Of his fellow adventurers whom he left upon the poop, only Mortimer Ferne held his tongue from blame of his insupportable temper, or refrained from stories of the Star's exploits. The Cygnet was under way, the wind favorable, her white and swelling canvas like clouds against a bright-blue sky, the dolphins playing about her rushing prow, where a golden lady forever kept her eyes upon the deep. In the wind, timber and cordage creaked and sang, while from waist and main-deck came a cheerful sound of men at work repairing what damage the storm had wrought. Thynne the master gave orders in his rumbling bass, then the drum beat for morning service, and, after the godly fashion of the time, there poured from the forecastle, to worship the Lord, mariners and landsmen, gunners, harquebusiers, crossbow and pike men, cabin and powder boys, cook, chirurgeon, and carpenter--all the varied force of that floating castle destined to be dashed like a battering-ram against the power of Spain. The Captain of them all, with his gentlemen and officers about him, paused a moment before moving to his accustomed place, and looked upon his ship from stem to stern, from the thronged decks to the topmost pennant flaunting the sunshine. He found it good, and the salt of life was strong in his nostrils. Inwardly he prayed for the safety of the Mere Honour, and the Marigold, but that picture of the sinking Star he dismissed as far as might be from his mind. She had been but a small ship--notorious indeed for fights against great odds, for sheer bravado and hairbreadth escapes, but still a small ship, and not to be compared with the Cygnet. No life had been forfeited, and Captain Robert Baldry must even digest as best he might his private loss and discomfiture. If, as he walked to his place of honor, and as he stood with English gentlemen about him, with English sailors and soldiers ranged before him giving thanks for deliverance from danger, the Captain of the Cygnet held too high his head; if he at that moment looked upon his life with too conscious a pride, knew too well the difference between himself, steadfast helmsman of all his being, and that untutored nature which drove another from rock to shoal, from shoal to quicksand--yet that knowledge, detestable to all the gods, dragged at his soul but for a moment. He bent his head and prayed for the missing ships, and most heartily for John Nevil, his Admiral, whom he loved; then for Damaris Sedley that she be kept in health and joyousness of mind; and lastly, believing that he but plead for the success of an English expedition against Spain and Antichrist, he prayed for gold and power, a sovereign's gratitude and man's acclaim.
Three days later they came to Teneriffe, and to their great rejoicing found there the Mere Honour and the Marigold. The Admiral signalled a council; and Ferne, taking with him Giles Arden, Sedley, and the Captain of the sunken Star, went aboard the Mere Honour, where he was shortly joined by Baptist Manwood from the Marigold, with his lieutenants Wynch and Paget. In his state-cabin, when he had given his Captains welcome, the Admiral sat at table with his wine before him and heard how had fared the Cygnet and the Marigold, then listened to Baldry's curt recital of the Star's ill destinies. The story ended, he gave his meed of grave sympathy to the man whose whole estate had been that sunken ship. Baldry sat silent, fingering, as was his continual trick, the hilt of his great Andrew Ferrara. But when the Admiral, with his slow, deliberate courtesy, went on to propose that for this adventure Captain Baldry cast his lot with the Mere Honour, he listened, then gave unexpected check.
"I' faith, his berth upon the Cygnet liked him well enough, and though he thanked the Admiral, what reason for changing it? In fine, he should not budge, unless, indeed, Sir Mortimer Ferne--" He turned himself squarely so as to face the Captain of the Cygnet.
The latter, in the instant that passed before he made any answer to Baldry's challenging look, saw once again that vision of the other morning--the flare of dawn, and high against it one desperate figure, a man just balancing if to keep his life or no, seeing that for the thing he loved there was no rescue. Say that the doomed ship had been the Cygnet--would Mortimer Ferne have so cheapened grief, have grown so bitter, be so ready to eat his heart out with envy and despite? Perhaps not; and yet, who knew? The Cygnet was there, visible through the port windows, lifting against serenest skies her proud bulk, her castellated poop and forecastle, her tall masts and streaming pennants. The Star was down below, a hundred leagues from any lover, and the sea was deep upon her, and her guns were silent and her decks untrodden.... He was wearied of Baldry's company, impatient of his mad temper and peasant breeding, very sure that he chose, open-eyed, to torment himself from Teneriffe to America with the sight of a prospering foe merely that that foe might feel a nettle in his unwilling grasp. Yet, so challenged, when had passed that moment, he met Baldry's gloomy eyes, and again assured the adventurer that the presence of so brave a man and redoubted fighter could but do honor to the Cygnet.
His words were all that courtesy could desire: if tone and manner were of the coldest, yet Baldry, not being sensitive, and having gained his point, could afford to let that pass. He turned to the Admiral with a short laugh.
"You see, sir, we are yoke-brothers--Sir Mortimer Ferne and I,--though whether God or the devil hath joined us!... Well, the two of us may send some Spanish souls to hell!"
With his yoke-brother, Arden, and Sedley he returned to the Cygnet, and that evening at supper, having drunken much sack, began to loudly vaunt the deeds of the drowned Star, magnifying her into a being sentient and heroical, and darkly-wishing that the luck of the expedition be not gone with her to the bottom of the sea.
"Luck!" exclaimed Ferne at last, haughtily. "I hate the word. Your luck--my luck--the luck of this our enterprise! It is a craven word, overmuch upon the lips of Christian gentlemen."
"I was not born a gentleman," said Baldry, playing with his knife. "You know that, Sir Mortimer Ferne."
"I'll swear you've taken out no patent since," muttered Arden, whereat his neighbor laughed aloud, and Baldry, pushing back his stool, glared at each in turn.