"Ugh!" grunts one. "Don't you think our day's work has been long enough yet, captain?"
"You don't want us to go in to La Guayra again, sir? There are enough of us thrown away already, I reckon, about that wench there."
"Best sit here, and sink quietly. There's no getting home again, that's plain."
"Why were we brought out here to be killed."
"For shame, men!" cries Yeo, "murmuring the very minute after the Lord has delivered you from the Egyptians."
Now I do not wish to set Amyas up as better, thank God, than many and many a brave and virtuous captain in her Majesty's service at this very day: but certainly he behaved admirably under that trial. Drake had trained him, as he trained many another excellent officer, to be as stout in discipline and as dogged of purpose, as he himself was: but he had trained him also to feel with and for his men, to make allowances for them, and to keep his temper with them, as he did this day. Amyas's conscience smote him (and his simple and pious soul took the loss of his brother as God's verdict on his conduct), because he had set his own private affection, even his own private revenge, before the safety of his ship's company and the good of his country.
"Ah," said he to himself, as he listened to his men's reproaches, "if I had been thinking, like a loyal soldier, of serving my queen, and crippling the Spaniard, I should have taken that great bark three days ago, and in it the very man I sought!"
So "choking down his old man," as Yeo used to say, he made answer cheerfully—
"Pooh! pooh! brave lads! For shame, for shame! You were lions half-an-hour ago; you are not surely turned sheep already! Why, but yesterday evening you were grumbling because I would not run in and fight those three ships under the batteries of La Guayra, and now you think it too much to have fought them fairly out at sea? Nothing venture, nothing win; and nobody goes birdnesting without a fall at times. If any one wants to be safe in this life, he'd best stay at home and keep his bed; though even there who knows but the roof might fall through on him?"
"Ah, it's all very well for you, captain," said some grumbling younker, with a vague notion that Amyas must be better off than he because he was a gentleman. Amyas's blood rose.
"Yes, sirrah! Do you fancy that I have nothing to lose? I who have adventured in this voyage all I am worth, and more; who, if I fall, must return to beggary and scorn? And if I have ventured rashly, sinfully, if you will, the lives of any of you in my own private quarrel, am I not punished? Have I not lost——?"
His voice trembled and stopped there, but he recovered himself in a moment.
"Pish! I can't stand here chattering. Carpenter! an ax! and help me to cast these spars loose. Get out of my way, there! lumbering the scuppers up like so many moulting fowls! Here, all old friends, lend a hand! Pelican's men, stand by your captain! Did we sail round the world for nothing?"
This last appeal struck home, and up leaped half-a-dozen of the old Pelicans, and set to work at his side manfully to rig the jury-mast.
"Come along!" cried Cary to the malcontents; "we're raw longshore fellows, but we won't be outdone by any old sea-dog of them all." And setting to work himself, he was soon followed by one and another, till order and work went on well enough.
"And where are we going, when the mast's up?" shouted some saucy hand from behind.
"Where you daren't follow us alone by yourself, so you had better keep us company," replied Yeo.
"I'll tell you where we are going, lads," said Amyas, rising from his work. "Like it or leave it as you will, I have no secrets from my crew. We are going inshore there to find a harbor, and careen the ship."
There was a start and a murmur.
"Inshore! Into the Spaniards' mouths?"
"All in the Inquisition in a week's time."
"Better stay here, and be drowned."
"You're right in that last," shouts Cary. "That's the right death for blind puppies. Look you! I don't know in the least where we are, and I hardly know stem from stern aboard ship; and the captain may be right or wrong—that's nothing to me; but this I know, that I am a soldier, and will obey orders; and where he goes, I go; and whosoever hinders me must walk up my sword to do it."
Amyas pressed Cary's hand, and then—
"And here's my broadside next, men. I'll go nowhere, and do nothing without the advice of Salvation Yeo and Robert Drew; and if any man in the ship knows better than these two, let him up, and we'll give him a hearing. Eh, Pelicans?"
There was a grunt of approbation from the Pelicans; and Amyas returned to the charge.
"We have five shots between wind and water, and one somewhere below. Can we face a gale of wind in that state, or can we not?"
Silence.
"Can we get home with a leak in our bottom?"
Silence.
"Come along now! Here's the wind again round with the sun, and up to the northwest. In shore with her."
Sulkily enough, but unable to deny the necessity, the men set to work, and the vessel's head was put toward the land; but when she began to slip through the water, the leak increased so fast that they were kept hard at work at the pumps for the rest of the afternoon.
The current had by this time brought them abreast of the bay of Higuerote. As they ran inward, all eyes were strained greedily to find some opening in the mangrove belt: but none was to be seen for some time. The lead was kept going; and every fresh heave announced shallower water.
"We shall have very shoal work of those mangroves, Yeo," said Amyas; "I doubt whether we shall do aught now, unless we find a river's mouth."
"If the Lord thinks a river good for us, sir, he'll show us one." So on they went, keeping a southeast course, and at last an opening in the mangrove belt was hailed with a cheer from the older hands, though the majority shrugged their shoulders, as men going open-eyed to destruction.
Of the mouth they sent in Drew and Cary with a boat, and watched anxiously for an hour. The boat returned with a good report of two fathoms of water over the bar, impenetrable forests for two miles up, the river sixty yards broad, and no sign of man. The river's banks were soft and sloping mud, fit for careening.
"Safe quarters, sir," said Yeo, privately, "as far as Spaniards go. I hope in God it may be as safe from fevers."
"Beggars must not be choosers," said Amyas. So in they went.
They towed the ship up about half-a-mile to a point where she could not be seen from the seaward; and there moored her to the mangrove-stems. Amyas ordered a boat out, and went up the river himself to reconnoiter. He rowed some three miles, till the river narrowed suddenly, and was all but covered in by the interlacing boughs of mighty trees. There was no sign that man had been there since the making of the world.
He dropped down the stream again, thoughtfully and sadly. How many years ago was it that he had passed this river's mouth? Three days. And yet how much had passed in them! Don Guzman found and lost—Rose found and lost—a great victory gained, and
