The Betrayal of Sir Walter Ralegh

Sir Walter was met on landing at Plymouth from his ill-starred voyage to El Dorado by Sir Lewis Stukeley, which was but natural, seeing that Sir Lewis was not only Vice-Admiral of Devon, but also Sir Walter’s very good friend and kinsman.

If Sir Walter doubted whether it was in his quality as kinsman or as Vice-Admiral that Sir Lewis met him, the cordiality of the latter’s embrace and the noble entertainment following at the house of Sir Christopher Hare, near the port, whither Sir Lewis conducted him, set this doubt at rest and relighted the lamp of hope in the despairing soul of our adventurer.  In Sir Lewis he saw only his kinsman ­his very good friend and kinsman, to insist upon Stukeley’s own description of himself ­at a time when of all others in his crowded life he needed the support of a kinsman and the guidance of a friend.

You know the story of this Sir Walter, who had been one of the brightest ornaments of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and might have added lustre to that of King James, had not his Sowship ­to employ the title bestowed upon that prince by his own queen ­been too mean of soul to appreciate the man’s great worth.  Courtier, philosopher, soldier, man of letters and man of action alike, Ralegh was at once the greatest prose-writer, and one of the greatest captains of his age, the last survivor of that glorious company ­whose other members were Drake and Frobisher and Hawkins ­that had given England supremacy upon the seas, that had broken the power and lowered the pride of Spain.

His was a name that had resounded, to the honour and glory of England, throughout the world, a name that, like Drake’s, was a thing of hate and terror to King Philip and his Spaniards; yet the King of Scots, unclean of body and of mind, who had succeeded to the throne of Elizabeth, must affect ignorance of that great name which shall never die while England lives.

When the splendid courtier stood before him ­for at fifty Sir Walter was still handsome of person and magnificent of Apparel ­James looked him over and inquired who he might be.  When they had told him: 

“I’ve rawly heard of thee,” quoth the royal punster, who sought by such atrocities of speech to be acclaimed a wit.

It was ominous of what must follow, and soon thereafter you see this great and gallant gentleman arrested on a trumped-up charge of high treason, bullied, vituperated, and insulted by venal, peddling lawyers, and, finally, although his wit and sincerity had shattered every fragment of evidence brought against him, sentenced to death.  Thus far James went; but he hesitated to go further, hesitated to carry out the sentence.  Sir Walter had too many friends in England then; the memory of his glorious deeds was still too fresh in the public mind, and execution might have been attended by serious consequences for King James.  Besides, one at least of the main objects was achieved.  Sir Walter’s broad acres were confiscate by virtue of that sentence, and King James wanted the land ­filched thus from one who was England’s pride ­to bestow it upon one of those golden calves of his who were England’s shame.

“I maun hae the land for Carr.  I maun hae it,” was his brazen and peevish answer to an appeal against the confiscation.

For thirteen years Sir Walter lay in the Tower, under that sentence of death passed in 1603, enjoying after a season a certain liberty, visited there by his dear lady and his friends, among whom was Henry, Prince of Wales, who did not hesitate to publish that no man but his father ­whom he detested ­would keep such a bird in a cage.  He beguiled the time in literary and scientific pursuits, distilling his essences and writing that stupendous work of his, “The History of the World.”  Thus old age crept upon him; but far from quenching the fires of enterprise within his adventurer’s soul, it brought a restlessness that urged him at last to make a bid for liberty.  Despairing of winning it from the clemency of James, he applied his wits to extracting it from the King’s cupidity.

Throughout his life, since the day when first he had brought himself to the notice of a Queen by making of his cloak a carpet for her feet, he had retained side by side with the dignity of the sage and the greatness of the hero, the craft and opportunism of the adventurer.  His opportunity now was the straitened condition of the royal treasury, a hint of which had been let fall by Winwood the Secretary of State.  He announced at once that he knew of a gold mine in Guiana, the El Dorado of the Spaniards.

On his return from a voyage to Guiana in 1595, he had written of it thus: 

“There the common soldier shall fight for gold instead of pence, pay himself with plates half a foot broad, whereas he breaks his bones in other wars for provant and penury Those commanders and chieftains that shoot at honour and abundance shall find here more rich and beautiful cities, more temples adorned with golden images, more sepulchres filled with treasure than either Cortez found in Mexico or Pizarro in Peru.”

Winwood now reminded him that as a consequence many expeditions had gone out, but failed to discover any of these things.

“That,” said Ralegh, “is because those adventurers were ignorant alike of the country and of the art of conciliating its inhabitants.  Were I permitted to go, I would make Guiana to England what Peru has been to Spain.”

That statement, reported to James in his need, was enough to fire his cupidity, and when Ralegh had further added that he would guarantee to the Crown one-fifth of the treasure without asking any contribution towards the adventure either in money or in ships, he was permitted to come forth and prepare for the expedition.

His friends came to his assistance, and in March of 1617 he set sail for El Dorado with a well-manned and well-equipped fleet of fourteen ships, the Earls of Arundel and Pembroke standing sureties for his return.

From the outset the fates were unpropitious.  Disaster closed the adventure.  Gondomar, the Ambassador of Spain at Whitehall, too well-informed of what was afoot, had warned his master.  Spanish ships waited to frustrate Sir Walter, who was under pledge to avoid all conflict with the forces of King Philip.  But conflict there was, and bloodshed in plenty, about the city of Manoa, which the Spaniards held as the key to the country into which the English adventurers sought to penetrate.  Among the slain were the Governor of Manoa, who was Gondomar’s own brother, and Sir Walter’s eldest son.

To Ralegh, waiting at the mouth of the Orinoco, came his beaten forces in retreat, with the terrible news of a happening that meant his ruin.  Half-maddened, his anguish increased by the loss of his boy, he upbraided them so fiercely that Keymis, who had been in charge of the expedition, shut himself up in his cabin and shot himself with a pocket-pistol.  Mutiny followed, and Whitney ­most trusted of Sir Walter’s captains ­set sail for England, being followed by six other ships of that fleet, which meanwhile had been reduced to twelve.  With the remaining five the stricken Sir Walter had followed more at leisure.  What need to hurry?  Disgrace, and perhaps death, awaited him in England.  He knew the power of Spain with James, who was so set upon a Spanish marriage for his heir, knew Spain’s hatred of himself, and what eloquence it would gather in the mouth of Gondomar, intent upon avenging his brother’s death.

He feared the worst, and so was glad upon landing to have by him a kinsman upon whom he could lean for counsel and guidance in this the darkest hour of all his life.  Sitting late that night in the library of Sir Christopher Hare’s house, Sir Walter told his cousin in detail the story of his misadventure, and confessed to his misgivings.

“My brains are broken,” was his cry.

Stukeley combed his beard in thought.  He had little comfort to offer.

“It was not expected,” said he, “that you would return.

“Not expected?” Sir Walter’s bowed white head was suddenly flung back.  Indignation blazed in the eyes that age had left undimmed.  “What act in all my life justified the belief I should be false to honour?  My danger here was made quite plain, and Captain King would have had me steer a course for France, where I had found a welcome and a harbour.  But to consent I must have been false to my Lords of Arundel and Pembroke, who were sureties to the King for my return.  Life is still sweet to me, despite my three-score years and more, but honour is sweeter still.”

And then, because life was sweet, he bluntly asked his cousin:  “What is the King’s intent by me?”

“Nay, now,” said Stukeley, “who shall know what passes in the King’s mind?  From the signs, I judge your case to be none so desperate.  You have good friends in plenty, among whom, although the poorest, count myself the first.  Anon, when you are rested, we’ll to London by easy stages, baiting at the houses of your friends, and enlisting their good offices on your behalf.”

Ralegh took counsel on the matter with Captain King, a bluff, tawny-bearded seaman, who was devoted to him body and soul.

“Sir Lewis proposes it, eh?” quoth the hardy seaman.  “And Sir Lewis is Vice-Admiral of Devon?  He is not by chance bidden to escort you to London?”

The Captain, clearly, had escaped the spell of Stukeley’s affability.  Sir Walter was indignant.  He had never held his kinsman in great esteem, and had never been on the best of terms with him in the past.  Nevertheless, he was very far from suspecting him of what King implied.  To convince him that he did Sir Lewis an injustice, Ralegh put the blunt question to his kinsman in King’s presence.

“Nay,” said Sir Lewis, “I am not yet bidden to escort you.  But as Vice-Admiral of Devon I may at any moment be so bidden.  It were wiser, I hold, not to await such an order.  Though even if it come,” he made haste to add, “you may still count upon my friendship.  I am your kinsman first, and Vice-Admiral after.”

With a smile that irradiated his handsome, virile countenance, Sir Walter held out his hand to clasp his cousin’s in token of appreciation.  Captain King expressed no opinion save what might be conveyed in a grunt and a shrug.

Guided now unreservedly by his cousin’s counsel, Sir Walter set out with him upon that journey to London.  Captain King went with them, as well as Sir Walter’s body-servant, Cotterell, and a Frenchman named Manourie, who had made his first appearance in the Plymouth household on the previous day.  Stukeley explained the fellow as a gifted man of medicine, whom he had sent for to cure him of a trivial but inconvenient ailment by which he was afflicted.

Journeying by slow stages, as Sir Lewis had directed, they came at last to Brentford.  Sir Walter, had he followed his own bent, would have journeyed more slowly still, for in a measure, as he neared London, apprehensions of what might await him there grew ever darker.  He spoke of them to King, and the blunt Captain said nothing to dispel them.

“You are being led like a sheep to the shambles,” he declared, “and you go like a sheep.  You should have landed in France, where you have friends.  Even now it is not too late.  A ship could be procured...”

“And my honour could be sunk at sea,” Sir Walter harshly concluded, in reproof of such counsel.

But at the inn at Brentford he was sought out by a visitor, who brought him the like advice in rather different terms.  This was De Chesne, the secretary of the French envoy, Le Clerc.  Cordially welcomed by Ralegh, the Frenchman expressed his deep concern to see Sir Walter under arrest.

“You conclude too hastily,” laughed Sir Walter.

“Monsieur, I do not conclude.  I speak of what I am inform’.”

“Misinformed, sir.  I am not a prisoner ­at least, not yet,” he added, with a sigh.  “I travel of my own free will to London with my good friend and kinsman Stukeley to lay the account of my voyage before the King.”

“Of your own free will?  You travel of your own frets will?  And you are not a prisoner?  Ha!” There was bitter mockery in De Chesne’s short laugh.  “C’est bien drôle!” And he explained:  “Milord the Duke o Buckingham, he has write in his master’s name to the ambassador Gondomar that you are taken and held at the disposal of the King of Spain.  Gondomar is to inform him whether King Philip wish that you be sent to Spain to essay the justice of his Catholic Majesty, or that you suffer here.  Meanwhile your quarters are being made ready in the Tower.  Yet you tell me you are not prisoner!  You go of your own free will to London.  Sir Walter, do not be deceive’.  If you reach London, you are lost.”

Now here was news to shatter Sir Walter’s last illusion.  Yet desperately he clung to the fragments of it.  The envoy’s secretary must be at fault.

“’Tis yourself are at fault, Sir Walter, in that you trust those about you,” the Frenchman insisted.

Sir Walter stared at him, frowning.  “D’ye mean Stukeley?” quoth he, half-indignant already at the mere suggestion.

“Sir Lewis, he is your kinsman.”  De Chesne shrugged.  “You should know your family better than I. But who is this Manourie who accompanies you?  Where is he come from?  What you know of him?”

Sir Walter confessed that he knew nothing.

“But I know much.  He is a fellow of evil reputation.  A spy who does not scruple to sell his own people.  And I know that letters of commission from the Privy Council for your arrest were give’ to him in London ten days ago.  Whether those letters were to himself, or he was just the messenger to another, imports nothing.  The fact is everything.  The warrant against you exists, and it is in the hands of one or another of those that accompany you.  I say no more.  As I have tol’ you, you should know your own family.  But of this be sure, they mean that you go to the Tower, and so to your death.  And now, Sir Walter, if I show you the disease I also bring the remedy.  I am command’ by my master to offer you a French barque which is in the Thames, and a safe conduct to the Governor of Calais.  In France you will find safety and honour, as your worth deserve’.”

Up sprang Sir Walter from his chair, and flung off the cloak of thought in which he had been mantled.

“Impossible,” he said.  “Impossible!  There is my plighted word to return, and there are my Lords of Arundel and Pembroke, who are sureties for me.  I cannot leave them to suffer by my default.”

“They will not suffer at all,” De Chesne assured him.  He was very well informed.  “King James has yielded to Spain partly because he fears, partly because he will have a Spanish marriage for Prince Charles, and will do nothing to trouble his good relations with King Philip.  But, after all, you have friends, whom his Majesty also fears.  If you escape’ you would resolve all his perplexities.  I do not believe that any obstacle will be offer’ to your escape ­else why they permit you to travel thus without any guard, and to retain your sword?”

Half distracted as he was by what he had learnt, yet Sir Walter clung stoutly and obstinately to what he believed to be the only course for a man of honour.  And so he dismissed De Chesne with messages of gratitude but refusal to his master, and sent for Captain King.  Together they considered all that the secretary had stated, and King agreed with De Chesne’s implied opinion that it was Sir Lewis himself who held the warrant.

They sent for him at once, and Ralegh straightly taxed him with it.  Sir Lewis as straightly admitted it, and when King thereupon charged him with deceit he showed no anger, but only the profoundest grief.  He sank into a chair, and took his head in his hands.

“What could I do?  What could I do?” he cried.  “The warrant came in the very moment we were setting out.  At first I thought of telling you; and then I bethought me that to do so would be but to trouble your mind, without being able to offer you help.”

Sir Walter understood what was implied.  “Did you not say,” he asked, “that you were my kinsman first and Vice-Admiral of Devon after?”

“Ay ­and so I am.  Though I must lose my office of Vice-Admiral, which has cost me six hundred pounds, if I suffer you to escape, I’d never hesitate if it were not for Manourie, who watches me as closely as he watches you, and would baulk us at the last.  And that is why I have held my peace on the score of this warrant.  What can it help that I should trouble you with the matter until at the same time I can offer you some way out?”

“The Frenchman has a throat, and throats can be slit,” said the downright King.

“So they can; and men can be hanged for slitting them,” returned Sir Lewis, and thereafter resumed and elaborated his first argument, using now such forceful logic and obvious sincerity that Sir Walter was convinced.  He was no less convinced, too, of the peril in which he stood.  He plied those wits of his, which had rarely failed him in an extremity.  Manourie was the difficulty.  But in his time he had known many of these agents who, without sentimental interest and purely for the sake of gold, were ready to play such parts; and never yet had he known one who was not to be corrupted.  So that evening he desired Manourie’s company in the room above stairs that had been set apart for Sir Walter’s use.  Facing him across the table at which both were seated, Sir Walter thrust his clenched fist upon the board, and, suddenly opening it, dazzled the Frenchman’s beady eyes with the jewel sparkling in his palm.

“Tell me, Manourie, are you paid as much as that to betray me?”

Manourie paled a little under his tan.  He was a swarthy, sharp-featured fellow, slight and wiry.  He looked into Sir Walter’s grimly smiling eyes, then again at the white diamond, from which the candlelight was striking every colour of the rainbow.  He made a shrewd estimate of its price, and shook his black head.  He had quite recovered from the shock of Sir Walter’s question.

“Not half as much,” he confessed, with impudence.

“Then you might find it more remunerative to serve me,” said the knight.  “This jewel is to be earned.”

The agent’s eyes flickered; he passed his tongue over his lips.  “As how?” quoth he.

“Briefly thus:  I have but learnt of the trammel in which I am taken.  I must have time to concert my measures of escape, and time is almost at an end.  You are skilled in drugs, so my kinsman tells me.  Can you so drug me as to deceive physicians that I am in extremis?”

Manourie considered awhile.

“I...  I think I could,” he answered presently.

“And keep faith with me in this, at the price of, say.. two such stones?”

The venal knave gasped in amazement.  This was not generosity; it was prodigality.  He recovered again, and swore himself Sir Walter’s.

“About it, then.”  Sir Walter rolled the gem across the board into the clutch of the spy, which pounced to meet it.  “Keep that in earnest.  The other will follow when we have cozened them.”

Next morning Sir Walter could not resume the journey.  When Cotterell went to dress him he found his master taken with vomits, and reeling like a drunkard.  The valet ran to fetch Sir Lewis, and when they returned together they found Sir Walter on all fours gnawing the rushes on the floor, his face livid and horribly distorted, his brow glistening with sweat.

Stukeley, in alarm, ordered Cotterell to get his master back to bed and to foment him, which was done.  But on the next day there was no improvement, and on the third things were in far more serious case.  The skin of his brow and arms and breast was inflamed, and covered with horrible purple blotches ­the result of an otherwise harmless ointment with which the French empiric had supplied him.

When Stukeley beheld him thus disfigured, and lying apparently inert and but half-conscious upon his bed, he backed away in terror.  The Vice-Admiral had seen afore-time the horrible manifestations of the plague, and could not be mistaken here.  He fled from the infected air of his kinsman’s chamber, and summoned what physicians were available to pronounce and prescribe.  The physicians came ­three in number ­but manifested no eagerness to approach the patient closely.  The mere sight of him was enough to lead them to the decision that he was afflicted with the plague in a singularly virulent form.

Presently one of them plucked up courage so far as to feel the pulse of the apparently delirious patient.  Its feebleness confirmed his diagnosis; moreover the hand he held was cold and turgid.  He was not to know that Sir Walter had tightly wrapped about his upper arm the ribbon from his poniard, and so he was entirely deceived.

The physicians withdrew, and delivered their verdict, whereupon Sir Lewis at once sent word of it to the Privy Council.

That afternoon the faithful Captain King, sorely afflicted by the news, came to visit his master, and was introduced to Sir Walter’s chamber by Manourie, who was in attendance upon him.  To the seaman’s amazement he found Sir Walter sitting up in bed, surveying in a hand-mirror a face that was horrible beyond description with the complacent smile of one who takes satisfaction in his appearance.  Yet there was no fevered madness in the smiling eyes.  They were alive with intelligence, amounting, indeed, to craft.

“Ah, King!” was the glad welcome “The prophet David did make himself a fool, and suffered spittle to fall upon his beard, to escape from the hands of his enemies And there was Brutus, ay, and others as memorable who have descended to such artifice.”

Though he laughed, it is clear that he was seeking to excuse an unworthiness of which he was conscious.

“Artifice?” quoth King, aghast.  “Is this artifice?”

“Ay ­a hedge against my enemies, who will be afraid to approach me.”

King sat himself down by his master’s bed.  “A better hedge against your enemies, Sir Walter, would have been the strip of sea ’twixt here and France.  Would to Heaven you had done as I advised ere you set foot in this ungrateful land.”

“The omission may be repaired,” said Sir Walter.

Before the imminence of his peril, as now disclosed to him, Sir Walter had been reconsidering De Chesne’s assurance touching my Lords of Arundel and Pembroke, and he had come to conclude ­the more readily, perhaps because it was as he would have it ­that De Chesne was right; that to break faith with them were no such great matter after all, nor one for which they would be called upon to suffer.  And so, now, when it was all but too late, he yielded to the insistence of Captain King, and consented to save himself by flight to France.  King was to go about the business of procuring a ship without loss of time.  Yet there was no need of desperate haste, as was shown when presently orders came to Brentford for the disposal of the prisoner.  The King, who was at Salisbury, desired that Sir Walter should be conveyed to his own house in London.  Stukeley reported this to him, proclaiming it a sign of royal favour.  Sir Walter was not deceived.  He knew the reason to be fear lest he should infect the Tower with the plague by which he was reported stricken.

So the journey was resumed, and Sir Walter was brought to London, and safely bestowed in his own house, but ever in the care of his loving friend and kinsman.  Manourie’s part being fulfilled and the aim accomplished, Sir Walter completed the promised payment by bestowing upon him the second diamond ­a form of eminently portable currency with which the knight was well supplied.  On the morrow Manourie was gone, dismissed as a consequence of the part he had played.

It was Stukeley who told Sir Walter this ­a very well informed and injured Stukeley, who asked to know what he had done to forfeit the knight’s confidence that behind his back Sir Walter secretly concerted means of escape.  Had his cousin ceased to trust him?

Sir Walter wondered.  Looking into that lean, crafty face, he considered King’s unquenchable mistrust of the man, bethought him of his kinsman’s general neediness, remembered past events that shed light upon his ways and nature, and began now at last to have a sense of the man’s hypocrisy and double-dealing.  Yet he reasoned in regard to him precisely as he had reasoned in regard to Manourie.  The fellow was acquisitive, and therefore corruptible.  If, indeed, he was so base that he had been bought to betray Sir Walter, then he could be bought again to betray those who had so bought him.

“Nay, nay,” said Sir Walter easily.  “It is not lack of trust in you, my good friend.  But you are the holder of an office, and knowing as I do the upright honesty of your character I feared to embarrass you with things whose very knowledge must give you the parlous choice of being false to that office or false to me.”

Stukeley broke forth into imprecations.  He was, he vowed, the most accursed and miserable of men that such a task as this should have fallen to his lot.  And he was a poor man, too, he would have his cousin remember.  It was unthinkable that he should use the knowledge he had gained to attempt to frustrate Sir Walter’s plans of escape to France.  And this notwithstanding that if Sir Walter escaped, it is certain he would lose his office of Vice-Admiral and the six hundred pounds he had paid for it.

“As to that, you shall be at no loss,” Sir Walter assured him.  “I could not suffer it.  I pledge you my honour, Lewis, that you shall have a thousand pounds from my wife on the day that I am safely landed in France or Holland.  Meanwhile, in earnest of what is to come, here is a toy of value for you.”  And he presented Sir Lewis with a jewel of price, a great ruby encrusted in diamonds.

Thus reassured that he would be immune from pecuniary loss, Sir Lewis was ready to throw himself whole-heartedly into Sir Walter’s plans, and to render him all possible assistance.  True, this assistance was a costly matter; there was this person to be bought and that one; there were expenses here and expenses there, incurred by Sir Lewis on his kinsman’s behalf; and there were odd presents, too, which Stukeley seemed to expect and which Sir Walter could not deny him.  He had no illusions now that King had been right; that here he was dealing with a rogue who would exact the uttermost farthing for his services, but he was gratified at the shrewdness with which he had taken his cousin’s measure, and did not grudge the bribes by which he was to escape the scaffold.

De Chesne came again to the house in London, to renew his master’s offer of a ship to carry Sir Walter overseas, and such other assistance as Sir Walter might require But by now the knight’s arrangements were complete.  His servant Cotterell had come to inform him that his own boatswain, now in London, was the owner of a ketch, at present lying at Tilbury, admirably suited for the enterprise and entirely at Sir Walter’s disposal.  It had been decided, then, with the agreement of Captain King, that they should avail themselves of this; and accordingly Cotterell was bidden desire the boatswain to have the craft made ready for sea at once.  In view of this, and anxious to avoid unnecessarily compromising the French envoy, Sir Walter gratefully declined the latter’s offer.

And so we come at last to that July evening appointed for the flight.  Ralegh, who, having for some time discarded the use of Manourie’s ointment, had practically recovered his normal appearance, covering his long white hair under a Spanish hat, and muffling the half of his face in the folds of a cloak, came to Wapping Stairs ­that ill-omened place of execution of pirates and sea-rovers ­accompanied by Cotterell, who carried the knight’s cloak-bag, and by Sir Lewis and Sir Lewis’s son.  Out of solicitude for their dear friend and kinsman, the Stukeleys could not part from him until he was safely launched upon his voyage.  At the head of the stairs they were met by Captain King; at the foot of them a boat was waiting, as concerted, the boatswain at the tiller.

King greeted them with an air of obvious relief.

“You feared perhaps we should not come,” said Stukeley, with a sneer at the Captain’s avowed mistrust of him.  “Yet now, I trust, you’ll do me the justice to admit that I have shown myself an honest man.”

The uncompromising King looked at him and frowned, misliking the words.

“I hope that you’ll continue so,” he answered stiffly.

They went down the slippery steps to the boat, and then the shore glided slowly past them as they pushed off into the stream of the ebbing tide.

A moment later, King, whose suspicious eyes kept a sharp look-out, observed another boat put off some two hundred yards higher up the river.  At first he saw it breast the stream as if proceeding towards London Bridge, then abruptly swing about and follow them.  Instantly he drew the attention of Sir Walter to that pursuing wherry.

“What’s this?” quoth Sir Walter harshly.  “Are we betrayed?”

The watermen, taking fright at the words, hung now upon their oars.

“Put back,” Sir Walter bade them.  “I’ll not betray my friends to no purpose.  Put back, and let us home again.”

“Nay, now,” said Stukeley gravely, himself watching the wherry.  “We are more than a match for them in oars, even if their purpose be such as you suspect ­for which suspicion, when all is said, there is no ground.  On then!” He addressed himself to the watermen, whipping out a pistol, and growing truculent in mien and voice.  “To your oars!  Row, you dogs, or I’ll pistol you where you sit.”

The men bent their backs forthwith, and the boat swept on.  But Sir Walter was still full of apprehensions, still questioning the wisdom of keeping to their down-stream course if they were being followed.

“But are we followed?” cried the impatient Sir Lewis. “’Sdeath, cousin, is not the river a highway for all the world to use, and must every wherry that chances to go our way be in pursuit of us?  If you are to halt at every shadow, faith, you’ll never accomplish anything.  I vow I am unfortunate in having a friend whom I would save so full of doubts and fears.”

Sir Walter gave him reason, and even King came to conclude that he had suspected him unjustly, whilst the rowers, under Stukeley’s suasion, now threw themselves heartily into their task, and onward sped the boat through the deepening night, taking but little account of that other wherry that hung ever in their wake.  In this wise they came at length to Greenwich on the last of the ebb.  But here finding the water beginning to grow against them, and wearied by the exertion into which Stukeley’s enthusiasm had flogged them, the watermen paused again, declaring that they could not reach Gravesend before morning.

Followed a brief discussion, at the end of which Sir Walter bade them put him ashore at Purfleet.

“And that’s the soundest counsel,” quoth the boatswain.  “For at Purfleet we can get horses on to Tilbury.”

Stukeley was of the same opinion; but not so the more practical Captain King.

“’Tis useless,” he declared to them.  “At this hour how shall you get horses to go by land?”

And now, Sir Walter, looking over his shoulder, saw the other wherry bearing down upon them through the faintly opalescent mists of dawn.  A hail came to them across the water.

“Oh, ’Sdeath!  We are betrayed!” cried Ralegh bitterly, and Stukeley swore more fiercely still.  Sir Walter turned to him.  “Put ashore,” he said shortly, “and let us home.”

“Ay, perhaps ’twere best.  For to-night there’s an end to the enterprise, and if I am taken in your company now, what shall be said to me for this active assistance in your escape?” His voice was gloomy, his face drawn and white.

“Could you not plead that you had but pretended to go with me to seize on my private papers?” suggested the ingenious mind of Ralegh.

“I could.  But shall I be believed?  Shall I?” His loom was deepening to despair.

Ralegh was stricken almost with remorse on his cousin’s account.  His generous heart was now more concerned with the harm to his friends than with his own doom.  He desired to make amends to Stukeley, but had no means save such as lay in the power of that currency he used.  Having naught else to give, he must give that.  He plunged his hand into an inner pocket, and brought forth a handful of jewels, which he thrust upon his kinsman.

“Courage,” he urged him.  “Up now, and we may yet win out and home, so that all will be well with you at least, and you shall not suffer for your friendship to me.”

Stukeley embraced him then, protesting his love and desire to serve him.

They came to land at last, just below Greenwich bridge, and almost at the same moment the other wherry grounded immediately above them.  Men sprang from her, with the obvious intent of cutting off their retreat.

“Too late!” said Ralegh, and sighed, entirely without passion now that the dice had fallen and showed that the game was lost.  “You must act on my suggestion to explain your presence, Lewis.”

“Indeed, there is no other course,” Sir Lewis agreed.  “And you are in the same case, Captain King.  You must confess that you joined with me but to betray Sir Walter.  I’ll bear you out.  Thus, each supporting the other...”

“I’ll roast in Hell before I brand myself a traitor,” roared the Captain furiously.  “And were you an honest man, Sir Lewis, you’ld understand my meaning.”

“So, so?” said Stukeley, in a quiet, wicked voice.  And it was observed that his son and one or two of the watermen had taken their stand beside him as if in readiness for action.  “Why, then, since you will have it so, Captain, I arrest you, in the King’s name, on a charge of abetting treason.”

The Captain fell back a step, stricken a moment by sheer amazement.  Then he groped for a pistol to do at last what he realized he should have done long since.  Instantly he was overpowered.  It was only then that Sir Walter understood the thing that had happened, and with understanding came fury.  The old adventurer flung back his cloak, and snatched at his rapier to put it through the vitals of his dear friend and kinsman.  But he was too late.  Hands seized upon him, and he found himself held by the men from the wherry, confronted by a Mr. William Herbert, whom he knew for Stukeley’s cousin, and he heard Mr. Herbert formally asking him for the surrender of his sword.

Instantly he governed himself, repressed his fury.  He looked coldly at his kinsman, whose face showed white and evil in the growing light of the early summer dawn “Sir Lewis,” was all he said, “these actions will not turn out to your credit.”

He had no illusion left.  His understanding was now a very full one.  His dear friend and kinsman had played him false throughout, intending first to drain him of his resources before finally flinging the empty husk to the executioner.  Manourie had been in the plot; he had run with the hare and hunted with the hounds; and Sir Walter’s own servant Cotterell had done no less.  Amongst them they had “cozened the great cozener” ­to use Stukeley’s own cynical expression.  Even so, it was only on his trial that Sir Walter plumbed the full depth of Stukeley’s baseness; for it was only then he learnt that his kinsman had been armed by a warrant of immunity to assist his projects of escape, so that he might the more effectively incriminate and betray him; and Sir Walter discovered also that the ship in which he had landed, and other matters, were to provide additional Judas’ fees to this acquisitive betrayer.

If to escape his enemies Sir Walter had had recourse to artifices unworthy the great hero that he was, now that all hope was lost he conducted himself with a dignity and cheerfulness beyond equal.  So calm and self-possessed and masterly was his defence from the charge of piracy preferred at the request of Spain, and so shrewd in its inflaming appeal to public opinion, that his judges were constrained to abandon that line of prosecution, and could discover no way of giving his head to King James save by falling back upon the thirteen-year old sentence of death against him.  Of this they now ordered execution.

Never a man who loved his life as dearly as Sir Walter loved it met death as blithely.  He dressed himself for the scaffold with that elegance and richness which all his life he had observed.  He wore a ruff band and black velvet wrought nightgown over a doublet of hair-coloured satin, a black wrought waistcoat, black cut taffety breeches and ash-coloured silk stockings.  Under his plumed hat he covered his white locks with a wrought nightcap.  This last he bestowed on his way to the scaffold upon a bald-headed old man who had come to take a last look of him, with the observation that he was more in need of it than himself.  When he had removed it, it was observed that his hair was not curled as usual.  This was a matter that had fretted his barber Peter in the prison of the Gatehouse at Westminster that morning.  But Sir Walter had put him off with a laugh and a jest.

“Let them comb it that shall have it,” he had said of his own head.

Having taken his leave of the friends who had flocked about him with the observation that he had a long journey before him, he called for the axe, and, when presented to him, ran his fingers along the edge, and smiled.

“Sharp medicine,” quoth he, “but a sound cure for all diseases.”

When presently the executioner bade him turn his head to the East: 

“It is no great matter which way a man’s head stands, so that his heart lies right,” he said.

Thus passed one of England’s greatest heroes, indeed one of the very makers of this England, and than his death there is no more shameful blot upon the shameful reign of that pusillanimous James, unclean of body and of soul, who sacrificed him to the King of Spain.

A spectator of his death, who suffered for his words ­as men must ever suffer for the regardless utterance of Truth ­declared that England had not such another head to cut off.

As for Stukeley, the acquisitiveness which had made a Judas of him was destined, by a poetic justice, ever desired but rarely forthcoming for knaves, soon to be his ruin.  He was caught diminishing the gold coin of the realm by the operation known to-day as “clipping,” and with him was taken his creature Manourie, who, to save himself, turned chief witness against Stukeley.  Sir Lewis was sentenced to death, but saved himself by purchasing his pardon at the cost of every ill-gotten shilling he possessed, and he lived thereafter as bankrupt of means as he was of honour.

Yet before all this happened, Sir Lewis had for his part in Sir Walter Ralegh’s death come to be an object of execration throughout the land, and to be commonly known as “Sir Judas.”  At Whitehall he suffered rebuffs and insults that found a climax in the words addressed to him by the Lord Admiral, to whom he went to give an account of his office.

“Base fellow, darest thou who art the contempt and scorn of men offer thyself in my presence?”

For a man of honour there was but one course.  Sir Judas was not a man of honour.  He carried his grievance to the King.  James leered at him.

“What wouldst thou have me do?  Wouldst thou have me hang him?  On my soul, if I should hang all that speak ill of thee, all the trees of the country would not suffice, so great is the number.”