“‘Liberty and Old England!’ shout all our company.
“‘Then let us trundle these treacherous scoundrels overboard, cut our cable, and make sail,’ he exclaims in return.
“Scarce a minute passed and it was done; some were thrown into the hold, and the rest overboard, and a strong breeze coming off the land, the cable was cut, the sails filled, and away we glided out ahead of a dozen boats which came off in pursuit. We plied them well with our ordnance, till, like baffled hounds, they turned tail and went back to their kennel.
“Clear of the land, we turned to examine our prisoners. The five caged in the cabin had whole skins, the rest were wounded. Among them was the smooth-spoken corregidor, now woefully crestfallen. We dressed his and the other people’s hurts as well as we could, seeing that we had no leech aboard, and with a fair wind stood across the Bay of Biscay. The captain, whose kindness seemed to touch the feelings of the don, at last asked him what made him act so treacherous a part. On this out of his pocket he pulls a paper, which was just an order from King Philip to seize every ship of Holland, Zealand, Easterland, and England, in his ports, letting none escape, that he might increase his own fleet, by which he proposed to strike a blow to overwhelm Old England and all Protestant countries together.
“‘Ah! is that so, Senhor Don? Then our gracious sovereign lady shall know all about it, an’ my name be John Foster,’ exclaimed the captain; and you may be sure that, favoured by fine weather, we carried all sail night and day until we arrived safely in the Thames.
“The captain, taking me with him, hurried up to London with our prisoners, strongly guarded. We got audience of the queen and of the great Lord Burleigh; and the captain, albeit not much of a courtier, did his devoir right courteously to her majesty, who took the paper with her own gracious hand, and ordered a gentleman standing by to read it to her. When she heard its contents her whole countenance changed.
“‘We’ll be on the watch for you, cousin Philip,’ she exclaimed; but I heard no more, for her majesty turned to my Lord Burleigh and other noblemen and gentlemen to hold secret converse with them.
“But the captain was not the man to go away without fulfilling all his intentions. He took me by the hand, and, presenting me to the queen, told her that I had given him the first hint of the intentions of the Spaniards, and confirmed the opinion he had formed, and he hoped that her majesty would graciously keep me in mind.
“‘Ah, ah! the little varlet, we’ll not forget him,’ was her majesty’s reply; nor, by my troth, did she. There’s not an expedition of note, nor an adventure which has promised honour or wealth, since undertaken, in which I have not been engaged. I sailed with Admiral Sir Francis Drake to the West Indies in the Sea Dragon, commanded by honest Harry White. We did the Spaniards no small damage, burning their towns and sinking their ships without number, and came back with our pockets lined with doubloons, and six hundred thousand golden pounds, and brass cannon, and jewels, and ornaments of all sorts on board. I served aboard the Mary Rose, under the brave Captain Fenton, when the Spaniards’ Grand Armada entered the Channel; and, following them up, we at length broke through their line, led by the admiral himself. Then we engaged broadside to broadside a huge Spanish galleon, which we compelled to strike, and carried into port. But I weary you, good coz, with my adventures; I might go on talking till midnight, and yet not tell thee half the things I have done and seen. I may well say, that, since the time I made my first voyage in the Primrose, for not one single month at a time has my foot rested on terra firma.”
“Weary me, Tony!” exclaimed Raymond, who had been listening with the deepest attention, and an expression of wonder in his countenance, to every word his young companion had uttered. “Indeed you do not. If I did not know you to have been as a boy the soul of honour, and incapable of falsehood, I should only have been inclined to doubt that you had gone through all the adventures you describe.”