"Well, Senor Delamere," he said, "it is perhaps a lucky thing for you
that Captain Garcia went to sea four days ago in the refitted _Tiburon_,
and that he may possibly not return for nearly a month. Had he been
here at this moment I do not for an instant believe that he would have
given you the chance that I am going to offer you; for he has vowed that
if ever he can lay hands upon you he will make such an example of you as
will strike terror to the heart of his every enemy. Of course I
sympathise with him to a great extent, for he has never in his life had
such a trouncing as you gave him with that ridiculous little schooner of
yours; and, apart from other considerations, his self-love has been very
severely wounded. Therefore, being a man who never forgets nor forgives
an injury, he will not be satisfied until he has salved his wounded
pride by making you pay in full in a manner that will cause every sailor
in West Indian waters to shudder with horror. But I am not vindictive--
as he is; I am always willing to subordinate revenge to the good of the
community, by which, of course, I mean our community, the little
republic which at present is bounded by the cliffs which enclose this
cove, but which in process of time is destined to include the whole of
this magnificent island of Hayti and--who knows?--possibly the entire
group of islands now known as the West Indies. And you, young as you
are, have proved yourself to be a formidable enemy; you have courage,
resolution, and apparently all the other qualities that go to the making
of a successful leader; therefore I think it a thousand pities that you
should be wasted, uselessly expended, in the mere gratification of a
petty revenge which will benefit nobody anything; on the contrary, I am
convinced that we should gain immensely by making you one of ourselves--
Nay, do not interrupt me, please; hear me to the end before you attempt
to reply. In the absence of Garcia I am supreme here; I can secure your
election as a member of our band, and once a member, you are absolutely
safe from Garcia, for it is one of the rules of our brotherhood that
`One is for all, and all are for one;' private jealousies and
animosities are absolutely forbidden, and the punishment for
transgressing this law is _death_, let the offender be who he will.
"Now, that is one argument in favour of your joining us. But there are
others. We are weak, as yet, it is true; but that is because, as a
community, we are still very young. We are, however, gaining strength
almost daily; every capture we make adds to our numbers, because we give
our prisoners the choice between joining us, and--death; and nine of
every ten choose the former. Also, we are rapidly accumulating wealth,
which is power; and with the power which unlimited wealth will give us,
added to the power of constantly increasing numbers, all things are
possible to us, even to the conquest of the world! Now, a lad of your
intelligence ought to be able to see, without much persuasion, how
tremendous an advantage it will be to belong to such a formidable band
as we shall soon become, therefore I put it to you in a nutshell--Will
you join us?"
Upon discovering the direction in which my companion's arguments were
trending, my first impulse had been to interrupt him indignantly by
declaring that I saw through his purpose, and would have naught to do
with it. But he would not permit me to do this; he insisted upon saying
his say to the end; and while he was doing this I had time for
reflection. I perceived that the man was an enthusiastic visionary
possessed of such boundless ambition that he was able to see nothing
except the impossible goal which he and his fellow-leaders had set
before themselves. I saw that this fellow Fernandez, at all events, had
dwelt upon the mad scheme of conquest, first of Hayti, then of the West
Indian Islands, and ultimately, as he had declared, of the whole world,
until it had become an obsession with him in which all difficulties were
swept away and his gorgeous dream had seemed to be a thing already
almost within reach. It occurred to me that by pretending to listen to
this dreamer, to appear to treat his dreams as though it was possible
for them to eventually materialise, and to seem to weigh the proposal
seriously which he had made to me, I might gain time enough to mature
some plan of escape, and to put it into effect before the return of the
_Tiburon_ and my arch-enemy Garcia; and while, as a general rule, I most
emphatically disapprove of everything that savours of deception, I felt
that, taking all the circumstances of the case into consideration, I
should be perfectly justified in practising such dissimulation as might
be necessary to extricate myself from the exceedingly awkward situation
in which I now found myself.
Therefore when, with eyes ablaze with enthusiasm, Fernandez flashed the
question at me, "Will you join us?" I hesitated just for a second or
two, and then replied:
"I suppose you hardly expect me to answer offhand so momentous a
question as that, do you? It is all very well, of course, for you, who
have given the matter much careful thought, to feel so confident as you
do that your plans are capable of realisation, but with me it is very
different; the entire idea is absolutely new to me, and--if I may be
permitted to say so--looks little short of chimerical."
"But it is _not_ chimerical," Fernandez impatiently insisted; "on the
contrary, it is perfectly feasible and, as we have planned it,
absolutely certain of realisation."
There is no need for me to repeat at length all the arguments that this
man adduced in support of his contention; let it suffice me to say that
I listened to him with deep attention--for I wanted to learn as many
particulars as I possibly could concerning the plans of this
extraordinary band, with a view to future contingencies--and when at
length I left his presence I believe I also left him under the
impression that he had more than half convinced me of the advisability
of acceding to his proposal.
Meanwhile the man Pacheco, in obedience to the command conveyed through
Carlos, had been patiently waiting in the antechamber for the summons to
appear and receive the commands of Fernandez concerning me; and now, the
interview being at an end, the former was called into the room.
"Pacheco," said Fernandez, "this young gentleman is Senor Delamere, the
officer who commanded the small British man-o'-war schooner that lately
attacked the _Tiburon_. His vessel foundered in the gale that sprang up
immediately after the action, and he contrived somehow to make his way
to the shore, where he was nursed back to health and strength in the
hacienda of Bella Vista, belonging to Senor Don Luis Calderon y
Albuquerque. That hacienda was attacked by Petion and his band in the
early hours of this morning, and--as Carlos has doubtless already told
you--Petion was killed during the attack, while Senor Delamere
subsequently fell into the hands of Mateo, Petion's second-in-command,
who very thoughtfully sent him on to us.
"Now, Senor Delamere, being, although still very young, a naval officer
of considerable experience and undoubted courage, will be an acquisition
of the utmost value to us if we can but succeed in inducing him to join
us--and I have hopes, very great hopes of doing so. I, therefore, want
you to take him in charge for the present, showing him the utmost
consideration, and allowing him free range of the settlement,--since it
will be impossible for him to escape,--because I desire him to become
thoroughly acquainted with all our resources, and to see for himself the
perfection of all our arrangements for securing the success of our great
enterprise."
I could scarcely believe my ears when I heard Fernandez give this
extraordinary and, as I deemed it, most imprudent order. It seemed too
good to be true! Why, if the foolish man had but known it, there was
nothing I could possibly have more ardently wished for than liberty to
range freely the settlement and become fully acquainted with all its
resources! If I had ever dreamed of such a possibility as this it would
not have needed that I should be brought a prisoner to the place; I
should have been but too eager to make my way to it voluntarily. But,
of course, it was much better as it was, for now all that I had to do
was to keep my eyes and ears wide-open, learn everything I possibly
could, and, generally, make the very best use of my time before the
return of Garcia, while humouring Fernandez to the top of his bent in
his delusion that he would ultimately convince me of the advantage of
joining the band. Moreover, I believed I should not have much
difficulty in accomplishing this last; for, although I was at first
somewhat at a loss to understand his great eagerness to secure me as a
recruit, it became perfectly intelligible when I learned a little later
on that the only weak point in the entire scheme consisted in the
extreme scarcity of trained sailors capable of undertaking the more
important executive duties. Seamen, of the kind to be found in a ship's
forecastle, they possessed, not exactly in abundance, but sufficient for
their ordinary necessities; but it appeared that, apart from Garcia, his
first lieutenant, and one other, they had not a single navigator among
them; and it was easy to understand that, if anything untoward should
happen to either of these men, the activities of the brotherhood would
be seriously crippled, while a fatality that swept the whole of them
away might well mean the utter ruin of all their hopes. I did not learn
this quite at once, for it seemed to be the one item of information upon
which Fernandez desired me to remain ignorant; but, mingling freely with
everybody, as I was permitted to do, it was impossible for them to
prevent the secret from ultimately leaking out, and I had not been in
the settlement more than three days before I became acquainted with it,
and with a good many other things as well.
For instance, I learned that of the three navigators which the community
boasted, two--namely, Garcia and another--were on board the _Tiburon_,
while the third was in command of a most respectable-looking brig,
which, provided with a complete set of false papers, was engaged in
conveying to various ports such portions of the cargoes of plundered
ships as were not needed by the pirates themselves, disposing of the
same for cash, and procuring with that cash such commodities as were
required from time to time. The felucca that lay at anchor in the bay
had also been similarly employed; but she was now idle, the man who had
commanded her being with Garcia in the _Tiburon_, in place of an officer
who had been killed in the action with the _Wasp_.
At the time of my arrival this extraordinary pirate settlement, or
community, consisted of some forty seamen of various nationalities--
except Englishmen--who had thrown in their lot with Garcia, Fernandez,
and the rest; and about a hundred others who, although not seamen, were
most useful for the performance of such strictly shore duty as the
erection of houses, the loading and discharging of the trading brig, the
storage of the various commodities needed by the community, the working
up of rough spars into spare masts, yards, booms, etcetera, for the brig
and schooner, the making of spare sails for the same, and, in short, the
execution of all those multitudinous kinds of work that are essential to
the comfort of man in his civilised condition. And exceedingly
comfortable the rascals made themselves, for the houses were well-built,
and in many cases beautifully furnished; also they enjoyed many
luxuries, procured either from the cargoes of plundered ships, or
purchased out of the proceeds of the sale of such plunder as they did
not require for their own use.
It was not long before I discovered that there was a mystery of some
sort attaching to the felucca that lay at anchor in the bay. I had made
more than one attempt to go on board her, with the object of giving her
an overhaul, but each attempt had been quietly met and frustrated in
such a way that I soon grew to understand I could not persist further
without exciting grave suspicion, which was the one thing of all others
that I most desired to avoid. For it was this felucca that I regarded
as my only possible means of escape from the pirates, and, that being
the case, it was of the utmost importance that I should do nothing to
betray the thought that lurked at the back of my mind. She was a fine,
sturdy-looking little craft, measuring somewhere about sixty tons; and I
felt that if I could but once get aboard her, and get enough sail
hoisted to take me out to sea, the most difficult part of my adventure
would be over; for Jamaica lay to leeward, and I could not very well
lose my way, even if I were compelled to go to sea without a chart. It
is true that the rig of a felucca--namely, a single latteen-sail, its
head stretched along an enormously long, tapering yard, hoisted to the
top of a stout, stumpy mast raking well forward--is not precisely the
rig that I would willingly choose to go to sea alone with; but beggars
must not be choosers, and it seemed to me to be Hobson's choice--that or
nothing. I must therefore make up my mind to face the difficulties of
the rig and do the best I could with it, or remain until Garcia's
return, and so miss my only chance. Of course, there was just the bare
possibility that I might find a man, or even two or three, willing to
share the adventure with me--for I could scarcely believe that every
member of the community had quite willingly joined it without compulsion
of any kind--but I had no intention of jeopardising my chances of
success by making inquiries, of however cautious a character. If such
men were to be found it would have to be almost by pure accident;
meanwhile it was for me to make my plans in such a manner that, if
necessary, they could be carried out single-handed.
But it was imperative that I should visit the felucca, by hook or by
crook; and since I had already discovered that it could not be managed
during the day, there was nothing for it but to make the attempt at
night. Now, I was in Pacheco's charge, he was responsible for me, and
although I was nominally free to come and go as I would, it was not long
before I discovered that it was practically impossible for me to get out
of his sight for more than five or ten minutes at a time, except at
night time, when I was granted the privilege of a small room to myself
in his house. Even then, for the first week of my sojourn, I could
scarcely stir in my bed but at the creaking of it he would be at my
door, inquiring why I was moving, and whether I required anything, the
questioning being, I fancied, simply for the purpose of assuring himself
that I was still in the room. But as the days--or rather the nights--
went on his vigilance gradually relaxed, for I so shaped my speech as to
convey the impression that, at least in my own mind, I had practically
decided to join the band. It was this, perhaps, that so far threw him
off his guard as to betray him, on a certain night, into the indulgence
of his favourite vice, which was a too-marked devotion to the rum
bottle. For several nights in succession--ever since I had been placed
in his charge, in fact--he had been perforce compelled to remain
perfectly sober in order that he might keep a strict watch upon me, but
at length when, while we were sitting at table together, taking supper,
I allowed him to believe that I had finally decided to go to Fernandez
the next morning and take the oath, he ventured to celebrate my
conversion by drinking my health in a stiff nor'wester of rum and
water--rather more rum than water. That act of weakness was his
undoing, for at the first taste of the spirit after his forced
abstention he completely lost all control of himself, and could no more
refrain from taking a second tumbler than he could have flown. The
second naturally led to a third, and the third to a fourth; whereupon,
recognising that my chance was at hand, I yawned twice or thrice most
portentously, complained of fatigue, and retired to my room, he
following as far as the door and locking me in, as was his custom before
going to his own room. But that troubled me not a whit, for the house
was of one story only, and to slip out of it by way of the open window
was almost as easy as walking out through the door, once my gaoler
became so deeply wrapped in sleep that my stealthy movements would not
awake him.
I moved quite carelessly about the room for a minute or two, and then
flung myself heavily upon the bed, fully dressed; and as I did so I
heard Pacheco go tiptoeing clumsily back to the table, stumbling against
a chair on the way, and muttering imprecations at his own clumsiness as
he went. A further gurgling of liquor being poured into a glass
followed, then a deep sigh of satisfaction as the glass was emptied, the
bang of it as it was noisily replaced on the table, and finally the
man's staggering footsteps along the floor as he made his way to his own
room. Then came the kicking off of his shoes, followed by other sounds
indicative of the fact that he was undressing, a heavy creaking of the
bedstead as he flung himself upon it, and, a minute or two later, deep
snoring.
But it was still much too early for me to think of making a move, for
sounds reached me from the outside which told me that quite a number of
people were still up and about; I therefore waited, with such patience
as I could muster, until these had all ceased, and then allowed
something like another half-hour to elapse, in order to make all sure--
for this was a case where it were better to be half-an-hour late than
half-a-minute too early, and by undue haste spoil everything.
At length, however, the complete absence of all sound suggestive, of
human movement outside, and the steady, regular, resonant snore of
Pacheco in the next room, encouraged me to make my preliminary move,
which I did by rising, slowly and with infinite caution, to a sitting
position on my bed. This done, I next got off the bed altogether, not,
however, without causing the thing to give forth sundry most alarming
creaks, each of which brought my heart into my mouth. But the snoring
in the next room went on steadily, without pause or break, and two
minutes later I found myself standing, barefooted, outside my window,
ready to scramble back into the room upon the first suggestion of
danger. Nothing happened, however; and with my shoes in my hand I next
proceeded to creep very cautiously round to the front of the house.
The night was clear, with no moon, but the sky was brilliant with stars
affording even more light than I really wanted; and at length, having
peered cautiously round me and noted that the buildings were all dark,
showing that the inhabitants had retired to rest, I stole slowly,
crouching, across the open and so down to the beach. Among the boats
drawn up on the sand there was a small Norwegian boat, much used as a
dinghy, and consequently not drawn as far up on the beach as the others;
this was the craft that I was on the lookout for, and by and by I found
her, half afloat, and secured by her painter to a small anchor dug well
into the sand. Lifting the anchor with the utmost care, I noiselessly
deposited it in her bows, and then, making sure that her oars were in
her, I lifted her bow and slid her off the sand until she was fairly
afloat, when I gently turned her round, gave her a vigorous push, and
scrambled in over her stern, taking care to do everything without noise.
Then, throwing out an oar over the stern, I headed the boat in the
direction of the scarcely visible felucca, and proceeded to scull off to
her.
Thus far everything had gone smoothly and without the ghost of a hitch,
but the really difficult part of my enterprise was still to come. I
estimated that a good four hundred miles lay between the cove and Port
Royal harbour, which distance, at an average speed of six knots, would
take me the best part of three days and nights to cover, under the most
favourable conditions. To do this, I should need both food and water,
and I had not the most remote idea whether either was to be found on
board the felucca, although I hoped they might be, for I had seen
half-a-dozen men go off to her regularly every day, for some purpose
which I could not divine, unless perchance it were to pump her out. But
food and water were absolutely necessary to ensure my success, and
unless I could find at least a sufficiency to last me three days, I must
return and take measures to provide a supply; for to start without would
be simply courting disaster. That, however, was a point which could
only be settled upon my arrival on board.
Taking the matter very easily, husbanding all my strength for the
exceedingly difficult task of getting the felucca under way
single-handed--in the event of all things conspiring to render such a
decided step justifiable--and sculling so gently that I scarcely raised
a ripple on the highly phosphorescent water, I at length glided quietly
up alongside the felucca and, taking the end of the boat's painter with
me, climbed in over the vessel's low bulwarks, passed the dinghy astern,
made her fast, and forthwith proceeded to overhaul the craft which I had
thus surreptitiously visited.
My first visit was to her tiny cabin, the companion door of which I
found unlocked. But when I got below it was so intensely dark that I
could see nothing, and I felt that at all costs I must have a light, or
it would be morning, and my flight would be discovered long before I
could learn all that I wanted to ascertain. I, therefore, went on deck
again, loosed the immense sail, and spread a fold of it over the small
skylight in order to mask the light in the cabin--should I be fortunate
enough to obtain one--and then went forward to the forecastle to hunt
for a lantern of some sort. I found the fore-scuttle not only closed,
but also secured by a stout iron bar, the slotted end of which was
passed over a staple and secured by a padlock. Fortunately, however,
the individual who had last visited the little vessel had been too
careless or too lazy to remove the key from the lock, therefore all I
had to do was to turn the key, remove the padlock from the staple, throw
back the bar, lift off the cover, and my way down into the forecastle
was clear. But I had no sooner lifted off the hatch cover and was
preparing to descend than, to my utter consternation, I became aware of
the fact that the forecastle was inhabited. For as I flung my leg in
over the coamings I distinctly heard a sound of stirring, followed, to
my amazement, by the drowsy muttering of a voice in English, grumbling:
"What the blazes do they want now; and who comes off here at this time
o' night? 'Taint time to turn out yet, I'll swear, for I don't seem to
have been asleep more'n five minutes!"
English! Then the speaker must certainly be a friend, and without more
ado I dropped down into the little forecastle, exclaiming:
"Hillo, there! Who are you, my friend; and what the dickens are you
doing locked up here in this forecastle?"
"Who am I?" retorted the voice. "Why, I'm an Englishman; my name's Tom
Brown, and the name of my mate here is Joe Cutler; both of us late of
His Britannic Majesty's schooner _Wasp_, what foundered in a gale o'
wind somewheres off this here coast a while since. We was picked up off
a bit of wreckage by the crew of this here hooker--what turned out to be
something in the piratical line--and brought into harbour. And since
we've been here we've been made to work like niggers because we wouldn't
jine the `brotherhood,' as they calls theirselves. Latterly we've been
kept aboard this here feluccer, because it appears that there's some
chap ashore there as they don't want to see us. Ay, and if it comes to
that, perhaps you're the chap. Seems to me as I've heard your voice
before. Who are you at all, gov'nor?"
"My name is Delamere," I replied, "and I commanded--"
"Of course, of course," interrupted Brown; "Mr Delamere it is! I
knowed that I knowed that voice of yours, sir. Here, you Joe, rouse and
bitt, man; here's the skipper come to life again. Half a minute, sir,
and we'll have a light. Joe, you lighted the `glim' last; what did ye
do wi' the tinder-box?"
The two men were broad awake, out of their bunks, and bustling about
almost before one could draw a breath, and the next moment they had
lighted a lantern, in the dim glimmer of which they stood up side by
side, saluting, as I stared into their faces scarcely able to credit
such a stupendous piece of good fortune as the unexpected discovery of
these two men, not only Englishmen, but actually members of my own late
crew!
"My lads," I exclaimed, as they stood before me at attention, "I am more
glad than I can express, not only to find that you, like myself, have
managed to escape with your lives, but also that you are here, aboard
this felucca. For I fully intended to make the somewhat desperate
attempt to escape in her single-handed; but the presence of you two men
puts a very different complexion upon the affair. What I might have
been wholly unable to accomplish alone, we three can together manage
with ease. There is only one possible difficulty in our way: Can you
tell me whether there happens to be any food and water aboard this
craft?"
"Yes, sir," answered Brown, "there's both, for we're fed every day out
of the ship's stores. There's the scuttle butt on deck nearly full o'
water, and there's grub down in the lazarette, but how much I don't
know."
"Then let us go at once and ascertain," said I, "for my escape may be
discovered at any moment, and naturally this would be where they would
first look for me. Mask that lantern with your jacket, one of you, and
bring it along aft. Every second is now of importance to us."
It took us but a few minutes to penetrate to the little vessel's
lazarette, where we found an ample supply of provisions of all kinds for
a much larger crew than ourselves and a much longer voyage than we
contemplated.
"Very well," I remarked, as I ran my eye over the array of biscuit and
flour barrels and the casks, some of which were branded "prime mess
beef," while others contained potatoes and sundry other commodities,
"that will do; we shall certainly not starve during the next few days,
whatever else may happen to us. Now clap on that hatch again, and we
will go on deck, slip the cable, and make sail without further ado."