ow hath a power to anger me,--not his words alone, but the man
himself.... Well, let him go until the day we come sailing back to
England! For his words--" He paused and a shadow came over his face.
"Who knows himself?" he said. "There are times when I look within and
doubt my every quality that men are pleased to give me. God smiles upon
me--perhaps He smiles with contempt!... I would that I had followed, not
led, that day at Fayal!"

Arden burst into a laugh. The Admiral turned and stared at him who had
spoken with a countenance half severity, half deep affection. "What!
stings that yet?" he said. "I think you may have that knowledge of
yourself that you were born to lead, and that knowledge of higher things
that shame is of the devil, but defeat ofttimes of God. How idly do we
talk to-day!"

"Idly enough," agreed Ferne with a quick sigh. He lifted his hands from
the other's shoulders, and with an effort too instantaneous to be
apparent shook off his melancholy. Arden took up his hat and swung his
short cloak over his shoulder.

"Since we may not fight," he said, "I'll e'en go play. There's a pretty
lady hard by who loves me dearly. I'll go tell her tales of the Carib
beauties. Master Sedley, you are for the court, I know. Would the gods
had sent me such a sister! Do you go to Leicester House, Mortimer? If
not, my fair Discretion hath a mate--"

"I," answered Ferne, "am also for Greenwich."

Arden laughed again. "Her Grace gives you yet another audience? Or is it
that hath come to court that Nonpareil, that radiant Incognita, that
be-rhymed Dione at whose real name you keep us guessing? I thought the
violet satin was not for naught!"

"In that you speak with truth," said the other, coolly, "for thirty
acres of good Devon land went to its procuring. Since you are for the
court, Henry Sedley, one wherry may carry the two of us."

When the two adventurers and the boy in blue and silver had made half
the distance to the pleasant palace where, like a flight of multicolored
birds, had settled for the moment Elizabeth's migratory court, the
gentlemen became taciturn and fell at length to silent musing, each upon
his own affairs. The boy liked it not, for their discourse had been of
armor and devices, of war-horses and Spanish swords, and such knightly
matters as pleased him to the marrow. He himself (Robin-a-dale they
called him) meant to be altogether such a one as his master in violet
satin. Not a sea-dog simply an