“’There comes a ship far sailing then,—­
     St. Michael was the steersman;
     St. John sate in the horn;
     Our Lord harped; Our Lady sang,
     And all the bells of heaven rang.’”

He sang the verse lightly, as simply and sweetly as Robin had sung it, then with a smile turned to go; and in passing Nevil laid a slight caressing touch upon his shoulder.  “Until to-night then, John!—­and, by’r Lady! seeing that you will be at the top of the board and I at the bottom, I do think that I may hear nothing worth betraying!”

Sir John uttered an ejaculation, and would have taken again the folded paper, but the other withstood him, and quietly went his way to kneel beside Robin-a-dale, give up his hand to tears and kisses (for Robin was very weak, and thought his master cruel to leave him so long alone), to the youth’s unchecked babble of all things that in his short life appertained to Ferne House and to its master.

Sir Francis Drake and Alonzo Brava had come to a mind in regard to the ransom for the town.  If the English gained not so large a sum as they had hoped for, yet theirs was the glory of the enterprise, and Drake’s eye was yet upon Nombre de Dios.  If the Spaniards had lost money and men and had looked on day by day at the slow dilapidation of their city, yet they had riches left, and the life of the Spanish soldier was cheap, and that ruined portion of the town might be built again.  Agreements had been drawn as to the ransom of the city of Cartagena and signed by each leader,—­by Brava with the pious (but silent) wish that the fleet might be miraculously destroyed before the drying of the ink; and by Drake with one of his curious mental reservations, concerning in this case the block-house and the great priory just without the city.  Matters being thus settled and the next morning named for the British evacuation of Christendom, needs must pass the usual courtesies between the then stateliest people of Cartagena and the bluntest.  Alonzo Brava, in all honesty, invited to supper with him in his dismantled citadel Sir Francis Drake, Sir John Nevil, and all officers and gentlemen within the English forces.  Drake as frankly accepted the courtesy for himself and all who might be spared from the final labors of the night.

In the late evening, by a stormy light which, seen through the high, wide, and open windows, seemed to pit itself against the approaching darkness, Brava, motioning to right and left, seated himself with his principal guests at the head of the table, while his chamberlains busied themselves with serving the turn of lesser names.  Captains and officers, gentlemen and volunteers of wealth and birth, fell into place, while the end of the table left was for needier adventurers, scapegrace and out-at-elbow volunteers.  Noiseless attendants went to and fro.  Great numbers of candles, large as torches, were lighted, but the prolonged orange glare which entered the western windows seemed