eping and
whispering under the elbows of the men; and so came in for the following
speech, delivered in a loud bold voice, with a strong Devonshire accent,
and a fair sprinkling of oaths.

"If you don't believe me, go and see, or stay here and grow all over
blue mould. I tell you, as I am a gentleman, I saw it with these eyes,
and so did Salvation Yeo there, through a window in the lower room; and
we measured the heap, as I am a christened man, seventy foot long, ten
foot broad, and twelve foot high, of silver bars, and each bar between
a thirty and forty pound weight. And says Captain Drake: 'There, my lads
of Devon, I've brought you to the mouth of the world's treasure-house,
and it's your own fault now if you don't sweep it out as empty as a
stock-fish.'"

"Why didn't you bring some of they home, then, Mr. Oxenham?"

"Why weren't you there to help to carry them? We would have brought
'em away, safe enough, and young Drake and I had broke the door abroad
already, but Captain Drake goes off in a dead faint; and when we came
to look, he had a wound in his leg you might have laid three fingers in,
and his boots were full of blood, and had been for an hour or more; but
the heart of him was that, that he never knew it till he dropped,
and then his brother and I got him away to the boats, he kicking and
struggling, and bidding us let him go on with the fight, though every
step he took in the sand was in a pool of blood; and so we got off. And
tell me, ye sons of shotten herrings, wasn't it worth more to save him
than the dirty silver? for silver we can get again, brave boys: there's
more fish in the sea than ever came out of it, and more silver in Nombre
de Dios than would pave all the streets in the west country: but of such
captains as Franky Drake, Heaven never makes but one at a time; and if
we lose him, good-bye to England's luck, say I, and who don't agree, let
him choose his weapons, and I'm his man."

He who delivered this harangue was a tall and sturdy personage, with a
florid black-bearded face, and bold restless dark eyes, who leaned, with
crossed legs and arms akimbo, against the wall of the house; and seemed
in the eyes of the schoolboy a very magnifico, some prince or duke at
least. He was dressed (contrary to all sumptuary laws of the time) in
a suit of crimson velvet, a little the worse, perhaps, for wear; by his
side were a long Spanish rapier and a brace of daggers, gaudy enough
about the hilts; his fi