"
"I thank you," said the Spaniard in a relieved tone, adding half to
himself, "No friends--but one cannot break faith--even with an enemy."
He dropped asleep almost at once after swallowing the cordial which
Drake held to his lips. The moon came up over the flooded meadows that
were all silvery lights and black shadow like a fairy realm. The lad
had never spent a night like this, even when he had seen his master
die.
When the pearl and rose of a July morning overspread the sky he
descended, to splash and spatter and souse his rough brown head in a
bucket of fresh-drawn water, and wheedle the old dame into a good humor.
"What ye hate and fear's bound to come to ye, sooner or later," Granny
Toothacre grumbled as she stirred her savory broth, "My old man said so
and I never beleft it--here be I at my time o' life harborin' a
Spanisher."
"Ah, now, mother,"--Drake laid a brown hand coaxingly on her old
withered one,--"you'll take good care of him for me, and we'll share the
ransom."
"Ransom," the old woman muttered, looking after the straight, sturdy
young figure as it strode down to the wharf, "not much hope o' that. Not
but what he's a grand gentleman," she admitted, turning the contents of
her saucepan into her best porringer. "He don't give me a rough word no
more than if I was a lady.
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