perors of Byzant--Hey, Amyas? You would make a gallant
chieftain of Varangs. We'll do it, lad!"

"We'll try," said Amyas; "but we must be quick, for there's one Berreo
sworn to carry out the quest to the death; and if the Spaniards once get
thither, their plan of works will be much more like Pizarro's than like
yours; and by the time we come, there will be neither gold nor city
left."

"Nor Indians either, I'll warrant the butchers; but, lad, I am promised
to Humphrey; I have a bark fitting out already, and all I have, and
more, adventured in her; so Manoa must wait."

"It will wait well enough, if the Spaniards prosper no better on the
Amazon than they have done; but must I come with you? To tell the truth,
I am quite shore-sick, and to sea I must go. What will my mother say?"

"I'll manage thy mother," said Raleigh; and so he did; for, to cut a
long story short, he went back the month after, and he not only took
home letters from Amyas to his mother, but so impressed on that good
lady the enormous profits and honors to be derived from Meta Incognita,
and (which was most true) the advantage to any young man of sailing
with such a general as Humphrey Gilbert, most pious and most learned of
seamen and of cavaliers, beloved and honored above all his compeers by
Queen Elizabeth, that she consented to Amyas's adventuring in the
voyage some two hundred pounds which had come to him as his share of
prize-money, after the ever memorable circumnavigation. For Mrs.
Leigh, be it understood, was no longer at Burrough Court. By Frank's
persuasion, she had let the old place, moved up to London with her
eldest son, and taken for herself a lodging somewhere by Palace Stairs,
which looked out upon the silver Thames (for Thames was silver then),
with its busy ferries and gliding boats, across to the pleasant fields
of Lambeth, and the Archbishop's palace, and the wooded Surrey hills;
and there she spent her peaceful days, close to her Frank and to the
Court. Elizabeth would have had her re-enter it, offering her a small
place in the household: but she declined, saying that she was too old
and heart-weary for aught but prayer. So by prayer she lived, under the
sheltering shadow of the tall minster where she went morn and even to
worship, and to entreat for the two in whom her heart was bound up; and
Frank slipped in every day if but for five minutes, and brought with him
Spenser, or Raleigh, or Dyer, or Budaeus or sometimes Sidney's se