“That should be Barbados, your worship,” said Drew, the master; “unless my reckoning is far out, which, Heaven knows, it has no right to be, after such a passage, and God be praised.”

“Barbados?  I never heard of it.”

“Very like, sir:  but Yeo and I were here with Captain Drake, and I was here after, too, with poor Captain Barlow; and there is good harborage to the south and west of it, I remember.”

“And neither Spaniard, cannibal, or other evil beast,” said Yeo.  “A very garden of the Lord, sir, hid away in the seas, for an inheritance to those who love Him.  I heard Captain Drake talk of planting it, if ever he had a chance.”

“I recollect now,” said Amyas, “some talk between him and poor Sir Humphrey about an island here.  Would God he had gone thither instead of to Newfoundland!”

“Nay, then,” said Yeo, “he is in bliss now with the Lord; and you would not have kept him from that, sir?”

“He would have waited as willingly as he went, if he could have served his queen thereby.  But what say you, my masters?  How can we do better than to spend a few days here, to get our sick round, before we make the Main, and set to our work?”

All approved the counsel except Frank, who was silent.

“Come, fellow-adventurer,” said Cary, “we must have your voice too.”

“To my impatience, Will,” said he, aside in a low voice, “there is but one place on earth, and I am all day longing for wings to fly thither:  but the counsel is right.  I approve it.”

So the verdict was announced, and received with a hearty cheer by the crew; and long before morning they had run along the southern shore of the island, and were feeling their way into the bay where Bridgetown now stands.  All eyes were eagerly fixed on the low wooded hills which slept in the moonlight, spangled by fireflies, with a million dancing stars; all nostrils drank greedily the fragrant air, which swept from the land, laden with the scent of a thousand flowers; all ears welcomed, as a grateful change from the monotonous whisper and lap of the water, the hum of insects, the snore of the tree-toads, the plaintive notes of the shore-fowl, which fill a tropic night with noisy life.

At last she stopped; at last the cable rattled through the hawsehole; and then, careless of the chance of lurking Spaniard or Carib, an instinctive cheer burst from every throat.  Poor fellows!  Amyas had much ado to prevent them going on shore at once, dark as it was, by reminding them that it wanted but two hours of day.

“Never were two such long hours,” said one young lad, fidgeting up and down.

“You never were in the Inquisition,” said Yeo, “or you’d know better how slow time can run.  Stand you still, and give God thanks you’re where you are.”

“I say, Gunner, be there goold to that island?”

“Never heard of none; and so much the better for it,” said Yeo, dryly.