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Amyas's plan, like that of Drake, and Cook, and all great English voyagers, had been all along to inspire at once awe and confidence, by a frank and fearless carriage; and he was not disappointed here. He bade the men step boldly into their canoes, and follow the old Indian whither he would.
"To larboard, men, or over we go!" cried Amyas, and with one huge heave he lifted the slender body upon the gunwale. Her lower limbs were still in the water, when, within arm's length, rose above the stream a huge muzzle. The lower jaw lay flat, the upper reached as high as Amyas's head.
"I'd run a mile for a woman when I would not walk a yard for a man; and Who is this our mother is bringing in? The handsomest fellow I ever saw in my life!" Amyas was not far wrong; for Mrs. Leigh's companion was none other than Mr. Secretary, Amyas's Smerwick Fort acquaintance; alias Colin Clout, alias Immerito, alias Edmund Spenser.
But now Yeo, in his solemn methodical way, pulled out of his bosom a brown leaf, and began rolling a piece of it up neatly to the size of his little finger; and then, putting the one end into his mouth and the other on the tinder, sucked at it till it was a-light; and drinking down the smoke, began puffing it out again at his nostrils with a grunt of deepest satisfaction, and resumed his dog-trot by Amyas's side, as if he had been a walking chimney.
His mother had gone out for a few minutes to speak to the seamen who had brought up Amyas's luggage, and set them down to eat and drink; and Amyas sat in the old bay-window, where he had sat when he was a little tiny boy, and read "King Arthur," and "Fox's Martyrs," and "The Cruelties of the Spaniards."
"What nobler knight-errantry?" said Frank, cheerfully; but Mrs. Leigh shuddered. "What! Frank too?" she said, half to herself; but her sons knew what she meant. Amyas's warlike life, honorable and righteous as she knew it to be, she had borne as a sad necessity: but that Frank as well should become "a man of blood," was more than her gentle heart could face at first sight.
The bishop looked steadfastly and stupidly into Amyas's face, heaved a deep sigh, and gradually sank back in his chair, dropping the glass from his hand. "He is in a fit! Call in the surgeon! Run!" and up jumped kind-hearted Jack, and brought in the surgeon of the galleon. "Is this possible, senor?" asked the commandant. "It is true. Door, there!
A bright blade flashed close past Amyas's ear; the sea-captain's grasp loosened, and he dropped a corpse; while over him, like an angry lioness above her prey, stood Ayacanora, her long hair floating in the wind, her dagger raised aloft, as she looked round, challenging all and every one to approach. "Are you hurt?" panted she. "A scratch, child. What do you do here? Go back, go back."
The brute wrenched its head from his grasp, and raised its dreadful paw. Another moment and the husband's corpse would have lain by the wife's. But high in air gleamed Amyas's blade; down with all the weight of his huge body and strong arm, fell that most trusty steel; the head of the jaguar dropped grinning on its victim's corpse;
My old wits are shaky. Bless you, sir, and thank you for ever and ever!" And Yeo grasped Amyas's hand, and went down to his cabin, from which he did not reappear for many hours. From that day Ayacanora was a new creature.
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