The Golden Galleon Part 19

"Not I," answered Hartop as he began to descend the stone stairs. "No hurt beyond the disappointment of hearing the rascals had escaped you.

Where think you they have sped to?"

"Spain, you may swear," returned Pennington, closely following him.

"'Tis the only land that will welcome such refuse."

"An that be so, there is yet a chance that we shall overhaul them,"

said Jacob with satisfaction, "for the _Pearl_ is but a laggard at sailing. A herring-boat might outstrip her hand over hand, to say naught of such well-found ships as these of my Lord Howard's."

Gilbert Oglander was stepping into one of the boats when Hartop and Pennington got to the foot of the flight of stairs. He nodded in greeting to the two men, and made room for them beside him in the stern-sheets. Then, all being seated and the boat full, the man at the bow pushed off, the oars were dipped, and amid the cheers of the crowd on sh.o.r.e the little craft was steered out into the harbour.

In his boyish excitement at getting into the boat, Gilbert had not observed that his uncle Jasper was standing at the end of the quay quietly watching him. Gilbert had already bidden farewell to his uncle, as indeed to all the household at Modbury Manor, some three hours before, and he could not have expected that Jasper, even allowing for the great affection he had heretofore shown for him, would have the desire to wish yet a second farewell.

But in actual truth it was a far other errand than this that had brought Jasper Oglander into the town so quickly upon his nephew's heels. It was an errand which, had it been duly fulfilled, would have certainly prevented Gilbert's departure from England. It was in fact with the purpose of summoning the lad back to his home that Jasper had thus hastened to the harbour.

And yet, strangely enough, he made not the smallest attempt to stop the boat as it put out from the landing-stairs; nay, he even seemed anxious that his nephew should not catch sight of him, for as the rowers pulled past where he had stationed himself, he drew cautiously back into the crowd. Apparently, therefore, it was in some way to Jasper's personal advantage that Gilbert should be permitted to leave the country at this particular time. So it accordingly befell that the lad was taken out to his ship, and that he proceeded on his voyage in total ignorance of a most important circ.u.mstance which directly concerned him.

When about noon that day Gilbert had mounted his horse to start for Plymouth, all had been well with the family at Modbury Manor. He had waved his hand in farewell to his grandfather, who had stood at the open cas.e.m.e.nt above the porch, and had embraced his mother and Drusilla, and shaken hands with all the servants. Drusilla and his uncle Jasper had accompanied him down the long avenue to the lodge gate, and thence he had ridden off alone.

He had expected that his cousin Philip would be at the manor to bid him farewell. Philip had been absent for two days, and, strangely enough, he had given no reason for going away. None knew where he had gone excepting his father, and Jasper, on being questioned, had merely stated that the lad had had a mind to take an excursion into the country.

Nothing was guessed of the part that he had taken in the affray on Polperro beach. Indeed, it seemed that Timothy Trollope alone knew this, and as Timothy was no longer in service at Modbury Manor, no word of Philip Oglander's connection with the escape of the Spanish prisoners of war had yet been spoken.

Gilbert had been gone scarcely an hour when a messenger on horseback arrived bearing a letter for my Lord Champernoun. The letter was delivered into the aged baron's own hand in his private library. No one was present when he opened and read it, but some minutes afterwards the Lady Betty Oglander was pa.s.sing the library door when she heard a heavy fall. She opened the door and looked within and saw Lord Champernoun lying unconscious on the floor. She called aloud for help. Her cry was answered by Jasper. They went in together and lifted the old n.o.bleman into his chair. His face was bloodless, and they could not hear him breathing.

"Holy Mother, he is dead!" exclaimed Jasper Oglander. "What in Heaven's name can have caused it so suddenly?" He looked blankly about the room as if in search of an explanation. Seeing the letter on the floor he picked it up, and unnoticed by Lady Betty thrust it into the breast of his doublet.

"'Tis his heart!" cried Lady Betty. "He must surely have had some sudden shock. It may even be that Gilbert's departure hath unduly excited him."

Then, remembering Gilbert, she turned to Jasper. "Good my brother," said she, "go, I beseech you, and bring back my son, for he must not be allowed to leave England. Take horse at once and bring him back, and--"

she glanced once again at the lifeless baron, felt for the beating of his heart, and put her cheek to his lips to discover if there might not still be some breath in him--"bring also a physician. There may yet be hope."

Jasper shook his head sadly.

"It is death, madam," said he; "I know full well that it is death.

Nevertheless, I will go at once into Plymouth and bring Gilbert back with me; for, as you most truly say, he must not be permitted to quit the country while his grandsire lies dead. Think on't, my lady," he went on, "your son Gilbert is now the head of this n.o.ble house. He is Baron Champernoun--"

"Go--go at once!" implored Lady Betty, and her eyes followed him anxiously as he left the room. And as he went out Drusilla, Donna Lela, Christopher Pym, and others entered in alarm, only to find that Lord Champernoun had pa.s.sed indeed beyond all hope.

Little did Gilbert Oglander dream of this calamity as he sat in the stern of the rowing-boat that was taking him out to the _Revenge_. His thoughts were only of the ships and of the men who were to be his future companions, and he listened with full interest to the talk that was going on beside him between Ambrose Pennington and old Jacob Hartop.

"Here we are, good my masters! There lieth our fleet!" cried Pennington, as the boat was brought round abreast of the outer wall of the harbour.

"Dost know the ships by sight, Hartop?"

"Not I," answered Jacob, leaning forward and running his eyes with slow deliberation along the line of stately ships of war. "They be all new built since my time, and, as I have already said, I have been these many weeks past away from Plymouth, and only came into the town again early this morning. Prithee, which of them is the _Revenge_?"

"We can scarcely see her as yet," returned Pennington. "She doth lie out yonder beyond the point, half-hidden by the larger vessel that is moored this side of her. The larger ship is the _Bonaventure_, the greatest in the squadron by a good hundred tons. Sir Robert Cross is her commander--a right worthy seaman and a gallant. Next to her lies Captain Duffield's ship the _Crane_, and astern of her again the _Foresight_, with Captain Thomas Vavasour's pennant flying from her mast-head. These two great ships to the leeward are the _Lion_ and the _Defiance_."

"Ay, and I judge that the _Defiance_ is the one with the higher hull,"

remarked Hartop, "for I see she doth fly my Lord Thomas Howard's banner and an admiral's pennant. 'Tis a right goodly array truly, yet small enough, my masters, for the work we have in hand, as ye would surely agree an you knew how many great galleons of Spain do go to make up the treasure fleet that we have engaged to capture."

The boat was now being rowed along the line of the admiral's squadron, and Gilbert Oglander paid no farther regard to the conversation of his companions, but directed his attention to each of the great vessels in turn. There were six of Queen Elizabeth's ships; the largest being the _Bonaventure_ of six hundred tons, and the smallest being the _Crane_ of two hundred tons. But in addition to these there were some half a dozen other vessels which had been contributed to the expedition by certain patriotic English gentlemen and merchant adventurers, as the _Bark Raleigh_, which was Sir Walter Raleigh's share in the enterprise, the _Prudence_, the _Pilgrim_, and the _George n.o.ble_. There were also several smaller ships, victuallers, as they were called, carrying stores and extra ammunition. The whole fleet numbered in all twenty sails, and the combined companies numbered something like two thousand five hundred men and boys. The larger ships mounted from thirty to fifty guns apiece.

Of this squadron Lord Thomas Howard was the appointed admiral and general. His vice-admiral was Sir Richard Grenville.

CHAPTER XIII.

OUTWARD BOUND.

The _Revenge_ lay at anchor in the midst of many merchant ships, pinnaces, and fly-boats,--a very gallant ship, with her carved and gilded bulwarks, with her tall, stout masts, with her silken, swallow-tailed banners flying from her masts and yards, her great standard, bearing the royal arms, at her forecastle. At her maintop the glorious flag of St George's Cross was fluttering in the breeze--the flag under which so many great seamen had beforetime traded, explored, and fought in England's honour, that Drake and Cavendish had borne round the world, that Lancaster carried to the East Indies and Frobisher to the far north; the flag that had blown triumphant against the Spaniards off Gravelines three years before this time, and that was destined soon to wave with less good fortune though not with less glory over the shot-torn wreck of the _Revenge_ herself.

Gilbert had been on board many times during the past two weeks while the business of preparation and victualling was in progress. He had explored the vessel from stem to stern, from the high, square forecastle, where the bowsprit rose steeply upward, and carried at its outer end a small mast with its sprit-topsail; and back aft to the sloping quarter-deck and the higher p.o.o.p-deck, where a narrow strip of railed platform ran athwart from side to side above the water. He had been below to the main-deck where the heaviest guns were carried, and below that again to the lower deck that was dark and airless as a pit. He had even climbed the tall main-mast and stood upon the gallery, whence in time of battle the ship's archers and musketeers were wont to shoot down upon their enemy alongside. He would willingly have climbed the bonaventure mast also, and crept up to the high peak of the long lateen yard that towered aloft above the ship's stern lantern, but one of the men in authority had warned him against the danger of such an attempt.

Now, when he mounted the ladder at the vessel's side and pa.s.sed through the gangway upon the main-deck, he was met by Roland Grenville, who was arrayed in all the bravery of a new shining corselet, a pair of new leathern trunk-hose, a coa.r.s.e blue cloth doublet, and a wide seaman's hat. Roland greeted him heartily, bade him salute the quarter-deck, and then conducted him below to the large cabin, reserved for what were in those days called gentlemen volunteers, most of whom were young men of good families, who entered the naval service not as actual officers or midshipmen but as captain's servants. For in Queen Elizabeth's time it was customary for each captain of a man-of-war to be allowed two personal servants for every fifty of his crew. Such servants or cabin-boys were almost invariably recruited from among the captain's relations, friends, or followers. Sir Richard Grenville had in this manner appointed his own son Roland and Master Gilbert Oglander.

When the two lads had eaten some ship's biscuits and bacon, and drunk between them a tankard of small ale, they went out upon the upper deck and loitered there for a while, until Gilbert requested his companion to show him over the ship and tell him about her guns. Young Grenville, having already spent some three years upon the sea, could point out all matters of interest, and explain the uses of all maritime instruments and implements of warfare. He was himself a very skilful gunner, and he took especial delight in showing Gilbert the ship's ordnance.

The _Revenge_ mounted forty "great ordnance" of bra.s.s, including cannon-royal, demi-cannon, and culverins for firing a broadside. Of these the cannon-royal were the largest, having a range of a mile's distance, weighing four tons, and being twelve feet in length. Their mouths gaped through the round portholes of the main-deck. The demi-cannon were a foot longer, but a ton lighter. But in many parts of the vessel there were other smaller swivel-guns, such as sakers, falcons, minions, fowlers, and murdering-pieces. The murdering-pieces were mounted one on the after part of the forecastle and the other on the fore part of the p.o.o.p, and they pointed inboard, so that their shot might be discharged into the midst of the enemy when attempting to board her.

"But these guns in especial are not ofttimes used," explained Roland Grenville, "for you must know, Oglander, that in these days our sea-fights come but seldom to a matter of boarding. 'Tis rarely I have seen great execution done with them; no, nor even with the bow and arrow, small-shot, or the sword. I am not sure, indeed, that in the whole course of the Armada fight there was a single occasion on which the Spaniards gained a footing on an English deck. The battle was chiefly gained by our great artillery breaking down masts and yards, tearing, raking, and bilging the enemy's ships."

There were many things for Gilbert to see and to admire: the racks where the arquebuses were kept, the bows of divers shapes and sizes and the cases of arrows, the pikes, the granadoes, the piles of hollow bra.s.s b.a.l.l.s and earthen pots covered with quarter bullets and filled with gunpowder, which, as Roland explained, would make an incredible slaughter in a crowd of Spaniards; the stacks of crossbar, langrel and chain shot, and the many implements for wild-fire, wherewith to strike burning into a ship's side to fire her. And, finally, the powder magazines and the rows of hanging cartridge-cases, in which, during an action, the ship's boys were wont to carry up the gunpowder to the gunners.

They went forward into the seamen's quarters, where they found a motley crew of mariners--many of them well-tried voyagers with gray hairs and weather-beaten faces, many burly men of war, who bore in their scarred cheeks and broken limbs the traces of bygone battles. Some were young lads starting full joyously on their first enterprise, and among them, too, were many lawless fellows, pirates and robbers, who had been taken out of Plymouth prison and forced upon the ship, in the foolish belief that when removed from the scenes of their past misdeeds they would change into good and peaceful servants. The crew had been on board some two days, and now they were lying about in lazy groups, regaling themselves with the ale that had been served out to them, making a better acquaintance with each other, and boasting of the great things they had done, and the yet greater things they expected to do in this coming voyage.

When Roland and Gilbert entered the cabin, one Edward Webbe, a gunner, of London, was telling of his adventures in foreign lands. A man of some forty years was he, but he looked much older by reason of the privations and perils through which he had gone.

"Moreover," he was saying, "in the land of Egypt, near to the river of Nile, there are seven mountains builded on the outside like unto the point of a diamond, which mountains were builded in King Pharaoh's time for to keep corn in, and they are mountains of great strength. In that same river of Nile there be long fishes that are of twelve foot long, with marvellous great mouths and long tails, and hides hard as the sole of my boot. These fishes are so subtle that, swimming near the sh.o.r.e-side, they will pull men and women suddenly into the river and devour them."

"Why, they be sharks, surely," remarked one who sat near him.

"Nay," corrected Jacob Hartop from the dark corner where he was sitting mumbling a ship's biscuit. "I have seen such animals myself out in Virginia, where we called them alligators. But, prithee, continue with your recital, neighbour. Did ye not say that ye had been to the land of Prester John?"

"Yea," proceeded Edward Webbe; "and this Prester John of whom I spake before is a king of great power and keepeth a very bountiful court, after the manner of that country, and hath every day to serve him at his table sixty kings, wearing leaden crowns on their heads, and these serve in the meat to Prester John's table. And continually the first dish of meat set upon the table is a dead man's skull, clean picked and laid in black earth; putting him in mind that he is but earth, and that he must die and shall become earth again."

"Ay, a marvellous country truly," interrupted Hartop, "as I do know full well, who have been there. And I doubt not, Master Webbe, that, having travelled in those lands, you have also known somewhat of the Turks, eh?"

"Right well have I known them," returned Webbe with a rueful head-shake.

"And because I was a Christian, and because the Turk had no cause to use me in my office of gunnership, I was imprisoned in Constantinople, where I found two thousand other prisoners and captives, Christians all of them, who were pinned up against stone walls, locked fast in iron chains, grievously pinched, with extreme penury. And I do avow that many times we wished for death rather than in such misery to live, and grieved at our hard hap that the wars had not ended us ere we came thither."

"Ay, right well I know such misery," said Jacob Hartop rising from his seat, and, thrusting forward his bared left arm he added: "Look you at this, neighbour!" He pointed with one finger at a depression in his wrist, which showed where the iron chains had been bound. As he stood forward he caught sight of Roland Grenville and Gilbert Oglander in the doorway, and he touched his gray forelock in salutation. At the same moment there came the shrill sound of a whistle from the main-deck.

"'Tis the muster-call," cried Roland Grenville. "Come, my lads, tumble up, one and all!" and he waited by the door as they all filed past him, and smiled as he regarded their strangely-a.s.sorted attire. Many were raggedly clothed; some looked as if they had but lately come from off the ploughed fields, others still wore their fishermen's jackets, that yet had clinging to them the shining scales of the herring; and others again were gaily set out in the bravery of new suits of doublet and hose and clean ruffs and long mariners' boots. Gilbert Oglander had gone out beyond the door to watch them take their respective places in ranks upon the upper-deck, but young Grenville remained behind until the last of them had pa.s.sed out. He glanced into the cabin they had left to a.s.sure himself that none had remained, and in one of the far corners, which was in deep shadow, he observed a movement. He called out, believing for the moment that one of the men lay there dazed with over-much ale, but there was no answer, and the dark form that he had taken for a bundle of humanity was silent and still. He stepped towards it and prodded it with his foot. There was no response, and he saw only a heavy seaman's cloak and the corner of a biscuit bag.

"Tut!" said he to himself. "I could almost have sworn 'twas a man lying there. And yet I might have seen that 'twas too small." And he turned to the door with a light laugh and went out upon the open deck.

Scarcely had he turned his back when the bundle moved yet again, a corner of the cloak was raised, and a pair of bright eyes peered out from a round boyish face, and a boyish voice murmured: