United States or Indonesia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
His ambition was, he said, to conduct a fleet of stout ships, well armed, through the straits which the Portuguese Magalhaens had discovered more than half a century before, into that Pacific Ocean which he had navigated from east to west, and on which John Oxenham's bark had floated, and he himself had besought Almighty God that he too might sail in an English ship.
The story is not corroborated; but Oxenham was very human, and Spanish beauty, like other beauty, is worth sinning for. A year or two later, Captain Andrew Barker of Bristol, while cruising off the Main, captured a Spanish frigate "between Chagre and Veragua." On board of her, pointing through the port-holes, were four cast-iron guns which had been aboard John Oxenham's ship.
And rising, and putting the tankard of malmsey to his lips, he passed it to Sir Richard, who rose, and saying, "To the fortune of a bold mariner and a gallant gentleman," drank, and put the cup into Oxenham's hand. The adventurer's face was flushed, and his eye wild. Whether from the liquor he had drunk during the day, or whether from Mrs.
Unfortunately, they wished this "part of it" paid to them at once, before they shifted an ingot a want which seemed to reflect upon John Oxenham's honour. He was naturally very angry "because they would not take his word" to pay them something handsome when he reached home. He was a choleric sea-captain, and began, very naturally, to damn them for their insolence.
There is John Drake, Sir Francis' brother, ancestor of the present stock of Drakes; and there is George, his nephew, a man not overwise, who has been round the world with Amyas; and there is Amyas himself, talking to one who answers him with fierce curt sentences, Captain Barker of Bristol, brother of the hapless Andrew Barker who found John Oxenham's guns, and, owing to a mutiny among his men, perished by the Spaniards in Honduras, twelve years ago.
The generous fellows remembered the brave lives that had been sacrificed to gain the treasure they were going to carry off so easily. As far as the memory of the survivors would allow, a list of Oxenham's crew was drawn up; their homes, where known, were placed against their names, and it was resolved that half of what they recovered should go to the relatives of the dead men.
"There my fine is paid, sirrah, to the poor of Kilkhampton: but hearken thou all the same. If thou wilt not speak an oath, thou shalt speak on compulsion; for to Launceston gaol thou goest, there to answer for Mr. Oxenham's death, on suspicion whereof, and of mutiny causing it, I will attach thee and every soul of his crew that comes home.
Overnight nothing had been done, and no man had gone ashore. The decks were cleaned, prayers said, breakfast eaten, and the rough plan of Oxenham's hiding-place nailed down on the compass-box, where all could see it. Then Captain Drake and the gentlemen of the company went ashore with Nick and Ned Johnson.
Oxenham's daughter, too; and there was not a man on board who did not prick up his ears for a message if she approached him, or one who would not have, I verily believe, jumped overboard to do her a pleasure. Only Yeo kept sorrowfully apart. He never looked at her, spoke to her, met her even, if he could. His dream had vanished. He had found her! and after all, she did not care for him?
And when they come back each spring they seem to come to give me promise that I shall see him again." Then I translated Oxenham's verses about the roses for her. The translation was poor, but she caught the idea, and her face beamed with a new light, and she said: "Ah, yes, it is as I believe, that the good God who still makes the beautiful roses, he will not take him away from me forever."
Word Of The Day