rrying steps and hasty voices. Baldry, at
the window, wheeled, color in his cheeks, light in his deep eyes.

"War is my mistress! Down the hillside come those to whom I can
speak--can speak as well as thou, Sir Mortimer Ferne!" The door was
flung open, and Ambrose Wynch, a mighty man in a battered breastplate
and morion, looked joyfully in upon them.

"The Dons supped so well last night, Sir John, that now they're coming
to breakfast! 'Tis just a flourish--no great sortie. Shall a handful of
us go out against them?"

That sally from the fortress was led by Mexia, who somewhat burned to
wipe out the memory of his lost battery at the river's mouth. And as
blind Fortune's dearest favor flutters often to the lackey while the
master snatches vainly, so it befell in this case, for Mexia's chance
raid, a piece of mere bravado to which De Guardiola had given grudging
consent, was productive of results. Bravado for bravado, interchange of
chivalric folly, of magnificence that was not war,--forth to meet the
Spaniard and his company must go no greater force of Englishmen! Luiz de
Guardiola, Governor of Nueva Cordoba, kept his state in his fortress;
therefore, Sir John Nevil, Admiral of the English and of no less worth
than the Castilian, remained for this skirmish inactive. On both sides
their captains played the game.

Sir Mortimer Ferne and Robert Baldry at the head of threescore men, some
mounted, some on foot, deemed themselves and this medley sufficient for
Pedro Mexia. Nor can it be said that their reckoning was at fault, since
Mexia, deep in curses, had at last to make hasty way across the strip
of plain between Nueva Cordoba and its fortress. Too easily did the
English repel an idle sortie, too eagerly did they follow Mexia in
retreat, for suddenly Chance, leaving all neutrality, threw herself, a
goddess armed, upon the Spanish side. In the very shadow of the hill,
the mounted English, well ahead of those on foot, Mexia's disordered
band making for the shelter of the tunal, a Spaniard turned, raised his
harquebus and fired. The great bay steed which bore Sir Mortimer Ferne
reared, screamed, then fell, hurling its rider to earth, where he lay,
senseless, stark in black armor, with a knot of rose-colored velvet in
his crest.

No hawk like De Guardiola was Pedro Mexia, but when luck pinioned his
prey his talons were strong to close upon it. Now on the instant he
wheeled, swooped with all his might upon the disordered va