Sir Mortimer

f Nueva Cordoba. He looked down into the moat well stocked with crocodiles, great fish his mercenaries, paid with flesh, and he looked at the tunal which ringed the moat as the moat ringed the

nd heated land made possible to all Spanish fortifications. Beyond the tunal the naked hillside fell steeply to a narrow plain, all patched with golden flowers, and from this yellow carpet writhed tall cacti, fantastic as trees seen in a dream. Upon the plain, pearl pink in the sunset light, huddled the town. Palm-tr

past few days and pressed them upon him in one cup of chagrin. The caravels were gone, the battery at the Bocca gone, the town surrendered to these English dogs who now daily bared their teeth to the fortress

into corners from its cup of trembling. "Ransom!" cried the English from their ships and from their quarters in the square. "Pay us ransom, or we burn and destroy!" "Mother of God!" wailed Nueva Cordoba. "Why ask but fifty thousand ducats? As easy to give you the revenue of all the Indies! Moreover, every peso is housed in the fortress. Day before yesterday we carried there--oh, se?ors

mounted from Don Luiz's heart to his brain. Of late he had slept not at all, eaten little, drunken no great amount of wine. Like a shaken carpet the plain rose and fell; a mirage lifted the coasts of distant islands, piling them above the horizon into castles and fortifications baseless as a dream. The sun dipped; up from the east rushed the night. The tunal grew a dark smudge, drawn by a wizard forefinger around De Guardiola, his men-at-arms, the silver bars and the gold crescents from Guiana. Out swung the stars, blazing,

ght filled with noise, the scream of wounded steeds and the shouting of men. Lights flared in the windows, and women wailed to all the saints. Stubbornly the English drove back the Spanish, foot by foot, the way they had come, down the street of heat and clamor. In the dark hour before the dawn De Guardiola sounded a retreat, rode with his defeated band up the pallid hillside, through the serpent-haunted tunal, over the dreadfully peopled moat into the court of the white stone fortress.

id De Guardiola, coldly. "Yo

he town," swore the other

ansom," answered Don Luiz. "Fellow"--

the foot of an English heretic planted on his breast, I think that talk of the ransom of Nueva Cordoba would not have ceased. But Don Luiz de Guardiola!--quite another matter! Santa T

re. Shortly afterwards from one quarter of the town arose together many columns of smoke; a little later an explosion shook the earth. The great magazine of Nueva Cordoba lay in ruins

vised also Pedro Mexia, "or presently they may have the fortress as well as the town! The squadron--it is yet at Cartagena! Easier t

sh camp a white flag, proposed by mouth of his herald a brief cessation of hostilities, and a meeting between himself, Don Luiz de Guardiola, Governor of Nueva Cordoba, and the valorous Se?or John Nevil, commandant of Englishmen. Whereto in answer came, three-piled w

and become the quarters of Sir John Nevil and Sir Mortimer Ferne, who held the town and menaced the fortress, while Baptist Manwood and

and wine had been abundant in Nueva Cordoba, whose storehouses now the English held. They hung their borrowed banqueting-hall with garlands of flowers, upon the long table put great candles of virgin wax, with gold and silver drinking-vessels, and brought to the revel of the night a somewhat towering, wild, and freakish humor. Victory unassuaged was theirs, and for them Fortune had cogged her dice. They had taken the San José and sunk the caravels, they had sacked the pearl-towns and Nueva Cordoba, they had gathered laurels for themselves and England. For the fortress, they deemed that they might yet drain it of hoarded treasure. The poison of the l

rtress crowning it, made both to seem candescent, hill and castle one heart of flame against the purple mountains that stretched across the south. Very high were the mountains, very still and white that fortress flame; the yellow plain could not be seen

up from the sea, straight from the water like blown spray, and she was dressed in white. She looked down through the sea and her tears fell, and falling, they made mus

d Ferne. "She under the sod and I under the sea.... So be it! But

other's calling me, a little lad, when at twili

mer. "Now sounds John Nevil's tru

ry, who also gave me that knowledge of English affairs which you are pleased to compliment. I make my boast that I am

t thing I know of Edmund Campion is the courageousness of his end; yet indeed he died not with a halo about his head, nor were miracles wrought with his blood. Her Gracious Majesty the Queen of England hath no such distemp

acher?" came from the head of th

id De Guardiola

began the fuddled Mexia, "you

fish were caught and the wood where alone grows this purple fruit. So you set at liberty th

manded Nevil, of Ferne. "I did com

th his shivering," said the other. "I sent the chirurg

made music and the candles slowly wasted and in the hot night the garlands withered. Perfumes were lit in the room, and the smoke of their burning made a violet haze through which quivered the heart-shaped candle flames.

e on and the wine went round, this cloak of punctilio began to grow threadbare and the steel beneath to gleam dangerously. There was thunder in the air, and men were ready to play at ball with the apples of discord, though as yet they but tossed to each other the poisonous flowers which should grow that fru

his seas!" an Engli

aid Arden. "God gave them t

s a prickly word

De Guardiola of the gentleman opposi

but now grows old." The Englishman shrugged. "True he thinks himself yet the fleetest and the

God, I agree not with y

, yet will it come to pas

s beautiful mouth, and his hand, palm uppermost, upon the board. Opposite him Don Luiz de Guardiola also smiled, and if that widening of the lips was somewhat tigerish, why, if all accounts were true, the man himself wa

diola. "It was you who led your la

r, senior! What sa

ur when with a whip of iron I will drive you from N

ry valiantly held that honor, and

t to take you by-surprise-

, se

lack armor? Wore you in your helm a knot of rose-c

or, the for

spoke it was with a hollow voice: "Had not Mexia come in between us!... The light caught the velvet knot upon your helm and it flamed like a star. I, Luiz de

to earth," answered Ferne. "The star is

of the Spanish: "Fifty thousand ducats! Holy Virgin! Are we Incas of P

hurried speech, the growing excitement, the interchange of taunt and bravado, ceased, and men leaned forward, waiting. The silence was remarkable. Dow

then sail away, sail away, marauders! and leave the fortress virgin, and the treasure no light

ght have resulted in the severance of the truce with sharp steel had not the leaders of the several parties stayed with lifte

think that so slight a ransom will not now content us. As you ride through the street

ed De Guardiola, grinn

the sweat fr

's a strangeness in the air--my heart beats to bursti

r foes to the base of the hill. They rode through the streets which that morning they had laid waste, and through those that the stern Admiral had sworn to destroy. There black ruin faced them starkly; here doomed things

Hast noticed the smell of the earth? We killed

y Sedley. "There is a will-o'-

of the tyrant Aguirre," an

ght, did the English see themselves, and they meant to have the treasure and to humble that white fortress. But it must be done quickly, quickly! Pampatar in Margarita, the castle of Paria or Berreo's settlement in Trinidad, could send no ships that might

lling any wandering information, is not known; nor is known what hatred of his conqueror, of a gallant form and a stainless name, may have uncoiled itself to poisonous ends in the soul of the small, smug, innocent-seeming man to whom he spoke; but at the end of a half-hour the Captain of the Cygnet left his prisoner of the San José, moved swiftly and lightly down the corridor to his own apartment, where he crossed to the window and stood there with his eyes upon the fortress of Nueva Cordoba, rising shadowy upon its shadowy hill. So often had h

, asleep upon a pallet, and shaking him awake, bade the lad to follow him but make no noise. To the sentinels at the great door, in the square, at the edg

rved, cared not to ask. Presently Ferne turned, and a few moments found them climbing the long western slope of the hill, above them the dim outline of the fortress, the dark fringe of the tunal. Half-way up they came to a little rocky plateau, and here Ferne paused, hesitated a moment, then sat down upon a great stone and looked out to sea. He was waiting for the moon to rise, for with her white finger

al place. From behind those piled rocks, from the shadow of those strange trees, what things might creep or spring? Robin thought it time that the adventure were ended, and had he dared had said as much. Lights were burning upon the Cygnet where she rode in the pale river, near to the Phoenix, with the Mere Honour and the Marigold just bey

here in listless strength, he thought in quietude and tenderness of other things than gold, and fame, and the fortress which must be taken of Nueva Cordoba. With his eyes upon the gleaming sea he thought of Damaris Sedley, and of Sidney, and

l are one. He was wont to think of Damaris Sedley with ardor, imagining embraces, kisses, cries of love, sweet lips, warm arms,--but to-night he seemed to see her in a glass, somewhat dimly. She stood a little remote, quiet, sweet, and holy, and his spirit chastened itself before her. Dear were his friends to him; his heart lodged them in spacious chambers and lapped them with observance; now he thought whimsically and lightly of his guests as though their lodgings wer

arl, amethyst, and topaz were her rings; she made the boss of a vast shield; like God's own candle she lit the night. "At home the nightingales would sing," thought Sir Mortimer. "Ah, Philomela, here befits a wilder song than thine!" He looked towards the Cygnet, still as a painted ship upon the silver sluggish flood. "When there shall be no more sea, what will seamen do?" Over the marsh wandere

ight behold the Cordillera. In mystery and enormity the mountains reared themselves, high as the battlements of heaven, deep as those

ings, drew illusion like a veil across the haunted ring; below, what hidden foulness!... Did the life there know its hideousness? Those lengths and coils, those twisting locks of Medusa, might think themselves desirable. These pulpy, starkly branching cacti, these shrubs that bred poignards, these fibrous

nd of waves was in his ears, and a wind pressed against him faintly, like a ghost's withstanding. From the woods towards the mountains came

; dark, impervious, formidable as a fortress wall, the tunal met the eye. Ferne, attacking it with his sword, thrust aside a heavy curtain of broad-leaved vine, came upon a network of thorn and spike and prickly leaf, hewed this away, to find behind it a like barrier. Evidently the man had lied!--to what purpose Sir Mortimer Ferne would presently make it his business to discover.... There overtook him a sudden revulsion of feeling, depression of spirit, cold and sick distaste of t