s head. "I know not. It is subtle. Perhaps it is
pride--ambition too inwrought with fairest qualities to show as
such,--security of your self of selves too absolute. Perhaps I mistake
and your blood doth run as healthfully as a child's. But you are of
those who ever breed in others speculation, wilding fancies.... When a
man doth all things too well, what is there left for God to do but to
break and crumble and remould? If I do you wrong, blame, if you will, my
love, which is jealous for you--friend whom I value, soldier and knight
whom I have ever thought the fair ensample of our time!"

"I hold many men, known and unknown, within myself," said Ferne, slowly.
"I think it is always so with those of my temper. But over that hundred
I am centurion."

"God forgive me if I misjudge one of their number," answered the other.
"The centurion I have never doubted nor will doubt."

Another silence; then, "Will you see that Spaniolated Englishman, my
prisoner?" asked Sir Mortimer. "He is under charge without."

The Admiral put to his lips a golden whistle, and presently there stood
in the cabin a slight man of not unpleasing countenance--blue eyes,
brown hair, unfurrowed brow, and beneath a scant and silky beard a chin
as softly rounded as a woman's.--His name and estate? Francis Sark,
gentleman.--English? So born and bred, cousin and sometime servant to my
lord of Shrewsbury.--And what did my English gentleman, my cousin to an
English nobleman, upon the galleon _San Jose_? Alack, sirs! were
Englishmen upon Spanish ships so unknown a spectacle?

"I have found them," quoth the Admiral, "rowing in Spanish galleys,
naked, scarred, chained, captives and martyrs."

Said Ferne, "You, sir, fought in Milan mail, standing beside the captain
of soldiers from Nueva Cordoba."

"And if I did," answered boldly their prisoner, "none the less was I
slave and captive, constrained to serve detested masters. Where needs
must I fight, I fought to the purpose. Doth not the galley-slave pull
strongly at the oar, though the chase be English and of his own blood?"

"He toils under the whip," said Ferne. "Now what whip did the Spaniard
use?"

"He is dead, and his men await succor on that lonely coast where you
left them," was Master Francis Sark's somewhat singular reply. "There is
left in the fortress of Nueva Cordoba a single company of soldiers; the
battery at the river's mouth hath another. Luiz de Guardiola commands
the citadel, and he is a