'The time is past for child's play,' he cried, with glowing face, 'the time is past for nibbling at our enemy in the narrow seas, it is past for peaceable trade with them. If we are to live and dare worthily of our manhood, we must bite hard and deep in their vitals. Where is that, lad? Whence comes their life? Where but from the Indies? There lies the heart of Spain, the heart of Antichrist, open and unprotected, for a man who dares to try. I have seen and I know. They are no match for us. See what we did at San Juan de Ulloa. In spite of their numbers, in spite of their treachery, we saved two of our ships and they lost five of theirs, and all three times the Minion's size at least. I suffered there, but still I learnt a lesson which, by God's help, they shall rue the teaching of. But he who attempts this must not flinch or quail. Jack Hawkins is no man for it; but I can do it, lads, under God, I can; and if I do it, it shall be under no man's flag but my own.'
'Frank,' said I, 'I believe if there is a man in England can attempt this thing it is you. But be not hasty to throw away your life, which England needs. Think of those unknown seas for which you can get no pilot in England; think of the power of him you attack.'
'I know, lad, I know,' answered Drake, as calm and confident as ever. 'I have thought of it. I will have a pilot, and that pilot shall be myself. It may take a year or two, but at last I will know those seas as well as any Spaniard of them all. Then I will strike, and let them see how I can revenge myself. Revenge is the Lord's, and by His chosen people He does His work. To you, and such as you, He looks to help me in this, and I have come to ask if you will join me in working the revenge of God.'
CHAPTER X
Before we parted I had promised to help Frank, as far as my purse would go, to fit out a ship for the Indies, that he might make survey of the whole region, and find out when and how best to strike his blow, and haply pick up a prize or two to pay his fellow-adventurers a fair profit on their risk.
Harry helped him too, but to a very small extent, for his travels had made a large hole in his purse, and he never had the heart to squeeze his tenants so hard as others would have done in like case. Frank's kinsmen, the Hawkins, still took what they called his desertion at San Juan de Ulloa so unkindly that he could get nothing from them, and while the disaster was fresh in men's minds a good many pockets were shut to him that a year ago would have run like a river at the very name of a venture to the Indies.
Still, by the next year—it was, I remember, soon after the bull for the Queen's deposition had been found affixed to Lambeth Palace—he sailed. It was, I think, in a great measure the fury with which that wanton insult to the Queen filled the country that helped Frank more than anything to get the money he wanted for his enterprise.
During the whole of this time Harry was in London or elsewhere with the Court, and not more than once or twice for a few days at Ashtead. I do not know whether I felt more lonely when he was away and I was poring over my books at Mr. Cartwright's work, or when he came down on his hurried visits.
Each time I saw him his heart seemed farther away from me. Not that he was less kind than of old, but now his whole soul seemed wrapped up in the pageantries, the passages of arms, and, above all, the ladies of the Court. Of these he seemed never to tire of talking, though I wearied of listening.