THE RANSOMING OF CARACCAS
Now, after the dividing up of the Spanish pearls amongst them, Prince
Rupert could no longer retain command over his buccaneers. The cruise
was over, and by their laws they were free to go where they liked and
do what they listed. All their hearts were set upon one thing--a
carousal in Tortuga.
This scheme in no wise suited the Prince. To begin with, he had
acquired a vast dislike for that no-gentleman and very vile person,
Monsieur D'Ogeron, the Governor of Tortuga; in the second place (as
Master Laughan, his secretary, pointed out), he had no taste for
impolite debauches and the company of those painted hussies who lived
on the island and sponged on all laden buccaneers; and over all was his
intense wish to earn money for the banished King at The Hague, which
would in part excuse his unauthorised pawning of the King's fleet. So
he took for himself the small brigantine, which otherwise would have
been burned as useless, and remained at anchor in the little bay of
Hispaniola, which was their rendezvous, whilst the pink with the
buccaneers got under way for Tortuga, where these rude fellows had
determined to fritter all their hard-got gains in one wild carouse.
The pink sailed away with whole rainbows of bunting displayed, drums
beating, guns firing, horns braying, and every expression of good-will.
The buccaneers who were not occupied in the making of these noises
lined the bulwarks and shouted, and drank the Prince's toast, so long
as voice or standing power remained to them. In deed, so ample was
their good humour, that one even drank the toast of Master Stephen
Laughan, who, being in truth a maid, was but slenderly popular amongst
them, on account of displaying a reserve which, though natural, was
beyond their comprehension. And so the slope of ocean swallowed them
out of sight, still firing their cannon, and drinking, and flying their
flags, as befitted men who feared none that sailed the seas, and were
feared by all. Whereupon Prince Rupert and his secretary turned into
the standing bed-places in the brigantine's small hutch of a cabin, and
enjoyed the first sound sleep that had fallen to their lot during three
long weeks.
There remained only with Prince Rupert and Master Laughan his faithful
secretary, four black negro slaves, which last, having served as pearl
divers to the Spaniards, and being very vilely entreated of them, were
easily willing to give true service to the Prince during a short
season, for the payment of their liberty when that service should be
finished. But his Highness was a gentleman of large ideas, and having
still some considerable time to occupy before his fleet should be
restored to him, he proposed to improve the interval by sailing across
to the Spanish Main, and putting to ransom there the great strong city
of Caraccas, which lies amongst the mountains, and La Guayra, its
roadstead port upon the coast.
At first sight it seems hard to conceive a more harebrained project.
La Guayra was defended by forts and batteries; Caraccas, embowered in
the coast mountains beyond, was a place of incredible strength. A navy
and an army might well be defeated before either of them; and here was
this paladin of a Prince proposing to advance against them in one small
bark of fourteen tons' burden, with only one attendant of his own
colour, and four black savages who were unreliable even as menial
servants. But his Highness had method in his scheme: he was not going
to make his attack as Prince Rupert Palatine, but as Prince Rupert's
envoy, and his weapons were to be the talkings of the herald rather
than the rude arms of a man-of-war. Moreover, he had heard much of the
beauty and wit of Donna Clotilde, the Governor of Caraccas' niece, and
was minded to inspect her charms with his own proper eyes. He said it
was a weary long time since he had seen any woman with the faintest
claim to gentility.
The Prince's secretary, that was a maid who loved him very dearly
(though he, indeed, never discovered her sex), endeavoured hard to
dissuade him from the adventure, pointing out the value of his
Highness's noble life, and the grief that would overwhelm Europe if it
were lost in these obscure seas of the New World; but the Prince
merrily enough retorted that he had a-many times shown his ability to
keep his life within its own proper carcass, and that it was a
necessity for him to be up and doing.
"We cannot set King Charles back on his London throne, Stephen lad, by
sitting here on our hunkers admiring the sea views," said he. "The
Restoration is the purpose of my life at present, and should be the
purpose of all those that wish to carry my esteem, which I know you do.
"Now we must get this brigantine victualled for the voyage, and that I
leave to you and the blacks. There are no savannahs in this quarter of
Hispaniola, and no wild cattle. But there are sea-cows in the water,
and these you must cause the blacks to harpoon after their barbarous
fashion, and then make shift to bucan the meat ashore as you have seen
Simpson, and Watkin, and the other professed hunters do elsewhere.
"For myself, I go now up into the country to make a cache, buccaneer
fashion, for the pearls we have already taken. If we return all sound
from Caraccas, well and good; they will be here waiting for us. If
not, I have sent a letter by the pink to await the fleet on its return,
and so if aught happens to us or to the brigantine, the cavaliers can
come and dig the treasure up, and carry it away for its appointed use."
"Can your Highness's secretary be of help in this matter?"
"No, Stephen lad. I will not have you with me as a companion now,
because if the worst happened, and the Spaniards took you, they might
by chance compel you to show the hiding-place of these much-costing
pearls if you knew it."
"Your Highness underrates my poor devotion."
"Not I, lad. I know the spirit is willing, but the flesh may chance to
be weak, and if put to the question by these Spaniards, the stoutest
might well give way. They are said to be very ingenious with their
tormentings. The thing has grown to be an art with them."
"But still your Highness seems to rely upon the buccaneers in the pink
as being honest messengers," said Master Laughan, who was somewhat
nettled.
"That letter," retorted Prince Rupert drily, "was writ in a cypher,
Master Stephen, which none but my dear brother Prince Maurice can read.
So does that content you?" And with this he burdened himself with the
leather bags of pearls, and a sword to dig with, and was put to the
shore in a small canoe, paddled by two of the blacks.
Now, it is no place here to recount anything so impolite as the fishing
of manitee, or sea-cows (which the vulgar still confuse with
mermaidens), nor any matter so indelicate as the manufacturing of their
white flesh into food which will remain sweet for a voyage. And it
would be equally disgusting to speak of the turning of turtle on the
beaches, and the salting down of their quivering flesh into other
provision, or to recount the filling of water-casks in a river's mouth,
and the rafting of them off at a canoe's tail, and the parbuckling of
them on board at expense of vast throes of weariness and perspiration.
Yet, disgusting as they may appear to the genteel at home, these things
have to be gone through by all adventurers sailing the seas of the New
World. It is the custom of this barbarous tropic, where gentility is a
forgotten word, for everyone to bear a hand indifferently; and on this
account, Master Laughan, in spite of a most tender nurturing, was fain
to work equally with the unsavoury pagan blacks. Even Prince Rupert,
after his return from hiding the treasure, applied himself to these
horrid trades of butcher and buccaneer, till at length the brigantine
was victualled.
A history of the voyage, too, across from Hispaniola to the Spanish
Main would form unpleasant reading. The brigantine was a small frail
thing of fourteen tons, and none too seaworthy. Howling greedy
tempests seemed her daily portion, and she clawed her desperate way
across an ocean that was all great noisy hills of yeast and green, and
roaring fearsome valleys. Her water-casks leaked and fouled, and her
ill-cured food grew tainted. Nothing but constant labour at the pumps
kept her on the sea-top, and everything was wet on deck, and sodden in
the hutch of a cabin. Salt-water boils were the common ailment, and
poor Master Laughan acquired an ugly red spot on the chin that was
quite destructive to all comeliness.
It may be owned also that the Prince's sailoring was none of the best;
for though he had some acquaintance with the utensils of navigation, he
was not skilled in setting off a sea-direction like those wrinkled
mariners that have spent a lifetime in the trade. And as a consequence
he made but an indifferent landfall, sighting a coast which was wholly
savage and desolate, and having no notion whatever whether La Guayra
lay to the eastward or to the west. There was nothing for it but
experiment; and taking guidance from the tossing of a coin, the
brigantine's head was put to the west, till a fishing canoe appeared
which gave him further directions; upon which she was driven back to
the east again, and ran into the road of La Guayra, and brought up to
an anchor there after a further voyage of forty leagues.
Here, then, Prince Rupert found himself in touch with the commencement
of his enterprise, and proudly flaunted the St. George's ensign of
England at the foremast head of the brigantine, and his own banner from
the main. The white flag of truce flew from the mast at the bolt-sprit
end.
There were four armed carracks of the Spaniards at anchor in the roads,
and he saluted these and the shore batteries with a discharge of his
two puny guns; and presently the captain of the port came off from
shore in an armed galley to ask his business.
The Spaniard was arrogant enough. He drove his galley aboard the
brigantine, little recking what damage he did with the rude contact,
and demanded with sundry oaths how any Englishman dared to invade those
seas, which were given by God and the Pope to his master the King of
Spain.
"I am an envoy," quoth the Prince, "to your other master, the Governor
of Caraccas, sent by my master, Prince Rupert Palatine."
"I tell you, _Señor_," said the Spaniard angrily, "that we can have no
dealings with any except my countrymen in these seas. Officially we do
not admit the existence of intruders."
"_Señor_," said the Prince, "it seems to me that I see in you a very
discourteous fellow. I must make my existence apparent to you," said
he, and smote the captain of the port lightly across the face with the
back of his hand.
The Spaniard whipped out his sword, but the Prince waved off his attack.
"Not now, _Señor_," he said. "I will afford you personal satisfaction
after I have carried out my other errand. But since you seem to have
had the fact of my existence impressed upon you, perhaps now you will
guide me to his Excellency the Governor, so that I may deliver his
Highness's message."
The Spaniard glowered in a black fury.
"If you do not," the Prince went on, "I shall sail away; and when I
come back with Rupert's fleet, the captain of the port of La Guayra
shall be whipped and hanged, if it costs a hundred men to take him."
"You seem sure of being given leave to depart," the fellow sneered.
Prince Rupert shrugged his shoulders, and glanced towards the mast
which stood up from the bolt-sprit's end.
"_Señor_," he said, "I have heard many hard things said against your
countrymen, but I never yet heard a Spanish official called an ignorant
savage. You do not appear to have seen that piece of white bunting
yonder, or I am sure even you would not have hinted at detaining a
messenger who came under a flag of truce."
The captain of the port gritted his teeth.
"Well," he said, "I shall shift the responsibility from my own
shoulders. News of your arrival shall be sent up to his Excellency at
Caraccas, and until his reply comes down, you will stay in your vessel
here, and not shift anchor from the roads. Have you any name you wish
his Excellency to hear?"
"You may say that the Prince's message is carried by Master Thomas
Benson, who rode by his side throughout all the English wars, and who
was honoured also by the friendship of his martyred Majesty, the late
King. Master Benson's attendant is Master Stephen Laughan, Prince
Rupert's own secretary."
"And to what purport is this message?"
"You may inform his Excellency that it concerns grave matters which are
first to be delivered to his ear alone, and which are not such as an
envoy would gabble into the lugs of underlings."
"Master Benson," said the Spaniard, "when you have finished your
embassage, and are free to stand up before my sword, I shall kill you.
"Assuredly you shall have the chance," said the Prince; "and you will
not be the first jack-in-office who has bought a lesson in manners
dearer than he expected."
With that, the captain of the port went back to his galley, not
trusting himself to speak further; the whips of her boatswains cracked;
the chained slaves strained at their oars; and the galley foamed away
to the land. She was run upon the beach, and discharged her people on
to the shore. The buildings swallowed them out of sight, and the first
move of the Prince's scheme was played.
For two days the little brigantine swung to her cable within gunshot of
the forts, a thing of notice only to the sun and the seafowl; and
tediously enough the work of waiting fell upon her people. The stress
of labour was over; there was naught to do but eat the rotten victual
and watch the tiny vessel swing over the sullen swells of the
roadstead--all to a fine spicing of anxiety. But Prince Rupert showed
a vast philosophy of patience, and Master Laughan (the boil on whose
chin was subsiding) made shift to follow his example. Then came a
summons from the shore: his Excellency, Don Jaime de Soto, the Governor
of Caraccas, would grant an audience to Prince Rupert's envoy.
Never, perhaps, has an embassy on so weighty a matter set forth upon
its business in less bravery of apparel. Neither the Prince nor his
Secretary had procured a change of clothing since they left Tortuga two
long months before, and in that time much had befallen. The sun, the
seas, the tearing brambles of the forests, and the greedy weapons of
enemies, had all warred against their attire, and had reduced it to
mere masses of stained rags, which were barely decent. When the pair
of them landed upon La Guayra beach, the onlookers raised a jeer of
derision. But this soon died away. Unlike the rude French and English
buccaneers, the Spanish of the New World know how to appreciate birth
and natural dignity, and the majesty of Rupert's port could not be
disguised either by squalid rags, or the plebeian name of "Master
Thomas Benson." Litters borne of four awaited them, and in these they
journeyed up the six miles of steep which separate Caraccas City from
La Guayra, its port.
There was no blindfolding, no attempt to hide anything. The way lay
through a narrow gorge of the mountains, and it was cut by no less than
twenty-three forts, each with drawbridge, bastions, cannon and
soldiers. It was an entrance incredibly strong, and the city beyond
was well worth the expenditure in defence. Its sacred edifices were
gorgeous; its profane buildings were palaces; and it lay there under
the sun, the choicest jewel in all the Spanish New World. A more
appetising spot to plunder never met a would-be raider's eye.
Most gorgeous of all was the palace of Don Jaime, the Governor, and the
state he kept was in full accordance with his dignity. The _patio_
swarmed with glittering soldiers; the piazzas were brilliant with
finely dressed courtiers; rich tapestries bedecked the walls of the
chambers, richer flowers adorned the galleries. Don Jaime himself was
a little old white-haired man, as punctilious in his dress as in his
speech and mannerisms.
Through all this splendour, "Master Thomas Benson" in his mean
equipment marched, not one whit abashed, and showed his Excellency a
grand manner, equal to his own. He presented his credentials and
besought a private interview.
"It is my habit, sir," said the Governor, "to discuss all matters of
State in my Board of Council."
"I have his Highness's strict injunctions to deliver my message to your
Excellency's ear alone. But after the news are yours, it will be in
your Excellency's power to hand them on if you so see fit."
"Sir," said the Governor, "I have a curiosity to know what so gallant a
gentleman as Prince Rupert can have to say to me." He gave
instructions, and those of his attendants who were in the chamber left,
closing the doors behind them. "And now, Master Benson?"
"My message, your Excellency, is short. His Majesty, King Charles the
Second, has been thrust out of his lawful kingdom by the present odious
rebellion, and keeps his Court at The Hague. His revenues are slim,
and he has sent Prince Rupert abroad with the fleet to recruit them. I
am here as his Highness's messenger to hope that you will see your way
to assist the good cause by a substantial loan."
"The treasury of Caraccas is very empty just now, Master Benson. The
honoured needs of my own master, the King of Spain, have of late been
large."
"Ten thousand pieces-of-eight was the sum I was instructed to mention."
"You come to the wrong place for it, sir. Even if I was to apply to
the Holy Church for a loan, I could not grasp so much together."
"Then one of your Excellency's captains--Don Sancho, I think his name
was, of the galleas _Sanctissimo José_--must have lied most stoutly
when we overhauled him a while back. His holds contained nothing but
some rubbishing merchandise, and for excuse he said that all the plate
was kept back in the treasury here for another year, waiting a stronger
convoy."
"Master Benson," said the Governor, "you are right. He did lie. They
are very unreliable persons, these mariner folk."
"Your Excellency's eloquence makes the matter clear to me; but if I
carried such an answer back to the Prince, my poor bald words might not
make him believe."
"And then, sir?"
"Why, then, your Excellency, I fancy Prince Rupert would come with his
fleet and pay a civil call, and so be assured in person."
The Governor's face flushed, and he started forward in his chair.
"Master Benson," he said, "take care. You are using very dangerous
words. Neither England, nor England's king, is at war with Spain."
"England?" said the envoy thoughtfully. "Spain?" said he. "I seem to
have heard the names once. Oh yes, I remember them distinctly now.
But, your Excellency, those countries are a very vast distance away
from here."
"If you choose to look at it that way, Master Benson, you may. You may
even go so far as to bring forward the barbarous doctrine that in these
seas might is right. The defences of this place were built especially
to accommodate any person who might hold that view."
"These were shown me as I came up here," said the envoy. "They are
brave defences--so were the defences of your Excellency's pearling
fleet."
"What! Has your Prince attacked my pearl fishery with his ships?"
"No," said Master Benson negligently. "He had not his fleet with him
at the time. He was accompanied only by this young gentleman here, his
secretary, and enlisted temporarily the services of a few cow-killers
from Hispaniola, and took a coasting pink, and with her visited the
pearl fishery. He did no very great feat of arms. He was obliged to
leave one of your Excellency's war-carracks ablaze, and the other on
the rocks, and make a retreat with some precipitancy. But he took with
him all the pearls which had been fished during the season, and those
made a very pretty booty for his score and a half of men."
"No word of this has reached me. A score and a half of men against
that armada? It seems, sir, that you are speaking of an impossibility."
"There were not many left to carry word," said the envoy. "But your
Excellency may recognise these seals which I have brought in my pocket?
His Highness cut them from the necks of the leathern pearl bags."
The Governor started, and passed a tremulous hand before his eyes.
"Yes," he said after a pause, "they are my seals."
"It was a wasteful way of collecting revenue," suggested the envoy.
"Much was spilled for the little that was taken away. If his Highness
came here in person to levy a loan for the kingdom----"
"He would never get here," cried the Governor violently. "_Carrajo_!
_Señor_, with your own eyes you must have seen the strength of the
forts!"
"It was an open advertisement, your Excellency. So was the strength of
your pearl-fishing armada. But as this point of ours cannot be settled
without a trial (though for myself I can unhesitatingly declare that
the Prince will take the city if he attempts it) let me bring to your
notice another matter which we can agree upon. If Rupert did come
before this place with his fleet, you would be put to heavy expense
resisting him, whether his arms were successful or no. You would lose
largely in both men and munitions of war; your defences would be
battered, and shot-torn; there would be burning of houses and wasting
of magazines; and there would occur a paralysis of trade which only
years could cure. And what would the trouble be all about? To avoid
the loan of a paltry ten thousand pieces-of-eight to a needy King.
Why, your Excellency, it would cost you ten times that amount if you
could beat Prince Rupert off, once he made an attack; and should he get
foothold in Caraccas here, you would find it cheap to purchase his
retirement for a thousand times ten thousand pieces."
"You put the matter very boldly, sir."
"I am a man of business, your Excellency," said the envoy. "I prefer
to put things plain."
The Governor sat moodily, with his chin in the butt of his hand; and
for a while he answered nothing. At last he said, "Master Benson, this
is a matter on which I must confer with my Council. I pray you give me
a day or two for consideration, so that I can send a well-weighed reply
to your Prince's courtesy. And in the meanwhile, if you would use my
poor house, and all that it contains as your own, I should be
overwhelmed by your condescension."
"Your Excellency," said the envoy, "is vastly polite. Both Master
Laughan and myself are highly honoured to rest under so distinguished a
roof. But you must permit us first to go round to some of the stores
of the city to procure more suitable wearing apparel than these filthy
rags."
"I will send one of my officers to be your guide. He," added the
Governor with a sour smile, "shall provide you with the wherewithal to
buy."
"I could not trespass upon your Excellency's kindness to that extent.
I have no gold money to pay for my purchases, it is true. But we have
in our privy purse some small store of pearls, which, at a push, will
doubtless serve as currency."
Don Jaime grinned like a man in pain.
"Master Benson," said he, "you are a most provident gentleman. If you
and Master Laughan will wait in this chamber for a short while longer,
I will send to you a guide who shall be entirely devoted to your
honoured service."
In this fashion, then, another stage of Prince Rupert's enterprise was
successfully carried out, and the Governor of Caraccas, though fully
alive to the unbounded impudence of the demands made upon him, was for
the present, at any rate, civil and self-contained. What he might do
in the future remained to be seen. He might within another day order
the pair of his visitors to gaol, or death, or (still more horrid fate)
hand them over to the gluttonous cruelties of the Inquisition, which
spares neither rank nor sex. Or, again, he might act the prudent part,
and despatch them whence they came with ten thousand pieces-of-eight,
to save his splendid city from the Prince's harrying.
But in the meantime the envoy and Master Laughan dressed themselves in
all the niceness and bravery which they could procure on so brief a
notice, and prepared to revisit for a short time genteel society, such
as they had been divorced from for so many a tempestuous month.
Now, in the household of Don Jaime de Soto, it is a safe thing to say
that if Master Laughan had held command, the enterprise would not have
been damaged; whilst it is a matter of history that the Prince, by his
own action, completely wrecked it. Master Laughan, it is true (though
being in reality a maid), would have had but small temptation, as she
herself quite recognised; but the Prince, being man, must needs get
enslaved in a vulgar love affair with a lady whose charms Master
Laughan was quite at a loss to discover.
To be precise, this Lady of Destruction was that very Donna Clotilde,
the niece of the Governor, of whom they had heard before; and for those
that care for the Spaniards' appearance, she certainly had some claim
to comely looks. Indeed, Prince Rupert never tired of extolling her
beauty; and it may as well be owned here, at once, that the secretary,
who in secret loved his Highness madly herself, was torn with horrid
jealousness. But the Prince, of course, knew naught about this,
scoffed at all warnings, and in his masquerade of "Master Thomas
Benson" pressed his suit with fire and diligence. The two days for the
consideration of the Governor's reply lengthened out to four, and four
to a week; and when the poor secretary dared now and again to hint that
duty required a settlement of the business, he was sharply bidden to
hold his pedant's tongue. And so the affair progressed.
Their entertainment was not lavish. The Governor of Caraccas was too
wily a fellow to make a parade of his wealth before so dangerous an
envoy. But the society was certainly urbane and pleasing after that of
shipboard and the buccaneers; and the old Spaniard, from behind his
studied courtesies, saw plainly enough what was going on, and was
content to leave Donna Clotilde to do battle with the invader on his
behalf. The visitor was clearly infatuated.
Still, what Prince Rupert, a man of the utmost daring, could have seen
in such a little doll of a woman, it was hard to discover. And,
astonishing to relate, Donna Clotilde made no attempt to set herself
right in his eyes. She openly quaked when a door was slammed, and
ingenuously confessed that the sight of drawn steel would make her
faint; and yet the poor secretary, who watched from afar with heart
afire, could have sworn the Prince loved her, and was forced to hear
his rhapsodies when they were alone, and (more cruel still) was made
many times the porter of presents and the bearer of love messages.
But a fine revenge was in store, and the secretary can gloat over it to
this day, though at the time it was like to have cost the pair of them
their necks. The secretary in his misery had gone out into the gardens
of the palace, and had lain down behind some shrubs to be alone with
grief. It was night, and the place was dark but for the stars and the
faint flashings of the fireflies; and presently who should come up but
these two lovers, and seat themselves within earshot, and be talking
before the listener could move!
"But they tell me," quoth the lady, "that your country is a place of
fogs, Don Tomaso, and that the sun never shines there."
"It would be perpetual sunshine for me, _querida_, if you came to
England," said the Prince.
"And the people fight. The mere talk of war gives me the megrims."
"Were you in England, the fighting would end. Let them but see you
once, and they never would do aught to cause you pain."
"The good people, it is said, too, wear mighty uncomely clothes."
"For this many a year they have been wearying for you to come and lead
their taste."
"_La_! Don Tomaso," said the lady, "you do flatter me. I wonder if
all buccaneers are as pretty of tongue?"
"Donna Clotilde would make a dumb man find phrases to express his
adoration."
"Fie, _Señor_! the truly dumb can never speak."
"_Querida_, even had I been truly dumb, I should have forced out some
few speeches for you."
The lady laughed. "Then what a thousand pities, _amigo_, you were not
dumb!"
"Your wit is bright, and I am dull. I must ask your pardon. I do not
take you here."
"Why, _Señor_, had you been dumb, you would have said less. Being
vastly glib, you have said too much."
"Still I do not see."
"It is the history of Master Thomas Benson that I speak about. You
have given it me a score of times, and it does not tally: you forget
the details. At one telling, Master Benson is a rude sailor, and has
been bred to the sea from his youth up. Next, as a lad he fought in
Continental wars, and lingered in dungeons. Now he rides at Rupert's
right hand in English fights, and anon he gets swept away by his own
narration, and forgets, and leads the charges himself. Now he pictures
his wife settled down in a comfortable farmstead; and a minute hence he
will be talking of courts as familiar as though he had never seen aught
coarser. 'Twas all prettily told, _amigo_, and," she added, sweeping a
great courtesy, "I thank you for the telling. Nay, I must crave your
pardon too. I should not have slipped out the _amigo_; I should have
done credit to my bringing up, and said 'Your Highness'!"
The Prince made no attempt to snatch back his disguise. "_Señorita_,"
he said, "whatever may be my quality, I trust I have done nothing that
you should withdraw from me the title of friend."
"My Prince," she answered, "I am a Spaniard first and a woman next.
You have come into my country as an enemy, and disguised as your own
envoy."
"You can have a fine revenge," said Rupert lightly, "and get it easy.
One word to your honoured uncle, and all further trouble will be taken
from your dainty hands. And I doubt not," he added, with a shrug,
"that within the hour all further thought will be chopped from my
shoulders."
From behind the shrubs, the secretary could hear the lady shudder.
"I would rather compound the matter with your Highness, if it could be
done."
"For myself," said the Prince, "in losing your esteem I lose all that
is worth caring about."
"You have not lost it," she cried--"you have not. But what you were
asking is a thing impossible. Princes must not marry maidens of rank
as low as mine."
"Must not!" quoth Rupert blackly. "Who shall prevent it? I am a
strong man, and myself make laws for myself. Who will prevent it?"
"I," she murmured; "because of--how did your Highness word it?--esteem,
yes, because of my great and burning esteem for you."
And at that (to the poor secretary's bitter mortification) he took her
tightly into his arms, and rained kisses on her upturned face. Again
the war of words rose between them, but this timid little doll of a
woman could be as firm as the Prince. Marry him she would not; go from
Caraccas she would not; betray the Prince (as in his madness he
besought) she would not; and yet she demanded one thing of him--a
costly enough keepsake. He was to leave as he had come, a poor man in
a single ship; he was to forego all pretences to the ransom; and he was
to give his word, as a chivalrous gentleman, to jettison all ideas of
harrying the place and helping himself to its treasures.
"I am a woman," she sobbed, "that loves your Highness dearly. But I am
a Spaniard who loves her country more."
"And I," said he, "can continue to love such a true lady, where I
should have lightly forgotten a traitor. _Querida_," he said, "I know
your will about this matter, and I know my own: neither will bend. I
shall go away in an empty ship as I came, and never shall I come to
seek you here again. But I shall pray to God to bring us together in
some other place, and till that day comes I will never call any woman
wife."
"And hear me," she said. "I swear also----"
But he closed her lips. "No," he whispered: "I will not have any
promise of you, _querida_. Woman are placed different from men, and
policies may turn on giving their hands in marriage. I would not have
you forced to wed, and then always be pestered by remembering an
unfulfillable vow. I would rather have you free, and then, if God
wills, we shall come together some day and marry; and if not, we shall
stay forever apart."
"Yet I will----"
"No," he pleaded, "do not give me your pledge in return, or else you
will send me away still more unhappy."
And then, bareheaded, he knelt and kissed her fingers--he that had a
moment before been kissing her so madly on the lips!--and then with
stately courtesy he led her back into the palace. He and she were in
turns closeted with the Governor that night, and the next morning an
escort with covered litters borne of four paraded in the palace _patio_.
The Prince gave no sign of what had happened: he was debonair as a man
could be; and he was "Master Thomas Benson" still. He made his adieux
as though he were a favoured ambassador taking leave of the court of a
king, and he and Master Laughan entered the litters. A trumpet
sounded, and the bearers and the escort stepped out across the
pavement. A window-shutter opened, and a slender arm stretched out
fluttering a dainty kerchief, and then the litters passed out to the
glaring street beyond, and the episode was over.
Down they went by the way they had come up, past the forts, and over
the drawbridges of the gorge to La Guayra, the port; and on the mole a
galley with slaves was in waiting to take them out to the little
brigantine. But the envoy asked for another half-hour of delay.
"I have a small outstanding account which it would please me to close,"
said he, "before leaving your very desirable town;" and asked that the
captain of the port might be notified of his presence.
The fellow came up, nothing loath, and saw some very pretty
swordsmanship before he was run through the shoulder; and then,
distributing a handsome largess of pearls to the escort who had brought
them down, the envoy and Master Laughan were rowed off to their little
brigantine, and so once more to sea, and further adventuring.
The Prince was thoughtful and full of sighs; but the humble secretary
thought that the perilous sea had never before looked so friendly and
pleasant.
[Illustration: MASTER LAUGHAN ENDEAVOURED TO OUTDO THEM ALL IN
DESPERATION AND VALOUR]