‘She showed ’em all. I told ’em that this was no time for open war with Spain. If by miracle inconceivable they prevailed against Philip’s fleet, Philip would hold me accountable. For England’s sake, to save war, I should e’en be forced (I told ’em so) to give him up their young lives. If they failed, and again by some miracle escaped Philip’s hand, and crept back to England with their bare lives, they must lie—oh, I told ’em all—under my sovereign displeasure. She could not know them, see them, nor hear their names, nor stretch out a finger to save them from the gallows, if Philip chose to ask it.
‘“Be it the gallows, then,” says the elder. (I could have wept, but that my face was made for the day.)
‘“Either way—any way—this venture is death, which I know you fear not. But it is death with assured dishonour,” I cried.
‘“Yet our Queen will know in her heart what we have done,” says the younger.
‘“Sweetheart,” I said. “A queen has no heart.”
‘“But she is a woman, and a woman would not forget,” says the elder. “We will go!” They knelt at my feet.
‘“Nay, dear lads—but here!” I said, and I opened my arms to them and I kissed them.
‘“Be ruled by me,” I said. “We’ll hire some ill-featured old tarry-breeks of an admiral to watch the Graveyard, and you shall come to Court."
‘“Hire whom you please,” says the elder; “we are ruled by you, body and soul"; and the younger, who shook most when I kissed ’em, says between his white lips, “I think you have power to make a god of a man."
‘“Come to Court and be sure of it,” I says.