regard, rose-colored and fanciful; the woman not above coquetry, vanity,
and double-dealing, the monarch whose hand was heavy upon the council
board, whose will perverted law, whose prime wish was the welfare of her
people--she drew near to the man to whom she had shown fair promise of
settled favor, but to whose story, told by his Admiral and commented
upon by those about her, she had that day listened between bursts of her
great oaths and with an ominous flashing of jewels upon her hands.

Now her quick glance singled him out from the lesser folk with whom he
stood. She colored sharply, took two or three impetuous steps, then,
indignant, stayed with her lifted hand the progress of her train. Ferne
knelt. In the sudden silence Elizabeth's voice, shaken with anger, made
itself heard through half the length of the gallery.

"What make you here? Who has dared to do this--to place this man here?"

"Myself alone, madam," answered quickly the man at her feet. With a
motion of his hand he indicated the long cloak beside him. "I had but
made entrance into the gallery--I was taken unawares--"

"Hast a knife beneath your cloak?" burst forth the Queen. "I hear that
right royally you gave my subjects' lives to the Spaniard. There's a
death that would more greatly please those that mastered you!...
Answer me!"

"I have no words," said Ferne, in a low voice. As he spoke he raised his
head and looked Majesty in the face.

Again Elizabeth colored, and her jewels shook and sparkled. "If not
that, what then?" she cried. "God's death! Is't the Spanish fashion to