THE ISLE OF THE BUCCANEERS
Swaying in sea-sick fashion, Stuart saw the forests, far below, seem to
rise up to meet him. Under the influence of the double motion of drop
and roll, the whole earth seemed to be rocking, and the sense of the
void beneath him made Stuart feel giddy and faint. The fall was slower
than he had expected.
Soon, a damp heat, rising from below, warned the boy that they were
approaching the ground, and, a second or two later, the Englishman said
quietly:
"We are going to hit the trees. Cover your face and head with your arms.
You won't be hurt, but there is no sense in having one's eyes scratched
out."
In fact, the trees were very near. Stuart cast one look down, and then,
following the advice given, covered his face. A quarter of a minute
later, his legs and the lower half of his body plunged into twigs and
foliage. The parachute, released from a part of the weight which had
held it steady, careened, was caught by a sidewise gust of wind, and,
bellying out like a sail, it dragged the two aerial travelers through
the topmost branches in short, vicious jerks which made Stuart feel as
though he were being pulled apart. This lasted but a minute or two,
however, when the parachute itself, torn, and caught in the branches,
came to anchor.
"I fancy we had better climb down," remarked Cecil, cheerfully, and, at
the same time, Stuart realized that the belt, which had grappled him
tight to the Englishman's harness, had been loosened.
The boy drew a long breath, for his lungs had been tightly compressed
during the downward journey, and, instinctively, reached out for a
branch sufficiently strong to support him.
The Englishman, a man of quicker action, had already swung clear and was
descending the tree with a lithe agility that seemed quite out of
keeping with his quiet and self-possessed manner. The boy, despite his
youth, came down more clumsily. On reaching ground, he found his
companion sedately polishing his tan boots with a tiny bit of rag he had
taken from a box not much bigger than a twenty-five cent piece. Stuart's
clothes were torn in half-a-dozen places, Cecil's tweeds were absolutely
unharmed.
The Englishman caught the boy's thought and answered it.
"Explorers' Cloth," he said. "I have it made specially for me; you can
hardly cut it with a knife."
Inwardly the boy felt that he ought to be able to carry on the
conversation in the same light vein, but his nerves were badly shaken.
His companion glanced at him.
"A bit done up, eh?" He took a metal container from his pocket, in shape
like a short lead pencil, and poured out two tiny pellets into his palm.
"If you are not afraid of poison," he remarked amicably, "swallow these.
They will pick you up at once."
The thought of poison had flashed into Stuart's mind. After all, the
Englishman was just as much one of the conspirators as Manuel or
Leborge, and might be just as anxious for the death of an eavesdropper.
At the same time, the boy realized that he was absolutely in the
Englishman's power, and that if Cecil wanted to get rid of him, there,
in that thick forest, he had ample opportunity. To refuse the pellets
might be even more dangerous than to accept them. Besides, there was a
certain atmosphere of directness in Cecil, conspirator though the boy
knew him to be, which forbade belief in so low-grade a manner of action
as the use of poison.
He held out his hand for the pellets and swallowed them without a word.
A slight inclination of the head showed the donor's acceptance of the
fact that he was trusted.
"Now, my lad," he said. "I think you ought to tell me something about
yourself, and what you were doing in the Citadel. You asked me to save
you from Manuel, and I have done so. Perhaps I have been hasty. But, in
honor bound, you must tell me what you know and what you heard."
Through Stuart's veins, the blood was beginning to course full and free.
The pellets which Cecil had given him--whatever they were--removed his
fatigue as though it had been a cloak. They loosened the boy's tongue,
also, and freely he told the Englishman all his affairs save for his
cause in pursuing Manuel, which he regarded as a personal matter. He
mentioned the only words he had overheard, while watching in the ruined
Citadel and explained that the taunting of Leborge by Manuel, during the
conference, had been only a ruse to provoke trouble, the Cuban hoping
that the boy would shoot.
"And what general impression did you get from the meeting?" Cecil
queried.
The boy hesitated, fearing to enrage his questioner.
"Well," he blurted out, "if I must say it, I think that you're plotting
a revolution in this country, putting Leborge up as president, letting
Manuel run the country, driving the United States clean out of it, and
giving you the chance to take all sorts of commercial concessions for
yourself."
The Englishman nodded his head.
"For a guess," he declared, "your idea is not half bad. Evidently, you
have plenty of imagination. The only trouble with your summing up of the
situation, my boy, is that it is wrong in every particular. If you did
not learn any more than that from the conference, your information is
quite harmless. I suppose I can count on your never mentioning this
meeting?"
Stuart thought for a moment.
"No," he said, "I can't promise that."
The Englishman lifted his eyebrows slightly.
"And why?"
Stuart found it difficult to say why. He had a feeling that to swear
silence would, in a sense, make him a party to the conspiracy, whatever
it might be.
"I--I've got it in for Manuel," he said lamely, though conscious, as he
said it, that the reply would not satisfy.
Cecil looked at him through narrowed eyelids.
"I suppose you know that I would have no scruples in shooting you if you
betrayed us," he remarked.
Stuart looked up.
"I don't know it," he answered. "Manuel or Leborge might do it, but I
think you'd have a lot of scruples in shooting an unarmed boy."
"Surely you can't expect me to save your life merely to run my own neck
in a noose?"
"That's as good as admitting that what you're doing might run your neck
into a noose," commented Stuart shrewdly, if a little imprudently.
"All right. But you must play fair. I have helped you. In honor, you
can't turn that help against me."
It was a definite deadlock. The boy realized that, while the Englishman
was not likely to put a bullet through his head, as either Manuel or
Leborge would have done, he was none the less likely to arrange affairs
so that there would be no chance for talk. Haitian prisons were
deathtraps. Also Cecil's declaration that an abuse of kindness would be
dishonorable had a great deal of weight with the boy. His father had
taught him the fine quality of straight dealing.
"Look here, sir," he said, after a pause. "You said that I hadn't got
the right idea as to what you three were doing."
"You haven't."
"Then I can't betray it, that's sure! I'll promise, if you like, that,
if I do ever find out the whole truth about this plot, and if it's
something which, as an American, I oughtn't to let go by, I won't make
any move in it until I know you've been warned in plenty of time. If it
isn't, I'll say nothing. There's no reason why I should get Leborge or
you in trouble. It's Manuel I'm after."
"If you'll promise that," said Cecil, "I fancy I can afford to let you
go. I don't want you with me, anyway, for that Cuban dog would be sure
that you had betrayed him to me, and he would suppose that I was going
to betray him in turn. I'll land you in Cuba, and if you take my advice,
you'll keep away from Haiti. It isn't healthy--for you."
Having thus settled Stuart's fate to his own satisfaction, Cecil
climbed a little distance up the tree, caught the ropes of the
parachute, and with much hauling, assisted by Stuart, he pulled the
wreckage down and thrust it under a bush.
"The weather and the ants will make short work of that," he commented.
"There won't be much of it left but the ribs in a week. And now, lad,
we'll strike for the coast."
Though there seemed to Stuart no way of telling where they were, Cecil
took a definite course through the jungle. They scrambled over and
through the twisted tangle of undergrowth, creepers and lianas, and, in
less than an hour, reached a small foot-path, bearing north-westward.
"I don't know this path," the Englishman remarked frankly, "but it's
going in the direction I want, any way." A little later, he commented,
"I fancy this leads to a village," and struck out into the jungle for a
detour. On the further side of the village, he remarked, "I know where I
am, now," and, thereafter, made no further comment upon the route. He
talked very interestingly, however, about the insects, flowers and trees
by the way, and, when dark came on, taught Stuart more about the stars
than he had learned in all his years of schooling.
They walked steadily without a halt for food, even, from the late
afternoon when the parachute had hit the trees, until about an hour
after sunrise the next morning, when the faint trail that they had
lately been following, suddenly came to an end on the bank of a narrow
river, hardly more than a creek.
Putting a tiny flat instrument between his teeth, Cecil blew a shriek so
shrill that it hurt Stuart's ears. It was repeated from a distance,
almost immediately. Five minutes later the boy heard the "chug-chug" of
a motor boat, and a small craft of racing pattern glided up to the bank.
"Got a passenger, Andy," he said to the sole occupant of the boat.
"Food for fishes?" came the grim query, in reply.
"Not yet; not this time, anyway. No, we'll just put him ashore at Cuba
and see if he knows how to mind his own business."
The motor boat engineer grumbled under his breath. He was evidently not
a man for half-measures. The blood of the old buccaneers ran in his
veins. It was evident, though, that Cecil was master.
The two men aboard, Andy turned the head of the motor boat down the
river and out to sea, shooting past the short water-front of the little
village of Plaine du Nord at a bewildering speed. The Creoles had barely
time to realize that there was something on the water before it was gone
out of sight.
Despite its speed--which was in the neighborhood of thirty-two
knots--the motor boat was built for sea use, and it ran along the coast
of the Haitian north peninsula, past Le Borgne and St. Louis de Nord,
like a scared dolphin. Arriving near Port-de-Paix, it hugged the shore
of the famous lair of the buccaneers, Isle de Tortugas, and thence
struck for the open sea.
"Tortugas!" commented Cecil, pointing to the rocky shores of the islet.
"That's where all the pirates came from, wasn't it?" queried Stuart,
eager to break the silence of the journey.
"Pirates? No. The pirate haunts were more to the north. It was the
stronghold of the buccaneers."
"I always thought pirates and buccaneers were the same thing," put in
the boy.
"Far from it. Originally the buccaneers were hunters, and their name
comes from _boucan_, a word meaning dried flesh. They hunted wild cattle
and wild pigs on that island over there."
"Haiti?"
"It was called Hispaniola, then. The Spanish owned it, but had only a
few settlements on the coast. The population was largely Carib, a savage
race given to cannibalism. There seems little reason to doubt that even
if the buccaneers did not actually smoke and cure human flesh, as the
Caribs did, they traded in it and ate it themselves."
"Were the buccaneers Spaniards?" queried Stuart.
"No. French to begin with, and afterwards, many English joined them.
That was just where the whole bloody business began. France protected
the buccaneers, sent them aid and ammunition; even their famous
guns--known as 'buccaneering pieces' and four and a half feet long--were
all made in France. There was a steady demand for smoked meat and hides,
and France was only too ready to get these from a Spanish colony without
payment of any dues thereon.
"At the beginning of the seventeenth century the buccaneers--at that
time only hunters--settled in small groups on the island of Hispaniola.
Such a policy was dangerous. Time after time parties of Spanish soldiery
raided the settlements, killing most of the hunters and putting the
prisoners to the torture. In desperation, the buccaneers decided to
abandon Hispaniola. They united their forces and sailed to the island of
St. Kitts, nominally in the hands of Spain, but then inhabited only by
Caribs.
"The French government at once extended its protection to St. Kitts,
thus practically seizing it from Spain and claimed it as a possession.
Great Britain agreed to support France in this illegal seizure and thus
the little colony of St. Kitts was held safe under both French and
English governments, which actually supported the hunting ventures of
the buccaneers, and winked at the piratic raids which generally formed a
part of the buccaneering expeditions.
"But it was not to be expected that the Spanish would keep still under
the continual pillage of these plundering hunters. The Dons undertook
to destroy the small vessels in which the buccaneers sailed and, before
three years had passed, fully one-half of the buccaneers sailing from
St. Kitts had been savagely slaughtered. These outrages prompted
reprisals from the English and the French and thus the privateers came
into the field."
"What's a privateer?" queried Stuart.
"I was just about to tell you," answered Cecil. "A privateer on the
Caribbean and the Spanish Main, in those days, was a man who had
sufficient money or sufficient reputation to secure a ship and a crew
with which to wage war against the enemies of his country. As his own
government had given nothing but permission to his venture, it gained
nothing but glory from it. The privateer had the right to all the booty
and plunder he could secure by capturing an enemy's ship, or raiding an
enemy's settlement. The plunder was divided among the crew. Thus, a
lucky voyage, in which, for example, a Spanish treasure-ship was
captured, would make every member of the crew rich. Some of these
privateers, after one or so prosperous voyages, settled down and became
wealthy planters. The great Sir Francis Drake, on several of his
voyages, went as a privateer."
"And I suppose the governments gained, by having a fleet of vessels
doing their fighting, for which they needn't pay," commented the boy.
"Exactly. In a way, this was fair enough. The privateer took his
chance, and, whether he won or lost, he was, at least, fighting for his
country. But there were other men, unable to secure ships, and who could
not obtain letters-of-marque from their governments, to whom loot and
plunder seemed an easy way of gaining riches. Some of these were men
from the crews of privateers that had disbanded, some were buccaneers.
They claimed the same rights as privateers but differed in this--that
they would attack any ship or settlement and plunder it at will. At
first they confined themselves to small Spanish settlements only, but,
later, their desires increased, and neutral ships and inoffensive
villages were attacked.
"In order to put a stop to the raids of the buccaneering hunters, the
Spaniards planned an organized destruction of all the wild cattle on
Hispaniola, hoping thus to drive the ravagers away. It was a false move.
The result of it was to turn the buccaneers into sea-rovers on an
independent basis, ready for plunder and murder anywhere and everywhere.
At this period they were called Filibusters, but, a little later, the
word 'buccaneer' came to be used for the whole group of privateers,
filibusters and hunters.
"The fury of both sides increased. So numerous and powerful did these
sea-rovers become that all trade was cut off. Neutral vessels, even if
in fleets, were endangered. With the cutting off of trade by sea, there
was no longer any plunder for the rovers and from this cause came about
the famous land expeditions, such as the sack of Maracaibo by Lolonnois
the Cruel, and the historic capture of Panama by Morgan. Large cities
were taken and held to ransom. Organized raids were made, accompanied by
murder and rapine. The gallantry of privateering was degenerating into
the bloody brutality of piracy.
"In 1632, a small group of French buccaneer hunters had left St. Kitts
and, seeking a base nearer to Hispaniola, had attacked the little island
of Tortugas, on which the Spanish had left a garrison of only
twenty-five men. Every one of the Spaniards were killed. The buccaneers
took possession, found the harbor to be excellent, and the soil of the
island exceedingly fertile. As a buccaneer base, it was ideal.
Filibusters saw the value of a base so close to Spanish holdings,
realized the impregnability of the harbor and flocked thither.
Privateers put in and brought their prizes. Tortugas began to prosper.
In 1638 the Spaniards, taking advantage of a time when several large
expeditions of buccaneers were absent, raided the place in force and
shot, hanged, or tortured to death, every man, woman and child they
captured. Only a few of the inhabitants escaped by hiding among the
rocks. But the Spanish did not dare to leave a garrison.
"The buccaneers got together and under Willis, an Englishman, reoccupied
the island. Although Willis was English, the greater part of the
buccaneers with him were French and they gladly accepted a suggestion
from the governor-general at St. Kitts to send a governor to Tortugas.
In 1641 Governor Poincy succeeded in securing possession of the Isle of
Tortugas for the Crown of France. Thus, having a shadow of protection
thrown around it, and being afforded the widest latitude of conduct by
its governor--who fully realized that it was nothing but a nest of
pirates--Tortugas flamed into a mad prosperity.
"That little desert island yonder became the wildest and most abandoned
place that the world probably has ever seen. Sea-rovers, slave-runners,
filibusters, pirates, red-handed ruffians of every variety on land or
sea made it their port of call. Everything could be bought there;
everything sold. There was a market for all booty and every
article--even captured white people for slaves--was exposed for sale. An
adventurer could engage a crew of cut-throats at half-an-hour's notice.
A plot to murder a thousand people in cold blood would be but street
talk. Every crime which could be imagined by a depraved and gore-heated
brain was of daily occurrence. It was a sink of iniquity.
"After France had taken possession of Tortugas, it came about quite
naturally that the French buccaneers found themselves better treated in
that port than the English filibusters or the Dutch Sea-Rovers. Almost
immediately, therefore, the English drew away, and established their
buccaneer base in other islands, notably Jamaica, of which island the
notorious adventurer and pirate, Sir Henry Morgan, became governor.
"The steady rise of Dutch power, bringing about the Dutch War of 1665,
brought about a serious menace against the English power, increased
when, in 1666, France joined hands with Holland. Peace was signed in
1667. In the next thirty years, four local West Indian wars broke out,
the grouping of the powers differing. All parties also sought to control
the trade across the Isthmus of Panama, and there was great rivalry in
the slave trade. During this period, privateers and buccaneers ceased to
attack Spanish settlements only, and raided settlements belonging to any
other country than their own. During the various short intervals of
peace between these wars, the several treaties had become more and more
stringent against the buccaneers. When, therefore, in 1697, the Treaty
of Ryswick brought peace between England, France, Holland and Spain, it
ended the period of the buccaneer."
"I don't quite see why," put in Stuart, a little puzzled.
"For this reason. The buccaneers had not only existed in spite of
international law, they had even possessed a peculiar status as a
favored and protected group. The treaty put an end to that protection.
Sea-fighting thereafter was to be confined to the navies of the powers,
and the true privateers and sea-rovers roved the seas no more."
"But how about the pirates--'Blackbeard' Teach, Capt. Kidd, 'Bloody'
Roberts and all the rest?" queried Stuart.
"They were utterly different in type and habits from the buccaneers,"
explained Cecil. "After the Treaty of Ryswick, piracy became an
international crime. A harbor belonging to one of the powers could no
longer give anchorage to a pirate craft. Markets could no longer openly
deal in loot and plunder.
"Those freebooters who had learned to live by pillage, and who thus had
become outlaws of the sea, were compelled to find some uninhabited
island for a refuge. They made their new headquarters at the Island of
New Providence, one of the Bahamas. With buccaneering ended, and piracy
in process of suppression by all the naval powers, the reason for
Tortugas' importance was gone. It dwindled and sank until now it is a
mere rocky islet with a few acres under cultivation, and that is all. I
know it well. Much treasure is said to be buried there, but no one has
ever found it. Don't waste your time looking for it, boy. You will keep
away from this part of the world if you know what is good for you!"
With which menace, the Englishman fell silent, and Stuart felt it wiser
to refrain from disturbing him. Even over a copiously filled lunch
basket, the three in the boat munched, without a word exchanged.
At dusk they ran into a small cove at the easternmost end of the
northern coast of Cuba, not far from Baracoa, the oldest city in Cuba
and its first capital, where Columbus, Narvaez, Cortes and others of the
great characters of history, played their first parts in the New World.
Under the shadow of Anvil Mountain, the motor boat ran up to a little
wharf, almost completely hidden in greenery, and there Cecil and the boy
landed. Stuart did not fail to observe that the motor boat engineer
needed no directions as to the place of landing. Evidently this cove was
familiar.
On going ashore, without a word of explanation to the boy, Cecil led the
way to a small hut, not far from the beach. When, in response to a
knock, the door opened, he said, in Spanish:
"Ignacio, this American boy is going to Havana. You will see that he
does not get lost on the way!"
"Si, Senor," was the only reply, the fisherman--for so he
appeared--evincing no surprise at the sudden appearance of Cecil at his
door, nor at his abrupt command. This absence of surprise or question
was the strongest possible proof of the extent of the Englishman's
power, and Stuart found himself wondering to what extent this
conspirator's web extended over the West Indies.
A phrase or two, when they were walking together through the jungle,
after the parachute descent, had shown Stuart that the Englishman was
especially well acquainted with the flora and fauna of Jamaica. He must
possess powerful friends in Haiti, or he could never have reached the
Citadel, to arrive at which point both Manuel and Leborge had been
compelled to employ tortuous methods, even to disguise. The motor boat
awaiting him in the Haitian jungle showed an uncanny knowledge of that
locality. He had mentioned that he knew the Isle of Tortugas. He was
evidently known on the Cuban coast. This plot, whatever it might be, was
assuredly of far-reaching importance, if one of the plotters found it
necessary to weave a web that embraced all the nearby islands.
"I'm glad I didn't promise not to tell about it," muttered the boy, as
he watched Cecil stride away without even a word of farewell, "for I
miss my guess if there isn't something brewing to make trouble for the
United States."