Westward Ho! Or, The Voyages and Adventures of Sir Amyas Leigh, Knight, of Burrough, in the County of Devon, in the Reign of Her Most Glorious Majesty Queen Elizabeth, - [e books for reading .TXT] 📗

us say no more. Obedience is my duty; and for the rest the Church must decide, according to her infallible authority—for I am a good Catholic, senor, the best of Catholics, though a great sinner.—I trust no one has overheard us!”

Amyas left him with a smile of pity, and went to look for Lucy Passmore, whom the sailors were nursing and feeding, while Ayacanora watched them with a puzzled face.

“I will talk to you when you are better, Lucy,” said he, taking her hand. “Now you must eat and drink, and forget all among us lads of Devon.”

“Oh, dear blessed sir, and you will send Sir John to pray with me? For I turned, sir, I turned: but I could not help it—I could not abear the torments: but she bore them, sweet angel—and more than I did. Oh, dear me!”

“Lucy, I am not fit now to hear more. You shall tell me all to-morrow;” and he turned away.

“Why do you take her hand?” said Ayacanora, half-scornfully. “She is old, and ugly, and dirty.”

“She is an Englishwoman, child, and a martyr, poor thing; and I would nurse her as I would my own mother.”

“Why don't you make me an Englishwoman, and a martyr? I could learn how to do anything that that old hag could do!”

“Instead of calling her names, go and tend her; that would be much fitter work for a woman than fighting among men.”

Ayacanora darted from him, thrust the sailors aside, and took possession of Lucy Passmore.

“Where shall I put her?” asked she of Amyas, without looking up.

“In the best cabin; and let her be served like a queen, lads.”

“No one shall touch her but me;” and taking up the withered frame in her arms, as if it were a doll, Ayacanora walked off with her in triumph, telling the men to go and mind the ship.

“The girl is mad,” said one.

“Mad or not, she has an eye to our captain,” said another.

“And where's the man that would behave to the poor wild thing as he does?”

“Sir Francis Drake would, from whom he got his lesson. Do you mind his putting the negro lass ashore after he found out about—”

“Hush! Bygones be bygones, and those that did it are in their graves long ago. But it was too hard of him on the poor thing.”

“If he had not got rid of her, there would have been more throats than one cut about the lass, that's all I know,” said another; “and so there would have been about this one before now, if the captain wasn't a born angel out of heaven, and the lieutenant no less.”

“Well, I suppose we may get a whet by now. I wonder if these Dons have any beer aboard.”

“Naught but grape vinegar, which fools call wine, I'll warrant.”

“There was better than vinegar on the table in there just now.”

“Ah,” said one grumbler of true English breed, “but that's not for poor fellows like we.”

“Don't lie, Tom Evans; you never were given that way yet, and I don't think the trade will suit a good fellow like you.”

The whole party stared; for the speaker of these words was none other than Amyas himself, who had rejoined them, a bottle in each hand.

“No, Tom Evans. It has been share and share alike for three years, and bravely you have all held up, and share alike it shall be now, and here's the handsel of it. We'll serve out the good wine fairly all round as long as it lasts, and then take to the bad: but mind you don't get drunk, my sons, for we are much too short of hands to have any stout fellows lying about the scuppers.”

But what was the story of the intendant's being murdered? Brimblecombe had seen him run into a neighboring cabin; and when the door of it was opened, there was the culprit, but dead and cold, with a deep knife-wound in his side. Who could have done the deed? It must have been Tita, whom Brimblecombe had seen loose, and trying to free her lover.

The ship was searched from stem to stern: but no Tita. The mystery was never explained. That she had leapt overboard, and tried to swim ashore, none doubted: but whether she had reached it, who could tell? One thing was strange; that not only had she carried off no treasure with her, but that the gold ornaments which she had worn the night before, lay together in a heap on the table, close by the murdered man. Had she wished to rid herself of everything which had belonged to her tyrants?

The commandant heard the whole story thoughtfully.

“Wretched man!” said he, “and he has a wife and children in Seville.”

“A wife and children?” said Amyas; “and I heard him promise marriage to the Indian girl.”

That was the only hint which gave a reason for his death. What if, in the terror of discovery and capture, the scoundrel had dropped any self-condemning words about his marriage, any prayer for those whom he had left behind, and the Indian had overheard them? It might be so; at least sin had brought its own punishment.

And so that wild night and day subsided. The prisoners were kindly used enough; for the Englishman, free from any petty love of tormenting, knows no mean between killing a foe outright, and treating him as a brother; and when, two days afterwards, they were sent ashore in the canoes off Cabo Velo, captives and captors shook hands all round; and Amyas, after returning the commandant his sword, and presenting him with a case of the bishop's wine, bowed him courteously over the side.

“I trust that you will pay us another visit, valiant senor capitan,” said the Spaniard, bowing and smiling.

“I should most gladly accept your invitation, illustrious senor commandant; but as I have vowed henceforth, whenever I shall meet a Spaniard, neither to give nor take quarter, I trust that our paths to glory may lie in different directions.”

The commandant shrugged his shoulders; the ship was put again before the wind, and as the shores of the Main faded lower and dimmer behind her, a mighty cheer broke from all on board; and for once the cry from every mouth was Eastward-ho!

Scrap by scrap, as weakness and confusion of intellect permitted her, Lucy Passmore told her story. It was a simple one after all, and Amyas might almost have guessed it for himself. Rose had not yielded to the Spaniard without a struggle. He had visited her two or three times at Lucy's house (how he found out Lucy's existence she herself could never tell, unless from the Jesuits) before she agreed to go with him. He had gained Lucy to his side by huge promises of Indian gold; and, in fine, they had gone to Lundy, where the lovers were