The Medway at flood-tide from Sheerness to Gillingham Reach was one maze
of creeks and bends and inlets and tiny bays. Nothing was visible an
oar's length overside but shifting cloudy shapes that bulked obscurely
in the fog. But although this was Francis Drake's first voyage as master
of his own ship, he knew these waters as he knew the palm of his hand.
His old captain, dying a bachelor, had left him the weather-beaten
cargo-ship as reward for his "diligence and fidelity", and at sixteen he
was captain where six years before he had been ship's-boy.
Scores of daring projects went Catherine-wheeling through his mind as he
steered seaward through the white enchanted world. In 1561 Spain was the
bogy of English seaports, most of whose folk were Protestants. There was
no knowing how long the coast-wise trade would be allowed to go on.
Out of the white mist flashed a whiter face, etched with black brows and
lashes and a pointed silky beard--the face of a man all in black, whose
body rose and dipped with the waves among the marsh grass of an eyot. So
lightly was it held that it might have slipped off in the wake of the
boat had not Tom Moone the carpenter caught it with a boat-hook. But
when they had the man on board they found that he was not dead.
Ten minutes before, the young captain would have said that every dead
Spaniard was so much to the good, but he had the life-saving instinct of
a Newfoundland dog.
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