men, but it holds every peso of this year's treasure gathered against
the coming of the plate-fleet. There is much silver with pearls from
Margarita, and crescents of gold from Guiana, and it all lies in a house
of white stone on the north side of the square. Mayhap De Guardiola up
in the fortress watches, but all else, from Mexia to the last muleteer,
think themselves as safe as in the lap of the Blessed Virgin. The
plate-fleet stays at Cartagena, because of the illness of its Admiral,
Don Juan de Maeda y Espinosa.... I show you, sirs, a bird's nest worth
the robbing."

"You are a galley-slave the most circumstantial I have ever met," said
Ferne. "If there are nets about this tree, I will wring your neck for
the false songster that you are."

"You shall go with us bird's-nesting," said the Admiral.

"That falls in with my humor," Master Sark made answer. "For, look you,
there are such things as a heavy score and an ancient grudge, to say
nothing of true service to a true Queen."

"Then," quoth the other, "you shall feed fat your grudge. But if what
you have told me is leasing and not truth, I will hang you from the
yard-arm of my ship!"

"It is God's truth," swore the other.

Thus it was that, having, like all English adventurers upon Spanish
seas, to trust to strange guides, the _Mere Honour_, the _Cygnet_, the
_Marigold_, and the _Phoenix_ shaped their course for the mainland and
Nueva Cordoba, where were bars of silver, pearls, and gold crescents,