THE RAPE OF THE SPANISH PEARLS
Now the captured pink, when they came to examine her, contained very
small store of what the buccaneers consider valuable--to wit, gold
coins, jewels, or pearls. Merchandise, such as cottons and silks, she
was well stocked with; chests of gold-laced clothes she carried, and in
these the rude fellows decked themselves during the first search; but
all this cargo required further barter before it could be turned into a
carouse, and barter was a thing the buccaneers held in small esteem.
It was their conceit that as free hunters they could peddle hides and
meat and tallow without demeaning themselves; but to trade in merchant
stuffs, such as oil, and cloth, and tinsels, and dyewood, was, in their
idea, to dirty their fingers. Amongst the Brethren of the Coast there
was very great niceness in such small matters as these.
The event, as it happened, fell in very handily with Prince Rupert's
mood. Small gains were as useful to his Highness as nothing at all; it
was constantly in his mind that he had to keep supplied the Court of
his Majesty King Charles II. at The Hague; and, in fine, it was
pieces-of-eight by the puncheonful and not by the purse which he
sought. So he proposed manning the pink more stoutly, saying with
purposeful vagueness that he intended to venture out upon the seas
again in search of plate ships; and the buccaneers, who had helped him
take her, agreed with shouts and a salvo from the guns.
There was little time lost in debauch. The nine surviving buccaneers
were, it is true, too drunk and too encumbered by their fine clothes to
do much towards the working of the pink; but they sat about the decks,
each with an open liquor cask convenient to one hand and a naked sword
to the other; and the Spanish prisoners, with the terror of death heavy
upon them, were easily persuaded to do the necessary seamen's work on
this vessel which had so lately been their own. The pink was sailed up
a convenient creek of Hispaniola, where forests grew down to the
water's edge, and there careened by tackles from her lower mast-heads
to the tree roots. Five of the buccaneers departed various ways into
the country to secure recruits for this new expedition, and the other
four, with Prince Rupert and Master Stephen Laughan, his secretary,
stayed behind to guard the Spaniards and keep them diligently at their
work.
Now this Master Laughan (that was in truth a maid) had been taunted
a-many times by rude fellows with being a mere encumbrance to his
Highness, and inwardly raged at a certain inborn natural timidity,
which on inopportune occasion would out. But at last Master Laughan
(moist-eyed, and very sorrowful) was resolved openly to trample these
qualms underfoot by some piece of desperate valour, or perish pitifully
in the attempt. And here lay an enterprise ready to hand. Beforetime,
when a guest with Prince Rupert under the roof of Monsieur D'Ogeron,
the Governor of Tortuga, the secretary had learned concerning a vastly
rich pearl fishery of the Spaniards in a bay at the farther side of
Hispaniola. This knowledge Master Laughan had kept secret, timorously
dreading lest the Prince with a small force should attempt its capture,
in spite of the heaviness of its guarding.
But certain sneers that were dropped by two of those barbarous
buccaneers after the storming of the pink (whereat indeed Master
Laughan's sword-arm was reddened to the elbow) had driven the poor
creature half frantic with mortification, and in agony of wounded pride
the news of the pearl fishery was whispered into Prince Rupert's ear.
His Highness heard the scheme with a glowing face. "My lad," he cried,
"this is a more profitable adventure than any I have dreamed about.
But why have I not been told it before?"
"Because," said Master Laughan, craftily, "your Highness lacked all
followers save my poor self, and I feared to tantalise you by pointing
out the impossible.
"_Arnidieu!_" swore Rupert, "you should have left me to be judge of
that, Master Laughan. I have done the impossible so many times before,
that I begin to think there is small meaning in the word. Besides, as
you well knew, I was a desperate man in a desperate case. I have
pawned the King's fleet for six months without his leave or signature,
and it is a fact that if I do not earn plunder without the ships here,
I shall earn censure at The Hague."
"I judged all these things," said the secretary, with a sigh, "and the
only excuse I can put forward is my poor affection for your Highness's
safety."
"Thou'rt a good lad," said the Prince testily--"a well-enough-meaning
lad, but at times a short-seeing fool. My life has passed through too
many thousand risks to be cut off with a few more. And besides,
adventure is meat, drink and opium to me; it is a habit which I cannot
shake off, nor wish to do; and let that suffice. And now for a chart,
and more of your tale."
They went down to the cabin, which was hard to reach and ill to stand
in, since the pink was careened with one of her bilges clear of the
water. They found a chart and laid it upon the almost upright table,
and to look at it stood on the bunk coamings by reason of the heel.
The thump and squeak of the scrapers as the men shredded the growth of
weed and barnacles from the planking came to their ears as they handled
the chart, and with it a quaintly strange smell of burning as the men
breamed the ship's bottom.
"We could be cleverer with more knowledge on these fisheries," said the
Prince, and thrust his head up through the skylight and shouted that
word should be passed for the erstwhile captain of the pink.
The Spaniard came presently, shirtless, with his back a mass of stripes.
"_Señor_," said the Prince, "I think you have been foolish, and not
bowed to the fortune of war. I see my fellows have been writing their
displeasure upon you. It would have been wiser to have shown
philosophy and done your appointed tale of work."
"_Señor capitan_," said the Spaniard, "I am a philosopher, but not an
atheist. Up till now I have worked with all the goodwill that could be
expected from a slave, but when your fellows for the _leña para la
lumbre_--I know not how you call it----"
"Breaming faggots."
"For their breaming faggots, used that which was holy, and would have
had me participate in their sin, why then, _señor_, I refused to put my
soul in jeopardy, and rebelled."
The Prince looked puzzled. "You are speaking beyond me."
"_Señor_," said the Spaniard, "as part of my cargo, which you took from
me, were three cases of papal indulgences. They were entrusted to my
care by the Bishop of Maracaibo, who knows me as a devout Catholic."
"Well?" said the Prince.
"_Señor capitan_," said the prisoner, "it is with these parchments,
these things of indescribable holiness, that your fellows would have us
bream the underplanking of the ship. Some of my compatriots are weak:
they have twisted the sacred writings up into torches, and I saw them
thereby bartering away their souls before my very eyes. I alone
resisted. I alone have earned stripes, and this martyrdom. But you,
_señor capitan_, you are not a rude man, like those on deck. You will
not ensure your eternal damnation by permitting this sacrilege to
continue?"
"At present," said the Prince, "I do not see cause for interference,
being so curiously constituted as to think that I can earn Heaven
without the Pope's helping."
"You are a blasphemer."
"No, I am a Protestant, and heed papal thunders as little as a duck
fears water; but, _señor_, I will permit you to ransom what remains
over of this consignment of indulgences on easy terms."
The Spaniard stepped forward eagerly enough, then stopped and frowned.
"_Señor_," he said, "you are playing with me. You know me to be a
ruined man."
"On the contrary," said the Prince, "you still own one small commodity,
and I would buy that from you on easy terms. You have information
about the pearl fisheries in this bay, which I have marked here on your
chart. Tell me how they are guarded and how worked, and I will wed you
once more to freedom, _amigo_, with the parchments as your dowry."
"You ask me to be traitor to my country."
"These good gentlemen on deck," suggested the Prince, "might offer you
the alternative of having your nose and other portions of your honoured
anatomy carved in slices, and lighted matches put between your fingers.
It would injure my feelings sorely if I had to hand you over to their
power of persuasiveness. And in the meantime, these excellent
parchments from Rome, on which you seem to set so much store, are
flickering away to ash. If a layman might judge, it seems to me that
you are now personally responsible for their destruction."
"Señor," said the Spaniard, "your diplomacy is as invincible as your
sword-arm. May you live a thousand years. I must ransom these holy
writings at whatever cost." And forthwith, so soon as the Prince had
bidden those on deck burn no more of the papal indulgences, the
Spaniard broke into narrative and told all about the pearls and the
manner of their fishing.
It appeared that the industry was then at its zenith. The fishing had
gone on for years with always increasing success; but now that many
towns of the Main had been raided by enemies, and Spain was still
clamouring for the undiminished cargoes of treasure, a greater effort
than formerly was made to wrest this wealth from the fastnesses of the
sea. First and last two thousand men were toiling at the fishery. It
was worked from small brigantines of ten or a dozen tons, of which
there were an amazing number. Each night these brought their catch to
a great storeship which lay at anchor in the bay, heavily armed. And
for the protection of the armed storeship was a war-carrack, full of
arms and men always on guard, together with two armed galleys of fifty
oars apiece.
The Spaniard said it was the easiest way imaginable of gathering
wealth, the only difficulty being a shortness in the supply of the
Guinea blackmen who were used for the diving. These, it seemed,
through being forced by their masters to remain under water for twenty
minutes at a stretch, deteriorated in strength, and indeed with
frequency would most exasperatingly die. There was no relying (said
the Spaniard) on the blackamoors to be useful servants, and this was
the greater pity because no other substitute could be used, since the
sharks which abound in these latitudes attack white men or the native
Indians when swimming in the water, but avoid the blacks by reason of
their pungent smell.
Much more too upon this matter the fellow told, because having once (as
he termed it) done treachery to his country, it mattered little whether
the treachery was big or small; but it was plain to see that there was
a method in his telling. He admitted that the pearls were there, which
of course Prince Rupert had learned already; he spoke upon the methods
of fishing, which carried with them a certain pleasant interest; but he
was unmistakable in his painting of the care with which they were
guarded.
"They know, _señor_," quoth he, "that your Excellencies, the Brethren
of the Coast, would be only too happy to make a transference of these
precious gleanings, and they are quite prepared to defend them to the
uttermost. The storeship and the guardship are both mighty vessels,
and crammed with men. The bay is land-locked and smooth, and they lie
there to their anchors, with guns run out and loaded, with boarding
nettings triced up to the yard-arms, hand-grenades ranged ready, and
close-quarters all set up convenient for a fight. They are fine ships
both, with lofty forecastles and aftercastles. Their crews are picked
men, and constantly exercised with their weapons. They are in sooth,
_señor_, floating fortresses, and nothing but an armada could reduce
them."
So the Spaniard spoke on, and Master Laughan hearkened to the words
with a sinking heart, and mightily regretted ever having yielded to
those goadings which, in a moment of desperation, led to the Prince
being first told about the fisheries. But Prince Rupert listened with
appetite. He smiled pleasantly when he heard of the richness of the
pearls in store, and his eye kindled as the Spaniard described with how
great accuracy they were guarded; and when at the end of his narration
the Spaniard said he hoped he had shown how impossible it was for even
the bravest of men to overcome the defenders and ravish the store, the
Prince laughed merrily, and said he had done just the reverse. "I am a
man," quoth he, "that likes a kernel all the better, and hammers for it
all the cleverer, when the nut is hard a-cracking."
"Yet I do not see how you can finger those pearls?" said the Spaniard.
"And I," said the Prince, "shall not tell my plans to you or any other
living soul, _amigo_. Plans shared are easily spread, and plans spread
are handily baulked."
Now, it is the custom of the buccaneers, when they sail on an
expedition, that the scheme of campaign should be laid open and voted
upon by all hands; and it says much for the influence that Prince
Rupert gained on the rude men who formed his following and they
consented that he should override this hard-and-fast rule. It was not,
as most who read these memoirs will at once suppose, that they deferred
to his exalted birth: in fact, the item of his being of princely rank
rather warred against him in their eyes than otherwise. It was simply
his influence as a man, and his obvious power of conducting affairs,
which gave him this paramount weight; and these savage fellows, both
French and English, who before had owned none as master save their own
desires, were content to set Rupert over them with an absolute power of
life and death. So a charter-party of rules was drawn up and sworn to
with Bible oaths, and a scale was appointed by which all plunder was
divided.
Meanwhile, the refitting of the pink was attended to with infinite
patience and skill. Her bottom was breamed, as has been said, and
scraped to the smoothness of glass, and then varnished over the yellow
wood. The rigging, both standing and running, was overhauled and
reset-up. The sails were all new bent, and the armament thoroughly
attended to. The pink was a vessel with a fine turn of speed, and for
his purpose Prince Rupert wanted this speed at its best. For, to be
plain, he destined the vessel for a feint attack, and intended to leave
her reliant for safety solely upon the nimbleness of her heels.
A dozen days were spent about this industry, and one by one recruits
arrived from over the savannahs. And then the pink was warped out into
the stream, and towed out of the creek by her boats to a good offing,
and there, with a prayer and a psalm, committed to canvas and the care
of God. Forty-three seasoned hunters formed her fighting crew, each
with powder, bullets, buccaneering-piece, bayonet, and skinning-knives;
and for her working, there remained fifteen Spaniards, one of whom,
being skilled in the use of backstaff and other utensils of navigation,
was appointed sailing-master, with promise of early enlargement. Then
for the first time Prince Rupert made known the whole of his schemes,
and the buccaneers, in a passion of enthusiasm, ran to the great guns
of the pink, and fired off a shotted salute in his honour.
But, great as his influence was, in one matter Prince Rupert was
without command. When once they were at sea, with the Spanish
prisoners to work the pink, the buccaneers had no notions of restraint
or discipline. They ate when and what they pleased, they drank
whenever they were sober enough to swallow more. Twice they set the
pink on fire, and but for miracles would have consumed her. The stores
were few, and yet the waste was incredible. The fellows knew no
moderation. They fought at times amongst themselves, they beat the
Spanish prisoners, they diced incessantly, and throughout all the
watches shouted sea-songs that were often mere ribaldry. When one
through sheer exhaustion slept, the others yelled their choruses in his
ears, and played their pranks upon his senseless body, till he was
waking and with them again. In fine, they made that first part of the
voyage one horrid unbroken carouse.
A term was put on the orgie by the failure of supplies. The pink
reeked with the lees of stale drink, but there was no whole cask left
unbroached. Of food there was scarcely a carcass remaining, and of
water but two tepid leaking casks. But these indomitable men did not
repine. They had had their frolic, and all that remained was to make
the nip-gut time as short as might be. They crowded more canvas on the
pink till the Spaniards shivered with fright, and set up preventer
backstays to make the spars carry it. The vessel rushed through the
seas with a roar of sound, and the savage men within her were rendered
doubly savage by their hunger. But the situation fell handily with the
Prince's plans. There was no question about succeeding now: starvation
was the only alternative; and these desperate fellows had no appetite
for more of that.
In these circumstances, then, the pink and her people came to the
western horn of that bay where the Spaniards plied their pearl fishery,
and running inshore with a light wind, dropped the stream anchor in
five-fathom water. The boat was launched over-side, and in two
journeys set thirty of the buccaneers upon the hot white beach, and
with them Prince Rupert and Master Laughan. Then the boat rowed back
again, was hoisted in-board, and the pink tripped her stream anchor,
and once more got to sea.
Forest sprawled down to the rim of the beach, and the land party were
quickly under its cover. Then one Watkin, a man of iron and a mighty
shooter, took the lead, he being by consent the best woodsman amongst
the buccaneers; Prince Rupert and his secretary followed; and the rest
trailed on behind in Indian file.
Word had been given, and they were careful to drop no sound--treading
with niceness, and never speaking even in a whisper--since the success
of their endeavour depended all upon their presence being unknown till
the time came. And so the whole train of them wound through the tree
aisles of the forests like some monstrous bristling serpent, whereof
every joint was a different hue and shape.
Their march was not a long one, though exhausting by reason of the
heat, and the quags they had to traverse, and thickets of barbed thorn
which lay in the path and warred most unkindly with the fripperies of
their clothes. Still, when they came to the crown of the bay where the
fishery was carried on, they were none of them sorry (as even the
hardened Watkin owned) to lie for a while in the rim of the
undergrowth, and there await fitting season for the attack.
The bay before them was busy with life. Lying each at her anchor were
two-and-thirty brigantines, from whose sides the blackamoor divers were
constantly beat down into the water, to be drawn up again half-burst a
quarter of an hour later with a netful of the rare oysters slung around
their gleaming bodies. In the middle of the flock of brigantines were
the two great armed carracks, bristling with men at practice on their
weapons; but of the two fifty-oared galleys there was no sign, for (as
was learned afterwards) they had been sent away, and their soldier
crews retained to strengthen the fighting forces of the carracks.
There were two thousand men in these vessels in the bay, all trained to
arms, and with every advantage of position; and surely nothing was
heard more preposterous than this idea of attacking them with such a
trifling handful. But no trace of anything else but pleasure showed on
the faces of the buccaneers; the Prince was smiling, as, indeed, was
always his habit before an onfall; and Master Laughan, though inwardly
a prey to the most horrid fears, strove bravely to keep a good colour,
and to seem pleased like the rest.
Presently, too, the tedium of the waiting was relieved. From round the
farther horn of the bay the pink came sailing in under a cloud of
canvas, and began discharging her cannon at the outermost of the
brigantines. Instantly the whole scene bubbled with disorder. Drums
beat to quarters, and trumpets rang out defiances. The guardship
vaingloriously made a discharge of her great pieces on both broadsides
(though the pink was far out of any range), and then sent her
top-slaves aloft to set canvas. From their lair those on shore could
hear the clacking of her capstan as she heaved in cable to get her
anchor. And then, after some men had run out on her towering bowsprit
to loose the sprit-sail, they canted her head with that, and sent her
clumsily surging off to seaward, pluming her as she ran, and never
ceasing the useless cannonade.
But the handful of buccaneers in the pink, recking little of the noise
and bustle, sailed gallantly in, and ran aboard the outermost of the
brigantines. This was going beyond their orders, for Prince Rupert had
commanded that they were only to show themselves in the offing so as to
draw pursuit, and then sail out again. But it was easy to see what was
compelling them. They drove the crew over-side, and then threw of food
and water all the brigantine contained on to their own decks, and,
casting off their grapples, sailed away again. They were half mad with
starvation and thirst, and they risked capture and the wrecking of the
enterprise to satisfy their intolerable cravings.
By this time the great war-carrack had drawn near, and her shot was
falling merrily about the fabric of the pink, though the aim for the
most part was ill enough. But once the pink was in charge of her
canvas again, the handful of buccaneers left the Spanish prisoners to
attend to her sailing, and after a drink and a bite apiece, took up
their hand guns, and with deliberate aim brought down a man on the
carrack for every shot, so continuing till they drew out of range.
The carrack was a dull sailer, much time having passed since her last
careen, and her bottom being in consequence a very garden of trailing
weeds and barnacles. The pink, thanks to recent attention, had, in sea
phrase, the heels of her. But the carrack did not desist from the
chase, lumbering along in the wake of the smaller vessel, blazing off
her futile artillery, wallowing with helpless wrath. And so the pair
of them passed out of sight round the western horn of the bay. The sun
was just upon its setting, and they sailed as coal-black ships with
coal-black spars and cordage, through a sea and an air of blood--fit
emblems, as it seemed to Master Laughan, of the desperate work which
was shortly to befall.
Night came suddenly, like the shutting down of a box, there being no
such thing as twilight known in these latitudes; and amongst the forest
trees of the shore there arose a thin blue film of mist, which
thickened as the night grew, and spread out over the bay, and swallowed
the shipping away from sight. But the ambush lay still in its lair,
for no attack was to be made till midnight passed, and those on the
shipping were locked in their deepest slumber.
Prince Rupert and the buccaneers were in high feather. Their scheme
had succeeded with exactness. The pink had drawn away the war-carrack,
and there remained only a bare fifteen hundred Spaniards to oppose to
their lusty score and a half. To hear them, one might have supposed
they were going to a wedding, where all was frolic and gaiety; and yet
in all the annals of men it would be hard to find any scheme more
desperate than that which lay before them. For their proposal was
this: to swim out and seize the nearest brigantine; with her to capture
the store-carrack; and then to take the great ship to sea, and so to
their rendezvous with the pink. Heard any man ever such harebrained
recklessness?
There was no boat, no canoe upon the beach--nothing but a few logs,
which would help to bear the weapons, and assist those that could not
swim; and when the time came, the buccaneers stripped off all clothes
except their breeches, for ease in the water. If they got drowned or
killed, these reckless fellows said they could die as easy naked as
clad; and if they took the carrack, there would be plenty more clothes
in her store; while if they did not take her, why, then, they were as
good as dead.
Here again, then, was a very horrid situation for the poor secretary;
for to strip was to confess her sex, than which she would liefer have
died, and to go into the water clad (being indeed no swimmer) was to
court drowning. She did indeed make one attempt to escape the ordeal,
saying that it was beneath his Highness's dignity to render up his
clothes, and suggested that the taking of a brigantine--surely an easy
matter--should be left to the common buccaneers, and that they should
send a row-boat to the shore when they were ready for the attack on the
carrack.
But the Prince only laughed. "My scrupulous Stephen," said he, "we are
not in England now, or even Europe. Perhaps I am Rupert Palatine, as
you say, though I have almost forgot. But, for the time, I am just a
tarry sailor, that for risks and plunder goes share and share alike
with his crew. And so, my lad, I am e'en going to play water-rat and
dodge the sharks. But do you stay behind, if you please, and I'll send
a boat for you when the affair is over."
"Nay," said Master Laughan, "if your Highness goes, your humble
secretary follows;" and with that stepped into the water, laid hold of
one of the logs which the swimmers stood ready to tow, and shut her
eyes, and inwardly commended her soul to God. And so the greatest
stroke of the enterprise began.
Now the present historian has to confess that of this horrible passage
through the water no detail can be given here, for she made it in a
condition close upon fainting. Let alone the new sensation of being
afloat in unstable water, there was the dreadful fear of sharks with
which those seas abounded, and this over-rid all dread of what the
reception might be on the brigantine and beyond, and made the passage
seem infinitely tedious. But, as it so fell out, no sharks attacked;
and when the brigantine was reached, Master Laughan, burning with shame
at all this pitiful display of cowardice, was the first to board and
the first to strike a blow.
The taking of that dead-fish-stinking brigantine was in itself a small
matter, as there were barely forty men on board, and some number of
them negro and other slaves; but it was not accomplished without some
dispute, and many cries rose shrilly up into the night before all could
be silenced. A gun was fired from the storeship, which showed that she
at least was awake; and presently, when the buccaneers had cut the
cable, and were moving the brigantine with her sweeps, a breeze sprang
up and drove away the mists from the whole surface of the bay.
Here then, it seemed, was the whole enterprise laid bare to public
sight, and the one little vessel in the midst of such a huge force of
enemies could do nothing better than surrender and sue for quarter.
But such was the indomitable courage of the Prince and these savage
buccaneers who followed him, that nothing was further from their
thoughts. A trumpet pealed out from the great carrack, and they
answered the challenge by wild shouts and stronger labour at their
oars. Those on board the carrack understood the capture then, and
retorted with a broadside from their great guns, which tore the waters
of the bay into foam and fountains.
Not a shot hit; but the Prince was as wise as he was daring, and
knowing that a couple of those iron messengers might well sink the
brigantine before she had accomplished her purpose, steered her so as
to meet the carrack bow to bow--which, as they had no spring ready to
warp round their broadside, they could not avoid. They had only two
bow pieces which could be brought to bear, and to these no reply could
be made, as all the powder of the buccaneers had been wetted by the
swimming. But their aim was bad and their loading slow, and most of
the shots hummed through the rigging overhead, or spouted harmlessly in
the water alongside.
So the brigantine made her advance, and finally fouled her foremast
rigging with the sprit-sail yard on the carrack's towering boltsprit,
and came to a standstill little harmed.
"Boarders away!" cried the Prince, and led the storm himself, sword in
teeth. The carved woodwork of the great ship's beak hung above, sawing
up and down with the motion of the seas. He caught his fingers in this
and hauled himself up, amid a storm of missiles sent down from the high
forecastle roof. His secretary, fearing horribly, but impelled by
love, was close upon his heels; and the buccaneers, climbing like cats,
followed close after.
But here came a check. Under their feet were the gratings of the great
ship's beak; before them was the high plain wall of her lofty
forecastle; and at its summit were the outraged Spaniards lusting for
their destruction. For general use ladders led from the gratings of
the beak to the high roof of the forecastle above, but these had been
drawn up or cast overboard before the actual moment of the attack. The
wall of wood before them was as naked as the wall of a house, and quite
unscalable; and the Spaniards above, with shouts of triumph, rained
down shot and grenades into the huddled crowd of the buccaneers, till
it seemed that in another minute not one soul of them would remain
alive.
But presently Watkin the hunter, being a man of resource, bethought
himself of one of the two forecastle gun ports, which, though shut down
and fastened from within, offered a slight gap. Into this he thrust
his hanger, and prised it open another half-inch, till he could get a
hold with his fingers; and then, being a fellow of vast and ponderous
strength, wrenched the whole port lid from its fastenings, and fell
backward with it amongst the corpses and the confusion.
The Prince's secretary was the first to hazard life through the gap,
and got in, wounding two opponents; and then in came the rest of the
buccaneers, the Prince with his accustomed courage being the last to
seek the shelter.
Here, then, they had got possession of the interior of the carrack's
forward castle, and had a moment to gain breathing time, and to tie up
the more pressing of their hurts. Within all was dark, but without all
was bright-lit with battle lanterns, and alive with the curses and
movements of savage armed men. It was plain that the ship was far from
taken yet, and the pearls, which they were chiefly concerned with, lay
in the lazaret, under the after-cabin floor. So, as the Spaniards were
raging before the doors of the forecastle and in the waist of the ship,
though not daring to attack them in this gloomy stronghold, the
buccaneers slewed round the two demi-culverins which armed its ports,
loaded them with grape, and twice shot lanes through the thick of the
enemy, before they gave way and fled in confusion, to spots where the
missiles could not reach.
"Now!" cried the Prince, "at them again, brethren, before they can
re-form!" and led the way out on to the main deck, sword in hand.
But here in an instant the boarders were penned in. The buccaneers
might be brave, but the Spaniards were no cowards, and moreover they
were exasperated by what had befallen already. Right desperately did
the boarders fight, but their numbers were already small, and they grew
fewer; and although dozens of the Spaniards were killed, there were
always others behind to fill their places. The buccaneers began to
yield ground. It seemed as though they would be driven overboard.
But again Prince Rupert called upon them.
"Brethren!" he shouted, "let us go and find their pearls. It is
unprofitable waiting here in this debate. One fine charge, and we'll
have their after-castle all to ourselves to dine in!" Whereupon he
headed the rush in his own person with invincible valour, and with wild
laughter those of the buccaneers who survived followed close upon his
heels. A red lane was cut through the mob of Spaniards, and the doors
were reached. So sudden and furious had been the charge, that none
were inside the barricadoes to defend them, and once more the little
company of the buccaneers found themselves in a stout fortress from
which nothing but cannon could dislodge them.
The table in the great cabin was set for supper, and the scraps on the
platters showed that it had been left half eaten. Down the centre of
the table were vast jugs of wine and silver pannikins, and the throats
of the buccaneers being parched with fighting, they did not omit to
drink. But it was not a time for loitering, though Watkin and one or
two of the others were for sitting down then and making a meal whilst
they had the chance. For the moment the Spaniards outside were quiet,
but it was easy to guess they were in some way plotting their
destruction. So the Prince with his cheery voice urged all hands to
search for the hatch to the lazaret.
"Let's win our way down there, brethren," cried he, "and get their
pearls, and then we'll be off and away. Their silly ship's too hot and
heavy to take with us, so we'll leave her afire to give them occupation
whilst we make our clearance."
"The lazaret hatch is here under the table," said one.
"And heavily padlocked at that," said another.
But locks cause small delay to lusty men. A shower of axe-blows beat
away the staples, the hatch was wrenched back, and the lazaret yawned
blackly beneath. A couple of fellows slipped below and passed up the
pearls, which were in handy leather bags; and these the buccaneers
fastened conveniently about their waists, with jibes at the Spaniards
for making their plunder so easy for the carrying.
Now it was in Prince Rupert's mind that he would fire the carrack, jump
from the stern gallery into the water, swim to another brigantine and
take her, and so to sea before pursuit could be made.
But of a sudden this plan was upset. One who was spying through an
after-castle port, cried that the Spaniards had drawn up eight cannon
across the main deck, and were then in the very act and article of
shooting, with intent to scatter their own after-castle and the
pestilential buccaneers which it contained far over the sea beyond, in
mere rags and splinters. Whereupon there occurred something very akin
to a panic, and the buccaneers incontinently leaped down through the
hatch into the lazaret. Prince Rupert was left behind helpless; and
for a moment busied himself; and then followed, swearing, at their
heels.
"Now," cried he, "I'm for no surrender, brethren; and if you do not
choose to roast like bacon, you'll cut your way out like men. There's
no retreat the way we came. I've fired the ship above our heads."
What he said next was lost, for the Spaniards had begun the bombardment
of their own after-castle (deeming the buccaneers to be still within
its shelter) and all words were choked with the crashing of timbers
overhead, and the din of the bellowing guns. Dust fell in clouds, and
the frail gleam of a single lantern was the only illumination. But his
Highness showed by signs what he wanted done, and the buccaneers were
quick to carry out his wishes.
Between the lazaret and the main hold was a strong bulkhead of Spanish
oak, and this had to be cut through. The axes were plied with frenzied
strength, and the heat grew as the fire above gained hold. The tough
wood resisted stubbornly, but the axe-men hewed with an ecstasy of
strength, and at last a gap was splintered through. Giant fingers
gripped hold of the ragged wood and wrenched it away, and at last a
road was made.
Into the hold beyond the buccaneers forced their way, fire and smoke
licking at their heels, and the vengeful guns still thundering
overhead; blunderingly they picked their way over the crates and
barrels with which the hold was filled; and at its farther end fortune
smiled, for they found a sliding panel which led to the cable tier.
There was a ladder from this to a hatch in the forward castle deck
above, and the ladder head was so stoutly defended that two more men
fell before it was forced.
But then the Prince himself headed the attack, and forced a passage
through the gap; and when once he and his buccaneers had stormed the
forecastle and cleared it from those it contained, and had the place to
themselves, they were very little more disturbed. The aftercastle of
the carrack, shattered into easily burning splinters by her own
artillery, was by this time a mass of spouting flames; and those of the
Spaniards who still offered offence did it half-heartedly, and were
clearly anxious to be shut of their unneighbourly visitors on whatever
terms they would take.
The brigantine still hung where she had first lodged, with her foremast
rigging fouled on the carrack's spritsail yard; and the Prince and his
men, having the pearls at their belts, and knowing of nothing else that
was not too hot or too heavy to carry off, struck up a jaunty song and
made retreat by the way they had come. None molested them; not a gun
was fired with purpose to do them harm: the Spaniards were all too busy
in trying to quell the flames and save their ship.
But the flames had an unbreakable hold, and by the time the little
brigantine had got herself clear, and was slipping away from this
prickly neighbourhood as fast as sail and sweep could drive her, the
Spaniards had got their boats into the water, and were thinking more of
saving their lives than of saving the proud ship of which they had made
their boast. And what more happened to them the present writer cannot
tell, for after the fire reached her powder, and the carrack blew up,
all was darkness till the dawn rose and the brigantine found herself
alone on a lonely sea. But from the desperate nature of the foray it
is sure that they must have lost a great number killed, for of the
buccaneers themselves only thirteen live men sailed back to sea again,
including the Prince, and Master Laughan, and the wounded.
Much excellent booty was wasted in the carrying off, as is always
inevitable in these matters; and although the carrack had, before she
was touched, the pearls of a whole season's fishing stored in her
lazaret, only one-half of these found their way into the brigantine to
offer themselves for division.
Over this division too, when they came to the rendezvous, and found the
pink in waiting for them, there was like to have been another turmoil;
for it is the custom of the buccaneers, when sharing up their spoil,
that each should strip naked to show that he has no wealth
concealed--the which was an ordeal to which poor Master Laughan (who
could have wept at the thought) strenuously refused to submit. Where
all conformed, this very refusal seemed in itself suspicious, as even
the Prince himself was forced to admit. But at last, after offering to
fight all who challenged his honesty, and forthwith being told that it
was impossible to fight the lot of them, Master Laughan compounded by
being allowed to keep his decency in exchange for all his share of the
plunder. Which compounding the secretary accepted with much
mortification, having as large an appetite for pearls as other people,
and having laboured very keenly and bravely in the getting of them.
But there was no other way of evading this law of the buccaneers, and
so all that could be set aside from this venture for the maintenance of
his gracious Majesty's court at The Hague were the five shares given to
Prince Rupert as captain. Verily, a maid who undertakes to act a man's
part for the sake of being always near one she loves, meets with more
trials and disappointments than ever she could dream of at the outset.
But Master Laughan did not repine, and all who know Prince Rupert will
understand how natural it was to feel devotion for him.
[Illustration: "IT WOULD BE PERPETUAL SUNSHINE FOR ME, QUERIDA"]