‘You are as cruel as a woman,’ the lady answered. ‘I was not to blame. I told you I gave ‘em time to change their minds. On my honour (ay de mi!), she asked no more of ‘em at first than to wait a while off that coast--the Gascons’ Graveyard--to hover a little if their ships chanced to pass that way--they had only one tall ship and a pinnace--only to watch and bring me word of Philip’s doings. One must watch Philip always. What a murrain right had he to make any plantation there, a hundred leagues north of his Spanish Main, and only six weeks from England? By my dread father’s soul, I tell you he had none--none!’ She stamped her red foot again, and the two children shrunk back for a second. ‘Nay, nay. You must not turn from me too! She laid it all fairly before the lads in Brickwall garden between the yews. I told ‘em that if Philip sent a fleet (and to make a plantation he could not well send less), their poor little cock-boats could not sink it. They answered that, with submission, the fight would be their own concern. She showed ‘em again that there could be only one end to it--quick death on the sea, or slow death in Philip’s prisons. They asked no more than to embrace death for my sake. Many men have prayed to me for life. I’ve refused ‘em, and slept none the worse after; but when my men, my tall, fantastical young men, beseech me on their knees for leave to die for me, it shakes me--ah, it shakes me to the marrow of my old bones.’ Her chest sounded like a board as she hit it. ‘She showed ‘em all. I told ‘em that this was no time for open war with Spain. If by miracle inconceivable they prevailed against Philip’s fleet, Philip would hold me accountable. For England’s sake, to save war, I should e’en be forced (I told ‘em so) to give him up their young lives. If they failed, and again by some miracle escaped Philip’s hand, and crept back to England with their bare lives, they must lie--oh, I told ‘em all--under my sovereign displeasure. She could not know them, see them, nor hear their names, nor stretch out a finger to save them from the gallows, if Philip chose to ask it. ‘“Be it the gallows, then,” says the elder. (I could have wept, but that my face was made for the day.) ‘“Either way--any way--this venture is death, which I know you fear not. But it is death with assured dishonour,” I cried. ‘“Yet our Queen will know in her heart what we have done,” says the younger. ‘“Sweetheart,” I said. “A queen has no heart.” ‘“But she is a woman, and a woman would not forget,” says the elder. “We will go!” They knelt at my feet. ‘“Nay, dear lads--but here!” I said, and I opened my arms to them and I kissed them. ‘“Be ruled by me,” I said. “We’ll hire some ill-featured old tarry-breeks of an admiral to watch the Graveyard, and you shall come to Court.”