Robin-a-dale drew in his breath and clenched his hands with determination; then, the key being too high for long sustaining, came down to earth and the contemplation of the bright-running Thames, its shifting banks, and the shipping on its bosom.  The river glided between tall houses, and there were voices on the water, sounding from stately barges, swift-plying wherries, ships at anchor, both great and small.  Over all played mild sunshine, hung pale blue skies.  The boy thought of other rivers he had seen and would see again, silent streams gliding through forests of a fearful loveliness, miles of churned foam rushing between black teeth of jagged rock to the sheer, desperate, earth-shaking cataract, liquid highways to the realms of strange dreams!  He turned involuntarily and met his master’s eye.  Between these two, master and boy, knave and knight, there was at times so strange a comprehension that Robin-a-dale was scarcely startled to find that his thoughts had been read.

“Ay, Robin,” said Ferne, smiling, “other and stranger waters than those of Father Thames!  And yet I know not.  Life is one, though to-day we glide through the sunshine to a fair Queen’s palace, and to-morrow we strive like fiends from hell for those two sirens, Lust of Gold and Lust of Blood.  Therefore, Robin, an you toss your silver brooch into the Thames it may come to hand on the other side of the world, swirling towards you in some Arethusa fountain.”

“I see the ships, master!” cried the boy.  “Ho, the Cygnet, the bonny white Cygnet!”

They lay in a half-moon, with the westering sun striking full upon the windows of their high, castellated poops.  Their great guns gleamed; mast and spar and rigging made network against the blue; high in air floated bright pennants and the red cross in the white field.  To and fro plied small boats, while over the water to them in the wherry came a pleasant hum of preparation for the morrow’s sailing.  Upon the Cygnet, lying next to the Mere Honour, and a very noble ship, the mariners began to sing.

“Shall we not row more closely?” cried Sedley.  “The Cygnet knows not that it is you who pass!”

Sir Mortimer laughed.  “No, no; I come to her arms from the Palace to-night!  Trouble her not now with genuflections and salutings.”  His eyes dwelt with love upon his ship.  “How clearly sounds the singing!” he said.

So clearly did it sound over the water that it kept with them when the ships were passed.  Robin-a-dale had his fancies, to which at times he gave voice, scarce knowing that he had spoken. “’Tis the ship herself that sings,” he now began to say to himself in a low voice, over and over again. “’Tis the ship singing, the ship singing because she goes on a voyage—­a long voyage!”

“Sirrah!” cried his master, somewhat sharply.  “Know you not that the swan sings but upon one voyage, and that her last?  ’Tis not the Cygnet that sings, but upon her sing my mariners and soldiers, for that they go forth to victory!”