r. Victory unassuaged was theirs, and for them Fortune had
cogged her dice. They had taken the _San Jose_ and sunk the caravels,
they had sacked the pearl-towns and Nueva Cordoba, they had gathered
laurels for themselves and England. For the fortress, they deemed that
they might yet drain it of hoarded treasure. The poison of the land and
time had touched them. The wind sang to them of conquest; morn and eve,
the sun at noon, and at night the phosphorescent sea, were of the color
of gold, and the stars spoke of Fame. The great mountains also, to the
south,--how might the eye leap from height to height and the soul not
stir? In Time's hornbook ambition is an early lesson, and these
scholars had conned it well. Of all that force, scarce one simple
soldier or mariner in whom expectation ran not riot, while the gentlemen
adventurers in whose company were to sup De Guardiola and his ten
cavaliers saw that all things might be done with ease and that evil
chances lurked not for them.

The Captain of the _Cygnet_ and the Captain of the _Phoenix_, with Arden
and Sedley, awaited beside the great window of the hall their guests'
appearance. The sunset was not yet, but the moment was at hand. The
light, dwelling upon naked hillside and the fortress crowning it, made
both to seem candescent, hill and castle one heart of flame against the
purple mountains that stretched across the south. Very high were the
mountains, very still and white that fortress flame; the yellow plain
could not be seen, but the palm-trees were gold green above the walls of
Nueva Cordoba. The light fell from the hilltop, a solitary trumpet blew,
and forth from that guarded opening in the tunal rode De Guardiola on
his pale horse, and at his back ten Spanish gentlemen.

"The dark line of them is like a serpent creeping from the tunal," said
Henry Sedley. "Last night I dreamed a strange thing.... It concerned my
sister Damaris. She came up from the sea, straight from the water like
blown spray, and she was dressed in white. She looked down through the
sea and her tears fell, and falling, they made music like the
mermaiden's singing that we heard. '_Lie still_,' she said. '_Thou under
the sea and I under the sod. Lie still: dream well: all's over_.' To
whom did she speak?"

"If I were a dead man and she called my name, I would answer," said
Ferne. "She under the sod and I under the sea.... So be it! But first
one couch, one cup, one garland, the sounded depths o