Cadiz being the place of Raoul’s exile, I instantly bethought me of my talk overnight with Sir Walter Raleigh, and saw in his projected enterprise a means of wresting my friend from his bondage. Accordingly I sent my servant for my horse, purposing to ride again to Mile End and acquaint Sir Walter with what I had heard. I gave money to Stubbs wherewith to buy new raiment, bidding him return to my house and await me, and above all to avoid any debate with my servant, the which might easily end in broken heads. I found Sir Walter in his garden, smoking a pipe of tobacco, and setting potatoes, the new root that he had brought from the Indies, in the earth in the manner they call dibbling. He heard me attentively, and let out a round oath or two, and said that assuredly I might make the enlargement of my friend my personal charge in the adventure. [Illustration: I FOUND SIR WALTER IN HIS GARDEN] "But you must know, Rudd," he said, "that the project is as yet a secret, and indeed there is no surety that the Queen will give consent thereto. Her Grace frowns on me most malevolently, and there are many hindrances to surmount ere I come by her august approval. Were it not better to ransom your friend? I doubt not he hath kinsmen that are ignorant of his plight, and would bestir themselves did they but know it." I answered him that Raoul had spoken to me of an uncle, but as to ransom, Raoul himself must have thought thereon. Without doubt he would have acquainted the Spaniards with his rank, and their cupidity would not have refused to bargain for his enlargement, unless, peradventure, they had weightier reasons for holding him a prisoner. To this Sir Walter assented, and confessed that he saw nothing for it but to wait until the Queen’s pleasure in the matter of the intended voyage was known, and with that I had to be content. I returned to my lodging, sore downcast and perplexed. Stubbs was already there, new clothed in decent garments, and very personable. I fell a-talking to him, and in the midst a thought came suddenly to me. I knew the strange waywardness of the Queen, how she would one moment consent, the next deny her words with hearty swearing; it might be months, or even years, before Sir Walter had his way. It troubled me sorely to think that Raoul should endure his wretched lot while her Highness played see-saw, and I bethought me that I might at least voyage to France and see the kinsmen who were, I doubted not, mourning Raoul’s disappearance, and might perchance devise with them some plan for his deliverance. And since the testimony of an eye-witness is ever more effectual than report at second-hand, I resolved to take my mariner with me, so as they might have from his own lips the tale he told me. I forbore to ask consent of the Queen to my absence, being resolved to hazard my place rather than my design.