miles to Torcy,
that lay southerly from Dieppe, but we made
such good speed that the sun was not yet in the
zenith when we arrived at the château.  The
Count was within doors, said the lackey that
opened the great gate of the park to us, and
we rode up the avenue of chestnuts, just
bourgeoning into leaf, and came after some three
furlongs to the house.

The man that admitted me, an ancient
retainer of Raoul's whom I knew very well, changed
hue when he saw me, and asked me with trembling
voice whether I had brought news of his
master.  I did not give him a direct answer, but
bade him lead me at once to the Count, feeling
not a little pleasure that the new lord still kept
the old man in his service.  He conducted me
through the passages that I had last trod with
Raoul himself, and brought me into the little
chamber wherein I had passed many a merry
evening with my friend.  Stubbs meanwhile
remained in the outer porch, ready to follow
me at my summons.

I waited some while before the Count entered.
He was a man of mean stature, very lean and
dry, and with a grave cast of countenance wherein
I discerned no likeness to the jolly favour of his
nephew.

"I have not the honour," he began courteously
as I bowed to him, and dealt me a shrewd look.

"Assuredly not, monsieur," I replied.  "My
name is Christopher Rudd, and I was once
comrade to your nephew, whose fate has given
such deep trouble to his friends."

"Ah yes, my poor nephew!  Methinks I
recall your name, monsieur, if you are the same
that fought with Raoul in the late contention,
now so happily concluded.  Be seated, monsieur;
I am charmed to meet one that was his friend.
You will honour me by taking a cup of wine?"

He rang for a servant, and bade him bring
wine and cakes, and also to request the company
of Monsieur Armand.  Before the man returned
there entered into the room a solemn-visaged
youth, clad in black with white ruffles at his
wrists.

"My son, monsieur," said the Count.  "He
is but lately returned from Paris, where he has
studied medicine and philosophy, not that I
purpose that he should be either a physician or a
philosopher, but because I deem it well that he,
being my heir, but ill-fitted by reason of a delicate
constitution for the pursuit of arms, should have
some tincture of humane letters and of the
beneficent art of healing.  Situated as we are,
somewhat remote from towns, it is fitting that
one who will in due time be lord of many poor
folks should be able to minister to them in their
afflictions."

"A right worthy and commendable desire,"
I said, looking at the youth, whose solemnity of
countenance somewhat tickled me.

The Count proceeded to expound the usefulness
of philosophy, not interrupting his discourse
when the servant returned with wine and delicacies
which, being sharp-set after my ride, I
devoured with relish.  My host was so
courteously bent on entertaining me that for a good
while I found no opportunity of broaching the
purpose of my visit, and more than once I
thought of Stubbs waiting without, and certainly
as hungry as myself.  But perceiving at length
in the Count's physiognomy a look that said
clearly, despite his courtesy, that he thought it
time my visit came to an end, I profited by a
slight lull in his discourse to say—

"And my friend Raoul, monsieur—has nothing
been heard of him?"

"Nothing, monsieur," he said with a sigh.
"I fear we cannot hope to see him again, and
the pain of his loss is embittered by our ignorance
of his fate, whether he lies at the bottom of the
sea, or perchance in some nameless grave."

"I rejoice, then," said I, "that I can assuage
that bitterness, even though the knowledge has
a bitterness of its own.  Your nephew, monsieur,
is at this moment, unless death has released him,
suffering the tortures of a galley-slave in Spain."

A cry from the solemn youth caused me to
look at him, and I own I was glad to see a spark
of life in his dead face.

"What a monstrous thing!" he cried.  "Was
he taken prisoner in Flanders, monsieur?"

"Nay," I said, "he never fought in Flanders.
He travelled no further than Calais.  He was
there kidnapped at the harbour, and thence
conveyed to Cadiz.  'Twas the work of private
enemies, beyond doubt."

"Will you tell us how you came by this
amazing news, monsieur?" said the Count, in his thin
cold voice.

Whereupon I related the whole story with
circumstance, from the time when I was beset
that night as I returned to my lodging.  The
Count listened to me with a courteous interest,
but a look of compassion stole upon his face.

"It is incredible, monsieur," he said, when I
ended my tale.  "My poor nephew had no
private enemies: none can know better than
you how well beloved he was of all.  Even in the
height of our broils here he had no personal foes,
and though he and I were for a time at variance,
yet when the realm settled itself in peace and
order we forgot our public differences, and Raoul
and Armand became deeply attached the one to
the other; is it not so, Armand?"

"It is indeed," said the youth eagerly.
"Raoul and I were as brothers, and his loss
has been my greatest sorrow."

I could not doubt he spoke truth: his eyes
shone as he spoke.  Nor could I wonder that
his father was incredulous, for Raoul was indeed
a man whom it were strange to hate.

"I have a man without who rowed in the
self-same galley with Raoul," I said.  "With your
leave I will send for him, monsieur, and you may
verify my story from his own lips."

The Count assented with the same smile of
weary tolerance.  Within a little Stubbs came
to us, looking ill at ease, and twisting his bonnet
between his hands as he stood waiting our
pleasure.  At my bidding he related the story
as I have told it, and rolled back his sleeve to
show the letters "R. de T." there branded.  His
French was uncouth and villainously inexact,
yet not so base but that his meaning was clear.
The Count questioned him searchingly, almost
as an advocate seeks to shake the testimony of
a witness; but the man held to his tale in its
main parts, answering only "J'ne savons pas"—such
was his barbarous form—when the matter
in question was beyond his ken.

Having dismissed the man, I asked the Count
whether he were not now perfectly convinced of
his nephew's fate.  He looked upon me with that
same smile of pity, and gave me an answer that,
I confess, enraged me.

"I felicitate you, monsieur," said he, "on
your goodness of heart, but until this moment
I was not aware that credulity could be laid to
the charge of a man of your nation.  I had
rather looked upon Englishmen as sceptical,
and not easily imposed upon.  This man is
certainly a liar: you yourself were witness of
his confusion.  He has played upon your benevolence,
and, for myself, I regard it as monstrous
that you should have been prevailed upon to
make so long a journey for so bootless a reason.
Nevertheless it has given me great pleasure to
meet and converse with you; and now that you
are here, I would beg you to do me the honour to
remain my guest for a week at least."

"I thank you, monsieur," I said as civilly as
I could, though in truth I was inly raging.  "But
so far from regarding the seaman as a liar, I do
thoroughly believe his story."

"And I too," quoth Armand.

"But, my good friend," said the Count, "see
the unlikelihood of it.  Suppose that Raoul were
indeed in the galleys, it were a simple matter for
a man of his rank and condition to purchase his
release, and be sure that by this time, and long
before this, application would have been made
to me for his ransom, the which I need not say
would have been instantly dispatched.  Is not
that reasonable?"

I could not but own that it was, remembering
that I had myself used the self-same argument
with Sir Walter Raleigh.

"Furthermore," the Count proceeded, "say
that I offered a large sum for his ransom, the
Spaniards, if they have any reason for holding
Raoul a prisoner, would certainly find some one
to personate him, and release some knave that
fully merits the punishment he suffers.  And so
you and I should look merely ridiculous."

There was so much reason in what the Count
said that I was baffled.  His unbelief, I thought,
might be in some measure sprung from a
reluctancy to relinquish the estate he now enjoyed,
the which was not to be wondered at: and yet
I deemed it unnatural that a kinsman should be
more incredulous than a man bound to Raoul by
no ties of blood.  At a loss how to combat his
arguments, I presently took my leave, excusing
myself from accepting the invitation he pressed
upon me.

I found that Stubbs had been fed by the
ancient servitor, and set off with him towards
Dieppe.  Our horses proved themselves but
indifferent steeds in respect of endurance, and we
were slow upon the road, so that it was already
dark when we reached our hostelry.  Being
wearied with the journey, as well as exceeding
vexed in mind, I was in no mood for aught but
a good supper and then bed, and I deferred to
acquaint Jean Prévost with my barren errand
until the morrow.  Stubbs gave me a hard look
when I bade him good-night, as though he would
fain question me on the present posture of the
affair; but I told him nothing, being resolved
first to hear what Jean had to say.

I was mighty astonished next afternoon by
Jean's manner of receiving my intelligence.
Whereas he had been as sure as I myself that
Raoul and the galley-slave were one and the
same, he now wore a dubious look, and stroked
his chin, and declared there was much reason in
what the Count had said.

"Raoul is not the only name beginning with
R," he said, "nor Torcy with T.  Moreover this
mariner of yours, you tell me, sought to enter
into your good graces by cracking your skull,
and is not thereby certified to be an honest man.
The manifest friendliness of the Count's son, and
the Count's own diligence in seeking his nephew,
give no prop to the suspicion I own I entertained,
that they were privy to the crime, for the sake
of gaining Raoul's inheritance.  I am fain to
believe that there is dupery, or at least error."

I answered him somewhat hotly that I was no
dupe, nor did I believe that Stubbs had erred,
and asked whether we could not set on foot a
proper inquiry.  To this he replied that, France
and Spain being at war, such a course must be
beset with manifold difficulties.

"Yet," he said, "there is one way.  Address
yourself to some merchant in Antwerp that hath
trading concerns in Cadiz.  Such an one, if
heedful and discreet, could put your mariner's
story to the test, and I doubt not, knowing their
love of lucre, there be many good men in Antwerp
that would take this task upon them, for a fit
recompense."

This counsel seeming good to me, I left him
after a little, and instead of returning directly
to my lodging, I wended to the harbour, and
inquired what vessel sailed thence to Antwerp,
and when.  'Twas told me that a trading vessel
would leave the port on the morrow, whereupon
I counted myself lucky, for none other would
depart for a fortnight.  I took passage in the
vessel for myself and Stubbs, paying good English
money, and bespeaking a sufficient quantity of
food, more relishable than that which mariners
are in general wont to eat.

By the time I came again to the *Belle Etoile*
the sun was setting.  I entered in, very well
content with what I had done, and ran full
against Stubbs, who was lurking within the
doorway.  He took me by the sleeve and drew
me hastily to my room, where, having shut the
door, he thrust into my hands some papers, and
I perceived that the seals thereof had been
broken.

.. _`HE THRUST INTO MY HAND SOME PAPERS`:

.. figure:: images/img-241.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: HE THRUST INTO MY HAND SOME PAPERS

   HE THRUST INTO MY HAND SOME PAPERS

"What is this?" I said in amazement,
beholding signs of great trouble in the man's
countenance.

"Read, sir, read, and quickly, for the love of
God!" he said, and incontinently flung out of
the room.

I took up one of the papers to examine it,
and saw that it bore the superscription, "To
Don Ygnacio de Acosta, at Cadiz."  The others
were addressed to grandees in Seville and
elsewhere in the south of Spain.  I was still holding
them unopened, perplexed about my man's
strange excitement, when he came back with
the same haste into the room and asked me in a
fever whether I had read them.

"Why, no," I said, "I may not read letters
that are not addressed to me.  What is all this
to-do?"

He groaned, and cursed his fate because he
was himself unable to read.  And then, pouring
out his words in a very torrent, he told me that,
a little after my departure, there had come to
the inn the young man whom he had seen in the
château Torcy, namely, Armand de Sarney, the
Count's son.  Old Jacques conducted the youth
to his bedchamber: 'twas plain that he was
the expected guest for whom the best room had
been bespoke.  Stubbs perceived that he bore
with him a wallet such as are commonly used by
gentlemen for holding letters.  Having seen his
baggage bestowed in the chamber, the youth
descended, but without the wallet, and issued
forth into the street.  Stubbs watched him until
he was out of sight, then stole a tip-toe to the
room, slit open the wallet, and withdrew its
contents, the papers that he had laid in my hands.

"But why?" I asked, staggered by this act
of criminal presumption, and thinking the man
must be demented.

"Because thiccy count be a rare villain, sir,"
cried Stubbs hoarsely.  "I bean't a fule; I
kept my eyes upon him when you sat there
a-crackin' with him, and if he don't know more'n
he ought about thiccy young Frenchman, your
friend, I'll go to the gallows happy.  Read the
names, sir, read 'un so that I can hear; quick,
for he may be back along."

In a great wonderment I complied.

"Don Antonio de Herrera, Don Miguel de
Leon y Buegas; Don Ygnacio de Acosta——"

"There!  There!" he cried.  "I knew it, be
jowned!  'Tis the captain of the galleys, the
Don Spaniard that has laid many a stripe on
my bare back.  Read the letter."

Again he left me in a great hurry, and I
guessed now that he was gone to keep a watch
against the return of Armand de Sarney.

I was in a quandary.  Imprimis, 'twas a
dastardly deed to break open the wallet and the
seals, and not consonant with plain honesty.
Yet I could but acknowledge that a letter writ
by the Count de Sarney to the captain of the
galleys was a grave cause of suspicion, more
especially seeing that the Count had not told
me he was acquainted with the Spaniard, as
assuredly an innocent man would have done.
And so, reflecting that the seal was broken
beyond mending, and that my friend's welfare—nay,
perchance, his very life—was at stake, I
felt it behoved me to satisfy myself on the matter,
and do as my Lord Burghley and Sir Francis
Walsingham had done when they discovered those
devilish plots against the Queen's highness.

Accordingly I spread open the letter addressed
to Don Ygnacio de Acosta, and as I read it all
compunction died within me, and I fumed with
rage.  After the customary salutations, this is
what I read—

.. vspace:: 2

"The bearer of this letter is my only son,
Armand de Sarney, whom I commit to your
benevolence.  Having gained some repute in
Paris by his diligence in the study of philosophy
and the sciences, above all in medicine, he is
desirous of perfecting himself in this last, the
which I hold to be both a science and an art,
by inquiring into the Moorish system, for which
purpose I deem it well, though I am loth to
part with him, that he should voyage to Seville,
the fame of whose schools has gone out into all
the corners of the world.  He bears with him
letters from good friends in Paris to your most
renowned doctors, and to your loving care do I
especially commend him.

"I profit by his journey to send you a bill
of exchange, drawn on our good friends at
Antwerp, and beg that you will pardon my
backwardness in that I have withheld it beyond
the wonted time.

"The sickness whereof you wrote is now, I
trust, wholly passed away, and with all felicitations
I subscribe myself your loving cousin,

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent

"HENRI DE SARNEY.

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"*Postscriptum*.—I unseal this letter to add
that since it was written I have been visited
by an Englishman, who has learnt by the mouth
of an escaped slave somewhat concerning a
prisoner, who, he affirms, is chained to an oar
in one of your galleys.  The English are a
stubborn and stiff-necked race, and this man has
their vices in full measure, being the same that
brought to nought the carefully-laid plans of the
lamented Monsieur de Lameray.  In heat and
waywardness he may seek to pick locks and
break fetters.  Have a care therefore."

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This letter, I say, put me in a fume.  Some
parts of it I comprehended not, and the whole
was composed with great cunning; but I saw
clearly enough that the Count de Sarney was well
aware of his nephew's grievous plight, and,
furthermore, I suspected that he had had a
hand in bringing it about.  For a brief space I
was so mastered by my wrath as that I was in
a manner bereft of my wits; but running my
eyes again over the lines, I came on a sudden to
a resolution, and none too soon, for Stubbs
returned swiftly into the room and told me that
the young man in black was at that moment
making towards the inn.  Thrusting the papers
into my doublet, I hastened to the door, and
there awaited his coming.

As he was in the act of going past, the passage
being dark, I stepped forth and besought him to
honour me with his company for a few minutes.
His solemn face bore witness to his surprise at
seeing me in his own inn, but I caught no trace
either of alarm or embarrassment.  He came
into my room, and, having closed the door upon
him, I said—

"It has come to my knowledge, monsieur,
that you are about to voyage into Spain."

"It is true, monsieur, and I rejoice that I
shall be able to inquire myself for my poor
cousin, though my father scouts your story."

I read honesty in the lad's countenance, and
grieved that it behoved me to play upon him.

"I have to tell you, monsieur," I said very
gravely, "that you stand in imminent peril.
Your country is at war with Spain.  'Tis believed
that monsieur the Count is in treasonable
correspondence with the Spanish court.  'Tis known
that you are conveying a subsidy to an officer of
their navy, and there are charges of even graver
import, which in sum bring your father within
danger of the extreme penalty."

The hue of the lad's face altered to an ashen
colour, and he caught his breath.

"It is false, abominably false, monsieur," he
gasped.

"Pray God it be so, monsieur!" said I, pitying
him.  "The unhappy fact is that papers of
suspicious tenor have been discovered among
your baggage, and 'tis only by good luck that I
am able to warn you in time.  Examine your
papers.  You will find that search has been
made during your absence, and documents
incriminating in character have been abstracted."

Trembling with fear the lad hastened to his
own room, and came back in as great a panic as
ever I saw.

"It is an error, monsieur," he cried; "my
father is no traitor: he can explain.  Mon
Dieu! what can I do?"

"I will tell you, monsieur," I said.  "Be
assured that I acquit you of all guilty
knowledge.  The affair is known only to myself and
one other whose silence I can command, and do
you but follow my counsel you will be safe.
Having fought in the army of Navarre, and
being beholden to King Henry, I cannot suffer
you to quit France; you will not voyage to
Spain.  But neither can I proceed over harshly
against one so youthful.  You were best hasten
directly to Paris, and resume your studies there.
You will pass me your word not to communicate
with your father until I give you leave.  He
will be in no anxiety concerning you, believing
you gone to Seville.  But I warn you that if
you, directly or indirectly, communicate with
him, or with any one whatsoever in Spain, I
will not answer for the sea of troubles whereinto
both you and he will be plunged.  I trust that
things are not wholly what they seem, and be
sure that none will more greatly rejoice than I
if it be proved that the escutcheon of your house
is without stain."

"I thank you, monsieur," said the lad
brokenly.  "I will do your behest in all points,
sure, as I am, that time will bear me out."

"Stay," I said, as he made to quit the room;
"are you known at the port, monsieur?"

"Nay, I have never travelled by sea," he
replied, wondering.

"You are skilled in medicine," I proceeded,
"and without doubt can name some authentic
treatise wherein one ignorant of the art can gain
some inkling of its mysteries."

"Assuredly, monsieur," said he, "there is
none to be compared with the great work of
Ambrose Parey, the renowned chirurgeon of
King Henry III.  I have it in the original Latin,
and shall esteem myself honoured if you will
accept it at my hand."

"Right willingly, monsieur," I said, "and
though my Latin grows rusty with disuse, yet
I doubt not I can make a shift to understand at
least one phrase in two."

He departed to his room, returning ere long
with a weighty tome with which, I could see, he
was loth to part.  Having bid each other adieu,
he went from me, and since the hour was too
late to permit of his riding forth that same night,
he dismissed the man that had accompanied
him from Torcy, and sought his bed.  He rose
betimes in the morning, and from my window
I saw him ride eastward, leaving his baggage
to be dispatched after him by the carrier.

When I had seen him well upon his way I
skipped into my clothes, having as yet stood
unclad at the window, and made haste to find
old Toutain the tailor, whom I knew very well,
and who had his shop on one of the quays
abutting on what they call the avant port.  He broke
out into ecstasies of delight on seeing me, but I
cut him short, and told him in one brief minute
what I required of him, which was that within
five hours he should rig me in the full apparel of
a student of medicine.  He protested with great
volubility and play of hands that it could not be
done, whereupon I told him brutally of our
English saying, that "a tailor is but the ninth
part of a man," and so stung him into a better
mind.  In a trice I had chosen the stuff, and
Toutain took my measurements, the while he
put me through a stiff interrogatory as to my
new profession, where I purposed to study, and
what not.  I leave you to guess what a rack I
put my invention upon to satisfy him.  Within a
bare quarter of an hour afterwards I was back
at the *Belle Etoile*, breaking my fast upon a
savoury omelet and other comestibles that suit
with the French palate better than with ours.

Toutain himself brought me my new raiment
half-an-hour before the term, by the which time
I had made Stubbs shave off my infant beard
and the mustachio that graced my lip.  The
stout little tailor preened himself like a cock
robin when he beheld how becomingly his
handiwork sat upon me, and departed gaily clinking
the sound English nobles wherewith I paid him.

I had kept close all day, so as the
metamorphosis the razor had wrought upon my
lineaments should not excite an idle curiosity.
At the proper time I sallied forth with Stubbs,
he carrying my baggage and the great tome of
Ambrose Parey, and made towards the harbour,
composing my countenance to that grave
solemnity which the disciples of Æsculapius
commonly affect.  I was taken aback for a
moment when I saw Jean Prévost standing in
wait at the quay, having come to bid me
God-speed.  I checked his cry of amazement, and
bade him, as he loved me, say nought to a soul
of my affairs, whereof I told him no more than
that I was sailing to Antwerp, as he had himself
advised.  Then I went on board, announcing
myself as Monsieur Armand de Sarney, and was
taken with obsequious respect to the place allotted
to me.  Stubbs went forward among the crew,
and I had no fear of any mischance through him,
for a seaman amongst seamen, whatever their
nation, is a bird of their own feather.

I observed after a little that the skipper was
in a fret, continually pacing the deck and casting
troubled glances at the tide.  Presently I made
bold to accost him, and asked why he tarried.
His answer was an unwitting stab to the proper
pride of an Englishman, but yet a comfortable
testimony to the perfectness of my disguise.

.. _`I MADE BOLD TO ACCOST HIM`:

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   I MADE BOLD TO ACCOST HIM

"We wait for a pestilent Englishman, monsieur,"
he said raspingly, "a sluggard eater of
beef, that will come up when the tide fails and
expect us to sail against wind and weather to
please his almightiness.  And he must needs fill
the boat with meat enough for a regiment: our
provision is not good enough for him."

"I would delay for no Englishman alive," I
said, "and as for his creature comforts, divide
them among your mariners: I will see to it
that you suffer nought."

Very soon thereafter he did indeed cast off.
I responded with a grave salutation to Jean's
wafture of his bonnet, and sat me down on a
coil of rope to digest as well as I might Ambrose
Parey his Latin.

We made good passage to Antwerp, where I
did not delay to visit the goldsmith upon whom
the Count de Sarney's bill of exchange was
drawn.  He held me in no suspicion, and was
vastly serviceable in negotiating with the skipper
of a vessel bound for Cadiz, as well as in
conducting the other necessary parts of my business.
I was some little troubled in my mind what
course to pursue with my mariner.  I proposed
to him that, seeing the risks of my adventure,
he should take ship for London, carrying a letter
from me to Sir Walter Raleigh, who I made no
doubt would find him employment.  But he
begged me so earnestly to permit him to
accompany me that I yielded, though not without
misgiving.  I showed him that for a runagate slave
to venture himself in Cadiz would be a mere
running into the lion's jaws, to which he answered
that, whereas on the galley his head and face
were shaved, he was now as shaggy as a bear,
and so would not easily be known of any man,
slave or free.  Furthermore I showed him how
in Spain he could not hope to pass either for a
Spaniard or a Frenchman, whereupon, with a
readiness that raised him in my estimation, he
said that he would pass very well for a Muscovite,
and invented a fable of his having escaped fifteen
years before from the clutches of Ivan the
Terrible, and conveyed himself aboard a vessel of
Sweden.  To this he gave countenance by venting
a torrent of outlandish phrases, assuring me
'twas a mingle-mangle of sea terms employed by
the Muscovites and the Swedes; whereat I
laughed very heartily, and declared that he at
least would have been at no loss among the
builders of Babel.  The matter being thus settled
to our mutual contentment, we tarried a few
days in Antwerp until the time of our vessel's
sailing, and then embarked together on an
adventure whereof neither of us foresaw the end.



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III

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'Twas a fair bright day when we put into the
harbour of Cadiz, and I set foot in that comely
town.  We took up our lodging in an inn (called
*venta* in the Castilian tongue) built all of stone,
as indeed are all the buildings, whether large or
small.  I spent a day in learning my way about
the town, or, as Stubbs worded it, taking my
bearings, and could not but admire its goodly cathedral
and abbey, and its exceeding fine college of the
Jesuits.  The streets were for the most part so
narrow, none being commonly broader than
Watling Street in London, as but two men or
three at the most together could in any
reasonable sort march through them, and I was
somewhat astonied to see that the town was altogether
without glass, save only the churches.  Yet the
windows were fair and comely, having grates of
iron to them, and large folding leaves of wainscot
or the like.

Having attained a reasonable knowledge of
the place, I made my way on the second day to
the large flat-topped house (as are they all)
which I had learnt to be the mansion of Don
Ygnacio de Acosta.  Before I left Antwerp I
had taken pains to seal up the Count de Sarney's
epistle (God pardon my duplicity!), and this I
presented to a servant of exceeding magnificence
at the door; the Spaniards call such majordomo:
by whom I was after a tedious waiting
conducted to the presence of the Captain of the
Galleys.  The Spaniards, as all the world knows,
have the name for the nicest punctilio and
courtliness, but I own that the Captain received me
none too graciously.  Indeed, his first words,
after a briefer greeting than was seemly, were a
complaint of the Count's delay in dispatching
the draft, the which had occasioned Don Ygnacio
to take a loan from a Jew of his town at a usurious
rate of interest.  I made humble excuses on my
father's behalf: you are to remember that I
personated Armand de Sarney: and it needed
no wondrous shrewdness to discern, by the
manner of the Spaniard's putting up the papers
in his cabinet, that he was of a right avaricious
nature.  When he read the postscriptum wherein
the Count de Sarney warned him against a
meddlesome Englishman, he seemed to me to
resemble a cock ruffling his feathers.  He poured
scorn upon the Count's fears and alarms, asking
me whether Cadiz was Calais or even Cartagena
that it lay open to any English adventurer.  I
might have reminded him how Sir Francis Drake
burnt the King's galleys in this very harbour,
but I forbore; nor would he have taken any
profit of it, for the unquenchable pride and
self-sufficiency of the Spaniards after so many buffets
and calamities is one of the wonders of the age.

With great condescension Don Ygnacio offered
me a lodging in his house until such time as I
should pursue my way to Seville, and I guessed
that his manner was nicely proportioned to the
remote degree of his relationship to my supposed
father.  Moreover it bespoke no great relish for
the company of a mere student.  None the less
I thanked him in terms whose warmth would
have befitted one that had done me unimaginable
honour, but declined his proffered hospitality,
saying that even on my travels I diligently
pursued my studies, so that I was in no wise
suited to the thronging life of the world wherein
so high a magnifico moved.  His countenance
confirmed the justness of my surmise.  Then,
summoning my gravest look, I said—

"I devote the greater part of my time, señor,
to the investigation of the ills that affect the
*Ramus stomachichus*, wherewith I have perceived,
even in the so little time I have sojourned
in your town, that many of its inhabitants are
afflicted.  My father bade me inquire very
particularly after your health, the which by your
last advice was not all that could be wished.
I fear that the *Ramus stomachichus* is the seat
of your disorder, and I trust that the treatment
of your physician is meeting with the desired
success."

I threw this out as a bait, and to my exceeding
joy I saw that it was swallowed as greedily as a
gudgeon snaps up a worm.  Don Ygnacio was a
mountainous man, as Stubbs had told me on the
voyage, with the girth but not the hardness of
an oak, his face like dough with two raisins for
eyes, his whole frame betokening a consuming
love of the flesh-pots and strong liquors.  During
my speech, delivered with a measured gravity,
his face put on a look of great dolefulness, and
broke out into a sweat.

"I cannot sleep," said he, in most dolorous accents.

"A certain sign," said I, nodding my head gravely.

"I dream of horrors," said he.

"Devils, and serpents, dark dens and caves,
sepulchres, and dead corpses," said I, quoting
the words of Ambrose Parey, which I had
diligently conned on board ship, "all arising
from the putrefaction and inflammation of the
*Ramus stomachichus*, together with the afflux
of noisome humours to the brain.  The
diaphragm hath a close community with that
organ, by the nerves of the sixth conjugation
which are carried in the stomach."

"I reel in the street," said he, with
lamentable groans, "and when I lay my head on the
pillow, I hear noises like the sound of many
waters."

I shook my head solemnly, having at the
moment no more of Ambrose Parey's sentences
at my command.  Taking him delicately by the
wrist, I put my finger on his pulse, which in
truth fluttered unsteadily.

"Show me your tongue," I said, and could
barely avoid laughing at the grimace he made
when he displayed that monstrous organ.

Then, presuming on his manifest discomposure,
I dealt him a lusty buffet above the
fifth rib, so that he catched at his breath, and
at his outcry I inquired solicitously whether he
felt any pain.

"The pains of Gehenna," he said, groaning.

I was mute, bending on him a mournful
look, whereat his excitation of mind did but
increase.

"I pray you, cousin, be open with me," he
said.  "I will steel my heart to bear it."

"Your case is not utterly hopeless," I replied
with deliberation, having first hemmed and
hawed in the style approved of the faculty, "but
it demands careful treatment.  Methinks from
the symptoms that it has hitherto been treated
somewhat negligently.  I will return to my
lodging and ponder upon it, consulting Fernelius, his
*Pathologia*" (a work I had seen named in the
pages of Ambrose Parey).  "To-morrow, by
your good leave, I will see you again.  The true
course is not to be lightly determined, but I
trust that my art has resources wherewith to
counter the worst symptoms of your distemper
and perchance to work a cure."

"Do so, good cousin," he said.  "Come early,
I pray you, and by St. Iago, I shall know how to
recompense you becomingly."

I took my leave, and when the door was
between us, gave a loose to my merriment,
hastily composing my features when the
majordomo approached to conduct me to the street.

I returned to my inn, and buried my nose for
some while in the folio; then betook myself to an
apothecary's, where I purchased a quantity of
barley creams, poppy seeds, and seeds of lettuce,
purslain, and sorrel, commanding him to make a
decoction of them and have it ready against I
came on the morrow.  This was a prescription
of Ambrose Parey.  I bade him also compound
an admixture of the infusion of sundry simples,
exceeding nauseous, yet like to do no great hurt,
to wit, valerian, quassia, a trifling quantity of
colocynthis (which grows very plentifully in
Spain), and *pix atra*, by the which you shall
understand common tar.  This also, a bolus
of my own devising, I commanded the man to
have in readiness, and then found that I had a
good relish for my dinner.

.. _`I BETOOK MYSELF TO AN APOTHECARY'S`:

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   I BETOOK MYSELF TO AN APOTHECARY'S

Stubbs had already shown me where the king's
galleys lay; 'twas off the east side of the town,
betwixt the island and the mainland.  They
were four in number: these were the principal
galleys, there being sixteen of an inferior sort
that rode nigh to the bulwark of *St. Philip*, at
the north-east extremity of the town.  A strong
fortification of stone-work ran from this
bulwark towards the water-side, having its southern
end beside the king's storehouse of provision and
munition for his ships of war.  Here, moreover,
was the barrack in which certain of the galley-slaves
were cabined at night, for when the galleys
lay idle the greater number of the oarsmen was
employed on shore in sundry laborious
exercises—repairing the fortifications and the like.  A
little way southward of this barrack was a
rampire of earth built close against the sea-wall,
and furnished with three great pieces of ordnance.
This kind of bulwark is called in military parlance
a *terrapleno*.  There was in the inner harbour
also a fleet of near forty merchant vessels,
making ready for the American voyage, and a
goodly number of galleons and galliasses for the
intended invasion of Ireland.

I marvelled greatly at the bravado of my
companion as we passed through the marketplace,
thronged with folk of all conditions—orange-sellers,
horse-dealers, chapmen and hucksters
innumerable—and came near to the barrack
wherein he had spent many hours in anguish both
of body and mind.  He showed me the two
portions of the building, and the window of the
very room where he had lain.  He showed me
also a mighty fine galley lying in a manner of
dock near to the king's storehouse, and on my
asking a wayfarer what the vessel did there, he
told me 'twas the galley of Don Ygnacio de
Acosta being new furbished and fitted for sea.
A great way off I saw some of the slaves, with
shaven polls, and naked save for a strip of cloth
about their loins, moving hither and thither
about their labour, under guard of soldiers
armed with halberds and arquebuses.  A hot
fire of wrath raged within me when I thought
that my bosom friend perchance toiled among
them, but I gave great heed so as that I should
not approach them too nearly, lest he might
spy me and by some gesture ruin the plan I had
conceived for his salvation.

As we were returning to our inn from this
inquisition, by way of the market-place, I
observed that many curious glances were cast upon
us, and being in some dubience how to account
for this, I was at first ready to fear that some
suspicion was entertained of me and my
purposes, or else that some person had recognized
my companion despite his shaggy locks and
beard.  But on a sudden the true explication
smote upon my slumbering wits, and I took
myself to task for my heedlessness.  Stubbs was
attired in the common garb of sailor men, and
I perceived that it must indeed seem passing
strange to the Spaniards, of all people the stiffest
on decorum and punctilio, to see a grave student
of medicine in familiar converse with a man so
meanly habited.  No sooner did this illumination
flash upon my mind than I bid Stubbs leave me,
giving him at the same time money wherewith
to buy him a Spanish gaberdine, which would
in some sort cloak his quality.  I went on to my
inn alone, pondering upon how prone men are,
when devising machinations of great poise and
moment, to omit some small trifling matter,
which lacking, all their cunning is like to turn to
futility.

Sallying forth of the inn about three of the
clock, I went to my apothecary's, and took from
him the vials containing the preparations he had
compounded for me, together with a small
Turkey sponge and a new medicine glass nicely
graduated.  These I gave into the hands of
Stubbs, now clad in a capacious gaberdine that
suited with his quality as my henchman, and
bade him follow me at a reasonable interval.
At the door of Don Ygnacio's house I received
them from him again, and being admitted as
before by the don's gentleman-usher, I found
my grandee awaiting me in a quivering expectancy.
His heavy countenance lightened at sight
of me, and he told me with plentiful groaning
that he had not shut an eye all the night through,
but tossed wakeful and tormented upon his bed.
I felt of his pulse and scanned his furred and
sickly tongue, and then, mustering all my
new-gotten lore, I discoursed very learnedly for the
space of five minutes upon the distempers of the
*Ramus stomachichus*, ending my allocution
somewhat as follows—

"Having now full assurance, señor, as well
by the observation of my senses as also by your
own description, that this is in good sooth the
distemper whereof you suffer, I must tell you
in all sobriety that 'tis high time 'twere taken in
hand ere it grow beyond remedy.  My counsel
is that you instantly command the attendance
of a skilful surgeon."

"Ods my soul!" he cried (for so I render his
words in our homely English), "I have employed
surgeons without number, and they bleed me,
both of blood and money.  Do you undertake
me, good cousin; but do not let my blood, I
pray you, for I am not a whit better for all the
gallons they have drawn from my exhausted veins."

I affected to shrink from the conduct of so
serious a case, on the score of my youth and
pupillary condition, and of the high nobility of
his captainship; but the more backward I
showed myself, so much the more instancy did
he employ; in brief, he would take no denial.
Whereupon I insisted that he must follow my
directions without reck or hesitation, the which
he avowed himself ready to do in all points.
Accordingly I stripped the wrappings from my
vials, and poured from the larger of them into the
medicine glass, with the nicest measurement, a
good dram of the villainous admixture, and
called for water to allay it, and this I added with
deliberate care, he keeping a wary watch on all
my movements.  I then bade him drink it at a
draught, the which he did, afterwards spluttering
and wrying his countenance to such a picture of
abhorrence as came nigh to overset my studied
gravity.

"Ay de mi! ay de mi!" he groaned; "'tis
a very vile draught, cousin, a very villainous
concoction.  Must I discomfit my inwards with
the whole bottle?"

"Thrice a day, señor, you must take your
dose," I said.

"Permit me at least to qualify the savour of
it: it is so exceeding nasty and rough upon the
tongue," he said pleadingly.

"One sole glass of sherris," said I, with a great
show of reluctancy; "no more, or the merits of
this most potent medicine will be utterly quelled."

He drank the wine with great relish, eyeing
the decanter very wistfully as I set it out of his
reach.  Then calling for a basin, I poured into
it a little of the contents of my second vial, and
dipping the sponge into the liquid, I delicately
anointed his sweating brows, telling him 'twas a
sure begetter of sleep tranquil as a child's.

"Your hand is rather that of a swordsman
than of a physician, cousin," he said, thereby
giving me a wrench in my soul, lest he began to
suspect me.  But he proceeded: "Yet it is
delicate in its touch as a woman's; you give me
great comfort, cousin."

I continued to bathe his temples until I had
wrought him to a fair placidity; then admonishing
him to be punctual in taking his doses of the
former admixture, I left him, promising to visit
him again on the morrow.

My next concern was to certify myself that
Raoul was still among the galley-slaves, and
whether he was of those that remained aboard
or of those that were employed ashore.  To
this end I dispatched Stubbs to the sea-wall in
the afternoon, a little before the time when, as
he had told me, the day's work was wont to end,
there to keep a watch.  He returned soon after
sunset, and told me that he had seen his whilom
comrade among those that were marched into
the barracks.  I inquired eagerly how he looked,
and my heart was very bitter when he replied
that my friend was worn to a shadow, with
lamentable sunken cheeks and haggard eyes.
Nevertheless I rejoiced that he was yet alive,
and comforted with this assurance I bent my
mind to the working out of the plan I had
devised for his deliverance.

On the morrow I went somewhat earlier to see
my patient, whom I found wondrously gracious,
for that he had slept a good four hours without
waking.  Indeed, he believed himself to be already
cured, and I had much ado to persuade him to
take his dose.  I showed him that his distemper
being of long standing, it was sheer madness to
suppose that it could be wholly banished in so
short a space of time, and proceeded to expound
the necessity of continuing not only in the course
he had begun, but also in a subsidiary treatment
which I would forthwith explain.

Don Ygnacio, as I have said, was of enormous
bulk, and the ills from which he suffered, when
they were not merely figments of a disordered
imagination, proceeded from too instant a
devotion to meat and drink and an over-softness of
living.  In a word, his greatest need was
temperance in these things, together with a more
frequent use of his muscles.  Accordingly I
made him strip to his shirt and stand in his
stocking feet in the middle of the room, and
then put him through such simple exercises as
the Dutch captains use with the common
soldiers—extensions of the arms, bending of the trunk,
and so forth.  It was matter for merriment to
see the great hulks, at my urging, make desperate
endeavour to touch his toes, and come not within
half a yard of accomplishing it.  I kept him at
these motions, paying no heed to his protestations,
for a good half-hour, by the which time I
had wrought him to a fine heat and perspiration,
so that when finally I permitted him to sink back
upon the cushions of his divan he was more
wholesomely tired, I warrant, then he had been ever in
his life before.  While he sat and fanned himself,
and quaffed slowly the cup of sherris I allowed
for his refreshment, I made him a neat discourse
for which I was beholden not to Master Ambrose
Parey, but to my own wit.  'Twas sound sense as
well as a furtherance of my device.

"You must know, señor," I said, "that this
distemper of yours never assails men of spare
frames and active bodies.  The husbandman, the
mariner, the poor scavenger of the street never
suffer in this wise, nor is their *Ramus stomachichus*
ever in peril of dissolution.  In truth, their
bodily exercise does but strengthen the nerves
in all their conjugations, so that their inward
parts perform their offices to perfection, and
furthermore furnish to them in some sort an
armour against the assaults of disease.  For a
speaking ensample you have the slaves of your
galleys, those reprobates whom you have in your
august charge.  Did ever you know one of them
to suffer from any derangement of the *Ramus
stomachichus*?"

Since I conjectured Don Ygnacio's knowledge
of the anatomy of man to be less than my own,
and that was infinitely little, I got the answer
that I expected, with the addition that if any
galley-slave should have the impudency to suffer
from a gentleman's complaint, he would certainly
be cured by the bastinado.

"Now therefore," I continued, here drawing
largely upon my invention, for a purpose, as you
are to see—"now therefore, it is one of the
miracles of our nature that a man beset by this
dreadful distemper, being set in juxtaposition
with a man of exceeding spareness, but otherwise
sound in his members and organs, the infirmity
of the one is in a manner fortified by the
wholeness of the other, or as Spegelius hath it in his
renowned tractate, the debility of the one is
engraffed and mingled with the virtue of the
other.  The trial of this remedy is attended with
sundry notable perils and incommodities, wherefore
it is not to be lightly undertaken, and I leave
it for this present until we have made a proper
experimentum of the more vulgar means."

The captain heard this with great attention,
and made me many compliments on the
profundity of my learning, though he might have
read Spegelius his tractate from cover to cover
without finding the passage that I gave forth
with so great unction.  Leaving the precious
seed to germinate, I betook myself away in high
contentment, though not without a qualm and
tremor at the lengths whereto my audacity was
carrying me.

Having sought my faithful attendant, I
dispatched him to make sundry purchases at the
armourers of the town, a knife at one, a dagger
at another, small weapons in goodly number,
but not more than one weapon at any one shop,
lest suspicion or curiosity should be excited.
These weapons, when he brought them to the
inn, I bade him enfold them in strips of cloth I
held in readiness, and wrap them in two several
parcels.  While this was adoing, I took my way
to the sea-wall, noting very particularly the
positions of the four galleys, the extent of water
betwixt them and the shore, the manner in
which the shore curved to a point, and all other
information that was necessary to the execution
of my plan.  As I walked hither and thither, I
was observed by a captain of soldiers that
chanced, as it seemed, to be taking the air by
the sea-wall, and who accosted me, asking me
with a kind of truculency what I did there.

"Noble excellency," I replied, "I am but a
poor student of medicine of the French nation,
making a brief sojourn in this your town."

"A Frenchman, and I warrant me a spy!"
he cried, and hailing a soldier from the
guard-house near by, he assured me that I should soon
company with rats and beetles in the castle
dungeon.

"Beseech you, señor," I said, "my illustrious
cousin Don Ygnacio de Acosta, captain of the
royal galleys, will have somewhat to say to that.
Come with me straightway to his house, and
we shall learn if such immodesty of language
pleasures him."

My bold and assured mien daunted this strutting
fellow, and he began incontinently to make
excuse how that he wot not of my condition,
and craved my pardon for the unmannerliness
whereinto he had been betrayed.  I took him
very coldly, and set forth to return to my inn.
This is a slight matter, unworthy of mention but
for that which ensued.

That same evening, a little before the hour
when the slaves were wont to be immured in
their barrack, I came to the door of Don Ygnacio's
house and inquired of the majordomo how the
worshipful captain did.

"Desperately sick, señor," he replied.  "He
has but now commanded me to summon hither
Don Diaz de Rotta, physician to the constable
of the castle."

"Is the messenger gone forth?" I demanded,
in no little perturbation, for the presence of a
true physician was like not only to undo all my
stratagems, but also to stand me in a pretty
hobble.  Hearing that the lackey was even then
donning his outdoor livery (for among the
Spaniards punctilio rules over high and low
alike), I bade him stay the man until I should
have seen his excellency.

When I entered to him I was amazed beyond
measure to see his pitiful condition.  He lay
back on his divan, uttering most dismal groans,
his countenance of a deathly pallor, and his
eyes astare as with the very fear of death.  He
thrust out a feeble arm when he saw me, and
cried in a faint voice—

"Out of my sight, rapscallion!  You have
killed me with your vile nostrums."

.. _`"OUT OF MY SIGHT, RAPSCALLION!"`:

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   :alt: "OUT OF MY SIGHT, RAPSCALLION!"

   "OUT OF MY SIGHT, RAPSCALLION!"

My terror and amazement were little less than
his own, for I knew my drugs to be harmless,
albeit nauseous, and I could not come at any
reasonable explanation of his distemperature.

I inquired of the majordomo, who had followed
me into the room, the time when this alteration
had manifested itself, and his answer removed
all my apprehensions that Don Ygnacio was in
imminent peril of dissolution.  He had eaten a
very hearty dinner soon after I left him, and
fallen asleep, but was awakened by a violent
commotion in his inward parts, and had been,
to put it in plain English, as sick as a dog.  It
was told me afterwards by my good friend and
physician Sir Miles Ruddall that my drugs
themselves would not have wrought so mightily
upon him but for the unwonted exercise whereto
he had been enforced, and his monstrous gluttony
thereafter.  Having a shrewd suspicion that this
was all that ailed him, I made him drink a cup of
sherris mingled with cognac, and spoke soothingly
to him, resolving with a stubborn hardness of
heart to turn his incapacity to my own purposes.
I upbraided him, mildly, yet with earnestness,
for that his imprudence had well-nigh undone
all my cure, and avouched that it was high time
to attempt the experimentum I had formerly
suggested.

"I am very sure," said I, "that there will be
found among your galley-slaves a man of the
right degree of leanness to accommodate your
excellency, and I will instantly command your
coach to attend you, so that we may go down to
their place and make trial of this sovereign
remedy without delay."

The strong liquors had already revived him,
and his face was recovering its proper ruddiness.
Likewise his spirit took on its natural hue, the
proof whereof was his exceeding fierce outcry.

"Ods my valiancy!" he cried, "shall I join
skins with a rascal, I, hidalgo of Spain?  Never
will I permit such scum to approach my person."

"Truly, señor," said I, "it is impossible to
conceive a gentleman of your exalted rank
coming within a span's-length of a mean rascal,
but I opine that there are among the slaves
some of reputable condition, perchance some
English prisoners, or Flemings, only they are in
general of a brawny lustiness that suiteth not
with the experimentum."

"Why, so there is, now you put me in mind of
it," he said with a brightened eye.  "There is
a Frenchman, a notorious reprobate, but that is
nothing against his rank, which is but little less
than my own.  And for leanness a rake could
hardly match him; his leanness is not far short
of transparency."

"That is right good hap," said I, raging
inwardly that he should speak thus of my friend,
for I made no doubt it was he.  After fortifying
him with more wine, I linked my arm with his,
and took him slowly to his coach, and when we
had mounted into it, gave the word to the driver
to convey us to the barrack.  We halted for a
brief space at the inn, and I brought out my
henchman, carrying the two parcels which, as
I told Don Ygnacio, held things needful for our
trial.  I bade Stubbs perch himself beside the
driver, and we went on.

We had to pass on our way the small dock
wherein the captain's galley lay, and here I let
fall a word of admiration of the fine lines of the
vessel, asking very innocently whether it were
one of the royal galleys of his charge.

"It is my own vessel," he said with much
complacency, and then nothing would content
him but I must instantly go with him and see the
vessel more closely.  It was plain he held it in
high esteem, and since I had a reason of my
own for desiring a nearer acquaintance with it,
I yielded to his wish in the manner of one humouring
a sick person.  He was by this time, in truth,
so nearly returned to his wonted state that I
began to fear lest he should declare the experiment
of transfusion unnecessary.  I accompanied
him aboard the vessel, where he showed me the
place for the crew, and those for the rowers and
the soldiers, and his own place, very richly
caparisoned; also the piles of arms and some
barrels of gunpowder.  Having admired the
galley and all its appurtenances with great
fluency of utterance, I entreated him to proceed
to the barrack, advising him that the day was
already far spent, and it were best to accomplish
our purpose before the chill of night descended
on us.  And so we came to the barrack.


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IV

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Notwithstanding, or maybe by reason of,
the marvellous good hap that had attended all
my devices up to this present time, I was aware
of a flutter of disquietude about my heart as I
followed Don Ygnacio into the building.  What I
purposed doing must needs be done very quickly,
and one untoward accident might very well
prick the bladder of my imposture and wreathe
a noose about my neck.  I had laid my plans
as warily as I might, and now all stood upon my
composure, the degree of brazen-facedness I
could muster, and the degree to which the
Spaniard could be gulled.

We came first, having entered the passage, to
the guard-room, where some dozen soldiers were
assembled, casting the dice and taking their
ease.  The door of a room adjacent to it stood
open, and there my eyes lit upon the captain
that had accosted me by the sea-wall, who,
when he beheld me, rose up from his seat with
trepidation, believing without doubt that I had
brought his general to punish him.  I paid not
the least heed to him, and he made haste at Don
Ygnacio's bidding to go to the hall beyond, where
the galley-slaves were confined, and bring forth
the Frenchman.

When he was gone I asked Don Ygnacio
whether there were not some private room where
we might do our business, since it was not seemly
that we should be at the gaze of so many goggling
eyes while the experimentum was a-doing.  He
led me to a small ante-chamber some few steps
along the passage towards the hall, Stubbs
remaining with his parcels at the door of the
guard-room, perfectly at ease, though he stood
within arm's-length of the men that had formerly
oppressed him.  Presently I heard a clanking of
chains, and the captain returned, bringing with
him a lean and lanky scarecrow of a man, naked
save for his loin-cloth, his poll and face being
shaven clean.  It smote me to the heart to see
in his hollow eyes and sunken cheeks the altered
lineaments of my dear friend, erstwhile comely
and jocund as any you would see.  He lifted his
eyes as he came in, and regarded Don Ygnacio
with a look of gall, not turning his gaze upon me.

"A sorry knave," said the Spaniard to me.
"Think you, cousin, there is enough virtue in
him for our business?"

"We can but try, excellency," I said, and at
the words Raoul shivered and looked at me with
such amazement that I feared lest an unlucky
word should betray me.  I dealt upon him a
sudden and meaning frown, the which escaped
the observation of the others, they having eyes
for the slave alone.  To my exceeding joy he had
the wit to take me, and cast down his eyes in
the manner of one that hath no more hold upon
the world.  Then I turned to Don Ygnacio and said:

"He hath a wild look, señor.  It were meet
that we have two soldiers here with us, so that
we may make our trial in comfort and security."

"Certes," he replied, "we have already Captain
Badillo; we will have a man from the guard-room."

"By your pardon, señor," I said, "the señor
captain did me the honour to affront me a while
ago, and his presence at this time will so trouble
the conjugations of the nerves, the which needs
must be in perfect tranquillity, as to imperil
the good success of our undertaking."

"It was a lamentable error, excellency,"
stammered the captain.  "I wot not that the
worthy physician was akin to your excellency."

"Go, sirrah," said Don Ygnacio sternly.  "Who
affronts my kin affronts me.  Send hither two
men from the guard-room."

I was never better pleased in my life than
when the captain departed, for the two common
ignorant soldiers would be much less like to
suspect me.  Thereupon I called to Stubbs to
bring in the parcels, and when he came, a little
behind the soldiers, I shut the door, bade him
undo one of his bundles, and said gravely that
all would soon be ready for the experimentum.

Stubbs loosed the ropes and laid them, in the
manner of a careful servant, beside the bundle.
From this when it was unrolled he took first
three strips of a dark cloth, about an ell long,
which he laid over his arm.  Then he brought
forth a small roll of white canvas and gave it to
me.  I motioned him to withdraw to a little
distance, as also the soldiers; then I made Raoul
stand a few paces from Don Ygnacio, facing
him.  Posting myself betwixt the two, I drew
from my pocket a small box of powder of chalk,
and unrolled the canvas, yet so that the Spaniard
might not see its inner side, and with solemn
circumstance I dusted it with the powder.  This
done, I stretched it out between my arms, and
making two strides towards Raoul I bade him
look intently thereupon while I counted ten.  I
heard Don Ygnacio breathing hard behind me
as I gravely told the numbers one by one, and
when Raoul informed me with his eyes that he
had read the words I had carefully imprinted on
the canvas (they were: "Grip the Spaniard by
the neck whenas I give the sign") I rolled up the
canvas and stepped slowly backward, beckoning
with the one hand Don Ygnacio, with the other
Stubbs and the soldiers, to draw near.

You are now to observe that Raoul and Don
Ygnacio were within a hand-breadth of each
other, that one of the soldiers was close to me,
and the second beside Stubbs.  All was silent.
On a sudden I let forth, very sharply but without
raising my voice, the one word "Now!"  Instantly
Raoul was at Don Ygnacio's throat; I
closed with my soldier and held him in a strangling
embrace; and Stubbs, with the neatness of a
skilled hand, dealt his man a blow that stretched
him senseless on the floor.  Quick as thought
he handed to us two of the cloths that he had
upon his arm, and we clapped them into the
mouths of our prisoners, he doing the like with
the third.  So sudden were our motions that
there had been not the least opportunity of
resisting us, and though Don Ygnacio offered to
cry out before the gag was comfortably settled
between his teeth, Raoul bade him in a fierce
whisper be silent or his life was forfeit.  It was
short work to truss them with the ropes, thanks
to Stubbs his deftness, and I knew with infinite
gladness of heart that the first part of my device
was accomplished.

.. _`INSTANTLY RAOUL WAS AT DON YGNACIO'S THROAT`:

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   :alt: INSTANTLY RAOUL WAS AT DON YGNACIO'S THROAT

   INSTANTLY RAOUL WAS AT DON YGNACIO'S THROAT

There was still much to do, and our peril was
but beginning.  In two words I acquainted
Raoul with my plan.  I asked him how many
soldiers were on guard among the galley-slaves;
he told me four, and every one had a key to the
padlocks wherewith they were fettered to the
wall.  My design was to set free the slaves,
seize upon the Captain-General's galley, the
which he had so obligingly shown me, and put
to sea.  It was necessary to our success that the
soldiers in the guard-room should be silenced,
and also the Captain Badillo, if he was yet at
hand; but since we could not hope, being but
three, to overcome a dozen men, we must
perforce first set free the slaves, by whose
assistance the feat might be easily compassed.
Moreover, there was great need for haste, Stubbs
having told me that it was drawing near the time
when the cookmen were wont to bring in the
slaves' supper from the outhouses.

I opened the door stealthily, and peered along
the passage to the guard-room.  There was none
in sight, but neither was there so much noise
proceeding from the room as I should have liked.
Nevertheless, since our case was desperate and
would not abide long rumination, we durst not
stay for the nice weighing of chances, but had to
act at once.  I had had the soldiers brought into
the room for a purpose, namely, that we might
dress ourselves in their garments and so gain some
covert for our device.  I bade Stubbs strip the
two soldiers of their gaberdines, and these we
donned, he and I, and then proceeded with all
quietness along the passage to the slaves' hall,
Raoul being carried betwixt us, so that the
clanking of his chains might not draw the soldiers
forth of the guard-room.

Coming to the door of the hall we set Raoul
down, and thrust him before us into the room,
entering close behind him.  I saw in a quick
glance the miserable slaves lying in a long row
by the wall, and four soldiers conversing in a
group about the middle of the room.  The
dusk of evening forbade them to perceive at once
that the two supposed soldiers that had entered
were not their comrades, and when at our
approach they were certified thereof they had not
the time to collect their wits, for Stubbs, by a
little the foremost, smote one of them a dint
that sent him headlong against the wall, and then
immediately grappled with another.  Meanwhile
Raoul and I had not been idle, each dealing with
his man, and in a few moments we had all four
at our feet, begging for mercy.

This had not passed without some noise, but
having been careful to shut the stout oaken door
behind me I had a reasonable hope that the sound
would not have penetrated to the guard-room.
The clamour that might have been feared from
the slaves did not arise, so great was their
consternation.  I asked Raoul to acquaint them with
our design, whiles that with Stubbs' aid I stripped
the soldiers of their outer garments and their
arms, and trussed and gagged them as we had
done afore with the others.

Raoul told the men that all who could muster
their courage had a good chance of escape, but
they must in all points obey me, a countryman
of the great Dragon (so Sir Francis Drake was
commonly known among them), who had come
to their succour, and had already made a prisoner
of Don Ygnacio.  He promised them hard work,
and maybe their fill of fighting, and adjured
every man that had no stomach for it to remain
in his fetters rather than irk the rest.  Then we
went swiftly from one to another, unlocking their
chains with the keys we had taken from the
soldiers.  Never a man of them elected to remain,
and though Raoul was for leaving certain of
them that he knew to be poor-spirited, I deemed
it best to release them all, lest those that were
left should raise an uproar and so bring us into
danger.

We arrayed four of the stoutest of them in the
garments we had taken from the soldiers, covering
their shaven heads with the morions that hung
on pegs to the wall.  Then with these four and
four others, Raoul remaining in the hall, we ran
swiftly down the passage to the guard-room,
burst open the door, and by the vehemency of
our onset overthrew the soldiers there in
marvellous brief time.  Stubbs and myself we set
to a-trussing the fellows, but the slaves contemned
such delicate work, and gave quietus to their
whilom oppressors with such weapons as came
first to hand.

While we were in the midst of this hurly-burly,
on a sudden lifting of my eyes I saw Captain
Badillo standing in the door betwixt the
guard-room and his own apartment, and gazing at us
in the manner of one bereft of his wits.  I left
trussing my fellow and sprang towards the
captain, whom I caught by the scruff of his
neck, and, showing him my dagger, bade him
hold his peace on peril of his life.  At that same
conjuncture some one cried that the cookmen
were crossing the outer court, bearing hugeous
baskets of biscuit and great two-handed
caldrons of meagre broth, as they were wont to do
at this time.  Extremity, I must believe, sharpens
a man's wits, for in the twinkling of an eye I
thrust the captain into the passage and towards
the outer door, straitly charging him to bid the
men carry their burdens to the Captain-General's
galley, since he had taken a sudden purpose to
go a cruise.  I had Spanish enough, to be sure,
to give the command myself, but I knew it would
come with authority from Captain Badillo, whereas
from me, a stranger, it might be slighted.  My
naked dagger was sufficient enforcement of my
bidding, and in a trice I saw with satisfaction
the cookmen change their course and stagger
with their loads to the quayside.  By this means
I obtained for the slaves a modest dole of food,
whereof I doubted not they stood in need.

.. _`SHOWING HIM MY DAGGER, I BADE HIM HOLD HIS PEACE`:

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   :alt: SHOWING HIM MY DAGGER, I BADE HIM HOLD HIS PEACE

   SHOWING HIM MY DAGGER, I BADE HIM HOLD HIS PEACE

Hasting back to the slaves' hall, I found that
Raoul had ranged them all in readiness for
departure.  I had bidden Stubbs see to it that the
slaves in the guard-room should don as much as
they could of the soldiers' garments and cover
their bald pates with their morions, and bring also
the weapons from his bundles, and then, myself
going at the head, holding Captain Badillo by
the sleeve, we marched out and made our way
as swiftly as we might without sign of hurry to
where the galley awaited us.  There was a sentry
at the gate of the munition-house some
two-score paces distant, but the dusk in some sort
enshrouded us, and certain it is we came to the
galley without molestation or so much as a cry.

But there a peril that I had not foreseen lay
in wait for us.  The cookmen, having bestowed
their burdens aboard, stood carelessly on the
quay to witness our embarkation.  A dozen of
the slaves had shipped themselves before these
men were aware of aught amiss; but then one
spied the villainous countenance of a notorious
desperado beneath a soldier's morion, and
communicating his discovery to his fellows, they
with one consent took to their heels and fled
towards their quarters with hue and cry.  Sundry
of them were felled by the slaves whom they
encountered, but the rest got themselves clear
away, and it was plain that ere long the alarm
would be sounded in every part of the town.  I
cast Captain Badillo into the galley, and urged
the rest of the men to quicken their speed, and
they came helter-skelter, falling one over another
in their haste.

Now it seemed that all were aboard, but I had
not observed Stubbs among them, and began to
fear lest he had been intercepted.  But I then
perceived him, and three of the galley-slaves,
staggering towards me with a heavy burden which
as they drew near I discerned to be none other
than the mountainous bulk of Don Ygnacio de
Acosta.  I cried to them to hasten their steps,
the which they did, and arriving at the quayside
they let their load fall with no more tenderness
than if it had been a bale of merchandise, and
the Captain-General fell with a monstrous thwack
upon the galley's deck.

At Raoul's bidding the men had already gotten
out the sweeps.  But at this the eleventh hour
I observed a pile of sails lying over against the
sea-wall, and I commanded Stubbs and those
with him to bring them to the galley.  The men
who were aboard, in their haste to depart, had
slipped the moorings, and could hardly be
restrained from pushing off without us.  I heard
Raoul upbraid them with great vehemency, and
ask them how they supposed they could escape
with oars alone, whereupon they left their striving
and gave us time to tumble the sails in among
them.  Then the rest of us leapt aboard, I last
of all, and the slaves, thrusting their oars with
desperate violence against the quay-wall, drove
the rocking vessel out into the basin.

It was high time, for already there was stir
and hubbub not a great way from the quay, and
at the very moment when we sheered off a shot
was fired, I doubt not by the sentry at the
munition-house.  Through the gathering dusk I saw a
concourse of folk swarm upon the sea-wall and
the quay, there being not a few soldiers among
them.  But all things had been done so suddenly
as that none but the sentry had had time to
kindle his match, and the galley was come forth
out of the dock ere they arrived at the quay.
Shouting and cursing they ran hither and thither,
in a perfect medley and confusion, there being as
yet none to direct them what they should do.  I
could not forbear making them a most courteous
salutation with my hat, though I fear the
darkness and their fury forbade them to mark the
exceeding grace of it.

Turning to observe how things were ordered,
I perceived that Raoul, whose knowledge of the
harbour was the fruit of long and bitter travail,
had established himself at the helm.  I descended
to the lower deck, where Stubbs had put himself
over the oarsmen, who were set in their due
ranks, and tugged at the sweeps with a vigour
wherewith they had never laboured before, I
warrant you.  In sooth, Stubbs was constrained
to bid them moderate their ardour, inasmuch as
there lay a reef of rocks on the starboard side,
and it would go hard with us if we by any ill-hap
ran upon them.  But the resolute and assured
look upon their faces, villainous and forbidding
as the most part were, confirmed me in my belief
that, barring any untoward accident, we should
in no long time be beyond reach of pursuers.

The harbour of Cadiz, you are to understand,
hath a northward trend to the mouth of the river
Guadaloto, whence the coast of the mainland
runs north-westerly until we come to the mouth
of the Guadalquivir.  Four galleys, as I have said,
were at anchor nigh the munition-house, and at
the bulwark of Saint Philip at the north-east
extremity of the island lay other sixteen.  The
first four we had already passed, but we must run
the gauntlet of the sixteen, the which when we
should have done we had nought to fear save
perchance from the ordnance established on the
coast of the bay of Caleta.  I knew right well that
notwithstanding the clamour that filled the town,
where alarm bells were dinning amain, some
time must needs be consumed before the occasion
of the pother was thoroughly known, and the
galleys could be put in fair trim to pursue us.
So indeed the event answered to my expectation,
for we came pretty near to the mouth of the
harbour without anything whatsoever happening
to mar our security.

It was now dark, yet not so black but that we
could see our course, and besides there were
the lights of the town to serve our helmsman as
guide posts.  That the town was mightily astir
was demonstrated by a shot that was belched out
upon us by one of the great pieces mounted on
the bulwark of Saint Philip.  But it did us no
harm, unless some slight defacement of our
figurehead that I observed next day was the work
of this shot.  Taking warning, Raoul steered the
vessel hard over against the mainland, though
I deplored the loss of time we suffered thereby.
Indeed, but for this circuit which we made, and
which, being a prudent measure, I could not
gainsay, verily I believe we should have run out
into the open sea without any let or hindrance
whatsoever.  But it happed that as we again
bore westward, I perceived the black shape of a
galley move from its anchorage in our wake, and
presently after other of the same sort.  This
gave me no manner of apprehension, for we were
fully manned, and our men, rowing for their
very lives, were not like to be outdone by the
hapless slaves in our pursuers, even though they
were urged by the whip.

We were in another case when, as we came
abreast of the point at the northern extremity
of the bay of Caleta, a galley shot forth by the
skirts of the rocks and made great speed to sea,
not directly towards us, but taking a slantwise
course with intent to head us off, as seamen say.
It was a hard matter in the darkness to make a
nice reckoning, yet I thought we should outstrip
even this the most threatening of our pursuers.
Being ware of a steady fair breeze off the land,
I deemed it mere foolishness to neglect it;
accordingly I bade Stubbs choose some few men
among the oarsmen that were mariners, and
send them on deck to bend the sails.  This
proceeding caused us to lose way somewhat, the
sails having been cast aboard without any care,
and so needing time to order them rightly.  And
when I saw that the captain of the galley in chase
of us had foregone me, and being now come into
the wind had already gotten his sails ahoist, I
was not a little dismayed.  Bethinking me of
Don Ygnacio and Captain Badillo, hitherto mere
idle passengers and burdensome, I resolved to
put them to the oars, not without a secret relish
in the thought that they would now taste of the
toil they had heretofore inflicted upon the slaves.
With my own hands therefore I cast Don Ygnacio
loose, and bundled both him and the lesser
captain to the lower part of the vessel, giving
them into the charge of my good Stubbs, with
a strait injunction that he should urge them to a
decent industry.  I did not see with my own
eyes how they accommodated themselves to their
task, because I returned to the deck to look to
the sails and also to keep a watch on the enemy.
But Stubbs told me afterwards that he plied the
whip right merrily on the backs of those two
proud Spaniards, and so wrought them to a just
activity, to the great delectation of the
galley-slaves, who themselves rowed with the more
cheerfulness, beholding their tormentors dealt
with after the manner they delighted in.

.. _`HE PLIED THE WHIP RIGHT MERRILY`:

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   HE PLIED THE WHIP RIGHT MERRILY

When our sails took the wind, the speed of the
galley sensibly increased, but it was not long
before I was troubled to see that our pursuer was
gaining on us.  She had far outstripped her
consorts, the which indeed were no longer visible,
and might be left out of the reckoning.  The
darkness was waxing deeper, and I could scarce
have seen our resolute pursuer had we not come
opposite to the extreme westward point of the
island, where, before the friary of Saint Sebastian,
a great fire had been kindled, without doubt of
set purpose to enfurther the chase.  It was the
customary place where beacon fires were made,
to give warning of danger on the side of the sea.
The ruddy glare, shining forth over the water,
showed me that the galley was no more than two
furlongs astern.  We made all the speed we might,
but I could not but perceive that the pursuer
crept ever nearer, and I began to be exceeding
apprehensive.  Her oarsmen, having rowed not
above a quarter of the distance we had come,
must needs be fresh by comparison with my own
men, who had been straining at the oar without
remission for close upon an hour.  Furthermore,
she would certainly have soldiers aboard her,
maybe to the number of fifty or more, and we
had no sufficiency of arms wherewith to oppose them.

We had come beyond the cast of the beacon
fire, into a vast impenetrable blackness.  Pacing
the deck in sore travail of spirit, and setting my
wits on the rack if haply I might devise some
stratagem that should profit us, on a sudden I
spied by the fore hatch a large vessel of iron
shaped like a round bucket, and pierced with
holes, which I knew was designed to hold fire,
whether for cooking or for illumination.  I
stood for a while chewing upon a device which
the sight of this vessel had set a-working in my
mind, and then hied me to Raoul to make him
partner of the merry conceit I had fashioned.
He heard it joyfully, and I went without delay to
put it in practice.

I gathered together some shreds of canvas
and rope ends and stuffed them lightly into the
vessel, mixing them plentifully with grease that
was employed about the rowlocks, and liquid
tar out of pots left in the galley by the men that
had been caulking her.  Then I thrust two short
pikes through the topmost holes of the vessel
opposite one to the other, as it were at the
cardinal points of the circumference, and stopped
the others as well as I could.  This done I strewed
upon the top a handful of gunpowder, and set in
the midst a length of slow match that might be
two or three minutes in burning.  Having kindled
the match at its utmost end, I let down the vessel
over the stern into the water, and with great
satisfaction watched it float in our wake until
nought was visible in the darkness save the red
glow of the match.  Then I ran below and bade
Stubbs put the rowers to a very frenzy of labour,
so that we might draw as far as we could from the
pursuer while that their strength endured.

Returning to the deck I beheld my beacon
burst into a bright flare; and the pursuer coming
upon it, I saw the galley with great clearness, and
sparkling reflections from the morions and harness
of the soldiers that were aboard.  I knew that
so long as the light endured our own galley must
be wholly hid from their eyes, and besides, they
would be perplexed to know the meaning of the
light, and might even suppose it to betoken a
floating mine whereof they must be ware.
Without doubt it would delay them somewhat, and
give me the few minutes I needed for the full
accomplishment of my design.

As soon as I saw the galley come within the
circle of light I gave the word to Raoul, who put
up the helm, so that our vessel swung round in
a wide circuit until she was a cable length of her
former course.  I had already commanded the
slaves to cease from rowing, lest the sound of
their oars should acquaint the enemy with our
movement.  As we came round I saw the galley
draw out from the radiance, and heard the voices
of the men upon her.  She sped directly forward,
following the course her captain supposed us to
have taken.

When she was almost abreast of us, and scarce
three fathom length away, I bade the rowers
pull with all their might, and Raoul steered
straight for the galley.  The rattle of the oars
must have apprised the enemy that we were
nearer than they supposed, but they were
not thoroughly aware of us until we were upon
them.  Then, as they spied our vessel looming
big out of the darkness, there was a great outcry
among them, and it appeared that divers
commands were given, for one moment she seemed
to be swinging round to oppose the imminent
shock, the next she held on her course as if
endeavouring to evade us.  By her greater speed
she might without difficulty have drawn clear,
but in bearing up she lost way, and so enabled
us to diminish the gap between her and our galley.

Under the sturdy strokes of our oarsmen the
galley in a manner leapt towards her.  We were
greeted with a pretty hot salvo from her musketeers,
but there were no more than two or three of
us upon the deck, and we were flat on our faces,
all save Raoul, so that what with the sway and
toss of the vessels and the flurried aim they took,
we suffered no hurt.  While the smoke still hung
in the air there was a mighty crash: the bow of
our galley had cut the other a little abaft of the
mainmast.  Being fashioned for this very device
of ramming, our beak had, I doubted not, stove
a hole in her side, whereas I could not suppose
that we had been endamaged, though the vessel
quivered from stem to stern.

Immediately after we struck I commanded the
oarsmen to back water, by which means, and the
cunning handling of the helm, we withdrew a
space.  From the enemy's galley came loud
shouts of fear and consternation, and I heard
some say that she was sinking.  It troubled me
that, to save our own skins, we had perforce
imperilled the lives of three-score hapless slaves
that had done us no wrong, but were indeed in a
like case with our own men; but the breeze
brought with it the rattle of the oars of the
galleys that had first set off to pursue us, and I
could very well leave the men of the foundering
vessel to be rescued by their fellows.  Our need
was to draw clear away as swiftly as we might.
Accordingly I commanded our men again to ply
their oars, and this they did the more willingly,
despite their fatigue, because they exulted in
the crippling of their adversaries.

We were now come into the open sea.  Our
men pulled with measured strokes for a full
half-hour before I deemed it prudent to suffer
any intermission.  Then I bade them lie upon
their oars while I hearkened for sounds of our
pursuers.  There was not so much as a whisper.
I could not but believe that the commanders of
the galleys had given over the attempt to come
up with us.  Yet, as I took counsel with Raoul,
I durst not rest thoroughly assured that all
danger was past, nor all need for labour and
watchfulness vanished.  The galleons in the
harbour would surely make sail as soon as they
could be put in trim, and scour the sea for leagues
around.  Furthermore, we might fall in with some
vessel homeward bound, or perchance outward
bound from Lisbon to the Americas.  It behoved
us then to be very wary, and, as our proverb
says, not to holla until we were out of the wood.

Our men, having fasted since the morning and
toiled very hard, were in dire need of food, and
I hazarded to rest for so long as they might take
their fill of the broth and biscuit which the
cookmen had brought aboard, bidding them
spare enough for another meal.  We should not
be utterly safe until we made a French port,
Bordeaux being the most likely, and we were
distant thence, at the very least reckoning,
upwards of three hundred leagues.  Within a
single day we must needs be in dire straits for
food, but I had conceived a plan for supplying
ourselves so soon as we were free from the
immediate fear of pursuit.

When we had all eaten and drunk very heartily,
though in good sooth the fare was of the poorest,
we sped on again, the men taking turns to row,
and so continued all that night.  We directed
our course at a venture, but at break of day we
saw with thankfulness that we were not a great
way from the shore.  There was no safety for us
but in boldness; accordingly Raoul steered
directly for the land, that was very barren
hereabout, and we put into a small bay, and ran
the vessel abeach, purposing to lie up there and
take our rest.  I parted the whole company into
watches, and we slept by turns, the men of each
watch being straitly charged not to stray from
the low beach to higher ground.  While we
stayed in that place I saw several galleys and one
great galleon cruising in the offing, which I
guessed to be hunting for us; but we were very
well hid, and I thought it would scarce come into
the heads of the Spaniards that we had adventured
ourselves ashore.

During one of the watches I talked long with
Raoul concerning the occasion of my venturing
upon this course for his behoof.  He was in
perfect ignorance of the complicity of the Count
de Sarney in his kidnapping, and was loath to
believe that his uncle could have descended to
such a depth of villainy.  I was at no pains to
bring him to my own persuasion, being content
to leave the unravelling of the plot until we should
come safely to his home.  He drew from me the
full tale of my adventures, breaking into a great
gust of laughter when I related the manner of
my dealing with Don Ygnacio.  I assured him
that he owed all to my honest mariner William
Stubbs, on whom he bestowed thanks without
stint, promising me in secret that, if we got safe
to Torcy, he would reward him with much more
than barren words.

We lay in that spot for near six hours, and then,
having consumed all our food, saw ourselves
faced by the prospect of famine.  Certain of the
galley-slaves, who were for the most part
desperate and abandoned ruffians that richly
deserved their fate, began to murmur, and not
without reason, for it is no profit to a man to
leap out of the frying-pan into the fire.  In this
strait I bethought me of the use whereto I had
imagined putting our noble prisoners, Don
Ygnacio and Captain Badillo.  We launched our
galley when the tide was full, and mounting into
her, coasted along for a league or two until we
descried a village of fishers nestling in a hollow
between the cliffs.  We then ran ashore, and
made Don Ygnacio write on his tables a formal
requisition for meat and wine, signing it with his
full name and titles.  And I went up the land
with Stubbs and Captain Badillo, together with
a dozen of the galley-slaves bearing baskets and
buckets; and giving the captain to know that I
would certainly use my dagger upon him if he
by word, deed, or even with wink of eye betrayed
us, we marched boldly to the village, where he
presented his mandate to the people, and received
from them enough to supply our instant needs.
When I saw how grudgingly they furnished us,
I pitied the poor folk, and wished with all my
heart that I could pay them, suspecting that
the minions of the Spanish king were not over
scrupulous in honouring this sort of debt; but
my purse was well-nigh empty, and I could only
trust that Providence would in due season repay
them a hundredfold.

The story we gave out was that the Captain-General
of the King's galleys was making a voyage
to inspect the coast, and we found this served
us to a miracle among the ignorant fisher folk,
both at this place and at the many other villages
on the coast of Portugal where we made like
perquisitions on the days succeeding.  We pursued
our way every night, and rested every day,
choosing only small paltry places whereat to
obtain food, and such as we might adventure
into without raising a wind of suspicion.
Nowhere did we come within an ace of danger save
at one village, whose parish priest, a canon of
Salamanca, would not be stayed from paying a
visit of ceremony to the illustrious and worshipful
Captain-General.  It was a marvellous whimsical
thing to behold their meeting, the priest offering
gracious incense of flattery to the royal officer,
who received his compliments and felicitations, I
being at his elbow, in a mood betwixt dudgeon
and impotent rage.  I caught a look of puzzlement
on the worthy canon's face as he made his
adieu, and I fear me he carried to his humble
parsonage a blighted estimate of the courtliness
of princes' servants.  As for me, I thanked my
stars that the peril of discovery had as it were
but lightly brushed us.

Our plan of hugging the coast, yet not so close
as to risk our bottom on rocks or shoals, kept us
far away from the track of sea-going vessels, and
the weather being exceedingly fair, we
accomplished fifteen or twenty leagues a day without
danger from the elements or man.  The voyage
was tedious beyond telling, but I did not grudge
it, for joy at beholding the amelioration it wrought
in the health of my dear friend.  I laughed often
to think how the transfusion I had proposed in
trickery to Don Ygnacio was in process of
accomplishment by the agency of nature.  He
became leaner in proportion as Raoul indued
flesh, and my scrupulous care that he should
not have the means to overeat, but should
perform a fitting share of labour at the oar, did not
only reduce his bulk, but also brought his body
to a healthful condition whereto he had been
strange for many a year.  He showed me no
gratitude, and paid me no fees, though I declare
without boasting that I did more for him than
any physician or chirurgeon that ever mixed a
powder or wielded a scalpel.

I used my endeavour to wrest from him a full
confession of his villainies, but he would never
admit further than what we knew: that he had
received moneys from his cousin the Count de
Sarney.  As for the kidnapping, he avouched most
solemnly that he was as ignorant as innocent
in respect of it; but inasmuch as Raoul had
acquainted him of his name and condition, and
besought him with many promises to set him free,
I concluded that he had found his best interest
in playing the horse-leech upon his cousin.

We came in due time to Bordeaux, where
our story, when it leaked out, became a
nine-days' wonder.  I am very sure it would have
mightily pleased the Sieur Michel de Montaigne,
had he been yet alive; of whose Essays I
purchased a very pretty copy before I departed.
We sold the galley at a price much above its
value, to a rich noble of Perigord, who declared
his intention of keeping it for his private pleasure,
and for a perpetual memorial of the gullibility
of Spaniards.  Every galley-slave received his
freedom and his proper share of the purchase
money, though I confess I was uneasy in my
mind when I thought of such rapscallions being
loosed among honest people.  We delivered Don
Ygnacio and Captain Badillo to the mayor, who
threw them into prison until he should advise
himself concerning their future.  Then one fair
day I took ship with Raoul and worthy Stubbs
in a vessel bound for Calais, being somewhat in
pocket by my adventure.



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V

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In the interim between our departure from
Cadiz and our arrival at Calais, Raoul's hairs
grew again both on his face and on his head,
albeit I observed with sorrow a many flecks of
grey among them.  Besides those and sundry
scars and callosities, there was no other enduring
mark upon him of his long torture in the galleys
when he came ashore with me.  We stayed in
Calais only so long as that he might provide
himself with decent apparel, and then we rode
on hired horses, Stubbs following, to Dieppe.
There we betook ourselves to Jean Prévost, to
learn what had happened during the two months
of my absence.  He welcomed Raoul with
boisterous demonstrations of delight, and having
heard our story, cried out in a fury that he would
drive his sword through the carcass of the Count
de Sarney, and so rid the world of a villain.  But
I prevailed upon him to leave us to our own
courses with the Count, whereupon he told us
that the Count had but lately sold his own little
domain, the which we took to be an evident sign
of his perfect security.

Next day we rode all four to Torcy, and never
did I see pleasure so admirably pictured on a
man's countenance as it was when the old faithful
servitor opened to us and beheld his true master.
He lifted up his old cracked voice and called to
his fellows, and they came pell-mell from the
kitchen and offices, and leapt and laughed in the
right Gallic manner, which we sober Englishmen
are apt to find ridiculous.  Their clamour drew
the Count from his cabinet, and he stood at the
head of the stairs as still as a stone, his
countenance taking the colour of wax when he beheld
Raoul at my side, and Stubbs capering (sore
against his will) in the arms of a buxom buttery
maid.  The miserable wretch wreathed his lips
to a smile, and said, mumbling in dreadful sort—

"Welcome, my dear nephew; I had given you
up for dead."

"You have kept my house warm for me,
monsieur," said Raoul, with a fine self-mastery;
but Jean Prévost sprang up the stairs, and taking
the Count by the collar, bundled him down and
out at the door without ceremony.  Raoul
dispatched a man after him with his hat and cloak,
and he went away and sought shelter, as we
afterward learnt, in the house of one of his old
retainers.

We made diligent search in the cabinet for
evidence of his villainy, finding nought save a
book of accounts wherein were set down the sums
he had paid to Don Ygnacio de Acosta, the
addition of which mounted to a monstrous
figure.  Raoul bade his servants gather up all
the Count's chattels ready to be conveyed to him,
and having put all things in order for his own
occupancy he returned with us to Dieppe, where
we spent a merry night at Jean Prévost's house.

We did not delay to seek the king's commissary,
before whom we laid the whole matter.  He
took down our depositions, and examined the
account-book, and delivered his opinion at great
length, the which was, in brief, that we had
nothing to convict the Count of the felony of
kidnapping, though we might reasonably presume
it; but that Raoul might bring a suit against
him in the king's court for restitution of the
moneys he had disbursed.  This he did, and I
had word, many months after, that the slow-footed
law upheld his claim, and that the Count,
being unable to acquit himself of so heavy a debt,
was reduced to beggary and thrown into prison,
there to remain at the king's pleasure.  With
great magnanimity Raoul relented towards him
for the sake of his son Armand, whom he sought
out in Paris, and, being perfectly assured of his
innocency, endowed him with a pension sufficient
to keep his father in a decent penury.

As for me, long ere this was accomplished I
had returned with Stubbs (rejoicing in Raoul's
liberal largess, and bound to my service for ever)
to my own land.  I was not wholly at ease in my
mind, for I had absented myself from my duty
in the Queen's Guard without her august leave,
and had no expectation but that she would
visit my fault upon me somewhat grievously.
I betook me to the Palace on the day after my
return, and learnt from my comrades that the
Queen had been highly incensed against me, and
had sworn to show me bitter marks of her anger.

I took up my post in the corridor at the proper
hour, and had been there but a brief while, when
her Highness herself issued from her cabinet
unattended.  She halted at sight of me, and,
frowning heavily, cried in shrill and shrewish
accents (and it went to my heart that she was
now most apparently an old woman)—

"How now, sirrah?  Dost dare show thy ugly
face to me?"

"As for my ugliness, madam," said I, "that is
as God pleases."

"It does not please me that thou hast hog's
bristles on thy countenance" (my beard and
mustachio, in truth, were as yet somewhat like
a field of stubble).  "Where hast thou been,
monkey?"

I told her Grace that I had come from working
some mischief among the galleys of her brother of
Spain, whereupon she let forth a round oath,
exceeding disparaging to the said brother, and
bid me go with her into her chamber and inform
her more particularly on that matter.  I related
the incidents in their due order, and when I
came to that part where I had made the
Captain-General swallow my vile admixture, she burst
forth in a fit of laughter so immoderate that I
feared lest, tight-laced as she was, she should do
herself a hurt.

"Well, well, I pardon thee, my sweet Chris,"
she said, when I had made an end; "but I must
e'en have my moiety of the spoils."

And 'tis sober truth that her Grace made me
tell over into her royal palm a half of the French
crowns that I had brought back with me.  I
confess 'twas not an exact reckoning, for knowing
her Grace's propensity, I had been careful to
make a subtraction from the full sum before I
named it, a fault which I trust will be held to be
venial, and not laid against me by honest men.

Her Grace's anger being thus mollified, I made
bold to proffer a petition whereon I set much
store, to wit, that she would suffer me to join
myself to Sir Walter Raleigh for his voyage, the
ships being at that time, as I had already learnt,
on the point of sailing from Plymouth.

"Ods my bodikins!" cried the Queen; "hast
thou lost thy silly heart to some Spanish slut,
that thou art burning to return among the
garlic-eaters?"

"I assure your Highness' Grace," said I,
"that in all my wanderings I have never beheld
a damsel whose eyes could lure me from devotion
to my Queen."

At this her Grace showed as much pleasure
as she were a girl of sixteen, and I looked for her
to consent to my petition; but in this I was
deceived.

"Well, well," she said, "thou'rt a proper bold
rascal, but I can't have all my lovers running
about the wicked world, in danger of falling into
divers snares and temptations.  No; ods my life,
thou shan't go," she cried in a passion, "and if I
see any mumping and glooming, to the Tower
with thee!"

I smiled as amiably as I could, and vowed that
I had no pleasure save her Highness' will; but
I own that I nourish to this day a remnant grudge
against my old mistress, for that she hindered
me from serving with Sir Walter in that
world-renowned enterprise.

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Interim

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That feat of Sir Walter Raleigh was a wondrous
achievement that any man might envy without
blame.  The English fleet came to anchor off
Cadiz on June 20, 1596.  Sir Walter's voice had
great weight with the generals, and it was by
his counsel and ordering that the enterprise was
ruled.  His device was to attack the galleons
lying there in the haven and after assail the
town, and so was it performed.  Himself led
the van ward in the *Warspright*, and ran through
a fierce cannonade from the fort of Puntal and
the galleys, esteeming them but as wasps in
respect of the powerfulness of the others, and
making no answer save by blare of trumpet
to each discharge.  And he dropped anchor
close over against the *St. Philip* and the
*St. Andrew*, the greatest of all the galleons, and the
same which had overpowered in the Azores the
little *Revenge* wherein Sir Richard Grenville
died gloriously, winning deathless fame.  Three
hours the *Warspright* fought those great ships,
and was near sinking; nevertheless Raleigh
would not yield precedence to my Lord Essex
or the Lord Admiral, but thrust himself athwart
the channel, so as he was sure none should
out-start him again for that day.

And so he set on to grapple the *St. Philip*, and
the Spaniards fell into a panic, and that galleon
with three others tried to run aground, tumbling
into the sea soldiers in heaps, so thick as if coals
had been poured out of a sack.  Straightway
two were taken or ever their captains were able
to turn them; but the *St. Philip* was blown up
by her captain, and a multitude of men were
drowned or scorched with the flames.  And
Raleigh received in the leg from a spent shot a
grievous wound, interlaced and deformed with
splinters.

Thereupon my Lord Essex hasted to land, and
put to rout eight hundred horse that stood against
him, and by eight of the clock the English were
masters of the market-place, the forts, and the
whole town save only the castle, which held out
till break of day.  And the citizens were
constrained to pay a hundred and twenty thousand
crowns for their ransom, and moreover all the
rich merchandise of the town fell to the English
as spoils of war.  And Sir Walter's valiant deeds
purchased again the favour of the Queen, and
she willed he should come to the Palace, and
received him graciously, holding much private
talk and riding abroad with him.

My grandfather, who was of a goodly presence,
had taken the eye of the Queen, and she lifted
him out of the Guard and made him one of her
fifty gentlemen pensioners, albeit he was full
young for such a place.  These gentlemen were
appointed to attend the Queen on all ceremonious
occasions, bearing a gilt axe upon a staff, and to
serve about the Palace, the which offices were little
to his liking.  And his father dying about this
time, he went down into Hampshire to take up
his inheritance, and was much busied about his
estates, and exercising as justice of the peace
that little law he had learned in the Inner
Temple.  But he was again lodging in London
when my Lord Essex, having botched up his
work in Ireland, and taking reproof like a spoilt
child, gave rein to his ill-temper, and hatched
treason against his long-suffering Mistress.  My
grandfather often spoke to me sorrowfully of
that headstrong young lord, and related sundry
of his foolhardy doings—how he locked into an
inner chamber the Chancellor, the Chief Justice,
and other grave men who had resorted to his
house to inquire the cause of the assemblage of
armed men there; how he rode boisterously
through the streets, brandishing his sword, and
calling upon the populace to follow him; and
how finally he lost his head on the block.

A short while thereafter, my grandfather
sailed to Ireland, where befell him the last great
adventure, and, as he was wont to say, the most
fortunate, of his life.  The O'Neill, called Earl
of Tyrone, had been long time a thorn in the
side of Queen Elizabeth, taking gold from the
King of Spain to sustain his treasons, and in the
year 1597 making open war upon the English
governor.  He did great despite upon the people
of the Plantation, and lurking in the forests,
long defied the English soldiery.  My Lord
Mountjoy, whom the Queen had sent to Ireland
as her deputy in the room of Essex, being
resolved to make an end of the rebellion, ravaged
and wasted the country, driving off the cattle,
starving the people, and fortifying all the passes
through the woods.  And you shall read now
how my grandfather once more, and for the last
time, drew his sword, and the strange fashion
whereby he was led to put it up again, for ever.





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.. _`THE FIFTH PART`:

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   THE FIFTH PART

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CHRISTOPHER RUDD'S ADVENTURE IN IRELAND,
AND THE MANNER OF HIS WINNING A WIFE

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   headpiece to Fifth Part

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I

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I hold it ill that a man should be under no
constraint to labour for his bread.  To have a
competency is indeed a comfortable thing; but
being so possessed, a man lacks a spur to high
emprise, and his faculties are like to wither and
decay.

It was my fortune to receive from my father
a property sufficient to supply the needs of the
body; and the gear I added thereto in divers
enterprises and adventures gave me the wherewithal
to maintain a decent port before the world,
and even at the Court of the Queen's Majesty,
where a man had need be of some substance.
But my ambition did not soar a high pitch: I
was content to play a modest part on the world's
stage; and when I fell out of humour, as sometimes
I did, with the fevered life at Court, I withdrew
myself to my little estate in the country,
and there lived rustically among the boors and
the pigs.

Nevertheless, from having seen many men and
cities in my time, I was not long of finding this
rustical employment stale upon me.  After some
few months I would begin to yearn again for
the stir and bustle of London, where I might at
the least whet my wits that had grown dull and
rusty among my simple country fellows.  One
such time, in the late autumn of the year 1601,
my years then numbering thirty, I rode out of
Hampshire to London, and took up my lodging in
King Street, in Westminster, rejoicing to meet
my old friends again, to hear the clash of wits,
and feed my mind on the marvellous inventions
of Will Shakespeare and Ben Jonson and other
ornaments and luminaries of that glorious age.

I found that two great matters were in men's
mouths, whereof the one was the exceeding
melancholy whereinto the Queen had sunk since
the beheading of my Lord Essex; the other, the
rising of the O'Neill (otherwise the Earl of Tyrone)
in Ireland, and the descent of some thousands of
Spaniards upon the harbour of Kinsale to
enfurther that base ungrateful traitor.  King Philip
having failed in his endeavour to get a grip upon
the throat of England, was seeking to annoy
her extremities, like as a blister upon the heel or
a corn upon the toe.  I acknowledge that this
news of his impudency made me itch and sweat
to flesh my sword again on those enemies of
my country; but I dallied somewhat, supposing
that my Lord Mountjoy, who was now Lord
Deputy in my Lord Essex his room, would speedily
make his account with the Irish rebels and their
Spanish consorts.  Furthermore, Ireland had
always shown me a forbidding aspect: I had
heard much of its wildness, its thick woods and
filthy bogs, its savage and uncouth people, from
men that had served the Queen there and got
thereby small thanks and less renown; and I
had read of these matters also in the book of
Master Spenser, whereof a written copy (for it
was not put in print until many years after)
had come into my hands.  For these reasons,
therefore, I was no ways in the mind to adventure
myself across the Irish Sea.

But that winter, a day or two before Christmas,
Sir Oliver St. John arrived in London out of
that distressful country, bearing letters from the
Lord Deputy and his council wherein they set
down the exceeding hard straits in which they
rested for want of provisions and men.  They
related how they had annoyed all parts of the
town of Kinsale with the battery of their ordnance,
so as the breach was almost assaultable, insomuch
that they were not without hope of the enemy
yielding, or of their being able to enter the town
by force.  But a thousand more Spaniards had
lately sailed into Castlehaven with great store
of munition and artillery; and moreover the
Spanish commander had besought the O'Neill
to haste to relieve him, who had accordingly
come and encamped not far from the town with
eight thousand men or more.  The Lord Deputy
therefore earnestly entreated the Lords of the
Council in England to despatch to him without
delay four thousand good footmen at the least,
with victuals, munition, and money.

These urgent messages occasioned a notable
stir among the Lords of the Council, and being
laid before the Queen by master secretary Cecil,
kindled her to an extremity of rage.  Her
Majesty had already been at great charges to
sustain the Lord Deputy in his dealings with the
rebels and their Spanish aids, and being ever loth
to untie her purse-strings, she bemoaned exceedingly
the ruinous expense which this demand of
the Lord Mountjoy would cast upon her.  Yet
had she a proud spirit that ill brooked the thought
of Spain planting a foot in any part whatsoever
of her dominions, and she was torn betwixt her
parsimony and her care for the common weal.

It chanced that, having gone to Greenwich,
where the Queen then was, to bear my part in
the revels that were performed at Christmas-time,
I came in the eye of Her Majesty one day as
she passed through the hall.  She stayed her
walk (alas! how tottering!), and as I rose up
from bending my knee, my heart smote me to see
how thin and frail her body was, albeit her eye
still flashed and glittered with the fire of her
unquenchable spirit.

"So, sirrah," quoth she, "you are come again
out of your pigsty to refresh your snout with
more delectable odours."

Her Majesty was ever hard of tongue, and she
bore me a grudge for that I had demitted the
humble office I had one time held at her Court.

"Madam," I said, "I have come like Eurydice,
out of Tartarus into the bounteous light of the
sun."

"Ods fish! dost think to win me by thy
flattery?" she said; nevertheless methought
she was not ill-pleased.  But she went on, in
a pitiful shrill voice: "What does a proper man
here in idlesse, conning soft speeches and inditing
silly verses to silly wenches, when my kingdom
of Ireland lieth in peril for lack of swords!
Go to, rascal; an thou wouldst pleasure me, show
thyself a man, and vex me not with lip service
and the antics of an ape."

Then, wellnigh breaking in two with her churchyard
cough, she passed on, leaving me a sorry
spectacle of confusion.

Methought that now I could do no other thing
than take up the challenge which my wrathful
Mistress had flung at me.  In two breaths she
had called me swine and ape, and I grudged that
in this her feeble old age she should hold me in
low esteem.  'Twas too plain that she was not long
for this world, and the desire to please her,
together with my old longing for a bout with the
Spaniards, prevailed upon me to join myself
to those voluntaries that were proffering their
service in Ireland.  Accordingly I wrote a brief
epistle to her Majesty, acquainting her of my
design, and received for answer two lines in a
quivering hand.

"Chris, thou'rt a good lad.  God bless thee
with perseverance.  Thy loving sovereign, E.R."



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II

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In such manner it came to pass that, one day
about the middle of January, I found myself
sailing into Kinsale harbour, my ship having
aboard her many gentlemen that were voluntaries
like myself, and some portion of the new levies
for which the Lord Deputy had made petition.
I stretched my ears for the sound of guns and the
blast of war trumpets, but there was a great
stillness and peace that smote me with dread of
ill news.  However, on coming to land, I
discovered as much with disappointment as with
joy that the Spaniards had yielded themselves
by articles of capitulation a few days before,
that the O'Neill had been beaten back from the
English camp with sore discomfiture, and his
men scattered to the four winds.  Though I
rejoiced in the good success of the Lord Deputy's
arms, I was vexed that I had come too late to
deal a blow against the Spaniard, more especially
as I foresaw a weary campaign against the native
rebels.

It fell out according to my expectation.  The
Lord Deputy, furnished with new supplies of
men and munition, marched through the land,
burning, wasting, harrowing without ruth, and
hanging such chief rebels as fell into his hands.
As it ever is in war, they that suffered most were
the poor peasantry of the country: and seeing
daily their lamentable estate, finding everywhere
men dead of famine, insomuch that in one day's
journey we saw upwards of a thousand men
lying unburied, my heart sickened of this work,
and I thought to return home.  Could I but
have looked into the future, I should have seen
divers sorry experiences through which it was my
destiny to pass; but that which is to come is
mercifully hid from us.  I foresaw neither what
I was to suffer, nor that great blessing which
Providence bestowed on me, whereby I have ever
regarded my going to Ireland as the most fortunate
and happy event of all that ever befell me.

That island is covered in every part with thick
forest and vast swamps and bogs, from which
arise exhalations exceeding noisome as well to
the native people as to our English.  From
camping oft on the borders of such oozy fens I took an
Irish ague, suffering sharp pains in all my limbs,
with shivering and vomiting, my teeth chattering,
my head oppressed with ringing noises intolerable.
So sore was I beset by this most malignant
distemper as that all my strength departed from me;
I could neither sit my horse nor march afoot,
and was afflicted with so desperate a languor and
exhaustion that I believed myself nigh unto death.
Being in so dreadful a case, I must needs be left
behind in a small fort, that had lately been
constructed to command a ford on the border of
O'Neill's country; and I am sure that when my
companions shook my hand and bade me farewell,
none expected ever to see me in life again.  But
by the mercy of God and the devotion of my
servant (there was no physician in that place) I
recovered of my fever; and within ten days or so
I felt myself ready to make a push towards the
army that had gone before.

We had learnt by scourers that our people
were then distant some thirty miles across the
hills, intending to advance further towards the
north.  By this it was plain that I must needs
hasten if I would come up with them, and there
was the more reason for this in that the hills were
known to be the haunt and covert of rebels.
But I had good hope that, being furnished with
a noble horse, and accompanied with my stout
and mettlesome servant, and three tall natives
of the country, of proven loyalty, I might compass
the journey of thirty miles in security.  I acknowledge
that, having been occupied of late in hunting
a broken rabble, I held the enemy in lighter
esteem than I ought; and when I look back upon
the matter, I feel some scorn of my recklessness,
and deem that in what befell me I had no more
than my desert.

We set forth at daybreak one morning, one
of the Irishmen leading us, and took our way into
the hills.  I knew somewhat of the trials and
hardships of travel in Ireland, but they were as
nought by comparison with that which I
encountered that day.  The country was covered with
close and almost impassable woods, intersected
with watercourses of depth sufficient to render
hazardous their crossing; and we pierced the
woods but to find ourselves in swamp or morass.
I was by this time aware of the treacherous nature
of these quaggy places; but in spite of all our
heedfulness, and notwithstanding that three of
us were natives well skilled in their country's
discommodities, we had ofttimes much ado to
hold our course.  Ever and anon we saw
ourselves forced to go round about; and although
our guide ordered our going with as diligent
carefulness as he might, many times we had need
to quit our saddles and lend aid to our horses,
to draw them from the deceitful mire of the
swamps, in such sort that we made but poor
going, and by the middle part of the day had
accomplished a mere trifle of our journey.

As we were picking our steps thus gingerly
over an expanse of spongy ground, overhung
by a low beetling cliff, there befell an accident
upon which I cannot look back without a mortifying
pang, seeing that I was, for all my thirty
years, a veteran in war.  In all our journey up
to that moment we had seen neither man nor any
living thing save only the small animals of the
woods, and some few wild cattle that smelt
us afar off, and vanished from our sight more
quickly than eye could follow.  On a sudden,
before we were aware, there descended upon us
from the midst of the bushes on the rock aforesaid
a thick shower of spears and stones.  A fragment
of rock smote upon my headpiece with such
violence as wellnigh to stun me; and my horse,
made frantic by the sudden onset and the fierce
cries of the men in ambush, swerved from the
narrow track whereon we were riding, and carried
me into the swamp.  Dizzy with the shock, I
lost my manage of the beast, which, plunging
to regain his footing, cast me headlong from my
saddle.

When I came to myself, I saw my horse in the
hands of two kernes, as they are named in that
country—rude and ragged fellows, barefoot,
half-naked, and armed with light darts and a long
and deadly knife which they call a skene.  These
two were hauling upon my horse's bridle, to
bring the scrambling beast upon the dry ground.
One of my Irishmen lay like a senseless log, with
a dart in his body; another and my servant
were overthrown, and the kernes were standing
over them; the third Irishman, as I saw, had
wheeled his horse, and was spurring along the
track, I supposed to bring help.  I made no
doubt but that the rascals, when they had finished
their work upon my followers, would deal likewise
with me, whom they had left hitherto, seeing
me dazed and bewildered by my fall.

But I perceived, after a brief space, that these
ragged and unkempt creatures took no step
towards me, but stood at gaze, their fierce eyes
glittering with I knew not what excitation of
mind.  I was still in my wonderment, bracing
myself to withstand the assault which I supposed
they intended against me, when I came to a
sudden knowledge of my true situation.  I lay
upon a thin crust of earth overlying the yielding
bog, and already I felt it sinking under my
weight.  I had not been so short a time in the
country but I knew in what extremity of peril
I lay, and this knowledge serving as a goad to my
numbness, I strove to lift myself from the clammy
embrace of the bog that was beginning to suck
me down.

And now my mind was smitten with the fear
of death, and I take no shame from the terror
that beset me.  A man may face his foes, and
not quail, with a weapon in his hand; but to lie
helpless in the clutch of an enemy against which
neither weapon nor courage is of any avail is a
condition to turn the stoutest heart to water.
I cried aloud to those kernes that stood upon
the bank, choosing rather to die swiftly by their
knives than to choke and smother in that slow
torment.  They did but mock me with jeers and
horrid execrations, uttered in their barbarous
tongue,[#] and their delight became doubly
manifest when with every motion of my ineffectual
limbs I did but assist the bog.  The more
desperately I strove to free myself, the more
closely did the pitiless morass cling about me and
clog me, like to that loathly creature of which
mariners tell, that winds innumerable tentacles
about its living prey and digests it to a jelly.
Presently I could no more move my limbs, and
when I sought to purchase succour from those
that stood by, offering great rewards whereby
every one of those paupers might have become a
petty Croesus among his kind, they sat them down
like spectators at a play, to feast their eyes upon
my agony, even as in ancient days the Romans
saw without compassion the holy martyrs yield
up their lives beneath the claws of Nubian lions.
And when I saw that neither promises nor
entreaties would prevail with them, by reason
mayhap that they knew not what I said, I
wrapped myself in despair and silence, endeavouring,
as a Christian ought, to contemplate the
inevitable end with quiet mind.

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[#] It must be remembered that Englishmen of Christopher
Rudd's time were ignorant of the Irish civilization and
literature which their ancestors had destroyed, and were
even more apt than their descendants to decry what they
did not understand.—H.S.

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.. _`THEY DID BUT MOCK ME WITH JEERS AND HORRID EXECRATIONS`:

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   :alt: THEY DID BUT MOCK ME WITH JEERS AND HORRID EXECRATIONS

   THEY DID BUT MOCK ME WITH JEERS AND HORRID EXECRATIONS

I had sunk wellnigh to my shoulder-blades,
and as it were a mist was hovering before my
eyes, when the sound of a horse galloping awoke
my slumbering senses, and I looked up, thinking
to see my Irishman returning.  The kernes had
risen to their feet, and turned their backs upon
me, and their vociferous clamour fell to a great
silence.  And gazing beyond them, I saw, not
my Irishman, but a young maiden, upon a hobby
of the country, riding with loose rein at the very
brink of the cliff above.  Distraught and
speechless, I gazed in amaze and wonderment, as this
radiant creature brought her hobby to a stand
on the height over against me.  She cast one
glance at me, and I heard a voice like a silver
bell rung sharply, and at her words the kernes
were set in motion as they were puppets moved
by invisible strings, and with one consent, yet
sullenly, they hasted to obey her behests.  Having
loosed the bridles of my servant's horse and of the
maiden's hobby, they knit them together, and
one of the men cast this rope of leather upon the
bog towards me.  Mustering my remnant strength
I caught it, and passed it over my head and
beneath my armpits, whereupon some few of the
kernes laid hold of it at the end, and with mighty
hauling heaved me from my slimy bed.  So strong
was the embrace wherein I had been clasped that
I came to the bank in my stocking feet, having
left my boots in that ravenous maw.

In this sorry plight my aspect was as filthy and
foul as Odysseus when he showed himself to
the maiden Nausicaa.  My Nausicaa smiled upon
viewing me, and when I could find no words
wherewith to utter the gratitude of my swelling spirit,
her lips parted, and that silvery voice uttered
words in my own tongue, which fell the more
sweetly upon my ear by reason of their quaintness
of accent.

"I am troubled, sir," said she, "at this your
incommodity, but no herald announced your
coming, whereby we might furnish guides.  Haply
your messenger went astray?"

I perceived that she mocked me, but being
too far spent to answer her in kind, I was content
to relate briefly what had befallen me.  She
smiled again, and said lightly—

"My kernes did what seemed good to them,
at no man's bidding.  I pray you accept our
hospitality, so that we can repair in some measure
the coldness of your welcome in this our country."

Then she turned upon the kernes that stood
glooming by, and spake a few words to them in
their own tongue; and after she had assured me
that they would do me no harm, and bid me
accompany them, she sped back towards the
quarter whence she had come, riding without
bridle, a marvel to behold.



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III

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I would fain have had further speech with the
damsel, to know more fully what was intended
towards me; 'twas plain that she was of much
consideration with these ragged ruffians, with
whom her lightest word was law; and in truth I
wondered not at their tame submission, for
though her age was, as I guessed, not above
twenty years, she had a most commanding and
imperial mien, and a manner of speech that
enforced obedience.

Having set me upon my horse, and likewise
upon his my Irishman that was wounded, my
servant and the other Irishman being compelled
to remain afoot, the kernes led us along the path
over the hillside, one of them bearing my pistol,
another my sword, which he had taken from my
belt.  Thus as we marched, my mind was busy
with these late accidents, and with my fair
saviour, whose hair methought was of the hue
of red gold, and her eyes of an incomparable
blue.  From such meditation I shook myself,
to take note, as beseemed one in my case, of the
nature of the country we were traversing.  I
perceived that the track, very rugged and narrow,
wound steeply up the hillside, giving but few
glimpses of any prospect.  But on a sudden,
coming to the summit, I beheld a very fair
and delightful landscape, that put me in mind
of the country in Devon.  Betwixt the hill
whereon I stood, and another like to it, above
a mile distant, there lay a pleasant valley of
emerald green, and in the midst thereof a lake
or mere, and a silvery stream feeding it from the
high ground above.  But that which held the
eye more especially in this delectable prospect
was a castle in the midst of the lake—a fortress
of stone built in the Norman style, of no great
magnitude, but having a keep, a courtyard, and
divers appurtenances.  'Twas a goodly spectacle,
this hoary shape engoldened by the sunlight,
girt about with blue water, and all encompassed
by the living green.

At the end of the lake nearest to us, I perceived
the semblance of a jetty framed of wood, whereto
a vessel like unto our Thames wherries was
moored; and both on the vessel and the jetty
I saw sundry folk, and likewise a few assembled
in the courtyard.  In the castle wall was a
water-gate, which now lay open, bounded above
by the teeth of a portcullis.

We stayed not our march, but descended the
hillside towards the lake.  And as I drew
nearer, I perceived that the castle was in ill
repair, the stonework weatherworn and crumbling,
and the iron of the portcullis exceeding rusty, so
that I misdoubted whether it were possible to be
raised.  Methought the place was of very ancient
date, perchance of the time when, for our woe,
Strongbow set his foot upon this country—destined
to be a continual nursery of trouble to
her English governors.

When we were come to the waterside, a man
met me from the jetty, and speaking in the
English of a five-years' bairn, invited me to
enter the wherry.  This I did, with my own men
and some of those that were with us, and we
were ferried over the lake, and into the castle
by the water-gate, through a covered way that
led from the lake into the courtyard.

Alighting from the wherry and ascending some
few ragged stone steps, I found myself in the
courtyard amid a strange medley of beasts and
men.  There were cattle, swine, and poultry
enclosed in tumbledown pens, and set against
the walls were rude cabins of wood overlaid with
turfs, which I supposed to be the dwellings of
serving men and retainers.  Of mankind there
were in the courtyard about a score, men, women
and children, the men being for the greater part
well stricken in years.  All these folk gazed upon
me as you see peasants gaze at quaint outlandish
monsters in a country fair.  My men were taken,
by command already given, into one of the cabins
aforesaid; but I myself was ushered through
a postern into the keep, and up a winding stair
to a chamber barely furnished with a stool and
a truckle bed, whereon was laid in a heap a suit
of woollen garments.  These I donned with much
contentment in exchange for my own sodden and
miry raiment, a man standing at the door with
his back to me all the time, a courtesy I little
expected in such savages.  When I was dry
clad he conducted me down the stairs into a lofty
and spacious hall, where food of the English sort
was spread upon a table.  With this I was mightily
refreshed and strengthened, for hard fortune
had not bereft me of appetite, though I
acknowledge my satisfaction was tempered by the
recollection that I who had fought in campaigns
with the greatest captains of the age had fallen
an inglorious victim to a handful of wild Irish
kernes.

Some while after the remains of my repast
had been removed, and I was drumming my heels
alone and in idleness, the door opened, and the
maiden entered, and with her an old and withered
dame of forbidding aspect and mien.  A smile
flickered upon the maiden's countenance as
she beheld me, clad in coarse and ill-fitting
garments, making my bow as courtly as to a queen.

"Our fare is poorer than I could wish," she
said, "but 'tis our necessity at fault, not our
good will."

"I thank you, mistress," said I, "and would
fain beg that the same fare may be provided for
my men, one of whom, I fear, was somewhat
incommoded in the late misadventure."

"Their wants are supplied, sir," quoth she
coldly; "and as for you, I desire that you will
rest in such comfort as our poor means and the
straitness of our dwelling may afford."

"In troth, mistress," said I, "I have known
worse quarters and leaner fare; but desiring
that you be at no more pains or charges in my
behoof, I purpose with your leave to get me hence
with all commendable speed as soon as my
garments are dried, not forgetting that I owe my
life to you."

At this she smiled again.

"Of what value your life may be to you or to
your countrymen I know not," she said, "but at
this present time it is of some worth to me."

"I am honoured, madam," said I in some puzzlement.

And then, seeing my wonder writ on my face,
she laughed outright.

"I fear me, good sir, we are scarcely of one
mind," she said.  "Loth as I am to enforce you
with any restraint, yet needs must I tell you that
for a time you shall rest content to remain my
guest."

"Shall, madam?" said I, with a lift of the eyes.

"Shall, sir," she repeated.  "You shall be a
hostage, a pledge for the fair treatment of my
father."

"What have I to do with your father?" I
asked, in my bewilderment.

"This: that your general has sworn to hang
my father so soon as he lays hands on him,
wherefore I have despatched a letter to your
general to let him know that I have you in ward,
and will surely execute upon you any violence or
indignity that my father may suffer."

.. _`"I WILL SURELY EXECUTE UPON YOU ANY VIOLENCE OR INDIGNITY THAT MY FATHER MAY SUFFER"`:

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   :alt: "I WILL SURELY EXECUTE UPON YOU ANY VIOLENCE OR INDIGNITY THAT MY FATHER MAY SUFFER"

   "I WILL SURELY EXECUTE UPON YOU ANY VIOLENCE OR INDIGNITY THAT MY FATHER MAY SUFFER"

This she said with a firm voice, smiting the
table with her little hand; and I knew in my
heart that what she said, that the fair termagant
would surely do.

"And may I presume to ask, madam," said I,
"the name of the gentleman upon whose safety
my own salvation hangs?"

"His name, sir, is Kedagh O'Hagan: and yours?"

"A name of much less mark: Christopher
Rudd, at your service."

"A knight?"

"Nay, madam, a plain gentleman."

She smiled a little at this, and continued—

"Well, Master Christopher Rudd, give me the
word of a plain gentleman that you will use no
endeavour to flee away, and I give you the
freedom of this castle, such as it is."

"I thank you, madam, for your good will,"
said I, "but I have a larger notion of freedom.
With your leave I will put no fetters on my
discretion."

"Nor I on your limbs, and yet you shall be
confined," said she; and after the exchange of
sundry civil nothings between us, she departed
with the ancient dame, who had stood by the
while with arms folded upon her hips, and lips
pressed together grimly.

The door was closed upon them, and by the
voices that came to me through the timber I
knew that two men had been set to guard me.

I had much to speculate upon in my solitude.
This Kedagh O'Hagan, the damsel's father, was
a notorious rebel, and a doughty lieutenant of
the O'Neill.  I knew that my general, Sir Arthur
Chichester, had vowed to hang him, as she had
said; but seeing that the fellow was slippery as
an eel and had escaped us not a few times, I saw
myself doomed in all likelihood to a long
imprisonment unless peradventure I could make my
escape.  Moreover, if by any foul chance he
should lose his life, the gallows was my certain
destination, an ignominious end which I could
not contemplate with any comfort or serenity.

From meditating on this I came to think of
my fair hostess.  I had seen full many a glorious
beauty at the Queen's Court, and in France when
I served King Henry, but none that so bewitched
and teased me as this Irish maiden, with her
red-gold hair, and her eyes of unsoundable blue, and
her coral lips that curled the one above the other
when she smiled.  And the dulcet fluting of
her voice, breathing out pure English with a faint
smack of something outlandish and yet most
pleasing, remained singing in my ears.  Moreover
her bold and mettlesome spirit, yet not a whit
unmaidenly, liked me well, and I considered
within myself that I could be well content to
enjoy her society during the few days which I
needed for the perfect recovery of my strength.
Her converse, methought, would sweeten my
confinement until I should make my escape,
whereto I was resolved.

I remained in that chamber while daylight
endured, now ruminating, now reading in the
one or two books that my fair jailer had set there
for me—some poems of Master Spenser, Tottel's
*Miscellany*, and sundry other volumes which I
marvelled to find in that barbarous land; and
it chancing that my supper was brought to me
by that man that had some smattering of English,
I fell on talk with him, to learn somewhat, if I
might, of his fair mistress.  Her name was
Sheila, he told me—quaint and pretty to my ears;
she was her father's sole child, and the apple
of his eye.  She had dwelt some time in England,
her father having been carried there a hostage,
but loved Ireland, said the man.  He told me
also that she was vehemently besought in
marriage by a young chieftain of that neighbourhood,
one Rory Mac Shane, betwixt whose family
and her own there was an ancient feud.  'Twas
Mac Shane's purpose to end the feud by this
alliance, but he was looked upon with loathing
both by the maiden and by her father, not only
because of the inveterate enmity between the
two houses, but also because they misliked the
man himself, a robustious unlettered fellow, a
foul liver, and one that constantly besotted
himself with usquebagh, a vile drink of the
country.  Mac Shane had sworn, so it was told
me, to wed the maiden, will she, nill she, for which
reason had her father conveyed her to this castle
in the lake, as being more easily defended than
his greater seat a few miles distant.  I had
ofttimes heard of the raids made one upon another
by these petty Irish chiefs, and my informant did
not question but that some time, when occasion
served, Mac Shane would seek to attain his end
by violence.  In this case I could not but marvel
that O'Hagan had left his daughter, and
withdrawn the main part of his people to assist
O'Neill; but reflected that he must know his
own business best, and so dismissed the matter.



.. vspace:: 3

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IV

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At fall of night I was led upstairs again to
the small chamber wherein I had made my change
of clothes.  The door was locked and barred
upon me, and by divers faint noises that I heard
I knew that sentinels were set without to guard
me.  Being wondrous fatigued I slept very
soundly, and was awakened only when a sunbeam
falling athwart my bed struck upon my eyes.
I rose up, and all being silent, made a more
thorough survey of my room than I had done
afore.  'Twas by measurement of my paces not
above ten feet square, and had a single window,
not closed with glass, looking upon the lake forty
or fifty feet beneath.  The wall was thick, and
the window was splayed inwards, being upwards
of an ell in breadth on the inner side, but no more
than three spans on the outer; and here 'twas
divided in twain from top to bottom by a bar of
iron, set in the stonework.

This bar I perceived to be deeply rusted, like
the iron of the portcullis above the water-gate,
and methought I could with a vehement wrench
or two force it from its sockets, and so leave a
clear space and a way of escape.  But when I
leant upon the sill and contemplated the water
beneath, of whose depth I was ignorant, I was
somewhat mistrustful of my success if I should
attempt so great a dive.  My further meditation
of this matter was hindered by the noise of
unlocking and unbarring, and I was seated upon
my bed when a man entered, to bid me descend
to break my fast in the chamber below.

The second day of my imprisonment was
like unto the first, save that my fair chatelaine
did not deign to visit me, but sent me greetings
by her servitor.  At this, without any reason,
I was somewhat vexed, having counted on seeing
her comeliness and hearing the music of her speech.
I took no pleasure in reading of Colin Clout or
Astrophel, laying down my book, and striding
about the room in dudgeon.  But as I went I
pondered that matter of escaping by the window,
which, though narrow, would let me through,
my body having been marvellously thinned by my
late sickness.  My splash into the water, if 'twere
heard by one of my guards, would bring a boat in
chase of me ere I could win to the bank, swam
I never so strongly.  And if by good luck I were
neither heard nor seen, yet I misdoubted of
my safety, for I was in poor health, unarmed,
ignorant of the country, and in no case to
adventure myself in a guideless journey over those
rugged hills, the haunt and lair of maybe
thousands of the wild Irish, ay, and with a hue
and cry ringing behind me.  What with these my
doubts and fears, and the neglect (as I called it)
of the mistress of the castle, the day lingered out
very discomfortably, and I went to my bed at
odds with myself and all men.

On the next day, after breakfast, my servant
Stubbs was admitted to me.  He told me that he
and my Irishmen were treated very handsomely,
the lady of the castle herself visiting them twice
a day and inquiring of their welfare.

"She's a beauty, sir," said the man heartily.

"And my neck is in a noose," said I, feeling a
twinge of jealousy in that Stubbs had been
favoured above me, and I told him of my being a
hostage for the life of the maid's father.

"Why, then, the general will have a care that
he comes to no harm," said Stubbs, "seeing
that an English gentleman is of more value than
many mere Irish."

"In his own conceit," said that sweet and
tunable voice, and the lady came into the room,
attended as before by her ancient dame of the
sour visage.  "Good morrow, Master Rudd."

"Good morrow, Mistress Sheila," said I,
shooting a look at her as I made my bow.

A flush mantled her cheek at this hearing of
her name.

"I brook no plots nor complots between
you two," said she.  "I bade your servant
attend you as a grace, Master Rudd."

"For which you have my hearty thanks,
madam," said I.  "The conversation of your
servitor is a child's babble, and the reading of your
books breeds only discontent."

"You have but to give your word, and you
are free to range this castle, sir," said she.

"'Twould be but to beat my wings against
the bars of my cage," said I.

"A bird, quotha!" said she, laughing.  "His
feathers are ruffled, and he stints his song."

"He has no mate, madam," said I; and after
more bandying of words, she departed again.

So passed some few days, the while I nursed
my strength for the attempt whereon I was
resolved.  The lady paid me fitful visits, and I
looked for them ever more wistfully.  Once,
when I had not seen her for thirty hours or more,
I dared to read aloud at her entrance, from the
book of Master Spenser's sonnets upon my knees,
the concluding verses—

   |  "Dark is my day, whiles her fair light I miss,
   |  And dead my life that wants such lively bliss;"

whereupon she took the book from my hand,
averring that such woebegone stuff would but
addle my wits.  She spoke as one chiding a
froward child, and I acknowledged to myself
that she had dealt tenderly with my presumption.
One day when she came to me I perceived
that all was not well with her.  Her bright hue
was faded, her eye was sad, and whereas she was
wont to be merry with quips, answering me right
saucily, her spirit was now leaden.  She heard
me in silence, and heaved many a sigh.  I
guessed that she had received ill news, and by
little and little I got from her what it was that
so much troubled her.  She told me that the
O'Neill had been signally worsted, and was
withdrawing himself deeper into his mountain
fastnesses.  She feared for her father's safety,
and then, with a flash of her old spirit, she struck
my table and declared right vehemently—

"If my father is taken, and suffers what is
threatened against him, I vow, Master Rudd,
that you shall dangle from the castle wall, a
feast for kites and crows."

And then she broke into a passion of weeping
and fled out of the room.

This news came as a rude shock to the
contentment into which I had let myself be lulled;
and fearing lest in the heat of battle Kedagh
O'Hagan should come to harm even against
the commandment of my general, I saw that it
behoved me, if I would put my neck beyond
jeopardy, to slip the noose at once.  I had no
manner of doubt that the girl would do even
as she had said, out of duty, though I believed
that she held me in no disfavour in my proper
person.

I determined therefore to put my plan in
practice in the early part of that night, so that, if
I should come safe to shore, I might have the
hours of darkness to cover my flight.  But my
design was frustrated by much coming and going
betwixt the shore and the castle.  It was plain
that some enterprise was afoot, and from my
little window looking forth, I watched the
daylight sink into night without any diminution
of the busy movements below.

But when the small hours crept on, and all
around was wrapt in an immense stillness, and
a snoring in two several tones proclaimed that
my guardians were asleep, I clambered up into
the embrasure, and, employing one of the legs
of my truckle bed as a lever, with as little noise
as might be, I forced the rusty iron bar from its
sockets; which done, I loosed part of my outer
garments, and having made them into a bundle
with my boots, I tore my coverlid into strips
and knit them into a cord, and tied my bundle
to one end of it.  The other end I knotted about
the bar, which I laid transversely across the
window, and then let down the bundle into the
depths towards the lake.

Upon hauling it up I discovered that it was
dry, whereby I learnt that my rope was not of
length sufficient to touch the water, though having
used all my convenient bedding I knew that it
could not fall far short.  I deemed neither the
rope nor the bar stout enough to bear my own
weight, and saw that I must needs dive into the
lake, and take my chance.  Accordingly I turned
myself sideways, and so contrived to squeeze my
shoulders through the narrow opening, not without
fear lest I should lose my balance, and topple
down in a heap without the opportunity of
poising for the clean dive that would best ensure
my safety and cause the least noise.

Having let down my bundle again, I was now
able to see (for the summer sky had some
luminancy) that it came within a little of the water.
As I crouched there upon the sill I was in no
little tremor and dread, for if there should be a
watchman upon the keep, as was most like, he
would scarce but hear the splash I should make.
I stretched my ears for sounds within and without,
below and above, and when all was yet silent I
gathered myself together, and without poising,
for which there was no room, I lifted myself on a
sudden, and extending my arms above me made
the best shift I could for the dive.

'Twas as though I hurled myself upon stone,
so mighty was the shock of my entering the
water.  Methought in my confusion of wits 'twas
an age before I came to the surface, gasping for
my breath.  In a daze I trod water until my
senses were some little restored; then, hearkening
with all my ears, but hearing nought, I swam close
beneath the wall, until I found my bundle
dangling, and thereupon tugging upon the cord
I snapped it, and set the bundle upon my head.
There I held it with one hand, while with the
other I struck out towards the shore; at which
arriving I scrambled up the bank, and sped away
as fleetly as I might to the shelter of a copse hard
by.  Here, all winded as I was with swift running
after my dive and swim, I made short work of
stripping off my wet clothes, and donning the
dry raiment and the boots which I had brought
in my bundle; which done, I wrung out my
sodden things, tied them about my back with
the cord, and making a cast as well as I could for
the English fort I had lately left, I turned my
back upon the lake and the castle, and issued
forth from among the trees to plod over those
unknown barren hills.



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V

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The sky, as I told you, rendered a pale light,
it being high summer; and I was rather dismayed
than pleasured when I saw the moon's pale sphere
stretching a bow beyond the further hills.  The
more light, the less chance of shunning an enemy.
Truly, I could have been thankful for a lanthorn
upon my path, for I had need to go slowly and
heedfully, lest I should find myself embogged,
of which my one experience was more than enough.
I laboured over the ground, making small
headway, for where 'twas not marshy 'twas rugged
and bestrewn with loose stones, and where
'twas none of these, I was annoyed with pestering
thorns or entangled underwood.  And the short
summer darkness was already dissolving with
the dawn.

I looked back over the way I had come, and
saw the lake not above two miles off, below me,
and the castle rose-tinted in the sun's ray.
Even now, I thought, the nimble kernes, whose
fleetness of foot exceeds that of a horse, might
run me down, if my escape had become known.
I considered whether to seek a hiding-place, in
some bosky covert or some brier-clad hole in
the hills; but bethought myself that I must
then lie quiet all day without food, and maybe
lose myself when I came forth in the night.  It
seemed to me best to keep right on, watching
my steps, and shrouding myself with such brushwood
and overhanging cliffs as I might encounter
on my way.

Presently after I had thus resolved, I came
unawares out of the trackless ground upon a
beaten path, which methought led in the direction
of my course.  To follow this path stood me
in some danger of meeting my foes; yet I should
make speedier progress upon it, and have my
eyes for scanning the country instead of for
taking heed of bogs or pitfalls.  Therefore I
cast away all scruples of timidity and struck
with assured gait into the path.

'Twas not long before I repented of my temerity.
On a sudden I heard a patter of feet before me,
and ere I could slip aside for hiding there came
into my sight, round a bend in the path, a man
of lofty stature, running as for a prize.  At one
and the same instant we halted upon our feet,
the runner and I, being divided by no more than
thirty paces.  I had but just perceived by his
garb that the man was an Irishman when he
leapt from the path down a shelving grassy bank
at his right hand, and bounded like a hunted
stag towards a clump of woodland no great
distance away.

Bethinking me in a flash that every Irishman
hereabout was an enemy, and that this man, were
he to escape, might fetch a horde of his wild
fellows upon my track, I sprang after him, in
my soul doubting whether with my utmost
endeavour I could overtake him.  For some little
time the man outsped me, but coming to the
skirts of the woodland he suddenly stumbled,
sought desperately to recover his footing, and
then sank upon the ground.  Gathering my speed,
in four leaps I was upon him, and closed with
him, expecting that he would strive with me for
the mastery; but he lay limp and lumpish in my
hands, his eyes beseeching mercy.  So stout
of frame he was, I was no little amazed at my
easy victory, until I saw by his laboured breathing,
the quivering of his nostrils, and the pallor
of his cheeks, that he was utterly spent.  This
put me in a quandary.  I had a mind to leave
him and go my way; but in a moment I saw
that I might perchance make some profit of him.
Taking a portion of the cord about my bundle, I
bound his hands behind him, and when the
heaving of his naked breast was somewhat
stilled, I bade him arise and lead me to the English
camp, fearing the while lest he should be of the
wild barbarians that knew no tongue but their
own.  But at my words he looked me in the
face, and told me that the English were many
miles away, marching northward.

.. _`GATHERING MY SPEED, IN FOUR LEAPS I WAS UPON HIM`:

.. figure:: images/img-343.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: GATHERING MY SPEED, IN FOUR LEAPS I WAS UPON HIM

   GATHERING MY SPEED, IN FOUR LEAPS I WAS UPON HIM

I asked him how he knew, whereupon he said
that he had himself been among them.  Questioning
him further, by degrees I learnt that he was
one of the band that had followed Kedagh
O'Hagan into the field.  Two days before a
battle had been fought betwixt the rebels and
the army of my general, and this man had been
taken, but having escaped by night, he had fled
for refuge to the cabin of his sister, whose husband
was a henchman to Rory Mac Shane.  The
husband being absent, the man had learnt in
talk with his sister that Mac Shane had gathered
his men, with the intent to fall upon the
lake-castle of O'Hagan while he was footing it with
the rebels, and to carry away the maiden whom
he had sworn to wed.  At this news the man, in
loyal service to his chief, brake from his sister,
and ran all night over the hills to warn his
mistress of the peril threatening her.  Being
not yet recovered of the fatigue of marching
and the stress of battle; having, moreover,
followed an indirect and winding course to avoid
the raiders of Rory Mac Shane, who were already
on foot; the man had overtaxed his strength in
running, and so fallen helpless into my hands.

In my course through the world I had gained
some skill in reading men, and was not easily
deceived when those I had to do with were artless
and simple, not versed in the tricks of courtiers,
nor trained to mask their thoughts like the
ambassadors of kings.  The man's bearing was
honest; his story fitted both with his present
sorry case and with what I had heard before;
briefly, I did not doubt him.  And when I
inquired of him where these raiders might be,
and he told me that they were not above three
miles from the place where we then stood, and
full in my path, I could not but look upon this
encounter as a fortunate accident for me.

And now I had perforce to choose what I
must do.  I could not proceed in safety until
Mac Shane and his raiders were no longer between
me and my goal, and I considered whether I
should hide myself a while, and let the man
continue his journey, and so warn his mistress of
what was to come; or, making assurance doubly
sure, I might hold him in hiding with me until
the danger of interception was past, then leave
him well tied up, and go my way: in which case
the lady must remain unwarned.  And as I
thought thereon, and my mind's eye dwelt upon
that piece of loveliness, forlorn in her ruinous
castle, with few to help her, and remembered
what I had been told of this Rory Mac Shane, a
violent and besotted savage, on a sudden I felt
the blood rush to my temples, and without more
ado, scarce knowing what secret motive impelled
me, I caught up my prisoner, unloosed his bonds,
bade him pluck up heart, and, supporting his
half-fainting form with my arm, set forth with
hasty step towards the quarter whence I had come.

For all that I was cumbered with the poor
wretch, I made better speed back than forth,
because he knew the way, and avoided rough and
quaggy places.  The morning was yet young,
wanting something of four o' the clock when we
came to the lake-side, and I felt a passion of
wrath spring within me at what had formerly
served me well—namely, the culpable neglect of
watch and ward upon the castle.  There was no
lookout man posted upon the keep; not a soul
stirring on battlements or in courtyard: a
heinous lack of precaution which could not but
set on edge the nerves of any man with the least
experience of war.  God-a-mercy, thought I, is
this the Irish manner of guarding fair ladies?
No eye had spied us as we descended the hillside;
and when, at the water's brink, we set up a loud
halloo, we might have been wolves howling in a
wilderness for all the stir we made.

Ofttimes as we came the Irishman had glanced
back timorously along the path, and now he
clutched me by the arm and stretching forth his
hand, pointed to a regiment of dusky shapes
moving against the sky behind us; which seeing,
and being in no manner of doubt what they
were, I made a trumpet of my hands and let
forth a shout like to split my lungs.  And then,
above the broken parapet of the tower, a woman's
form appeared, and stood there a brief space at
gaze, then vanished from my sight.  Still
bellowing my loudest, I saw men moving in the
courtyard, and presently from the water-gate
the wherry shot forth under the strokes of two
oarsmen.  The Irishman by my side called to
them in their own tongue, and they made great
haste, and we waded into the lake to meet them,
and leapt into the vessel, which swung about
and conveyed us with all speed over the water
and through the gate.  I perceived the
countenances of these oarsmen how they were blank
with stark amazement, their eyes resting upon
me as upon one risen from the dead; and the
women in the courtyard crossed themselves and
fell back from me as I passed among them, and
'twas told me afterward they held me for a
wizard.

.. _`HE CLUTCHED ME BY THE ARM AND POINTED TO A REGIMENT OF DUSKY SHAPES`:

.. figure:: images/img-347.jpg
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   :alt: HE CLUTCHED ME BY THE ARM AND POINTED TO A REGIMENT OF DUSKY SHAPES

   HE CLUTCHED ME BY THE ARM AND POINTED TO A REGIMENT OF DUSKY SHAPES

And there at the postern leading into the
keep stood my lady, very straight and still, a
high colour in her cheeks and a fire in her eyes.
I bent myself, saluting her, and said—

"I fear me, madam, I seem thankless in
quitting the castle without paying my respects
to its fair mistress, but you were, I trust, lapped
in quiet slumber when your caged night-bird
took wing.  Yet am I soon come back to roost,
for it chanced that in my flight I crossed a
servitor of yours, and he——"

"And he snared the simple fowl, and brought
him to be plucked," she said, with a curling lip.

"Simple fool, in good sooth, I may be, madam,"
said I, "yet 'twas not he carried me back, but
rather that which he carried."

She looked in puzzlement from me to the
Irishman, and from him again to me, and I
would very willingly have engaged further in
tossing the ball but for the grave news I bore.
Breaking off suddenly, I told her with seriousness
than within the fourth part of an hour Rory
Mac Shane with his posse of rascals would be
at her gates.

"It behoves your folk to show," I said, "that
they can fight better than they watch; and with
your leave, while your man here tells his tale
in gross, I will make bold to set things in order
for defence."

I did not wait for an answer, but turned
abruptly from her (noting how her wrath was
kindled against me), and sought my servant and
the Irishmen my comrades in captivity.  Them
I informed of what was toward, and gave commands
for the Irishmen to convey to their fellow
countrymen.  My assured mien and peremptory
speech carried it with them, and with Mistress
Sheila too, who was so much taken aback by
my masterfulness, as well as engrossed with the
tale poured out in the Irish tongue by her man,
as that she was in a manner fixed and immovable
like a monument.

But this posture endured but a little.  Being
informed of all that had happened, she came
flying to me in the midst of the courtyard, and
a wondrous light shone upon her face, and she
thrust out her hands towards me, and cried—

"Oh, sir, I crave your pardon, and I thank you."

I took her hand and kissed it in the manner
of a courtier, yet mayhap with something less
formality.

"But haste, sir!" she cried again.  "The
wherry is yours.  Get you, you and your men, to
the other side, and escape while yet there is time."

"Madam," I said, "I and my men have no
other wish than to serve you."

"I beseech you, endanger not your life in a
quarrel that is not your own," she said.

"I trow I make it my own," said I, with a
forthright quick look.  An instant our glances
clung; then she veiled her enkindling eyes, and
turning aside hastily, clasped hands with the
sour-faced dame who had now come forth, a
fearsome dragon, from the postern door.



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VI

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My heart sang as I went about the business
of my assumed captaincy.  She left all to me,
and ever and anon as I was in the midst of my
activities I saw her eyes fasten upon me and
smile encouragement and sweet trust.  I was
in my element now that war's alarm was sounding.
Never in my life before had I addressed
myself to fight so gaily as now.  I had fought
for treasure, for dear friends, for a noble king,
for honour and truth and liberty; but never, as
it chanced, had it fallen to my lot to battle for
a lady.  And when I thought of Rory Mac
Shane—faugh! what a mouthful of ugliness his name!—I
laughed within myself, and *Io triumphe* rang
a joyous peal in my head.

But I must come back to my tale.

Leaving my good fellow Stubbs, who had
catched fire from me, to muster all the serviceable
varlets in the courtyard, I made haste to
mount to the top of the keep, to judge how long
a time for preparation I had before the enemy
should come.  They were, as I guessed, a good
mile away.  I descended, and as swiftly as might
be I ranged through all the castle, now wholly
open to me, and observed in my hasty survey
those points where it was most vulnerable.
Meantime I had commanded that all weapons
of every sort should be carried into the courtyard,
and coming there again, I parted them
among the garrison, a pitiful poor rabble as was
ever mustered to defend a fortress.  There were
not so many as I had seen when first I came to
the place, and I began to suspect that some
faint-hearted rascals had hidden themselves away
in tenderness for their skins.  But when I turned
to the lady to ask of this matter—she stood
queenly on the step of the postern—she told me
that the night before she had dispatched sundry
stout fellows with munition and victuals to her
father, who had sent word that he was in dire
straits, cooped up in a wild place by the English
forces.  By this I knew the meaning of that
coming and going which had delayed my flight,
yet for which I was now beyond measure thankful,
seeing that otherwise I should have got clean
away (so I flattered myself), and my lady had
been lost.

Yet this diminishment of my forces was a
grievous matter, as I saw very well when, going
again to the battlemented roof, I descried the
enemy pouring down the hillside, a rout of nigh
two hundred men, but not marching in the
ordered ranks of disciplined soldiers.  They were
all afoot, a rabble of half-naked kernes, equipped
some with darts, some with bows and arrows, a
mere few with matchlocks.  I saw with great
thankfulness that they had no artillery, so that
we need fear no battering and breaching of the
walls.  And then, wondering how they purposed
to come across the lake, I perceived that many
of them bore massy bundles, the nature whereof
I could not determine.  And as I stood peering
over the parapet, I was aware that Mistress
Sheila was at my side, and turned to her, asking
without preface what those bundles might be.
She told me that they were boats, made of the
hides of beasts strained over a framework of osiers.

"An armada, sooth!" I cried, feigning a
cheerfulness I did not own.  "King Rory apes
King Philip, and comes a-wooing with a fleet."

She flashed me a look, and her lips quivered.

"You are not afraid, mistress?" said I.

"Was your Queen afraid with her captains
about her?" she said; and in a murmur, soft
as a mavis' evening note, she added: "I trust
my captain too."

And she laid in my hand my own sword, which
had been taken from me when I was lugged from
the slough.

"List to me, mistress," I said, stilling my
leaping pulse, for our peril was near.  "Do you
bring all the women and children to this place,
and when I have descended, bolt the door upon
me.  You and they will be safe here, while we
beat off the enemy below."

She nodded her head, and fled away, coming
back a while after with the beldam and the rest
of the women, young and old, all huddling like
silly sheep, moaning and crying, spite of the
rebukes of their high-hearted mistress.  I bade
her good-bye and sped down the stairs, hearing
the grating of the bolt behind me, and came to
the courtyard, where the men were assembled
expecting me.

I had already resolved upon my plan of
defence.  Our chiefest danger, as I saw, was
that the enemy, when they had crossed the
lake, would by some means mount the ruinous
wall of the courtyard, that rose but three men's
height above the water, and so swarm upon us.
This wall was upwards of two hundred ells in
circuit, not of a perfect roundure, but irregular,
according to the shape of the rock whereon the
castle was built.  With my few men it would
go hard with us to hold so long a line, and I
foresaw that if the enemy pushed us with any
vigour, we must needs give way before them.
But I had determined upon resisting them at the
wall so long time as we might, and when we
could no longer withstand them, we should
withdraw ourselves into the keep, where even
with a handful I deemed it possible to fend them
off and endure if need be a long siege.

When I had posted my men at divers points
along the wall, suddenly I bethought me of the
water-gate, which gave entrance directly into
the courtyard.  I remembered that the portcullis
was raised, and had the look of being immovable;
but 'twas madness to leave the gate utterly
without defence, and so I called Stubbs to my
side, and bade him find tools wherewith we
might endeavour to remedy this discommodity.
While he was gone about this quest, I looked
around, and beheld with no little indignation
the Lady Sheila standing at the postern of the
keep, watching me.

"Get you up to the roof, mistress," I said
peremptorily, hasting to her.  "This is no place
for you."

"How now!" she cried.  "Am I a maid-servant
to be commanded hither and thither?
Mistress of this castle I stay, sir, and go where
I will."

"Must I e'en carry you?" I said, very foolishly,
not knowing thoroughly the quality of the maid.

"Sirrah, you were best not try," she said, and
when I, still in my folly (and yet 'twas for her
good), stretched out my hands to do as I had
said, she fetched me a buffet that sent me reeling.

"Virago!" I cried, my ear stinging with the blow.

"Upstart!" she made answer, and then with
a swift change she said meekly: "I pray you,
good Master Rudd, let me stay."

Before I could answer, Stubbs came to me
with the tools, and since time was precious I
went at once with him to the gate, and by dint
of hewing and hacking we contrived to drop the
portcullis, and so shut up the entrance that
might otherwise have been our undoing.  Which
was no sooner done than a loud cry summoned
me to the wall, and mounting thereon I saw the
rabblement gathered on the further shore, and
in the forefront a man of vast stature with a
head like a bull-calf, and fat red cheeks bulging
out from a shaggy mane the colour of hay.  He
wore no cap, but his form was clad in a loose
tunic of saffron hue, leather trews to his ankles,
and great shoes of undressed hide.  Flourishing
a two-handed sword, he bellowed something in
the execrable tongue of these savages, and my
Irishman at my side said that he called upon the
Lady Sheila to yield up the castle and make her
humble submission.

"Methinks his name should be Roarer Mac
Shane," said I, and I went to inform the damsel
of his demand.  "What is your answer, mistress,
to this windy swain?  He is young and
over-grown, which may excuse the tempestuous
manner of his wooing."

"Tell him I deny him and defy him," she
cried ringingly.  "I am daughter of Kedagh O'Hagan!"

When this was repeated by my Irishman, Mac
Shane vented another blast of foul breath, and
at his command a company of his ruffians hied
them to the woods towards the north side of the
lake, and fell to cutting timber, which they
proceeded to fashion into rafts, binding the logs
together with ropes they had brought with them:
manifestly Mac Shane had not expected the lady
to spring into his arms.  While this was doing,
others of the ragged crew built light ladders,
setting at the top iron hooks wherewith to catch
the wall.  These preparations were little to my
liking, and I saw that there was rough work
before us.

And now becoming aware of my emptiness,
for I had neither eaten nor drunk since my
supper overnight, I considered there was time
to make a meal, without overhaste, for 'twould
certainly be an hour or two ere the rafts and
ladders were finished.  My fair lady served me
with her own hands, and paid me little heed
when I said she must be sparing of victuals, but
heaped upon my platter plenty of broiled flesh
garnished with shamrock, a herb of the country,
with fair white bread, butter (somewhat rancid),
and a great horn of mead.

"Great warriors must needs be great eaters,"
she said, sitting composedly over against the
window near to the ancient gossip her companion,
whom she had fetched from above, and who had
never yet said a word in my hearing.

"But not great eaters great warriors," said I,
in her vein.

"No, or swine would be the most warlike of
beasts," she said.  Then, resting her chin upon
her hand: "Tell me, Master Captain Rudd, the
manner of your escape.  My women say you are
a necromancer."

"Why, mistress, then by my black art
conjured myself into the shape of a simple fowl,
and spread my wings, and hey!"

"Tush!  Tell me true," she said.  "Such
fables are for children."

"Well then," said I, "since I may not be a
bird, what say you to a fish?"

"I cannot abide 'em, save broiled, and with
sauce," she said.

"Then may the broiling I shall suffer this
day, and the sauce of good hard knocks, bring
me to the top of your good favour," said I.
"But, indeed, I swim like a fish, and dive like
a duck——"

"Or a goose?" she caught me up.

"But with no quackery," said I, "I heaved
myself up to my window-sill—

"Then you should have been trussed," she said.

"Nay, madam, the trust is yours," said I;
"and from the sill I leapt into your lake, and
so got myself, somewhat damp and muddied, to
the further shore."

"And without a wound?" she said, catching
at her breath.

"Save in my heart," I said in a low voice.

"What! hath any Englishman a heart?" she
said; and then as I glanced at the frowning dame
beside her, she cried right merrily—

"Oh, she knows no English!" and then with
some confusion and haste she asked me of the
Queen and the Court, and led me insensibly to
relate to her some particulars of my past life,
whereby the time sped away so fast, and I had
so far forgotten the posture of our affairs, that
I suffered a shock when Stubbs came running
to me and said that the Irishmen were setting
across.  I called myself an ass, snatched my
sword, and made to the door.

"God bless thee with perseverance!" said the
maid softly, using the Queen's words in that
brief epistle, which I had shown to her in our
discourse; and with those sweet tones making
melody in my heart I went forth to try a bout
with Rory Mac Shane.



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VII

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When I came to the wall I beheld a half-score
of the hide-boats being propelled over the lake,
and four or five of the new-made platforms, each
one pressed down by the burthen of men upon
it.  The number of our assailants was, I suppose,
above a hundred, and against them we had less
than a score.  These by my appointment had
taken post along the wall, having, besides their
weapons, fragments of rock gathered from the
ruinous battlements, stink-pots of homely device,
and such other missiles as the people had been
able to prepare.  Of firearms we had but two
old rusty pieces, my own pistol and the guns of
my men having been sent away the night before
with the succours dispatched to Kedagh O'Hagan.
But I observed joyfully that our assaulters were
in little better case in that regard, for when
their quaint, unsteady vessels had come within
shot of us, they discharged upon us only two
or three bullets, which did us no harm, so
ill-directed were they.  My man Stubbs and
another fellow gave them a shot apiece in reply,
or rather they would have done, had not Stubbs'
musket burst in his hand, one of the fragments
striking his brow and stunning him for some
time.  He bore the mark of it to his dying day.

As for the other men, I had charged them to
do nothing until the adversary should come
directly beneath the wall.  In their haste and
eagerness they did not all obey my behest, but
the most part did, so that the vessels, when
they drew in under, were assailed by a tempest
of missiles which did much execution, and sent
one of the frail barks of hide topsy-turvy to the
bottom.  Our garrison suffered no hurt at this
first onset, save that one foolish old man,
forgetful of my warning to cover himself with the
wall, peered over to see what had been done, and
fell with a dart in his throat.

But we being so few, certain of the enemy's
vessels escaped hurt altogether; and were no
sooner beneath the wall than their crews hoisted
the ladders, and fixing the hooks in crevices and
gaps of the stonework, began incontinently to
swarm aloft.  Even the ladders were more in
number than all the men of the garrison, and
had Rory Mac Shane possessed a jot of
generalship, it would have gone hardly with us.  But
he had taken no care that all his men should
begin to mount at the same instant.  Every man
did what seemed good in his own eyes, so that
we were able to run from one ladder to another,
and with push of pike, or knife-thrust, or indeed
with bare fists, to hurl the climbers down into
the water or upon their platforms, ere they
could make good their footing on the wall.
This was, moreover, the easier for us, inasmuch
as only one man could ascend each ladder at
one time.

Yet we were hard put to it, I assure you.  I
had posted Stubbs at one end of our spread line,
holding myself at the other, both of us ready
to hasten to any spot that might seem more
desperately menaced.  So nimble were the
attackers that we had much ado to convey
ourselves with speed enough from point to point,
and I am sure that neither he nor I had ever in
our lives before so vigorously bestirred ourselves.
Not once nor twice did we come in the bare
nick of time where the danger threatened, and
it being midday, and hot, we were soon reeking
with our sweat.

From the beginning I had marked Rory Mac
Shane himself, and kept as close a watch upon
him as in the press and hurry I could.  Being,
as I have said, a man of monstrous bulk, he was
not so nimble in his motions as the leaner fry,
nor did not essay to mount upon a ladder among
the first.  But as I turned from dealing with
one hardy climber, I espied Mac Shane, a good
way off, swing himself from the top of his ladder
and throw one leg across the wall, plying a
doughty sword against an ancient servitor that
sought to stay him with his pike.  At the very
instant of my espying him, he cleft the pike
shaft clean through with his blade, and dealt
the old man so grievous a wound that he dropt
to the ground, coughing out his life-blood.  I
had leapt towards him, and immediately
afterwards came upon him a-tilt; and having the
advantage of him, as being balanced insecurely
on the wall, I doubt not I should have sped
him but that the dying man lay heaped between
us.  Whereby my sweeping stroke failed
somewhat of its full momentum, and Mac Shane
turned my sword aside as it was in the very act
of falling upon his head.  But giving back before
my onslaught, he was dislodged from his perch,
and toppled with a lusty shout backward into
the water.

I had not time to look what had become of
him, even had it been prudent to show my head
above the parapet, being drawn to another part
of the wall on a like errand.  But after a minute
or two, when I noted a faltering in the attack,
I supposed that he had at the least got some
damage, and hoped that it was grievous enough
to render him unable for further fighting.  There
came no more men up the ladders; which seeing,
we clambered upon the wall, and beheld the
whole rout setting their craft towards the shore,
some few, who had lost their standing, swimming
by their side.  We sped them on their way with
a shower of whatsoever missiles we could first
lay hands upon, and discovered that in the hurry
of their flight they had left two of their ladders
still hooked upon the wall.  These we took as
trophies.  I was nowise ill-pleased to see Rory
Mac Shane in his boat bearing marks of his
discomfiture, his yellow hair falling lank like
seaweed over his cheeks, and his obese frame
seeming somewhat shrunken by reason that his
sodden clothing hung more closely upon him.

When I turned from observing him, the Lady
Sheila met me, bearing a brimming cup of mead.

"'Tis nectar, from a hand fair as Hebe's," said
I, quaffing deeply.

The lustre left her face, and she looked stonily
upon me, whereat in some surprise I said—

"Why, mistress, have I said aught amiss?"

"Nay, sir, what you say is naught to me,
but—but I like not to be equalled with some
English wench."

"Good now!" said I, and could not forbear
smiling.  "Know you, mistress, that Hebe was
no English wench, but a fair maiden of most
illustrious lineage, daughter of gods, herself a
goddess, eternally young, and her office was to
bear the wine-cup of the high Olympians, and I
bethink me she was given as wife to Hercules
himself."

"Oh, mock me not with your Hebes and your
Hercules!" she cried in a pet.  "I wish I had
not brought you drink."

"Nay, madam, for that I thank you heartily;
and I shall hope to give you a better opinion of
those of whom the poets sing, after this business
is concluded."

"A long after, I fear me," she said, with a
look of trouble.

"Why no; I trow we have taught them a
lesson," I said.

"You English are puffed up with your own
conceit," she cried scornfully.  "Think you an
Irishman, and Rory Mac Shane, will be daunted
by one failure?  He is reputed the best fighter
of all men hereabout.  But indeed, Master Rudd"—and
'twas marvellous how sudden her mood
would change—"indeed, we talk idly, when my
poor servants lie wounded.  Help me, good sir,
to tend them."

"Two are past help, madam," I said gravely;
"the rest have suffered little hurt."

She flew from me to the old man slain by
Rory Mac Shane, and I saw the fair maid drop
upon her knees, and breathe a prayer with moist
eyes for the poor soul departed.

There was peace and a great quietude all that
afternoon, though I took it to be that ominous
calm which oft precedes a storm.  Ever and
anon there came to my ears from the distant
woodland the ringing of axes, and I guessed that
more ladders were to be made, and my heart
sank; for with twice the number the adversaries
would be too many for us to deal with piecemeal.
But the day wore to evening, and the sun went
down, and yet there was nothing done.  I had
set watchmen upon the battlements, to inform
me if they saw aught; but when the country
was blanketed in darkness, and the silence was
unbroken save by the croaking of frogs about
the margin of the lake, I supposed that our foes
were taking their rest, to fortify themselves
against the labours of another day.

It wanted an hour or two of midnight when
my man Stubbs came to me from his outpost
on the walls, and told me that the fleet of rafts
and hide-boats had put forth from the shore,
and was approaching in a ghostly silence.  Now
I have never held it a part of valiancy in a true
warrior to oppose himself to invincible odds.
My men being so few and weak, 'twas against
reason that they should withstand a more
numerous foe, who, taught by precedent mishap,
would without question avoid their former errors,
and, covered by the darkness, set up their ladders
more thickly than we could counter.  I shrank
from throwing lives away vainly, and saw that
we must abandon our outer rampart, and shut
ourselves within the keep, whereto there was
but one entrance, from the courtyard, and
behind whose massy door I thought we should
be safe.  Accordingly I gathered all my company
and withdrew them into the keep, barring the
door with my own hand, and I sent the men
into the watch-house above the door, bidding
them hurl their missiles upon the heads of the
enemy when they should make to assault us.

My prescience was approved ere many minutes
were past.  Looking from a window in the keep,
I saw the wall thick with dark shapes mounting
from innumerable ladders, and leaping down
into the courtyard with scarce a sound.  Some
of them turned about, and began to haul on
ropes, and there came over the wall two or three
of their rafts, whereat I wondered, not divining
what purpose these could serve.  But in a little
I saw their cunning device, for the Irishmen
hoisted the rafts upon their shoulders, and
employing them in the manner of what the Romans
called a testudo, advanced, thus defended, towards
the door of the keep.  The missiles launched on
them from above bounded off from those broad
shields, as I knew by hearing rather than sight,
for being now come within the shadow of the
keep they were no longer visible.

Expecting a vehement onset upon the door,
I ran down and posted myself with Stubbs and
two or three more at the foot of the stairway.
Mistress O'Hagan, in defiance of my express
charge, had not taken refuge upon the roof with
her household women, but stayed in a little room
hard by the first winding of the stair.  As it fell
out, this flat obstinacy turned to our advantage.

We waited there at the foot of the stair,
holding our weapons in readiness; but when,
after some time, no assault was made upon the
door, I began to be uneasy, and wished I might
contrive to see what was a-doing.  We were in
utter darkness, and such poor candles as were
commonly used would not suffice to cast an
effectual light a yard length beyond the wall; but
a thought coming into my head, I bade Stubbs
take command of the men, and running upstairs
to the lady, asked her if she had any means of
making torches or flares.  Instantly she led me
by a back stair to a lower room where was a
quantity of tow, and while I shredded this and
fashioned it to my purpose, she fetched me a
pot of swine's lard and two long and slender
chains.  Then returning to the upper room, we
kindled these flares, and let them down over the
window-sill into the courtyard, amid a great
outcry from the enemy.  By their light we saw
the courtyard swarming with men, and our
people were able to take surer aim with their
missiles; but we had little good of them, as you
shall see.

I observed that the penthouse of rafts was
still about the door, and was much perplexed
as to what was a-doing there.  On a sudden the
rafts fell with a clatter upon the ground, and the
men whom they had sheltered ran swiftly towards
the wall, whither their comrades had retreated so
as they might be the farthest possible from our
missiles.  The meaning of their behaviour flashed
upon my mind, and in my haste letting fall the
chain I held, I caught Mistress Sheila about the
waist, and carried her swiftly into her inner
room.  I had but just set her down, she still
grasping her chain, when from below there burst
a shattering din, and the keep seemed to rock
upon its base.  Springing down the stairs, I
rushed into the bitter smother of gunpowder
smoke, and saw by the light of my dropped flare,
that shone through a rent in the door, the
men I had left thrown down in a heap upon
the floor.  One of them was dead, but the rest,
though bruised and shaken, recovered from their
benumbment in time to stand with me upon the
lowest stairs, before the enemy, leaping across
the courtyard, came with fierce shouts to enter
by the breach they had made.

Happily it was so narrow as that only two
men could come through abreast, and the stair
wound in such sort that we had free play for
our right arms, while the enemy were impeded
by the round of the wall.  So close cramped
were we that there was no place for the subtleties
of fence, in which we might have had some
superiority over our less skilled adversaries.
Stubbs and I, standing the lowest, plied our
swords, made for nicer work, with mere
vehemency, beating aside the weapons of our
assailants, and using our points whenever we could.
Behind us were two Irishmen armed with pikes,
which they thrust between us, with no small
risk to ourselves; and yet higher, a man hurled
stones over our heads upon the thickening crowd.

The stairway rang with the clash of steel, the
shouts of the enemy, and the groans of such as
fell to our weapons.  So little light had we from
the expiring flare, and so confused was the
mellay, that for some little while I was unable
to discern the form of him I especially sought;
but at length I perceived Rory Mac Shane
striding over the prone bodies at the foot of
the stairs, and mounting among three or four
of his men.  I was thinking to hazard a swift
descent upon him, but anon a musket shot from
the door struck the pikeman behind me, and
he lurched against me, so that I could barely
keep my feet.  Another of my good Irishmen
stooped to lift the pike that had fallen from his
comrade's hand, and in defending him I crossed
the guard of Rory Mac Shane, and gave him the
point of my sword in the throat at the opening
of his tunic.  He skipped back in time to escape
mortal hurt, and at that instant a man one step
below him lunged fiercely, and thrust the point
of his long spear through the calf of my right
leg.  Mac Shane was roaring with pain, and
upon his stepping back to staunch his wound,
his followers drew away, giving us some respite,
whereby I was able to make a shift to bind my
handkerchief about my hurt.  As I bent down
I staggered and would have fallen but for the
sustaining arm of Stubbs.  My faintness filled
me with dread; I would have given a world for
a cup of water; and I sickened with dismay as
I thought of what the end might be if my draining
blood left me no strength to endure the fight.

.. _`I CROSSED THE GUARD OF RORY MAC SHANE, AND GAVE HIM THE POINT OF MY SWORD`:

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   :alt: I CROSSED THE GUARD OF RORY MAC SHANE, AND GAVE HIM THE POINT OF MY SWORD

   I CROSSED THE GUARD OF RORY MAC SHANE, AND GAVE HIM THE POINT OF MY SWORD

The intermission was brief.  Mac Shane
gathered a little group about him, and setting
up before them a portion of one of their rafts,
they charged with the utmost impetuosity up
the stairs.  We were driven before them, hacking
vainly at their shield.  I cried to the man above
me to stand by the door at the first landing;
then bidding Stubbs run for his life, I made one
more desperate onslaught upon the raft, and
limping up with what speed I might, I slammed
the door in the face of the enemy, and fell in
much pain and giddiness upon the floor.

There coming out of my swoon I found my
lady kneeling beside me, holding a cup from
which she had poured wine between my lips.
By the light of a candle which Stubbs had
kindled I saw her face, ashy pale, but bending
upon me so sweetly compassionate a look as
shed upon my spirit abundant solace for my
pain.  I asked if all was well, and heard with
no little amazement that an hour had gone
since I shut-to the door, which the enemy had
refrained as yet from anyways assaulting.  I
conjectured that they were biding their time
till morning illumined the scene, being in no
dubiety of the ultimate act, since they had us
caged like rats in a trap.  Indeed, they might
wait for famine to vanquish us, unless perchance
they had some dread of the return of Kedagh
O'Hagan.  That we could resist them long
had no hope at all, for the upper doors might
be forced more easily than the great door below,
and we should be pressed back to the roof, where,
overpowered by their greater numbers, we must
succumb.  It seemed that my eyes were the
index to my thoughts, for looking earnestly upon
me, the lady said—

.. _`I FOUND MY LADY KNEELING BESIDE ME, HOLDING A CUP`:

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   :alt: I FOUND MY LADY KNEELING BESIDE ME, HOLDING A CUP

   I FOUND MY LADY KNEELING BESIDE ME, HOLDING A CUP

"Good sir, you shall suffer no more for me.
'Tis not meet that a stranger lose his life in so
poor a cause."

"Nay, madam," said I, "the cause is good,
and the stranger not so strange neither.  Besides,
what will you do?"

"I will purchase your safety by yielding of
the castle," said she.

"And Rory Mac Shane?" I hinted.

She winced a little, and a shudder ran through her.

"There is always the lake," she said in a whisper.

"O that I had a troop of Hilary Rawdon's
men, or Toby Caulfeild's, or any other my
companions?" I groaned out, as the meaning
of her words smote upon my perception.  And
then, to ease the time, she questioned me of
those friends I had mentioned; and as we talked
of matchless doings by land and sea, beguiling
thus our anxious spirits, the dawn crept upon
us, and the sweet descant of a lark's song floated
in at the open window.

"'Hark, hark, the lark at heaven's gate
sings,'" I said, using Will Shakespeare's words.
"Methinks that warble is of good augury for us."

And as I rose stiffly to my feet, I heard faintly
through the door the clash and rumble of armed
men stirring below.

"Get you upon the roof, mistress," I said
hastily, taking my sword, and though I spoke
masterfully, in a manner that had angered her
before, she made no opposition, but flitted away,
turning at the bend of the stair to give me a
last look, mute but eloquent.

I dispatched all the men but three to the
roof, bidding them hold the trap open for the
final retreat.  Hardly were they gone when
there resounded a shattering blow upon the
door.  With my three men I stood upon the
stairway, commending myself to God, and
presently the door fell in before the redoubled
assaults of a ram which the enemy had contrived
to make, and there burst upon us Rory Mac
Shane and a cluster of his minions.  They were
beset by so fierce a hail of stones from above
that they gave back, but returned directly,
bearing the shield of wood which we had
aforetime proved invulnerable.  Little by little the
vehemency of their onset drove us back from
one step to another.  One of my Irishmen gasped
out his life as a musket shot channelled his lungs.
I heard my good Stubbs groan, and knew by
and by that a dart had transfixed his arm.  In
that extremity I looked for Sergeant Death to
lay his peremptory arrest upon me; but on a
sudden, from above, I heard my lady's voice
cry with a ringing gladness that help was at
hand.  Whether the adversary understood her
words I know not, but their import was not to
be mistaken.  Their fierce shouts sank to a
sudden stillness; their ascent was stayed; and
from below there rose the cries of men stricken
with astonishment and fear.  And as our near
opponents halted in the pause of irresolution,
I took a leap, and lighting full upon their
wooden shield, dashed it and the men beneath
pell-mell to the landing.  And Rory Mac Shane,
casting up his arms when he found himself
staggering backward, bared his great breast to
the unchecked thrust of my sword, which passing
clean through him bored a passage for his soul.



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VIII

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"How now, my bully rook!" sang a well-remembered
bluff voice in my ear some while
after, for my ill-bound wound had bled afresh,
and I had lain as one dead.  "What! hast
cheated man's last enemy yet once again?"

.. _`"HOW NOW, MY BULLY ROOK!"`:

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   "HOW NOW, MY BULLY ROOK!"

And lifting my eyes I beheld the round ruby
countenance of my comrade Toby Caulfeild, that
commanded a troop of horse in the army of the
Lord Deputy.

"All's well?" I asked him feebly.

"All's well that ends well," said he, "though
I misdoubt the end's not yet."

"My Lady Sheila?" I said.

"Ah yes, I have heard the name," said he
drily.  "For a good hour you have done nothing
but prattle of Sheilas and Hebes, and Hercules
and roarers, mingling Christian and heathen in
such sort that my very ears blushed to hear you."

"What is done?" said I.

"Sundry things that cannot be undone," said
he, "namely, many ruffians sent to their
account, many more so slashed and carved that
all the surgeons in Christendom could not make
of them aught but patchwork.  We came in
time to finish your work, my Chris, but only
just in time."

"I heard the lark singing," said I, wandering
somewhat in my wits.

"And shall again," said he; "but indeed I
know a song worthy two of that, and that was
carolled by the rosy lips of a most enchanting
damsel.  Hark!  I hear it even now."

And I too heard the low, sweet music of my
lady's voice, trolling a ditty in a chamber not
far away.  And there broke into it the loud,
rough utterance of a man, speaking words in the
Irish tongue, and the song ceased.

"What rude unmannerly lubber——" I was
beginning, but Toby checked me.

"Tush! a father stands on no ceremony with
his child," he said.

"Her father!" said I.

"Ay, her father, Kedagh O'Hagan, the arrantest
rebel and the jolliest old swasher that ever
'scaped hanging.  Hark while I tell you.  We
were in full cry after the O'Neill when a
tatterdemalion kerne came hot-foot after us, bearing
a letter very fairly writ but somewhat indictable
in the article of spelling, addressed to our general;
the which perusing, he read a very painful threat
to hang you up if O'Hagan should suffer so
much as the clipping of a hair.  He twitched
his brows—you know his way—and said that
having fallen into the hands of some apparent
termagant or vixenish shrew you must e'en
abide his leisure, swearing roundly that
Christopher Rudd's head was nought in comparison
with the rascal O'Neill.

"Well, it chanced some days after that we
snared this Kedagh O'Hagan in our toils, and
our general, who loves you heartily, gave him
into my hands and bade him bring me to his
lair, charging me to hang him in his own
courtyard if you had been diminished by the paring
of a nail.  Last night, as we rode over yond
hills, we saw a great way off two red fires descend
as from the sky, and kindle their image in a
space of water beneath.  The sight put O'Hagan
into a fret and fume, he declaring the lights
portended some menace to his castle.  We made
all the speed we could, but what with the rough
pathless hills and the villainous reechy fens, we
had to go so far about that 'twas morning ere
we came to the place.  And as we issued forth
of the wood yonder we saw the roof filled with
women, of whom one at sight of us waved a
handkercher as if to say 'Haste! haste!'  Coming
to the water's edge, and finding no craft
to ferry us across, we swam our horses, and
some of us mounted the wall by ladders we saw
hooked there for our conveniency, and so fell
upon the pack of howling Irishmen in the
courtyard and about the door.  And when we had
done our work, and the old man rushed panting
up the stairs, raging for his daughter, he found
her here with your head in her lap, dropping
salt tears of happiness."

I pressed his hand and thanked him for the
service he had done me.

"Well, lad, well, 'tis nought," said he.  "Come
now, your tale.  I must hear about this pickle you
fell into, and all the process of your adventures."

I told him how I had been embogged, and
brought hither to the castle, and how I had
borne my part in defending it against the
desperadoes; but I said no whit of my escape by
diving, nor of my return.  When I came to the
end of my brief relation, Toby regarded me very
whimsically.

"So, so, my Chris," he said, "you deem your
old friend Toby to be unworthy of your confidence.
Why, man, I knew all that, and a great deal
more; for I took the pains, when the damsel
had related all to her father in a torrent of
Irishry—the which methinks hath its melodies—I
took the pains, I say, to persuade her to rehearse
the same in English, which she did with a pretty
smack of her tongue that pleased me mightily.
She showed me the window whence you made
your monstrous dive, waxed eloquent upon your
chivalry in coming back to defend her, called
you her noble captain, and, in short, so worked
upon my inflammable heart that it pricked and
stung with jealousy, and I wished I had been
in your room."

Hereupon our converse was broken off by the
entrance of the maiden herself, leading by the
hand a tall old man of a majestical and warlike
presence.  She brought him to my bedside, and
spoke softly for his ear alone; and he thanked
me with a noble grace and courtesy, and offered
me the hospitality of his castle until my wound
should be thoroughly healed.

When they had departed, Toby Caulfeild
heaved a windy sigh.

"Good lack, I envy thee, Chris!" he said.
"Never a maiden looked on me with such
adorable eyes."

"I did not mark her eyes," said I.

"No, you had eyes for the old man alone,"
said he.  "I warrant she will look on me
otherwise when I go hence, for the general charged
me, if all was well with you, to convey the
prisoner straightly back to camp.  What am I
to tell him of you, Chris?"

"It needs not that you tell him anything," I
answered.  "I shall come with you."

"Tush, man, 'twill be a month ere you can
sit a horse in any comfort," said he.  "I know
that, though I am no leech.  And something
whispers me that your fighting days are over.
Never again shall we outface the murderous
cannon together, never again mount side by
side into the deadly breach.  Alack, old lad,
and wellaway!"

"You talk a deal of nonsensical nothing,
Toby," said I.  "My organs are sound enough;
shall I cease to bear arms for a paltry poke i'
the leg?"

"Ah, lad, I doubt your organs be not so
sound as you suppose;" and saying this he
sighed again, and smiled whimsically when I
asked him if I had unawares been wounded in
another part.  "Time will show," said he.
"Now I must get me to horse, though I dread
the lady's anger when I tell her I must take
her father hence."

But after some time he came back in great
cheerfulness of spirit.

"She received me sweetly," he said, "avowed
'twas hard for a daughter to part from her father,
but I must do my duty; said she had confidence
in the courtesy of English gentlemen and knew
we should treat her father well; assured me that
you should have all good care and tendance, and
thanked Heaven that Master Rudd had so true
a friend.  Then she smiled bewitchingly upon
me, gave me her hand, and looked as though
the greatest pleasure in life I could do her was
to turn my back and hie me away.  What will
the Queen say, Chris?"

He laughed heartily at my bewilderment upon
this question, then sighed again, shook my hand
mournfully, and so departed.

It needs not to tell of those few weeks I spent
in sickness on my couch, yet weeks of bliss and
unimaginable contentment.  My lady spent the
greater part of every day with me, bringing me
confections made by her own fair hands, smoothing
my pillow, tending me with kind ministrations,
reading to me prettily out of her books, and
hanging upon my lips when I related, as she
bade me, somewhat of my adventures.  One
day, when reading out of Master Spenser's book,
she faltered at those lines—

   |  "Where they do feed on Nectar heavenly-wise,
   |  With Hercules and Hebe and the rest,"

and with a pretty blush she listened as I told
her those enchanting fables of the antique
world.

"And I was jealous of Hebe!" she said.

"'That canker-worm, that monster, Jealousy!'"
I quoted from the same poem.  "But
why jealous of Hebe, mistress?" I asked.

"Because I was a witless, silly child," she
said.  "Jealous of a goddess, indeed!  But I
knew not then she was a goddess."

"You thought she was a maiden like yourself?"
I said.

"Not like myself," she said, "but fairer."

"Was there ever fairer?" said I, under my breath.

"Tell me, are there many pretty ladies at
your Queen's Court?" she said.

I feigned to consider deeply, and rehearsed
the names of some known to me, praising this
one and that, and marking how her breath came
and went.

"But no one durst say a good word of any
in the hearing of the Queen," said I.  "She
must ever be the fairest, the wittiest, the best
proportioned, the most nobly endowed both in
body and mind.  Do you know, mistress, the
Queen hath banished and even cast into prison
many a man that has dared to wed one of her
ladies?"

"Is she so unkind?" she said.

"And when Toby Caulfeild was leaving me
he said, 'What will the Queen say, Chris?'
and my doltish pate did not understand him."

"Why, that is simple," she said.  "He meant
that the Queen would be sore grieved at hearing
of your hurt.  With her own hand she wrote,
'Thy loving sovereign.'"

"She will love me no more when she knows
that I love thee," said I, laying my hand upon
hers.

She let it rest so for a little, and her cheeks
went from red to pale, and from pale to red
again.  Then her hand stole from mine, and
clasped the other upon her lap.

"Ay, none but thee," I said, seeking her eyes
beneath the covert of their lids.  I breathed her
name.  I reached out my hand and gently unclasped
her twining fingers, and with a lift of
the eyes she gave me my answer.

"Let the Queen say what she will!" I cried
in my joy.  "There is a little place in our south
country, Sheila, within sound of the sea, in a
fair forest, near soft-running brooks.  I would
not exchange it for a king's palace.  Good-bye
the Camp, good-bye the pomp and glitter of the
Court.  There will we nest ourselves, my sweet,
away from the noise and racket of the world."

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Toby Caulfeild was approved a true prophet.
My fighting days were done.  We took up our
abode, Sheila and I, on my little manor, out of
the current of war and intrigue, untouched by
the discords that rent England asunder when
the great Queen had gone to her rest.  I never
saw the Queen again after that Christmas when
she goaded me to fight; what she would have
said on hearing that I had wed an Irish maiden
without her royal consent could only be guessed.
When I returned with my bride from Ireland,
the Queen was deep sunk in a lethargy, and the
joys and sorrows of mortality were beyond her ken.

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   tailpiece to Fifth Part





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   Postscript

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My grandfather took his bride home in the
summer of the year 1603, and there they lived
in great happiness and contentment, rarely
stirring abroad save to make brief and sudden
visits to London and to their many friends.
My father, their sole child, was born in October
of the year 1604, and when he came to the age
of eleven, he was sent to the school at Winchester,
whence in due order he proceeded to the New
College at Oxford.

All these years did my grandfather hold
himself aloof from the Court, being much troubled
in his mind about the foolish and heady courses
of King James.  My lady grandmother told me,
I remember, how that on the day when he had
news of the beheading of his old captain Sir
Walter Raleigh, he shut himself up in his
chamber, and for very sorrow would neither
see nor speak with any of his household.  And
methinks I hear still his full round voice
rehearsing to me the famous verses which Sir
Walter wrote, the night before his death, in the
Bible of the Dean of Westminster.  "He lived
and died a gentleman, boy," said he to me;
"and if you would know the true signification
of that word 'gentleman,' read Castillo's *Book
of the Courtier*, in Mr. Hoby's translation, though
in truth you will find all and more in the 15th
Psalm."

In the summer of the year 1623 there came
to him a gentleman post-haste from London,
bearing a letter from a very great person bidding
him journey without delay to Westminster.
Being beholden to the writer, he must needs
comply, though apprehensive of trouble in his
quiet life.  And after two days a messenger
brought from him a letter wherein he wrote that
he had been commanded to cross over to France,
and ride with all imaginable speed into Spain,
on an errand of great moment.  My grandmother
was sorely disquieted at this news, more especially
because he told her no more, nor indeed did she
learn the cause of his going until he returned in
time to keep my father's birthday.

It was on this wise.  There had been talk for
many years of a marriage between the Infanta
Maria, daughter of King Philip IV of Spain,
and our Prince Charles (now King, though a
prisoner), a match very little to the liking of
our English people.  But King James hoped by
this alliance to aid the cause of his son-in-law
the Elector Palatine, and he carried the business
so far as that nothing was wanting except the
Pope's dispensation, whereby alone could a
Catholic princess wed with a heretic.

Now the Prince of Wales, at that time three
and twenty years of age, was a thoughtless
unsteady youth, deserving well the fond name of
Baby Charles bestowed upon him by his doting
father.  In consort with his boon friend the
Marquis (afterwards Duke) of Buckingham, he
conceived the lunatic fancy of going himself to
Madrid, with the intent to hasten the match,
and woo the Princess in person.  Wherefore in
February of that year the two headstrong young
men, disguised with false beards, and calling
themselves Tom and John Smith, set forth from
Newhall, crossed the sea from Dover, and rode
through France into Spain, where they were
received, having thrown off their disguise, with
due honour.  But, being light-minded, they ran
foul of the stiff ceremoniousness of the Spanish
Court and gave deep offence, the Prince by his
levity, the Marquis by his insolency.  It was
deemed fit that the Infanta should be approached
only with the forms of State; yet the Prince,
seeing her walk alone in a garden, leapt over
the wall and made love to her, whereat she
screamed and fled from this too ardent wooing.
The Spaniards, moreover, held it unseemly that
the Marquis, a subject, sat in his dressing-gown
at the Prince's table, turned his back upon him
in public places, and bent himself forward to
stare unmannerly at the Infanta.  And the
Marquis was continually at odds with Olivarez,
the Spanish minister, used him haughtily, and
browbeat him without measure whether in word
or deed.  To be brief, they played the fool.

In the summer, when a month had gone by
without any word arriving from the Prince, who
had been wont before to write often to his father,
King James, then afflicted with the gout, and
sick also in mind, conceived that his dear Baby
Charles stood in peril of captivity, and went
about wringing his hands, and crying with tears
that his only sweet son would never see his old
dear dad again.  Whereupon the great person
aforesaid resolved to send some staid and discreet
person privily to Madrid to have an eye upon
the Prince, and to bring him away, even by
kidnapping, if he were in truth menaced by any
danger.  And bethinking him of my grandfather,
and how he had acquit himself well in
many divers adventures, and moreover had had
dealings with the Spaniards, he sent for him and
dispatched him forth on that errand.

As it fell out, my grandfather had his pains
for nought.  The Prince, with that deceitfulness
which has brought his present woes upon him,
having made promises which he knew he could
never perform, departed from Madrid, leaving,
as the custom with royal persons is, a proxy to
wed the Infanta, ten days after the Pope's
dispensation should come to hand, although he
was in truth already minded to break off the
match.  Upon his return, the great person
acquainted King James with what he had done,
and the King sent for my grandfather, and
blessed him with many tears, and dubbed him
knight.

Thereafter Sir Christopher dwelt only in the
country, beholding with troubled eyes the
headlong gait of Baby Charles after that he became
King.

In the year 1624 my father, having proceeded
Master of Arts at Oxford, became parson of a
parish in Wiltshire, and wedded the daughter
of a neighbour gentleman, and in the next year
I was born.  When I was sixteen, and a scholar
of Winchester, my grandfather related to me the
passages of his life which I have set forth in
these writings.  Five years afterward, when the
Rebellion was at its height, and my father held
obstinately for the King, he was haled before
the Committee of Sequestration, and charged in
that he had incited his parishioners to attend
the King's rendezvous at Austin's Cross and
also helped the royal garrison at Longford Castle.
By this Committee being ejected from his living,
he returned to his father's house, and there
abode.  And in the next year, on November 15,
the very day when King Charles crept into
Carisbrooke Castle, my grandfather died, to the sorrow
of us who had the chiefest cause to love him, and
of the friends and neighbours among whom he
had lived in all honour and righteousness.

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RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED,
BRUNSWICK STREET, STAMFORD STREET, S.E.,
AND BUNGAY, SUFFOLK.

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