Of the same palace I grew sick to death. How long were we kept waiting about its corridors till the Queen’s favor should veer towards us again. It suited not with a country lad like myself; and as for my lord, his face grew lined and he seldom smiled: so that often, often, I longed that the old gardening days in Youghall were come again. Nor had he yet seen his wife and son. At last he grew restive, and declared that Devonshire air consorted better with his humor than the dank fogs that spread at evening about Westminster. But ere he could be gone he was committed to the Tower on the Queen’s warrant. So, sooner than we dreamt were we come to Traitor’s Gate. I went thither with him, and together we passed the low arch. There I was permitted to be in attendance on him, and listened often to his cries and groans, for he could not endure the imprisonment while there were so many glorious things in the world to be done. Sometimes he would solace himself with philosophy and poetry. But at times his fury would break forth so that the governor of the Tower feared for him lest he should go mad. He well described his own sufferings. “I am become like a fish cast on dry land,” he wrote, “gasping for breath, with lame legs and lamer lungs.” Indeed there were times when it seemed as if he would die from being so imprisoned and confined. Trust in the Queen’s pity he had not. “There is no chance for me now, Wat,” he said once, “unless it be that one of my captains should bring home a treasure-ship to pour into her lap, which might buy my freedom if she conceived that by that means I might find her more. For she loves gold as other women love love, wherefore is her face become yellower than a guinea.” It was for some such saying, doubtless, the Queen had had him cast in the Tower. He was not one to learn guile; and, like his rival, Essex, he was over-brave in speech as in other things. However, that happened that one of his captains did bring home a treasure-ship. He had been in the Tower two months, and had worn the stone floors with his pacing of them, more restless than the lion. The folk came to stare at him in the courtyard without. Then word came to us that his ships were in from the Azores and had brought with them the Spanish plate-ship, the Madre di Dios, which they had captured from the Dons. Half a million, a million, there was no end to the guineas she was worth. She was lined with glowing, woven carpets, sarcenet quilts, and lengths of white silks and cyprus. She carried, in chests of sandalwood and ebony, such stores of rubies and pearls, such porcelain and ivory and crystal, such planks of cinnamon, and such marvellous treasures as had never before been seen. Her hold seemed like a garden of spices, so laden was it with cloves, cinnamon, ambergris, and frankincense.