“That were a slight matter to endure, my dear sir, if by it I could win the honor which her majesty bestowed on you, when her own ivory hand waved a farewell ’kerchief to your ship from the windows of Greenwich Palace.”

“Well, sir, folks say you have no reason to complain of lack of favors, as you have no reason to deserve lack; and if you can get them by staying ashore, don’t you go to sea to look for more, say I. Eh, Master Towerson?”

Towerson’s gray beard, which has stood many a foreign voyage, both fair and foul, wags grim assent.  But at this moment a Waiter enters, and—­

“Please my lord mayor’s worship, there is a tall gentleman outside, would speak with the Right Honorable Sir Walter Raleigh.”

“Show him in, man.  Sir Walter’s friends are ours.”

Amyas enters, and stands hesitating in the doorway.

“Captain Leigh!” cry half a-dozen voices.

“Why did you not walk in, sir?” says Osborne.  “You should know your way well enough between these decks.”

“Well enough, my lords and gentlemen.  But, Sir Walter—­you will excuse me”—­and he gave Raleigh a look which was enough for his quick wit.  Turning pale as death, he rose, and followed Amyas into an adjoining cabin.  They were five minutes together; and then Amyas came out alone.

In few words he told the company the sad story which we already know.  Ere it was ended, noble tears were glistening on some of those stern faces.

“The old Egyptians,” said Sir Edward Osborne, “when they banqueted, set a corpse among their guests, for a memorial of human vanity.  Have we forgotten God and our own weakness in this our feast, that He Himself has sent us thus a message from the dead?”

“Nay, my lord mayor,” said Sidney, “not from the dead, but from the realm of everlasting life.”

“Amen!” answered Osborne.  “But, gentlemen, our feast is at an end.  There are those here who would drink on merrily, as brave men should, in spite of the private losses of which they have just had news; but none here who can drink with the loss of so great a man still ringing in his ears.”

It was true.  Though many of the guests had suffered severely by the failure of the expedition, they had utterly forgotten that fact in the awful news of Sir Humphrey’s death; and the feast broke up sadly and hurriedly, while each man asked his neighbor, “What will the queen say?”

Raleigh re-entered in a few minutes, but was silent, and pressing many an honest hand as he passed, went out to call a wherry, beckoning Amyas to follow him.  Sidney, Cumberland, and Frank went with them in another boat, leaving the two to talk over the sad details.

They disembarked at Whitehall-stairs; Raleigh, Sidney, and Cumberland went to the palace; and the two brothers to their mother’s lodgings.

Amyas had prepared his speech to Frank about Rose Salterne, but now that it was come to the point, he had not courage to begin, and longed that Frank would open the matter.  Frank, too, shrank from what he knew must come, and all the more because he was ignorant that Amyas had been to Bideford, or knew aught of the Rose’s disappearance.