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Frank saw the shadow of the Rose against the window. She came down, and he made a wild appeal to her.

"Your conscience! Your religion--"

"No, never! I can face the chance of death, but not the loss of my husband. Go! For God's sake leave me!"

Frank turned, and Amyas dragged him down the hill. Both were too proud to run, but the whole gang of negroes were in pursuit, and stones were flying.

They were not twenty-five yards from the boat, when the storm burst and a volley of great quartz pebbles whistled round their heads. Frank is struck, and Amyas takes him over his shoulders and plunges wildly on towards the beach.

"Men, to the rescue!" Amyas shouts. "Fire, men! Give it the black villains!"

The arquebuses crackled from the boat in front, but, balls are answering from behind. The governor's guard have turned out, followed them to the beach, and are firing over the negroes' heads.

Amyas is up to his knees in water, battered with stones, blinded with blood; but Frank is still in his arms. Another heavy blow--confused mass of negroes and English, foam and pebbles--a confused roar of shouts, shots, curses, and he recollects no more.

He is lying in the stern-sheets of the boat, stiff and weak. Two men only are left of the six, and Frank is not in the boat. With weary work they made the ship, and as, the alarm being now given, it was hardly safe to remain where they were, it was agreed to weigh anchor. Amyas had no hope that Frank might still be alive. So ended that fatal venture of mistaken chivalry.

IV.--Amyas Comes Home for the Third Time

More than three years have passed since the Rose sailed out from Bideford, and never a word has reached England of what has befallen the ship and her company.

Many have been the adventures of Amyas and the men who have followed him. Treasure they have got in South America, and old Salvation Yeo has found a young girl whom he had lost twelve years before, grown up wild among the Indians. Ayacanora she is called, and she is white, for her father was an Englishman and her mother Spanish, for all her savage ways; and will not be separated from her discoverers, but insists on going with them to England. And Amyas has learnt that his brother Frank was burnt by order of the Inquisition, and with him Rose, and that Don Guzman had resigned the governorship of La Guayra.

Amyas swore a dreadful oath before all his men when he was told of the death of Frank and Rose, that as long as he had eyes to see a Spaniard and hands to hew him down he would give no quarter to that accursed nation, and that he would avenge all the innocent blood shed by them.

And now it is February, 1587, and Mrs. Leigh, grown grey and feeble in step, is pacing up and down the terrace walk at Burrough. A flash is seen in the fast darkening twilight, and then comes the thunder of a gun at sea. Twenty minutes later, and a ship has turned up the Bideford river, and a cheer goes up from her crew.

Yes, Amyas has come, and with him Will Cary and the honest parson, Jack Brimblecombe, and the good seamen of Devon; and Ayacanora, who knelt down obedient before Mrs. Leigh because she had seen Amyas kneel, and whom Mrs. Leigh took by the hand and led to Burrough Court.

William Salterne would take none of his share of the treasure which was brought home, and which he had a just claim to.

"The treasure is yours, sir," he said to Amyas. "I have enough, and more than enough. And if I have a claim in law for aught, which I know not, neither shall ever ask--why, if you are not too proud, accept that claim as a plain burgher's thank-offering to you, sir, for a great and a noble love which you and your brother have shown to one who, though I say it to my shame, was not worthy thereof."

That night old Salterne was found dead, kneeling by his daughter's bed. His will lay by him. Any money due to him as owner of the Rose, and a new barque of 300 tons burden, he had bequeathed to Captain Amyas Leigh, on condition that he should re-christen that barque the Vengeance, and with her sail once more against the Spaniard.

In the summer of 1588 comes the great Armada, and Captain Leigh has the Vengeance fitted out for war, and is in the English Channel. He has found out that Don Guzman is on board the Santa Catherina, and is set on taking his revenge.

For twelve months past this hatred of Don Guzman has been eating out his heart, and now the hour has struck. But the Armada melts away in the storms of the North Sea, and Captain Leigh has pursued the Santa Catherina round the Orkneys and down to Lundy Island. And there, on the rock called the Shutter, the Santa Catherina strikes, and then vanishes for ever and ever.

"Shame!" cried Amyas, hurling his sword far into the sea, "to lose my right, when it was in my very grasp!"

A crack which rent the sky, a bright world of flame, and then a blank of utter darkness. The great proud sea captain has been struck blind by the flash of lightning.