on, and in understanding simple, and
of breeding but a poor parson's son, had yet in him a spirit so loving
and cheerful, so lifted from base and selfish purposes to the worship
of duty, and to a generosity rather knightly than sacerdotal, that all
through his life he seemed to think only that it was more blessed to
give than to receive. And all that wealth which he gained in the wars he
dispersed among his sisters and the poor of his parish, living unmarried
till his death like a true lover and constant mourner (as shall be said
in place), and leaving hardly wherewith to bring his body to the
grave. At whom if we often laughed once, we should now rather envy him,
desiring to be here what he was, that we may be hereafter where he is.
Amen."

CHAPTER XIX

WHAT BEFELL AT LA GUAYRA

"Great was the crying, the running and riding,
Which at that season was made in the place;
The beacons were fired, as need then required,
To save their great treasure they had little space."

Winning of Cales.

The men would gladly have hawked awhile round Margarita and Cubagua for
another pearl prize. But Amyas having, as he phrased it, "fleshed his
dogs," was loth to hang about the islands after the alarm had been
given. They ran, therefore, south-west across the mouth of that great
bay which stretches from the Peninsula of Paria to Cape Codera, leaving
on their right hand Tortuga, and on their left the meadow-islands of the
Piritoos, two long green lines but a few inches above the tideless sea.
Yeo and Drew knew every foot of the way, and had good reason to know it;
for they, the first of all English mariners, had tried to trade along
this coast with Hawkins. And now, right ahead, sheer out of the sea from
base to peak, arose higher and higher the mighty range of the Caracas
mountains; beside which all hills which most of the crew had ever seen
seemed petty mounds. Frank, of course, knew the Alps; and Amyas the
Andes; but Cary's notions of height were bounded by M'Gillicuddy's
Reeks, and Brimblecombe's by Exmoor; and the latter, to Cary's infinite
amusement, spent a whole day holding on by the rigging, and staring
upwards with his chin higher than his nose, till he got a stiff neck.
Soon the sea became rough and chopping, though the breeze was fair and
gentle; and ere they were abreast of the Cape, they became aware of
that strong eastward current which, during the win