In the short silence the wind seemed to take with a rushing sound the palm tops overhead.  Then Ferne spoke.  “With all my heart I thank you,” he said.  “I may not take your hand until you know”—­he raised his voice so that all who chose might hear—­“until you know that here where I stand, here before this cross, died in the torment of fire that Captain Robert Baldry who was my private foe, who lay beneath my challenge, whom I betrayed to his agony and to his martyr’s death....  Ah!  I will hold you excused, Sir Francis Drake!”

With the deep exclamation, the involuntary recoil, that followed on the heels of such an avowal, there appeared to descend upon the place a dark shadow, a veritable pall, a faint murk of driven smoke, through which men saw, to-day, the spectacle of nigh four years agone....  The silence was broken, the spell dissolved, by Robin-a-dale’s feeble cry from the litter:  “Master, master; come with me, master!”

Drake, who, with a quick intake of his breath, had drawn sharply back, was the first to recover.  He sent his lightning glance from the frowning, the deeply flushed and horror-stricken, countenances about him to the man whose worn cheek showed no color, whose lips were locked, whose eyes were steadfast, though a little lifted to the blue sky above the cross.  “Now death of my life!” swore the sea-king.  “The knave did well to call you ‘Master.’  Whatever there may have been, here is now no coward!” He turned to the staring, whispering throng.  “Gentlemen, we will remove from this space, which was the death-bed of a brave man and a true martyr.  This done, each man of you will go soberly about his business, remembering that God’s dealings are not those of men;—­remembering also that this gentleman is under my protection.”  Doffing his red cap, he stepped slowly backward out of the wide ring about the market-cross.  His example was followed by all; a few moments and the last rays of the sinking sun lay only upon bare stone and earth.

Some hours later, Robin-a-dale asleep in the bed, and his master keeping motionless watch at the window, Arden entered the room which had been assigned to Sir Mortimer Ferne, and crossing the floor, sat himself down beside his friend.  Presently Ferne put forth his hand, and the two sat with interlacing fingers, looking out upon the great constellations.  Arden was the first to speak.

“Dost remember how, when we were boys at school, and the curfew long rung, we yet knelt at our window and saw the stars come up over the moorland?  Thou wert the poet and teller of tales—­ah! thy paladins and paynims and ladies enchanted!—­while I listened, bewitched as they, but with an ear for the master’s tread.  It was a fearful joy!”

“I remember,” said the other.  “It was a trick of mine which too often brought the cane across our shoulders.”

“Not mine,” quoth Arden.  “You always begged me off.  I was the smallest—­you waked me—­made me listen, forsooth!...  Welladay!  Old times seem near to-night!”