n
of Modena: but Lord Grey forbade the duel: blood enough had been shed
already. The next question was, where to bestow Don Guzman till his
ransom should arrive; and as Amyas could not well deliver the gallant
Don into the safe custody of Mrs. Leigh at Burrough, and still less into
that of Frank at Court, he was fain to write to Sir Richard Grenville,
and ask his advice, and in the meanwhile keep the Spaniard with him upon
parole, which he frankly gave,--saying that as for running away, he had
nowhere to run to; and as for joining the Irish he had no mind to turn
pig; and Amyas found him, as shall be hereafter told, pleasant company
enough. But one morning Raleigh entered--

"I have done you a good turn, Leigh, if you think it one. I have talked
St. Leger into making you my lieutenant, and giving you the custody of
a right pleasant hermitage--some castle Shackatory or other in the midst
of a big bog, where time will run swift and smooth with you, between
hunting wild Irish, snaring snipes, and drinking yourself drunk with
usquebaugh over a turf fire."

"I'll go," quoth Amyas; "anything for work." So he went and took
possession of his lieutenancy and his black robber tower, and there
passed the rest of the winter, fighting or hunting all day, and chatting
and reading all the evening, with Senor Don Guzman, who, like a good
soldier of fortune, made himself thoroughly at home, and a general
favorite with the soldiers.

At first, indeed, his Spanish pride and stateliness, and Amyas's English
taciturnity, kept the two apart somewhat; but they soon began, if not
to trust, at least to like each other; and Don Guzman told Amyas, bit by
bit, who he was, of what an ancient house, and of what a poor one; and
laughed over the very small chance of his ransom being raised, and
the certainty that, at least, it could not come for a couple of years,
seeing that the only De Soto who had a penny to spare was a fat old dean
at St. Yago de Leon, in the Caracas, at which place Don Guzman had been
born. This of course led to much talk about the West Indies, and the
Don was as much interested to find that Amyas had been one of Drake's
world-famous crew, as Amyas was to find that his captive was the
grandson of none other than that most terrible of man-hunters, Don
Ferdinando de Soto, the conqueror of Florida, of whom Amyas had read
many a time in Las Casas, "as the captain of tyrants, the notoriousest
and most experimented amongst them that