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Charles Kingsley: Ayanacora

They came upon a white maiden, Ayanacora, golden-haired, tall, and beautiful, treated as a princess by the Indians with whom she dwelt. Amyas was for leaving her, having witnessed on former voyages the evil influence of women among lonely men; but she by signs made it clear she would not be left. He packed her off. She came back, and, she being by then far from her habitation, he had not the heart to cast her adrift in the vast wilderness. So every man solemnly pledged to treat her with honor. She came to be with them in the adventure where Amyas, his crew much worn and wasted and he desirous of heartening them up, set upon a great galleon in the harbor of Cartagena. Silently, in two canoes, they made the harbor, and, it being night, boarded the galleon secretly by her stern gallery; and after a short, fierce fight the galleon, with much treasure aboard, fell into their hands. It was here in this fight that Amyas would have been run through by the Spanish captain but for Ayanacora, who came leaping from behind and knifed the Spaniard ere he could drive home the long blade.

But forty of their one hundred remained; notwithstanding which they sailed with much content in the great galleon to England. Ayanacora, sailing with them, did one day burst into singing of seasongs which only English sailors knew; which caused Salvation Yeo to ask questions, to which as she acquired the English tongue, she made answer; which answers recalled to Yeo that fair Spanish lady of Panama who had run off with Captain Oxenham, and to whom was born the baby girl which was later made off with. Captain Oxenham had suffered death at the hands of the Spanish husband and Yeo himself had escaped only with many cruel scars, but the scarred old rover had spent days enough with the lovely little girl to know now, as in a dozen ways he proved, that this was the daughter of Captain Oxenham and his Spanish lady, the little girl to whom he had taught the English sea-songs before she was taken from them. Homeward the great galleon ran before the southwest breeze, and proudly into Plymouth Sound she sailed one day without veiling top-sails or lowering the flag of Spain, for which they had like to get a solid shot from the admiral of the port.

And so Amyas came home in honor and glory, but with the lovely and loving Ayanacora he would have nothing to do, she having in her too much of that Spanish blood which he hated. However, his gentle mother, understanding better the worth of loyal virtue, took the girl to her bosom. Once more Amyas took the sea, now as an admiral under Lord Howard, who had gathered all of England's stout ships and seamen to fight Spain's Armada. Amyas won his share of glory in that fight, and he might have come home in safety; but there was Don Guzman, who had left Rose to be put to death, even as he had his brother Frank, the one for a traitor and the other for a heretic.

Amyas must have his vengeance of Don Guzman, who was commanding a ship of the Armada, and so he strove to hold close to him; but the tempest, which seemed to bear hate for the Spanish fleet, now cast Don Guzman's tall caravel to her death on the sands of Flanders. The vengeance of Amyas was sated, as was Yeo's; but almost on the instant, from the heart of the tempest flew a white bolt of lightning to strike down both him and Yeo, Yeo to his death and Amyas to the blindness of both eyes.

So Amyas came home from his last cruise, a great, helpless hulk, as he bitterly said; but so mayhap only as such could one of his nature have ever come to understand the heart of a lovely, virtuous woman. It was the patience of Ayanacora, the wisdom of his mother, which taught him. "Fear not, Amyas," he heard his mother's voice saying--"fear not to take that dear girl to your heart; for it is your mother who lays her there." And so at last Amyas came to understand.