The Admirable Lady Biddy Fane

  CHAPTER VI.

  I AM NEARLY UNDONE BY MY SHADOW.--NED PARSONS AND RODRIGUES, THEIRARGUMENT, WITH THE COMPACT THAT FOLLOWED.

  Now, I had not stirred a hair's breadth the whole time this Rodriguesand Ned Parsons were discussing their affairs; and thus I was standing,with my back against the great mast and my feet a couple of spans awayfrom it, when Rodrigues takes me by the throat, flashing his steelbefore my eyes, as I have said, and, at the same time, Parsons, slippinghis foot betwixt my legs and the mast, fetches me a trip which brings meplump down on my back. Then, in a twinkling he throws himself upon me,and had certainly done my business with his jack-knife (both havinglugged out upon catching sight of my shadow), but that Rodrigues,catching his arm back, cries--

  "Hold, Ned! Don't you see that this is none but our friend BenetPengilly?"

  "I see well enough who it is," answers Parsons; "but he is a spy for allthat, and shall pay for stealing on us. Let go my arm, Rodrigues!"

  But this Rodrigues would not, being just as quick to fore-see results asParsons was to lose sight of them.

  "Don't be a fool, Ned!" said he. "How could he have stolen on us, and wesitting with our eyes on the cabin? He was here from the first, and I donot blame him for picking up what we were careless to let fall. And whatharm in that? He has but learnt what we intended to tell him. Would youruin everything by spilling his blood, when his loss would drawsuspicion on our heads, and set all our mates against us with mistrust?Had it been another he should have died, and I would not have left thebusiness to you neither; but the moment I got my hand on his throat Isaw it was our friend."

  "That may be," says Parsons; "but, curse me! he shall give me somebetter assurance that he intends to stand by us in this matter ere I lethim rise."

  "Nay," says I, "you shall get nothing from me by force"; and, getting myhands under him, I flung him off like an old cloak, and sprang to myfeet. "Now," says I, "what is it you want of me?"

  All this passed as quick as the words will run, so that the wholebusiness was not more than a minute or so in the doing.

  "Well done, Pengilly!" cries Rodrigues. "I like you the better for thistaste of your manhood. I never mistrusted a brave man yet, and here's aproof of it now," and with that he sticks his dagger in the deck, andseats himself on the chest, with empty hands, bidding Parsons, as he wasa true man and not a born fool, to do the like, which he presently did,sticking his jack-knife in the deck, and sitting alongside of Rodrigues;and to show I feared neither, I seated myself betwixt them.

  "Now, Ben," said Rodrigues, clapping me on the knee cheerfully; "what'sit to be? You have heard our design. Do you stay in the Canaries, or gowith us to the South Sea?"

  "What to do?" I ask for this question did still perplex me.

  "What to do? Why, to get gold, to be sure."

  "I thought you had decided not to set foot ashore," said I.

  "And so we have; for what Englishman has ever got gold that went out ofhis ship to get it? The fools have thrown more gold into Guiana thanever they have taken out of it, a hundredfold."

  "Ay! And gold is not the only thing they have thrown away," saysParsons, "but many a good and honest Englishman's life as well."

  "For every man that has come home," says Rodrigues, "a hundred have beenleft behind--slain by Indians, stung by serpents, dead of fevers, orslaves to the Spaniard."

  "And them as do come home are none the better for having gone thither,"chimes in t'other rascal, "as we do testify; for here am I short of oneeye, and Rodrigues a sight to see."

  "That there is gold in Guiana no one can doubt," says Rodrigues; "butthe only men who can get it are the Indians, and their only masters arethe Spaniards and Portugals."

  "Then where did you get the treasure you brought to England?" I asked.

  "Why, from the Spaniard, to be sure, and as fairly as he got it from theIndian."

  "Ay! and fairer," says Parsons; "for we got it by straightforward andhonest fighting."

  "And if we were more lively in our attack," puts in Rodrigues, "'twasbecause their galleons were unwieldy with their weight of gold."

  "I count we do 'em a service to ease them of their load," says Parsons,"for they have more than they can carry with comfort" (this with a laughat his own joke).

  "Ay! but our love doesn't end there; for, look you, Ben, which is thebetter--to let your uncle's ships and treasure be cast away in theOrinoco, to lead fourscore men to misery and death in those fearfulwinds, or to carry them back home, every man rich for life? To sufferthe Spaniard to carry that gold into Spain for the encouragement ofPapistry and devilish cruelty, and the furnishing out another Armada, orto take it away from them for the benefit of our country and the honorand glory of our king?"

  And in this manner they carried on the argument a long while, oneplaying the part of marrowbone to the other's cleaver, while I sat insilence and lost in wonder, like one who should of a sudden see astrange new sun rise up in the sky. At length I found the sense tospeak, and, say I--

  "But how can we attack the Spaniard when we are at peace with Spain?"

  "Why," says Rodrigues, "peace there may be in these waters, for thatmatter; but there is no peace below the line, as every one does know."

  "Nay," says I, "'tis nothing but piracy you offer."

  "You may call it what you like," says he, "but I think it no shame forany man to walk in the shoes of Drake and Candish."

  "'Tis a hanging matter, for all that," says I, still objecting.

  "A hanging matter for those who fail to take home gold, but a knightingmatter for those who do, as witness Sir Francis and others less nicethan he. But 'tis the same all the world over, whether a man undertaketo find gold or to cure bunions. Raleigh gets his head cut off forfailing, and Master Winter is made a peer. And quite right it be so, forit puts a check on men from hazarding foolishly, and encourages them topush their fortunes with zeal, when the chance is on their side."

  "And this is the long and short of it," says Parsons, bluntly, forargument was not to his taste. "Are you with us, or are you not?"

  "I am with you," says I, and upon that we joined hands--all three.

  And in thus readily falling in with this villainous proposal I wasmoved, not so much by Rodrigues, or his subtle arguments, as by my ownfierce and lawless spirit, and a certain brutal craving and lust ofblood and treasure, which Lord forgive us, urges too many of us to cruelpursuits, no whit more justifiable in the eye of God than piracy.