For God and Gold

by Julian Stafford Corbett

'No,' he had said; 'stay here for a little while to conduct my company by land if I return not. Yet, if it please God that I shall once put foot in safety aboard my frigate, I will, God willing, get you all aboard, in despite of all the Spaniards in the Indies.'

With this courageous speech he left the whole company in good heart, because they knew of a surety, since he had so passed his word, that if they were lost it would not be for want of the last effort of the man who best in all the world knew how to save them.

Our voyage was evil enough to have damped any spirits less lifted with joy than mine, or less constant than Frank's. The whole time we were up to our waists in water as we sat, and as soon as we reached the open sea we found the swell so big that each wave surged up to our necks, and we had much ado to hold on. Moreover the sun so burned down upon us, all unprotected as we were, that what with the salt water and the scorching, we soon had little skin left that was not all blisters.

Yet a very smart breeze was blowing from the westwards, so that we made good progress towards the Cabeças, and so kept up our spirits. It was as the sun was getting low that Frank suddenly cried to me, 'Look! look! Jasper, ahead there off the point!'

I looked where he pointed and saw two large pinnaces struggling to weather the headland with oars against the freshening breeze.

'What shall we do?' said I. 'We must drive. We cannot stop. How shall we avoid them?'

'Avoid them!' said Frank, with a merry laugh. 'Why, lad, they are our own, and if we can but make them see, we are saved.'

'Yet perhaps they are prizes to Spaniards,' suggested one of the Frenchmen, 'and are manned by Spaniards.'

'No, monsieur, no,' said Frank; 'you never saw Spaniards row like that. See how they labour, and yet I think they make no head. Pray God they be not cast away on the point!'

Indeed as we drew nearer there seemed no small danger of this. The wind was shifting more and more on to the land as it freshened, and we could see they made a lot of leeway.