The Captain of the _Cygnet_ and the Captain of the _Phoenix_, with Arden and Sedley, awaited beside the great window of the hall their guests' appearance. The sunset was not yet, but the moment was at hand. The light, dwelling upon naked hillside and the fortress crowning it, made both to seem candescent, hill and castle one heart of flame against the purple mountains that stretched across the south. Very high were the mountains, very still and white that fortress flame; the yellow plain could not be seen, but the palm-trees were gold green above the walls of Nueva Cordoba. The light fell from the hilltop, a solitary trumpet blew, and forth from that guarded opening in the tunal rode De Guardiola on his pale horse, and at his back ten Spanish gentlemen.
"The dark line of them is like a serpent creeping from the tunal," said Henry Sedley. "Last night I dreamed a strange thing.... It concerned my sister Damaris. She came up from the sea, straight from the water like blown spray, and she was dressed in white. She looked down through the sea and her tears fell, and falling, they made music like the mermaiden's singing that we heard. '_Lie still_,' she said. '_Thou under the sea and I under the sod. Lie still: dream well: all's over_.' To whom did she speak?"
"If I were a dead man and she called my name, I would answer," said Ferne. "She under the sod and I under the sea.... So be it! But first one couch, one cup, one garland, the sounded depths of love--"
"I dreamed of home," quoth Baldry, "and of my mother's calling me, a little lad, when at twilight work was done. '_Robert, Robert_!' she called."
"I had no dreams," said Sir Mortimer. "Now sounds John Nevil's trumpets--our guests have made entry."
"Why, señors," answered Mexia, flattered and flown with wine, "I learned to speak your tongue from a man of your country, who also gave me that knowledge of English affairs which you are pleased to compliment. I make my boast that I am no traveller--I have not been home to Seville these twenty years--yet, as you see, I have some trifling acquaintance--"
"Your learning is of so shining a quality," quoth Sir Mortimer, with courteous emphasis, "that here and there a flaw cannot mar its curious worth. Smerwick Fort lies in Ireland, señor, not in England. Though verily the best thing I know of Edmund Campion is the courageousness of his end; yet indeed he died not with a halo about his head, nor were miracles wrought with his blood. Her Gracious Majesty the Queen of England hath no such distemperature as that you name, and keepeth no sort of familiar fiend. The Queen of Scots, if a most fair and most unfortunate, is yet a most wicked lady, who, alas! hath trained many a gallant man to a bloody and disastrous end."