‘So,’ said he, ‘my knight-errant still lacks to cry his country’s fame about the world; and, for all that high emprise, must make shift with the spearing of eels in brooks, or to search the hills for coneys, or to loose his tiercel at a trailing heron, or, for ladies’ favours, to follow at the kissing-strings of country Moll? Is it this contents him, lord of that glowing vision--to shut the door of the world, and dream on tranquil swards of mighty venturings without, in which he seeks no part? Go to! With that face and form, I’ll not believe it. Too near the great sea waters not to have felt their far and passionate lure!’ ‘I have felt it,’ said Brion. ‘It is not lack of will, but of opportunity.’ ‘Opportunity!’ cried the other. ‘It shall be thine, perchance, for the taking. Long have I had a vision--to plant our English standard in that golden West where Drake has led the way; to take and sow some grist of English manhood there, which, like a lusty crop, shall crowd out the Spanish weed, and come to harvest in a greater England. Ah, for such an expedition! It shapes for ever in my thoughts. Wilt thou go with it--if not as colonist, as soldier, adventurer, knight-errant if thou wilt? There shall be opportunity enow to spread thy mother’s fame--ay, and in the most convincing way with sons like thee, right slips to attach the new world to the old with very love-knots. Wilt thou not follow where Drake has shown the way?’ ‘I may follow, but not Drake’s way,’ said Brion, with a wry face. ‘I would not foul _my_ fame by murdering of a dear friend and shipmate.’ He alluded--patently enough to Raleigh’s perceptives, for the deed had been notorious--to the great Captain’s formal execution, in the course of his famous expedition of three years earlier, of Thomas Doughty, his lieutenant and once-admired comrade. Raleigh, lolling back, protested, with a little amused chuckle: ‘Not murdered.’ ‘A scholar and a gentleman,’ cried the young man, ‘and he had loved Drake like a brother.’ ‘As Jacob loved Esau--and schemed to out-wit him.’ He sat up with a laugh. ‘Where is thy dithyrambic patriot--thy dear fantastic glib-gabbit?’ ‘Clerivault?’ ‘Ay, that was his name. Lives and declaims he still?’ ‘He’s there, Master Walter. Seest him not--talking with thy servant Nic Wright?’ ‘Whistle him over. I would fain hear _his_ verdict on the deed.’ Brion called to Clerivault, who attended on his summons, and came and stood before the two. ‘Master Clerivault,’ said the visitor, ‘was that Doughty you wot of well served by his Captain or ill?’ Clerivault, sticking one arm akimbo, bent his brows on the speaker. ‘Cry you mercy, Sir,’ said he: ‘a lover of his country had no need to ask.’ ‘You think he was a traitor to his country?’ ‘I think it.’ ‘How?’ ‘He played for the party that played for Spain to wreck the expedition and render it abortive. Blackest of traitors, that--a professing friend in the house he plots to ruin.’