“It will be but a wild-goose chase, Will.”

“If she is with him, we shall find her at La Guayra. If she is not, and the villain has cast her off down the wind, that will be only an additional reason for making an example of him.”

“And if neither of them are there, Will, the Plate-fleets will be; so it will be our own shame if we come home empty-handed. But will your father let you run such a risk?”

“My father!” said Cary, laughing. “He has just now so good hope of a long string of little Carys to fill my place, that he will be in no lack of an heir, come what will.”

“Little Carys?”

“I tell you truth. I think he must have had a sly sup of that fountain of perpetual youth, which our friend Don Guzman’s grandfather went to seek in Florida; for some twelvemonth since, he must needs marry a tenant’s buxom daughter; and Mistress Abishag Jewell has brought him one fat baby already. So I shall go, back to Ireland, or with you: but somewhere. I can’t abide the thing’s squalling, any more than I can seeing Mistress Abishag sitting in my poor dear mother’s place, and informing me every other day that she is come of an illustrious house, because she is (or is not) third cousin seven times removed to my father’s old friend, Bishop Jewell of glorious memory. I had three-parts of a quarrel with the dear old man the other day; for after one of her peacock-bouts, I couldn’t for the life of me help saying, that as the Bishop had written an Apology for the people of England, my father had better conjure up his ghost to write an apology for him, and head it, ‘Why green heads should grow on gray shoulders.’”

“You impudent villain! And what did he say?”

Laughed till he cried again, and told me if I did not like it I might leave it; which is just what I intend to do. Only mind, if we go, we must needs take Jack Brimblecombe with us, or he will surely heave himself over Harty Point, and his ghost will haunt us to our dying day.”

“Jack shall go. None deserves it better.”

After which there was a long consultation on practical matters, and it was concluded that Amyas should go up to London and sound Frank and his mother before any further steps were taken. The other brethren of the Rose were scattered far and wide, each at his post, and St. Leger had returned to his uncle, so that it would be unfair to them, as well as a considerable delay, to demand of them any fulfilment of their vow. And, as Amyas sagely remarked, “Too many cooks spoil the broth, and half-a-dozen gentlemen aboard one ship are as bad as two kings of Brentford.”

With which maxim he departed next morning for London, leaving Yeo with Cary.