"
Drake spent all his leisure during the next fortnight with the Spaniard,
whose recovery was slow but steady. It was tacitly understood that the
less said of the incident which had left him stunned and half-drowned
the better. If those who had sought to kill him knew him to be alive,
they might try again.
The young seaman had never known a man like this before. In his guest's
casual talk of his young days one could see as in a mirror the Spain of
a half-century since, with its audacious daring, its extravagant
chivalry and its bulldog ferocity.
"They have outgrown us altogether, these young fellows," he said once
with his quaint half-melancholy smile. "When the King and Queen rode in
armor at the head of their troops in Granada, our cavaliers dreamed of
conquering the world--now it has all been conquered."
"Not England," Drake put in quickly.
"Not England--I beg your pardon, my friend. But we have grown heavy with
gold in these days--and gold makes cowards."
"It never made a coward o' me," laughed the lad. "Belike it'll never
have the chance."
Through the shadows the old ship's-lantern cast in the rude
half-timbered room seemed to move the wild figures of that marvellous
pageant of conquest which began in 1492. Saavedra spoke little of
himself but much of others--Ojeda, Nicuesa, Balboa, Cortes, Alvarado,
Pizarro.
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