Page:Quiller-Couch--Old fires and profitable ghosts.djvu/106

98 kind of fever: so returned and fetched a cooling draught in place of the victuals, and without questioning made him drink it. He thanked me amid some rambling, light-headed talk—the most of it too quickly poured out for me to catch; but by-and-by grew easier and drowsy. I left him to sleep, putting off questions for the morning.

But early on the morrow—between five and six o'clock—came Will Hendra, a cowkeeper, into our courtyard with a strange tale; one that disquieted if it did not altogether astonish me. The tale—as told before my Master, whom I aroused to hear—it ran thus: that between midnight and one in the morning the Portugals in the Cove had been set upon and beaten from the spoils by a number of men with pikes (no doubt belonging to Saint Aubyn or Godolphin, or both), and forced to flee to the cliffs. But (here came in the wonder) the assailants, having mastered the field, fell on the casks, chests, and packages, only to find them utterly empty or filled with weed and gravel! Of freight—so Will Hendra had it from one of Godolphin's own men, who were now searching the cliffs and caverns—not twelve-pennyworth remained on the beach. The Portugals must have hidden or made away with it all. He added that their captain had been found at the foot of the cliffs with his head battered in; but whether by a fall or a blow taken in the affray, there was no telling.

My Master let saddle at once and rode away for the Cove without breaking his fast. And I went