From the Admiral to the last ne’er-do-weel of a noble house all sprang to their feet.  “God!” said one, under his breath, and another’s tankard fell clattering from his shaking hand.  Nevil, the calm accustomed state, the iron quiet of his nature quite broken, advanced with agitation.  “Mortimer, Mortimer!” he cried, and would have put his arms about his friend, but Ferne stayed him with a gesture and a look that none might understand.  Behind him came Robin-a-dale, slipped beneath his outstretched arm, then with head thrown back and wild defiant eyes faced the little throng of adventurers.  “He’s mad!” he shrilled.  “My master’s mad!  He says strange things—­but don’t you mind them, gentles....  Oh!  Sir John Nevil, don’t you mind them—­”

“Robin!” said Ferne, and the boy was silent.

Arden pushed forward the huge and heavy chair from the head of the board.  “Stand not there before us like the shade of him who was Mortimer Ferne,” he cried, his dark face working.  “Sit here among us who dearly love you, truest friend and noblest gentleman!—­Pour wine for him, one of you!”

Ferne made no motion of acquiescence.  He stood against the door which had shut behind him and looked from man to man.  “Humphrey Carewe—­and you, Gilbert—­and you, Giles Arden—­why are you here upon the Mere Honour?  The Cygnet is your ship.”  None answering him, his eyes travelled to others of the company.  “You, Darrell, and you, Black Will Cotesworth, were of the Phoenix.  What do you here?...  The water rushes by and the timbers creak and strain.  Whither do we go under press of sail?”

Before the intensity of his regard the men shrank back appalled.  A moment passed then.  “My friend, my friend!” cried Nevil, hoarsely, “you have suffered....  Rest until to-morrow.”

The other looked steadfastly upon him.  “Why, ’tis so that I have been through the fires of hell.  Certain things were told me there—­but I have thought that perhaps they were not true.  Tell me the truth.”

The silence seemed long before with recovered calmness the Admiral spoke.  “Take the truth, then, from my lips, and bear it highly.  As we had plotted so we did, but that vile toad, that engrained traitor, learning, we know not how, each jot and tittle of our plan and escaping by some secret way, sold us to disaster such as has not been since Fayal in the Azores!  For on land we fought to no avail, and by treachery the Spaniards seized the Cygnet, slew the men upon her, and fired her powder-room.  Dressed in flame she bore down upon, struck, and sunk the Phoenix....  Now we are the Mere Honour and the Marigold, and we go under press of sail because behind us, whitening the waters that we have left, is the plate-fleet from Cartagena.”

“Where is Robert Baldry?” asked Ferne.

“In the hands of Don Luiz de Guardiola—­dead or living we know not.  He and a hundred men came not forth from the tunal—­stayed behind in the snare the Spaniard had set for them.”