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] 📗

“And how?” asked Raleigh. “Thou art giving us all the play but the murders and the marriages.”

“Why, I bid him yield, and he would not. Then I bid him run, and he would not. And it was too pitch-dark for fighting; so I took him by the ears, and shook the wind out of him, and so brought him in.”

“Shook the wind out of him?” cried Cary, amid the roar of laughter which followed. “Dost know thou hast nearly wrung his neck in two? His vizor was full of blood.”

“He should have run or yielded, then,” said Amyas; and getting up, slipped off to find some ale, and then to sleep comfortably in a dry burrow which he scratched out of a sandbank.

The next morning, as Amyas was discussing a scanty breakfast of biscuit (for provisions were running very short in camp), Raleigh came up to him.

“What, eating? That's more than I have done to-day.”

“Sit down, and share, then.”

“Nay, lad, I did not come a-begging. I have set some of my rogues to dig rabbits; but as I live, young Colbrand, you may thank your stars that you are alive to-day to eat. Poor young Cheek—Sir John Cheek, the grammarian's son—got his quittance last night by a Spanish pike, rushing headlong on, just as you did. But have you seen your prisoner?”

“No; nor shall, while he is in Winter's tent.”

“Why not, then? What quarrel have you against the admiral, friend Bobadil? Cannot you let Francis Drake fight his own battles, without thrusting your head in between them?”

“Well, that is good! As if the quarrel was not just as much mine, and every man's in the ship. Why, when he left Drake, he left us all, did he not?”

“And what if he did? Let bygones be bygones is the rule of a Christian, and of a wise man too, Amyas. Here the man is, at least, safe home, in favor and in power; and a prudent youth will just hold his tongue, mumchance, and swim with the stream.”

“But that's just what makes me mad; to see this fellow, after deserting us there in unknown seas, win credit and rank at home here for being the first man who ever sailed back through the Straits. What had he to do with sailing back at all! As well make the fox a knight for being the first that ever jumped down a jakes to escape the hounds. The fiercer the flight the fouler the fear, say I.”

“Amyas! Amyas! thou art a hard hitter, but a soft politician.”

“I am no politician, Captain Raleigh, nor ever wish to be. An honest man's my friend, and a rogue's my foe; and I'll tell both as much, as long as I breathe.”

“And die a poor saint,” said Raleigh, laughing. “But if Winter invites you to his tent himself, you won't refuse to come?”

“Why, no, considering his years and rank; but he knows too well to do that.”

“He knows too well not to do it,” said Raleigh, laughing as he walked away. And verily in half-an-hour came an invitation, extracted of course, from the admiral by Raleigh's silver tongue, which Amyas could not but obey.

“We all owe you thanks for last night's service, sir,” said Winter, who had for some good reasons changed his tone. “Your prisoner is found to be a gentleman of birth and experience, and the leader of the assault last night. He has already told us more than we had hoped, for which also we are beholden to you; and, indeed, my Lord Grey has been asking for you already.”

“I have, young sir,” said a quiet and lofty voice; and Amyas saw limping from the inner tent the proud and stately figure of the stern deputy, Lord Grey of Wilton, a brave and wise man, but with a naturally harsh temper, which had been soured still more by the wound which had crippled him, while yet a boy, at the battle of Leith. He owed that limp to Mary Queen of Scots; and he did not forget the debt.

“I have been asking for you; having heard from many, both of your last night's prowess, and of your conduct and courage beyond the promise of your years, displayed in that ever-memorable voyage, which may well be ranked with the deeds of the ancient Argonauts.”

Amyas bowed low; and the lord deputy went on, “You will needs wish to see your prisoner. You will find him such a one as you need not be ashamed to have taken, and as need not be ashamed to have been taken by you: but here he is, and will, I doubt not, answer as much for himself. Know each other better, gentlemen both: last night was an ill one for making acquaintances. Don Guzman Maria Magdalena Sotomayor de Soto, know the hidalgo, Amyas Leigh!”

As he spoke, the Spaniard came forward, still in his armor, all save his head, which was bound up in a handkerchief.

He was an exceedingly tall and graceful personage, of that sangre azul which marked high Visigothic descent; golden-haired and fair-skinned, with hands as small and white as a woman's; his lips were delicate but thin, and compressed closely at the corners of the mouth; and his pale blue eye had a glassy dulness. In spite of his beauty and his carriage, Amyas shrank from him instinctively; and yet he could not help holding out his hand in return, as the Spaniard, holding out his, said languidly, in most sweet and sonorous Spanish—

“I kiss his hands and feet. The senor speaks, I am told, my native tongue?”

“I have that honor.”

“Then accept in it (for I can better express myself therein than in English, though I am not altogether ignorant of that witty and learned language) the expression of my pleasure at having fallen into the hands of one so renowned in war and travel; and of one also,” he added, glancing at Amyas's giant bulk, “the vastness of whose strength, beyond that of common mortality, makes it no more shame for me to have been overpowered and carried away by him than if my captor had been a paladin of Charlemagne's.”

Honest Amyas bowed and stammered, a little thrown off his balance by the unexpected assurance and cool flattery of his prisoner; but he said—

“If you are satisfied, illustrious senor, I am bound to be so. I only trust that in my hurry and the darkness I have not hurt you unnecessarily.”

The Don laughed a pretty little hollow laugh: “No, kind senor, my head, I trust, will after a few days have become united to my shoulders; and, for the present, your company will make me forget any slight discomfort.”

“Pardon me, senor; but by this daylight I should have seen that armor before.”

“I doubt it not, senor, as having been yourself also in the forefront of