By virtue of the pledge he had given, Don Diego de Espinosa enjoyed the
freedom of the ship that had been his, and the navigation which he had
undertaken was left entirely in his hands. And because those who manned
her were new to the seas of the Spanish Main, and because even the
things that had happened in Bridgetown were not enough to teach them to
regard every Spaniard as a treacherous, cruel dog to be slain at sight,
they used him with the civility which his own suave urbanity invited.
He took his meals in the great cabin with Blood and the three officers
elected to support him: Hagthorpe, Wolverstone, and Dyke.
They found Don Diego an agreeable, even an amusing companion, and their
friendly feeling towards him was fostered by his fortitude and brave
equanimity in this adversity.
That Don Diego was not playing fair it was impossible to suspect.
Moreover, there was no conceivable reason why he should not. And he had
been of the utmost frankness with them. He had denounced their mistake
in sailing before the wind upon leaving Barbados. They should have left
the island to leeward, heading into the Caribbean and away from the
archipelago. As it was, they would now be forced to pass through this
archipelago again so as to make Curacao, and this passage was not to be
accomplished without some measure of risk to themselves. At any point
between the islands they might come upon an equal or superior craft;
whether she were Spanish or English would be equally bad for them, and
being undermanned they were in no case to fight. To lessen this risk
as far as possible, Don Diego directed at first a southerly and then
a westerly course; and so, taking a line midway between the islands of
Tobago and Grenada, they won safely through the danger-zone and came
into the comparative security of the Caribbean Sea.
“If this wind holds,” he told them that night at supper, after he had
announced to them their position, “we should reach Curacao inside three
days.”
For three days the wind held, indeed it freshened a little on the
second, and yet when the third night descended upon them they had still
made no landfall. The Cinco Llagas was ploughing through a sea contained
on every side by the blue bowl of heaven. Captain Blood uneasily
mentioned it to Don Diego.
“It will be for to-morrow morning,” he was answered with calm
conviction.
“By all the saints, it is always 'to-morrow morning' with you Spaniards;
and to-morrow never comes, my friend.”
“But this to-morrow is coming, rest assured. However early you may be
astir, you shall see land ahead, Don Pedro.”
Captain Blood passed on, content, and went to visit Jerry Pitt, his
patient, to whose condition Don Diego owed his chance of life. For
twenty-four hours now the fever had left the sufferer, and under
Peter Blood's dressings, his lacerated back was beginning to heal
satisfactorily. So far, indeed, was he recovered that he complained of
his confinement, of the heat in his cabin. To indulge him Captain Blood
consented that he should take the air on deck, and so, as the last of
the daylight was fading from the sky, Jeremy Pitt came forth upon the
Captain's arm.
Seated on the hatch-coamings, the Somersetshire lad gratefully filled
his lungs with the cool night air, and professed himself revived
thereby. Then with the seaman's instinct his eyes wandered to the
darkling vault of heaven, spangled already with a myriad golden points
of light. Awhile he scanned it idly, vacantly; then, his attention
became sharply fixed. He looked round and up at Captain Blood, who stood
beside him.
“D'ye know anything of astronomy, Peter?” quoth he.
“Astronomy, is it? Faith, now, I couldn't tell the Belt of Orion from
the Girdle of Venus.”
“Ah! And I suppose all the others of this lubberly crew share your
ignorance.”
“It would be more amiable of you to suppose that they exceed it.”
Jeremy pointed ahead to a spot of light in the heavens over the
starboard bow. “That is the North Star,” said he.
“Is it now? Glory be, I wonder ye can pick it out from the rest.”
“And the North Star ahead almost over your starboard bow means that
we're steering a course, north, northwest, or maybe north by west, for I
doubt if we are standing more than ten degrees westward.”
“And why shouldn't we?” wondered Captain Blood.
“You told me--didn't you?--that we came west of the archipelago between
Tobago and Grenada, steering for Curacao. If that were our present
course, we should have the North Star abeam, out yonder.”
On the instant Mr. Blood shed his laziness. He stiffened with
apprehension, and was about to speak when a shaft of light clove the
gloom above their heads, coming from the door of the poop cabin which
had just been opened. It closed again, and presently there was a step
on the companion. Don Diego was approaching. Captain Blood's fingers
pressed Jerry's shoulder with significance. Then he called the Don,
and spoke to him in English as had become his custom when others were
present.
“Will ye settle a slight dispute for us, Don Diego?” said he lightly.
“We are arguing, Mr. Pitt and I, as to which is the North Star.”
“So?” The Spaniard's tone was easy; there was almost a suggestion that
laughter lurked behind it, and the reason for this was yielded by his
next sentence. “But you tell me Mr. Pitt he is your navigant?”
“For lack of a better,” laughed the Captain, good-humouredly
contemptuous. “Now I am ready to wager him a hundred pieces of eight
that that is the North Star.” And he flung out an arm towards a point
of light in the heavens straight abeam. He afterwards told Pitt that
had Don Diego confirmed him, he would have run him through upon that
instant. Far from that, however, the Spaniard freely expressed his
scorn.
“You have the assurance that is of ignorance, Don Pedro; and you lose.
The North Star is this one.” And he indicated it.
“You are sure?”
“But my dear Don Pedro!” The Spaniard's tone was one of amused protest.
“But is it possible that I mistake? Besides, is there not the compass?
Come to the binnacle and see there what course we make.”
His utter frankness, and the easy manner of one who has nothing to
conceal resolved at once the doubt that had leapt so suddenly in the
mind of Captain Blood. Pitt was satisfied less easily.
“In that case, Don Diego, will you tell me, since Curacao is our
destination, why our course is what it is?”
Again there was no faintest hesitation on Don Diego's part. “You have
reason to ask,” said he, and sighed. “I had hope' it would not be
observe'. I have been careless--oh, of a carelessness very culpable. I
neglect observation. Always it is my way. I make too sure. I count too
much on dead reckoning. And so to-day I find when at last I take out
the quadrant that we do come by a half-degree too much south, so that
Curacao is now almost due north. That is what cause the delay. But we
will be there to-morrow.”
The explanation, so completely satisfactory, and so readily and candidly
forthcoming, left no room for further doubt that Don Diego should have
been false to his parole. And when presently Don Diego had withdrawn
again, Captain Blood confessed to Pitt that it was absurd to have
suspected him. Whatever his antecedents, he had proved his quality when
he announced himself ready to die sooner than enter into any undertaking
that could hurt his honour or his country.
New to the seas of the Spanish Main and to the ways of the adventurers
who sailed it, Captain Blood still entertained illusions. But the next
dawn was to shatter them rudely and for ever.
Coming on deck before the sun was up, he saw land ahead, as the Spaniard
had promised them last night. Some ten miles ahead it lay, a long
coast-line filling the horizon east and west, with a massive headland
jutting forward straight before them. Staring at it, he frowned. He had
not conceived that Curacao was of such considerable dimensions. Indeed,
this looked less like an island than the main itself.
Beating out aweather, against the gentle landward breeze he beheld a
great ship on their starboard bow, that he conceived to be some three or
four miles off, and--as well as he could judge her at that distance--of
a tonnage equal if not superior to their own. Even as he watched her
she altered her course, and going about came heading towards them,
close-hauled.
A dozen of his fellows were astir on the forecastle, looking eagerly
ahead, and the sound of their voices and laughter reached him across the
length of the stately Cinco Llagas.
“There,” said a soft voice behind him in liquid Spanish, “is the
Promised Land, Don Pedro.”
It was something in that voice, a muffled note of exultation, that
awoke suspicion in him, and made whole the half-doubt he had been
entertaining. He turned sharply to face Don Diego, so sharply that the
sly smile was not effaced from the Spaniard's countenance before Captain
Blood's eyes had flashed upon it.
“You find an odd satisfaction in the sight of it--all things
considered,” said Mr. Blood.
“Of course.” The Spaniard rubbed his hands, and Mr. Blood observed that
they were unsteady. “The satisfaction of a mariner.”
“Or of a traitor--which?” Blood asked him quietly. And as the Spaniard
fell back before him with suddenly altered countenance that confirmed
his every suspicion, he flung an arm out in the direction of the distant
shore. “What land is that?” he demanded. “Will you have the effrontery
to tell me that is the coast of Curacao?”
He advanced upon Don Diego suddenly, and Don Diego, step by step, fell
back. “Shall I tell you what land it is? Shall I?” His fierce assumption
of knowledge seemed to dazzle and daze the Spaniard. For still Don Diego
made no answer. And then Captain Blood drew a bow at a venture--or
not quite at a venture. Such a coast-line as that, if not of the main
itself, and the main he knew it could not be, must belong to either Cuba
or Hispaniola. Now knowing Cuba to lie farther north and west of the
two, it followed, he reasoned swiftly, that if Don Diego meant betrayal
he would steer for the nearer of these Spanish territories. “That land,
you treacherous, forsworn Spanish dog, is the island of Hispaniola.”
Having said it, he closely watched the swarthy face now overspread with
pallor, to see the truth or falsehood of his guess reflected there. But
now the retreating Spaniard had come to the middle of the quarter-deck,
where the mizzen sail made a screen to shut them off from the eyes of
the Englishmen below. His lips writhed in a snarling smile.
“Ah, perro ingles! You know too much,” he said under his breath, and
sprang for the Captain's throat.
Tight-locked in each other's arms, they swayed a moment, then together
went down upon the deck, the Spaniard's feet jerked from under him
by the right leg of Captain Blood. The Spaniard had depended upon his
strength, which was considerable. But it proved no match for the
steady muscles of the Irishman, tempered of late by the vicissitudes
of slavery. He had depended upon choking the life out of Blood, and so
gaining the half-hour that might be necessary to bring up that fine
ship that was beating towards them--a Spanish ship, perforce, since
none other would be so boldly cruising in these Spanish waters off
Hispaniola. But all that Don Diego had accomplished was to betray
himself completely, and to no purpose. This he realized when he found
himself upon his back, pinned down by Blood, who was kneeling on his
chest, whilst the men summoned by their Captain's shout came clattering
up the companion.
“Will I say a prayer for your dirty soul now, whilst I am in this
position?” Captain Blood was furiously mocking him.
But the Spaniard, though defeated, now beyond hope for himself, forced
his lips to smile, and gave back mockery for mockery.
“Who will pray for your soul, I wonder, when that galleon comes to lie
board and board with you?”
“That galleon!” echoed Captain Blood with sudden and awful realization
that already it was too late to avoid the consequences of Don Diego's
betrayal of them.
“That galleon,” Don Diego repeated, and added with a deepening sneer:
“Do you know what ship it is? I will tell you. It is the Encarnacion,
the flagship of Don Miguel de Espinosa, the Lord Admiral of Castile,
and Don Miguel is my brother. It is a very fortunate encounter. The
Almighty, you see, watches over the destinies of Catholic Spain.”
There was no trace of humour or urbanity now in Captain Blood. His light
eyes blazed: his face was set.
He rose, relinquishing the Spaniard to his men. “Make him fast,” he bade
them. “Truss him, wrist and heel, but don't hurt him--not so much as a
hair of his precious head.”
The injunction was very necessary. Frenzied by the thought that they
were likely to exchange the slavery from which they had so lately
escaped for a slavery still worse, they would have torn the Spaniard
limb from limb upon the spot. And if they now obeyed their Captain
and refrained, it was only because the sudden steely note in his voice
promised for Don Diego Valdez something far more exquisite than death.
“You scum! You dirty pirate! You man of honour!” Captain Blood
apostrophized his prisoner.
But Don Diego looked up at him and laughed.
“You underrated me.” He spoke English, so that all might hear. “I tell
you that I was not fear death, and I show you that I was not fear it.
You no understand. You just an English dog.”
“Irish, if you please,” Captain Blood corrected him. “And your parole,
you tyke of Spain?”
“You think I give my parole to leave you sons of filth with this
beautiful Spanish ship, to go make war upon other Spaniards! Ha!” Don
Diego laughed in his throat. “You fool! You can kill me. Pish! It is
very well. I die with my work well done. In less than an hour you will
be the prisoners of Spain, and the Cinco Llagas will go belong to Spain
again.”
Captain Blood regarded him steadily out of a face which, if impassive,
had paled under its deep tan. About the prisoner, clamant, infuriated,
ferocious, the rebels-convict surged, almost literally “athirst for his
blood.”
“Wait,” Captain Blood imperiously commanded, and turning on his heel, he
went aside to the rail. As he stood there deep in thought, he was joined
by Hagthorpe, Wolverstone, and Ogle the gunner. In silence they stared
with him across the water at that other ship. She had veered a point
away from the wind, and was running now on a line that must in the end
converge with that of the Cinco Llagas.
“In less than half-an-hour,” said Blood presently, “we shall have her
athwart our hawse, sweeping our decks with her guns.”
“We can fight,” said the one-eyed giant with an oath.
“Fight!” sneered Blood. “Undermanned as we are, mustering a bare twenty
men, in what case are we to fight? No, there would be only one way. To
persuade her that all is well aboard, that we are Spaniards, so that she
may leave us to continue on our course.”
“And how is that possible?” Hagthorpe asked.
“It isn't possible,” said Blood. “If it....” And then he broke off,
and stood musing, his eyes upon the green water. Ogle, with a bent for
sarcasm, interposed a suggestion bitterly.
“We might send Don Diego de Espinosa in a boat manned by his Spaniards
to assure his brother the Admiral that we are all loyal subjects of his
Catholic Majesty.”
The Captain swung round, and for an instant looked as if he would have
struck the gunner. Then his expression changed: the light of inspiration
Was in his glance.
“Bedad! ye've said it. He doesn't fear death, this damned pirate; but
his son may take a different view. Filial piety's mighty strong in
Spain.” He swung on his heel abruptly, and strode back to the knot of
men about his prisoner. “Here!” he shouted to them. “Bring him below.”
And he led the way down to the waist, and thence by the booby hatch to
the gloom of the 'tween-decks, where the air was rank with the smell
of tar and spun yarn. Going aft he threw open the door of the spacious
wardroom, and went in followed by a dozen of the hands with the pinioned
Spaniard. Every man aboard would have followed him but for his sharp
command to some of them to remain on deck with Hagthorpe.
In the ward-room the three stern chasers were in position, loaded,
their muzzles thrusting through the open ports, precisely as the Spanish
gunners had left them.
“Here, Ogle, is work for you,” said Blood, and as the burly gunner came
thrusting forward through the little throng of gaping men, Blood pointed
to the middle chaser; “Have that gun hauled back,” he ordered.
When this was done, Blood beckoned those who held Don Diego.
“Lash him across the mouth of it,” he bade them, and whilst, assisted by
another two, they made haste to obey, he turned to the others. “To the
roundhouse, some of you, and fetch the Spanish prisoners. And you, Dyke,
go up and bid them set the flag of Spain aloft.”
Don Diego, with his body stretched in an arc across the cannon's mouth,
legs and arms lashed to the carriage on either side of it, eyeballs
rolling in his head, glared maniacally at Captain Blood. A man may not
fear to die, and yet be appalled by the form in which death comes to
him.
From frothing lips he hurled blasphemies and insults at his tormentor.
“Foul barbarian! Inhuman savage! Accursed heretic! Will it not content
you to kill me in some Christian fashion?” Captain Blood vouchsafed him
a malignant smile, before he turned to meet the fifteen manacled Spanish
prisoners, who were thrust into his presence.
Approaching, they had heard Don Diego's outcries; at close quarters now
they beheld with horror-stricken eyes his plight. From amongst them a
comely, olive-skinned stripling, distinguished in bearing and apparel
from his companions, started forward with an anguished cry of “Father!”
Writhing in the arms that made haste to seize and hold him, he called
upon heaven and hell to avert this horror, and lastly, addressed to
Captain Blood an appeal for mercy that was at once fierce and piteous.
Considering him, Captain Blood thought with satisfaction that he
displayed the proper degree of filial piety.
He afterwards confessed that for a moment he was in danger of weakening,
that for a moment his mind rebelled against the pitiless thing it had
planned. But to correct the sentiment he evoked a memory of what these
Spaniards had performed in Bridgetown. Again he saw the white face of
that child Mary Traill as she fled in horror before the jeering ruffian
whom he had slain, and other things even more unspeakable seen on that
dreadful evening rose now before the eyes of his memory to stiffen his
faltering purpose. The Spaniards had shown themselves without mercy
or sentiment or decency of any kind; stuffed with religion, they were
without a spark of that Christianity, the Symbol of which was mounted on
the mainmast of the approaching ship. A moment ago this cruel, vicious
Don Diego had insulted the Almighty by his assumption that He kept a
specially benevolent watch over the destinies of Catholic Spain. Don
Diego should be taught his error.
Recovering the cynicism in which he had approached his task, the
cynicism essential to its proper performance, he commanded Ogle to
kindle a match and remove the leaden apron from the touch-hole of the
gun that bore Don Diego. Then, as the younger Espinosa broke into fresh
intercessions mingled with imprecations, he wheeled upon him sharply.
“Peace!” he snapped. “Peace, and listen! It is no part of my intention
to blow your father to hell as he deserves, or indeed to take his life
at all.”
Having surprised the lad into silence by that promise--a promise
surprising enough in all the circumstances--he proceeded to explain his
aims in that faultless and elegant Castilian of which he was fortunately
master--as fortunately for Don Diego as for himself.
“It is your father's treachery that has brought us into this plight and
deliberately into risk of capture and death aboard that ship of Spain.
Just as your father recognized his brother's flagship, so will his
brother have recognized the Cinco Llagas. So far, then, all is well. But
presently the Encarnacion will be sufficiently close to perceive that
here all is not as it should be. Sooner or later, she must guess or
discover what is wrong, and then she will open fire or lay us board and
board. Now, we are in no case to fight, as your father knew when he ran
us into this trap. But fight we will, if we are driven to it. We make no
tame surrender to the ferocity of Spain.”
He laid his hand on the breech of the gun that bore Don Diego.
“Understand this clearly: to the first shot from the Encarnacion this
gun will fire the answer. I make myself clear, I hope?”
White-faced and trembling, young Espinosa stared into the pitiless blue
eyes that so steadily regarded him.
“If it is clear?” he faltered, breaking the utter silence in which all
were standing. “But, name of God, how should it be clear? How should
I understand? Can you avert the fight? If you know a way, and if I, or
these, can help you to it--if that is what you mean--in Heaven's name
let me hear it.”
“A fight would be averted if Don Diego de Espinosa were to go aboard his
brother's ship, and by his presence and assurances inform the Admiral
that all is well with the Cinco Llagas, that she is indeed still a ship
of Spain as her flag now announces. But of course Don Diego cannot go
in person, because he is... otherwise engaged. He has a slight touch of
fever--shall we say?--that detains him in his cabin. But you, his son,
may convey all this and some other matters together with his homage
to your uncle. You shall go in a boat manned by six of these Spanish
prisoners, and I--a distinguished Spaniard delivered from captivity
in Barbados by your recent raid--will accompany you to keep you in
countenance. If I return alive, and without accident of any kind to
hinder our free sailing hence, Don Diego shall have his life, as shall
every one of you. But if there is the least misadventure, be it from
treachery or ill-fortune--I care not which--the battle, as I have had
the honour to explain, will be opened on our side by this gun, and your
father will be the first victim of the conflict.”
He paused a moment. There was a hum of approval from his comrades,
an anxious stirring among the Spanish prisoners. Young Espinosa stood
before him, the colour ebbing and flowing in his cheeks. He waited for
some direction from his father. But none came. Don Diego's courage,
it seemed, had sadly waned under that rude test. He hung limply in his
fearful bonds, and was silent. Evidently he dared not encourage his son
to defiance, and presumably was ashamed to urge him to yield. Thus, he
left decision entirely with the youth.
“Come,” said Blood. “I have been clear enough, I think. What do you
say?”
Don Esteban moistened his parched lips, and with the back of his hand
mopped the anguish-sweat from his brow. His eyes gazed wildly a moment
upon the shoulders of his father, as if beseeching guidance. But his
father remained silent. Something like a sob escaped the boy.
“I... I accept,” he answered at last, and swung to the Spaniards. “And
you--you will accept too,” he insisted passionately. “For Don Diego's
sake and for your own--for all our sakes. If you do not, this man will
butcher us all without mercy.”
Since he yielded, and their leader himself counselled no resistance,
why should they encompass their own destruction by a gesture of futile
heroism? They answered without much hesitation that they would do as was
required of them.
Blood turned, and advanced to Don Diego.
“I am sorry to inconvenience you in this fashion, but...” For a second
he checked and frowned as his eyes intently observed the prisoner. Then,
after that scarcely perceptible pause, he continued, “but I do not think
that you have anything beyond this inconvenience to apprehend, and you
may depend upon me to shorten it as far as possible.” Don Diego made him
no answer.
Peter Blood waited a moment, observing him; then he bowed and stepped
back.