My Señorita, to whom I went for comfort soon after I got to the ships, seemed quite shocked to see me.
'Madre de Dios, Señor!' she cried, clasping her little hands in terror. 'How you are changed! Ah! and you are wounded. It is well you have come back to me to be made yourself again. Indeed I am glad you are come back.'
She held out her hands in such frank welcome that I felt half healed already, and sat down as she bade me on her own cushions.
'Indeed I am glad you are come back to us,' she said again.
'Then did not Master Hixom treat you well?' I asked.
'Ah, I hate him,' she said, knitting her dainty brows. 'He is a stock, a stone, a log! He kept us well, but I hate him.'
I never knew why she was so hot against him, but I could only smile to think she must have tried her coaxing on him as she had on me, but with less success. He was a flinty Puritan from Plymouth with a wife and children, who would not have unbent, I think, had Princess Helen herself put up her lips to him. She begged me to come and be her gaoler again, and I left her with such hope as it was not hard to give.
That evening as I sat with others in the general's bower, talking over what next was to be attempted, we were surprised by Sergeant Culverin saluting in the doorway.
'I come, Captain Drake, by your leave,' says he, holding himself very stiff, 'to report myself for punishment.'
'I shall give you none,' says Frank, but looked very stern at him, for he was ever slow to forget a fault. 'You have suffered enough already with your wound, and what of your fault is unpunished is wiped out by your valiant bearing before Venta Cruz.'