ed once more on
the deck and took the letter from my neck, "You have done me a good
turn," said he, with a glow in his face which I prized as much as all
the gold pieces in the hold of the _Rata_; "you have made it possible
for me to keep my parole with the Don. Thank you, Humphrey."

Then bidding me follow, he led the way to the quarter-deck, and without
a word handed his missive to the Don.

"Senor has returned by a strange way," said the commander.

"I have returned the only way open to me. His Majesty your King has
lost a cock-boat."

"He has found what will compensate him--a gallant servant."

"Your pardon," said Ludar, shortly, "I am no servant of the King of
Spain. I was his debtor, as was my friend. We are quits up to now.
What more we accept from him, we shall be bound to repay,--no more."

The Don frowned, and then smiled, and then with a quiet gesture raised
his hand to his helmet.

Accepting this salute as a dismissal, Ludar took my arm and walked away.

No more was said about me just then; but I think, after what passed, the
Don, however much he disliked me, deemed it not worth his while to
separate me from my comrade.

Ludar told me, what he never told the Don, that he had been captured as
he returned in the cock-boat by a boat of the enemy's, belonging to the
ship _Revenge_. The men of the boat, perceiving him to be of their
speech, and suspecting he carried news (though he had hidden his letter
in his shoe), resolved to carry him to their Captain Drake, to which he
seemed to submit. But waiting till he came somewhere near where he
suspected the _Rata_ to lie, he had slipped overboard, and hanging
quietly under the stern-sheets till they were tired of looking for him,
had got off; and after beating about an hour and more, had sighted us in
the dawn, and (as he confessed), but for my sight of him, might not have
been there to tell the story.

Well, after that, for two days, the weather remained calm; and, as I
said, the Spaniard, though now and again he had the better of the
breeze, could do little with the enemy which hung doggedly on his
skirts, sometimes coming near enough for a broadside, but never, as the
impatient gallants on the _Rata_ prayed he might do, running in to close
quarters. 'Twas pitiful to hear the grinding of noble teeth on board
the ship, as day by day the English Admiral plucked his Majesty's
feathers one by one, yet never gave a chance of a battle. Even Don
Alonzo