“If this is really so, Admiral Hawkins—­”

“It is so, my lord!  I heard only last night, down in a tavern below, such unbelieving talk as made me mad, my lord; and if it had not been after supper, and my hand was not oversteady, I would have let out a pottle of Alicant from some of their hoopings, and sent them to Dick Surgeon, to wrap them in swaddling-clouts, like whining babies as they are.  Marry come up, what says Scripture?  ’He that is fearful and faint-hearted among you, let him go and’—­what? son Dick there?  Thou’rt pious, and read’st thy Bible.  What’s that text?  A mortal fine one it is, too.”

“‘He that is fearful and faint-hearted among you, let him go back,’” quoth the Complete Seaman.  “Captain Merryweather, as my father’s command, as well as his years, forbid his answering your challenge, I shall repute it an honor to entertain his quarrel myself—­place, time, and weapons being at your choice.”

“Well spoken, son Dick!—­and like a true courtier, too!  Ah! thou hast the palabras, and the knee, and the cap, and the quip, and the innuendo, and the true town fashion of it all—­no old tarry-breeks of a sea-dog, like thy dad!  My lord, you’ll let them fight?”

“The Spaniard, sir; but no one else.  But, captains and gentlemen, consider well my friend the Port Admiral’s advice; and if any man’s heart misgives him, let him, for the sake of his country and his queen, have so much government of his tongue to hide his fears in his own bosom, and leave open complaining to ribalds and women.  For if the sailor be not cheered by his commander’s cheerfulness, how will the ignorant man find comfort in himself?  And without faith and hope, how can he fight worthily?”

“There is no croaking aboard of us, we will warrant,” said twenty voices, “and shall be none, as long as we command on board our own ships.”

Hawkins, having blown off his steam, went back to Drake and the bowls.

“Fill my pipe, Drawer—­that croaking fellow’s made me let it out, of course!  Spoil-sports!  The father of all manner of troubles on earth, be they noxious trade of croakers!  ’Better to meet a bear robbed of her whelps,’ Francis Drake, as Solomon saith, than a fule who can’t keep his mouth shut.  What brought Mr. Andrew Barker to his death but croakers?  What stopped Fenton’s China voyage in the ’82, and lost your nephew John, and my brother Will, glory and hard cash too, but croakers?  What sent back my Lord Cumberland’s armada in the ’86, and that after they’d proved their strength, too, sixty o’ mun against six hundred Portugals and Indians; and yet wern’t ashamed to turn round and come home empty-handed, after all my lord’s expenses that he had been at?  What but these same beggarly croakers, that be only fit to be turned into yellow-hammers up to Dartymoor, and sit on a tor all day, and cry ’Very little bit of bread, and no chee-e-ese!’ Marry, sneak-up! say I again.”

“And what,” said Drake, “would have kept me, if I’d let ’em, from ever sailing round the world, but these same croakers?  I hanged my best friend for croaking, John Hawkins, may God forgive me if I was wrong, and I threatened a week after to hang thirty more; and I’d have done it, too, if they hadn’t clapped tompions into their muzzles pretty fast.”