Nevil motioned to the bearers, who raised the litter and began again their progress across the square. Drake turned from those to whom he had been speaking. "Will ye be going? You shall sup with us to-night, John Nevil! Master Arden, I do desire your better acquaintance. Captain Powell, you will stay with me who have some words for your ear. Sir Mortimer Ferne, I trust you will recover your servant, as you have recovered so many of our poor fellows"--his voice dropped until it was audible only to the three or four who made his immediate circle,--"as you have wellnigh recovered yourself." Generous as he was, he had not meant to go so far. He had yet his doubts, his reversions, in mind, to those sheer facts which none denied. This was a recreant knight--but also a man who had suffered long and greatly, who, if eye and intuition could be trusted, suffered now. He hesitated a moment, then abruptly held out his hand. All saw the gesture, and a sudden hush fell upon the company. If these two touched hands, then in that moment would be spanned the distance between the star in the ascendant and the wavering marsh-light, between the sea-colossus and his one-time rival, now so long overwhelmed and chained to sterile earth. In the short silence the wind seemed to take with a rushing sound the palm tops overhead. Then Ferne spoke. "With all my heart I thank you," he said. "I may not take your hand until you know"--he raised his voice so that all who chose might hear--"until you know that here where I stand, here before this cross, died in the torment of fire that Captain Robert Baldry who was my private foe, who lay beneath my challenge, whom I betrayed to his agony and to his martyr's death.... Ah! I will hold you excused, Sir Francis Drake!" With the deep exclamation, the involuntary recoil, that followed on the heels of such an avowal, there appeared to descend upon the place a dark shadow, a veritable pall, a faint murk of driven smoke, through which men saw, to-day, the spectacle of nigh four years agone.... The silence was broken, the spell dissolved, by Robin-a-dale's feeble cry from the litter: "Master, master; come with me, master!"