The captain nodded. "Hast explained thyself very well, sir," he replied. "As for the money, I am already paid, though if there is more to come, the better I shall be pleased. But now that I know your state and condition, and have heard your story, rest assured that I will do all I can to help you. We touch at Lisbon first. There you can purchase proper clothing for yourself and those who are with you, and there also you can indite a letter to the Alderman, which will go to him by an English ship very speedily. You have told your tale, and I ask to know no more. I would not know any more, i' faith, even if thou wert to press the knowledge on me. Now do not answer me in what I am about to say, which, in brief, is this: We of the riverside have heard talk and rumours. We know very well who hath now and then been a patron of La Motte. It may be that you have come across and offered indignity to the person of whom I speak—I am no fool, Mr. Commendone, and gentlemen of your degree do not generally come aboard a vessel in the tideway at early dawn in company of a mistress of a house with a red door! If what I say is true—and I do not wish you to deny or to affirm upon the same—then you are as well in Cadiz as anywhere else. It is, indeed, a far cry from the Tower of London, and no one will know who you are in Spain."
Instinctively Johnnie held out his hand, and the big seaman clasped it in his brown and tarry fist.
"Yes," he said slowly, in answer, weighing his words as he did so, "doubtless we shall be safe in Spain for a time, until advices can reach us from England with money and reports of what has happened."
"I said so," Captain Clark answered, "and now you see it also. Mark you, any vengeance that might fall upon you could only be secret, because—if it is as I think, and, indeed, well believe—the person who has suffered indignity at your hands could not confess to it, for reason of his state, and where it was he suffered it. In Spain it would be different, but who's to know that you are in Spain—for a long time, at any rate?"
"And by that time," Johnnie replied, "I shall hope to have gone farther afield, and be out of the fire of any one to hurt me. But there is this, captain, which you must consider, sith you have opened your mind to me as I to you. Enquiry will be made; the wharfingers who brought us aboard may be discovered, and will speak. It will be known—at any rate it may be known—that you and your ship were the instruments of our escape. And how will you do then?"
"I like you for saying that," said the captain, "seeing that you are, as it were, in my power. But alarm yourself not at all, Master Commendone."
He rose from the coil of hemp where he had been sitting and spat out into the sea.
"By'r Lady," he cried, "and dost think that an honest British seafaring man fears anything that a rascally, yellow-faced, jelly-gutted lot of Spanish toads, that have fastened them on to our fair England, can do? Why! as thinking is now, in the City of London, my owner, Master Cressemer, and three or four others with him, could put such pressure upon Whitehall that ne'er a word would be said. It is them that hath the money, and the train bands at their back, that both pay the piper and call the tune in London City."
"I'm glad you take it that way, captain," Commendone said, "but I felt bound in duty to put your risk before you. Yet if it is as you say, and the power of the merchant princes of the City is so great, why do those about the Queen burn and throw in prison so many good men for their religion?"
"Ah, there you have me," said the captain. "Religion is a very different thing—a plague to religion, say I—though I would not say it unless I were walking my own deck and upon the high seas. But, look you, religion is very different. They can burn a man for his religion in England, but if he is in otherwise right, according to the powers that be, they cannot make religion a mere excuse for burning him. Now I myself am a good Catholic mariner"—he put his tongue in his cheek as he spoke—"when I am ashore I take very good care—these days—to be regular at Mass. And this ship hath been baptised by a priest withal! Make your mind at rest; they cannot touch me in England for taking of you away. There is too much at my back! And they cannot touch me in Spain because no one will know anything about it there. And now 'tis time for dinner. So come you down. There's a piece of pickled beef that hath been in the pot this long time, and good green herbs with it too—the want of which you will feel ere ever you make the Tagus."