Sir Mortimer

ed Arden. "When I go home I'll dress in cloth of gold

ld again my father's hou

w," quoth Baldry. "When I go home she'

which held them, Englishmen in a world or savage or Spanish, but their spirits followed the speaker to green fields of Kent or Devon. They saw the English summer, saw the twilight fall, heard the lonely tinkle of far sheep-bells, heard the nightingales singing beneath the moon that shone on England. Friends' homes opened to them; Grenville welcomed them to Stowe, Sidney to charmed Penshurst. Then to London and the Triple Tun! Bow Bells rang for them; they drank in the inn's long-room; their names were in men's mouths. What welcome, what clashing of the bells, when they should sail up the Thames a

ruptly his voice fell, but presently with a lighter note he broke the silence in which his listeners gazed upon the stately vision he had conjured up. "Ah, we will talk to Frank Drake of this night! Canst not hear Richard Hawkins laugh

flagging a plan of attack, to which they gave instant adoption; Master Francis Sark had been dismissed, and to the Admiral's grave hint of possible treachery Ferne had answered, "Ay, John

the languid stillness of the tropic dawn, brayed a trumpet, arose a noise of hurrying steps a

as well as thou, Sir Mortimer Ferne!" The door was flung open, and Ambrose Wynch,

they're coming to breakfast! 'Tis just a flourish--no

s chance raid, a piece of mere bravado to which De Guardiola had given grudging consent, was productive of results. Bravado for bravado, interchange of chivalric folly, of magnificence that was not war,--forth to meet the Spaniard and his company must go no greater for

a Cordoba and its fortress. Too easily did the English repel an idle sortie, too eagerly did they follow Mexia in retreat, for suddenly Chance, leaving all neutrality, threw herself, a goddess armed, upon the Spanish side. In the very shadow of the hill, the mounted English, well ahead of those on foot, Mexi

ght upon the disordered vanguard of the English. Baldry and those with him fought madly, the English on foot made all haste; the prostrate figure, pinned beneath the dyin

nor of Nueva Cordoba that the English held the man in some esteem,--perchance even that he was their leader's close friend. Sir John Nevil would

disposal were some Spanish lives perhaps not altogether valueless in the eyes of Don Luiz de Guardiola, since

a piece with the Governor's mind. The peril of the town and the lives within it were

la. The safety of his friend should, however, ransom a city. Deliver the captive sound in life and limb, and the English would withdraw from Nueva Cordoba, and p

l the next sunrise to heap upon the quay at the Bocca all gold and silver, all pearls, jewels, wrought work and other treasure stolen from the King of Spain, to withdraw every English soul from the galleon San José, leaving her safe anchored in the river and above her the Spanish flag, t

en the herald had come and gone. "Death cannot wear a

that he shall die?" d

uy his life with the dishonor of us all." His stern face working, he covered his bearded l

en. "These monstrous conditions!... One would say

ely. "Ay, that is it! Did you n

ed Arden. "With this Governor the cart draws the horse, and his particular quarrel takes prece

oor. Arden, eying him, s

o you, John Nevil!... I think of the

s vision of the men of the Minion and of John Oxenham.

re is to-night--there is the path he found--no doubt he counts upon our attacking as was planned! He i

EN, THAT HE SHALL DI

secure, careth naught for the town whose protector he is called. Therefore an we would save the man who is dear to us and to England from I know not what fate, from the fate perhaps of John Oxenham, this night must we take by storm the fortress, using the plan of attack, the hour, ay and the word of the night, which he gave us. If it is n

t the blessed sun himself hath shrunken, and I would I might wring the neck of

too narrow for the passage of a child.... Yea, I grant, as did Mortimer Ferne, his knavery, but now, as nea

r a wren's nest. Oh, I grant you there were explanations enough to stand between him and the yard-arm, and that Fort

n, as no one spoke: "To our loss we have found both shoal and reef between us and yonder castle. Think you not that I know, as knew Sir Mortimer Ferne, that we are shown a doub

ace as with a fowler's net, yet now and again a bird of the air fluttered through their meshes. The paper which Don Luiz held ran as follows: "May not a countryman of heretics choose his own king? When Death peers too closely--as was the case upon the galleon San José--may not a man turn his coat and send Death seeking elsewhere? Death gone by, may not the man be willing (if it be so that he is not well entreated of his new masters) to take again the colors to which on a

he perished with Antoni

ere there none else with whom to play the traitor, his right han

'll

man, this Nevil, do to-night. He hath his game in his mind,--his hand on this piece, his eye on that, these pawns in reserve, those advanced for action." De Guardiola leaned

ot at all, or we may learn too late. Then all's conjecture. They figh

d, at last burst forth: "There are times when the devil dwells in your eye and upon your lip

lled to those who waited without, wrote an order and sent it to the officer in command at the battery. "Up goes one traitor'

nswered Mexia. "Then shal

d do not remember. So live my foe! but live in hell, remembering t

Englishman nor Valdez nor Cimmaroon slave, and so I fear not thy smile.

answered De Guardiola, and

on the noonday stillness; came the slow afternoon, the sun declined, and every hour of that day had been long, long! One would have said that it was the longest day of the year. Throughout it, dominant upon its ascending ground, white, impregnable, and silent as a sepulchre, rose the fortress. Before the fortress, slumberous also, couched the long, low fortification of stone and earthwork commanding in its turn the road through the tunal. In the town below, alcalde and friar w

tactics of the time, began to make thorny with abattis, poisoned stakes, and other devices the way of the enemy across the open space which it guarded. English marksmen picked them off, others took their place; they falling also, one great gun from the fo

ry ripple upon the shore, where now the birds grew very clamorous. There were no clouds; only the red ball of the sun descending, and a clear field for the stars. The evening wind arose; at last the day died; unheralded b

ing of Paul. Day by day, north and east and west, watchmen in the tops of the Mere Honour, the Cygnet, the Marigold, and the Phoenix had seen no hostile sail upon the bland and smiling ocean. The river ran in mazes; undulating like a serpent it came from hidden sources, and its heavy borders of tamarind and mangrove sent long shadows out towards midstream. The watchmen looked to the river also; but no greater thing ever appeared than some Indian canoe gliding down from illimitable

ere they halted, while Henry Sedley and ten men went on to the tunal as, the night before, one man had gone. By the signs that Ferne had given them they found the entrance which they sought, and when they had thrust aside the curtain of branch and vine, saw the clearing through the tunal. It lay beneath the stars, a narrow defile much overgrown, walled on either side by impenetrable wood. On went Sedley and his men, cautiously, silently, until they had wellnigh pie

ppeared, thickened:--one moment of the moon, then tumult, shouting, the blast of a trumpet, the sound of small arms, and the roar of those guns which must be rushed upon and silenced! Noises of bird and beast had the tropic night, all the warfare and the wrangling with whi

h through the tunal. Devon was there, and Kent and Sussex, and many a goodly shire beside. Men of land-fights and of sea-fights were they, and of old adventures to alien countries, strong of heart and frame, and very fiercely minded towards the fortress of Nueva Cordoba. It withheld from

rowth, where passage was just possible, rushed Baldry and his men. The way was not long, larger loomed the fortress, louder grew the noise of attack and defence. At last the edge of the tunal was reached, and they in the van, freed from

broken through. Not until towards the sunset of that day had Don Luiz de Guardiola received information which enabled him to lay snares, but since that hour he had worked with frantic haste. Now he knew the moment when his springe would be trodden upon, the number of them

onfusion. Suddenly, from a low earthwork hastily raised in the shadow of the fortress wall, and masked by bushes, burst a withering fire of chain-shot from cannon and culverin, of slighter missiles from falcon and bastard and saker, caliver