"How long have you been here?" Geoffrey asked.
"I hardly know," the other replied; "one almost loses count of time here. But it is somewhere about ten years. I am sturdy, you see. Three years at most is the average of our life in the galleys, though there are plenty die before as many months have passed. I come of a hardy race. I am not a Spaniard. I was captured in an attack on a town in the West Indies, and had three years on board one of your galleys at Cadiz. Then she was captured by the Moors, and here I have been ever since."
"Then you must be an Englishman!" Geoffrey exclaimed in that language.
The man stared at him stupidly for a minute, and then burst into tears. "I have never thought to hear my own tongue again, lad," he said, holding out his hand. "Aye, I am English, and was one of Hawkins' men. But how come you to be in a Spanish ship? I have heard our masters say, when talking together, that there is war now between the English and Spaniards; that is, war at home. There has always been war out on the Spanish Main, but they know nothing of that."
"I was made prisoner in a fight we had with the great Spanish Armada off Gravelines," Geoffrey said.
"We heard a year ago from some Spaniards they captured that a great fleet was being prepared to conquer England; but no news has come to us since. We are the only galley here, and as our benches were full, the prisoners they have taken since were sent off at once to Algiers or other ports, so we have heard nothing. But I told the Spaniards that if Drake and Hawkins were in England when their great fleet got there, they were not likely to have it all their own way. Tell me all about it, lad. You do not know how hungry I am for news from home."
Geoffrey related to the sailor the tale of the overthrow and destruction of the Armada, which threw him into an ecstasy of satisfaction.
"These fellows," he said, pointing to the other galley-slaves, "have for the last year been telling me that I need not call myself an Englishman any more, for that England was only a part of Spain now. I will open their eyes a bit in the morning. But I won't ask you any more questions now; it is a shame to have made you talk so much after such a clip as you have had on the head."
Geoffrey turned round on the sand that formed their only bed, and was soon asleep, the last sound he heard being the chuckling of his companion over the discomfiture of the Armada.
In the morning the guard came in with a great dish filled with a sort of porridge of coarsely-ground grain, boiled with water. In a corner of the yard were a number of calabashes, each composed of half a gourd. The slaves each dipped one of these into the vessel, and so eat their breakfast. Before beginning Geoffrey went to a trough, into which a jet of water was constantly falling from a small pipe, bathed his head and face, and took a long drink.