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Wholl list? cried the gaunt man again; nows your time! Weve got forty men to Plymouth now, ready to sail the minute we get back, and we want a dozen out of you Bideford men, and just a boy or two, and then wem off and away, and make our fortunes, or go to heaven. Our souls in heaven to rest! Where valiant seamen, one and all, Hereafter shall be blest! Now, said Oxenham, you wont let the Plymouth men say that the Bideford men darent follow them? North Devon against South, it is. Wholl join? wholl join? It is but a step of a way, after all, and sailing as smooth as a duck-pond as soon as youre past Cape Finisterre. Ill run a Clovelly herring-boat there and back for a wager of twenty pound, and never ship a bucketful all the way. Wholl join? Dont think youre buying a pig in a poke. I know the road, and Salvation Yeo, here, too, who was the gunners mate, as well as I do the narrow seas, and better. You ask him to show you the chart of it, now, and see if he dont tell you over the ruttier as well as Drake himself. On which the gaunt man pulled from under his arm a great white buffalo horn covered with rough etchings of land and sea, and held it up to the admiring ring. See here, boys all, and behold the pictur of the place, draed out so natural as ever was life. I got mun from a Portingal, down to the Azores; and hed pricked mun out, and pricked mun out, wheresoever hed sailed, and whatsoever hed seen. Take mun in your hands now, Simon Evans, take mun in your hands; look mun over, and Ill warrant youll know the way in five minutes so well as ever a shark in the seas. And the horn was passed from hand to hand; while Oxenham, who saw that his hearers were becoming moved, called through the open window for a great tankard of sack, and passed that from hand to hand, after the horn. The school-boy, who had been devouring with eyes and ears all which passed, and had contrived by this time to edge himself into the inner ring, now stood face to face with the hero of the emerald crest, and got as many peeps as he could at the wonder. But when he saw the sailors, one after another, having turned it over a while, come forward and offer to join Mr. Oxenham, his soul burned within him for a nearer view of that wondrous horn, as magical in its effects as that of Tristrem, or the enchanters in Ariosto; and when the group had somewhat broken up, and Oxenham was going into the tavern with his recruits, he asked boldly for a nearer sight of the marvel, which was granted at once. And now to his astonished gaze displayed themselves cities and harbors, dragons and elephants, whales which fought with sharks, plate ships of Spain, islands with apes and palm-trees, each with its name over-written, and here and there, Here is gold; and again, Much gold and silver; inserted most probably, as the words were in English, by the hands of Mr. Oxenham himself. Lingeringly and longingly the boy turned it round and round, and thought the owner of it more fortunate than Khan or Kaiser. Oh, if he could but possess that horn, what needed he on earth beside to make him blest! I say, will you sell this? Yea, marry, or my own soul, if I can get the worth of it. I want the horn,I dont want your soul; its somewhat of a stale sole, for aught I know; and there are plenty of fresh ones in the bay. And therewith, after much fumbling, he pulled out a tester (the only one he had), and asked if that would buy it? That! no, nor twenty of them. |
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