The Admiral turned to Ambrose Wynch, who burst forth with: "Sir John Nevil, as I have hope of heaven, I swear I did guard that man as you bade me do! The room was safe, the window high and barred, the door locked--"
"I doubt not that you did your duty, Ambrose Wynch," spoke the Admiral. "But the man escaped--"
"At the nooning he was safe enough," pursued the other, with agitation. "I, going the rounds, looked in and saw him sitting on his bed, smiling at me like a woman--Satan take his soul! I left Ralph Walter in the hall without, and you know him for a stanch man.... When we heard the Mere Honour's guns, and the town rose against us who were left within it, and I and my handful were cutting our way out to join you, Walter got to my side for a moment. 'He's gone!' says he. 'When I heard the alarum I went to fetch him forth to the square with me--and he was not there! When he went and how, except the devil aided him, I know no more than you!'"
"Where is Ralph Walter?" said the Admiral.
"Dead on the plain yonder!" groaned his lieutenant, and sitting down, covered his face with his hands.
From the main-deck arose a long, shrill cry. Arden drew a shuddering breath.
"It's that boy Robin! Had they not bound him he would have thrown himself overboard. I doubt you'll have to flog his senses back to him."
Robin-a-dale's voice again, this time from the break of the poop;--Robin-a-dale himself upon them, his bonds broken, his eyeballs starting, a wild blue-jerkined Ariel filled with tidings. In this moment a scant respecter of persons, he threw himself upon Nevil, pointing and stammering, inarticulate with the wealth of his discovery. The eyes of the two men followed his lean, brown finger.... Above the quay where boats made landing a sand-spit ran out from the tamarind-shadowed bank, and now in the red dawning the mist that clung to it lifted. A man who for an hour had lain heavily in the heavy shadow where he had been left by De Guardiola's picked men had arisen, and with feeble and uncertain steps was treading the sand-spit in the direction of the ships. Even as Nevil and Arden looked where Robin's shaking forefinger bade them look, he raised and waved his hand. It was the shadow of an old familiar gesture.
Before the cockboat reached the point he had fallen, first to his knee, then prone upon the sand. It was in that deep swoon that he was brought aboard the Mere Honour and laid in the Admiral's cabin, whence Arden, leaving the chirurgeon and Robin-a-dale with the yet unconscious man, presently came forth to the Admiral and to Ambrose Wynch and asked for aqua vitae, then drew his hand across his brow and wiped away the cold sweat; finally found voice with which to load with curses Luiz de Guardiola and his ministers. The Admiral listening, kept his still look upon the fortress. When Arden had ended his imprecations he spoke with a quiet voice:
"I love a knightly foe," he said. "For that churl and satyr yonder, may God keep him in safety until we come again!"