The friends of Spain will send him to the block
This time. That male Salome, Buckingham,
Is dancing for his head. Raleigh is doomed."
A shadow stood in the doorway. We looked up;
And there, but O, how changed, how worn and grey,
Sir Walter Raleigh, like a hunted thing,
Stared at us.

"Ben," he said, and glanced behind him.
Ben took a step towards him.
"O, my God,
Ben," whispered the old man in a husky voice,
Half timorous and half cunning, so unlike
His old heroic self that one might weep
To hear it, "Ben, I have given them all the slip!
I may be followed. Can you hide me here
Till it grows dark?"
Ben drew him quickly in, and motioned me
To lock the door. "Till it grows dark," he cried,
"My God, that you should ask it!"
"Do not think,
Do not believe that I am quite disgraced,"
The old man faltered, "for they'll say it, Ben;
And when my boy grows up, they'll tell him, too,
His father was a coward. I do cling
To life for many reasons, not from fear
Of death. No, Ben, I can disdain that still;
But--there's my boy!"
Then all his face went blind.
He dropt upon Ben's shoulder and sobbed outright,
"They are trying to break my pride, to break my pride!"
The window darkened, and I saw a face
Blurring the panes. Ben gripped the old man's arm,
And led him gently to a room within,
Out of the way of guests.
"Your pride," he said,
"That is the pride of England!"
At that name--
_England!_--
As at a signal-gun, heard in the night
Far out at sea, the weather and world-worn man,
That once was Raleigh, lifted up his head.
Old age and weakness, weariness and fear
Fell from him like a cloak. He stood erect.
His eager eyes, full of great sea-washed dawns,
Burned for a moment with immortal youth,
While tears blurred mine to see him.
"You do think
That England will remember? You do think it?"
He asked with a great light upon his face.
Ben bowed his head in silence.

* * * *

"I have wronged
My cause by this," said Raleigh. "Well they know it
Who left this way for me. I have fl