“My Admiral, this is not Utopia.”  Doughty stroked his beard with a light complacent hand.  “Seriously, it is not a kindness to expect of men without traditions more than they are capable of doing.  ’E meglio cade dalle fenestre che del tetto.’” (It is better to fall from the window than from the roof.)

Drake was silent, fingering the slender Milanese poniard with the blade inlaid with gold and the great ruby in the top of the hilt, which lay on the table between them.  The shipmaster came in just then with some question, and the conversation dropped.

[Illustration:  “DRAKE WAS SILENT, FINGERING THE SLENDER MILANESE PONIARD.”—­Page 227]

It was not often that Francis Drake attempted to analyze the character and behavior of those about him.  Mostly he judged men by a shrewd instinct; but that night he lay long awake, watching the witch-lights upon the waves from the dancing lanterns.  He was acute enough to see that Doughty had hit slyly at him over Saavedra’s shoulders.  Doughty had not liked it that Moone should be raised to the rank of captain; he had already shown that he regarded himself as second only to Drake in command, and the champion of the gentlemen as distinct from the mariners.  The second officer of every English ship was a practical shipmaster whose authority held in all matters concerning navigation.  The soldiers and their officers were passengers.  This was unavoidable in view of the new method of English sea-fighting, which depended quite as much on the skill of the seamen as on the armed and trained soldier.  English gunners could give the foe a broadside and slip away before their huge adversary could turn.  Drake now had two factions to deal with, and he bent his brows and set his jaw as he pondered the situation.  If discord arose, the gentlemen would have to come to order.  There was no room here for old ideas of caste.  Any man too good to haul on a rope might go to—­Spain.

Doughty had a way of taking it for granted that Drake and he, as gentlemen, shared thoughts and feelings not to be comprehended by common men.  On land this had not seemed offensive, but on blue water, with the old sea-chanteys in his ears, in the intimate association of a long voyage, Drake found himself resenting it.  What was there about the man that made his arguments so plausible when one heard them, so false when his engaging presence was withdrawn?  And yet how devoted, how sympathetic, how witty and companionable he could be!  Drake found himself excusing his friend as if he were a woman,—­laughed, sighed, and went to sleep.

Presently he began to hear of John Doughty’s amusing himself by reading palms and playing on the superstitions of the sailors with strange prophecies, in which his brother sometimes joined.  Drake summoned the two to a brief interview in which Thomas Doughty learned that his friend on land, frank, boyish and unassuming, was a different person from the Admiral of the Fleet.  Yet as this impression faded, the brothers perversely went on encouraging discord between the gentlemen adventurers and the sailors, and foretelling events with sinister aptness.