story. How after Captain Hawkins, constrained by famine, had put them
ashore, they wandered in misery till the Spaniards took them; how,
instead of hanging them (as they at first intended), the Dons fed and
clothed them, and allotted them as servants to various gentlemen about
Mexico, where they throve, turned their hands (like true sailors) to
all manner of trades, and made much money; so that all went well, until
the fatal year 1574, when, much against the minds of many of the
Spaniards themselves, that cruel and bloody Inquisition was established
for the first time in the Indies; and how from that moment their lives
were one long tragedy; how they were all imprisoned for a year and a
half, racked again and again, and at last adjudged to receive publicly,
on Good Friday, 1575, some three hundred, some one hundred stripes, and
to serve in the galleys for six or ten years each; while as the
crowning atrocity of the Moloch sacrifice, three of them were burnt
alive in the market-place of Mexico.

The history of the party was not likely to improve the good feeling of
the crew towards the Spanish ship which was two miles to leeward of
them, and which must be fought with, or fled from, before a quarter of
an hour was past. So, kneeling down upon the deck, as many a brave
crew in those days did in like case, they "gave God thanks devoutly for
the favor they had found," and then with one accord, at Jack's leading,
sang one and all the ninety-fourth Psalm:

"Oh, Lord, thou dost revenge all wrong;
Vengeance belongs to thee," etc.

And then again to quarters; for half the day's work, or more than half,
still remained to be done; and hardly were the decks cleared afresh,
and the damage repaired as best it could be, when she came ranging up