The Chronicles of Captain Blood cb-2

by Rafael Sabatini

  Brazo Largo came to the point with a directness and economy of words to which his limited knowledge of Spanish constrained him.

  «Usted venir conmigo. Yo llevar usted mucho oro Espanol. Caramba!» said he, in deep, guttural tones. Literally this may be rendered: «You to come with me. I take you much Spanish gold,» with the added vague expletive «Caramba!»

  The blue eyes flashed with interest. And, in the fluent Spanish acquired in less unregenerate days, Captain Blood answered him with a laugh:

  «You are very opportune. Caramba! Where is this Spanish gold?»

  «Yonder.» The cacique pointed vaguely westward. «March ten days.»

  Blood's face grew overcast. Remembering Morgan's exploit across the isthmus, he leapt at a conclusion.

  «Panama?» quoth he.

  But the Indian shook his head, a certain impatience in his sternly wistful features.

  «No. Santa Maria.»

  And he proceeded clumsily to explain that there, on the river of that name, was collected all the gold mined in the mountains of the district for ultimate transmission to Panama. Now was the time when the accumulations were heaviest. Soon the gold would be removed. If Captain Blood desired it — and Brazo Largo knew that there was a prodigious store — he must come at once.

  Of the Indian's sincerity and goodwill towards himself Captain Blood entertained no single doubt. The bitter hatred of Spain smouldering in the breast of all Indians under Spanish rule made them the instinctive allies of any enemy of Spain.

  Captain Blood sat on the locker under the stern windows and looked out over the sun–kissed waters of the lagoon.

  «How many men would be required?» he asked at last.

  «Forty ten, fifty ten, perhaps,» said Brazo Largo, from which the Captain adduced that he meant four or five hundred.

  He questioned him closely as to the nature of the country they would have to cross and the fortifications defending Santa Maria. Brazo Largo put everything in the most favourable light, smoothed away all difficulties, and promised not only himself to guide them, but to provide bearers to convey their gear. And all the time, with gleaming, anxious eyes, he kept repeating to Captain Blood:

  «Much gold. Much Spanish gold. Caramba!»

  So often did he repeat this parrot–cry, and with such obvious intent to allure, that Blood began to ask himself did not this Indian protest too vehemently for utter honesty.

  Pondering him, the Captain voiced his suspicion in a question.

  «You are very eager that we should go, my friend?»

  «Go. Yes. Go you,» the Indian answered. «Spaniards love gold. Guanahani no love Spaniards.»

  «So that you want to spite them? Indeed, you seem to hate them very bitterly.»

  «Hate!» said Brazo Largo. His lips writhed, and he made guttural noises of emphatic affirmation. «Huh! Huh!»

  «Well, well, I must consider.»

  He called the boatswain and delivered the cacique into his care for entertainment.

  A council, summoned by bugle–call from the quarter–deck of the Arabella, was held as soon there after as those concerned were come aboard.

  Assembled about the oak table in the admiral's cabin, they formed a motley group, truly representative of the motley host encamped ashore. Blood, at the table's head, looking like a grande of Spain in the sombre richness of his black and silver, the long ringlets of his sable hair reaching to his collar of fine point; young Jerry Pitt, ingenuous of face, and in plain grey homespun, like the West of England Puritan that he had been; Hagthorpe, stiffly built, stern–faced, wearing showy clothes without grace, looked the simple, downright captain of fortune he was become; Wolverstone, herculean of build, bronzed of skin, and picturesquely untidy of person, with a single eye of a fierceness far beyond his nature, was perhaps the only one whose appearance really sorted with his trade; Mackett and James had the general appearance of mariners; lastly, Yberville, who commanded a French contingent, vying in elegance with Blood, had more the air and manner of a Versailles exquisite than of a leader of desperate and bloody pirates.

  The admiral — for such was the title by now bestowed by his following upon Captain Blood — laid before them the proposal brought by Brazo Largo. He merely added that it came opportunely, inasmuch as they were without immediate plans.

  Opposition sprang naturally enough from those who were, first and foremost, seamen — from Pitt, Mackett, and James. Each in turn dwelt upon the hardships and the dangers attending long overland expeditions. Hagthorpe and Wolverstone, intent upon striking the Spaniard where he most would feel it, favoured the proposal, and reminded the council of Morgan's successful raid upon Panama. Yberville, a French Huguenot proscribed and banished for his faith, and chiefly intent upon slitting the throats of Spanish bigots, wherever and whenever it might be done, proclaimed himself also for the venture in accents as mild and gentle as his words were hot and bloodthirsty.

  Thus stood the council equally divided, and it remained for Blood to cast the vote that should determine the matter. But the admiral hesitated, and in the end resolved to leave the decision to the men themselves. He would call for volunteers, and if their numbers reached the necessary, he would lead them across the isthmus, leaving the others with the ships.

  The captains approving this, they went ashore at once, taking the Indians with them. There Blood harangued the buccaneers, fairly expounding what was to be said for and what against the venture.

  «I myself,» he announced, «have resolved to go if so be that I am sufficiently supported.» And then, after the manner of Pizarro on a similar occasion, he whipped out his rapier, and with the point of it drew a line in the sand. «Let those who choose to follow me across the isthmus, step now to windward of this line.»

  A full half of them responded noisily to his invitation. They included to a man the boucan–hunters from Hispaniola — who were by now amphibious fighters, and the hardiest of all that hardy host — and most of the lumbermen from Campeachy, for whom swamp and jungle had no terrors.

  Brazo Largo, his coppery face aglow with satisfaction, departed to collect his bearers; and he marched them, fifty stalwart savages, into the camp next morning. The adventurers were ready. They were divided into three companies, each commanded respectively by Wolverstone, Yberville — who had shred his fripperies and dressed himself in the leather garb of the hunter — and Hagthorpe.

  In this order they set out, preceded by the Indian bearers, who carried their heavier gear — their tents, six small brass cannons of the kind known as sakers, cans for fireballs, good store of victuals — doughboys and strips of dried turtle — and the medicine–chest. From the decks of the fleet bugles called farewell, and, in pure ostentation, Pitt, who was left in charge, fired a salute from his guns as the jungle swallowed the adventurers.

  Ten days later, having covered a distance of some 160 miles, they encamped within striking distance of their destination.

  The first part of the journey had been the worst, when their way lay over precipitous mountains, laboriously scaled on the one side and almost as laboriously descended on the other. On the seventh they rested in a great Indian village, where dwelt the king or chief cacique of the Indians of Darien, who, informed by Brazo Largo of their object, received and treated them with all honour and consideration. Gifts were exchanged, knives, scissors, and beads on the one side, against plantains and sugarcane on the other; and, reinforced here by scores of Indians, the buccaneers pushed on.

  They came on the morrow to the river of Santa Maria, on which they embarked in a fleet of some seventy canoes of Indian providing. But it was a method of travelling that afforded at first little of the ease it had seemed to promise. All that day and the next they were constrained, at the distance of every stone's cast, to turn out, to haul the boats over shallows or rocks or over trees that had fallen across the channel. At last the navigation grew clearer, and presently, the river becoming broad and deep, the Indians discarded the poles, with which hitherto they had gu
ided the canoes, and took to paddles and oars.

  And so they came at length by night within sakershot of Santa Maria. The town stood on the riverbank a half–mile beyond the next bend.

  The buccaneers proceeded to unload their arms, which were fast lashed to the insides of the canoes, the locks, as well as their cartridge–boxes and powder–horns, well cased and waxed down. Then, not daring to make a fire lest they should betray their presence, they posted sentries, and lay down to rest until daybreak.

  It was Blood's hope to take the Spaniards so completely by surprise as to seize their town before they could put themselves in posture of defence, and so snatch a bloodless victory. This hope, however, was dispelled at dawn, when a distant discharge of musketry, followed by a drum beating frenziedly a travailler within the town, warned the buccaneers that they had not stolen upon the Spaniards as unobserved as they imagined.

  To Wolverstone fell the honour of leading the vanguard, and two score of his men were equipped with firepots — shallow cylindrical cans filled with resin and gunpowder — whilst others bore forward the sakers, which were under the special command of Ogle, the gunner from the Arabella. Next came Hagthorpe's company, whilst Yberville's brought up the rear.

  They marched briskly through the woods to the very edge of the savannah, where, at a distance of perhaps two furlongs, they beheld their Eldorado.

  Its appearance was disappointing. Here was no handsome city of New Spain, such as they had been expecting, but a mere huddle of one–storeyed wooden buildings, thatched with wild cane and palmetto royal, clustering about a church, and defended by a fort. The place existed solely as a receiving station for the gold produced by the neighbouring mountains, and it numbered few inhabitants apart from the garrison and the slaves who worked in the goldfields. Fully half the area occupied by the town was taken up by the mud fort, which, whilst built to front the river, presented its flank to the savannah. For further defence against the very hostile Indians of Darien, Santa Maria was encircled by a stout palisade, some twelve feet high, pierced by loopholes for musketry at frequent intervals.

  Within the town drums had ceased, but a hum of human movement reached the buccaneers as they reconnoitred from the wood's edge before adventuring upon the open ground. On the parapet of the fort stood a little knot of men in morion and corselet. Above the palisade quivered a thin line of smoke, to announce that Spanish musketeers were at their posts with matches ready lighted.

  Blood ordered the sakers forward, having decided to breach the palisade towards the north–east angle, where a storming party would be least attainable by the gunners of the fort. Accordingly, Ogle mounted his battery at a point where a projecting spur of the forest on his left gave him cover. But now a faint easterly breeze beginning to stir carried forward the smoke of their fuses, to betray their whereabouts and invite the speculative fire of the Spanish musketeers. Bullets were already flicking and spattering through the branches about them when Ogle opened with his guns. At that short range it was an easy matter to smash a breach through wooden pales that had never been constructed to resist such weapons. Into that breach, to hold it, rushed the badly–captained Spanish troops. A withering volley from the buccaneers scattered them, whereupon Blood ordered Wolverstone to charge.

  «Fireballs to the van! Scatter as you advance, and keep low. God speed you, Ned! Forward!»

  Forth they leapt at the double, and they were halfway across the open before the Spaniards brought any considerable body of fire to bear upon them. Then they dropped, and lay supine in the short gamma grass until that frenzied musketry had slackened, when they leapt up again, and on at speed before the Spaniards could reload. And meanwhile Ogle had swung his sakers round to the right, and he was freely hurling his five–pound shot into the town on the flank of the advancing buccaneers.

  Seven of Wolverstone's men lay on the ground where they had paused, ten more were picked off, during that second forward rush, and now Wolverstone was at the breach. Over went a score of fireballs to scatter death and terror, and before the Spaniards could recover from the confusion caused by these, the dread enemy was upon them, yelling as they burst through the cloud of smoke and dust.

  Nevertheless, the Spanish commander, a courageous if unimaginative officer named Don Domingo Fuentes, rallied his men so effectively that for a quarter of an hour the battle swayed furiously backwards and forwards in the breach.

  But in a battle of cold steel there were no troops in the world that, in anything approaching equality of numbers, could have stood long against these hardy, powerful, utterly reckless fellows. Gradually, but relentlessly and inevitably, the cursing, screaming Spaniards were borne back by Wolverstone, supported now by the main host, with Blood himself in command.

  Back and back they were thrust, fighting with a wild fury of despair, until the beaten–out line of their resistance suddenly snapped. They broke and scattered, to re–form again, and by a rearguard action gain the shelter of the fort, leaving the buccaneers in possession of the town.

  Within the fort, with the two hundred demoralized survivors of his garrison of three hundred men, Don Domingo Fuentes took counsel, and presently sent a flag of truce to Captain Blood, offering to surrender with the honours of war.

  But this was more than Blood could prudently concede. He knew that his men would probably be drunk before night, and he could not take the risk of having two hundred armed Spaniards in the neighbourhood at such a time. Being, however, averse to unnecessary bloodshed, and eager to make an end without further fighting, he returned a message to Don Domingo, pledging his word that if he would surrender at discretion, no violence should be done to the life or ultimate liberty of the garrison or the inhabitants of Santa Maria.

  The Spaniards piled arms in the great square within the fort, and the buccaneers marched in with banners flying and trumpets blaring. The commander stood forward to make formal surrender of his sword. Behind him were ranged his two hundred disarmed men, and behind these again the scanty inhabitants of the town, who had sought refuge with them. They numbered not more than sixty, amongst whom were perhaps a dozen women, a few negroes, and three friars in the black–and–white habit of Saint Dominic. The black slave population, it was presently ascertained, were at the mines in the mountains, whither they had just returned.

  Don Domingo, a tall, personable man of thirty, in corselet and headpiece of black steel, with a little peaked beard that added length to his long, narrow face, addressed Captain Blood almost contemptuously.

  «I have accepted your word,» he said, «because, although you are a pirate scoundrel and a heretic in every other way dishonourable, you have at least the reputation of observing your pledges.»

  Captain Blood bowed. He was not looking his best. Half the coat had been torn from his back, and he had taken a scalp wound in the battle. But, however begrimed with blood and sweat, dust and gunpowder, his grace of deportment remained unimpaired.

  «You disarm me by your courtesy,» said he.

  «I have no courtesies for pirate rogues,» answered the uncompromising Castilian. Whereupon Yberville, that fierce hater of all Spaniards, thrust himself forward, breathing hard, but was restrained by Captain Blood.

  «I am waiting,» Don Domingo intrepidly continued, «to learn your detestable purpose here; to learn why you, the subject of a nation at peace with Spain, dare to levy war upon Spaniards.»

  Blood laughed.

  «Faith, now, it's just the lure of gold, which is as potent with pirates as with more respectable scoundrels all the world over — the very lure that has brought you Spaniards to plant this town conveniently near the goldfields. To be plain, Captain, we've come to relieve you of the season's yield, and as soon as ye've handed it over we'll relieve you also of our detestable presence.»

  The Spaniard laughed, and looked round at his men as if inviting them to laugh with him. «To be sure, you conceive me a fool!» he said.

  «Far from it. I'm hoping, for your own sake, that ye're not.»
<
br />   «Do you think that, forewarned as I was of your coming, I kept the gold at Santa Maria?» He was derisive. «You are too late, Captain Blood. It is already on its way to Panama. We embarked it in canoes during the night, and sent a hundred men to guard it. That is how my garrison comes to be depleted, and that is why I have not hesitated to surrender.»

  He laughed again, observing Blood's rueful countenance.

  A gust of rage swept through the ranks of the buccaneers pressing behind their leader. The news had run as swiftly as flame over gunpowder, and with similar effect in the explosion it produced. With yells of execration and sinister baring of weapons, they would have flung themselves upon the Spanish commander, who — in their view — had cheated them, and they would have torn him there and then to pieces, had not Blood swung round and made of his own body a shield for Don Domingo.

  «Hold!» he commanded, in a voice that blared like a trumpet. «Don Domingo is my prisoner, and I have pledged my word that he shall suffer no violence!»

  Yberville it was who fiercely voiced the common thought.

  «Will you keep faith with a Spanish dog who has cheated us? Let him be hanged!»

  «It was his duty, and I'll have no man hanged for doing no more than that!»

  For a moment Blood's voice was drowned in uproar. But he stood his ground impassively, his light eyes stern, his hand upheld, imposing some measure of restraint upon them.

  «Silence, there, and listen! You are wasting time. The harm is far from being beyond repair. The gold has but a few hours' start. You, Yberville, and you, Hagthorpe, re–embark your companies at once, and follow. You should come up with them before they reach the Gulf, but even if you don't, it is still a far cry to Panama, and you'll overtake them long before they're in sight of it. Away with you! Wolverstone's company will await your return here with me.»

  It was the only thing that could have stayed their fury and prevented a massacre of the unarmed Spaniards. They did not wait to be told a second time, but poured out of the fort and out of the town faster than they had poured into it. The only grumblers were the six score men of Wolverstone's company who were bidden to remain behind. They locked up the Spaniards, all together, in one of the long pent–houses that made up the interior of the fort. Then they scattered about the little town in quest of victuals and such loot as there might be.