f love--"

"I dreamed of home," quoth Baldry, "and of my mother's calling me, a
little lad, when at twilight work was done. '_Robert, Robert_!'
she called."

"I had no dreams," said Sir Mortimer. "Now sounds John Nevil's
trumpets--our guests have made entry."

"Why, senors," answered Mexia, flattered and flown with wine, "I learned
to speak your tongue from a man of your country, who also gave me that
knowledge of English affairs which you are pleased to compliment. I make
my boast that I am no traveller--I have not been home to Seville these
twenty years--yet, as you see, I have some trifling acquaintance--"

"Your learning is of so shining a quality," quoth Sir Mortimer, with
courteous emphasis, "that here and there a flaw cannot mar its curious
worth. Smerwick Fort lies in Ireland, senor, not in England. Though
verily the best thing I know of Edmund Campion is the courageousness of
his end; yet indeed he died not with a halo about his head, nor were
miracles wrought with his blood. Her Gracious Majesty the Queen of
England hath no such distemperature as that you name, and keepeth no
sort of familiar fiend. The Queen of Scots, if a most fair and most
unfortunate, is yet a most wicked lady, who, alas! hath trained many a
gallant man to a bloody and disastrous end."

"Who is that Englishman, your teacher?" came from the head of the board
the Admiral's grave voice.

"He is dead," said De Guardiola at his right hand.

"Of his fate, valiant senors," began the fuddled Mexia, "you alone may
be precisely aware--"

"He is dead," again stated with deliberation Don Luiz. "I know, senors,
the pool where these fish were caught and the wood where alone grows
this purple fruit. So you set at liberty those three slaves, the
caciques?... Well, I had reason to believe that they had hidden gold."

"Where is Master Francis Sark?" demanded Nevil, of Ferne. "I did command
his attendance here to-night."

"He plead a tertian fever--would not mar our warmth with his shivering,"
said the other. "I sent the chirurgeon to his cell--for indeed the man
shook like a reed."

It would appear that Francis Sark was an unknown name to their guests,
for no flicker of recognition passed over the countenance of any
Spaniard. They sat at the long table, and foe drank to foe while fiddle
and hautboy made music and the candles slowly wasted and in the hot
night the garlands withered. Perfumes were lit in the room, and the
smoke of their burning