He felt comforted, and a great calm descended on him. Those taunting lights had died out of the western sky; the beauty of the earth no longer looked slantwise at him like a young girl whose eyes are tender and whose breasts are the breasts of a woman. The pallet bed in the cell had a mattress of sacking filled with straw. It served Martin well enough. He slept soundly and without dreams. But at Paradise Geraint had gone a-prowling through the orchards. He loitered outside Widow Greensleeve’s gate till some one came out with smothered laughter and spoke to him under the apple boughs. “The pan is on the fire, dame. Brother Martin has gone to the Black Moor.” “And the fat is ready for frying, my master.” “A few pinches of spice—eh!” “And a pretty dish fit for a king.” _Chapter IV_ A tall ship, the Rose, came footing it toward Gawdy Town with a wash of foam at her bluff bows, and the green seas lifting her poop. Gawdy Town was very proud of the Rose, for she was fit to be a king’s ship, and to carry an admiral’s flag if needs be. Her towering poop and forecastle had their walls pierced for guns, and their little turrets loopholed for archers, and all her top gear was painted to match her name. She carried three masts and a fine spread of canvas, and Master Hamden, her captain, loved to come into port with streamers flying and all the gilding of her vanes and bulwarks shining like gold. The Rose struck her canvas and dropped her tow ropes when she was under the shelter of the high ground west of the harbor. A couple of galleys came out to tow her in, and she was berthed at the Great Wharf under the walls. She carried merchandise and wine from Spain and Bordeaux, also a few passengers; but the passengers were of small account. Two of them, a girl and a young man, were leaning over the poop rail and watching the people on the wharf below. The young man’s face was yellow as a guinea; he was dressed like a strolling player, with bunches of ribbons at his elbows and bells in his cap. The girl looked the taller of the two, perhaps because the sea had not humbled her; she wore a light blue coat edged with fur, and a gown of apple green; her green hood had white strings tied under her chin. “Holy saints, what an adventure!” The man straightened himself, and managed to smile. “I never knew what cowardice was like till I got aboard a ship. My courage came out of my mouth. And now an impudent tongue and a laughing eye are necessities——” The girl’s dark eyes were on the alert. “There’s old Adam Rick, or am I blind?” “Master Port Reeve—so it is! The bridge is ashore. We had best be putting our fortune to the test. Have I anything of the gay devil left about me?” He shook himself with the air of a bird that had been moping on a perch, but the girl did not laugh; she held her head high, and seemed to take life with fierce seriousness.