old and cannot live to see the question answered, though even now it
is in the way of answering. Yet I know that their wickedness shall
fall upon their own heads, and I seem to see them, the proudest of the
peoples of the earth, bereft of fame and wealth and honour, a starveling
remnant happy in nothing save their past. What Drake began at Gravelines
God will finish in many another place and time, till at last Spain is of
no more account and lies as low as the empire of Montezuma lies to-day.

Thus it is in these great instances of which all the world may know, and
thus it is even in the life of so humble a man as I, Thomas Wingfield.
Heaven indeed has been merciful to me, giving me time to repent my sins;
yet my sins have been visited on my head, on me who took His prerogative
of vengeance from the hand of the Most High. It is just, and because it
is so I wish to set out the matter of my life's history that others may
learn from it. For many years this has been in my mind, as I have said,
though to speak truth it was her Majesty the Queen who first set the
seed. But only on this day, when I have heard for certain of the fate of
the Armada, does it begin to grow, and who can say if ever it will come
to flower? For this tidings has stirred me strangely, bringing back my
youth and the deeds of love and war and wild adventure which I have been
mingled in, fighting for my own hand and for Guatemoc and the people of
the Otomie against these same Spaniards, as they have not been brought
back for many years. Indeed, it seems to me, and this is no rare thing
with the aged, as though there in the far past my true life lay, and all
the rest were nothing but a dream.

From the window of the room wherein I write I can see the peaceful
valley of the Waveney. Beyond its stream are the common lands golden
with gorse, the ruined castle, and the red roofs of Bungay town gathered
about the tower of St. Mary's Church. Yonder far away are the king's