Some others destined to the expedition he also met on this occasion, of whom one or two were captains and skilful mariners selected for the sub-commands, a few assistants for counsel and direction in the voyage, and others mere gentlemen adventurers like himself, whose acquaintance thus happily begun he was as happily to renew in after days. And with that the matter ended for him for the time being, and he returned into the country. He went, glowing with anticipation, and concerned only for the months which still lay between him and action: he went, with some valedictory words of Raleigh’s still sounding inspiringly in his brain:-- ‘Press on! Would I could follow thee--I, a poor impositioned schoolboy left at his task while all his shouting playmates go bounding for the fields. To voyage--there’s a magic in the word: to quit inglorious bondage, custom’s dull round, and be a man and free; to wake from mean small cares to visions of great seas, and waves that lift us, as nurses lift their charges, to spy over the tossing heads some wondrous sight; to greet upon our faces sweetest-laden winds, breathing like amorous sighs from lands that court their own rifling; to see strange monsters, big as ships, rolling in their feather-beds of foam. O, could I go, and share with thee the peril and the joy, and the joy in peril--two wandering champions of our dear lady-land! But, since I cannot, press on, press on, and if over the sheer cliff of the world, the stars they hang beyond, bright shrouds to climb to topmast heaven withal. That’s the way of Death, the happy way. Why do we for ever paint him as a grim old man, that follows on our heels waiting his chance to strike? He pursues us not, but bides to be discovered, a laughing child hiding behind a bush. He is not age, but youth, eternal youth; a beauteous boy, who smiles to close our eyes on years and sorrow; who comes with oblivion in his hand, bidding us drink and forget; who is the only friend that never fails us. Press on--take thy life in thy hand like a tempered sword, and so thou use it knightly in good cause, be careless whether it hold or break, thou hast made the most of it in honour. This world! is it so worth thy soul’s attachment?--a world where the great is ever at the mercy of the little, the high the low; where nobility eternally wastes itself, striving to kill the beast in man that cannot die; where beauty is but painfully achieved one day to be despoiled the next--a grievous world, a world so bad ’tis odds but any change from it must mean for better. Yet as thou strivest in it so shall be thy qualification for another. There’s its purpose. In truth it is but the jellied spawn of lovelier spheres, the egg on the leaf, a transient bubble blown in thick starlight, and jewelled with a thousand seeds of worlds to be. Make light of it, then, press on in steadfast probity, and leave to Heaven thine accompt.’ CHAPTER XXV. THE FUGITIVE