Walter's friends are ours."

Amyas enters, and stands hesitating in the doorway.

"Captain Leigh!" cry half a-dozen voices.

"Why did you not walk in, sir?" says Osborne. "You should know your way
well enough between these decks."

"Well enough, my lords and gentlemen. But, Sir Walter--you will excuse
me"--and he gave Raleigh a look which was enough for his quick wit.
Turning pale as death, he rose, and followed Amyas into an adjoining
cabin. They were five minutes together; and then Amyas came out alone.

In few words he told the company the sad story which we already know.
Ere it was ended, noble tears were glistening on some of those stern
faces.

"The old Egyptians," said Sir Edward Osborne, "when they banqueted, set
a corpse among their guests, for a memorial of human vanity. Have we
forgotten God and our own weakness in this our feast, that He Himself
has sent us thus a message from the dead?"

"Nay, my lord mayor," said Sidney, "not from the dead, but from the
realm of everlasting life."

"Amen!" answered Osborne. "But, gentlemen, our feast is at an end. There
are those here who would drink on merrily, as brave men should, in spite
of the private losses of which they have just had news; but none here
who can drink with the loss of so great a man still ringing in his
ears."

It was true. Though many of the guests had suffered severely by the
failure of the expedition, they had utterly forgotten that fact in the
awful news of Sir Humphrey's death; and the feast broke up sadly and
hurriedly, while each man asked his neighbor, "What will the queen say?"

Raleigh re-entered in a few minutes, but was silent, and pressing many
an honest hand as he passed, went out to call a wherry, beckoning Amyas
to follow him. Sidney, Cumberland, and Frank went with them in another
boat, leaving the two to talk over the sad details.

They disembarked at Whitehall-stairs; Raleigh, Sidney, and Cumberland
went to the palace; and the two brothers to their mother's lodgings.

Amyas had prepared his speech to Frank about Rose Salterne, but now that
it was come to the point, he had not courage to begin, and longed that
Frank would open the matter. Frank, too, shrank from what he knew must
come, and all the more because he was ignorant that Amyas had been to
Bideford, or knew aught of the Rose's disappearance.

So they went upstairs; and it was a relief to both of them to find that
their mother was at the Abbey; for it was for