“And I all for my own,” answers Guy. “A price set upon my head as a pirate, and all for my Queen. Elizabeth smiles on me at court, calls me her valiant freebooter, yet tells the ambassador of Philip of Spain that I am here on my own account, and disowns me; though she knows it is for her interests, to guard her life, to discover such damnable plots as these, that I take my life within my hand! Besides,” he goes on, his eyes beginning to blaze, “I don’t love the Spaniards.” “Personally,” remarks the Flemish painter, “I have found some very pleasant gentlemen among them; though among those who flock here to Alva’s banner are scoundrels innumerable. But it is for my country that I live a life of suspense, each breath almost an apprehension.” Looking at the painter, Guy sees that this is true. He is rather small of figure, though well-built and agile; but has dark soft eyes, singularly delicate, mobile lips for a man, and a high, intellectual forehead. As Chester gazes, he is sure Antony Oliver is a brave man. At the same instant he knows he is a man with such a terrible fate hanging over him that his nerves are unstrung by constant and never-ending apprehension. However, he speaks to the point. “I hate every Spaniard, gentleman or no gentleman, peasant or noble, because I have a brother in the prisons of the Inquisition at Hispaniola.” “Poor fellow!” mutters the painter, with a little shudder. “In Hispaniola! That’s a long way off.” “Not for an English sailor. Seven years ago Dick and I, full of youth and ardor, sailed with Captain Ned Lovell to the Spanish Main, and traded there with the Dons of Hispaniola, and as we were Catholics, lived quite comfortably in the town of Haytien, accumulating wealth. Then I, with my doubloons and pieces of eight, returned to merry England, leaving Dick to turn the rest of our merchandise into gold and follow after. A year passed. Then no Dick; but word was brought me by Hawkins coming back from his third voyage, that Dick had fallen in love with a Spanish girl; that his rivals, for revenge, had denounced him as an English heretic, and the—the Inquisition—.” The Englishman’s voice is broken, there are tears in his eyes, though they burn fiercely. “Then I was ready to hate the Spaniards and do Queen Elizabeth’s work,” mutters Guy, after a moment’s pause, “the work that gave me this miniature.” “Can you tell me,” he says suddenly, producing the likeness, on ivory set with diamonds, “the name and title of the lady whose face is here?” “Oho!” chuckles the painter, a twinkle in his eye, “I had been expecting some such question ever since you told me about the lady of the barge. Did she give you this? Has she also been smitten by Cupid’s dart?” “What do you mean?” growls the Englishman, blushes showing beneath his sun-burned skin.