"This man was my friend," he said with a break in his voice such as they had not heard save at the suffering of a child. "I would not take his life,—but if he be worthy of death, I pray you hold up your hands."
There was a breathless instant when none stirred; then every hand was raised.
On the next day but one they all sat down to a last feast on that bleak and lonely shore; the two comrades drank to each other for the last time, shared the sacrament, and embracing, said their farewells. Doughty proved that if he could not live a true man he could die like a gentleman; the headsman did his work, and Drake pronounced the solemn sentence, "Lo! this is the death of traitors!"
In that black hour the boyish laughter went forever from the eyes of the Admiral, and the careless mirth from his voice. When after a while young Jack Drake, unable to bear the silence that fell between them, began some phrase of blundering boyish affection, the sentence trailed off into a stammer.
"He's dead and at peace, Jack," the master said, the words dropping wearily, like spent bullets. "He couldn't help being as he was,—I reckon. If I'd known he was like that I could ha' stopped him, but I never knew—till too late."
Discord among the crews continued, until Drake, rousing from his fitful melancholy, called them all together on a Sunday, and mounted to the place of the chaplain.
"I am going to preach to-day," he said shortly. Then he unfolded a paper and began to read it aloud.
"My masters, I am a very bad orator, for my bringing up hath not been in learning; but what I shall speak here let every man take good notice of and let him write it down. For I will speak nothing but what I will answer it in England, yea, and before Her Majesty." He reminded them of the great adventure before them and went on.
"Now by the life of God this mutiny and dissension must cease. Here is such controversy between the gentlemen and the sailors that it doth make me mad to hear it. I must have the gentleman to haul with the mariner and the mariner with the gentleman. I would know him that would refuse to set his hand to a rope—but I know there is not any such here.
"Any who desire to go home may go in the Marygold, but let them take care that they do go home, for if I find them in my way I will sink them."