his neck.

On the desolate island where the stump of Magellan's gallows stood black
against a crimson dawn, they landed and the tragedy of estrangement and
suspicion ended. Thomas Doughty was tried for mutiny and treason before
a jury of his peers. Every man there held him a traitor, yet he was
acquitted for lack of evidence. Thus encouraged, Doughty boldly declared
that they should all smart for this when Burleigh heard of it. What he
had done to hinder the voyage, he averred, was by Burleigh's orders, for
before they sailed he had gone to that wily statesman and told him the
entire scheme.

In a flash of merciless revelation Drake saw the truth. He left Doughty
to await the verdict, called the companies down to the shore, and there
told them the story of the expedition from first to last, not
overlooking the secret orders of the Queen.

"This man was my friend," he said with a break in his voice such as they
had not heard save at the suffering of a child. "I would not take his
life,--but if he be worthy of death, I pray you hold up your hands."

There was a breathless instant when none stirred; then every hand was
raised.

On the next day but one they all sat down to a last feast on that bleak
and lonely shore; the two comrades drank to each other for the last
time, shared the sacrament, and embracing, said their farewells. Doughty
proved that if he could not live a true man he could die like a
gentleman; the headsman did his work, and Drake pronounced the solemn
sentence, "Lo! this is the death of traitors!"

In that black hour the boyish laughter went forever from the eyes of the
Admiral, and the careless mirth from his voice. When after a while young
Jack Drake, unable to bear the silence that fell between them, began
some phrase of blundering boyish affection, the sentence trailed off
into a stammer.

"He's dead and at peace, Jack," the master said, the words dropping
wearily, like spent bullets. "He couldn't help being as he was,--I
reckon. If I'd known he was like that I could ha' stopped him, but I
never knew--till too late."

Discord among the crews continued, until Drake, rousing from his fitful
melancholy, called them all together on a Sunday, and mounted to the
place of the chaplain.

"I am going to preach to-day," he said shortly. Then he unfolded a paper
and began to read it aloud.

"My masters, I am a very bad orator, for my bringing up hath not been in
learning; but what I shall speak here