gowned fellow stills him with his hand, or gives him some potion,
whereupon he sleeps."

"What like is this Spanish friar?" broke in suddenly and with harshness
Sir John Nevil's voice.

"Why, sir," Powell answered, "his cowl overshadows his face, but going
suddenly on yesterday into the hut where he bides with the youth, I saw
that as he bent over his patient the cowl had fallen back. My gran'ther
(rest his soul!), who died at ninety, had not whiter hair."

"An old man!" exclaimed Sir John, and, sighing, turned himself in his
chair. Arden, rising, left the company for the window, where he looked
down upon the city of Cartagena and outward to the investing fleet. The
streets of the town were closed by barricades, admirably constructed by
the Spaniards, but now in English possession. Beyond the barricades and
near the sea, where the low and narrow buildings were, lay the wounded
and the fever-stricken;--rude hospital enough! to some therein but a
baiting-place where pain and panic and the miseries of the brain were
become, for the time, their bed-fellows; to others the very house of
dissolution, a fast-crumbling shelter built upon the brim of the world,
with Death, the impartial beleaguer, already at the door. Arden turned
aside and joined the group about Drake, the great sea-captain in whose
company nor fear nor doubting melancholy could long hold place.

That night, shortly after the setting of the watch, Sir John Nevil, with
a man or two behind him, found himself challenged at the barricade of a
certain street, gave the word, and passed on, to behold immediately
before him and travelling the same road a dark, unattended figure. To
his sharp "Who goes there?" a familiar voice made answer, and Arden