So he turned away, but the man sitting next me put out his hand and plucked the monk's cloak, bidding him remember that he had promised to find him a ship for England, and begging him to keep his plighted word. But Frey Bartolomeo shook him off. "Thou art a heretic," he said. "With heretics we keep no faith. To thy oar, Lutheran!" CHAPTER XVI. THE FLAG OF ENGLAND. And now our cup of misery seemed full indeed. We were friendless and captive, and we had for our jailers two of the most inhuman beings that ever lived to disgrace the earth, and both of them hated us with an exceeding bitter hatred; one because I had spat in his face, the other because we had escaped the fire. Moreover, we were chained to an oar in a vessel which was sailing over I know not how many thousands of miles of water, in latitudes where it was not likely we should fall in with any ship that could rescue us. Verily there seemed before us nothing but horror and death! And truly our lot was hard. Hour upon hour we tugged at the oar. Where we toiled there we slept, amongst the shrieks, sobs, groans, and heart-rending lamentations of our fellow-captives. Up and down the gangways that divided us walked stalwart Spaniards, armed with heavy whips, which they scarcely ever ceased from laying about our bare shoulders. Our food was such as is given to pigs in England--coarse maize or meal, soaked in cold water, with bread of the blackest and hardest description. The heat burned us to madness; the cold night-winds blew in upon us; the salt-spray dashing through the open ports found the raw places in our wounds and stung us as if with fire. Verily, we were in hell! Ere many days had gone by a man dropped and died at his post. They let him hang there by his chains till another day had gone past, then they knocked off his irons and flung him through the port-hole. And there was scarcely a man of us that did not envy him. Now that Captain Manuel Nunez had us in his power there was apparently no limit to his cruelty. Scarcely a day passed on which he did not descend the ladder to our deck and vex our souls with some new form of torture. Sometimes he would take his station near us, and bid the overseers lay on to us with their whips. Sometimes he would take the whip himself and beat us about the head and face with it until we became senseless. Now and then he would amuse himself by pricking us with his sword or dagger; now and then he would spit in our faces and bespatter us with filth, pouring out upon us every foul and evil name he could think of. And when he had worked his will upon us, there would come to us Frey Bartolomeo, cold and cruel, and he would admonish and instruct us, and finding that he could get naught out of us, would depart cursing us for Lutherans and dogs.