FIGHTING ON LAND AND AT SEA.
“Ay, at set of sun
The breeze will freshen when the day is done.
Sling on thy bugle; see that free from rust
My carbine-look springs worthy of my trust;
Be the edge sharpened of my boarding-brand,
And give the guard more room to fit my hand.
This let the armourer with speed dispose;
Last time it more fatigued my arm than foes.”
BYRON.
I had read books about Morgan before making Captain Reeves’s
acquaintance, but somehow, hearing the dreadful story told first-hand,
as it were, from the log of one who had seen the many fearful tragedies,
it seemed all the more realistic and awful.
It was some time before I fell asleep that night, for from thinking of
the atrocities committed by pirates my mind turned to the fearful and
indescribable cruelties perpetrated upon British women and children in
the inhuman Indian Mutiny.
Naturally enough there arose a question that did not tend towards
inducing
“Tired Nature’s sweet restorer, balmy sleep”--
namely, Why should God, our God, permit such cruelties to overtake
innocent girls and little children? But, after all, what are we that we
should dare to arraign the Maker of heaven and earth before the tribunal
of our imperfect knowledge? I live in hope--a hope which nothing, I
trust, shall ever be able to take from me--that all shall yet be
revealed in another and a better world; all made clear as the noonday
sun.
* * * * *
When I went over next evening, accompanied by Dash as usual, I found all
the trees lit up as they had been on the first night I had wandered
hither.
Don Miguel had, therefore, I felt sure, already arrived. Nor was I
mistaken.
Here he was, looking as bold, handsome, and interesting as ever, only
sun-browned beyond all belief: for betwixt the Spanish blood or skin and
the sun an affinity seems to exist.
Miguel hastened to shake hands with me.
“You look happy and jolly,” I said.
“Yes, and I am happy and jolly,” he replied. “Who wouldn’t be who has
been favoured as I have been? My harvest was but a holiday and all the
girls fell in love with me. I had plenty to eat and drink, and every
evening they all danced while I played. Then, to finish off, we had a
ball--girls all in white, lads mostly in the kilt, and a nice string
band; so I myself could dance, and did dance till morning light.
“They all said I was the merriest minister ever they had met, and if
only their own parish parson came to a dance now and then, and didn’t
carry quite so long a face, they would go to his church much oftener
than they did.”
“Bravo, Miguel!” I replied. “Well, I for one am happy to see you; and I
am like yourself, for I do not believe we were sent into this world to
moan and groan, and shake our faces from side to side till they look as
long as to-day and to-morrow.”
“Ah, well,” I added, “I am sure you will give us a song to-night.”
“That will I, with the greatest of pleasure.”
“But dinner first,” cried Captain Reeves, laughing. “The mind, you know,
takes its cue from the state of the body.”
And a most tasteful and delightful little dinner it was which was now
placed on the captain’s hospitable board, and everybody, including even
Mina, did ample justice to it.
I have always thought that the violin and the Spanish guitar were made
for each other--made to be wedded to each other, as it were, in sweet
accord. I could not help thinking so to-night, as the soft, delightful
music--madly merry one minute, tender and plaintive next--filled all the
room.
But the instruments were laid aside at last, and then, encouraged by a
few questions put to him by Captain Reeves and Mina, Miguel entertained
us with a delightful narrative of harvest life at “An Auld Fairm Toon.”
That is the quaint title he gave it.
It was indeed a laughable and delightful yarn, and had I been able to
take it down just as it fell from the young fellow’s lips, it should
have been all in print somewhere ere now.
But at last Mina, showing some signs of fatigue, was advised to retire.
There was no sleepiness about any one else, not even about honest Dash,
whose eyes were very open indeed.
Perhaps he was wondering what kind of sport he should have next day
among the hills, and after the ptarmigan and grouse.
Captain Reeves sat for a short time holding the bowl of that great
meerschaum in his hand, and blowing a cloud which quite hid the upper
part of his body. Seeing his feet and his legs up as far as the knees,
we came to the conclusion, from a process of analogical reasoning, that
he was behind that cloud somewhere; and presently we knew we were right,
for an arm appeared, and the pipe was laid down. Then the fog cleared
away, and there was Reeves smiling.
“I’ve been thinking,” he said; “I always think best when smoking.”
The captain was a most temperate man, and now what he called his “brew”
was a very small allowance indeed of the wine of Green Caledonia. He
sipped it slowly.
Then he arose, and soon returned to the table with the weather-stained
old piratical log itself. Considering that it was fully two hundred
years of age, it was certainly very well preserved indeed.
“I am only,” he said, “going to read a few snatches more of Morgan’s
fearful life. I consider it is too horrible for any young man to listen
to. However, there is a ring of truthfulness in every line penned by our
ancient ancestor, Captain Bassanto; and when he comes down to the
hiding of the treasure, he gives very definite instructions indeed. The
only wonder is that no one has ever found it before now.”
“Can you be sure,” I asked, “that this is not the case?”
“Quite certain, my friend Gordon; because this log had been lost for
more than a hundred years, and there is ample evidence to show that it
has never been tampered with or even read.”
“Well, I shall epitomize,” he continued. “I have myself carefully read
the horrors described with no unmasterly hand over and over again, till
they interfered even with my sleep at night, and I have then had to hide
the log even from myself, and try to banish its awful story from my mind
by working hard in the garden or climbing the mountains that rise high
on every side of this glen.
“Bassanto says: ‘I sent much of my own gold home, and I knew it was
safe. Fain would I have gone home myself to end my days in peace, and
only the thought that by remaining under Morgan’s command I might be
able to save the lives of some of my countrymen now and then prevented
me from retiring.
“‘The wrath of Heaven,’ continues my ancestor, ‘seemed to be opened at
last against those inhuman wretches. Pestilence broke out, and many
died in the most awful agonies. Still the torture of the people in order
to get them to reveal the hiding-places of their treasure was continued,
and it is terrible to think of the sufferings endured by the poor
wretches. Death to me personally would at times have been welcomed, and
more than once have I clutched my dagger to plunge into the black and
hardened heart of my friend Morgan himself. No shark of the ocean, no
panther of the jungle, could have been more callous than he; while his
pirate crews regarded the sufferings and the struggles of the men or
maidens under torture as calmly and heartlessly as the fisherman beholds
the worm that wriggles on his hook.
“‘Morgan was a man of very great skill--a man made to command men. Had
his talents been expended in a good cause, he might have been a blessing
to the world, instead of a firebrand and a curse.
“‘The skill with which he could manœuvre his troops was well seen before
he left Puerto Velo. For even while the awful plague was still raging,
he found out that the Governor of Panama was coming on to attack him and
cut off his retreat. He hurriedly brought his ships into the harbour and
placed all the collected plunder on board.
“‘Quickly indeed did he repair the ports and remount the guns. Then,
with a well-armed but small and well-chosen force, he sallied forth to
give battle to the governor.
“‘They hid miles from the town, in a dense, impenetrable jungle, through
which the narrow road went winding, every man making a loophole where he
could command the advancing foe, certain that his bullet would find a
billet in some bosom.
“‘The Spaniards numbered about five hundred, and expecting no such
ambuscade, were soon in the very centre of this terrible hornet’s nest.
“‘The signal was given by Morgan himself. No more fatal volley was ever
fired. Not a pirate fired at the same man, and one hundred Spaniards bit
the dust.
“‘The confusion and terror were fearful to witness, for I myself was
there, though I fired but in blank.
“‘Again and again the pirates, invisible themselves, poured in their
volleys. Alas! how my heart bled for my poor countrymen. Had I seen
Morgan then, I should certainly have slain him. The victory was
complete. The Spaniards were almost annihilated. The wounded were
murdered and robbed, and then we returned to the pestilential city.
“‘But Puerto Velo was at last left to its fate: it was destroyed by
fire, sword, and pestilence, and by torture, out and out. Fiends from
the lower regions could not have behaved with greater cruelty.
“‘And the reward of the pirates for all the crimes they had committed
was but little. They found this out when they came to divide the spoil.
This they did in a solitary harbour off the coast of Cuba.
“‘We next returned to Jamaica, and were received with public rejoicings
by the people. We were made heroes of, and the excesses of the pirates,
in drinking, gambling, and worse, were so great that their gold was
nearly all squandered in a few weeks or a month. Morgan thought it time
then to plan some other expedition.
“‘Tortuga was at this time a hot-bed of pirates.
“‘Morgan went to Isle de la Vaca, on the southern-most shore of
Hispaniola, and was speedily refitted and remanned.
“‘By-and-by there came from Tortuga a big Frenchman who had no less than
three-and-thirty guns. Trade was bad, however, and the crew wanted to
turn their talents to buccaneering. Morgan had his eye on that ship, and
asked them to join his next expedition. The officers, however, would
have none of him. Little did they know the craft and cunning of this
immortal pirate. He had found out that they had taken provisions from an
English ship at sea, paying only in paper money. This was enough. He
invited the captain and officers on board to a carousal, and charging
them with piracy, when they were still drinking, Morgan clapped them in
irons and seized their ship.
“‘There was a fleet of merchant ships (Spaniards) expected every day off
Saona Island, near to San Domingo, and thither they determined to sail.
A terrible carousal followed on board the captured Frenchman. The
drunken men were actually staggering about firing volley after volley by
way of rejoicing.
“‘Suddenly the magazine in the fore part of the ship blew up with
terrible force.
“‘Although those carousing in the cabin escaped with their lives, all
forward perished, and this was the terrible end of the captured ship.
“‘But Morgan had still fifteen ships and nearly a thousand men, and
recruiting their provisions from an English ship, they pressed on to
Ocoa, on the south shore of the great island of Hispaniola.
“‘Seven of his ships had not come up when Morgan and I reached Ocoa, so
we determined to wait for them.
“‘Here we ran a risk of being starved; for the Spaniards, although
unable to attack, drove away all the cattle. Here, too, a band of fifty
men sent on shore to hunt were surrounded by the Spaniards and almost
decimated.
“‘Morgan himself landed with two hundred men to take full vengeance, but
could find no one to fight with, and had therefore to return, but he
burned every house or hut he came across.’”
Captain Reeves paused, and began to turn over the pages of the old
yellow-leaved log somewhat languidly.
“I must say,” he observed, “that my ancestor has spared no pains to make
the history of this great pirate as exact and complete as possible, and
I have material from which one day to build a book.
“Many of the writers on the pirates of the Spanish Main differ, and
doubtless several of them are dependent upon their imagination for their
facts. On the contrary, this Miguel Bassanto, our far-distant ancestor,
seems to be nothing unless truthful and punctilious.
“The more I read about Morgan, afterwards made Sir Henry Morgan by the
British Government, the more I admire his skill as a commander of
forces, either by sea or on land, and the more I abhor and detest his
character. To call him inhuman is to pay him a compliment. He was more
than inhuman, he was a fiend incarnate, and instead of being honoured
with high rank, made Governor of Jamaica, and Governor of Gibraltar, he
ought to have been burned alive over a slow fire.
“At Maracaybo, another writer tells us, all kinds of inhuman cruelties
were practised upon the innocent people. Those who would not confess, or
who had nothing to declare, died under the hands of those tyrannical
men. Those tortures and racks continued for the space of three whole
weeks, during which time the pirates ceased not to send out daily
parties of men to seek for more people to torment and rob. They never
returned home without booty and riches.”
“Thank God,” I said, “we live in less perilous, less terrible times.”
“Ah! thank God indeed.”
“But now I come to the last adventure described in this book, and it is
this to which I wish to draw your particular attention, as it is
connected with the buried treasure which I hesitate not again to say
belongs to me and mine.
“If we set about the business properly and scientifically, I do not
doubt for a single moment that we shall be able to unearth it.--Then, my
dear nephew, my sister’s struggles, and yours too, will be at an end.”