h for savages, and, in a word, all which goes to the making
of as noble a jewel as her majesty's crown can wear. The people call it
Wingandacoa; but we, after her majesty, Virginia."

"You have been there, then?"

"The year before last, lad; and left there Ralf Lane, Amadas, and some
twenty gentlemen, and ninety men, and, moreover, some money of my own,
and some of old Will Salterne's, which neither of us will ever see
again. For the colony, I know not how, quarrelled with the Indians (I
fear I too was over-sharp with some of them for stealing--if I was, God
forgive me!), and could not, forsooth, keep themselves alive for twelve
months; so that Drake, coming back from his last West Indian voyage,
after giving them all the help he could, had to bring the whole party
home. And if you will believe it, the faint-hearted fellows had not been
gone a fortnight, before I was back again with three ships and all that
they could want. And never was I more wroth in my life, when all I found
was the ruins of their huts, which (so rich is the growth there) were
already full of great melons, and wild deer feeding thereon--a pretty
sight enough, but not what I wanted just then. So back I came; and being
in no overgood temper, vented my humors on the Portugals at the Azores,
and had hard fights and small booty. So there the matter stands, but not
for long; for shame it were if such a paradise, once found by Britons,
should fall into the hands of any but her majesty; and we will try again
this spring, if men and money can be found. Eh, lad?"

"But the prize?"

"Ah! that was no small make-weight to our disasters, after all. I
sighted her for six days' sail from the American coast: but ere we could
lay her aboard it fell dead calm. Never a boat had I on board--they
were all lost in a gale of wind--and the other ships were becalmed two
leagues astern of me. There was no use lying there and pounding her till
she sank; so I called the carpenter, got up all the old chests, and with
them and some spars we floated ourselves alongside, and only just in
time. For the last of us had hardly scrambled up into the chains, when
our crazy Noah's ark went all aboard, and sank at the side, so that if
we had been minded to run away, Amyas, we could not; whereon, judging
valor to be the better part of discretion (as I usually do), we fell to
with our swords and had her in five minutes, and fifty thousand pounds'
worth in her, which set up my purse again,