"No, never! I can face the chance of death, but not the loss of my husband. Go! For God's sake leave me!"
Frank turned, and Amyas dragged him down the hill. Both were too proud to run, but the whole gang of negroes were in pursuit, and stones were flying.
They were not twenty-five yards from the boat, when the storm burst and a volley of great quartz pebbles whistled round their heads. Frank is struck, and Amyas takes him over his shoulders and plunges wildly on towards the beach.
"Men, to the rescue!" Amyas shouts. "Fire, men! Give it the black villains!"
The arquebuses crackled from the boat in front, but, balls are answering from behind. The governor's guard have turned out, followed them to the beach, and are firing over the negroes' heads.
Amyas is up to his knees in water, battered with stones, blinded with blood; but Frank is still in his arms. Another heavy blow--confused mass of negroes and English, foam and pebbles--a confused roar of shouts, shots, curses, and he recollects no more.
He is lying in the stern-sheets of the boat, stiff and weak. Two men only are left of the six, and Frank is not in the boat. With weary work they made the ship, and as, the alarm being now given, it was hardly safe to remain where they were, it was agreed to weigh anchor. Amyas had no hope that Frank might still be alive. So ended that fatal venture of mistaken chivalry.
IV.--Amyas Comes Home for the Third Time
More than three years have passed since the Rose sailed out from Bideford, and never a word has reached England of what has befallen the ship and her company.
Many have been the adventures of Amyas and the men who have followed him. Treasure they have got in South America, and old Salvation Yeo has found a young girl whom he had lost twelve years before, grown up wild among the Indians. Ayacanora she is called, and she is white, for her father was an Englishman and her mother Spanish, for all her savage ways; and will not be separated from her discoverers, but insists on going with them to England. And Amyas has learnt that his brother Frank was burnt by order of the Inquisition, and with him Rose, and that Don Guzman had resigned the governorship of La Guayra.