Westward Ho! Or, The Voyages and Adventures of Sir Amyas Leigh, Knight, of Burrough, in the County of Devon, in the Reign of Her Most Glorious Majesty Queen Elizabeth

“I doubt it not, senor, as having been yourself also in the forefront of the battle,” said the Spaniard, with a proud smile.

“If I am right, senor, you are he who yesterday held up the standard after it was shot down.”

“I do not deny that undeserved honor; and I have to thank the courtesy of you and your countrymen for having permitted me to do so with impunity.”

“Ah, I heard of that brave feat,” said the lord deputy. “You should consider yourself, Mr. Leigh, honored by being enabled to show courtesy to such a warrior.”

How long this interchange of solemn compliments, of which Amyas was getting somewhat weary, would have gone on, I know not; but at that moment Raleigh entered hastily—

“My lord, they have hung out a white flag, and are calling for a parley!”

The Spaniard turned pale, and felt for his sword, which was gone; and then, with a bitter laugh, murmured to himself—“As I expected.”

“I am very sorry to hear it. Would to Heaven they had simply fought it out!” said Lord Grey, half to himself; and then, “Go, Captain Raleigh, and answer them that (saving this gentleman’s presence) the laws of war forbid a parley with any who are leagued with rebels against their lawful sovereign.”

“But what if they wish to treat for this gentleman’s ransom?”

“For their own, more likely,” said the Spaniard; “but tell them, on my part, senor, that Don Guzman refuses to be ransomed; and will return to no camp where the commanding officer, unable to infect his captains with his own cowardice, dishonors them against their will.”

“You speak sharply, senor,” said Winter, after Raleigh had gone out.

“I have reason, Senor Admiral, as you will find, I fear, erelong.”

“We shall have the honor of leaving you here, for the present, sir, as Admiral Winter’s guest,” said the lord deputy.

“But not my sword, it seems.”

“Pardon me, senor; but no one has deprived you of your sword,” said Winter.

“I don’t wish to pain you, sir,” said Amyas, “but I fear that we were both careless enough to leave it behind last night.”

A flash passed over the Spaniard’s face, which disclosed terrible depths of fury and hatred beneath that quiet mask, as the summer lightning displays the black abysses of the thunder-storm; but like the summer lightning it passed almost unseen; and blandly as ever, he answered:

“I can forgive you for such a neglect, most valiant sir, more easily than I can forgive myself. Farewell, sir! One who has lost his sword is no fit company for you.” And as Amyas and the rest departed, he plunged into the inner tent, stamping and writhing, gnawing his hands with rage and shame.

As Amyas came out on the battery, Yeo hailed him:

“Master Amyas! Hillo, sir! For the love of Heaven, tell me!”

“What, then?”

“Is his lordship stanch? Will he do the Lord’s work faithfully, root and branch: or will he spare the Amalekites?”

“The latter, I think, old hip-and-thigh,” said Amyas, hurrying forward to hear the news from Raleigh, who appeared in sight once more.

“They ask to depart with bag and baggage,” said he, when he came up.

“God do so to me, and more also, if they carry away a straw!” said Lord Grey. “Make short work of it, sir!”

“I do not know how that will be, my lord; as I came up a captain shouted to me off the walls that there were mutineers; and, denying that he surrendered, would have pulled down the flag of truce, but the soldiers beat him off.”

“A house divided against itself will not stand long, gentlemen. Tell them that I give no conditions. Let them lay down their arms, and trust in the Bishop of Rome who sent them hither, and may come to save them if he wants them. Gunners, if you see the white flag go down, open your fire instantly. Captain Raleigh, we need your counsel here. Mr. Cary, will you be my herald this time?”

“A better Protestant never went on a pleasanter errand, my lord.”

So Cary went, and then ensued an argument, as to what should be done with the prisoners in case of a surrender.

I cannot tell whether my Lord Grey meant, by offering conditions which the Spaniards would not accept, to force them into fighting the quarrel out, and so save himself the responsibility of deciding on their fate; or whether his mere natural stubbornness, as well as his just indignation, drove him on too far to retract: but the council of war which followed was both a sad and a stormy one, and one which he had reason to regret to his dying day. What was to be done with the enemy? They already outnumbered the English; and some fifteen hundred of Desmond’s wild Irish hovered in the forests round, ready to side with the winning party, or even to attack the English at the least sign of vacillation or fear. They could not carry the Spaniards away with them, for they had neither shipping nor food, not even handcuffs enough for them; and as Mackworth told Winter when he proposed it, the only plan was for him to make San Josepho a present of his ships, and swim home himself as he could. To turn loose in Ireland, as Captain Touch urged, on the other hand, seven hundred such monsters of lawlessness, cruelty, and lust, as Spanish and Italian condottieri were in those days, was as fatal to their own safety as cruel to the wretched Irish. All the captains, without exception, followed on the same side. “What was to be done, then?” asked Lord Grey, impatiently. “Would they have him murder them all in cold blood?”

And for a while every man, knowing that it must come to that, and yet not daring to say it; till Sir Warham St. Leger, the marshal of Munster, spoke out stoutly: “Foreigners had been scoffing them too long and too truly with waging these Irish wars as if they meant to keep them alive, rather than end them. Mercy and faith to every Irishman who would show mercy and faith, was his motto; but to invaders, no mercy. Ireland was England’s vulnerable point; it might be some day her ruin; a terrible example must be made of those who dare to touch the sore. Rather pardon the Spaniards for landing in the Thames than in Ireland!”—till Lord Grey became much excited, and turning as a last hope to Raleigh, asked his opinion: but Raleigh’s silver tongue was that day not on the side of indulgence. He skilfully recapitulated the arguments of his fellow-captains, improving them as he went on, till each worthy soldier was surprised to find himself so much wiser a man than he had thought; and finished by one of his rapid and passionate perorations upon his favorite theme—the West Indian cruelties of the Spaniards, “. . . by which great tracts and fair countries are now utterly stripped of inhabitants by heavy bondage and torments unspeakable. Oh, witless Islanders!” said he, apostrophizing the Irish, “would to Heaven that you were here to listen to me! What other fate awaits you, if this viper, which you are so ready to take into your bosom, should be warmed to life, but to groan like the Indians, slaves to the Spaniard; but to perish like the Indians, by heavy burdens, cruel chains, plunder and ravishment; scourged, racked, roasted, stabbed, sawn in sunder, cast to feed the dogs, as simple and more righteous peoples have perished ere now by millions? And what else, I say, had been the fate of Ireland had this invasion prospered, which God has now, by our weak hands, confounded and brought to naught? Shall we then answer it, my lord, either to our conscience, our God, or our queen, if we shall set loose men (not one of whom, I warrant, but is stained with murder on murder) to go and fill up the cup of their iniquity among these silly sheep? Have not their native wolves, their barbarous chieftains, shorn, peeled, and slaughtered them enough already, but we must add this pack of foreign wolves to the number of their tormentors, and fit the Desmond with a body-guard of seven, yea, seven hundred devils worse than himself? Nay, rather let us do violence to our own human nature, and show ourselves in appearance rigorous, that we may be kind indeed; lest while we presume to be over-merciful to the guilty, we prove ourselves to be over-cruel to the innocent.”

“Captain Raleigh, Captain Raleigh,” said Lord Grey, “the blood of these men be on your head!”

“It ill befits your lordship,” answered Raleigh, “to throw on your subordinates the blame of that which your reason approves as necessary.”

“I should have thought, sir, that one so noted for ambition as Captain Raleigh would have been more careful of the favor of that queen for whose smiles he is said to be so longing a competitor. If you have not yet been of her counsels, sir, I can tell you you are not likely to be. She will be furious when she hears of this cruelty.”

Lord Grey had lost his temper: but Raleigh kept his, and answered quietly—

“Her majesty shall at least not find me among the number of those who prefer her favor to her safety, and abuse to their own profit that over-tenderness and mercifulness of heart which is the only blemish (and yet, rather like a mole on a fair cheek, but a new beauty) in her manifold perfections.”

At this juncture Cary returned.

“My lord,” said he, in some confusion, “I have proposed your terms; but the captains still entreat for some mitigation; and, to tell you truth, one of them has insisted on accompanying me hither to plead his cause himself.”

“I will not see him, sir. Who is he?”

“His name is Sebastian of Modena, my lord.”

“Sebastian of Modena? What think you, gentlemen? May we make an exception in favor of so famous a soldier?”

“So villainous a cut-throat,” said Zouch to Raleigh, under his breath.

All, however, were for speaking with so famous a man; and in came, in full armor, a short, bull-necked Italian, evidently of immense strength, of the true Caesar Borgia stamp.

“Will you please to be seated, sir?” said Lord Grey, coldly.

“I kiss your hands, most illustrious: but I do not sit in an enemy’s camp. Ha, my friend Zouch! How has your signoria fared since we fought side by side at Lepanto? So you too are here, sitting in council on the hanging of me.”

“What is your errand, sir? Time is short,” said the lord deputy.

“Corpo di Bacco! It has been long enough all the morning, for my rascals have kept me and my friend the Colonel Hercules (whom you know, doubtless) prisoners in our tents at the pike’s point. My lord deputy, I have but a few words. I shall thank you to take every soldier in the fort—Italian, Spaniard, and Irish—and hang them up as high as Haman, for a set of mutinous cowards, with the arch-traitor San Josepho at their head.”

“I am obliged to you for your offer, sir, and shall deliberate presently as to whether I shall not accept it.”

“But as for us captains, really your excellency must consider that we are gentlemen born, and give us either buena querra, as the Spaniards say, or a fair chance for life; and so to my business.”

“Stay, sir. Answer this first. Have you or yours any commission to show either from the King of Spain or any other potentate?”