ose against him as he passed me, without forethought or
treachery of any kind, chained though I was, caught him by the head,
and threw him there and then against the wall, that he never spoke word
after; and then with his keys freed myself and every soul in that
room, and bid them follow me, vowing to kill any man who disobeyed my
commands. They followed, as men astounded and leaping out of night into
day, and death into life, and so aboard that caravel and out of the
harbor (the Lord only knows how, who blinded the eyes of the idolaters),
'with no more hurt than a few chance-shot from the soldiers on the quay.
But my tale has been over-long already, gentlemen--"

"Go on till midnight, my good fellow, if you will."

"Well, sirs, they chose me for captain, and a certain Genoese for
lieutenant, and away to go. I would fain have gone ashore after all, and
back to Panama to hear news of the little maid: but that would have been
but a fool's errand. Some wanted to turn pirates: but I, and the Genoese
too, who was a prudent man, though an evil one, persuaded them to run
for England and get employment in the Netherland wars, assuring them
that there would be no safety in the Spanish Main, when once our escape
got wind. And the more part being of one mind, for England we sailed,
watering at the Barbadoes because it was desolate; and so eastward
toward the Canaries. In which voyage what we endured (being taken by
long calms), by scurvy, calentures, hunger, and thirst, no tongue can
tell. Many a time were we glad to lay out sheets at night to catch
the dew, and suck them in the morning; and he that had a noggin of
rain-water out of the scuppers was as much sought to as if he had been
Adelantado of all the Indies; till of a hundred and forty poor wretches
a hundred and ten were dead, blaspheming God and man, and above all
me and the Genoese, for taking the Europe voyage, as if I had not sins
enough of my own already. And last of all, when we thought ourselves
safe, we were wrecked by southwesters on the coast of Brittany, near to
Cape Race, from which but nine souls of us came ashore with their lives;
and so to Brest, where I found a Flushinger who carried me to Falmouth
and so ends my tale, in which if I have said one word more or less than
truth, I can wish myself no worse, than to have it all to undergo a
second time."

And his voice, as he finished, sank from very weariness of soul; while
Sir Richard sat opposite him in sile