There was now time to call Mr. Fletcher to account. It was no business
of the chaplain to discourage and dispirit men in a moment of danger,
and a court was formed to sit upon him. An English captain on his own
deck represents the sovereign, and is head of Church as well as State.
Mr. Fletcher was brought to the forecastle, where Drake, sitting on a
sea-chest with a pair of _pantoufles_ in his hand, excommunicated him,
pronounced him cut off from the Church of God, given over to the devil
for the chastising of his flesh, and left him chained by the leg to a
ring-bolt to repent of his cowardice.
In the general good-humour punishment could not be of long duration. The
next day the poor chaplain had his absolution, and returned to his berth
and his duty. The _Pelican_ met with no more adventures. Sweeping in
fine clear weather round the Cape of Good Hope, she touched once for
water at Sierra Leone, and finally sailed in triumph into Plymouth
Harbour, where she had been long given up for lost, having traced the
first furrow round the globe. Winter had come home eighteen months
before, but could report nothing. The news of the doings on the American
coast had reached England through Madrid.
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