the door. "Or till Christ beckons in Iscariot."

They looked at him, thinking his mind distraught, not wondering that it
should be so. He read their thought and smiled, but his eyes that smiled
not met Arden's. "Great God!" cried the latter, shrank back against the
table and put out a shaking hand.

Slowly Ferne left the support of the wood and straightened his racked
frame until he stood erect, a figure yet graceful, yet stately, but
pathetic and terrible, bearing as it did deep marks of Spanish hatred.
The face was ghastly in its gleaming pallor, in its effect of a
beautiful mask fitted to tragedy too utter for aught but stillness. He
wore no doublet, and his shirt was torn and stained with blood, but in
last and subtlest mockery De Guardiola had restored to him his sword. He
drew it now, held the blade across his knee, and with one effort of all
his strength broke the steel in twain, then threw the pieces from him,
and turned his sunken eyes upon the Admiral. "I beg the shortest shrift
that you may give," he said. "It was I who, when they tormented me, told
them all. Hang me now, John Nevil, in the starlight."

The Admiral's lips moved, but there came from them no sound, nor was
there sound in the cabin of the _Mere Honour_. Not the _Cygnet_ or the
_Phoenix_ were more quiet far away, far below, on the gray levels of the
sea. At last a voice--Ambrose Wynch's--broke the silence that had grown
too great to bear. "It was Francis Sark," he said, and again
monotonously, "It was Francis Sark--it was Francis Sark." Another swore
with a great oath, "'Tis as the boy says--they've crazed him with their
torments!" Humphrey Carewe, a silent and a dogged man, who wore not his
heart upon his sleeve, broke into a passionate cry: "Sir Mortimer Ferne!
Sir Mortimer Ferne!"