was
audible only to the three or four who made his immediate circle,--"as
you have wellnigh recovered yourself."

Generous as he was, he had not meant to go so far. He had yet his
doubts, his reversions, in mind, to those sheer facts which none denied.
This was a recreant knight--but also a man who had suffered long and
greatly, who, if eye and intuition could be trusted, suffered now. He
hesitated a moment, then abruptly held out his hand.

All saw the gesture, and a sudden hush fell upon the company. If these
two touched hands, then in that moment would be spanned the distance
between the star in the ascendant and the wavering marsh-light, between
the sea-colossus and his one-time rival, now so long overwhelmed and
chained to sterile earth.

In the short silence the wind seemed to take with a rushing sound the
palm tops overhead. Then Ferne spoke. "With all my heart I thank you,"
he said. "I may not take your hand until you know"--he raised his voice
so that all who chose might hear--"until you know that here where I
stand, here before this cross, died in the torment of fire that Captain
Robert Baldry who was my private foe, who lay beneath my challenge,
whom I betrayed to his agony and to his martyr's death.... Ah! I will
hold you excused, Sir Francis Drake!"

With the deep exclamation, the involuntary recoil, that followed on the
heels of such an avowal, there appeared to descend upon the place a dark
shadow, a veritable pall, a faint murk of driven smoke, through which
men saw, to-day, the spectacle of nigh four years agone.... The silence
was broken, the spell dissolved, by Robin-a-dale's feeble cry from the
litter: "Master, master; come with me, master!"

Drake, who, with a quick intake of his breath, had drawn sharply back,
was the first to recover. He sent his lightning glance from the
frowning, the deeply flushed and horror-stricken, countenances about him
to the man whose worn cheek showed no color, whose lips were locked,
whose eyes were steadfast, though a little lifted to the blue sky above
the cross. "Now death of my life!" swore the sea-king. "The knave did
well to call you 'Master.' Whatever there may have been, here is now no
coward!" He turned to the staring, whispering throng. "Gentlemen, we
will remove from this space, which was the death-bed of a brave man and
a true martyr. This done, each man of you will go soberly about his
business, remembering that God's dealings are not those of
men;--