And so indeed he had; for when Frank equipped his fleet for that renowned voyage in which he encompassed the world, he made this trusty carpenter captain of the Canter or Christopher, as it was afterwards named.
CHAPTER XX
By the light of the flaming ship we had set sail. It was a moving sight to see this precious link with home a mass of shooting flame below a pall of lurid fire-flecked smoke. A sea of molten gold was her death-bed, and, as we sailed slowly onward before the gentle night wind, the fiery reflection stretched out after us till it faded to fitful gleams on the crests of the waves, as though they bore us farewell kisses from our lost ship.
'A true swan is she to the end,' said Harry softly, as though moved by the scene. 'Beautiful she was in life, yet nothing in it was so beautiful as her departing from it.'
We watched her burn down lower and lower, till she was nothing but a glowing ember on the dark plain of the sea, and then in a moment she was gone for ever. It was like losing an old friend, and there was not one for the next few days who did not feel oppressed with evil foreboding at the loss of that staunch craft that had brought such luck to our captain.
We could not even lighten our hearts with the music, for Frank was very earnest to depart as secretly as we could, that the Spaniards might suppose us entirely gone from that coast by reason of the loss of our ship.
Thus, attempting nothing that might betray us, we found on the fifth day a most fair haven in the Sound of Darien, where we could anchor the Pasha out of all ken of the Spaniards, and refresh ourselves till such time as the storm we had raised all along the coast should be blown over.
It was a place as fair as Port Pheasant, where a man might have been content to dwell all his days. A pretty town we built there, as Diego showed us how, of boughs and brakes and flowers, in a space which we cleared in the dense forest. Here our smith set up his forge, our fletcher his shop for the ordering of our bows and arrows, our butcher his block, and our shoemakers their lasts. Butts were erected for bow practice, a lawn made for our bowls, and ground prepared for quoits, leaping, wrestling, and all other sports that our captain could devise for making us forget our losses and breed a hopeful spirit for future attempts.
Half of us worked while the others played, day and day about; but for me it was all play. For my work, having skill for it, was to hunt the livelong day up in the forest-clad hills for the hogs, conies, deer, and birds that lived half tame in their solitudes; or, rocked on those azure seas, to lure the strange fish that swarmed about the gilded rocks, with great pelicans and scarlet cranes for comrades at the sport.