And it would have been well if faintness and weariness had been all that was the matter; but now that the excitement was over, the collapse came; and the men sat down listlessly and sulkily by twos and threes upon the deck, starting and wincing when they heard some poor fellow below cry out under the surgeon's knife: or murmuring to each other that all was lost. Drew tried in vain to rouse them, telling them that all depended on rigging a jury mast forward as soon as possible. They answered only by growls; and at last broke into open reproaches. Even Will Cary's volatile nature, which had kept him up during the fight, gave way, when Yeo and the carpenter came aft, and told Amyas in a low voice—
"We are hit somewhere forward, below the water-line, sir. She leaks a terrible deal, and the Lord will not vouchsafe to us to lay our hands on the place, for all our searching."
"What are we to do now, Amyas, in the devil's name?" asked Cary, peevishly.
"What are we to do, in God's name, rather," answered Amyas in a low voice. "Will, Will, what did God make you a gentleman for, but to know better than those poor fickle fellows forward, who blow hot and cold at every change of weather!"
"I wish you'd come forward and speak to them sir," said Yeo, who had overheard the last words, "or we shall get nought done."
Amyas went forward instantly.
"Now then, my brave lads, what's the matter here, that you are all sitting on your tails like monkeys?"
"Ugh!" grunts one. "Don't you think our day's work has been long enough yet, captain?"
"You don't want us to go in to La Guayra again, sir? There are enough of us thrown away already, I reckon, about that wench there."
"Best sit here, and sink quietly. There's no getting home again, that's plain."
"Why were we brought out here to be killed?"
"For shame, men!" cries Yeo; "you're no better than a set of stiffnecked Hebrew Jews, murmuring against Moses the very minute after the Lord has delivered you from the Egyptians."
Now I do not wish to set Amyas up as a perfect man; for he had his faults like every one else; nor as better, thank God, than many and many a brave and virtuous captain in her Majesty's service at this very day: but certainly he behaved admirably under that trial. Drake had trained him, as he trained many another excellent officer, to be as stout in discipline, and as dogged of purpose, as he himself was: but he had trained him also to feel with and for his men, to make allowances for them, and to keep his temper with them, as he did this day. True, he had seen Drake in a rage; he had seen him hang one man for a mutiny (and that man his dearest friend), and threaten to hang thirty more; but Amyas remembered well that that explosion took place when having, as Drake said publicly himself, "taken in hand that
