Collioure, though the rolling of vulgar tongues has shortened it a
little in these days. And my mother's name was Valvidia, being of one of
the best houses of Spain. I am therefore of good blood on either
side--you hear, Senor the Soldier?"

The Abbe John nodded. There was nothing remarkable in that. Every
Spaniard counts himself so born, and it must be owned, so far at least
as politeness is concerned, comports himself as such.

But the Chevelure d'Or, its carefully-mixed wine, and the tale thereto
attached proved so soporific, that when John d'Albret awoke, he found
himself chained to a bench in a long, low, evil-smelling place. A huge
oar-handle was before him, upon which he was swaying drunkenly to and
fro. He had on his left two companions who were doing the work of the
rowing, and, erected upon a bench behind, a huge man with a fierce
countenance walked to and fro with a whip in his hand.

"Where am I?" said John d'Albret feebly, his voice appearing to himself
to come from an infinite distance, and sounding through the buzzing and
racking of many windmills, like those of Jean-Marie the Miller-Alcalde
when upon their beams and sails the mistral does its bitter worst.

"Hush!" whispered his neighbour, "the _comite_ will flog you if you talk
when at work. You are on the King of Spain's galley _Conquistador_,
going south from Rosas to Barcelona. And as for me, I am a
fellow-sufferer with you for the religion. I am Francis Agnew, the
Scot!"

CHAPTER XLII.

SECRETS OF THE PRISON HOUSE

"But Francis Agnew is dead! With my own eyes I saw him lie dead, in the
robing-room of Professor Anatole----"

"_Row, you skulking 'Giffe'!_" cried the "comite," bringing down his
whip upon the Abbe John's shoulders, which were bare, with a force that
convinced him that he at least was both alive and awake.

So he kept silence and rowed in his place next the side of the vessel.
And even his wonder in the matter of Claire's father could not prevent
his cursing in his heart the man who had brought him to this pass--the
talkative, hospitable, and far-descended Don Sileno Lorent y Valvidia,
of the Parador of the Cabeledura d'Oro in the town of Rosas.

The galley of the first class, _Conquistador_, was one of the few which
had been left behind in the Mediterranean at the time of the Great
Armada. Most of the others had been carried northward for coast defence,
and now lagged idly in port for lack of crews to navigate them.