"My lad! my glorious lad! and where have you been? Get up, and tell me all.The sailors told me a little, but I must hear every word.I knew you would do something grand.I told your mother you were too good a workman for God to throw away.Now, let me have the whole story.Why, I am out of breath! To tell truth, I ran three-parts of the way hither."And down the two sat, and Amyas talked long into the night; while Sir Richard, his usual stateliness recovered, smiled stern approval at each deed of daring; and when all was ended, answered with something like a sigh:
"Would God that I had been with you every step! Would God, at least, that I could show as good a three-years' log-book, Amyas, my lad!""You can show a better one, I doubt not.""Humph! With the exception of one paltry Spanish prize, I don't know that the queen is the better, or her enemies the worse, for me, since we parted last in Dublin city.""You are too modest, sir."
"Would that I were; but I got on in Ireland, I found, no better than my neighbors; and so came home again, to find that while I had been wasting my time in that land of misrule, Raleigh had done a deed to which I can see no end.For, lad, he has found (or rather his two captains, Amadas and Barlow, have found for him) between Florida and Newfoundland, a country, the like of which, I believe, there is not on the earth for climate and fertility.Whether there be gold there, I know not, and it matters little; for there is all else on earth that man can want; furs, timber, rivers, game, sugar-canes, corn, fruit, and every commodity which France, Spain, or Italy can yield, wild in abundance; the savages civil enough for savages, and, in a word, all which goes to the making of as noble a jewel as her majesty's crown can wear.The people call it Wingandacoa; but we, after her majesty, Virginia.""You have been there, then?"
"The year before last, lad; and left there Ralf Lane, Amadas, and some twenty gentlemen, and ninety men, and, moreover, some money of my own, and some of old Will Salterne's, which neither of us will ever see again.For the colony, I know not how, quarrelled with the Indians (I fear I too was over-sharp with some of them for stealing--if I was, God forgive me!), and could not, forsooth, keep themselves alive for twelve months; so that Drake, coming back from his last West Indian voyage, after giving them all the help he could, had to bring the whole party home.And if you will believe it, the faint-hearted fellows had not been gone a fortnight, before I was back again with three ships and all that they could want.
And never was I more wroth in my life, when all I found was the ruins of their huts, which (so rich is the growth there) were already full of great melons, and wild deer feeding thereon--a pretty sight enough, but not what I wanted just then.So back Icame; and being in no overgood temper, vented my humors on the Portugals at the Azores, and had hard fights and small booty.So there the matter stands, but not for long; for shame it were if such a paradise, once found by Britons, should fall into the hands of any but her majesty; and we will try again this spring, if men and money can be found.Eh, lad?""But the prize?"
"Ah! that was no small make-weight to our disasters, after all.Isighted her for six days' sail from the American coast: but ere we could lay her aboard it fell dead calm.Never a boat had I on board--they were all lost in a gale of wind--and the other ships were becalmed two leagues astern of me.There was no use lying there and pounding her till she sank; so I called the carpenter, got up all the old chests, and with them and some spars we floated ourselves alongside, and only just in time.For the last of us had hardly scrambled up into the chains, when our crazy Noah's ark went all aboard, and sank at the side, so that if we had been minded to run away, Amyas, we could not; whereon, judging valor to be the better part of discretion (as I usually do), we fell to with our swords and had her in five minutes, and fifty thousand pounds'
worth in her, which set up my purse again, and Raleigh's too, though I fear it has run out again since as fast as it ran in."And so ended Sir Richard's story.
Amyas went the next day to Salterne, and told his tale.The old man had heard the outlines of it already: but he calmly bade him sit down, and listened to all, his chin upon his hand, his elbows on his knees.His cheek never blanched, his lips never quivered throughout.Only when Amyas came to Rose's marriage, he heaved a long breath, as if a weight was taken off his heart.
"Say that again, sir!"
Amyas said it again, and then went on; faltering, he hinted at the manner of her death.