The Path of the King

r the high green scarp of an island, but on the side of the ports no land was visible-only a circle in which sea and sky melted into the quintessence of light. The air was ver

esented to the ship by Lord Huntingdon; the other had been given to the wife of the Governor of Gomera in the Ca

age had descended on this pride, age and sickness. The peaked beard was snowy white, and the crisp hair had thinned from the forehead. The forehead itself was high and broad, crossed with an infinity of small furrows. The cheeks were sallow, with a patch of faint colour showing as if from a fever. The heavy

a doublet of fine maroon velvet. For comfort he wore a loose collar and band instead of his usual cut ruff. He stretched out his hand to the table at his elbow where lay the Latin version of his Discovery of Guiana, of which he had been turning the pages, and beside it a glass of

withered by his side. The skin of his face was gnarled like the bark of a tree, and seamed with a white scar which drooped over the corner of one eye and so narr

er," he said in his deep voice. "T

e there was still a trace of the golden c

, I would have you sit with me tonight. I am like King Saul, the sport of dev

ce before they left Trinidad. He was aware of the obsession

man, though younger than me. But he failed me. He betrayed his trust.... Trust, what does that matter

shrill and hard. He w

r, and Cosmor and Piggot and John Talbot and

ke, like Raleigh, in a Devon accent, with the creamy sl

on the Moor now, where it is always fresh and blowing.... And your father-the big Frenchman who settled on one of Gawain Champernoun's manors. I lov

2 with Sir Hum

rey! Happy fate! Happy company! But he left a brave son b

rs ago come Martinmas. The child i

mising

ave observed him, and that

y worshipped their bleak acres and their fireside pieties. Ah, but I forget. You are de Laval on one side, and that

hey would have had me turn pirate, and when I refused they sailed off and left me

gment you

ered me to use my remnant like hounds to cut off the stragglers of the Plate Fleet? That

lf, Sir

fall back on the couc

sin. He has walked too brazenly in all weathers to seek common ports in a storm.... It becomes not the fortune in which he once lived to go journeys of picory.... An

" said the captain w

or love, and once I loved and hated extremely. I am become like a frail woman for tolerance. Spain has worsted

History," said the other, "when

I combated his melancholy, for he was most melancholic. But now I have grown like him. Perhaps Sir Edward Coke was right and I have a Spanish heat. I think a man cannot strive whole-heartedly with an ene

world with high

ngdoms with his

cold. And I would not revive them if I could.

face was grav

lter. You have aimed at the moon and for

folk-would be set singing by a May morning, or a warm tavern fire, or a woman's face. I have known fellows to whom the earth was so full of little pleasures that after the worst clouts they rose like larks from a furrow. A wise philosophy-but I had none of it. I saw always the little pageant of m

s voice had sunk to the hoarse whisper of a man still fevered. He let his head recline again o

he rare occasions when he wrote it-thought he was about to s

me I have thoughts that might set me following Tom Keymis. Kit Mar

limite, nor i

ace, for where

is there must

s hot forehead. He had a curiously steadfast gaze for all hi

by such a mauling? Let the tale of it be l

my purpose, Sir Walter. For the tale is in

g. See, fill a glass of this Irish cordial. Twill keep off the chill

s back when I w

Coffyn blood with Robert? If ever man had a devil, 'twas he. I mind his sullen bl

ollow him, but I broke prison in the night with the help of an Indian, and went down the coast in a stolen patache to a place where thic

ounds-how g

end my mind. Being obstinate by nature I mocked them till they wearied of the play. But they l

did Robert Bovill

ain of God," said th

n Manoa, maybe, where gol

t is from the shore of the Mex

found

ave brought it off, to freight a dozen ships.

self on his elbow, his

salvation. But, heavens! man, what a tale! Why did I not k

of it, the oth

t told yo

uth. The man mentioned no names, but the tale set the captain inquiring and he picked up the cl

A scrap of discoloured paper and a rag of canvas; some quaint lines drawn often in a man's blood, and a

f your mind. Most charts are playthings from the devil. But this was in manner of speaking s

story," said Ralei

d beforehand that there were no Spanish posts within fifty miles, for the land was barren and empty even of Indians. So for ten days we rowed and poled through a flat plain, sweating mightily, till we came in sight of mountains. At t

f the recollection had

hey dwelt in every cranny of stone, and the noise of them was like bees humming. We lost two stout fellows from their poison. The sky was brass above us and our tongues were dry sticks, and by the foul vapours of the place our scanty food was corrupted. Never have men been nearer death. I think we would have retr

ave been no common sufferings that tamed Rob

head of it. This we scaled, how I do not know, by cracks and fissures, the stronger dragging up the weaker by means of the tow-rope which by

in '95. So that was

us crabs that scattered the sand like spindrift as they fled from us. Some of the beasts we slew, and the blood of them was green as ooze, and their stench like a charnel house. Likewise there were e

e de Dios, you portray

way to Paradise, as is well known, lies through the devil's country. A little longer, brave hearts, and we shall be in port.' And so fierce was the spirit of that man that it lifted our weary shanks and fevered bodies through another two days of torment. I have no clear memory of those hours. Assuredly we were all mad and spoke w

t did a priest in those

d his eyes burned glassily. Captain Bovill, who liked not the dark brothers, would have made him prisoner, for he thought him a forerunner of

ould not touch, nor the sweet well-water. 'I will drink no cup,' he said, 'till I drink the new wine with Christ in His Father's Kin

ssed of a revelation. 'These be the hills of God,' he cried. 'In a little you will come to a city of the old kings where gold is as plentiful as sand of the sea. The

can hear yet Captain Bovill asking very gently of this greater treasure-house, and I can hear the priest, like one in a trance, speaking high an

toil... I know it... And yet I do not know. 'Tis not for me to set li

or a holy labour. Captain Bovill's stout countenance wore an air of humility. 'We be dedicate,' he said, 'to some high fortune. Let us go humbly and praise God.' The first steps we took that morning we walked like men going into church. Up a

at with both elbows on the table, staring hard a

was clean and swept and silent. In each dwelling the roof was of beaten gold, and the square pillars were covered with gold plates, and where the dead sat was a wilderness of jewels.... I tel

gs?" Raleigh

bodies fashioned in the likeness of men. But the

at fortune! And w

and cried like children, and tore at the plated dead.... I mind how I wrenched off one jewelled face with the haft of my dagger, and a thin trickle of bones fell inside.... And yet, as we ravened and plundered we would fall into fits of shivering, for the th

precious, and some gold likewise as an earnest, and by striking northward through the mountains seek to reach at a higher point in its course the river by which we had entered from the sea. I mistrusted the plan, for the

perate?" Raleigh's pale eye

horns. Yet there was water and food, and the hardships were not beyond mortal endurance. 'Twas not a haunted hell lik

mother's race. All Coffyns have in th

sight of the river, we met a Spanish party, a convoy from their northern mines. We marched loosely and blindly, and they came on us unawares.

an

like, and if the worst befall I trust every man to fling into the river what jewels he carries sooner than let them become spoil of war. For if they see such preciousness they will be fired to inquiry and may haply stumble on our city. Such of us as live will some day return there....' I have said we had little powder, but for half a day we withstood the assault, and time and again when the enemy leapt inside our lines we

ou ret

For long I was between death and life, and knew little till I woke in the Almirante's cell at Panama.... The rest you have

his feet and stared through the port, which was now tremulous with the foreglow of the tropi

e road back

odded. "I a

me and look but to save their throats. Most are scum and have no stomach for great enterprises. I can send Herbert home with three shiploa

his head. "Not fo

great marvel lie hid till t

When I have seen my son a ma

ty of the

f the Angels, of whi

ng sky was making its song of morning. Raleigh blew out the flickering lamp, and the cabin was filled with a clear green dusk like palest emera

u said your tale was a commentary on

r things. For that we were thoroughly punished and failed even in

have," and Ra

shed most resolutely an elect pur

call them will o' the wisps, Jasper. What have they brought me? I am an old sick man, penniless and disgraced

what matters the fate of these twisted limbs or even of your comely head? All's one in the end, Sir Walter. We sh

dly yet with a kin

nd it!

hich I have sowed he may reap. H

al now looked the younger. The fresh light showed the other like a wr

soul and body. Faith, I have a mind to breakfast.... What a miracle is our ancient England! F