Dominica sat down on the cushioned seat to watch the surprising gyrations of Master Dimmock. Maria knelt by her, clasping a hand still in both of hers, and giggled under her breath. An indignant voice was uplifted in the alleyway. “Who cast them here? That coystrill! Dimmock, Joshua Dimmock, may the black vomit seize you! Master Dangerfield’s fine Venice hosen to lie in the dust! Come out, ye skinny rogue!”
Joshua emerged from the chest with an armful of shirts and netherstocks. The door was rudely opened; Master Dangerfield’s servant sought to make a hasty entrance, but was met on the threshold by Joshua, who thrust the pile of linen into his arms, and drove him out. “Avoid them! Avoid, fool! The noble lady hath this cabin. By the General’s orders, mark you! Hold your peace, wastrel! The Venice hose! What’s that to me? Make order there! Pick up that handruff, that boot, those stocks! There are more shirts to come. Await me!” He came back, spread his hands, and shrugged expressive shoulders. “Heed naught, señora. A hapless fool. Master Dangerfield’s man. We shall have all in order presently.”
“I should not wish to turn Master Dangerfield from his cabin,” Dominica said. “Is there none other might house me?”
“Most noble lady! Waste no moment’s thought upon it!” Joshua said, shocked. “Master Dangerfield, forsooth! A likely gentleman, I allow, but a mere lad from the nursery. This mountain of raiment! Ho, the young men! all alike! I dare swear a full score of shirts. Sir Nicholas himself owns not so many.” He threw the rest of Master Dangerfield’s wardrobe out of the cabin, and shut the door smartly upon the protests of Master Dangerfield’s man.
Dominica watched the disposal of her baggage about the room. “I must suppose you a man of worth,” she said, gently satirical.
“You may say so, indeed, señora. I am the servant of Sir Nicholas. I have the ear. I am obeyed. Thus it is to be the lackey of a great man, lady,” Joshua answered complacently.
“Oh, is this Sir Nicholas a great man by your reckoning?”
“None greater, lady,” said Joshua promptly. “I have served him these fifteen years, and seen none to equal him. And I have been about the world, mark you! Ay, we have done some junketting to and fro. I allow you Sir Francis Drake to be a man well enough, but lacking in some small matters wherein we have the advantage of him. His birth, for example, will not rank with ours. By no means! Raleigh? Pshaw! he lacks our ready wit: we laugh in his sour countenance! Howard? A fig for him! I say no more, and leave you to judge. That popinjay, Leicester? Bah! A man of no weight. We, and we alone have never failed in our undertakings. And why, you ask? Very simply, señora: we reck not! The Queen’s grace said it with her own august lips. ‘God’s death,’ quoth she—her favourite oath, mark you!—‘God’s Death, Sir Nicholas, you should take Reck Not to be your watchword!’ With reason, most gracious lady! Certain, we reck not. We bite our glove in challenge to whomsoever ye will. We take what we will: Beauvallet’s way!”
Maria sniffed, and cocked up her pert nose. Joshua looked severely. “Mark it, mistress! I speak for both: we reck not.”
“He is a bold man,” Dominica said, half to herself.
Joshua beamed upon her. “You speak sooth, señora. Bold! Ay, a very panther. We laugh at fear. That’s for lesser men. I shall uncord these bundles, gracious lady, so it please you.”
“What is he? What is his birth?” Dominica asked. “Is he base or noble?”
Joshua bent a frown of some dignity upon her. “Would I serve one who was of base birth, señora? No! We are very nobly born. The knighthood was not needed to mark our degree. An honour granted upon our return from Drake’s voyage round the world. I allow it to have been due, but we needed it not. Sir Nicholas stands heir to a barony, no less!”
“So!” said Dominica with interest.
“Ay, and indeed. He is own brother to Lord Beauvallet. A solid man, señora, lacking our wits, maybe, but a comfortable wise lord. He looks askance at all this trafficking upon the high seas.” Joshua forgot for a moment his role of admiring and faithful servant. “Well he may! Rolling up and down the world, never at rest—it is not fit! We are no longer boys to delight in harebrained schemes and chancy ventures. But what would you? A madness is in us; we must always be up and about, nosing out danger.” He rolled up the cords he had untied. “I leave you, señora, Ha! we cast off!” He hopped to the porthole, and peered out. “In good time: that hulk is done. I go now to see the noble señor safely housed. By your leave, señora!”
“Where is my father?” Dominica asked.
“Hard by, señora. You may rap on this bulkhead, and he will hear. Mistress—” he looked austerely at Maria—“see to the noble lady!”
“Impudence!” Maria cried. But the door had shut behind Joshua Dimmock.
“An oddity,” said Dominica. “Well—like master, like man.” She went to the port, and stood on tiptoe to look out. The waves were hissing round the sides of the Venture. “I cannot see our ship. That man said she was done.” She came away from the port. “And so here we are, upon an English ship, and in an enemy’s power. What shall come of it, I wonder?” She did not seem to be disturbed.
“Let them dare to touch you!” Maria said, arms akimbo. “I am not locked in my cabin twice, señorita!” She abandoned the fierce attitude, and began to unpack my lady’s baggage. She shook out a gown of stiff crimson brocade, and sighed over it. “Alas, the broidered taffety that I had in my mind for you to wear this
