uld save the man who is dear to us and to England from I know not what
fate, from the fate perhaps of John Oxenham, this night must we take by
storm the fortress, using the plan of attack, the hour, ay and the word
of the night, which he gave us. If it is now less simple a thing, if
this Spaniard will surely keep watch and ward to-night, yet there is
none to tell him that, offering at his face, we do mean to strike him in
the back. If our onslaught be but swift and furious enough we may, God
willing, bring forth in triumph both the treasure and the man whose
welfare so outweighs the treasure."

"Amen to that," answered Arden; "but I have a boding spirit. It seems to
me that the blessed sun himself hath shrunken, and I would I might wring
the neck of yonder yelling bird!... That Englishman, that Francis
Sark--he is well guarded?"

"Ralph Walter guards him," said the Admiral, briefly. "There is but the
one door--the window is barred and too narrow for the passage of a
child.... Yea, I grant, as did Mortimer Ferne, his knavery, but now, as
nearly as we can sail to the wind of the truth, the man, desiring
restitution and reward, speaks plain honesty."

"He spoke 'plain honesty' after the taking of the _San Jose_," muttered
Arden. "Yet we found a hawk where we looked for a wren's nest. Oh, I
grant you there were explanations enough to stand between him and the
yard-arm, and that Fortune, having turned her wheel in our favor,
apparently left her industry and fell asleep! She awakened
this morning."

"Wring thine own neck for a bird of ill omen!" began Baldry, to be cut
short by the Admiral's grave "Where all's danger, whatever course we
shape, who gives a safer chart?" Then, as no one spoke: "To our loss we
have found both shoal and reef between us and yonder castle. Think you
not that I know, as knew Sir Mortimer Ferne, that we are shown a
doubtful channel by a shifty pilot? But beyond is the open sea of all
our hopes. Fortune and her wheel, Giles Arden!--nay, rather God and His
hand over the issues of life and death!"

Up in his white fortress that same hour De Guardiola heard in silence
the Admiral's message of defiance, then when he and Mexia were again
alone frowned thoughtfully over a slip of paper which by devious ways
had shortly before reached his hand. With all their vigilance not every
hole and crevice could the English stop; Spanish was the town and
Spanish the overhanging fortress, and the former was the pla