an," said the captain with pity in his voice.

"Sick! Why, yes. But the disease goes very deep. The virtue has gone out
of me, old comrade. I no longer hate or love, and once I loved and
hated extremely. I am become like a frail woman for tolerance. Spain has
worsted me, but I bear her no ill will, though she has slain my son. Yet
once I held all Spaniards the devil's spawn."

"You spoke kindly of them in your History," said the other, "when you
praised their patient virtue."

"Did I? I have forgot. Nay, I remember. When I wrote that sentence I
was thinking of Berreo. I loved him, though I took his city. He was
a valiant and liberal gentleman, and of a great heart. I mind how 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 enemy unless
he have much in common with him, and as the strife goes on he gets
liker.... Ah, Jasper, once I had such ambitions that they made a fire
all around me. Once I was like Kit Marlowe's Tamburlaine:

'Threatening the world with high astounding terms,
And scourging kingdoms with his conquering sword.'

But now the flame has died and the ashes are cold. And I would not
revive them if I could. There is nothing under heaven that I desire."

The seaman's face was grave and kindly.

"I think you have flown too high, Sir Walter. You have aimed at the moon
and forgotten the merits of our earthly hills."

"True, true!" Raleigh's mien was for a moment more lively. "That is a
shrewd comment. After three-score years I know my own heart. I have been
cursed with a devil of pride, Jasper.... Man, I have never had a friend.
Followers and allies and companions, if you please, but no friend.
Others--simple 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 man's life like a child's peep-show beside
the dark wastes of eternity. Ah, I know well I struggled like the rest
for gauds and honours, but they were only tools for my ambition. For
themselves I never valued them. I aimed at a master-fabric, and since I
have failed I have now no terrestrial cover."

The night had fallen black, but the cabin wind