ard from many, both of your last
night's prowess, and of your conduct and courage beyond the promise of
your years, displayed in that ever-memorable voyage, which may well be
ranked with the deeds of the ancient Argonauts."

Amyas bowed low; and the lord deputy went on, "You will needs wish
to see your prisoner. You will find him such a one as you need not be
ashamed to have taken, and as need not be ashamed to have been taken by
you: but here he is, and will, I doubt not, answer as much for himself.
Know each other better, gentlemen both: last night was an ill one for
making acquaintances. Don Guzman Maria Magdalena Sotomayor de Soto, know
the hidalgo, Amyas Leigh!"

As he spoke, the Spaniard came forward, still in his armor, all save his
head, which was bound up in a handkerchief.

He was an exceedingly tall and graceful personage, of that sangre azul
which marked high Visigothic descent; golden-haired and fair-skinned,
with hands as small and white as a woman's; his lips were delicate but
thin, and compressed closely at the corners of the mouth; and his pale
blue eye had a glassy dulness. In spite of his beauty and his carriage,
Amyas shrank from him instinctively; and yet he could not help
holding out his hand in return, as the Spaniard, holding out his, said
languidly, in most sweet and sonorous Spanish--

"I kiss his hands and feet. The senor speaks, I am told, my native
tongue?"

"I have that honor."

"Then accept in it (for I can better express myself therein than in
English, though I am not altogether ignorant of that witty and learned
language) the expression of my pleasure at having fallen into the
hands of one so renowned in war and travel; and of one also," he added,
glancing at Amyas's giant bulk, "the vastness of whose strength, beyond
that of common mortality, makes it no more shame for me to have been
overpowered and carried away by him than if my captor had been a paladin
of Charlemagne's."

Honest Amyas bowed and stammered, a little thrown off his balance by the
unexpected assurance and cool flattery of his prisoner; but he said--

"If you are satisfied, illustrious senor, I am bound to be so. I
only trust that in my hurry and the darkness I have not hurt you
unnecessarily."

The Don laughed a pretty little hollow laugh: "No, kind senor, my head,
I trust, will after a few days have become united to my shoulders;
and, for the present, your company will make me forget any slight
discomfort."