us. Shall I countermand it?"

"No," answered the other. "My duty is to you--I could not pay my debt if
I strove forever and a day. You are my captain,--when you order I obey."

A silence followed, during which Sir Mortimer stood at the window and
Sir John paced the floor. At last the former spoke, lightly: "There will
be a storm to-night.... I must go comfort that knave of mine. At times
he doth naught but babble of things at home--at Ferne House. This morn
it was winter to him, and in this burning land he talked of snowflakes
falling beneath the Yule-tide stars; yea! and when he has spoken pertly
to the sexton he needs must go a-carolling:

"'There comes a ship far sailing then,--
St. Michael was the steersman;
St. John sate in the horn;
Our Lord harped; Our Lady sang,
And all the bells of heaven rang.'"

He sang the verse lightly, as simply and sweetly as Robin had sung it,
then with a smile turned to go; and in passing Nevil laid a slight
caressing touch upon his shoulder. "Until to-night then, John!--and,
by'r Lady! seeing that you will be at the top of the board and I at the
bottom, I do think that I may hear nothing worth betraying!"

Sir John uttered an ejaculation, and would have taken again the folded
paper, but the other withstood him, and quietly went his way to kneel
beside Robin-a-dale, give up his hand to tears and kisses (for Robin was
very weak, and thought his master cruel to leave him so long alone), to
the youth's unchecked babble of all things that in his short life
appertained to Ferne House and to its master.

Sir Francis Drake and Alonzo Brava had come to a mind in regard to the
ransom for the town. If the English gained not so large a sum as they
had hoped for, yet theirs was the glory of the enterprise, and Drake's
eye was yet upon Nombre de Dios. If the Spaniards had lost money and men
and had looked on day by day at the slow dilapidation of their city, yet
they had riches left, and the life of the Spanish soldier was cheap, and
that ruined portion of the town might be built again. Agreements had
been drawn as to the ransom of the city of Cartagena and signed by each
leader,--by Brava with the pious (but silent) wish that the fleet might
be miraculously destroyed before the drying of the ink; and by Drake
with one of his curious mental reservations, concerning in this case the
block-house and the great priory just without the city. Matters being
thus settled an