Sir Mortimer: A Novel

by Mary Johnston

"I think not of the dead, for whom there's no help. For the living man, he and I have yet to meet! There is to-night--there is the path he found--no doubt he counts upon our attacking as was planned! He is subtle with his words--no doubt he'll hold them off--insinuate--make them look only to the seaward--"

The Admiral, coming to the table, leaned his weight upon it. "Gentlemen, you all do know that this is my friend, whom I love as David of old loved Jonathan. Of the value of his life, of that great promise which his death would cut short, I will not speak. I also think that this Governor, believing himself, the treasure, and his men-at-arms secure, careth naught for the town whose protector he is called. Therefore an we would save the man who is dear to us and to England from I know not what fate, from the fate perhaps of John Oxenham, this night must we take by storm the fortress, using the plan of attack, the hour, ay and the word of the night, which he gave us. If it is now less simple a thing, if this Spaniard will surely keep watch and ward to-night, yet there is none to tell him that, offering at his face, we do mean to strike him in the back. If our onslaught be but swift and furious enough we may, God willing, bring forth in triumph both the treasure and the man whose welfare so outweighs the treasure."

"Amen to that," answered Arden; "but I have a boding spirit. It seems to me that the blessed sun himself hath shrunken, and I would I might wring the neck of yonder yelling bird!... That Englishman, that Francis Sark--he is well guarded?"

"Ralph Walter guards him," said the Admiral, briefly. "There is but the one door--the window is barred and too narrow for the passage of a child.... Yea, I grant, as did Mortimer Ferne, his knavery, but now, as nearly as we can sail to the wind of the truth, the man, desiring restitution and reward, speaks plain honesty."

"He spoke 'plain honesty' after the taking of the San José," muttered Arden. "Yet we found a hawk where we looked for a wren's nest. Oh, I grant you there were explanations enough to stand between him and the yard-arm, and that Fortune, having turned her wheel in our favor, apparently left her industry and fell asleep! She awakened this morning."

"Wring thine own neck for a bird of ill omen!" began Baldry, to be cut short by the Admiral's grave "Where all's danger, whatever course we shape, who gives a safer chart?" Then, as no one spoke: "To our loss we have found both shoal and reef between us and yonder castle. Think you not that I know, as knew Sir Mortimer Ferne, that we are shown a doubtful channel by a shifty pilot? But beyond is the open sea of all our hopes. Fortune and her wheel, Giles Arden!--nay, rather God and His hand over the issues of life and death!"

Up in his white fortress that same hour De Guardiola heard in silence the Admiral's message of defiance, then when he and Mexia were again alone frowned thoughtfully over a slip of paper which by devious ways had shortly before reached his hand. With all their vigilance not every hole and crevice could the English stop; Spanish was the town and Spanish the overhanging fortress, and the former was the place of many women and priests. The conquerors strove to secure the place as with a fowler's net, yet now and again a bird of the air fluttered through their meshes. The paper which Don Luiz held ran as follows: "May not a countryman of heretics choose his own king? When Death peers too closely--as was the case upon the galleon San José--may not a man turn his coat and send Death seeking elsewhere? Death gone by, may not the man be willing (if it be so that he is not well entreated of his new masters) to take again the colors to which on a Corpus Christi day of which you wot he swore fealty? At sunrise this morning the English laid toils for you. I have knowledge to sell. Will you buy my wares with five thousand pesos of silver and the letter to Cartagena which I desired?... I wrap this in a fig-leaf and drop it from the window to Dolores laughing with the seamen below. If you will buy, then raise above the battery a pennant of red that may be seen from the room with the hidden door in the Friar's House."

"The dog! I thought that he perished with Antonio de Castro!" spoke Mexia.