Certain men, whom misfortune and loss of riches have driven to seek
comfort in philosophy, have devoured much paper and spilled an
infinity of ink in dispraise of gold and silver, railing at those
metals with a plentiful store of scornful epithets, to show their
baseness and want of true value.
Had any such been with us now they would have found a very plausible
argument for their conclusions. Rolling in gold and silver, we were
destitute; though oppressed with wealth, we were poorer than church
mice. Willingly we would have given all we had, and more, for one
smart, well-furnished frigate in the road.
After the discovery of our forlorn state many were so moved that they
cast away their gold, and, losing all hope of escape, gave themselves
up to despair; and not without excuse. For we could not doubt but
that our pinnaces had been taken, and that our stronghold at Fort
Diego would be revealed by the torture of prisoners. Thus all hope
of ever getting back to our homes was gone; and the greater part of
the company, losing all heart, began to murmur and complain very
bitterly against the captains who had brought them to such a pass. I
can say no more of the depth to which our spirits sank, or the misery
of that hour, than that it was one of those times when Frank Drake's
nature rose to its greatest height. He leaped upon a log, and with
his clear, cheerful voice addressed them without a note of fear or
misgiving, where no one else could discern the smallest ray of
encouragement or the forlornest hope of safety.
'Shame on you! shame!' he cried. 'What faint-heartedness is this?
If you miscarry, so do I. You venture no further than I. And is
this a time to wail and fear? If it be, then is it also a time to
hasten to prevent what we fear. If the enemy have prevailed against
our pinnaces, which God forbid, yet all is not lost. Only half their
work is done. They must have time to search and examine their
prisoners as to where our strength lies; and then they will want some
time to form their resolution, and quarrel who is to command. Ah!
you know not Spaniards. Then they will want time to order a fleet
twice or thrice as large as needful; item, time to come to our ships;
item, time to resolve upon their method of attack; item, time to find
stomach to deliver it. And before all this will be discharged we can
get to our ships, if you will so resolve, like the men that you have
at divers times shown yourselves.'
'But how? how?' they cried, as he paused.
'Why, now you speak like men,' he said, 'and give a captain heart to
save you. By land, I think, we cannot come to them, though our Pedro
would have us so try. It is sixteen days' journey thither, and
before that the Spaniards will have struck. Yet by sea we may. See
you those trees God has sent down the river for you by last night's
storm? Of those we can make a raft; and four of us sail aloof the
shore and call the ships hither. Of those four I shall be one; who
will be the others?'
The words were hardly out of his mouth when Harry had shouted 'I!'
and then followed a clamour of 'I's' in English, French, and Spanish,
as half the whites and all the blacks offered themselves when they
understood what our captain's words should mean. Finally he chose
Harry, as having spoken first, and two Frenchmen, who were great
swimmers, because our fellow-venturers boldly claimed, as of right, a
half-share in every danger as well as in all plunder.
So from despair our captain's resolute words, so cheerfully spoken,
raised them all in a short space to a lively hope; and all hands set
eagerly to work to bind together some of the trees which the swollen
river had brought down.
Meanwhile, more grieved than I can say to think that Harry was going
to what seemed almost certain death, in spite of what Frank had said,
I went to him to try and dissuade him from his purpose.
'Tush!' said he, 'what is there to fear?'
'Nothing for you to fear, I know well,' I answered; 'it is not that.
It is what I fear. I have a most evil foreboding that if you go on
this venture we shall never see you again.'
'Well, and what matter?' he laughed; 'a man must die once.'
'Yes,' said I, 'but he need not rot to death in a Spanish prison, or
die before his time. The Spanish shallops will be scouring all the
coast, and must of a certainty pick you up like half-drowned rats ere
ever you reach the Cabeças. Why should you do this when there is no
need--you who of us all have most to live for?'
'And what have I to live for,' he answered, with clouding brow, 'that
others have not?'
'You know! you know!' I said. 'Give me not the pain or shame of
saying what. Nay, hear me then,' I went on, as I saw a bitter reply
rising to his lips; and then, determined to leave no means untried to
preserve him to the woman I had so cruelly wronged, I told him how I
had gone back to Ashtead after that terrible night; how I had seen
through the window his dear wife kissing his letter and weeping over
his child; how I had marked a hundred signs whereby I knew her love
for him was only the more pure and ardent for the trial it had
undergone.
God be praised! if it was He that put the burning words in my mouth
with which I told my tale and pleaded my cause. Long had I kept it
pent up in my heart, for want of courage to tell him, as well as for
fear of increasing his grief and his hate for me; and now it flowed
with the full strength of the gathered flood which his long coldness
had frozen up in me.
What joy was in my heart I cannot tell in words when, ere I had done,
he seized my hand in his manly way and said, 'Have your will,
brother! Go in my place. If we ever meet again we shall be brothers
indeed once more, and brothers we should never have ceased to be had
I known you as I should. Let what I do be a token to you. I know
the danger of this service as well as you, and never did I think for
any man I could turn back from such an attempt when I had offered
myself and been chosen. To you, brother, and her, I sacrifice thus
my honour in token of how high beyond all words I value this love you
have both given me, who deserve it so little.'
Bright shone the sun in my heart, bright as the mid-day fire over our
heads, as to the music of a hearty cheer we dropped down the river in
our frail bark. Frank was steering her with a rude oar which had
been shaped from a young tree, the two Frenchmen stood by with poles
in case of need, and I managed the biscuit-bag whereof we had made
our sail.
The Cimaroons had bitterly lamented not coming with us, but them
Frank would have stay to succour those who remained, since there we
had greatest need of them.
'No,' he had said; 'stay here for a little while to conduct my
company by land if I return not. Yet, if it please God that I shall
once put foot in safety aboard my frigate, I will, God willing, get
you all aboard, in despite of all the Spaniards in the Indies.'
With this courageous speech he left the whole company in good heart,
because they knew of a surety, since he had so passed his word, that
if they were lost it would not be for want of the last effort of the
man who best in all the world knew how to save them.
Our voyage was evil enough to have damped any spirits less lifted
with joy than mine, or less constant than Frank's. The whole time we
were up to our waists in water as we sat, and as soon as we reached
the open sea we found the swell so big that each wave surged up to
our necks, and we had much ado to hold on. Moreover the sun so
burned down upon us, all unprotected as we were, that what with the
salt water and the scorching, we soon had little skin left that was
not all blisters.
Yet a very smart breeze was blowing from the westwards, so that we
made good progress towards the Cabeças, and so kept up our spirits.
It was as the sun was getting low that Frank suddenly cried to me,
'Look! look! Jasper, ahead there off the point!'
I looked where he pointed and saw two large pinnaces struggling to
weather the headland with oars against the freshening breeze.
'What shall we do?' said I. 'We must drive. We cannot stop. How
shall we avoid them?'
'Avoid them!' said Frank, with a merry laugh. 'Why, lad, they are
our own, and if we can but make them see, we are saved.'
'Yet perhaps they are prizes to Spaniards,' suggested one of the
Frenchmen, 'and are manned by Spaniards.'
'No, monsieur, no,' said Frank; 'you never saw Spaniards row like
that. See how they labour, and yet I think they make no head. Pray
God they be not cast away on the point!'
Indeed as we drew nearer there seemed no small danger of this. The
wind was shifting more and more on to the land as it freshened, and
we could see they made a lot of leeway.
'They will never do it,' said Frank; 'they are too short of hands.
It is hard to be so near safety, yet so far.'
Even as he spoke we saw them cease rowing and fall slowly under the
lee of the point. In a few minutes they were out of sight, and we
blankly confessed to ourselves that they must have resolved to ride
out the rising gale and the night in the still water behind the point.
It was a bitter disappointment to us, and our new-found joy at
finding our pinnaces were still safe gave way to a new-found grief.
So intent had we been in watching them that we had not noticed how
the shifting wind was driving us a-land. Straight ahead of us was
the dark forest-clad point against which the surf was booming and
spouting sheets of white spray. It was plain we could never weather
it, and that if we continued as we were we must almost certainly be
dashed to pieces in the foaming breakers.
Eagerly I watched, and tried to persuade myself our raft was bearing
better room. Every tilt which the waves gave her I tried to fancy
was a change of course, but still we drifted to leeward in spite of
the rapid headway we made before the rising gale. All at once, as I
watched, our head swung round to leeward and all chance was gone. I
looked to see the cause and saw Frank very calm and stern with the
helm hard up.
'Now, if ever,' said he; 'pray God to help us. Nay, look not scared,
Jasper. It is our only chance. We cannot weather the point, and all
that is left is to try and beach the raft this side, and then, if we
land alive and whole, make about the point to the pinnaces afoot.
All which we can well do, if it please God to send us a big wave and
a pleasant beach.'
It was indeed a time for prayer. Soon close ahead we could see the
breakers rolling in upon the shore rank after rank, a wilderness of
boiling foam. I saw the two Frenchmen tighten their belts for the
coming struggle. Each of them pulled out a great quoit of gold from
his breast. Then they whispered together for a space and put them
back. So I kept mine in spite of the danger, if we had to swim, and
Frank kept his.
In a few minutes we were at the edge of our peril. Frank steadied
the raft before the wind like the master hand he was; a raging mass
of foam seemed to rise beneath us and shoot us towards the shore.
What was in front we could not see. Like an arrow we flew, nor ever
rested till we crashed upon the beach.
With that hoarse and terrible whistle with which the breakers on a
shingly shore seem to draw their monstrous breath for a new effort to
destroy, the wave that had borne us went screaming back. In a moment
we had leaped on the rolling shingle and rushed up the beach as fast
as our remaining strength and our shifting foothold would let us.
Again the angry sea swept at us, but it was too late. As once more
it retired, drawing its strident breath, we dug hands, feet, and
knees into the moving stones till it was gone, and then once more got
up and ran. Ere another wave had burst we were in safety, lying
breathless upon a flowery bank.
Frank was the first to move. I heard him mutter his words of
thanksgiving for our safety, and then he called cheerfully to us in
high spirit.
'Up, lads, up,' he said; 'we must lose no time. See yonder light to
windward; the gale will lessen in another hour, and the pinnaces as
like as not will sail. We will go about the point now as quick as we
can, and when we see them run our fastest, like men pursued, to give
them a rattling fright, that they may prove their quickness to save
us since they have been so slow hitherto. It is but fair dealing to
put this jest on them for giving us such an evil sail.'
This we did, and were no sooner come about the point than we saw the
blessed sight of our two pinnaces anchored in a quiet cove. Away
went Frank running towards them as hard as he could, and we after him
crying at the top of our voices. They seemed terribly afraid to see
their captain thus suddenly appear with but three followers, and made
the greatest speed to take us aboard.
At first Frank did not speak, but sat very solemn and stern, and we,
taking our cue from him, did likewise; nor did they ask anything of
what our running and sudden appearance might mean. Indeed they
feared our news was too terrible for them to be in a hurry to hear it.
'How does all the company?' said one at last.
'Well,' said Frank sullenly, which made them all look more alarmed
than ever, till he could bear it no longer, and, bursting into a loud
laugh, he drew his golden quoit from his doublet.
'Look there!' he cried, brandishing it in their faces. 'At last our
voyage is made!'
And so he told them how we had sped, and told the Frenchmen amongst
them how their captain was left behind sore wounded, and comforted
them by letting them know how two of his company remained with him,
and how it was our intention to rescue him.
'And tell me,' he said, 'how it was you discharged not the order I
most straitly gave you to be in the Rio Francisco yesterday?'
'We did our best,' said the commander. 'Yet the gale was so strong
from the west that with all our rowing we could get no farther than
this.'
'Well, God be praised for His mercy,' said Frank. 'Surely is He
wiser than man. Had you done as I said, you would have come to the
river in the nick of time to be devoured by seven pinnaces from
Nombre de Dios, which I doubt not were fitted out for that purpose.
I think they have been driven in for fear of the gale, and will be
out again as soon as it abates. Therefore we must make shift to
continue our way with oars as soon as possible.'
And this they cheerfully did before an hour was gone. Their short
rest and our news seemed to make new men of them, so that, partly by
infinite labour at the oars with our help, and partly by an abating
of the wind, we came by morning into the Rio Francisco. There we
took all our company and treasure aboard, and so sailed back to our
frigate, and thence without mishap to our ships.