ore retired--what
better house than this?"

The man who leaned against the chimney-piece turned to gaze at his
visitor with that which had not before showed in mien or words. It was
wonder, slight and mournful, yet wonder. "Of course you also would think
that," he said at last. "Even Robin thinks that the stained blade should
rust in its scabbard,--that here I should await my time, training the
rose-bushes in my garden, listening to the sere leaves fall, singing of
other men's harvests."

The boy cried out: "I don't, I don't! You've promised to take me with
you!" and flung himself down upon the pavement, with his head beside his
master's knee.

"I have bought me a ship," said Ferne, "together with a crew of beggared
mariners and cast soldiers. I think they be all villains and desperate
folk, or they would not sail with me. Some that seemed honest have
fallen away since they knew the name of their Captain.... We must
begone, Robin! If we would not sail the ship ourselves we must
begone--we must begone."

"Begone where?" demanded Arden, and wheeled from the window.

"To fight the Spaniard," said Ferne. "The Queen hath been my very good
mistress. John Nevil and Sidney have procured me leave to go--if it so
be that I go quietly. I think that I will not return--and England will
forget me, but Spain may remember.... For the rest, I go to search for
Robert Baldry; to seek if not to find my enemy, the foe that I held in
contempt, whom in my heart I despised because he was not poet and
courtier, as I was, nor knight and gentleman, as I was, nor very wise,
as I was, and because all his vision was clouded and gross, while I--I
might see the very flower o' the sun.... Well, he was a brave man."

"He is dead," whispered Arden. "Surely he is dead."

"Maybe," answered the other. "But I nor no man else saw him die. And we
know that these Spanish tombs do sometimes open and give up the dead.
I'll throw for size-ace."

"If he lived they would have sent him to Cartagena,--to the Holy
Office!" cried the other. "One ship--a scoundrel crew.... Mortimer,
Mortimer, some other ordeal than that!"

Ferne raised his eyes. "I call it by no such fine name," he said. "I but
know that if he yet lives, then he and what other Englishmen are left
alive do cry out for deliverance, looking towards the sea, thinking,
'Where is now a friend?'" He left the table and came near to Arden.
"'Twas a kindly impulse sent you here, old comrade of mine; but