Great Sea Stories | Page 9

good comrade. And now, then, my
masters, shall we inshore again and burn La Guayra?"
"Art thou never glutted with Spanish blood, thou old wolf?" asked Will Cary.
"Never, sir," answered Yeo.
"To St. Jago be it," said Amyas, "if we can get there: but--God help us!"
And he looked round sadly enough; while no one needed that he should finish his
sentence, or explain his "but."
The fore-mast was gone, the main-yard sprung, the rigging hanging in elf-locks, the hull
shot through and through in twenty places, the deck strewn with the bodies of nine good
men, besides sixteen wounded down below; while the pitiless sun, right above their heads,
poured down a flood of fire upon a sea of glass.
And it would have been well if faintness and weariness had been all that was the matter;
but now that the excitement was over, the collapse came; and the men sat down listlessly
and sulkily by twos and threes upon the deck, starting and wincing when they heard some
poor fellow below cry out under the surgeon's knife; or murmuring to each other that all
was lost. Drew tried in vain to rouse them, telling them that all depended on rigging a
jury-mast forward as soon as possible. They answered only by growls; and at last broke
into open reproaches. Even Will Cary's volatile nature, which had kept him up during the
fight gave way, when Yeo and the carpenter came aft, and told Amyas in a low voice--
"We are hit somewhere forward, below the waterline, sir. She leaks a terrible deal, and
the Lord will not vouchsafe to us to lay our hands on the place, for all our searching."

"What are we to do now, Amyas, in the devil's name?" asked Cary, peevishly.
"What are we to do, in God's name, rather," answered Amyas in a low voice. "Will, Will,
what did God make you a gentleman for, but to know better than those poor fickle
fellows forward, who blow hot and cold at every change of weather!"
"I wish you'd come forward and speak to them, sir," said Yeo, who had overheard the last
words, "or we shall get nought done."
Amyas went forward instantly.
"Now then, my brave lads, what's the matter here, that you are all sitting on your tails like
monkeys?"
"Ugh!" grunts one. "Don't you think our day's work has been long enough yet, captain?"
"You don't want us to go in to La Guayra again, sir? There are enough of us thrown away
already, I reckon, about that wench there."
"Best sit here, and sink quietly. There's no getting home again, that's plain."
"Why were we brought out here to be killed."
"For shame, men!" cries Yeo, "murmuring the very minute after the Lord has delivered
you from the Egyptians."
Now I do not wish to set Amyas up as better, thank God, than many and many a brave
and virtuous captain in her Majesty's service at this very day: but certainly he behaved
admirably under that trial. Drake had trained him, as he trained many another excellent
officer, to be as stout in discipline and as dogged of purpose, as he himself was: but he
had trained him also to feel with and for his men, to make allowances for them, and to
keep his temper with them, as he did this day. Amyas's conscience smote him (and his
simple and pious soul took the loss of his brother as God's verdict on his conduct),
because he had set his own private affection, even his own private revenge, before the
safety of his ship's company and the good of his country.
"Ah," said he to himself, as he listened to his men's reproaches, "if I had been thinking,
like a loyal soldier, of serving my queen, and crippling the Spaniard, I should have taken
that great bark three days ago, and in it the very man I sought!"
So "choking down his old man," as Yeo used to say, he made answer cheerfully--
"Pooh! pooh! brave lads! For shame, for shame! You were lions half-an-hour ago; you
are not surely turned sheep already! Why, but yesterday evening you were grumbling
because I would not run in and fight those three ships under the batteries of La Guayra,
and now you think it too much to have fought them fairly out at sea? Nothing venture,
nothing win; and nobody goes birdnesting without a fall at times. If any one wants to be
safe in this life, he'd best stay at home and keep his bed; though even there who knows

but the roof might fall through on him?"
"Ah, it's all very well for you, captain," said some grumbling younker, with a vague
notion that Amyas must be better off than