told that Mr Hubert had been
took."

"What do you suppose the Spaniards will do with my brother?" impulsively
asked George, and could have bitten his tongue out the next moment for
his imprudence in asking such a question in his mother's presence. For
Dyer was a blunt, plain-spoken, ignorant fellow, without a particle of
tact, as young Saint Leger had already seen, and he knew enough of
Spanish methods to pretty shrewdly guess what the reply to his question
would be. And before he could think of a plan to avert that reply, it
came.

"Well, Mr Garge," answered Dyer, "you and I do both know how the
Spaniards do usually treat their prisoners. I do reckon they must ha'
took a good twenty or thirty o' our men, and I don't doubt but what
they'll clap the lot into th' Inquisition first of all. Then they'll
burn some of 'em at an _auto-da-fe_; and the rest they'll send to the
galleys for life."

"What sayest thou?" screamed Mrs Saint Leger, starting to her feet and
wringing her hands as she stared at Dyer in horror, as though he were
some dreadful monster. "The Inquisition, the _auto-da-fe_, the galleys
for my son? George! I conjure you, on your honour as an Englishman,
tell me, is it possible that these awful things can be true?"

For a second or two George hesitated, considering what answer he should
return to his mother's frenzied question. He knew that the horrors
suggested by Dyer were true, and the knowledge that his brother was
exposed to such frightful perils--might even at that precise instant be
the victim of them--held him tongue-tied, for how could he confirm this
blunt-spoken sailor's statement, knowing that if he did so he would be
condemning his dearly-loved mother to an indefinite period of heart-
racking anguish and anxiety that might well end in destroying her reason
if indeed it did not slay her outright? He was as strictly
conscientious as most of his contemporaries, but he could not bring
himself to condemn his mother to the dreadful fate he foresaw for her if
he told her the bald, unvarnished truth. He knew, by what he was
himself suffering at that moment, what his mother's mental agony would
be if he strictly obeyed her, therefore he temporised somewhat by
replying:

"Calm yourself, mother dear, calm yourself, I beg you. There is no need
for us to be unduly anxious about Hubert. I will not attempt to conceal
from you that he is in evil case, poor dear fellow--all Englishmen are
who fal