Page:A Mainsail Haul - Masefield - 1913.djvu/108

96 A few days later, they had another stroke of bad luck, undoubtedly due to the presence of a female aboard. They attacked two Spanish ships who fought them courageously and gave them a battering. Ten good men were killed and more than twenty badly hit, Jennings himself being one of the wounded. At the end of a watch, of a watch so severe There was scarcely a man left was able for to steer, There was scarcely a man left could fire off a gun, And the blood down the deck like a river it did run.

Jennings had to sheer off in distress under such sail as he could carry and be thankful that the Spaniards did not give chase. The seamen made some repairs, and then held a fo'c's'le council about the Irish woman in the cabin. "See what comes," they said, "of carrying women to sea." They agreed in the end that their defeat was a "a just judgment of God against them"; not for any little robberies or murders which they had done, but for "suffering their captaine ... to wallow in his luxuries." Why should he have his luxury any more than the rest of the crew? Captain Roope was insistent with this question till the crew swore