"
Faith, they would have been at it again if she'd egged 'em on! but their
swords--oh, prettily they said it!---had been drawn for her once or
twice already.

'"And where?" says she. "On your hobby-horses before you were breeched?"

'"On my own ship," says the elder. "My cousin was vice-admiral of our
venture in his pinnace. We would not have you think of us as brawling
children."

'"No, no," says the younger, and flames like a very Tudor rose. "At
least the Spaniards know us better."

'"Admiral Boy--Vice-Admiral Babe," says Gloriana, "I cry your pardon.
The heat of these present times ripens childhood to age more quickly
than I can follow. But we are at peace with Spain. Where did you break
your Queen's peace?" '"On the sea called the Spanish Main, though 'tis
no more Spanish than my doublet," says the elder. Guess how that warmed
Gloriana's already melting heart! She would never suffer any sea to be
called Spanish in her private hearing.

'"And why was I not told? What booty got you, and where have you hid
it? Disclose," says she. "You stand in some danger of the gallows for
pirates."

'"The axe, most gracious lady," says the elder, "for we are gentle
born." He spoke truth, but no woman can brook contradiction.
"Hoity-toity!" says she, and, but that she remembered that she was
Queen, she'd have cuffed the pair of 'em. "It shall be gallows, hurdle,
and dung-cart if I choose."

'"Had our Queen known of our going beforehand, Philip might have held
her to blame for some small things we did on the seas," the younger
lisps.

'"As for treasure," says the elder, "we brought back but our bare lives.
We were wrecked on the Gascons' Graveyard, where our sole company for
three months was the bleached bones of De Avila's men."

'Gloriana's mind jumped back to Philip's last letter.

'"De Avila that destroyed the Huguenots? What d'you know of him?" she
says. The music called from the house here, and they three turned back
between the yews.

'"Simply that De Avila broke in upon a plantation of Frenchmen on that
coast, and very Spaniardly hung them all for heretics--eight hundred
or so. The next year Dominique de Gorgues, a Gascon, broke in upon De
Avila's men, and very justly hung 'em all for murderers--five hundred or
so. No Christians inhabit there now, says the elder lad, though 'tis a
goodly land north of Florida."

'"How far is it from England?" asks prudent Gloriana.

'"With a fair wind, six weeks. They say th