Now this man waited at the threshold of an opening door, and like a child his fancy gathered door-step flowers, recking nothing of the widening space behind, the beckoning hands, the strange chambers into which shortly he must go. Some faint and far monition, some breath of colder air may have touched him, for now, like a shriven man drowsing into death, his mind dwelt lightly upon all things, gazed quietly upon a wide, retreating landscape, and saw that great and small are one. He was wont to think of Damaris Sedley with ardor, imagining embraces, kisses, cries of love, sweet lips, warm arms,--but to-night he seemed to see her in a glass, somewhat dimly. She stood a little remote, quiet, sweet, and holy, and his spirit chastened itself before her. Dear were his friends to him; his heart lodged them in spacious chambers and lapped them with observance; now he thought whimsically and lightly of his guests as though their lodgings were far removed from that misty central hall where he himself abode. Loyal with the fantastic loyalty of an earlier time, practiser of chivalry and Honor's fanatic, for a moment those things also lost their saliency and edge. Word and deed of this life appeared of the silver and the moonlight, not of gold and sunlight; existence a dream and no matter of moment. He plucked the flowers one by one, looked at them tranquilly, and laid them down, nor thought, This is Farewell. Nueva Cordoba lay still amongst her rustling palms; the ocean rippled gold, and like gold-dust were the scintillating clouds of insects; the limpid river palely slid between its mangrove banks, a low wind sighed, a night-bird called; far, far in the forest behind the hill a muffled roar proclaimed that the jaguar had found its meat. The moon rose--such a moon as never had England looked upon. Pearl, amethyst, and topaz were her rings; she made the boss of a vast shield; like God's own candle she lit the night. "At home the nightingales would sing," thought Sir Mortimer. "Ah, Philomela, here befits a wilder song than thine!" He looked towards the _Cygnet_, still as a painted ship upon the silver sluggish flood. "When there shall be no more sea, what will seamen do?" Over the marsh wandered the _ignes fatui_. "How restlessly and to no bourne dost thou move, lost soul!" The boy at his feet stirred and sighed. "Poor Robin! Tired and sleepy and frightened, art not? Why, dear knave, the jaguar is not roaring for thee!" Bending, he put an arm about the lad and drew him to his side. "I only wait for the brightness to grow," he said. "Do not shiver so! In a little while we shall be gone."