Baret made no response, and Emerald guessed that the emotions ran too deep for either of them to deal wisely with them now. She knew Baret’s father had refused to believe Felix’s treachery in his efforts to gain his half-brother’s right to title and fortune—until Baret had shown him the information provided by Sir Jasper and Carlotta. At least she could think of one good result emerging from his father’s weakened condition: he was unable to search out Felix and confront him. The matter was best left to the High Admiralty—and King Charles.
Baret spoke now. “Most likely the order for Lucca’s death came from Felix, but unless Jasper tells this to the king, we’ve no proof.”
“There’s nothing in the information he gave you about Lucca?”
“Unfortunately, no. But I think I can make him talk. He’s more reason to cooperate now that I’ve helped him and Carlotta escape to Barbados. One way or another, Felix will face justice.”
Emerald glanced at both men and wondered at the uneasiness that crept over her.
“Isn’t Carlotta’s uncle the governor here on Margarita?” she asked suddenly.
As they favored her with a silent glance, she could see they didn’t care to make anything of it.
“What if the governor is expecting you to come for the treasure?” she persisted.
She saw a flicker in Baret’s dark eyes, but his smile remained.
He kissed her forehead and gave her arms an affectionate squeeze. “Enough questions.” He turned toward Royce, who was frowning as he looked down at the drawing of the San Felippe church.
“When do you expect Farrow and Karlton?” he asked.
“By morning,” came Baret’s vague response. And again a look passed between them that only heightened her concerns.
“You must do nothing, Baret, until they arrive,” Royce said.
“It’s unwise to delay. The longer we wait here, the more chance some passing Spanish fisherman will spy our ship. I’ve good men aboard—men I trust implicitly, who are expert swordsmen and bowmen. It would be far wiser to go ashore now—tonight—load the treasure before dawn, and slip away. The Warspite and Madeleine will surely be waiting in the Caribbean.”
“You are sure you know where to find it, then?”
In a low voice Baret went over the location. It was stored in five heavy chests in a crypt deep below the old San Felippe church.
Emerald listened, imagining the wind whining about church ruins, in her imagination hearing the sand blowing. What if there was a trap waiting for Baret? But Baret was not unwise. Surely he knew the possibility of that. Where was Levasseur?
“The uniforms and cleric robe were a good precaution, but you probably won’t need them,” his father was saying in an equally low voice.
“Not need them! There may be at least a dozen Franciscans there! You’re not suggesting the churchmen are friendly!”
Royce gave a bitter laugh. “Hardly, my son, but the church is abandoned. There are no clerics there to deceive with your robes and uniforms.”
By now, Emerald was as surprised as Baret, and Royce had their full attention. She watched the men, wondering at Royce’s smile and Baret’s questioning brow.
“You mean there’s no one there?” Baret asked.
Royce gave a chuckle. “No. How else would I ever be able to hide such rich fare beneath their noses before the Spaniards arrived in their barca longas?”
“Karlton never told me that …” He snatched up the drawing and looked at it again as though seeing the ruins for the first time.
“He could not have told you. He didn’t know the story Lucca told me. We kept it between us. Karlton, bless his soul, knew only that there had been Franciscans on the island.”
As Baret frowned slightly at his father, apparently believing something important had been kept from him all these years, Emerald mulled over the disclosure that her father hadn’t known all the story. Had this been because neither Royce nor Lucca had completely trusted him?
“Ah, my son, I can see you too do not know the tale of Don Felippe,” Royce said with a smile. He gestured to the drawing. “San Felippe Mission was first built nearly a hundred years ago by a noble Spanish soldier from Madrid. Later he turned to the Reformed faith, but when he was killed in battle, the Franciscans who kept the church and the burial ground did not know this. Naturally, they made a great to-do over the don and laid him to rest in the crypt. For many years after his death they meticulously kept the mission grounds and the grave site. Then, as fortune would have it, they found out that this great man had become a heretic. They pronounced the place ‘Ichabod’ and packed up and went into town, where a new San Felippe church was built, using the silver and gold dug by ‘heretic’ slaves working the mines in Peru.
“This location—” he gestured again to the drawing “—was abandoned. As God would have it, my son, there were no Franciscans there at the time of the shipwreck.” His eyes smiled at Baret. “It proved the perfect place to store the treasure, since I knew no decent Spaniard would ever go there again. And no one in the Tortuga Brotherhood knew the church was abandoned. Had our good fortune held out a week longer, we might have secured help from the local Indians and been able to sail away. But, alas, the guarda costa discovered the wreckage of my ship and landed troops.”
“We now know why they were out in force searching for you,” Baret said bitterly, “and who alerted them before the storm ever sank your ship.”
Felix, thought Emerald sadly. He had betrayed his own brother.
A few minutes later Yorke came in. “We spied a barca longa, Cap’n. We was all set to blow ’em out of the water till they gave the secret signal. It’s Farrow and Harwick. They’re coming over the ship’s side right now.”
Relief swelled in Emerald’s heart. Thank You, Father, she prayed.
“We’re in good fortune, then,” Baret told his father. “We’ll take the best men and leave for shore as soon as it’s dark. We’ll be out on the Caribbean sailing for England by sunrise.”
The Warspite and Madeleine waited in broader waters since neither Erik nor her father would risk navigating the reefs at night. They had come to the Regale by small boats, bringing several of their crewmen and having left trusted lieutenants in command of their vessels.
“What took you so long?” inquired Baret when they were aboard.
“A galleon was spotted coming from Cartagena. We wished to avoid suspicion and waited till she was out of sight,” Erik said.
“See anyone else?”
“No, nothing.”
Emerald believed Baret was quietly inquiring about Rafael.
Her father was more open with his words: “If that French nephew of mine shows his face, I’ll carve him for dinner. Well, Emerald!” He threw his sturdy arms about her and pinched her chin, his robust face wearing a bright smile. “And how’s my little lass feeling?”
She looked at him blankly. “Feeling, Papa? Why—I feel well enough. Why do you ask?”
His silvery eyes glinted in the moonlight. “I’m thinking of me upcoming grandson! I’m an impatient man. Any news yet?”
Exasperated, she blushed. “Oh, Papa!”
Baret laughed.
Karlton looked disappointed and sheepish. “Aye, lass, I suppose you’re right. I’ll soon have treasure enough to buy the boy all Foxemoore as a present.” He rubbed his hands together.
Emerald smothered a laugh. “Papa, as Baret’s wife I already own most of Foxemoore.”
“Aye, and a bit of Buckington House too, eh?”
She glanced at Baret and saw his faint smile of amusement.
“Ah … a fair place to settle in me old age,” he said with a sigh.
“If we don’t go ashore to get the treasure and then get away from here,” said Baret lazily, “we may all retire on Margarita—permanently. Why don’t you wait here with my father?” he asked Karlton.
“Ah no, me lad. I’ve been waiting for this day too long to stay aboard now.”
While Erik was o
verseeing the lowering of the longboats, and the choice men were gathered to row ashore to Margarita, Emerald walked with Baret to the ship’s rail. The stars shone in the deep black sky, and below them the water sparkled like diamonds.
His arms went about her, and they stood listening to the waves lapping against the ship’s hull. Despite the confidence he showed, she remained tense and troubled. So many things could go wrong. It was always difficult to be left behind when the one you loved went to the forefront of danger.
She looked up at him, watching the starlight fall on the handsome cut of his jaw. “Even though Lex Thorpe is dead, that still leaves Rafael. How do you know he didn’t follow us from Porto Bello?”
“More than likely he did.”
“You never mentioned that possibility until now. He could ruin everything!”
“My dear, I am well aware of that. But he risks his life just by being here, the same as I do. Rafael is no friend of the Spaniards. He’s attacked numerous galleons, and they would enjoy trapping him and hanging him on the square. He wants that treasure, but he’s clever enough to plan carefully—and that’s what troubles me. I would have expected to see the Venture in these waters, since he must come the same route as we have. Yet he’s nowhere to be seen.”
“What do you mean, you would have expected him?” She plucked at his sleeve, her eyes searching his.
“There’s only one other way onto this island, and that’s openly—by way of the harbor.”
Whatever troubled him was lost to her. “But as you say, he’s no friend of the Spaniards. He would need to come as secretly as we.”
“Yes. Unless something has happened I don’t know about.”
“You mean, he may be lying in wait at sea, even closer to the Atlantic?”
“I don’t know. It’s a thought. I’ve tried to think what I might do if I were in his place. There was a time when Spain’s treasure galleons were not attacked by pirates in the Caribbean at all but near the Canary Islands or off the coast of Portugal as they neared Spain.”
“You don’t think he’s set sail for Europe, do you—to lie in wait? Is that what you would do?”
“Probably … but there is one difference between his thinking and mine. Rafael is impatient. And that’s what makes me think he must be on the island. But I keep wondering how he could have gotten here undetected.”
“Baret, maybe we should wait—and come back for the treasure another time. After all, no one knows where it’s hidden. What are a few more months, or even a year?”
He smiled and cradled her head in his hands. “Only your worry would cause you to even suggest that. No, darling, we’ve got to do it now. Our future in England depends on it. Though I do wish I had a few more days. I would like to search for the Venture, but there is no time. What we do, we must do now. Tonight. Word from Porto Bello will reach this section of the Main soon.”
She held him as though afraid he would slip through her fingers forever. “Maybe Rafael’s ship sank in a storm.”
He laughed. “And maybe he decided he would return in peace to Tortuga and be content to let us sail away to England.”
She laid her head against his chest and closed her eyes. “Oh, Baret, I’m afraid.”
He held her tightly. “The One who has brought us together at last, He remains our one true hope and confidence. We’ll trust Him to see us through this final hour. It will soon be over, and we’ll sail home.” He kissed her long and passionately, then gently pried her hands loose and held her away from him while his eyes spoke his love.
Emerald looked up at him, her eyes moist, not trusting herself to speak. She watched him go over the side of the ship alone, and shivered as though a cold wind blew against her. She gripped the rail and, closing her eyes, prayed fervently.
She listened as the oars sliced through the dark water and the two longboats rowed in the still darkness toward the mainland.
21
TREASURE OF MARGARITA
The boats slipped quietly across the water as oars dipped through the shiny darkness. In the moonlight Baret could make out the outline of the gently curving white sand shoreline. Farther back, palm trees formed a ridge.
Once ashore, while the others dragged the longboats into a tangle of vines to conceal them, Baret climbed a sand dune and stood looking about, the breeze tugging at his Spanish hat. He could see the sloping rise and the outline of what he knew to be the old adobe structure of San Felippe Mission.
A few minutes later his boots were sinking into the dry sand as, accompanied by Erik and Karlton, he walked toward the ruins. All carried their weapons. Yorke, Jeremy, and several others followed.
San Felippe had been built to face the sea. Even as they neared the place, Baret heard the head wind whine like a whimpering dog among the nooks and crannies of its crumbling walls. The once-white cross had long ago tumbled from the sunken roof and lay untouched among the other debris, overrun with vines and bramble.
Karlton’s face tightened. “Many a good man of your father’s crew was cut down on this beach and left to die,” he murmured, and his slitted eyes reflected the distant memory.
Erik, also, took in the still, ghostly scene. But his handsome face revealed none of the emotion that must have passed across his mind.
Baret’s hand rested on his leather baldric. “And to think I’ve been hindered all these years from coming here, not knowing where my father hid it. I could have come and carried it away nearly single-handed, docking the Regale but a quarter mile off the beach.”
Karlton glanced about, then looked toward the ridge of trees. He gestured. “That’s where we hid from the Spaniards … your father left his pistol yonder, then bravely walked to meet the swarming soldiers over there—” He gestured down toward where the water rippled against the flat shoreline.
Baret imagined what it must have been like, but there was no time to muse over the past now. “Come,” he said.
The mission had two-foot-thick mud walls, and they entered through what had been a wooden door frame. Baret half expected to see Levasseur step from the shadows, but only silence greeted them.
He walked across a rough stone floor, avoiding areas where the roof beams had fallen. He came then to a stone lid, which was elevated about six inches off the floor. He knew crypts to be small subterranean vaults often built beneath the main floor of churches, used as burial places and also for secret meetings.
“That’s the entrance, all right,” said Karlton in a low voice. “It took three of us to lift this cover.”
While Yorke and Jeremy stood guard outside, Baret, Erik, and Karlton crouched down and lifted one end of the heavy stone cover, then managed to slide it to one side to reveal the opening. A black cavernlike hole greeted them with stale air.
Baret looked down into the dark environs. Then he and Erik used a flint to light the few candles they had brought with them. They set some on the stone steps as Karlton led the way downward. A golden glow cast light on the walls and stair.
“If my memory of this place serves me as well as my nightmares, five chests wait by the Spaniards’ bones.”
The three entered the airless cavern of shadows. Karlton’s boots sounded on the stone flooring as he cautiously made his way along with Erik just behind. Baret drew his pistol.
“The chests are here just as we left them!” came Karlton’s relieved voice.
Baret joined him, walking past smooth bones. His boots avoided a skull. More than the don had been buried here! And without proper respect.
Karlton and Erik set up the two remaining candles on a low ledge. Baret seized one, then stooped to inspect a metal hasp. It bore the insignia of the Prince Philip and the crown of Spain. The lock of one chest was already broken, and he lifted the lid. Smooth bars of Peruvian silver gleamed invitingly.
Baret found himself remembering the slaves and Indians who had died in the mines to produce it for the Spanish crown. But as he lifted a bar and held it, he also saw his own freedom reflected in its glow�
��and his father’s reputation fully restored with the king.
Erik broke the lock on a second chest, and he and Karlton dipped their fingers through the gold, pearls, and shining jewels—including large bright green emeralds from Brazil.
Baret glanced at Erik’s face, then Karlton’s, and he could see the fire of passion in their eyes. He stood and firmly shut the lid. “Call the men,” he ordered. “The sooner we get this temptation out of sight, the better we’ll all be for it.”
Erik stirred, as though awakening from a trance. “If I had but a handful of this,” he murmured, “I could build a plantation on Jamaica for Minette.”
Baret knew what he meant. Erik had told him he would be going back for her, that one day he would marry her. Baret smiled. “Don’t worry, you’ll have your plantation. Call for Yorke.”
Erik strode to the steps, shouting, “Yorke! Jeremy! Get down here!”
Karlton had turned away, as though bothered by some thought that shamed his conscience. “You’re right, Baret,” he said. “The sooner this is aboard the Regale, the better off we’ll all be. Temptation is something a wise man doesn’t wish to dwell with.”
Within twenty minutes the chests had been hauled up out of the crypt and were being moved by the strongest men down the sandy slope to the beach where the boats waited.
Baret was the last to leave—a boat would wait for him. He felt the need for time alone to meditate on what had happened in this place so long ago. He stood on the rise, looking out toward the sea, enjoying the trade wind that cooled the perspiration on his face. The water rippled in the moonlight.
It seemed that a great burden had at last been lifted from his heart. He watched the figures of the men moving about on the beach, loading the chests. Out in the cove’s quiet water sat the Regale at anchor.
Only one thing seriously troubled him: Where was Levasseur? It seemed incredible that he hadn’t followed them here. Was he waiting at sea between here and the Canary Islands? Had he been killed at Porto Bello? Even if he were dead, what of his crew? There were cunning, greedy men aboard the Venture who knew as much about the treasure as did Levasseur. His lieutenant, for one—a French pirate named Pierre—would surely have trailed them when they set sail from Porto Bello, if …
Buccaneers Series Page 107
