The Rover's Secret: A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba

by Harry Collingwood

  CHAPTER EIGHT.

  LA GUAYRA.

  After breakfast that morning the men were mustered on the quarter-deck;and Farmer, with some half a dozen of the other mutineers, discussed intheir presence and hearing the question of what should be done with theship now that they had her. There was, of course, a great deal of wildtalk, especially among the foreigners--of whom, most unfortunately forthe ill-fated officers of the ship, there were far too many on board--and at one period of the discussion it seemed by no means improbablethat the frigate would be converted into a pirate, in which event therecan be no doubt but that, for a time at least, she would have proved aterrible scourge to all honest navigators in those seas. Farmer,however, was strongly in favour of going over to the Spaniards; and inthe end his counsels prevailed, though he met with a great deal ofopposition.

  This point settled, the ship's head was laid to the southward; andsunrise on the fourth morning succeeding the mutiny found us off LaGuayra, with a flag of truce flying. The signal was duly observed andanswered from the shore; upon which the gig was lowered, and, with awhite flag floating from her ensign staff, her crew in their holidayrig, and Farmer with three other ringleaders of the mutiny in her stern-sheets, she shoved off for the harbour. She was absent for the greaterpart of the day, it being seven bells in the afternoon watch before shewas observed pulling out of the harbour again; and when she made herappearance it was at once observed that she was accompanied by severalheavy launches full of men. It took the flotilla fully an hour to pulloff to us, and when they reached the frigate it was seen that theoccupants of the shore-boats were Spanish seamen, with a sprinkling ofofficers among them. On coming alongside the entire rabble at onceboarded; the ship was formally handed over by Farmer to an officer in aresplendent uniform, whose first act was to direct one of his aides tostrike the white flag and hoist the Spanish ensign at the peak; and thesurviving officers--five of us in number--were then mustered and orderedinto one of the boats alongside. We were compelled to bundle down overthe side just as we were, without a single personal belonging, orarticle of clothing except what we stood in; and, the boat being mannedby some twenty as bloodthirsty-looking desperadoes as I ever clappedeyes on, we were forthwith pulled ashore and at once marched off toprison.

  It was dark by the time that we reached the harbour; we wereconsequently unable to see much of the place that night beyond the factthat it lay at the base of a lofty range of hills. We were received atthe landing-place by a party of soldiers with fixed bayonets, who hadevidently been awaiting our arrival, and, escorted by them, we arrived--after a march of about a mile--at the gates of a most forbidding-lookingedifice constructed of heavy blocks of masonry, and which had all theappearance of being a fortress. Passing through the gloomy gateway--which was protected by a portcullis--we found ourselves in a large openpaved courtyard, across which we marched to a door on the opposite side.Entering this door, we wheeled to the right and passed along a widestone passage which conducted us to a sort of guard-room. We were herereceived by a lanky, cadaverous-looking individual with a shrivelledyellow parchment skin, hands like the claws of a vulture, piercing blackeyes, and grizzled locks and moustache, who, with but scant courtesy,took down the name and rank of each of us in a huge battered volume;after which we were conducted through another long echoing passage, andfinally ushered into a sort of hall, about sixty feet long by forty feetwide, with a lofty stone groined roof, and six high, narrow, lancet-shaped windows in each of the two longer walls. These windows wesubsequently found were closely grated on the outside with heavy ironbars. The moment that we crossed the threshold the heavy oaken door wasclosed and barred upon us, and we were left to shift for ourselves asbest we could.

  The first thing of which I was distinctly conscious on entering the hallwas the volume of sound which echoed from the walls and the groinedroof. Singing, laughter, conversation, altercation were all going on atthe same moment at the utmost pitch of the human voice, and apparentlywith the whole strength of the assembled company, which, after winkingand blinking like an owl for several moments, I succeeded in dimlymaking out through the dense cloud of suffocating smoke which pervadedthe place, and which appeared to emanate from a wood fire burning on thepavement at the far end of the hall, and from some three or four flaringoil lamps which were suspended from nails driven into the walls betweenthe joints of the masonry.

  It was a minute or two before any of the noisy company appeared tonotice us. At length, however, one man, rising to his feet and shadinghis eyes with his hand as he looked in our direction, ejaculated:

  "Who have we here? More companions in misfortune?"

  Then advancing with outstretched hand he exclaimed uproariously:

  "What cheer, my hearties? Welcome to Equality Hall!"

  Then, as he for the first time noticed our uniforms, he muttered:

  "Why, dash my old frizzly wig if they ain't navy gents!" adding in amuch more respectful tone of voice: "Beg pardon, gentlemen, I'm sure,for my familiarity. Didn't notice at first what you was. Come forwardinto the range of the light and bring yourselves to an anchor. I'mafraid you'll find these but poor quarters, gentlemen, after what you'vebeen used to aboard a man-o'-war. And you'll find us a noisy lot too;but the fact is we're just trying to make the best of things here,trying to be as happy as we can under the circumstances, as you may say.Here, you unmannerly lubbers," he continued, addressing a group whowere sprawling at full length on a rough wooden bench, "rouse out ofthat and make room for your betters."

  The men scrambled to their feet and made way for us good-naturedlyenough; and we seated ourselves on the vacated bench, feeling--at leastI may answer for myself--forlorn enough in the great dingy, dirty,comfortless hole into which we had been so unceremoniously thrust. Ournew friend seated himself alongside Mr Southcott, and, first informingthat gentleman that the company in which we found ourselves were thecrews of sundry British merchantmen which had been captured by theSpaniards, and that he was the ex-chief mate of a tidy little Liverpoolbarque called the _Sparkling Foam_, proceeded to inquire into thecircumstances which had led to our captivity. The account of the mutinywas received by the party, most of whom had gathered round to listen toit, with expressions of the most profound abhorrence and indignation,which were only cut short by the appearance of a sergeant and a file ofsoldiers bearing the evening's rations, which were served out raw, to beimmediately afterwards handed over to a black cook who answered to thename of "Snowball," and who had good-naturedly constituted himself thecook of the party. The rations, which included a portion for usnewcomers, consisted of a small modicum of meat, a few vegetables, atolerably liberal allowance of coarse black bread, and water _adlibitum_. The little incident of the serving out of rations having cometo an end, and the sergeant having retired with his satellites, ourfriend of the _Sparkling Foam_--whose name, it transpired, was BenjaminRogers--resumed his conversation with us by proceeding to "put us up toa thing or two."

  "I've no doubt, gentlemen," he said, "but what you'll be asked to giveyour parole to-morrow, if you haven't already--you haven't, eh? well, somuch the better; you'll be asked to-morrow. Now, if you'll take myadvice you won't give it; if you do, you'll simply be turned adrift intothe town to shift for yourselves and find quarters where you can. Ifyou've got money, and plenty of it, you might manage to rub along prettywell for a time; but when your cash is gone where are you? Why, simplynowheres. Now, this is a roughish berth for gentlemen like you, I'llallow; but within the last few days we've been marched out every morningand set to work patching up an old battery away out here close to thebeach, and we've been kept at it all day, so that we get plenty of freshair and exercise, and merely have to ride it out here during the night.There's only some half-a-dozen soldiers sent out to watch us; and it'smy idea that it might be no such very difficult matter to give thesechaps the slip some evening, and at nightfall make our way down to theharbour, seize one of the small coasting craft which seem to be alwaysthere, and make sail for Ja
maica. At least that's my notion, gentlemen;you are welcome to it for what it's worth, and can think it over."

  We thanked our new friend for his advice, which we followed so far as tothink and talk it over before stowing ourselves away for the night uponthe bundle of straw which constituted the sole apology for a bed andcovering allowed us by the Spaniards.

  Mr Southcott, the master, was indignant beyond measure at the scurvytreatment thus meted out to us as prisoners of war, and talked a greatdeal about the representations he intended to make to the authoritieswith regard to it; but in the meantime he decided to give his parole, inthe hope of a speedy exchange, and strongly recommended us to do thesame. He was possessed of a little money, it seemed, which he had takenthe precaution of secreting about his person immediately on the shipmaking the land, in anticipation of his speedily finding a use for it;and this money he most generously offered to share with us as far as itwould go. To this, however, none of us would listen; and as we werewholly without means the only alternative left to us was to refuse ourparole, and put up as best we could with such board and lodging as theSpaniards might be disposed to give us, and to bend all our energies tothe accomplishment of a speedy escape. As for me, I still held in vividremembrance the statement which my father had made to me on the eve ofmy departure for school, and the caution he had given me againstexpecting any assistance from him after I had once fairly entered uponmy career; and I resolved to endure the worst that could possibly befallme rather than act upon a suggestion which the master threw out, to theeffect that possibly someone might be found in the town willing to cash(for a heavy premium) a draft of mine upon my father.

  Rogers' expectation that we should be asked for our parole was verifiednext morning; and Southcott, giving his, bade us a reluctant farewellafter a further ineffectual effort to persuade us to reconsider ourdecision. Finding that we were not to be persuaded he bade us takeheart and keep up our spirits, as his very first task should be to makesuch representations to the authorities as must result in a very speedyand considerable amelioration of our condition. We parted with manyexpressions of mutual regret; and that was the last any of us ever sawof the poor fellow, nor were our subsequent inquiries as to what hadbecome of him in the slightest degree successful.

  As for us who remained, upon our explaining, through the medium of avery inefficient interpreter, that the lack of means to supportourselves precluded the possibility of our giving our parole upon theterms offered us, we were brusquely informed that we must then becontent to be classed among the common prisoners, to put up with theiraccommodation, and to take part in the tasks allotted to them. We werethen abruptly dismissed, and, without further ceremony, marched off tothe scene of our labours, which we found to be the fort mentioned byRogers--an antiquated structure in the very last stage of dilapidation,which it was the task of the prisoners to repair.

  To be obliged to work was, after all, no very great hardship. We werein the fresh open air all day, which was infinitely better thanconfinement between four walls, even had those walls inclosed a fargreater measure of comfort than was to be found within the confines ofour prison-house. The physical exertion kept us in a state of excellenthealth, and consequently in fairly good spirits; the labour, though ofanything but an intellectual character, kept our minds sufficientlyemployed to prevent our brooding over our ill fortune; we were allowedto take matters pretty easily so long as we did not dawdle too much, andthus entail upon our lounging guard the unwelcome necessity ofscrambling to their feet and hunting up our whereabouts; our dailylabours brought with them just that amount of fatigue which ensuredsound sleep and a happy oblivion of the dirt and manifold discomforts ofour night quarters; and finally, there was the prospect that at anymoment some lucky chance might favour our escape.

  Four days from the date of our incarceration the muster-roll of theprison was increased by the addition of the names of half a dozenSpanish smugglers, who had been captured a few miles up the coast by oneof the guarda-costas and brought into La Guayra. They were a rough,reckless-looking set of vagabonds; but their looks were the worst partof them, for they all turned out to be gay, jovial spirits enough,taking their reverse of fortune with the utmost nonchalance, and havinga laugh and a jest for everything and everybody, the guards included,with whom they soon became upon the most amicable terms. One of thesemen, a fellow named Miguel--I never learned his other name--was attachedto the gang of labourers to which I belonged; and though I fought rathershy of him for a time his hearty good-nature and accommodatingdisposition soon overcame my reserve, and I gradually grew to be on thebest of terms with him. He could speak a word or two of English, and,seeming to have taken a fancy to me, he would strike up a conversationwith me as often as the opportunity offered, much to his own amusementand mine, since we rarely succeeded in comprehending each other. Theseefforts at conversation, however, inspired me with the idea that thisman's companionship afforded me an opportunity to acquire a knowledge ofSpanish, which could not fail to be of service to me; and this idea I atlength with some difficulty succeeded in conveying to my smugglerfriend. He pantomimically expressed himself as charmed with thesuggestion, which he intimated might be improved upon by my undertakingin return to teach him English; and, a satisfactory understanding beingarrived at, we commenced our studies forthwith. We were of courseutterly destitute of all aid from books, and we were therefore compelledto fall back upon the primitive method of pointing out objects to eachother and designating them alternately in English and Spanish, eachrepeating the word until the other had caught its proper pronunciation.From this we advanced to short simple sentences, the meaning of which weconveyed as well as we could by appropriate gestures; and though wesometimes made the most ridiculous mistakes through misunderstanding themeaning of those gestures, yet on the whole we managed tolerably well.The first steps were the most difficult, but every word mastered clearedthe way to the comprehension of two or three others; so that by the timewe had been a couple of months at our studies we found ourselves makingreally satisfactory progress. And when seven months had been thusspent, though neither could speak the language of the other like anative, each could converse in the other's language with tolerablefluency and make himself perfectly understood. I had, long before this,however, after considerable hesitation and cautious feeling of myground, broached to Miguel the question of escape, and had beenconsiderably chagrined to learn from him that, unless aided by friendsoutside the prison, there was hardly the remotest chance of success.The only way in which it could be done was, in his opinion, to obtainshelter and concealment for, say a month, in some family in theimmediate neighbourhood; and _then_, when the scent had grown cold andthe zeal of the pursuers had died away, a dark night and some assistancemight enable one to get safely off the coast. If _he_ were free now, hewas good enough to say, the thing might be managed, for a consideration,without any very great difficulty; but--a shrug of the shoulders and aglance at the prison dress which he was condemned to wear for more thana year longer eloquently enough closed the sentence.

  About this time--or, to speak more definitely, some eight months fromthe date of our landing at La Guayra--a change in our fortunes occurred,which, whilst it had the immediate result of considerably amelioratingCourtenay's and my own condition, was destined to ultimately--but avast!I must not get ahead of my story. It happened in this way. Onemorning after we had been out at work about a couple of hours themilitary engineer who was in charge of our operations rode up to thebattery, accompanied by a very fine, handsome, middle-aged man,evidently also a soldier, for he was attired in an undress militaryuniform.

  "Hillo!" exclaimed Miguel, as he noticed the new arrivals, "what is inthe wind now? That is the commandant of the district with SenorPacheco."

  The appearance of such a notability naturally created a profoundsensation; but we were of course obliged to go on with our work all thesame. The commandant dismounted, and, accompanied by Senor Pacheco,proceeded to make an inspection of the battery, which by th
is time wasbeginning to assume the appearance of a tolerably strong fortification.That done, the sergeant of the guard was summoned, and something in thenature of a consultation ensued, which terminated in Courtenay andmyself being ordered to drop our tools and step forward to where thecommandant was standing.

  The great man regarded us both fixedly for a moment or two, and thensaid, of course in Spanish:

  "I understand that you are two of the officers who were landed here fromthe British frigate _Hermione_?"

  I replied that we were.

  "Well," he said, "I suppose, in that case, you know all about ships, or,at all events, sufficient to be able to construct and rig a few models?"

  I answered that we certainly did.

  "Very well," said he, turning to Senor Pacheco, "in that case they willserve my purpose very well, and you may send them up to the castle atonce. And, as they are, after all, merely a couple of boys, I think weshall run no very great risk of losing them if we arrange for them tostay about the place altogether; what say you?--it will be much moreconvenient for me; and I will find rations and quarters for them; andthey can report themselves periodically at the citadel, if need be."

  Senor Pacheco expressed himself as perfectly satisfied with the proposedarrangement; and we were forthwith instructed to leave work there andthen and make the best of our way to a chateau which was pointed out tous, and which lay embosomed in trees some three miles to the westward ofthe town and about a mile from the shore. We had no packing to do, aswe possessed nothing in the world but the clothes we stood up in--andwhich, by the way, were now in the very last stage of "looped andwindowed raggedness"--so we simply nodded a "good-bye" to such of ourenvious acquaintances as happened to be within saluting range, and atonce set off up the road which we were informed would conduct us to ourdestination.

  Once fairly away from the scene of our late labours, Courtenay and Igave full rein both to our tongues and to our imaginations, discussingand wondering what in the world the commandant could possibly want withship-models; but that, after all was a question which we did not greatlytrouble ourselves to solve; the dominant thought and reflection in ourminds that we were likely to be, for some time at least, absentees fromthe prison and all the discomfort and wretchedness connected with it,and which I have not dwelt upon or attempted to describe for the onesimple reason that it was wholly undescribable. We never thought ofescaping, although we soon found ourselves passing through a thinly-inhabited country where our abandonment of the high-road and concealmentin the neighbouring woods could have been accomplished without theslightest risk of observation; but we had learned by this time thatescape was no such easy matter; it was a something which would have tobe carefully planned beforehand and every possible precaution adopted toensure success, and had we been foolishly tempted to try it then andthere our non-arrival at the chateau would speedily have been reported,with the result that a search would have been instituted, followed byour speedy recapture and ignominious return to the abhorred prison. No;we were very thankful for and very well satisfied with the sudden changein our fortunes which had been so unexpectedly wrought, for, though wecould of course form no very clear idea of what our lot would be in theservice of the commandant, we felt pretty certain it would be mucheasier than what we had been obliged to put up with since our landingfrom the frigate; and, for the rest, we were content to wait and seewhat time had in store for us, whilst we were fully resolved to keep abright lookout for and to take the utmost advantage of any opportunityfor escape which might be opened out to us.

  We had just arrived at a handsome pair of park gates which weconjectured gave admittance to the castle grounds when we were overtakenby the commandant, on horseback. He nodded to us; remarked, "I see youhave found your way all right;" shouted for the ancient custodian toopen the gates; and then, as the heavy iron barriers swung back,dismounted, threw the bridle over his arm, and walked up the long avenuewith us.

  We now had an opportunity to observe him a little more closely than atour first interview; and we found him to be a tall and strikinglyhandsome man, somewhere about fifty years of age, as we judged; withpiercing black eyes which seemed to read one's very thoughts, yet whichwere by no means devoid of amiable expression, and black hair andmoustache thickly dashed with grey. Somewhat to our surprise, we foundthat he could speak English very fairly. His demeanour to us wascharacterised by that lofty stately courtesy peculiar to the oldnobility of Castile (of which province he was a native); and wesubsequently learned that he was as gallant a warrior as he was apolished gentleman, having served with much distinction in various partsof the world. His style and title, we afterwards ascertained, was ElCommandant Don Luis Aguirre Martinez de Guzman; and we speedily foundthat he had a very strong predilection for the English, attributable tothe fact--which ultimately leaked out--that his first and deepest lovehad been won by an English girl, whom, however,--the course of true lovenot running smoothly--he never married.

  As we walked up the noble avenue side by side he questioned us as to ournames, ages, and rank, how long we had been prisoners, and so on; andexpressed his astonishment at the harsh treatment which we had receivedat the hands of the prison authorities. Upon this I thought itadvisable to mention to him our refusal to give our parole, stating asour reason our total lack of funds.

  "Oh, well," he said laughingly, "that need no longer influence you, youknow. You will have free quarters and rations at the castle, inaddition to the remuneration to which you will be entitled for yourservices, so you can give your parole when next you report yourselves atthe citadel, and that will end the matter."

  This, however, would not suit our views at all, though we did not chooseto say so; we therefore changed the subject by asking him what moreparticularly were the services which we should be asked to perform. Hisanswer was to the effect that his especial hobby was the study offortification, respecting which, it seems, he had several rather noveltheories, in the working out and testing of which--and also by way ofamusement--he had constructed the model of a fortified town on theshores of a small lake within the castle grounds; and he had sought ourassistance to enable him to place a fleet of ship-models before thistown, to illustrate his method of overcoming the difficulties attendantupon a state of siege and blockade. By the time that this fancy of hishad been fully explained we had reached the castle--a noble building asto size but of no very great pretensions from an architectural point ofview--and, the major-domo having been summoned, we were handed over tohim with the necessary instructions for our proper housing and so on.