THE TREASURE SHIP
There was no hint of triumph in my great-uncle’s manner as the sloop
came about and lay to under our lee quarter; nor did he exhibit
excitement when she unloosed the small boat she towed astern and a
half-dozen swarthy fellows commenced to pull it toward us. He
indulged in a pinch of snuff and took his station by the starboard
rail at the break of the poop. Peter and I followed him. Besides us
there was only Martin, who stood aft by the man at the wheel.
For’ard on the spar-deck men slouched away from the starboard
bulwarks as Murray appeared. The gunports were all closed because of
the swell which rolled the _Royal James_ until it seemed she must dip
her yard-arms under. So I think--aside from the lookouts lashed in
the crosstrees of all three masts--we on the poop were the only ones
who watched the little boat come sliding across the great, heaving
mountains of water that surged out of the misty reaches of the
Caribbean as if they would overflow the shores of Hispaniola, which
loomed purple in the north beyond leagues of indigo sea.
The rowboat was as infinitesimal as an insect in those tossing
wastes; but the man at the steering-oar guided it with uncanny skill,
up the toppling crests that threatened to crush it, down the dizzy
steeps that bade fair to hurl it to the ocean’s oozy bottom, and
brought it to rest a scant fifty feet from the _James’_ hull, his
long sweep fending and twisting to maintain the position. He was
very dark and lean, with bare, corded limbs and a sinewy trunk
covered by the remnants of a cotton shirt and trousers. His hair was
a stringy black. His voice, when he spoke in answer to a sign from
my great-uncle, was harshly rhythmical, but what he said I could not
understand, for both he and Murray used Spanish.
My great-uncle asked two questions, both brief, and he answered as
briefly. My great-uncle waved his hand again; he dug his
steering-oar into the crest of one of the monstrous surges, and the
little boat shot away like a roundshot from a gun. A few moments
later we saw them make fast to the sloop and leap aboard, one by one.
The sloop hauled her wind and beat off to westward in long, slanting
tacks, and the _James_ was once more alone in the western mouth of
the Mona Passage, Hispaniola a blur in the north and Porto Rico
somewhere out of sight southeast of us.
Murray dusted a second pinch of snuff into his nostrils as he turned
from the rail.
“Our three weeks’ waiting hath not been in vain,” he said. “The
_Santissima Trinidad_ was to sail from Porto Bello within the
forty-eight hours after Diego put forth. She will be up with us in
another five days--before the week is over at the latest.”
I was conscious of a conflict of emotions.
“She may slip by you. ’Tis a wide gut--and what’s to do if she comes
in the night?”
“She can not slip by,” returned my great-uncle. “For all the leagues
of channel and the darkness of the nights, she can not slip by,
Robert. The fools have delivered her into our hands. By her
sailing-orders, so Diego told me, she must hug the south shore of
Hispaniola, that she may be within easy run of Santo Domingo in case
of accident. As for the nights, she’ll be lighted up like
Bartholomew’s Fair.”
“_Ja_, it’s all right if dot Englishman we sighted last week don’t
find a frigate,” said Peter.
Murray’s face fell a trifle.
“Yes, we have always that to reckon with,” he acknowledged. “Stap
me, I see not what the fellow could have suspected to send him kiting
from us. But with any luck he’ll not flush a frigate this side of
Jamaica, and that should give us time.”
“If he suspected us, why not some of the other craft that have passed
us on our beat?” I interjected. “There ha’ been plenty.”
My great-uncle pointed to the white ensign floating from the
mizzen-truck.
“They were all Spaniards or Frenchmen,” he answered. “They took us
for a King’s ship. No, there’s little chance of interference. If
there is--” his jaw squared--“I’ll hunt the _Santissima Trinidad_
into Cadiz port.”
He broke off abruptly.
“Master Martin!”
“Aye, aye, sir,” responded the mate, stepping for’ard from the wheel.
“I would have all lookouts notified that I shall give ten onzas to
him who first hails the deck for a large Spaniard of forty-four guns
coming from the west. She’ll show a red-and-yellow light o’ nights
at her fore-peak. You will also see that all men sent aloft carry
night-glasses.”
Martin touched his forelock.
“Aye, aye, sir! I’ll pipeclay the ---- ---- ---- who misses the ----
dago. Curse me for a lubber, but I knew there must be fat game
a-comin’ after such a spell o’ idleness.”
“She’ll be the fattest prize we have ever boarded,” rejoined Murray.
“You may tell all hands as much.”
There was no formal mustering of the _James’_ crew; but Martin
evidently had his own means of circulating information, for the
polyglot seamen had shaken off their lethargy and sullen quiet within
a glass of the sloop’s departure. All around the decks men were
oiling pistols, sharpening cutlasses and whispering in secret.
Coupeau was busier than ever about the battery, testing breech-ropes,
pinning tighter carriage-wheels, filing glassy-smooth a pile of shot
for the chase-guns that might be called upon to lop a vital spar at
extreme range.
But nothing happened that day or the next. And so three more days
passed with increasing tension. The lookouts in the crosstrees were
relieved every two hours, that the men’s vision might be fresh and
unstrained. The sight of a sail anywhere on the horizon sent the
crew scampering to the guns and swung the ship’s bows in that
quarter; and four times in those five days the _James_ boomed down
upon Spanish fishermen, a Martinico brig, a Yankee schooner and a
Plymouth snow, tacking away again the moment she identified each one
as impossible to be her prey.
The sixth day was like its predecessors, blazing hot, bubbling the
pitch out of the deck-seams, a gentle sou’east breeze barely
sufficient to keep the sails drawing. The swell, which had bothered
us for several weeks, had almost disappeared, and the Caribbean might
have been a land-locked lake. Daylight found us farther to the south
than we usually plied, since Murray feared the Spaniard might have
missed his reckoning and shifted the designed course he was to follow.
For the first time in days we could descry the shadowy hills of Porto
Rico as we wore around and beat north again. As the sun rose higher
a haze danced along the horizon’s rim. Porto Rico was swallowed up;
Hispaniola’s soaring peaks were buried before we had come within
normal view of them.
Noon observation saw us returned to our customary station, and to
guard against the possibility that the _Santissima Trinidad_ had
passed us in the heat-haze whilst we were beating up from the south
my great-uncle ran down the wind into the mouth of the passage for
several glasses. We encountered a fishing-periagua then, and the
Indians of its crew shouted back to Murray’s question that no great
ship had entered the passage that day. So back again we beat to
windward the whole weary afternoon.
Night brought rest to nobody. Even my great-uncle paced the poop by
the hour, snatching an occasional nap upon a pallet which Ben Gunn
laid for him where it would catch the breeze. Peter and I dozed on
the deck-planks with the crew.
In the shadowy hour that precedes the dawn the hail came from the
mast-head----
“Lights ho!”
Murray was on his feet as quickly as any of us.
“How do you make them?” he trumpeted.
“Red and yellow, over and under,” answered the main crosstrees.
“Very good,” replied my great-uncle. “Master Martin, you will single
out that man and present him this purse.”
He handed it over.
“Pipe all hands to breakfast, and serve an extra ration of rum.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” sighed Martin. “And here’s to luck, ---- my eyes!”
The dawn came all at once, as if a magician had waved his wand. A
crimson glow in the east, soft at first, then spreading and
deepening, and the light expanded almost like an explosion in the
night. The red disk of the sun lifted over the horizon. And it was
day. Westward, perhaps half a league, a great ship was wallowing
toward us before the freshening wind. The coloring of her figurehead
sparkled in the level rays which touched her dingy canvas and turned
the sails to cloth-of-gold. The gaudy banner of Spain flapped with a
splendid insolence in the pure light. The spray which was tossed
over her bowsprit as she buried her stem in the easy swell was
transformed into threaded amethysts, turquoises, emeralds!
“She is heavy-laden!” exclaimed my great-uncle, staring at her
through his prospect-glass.
“Heavy-armed too,” I added, pointing at the band of cannon along her
sides.
“We’ll make light of that,” he answered. “But I shall have to pay
somewhat for my Quixotic promise to you, Robert, to spare her crew.
Ho, Coupeau!” he hailed the gunner who was passing on the spardeck.
The former galley-slave turned his terrible face to the poop and
saluted.
“Pass the word, Coupeau, that the prize must not be pierced betwixt
wind and water. I would bring down a spar or two at the beginning of
the action, but concentrate your fire upon her decks.”
“_Oui, m’sieu’_.”
“But what of O’Donnell and his daughter!” I exclaimed. “On a
shot-swept deck!”
My great-uncle regarded me curiously.
“’Tis not a game of lawn bowls we are about to play, Robert,” he
replied. “I ask you to remember that the Spaniard carries forty-four
cannon which he will discharge against us, with some probability of
slaying certain of our people, including perhaps ourselves.”
“But the girl!”
He took snuff.
“Tut, tut, my boy! You concern yourself needlessly. ’Tis a risky
business and can not be otherwise. Yet she’ll probably come safe
through it. What part do you and Peter purpose to play in the
action?”
I was about to answer hotly that we would have naught to do with
piracy when Peter said--
“Maybe we better go aboardt der Spaniard and catch der little gal,
_ja_.”
“An excellent idea,” returned my great-uncle, looking expectantly at
me. “I shall lead the boarders myself, and in the confusion I may be
hard put to it, single-handed, to direct the fighting and save the
O’Donnells from injury. If you two----”
“We’ll do it,” I said ungraciously. “’Tis of a parcel with your
crazy notions that you can not even safeguard your accomplice without
aid.”
“That is quite true,” he agreed mildly. “I am free to admit, Robert,
your presence takes a load off my mind, notwithstanding your escape
from Flint hath created other difficulties for me to contend with.
However, I shall be sufficiently grateful to you if you will assist
me. My notions, whether ‘crazy’ or not, are not easily carried into
execution.”
I nodded to the white ensign at the main peak.
“Will you fight under false colors?”
“They are not false,” he retorted with tightened lips. “We fight for
England today.”
“England and Flint and Long John Silver and Bill Bones and Martin and
Coupeau and----”
“Myself? Perhaps. But if those you have named share in the rewards
of victory ’tis that England may profit thereby and the Good Cause
triumph. What doth it matter if King James return to London?”
“What indeed?” I echoed sarcastically, yet impressed against my will
by his deadly earnestness.
“’Tis not my way, Robert, to fight under false colors,” he proceeded,
as if determined to argue me over to his view-point. “Any sailorman
will tell you that, whatever other slander he may relate of Captain
Rip-Rap. As for the Jolly Roger--pho! ’Tis a tradition required by
any pirate crew. I look upon it as a somewhat humorous attempt to
terrify the timid; but I ha’ fought under it without shame, since
’tis the only emblem of the sea outlaw. But today ’tis different.
We fight, not as pirates, but as servants of King James.”
A white puff of smoke jetted from our fo’csle, and a crackling
explosion smote our ears. Coupeau had fired the first shot from one
of the chase guns, long eighteens, beautiful bronze pieces of
prodigious range. Involuntarily we all focused our eyes upon the
treasure-ship, and a cheer from the gun-crews applauded the flapping
rent that showed in the bulge of the Spaniard’s foretops’l.
“Excellent!” murmured my great-uncle.
The _Santissima Trinidad_ staggered for an instant like a man who has
been struck unexpectedly by one he supposed to be a friend. Then she
yawed to give us a full view of her colors; and as she yawed,
broadening the target, Coupeau fired again. ’Twas a low shot, fired
as the _James_ dropped into the trough betwixt two waves, and all we
could see of it was that apparently it plowed into the waist.
The Spaniard fired a gun to leeward and put over his helm, aiming to
cross our bows and head up for Santo Domingo. Plainly he did not
know what to make of the incident. To all appearances the _Royal
James_ was a King’s ship. She showed the English naval ensign. To a
Spanish eye, at any rate, she might well seem to possess the solidly
rakish aspect which was the usual keynote of an English frigate. So
he evidently decided that hostilities must have broken out between
the two countries, and in obedience to his sailing-orders endeavored
to avoid a fight and make for the nearest fortified Spanish port.
But the _James_ sailed two feet to the treasure-ship’s one; and,
splendidly handled, we overhauled her within a glass of the first
shot. In the meantime Coupeau kept pecking away at her, and as we
came within range of our main battery her foretopmast crashed,
covering her fo’csle with a tangle of top-hamper.
This was too much for her people, and she put up her helm, brought
her entire battery to bear and let fly at us with all her starboard
metal. ’Twas a poorly managed salvo, yet three or four round-shot
swished across our decks, and an eighteen-pounder smashed a couple of
men to jelly just for’ard of the poop.
Murray stepped to the poop-rail to examine the damage and shouted to
Coupeau:
“Hold your broadside, Master Gunner! He must come to to clear his
decks.”
And to Martin, who was conning the ship:
“Bear up! Bear up! He still hath the weather gage of us.”
Coupeau, working like a madman with his chase guns, was firing both
together, laid on the same target, and now he succeeded in cutting
down the foremast about twenty feet from the deck, sending the heavy
spar and billowing canvas a-tumbling after the fallen topmast. The
bulk of the wreckage fell overside, dragging the _Santissima
Trinidad_ down by the head and forming a sea-anchor to hold her
stationary.
My great-uncle smiled with grim satisfaction.
“Ho, Saunders!” he hailed the second mate, who was stationed
amidships. “Rig grappling-irons on the larboard bulwarks. We’ll
round the Spaniard as he lies.”
The _Royal James_ forged abeam of the treasure-ship, approaching at
an angle which diminished the effectiveness of her second broadside,
and as we entered the filmy cloud-bank of smoke from her guns Murray
gave the order to fire.
“Let go your broadside, Coupeau!” he called.
The gunner ran to the open main-hatch and bellowed the order down to
the gun-deck. The planks seemed to spring under our feet. A
thunderous series of detonations shook the _James’_ whole fabric.
The smoke-clouds were first driven away, then thickened to an
impalpable mist, and the acrid stench of saltpeter and brimstone was
choking in the nostrils. I had a wavery glimpse of a vast gilded
figurehead, a heap of torn canvas and rigging.
“Sta’b’d your helm, Master Martin!” shouted Murray.
We headed up into the wind with much creaking of yards and slatting
of sails, and I heard faintly a clamor of wailing outcries from the
smoke-bank that masked the _Santissima Trinidad_. Almost at once our
broadside roared again, the red flames from the gun-muzzles licking
out like hungry tongues. Another dim vision of shot-rent bulwarks
and towering sails, and the gray gloom became denser than ever.
Figures on our own deck were indistinct in it.
The Spaniard blindly returned our fire as the _James_ felt her way
toward him, the thunder of the two broadsides overpowering, numbing,
like the roaring of two beasts fighting in the night. I felt my
great-uncle’s hand on my arm; his voice was low, but distinct.
“We shall soon be broadside on with her,” he said. “The O’Donnells
will be on the poop. You had best get for’ard, Robert. If we board
from abaft the foremast ’twill place you strategically to seize upon
them. Where is Peter?”
The Dutchman leaned through the smoke-whorls.
“We better go aboardt der Spaniard, _ja_, Murray?” he answered calmly.
My great-uncle chuckled as he dusted snuff into his nostrils.
“We had, friend Peter. And you and Robert had best carry arms. I
fear the Spaniards will not seek to differentiate betwixt you and my
wicked self.”
“_Ja_,” assented Peter. “We go.”
Amidships we encountered Saunders and a horde of men pouring up from
the gun-deck to augment the boarding-parties. Peter and I tarried to
select weapons from a rack by the main mast. He took a
boarding-pike, and I contented myself with a cutlass.
Murray, having inspected the grapplings and ascertained that hooks
had been rigged from our yard-arms to clutch the Spaniard’s rigging,
rejoined us. He was dressed with his usual exquisite taste in
watered gray silk, with white silk stockings and gray shoes with
jeweled buckles. He wore no hat, and his white hair was clubbed and
cued. The only weapon he carried was a dress-sword, which he held
unsheathed.
“An end to our immediate worries soon, Robert,” he announced
cheerfully. “The action has gone perfectly. I would not have varied
a move so far. We have not lost a dozen men.”
A final blast from our guns tore the smoke-clouds to shreds, and a
vagrant wind-puff snatched them aside. ’Twas like the drawing of the
curtain at a play. The treasure-ship lurched helplessly not twenty
fathoms distant, her rigging in tatters, her spars split and wounded,
her fo’csle and foredeck one red litter, her bulwarks splintered,
gunports blown in, guns dismounted. A handful of men were laboring
to cut loose the wreck of the fore-mast, and a few other brave
fellows were still fighting a couple of guns which raked us as the
bowsprit of the _James_ nudged over her rail.
The two ships jolted together, and in response to wind and helm the
_Royal James_ swung broadside on against the Spaniard, our bowsprit
becoming entangled in her mizzen rigging. A dozen grappling-irons
clattered in air and ground their hooks into her bulwarks. There was
a brisk popping of small-arms, an exchange of threats and shouts of
defiance.
My great-uncle, regardless of the firing, mounted the breach of a
cannon which elevated him above the bulwarks, and Peter and I climbed
into the forerigging, whence we had a fair view of both decks. The
larboard bulwarks of the _Royal James_ were crowded with men.
Stripped to the waist, their lowering faces smutted with
powder-stains, their hairy chests barred with tattooing, their backs
more often than not scarred by the cruel welts of the lash, they
tussled for first place and clung with their bare toes wherever there
was a bit of running gear or an inch of space, gripping cutlasses in
their teeth to leave hands free for pistol work or to steady
themselves as they waited an opportunity to leap the narrowing gap
between the vessels.
My eyes strayed to the Spaniard’s decks. Little knots of men ran
about confusedly. A stolid-looking fellow aimed a pistol at me, and
a ratline over my head fell apart. Officers were driving the sailors
forward to meet us. A man in a laced coat and periwig was shouting
orders from the poop, and my pulse quickened, for at his shoulder was
the lanthorn-jawed face of Colonel O’Donnell--aye, and in rear of
both a skirt fluttered in the midst of a huddle of raven-black
figures, priests and nuns.
“Jump!” squeaked Peter in my ear.
We jumped together, but my great-uncle was ahead of us. He leaped
all of ten feet, sword in hand, alighted on the Spaniard’s bulwarks,
poised himself a moment and dropped into the center of a ring of
foes. Before he had recovered his balance he parried the slash of a
cutlass and pinked an antagonist in the throat. And he beat down a
leveled pistol as I gained the treasure-ship’s deck, inclined his
head to avoid a murderous blow, ran the man through and almost in the
same breath stepped a pace to the right to engage a fourth
opponent--and all this with the cool precision of a fencing-master,
unhurried, a flush of obvious enjoyment on his pallid cheeks.
But I saw no more. My task was to fight my way aft and protect the
O’Donnells, and Peter and I turned our backs upon the struggle
amidships. One wave of the pirates stormed in Murray’s wake; the
rest followed Peter and me. They were as brave as they were vicious,
and we made rapid progress and were nearly at the foot of the
poop-ladder when Murray’s whistle shrilled behind us. I realized too
that both O’Donnell and the officer in the laced coat were shouting
volubly, the one in English and the other in Spanish, trying to make
themselves heard above the din.
“--asks parley,” came in broken phrases from O’Donnell. “--can not
understand--regrettable mistake----”
“Der Spaniard wants quarter,” grunted Peter.
Indeed, those of the _Santissima Trinidad’s_ men who had been
resisting us promptly flung down their arms, glad of the excuse to
quit the fight; but the wolves of the _James’_ crew were not schooled
to show mercy, and they killed three poor fellows before Peter and I
could knock up their cutlasses.
Murray’s whistle blew a second time. There was a sudden hush,
punctuated by the grinding of the two vessels, the thudding of unshod
feet as more of the _James’_ pirates dropped aboard the
treasure-ship, the gagging cries of the wounded, the nasal singsong
of a priest pattering Latin prayers.
I seized the opportunity to look around. We were too close under the
poop to see what went on beyond the rail directly overhead; but the
maindeck, fore and aft, was a pitiful spectacle--cluttered with
wreckage and dead men and bits of men and men wounded in every
conceivable fashion, its yellow-sand carpet gemmed with carmine pools
and rivulets.
My great-uncle, as immaculate as when he had ascended the _James’_
bulwarks, stood a little ahead of the mass of his followers, his
serene face and rich clothing in startling contrast with their
nakedness and frank brutality. A trickle of blood dripped from the
point of his slender sword. His attitude was that of an honorable
man who wishes to be reasonable in a difficult situation.
“I believe I heard an appeal for quarter,” he said quietly.
“Sir, you did,” replied O’Donnell. “I have spoken for the gentleman
beside me, Señor Don Ascanio de Hurtado y Custa, who is captain of
this vessel.”
“I am honored, sir,” returned my great-uncle. “And yourself?”
O’Donnell did not altogether relish the playing of his part. He bit
his lip and hesitated an instant before he answered.
“I am Colonel O’Donnell, an officer in the service of his Most
Catholic Majesty.”
“Ah; and what can I do for you, gentlemen?” inquired my great-uncle.
O’Donnell hesitated again and conferred with the Spanish officer.
“Sir,” he said then, “Don Ascanio asks you by me: Since when have
your country and Spain been at war?”
“To the best of my knowledge, they are not at this present,” my
great-uncle answered blandly.
“Then to what cause must we attribute this--this--ah--unwarrantable
attack?” demanded O’Donnell.
“I am afraid,” replied my great-uncle almost with sorrow, “that I am
unable to satisfy your curiosity upon that point.”
The Spaniard burst into a declaration of passionate intensity, which
Murray interrupted.
“I am so fortunate as to comprehend the noble Spanish tongue,” he
said. “Would you be so kind, Colonel O’Donnell, as to acquaint your
friend with the fact, and to assure him that I regret he must accept
the situation as it stands? I am desirous of sparing the lives of
those of his people who survive, but at a pinch I will slay them all
to compass my intention.”
“And what is that?” asked O’Donnell.
“To relieve Don Ascanio of the consignment of treasure he carries,”
answered my great-uncle. “When it is aboard my ship he shall be at
liberty to continue his voyage.”
O’Donnell proceeded haltingly to translate this statement. He never
finished it. The Spaniard launched a fresh torrent of curses, broke
his sword across his knee and tossed the pieces overside. My
great-uncle nodded sympathetically.
“’Tis an unpleasant plight, I know,” he said. “Had Don Ascanio not
discarded his sword I should have been delighted to yield him an
opportunity for such satisfaction as one gentleman may give another.
“However--I must stipulate further, Colonel O’Donnell, that the crew
of the _Santissima Trinidad_ shall be placed in confinement for so
long as suits my purpose. Any resistance must cause additional
bloodshed, which, I am sure, you will agree is unnecessary.”
“Don Ascanio will say no more,” returned O’Donnell. “He washes his
hands of the whole proceeding. Abandoned by his crew----”
“Enough,” interrupted my great-uncle.
He rattled off a sentence in Spanish, and there was an answering
rattle of arms thrown on the deck. He spoke again, and the
_Santissima Trinidad’s_ men all shifted to starboard and marched into
the fo’csle, herded by a bristle of pirate cutlasses.
Murray walked aft to where Peter and I still stood, uncertain what to
do next.
“Have you seen her?” he asked.
“I think she is in that group of priests and nuns under the stern
lanthorn,” I said.
He compressed his lips, a habit he had whenever he must turn to some
task he did not overly care for.
“’Tis a trick I shall find as distasteful as O’Donnell did our
colloquy just now,” he said shortly. “But we must be about it
without delay. Our cannonade will have been heard ashore in
Hispaniola with this wind. We must gather our loot and away.”