"If fortune then fail not, and our next voyage prove,
We will return merrily and make good cheer,
And hold all together as friends linked in love,
The cans shall be filled with wine, ale, and beer,
Lustily, oh lustily."
"'Tis not worth a crim," growled Jan Biddle, when the song was ended. "'Wine, ale, and beer'—where is it? I'd give a week o' life for a gallon o' home-brewed."
"Ay, and what then!" said Gabriel Batten. "Sing the song of ale, Hugh."
"Back and side go bare, go bare,
Both foot and hand go cold——"
"Nay, not that one; 'tis over long, and 'll make us too drouthy. Seeing we have no ale, 't'ud be cruel to sing the praises of it so feelingly. Nay, sing the ditty that serves for warning; 'twill better fit our case."
Hugh Curder began:
"Ale makes many a man to make his head have knocks;
And ale makes many a man to sit in the stocks;
And ale makes many a man to hang upon the gallows—"
"Oh, shut his mouth!" cried Biddle testily. "We'll all be glumping if we list to such trash. Hallo for the wind to change, for with this nor'-easter blowing we'll never get clear of the coast."
The vessel was indeed making slow progress, beating out against the strong wind. Dennis, though elected Captain, had little to do with the actual handling of the ship: in those days the captain was not always a navigator. But the Mirandola was in good hands. Both Whiddon and Batten were practised seamen, and in seamanship, as distinguished from navigation, Turnpenny was incomparable. They had found in the cabin a chart of the coast and the neighbouring sea, by means of which they avoided the shoals and made without mishap towards the mouth of the gulf. Dennis and Turnpenny examined the chart carefully to see if they could distinguish the island they had named Maiden Isle. Several small islands were marked on it as mere dots without names, and they could not for a long time decide which of them was Maiden Isle; but Turnpenny at last fixed on one of them, and his conjecture was proved to be correct in the evening. Whiddon had set the course by Turnpenny's suggestion, and just before dark the vessel skirted the south-eastern corner of the island where he and Dennis had met so strangely.
Looking at the chart, Dennis wondered how the Maid Marian had escaped wrecking a dozen times during the hurricane that finally cast her up on the western shore. There was marked a good open channel for vessels of any draught south and south-east of the island, but, as he had guessed, the sea to the north and west was practically unnavigable except by small craft. The Mirandola gave the island a wide berth in passing; the wind was freshening, and there were signs of heavy weather. Dennis felt a little regret at leaving the island unvisited, and abandoning the relics of his friends which he had saved from the wreck; but, like every member of his party, he was eager to lose sight of this hostile coast, and to gain the wide ocean where, given good luck, they would be secure from Spanish molestation and have nothing to fear but the ordinary chances of a long voyage.