dark nights a corposant burned now at this masthead, now at that.
Mariner and soldier knew the story of the shadowy figure keeping company
with the stars there above them on the poop-royal. Did he keep company
only with the stars and with the boy, his familiar? The sick, tossing
from side to side, raved out curses, and the well saw many omens.
Dissatisfaction, never far from their unstayed minds, crept at times
very near, and superstition sat always amongst them. But they reckoned
with a Captain stronger for this voyage than had been Francis Drake or
John Hawkins, and stranger than any under whom they had ever sailed. He
was so still a man that they knew not how to take him, but beneath his
eyes vain imaginings and half-formed conspiracies withered like burnt
paper. He called upon neither God nor devil, but his voice blew like an
icy wind upon the heat of disloyal intents, and like the white fire that
touched now stem, now stern, so his will held the ship, driving it like
a leaf towards the mainland and the fortress of Nueva Cordoba.

The ship that seemed so aged and disgraced yet had a strength of sinew
which made her formidable. All things had been patiently cared for by
the man who, selling his patrimony, had labored against wind and tide to
the end that he might carry forth with him such an armament as scarce
had been the _Cygnet's_ own. Tier on tier rose the _Sea Wraith's_
ordnance; she carried warlike stores of all sorts that might serve for
battle by sea or land. If his money could not buy such men as stood
ready to ship with Drake and Hawkins, yet in his wild, sin-stained crew
he had purchased experience, the maddest bravery, and a lust of Spanish
gold that might not be easily sated. The qualities of a captain over men
he himself supplied.

In his confidence neither before nor after their sailing, yet the two
hundred men of the _Sea Wraith_ guessed well his destination, but for