The Log of a Privateersman

by Harry Collingwood

  CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.

  THE CAPTURE OF NOSTRA SENORA DEL CARMEN.

  Arrived at the boats, we lost not a moment in tumbling into them andgetting under way again, for time was now a precious commodity, therebeing still a journey of some four miles before us ere the galleon couldbe reached. But, once fairly clear of the Boca, or channel, we shouldbe able to use our sails, which I had taken the precaution to haveplaced in the boats, and then we should make good progress, while themen would be resting.

  The first question for consideration, however, was what to do with ourtwo prisoners. This was speedily settled by Hoard, who suggested thatthey should be landed upon a small islet, called Brujas Island, situateon the opposite side of the harbour, and lying but little out of ourregular way. This we did, of course first casting them loose and takingthe gags out of their mouths; but although they were thus freed fromactual physical restraint they remained as harmless as before, so far aswe were concerned, for Brujas Island was uninhabited, and separated fromthe mainland by two channels which, although only narrow, were sodangerous, in consequence of the sharks with which the harbour wasinfested, that the Spaniards were not at all likely to imperil theirlives by attempting to swim them. There they were, therefore, harmlessenough, so far as we were concerned, until morning, when probably somepassing fisherman might be attracted by their cries, and would releasethem. But, whether released or not, I had very little fear that theywould attempt to return to the battery and give the alarm there; thefact that they had allowed themselves to be surprised and made prisonerswould be accounted by their officers an unpardonable crime; and theprobability was that, when released from the island, they would take tothe forest and make for the interior to escape punishment.

  By the time that we had landed these two unfortunate men the thunder-storm had passed away to seaward, the crash of the thunder had becomemodulated to a booming rumble, and a steady, drenching downpour of rainhad set in; the clouds overhead, however, were not nearly so heavy andblack as they had been previous to the outbreak of the storm, and therewas sufficient light to enable us to see where we were going. Weaccordingly shoved off from Brujas in high spirits, and, hoisting oursails, headed up the harbour. The land wind was blowing, although notvery strongly, and when we had been under way about half an hour webegan to look out for the galleon. Hoard was the first to see her--probably because he knew best of us all where to look for her,--and, themoment that she was sighted, the gig's sails were lowered, as a signalfor the other boats to close round us. This they immediately did, whenI repeated, in a low voice, the orders that I had already given beforeleaving the schooner, in order that every man might know exactly whatduty was expected of him, and do it. Then, having thus refreshed everyman's memory, I gave the order to draw cutlasses and paddle quietlyalongside.

  A few minutes sufficed to take us to the galleon; and a fine, stately,noble-looking craft she was, towering out of the water like a line-of-battle ship; her lofty masts and wide-spreading yards seeming to piercethe sky and lose themselves among the few stars that now came twinklingmistily out, here and there overhead.

  We got alongside without being challenged--to my great surprise; and,half of us boarding her to port and the other half to starboard, in lessthan a minute we were all on deck, and gliding softly and noiselessly asshadows here and there; some securing the fore-scuttle, others thecompanions and sky-lights; while others again were briskly swarming upthe shrouds to loose the canvas; the carpenter--with his axe speciallysharpened for the occasion--at once stationing himself by the cables,ready to cut them at a sign from me, while two men placed themselves atthe ponderous and highly-ornamented wheel.

  The singular circumstance that we had succeeded in getting alongsidewithout being challenged was fully accounted for by the fact that not asingle soul was on deck when we had glided in over the galleon's loftybulwarks. If an anchor watch had been set, the men composing it had--asHoard had predicted--quietly ignored their duty, in the absence of theofficers, by turning in and leaving the ship to take care of herself.The surprise was complete; the galleon had fallen into our hands withoutso much as a single blow being struck. Of course, there was the crewbelow to be reckoned with still, but meanwhile they were close prisonersand asleep; and, even in the event of their awaking at once andproceeding to force their way on deck, it would be some time ere theywould be able to break out; and by that time, if all went well, weshould be far enough from the neighbourhood of the town to render anyprospect of assistance from that quarter practically out of thequestion. What I most feared was that somebody on board one or anotherof the many craft that were anchored in our immediate vicinity mightnotice the operation of loosing and setting the galleon's canvas, andsuspecting something to be wrong, man a boat and go ashore to give thealarm; in which case we should soon have three or four swift galleysafter us; when we were likely enough to find ourselves in an exceedinglyawkward scrape. That, however, was a danger that we had to face. Andafter all it was not so very great; for if no anchor watch was beingkept on board the galleon, how much less likely was it that such a watchwould be kept on board the comparatively valueless coasters by which wewere surrounded.

  I had carefully explained to my crew beforehand what it was that we hadto do; and I had also given instructions that the whole of the work wasto be carried forward in absolute silence, no one calling out unless thenecessity for so doing was urgent. Consequently, from the moment whenwe first dropped in over the bulwarks, not a sound save the soft patterof muffled feet was heard aboard the galleon until first the topsailsand then the courses were let fall, when, of course, there arose a soundof canvas fluttering in the wind, which, to my excited imagination,seemed loud enough to wake the dead. Then came the sharp cheep, cheepof sheaves upon their pins as the topsails were sheeted home and theyards mast-headed, followed by a still louder flapping of canvas as thejib was hoisted. Then came the dull, heavy crunch of the carpenter'saxe as he smote at the cables. I suppose it was these sounds thatawakened the galleon's crew, for while the carpenter was still hackingaway there arose from the interior of the fore-scuttle a loud knocking,and the muffled sounds of voices angrily demanding that the hatch shouldbe lifted. Hoard, however, had been standing by, in expectation ofsomething of this sort, and the moment that there came a pause in theknocking and shouting I heard him informing the prisoners that the shipwas in the hands of the English, and that unless they--the Spaniards--immediately ceased their row the whole lot of them would be quicklysubjected to certain dreadful pains and penalties which I butimperfectly understood. The threat, however, had the desired effect ofquieting our prisoners, who promptly subsided into silence.

  It was a somewhat difficult matter to get so big a ship under way in therather thickly crowded anchorage, and we were obliged at the outset tomake a rather long and complicated stern-board, which entailed two orthree very narrow shaves of fouling one or another of the craft thatwere in our way. The sky, however, was clearing fast, the stars wereshining brightly through great and rapidly increasing rifts in theclouds and affording us enough light to see what we were about;moreover, the land breeze was piping up strong, and whistling shrillythrough our rigging, so that as soon as we were able to swing the yardsand get headway upon the lumbering old wagon of a craft, we managed wellenough, and contrived to scrape clear of everything; and that, too,without attracting any very serious amount of attention, only one hail--and that, apparently, from somebody more than half drunk--saluting us aswe glided with a slow and stately movement out of the anchorage towardthe somewhat contracted passage between the island of Tierra Bomba andthe Main.

  Once fairly clear of the anchorage, and the shipping that encumbered it,we crowded sail upon the old hooker, and were soon booming down towardthe chain of shoals at the rate of fully seven knots. And now Hoardonce more made himself useful by undertaking to pilot us through theshoals, which he did very successfully, hugging Brujas Island prettyclosely, and then bearing almost square away for the Boca Chica channe
l.A short half-hour sufficed to carry us to the inner end of it; and hereour utmost vigilance was called into play in the navigation of thesharply-winding passage. But we managed to achieve it successfully, allstill being dark and silent in the San Fernando battery as we passed it,and after an anxious ten minutes I had the satisfaction of feeling_Nostra Senora del Carmen_ rising and falling ponderously upon the swellof the open Caribbean.

  In anticipation of the possibility that we might be pursued, I nowshaped a course due west, right off the land, that being, in my opinion,the direction in which we were least likely to be looked for, and whenwe had been running to leeward for about half an hour, and had made anoffing of nearly four miles, I burned three portfires simultaneously asa preconcerted signal to the schooner that all was well and that she wasto follow us, and an hour later she came foaming up on our weatherquarter and hailed us. We now hove-to and sent alongside her the boatsthat had hitherto been towing astern; and as soon as they were hoistedin we both filled away once more, still standing straight off the land,so that when day dawned I had the satisfaction of finding that we hadrun the coast out of sight.

  We had, of course, long ere this secured our prisoners, numbering in alltwo hundred and twenty-six men, and now the problem was how to get ridof them; for I did not at all care to have so many men aboard who wouldrequire to be constantly watched in order that they might not rise uponand overpower us at some unguarded moment. Happily, the problem wassoon solved; for about noon we sighted a trading felucca, bound fromPorto Bello to Santa Marta, which the schooner brought to, and as sheproved to be a fine, roomy craft I hove-to, lowered the boats, andtranshipped our prisoners into her, despite the protests of her unhappycaptain, who called all the saints to witness that the food he had onboard would not suffice to feed so many men more than a couple of daysat most. This objection I met by pointing out to him that he could bearup for Tolu, on the Gulf of Morrosquillo, which he could easily fetch intwenty-four hours, and so left him to settle the matter in whichever wayseemed best to him.

  As soon as we had parted company with the felucca, and were fairly underway again, I set to work to search for the treasure, of the actualpresence of which on board I had as yet had no time to satisfy myself.Hoard was of opinion that it would be found stowed away in a strong-roombeneath the cabin deck, in the position usually occupied by thelazarette, and there, sure enough, I found such a room--a solidly builtstructure of hard timber, fully six inches thick, plated with iron, thedoor being secured by three massive iron bars passed through thick ironbands, and secured at either end by heavy iron padlocks, six in all, thekeyholes of which were sealed with great seals the size of the palm ofmy hand. These seals I broke without a particle of hesitation orreverence for the great personage who had caused them to be placedthere, and then instituted a hunt for the keys, which resulted, as I hadfeared it would, in failure. The keys were doubtless at that moment atCartagena, in the possession of the unfortunate captain of the ship, orin the hands of the official to whose custody the treasure had beenconfided. There was nothing for it, therefore, but to set the armourerto work upon the padlocks, and by dint of hard work he managed to getthem off and the door open by eight bells in the afternoon watch.

  The room, when opened, proved to be an apartment measuring about fivefeet each way, and it was lined inside as well as outside, with thicksheets of iron. But it was more than half full of gold ingots; that isto say the ingots were packed in rows of twenty each athwart the room.There were five rows of twenty each, constituting a tier, and the ingotswere stored eight tiers high; so that, if the lower tiers contained thesame number of ingots as the top tier, as was pretty certain to be thecase, there were eight hundred ingots of solid gold, each weighingapproximately half a hundredweight! the ingots being made uniformly ofthis size and weight in order that they might be convenientlytransported from the mines to the coast by means of trains of Indians.I was struck dumb with astonishment and admiration as I stood gazing atthe pile of dingy packages, each ingot being tightly sewn up in awrapper of raw hide. I could scarcely believe my eyes for the moment.Twenty tons of gold! Why, there was a fabulous fortune before me! Ireckoned its value roughly, and found that, at the then ruling price ofgold, the value of the packages before me approximated well on towardthree millions sterling.

  Nor was this all. There was a heavy, oaken, iron-bound case, measuringabout two feet square by about a foot and a half high. This, Ipresumed, contained the uncut gems which Hoard had told me were to besent home in this lumbering old treasure-tub. Man alive! when I came torealise in a measure the approximate value of all this wealth, I tellyou I was frightened; fairly terrified to think that I was nowresponsible for it all. For upon me devolved the task of conveying thisenormous wealth safely across the ocean and delivering it into the handsof my owner, to be by him subdivided into the shares to which each of uswas entitled. I believe I never realised so vividly as at that momentthe manifold perils of the sea: the peril of fire, of tempest, ofshipwreck, and of the enemy. And to think that it had all beenintrusted to a bottom that, under the most favourable circumstances,could hardly be expected to get up a speed of ten knots, and thatconsequently was open to capture by the first fast-sailing picaroon thathappened to fall in with her. It was positively frightful to merelycontemplate such a very likely eventuality. "But, thank goodness,"thought I, "that danger is easily provided against!" And, going ondeck, I immediately ordered the ship to be hove-to, and the launchhoisted out, and I also signalled the schooner to close.

  It was a lovely evening; the water quite smooth, and a gentle westerlybreeze blowing. I determined, therefore, to seize that opportunity totransfer the whole of the treasure to the _Sword Fish_, in the hold ofwhich craft I considered it would be far safer than where it was then.And, that done, I determined to make my way, first to Jamaica, to pickup a few more hands to help in working the galleon, and then to make thebest of my way home without risking the loss of all by engaging in anymore fighting, however tempting might be the opportunity. The men wentto work cheerily; easily divining my motive for transhipping thetreasure, and being, of course, each in his own degree, as anxious forits safety as I was. Moreover, the galleon's launch was a fine big lumpof a boat; so we managed to tranship the whole and get it safely stowedaway before sundown. That night I resumed command of the schooner, andturned the command of the galleon over to Saunders, who was a thoroughlysteady, reliable fellow.

  At midnight, as arranged by me prior to leaving the galleon, both crafthauled up to the northward for Jamaica, and we then found that--so slowwas the galleon, with the wind anywhere but on her quarter--theschooner, under mainsail, stay foresail, and jib, was quite able to keeppace with her even when she was carrying topgallant-sails, above whichthe galleon set nothing. This promised a long, wearisome voyage acrossthe Atlantic, and doubly justified me in transhipping the treasure tothe schooner. Nevertheless I looked forward with a great deal of prideto the day when I should take the prize into Weymouth harbour. It wasearly days, however, to think of that as yet, for there was the whole ofthe Atlantic and two-thirds of the Caribbean between ourselves and home,with who could say how many chances of shipwreck or capture before thatdistance could be traversed.

  And, as though to enforce the recollection of the latter contingencymore effectively upon us, the dawn next morning revealed a long, snake-like two-masted craft hovering some five miles to windward, which I byand by made out to be one of those pestilent war-galleys which were aptto prove such formidable antagonists, and to give so much trouble insuch moderate weather as we were then experiencing. I judged that thisgalley, which was under sail when first sighted, had come out fromCartagena in search of us, and from the fact that she did not at oncebear down upon us, but hung persistently to windward, I conjectured thatshe was not alone, that she had one or more consorts somewhere towindward, and that, upon fully identifying the galleon, she would lowerher sails, out sweeps, and be off to windward for help to tackle us.This I was most anxious to preve
nt, if possible, and after consideringawhile I hit upon a plan which I thought might serve. I accordinglyclosed with the galleon, and ordered Saunders to at once bear up beforethe wind and run away to leeward, piling all the sail possible upon theold tub, to convey the impression that he was terribly frightened, andwas exceedingly anxious to escape recapture. At the same time all sailwas crowded upon the schooner, the precaution being taken, however, totow an old spare foresail overboard, abreast the lee gangway, which hadthe effect of causing the schooner to sail as if she were water-logged.I also shaped a course with the schooner diverging about four pointsfrom that of the galleon.

  The latter now, of course, ran away from us, hand over hand; while nowthe galley manifested a disposition to edge down a little and get anearer look at us both. This was precisely what I wanted, my hope beingthat our precipitate retreat would be construed by the Spaniards as asign of weakness and fear on our part, and that the commander of thegalley would thus be inveigled into attempting the recapture of thegalleon single-handed, instead of sharing the honour with his consorts.I anticipated that, if he should yield to my blandishments, he wouldmake a dash straight for the galleon without troubling himself about theschooner, the sluggish movements of which would render her in his eyesan altogether contemptible adversary, utterly beneath his notice, andonly to be tackled and submitted to an exemplary punishment after therecapture of the galleon had been achieved. And, should I prove correctin this line of reasoning, he would run away to leeward after thegalleon, when I should have him exactly where I wanted him, namely, toleeward of the schooner, when it would be my business to see that he didnot again get to windward of us.