Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v108.djvu/417

Rh pushed forward. Some one held wine to the lips Slow moments passed, then Sir Mortimer's eyes unclosed. The boy hung over him, and he smiled upon him,—smiled with eye and lip. "Ay, ay, ay, Robin," he said, "we'll to the court! And sweep away these rhymes, for the queen of all my songs dwells there, and I shall look into her eyes—and that's better than singing, lad! Ay, I'll wear the violet, and we'll ride beneath the blossoms of the spring But there's a will-o'-the-wisp on the marsh out yonder, and here they call it a lost soul—the soul of the traitor Aguirre!"

"Master, master!" cried the boy.

Feme laughed, touching the young cheek with long, supple fingers. "Fame is a bubble, lad—let me tell thee that! But then it is rainbow-hued and mirrors the sky,—so we'll ride for the bubble, lad! and we'll stoop from the saddle and gather up Love! And when the bubble has vanished and Love is dead there's Honor left!" He leaned forward, seeing and hearing where was neither sound nor sight. There was gayety in his face. To the men who stared upon him it was a fearful thing that he who had lost his battle should wear once more the look which they had seen a thousand times. He raised his hand.

"Do you not hear the drums beat and the trumpets blow—far away, far away? Let me whisper—there's one that comes home in triumph Ay, your Grace, 'twas I that took Santo Domingo in Hispaniola, and on the mainland the very rich cities of Puerto Cabello, Santa Marta, La Guayra, Cartagena, Nombre de Dios and Panama. Manoa I reserve,—'tis a secret city, and all who know a secret must keep it, else Robin! Robin, rid me of these babblers. She's coming!—all in white—like blown spray—but she bears no roses. Lilies, lilies!—white samite like her robe—but her eyes are turned away. Let her pass, ye fools! She's the word of the night. Ha! Ha!" He staggered to his feet, swaying forward, clutching at the empty air as at a man's throat, and again his laugh rang through the cabin. "So you twisted it from me, Spanish dog!—so I raved out my heart as to a woman? Then, Don Sathanas, we'll go home together and all the soldiery of hell shall not unlock our embrace!" He grappled with an invisible foe—bent him backward farther and farther over the brink of the world—went down with him into unplumbed darkness

They judged not the Captain of the Cygnet for a craven and a traitor, for, day after day and day after day, he lay in the Admiral's cabin, so ill a man that the coasts of Death seemed nearer than those of England, and man's condemnation an idle thing, seeing that so soon he must face another Justiciar. So near at times to that ultimate shore did he drift that those who watched him saw the shadow on his face. When the shadow was deep they waited with held breath; when it somewhat lifted they sorrowed that the tide had brought him back. He was of those changelings from a fortunate land to whom Love clings when Faith has covered her head and turned away. They that in heaviness of heart loved him still grieved that he might not touch the dark shore. Better, far better, to lay hold of it so, to go quietly in the not unhappy fever-dream, wandering of old days, recking naught of the new. So the matter might be adjudged elsewhere, but in this world glozed and softened.

The days went on and still Fate played with him, drew him forward, plucked him back. What fancies he had; what wild excursions he made into dizzy, black, and horror-haunted regions; what æons he lived beneath the seas that stifled; by what winds he was whirled, through space, past burning orbs that neither warmed nor lighted the all-surrounding night; in what Titanic maze he was lost, lost forever, he and Pain that was his brother, from whom he might not part;—the sick brain made a hell and languished in the world it had created! At other times, when the dark coasts were near and the current very swift, pale paradises opened to him, where he lay for centuries, nor hot nor cold, neither waking nor sleeping, not in joy and not in sorrow. Then the stopped pendulum swung again, and the dreams came fast and faster. At times his brain turned from its mad clash with gigantic, formless, elemental things to rest in the beaten ways. They that listened heard the adventurer speak, heard the courtier and the poet and the