It was up anchor and away, for they needs must flee ere the hunters find them. They stood along the coast with a light breeze in the early morning, when the sun was rising over the sea and tipping with gold the branches of the dark palms; but the Rose of Devon was a hawk¹ with clipped wings.  
A company of twenty-nine or thirty men in a staunch ship with a goodly number of brass² cannon³ and with powder and balls in abundance (which provident⁴ merchants had bought to defend their venture against pirates!) might have done very well on a merchant voyage or fishing. If there are not too many to share in the adventure, a man can earn his wages by the one; or if he would go to the banks of Newfoundland or to Massachusetts Bay, his lay of a fishing voyage will doubtless bring him enough golden chinks to drink in strong ale or sack the health of every fair maiden⁵ of Plymouth ere he must be off to fill his pockets anew. Though the times be ever so hard, he is a feckless sailor who cannot earn in such a company the price of drinking the three outs. But to work a ship and lay aboard a rich prize, with perhaps need to show heels to a King's cruiser or to fight her, is quite another game; and the Old One and Harry⁶ Malcolm, who had their full share of the ill-temper that prevailed throughout the ship, cursed their fortune, each in his own way, and wrangled⁷ together and quarrelled with the men.
 
And indeed, among all the men of the Rose of Devon there were only two or three who that morning remained unperturbed by their misadventures of the night. One was Jacob, who sat in this corner or that and eyed all comers coldly and as if from a distance. A second was Philip Marsham, who did not, like Jacob, appear to lose his warmer interest in the ship and her company, but whose interest had been always less as for himself alone.
 
Meeting in groups of three or five, the men ripped out oaths and told of how one captain or another had once taken a ship or a town with vast bloodshed and plunder⁸, and thus they stormed about the deck at intervals⁹ until an hour after sunrise, when Phil from the forecastle and Old Jacob from his corner under the quarter-deck, having observed them for some time putting their heads together and conversing¹⁰ in undertones, heard them crying out, "Yea, yea! Go on, go on! We are all with you!" Four of the men then started through the steerage room to the great cabin and the rest gathered in a sullen¹¹ half circle just under the quarter-deck.
 
Jacob raised his head and listened; his face was very thoughtful and his small mouth was puckered¹² tight. At the sounds that issued from the cabin, Phil himself drew nearer.
 
"Well," cried the Old One in a voice that seemed as full of wonder as of wrath¹³,—they heard him plainly,—"what in the Devil's name mean ye by this?"
 
"We ha' lost a dozen men and our shallop by this foolish march, and from this rich town of which you have promised much we have got only blows and balls for our labour." The speaker's voice was loud and harsh, and he larded his speech with such oaths and obscene bywords as are not fit for printing. "We are of a mind to change captains. You shall go forward and Paul Craig shall come aft. Speak up, Paul! Tell your tale of no marching to wear out a man's feet—"
 
There came a string of oaths in the Old One's voice and a wild stamping and crashing; then out they burst, jostling one another in their haste, and after them the Old One with a clubbed musket¹⁴.
 
He subdued¹⁵ his fury, when he faced the ring of sullen men, as if he had taken it with his hands and pushed it down. But they feared him none the less, and perhaps the more. A man looking at him must perceive that his mind was keen and subtle, which made his quietness, when he was angry, more terrible than a great show of wrath.
 
"I have sailed before with mad, fickle¹⁶ crews," said he; "yea, once with a crew so mad that it would send a gentleman post unto the King with a petition of grievances¹⁷ because a King's ship had chased us from the South Foreland to the Lizard¹⁸. But never saw I a more mad crew than this, which is enough to give a man a grievous affliction of the colic and stone by the very excess of its madness."
 
"As for madness," cried a man who stood at a safe distance behind the rest, "I charge thee with worse than madness. We have lost two fights and many men and have got to show for it—a kettle of fish."
 
Some laughed, but more muttered angrily.
 
"Why—we have had our ill fortunes. But what gentlemen of the sea have not? Come, make an end of this talk. Come out, you who spoke¹⁹, and let us consider the matter. Nay²⁰? He will not come, though by his speech he is a bold man?"
 
Again some of them laughed, but in a mean way, for he had cowed them by his show of violence and they feared more than ever that subtle spirit which over-leaped their understanding.
 
"Listen, then, my hearts of gold: we will come about and sail back. We will lie tonight by the very town that last night we stormed. We will seek it out as a harbour of refuge. We will tell them a tale of meeting pirates who captured our shallop and part of our men. We will give them such a story that they will think we have met the very men they themselves last night beat off, and will welcome us with open arms to succour our distress²¹. Who knows but that we can then take them by assault? Or if for the time they are too strong for us, we will mark well the approaches and the defenses, and some night we will again come back."
 
The idea caught their fancy, and though a few cried nay and whispered that it was the sheerest madness yet, more cried yea and argued there was little risk, for if worst should come to worst, they could turn tail and run as run they had before. As they talked, they forgot their many woes²² and whispered about that none but the Old One would ever think of such a scheme.
 
Harry Malcolm and the Old One went off by themselves and put their heads together and conversed²³ secretly, and throughout the ship there was a great buzz of voices. Only Jacob, who sat in his corner and watched now one and now another, and Philip Marsham, who watched Jacob, kept silence amidst the hubble-bubble.
 
So they wore ship, and returning along the palm-grown shores, came again at the end of the afternoon into sight of the flat mountain they had seen first by night; and though the wind fell away at times until the sails hung in listless folds, they gathered speed with the evening breeze and came at nightfall into a fine landlocked harbour with the town at its head, where there were lights shining from the houses and a ship still lying at anchor.
 
Upon their coming there was a great stir in the town. They saw lights moving and heard across the water voices calling; but though the men of the Rose of Devon stood by their guns, ready to lift the ports at a word and run out their pieces, they laughed in their sleeves at their own audacity²⁴ whereby they hoped greatly to enrich their coffers.
 
Then one in the fort hailed them in Spanish, and while the Old One made answer in the same tongue, those who understood it whispered to the rest that he was giving the men in the fort a sad tale of how the Rose of Devon had fallen in with a band of sailors of fortune who had killed part of her men and would have killed them all had not the Old One himself by a bold and clever stroke eluded²⁵ them. The Old One and the man in the fort flung questions and answers back and forth²⁶; and as they talked, the men at the guns relaxed and softly laughed, and Martin whispered to Philip Marsham, "Yea, they are telling of a band of roving Englishmen who last night singed²⁷ their very whiskers; and being clever men and learning that them whom we ourselves have met and fought were lawless English dogs, they perceive we needs have met the very rascals²⁸ that made them so much trouble." Again Martin listened, then slapped his thigh²⁹. "They are sending us boats!" he exclaimed. "Though they perceive we are English, it seemeth they bear an Englishman no ill will because he is English. Truly, a fool shall be known by his folly³⁰!"
 
Most of the men were elated, but old Jacob............