nd was heard of singing voices; violet
knight and rose-colored maid of honor, they came at last to say
farewell. That night in the lit Palace, amid the garish crowd, they
might see each other again, might touch hands, might even have slight
speech together, but not as now could heart speak to heart. They rose
from the green bank, and as the sun set, as the moon came out, and the
singing ceased, and the world grew ashen, they said what lovers say on
the brink of absence, and at the last they kissed good-by.

III

They were not far north of the Canary Islands, when the sky, which for
several days had been overcast, grew very threatening, and the _Mere
Honour_, the _Cygnet_, the _Marigold_, and the _Star_ made ready to meet
what fury the Lord should be pleased to loose upon them. It came, a
maniac unchained, and scattered the ships. Darkness accompanied it, and
the sea wrinkled beneath its feet. The ships went here and went there;
throughout the night they burned lights, and fired many great pieces of
ordnance,--not to prevail against their enemy, but to say each to the
other: "Here am I, my sister! Go not too far, come not too near!" Their
voices were as whispers to the shouting of their foe; beneath the
rolling thunders the sound of cannon and culverin were of less account
than the grating of pebbles in a furious surge.

Day came and the storm continued, but with night the wind fell and
quiet possessed the deep. The sea subsided, and just before dawn the
clouds broke, showing a waning moon. Below it suddenly sprang out two
lights, one above the other, and to the _Cygnet_, safe, though with her
plumage sadly ruffled, came the sound of a gun twice fired.

The darkness faded, the gray light strengthened, and showed to the
watchers upon the _Cygnet's_ decks the ship in distress. It was Baldry's
ship, the little _Star_. She lay rolling heavily in the heavy sea, her
masts gone, her boats swept away, her poop low in the water, her
beak-head high, sinking by the stern. Her lights yet burned, ghastly in
the dawning; her people, a black swarm upon her forecastle, lay
clinging, devouring with their eyes the _Cygnet's_ boats coming for
their deliverance across the gray waste. Of the _Mere Honour_ and the
_Marigold_ nothing was to be seen.

The swarm descended into the boats, and all pushed off from the doomed
ship save a single craft, less crowded than the others, which waited,
its occupants gesticulating angry dismay, for