CHAPTER XLV.
TEN YEARS AFTER.
It was ten years later in the reign of Elizabeth, when James VI. was under one of his many eclipses of favour, and when the united English and Dutch fleets had been performing gallant exploits at Cadiz and Tercera, that license for a few weeks' absence was requested for one of the lieutenants in her Majesty's guard, Master Richard Talbot.
"And wherefore?" demanded the royal lady of Sir Walter Raleigh, the captain of her guard, who made the request.
"To go to the Hague to look after his brother's widow and estate, so please your Majesty; more's the pity," said Raleigh.
"His brother's widow?" repeated the Queen.
"Yea, madam. For it may be feared that young Humfrey Talbot—I know not whether your Majesty ever saw him—but he was my brave brother Humfrey Gilbert's godson, and sailed with us to the West some sixteen years back. He was as gallant a sailor as ever trod a deck, and I never could see why he thought fit to take service with the States. But he did good work in the time of the Armada, and I saw him one of the foremost in the attack on Cadiz. Nay, he was one of those knighted by my Lord of Essex in the market-place. Then he sailed with my Lord of Cumberland for the Azores, now six months since, and hath not since been heard of, as his brother tells me, and therefore doth Talbot request this favour of your Majesty."
"Send the young man to me," returned the Queen.
Diccon, to give him his old name, was not quite so unsophisticated as when his father had first left him in London. Though a good deal shocked by what a new arrival from Holland had just told him of the hopelessness of ever seeing the Ark of Fortune and her captain again, he was not so overpowered with grief as to prevent him from being full of excitement and gratification at the honour of an interview with the Queen, and he arranged his rich scarlet and gold attire so as to set himself off to the best advantage, that so he might be pronounced "a proper man."
Queen Elizabeth was now some years over sixty, and her nose and chin began to meet, but otherwise she was as well preserved as ever, and quite as alert and dignified. To his increased surprise, she was alone, and as she was becoming a little deaf, she made him kneel very near her chair.