"Curb ambition, child," Beauvallet said. "Here Daw, Russet, Curlew! Overpower me this springald. Softly, lads, softly!" Cruzada found himself surrounded, and cried out in fury. Rough hands seized him from behind, and dragged him back; he saw Beauvallet leaning on his sword, and cursed him wildly for a coward and a poltroon. Beauvallet chuckled at that. "Grow a beard, child, and meet me when it's grown. Mr. Dangerfield!" His lieutenant was at hand. "Have a guard about the worthy señor," said Beauvallet, and indicated Don Juan by a brief nod. He bent, picked up Don Juan's sword, and was off, light-footed, down the companion into the waist of the ship. Don Juan recovered his senses to find himself unarmed, and El Beauvallet gone. He came staggering to his feet, an English hand at his elbow, and was aware of a fair boy confronting him. "You are my prisoner, señor," said Richard Dangerfield, in halting Spanish. "The day is lost." The sweat was in Don Juan's eyes; he brushed it away, and could see the truth of this statement. All over the galleon his men were laying down their arms. The rage and the anguish that convulsed him were wiped suddenly from his face. By a supreme effort he recovered his _sosiego_, and stood straight and looked impassively as should befit his breeding. He achieved a bow. "I am in your hands, señor." Over the quarterdeck towards the poop men were hurrying already in search of plunder. Some three or four stout fellows went clattering down the companion that led to the staterooms. They came upon a sight to astonish them. Backed against the wall, with hands laid along the panelling to either side of her stood a lady, a lady all cream and rose and ebony. Cream her skin, and rose her lips, ebony the lustrous hair confined under a net of gold. Her eyes were dark and large under languorous lids, the brows delicately marked, the nose short and proud, the full lips curved and ripe. She wore a gown of purple camlet, worked cunningly with a pattern of gold thread, with a kirtle of armazine to fall from the veriest hint of a farthingale. Behind her head reared up a high ruff of lace sewn with crystals. It framed a face piquant and lovely. The square of her bodice was cut low across her breast; a jewel lay upon the white skin, rising and falling with her quickened breath. The foremost of the invaders stood in an amazed stare, but recovered before those behind him might push forward. "A wench!" he cried on a coarse laugh. "A rare wench, as I live!" His fellows came crowding to get a sight of this miracle. There were sparks of anger in the lady's eyes, and, at the back of them, fear.