"Yes, about America.How are you the father of all the captains?""How? you ask my young master! Why, before the fifteen thirty, Iwas up the Plate with Cabot (and a cruel fractious ontrustful fellow he was, like all they Portingals), and bid there a year and more, and up the Paraguaio with him, diskivering no end; whereby, gentles, I was the first Englishman, I hold, that ever sot a foot on the New World, I was!""Then here's your health, and long life, sir!" said Amyas and Cary.
"Long life? Iss, fegs, I reckon, long enough a'ready! Why, I mind the beginning of it all, I do.I mind when there wasn't a master mariner to Plymouth, that thought there was aught west of the Land's End except herrings.Why, they held them, pure wratches, that if you sailed right west away far enough, you'd surely come to the edge, and fall over cleve.Iss--'Twas dark parts round here, till Captain Will arose; and the first of it I mind was inside the bar of San Lucar, and he and I were boys about a ten year old, aboord of a Dartmouth ship, and went for wine, and there come in over the bar he that was the beginning of it all.""Columbus?"
"Iss, fegs, he did, not a pistol-shot from us; and I saw mun stand on the poop, so plain as I see you; no great shakes of a man to look to nether; there's a sight better here, to plase me, and we was disappointed, we lads, for we surely expected to see mun with a goolden crown on, and a sceptre to a's hand, we did, and the ship o' mun all over like Solomon's temple for gloory.And I mind that same year, too, seeing Vasco da Gama, as was going out over the bar, when he found the Bona Speranza, and sailed round it to the Indies.Ah, that was the making of they rascally Portingals, it was!...And our crew told what they seen and heerd: but nobody minded sich things.'Twas dark parts, and Popish, then; and nobody knowed nothing, nor got no schooling, nor cared for nothing, but scrattling up and down alongshore like to prawns in a pule.Iss, sitting in darkness, we was, and the shadow of death, till the day-spring from on high arose, and shined upon us poor out-o' -the-way folk--The Lord be praised! And now, look to mun!" and he waved his hand all round--"Look to mun! Look to the works of the Lord! Look to the captains! Oh blessed sight! And one's been to the Brazils, and one to the Indies, and the Spanish Main, and the North-West, and the Rooshias, and the Chinas, and up the Straits, and round the Cape, and round the world of God, too, bless His holy name; and Iseed the beginning of it; and I'll see the end of it too, I will!
I was born into the old times: but I'll see the wondrous works of the new, yet, I will! I'll see they bloody Spaniards swept off the seas before I die, if my old eyes can reach so far as outside the Sound.I shall, I knows it.I says my prayers for it every night;don't I, Mary? You'll bate mun, sure as Judgment, you'll bate mun!
The Lord'll fight for ye.Nothing'll stand against ye.I've seed it all along--ever since I was with young master to the Honduras.
They can't bide the push of us! You'll bate mun off the face of the seas, and be masters of the round world, and all that therein is.And then, I'll just turn my old face to the wall, and depart in peace, according to his word.
"Deary me, now, while I've been telling with you, here've this little maid been and ate up all my sugar!""I'll bring you some more," said Amyas; whom the childish bathos of the last sentence moved rather to sighs than laughter.
"Will ye, then? There's a good soul, and come and tell with old Martin.He likes to see the brave young gentlemen, a-going to and fro in their ships, like Leviathan, and taking of their pastime therein.We had no such ships to our days.Ah, 'tis grand times, beautiful times surely--and you'll bring me a bit sugar?""You were up the Plate with Cabot?" said Cary, after a pause."Do you mind the fair lady Miranda, Sebastian de Hurtado's wife?""What! her that was burnt by the Indians? Mind her? Do you mind the sun in heaven? Oh, the beauty! Oh, the ways of her! Oh, the speech of her! Never was, nor never will be! And she to die by they villains; and all for the goodness of her! Mind her? Iminded naught else when she was on deck.""Who was she?" asked Amyas of Cary.
"A Spanish angel, Amyas."
"Humph!" said Amyas."So much the worse for her, to be born into a nation of devils.""They'em not all so bad as that, yer honor.Her husband was a proper gallant gentleman, and kind as a maid, too, and couldn't abide that De Solis's murderous doings.""His wife must have taught it him, then," said Amyas, rising.
"Where did you hear of these black swans, Cary?""I have heard of them, and that's enough," answered he, unwilling to stir sad recollections.
"And little enough," said Amyas."Will, don't talk to me.The devil is not grown white because he has trod in a lime-heap.""Or an angel black because she came down a chimney," said Cary; and so the talk ended, or rather was cut short; for the talk of all the groups was interrupted by an explosion from old John Hawkins.
"Fail? Fail? What a murrain do you here, to talk of failing? Who made you a prophet, you scurvy, hang-in-the-wind, croaking, white-livered son of a corby-crow?"
"Heaven help us, Admiral Hawkins, who has put fire to your culverins in this fashion?" said Lord Howard.