sweareth awfully in his talk, the Lord forgive him!"

Amyas recollected now. It was the name of the sailor who had given him
the wondrous horn five years ago.

"My good dame," said he, "the Indies are a very large place, and your
son may be safe and sound enough there, without my having seen him.
I knew one Salvation Yeo. But he must have come with--By the by,
godfather, has Mr. Oxenham come home?"

There was a dead silence for a moment among the gentlemen round; and
then Sir Richard said solemnly, and in a low voice, turning away from
the old dame,--

"Amyas, Mr. Oxenham has not come home; and from the day he sailed, no
word has been heard of him and all his crew."

"Oh, Sir Richard! and you kept me from sailing with him! Had I known
this before I went into church, I had had one mercy more to thank God
for."

"Thank Him all the more in thy life, my child!" whispered his mother.

"And no news of him whatsoever?"

"None; but that the year after he sailed, a ship belonging to Andrew
Barker, of Bristol, took out of a Spanish caravel, somewhere off the
Honduras, his two brass guns; but whence they came the Spaniard knew
not, having bought them at Nombre de Dios."