Chapter 14

THE TRAITOR PUNISHED

This friar boasteth that he knoweth hell,
And God it wot that is but litel wonder;
Friars and fiends ben but litel asonder.

CHAUCER.

Richard meanwhile sailed fearlessly, with treachery for his nearest mate. Trangmar had at once exhibited audacity and prudence in the arrangement of his plan. He had made no great preparation, nor confided to any the real object of his intents. His only care had been, that the duke should sail on board an English vessel; and chance had brought into the Tagus one whose captain was inclined to the party of Lancaster. He also contrived to have two hirelings of his own engaged on board as part of the crew, who knew that it was their employer’s design to carry to England a prisoner for the king. He was besides provided with a warrant from Henry, empowering him to seize on his rebel subject—the name a blank, for the monk to fill up—alive or dead. The paper ran thus; so, in case of struggle, to afford warranty for his darker purpose.

Richard was now a prisoner. The vessel belonging to any country is a portion of that country; and the deck of this merchantman was virtually a part of the British soil. The prince, not heeding his position, was so far from fearing his enemy’s power, that he felt glad to find himself among his countrymen. He looked on the weather-beaten countenances of the honest sailors, and believed that he should find friends and partisans in all. He spoke to Trangmar of his purpose of declaring himself, and gaining them over; making this tiny offshoot of wide England his first conquest. Trangmar had not anticipated this. He was ignorant of the versatile and active spirit of the youth with whom he had to deal; nor had he, by putting himself in imagination in the prince’s place, become aware how the project of acquiring his own was his sleepless incentive to every action, and how he saw in every event a stepping-stone in the prosecution of his enterprise. He started at the proposal, and in his own heart said, “I must lose no time; that which I thought to do next week, were better done to-morrow.” With Richard he argued against this measure: he showed how the captain was bound to the present English government by his fortunes; how far more likely it was that, instead of gaining him and his crew, he would be made a prisoner by them, and delivered up to his enemy. Richard lent no great credence to this, but he yielded to the authority of the elder and the priest.

It was not in the power of his wily adversary to prevent him from ingratiating himself in the hearts of all around him. Besides his gentleness, his unaffected sympathy, and noble demeanour, his gay and buoyant spirit was congenial to the reckless sailors, who, during the dead calm that succeeded their first day’s sail after quitting the Tagus, were glad of amusement to diversify their monotonous lives. He interceded with their captain when any fault was committed; he learned their private histories, promised his assistance, and scattered money among them. Sometimes he called them around him to teach him their art, discoursing about the stars, the magnet, the signs of the weather; he climbed the shrouds, handled the ropes, became an adept in their nautical language. At other times he listened to tales of dreadful shipwrecks and sailors’ hardships, and recounted in turn De Faro’s adventures. This made them talk of the new African discoveries, and descant on the wild chimeras or sage conclusions of Columbus, who at last, it was said, was to be sent by the sovereigns of Spain in quest of the western passage to India, over the slant and boundless Atlantic. All this time, with flapping sails, they lay but a short distance off the mouth of the Tagus; and Trangmar, impatient of delay, yet found it prudent to postpone his nefarious purpose.

After the calm had continued for nearly a week, signs of bad weather manifested themselves; squalls assailed the ship, settling at last in a gale, which grew into a tempest. Their little vessel was decked, yet hardly able to resist the lashing waves of the Bay of Biscay. A leak, which had shown itself even during the calm, increased frightfully; the men were day and night employed at the pumps, exposed to the beating rain, and to the waves, which perpetually washed the deck, drenching their clothes and bedding; each hour the wind became more furious, dark water-spouts dipping into the boiling sea, and churning it to fury, swept past them, and the steep sides of the mountain-high billows were ready at every moment to overwhelm them. Their tiny bark, which in these days would scarcely receive a more dignified name than a skiff, was borne as a leaf on the stream of the wind, its only safety consisting in yielding to its violence. Often at the worst the men despaired. The captain himself, frightened at the danger—and, strange inconsistency, still more fearful of the ruin that must attend him if his vessel were wrecked—lost all presence of mind. The prince displayed, meanwhile, all his native energy; he commanded the men, and they obeyed him, looking on him as a superior being; when, by following his orders, the progress of the leak was checked, and the tossed bark laboured less among the surges. “Sailors have short prayers,” he said; “but if they are sincere ones, the saints will not the less intercede for us before God. Join me, my men, in a pious vow. I swear, by our Lady’s precious name, to walk barefoot to her nearest shrine the first land we touch, and there to make a gift of incense and candles at her altar. This, if we escape; if not, here is Father Meiler, a holy Franciscan, to give us short shrift; so that, like devout Catholics, we may recommend our souls to the mercy of Jesus. And now to the pump, the ropes; bring me a hatchet—our mast must overboard.”

Three days and nights they worked unremittingly; the lull that then succeeded was followed by another tempest, and the exhausted mariners grew desperate. They had been borne far into the Atlantic, and now the wind shifting, drove them with the same fury into the Bay of Biscay. Every moment in expectation of death, the heart of Trangmar softened towards his victim in spite of himself; he was forced to admire his presence of mind, his unvanquishable courage; his light, yet gentle spirit, which made him bear up under every difficulty, yet pity those who sunk beneath, cheering them with accents at once replete with kindness and fearless submission to the decree of Providence. Feeling the crew bound to him as his natural subjects, he extended towards them a paternal love, and felt called upon to guard and save them. After, for a fortnight, they had thus been the sport of the elements, the gale decreased; the violent breakers subsided into one long swell, which bore them into a sheltered cove, in the wild coast that surrounds the Bay of Biscay. The men disembarked, the vessel was drawn up; all hands were employed in unlading and repairing her. “Ye do ill,” said Richard; “do you not remember our vow? Doubtless some village is near which contains a shrine where we may pay it.”