Page:A Mainsail Haul - Masefield - 1913.djvu/52

40 of the deck, all curiously painted with the Lord Alva's arms, in a design of coloured shields that showed the blazonings of his family. The mariners were all Spaniards from Boca Gara, the little port of Meroquinez fronting the Atlantic. The soldiers were but few in number, some twenty swords from Estremadura, who had been in the Indies under Oviedo. They wore bright armour inlaid with gold. In their helmets they wore jewels, or gloves, or feathers, that were the gifts of ladies whom they had served. Their sword-belts were of green leather, in token of hope. Their swords had, every blade of them, drawn blood in the defence of beauty. If I had the pens of twenty poets I might not tell the glory of the stately life they lived, on board the Spanish Rose, the ship built for the Lord Alva's lady. For, in lieu of the exercises common to soldiers or shipmen, they would gather about the mast to hear some pleasant singing in praise of love by one of the Provençal poets, of whom the ship carried nine. Or the lutenists would take their viols, playing some sweet music that for its beauty was like a woman's hair. In the twilights, at Boca Gara, while the ship was fitting for the sea,