of running past them, they had her safe in the mouth of the Bristol Channel.  Slowly and wearily broke the dawn, on such a day as often follows heavy thunder; a sunless, drizzly day, roofed with low dingy cloud, barred and netted, and festooned with black, a sign that the storm is only taking breath awhile before it bursts again; while all the narrow horizon is dim and spongy with vapor drifting before a chilly breeze.  As the day went on, the breeze died down, and the sea fell to a long glassy foam-flecked roll, while overhead brooded the inky sky, and round them the leaden mist shut out alike the shore and the chase.

Amyas paced the sloppy deck fretfully and fiercely.  He knew that the Spaniard could not escape; but he cursed every moment which lingered between him and that one great revenge which blackened all his soul.  The men sate sulkily about the deck, and whistled for a wind; the sails flapped idly against the masts; and the ship rolled in the long troughs of the sea, till her yard-arms almost dipped right and left.

“Take care of those guns.  You will have something loose next,” growled Amyas.

“We will take care of the guns, if the Lord will take care of the wind,” said Yeo.

“We shall have plenty before night,” said Cary, “and thunder too.”

“So much the better,” said Amyas.  “It may roar till it splits the heavens, if it does but let me get my work done.”

“He’s not far off, I warrant,” said Cary.  “One lift of the cloud, and we should see him.”

“To windward of us, as likely as not,” said Amyas.  “The devil fights for him, I believe.  To have been on his heels sixteen days, and not sent this through him yet!” And he shook his sword impatiently.

So the morning wore away, without a sign of living thing, not even a passing gull; and the black melancholy of the heaven reflected itself in the black melancholy of Amyas.  Was he to lose his prey after all?  The thought made him shudder with rage and disappointment.  It was intolerable.  Anything but that.

“No, God!” he cried, “let me but once feel this in his accursed heart, and then—­strike me dead, if Thou wilt!”

“The Lord have mercy on us,” cried John Brimblecombe.  “What have you said?”

“What is that to you, sir?  There, they are piping to dinner.  Go down.  I shall not come.”

And Jack went down, and talked in a half-terrified whisper of Amyas’s ominous words.

All thought that they portended some bad luck, except old Yeo.

“Well, Sir John,” said he, “and why not?  What better can the Lord do for a man, than take him home when he has done his work?  Our captain is wilful and spiteful, and must needs kill his man himself; while for me, I don’t care how the Don goes, provided he does go.  I owe him no grudge, nor any man.  May the Lord give him repentance, and forgive him all his sins:  but if I could but see him once safe ashore, as he may be ere nightfall, on the Mortestone or the back of Lundy, I would say, ’Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace,’ even if it were the lightning which was sent to fetch me.”