instead of a short one; and away goes the whole fleet, save one
Carack, which runs itself on shore and burns, and the game is played
out and lost.

All want Essex to go home, as the season is getting late: but the
wilful and weak man will linger still, and while he is hovering to
the south, Philip's armament has sailed from the Groyne, on the
undefended shores of England, and only God's hand saves us from the
effects of Essex's folly. A third time the Armadas of Spain are
overwhelmed by the avenging tempests, and Essex returns to disgrace,
having proved himself at once intemperate and incapable. Even in
coming home there is confusion, and Essex is all but lost on the
Bishop and Clerks, by Scilly, in spite of the warnings of Raleigh's
sailing-master, 'Old Broadbent,' who is so exasperated at the general
stupidity that he wants Raleigh to leave Essex and his squadron to
get out of their own scrape as they can.

Essex goes off to sulk at Wanstead; but Vere excuses him, and in a
few days he comes back, and will needs fight good Lord Howard for
being made Earl of Nottingham for his services against the Armada and
at Cadiz. Baulked of this, he begins laying the blame of the failure
at the Azores on Raleigh. Let the spoilt naughty boy take care; even
that 'admirable temper' for which Raleigh is famed may be worn out at
last.

These years are Raleigh's noon--stormy enough at best, yet brilliant.
There is a pomp about him, outward and inward, which is terrible to
others, dangerous to himself. One has gorgeous glimpses of that
grand Durham House of his, with its carvings and its antique marbles,
armorial escutcheons, 'beds with green silk hangings and legs like