I had run it up
with my own hand, and as I stood beneath the folds Master
Sparrow and my wife came to my side.
"The women are over there," I said to the latter, "where you had
best betake yourself."
"I prefer to stay here," she answered. "I am not afraid." Her color
was high, and she held her head up. " My father fought the
Armada," she said.
"Get me a sword from that man who is giving them out."
From his coign of vantage the watch now called out: "She's a long
ship, - five hundred tons, anyhow! Lord! the metal that she carries!
She's rasedecked!"
"Then she's Spanish, sure enough!" cried the Governor.
From the crowd of servants, felons, and foreigners rose a great
clamor, and presently we made out Sharpless perched on a cask in
their midst and wildly gesticulating.
"The Tiger, the Truelove, and the Due Return have swung across
channel!" announced the watch. "They 've trained their guns on the
Spaniard!"
The Englishmen cheered, but the bastard crew about Sharpless
groaned. Extreme fear had made the lawyer shameless. "What
guns have those boats?" he screamed. "Two falcons apiece and a
handful of muskets, and they go out against a man-of-war! She'll
trample them underfoot! She'll sink them with a shot apiece! The
Tiger is forty tons, and the Truelove is sixty. You 're all mad!"
"Sometimes quality beats quantity," said West.
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