The young seaman had never known a man like this before.  In his guest’s casual talk of his young days one could see as in a mirror the Spain of a half-century since, with its audacious daring, its extravagant chivalry and its bulldog ferocity.

“They have outgrown us altogether, these young fellows,” he said once with his quaint half-melancholy smile.  “When the King and Queen rode in armor at the head of their troops in Granada, our cavaliers dreamed of conquering the world—­now it has all been conquered.”

“Not England,” Drake put in quickly.

“Not England—­I beg your pardon, my friend.  But we have grown heavy with gold in these days—­and gold makes cowards.”

“It never made a coward o’ me,” laughed the lad.  “Belike it’ll never have the chance.”

Through the shadows the old ship’s-lantern cast in the rude half-timbered room seemed to move the wild figures of that marvellous pageant of conquest which began in 1492.  Saavedra spoke little of himself but much of others—­Ojeda, Nicuesa, Balboa, Cortes, Alvarado, Pizarro.  In his soft slow speech they lived again, while by the stars outside, unknown uncharted realms revealed themselves.  This man used words as a master mariner would use compass and astrolabe.

“Those days when we followed Balboa in his quest for the South Sea,” he ended, “were worth it all.  Gold is nothing if it blinds a man to the heavens.  You too, my son, may seek the Golden Fleece in good time.  May the high planets fortify you!”

What room was left for a knight-errant in the Spain of to-day, ruling by steel and shot and flame and gold?  It must be rather awful, the listener reflected, to see your own country go rotten like that in a generation.  Yet there was no bitterness in the old hidalgo’s tranquil eyes.  “I have been a fool,” he said smiling, “but somehow I do not regret it.  The wound from a poisoned arrow can be seared with red-hot iron, but for the creeping poison of the soul—­the loss of honor—­there is no cure.”

When the seamen came to get orders from their young captain, Saavedra observed with surprise the lad’s clear knowledge of his own trade.  Francis Drake’s old master had seen King Henry’s shipwrights discarding time-honored models to build for speed, speed and more speed.  He had seen Fletcher of Rye, in 1539, prove to all the Channel that a ship could sail against the wind.  All that he knew he had taught his young apprentice, and now the boy was free to use it for his own work—­whatever that should be.  Unlike the gilded and perfumed courtiers, these men of the sea showed little respect toward the tall ships of Spain.  Saavedra, pleased that they spoke without reserve in his presence, watched the rugged straightforward faces, and wondered.

The time came when they took him and his stocky, silent old servant to board a Vizcayan boat.  As they caught his last quick smile and farewell gesture Will Harvest heaved a rueful sigh.  “I never thought to be sorrowful at parting with a Don,” he said reflectively, “but I be.”