“Ah,” said he to himself, as he listened to his men’s reproaches, “if I had been thinking, like a loyal soldier, of serving my queen, and crippling the Spaniard, I should have taken that great bark three days ago, and in it the very man I sought!”

So “choking down his old man,” as Yeo used to say, he made answer cheerfully—­

“Pooh! pooh! brave lads!  For shame, for shame!  You were lions half-an-hour ago; you are not surely turned sheep already!  Why, but yesterday evening you were grumbling because I would not run in and fight those three ships under the batteries of La Guayra, and now you think it too much to have fought them fairly out at sea?  What has happened but the chances of war, which might have happened anywhere?  Nothing venture, nothing win; and nobody goes bird-nesting without a fall at times.  If any one wants to be safe in this life, he’d best stay at home and keep his bed; though even there, who knows but the roof might fall through on him?”

“Ah, it’s all very well for you, captain,” said some grumbling younker, with a vague notion that Amyas must be better off than he, because he was a gentleman.  Amyas’s blood rose.

“Yes, sirrah! it is very well for me, as long as God is with me:  but He is with every man in this ship, I would have you to know, as much as He is with me.  Do you fancy that I have nothing to lose?  I who have adventured in this voyage all I am worth, and more; who, if I fail, must return to beggary and scorn?  And if I have ventured rashly, sinfully, if you will, the lives of any of you in my own private quarrel, am I not punished?  Have I not lost—?”

His voice trembled and stopped there, but he recovered himself in a moment.

“Pish!  I can’t stand here chattering.  Carpenter! an axe! and help me to cast these spars loose.  Get out of my way, there! lumbering the scuppers up like so many moulting fowls!  Here, all old friends, lend a hand!  Pelican’s men, stand by your captain!  Did we sail round the world for nothing?”

This last appeal struck home, and up leaped half-a-dozen of the old Pelicans, and set to work at his side manfully to rig the jury-mast.

“Come along!” cried Cary to the malcontents; “we’re raw longshore fellows, but we won’t be outdone by any old sea-dog of them all.”  And setting to work himself, he was soon followed by one and another, till order and work went on well enough.

“And where are we going, when the mast’s up?” shouted some saucy hand from behind.

“Where you daren’t follow us alone by yourself, so you had better keep us company,” replied Yeo.

“I’ll tell you where we are going, lads,” said Amyas, rising from his work.  “Like it or leave it as you will, I have no secrets from my crew.  We are going inshore there to find a harbor, and careen the ship.”

There was a start and a murmur.

“Inshore?  Into the Spaniards’ mouths?”

“All in the Inquisition in a week’s time.”