BOOK I

Now through the great doors of the Council-room

Magnificently streamed in rich array

The peers of England, regal of aspèct

And grave. Their silence waited for the Queen:

And even now she came; and through their midst,

Low as they bowed, she passed without a smile

And took her royal seat. A bodeful hush

Of huge anticipation gripped all hearts,

Compressed all brows, and loaded the broad noon

With gathering thunder: none knew what the hour

Might yet bring forth; but the dark fire of war

Smouldered in every eye; for every day

The Council met debating how to join

Honour with peace, and every day new tales

Of English wrongs received from the red hands

Of that gigantic Empire, insolent

Spain, spurred fiercer resentments up like steeds

Revolting, on the curb, foaming for battle,

In all men's minds, against whatever odds.

On one side of the throne great Walsingham,

A lion of England, couchant, watchful, calm,

Was now the master of opinion: all

Drew to him. Even the hunchback Burleigh smiled

With half-ironic admiration now,

As in the presence of the Queen they met

Amid the sweeping splendours of her court,

A cynic smile that seemed to say, “I, too,

Would fain regain that forthright heart of fire;

Yet statesmanship is but a smoother name

For the superior cunning which ensures

Victory.” And the Queen, too, knowing her strength

And weakness, though her woman's heart leaped out

To courage, yet with woman's craft preferred

The subtler strength of Burleigh; for she knew

Mary of Scotland waited for that war

To strike her in the side for Rome; she knew

How many thousands lurked in England still

Remembering Rome and bloody Mary's reign.

France o'er a wall of bleeding Huguenots

Watched for an hour to strike. Against all these

What shield could England raise, this little isle,—

Out-matched, outnumbered, perilously near

Utter destruction?

So the long debate

Proceeded.

All at once there came a cry

Along the streets and at the palace-gates

And at the great doors of the Council-room!

Then through the pikes and halberds a voice rose

Imperative for entrance, and the guards

Made way, and a strange whisper surged around,

And through the peers of England thrilled the blood

Of Agincourt as to the foot of the throne

Came Leicester, for behind him as he came

A seaman stumbled, travel-stained and torn,

Crying for justice, and gasped out his tale.

“The Spaniards,” he moaned, “the Inquisition!

They have taken all my comrades, all our crew,

And flung them into dungeons: there they lie

Waiting for England, waiting for their Queen!

Will you not free them? I alone am left!

All London is afire with it, for this

Was one of your chief city merchant's ships —

The Pride of London, one of Osborne's ships!

But there is none to help them! I escaped

With shrieks of torment ringing in these ears,

The glare of torture-chambers in these eyes

That see no faces anywhere but blind

Blind faces, each a bruise of white that smiles

In idiot agony, washed with sweat and blood,

The face of some strange thing that once was man,

And now can only turn from side to side

Babbling like a child, with mouth agape,

And crying for help where there is none to hear

Save those black vizards in the furnace-glow,

Moving like devils at their hellish trade....”

He paused; his memory sickened, his brain swooned

Back into that wild glare of obscene pain!

Once more to his ears and nostrils horribly crept

The hiss and smell of shrivelling human flesh!

His dumb stare told the rest: his head sank down;

He strove in agony

With what all hideous words must leave untold;

While Leicester vouched him, “This man's tale is true!”

But like a gathering storm a low deep moan

Of passion, like a tiger's, slowly crept

From the grey lips of Walsingham. “My Queen,

Will you not free them?”

Then Elizabeth,

Whose name is one for ever with the name

Of England, rose; and in her face the gleam

Of justice that makes anger terrible

Shone, and she stretched her glittering sceptre forth

And spoke, with distant empires in her eyes.

“My lords, this is the last cry they shall wring

From English lips unheeded: we will have

Such remedies for this as all the world

Shall tremble at!”

And, on that night, while Drake

Close in his London lodging lay concealed

Until he knew if it were peace or war

With Spain ( for he had struck on the high seas

At Spain; and well he knew if it were peace

His blood would be made witness to that bond,

And he must die a pirate's death or fly

Westward once more ), there all alone, he pored

By a struggling rushlight o'er a well-thumbed chart

Of magic islands in the enchanted seas,

Dreaming, as boys and poets only dream

With those that see God's wonders in the deep,

Perilous visions of those palmy keys,

Cocoa-nut islands, parrot-haunted woods,

Crisp coral reefs and blue shark-finned lagoons

Fringed with the creaming foam, mile upon mile

Of mystery. Dream after dream went by,

Colouring the brown air of that London night

With many a mad miraculous romance.

There, suddenly, some augury, some flash

Showed him a coming promise, a strange hint,

Which, though he played with it, he scarce believed;

Strange as in some dark cave the first fierce gleam

Of pirate gold to some forlorn maroon

Who tiptoes to the heap and glances round

Askance, and dreads to hear what erst he longed

To hear — some voice to break the hush; but bathes

Both hands with childish laughter in the gold,

And lets it trickle through his fevered palms,

And begins counting half a hundred times

And loses count each time for sheer delight

And wonder in it; meantime, if he knew,

Passing the cave-mouth, far away, beyond

The still lagoon, the coral reef, the foam

And the white fluttering chatter of the birds,

A sail that might have saved him comes and goes

Unseen across the blue Pacific sea.

So Drake, too, played with fancies; but that sail

Passed not unseen, for suddenly there came

A firm and heavy footstep to the door,

Then a loud knocking: and, at first, he thought

“I am a dead man: there is peace with Spain,

And they are come to lead me to my doom.”

But, as he looked across one shoulder, pride

Checking the fuller watch for what he feared,

The door opened; and cold as from the sea

The night rushed in, and there against the gloom,

Clad, as it seemed, with wind and cloud and rain,

There loomed a stately form and high grim face

Loaded with deadly thoughts of iron war —

Walsingham,— in one hand he held a map

Marked with red lines; the other hand held down

The rich encrusted hilt of his great sword.

Then Drake rose, and the other cautiously

Closing the door drew near the flickering light

And spread his map out on the table, saying —

“Mark for me here the points whereat the King

Philip of Spain may best be wounded, mark

The joints of his harness;” and Drake looked at him

Thinking, “If he betray me, I am dead.”

But the soldier met his eyes and, with a laugh,

Drake, quivering like a bloodhound in the leash,

Stooped, with his finger pointing thus and thus —

“Here would I guard, here would I lie in wait,

Here would I strike him through the breast and throat.”

And as he spoke he kindled, and began

To set forth his great dreams, and high romance

Rose like a moon reflecting the true sun

Unseen; and as the full round moon indeed

Rising behind a mighty mountain-chain

Will shadow forth in outline grim and black

Its vast and ragged edges, so that moon

Of high romance rose greatly shadowing forth

The grandeur of his dreams, until their might

Dawned upon Walsingham, and he, too, saw

For a moment of muffled moonlight and wild cloud

The vision of the imperious years to be!

But suddenly Drake paused as one who strays

Beyond the bounds of caution, paused and cursed

His tongue for prating like a moon-struck boy's.

“I am mad,” he cried, “I am mad to babble so!”

Then Walsingham drew near him with strange eyes

And muttered slowly, “Write that madness down;

Ay, write it down, that madman's plan of thine;

Sign it, and let me take it to the Queen.”

But the weather-wiser seaman warily

Answered him, “If it please Almighty God

To take away our Queen Elizabeth,

Seeing that she is mortal as ourselves,

England might then be leagued with Spain, and I

Should here have sealed my doom. I will not put

My pen to paper.”

So, across the charts

With that dim light on each grim countenance

The seaman and the courtier subtly fenced

With words and thoughts, but neither would betray

His whole heart to the other. At the last

Walsingham gripped the hand of Francis Drake

And left him wondering.

On the third night came

A messenger from Walsingham who bade

Drake to the Palace where, without one word,

The statesman met him in an anteroom

And led him, with flushed cheek and beating heart,

Along a mighty gold-gloomed corridor

Into a high-arched chamber, hung with tall

Curtains of gold-fringed silk and tapestries

From Flanders looms, whereon were flowers and beasts

And forest-work, great knights, with hawk on hand,

Riding for ever on their glimmering steeds

Through bowery glades to some immortal face

Beyond the fairy fringes of the world.

A silver lamp swung softly overhead,

Fed with some perfumed oil that shed abroad

Delicious light and fragrances as rare

As those that stirred faint wings at eventide

Through the King's House in Lebanon of old.

Into a quietness as of fallen bloom

Their feet sank in that chamber; and, all round,

Soft hills of Moorish cushions dimly drowsed

On glimmering crimson couches. Near the lamp

An ebony chess-board stood inlaid with squares

Of ruby and emerald, garnished with cinquefoils

Of silver, bears and ragged staves; the men,

Likewise of precious stones, were all arrayed —

Bishops and knights and elephants and pawns —

As for a game. Sixteen of them were set

In silver white, the other sixteen gilt.

Now, as Drake gazed upon an arras, nigh

The farther doors, whereon was richly wrought

The picture of that grave and lovely queen

Penelope, with cold hands weaving still

The unending web, while in an outer court

The broad-limbed wooers basking in the sun

On purple fleeces took from white-armed girls,

Up-kirtled to the knee, the crimson wine;

There, as he gazed and thought, “Is this not like

Our Queen Elizabeth who waits and weaves,

Penelope of England, her dark web

Unendingly till England's Empire come;”

There, as he gazed, for a moment, he could vow

The pictured arras moved. Well had it been

Had he drawn sword and pierced it through and through;

But he suspected nothing and said nought

To Walsingham; for thereupon they heard

The sound of a low lute and a sweet voice

Carolling like a gold-caged nightingale,

Caught by the fowlers ere he found his mate,

And singing all his heart out evermore

To the unknown forest-love he ne'er should see.

And Walsingham smiled sadly to himself,

Knowing the weary queen had bidden some maid

Sing to her, even as David sang to Saul;

Since all her heart was bitter with her love

Or so it was breathed ( and there the chess-board stood,

Her love's device upon it ), though she still,

For England's sake, must keep great foreign kings

Her suitors, wedding no man till she died.

Nor did she know how, in her happiest hour

Remembered now most sorrowfully, the moon,

Vicegerent of the sky, through summer dews,

As that sweet ballad tells in plaintive rhyme,

Silvering the grey old Cumnor towers and all

The hollow haunted oaks that grew thereby,

Gleamed on a casement whence the pure white face

Of Amy Robsart, wife of Leicester, wife

Unknown of the Queen's lover, a frail bar

To that proud Earl's ambition, quietly gazed

And heard the night-owl hoot a dark presage

Of murder through her timid shuddering heart.

But of that deed Elizabeth knew nought;

Nay, white as Amy Robsart in her dream

Of love she listened to the sobbing lute,

Bitterly happy, proudly desolate;

So heavy are all earth's crowns and sharp with thorns!

But tenderly that high-born maiden sang.