I reached out and grasped it, a mist before my eyes. 'Twas the first friendly hand I had clasped since Steele had sailed away and left me weary months before, and I knew what it meant to be alone and friendless among bitter foes. "Thou shalt not rue it," I said. And thus Oliver Gates entered my service. He was a treasure, that boy; he fell to and cleaned my muddy clothes and boots, polished my rusty breastplate, mended the rents in my ragged doublet, and was ever at my elbow, ready to serve me. He had cleaned the musketoon which I carried, and one morning I came suddenly upon him, his eyes fixed upon the sight, the weapon at his shoulder. "What art thou doing?" I asked in surprise, seeing no one at whom he pointed. He lowered the gun, a look of confusion upon his face. "I was but wishing that my Lord Dunraven walked below," he answered, "and I would soon rid thee of him forever;" and he looked up into my face. I was strangely touched by his thoughts of me, for I had grown to love him well, with his frank and merry ways, ever with a song upon his lips, ever busy with thoughts of my comfort and welfare. "Lad," I said, "I know not what I would do without thee." A tear came into his eye, and rolled down his rosy cheek; he tried to speak, but could not, and turning, hurried from the room. Sometimes at night as we sat together in my room under the candlelight, I would have him to tell me of London, and what my friends did there, of himself, and of his life before he sailed on his ill-fated voyage. I learned that my old comrade Drake had sailed for the Spanish Main in search of gold; that Bacon was busy with his law; Raleigh was in high favor with the Queen, and seemed at present to be the favorite; Bobby Vane he did not know. The Lady Margaret Carroll was the toast of London, happy, gay, light-hearted; rumor had it that she would soon become the bride of the Lord Dunraven, who, devoted, gallant, and attentive, was ever her constant shadow, and since I had vanished so mysteriously from London, he had no rival of importance. Of me, London had gossiped for a few days; the tale of my disinheritance had been the talk of the town, and followed so soon by my disappearance had created quite a sensation, and a dozen different stories had been circulated by way of explanation. Some said I had committed suicide; others that I had gone to the Low Country to assist the Dutch; still others that I had joined the freebooters and become a sea-rover. It had furnished sensation for the ladies and gentlemen of fashion, as they gathered under the evening candles and sipped their tea, but other things came to engage their attention; what cared they if one poor gentleman, stripped of his position and fortune, lived or died? I had passed from their world forever, and so with a jest upon their lips they had flitted to some new topic.