Presently, the boy yet clinging to him, he sank down beside him on the sand. "Sleep, boy; sleep," he said. "Now I know that the gulf is fixed indeed, and that they lie who say the ghost returns."
"It is near the dawning," said the boy. "Do you rest, master, and I will watch."
"Nay," answered the other. "I have pictures to look upon.... Well, well, lay thy head upon the sand and dream of a merry world, and I myself will close my eyes. An he will, he may take me sleeping."
Robin slept and dreamed of Ferne House and the horns of the hunters. At last the horns came so loudly over the hills that he awakened, to find himself lying alone on the sand in a great and solemn flush of dawn. He started up with a beating heart; but there, coming towards him from a bath in the misty sea, was his master, dressed, and with his sword again in its sheath. As he made closer approach, the strengthening dawn showed the distinction of form and countenance. To the latter had returned the stillness and the worn beauty of yesterday, before the bark from Pampatar had brought news. The head was bared, and the light fell curiously upon the short and waving hair, imparting to it, as it seemed, some quality of its own. Robin, beholding, stumbled to his feet, staring and trembling.
"Why dost thou shake so?" asked the Captain of the Sea Wraith. "And thou art as white as is the sand! God forfend that the fever be on thee!"
More nearly the old voice of before these evil days of low, stern utterance! More nearly the old, kindly touch! Robin-a-dale, suddenly emboldened, caught at hand and arm and burst into a passionate outcry, a frenzy of entreaty. "Home! home! may we not go home now? They're all dead--Captain Robert Baldry and Ralph Walter and all! And you meant no harm by them--O Jesu! you meant no harm! There's gold in the hold of the Sea Wraith for to buy back Ferne House, and now that you've won, and won again from the Spaniard, the Queen will not be angry any more! And Sir John and Sir Philip and Master Arden will bid us welcome, and men will come to stare at the Sea Wraith that has fought so many battles! Master, master, let us home to Ferne House, where, at sunset, in the garden, you and the lady walked! Master--"
His voice failed. Sir Mortimer loosed the fingers that yet clung to his arm. "When I am king of these parts, thou shalt be my jester," he said. "Come! for it's up sail and far away this morning,--far away as Panama. I am thirsty. We'll drink of the spring and then begone."
When they had rounded once more the wooded point they saw the Sea Wraith, and drawn up upon the sand its cockboat. The sun had risen, so that now when they entered the forest there was ample light by which to find out the slowly welling spring, so limpid in its basin as to serve for mirror to the forest creatures who drank therefrom. All the tenants of the forest were awake. They hooted and chattered, screamed and sang. Orange and green and red, the cockatoos flashed through the air, or perched upon great boughs beside parasitic blooms as gaudy as themselves. Giant palms rustled; monkeys slid down the swinging lianas, to climb again with haste, chattering wildly at human intrusion; butterflies fluttered aside; the spotted snake glided to its deeper haunts. Suddenly, in the distance, a wild beast roared, and when the thunder ceased there was a mad increase of the lesser voices. Sound was everywhere, but no sweetness; only the mockery, gibing, and laughter of an unseen multitude. From the topmost palm frond to the overcolored fungi patching the black earth arrogant Beauty ruled, but to the weary eyes that looked upon her she was become an evil queen. Better one blade of English grass, better one song of the lark, than the gardens of Persephone!
Ferne, kneeling beside the spring, stooped to drink. Clear as that fountain above which Narcissus leaned, the water gave him back each lineament of the man who, accepting his own earthly defeat, had yet gathered all the powers of his being to the task of overmastering that bitter Fate into whose hands he had delivered, bound, both friend and foe; the man for whom, now that he knew what he knew, now that the fierce victrix had borne away her prey, was left but that remaining purpose, that darker thread which since yesterday's snapping of its fellow strands had grown strong with the strength of all. Before the water could touch his lips he also saw the mark one night had set upon him, and drew back with a slight start from his image in the pool; then, after a moment, bent again and drank his fill.
When Robin-a-dale had also quenched his thirst the two left the forest, and together dragged the cockboat down the sand and launched it over the gentle surf. Ferne rowed slowly, with a mind that was not for Robin, nor the glory of the tropic morning, nor the shock of yesterday, nor the night's despair. He looked ahead, devising means to an end, and his brows were yet bent in thought when the boat touched the Sea Wraith's side.