Again he would have advanced, but the man at the door waved him back, smiled once more with his lips alone.  “Ah, you all are dear to me!  But do you know I prefer your hatred to your love!  Give me your hatred and let me go.  I am not mad nor do I lie to you....  Before the sunset, when I had borne torment through the day, I bore it no longer.  They loosed me and dashed water in my face, and Luiz de Guardiola said over to me the words that I had spoken.  Then he went forth and laid his snares....  And so Robert Baldry is lost, he and a hundred men besides?  And Spaniards coming down the river took the Cygnet because they knew the word of the night?” A spasm distorted the masklike features, but in a moment it was gone.  “I should be a madman,” he said, “for once I walked before you with a high head and a proud heart.  It seems that I knew not myself....  Now, John Nevil, enact Drake and send me to join Thomas Doughty!”

The Admiral answered not where he stood, covering his eyes with his hand.  “But Francis Sark—­” began Wynch, in a shaking voice.

“I know naught of Francis Sark,” Ferne replied.  “As I have said so I did.  I ask no other court than this, no further mercy than my present death....  John Nevil, for the sake of all that’s dead and gone forever, I pray you to keep me here no longer!”

He staggered as he spoke and put his hand to his head.  “Mortimer, Mortimer.  Mortimer!” cried the Admiral.  “Oh, my God, let this dream pass!”

“Why, the matter needs not God,” said Ferne, and laughed.  “I am a traitor, am I not?  Then do to me what was done to Thomas Doughty.  Only hasten, for dead men wait to clutch me, and your looks do sear my very brain.”

Again he reeled.  With a cry Robin-a-dale sprang towards him.  Arden, too, was there in time to support the sinking figure and guide it to the seat he had pushed forward.  Some one held wine to the lips....  Slow moments passed, then Sir Mortimer’s eyes unclosed.  The boy hung over him, and he smiled upon him, smiled with eye and lip.  “Ay, ay, ay, Robin,” he said, “we’ll to the court!  And sweep away these rhymes, for the queen of all my songs dwells there, and I shall look into her eyes—­and that’s better than singing, lad!  Ay, I’ll wear the violet, and we’ll ride beneath the blossoms of the spring....  But there’s a will-o’-the-wisp on the marsh out yonder, and here they call it a lost soul—­the soul of the traitor Aguirre!”

“Master, master!” cried the boy.

Ferne laughed, touching the young cheek with long, supple fingers.  “Fame is a bubble, lad—­let me tell thee that!  But then it is rainbow-hued and mirrors the sky,—­so we’ll ride for the bubble, lad! and we’ll stoop from the saddle and gather up Love!  And when the bubble has vanished and Love is dead there’s Honor left!” He leaned forward, seeing and hearing where was neither sound nor sight.  There was gayety in his face.  To the men who stared upon him it was a fearful thing that he who had lost his battle should wear once more the look which they had seen a thousand times.  He raised his hand.