From the first he had drawn attention, and now at the drumming of the tankard most faces turned his way. Nevil spoke to Drake beneath his breath; the latter bending towards Alonzo Brava, addressed him in a very low tone. Brava, deeply annoyed, on the point of signalling his servitors to "quietly persuade from the table his drunken guest, listened, though still frowning. A final whisper from Drake: "In no way toucheth your honor, a private matter--favors--ransom--" The governor, leaning forward, playing with his wine, gave some sign of acquiescence--perhaps, indeed, may have had his own indifferences to any blackening of the character of Don Luiz de Guardiola, now nourishing at Madrid like a green bay-tree. Mexia was displaying profound skill in the nice balancement of his tankard as the servant behind him refilled the measure. "Ha, Don Pedro!" cried Drake, with his bluff laugh, "art on that four-years-gone matter of Nueva Cordoba? Methinks Sir John Nevil brought off a knightly sufficiency of credit--" "Sir John Nevil--Oh! Ay!" said Mexia, and with both hands carefully lowered the tankard to the level of the table. "Did Sir Mortimer Ferne bring forth such a--what's the word?--knightly sufficiency? Now I've often wondered--'Tis true I had my grudge against him also, but in such matters I go not so far as De Guardiola, who brands the soul.... I told Don Luiz as much four years ago. 'Why, I kill my man,' quoth I, 'and go on my way singing.'" "And what said he to that?" queried Arden, lightly and easily drawing on Mexia, who, in his cups, became merely a garrulous old man. "Why," continued the envoy, "he said, 'Mayhap the dead do not remember. So live, my foe! but live in hell, remembering the brand upon thy soul, and that 'twas I who set it glowing there!'" A murmur ran the length of the table. Mexia suddenly found himself of a steadier brain with somewhat stronger interest in rencontres new or old. "Ha! Sir Mortimer Ferne and his knot of velvet! Don Luiz ground _that_ beneath his heel.... Well, the man's dead, no doubt. I've wondered more than once if he lived or died; if he beat out his brains as he strove to do; if, thinking better o't, he merely held his tongue and nursed his broken body; or if he cried aloud that which the old serpent De Guardiola made him believe, and henceforth travelled life's highway a lazar!... And that's a curious thought: leper to himself--leper to his world--leper's cry--leper's mantle, with the cloth across his face--and beneath it, all cleanliness, with not a soul but God to know it!" He gave his small, chuckling laugh. "Oh, I, too, have thoughts; I, too, watch the play,--Pedro Mexia, señors, is not so gross of wit as he is thought to be!" Nevil leaned across the table. "Leper to himself, and to his world! But to God all cleanly beneath that mantle which he drew over his forehead and his eyes! What do you mean? Sir Mortimer Ferne declared himself a coward and a traitor!"