better than the watch. Seemingly, he could find the track blindfold, and Walter guessed that the cavalier often used this device in order to encounter Anna Cave unseen by others. It was passing strange that Nellie should be an inmate of a house where her brother was so unwelcome. However, this was no hour to push inquiries. He was now utterly lost as to locality, and he awaited, with some curiosity, the outcome of this nocturnal wandering through the most ancient part of London.
At last, the close air of the alleys gave place to a fresher draft, and his quick ear caught the plash of water.
“Guard your steps here,” said Roe. “The stairs are not of the best, but they will bear your weight if you proceed with caution.”
He appeared to vanish through a trap-door in a small jetty. Down in the impenetrable darkness they heard him say: —
“I have flint and steel, yet, if you give me your hand, I can dispense with a light.”
Thus, with exact directions, he seated them safely in a boat, and, controlling the craft by retaining touch with the beams of the wharf, after gliding through the gloom for a few yards he was able to ply a pair of oars in the stream. Neither of the others had been on the Thames at night – Roger had not even seen the river before – and so, when the oarsman vigorously impelled the wherry straight into what looked like a row of tall houses, with lights in some of the upper windows, the North-country youths thought for sure they would collide violently with the foundations. They were minded to cry a warning, but seeing that Roe glanced frequently over his shoulder they refrained.
Thus, they shot under one of the many arches of London Bridge, covered then throughout its length by tall buildings, and, once they were speeding in mid-stream of the open river, they saw a forest of masts rising dimly in front.
Ere long, Sir Thomas Roe, who exercised sailor-like skill in the management of his oars, picked out one of the innumerable company of ships and lay to under the vessel’s quarter.
“Defiance ahoy!” he cried softly.
“Aye, aye,” replied a voice, and a rope ladder fell into the boat. Whilst Roe held it his companions clambered aloft, gaining the deck of a fair-sized merchantman where watch was kept by a number of sailors.
It chanced that Sainton mounted first, and a lantern flashed into his eyes. As he became visible, by feet at a time, for he stood nearly seven feet high, the man holding the light fell back in amazed fear.
“Avaunt thee!” he roared. “Up pikes to repel boarders! Here be the devil himself come to murther us!”
“Peace, fellow,” said Roger, “when Old Nick visits thee he shall not need to come in the guise of an honest man. Yet, I warrant thee, Sir Thomas Roe shall play the devil when he comes aboard if thou makest such a row without better cause.”
Mowbray’s appearance, with Roe close on his heels, quelled the excitement of the watch. A few sharp words recalled them to their duties. The ladder was hoisted in and the boat secured with a painter, whilst Roe led the newcomers to the after cabin, where, over a flagon of wine, he sought their better acquaintance.
Mowbray gave him a detailed account of all that had taken place, and Roe’s finely-chiseled face flushed deeply when he heard the true extent of the outrage planned by the band of young gallants.
“I have no wish to defend Gondomar,” he said slowly, seeming to compel reason to master rage. “He has brought the Inquisition to England. He carries our worthy King in his pocket. Yet I would fain believe that he is too wary and prudent to countenance such doings at the very gates of the city, which he fears alone in all England.”
“To be just, I believe he was not present. Nevertheless, word came to Sir Thomas Cave that when tidings of the affair reached him, he rose instantly from play at Beaujeu’s and hastened to Whitehall to demand our arrest.”
“Ah, it is a bad business. I am much bounden to you. You know that one of these girls is my youngest sister. The other I prize dearer than life itself. Yet, unless you and Master Sainton agree to sail with me on this ship to the Amazons I fear that naught can save you from the King’s wrath. I am powerless, being in ill repute at court. The city is strong, but unwilling, as yet, to openly defy the thieves and adulterers who pander to James’s vanities and stop his ears to the representations of God-fearing men. This cannot endure. Our people are long-suffering but mighty in their wrath. If Elizabeth ruled with a strong hand she ever strove to advance the honor of England and to safeguard the liberties of her subjects. Now our flag is trailed in the mud. We are treated with contumely abroad and our protests at home are stifled by the Star Chamber. It must end. It shall end. Monarchy itself shall rot ere England perishes!”
These were dangerous words. They lost none of their tremendous import when uttered by a man of such statesman-like qualities that Anthony à Wood wrote of him long afterwards: “Those who knew him well have said that there was nothing wanting in him towards the accomplishment of a scholar, gentleman, or courtier.”
It was inevitable that the opinion of such an one should weigh deeply with young Mowbray, and impress even the less critical brains of Roger Sainton. Roe’s appearance, no less than his impassioned outburst, would have won the credence of any well-bred youths in the Kingdom. In face, in figure, and indeed in many of his attributes, he resembled that gallant and high-minded adventurer of an earlier generation, Sir Walter Raleigh, who was now a close prisoner in the Tower. He had the bright, penetrating eyes, the long, aquiline nose, firm mouth, and well-molded chin which bespeak good birth and high intelligence. A mass of brown hair waved over a lofty forehead and fell in ringlets on his neck. He wore the mustaches and Vandyke tuft of beard affected by gentlemen of the period, and the natural gravity of his expression could be wholly dispelled, when occasion warranted, by a smile of rare humor.
But he was in no smiling mood just then. He leaned his head on his hand and sighed wearily. Mowbray, notwithstanding his own desperate though wholly unmerited plight, now presented to his eyes in all its sinister significance, could not help marveling how it came about that the leader of an expedition to the Spanish Main, which could scarce be undertaken without royal sanction, should avow himself so helpless in that very circle, while it was still more strange that Roe’s position and attainments did not render him a favored suitor in the Cave household.
Moreover, the King had knighted him, and Nellie Roe had said, during their walk in the garden, that her brother was a great friend of Prince Henry, and declared laughingly that Anna should think herself highly flattered, for the gossip ran that Princess Elizabeth was much attached to “Honest Tom,” as she called him.
Roe’s disturbed reflections and Mowbray’s bewilderment alike were put an end to by Roger.
“Ecod!” he cried, thumping the stout table screwed to the floor of the cabin and making the tankards dance under the blow, “Walter and I can ask no better fate than to voyage with you to the Indies. We are in quest of fortune, and folk say that the Spaniards have gold for the taking. Here’s to you, Sir Thomas Roe, and here’s to all of us! May we never want nowt, none of us!”
He drained his own tankard and caused a gleam of amusement to flicker on Roe’s face.
“Had you lost your right hand for brawling, Master Sainton,” he said, “you would now lose the left if the King heard your sentiments. Harry a Spaniard, i’ faith! That is rankest heresy nowadays. Yet there is no telling what may befall when we set our course west by south of the Canaries. And now, let me see to your comfort for the night.”
He called a young negro from the depths of the ship; the sudden appearance of the boy’s shining black face in the cabin caused Roger Sainton to start so violently that Roe and Mowbray laughed, while the negro himself displayed all his teeth in a huge grin. Mowbray, during an earlier visit to London, had seen many a dark-skinned man; it was becoming the fashion to have one or more of these ebony-hued servitors in each household with any pretensions to grandeur. But Roger had never before set eyes on the like, and the apparition was unexpected.
“Gad,” said he, reaching for the flagon again, “no wonder the sailor-man thought he saw the devil! ’Tis clear he fancied that this worthy had fallen overboard.”
He stood up, to follow Roe,