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

“Oh, my lord! my lord!” said the good man, as with tears streaming down his face he followed his shrieking and struggling diocesan up the stairs, “who am I? Ask no pardon of me. Ask pardon of God for all your sins against the poor innocent savages, when you saw your harmless sheep butchered year after year, and yet never lifted up your voice to save the flock which God had committed to you. Oh, confess that, my lord! confess it ere it be too late!”

“I will confess all about the Indians, and the gold, and Tita too, Fray; peccavi, peccavi—only five minutes, senors, five little minutes’ grace, while I confess to the good Fray!”—and he grovelled on the deck.

“I will have no such mummery where I command,” said Amyas, sternly. “I will be no accomplice in cheating Satan of his due.”

“If you will confess,” said Brimblecombe, whose heart was melting fast, “confess to the Lord, and He will forgive you. Even at the last moment mercy is open. Is it not, Fray Gerundio?”

“It is, senor; it is, my lord,” said Gerundio; but the bishop only clasped his hands over his head.

“Then I am undone! All my money is stolen! Not a farthing left to buy masses for my poor soul! And no absolution, no viaticum, nor anything! I die like a dog and am damned!”

“Clear away that running rigging!” said Amyas, while the dark Dominican stood perfectly collected, with something of a smile of pity at the miserable bishop. A man accustomed to cruelty, and firm in his fanaticism, he was as ready to endure suffering as to inflict it; repeating to himself the necessary prayers, he called Fray Gerundio to witness that he died, however unworthy, a martyr, in charity with all men, and in the communion of the Holy Catholic Church; and then, as he fitted the cord to his own neck, gave Fray Gerundio various petty commissions about his sister and her children, and a little vineyard far away upon the sunny slopes of Castile; and so died, with a “Domine, in manus tuas,” like a valiant man of Spain.

Amyas stood long in solemn silence, watching the two corpses dangling above his head. At last he drew a long breath, as if a load was taken off his heart.

Suddenly he looked round to his men, who were watching eagerly to know what he would have done next.

“Hearken to me, my masters all, and may God hearken too, and do so to me, and more also, if, as long as I have eyes to see a Spaniard, and hands to hew him down, I do any other thing than hunt down that accursed nation day and night, and avenge all the innocent blood which has been shed by them since the day in which King Ferdinand drove out the Moors!”

“Amen!” said Salvation Yeo. “I need not to swear that oath, for I have sworn it long ago, and kept it. Will your honor have us kill the rest of the idolaters?”

“God forbid!” said Cary. “You would not do that, Amyas?”

“No; we will spare them. God has shown us a great mercy this day, and we must be merciful in it. We will land them at Cabo Velo. But henceforth till I die no quarter to a Spaniard.”

“Amen!” said Yeo.

Amyas’s whole countenance had changed in the last half-hour. He seemed to have grown years older. His brow was wrinkled, his lip compressed, his eyes full of a terrible stony calm, as of one who had formed a great and dreadful purpose, and yet for that very reason could afford to be quiet under the burden of it, even cheerful; and when he returned to the cabin he bowed courteously to the commandant, begged pardon of him for having played the host so ill, and entreated him to finish his breakfast.

“But, senor—is it possible? Is his holiness dead?”

“He is hanged and dead, senor. I would have hanged, could I have caught them, every living thing which was present at my brother’s death, even to the very flies upon the wall. No more words, senor; your conscience tells you that I am just.”

“Senor,” said the commandant—“one word—I trust there are no listeners—none of my crew, I mean; but I must exculpate myself in your eyes.”

“Walk out, then, into the gallery with me.”

“To tell you the truth, senor—I trust in Heaven no one overhears.—You are just. This Inquisition is the curse of us, the weight which is crushing out the very life of Spain. No man dares speak. No man dares trust his neighbor, no, not his child, or the wife of his bosom. It avails nothing to be a good Catholic, as I trust I am,” and he crossed himself, “when any villain whom you may offend, any unnatural son or wife who wishes to be rid of you, has but to hint heresy against you, and you vanish into the Holy Office—and then God have mercy on you, for man has none. Noble ladies of my family, sir, have vanished thither, carried off by night, we know not why; we dare not ask why. To expostulate, even to inquire, would have been to share their fate. There is one now, senor—Heaven alone knows whether she is alive or dead!—It was nine years since, and we have never heard; and we shall never hear.”

And the commandant’s face worked frightfully.

“She was my sister, senor!”

“Heavens! sir, and have you not avenged her?”

“On churchmen, senor, and I a Catholic? To be burned at the stake in this life, and after that to all eternity beside? Even a Spaniard dare not face that. Beside, sir, the mob like this Inquisition, and an Auto-da-fe is even better sport to them than a bull-fight. They would be the first to tear a man in pieces who dare touch an Inquisitor. Sir, may all the saints in heaven obtain me forgiveness for my blasphemy, but when I saw you just now fearing those churchmen no more than you feared me, I longed, sinner that I am, to be a heretic like you.”

“It will not take long to make a brave and wise gentleman who has suffered such things as you have, a heretic, as you call it—a free Christian man, as we call it.”

“Tempt me not, sir!” said the poor man, crossing himself fervently. “Let us say no more. Obedience is my duty; and for the rest the Church must decide, according to her infallible authority—for I am a good Catholic, senor, the best of Catholics, though a great sinner.—I trust no one has overheard us!”

Amyas left him with a smile of pity, and went to look for Lucy Passmore, whom the sailors were nursing and feeding, while Ayacanora watched them with a puzzled face.

“I will talk to you when you are better, Lucy,” said he, taking her hand. “Now you must eat and drink, and forget all among us lads of Devon.”

“Oh, dear blessed sir, and you will send Sir John to pray with me? For I turned, sir, I turned: but I could not help it—I could not abear the torments: but she bore them, sweet angel—and more than I did. Oh, dear me!”

“Lucy, I am not fit now to hear more. You shall tell me all to-morrow;” and he turned away.

“Why do you take her hand?” said Ayacanora, half-scornfully. “She is old, and ugly, and dirty.”

“She is an Englishwoman, child, and a martyr, poor thing; and I would nurse her as I would my own mother.”

“Why don’t you make me an Englishwoman, and a martyr? I could learn how to do anything that that old hag could do!”

“Instead of calling her names, go and tend her; that would be much fitter work for a woman than fighting among men.”

Ayacanora darted from him, thrust the sailors aside, and took possession of Lucy Passmore.

“Where shall I put her?” asked she of Amyas, without looking up.

“In the best cabin; and let her be served like a queen, lads.”

“No one shall touch her but me;” and taking up the withered frame in her arms, as if it were a doll, Ayacanora walked off with her in triumph, telling the men to go and mind the ship.

“The girl is mad,” said one.

“Mad or not, she has an eye to our captain,” said another.

“And where’s the man that would behave to the poor wild thing as he does?”

“Sir Francis Drake would, from whom he got his lesson. Do you mind his putting the negro lass ashore after he found out about—”

“Hush! Bygones be bygones, and those that did it are in their graves long ago. But it was too hard of him on the poor thing.”

“If he had not got rid of her, there would have been more throats than one cut about the lass, that’s all I know,” said another; “and so there would have been about this one before now, if the captain wasn’t a born angel out of heaven, and the lieutenant no less.”

“Well, I suppose we may get a whet by now. I wonder if these Dons have any beer aboard.”

“Naught but grape vinegar, which fools call wine, I’ll warrant.”

“There was better than vinegar on the table in there just now.”

“Ah,” said one grumbler of true English breed, “but that’s not for poor fellows like we.”

“Don’t lie, Tom Evans; you never were given that way yet, and I don’t think the trade will suit a good fellow like you.”

The whole party stared; for the speaker of these words was none other than Amyas himself, who had rejoined them, a bottle in each hand.