I AM NEARLY UNDONE BY MY SHADOW.--NED PARSONS AND RODRIGUES, THEIR
ARGUMENT, WITH THE COMPACT THAT FOLLOWED.
Now, I had not stirred a hair's breadth the whole time this Rodrigues
and Ned Parsons were discussing their affairs; and thus I was standing,
with my back against the great mast and my feet a couple of spans away
from it, when Rodrigues takes me by the throat, flashing his steel
before my eyes, as I have said, and, at the same time, Parsons, slipping
his foot betwixt my legs and the mast, fetches me a trip which brings me
plump down on my back. Then, in a twinkling he throws himself upon me,
and had certainly done my business with his jack-knife (both having
lugged out upon catching sight of my shadow), but that Rodrigues,
catching his arm back, cries--
"Hold, Ned! Don't you see that this is none but our friend Benet
Pengilly?"
"I see well enough who it is," answers Parsons; "but he is a spy for all
that, and shall pay for stealing on us. Let go my arm, Rodrigues!"
But this Rodrigues would not, being just as quick to fore-see results as
Parsons was to lose sight of them.
"Don't be a fool, Ned!" said he. "How could he have stolen on us, and we
sitting with our eyes on the cabin? He was here from the first, and I do
not blame him for picking up what we were careless to let fall. And what
harm in that? He has but learnt what we intended to tell him. Would you
ruin everything by spilling his blood, when his loss would draw
suspicion on our heads, and set all our mates against us with mistrust?
Had it been another he should have died, and I would not have left the
business to you neither; but the moment I got my hand on his throat I
saw it was our friend."
"That may be," says Parsons; "but, curse me! he shall give me some
better assurance that he intends to stand by us in this matter ere I let
him rise."
"Nay," says I, "you shall get nothing from me by force"; and, getting my
hands under him, I flung him off like an old cloak, and sprang to my
feet. "Now," says I, "what is it you want of me?"
All this passed as quick as the words will run, so that the whole
business was not more than a minute or so in the doing.
"Well done, Pengilly!" cries Rodrigues. "I like you the better for this
taste of your manhood. I never mistrusted a brave man yet, and here's a
proof of it now," and with that he sticks his dagger in the deck, and
seats himself on the chest, with empty hands, bidding Parsons, as he was
a true man and not a born fool, to do the like, which he presently did,
sticking his jack-knife in the deck, and sitting alongside of Rodrigues;
and to show I feared neither, I seated myself betwixt them.
"Now, Ben," said Rodrigues, clapping me on the knee cheerfully; "what's
it to be? You have heard our design. Do you stay in the Canaries, or go
with us to the South Sea?"
"What to do?" I ask for this question did still perplex me.
"What to do? Why, to get gold, to be sure."
"I thought you had decided not to set foot ashore," said I.
"And so we have; for what Englishman has ever got gold that went out of
his ship to get it? The fools have thrown more gold into Guiana than
ever they have taken out of it, a hundredfold."
"Ay! And gold is not the only thing they have thrown away," says
Parsons, "but many a good and honest Englishman's life as well."
"For every man that has come home," says Rodrigues, "a hundred have been
left behind--slain by Indians, stung by serpents, dead of fevers, or
slaves to the Spaniard."
"And them as do come home are none the better for having gone thither,"
chimes in t'other rascal, "as we do testify; for here am I short of one
eye, and Rodrigues a sight to see."
"That there is gold in Guiana no one can doubt," says Rodrigues; "but
the only men who can get it are the Indians, and their only masters are
the Spaniards and Portugals."
"Then where did you get the treasure you brought to England?" I asked.
"Why, from the Spaniard, to be sure, and as fairly as he got it from the
Indian."
"Ay! and fairer," says Parsons; "for we got it by straightforward and
honest fighting."
"And if we were more lively in our attack," puts in Rodrigues, "'twas
because their galleons were unwieldy with their weight of gold."
"I count we do 'em a service to ease them of their load," says Parsons,
"for they have more than they can carry with comfort" (this with a laugh
at his own joke).
"Ay! but our love doesn't end there; for, look you, Ben, which is the
better--to let your uncle's ships and treasure be cast away in the
Orinoco, to lead fourscore men to misery and death in those fearful
winds, or to carry them back home, every man rich for life? To suffer
the Spaniard to carry that gold into Spain for the encouragement of
Papistry and devilish cruelty, and the furnishing out another Armada, or
to take it away from them for the benefit of our country and the honor
and glory of our king?"
And in this manner they carried on the argument a long while, one
playing the part of marrowbone to the other's cleaver, while I sat in
silence and lost in wonder, like one who should of a sudden see a
strange new sun rise up in the sky. At length I found the sense to
speak, and, say I--
"But how can we attack the Spaniard when we are at peace with Spain?"
"Why," says Rodrigues, "peace there may be in these waters, for that
matter; but there is no peace below the line, as every one does know."
"Nay," says I, "'tis nothing but piracy you offer."
"You may call it what you like," says he, "but I think it no shame for
any man to walk in the shoes of Drake and Candish."
"'Tis a hanging matter, for all that," says I, still objecting.
"A hanging matter for those who fail to take home gold, but a knighting
matter for those who do, as witness Sir Francis and others less nice
than he. But 'tis the same all the world over, whether a man undertake
to find gold or to cure bunions. Raleigh gets his head cut off for
failing, and Master Winter is made a peer. And quite right it be so, for
it puts a check on men from hazarding foolishly, and encourages them to
push their fortunes with zeal, when the chance is on their side."
"And this is the long and short of it," says Parsons, bluntly, for
argument was not to his taste. "Are you with us, or are you not?"
"I am with you," says I, and upon that we joined hands--all three.
And in thus readily falling in with this villainous proposal I was
moved, not so much by Rodrigues, or his subtle arguments, as by my own
fierce and lawless spirit, and a certain brutal craving and lust of
blood and treasure, which Lord forgive us, urges too many of us to cruel
pursuits, no whit more justifiable in the eye of God than piracy.