motive in taking away the Spanish boats, for they could be of no use or
value whatever to us. There was no room for them on deck or at the
schooner's davits, and I could hardly imagine that a man like Renouf
would seriously contemplate the idea of attempting to tow them across
the Atlantic. It was while I was marvelling at this extraordinary
eccentricity, as I considered it, that I happened to allow my gaze to
rest abstractedly on the Spaniard that still remained hove-to, and as I
gazed it dawned upon me that a subtle change was taking place in the
appearance of the vessel. At first I could not satisfy myself at all as
to the nature of the change, although I was convinced of its reality,
but suddenly I understood it all. The craft was deeper in the water
than before; she was gradually, almost imperceptibly, settling down, and
already the rise and fall of her upon the swell was becoming
characterised by that heavy sluggishness of movement that marks a water-
logged ship. The scoundrels had scuttled her--I could understand it all
now--and were taking away the boats in order that the miserable
passengers and crew might by no possibility escape to tell the tale of
Renouf's piratical behaviour. With this conviction strong upon me, I
made my way below, and at length found Dumaresq, sitting upon a chest,
with his face buried in his hands, and wearing every appearance of the
most abject melancholy.
"Dumaresq," exclaimed I, in a fierce whisper, grasping him by the
shoulder and shaking him almost savagely in my agitation; "rouse
yourself, man, and listen to me! I want to ask you a question or two.
You have been aboard the Spanish ship, and were an eye-witness, I
suppose, of some at least of the deeds of Renouf and his crew. I want
to hear the particulars, as briefly as possible, and I also want to know
what is your feeling in the matter."
He removed his hands from his face and looked up at me, and even in the
dim uncertain light of the 'tween-decks I could read the horror, sorrow,
and indignation in his eyes.
"Bowen, my friend," he replied in low, cautious tones, "do not ask me
for I cannot tell you; I could not find words to describe the scenes of
which I have been a helpless, horrified eye-witness this day.
Everything may be summed up in a few words: Renouf and his crew are
pirates of the most ruthless character; men who absolutely revel in
wickedness of the vilest description, who take positive delight in
inflicting the most horrible indignities upon those who unfortunately
happen to fall into their power, who gloat over the unavailing tears and
entreaties of their victims, and who scoff at the mere mention of the
word `mercy'. Picture to yourself the very worst that you have ever
heard or read of piratical atrocities, and you will be able to arrive at
a very accurate conception of the horrors of which that unfortunate ship
was the theatre to-day. And I, my friend, I was compelled to look on,
powerless to mitigate a single horror; nay, worse, my remonstrances were
jeered at, and if I ventured to intercede in behalf of a victim, some
additional insult or barbarity was at once inflicted upon the unhappy
creature. And these are the fiends into whose power we have fallen. It
would have been a thousand times better had we perished in the gig!"
"Is that your view of the matter?" I exclaimed contemptuously. "Then I
can only say, Monsieur Dumaresq, that I have been mistaken in you. Man,
man!" I continued angrily; "what are you thinking about? Are you going
to crouch here, dumb, abject, and inactive, like a whipped hound,
instead of bestirring yourself and helping me to put an end to the
career of these fiends and bring them to justice, to say nothing of the
possibility of saving those unhappy wretches on board the Spanish ship,
unless I am to understand from you that they have all been murdered in
cold blood."
"No, no, it was not quite so bad as all that," he answered, looking at
me with a bewildered air; "bloodshed there certainly was, and cruel
torture to extract the secret of the hiding-place of the gold, but no
life was actually taken, so far as I know. What do you mean by your
talk of `saving' the unhappy wretches on board the Spanish ship?"
"I mean," said I impressively, "that the ship has been scuttled, and is
now surely but slowly sinking, while Renouf has all her boats in tow, in
order that there may be no possible chance of escape for anybody on
board her."
"Merciful heaven! it cannot be!" he exclaimed, starting to his feet, and
gripping me by the arm. "Why, nobody but a fiend incarnate would dream
of doing such a thing!"
"Then," said I, "Renouf is a fiend incarnate; and that is an additional
reason for putting an end to his career at once; for, as surely as that
you are standing here, he has not only dreamed of doing such a thing,
but has actually done it."
"Horrible, horrible!" exclaimed Dumaresq, smiting his forehead with his
hand as he stared at me, still more than half incredulous. "But what
can we do, my friend; what can we do? There are but six of us, at most,
against more than eighty!"
"True," I answered; "but if each of those six is as resolute as I am
prepared to be, we may prove sufficient for my purpose. Now, listen to
me. This is my plan. Look around you. There is not a man below here,
save ourselves, but is nearly or quite helplessly drunk, and those on
deck are little or no better. We must divide ourselves into three
parties of two each, and each party must tackle one of these drunken
wretches at a time, one of us clapping a gag between his jaws, while the
other whips a lashing round him, and makes him fast, hands and feet. In
this way everybody below here may be secured. Then, leaving two of our
number here to deal with any others who may come down, the other four
must go aft and seize Renouf and his brother; and when we have made them
safe, we must tackle Danton. This done, our next move must be to get
the schooner round, and return to the Spanish ship, and while we are
making our way back we must go round the decks with a belaying-pin
apiece, and simply knock the senses out of all who attempt to oppose us.
It will not be a difficult matter, for I do not believe that there is a
man on board, excepting ourselves and perhaps Renouf and his brother,
capable of taking care of himself."
"_Mon Dieu_!" exclaimed Dumaresq; "but it is a desperate scheme, and I
do not believe that anybody but a Briton would have thought of it, much
less talked of it so coolly as you have done. But, Bowen, my friend,
dare we attempt it? Is there the remotest chance of our being
successful?"
"There is every chance, if we are but resolute," I answered, a little
impatiently. "But, of course," I continued, "you are not called upon to
join us if--"
"Nay, nay," he interrupted, "you shall never say that Anatole Dumaresq
flinched when desperate work had to be done. I am with you, my friend,
heart and soul. Let me but clearly understand what is to be done, and
you shall have no chance to say that I did not do my fair share. There
is my hand upon it."
I silently grasped his extended hand, and then went to the hammocks in
which Hardy and his mates were pretending to sleep, and told them to
tumble out at once. This they did, when I explained to them very
briefly what I proposed to do. Having made my meaning clear, we
rejoined Dumaresq, and without further ado the six of us seized a number
of jackets, trousers, and other clothing that had been hung to the
bulkheads and beams, and unceremoniously cut them into suitable strips,
which we rolled into gags.
On board the _Jean Bart_ the hammocks were never taken on deck, as they
are on board a man-o'-war--the schooner not being fitted with a hammock-
rail,--but were simply laced up every morning. Each hammock was
consequently fitted with a good stout lacing, which I thought would
admirably serve as a lashing for my prisoners.
Having provided ourselves with as many gags as we could conveniently
stow in our pockets, we next stationed ourselves in couples alongside
three occupied hammocks, and while one of the twain loosely and quickly
passed the lacing through the eyelet-holes the other stood by with the
gag, which, at the proper moment, was slipped into the victim's mouth
and lashed securely, the hammock lacing at the same moment being hauled
taut and made fast; and in this way each prisoner was silently and
effectually secured. It took the six of us fully twenty minutes to
secure everybody below--to the number of sixty-three,--as some of them
had to be gagged first and afterwards lashed into their hammocks; but
the work was done effectually, noiselessly, and without a hitch, every
one of the Frenchmen proving to be too completely intoxicated to offer
the slightest resistance worthy of the name.
This done, I crept up on deck, staggering and stumbling, with the most
vacant expression of face that I could assume, and generally imitating,
as nearly as I could, the gait and appearance of a drunken man, for the
benefit of whosoever might happen to be in a condition to take
intelligent notice of me. Reeling and staggering to the fore-rigging, I
clutched at and hung on to a belaying-pin, and looked about me fore-and-
aft. The deck was occupied by some twenty men or so, some of whom were
asleep in the lee scuppers, while others, in little groups of two and
three, hung over the bulwarks, staring idiotically at the white foam
that swept aft from the schooner's keen cut-water; and four, who had
probably assumed the duty of looking out, staggered and lurched in
pairs, holding each other on their legs, to-and-fro between the windlass
and the fore-rigging, occasionally indulging in an ineffectual attempt
to exchange remarks. So far, all was right; nobody here seemed capable
of giving us the slightest trouble. In fact, discipline was for the
time being at an end, lawlessness reigned supreme, everybody was his own
master, and the schooner was practically left to take care of herself.
Danton, however, was in charge of the deck, and although he was a trifle
unsteady in his walk, I could see that he had his wits pretty well about
him and would have to be somewhat carefully tackled if we wished to
secure him without giving the alarm to Renouf and his brother, both of
whom, I took it, were below. Astern of us, or rather about a point and
a half on our starboard quarter, and some four miles distant, lay the
Spaniard, still hove-to, her brasswork and the glass of her sky-lights
and scuttles flashing redly in the last rays of the setting sun as she
laboured over the ridges of the low swell; and I was both startled and
horrified to observe how deep she had sunk into the water during the
comparatively short time that I had been below. It was clear enough
that if the unhappy people aboard her were to be rescued there was not a
moment to lose; I therefore staggered aft and, approaching Danton with
drunken solemnity, touched my forehead and, wavering upon my legs and
speaking thickly, asked him to come for'ard and down below and tell me
whether he could smell fire. The scoundrel's face blanched at the word,
as he probably pictured to himself the frightful predicament of all
hands--himself included--should my suggestion prove true; then, without
a word, he hastened forward to the hatchway, with me at his heels, and
went stumbling down the steep ladder. As he reached the bottom I flung
myself upon him, clasping him round the body and arms, and lifted him
off his feet, at the same time singing out to Hardy to gag him; and in
another minute we had him securely bound, hand and foot, and lashed hard
and fast into a hammock.
"So far, well!" I exclaimed, as I dragged him unceremoniously away to a
dark corner. "We have now but to secure Renouf and his brother, and the
schooner is ours. Hardy, Green, and Sendell, come you aft with me,
providing yourselves with a belaying-pin each on the way; and you,
Anstey, will keep Mr Dumaresq company on deck, mounting guard over the
companion, to prevent anyone going below, or to knock down and secure
anyone who may escape us and attempt to reach the deck. Our duty is
very simple; four of us will enter the cabin; and while Hardy and I
attempt to secure Renouf and his brother, the other two will stand by to
assist, in the event of either of us becoming disabled by a pistol
bullet. Come along, my hearties."
So saying, I led my little party aft. At the head of the companion
ladder Dumaresq and the man Anstey came to a halt, the former engaging
the drunken helmsman in conversation, while the remaining four of us
stole down the ladder, bare-footed, and noiseless as cats. I had
already mentally arranged my method of procedure; so, whispering to
Hardy that he was to tackle the chief mate, while I would look after
Renouf, I boldly knocked at the cabin door. A command to enter, given
in rather a drowsy, peevish tone of voice, was the immediate response,
whereupon I flung open the door and passed into the cabin closely
followed by Hardy.
Renouf and his brother occupied a locker each on opposite sides of the
cabin; and it was quite apparent that they had both been indulging in a
nap, which I had rudely broken in upon. They were in the act of
changing from a reclining to a sitting posture, yawning and stretching
as they did so, when I entered the cabin.
"Captain Renouf," began I, as I advanced toward him, "I have taken the
liberty to--"
My little ruse was, however, unavailing; the ruffian seemed to
instinctively and immediately divine my purpose, and in a flash he had
whipped a pistol and a long knife--the blade of which I noticed was
smeared with blood--from his belt, and levelled the former straight at
my head. There was no need for further words between us; nor was there
time for hesitation; so, quickly ducking my head, I sprang upon him like
lightning, and seized him by both wrists at the very instant that his
pistol exploded; the bullet grazing the left side of my head, and neatly
clipping off a lock of my hair. The fellow was as lithe as an eel in my
hands, and made the most desperate efforts to stab me with his long,
murderous-looking knife; but I had him fast in so powerful a grip that,
after a furious struggle of a few seconds, he dropped both his weapons
with a gasp of pain, my clutch having, as it presently appeared, forced
both his wrists from their sockets. To snatch the remaining pistol from
his belt with my right hand, while I shifted the grip of my left to his
throat, was the work of but a single instant; and I then turned to see
how Hardy was faring with his antagonist. He had apparently been less
fortunate than myself, for his cheek was laid open by a long gash from
the chief mate's knife, which, even as I turned my head, again descended
and buried itself in Hardy's shoulder. The smart of this second wound
seemed to fairly rouse my shipmate, and before I could do anything to
help him his ponderous fist darted out with the force of a six-pound
shot, catching the miserable Corsican fair in the centre of the face and
dashing him backwards, with a shriek of pain, across the table. This
blow settled the affair; there was no more fight left in either of the
brothers--indeed I had unconsciously gripped my prisoner's throat so
tightly, while watching the termination of the struggle between the
other two, that his tongue and eyeballs were protruding, and he was
already going black in the face. So we securely pinioned the precious
pair, lashing their arms and legs together, and, bundling each into his
own cabin, locked the doors, the keys of which I slipped into my pocket.
This done, I helped myself, from the trophy upon the after-bulkhead of
the cabin, to weapons enough for our entire party; found Gaspar, the
steward, in his pantry, where I lashed him fast and locked him in; and
then the four of us hastened on deck to ascertain what effect, if any,
had been produced by the pistol-shot fired in the cabin upon the small
residue of the crew who had not yet utterly succumbed to the stupefying
influence of their immoderate potations.
CHAPTER NINETEEN.
THE FATE OF THE SANTA THERESA.
Upon rejoining Dumaresq, I learned from him that the pistol-shot fired
in the cabin had attracted only the most casual and momentary notice of
the few Frenchmen on deck; the majority of them, indeed, scarcely
rousing themselves sufficiently to do more than merely turn their heads
to send a single inquiring glance aft. This was good news, as, although
the schooner was now to all intents and purposes our own, there were few
enough of us to navigate her, and I was most anxious that those few
should not be weakened by possible injuries in a struggle to secure full
and complete possession. That full and complete possession, however, it
was absolutely necessary to secure at once, if anything was to be done
toward rescuing the unhappy Spaniards on board the fast-sinking _Santa
Theresa_; so Dumaresq and I went forward and, by dint of a little good-
humoured force, succeeded in persuading the remainder of the Frenchmen
to go below, where we secured them without much difficulty. This done,
we at once brought the schooner to the wind, and proceeded to beat up
toward the Spanish ship, which we could just make out in the rapidly
deepening dusk of the tropical evening. I carefully noted her bearing
and distance; and then, Dumaresq taking the wheel, the rest of us went
to work to make our prisoners permanently secure. Fortunately for us,
Renouf's foresight enabled us to do this very effectually, he having
apparently recognised that circumstances might possibly arise rendering
it important that he should possess the means to reduce a large number
of men to absolute helplessness; for which purpose he had provided
himself with an ample supply of irons, which now proved most useful to
us. We lost no time in clapping these irons upon the hands and legs of
the Frenchmen, thus rendering it impossible for them to give us the
slightest trouble upon their recovery from their drunken debauch; and,
having made all perfectly secure, our next business was to restore the
cook and steward to sobriety, by subjecting them to a liberal douche of
salt-water, and to set them to work to prepare us a meal, of which we
began to feel that we stood in need.
The task of effectually securing the whole of our prisoners occupied a
considerable amount of time; so that when it was at length completed to
my satisfaction the night had long since fallen, and we had completely
lost sight of the Spanish ship, although Dumaresq had kept his eye upon
her as long as possible. We had brought the schooner to the wind on the
starboard tack, in the first instance, and we held on upon this tack
until I found, by means of a simple little diagram, drawn to scale upon
a piece of paper, that we could fetch her on the next tack when we hove
the schooner round. But my hopes of being able to rescue the Spaniards
were fast fading away, for the wind had evinced a decided disposition to
drop with the setting of the sun; and when we at length tacked to fetch
the spot where we expected to find the _Santa Theresa_, the schooner was
going through the water at a speed of barely four knots. And, according
to my reckoning, the ship was just that distance from us; so that it
would occupy us another hour to fetch her, and I was exceedingly
doubtful whether she would remain afloat so long. Indeed, I greatly
feared that she had foundered already, for the night, although dark, was
clear. The stars were shining brilliantly from zenith to horizon, and
it appeared to me that if she was still afloat we ought to be able to
see the blur of her canvas against the sky. But although I searched the
horizon from broad on the one bow to broad on the other, using for the
purpose an exceptionally fine night-glass that I found in Renouf's
cabin, I was unable to make her out.
Once or twice, it is true, I thought I had caught her right ahead, but
it unfortunately happened that the portion of sky in that quarter was
bare of stars over a space very considerably larger than would have been
covered by the ship's canvas, and consequently I was without the
assurance that would have been afforded me had the faint, dusky
appearance that I took to be her sails alternately eclipsed and exposed
a star. But I afterwards had reason to believe that I had really seen
her, for when we had arrived within about a mile of the spot where I
supposed her to be, a faint, wailing cry, as of people in the last
extremity of despair, came pealing distinctly to us across the black
water, and about a quarter of an hour later we suddenly found ourselves
among a quantity of floating oars, buckets, hatches, and other articles
that had undoubtedly belonged to the Spaniard. The presence of these
articles proved conclusively that the unfortunate ship had gone down,
and the cry that we had heard was doubtless the last despairing cry of
her hapless, helpless passengers and crew. Thus to the crime of piracy
Renouf had added the far worse one of wholesale murder, for Dumaresq
asserted that, according to his estimate, the number of passengers and
crew together on board the _Santa Theresa_ could not have fallen much,
if anything, short of a hundred. We immediately hove the schooner to,
and Dumaresq, with my four English shipmates, at once shoved off in a
boat to search among the wreckage for possible survivors, but not one
was found; which is not to be wondered at, for it afterwards transpired
that Renouf had driven the Spanish seamen below and battened them down,
while he had lashed the officers and passengers hand and foot and locked
them into the cabins the last thing before scuttling the ship!
We remained hove-to until past midnight, and then, having failed to find
even so much as a floating body, sorrowfully filled away, and shaped a
course for the West Indies, it being my intention to hand the whole crew
over to the authorities upon a charge of piracy.
A few days later, as we were running down the trade-wind, shortly after
mid-day, we sighted ahead a whole fleet of large ships steering pretty
nearly the same course as ourselves. They were under royals, with
studding-sails set on both sides, and despite the fact that they were so
much bigger than ourselves, we overhauled them so rapidly that by sunset
we had brought them hull-up, and had neared them so closely that we were
not only able to identify them as line-of-battle ships, but, with the
aid of Renouf's splendid telescope, were able to read several of the
names emblazoned upon their sterns. We made out such names as
_Argonauta_, _Espana_, _Pluton_, _Terrible_, _Bucentaure_, _San Rafael_,
and others, by means of which Dumaresq was able to identify some of them
as ships that had been blockaded in the port of Toulon by Lord Nelson.
Others were manifestly Spanish ships. Their names and appearance
generally testified to that fact, and it therefore looked very much as
though Vice-admiral Villeneuve had somehow contrived to evade the
British fleet, and, having effected a junction with a Spanish fleet, was
making the best of his way to the West Indies to work what damage might
be within his power upon our colonies and our commerce in that quarter
of the globe. There were twenty sail of them altogether. The fact that
so formidable a fleet of our enemies was ranging the Atlantic and
steering a course that would take them to some of the most valuable of
Britain's possessions in the western hemisphere was important news
indeed; and I reconnoitred the fleet as closely as I dared, contriving,
before the daylight faded, to ascertain the name, and approximately the
power, of every ship. They did not deign to take the slightest notice
of us, beyond firing a shot or two at us whenever we ventured within
range. So when darkness set in I bore away to the southward
sufficiently to give the flank ship a berth of about four miles, when I
crowded sail upon the schooner and ran past them, dropping them out of
sight before sunrise next morning.
Despite the fact that we were so short-handed, we continued to carry on,
night and day, arriving at Port Royal on the morning of the eighth day
after sighting the combined fleet.