The rope by which the Spaniards had attempted to tow her was still fixed. Under the haulage of twelve sturdy mariners she was slowly shifted; she floated; and in twenty minutes lay alongside the Spanish vessel.
Then, the men giving a parting cheer that echoed and re-echoed from the shore, the ship stood away under full sail with the pinnace riding merrily astern. And when morning broke the long coast-line of the mainland was already in sight.
CHAPTER XXV
The Mule Trains
"No Bobby Pike this time," whispered Turnpenny to Dennis, as they lay eating their supper amid the scrub a mile or more south of Nombre de Dios. "And with all my soul I hope the Frenchmen be sober men, for to fail of our purpose now through any frowardness would break Master Drake his noble heart and send me into a decline."
"Hush!" returned Dennis, in a voice equally low. "List to the church bells, Amos, and the clatter of the hammers. Does it not mind you of home—the church on the cliff, and the busy carpenters in the docks below? My soul yearns for home, Amos."
"Ay, and so do I. But I would fain return home with full hands—money enough to buy a little fishing craft, and a cottage by the sea. 'Tis five year and more since I sailed in the Jesus out of Plimworth Sound, and there was Margery Tutt a-waving her little handkercher to me, thinking, poor soul, to see me again within a twelvemonth. And I warrant the pretty maid counted the days and went to every wedden in church, to larn the fearsome promises word by word, so that she might not fail when we should come to stand afore holy pa'son. 'With all my worldly goods I thee endow': so it runs for the man to say, and here I be, five year after, with not so much worldly goods as I had then, saving some few pearls; and I warrant some knavish land-lubber has come along and snatched up my little Margery, and I'll find her a bowerly 'ooman that has clean forgot poor Haymoss Turnpenny. Ah me! I be sick of adventures, be jowned if I bean't."
"Be of good cheer, Amos. If Fortune stand our friend, we shall have more gold and silver than we can bear away before this night be ended; and then Master Drake will sail away home, and who knows?—Margery may be looking for you even yet. 'Twas seven years that Jacob served for Rachel."
"Ay, but always within arm's length. I warrant he kept an eye on the wench. There was never a thousand leagues of sea betwixt him and the maid. Od-rat-en, if I find Margery have changed her name with any lubberly chaw-bacon, dang me if I don't deal en a clout he'll remember, good-now, I will."