The loyalty and affection which Drake inspired was, Rodney knew, to a great extent due to his innate kindliness. The men did not expect it, and it never ceased to surprise them that someone so successful and so fearless as Drake could show them personal consideration and have, what was more, an individual knowledge of every man under his command.
Rodney had sworn to model himself on the same lines, but now he felt almost a sense of helplessness as he watched the men hurrying about the deck and swarming up the rigging. To them he was a figurehead, the Captain of the ship and of their fate, someone who must be obeyed, hardly human, hardly of the same flesh and blood as themselves.
He had got to get to know them; he had got to teach them to trust him. They knew he was untried, they knew, ev
