Making the blood strain back from their blanched faces
Into their quivering hearts, with unknown dread,
As that accuser pointed to the shape
Before his feet.
"Dogs, will ye lap his blood
Before ye die? Make haste; for it grows cold!
Ye will not, will not even dabble your hands
In that red puddle of flesh, what? Are ye Spaniards?
Come, come, I'll look at you, perchance there's one
That's but a demi-devil and holds you back."
And with the word Drake stepped among their ranks
And read each face among the swarthy crew--
The gorgeous soldiers, ringleted sailors, priests
With rosary and cross, a slender page
In scarlet with a cloud of golden hair,
And two rope-girdled friars.
The slim page
Drake drew before the throng. "You are young," he said,
"Go; take this message to the camp of Spain:
Tell them I have a hunger in my soul
To look upon the murderers of this boy,
To see what eyes they have, what manner of mouths,
To touch them and to take their hands in mine,
And draw them close to me and smile upon them
Until they know my soul as I know theirs,
And they grovel in the dust and grope for mercy.
Say that, until I get them, every day
I'll hang two Spaniards though I dispeople
The Spanish Main. Tell them that, every day,
I'll burn a portion of their city down,
Then find another city and burn that,
And then burn others till I burn away
Their empire from the world, ay, till I reach
The Imperial throne of Philip with my fires,
And send it shrieking down to burn in hell
For ever. Go!"
Then Drake turned once again,
To face the Spanish prisoners. With a voice
Cold as the passionless utterance of Fate
His grim command went forth. "Now, provost-marshal,
Begin with yon two friars, in whose faces
Chined like singed swine, and eyed with the spent coals
Of filthy living, sweats the glory of Spain.
Strip off their leprous rags
And twist their ropes around their throats and hang them
High over the Spanish camp for all to see.
At dawn I'll choose two more."

BOOK X

Across the Atlantic
Great rumours rushed as of a mighty wind,
The wind of the spirit of Drake. But who shall tell
In this cold age the power that he became
Wh