“Ay!” answered Durzil, “if no gold is to be had for picking up in Eldorado, there is some to be gained there yet by free-trading—and once in a while one may have the luck to pick up a handful on the sea.” “On the sea, ay! how so?” “Once I was going quietly along before the trades, with my goods under hatches as peaceable and lawful a trader, as need be, when we fell in with a tall galleon careering. Having no cause to shun or fear her, I lay my own course with English colors flying, when what does she but up helm and after us. In half an hour she was within range and opened with her bow guns, in ten minutes more she was alongside, and—” “Alongside, in ten minutes, from long cannon range!” exclaimed Miles St. Aubyn—“what were you doing then, that she overhauled you so fast?” “Running down to meet her, Sir Miles, with every stitch of canvas set that would draw, when I saw that she was bent on having it; and—as I was about to say when you interrupted me—in twenty more she had changed owners.” “Indeed! indeed! that _was_ a daring blow,” said the old soldier, rousing at the tale, like a superannuated war-horse to the trumpet, “and what was she?” “A treasure galleon, sir; a Spaniard homeward bound, with twenty-six guns, and two hundred men.” “And what did you with your prize, in peace time? You hardly brought her into Plymouth, I should fancy.” “Nor into Cadiz, either,” he replied with a smile. “Her crew, or what was left of them, were put on board a coaster bound for St. Salvador, her bars and ingots on board the good ship ‘Royal Oak,’ of Bristol, and she—oh! she, I think, was sent to the bottom!” “A daring deed!” said Sir Miles, shaking his head gravely—“a daring deed truly, which might well cost you all your lives, were it complained of by the Most Christian King!” “And yet his supreme Christianity fired on us the first!” “And yet, that plea, I fear, would hardly save you in these days, but you would hang for it.” “Amen!” replied the young man. “Better be hanged, ‘his country crying he hath played an English part,’ than creep to a quiet grave a coward from his cradle. And now, what say you, young sir, would you still wish to adventure it with us, knowing what risks we run?” “Ay, by my soul!” answered the brave boy, with a flashing eye, and quivering lip, “and the rather, that I _do_ know it. What do you say, father? May I go with him? In God’s name, will you not let me go with him?” “Indeed, will I not, Jasper,” said Sir Miles, with an accent of resolve so steady, that the boy saw at once it was useless to waste another word on it. “Beside, he is only laughing at you. Why! what in heaven’s name should he make with such a cockerel as thou, crowing or ere thy spurs have sprouted!” “Laughing at me, is he!” exclaimed the boy, raising himself up in his bed actively, without exhibiting the least sign of the pain, which racked him, as he moved. “If I thought he were, he’d scarce sail so quickly as he counts on doing.”