“When I give my sword to Death,” said Ferne, absently.  “Ay, lad, when I give my sword to Death....  There again, do you not hear the singing?  It is the wind, I think, and not the people of the sea.  It hath a mocking sound....  When I give my sword to Death.”

From the tops above them fell a voice of Stentor.  “Sail ho! sail ho!” Upon which they gave for the remainder of the tropic night small attention to aught but warlike matters.  With the morning the three ships counted to the general gain the downright sinking of a small fleet from Hispaniola, and the taking therefrom porcelain, many bales of rich silk and rosaries of gold beads, a balass-ruby, twenty wedges of silver, and a chest well lined with ducats.

With this treasure to hark them forward, on and on sailed the ships; and now land birds came to them, and now they passed, floating upon the water, the leafy branch of a strange tree with red, cuplike blossoms.  Full—­sailed upon the quiet sea they held their course, while the men upon them, eager-eyed and keen, watched for land and for the galleons of Spain.  Content with the taking of the Star, calamity now kept away from the ships.  None upon them died, few were sick, master and captains were kind, mariners and landsmen trusted in their tried might and wealthy promises, and all the gales of heaven prospered the voyage.

On the last day of July, seven weeks from that leave-taking in the tavern of the Triple Tun, they came to the rocky island of Tobago; watered there; then, driven by the constant wind, went on until faint upon the horizon rose the coast of the mainland.

The mountains of Maccanoa in the island of Margarita loomed before them; they passed Coche, and on a night when light clouds obscured the moon approached the pearl islet of Cubagua.  With the dawn the Mere Honour and the Marigold entered the harbor of New Cadiz, and began to bombard that much-decayed town of the pearl-fishers.  The Cygnet kept on to the slight settlement of La Rancheria, and met, emerging in hot haste from a little bay of blue crystal, the galleon San Jose, one thousand tons, commanded by Antonio de Castro, very richly laden, sailing from Puerto Bello to Santo Domingo, and carrying, moreover, a company of soldiers from Nueva Cordoba on the mainland to Pampatar in Margarita.

IV

Myriads of sea-birds, frightened by the thunder of the guns, fled screaming; the palm-fringed shores of the bay showed through the smoke brown and dim and far removed; hot indeed was the tropic morning in the core of that murk and flame and ear-splitting sound.  Each of the combatants carried three tiers of ordnance; in each the guns were served by masters at their trade.  Cannons and culverins, sakers and falcons, rent the air; then the Cygnet, having the wind of the Spaniard, laid her aboard, and the harquebusiers, caliver, and crossbow-men also