r saying a word but to
salute and cheer their beloved Don, or talk in whispers of the sunny
hills of Spain.

"Captain Desmond, the one man on board who, after you, was my friend,
had died in the fight off Gravelines. I had not the heart or the wish
to seek new comrades; and, save when the brave Don himself gave me a
passing word of cheer, I forgot what it was to speak or listen.

"Well, when off Cape Wrath (just as we sighted a few of our scattered
consorts and hoped for food and comfort), a new storm overtook us from
the north-east and drove us headlong, under bare poles, southward again.
We none of us, I think, cared if the next gust sent us to the bottom.
Many a weary young Don did I see fling himself in despair overboard; and
but that we daily drew nearer to Ireland, I had been tempted to do the
same.

"How long we drove I forget, or what wrecks we passed; but one day we
found ourselves flung into a great bay, where, for a while, we held on
to our anchors against the storm. But the _Rata_ had lost her best
thews and muscles at Calais, and, after two days, dragged towards the
shore and fell miserably over, a wreck.

"We came to land in boats, or on floating spars, but only to meet worse
hardships than on sea; for the savages on the coast, aided by your
gallant Englishmen, fell on us, defenceless as we were, stripped us of
all we had, and drove us from the shore in an old crank of a galleon,
which, if it carried us thus far, did so only by the grace of God and
His saints."

"And where be we now?" I asked.

"At Killybegs," said he, "and Heaven grant we may get out of it. For a
while, Tyrone, the O'Neill in these parts, sheltered and fed us. But
since the English came, he has left us to our fate, and the men lie
rotting here as in a dungeon."

"Why," said I, "'twas rumoured in England that the Spaniards had
descended on Ireland to take it, and so strike across it at the Queen."

He laughed.

"May your Queen ne'er have sturdier foes, Humphrey. Come and see them."

As we turned the corner of the hill, we came suddenly on three men,
standing with their faces seaward and engaged in earnest talk. The
oldest of them was white-haired and slight of build. But the nobleman
shone through his ragged raiment and battered breastplate, and I knew
him in a moment to be Don Alonzo da Leyva himself.

He greeted Ludar kindly, and looked enquiringly at me.

"Do the spirits of English printers walk on earth?" asked h