Page:The Dark Frigate (Hawes).djvu/187

It was up anchor and away, for they needs must flee ere the hunters find them. They stood along the coast with a light breeze in the early morning, when the sun was rising over the sea and tipping with gold the branches of the dark palms; but the Rose of Devon was a hawk with clipped wings.

A company of twenty-nine or thirty men in a staunch ship with a goodly number of brass cannon and with powder and balls in abundance (which provident merchants had bought to defend their venture against pirates!) might have done very well on a merchant voyage or fishing. If there are not too many to share in the adventure, a man can earn his wages by the one; or if he would go to the banks of Newfoundland or to Massachusetts Bay, his lay of a fishing voyage will doubtless bring him enough golden chinks to drink in strong ale or sack the health of every fair maiden of Plymouth ere he must be off to fill his pockets anew. Though the times be ever so hard, he is a feckless sailor who cannot earn in such a company the price of drinking the three outs. But to work a ship and lay aboard a rich prize, with perhaps need to show heels to a King’s cruiser or to fight her, is quite another game; and the Old One and Harry Malcolm, who had their full share of the ill-temper that prevailed throughout the ship, cursed their fortune, each in his own way, and wrangled together and quarrelled with the men.