“There is one place we have not yet tried,” said Pharaoh, “and that is the powder magazine. Maybe he has retreated there.”
We fetched a Spaniard from the upper deck and obliged him to conduct us to the magazine, and there, sure enough, was Frey Bartolomeo, calm and impassive as ever. He had stove in the head of one barrel of gunpowder, and now stood over the powder holding a lighted candle in his hand. As we burst in the door and confronted him, he raised his pale face and regarded us with calmness and scorn.
“Lay but a finger on me, ye Lutheran dogs,” he said, “and I will drop this light into the powder and send your souls to perdition!”
The men with us started back, dismayed and affrighted by his grim looks and determined words. But Pharaoh Nanjulian laughed.
“Your own soul will go with ours, friar,” said he.
Frey Bartolomeo shot a fierce glance at him from under his cowl.
“Fool!” he said. “Thinkest thou that I value life? What hinders me from destroying every one of you and myself as well?”
“This!” said Pharaoh, suddenly knocking the candle out of his hand. It flew across the powder, and striking a bulkhead opposite, went out harmlessly. So we seized Frey Bartolomeo, who now bitterly reproached himself for not having blown up the ship before we reached him, and conducted him to the upper deck, from whence he and Captain Nunez were presently conveyed to the Golden Hinde, where they were safely stowed in irons.
And now, the fight being over, Drake and his men made haste to see what treasure the galleon contained. In this quest, however, those of us who had been rescued from the oars took no part, for now that the excitement was dying away our feverish strength went with it, so that we presently began to exhibit signs of terrible distress and exhaustion, and many of us swooned away. Here, however, our rescuers came to our further relief, and the ship’s doctor was soon busily engaged in seeing to us, dressing our wounds, giving us oils and unguents for our bloody stripes, and ordering wine and food for all of us. So we were much refreshed; but none of these things, comforting as they were, seemed so good to us as the words of kindness, which we heard with wonder and astonishment, our ears having become accustomed to naught but threatenings and revilings.