that to me, and I will ask a penny of no man."

A terrible storm arose, but Gilbert retained the heroic courage and
Christian faith which had ever distinguished him. As often as the
_Hind_, tossed upon the waves, approached within hailing distance of
the _Squirrel_, the gallant admiral, "himself sitting with a book in
his hand" on the deck, would call out words of cheer and
consolation--"We are as near heaven by sea as by land." When night
came on (September 10) only the lights in the riggings of the
_Squirrel_ told that the noble Gilbert still survived. At midnight the
lights went out suddenly, and from the watchers on the Hind the cry
arose, "The admiral is cast away." And only the _Golden Hind_ returned
to England.[4]

The mantle of Gilbert fell upon the shoulders of his half-brother Sir
Walter Raleigh, whose energy and versatility made him, perhaps, the
foremost Englishman of his age. When the _Hind_ returned from her
ill-fated voyage Raleigh was thirty-one years of age and possessed a
person at once attractive and commanding. He was tall and well
proportioned, had thick, curly locks, beard, and mustaches, full, red
lips, bluish gray eyes, high forehead, and a face described as "long
and bold."

By service in France, the Netherlands, and Ireland he had shown
himself a soldier of the same fearless stamp as his half-brother Sir
Humphrey Gilbert; and he was already looked upon as a seaman of
splendid powers for organization. Poet and scholar, he was the patron
of Edmund Spenser, the famous author of the _Faerie Queene_; of
Richard Hakluyt, the naval historian; of Le Moyne and John White, the
painters; and of Thomas Hariot, the great mathematician.