ws across his path, I believe full well--but for
me the master of the _Speedwell_ makes no stirring.... Take thy lute,
Henry Sedley, and sing to us, giving honey after gall! Sing to me of
other things than war."

As he spoke he moved to the stern windows, took his seat upon the bench
beneath, and leaning on his arm, looked out upon the low red sun and the
darkening ocean.

"'Ring out your bells, let mourning shows be spread:
For love is dead:
Love is dead, infected
With plague of deep disdain--'"

sang Sedley with throbbing sweetness, depth of melancholy passion. The
listener's spirit left its chafing, left pride and disdain, and drifted
on that melodious tide to far heavens.

"'Weep, neighbors, weep; do you not hear it said
That Love is dead?
His death-bed peacock's folly;
His winding sheet is shame;
His will false-seeming wholly;
His sole executor blame!'"

rang Sedley's splendid voice. The song ended; the sun sank; on came the
invader night. Ferne took the lute and slowly swept its strings.

"How much, how little of it all is peacock's folly," he said; "who
knoweth? Life and Living, Love and Hate, and Honor the bubble, and Shame
the Nessus-robe, and Death, which, when all's done, may have no answer
to the riddle!--Where is the fixed star, and who knoweth depth from
shallow, or himself, or anything?" He struck the lute again, drawing
from it a lingering and mournful note.

"Now out upon the man who brought melancholy into fashion!" ejaculated
Arden. "In danger the blithest soul alive, when all is well you do ask
yourself too many questions! I'll go companion with Robert Baldry, who
keeps no fashions save of Mars's devising."

"Why, I am not sad," said Ferne, rousing himself. "Come, I'll dice with
thee for fifty ducats and a gold jewel--to be paid from the first
ship we take!"

On sailed the ships through tranquil seas, until many days had fallen
into their wake, slipping by them like painted clouds of floating
seaweed or silver-finned vagrants of the deep. Great calms brooded upon
the water, and the sails fell idle, flag and pennant drooped; then the
trade-wind blew, and the white ships drove on. They drove into the blue
distance, towards unknown ports--known only in that they would surely
prove themselves Ports of All Peril. At night the sea burned; a field of
gold it ran to horizons jewelled with richer stars than s