"Some of them--those you see now on our beam, and the transports coming up."
"And the others," I gasped again, overcome by this joyful news, "the others? What of them?"
"Oh! they will lie off till these go out with the fresh water casks. Then for England."
"Never," I said to myself. "Not yet, at least," and I turned my face away so that Tandy should not perceive the emotion which I felt sure must be depicted on it.
For think, only think, what this meant to England--to me!
It meant that I--the only man in the seas around Spain and Portugal who knew of where the galleons would be, or were by now--I who alone could tell them, tell this great fleet, which I had but lately missed, of the whereabouts of those galleons--had by God's providence come into communication with them again; meant that the instant we were in Lagos bay I could go aboard one of those great warships and divulge all--tell them to make for Vigo, tell them that it was in their power to deal so fierce a blow to Spain and France as should cripple them.
I could have danced and sung for very joy. I could have flung my arms around Tandy's sun-burned and hairy neck in ecstasy, have performed any act of craziness which men indulge in when a great happiness falls upon them; nay, would have done any deed of folly, but that I was restrained by the reflection of how all depended on me now, and of how--since I was the bearer of so great a piece of news from so great a man as the Earl of Marlborough--it behooved me to act with circumspection and decorum. Therefore I calmed myself, instead of indulging in any transports whatever. I recollect that I even forced myself to make some useless remark upon the beauty of the smiling morn; that I said also that I thought La Mouche Noire was making as good seaway as the great frigates themselves, then asked coldly and indifferently, with the same desire for disguise, when Tandy thought we might all be in the bay and at anchorage.
He glanced up at the sun--he had a big tortoise-shell watch in his pocket, but, sailor-like, never looked at it during the day, and when he had the sun for horologe--then leaned over the high gunwale of the ship and looked between his hands toward the north, and said:
"The old castle of Penhas is rising rapidly to view. 'Tis now eight of the clock. By midday we shall have dropped anchor."
"And the frigates?" I asked, with a nod toward the queen's great ships, which still were on our beam, in the same position to us as before.