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Updated: May 17, 2025
He wore no doublet, and his shirt was torn and stained with blood, but in last and subtlest mockery De Guardiola had restored to him his sword. He drew it now, held the blade across his knee, and with one effort of all his strength broke the steel in twain, then threw the pieces from him, and turned his sunken eyes upon the Admiral. "I beg the shortest shrift that you may give," he said.
Holy Virgin! Are we Incas of Peru Atahualpas who can fill a hall with gold? Now, twenty thousand " "I will not pay one peso," said De Guardiola. His voice, low and vibrant, was as a warder thrown down. On the instant, all the length of the table, the hurried speech, the growing excitement, the interchange of taunt and bravado, ceased, and men leaned forward, waiting. The silence was remarkable.
Ay!" said Mexia, and with both hands carefully lowered the tankard to the level of the table. "Did Sir Mortimer Ferne bring forth such a what's the word? knightly sufficiency? Now I've often wondered 'Tis true I had my grudge against him also, but in such matters I go not so far as De Guardiola, who brands the soul.... I told Don Luiz as much four years ago.
Not until towards the sunset of that day had Don Luiz de Guardiola received information which enabled him to lay snares, but since that hour he had worked with frantic haste.
He laughed at the tag to his speech, being drunk enough to make utter mischief, out of sheer good nature. "Doth Master Francis Sark still teach you English?" asked Nevil, coldly. "Francis Sark who is Francis Sark?" maundered the fuddled envoy. "There was the fool Desmond, who overreached himself trying to bargain with Luiz de Guardiola. Those who do that have strange fates!"
Don Luiz kept long silence where he stood, a man of iron, cold as the stone his long fingers pressed, venomous as any snake in the tunal, proud as a Spaniard may be, and like the rest of his world very mad for gold; but at last he turned, and despatching to the English camp a white flag, proposed by mouth of his herald a brief cessation of hostilities, and a meeting between himself, Don Luiz de Guardiola, Governor of Nueva Cordoba, and the valorous Señor John Nevil, commandant of Englishmen.
They met in the wide street leading from the square, De Guardiola with his hundred cavaliers and Mortimer Ferne with his chance medley of horse and foot. The hot night filled with noise, the scream of wounded steeds and the shouting of men. Lights flared in the windows, and women wailed to all the saints.
Dressed in flame she bore down upon, struck, and sunk the Phoenix.... Now we are the Mere Honour and the Marigold, and we go under press of sail because behind us, whitening the waters that we have left, is the plate-fleet from Cartagena." "Where is Robert Baldry?" asked Ferne. "In the hands of Don Luiz de Guardiola dead or living we know not.
"Not more than one other," answered De Guardiola, and called for a flask of wine. The day wore on in heat and light, white glare from the hill, and from the sea fierce gleams of blue steel. The coasts loomed, the plain moved in the hot air. Here the plain was arid, and there yellow flowers turned it to a ragged Field of Cloth of Gold.
But beyond is the open sea of all our hopes. Fortune and her wheel, Giles Arden! nay, rather God and His hand over the issues of life and death!" Up in his white fortress that same hour De Guardiola heard in silence the Admiral's message of defiance, then when he and Mexia were again alone frowned thoughtfully over a slip of paper which by devious ways had shortly before reached his hand.
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