bin regarded them anxiously, for to Nevil at least he had always
spoken truth, and now he dimly wondered within himself if he were lying.
"The nest at Nueva Cordoba was empty," he explained. "The hawk had
killed the sparrows and flown far away to Panama."

"And the eagle followed the hawk," muttered Arden. "Was there not one
sparrow left alive, Robin?"

Robin mournfully shook his head. "The commoner sort went to the galleys;
others were burned.... Is this city named Cartagena? Then 'twas in this
city Captain Robert Baldry and Ralph Walter and more than they, dressed
in _sanbenitos_, burning in the market-place.... We learned this at
Margarita, so my master would go to Panama to wring the hawk's neck....
But the _Sea Wraith_ was heavy with gold and silver, and all the
scoundrels upon her wished to turn homewards. But he bore them down, and
there was a compact made and signed. For them all the treasure that we
had gotten or should get, and for him their help to Panama that he might
take his private vengeance.... And so we put on all sail and we coasted
a many days, sometimes fighting and sometimes not, until we drew in
towards the land and found a little harbor masked by an islet and near
to a river. And a third of our men we left with the _Sea Wraith_. But
Sir Mortimer Ferne and I--my name is Robin-a-dale--we took all the boats
to go as far as we might by way of the river. And my master rowed
strongly in the first boat, and I rowed strongly in the second, for we
rowed for hate and love; but the other boats came on feebly, for they
were rowed by ghosts--"

Arden moved beneath the emaciated form he held, and Powell uttered an
ejaculation. But John Nevil used command.

"Back, sirrah! to the truth," and the crowding fancies gave ground
again.

"It was the Indians who shot at us poisoned arrows. They made ghosts of
many rowers. Ha! in all my nineteen years I have not seen an uglier
death! That was why we must leave the river, hiding the boats against
the time that we returned that way ... returned that way."

"You went on through the woods towards Panama. And then--" Nevil's voice
rose again.

"The wrath of God!" answered the boy, and turning within Arden's clasp,
began to babble of London streets and the Triple Tun. The claw-like
hands had dragged themselves from Nevil's hold, and the spirit could be
no longer caught by the voice of authority, but wandered where it would.

The men about him waited long and vainly fo