Then Amyas told the last scene; how, when they were off the Azores, the storms came on heavier than ever, with “terrible seas, breaking short and pyramid-wise,” till, on the 9th September, the tiny Squirrel nearly foundered and yet recovered; “and the general, sitting abaft with a book in his hand, cried out to us in the Hind so oft as we did approach within hearing, ‘We are as near heaven by sea as by land,’ reiterating the same speech, well beseeming a soldier resolute in Jesus Christ, as I can testify he was.

“The same Monday, about twelve of the clock, or not long after, the frigate (the Squirrel) being ahead of us in the Golden Hind, suddenly her lights were out; and withal our watch cried, the general was cast away, which was true; for in that moment the frigate was devoured and swallowed up of the sea.”

And so ended (I have used Hayes’ own words) Amyas Leigh’s story.

“Oh, my brother! my brother!” moaned poor Adrian; “the glory of his house, the glory of Devon!”

“Ah! what will the queen say?” asked Mrs. Hawkins through her tears.

“Tell me,” asked Adrian, “had he the jewel on when he died?”

“The queen’s jewel?  He always wore that, and his own posy too, ’Mutare vel timere sperno.’  He wore it; and he lived it.”

“Ay,” said Adrian, “the same to the last!”

“Not quite that,” said Amyas.  “He was a meeker man latterly than he used to be.  As he said himself once, a better refiner than any whom he had on board had followed him close all the seas over, and purified him in the fire.  And gold seven times tried he was, when God, having done His work in him, took him home at last.”

And so the talk ended.  There was no doubt that the expedition had been an utter failure; Adrian was a ruined man; and Amyas had lost his venture.

Adrian rose, and begged leave to retire; he must collect himself.

“Poor gentleman!” said Mrs. Hawkins; “it is little else he has left to collect.”

“Or I either,” said Amyas.  “I was going to ask you to lend me one of your son’s shirts, and five pounds to get myself and my men home.”

“Five?  Fifty, Mr. Leigh!  God forbid that John Hawkins’s wife should refuse her last penny to a distressed mariner, and he a gentleman born.  But you must eat and drink.”

“It’s more than I have done for many a day worth speaking of.”

And Amyas sat down in his rags to a good supper, while Mrs. Hawkins told him all the news which she could of his mother, whom Adrian Gilbert had seen a few months before in London; and then went on, naturally enough, to the Bideford news.

“And by the by, Captain Leigh, I’ve sad news for you from your place; and I had it from one who was there at the time.  You must know a Spanish captain, a prisoner—­”

“What, the one I sent home from Smerwick?”

“You sent?  Mercy on us!  Then, perhaps, you’ve heard—­”