“I tell you, as I, John Oxenham, am a gentleman, I saw it with these eyes, and so did Salvation Yeo there; and we measured the heap, seventy foot long, ten foot broad, and twelve foot high, of silver bars, and each bar between a thirty and forty pound weight.  Come along!  Who lists?  Who lists?  Who’ll make his fortune?”

“Who’ll list?” cried a tall, gaunt man, whom the other had called Salvation Yeo.  “Now’s your time!  We’ve 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 we’m off and away, and make our fortunes or go to heaven.”

Then the gaunt man pulled from under his arm a great white buffalo horn, covered with rough etchings of land and sea.

The horn was passed from hand to hand, and the schoolboy got a nearer sight of the marvel.  To his astonished gaze displayed themselves cities and harbours, plate ships of Spain, and islands with apes and palm-trees, and here and there over-written:  “Here is gold,” and again, “Much gold and silver.”  The boy turned it round and round, anxious to possess this wonderful horn.  And Oxenham asked him why he was so keen after it.

“Because,” said he, looking up boldly, “I want to go to sea.  I want to see the Indies.  I want to fight the Spaniards.”  And the lad, having hurried out his say, dropped his head.

“And you shall,” cried Oxenham.  “Whose son are you, my gallant fellow?”

“Mr. Leigh’s, of Burrough Court.”

“Bless his soul!  I know him as well as I do the Eddystone.  Tell your father John Oxenham will come and keep him company.”

The boy, Amyas Leigh, took his way homewards, and that night John Oxenham dined at Burrough Court; but failed to get Mr. Leigh’s leave to take young Amyas with him, nor did Sir Richard Grenville, the boy’s godfather, who was also at dinner, help him with his suit.

But somewhat more than a twelvemonth later, Mr. Leigh, going down on business to Exeter Assizes, caught—­as was too common in those days—­the gaol-fever from the prisoners, sickened in the very court, and died within a week.

“You must be my father now, sir,” said young Amyas firmly to Sir Richard Grenville, on the day after the funeral.

And shortly afterwards, Amyas having broken his slate on the head of Vindex Brimblecombe, Sir Richard thought it well to go up to Burrough.  And, after much talk and many tears, matters were so concluded that Amyas Leigh found himself riding joyfully towards Plymouth, and being handed over to Captain Drake, vanished for three years from the good town of Bideford.

And now he is returned in triumph, and the observed of all observers.