Produced by Al Haines
[Illustration: Cover art]
[Frontispiece: "The Spaniard swung round."]
WITH DRAKE ON THE
SPANISH MAIN
BY
HERBERT STRANG
ILLUSTRATED IN COLOUR BY ARCHIBALD WEBB
LONDON
HENRY FROWDE
HODDER & STOUGHTON
1908
OXFORD: HORACE HART
PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY
Copyright, 1907, by the BOBBS MERRILL COMPANY in the
United States of America
PREFACE
The romancer, in choosing as the setting for a tale the period of a man
who looms large in history, finds himself on the horns of a dilemma.
He cannot place his fictional near his historical hero without either
dwarfing the former until the young reader ceases to find him
interesting, or robbing the latter of some of the glamour with which
history invests him.
In the following pages I have tried to meet the difficulty by making
Francis Drake the presiding genius of the story. The deeds of Dennis
Hazelrig are akin to those of Drake; the same spirit of adventure
dominates them: and when, in the course of the story, the real and the
fictitious personages meet, it is, I trust, without loss of dignity to
either.
HERBERT STRANG.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
JETSAM
CHAPTER II
SEA-GIRT
CHAPTER III
A WRECK--AND MIRANDOLA
CHAPTER IV
SALVAGE
CHAPTER V
THE EDGE OF THE MARSH
CHAPTER VI
THE SPANISH WHIP
CHAPTER VII
AMOS TURNPENNY
CHAPTER VIII
HALF-PIKES AND MACHETES
CHAPTER IX
AMOS TELLS HIS STORY
CHAPTER X
THE MAROONS BUILD A CANOE
CHAPTER XI
THE MAIN
CHAPTER XII
BENEATH THE WALLS
CHAPTER XIII
THE TAKING OF FORT AGUILA
CHAPTER XIV
VAE VICTIS
CHAPTER XV
A LONG CHASE
CHAPTER XVI
JAN BIDDLE, MASTER
CHAPTER XVII
THE DEMI-CULVERIN
CHAPTER XVIII
JUAN THE MAROON
CHAPTER XIX
DRAKE'S CAMP
CHAPTER XX
A RAID THROUGH THE FOREST
CHAPTER XXI
MAIDEN ISLE AGAIN
CHAPTER XXII
A FIGHT ON THE CLIFFS
CHAPTER XXIII
BOMBARDED
CHAPTER XXIV
THE LEAGUER OF SKELETON CAVE
CHAPTER XXV
THE MULE TRAINS
CONCLUSION
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
LOI
"The Spaniard swung round" _Frontispiece_. _See p._ 78
Map of Maiden Isle
Dennis saves Mirandola
"Captain singled out Captain"
"The sailor threw up his left hand to ward off the attack"
"A shot fell immediately in their wake"
Map to illustrate Drake's adventures
"The seaman flung him bodily at the fourth Spaniard."
ELOI
CHAPTER I
Jetsam
Daybreak! But, eastward, no glory of dawn. Black thundrous clouds
roll sullenly across a livid sky, riven at moments by pale zigzags of
flame. Rain tumbles in cascades. League upon league of white-crested
waves chase one another in fury, hissing, roaring as they hurl
themselves upon a stubborn shore, only to be broken and thrown back
into the seething turmoil. The wind outstrips them, shrieking as it
cleaves a way through the massed foliage, in mad haste to reach the
mainland and smite the yielding tops of Darien's palms and pines.
The shelving sandy beach is strewed with the jetsam of the storm.
Here, a tangled heap of seaweed, left by a breaker when, spent with its
own rage, it falls back baffled. There, a log of wood, hard by
nameless creatures of the sea, destroyed by the fury of their own
element. And here, high up the strand, beneath a bank overgrown with
large-leaved plants, lies a human form, huddled, motionless.
The waves do not touch it now; the storm has exhausted itself; the tide
is ebbing. Minute by minute the sea becomes less boisterous; the strip
of sand widens; the rain ceases. By and by the sun breaks through the
eastern sky, and, gathering strength, disperses the lingering clouds
and flings his radiance over the scene. His beams, falling aslant
through a gap in the cliffs, strike upon the draggled form on the sand;
it stirs slightly, stretching itself as a leaf uncurls. At last, when
the air quivers with heat, and all things lie under a shimmering haze,
Dennis Hazelrig heaves a sigh, opens his eyes, and looks amazedly about
him.
His eyes close; for some minutes he remains still; then he lifts
himself slightly, falls back with a gasp, and lies again as one dead.
But Nature is recovering under the beneficent rays. Pigeons are cooing
in the branches above; parrots are screaming; insects drone their
burden; and when a mosquito, adventuring forth, alights on a human
cheek, and tastes, Dennis is stung once more into consciousness. He
starts up, brushes the marauder away, staggers to his feet, and, to
prevent himself from falling, clutches at a tuft of grass in the
overhanging bank. Its thin blade-like edge draws blood from his hand,
and he looks at the red stain as at some strange phenomenon. Then he
laughs huskily, checks the sound as though it too is unfamiliar, and
laughs again--a short sobbing laugh.
"Certes, I am alive!" he mutters.
An hour or two passed before Dennis ventured once more to try his
tottering legs. The sun's heat had dried his clothes, which, as he
ruefully observed, had been so rent by the buffeting waves that they
hung upon him precariously. But in the same genial warmth his strength
was returning, and though all his body ached, he could now move without
a stagger. Catching sight of some clams near him, he was conscious of
a vast emptiness within, and felt for the clasp-knife which he was wont
to wear slung about his waist. It still hung upon its chain. He had
opened and eaten, ravenously, a dozen of the shellfish before he
realized that after all his thirst exceeded his hunger, and he looked
round for a spring of fresh water. He walked some paces along the
shore, groaning with every movement, until his ear caught the musical
ripple of a stream, and he saw a rivulet flowing across the sand from a
narrow water-course in the cliff. In an instant he was down on his
knees, drinking his fill.
Refreshed with the draught, he rose and began to consider. He was
alive: that was the first thing. It seemed marvellous to him. The
tornado had ceased. Looking round, he could hardly believe that the
sea now so calm was the same sea which, but a few hours before, had
been a raging monster. As far as the eye could scan it stretched away,
shimmering in the sunlight, only a white crest here and there giving
sign of its late disturbance. Not a sail broke the line of the
horizon. What had become of the _Maid Marian_ and her crew and his
companion adventurers on board? Had they, had any of them, been cast
ashore like himself, on some other part of this strange coast? If he
had escaped, why not others? There was something cheering in the
thought, and instinctively he braced himself for a search when,
remembering that awful night--the amazing suddenness of the blast that
struck the bark, rending the sails like ribands, snapping the mainmast
like a reed, the tumultuous waves, the crashing thunder, the bursts of
lightning, the deluge that poured down from the heavens--as he
remembered these battling elements he shuddered involuntarily; could it
be otherwise than by a miracle that he had survived?
He lived over again his last conscious moments. The mainmast had gone
by the board. He heard the hoarse shout of Miles Barton the master,
calling upon the men to cut away the wreckage. He was with them at the
task, struggling to keep his feet, when the gallant vessel staggered
under the onslaught of a tremendous sea, and he was swept off her deck.
He heard cries all around him, but could see nothing for the darkness
and the blinding rain. Striving to keep his head above water, he felt
his strength failing, so puny was it against the might of the
passionate waves, when he encountered a floating spar, and clung to it
with the tenacity of despair. After that he knew nothing. His grip
must have relaxed, for the spar was not near him when he awoke to
consciousness on the beach. Yet it seemed that this had been his
salvation. He must have held to it until near the shore; then some
mountainous breaker had torn him away and hurled him to the spot where
he had lately opened his eyes again upon the world.
Hapless bark! It was scarcely possible that she had survived the
hurricane. And what of the souls on board with him? What of Miles
Barton, the bluff sea-dog her master, and his cheery crew, and the
score of gallant gentlemen who had sailed out of Plymouth Sound but two
months before, gay, high-hearted adventurers for the Spanish Main?
Where was Sir Martin Blunt, the blithe captain of the band, and Philip
Masterton, and Harry Greville, and Francis Tring, all young men of
mettle, whom Dennis was proud to call his friends, and who, though but
little his elders in years, had seen and done things in the great world
that made him burn with envious admiration? Alas! he could not but
fear that the sea had swallowed them.
But then again came the thought: might not Fortune have befriended them
too? Why imagine the worst? And Dennis thrust sad thought from his
mind; hope was not dead. His meal had given him strength to search,
and search he would.
He looked about him. The sandy beach was narrow. It was overhung by
cliffs of varying height, in parts merely a low bank, in parts reaching
an altitude of perhaps forty or fifty feet. They were covered with the
dense vegetation of the tropics. Some distance to the north of where
he stood the receding tide had left bare a long ledge of massive rock,
running up into the highest part of the cliff. To the south the shore
was less rocky, and within half a mile curved round to the east. It
was in this direction that he decided to go.
But he had not walked far along the glistening sand when he suddenly
bethought himself. Signs of life there had yet been none, save the
cries of birds from the trees above him. But what if he came upon a
fishing village, and found himself among enemies--the wild red men of
whom he had heard, the Spaniards of whose terrible deeds returning
navigators made such grim tales for the winter nights at home? Where
was he? On some shore of the Caribbean Sea, he made no doubt, for only
the day before, when the _Maid Marian_ was sailing merrily westward,
Sir Martin had declared, and old Miles had borne him out, that but a
few more days would bring them to the point where they expected to meet
other adventurers who had preceded them on the same quest for
excitement and gain.
And Dennis halted as one dazed when the full sense of his calamity was
borne in upon him. He was alone!--alone! There might be, for all he
knew, thousands of people almost within hail of him; but he was none
the less alone, for they would be of another race, speaking another
tongue, unfriendly, hostile. He sat down on a smooth rock and, resting
his elbows on his knees and his chin on his hands, stared moodily out
to sea. Between him and all that he held dear stretched this wide
ocean for thousands of miles. In utter hopelessness he wondered why it
had not swallowed him up with all his comrades, instead of casting him
here, a battered miserable body.
The mood passed. He had escaped the perils of the sea, not by his own
strength, but by the hand of Providence. If perchance he had more to
fear from man than from nature--why, it behoved him, an English boy,
and a Devon boy to boot, to face his destiny with a stout heart. After
all, he was of the same stuff as Master Walter Raleigh and Master
Francis Drake and many another bold man of Devon. He could not think
that any one of them, in his situation, would give way to black
despair; and, lifting his aching body from the shore, he walked on: he
would at least learn somewhat of his surroundings.
The beach, he found, bore gradually to the left, so that he could see
but a short distance ahead. Still he encountered no signs of life,
save here and there a scuttling crab, and the rank plant growths above
him, whence now and again a bird fluttered out and wheeled screaming
about his head, and then soared clattering into the foliage. Soon he
tired of this monotonous tramping over sand, which appeared to lead no
whither; and observing at length a cleft in the rocks, whence a shallow
stream swiftly poured itself upon the beach, he bethought himself he
might more quickly make a discovery if he pushed his way up the
water-course, which must by and by lead to higher ground. He turned in
obedience to this impulse, waded through the stream, that wound this
way and that between banks thickly covered with vegetation, and after
what seemed an eternity to his aching limbs, found himself upon a cliff
overlooking the sea. His wandering had brought him by a circuit to a
point north of the spot where he had awoke to consciousness.
The cliff on which he stood was much higher than the surrounding
country. To right and left the ground shelved downwards, and he now
perceived that the coast on both sides had an inward trend; that, in
fact, the cliff was also a promontory. Turning round, he found that
his view was blocked by the trees except in one direction, where a
sudden dip in the ground gave him an outlook over several miles. And
there, surely, at the far end of the vista, was the sea again. For the
first time the suspicion occurred to him that he had been cast upon an
island.
He went to the farthest point of the cliff to scan more carefully the
horizon. Looking across the sea, which from the beach had seemed an
unbroken plain, he now saw in the far distance several dark vague
shapes rising a little above the surface. These must be islands. To
the north, somewhat nearer to him, and somewhat more definite, were
similar forms, which seemed to grow in size during the hour or more he
watched them, no doubt owing to the fall of the tide. Far to the south
he descried a long dark bar upon the horizon; this must be land, many
miles away, probably the mainland. His view to the east being almost
entirely shut out by the foliage, he could feel no certainty that his
suspicion was justified; but he felt a stirring of interest and
excitement now: supposing it were indeed an island, how did the
discovery bear upon his lot?
Once more he turned and gazed along the valley at whose end he saw the
sea. It could not be many miles away; perhaps in an hour or so he
could reach it. The island, apparently, was not a large one, so that
he could not go far without meeting its inhabitants. He looked around
for any signs of habitation--a roof-top, a column of smoke; but there
was none. Next moment he reflected that, if the island were small, it
would not take him long to make its circuit and search every yard of
the beach for tracks of his late comrades--of the _Maid Marian_ too.
Still cherishing a hope that some might have survived like himself, he
set off to descend the cliff towards the beach, every downward step
racking his bruised limbs and strained joints. When he gained the
beach, he once more tramped southward, his eagerness lending him speed.
He passed the water-course up which he had struck inland, and soon
after came upon scattered articles of wreckage, among them the broken
topmast of the _Maid Marian_. With a sigh for his lost comrades he
passed on.
The sun had risen high in the heavens, and Dennis was fain to rest.
"I'm a poor battered hulk," he said aloud, finding some little solace
in the sound of his voice, "and hungry--how hungry I am!"
He looked around for food, spied some shell-fish and ate them raw,
quenching the ensuing thirst at another stream that rippled down from
the interior. The feeling of nervousness lest he should encounter
strangers again took hold upon him, and he felt a desire to hide. He
found himself casting uneasy, almost terrified glances around him from
the nook in which he was now resting, somewhat sheltered from the sun's
fierce rays. Then, conquering the feeling, he rose again to continue
his search of the beach. He must by and by, he thought, come upon some
quay or harbour. When he should see it, he would halt and consider his
course of action: whether to advance and risk the meeting with
strangers, or to retreat until with recovered strength and a clearer
mind he could prepare himself for what might be in store.
As he proceeded, he noticed that the jungle frequently approached to
within a few feet of the mass of weed that marked high-water. At one
spot he discovered, almost buried in the sand, the worm-eaten
stern-post of a vessel. He could distinguish one or two letters of her
name. Many a ship, he doubted not, had been wrecked on this coast,
many a hapless wight had been cast up by the tide, alive or dead. By
and by he came, on the southern side of the island, to high cliffs, and
he set about scaling that which offered the easiest ascent, to obtain a
view of sea and land from this point of vantage also. It was densely
wooded, and as he mounted he heard, besides the cries of startled
birds, other sounds that struck uncannily upon his ear. In his
weakened state any new note in these sounds set his nerves tingling,
and more than once he stopped, and could scarcely prevent himself from
turning and speeding back to the beach, where at least there was
nothing to cause him fresh tremors.
Near the top of the cliff the wood thinned away somewhat, and when he
reached its highest point he found himself on a stretch of greensward.
Northward the ground sloped gently down to a clump of trees, of a
species unknown to him, tall, with slender trunks, which it seemed to
him he could climb as easily as the masts on the _Maid Marian_. He
made his way to them, half minded to swarm up the tallest of the group,
so that from its summit he might gain a view, possibly, over the whole
island, and solve the question that troubled him--whether somewhere
upon it there was a settlement of men. Only when he reached the foot
of the trunk did he remember his weakness. He stood leaning against
it, and gazing up its length felt that at present his muscles were
incapable of the feat.
All at once his eyes became fixed in his head. Travelling to the top,
where a mass of foliage crowned the towering stem, they had lighted
upon a face, that seemed to be peering at him from between the leaves.
The feeling of fright that had before almost paralysed him seized him
again. But next moment he laughed aloud.
"Ninny that I am!" he murmured. "Afraid of a monkey!"
He looked again. The monkey, a large long-tailed specimen of its kind,
was gazing at him gravely, with a look so human that it reminded him of
his old schoolmaster at Winchester. With the sportive instinct of a
boy--Dennis was not yet seventeen--he stooped, picked up a stout piece
of fallen branch, and flung it upward.
"Stir, Sir Monkey!" he cried. "I hail thee as the lord of this island!"
The wood struck the branch on which the monkey was perched. Chattering
angrily, it flung its long arms around the branch above, and swung
itself up, resting there, blinking and showing its teeth at this
unmannerly intruder.
"A big fellow indeed!" said Dennis to himself. "I will not climb. If
the beast is angered, as he seems, he would be no mean foe in his high
perch. I'll not try a bout with you, Sir Monkey. For this time,
farewell!"
And he went on, smiling a little as he became conscious that the
meeting with the monkey had cheered him.