Sea-Dogs All!

by Tom Bevan

  Chapter XX.

  ROB DINES AT "YE SWANNE."

  Morgan had a host of questions to ask Paignton Rob, and he wont back to"Ye Swanne" in Wood Street, off Chepe, his head buzzing with manyideas. So occupied was he with his own thoughts that he replied butabsently to Captain Dawe's remarks; and he quite forgot to offer Dollyany compliments over her pastries. The young lady was naturallyindignant with a burly trencherman who devoured a round dozen ofassorted confections that were put on his platter without discoveringthat they possessed any flavour whatsoever.

  "La! Master Morgan!" she cried. "If I did not know that such a thingwas impossible with such as thou art, I should declare thou hadstfallen in love."

  The tone was sharp, and a trifle spiteful, so Johnnie's wits gatheredthemselves into marching order.

  "So I have, Dolly," he answered. "I am enamoured of--"

  "Whom?"

  "A friend of Master Jeffreys."

  The girl's cheeks flushed. "Thou art bold to say such a thing to me."

  "I imbibed courage with a flagon of sack this morning."

  "It hath got to thy head."

  "And my heart, Dolly; I am afire, heart and head. I see visions, andpulse with great hopes."

  "I trust the wench will prove kind, and not grow plain of face on acloser acquaintance."

  "For that fair wish, a thousand thanks, dear Dolly."

  "Mistress Dawe, if it please you, Master Morgan." Dorothy bobbed ascornful curtsy, and left the parlour.

  "What's amiss with you two?" asked Captain Dawe. "Ye were billing andcooing like two pigeons over breakfast this morning."

  "And shall be doing so again over supper," said Johnnie.

  "What's this nonsense about a wench who is a friend to Master Jeffreys?"

  "There is no wench. I am enamoured of a fellow with a visage likebrown leather, and who hath but one thumb and one ear."

  "Thou art talking in riddles."

  "Master Jeffreys shall make them clear; he hath a better gift of wordsthan I."

  So the Devon man retold the story of John Oxenham's voyage; and headded many strange things that lie had heard from other Plymouth menwho had gone to the Indies, and whom he had met in Raleigh's company.He himself had gone westwards to Virginia, and other parts of theAmerican mainland, and could relate wonders from his own experiences.He talked for full two hours, and both Mrs. Stowe and Dorothy stole into listen.

  The next day Paignton Rob and his two stranded comrades foundthemselves seated at Mistress Stowe's table to dinner. Morgan and thecaptain hung about the aisles of St. Paul's for more than an hour,waiting in the hope that the sailors would appear. Jeffreys went downto Whitehall, found them in the neighbourhood of Raleigh's lodgings,and brought them into the city.

  The three derelict mariners were not slow to divine one reason for thepressing invitation that had brought them hot-foot from Whitehall toWood Street. Rob's story of the fabled Spanish Main had openedMistress Stowe's door to such dilapidated guests; it would have openedhundreds of other English doors to the maimed adventurers. The wholecountry was smitten with the fever of travel, and possessed with thelust for wealth and conquest. Men and women believed strange things ofthe wonderful western world, and they listened eagerly and withoutquestion to things their great-grandchildren would scoff at.

  A travelled sailor can fit himself into any company. Paignton Robadjusted himself with the greatest nicety into his proper position thatday. He ate and drank to repletion, praising every dish without stint,and paying his hostess such daring compliments that her round face wasa very sunset of blushes.

  Nick and Ned Johnson played their accustomed part of chorus, and justsaid "ay, ay" at the proper time and place. And Rob did not keep hisaudience too long waiting for his stories. He described the tropicalseas--their storms and calms, their fish that flew, and the fearsomemonsters that gambolled along their surface. He took his hearers intothe gloomy forests, with their myriad forms of life, their gaudy birdsand gorgeous insects, their lurking beasts and dense-packed horrors.Weird cries and terrifying howls rang out in imaginative sounds. Andwhat horrific beings stalked in the dim alleys betwixt the giant trees,or peeped forth at the intrepid traveller from cave and den!One-horned beasts with fiery hoofs; dragons that had wings of brass,and vomited flames from cavernous throats; huge birds, enormousreptiles, flew or crawled in their appointed places. Two-headed menwielded clubs of stone; men with no heads at all, but one great eye inthe centre of their breasts, glared malevolently from the pits whereinthey had their habitation. The little company in the tavern parlourshivered with affright, and cast uneasy glances at the doorway.Then--wonderful Rob!--a sinewy, thumbless hand swept the air like anenchanter's wand, and lo! the scene was changed. Gloom and horrorfled, the forest vanished, the malodorous swamp gave place to smilingmeadow. The hills frowned no longer, but laughed with fertility andsparkled with a thousand fairy rills and cascades. Fair citiesencircled their bases, and golden temples glittered in the ardent,tropical sunshine. Brown-skinned, gentle people flitted gracefullyalong the streets and through the squares. Music, barbaric butmelodious, hummed through the fragrant air. Here was the paradise ofdreams--bright colours, sweet sounds, fragrant odours, gentle beings,fair peace, and jocund plenty! Rob was a poet, and his audience pantedwith parting lips as he spread the scene before them.

  Then he brought them nearer. See yonder roof?--plates of beaten gold!Yonder mule hath harness of exquisitely chased silver! Here comes anoble chief and his favourite wife, with a retinue of slaves. Thesoles of his sandals are of gold, the straps are studded with gems;pearls are sewn in hundreds in his bright-hued robes! Yet is hecompletely eclipsed by the splendour of his spouse. She is sprinkled,hair and clothing, with the precious yellow dust. The breeze blows itfrom her hair; she shakes it with a careless laugh from her silkengarments; the slaves walk behind on a gold-strewn pathway. They valueit no more than the beggar values the dust that blows along the Chepein London on a July day. Ah! a gloriously generous headpiece hathPaignton Rob. Why stint the tale of glittering grains? In the land of"El Dorado" the sands of the rivers can be coined into minted money.Would mine hostess--who has so lavishly fed three poor sailor-men--liketo go to a banquet in the palace of "El Dorado"? Nothingsimpler!--'tis done with a wave of Rob's brown hand. See! the tableis gold; the platters are the same. The pillars of sweet cedar thatsupport the lofty roof are richer by far than those of Solomon'stemple. And the "gilded one" smiles at his queen, and lifts a cup ofrosy wine to his lips. Do the company notice that miracle of dazzlinglight he holds in his delicate brown hand? 'Tis cut from one preciousstone. It is like a living fire, and the red wine glows warmly throughit.

  Such the land of "El Dorado"--the golden realm!--the home of aneverlasting summer! Rob pauses dramatically; he comes to a full stop.How mean is the parlour of the comfortable Wood Street tavern! Howpaltry its pewter pots and clumsy flagons! How dull its smoky beamsand walls!

  "Ah! Ah!"--longing sighs echo and re-echo. Then come questions,timidly put at first, for no man would dare to throw suspicion on theseaman's stories. But--but who has seen any of these things?

  Who? Why, Rob knows men, who know other men, who have heard from othermen, who actually listened to dying Spaniards or faithful nativesrecounting how they themselves had seen these sights. Rob himself hadgazed upon a sack of gold dust brought by a Jesuit missionary from "ElDorado's" kingdom. The monk had shovelled it with his own bare handsfrom the bed of a shallow lake. Nick Johnson, with a nervous andapologetic cough, announced that he had seen a bag of pearls broughtfrom that same favoured land; and brother Ned, whose memory also gotsome stimulus from Rob's stories, related how lie met a Spanishprisoner in a Dutch town, who told him that the pebbles in "ElDorado's" land were all pearls or jewels, sometimes one, sometimes theother--just according to the haphazard luck of the thing. Then honestRob took some more sack, and found that he distinctly rememberedmeeting a Bideford man on Plymouth Hoe who had sailed wi
th a Bristolcaptain whose twin brother had shot a no-headed, breast-eyed monster,and had immediately afterwards been stunned by the stone club of atwo-headed gentleman of those same parts. 'Twas an exciting adventurealtogether, and Rob proceeded to remember the details and relate them.As for the forests, the swamps, the lurking reptiles and ravenousbeasts, the huge crabs, venomous snakes, and the fevered ghosts andghouls that wreathed up after sunset from the pools and rivers--why!Rob had seen all those things for himself. He had also handled bars ofgold and lumps of silver, and let pearls run through his fingers likebeads. Captain Dawe, Master Morgan, and the ladies might be assuredthat they had heard but a tithe of the wonders and horrors that mightbe told them. Ah! that wonderful New World! Brave Rob shook the headthat was bereft of an ear. He had talked to them for three hours, buthe had no gift of speech, and had been unable to give them any realidea of the glamour and mystery that lay beneath the setting sun.

  Nevertheless, he had set each heart and brain pulsing and throbbingwith wild dreams. The world was changing for Johnnie Morgan. Theadmiral and Raleigh had opened his eyes in the glades of the forest,and taught him to look beyond its treetops. Master Jeffreys hadextended his view, and all men and all things in London Town seemed toprobe deeper into his mind, and find new emotions and desires, and stirthem into active life. The grim old Forest of Dean was dwarfing to amere coppice; the rushing Severn was becoming an insignificant brook.The forester's heart was expanding; his eyes were opening; his armswere stretching forth to grasp that which was finite, yet infinite. Hedreamed strange dreams; his eyes started open to behold wondrousvisions. The fever of the time was getting into his blood. Vague,half-understood impulses moved him hither and thither. He groped, andtouched nothing. He cried out, "What do I want?"

  A woman answered the question the very next day.