Suddenly the bell stopped; a deep hum of sound spun and echoed in the narrowing cone where Windybank was giddily clinging. He had paused again to recover breath and stability. Looking down, he saw a head rising from the tower steps into the bell-chamber; the sexton had come up to readjust the rope. The fugitive's guilty conscience put another meaning upon his act; he felt sure that signs of his presence had been noted, and that the fellow had come up to search for him. A little way above him was darkness and security. He turned quickly to make a last noiseless dash, but he missed his grip and his footing. For a moment he hung, while his heart stood still. Then he fell with sickening thud and crash from beam to beam. The startled sexton looked up and cried out; and the traitor's body toppled in its last wild spin, and fell at his feet. He lifted it up. The face was beaten almost out of recognition, and the neck was broken. The receding tide left Father Jerome's body on the sands. He delayed his plunge into the river a moment too long, and a thrust from Raleigh's sword speeded him into the yellow waters. John was found on the bank, dead likewise. Basil's body was searched for in vain. He was accounted as dead, for men protested stoutly that they had wounded him more than once. But a scotched viper does not always die. Gatcombe men were destined to prove the truth of that. Chapter XV. A LETTER FROM COURT. Affairs in the forest had settled down; "excursions and alarums" were no longer the order of the day and the dread of the night. Wounded men were healed of the hurts gotten in the fray with the conspirators, and their whole-skinned neighbours had ceased to ask them how they did and envy them the marks of patriotic valour that they carried on their bodies. The dead were buried, and the tears of wives, mothers, and sisters were dried, and sad memories--when they came--called up only a sigh of resignation: "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away!" They humbly thanked the Lord that He had given their men honourable passage into the next world. The admiral was no longer at Gatcombe, but had gone to London, and thence to Plymouth. Raleigh had gone to London with him, and in London had he stayed. After the solitude of the forest, the gaiety of the court attracted him strongly; and, as her most gracious Majesty was disposed to smile upon him, he had said to Drake, "The sun shines, Frank; beshrew me if I stray out of the circle of its warm rays." To which the seaman replied, "God forgive thee, Wat, for dancing so much after a woman's heels. The sea--as I know full well--can be treacherous, but I serve a less fickle mistress than thou." Raleigh laughed lightly, kissed the storm-roughened cheek of his friend, and bade him God-speed. "What would our royal mistress say if she heard thee call her 'fickle'?" he whispered.