As I was about to place him with his back against a mast so as to ease him, he made a snatch at the dagger which was in my belt; his fingers closed over it, but even as he grasped it his lips parted and his spirit fled.
“God rest thee, thou gallant mariner of Spain!” said Grace O’Malley, when she saw that the captain of the galleon was dead.
“Amen,” cried I, for the firmness of the man had seemed to me a very noble thing.
CHAPTER IX.
A CHEST OF GOLD.
The day had worn on to noon but without its brightness, for the sky had again become full of heavy clouds driven up from the west; the wind moaned and raved over land and sea, and the waves beat drearily upon the shore. The thunder rolled and the lightning flashed, while the pelting rain came down in huge drops that sounded on our decks like hail or the cracking of whips.
The ensanguined waters flowed in floods from the planking and the sides of the captured galleon, which lay like some great wounded monster of the deep, sweating blood. Closer into the land we steered, and so saved ourselves from the worst of the gale.
For the present all thoughts of searching for the other vessels of the fleet had to be given up, and fain was I to rest, for my wounds, though slight, were sore, and the dull aching of my shoulder was hard to bear. Seeing my state, Grace O’Malley bade me go to her own galley, where Eva would attend to my wounds with her gentle fingers, and then, perhaps, sing me to sleep with one of the songs of her people.
This command went so well with every beating of my heart that my pains were all but forgotten, and when I reached The Grey Wolf, Eva met me, and waited upon me, and made so much of the “Mountain of a Man,” as she often called me, that the only pangs I felt were those caused by my love for her—so much so that the tale of it was trembling on my lips, though I could not for the life of me put it into words, but dumbly looked, and longing—looked again and again at her.