“Fate,” he said, “has brought me on board this ship, and in it I will stay till it shall please God to save us or no. Álava is very bad, most of the officers are more or less hurt, and I may be able to be of some service here. I am not one of those who run away from danger; on the contrary, since the defeat of the 21st I have sought it; I long for the moment when my presence may prove to be of some use. If you reach home before me, as I hope you will, tell Paca that a good sailor is the slave of his country, that I am very glad that I came—that I do not regret it—on the contrary. Tell her that she is to be glad, too, when she sees me, and that my comrades would certainly have thought badly of me if I had not come. How could I have done otherwise? You—do you not think that I did well to come?”
“Of course, certainly,” I replied, anxious to soothe his agitation, “who doubts it?” For his excitement was so great that the absurdity of asking the opinion of a pageboy had not even occurred to him.
“I see you are a reasonable fellow,” he went on, much comforted by my admission. “I see you have a noble and patriotic soul. But Paca never sees anything excepting through her own selfishness, as she has a very odd temper and has taken it into her head that fleets and guns are useless inventions, she cannot understand why I. … In short, I know that she will be furious when she sees me and then—as we have not won the battle, she will say one thing and another—oh! she will drive me mad! However, I will not mind her. You—what do you say? Was I not right to come?”
“Yes, indeed, I think so,” I said once more: “You were very right to come. It shows that you are a brave officer.”
“Well then go—go to Paca, go and tell her so, and you will see what she will say,” he went on more excited than ever. “And tell her that I am safe and sound, and my presence here is indispensable. In point of fact, I was the principal leader in the rescue of the Santa Ana. If I had not trained those guns—who knows, who knows? You—what do you think? We may do more yet; if the wind favors us tomorrow morning we may rescue some more ships. Yes sir, for I have a plan in my head. … We shall see, we shall see. And so goodbye, my boy. Be careful of what you say to Paca.”
“I will not forget,” said I. “She shall know that if it had not been for you we should not have recaptured the Santa Ana, and that if you are lucky you may still bring a couple of dozen ships into Cádiz.”
“A couple of dozen!—no man; that is a large number. Two ships, I say—or perhaps three. In short, I am sure I was right to join the fleet. She will be furious and will drive me mad when I get home again; but I was right, I say—I am sure I was right.” With these words he left me and I saw him last sitting in a corner of the cabin. He was praying, but he told his beads with as little display as possible, for he did not choose to be detected at his devotions. My master’s last speech had convinced me that he had lost his wits and, seeing him pray, I understood how his enfeebled spirit had struggled in vain to triumph over the exhaustion of age, and now, beaten in strife, turned to God for support and consolation. Doña Francisca was right; for many years my master had been past all service but prayer.
We left the ship according to orders. Don Rafael and Marcial with the rest of the wounded officers were carefully let down into the boats by the strong-armed sailors. The violence of the sea made this a long and difficult business, but at last it was done and two boat loads were pulled off to the Rayo. The passage, though short was really frightful; but at last, though there were moments when it seemed to me that we must be swallowed up by the waves, we got alongside of the Rayo and with great difficulty clambered on board.
XV
“Out of the frying-pan into the fire,” said Marcial, when they laid him down on deck. “However, when the captain commands the men must obey. Rayo is an unlucky name for this cursed ship. They say she will be in Cádiz by midnight, and I say she won’t. We shall see what we shall see.”
“What do you say, Marcial? we shall not get in?” I asked in much alarm.
“You, master Gabrielito, you know nothing about such matters,” said he.
“But when Don Alonso and the officers of the Santa Ana say that the Rayo will get in tonight. … She must get in when they say she will.”
“Do not you know, you little landlubber, that the gentlemen of the quarterdeck are far more often mistaken than we are in the fo’castle? If not, what was the admiral of the fleet about?—Mr. Corneta—devil take him! You see he had not brains enough to work a fleet. Do you suppose that if Mr. Corneta had asked my advice we should have lost the battle?”
“And you think we
