subtle with his words--no doubt he'll hold them off--insinuate--make
them look only to the seaward--"

[Illustration: "'DO YOU PURPOSE, THEN, THAT HE SHALL DIE?' DEMANDED
BALDRY"]

The Admiral, coming to the table, leaned his weight upon it. "Gentlemen,
you all do know that this is my friend, whom I love as David of old
loved Jonathan. Of the value of his life, of that great promise which
his death would cut short, I will not speak. I also think that this
Governor, believing himself, the treasure, and his men-at-arms secure,
careth naught for the town whose protector he is called. Therefore an we
would save the man who is dear to us and to England from I know not what
fate, from the fate perhaps of John Oxenham, this night must we take by
storm the fortress, using the plan of attack, the hour, ay and the word
of the night, which he gave us. If it is now less simple a thing, if
this Spaniard will surely keep watch and ward to-night, yet there is
none to tell him that, offering at his face, we do mean to strike him in
the back. If our onslaught be but swift and furious enough we may, God
willing, bring forth in triumph both the treasure and the man whose
welfare so outweighs the treasure."

"Amen to that," answered Arden; "but I have a boding spirit. It seems to
me that the blessed sun himself hath shrunken, and I would I might wring
the neck of yonder yelling bird!... That Englishman, that Francis
Sark--he is well guarded?"

"Ralph Walter guards him," said the Admiral, briefly. "There is but the
one door--the window is barred and too narrow for the passage of a
child.... Yea, I grant, as did Mortimer Ferne, his knavery, but now, as