"Certes, Mistress Oglander," said he in his confusion, "how you did startle me! I heard not your approach."
"That is scarcely to be believed," quoth she, still gripping his belt, "for we have been firing our guns into your quarter this half-hour past!" Then tugging at him with renewed energy, she added, "You are now fairly conquered and our lawful prize of war."
"Nay, Mistress Oglander," stammered Timothy, "I know not what you mean! I am but gathering a few poor herbs for my father, Master Trollope, the barber-surgeon of Plymouth, and I beg you to release me."
Mistress Oglander looked strangely incredulous, and for a moment she relaxed her hold of him. She glanced round as though in search of someone whom she expected to see among the trees at the edge of the lake.
"I care not whose son you may be," said she. "In real truth you are no man's son; nor, so please you, am I Drusilla Oglander; for you are a Spanish treasure-ship that I have captured on the high seas, while I am the good ship Prudence of Falmouth, who now intendeth to take you as my prize to England."
Timothy seemed to apprehend her purpose, for he calmly yielded himself to her humour.
"An that be the way of it all," quoth he, "then am I well content. But I do pray that England doth lie at no great distance from this spot, for I must get home with my bag of herbs for the which my father is impatiently waiting."
"'Tis but a little way beyond the beeches yonder," explained Drusilla, indicating three tall trees that grew in the midst of a shrubbery at the far end of the little lake. "'Twill take but a few moments to cross the Atlantic Ocean, and then we are there."
She drew him onward for some yards, when suddenly he stopped. She glanced at him in quick alarm.
"Nay," she cried, "you must not sink! You are to be refitted when we reach port, and then, you know, you will be made into an English ship."
But Timothy still hesitated, and even made a movement as if to free himself and run away.
"Why are you sinking?" questioned little Drusilla, to whom his movements seemed to imply that he had been seriously damaged in the late battle. "It cannot be that the shots I fired struck you below the water!"
"'Tis my heart that sinketh," returned Tim. "Prithee, who and what are the men I see lurking under yonder trees?"
Drusilla smiled.
"The one sitting down with his back to the railings," said she, "is the Santa Barbara galleon—a poor hopeless wreck. The other—well, I scarce know what he is at this moment, for he hath been so many things this morning that 'tis hard to remember. But I think he was the mule-train the last time—the mule-train that Drake captured near to Nombre de Dios. Gilbert was Captain Drake. Gilbert doth always like to be Captain Drake whenever 'tis possible, and will never consent to be a Spaniard, unless it be King Philip himself or else the great Marquis of Santa Cruz."
"Master Gilbert can scarce be blamed for his choice," remarked Tim. And, understanding from what the girl had said that there was no reason for the fear that had come over him, he meekly suffered himself to be taken into port in the character of a captive treasure-ship.
CHAPTER II.
THE YOUNG HEIR OF MODBURY.
"I CAN scarce agree with you there," remarked the young man whom Drusilla had described as a poor helpless wreck. He was a thin, sallow-faced, sad-looking individual, with lank black hair, hollow cheeks, and weary, lack-lustre eyes. His ruff was limp and frayed at the edge, and his long scraggy neck rose out of it like the stump of a mushroom that had difficulty in supporting the large head that surmounted it. His sombre black cloth doublet hung loose about his body, and its elbows were worn threadbare. One of his long bony fingers was thrust between the closed leaves of a little book that he held lovingly in his hand. His whole appearance suggested that his habit of life was that of a student, and his discourse certainly did not give the lie to his appearance.
"I can scarce agree with you, Sir Richard," said he in a thin, pipy voice. "Your Ovid is indeed a prince among poets, but in my own poor opinion Virgil is the greater of the two, inasmuch as the epic is greater than the lyric."
"Nay, but I care not to dispute such deep and learned matters with you, Master Pym," returned the other with a yawn that betrayed his weariness of the student's argument. "You are a scholar who knoweth all these things as I do know the ropes of a ship, while I am but a simple seaman, devoid of learning, who hath scarce opened a book since I was a mere stripling. Talk to me of travel if you like, or of Her Majesty's temper, and I will give ear to you, but to books and poets I cry avast!" He shifted his position on the fallen tree upon which he was sitting, and turned his clear gray eyes in the direction of the plantation towards which, a few minutes before, Drusilla had sailed off in quest of adventure. "Ah!" he cried, observing the girl approaching with Timothy Trollope at her heels. "Whom have we here—a prisoner of war? Why, I'll be sworn 'tis the self-same young jackanapes that leapt into Sutton Pool yester-morn to rescue the drunken fisherman that fell in! Dost know the name of him, Master Pym?"
The scholar drew the wide brim of his hat over his brow to shield his eyes from the glare of the sun.
"Ay," he said after a long pause, "I know him. 'Tis one of Barber Trollope's brood—a wild, thoughtless ragamuffin, that doth spend his days in loitering about the quays and picking up the talk of rough mariners. But what, I'd like to know, can Mistress Drusilla mean by thus dragging him hither? I warrant me she hath caught him in some poaching business."
Sir Richard stroked his crisp dark beard and said with a laugh:
"'Tis far more likely she hath taken him for some Barbary corsair, and is bringing him back as a prize. For you must bear in mind, Master Pym, that the maid left us on a treasure-hunting cruise. Ay, I'll be bound 'tis as I say," he added, as Drusilla came into the harbour of the trees. "She hath the rascal in tow, look you, with his belt for hawser."
At this moment a fleet of English merchantmen, in the boyish person of Master Gilbert Oglander, hove into sight in the offing; and Drusilla, relinquishing her prize and sternly bidding Timothy to remain at anchor until her return, ran off to meet her brother.
Timothy respectfully took off his cap and stood mutely in front of the handsome bearded gentleman whom Master Pym had addressed as "Sir Richard", not daring to raise his eyes from the ground.
"How now, boy!" cried Sir Richard in a gruff voice, that seemed to have in it something of the deep roar of the sea waves breaking upon cavernous rocks. "What hath brought thee here? Hast been a-thieving of his lordship's rabbits, quotha?"
"No, please your worship," stammered Timothy, "I have done no manner of harm."
"Then wherefore are you here, a-trespassing on private lands?" demanded Sir Richard.
"Mistress Oglander did arrest me, yonder by the trees," answered Tim. "I was about to go home when she came behind me and seized me, declaring that I was a Spanish treasure-ship. I yielded to her humour, and—"
"Ay," interrupted Sir Richard with a grim smile, "I'll be sworn you yielded—as all Spaniards must when 'tis question of fighting with a well-found English ship such as the one that conquered you. But, prithee, what may it be that you have concealed in yon fat wallet at your back? I'll engage it is a pheasant-bird, or else a brace of plump partridges.