less night at Guayra. And when it was done, she led Ayacanora out, and began busying herself about the girl's comforts, as calmly as if Frank and Amyas had been sleeping in their cribs in the next room.
But she had hardly gone upstairs, when a loud knock at the door was followed by its opening hastily; and into the hall burst, regardless of etiquette, the tall and stately figure of Sir Richard Grenvile.
Amyas dropped on his knees instinctively. The stern warrior was quite unmanned; and as he bent over his godson, a tear dropped from that iron cheek, upon the iron cheek of Amyas Leigh.
"My lad! my glorious lad! and where have you been? Get up, and tell me all. The sailors told me a little, but I must hear every word. I knew you would do something grand. I told your mother you were too good a workman for God to throw away. Now, let me have the whole story. Why, I am out of breath To tell truth, I ran three-parts of the way hither."
And down the two sat, and Amyas talked long into the night; while Sir Richard, his usual stateliness recovered, smiled stern approval at each deed of daring; and when all was ended, answered with something like a sigh—
"Would God that I had been with you every step! Would God, at least, that I could show as good a three-years' log-book, Amyas, my lad!"
"You can show a better one, I doubt not."
"Humph! With the exception of one paltry Spanish prize, I don't know that the queen is the better, or her enemies the worse, for me, since we parted last in Dublin city."
"You are too modest, sir."
"Would that I were; but I got on in Ireland, I found, no better than my neighbors; and so came home again, to find that while I had been wasting my time in that land ot misrule, Raleigh had done a deed to which I can see no end. For, lad, he has found (or rather his two captains, Amadas and Barlow, have found for him) between Florida and Newfoundland, a country, the like of which, I believe, there is not on the earth for climate and fertility. Whether there be gold there, I know not, and it matters little; for there is all else on earth that man can want; furs, timber, rivers, game, sugar-canes, corn, fruit, and every commodity which France, Spain, or Italy can yield, wild in abundance; the savages civil enough for savages, and, in a word, all which goes to the making of as noble a jewel as her Majesty's crown can wear. The people call it Wingandacoa; but we, after her Majesty, Virginia."
"You have been there, then?"
"The year before last, lad; and left there Ralf Lane, Amadas, and some twenty gentlemen, and ninety men, and, moreover, some money of my own, and some of old Will Salterne's, which neither of us will ever see again. For the colony, I know not how, quarrelled with the Indians (I fear I too was over-sharp with some
