Jesu! you meant no harm! There's gold in the hold of the
_Sea Wraith_ for to buy back Ferne House, and now that you've won, and
won again from the Spaniard, the Queen will not be angry any more! And
Sir John and Sir Philip and Master Arden will bid us welcome, and men
will come to stare at the _Sea Wraith_ that has fought so many battles!
Master, master, let us home to Ferne House, where, at sunset, in the
garden, you and the lady walked! Master--"

His voice failed. Sir Mortimer loosed the fingers that yet clung to his
arm. "When I am king of these parts, thou shalt be my jester," he said.
"Come! for it's up sail and far away this morning,--far away as Panama.
I am thirsty. We'll drink of the spring and then begone."

When they had rounded once more the wooded point they saw the _Sea
Wraith_, and drawn up upon the sand its cockboat. The sun had risen, so
that now when they entered the forest there was ample light by which to
find out the slowly welling spring, so limpid in its basin as to serve
for mirror to the forest creatures who drank therefrom. All the tenants
of the forest were awake. They hooted and chattered, screamed and sang.
Orange and green and red, the cockatoos flashed through the air, or
perched upon great boughs beside parasitic blooms as gaudy as
themselves. Giant palms rustled; monkeys slid down the swinging lianas,
to climb again with haste, chattering wildly at human intrusion;
butterflies fluttered aside; the spotted snake glided to its deeper
haunts. Suddenly, in the distance, a wild beast roared, and when the
thunder ceased there was a mad increase of the lesser voices. Sound was
everywhere, but no sweetness; only the mockery, gibing, and laughter of
an unseen multitude. From the topmost palm frond to the overcolored
fungi patching the black earth arrogant Beauty ruled, but to the weary
eyes that looked upon her she was become an evil queen. Better one blade
of English grass, better one song of the lark, than the gardens of
Persephone!

Ferne, kneeling beside the spring, stooped to drink. Clear as that
fountain above which Narcissus leaned, the water gave him back each
lineament of the man who, accepting his own earthly defeat, had yet
gathered all the powers of his being to the task of overmastering that
bitter Fate into whose hands he had delivered, bound, both friend and
foe; the man for whom, now that he knew what he knew, now that the
fierce victrix had borne away her prey, was left but th