"It were equally easy to cut the boat's painter and make for the shore," said Tim.
"But there be no oars aboard," returned Gilbert.
"Wherefore need we concern ourselves about oars?" asked Timothy. "I will adventure it however it be." And he felt for his knife. A look of sudden despair came into his face. "Alas!" he added, "I had forgotten that the Dons had deprived us of our weapons!"
He stepped to the boat's bow, and was about to try to untie the knot of her painter when a voice greeted him from above, and a Spaniard with very furious curled moustachios appeared in the opening of the gangway. To escape now with the boat was impossible, and the two boys yielded themselves up as prisoners, explaining as best they could the accident that had brought them there.
The Spaniards appeared to regard the matter with indolent indifference, saying that the lads should be sent back on board the flag-ship on the morrow. In the meantime Gilbert and Timothy were permitted to sit in the warm sunlight to dry their clothes on the upper deck, and no more notice was taken of them until late in the evening, when one of the galleon's boys gave them each an onion. They slept under the lee of one of the big guns, and in the morning the same ship's-boy brought them a tin dish of bean soup, indicating by signs that they were to share it between them.
On the afternoon of that same day some officers from one of the other galleons came on board, and with them was one Maurice Fitz John, of Desmond, a forlorn-looking Irish traitor who, because he could speak English, had been sent to speak with the English prisoners in each ship and to persuade them to serve the King of Spain. He had not expected to find any on board this particular galleon—the Santa Maria, as she was named,—but discovering Gilbert and Timothy, he accosted them, believing them to be very humble seamen. He besought them to take arms in King Philip's legion, using very subtle arguments. They would have three times the amount of pay that they could get on an English ship, he said, and he promised them such advancement as he thought would tempt any young men who were, as these were, ship-broken and half-starved and ill-clothed, and if they would be good Catholics the safety of their souls should be assured.
Timothy Trollope noticed that the man was himself but ill-apparelled, and reflected that such beggarly appearance was in itself a sufficient answer to the argument of rich pay. As for the notion of changing their religion, it was as repulsive to both Tim and Gilbert as that of deserting their Queen.
"Well, well," said the Irishman, when, having used up all his eloquence in his pleadings, he turned to go, "an ye will not see the advantage of what is offered ye, 'tis no concern of mine. 'Tis yourselves that will suffer for your obstinacy. But I doubt not that a few years of work at the oars of His Majesty's galleys will bring ye to better reason." And with that he departed.
For many days thereafter Gilbert and Timothy led a very weary, uncomfortable life. In return for their food and such shelter as was given to them, they were made to do much dirty and distasteful work. They were never permitted to go on shore, yet they were free from the restraint of chains—a dispensation for which they were thankful. Gradually their wounds healed, and they regained strength with such speed, that when at last the full number of the treasure-ships had arrived and the fleet was ready to sail for Spain, they were almost as well in health as they had been on the day before the battle.