, if we go, we
must needs take Jack Brimblecombe with us, or he will surely heave
himself over Harty Point, and his ghost will haunt us to our dying day."

"Jack shall go. None deserves it better."

After which there was a long consultation on practical matters, and it
was concluded that Amyas should go up to London and sound Frank and his
mother before any further steps were taken. The other brethren of the
Rose were scattered far and wide, each at his post, and St. Leger had
returned to his uncle, so that it would be unfair to them, as well as a
considerable delay, to demand of them any fulfilment of their vow.
And, as Amyas sagely remarked, "Too many cooks spoil the broth, and
half-a-dozen gentlemen aboard one ship are as bad as two kings of
Brentford."

With which maxim he departed next morning for London, leaving Yeo with
Cary.

CHAPTER XVI

THE MOST CHIVALROUS ADVENTURE OF THE GOOD SHIP ROSE

"He is brass within, and steel without,
With beams on his topcastle strong;
And eighteen pieces of ordinance
He carries on either side along."

Sir Andrew Barton.

Let us take boat, as Amyas did, at Whitehall-stairs, and slip down ahead
of him under old London Bridge, and so to Deptford Creek, where remains,
as it were embalmed, the famous ship Pelican, in which Drake had sailed
round the world. There she stands, drawn up high and dry upon the sedgy
bank of Thames, like an old warrior resting after his toil. Nailed upon
her mainmast are epigrams and verses in honor of her and of her captain,
three of which, by the Winchester scholar, Camden gives in his History;
and Elizabeth's self consecrated her solemnly, and having banqueted on
board, there and then honored Drake with the dignity of knighthood. "At
which time a bridge of planks, by which they came on board, broke under
the press of people, and fell down with a hundred men upon it, who,
notwithstanding, had none of them any harm. So as that ship may seem to
have been built under a lucky planet."

There she has remained since as a show, and moreover as a sort of
dining-hall for jovial parties from the city; one of which would seem
to be on board this afternoon, to judge from the flags which bedizen the
masts, the sounds of revelry and savory steams which issue from those
windows which once were portholes, and the rushing to and fro along the
river brink, and across that lucky bridge, of white-aproned waiters fro