CHAPTER IX
HOW AMYAS KEPT HIS CHRISTMAS DAY
"Take aim, you noble musqueteers, And shoot you round about; Stand to it, valiant pikemen, And we shall keep them out. There's not a man of all of us A foot will backward flee; I'll be the foremost man in fight, Says brave Lord Willoughby!"
Elizabethan Ballad.
It was the blessed Christmas afternoon. The light was fading down; theeven-song was done; and the good folks of Bideford were trooping homein merry groups, the father with his children, the lover with hissweetheart, to cakes and ale, and flapdragons and mummer's plays, andall the happy sports of Christmas night. One lady only, wrapped close inher black muffler and followed by her maid, walked swiftly, yet sadly,toward the long causeway and bridge which led to Northam town.Sir Richard Grenville and his wife caught her up and stopped hercourteously.
"You will come home with us, Mrs. Leigh," said Lady Grenville, "andspend a pleasant Christmas night?"
Mrs. Leigh smiled sweetly, and laying one hand on Lady Grenville's arm,pointed with the other to the westward, and said:
"I cannot well spend a merry Christmas night while that sound is in myears."
The whole party around looked in the direction in which she pointed.Above their heads the soft blue sky was fading into gray, and here andthere a misty star peeped out: but to the westward, where the downs andwoods of Raleigh closed in with those of Abbotsham, the blue was webbedand turfed with delicate white flakes; iridescent spots, marking thepath by which the sun had sunk, showed all the colors of the dyingdolphin; and low on the horizon lay a long band of grassy green. Butwhat was the sound which troubled Mrs. Leigh? None of them, with theirmerry hearts, and ears dulled with the din and bustle of the town, hadheard it till that moment: and yet now--listen! It was dead calm. Therewas not a breath to stir a blade of grass. And yet the air was full ofsound, a low deep roar which hovered over down and wood, salt-marsh andriver, like the roll of a thousand wheels, the tramp of endless armies,or--what it was--the thunder of a mighty surge upon the boulders of thepebble ridge.
"The ridge is noisy to-night," said Sir Richard. "There has been windsomewhere."
"There is wind now, where my boy is, God help him!" said Mrs. Leigh: andall knew that she spoke truly. The spirit of the Atlantic storm had sentforward the token of his coming, in the smooth ground-swell which washeard inland, two miles away. To-morrow the pebbles, which were nowrattling down with each retreating wave, might be leaping to the ridgetop, and hurled like round-shot far ashore upon the marsh by theforce of the advancing wave, fleeing before the wrath of the westernhurricane.
"God help my boy!" said Mrs. Leigh again.
"God is as near him by sea as by land," said good Sir Richard.
"True, but I am a lone mother; and one that has no heart just now but togo home and pray."
And so Mrs. Leigh went onward up the lane, and spent all that night inlistening between her prayers to the thunder of the surge, till it wasdrowned, long ere the sun rose, in the thunder of the storm.
And where is Amyas on this same Christmas afternoon?
Amyas is sitting bareheaded in a boat's stern in Smerwick bay, with thespray whistling through his curls, as he shouts cheerfully--
"Pull, and with a will, my merry men all, and never mind shipping a sea.Cannon balls are a cargo that don't spoil by taking salt-water."
His mother's presage has been true enough. Christmas eve has been thelast of the still, dark, steaming nights of the early winter; and thewestern gale has been roaring for the last twelve hours upon the Irishcoast.
The short light of the winter day is fading fast. Behind him is aleaping line of billows lashed into mist by the tempest. Beside himgreen foam-fringed columns are rushing up the black rocks, and fallingagain in a thousand cataracts of snow. Before him is the deep andsheltered bay: but it is not far up the bay that he and his can see; forsome four miles out at sea begins a sloping roof of thick gray cloud,which stretches over their heads, and up and far away inland, cuttingthe cliffs off at mid-height, hiding all the Kerry mountains, anddarkening the hollows of the distant firths into the blackness of night.And underneath that awful roof of whirling mist the storm is howlinginland ever, sweeping before it the great foam-sponges, and the graysalt spray, till all the land is hazy, dim, and dun. Let it howl on! forthere is more mist than ever salt spray made, flying before that gale;more thunder than ever sea-surge wakened echoing among the cliffs ofSmerwick bay; along those sand-hills flash in the evening gloom redsparks which never came from heaven; for that fort, now christened bythe invaders the Fort Del Oro, where flaunts the hated golden flag ofSpain, holds San Josepho and eight hundred of the foe; and but threenights ago, Amyas and Yeo, and the rest of Winter's shrewdest hands,slung four culverins out of the Admiral's main deck, and floated themashore, and dragged them up to the battery among the sand-hills; and nowit shall be seen whether Spanish and Italian condottieri can hold theirown on British ground against the men of Devon.
Small blame to Amyas if he was thinking, not of his lonely mother atBurrough Court, but of those quick bright flashes on sand-hill andon fort, where Salvation Yeo was hurling the eighteen-pound shot withdeadly aim, and watching with a cool and bitter smile of triumph theflying of the sand, and the crashing of the gabions. Amyas and his partyhad been on board, at the risk of their lives, for a fresh supply ofshot; for Winter's battery was out of ball, and had been firing stonesfor the last four hours, in default of better missiles. They ran theboat on shore through the surf, where a cove in the shore made landingpossible, and almost careless whether she stove or not, scrambledover the sand-hills with each man his brace of shot slung across hisshoulder; and Amyas, leaping into the trenches, shouted cheerfully toSalvation Yeo--
"More food for the bull-dogs, Gunner, and plums for the Spaniards'Christmas pudding!"
"Don't speak to a man at his business, Master Amyas. Five mortal timeshave I missed; but I will have that accursed Popish rag down, as I'm asinner."
"Down with it, then; nobody wants you to shoot crooked. Take good ironto it, and not footy paving-stones."
"I believe, sir, that the foul fiend is there, a turning of my shotaside, I do. I thought I saw him once: but, thank Heaven, here's ballagain. Ah, sir, if one could but cast a silver one! Now, stand by, men!"
And once again Yeo's eighteen-pounder roared, and away. And, oh glory!the great yellow flag of Spain, which streamed in the gale, liftedclean into the air, flagstaff and all, and then pitched wildly downhead-foremost, far to leeward.
A hurrah from the sailors, answered by the soldiers of the oppositecamp, shook the very cloud above them: but ere its echoes had died away,a tall officer leapt upon the parapet of the fort, with the fallen flagin his hand, and rearing it as well as he could upon his lance point,held it firmly against the gale, while the fallen flagstaff was raisedagain within.
In a moment a dozen long bows were bent at the daring foeman: but Amyasbehind shouted--
"Shame, lads! Stop and let the gallant gentleman have due courtesy!"
So they stopped, while Amyas, springing on the rampart of the battery,took off his hat, and bowed to the flag-holder, who, as soon as relievedof his charge, returned the bow courteously, and descended.
It was by this time all but dark, and the firing began to slacken onall sides; Salvation and his brother gunners, having covered up theirslaughtering tackle with tarpaulings, retired for the night, leavingAmyas, who had volunteered to take the watch till midnight; and the restof the force having got their scanty supper of biscuit (for provisionswere running very short) lay down under arms among the sand-hills, andgrumbled themselves to sleep.
He had paced up and down in the gusty darkness for some hour or more,exchanging a passing word now and then with the sentinel, when twomen entered the battery, chatting busily together. One was in completearmor; the other wrapped in the plain short cloak of a man of pensand peace: but the talk of both was neither of sieges nor o
f sallies,catapult, bombard, nor culverin, but simply of English hexameters.
And fancy not, gentle reader, that the two were therein fiddling whileRome was burning; for the commonweal of poetry and letters, in that samecritical year 1580, was in far greater danger from those same hexametersthan the common woe of Ireland (as Raleigh called it) was from theSpaniards.
Imitating the classic metres, "versifying," as it was called incontradistinction to rhyming, was becoming fast the fashion among themore learned. Stonyhurst and others had tried their hands at hexametertranslations from the Latin and Greek epics, which seem to have beendoggerel enough; and ever and anon some youthful wit broke out iniambics, sapphics, elegiacs, and what not, to the great detriment of thequeen's English and her subjects' ears.
I know not whether Mr. William Webbe had yet given to the world anyfragments of his precious hints for the "Reformation of English poetry,"to the tune of his own "Tityrus, happily thou liest tumbling under abeech-tree:" but the Cambridge Malvolio, Gabriel Harvey, had succeededin arguing Spenser, Dyer, Sidney, and probably Sidney's sister, and thewhole clique of beaux-esprits round them, into following his model of
"What might I call this tree? A laurel? O bonny laurel! Needes to thy bowes will I bowe this knee, and vail my bonetto;"
after snubbing the first book of "that Elvish Queene," which was thenin manuscript, as a base declension from the classical to the romanticschool.
And now Spenser (perhaps in mere melancholy wilfulness and want ofpurpose, for he had just been jilted by a fair maid of Kent) was wastinghis mighty genius upon doggerel which he fancied antique; and somepiratical publisher (bitter Tom Nash swears, and with likelihood thatHarvey did it himself) had just given to the world,--"Three properwittie and familiar Letters, lately past between two Universitymen, touching the Earthquake in April last, and our English reformedVersifying," which had set all town wits a-buzzing like a swarm offlies, being none other than a correspondence between Spenser andHarvey, which was to prove to the world forever the correctness andmelody of such lines as,
"For like magnificoes, not a beck but glorious in show, In deede most frivolous, not a looke but Tuscanish always."
Let them pass--Alma Mater has seen as bad hexameters since. But then thematter was serious. There is a story (I know not how true) that Spenserwas half bullied into re-writing the "Faerie Queene" in hexameters, hadnot Raleigh, a true romanticist, "whose vein for ditty or amorous odewas most lofty, insolent, and passionate," persuaded him to followhis better genius. The great dramatists had not yet arisen, to formcompletely that truly English school, of which Spenser, unconscious ofhis own vast powers, was laying the foundation. And, indeed, it was nottill Daniel, twenty years after, in his admirable apology for rhyme, hadsmashed Mr. Campian and his "eight several kinds of classical numbers,"that the matter was finally settled, and the English tongue left to gothe road on which Heaven had started it. So that we may excuse Raleigh'sanswering somewhat waspish to some quotation of Spenser's from the threeletters of "Immerito and G. H."
"Tut, tut, Colin Clout, much learning has made thee mad. A good oldfishwives' ballad jingle is worth all your sapphics and trimeters, and'riff-raff thurlery bouncing.' Hey? have I you there, old lad? Do youmind that precious verse?"
"But, dear Wat, Homer and Virgil--"
"But, dear Ned, Petrarch and Ovid--"
"But, Wat, what have we that we do not owe to the ancients?"
"Ancients, quotha? Why, the legend of King Arthur, and Chevy Chase too,of which even your fellow-sinner Sidney cannot deny that every timehe hears it even from a blind fiddler it stirs his heart like atrumpet-blast. Speak well of the bridge that carries you over, man! Didyou find your Redcross Knight in Virgil, or such a dame as Una in oldOvid? No more than you did your Pater and Credo, you renegado baptizedheathen, you!"
"Yet, surely, our younger and more barbarous taste must bow beforedivine antiquity, and imitate afar--"
"As dottrels do fowlers. If Homer was blind, lad, why dost not pokeout thine eye? Ay, this hexameter is of an ancient house, truly, NedSpenser, and so is many a rogue: but he cannot make way on our roughEnglish roads. He goes hopping and twitching in our language like athree-legged terrier over a pebble-bank, tumble and up again, rattle andcrash."
"Nay, hear, now--
'See ye the blindfolded pretty god that feathered archer, Of lovers' miseries which maketh his bloody game?'*
True, the accent gapes in places, as I have often confessed to Harvey,but--"
* Strange as it may seem, this distich is Spenser's own; and the other hexameters are all authentic.
Harvey be hanged for a pedant, and the whole crew of versifiers, fromLord Dorset (but he, poor man, has been past hanging some time since)to yourself! Why delude you into playing Procrustes as he does with thequeen's English, racking one word till its joints be pulled asunder, andsqueezing the next all a-heap as the Inquisitors do heretics in theirbanca cava? Out upon him and you, and Sidney, and the whole kin. Youhave not made a verse among you, and never will, which is not as lame agosling as Harvey's own--
'Oh thou weathercocke, that stands on the top of Allhallows, Come thy ways down, if thou dar'st for thy crown, and take the wall on us.'
"Hark, now! There is our young giant comforting his soul with a ballad.You will hear rhyme and reason together here, now. He will not miscall'blind-folded,' 'blind-fold-ed, I warrant; or make an 'of' and a 'which'and a 'his' carry a whole verse on their wretched little backs."
And as he spoke, Amyas, who had been grumbling to himself some Christmascarol, broke out full-mouthed:--
"As Joseph was a-walking He heard an angel sing-- 'This night shall be the birth night Of Christ, our heavenly King.
His birthbed shall be neither In housen nor in hall, Nor in the place of paradise, But in the oxen's stall.
He neither shall be rocked In silver nor in gold, But in the wooden manger That lieth on the mould.
He neither shall be washen With white wine nor with red, But with the fair spring water That on you shall be shed.
He neither shall be clothed In purple nor in pall, But in the fair white linen That usen babies all.'
As Joseph was a-walking Thus did the angel sing, And Mary's Son at midnight Was born to be our King.
Then be you glad, good people, At this time of the year; And light you up your candles, For His star it shineth clear."
"There, Edmunde Classicaster," said Raleigh, "does not that simplestrain go nearer to the heart of him who wrote 'The Shepherd'sCalendar,' than all artificial and outlandish
'Wote ye why his mother with a veil hath covered his face?'
Why dost not answer, man?"
But Spenser was silent awhile, and then,--
"Because I was thinking rather of the rhymer than the rhyme. Goodheaven! how that brave lad shames me, singing here the hymns which hismother taught him, before the very muzzles of Spanish guns; instead ofbewailing unmanly, as I have done, the love which he held, I doubt not,as dear as I did even my Rosalind. This is his welcome to the winter'sstorm; while I, who dream, forsooth, of heavenly inspiration, can butsee therein an image of mine own cowardly despair.
'Thou barren ground, whom winter's wrath has wasted, Art made a mirror to behold my plight.'*
Pah! away with frosts, icicles, and tears, and sighs--"
* "The Shepherd's Calendar."
"And with hexameters and trimeters too, I hope," interrupted Raleigh:"and all the trickeries of self-pleasing sorrow."
"--I will set my heart to higher work than barking at the hand whichchastens me."
"Wilt put the lad into the 'Faerie Queene,' then, by my side? Hedeserves as good a place there, believe me, as ever a Guyon, or even asLord Grey your Arthegall. Let us hail him. Hallo! young chanticleer ofDevon! Art not afraid of a chance shot, that thou crowest so lustil
yupon thine own mixen?"
"Cocks crow all night long at Christmas, Captain Raleigh, and so do I,"said Amyas's cheerful voice; "but who's there with you?"
"A penitent pupil of yours--Mr. Secretary Spenser."
"Pupil of mine?" said Amyas. "I wish he'd teach me a little of his art;I could fill up my time here with making verses."
"And who would be your theme, fair sir?" said Spenser.
"No 'who' at all. I don't want to make sonnets to blue eyes, nor blackeither: but if I could put down some of the things I saw in the SpiceIslands--"
"Ah," said Raleigh, "he would beat you out of Parnassus, Mr. Secretary.Remember, you may write about Fairyland, but he has seen it."
"And so have others," said Spenser; "it is not so far off from any oneof us. Wherever is love and loyalty, great purposes, and lofty souls,even though in a hovel or a mine, there is Fairyland."
"Then Fairyland should be here, friend; for you represent love, andLeigh loyalty; while, as for great purposes and lofty souls, who so fitto stand for them as I, being (unless my enemies and my conscience areliars both) as ambitious and as proud as Lucifer's own self?"
"Ah, Walter, Walter, why wilt always slander thyself thus?"
"Slander? Tut.--I do but give the world a fair challenge, and tell it,'There--you know the worst of me: come on and try a fall, for eitheryou or I must down.' Slander? Ask Leigh here, who has but known me afortnight, whether I am not as vain as a peacock, as selfish as a fox,as imperious as a bona roba, and ready to make a cat's paw of him or anyman, if there be a chestnut in the fire: and yet the poor fool cannothelp loving me, and running of my errands, and taking all my schemes andmy dreams for gospel; and verily believes now, I think, that I shall bethe man in the moon some day, and he my big dog."
"Well," said Amyas, half apologetically, "if you are the cleverest manin the world what harm in my thinking so?"
"Hearken to him, Edmund! He will know better when he has outgrown thissame callow trick of honesty, and learnt of the great goddess Detractionhow to show himself wiser than the wise, by pointing out to the worldthe fool's motley which peeps through the rents in the philosopher'scloak. Go to, lad! slander thy equals, envy thy betters, pray for an eyewhich sees spots in every sun, and for a vulture's nose to scentcarrion in every rose-bed. If thy friend win a battle, show that he hasneedlessly thrown away his men; if he lose one, hint that he sold it;if he rise to a place, argue favor; if he fall from one, argue divinejustice. Believe nothing, hope nothing, but endure all things, even tokicking, if aught may be got thereby; so shalt thou be clothed in purpleand fine linen, and sit in kings' palaces, and fare sumptuously everyday."
"And wake with Dives in the torment," said Amyas. "Thank you fornothing, captain."
"Go to, Misanthropos," said Spenser. "Thou hast not yet tasted thesweets of this world's comfits, and thou railest at them?"
"The grapes are sour, lad."
"And will be to the end," said Amyas, "if they come off such a devil'stree as that. I really think you are out of your mind, Captain Raleigh,at times."
"I wish I were; for it is a troublesome, hungry, windy mind as man everwas cursed withal. But come in, lad. We were sent from the lord deputyto bid thee to supper. There is a dainty lump of dead horse waiting forthee."
"Send me some out, then," said matter-of-fact Amyas. "And tell hislordship that, with his good leave, I don't stir from here till morning,if I can keep awake. There is a stir in the fort, and I expect them outon us."
"Tut, man! their hearts are broken. We know it by their deserters."
"Seeing's believing. I never trust runaway rogues. If they are false totheir masters, they'll be false to us."
"Well, go thy ways, old honesty; and Mr. Secretary shall give you abook to yourself in the 'Faerie Queene'--'Sir Monoculus or the Legend ofCommon Sense,' eh, Edmund?"
"Monoculus?"
"Ay, Single-eye, my prince of word-coiners--won't that fit?--And givehim the Cyclops head for a device. Heigh-ho! They may laugh that win.I am sick of this Irish work; were it not for the chance of advancementI'd sooner be driving a team of red Devons on Dartside; and now I amangry with the dear lad because he is not sick of it too. What a plaguebusiness has he to be paddling up and down, contentedly doing his duty,like any city watchman? It is an insult to the mighty aspirations of ournobler hearts,--eh, my would-be Ariosto?"
"Ah, Raleigh! you can afford to confess yourself less than some, for youare greater than all. Go on and conquer, noble heart! But as for me, Isow the wind, and I suppose I shall reap the whirlwind."
"Your harvest seems come already; what a blast that was! Hold on by me,Colin Clout, and I'll hold on by thee. So! Don't tread on that pikeman'sstomach, lest he take thee for a marauding Don, and with sudden daggerslit Cohn's pipe, and Colin's weasand too."
And the two stumbled away into the darkness, leaving Amyas to stride upand down as before, puzzling his brains over Raleigh's wild words andSpenser's melancholy, till he came to the conclusion that there was somemysterious connection between cleverness and unhappiness, and thankinghis stars that he was neither scholar, courtier, nor poet, said graceover his lump of horseflesh when it arrived, devoured it as if it hadbeen venison, and then returned to his pacing up and down; but this timein silence, for the night was drawing on, and there was no need to tellthe Spaniards that any one was awake and watching.
So he began to think about his mother, and how she might be spendingher Christmas; and then about Frank, and wondered at what grand Courtfestival he was assisting, amid bright lights and sweet music and gayladies, and how he was dressed, and whether he thought of his brotherthere far away on the dark Atlantic shore; and then he said his prayersand his creed; and then he tried not to think of Rose Salterne, and ofcourse thought about her all the more. So on passed the dull hours, tillit might be past eleven o'clock, and all lights were out in the batteryand the shipping, and there was no sound of living thing but themonotonous tramp of the two sentinels beside him, and now and then agrunt from the party who slept under arms some twenty yards to the rear.
So he paced to and fro, looking carefully out now and then over thestrip of sand-hill which lay between him and the fort; but all was blankand black, and moreover it began to rain furiously.
Suddenly he seemed to hear a rustle among the harsh sand-grass. True,the wind was whistling through it loudly enough, but that sound wasnot altogether like the wind. Then a soft sliding noise; something hadslipped down a bank, and brought the sand down after it. Amyas stopped,crouched down beside a gun, and laid his ear to the rampart, wherebyhe heard clearly, as he thought, the noise of approaching feet; whetherrabbits or Christians, he knew not, but he shrewdly guessed the latter.
Now Amyas was of a sober and business-like turn, at least when he wasnot in a passion; and thinking within himself that if he made any noise,the enemy (whether four or two-legged) would retire, and all the sportbe lost, he did not call to the two sentries, who were at the oppositeends of the battery; neither did he think it worth while to rouse thesleeping company, lest his ears should have deceived him, and the wholecamp turn out to repulse the attack of a buck rabbit.
So he crouched lower and lower beside the culverin, and was rewarded ina minute or two by hearing something gently deposited against the mouthof the embrasure, which, by the noise, should be a piece of timber.
"So far, so good," said he to himself; "when the scaling ladder is up,the soldier follows, I suppose. I can only humbly thank them for givingmy embrasure the preference. There he comes! I hear his feet scuffling."
He could hear plainly enough some one working himself into the mouth ofthe embrasure: but the plague was, that it was so dark that he couldnot see his hand between him and the sky, much less his foe at two yardsoff. However, he made a pretty fair guess as to the whereabouts, and,rising softly, discharged such a blow downwards as would have split ayule log. A volley of sparks flew up from the hapless Spaniard's armor,and a grunt issued from within it, which proved that, whether he waskilled
or not, the blow had not improved his respiration.
Amyas felt for his head, seized it, dragged him in over the gun, spranginto the embrasure on his knees, felt for the top of the ladder, foundit, hove it clean off and out, with four or five men on it, and then ofcourse tumbled after it ten feet into the sand, roaring like a town bullto her majesty's liege subjects in general.
Sailor-fashion, he had no armor on but a light morion and a cuirass,so he was not too much encumbered to prevent his springing to his legsinstantly, and setting to work, cutting and foining right and left atevery sound, for sight there was none.
Battles (as soldiers know, and newspaper editors do not) are usuallyfought, not as they ought to be fought, but as they can be fought; andwhile the literary man is laying down the law at his desk as to how manytroops should be moved here, and what rivers should be crossed there,and where the cavalry should have been brought up, and when the flankshould have been turned, the wretched man who has to do the work findsthe matter settled for him by pestilence, want of shoes, empty stomachs,bad roads, heavy rains, hot suns, and a thousand other stern warriorswho never show on paper.
So with this skirmish; "according to Cocker," it ought to have beena very pretty one; for Hercules of Pisa, who planned the sortie, hadarranged it all (being a very sans-appel in all military science) uponthe best Italian precedents, and had brought against this very haplessbattery a column of a hundred to attack directly in front, a company offifty to turn the right flank, and a company of fifty to turn the leftflank, with regulations, orders, passwords, countersigns, and what not;so that if every man had had his rights (as seldom happens), Don GuzmanMaria Magdalena de Soto, who commanded the sortie, ought to have takenthe work out of hand, and annihilated all therein. But alas! here sternfate interfered. They had chosen a dark night, as was politic; they hadwaited till the moon was up, lest it should be too dark, as was politiclikewise: but, just as they had started, on came a heavy squall of rain,through which seven moons would have given no light, and which washedout the plans of Hercules of Pisa as if they had been written on aschoolboy's slate. The company who were to turn the left flank walkedmanfully down into the sea, and never found out where they were goingtill they were knee-deep in water. The company who were to turn theright flank, bewildered by the utter darkness, turned their own flankso often, that tired of falling into rabbit-burrows and filling theirmouths with sand, they halted and prayed to all the saints for a compassand lantern; while the centre body, who held straight on by a trackwayto within fifty yards of the battery, so miscalculated that shortdistance, that while they thought the ditch two pikes' length off, theyfell into it one over the other, and of six scaling ladders, the onlyone which could be found was the very one which Amyas threw down again.After which the clouds broke, the wind shifted, and the moon shone outmerrily. And so was the deep policy of Hercules of Pisa, on which hungthe fate of Ireland and the Papacy, decided by a ten minutes' squall.
But where is Amyas?
In the ditch, aware that the enemy is tumbling into it, but unable tofind them; while the company above, finding it much too dark to attempta counter sortie, have opened a smart fire of musketry and arrows onthings in general, whereat the Spaniards are swearing like Spaniards (Ineed say no more), and the Italians spitting like venomous cats; whileAmyas, not wishing to be riddled by friendly balls, has got his backagainst the foot of the rampart, and waits on Providence.
Suddenly the moon clears; and with one more fierce volley, the Englishsailors, seeing the confusion, leap down from the embrasures, and to itpell-mell. Whether this also was "according to Cocker," I know not: butthe sailor, then as now, is not susceptible of highly-finished drill.
Amyas is now in his element, and so are the brave fellows at his heels;and there are ten breathless, furious minutes among the sand-hills; andthen the trumpets blow a recall, and the sailors drop back again by twosand threes, and are helped up into the embrasures over many a dead anddying foe; while the guns of Fort del Oro open on them, and blaze awayfor half an hour without reply; and then all is still once more. And inthe meanwhile, the sortie against the deputy's camp has fared no better,and the victory of the night remains with the English.
Twenty minutes after, Winter and the captains who were on shore weredrying themselves round a peat-fire on the beach, and talking over theskirmish, when Will Cary asked--
"Where is Leigh? who has seen him? I am sadly afraid he has gone toofar, and been slain."
"Slain? Never less, gentlemen!" replied the voice of the very person inquestion, as he stalked out of the darkness into the glare of the fire,and shot down from his shoulders into the midst of the ring, as he mighta sack of corn, a huge dark body, which was gradually seen to be a manin rich armor; who being so shot down, lay quietly where he was dropped,with his feet (luckily for him mailed) in the fire.
"I say," quoth Amyas, "some of you had better take him up, if he is tobe of any use. Unlace his helm, Will Cary."
"Pull his feet out of the embers; I dare say he would have been gladenough to put us to the scarpines; but that's no reason we should puthim to them."
As has been hinted, there was no love lost between Admiral Winterand Amyas; and Amyas might certainly have reported himself in a moreceremonious manner. So Winter, whom Amyas either had not seen, or hadnot chosen to see, asked him pretty sharply, "What the plague he had todo with bringing dead men into camp?"
"If he's dead, it's not my fault. He was alive enough when I startedwith him, and I kept him right end uppermost all the way; and what wouldyou have more, sir?"
"Mr. Leigh!" said Winter, "it behoves you to speak with somewhatmore courtesy, if not respect, to captains who are your elders andcommanders."
"Ask your pardon, sir," said the giant, as he stood in front of the firewith the rain steaming and smoking off his armor; "but I was bred ina school where getting good service done was more esteemed than makingfine speeches."
"Whatsoever school you were trained in, sir," said Winter, nettled atthe hint about Drake; "it does not seem to have been one in which youlearned to obey orders. Why did you not come in when the recall wassounded?"
"Because," said Amyas, very coolly, "in the first place I did not hearit; and in the next, in my school I was taught when I had once startednot to come home empty-handed."
This was too pointed; and Winter sprang up with an oath--"Do you mean toinsult me, sir?"
"I am sorry, sir, that you should take a compliment to Sir Francis Drakeas an insult to yourself. I brought in this gentleman because I thoughthe might give you good information; if he dies meanwhile, the loss willbe yours, or rather the queen's."
"Help me, then," said Cary, glad to create a diversion in Amyas's favor,"and we will bring him round;" while Raleigh rose, and catching Winter'sarm, drew him aside, and began talking earnestly.
"What a murrain have you, Leigh, to quarrel with Winter?" asked two orthree.
"I say, my reverend fathers and dear children, do get the Don's talkingtackle free again, and leave me and the admiral to settle it our ownway."
There was more than one captain sitting in the ring, but discipline, andthe degrees of rank, were not so severely defined as now; and Amyas, asa "gentleman adventurer," was, on land, in a position very difficultto be settled, though at sea he was as liable to be hanged as any otherperson on board; and on the whole it was found expedient to patch thematter up. So Captain Raleigh returning, said that though Admiral Winterhad doubtless taken umbrage at certain words of Mr. Leigh's, yet thathe had no doubt that Mr. Leigh meant nothing thereby but what wasconsistent with the profession of a soldier and a gentleman, and worthyboth of himself and of the admiral.
From which proposition Amyas found it impossible to dissent; whereonRaleigh went back, and informed Winter that Leigh had freely retractedhis words, and fully wiped off any imputation which Mr. Winter mightconceive to have been put upon him, and so forth. So Winter returned,and Amyas said frankly enough--
"Admiral Winter, I hope, as a loyal soldier
, that you will understandthus far; that naught which has passed to-night shall in any way preventyou finding me a forward and obedient servant to all your commands, bethey what they may, and a supporter of your authority among the men,and honor against the foe, even with my life. For I should be ashamed ifprivate differences should ever prejudice by a grain the public weal."
This was a great effort of oratory for Amyas; and he therefore, in orderto be safe by following precedent, tried to talk as much as he couldlike Sir Richard Grenville. Of course Winter could answer nothing to it,in spite of the plain hint of private differences, but that he shouldnot fail to show himself a captain worthy of so valiant and trustya gentleman; whereon the whole party turned their attention to thecaptive, who, thanks to Will Cary, was by this time sitting up, standingmuch in need of a handkerchief, and looking about him, having beenunhelmed, in a confused and doleful manner.
"Take the gentleman to my tent," said Winter, "and let the surgeon seeto him. Mr. Leigh, who is he?--"
"An enemy, but whether Spaniard or Italian I know not; but he seemedsomebody among them, I thought the captain of a company. He and I cut ateach other twice or thrice at first, and then lost each other; and afterthat I came on him among the sand-hills, trying to rally his men, andswearing like the mouth of the pit, whereby I guess him a Spaniard. Buthis men ran; so I brought him in."
"And how?" asked Raleigh. "Thou art giving us all the play but themurders and the marriages."
"Why, I bid him yield, and he would not. Then I bid him run, and hewould not. And it was too pitch-dark for fighting; so I took him by theears, and shook the wind out of him, and so brought him in."
"Shook the wind out of him?" cried Cary, amid the roar of laughter whichfollowed. "Dost know thou hast nearly wrung his neck in two? His vizorwas full of blood."
"He should have run or yielded, then," said Amyas; and getting up,slipped off to find some ale, and then to sleep comfortably in a dryburrow which he scratched out of a sandbank.
The next morning, as Amyas was discussing a scanty breakfast of biscuit(for provisions were running very short in camp), Raleigh came up tohim.
"What, eating? That's more than I have done to-day."
"Sit down, and share, then."
"Nay, lad, I did not come a-begging. I have set some of my rogues to digrabbits; but as I live, young Colbrand, you may thank your stars thatyou are alive to-day to eat. Poor young Cheek--Sir John Cheek, thegrammarian's son--got his quittance last night by a Spanish pike,rushing headlong on, just as you did. But have you seen your prisoner?"
"No; nor shall, while he is in Winter's tent."
"Why not, then? What quarrel have you against the admiral, friendBobadil? Cannot you let Francis Drake fight his own battles, withoutthrusting your head in between them?"
"Well, that is good! As if the quarrel was not just as much mine, andevery man's in the ship. Why, when he left Drake, he left us all, did henot?"
"And what if he did? Let bygones be bygones is the rule of a Christian,and of a wise man too, Amyas. Here the man is, at least, safe home,in favor and in power; and a prudent youth will just hold his tongue,mumchance, and swim with the stream."
"But that's just what makes me mad; to see this fellow, after desertingus there in unknown seas, win credit and rank at home here for being thefirst man who ever sailed back through the Straits. What had he to dowith sailing back at all! As well make the fox a knight for being thefirst that ever jumped down a jakes to escape the hounds. The fiercerthe flight the fouler the fear, say I."
"Amyas! Amyas! thou art a hard hitter, but a soft politician."
"I am no politician, Captain Raleigh, nor ever wish to be. An honestman's my friend, and a rogue's my foe; and I'll tell both as much, aslong as I breathe."
"And die a poor saint," said Raleigh, laughing. "But if Winter invitesyou to his tent himself, you won't refuse to come?"
"Why, no, considering his years and rank; but he knows too well to dothat."
"He knows too well not to do it," said Raleigh, laughing as he walkedaway. And verily in half-an-hour came an invitation, extracted ofcourse, from the admiral by Raleigh's silver tongue, which Amyas couldnot but obey.
"We all owe you thanks for last night's service, sir," said Winter, whohad for some good reasons changed his tone. "Your prisoner is found tobe a gentleman of birth and experience, and the leader of the assaultlast night. He has already told us more than we had hoped, for whichalso we are beholden to you; and, indeed, my Lord Grey has been askingfor you already."
"I have, young sir," said a quiet and lofty voice; and Amyas saw limpingfrom the inner tent the proud and stately figure of the stern deputy,Lord Grey of Wilton, a brave and wise man, but with a naturally harshtemper, which had been soured still more by the wound which had crippledhim, while yet a boy, at the battle of Leith. He owed that limp to MaryQueen of Scots; and he did not forget the debt.
"I have been asking for you; having heard from many, both of your lastnight's prowess, and of your conduct and courage beyond the promise ofyour years, displayed in that ever-memorable voyage, which may well beranked with the deeds of the ancient Argonauts."
Amyas bowed low; and the lord deputy went on, "You will needs wishto see your prisoner. You will find him such a one as you need not beashamed to have taken, and as need not be ashamed to have been taken byyou: but here he is, and will, I doubt not, answer as much for himself.Know each other better, gentlemen both: last night was an ill one formaking acquaintances. Don Guzman Maria Magdalena Sotomayor de Soto, knowthe hidalgo, Amyas Leigh!"
As he spoke, the Spaniard came forward, still in his armor, all save hishead, which was bound up in a handkerchief.
He was an exceedingly tall and graceful personage, of that sangre azulwhich marked high Visigothic descent; golden-haired and fair-skinned,with hands as small and white as a woman's; his lips were delicate butthin, and compressed closely at the corners of the mouth; and his paleblue eye had a glassy dulness. In spite of his beauty and his carriage,Amyas shrank from him instinctively; and yet he could not helpholding out his hand in return, as the Spaniard, holding out his, saidlanguidly, in most sweet and sonorous Spanish--
"I kiss his hands and feet. The senor speaks, I am told, my nativetongue?"
"I have that honor."
"Then accept in it (for I can better express myself therein than inEnglish, though I am not altogether ignorant of that witty and learnedlanguage) the expression of my pleasure at having fallen into thehands of one so renowned in war and travel; and of one also," he added,glancing at Amyas's giant bulk, "the vastness of whose strength, beyondthat of common mortality, makes it no more shame for me to have beenoverpowered and carried away by him than if my captor had been a paladinof Charlemagne's."
Honest Amyas bowed and stammered, a little thrown off his balance by theunexpected assurance and cool flattery of his prisoner; but he said--
"If you are satisfied, illustrious senor, I am bound to be so. Ionly trust that in my hurry and the darkness I have not hurt youunnecessarily."
The Don laughed a pretty little hollow laugh: "No, kind senor, my head,I trust, will after a few days have become united to my shoulders;and, for the present, your company will make me forget any slightdiscomfort."
"Pardon me, senor; but by this daylight I should have seen that armorbefore."
"I doubt it not, senor, as having been yourself also in the forefront ofthe battle," said the Spaniard, with a proud smile.
"If I am right, senor, you are he who yesterday held up the standardafter it was shot down."
"I do not deny that undeserved honor; and I have to thank the courtesyof you and your countrymen for having permitted me to do so withimpunity."
"Ah, I heard of that brave feat," said the lord deputy. "You shouldconsider yourself, Mr. Leigh, honored by being enabled to show courtesyto such a warrior."
How long this interchange of solemn compliments, of which Amyas wasgetting somewhat weary, would have gone on, I know not; but at thatmoment
Raleigh entered hastily--
"My lord, they have hung out a white flag, and are calling for aparley!"
The Spaniard turned pale, and felt for his sword, which was gone; andthen, with a bitter laugh, murmured to himself--"As I expected."
"I am very sorry to hear it. Would to Heaven they had simply fought itout!" said Lord Grey, half to himself; and then, "Go, Captain Raleigh,and answer them that (saving this gentleman's presence) the laws ofwar forbid a parley with any who are leagued with rebels against theirlawful sovereign."
"But what if they wish to treat for this gentleman's ransom?"
"For their own, more likely," said the Spaniard; "but tell them, on mypart, senor, that Don Guzman refuses to be ransomed; and will return tono camp where the commanding officer, unable to infect his captains withhis own cowardice, dishonors them against their will."
"You speak sharply, senor," said Winter, after Raleigh had gone out.
"I have reason, Senor Admiral, as you will find, I fear, erelong."
"We shall have the honor of leaving you here, for the present, sir, asAdmiral Winter's guest," said the lord deputy.
"But not my sword, it seems."
"Pardon me, senor; but no one has deprived you of your sword," saidWinter.
"I don't wish to pain you, sir," said Amyas, "but I fear that we wereboth careless enough to leave it behind last night."
A flash passed over the Spaniard's face, which disclosed terrible depthsof fury and hatred beneath that quiet mask, as the summer lightningdisplays the black abysses of the thunder-storm; but like the summerlightning it passed almost unseen; and blandly as ever, he answered:
"I can forgive you for such a neglect, most valiant sir, more easilythan I can forgive myself. Farewell, sir! One who has lost his sword isno fit company for you." And as Amyas and the rest departed, he plungedinto the inner tent, stamping and writhing, gnawing his hands with rageand shame.
As Amyas came out on the battery, Yeo hailed him:
"Master Amyas! Hillo, sir! For the love of Heaven, tell me!"
"What, then?"
"Is his lordship stanch? Will he do the Lord's work faithfully, root andbranch: or will he spare the Amalekites?"
"The latter, I think, old hip-and-thigh," said Amyas, hurrying forwardto hear the news from Raleigh, who appeared in sight once more.
"They ask to depart with bag and baggage," said he, when he came up.
"God do so to me, and more also, if they carry away a straw!" said LordGrey. "Make short work of it, sir!"
"I do not know how that will be, my lord; as I came up a captain shoutedto me off the walls that there were mutineers; and, denying that hesurrendered, would have pulled down the flag of truce, but the soldiersbeat him off."
"A house divided against itself will not stand long, gentlemen. Tellthem that I give no conditions. Let them lay down their arms, and trustin the Bishop of Rome who sent them hither, and may come to save themif he wants them. Gunners, if you see the white flag go down, open yourfire instantly. Captain Raleigh, we need your counsel here. Mr. Cary,will you be my herald this time?"
"A better Protestant never went on a pleasanter errand, my lord."
So Cary went, and then ensued an argument, as to what should be donewith the prisoners in case of a surrender.
I cannot tell whether my Lord Grey meant, by offering conditions whichthe Spaniards would not accept, to force them into fighting the quarrelout, and so save himself the responsibility of deciding on theirfate; or whether his mere natural stubbornness, as well as his justindignation, drove him on too far to retract: but the council of warwhich followed was both a sad and a stormy one, and one which he hadreason to regret to his dying day. What was to be done with the enemy?They already outnumbered the English; and some fifteen hundred ofDesmond's wild Irish hovered in the forests round, ready to side withthe winning party, or even to attack the English at the least sign ofvacillation or fear. They could not carry the Spaniards away with them,for they had neither shipping nor food, not even handcuffs enough forthem; and as Mackworth told Winter when he proposed it, the only planwas for him to make San Josepho a present of his ships, and swim homehimself as he could. To turn loose in Ireland, as Captain Touch urged,on the other hand, seven hundred such monsters of lawlessness, cruelty,and lust, as Spanish and Italian condottieri were in those days, wasas fatal to their own safety as cruel to the wretched Irish. All thecaptains, without exception, followed on the same side. "What was to bedone, then?" asked Lord Grey, impatiently. "Would they have him murderthem all in cold blood?"
And for a while every man, knowing that it must come to that, and yetnot daring to say it; till Sir Warham St. Leger, the marshal of Munster,spoke out stoutly: "Foreigners had been scoffing them too long and tootruly with waging these Irish wars as if they meant to keep them alive,rather than end them. Mercy and faith to every Irishman who would showmercy and faith, was his motto; but to invaders, no mercy. Ireland wasEngland's vulnerable point; it might be some day her ruin; a terribleexample must be made of those who dare to touch the sore. Rather pardonthe Spaniards for landing in the Thames than in Ireland!"--till LordGrey became much excited, and turning as a last hope to Raleigh, askedhis opinion: but Raleigh's silver tongue was that day not on the sideof indulgence. He skilfully recapitulated the arguments of hisfellow-captains, improving them as he went on, till each worthy soldierwas surprised to find himself so much wiser a man than he had thought;and finished by one of his rapid and passionate perorations upon hisfavorite theme--the West Indian cruelties of the Spaniards, ". . .by which great tracts and fair countries are now utterly stripped ofinhabitants by heavy bondage and torments unspeakable. Oh, witlessIslanders!" said he, apostrophizing the Irish, "would to Heaven that youwere here to listen to me! What other fate awaits you, if this viper,which you are so ready to take into your bosom, should be warmed tolife, but to groan like the Indians, slaves to the Spaniard; but toperish like the Indians, by heavy burdens, cruel chains, plunder andravishment; scourged, racked, roasted, stabbed, sawn in sunder, cast tofeed the dogs, as simple and more righteous peoples have perished erenow by millions? And what else, I say, had been the fate of Irelandhad this invasion prospered, which God has now, by our weak hands,confounded and brought to naught? Shall we then answer it, my lord,either to our conscience, our God, or our queen, if we shall set loosemen (not one of whom, I warrant, but is stained with murder on murder)to go and fill up the cup of their iniquity among these silly sheep?Have not their native wolves, their barbarous chieftains, shorn, peeled,and slaughtered them enough already, but we must add this pack offoreign wolves to the number of their tormentors, and fit the Desmondwith a body-guard of seven, yea, seven hundred devils worse thanhimself? Nay, rather let us do violence to our own human nature, andshow ourselves in appearance rigorous, that we may be kind indeed; lestwhile we presume to be over-merciful to the guilty, we prove ourselvesto be over-cruel to the innocent."
"Captain Raleigh, Captain Raleigh," said Lord Grey, "the blood of thesemen be on your head!"
"It ill befits your lordship," answered Raleigh, "to throw on yoursubordinates the blame of that which your reason approves as necessary."
"I should have thought, sir, that one so noted for ambition as CaptainRaleigh would have been more careful of the favor of that queen forwhose smiles he is said to be so longing a competitor. If you have notyet been of her counsels, sir, I can tell you you are not likely to be.She will be furious when she hears of this cruelty."
Lord Grey had lost his temper: but Raleigh kept his, and answeredquietly--
"Her majesty shall at least not find me among the number of those whoprefer her favor to her safety, and abuse to their own profit thatover-tenderness and mercifulness of heart which is the only blemish(and yet, rather like a mole on a fair cheek, but a new beauty) in hermanifold perfections."
At this juncture Cary returned.
"My lord," said he, in some confusion, "I have proposed your terms; butthe captains still entreat for some mitigation; a
nd, to tell you truth,one of them has insisted on accompanying me hither to plead his causehimself."
"I will not see him, sir. Who is he?"
"His name is Sebastian of Modena, my lord."
"Sebastian of Modena? What think you, gentlemen? May we make anexception in favor of so famous a soldier?"
"So villainous a cut-throat," said Zouch to Raleigh, under his breath.
All, however, were for speaking with so famous a man; and in came, infull armor, a short, bull-necked Italian, evidently of immense strength,of the true Caesar Borgia stamp.
"Will you please to be seated, sir?" said Lord Grey, coldly.
"I kiss your hands, most illustrious: but I do not sit in an enemy'scamp. Ha, my friend Zouch! How has your signoria fared since we foughtside by side at Lepanto? So you too are here, sitting in council on thehanging of me."
"What is your errand, sir? Time is short," said the lord deputy.
"Corpo di Bacco! It has been long enough all the morning, for myrascals have kept me and my friend the Colonel Hercules (whom you know,doubtless) prisoners in our tents at the pike's point. My lord deputy,I have but a few words. I shall thank you to take every soldier in thefort--Italian, Spaniard, and Irish--and hang them up as high as Haman,for a set of mutinous cowards, with the arch-traitor San Josepho attheir head."
"I am obliged to you for your offer, sir, and shall deliberate presentlyas to whether I shall not accept it."
"But as for us captains, really your excellency must consider that weare gentlemen born, and give us either buena querra, as the Spaniardssay, or a fair chance for life; and so to my business."
"Stay, sir. Answer this first. Have you or yours any commission to showeither from the King of Spain or any other potentate?"
"Never a one but the cause of Heaven and our own swords. And with them,my lord, we are ready to meet any gentlemen of your camp, man to man,with our swords only, half-way between your leaguer and ours; and Idoubt not that your lordship will see fair play. Will any gentlemanaccept so civil an offer? There sits a tall youth in that cornerwho would suit me very well. Will any fit my gallant comrades withhalf-an-hour's punto and stoccado?"
There was a silence, all looking at the lord deputy, whose eyes werekindling in a very ugly way.
"No answer? Then I must proceed to exhortation. So! Will that besufficient?"
And walking composedly across the tent, the fearless ruffian quietlystooped down, and smote Amyas Leigh full in the face.
Up sprang Amyas, heedless of all the august assembly, and with a singlebuffet felled him to the earth.
"Excellent!" said he, rising unabashed. "I can always trust my instinct.I knew the moment I saw him that he was a cavalier worth letting blood.Now, sir, your sword and harness, and I am at your service outside!"
The solemn and sententious Englishmen were altogether taken aback by theItalian's impudence; but Zouch settled the matter.
"Most noble captain, will you be pleased to recollect a certain littleoccurrence at Messina, in the year 1575? For if you do not, I do; andbeg to inform this gentleman that you are unworthy of his sword, andhad you, unluckily for you, been an Englishman, would have found thefashions of our country so different from your own that you would havebeen then hanged, sir, and probably may be so still."
The Italian's sword flashed out in a moment: but Lord Grey interfered.
"No fighting here, gentlemen. That may wait; and, what is more, shallwait till--Strike their swords down, Raleigh, Mackworth! Strike theirswords down! Colonel Sebastian, you will be pleased to return as youcame, in safety, having lost nothing, as (I frankly tell you) youhave gained nothing, by your wild bearing here. We shall proceed todeliberate on your fate."
"I trust, my lord," said Amyas, "that you will spare this braggart'slife, at least for a day or two. For in spite of Captain Zouch'swarning, I must have to do with him yet, or my cheek will rise up injudgment against me at the last day."
"Well spoken, lad," said the colonel, as he swung out. "So! worth areprieve, by this sword, to have one more rapier-rattle before thegallows! Then I take back no further answer, my lord deputy? Not evenour swords, our virgin blades, signor, the soldier's cherished bride?Shall we go forth weeping widowers, and leave to strange embrace thelovely steel?"
"None, sir, by heaven!" said he, waxing wroth. "Do you come hither,pirates as you are, to dictate terms upon a foreign soil? Is it notenough to have set up here the Spanish flag, and claimed the landof Ireland as the Pope's gift to the Spaniard; violated the laws ofnations, and the solemn treaties of princes, under color of a madsuperstition?"
"Superstition, my lord? Nothing less. Believe a philosopher who has notsaid a pater or an ave for seven years past at least. Quod tangocredo, is my motto; and though I am bound to say, under pain of theInquisition, that the most holy Father the Pope has given this land ofIreland to his most Catholic Majesty the King of Spain, Queen Elizabethhaving forfeited her title to it by heresy,--why, my lord, I believe itas little as you do. I believe that Ireland would have been mine, if Ihad won it; I believe religiously that it is not mine, now I have lostit. What is, is, and a fig for priests; to-day to thee, to-morrow to me.Addio!" And out he swung.
"There goes a most gallant rascal," said the lord deputy.
"And a most rascally gallant," said Zouch. "The murder of his own page,of which I gave him a remembrancer, is among the least of his sins."
"And now, Captain Raleigh," said Lord Grey, "as you have been so earnestin preaching this butchery, I have a right to ask none but you topractise it."
Raleigh bit his lip, and replied by the "quip courteous--"
"I am at least a man, my lord, who thinks it shame to allow others to dothat which I dare not do myself."
Lord Grey might probably have returned "the countercheck quarrelsome,"had not Mackworth risen--
"And I, my lord, being in that matter at least one of Captain Raleigh'skidney, will just go with him to see that he takes no harm by being boldenough to carry out an ugly business, and serving these rascals as theircountrymen served Mr. Oxenham."
"I bid you good morning, then, gentlemen, though I cannot bid you Godspeed," said Lord Grey; and sitting down again, covered his face withhis hands, and, to the astonishment of all bystanders, burst, say thechroniclers, into tears.
Amyas followed Raleigh out. The latter was pale, but determined, andvery wroth against the deputy.
"Does the man take me for a hangman," said he, "that he speaks to methus? But such is the way of the great. If you neglect your duty,they haul you over the coals; if you do it, you must do it on yourown responsibility. Farewell, Amyas; you will not shrink from me as abutcher when I return?"
"God forbid! But how will you do it?"
"March one company in, and drive them forth, and let the other cut themdown as they come out.--Pah!"
* * * * *
It was done. Right or wrong, it was done. The shrieks and curses haddied away, and the Fort del Oro was a red shambles, which the soldierswere trying to cover from the sight of heaven and earth, by dragging thebodies into the ditch, and covering them with the ruins of the rampart;while the Irish, who had beheld from the woods that awful warning, fledtrembling into the deepest recesses of the forest. It was done; andit never needed to be done again. The hint was severe, but it wassufficient. Many years passed before a Spaniard set foot again inIreland.
The Spanish and Italian officers were spared, and Amyas had Don GuzmanMaria Magdalena Sotomayor de Soto duly adjudged to him, as his prizeby right of war. He was, of course, ready enough to fight Sebastianof Modena: but Lord Grey forbade the duel: blood enough had been shedalready. The next question was, where to bestow Don Guzman till hisransom should arrive; and as Amyas could not well deliver the gallantDon into the safe custody of Mrs. Leigh at Burrough, and still less intothat of Frank at Court, he was fain to write to Sir Richard Grenville,and ask his advice, and in the meanwhile keep the Spaniard with him uponparole, which he frankly gave,--saying that as for ru
nning away, he hadnowhere to run to; and as for joining the Irish he had no mind to turnpig; and Amyas found him, as shall be hereafter told, pleasant companyenough. But one morning Raleigh entered--
"I have done you a good turn, Leigh, if you think it one. I have talkedSt. Leger into making you my lieutenant, and giving you the custody ofa right pleasant hermitage--some castle Shackatory or other in the midstof a big bog, where time will run swift and smooth with you, betweenhunting wild Irish, snaring snipes, and drinking yourself drunk withusquebaugh over a turf fire."
"I'll go," quoth Amyas; "anything for work." So he went and tookpossession of his lieutenancy and his black robber tower, and therepassed the rest of the winter, fighting or hunting all day, and chattingand reading all the evening, with Senor Don Guzman, who, like a goodsoldier of fortune, made himself thoroughly at home, and a generalfavorite with the soldiers.
At first, indeed, his Spanish pride and stateliness, and Amyas's Englishtaciturnity, kept the two apart somewhat; but they soon began, if notto trust, at least to like each other; and Don Guzman told Amyas, bit bybit, who he was, of what an ancient house, and of what a poor one; andlaughed over the very small chance of his ransom being raised, andthe certainty that, at least, it could not come for a couple of years,seeing that the only De Soto who had a penny to spare was a fat old deanat St. Yago de Leon, in the Caracas, at which place Don Guzman had beenborn. This of course led to much talk about the West Indies, and theDon was as much interested to find that Amyas had been one of Drake'sworld-famous crew, as Amyas was to find that his captive was thegrandson of none other than that most terrible of man-hunters, DonFerdinando de Soto, the conqueror of Florida, of whom Amyas had readmany a time in Las Casas, "as the captain of tyrants, the notoriousestand most experimented amongst them that have done the most hurts,mischiefs, and destructions in many realms." And often enough his bloodboiled, and he had much ado to recollect that the speaker was his guest,as Don Guzman chatted away about his grandfather's hunts of innocentwomen and children, murders of caciques and burnings alive of guides,"pour encourager les autres," without, seemingly, the least feeling thatthe victims were human beings or subjects for human pity; anything, inshort, but heathen dogs, enemies of God, servants of the devil, to beused by the Christian when he needed, and when not needed killed downas cumberers of the ground. But Don Guzman was a most finished gentlemannevertheless; and told many a good story of the Indies, and told itwell; and over and above his stories, he had among his baggage twobooks,--the one Antonio Galvano's "Discoveries of the World," a mineof winter evening amusement to Amyas; and the other, a manuscript book,which, perhaps, it had been well for Amyas had he never seen. For it wasnone other than a sort of rough journal which Don Guzman had kept as alad, when he went down with the Adelantado Gonzales Ximenes de Casada,from Peru to the River of Amazons, to look for the golden country of ElDorado, and the city of Manoa, which stands in the midst of the WhiteLake, and equals or surpasses in glory even the palace of the IncaHuaynacapac; "all the vessels of whose house and kitchen are of goldand silver, and in his wardrobe statues of gold which seemed giants, andfigures in proportion and bigness of all the beasts, birds, trees, andherbs of the earth, and the fishes of the water; and ropes, budgets,chests, and troughs of gold: yea, and a garden of pleasure in an Islandnear Puna, where they went to recreate themselves when they would takethe air of the sea, which had all kind of garden herbs, flowers, andtrees of gold and silver of an invention and magnificence till thennever seen."
Now the greater part of this treasure (and be it remembered that thesewonders were hardly exaggerated, and that there were many men alive thenwho had beheld them, as they had worse things, "with their corporal andmortal eyes") was hidden by the Indians when Pizarro conquered Peru andslew Atahuallpa, son of Huaynacapac; at whose death, it was said, oneof the Inca's younger brothers fled out of Peru, and taking with hima great army, vanquished all that tract which lieth between the greatRivers of Amazons and Baraquan, otherwise called Maranon and Orenoque.
There he sits to this day, beside the golden lake, in the golden city,which is in breadth a three days' journey, covered, he and his court,with gold dust from head to foot, waiting for the fulfilment of theancient prophecy which was written in the temple of Caxamarca, where hisancestors worshipped of old; that heroes shall come out of the West, andlead him back across the forests to the kingdom of Peru, and restore himto the glory of his forefathers.
Golden phantom! so possible, so probable, to imaginations which were yetreeling before the actual and veritable prodigies of Peru, Mexico, andthe East Indies. Golden phantom! which has cost already the livesof thousands, and shall yet cost more; from Diego de Ordas, and JuanCorteso, and many another, who went forth on the quest by the Andes, andby the Orinoco, and by the Amazons; Antonio Sedenno, with his ghastlycaravan of manacled Indians, "on whose dead carcasses the tigers beingfleshed, assaulted the Spaniards;" Augustine Delgado, who "came to acacique, who entertained him with all kindness, and gave him beside muchgold and slaves, three nymphs very beautiful, which bare the namesof three provinces, Guanba, Gotoguane, and Maiarare. To requite whichmanifold courtesies, he carried off, not only all the gold, but all theIndians he could seize, and took them in irons to Cubagua, and sold themfor slaves; after which, Delgado was shot in the eye by an Indian, ofwhich hurt he died;" Pedro d'Orsua, who found the cinnamon forests ofLoxas, "whom his men murdered, and afterwards beheaded Lady Anes hiswife, who forsook not her lord in all his travels unto death," and manyanother, who has vanished with valiant comrades at his back into thegreen gulfs of the primaeval forests, never to emerge again. Goldenphantom! man-devouring, whose maw is never satiate with souls of heroes;fatal to Spain, more fatal still to England upon that shameful day, whenthe last of Elizabeth's heroes shall lay down his head upon the block,nominally for having believed what all around him believed likewisetill they found it expedient to deny it in order to curry favor with thecrowned cur who betrayed him, really because he alone dared to make onelast protest in behalf of liberty and Protestantism against the incomingnight of tyranny and superstition. Little thought Amyas, as he devouredthe pages of that manuscript, that he was laying a snare for the life ofthe man whom, next to Drake and Grenville, he most admired on earth.
But Don Guzman, on the other hand, seemed to have an instinct that thatbook might be a fatal gift to his captor; for one day ere Amyas hadlooked into it, he began questioning the Don about El Dorado. WhereonDon Guzman replied with one of those smiles of his, which (as Amyas saidafterwards) was so abominably like a sneer, that he had often hard workto keep his hands off the man--
"Ah! You have been eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, senor?Well; if you have any ambition to follow many another brave captainto the pit, I know no shorter or easier path than is contained in thatlittle book."
"I have never opened your book," said Amyas; "your private manuscriptsare no concern of mine: but my man who recovered your baggage readpart of it, knowing no better; and now you are at liberty to tell me aslittle as you like."
The "man," it should be said, was none other than Salvation Yeo, whohad attached himself by this time inseparably to Amyas, in quality ofbody-guard: and, as was common enough in those days, had turned soldierfor the nonce, and taken under his patronage two or three rusty bases(swivels) and falconets (four-pounders), which grinned harmlessly enoughfrom the tower top across the cheerful expanse of bog.
Amyas once asked him, how he reconciled this Irish sojourn with his vowto find his little maid? Yeo shook his head.
"I can't tell, sir, but there's something that makes me always to thinkof you when I think of her; and that's often enough, the Lord knows.Whether it is that I ben't to find the dear without your help; orwhether it is your pleasant face puts me in mind of hers; or what, Ican't tell; but don't you part me from you, sir, for I'm like Ruth,and where you lodge I lodge; and where you go I go; and where youdie--though I shall die many a year first--there I'll die, I hope andtrust; for I can't abear you out of my sig
ht; and that's the truththereof."
So Yeo remained with Amyas, while Cary went elsewhere with Sir WarhamSt. Leger, and the two friends met seldom for many months; so thatAmyas's only companion was Don Guzman, who, as he grew more familiar,and more careless about what he said and did in his captor's presence,often puzzled and scandalized him by his waywardness. Fits of deepmelancholy alternated with bursts of Spanish boastfulness, utterlyastonishing to the modest and sober-minded Englishman, who would oftenhave fancied him inspired by usquebaugh, had he not had ocular proof ofhis extreme abstemiousness.
"Miserable?" said he, one night in one of these fits. "And have I nota right to be miserable? Why should I not curse the virgin and all thesaints, and die? I have not a friend, not a ducat on earth; not even asword--hell and the furies! It was my all: the only bequest I ever hadfrom my father, and I lived by it and earned by it. Two years ago I hadas pretty a sum of gold as cavalier could wish--and now!"--
"What is become of it, then? I cannot hear that our men plundered you ofany."
"Your men? No, senor! What fifty men dared not have done, one woman did!a painted, patched, fucused, periwigged, bolstered, Charybdis, cannibal,Megaera, Lamia! Why did I ever go near that cursed Naples, the commonsewer of Europe? whose women, I believe, would be swallowed up byVesuvius to-morrow, if it were not that Belphegor is afraid of theirmaking the pit itself too hot to hold him. Well, sir, she had all ofmine and more; and when all was gone in wine and dice, woodcocks' brainsand ortolans' tongues, I met the witch walking with another man. I hada sword and a dagger; I gave him the first (though the dog fought wellenough, to give him his due), and her the second; left them lying acrosseach other, and fled for my life,--and here I am! after twenty years offighting, from the Levant to the Orellana--for I began ere I had ahair on my chin--and this is the end!--No, it is not! I'll have that ElDorado yet! the Adelantado made Berreo, when he gave him his daughter,swear that he would hunt for it, through life and death.--We'll seewho finds it first, he or I. He's a bungler; Orsua was a bungler--Pooh!Cortes and Pizarro? we'll see whether there are not as good Castiliansas they left still. I can do it, senor. I know a track, a plan; over theLlanos is the road; and I'll be Emperor of Manoa yet--possess the jewelsof all the Incas; and gold, gold! Pizarro was a beggar to what I willbe!"
Conceive, sir, he broke forth during another of these peacock fits,as Amyas and he were riding along the hill-side; "conceive! with fortychosen cavaliers (what need of more?) I present myself before the goldenking, trembling amid his myriad guards at the new miracle of the mailedcentaurs of the West; and without dismounting, I approach his throne,lift the crucifix which hangs around my neck, and pressing it to mylips, present it for the adoration of the idolater, and give him hisalternative; that which Gayferos and the Cid, my ancestors, offeredthe Soldan and the Moor--baptism or death! He hesitates; perhapssmiles scornfully upon my little band; I answer him by deeds, as DonFerdinando, my illustrious grandfather, answered Atahuallpa at Peru, insight of all his court and camp."
"With your lance-point, as Gayferos did the Soldan?" asked Amyas,amused.
"No, sir; persuasion first, for the salvation of a soul is at stake. Notwith the lance-point, but the spur, sir, thus!"--
And striking his heels into his horse's flanks, he darted off at fullspeed.
"The Spanish traitor!" shouted Yeo. "He's going to escape! Shall weshoot, sir? Shall we shoot?"
"For Heaven's sake, no!" said Amyas, looking somewhat blank,nevertheless, for he much doubted whether the whole was not a ruse onthe part of the Spaniard, and he knew how impossible it was for hisfifteen stone of flesh to give chase to the Spaniard's twelve. But hewas soon reassured; the Spaniard wheeled round towards him, and began toput the rough hackney through all the paces of the manege with a graceand skill which won applause from the beholders.
"Thus!" he shouted, waving his hand to Amyas, between his curvets andcaracoles, "did my illustrious grandfather exhibit to the Paynim emperorthe prowess of a Castilian cavalier! Thus!--and thus!--and thus, atlast, he dashed up to his very feet, as I to yours, and bespatteringthat unbaptized visage with his Christian bridle foam, pulled up hischarger on his haunches, thus!"
And (as was to be expected from a blown Irish garron on a peaty Irishhill-side) down went the hapless hackney on his tail, away went hisheels a yard in front of him, and ere Don Guzman could "avoid hisselle," horse and man rolled over into neighboring bog-hole.
"After pride comes a fall," quoth Yeo with unmoved visage, as he luggedhim out.
"And what would you do with the emperor at last?" asked Amyas when theDon had been scrubbed somewhat clean with a bunch of rushes. "Kill him,as your grandfather did Atahuallpa?"
"My grandfather," answered the Spaniard, indignantly, "was one of thosewho, to their eternal honor, protested to the last against that mostcruel and unknightly massacre. He could be terrible to the heathen; buthe kept his plighted word, sir, and taught me to keep mine, as you haveseen to-day."
"I have, senor," said Amyas. "You might have given us the slip easilyenough just now, and did not. Pardon me, if I have offended you."
The Spaniard (who, after all, was cross principally with himself and the"unlucky mare's son," as the old romances have it, which had played himso scurvy a trick) was all smiles again forthwith; and Amyas, as theychatted on, could not help asking him next--
"I wonder why you are so frank about your own intentions to an enemylike me, who will surely forestall you if he can."
"Sir, a Spaniard needs no concealment, and fears no rivalry. He is thesoldier of the Cross, and in it he conquers, like Constantine of old.Not that you English are not very heroes; but you have not, sir, andyou cannot have, who have forsworn our Lady and the choir of saints, thesame divine protection, the same celestial mission, which enables theCatholic cavalier single-handed to chase a thousand Paynims."
And Don Guzman crossed himself devoutly, and muttered half-a-dozen AveMarias in succession, while Amyas rode silently by his side, utterlypuzzled at this strange compound of shrewdness with fanaticism, ofperfect high-breeding with a boastfulness which in an Englishman wouldhave been the sure mark of vulgarity.
At last came a letter from Sir Richard Grenville, complimenting Amyason his success and promotion, bearing a long and courtly message to DonGuzman (whom Grenville had known when he was in the Mediterranean, atthe battle of Lepanto), and offering to receive him as his own guestat Bideford, till his ransom should arrive; a proposition which theSpaniard (who of course was getting sufficiently tired of the Irishbogs) could not but gladly accept; and one of Winter's ships, returningto England in the spring of 1581, delivered duly at the quay of Bidefordthe body of Don Guzman Maria Magdalena. Raleigh, after forming forthat summer one of the triumvirate by which Munster was governed afterOrmond's departure, at last got his wish and departed for England andthe Court; and Amyas was left alone with the snipes and yellow mantlesfor two more weary years.
Westward Ho! Or, The Voyages and Adventures of Sir Amyas Leigh, Knight, of Burrough, in the County of Devon, in the Reign of Her Most Glorious Majesty Queen Elizabeth Page 9