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his motion, the carpenter’s one eye saw it and his none too nimble wit understood it.

“Nay,” said he, “it is a mad conceit.”

The carpenter thrust his fingers through his beard, and, being a kindly soul in his own way and having a liking for the boatswain, he wished himself rid of his responsibilities. But since there was no escape from the situation he drew a deep breath and squared his shoulders to make the best of it. ‘‘I heard of a man once, when I was a little lad,” he said, ‘‘who was cast ashore on the main, in Mexico or some such place. Miles Philips was his name and the manner of his suffering at the hands of the Indians and the Spaniards may serve as a warning. For they flung him into prison where he was like to have starved; and they tortured him in the Inquisition where he was like to have perished miserably; and many of his companions they beat and killed or sent to the galleys; and himself and certain others they sold for slaves. So grievous was his suffering, he was nigh death when he heard news of Sir Francis Drake being in those seas and ran away to join him. Yet again they caught him — caught this Miles Philips and clapped him into prison with a great pair of bolts on his legs; and yet once more did he escape, for God willed it, and filed off his irons and got him away and so betook him back to England after such further suffering from the Indians and the mosquitoes and the Spaniards and the dogs of the Inquisition as few men have lived to tell the tale of. All this, I have heard from an old man who knew him, is told in Master Hakluyt’s book, where any scholar of reading may find it for himself. Though not a man of reading, yet have I taken it to heart to beware of straying from a ship into a strange land.”