It chanced that
I was on deck at the time, and suddenly, as I prepared to hide myself
below, a man, in whom I knew de Garcia himself, stood up and called out
that I was the escaped heretic whom they sought. Fearing lest his ship
should be boarded and he himself thrown into prison with the rest of his
crew, the captain would then have surrendered me. But I, desperate
with fear, tore my clothes from my body and showed the cruel scars that
marked it.
'"You are Englishmen," I cried to the sailors, "and will you deliver me
to these foreign devils, who am of your blood? Look at their handiwork,"
and I pointed to the half-healed scars left by the red-hot pincers; "if
you give me up, you send me back to more of this torment and to death
by burning. Pity my wife if you will not pity me, or if you will pity
neither, then lend me a sword that by death I may save myself from
torture."
'Then one of the seamen, a Southwold man who had known my father, called
out: "By God! I for one will stand by you, Thomas Wingfield. If they
want you and your sweet lady they must kill me first," and seizing a bow
from the rack he drew it out of its case and strung it, and setting an
arrow on the string he pointed it at the Spaniards in the boat.
'Then the others broke into shouts of:
'"If you want any man from among us, come aboard and take him, you
torturing devils," and the like.
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