“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.
But even then the Queen was not minded to deliver him. His chief captain came from the mouth of the Dart, where the ship lay, to bring him his reports; but no message came from the Queen. However, his freeing was taken out of her hands and came not a whit too soon, for he had aged ten years in those two months. It seemed that the usurers and dealers in precious metals in London had flocked to the Dart upon the news of the treasure. And vagrants from all the winds flocked thither. And between those vultures and my lord’s own seamen and men of Devon there was soon riot and bloodshed. Then, since all means of restoring the peace seemed to have failed, at last they took my lord from the Tower that he might make peace.
It seemed that half the world was about the treasure-ship, and my lord’s ships. There came to greet us at our journey’s end that Lord Cecil of whom I had heard so much. I trusted him not, and I was rejoiced that he should see the passion of welcome which awaited my lord from his men of Devon. It was well that it was so, for my Lord Cecil reported upon it to the Queen.
“I assure you,” he wrote, “all his servants and his mariners came to him with such shouts of joy as I never saw a man more troubled to quiet them in all my life. But his heart is broken, and whenever he is saluted with congratulation for liberty he doth answer, ‘No, I am still the Queen of England’s poor captive.’ But I vow to you his credit among the mariners is greater than I could have thought it.”
My Lord Cecil was well disposed to my lord, albeit his cunning eyes and old, wise face made my youth feel of a sudden cold. The Queen harkened to him, and we were returned no more to the Tower; yet those two months of impatient fretting had set their mark upon my lord.
After this we sailed up the Dart to that Manor-house where the Lady Raleigh dwelt with her son. And again there was a very sweet interval of peace. I have now but to close my eyes and see again the red-brick ivied house, with its chimney-stack dark against the sky. The swallows are wheeling overhead, shouting and playing with one another. The rooks are coming homeward across the evening sky. On the green and velvety bowling green young Walter and I are playing at bowls. There are roses on the terrace and a peacock spreading his tail. Below these is the garden with its box borders, its roses and pinks and pansies; its fountain where the goldfish swim round and round, and its mossy dial. Further yet is the orchard, and beyond it the deer feeding amid the trees, and further still the river, and apple-orchards, with maids and men a-gathering apples for the cider brew. But I look not so far. My eye rests with my heart upon my lord, when he goeth between the box-borders in sweet converse with his lady-wife; and I watch him till young Walter rallies me as a poor comrade and player at the game.