By Right of Conquest; Or, With Cortez in Mexico

by G. A. Henty

There were, therefore, some sixty new hands to engage. Towards these he found eighteen who had sailed with him on previous voyages, and were glad enough to rejoin him; for he had the name of being a good captain, considerate to his men; one who would be obeyed, but who did not harass his crew, and did all he could, in reason, to make them comfortable.

The others were picked up carefully, one by one. For this purpose he took some of his best men aside, and confided to them, privately, that the present voyage was to be out of the ordinary, and that he needed not only stout fellows but willing and cheerful ones: men who would take hardships without grumbling, and who, with a prospect of good reward in addition to their pay, would go without question where they were told, and do as they were ordered--were it to singe the beard of the Grand Turk, himself, in his own palace. He charged them, therefore, to find for him men of this kind, among their relations, or men who had sailed with him.

"I would rather," he said, "have landsmen, providing they are strong and stout hearted, than sailors, however skillful, who are given to grumbling and disaffection. We shall have plenty of good sailors on board, and the others will soon learn their business; therefore, choose you not for seamanship, but rather for willingness and good temper. And broach not the subject to any unless you feel assured, beforehand, that they will be willing to join; for I want not the matter talked about. Therefore those who join are to keep the matter private, and are not to come on board until the night before we get up our anchors. We are taking a much stronger crew than usual, for we have many guns that need working, if it comes to fighting."

As these instructions were given separately, none of the twelve men he spoke to knew that the others had received similar instructions; and that instead of forty men, as usual, the Swan was to carry nearly ninety.

As to the officers, Reuben Hawkshaw needed none others than those who had before sailed with him. The two mates had each been with him for upwards of ten years, and had learned their business under his eye; and he intended, although he had not as yet told him so, to rate Roger as third mate. His boatswain would go in the same capacity as before; and he shipped, as gunner, one who had served for some years in a king's ship in that rank, and was well acquainted with the working of ordnance.

Mistress Mercy had, of course, heard from her gossips of the talk that was going on, concerning the unusual preparations that were being made, by her husband, for the forthcoming voyage of the Swan; and the trader was often put to his wits' end by her questions on the subject. His professions of benevolence towards the crew, and his explanations of his reasons for her powerful armament had sufficed for others, but they by no means satisfied her.

"Do you think, Diggory Beggs," she asked, indignantly, "that after all these years I do not know you as well as I do the contents of my linen chest? I have never before known you open your purse strings one inch wider than was necessary. Have I not always had to ask, until I am verily ashamed, before I can get a new gown for myself, or a decent cloak for the girls? You have ever been hard fisted with your money, and never disposed to spend a groat, save on good occasion. There is not the wife of a trader of your standing in Plymouth but makes a braver show than I do, when we walk on the hoe on holidays or feast days.

"There is something at the bottom of all this I don't understand; but mark you, Diggory, I am not to be kept in the dark. As your wife, I have a right to know why you are throwing about good and lawful money. I toil and slave to keep your house decent and respectable, at small cost; but I shall do so no longer. If you can afford to throw money into the gutter in one way, you can in another; and people will cry shame on you, when, as they say, you are pampering up your sailors, in such manner as will cause discontent among all others in the port, while your wife and daughters are walking about in homespun!"

Mistress Mercy did not succeed in extracting the information she desired from her husband, who was, however, forced to fall back upon the defense that he had his reasons, but that he was pledged to say nothing concerning them.

"Pledged!" she replied, scornfully. "And to whom are you pledged, I should like to know? I thought you were pledged to me, and that you were bound to cherish and comfort me; which means, of course, that you were to have no secrets from me, and to tell me all that I desire to know."