The hounds of God : A romance

By Rafael Sabatini

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Title: The hounds of God
        A romance

Author: Rafael Sabatini

Release date: December 15, 2025 [eBook #77465]

Language: English

Original publication: Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1928

Credits: an anonymous Project Gutenberg volunteer


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HOUNDS OF GOD ***




 THE HOUNDS OF GOD

 _A Romance_

 BY
 RAFAEL SABATINI




 BOSTON AND NEW YORK
 HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
 The Riverside Press Cambridge




 [COPYRIGHT]

 COPYRIGHT, 1928, BY RAFAEL SABATINI

 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THE RIGHT TO REPRODUCE
 THIS BOOK OR PARTS THEREOF IN ANY FORM




 CONTENTS

 I. The Misanthrope
 II. The Lover
 III. In Calais Roads
 IV. Sir Gervase
 V. Flotsam
 VI. Surrender
 VII. Margaret’s Prisoner
 VIII. Don Pedro’s Letter
 IX. The Assault-at-Arms
 X. The Ransom
 XI. The Departure
 XII. The Secretary of State
 XIII. The Queen
 XIV. Frey Luis
 XV. Scylla
 XVI. Charybdis
 XVII. The Holy Office
 XVIII. Domini Canes
 XIX. Philip II
 XX. The King’s Conscience
 XXI. The Cardinal’s Conscience
 XXII. The Royal Confessor
 XXIII. The Auto de Fé
 XXIV. Recognition




 THE HOUNDS OF GOD

 CHAPTER I.
 THE MISANTHROPE

/It/ was Walsingham who said of Roger Trevanion, Earl of Garth, that
he preferred the company of the dead to that of the living.

This was a sneering allusion to the recluse, studious habits of his
lordship. His lordship, no doubt, would have regarded the sneer as a
thunderbolt of lath; that is, if he regarded it as a thunderbolt at
all. It is much more likely that he would have accepted the statement
in its literal sense, admitted the preference and justified it by
answering that the only good men were dead men. This because, being
dead, they could no longer work any evil.

You conceive that the experience of life which brings a man to such a
conclusion cannot have been pleasant. His misanthropy dated from his
adolescence, arose out of his close friendship for the gallant Thomas
Seymour, who was brother to one queen and husband to another, and who,
under the spur of ambition and perhaps indeed of love, would, upon the
death of Katherine Parr, have married the Princess Elizabeth. As
Seymour’s devoted and admiring friend, he had seen at close quarters
the slimy web of intrigue in which the Lord Admiral was taken, and he
had narrowly escaped being taken with him and with him sent to the
block. He had witnessed the evil working of the envious ambition of
the Protector Somerset, who, fearful lest fruition of the affair
between the Lord Admiral and the Princess should lead to his own
ultimate supersession, had not scrupled to bring his own brother to
the scaffold upon a fabricated charge of high-treason.

It was pretended that the Admiral was already the lover of the
Princess and that he conspired with her to overthrow the established
regency and to seize the reins of power with his own hands. Indeed,
the full pretence was that his courtship of the Princess was no more
than a step in the promotion of his schemes. The two offences were
made so interdependent that either might be established upon evidence
of the other.

Young Trevanion suffered arrest, together with all the principal
persons in the household of the Princess Elizabeth, and all who were
in close relations with the Admiral, whether as servants or as
friends. Because he was at once a member of the household of the
Princess and probably more in Seymour’s confidence than any other man,
he became the subject of assiduous attention on the part of the
Council of Regency. He was brought repeatedly before that council,
examined and reëxamined, questioned and probed _ad nauseam_, with the
object of tricking him into incriminating his friend by admissions of
what he had seen at Hatfield whilst living there and of what
confidences his friend might have reposed in him.

Although years later, when the admission could do no harm to any, his
lordship is known to have confessed that the Admiral’s passion for the
young Princess was very real and deep with roots in other than
ambition, and that once at Hatfield he had surprised her in the
Admiral’s arms--from which it may reasonably be concluded that she was
not indifferent to his passion, yet before the Council, young
Trevanion could remember nothing that might hurt his friend. Not only
did he stubbornly and stoutly deny knowledge, direct or indirect, of
any plot in which Seymour was engaged; but, on the contrary, he had
much to say that was calculated to prove that there was no substance
whatever behind this shadow of treason cast upon the Admiral. By his
demeanour he put the members of the Council in a rage with him on more
occasions than one. It was an education to him of the lengths to which
human spite can go. The Protector, himself, went so far once as to
warn him savagely that his own head was none so safe on his shoulders
that by pertness of words and conduct he should himself unsettle it
further. Their malevolence, begotten as he perceived of jealous fear,
made these men, whom he had accounted among the noblest in England,
appear despicable, mean, and paltry.

Under the shadow of that malevolence, Trevanion was sent to the Tower,
and kept there until the day of Seymour’s execution. On that
blustering March morning, he was granted a favour which he had not
ventured to solicit; he was conducted to the chamber in which his
doomed friend was imprisoned and left alone with him to take his
leave.

He was one-and-twenty at the time, an age in which life is so strong
in a man and death so abhorrent that it is almost terrifying to look
upon another who is about to die. He found the Admiral in a state of
composure which he could not understand, for the Admiral too was still
young, scarcely more than thirty, tall, vigorous, well-made, and
handsome. He sprang up to greet Trevanion almost gladly. He talked
volubly for the few moments they were together, scarcely allowing the
younger man to interject a word. He touched almost tenderly upon their
friendship, and, whilst moved by Garth’s sorrow, desired him to be
less glum, assured him that death was no great matter once you had
brought yourself to look it in the face. He had taken a full leave, he
announced, of the Lady Elizabeth, in a letter which he had spent most
of the night in writing to her; for although denied pen and ink by the
Lords of the Council, he had plucked an aglet from his hose and
contrived to write with that, and with the ink supplied by his own
veins. This letter, he told Trevanion, speaking boldly and loudly, was
concealed within the sole of his shoes, and a person of trust would
see to its safe delivery after he was gone. There was an odd smile on
his lips as he made the announcement, a singular slyness in his fine
eyes, which puzzled Trevanion at the time.

They embraced and parted, and Trevanion returned to his own prison to
pray for his friend and to resolve the riddle of that unnecessary and
indeed incautious confidence touching the letter in his shoes. Later
he understood.

With the knowledge of men which the Admiral possessed, he had been
quick to conclude that it was out of no kindly feelings Trevanion had
been permitted to pay him this last visit. It was the hope of the
Lords of the Council that Seymour might seize the opportunity to send
some message to the Princess which would be incriminating in
character, and their spies were posted to overhear and report. But
Seymour, guessing this, had taken full advantage of it to inform them
of the existence of letters which he desired them to find, letters
which had been written so that they might be found, couched in such
terms that their publication must completely vindicate the Princess.

That was the last act of Seymour’s devotion. Although the letters were
never published, they may have done their work by limiting the
persecution to which the Lady Elizabeth was thereafter subject. But
the jealous spite which had spilled Seymour’s blood left the honour of
the Princess besmirched by the foul tales that were current of her
relations with the Admiral.

It was Trevanion, himself, some months later, after his release and
when about to withdraw from the scene of events which had killed his
faith in men, who, in going to take his leave of the Princess
Elizabeth, informed her of the letter. And that slim girl of sixteen,
with a sigh and a sad smile that would have been old on a woman twice
her years, had repeated, perhaps in a different tone, the cautious
words she had used of the Admiral on an earlier occasion.

‘He was a man of much wit but very little judgment. God rest him!’

It was perhaps because he accounted this requiem so inadequate that,
when she would have had him resume his place in her household, he was
glad to be able to answer her that this the Lords of the Council had
already expressly denied him. Besides, his one desire was to remove
himself from the neighbourhood of the Court. He had been through the
valley of the shadow, and he had been permitted to perceive the vile
realities, the unscrupulous ambitions, the evil greed, the unworthy
passions festering under the fair surface of Court life. It had filled
him with loathing and disgust, and had put a definite end to all
courtly aspirations in himself.

He withdrew to his remote Cornish estates, there to devote himself to
husbandry and to the care of his people, matters which his father and
grandfather had entrusted to their stewards. Nor was he to be lured
thence by an invitation from the Princess Elizabeth when she became
queen and desired to reward those who had served her in her time of
tribulation.

He married, some ten years later, one of the Godolphins, a lady of
whom repute says that she was so beautiful that to behold her was to
love her. If that is true of her, it would appear to be the only
commendation she possessed. She was destined to carry the
disillusioning of the Earl of Garth yet a stage farther. A foolish,
empty, petulant creature, she made him realize once again that the
fairest skin may cover the sourest fruit, whereafter she departed this
life of a puerperal fever within a fortnight of the birth of their
only child, some five years after their ill-matched union.

Just as his one glimpse below the surface of Court life had sufficed
him, so his one experience of matrimony surfeited him. And although
only thirty-six at the time of her ladyship’s death, he undertook no
further adventures in wedlock, nor indeed adventures of any kind. He
was soul-weary, a distemper that not infrequently attacks the
thoughtful and introspective. He took to books, by which he had always
been attracted; he amassed at Trevanion Chase a prodigious library,
and as the years slipped by, he became more and more interested in the
things that had been and the things which philosophy taught him might
be, and less in those that actually were. He sought by study to probe
the meaning, purpose, and ultimate object of life, than which there is
no pursuit likelier to alienate a man from the business of living. He
became more and more aloof, took less and ever less heed of events
about him. The religious dissensions by which England was riven left
him unmoved. Not even when the menace of Spain hung like a black cloud
over the land, and everywhere men were arming and drilling against the
day of invasion, did the Earl of Garth, now well-advanced in years,
awaken to interest in the world in which he lived.

His daughter, who had been left more or less to bring herself up as
she chose, and who by a miracle had accomplished the task very
creditably, was the only living person who really understood him,
certainly the only one who loved him, for you conceive that he did not
invite affection. She had inherited a considerable portion of her
mother’s good looks, and most of the good sense and good feeling that
had distinguished her father in his youth, with just enough of her
mother’s perversity to give a spice to the mixture. If she reached--as
she eventually did--the age of twenty-five unmarried the fault was
entirely her own. There had been suitors to spare at any time after
her seventeenth year, and their comings and goings at times had driven
his lordship to the verge of exasperation. She was credited with
having broken several hearts. Or, to put it more happily, since that
untruly implies an undesirable activity on her part, several hearts
had been broken by her rejection of their infatuated owners. She had
remained as impassive as one of the rocks of that Cornish coast
against which ships might break themselves if hard-driven by weather
or ill-handled.

She loved her liberty too well to relinquish it. Thus she informed her
suitors. Like the Queen, she was so well satisfied with her maiden
estate that she accounted it the best estate in the world and was of
no mind to change it for any other.

This was no mere pretext upon which mercifully to dismiss those wooers
who did not commend themselves. It was, there is every reason to
believe, the actual truth. The Lady Margaret Trevanion had been
reared, as a result of her father’s idiosyncrasies, in masculine
freedom. Hers from the age of fifteen or sixteen to come and go
unquestioned; horses and dogs and hawks had engrossed her days; she
was as one of the lads of her own age with whom she associated; her
frank boyishness kept her relations with them on exactly the same
plane as that which marked the association of those boys with one
another. If the advent of her first suitor when she had reached the
age of seventeen produced the result of setting a check upon her
hoydenishness, arousing her to certain realities and imposing upon her
thereafter a certain circumspection, she did not on that account
abandon her earlier pursuits or the love of personal liberty which
their free indulgence had engendered in her. The odd thing is that she
was nowise coarsened by the masculinity with which her unusual rearing
had invested her. Just as the free and constant exercises of her tall,
supple body appeared but to have enriched it in feminine grace, so the
freedom of mental outlook upon which she had insisted had given her a
breadth and poise of mind from which she gathered a dignity entirely
feminine, as well as command over herself and others. She afforded
perhaps a remarkable instance of the persistence of inbred traits and
how they will assert themselves and dominate a character in despite of
environment and experience.

At the time at which I present her to you she had reached her
twenty-third year firmly entrenched in her maidenhood; and, with the
plainly asserted intention of remaining in that estate, she had so far
successfully discouraged all suitors but one. This one was an amiable
lad named Gervase Crosby, of a considerable Devon family, a kinsman to
Lord Garth’s neighbour, Sir John Killigrew of Arwenack, and a
persistent fellow who could not take ‘no’ for an answer. He was a
younger son with his way to make in the world, and Killigrew, a
bachelor, with no children of his own, had taken an interest in him
and desired to promote his fortunes. As a result of this the boy had
been much at Arwenack, that stately castellated house above the
estuary of the Fal. Killigrew was closely connected with the
Godolphins, and therefore looked upon the Earl of Garth as a kinsman
by marriage and upon Margaret as a still closer kinswoman on the
maternal side. He was one of the few among the surrounding gentry who
ventured freely to break through the seclusion in which the old earl
hedged himself about, and who was not to be discouraged by the
indifference of his welcome at his lordship’s hands. It was under his
ægis that young Crosby was first brought to Trevanion Chase, when a
well-grown, handsome lad of sixteen. Margaret liked him and used him
with a frank, boyish friendliness which encouraged him to come there
often. They were much of an age, and they discovered a similarity in
tastes and an interest in the same pursuits which made them fast
friends.

Killigrew, after much deliberation, had resolved that his young
kinsman should study law, with a view to a political career. He argued
that if young Crosby’s brains were any match for his long, comely body
there should be a brilliant future for him at the Court of a queen who
was ever ready to promote the fortunes of a handsome man. Therefore he
brought tutors to Arwenack and set about the lad’s education. But, as
often happens, the views of young and old did not here coincide.
Crosby was of a romantic temperament, and he could perceive no romance
in the law, however much Killigrew might labour to demonstrate it for
him. He desired a life of adventure; to live dangerously was in his
view the only way to be really alive.

The world was still ringing with the echoes of the epic of Drake’s
voyage round the globe. The sea and the sailor’s opportunity to probe
the mysteries of the earth, penetrating uncharted oceans, discovering
fabulous lands, called him; and finally Killigrew yielded, being wise
enough to perceive that no man will make a success of a career in
which his heart is not engaged.

Sir John took the boy to London. That was in 1584, just after his
twentieth birthday. Before setting out upon that voyage of adventure,
Gervase had desired to establish moorings at home against his return,
and he had offered himself, heart and hand and the fortune which he
was to make, to the Lady Margaret.

If the offer did not dazzle her ladyship, it certainly startled her.
From their fairly constant association she had come to regard him
almost as a brother, had come to permit him those familiarities which
a sister may permit, had even upon occasion allowed a kiss or two to
pass between them with no more than sisterly enthusiasm. That,
unsuspected by her, there should have been anything more than
brotherliness on his part seemed ludicrous. She said so, and brought
down upon herself a storm of reproaches, pleadings, and protestations
which soared in moments to heights of terrifying vehemence.

The Lady Margaret was not terrified. She remained calm. The
self-reliance which her rearing had imposed upon her had taught her
self-control. She took refuge in that phrase of hers about her
preference for a maiden estate. What was good enough for the Queen,
she announced, was good enough for her, as if making of virginity a
point of loyalty.

Shocked and dejected, Gervase went to take his leave of her father.
His lordship, who had just discovered Plato and was absorbed in that
philosopher’s conception of the cosmos, desired to cut these
valedictions short. But Gervase deemed it incumbent upon him to
enlighten the Earl on the subject of his daughter’s unnatural views of
life. No doubt he hoped, with the irrepressible optimism of the young,
to enlist his lordship’s aid in bringing her ladyship to a proper
frame of mind. But his lordship, irritated perhaps by the
interruption, had stared at him from under shaggy eyebrows.

‘If she chooses to lead apes in hell, what affair is that of yours?’

If Master Crosby had been shocked already by the daughter’s attitude
towards what he accounted the most important thing in life, he was far
more deeply shocked by her sire’s. This, he thought, was a nettle to
be grasped. So he grasped it.

‘It is my affair because I want to marry her.’

The Earl maintained his disconcerting level stare. He did not even
blink.

‘And what does Margaret want?’ he asked.

‘I have told your lordship what she says she wants.’

‘Since she says what you say she says, I wonder that you think it
worth while to trouble me.’

This would have discouraged any young man but Gervase Crosby. He drew
a swift, shrewd inference favourable to himself. I suspect that
Killigrew had good reasons besides the lad’s looks and inches for
intending him for the law, just as I suspect that a good lawyer was
lost in him when he took to the sea.

‘Your lordship means that I deserve your approval, and that if I can
bring Margaret to a change of views…’

‘I mean,’ his lordship interrupted him, ‘that if you bring Margaret to
a change of views, I will then consider the situation. It is not my
habit to deal with more than I find before me, or to plague myself
over possibilities which may never become realities. It is a habit
which I commend to you now that you are about to go forth into the
world. Too much good human energy is wasted in providing for
contingencies that never arise. I make you in these words, if you will
trouble to bear them in your memory, a parting gift of more value than
you may at present discern. I shall hope to hear of your good fortune,
sir.’

Thus the misanthrope dismissed the lover.




 CHAPTER II.
 THE LOVER

/Mr. Crosby’s/ bearing was marked upon his departure from Arwenack by
none of that exultation proper to the setting out of a young man who
regards the world as his oyster. Too much that he valued was being
left behind unsecured; and the Earl, he could not help admitting to
himself, had not been encouraging. But what youth desires, it believes
that it will ultimately possess. His confidence in himself and in his
star was restored and his natural buoyancy reëstablished long before
the journey was accomplished.

Travelling by roads which were obstacles to, rather than means of
progress, Sir John Killigrew and his young cousin reached London
exactly a week after setting out. There no time was lost. Sir John was
a person of considerable consequence, wielding great influence in the
West and therefore to be well received at Court. Moreover, some
personal friendship existed between himself and the Lord Admiral
Howard of Effingham. To the Admiral he took his young cousin. The
Admiral was disposed to be friendly. Recruits for the navy at such a
time, especially if they happened to be gentlemen of family, were more
than welcome. The difficulty was to find immediate employment for Mr.
Crosby. The Admiral took the young man to Deptford and presented him
to the manager of Her Majesty’s dockyards, that old-time slaver and
hardy seaman Sir John Hawkins. Sir John talked to the lad, liked him,
admired his clean length of limb and read promise in his resolute
young countenance and frank, steady blue eyes. If he was in haste for
adventure, Sir John thought he could put him in the way of it. He gave
him a letter to his young kinsman, Sir Francis Drake, who was about to
put to sea from Plymouth, though on the object of that seagoing Sir
John seemed singularly--perhaps wilfully--ignorant.

Back to the West went Gervase, once more in the charge of Killigrew.
At Plymouth they sought and duly found Sir Francis. He paid heed to
the strong recommendation of Hawkins’s letter, still greater heed to
the personality of the tall lad who stood before him, some heed also,
no doubt, to the fact that the lad was a kinsman of Sir John
Killigrew, who was a considerable power in Cornwall. Young Crosby was
obviously eager and intelligent, knew already at least enough of the
sea to be able to sail a fore-and-aft rig, and was fired by a proper
righteous indignation at the evil deeds of Spain.

Drake offered him employment, the scope of which he could not
disclose. A fleet of twenty-five privateers was about to sail. They
had no royal warrant, and in what they went to do they might
afterwards be disowned. It was dangerous work, but it was righteous.
Gervase accepted the offer without seeking to know more, took leave of
his kinsman, and went on board Drake’s own ship. That was on the 10th
September. Four mornings later, Drake’s maintop was flying the signal
‘up anchor and away.’

If none knew, perhaps not even Drake himself, exactly what he went to
do, at the least all England, simmering just then with indignation,
knew why he went to do it, whatever it might prove to be. There was a
bitter wrong to be avenged, and private hands must do the work, since
the hands of authority were bound by too many political
considerations.

In the North of Spain that year the harvest had failed and there was
famine. Despite the hostile undercurrent between Spain and England,
which at any moment might blaze into open war, despite Spanish
intrigues in which Philip II was spurred on by the Pope to exert the
secular arm against the excommunicate bastard heretic who occupied the
English throne, yet officially at least, on the surface, there was
peace between the two nations. England had more corn than she required
for her own consumption and was willing to trade it to the
famine-stricken Galician districts. But because of certain recent
barbarous activities of the Holy Office upon English seamen seized in
Spanish ports, no merchant ships would venture into Spanish waters
without guarantees. These guarantees had ultimately been forthcoming
in the shape of a special undertaking from King Philip that the crews
of the grain ships should suffer no molestation.

Into the northern harbours of Corunna, Bilbao, and Santander sailed
the ships of the English corn-fleet, there to be seized, in despite of
the royal safe-conduct, their cargoes confiscated, their crews
imprisoned. The pretext was that England was lending aid to the
Netherlands, then in rebellion against Spain.

Diplomatic representations were of no avail. King Philip disclaimed
responsibility. The English seamen, he said, were no longer in his
hands. As heretics they had been claimed by the Holy Office. To purge
them of their heresy, some were left to languish in prison, some sent
as slaves to the galleys, and some were burnt in fools’ coats at the
_autos-da-fé_.

To rescue even those who survived from the talons of the Holy Office
was beyond hope. It remained only to avenge them, to read Spain a
punitive lesson which she should remember, a lesson which, it was
hoped, would teach her to curb in future her zeal of salvation where
English heretics were concerned.

The Queen could not act in her own name. For all her high stomach and
for all the indignation which it is not to be doubted now consumed
her, prudence still dictated that she should avoid with mighty Spain
an open war for which England could not account herself prepared. But
she was willing enough to give a free hand to adventurers, whom at
need she could afterwards disown.

That was the reason of Drake’s setting forth with his twenty-five
privateer ships. That was the voyage on which Gervase Crosby went to
win his spurs in this new order of chivalry whose tilting-yard was the
wide ocean. It was a voyage that lasted ten months; but so eventful,
adventurous, and instructive did it prove that not in as many years of
ordinary sailing could it have offered a man a more generous schooling
in fighting seamanship.

They sailed first of all into the beautiful Galician port of Vigo at a
time when the grapes were being gathered for the vintage, labours
which their sudden appearance interrupted. And here Drake published,
as it were, his cartel; he made known, inferentially at least, the aim
and purpose of that imposing fleet of his. Of the Governor, who sent
in alarm to know who and what they were who came thus in force and
what they sought at Vigo, Drake asked to be informed whether the King
of Spain was at war with the Queen of England. When he was fearfully
assured that this was not the case, he asked further to be informed
how it happened, then, that English ships which had sailed into
Spanish harbour under the safe-conduct of King Philip’s word had been
seized and their owners, officers, and crews imprisoned, maltreated,
and slain. To this he received no proper answer. He did not press for
one unduly; he contented himself with inviting the Governor to
consider that English seamen could not suffer that such things should
happen to their brethren. After that he demanded water and fresh
provisions. There was also a little plundering, a mere ensample this
of what might be done. Whereafter, with refurnished ships, Sir Francis
sailed away, leaving Spain to conjecture in dismay and rage whither he
was going and to concert measures for forestalling and destroying so
endemonized an Englishman--_inglez tan endemoniado_.

November saw him at Cape Verde, where he missed the plate fleet upon
which no doubt he had intentions. Its capture would have indemnified
England for the loss of the confiscated corn. He turned his
attentions, instead, to the handsome town of Santiago, possessed it,
sacked it, and might have been content with that but for the barbarous
murder and mutilation of a poor ship-boy, which revived memories of
some Plymouth sailors lately murdered there. The town was fired, and
Sir Francis sailed away leaving behind him a heap of ashes to show
King Philip that barbarity was not the prerogative of Spain and that
talion law existed upon earth and always would exist as long as there
were men to enforce it. Let His Most Catholic Majesty learn that
Christianity, whose particular champion he accounted himself, had for
corner-stone the precept that men should do unto their neighbours as
they would have their neighbours do unto them and, conversely, not do
unto their neighbours what was detestable when suffered by themselves.
Lest this King, who was so passionately concerned in the eternal
salvation of others, should himself miss salvation through an
inadequate appreciation of that great principle, Sir Francis meant to
bring it strongly to his notice by further illustration.

The fleet spent Christmas at St. Kitts, and, having there refreshed
itself, went to pay its respects to San Domingo, that magnificent city
of Hispaniola, where as a monument to the greatness of Spain the
grandeurs of the Old World were reproduced in palaces, castles, and
cathedrals. Here things, without being difficult, were not quite so
easy as at Santiago. The Spaniards turned out horse and foot to resist
the landing of the English. There was some fighting, some cannonading,
in the course of which the Spaniards killed the officer commanding the
particular landing-party of which Gervase Crosby was a member.
Gervase, eager and audacious, acting upon impulse and without any sort
of authority, took his place, and skilfully brought up his men to join
the vanguard under Christopher Carlile which carried the gate and cut
its way into the town.

For his part in this, Gervase was afterwards commended by Carlile to
Drake, and by Drake confirmed in the command which he had so
opportunely usurped.

The castle meanwhile had surrendered, and the English put the city to
ransom. Its treasure had already been removed out of it, and all that
Drake could extract from the Governor was twenty-five thousand ducats,
nor did he succeed in extracting this until he had reduced nearly all
its marble splendours to ruins.

After San Domingo came Cartagena, where a tougher resistance was
encountered, but subdued, and where again young Gervase Crosby showed
his mettle when he led the men of his recent command to scale the
parapets and engage the Spanish infantry at point of pike. The
captured city saved itself from the fate of Santiago and San Domingo
by a promptly forthcoming ransom of thirty thousand ducats.

That was enough for the purpose; enough to show King Philip that the
activities of the Holy Office were not meekly to be suffered by
English seamen. Destroying in passing a Spanish fort in Florida,
Drake’s fleet set sail for home and was back in Plymouth by the end of
July, having proved to all humanity that the mightiest empire of the
world was by no means invulnerable, and having apparently made war
inevitable by throwing down a gauntlet which the hesitating King of
Spain could hardly ignore.

The Gervase Crosby who came back to Arwenack was a very different
person from the Gervase Crosby who had gone forth a year ago.
Adventure and experience had ripened him, dangers faced and conquered,
and an increase of general knowledge, which included a fair command of
Spanish, had given him a calmer self-assurance. Also he was bronzed
and bearded. He came in confidence to Trevanion Chase, conceiving that
the capture of the Lady Margaret would prove now a trifling matter to
one who had been at the capturing of Spanish cities. But the Lady
Margaret manifested no enthusiasm for his deeds, when, for her benefit
and in her presence, he recounted them to the Earl, who had no wish to
hear them. When his lordship had heard them despite himself, he curtly
pronounced Drake a shameless pirate, and, in the matter of the hanging
of some monks at San Domingo, a murderer. His daughter agreeing with
him, Master Gervase departed in a dudgeon too deep for expression that
his glorious deeds upon the Spanish Main should be so contemptuously
dismissed.

The explanation lies in the fact that the Earl of Garth had been
brought up in the Catholic Faith. He had long since ceased to practise
the Christian religion in any of its forms. The narrow intolerance of
priestcraft of whatever denomination had revolted him, and study and
brooding, and Plato in particular, had brought him to demand a nobler
and wider conception of God than he could discover in any creed
alleged to have been revealed. But underneath his philosophic outlook
there lingered ineradicably an affection for the faith of his youth
and of his fathers. It was purely sentimental, but it vitiated his
judgment on those rare occasions when he permitted himself at all to
turn his attention to the problems that were afflicting England.
Unconsciously, imperceptibly, this had created at Trevanion Chase, the
atmosphere in which Margaret had been reared. In addition to this, and
probably in common with the majority of the gentry of her
day--certainly so if we are to believe those who kept King Philip
informed of the state of public opinion in England--she could not
exclude from her heart a certain sympathy with the Queen of Scots, now
languishing in an English prison and in peril of her life. The Lady
Margaret might be imbued with some of the widespread English antipathy
to Spain and resentment of its operations against men of her own
English blood; she might shudder at the tales of the activities of the
Holy Office; but all this was tempered in her by a disposition to
regard King Philip as a Spanish Perseus intent upon the deliverance of
the Scottish Andromeda.

Gervase’s angrily silent departure she observed with a smile.
Afterwards she grew thoughtful. Could the wound be so deep that he
would not come again? she wondered. She confessed frankly to herself
that she would be sorry if that were so. They had been good friends,
Gervase and she; and it was far from her wish that their friendship
should end like this. Apparently it was also far from Gervase’s wish.
He was back again in two days’ time, his indignation having cooled,
and when she hailed his appearance with a ‘Give you welcome, Master
Pirate!’ he had enough good sense to laugh, realizing that she no more
than rallied him. He would have kissed her according to the fraternal
custom which had grown up between them, but this she denied him on the
score of his beard. She could not suffer to be kissed by a hairy man;
she would as soon be hugged by a bear.

As a consequence of this assertion, he appeared before her on the
morrow shaved like a Puritan, which sent her into such an ecstasy of
mirth that he lost his temper, laid rough hands upon her and kissed
her forcibly and repeatedly in pure anger and just to show her that he
was master, and man enough to take what he lacked.

At last he let her go, and was prepared to be merry in his turn. Not
so the lady. She stood tense and quivering, breathing hard, her face
white, save for a red spot on each cheek-bone, her red-gold hair in
disorder, and flames in her vivid blue eyes. For a long moment those
eyes pondered him in silent fury. This and the outraged dignity which
he read in every line of her tall supple figure abashed him a little,
rendered him conscious that he had behaved like an oaf.

‘Faith!’ she said at last with ominous composure of voice, ‘you must
think yourself still in San Domingo.’

‘In San Domingo?’ quoth he, labouring to discover the inference.

‘Where you no doubt learnt to mishandle women in this fashion.’

‘I?’ He was scandalized. ‘Margaret, I vow to God…’

She, however, cared nothing for his vows and interrupted them. ‘But
this is Trevanion Chase, not a city conquered by pirates; and I am the
Lady Margaret Trevanion, not some unfortunate Spanish victim of your
raid.’

He was wounded and indignant. ‘Margaret, how can you suppose that I…
that I…’ He became inarticulate. Indeed, there were no words for it
that a lady could tolerate. And she, perceiving that she had found the
heel of her Achilles, turned the arrow in the wound to avenge herself.

‘Such ready expertness argues abundant practice, sir. I am glad to
know, even at the cost of the indignity, the quality of those
adventures which were left out of your brave narrative to my father.
As you boasted, sir, you’ve learnt a deal on the Spanish Main. But in
your place I shouldn’t practise in England what you learnt there.’

He read in her tone, as she intended that he should, a depth of
conviction against which he felt that protestations and arguments
would be idle. It would need evidence to dispel it, and where should
he find evidence? Moreover, she was no longer there to listen to
arguments. She had departed whilst he was still deep in his dumb,
bewildered mortification. Useless to go after her in her present mood,
he assured himself. And so he went home to Arwenack, trusting
dejectedly that time would efface the bad impression he had made and
modify the terrible assumptions to which he had given rise.

Time, however, was denied him. Before the month was out there came a
summons from Sir Francis recalling him to Plymouth. If he was a clumsy
lover, there is no doubt that he was a very promising seaman, as Drake
had observed, and Drake had urgent need of all such men. War was
coming. That was now beyond all doubt. A great fleet was building in
the Spanish dockyards, and in Flanders the Prince of Parma was
assembling a mighty army of the finest troops in Europe for the
invasion of England so soon as the fleet should be ready to cover his
passage.

Gervase went to take his leave of Margaret and her father. Lord Garth
he found as usual in his library, his gaunt, spare frame wrapped in a
bedgown, his head covered by a black velvet cap with ear-flaps, his
mind fathoms deep in scholarly speculation. The fiddling of Nero
during the burning of Rome seemed to Gervase a reasonably pardonable
trifle of conduct, compared with the Earl of Garth’s absorption at
such a time in the works of men who had been dead a thousand years and
more. To startle him out of this unpatriotic lethargy, Master Crosby
talked of the Spanish invasion as if it were already taking place. His
lordship was not startled. A man who is obsessed by the Platonic
theory that the earth, the sun, the moon, and all the visible heavenly
bodies are so much sediment in the ether, with a more or less clear
perception of all that this connotes, cannot be expected to concern
himself deeply with the fortunes of such ephemeral things as empires.

The traditions and duties of gentility imposed it upon him to
dissemble his impatience at the unwelcome interruption of his studies
and to utter a courteous Godspeed which should straightly put an end
to it.

From his lordship, Gervase went in quest of her ladyship. It was a
fine autumn day, and he found her taking the air in the garden with a
company of gallants. There was that handsome fribble Lionel Tressilian
who was too much at Trevanion Chase these days for Gervase’s peace of
mind. There was young Peter Godolphin, a kinsman of Margaret’s, it is
true, but not of such near kinship that he might not aspire to make it
nearer. And there were a half-dozen other beribboned lute-tinklers,
stiffly corseted in modish narrow-waisted doublets, their trunks
puffed out with Spanish bombast. He descended upon them with his news,
hoping to dismay them out of their airy complacency as he had hoped to
dismay the Earl.

Ignoring them, he flung his bombshell at the feet of Margaret.

‘I come to take my leave. I am summoned by the Admiral. The Prince of
Parma is about to invade England.’

It made some little stir, and might have made more but for the
flippancy of young Godolphin.

‘The Prince of Parma cannot have heard that Mr. Crosby is with the
Admiral.’

It raised a general laugh, in which, however, Margaret did not join.
It may have been this little fact that lent Gervase the wit to answer.

‘But he shall, sir. If you have messages for him, you gentlemen who
stay at home, I will do my best to bear them.’

He would gladly have quarrelled with any or all of them. But they
would not indulge him. They were smooth and sleek, whilst Margaret’s
presence made him set limits on his display of the scorn they aroused
in him.

When presently he departed, Margaret went with him through the house.
In the cool grey hall she paused, and he stood to take his final leave
of her. Her eyes were very grave and solemn as she raised them to his
face.

‘Is it war, indeed, Gervase?’

‘That is what I gather from the letters I have had and the urgency of
this summons. I am to leave at once, the Admiral bids me. All hands
are needed.’

She laid a hand upon his arm, a beautiful tapering hand it was,
looking oddly white on the dark crimson velvet of his sleeve. ‘God
keep you, Gervase, and bring you safely back,’ she said.

It was a commonplace enough thing to say in the circumstances. But the
tone she used was a tone he had never heard in her voice before. It
should have heartened him, who normally was bold enough, and upon
occasion, as we have seen, almost overbold. He might have kissed her
then and had no reproach for it. But he couldn’t guess it, any more
than he could guess that not to take the advantages a woman offers is
an even worse offence than to take advantages which she does not
offer. So while his heart beat fast with hope at that gentle tone and
liquid gaze, it beat also with trepidation.

He gulped and stammered: ‘You… You’ll wait, Margaret?’

‘What else? Would you have me follow after you?’

‘I mean… You’ll wait for me; for my return?’

She smiled up at him. ‘I think it’s very likely, sir.’

‘Likely? Not certain, Margaret?’

‘Oh, certain enough.’ She had not the heart to rally him. He was going
on a business from which he might never return, and the thought made
her very tender, gave her almost a foretaste of the sorrow that would
be hers if he should be counted among the fallen. So she took pity on
his halting, and generously gave him the answer he lacked the courage
to demand. ‘It is not likely that I shall marry anyone else, Gervase.’

His heart bounded. ‘Margaret!’ he cried.

And then Peter Godolphin came mincing into the hall to inquire what it
was that kept her ladyship from her guests.

Gervase, wishing him in hell, was forced to cut short his
leave-taking. But he was content enough. He took the slim hand that
lay upon his sleeve and kissed it reverently.

‘Those words, Margaret, shall be as a cuirass to me.’ Upon which
poetical assertion, almost as if ashamed of it, he abruptly departed.




 CHAPTER III.
 IN CALAIS ROADS

/War/ was not so immediate as Gervase had supposed. Indeed, there were
good reasons why neither Spain nor England should desire irrevocably
to engage in it.

King Philip, however urged by the Pope to do his duty as the secular
arm of the Faith and dethrone his excommunicated sister-in-law, was,
after all, anything but a fool and not unreasonably self-seeking. He
must therefore pause to ask himself what profit would accrue to
himself from such an enterprise. God and Time and he--King Philip
liked to contemplate that conjunction--made up a slow-moving trinity.
It was not as if there were any prospect of making England a Spanish
province like the Netherlands. The only temporal result would be to
place Mary Stuart upon the English throne, and the political
consequences of this would be to strengthen the French influence which
Mary Stuart represented by virtue of her French alliances. The only
way to avoid this and to profit Spain would be for Philip to marry
Mary and share her English throne. But Philip had no wish to do
anything of the kind. He may have observed that the lady’s husbands
were not lucky. He did not, therefore, see why Spanish blood and
Spanish gold should be poured out for the profit of France. From the
temporal point of view, the business was much more the concern of the
French King than it was Philip’s. There remained the spiritual point
of view: the importance of restoring the unadulterated Catholic Faith
to England and bringing her spiritually once more under the subjection
of Rome. Now this was Rome’s business, and if the Pope wanted Philip
to do Rome’s business for him, it was fitting that the Pope should
bear the expenses of the enterprise. But when Philip laid this
reasonable argument before the Pope, His Holiness--the great Sixtus
V--fell into such a rage that he flung his dinner plates about the
room.

That was the situation in Spain through the autumn and winter of 1586.

In England nothing could be farther from the intention or wish than to
declare war. Spain was, after all, the mightiest empire of the day.
Her possessions were vast, her wealth fabulous, her strength colossal.
The inexhaustible riches of the Indies were at her command, the finest
troops in the world served under her banners. Clearly this was not an
empire to be challenged. But since danger threatened from it,
preparations must be made to meet that danger, if only in obedience to
the old Roman maxim that who desires peace should prepare for war.

Hence those naval activities to which Gervase Crosby was summoned; the
shipbuilding, the drilling, the storing of arms, the manufacture of
gunpowder, and all the rest. The conflicting orders from Court
reflected the uncertainty of the outlook. On Monday came instructions
to mobilize the fleet, on Wednesday to disband it, on Saturday to
mobilize it again, and so on interminably. But the adventurers, the
privateers, took no heed of these ever-fluctuating orders. They went
steadily ahead with their preparations. It may have been in the mind
of Sir Francis that if war did not come there would still be work for
his hands in plucking some more feathers from Spain’s rich Indian
plumage. He was, there can be no doubt of it, a pirate at heart. Let
England not reproach him with it, but be thankful.

In the early part of the year, the whole aspect of the situation was
changed by the execution of the Queen of Scots. It was deemed that her
removal, so long advocated by far-sighted statesmen, by putting an end
to plots and intrigues which aimed at enthroning her, and the Catholic
religion with her, in England, must remove the menace of a war which
was to be waged for this very purpose.

The effect, however, was the exact opposite. King Philip took the view
that, if he were now to exert himself as the secular arm of the
Church, the fruits of his endeavours would no longer fall into the lap
of France. There being no longer a Queen of Scots to be placed upon
the throne of England, King Philip might occupy it himself, converting
England into a Spanish province so soon as he should have done his
duty by executing the bull of excommunication and deposition which had
been launched against his heretical sister-in-law. Now that a direct
profit was perceived from the affair, the arming for a crusade against
heretical pravity went forward amain, the brothers of Saint Dominic
were sent up and down the land to preach the sanctity of the cause,
Catholic adventurers from every country flocked in to offer their
swords. The hounds of God were straining at the leash. At last King
Philip was to loose them at the throat of heretical England.

It occurred to Sir Francis Drake that common-sense demanded that
something should be done to mar these preparations. To sit back in
patience while your avowed enemy arms himself at all points to destroy
you is the attitude of the insane.

So Sir Francis went off to London and the Queen. His proposals made
her nervous. She was still negotiating a treaty of peace with King
Philip through the Spanish Ambassador. King Philip, she was assured,
wanted peace, on the strong advice of the Prince of Parma, who was
finding more than enough to do in the Netherlands.

‘So do we want peace, Madam,’ the blunt Sir Francis answered. ‘I might
do something to ensure it.’

She questioned him as to his intentions. He had none. He didn’t know
what he should do until he got there--he did not quite know where--and
saw for himself what might be possible. In any treaty of peace she
would get the best terms by showing her strength, and so removing all
suspicion that she treated because of weakness.

‘We’ll put on a brag, Your Grace,’ the sailor laughed.

He was a difficult man to resist when his long, steady grey eyes were
upon you. A sturdy fellow of middle height, now in his fortieth year,
too powerfully built for grace, but of an engaging countenance with
his crisp brown hair and the pointed beard which dissembled the
inflexibility of his mouth. The Queen yielded, if reluctantly.

Because he perceived the reluctance, he lost no time in fitting out,
and he was away in the Buonaventura with a fleet of thirty sail at his
heels on a fine April morning, not more than a few hours before the
arrival of a courier to detain him. Perhaps he had word that these
countermandings were on the way.

Six days later, he was in Cadiz Roads discovering for himself what
there was to be done, and seeing it clearly there before him in the
shipping that crowded the harbour. Here lay the elements of that great
expedition against England: the transports, the provision vessels,
even some of the mighty ships of war that were now fitting.

What was to be done was as clear to him as how to do it. He went in on
a flood tide. He took them unawares. Such an act as this was the last
audacity Spain could have expected even from one so audacious and
endemonized as El Draque. They ran the gauntlet of the hail of shot
from the Spanish batteries, sank the guardship with a broadside,
scattered a fleet of galleys that ventured momentarily to oppose them,
and swooped down upon their prey.

Twelve days they stayed in Cadiz harbour, during which at his leisure
Drake stripped the ships of all that could be useful to him, then set
them on fire and so destroyed a million ducats’ worth of shipping.
When he sailed out again, having in his own words thus singed the
beard of the King of Spain, he did so in the assurance that the Armada
would not sail that year. Not that year would the troops of the Prince
of Parma be landed on English soil.

He was correct enough in his estimate, for it was not until May of the
year following that the Invincible Armada of a hundred and thirty
vessels sailed out of the Tagus in the wake of the San Martín, the
stately flagship of the Admiral, the Duke of Medina Sidonia. The fleet
sailed in a state of grace. Every man of the thirty thousand
distributed through the ships had confessed himself, received
absolution of his sins, and had communicated. Every ship had been
especially blessed by the Primate of Spain; every main masthead
carried a crucifix; on the great banner flown by the Admiral, the
red-and-gold standard of Spain, the figures of the Virgin and her Son
had been embroidered and the motto, ‘Exsurge Deus et vindica causam
tuam’; there was great provision for the care of the souls of those
crusaders--greater than the provision for the care of their bodies;
for whilst the ships carried two hundred priests they carried fewer
than a hundred surgeons. Majestically this mighty fleet, as formidable
in spiritual as in temporal armament, advanced on the blue water.

There were delays and difficulties; enough of them to have suggested
that the Deity was none so eager to vindicate His cause at the bidding
of Spain or through the arm of Spain.

But at last, at the end of July the invincible fleet was in the
Channel and the season of English waiting was at an end. It had not
been wasted so far as Drake and the privateers were concerned. Most of
them had been at their stations ever since the return from Cadiz, and
they had found abundant work for their hands.

They slipped out of Plymouth without any kind of ostentation, and some
fifty of them, low-hulled ships, gave the towering Spaniards an
exhibition of close-hauled sailing which made them rub their eyes.
Reaching easily to windward, their low hulls offering comparatively
little target, they crossed the Spanish rear, and whilst themselves
out of range of the Spanish cannon, they poured from their own more
powerful guns broadside after broadside with deadly effect into those
great floating castles. The Spanish ships suffered the greater
mortality from being overcrowded; this because they counted upon
time-honoured boarding tactics. But the English, outsailing them, and
refusing to grapple or to be grappled, showed them a new and
disconcerting method of sea-fighting. In vain the Spaniards cursed
them for cowardly dogs who would not come to hand-grips. The English
answered them with broadsides and slipped away through the water to go
about and empty into them the guns on the other quarter.

To Medina Sidonia this was all very exasperating in its difference
from all that he had expected. The good Duke was not a sailor, nor
indeed a fighting man of any kind. He had pleaded his incompetence
when the King had placed this responsibility upon his shoulders. He
had been abominably seasick when first they put to sea, and now he and
the mightiest fleet the waters of the world had ever seen were being
chased up the Channel, like a herd of bullocks before a pack of
wolves. The Andalusian flagship, with her commander Don Pedro Valdez,
the ablest, as he was the most gallant admiral in that fleet, had come
to grief and had been constrained to surrender; other vessels had
suffered dreadfully from the damnable tactics of these endemonized
heretics. Thus closed the first day of action, which was Sunday.

On Monday both fleets were becalmed, and the Spaniards licked their
wounds. On Tuesday the wind had veered and the Spaniards had the
weather gauge. Now was their chance to sail the English down and
grapple them. At last, in the wind He sent them from the east, God
lent a hand to the vindication of His cause. But the Devil, it became
clear to them, fought on the side of the English. Sunday’s history was
repeated in spite of the wind from the east. English broadsides
continued to crash through Spanish bulwarks from ships that were
either out of range or else so low in the hull that they offered no
target at all, and by vespers the noble San Martín was leaking like a
sieve through her fractured timbers, six feet of solid oak though they
were.

On Wednesday there was another pause. On Thursday a further hammering,
and on Friday at last the Duke saw nothing for it but to endeavour to
establish communications with the Prince of Parma, from whom he would
require supplies and what other assistance the Prince could bring him.
With this intent he brought his battered fleet to anchor on Saturday
in Calais Roads, neutral waters into which the English would not dare
to follow him.

But that the English did not mean to lose sight of him he understood
when he perceived them at anchor a couple of miles astern.

The Spaniards were licking their wounds again; cleaning up the ships,
effecting repairs where possible, tending the wounded, putting the
dead overboard.

The English, half a league away, were considering the position. In the
main cabin of the Ark Royal, the flagship of the Lord Admiral, Howard
of Effingham, his lordship sat in council with the principal officers
of the fleet. They were under no delusion as to the Spaniard’s reason
for anchoring in Calais Roads, or the danger to themselves and to
England in allowing him to remain there. The Armada after all was not
yet sensibly impaired. She had lost but three ships, and could easily
spare them. What she could spare less easily was the confidence which
had been shaken by those first knocks exchanged, or indeed the lives
that had been lost; but men could be replaced by Parma; courage and
confidence could be restored by rest; damages could be repaired; the
ships could be revictualled, and Parma could renew also their
ammunition, which must be running low. Here was one set of reasons why
the Duke of Medina Sidonia must not be left in peace where he now lay.
Another was in the fact that the English supplies were becoming
exhausted, and they could not wait here indefinitely for the Spaniards
to come out of neutral waters. Something must be done.

Drake was for burning them out. A strong flood tide was due that night
setting towards the Spanish anchorage. This could be used to float a
fleet of fire-ships down upon them. Seymour, Sir John Hawkins,
Frobisher, and the Lord Admiral himself were heartily in accord. But
it would be blindfolded work unless first by daylight they took some
more accurate observation of the Spanish position than was possible at
their present distance. Therein lay the difficulty. Hawkins offered a
suggestion. The Lord Admiral weighed it, and slowly shook his head.

‘Too desperate a chance,’ said he. ‘The odds are a hundred to one, a
thousand to one against his return.’

‘It depends upon whom you send,’ said Drake. ‘Odds of that kind are to
be reduced by skill and courage.’

But Howard would not yet hear of it. They discussed other means, and
dismissed them one by one, returning at last to that first suggestion.

‘I think it’s that or nothing,’ Hawkins submitted. ‘Either that or we
go to work blindfolded.’

‘We may have to go to work blindfolded after that,’ Lord Howard
reminded him, ‘and we shall have sacrificed some gallant lives.’

But Drake had an answer to this. ‘Every man of us makes a gamble of
his life. We should not be here else, or being here we should never
engage in action. I am of Sir John’s opinion.’

Lord Howard’s fine eyes considered him. ‘Do you know of a man for such
an enterprise?’

‘I have him under my hand here. He came aboard with me, and is waiting
now on deck. A strong lad of his hands, with brains to act quickly in
an emergency. He hasn’t yet learnt to be afraid of anything, and he
can handle a boat with any man. I first proved his mettle at San
Domingo. He’s been with me ever since.’

‘Almost too good a man to lose in this affair,’ Lord Howard
deprecated.

‘Nay. He’s the sort of man that won’t be lost. I’ll send for him if
your lordship says so, and we’ll put the matter to him.’

And that is how Mr. Crosby comes into this famous council of war and,
as it were, into history. His youth, his inches, and his gallant
bearing when he presented himself won him the sympathy of those
hard-bitten seamen. His seemed too fair a life to offer up on the
ruthless altar of Bellona. But when Drake had expounded to him the
task ahead, the laugh with which he took it for a jest, an escapade,
won him the love of those hard-bitten men, and most of all of Drake
because the lad so nobly justified his captain’s boast of him. Aglow
with eagerness, young Crosby listened to a recapitulation of what was
required and how he was to obtain it. Himself he suggested that as the
afternoon was waning no time should be lost. He had best start at
once.

Lord Howard shook him by the hand at parting. The Admiral’s lips
smiled, but his eyes were wistful as they surveyed this smiling,
audacious lad whom he might never see again. He strove to say
something for a moment.

‘When you return,’ he said--and keen ears might have noted that he
stressed the ‘when’ as men do when a word is changed between thought
and utterance--‘When you return, sir, I shall be glad if you will seek
me.’

Gervase bowed to the company, flashed them a last smile, and was gone,
the sturdy Sir Francis labouring after him up the companion ladder.
They went back to Drake’s ship the Revenge. The boatswain piped all
hands on deck. Sir Francis told them what was needed: a dozen
volunteers to go with Mr. Crosby and ascertain the exact position of
the Spanish ships. There was not a man would have refused to follow
Gervase; for many of them had followed him before and knew him for a
leader who never flinched.

That afternoon the Duke of Medina Sidonia, moodily pacing the poop of
the San Martín with a group of officers, beheld to his amazement a
sailing pinnace detach herself from the English lines to bear down
upon the Spanish anchorage. He and those with him stood at gaze. So
did others on the Spanish ships, in the utter inactivity of men who
can but observe the unfolding of a marvel they do not understand.
Straight towards them came the little craft, rippling through the
light waves, straight for the Spanish flagship.

It must be, opined the Duke, that she bore him a message from the
English. Perhaps his guns had mauled them more than he suspected.
Perhaps the loss of life had been such that they would be willing to
make terms. Fatuous imaginings possible only to a landlubber. Politely
his mistake was pointed out to him; also that this pinnace bore no
flag of truce as she must have done if she sought a parley. Whilst
they were still conjecturing, she was under their counter.

Gervase Crosby stood in the stern sheets, himself handling the tiller.
With him sat a youth with a writing-tablet and a pen. In the bows a
gun had been mounted and a gunner stood with lighted match beside it.
The little craft sped on, circled the San Martín completely, and as
she circled fired a shot at her. Drake would have described this as
putting on a brag. The object of that piece of swagger was to deceive
the Spaniards as to the real purpose of the visit. Meanwhile Gervase’s
eyes were measuring the distance from the shore, and taking in the
position of the other ships relatively to the flagship, and his
details were rapidly being written down by the improvised secretary.

It was done, and he was already leaving the Spaniards astern before
one of their officers recovered from his surprise at this impudence to
ask himself if something else did not lie behind it. Whether impudence
or not, something was due here. He commanded it, and a gun executed
the command. But trained too hastily, its shot, which could easily
have sunk the frail boat, tore harmlessly through her mainsail. Other
ships roused themselves, and there was a cannonade. But it was loosed
too late by at least five minutes. The pinnace was already beyond the
short range of the Spanish guns.

Drake was in the waist of the Revenge awaiting him, when Gervase
climbed aboard.

‘I ask myself,’ said Sir Francis, ‘what particular kind of luck
protects you. By all the laws of war and of chance and of common-sense
you should have been sunk before ever you got within a cable’s length
of them. What’s this?’

Gervase had proffered the sheet of notes which he had dictated.

‘Lord!’ he said. ‘You bring the methods of the counting-house with
you. Come away to the Admiral.’

That night eight vessels thickly coated with pitch drifted down in the
dark upon the tide, controlled by long sweeps in the wake of their
leader, which was steered by Gervase Crosby. This, a trivial task from
the point of view of danger compared with his earlier one, he had
almost insisted upon undertaking as being the logical corollary to his
inspection of the positions. At comparatively close quarters, slow
matches were lighted aboard each vessel. The crews slipped silently
overboard to the waiting pinnace, and the ships were left to drift
down the short remainder of the way upon the Spaniards.

When as they got amongst them they suddenly broke into flame one after
the other, they scattered panic through the invincible fleet. These
English, it seemed, had every resource and artifice of hell at their
command. It was conceived, reasonably enough, that the fire-ships were
full of gunpowder--as indeed they would have been if the English had
possessed powder to spare--and knowing the fearful havoc they would
work upon exploding, the Spaniards, without waiting to weigh anchor,
cut their cables and stood out to sea.

At dawn, Medina Sidonia found the English bearing resolutely down upon
him, and on that day was fought the most terrific action that the seas
had ever known. When evening fell, the power of the Armada was
definitely broken. Thereafter, in the days that followed, it but
remained to drive into the high latitudes of the North Sea, where they
could do no harm, the seventy surviving ships of the hundred and
thirty that had sailed so proudly from the Tagus as the instrument by
which God should vindicate His cause.

Medina Sidonia asked nothing better than to be allowed to go. He had
endured all the sea-fighting to which his stomach was equal, and was
glad enough to drive before the wind away from any further risk of
action. Like sheep-dogs herding a flock, the English ships hung on
their heels until they were past the Forth; then left them to the
winds and the God in whose name they had sailed forth on their
crusade.




 CHAPTER IV.
 SIR GERVASE

/On/ a fair August day, Mr. Crosby made one of a numerous company
assembled in a spacious panelled chamber of the Palace of Whitehall.

It was a day of calm, and of blue skies, delusive interlude in the
fury of the weather which had lately turned stormy, with frequent
tempests that shook the earth and the heavens and made seamen thankful
that they had turned back when they did from the pursuit of the
Spaniards, and so had brought their ships in safety to the Thames
before the change set in.

The sun shone radiantly through the leaded panes of the tall windows
overlooking the river and the palace steps, where the barges were now
moored which had brought the Admiral and his numerous company to
answer the summons of the Queen of England.

Mr. Crosby, in mingled pride and awe to find himself in so
considerable and distinguished an assembly, looked about him with
interest. The room was hung with pictures, all of which were veiled;
there was an Eastern carpet of brilliant variegated colouring on a
square table by which he was standing in the room’s middle; against
the panelling were ranged some chairs, tall-backed and carved, each
bearing upon its scarlet velvet an escutcheon whereon the leopards of
England, or on gules, were quartered with the lilies of France, or on
azure.

These chairs were empty, all save one, which was taller and ampler
than the rest and equipped with arms which ended in carved and gilded
leonine heads.

In this chair, placed between two of the windows with its back to the
light, sat a woman whom at first glance you might have supposed an
Eastern idol, so bejewelled and bedizened was she. Her leanness was
dissembled by a bulging farthingale. Her red-raddled face was lean and
sharp, with a thin, aquiline nose and a very pointed, ill-tempered
chin. The darkness of her eyebrows had been supplied by a pencil, and
her lips were of a startling scarlet, in which Nature had no hand.
Above the brow, which was almost masculine in its loftiness and
breadth, towered a monstrous head-tire of false yellow hair in which a
bushel of strung pearls were interwoven. Rows upon rows of pearls
covered her neck and breast as if to supply again the pearly beauty
long since faded from her skin. From the summit of her gown a collar
of lace of the proportions of an enormous fan spread itself upright
behind her head. Pearls were slung from it; jewels blazed in it; more
jewels smouldered in her gown, a cloth-of-gold wrought with an uncanny
embroidery of green lizards. She made some play with a handkerchief
that was edged with gold lace, and this served two purposes: to
display a hand which, spared as yet by time, was extremely beautiful,
and to conceal her teeth whose ageing darkness no art could yet
dissemble for her.

Behind her and to right and left of her chair were ranged in line her
ladies-in-waiting, a dozen women of the noblest and loveliest in
England.

Mr. Crosby had heard the Queen described more than once by Lord Garth.
In painting the portrait of the lady whom his ill-fated friend had
loved, Roger Trevanion yielded to one of his few remaining
enthusiasms, and out of this it may be that he coloured the picture
overgenerously. Hence, and forgetting that forty years were sped since
the Earl of Garth had last beheld her, Mr. Crosby had entered the
august presence in expectation of a radiant vision of feminine beauty.
What he beheld dismayed him by its disparity with his mental portrait.

Her immediate supporters, too, added to the incongruity of the
picture. The one upon her left was a tall, lean gentleman all in
black. His sharp-featured countenance ended in a long white beard
which entirely failed to lend that crafty face a patriarchal air. This
was Sir Francis Walsingham. In ludicrous contrast with him stood the
Earl of Leicester on her right. Once reputed the handsomest man in
England, he was now corpulent and ungainly of body, inflamed and
blotchy of countenance. His gorgeous raiment and the arrogance with
which he carried his head served only to heighten the absurdity of his
aspect.

That the Queen did not find him absurd was instanced by the place he
occupied, and still more by the fact that the land forces of England
which were to have resisted Parma’s landing had been placed under the
Earl of Leicester’s supreme command. As a deviser and leader of
pageants, it is probable that he had not his equal in England, if,
indeed, in Europe. But it was fortunate for England and for Leicester
that English seamen had made it unnecessary for him to exercise those
talents in attempting to withstand the Prince of Parma.

With these same valiant English seamen was this assembly now
concerned. Lord Howard of Effingham, the Lord Admiral towering
straight and tall before the Queen, was rendering her a first-hand
account of those actions in the Channel which had delivered England
from the awful menace of Spain. His lordship was brisk and succinct in
his narrative. At moments too succinct to please Her Grace, who now
and again would arrest him to crave more details of this or a closer
explanation of that. This occurred when the Lord Admiral spoke of the
difficulty in which they found themselves when Medina Sidonia was at
anchor in French waters, and related that having made a close survey
of his position they sent in fire-ships to burn him out. He would have
swept on, with no more than that, to relate the morrow’s action, but
the Queen checked him in terms of his own trade.

‘God’s death, man! Haul down some of your sail. You drive so fast
before the wind that we cannot follow. This survey at close quarters,
how was it made? You have not told us that.’

He supplied the details in a silence of intense attention which may
have inspired him to a certain liveliness of phrase. The Queen
laughed. So did others, thrilled by the narrative of personal valour.

‘Faith,’ she told him, ‘you’re better as a sailor than a story-teller;
you leave out the choicest morsels.’ Then came a question that sent a
quiver through Mr. Crosby. ‘What was the name of the man who sailed
that pinnace?’

Gervase heard his own name. It terrified him. It seemed to his
straining ears that Lord Howard rolled it out in tones of thunder upon
the silence. He blushed like a girl, shifting uncomfortably on his
feet, and saw as if through a mist the faces of some of those of his
acquaintance who stood about him, as they now turned their heads to
give him a smile of friendly satisfaction. Then his thoughts flew to
Margaret. If only she could have been there to hear him named, she
must have accounted herself justified of her faith in him and her
promise to become his wife.

The Lord Admiral’s narrative drew to a close. The Queen pronounced it,
in a voice made sonorous by the depth of her emotion, as brave a tale
as the world had ever heard, and alluded to her thankfulness to God
for this good and prosperous success to those who had fought this
battle against the enemies of His Gospel. Not Spain alone, but England
too--and, from the results, with better justification--might account
herself the instrument of divine justice.

Followed the presentation by the Lord Admiral of the captains of the
fleet under his command and other officers who had distinguished
themselves in that great battle in the Channel. To each the Queen
spoke some words of commendation, whilst upon three of them she
bestowed the accolade with a sword supplied by the Earl of Leicester.

After that, Lord Howard’s place was taken by the Vice-Admiral Sir
Francis Drake upon whom devolved the duty of presenting the captains
and some other officers of the privateers, nearly all of them
West-Country gentlemen of family, many of whom had fitted ships at
their own charges. The sturdy seaman rolled forward on his short thick
legs as if a heaving poop were under his feet. He was resplendent in a
suit of white satin which gave his bulk the appearance of having been
suddenly increased. His beard was newly trimmed, his crisp brown hair
sedulously combed and oiled, and there were rings of pure gold in the
lobes of his close-set ears.

He bowed low, announced his purpose in a voice that was like a
trumpet-call, and began his presentations.

The first was a neighbour of Mr. Crosby’s, Oliver Tressilian of
Penarrow. He was half-brother to that Lionel Tressilian who came too
much to Trevanion Chase for Mr. Crosby’s peace of mind. But you would
have looked at the men in vain for evidence of relationship. Where
Lionel was fair and mincing, elegant, soft, and sleek as a woman, this
Oliver, tall, resolute, and swarthy, was of an almost overwhelming
maleness. His mien was commanding, his bearing proud to the point of
arrogance. To behold him as he made now his leisurely advance was to
recognize him for one born to mastership. And although still young,
his deeds already bore out the promise of his person. He had been
schooled in seamanship at the hands of Frobisher; he had come to the
support of Drake with a strong ship of his own, and to his audacity
and resource as much as to any other cause had been due the capture of
the Andalusian flagship, an event which early in the fight had put
such heart into the English seamen.

The Queen’s dark, short-sighted eyes conned him with unmistakable
admiration as he knelt at her footstool.

The sword flashed up and descended smartly upon his shoulder. ‘Such
men as you, Sir Oliver, are to be considered as persons born for the
preservation of the country.’ Those were the terms in which she dubbed
him knight.

None grudged him the honour. He was one for whom a great future was
predicted, and it was not to be foreseen that, by the wickedness of
men, the apparent inconstancy of his mistress, and finally the
operations of the Holy Office, the fame for which he was reserved was
to be won under the banner of Islam. As a Moslem corsair he was
destined to become one of the scourges of Christianity. It was a
destiny none could have prophesied as he rose proudly from his knees
that day, honoured and commended.

After him, one by one, came the other privateers. First the captains,
and then those lesser officers who had served with more than ordinary
distinction. And the first of these whom Sir Francis named was Gervase
Crosby.

He stood forth, tall and supple. He had dressed himself--or rather,
Killigrew had seen to it that he was dressed--in a brave suit of
murrey velvet, with slashed canions to his trunks and rosettes to his
shoes. He wore a short cloak in the Italian fashion, and a narrow
white ruff sharpened the outline of his face. Excessively young for a
man of his deeds he looked in his shaven beardlessness; for never
since Margaret’s condemnation of beards nearly a year ago had he
suffered the hair to grow upon his face.

The Queen’s dark eyes seemed to soften a little as they watched his
approach, and they were not the only feminine eyes that pondered him
with admiration. More than one of her maids-of-honour considered him
with interest.

He went down on his knees to kiss her hand, and she frowned almost in
perplexity as she surveyed the top of his head with its rippling
auburn hair worn close. Having kissed her beautiful hand, he would
have got to his feet again.

‘Here’s haste!’ said she in her gruff voice. ‘Kneel, child, kneel! Who
bade thee rise?’

Realizing his fault, he blushed to the nape of his neck and continued
kneeling. She turned to Sir Francis.

‘Is this he who went sailing in the pinnace among the Spanish ships in
Calais Roads?’

‘The same, Your Grace.’

She looked at Gervase again. ‘God’s death! Why, it’s a child!’

‘His age is older than his looks; and his deeds are older than his
age.’

‘They are so,’ she agreed. ‘By God, they are!’

Mr. Crosby was increasingly ill-at-ease and wished from his heart that
she would make an end of this. But she was not minded to make an end
just yet. His young comeliness gave his exploit a special heroism in
her feminine eyes, stirred a little enthusiasm in her intensely
feminine soul.

‘That was a brave thing you did,’ she told him gently, to be gruff
with him the next moment. ‘God’s death, child, look at me when I speak
to you.’ I suspect that she desired to see the colour of his eyes. ‘It
was as brave a thing as I’ve heard this day, and God knows a feast of
valour has been spread before me. Don’t you agree, Sir Francis?’

Sir Francis drew himself up a little from his deferentially bending
attitude.

‘He was schooled by me in seamanship, Madam,’ he replied, as who would
say: ‘What else do you expect from a pupil of that academy?’

‘It deserves, I think, some special mark of favour, both to reward it
and to encourage others to the like.’

And then, a bolt from the blue to him who had been very far from
expecting any guerdon, the flat of the sword smote him on the
shoulder, and the command to arise, so long delayed to his discomfort,
came in terms which made him realize that a man may be in too great
haste to rise from kneeling to a sovereign.

Standing, he marvelled that he had not earlier observed her singular
beauty; that upon his first glimpse of her he had wanted to laugh.
What, he wondered, could have ailed him?

‘God bless Your Majesty,’ he blurted out in his intoxication.

She smiled at him, and there was something wistful in the lines of her
ageing mouth and reddened lips. She was unusually gracious that day.

‘He has blessed me richly already, lad, in giving me subjects such as
these.’

He effaced himself after that, and went to join Oliver Tressilian, who
offered to carry him back to the Fal in his ship. Gervase was in haste
to return, to carry to the lady, whom he pictured waiting there, this
dazzling, bewildering news of his advancement. Drake permitting it,
and excusing him from the great thanksgiving service that was to be
held in Saint Paul’s, he departed on the morrow with Tressilian. Sir
John Killigrew, who had been in London during the past ten days, went
with them. Of the bitter feud that was later to mar the good relations
between Killigrew and Tressilian there was as yet no sign. Sir John,
moreover, was elated by the achievement of his young kinsman.

‘You shall have a ship of your own, boy, if I have to sell a farm to
fit it,’ he had promised him. ‘All I ask,’ he added, for with all his
generosity there was a practical mercenary streak in him, ‘is a
quarter share in the ventures you will undertake.’

That ventures were to be undertaken was readily assumed, as also that
they would be more than usually profitable now that the might of Spain
upon the seas had been so signally impaired. And this was the subject
of most of their talk during that voyage to the Fal on Sir Oliver’s
ship, the Rose of the World. He had named her so, it is to be
supposed, in honour of Rosamund Godolphin, whom he loved, and upon the
assumption--erroneous, I believe--that her name was a contraction of
Rosa Mundi.

On the last day of August, the Rose of the World rounded Zoze Point
and came to anchor in Carrick Roads.

Sir John and his kinsman took their leave of Tressilian and went
ashore at Smithwick to climb the heights to stately Arwenack, whence
on a clear day the view extended to the Lizard, fifteen miles away.

No sooner did they reach it than Gervase was away again. He would not
even stay to dine, although it was already past the hour of dinner.
Now that Tressilian was home, the news of events in London might reach
Trevanion Chase at any moment, and this was dangerous to the
satisfaction which Gervase hoped to derive from being the first to
announce to Margaret those details which concerned himself. Killigrew,
perceiving the reason of his haste, rallied him upon it, but let him
go, and sat down to dine alone.

Although the distance from door to door was less than two miles, the
properties adjoining, yet such was Gervase’s haste that he must call
for a horse, and ride it at the gallop.

In the avenue approaching the big red house with its tall, twisted
chimneys he found a groom in the blue livery of the Godolphins waiting
with three horses, and learned that Peter Godolphin and his sister
Rosamund, together with Lionel Tressilian, were at the Chase having
stayed to dine there. As it was already close upon three o’clock, they
would soon be leaving. Gervase was relieved. The sight of the waiting
horses had led him almost to fear that despite the haste he had made
he might have been forestalled.

He found them in the garden, even as on that day, two years ago, when
he had gone to the Chase to take his leave of Margaret. Then, however,
he had been an aspirant for fame. To-day he returned in the effulgence
of achievement. Success had crowned him, the Queen had knighted him.
His name would be repeated among Englishmen; it would be inscribed
upon the scroll of history. The memory of that accolade at Whitehall
invested Sir Gervase with a new assurance. The dignity of knighthood
had entered into his blood, was reflected in his bearing.

He sent ahead the servant who received him, to announce him.

‘Sir Gervase Crosby, may it please your ladyship.’

Thus did he break his news to them as he came briskly, in his brave
murrey suit, his head high, in the servant’s wake.

For a moment Margaret was breathless. The colour ebbed from her face
to come surging back on a flood tide. Amazement smote similarly her
three companions, those two gallants and the sister of one of them,
the gentle, fair-headed, saintly-looking Rosamund Godolphin, still a
child of not more than sixteen years, but already woman enough to have
fired the heart of the masterful elder Tressilian.

Gervase and Margaret looked at each other, and for a heartbeat may
have seen naught but each other. Had he found her alone, there can be
no doubt he would have taken her in his arms, as he accounted his
right by virtue of her last words to him at parting two years ago. The
unwelcome presence of those others compelled some measure of
circumspection. He must confine himself to taking her hand and,
bending low, content his lips with that as an earnest of more to come
anon when he should have driven out those intruders.

To this task he addressed himself from the outset.

‘I landed less than an hour ago on Pendennis Point,’ he announced,
that Margaret might judge for herself with what eager speed he had
sought her. He turned to the younger Tressilian. ‘Your brother brought
us back from London in his ship.’

Rosamund broke in with startled eagerness.

‘Oliver is home?’ It was the tall, slim girl’s turn to go pale and
breathless, whereat her handsome brother frowned. Although prudence
and expediency made him maintain a pretence of friendliness with the
Tressilians, there was no real love lost between him and them. He
found them in rivalry with him on every hand. His interests were
beginning to clash with theirs in the countryside, and he viewed with
anything but favour the affection which had sprung up between his
sister and the elder of them. There was an unpleasant surprise in
store for him from Gervase.

‘The Rose of the World,’ he said, answering the lady, ‘is anchored in
Carrick Roads, and Sir Oliver will be home by now.’

‘Sir Oliver!’ both men echoed in a breath. And Lionel repeated the
questioning exclamation: ‘Sir Oliver?’

Gervase smiled, almost with condescension, and hung upon his answer an
account of how he had received his own honours.

‘He was knighted by the Queen in the same hour as myself at Whitehall
on Monday last.’

Margaret stood with her arm about the waist of the willowy Rosamund.
Her own eyes sparkled, whilst Rosamund’s looked oddly moist. Lionel
frankly laughed his pleasure at his brother’s advancement. Peter
Godolphin alone saw here no cause for satisfaction. This thing would
make these Tressilians more insufferable than ever; it gave them an
unquestionable advantage over him in local influence. He sneered. He
was very ready always with his sneers.

‘Faith! Honours must have fallen thick as hail.’

Sir Gervase caught the sneer, but kept his temper. He met it by
assuming a still loftier condescension. He looked down his nose at Mr.
Godolphin.

‘Not quite so thickly, sir, and only where the Queen’s discernment
perceived them to be deserved.’ He might have let the matter lie upon
that reminder that to sneer at honours is to sneer at who bestows
them. But he pursued the matter a little farther. Pride in the
advancement which had come upon him so unexpectedly may have
intoxicated him a little, considering his youth. ‘I quote, I think,
Her Majesty, or if not Her Majesty at least Sir Francis Walsingham. I
will not swear which of them it was who said--but I know that it was
one of them--that England’s best made up the twenty thousand that
sailed out to meet and break the might of Spain. A score of
knighthoods, sir, comes to but one for every thousand. None so thick a
shower when all is said. Had every man been knighted, it would still
have been foolish to sneer at a measure which could but serve to
distinguish them hereafter from those who stayed at home and sheltered
themselves behind their valour.’

It made an awkward silence, and a little frown of perplexed annoyance
descended upon the brow of the Lady Margaret. Then Peter stiffly
answered him.

‘You use a deal of words, sir, to say a little, and your meaning is
obscured in verbiage.’

‘Will you have the marrow of it?’ wondered Sir Gervase.

‘In Heaven’s name, no!’ It was Margaret who spoke, a determined,
resolute Margaret. ‘We’ll have no more of this. My father, Gervase,
will be glad to see you. You’ll find him in the library.’

It was a dismissal, and deeming it unjust it made him angry. But still
he veiled his annoyance. He smiled quite pleasantly. ‘I’ll stay until
you are free to take me to him.’

Upon that, in secret resentment, and with the curtest of nods to
Gervase, the men took their leave, and Godolphin carried off his
sister with him.

When they had gone, the Lady Margaret looked at her lover with gloom
in her eyes and a wry little smile on her lips. Slowly she shook her
head at him. ‘It was ill done, Gervase.’

‘Ill done? God lack!’ To remind her of the cause, he mimicked Peter
Godolphin with an exaggerated simper. ‘“Faith! Honours must have
fallen thick as hail!” Was that well done? Am I to be rallied by any
popinjay for what my merits have earned me? Am I to kiss the rod of
his providing and turn the other cheek? Is that how you would have
your husband behave?’

‘My husband!’ said she, and stared at him. Then she laughed. ‘Remind
me, pray, of when it was I married you. I vow that I’ve forgot.’

‘You’ll not have forgot that you promised to marry me?’

‘I remember no such promise,’ said she in the same light tone.

He weighed the words rather than the manner. They set him breathing
hard, caused him to pale under his tan. ‘Will you go back on your
word, Margaret?’

‘And now you are unmannerly.’

‘I am concerned with more than pretty manners, madam.’ He was growing
vehement, overbearing, and she ever calm and cool, disliking vehemence
either in herself or others, began to be seriously annoyed. He
hectored on. ‘There was a promise you gave me in the hall, there, as I
was leaving: a promise that you would marry me.’

She shook her head. ‘As I remember it, my promise was that I would
marry no man but you.’

‘Why, what’s the difference?’

‘It lies in that I may keep that promise and yet keep to my intention
of following the Queen’s example and continuing all my days in my
maiden estate if I so choose.’

He turned it over in his mind. ‘And do you so choose?’

‘I must until I am persuaded to choose otherwise.’

‘How may you be persuaded?’ he demanded, almost challengingly, wounded
in his tenderest sensibilities and simmering with indignation at what
he must account an unworthy quibble. ‘How may you be persuaded?’

She looked him between the eyes, standing straight and tense.
‘Certainly not in any way that you’ve yet chosen to pursue,’ said she,
quite calm and cool and mistress of herself.

The elation in which he had come, the pride in his knightly rank so
newly attained, the swagger it had lent him, all fell from him now. He
had thought to dazzle her--and, indeed, to dazzle all the world--with
his honours and the echo of the deeds that had earned them.
Realization was so vastly different from his exalted expectations that
his heart turned to lead in his breast. The auburn head which he had
carried so proudly even at Whitehall was lowered at last. He
contemplated the ground. He became humble.

‘I’ll choose any way that you may desire for me,’ he said, ‘for I love
you, Margaret. To you I owe my knighthood, for the deeds that won it
me were inspired by you. In all I bore myself as if your eyes had been
upon me, with no thought save to do that which should give you pride
in me could you behold it. The reward I have won and all that may
follow upon this are naught to me unless you share them with me.’

He looked up, and saw that he had touched her, melted her a little
from the smooth hardness of her mood. She was smiling now with a hint
of tenderness. He set himself to follow up the advantage.

‘I vow you use me ill,’ he protested, and thus introduced again
contentious matters. ‘You give a chilly welcome to the eager haste in
which I seek you.’

‘You chose to be quarrelsome,’ she reminded him.

‘Was I not provoked? Was I not sneered at by that Godolphin whelp?’
Again he became impatient. ‘Is all that I do wrong and all that he
does right in your eyes? What is Mr. Godolphin to you that you espouse
his quarrels?’

‘He is my kinsman, Gervase.’

‘Which gives him licence to affront me. Is that your meaning?’

‘Shall we forget Mr. Godolphin?’ said she.

‘With all my heart!’ he cried; whereupon she laughed and took his arm.

‘Come and pay your duty to my father. You shall tell him of your fine
deeds upon the sea, and I will listen. I may be so beglamoured by the
tale as to forgive you everything.’

It did not seem to him in justice that he had need of forgiveness. But
he desired no more disputes.

‘And then, Margaret?’ he asked her eagerly.

She laughed again. ‘Lord, what a man it is for outracing time! Can you
not await the future in patience without ever seeking to foretell it?’

He looked at her in doubt a moment. Then he thought he read a
challenge in her eyes. He took the risk of acting upon it. He caught
her in his arms, and kissed her. And since she suffered it this time
without resentment, it would seem that he had read aright the
challenge.

They went in to disturb the studies of the Earl.




 CHAPTER V.
 FLOTSAM

/Don Pedro de Mendoza y Luna/, Count of Marcos and Grande of Spain,
opened his eyes and looked up through the pallid dawn at the grey
cloud masses overhead. It was some little while before his senses
understood what his eyes beheld. Then he grew conscious that, as he
lay there supine upon the shore, he was cold and stiff and sick. By
this he knew that he was still alive; though how it happened, and
where he might be, were matters yet to be investigated.

Painfully, upon joints that seemed almost to creak as they moved, he
brought himself to a sitting posture, and gazed out across the heavy
ground swell of the opal-tinted sea into the spreading flush of the
September dawn. His senses reeled under the effort, sky and sea and
land all rocked about him, and he was seized with nausea. He ached
from head to foot, ached as if he had been stretched upon the rack;
his eyes smarted acutely; there was an unspeakably bitter, briny taste
in his mouth, and his mind was in such troubled confusion that it
could render him no proper account of himself. He was conscious that
he lived and suffered. Beyond that it is to be doubted if he was so
much as conscious of his own identity.

His nausea increased, and he became violently sick, whereafter,
exhausted, Nature compelled him to lie down again. But as he lay now,
the oppressing cloud began to lift from his brain, clearing the
outlook for his consciousness. Soon memory resumed her sway. He sat up
again, more alertly this time, and at least no longer nauseated. His
eyes ranged once more over the sea, more purposefully now, seeking
upon the waters some sign of that towering galleon which had suffered
shipwreck in the night. The reef upon which she had gone to pieces
showed boldly in silhouette against the quickening sky, a black line
of jagged rocks upthrusting from a white foam of thundering breakers.
But of the galleon, not so much as a mast or spar was to be seen. And
the storm, too, had passed, its fury spent, leaving no indication of
its passage save that oily ground swell. Overhead the cloud mass was
being broken up, dissolving, and patches of blue sky became
increasingly revealed.

Don Pedro sat forward, his elbows on his knees, his head in his hands,
his fine long fingers thrust into his damp, clammy hair. He remembered
now that dreadful swim of his, instinctive and without orientation in
the blackness of the night. The unquenchable animal instinct of
self-preservation it was that had compelled it. Reason had no part in
the effort. For whilst he possessed the clear assurance that land
could not be far, he had no means of telling in that impenetrable
darkness the direction in which it lay. Therefore, with little hope of
reaching it, he supposed himself to be swimming into eternity.

He remembered how, when exhaustion began at last to cramp his limbs
and paralyze further effort, he had commended his soul to his Maker,
to that God who had proved so extraordinarily insensible of the fact
that His were the battles which Don Pedro, and so many other tall
Spaniards now stiff and cold, had gone forth to fight. He remembered
how, in those last moments of consciousness, a wave had suddenly
seemed to seize him in its coils, lift him high and bear him swiftly
forward upon its crest, then loose its grip of him and leave him to
crash down upon the beach with a force that had driven out what little
breath yet lingered in his tortured lungs. He remembered his instant
deep thankfulness, quenched the next moment in the realization that he
was being sucked back by the undertow.

The horror of it was upon him again. He shuddered now as he thought of
the frenzy with which he had clawed that foreign shore, driving his
fingers deep into the sand, to grip and save himself from the maw of
hungry ocean before the strength to battle should be spent with
consciousness. That was the last thing he remembered. Between that
point and this there was a blank which his reason now set itself to
bridge.

The tide was on the ebb when they had struck the reef. This had
permitted his last effort to be availing. Thus had the retreating sea
been foiled of her prey. But, in faith, that monster had been fed to a
surfeit as it was. The galleon was gone and with her some three
hundred fine tall sons of Spain. Don Pedro checked the surge of
thankfulness for his own almost miraculous preservation. Was he, after
all, more fortunate than those who had perished? He had been dead, and
he was alive again. It amounted scarcely to less. The dark, dread
portals had been crossed when consciousness was extinguished. For what
had he been thrust back into the world of life? His respite in this
barbarous heretic excommunicate land could be no more than temporary.
Escape must be impossible. Upon discovery it would be demanded of him
that he suffer death again, and suffer it probably with indignity and
amid torments infinitely worse than those which last night he had
undergone. Far indeed from returning thanks for his preservation, let
him give rein to his envy of those compatriots of his who would wake
no more.

Drearily he looked about him, surveying the rocky little cove of that
nook-shotten isle on which the sea had spewed him up. The swiftly
growing light showed him a desolate, deserted space walled in by
cliffs like some vast prison. No dwelling was visible here or anywhere
on the heights above. All about him rose these sheer red cliffs
fringed on their summit by the long grass that was waving in the
freshening breeze.

He knew that he was somewhere upon the coast of Cornwall. This from
what the navigator of the galleon had told him last night just before
they were dashed upon the rocks by the fury of that infernal tempest
which had swept them leagues out of their course; a tempest which had
come down upon them just when they appeared to have weathered all
their perils, to have conquered adversity, and to confront a clear run
home to Spain. Never again would he behold the white walls of Vigo or
Santander upon which two days ago he had so confidently been expecting
soon to look.

In imagination a picture of them rose before him, all bathed in
sunshine, the vines all laden now with their rich ripe clusters among
which the brown-skinned, dark-eyed Galician or Asturian peasants would
be moving with their vintage-baskets on their shoulders, to pile from
these the grapes into the ponderous wooden bullock-carts identical in
every detail with those which the Romans had brought into Iberia
nearly two thousand years ago. He could hear them singing at their
labours, the wistful, heart-wringing songs of Spain, subtle compounds
of joy and melancholy that quicken a man’s blood. So confidently two
days ago had he been anticipating the sight of all this to heal the
wounds of body and of soul which they had taken in their ill-starred
adventure. From the white church on the summit there above Santander,
the Angelus of dawn would even now be ringing. As if he heard it with
the ears of his flesh, the homesick, storm-battered Don Pedro
disengaged his legs from a tangle of seaweed, struggled to his knees,
crossed himself, and recited the salutation to the Mother of God.

After that he sat down again dejectedly to consider anew his position.

Suddenly he laughed aloud, a laugh of deep and bitter irony. Laughed
at the contrast which he discovered between the manner of his coming
ashore in England and that which had so confidently been planned. He
had shared the assurance of his master, King Philip, in a triumphal
progress which no human power could withstand. He had looked upon
England as already beneath the heel of Spain, its bastard and
excommunicate Queen driven forth in ignominy, and this Augean stable
of heresy cleansed and purified and restored to the True Faith.

What else was to have been expected? Spain had launched upon the seas
an armament that was invincible by temporal forces, fortified by
spiritual weapons which must render it invulnerable to the Powers of
Hell, offering herself as an arm through which God should vindicate
His cause. It was incomprehensible, incredible that from the outset
the elements should appear to have stood in league with the heretics.
He reviewed the whole adventure from the first issuing of the fleet
from the Tagus, when at the very outset adverse winds had created
confusion, losses, and delays. In the Channel the wind had almost
constantly favoured the lighter craft of the endemonized heretical
dogs who had harried them. And even when all hope of effecting a
landing in England had been abandoned, and the surviving ships of the
Armada, driven to circumnavigate this barbarous island, asked no more
of Heaven than that they should be permitted to reach home again, the
elements had persisted in their incomprehensible hostility.

As far as the Orkneys they had hung together. There in a fog ten of
the galleons had gone astray. Sixty ships, including the Concepción
commanded by Don Pedro de Mendoza y Luna, had clung to the San
Martín, and with her had adventured farther north, running short of
food, the water fouling in their casks, and disease breaking out
amongst them. Their pressing needs drove them to seek the coast of
Ireland, where half of them were wrecked. In a gale off that Irish
coast the Concepción was separated from the remnant of the fleet at a
time when her crew were by thirst and famine rendered too exhausted to
handle her. By a miracle they made Killibeg, and here Don Pedro
obtained fresh provisions and fresh water. Thus he had been able to
revive his fainting seamen, preserving them only so that they might be
drowned upon the coast of Cornwall, from which he had been again
preserved, to end perhaps yet more miserably. Was there a curse upon
them that the gift of life at the hands of Heaven should be the gift
to be most feared?

Of the fate of the other consorts of Medina Sidonia’s flagship, Don
Pedro had no knowledge. But judging their case by his own when he had
parted from them, he had little cause to suppose that any of them
would ever reach Spain again, or if they reached it that they would
bear anything but skeletons into Spanish harbours.

In his dejection at this final ruin so far as he himself was
concerned, Don Pedro reflected that the ways of the Deity were
altogether beyond understanding. One explanation, it was true,
existed. The launching of the Armada might be regarded as an ordeal by
battle in the old sense: an appeal to God to deliver his judgment
between the old established faith and the reformed religion; between
the Pope and Luther, Calvin and the rest of the heresiarchs. Was it in
answer to this that God had spoken thus through the winds and the
waves which He controlled?

Don Pedro shuddered at the thought, which, as he himself perceived,
went perilously near to heresy. He dismissed it, and from the past
turned his attention more closely to the present and the future.

The sun was breaking through and quickening the dispersal from the
heavens of the cloudy remnants of last night’s tempest. Don Pedro rose
painfully to his feet and wrung what he could of the sea-water from
his doublet. He was a tall, gracefully shaped man of scarcely more
than thirty, and not even the sodden state of his garments could
extinguish their elegance. His dress alone would have proclaimed his
nationality. He was all in black, as became a noble of Spain and a lay
tertiary of Saint Dominic. His velvet doublet, peaked and tapering to
an almost womanish waist, was faintly wrought with golden arabesques.
In its present wet state it had almost the appearance of a damascened
cuirass. From a girdle of black leather embossed with gold, a heavy
dagger hung upon his right hip above his ballooning trunks; his hose,
a little rumpled now, was of black silk; the canions of his boots, of
fine Cordovan leather, had slipped down, one to the level of his knee,
the other to his very ankle. He sat down again to pull them off, first
one and then the other, emptied out the water by which they were
logged and drew them on again. He removed from his neck the handsome
collar of Dutch point, which hung like a dish-clout now that the sea
had washed all the starch from it. He wrung it out, considered it a
moment, then cast it from him in disgust.

Giving now in the full daylight a closer attention to his
surroundings, he was startled to perceive the real nature of certain
dark objects which dotted the little strip of beach. These, carelessly
observed when he had first looked about him whilst the light was dim,
he had assumed to be rocks or clumps of seaweed.

He made his way towards the nearest of them with dragging feet. He
paused to bend over it, recognizing it for the body of Hurtado, one of
the officers of the ill-fated galleon, a gallant, stout-hearted fellow
who had laughed at perils and discomforts. Hurtado would laugh no
more. Don Pedro fetched a sigh that was in itself a requiem, and
passed on. A little farther, he came upon a man still bestriding in
death the spar upon which he had ridden ashore. Seven other bodies
lay, some sprawled, some huddled, upon the sands where the sea had
cast them up. These, some timbers, a chest, and few odd furnishings
represented all that was left above water of the splendid Concepción.

Don Pedro considered his late comrades with that solemnity which the
dead must ever command. He breathed a prayer for them even. But upon
his finely chiselled face--of the colour of ivory, its warm pallor
stressed perhaps by the small black moustache and stiletto
beard--there was no shade of regret for their fate. Don Pedro was
equipped with a finely balanced, cold intelligence which could
suppress emotion in the weighing of realities. These men were more
fortunate than himself in that they had died but once, whereas he was
destined, he supposed, to endure another and infinitely more cruel
death in this hostile land.

It was a reasoned assumption, and by no means merely the apprehension
of illogical panic. He was acquainted with the fierce hatred of Spain
and Spaniards that was alive in England. He had seen flashes of it
during his sojourn at Elizabeth’s Court, where he had spent two years
in the train of his cousin, the Ambassador Mendoza--he who had been
compelled to leave England when Throgmorton betrayed his complicity
with the adherents of the Queen of Scots in a plot against the life of
Elizabeth. If that hatred had been so lively then, what must it be
to-day after years of alarms culminating in the dread into which the
coming of the Armada had flung this God-abandoned country? He knew his
own feelings for a heretic; he knew how he would deal with one at
home; how, indeed, he had dealt with some. Was he not a lay tertiary
of Saint Dominic? These feelings supplied him with a standard by which
to measure the disposition of heretics towards himself, and the fate
that must inevitably await him at the hands of heretics.

He paced back slowly to Hurtado’s body. He remembered to have observed
that there was a rapier girt to it, and Don Pedro coveted the weapon.
This covetousness was entirely of instinct. Reason supervening as he
stooped to unbuckle the belt, he paused.

His sombre eyes looked out over the heaving waters as if to question
the Infinite of which the ocean must ever seem the symbol. What use to
him a sword?

Don Pedro was a cultured and learned gentleman who had studied at the
University of Saint James of Compostella, and afterwards applied his
learning in the world and the courts he had frequented. Hence he had
developed a habit of philosophic reflection. He had learnt that to
strive against the ultimately inevitable is a puerile effort, unworthy
of an intelligent mind. Where an evil is unavoidable, the wise man
goes to meet it and so makes a speedy end. Let him abide, then, here
in this deserted spot until he perished of hunger and of thirst; or,
if he went forward, let him cover his face like a Roman and receive
death from the first hand raised against him.

Thus philosophy. But Don Pedro was still young; the blood flowed
strongly in his veins, and the love of life was quick within him.
Philosophy, after all, is an arid business, concerned with
speculations upon the why and wherefore of things, with theories upon
past and future, upon origin and destination outside of absolute human
ken. Life, on the other hand, as apprehended by the senses, is
concerned with the moment; it is not vague, but definite, real, and
self-assertive. Where life flows strongly, the reality of what is must
ever conquer speculations of what may be, and life will seize every
chance, however slender, of preserving itself.

He stooped again, and, completing this time his task without further
hesitation, buckled the dead man’s sword to his own loins. Nor was
this the end of the fortification he craved against the immediate
future. His men had all received their pay before the fleet sailed
from the Tagus, and there had been, alas, no chance of spending any of
it. The last precaution of each had been to strap his bag of ducats to
his waist. Don Pedro loathed the task, but went about it at the
dictates of common-sense, and in the end stuffed a heavy purse into
his sodden doublet.

By now the sun was already well above the horizon, and the last of the
storm clouds was dissolving in the blue. The sunshine and some
exertion which it had been necessary to employ had partly restored Don
Pedro’s circulation, had at least delivered him from the earlier ague
in which he had shivered. He became conscious that he was hungry and
thirsty and that his mouth was bitter as a brine pan.

He stood looking out to sea again, considering. Over the sunlit waters
a flock of gulls wheeled and circled ever nearer to the shore,
screaming shrilly. Whither should he direct his steps? Was it possible
that in this desolate land of England there might be folk so
charitable as to take pity on a fallen enemy in extremes? He doubted
it. But unless he went to ascertain, the few pains he had already
taken to provide for emergencies would be utterly wasted and a certain
and painfully slow death would await him here. After all, that was the
worst that could await him elsewhere, and it was not quite certain. A
chance undoubtedly existed. Thus, you perceive how the instinct of
life had come already to effect a change in his outlook, and to
irradiate it with a slight measure of hope.

He moved along that strip of Cornish beach, looking for some break in
the wall of cliff, for some path that should lead up to those green
heights on the level of which no doubt there would be men and
dwellings. He climbed a shallow wall of black and jagged rocks which
springing from the cliff ran athwart the sands to bury themselves in
the water and no doubt continue under it, just such a treacherous reef
as that upon which the Concepción had gone to pieces. In the tiny
cove beyond, he espied quite suddenly the debouching of a dingle adown
which a little brook came hurrying turbulently seaward. The sight of
it was blessed in his eyes; the voice of it sang a song of salvation
in his ears.

He reached the edge of it above the shore, flung himself prone upon
the sparse wet grass where the soil was still sandy, and gratefully
lowered his head to drink as drinks the animal. No Andalusian wine, no
muscadine, had ever tasted one half so sweet to him as this long
draught from that sparkling Cornish brook.

He drank avidly to quench his burning thirst and cleanse his mouth of
that bitter briny flavour. Then he washed the salt from his eyes and
beard and from the undulating black hair that grew to a peak in the
middle of his fine brow.

Refreshed, his spirits rose, and the reaction from the pessimism of
his awakening was complete. He was alive, and he was in the full glory
of his youth and strength. He had been wrong--impious and insensible
to God’s grace--to envy his poor dead comrades. Contritely he fell now
upon his knees, and did what it would have become a pious gentleman of
Spain to have done earlier: returned thanks to Heaven for his
miraculous preservation.

His orisons ended, he turned his back upon the sea and began the
ascent of the gently rising ground. The dingle was densely wooded, but
a beaten track where the way had been cleared ran along the brook with
its little cascades and deep pools, where here and there he beheld the
flash of the golden flank of a trout which his shadow startled. Tall
blackberry bushes tore at him as he advanced and thereby drew his
attention to their fruit. He was thankful for the discovery of this
manna, and proceeded to break his fast. It was very jejune fare; the
berries were small, none too ripe, and their pulp was scanty. But Don
Pedro was not fastidious that morning. Misfortune schools us in the
appreciation of small gifts. He ate with relish until a crackling
sound in the undergrowth across the stream disturbed him. He stood as
still as the trees that sheltered him, lest any movement on his part
should betray his presence. His ears were strained to listen and
identify the sounds.

Someone was moving yonder. He was not at all alarmed. It was not easy
to alarm Don Pedro. But he was alert and watchful, since whoever came
must of necessity be an enemy.

Quite suddenly this enemy was revealed, and not quite the enemy that
Don Pedro had looked for. Through the alders beyond the stream crashed
a great liver-coloured hound, snarling and growling as it came. It
stood poised a moment on the farther bank, now barking furiously at
this black intruder whom it had sighted. Then with short yelps it ran
hither and thither seeking a passage, and at last heaved itself across
in a terrific leap.

Don Pedro leaped at the same moment. Nimbly he sprang upon an
opportune rock, and out flashed Hurtado’s rapier. This infernal dog
should receive a cold, sharp welcome.

But even as the hound bounded forward to the assault, a clear,
imperious voice detained it.

‘Down, Brutus! Down! Hither to me! Hither at once!’

The dog checked, hesitating between indulgence and obedience. Then as
the command was repeated, and the mistress who uttered it appeared
between the trees, it turned, and with a final yelp, perhaps of
disappointed anger, went bounding back across the brook.




 CHAPTER VI.
 SURRENDER

/Sword/ in hand, statuesquely from his rocky plinth, Don Pedro bowed
until his trunk was at right angles with his shapely legs. He hoped
that he was not ridiculous.

The lady across the brook whom he thus saluted belonged to a type
which to a son of Spain must ever seem the most delectable by virtue
of that natural law which renders opposites interattractive.

Her cheeks were delicate as apple blossoms; her hair was of the ruddy
golden of ripe corn, and tied with great simplicity, without any of
those monstrous affectations which Elizabeth had rendered fashionable
in England. Her eyes were deeply blue, and the surprise now staring
out of them gave them a look of startled innocence. She was tall, he
observed with approval, and of those most sweet proportions which
ripening womanhood alone can display. Her dress marked her in his eyes
for a person of quality. Her peaked stomacher and ridiculous
farthingale--though less ridiculous by much than mode
prescribed--proclaimed to him clearly that here was no rustic Dian for
his Endymion. And not only her dress but her bearing and the
self-assured manner in which she now confronted this noble-looking
and--in his rumpled, sodden garments--rather fantastic stranger, went
further to announce her quality.

‘Sir, would you have killed my dog?’

Now it was not for nothing that Don Pedro de Mendoza y Luna had spent
three years in London in the Ambassador’s train and gone about the
Court. He spoke English better than many Englishmen, and beyond a
slight exaggeration of the vowel sounds there was little in his speech
to betray the foreigner.

‘Madam,’ he answered her smoothly, ‘I trust you will not count it a
lack of gallantry in me that I am reluctant to be eaten by a lady’s
dog.’

His accent and the light humour of his answer set her staring harder.

‘Now, God a’ mercy!’ she ejaculated. ‘You’ll not have sprouted here,
like a mushroom, in the night. Whence are you, sir?’

‘Ah! Whence!’ He shrugged. A melancholy smile invested his fine sombre
eyes. ‘That is not to be answered in a word.’

He came down from his rock and in three active strides, from boulder
to boulder, was across the brook. The crouching hound half-rose and
growled at his approach, whereupon the lady bade him down again, and
cut him across the body with a hazel switch to quicken his obedience.

Don Pedro stood before her to explain himself. ‘I am no better than a
piece of wreckage; some of the flotsam from a Spanish galleon that
foundered on the rocks down there in last night’s storm. I am all that
has come ashore alive.’

He saw the sudden darkening of that fair face, the recoil before him
in which if there was fear there was more repugnance. ‘A Spaniard!’
she exclaimed in the tone we use when we mention evil and detested
things.

He sank his head between his shoulders; spread his hands in
deprecation. ‘A very sorry one,’ said he, and on that sighed
plaintively.

Almost at once he saw racial prejudice cast aside for womanly pity.
She observed more closely his condition, his sodden garments and
dishevelled head, and saw that it bore out his tale. She pictured to
herself the thing he told her, and was stricken at the thought of that
sunken galleon and the loss of life.

Upon her face he read the reflection of this uprush of compassion, for
he was very skilled in the deciphering of human documents, and being,
too, a very subtle gentleman, he perceived his course, and promptly
took it.

‘My name,’ he said, and said it with a certain conscious pride that
was not to be mistaken, ‘is Don Pedro de Mendoza y Luna. I am Count of
Marcos, a Grande of Spain, and your prisoner.’ On that he went down
upon his knees, and proffered her the hilt of the sword which he still
held naked in his hands.

She fell back a pace or two in sheer surprise. ‘My prisoner?’ Her
brows were knit in bewilderment. ‘Nay, now; nay, now.’

‘An it please you,’ he insisted. ‘It has never been imputed to me, and
I hope it never may be, that I want for courage. Yet finding myself
shipwrecked, alone in a hostile land, I am in no case to offer
resistance to my capture. I am like a garrison that is forced to
capitulation and merely asks that it may capitulate without hurt to
honour. On the beach down there I had a choice of alternatives. One
was to walk back into the sea which has rejected me, and drown. But I
am young, as you observe, and suicide is the certain gateway to
damnation. I fell back, then, upon the other alternative which was to
make my way to the haunts of men, and, upon finding one who was of a
quality to receive my sword, to make surrender. Here at your feet,
lady, my quest is ended almost as soon as it began.’ And again he
proffered her the blade, held now across his two hands.

‘But I am not a man, sir.’ She was obviously nonplussed.

‘Let all men thank God with me for that,’ he cried. Then more solemnly
continued: ‘In all ages it has been deemed proper that valour should
yield to beauty. For my valour I will beg you to accept my word until
such time as it may be tested, when the test, I trust, will be in your
own service. For the rest your mirror and the eyes of every man will
vouch. And as for your quality, I were blind or a clown did I not
perceive it.’

That the situation piqued and pleased her from the very outset is as
certain as that the astute Don Pedro judged confidently it must. It
was so tinctured with romance that its appeal to a lady of any heart
and imagination must prove beyond resistance. Only the extraordinary
nature of the adventure made her hesitate, aroused a doubt on the
score of the practical fulfilment of this Spanish gentleman’s
proposal.

‘But I have never heard the like. How can I take you prisoner?’

‘By accepting my sword, madam.’

‘But how can I hold you?’

‘How?’ he smiled. ‘It is easy to hold the captive who desires
captivity. Who would desire liberty that may be your prisoner?’

His eyes grew so ardent as to leave no vagueness in his meaning. She
flushed under that regard of his, as well she might, for Don Pedro
went very fast indeed. ‘I surrender me,’ he said. ‘Yourself shall fix
my ransom and make it what you will. Until it comes from Spain I am
your prisoner.’

He saw that her hesitation was still far from conquered. Perhaps,
indeed, his momentary ardour by its prematureness had increased it.
Therefore he had recourse to utter frankness, confident that, by
revealing the full extent of his peril and thus arousing her
compassion, he would prevail upon her. He showed her that it was upon
her mercy that he counted; that it was his faith in her gentleness and
her pity for his plight that impelled him to take this course which
she accounted extraordinary and which was certainly unusual.

‘Consider,’ he begged her. ‘In the hands of another it might go very
ill with me. I intend no insult to your countrymen’s sense of what is
in honour due to an unfortunate and helpless enemy, of what is
prescribed by all the usages of chivalry. But men are the creatures of
their passions, of their feelings; and the feelings to-day of
Englishmen for Spaniards…’ He broke off and shrugged. ‘You know them.
It may well be that the feelings of the first Englishman I meet will
conquer his notions of what is becoming. He may summon others to help
him cut me down.’

‘Would so much be needed?’ she flashed at him, touched by his sly
imputation that no one Englishman would suffice to take a Spaniard.

But he knew women, and he answered without hesitation, though in
accents that sounded humble and self-deprecatory: ‘I think so, lady.
And if you deny me now I must resolve your doubts by making proof of
it.’

He knew that she would not, and knew that the half-challenge of his
answer struck the right note and preserved him a figure of dignity in
misfortune, a man who would condescend only within certain definite
honourable limits to accept shelter from his peril. If he made it
plain that he sought compassion from her, he also made it plain that
he sought no more than he might accept without loss of self-respect.

She perceived clearly enough that if she assented to his odd proposal,
if she accepted him for her prisoner, it would be hers to shield him.
She would be doing a worthy thing; for Spaniard though he might be, he
was human and a gentleman. That she had the power to carry this thing
through and claim him for her own against any aggressor, reflection
made her gradually confident. He had rightly gauged her mettle and her
quality. In all that Cornish countryside there was probably none
strong enough to stand against her imperious will once she determined
to exert it.

The combined appeal of her womanliness and her sense of the romantic
carried the day with her. She accepted his surrender, and this in
terms of a generosity for which she was sure that there was abundant
chivalrous precedent.

‘Be it as you will then, sir,’ she said at last. ‘You shall be my
prisoner. Give me your parole of honour that you will attempt no
escape, and you may retain your weapons, holding them in trust for
me.’

Still on his knees, the sword still proffered, he bowed his head, and
solemnly gave the oath required.

‘Before God and Our Lady, by my honour and my faith, I swear to hold
myself your captive, and that I shall not leave you until yourself you
restore me the liberty which I here surrender.’

Upon that he rose, and sheathed his rapier. ‘Is it a presumption,
madam, to ask my captor’s name?’

She smiled, for all that there still abode in her a shade of
uneasiness at the eccentricity of this transaction.

‘I am the Lady Margaret Trevanion,’ she replied.

‘Trevanion?’ He manifested a faint quickening of interest. ‘You will
be of the family of the Earl of Garth.’

She was justifiably surprised that a Spaniard should be so
well-informed upon English family matter.

‘He is my father, sir.’ And she expressed her astonishment in her
question: ‘What do you know of the Earl of Garth?’

‘I? Nothing, alas. Though that is a deficiency in me which the fortune
of war should now repair. But I have heard my father speak of him and
the near escape he had of losing his head in the service of your
present Queen when Mary Tudor reigned in England. My father was here
in the train of King Philip in those days when he was the Queen of
England’s husband, and I think he knew your father well. It is an odd
link between us, if you please.’

The link was none so odd as Don Pedro assumed or would have it appear.
His father had been one of a cloud of Spanish noblemen who had come
and gone about the Court of Queen Mary at a time when the Lord Admiral
Seymour and his friends were prominent in the public eye and
particularly in the eye of King Philip and his following, whose
position in England was menaced by their activities.

‘From the memory of his own misfortunes and the perils in which he all
but lost his life, my Lord Garth may not be without sympathy for the
misfortunes of another.’ Then, lest he should appear to plead too
much, he essayed to diminish it by humour. ‘The first of these
misfortunes, my lady, and the peril of life most pressing upon me at
the moment comes from hunger.’

She smiled. ‘Come, sir. I will see what may be done to mend it and the
rest of your condition.’

‘The rest of my condition? _Valga me Dios!_ There’s naught amiss with
the rest of my condition.’

‘Come,’ she commanded, and led the way, the hound bounding forward
ahead.

Don Pedro, obediently, as became a prisoner, followed closely, and
began at last to be truly thankful for his miraculous preservation.




 CHAPTER VII.
 MARGARET’S PRISONER

/They/ made their way upwards through the dell by a winding path that
was all dappled with the sunlight beating through a ramage still
dripping from last night’s storm. The lady and her hound went ahead.
Don Pedro followed, partly because to follow became his condition,
partly because the pathway was scarcely wide enough to admit of their
going abreast.

As they neared the summit, where there was open ground, a lusty male
voice carolled suddenly above them. The actual words of his song have
been lost, and they do not greatly matter. The burden of it was that
life on the rolling sea was a jovial life, a roving life and a rolling
life. It fetched a laugh from Don Pedro whose sea-memories at the
moment were anything but jovial.

At the sound, the girl looked over her shoulder at him, hanging a
moment in her stride, and there was the ghost of a smile on her lips.
It might have been supposed, by one whose shrewdness was less satanic
than the Spaniard’s, that she smiled in sympathy with his laugh,
perceiving the wry humour of it. Don Pedro, however, caught in that
smile something different, something mystifying to which he did not
hold the clue. He was to hold it presently, when the singer disclosed
himself, which was after they had brushed past the last of those wet
branches and stood upon the open moorland all gold and purple in the
morning sunshine.

Don Pedro beheld a tall young gentleman, tawny of head and care-free
of countenance, who hailed her ladyship’s emergence into the open with
a glad cry and a light of gladness in his laughing eyes. He advanced
upon long legs that were cased in thigh-boots of untanned leather; he
rolled a little in his gait--a roll which it is to be feared he
exaggerated, so that all might know him at sight for the terrible
seaman he accounted himself. He was bareheaded, and his wind-tossed
hair, bleached in patches by the same sun which had burnt his skin to
its pleasant tan, increased the fresh young comeliness of his
appearance. He carried a fowling-piece on his shoulder.

Her ladyship’s dog bounded joyously forward to greet him, and for a
moment hampered his own eager advance upon her ladyship, who meanwhile
expressed surprise at his being abroad so early. He explained himself
briefly. There was a fair at Truro, and a company of mummers who it
was said had once played before Her Majesty in London. He had ridden
over betimes to offer to escort her thither if it should be her
pleasure to attend the play which was to be given after dinner in the
yard of the Trevanion Arms. Hearing that she had gone walking, he had
followed on foot, and to improve the occasion he had borrowed
Matthew’s fowling-piece, hoping to take back a hare or a grouse for
his lordship’s supper. From all this, rapidly delivered, he broke off
abruptly to inquire in Heaven’s name who might be her companion.

There were several ways in which her ladyship might have presented her
prisoner. Of these she mischievously chose the least explanatory and
at the same time the most startling.

‘This, Gervase, is Don Pedro de Mendoza y Luna, Count of Marcos.’

The young seaman’s eyes grew round; his brows came together. ‘A
Spaniard!’ quoth he, very much as he might have said: ‘A devil!’ And
almost instinctively he swung the fowling-piece from his shoulder to
the crook of his arm, in readiness for action. He repeated his
ejaculation on a higher note: ‘A Spaniard!’

Don Pedro smiled. He commanded upon occasion a smile of melancholy
weariness, and this he now employed. ‘A very wet one, sir,’ he said in
his precise and careful English.

But Sir Gervase scarcely looked at him. His eyes, question-laden, were
chiefly upon her ladyship.

‘How comes a Spaniard here, a God’s name?’

It was Don Pedro who answered him. ‘The sea, in rejecting me, was so
benign as to cast me at the feet of her ladyship.’

Quite apart from his being a Spaniard, Gervase disliked him on the
spot. It is possible that Don Pedro intended that he should, for such
was the dissimilarity mental and physical between these two that in
whatever circumstances they might have met no love is conceivable
between them. There was no man more skilled than Don Pedro in the art
of subtle injury, that injury of tone and glance which is the more to
be resented because allied with civil words which give no ground
whatever for complaint.

‘You mean that you have been shipwrecked?’ Gervase questioned with a
blunt aggressiveness.

Don Pedro’s fine features were illumined by his faint, weary smile. ‘I
expressed it more gallantly, I hope. That is the only difference
between your words and mine.’

The young man came nearer. ‘Well, well,’ said he, with the least
suspicion of swagger. ‘It is fortunate I met you.’

Don Pedro bowed. ‘Sir, your courtesy places me in your debt.’

‘Courtesy?’ quoth Sir Gervase. He uttered a short laugh. ‘You take me
amiss, I think.’ And to avoid any possible further misunderstanding,
he added curtly: ‘I trust no Spaniard.’

Don Pedro looked at him. ‘What Spaniard asks your trust?’ he wondered.

This Sir Gervase disregarded. He came to business. ‘We will begin,’ he
informed her ladyship, ‘by depriving him of his weapons. Come, Sir
Spaniard. Hand them over.’

But here at length her ladyship interposed. ‘You’ll go your ways,
Gervase,’ she informed him lightly, ‘and meddle in matters that
concern you. This is not one of them.’

Momentarily he was rebuffed. ‘What’s that?’ Then he shrugged and
laughed. ‘This does concern me. It is a man’s business. Come, sir,
your weapons.’

But Don Pedro merely smiled, in that easy, weary way of his. ‘You are
too late, sir, by half an hour. These weapons are surrendered already.
I hold them merely on parole and in trust for my captor. I am the Lady
Margaret Trevanion’s prisoner.’

Sir Gervase first grew solemn in astonishment, then loosed his
laughter. In this there was an indiscreet note of contempt which
angered her ladyship and summoned a flush to her cheeks by which the
young man should have taken warning.

‘Midsummer frenzy!’ he crowed. ‘Who ever heard of a man being a
woman’s prisoner?’

‘You have just heard it, sir,’ Don Pedro reminded him.

Her ladyship became disdainful. ‘You are young, Gervase, and the world
lies before you for your instruction. Let us on, Don Pedro.’

‘Young!’ was all that his indignation would permit him to ejaculate.

‘Young, ay!’ she answered him. ‘And beset by all the faults that are
the marks of callowness. You detain me, I think.’

‘It is my intent, by Heaven!’ He stood squarely and angrily in their
way.

Don Pedro might have offered to remove him. But Don Pedro used his
wits. He perceived here, both in her ladyship and in Sir Gervase,
certain symptoms which he thought he recognized. His own situation
bristled with danger; he was very delicately poised; and he must be
careful to do nothing that would disturb his precarious balance. So he
remained aloof from the contention of which he was the subject.

Sir Gervase meanwhile made haste to put aside his own wrath before the
anger in Margaret’s eyes. He perceived betimes his error, though he
did not perceive that her indignation sprang chiefly from the very
fact that he bore himself so ill.

‘Margaret, this is a thing best…’

She broke in upon his pleading tone. ‘I have said that you detain me.’
She was very haughty and peremptory. There was perhaps in her humour a
touch of that perversity inherited from her perverse mother.

‘Margaret!’ His voice quivered with dismay and incredulity; his honest
eyes, so blue against the tan of his face were troubled. ‘I desire
only to serve you; to…’

‘No service is here required; certainly no service such as you
importunately offer.’ And for the third time: ‘Come, Don Pedro,’ she
commanded.

Sir Gervase fell back now, too deeply offended to offer another word.
She moved on, Don Pedro following obediently, and it was upon him that
Sir Gervase vented in his fierce scowl some of his seething anger. The
Spaniard met the scowl with a bow than which nothing could have been
more courteous and deferential.

To Sir Gervase, as he stood there following them with his brooding
eyes, the glory had departed out of that September morning, and the
joy in which he had come seeking Margaret was all withered in his
heart. He accounted himself monstrously ill used by her, and this not
entirely without reason. For a week now he had spent the greater part
of each day in her company, either at the Chase itself or else walking
or riding with her, and the relations between them had been so close
and warm that he was assured his period of probation was at an end and
that soon she would consent to become openly betrothed to him.

There was no coxcombry in the lad. If on the one hand he had begun
confidently to assure himself that she loved him, on the other her
love for him must remain an abiding miracle for which in his own
person and endowments he could find no sufficient cause. It was, like
the unearned gifts which sometimes fall from Fortune’s lap, something
to be accepted in wondering gratitude and without question.

But this morning’s events had destroyed all this again. Clearly she
did not love him. She found in his company beguilement of her
leisures. Time may have hung heavily upon her hands at Trevanion Chase
with that dull bookish father and she was glad to have him ride with
her, hawk with her, escort her upon occasion to Penrhyn or Truro, take
her sailing or fishing in the estuary. But love, real love, for him,
clearly there could be none in her heart, else she would not use him
as she did, would never have humbled him in this fashion, and denied
him what clearly lay within his rights where this shipwrecked Spaniard
was concerned. It was all incredible and exasperating. He was, he
found it necessary to assure himself, a man of some account. The Queen
had knighted him for his part in the action with the Armada, and he
held Her Majesty’s commission, which imposed upon him certain duties
here in Cornwall. The apprehension of this Spaniard washed ashore from
one of the galleons that had escaped the action in the Channel was
clearly within these duties, and Margaret or no Margaret, he would
accomplish it and refuse to be put off by any absurd romantic
surrender to herself which this Spaniard might have made. And not so
absurd, after all, that surrender, reflected Sir Gervase. Far from it.
It was an instance of Spanish craft and Spanish cunning to play upon
the romanticism of a woman for his own ends and the preservation of
his own skin.

Thus, after long and careful deliberation, Sir Gervase took his
resolve. He would follow them to the Chase, and relieve Lord Garth and
his daughter of this undesirable guest, whatever the subsequent
consequences to himself. That done, he would go seek Sir Francis
Drake, or any other leader about to put forth in quest of fresh
adventure, and bring to the enterprise that fine ship of his own which
Sir John Killigrew was fitting for him.

Thus you behold him come striding into the hall at Trevanion Chase,
and not to be detained there by old Martin, who was the master of his
lordship’s comparatively meagre household. He thrust the fowling-piece
into the servant’s hands, brushed him and his remonstrances aside, and
stalked into the library, where Margaret and her prisoner were
closeted with the Earl.

Sufficiently vexed and perturbed was his lordship already. Here was no
mere question of one of those momentary interruptions which never
failed to irritate him, but a matter likely to be fruitful of all
manner of disturbances and likely to keep the peace he desired for his
household in hourly danger of being shattered. The dim remaining
perceptions of the obligations of his station, however, had been
stimulated by the link which at the very outset Don Pedro had sought
to establish through his father’s acquaintance with the Earl in the
distant days of Queen Mary’s reign. This had lent his lordship grace
to dissemble at least some part of his dismay at the intrusion and all
the inconveniences which it adumbrated.

The spare, grey-faced old recluse had looked up from under his shaggy
brows with almost friendly eyes, and a faint smile moved under the
narrow, square-cut beard, once auburn but now almost white.

‘Oh, yes. I remember Don Estebán de Mendoza. I remember him very
well. He was your father, eh?’ The smile broadened a little. ‘I had
reason to esteem him.’

He fell into abstraction pondering events that were abruptly dragged
from the tomb of oblivion. He recalled that of all the Spaniards at
the Court of Queen Mary, Don Estebán de Mendoza was probably the only
one who did not thirst for the blood of the Princess Elizabeth. When
danger to her was most threatening from the activities of Renaud, it
was he who had warned the Lord Admiral, and this warning was so timely
as to have been perhaps the means of preserving Her Grace’s life.

It was his recollection of this that prompted his next words. ‘The son
of Don Estebán de Mendoza stands in no great peril in England. There
must be a score of gentlemen ready to serve you for your father’s
sake. The Queen, herself, once reminded of the past, should stand your
friend, as your father once stood hers.’

‘It is possible,’ said Don Pedro, ‘that they may prefer to remember
that I commanded a galleon of the Armada. Recent events must ever be
more present than remote ones. And in any case, between me and those
gentlemen who might befriend me lies almost the whole of England,
where it is not humanly possible to-day that a Spaniard should be
loved.’

It was at this point that Sir Gervase broke unbidden upon the
conference in that musty library, bringing with him into it some of
the vigorous freshness of the moorlands and the sea. He was a little
excited and extremely vehement, both of which were conditions which
his lordship detested. By virtue of the Queen’s commission which he
held, he proposed to relieve Lord Garth at once of this unwelcome
intruder. He announced the intention rather than offered a service,
which again was not the happiest way to deal with his lordship.

His lordship administered a reproof. ‘This commission which you hold
from Her Grace gives you no right to break in upon me when I am
private. I excuse it because I perceive the zeal by which you are
moved. But this zeal, Gervase, is misplaced and unnecessary. Don Pedro
has already surrendered himself a prisoner.’

‘To Margaret! To a woman!’ cried Sir Gervase, and accounted it
superfluous to do more than state the fact. Its absurdity was
self-revealing. ‘Let him surrender himself to the justices at Truro,
until order can be taken about him. By your leave, my lord, I will
myself escort him thither now.’

‘And risk having him torn in pieces in the streets,’ said her
ladyship. ‘That would be chivalrous.’

‘There would be no danger of it if he went with me. You could trust to
my escort.’

‘I should prefer to trust to these walls,’ he was answered.

They made Sir Gervase more and more impatient.

‘But it is fantastic!’ he insisted. ‘Who ever heard of a woman holding
a prisoner? And how is she to hold him?’

It was Don Pedro who answered, smoothly urbane. ‘It is honour, sir,
that holds a prisoner who has given his parole. I am bound more
securely by that than by all the chains with which your Truro gaol
could load me.’

This, of course, was not easily answered without using an
offensiveness difficult to justify. Gervase was still seeking grounds
upon which to dispute with them, when Margaret swept all argument
aside with the reminder that her bedraggled prisoner was weak and
faint, wet, cold, and hungry, and that, whatever might ultimately be
resolved about him, commonest humanity dictated that their immediate
care should be to feed and clothe and rest him.

His lordship, who perceived thus the possibility of an early return to
the study of the _Phaedo_ and the Socratic arguments upon the
immortality of the soul, seized the opportunity of putting an end to
all discussion and delivering his library from its invaders.




 CHAPTER VIII.
 DON PEDRO’S LETTER

/Don Pedro/ was treated at Trevanion Chase with all the consideration
due to an honoured guest, and this in a house famed for its
hospitality despite the apparently inhospitable character of its
master.

Lord Garth’s revenues were by far the greatest of any nobleman in the
West of England; his personal expenditure was insignificant; and he
gave little thought or care to the manner in which his considerable
wealth was laid out by his steward Francis Trevanion, an impoverished
cousin upon whom he had bestowed the office, and Howard Martin, the
chamberlain grown old in his service. He trusted these men implicitly,
not so much because they were trustworthy or because his own nature
was trustful, as because by trusting them he was relieved of those
economic cares and minor domestic details which he regarded as the
troublesome necessary futilities of life. His wealth was more than
abundant for all that his station might require of him in his
household, and whilst of an intense personal frugality, he had no
desire that any economy should be practised, regarding such practices,
indeed, as an irritating waste of things infinitely more valuable than
money.

What the Lady Margaret required for herself or considered should be
provided for another, she had merely to signify either to Francis
Trevanion or to Martin, according to the nature of the requirement.
She was invariably obeyed without question.

By her orders now a servant was appointed to minister to the personal
wants of Don Pedro; their guest was provided with fresh linen and what
else he lacked for his bodily comfort, and he was afforded a spacious
chamber in the southwest wing of the mansion, whence he had a fine
view of the downs and the sea, that accursed sea which had played the
traitor to him and his fellow countrymen.

To this chamber Don Pedro was confined for a week by a fever which
attacked him on the very evening of his arrival, as a very natural
result of all that lately he had undergone. This fever raged so
furiously in the course of the next two days that a doctor was fetched
from Truro to attend him.

Thus the fact of his presence at Trevanion Chase became bruited abroad
and afforded presently matter for sensational discussion in every
hamlet between Truro and Smithwick. Soon there were rumours--false
rumours--of other Spaniards who had come ashore alive from that
galleon, whose wreckage had supplied active and in some instances
profitable occupation to the locality, and extravagant stories went up
and down the countryside.

The constable came from Truro to pay Lord Garth a visit. He accounted
it his duty to inquire into this affair and to suggest to his lordship
that it behoved him to lay the matter before the justices.

His lordship was contemptuous of the justices, and arrogantly unable
to perceive how anything that happened at Trevanion Chase could be the
concern of any but himself. In some respects his outlook was almost
feudal. Certainly nothing could have been more remote from his
intentions than to seek the justices in this or any other matter.

He expressed himself in some such terms. He adopted a judicial tone.
He admitted the presence at Trevanion Chase of a Spanish gentleman who
had come ashore from the wreck. But as this coming ashore could not be
regarded in the light of an invasion or as a hostile act against the
peace of the realm, he was not aware of any statutory enactments under
which the justices might take proceedings against Don Pedro. In any
case, however, Don Pedro had formally surrendered himself to the Lady
Margaret; he was virtually a prisoner at Trevanion Chase, and his
lordship accepted whatever responsibility this might entail, and
denied the right of anyone to demand of him an account of his actions
in this or any other matter.

He was by no means certain that the right did not exist; but he
thought that the surest way of saving himself trouble was to deny its
existence. To clinch his arguments he presented the constable with a
crown and sent him to the kitchen to get drunk.

No sooner was he rid of the constable than he was plagued by Sir John
Killigrew, who came to express the unsolicited opinion that this
Spanish gentleman should be sent to the Tower to join there his
distinguished compatriot Don Pedro Valdez.

His lordship began to experience exasperation. If he refrained from
heat, it was because manifestations of heat were foreign to his
nature. But he did not mince matters in pointing out to Sir John that
he considered the subject of the visit an unwarrantable intrusion, and
that he was well able to take order about Don Pedro without advice or
assistance from his neighbours. He condescended, however, to explain
that Don Pedro’s case was rather exceptional; he deserved some
consideration out of regard for his father’s attitude towards the
Queen in the old days. In this, his lordship asserted confidently,
there were at least a score of gentlemen still in England who would
support him. Sir John withdrew defeated, to face his kinsman Gervase,
who had inspired the visit, and to explain to him its failure.

‘After all, it is his own affair. The responsibility lies with him,’
said Killigrew, with an airy tolerance very different from the
patriotic indignation in which he had set out. ‘One Spaniard more or
less is no great matter when all is said, and there’s no mischief for
the fellow’s hands here in Cornwall.’

Sir Gervase did not at all agree with him. He denounced the whole
thing as outrageous. At best it was an untidy business, and the young
seaman liked things shipshape and in their proper places. The proper
place for Don Pedro de Mendoza y Luna in his opinion was the Tower.
His hostility to the Spaniard was increased, if not indeed entirely
begotten by the attitude towards himself which her ladyship had taken
up concerning the fellow. He failed entirely to perceive that it was
his own rather boyish self-sufficiency and almost arrogant assumption
of authority which had piqued her into this attitude.

Considering himself affronted by her disregard, he allowed the days to
pass without attempting to approach her. But he had news of her--of
her and her prisoner--which did not at all lessen his indignation.

The neighbouring gentry accepted the fact of the Spaniard’s presence
at Trevanion Chase with an equanimity that appalled him. From the
Godolphins, the Tregarths, and the younger Tressilian he actually
heard the man’s graces, wit, and accomplishments extolled. This when
Don Pedro’s fever had abated and he was once more abroad, and being
treated--as the reports showed--as an honoured guest. What Sir Gervase
overlooked in permitting himself to be fretted by these reports was
the fact that the aim of those fribbles was deliberately to stab him
by them, and so avenge the hurt to their mean selves proceeding from
the honours which had given him an ascendancy over them.

So Gervase sulked at Arwenack and gave his mind ostensibly to matters
concerned with the fitting of his ship as if no Lady Margaret existed,
until one morning, some twelve days after Don Pedro’s coming, a groom
rode over from the Chase with a note from her ladyship in which she
inquired the reason of Sir Gervase’s protracted absence and required
him to come in person that very day and explain it to her. That he had
registered the irrevocable resolve of sailing for the Indies without
seeing her again did not prevent him from instantly obeying the
summons of that note, little suspecting that it was in the interest of
Don Pedro that his presence and services were required.

The fact was that with the recovery of his strength Don Pedro’s mind
turned naturally enough to the recovery of his liberty and to his
repatriation. He approached the matter skilfully and delicately as he
did all things.

‘There is,’ he informed her ladyship, ‘a matter of some urgency to be
discussed between us, which only my condition has suffered me to
postpone until now.’

They had lingered at the breakfast-table when the meal was over and
after his lordship and Francis Trevanion had withdrawn. The latticed
windows stood open, for the weather was still warm. Don Pedro, facing
them, could look out from his seat at the table upon the long stretch
of smooth green lawn, brilliant as enamel in the morning sunshine, to
the cluster of larches which cast a black shadow along its farther
edge.

The Lady Margaret looked up quickly, her attention arrested by the
unusual gravity of his tone. He answered the question of that glance.

‘It becomes necessary that as my captor your ladyship should settle
the ransom that is due.’

‘The ransom?’ She frowned a little in surprise and perplexity. Then
she laughed. ‘I don’t perceive the necessity.’

‘It exists, my lady, none the less, and it is for you to state the
sum. And let me add that to state a light one were to pay me a poor
compliment.’

Her perplexity increased. Her thoughtful eyes seemed to be pondering
the table of dark oak with its strip of white napery and the crystal
and silver glistening upon it. This, she thought, was to push the
comedy a little far. At last she said so.

‘Though I accepted your surrender when you made it, because… because,
forsooth, it seemed a pretty thing to do, yet in reality you are to
account yourself no more than our guest.’

A smile flickered over the narrow, handsome face. ‘Ah, no!’ he cried.
‘Do not commit the error of assuming that I am no more than that, nor
the imprudence of announcing it. You must bethink you that, if I am
your guest, you are guilty of harbouring me, of affording me shelter.
You are surely aware that there are heavy penalties already for
harbouring Catholics, and no doubt there will be added ones for
harbouring Spaniards who have been in arms against England. For your
own sake as much as for mine, then, let it be quite clear that I am
your prisoner, and that it is as your prisoner that I abide here. You
will remember, too, that you are committed to it by what you told Sir
Gervase on the morning of my surrender to you. Without that assurance
from you and from his lordship, Sir Gervase would have taken me, and I
do not care to think how it might have fared with me. I know that
sooner than be dragged into some public place, I must have withstood
arrest by him; and since he was armed on that occasion with a
fowling-piece, it is more than likely he would have shot me. You will
see, then, when all this is considered, that honour will not permit me
to owe my life and safety to a subterfuge.’

It was, of course, a piece of sophistry; for none was more aware than
himself that the very nature of his arrest was in itself a subterfuge.
The argument, however, sufficed to deceive her, and she confessed to
herself that it was unassailably sound.

‘I understand,’ she said. ‘All this being so, and since you insist,
yourself you shall name your ransom.’

He smiled mysteriously, thoughtfully fingering the long pearl-drop in
his right ear.

‘Be it so,’ he said at length. ‘Depend upon it, my lady, that I shall
do myself the fullest justice. It remains now for you to lend me your
aid so that I may procure this ransom.’

‘Ah, yes?’ She laughed now, thinking that here surely he must find
himself completely baffled.

But he was to reveal the unfailing quality of his resource which
already had found a way. He leaned forward across the board. ‘I will
write a letter, and it will be for you to see that it is carried.’

‘For me?’

He explained himself. ‘From the estuary below, from Smithwick and
elsewhere fishing yawls and other such craft are daily putting out to
sea. It is amongst these that we must find a messenger to bear my
letter. It is in this that of necessity I must depend upon your
ladyship.’

‘You think I could prevail upon an English seaman to make a Spanish
port at such a time as this?’

‘That were, of course, a ludicrous suggestion, and I am not being
ludicrous. I am earnest. All is well between England and France, and
my letter shall be addressed to one who is known to me in the port of
Nantes. The rest we may leave to him. He will forward it to its
ultimate destination.’

‘You have it all thought out!’ said she, eyeing him almost
mistrustfully.

He rose, slim and very elegant in his Spanish clothes, which the care
of the efficient Martin had restored to their pristine quiet
splendour. ‘Could I suffer myself to remain indefinitely a burden upon
your noble hospitality?’ he protested, his attitude one of dismay at a
thought that did him wrong: but his eyes very watchful of her.

She laughed quite freely at that, and rose in her turn. On the gravel
outside she had caught the approaching crunch of hooves, and knew the
sound to herald the approach of groom and falconer. They were to ride
that morning on the open moorland, and Don Pedro was to see for
himself how hawks are trained in England.

‘A courtly dissimulation of your haste to leave us,’ she rallied him.

‘Ah, not that!’ he exclaimed with a sudden fervour. ‘It is not
charitable to think so of me, who am so little master of my
destinies.’

She turned her shoulder to him, and looked out of the window. ‘Here is
Ned with the horses, Don Pedro.’

A slow smile lifted a little his black moustaches as he considered the
back of her neat head. He thought he detected annoyance in her when
she discovered how maturely he had considered his plans for removing
himself. Her manner had turned frosty, and her subsequent laughing
indifference had been so much feminine dissimulation to cover her
self-betrayal. Thus reasoned Don Pedro and took satisfaction in this
reasoning. It received a check when, as they rode that morning, she
told him that, if he would write his letter, she thought she knew of a
channel by which it could be set upon its journey. After her flash of
resentment at his intentions, he had hardly expected such ready
acquiescence in measures which were to lead to his ultimate departure.

Thus it fell out that on the morrow, when he had written his
letter--couched in Latin so that it might baffle any vulgar person who
might be tempted to investigate its contents--she despatched her
little note to Sir Gervase.

He came at once, arriving at eleven, just as they were sitting down to
dine, for they kept country hours at Trevanion Chase. At table he had
leisure to observe for himself the courtly grace, the urbane charm,
and ready, easy wit which had been reported to him of Don Pedro. And
as if perceiving the tactical error of his earlier downrightness where
the Spaniard was concerned and seeking to make amends, he employed
towards him a studied courtesy which Don Pedro returned with interest.

When dinner was done, and the Earl had withdrawn in strict accordance
with his inveterate habit, her ladyship desired Sir Gervase to come
and admire with her the last of the year’s roses. Sir Gervase, asking
nothing better, departed with her, leaving Don Pedro and Francis
Trevanion alone at table.

There were certain harsh truths she was to hear from Sir Gervase by
way of chastisement upon which forgiveness would follow the more
sweetly. But as they paced her rose-garden, enclosed within tall and
trimly cut hedges of yew to shelter the blooms from the sea gales, she
adopted towards him so distracting and unusual an air of shyness that
the remnants of his ill-humour were dissipated unuttered, and all the
ill things he had rehearsed to tell her were forgotten.

‘Where have you tarried all these days, Gervase?’ she asked him
presently, and by this question, for which once he had hoped so that
he might return one of the dozen scathing answers he had prepared,
flung him into some slight confusion.

‘I have had affairs,’ he excused himself. ‘The fitting of my ship has
engaged me closely with Sir John. And then… I did not think that you
would be needing me.’

‘Do you come only when you think you are needed?’

‘Only when I think I am welcome, which is much the same thing.’

She gasped. ‘The unkind imputation!’ she cried. ‘You are welcome,
then, only when you are needed? Fie!’

His confusion increased. As usual, she was putting him in the wrong
where he knew that he was right.

‘There was your Spaniard here to beguile your leisures,’ he said
gruffly, angling for a contradiction.

‘A courtly person, is he not, Gervase?’

‘Oh, courtly enough!’ he growled impatiently.

‘I find him vastly diverting. There is a man who has seen the world.’

‘Why, so have I. Was I not with Drake when he sailed…?’

‘Yes, yes. But the world I mean, the world of his knowledge, is
different from yours, Gervase.’

‘The world is the world,’ said Gervase sententiously. ‘And if it comes
to that, I’ve seen a deal more of it than ever has he.’

‘Of the savage world, yes, Gervase. His knowledge is of the civilized,
cultured world, as his person shows. He has been to all the courts of
Europe and is learned in their ways and in many other ways. He speaks
all the languages of the world, and plays the lute like an angel, and
sings… Shouldst hear him sing, Gervase! And he…’

But Gervase had heard enough, and interrupted her. ‘How long does he
abide here, this marvel of the ages?’

‘Only a little while longer, I fear.’

‘You fear?’ Disgust ineffable rang in his voice.

‘What have I said?’ she wondered. ‘Have I angered you, Gervase?’

He snorted impatiently and strode on, planting his feet with ferocity.
For all that he had sailed with Drake, seen much of the world and
learnt many things, there had been few opportunities upon that voyage
to study the tortuous ways of woman.

‘What are you going to do with him?’ he asked. ‘Has your father
reached a resolve?’

‘It is no concern of my father’s. Don Pedro is my prisoner. I am
holding him to ransom, and he shall go home so soon as the ransom
comes.’

This first took him by surprise, then afforded him some slight matter
for mirth.

‘If you are waiting for that, there’s no ground for your fears that
he’ll soon be leaving you.’

‘You make too sure. He has writ a letter to a man in Nantes, who will
proceed to Spain to obtain the ransom.’

Sir Gervase was utterly discourteous. ‘Bah!’ he sneered. ‘It would
become you better to send to Truro for the constable and deliver Don
Pedro up to the law of the land.’

‘And is that all you’ve learnt of the usages of chivalry in your
sailings with Sir Francis Drake? I think you had better sail again and
travel farther.’

‘Chivalry!’ said he. ‘Moonshine!’ Then from futile contempt he turned
again to more practical considerations. ‘He has writ a letter, you
say. And who’s to carry the letter?’

‘That is a difficulty, of course. He perceives it himself.’

‘Oh, he does, does he? He must, indeed, be a man of perceptions. He
can actually see an object when it stands before him. There’s
discernment!’ And Sir Gervase laughed, well pleased to have found this
weakness in the Spaniard’s equipment.

He was less pleased when Margaret pointed out the consequence. They
had come to the end of the enclosed garden, to a semi-circular stone
seat that was half-recessed into the thick yew hedge. With a sigh of
resignation, she seated herself.

‘He bides here for ever, then, it seems!’ She sighed again. ‘A pity! I
am sorry for him, poor gentleman. To be a prisoner in a foreign land
can be no enviable fate. It is like being a thrush in a cage. But
there! We will ease his condition all we can, and for myself I am well
content that he should remain. I like his company.’

‘Oh, you like his company? You confess to that?’

‘What woman would not? He is a man whom most women would find
adorable. I was lonely until he came, with my father always at his
books, and no one to bear me company but such foolish fellows as
Lionel Tressilian, Peter Godolphin, or Ned Tregarth. And if you are
going a-sailing again, as you say you are, I shall soon be lonely once
more.’

‘Margaret!’ He was leaning over her, in his eyes all the ardour
aroused by that unusual confession.

She looked up at him, and smiled with some tenderness. ‘There! I’ve
said it! I didn’t mean to say so much.’

He slipped into the seat beside her and put his arm about her
shoulders.

‘You understand, Gervase, don’t you, that I should desire to keep so
welcome a companion as Don Pedro by me?’ His arm fell away as if it
had been water. ‘I mean when you are gone, Gervase. You wouldn’t have
me lonely. Not if you love me.’

‘This is to consider,’ said he.

‘What is to consider?’

He sat forward now, his elbows on his knees. ‘This letter that he has
written: what exactly did he hope from it?’

‘Why, his ransom and the means to return to Spain.’

‘And he had no thought of how it might be got to Nantes?’

‘Oh, yes. He thought the skipper of some yawl or fishing boat might
carry it. His difficulty lay in inducing such a skipper to do him this
service. But no doubt Don Pedro’s wits will find a way. He’s very
shrewd and resourceful, Gervase, and he…’

‘Yes, yes,’ said Gervase. ‘Perhaps I can save him trouble.’

‘You, Gervase? What trouble can you save him?’

He got to his feet abruptly. ‘Where is this letter?’

She considered him round-eyed. ‘Why, what now? What is the letter to
you, Gervase?’

‘I’ll find a skipper to carry it to Nantes. It shall be there within a
week at most. Another week or two to get his ransom here, and he may
go his ways again to Spain or to the devil.’

‘Would you really do so much for him, Gervase?’ said her innocent
ladyship.

Gervase smiled grimly. ‘Get me the letter. I know of a boat that sails
with the tide to-night, and if the price will warrant it her skipper
will even run to the Loire.’

She rose. ‘Oh, the price will warrant it. Fifty ducats for the bearer,
to be delivered to him against the letter by the person to whom it is
addressed.’

‘Fifty ducats! ’Sdeath! He’s a wealthy man, this Spaniard!’

‘Wealthy? His wealth is incalculable. He is a Grande of Spain. The
half of the Asturias are his property and he has vast vineyards in
Andalusia. He is a nephew of the Cardinal-Archbishop of Toledo, he
possesses the close friendship of the King of Spain, and…’

‘To be sure, to be sure,’ said Gervase. ‘Get me this letter, and leave
the rest to me.’

He could be depended upon to act zealously in the matter, for by now
no one could have been more completely persuaded than Sir Gervase
Crosby of the propriety of speeding so illustrious, wealthy,
accomplished, highly connected, and attractive a gentleman from
Trevanion Chase.




 CHAPTER IX.
 THE ASSAULT-AT-ARMS

/The/ letter was duly despatched, and in consideration of this fact
Sir Gervase might well have practised patience for the little while
that Don Pedro was likely to continue at Trevanion Chase. But young
men in love are notoriously impatient, and matters were not eased for
Gervase when he found the Lady Margaret rendered all but inaccessible
to him by the claims upon her of her prisoner.

Whenever Gervase sought her now, there was no chance of being private
with her for more than a moment. If she were not away, riding or
hawking with the courtly Spaniard, there were ever visitors at the
Chase and the Spaniard was invariably the centre of interest. Either
he entertained the company with amusing narratives out of his wide
experience, or else he charmed them with plaintive, passionate
Andalusian songs, and he was so skilled a performer on the lute that
he could wring from it an unsuspected power of melody.

That the Lady Margaret should remain indifferent to his undeniable
fascination was incredible, particularly to Sir Gervase. When the
witty, versatile, accomplished Don Pedro exerted himself to please,
there is no doubt he could be dangerous. And it was obvious to all
that he was exerting himself now. Those Cornish gallants who had paid
an assiduous court to the Lady Margaret until Sir Gervase had elbowed
them out of his way, looked on and smiled to see him thrust aside in
his turn by another. In Don Pedro they beheld their own avenger, which
in itself went far to dispose them in Don Pedro’s favour.

Lionel Tressilian made a simpering jest of it to his grim half-brother
Sir Oliver. But Sir Oliver did not laugh with him.

‘God’s light!’ he cried. ‘It’s a shameful thing that a pestilential
Spaniard who shelters himself behind a woman’s petticoat should be
fawned upon by a pack of unlicked English whelps. He should have been
handed over to the justices. Since my Lord Garth is too indolent to
oppose his daughter, if I were in Gervase Crosby’s place, I’d make
short work of this Don Pedro.’

Chancing on the morrow to meet Gervase in Smithwick, the elder
Tressilian spoke his mind freely and bluntly as was his habit. He
blamed Gervase’s weakness for accepting this comedy of Don Pedro’s
surrendering his sword to a lady and for suffering himself to be
thrust out of his proper place by such a man. The youth of the place
were making a jest of it; and it was high time Gervase showed them
that it is not only upon the seas that he could deal with Spaniards.

This supplied the drooping spirits of Gervase with the necessary spur,
and coming that afternoon to Trevanion Chase he decided to take
action, though not necessarily of the violent kind at which the
downright, uncompromising Sir Oliver had hinted. That were neither
just where the Spaniard was concerned, nor prudent towards Margaret.
But it was necessary that his own position should be properly defined.
Being informed by Martin that her ladyship was in the arbour with Don
Pedro, he decided to make a beginning with the Earl.

The Earl, who had shifted from philosophy to history, its proper
correlative, was poring over a colossal volume of Herodotus when Sir
Gervase invaded his privacy.

‘My lord,’ the young man announced, ‘I am come to talk to you of
Margaret.’

His lordship looked up peevishly. ‘Is it really necessary?’ he
wondered. ‘I suppose you are come to tell me once again that you want
to marry her. I don’t oppose it if she doesn’t. Marry her if she will
have you. Go and ask her. It concerns her, not me.’

If this was a subterfuge to be rid of his intruder, it failed.

‘She will not listen to reason these days,’ Sir Gervase complained.

‘Reason? Whoever made love in terms of reason with any hope of
success? I begin to understand your failure, sir.’

‘My failure is due to this damned Don Pedro.’ He smacked a peck of
dust from a tome that lay under his hand upon the table. ‘Until this
Spaniard was washed up here out of hell, I had every hope to be
married before Christmas.’

His lordship frowned. ‘What has Don Pedro to do with this?’

‘With submission, my lord, I say you spend too much time with books.’

‘I am glad you say it with submission. But it hardly answers my
question.’

‘It were well that you spared some leisure from your studies to keep
an eye upon your daughter, sir. She and this Spaniard are too much
alone together; much more than is befitting a lady of her station.’

The Earl smiled sourly. ‘You are endeavouring to tell me that Margaret
is a fool. My answer is that you’re a fool to think so.’

But Gervase would not be put off. ‘I say that all women are fools.’

His lordship sniffed. ‘I nothing doubt that your misogyny has its
roots in a wide experience.’ Seeing the blank look in the young man’s
eyes, he explained himself. ‘I mean that you’ll have known many
women.’

‘As many as I need to,’ quoth Gervase, non-committal.

‘Then it is high time you got yourself married. A God’s name what do
you stay for?’

‘I have already told your lordship. This infernal Spaniard stops the
way. Even now he sits at her feet in the arbour, thrumming his
pestilent lute and languishing his Malaga love-songs.’

At last his lordship appeared really scandalized. ‘And you tarry here
while this is doing? Away with you at once, and send her hither to me.
I’ll make an end of this. If I have any authority over her, she shall
marry you within the month. Thus at last I may have peace. Away with
you!’

Sir Gervase departed on that agreeable errand, whilst his lordship
returned to investigate the fortunes of Cyrus and Cambyses.

The tinkling of the lute, the rich melodious voice of the Spanish
Grande guided Sir Gervase to the arbour. Unceremoniously he
interrupted the song with his message.

‘Margaret, his lordship asks for you. He is in haste.’

She departed after some questions to which he returned equivocal
replies.

The two men were left alone together. Don Pedro having bowed to the
departing lady sat down again, and crossed his shapely legs that were
cased in shimmering black silk, a quality of hose almost unknown in
England, the very pair in which he had swum ashore. With the lute
lying idle in his lap, he made some attempts at polite conversation.
These were impolitely discouraged by the other’s monosyllabic answers.
At last Don Pedro ignored him and once more gave his attention
entirely to the instrument, a pretty thing out of Italy of ebony
inlaid with ivory. His fingers swept the chords. Very softly he began
to play a quick Sevillan dance measure.

Sir Gervase, in that state of irritation which distorts all things and
magnifies the distortion, chose to perceive in this a deliberate
affront, a subtle form of mockery. Perhaps the rippling character of
the measure added colour to the assumption. Anger surged up in him,
and, acting upon it suddenly, he dashed the lute from the thrummer’s
hands.

The Spaniard’s dark eyes looked at him in blank astonishment from out
of that handsome ivory-coloured face. Then, observing his aggressor’s
fiery countenance, he smiled a slow, faint smile inscrutable of
meaning.

‘You do not like music, eh, Sir Gervase?’ he inquired with quiet,
derisive courtesy.

‘Neither music nor musicians,’ said Gervase.

The Spaniard continued unruffled, regarding him now with a faintly
quickened interest.

‘I have heard that there are men like that,’ said he, implying that he
now looked for the first time upon a member of that species. ‘The
sentiment, or the lack of it, I can understand if I cannot admire it.
But the expression of it which you have chosen I do not understand at
all.’

Already Sir Gervase realized that he had done a stupid, boorish thing.
His anger with himself was increased by the utter failure of his
action to provoke Don Pedro out of his lightly scornful urbanity.
Almost he could admire the Spaniard’s easy impassivity, and he was
certainly made the more sensitive of his own loutishness by contrast.
This merely served to fan his rage.

‘I should have thought it plain enough,’ he answered.

‘Of course, if this onslaught upon the Lady Margaret’s unoffending
lute was merely an instance of rustic want of manners, let me assure
you that it was entirely unnecessary.’

‘You talk too much,’ said Gervase. ‘I meant no harm to the lute.’

The Spaniard uncrossed at last his graceful legs, and rose with a
sigh. His face wore now a look of weary melancholy. ‘Not to the lute?
To me, then, eh? The harm was for me? You desire to offer me an
affront? Am I to assume this?’

‘If it will not strain your capacity for assumption.’ Committed to it
now, Gervase could not draw back.

‘But it does. I assure you that it does. Being unconscious of having
given offence, or of ever having lacked for courtesy towards you…’

Sir Gervase broke in. ‘You are, yourself, the offence. I do not like
your face. That jewel in your ear savours the fop, and offends my
sense of niceness. And then your beard is odious, and, in short, you
are a Spaniard, and I hate all Spaniards.’

Don Pedro sighed even as he smiled. ‘At last I understand. Indeed,
sir, you appear to have a very solid grievance. I am ashamed of myself
for having afforded it. Tell me, sir, what I may do to please you?’

‘You might die,’ said Gervase.

Don Pedro fingered his beard, ever suave and cool before the hot anger
of the other, which his every word, with its undercurrent of contempt
and mockery, was deliberately calculated to increase.

‘That is a deal to ask. Would it amuse you,’ he wondered almost
plaintively, ‘to attempt to kill me?’

‘Damnably,’ said Gervase.

Don Pedro bowed. ‘In that case, I must do what I can to oblige you. If
you will stay for me until I get my weapons, I will afford you the
gratifying opportunity.’

With a nod and a smile, he departed briskly, leaving Gervase in a fury
the half of which was directed against himself. He had behaved with an
outrageous clumsiness before that impeccable master of deportment. He
was ashamed of the boorish manner in which he had achieved his object
with one whose bearing throughout had been an education in the manner
in which these matters should be handled by men of birth. Deeds alone
could now make amends for the shortcomings of his words.

He said so in a minatory tone to the Don, as presently they made their
way together to a strip of lawn behind a quickset hedge where they
would be entirely screened and private.

‘If you ply your sword as keenly as your tongue, Don Pedro, you should
do fine things,’ he sneered.

‘Do not be alarmed,’ was the smooth answer.

‘I am not,’ snapped Sir Gervase.

‘There is not the need,’ Don Pedro assured him. ‘I shall not hurt
you.’

They had rounded the hedge by now, and Sir Gervase, in the act of
untrussing his points, fell roundly to swearing in answer to that
kindly promise.

‘You entirely misapprehend me,’ said Don Pedro. ‘Indeed, I think there
is a good deal in this that you do not apprehend. Have you considered,
for instance, that if you kill me, there will be none to question your
right to do so; but if I were to kill you, it is odds that these
barbarous compatriots of yours would hang me in spite of my rank?’

Gervase paused in the act of peeling off his doublet. Dismay
overspread his honest young face. ‘As God’s my life, I had not thought
of that. Look you, Don Pedro, I have no desire to place you at such a
disadvantage. This thing cannot go on.’

‘It cannot go back. It might be supposed that I pointed out the
delicacy of the situation so as to avoid the issue. And that, my
honour will not suffer. But, I repeat, sir, you have no cause for
alarm.’

The taunting confidence angered Sir Gervase anew. ‘You’re mighty sure
of yourself!’ said he.

‘Of course,’ the Don agreed. ‘Could I consent to meet you else? There
is so much that you overlook in your hot haste. Consider that, being
as I am a prisoner on parole, to permit myself to be killed would be
lacking in honour, since to die by an act in which I have a part were
tantamount to breaking prison. It follows that I must be very sure of
myself or I would not consent to engage.’

This was more than Gervase could endure. The Spaniard’s dignified
imperturbability he had admired. But this cold bombast disgusted him.
He flung aside his doublet in a rage and sat down to pull off his
boots.

‘Is so much necessary?’ quoth Don Pedro. ‘Myself I abhor damp feet.’

‘Each to his taste,’ he was curtly answered. ‘You may die dry-shod if
you prefer it.’

The Spaniard said no more. He unbuckled his sword-belt, and cast it
from him with the scabbard, retaining the naked rapier in his hand. He
had brought sword and dagger, the usual combination of duelling
weapons; but discovering that Sir Gervase, who had come unprepared for
this, was armed with rapier only, Don Pedro accommodated himself to
his opponent.

Lithe, graceful, and entirely composed he waited now, bending the long
supple steel like a whip in his two hands, whilst his opponent
completed his elaborate preparations.

At length they faced each other, and engaged.

Sir Gervase, as he had already proved upon more than one occasion, was
endowed with the courage of a mastiff; but his sword play was, like
his nature, downright, straightforward, and without subtleties. By
sheer strength of brawn he had earned himself among seamen something
of a reputation as a slashing swordsman, and he had come to conceive
that he was a match for most men with the weapon. This resulted, not
from self-sufficiency, but from ignorance. His education was far from
complete, as Margaret frequently and unkindly reminded him. Something
was to be added to it this afternoon.

The true art of fence was in its infancy. Lately born in that fair
land of Italy, which has mothered all the arts, it had as yet made
comparatively little progress in the rest of Europe. True, there was a
skilled Italian, a Messer Saviolo, in London, who gave instruction to
a few choice pupils, and similarly there were masters sprouting up in
France and Spain and Holland. But in the main your gallant, and your
soldier in particular, depended upon his strength to bear down an
opponent’s blade and hack a way to his heart. To this he added
sometimes certain questionable tricks of fighting, which were of less
than no avail should he chance--as Sir Gervase chanced to-day--to be
opposed to one of those few swordsmen who had made a study of this new
art and mastered its principles.

You conceive the disconcerting astonishment of Sir Gervase when he
found the slashing cuts, which he aimed at the lithe Don Pedro with
all the weight of his brawn behind them, spending themselves upon the
empty air, rendered harmless and powerless as they were met by closely
played deflecting blade. It was like witchcraft to the uninitiated, as
if the Spaniard’s sword were a magic rod, which at contact robbed his
own, and his arm with it, of all strength. Then he grew angry, and his
play became wilder. Don Pedro might have killed him twenty times
without exertion. It was, indeed, this lack of exertion on the
Spaniard’s part that infuriated the sturdy young seaman. Don Pedro
scarcely stirred. He kept his arm shortened and used his forearm
sparingly, depending chiefly upon the quick play of his wrist to be
everywhere at once with the very greatest economy of time and action.
Thus in a manner that to Gervase seemed increasingly uncanny, the
forte of that blade was ever presented to the foible of his own,
sending every cut and every thrust irresistibly yet effortlessly awry.

Gervase, already breathing heavily and beginning to perspire, broke
ground so as to attack in another quarter. But he had his labour for
nothing. The Spaniard merely pivoted to face him and to reëngage as
before. Once Gervase made as if to hurl himself forward, so as to come
to grips with his opponent: but he was checked by the Spaniard’s
point, flicked upwards to the line of his throat. If he advanced he
must impale himself upon it.

Baffled and winded, Sir Gervase fell back to breathe. The Spaniard
made no attempt to follow and attack. He merely lowered his point, to
ease his arm, whilst waiting for the other to resume.

‘You become heated, I fear,’ he said. He showed no sign of heat
himself and was breathing easily. ‘That is because you use the edge
too much, and therefore labour with your arm. You should learn to
depend more upon the point; keep the elbow closer to the body, and let
your wrist do the work.’

‘Sdeath!’ roared Gervase, in fury. ‘Do you give me lessons?’

‘But do you not begin to perceive that you need them?’ quoth the
affable Don Pedro.

Sir Gervase leapt at him, and then things happened quickly. Quite how
they happened he never understood. The Spaniard’s sword deflected his
fierce lunge, but less widely than hitherto, and now blade ran on
blade until the hilts crashed together. Then quite suddenly Don
Pedro’s left hand shot out and closed upon Sir Gervase’s sword-wrist.
The rest was done with the speed of thought. The Spaniard dropped his
sword. His now empty right seized Gervase’s rapier by the quillons and
wrenched it from his grasp before the design was so much as suspected.

Thus Sir Gervase found himself disarmed by seizure, his weapon now in
his opponent’s hand. Enraged, hot, and perspiring he stood, whilst the
Spaniard, smiling quietly, now bowed to him as if to signify that he
had done his part and the affair was at an end.

And then, as if this measure of humiliation were not in itself
sufficient, he suddenly became aware of Margaret’s presence. She was
standing by the corner of the quickset hedge, wide-eyed, white-faced,
her lips parted, her left hand pressed to her breast.

How long she had been there he did not know; but in any case long
enough to have witnessed his discomfiture. In that bitter moment Sir
Gervase accounted it no mercy that Don Pedro had not run him through
the heart.

Sick and foolish, oddly pale now under his tan despite the heat in
which the combat had put him, he watched her swift, angry approach.

‘What is this?’ she demanded; turning first to one and then to the
other and withering each with her glance.

It was of course Don Pedro, who, never for a moment losing his
composure, afforded her an answer. ‘Why, nothing. A little sword-play
for the instruction of Sir Gervase. I was demonstrating for him the
art of the new Italian school of fence.’

He proffered the sword to Sir Gervase, hilt foremost. ‘Enough for
to-day,’ he said with his courteous smile. ‘To-morrow, perhaps, I
shall show you how the _estramaçon_ is to be met and turned aside.’

By his infernal subtlety the man invested what he said with an air
which conveyed quite plainly the very thing he pretended to conceal:
how generously he had spared his opponent.

Her ladyship considered him a moment in haughty dignity. ‘Pray give me
leave apart with Sir Gervase,’ she commanded frostily.

The Spaniard bowed, took up his rapier from the ground and then his
sword-belt, and obediently departed.

‘Gervase,’ she said peremptorily, ‘the truth! What passed between
you?’

He gave her truthfully enough the details by which he knew himself to
be shamed.

She listened patiently, her face white, her lip at moments trembling.
When he had done and stood hang-dog before her, it was some moments
before she spoke, as if she were at pains to choose her words.

‘You were bent, it seems, upon saving me the trouble of disobeying my
father’s wishes?’ she said at last between question and assertion.

He was in no doubt of her meaning. But the heart was all gone out of
him. He continued to contemplate the trampled turf. He perceived how
fitting it was that she should refuse to marry such an oaf as himself,
clumsy in all things. He had no courage left to defend himself or
plead his cause.

‘Well?’ she demanded. ‘Why don’t you answer me? Or have you talked
yourself dumb with Don Pedro?’

‘Perhaps I have,’ he answered miserably.

‘Perhaps you have!’ she mocked him. ‘Good lack! Would it have helped
you to have got yourself killed?’

In reply he set her a question which he might well have set himself,
ay, and found the answer to it in her present angry agitation.

‘Since you would not have cared, why all this heat and bother?’

Excitement betrayed her. ‘Who says I would not?’ she snapped, and
almost bit out her tongue when the words were sped.

They had a transfiguring effect upon the man before her. He stared at
her, and fell to trembling. ‘Margaret!’ he cried in a voice that rang
out. ‘Wouldst have cared, Margaret?’

She took refuge in feminine dissimulation. She shrugged. ‘Is it not
plain? Do we want the justices here to know how you met your death,
and a scandal about our heads that may send an echo as far as London?’

He gulped and lapsed back into his dejection. ‘Was that all you meant?
Was that all?’

‘What else could you suppose I meant? Get you dressed, man. My father
is asking for you.’ She began to turn away. ‘Where did you say you
left my lute? If you’ve broken it I’ll not forgive you easily.’

‘Margaret!’ he called to her as she was departing.

By the quickset hedge she paused, and looked at him over her shoulder.

‘I’ve been an oaf,’ he pleaded miserably.

‘Upon that particular at least we can agree. Aught else?’

‘If you’ll forgive me…’ He broke off, and moved towards her. ‘It was
all for you, Margaret. I was maddened to see this Spaniard ever in
your company. I can’t endure it. We were so happy until he came…’

‘Myself, I’ve not been unhappy since.’

He swore between his teeth. ‘It’s that! It’s that!’

‘It’s what?’

‘My cursed jealousy. I love you, Margaret. I’d give my life for love
of you, Margaret dear.’

‘Faith, I believe you,’ she taunted him, ‘since I found you engaged in
the attempt.’ She moved away a pace or two, then paused again. ‘Get
you dressed,’ she repeated, ‘and in Heaven’s name get sense,’ she
added, and was gone.

But as he was gloomily trussing his points, she was back again.

‘Gervase,’ she said, very grave and demure now. ‘If my forgiveness
matters, you’ll promise me that we shall have no more of this.’

‘Ay,’ he answered bitterly, ‘I promise.’

‘You swear it,’ she insisted, and for all that he swore it readily
enough, he had not the wit, it seems, to fathom the reason of her
concern. A little coxcombry would have helped him here. But there was
no coxcombry in Sir Gervase Crosby’s composition.




 CHAPTER X.
 THE RANSOM

/Sir Gervase/ departed that day from Trevanion Chase in the deepest
humiliation he had ever known. In another this humiliation might have
turned to gall, urging him to a mean vengeance in one of the forms
which the circumstances place so readily at hand. In Sir Gervase,
however, it inspired only self-reproach and shame. He had behaved
abominably. He had borne himself like an ill-mannered schoolboy, and
Don Pedro had dealt with him precisely as his case and condition
required, administering, with a magnanimity that was in itself a
cruelty, a corrective birching to his soul.

That Margaret must now utterly despise him seemed inevitable; that she
should be justified of her contempt was intolerable. Thus in his
almost excessive humility had he interpreted her indignation. Blinded
by it--for humility can be as blinding as conceit--he had never seen
the fierce concern behind it.

His opponent’s case was little better than his own. It was in vain
that Don Pedro defended himself by specious arguments, or paraded the
magnanimity and restraint to which Sir Gervase owed it that he had
come off the field without physical hurt. The Lady Margaret did not
desire that Sir Gervase should owe anything to the magnanimity of any
man. It was detestable to her that he should be placed in such a
position, and this detestation she divided impartially between himself
and the man who had placed him there. Towards Don Pedro her manner was
now aloof and frosty. She allowed him to perceive that she had formed
her opinion of his conduct and desired to hear no explanations, since
no explanations could modify the view she took.

After supper that evening, however, he made a vigorous attempt to put
himself right in her eyes. She was withdrawing with her cousin Francis
in the wake of her father, when he begged her to stay a moment. In
yielding it is possible that her intent was to render him yet more
fully aware of her indignation.

‘I vow,’ he said, ‘that you use me cruelly in being angry with me for
a matter which it was not in my power to avoid.’

‘It is not my desire to hear more of it.’

‘And now you are unjust. There is no deeper injustice than to condemn
a man unheard.’

‘I do not need to hear you, sir, to know that you abused your position
here, that you abused the trust I placed in you when I allowed you to
retain your weapons. The facts themselves are all I need to know; and
the facts, Don Pedro, have lowered you immeasurably in my esteem.’

She saw the spasm of pain ripple across the narrow, clear-cut face,
and look at her out of those great liquid and undeniably beautiful
dark eyes. This it may have been that, softening her a little,
suffered her now to listen without interruption to his answer.

‘Than that,’ said he, ‘you could inflict upon me no crueller
punishment, and it is an irony that it should fall upon me for actions
in which from end to end I was guided only by the desire to retain an
esteem which I prize above all else. I abused your trust you say. Will
you not hear my answer?’

He was so humble, the pleading note in his voice so musical, that she
gave her consent with a reluctance that was only apparent. He offered,
then, his explanation. Sir Gervase had come to him with the clear
intention of provoking a quarrel. He had dashed the lute from Don
Pedro’s hands, he had alluded in the grossest terms to Don Pedro’s
physical attributes.

These affronts he could have forgiven, but to forgive them would have
justified Sir Gervase in accounting him a coward, and that he could
not have forgiven because it would have hurt his honour. Therefore, to
avoid the unforgivable, he had consented to meet Sir Gervase Crosby,
but this only because no doubt of the issue existed in his mind and he
could depend upon his resolve to use his weapons only for a defensive
purpose, so as to render negative the combat. He had displayed his
mastery of those weapons, not in any braggart spirit, but merely so as
to place his courage above reproach when he should come to decline any
further quarrels that it might be sought to put upon him.

It made up a strong case, and his manner of presenting it was
impeccable in its modesty. But her ladyship was not disposed, it
seemed, to clemency; for whilst she confessed herself, as perforce she
must, satisfied with his arguments, the tone in which she confessed it
was frosty and distant; and frosty and distant her manner continued in
the days that immediately followed. She no longer showed any concern
for the entertainment of her prisoner. She left him to his own
devices, to seek exercise in lonely brooding walks, or to employ his
wits in agricultural and forestry discussions with Francis Trevanion,
whilst she rode abroad with Peter and Rosamund Godolphin, or
entertained these and other visitors, to the Spaniard’s exclusion, in
her own bower.

Thus for Don Pedro three dismal days passed sluggishly. She observed
his dejected countenance when they met at table and was satisfied that
he could suffer, the more so because as a consequence of the events
Sir Gervase had not been seen at Trevanion Chase since he had departed
in defeat. If she could have guessed the full extent of Don Pedro’s
suffering, things might have been different. In regarding the
melancholy reflected on his pale face and in his liquid eyes as a
histrionic adaptation to what he conceived the requirements of the
case, she did him less than justice.

Don Pedro suffered in all sincerity, and the wistfulness which she
detected in his eyes when they observed her arose from his very soul.

It was inevitable, by the attraction of opposites, that this
dark-complexioned typical son of the South, thrown into such close and
constant association with that tall, golden girl, whose cheeks were as
delicately tinted as the apple blossoms, whose eyes were so
unfathomably calm, so blue and so frankly level in their glances,
should have lost his heart to her. She was so different not only from
the languishing, sheltered, ill-informed women of his native Spain,
but from any woman that he had ever met in any other part of Europe.
The liberty which she enjoyed so naturally, having known naught else
from childhood, gave her at once a frankness and a strength which
afforded her maidenhood a stronger bulwark than ever was supplied by a
barred casement or a vigilant duenna. She was innocent without
ignorance, frank without boldness, modest without simpering, and
maddeningly attractive without deliberate allure. In all his life and
all his travels, Don Pedro had never met a lady half so desirable or
one whose permanent conquest could be a source of deeper pride. And
all had been going so well and promisingly between them until that
unfortunate matter with Sir Gervase Crosby whom, from despising, Don
Pedro now began to hate.

Thus for three days he pined in the chill exclusion to which she
doomed him. On the evening of the fourth something happened to restore
him to the centre of the canvas, his proper place in any picture of
which he was a part.

They were at table when a servant brought word that a gentleman--a
foreign gentleman--was asking for Don Pedro. The Spaniard having
craved and been granted leave withdrew to the hall where this visitor
waited.

The worldly consequence of Don Pedro de Mendoza y Luna was to be
inferred from the amazing celerity put forth to serve him by those who
were the recipients of that letter despatched to Nantes. Their speed
was so little short of miraculous that, within some eighteen days of
the sailing of the yawl that had borne the letter, the bearer of the
answer presented himself at Trevanion Chase.

Don Pedro, coming with swift, eager steps into the spacious grey hall,
checked abruptly at sight of the man who awaited him, a squarely built
fellow, in brown homespun and long sea-boots, black-bearded, and
tanned like a sailor. Under his arm he bore a bulky package wrapped in
sail-cloth. He bowed to the Spaniard, and announced himself in French.

‘At your service, monseigneur. I am Antoine Duclerc, out of Nantes.’

Don Pedro frowned and stiffened. His manner became haughty.

‘How is this? I had thought that Don Diego would have come in person.
Am I, then, become of so little account?’

‘Don Diego has come, monseigneur. But it would hardly be prudent for
him to land.’

‘He becomes prudent, eh?’ Don Pedro sneered. ‘Well, well! And who are
you?’

‘I am the master of the brig that went to fetch him out of Santander.
She is lying to a couple of miles from shore with Don Diego aboard,
awaiting your excellency. It is arranged we take you off to-night. I
have a boat in the cove under the cliff there and a half-dozen stout
Asturians to man it.’

‘Asturians?’ Don Pedro seemed surprised and not displeased.

‘We shipped a Spanish crew at Santander by Don Diego’s orders.’

‘Ah!’ Don Pedro came nearer. ‘And the ransom?’

The Frenchman proffered the package from under his arm. ‘It is here,
monseigneur.’

Don Pedro took it and sauntered across to the window. He broke the
heavy seals and with his dagger ripped away the envelope of
sail-cloth, laying bare an oblong ebony box. He raised the lid.
Nestling on a cushion of purple velvet lay a string of flawless,
shimmering pearls, every bead of which was nigh as large as a
sparrow’s egg. He took it in his hands, setting the empty box upon the
window-seat.

‘Don Diego has done well,’ he said at last. ‘Tell him so from me.’

The seaman looked his surprise. ‘But will your excellency not tell him
so, yourself? The boat is waiting…’

Don Pedro interrupted him. ‘Not to-night. It leaves me no time to make
my little preparations. You shall come again at dusk to-morrow when I
will be ready.’

‘As your excellency pleases.’ Duclerc was uneasy. ‘But delays are
dangerous, monseigneur.’

Don Pedro slowly turned, and slowly smiled. ‘All life is dangerous, my
friend. And so at dusk to-morrow in the little cove where the brook
joins the sea. God accompany you.’

Duclerc bowed, and departed. Alone, Don Pedro stood bemused a moment,
holding that priceless string in the cup of his two hands, admiring
the lustre of the pearls so chastely iridescent in the waning sunshine
of that autumn evening. He smiled faintly, musingly, as he considered
precisely how he should present them. At last he lightly tied together
the two silken ends, and returned to the dining-room.

He found that his lordship and Francis had departed, and that Margaret
was now alone, occupying the window-seat and gazing out over the
parterres from which the glory of the flowers had almost entirely
passed. She glanced over her shoulder as he entered; but his hands
were now behind him, and she caught no glimpse of the thing he
carried.

‘Is all well?’ she asked him.

‘All is very well, my lady,’ answered he, whereupon she resumed her
contemplation of the sunset.

‘Your visitor is from… overseas?’ she asked.

‘From overseas,’ he replied.

He sauntered across to her, his feet rustling in the fresh rushes with
which the dining-room floor was daily spread. He stood close behind
her at the window, whilst she, awaiting so much as he might choose to
tell her, continued to gaze outward. Very quietly he raised his hands,
poised that splendid necklace for a moment, and then let it slip over
her golden head.

She felt the light touch upon her hair and then quite cold upon her
bare neck, and she leapt instantly to her feet, her cheeks aflame. She
had conceived that what she felt was the touch of his fingers. And for
all that he smiled as he stood now, bending slightly forward, he was
stabbed by the swift resentment of what he saw she had imagined.

Perceiving her error and seeing the necklace hanging there upon her
white skin, she laughed a little, between awkwardness and relief.

‘Sir, I vow you startled me.’ She took the pearls in her fingers to
examine them, and then, realizing the magnificence of what she beheld,
she fell breathless and some of the colour slowly faded from her
cheeks.

‘What is this?’

‘The ransom that I have had fetched from Spain,’ he answered simply.

‘But…’ She was aghast. She knew something of the value of jewels,
enough to discern that here upon her bosom lay a fortune. ‘But this,
sir, is beyond all reason. It is of enormous price.’

‘I told you that if you left it to me I should set a high value upon
myself.’

‘It is a prince’s ransom,’ she continued.

‘I am almost a prince,’ he deprecated.

She would have said more on the same score, but that he brushed the
matter aside as trivial and of insufficient moment to engage their
notice further.

‘Shall we waste words upon so slight a thing in an hour when every
word of yours to me is become more precious than all the foolish
pearls upon that string?’

Here was a new bold note upon which he had never yet dared to touch, a
lover’s note. She stared at him blankly, taken by surprise. He swept
on, explaining any ambiguities in the words he had used already. ‘The
ransom is delivered, and the hour of my departure is approaching--too
swiftly, alas! So that I have your leave, your consent, my release
from the parole which binds me, I sail to-morrow night for Spain.’

‘So soon?’ said she.

It seemed to him, no doubt deluded by his hopes, that she spoke
wistfully; the shadow which crossed her face he assumed to be of
regret. These things were spurs to his desire. He was a little
breathless, a little stirred out of his habitual composure.

‘“So soon?” you say! I thank you for those words. They hold the very
seed of hope. They lend me audacity to dare that in which I must
otherwise have faltered.’

The ring of his voice was not to be mistaken, nor the gleam of his
dark eyes, nor yet the flush that came to warm the ivory pallor of his
cheeks. All her femininity vibrated to it; vibrated in alarm.

He leaned over her. ‘Margaret!’ It was the first time he had uttered
her name, and he uttered it in a caressing murmur that lingered fondly
over each vowel. ‘Margaret, must I go as I came? Must I go alone?’

She saw that she must deliberately misunderstand him so as to leave
him a clear line of retreat from an advance in which it was not
desired that he should continue. ‘You’ll have friends on board, I make
no doubt,’ she answered with simulated lightness, seeking to steady
the fluttering of her heart.

‘Friends?’ He was scornful. ‘It is not friends I lack, or power, or
wealth. These are mine in abundance. My need is of someone to share
all this, to share all that I can bestow, and I can bestow so much.’
He went headlong on before she could check him. ‘Will you waste your
lovely life in this barbarous corner of a barbarous land, when I can
open all the world to you, render you rich and powerful, honoured,
envied, the jewel of a court, a queen of queens? Margaret!’

She shrank together a little. It was impossible to be angry unless it
were with herself for a lack of circumspection which justified the
presumption of his speech. And yet in the manner of it there was
nothing presumptuous. It was respectful, pleading, humble. He had said
no word of love. Yet every word he had uttered spoke of it with a
convincing eloquence; his accents of entreaty, his very attitude of
supplication were all instinct with it.

The prospect he held out was not without allurement, and it may even
be that for a second the temptation to possess all that lay within his
gift may have assailed her. To be powerful, rich, honoured, envied. To
move in the great world, to handle destinies, perhaps. That was to
drink the full rich wine of life, to exchange for the intoxicating cup
of it the tasteless waters of this Cornish home.

If the temptation assailed her, it can have done so only for a moment,
during that little pause of a half-dozen heartbeats. When she spoke
she was calm and sane again and true to herself. She answered him
quite gently.

‘Don Pedro, I will not pretend to misunderstand you. Indeed, that were
impossible. I thank you for the honour you have done me. I esteem it
that, my friend, believe me. But…’ She lingered a moment on the word,
and raised her shoulders in a little shrug. ‘It may not be.’

‘Why not? Why not?’ His right arm was flung out as if to encircle her.
‘What power is there to hinder?’

‘It is the power to compel that is wanting.’ She rose, and her eyes,
candid, pure, and true, almost on a level with his own, looked him
squarely in the face, whilst she dealt his hopes the blow that should
completely shatter them. ‘I do not love you, Don Pedro.’

She saw him wince as if she had struck him. He fell back before her a
little, and half turned away; then, with a swift recovery, he came
back to the assault.

‘Love will come, my Margaret. How should it not? I shall know how to
awaken it. I could not fail in that, for love begets love; and to such
love as I pour upon you, your own love must respond.’ He was white to
the lips, so that his beard seemed to take on a deeper shade of black.
His vivid eyes glowed with passion and entreaty. ‘Ah, trust me, child!
Trust me! I know, I know. I am wise…’

She interrupted him very gently. ‘Not wise enough to see that this
importunity must give me pain.’ Then she smiled, that frank clear
smile of hers, and held out her hand to him, as a man might have done.
‘Let us be good friends, Don Pedro, as we have been since the day I
took you prisoner.’

Slowly, compelled to it, he took her hand. Meanwhile the fingers of
her left were touching the pearls upon her bosom. ‘These I shall
treasure less for their worth than for the memory of a pleasant
friendship. Do nothing now to spoil it.’

He sighed as he bowed low over the fingers he grasped. Reverently he
bore them to his lips.

Before the irrevocable note of her voice, before that friendly
frankness, which in itself made a stouter barrier between them than
mere coldness could have done, he confessed himself defeated. He made
no boast when he said that he was wise. He was skilled beyond the
common in deciphering human documents, and his skill did not permit
him here to persist in error.




 CHAPTER XI.
 THE DEPARTURE

/If/ Don Pedro’s skill in the deciphering of human documents was
great, as I have said, great, too, were his longings. And longings
blunt the senses to all things outside of their own aim. So that by
the following morning, Don Pedro had come to doubt the accuracy of his
reading of Margaret and the irrevocable quality of the decision she
had made. This hope renewed and fortified the longings from which it
sprang.

Desire was something which this spoilt child of Fortune had never been
schooled to repress. With him it had ever been but the sweet preface
to possession. He had never known the meaning of Denial. He knew it
now, and knew the torment of it. All night that knowledge and that
torment abode in him, until he swore at dawn that he would not submit,
could not endure it to continue.

Outwardly, however, on that last day of his at Trevanion Chase, he
showed nothing of his inward suffering. Sharp, searching eyes might
have detected the imprint of it on his countenance, but in his manner
nothing was betrayed. He had been well schooled in the art of
self-possession; it had been one of his maxims that who would prevail
must never allow his purpose to be read.

And so, whilst pain seared his soul, whilst the hunger for Margaret,
sharpened by her denial of him, gnawed at his heart, he smiled as
affably as ever and preserved unchanged his cool, urbane, impassive
air.

So completely did this deceive her that she came to conclude that his
heart was not so seriously involved as his words had seemed to imply.
He had been swept away, she thought, by a momentary yielding to
emotional impulses. She was glad and relieved to discover it. She
liked him more than any man she had ever met save one; and she must
have suffered had she remained under the conviction that she had sent
him forth in pain.

She had shown the pearls to her father, who had curtly pronounced them
fripperies, whereupon in protest and so as to compel his attention she
had ventured a hint of their value. It had not impressed him.

‘I can well believe it,’ he had said. ‘There’s naught in the world so
costly as vanity, as you may come to learn in time.’

Then she told him what the gift implied; that Don Pedro’s ransom being
paid he now claimed the liberty to depart, and would be leaving them
that evening.

‘Very well,’ said the Earl indifferently.

It chilled her. So that he was left alone in this musty library to
pursue, over quagmires of human speculation, the will-o’-the-wisp of
knowledge, whoever chose might come and go at Trevanion Chase. She
might depart, herself, and not be missed. Indeed, he might regard her
presence as no more than a source of interruptions, and would perhaps
welcome, as putting a definite end to these, her departure overseas to
Spain. But another there was, who would not be so indifferent. The
thought of him warmed her again, and she found in his protracted
absence a deserved reproach to herself for her harshness with him. She
would send him a note to tell him that Don Pedro was leaving that
evening, and to bid him come and receive his forgiveness at her hands.
It was jealousy of Don Pedro that had driven him, and she now
perceived how right had been the instincts in him which had prompted
it. There had been more occasion for it than ever she had suspected.

With Don Pedro that day she was kind and courteous, and he made this
possible by the masterly circumspection I have mentioned. He had no
packages to make. What odds and ends he had caused to be procured for
him whilst there, to eke out his temporary wardrobe, he now bestowed
upon the servant who had ministered to him, together with a rich gift
of money.

Old Martin, too, was handsomely rewarded for his attentions to the
Spanish prisoner who had known how to command his regard.

After an early supper, going as he came, with no more than the clothes
in which he stood, Don Pedro was ready to depart. To his lordship,
still at table, he addressed a very formal, graceful speech of thanks
for the generous entertainment he had received at Trevanion Chase, of
which his heart would ever hold and cherish the most pleasant
memories. To Heaven also he expressed his deep gratitude for having
vouchsafed him the good fortune of falling into such noble, kindly,
generous hands as those of the Earl of Garth and his daughter.

The Earl, having heard him out, gave him answer in phrases springing
from his innate courtliness, the courtliness which had been his before
the events had driven him to become a hermit. He concluded all by
wishing Don Pedro a felicitous voyage to his own land and all
happiness in his abiding there. Thereupon he effaced himself, leaving
his daughter to speed the departing voyager.

Martin fetched Don Pedro his weapons, a hat and a cloak. When he had
assumed them, Margaret went with him to the hall, and then down the
steps, and on through the garden with scarcely a word passing between
them. Their farewells might quite properly have been spoken at the
door. But it was as if he drew her on with him by the very force of
his will.

On the edge of the spinney she halted, determined to go no farther,
and put forth her hand. ‘We part here, Don Pedro.’

Having halted with her, he now faced her, and she saw the pain that
flickered in his melancholy eyes. ‘Oh, not yet!’ It was a prayer. He
became almost lyrical. ‘Do not deprive my soul of those few moments I
had hoped to savour before darkness closes over it. See, I have been a
miracle of reticence, a model of circumspection. Since you said what
you said to me yesterday, by no single word or glance have I
importuned you. Nor would I now. Yet I ask of you one little thing;
little to you, but meaning so much--dear God, how much!--to me. Walk
with me but a little way farther: to that blessed spot in the dell,
where first my eyes were gladdened by the lovely sight of you. There,
where I looked my first upon you, let me look my last, and thus
departing count all a dream that happened in between. Of your sweet
charity, accord me this. Margaret!’

She was not stone to resist this perfervidly, poetical, heartbroken
supplication. After all, as he said, it was such a little thing to
ask. She consented. Yet on the way through the gloom that was
gathering in the dingle, no word was spoken.

Thus in silence they came to their first meeting-place.

‘It was here,’ she said. ‘Yonder you stood on that white rock, when
Brutus leapt at you.’

He paused, considered her, and fetched a heavy sigh. ‘Your greatest
cruelty was when you stayed him.’ He paused again, still considering
her, as if he would print each feature for ever on his brain. And
then: ‘How grudgingly,’ pursued that very subtle gentleman, ‘you
accord me the exact alms I begged of your charity. “’Twas here!” you
say, and on the very spot, careful to an inch of ground, you halt.
Well! Well!’

‘Ah, no,’ she answered him, her generous heart responding to the touch
of that skilful player. ‘I’ll bear you company yet a little farther.’

He breathed his thanks, and they continued the descent, following the
course of the brook, which was the merest trickle now. And as they
went, there came from the beach below the grating of a keel upon the
shingle.

Forth from the shadows of the trees they stepped onto the edge of the
sands now shimmering faintly in the evening light. By the water’s edge
there was a boat, and about it, dim and shadowy, a dark group.

At sight of this, Don Pedro raised his voice, and called some words in
Spanish. Two men instantly detached themselves and came speeding up
the beach.

Margaret put forth her hand for the third time, and her tone was brisk
and resolute.

‘And now, farewell! God send you a favourable wind to Spain and bring
you safely home.’

‘Home?’ said he sadly. ‘An empty word henceforth. Ah, stay! Stay yet a
moment!’ His grip upon her hand detained her. ‘There is something yet
I wish to say. Something I must say before I go.’

‘Then say it quickly, sir. Your men are almost here.’

‘It is no matter for them. They are my own. Margaret!’ He seemed to
choke.

She noticed that his face shone oddly white in the deepening twilight,
that he was actually trembling. A vague fear possessed her. She
wrenched her hand free. ‘Farewell!’ she cried, and abruptly turned to
go.

But he sprang after her. He was upon her. His arms went round her,
holding her close and powerless as in a snare of steel. ‘Ah, no, no,’
he almost sobbed. ‘Forgive, my Margaret! You shall forgive! You must;
you will, I know. I cannot bear to let you go. Be God my witness it
would kill me.’

‘Don Pedro!’ There was only anger in her voice. She sought to break
from him; but he held her firmly. Such an indignity as this had never
touched her pure young life, nor had she ever dreamt of such a
possibility. ‘Let me go!’ she commanded, her eyes scorching him with
their fury. ‘As you are a gentleman, Don Pedro, this is unworthy. It
is knavish! Vile!’

‘A gentleman!’ he echoed, and laughed in furious scorn of all such
shams as in this moment he accounted them. ‘Here is no gentleman. We
are just man and woman, and I love you.’

At last she understood the full villainy of his purpose, sensed the
utter remorselessness of his passion, and a scream sped upwards
through the dingle. Came a roar from above to answer her. Almost
inarticulate though it was, she recognized the voice and thrilled at
the sound of it as never yet she had thrilled. Twice she called his
name in ringing accents of fearful urgency.

‘Gervase! Gervase!’

Momentarily she was released, and then, almost before she could
realize it and attempt to move, a cloak was flung over her head to
muffle her. She was lifted from her feet by strong pinioning arms, and
hurried swiftly away. After her bearers came Don Pedro at speed.

‘Handle her gently on your lives, dogs,’ he thundered in Spanish to
his men. ‘Make haste! Away! Away!’

They gained the boat as Gervase came through the trees onto the open
beach. One of the Spaniards levelled a musketoon across the bows to
make an end of that single pursuer. Don Pedro kicked the weapon into
the sea.

‘Fool! Who bade you take so much upon yourself? Push off! And now give
way! Give way!’

They floated clear as Gervase came bounding to the water’s edge. Nor
did the water check him. On he came, splashing through it.

‘Don Pedro, you Spanish dog!’ he cried in mingled rage and anguish.

The boat drew off under the stroke of six long oars and swiftly
gathered way.

Yet Gervase in his mad agony went after it to his armpits. There he
checked, raving, with the wash of the boat about his neck. He raised
an impotent fist and shook it in the air.

‘Don Pedro!’ he called across the water. ‘Don Pedro de Mendoza! You
may go now. But I come after you. I shall follow you, though it be to
hell!’

Don Pedro in the sternsheets, catching the note of agony in those
accents, looked through the gloom at the man who had wielded the
musketoon.

‘I was wrong,’ he said. ‘It would have been a mercy to have shot him.’




 CHAPTER XII.
 THE SECRETARY OF STATE

/My Lord Garth/ sat peacefully over his books, lighted by four tapers
which Martin had lately placed upon his table. He was labouring over
the _Phaedrus_, and by an odd coincidence relishing the simple
explanation afforded by Socrates of the tale of the abduction of
Oreithyia by Boreas from the banks of the Ilissus. To his lordship
thus engrossed came a wild, dishevelled figure, squelching water from
his boots at every stride.

This was Sir Gervase Crosby. But such a Gervase Crosby as his lordship
had never yet seen or heard.

‘Afoot, my lord!’ came the thundered exhortation. ‘Afoot, and be
doing! Enough of books, by God!’ With a blow of his brawny fist, he
swept the tome from under his lordship’s eyes and sent it crashing to
the ground.

My lord considered him, blinking in his supreme amazement.

‘Od’s light!’ said he. ‘Hath Brutus got the rabies and bitten thee?
Art clean mad?’

The answer came on a sob. ‘Mad! Ay!’ And he flung out his news. ‘Your
daughter’s gone; carried off by that Spanish traitor out of hell.’
Scarcely coherent in his headlong passion, he delivered the full tale
of it.

His lordship sat benumbed: a crumpled, shrunken figure of dismay and
horror and despair. But Sir Gervase knew no mercy, and admonition
followed instantly upon narrative.

‘When a man has a daughter, it is his duty to her, to himself, and to
his God--if so be he have one--to care for her and keep watch over
her. But you sit here with no thought for anything but dust and books
and dead men’s tales, and never trouble your mind of what be doing
among the living, of what villainies may be wrought under your very
nose and against your only child. And now she’s gone. Gone, I say!
Borne off by that villain. A dove in the talons of a hawk!’

Sir Gervase, having cast for once, under the overmastering spur of his
grief, all that diffidence in which usually he approached the Earl,
was terrific and irresistible. Had he but done his wooing in such a
spirit, the horror which now afflicted him might never have fallen
across his life and Margaret’s.

My lord set his elbows on the table, took his head in his hands, and
groaned impotently in his overwhelming misery. He seemed a man
suddenly aged. The spectacle of him was pitiful. But it awoke no pity
in the tortured soul of Gervase Crosby.

‘Ay, groan!’ he sneered at him. ‘Huddle yourself together there and
groan in your helplessness to amend that which you had not the care to
hinder.’ Then, abruptly, scornfully: ‘Give you good-night!’ he cried,
and swung about to depart, tempestuous as he had come.

‘Gervase!’

The heart-broken cry arrested him. Belatedly it broke upon his
distracted reason that, after all, my lord and he were fellow
sufferers. The Earl had risen, and stood now commanding himself, a
gaunt figure, tall despite the scholar’s stoop which almost humped his
shoulders. From their momentary numbness under the shock of the news,
his wits were recovering, and his will was compelling their recovery.
It is for fools and weaklings to lie prostrate under grief. Lord Garth
was neither. This blow was to be met, and if possible to be countered.
He would gird up his loins for whatever contest might lie ahead. Under
the touch of grim necessity, the man of thought was transmuted into
the man of action.

‘Where are you going?’ he asked.

‘After her!’ the boy answered wildly. ‘To Spain.’

‘To Spain? Wait, boy! Wait! Let thought precede all action ever.
Naught was ever accomplished without plan. Spoil nothing now by
haste.’

He moved away from the table, wrapping his russet gown about him. His
chin sank to his breast and on his slippered feet he slip-slopped
slowly to the window. He stood there, looking out upon the park and
the black bulk of the elms over which the moon was rising, whilst
Gervase, impressed by the sudden energy of his tone, waited as he was
bidden.

‘To Spain, eh?’ His lordship sighed. ‘You are no Perseus, lad, and
Margaret’s is hardly the case of Andromeda.’ He swung about on a
sudden inspiration. ‘First to the Queen!’ he cried. ‘It may be that
Her Grace will still remember me, and that the memory will count for
something. Moreover, she’s a woman--a very woman--and she should aid a
man to befriend a woman in sore need. I’ll come with you, Gervase.
Call Martin. Tell him to bid them prepare horses and order a couple of
grooms to ride with us. Bid Francis supply us with what moneys he has
at hand. We’ll start so soon as it’s daylight.’

But Gervase shook his head as he answered impatiently.

‘My lord, my lord, I cannot wait for daylight. Every hour is precious
now. I start for London so soon as I have changed my clothes and taken
what gear I need. It was already in my mind to invoke the Queen’s
assistance. I was for seeking Drake or Hawkins that they might procure
me audience. If you will come, my lord, you must follow. It would but
delay me,’ he ended bluntly, ‘to have you with me.’

A flush of indignation overspread the pallid, haggard face of the
student. Then he saw reason, and fetched a sigh. ‘Ay, I am old,’ he
agreed. ‘Too old and feeble to do more than cumber you. But my name
may count for something still; it may count for more with the Queen
than that of either Drake or Hawkins. You shall have letters from me.
I’ll write to Her Grace. She’ll not deny the bearer; and that will be
your opportunity.’

He moved briskly back to his table, cleared a space in that litter of
books and papers, and sat down to write.

Sir Gervase waited with such patience as he could command whilst his
lordship slowly laboured with the pen. For this was no letter that
could be indited swiftly. It required thought, and in his distraction
the Earl’s thoughts went haltingly. At last, however, it was done. My
lord sealed it with his arms, engraved on a massive ring he wore. He
rose to proffer it to Gervase, and almost at once sat down again, weak
and shaken. The mental strain had temporarily sapped his physical
vigour, and made him realize to the full how unfitted he was to take
an active part in the enterprise ahead of the young man.

‘Indeed, indeed, I should but cumber you,’ he confessed. ‘Yet to sit
here waiting… O God! Mine is the harder part, Gervase.’

At last Sir Gervase was touched. He had done the Earl a wrong. There
was red blood in his veins, after all, and he had a heart for other
things than books. He set a hand upon his shoulder.

‘If you trust me, it will help you, my lord. Be assured that what man
can do shall be done; that you could not yourself do more if you were
in your fullest vigour. You shall hear from me from London.’

He was gone like the whirlwind, and a moment later, the Earl seated
again at his table, his head in his hands, heard outside the receding
clatter of flying hooves.

At the peril of his neck, Sir Gervase rode through Smithwick; then
more slowly, yet with a speed cruel to his horse up to the winding
road to Arwenack. Sir John was away from home, a circumstance which
Gervase considered almost fortunate, since thus there would be no time
lost in explanations. Time was to be lost, however, he discovered; a
loss that was to end in a gain: for at Arwenack he found the elder
Tressilian awaiting him.

They had become fast friends, these two, who were brothers-in-arms and
who had received the accolade on the same day and in reward of similar
achievements. There had been some talk between them that so soon as
Gervase’s ship was ready, he and Sir Oliver should unite their forces
and go forth in a joint venture. It was on this very subject which Sir
Oliver had come to discuss with him to-night. Instead he was to listen
to Sir Gervase’s furious tale, whilst Sir Gervase was ridding himself
of his sodden garments.

The vigorous, black-browed Sir Oliver took fire at the narrative. He
swore roundly and fully, for he was ever a rough-tongued man, at Spain
and Spaniards.

‘As God’s my life I’ll bear this thing in mind whenever and wherever I
meet a Spaniard,’ he promised fiercely. Then he became practical. ‘But
why ride to London? Why spend a week upon the road at a time when
every day must count? The Rose of the World will bring you there in
half the time.’

‘The Rose of the World?’ Sir Gervase checked in the very act of
trussing the points of his hose to stare up at his tall friend. ‘My
God, Oliver! Is she ready for sea?’

‘She’s been ready this last week. I could put out at dawn.’

‘Could you put out to-night?’ Sir Gervase’s eyes were feverish with
excitement.

Sir Oliver looked at him. ‘Give chase, do you mean?’

‘What else?’

But Sir Oliver shook his head, considered a moment, then shook it
again. He had a vigorous, practical mind and a mental eye that saw
straight and clearly to the core of things. ‘We’ve missed the tide, or
must miss it before ever we could get aboard; and then the crew’s
ashore and to be assembled. We could drop down the river on the first
of the ebb, just after daybreak; but by then it would be too late to
hope to overtake your Spaniard. And to follow him into Spain you’ll
need some stouter equipment than our swords.’ Again he shook his head.
He sighed. ‘It would have been a rare adventure. But fortune puts it
beyond our reach. So it’s London first, my lad. And it’ll prove the
shorter road in the end. I’ll away, to beat up the crew and get what I
need for myself. When you’ve got your gear together, come aboard.’ He
set one of his great powerful hands on his friend’s shoulder. ‘Keep up
your heart, lad,’ he enjoined, and upon that valediction departed
without waiting for any word of thanks for the readiness with which he
proffered so very generous a measure of assistance.

The Rose of the World dropped down from her moorings at the mouth of
the Penrhyn Creek on the first of the ebb just as day was breaking.
She unfurled her sails to the breezes of dawn, and slipped away
through the water on the first stage of the adventure. It was Sunday
morning. So well did the wind serve them and so ably was the tall ship
handled that by Tuesday’s dawn she came to anchor abreast of Greenwich
Palace. Landing, they went, at Sir Oliver’s instigation, in quest of
Sir John Hawkins, whose influence at Court should open to them its
jealously guarded doors, and that same evening, having ridden hard
from Greenwich, they were conducted by Sir John into the closet of Sir
Francis Walsingham at Whitehall.

In Sir Francis, Gervase beheld the tall, spare man in black with the
long narrow white beard who had stood near the Queen on the day Her
Majesty had given audience to the seamen. He was seated at a table
that was strewn with documents, nor troubled to rise when our two
gentlemen were ushered in by Sir John Hawkins, who had gone ahead to
obtain the Secretary of State’s consent to receive them. On his narrow
grey head he wore a flat black cap with flaps which entirely covered
his ears, a cap which had been fashionable in the late King’s time,
but was rarely to be seen nowadays unless it were upon some City
merchant. But for that matter there was nothing fashionable in all Sir
Francis’ attire. The young secretary industriously engaged at a
writing-pulpit in one of the window-embrasures was of an infinitely
more modish appearance, though similarly clad in black.

Sir John withdrew, leaving the two Cornishmen with Sir Francis.

‘This, sirs,’ he greeted them, ‘is a distressing tale that Sir John
tells me.’ But there was no distress in his formal, level voice, nor
in the chill glance of those pale, calculating eyes with which he
conned them. He invited them to sit, waving a bony hand to indicate
the chairs that stood before his table.

Sir Oliver inclined his head in acknowledgement, and sat down,
stretching his long, booted legs before him. Sir Gervase, however,
remained standing. He was restless and haggard. His tone when he now
spoke was almost fretful. He did not find the Secretary of State
prepossessing; saw little promise of assistance in the man’s chill
exterior. To Sir Gervase, who expected all to share something of his
frenzy, it seemed that the man had ink in his veins, not blood.

‘It is my hope, sir, that I may be vouchsafed occasion to place the
facts before the Queen’s Grace.’

Sir Francis combed his beard. Behind it Sir Gervase fancied that the
lips had parted in a faint smile of weary scorn. ‘Her Majesty shall be
apprised, of course.’

But this was far, indeed, from fulfilling the hopes of Sir Gervase.
‘You will procure me an audience, sir?’ he said, between question and
intercession.

The cold eyes looked at him inscrutably. ‘To what purpose, sir, when
all is said?’

‘To what purpose?’ Sir Gervase was beginning hotly, when the lean hand
upheld checked the burst of indignation that was about to follow.

‘If the Queen, sir, were to grant audience to every man who asks it,
no single second of her day would be left for any of her other
manifold and important occupations. Hence the functions of Her
Majesty’s Ministers.’ He was a pedant instructing a schoolboy in the
elements of worldly conduct. ‘Such action as may be taken in this
regrettable affair the Queen would invite me to take if she were
informed of it. Therefore, we may without any loss show ourselves
dutiful to Her Grace by sparing her this unnecessary audience.’

Sir Oliver shifted in his chair, and his deep voice rang loud and
harsh by contrast with the sleek, level accents of the Secretary.

‘It is not the view of Sir Gervase that Her Majesty should be spared,
or that she will thank any man for sparing her in this matter.’

Sir Francis was neither startled by Tressilian’s vehemence nor
intimidated by the fierceness of his glance.

‘You misunderstand, I think.’ He spoke quietly ever, with that chill
disdain of his. ‘It is Her Majesty’s person alone that I am--that we
all must be--concerned to spare. Her powers, her authority, shall be
exerted to the full. It is my duty to exert them.’

‘In plain terms, Sir Francis, what does that mean?’ Gervase demanded.

Sir Francis sat back in his tall chair, leaning his capped head
against the summit. His elbows resting on its carved arms, he brought
his finger-tips together, and over them considered with interest these
two furious men of action who imagined that a Secretary of State was a
person to be bullied or brow-beaten. ‘It means,’ he said after a
deliberate pause, ‘that I shall make the strongest representations to
the French Ambassador in the morning.’

‘The French Ambassador? What has the French Ambassador to do with
this?’

This time Sir Francis’ smile was no longer covert. ‘Our own relations
with Spain being at this present suspended, the intervention of the
Ambassador of France becomes necessary. It can be relied upon.’

Sir Gervase’s patience was rapidly running out.

‘God’s light!’ he roared. ‘And what is to happen to the Lady Margaret
Trevanion while you represent the matter to the Ambassador of France
and he sends messages to King Philip?’

Sir Francis parted his hands and spread them a little in a deprecatory
gesture. ‘Let us be practical. According to your tale this lady has
already been three days upon the seas in her abductor’s company. The
matter can no longer be of such urgency that we should distress
ourselves over an unavoidable delay in reaching her.’

‘My God!’ cried Gervase in pain.

‘That,’ rasped Sir Oliver, ‘is where the Queen, being a woman, must
take a different view: a less cold-blooded view, Sir Francis.’

‘You do me wrong, sir, as I perceive. No heat of passion will help any
of us here.’

‘I am not sure,’ Sir Oliver answered him. He heaved himself to his
feet. ‘And, anyway, the matter is one for human beings, not for
statesmen. Here we stand, two men who have brought our lives and our
gear to the service of the Queen’s Grace, and all we ask now in return
is that we be brought to audience with Her Majesty.’

‘Nay, nay. That is not all you ask. You ask that, so that you may ask
something else.’

‘It is our right!’ Sir Oliver roared.

‘And we demand it,’ Sir Gervase added. ‘The Queen, sir, would not deny
us.’

Sir Francis looked at them both with the same unrufflable composure
with which he had first received them. The secretary in the
window-embrasure had suspended his labours to lend an ear to this
brow-beating of his formidable master. At any moment he expected to
hear Sir Francis declare the audience at an end. But to his surprise
Sir Francis now rose.

‘If I deny you,’ said he quietly, without the least shade of
resentment, ‘as I account it my duty to Her Majesty, you are of those
who will be stirring up interest until in the end you have your way.
But I warn you that it can serve no good purpose, and is but a waste
of time; your own and the Queen’s. Her Majesty can but entrust the
business to me, to take what steps are in the circumstances possible.
However, if you really insist…’

He paused, and looked at them.

‘I do,’ said Gervase emphatically.

He nodded. ‘In that case I will take you to the Queen at once. Her
Majesty is expecting me before she sups, and it is time I went. If the
audience proves little to your taste, if it is fruitless, as it must
be, of more than could have been achieved without it, I trust you will
remember to place the reproach where it is deserved.’

Tall and gaunt in his black gown that was edged with brown fur, he
moved to the door, and threw it open. ‘Pray follow me,’ he bade them
coldly over his shoulder.




 CHAPTER XIII.
 THE QUEEN

/Along/ a gallery, with windows on their right through the blurred
glass of which they caught the green sheen of the foliage in the privy
garden, Walsingham led them, to a closed door, kept by two stalwart
young yeomen of the guard in scarlet with the Tudor rose embroidered
in gold upon their backs. At the approach of Sir Francis, they ordered
their tasselled halberts, whose polished blades shone like mirrors. At
a nod from him, one of them threw open the door and held it wide. In
silence he crossed the threshold, his companions following. The door
closed after them, and they proceeded some little way along the
farther gallery into which they had now stepped, until Sir Francis
brought up at a door on his left, which again was guarded by two
yeomen.

Sir Gervase observed that, like the others, these, too, were tall,
athletic, young, and handsome. The tongue of rumour certainly appeared
justified when it said that the Queen liked to have splendid-looking
men about her. It was asserted that the loss of a front tooth by one
of these magnificent guards entailed his removal from about the
Queen’s person.

They went through the doorway instantly opened to Sir Francis, and
found themselves in a lofty antechamber, very richly furnished, the
golden rose everywhere conspicuous upon scarlet fabrics. Half a dozen
resplendent gentlemen lounged here. A chamberlain with a wand advanced
to meet Sir Francis, and at a word from him, bowing profoundly,
withdrew through a small door which again was guarded by a pair of
yeomen who might have been cast in the same mould as the others. He
returned a moment later to announce that Her Majesty would at once
receive Sir Francis and his companions.

Through the open doorway came the tinkling sound of a virginal. Her
Majesty’s occupations of state, thought Sir Gervase, might be manifold
and important, as Sir Francis had stated; but it was clear that they
were not engaging her at the moment, which may, indeed, have accounted
for the promptitude of their admission to her gracious presence.

They entered. Sir Francis went down on one knee, and with his left
hand covertly signalled to the others to imitate his genuflexion.

They found themselves in a small room, three of whose walls from
ceiling to floor were hung with rich tapestries, illustrating scenes
which Sir Gervase would not have identified even if he had had leisure
to examine them. A tall mullioned window overlooked the river and the
Palace Steps, where the great gilded royal barge was moored amid a
flock of lesser craft.

This in a glance he saw as he entered. Thereafter his eyes were upon
the Queen, to whom he knelt now for the second time. She was in
rose-pink to-day. That at least was the background of the shimmering
brocade she wore, which was all embroidered with eyes, so that you
might have conceived that Her Majesty looked at you from every point
of her person at once. For the rest she was as richly, as monstrously
bejewelled as on the last occasion when Sir Gervase had beheld her,
and the great erect collar of lace, spreading like a fan behind her
head, reached almost to the summit of her pearl-entwined wig.

For a moment after the gentlemen entered she continued, engrossed in
the virginals, bringing her musical phrase to a conclusion. It was one
of her many vanities to be accounted a fine performer, and she deemed
no audience too trivial.

A tall, fair lady stood immediately behind her. Two others, one fair,
the other dark, and the dark one of a singular loveliness, were seated
near the window.

The Queen’s beautiful hands came to rest upon the keys, then one of
them, aflash with gems, was extended to take a delicate gold-edged
kerchief from the polished top of the instrument. Her dark eyes peered
at them short-sightedly, deepening the web of wrinkles about her
pencilled brows. She may have noticed that Walsingham’s companions
were fine fellows both, such as she loved to look upon. Both above the
common height, if Sir Oliver were by a little the taller and more
athletic, the other had the greater beauty of countenance. It is
possible that the coldly calculating Sir Francis may have weighed this
circumstance in introducing them thus without preliminaries into her
presence. He may have been persuaded that Her Majesty could of herself
do nothing to assist them beyond entrusting their grievance to him for
redress; but at least their persons would ensure him from any royal
resentment at having brought them to her so that they might convince
themselves of what he told them.

‘What’s this, Frank?’ she rasped in her mannish voice. ‘What do you
bring me, and why?’ And then, without waiting for the answer, she
abruptly addressed Gervase.

Sir Oliver slightly behind him, copying Walsingham, had risen already
from the genuflexion. Sir Gervase, not observing this, remained humbly
upon one knee.

‘Od’s eyes!’ she exclaimed. ‘Get up, man. D’ye take me for a Popish
image that ye’ll kneel to me all day?’

He rose tongue-tied and a little embarrassed with no thought of any
such fond speech as that for which her exclamation had given him an
opening and such as were dear to her overweening vanity. But his looks
made amends in her eyes for his lack of adulatory glibness.

‘Why have you brought them, Frank?’

Briefly Walsingham recalled them to her memory as two of the knights
she had lately created in token of her favour, for their achievements
in the fight with the Armada.

‘As some slight recompense for the service that already they have
rendered England and as some earnest for what may yet be to come for
future service, they have a boon to crave.’

‘A boon?’ Alarm flickered in her eyes. She looked up at the tall lady
beside her, wrinkling her high, pinched nose. ‘I might have guessed
it, Dacres. God’s wounds, man! If it be money, or aught that’s costly,
I prithee save thy breath. We are beggared by this Spanish war
already.’

‘It is not money, Your Grace,’ said Sir Gervase, speaking boldly now.

Her relief was manifest. She reached for a basket of silver filigree
that stood upon the virginal, and gave her care to the selection of a
Portingal. It was this love of sweetmeats which may have been
responsible for the dark ruin of her teeth. ‘What is it, then? Speak
out, man. Art not shy, belike?’

That if shy he had by now conquered his shyness, his answer proved:
‘It is no boon, as Sir Francis says, Your Grace. I am come for simple
justice.’

She looked at him with sudden sharp suspicion, the selected Portingal
suspended delicately between finger and thumb. ‘Ay, I know the phrase
well. Cordieu! ’Tis on the lips of every place-seeker. Well, well! Out
with this tale of it, a God’s name, and let us ha’ done.’ The
sweetmeat disappeared between her thin, raddled lips.

‘First, Madam,’ said Sir Gervase, ‘I am the bearer of a letter.’ He
advanced, instinctively went down on his knee again, and proffered it.
‘Will Your Highness be graciously pleased to receive it?’

Walsingham frowned and stirred forward a pace or two. ‘What’s this of
a letter?’ said he. ‘You said naught to me of any letter.’

‘No matter for that,’ she told him curtly. She was examining the seal.
‘Whose arms are these?’ She was frowning. ‘Whence is your letter,
sir?’

‘From my Lord Garth, so please Your Grace.’

‘Garth? Garth?’ She spoke as one fumbling in her memory. Suddenly her
expression quickened. ‘Why, that will be Roger Trevanion. Roger…’ She
caught her breath, and looked at him again, searchingly. ‘What is
Roger Trevanion to thee, child?’

‘My friend, I hope, Madam. I know myself his. I love his daughter.’

‘Ha! His daughter! So? He has a daughter? If she favours him, you’re
fortunate in your choice. He was a comely fellow in his youth. And he
married, eh? I never heard of it.’ Her voice grew wistful. ‘But,
indeed, I’ve never heard aught of him for years. Roger Trevanion!’ She
sighed, and fell thoughtful a moment, the expression of her face
incredibly softened. Then, as if recollecting herself, she abruptly
broke the seal, and spread the sheet. She read it with difficulty.

‘Why here’s a vile scrawl, by God!’

‘It was writ in deep agitation and sorrow, Madam.’

‘Was it so? Ay, so it was; so it must have been. Yet it does little
more than announce the fact, commend you to me, and implore my favour
for you and for him, who are one in the aims of which you are to tell
me. So Roger is in trouble, eh? And in trouble he remembers me at
last! That is the common way. But hardly Roger’s.’ She was musing now.
‘Cordieu! He might have remembered me before, remembered the debt I
have owed him these many years. How many years, dear God!’ She sighed,
and fell into thought. There was no hardness now in that pinched,
lined face. The dark eyes seemed to Sir Gervase to have grown moist
and wistful. Her thoughts may well have been with the past, the
gallant Lord Admiral who had loved her and who had paid with his head
for the temerity of that love, and the man who had loved him and
because of that love had risked his own head freely to serve him and
to serve her. Then she roused herself, to command the waiting
gentleman before her. ‘What is this tale you have to tell me? Out with
it, child. I am listening.’

Sir Gervase told it, briefly, eloquently, passionately. Once only was
he interrupted, and then by Walsingham when he mentioned the
Spaniard’s surrender and its acceptance which made of him nominally a
prisoner, actually a guest, at Trevanion Chase.

‘Now that was ill-done!’ Sir Francis had cried. ‘We should take steps
to…’

‘Take steps to hold your tongue, man,’ the Queen silenced him.

There were no further interruptions. Sir Gervase proceeded to the end
with ever-increasing anger in the tale he was relating, so that he
imparted some of his own heat to his audience--to the Queen, her
ladies, and even the cold Walsingham. When, at last, he had done, she
smote her hands upon the arms of her chair, and heaved herself to her
feet.

‘Now, by God’s death!’ she cried in a fury that had turned her livid
under her paint. ‘Does the audacity of these Spaniards dare so much?
Is there to be no end of their insolences? Shall we suffer these
things, Walsingham? One of them comes shipwrecked into this realm of
mine and commits this outrage! By Heaven’s light, they shall yet learn
the length of a maid’s arm to shield a maid; they shall feel the
weight of a woman’s hand to avenge a woman. They shall so, by God!
Walsingham, summon me… No, no. Wait!’

She moved across the room, brushing past the two ladies near the
window, who had risen, tapping her high-heeled shoe upon the ground.
From somewhere she drew a little silver bodkin. Fragments of the
Portuguese comfit were inconveniencing her. Having used the
instrument, she fell to tapping with it one of the little panes.

The narrative had moved her more deeply than Gervase could have hoped.
However much this may have been due to the outrage itself, there can
be no doubt that a contributory factor lay in the circumstance that
Roger Trevanion’s daughter was the victim. The tale may have gathered
poignancy and impressiveness, too, because it fell upon a mood of
softness and tenderness invoked by the memory of that dear friend of
her girlhood and of her girlhood’s lover, and further, even, because
the narrator was a stalwart, handsome fellow and a lover.

At length she swung from the window, her manner almost harsh with
impatience, but an impatience of which clearly he whom she addressed
was not the object.

‘Come hither, child!’

He was prompt to approach her, and stood respectfully before her,
apart from those others who looked on with interest and one of them
with uneasiness. This was Walsingham. Knowing her as he did, he
perceived that the lioness in her was aroused, and foresaw trouble for
himself from such a mood. He felt a little aggrieved with Sir Gervase
Crosby for having taken an advantage of him in the matter of that
letter. But this at the moment was a light thing compared with the
anxieties which the Queen’s humour awakened in him.

‘Tell me, child; tell me,’ she was urging the long-limbed Gervase.
‘What precisely do you seek of me? What is in your mind that I should
do? Exactly what justice do you desire?’

She asked for guidance; asked it from this West-Country youngster,
converted, no doubt, into a firebrand by his anguish on behalf of his
mistress. Here, thought Walsingham, was madness. He groaned inwardly;
indeed, almost aloud. His countenance was lugubriously startled.

The answer did nothing to allay his fears. The lad’s words proved him
indeed a firebrand, of a rashness almost beyond the Secretary of
State’s belief, and the Secretary of State had great experience of
human rashness.

‘It is my intent, Your Grace, to cross at once to Spain. To go after
Don Pedro de Mendoza.’

She interrupted him. ‘By God! The intent is a bold one! If you are to
take matters thus into your own hands, what is there for me to do?’
There was in her tone the suspicion of a sneer, as well there might be
at the avowal of such stark madness.

‘It has been my hope, Madam, that Your Grace--I scarce know how--would
provide means to shield me on this journey, and to ensure my safe
return. It is not that I go in fear for myself…’

‘You were wiser and you did,’ she interrupted him again. ‘But to
shield you? I?’ She made a wry face. ‘My arm is long enough for much.
But to protect you within the dominions of King Philip at this present
time…’ She broke off, and because she could not see the way to do as
he desired of her, and felt herself humiliated by her impotence, she
fell to cursing like a roaring captain.

When at length she paused, Sir Francis Walsingham sleekly interposed.
‘I have already told Sir Gervase that Your Grace will command me to
pursue the proper course, and to send letters to King Philip by the
channel offered by the French Ambassador.’

‘Ha! And what doth Sir Gervase answer?’

‘In all humility, Your Grace, the thing is of an urgency…’

‘Why, so it is, child. Sir Francis needs to learn things by
experience. If he had a daughter in Spanish hands, he would be less
cool and simpering. The devil damn such paltry counsel.’

The Secretary of State was not discomposed. ‘The poor wits with which
I serve Your Grace are waiting to discern a more effective way of
availing this unfortunate lady.’

‘Are they so?’ She glared at him. His coolness had upon her an effect
quite contrary from that which he hoped. She turned her shoulders to
him, and fell to tapping the window again with her bodkin. ‘There
should surely be some way. Come, child, ply your wits. I care not how
rash be your proposal. We may strike sense from it if we but hear it.’

There fell a pause, Sir Gervase having no settled plan of action, or
thought of how that which he sought from Her Majesty might be
obtained. To break the silence came the big rough voice of Sir Oliver
Tressilian.

‘Have I Your Grace’s leave?’ He advanced a step or two as he spoke,
and drew all eyes upon his dark, resolute countenance.

‘A God’s name!’ she barked at him. ‘Speak out, if you’ve aught in mind
that will help.’

‘Your Highness asks for rashness, else I should scarce dare.’

‘Dare and be damned, man,’ quoth the lioness. ‘What’s in your mind?’

‘Your Highness may not remember that the honour of knighthood which I
received at Your Grace’s hands was for my part in the capture of the
flagship of the Andalusian squadron, the only Spanish vessel seized.
We took prisoner her commander, Don Pedro Valdez, who is the greatest
and deservedly the most valued of all Spain’s captains upon the seas.
With him we took among others seven gentlemen of the first houses in
Spain. These gentlemen at this present all lie under Your Grace’s
hand. They are lodged here in the Tower.’

He said no more than that. But his tone was grim and full of
suggestion. It expressed, like the thing he hinted, the ruthlessness
of his nature and the lawlessness that were to make him what he was
destined to become. It performed the miracle of startling Walsingham
at last out of his imperturbability.

‘In the name of Heaven, man! What is’t ye’re implying?’

But it was the Queen who answered him, with a short laugh and a
grimness akin to Sir Oliver’s own, which sent a shiver down the spine
of the Secretary. ‘God’s light! Is’t not plain?’ Her tone said as
clearly as any words could have done that the suggestion was eminently
to her taste and mood. ‘Dacres, set my chair to the table yonder. The
King of Spain shall learn the length of my arm.’

The tall lady-in-waiting pushed forward the padded crimson chair. The
Queen swept to it and sat down. ‘Give me a pen. So! Walsingham, recite
me the names of the seven gentlemen who are with Valdez in the Tower.’

‘Your Grace intends?’ Walsingham was white; his long beard was
observed to quiver.

‘Shalt know my intentions soon enough, you and that other knock-kneed
fellow, Philip of Spain. Their names, I say!’

Her peremptoriness was almost savage. Walsingham quailed and
surrendered the names. She set them down in that big angular writing
of hers in which later ages have discovered beauty. The list
completed, she sat back, conning it with narrowed eyes and
thoughtfully gnawing the feathered end of her quill.

Her Secretary of State leaned over her, with fearful urgent
mutterings. But she blighted him with a glance and an oath so that he
fell back again. A patient man and an opportunist, he resolved to wait
until her royal rage should have cooled sufficiently to render her
amenable to reason. Of the unreasonable thing, the outrageous thing
which, upon the suggestion of that outrageous black-browed Oliver
Tressilian, she was about to perform, Sir Francis had no slightest
doubt.

She bent to her task, which was to indite a letter to the
brother-in-law who at one time had so ardently aspired to become her
husband, and may since have had many an occasion to thank God that he
had not numbered Elizabeth among his several successive wives. She
wrote rapidly, scarcely pausing to consider the shaping of a phrase,
and there was something of savage determination in the way her pen bit
the parchment, so that her sprawling characters were engraved upon it
rather than written. It was soon done.

She signed the document with a vicious flourish that was in itself
like a piece of sword-play, and called for wax and a taper that she
might seal it. Her ladies moved to obey. Sir Francis endeavoured once
again to remonstrate.

‘If in that letter, Madam, the comity of nations…’

Harshly she cropped his speech. ‘The comity of nations!’ She laughed
fiercely in the grave long face and snowy beard of him. ‘I have said a
word about the comity of nations in this letter. It counts for naught
in this affair. I’ve warned His Spanish Majesty of that.’

‘’Tis what I feared, Madam…’

‘Lord! Walsingham, when will you cease to be a woman?’ She sank her
seal into the wax.

Walsingham, now terror-stricken, murmured of the Privy Council. At
that she rose in fury, the letter in her hand, to inform him that she
was no word of the Privy Council; that the Privy Council existed but
to interpret her sovereign will. The outrage committed by a Spanish
noble upon the person of an English maid was an insult to England. She
herself was England’s incarnation, she informed the Secretary, and it
was for her to answer that insult. It was answered in the letter, and
Sir Gervase should deliver it.

Walsingham fell back appalled, but daring nothing further. The
circumstances were all unfortunate and against him. He was himself to
blame for his rashness in having introduced that young hothead and his
worse companion to audience with Her Majesty. The harm was done. Let
him provide as best he could for the consequences, whatever they might
be. Further intervention here might but curtail his power of doing
even so much when the time came.

The Queen proffered the letter to Gervase. ‘There is your weapon, sir.
Get you to Spain with all speed. This shall be sword and buckler to
you. Yet, should it chance to fail you, depend upon me to avenge you
right nobly. And so God speed thee on this knightly errand. Away with
him, Sir Francis. Let me know anon how he hath fared. I charge you not
to fail me, on your life.’

Gervase went down on his knees to receive the package. She held out
her hand to him. He kissed it respectfully and in some awe, whereupon
her other hand lightly touched his rippling auburn locks.

‘Art a bonnie lad and a loving heart,’ said she in a softened voice,
and lightly sighed. ‘God bring thy mistress scatheless home and thee
with her.’

He stumbled out of her presence with Sir Oliver and Sir Francis. All
three of them had more than guessed what she had written.

Sir Francis sourly took his leave of them. He would have interfered
had he dared. But he was on the horns of a dilemma and was constrained
to the prudence of inaction. So he suffered them to depart, bearing a
package that might set the world on fire.




 CHAPTER XIV.
 FREY LUIS

/Fear/ was an emotion which had never touched the Lady Margaret
Trevanion, because in her twenty-five years of life she had never been
exposed to any source of it. From the first dawn of memory in her
there had been those to obey her, some few to guide, but none to
command her. At Trevanion Chase and along that Cornish countryside,
where she was regarded as the Lady Paramount, her will had prevailed
whenever and wherever it had been exerted. None had ever sought to
thwart or oppose her. None had ever been lacking in respect. This
partly because of the station into which she had been born, but more
because she possessed a generous share of that quality of reserve and
self-seclusion which is usually the result of breeding. That any
should offend her in even the slightest measure was utterly
inconceivable. In this assurance, and in the dignity born of it, a
dignity not merely superficial, but going to the very core of her
being, lay her immunity from all presumptions and even from the
impertinences of fatuously audacious gallantry, to which the unusual
freedom of her life and ways might otherwise have exposed her.

So deep-rooted was her self-assurance, so firmly established by all
past experience, that it did not forsake her even now when she found
herself physically constrained, rudely handled, her head muffled in a
cloak. Astonishment and resentment were her predominant emotions. Fear
did not touch her, because it was incredible to her that she should
have anything to fear, unthinkable that this violence should not be
kept within very definite limits. She refrained from struggling as
much because she realized the futility of a trial of strength with the
arms that held her, as because it was utterly beneath her dignity to
have recourse to physical measures of self-defence.

Quiescent, then, she lay in the sternsheets where she had been placed,
seeking to control the seething indignation which might hamper the
free exercise of her wits. She was not more than half conscious of the
heave of the boat, of the creak of rowlocks and thwarts as the men
strained at the oars, and of an occasional inarticulate sound from one
or the other of her rowers. Beside and immediately above her sat one
whom she sensed to be Don Pedro. His arm was about her shoulders,
either as a measure of repression or protection. It did not trouble
her as at another time it must have done. She did not shrink in
pudicity from that male contact which in another place must have
awakened her resentment. There was a graver violence here to engage
her indignation.

At the end of perhaps a half-hour, that arm was withdrawn from her
shoulders. Hands were busy with the cord which had been employed to
make fast the cloak about her waist. It was unfastened, the muffling
garment was pulled away, and suddenly her head was free to the night
air, her eyes free to take stock of her surroundings: the water about
her, the stars overhead, the dark forms of the sailors heaving
rhythmically on the thwarts, and the man who bent over her, his face a
grey blue in the encompassing gloom. He spoke in the voice of Don
Pedro.

‘You will forgive this rude audacity, Margaret?’ It was a question
softly uttered on a note of pleading.

She found her voice and was almost surprised at its steadiness and
hardness. ‘We will speak of that when you set me ashore again in the
cove below Trevanion Chase.’

She guessed his smile rather than perceived it; that smile of subtle,
mocking self-sufficiency which she knew so well, which she had rather
admired but now found entirely abominable. ‘If I did not hope for
forgiveness before then, I must kill myself with despair. There is no
return, Margaret. You are committed with me to this adventure.’

She attempted to struggle up from the floor of the boat upon which she
was sitting. His arm returned to encircle her shoulders and so repress
her movement.

‘Calm, my dear,’ he urged her. ‘You need fear no indignity, no undue
constraint. You go to the high destiny I have reserved for you.’

‘It is for yourself that you are reserving a high destiny,’ she
answered boldly. ‘Gallows high,’ she explained.

He said no more. With a half-sigh he sank back and was silent. He
judged it better to wait until this mood of indignation should have
passed, as pass he thought it must when she realized more fully how
utterly now she was in his power. That realization should bend her
stubbornness more effectively than any words of his. She was not yet
afraid. Hers was a high spirit, and this manifestation of it but
rendered her the more desirable in his eyes. She was, indeed, a woman
worth the winning, and to win her was worth all the patience he could
command. That he would win her in the end, no doubt was possible to
him. Like her own, his will, too, had been ever paramount.

The boat ploughed on. She looked up at the stars overhead, and at
another yellower star low down on the horizon, a star which seemed to
grow as they advanced. Once she looked back; but her glance failed to
pierce the gloom which now blotted out completely the coastline and
all sign of land. All that it revealed to her was that Don Pedro was
not alone in the sternsheets. Another sat there beside him, grasping
the tiller. One more protest she made, one more imperious demand,
backed by a threat, to this helmsman, to put about and convey her back
to shore. The man, however, did not understand. He said something in
Spanish to Don Pedro and was answered shortly and sharply in the same
tongue.

Thereafter she wrapped herself once more in her angry dignity and was
silent. The yellow star ahead increased in size. It was reflected in a
quivering spear of light across the water. Ultimately it resolved
itself into the poop lantern of a towering ship, and soon they were
bumping and scraping along the black sides of a great galleon, towards
the entrance ladder at the summit of which another lantern was being
held by a human figure silhouetted in black against the light from the
vessel’s waist.

They brought up at the ladder, and her ladyship was invited by Don
Pedro to ascend. She refused. She experienced in that moment her first
wave of panic, and yielded to it. She struggled, resisted, commanded,
and threatened. A rope slid down the ship’s side by the ladder. A
sailor caught the end and made in it a running noose. This was slipped
over her head, and allowed to slide down her body as far as her knees.
Then her arms were raised, and the noose came up again about her until
it reached her armpits and gently tightened there. Another moment and
Don Pedro had caught her up and hoisted her to his shoulder. Thus
burdened, supporting her with his left arm, he grasped the ladder with
his right, and raised his right foot to the lowest rung. He began the
ascent. She realized that if she struggled or attempted to fling
herself from him, she would be suspended by the rope. Of the
alternative indignities, the less was to be borne thus upon his
shoulder.

In the ship’s waist, where a ring of lanterns made a patch of almost
brilliant illumination, he set her down. The rope which had been drawn
up hand over hand in a measure as she was borne aloft, lay like a
snake along the deck at her feet. Don Pedro loosed and widened the
noose until it fell away from her.

At the head of the entrance ladder stood Duclerc, the master, lantern
in hand. By the hatch coamings two others waited: one of them stockily
built and dressed as a gentleman, the other tall and gaunt in the
white habit and black scapulary and mantle of a Dominican friar, his
face lost in the shadows of the pointed cowl which covered his head.

The first of these advanced briskly now, and, bowing low before Don
Pedro, murmured softly. This was Don Diego, the intendant or steward
of the Count of Marcos, he who had fitted the ship for the voyage to
England so soon as word had been brought him of his master’s waiting
there.

The friar remained where he was, immoveable as a statue, his hands
folded within the capacious sleeves of his gown. Don Pedro’s glance
seeming to question his presence, the alert Don Diego explained it
readily. No ship in the service of Catholic Spain could sail without a
spiritual guide. He invited the friar forward and presented him as
Frey Luis Salcedo. Priest and noble bowed to each other with all
outward semblance of mutual deference. As the friar came upright
again, his hands still folded in his sleeves, the gleam of a lantern
momentarily dispelled the shadows cast about his face by the cowl. Her
ladyship had a glimpse of an ascetic countenance, narrow, lean, and
pallid, in which glowed two sombre eyes whose glance struck through
her stout soul the chill of a fear such as nothing in this adventure
had yet occasioned her. In that single glance, so swiftly eclipsed,
she caught something of sinister menace, of active malevolence, before
which her soul shuddered as it might have shuddered in the presence of
a supernatural manifestation.

Then Don Pedro was informing her that the ship’s main cabin was at her
service, and inviting her to follow Don Diego, who would lead the way.
She stood an instant hesitating, her head high, her chin thrust
forward, her glance proud to the point of defiance. At last she turned
and followed the stocky figure of the intendant, being followed in her
turn by Don Pedro. Until resistance could be of some avail, she must
suffer them to have their way with her. This she perceived, and,
perceiving it, submitted, upheld ever by her dignity and assisted by
the persisting incredulity that any real harm could possibly touch
her.

At the entrance to the gangway under the break of the poop, Don Pedro
was arrested by a hand upon his arm.

He turned to find the friar at his elbow. The man had followed him. If
his sandalled feet had made any sound upon the deck, this had been
lost in the noise of general activity aboard as the ship broached to.
There had been a creaking of blocks and halliards, a pattering of
steps, and now, as the helm was put up, the slatting sails filled and
bellied with a succession of thuds like muffled cannon shots. Listing
slightly to larboard under the burden of the breeze, the Demoiselle
out of Nantes with her crew of Spanish sailors slipped away through
the night.

Don Pedro frowned interrogatively into the ascetic face upon which the
light of a lantern swinging just within the gangway was beating fully.

The friar’s thin lips moved. ‘This woman whom your lordship brings
aboard?’ he questioned.

Don Pedro was conscious of a spasm of anger. The impertinence of the
question was aggravated by its contemptuous terseness. But he tempered
the reply which another would have had from him to the quality of his
questioner.

‘This lady,’ he said, with a slow emphasis, ‘is the future Countess of
Marcos. I am glad to have this opportunity of announcing it to you, so
that you may speak of her henceforth with a proper deference.’

He turned on his heel whilst the friar was impassively bowing, and
went on towards the great cabin, damning in his heart Don Diego for
having taken aboard for spiritual guide a brother of the Order of
Saint Dominic. These Dominicans were all alike in their insolence,
swollen with pride of power in the authority they derived from their
inquisitorial functions. From the Inquisitor-General to the meanest
brother, they knew no respect of rank however lofty.

A comprehensive glance at the interior of the cabin dispelled some of
Don Pedro’s irritation. It had been furnished in a manner worthy of
its intended tenants. On the snowy napery of the table crystal and
silver sparkled under the light of the swinging lanterns; cushions of
crimson velvet laced with gold embellished the chairs and dissembled
the rudeness of the long sea-chest ranged under the stern windows of
the coach. A long mirror stood between the doors of the two cabins
opening on this main one on the starboard side and another beside the
door of the single cabin to larboard. A soft Eastern rug of brilliant
reds and blues was spread underfoot and there were tapestries to mask
the bulkheads.

Beside the table, slight and sleek, stood Pablillos, one of Don
Pedro’s own household fetched from his Asturian home to be now his
bodyservant.

Don Diego, in the circumstances and considering the haste, had done
more than well, and deserved the two words of commendation which his
master uttered. Then, dismissing him, Don Pedro waved the lady to a
place at table from which Pablillos now withdrew and held the chair.

She looked at him steadily. Her face was white under a cloud of
red-gold, now slightly dishevelled hair. There was also some disarray
in her dull red bodice, and there was a rent in the lace collar under
which her bosom rose and fell to betray the emotion she desired above
all to dissemble.

‘I have no choice,’ she said, coldly, contemptuously, in protest.
‘Since you will waste your time to my hurt in constraining me, I must
submit. But it is the act of a coward, Don Pedro, and of an ingrate.
You return me evil for good. I should have left you to the fate which
you prove to me that every Spaniard deserves at the hands of honest
men.’

With that she moved slowly forward in frosty dignity and took her
place at table.

Don Pedro stood deathly pale, pain in his eyes and dark shadows under
them. Against the whiteness of his face, his little pointed beard and
upward-flung moustaches looked startlingly black. He betrayed no anger
under the lash of her words: only melancholy. He inclined his head a
little.

‘The rebuke is merited, I know. But even if you deem my action base,
do not blame all Spaniards for the faults of one. And even for these
faults, in judging them, consider the source from which they spring.’
He sat down opposite to her. ‘It is not by his actual deeds that a man
is to be judged, but by the motive which inspires them. A thousand men
of honour might have crossed your path in life and retained your
esteem as men of honour because moved to no action that could diminish
them. I am, I trust, a man of honour…’

She uttered a short, interrupting laugh. He caught his breath, and
flushed a little; but repeated himself and continued. ‘I am, I trust,
a man of honour, as in the past you rightly judged me. I might have
departed leaving you in that persuasion, had not an overmastering, an
overwhelming temptation shattered all preconceptions for me. Knowing
you, Margaret, I came to love you, passionately, desperately,
blindly.’

‘Must you continue?’

‘I must. For I desire you to understand before you judge. This love of
mine, growing to worship, filling me with a sense of adoration,
rendered you so necessary to me that I could not face life without
you.’ He passed a hand wearily across his pallid brow. ‘These things
are not of our own devising. We are the slaves of nature, pawns of
Destiny, who uses us to her purpose, lashing us into obedience of her
peremptory will. I did not ask to love you. I did not even desire it
of my own volition. The desire was planted in me. It came I know not
whence, a behest which there was no disobeying, compelling, utterly
overmastering. In what opinion you held me before to-night I scarcely
know. But I think that you esteemed me. And a woman such as I
unerringly judge you to be could not esteem a man whom she supposed
addicted to banal gallantries, to the pursuit of trivial amours,
making sacrilegiously of love a pastime and a vileness. I am no such
man. This I swear to you by my faith and my honour in the sight of God
and His Holy Mother.’

‘Why trouble to swear or to forswear? All this is naught to me.’

‘Ah, wait! It must be something surely. It must have weight with you
that what I have done has been done in no levity possible to some such
man as I say that I am not. I have abducted you. It is an ugly word.’

‘A proper word to describe an ugly fact, a crime for which you shall
most certainly be brought to answer.’

‘A crime as you say. But it is opportunity that makes the criminal.
There has never been in human man--save One, and He was more than
human--so much inherent virtue that there is no point at which
temptation cannot break it.’ He sighed. ‘Believe me at least that I
should never have done what I have done if in addition to the
temptation provided by my need, my irresistible need of you, the
circumstances themselves had not conspired to force me. Time would not
stand still for me. This ship could not be kept indefinitely in
English waters. Every hour exposed her to the risk of seizure. So I
must make haste. I spoke to you last night of love, timidly,
tentatively. I was rebuffed. It was to have been feared. The
disclosure came too abruptly. It startled you, disturbed you, ruffled
you. In other circumstances I should have paused. I should have
brought an infinite patience to my wooing, sustaining that patience by
the conviction that just as in our first meeting something of you had
gone out to me to mark me for your own as long as I have life, so
something from me must have gone out to you with the same message,
although you might not yet be aware of it. It is impossible that the
emotions which stirred in me should be other than reciprocal. They
were as the spark that is born of the meeting of flint and steel, to
the creation of which both elements are necessary. You were not yet
aware of it; that was all. But in time, in a little time, I must have
awakened you to this awareness. Time, however, was not at my command.
It was impossible that I could protract my stay in England.’ He flung
out an arm in a gesture of passion, and leaned forward a little across
the table. ‘What choice then had I but to resort to this villainy as
you deem it, as the only alternative to the impossibility of
renouncing you?’ He waited for no answer, but swept on. ‘I have
brought you away by force that I may woo you, Margaret, that I may
place at your feet all that I have and all that I am, and crown you
with all the honours won already and all those yet to be won under
your dear inspiration. It is known by now on this ship that I am
taking you to Spain to make you Countess of Marcos, and from this
moment you will be entreated by all with the deference and homage due
to that rank.’

He paused, his melancholy love-lorn glance upon her in humble
supplication. But neither the glance nor his words had produced any
visible impression. The eyes with which she returned his glance were
hard, and there was only scorn in the little smile that tightened her
red lips.

‘I have thought you whilst you spoke sometimes a knave, sometimes a
fool. I perceive you now to be a sorry mixture of both.’

He shrugged and even smiled, an infinite weariness in his eyes. ‘That
is not argument.’

‘Argument? Does it need argument to prick the empty bubble you have
laboured so to blow? By the same arguments there is no vileness in the
world that cannot be justified. The facts are here, Don Pedro: you
have returned evil for good; you have used me with violence and
indignity hoping to constrain me to your will; you have left anxiety
and sorrow behind, in a house which sheltered you in time of stress.
These facts no arguments in the world can ever dispel. The attempt
upon me I tell you now is idle. I’ll be no man’s countess against my
will, and I have no will to be yours and never shall have. If you
would earn a forgiveness you may yet come to need, I ask you again to
give orders to go about and restore me to my home.’

He lowered his eyes and sighed. ‘Let us eat,’ he said, and spoke
rapidly in Spanish to the waiting and wondering Pablillos, who at once
grew busy with the dishes prepared upon a buffet.

In a spirit of admirable philosophic detachment, Don Pedro found
himself admiring the courage which permitted her to answer him so
firmly, to sit before him so upright, and to meet his eye so steadily.
How differently would any other woman he had ever known have borne
herself in this situation! What tears and outcries would not have
deafened and nauseated him! But Margaret was tempered finely as steel.
Not in all the world could he find such another mother for his sons.
What men would she not bear to add lustre and honour to the house of
Mendoza y Luna?

Of her ultimate surrender he was confident. The arguments he had used
were sincere enough; they expressed his utter faith; and in that faith
he could practise patience, a virtue impossible only where there is
doubt.

She ate sparingly; but that she could eat at all was a further proof
of her spirit. She drank, too, a little wine; but was careful to drink
only from the same jug as that which supplied Don Pedro. Observing
this caution, he rated her wit as highly as her spirit. Thus her very
defiances and mistrusts but served to magnify her in his adoring eyes.

The single cabin on the starboard side had been prepared for Don
Pedro, and prepared luxuriously. Informed of it by Pablillos, he
yielded it to her ladyship, and she withdrew to it with the cold
resignation which had marked her every surrender to the force of
circumstances.

Alone there, her demeanour may have altered. In secret she may have
yielded to fear and grief and indignation. Certain it is that when
early on the following morning she sought the deck, where she might
conceive herself less prisoned than in the coach, there was a
haggardness which her countenance had never worn before and a redness
about her eyes which may have been the result of weeping or of
sleeplessness, both new experiences in the life of the Lady Margaret
Trevanion. Apart from those, however, she flew no signals of distress.
She had dressed herself with pains, repairing the disorder which her
garments had suffered and she had tired her hair with care. Her step
was as firm as the canting deck permitted, her manner one of chill
dignity and assurance.

Thus she emerged from the gangway to the waist, which, beheld now in
the morning sunlight, seemed less spacious than yesternight. Her
glance strayed from the square main hatch with its shot-rack to the
boats on the booms amidships and lingered a moment on a sturdy lad,
who, engaged in polishing the brass hoops of a scuttle butt, eyed her
with furtive interest. The wind had freshened with the sunrise, and
there were men aloft taking in sail. Save for the youth at the scuttle
butt, she seemed singularly alone. But as she moved forward along the
weather quarter away from the break of the poop, she saw that there
were men on the quarter-deck above. Duclerc, the sturdy, bearded
French master, leaned on the carved rail, observing her. As she
turned, he doffed his bonnet in salutation. Behind him two sailors
were gazing up into the shrouds, following the operations there of
those aloft.

She crossed the canted deck to the quarter on which she supposed that
land--her England--would last have been. There was no land now in
sight. She had a sense almost that the ship was in the centre of a
vast aqueous globe, for the pellucid morning sky seemed one with the
ocean. A nausea of dismay swept over her, and she steadied herself
against the bulwarks, to become suddenly aware that she was less alone
than she had believed. Against one of the forecastle bulkheads leaned
a tall figure as immoveable as if it had been a caryatid carved to
bear the burden of that forward deck.

It was the friar. His cowl was now thrown back from his tonsured head,
and his face, thus fully revealed in the light of day, announced him
younger than she had supposed him, a man in the middle thirties.
Despite its hungry, almost wolfish look, it was a not unhandsome face,
and one that must anywhere arrest attention. The nose was prominent,
almost Semitic; the cheek-bones thrust forward boldly, seeming to drag
the sallow skin with them and leaving gaunt hollows in the cheeks. His
mouth was wide, but thin of lips and firm, whilst under a jutting brow
two great dark eyes glowed sombrely.

He stood within but a few yards from where she had come to lean, his
finger closed upon his breviary, a string of beads intertwining his
fingers and hanging from his hand; they formed--although she could not
know or guess it--a chaplet brought from the Holy Land, each grain of
which was wrought of camel bone.

Perceiving her regard upon him, he slightly inclined his head in
greeting, but his face remained as impassive as if carved of wood. He
advanced towards her, his great stern eyes upon her, and she grew
conscious of a faint, uneasy quickening of her pulses, such as besets
us at the approach of some creature of a species not known or
understood. To her surprise he greeted her in English. He uttered
commonplaces, but his deep, grave voice and sibilant Spanish accent
seemed to lend them consequence. He expressed a hope that she had
found a ship’s quarters not too uncomfortable, that sleep had been
possible to her in surroundings that must be unaccustomed so that
waking refreshed she had commended herself to the Holy Mother of God,
the natural protectress of all virgins.

She realized that the apparently courteous hope was in reality a
question, although perhaps she scarcely understood the depth to which
it was meant to probe. Indeed, her active wits were already engaged on
other matters. This man was a priest, and although his might be a
creed superficially different from her own, yet in fundamentals it was
essentially the same. Good and Evil wore the same aspect in Roman as
in Lutheran eyes, and he was by his office and his habit a servant of
the Good, an upholder of virtue, a champion of the oppressed. Had he
known no English, he could not have availed her. He must have drawn
his own conclusions touching her presence on that ship, or accept
whatever tale Don Pedro told him. But the fact that she could appeal
to him, tell her own story and be understood, seemed all at once to
dispel her every qualm and open a clear way for her out of her present
difficulties. Let him but know of the violence done her, of how she
was placed, and his assistance must be won; he must stand her friend
and protector, and he a man in authority who could enforce, even upon
so great a gentleman as Don Pedro de Mendoza y Luna, the need to right
this wrong.

Don Diego had blundered worse than he knew, or Don Pedro yet
suspected, in bringing this Dominican as the ship’s spiritual guide.
The man’s knowledge of English, which was the very ground upon which
Don Diego had chosen him for a voyage to England, was the very ground
upon which, had there been no others, he should have been left in
Spain. But this was all outside her ladyship’s knowledge. All that
mattered was that he spoke her tongue and that he was here beside her
to hear what she had to tell.

The colour flooded to her cheeks, a sparkle came to eyes that a moment
since had been dull with dejection. Her first words were such as must
commend her to him, and almost quiet the doubts concerning her that
were stirring in his mind, doubts which his questioning greeting had
desired to test.

‘God must have sent you to me; God and that Holy Mother whom you
pronounce the protectress of all maids in need. Be you her deputy by
me. For I am sorely in need of protection.’

She saw the stern eyes soften. Compassionate tenderness invested that
ascetic countenance.

‘I am an unworthy servant of the Lord and of those who call upon the
Lord. What is your need, my sister?’

Briefly, with feverish speed, she told him that she had been ravished
from her home and brought by violence aboard this ship in which she
was being carried to Spain in the power and at the mercy of Don Pedro
de Mendoza.

He inclined his head. ‘I know,’ he said quietly.

‘You know? You know?’ There was almost horror in her voice. Was it
possible that this priest was in the plot? Were the hopes vain to
which his presence had but given birth? He knew, and yet bore himself
with such indifference!

‘I also know, if man’s words are to be believed, that Don Pedro means
you honourably.’

‘What is that to the matter?’ she cried out.

‘Something. Something surely that his intentions concerning you are
not villainous or sinful.’

‘Not villainous? Not sinful? To bear me off against my will! To coerce
me!’

‘It is a wrong, a grave and wicked wrong,’ Frey Luis admitted quietly.
‘Yet not so grave or so wicked as it might be, and as first I feared
it was. I feared a mortal sin to imperil the salvation of his soul.
And who voyages in ships should more than another preserve that state
of grace in which to meet his Maker, since at any moment the perils of
sea may summon him to that Dread Presence. But a wrong there is, as I
perceive. You desire me to prevail upon Don Pedro to repair it.
Content you, my sister. In my protection, under God’s, whose servant I
am, rest you assured that no evil shall befall you. Don Pedro either
returns you to your home at once, or you shall be delivered from this
coercion so soon as you touch Spanish soil.’

She could have laughed in her exultation, so easy had it been to
secure the frustration of all Don Pedro’s measures. The voyage no
longer had any peril to daunt her. The mantle of Saint Dominic
protected her, and although she knew little if anything about that
ardent zealous saint who had preached the love of Christ with fire and
sword and warred relentlessly upon all who did not think as he did,
she felt that she would hold his name ever hereafter in reverence and
love.

Frey Luis had passed his beads and breviary into his left hand. He
raised now his right, with three fingers extended, and made the sign
of the cross in the air over her golden head, a murmur of Latin on his
lips.

To the Lady Margaret this was almost as the ritual of some
incantation. Her wide-set generous eyes dilated a little as she looked
at him. Frey Luis read the question of that uncomprehending stare,
observed that golden head held rigid, unbowed, and unresponsive to his
benediction, and his own eyes reflected a sudden doubt which mounted
swiftly to conviction. Dismay overspread the austere face. This thing
which Don Pedro had done went deeper than he could have dishonoured
him by suspecting. It suddenly assumed proportions of wickedness and
evil far exceeding any which he attached to the abduction in itself,
indeed the last wickedness he would have believed of a nobleman of a
family so renowned for piety as Don Pedro’s, a family which had given
Spain a Primate. This abducted woman, whom Don Pedro intended for his
wife and the mother of his children, was a heretic!

Before that horrible discovery Frey Luis recoiled in body as in
spirit. His lips tightened; his expression became mask-like. He folded
his hands within the sleeves of his white woollen habit, and without
another word turned on his sandalled heel and moved slowly away to
excogitate this horror.




 CHAPTER XV.
 SCYLLA

/So/ deeply perturbed by his discovery was Frey Luis that he required
time to recover from the shock and to rehearse the measures by which
he was to combat Satan for the imperilled soul of Don Pedro de Mendoza
y Luna. The holy man prayed long and fervently for guidance and for
strength. As one who sincerely regarded the world and its honours as
trivial evanescences to be crossed on the path to eternity, he stood
in no awe of the great, acknowledged no superiority in any nobility
that was not rooted in zeal for the Faith. He would serve no king who
was not himself a servant of God; acknowledge no king who did not
acknowledge himself that. Worldly power, which himself he had spurned
when he assumed the habit of Saint Dominic, became a contemptible
mockery in his eyes, a thing of scorn, from the moment that it ceased
to be employed first and foremost in the service of the Faith. It
follows from all this, which was not without its unperceived leaven of
arrogance and the deadly sin of pride, that Frey Luis was no respecter
of persons or of rank. Yet, whilst despising worldly rank, he must
acknowledge it. It was necessary to reckon with it. Evil could be
wrought by it. Because self-seeking men were sycophantic to it, great
strength was often necessary to stand against it and thwart it where
it addressed itself to unholy ends.

For this strength prayed Frey Luis, and it was not until the following
afternoon that he felt himself sufficiently equipped and inspired for
his struggle with the Devil.

Don Pedro took the air--crisp and sharp despite the sunlight--upon the
poop. He was distressed and moody, when Frey Luis approached him, but
because it was some time before the Dominican’s words showed whither
he was travelling, Don Pedro offered no interruptions, betrayed no
impatience.

Frey Luis went a long way round, so as completely to disguise his
approaches; so as to say all that mattered, all that should germinate
in the soul of Don Pedro, before Don Pedro, discerning the friar’s
real aim, should be tempted to set a term to his discourse. It
amounted to little less than a sermon.

He began by speaking of Spain, of her glory first and then of her
difficulties. Her glories he described as the mark of divine favour
upon her. God made it manifest that the Spaniards were to-day his
chosen people, and woe unto Spain should she ever grow negligent of
the stupendous grace vouchsafed her.

Don Pedro permitted himself to wonder was the scattering of the Armada
by the hosts of Heaven a manifestation of this grace.

The doubt inflamed Frey Luis. Not the hosts of Heaven, but the powers
of darkness had been responsible for that. God had permitted it as a
warning to a people against the deadly sin of pride--one of Satan’s
most artful snares--which might betray them into supposing that their
glories were the result of their own puny endeavours. It was necessary
to remind men, lest they perished, that without the favour of Heaven
nothing was to be achieved on earth.

There were a dozen answers which suggested themselves to the logical
mind of Don Pedro, who had first known doubt on that morning when he
awakened in the cove below Trevanion Chase. But he offered none of
them, knowing already how they would be met.

Frey Luis passed on to speak of his country’s difficulties: the
jealous enemies without, and the insidious enemies within; the latter
inspired and sustained by the former. Because Spain, under God’s
favour and protection, was unconquerable in direct and honourable
warfare, Satan sought to undermine the religious unity which rendered
her invulnerable by insinuating sectarian disorders into her bosom. To
wound her in her faith was to bleed her of her strength. The Jews,
those enemies of the Cross, those armies of the powers of darkness,
had been driven out. But the New Christians remained with their
frequent Judaizings. Gone were those other legionaries of hell, the
followers of Mahomet. But the Moriscos remained and their frequent
lapses into the abominations of Islam continued a defilement. And,
after all, the taint of Jew and Moor was in many a man of lineage. Not
every nobleman of Spain was as clean of blood as Don Pedro de Mendoza
y Luna. But not even clean blood was nowadays a sufficient safeguard,
since it assured no immunity from the poison of heresy, a poison which
once introduced into the body laboured there until it had destroyed it
utterly. And there were signs of it, more than signs of it in Spain
already. Frey Luis became lugubrious. Valladolid was a hotbed of
Lutheranism. Salamanca was little better than a heretical seminary.
The disciples of Luther and Erasmus became daily bolder. Even a
Primate of Spain, Carranza, the Archbishop of Toledo, had been guilty
of Lutheranizing in his catechism.

Upon this climax of exaggeration, Don Pedro interrupted him. ‘The
Archbishop was acquitted of the charge.’

The Dominican’s eyes flashed with holy wrath. ‘That acquittal shall be
atoned for in hell by those who betrayed their God in pronouncing it.
For seventeen years Carranza lay in the prisons of the Holy Office,
defending himself with sophistries which the Devil inspired in him for
his self-preservation. He should have left them for the fire. In such
matters there is no room for arguments or casuistries; whilst men
talk, the evil grows; it grows even from their disputations. What is
needed is that we extirpate these buboes of heretical pestilence, that
we cauterize them once for all with the purifying flame. To the fire
with all these putrescences! And so Amen!’ He flung up one of his long
arms in a gesture of denunciation almost terrifying in its remorseless
vehemence.

‘Amen, indeed!’ Don Pedro echoed.

The Dominican’s lean, feverish hand clawed the nobleman’s arm in its
black velvet sleeve. His eyes glowed with eagerness and saintly zeal.

‘That is the response I expected from you, the response worthy of your
nobility, of your clean blood and of the representative of the great
House of Mendoza, which has laboured ever to the glory of God and of
Spain.’

‘What other response could have been possible? I am, I hope, a
faithful son of Mother Church.’

‘Not merely faithful, but active; a member of the Militia Christi. Are
you not in some sort my brother, my spiritual brother, in the great
fraternity of Saint Dominic? Are you not a lay tertiary of the order,
and so consecrated to uphold the purity of the Faith and to expunge
heresy wherever you shall find it?’

Don Pedro began to frown at so much vehemence. ‘Why do you question
me, Frey Luis?’

‘To test you, whom I find upon the brink of a precipice. To assure
myself that your faith is strong enough to keep you from the vertigo
that may hurl you down into the depths.’

‘I am on the brink of a precipice? I? You give me news, brother.’ And
Don Pedro laughed with a flash of white teeth behind his black beard.

‘You stand in danger of defiling the purity of your blood which
hitherto has been without taint. You have announced to me that you
will give your children a heretic for their mother.’

Don Pedro understood, though truth to tell the thing took him by
surprise. The fact was, although he dared not admit it to this zealot,
that swept headlong by the stream of passion he had given no thought
to this side of the matter.

For an instant he stood appalled. He was a devout and faithful son of
the Church, as he had announced; and he was dismayed to discover how
reckless he had been of matters which should have claimed his first
attention. But the dismay was momentary. The same high confidence that
he would win the Lady Margaret to be a willing bride assured him that
he would have no difficulty in bringing her within the fold of the
True Faith. He said so, and by the confident assurance entirely
changed the current of the friar’s thoughts. Frey Luis was uplifted
like a man who suddenly perceives the light where all before him had
been darkness.

‘Blessed be God!’ he exclaimed piously. ‘Woe me for the weakness of my
own faith! I failed to see, my brother, that you were chosen to be the
instrument of her salvation.’

He enlarged upon this theme. In his view it justified all that Don
Pedro had done, the very violence he had used in abducting this lady.
Here was no question of any yielding to carnal lusts such as the friar
had shuddered to his soul in contemplating. Don Pedro was snatching a
brand from the burning, carrying off not so much a fair smooth body
cast in the Satanic mould of loveliness for man’s corruption, but
rather a soul that was in peril of damnation. The friar would be his
ally now in this worthy work. He would bear the light of the True
Faith to this damsel for whom such high temporal destinies were
reserved. He would labour in the holy work of delivering her from the
heretical abominations absorbed in the abominably heretical country of
her birth, and by converting her to the True Faith render her a fit
bride for the Count of Marcos, a fit mother for future Mendozas.

Even if Don Pedro had possessed the inclination, he would not have
dared to oppose Frey Luis in this. But it was what he himself desired;
what, now that he came to consider it, he perceived must happen before
he could dare take Margaret to wife.

And so Frey Luis was granted charter to preach conversion to the Lady
Margaret.

He went about it with an infinite caution, patience, and zeal,
labouring assiduously for three days to break down the earthworks
which he clearly perceived to have been thrown up about her by Satan.
But the more he laboured, the more did those Satanic ramparts grow to
frustrate the gallant zeal of his attacks.

At first the Lady Margaret had been interested in his expositions.
Perhaps even because of her interest, she had come to interrupt him
with questions. How did he know this? What was his authority for that?
And when he answered her, behold her presenting him with embarrassing
rejoinders straight from Scripture, begging him to reconcile this or
that of his statements with these passages from Holy Writ.

To her it was an engrossing game, a Heaven-sent pastime to beguile the
tedium of those days upon that ship, to take her mind from distracting
activities upon the past and the future. But to him it was an
appalling torment. There was a simplicity about her which was
devastating, a directness of question and a lucidity of statement that
at moments reduced him to despair.

Frey Luis had never met her equal. This need not surprise us. His
inquisitorial dealings had chiefly been concerned with Judaizers and
relapsed Moriscos. His knowledge of English had brought him into touch
with some English and other mariners consigned for heresy to the
prisons of the Holy Office. But they had been ignorant men, even when
shipmasters, in religious matters. They had clung stubbornly to
certain fundamental tenets of the heretical creed in which they had
been reared; but they had attempted no argument or answers to the
arguments which in the performance of his holy duty he had placed
before them.

The Lady Margaret Trevanion’s was a very different case. Here was a
woman who had read and reread the Scriptures, largely for lack of
other reading matter, until she knew--whilst scarcely aware of it--a
deal of them by heart. Add to this that she was gifted with a clear
intelligence, a ready wit, and a high courage and that she had been
reared in the habit of expressing herself with the utmost frankness.
These matters which Frey Luis came so assiduously to expound had never
greatly exercised her mind in the past. Her father was not a religious
man, and sentimentally his leanings had been rather to the old Romish
Faith. He had been careless of his daughter’s religious training, and
had left her to pursue it for herself. But if she had never yet
exercised herself upon it in the past, she was ready enough to
exercise herself upon it now when in a sense she found herself
challenged to do so. The ease with which she found herself embarked in
polemical argument, the readiness with which quotations came to her
hand as required, surprised her very self.

It more than surprised Frey Luis. It brought him to a raging despair.
It proved to him how right were the fathers of the Church to forbid
the translation and diffusion of the Sacred Writings, and what a lure
of Satan’s it was to place those books in the hands of those who,
because they could not understand them, must of necessity pervert
their meaning. Thus by the wiles of the Devil the very means of
salvation were transformed into instruments of corruption.

When he said so in furious denunciation, she laughed at him, laughed
like a Delilah or a Jezebel, flaunting her white beauty as it seemed
to him before his eyes as if to take him in the lure of it, as she had
taken Don Pedro. He covered his face with his hands.

‘_Vade retro, Sathanas!_’ he cried aloud, whereat she but laughed the
more.

‘So, sir friar,’ she rallied him, ‘I am become Satan now, and I am to
get behind you! You’re ungallant, which is no doubt very proper in a
priest, however distressing in a man. But behind you I will not get.
I’ll face you out, sir, until one of us goes down in defeat.’

He uncovered his face to stare at her with eyes of horror. He took
that rallying phrase in its literal sense. ‘Until one of us goes down
in defeat?’ he echoed. Then his voice soared passionately. ‘Until
Satan triumphs, you mean! Woe me!’ And on that he fled from the great
cabin where the atmosphere had grown stifling, to seek breath and
sanity on the open deck with the salt tang of the sea in his nostrils.

That happened on the third day of his efforts of conversion, and it
was fateful. Her words pursued him. ‘I’ll face you out until one of us
goes down in defeat.’ It was a threat; a threat of Satan’s spoken
through those fair false lips. He perceived it now. Out here under
God’s sky, it came to him that he had stood in direst peril. He, the
hunter, had begun to be the hunted. There were moments, as he now
perceived, when his own faith had momentarily faltered under the
specious arguments, the glib answers with which she had
counter-assailed him, moments when he had stood in doubt of what
actually was the teaching of the Church, bewildered by a sudden
confrontation with some text of Scripture which seemed to give the lie
to what he had last said. And this had happened to him, a man learned
in these matters, at the hands of a woman, a girl, an untutored child!
It was unthinkable, preposterous, that she should be able to do this
of her own wit. Whence had she the power? Whence? It must be that she
was possessed, a subject of unholy inspiration.

The conviction grew, and something beside the thought of her polemics
came to strengthen it. The image of her was solid before his eyes. He
beheld her concrete, almost palpable before him even now: the lissom
form on the cushions of the sea-chest with the glowing horn panes of
the stern windows behind her, her head thrown back in laughter and
lending her an air of wantonness; the red-gold hair that seemed at
moments to flame in the sunlight, the blue eyes so full of a false
alluring candour, the white throat, so fully revealed by the wanton
cut of her corsage and the swelling curve of breast below, along which
his eyes had unduly lingered. They lingered now upon the image of it
all, even though he pressed his palms against his eyeballs as if to
crush them, revolted, terrified, to find that image evoking an unholy
thrill in his starved virility.

‘_Vade retro, Sathanas!_’ he muttered again, and piteously from the
depths of his soul cried out for help against the terrible lure of the
flesh, so long and fiercely repressed and now rising up to destroy
him. ‘_Vade retro, Sathanas!_’

A hand touched his shoulder. He started as if a red-hot iron had been
pressed against him. Beside him as he sat there on the hatch coaming
to which he had sunk, stood the slight, elegant figure of Don Pedro
observing him with a half-smile.

‘With what devil do you wrestle, Frey Luis?’

Frey Luis looked up at him with haunted eyes. ‘That is what I desire
to know,’ he answered. ‘Sit here beside me,’ he invited, and the great
gentleman obeyed.

There was a silence, at the end of which the Dominican began to
discourse. He spoke of witchcraft and demonology in a fevered manner
and with a leaning to impure things--not necessarily in itself impure.
He expounded the origin and nature of the Devil; alluded to many
weapons and snares of which the Devil avails himself, and the dangers
created by the illusions in which these are veiled. Antichrist, he
asserted, was to be fathered by an incubus, even as the accursed
heresiarch Luther had been fathered.

The discourse dragged on. It was obscure, and Don Pedro wearied of it.

‘What have I to do with all this?’ he ventured.

The friar swung to him, and laid a hand heavily upon his shoulder.
Solemnly he put a question.

‘Would you prefer a crumb of ephemeral and poisoned pleasure to the
banquet of infinite and everlasting bliss which is offered to you in
heaven?’

‘God help me! Of course not.’

‘Then be warned in time, my brother.’

‘Of what?’

Frey Luis answered obliquely. ‘God hath set woman in the world to put
man to the proof. Woe unto him that fails!’

‘If you said it in Greek, I might understand you better,’ was the
impatient answer.

‘This woman…’ the friar was beginning.

‘If you mean the Lady Margaret Trevanion, you’ll speak of her
differently or not at all.’

Don Pedro got up stiffly, breathing noisily through his nostrils. But
Frey Luis was not to be abashed.

‘Words are naught. It is the fact they express that signifies. This
lady, my lord, is beyond conversion.’

Don Pedro looked at him, and fingered his beard. ‘Beyond such arts of
it as yours, you mean.’

‘Beyond all arts. She is possessed.’

‘Possessed?’

‘Of a devil. She has recourse to witchcraft. She…’

Leaning over him, Don Pedro hissed an interruption. ‘Silence, madman!
Is your vanity so monstrous, your pride so egregious, that because you
have not the wit to persuade her, you must assume the Devil speaks
with her tongue? Why, what a paltry tale, and how often has it not
served an incompetent man of God?’

The friar, however, untouched by offence, slowly shook his head.
‘There’s more to it than that. God’s grace has revealed to me that
which I should have had the wit to perceive before with my earthly
senses. For I hold the proof of it. The proof, do you hear? As you
might hold it if she had not caught you in her spells, trammelled you
in her evil web.’

‘No more!’ Don Pedro stood stern and fierce. ‘You push presumption to
amazing lengths, sir friar. Do not push it so far that in my just
resentment I should forget the habit that you wear.’

The friar rose, too, and stood close beside him, half a head taller,
stern, indomitable in his holy zeal. ‘No threats will silence one who
knows himself within his rights to speak, as I am.’

‘Are you so?’ Don Pedro had dropped all outward signs of anger. He was
his habitual mocking self, mocking and something sinister. ‘Remember
that I too have rights here on this ship, and these include the right
to have you flung overboard if you become importunate.’

Frey Luis recoiled, not in fear of the threat, but in horror of the
spirit that prompted it.

‘You say this to me? You threaten sacrilege, no less? You are so lost
already that you would raise your hand against an anointed priest?’

‘Begone!’ Don Pedro bade him. ‘Go preach of hell to those poor devils
in the forecastle.’

Frey Luis folded his hands under his scapulary, assuming an outward
impassivity. ‘I have sought to warn you. But you will not be warned.
Sodom and Gomorrah would not be warned. Beware their fate!’

‘I am neither Sodom nor Gomorrah,’ was the biting answer. ‘I am Don
Pedro de Mendoza y Luna, Count of Marcos and Grande of Spain, and my
word is paramount aboard this ship; my wish the only law upon these
decks. Remember it unless you are prepared to take your chance of
travelling home like Jonah.’

For a moment Frey Luis stood considering him with inscrutable,
hypnotic eyes. Then he raised his hands and drew the cowl over his
head. There was almost a symbolism in the act, as if he intended to
express the completeness of his withdrawal.

Yet he went without malice of any kind in his piteous heart; for
piteous he was to the core and marrow of him. He went to pray that the
divine grace might descend upon Don Pedro de Mendoza y Luna to deliver
him from the snares of an enchantress inspired by Satan to destroy his
soul. That fact was now crystal-clear to Frey Luis Salcedo. As he had
said, he held the proof of it.




 CHAPTER XVI.
 CHARYBDIS

/They/ cast anchor at evening two days later in the spacious Bay of
Santander, lying sheltered in its green amphitheatre of hills with
Mount Valera in the background thrusting up its detached mass from the
range of the Sierras de Isar.

Those last two days aboard the Demoiselle had been days of profound
uneasiness under a sullen, superficial calm. Frey Luis had made no
further attempt to approach the Lady Margaret, and there was something
ominous and menacing in his very abstention, and in its implication
that he had abandoned the hope of her conversion. Twice he attempted
to reopen the subject with Don Pedro, and well might it have been for
Don Pedro had he listened and so learned the precise peril in which he
stood. But Don Pedro was at the end of his patience in several ways.
The fundamental pride and haughtiness of his nature reminded him that
he had tolerated from this conventual zealot more insolence already
than self-respect permitted. Piety demanded in him a certain measure
of submission; but there were limits to the strain to be imposed upon
it, and those limits had been overpassed by the presumptuous friar.
Realizing it, Don Pedro became curt and rude with him, asserted his
rank and nobility, and dismissed Frey Luis with threats of violence,
which but served to confirm the Dominican in the terrible conclusions
he had already drawn.

With the Lady Margaret, Don Pedro was almost sullen now. Uneasiness
began to stir in him. He began to fear the ultimate frustration of his
hopes from her calm obduracy, from the firm manner in which she
repelled his every advance with the constant reminder that he had by
the ingratitude of his conduct made her regret the hospitality her
house had afforded him. He would have reasoned her away from this. But
she would not suffer him to do so. However he might twist and turn,
she brought him ever back to the source.

‘We have,’ she insisted, ‘a fact, a thing done, which nothing in the
world could possibly excuse. Why labour, then, to seek what does not
exist?’

Her firmness, the more formidable because of her unbroken outward
calm, began to sow in his heart the seed of despair. He thought of
what he was, of what he offered her. Enough surely to have contented
any woman. Her obduracy was exasperating. He brooded over it. It
festered in him, and began to warp and transmute his nature, which
fundamentally was chivalrous.

The explosion came after those two days of sullen silences and sullen
glances. It came when the anchor was being cast on that calm evening
of October in the Bay of Santander.

She sat in the great cabin, her anxieties sharpened by the knowledge
that the voyage was at an end and that she must gird herself for
battle now upon some new ground which she did not yet perceive and for
which she was unable to discover any weapons.

‘We have arrived,’ he announced to her. He was pale, angry, his dark
eyes aflash.

She weighed her words before she uttered them. ‘You mean that you have
arrived, sir. For me this is not an arrival. It is a stage in the
tiresome journey you have forced upon me.’

He agreed, deliberately affecting to misunderstand her. ‘True.
To-morrow we continue on land. We have yet some leagues to go. But it
is not far. In a few days now we shall be within my own walls at
Oviedo.’

‘I trust not,’ said she with her outward imperturbability. Her
confidence was in Frey Luis. Although for two days he had not
approached her; although his latter visits had all been concerned with
her conversion to the True Faith, yet she trusted to his promise to
protect her and to the fundamental virtue and goodness discernible in
the man.

‘You trust not?’ Don Pedro was sneering. He approached her where she
sat, on the cushioned sea-chest under the tall stern windows. Seated
thus her face was little more than a white blur in the shadows. But
what little daylight lingered was confronted by him, revealing his
countenance and the wicked mockery that writhed on it.

This persistent cold opposition to his imperious will, this utter
unresponsiveness to the love which might have made a saint of him, was
converting him swiftly into a devil. He realized in that moment that
the change had been steadily growing in those days on board the
Demoiselle. Standing over her now he perceived that his love was all
but transmuted into hate.

For her he would have made the last sacrifice. He would have laid down
his life, he assured himself. And all the return he could awaken in
her was this glacial scorn, this unchanging attitude of repulsion. His
present impulse was to punish this obstinacy and this folly; to render
her brutally aware of him; to possess her, merely so that she might
learn his dominance; to break her in body and in soul.

‘You trust not?’ he repeated. ‘Upon what do you found this trust of
yours?’

‘Upon God,’ she answered him.

‘God! The God of heretics? Will he move in your defence?’

‘He moved in my people’s,’ she reminded him, ‘when the invincible
might of Spain was arrayed against them. Spain thought of England as
you think of me. A dream from which there was a rude awakening. Your
awakening, Don Pedro, may be as rude.’

He swung away from her, wringing his hands, beating fist into palm in
a gesture of exasperation. Then he was back again, his mood soft once
more, his tone a lover’s.

‘We are uttering words that should never pass between us. If you will
but be reasonable! It is naught but unreason blocks the way. Your
obstinacy it is which denies you to me. You will not listen, however
humbly I sue, because you have taken an obdurate resolve against it.’

‘You are modest, sir. You are assuming that you can win any woman who
will listen to you.’

‘That is to corrupt my meaning. It is to forget all that I said to you
when first you came on board…’

‘When first you dragged me here, you mean.’

He went on without heeding the correction. ‘I told you then of a force
outside ourselves, of my persuasion that as it drove me so must it
drive you if you would suffer yourself to be driven. Listen,
Margaret!’ He was down on one knee beside the sea-chest.

‘I love you, and you may trust my love to render your life glorious.
There is no return for you. Even if I allowed you to go free, it is
too late. You have been with me here a week on board this ship, under
my hand. You see what must be assumed, what already can be repaired in
no way save by marrying me. Let it be done now. There is a priest here
who will…’

She interrupted him. ‘You speak of assumptions! I tell you, man, in
England there is no one will assume anything against me when I shall
have told my tale.’

He rose, inflamed again with anger, casting all courtliness aside.
‘The assumption might be justified,’ he threatened. ‘Only the strength
and quality of my love have made me hold my hand.’

She came to her feet in a bound, breathing hard. ‘God! You dare say
that to me! You knave! You gentleman!’

‘Gentleman?’ She heard his tinkling laugh. ‘Where have you lived not
yet to have discovered that gentility is just a garment worn by a man?
You may have me in that garment or without it. The choice is yours,
madam. Nay! Listen! There is no need for further words. Very soon now
you’ll lie in my house at Oviedo. How you lie there is a matter for
your own determining. But if you are wise you will lie there as my
wife; you will marry me before we leave this ship.’

On that he departed abruptly, slamming the cabin door so that the
bulkheads trembled.

Shaking, outraged, mortified, she sank down again to the seat from
which she had risen; and there for the first time she loosed her grip
of her self-control, and gave way to tears of anger and of panic.

In that hour of her overwhelming need a figure rose before her, the
figure of Gervase, stalwart, laughing, clean-limbed, clean-souled,
mirror to her now of all that a gentleman should be. And she had hurt
him that she might trifle with this Spanish satyr, by foolish
imprudences which gave this man the right to think that he had power
to whistle her down the wind when he so chose. She had played with
fire, and, by Heaven, the fire had licked out, not merely to scorch
her, but to consume and destroy her. Little fool that she had been,
vain, empty-headed little fool to have found satisfaction in the
attentions of one whom she conceived of consequence because he had
seen the world and quaffed at many of life’s cups. Heavy was the
punishment of her heedlessness.

‘Gervase! Gervase!’ she called in a whisper to the surrounding gloom.

If only he were there, she would cast herself upon her knees before
him, purge herself by confession to him of her wilful folly, and
acknowledge the love for him which was the only love her life had ever
known or would ever know.

Then her mind turned to Frey Luis, and she recovered her shaken
courage in the confidence of his protection. Aboard the ship he had
been powerless despite the authority of his sacerdotal office. But now
that land was reached, he could summon others to enforce that
authority if Don Pedro should still attempt to withstand it.

Of this she had confirmation later, when, locked in her own cabin, she
heard through the thin door Don Pedro talking to Duclerc whilst
Pablillos was serving supper. She had excused herself when Don Pedro
had come to summon her to table, and he had accepted her excuses
without argument.

He spoke French with Duclerc, for all that the master was fluent
enough in Spanish. But it was characteristic of the cultured Don Pedro
that he must be addressing each man in his own language. He asked what
kept Frey Luis and why he was not at table.

‘Frey Luis went ashore an hour ago, monseigneur,’ was the answer.

‘Did he so?’ grumbled the Spaniard. ‘And without farewells? Why, then
a good riddance to the croaking raven.’

The Lady Margaret’s heart leapt within her. She guessed the errand
upon which the friar was gone, and she was glad that Don Pedro should
have no suspicion of it.

Her guess was correct enough in that Frey Luis had gone ashore on
matters concerned with her salvation. But there was this difference,
that it was not salvation in the sense in which she understood it.

The manner of it was made manifest early on the following morning. Her
ladyship had risen betimes after a sleepless night of alternating hope
and anxiety; she had dressed and gone on deck long before Don Pedro
was astir, so that she might be ready for Frey Luis however early he
should come.

That he would come early she was assured; and again her assurance was
justified, for early he came; and with him a boatload of gentlemen in
black with swords at their sides, and some of them carrying partizans
as well.

The Spanish sailors on the Demoiselle came crowding to the bulwarks to
watch the approach of that barge, and a murmur of dread and wonder ran
through their ranks, for they were under no misapprehension as to the
character of the escort with which Frey Luis returned. These were
alguaziles of the Inquisition, the pursuivants of the Holy Office,
whose approach was not to be regarded with equanimity by any man, no
matter how tranquil his conscience.

Duclerc the master, hearing that murmur, beholding the excitement
among his seamen, despatched a boy to the cabin, to inform Don Pedro.
The information brought that gentleman swiftly on deck. He came
profoundly intrigued, but without anxiety. No doubt this was some
formality of the port where foreign vessels were concerned, the result
of some new inquisitorial enactment.

He emerged into the open, in the ship’s waist, just as Frey Luis,
having climbed the entrance ladder, lowered in obedience to his
command, was setting foot on deck. At his heels came some six of the
black-arrayed pursuivants.

Her ladyship who had eagerly watched that approach from the heights of
the poop, was in the act of descending the companion when Don Pedro
came forth. He heard her blithe greeting of the friar, called across
the deck; he turned in time to see her smile of welcome and the
hand-wave of friendliness and understanding. His brows met; a doubt
entered his mind. Was there treachery here at work? Was the priest in
alliance with this girl to frustrate his ends concerning her? Was this
presumptuous Dominican venturing to interfere in the affairs of the
Count of Marcos?

Of the nature of this interference Don Pedro’s doubts were brief. The
priest’s answer to her ladyship’s welcome was also an answer to the
question in Don Pedro’s mind.

In response to that friendly hand-wave, Frey Luis raised an arm to
point her out to those who had followed him aboard. The rigidity of
the movement and the sternness of his countenance lent the gesture a
denunciatory character. He said some words to his followers rapidly,
in Spanish; words which made Don Pedro catch his breath; words of
command in response to which they moved forward promptly. Frey Luis
stepped aside to observe. The seamen, having backed to the other
quarter, stood ranged against the bulwarks and some in the ratlines,
looking on with round eyes of awe.

Her ladyship faltered, paused in her advance, and, sensing in all this
something ominous and very different from what she had expected,
frowned her perplexity. And then abruptly Don Pedro stepped between
her and those advancing men in black, and by his challenge halted
them.

‘What’s this?’ he demanded. ‘What have you to do with this lady?’

Respect for his high rank gave them pause. One or two of them turned
their heads to look for instruction to Frey Luis. It came, addressed
to the nobleman.

‘Stand aside, Lord Count!’ The friar was stern and peremptory. ‘Do not
presume to resist the Holy Office, or you will bring yourself,
together with this woman, under its displeasure. At present there is
no charge against you, who are but the victim of this woman’s
enchantments. See to it that you do not, yourself, provide one.’

Don Pedro stared at him livid with passion. ‘Lord God!’ he ejaculated
as the full measure of the peril to the Lady Margaret was suddenly
unrolled before him. That mention of enchantments revealed it all to
him, as if in a sudden flash of light. He remembered how the friar had
spoken of witchcraft and demonology. He perceived now the application
of that discourse, saw almost in detail the course that would be
taken. Whether his rage was fed by this intent to rob him of a
cherished possession, or whether it sprang from a sudden anguished
realization of the horror to which his rashness had committed
Margaret, it may be difficult at this point to determine. But his
immediate action and all his subsequent conduct through the affair
point to the nobler motive, to a belated forgetfulness of self in his
concern for the woman whom I believe that he sincerely loved. His real
offence against her was that he loved her too arrogantly; took too
much for granted; but this was simply a natural expression of the
inherent arrogance of this great gentleman of Spain, this spoilt
darling of Fortune.

Certain it is that he was blinded now by fury, driven headlong to a
rashness that must imperil his life and even--by his own lights--the
salvation of his soul. And I prefer to think that he was so driven by
his sudden and terrible concern for Margaret.

He advanced a step, very stiff and haughty, his bare head thrown back,
his left hand resting heavily upon the pommel of his sword, so that
the weapon was thrust horizontally behind him. He had completed his
preparations for going ashore, and he was booted and armed for the
journey to come, which may be in the circumstances fortunate or
unfortunate, according to how you regard the sequel.

His blazing eyes met the calm, almost melancholy glance of Frey Luis.
‘You will depart this ship,’ said Don Pedro through his teeth, ‘and
take your inquisitorial rabble with you before I have you all flung
into the water.’

Quietly Frey Luis admonished him. ‘You speak in anger, sir. I will
forget your words. Once again I warn you against implicating yourself
by resistance with this heretical witch whom it is our business to
arrest. Be warned, Don Pedro!’

‘Warned! You insolent friar, be you warned that there are presumptions
from the consequences of which not even your sweat-reeking habit can
protect you.’ Harshly, peremptorily, he raised his voice. ‘Don Diego!’

His intendant appeared from the other side of the companion. The man
started forward at the call, livid and trembling visibly. Don Pedro’s
orders were brisk. There were muskets in the mainmast rack. There were
men to handle them in plenty. Let this rabble be swept overboard at
once.

Don Diego hesitated. Great was his awe of the Count his master. But
greater still his awe of the Church Militant which could ride
roughshod over nobility, over royalty itself. The seamen, too, were
horror-stricken. Not one of them would move foot or hand to obey such
a command if spoken by any below the rank of the King himself.

Lest they should be tempted to do so, Frey Luis spoke a word of
warning sharply, and almost in the same breath commanded the
pursuivants to take the woman in despite of any opposition that might
be offered.

They advanced again. Don Pedro swept her into the gangway behind him,
whilst himself he blocked the entrance to it. The Lady Margaret
suffered this because, although she had not understood the
altercation, she had perceived clearly enough in the friar’s face and
manner that whatever his intention it was not friendly to herself. She
was bewildered, not knowing here who was her friend, or who her foe;
and she found no confidence inspiring her in these men in black with
the white cross embroidered on their doublets who moved in obedience
to the friar’s commands.

Out flashed Don Pedro’s sword, whilst his left hand plucked the heavy
dagger from his hip.

‘Sacrilege!’ she heard the friar denounce the act, and understood the
word.

‘Stand!’ raged Don Pedro to the pursuivants who were standing already,
halted by his naked weapons.

But they paused for no more than to draw their swords. This done they
advanced again, calling upon him to yield, reminding him of the
penalties to which this sacrilegious resistance was exposing him.

He answered them with furious mockery, with wild vituperation. Again
he summoned Don Diego and the crew to stand beside him, and because
they would not stir, but stood huddled like scared sheep, he called
them dogs and cowards and by the foulest epithets that one man may
cast upon another. Alone, then, his back protected by the gangway,
whence Margaret, white and agitated, looked on in horror, he defied
the alguaziles. He invited them to journey on his sword to the
paradise of their dreams or to the hell of which Frey Luis had
preached. He said blasphemous things which it would seem to those who
heard them must doom him irrevocably when they came to be repeated to
the Inquisitors of the Faith.

When at last they fell upon him, he stabbed one in the neck with his
dagger and sheathed his sword in the bowels of another before they
closed with him, bore him to the deck, knelt upon him, and trussed him
with leather thongs into a helpless human bundle.

They left him then to give their attention to the woman, to this
heretical witch who had been the only original object of their quest.

Stiff and straight she stood as they advanced and laid rough hands
upon her. They would have used violence to drag her forward, had she
resisted; but so as to be spared this, she made haste to advance of
her own free will.

‘What does it mean?’ she demanded of Frey Luis. ‘Is this the
protection you afford a lady in distress, a maid who cast herself upon
your pity, trusted to your priestly office? What does it mean, sir?’

The compassion of all the ages was in his great sombre eyes.

‘My sister, you have been grievously misled. The heretical godlessness
of your native land is answerable. But the poison has entered into
you. Come with me, and you shall be made sound and whole. This poison
shall be expurgated, so that you may come to be filled with grace,
delivered from the abominable practices in which Satan the seducer has
prompted you. In the bosom of the Faith you shall find infinite
compassion. Have no fear, my sister.’

To her senses all this was fantastic: the tall, lean friar with his
gaunt face and smouldering, pitiful eyes; the two black pursuivants,
coarse and bearded, who stood on either side of her; the other two
between whom stood Don Pedro, gagged and bound, his doublet torn from
neck to waist; the black sprawling figure on the deck in a puddle of
blood from which a trickle was crawling snakewise towards the
scuppers; the other on his knees, tended by Don Diego, who was
stanching the blood that flowed from the wound in his neck; the huddle
of stricken, staring seamen in the background; the masts and spars and
shrouds above; and before her, across the stretch of opalescent,
limpid water, a green hillside dotted with white houses set in gardens
or amid terraced vineyards, a straggling town dominated by a great
castle, all lying in the peaceful sparkle of the morning sun.

This was that fabulous land of Spain, the mistress of the world.




 CHAPTER XVII.
 THE HOLY OFFICE

/It/ would seem that all had been settled and predetermined by Frey
Luis with the representatives of the Holy Office in Santander that
morning before he returned to the Demoiselle to make his arrest. For
at the mole, when they landed from the barge, the prisoners found
horses and a mule-litter waiting in the charge of a small company of
javelin-men. Here no time was lost. Under the eyes of a considerable
gaping concourse of people of all conditions, attracted thither by the
presence of the apparitors of the Inquisition, the Lady Margaret was
consigned to the litter; Don Pedro was set on horseback between two
mounted alguaziles; the friar tucked up his gown to bestride a mule;
the remainder of the company, numbering in all a full score, got to
horse; and so they departed.

It had been determined that, because the seat of the Asturian nobleman
Don Pedro de Mendoza y Luna was in the neighbourhood of Oviedo, to
Oviedo he should be sent, together with the woman who was accused of
having practised magic against him. The resources of the country were
at the disposal of the Holy Office. Frequent relays of horses, such as
no other power in the kingdom, save the royal authority itself, could
have commanded, were available to the apparitors. They travelled
swiftly along the coast, with the ocean on their right and the
mountains on their left. They left Santander in the early morning of
Thursday, the 5th of October, setting foot ashore at almost the very
hour in which at Greenwich Sir Gervase Crosby and Sir Oliver
Tressilian were stepping aboard the Rose of the World to give chase.
Such good speed did those horsemen make that by the afternoon of
Sunday, dusty, jaded, and saddle-worn, it is true, they brought up at
the portals of the Holy House in Oviedo, having covered over a hundred
miles in less than three days.

To the Lady Margaret, tossed and jolted in the litter, without
knowledge of whither she was being taken or to what purpose, the
journey was but a continuation of the nightmare begun upon the deck of
the Demoiselle on Thursday morning. She afterwards confessed that for
most of the time she was in a state of stupor, her reason numbed, her
wits befogged. The only thing that she clearly perceived was that Don
Pedro was caught with her in a snare for which his own presumptuous
folly was responsible. Whatever her present danger, at least it had
removed her from all that Don Pedro had intended.

But in escaping the rock of Scylla she had been sucked into the
whirlpool of Charybdis.

She would have questioned Frey Luis during those days of travel. But
Frey Luis rigorously and studiously refrained from approaching her,
even when they paused for food or rest or change of horses.

Don Pedro, now delivered of his gag and no longer pinioned, rode
between his guards with hell in his soul, as may well be imagined. His
frame of mind needs no explaining. It could be one thing only; what it
was.

Oviedo, however, did not prove the journey’s end, as was supposed. One
night only was spent there, and this to the Lady Margaret in
conditions of discomfort such as she had never known. Don Pedro de
Mendoza y Luna was the first among Asturian noblemen, and in the
province of Oviedo, which contained his vast estates, he was accounted
second in importance only to the King himself. To proceed against him
in the very heart of a province in which he was of such weight and
consequence would be a serious step, entailing grave responsibilities
and provoking perhaps even graver consequences. It was a
responsibility which the inquisitors of Oviedo desired in common
prudence to avoid, if to avoid it were not inconsistent with their
duty to the Holy Office. Nor was his temporal consequence the only
consideration; Don Pedro commanded also spiritual and even
inquisitorial influence by the fact that the Inquisitor-General Don
Gaspar de Quiroga, the Cardinal-Archbishop of Toledo, was his uncle.
This rendered doubly grave the responsibility of dealing with his
case. A brief consideration revealed not only the prudent, but
actually the proper course to the inquisitors of Oviedo.

Don Pedro and the woman responsible for his implication in the
terrible charge which was levelled against her by Frey Luis Salcedo
should be sent for trial to Toledo where he would be under the eye of
the Inquisitor-General, his uncle. The reason for this decision, duly
registered by the notary of tribunal at Oviedo, was to be discovered
in his rank and in the particular nature of the offence.

Frey Luis, perceiving their motives and accounting them pusillanimous,
sought to combat them, and to insist that, in defiance of all perils
and worldly considerations, the matter should be dealt with here. But
his arguments were swept aside, and on the morrow he was constrained
to set out again with his prisoners upon the long journey south to
Toledo.

Upon that journey a week was spent. They quitted the Asturias by the
defiles of the Cantabrian Mountains, emerging upon the plains of Old
Castile, going by way of Valladolid and Segovia, then crossing the
Sierra of Guadarrama and descending to the fertile valley of the
Tagus. It was a journey that well might have afforded interest to an
English lady had that English lady’s interest not been already
unpleasantly preoccupied by the pains and perils of her own situation
and the gravest doubts of the future. Yet a hope she nourished based
upon her English nationality. At Oviedo she had not been brought
before any person of authority with whom she could lodge her claim for
protection at the hands of the Ambassador of France in the absence of
any ambassador of England just then at the Escurial. But when formal
action against her came to be taken, as she supposed to be the
intention, of necessity she must be brought before some court, and
then would be her opportunity.

This opportunity presented itself at Toledo on the day after her
arrival there.

The prisoners were lodged in the Holy House, as the palace-prison of
the Holy Office was always styled. A long, low, two-storied building
in a narrow street near Santo Domingo el Antiguo, it did not
materially differ in appearance from any other palace in Toledo, if we
except the splendid Alcazar crowning the granite heights of the great
city. It was almost windowless on the side of the street, as a result
of the Moorish influence, as dominant in architecture as in every
other factor of life in this city, where until less than ten years ago
Arabic was as freely spoken in the streets as Spanish, and ceased to
be spoken freely then only in obedience to the interdict against the
use of the language.

The long, low white building, then, presented to the world a
countenance almost as blank and inscrutable as that of the inquisitors
who behind its portals laboured so zealously to maintain the purity of
the Faith. Admission was gained by a wide Gothic doorway, closed by
massive double gates of timber studded with great iron bosses. Above
the doorway was hung a shield upon which was figured the green cross
of the Holy Office, a cross of two rudely hewn, rudely trimmed boughs,
from which some burgeoning twigs still sprouted; under this was to be
read the motto, _Exsurge Domine et judica causam Tuam_. In one of the
wings of the great door a smaller door or postern was practised. In
the other, at a man’s height, there was a Judas grille with its little
shutter. Through this Gothic doorway you entered a vast stone hall,
whence on your immediate right a wooden staircase ascended to the
floor above; at the inner end on the same side, a stone-flagged
corridor, like a tunnel, led away into the unknown; from this, on the
left soon after entering it, stone steps led down into cellars,
dungeons, and other underground places. From the cool gloom of the
great hall there was a view, through farther gates stoutly latticed in
their upper halves, of the sunlit quadrangle about which the building
stood; of green shrubs, of flowers, of vines carried upon a trellis of
black beams that were supported by rough-hewn granite pillars; of a
fig tree shading a brick wall, with its windlass above; and beyond all
this the fine Moorish tracery of the cloisters where black-and-white
Dominicans paced slowly in couples reciting the office of the day. A
place of infinite peace and rest it seemed, faintly pervaded by an
odour of incense and of wax from the distant chapel.

Many an unfortunate Judaizer, relapsed Morisco, or suspected heretic,
coming in terror of the apparitors who haled him thither, must upon
entering the palace have felt some of his terror melting from him in
the instinctive assurance that in such a place no evil could befall
him, an impression to be confirmed presently by the benignity of his
examiners.

By this benignity the Lady Margaret was agreeably surprised on the
morning after her arrival there, when she was fetched from the
wretched cell with its straw pallet, wooden table and chair, where she
had spent so miserable a night of sleeplessness and resentment.

Two familiars, lay brothers of Saint Dominic, conducted her to the
small room where her examiners awaited her. It was on the right of the
long corridor on the ground floor. Its windows opened upon the garden,
but they were set so high that, whilst admitting abundant light and
air, no outlook was to be obtained from them.

In this austere room with its whitewashed walls sat the ecclesiastical
court that was to make inquisition into her ladyship’s case. At an
oblong table of square deal, upon which there was a crucifix between
two tall candles and a vellum-bound copy of the Gospels, sat three
cowled figures: the presiding inquisitor, Frey Juan Arrenzuelo, with
the Diocesan Ordinary on his right and the Fiscal Advocate on his
left. At right angles with these, at the table’s end, on their left,
sat another Dominican, proclaimed, by his quills, his tablets, and the
inkstand of orange-root before him, the notary of the tribunal.

Beside the notary, on his left, sat one who did not rightly belong to
the court, and whose place in the proceedings would normally have
excluded him from open participation in them. This was the delator,
Frey Luis Salcedo, admitted here partly because of the peculiar
character of the case which would have rendered futile the concealment
of his identity, partly because his excellent knowledge of the
language of the accused rendered his presence as desirable to her as
to the court itself.

A wooden bench ranged against the wall at the back and a stool set
before the table completed the furniture of that bleak chamber.

The Lady Margaret introduced by her guarding familiars was a
startlingly different figure from the cringing, panic-stricken
prisoners whom the tribunal was accustomed to behold. Her demeanour
was proud to the point of haughtiness. Her step was firm, she carried
her head high, and between her fine brows there was a frown of
impatience, of displeasure, almost of menace. Thus might a great lady
frown upon impertinent underlings who obstructed her.

Her beauty, too, and the particular quality of it, was in itself a
disturbing factor to these austere men. She still wore that gown of
dark red velvet in which she had been carried off, with a farthingale
so narrow as to be no more than a suggestion of a farthingale,
entirely failing to dissemble the supple slimness of her body. The
corsage was cut low and square revealing the snowy whiteness of her
throat. Her exquisitely featured face was pale, it is true; the
delicate tints had faded from it under weariness and stress. But from
its pallor she seemed to gather an increased air of purity and
virginity. If the lines of her mouth were resolute, they were of a
resoluteness in dignity and good; if the glance of her blue eyes was
steady, it was a steadiness derived from a clear conscience and a
proper pride.

The inquisitors considered her in silence for some seconds as she
advanced. Then the cowled heads were lowered. It may be that her
stateliness, her calm, her beauty, and the aura of purity and worth in
which she seemed to move made them tremble lest the contemplation of
these outward and so often deceptive signs should cause them to weaken
in the stern duty that lay before them. Only Frey Luis, his cowl
thrown back from his tonsured head, continued steadily to regard her,
a sombre wonder in his deep-set eyes. He was marvelling anew, no
doubt, as he was presently to express it to the tribunal, that Satan
should be permitted so admirably and deceptively to empanoply his
servants.

The familiars halted her before the table. Frey Juan uttered three
words rapidly in Spanish, whereupon one of her guards stooped to
thrust forward the stool, and made a sign to her to be seated. She
looked questioningly at the inquisitor, who bowed his head, whereupon
composedly she sat down, folding her hands in her lap, and waited.

The familiars fell back at a sign from Frey Juan, who then leaned
forward a little, and considered her anew. Reflected light from those
whitewashed walls dispelled the shadows cast about his face by the
cowl. It was a lean, pallid face with solemn eyes and a wistful,
sensitive mouth; a gentle, pitiful face; a face to command confidence
and even affection. He spoke, and his voice was low and level, gentle
and persuasive. It went with his face, and, like it, possessed a rare
quality of attractiveness. It was impossible to mistrust or fear a man
with such a voice, at moments almost womanly in its tenderness, though
always masculine in tone. The Diocesan Ordinary beside him was a
shorter man, rubicund of countenance, with twinkling eyes and a
humorous mouth. The Fiscal was stern-faced, with deep lines in his
cheeks, which sagged below the line of his jaw giving him an almost
doglike appearance.

The inquisitor addressed her in English, which he spoke haltingly but
without other difficulty. His knowledge of the language had led to his
appointment to deal with the case. He began by asking her if she spoke
Spanish or French, and, when she had answered in the negative, he
sighed.

‘Then I do what I can in your own tongue. Frey Luis Salcedo will help
me if it is needful.’

He might have been a physician whom she had come to consult about her
health, or a Morisco merchant hoping to persuade her to make some
purchases from among his Moorish wares. He proceeded, as the forms
prescribed, to inquire her name, her age, and her place of abode. Her
replies were swiftly written down by the notary, spelled out to him by
Frey Luis.

The inquisitor passed on. ‘The informations we are given are that you
have by misfortune been reared in the Lutheran heresy. Do you confess
this?’

She smiled a little, which startled them all. It was not usual for an
accused to smile in that place, especially when asked an incriminating
question.

‘Whether I confess it or not, sir, does not seem to me to be your
concern.’

It was a moment before Frey Juan recovered. Very gently then he
addressed her:

‘It is our concern to safeguard the purity of the Faith and to
suppress all that may imperil it.’

‘In Spain,’ she said. ‘But I am not in Spain from choice or of my own
will. I have been brought here by force. I am here because of an
outrage committed by a Spanish gentlemen. The only concern with me of
Spanish laws, whether civil or ecclesiastical, if administered with
any pretence of justice, should be to right the wrong I have suffered,
and to enable me to return home with the least delay. I cannot imagine
myself before any Spanish court, civil or ecclesiastical, in any
quality but that of an accuser and plaintiff suing for justice.’

Frey Juan translated the sum of this to his fellow inquisitors.
Amazement overspread their countenances in the moment of silence that
followed before Frey Luis broke in:

‘Is more needed to establish my accusation? She stands upon forms of
law, arguing with diabolical skill, like an experienced advocate.
Heard any ever of a woman with the wit to do that? Observe her calm;
her air of insolent contempt. Has any woman ever so confronted you?
Can you doubt whence she derives her strength and whence her ready
arguments?’

Frey Juan waved him into silence. ‘You are here as a witness, Frey
Luis; not as an advocate for or against the accused. You shall speak,
if you please, only to those matters upon which you may be questioned,
only to the facts within your knowledge. Inferences from those facts,
like judgment upon them, are for us.’

Frey Luis bowed his head under the mildly delivered rebuke, and the
inquisitor passed on to answer her ladyship.

‘Courts, secular and ecclesiastical, have their forms of law upon
which it is lawful and proper to insist. Theirs it is to judge only of
torts between man and man. But this Holy Tribunal is above and apart,
since its function is to judge of the torts man does to God. Here the
ordinary forms of law do not weigh at all. We have our own forms, and
we proceed, under God’s guidance and by God’s grace, as seems best to
his holy service.’ He paused, then added, in his gentle voice, ‘I tell
you this, my sister, so that you may dismiss any hope of sheltering
yourself behind anything which may have only an accidental connection
with your case.’

Still there was no sign of dismay in those clear eyes. The frown of
impatience between them grew more marked. ‘However contemptuous you
may be of forms, and whatever the accusations you may hold against me,
there yet remains a proper form of procedure, and this must compel you
first to hear the accusation which I have to lodge, since the offence
committed against me occurred before any offence for which it can be
shown I am answerable. When you have heard this accusation, to the
truth of which Frey Luis Salcedo there is a witness, and when you have
redressed the wrong, whether or not you punish the offender, you will
find that in redressing it all occasion for any charges against me
will have disappeared. This because, as I understand you, my only
offence lies in that being a Lutheran I am in Spain. I repeat that I
did not come to Spain of my own will, and the righting of the wrong of
which I complain will itself remove me from Spain, so that I shall
cease to contaminate its saintly soil.’

Frey Juan frowned and slowly shook his head. ‘Sister, you mock!’ he
sadly reproved her.

‘Sometimes it is only by mockery that the truth may be rendered
apparent.’ Then she raised her voice, and admonished them almost
sternly. ‘Sirs, you are wasting time and abusing your powers. I am not
a subject of the King of Spain, and I am not within his dominions of
my own choice. England has no envoy at present in Madrid. But the
Envoy of France will serve my case, and I desire to appeal to him and
to place myself under his protection. You cannot deny me this. You
know it.’

‘Place yourself under God’s protection, my sister. For there is no
other protection can avail you now.’ Frey Juan grew more and more
pitiful in manner, and sincerely, for he was profoundly touched to see
this misguided creature using such vain pleas to battle against the
holy toils in which she was taken. It was like watching the futile
struggles of a netted bird, a thing to touch the heart of any
compassionate man.

He conferred with his fellows; told them of her obduracy and
perversity. The Fiscal Advocate thereafter spoke at length. The
Ordinary added a word or two of approbation. Frey Juan inclined his
head, and turned to her once more. The notary wrote briskly meanwhile.

‘We are of opinion that to cut short and end all argument, we should
take you upon your own ground. Your Lutheranism you have now admitted.
Of this we may take a merciful view, since it is an error in which you
were reared. We may also, since mercy is our norm and guide, take a
merciful view of your other errors, since they are the more or less
natural fruits of the first. But if you desire at our hands the mercy
we are so ready to dispense, it is necessary that you earn it by a
contrite spirit, and a full and frank confession of the sins of which
you are accused.’

She would have interrupted him here; but his fine hand suddenly raised
gave her pause. It would save time perhaps if she let him have his way
and heard him out.

‘The plea that you are not in Spain of your own free will cannot avail
you. You are in Spain as a result of the practices of which you are
accused. So that the responsibility for your presence here lies as
much with you as if of your own free will you had journeyed hither.’

This moved her scorn and disgust. ‘I have heard my father say that
there is no distortion of facts beyond the power of casuistical
argument. I begin to perceive how shrewdly that was said.’

‘You do not ask of what you are accused?’

‘Of carrying off Don Pedro de Mendoza, I suppose,’ she mocked him.

His countenance remained gently impassive. ‘It comes to that; it might
be so expressed.’

Her eyes grew round as she stared at him. Frey Luis was whispering
swift interpretations to the notary, whose quill scratched briskly.
For some moments it was the only sound. Then Frey Juan resumed:

‘You are accused of having exercised the damnable arts of sorcery
against Don Pedro de Mendoza y Luna, of having bewitched him, so that
false to the Faith of which he has ever been a valiant champion, false
to his honour and his God, he proposed to take a heretic to wife. You
are also accused of blasphemy, which is to be sought in the case of
one who has abandoned herself to these diabolical practices. Do you
confess your guilt?’

‘Do I confess? Confess to being a witch?’ It was too much for her
fortitude even. She pressed her hand to her brow. ‘Lord! I begin to
think myself in Bedlam!’

‘What is that? Bedlam?’ Frey Juan looked from her to Frey Luis, who
explained the allusion.

Frey Juan shrugged, and continued as if she had not spoken. ‘So that,
if the accusation is true, your plea that you are here because a
gentleman of Spain has offended against you must fail. Your claim to
appeal to the secular courts through the Envoy of France or another
must also fail. You are here because of an offence committed by you
against a Spanish noble, entailing an infinitely greater offence
against the Faith and the majesty of God which brings you within the
jurisdiction of this Holy Tribunal. You will understand now how vain
was your plea, since before any secular tribunal may hear your
accusation against Don Pedro de Mendoza y Luna, it will be necessary
that you clear yourself of the accusation against yourself.’

She answered promptly, having by now recovered her self-command. ‘That
should not be difficult, provided that there is any common-sense in
Spain. Who is my accuser? Is it Don Pedro? Does he shelter himself
behind this grotesque falsehood to escape the consequences of his
evil? Is it not clear to you that the testimony of such a man in such
a case is not to be believed, that it would not be admissible before
any tribunal having the flimsiest sense of justice?’

The inquisitor did not answer until again he had interpreted her
question, and taken the feeling of his coadjutors, and also, in this
instance, of Frey Luis.

‘All that,’ he said then, ‘is as clear to us as to you, and Don Pedro
is not your accuser. The accusation rests upon independent testimony,
and that of a man well qualified by his learning to draw conclusions.’
He paused a moment. ‘It is not the custom of this tribunal to disclose
delators to an accused. But we depart from our rule, lest you should
feel that you are receiving less than justice. Your accuser is Frey
Luis Salcedo.’

She turned her golden head to look at the friar, where he sat beside
the notary. Their glances met, and the stern, glowing eyes of the
Dominican firmly bore the scorn of her clear regard. Slowly her glance
returned to the wistful, compassionate face of Frey Juan.

‘It was to Frey Luis that I appealed for protection at a time when I
perceived myself to lie in the worst danger that may threaten a
virtuous woman. Is that his evidence that I have practised
witchcraft?’

The inquisitor asked a question of his coadjutors. They bowed, the
Fiscal rapping out a dozen words in his harsh voice, and turning as he
did so to the notary. From among his papers, the notary selected a
document which he handed to the Fiscal. The Fiscal glanced at it, and
passed it on to Frey Juan.

‘You shall hear the actual terms of the accusation,’ said the
inquisitor. ‘We show you every patience and consideration.’ He began
to read.

And now her ladyship learnt how, on the evening of her first being
carried aboard the Demoiselle, Frey Luis had listened at the cabin
door whilst Don Pedro had talked to her, and afterwards had written
down what he had overheard, a deal of it in the actual words that Don
Pedro had employed. The reading of the document revived her memories
of that interview; what Frey Luis had set down corresponded with those
memories. It was an accurate, a scrupulously accurate report.

Amongst other of Don Pedro’s sayings on that occasion to which her
attention was now drawn, the following was particularly stressed by
the beautifully modulated voice of the inquisitor: ‘I did not ask to
love you. I did not even desire it of my own volition. The desire was
planted in me. It came I know not whence, a behest which there was no
disobeying, compelling, overmastering.’

That quotation closed the lengthy charge, seeming to supply the
crowning proof and confirmation of the arguments by which Frey Luis
proceeded with his accusation. In its beginnings the accusation almost
appeared to be levelled at Don Pedro. It stated how he had boarded the
ship which had gone to fetch him from England, bearing with him a
woman whom it subsequently transpired he was abducting. Frey Luis
alluded to Don Pedro’s antecedents; the virtuous, honourable ways of
his life; the piety that had ever marked his actions and led him to
enrol himself as a lay tertiary of the Order of Saint Dominic, a
member of the Militia Christi; the clean, untainted blood that flowed
in his veins. He pointed out his difficulty in believing that such a
man should be spontaneously guilty of the offence which he found him
in the act of committing. His relief to discover that Don Pedro
included marriage in his intentions towards this woman was changed to
stark horror when he discovered her to be a heretic. If it was
difficult to believe that Don Pedro should have gone to such lengths
of violence for the gratification of carnal lusts, it was impossible
to believe that he should contemplate with equanimity the infinitely
greater sin which was now disclosed. His replies to the remonstrances
of Frey Luis showed that he had not given the matter a proper
consideration, or even ascertained what were the religious beliefs of
the woman he was proposing to make his wife. This in itself betrayed
a culpable negligence amounting in all the circumstances to a sin. He
recognized it to the extent of permitting Frey Luis to proceed to
preach conversion to this woman. But it appeared to Frey Luis that the
permission was given, not out of such zeal for the Faith as men would
have looked for in such a noble as Don Pedro, but merely out of
expediency.

Followed in great detail an account of the friar’s efforts at
conversion, of their failure, of the blasphemous pleasantries and
demoniacal arguments with which his endeavours were met by this
heretical Englishwoman, who quoted Scripture freely and perverted it
to her own ends as glibly as Satan was notoriously in the habit of
doing.

It was then that he perceived the hellish source of her inspiration,
and first conceived the true explanation of Don Pedro’s conduct to lie
in the fact that he was bewitched. This was now abundantly confirmed.
There were Don Pedro’s sacrilegious threats to himself in utter
disregard of his sacred office and the habit which he wore; there was
his violent resistance to the officers of the Inquisition at Santander
and the sacrilegious shedding of blood before he was taken; but
chiefly, and entirely conclusive, there was the admission of Don Pedro
himself--in the words quoted--that in the matter of his unholy love
for the prisoner he was driven, against his own will and desires, by a
force outside of himself, whose source he did not know, whose impulse
he had not the strength to resist.

What, asked Frey Luis in conclusion, could this force be, when all the
circumstances were considered, but the agency of Satan, exercised by a
woman who had abandoned herself to the exercise of these unholy arts?
What purpose was here to be served but to introduce the corrupting
poison of heresy into Spain through the bewitched person of Don Pedro
and the offspring of this terrible union which he contemplated?

The reading ceased. The inquisitor set down the last sheet before him,
and his piteous eyes were levelled on her ladyship across the
intervening table.

‘You know now both your accuser and the precise terms of the
accusation. Do you deny anything that is here set down?’

She was very still and white; there was no longer any challenge in her
eyes or any shadow of smile upon her lips. She began to perceive
something of the terrible toils which prejudice, superstition, and
fanatical reasoning had woven for her. But she made nevertheless a
brave effort to defend herself.

‘I deny none of the facts set down,’ she answered steadily. ‘They have
been recorded with a scrupulous accuracy, such as I should have
expected in a man of truth and honour. In fact they are as true as the
reasoning from them is untrue and as the deductions from them are
false and fantastic.’

Frey Luis translated, and the notary recorded her reply. Then Frey
Juan took up the matter with her.

‘To what force, other than the force here assumed, could Don Pedro
possibly have been alluding in his words to you?’

‘How should I know that? Don Pedro spoke in imagery, I think, seeking
in fanciful terms to palliate his monstrous offence. His explanation
was false, as false as are your inferences from it. It is all
falsehood built on falsehood. Unreason growing from unreason. God of
Mercy, it is all a nightmare! Maddening!’

Distress lent her a momentary vehemence of tone and even of gesture.

Still the inquisitor showed only a saintly patience.

‘But unless you had practised some such arts upon him, how are we to
explain Don Pedro’s betrayal of his honour, of his piety, of his duty,
and of all those things which birth and rearing are known to have
rendered sacred to him? You may not know the history of the great
House of Mendoza, a house unfailingly devoted to the service of God
and the King, or you would understand how impossible all this would be
to one of its members who had not gone mad.’

On that she answered swiftly: ‘I do not say that he has not gone mad.
Indeed, it seems the only explanation of his conduct. I have heard
that men go mad for love. Perhaps…’

But the inquisitor gently interrupted her. He was smiling wistfully.

‘You are quick to make a point.’

‘Satan lends her all his subtlety,’ growled Frey Luis by way of
interjection.

‘You are quick to make a point,’ Frey Juan repeated, ‘and to seize on
an explanation that will serve instead of the correct one. But…’ He
sighed and shook his head. ‘It is to waste time, my sister.’ He
changed his tone. He leaned forward, setting his elbows on the table,
and spoke with quiet, persuasive earnestness.

‘We who are to judge you,’ he said, ‘are also to help and serve you;
and this is the greater of our functions towards you. The expiation of
your offence is worthless unless it is sincere. And it cannot be
sincere unless it is accompanied by an abjuration of the abominable
arts to which the Devil has seduced you. For the Lutheran heresy which
you practise we must pity rather than blame you, since this is the
result of the error of your teachers. For the rest, we must also pity
you, since but for the heretical teaching behind it, this would not
have been possible to you. But if we are to render effective our pity,
and employ it as is our duty to rescue your mind from error and your
soul from the terrible peril of damnation, you, my sister, must
coöperate with us by a full and frank confession of the offence with
which you are charged.’

‘Confess?’ she cried. ‘Confess to this abominable nonsense, to these
false inferences?’ She laughed short and mirthlessly. ‘I am to confess
that the Lady Margaret Trevanion practises witchcraft? God help me,
and God help you! You’ll need more evidence, I think, than this before
you can establish so grotesque a charge.’

It was the Fiscal who, being informed of her words, delivered the
reply that became his office, requesting Frey Luis to interpret it to
her.

‘The further evidence that we may need for your conviction we look to
you to furnish us, and we conjure you to do it, so that your soul may
be saved from everlasting hell. If contrition itself, if a sincere
repentance of your faults will not suffice to draw confession from
you, the Holy Office has means at its command that will lead the most
recalcitrant to avow the truth.’

She went cold with horror at those words so coldly uttered by Frey
Luis. For a moment they robbed her of the power of speech. She was
conscious of those three cowled forms immediately facing her, and the
pitiful face of Frey Juan Arrenzuelo out of which two eyes regarded
her with a compassion almost divine in its apparent limitlessness.

He raised a hand in dismissal of her. One of the familiars touched her
shoulder. The audience was at an end--suspended, in the inquisitorial
term.

Mechanically she rose, and, knowing fear at last in fullest measure,
she suffered herself to be led back along the chill dark corridor to
her cell.




 CHAPTER XVIII.
 DOMINI CANES

/For/ two days the Lady Margaret was left to meditate in the solitude
and discomfort of her prison. Her fears having been aroused by the
parting words of the Fiscal Advocate, it was supposed that these might
now be left to the work of sapping her resistance and obduracy.

Her meditations, however, took a turn which the Inquisitors of the
Faith were very far from expecting, and this she revealed when next
she was brought to audience before them.

There had been a change meanwhile in the constitution of the court.
Frey Juan de Arrenzuelo remained to preside, and the Diocesan Ordinary
was the same rubicund and humorous-looking man whom last she had seen
on the inquisitor’s right hand. But instead of the former Fiscal
Advocate, another had been found who understood English well and spoke
it tolerably, a man this of terrifying aspect with a thin hawk-nose, a
cruel, almost lipless mouth, and close-set, ungenerous eyes which
looked as if no pitying glance had ever issued from them. The notary,
too, had been changed, and his place was taken by another Dominican
with sufficient knowledge of English to interpret for himself what
might transpire in the course of the examination he was to record.
Frey Luis was again present.

The audience was taken up by the inquisitor at the point where it was
last suspended. He began by once more entreating the accused to enable
the court to use her with clemency by a full and frank confession of
her sin.

If, on the one hand, the Lady Margaret had been weakened by fear and
by distress, on the other, she had been strengthened by indignation at
the discovery which she believed that her meditations had brought her.
To this indignation she now gave the full expression which she had
prepared.

‘Would it not better become your priestly office to depart from
subterfuge?’ she asked Frey Juan. ‘Since you claim to stand for the
truth in all things, were it not better that you allow the truth to
raise its head?’

‘The truth! What truth?’

‘Since you ask me, I will tell you. It is always possible, however
improbable, that it may have escaped you. Men sometimes overlook the
thing under their very feet. Don Pedro de Mendoza y Luna is a Grande
of Spain, a very great gentleman in this great kingdom. His actions
are those of a villain, for which the civil courts--the secular
courts, you call them--should punish him. They are also such as to
render his faith suspect. Besides, as I understand it, he has
committed sacrilege in threatening violence to a priest and
sacrilegious murder in shedding the blood of men employed by the Holy
Office. For these well-attested offences your courts of the
Inquisition should punish him. There would appear to be no escape for
him. But because he is a great gentleman…’

She was interrupted by the notary, who had been writing feverishly in
his endeavour to keep pace with her. ‘Not so fast, my sister!’

Deliberately she paused, to give him time. Indeed, she desired as
ardently as did he and every member of the court that her words should
be recorded. Then she resumed more slowly:

‘But because he is a great gentleman, and there are inconveniences in
punishing a great gentleman, who commands no doubt high influence, it
becomes necessary to shift the blame, to find a scapegoat. It becomes
necessary to discover that he was not responsible for his villainies
temporal or spiritual, that he was in fact bewitched at the time by an
English heretic whose wicked and perverse will plunged him into this
course for the purpose of destroying him in this world and the next.’

This time it was the Fiscal Advocate who interrupted her, his voice
rasping harshly.

‘You increase your infamy by a suggestion so infamous.’

The mild inquisitor raised a hand to silence him. ‘Do not interrupt
her,’ he begged.

‘I have done, sirs,’ she announced. ‘The thing is clear, as clear and
simple as it is pitiful, mean, and cruel. If you persist in it, you
will have to answer for it sooner or later. Be sure of that. God will
not permit such wickedness to go unpunished. Nor do I think will man!’

Frey Juan waited until the notary had ceased to write. His
compassionate eyes pondered her very solemnly.

‘It is perhaps natural, reared as you have been, and ignorant as you
are of us and of our sincerity, that you should attribute to us
motives so worldly and so unworthy. Therefore, we do not resent it, or
allow it to weigh against you. But we deny it. There is no thought in
our minds to spare any man, however high placed, who shall have
offended against God. Princes of the blood royal have done penance for
offences of which the Holy Office has convicted them without
hesitation or fear of their power and influence. We are above such
things. We will go to the fire ourselves sooner than fail in our
sacred duty. Take my assurance of that, my sister, and return to your
cell, further to meditate upon the matter, and I pray that God’s grace
may help you to a worthier view. It is clear that your mood is not yet
such as would enable us profitably to continue our endeavours on your
behalf.’

But she would not be dismissed. She begged to be heard a moment yet in
her own defence.

‘What can you have to add, my sister?’ wondered Frey Juan. ‘What can
you have to urge against the evidence of the facts?’ Nevertheless, he
waved back the familiars who had already advanced for the purpose of
removing her.

‘The evidence is not one of facts, but of inferences drawn from facts.
No one can prove this witchcraft with which you so fantastically
charge me by the direct evidence of having seen me distilling
philtres, or murmuring incantations, or raising devils, or doing any
of those things which witches are notoriously reputed to do. From
certain effects observed in one who to my distress and dismay has been
associated with me, and because this person is a great gentleman
towards whom it is desired to practise leniency, inferences are drawn
to inculpate me and at the same time to exculpate him. Commonest
justice, then, should admit inferences to be similarly drawn in my
defence.’

‘If they can so be drawn,’ Frey Juan admitted.

‘They can, as I shall hope to show.’

Her firmness, her candour, her dignity were not without effect upon
the inquisitor. In themselves these things seemed almost, by the
evidence of character contained in them, to rebut the charge of
sorcery. But Frey Juan reminded himself that appearances can be
terribly deceptive, that an air of purity and sanctity is the
favourite travesty used by Satan for his evil ends. He allowed her to
proceed because the rules of the tribunal expressly prescribed that an
accused should be encouraged to talk, since thus frequently many
matters that must otherwise remain hidden were inadvertently
disclosed. Calmly she posed the first of the questions she had
considered and prepared in the solitude of her cell.

‘If it is true that I used the arts of sorcery upon Don Pedro with the
object of inducing him to take me to wife and the further object of
luring him into the ways of Lutheranism which you account the ways of
damnation, why did not I keep him in England, where I could in perfect
safety have carried out my evil designs?’

Frey Juan turned to the Fiscal, inviting him to answer her, as his
duty was. A contemptuous smile curled the man’s thin lips. ‘Worldly
considerations would suffice to influence you there. The Count of
Marcos is a gentleman of great position and wealth, which you would
naturally desire to share. The position would be forfeited, the wealth
confiscated, once it were known that he remained in England as a
result of a heretical marriage. For that offence he would have been
sentenced to the fire. Because contumaciously absent, he would have
been burnt in effigy, to be burnt in his proper person later and
without further trial at any time when he should come within reach of
the arm of the Holy Inquisition.’ He smiled again, satisfied with the
completeness of his reply, and fell silent.

‘You are answered,’ Frey Juan informed her.

She had gone white in her dismay. ‘You account this piling of
absurdity upon absurdity an answer?’ It was a cry almost of despair.
Then she recovered. ‘Very well,’ she said. ‘Let us test elsewhere this
net which you have drawn about me. Have I your leave to interrogate my
accuser?’

Frey Juan questioned with his eyes first the Diocesan, then the
Fiscal. The first by a shrug and a grunt implied that the matter was
of no great consequence. The second assented sharply in his rasping
voice.

‘Why not? Let her question by all means--_ut clavus clavo
retundatur_.’

Permitted, then, she turned her gaze full upon Frey Luis where he sat
beside the industriously writing notary.

‘Amongst all that you overheard when you listened at the cabin door to
Don Pedro’s talk with me, you heard him, whilst urging me to become
his wife, inform me that there was a priest on board the ship who
would marry us at once?’

‘It is set down in my memorial,’ he answered shortly, his great eyes
almost malevolent.

‘Do you remember what answer I returned him?’

‘You returned him no answer,’ said Frey Luis emphatically.

‘But if I had bewitched him for the purpose of becoming his wife,
should I have left such a proposal as that unanswered?’

‘Silences are not to be construed as negatives,’ the Fiscal cut in.

She looked at the priestly advocate, and a wan smile momentarily
flitted across her face.

‘Let us by all means come to speech then.’ And once more she turned to
Frey Luis. ‘On the following morning when first I met you on deck,
what did I say to you?’

Frey Luis made an gesture of impatience, turning to the presiding
inquisitor.

‘The answer to this is already in my memorial. I have there set down
that she informed me that she had been brought aboard by force, that
Don Pedro sought to coerce her into marriage, and she appealed to me
for protection.’

‘If I had bewitched Don Pedro so as to induce him to marry me, should
I have made such a complaint or should I have appealed to
anyone--particularly to a priest--for protection?’

Frey Luis delivered his answer violently, the malevolence deepening in
his eyes. ‘Have I anywhere said that you bewitched him to the end that
he should marry you? How should I know the purpose of such as you? I
say only that you bewitched him, else it is impossible that a
God-fearing, pious son of Mother Church could have thought of marriage
with a heretic, that he could have threatened sacrilegious violence to
a priest, or have sacrilegiously shed the blood of men discharging the
sacred functions of apparitors of the Holy Office.’

‘If all this proves him to have been bewitched--as well it may, for I
do not understand these things--how does it prove that I bewitched
him?’

‘How?’ echoed Frey Luis, and remained staring at her with glowing eyes
until prodded into answering by the inquisitor.

‘Ay. Answer that, Frey Luis,’ said Frey Juan in a tone which, although
quiet, startled his assessors.

The truth is that--as he was subsequently to confess--a doubt had been
set astir in the mind of Frey Juan Arrenzuelo. It was a vague doubt
which had been started by her assertion that the whole accusation
against her was made with the object of rendering her a scapegoat for
the offences of Don Pedro de Mendoza y Luna. It was upon the utterance
of this accusation that he had sought to dismiss her, so that before
proceeding with her examination he might have leisure to make an
examination of conscience and assure himself completely that there was
no ground for the thing she imputed, be it in himself or in her
accuser. Since then, however, her firm demeanour which it seemed
impossible to associate with any but a quiet conscience, and the
strong inferential arguments contained in her questions, had served to
increase his doubt.

So now he insisted upon an answer from Frey Luis to a question which
he suddenly perceived that the memorial itself, to have been complete,
should have raised and answered.

The Dominican’s answer now took the shape of counter-questions. But he
addressed himself to the court. He found it impossible to support the
glance of those clear, challenging eyes of hers. ‘Is it upon this
alone that I base my accusation of witchcraft? Have I not set forth in
detail the satanical subtlety of the answers with which she met my
endeavours to convert her to the True Faith? I have not dared confess,
but I confess it now and cast myself upon the mercy of this sacred
tribunal, that there were moments when I was in danger of coming under
her infernal spells, moments when I, myself, began to doubt of truths
in Holy Writ so subtly did she pervert their meaning. It was then I
knew her for a servant of the Evil One; when she mocked me and the
holy words I spoke, with wicked, wanton laughter.’ Passion inflamed
him, and lent a warmth of rhetoric to his denunciation, at which his
hearers were inflamed. ‘It is not upon this thing or upon that that my
conviction rests, the solemn conviction upon which I have based my
accusation; but upon the aggregate of all, a sum utterly overwhelming
in its terrible total.’ He stood tense and taut, his great dark eyes
looking now straight before him into infinity, seeming to them a man
inspired. ‘I have set down what I have clearly seen with the eyes of
my soul by the heavenly light vouchsafed them.’

Abruptly he sat down, and took his head in his hands, trembling from
head to foot. At the last moment his courage had failed him. He had
not dared to add that to him the crowning proof of her evil arts lay
in the spell which she had cast over him, to assail him in the very
stronghold of his hitherto invulnerable chastity. He dared not tell
them of the haunting vision of her white throat and curving breast
which had first assailed him as he sat on the hatch coamings of the
Demoiselle, and which had constantly tormented him since then, so much
so that more than once he had faltered in his duty as her accuser, had
actually considered neglecting it on the morning that he landed at
Santander, had since been tempted to fling down the pen, to deny the
truth which he had written, and to imperil his immortal soul by lies
to save her lovely body from the fire to which injustice it was
inevitably doomed. Because her beauty assailed his senses with all the
power of some pungent, overmastering perfume, because he writhed in
longing for the sight of her and in agony for the thought of the just
doom that must overtake her, he could entertain no single doubt of her
guilt. That her spells could so beat down the ramparts of purity which
years of self-denial and piety had built so solidly about his soul was
to him the crowning proof of the abominations which she practised, of
the arts by which she went to work to weaken him whose duty it was to
destroy her. Not until that fair body, which Satan used as a lure for
the perdition of men’s souls, should have been broken by the tormentor
and finally reduced to ashes at the stake would Frey Luis account
performed the duty which his conscience imposed upon him.

He heard Frey Juan quietly asking her if she was answered, and he
heard her firm reply.

‘I have heard a whirl of meaningless words, protestations of
convictions of Frey Luis’s own, which can hardly be accounted proof of
anything. He says that I argued with subtlety in matters of religion.
I argued out of such teaching in these matters as I have received. Is
that proof of witchcraft? Then every Lutheran, it follows, is a
witch?’

This time Frey Juan made no rejoinder. He dismissed her, announcing
the audience suspended.

But when she had been removed by the familiars, he turned to Frey
Luis. To ease the disquietude of his conscience, he now subjected Frey
Luis to an examination so minute and searching that in the end the
Fiscal Advocate remonstrated with him that in his hands the accuser
seemed to have become the accused.

Frey Juan met the remonstrance with a stern reminder. ‘It is not
merely lawful, but desirable, to examine a delator closely; especially
when, as in this instance, there is no evidence other than his own.’

‘There is the evidence of the facts,’ the Fiscal replied, ‘the
evidence of words used by Don Pedro, which the woman herself admits to
have been correctly reported, and there is what Don Pedro himself
cannot deny.’

‘And,’ ventured Frey Luis, with the fierce vehemence of righteous
exasperation, ‘there is her own heresy which she has admitted. To a
heretic all things are possible.’

‘But because all things are possible,’ he was quietly answered, ‘we
are not to convict a heretic of all things beside heresy, unless we
have abundant proof.’

‘To ease your mind, Frey Juan, were it not best to put her to the
question at once?’ suggested the Fiscal Advocate. And Frey Luis, swept
by his emotions, made echo to that.

‘The question, ay! The question. Let torture wring the truth from her
evil stubbornness. Thus shall you have the confirmation that you need
for sentence.’

Frey Juan’s countenance was stern; all compassion, all wistfulness had
departed from his eyes. He turned them almost angrily upon the Fiscal.

‘To ease my mind?’ he echoed. ‘Do I sit here in this seat of judgment
to ease my mind? What is my ease of mind, what my torment of mind,
compared with the service of the Faith? The truth of these matters
shall be reached in the end, however long we labour to extract it. But
we shall extract it for the greater honour and glory of God and not
for my ease of mind or the ease of mind of any living man.’ He rose
abruptly, leaving the Fiscal Advocate silenced and abashed. Frey Luis
would have interrupted again. But he was sternly reminded that he was
not a member of that court, nor entitled to speak there save when
bidden as a witness.

In the silence that followed, Frey Juan took up the notes which the
notary had made. He read them carefully. ‘Let copies be sent to the
Inquisitor-General this evening, as he has required.’

Now the special interest in this case of the Inquisitor-General of
Castile, Gaspar de Quiroga, Cardinal-Archbishop of Toledo, was sprung
from the fact that Don Pedro de Mendoza y Luna, as we know, was his
own nephew, his only sister’s child, cherished by him in the place of
the son which his vows denied him. This fact, notorious throughout
Spain, it was which had rendered the inquisitors of Oviedo fearful of
dealing with Don Pedro’s case and had brought them to the decision of
referring it to Toledo where it would be under the eye of the
Inquisitor-General himself.

The Cardinal was profoundly distressed and perturbed. Whatever the
outcome, and however much of the blame a scapegoat might be made to
bear, the fact remained that Don Pedro had grievously offended. It
would be held that he could not have so offended had he not lapsed
from grace by some action of his own, and for this it was impossible
that he should escape punishment. Some heavy penance he would
certainly have to perform to satisfy the requirements of a tribunal
which had not hesitated in its time to impose penances upon princes of
the blood. Short of that it would be said that his uncle made an
unworthy use of his mighty and sacred office to favour his own
relatives and to relieve them of the payment of their just dues.
Obstacles enough were placed already in the path of the
Inquisitor-General by a King who with difficulty curbed his jealousy
of any usurpation of power in his dominions, by a Pope who could
hardly be said to approve the lengths to which the Holy Office carried
its ardour in Spain, and by the Jesuits who missed few opportunities
of marking their resentment of the interferences and even persecutions
which they had suffered at the hands of the Inquisition.

Nor would Don Pedro by his conduct, whether before the court appointed
to examine him or in the private audiences to which his uncle summoned
him from the prison of the Holy House where he was meanwhile confined,
do anything to lighten the task before the Inquisitor-General.

He laughed to furious scorn the charge of witchcraft levelled against
Margaret, refused utterly to avail himself of the escape which such an
accusation against her offered him, denounced himself for a scoundrel
in his dealings with her, and regarded his present difficulties as the
natural and proper punishment which he had brought upon himself. He
would accept it, he announced, with fortitude and resignation but for
the knowledge that his own villainy and the stupid bigotry of his
judges had implicated Margaret with him and placed her in a position
of danger, of the full terrors of which she would herself be scarcely
aware as yet.

To his uncle in private and, what was infinitely worse, to the
inquisitors deputed by his uncle to examine him in the court over
which Frey Juan de Arrenzuelo presided, he persisted in the assertion
that, because of his rank and his relationship with the
Inquisitor-General, it was sought to spare him the consequences of his
acts by a trumped-up tale of his having been bewitched. The Lady
Margaret, he assured his judges, hectoring them boldly and angrily,
had practised against him no magic but the magic of her beauty, her
virtue, and her charm. If these were arts of sorcery, then half the
young women in the world might be sent to the stake, for at some time
or other and against some man or other they had all exercised them.

It was bad enough to have Don Pedro thus insisting upon incriminating
himself, and saying no word that helped forward the incrimination of
the heretical woman who was at the root of all this distressing
business. To insist, almost as if attempting to persuade him, that his
very words and demeanour were but proofs that the sorcery was still
working briskly in his veins, was merely to render him ribald and
offensive in his exasperation. He called the inquisitors dolts, asses
in stupidity, and mules in obstinacy, and did not even hesitate to
tell them on one occasion that he believed it was they who were
possessed of devils, so infernally did they corrupt all things to
their own predetermined ends, so damnably did they corrupt truth into
falsehood.

‘The truth to you, sirs, is what you desire to think it is, not what
every sane evidence may reveal it. You desire no evidence save that
which will confirm your egregious preconceptions. There is no animal
in the world so hot on a false scent and so persistent as you
Dominicans. _Domini canes!_’ Deliberately he broke the word into two,
and saw by their resentful eyes that they had caught the insult he
intended. He repeated it again and yet again, rendering it each time
more clearly an invective, and finally translating it into Spanish for
them to make quite sure that his meaning did not elude them. ‘Dogs of
the Lord! Hounds of God! That is what you call yourselves. I wonder
what God calls you.’

The audience was immediately suspended, and word was sent to Cardinal
Quiroga of his nephew’s extravagant words and indecent conduct, which
left little doubt now in the mind of any of his examiners that he was
indeed the victim of arts of witchcraft. But Frey Juan now added a
note to the effect that, however persuaded they might be of this, yet
the evidence was hardly sufficient to justify sentence of the woman
Margaret Trevanion upon the charge of sorcery, wherefore he submitted
to the Inquisitor-General that this accusation against her should be
abandoned, and that the court should proceed upon the charge of heresy
alone. If she was, indeed, a witch, she would still suffer for it in
suffering for the offence which was provable against her.

A grand Auto de Fé was preparing in Toledo for the following
Thursday, the 26th of October--Frey Juan wrote on Thursday the
19th--and the charge of heresy could be disposed of so that the
accused should suffer then, whilst Don Pedro should at the same time
purge his offence by some penance in that Auto which the inquisitors
would determine and lay before His Eminence for approval.




 CHAPTER XIX.
 PHILIP II

/At/ the very hour at which the Inquisitor-General in Toledo was
considering the vexatious matters contained in Frey Juan de
Arrenzuelo’s communication, Sir Gervase Crosby was seeking audience of
King Philip II at the Escurial.

Fifteen days had been spent between Greenwich and Madrid, fifteen days
of ageing torment during which impatience at the slowness of their
progress had almost made him mad. Whilst his Margaret in her peril was
so instantly needing him, he found himself crawling like a slug across
the spaces of the earth to reach her. The voyage was a nightmare. It
had the effect of transmuting the buoyant, light-hearted lad into a
man who was stern of countenance and of heart, with a sternness which
was never thereafter quite to leave him.

They came at last into the Bay of Santander, six days after the
Demoiselle had cast anchor there. Contrary winds had delayed them. In
making the port of Santander they had no thought of following in the
track of the vessel in which her ladyship had been carried off. They
made it because it was the first port of consequence and the most
convenient whence to continue the journey to Madrid, which was Sir
Gervase’s goal. Idle to seek to ascertain whither the Lady Margaret
had been taken; idle to attempt to follow her until armed with those
powers which he hoped to wring from the King of Spain. Therefore it
was the King of Spain, that fabulously mighty prince, whom he must
seek in the first instance.

The Rose of the World flew no flag to announce her nationality as she
came to anchor in those Spanish waters. If Sir Oliver Tressilian was
fearless, he was also prudent. He would face whatever perils might be
thrust upon him. But he would not go about the world inviting peril by
any unnecessary jactancy.

Yet the lack of a flag had much the same effect to have been expected
from the display of one belonging to a hostile nation. Within an hour
of casting anchor in the bay, two great black barges came alongside
the Rose of the World. They were filled with men in steel caps and
shimmering corselets, armed with pikes and musketoons, and the first
of them bore the Regidor of Santander in person, who came to inquire
the nationality and business of this vessel, which with a row of
cannon thrusting their noses from her open ports had much the
appearance of a fighting craft.

Sir Oliver ordered the ladder to be lowered, and invited the Regidor
to come aboard, nor made any objection when six soldiers followed him
as a guard of honour.

To the King’s representative in Santander, a short, pompous gentleman
inclining, although still young, to corpulence, Sir Gervase made known
in the execrable but comprehensible Spanish which he had been at pains
to learn during his voyage with Drake, that he was a courier from the
Queen of England with letters for King Philip of Spain. In
confirmation of this he displayed the package with its royal seals and
royal superscription.

This earned him black looks together with courteous words from the
Regidor, Don Pablo de Lamarejo. Royal messengers he knew were sacred,
even when they happened to be English and heretics ripe for damnation
and deserving on that and other accounts no mercy or even
consideration from any God-fearing man. He supposed that the vessel
and crew employed to bring the messenger were to lie under the same
protecting ægis of international custom, and he even undertook, in
response to Sir Oliver’s request, to send out supplies of fresh water
and provisions.

Sir Gervase went ashore alone in the Regidor’s barge. He had requested
to land a couple of men of his own to accompany him as servants. But
the Regidor, with the utmost outward suavity, had insisted upon
supplying Sir Gervase with a couple of Spaniards for the purpose, who
would be so much more useful to him by virtue of their knowledge of
the country and the language. Sir Gervase perfectly understood the
further intention, which was that they should act as his guards.
Whilst the Regidor did not in any way dare to hinder him, at the same
time he deemed it prudent to take such measures as should make this
Queen’s messenger virtually a prisoner during the sojourn in Spain or
until the King’s Majesty should expressly decree otherwise.

This to Sir Gervase was a matter of no account. So that he reached the
King with the least delay, he cared not in what circumstances he
reached him. They could have carried him to Madrid bound hand and foot
had they so chosen.

Sir Oliver Tressilian was to remain at Santander to await his return.
Should he not have returned within exactly one month, nor sent any
message, Sir Oliver was to assume failure and go home to report it to
the Queen. On that understanding the friends parted, and Sir Gervase,
whose countenance, pallid under its sunburn, was become almost that of
a Spaniard in colour and in gravity, set out for Madrid with his two
alguaziles who pretended to be grooms. They made as good speed as the
mountainous country and the infrequent change of horses would permit.
They travelled by way of Burgos, famous as having been the birthplace
of the Cid, and of Roman Segovia on its rocky summit with its Flavian
aqueduct. But for these and other marvels of man and of nature, Sir
Gervase had no thought or care. The eyes of his soul were set
feverishly ahead, towards that Madrid, where he should find an end to
his torturing suspense, and perhaps--if God were very good to
him--find healing for his despair.

Six days did that land journey consume. And even then it was not
ended. The King was at the Escurial, that vast monastery palace on the
slopes of the Guadarrama Mountains lately completed for him by artists
and craftsmen whom he had hampered at every turn by the intrusion of
his own abominable tastes and opinions in matters of architecture and
decoration.

It was late evening when Gervase and his companions reached the
capital, and so they were forced to lie there until the morrow. Thus
the circle of a full week on Spanish soil had been completed before
Sir Gervase beheld the enormous palace which contained the monarch of
half the world. Grey, austere, forbidding stood that edifice, built,
it was said, upon the plan of the gridiron upon which Saint Lawrence
suffered martyrdom. The skies were themselves grey that morning, and
may have heightened the illusion which made the granite mass seem
almost a part of the Guadarrama Mountains that were its background,
made it appear to have been planted there by Nature rather than by
man.

Afterwards, in retrospect, that noontide seemed to him a dream,
leaving vague and misty impressions. There was a great courtyard,
where magnificently equipped soldiers paraded; a wide staircase of
granite by which an officer to whom he announced his errand conducted
him to a long vaulted gallery, whose small windows overlooked the
quadrangle of the royal wing. Here a throng moved and hummed:
courtiers in rich black, captains in steel, prelates in purple and in
scarlet, and monks in brown, in grey, in white, and in black.

They stood in groups or sauntered there, and the subdued murmur of
their voices filled the place. They looked askance at this tall young
man with his haggard eyes and cheeks that were grown swarthy under a
mane of crisp auburn hair, outlandishly dressed in clothes that were
stained by travel and with long boots on which the dust lay thickly.

But it was soon seen that he had some greater claim to audience than
any of those who had been waiting there since Mass, for without delay
came an usher to sweep him from that gallery, and conduct him by way
of an anteroom, where he was relieved of his weapons, into the royal
presence.

Sir Gervase found himself in a small room of a monastic severity,
where his nostrils were assailed by the nauseous smell of medicinal
unguents. The walls were whitewashed and without decoration beyond
that supplied by a single picture representing an infernal zodiac made
up of the whirling, flaming figures of demons and of damned.

In the room’s middle stood a square table of dark oak, plain and
unadorned, such as might be seen in any abbot’s refectory. It bore a
little heap of parchments, an inkstand, and some quills.

In a Gothic wooden chair of monastic plainness, beside this table, his
right elbow resting upon the edge of it, sat the greatest monarch of
his day, the lord of half the world.

To behold him was to experience in extreme measure the shock which the
incongruous must ever produce. It is probably common to all men to
idealize the wielders of royal power and royal dignity, to confound in
imagination the man with the office which he holds. The great title
this man bore, the great dominions over which his word was law, so
fired men’s fancy that the very name of Philip II conjured a vision of
superhuman magnificence, of quasi-divine splendour.

Instead of some such creation of his fancy, Sir Gervase beheld a
small, sickly, shrivelled old man, with a bulging forehead and pale
blue, almost colourless eyes set fairly close to a pinched aquiline
nose. The mouth was repulsive, with its under jaw thrusting
grotesquely forward, its pallid lips which gaped perpetually to reveal
a ruin of teeth. A tuft of straggling, fulvid beard sprouted from his
elongated chin, a thin bristle of moustache made an untidy fringe
above. His hair, once thick and golden, hung now in thin streaks that
were of the colour of ashes.

He sat with his left leg, which was gouty and swathed, stretched
across a cushioned stool. He was dressed entirely in black, and for
only ornament wore the collar and insignia of the Golden Fleece about
his narrow ruff. Quill in hand, he was busily annotating a document,
and in this occupation continued for some moments after Sir Gervase’s
admission, entirely ignoring his presence. At length he passed the
document to a slim man in black who stood on his left. This was
Santoyo, his valet, who received it, and dusted the wet writing with
sand, whilst the King, still ignoring Gervase’s presence, took up
another parchment from the pile at his elbow, and proceeded to deal
with it in the same way.

In the background, against the wall, two writing-tables were ranged,
and at each of these sat a secretary, writing busily. It was to one of
these, a little hairy, black-bearded fellow, that the valet delivered
the document he had received from the royal hand.

Behind the King, very tall and straight, stood a middle-aged man in
the black habit and long mantle of a Jesuit. This, as Sir Gervase was
presently to discover, was Father Allen, who might be regarded as the
ambassador at the Escurial of the English Catholics, and who stood
high in the esteem of King Philip. In the deep embrasure of one of the
two windows by which the chamber was abundantly lighted stood Frey
Diego de Chaves, Prior of Santa Cruz, a heavily built man of jovial
countenance.

The royal pen scratched and spluttered on the margin of the document.
Sir Gervase waited as immoveable and patient as the officer who had
conducted him, who remained a few paces behind him now. As he waited,
he continued in increasing wonder to consider this mean, insignificant
embodiment of the hereditary principle, and there surged in his mind
the image of some unclean spider seated in the very heart of his great
web.

At last the second document was passed to Santoyo, and the ice-cold
eyes under that bulging brow flashed a fleeting, furtive glance upon
the stalwart, dignified gentleman who stood so patiently before him.
The pallid lips moved, and from between them issued a voice, low of
pitch, dead-level of tone, and very rapid of speech. This utterance,
which so commonly exasperated foreign envoys by its elusiveness,
sounded like nothing so much as the heavy hum of an insect in that
quiet room. His Majesty had spoken in Spanish. As ill-educated and
unlettered as he was cruel, pusillanimous, and debauched, this lord of
half the world spoke no language but his own, could read no language
but his own, save only a little schoolboy’s Latin.

Sir Gervase had a knowledge of Spanish sufficient for ordinary
purposes. But of the King’s speech he had caught no single word. He
stood undecided a moment until Father Allen acting as interpreter
revealed his own English origin.

‘His Majesty says, sir, that he understands you to be the bearer of
letters from the Queen of England.’

Sir Gervase plucked the sealed package from the bosom of his doublet,
and advanced to proffer it.

‘Kneel, sir!’ the Jesuit commanded, sharp and sternly.

Sir Gervase obeyed, going down on one knee before the monarch.

Philip of Spain put forth a hand that was like the hand of a corpse.
It was of the colour and transparency of wax. He took the package,
seemed to weigh a moment whilst he read the superscription in the
unmistakeable writing of Elizabeth of England. Then he turned it over,
and considered the seals. His lips writhed into a sneer, and again
there came from him that rapid dead-level murmur of speech, the import
of which this time eluded all present.

At last with a half-shrug he broke the seals, spread the sheet before
him, and read.

Sir Gervase, who had risen again and stepped back, watched the royal
countenance with anxious, straining interest. He saw the frown
gradually descend to the root of the predatory nose, saw the lips
writhe again, and the hand that held the sheet tremble violently as if
suddenly palsied. If he thought and hoped that this reflected fear, he
was soon disillusioned. The King spoke again, and this time for all
the rapidity of his utterance rage lent a power to his voice to make
it audible throughout the chamber. Sir Gervase heard his words
clearly, and understood them as clearly.

‘The insolent bastard heretic!’ was what he said, and saying it,
crumpled the offending letter in his lean hand, as he would have
crumpled the writer could that same hand have encompassed her.

The scratching of the secretaries’ pens was suddenly suspended.
Santoyo at his master’s elbow, Father Allen behind his chair, and Frey
Diego in the window embrasure stood immoveable and appeared to have
ceased to breathe. A deathly stillness followed that explosion of
royal wrath from a prince who rarely suffered any outward sign of
emotion to escape him.

At the end of a long pause, in which he resumed his icy composure, the
King spoke again. ‘But is it possible that I am mistaken; that I do
not understand; that I misinterpret?’ He smoothed the crumpled sheet
again. ‘Allen, do you read it for me; translate it to me,’ he
commanded. ‘Let me lie under no error.’

The Jesuit took the letter, and as he read currently translated its
message into Spanish in a voice of increasing horror.

Thus was it that Sir Gervase became acquainted with the precise tenour
of the Queen’s message.

Elizabeth of England had in her time written many letters that her
counsellors must have accounted terrible; but never a letter more
terrible than this one. It was terrible in its very brevity and
lucidity, considering the message it conveyed. She had chosen to write
in Latin, and in this she informed her brother-in-law, King Philip the
Second of Spain and First of Portugal, that a subject of his, a
gentleman of his nobility, named Don Pedro de Mendoza y Luna, who,
being shipwrecked upon her shores, had received shelter and comfort in
an English house, had repaid the hospitality by forcibly carrying off
the daughter of that house, the Lady Margaret Trevanion. The bearer
would give His Majesty further details of this if he desired them. She
passed on to remind the Majesty of Spain that in her prison of the
Tower of London lay under her hand the Spanish Admiral Don Pedro
Valdez and seven noble Spanish gentlemen, besides others, taken with
him on the Andalusian flagship; and she warned His Majesty, taking God
to witness, that unless the Lady Margaret Trevanion were returned safe
and scatheless to her home, and unless the bearer of this letter, Sir
Gervase Crosby and his companions, who were going to Spain so as to
serve as escort to the lady, were afforded safe-conduct and offered no
least injury of any sort, she would send her brother King Philip the
heads of Don Pedro Valdez and his seven noble companions, and this in
despite of all usages of war and practices of nations that he might
urge.

Utter silence followed the reading for a moment. Then the King broke
it by a laugh, a short, horrible cackle of scorn.

‘I read aright, it seems.’ Then in another tone, raising his voice to
an unusual pitch: ‘How long, O Lord, will you suffer this Jezebel?’ he
cried out.

‘How long, indeed!’ echoed Father Allen.

In the window embrasure Frey Diego seemed turned to stone. His florid
countenance had become grey.

King Philip sat huddled, musing. Presently he made a gesture of
contempt. ‘This,’ he said, ‘is a puerile insolence! An idle threat!
Such a thing could not be. Her own barbarous people would not permit
such a barbarity. It is an attempt to frighten me with shadows. But I,
Philip of Spain, do not start at shadows.’

‘Your Majesty will find it no shadow when those eight heads are
delivered to you.’

It was Gervase who had spoken, with a temerity that spread
consternation in the room.

The King looked at him and looked away again. It was not in King
Philip’s power to look any man steadily in the face.

‘You spoke, I think?’ he said softly. ‘Who bade you speak?’

‘I spoke what seemed necessary,’ said Gervase, unintimidated.

‘What seemed necessary, eh? So that necessity is the excuse? I am
learning, sir. I am learning. I never weary of learning. There are
some other things you might tell me since you are so eager to be
heard.’ The menace of his cold, rapid voice, and his dead, reptilian
gaze were terrible. They seemed to suggest endless resources and utter
remorselessness in their employment. He half-turned his head, to
summon one of the secretaries. ‘Rodriguez! Your tablets. Note me his
replies.’ Then he glanced at Sir Gervase again. ‘You have companions,
this letter tells me. Where are these companions?’

‘At Santander, awaiting my return on board the ship that brought me.’

‘And if you do not return?’

‘If I am not on board by the thirteenth of November, they sail for
England to report to Her Majesty that you prefer to receive the heads
of your eight gentlemen rather than administer in your own realm the
justice which decency demands.’

The King sucked in his breath. From behind him Father Allen admonished
this daring man in English.

‘Sir, bethink you to whom you speak! I warn you in your own
interests.’

The King made a gesture to silence him. ‘What is the name of the ship
that is waiting in Santander?’

There was contemptuous defiance in the readiness with which Sir
Gervase answered.

‘The Rose of the World, out of the Fal River. She is commanded by Sir
Oliver Tressilian, an intrepid gentleman who understands the art of
sea-fighting. She carries twenty guns, and a good watch is kept on
board.’

The King smiled at the veiled threat. Its insolence was of a piece
with the rest. ‘We may test the intrepidity of this gentleman.’

‘It has been tested already, Your Majesty, and by your own subjects.
It is likely if they test it again that they will do so to their own
cost as heretofore. But if it should happen that the Rose of the World
is prevented from sailing and is not home by Christmas, the heads will
come to you for a New Year’s gift.’

Thus in rough, ungrammatical, but perfectly comprehensible Spanish did
Sir Gervase bait the lord of half the world. It inflamed his rage that
this almost inhuman prince should be concerned here only with the hurt
to his own dignity and vanity, and should give no thought to the
misdeed of Don Pedro de Mendoza, and the horrible suffering caused an
innocent lady.

But now, having drawn forth what knowledge he required, King Philip
changed his tone.

‘As for you, you English dog, who match in insolence the evil woman
who sent you on this audacious errand, you, too, have something to
learn before we finally dismiss you.’ He raised a quivering hand.
‘Take him away, and keep him fast, until I need him again.’

‘My God!’ cried Gervase in horror, as the officer’s hand closed upon
his shoulder. And because of his tone, and of a movement that he made,
the officer’s grip tightened, and he plucked a dagger from his girdle.
But Gervase, heedless of this, was appealing in his own tongue to
Father Allen.

‘You, sir, who are English, and who seem to have influence here, can
you remain indifferent when an English woman, a noble English lady,
has been carried off in this manner by a Spanish satyr?’

‘Sir,’ the Jesuit coldly answered him, ‘you have done your cause a
poor service by your manner.’

The officer pulled him forcibly back. ‘Let us go!’ he said.

But still Sir Gervase protested. He appealed now in Spanish to the
King. ‘I am a messenger, and my person should be sacred.’

The King sneered at him. ‘A messenger? Impudent buffoon!’ And by a
cold wave of the hand he put an end to the matter.

Raging, but impotent, Sir Gervase went. From the doorway, over his
shoulder whilst the officer was forcibly thrusting him out, he called
back to the Majesty of Spain:

‘Eight noble Spanish heads, remember! Eight heads which your own hands
will have cut off!’

At last he was outside, and men were being summoned to take charge of
him.




 CHAPTER XX.
 THE KING’S CONSCIENCE

/You/ have beheld an unusual spectacle. That of King Philip II of
Spain acting upon impulse and under the sway of passion. It was
conduct very far from his habit. Patience was the one
considerable--perhaps the only--virtue in his character, and to his
constant exercise of it he owed such greatness as he had won.

‘God and Time and I are one,’ was his calm boast, and sometimes he
asserted that like God he moved against his enemies with leaden feet,
but smote with iron hands.

It was not by any means the only matter in which he perceived a
likeness between God and himself, but it is the only one with which at
the moment we need be concerned. For here, for once, you behold him
departing from it, yielding to an impulse of rage provoked by the
outrageous tone of that message from the detestable Elizabeth.

This letter, with its cold threat of perpetrating an abomination
revolting to all equity and humanity, he must regard as an impudent
attempt to intimidate and coerce him. And further to incense him there
had been added to the incredible insolence of the letter, the even
more incredible insolence of its bearer.

As he presently informed Father Allen, it was as if, having slapped
his face with that impudent communication, she had entrusted its
delivery to a messenger who was to administer a kick on his own
behalf. In all his august career he could not remember to have had a
man stand before his face with such contumely and so little awe of his
quasi-divinity. Is it any wonder that this demigod accustomed only to
incense should have found his nostrils irritated by that dose of
pepper, and that under this irritation he should have become so human
as to sneeze?

He was certainly the wrong man with whom such liberties could be
taken, and of all moments in his life the present was certainly the
moment in which his temper could least brook them. At another time he
might have sustained his patience by the conviction of a heavy
reckoning to be presented to that arrogant bastard who usurped the
throne of England; he might have smiled at these stings of a gnat
which in his own good time his mighty hand should crush. But now, in
the season of his humiliation, his great fleet dispersed and
shattered, with scarcely a noble house in Spain that did not mourn a
son, his strength so exhausted that it would hardly be in his own
lifetime that the King of Spain would recover sufficiently to make
himself feared again upon the seas, he was denied even this
consolation. To the shattering blow delivered to his consequence in
the world were added now such personal insults as these, which he
could only punish by petty vengeances upon worthless underlings.

He bethought him of other letters which Elizabeth of England had
written him, defiant, mocking letters, now bitter-sweet, now
caustically sarcastic. He had smiled his patient, cruel smile as he
read them. He could afford to smile then, in his assurance that the
day of reckoning would surely come. But now that by some
incomprehensible malignity of fortune he was cheated of that
assurance, now that the day of reckoning was overpast, having brought
him only shame and failure, he could smile no longer at her insults,
could bear them no longer with the dignified calm that becomes a
monarch.

But if weakened, he was not yet so weak that he could with impunity be
mocked, coerced, and threatened.

‘She shall learn,’ he said to Father Allen, ‘that the King of Spain is
not to be moved by threats. This insolent dog who was here and those
others with him on that ship at Santander, heretics all, like her
pestilent, heretical self, are the concern of the Holy Office.’ He
turned to the bulky figure in the window-embrasure. ‘Frey Diego, this
becomes your affair.’

Frey Diego de Chaves stirred at last to life again, and moved slowly
forward. His dark eyes under bushy grey eyebrows were preternaturally
solemn. He delivered himself now of some common-sense in a deep rich
voice.

‘It is not Your Majesty who is threatened so much as those unfortunate
gentlemen who have served you well and who languish now in an English
prison awaiting the ransoms that are being sent from Spain.’

The King blinked his pale eyes. Sullenly, impatiently he corrected the
Prior’s statement.

‘They are being threatened only in their lives. I am threatened in my
dignity and honour, which are the dignity and honour of Spain.’

Frey Diego had come to lean heavily upon the heavy oaken table. ‘Will
the honour of Spain be safe if she suffers this threat to be executed
upon her sons?’

The King gave him one of his furtive glances; whereupon the Dominican
continued:

‘The nobility of Spain has been bled white in this disastrous
enterprise against England. Can Your Majesty afford to add to the
blood that has been already shed, that of so great and valuable a
servant as Valdez, the greatest of your surviving admirals; that of
Ortiz, of the Marquis of Fuensalida, of Don Ramon Chaves, of…’

‘Your brother, eh?’ the King snapped to interrupt him. ‘Behold your
impulse! A family concern.’

‘True,’ said the friar gravely. ‘But is it not a family concern also
for Your Majesty? Does not all Spain compose the family of the King,
and are not her nobles the first-born of that family? This insolent
Englishman who was lately here and his shipmates at Santander, what
are they to set in the balance against those Spanish gentlemen in
London? You may fling them to the Holy Office for heretics as is your
right, indeed, almost your duty to the Faith, but how will that
compensate for the eight noble heads--eight truncated, bleeding
heads--which the Queen of England will cast into Your Majesty’s lap?’

His Majesty started visibly, appalled by the vivid phrase. It was as
if he beheld those bleeding heads in his lap already. But he recovered
instantly.

‘Enough!’ he rapped. ‘I do not yield to threats.’ But the source of
his strength of spirit was revealed by what he added: ‘They are
threats which that woman will not dare to execute. It would earn her
the execration of the whole world.’ He swung to the Jesuit. ‘Am I not
right, Allen?’

The Englishman avoided a direct answer. ‘You are dealing, Majesty,
with a Godless, headstrong woman, a female antichrist, without regard
for any laws of God or man.’

‘But this!’ cried the King, clinging to the belief in what he hoped.

‘Execrable as it would be, it is no more execrable than the murder of
the Queen of Scots. That, too, was a deed that all the world believed
she would never dare.’

Here was a blow to the faith he built on Elizabeth’s fear of the
world’s judgment. It brought him to doubt whether, indeed, he might
not be building upon sand. It was a doubt that angered him. That he
should yield to that detestable woman’s threats was a draught too
bitter for his lips. He could not, would not swallow it, however men
might seek to press the cup upon him. He said so harshly, and upon
that dismissed both the Jesuit and the Dominican.

But when they were gone, he found it impossible to resume, as he had
intended, work upon those documents awaiting his attention. He sat
there, shivering with anger as he read again the offensive letter or
recalled again the offensive bearing of the messenger.

At long last his mind came to the matter which had provoked the
threat. In his wrath at the effect, he had hitherto neglected to cast
so much as a glance upon the cause. He pondered it now. What tale was
this? Was it even true? The Concepción which Don Pedro de Mendoza had
commanded had been definitely reported lost with all hands. How then
came Don Pedro alive? The letter, itself, told him. He had been
sheltered in an English household. He had escaped, then. And according
further to this letter, he had returned to Spain bringing with him the
daughter of the house in question. But if so, how came it that there
was no word of this return, that Don Pedro had not come to report
himself and pay his duty to his King?

One man might know: The Cardinal-Archbishop of Toledo who was Don
Pedro’s uncle.

His Majesty summoned the secretary Rodriguez, and dictated a brief
command to the Primate to wait upon him instantly at the Escurial. The
Cardinal might enlighten him upon this, and at the same time he would
take order with him, as Inquisitor-General, for dealing with these
other English heretics now lying in his power.

A courier was instantly despatched, with orders to ride all night and
spare neither himself nor horseflesh.

On that the King sought to dismiss the matter for the present from his
mind, to be resumed anon in consultation with the Inquisitor-General.
But the matter would not be dismissed. The image excited by the vivid
phrase of Frey Diego de Chaves persisted. Ever and anon as the King
looked into his lap he beheld there a little heap of bleeding,
truncated heads. One of them showed him the stern features of the
brave Valdez who had served him so well, and might but for this have
lived to serve him better; the glazed eyes of the Marquis of
Fuensalida looked up at him with undying reproach, as did the others.
He had let those heads fall so that he might preserve his dignity. But
how had he preserved it? If the act should bring execration upon
Elizabeth who had executed it, what must it bring upon him who might
have averted it, but would not? He covered his reptilian eyes with his
corpse-like hands in a futile attempt to shut out a vision that lay
within his brain. Obstinately his purpose hardened before an
opposition arising, as he accounted it, from a weakness in his nature.
He would not yield.

Late on the following evening, whilst the King was at supper, eating,
as he did all things, alone, Cardinal Quiroga was announced. He bade
him in at once, and only momentarily interrupted his consumption of
pastry to greet the Primate.

From this interview he derived at last great comfort and assurance.
Not only was Don Pedro in the prison of the Inquisition, but so was
the woman he had carried off from England. She was accused of heresy
and witchcraft. It was the exercise of her arts upon Don Pedro which
had plunged him into offences against the Faith. He was to expiate
these offences by doing penance in the great Auto de Fé which was to
be held in Toledo on the following Thursday. In that same Auto the
woman would be abandoned to the secular arm to be burnt as a witch,
together with some others whom the Cardinal enumerated. He expressed
a hope in passing that His Majesty would grace the Auto by his royal
presence.

The King took a fresh piece of pastry from the gold dish, crammed it
into his royal mouth, licked his fingers, and asked a question. What
was the evidence of witchcraft against this woman?

The Inquisitor-General, familiar now with the particulars of a case
which so closely concerned his nephew, returned a full and detailed
answer.

The King sat back and half-closed his eyes. His lips smiled a little.
He was extremely satisfied. The ground was cut from under his feet.
His duty to the Faith made it impossible for him to yield to the
demands of Elizabeth. Aforetime and successfully when protests had
been addressed to him from England on behalf of seamen who had fallen
into the hands of the Inquisition, he had replied that it was idle to
appeal to him for anything that lay outside the province of the
secular power in Spain. In matters of the Faith, in the province of
God, he had no power to interfere with the proceedings of the Holy
Office to which he might himself be amenable did he offend against
religion. And this was no piece of hypocrisy. It was entirely sincere.
As sincere as was now his thankfulness that, if those noble Spanish
heads must fall as a consequence, none could reproach him with it. The
whole world should hear his answer to the Queen of England: that not
by him, but by the Holy Office, had judgment been passed upon crimes
against the Faith; if meanly to avenge this upon guiltless gentlemen
she took their innocent lives, there being against them no charge to
warrant putting them to death, the responsibility for that dark deed
must lie upon her evil soul as surely as it must earn her the contempt
and reprobation of the world.

And since his duty to the Faith, whose foremost champion he was, now
bound his hands, he need fear no more the vision of those bloody heads
in his lap.

Of all this, however, he said nothing to Quiroga. He thanked His
Eminence for information which he had been driven to seek, because a
rumour had reached him that Don Pedro de Mendoza was alive, and so
dismissed him.

That night the King of Spain slept peacefully as do men whose
consciences are tranquil.




 CHAPTER XXI.
 THE CARDINAL’S CONSCIENCE

/After/ Vespers on Sunday, which the Cardinal-Archbishop had returned
to celebrate in person in Toledo, having for the purpose quitted the
Escurial at dawn and travelled at a speed possible only to royal or
inquisitorial personages, His Eminence took up the papers concerned
with the case of his errant nephew. He recalled that, when the royal
messenger had arrived to summon him to the Escurial, he had been on
the point of sending for the Inquisitor Arrenzuelo so as to discuss
with him certain points in it which remained obscure.

Having refreshed his memory upon those points, which were contained in
the appended note from Arrenzuelo, having indeed given them now an
attention--prompted by his recent interview with the King--which they
had not at first received, the Inquisitor-General found himself
assailed by something of the uneasiness in which Frey Juan wrote. It
appeared to him that they were here upon the edge of complexities
which Arrenzuelo himself had failed to appreciate. He sent for him at
once, and Frey Juan was prompt and even eager to obey the summons.

Honest and God-fearing, Frey Juan de Arrenzuelo never hesitated
frankly and fully to express the doubts by which he was assailed once
the Inquisitor-General had invited him to do so.

He began by confessing that all might well be as Frey Luis Salcedo so
cogently reasoned in his accusation. But in his conscience he could
not account the accusation of witchcraft proven. Because for Don
Pedro’s sake he desired to account it proven, he must practise the
greater vigilance over his judgment. It was so perilously easy to
believe what one desired to believe. The acts and words from which
Frey Luis made his deductions, although clearly of the utmost gravity
in the aggregate, might nevertheless be susceptible of interpretations
quite other than those which he placed upon them.

It might well be, for instance, as Don Pedro himself insisted, that
the only magic the woman had used had been the magic which Nature
places in the hands of every woman. God had placed women in the world
to test men’s fortitude. Don Pedro might have succumbed; and,
succumbing, have grown unmindful of all those guides of conduct proper
to a God-fearing man. In his desire to make this woman his wife, he
had neglected to ascertain that she was a Lutheran. This in itself was
serious. But after all Don Pedro had immediately perceived its
seriousness when pointed out to him, and had been ready, even eager,
that the woman should be converted to the True Faith. The words he had
used to her, where he spoke of forces outside himself which had driven
him to love her, words to which Frey Luis attached so much importance,
might also be no more than the fantastic vapourings of a lovelorn man.
Frey Juan did not say that any of this was so. He merely displayed the
doubts which had come to afflict him on this question of sorcery. He
concluded with the statement that the woman was of an unusual and
commanding beauty, such as had often driven men to extravagances of
conduct.

Cardinal Quiroga, a tall, handsome, vigorous man of fifty, imposing in
his scarlet robes, sat stern and thoughtful, his hands clasping and
unclasping the carved arms of his great chair. They were beautiful
hands, and it was said that to preserve their beauty of texture he
wore, whilst sleeping, mittens that were rubbed in lamb’s fat. He
looked at the tall Dominican who stood before him in his
black-and-white habit, his pallid face in every line of which
self-abnegation had set its imprint, as thoughtful as the Cardinal’s
own. His Eminence spoke slowly.

‘I perceive the difficulty. I suspected it before you came, which
indeed was the reason why I sent for you. Nothing that you have said
has done anything but increase it. Do you offer no counsel?’

They looked into each other’s eyes. Frey Juan made a little gesture of
helplessness, slightly raising his shoulders.

‘I seek the path of duty. It seems to me almost that it must lie in
abandoning this charge of sorcery of which we have no clear,
irrefutable evidence. Both the prisoner and your nephew himself meet
the charge by accusing us of having invented it so as to shelter Don
Pedro from the consequences of having slain an officer of the Holy
Office.’

‘Since that is not true, why need it perturb you?’

‘It perturbs me that if really innocent of sorcery the woman is
justified in believing it true. There remains against her the offence
of heresy, which must be purged. But I desire her conversion and the
salvation of her soul, and how shall we accomplish this if we are
discredited in her eyes by her conviction that we proceed as we do out
of ignoble worldly motives?’

The Cardinal bowed his head. ‘You probe deeply, Frey Juan.’

‘Is my duty less, Eminence?’

‘But, if this charge of sorcery is abandoned, what then of my nephew?
He has committed sacrilege, other sins apart. For that a heavy
expiation is required--his very life is forfeit--unless it can be
shown that responsibility for his actions lies elsewhere.’

Frey Juan stiffened. ‘Are we to fall into the very offence of which
already this woman accuses us?’ he cried. ‘Are we to justify her
accusation?’

That brought the Cardinal to his feet. He stood as tall as Frey Juan,
confronting the sudden sternness of the Dominican, a flush upon his
cheeks, a kindling of anger in his dark eyes.

‘What do you presume to conclude?’ he demanded. ‘Could I have said
what I have said in the assumption that my nephew is guilty? Am I not
entitled, by every act of his past life, to assume him innocent of
intentional evil, and to believe that he must, indeed, have been
bewitched? That is what, in my conscience, I do believe,’ he insisted.
‘But because we lack the means fully to establish this thing, is Don
Pedro de Mendoza to be left to suffer infamy, death, and the
confiscation of his estates?’

If Frey Juan remained unconvinced of the Cardinal’s sincerity and
freedom from nepotism, he was willing charitably to believe that his
affection for his nephew made him build assumptions into convictions.

He perceived the dilemma; but he could do no more than briefly
recapitulate the situation.

‘The actual facts upon which Frey Luis has built his accusation are
admitted by the prisoner. What she does not admit, what indeed her
arguments go some way to dispel, are the inferences drawn from them by
Frey Luis. These inferences are undoubtedly cogent, plausible, and
well-reasoned. Yet, as the evidence stands, and without independent
confirmation, it does not permit us to sentence the accused. I do not
see,’ he ended gloomily, ‘whence this confirmation is to be obtained.’

‘Whence but from the prisoner herself!’ exclaimed the Cardinal, in the
tone of a man who states the obvious.

Frey Juan shook his head. ‘That I am persuaded she will never yield.’

Quiroga looked him in the face again, and his eyes narrowed.

‘You have not yet proceeded to the question,’ he softly reminded him.

Frey Juan spread his hands. He spoke in a tone of self-accusation. ‘If
I have not employed it, although urged to it already by my assessors,
it is because of my fear, my firm persuasion that it must fail.’

‘Fail!’

The amazement of the exclamation was eloquent indeed. It provoked a
wistful little smile from the Dominican.

‘You have not seen this woman, Eminence. You have had no opportunity
of judging the strength of her spirit, the toughness of her fibre, the
determination of her nature. If the truth sustains her--as well it
may, remember, in this matter of witchcraft--I do not believe that, if
the tormentors were slowly to rend her limb from limb, an
incriminating admission would be wrung from her. I say this upon long
and deep consideration, Eminence. My office has taught me something of
humanity. There are men and women in whom mental exaltation produces a
detachment of the spirit which renders them unconscious of the flesh,
and, therefore, insensible to pain. Such a woman do I judge this one
to be. If innocent of sorcery, consciousness of her innocence would
produce in her such an exaltation.’

He paused before concluding: ‘If we are to persist in the accusation
of sorcery, we may have to come to the audience of torment before the
end is reached. But, if we come to it, and fail in spite of it, as I
believe we shall, what will then be the position of Don Pedro de
Mendoza?’

The Inquisitor-General sat down again, heavily. He sank his chin to
his breast, and muttered through his teeth: ‘Devil take the fool for
having placed himself in this position!’ More vehemently he added:
‘And Devil take this Frey Luis Salcedo for yielding to his excessive
zeal!’

‘Frey Luis acted in accordance with his lights and without regard to
anything but his duty to his habit. He was within his rights,
Eminence.’

‘But something rash, I think. Yourself you have come to perceive it
and to be troubled by it. An accusation of this nature should never
have been brought until I had been consulted. Witchcraft is a charge
never easy to establish.’

‘Yet had the accusation not been lodged, Eminence, in what case must
Don Pedro have found himself?’

The Cardinal raised his hands, and let them fall back resoundingly and
heavily upon the arms of his chair. ‘Yes, yes! So we swing--backwards
and forwards--in this matter. We are in a circle which we cannot
break. Either this woman is convicted of having bewitched my nephew,
or else Don Pedro is guilty of an offence for which the Holy Office
prescribes the penalty of death with confiscation of his possessions;
and you tell me that you do not believe the woman can be so
convicted.’

‘That is my firm persuasion.’

The Cardinal heaved himself up slowly, a deep frown of perplexity
between his fine, thoughtful, wide-set eyes. He paced slowly the
length of the room and back, his chin sunk upon his breast, and for
some moments there was no sound there beyond the soft fall of his
slippered feet upon the wood mosaics of the floor, the rustle of his
trailing gown of scarlet silk.

At length he came to stand once more before the Dominican. He looked
at him with eyes that did not seem to see him, so introspective was
their gaze. His fine hand, on which a great sapphire glowed sombrely,
toyed absently with the broad jewelled cross that hung upon his
breast. His full lips parted at last. He spoke very quietly and
slowly.

‘There is, I think, a way out of this difficulty, after all. I
hesitate even now to urge its adoption, because it might appear to
some to be not quite a legitimate way according to the laws that
govern us.’ He broke off to ask a question. ‘Is it a truth, Frey Juan,
that the end may justify the means?’

‘The Jesuits assert it,’ answered the Dominican uneasily.

‘Here is a case that may serve to show that they are sometimes right.
Consider me now this nephew of mine. He is a man who has served God
and the Faith as loyally as he has served his King. As much in the
service of one as the other did he sail upon the ship which he
commanded. He is a tertiary of the Order of Saint Dominic, and a man
of a devout and God-fearing nature. Remembering all this, are we not
justified of the persuasion that it would have been impossible for him
to have committed the offences against the Faith with which he is now
charged unless he had been the victim of some aberration? Whether this
aberration was the result of black arts employed against him,
according to the arguments of Frey Luis Salcedo, or whether, as you
seem to consider a possible alternative, it results from the simple
and normal magic of Nature in such cases, we may be able to determine
later. At the moment all that we can determine is that the aberration
exists. Of this, you, who have examined him and the English woman,
entertain, like myself, no doubt?’

‘No doubt whatever,’ answered Frey Juan promptly and truthfully.

‘In that case, there would be no violence to our consciences or our
duty if we were in this instance to reverse the normal order of
procedure. The proper course is naturally that we first sift the
charge against the woman, so as to establish clearly the grounds upon
which Don Pedro is to be sentenced. But since in our own minds and
consciences these grounds are firmly established already, might we
not, ignoring the forms of law, proceed at once to sentence Don Pedro
upon the indictment as drawn up by Frey Luis Salcedo? Upon that, which
presumes that he was bewitched and not responsible for his deeds, the
Holy Office will be appeased by imposing a penance _de leviter_, but
public, to be performed at next Thursday’s Auto de Fé. Thus he will
be purged of his sin before we finally proceed against the woman. If,
then, the charge of witchcraft should fail for lack of confirmation,
and only the charge of heresy remain upon which to sentence her, at
least it will be too late to reopen the case against Don Pedro.’

The Cardinal paused, his eyes closely scanning the face of his
subordinate inquisitor.

Frey Juan remained gravely impassive. It was a moment before he spoke.

‘I, too, had thought of that,’ he said slowly.

The Cardinal’s glance quickened. His hand fell upon the Dominican’s
shoulder and gripped it. ‘You had! Why, then…?’ He left his question
there.

But Frey Juan shook his head, and sighed. ‘It is never too late in
questions of the Faith to reopen a case against an accused, if it is
shown that there was more against him than appeared at the trial in
which he was sentenced.’

‘Why, that I know. But here… Who is there would dream of reopening
it?’

Frey Juan hesitated before answering. ‘There are other consciences
than ours, Eminence. An enemy of Don Pedro’s might be moved by his
conscience to see him expiate to the full his offence against the
Faith. A successor of mine or yours, Eminence, perusing the records
might perceive the irregularity and be moved to correct it.’

‘Those risks we could take without loss of sleep.’

‘Those, perhaps yes. But there is yet another. There is the delator,
Frey Luis Salcedo.’

The Cardinal stared at him. ‘Frey Luis Salcedo? But it is he who
argues and insists upon the witchcraft!’ He removed his hand from the
Dominican’s shoulder as he spoke.

‘I say it without hostility to him, Eminence: his zeal is greater than
his discretion. He is of a terrible singleness of aim, and in this
matter he has shown a tenacity and persistence which have led me to
remind him that hatred, even when springing from righteousness, can be
a mortal sin. If I know him at all, he will be driven to frenzy if the
accusation of witchcraft is not established. He is intolerant of all
doubts in the matter; violent in asserting his conviction and in
insisting upon the cogency of his arguments. If the witchcraft being
presumed, we penance Don Pedro _de leviter_, Frey Luis will be the
first to raise an outcry and denounce that penancing as a mockery
should the witchcraft not subsequently be proven against the woman.’

The Cardinal, a human man after all, not to be blamed by any
reasonable person for his efforts on his nephew’s behalf, flushed now
with anger.

‘But for what does he count, then, this man, in your tribunal? He is
but a witness there, without powers or voice of any kind.’

‘He has the voice of a delator, and the voice of a delator is the one
voice which the Holy Office has no power to silence. The Fiscal
Advocate has been on his side in what arguments we have had, and I
think that even the Diocesan Ordinary is becoming impatient with my
endeavours to hold the scales level. In their opinion, I am too tender
of a heretic.’

The Inquisitor-General looked into the fine ascetic face of his
subordinate.

‘You think that Frey Luis might become vindictive?’

‘That is what I have hesitated to say. But since Your Eminence has
used the word, I confess that it is what is in my mind. If the woman
is sentenced only as a heretic, he may take vengeance upon those whom
he regards as having frustrated him, by seeking in turn to frustrate
them where Don Pedro is concerned; by demanding that Don Pedro be
tried again, and sentenced for deeds which will then be beyond
condonation.’

Cardinal Quiroga was reduced to exasperation. He could only cry out
again that they were held within a circle so that in whatever
direction they moved they encountered ever the same points. He became,
on the subject of his nephew and his folly, as nearly blasphemous as
was possible to a prelate in the presence of a subordinate. Finally he
urged that they should stake everything upon the question and its
efficacy in wringing the requisite admission of guilt from the woman.

Frey Juan bowed his head. ‘If Your Eminence commands it, as is your
right,’ he said. ‘But I solemnly warn you that it is a stake upon
which Don Pedro will lose all.’

This the Inquisitor-General perceived was but to recommence the
arguments, to make another turn round that exasperating circle.
Abruptly he dismissed Frey Juan.

‘I must consider,’ he announced. ‘It is all before me now. I shall
pray for guidance, and do you do the same, Frey Juan. Go with God!’




 CHAPTER XXII.
 THE ROYAL CONFESSOR

/With/ the full facts of the sequel before us in intimate detail (for
even where these details depend upon inference, the indications are
too clear to admit of error), it may be permissible to point out--as
has been pointed out so repeatedly already--that the most trivial
causes may be pregnant of the most terrible and even tragical effects.

Grotesque though it may seem, it is hardly too much to conclude that,
if King Philip of Spain had been less gluttonously addicted to pastry,
the fortunes of the Lady Margaret Trevanion, whom he had never seen
and whose very name, heard but once, he did not even remember, would
have run a totally different course.

On that Sunday night, at the Escurial, the lord of half the world
indulged that gluttony of his to a more than normal degree. In the
early hours of Monday morning he awoke in a cold sweat of terror with
a cramp in the pit of his stomach produced, as he believed even after
awakening, by the weight upon it of the bloody heads of eight
gentlemen of Spain.

He sat up in his great carved bed with a scream which brought Santoyo
instantly to his side. The valet found him straining frantically to
thrust with both hands that imagined bloody heap from his royal lap.

There were cordials and sedatives at hand prescribed for the use of
this sickly, valetudinarian monarch, and practice had rendered Santoyo
expert in the administration of them. Quickly he mixed a dose. The
King drank it, lay down again in response to the valet’s
solicitudinous advice, and, partially soothed, remained thereafter
gently moaning.

The valet sent for the physician. The latter when he came, probing by
questions to discover the cause of this sudden indisposition, came
upon the pastry, and shrugged his shoulders in despair. He had
remonstrated about it before with the King, and had been vituperated
for his pains and dubbed an incompetent, ignorant ass. It was not
worth his while to risk the loss of the King’s confidence by venturing
again to tell him the truth.

He took counsel with Santoyo. The sleek, shrewd Andalusian valet
suggested that it might be a matter for the King’s confessor. Santoyo
had picked up a good deal of theology in King Philip’s service, and he
was aware that gluttony was one of the seven deadly sins. Restraint
might be imposed upon His Majesty if it were delicately pointed out to
him that these excesses were of spiritual as well as physical injury;
in other words, that in ruining his digestion he also damned his soul.

The physician, something of a cynic, as such men must be who have so
wide and so intimate an acquaintance with their fellows, wondered from
which of the other six deadly sins the King had ever been made to
abstain by fear of damnation. In fact, he rather regarded His Majesty
as an expert in the practice of the deadly sins, immunity from the
consequences of which he no doubt ensured himself by the perfervidness
of his devotions.

Santoyo, however, was much more practical. ‘A deadly sin that brings
no evil material sequel to the satisfaction afforded by committing it
is one thing. A deadly sin that gives you the stomach-ache is quite
another.’

The physician was constrained to acknowledge that the valet was the
greater philosopher, and left the matter in his hands. Later in the
course of that Monday, Santoyo sought Frey Diego de Chaves, and told
him what had passed: he gave him details of the King’s indigestion,
its probable cause and peculiar manifestation.

Santoyo was flattered by the unusual and lively interest which the
royal confessor displayed. He knew himself for the best valet in
Spain, and much else besides; but he now gathered, from Frey Diego’s
warm commendation of his zeal and conclusions, that he was also a
considerable theologian.

He was not aware of the distress of mind in which he had found the
Prior of Santa Cruz, or of how opportunely the matter came to his
need. Ramon de Chaves, the Prior’s elder brother, and the head of that
distinguished family to which the Prior was himself an ornament, was
one of the eight gentlemen in the Tower of London whose heads were
placed in jeopardy by what Frey Diego accounted the fierce inhumanity
of the Queen of England and the proud obstinacy of the King of Spain.
When Santoyo found him, he had been mentally torn between philosophic
reflections upon the peril and futility of serving princes and
practical considerations of how he might so move the King as to
abstract his brother’s head from the English axe.

The advent of Santoyo with his tale was like an answer to the prayers
which last night he had addressed to Heaven. It opened out before him
a way by which he might approach the King in the matter, without
appearing to be actuated by any considerations of serving his own
family. He was too well acquainted with the King’s dark nature to
entertain any hopes of moving him by entreaties.

The difficulty lay in the fact that the King usually confessed himself
on Fridays, and this was Monday. The Prior had also informed
himself--again out of fraternal solicitude--that there was to be an
Auto de Fé in Toledo on Thursday when the English woman who was at
the root of all this bother was to be burnt as a witch or a heretic,
or both; and he knew that once this happened, whatever else might
happen, nothing could save his brother’s head from the sawdust.

Thus you have the interesting situation of the Inquisitor-General,
moved by nepotism on the one hand, and the Prior of Santa Cruz, also
an Inquisitor of the Faith, moved by brotherly love, on the other,
both seeking a scheme by which to frustrate the ends of the Holy
Office.

The Prior, betraying to the valet solicitude only for the condition of
the King, left it to him to induce His Majesty to send for him at the
earliest moment. To reward his affection and fidelity to the King, to
mark his appreciation of Santoyo’s zeal in matters of religion, and to
encourage its continuance, the Prior made him a handsome present, gave
him his blessing, and so dismissed him. Thereafter Frey Diego awaited
the royal summons with some confidence.

Santoyo went to work astutely, postponing all operations until the
King should afford him a clear opening.

Philip II had been at his eternal labours of annotating documents in
that monastic room in which he worked. These Santoyo had taken from
him, dusted with pounce where necessary, and passed on to the
secretaries, as usual, closely watching his royal master the while.

Came a moment when the King paused in his labours, sighed, and passed
a hand wearily across his pallid brow. Presently he stretched out his
hand to take another document from the pile on the oak table at his
elbow. It resisted him. He turned his head, and found Santoyo’s hand
pinning down the heap of parchments, Santoyo’s eyes gravely upon him.

The heavy insect-like drone of the royal voice sounded in the room.
‘What is it? What do you do?’

‘Has not Your Majesty laboured enough for to-day? You will remember
that you were indisposed in the night. Your Majesty shows signs of
weariness.’

This was an unusual interference, almost an impertinence on the part
of Santoyo. The King’s pale cold eyes looked up at him, to drop again
immediately. Not even the glance of his valet could this man support.

‘Of weariness?’ he hummed. ‘I?’ But the suggestion did its work upon
that sickly and enfeebled body. He removed his hand from the
parchments, and reclining in his chair closed his eyes, so as to
concentrate upon himself, and discover whether his valet might not be
right. He found himself weary, indeed, he thought. He opened his eyes
again.

‘Santoyo, what did Gutierrez say of my condition?’

‘He seemed to think that it arose from too much pastry…’

‘Who told him that I ate pastry?’

‘He asked me what you had eaten, Majesty.’

‘And so, to hide his ignorance, he fastened upon that. The ass! The
unspeakable ass!’

‘I told him, Majesty, that he was clearly wrong.’

‘So, so? You told him he was wrong. Behold you turned doctor, now,
Santoyo!’

‘It scarcely needed a doctor to perceive what ailed Your Majesty. As I
told Master Gutierrez, the unrest came not from your stomach, Majesty,
but from your spirit.’

‘Tush, fool! What do you know of my spirit?’

‘What I gathered from Your Majesty’s words when you were stricken in
the night.’ And he went on quickly: ‘Frey Diego de Chaves said
something here on Friday which preyed upon your mind, Majesty. It
would need the Prior of Santa Cruz to heal the wound he opened, to
restore you the quiet that Your Majesty’s spirit needs.’

Now this was a disturbing reminder. It brought back the vivid phrase
which had haunted the King ever since. At the same time it showed the
King the shrewdness of Santoyo’s diagnosis. He muttered something
utterly inaudible, then, rousing himself again, put forth his hand to
resume his labours. This time Santoyo dared not hinder him. But whilst
he annotated the document he had taken, Santoyo behind his back was
guilty of shuffling the waiting heap so that a sheet which had been at
the bottom of the pile was now uppermost, and was the next to be taken
by the King.

In this Santoyo revealed his shrewdness even more signally. Well aware
of what was troubling the royal mind, of the mingled rage and fear and
obstinacy provoked by the Queen of England’s letter, he concluded that
these emotions must be fed if His Majesty was to seek relief of them
at the hands of the Prior of Santa Cruz, as Santoyo was conspiring
that he should.

The letter which he had now judged it suitable to bring to the top of
the pile--on the principle of striking the iron whilst it was hot--was
from the Duke of Medina Sidonia, who had led the disastrous adventure
against England. It was a letter which had arrived that morning, most
opportunely.

The old Duke wrote humbly from his retirement to inform King Philip
that he had sold one of his farms to raise the heavy sum required by
England for the ransom of the gallant admiral Pedro Valdez. It was a
small enough act, the Duke protested, imploring His Majesty to behold
an earnest of his love and loyalty in this sacrifice made to restore
to Spain the services of the first of her surviving admirals.

The letter fluttered from the royal fingers gone suddenly nerveless.
He sank back in his wooden monastic chair, closed his eyes and
groaned; then opened them again and raged.

‘Infidel! Bastard! Excommunicate heretic! Indemoniated she-wolf!’

Santoyo was leaning over him in solicitude. ‘Majesty!’ he murmured.

‘I am ill, Santoyo,’ droned the dull voice. ‘You are right! I’ll work
no more. Give me your arm.’

Supported by a stick on one side, and leaning heavily on Santoyo on
the other, he hobbled from the room. Santoyo craftily introduced again
the name of Frey Diego de Chaves, suggested mildly that perhaps His
Majesty required spiritual advice. His Majesty bade him be silent, and
he dared not insist.

But that night again King Philip’s sleep was troubled, and this time
there was no pastry to account for it--at least, not directly. Perhaps
it was that the terrible images excited by the indigestion of Sunday
night left their memories in his brain, so that they recurred now
without extraneous stimulus; and undoubtedly they were assisted to
recur by the thought of that letter from Medina Sidonia announcing the
despatch of the ransom of that gallant Valdez, whose head was ever the
foremost in that imagined heap in the royal lap, whose head must fall
lest Elizabeth of England should be able to announce with a laugh that
she had coerced Philip of Spain.

Another twenty-four hours of such haunting as this, and at last on
Wednesday morning, after yet another night of broken sleep, the King
capitulated to the repeated suggestion of his valet that he should see
his confessor. It may be that at the back of his mind, if only
subconsciously, there was the thought of the Auto de Fé on the morrow
and the knowledge that if he delayed another twenty-four hours, it
would be too late for action of any kind.

‘In God’s name!’ he cried at last, to Santoyo’s insistence, ‘let Frey
Diego come. Since he raised these ghosts, let him come and exorcise
them.’

The Prior of Santa Cruz did not keep the King waiting. He had been
watching the passage of the hours in a mounting fever of panic. He had
reached that point where, whether the King sent for him or not, he
would use his position as keeper of the royal conscience to thrust
himself upon the King and make a last effort by intercession, by
reasoning, by bullying at need, to save his brother’s head. But since
the King sent for him, even at this late hour, all was well. He would
lay aside those weapons of despair until others failed.

Calm and self-contained looked the portly man as he entered the royal
bedroom, and, having dismissed Santoyo and closed the door, approached
the great carved bed in that austere room, flooded now with the
sunshine of the autumn morning.

He drew up a stool, sat down, and, after some platitudes on the score
of the royal health and in answer to the royal complaints, he invited
the King to confess himself and so ease his soul of any troublesome
burden which might be retarding the healing of his flesh.

Philip confessed himself. Frey Diego probed the royal conscience with
questions here and there. As a surgeon dissects and lays bare the
recesses of the body, so did the Prior of Santa Cruz now dissect and
lay bare some of the horrible recesses of King Philip’s soul.

When it was done, and before he passed to the awaited absolution, Frey
Diego diagnosed the royal condition.

‘It is so plain, my son,’ he said in the paternal tone of his office.
‘In this distemper which afflicts you, two deadly sins are
coöperating. You will not be healed until you cast them out. Neglect
to do so will destroy you here and hereafter. The indigestion
resulting from the sin of gluttony let loose against you tormenting
visions resulting from the sin of pride. Beware of pride, my son, the
first and deadliest of the sins. Through pride was Lucifer cast out of
his high place in heaven. But for pride there would have been no
devil, no tempter, and no sin. It is Satan’s great gift to man. A
mantle so light that a man may wear it without consciousness that it
sits upon his shoulders, whilst in the folds of it are sheltered all
the evils that labour for man’s eternal damnation.’

‘Jesu!’ droned the King. ‘All my life I have studied humility…’

The confessor interrupted him, where the man would not have dared.
‘The visions that you tell me have haunted you these nights, whence
come they, think you?’

‘Whence? From regret, from fear, from love for those gentlemen of
mine, whom that evil heretic in England is to butcher.’

‘Unless you banish the pride which prevents you from putting forth
your hand to save them.’

‘What? Am I the King of Spain, and shall I bow my neck to that
insolent demand?’

‘Unless the deadly sin of pride insists that you carry your head erect
whilst eight noble lives are immolated on the altar of pride.’

The King writhed as if in physical pain. Suddenly he rallied,
perceiving something that had been overlooked, something in which he
fancied that he must find salvation.

‘I can do nothing if I would. The matter is out of my hands. I am but
King of Spain. I do not rule the Holy Office. I do not presume to
meddle in the Kingdom of God. I do not presume, I say: I, whom you
accuse of pride.’

But the Prior of Santa Cruz smiled pityingly as his eyes momentarily
met the King’s furtive glance. ‘Will you cheat God with such a
subterfuge? Do you think God is to be cheated? Can you conceal from
Him what is in your heart? If the good of Spain, valid reasons of
State, demand that you should stay the hand of the Inquisition, is
your Inquisitor-General to deny you? Has no King of Spain ever
intervened? Be honest with your God, King Philip. Behold already one
of the evils which I warned you lurk within pride’s mantle. Cast off
that mantle, my son. It is a garment of damnation.’

The King looked at him and away again. There was agony in those pale
eyes--the agony of pride.

‘It is unthinkable,’ he droned. ‘Must I humble myself…’

‘Out of your own mouth, my son!’ Frey Diego cried in a voice like a
trumpet call, and rose, his arm flung out in denunciation. ‘Out of
your own mouth! Must you humble yourself, you ask. Ay, must you, or
God will humble you in the end. There is no other escape for you from
these ghosts. These bleeding heads grin at you now from your lap. They
grin so while they are still firm upon the shoulders of living men;
men who have loved you and served you and ventured their lives in your
service and in Spain’s. What will they look like when they shall
indeed have fallen, because your pride would not stay the axe of the
executioner? Will that lay those ghosts, do you think, or will it
bring them gibbering about you until you are driven mad, assuring you
that like another Lucifer by your pride have you forfeited your place
in heaven, by your pride doomed yourself to an eternity of torment!’

‘Cease!’ cried the King, writhing in his great bed, and thus
convinced, appalled to perceive under the Prior’s fiery indication the
pit on the edge of which he stood, he capitulated. He would rend his
pride; he would bow his neck; he would submit to the insolent demand
of that heretical woman.

‘Thus,’ said the Prior in a gentle, soothing voice, applying an
unguent now that the irritant had done its work, ‘shall you lay up
treasure in heaven, my son.’




 CHAPTER XXIII.
 THE AUTO DE FÉ

/Having/ been driven by the spiritually minatory persuasions of his
confessor into that consumption of his monstrous pride, King Philip,
in prey to a reaction common enough in such cases, displayed a
feverish, anxious haste to perform in the eleventh hour what three
days ago might have been done in dignified leisure.

An hour or so before noon on that Wednesday, Sir Gervase Crosby was
haled from the underground stone chamber of the Escurial in which he
had been imprisoned. Such had been his angry distress at his failure
to save Margaret that it is to be doubted if through those
interminable days of maddeningly impotent conjecture he had given a
thought to the fate in store for himself.

He was brought now, not before the King, who could not bear the
humiliation of announcing his surrender to this man whose bones he had
hoped to have broken in the torture chamber of the Inquisition, but
before the little hirsute gentleman he had seen at work in the royal
closet on the occasion of his audience. This was the secretary
Rodriguez, who himself had penned at the King’s dictation the letter
to the Inquisitor-General of Castile, which His Majesty had signed and
sealed, the letter which the secretary now proffered to Sir Gervase.

In curt terms and with great dignity of manner, the little man
informed Sir Gervase of the situation in a formal speech which sounded
like a lesson learnt by heart.

‘His Majesty the King of Spain, having further considered the matter
of the letter from the Queen of England, has decided to comply with
the request contained in it. He has reached this decision in spite of
the gross terms employed by Her Majesty, and unintimidated by threats
which he is persuaded that she would not dare in any case to execute.
He has been moved solely by a justice inclining to clemency, having
ascertained that a wrong has been done by a subject of his own which
for the honour of Spain it behoves him to right.’

It was at this stage that he displayed the sealed package which he
held.

‘The woman, whose surrender is demanded, is a prisoner of the Holy
Office, charged not only with heresy, but with witchcraft exercised
against Don Pedro de Mendoza y Luna, whereby he was so far seduced
from his duty to his God and his own honour that he carried her off
and brought her here to Spain. She lies at present in the prison of
the Holy House at Toledo, having been in the hands of the Inquisitors
of the Faith from the moment that she landed on Spanish soil. So far,
as we believe, no harm or hurt has come to her beyond the
inconvenience of detention. But she is under sentence to suffer in the
Auto de Fé which is to be held to-morrow in Toledo, wherefore you are
enjoined by His Majesty to make all speed in bearing this letter to
Don Gaspar de Quiroga, Cardinal-Archbishop of Toledo and
Inquisitor-General of the Faith. This letter commands him to deliver
into your hands the person of the Lady Margaret Trevanion, and you are
further accorded by His Majesty’s gracious clemency fourteen days in
which to leave Spain, taking this woman with you. Should you still be
within His Majesty’s dominions after the expiry of that term, the
consequences will be of the utmost gravity.’

Sir Gervase took the proffered letter in a hand that trembled. Relief
was blending with a fresh dreadful anxiety to unman him. He knew the
distance to Toledo, perceived how short was the time and how the
slightest mischance, even now that this miracle had happened, might
render him too late.

But the King was now as anxious as he was that there should be no
mischance. He was further informed by the secretary Rodriguez that a
suitable escort would be provided for him as far as Toledo, and that
the relays of horses maintained by the royal post would be at his
disposal. Finally he was handed a brief document, also bearing the
royal arms and signature, commanding all dutiful subjects of the King
of Spain to assist him and his companions in his journey from Toledo
to Santander and warning them that who hindered him did so at his
peril. Upon that the secretary dismissed him with an enjoinder to set
out at once, and not to delay.

He was conducted to the courtyard by the officer who had fetched him
from his prison. Here he was delivered into the care of another
officer, who waited there with six mounted men and a spare horse. His
weapons were restored to him, and, riding beside the officer at the
head of that little escort, he quitted the gloomy palace of the
Escurial, and galloped away from the granite mass of the Guadarrama
Mountains towards Villalba. Here, turning south, they rode at speed
down the narrow valley through which the river Guadarrama winds its
way to the mighty Tagus. But the road was rough, often no better than
a mule-track, and delays were frequent and inevitable, with the result
that it was nightfall before they reached Brunete, where fresh horses
would be available.

Still forty miles from Toledo, and informed that the Auto would be
held in the forenoon, Sir Gervase was racked by a desperate anxiety,
which would not permit him to take here even the hour’s rest which the
officer had advised as they approached the place. The fellow, a slim
youngster of about Sir Gervase’s own age, showed himself courteous and
considerate, but he was a Catalan and spoke with an accent that
rendered him almost incomprehensible to the Englishman whose imperfect
knowledge of Spanish was confined to pure Castilian.

At Brunete, however, a setback awaited them. Three fresh horses only
were available. Normally a dozen were stabled there. But a courier
from the Inquisitor-General to the Council of State in Madrid had
passed that way at noon, travelling with an escort, and had made a
heavy draught upon the royal post.

The young officer, whose name was Nuno Lopez, a man of a New-Christian
family, in whose blood there was a Moorish taint, accepted the
situation with the placid Saracen fatalism of his forbears. He
shrugged.

‘No hay que hacer,’ he announced. ‘There is nothing to be done.’

You conceive Sir Gervase’s exasperation at this calm finality.
‘Nothing to be done?’ he cried. ‘Something is to be done to get me to
Toledo by sunrise.’

‘That is impossible.’ Don Nuno was imperturbable. Perhaps he was glad
to have so good a reason for not spending a night in the saddle. ‘In
six hours’ time--by midnight, perhaps--the cattle left here by the
Grand-Inquisitor’s courier may be in case to travel. But they will
hardly travel fast.’

Sir Gervase sensed rather than understood Don Nuno’s meaning. He
answered very slowly and emphatically so that Don Nuno might have no
difficulty in understanding him.

‘There are three fresh horses here: enough for you and me and one of
your men. Let us take these at once, and go.’

Standing in the yellow light that streamed from the open door of the
post-house to mingle with the fading October daylight, Don Nuno smiled
tolerantly as he shook his head.

‘It would not be safe. There are brigands in these hills.’

But to this Sir Gervase had a ready answer. ‘Oh, if you’re afraid of
brigands, saddle me one of the fresh horses, and I’ll ride on alone.’

The officer no longer smiled. He had drawn himself up stiffly, and
above his tightened mouth his moustaches appeared to bristle. For a
moment Sir Gervase thought the fellow was going to strike him. Then
the Catalan span round on his heel, and to his men, dismounted and
standing in line at their horses’ head, he spat out in a rasping,
angry voice orders which to Sir Gervase were utterly incomprehensible.

Within five minutes the three fresh horses were waiting and one of Don
Nuno’s troopers with them. Meanwhile Don Nuno had provided himself
with supper, consisting of a piece of bread and an onion. He washed
this down with a draught of rough Andalusian wine, and climbed into
the saddle.

‘Vamos!’ he peremptorily commanded.

Sir Gervase mounted, and the three men trotted out of the village and
resumed their journey.

As they rode, the officer found it necessary to ease his mind.
Addressing his companion uncompromisingly as ‘Sir English Dog--Señor
perro de inglez’--he informed him that he had said something which
hurt his honour, and which must be corrected between them as soon as
occasion served.

Sir Gervase had no desire to find himself with a quarrel on his hands.
Nightmare enough was provided already by this ride through the dark
against time and to a destination bristling with unknown difficulties.
He swallowed his vexation, ignored the insult in the form of address,
and apologized for any offence he might have given.

‘It will not serve,’ said the Catalan. ‘You have placed me under the
necessity of proving my courage.’

‘You are proving it now,’ Sir Gervase reassured him. ‘This was all the
proof I desired of you. I knew you would afford it, which was why I
demanded it. Forgive the subterfuge which would have been wasted on
any but a brave man.’

The Catalan made out with difficulty his meaning, and was mollified.

‘Well, well,’ he grumbled. ‘For the present we will leave it there.
But later on a little more may be necessary.’

‘As you please. Meanwhile, in God’s name, let us remain friends.’

They rode amain through that lonely valley, where an almost full moon
was casting inky fantastic shadows and turning the gurgling stream
whose course they followed into a ribbon of rippling silver. It grew
very cold. The wind came icily from the Sierra to the north, and Don
Nuno and his man wrapped themselves tightly in their cloaks for
protection. Sir Gervase had no cloak, not even a jerkin over his
velvet doublet. But he was insensible to the cold as to any other
physical sensation. He was conscious of nothing beyond the sense of a
lump in his throat cast up there it seemed by the anxiety consuming
his soul.

An hour or so after midnight his horse put its foot in a hole in the
road, and came down heavily. It was a moment before Sir Gervase could
raise himself from where he had been flung. Beyond some bruises, he
had suffered no hurt, but he was still half-stunned, as in the
moonlight he watched Don Nuno running his hand over the fetlock of the
quivering beast which had meanwhile also risen.

The officer announced in a voice of relief that there was no harm
done. But a moment or two later it was found that the horse was lame,
and could not be ridden farther.

They were, Don Nuno announced, near the village of Chozas de Can. It
could not be more than a couple of miles away. The trooper surrendered
his mount to Sir Gervase, and, taking the reins of the lamed horse,
trudged along beside it whilst the other two moved with him at that
slow walking pace, Sir Gervase’s giddiness from his fall dispelled by
mounting anxiety at the loss of time involved in this snail’s crawl.

It took them an hour to reach Chozas de Can. They knocked up a tavern
in the village ‘in the King’s name.’ But horses there were none to be
had. So the trooper was left there, and Sir Gervase and Nuno Lopez now
pushed on alone.

They were within twenty-five miles of Toledo, and only some twelve or
thirteen miles from Villamiel, where fresh horses awaited them for the
last swift stage of the journey. But however swift might be that last
stage when they came to it, the present one was little swifter than
had been the progress since the laming of Sir Gervase’s horse. The
moon had set, and in that narrow valley road the darkness was almost
palpable. They advanced at little more than a walking pace, until the
autumn dawn enabled them to move more briskly, and thus came at last
to Villamiel just after seven o’clock, with still fifteen miles to go.

The officer emphatically announced himself hungry, and as emphatically
asserted that he would go no farther until his fast was broken. Sir
Gervase asked him at what hour exactly the Auto was held.

‘The procession from the Holy House usually sets out between eight and
nine.’

It was an answer that turned Sir Gervase’s anxiety to frenzy. He would
not wait an instant beyond the time necessary for the saddling of a
fresh horse. Don Nuno, hungry and weary, having been in the saddle now
for over eighteen hours with little food and no sleep, was out of
temper. The Englishman’s demands appeared to him unreasonable in that
mood. An altercation arose between them. It might have been protracted
but for the sudden coming of the fresh horse which Sir Gervase had so
peremptorily commanded.

Sir Gervase flung away from the angry officer and vaulted into the
saddle.

‘Follow me at your leisure, sir, when you have broken your fast,’ he
shouted to him as he rode off.

Nor did he look behind him for all the din that he could hear the
Spaniard making in calling to him. He rode now at a breakneck pace
through an empty village--for almost every inhabitant had left it to
attend the show in Toledo--swung to the left over the narrow old
bridge across the river, and then turned south again towards his
destination.

Afterwards he could remember nothing of that ride. Jaded by nights of
broken slumber culminating in this last night spent in the saddle,
racked by maddening fears that even now he might arrive too late, he
was conscious of nothing until suddenly at about nine o’clock he
beheld before him and a little below him the great city of Toledo,
contained within its circle of Moorish fortifications. Above the
burnt-red tiles of the roofs surged the vast grey mass of the
Cathedral of this Spanish Rome, and dominating all from its eminence
above the city on the far eastward side stood the noble palace of the
Alcazar, aglow in the morning sunlight.

At breakneck speed Gervase rode down the hill from whose summit he
obtained his first glimpse of that terrible city of his goal, then up
again to the heights of that great rampart of granite upon which the
city stood, a rampart encircled on three sides of its precipitous base
by the broad deep swirling water of the pellucid Tagus.

As he advanced now, he overtook straggling groups of country-folk on
foot, on horseback, on mules and donkeys, and even in ox-wains, all
making for the city, and all of them very obviously dressed in their
best. As he approached the Visagra Gate, the stragglers had become a
multitude, with all the shouting and confusion resulting from their
being detained there by the guard which would admit only those on
foot. It was then that Sir Gervase understood the meaning of this
concourse. The Auto de Fé was the attraction drawing the people of
the surrounding countryside to Toledo, and these were the late-comers
meeting the fate of late-comers.

He thrust impatiently through them, trusting to his safe-conduct to
ensure him exception to the delaying rule. He announced himself as a
royal messenger to the officer of the gate, who eyed him
mistrustfully. He displayed his letter to the Inquisitor-General with
its royal seals and thrust his safe-conduct under the man’s nose.

The officer was impressed and became courteous. But he was not to be
shaken in the matter of the horse. He gave reasons, rapidly, why it
could not enter. Gervase, not understanding these, insisted that there
was not a moment to lose, since the orders he carried were concerned
with the Auto de Fé which was already being held.

The officer stared impatiently; but, perceiving that he had to deal
with a foreigner, explained himself now very slowly and clearly.

‘You would lose more time if you attempted to take your horse into the
city. You would not ride a mile in an hour. The streets are choked
with people from here to the Zocodover. Leave your horse with us. It
will be waiting for you when you return.’

Gervase dismounted, understanding at last that there was nothing else
to be done. He inquired of the officer the shortest way to the
Archiepiscopal Palace. The man directed him to the Cathedral, advising
him to inquire again when he had got as far as that.

He passed under the barrel vaulting and the portcullis of that great
Arab gate, and so entered the city. At first progress was easy, and he
fancied that the guard with the officiousness of his kind had made
difficulties where none existed. But presently in a measure, as he
advanced through those narrow, crooked streets, still stamped with the
character of their Saracen builders, he found the wayfarers increasing
to the proportions of a crowd. Soon, as he continued to advance, the
crowd became an almost solid press in which presently he found himself
wedged, and compelled to move with it as relentlessly as if he were
being swept along by a torrent. Desperately he protested, and
attempted to clear himself a way, announcing himself a royal
messenger. The general noise drowned his puny voice, leaving it
audible only to those immediately about him in that noisome, reeking
press. These eyed him with mistrust. His foreign accent and unkempt
appearance earned him only contempt and derision. If his clothes were
those of a gentleman, they were now so travel-stained that their
nature was no longer to be discerned, whilst his countenance on which
the dust had caked, with its stubble of auburn beard and its haggard,
red-rimmed, blood-injected eyes, was by no means in case to inspire
confidence. The human stream swept him along the narrow street and
into a broader one at a point where this entered a vast open space. In
the middle of this he beheld an enormous scaffold, enclosed on three
sides and flanked on two of these by tiers of benches.

The stream swept him to the left, and thrust him against a wall. For a
moment he was content to remain there that he might draw breath. He
began to be conscious of a terrible and alarming lassitude, the
natural result of sleeplessness, lack of food, anxiety and exertion
almost transcending the limits of human endurance. His left knee was
pressed hard against a projection in the wall. Heaving a little space
about him, he saw that he had brought up against what he supposed to
be a mounting-block some two feet high. Instinctively, to gain ease
and air, he climbed upon it, and found himself now raised clear above
that sea of human heads and so placed that none could press upon him,
breathe in his face, or thrust their elbows into his flanks. In prey
to that increasing lassitude, he was content to remain there a moment,
snatching a brief rest from battling with that human tide.

The street at the corner of which he had come to rest was packed with
people, save in the middle where a space was kept clear by a barricade
of wood, guarded at intervals by men-at-arms in black, wearing
corselet and steel cap and leaning upon their short halberts. This
barricade was continued across the square to the wide steps of the
great scaffold, which he now considered more attentively. On the left
stood a pulpit, and immediately facing it in the middle of the
scaffold a cage of wood and iron within which there was a seat. At the
scaffold’s far end, midway between the tiers, an altar had been
raised. It was draped in purple and surmounted by a veiled cross
between tall gilded candlesticks. To the left of this there was a
miniature pavilion surmounted by a gilded dome, from which
curtain-like draperies of purple fringed with gold descended to the
ground. On the dais within this was placed a great gilded throne-like
chair flanked by a lesser one on either side. Above at the
meeting-point of the draperies two escutcheons were affixed, one
bearing the green cross of the Inquisition, the other the arms of
Spain.

About that vast scaffold the people seethed and writhed in perpetual
movement, resembling some monstrous ant-heap, sending up a rolling
murmur that was like the sound of waves upon a shore, into which was
blended intermittently the note of a bell that was being tolled
funereally.

Of the houses overlooking the square, and of those in the street, as
far as his glance could carry, Gervase saw that every window was
thronged, as indeed was every roof. The balconies were all draped in
black, and black he observed were the garments of every person of
consideration, man or woman, in all that concourse.

A moment thus, to become conscious of all this, and then the meaning
of it recurred to startle him into action. That dreadful bell was
tolling for his Margaret amongst others; this droning heap of
pestilential human insects was assembled here for the spectacle of her
martyrdom, which had begun already and which would certainly be
consummated unless he bestirred himself.

He made a vigorous attempt to descend from that mounting-block, sought
to thrust back those who stood immediately before it, so as to clear a
way for himself. But they being so wedged by others that they could
not stir answered him with fiercely virulent Spanish vituperations,
and threats of how they would deal with him if he persisted in
incommoding them. What did he want? Was he not better placed, and had
he not a better view than they? Let him be content with that and not
seek to thrust himself nearer to the front or it would be the worse
for him.

The noise they made, the shrill voice of a woman in particular, drew
the attention among others of four black alguaziles who stood on the
steps of a house close by. But as there was nothing unusual in the
character of the altercation, those apparitors of the Holy Office who
were there to preserve order where possible, and perhaps to spy for
sympathizers with the penanced when they should appear, would hardly
have bestirred themselves had it not been for one comparatively
trivial detail. Scanning the man responsible for that turmoil, one of
them observed that he was armed; sword and dagger hung from the
carriages of his belt. Now the bearing of arms in the street during
the holding of an Auto de Fé was a flagrant offence against the laws
of the Holy Office, punishable by a term of rigorous imprisonment. The
apparitors conferred a moment, and accounted it their duty to take
action.

They called for room, and by a miracle room was made for them. The awe
in which men stood of the liveries of the Holy Office was enough to
make them prefer the risk of being crushed to death rather than remain
indifferent before such a demand. Two by two the sturdy black figures
advanced until they stood before Sir Gervase. Using their staves with
a brutal callousness, such as no secular soldiers would have dared
employ in so dense a throng, they cleared a little space before the
mounting-block. Their action provoked not so much as a murmur from any
of the sufferers. They were empanoplied as much against reproof as
against resistance by the spiritual armor of their office.

Sir Gervase found himself contemptuously challenged by one who
appeared their leader, a burly, swarthy fellow whose cheeks were blue
from the razor. In an accent which made the rascal stare, Sir Gervase
informed him that he was the bearer of a letter from the King of Spain
to the Inquisitor-General, which it was the utmost urgency he should
deliver without a moment’s delay.

The man grinned contemptuously, in which his fellows followed his
example.

‘By my faith, you look like a royal messenger!’ he sneered.

The grins became laughs in which several bystanders joined. When a man
in authority condescends to jest, however poorly, every clown within
hearing will flatter him by a guffaw.

Sir Gervase thrust sealed package and safe-conduct under the mocker’s
eyes. He mocked no more. He even overlooked the serious matter of the
weapons Sir Gervase was wearing. He thrust back his hat to scratch his
head and so presumably stimulate the brain within it to activity. He
half-turned and looked across the press of people. He took counsel
with his three companions, finally he made up his mind.

‘The procession to the Auto started half an hour ago from the Holy
House,’ he informed Sir Gervase. ‘His Eminence is with the procession.
Impossible to approach him now. You must wait in any case until he
returns to the palace. Then we will escort you to him.’

Distraught, Sir Gervase flung back at him that the matter could not
wait. The letter was concerned with this Auto. The apparitor became
stolid, as men do to defend themselves from hopeless unreason. He
conveyed that he was a very clever fellow, but not quite omnipotent;
and nothing less than omnipotence would enable anyone to approach His
Eminence at present or until the Auto was over. As he finished, a cry
went up from the multitude, and a sudden heave ran through it,
stirring its surface as when a ripple runs over water.

The apparitor looked down the long street, Sir Gervase looked with
him, and caught in the clear sunlight a distant glint of arms. The cry
all about him was: ‘They come! They come!’ and by this he knew that
what he beheld was the head of the vanguard of the dread procession.

He plagued the apparitor now with anxious questions, touching this
scaffold and the various parts of it. When he betrayed the fact that
he supposed the condemned would suffer there, he provoked a smile and
a question as to his origin which had left him so ignorant in matters
of universal knowledge. But he also elicited the information that the
place of execution was outside the walls of the city. This scaffold
was for the announcement of the offences, the Mass, and the sermon of
the Faith. How should he suppose it a place of execution, seeing that
the Holy Office shed no blood.

This was news to Sir Gervase. He ventured to question its accuracy.
The alguazil afforded him the enlightenment of which an outlandish
barbarian appeared to stand in need. Here the Holy Office publicly
penanced those who were guilty of pardonable offences against the
Faith, and publicly cast out from the Church those who refused to be
reconciled or who, by relapsing into an infidelity from which they had
formerly been rescued, placed themselves beyond the reach of pardon.
In casting them out, the Holy Office abandoned them to the secular
arm, whose duty to the Faith involved the obligation of putting them
to death. But it was not, he repeated, the Holy Office which did this,
as Sir Gervase had so foolishly supposed, for the Holy Office, he
further repeated, could shed no blood.

It was a nice distinction over which at a remote distance of space or
time a man might smile. But in the grim theatre of the event no smile
was possible.

The procession drew nearer. Sir Gervase looked about him in his
distraction, to right, to left, ahead, and up at the balconies of the
houses under which he stood, as if seeking somewhere a way of escape,
a way of reaching the Inquisitor-General. As he looked upwards, his
eyes met those of a girl leaning from an iron balcony, from which was
hung a cloth of black velvet edged with silver. She was one of a
half-dozen women who stood there to behold the show, a slight wisp of
a creature, olive-skinned, with brilliant lips, and eyes like two
black jewels. She had been considering, it must be supposed, with
approval the Englishman’s stalwart inches and bared auburn head. The
disfiguring grime and stubble she could hardly discern at that
distance. The attitude towards him of the apparitors may further have
marked him for a person of consequence.

As their eyes met in that momentary flash, she let fall, as if by
accident, a rose. It brushed his cheek in falling, but, to the
beauty’s deep chagrin, went entirely unheeded by him in his
preoccupation of spirit.

Slowly and solemnly the procession was entering the square. At its
head marched the soldiers of the Faith: a regiment of javelin-men in
funereal livery, relieved by the gleam of their morions and the flash
of the partizans they shouldered. Gravely, looking neither to right
nor to left, they passed towards the scaffold about the base of which
they were to range themselves.

Next came a dozen surpliced choristers intoning the Miserere as they
slowly advanced into the square. They were followed after a little
pause by a Dominican bearing the sable banner of the Inquisition,
charged with the green cross between an olive branch and a naked
sword, the emblems of mercy and of justice. On his left walked the
Provincial of the Dominicans, on his right the Prior of Our Lady of
Alcantara, each attended by three monks. Then came a body of lay
tertiaries of the Order of Saint Dominic, members of the Confraternity
of Saint Peter the Martyr, walking two by two, with the cross of Saint
Dominic embroidered in silver upon their mantles. After them, on
horseback, also two by two, came some fifty nobles of Castile to give
worldly pomp to the procession. Their horses were caparisoned in sable
velvet; they themselves were all in black, though it was a black
relieved by the gleam of gold chains and the sparkle of jewels. So
solemnly and slowly did they pass, sitting their horses in such rigid
immobility, that they presented the appearance of a troop of funereal
equestrian statues.

The crowd had fallen into an awe-stricken silence, in which the beat
of iron-shod hooves rang out, in rhythm as it seemed, with the
doleful, receding chaunt of the choristers. Over all went still the
tolling of that passing-bell from the Cathedral.

The Andalusian sunshine beat down from a sky as clear as blue enamel.
It was reflected vividly from the white walls of the houses that
served as background for this black phantasmagoria. To Gervase there
was a moment in which it all became, not merely incredible, but
unreal. It did not exist. Nothing existed, not even his own limp,
weary body leaning there against the wall. He was simply a mind into
which he had brought absurd conceptions of a world of independent
beings of imagined shape and attributes and habits. None of these
things about him had any concrete existence; they were simply ideas
with which he had peopled a dream.

The moment of detachment passed. He was aroused from it by a sudden
rustle and movement in the throng, which was behaving as a field of
corn behaves when a sudden gust of wind sweeps rippling over it. Men
and women were falling on their knees in a continuous movement
proceeding from the right. So odd was this continuity that it almost
seemed as if each unit of that throng in kneeling touched his
neighbour and so drove him down whilst he, in his turn, did the like
by the person next to him.

An imposing scarlet figure advanced upon a milk-white mule whose
scarlet trappings fringed with gold trailed along the dusty ground.
Coming abruptly thus after the black gloom of the long lines of
figures that had preceded him, he seemed of a startling vividness.
Save for the violet amice of the Inquisitor, which he wore, he was all
flame from the point of his velvet shoes to the crown of his
broad-brimmed hat. A cloud of pages and halberdiers attended him. He
rode very stiff and straight and stern, his right hand raised, its
thumb and two fingers erect to bless the people.

Thus, at comparatively close quarters, Gervase beheld the man to whom
his letter was addressed, the Cardinal-Archbishop of Toledo, the Pope
of Spain, the President of the Supreme Council and Inquisitor-General
of Castile.

He passed, and with a reversing of the movement that had heralded his
approach, the crowd came gradually erect again. Informed of his
identity, Gervase importuned the alguazil to make a way for him, so
that he might at once deliver his letter.

‘Patience!’ he was admonished. ‘While the procession passes that will
be impossible. Afterwards, we shall see.’

Uproar broke out now, shouts, execrations, epithets of infamy. The
noise came rolling up the street to infect those in the square as the
foremost victims came into view. They were flanked on each side by
guarding pikemen, and each was accompanied by a Dominican, crucifix in
hand. There were some fifty of them, bareheaded, barefoot, and almost
naked under the zamarra, the penitential sack of coarse yellow serge,
streaked by a single arm of a Saint Andrew’s cross. In his hand each
carried an unlighted taper of yellow wax, to be lighted presently at
the altar when the patient’s reconciliation should have been
pronounced. There were tottering old men and feeble old women,
stalwart lads and weeping girls, and all of them staggered onwards in
their cassocks of infamy with lowered heads and eyes upon the ground,
crushed under their load of shame, terrified by the execrations hurled
at them as they passed.

The haggard eyes of Sir Gervase scanned their ranks. Knowing nothing
of the distinctions made and indicated by the signs upon the zamarra,
he did not realize that these were penitents who, guilty of
comparatively light offences, went to be reconciled and pardoned with
the imposition of penances of varying severity. Suddenly his eyes
alighted upon a countenance he knew: a narrow, handsome face with a
peaked black beard and fine eyes which, looking straight before him,
reflected now something of the agony within his soul.

Sir Gervase sucked in his breath. The scene before him was momentarily
blotted out. In its place he beheld an arbour set above a rose-garden,
and seated there a very elegant, mocking gentleman with a lute in his
lap, a lute which Sir Gervase dashed to the ground. He heard again the
level, mocking voice:

‘You do not like music, eh, Sir Gervase?’

Then the scene melted into another: A sweep of lawn shaded by a
quickset hedge, by which a golden-headed girl was standing. This same
gentleman bowing to him with a false urbanity, and proffering him the
hilt of a sword. Again that same pleasant voice: ‘Enough for to-day.
To-morrow I will show you how the estramaçon is to be met and
turned.’

He was back again in the Zocodover at Toledo. The figure which had
raised these visions was abreast of him. He craned to look, and caught
something of the agony in the man’s face, conceived something of what
it must cost him to be thus paraded, was taken even with pity for him,
imagining that he went to his death.

The penitents passed, and in their wake stalked another posse of
soldiers of the Faith.

Then, borne aloft, dangling from long green poles, their limbs jerked
hither and thither as in the movements of some idiotic dance, or as if
with the spasmodic twitchings of the hanged, came a half-dozen
full-sized effigies in grotesque caricature of life. These figures of
straw were arrayed in yellow zamarras smeared with tongues of fire and
with horrid images of devils and dragons, and they were crowned by the
coroza, the yellow mitre of the condemned. On their faces of waxed
linen were figured bituminous eyes and scarlet, idiotic lips.
Grotesque and horrible they passed. They were the effigies of
contumaciously absent offenders which were to be burnt, pending the
capture of the originals, and of others who after death had been
discovered guilty of heresy: of these followed now the poor earthly
remains. Porters came staggering under the exhumed coffins which were
to be given to the flames jointly with the effigies.

The baying of the mob, which had died down after the passing of the
penitents, now rose again with an increased ferocity. Gervase saw
women crossing themselves and men craning forward with an interest
grown overwhelming.

‘Los relapsos!’ was the cry, meaningless to him.

On they came, those poor wretches who had relapsed and for whom there
was no reconciliation, and those who were in the same case because
obstinate in their heresy. There were but six of them; but all six
were doomed to the fire. They advanced singly, each one between two
Dominicans, who were still exhorting them to repent and win at least
the mercy of strangulation before being burnt in fires which otherwise
must be but a prelude to eternal flames.

But the crowd, less pitiful, entirely pitiless, indeed, in its
perfervid devotion to the most pitiful of all religions, roared foul
abuse, demoniac mockery, ordures of insult at those anguished
unfortunates who were passing to the flames.

The first of them was a stalwart aged Jew; a misguided fellow, who
perhaps for the sake of temporal profit, so as to overcome the
barriers so calculatedly erected against the worldly advancement of
the Israelite, so as to earn the right to continue in the land in
which his forefathers had been established for centuries before the
crucifixion, had accepted baptism and embraced Christianity. Later,
his conscience stirring against this apostasy from the Mosaic Law, he
had secretly relapsed into Judaism, to be discovered, haled before the
dread tribunal of the Faith, tortured into confession, and then
condemned. He dragged himself painfully along in his hideous livery of
infamy, his yellow zamarra and coroza bedaubed with flames and devils.
A band of iron passed about his neck held a wooden apple in his mouth
to gag him. But his eyes remained eloquent of his scorn as he flashed
them upon the howling bestial Christian mob.

He was followed by one even more pitiful. A young Morisco girl of
ravishing beauty stepped along with light and tripping movements of
her graceful limbs; she seemed almost to be treading a measure as she
came. Her long black hair, escaped from her yellow mitre, hung about
her shoulders like a mantle. And as she went, she paused ever and
anon, and, leaning a hand upon the shoulder of the gaunt Dominican
beside her, she would throw back her body and laugh with the wild
abandoned joy of a drunken woman. Her mind had given way.

Next came a terror-stricken youth who was half-carried along by his
guards, a dazed woman half-swooning, and two men in middle life so
broken by torture that they could hardly crawl.

After these followed another double file of monks, and after them
again a military rearguard akin to that which had headed the
procession. But the details now entirely escaped Gervase. He had
suddenly realized that Margaret was not among the condemned. Relief at
this and renewed anxiety, springing from his ignorance of her real
condition, shut out the scene around him.

Anon he remembered a glimpse of the great scaffold, the
Inquisitor-General in the tribune; the condemned ranged on the tiers
to the right, the effigies dangling above the topmost places; the
nobles and clergy on the benches opposite; a Dominican preaching from
the pulpit facing the condemned.

The remainder of the Auto was afterwards a confused dream-memory: the
ritual of the Mass, the chanting of choristers, and the clouds of
incense rising above the altar surmounted by its great green cross;
then the figure of the notary standing to read from a long scroll, his
voice inaudible at the distance at which Gervase was placed; the
movement of the apparitors, bringing the condemned from their benches
and surrendering them to the Corregidor and his men--the
representatives of the secular arm--who waited at the foot of the
great scaffold to mount them on donkeys, and so hurry them away under
guard, each with a Dominican in attendance; the howls of execration
from the mob; and lastly, the stately return of that procession by the
way it had come.

As it passed, the human torrent broke the dam that had so long
confined it; the barricades, no longer guarded, yielding to pressure,
were broken down and swept away, and the crowd swirled in on both
sides and filled the street.

The alguazil touched Sir Gervase on the arm. ‘Come,’ he said.




 CHAPTER XXIV.
 RECOGNITION

/The/ Auto de Fé was over. The reconciled had been reconducted to the
Holy House, where upon the morrow measures would be taken for the
enforcement of the penances to which they were sentenced. The
condemned had been hurried away to the meadows by the river, beyond
the walls. There at La Dehesa, beside the swirling Tagus, in view of
the smiling countryside beyond the river, that lovely peaceful
amphitheatre enclosed by hills, a great white cross had been reared as
the symbol of mercy. About it were the stakes, the faggots piled, and
there, _Christi nomine invocato_, the work of the Faith was brought to
an end in smoke and ashes. The crowd had followed to attend the
closing scene of that great show, and was again kept within bounds by
a stout barricade guarded by men-at-arms. But the majority of those
who had taken active part in the Auto had returned with the reconciled
to the Holy House.

The Cardinal-Archbishop was back in his palace, disrobing, his mind at
peace at last so far as his nephew was concerned. The course which he
had advocated to Frey Juan Arrenzuelo had in the end been adopted. Don
Pedro had been sentenced upon the depositions of Frey Luis. He was
condemned to pay a fine of a thousand ducats into the treasury of the
Holy Office and to attend Mass barefoot, clad only in his shirt and
with a rope about his neck, every day for a month in the Cathedral of
Toledo, at the end of which his offence would be accounted purged, and
absolution and reinstatement would follow.

The case against the woman might now proceed strictly in accordance
with inquisitorial duty and inquisitorial practice, and, whether as a
witch or merely as a heretic, she would undoubtedly be burnt when they
came to hold the next Auto de Fé. That, thought the Cardinal, was no
longer a matter of sufficient importance to cause him any
preoccupation.

But in this conclusion he was proven hasty. Within half an hour of his
return to the palace, Frey Juan Arrenzuelo came in agitation to seek
him.

He brought news that already Frey Luis Salcedo was protesting openly
against the order observed, which he denounced for an illegality. The
sentence upon Don Pedro, Frey Luis was asserting, had been based upon
matters which must remain presumptuous until established by the
condemnation of the woman as a witch. He desired to know--demanded to
know--what course would be adopted if torture should fail to wring
from the woman the necessary admission of her necromantic practices.

Arrenzuelo had sought to pacify him with the reminder that he might
well wait until the situation which he feared arose; at present all
his protests were in the realm of speculation.

‘The realm of speculation!’ Frey Luis had laughed. ‘Was it not in the
realm of speculation that sentence was passed upon Don Pedro, so as to
enable him to escape the graver punishment which may yet be his due?’

He had said this in the presence of a considerable audience in the
Holy House, and it was impossible not to perceive the threat which he
implied, and also the fact that his zeal and vehemence had impressed
many of those who overheard him into sympathy with his views.

The Cardinal was deeply annoyed. But he was of a wisdom which bade him
put aside annoyance which could not serve him in dealing with one who
was supported by right. He considered deeply for some moments, saying
no word to betray his real chagrin.

At last he permitted himself a smile of much gentleness and some
craft.

‘Word comes to me from Segovia that the Inquisitor of the Faith there
is so ill that a successor must be appointed. I shall confer the
appointment on Frey Luis Salcedo to-day. His zeal and rigid honesty
would seem eminently to qualify him. He shall leave for Segovia at
once.’

But the suggestion in which the Cardinal conceived that he had found
the solution of his difficulty had the effect of visibly terrifying
Frey Juan.

‘He will see in that an attempt to remove an awkward testifier to the
truth, an attempt to bribe him into silence. He will become a
devastating flame of righteous anger which nothing afterwards will
quench.’

The Cardinal perceived the truth of this, and stared blankly. All,
then, was to be rendered vain by this impetuous friar unless torture
could wring the requisite confession from the woman. That was now his
only hope.

A secretary entered unbidden at that moment. Irritably the Cardinal
waved him away.

‘Not now! Not now! You interrupt us.’

‘On the King’s business, Eminence.’ And in answer to the Cardinal’s
change of countenance, the secretary informed him that alguaziles of
the Holy Office had brought in a man who excused himself for bearing
arms in such a place at such a time on the ground that he was a
messenger from the King with a letter for the Inquisitor-General,
which he was to deliver in person.

Still travel-stained, haggard, and unshaven, Sir Gervase was
introduced, a man worn almost to the last strand of endurance. His
eyes, blood-injected from sleeplessness, seemed to have receded into
his head; they shone with an unnatural glassy brightness amid the dark
shadows that surrounded them. He lurched in his step as he now
advanced.

The Cardinal, a humane man, observed these signs. ‘You have ridden
hard, sir,’ he said between question and assertion.

Sir Gervase bowed, and presented his letter. The Cardinal took it.

‘Give him a seat, Pablo. He is in no case to stand.’

Gratefully the Englishman slid into the chair to which the Cardinal
waved him and which the secretary advanced invitingly.

His Eminence broke the royal seal. As he read, the cloud of care
lifted from his brow. The eyes which he raised to look across the top
of the royal parchment at Frey Juan were alight with relief, almost
with laughter.

‘Heaven, I think, has intervened,’ he said, and passed the sheet to
the Dominican. ‘The woman is abstracted from the care of the Holy
Office by royal command. She need preoccupy us no further.’

But Frey Juan Arrenzuelo frowned as he read. The woman might not be a
witch, but she was still a heretic, a soul to be saved, and he
resented this royal intervention in what he accounted the affairs of
God. At another time the Inquisitor-General would have shared that
just resentment, and would not have relinquished this heretic without
a struggle and a stern reminder to His Majesty that he intervened at
his peril in matters of the Faith. But at present the command came so
opportunely to solve all difficulties, to rescue the
Inquisitor-General even from a possible accusation of nepotism, that,
as he pondered it, His Eminence smiled. Before that smile, so placid
and beatific, Frey Juan bowed his head, and stifled the protests which
were rising to his lips.

‘If you will confirm this, Eminence, in your quality as
Inquisitor-General of the Faith, the prisoner shall be surrendered.’

Subtly thus he reminded Cardinal Quiroga that the King transcended his
royal and strictly secular authority. Cardinal Quiroga, very grateful
for that royal presumption, dictated at once his confirmation to the
secretary, signed it, and delivered it to the inquisitor that he might
attach it to the royal letter.

Then he turned his glance again upon Sir Gervase. ‘Who are you, sir,
into whose charge the prisoner is to be consigned?’

Sir Gervase got to his feet, and answered him. He gave his name and
announced that he had followed from England with a letter from the
Queen.

‘An Englishman?’ said His Eminence, raising his brows. Here, no doubt,
was another heretic, he thought. But he shrugged. After all, the
matter was out of his hands, and he was very glad to be rid of it. He
had no reason for anything but thankfulness towards this hard-worn
messenger.

He offered him refreshment, of which he appeared to stand so sorely in
need, whilst the prisoner was being brought to the palace from the
Holy House. When inquisitorial duty permitted it, there was no more
humane gentleman in Spain than this Cardinal-Archbishop of Toledo.
Gervase accepted gratefully, having heard Frey Juan dismissed with
instructions to send the prisoner at once to the palace, and Frey
Juan’s reply that it should be done within the hour, so soon as the
necessary formalities were satisfied and record made of the royal
command concerning her.

Two familiars of the Holy Office conducted her from her cell. She
imagined that she was being led to another of those exasperating
audiences that made a mockery of justice. Instead, she found herself
conducted across the great hall to the great double doors that opened
upon the street. The postern was set wide for her by one of the
familiars, and she was waved out by the other, who followed.

Before the door stood a mule-litter, which they motioned her to enter.
She looked about her, hesitating a moment. People were streaming
through this as through other streets in numbers, dispersing after the
consummation of the Auto. She desired to know what was intended by
her. The novelty of the proceedings filled her with a fresh
uneasiness. But having no Spanish it was impossible to ask questions.
Being a woman, single-handed, weak, and helpless, it was even more
idle to attempt resistance. She must wait to ascertain, and meanwhile
command such patience as still remained in her.

She entered the litter, the leather curtains were closely drawn, and
the mules went off briskly, guided by the man who rode the foremost,
and escorted by some others which she had seen drawn up alongside and
whose hooves she now heard clattering beside her.

At last the little cavalcade came to a standstill, the curtains parted
again, and she was desired to alight. She found herself before an
imposing building in the great square, across which fell now the
shadow of the vast Cathedral cast there by the sinking sun.

In that shadow the air was chill, and she shivered as she stood there.
Then the same familiars ushered her through double gates of wrought
iron bearing great gilded escutcheons each surmounted by a cardinal’s
hat with its array of tassels. Under a deep archway they came into a
quadrangle where the ground was inlaid with mosaics and in the middle
of which a fountain played. Across this at another door, guarded by
two splendid men-at-arms in steel and scarlet, the familiars consigned
her to a waiting chamberlain in black who bore a wand and about whose
neck a chain was hung.

The mystery of it deepened. Had she fallen asleep in her cell, and was
she dreaming?

This sleek black gentleman signed to her to follow him, and the
familiars were left behind. They ascended a wide marble staircase
flanked by a massive balustrade, rising from a hall that was hung with
costly tapestries which Spain had no doubt filched from Flanders. They
passed between another two men-at-arms, standing like statues at the
stair-head, and along a corridor until the chamberlain halted at a
door. He opened it, signed to her to enter, bowed as she passed him,
and closed the door upon her when she had crossed the threshold.

Understanding nothing, she found herself in a small plain room. Its
windows looked out across the courtyard through which she had passed
to the opposite wall whose white surface was aglow in the last rays of
the setting sun. A tall-backed chair was standing by a table that was
topped with red velvet. Out of this chair a man rose now to startle
her.

He turned to face her and the incredible became the impossible; even
when he spoke her name, spoke it on a sob, and came lurching towards
her with outheld hands, her brain refused to be seduced by this
illusion. And then she was in his arms, she felt them coiled about
her, and this ghost--this untidy, grimy, unshaven ghost--was kissing
her hair, her eyes, her very lips. He was no ghost, then. He was real.
The thought brought her a new terror. She thrust back from him as far
as his embrace allowed.

‘Gervase! What are you doing here, Gervase?’

‘I’ve come for you,’ he answered simply.

‘You’ve come for me?’ She repeated the words as if they had no
meaning.

A smile crossed the man’s weary face. His fingers fumbled at the
breast of his doublet. ‘I had your note,’ he said.

‘My note?’

‘The note you sent me to Arwenack, asking me to come to you. See. Here
it is.’ He drew it forth, a very soiled and crumpled scrap. ‘When I
got to Trevanion Chase, you’d gone. So… so I followed; and I’m here to
take you home.’

‘To take me home? Home?’ She could almost inhale the perfume of the
moors.

‘Yes. All is arranged. This Cardinal is very good.… The escort waits.
We go… Santander, and there Tressilian stays for us with his ship.…
All arranged.’

His senses were swimming, he staggered as he held her, might indeed
have fallen but for his hold of her. And then she said words which
revived and renewed his strength as not even the Cardinal’s wine had
been able to do.

‘Gervase! You wonderful, wonderful Gervase!’ Her arms tightened about
his neck as if she would have choked him.

‘I knew you would find it out one day,’ he said weakly.

 THE END




 TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

Minor spelling inconsistencies (e.g. lovelorn/love-lorn, trumpet
call/trumpet-call, unmistakeable/unmistakable, etc.) have been
preserved.

Alterations to the text:

Abandon the use of drop-caps.

Punctuation: fix a few quotation mark pairings/nestings.

[Chapter VII]

Change "increased the fresh young comeliness of his _apppearance_" to
_appearance_.

[Chapter XVII]

"the fact that the _Inquisitor, General_ Don Gaspar de Quiroga" to
_Inquisitor-General_.

[Chapter XVIII]

"_Neverthless_, he waved back the familiars who had already" to
_Nevertheless_.

[Chapter XIX]

"held the sheet tremble _vioiently_ as if suddenly palsied" to
_violently_.

[Chapter XX]

"The _Concepcion_ which Don Pedro de Mendoza had commanded" to
_Concepción_.

[Chapter XXIII]

"spoke with an accent that rendered him almost _imcomprehensible_"
_incomprehensible_.

 [End of text]






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