The fellow shrank
back, cowed, from his fierce eyes. "Now stint your noise, all of
you, and stretch your long ears. Trumpeter, blow once more!"
A bugle call had been sounded every quarter of an hour so as to
keep in touch with the other two vessels who were invisible in the
fog. Now the high clear note rang out once more, the call of a
fierce sea-creature to its mates, but no answer came back from the
thick wall which pent them in. Again and again they called, and
again and again with bated breath they waited for an answer.
"Where is the Shipman?" asked Knolles. "What is your name,
fellow? Do you dare call yourself master-mariner?"
"My name is Nat Dennis, fair sir," said the gray-bearded old
seaman. "It is thirty years since first I showed my cartel and
blew trumpet for a crew at the water-gate of Southampton. If any
man may call himself master-mariner, it is surely I."
"Where are our two ships?"
"Nay, sir, who can say in this fog?"
"Fellow, it was your place to hold them together."
"I have but the eyes God gave me, fair sir, and they cannot see
through a cloud."
"Had it been fair, I, who am a soldier, could have kept them in
company. Since it was foul, we looked to you, who are called a
mariner, to do so. You have not done it. You have lost two of my
ships ere the venture is begun."
"Nay, fair sir, I pray you to consider--"
"Enough words!" said Knolles sternly.
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