Great Sea Stories | Page 2

Maurus Jokal, who had little personal knowledge of the subject, also set
their hands to tales of marine adventure.
Such work as this has established a succession which has been continuous and

progressive ever since. The literature of the sea of the past half-century is voluminous,
varied and universally known, and whether in the form of personal adventure, or in
purely fictional shape, it has grown to be an art cultivated with great care by the best
contemporary writers.
The noble band of singers of the sea, from the days of the Elizabethans to the sublime
Swinburne, belongs to another volume. It is the sincere hope of the compiler that the
present collection offers undisputable evidence that the prose tradition has been fully
sustained and the reader will find in these pages living testimony to the marvelous
interest of the theme--its virility and its beauty.
JOSEPH LEWIS FRENCH.

GREAT SEA STORIES
SPANISH BLOODHOUNDS AND ENGLISH MASTIFFS
From "Westward Ho!" BY CHARLES KINGSLEY
When the sun leaped up the next morning, and the tropic light flashed suddenly into the
tropic day, Amyas was pacing the deck, with disheveled hair and torn clothes, his eyes
red with rage and weeping, his heart full--how can I describe it? Picture it to yourselves,
you who have ever lost a brother; and you who have not, thank God that you know
nothing of his agony. Full of impossible projects, he strode and staggered up and down,
as the ship thrashed and close-hauled through the rolling seas. He would go back and
burn the villa. He would take Guayra, and have the life of every man in it in return for his
brother's. "We can do it, lads!" he shouted. "Drake took Nombre de Dios, we can take La
Guayra." And every voice shouted, "Yes."
"We will have it, Amyas, and have Frank too, yet," cried Cary; but Amyas shook his head.
He knew, and knew not why he knew, that all the ports in New Spain would never restore
to him that one beloved face.
"Yes, he shall be well avenged. And look there! There is the first crop of our vengeance."
And he pointed toward the shore, where between them and the now distant peaks of the
Silla, three sails appeared, not five miles to windward.
"There are the Spanish bloodhounds on our heels, the same ships which we saw yesterday
off Guayra. Back, lads, and welcome them, if they were a dozen."
There was a murmur of applause from all around; and if any young heart sank for a
moment at the prospect of fighting three ships at once, it was awed into silence by the
cheer which rose from all the older men, and by Salvation Yeo's stentorian voice.
"If there were a dozen, the Lord is with us, who has said, 'One of you shall chase a
thousand.' Clear away, lads, and see the glory of the Lord this day."

"Amen!" cried Cary; and the ship was kept still closer to the wind.
Amyas had revived at the sight of battle. He no longer felt his wounds or his great sorrow
as he bustled about the deck; and ere a quarter of an hour had passed, his voice cried
firmly and cheerfully as of old--
"Now, my masters, let us serve God, and then to breakfast, and after that clear for
action."
Jack Brimblecombe read the dally prayers, and the prayers before a fight at sea, and his
honest voice trembled, as, in the Prayer for all Conditions of Men (In spite of Amyas's
despair), he added, "and especially for our dear brother Mr. Francis Leigh, perhaps
captive among the idolaters;" and so they rose.
"Now, then," said Amyas, "to breakfast. A Frenchman fights best fasting, a Dutchman
drunk, an Englishman full, and a Spaniard when the devil is in him, and that's always."
"And good beef and the good cause are a match for the devil," said Cary. "Come down,
captain; you must eat too."
Amyas shook his head, took the tiller from the steersman, and bade him go below and fill
himself. Will Cary went down, and returned in five minutes with a plate of bread and
beef, and a great jack of ale, coaxed them down Amyas's throat, as a nurse does with a
child, and then scuttled below again with tears hopping down his face.
Amyas stood still steering. His face was grown seven years older in the last night. A
terrible set calm was on him. Woe to the man who came across him that day!
"There are three of them, you see, my masters," said he, as the crew came on deck again.
"A big ship forward, and two galleys astern of her. The big ship may keep; she is a race
ship, and if we