By Right of Conquest | Page 4

thick lips and wide mouths. I believe that they live as slaves
among the Moors, but those who were with them fought as bravely as they did; and it
needed a man with a stout heart to engage with them, so ugly were their faces."
"Were you not terrified, Roger?"
"I was frightened at first, Dorothy, and felt a strange weakness in my knees, as they

began to swarm up the ship's side; but it passed off when the scuffle began. You see,
there was no time to think about it. We all had to do our best, and even had I been
frightened ever so badly, I hope that I should not have showed it, for it would have
brought shame upon my father as well as myself; but in truth I thought little about it, one
way or the other. There they were on the deck, and had to be driven back again; and we
set about the work like Englishmen and honest men and, thanks to our pikes and axes, we
had not very much trouble about it; especially when we once became fairly angered, on
seeing some of our friends undone by the heathen.
"I myself would rather go through two or three such fights, than encounter such another
storm as we had off the coast of Portugal, for four days. It seemed that we must be lost,
the waves were of such exceeding bigness--far surpassing anything I had ever seen before.
My heart was in my mouth scores of times, and over and over again I thought that she
would never rise again, so great was the weight of water that poured over her. Truly it
was the mercy of God which alone saved us, for I believe that even my father thought the
ship would be beaten to pieces, though he kept up a show of confidence in order to
inspirit the men. However, at the end of the fourth day the gale abated; but it was days
before the great sea went down, the waves coming in long regular hills, which seemed to
me as big as those which we have here in Devonshire; but smooth and regular, so that
while we rolled mightily, there was naught to fear from them."
"I should not like to be a sailor," Agnes said. "It would be far better, Roger, were you to
come into our father's counting house. You know he would take you into his business, did
Cousin Reuben desire it."
Roger laughed.
"I should make but a poor penman, Agnes. I love the sea dearly, and it is seldom that we
have such gales to meet as that; and after all, it is no worse to be drowned than it is to
come to any other death. I am well content, cousin, with matters as they are; and would
not stay ashore and spend my life in writing, not to be as rich as the greatest merchant in
Plymouth. I almost wish, sometimes, I had been born a Spaniard or a Portugal; for then I
might have a chance of sailing to wondrous new countries, instead of voyaging only in
European waters."
"It seems to me that you have plenty to see as it is, Roger," Dorothy said.
"I do not say nay to that," Roger assented; "but I do not see why Spain and Portugal
should claim all the Indies, East and West, and keep all others from going there."
"But the pope has given the Indies to them," Dorothy said.
"I don't see that they were the pope's to give," Roger replied. "That might do for the king,
and his minister Wolsey, and the bishops; but when in time all the people have read, as
we do, Master Wycliffe's Bible, they will come to see that there is no warrant for the
authority the pope claims; and then we may, perhaps, take our share of these new
discoveries."

"Hush, Roger! You should not speak so loud about the Bible. You know that though there
are many who read it, it is not a thing to be spoken of openly; and that it would bring us
all into sore trouble, were anyone to hear us speak so freely as you have done. There has
been burning of Lollards, and they say that Wolsey is determined to root out all the
followers of Wycliffe."
"It will take him some trouble to do that," Roger said, shrugging his shoulders. "Still, I
will be careful, Dorothy, for I would not on any account bring trouble upon you, here.
But, thank Heaven, England is not Spain, where men are forever being tortured and
burned for their religion. The English would never put up with that. It may be that there
will be persecution, but methinks it is rather