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WESTWARD HO !
By CHARLES KINGSLEY With a hey bonny-boat and a ho bonny-boat Sail westward-ho and away! WITH wonderful speech of Spanish gold V V and the vast, rich countries lying to the west, Capt. John Oxenham was home again; and not a promise he made but was in-creased tenfold by his swearing henchman, Salvation Yeo. Amyas Leigh, a stout Devon youth, was afire to take the sea with Captain John as he listened; but his godfather, Sir Richard Grenvil, said he was yet too young. Later, it might be. And later he went, his first voyage being with the famous Sir Francis Drake around the world. Following that voyage came fighting in Ireland in the company of Sir Walter Raleigh, and the poet Spenser; and then an expedition with Sir Humphrey Gilbert wherein, because of mutinies, disease, ill-found ships, and great storms, Sir Humphrey met his death; and Amyas came home in sadness. At this time Amyas, with a score of other Devon gallants, was in love with Mistress Rose Salterne; but she was for no Devon cavalier. A Spanish captain of bravery and charm was dwelling in Devon till his ransom should be coming, and it was he who captured the fancy of the lovely but capricious Rose, and carried her off to Caracas, whereof he had been appointed governor. Whether Rose went as Don Guzman's wife or leman, no one could say. Mr. Salterne, father to Rose, and rich merchant of the port, gave a ship and five hundred pounds toward the fitting out, the same to be commanded by Amyas, by now experienced in seamanship and the handling of rough men; and so he sailed on his first venture on the good ship Rose, of two hundred tons burthen and one hundred men, with beef, pork, and good ale in abundance, and culverins, swivels, muskets, calivers, long-bows, pikes, and cutlasses aplenty. He was to discover the whereabouts and condition of Rose if he could, but surely to damage to his utmost what Spaniards he should fall afoul pf. A commission to his liking, for it was an article of faith with Amyas, as with most young English rovers of that day, that all Spaniards were cruel and cowardly, even as his own great Queen Elizabeth was all white purity. With Amyas went Frank his brother scholar and courtier, and mad likewise for love of Rose. Salterne; also Salvation Yeo, his own Captain Oxen-ham being long dead. Westward they sailed to tropic shores; to low wooded hills, spangled by fireflies; west-ward through wondrous seas where islands and capes hung suspended in air. In a wooden bight they spied a caravel, which they captured, and in her they found a store of brown pearls; also a cargo of salt hides, which smelt evilly as they burned. Amyas sailed on to La Guayra in Caracas, finding Don Guzman not at home, but having sight of Rose Salterne, she being truly Don Guzman's wife, in a garden of the governor's palace. In the fight with Don Guzman's men Frank Leigh was wounded and captured. Amyas was knocked unconscious, but taken safely away by his men. Leaving fatal La Guayra far behind, the Rose thrashed through rolling seas and over-hauled a long caravel, too long indeed to maneuver with the nimble Rose. Two galleys were also with her. Victory fell to Amyas, but a victory which left his ship so battered and his crew so decimated that he ran into a little bay for repairs and recuperation. Here, with their culverins and swivels behind a stockade, Don Guzman came upon them, in force too strong for their shattered numbers; so, first burning the Rose, they turned their backs to the sea and marched inland. And now came hope of glory for their Queen and for themselves great treasure in quest of the Golden City in the Kingdom of Manoa, whereof friendly Indians told them. Through untrodden hills and forests they marched, past the falls of the Orinoco and the upper waters of the great Amazon, from low swamps to high plateaus, wherefrom they viewed the eternal snows of Chimborazo towering above the thunder-cloud and the fiery cone of Cotopaxi flaming against the stars; a region eight hundred miles in length by four hundred miles in width they traversed. Three years of fever and cold and famine they spent on that trail, and once a gold pack-train loosely guarded fell to their hands; but of the Golden City never a trace. They came upon a white maiden, Ayanacora, golden-haired, tall, and beautiful, treated as a princess by the Indians with whom she dwelt. Amyas was for leaving her, having witnessed on former voyages the evil influence of women among lonely men; but she by signs made it clear she would not be left. He packed her off. She came back, and, she being by then far from her habitation, he had not the heart to cast her adrift in the vast wilderness. So every man solemnly pledged to treat her with honor. She came to be with them in the adventure where Amyas, his crew much worn and wasted and he desirous of heartening them up, set upon a great galleon in the harbor of Cartagena. Silently, in two canoes, they made the harbor, and, it being night, boarded the galleon secretly by her stern gallery; and after a short, fierce fight the galleon, with much treasure aboard, fell into their hands. It was here in this fight that Amyas would have been run through by the Spanish captain but for Ayanacora, who came leaping from be-hind and knifed the Spaniard ere he could drive home the long blade. But forty of their one hundred remained; notwithstanding which they sailed with much content in the great galleon to England. Ayanacora, sailing with them, did one day burst into singing of sea-songs which only English sailors knew; which caused Salvation Yeo to ask questions, to which, as she acquired the English tongue, she made answer; which answers recalled to Yeo that fair Spanish lady of Panama who had run off with Captain Oxenham, and to whom was born the baby girl which was later made off with. Captain Oxenham had suffered death at the hands of the Spanish husband and Yeo him-self had escaped only with many cruel scars, but the scarred old rover had spent days enough with the lovely little girl not to know now, as in a dozen ways he proved, that this was the daughter of Captain Oxenham and his Spanish lady, the little girl to whom he had taught the English sea-songs before she was taken from them. Homeward the great galleon ran before the southwest breeze, and proudly into Plymouth Sound she sailed one day without veiling top-sails or lowering the flag of Spain, for which they had like to get a solid shot from the admiral of the port. And so Amyas came home in honor and glory, but with the lovely and loving Ayanacora he would have nothing to do, she having in her too much of that Spanish blood which he hated. However, his gentle mother, understanding better the worth of loyal virtue, took the girl to her bosom. Once more Amyas took the sea, now as an admiral under Lord Howard, who had gathered all of England's stout ships and seamen to fight Spain's Armada. Amyas won his share of glory in that fight, and he might have come home in safety; but there was Don Guzman, who had left Rose to be put to death, even as he had his brother Frank, the one for a traitor and the other for a heretic. Amyas must have his vengeance of Don Guzman, who was commanding a ship of the Armada, and so he strove to hold close to him; but the tempest, which seemed to bear hate for the Spanish fleet, now cast Don Guzman's tall caravel to her death on the sands of Flanders. The vengeance of Amyas was sated, as was Yeo's; but almost on the instant, from the heart of the tempest flew a white bolt of lightning to strike down both him and Yeo, Yeo to his death and Amyas to the blindness of both eyes. So Amyas came home from his last cruise, a great, helpless hulk, as he bitterly said; but so mayhap only as such could one of his nature have ever come to understand the heart of a lovely, virtuous woman. It was the patience of Ayanacora, the wisdom of his mother, which taught him. "Fear not, Amyas," he heard his mother's voice saying-" fear not to take that dear girl to your heart; for it is your mother who lays her there." And so at last Amyas came to understand. |