it so, soldier? Well, may I drink to you now who
drank to me then?"

He drew the ale towards him but kept his eyes upon the other's
countenance. The man reddened from brow to bared throat, but his words
came at once, and there was moisture in his blue eyes. "If my old
captain will do me so much honor--" he began, unsteadily. Ferne with a
smile raised his jack to his lips and drank to him health and happy life
and duty faithfully done.

When, after stammered thanks, the man was gone, the other waited hour
after hour the appearance of Sir John Nevil. At last he came striding
down the hall to the stair, but swerving suddenly when he caught sight
of Ferne, crossed to the settle, and gave him quiet greeting. "Sir
Francis kept me overlong," he said. "How has gone the day, Mortimer?"

"The fever lessens," answered the other. "There are not many now will
die.... May I speak to you where there are fewer eyes?"

A few moments later, in Sir John's room, he took from his doublet a slip
of paper. "This was brought to me some hours ago. Is it an order?"

"Ay," said Nevil, without touching the out-held paper. "An order."

Ferne walked to the window and stood there, looking out upon the
passers-by in the street below. One and all seemed callow souls who had
met neither angel nor devil, heard neither the thunderbolt nor the still
small voice. Desperately weary, set to a task which appalled him, he
felt again the sting of a lash to which he had thought himself inured.
There was a longing upon him that this insistent probing of his wound
should cease. Better the Indians and the fearful woods, and Death ever
a-tiptoe! better the stupendous strife of the lonely soul to maintain
its dominion, to say to overtoppling nature, to death, and to despair,
_I am_. There was no man who could help the soul.... This earthly
propping of a withered plant, this drawing of tattered arras over a
blood-stained wall, what was it to the matter? For the moment all his
being was for black, star-touching mountains, for the wild hurry of
league-long rapids, the calling and crying of the forest;--the next he
turned again to the room with some quiet remark as to the apparent
brewing of a storm in the western skies. Nevil bent upon him a
troubled look.

"It was my wish, Mortimer, to which Drake gave ready assent. It is, as
you see, an order for your presence to-night, with other gentlemen
volunteers, at this great banquet with which the Spaniard takes leave of