An Introduction To The Eternal Collection Jubilee Edition Read Online Free PDF

than put his hand in his pocket towards the cost of the ship.
    Drake was in favour again with the Queen and although publicly she still held out the hand of peace towards Philip of Spain, she was giving to the man whom the Spanish Ambassador had called “The Master Thief of the World” a fleet of ships with which he could challenge the growing might of the Armada.
    It was not the moment, Sir Francis Walsingham knew, to introduce another interest in the shape of a good looking, attractive young man. The Queen, however much she tried to close her eyes to the truth, had her hands full with the preparation for war.
    There was time enough for Rodney to come to Court when things were not so tense or so turbulent as they were at the moment. Accordingly, Sir Francis gave his god-son two thousand pounds, his blessing, and an introduction to Sir Harry Gillingham.
    Six thousand pounds in all – Rodney wondered with a sudden, piercing anxiety whether it would be enough. Had he under-estimated what he would require? And then swiftly the worry that had come to him disappeared again. What did anything matter – provisions, hardship, even hunger, so long as he could know that the ship was his and he could be at sea, sailing across the white-topped waves of the Atlantic Ocean?
    “Are you dreaming of a woman or your ship?” a gay voice asked him.
    He started violently as he turned to see behind him Lizbeth perched upon the saddle of a white horse. She was in the shadow of a chestnut tree and so intent had he been on his thoughts that he would have walked right past her had she not spoken to him.
    “My ship!” he replied and found himself smiling in response to the smile on her lips.
    “I thought so,” she answered. “Poor Phillida!”
    There was something mocking in her voice which made him flush almost angrily.
    “The two are indivisible,” he said quickly, “for on the success of my sailing depends the comfort and luxury of Phillida’s future.
    Even as he spoke he cursed himself for being so weak as to explain himself to this girl. And as if she sensed his irritation, she laughed softly, then with a quickness he had not anticipated she dismounted from her horse’s back.
    She was dressed for riding like a boy, in a doublet, short breeches, and long brown boots fitting close to the legs and reaching up to her thighs. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes sparkling, and her hair was like a fiery halo above her white forehead.
    “Come,” she said gaily, “I will show you a wild duck’s nest. The chicks have just hatched out. Everything is very early this year, but that is to be expected.”
    “Why in particular?” Rodney asked.
    “Surely you know the prophecies that this year of 1588 is to be a year of wonders! Old Amos, who will be ninety next birthday, says local people have talked of it since he was a boy, and Widow Bellew, who lives in a cottage on the other side of the wood and who everyone says is a witch, prophesies that great marvels will come to pass and England will prove herself the greatest country in the world.”
    “Let us pray such tales come true,” Rodney said, and he was not laughing, for like all seafaring men he was incurably superstitious.
    “They say, too, that Her Majesty’s astrologer, Dr. Dee, has told of these things to the Queen’s Grace,” Lizbeth went on.
    They had reached the edge of the lake by now and she pulled back some rushes to point to the wild duck’s nest of which she had spoken. There were a dozen chicks, bright-eyed and open-beaked precariously near the water’s edge.
    “Are they not sweet?” Lizbeth asked.
    But Rodney was thinking of something else. He was wondering how the prophecies of which Lizbeth had spoken would affect him personally. He had known, when he sailed with Drake, how tremendously luck, either good or bad, could affect a ship’s company, how fanatically the men believed in good omens; how even the strongest of them shivered at the thought of witchcraft. He