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night; and though the wind fell away at times until the sails hung in listless folds, they gathered speed with the evening breeze and came at nightfall into a fine landlocked harbour with the town at its head, where there were lights shining from the houses and a ship still lying at anchor.

Upon their coming there was a great stir in the town. They saw lights moving and heard across the water voices calling; but though the men of the Rose of Devon stood by their guns, ready to lift the ports at a word and run out their pieces, they laughed in their sleeves at their own audacity whereby they hoped greatly to enrich their coffers.

Then one in the fort hailed them in Spanish, and while the Old One made answer in the same tongue, those who understood it whispered to the rest that he was giving the men in the fort a sad tale of how the Rose of Devon had fallen in with a band of sailors of fortune who had killed part of her men and would have killed them all had not the Old One himself by a bold and clever stroke eluded them. The Old One and the man in the fort flung questions and answers back and forth; and as they talked, the men at the guns relaxed and softly laughed, and Martin whispered to Philip Marsham, “Yea, they are telling of a band of roving Englishmen who last night singed their very whiskers; and being clever men and learning that them whom we ourselves have met and fought were lawless English dogs, they perceive we needs have met the very rascals that made them so much trouble.” Again Martin listened, then slapped his thigh. “They are sending us boats!’’ he exclaimed. “Though they perceive we are English, it seemeth they bear an Englishman no ill will because be