But now the flame has died and the ashes are cold.And I would not revive them if I could.There is nothing under heaven that I desire."The seaman's face was grave and kindly.
"I think you have flown too high, Sir Walter.You have aimed at the moon and forgotten the merits of our earthly hills.""True, true!" Raleigh's mien was for a moment more lively."That is a shrewd comment.After three-score years I know my own heart.I have been cursed with a devil of pride, Jasper....Man, I have never had a friend.Followers and allies and companions, if you please, but no friend.Others-- simple folk--would be set singing by a May morning, or a warm tavern fire, or a woman's face.Ihave known fellows to whom the earth was so full of little pleasures that after the worst clouts they rose like larks from a furrow.A wise philosophy--but I had none of it.I saw always the little pageant of man's life like a child's peep-show beside the dark wastes of eternity.Ah, Iknow well I struggled like the rest for gauds and honours, but they were only tools for my ambition.For themselves I never valued them.I aimed at a master-fabric, and since I have failed I have now no terrestrial cover."The night had fallen black, but the cabin windows were marvellously patined by stars.Raleigh's voice had sunk to the hoarse whisper of a man still fevered.He let his head recline again on the skins and closed his eyelids.
Instantly it became the face of an old and very weary man.
The sailor Jasper Lauval--for so he now spelled his name on the rare occasions when he wrote it-- thought he was about to sleep and was rising to withdraw, when Raleigh's eyes opened.
"Stay with me," he commanded."Your silence cheers me.If you leave me Ihave thoughts that might set me following Tom Keymis.Kit Marlowe again! Icannot get rid of his accursed jingles.How do they go?
"'Hell hath no limite, nor is circumscribed In one self-place, for where we are is hell And where hell is there must we ever be.'"Lauval stretched out a cool hand and laid it on the Admiral's hot forehead.