When Roland and Gilbert entered the cabin, one Edward Webbe, a gunner, of London, was telling of his adventures in foreign lands. A man of some forty years was he, but he looked much older by reason of the privations and perils through which he had gone.
"Moreover," he was saying, "in the land of Egypt, near to the river of Nile, there are seven mountains builded on the outside like unto the point of a diamond, which mountains were builded in King Pharaoh's time for to keep corn in, and they are mountains of great strength. In that same river of Nile there be long fishes that are of twelve foot long, with marvellous great mouths and long tails, and hides hard as the sole of my boot. These fishes are so subtle that, swimming near the shore-side, they will pull men and women suddenly into the river and devour them."
"Why, they be sharks, surely," remarked one who sat near him.
"Nay," corrected Jacob Hartop from the dark corner where he was sitting mumbling a ship's biscuit. "I have seen such animals myself out in Virginia, where we called them alligators. But, prithee, continue with your recital, neighbour. Did ye not say that ye had been to the land of Prester John?"
"Yea," proceeded Edward Webbe; "and this Prester John of whom I spake before is a king of great power and keepeth a very bountiful court, after the manner of that country, and hath every day to serve him at his table sixty kings, wearing leaden crowns on their heads, and these serve in the meat to Prester John's table. And continually the first dish of meat set upon the table is a dead man's skull, clean picked and laid in black earth; putting him in mind that he is but earth, and that he must die and shall become earth again."
"Ay, a marvellous country truly," interrupted Hartop, "as I do know full well, who have been there. And I doubt not, Master Webbe, that, having travelled in those lands, you have also known somewhat of the Turks, eh?"
"Right well have I known them," returned Webbe with a rueful head-shake. "And because I was a Christian, and because the Turk had no cause to use me in my office of gunnership, I was imprisoned in Constantinople, where I found two thousand other prisoners and captives, Christians all of them, who were pinned up against stone walls, locked fast in iron chains, grievously pinched, with extreme penury. And I do avow that many times we wished for death rather than in such misery to live, and grieved at our hard hap that the wars had not ended us ere we came thither."
"Ay, right well I know such misery," said Jacob Hartop rising from his seat, and, thrusting forward his bared left arm he added: "Look you at this, neighbour!" He pointed with one finger at a depression in his wrist, which showed where the iron chains had been bound. As he stood forward he caught sight of Roland Grenville and Gilbert Oglander in the doorway, and he touched his gray forelock in salutation. At the same moment there came the shrill sound of a whistle from the main-deck.
"'Tis the muster-call," cried Roland Grenville. "Come, my lads, tumble up, one and all!" and he waited by the door as they all filed past him, and smiled as he regarded their strangely-assorted attire. Many were raggedly clothed; some looked as if they had but lately come from off the ploughed fields, others still wore their fishermen's jackets, that yet had clinging to them the shining scales of the herring; and others again were gaily set out in the bravery of new suits of doublet and hose and clean ruffs and long mariners' boots. Gilbert Oglander had gone out beyond the door to watch them take their respective places in ranks upon the upper-deck, but young Grenville remained behind until the last of them had passed out. He glanced into the cabin they had left to assure himself that none had remained, and in one of the far corners, which was in deep shadow, he observed a movement. He called out, believing for the moment that one of the men lay there dazed with over-much ale, but there was no answer, and the dark form that he had taken for a bundle of humanity was silent and still. He stepped towards it and prodded it with his foot. There was no response, and he saw only a heavy seaman's cloak and the corner of a biscuit bag.
"Tut!" said he to himself. "I could almost have sworn 'twas a man lying there. And yet I might have seen that 'twas too small." And he turned to the door with a light laugh and went out upon the open deck.