ough to wish to God that I
had left him to himself.

"Who will replace Don John in Flanders?" I asked him quietly. He stared
at me. "He is useful to you there. Use him, Sire, to your own ends."

"But they will press this English business."

"Acquiesce."

"Acquiesce? Are you mad?"

"Seem to acquiesce. Temporize. Answer them, 'One thing at a time.'
Say, 'When the Flanders business is happily concluded, we will think of
England.' Give them hope that success in Flanders will dispose you
to support the other project. Thus you offer Don John an incentive to
succeed, yet commit yourself to nothing."

"And this dog Escovedo?"

"Is a dog who betrays himself by his bark. We will listen for it."

And thus it was determined; thus was Don John suckled on the windy pap
of hope when presently he came to Court with Escovedo at his heels.
Distended by that empty fare he went off to the Low Countries, leaving
Escovedo in Madrid to represent him, with secret instructions to advance
his plans.

Now Escovedo's talents were far inferior to my conception of them.

He was just a greedy schemer, without the wit to dissemble his appetite
or the patience necessary to secure attainment.

Affairs in Flanders went none too well, yet that did not set a curb
upon him. He pressed his master's business upon the King with an ardour
amounting to disrespect, and disrespect was a thing the awful majesty of
Philip could never brook. Escovedo complained of delays, of indecision,
and finally--in the summer of '76--he wrote the King a letter of fierce
upbraidings, criticizing his policy in terms that were contemptuous, and
which entirely exasperated Philip.

It was in vain I strove to warn the fellow of whither he was drifting;
in vain I admonished and sought to curb his headlong recklessness. I
have said that I had a friendship for him, and because of that I took
more pains, perhaps, than I should have taken in another's case.

"Unless you put some judgment into that head of yours, my friend, you
will leave it in this business," I told him one day.

He flung into a passion at the admonition, heaped abuse upon me, swore
that it was I who thwarted him, I who opposed the fulfilment of Don
John's desires and fostered the dilatory policy of the King.

I left him after that to pursue his course, having no wish to quarrel
with this headstrong upstart; yet, liking him as I did, I spared no
endeavour to shield him from the consequences he provoked. Bu