"What monk's tale is this of a Spanish friar who wastes the elixir of life upon Lutheran dogs? I' faith, I had bodeful dreams last night, and waked this morning now hot, now cold. I'll end my days with no foul fever--an I can help it! What's the man and his remedy?"
"Why," answered Powell, doubtfully, "his words are Spanish, but at times I do think the man is no such thing. He came to the camp a week agone, waving a piece of white cloth and supporting a youth, who, it seems, was like to have pined away amongst the Indian villages, all for lack of Christian sights and sounds. The friar having brought him to the hospital, wished to leave him with the chirurgeons and himself return to the Indians, whom, we understand, he has gathered into a mission. But the youth cried out, and clutching at the other's robe (i' was a pity to see, for he was very weak), dragged himself to his feet and set his face also to the forest. Whereupon the elder gave way, and since then has nursed his companion--ay, and many another poor soul who longs no more for gold and the strange things of earth. As for the remedy--he goes to the forest and returns, and with him two or maybe three stout Indians bearing bark and branch of a certain tree, from which he makes an infusion.... I only know that for wellnigh all the stricken he hath lightened the fever, and that he hath recalled to life many an one whom the chirurgeon had given over to the chaplain."
"What like is the youth?" queried Arden.
"Why, scarce a boy, nor yet a man in years; and, for all his illness, watcheth the other like any faithful dog. English, moreover--"
"English!"
"At times he grows light-headed, and then his speech is English, but the gowned fellow stills him with his hand, or gives him some potion, whereupon he sleeps."
"What like is this Spanish friar?" broke in suddenly and with harshness Sir John Nevil's voice.
"Why, sir," Powell answered, "his cowl overshadows his face, but going suddenly on yesterday into the hut where he bides with the youth, I saw that as he bent over his patient the cowl had fallen back. My gran'ther (rest his soul!), who died at ninety, had not whiter hair."
"An old man!" exclaimed Sir John, and, sighing, turned himself in his chair. Arden, rising, left the company for the window, where he looked down upon the city of Cartagena and outward to the investing fleet. The streets of the town were closed by barricades, admirably constructed by the Spaniards, but now in English possession. Beyond the barricades and near the sea, where the low and narrow buildings were, lay the wounded and the fever-stricken;--rude hospital enough! to some therein but a baiting-place where pain and panic and the miseries of the brain were become, for the time, their bed-fellows; to others the very house of dissolution, a fast-crumbling shelter built upon the brim of the world, with Death, the impartial beleaguer, already at the door. Arden turned aside and joined the group about Drake, the great sea-captain in whose company nor fear nor doubting melancholy could long hold place.
That night, shortly after the setting of the watch, Sir John Nevil, with a man or two behind him, found himself challenged at the barricade of a certain street, gave the word, and passed on, to behold immediately before him and travelling the same road a dark, unattended figure. To his sharp "Who goes there?" a familiar voice made answer, and Arden paused until his friend and leader came up with him.