Bobbing on the waters of the Nieuwe Vlei See the bantam galleot, short and broad and high. Laden for the Indies, trading all the way, Frank and shrewd and cautious, fiery in a fray,-- Sagamore and mandarin are all the same to you, Little Nick of Leyden with your wooden shoe! XVIII THE FIRES THAT TALKED All along the coast of Britain, from John o' Groat's to Beachey Head, from Saint Michael's Mount to Cape Wrath, twinkled the bonfires on the headlands. Henry Hudson, returning from a voyage among icebergs, guessed at once what this chain of lights meant. The son of Mary Queen of Scots had been crowned in London.[1] Hudson's keen eyes were unusually grave and thoughtful as the _Muscovy Duck_ sailed up to London Pool on the incoming tide. The sailors looked even more sober, for most of them were English Protestants, with a few Flemings, and John Williams the pilot was an Anabaptist. It was he who asked the question of which all were thinking. "Master Hudson, d'ye think the new King will light them other fires--the ones at Smithfield?" Hudson shook his head. "That's a thing no man can say for certain, John. But there's the Low Countries and the Americas to run to. 'T is not as it was in Queen Mary's day." "Aye, but Spain has got all of America, pretty near, and the French are nabbing the rest," said the pilot doubtfully. "Nay, that's a bigger place than you guess, over yonder. Ever see the map that Doctor Dee made for Queen Bess near thirty years ago? I remember him showing it to my grandsire with the ink scarce dry on it. The country Ralegh's people saw has got room for the whole of France and England, and plenty timber and corn-land. Sir Walter he knew that." There was plague in London when they landed, and all sought their families in fear and trembling, not knowing what might have come and gone in their absence. Hudson's house was at Mortlake on the Thames above London, and there he was rejoiced to find all well. Young John Hudson was brimful of Mr. Brereton's new Relacion of the Voyage of Captain Bartholomew Gosnold and Captain Bartholomew Gilbert to the North part of Virginia by permission of the honorable Knight Sir Walter Ralegh. Strawberries bigger than those of England, and cherries in clusters like grapes, blackbirds with carnation-colored wings, Indians who painted their eyebrows white and made faces over mustard, were mixed higgledy-piggledy in his bubbling talk. Hudson, turning the pages of the new book, saw at once that on this voyage around Cape Cod the little ship _Concord_ had sailed seas unknown to him. "Why won't the Company send you to the Americas, Dad?" the boy asked eagerly. "When will I be old enough to go to sea?" "Wait till ye're fourteen at least, Jack," his father answered. "There's much to learn before ye're a master mariner."