“Well,” said George, “have you arrived at any decision upon the matter?”
“Yes, señor, we have,” was the reply. “We have decided that, even were you willing to give us the galley, we could not keep the sea very long, because none of us understand the navigation of a ship, and our provisions would soon run short; moreover, galleys will only sail before the wind, and we have had enough of rowing to last us for the rest of our lives. On the other hand, we are all outlaws, and if we were to land on the mainland we should be hunted down and killed, sooner or later, or, worse still, taken and condemned to the galleys afresh. But outside the Gulf, some two hundred miles or more to the westward, there is a certain uninhabited island, at which this galley has often called for water. It is large enough to support four or five times our number, and although none of us are navigators we could easily find it by simply following the coast line. Its soil is rich, there are abundant fruit trees upon it, and plenty of water; we could easily support ourselves in comfort there, señor; and Pedro and I think that if you will graciously release us and give us the galley, we could do no better than go there and settle down upon it.”
The rest of the galley-slaves had been listening eagerly to what was being said, as George could easily see; the scheme commended itself to him as an excellent one in itself, moreover it pointed a way out of the double difficulty of how to get rid of the slaves and the galley; he therefore appealed to the listening crowd by saying to them:
“You have all heard your comrade’s plan. Are you willing to fall in with it?”
“Si, señor; si, si. Mille gracias,” replied the slaves, with such perfect unanimity that the young man no longer hesitated.
“So be it,” he said. Then, turning to one of the men who was with him, he directed him to release the Spaniard on the bench, and, having done that, to hand him the keys that he might release his comrades; after which he ordered the prisoners, wounded and unwounded, to be passed down into the boats, which done, the victors pulled away for the galleon. But they were scarcely alongside when the galley’s sweeps were thrust outboard and the craft was under way again, heading south, with one of the slaves proudly standing at the tiller and leading an enthusiastic cheer as the galley swept at speed close under the towering stern of the galleon.
George’s first act, upon returning to the galleon, was to direct Dyer to take the ship to the spot for which they had been aiming when they were intercepted by the galley, and anchor her there; then he descended to the sick bay, to find that under Chichester’s skilled hands his brother had not only been revived from his swoon, but also that his terrible wounds had been bathed, treated with a soothing and healing ointment, bound up, and the patient made as comfortable as was possible upon a swinging pallet which the surgeon had caused to be rigged up in order that Hubert might not be disturbed by the motion of the ship, and might lie face down for a few days until the smart had gone out of his wounds and they had begun to heal.
George was greatly affected at the sight of his brother lying there stretched out upon the pallet, with his head resting upon a pillow supported by his arms, and unable to move his body in the least without suffering excruciating agony. But, terrible as Hubert’s plight was, he still had spirit enough to make light of it when his brother, kneeling down by the side of the pallet, bent over him and tenderly kissed him on the brow. He smiled happily up into George’s face and, with an effort that must have been torment to him, freed his right hand and grasped that of his brother as he murmured:
“You only fired that broadside just in time to save me, old chap. Another half-minute, and that fiend of a boatswain would have killed me. I won’t ask you now how you happened to find me, that must wait until you have more time to talk and I more strength to listen; moreover, that splendid fellow Chichester has been telling me a bit of the story while he was dressing my wounds. But one thing you must tell me, Georgie. How is the dear mother?”
The fact that George had nothing but good news to communicate to his brother seemed to cheer the latter amazingly, and caused him to so far forget his fearful injuries that he went on asking question after question until Chichester felt constrained to intervene and imperatively insist that the young captain should go on deck and leave his brother to get a little urgently needed rest.