“Ah!” said Salvation Yeo, as he helped the trophy up over the side; “ah! it was not for nothing that we found poor Michael! He was always a good comrade—nigh as good a one as William Penberthy of Marazion, whom the Lord grant I meet in bliss! And now, then, my masters, shall we inshore again and burn La Guayra?”
“Art thou never glutted with Spanish blood, thou old wolf?” asked Will Cary.
“Never, sir,” answered Yeo.
“To St. Jago be it,” said Amyas, “if we can get there; but—God help us!”
And he looked round sadly enough; while no one needed that he should finish his sentence, or explain his “but.”
The foremast was gone, the main-yard sprung, the rigging hanging in elf-locks, the hull shot through and through in twenty places, the deck strewn with the bodies of nine good men, beside sixteen wounded down below; while the pitiless sun, right above their heads, poured down a flood of fire upon a sea of glass.
And it would have been well if faintness and weariness had been all that was the matter; but now that the excitement was over, the collapse came; and the men sat down listlessly and sulkily by twos and threes upon the deck, starting and wincing when they heard some poor fellow below cry out under the surgeon’s knife; or murmuring to each other that all was lost. Drew tried in vain to rouse them, telling them that all depended on rigging a jury-mast forward as soon as possible. They answered only by growls; and at last broke into open reproaches. Even Will Cary’s volatile nature, which had kept him up during the fight, gave way, when Yeo and the carpenter came aft, and told Amyas in a low voice—
“We are hit somewhere forward, below the water-line, sir. She leaks a terrible deal, and the Lord will not vouchsafe to us to lay our hands on the place, for all our searching.”
“What are we to do now, Amyas, in the devil’s name?” asked Cary, peevishly.
“What are we to do, in God’s name, rather,” answered Amyas, in a low voice. “Will, Will, what did God make you a gentleman for, but to know better than those poor fickle fellows forward, who blow hot and cold at every change of weather!”
“I wish you’d come forward and speak to them, sir,” said Yeo, who had overheard the last words, “or we shall get naught done.”
Amyas went forward instantly.
“Now then, my brave lads, what’s the matter here, that you are all sitting on your tails like monkeys?”
“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; “you’re no better than a set of stiff-necked Hebrew Jews, murmuring against Moses the very minute after the Lord has delivered you from the Egyptians.”