Upon Ferne, waiting in inaction, looking out over the vast, dim panorama of earth and ocean, there fell, after the fever and exaltation, the stress and exertion of the past hours, a strange mood of quiet, of dreaming, and of peace.  Sitting there in listless strength, he thought in quietude and tenderness of other things than gold, and fame, and the fortress which must be taken of Nueva Cordoba.  With his eyes upon the gleaming sea he thought of Damaris Sedley, and of Sidney, and of a day at Windsor when the Queen had showed him much favor, and of a little, windy knoll, near to his house of Ferne, where, returning from hunting or hawking, he was wont to check his horse that he might taste the sweet and sprightly air.

Now this man waited at the threshold of an opening door, and like a child his fancy gathered door-step flowers, recking nothing of the widening space behind, the beckoning hands, the strange chambers into which shortly he must go.  Some faint and far monition, some breath of colder air may have touched him, for now, like a shriven man drowsing into death, his mind dwelt lightly upon all things, gazed quietly upon a wide, retreating landscape, and saw that great and small are one.  He was wont to think of Damaris Sedley with ardor, imagining embraces, kisses, cries of love, sweet lips, warm arms,—­but to-night he seemed to see her in a glass, somewhat dimly.  She stood a little remote, quiet, sweet, and holy, and his spirit chastened itself before her.  Dear were his friends to him; his heart lodged them in spacious chambers and lapped them with observance; now he thought whimsically and lightly of his guests as though their lodgings were far removed from that misty central hall where he himself abode.  Loyal with the fantastic loyalty of an earlier time, practiser of chivalry and Honor’s fanatic, for a moment those things also lost their saliency and edge.  Word and deed of this life appeared of the silver and the moonlight, not of gold and sunlight; existence a dream and no matter of moment.  He plucked the flowers one by one, looked at them tranquilly, and laid them down, nor thought, This is Farewell.

Nueva Cordoba lay still amongst her rustling palms; the ocean rippled gold, and like gold-dust were the scintillating clouds of insects; the limpid river palely slid between its mangrove banks, a low wind sighed, a night-bird called; far, far in the forest behind the hill a muffled roar proclaimed that the jaguar had found its meat.  The moon rose—­such a moon as never had England looked upon.  Pearl, amethyst, and topaz were her rings; she made the boss of a vast shield; like God’s own candle she lit the night.  “At home the nightingales would sing,” thought Sir Mortimer.  “Ah, Philomela, here befits a wilder song than thine!” He looked towards the Cygnet, still as a painted ship upon the silver sluggish flood.  “When there shall be no more sea, what will seamen do?” Over the marsh wandered the ignes fatui.