By Right of Conquest; Or, With Cortez in Mexico by G. A. Henty (great novels txt) 📕

when we were alone together," Dorothy said, laughing. "She always thinks it right on special occasions to keep us to our manners, and to make us sure that we know how it is becoming to behave; but you know well, Roger, that she is not strict with us generally, and likes us to enjoy ourselves. When we are staying up at the farm with Aunt Peggy, she lets us run about as we will; and never interferes with us, save when our spirits carry us away altogether. I think we should be glad if we always lived in the country.

"But now, Roger, let us hear much more about your voyage, and the fight with the Moors. Are they black men?"

"Not at all, Dorothy. They are not very much darker than our own fishermen, when they are bronzed by the sun and wind. There are black men who live somewhere near their country, and there were several of these fighting with them. These blacks are bigger men than the Moors, and have thick lips and wide mouths. I believe that they live as slaves among the Moors, but those who were with them fought as bravely as they did; and it needed a man with a stout heart to engage with them, so ugly were their faces."

"Were you not terrified, Roger?"

"I was frightened at first, Dorothy, and felt a strange weakness in my knees, as they began to swarm up the ship's side; but it passed off when the scuffle began. You see, there was no time to think about it. We all had to do our best, and even had I been frightened ever so badly, I hope that I should not have showed it, for it would have brought shame upon my father as well as myself; but in truth I thought little about it, one way or the other. There they were on the deck, and had to be driven back again; and we set about the work like Englishmen and honest men and, thanks to our pikes and axes, we had not very much trouble about it; especially when we once became fairly angered, on seeing some of our friends undone by the heathen.

"I myself would rather go through two or three such fights, than encounter such another storm as we had off the coast of Portugal, for four days. It seemed that we must be lost, the waves were of such exceeding bigness--far surpassing anything I had ever seen before. My heart was in my mouth scores of times, and over and over again I thought that she would never rise again, so great was the weight of water that poured over her. Truly it was the mercy of God which alone saved us, for I believe that even my father thought the ship would be beaten to pieces, though he kept up a show of confidence in order to inspirit the men. However, at the end of the fourth day the gale abated; but it was days before the great sea went down, the waves coming in long regular hills, which seemed to me as big as those which we have here in Devonshire; but smooth and regular, so that while we rolled mightily, there was naught to fear from them."

"I should not like to be a sailor," Agnes said. "It would be far better, Roger, were you to come into our father's counting house. You know he would take you into his business, did Cousin Reuben desire it."

Roger laughed.

"I should make but a poor penman, Agnes. I love the sea dearly, and it is seldom that we have such gales to meet as that; and after all, it is no worse to be drowned than it is to come to any other death. I am well content, cousin, with matters as they are; and would not stay ashore and spend my life in writing, not to be as rich as the greatest merchant in Plymouth. I almost wish, sometimes, I had been born a Spaniard or a Portugal; for then I might have a chance of sailing to wondrous new countries, instead of voyaging only in European waters."

"It seems to me that you have plenty to see as it is, Roger," Dorothy said.

"I do not say nay to that," Roger assented; "but I do not see why Spain and Portugal should claim all the Indies, East and West, and keep all others from going there."

"But the pope has given the Indies to them," Dorothy said.

"I don't see that they were the pope's to give," Roger replied. "That might do for the king, and his minister Wolsey, and the bishops; but when in time all the people have read, as we do, Master Wycliffe's Bible, they will come to see that there is no warrant for the authority the pope claims; and then we may, perhaps, take our share of these new discoveries."

"Hush, Roger! You should not speak so loud about the Bible. You know that though there are many who read it, it is not a thing to be spoken of openly; and that it would bring us all into sore trouble, were anyone to hear us speak so freely as you have done. There has been burning of Lollards, and they say that Wolsey is determined to root out all the followers of Wycliffe."

"It will take him some trouble to do that," Roger said, shrugging his shoulders. "Still, I will be careful, Dorothy, for I would not on any account bring trouble upon you, here. But, thank Heaven, England is not Spain, where men are forever being tortured and burned for their religion. The English would never put up with that. It may be that there will be persecution, but methinks it is rather those whose opinions lead them to make speeches that are regarded as seditious, and who stir up the people into discontent, who fall into trouble; and that, as long as folks hold their own opinions in peace and quiet, and trouble not others, neither king nor cardinal will seek to interfere with them.

"It is not so in Spain. There, upon the slightest suspicion that a man or woman holds views differing from those of the priests, he is dragged away and thrown into the prisons of the Inquisition, and tortured and burned."

Mistress Mercy now returned, and she and the girls busied themselves in laying the table for dinner.

That evening, after Mistress Mercy, the girls, and Roger had retired to bed, Reuben Hawkshaw and his cousin had a long talk together, concerning the next voyage of the Swan. After Master Diggory had discussed the chances of a voyage to the low countries, or another trip to the Mediterranean, Reuben, who had been silently listening to him, said:

"Well, Cousin Diggory, to tell you the truth, I have been turning over a project that seems to me to offer a chance of greater profit, though I deem it not without risk. That is the case, of course, with all trading affairs; and, as you know, the greater the risk the greater the profit, so the question to be considered is whether the profit is in fair proportion to the risk run. I think that it is, in this case, and I am ready to risk my life in carrying it out. It is for you to consider whether you are ready to risk your venture."

"What is it, Reuben? There are no other voyages that I know of; unless, indeed, you think of sailing up to Constantinople, and trading with the Grand Turk."

"My thoughts go farther afield still, Diggory. It is a matter I have thought over for some time, and when I was at Cadiz the other day I made many inquiries, and these have confirmed me in my opinions on the matter. You know that the Spaniards are gaining huge wealth from the Indies, and I heard at Cadiz that, after the conquest they made, a year since, of the island they call Cuba, the stores of precious things brought home were vast indeed. As you know, they bring from there gold and spices and precious woods, and articles of native workmanship of all kinds."

"I know all that, Reuben; and also that, like dogs in the manger, they suffer none others to sail those seas; and that no English ship has ever yet traversed those waters."

"That is so, Diggory; but by all I hear the number of islands is large, and there are reports that there lies, farther west, a great land from which it is they procure, chiefly, the gold and silver and precious things. Now it seems to me that, were the matter secretly conducted, so that no news could be sent to Spain, a ship might slip out and cruise there, dealing with the natives, and return richly stored with treasures.

"The Swan is a fast sailer and, did she fall in with the Spanish ships, would show them a clean pair of heels. Of course she would avoid the places where the Spaniards have forts and garrisons, and touch only at those at which, I hear, they trade but little;" and he took out a scroll from his bosom, unrolled it, and showed it to be a map.

"This I purchased, for ten gold pieces, of a Spanish captain who had come to poverty and disgrace from his ship being cast away, while he was asleep in liquor, in his cabin--a fault which is rare among the Spaniards, and therefore thought all the more of. I met him in Cadiz, at a wine shop near the port. He told me his story as we drank together, for he spoke Dutch, having traded much with the Low Countries.

"He took out a map, to show me some of the places at which he had had adventures. I said that the thing was curious, and would buy it of him, if he was disposed to sell. He said that it would be as much as his life were worth to part with it, to an Englishman; and, indeed, that it was only captains of ships trading in those seas who were allowed to have them, seeing that all matters connected with the islands were held as a state secret. After some trouble and chaffering, however, he agreed to make me an exact copy, and to sell it me for ten gold pieces.

"This is the copy. It is exact, for I compared it with the original, before I paid for it. Now here, you see, are laid down the position and bearing of all the islands, together with all the ports and places where the Spaniards have their settlements. This line over here represents the mainland, but it is, as you see, but vaguely drawn; seeing that, except at one or two points, the Spaniards themselves have but little knowledge of it. Now it seems that, with the help of this, I might so navigate the Swan as to avoid much risk of falling in with the Dons; and might yet make a shift to fill up the ship with goods of all kinds, such as would sell here for great prices. I know, of course, that were we taken we should be killed without mercy; but in the first place they would have to catch us, which would not be easy; and in the second to capture us, which, methinks would be more difficult still, seeing that a crew of stout Devonshire lads, fighting with halters round their necks, would give a good account of themselves, even if overhauled by a great Spanish galleon.

"What think you of the scheme, Cousin Diggory?"

"It is a perilous one, certainly, Reuben," the merchant replied, after a long silence. "There is the risk of the loss of the ship and all her freight, and there is the risk of the loss of your life and of those of the crew; and I would rather lose even the Swan, Reuben, than that harm should come to you and Roger. Then it may well be that, even if you carried the scheme to a successful end, and returned laden with wealth, the king and his counselors, when the matter came to their ears--which it would be sure to do on your return, for it would make a prodigious talk--might be grievously offended, accuse us of embroiling England with Spain, confiscate the cargo, visit me with fine and imprisonment, and treat you and the crew as pirates."

"I do not fear that," Reuben said. "Our relations with Spain have grown cold, lately, and there is a talk of peace between us and France. In the next place, I should say that the king would be mightily glad to see a chance of us English having a finger in this pie, that the Spaniards want to keep to themselves; and that he will perceive that great advantage will arise, from our obtaining a share of the trade with the Indies. There is a rare