“That is Florida,” said Paradise at my elbow, “and there are reefs and shoals enough between us. It was Kirby's luck that the fog lifted. Yonder tall ship hath a less fortunate star.”
She lay between us and the white beach, evidently in shoal and dangerous waters. She too had encountered a hurricane, and had not come forth victorious. Foremast and forecastle were gone, and her bowsprit was broken. She lay heavily, her ports but a few inches above the water. Though we did not know it then, most of her ordnance had been flung overboard to lighten her. Crippled as she was, with what sail she could set, she was beating back to open sea from that dangerous offing.
“Where she went we can follow!” sang out a voice from the throng in our waist. “A d—d easy prize! And we'll give no quarter this time!” There was a grimness in the applause of his fellows that boded little good to some on either ship.
“Lord help all poor souls this day!” ejaculated the minister in undertones; then aloud and more hopefully, “She hath not the look of a don; maybe she's buccaneer.”
“She is an English merchantman,” said Paradise. “Look at her colors. A Company ship, probably, bound for Virginia, with a cargo of servants, gentlemen out at elbows, felons, children for apprentices, traders, French vignerons, glasswork Italians, returning Councilors and heads of hundreds, with their wives and daughters, men servants and maid servants. I made the Virginia voyage once myself, captain.”
I did not answer. I too saw the two crosses, and I did not doubt that the arms upon the flag beneath were those of the Company. The vessel, which was of about two hundred tons, had mightily the look of the George, a ship with which we at Jamestown were all familiar. Sparrow spoke for me.
“An English ship!” he cried out of the simplicity of his heart. “Then she's safe enough for us! Perhaps we might speak her and show her that we are English, too! Perhaps”—He looked at me eagerly.
“Perhaps you might be let to go off to her in one of the boats,” finished Paradise dryly. “I think not, Master Sparrow.”
“It's other guess messengers that they'll send,” muttered Diccon. “They're uncovering the guns, sir.”
Every man of those villains, save one, was of English birth; every man knew that the disabled ship was an English merchantman filled with peaceful folk, but the knowledge changed their plans no whit. There was a great hubbub; cries and oaths and brutal laughter, the noise of the gunners with their guns, the clang of cutlass and pike as they were dealt out, but not a voice raised against the murder that was to be done. I looked from the doomed ship, upon which there was now frantic haste and confusion, to the excited throng below me, and knew that I had as well cry for mercy to winter wolves.