"Why are you sinking?" questioned little Drusilla, to whom his movements seemed to imply that he had been seriously damaged in the late battle. "It cannot be that the shots I fired struck you below the water!"
"'Tis my heart that sinketh," returned Tim. "Prithee, who and what are the men I see lurking under yonder trees?"
Drusilla smiled.
"The one sitting down with his back to the railings," said she, "is the Santa Barbara galleon—a poor hopeless wreck. The other—well, I scarce know what he is at this moment, for he hath been so many things this morning that 'tis hard to remember. But I think he was the mule-train the last time—the mule-train that Drake captured near to Nombre de Dios. Gilbert was Captain Drake. Gilbert doth always like to be Captain Drake whenever 'tis possible, and will never consent to be a Spaniard, unless it be King Philip himself or else the great Marquis of Santa Cruz."
"Master Gilbert can scarce be blamed for his choice," remarked Tim. And, understanding from what the girl had said that there was no reason for the fear that had come over him, he meekly suffered himself to be taken into port in the character of a captive treasure-ship.
CHAPTER II.
THE YOUNG HEIR OF MODBURY.
"I CAN scarce agree with you there," remarked the young man whom Drusilla had described as a poor helpless wreck. He was a thin, sallow-faced, sad-looking individual, with lank black hair, hollow cheeks, and weary, lack-lustre eyes. His ruff was limp and frayed at the edge, and his long scraggy neck rose out of it like the stump of a mushroom that had difficulty in supporting the large head that surmounted it. His sombre black cloth doublet hung loose about his body, and its elbows were worn threadbare. One of his long bony fingers was thrust between the closed leaves of a little book that he held lovingly in his hand. His whole appearance suggested that his habit of life was that of a student, and his discourse certainly did not give the lie to his appearance.
"I can scarce agree with you, Sir Richard," said he in a thin, pipy voice. "Your Ovid is indeed a prince among poets, but in my own poor opinion Virgil is the greater of the two, inasmuch as the epic is greater than the lyric."