for you; so I owe you nought but
my farewell."

"Nay," said Ludar. "By heaven, we are all debtors to you both, and
shall compel you to own it. And since you both and my comrade here be
Englishmen, let me tell you that, for your sakes, I shall salute your
Queen's ensign when I next see it."

That night the poet related to me with much embellishment and flourish
all that had passed since the maids left London, most of which I already
knew, yet was not loth to hear again from his lips.

"Thank me no thanks, my Hollander," said he, when once more I blessed
him for the service he had done. "The poet's glory cometh not from
earth. I have, while I waited here, written an excellent and notable
epic on the wars of the illustrious house of the McDonnells, the which I
will even now rehearse thee for thy delectation. And when once more
thou art returned to thy press, I reserve for thee the glory of
imprinting three noble copies of the same on paper of vellum, to be
bound after the manner of the Venetians, in white, with clasps of gold,
to be given, one to my lord Sorley Boy, one to Sir Ludar, and one to
thee, for thy private and particular delectation."

Again I thanked him, and begged he would reserve the reading till to-
morrow, when I should be more wakeful.

To which, marvelling much at my patience, he agreed.

"As for me," said he, "naught falleth ill to the favourites of the
Immortals. I owe no grudge to the day I took thee into my protection.
As a printer, count on me as thy patron. As a man, call me thy friend.
And if some day, at thy frugal fireside (for the which thou art already
provided with the chiefest ornament), thou shouldst have a spare chair
and platter, I will even deign to fill the one and empty the other now
and again, in memory of this, our time of fellowship. Therefore count
on me, my Hollander; and so, good-night."

There is little more to be told. Of the crew of the doomed _Gerona_,
the tide washed some hundreds, before many weeks were past, into a bay
near the Causeway Headlands, east of Dunluce. Amongst them, Ludar and I
discovered the body of Don Alonzo, calm and gentle in death, and buried
him with what honour, we could in holy ground near the tomb of the
McDonnells. A few cannon and guns we helped haul up and set on the
walls of Dunluce, where they are to this day, much to the wrath of my
Lord Deputy and his English Councillors.

Jack Gedge remains body servant to Sir Ludar McDonnel