The author referred to this story and the sailor’s face grew grave and he was silent for a long time.
“The drum was beat,” he whispered at last. “Drake’s drum was heered to beat a while back; our lads heered ’er, one night when they was puttin’ out from Plymouth Sound.”
He nodded his head to and fro as he took off his cap: “But I knawed long back when I stood afore Jacky Jellicoe, close as I be standin’ to yew; I caught his eye—and I knawed it was Drake come back.... Yes, sir; the old drum beat and he come back as he said he would——”
“If England needs me, dead
Or living, I’ll rise that day!
I’ll rise from the darkness under the sea
Ten thousand miles away.”
That’s what he said; and he died.
“They lowered him down in the deep,
And there in the sunset light