red and fifty-third year of the flight of him whom once I
termed the prophet; nor have they departed from our house, but have been
handed on from father to son. And shall they be used in the wars of the
stranger and the Christian?"

"I feared it might be thus," said Tibble.

"And yet," went on the old man, as if not hearing him, "wherefore should
I guard the secret any longer? My sons? Where are they? They brooked
not the scorn and hatred of the Castillian which poisoned to them the
new faith. They cast in their lot with their own people, and that their
bones may lie bleaching on the mountains is the best lot that can have
befallen the children of my youth and hope. The house of Miguel Abenali
is desolate and childless, save for the little maiden who sits by my
hearth in the land of my exile! Why should I guard it longer for him
who may wed her, and whom I may never behold? The will of Heaven be
done! Young man, if I bestow this knowledge on thee, wilt thou swear to
be as a father to my daughter, and to care for her as thine own?"

It was a good while since Tibble had been called a young man, and as he
listened to the flowing Eastern periods in their foreign enunciation, he
was for a moment afraid that the price of the secret was that he should
become the old Moor's son-in-law! His seared and scarred youth had
precluded marriage, and he entertained the low opinion of women frequent
in men of superior intellect among the uneducated. Besides, the
possibilities of giving umbrage to Church authorities were dawning on
him, and he was not willing to form any domestic ties, so that in every
way such a proposition would have been unwelcome to him. But he had no
objection to pledge himself to fatherly guardianship of the pretty child
in case of a need that might never arise. So he gave the promise, and
became a pupil of Abenali, visiting Warwick Inner Ward with his master's
consent whenever he could be snared, while the workmanship at the Dragon
began to profit thereby.

The jealousy of the Eagle was proportionately increased. Alderman
Itillyeo, the head of the Eagle, was friendly enough to Mr Headley, but
it was undeniable that they were the rival armourers of London, dividing
the favours of the Court equally between them, and the bitterness of the
emulation increased the lower it went in the establishment. The
prentices especially could hardly meet without gibes and sneers, if
nothing worse, and Stephen's exp