midday
These were five in number , consisting respectively of Mr George Lumley and Mr Thomas Winter , Marshall 's lieutenants , Mr Walter Dyer and Mr Edmund Harvey , gentlemen adventurers who , with Marshall , had provided the wherewithal for the fitting out of the expedition , and Mr William Bascomb , the master aforesaid . They were all fellow Devonians , a genial and hearty company , in the best of good spirits at the prospect of stirring times before them , with the chance of returning home made men . It is true that -- not to put too fine a point upon it -- they were pirates , of a sort ; but so were Grenvile , Drake , Hawkins , and the rest of their illustrious contemporaries ; and piracy was at that time regarded as a quite honourable profession -- provided that the piracies were perpetrated solely against the hated Spaniard . It was by this time dark enough to render necessary the lighting of the great cabin lamp which swung in the skylight ; and the apartment , with its long table draped with snowy napery and abundantly furnished with smoking viands flanked with great flagons of foaming ale , presented a particularly cosy and inviting appearance as Dick and Phil , having been introduced in due form to the others , took their seats ; the more so , perhaps , from the fact that both of them , having been too eager for their sail to wait for a meal at the conclusion of their day 's labours , had tasted neither bite nor sup since midday , and were now each in possession of a truly voracious appetite . Then , the conversation as the meal progressed -- the wonderful , almost incredible , stories of past adventure related by Marshall and Bascomb , both of whom had already once visited the Indies , and the confidence with which all anticipated their return to England laden with wealth unimaginable -- exercised an almost irresistible fascination over the two newcomers , one at least of whom -- Philip Stukely to wit -- began to feel , before the meal was over , that he cared not a jot though he should be compelled by force of circumstances to join those daredevil adventurers who made it clearly understood that , so far as the outside world was concerned , they intended to be a law unto themselves . Marshall 's and Bascomb 's talk , especially , of cloudless skies of richest blue , out of which the sun darted his flaming rays by day , and in which the stars blazed like jewels at night ; of tranquil seas of sapphire in which creatures of strange forms and brilliant hues disported themselves ; of tropic shores , coral fringed and clothed with graceful feathery palms backed by noble forest trees of precious woods , made glorious by flowers of every conceivable hue and shape , amid which hovered birds of such gorgeous plumage that they gleamed and shone in the sun like living gems ; of rich and luscious fruits to be had for the mere trouble of plucking ; of fireflies spangling the velvet darkness with their fairy lamps ; and of the gentle Indians who -- at least when not brought under the malign influence of the cruel Spaniard -- regarded white men as gods ; all these appealed with singular force and fascination to Stukely , who sat listening breathlessly and with glowing eyes to everything that the two sailors said about these wonders . For , singularly enough , although the man had never until now been out of sight of English soil , and although he had never read about them , all these things seemed strangely familiar to him .