nd then, with the iron nerve which good women have, she made him give
her every detail of Lucy Passmore's story and of all which had happened
from the day of their sailing to that luckless night at Guayra. And when
it was done, she led Ayacanora out, and began busying herself about the
girl's comforts, as calmly as if Frank and Amyas had been sleeping in
their cribs in the next room.

But she had hardly gone upstairs, when a loud knock at the door was
followed by its opening hastily; and into the hall burst, regardless of
etiquette, the tall and stately figure of Sir Richard Grenville.

Amyas dropped on his knees instinctively. The stern warrior was quite
unmanned; and as he bent over his godson, a tear dropped from that iron
cheek, upon the iron cheek of Amyas Leigh.

"My lad! my glorious lad! and where have you been? Get up, and tell me
all. The sailors told me a little, but I must hear every word. I knew
you would do something grand. I told your mother you were too good a
workman for God to throw away. Now, let me have the whole story. Why, I
am out of breath! To tell truth, I ran three-parts of the way hither."

And down the two sat, and Amyas talked long into the night; while Sir
Richard, his usual stateliness recovered, smiled stern approval at each
deed of daring; and when all was ended, answered with something like a
sigh:

"Would God that I had been with you every step! Would God, at least,
that I could show as good a three-years' log-book, Amyas, my lad!"

"You can show a better one, I doubt not."

"Humph! With the exception of one paltry Spanish prize, I don't know
that the queen is the better, or her enemies the worse, for me, since we
parted last in Dublin city."

"You are too modest, sir."

"Would that I were; but I got on in Ireland, I found, no better than my
neighbors; and so came home again, to find that while I had been wasting
my time in that land of misrule, Raleigh had done a deed to which I can
see no end. For, lad, he has found (or rather his two captains, Amadas
and Barlow, have found for him) between Florida and Newfoundland, a
country, the like of which, I believe, there is not on the earth for
climate and fertility. Whether there be gold there, I know not, and it
matters little; for there is all else on earth that man can want; furs,
timber, rivers, game, sugar-canes, corn, fruit, and every commodity
which France, Spain, or Italy can yield, wild in abundance; the savages
civil enoug