Westward Ho! Or, The Voyages and Adventures of Sir Amyas Leigh, Knight, of Burrough, in the County of Devon, in the Reign of Her Most Glorious Majesty Queen ElizabethKingsley, Charles
History
Westward Ho! Or, The Voyages and Adventures of Sir Amyas Leigh, Knight, of Burrough, in the County of Devon, in the Reign of Her Most Glorious Majesty Queen Elizabeth
Kingsley, Charles
Great Britain -- History -- Elizabeth, 1558-1603 -- Fiction
“But he--'No, no, my life. It stands upon my honor both to fulfil my
bond with these men, whom I have brought hither, and to take home to
England at least something of my prize as a proof of my own valor.'
“Then she smiling--'Am I not prize enough, and proof enough?' But he
would not be so tempted, and turning to us offered us the half of that
treasure, if we would go back with him, and rescue it from the Spaniard.
At which the lady wept and wailed much; but I took upon myself to
comfort her, though I was but a simple mariner, telling her that it
stood upon Mr. Oxenham's honor; and that in England nothing was esteemed
so foul as cowardice, or breaking word and troth betwixt man and man;
and that better was it for him to die seven times by the Spaniards, than
to face at home the scorn of all who sailed the seas. So, after much
ado, back they went again; I and Penberthy, and the three Plymouth men
which escaped from the pinnace, keeping the lady as before.
“Well, sirs, we waited five days, having made houses of boughs as
before, without hearing aught; and on the sixth we saw coming afar off
Mr. Oxenham, and with him fifteen or twenty men, who seemed very weary
and wounded; and when we looked for the rest to be behind them, behold
there were no more; at which, sirs, as you may well think, our hearts
sank within us.
“And Mr. O., coming nearer, cried out afar off, 'All is lost!' and so
walked into the camp without a word, and sat himself down at the foot
of a great tree with his head between his hands, speaking neither to the
lady or to any one, till she very pitifully kneeling before him, cursing
herself for the cause of all his mischief, and praying him to avenge
himself upon that her tender body, won him hardly to look once upon her,
after which (as is the way of vain and unstable man) all between them
was as before.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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