III

The second day was very bright, with a hot sun beating down upon the sea, and a stiff breeze blowing to fill the sails. Don Manuel remained below on his bunk, worn and shaken by the agitations and exertions of the previous day. He made a poor breakfast of sops dipped in wine, and sent his daughter from him. He shook with fever, and complained of the headache. Hovering assiduously about him was his own man, Bartolomeo, but he had also Joshua Dimmock to attend to his wants. This was done mighty expertly. Joshua discoursed learnedly on several fevers, and, not sharing Don Manuel’s views on the Chaldean creed, prescribed the wearing of some chips from a gallows as a certain cure. These he produced from somewhere about his person, and expatiated fervently upon their magical properties. Don Manuel waved them testily aside, but consented to drink a strong cordial, which, he was assured, came straight from the stillroom of my Lady Beauvallet herself, a dame well-versed in these mysteries.

“A sure potion, señor, as I have proved,” Joshua told him, “containing julep and angelica, a handful of juniper-berries, and betony, as also mithridate (so I believe), not to mention wormwood, which the world knows to be very potent against all manner of fevers. The whole, noble señor, steeped in a spirit of wine by my lady’s own hands, and sealed up tightly, as you perceive. Deign only to test of its values!”

Don Manuel drank off the cordial, and was assured of a speedy recovery. But Joshua shook his head secretly over the case, and told Sir Nicholas, in his private ear, that he carried a dying man aboard the Venture.

“I know it,” Beauvallet said briefly. “If I read well the signs the cameras de sangre is in him.”

“I observed it, sir. At a glance, you would say. His man⁠—a lank, melancholic fool if ever I saw one!⁠—stands prating of quotidian fevers, but no, quoth I, say rather the cameras de sangre, dolt. I shall poke out the folds of the ruff, please you, sir.” He performed this office for Sir Nicholas, and stood back to regard his handiwork. The poking-stick was levelled at Sir Nicholas next by way of emphasis. “Moreover, master, and mark you well! it is not to be considered a favourable omen. By no means! A death portends disaster. I do not speak of such willy-nilly deaths as might chance in battle. That is understood. A lingering sickness is another and quite different matter. We must set the worthy señor ashore with all speed.”

“How now! What’s this, rogue?” demanded Beauvallet, lying back in his chair. “Set him ashore where and for what?”

“I judge the Canaries to be a convenient spot, sir. The reason is made clear: he must die upon land⁠—or at least upon another ship than ours. We need not concern ourselves with that.” He ducked quickly to avoid a boot hurled at his head.

“Cullion!” Beauvallet apostrophised him. “Curb that prattling cheat of yours! We set the gentleman ashore in Spain. Mark that!”

Joshua picked up the boot, and knelt to help Sir Nicholas put it on, no whit abashed. “I shall take leave to say, master, that this is to put our heads in a noose again.”

“Be sure yours will end there one day,” said Sir Nicholas cheerfully.

“As to that, sir, I do not go roystering up and down the world, sacking and plundering,” replied Joshua, entirely without venom. “A gentle thrust, sir, and we have the boot on. So!” He smoothed a wrinkle from the soft Cordovan leather, and held ready the second boot. “You are to understand, sir, that it is no matter to me, for it was clearly proved in the reading of my horoscope that I should die snug in my bed. It would be well to have your horoscope cast, master, that we may know what to beware of.”

“Beware your bed, dizzard, and get you hence!” Beauvallet recommended. “You tempt me overmuch.” He made a short, suggestive movement of his arched foot.

“That, master,” said Joshua philosophically, “is as may be, and at your worship’s pleasure. I do not gainsay you have the right. But I shall take leave to say withal that this junketting upon the high seas with a wench aboard⁠—nay two⁠—”

“What?” Beauvallet roared, and jerked himself upright in his chair.

Joshua’s shrewd grey eyes widened. “Oho! Pardon, sir, a lady was the word. But it’s all the same, by your good leave, or rather worse, if the wind sits in that quarter with you. However, I say nothing. But it’s against all custom and proper usage, and I misdoubt me an evil chance may befall.”

Beauvallet fell to stroking his pointed beard, seeing him at which significant trick Joshua backed strategically to the door. “An evil chance will without any doubt at all shortly befall you, my friend,” said Sir Nicholas, and came to his feet, “At the toe of my boot!”

“If that is your humour, sir, I withdraw with all speed,” said Joshua promptly, and retired nimbly.

Beauvallet swung out in his wake, and went up on deck to oversee an inventory of the Santa Maria’s cargo in the waist.

Thus Doña Dominica, when she came up on deck to take the air, chanced upon a sight that made her curl her lip, and lift her chin. She wandered to the quarterdeck and stood looking down into the waist, where bales of cloth were lying, and where ingots were being weighed upon a rough scale. Master Dangerfield had a sheet of paper and an inkhorn upon an upturned cask, and wrote carefully thereon while a stout, hairy fellow called weights and numbers. Near him, upon another cask, lounged Beauvallet, with a hand on his hip, and a booted leg swinging. His attention was held by what was going forward about him; he did not observe my lady upon the deck above.

You are to know that this seeming piracy was a sort of licensed affair, a guerilla warfare waged upon King Philip II of Spain, who certainly provoked it. Englishmen had a lively hatred of Spain, induced by a variety of causes. There was, many years ago, the affair of Sir John Hawkins at San Juan de Ulloa, an instance of Spanish treachery that would not soon be forgot; there was grim persecution at work in the Low Countries which must make any honest man’s blood boil; and a Holy Inquisition in Spain that had swallowed up in hideous manner many stout sailormen captured on English vessels. If you wished to seek farther you had only to observe the way Spain used towards the natives of the Indies. It should suffice you. On top of all there was the abundant pride of Spain, who chose to think herself mistress of the Old World and the New. It remained for Elizabeth, Queen of England by God’s Grace, to abate this overweening conceit. In this she was ably assisted by such men as Drake, bluff, roaring man, and Beauvallet, his friend; Frobisher and Gilbert; Davis and the Hawkins, father, sons, and grandson. They put forth into Spanish waters without misgiving, and harried King Philip mightily. They laboured under a belief⁠—and you could not rid them of it⁠—that one Englishman was worth a round dozen of Spaniards. Events proved them to be justified in their belief.

Nicholas Beauvallet, a younger son, spent the restlessness of his youth in wanderings upon the Continent, as befitted his station. He left his England a boy overflowing with such a spirit of daredevilry that his father and his elder brother prophesied it would lead him to disaster. He came back to it a man seasoned and tried, but it was not to be seen that the daredevilry had departed from him. His brother, succeeding to their father’s room, shook a grave head, and called him Italianate, a ruffler, a veritable swashbuckler, and wondered that he would not be still. Nicholas refused to fulfil his family’s expectations. He must be off on his adventures again. He went to sea; he made some little noise about the New World, and in due course accompanied Drake on his voyage round the world. With that master mariner he passed the Straits of Magellan, saw the sack of Valparaiso, reached the far Pelew Islands, and Mindanao, and came home round the perilous Cape of Storms, bronzed of face, and hard of muscle, and rich beyond the dreams of man.

This was well enough, no doubt, but Gerard Beauvallet, a sober man, judged it time to be done with such traffickings. Nicholas had won an honourable knighthood; let him settle down now, choose a suitable bride, and provide the heirs that came not to my Lady Beauvallet. Instead of this, incorrigible Nicholas had sailed away, after the briefest of intervals, this time in a ship of his own. So far from conducting himself like a respectable landowner, such as his brother wished him to be, he seemed to be concerned only to make a strong noise about the world. This he did with complete success. There was only one Drake, but also there was only one Beauvallet. The Spaniards coupled the two names together, but made of Beauvallet a kind of devil. Drake performed the impossible in the only possible way; the Spaniards said that El Beauvallet performed it in an impossible way, and feared him accordingly. As for his own men, they held him in some affection, and believed firmly in his luck and in his genius. They thought him clearly mad, but his madness was profitable, and they had long ceased to wonder at anything he might take it into his head to do. They might be trusted to follow where he led, knowing by experience that he would not lead them to disaster. His master, Patrick Howe, of bearded mien, would wag a solemn finger. “Look you, we win because our Nick cannot fail. He is bird-eyed for opportunity, and blind to danger, and he laughs his way out of every peril we come to. Mad? Ay, you may say so.”

The truth was that Sir Nicholas would swoop lightning-swift into some harebrained emprise and be off again victorious while you stood agape at his hardihood.

Thus with his sweeping off of Doña Dominica, before she had time to fetch her breath. And all with no more than a careless snap of the fingers, as it were. Oh, a hardy fellow, God wot!

Dominica thought of all this as she stood looking down at him now, and since Beauvallet paid no heed to her, nor ever looked up towards the deck where she stood she presently gave vent to a scornful little laugh, and remarked to the chasing clouds:⁠—“A merchant, counting stolen goods!”

Beauvallet looked quickly up. The sun was on his uncovered head, and in his blue eyes; he put up a hand to shade them. “My Lady Disdain! Give you a thousand good-morrows!”

“The morrow will not be good while I am upon such a ship as this,” she said provocatively.

“Now what’s amiss?” demanded Sir Nicholas, and sprang down from the cask. “What ails the ship?”

He was halfway up the companion, which was maybe what she wanted, but she would not have him know that. “Pray you, stay below amongst your gains, señor.”

He was beside her on the deck now, swung a leg over the rail, and sat there like some careless boy. “What’s amiss?” he repeated. “More dust in the alleyway?”

She gave the smallest of sniffs. “There is this amiss, señor, that this is a pirate vessel, and you are mine enemy!”

“That in your teeth, my lass!” he said gaily. “I am no enemy of yours.”

She tried to look witheringly upon him, but it seemed to have no effect. “You are the declared enemy of all Spaniards, señor, and well I know it.”

“But I have it in mind, sweetheart, to make an Englishwoman of you,” said Beauvallet frankly.

She was fairly taken aback. She gasped, flushed, and clenched her little hands.

“Now where’s that dagger?” said Beauvallet, watching her in some amusement.

She flounced round on her heel, and swept away to the poop. She was outraged and speechless, but she could still wonder whether he would follow. She need have been in no doubt. He let her gain the poop, out of sight of his men, and came up with her there. He set his hands on her shoulders, and twisted her round to face him. The teasing light went out of his eyes, and his voice was softened. “Lady, you called me a mocker, but for once I do not jest. Hear my solemn promise! I will make you an Englishwoman before a year is gone by. And so seal my bond.” He bent his handsome head quickly, and kissed her lips before she could stop him.

She cried out indignantly, and her hands flew to avenge the insult. But he had her measure, and was ready for the swift reprisal. She found her hands caught and imprisoned, and his face close above hers, smiling down into her angry eyes. “Will you rate me for a knave, or pity me for a poor mad fellow?” said Sir Nicholas, teasing again.

“I hate you!” she said, and spoke with some passion “I despise you, and I hate you!”

He let her go. “Hate me? But why?”

She brushed her hand across her lips, as though she would brush his kiss away. “How dared you⁠—!” she choked. “Hold me⁠—kiss me! Oh, base! It’s to insult me!” She fled towards the companion leading down to the staterooms.

He was before her, barring the way. “Hold, child! Here’s some tangle. I would wed you. Did I not say it?”

She stamped, tried to push past him, and failed. “You will never wed me!” she defied him. “You are ungenerous, base! You hold me prisoner, and do as you will with me!”

He had her fast indeed, with his hands gripping her arms above the elbows. He shook her slightly. “Nay nay, there’s no talk of prisoners or of gaolers, Dominica, but only of a man and a maid. What harm have I done you?”

“You forced me! You dared to kiss me, and held me powerless!”

“I cry pardon. But you may stab me with mine own dagger, sweeting. See, it is ready to your hand. A swift, sure revenge! No? What will you have me do, then?” His hands slid down her arms to her wrists; he bent, and kissed her fingers. “There! let it be forgot⁠—until I kiss you again.” That was said with a quick whimsical glance, daringly irrepressible.

“That will be never, señor.”

“And so she flings down her gauntlet. I pick it up, my lady, and will give you a Spanish proverb for answer:⁠—Vivir para ver!”

“You will scarcely wed me by force,” she retorted. “Even you!”

He considered the point. “True, child, that were too easy a course.”

“I warrant you would not find it so!”

“Marry, is it yet another challenge?” he inquired.

She drew back a pace. “You would not!”

“Nay, have I not said I will not? Be at ease, ye shall have a royal wooing.”

“And where will you woo me?” she asked scornfully. “My home is in the very heart of Spain, I’d have you know.”

“Be sure I shall follow you there,” he promised, and laughed to see her face of incredulous wonder.

“Braggart! Oh, idle boaster! How should you dare?”

“Look for me in Spain before a year is out,” he answered. “My hand upon it.”

“There is a Holy Inquisition in Spain, señor,” she reminded him.

“There is, señora,” he said rather grimly, and produced from out his doublet a book bound in leather. “And it is like to have you in its clutches if you keep such dangerous stuff as this about you, my lass,” he said.

She turned pale, and clasped her hands nervously at her bosom. “Where found you that?” The breath caught in her throat.

“In your cabin aboard the Santa Maria, child. If that is the mind you are in the sooner I have you safe out of Spain the better for you.” He gave the book into her hands. “Hide it close, or sail with me to England.”

“Do not tell my father!” she said urgently.

“Why, can you not trust me? Oh, unkind!”

“I suppose it is no affair of yours, señor,” she said, recovering her dignity. “I thank you for my book. Now let me pass.”

“I have a name, child. I believe I made you free of it.”

She swept a curtsey. “Oh, I thank you⁠—Sir Nicholas Beauvallet!” she mocked, and fled past him down the companion.