before the gallows! Then I take back no further answer, my Lord Deputy? Not even our swords, our virgin blades, Signor, the soldier's cherished bride? Shall we go forth weeping widowers, and leave to strange embrace the lovely steel?"
"None, sir, by heavens!" said he, waxing wroth. "Do you come hither, pirates as you are, to dictate terms upon a foreign soil? Is it not enough to have set up here the Spanish flag, and claimed the land of Ireland as the Pope's gift to the Spaniard; violated the laws of nations, and the solemn treaties of princes, under color of a mad superstition?"
"Superstition, my Lord? Nothing less. Believe a philosopher who has not said a pater or an ave for seven years past at least. Quod tango credo, is my motto; and though I am bound to say, under pain of the Inquisition, that the most holy Father the Pope has given this land of Ireland to his most Catholic Majesty the King of Spain, Queen Elizabeth having forfeited her title to it by heresy,—why, my Lord, I believe it as little as you do. I believe that Ireland would have been mine, if I had won it; I believe religiously that it is not mine, now I have lost it. What is, is, and a fig for priests; to-day to thee, to morrow to me. Addio,"—and out he swung.
"There goes a most gallant rascal," said the Lord Deputy.
"And a most rascally gallant," said Zouch, "The murder of his own page, of which I gave him a remembrancer, is among the least of his sins."
"And now, Captain Raleigh," said Lord Gray, "as you have been so earnest in preaching this butchery, I have a right to ask none but you to practise it."
Raleigh bit his lip, and replied by the "quip courteous"—
"I am at least a man, my Lord, who thinks it shame to allow others to do that which I dare not do myself."
Lord Gray might probably have returned "the countercheck quarrelsome," had not Mackworth risen;—
"And I, my Lord, being in that matter at least one of Captain Raleigh's kidney, will just go with him to see that he takes no harm by being bold enough to carry out an ugly business, and serving these rascals as their countrymen served Mr. Oxenham."
"I bid you good-morning, then, gentlemen, though I cannot bid you God speed," said Lord Gray; and sitting down again, covered his face with his hands, and, to the astonishment of all bystanders, burst, say the chroniclers, into tears.
Amyas followed Raleigh out. The latter was pale, but determined, and very wroth against the Deputy.
"Does the man take me for a hangman," said he, "that he speaks to me thus? But such is the way of the great. If you neglect your duty, they haul you over the coals; if you do it, you must do it on your own responsibility. Farewell, Amyas; you will not shrink from me as a butcher when I return?"
"God forbid! But how will you do it?"
