“He is with the God whom he served!”

“He was always with Him, like Enoch: parable me no parables, if you love me, sir!”

“And, like Enoch, he was not; for God took him.”

Adrian clasped his hands over his forehead, and leaned against the table.

“Go on, sir, go on. God will give me strength to hear all.”

And gradually Amyas opened to Adrian that tragic story, which Mr. Hayes has long ago told far too well to allow a second edition of it from me: of the unruliness of the men, ruffians, as I said before, caught up at hap-hazard; of conspiracies to carry off the ships, plunder of fishing vessels, desertions multiplying daily; licenses from the general to the lazy and fearful to return home: till Adrian broke out with a groan—

“From him? Conspired against him? Deserted from him? Dotards, buzzards! Where would they have found such another leader?”

“Your illustrious brother, sir,” said Amyas, “if you will pardon me, was a very great philosopher, but not so much of a general.”

“General, sir? Where was braver man?”

“Not on God’s earth, but that does not make a general, sir. If Cortez had been brave and no more, Mexico would have been Mexico still. The truth is, sir, Cortez, like my Captain Drake, knew when to hang a man; and your great brother did not.”

Amyas, as I suppose, was right. Gilbert was a man who could be angry enough at baseness or neglect, but who was too kindly to punish it; he was one who could form the wisest and best-digested plans, but who could not stoop to that hail-fellow-well-met drudgery among his subordinates which has been the talisman of great captains.

Then Amyas went on to tell the rest of his story; the setting sail from St. John’s to discover the southward coast; Sir Humphrey’s chivalrous determination to go in the little Squirrel of only ten tons, and “overcharged with nettings, fights, and small ordnance,” not only because she was more fit to examine the creeks, but because he had heard of some taunt against him among the men, that he was afraid of the sea.

After that, woe on woe; how, seven days after they left Cape Raz, their largest ship, the Delight, after she had “most part of the night” (I quote Hayes), “like the swan that singeth before her death, continued in sounding of trumpets, drums, and fifes, also winding of the comets and hautboys, and, in the end of their jollity, left off with the battle and doleful knells,” struck the next day (the Golden Hind and the Squirrel sheering off just in time) upon unknown shoals; where were lost all but fourteen, and among them Frank’s philosopher friend, poor Budæus; and those who escaped, after all horrors of cold and famine, were cast on shore in Newfoundland. How, worn out with hunger and want of clothes, the crews of the two remaining ships persuaded Sir Humphrey to sail toward England on the 31st of August; and on “that very instant, even in winding about,” beheld close alongside “a very lion in shape, hair, and color, not swimming, but sliding on the water, with his whole body; who passed along, turning his head to and fro, yawning and gaping wide, with ugly demonstration of long teeth and glaring eyes; and to bid us farewell (coming right against the Hind) he sent forth a horrible voice, roaring or bellowing as doth a lion.” “What opinion others had thereof, and chiefly the general himself, I forbear to deliver; but he took it for bonum omen, rejoicing that he was to war against such an enemy, if it were the devil.”

“And the devil it was, doubtless,” said Adrian, “the roaring lion who goes about seeking whom he may devour.”