Joshua emerged from the chest with an armful of shirts and netherstocks. The door was rudely opened; Master Dangerfield's servant sought to make a hasty entrance, but was met on the threshold by Joshua, who thrust the pile of linen into his arms, and drove him out. "Avoid them! Avoid, fool! The noble lady hath this cabin. By the General's orders, mark you! Hold your peace, wastrel! The Venice hose! What's that to me? Make order there! Pick up that handruff, that boot, those stocks! There are more shirts to come. Await me!" He came back, spread his hands, and shrugged expressive shoulders. "Heed naught, señora. A hapless fool. Master Dangerfield's man. We shall have all in order presently." "I should not wish to turn Master Dangerfield from his cabin," Dominica said. "Is there none other might house me?" "Most noble lady! Waste no moment's thought upon it!" Joshua said, shocked. "Master Dangerfield, forsooth! A likely gentleman, I allow, but a mere lad from the nursery. This mountain of raiment! Ho, the young men! all alike! I dare swear a full score of shirts. Sir Nicholas himself owns not so many." He threw the rest of Master Dangerfield's wardrobe out of the cabin, and shut the door smartly upon the protests of Master Dangerfield's man. Dominica watched the disposal of her baggage about the room. "I must suppose you a man of worth," she said, gently satirical. "You may say so, indeed, señora. I am the servant of Sir Nicholas. I have the ear. I am obeyed. Thus it is to be the lackey of a great man, lady," Joshua answered complacently. "Oh, is this Sir Nicholas a great man by your reckoning?" "None greater, lady," said Joshua promptly. "I have served him these fifteen years, and seen none to equal him. And I have been about the world, mark you! Ay, we have done some junketting to and fro. I allow you Sir Francis Drake to be a man well enough, but lacking in some small matters wherein we have the advantage of him. His birth, for example, will not rank with ours. By no means! Raleigh? Pshaw! he lacks our ready wit: we laugh in his sour countenance! Howard? A fig for him! I say no more, and leave you to judge. That popinjay, Leicester? Bah! A man of no weight. We, and we alone have never failed in our undertakings. And why, you ask? Very simply, señora: we reck not! The Queen's grace said it with her own august lips. 'God's death,' quoth she--her favourite oath, mark you!--'God's Death, Sir Nicholas, you should take _Reck Not_ to be your watchword!' With reason, most gracious lady! Certain, we reck not. We bite our glove in challenge to whomsoever ye will. We take what we will: Beauvallet's way!" Maria sniffed, and cocked up her pert nose. Joshua looked severely. "Mark it, mistress! I speak for both: we reck not." "He is a bold man," Dominica said, half to herself.