n his Hall of Audience Ivan the Terrible Tsar,

(He of the knout and torture, poison and sword and flame)
Yet unafraid before him the English envoy came.

And he was Sir Jeremy Bowes, born of that golden time
When in the soil of Conquest blossomed the flower of Rhyme.

Dauntless he fronted the Presence,--and the courtiers whispered low,
"Doth Elizabeth send us madmen, to tempt the torture so?"

"Have you heard of that foolhardy Frenchman?" Ivan the Terrible said,--
"He came before me covered,--I nailed his hat to his head."

Then spoke Sir Jeremy Bowes, "I serve the Virgin Queen,--
Little is she accustomed to vail her face, I ween.

"She is Elizabeth Tudor, mighty to bless or to ban,
Nor doth her envoy give over at the bidding of any man!

"Call to your Cossacks and hangmen,--do with me what ye please,
But ye shall answer to England when the news flies over seas."

Ivan smiled on the envoy,--the courtiers saw that smile,
Glancing one at the other, holding their breath the while.

Then spoke the terrible Ivan, "His Queen sits over sea,
Yet he hath bid me defiance,--would ye do as much for me?"

XVI

LORDS OF ROANOKE

Primrose garlands in Coombe Wood shone with the pale gold of winter
sunshine. Violets among dry leaves peered sedately at the pageant of
spring. In the royal hunting forest of Richmond, venerable trees
unfolded from their tiny buds canopies like the fairy pavilion of
Paribanou.

Philip Armadas and Arthur Barlowe, coming up from Kingston, beheld all
this April beauty with the wistful pleasure of those who bid farewell to
a dearly beloved land. Within a fortnight Sir Walter Ralegh's two ships,
which they commanded, would be out upon the gray Atlantic. The Queen
would lie at Richmond this night, and the two young captains had been
bidden to court that she might see what manner of men they were.[1]

Armadas, though born in Hull, was the son of a Huguenot refugee. Barlowe
was English to the back-bone. Both knew more of the ways of ships than
the ways of courts. Yet for all her magnificence and her tempers
Elizabeth had a way with her in dealing with practical men. She welcomed
merchants, builders, captains and soldiers as frankly as she did Italian
scholars or French gallants. Her attention was as keen when she was
framing a letter to the Grand Turk securing trade privileges to London
or Bristol, as when she listened t