Majesty's carriage, with the woman be no safer for your Majesty than is and the priest and your bodyguard, Toledo. You must be safely in Madrid just as your Majesty is in the habit of before it is discovered in Toledo that travelling. Toledo wants a fight, noth- you have taken the other route, and ing else will satisfy them. They shall that the person they have mistaken for have it before dawn-the very best I you is in reality my daughter." have to offer them." ar "But she may be killed!" exclaimed And General Vincente gave a queer, the queen. cheery little laugh, as if he were ranging a practical joke. "We may all be killed, madam," he replied lightly. "I beg that you will "But the fight will be round my car- start at once in my carriage, with your riage." chaplain and the holy lady, who is doubtless travelling with you." "Possibly. I would rather that it took place in the Calle de la Ciudad or around the Casa del Argantamiento, It was known that, although her own where your Majesty is expected to sleep to-night." "And these persons, this woman who risks her life to save mine, who is she?" "My daughter," answered the general gravely. "She is here in the hotel now?" The general bowed. "I have heard that she is beautiful," said the queen, with a quick glance toward her companion. "How is it that you have never brought her to court, you who come so seldom yourself?" Vincente made no reply. "However, bring her to me now." "She has travelled far, madam, and is not prepared for presentation to her queen." "This is no time for formalities. She is about to run a great risk for my sake, a greater risk than I could ever ask her to run. Present her as one woman to another, general." But General Vincente bowed gravely and made no reply. The color slowly rose to the queen regent's face, a dull, shamed red. She opened her fan, closed it again, and sat with furtive, downcast eyes. Suddenly she looked up and met his gaze. "You refuse!" she said, with an insolent air of indifference. "You think that I am unworthy to meet your daughter." The queen glanced sharply at him. "But you have no right to despise me!" she interrupted passionately. "If I despised you should I be here now, should I be doing you this service?" "I do not know. I tell you I do not understand you." And the queen looked hard at the man who for this very reason interested one who had all her life dealt and intrigued with men of obvious motive and unblushing ambition. So strong is a ruling passion, that even in sight of death (for the queen regent knew that Spain was full of her enemies and rendered callous to bloodshed by a long war) vanity was alert in this woman's breast. Even while General Vincente, that unrivalled strategist, detailed his plans, she kept harking back to the question that puzzled her, and but half listened to his instructions. "I think only of the exigency of the moment," was his reply. "Every min- Those desirous of travelling without ute we lose is a gain to our enemies. attracting attention in Spain are wise If our trick is discovered Aranjuez will to time their arrival and departure for It a were to the afternoon. At this time, while the of the vehicle, were discernible. sun is yet hot, all shutters are closed, was all done so quickly, with such and the business of life, the haggling in military completeness of detail, that the market-place, the bustle of the bar- the carriages had passed through the rack-yard, the leisurely labor of the great doorway, and the troopers, fields are suspended. It was about merely a general's escort, had clattered four o'clock; indeed, the city clocks after them before the few onlookers were striking that hour when the two had fully realized that these carriages in the inn yard at Ciudad surely travellers of some note. Real were made ready for the road. The ostler hurried to the street Father Concha, who never took an ae- watch them go. tive part in passing incidents while his old friend and comrade was near, sat in a shady corner of the patio an smoked a cigarette. An affable ostler had, in vain, endeavored to engage him in conversation. Two small children had begged of him, and now he was left in meditative solitude. "In a short three minutes," said the ostler, "and the excellencies can then depart. In which direction, reverendo, if one may ask?" "One may always ask, my friend," replied the priest. "Indeed, the holy books are of opinion that it cannot be overdone. That chin-strap is too tight." "Ah! I see the reverendo knows a horse." "And an ass," added Concha. At this moment the general emerged from the shadow of the staircase, which was open and of stone. He was followed by Estella, as it would appear, and they hurried across the sunlighted patio, the girl carrying her fan to screen her face. "Are you rested, my child?" Concha, at the carriage door. "They are going to the north," he said to himself, as he saw the carriages turn in the direction of the river and the ancient Puerta de Toledo "they go to the north, and assuredly the general has come to conduct her to Toledo." Strange to say, although it was the hour of rest, many shutters in the narrow street were opened, and more than one peeping face was turned the departing carriages. toward From The New Review. "AT FLORES IN THE AZORES." When Sir Richard Grenville, with curses and threats to hang any man who laid hands on a rope, rejected the advice to "cut his mainsail, and cast about, and trust to the sailing of the ship," he knew he was going to do a feat of which the world would talk. He was not mistaken. It talked in his own time, not always with admiration. asked and it has talked since, not always wisely. His story, never quite forgotten, became a puzzle, and was then revived for purposes of edification. Raleigh's "Report of the Fight about the Isles of Azores" told the tale intelligibly to his own generation; which enjoyed "Tamburlaine" and the Battle of Alcazar, and, therefore, understood him. But that generation itself has come to need interpretation. "The Honorable Tragedy of Sir Richard Grenville," which Gervase Markham founded on the report, is but a wild whirl of words in ottava rima. It can explain nothing to any man, except that Gervase Markham was an educated The lady lowered the fan for a moment and met his eyes. A quick look of surprise flashed across Concha's face, and he half bowed. Then he repeated his question in a louder voice. "Are you rested, my child, after our long journey?" "Thank you, my father, yes." And the ostler watched with openmouthed interest. The other carriage had been drawn up to that side of the courtyard where the open stairway was, and here also the bustle of departure and a hurrying female form, anxious to gain the shade tinued by Kingsley, who "went to Froude for history," fed by Mr. Arber with his reprints of Markham and of Raleigh's Report, and completed by Tennyson's "Ballad of the Fleet." Sir Richard Grenville again became a hero, but strangely altered. He reappeared in Froude as "a godly and gallant gentleman, who had never turned his back upon an enemy, and was remarkable in that remarkable time for his constancy and daring." He makes a sufficiently romantic figure in "Westward Ho!" and in the "Ballad of the Fleet" he "makes his gesture" in an imposing way. Tennyson's men and women rarely do more than make a gesture. But this new Sir Richard, who is only "goodly and gallant," or has been too obviously influenced by Mr. Maurice, working through Mr. Kingsley, is, though meritorious, not credible. He who lectures so wisely in "Westward Ho!" on elementary morals, and who says in the "Ballad of the Fleet" person, who knew that heathen gods and goddesses ought never to be left out of an heroic poem, and that decency required him to call Sir Richard "Thetis paramour." Then Sir William Monson, of the "Naval Tracts," could see nothing in the Grenville's fate more worthy of remark than this:-that it "truly verified" "the old saying, that a wilful man is the cause of his own woe." Monson was the forerunner of the modern naval officer. "Now, Mr. O'Farrall," said O'Brien, "I only wish to point out to you that I trust neither I, nor any one in this ship, cares a fig about the whizzing of a shot or two about our ears, when there is anything to be gained by it, either for ourselves or for our country; but I do care a great deal about losing even the leg or the arm, much more the life, of any of my men, when there's no occasion for it; so in future, recollect it's no disgrace to keep out of the way of a battery, when all the advantage is on their side." That is the voice of the modern naval officer, and of common sense. Cochrane listened to it when in 1805, and in these same waters round the Azores, he saved the Pallas from a French squadron by running, To the Inquisition dogs, and the devildoms and also by a miracle of cool seamanship. There was not a little of Grenville in Cochrane, but if he had repeated Grenville's defiance he would have been a pure madman, doing that for which the code of honor of his time held no excuse. The difficulty has been to see that both men were right in their time. Southey, who ought to have known better, for he had translated "Amadis of Gaul," and "Palmerin of England," was puzzled by Grenville. Southey has put it in print that Sir Richard "cannot be justified for entering into the action in which he lost his life;" but Southey added that "he supported it so bravely that he raised the character of the British Navy, and thereby well entitled himself to the place which he continues to hold in its annals." But I've ninety men and more that are lying sick ashore, I should count myself the coward, if I left them, my Lord Howard, of Spain, is too mild and too modern for the part If we want to understand how he came to do what he did, and yet was neither fool nor madman, we must look at the man in his own place. First, then, Sir Richard Grenville belonged to a race to which a good fight and its own honor were far more than the lives of men-much more than their own, and incomparably more than their followers. He was the son of Sir Roger Grenville, who was lost in the Mary Rose at Spithead during the French invasion of 1545, and the grandson of Sir Richard Grenville, who was Marshal of Calais to Henry VIII. Through those two, and a long line of gentlemen of Cornwall and Devon, he claimed to go back to Rolf the Ganger, and through him and another long line of Norse jarls to Odin. One does not ask a gentleman to prove a pedigree like that by charter and seisin. The Grenvilles justified their Norse blood by their characters. The race did not end, nor even culminate, in Sir Richard of the Revenge. He was the grandfather of Sir Bevil Grenville, who headed the western rising for the king in the Civil War, and fell fighting against the Parliament at Lansdowne. Sir Bevil Grenville, again, was grandfather to the Grace Grenville who was mother of the great Carteret of the eighteenth century-the wit, scholar, statesman, and magnificent great noble. It was a race of chiefs and fighting men which kept its quality of aristocratic valor, and its passionate individuality, across centuries. The Norse nobles who would not submit to Harold Fairhair, would have understood Carteret thoroughly. They drank mead out of horns, and listened to the Skalds. He drank burgundy, and quoted Homer. But these are trifles, and in essentials they were much the same stamp of man. Sir Richard, who stood nearer the Middle Ages, and amid the equally sudden and wonderful expansion of character, passion, and faculty in the whole people which marks the great queen's reign, had a chance of keeping even closer to the original Viking type. We must not expect to find him such a man as Monson in his age, or many excellent officers since, who have been abundantly brave, but cool, sensible, looking to the good that was to be got for self or country by fighting, and by "good" meaning the practical, material advantages. He was a noble in a wider than the technical English sense; one whose blood was purer than others, who inherited with it the claim to lead, the obligation to set an example, the disposition to prefer death in battle, and the firm conviction that it was his right to sacrifice the lives of his followers if he could thereby earn honor for himself and his house. Their honor was to die with their lord. The little known of him, and of his actions before 1591, goes to show that this was his code. He was born about 1540, and in 1566 applied for leave to go abroad to fight against the Turks in Hungary. It has been said that he fought at Lepanto in 1571; but in 1570 and in the following year he was member of Parliament in England, and we cannot believe in Lepanto, though one would wish to believe if one could. For his religion, we know that in 1570 he made a declaration of his submission to the Act for Uniformity of Common Prayer and Service. He filled the office of sheriff, and, in fact, played his part as a country gentleman. He went beyond it, and entered the life of adventure of his time when he joined Sir Humphrey Gilbert in his colonizing schemes. There was kinship between Grenville and the Gilberts and Raleighs. He made two voyages to the West Indies and Virginia in 1585 and 1586, landing in the Spanish islands to levy contributions, taking prizes, and showing the Spaniards the unpleasant side of their maxim: that there was no peace beyond the Line. Once he took a prize by boarding her on a raft made of cases, which sank immediately after he and his men had reached the deck. The colonists, whom he carried to Virginia, and his fellow-adventurers with Raleigh took a vlew of him which is worth considering, Froude in hand. Ralph Lane complained to Walsingham that he was "of an intolerable pride, and an insatiable ambition," and that he, Lane, desired to be freed from the place in which Grenville was "to carry any authority in chief." Linschoten, who was at the Azores when the fight took place, heard probably that he was "of nature cruel, so that his own people hated him for his tyranny and feared him much." Linschoten tells strange tales of his ways: "He was of so hard a complection, that as he continued among the Spanish captains while they were at dinner or supper with him, he would carouse three or four glasses of wine, and in a bravery take the glasses between his teeth and crush them in pieces and swallow them down, so that oftentimes the blood ran out of his mouth, without any harm at all unto him." It can be done; but one does not see the Sir Richard Grenville of "Westward Ho!" doing this act or drunken "bravery." Yet, if we do not believe Linschoten for this, why is he to be accepted as a witness for the last speech, which yet is too like life, too much beyond the Dutchman's power of invention, to be rejected? It may shock the faith of some who imagine him consumed by horror of the "devildoms of Spain" to hear of Grenville's dinners and suppers with Spanish captains; but nothing is more probable. In the intervals of fighting, noble enemies could and did meet and hunt together, and carouse. Grenville was on pleasant terms enough with the Spaniards in his voyage of 1585-between one piece of plunder and another. The Spanish hidalgo and the English gentleman had more in common with each other than either had with the plebeians on his own side. When Götz of the Iron Hand, being then about to fall upon a caravan, saw the wolves come out of the wood and begin to worry the sheep, he stood up in his stirrups and shouted, "Good luck to us all, gentlemen!" The brave Götz had a share of the saving quality of humor. It has been denied to such as cannot feel happy with a fighting man, till they have diluted him to the point at which he becomes fit to be presented to a young ladies' boarding-school. What, then, we know of Sir Richard Grenville is this: that he was proud to a degree which some found intolerable. ambitious, fierce, of a heavy hand on his subordinates, and of a soaring valor. In 1591 he was about fifty, and his ambition had not been satisfied, for he was not among the great men about the queen. One whose voice was sure to be always for war would have no friend in Burleigh, and Elizabeth, though she might like him well enough as courtier and captain, would keep him aloof from her council. With such a man ambition might direct itself towards making a splendid end. In 1591 Grenville, who had never yet held an important command for the queen, was chosen to go as viceadmiral to Lord Thomas Howard on a voyage to the Isles. These voyages were common both with the queen's ships and with private adventurers, and very often the two combined. The object was to wait for the Spanish treasure ships, which put in at the Azores for water and stores on the way home. In 1590 an English squadron had cruised round the Azores to no purpose, and had returned without a prize. Philip had not recovered from the loss of the Armada, and had been constrained to order his ships not to sail from America, for he knew that the English would be in wait, and he could afford no protection. It was a disastrous necessity; since it went far to stop his supplies, and it exposed his ships to the ravages of the "teredo," the boring worm of tropical seas. So by 1591 he could wait no longer for his treasure, and he had reconstructed a squadron in Spain. Still, he ordered the convoythe flota-to come late: partly because he hoped that the ships of Lord Thomas Howard would be constrained to return home by want of provisions, partly because he wanted time to complete the squadron which was to meet the convoy and see it safe back to Spain. But Lord Thomas was kept well supplied with provisions from home by means of victuallers. These were armed, and very capable of taking prizes, but not a match for a heavy galleon; most of them being of from ninety to one hundred and twenty tons. Meanwhile, another English squadron, belonging to the Earl of Cumberland and other adventurers, was prowling on the coast of Spain. So in August the position was this. The flota was on its way home, having left the Gulf of Florida, and having stood to the north till it was on the fortieth parallel, well out of the easterly trade winds, and above the Sargasso Sea. It was badly bored by the worm; in need of docking—which it |