All that he knew he had taught his young
apprentice, and now the boy was free to use it for his own
work--whatever that should be. Unlike the gilded and perfumed courtiers,
these men of the sea showed little respect toward the tall ships of
Spain. Saavedra, pleased that they spoke without reserve in his
presence, watched the rugged straightforward faces, and wondered.
The time came when they took him and his stocky, silent old servant to
board a Vizcayan boat. As they caught his last quick smile and farewell
gesture Will Harvest heaved a rueful sigh. "I never thought to be
sorrowful at parting with a Don," he said reflectively, "but I be."
"God made men afore the Devil made Dons," growled Tom Moone. "Yon's a
man."
Drake had gone down the wharf with John Hawkins of Plymouth, a town that
was warmly defiant of Spain's armed monopoly of sea-trade. Privateers
were dodging about the trade-routes where Spanish and Portuguese
galleons, laden with ingots of gold and silver, dyewoods, pearls,
spices, silks and priceless merchandise, moved as menacing sea-castles.
Huger and huger galleasses were built, masted and timbered with mighty
trunks from the virgin forests of the Old World, four and five feet
thick. The military discipline of the Continent made a warship a
floating barrack; the decks of a Spanish man-of-war were packed with
drilled troops like marching engines of destruction, dealing leaden
death from arquebus and musquetoun.
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