On the Spanish Main; Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of DarienMasefield, John
History
On the Spanish Main; Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien
Masefield, John
Buccaneers; Spanish Main
The next morning, a little after daybreak, Drake called away his
pinnace, "proposing to go a-fishing." Rowing down to the _Swan_ he
hailed her, asking his brother to go with him. John Drake was in his
bunk at the time, and replied that "he would follow presently," or if it
would please him to stay a very little he would attend him. Drake saw
that the deed was done; for the _Swan_ was slowly settling. He would
not stay for his brother, but asked casually, "as making no great
account of it," why their barque was so deep in the sea. John Drake
thought little of the question, but sent a man down to the steward, who
had charge of the hold, to inquire "whether there were any water in the
ship, or what other cause might be?" The steward, "hastily stepping down
at his usual scuttle," was wet to the waist before he reached the foot
of the ladder. Very greatly scared he hurried out of the hold, "as if
the water had followed him," crying out that the ship was full of water.
John Drake at once called all hands to mend ship, sending some below to
find the leak and the remainder to the pumps. The men turned to "very
willingly," so that "there was no need to hasten them," and John Drake
left them at their work while he reported the "strange chance" to his
brother. He could not understand how it had happened. They had not
pumped twice in six weeks before, and now they had six feet of water in
the hold. He hoped his brother would give him "leave from attending him
in fishing," as he wished to find the leak without delay. Drake offered
to send the _Pascha's_ men abroad to take a spell at the pumps, but this
John Drake did not wish. He had men enough, he said; and he would like
his brother to continue his fishing, so that they might have fresh fish
for dinner. On getting back to the _Swan_ he found that the pumps had
gained very little on the leak, "yet such was their love to the bark,
... that they ceased not, but to the utmost of their strength laboured
all that they might, till three in the afternoon." By that time the
_Pascha's_ men, helped by Drake himself, had taken turn about at the
pump brakes, and the pumping had been carried on for eight or nine hours
without ceasing. The pumping had freed her only about a foot and a half,
and the leak was still undiscovered. The men were tired out, for the
sun was now at his hottest, and Drake adds slyly that they "had now a
less liking of her than before, and greater content to hear of some
means for remedy." We gather from what follows, that when he asked them
what they wished to do, they left it all to him. He, therefore,
suggested that John Drake should go aboard the _Pascha_ as her captain.
He himself, he said, would shift into a pinnace; while the _Swan_ should
be set on fire, and abandoned as soon as her gear was taken out of her.
The pinnaces came aboard the sinking ship, and the men pillaged her of
all her stores. Powder, tar, and the like were scattered about her
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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