The Golden Galleon Part 24

"Take you the oar, then, Robin," said Timothy, "while I go."

But Timothy, bold though he was, came back even more quickly than Robin had done, with his face transfixed with terror.

"Look! look!" he stammered, pointing with fearful eagerness to the boat's stern.

All turned their gaze towards the tiller, and saw something which might well fill them with dread. A long flesh-like arm, half-pink half-green, was gliding slowly over the gunwale, with the movements of a huge caterpillar. Its farther end was not visible at first, but Gilbert Oglander, glancing over into the water, traced the thing for many yards to where it was rooted in a great green shining body midway between the boat and the galleon. The body was furnished with two great glaring eyes as large as plates. From near the eyes some eight or nine other arms or tentacles were stretched forth, some lying inactive on the water's surface, others poised in the green air, with rows of immense sucking discs on their under side; and two of them had climbed up the galleon's hull and were entwined about her like a pair of giant serpents. All this Gilbert perceived in a momentary glance. But he told naught of the matter to his mates. Going down on his hands and knees in the boat's well he crept to one of the little lockers that were under the side-seats. He pulled open the door, thrust in his arm end brought out two swords, and flung one of them to Timothy.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "FOR THE LOVE OF HEAVEN CUT THE THING IN TWAIN!"]

"Here, Tim, quick!" he cried. "For the love of heaven cut the thing in twain!"

Then again thrusting his arm into the locker he brought out an axe, which he gripped in his hand. Springing aft to the stern, he then began to hew at the monstrous arm at the part which was lying across the gunwale. Timothy got to the other side, and in like manner struck with all his might at the creature. Stroke after stroke of sword and axe fell upon the writhing thing.

Suddenly the boat swayed over, the sail drew wind, and as suddenly the mysterious green light flickered, faded, flickered again, and then faded into utter darkness. There was a faint splash under the stern.

"'Tis done!" shouted Timothy, stamping his heel on the severed portion of the monster's arm as it lay across the deck. "Give us a hand here, Master Webbe, and help us to heave this thing overboard. Touch it not but with your boot, lest it sting you with its poison. Now, all together!"

"Down with the helm!" cried Hartop, himself springing to the tiller. And then, as the remnant of the animal's tentacle was plunged into the sea, the pinnace moved slowly onward over the darkened waters, and the little crew breathed in thankful freedom. Yet a strange superst.i.tious terror had seized upon them, and for a long time no word was spoken and no sound heard but the creaking of the ropes, the light bubbling of the water at the bow, and the intermittent sobbing of young Robin Redfern.

They yearned for the coming of daylight, and dreaded every moment that the eerie green light might again surround them. Again and again Jacob Hartop as he sat at the tiller glanced furtively behind him, as if to a.s.sure himself that he was not being pursued by what he firmly believed to be the phantom of his lost ship. Timothy Trollope, too, whose simple and untutored mind had yielded to the same superst.i.tious fear that was oppressing the skipper, stood up time after time and, rubbing his eyes, glanced backward across the sea. Gilbert Oglander had but an uneasy sleep, while Webbe, who sat with his legs outstretched before him and his back firmly planted against the boat's side-planks, refused to close his eyes. The only one who slept peacefully was Robin, who had literally cried himself to sleep.

At last, in the eastern sky there appeared the faint gray gleam of coming dawn. The welcome light crept over sky and sea. The men could now see each other's pale and troubled faces, and then, for the first time since the mysterious green radiance had vanished, Jacob Hartop spoke.

"It hath been a most merciful escape," said he, "a most merciful deliverance. The Lord be thanked!"

"Ay, the Lord be thanked!" murmured Edward Webbe.

The two old men had been feasting their eyes on the dawn-light over in the east. But Gilbert Oglander, who now rose to his feet and faced the westward, gave a slight start and quietly placed his hand on Hartop's shoulder.

"The galleon is still in sight, Master Hartop," said he.

"Ay," echoed Timothy Trollope, "she is still in sight."

Slowly and deliberately Jacob turned his head. His hand lost its hold of the tiller. Slowly he looked back again at his companions.

"What means it?" he muttered hoa.r.s.ely through his dry, parched lips. His face was ashen gray and woefully haggard. He seemed to have aged a score of years since the last evening. "What means it?" he repeated dryly.

"It seemeth to me," said Gilbert, "that your golden galleon is no ghost after all, but a veritable floating ship."

"Said you not that she was loaded with Spanish treasure, Master Hartop?"

questioned Timothy.

Jacob nodded.

"As full laden as ever ship could be," he answered.

"And wilt thou leave her there, where she is, to drift at random on the wide sea, to rot upon the water, and to go down at last to bestow her treasure upon the mermaids? I pray thee, let us go back to her, that we may bring away with us some of the gold whereof thou hast spoken."

"What!" cried Hartop, fixing his gla.s.sy eyes in astonishment upon the bold lad.

"'Tis daylight now," pursued Tim. "Mark how the coming sunlight spreads across the sky. Mark how its bright reflection gleams upon your galleon's golden hull. Why need we fear to approach her, ay, or even to board her, in the broad light of day?"

Hartop shook his head in grave rebuke.

"Thou'rt over bold, Master Timothy," said he. "The ship were a wealthy prize, I will allow. But I would have thee know that 'twas not to ransack drifting derelicts that we came out upon this voyage, but in quest of King Philip's plate fleet. Having failed to discover the fleet in our allotted time, we shall now return to Queen Elizabeth's ships at Flores and inform Her Majesty's admiral of the result of our quest. As for the golden galleon, let her rot, let her sink, say I. Let her treasures go down to the mermaids' halls, that the precious gems may bedeck the mermaids' necks withal. It will not be the first ship-load of Spanish doubloons that hath gone unto the depths for the children of the ocean to play with. And I say to you, were the galleon thrice her size, with thrice her present wealth aboard of her, I would not turn back a fathom's distance with the thought of entering her. And now," he added, "I pray you, just hitch me up another inch or two of the peak halliard there, while Gilbert doth set about preparing our breakfast."

And so they sailed back to Flores.

CHAPTER XVII.

SIR RICHARD GRENVILLE.

Four months went by--four months of weary, monotonous waiting--and still Lord Thomas Howard's fleet lay in its old anchorage in the roadstead off the north of Flores Island. The long-expected homeward-bound treasure _flota_ from the Spanish Main had not yet come in sight. The King of Spain, who was now well aware of the presence of the English ships at the Azores, and who knew their drift as surely as did Lord Thomas himself, was sensible of how much the safety of his galleons concerned his own interests and the interests of his country; and by secret means he had communicated with his admirals at Nombre de Dios, causing them to delay their starting; for he chose to hazard the perishing of ships, men, and goods by bringing them over in a season of storms rather than endanger their falling into our hands.

He had two distinct designs in bringing his fleet home so late. One was that he thought that Lord Thomas would have consumed his victuals and have been forced accordingly to abandon his quest and return to England; and the other was that he might meanwhile gain time to furnish a great fleet, which he was preparing to act as the guardian of his treasure galleons. In the first design he found himself deceived, for Admiral Howard had not been two months at the Western Isles ere he received supplies of victuals from England; and in the second he was equally prevented, for the Earl of c.u.mberland, who was then cruising off the coast of Spain, was keeping a constant watch upon the port of Ferrol, where the new armada was being hurriedly fitted out, and c.u.mberland was prepared to send intelligence to Flores to warn Lord Thomas at the moment of danger.

But despite the arrival of supplies from home, the provisions of the English fleet at the Azores were meagre in quant.i.ty, and in quality wretchedly poor, and it was found necessary to add to them by making frequent raids upon the nearer islands and taking forcible possession of food from the islanders' homesteads. The hot summer months of June and July had brought additional discomforts to the crews, and early in August a pestilent sickness spread from ship to ship. On the _Defiance_ a score of men had died before the middle of August, and an equal number of the ship's company of the _Lion_ were carried off. Sir Robert Cross of the _Bonaventure_ had buried in the sea no fewer than thirty-six of his picked men, and the disease in a more or less virulent form had made an entrance upon every one of the Queen's six ships, as well as the victuallers, fly-boats, and small pinnaces that were of the expedition.

Jacob Whiddon's little ship, the _Pilgrim_, had escaped so far with but one death.

On board the _Revenge_ Sir Richard Grenville had much ado to stem the tide of the dread visitation. His ship was small, and her crowded crew had but indifferent accommodation even when in good health, and when the illness seized them there was little chance of a recovery. The matter was made worse by the fact that, for want of a more convenient hospital, her sick men were forced to lie upon the ballast, down below, where no fresh air could reach them, where the light of the sun could not penetrate, and where even the best and freshest food became speedily rank and nasty. Her surgeons were ignorant men, of a low and ill-educated cla.s.s, to whom the payment of five shillings a week was considered an ample return for the exercise of their profession. Of medicine and the laws of health they scarcely knew anything. They could saw off a shattered limb or patch a broken head pa.s.sing well; but they had no more than a child's skill in dealing with a sickness that came of bad sanitation, putrid food, and insidious infection. The ship's lower decks were so pestilential that a sound man might hardly hope to go below without catching the disease.

At the first it was the men of the commoner sort, the working mariners and the ill-fed soldiers, who were affected, but betimes the gentlemen of the p.o.o.p were struck down one by one by the fell complaint, and there were few among them who did not suffer in some wise, if it were no more than to experience a sickly headache. So general did the complaints become, that many of the men, led by Red Bob, threatened more than once to break out into open mutiny. They declared that they were being poisoned by sour beer and rancid meat, and day after day, as the expected treasure-ships failed to come into view, the discontent became stronger and more noisy.

Sir Richard Grenville held a firm and determined authority over his ship's company, however, for he was a most resolute man, and none dared to openly offend him. He was a man very unquiet in his mind, always eager and impatient, and greatly affected to war. It was perhaps from this same resolute spirit that he had been able to perform the many valiant acts that are recorded of him. At the age of sixteen he had distinguished himself for bravery and fearlessness in the wars in Hungary under the Emperor Maximilian against the Turks; he had fought in the great sea-fight at Lepanto with the Christians against the Turks, when thirty thousand of the Saracens fell or were taken prisoners, and twelve thousand Christian slaves were liberated. Also he had taken prominent part in the defeat of the Spanish Armada. Of his life in Virginia, whither he went to found the first English colony, many heroic acts are recorded. His rivals thought him harsh and overbearing, and certify that he exercised a most tyrannical rule over his colonists and shipmates from first to last; and Master Ralph Lane (who is remembered as being the first to introduce the herb tobacco into England) wrote of him in an ample discourse addressed to Sir Walter Raleigh, that Grenville's pride was intolerable, his ambition insatiable, and that his proceedings towards them all in Virginia, and to Lane in particular, were unendurable. It seems certain that among the islanders of the Azores he was greatly feared for his severity in leading his men to plunder the homesteads for food for the ships. Some things that are written of him show that at times he could be boastful and inclined to bravado.

"He was of so hard a complexion," says Jan van Linschoten in a doc.u.ment that is to be found in Hakluyt's _Voyages_, "that as he continued among the Spanish captains while they were at dinner or supper with him, he would carouse three or four gla.s.ses of wine, and in a bravery take the gla.s.ses between his teeth and crash them in pieces and swallow them down, so that oftentimes the blood ran out of his mouth, without any harm at all unto him. And this was told me by divers credible persons that many times stood and beheld him."

Yet he was a very excellent gentleman, a loyal subject of the Queen, and a very proper Christian. In an age when cruelty in war was common he fought with a truly British sense of fairness, and while the Spaniards treated their prisoners with unnameable tortures Sir Richard Grenville was ever just and humane with the enemies who fell into his hands. He hated the Spaniards with a fierce envenomed hatred, and was never known to shrink from an encounter with them, or to neglect a chance of striking a blow which should help to lessen their vaunted power upon the seas. No man in his time--not even Drake himself--was more bold or more courageous in attacking them. His self-confidence and his trust in English pluck were supreme. He considered an Englishman equal to any dozen Spaniards.

On one occasion when he was returning from the Spanish Main in a ship which had been sorely battered by storms and badly bored by the teredo-worm, he sighted a richly-laden galleon. His ship could not be brought to a close encounter, and he had no boats, yet he was bent upon capturing that galleon. So he made a raft out of the boards of chests and boxes, took a handful of men with him, and on this frail craft adventured an attack. He brought the raft alongside the galleon and clambered up upon her decks. As soon as his men were all off the raft it fell asunder and sank at the galleon's side, thus cutting off the adventurers' retreat. Yet they captured the galleon and brought her home as a prize to England.

It was towards the end of the hot month of August that the sickness on board the _Revenge_, as on board all the other ships of the fleet, became more general and severe. Lord Thomas Howard, realizing at last that it was the ships themselves that were unhealthy, and that if he would preserve his little army from actual dissolution he had better inst.i.tute an hospital of some sort on sh.o.r.e, issued orders to his various captains, instructing them to land their sick men upon the beach, where huts and tents and other shelters were erected. This proceeding was found to be of vast benefit. Each ship's company was kept separate in their own shelters, with a goodly number of healthy men to attend to their wants.

Gilbert Oglander and Roland Grenville were among those who were told off to take charge of the _Revenge's_ invalids. Timothy Trollope and Robin Redfern were with them, acting for the greater part of the time as water-carriers. Red Bob was among the sick, so was Edward Webbe. Hartop remained on board the ship.

It was weary work looking after men who, in the midst of their sickness, were for ever grumbling at the bad food and the lack of good doctors.

But the purer air and an abundance of fresh water, together with such ripe fruit as could be procured, gradually brought the sufferers round to a better condition. The deaths were fewer and the pestilence ceased to spread. Also on the thirtieth day of the month there arrived two ships from England, sent out by the merchants of Plymouth with a supply of victuals; and the news of home brought additional cheer to those who had been lingering here in the Azores for over five months, waiting for the treasure-ships that they were to waylay and capture, waiting until the very clothes on their backs were worn to rags.

CHAPTER XVIII.

DRUSILLA'S LETTER.