I made a dash to spring back to the Spanish ship, but it was too late.
The Don was already hauling off, and every moment the gap between him and the English ship became wider. Half-a-dozen stout British hands held me fast, and as many blades at my breast warned me that the game was up.
"Hands-off, comrades!" I shouted; "I am an Englishman."
At that they laughed, and bade me say my prayers, for my hour was come, and they had other work on hands.
"G.o.d save her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, and curse the King of Spain!"
cried I.
Then one or two of them stared round, and cursed me for a Jesuit.
"I am no Jesuit, but a London "prentice lad," said I, "and have broken heads better than yours for my Queen before now, as I will prove to any two of you that like, even here."
This pleased them better, and they bade me, as I loved my Queen, take a musket and slay them the first Spaniard I could spy on the enemy"s deck.
"Give me the gun," said I, with a laugh, "and bullets enough for every dog of them."
At that moment the smoke below me drifted, so that I could just espy, as in a frame of cloud, a little spot on the deck of the _Rata_, where stood a man. He was tall like a giant. The tawny hair waved carelessly in the wind. He carried no weapon, but leaned with both hands heavily on the rail, like a man wounded, and his face, when he turned it, was pale. There was a grim smile on his lips as he watched the panic- stricken sailors hauling off their ship; and once he turned and looked up, not at me, but at where I had been.
"Fire!" shouted the men at my side, "or we strike."
I dropped the gun into the waves below, and with a mighty lump in my throat, whipped out my knife and waited for what should follow.
They fell back amazed at my madness, and, while they consulted what to do with me, I took my chance to grip the first of them by the throat and swing him off his perch.
At that moment a shrill whistle came up from below.
"You are wanted on deck, comrade," said I; "will you go down by the mast, or a shorter way?"
"The mast," he gasped.
So I had my way, and we all went below together.
The English captain--one Admiral Winter--swore roundly when he saw me; and, when he heard my story, said he had bellies enough to fill without a great hulk of a fellow like me to eat more. And he promised me, if he caught me idle at my work, he would trip me by the heels himself.
Whereat I thanked him and went forward.
But I was in doleful dumps. For I had lost my friend--perhaps for ever.
"Come, haul away, land lubber that thou art," cried a voice at my side.
Looking round, whom should I see but that same Will Peake, the mercer"s man of London Bridge, with whom I had had so many a merry bout in times past.
He was too busy just then to do aught but grin in my face and bid me haul away. For the other Spanish ship had fared worse than the _Rata_, and was already heeling over on her side.
"Haul away, you hulking lubber," yelled Will, "or she"ll be on her beam- ends before we are clear."
So, for five minutes, we and a parcel of other fellows worked might and main to cut away tackle and clear ourselves of the doomed galleon, which settled over farther and farther, showing her whole broadside from gunwale to keel, and blazing despairingly heavenward with her guns.
"Why not give her a broadside to help her over?" asked one who worked near.
"Because," said Will, wisely, "we have no shot left to do it."
"What!" I asked, "are we in such a plight as that?"
""Tis true," said Will; "I heard it from the gun officer an hour ago.
And not only are we at an end, but so is all her Majesty"s fleet."
"Then we are lost!" I said.
"No doubt," replied he. "Yet we had merry sport with the Don while it lasted; and methinks he will run a bit without our help, before he find out that we fight him with one arm bound."
So it turned out. The fight dragged on through the afternoon, and ship after ship of the King of Spain went to her doom, or drifted helplessly on the mud banks of Gravelines. But the English fire dropped shorter and shorter; and as evening closed (had the enemy but known it!) we had scarce a broadside left among us.
Yet Heaven remembered us in our extremity. For no sooner had our guns become mute than the south wind came down on us with a burst, catching us in the small of our backs, and sending the Don away in front of us, staggering and reeling seaward, for his very life.
"Twas a sad spectacle for me. I had long since lost sight of the _Rata_. In vain I scanned the smoke-laden horizon for a sight of her.
I never saw her more. I could fancy Ludar stalking the deck, or scaling the masts wildly, in search of me; and then, when he found me not, with the cloud deep on his n.o.ble brow, crawling to his berth in the dark to tell himself that I was dead.
I wished that night he could have thought it truly!
Will Peake, when the work of the day was done, was in vast great humour to find me of the ship"s company. He had scarce known me at first, so changed was I by the perils of the last weeks. A score or more of swashbuckling "prentices were on board the ship, he said; and, presently, when I saw them all, and heard their jests, and knocked some of their heads together, I could have believed myself in Cheapside.
Having been some two weeks on board, they were mightily proud of their seamanship, and delighted to call me (who had sailed as many seas as they had ponds), landlubber.
However, it mattered not, and we spent a merry night--at least they did--scudding before the wind, and watching the Spanish lanthorns rocking uneasily in the darkness a mile ahead of us.
When daylight came, there they were in a long disorderly line, never looking back, with canvas set, and still running. Some of our ships hung close on their heels, like dogs at a flying ox; but scarce a shot boomed, and never a tack did the Dons slack off their northward course.
As for us, there were two good reasons why we, on the _Vanguard_, should not keep up the chase. We had neither shot to fire nor food to eat.
When I came forward that morning to receive my morsel of biscuit with the rest, I understood how ill-pleased Master Winter had been to see another hungry body on board his ship. Even yesterday, as we had helped the bodies of the brave fellows who had fallen for their Queen overboard, it was plain to see that there was something of consolation joined to the pity we all felt for our lost comrades; and the sight of my beggarly rations when I received them made it clear what that consolation was.
So when, after a day"s chase, the word was given to put about, and beat up for Margate Roads, scarce a man among us had the stomach to grumble.
"Twas a long, dismal voyage that, in the face of the tempest--with short and tedious tacks that sometimes left us at the day"s end little nearer our haven than at the beginning. And long before Margate was reached half of our company was sick with famine.
I think as brave as any men who fought in that great sea-fight were the few fellows of Will Peake"s sort who kept up heart and spirit on that sorry voyage back to Margate. I know I myself had been tempted often enough to give over but for his cheery word in my ear; and if half the crew remained loyal to their captain till we reached land, Master Winter owed it not a little to his "prentice-sailors. As for me, I was plague- stricken before we pa.s.sed the Thames mouth, and when at last we dropped anchor in Margate Roads, Will told me he doubted whether I was worth the lifting ash.o.r.e.
Yet he did as much for me and more. He nursed me like my own brother, and when, a week or two later, I was able to stand on my feet and set one foot before another Londonwards, I owed it to him that I found myself at last once more in the great city, and had life left in me to look round and know where I stood.
CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT.
HOW I ENLISTED ON A NEW SERVICE.
London was merry-making, with bonfires and pealing of bells, when Will Peake and I entered it. Every day that pa.s.sed, men took in more of the great victory which had been gained against the King of Spain, and rejoiced louder and louder at the deliverance G.o.d had vouchsafed the land.
So, when it became known (as it soon did among our old friends), that Will and I had fought in that glorious fight, we lacked neither food nor shelter for our poor bodies. At first Will fared better than I; for he was monstrous little altered from the swaggering lad who tried a bout with me years before at Finsbury Fields. But as for me, men looked once, twice, and thrice at me before they would believe it was Humphrey Dexter. And when one day in a tavern I came upon a mirror I learned the cause. My beard, unkempt now for many weeks, had grown till it made my face look very fierce and manly; and my hair, once close-cropped, now fell heavily below my ears. And the scar I got on the _Rata_ gave me so ferocious a look that I had a mind well-nigh to doubt myself, when first I saw it.
""Tis little wonder if they know thee not," said Will, "for thou art pa.s.sably handsome now, whereas once--"