CHAPTER XVI. THE TRAP
That affair of Mademoiselle d'Ogeron bore as its natural fruit animprovement in the already cordial relations between Captain Bloodand the Governor of Tortuga. At the fine stone house, with itsgreen-jalousied windows, which M. d'Ogeron had built himself in aspacious and luxuriant garden to the east of Cayona, the Captain becamea very welcome guest. M. d'Ogeron was in the Captain's debt for morethan the twenty thousand pieces of eight which he had provided formademoiselle's ransom; and shrewd, hard bargain-driver though he mightbe, the Frenchman could be generous and understood the sentiment ofgratitude. This he now proved in every possible way, and under hispowerful protection the credit of Captain Blood among the buccaneersvery rapidly reached its zenith.
So when it came to fitting out his fleet for that enterprise againstMaracaybo, which had originally been Levasseur's project, he did notwant for either ships or men to follow him. He recruited five hundredadventurers in all, and he might have had as many thousands if he couldhave offered them accommodation. Similarly without difficulty he mighthave increased his fleet to twice its strength of ships but that hepreferred to keep it what it was. The three vessels to which he confinedit were the Arabella, the La Foudre, which Cahusac now commanded with acontingent of some sixscore Frenchmen, and the Santiago, which had beenrefitted and rechristened the Elizabeth, after that Queen of Englandwhose seamen had humbled Spain as Captain Blood now hoped to humble itagain. Hagthorpe, in virtue of his service in the navy, was appointed byBlood to command her, and the appointment was confirmed by the men.
It was some months after the rescue of Mademoiselle d'Ogeron--in Augustof that year 1687--that this little fleet, after some minor adventureswhich I pass over in silence, sailed into the great lake of Maracayboand effected its raid upon that opulent city of the Main.
The affair did not proceed exactly as was hoped, and Blood's force cameto find itself in a precarious position. This is best explained in thewords employed by Cahusac--which Pitt has carefully recorded--in thecourse of an altercation that broke out on the steps of the Churchof Nuestra Senora del Carmen, which Captain Blood had impiouslyappropriated for the purpose of a corps-de-garde. I have said alreadythat he was a papist only when it suited him.
The dispute was being conducted by Hagthorpe, Wolverstone, and Pitt onthe one side, and Cahusac, out of whose uneasiness it all arose, on theother. Behind them in the sun-scorched, dusty square, sparsely fringedby palms, whose fronds drooped listlessly in the quivering heat, surgeda couple of hundred wild fellows belonging to both parties, their ownexcitement momentarily quelled so that they might listen to what passedamong their leaders.
Cahusac appeared to be having it all his own way, and he raisedhis harsh, querulous voice so that all might hear his truculentdenunciation. He spoke, Pitt tells us, a dreadful kind of English, whichthe shipmaster, however, makes little attempt to reproduce. His dresswas as discordant as his speech. It was of a kind to advertise histrade, and ludicrously in contrast with the sober garb of Hagthorpeand the almost foppish daintiness of Jeremy Pitt. His soiled andblood-stained shirt of blue cotton was open in front, to cool his hairybreast, and the girdle about the waist of his leather breeches carriedan arsenal of pistols and a knife, whilst a cutlass hung from a leatherbaldrick loosely slung about his body; above his countenance, broad andflat as a Mongolian's, a red scarf was swathed, turban-wise, about hishead.
"Is it that I have not warned you from the beginning that all was tooeasy?" he demanded between plaintiveness and fury. "I am no fool, myfriends. I have eyes, me. And I see. I see an abandoned fort at theentrance of the lake, and nobody there to fire a gun at us when we camein. Then I suspect the trap. Who would not that had eyes and brain? Bah!we come on. What do we find? A city, abandoned like the fort; a city outof which the people have taken all things of value. Again I warn CaptainBlood. It is a trap, I say. We are to come on; always to come on,without opposition, until we find that it is too late to go to seaagain, that we cannot go back at all. But no one will listen to me. Youall know so much more. Name of God! Captain Blood, he will go on, and wego on. We go to Gibraltar. True that at last, after long time, we catchthe Deputy-Governor; true, we make him pay big ransom for Gibraltar;true between that ransom and the loot we return here with some twothousand pieces of eight. But what is it, in reality, will you tell me?Or shall I tell you? It is a piece of cheese--a piece of cheese in amousetrap, and we are the little mice. Goddam! And the cats--oh, thecats they wait for us! The cats are those four Spanish ships of war thathave come meantime. And they wait for us outside the bottle-neck of thislagoon. Mort de Dieu! That is what comes of the damned obstinacy of yourfine Captain Blood."
Wolverstone laughed. Cahusac exploded in fury.
"Ah, sangdieu! Tu ris, animal? You laugh! Tell me this: How do we getout again unless we accept the terms of Monsieur the Admiral of Spain?"
From the buccaneers at the foot of the steps came an angry rumble ofapproval. The single eye of the gigantic Wolverstone rolled terribly,and he clenched his great fists as if to strike the Frenchman, who wasexposing them to mutiny. But Cahusac was not daunted. The mood of themen enheartened him.
"You think, perhaps, this your Captain Blood is the good God. That hecan make miracles, eh? He is ridiculous, you know, this Captain Blood;with his grand air and his...."
He checked. Out of the church at that moment, grand air and all,sauntered Peter Blood. With him came a tough, long-legged Frenchsea-wolf named Yberville, who, though still young, had already won fameas a privateer commander before the loss of his own ship had driven himto take service under Blood. The Captain advanced towards that disputinggroup, leaning lightly upon his long ebony cane, his face shaded by abroad-plumed hat. There was in his appearance nothing of the buccaneer.He had much more the air of a lounger in the Mall or the Alameda--thelatter rather, since his elegant suit of violet taffetas withgold-embroidered button-holes was in the Spanish fashion. But the long,stout, serviceable rapier, thrust up behind by the left hand restinglightly on the pummel, corrected the impression. That and those steelyeyes of his announced the adventurer.
"You find me ridiculous, eh, Cahusac?" said he, as he came to a haltbefore the Breton, whose anger seemed already to have gone out of him."What, then, must I find you?" He spoke quietly, almost wearily. "Youwill be telling them that we have delayed, and that it is the delay thathas brought about our danger. But whose is the fault of that delay? Wehave been a month in doing what should have been done, and what but foryour blundering would have been done, inside of a week."
"Ah ca! Nom de Dieu! Was it my fault that...."
"Was it any one else's fault that you ran your ship La Foudre aground onthe shoal in the middle of the lake? You would not be piloted. You knewyour way. You took no soundings even. The result was that we lost threeprecious days in getting canoes to bring off your men and your gear.Those three days gave the folk at Gibraltar not only time to hear of ourcoming, but time in which to get away. After that, and because of it,we had to follow the Governor to his infernal island fortress, and afortnight and best part of a hundred lives were lost in reducing it.That's how we come to have delayed until this Spanish fleet is fetchedround from La Guayra by a guarda-costa; and if ye hadn't lost La Foudre,and so reduced our fleet from three ships to two, we should even now beable to fight our way through with a reasonable hope of succeeding.Yet you think it is for you to come hectoring here, upbraiding us for asituation that is just the result of your own ineptitude."
He spoke with a restraint which I trust you will agree was admirablewhen I tell you that the Spanish fleet guarding the bottle-neck exitof the great Lake of Maracaybo, and awaiting there the coming forthof Captain Blood with a calm confidence based upon its overwhelmingstrength, was commanded by his implacable enemy, Don Miguel de Espinosay Valdez, the Admiral of Spain. In addition to his duty to his country,the Admiral had, as you know, a further personal incentive arising outof that business aboard the Encarnacion a year ago, and the death ofhis brother Don Diego;
and with him sailed his nephew Esteban, whosevindictive zeal exceeded the Admiral's own.
Yet, knowing all this, Captain Blood could preserve his calm inreproving the cowardly frenzy of one for whom the situation had not halfthe peril with which it was fraught for himself. He turned from Cahusacto address the mob of buccaneers, who had surged nearer to hear him, forhe had not troubled to raise his voice. "I hope that will correct someof the misapprehension that appears to have been disturbing you," saidhe.
"There's no good can come of talking of what's past and done," criedCahusac, more sullen now than truculent. Whereupon Wolverstone laughed,a laugh that was like the neighing of a horse. "The question is: whatare we to do now?"
"Sure, now, there's no question at all," said Captain Blood.
"Indeed, but there is," Cahusac insisted. "Don Miguel, the SpanishAdmiral, have offer us safe passage to sea if we will depart at once, dono damage to the town, release our prisoners, and surrender all that wetook at Gibraltar."
Captain Blood smiled quietly, knowing precisely how much Don Miguel'sword was worth. It was Yberville who replied, in manifest scorn of hiscompatriot:
"Which argues that, even at this disadvantage as he has us, the SpanishAdmiral is still afraid of us."
"That can be only because he not know our real weakness," was the fierceretort. "And, anyway, we must accept these terms. We have no choice.That is my opinion."
"Well, it's not mine, now," said Captain Blood. "So, I've refused them."
"Refuse'!" Cahusac's broad face grew purple. A muttering from the menbehind enheartened him. "You have refuse'? You have refuse' already--andwithout consulting me?"
"Your disagreement could have altered nothing. You'd have been outvoted,for Hagthorpe here was entirely of my own mind. Still," he went on,"if you and your own French followers wish to avail yourselves of theSpaniard's terms, we shall not hinder you. Send one of your prisoners toannounce it to the Admiral. Don Miguel will welcome your decision, youmay be sure."
Cahusac glowered at him in silence for a moment. Then, having controlledhimself, he asked in a concentrated voice:
"Precisely what answer have you make to the Admiral?"
A smile irradiated the face and eyes of Captain Blood. "I have answeredhim that unless within four-and-twenty hours we have his parole to standout to sea, ceasing to dispute our passage or hinder our departure,and a ransom of fifty thousand pieces of eight for Maracaybo, we shallreduce this beautiful city to ashes, and thereafter go out and destroyhis fleet."
The impudence of it left Cahusac speechless. But among the Englishbuccaneers in the square there were many who savoured the audacioushumour of the trapped dictating terms to the trappers. Laughter brokefrom them. It spread into a roar of acclamation; for bluff is a weapondear to every adventurer. Presently, when they understood it, evenCahusac's French followers were carried off their feet by that wave ofjocular enthusiasm, until in his truculent obstinacy Cahusac remainedthe only dissentient. He withdrew in mortification. Nor was he to bemollified until the following day brought him his revenge. This camein the shape of a messenger from Don Miguel with a letter in whichthe Spanish Admiral solemnly vowed to God that, since the pirates hadrefused his magnanimous offer to permit them to surrender with thehonours of war, he would now await them at the mouth of the lake thereto destroy them on their coming forth. He added that should they delaytheir departure, he would so soon as he was reenforced by a fifth ship,the Santo Nino, on its way to join him from La Guayra, himself comeinside to seek them at Maracaybo.
This time Captain Blood was put out of temper.
"Trouble me no more," he snapped at Cahusac, who came growling to himagain. "Send word to Don Miguel that you have seceded from me. He'llgive you safe conduct, devil a doubt. Then take one of the sloops, orderyour men aboard and put to sea, and the devil go with you."
Cahusac would certainly have adopted that course if only his men hadbeen unanimous in the matter. They, however, were torn between greed andapprehension. If they went they must abandon their share of the plunder,which was considerable, as well as the slaves and other prisonersthey had taken. If they did this, and Captain Blood should afterwardscontrive to get away unscathed--and from their knowledge of hisresourcefulness, the thing, however unlikely, need not be impossible--hemust profit by that which they now relinquished. This was a contingencytoo bitter for contemplation. And so, in the end, despite all thatCahusac could say, the surrender was not to Don Miguel, but to PeterBlood. They had come into the venture with him, they asserted, andthey would go out of it with him or not at all. That was the messagehe received from them that same evening by the sullen mouth of Cahusachimself.
He welcomed it, and invited the Breton to sit down and join the councilwhich was even then deliberating upon the means to be employed. Thiscouncil occupied the spacious patio of the Governor's house--whichCaptain Blood had appropriated to his own uses--a cloistered stonequadrangle in the middle of which a fountain played coolly under atrellis of vine. Orange-trees grew on two sides of it, and the still,evening air was heavy with the scent of them. It was one of thosepleasant exterior-interiors which Moorish architects had introduced toSpain and the Spaniards had carried with them to the New World.
Here that council of war, composed of six men in all, deliberated untillate that night upon the plan of action which Captain Blood put forward.
The great freshwater lake of Maracaybo, nourished by a score of riversfrom the snow-capped ranges that surround it on two sides, is somehundred and twenty miles in length and almost the same distance acrossat its widest. It is--as has been indicated--in the shape of a greatbottle having its neck towards the sea at Maracaybo.
Beyond this neck it widens again, and then the two long, narrow stripsof land known as the islands of Vigilias and Palomas block the channel,standing lengthwise across it. The only passage out to sea for vesselsof any draught lies in the narrow strait between these islands. Palomas,which is some ten miles in length, is unapproachable for half a mileon either side by any but the shallowest craft save at its eastern end,where, completely commanding the narrow passage out to sea, stands themassive fort which the buccaneers had found deserted upon their coming.In the broader water between this passage and the bar, the four Spanishships were at anchor in mid-channel. The Admiral's Encarnacion, which wealready know, was a mighty galleon of forty-eight great guns and eightsmall. Next in importance was the Salvador with thirty-six guns; theother two, the Infanta and the San Felipe, though smaller vessels, werestill formidable enough with their twenty guns and a hundred and fiftymen apiece.
Such was the fleet of which the gauntlet was to be run by Captain Bloodwith his own Arabella of forty guns, the Elizabeth of twenty-six, andtwo sloops captured at Gibraltar, which they had indifferently armedwith four culverins each. In men they had a bare four hundred survivorsof the five hundred-odd that had left Tortuga, to oppose to fully athousand Spaniards manning the galleons.
The plan of action submitted by Captain Blood to that council was adesperate one, as Cahusac uncompromisingly pronounced it.
"Why, so it is," said the Captain. "But I've done things moredesperate." Complacently he pulled at a pipe that was loaded with thatfragrant Sacerdotes tobacco for which Gibraltar was famous, and ofwhich they had brought away some hogsheads. "And what is more, they'vesucceeded. Audaces fortuna juvat. Bedad, they knew their world, the oldRomans."
He breathed into his companions and even into Cahusac some of his ownspirit of confidence, and in confidence all went busily to work. Forthree days from sunrise to sunset, the buccaneers laboured and sweatedto complete the preparations for the action that was to procure themtheir deliverance. Time pressed. They must strike before Don Miguel deEspinosa received the reenforcement of that fifth galleon, the SantoNino, which was coming to join him from La Guayra.
Their principal operations were on the larger of the two sloops capturedat Gibraltar; to which vessel was assigned the leading part in CaptainBlood's scheme. They began by tearing down all bulk
heads, until theyhad reduced her to the merest shell, and in her sides they broke openso many ports that her gunwale was converted into the semblance of agrating. Next they increased by a half-dozen the scuttles in her deck,whilst into her hull they packed all the tar and pitch and brimstonethat they could find in the town, to which they added six barrels ofgunpowder, placed on end like guns at the open ports on her larboardside. On the evening of the fourth day, everything being now inreadiness, all were got aboard, and the empty, pleasant city ofMaracaybo was at last abandoned. But they did not weigh anchor untilsome two hours after midnight. Then, at last, on the first of the ebb,they drifted silently down towards the bar with all canvas furled saveonly their spiltsails, which, so as to give them steering way, werespread to the faint breeze that stirred through the purple darkness ofthe tropical night.
The order of their going was as follows: Ahead went the improvisedfire-ship in charge of Wolverstone, with a crew of six volunteers, eachof whom was to have a hundred pieces of eight over and above his shareof plunder as a special reward. Next came the Arabella. She was followedat a distance by the Elizabeth, commanded by Hagthorpe, with whom wasthe now shipless Cahusac and the bulk of his French followers. The rearwas brought up by the second sloop and some eight canoes, aboard ofwhich had been shipped the prisoners, the slaves, and most of thecaptured merchandise. The prisoners were all pinioned, and guarded byfour buccaneers with musketoons who manned these boats in addition tothe two fellows who were to sail them. Their place was to be in the rearand they were to take no part whatever in the coming fight.
As the first glimmerings of opalescent dawn dissolved the darkness, thestraining eyes of the buccaneers were able to make out the tall riggingof the Spanish vessels, riding at anchor less than a quarter of a mileahead. Entirely without suspicion as the Spaniards were, and renderedconfident by their own overwhelming strength, it is unlikely that theyused a vigilance keener than their careless habit. Certain it is thatthey did not sight Blood's fleet in that dim light until some timeafter Blood's fleet had sighted them. By the time that they had activelyroused themselves, Wolverstone's sloop was almost upon them, speedingunder canvas which had been crowded to her yards the moment the galleonshad loomed into view.
Straight for the Admiral's great ship, the Encarnacion, did Wolverstonehead the sloop; then, lashing down the helm, he kindled from a matchthat hung ready lighted beside him a great torch of thickly plaitedstraw that had been steeped in bitumen. First it glowed, then as heswung it round his head, it burst into flame, just as the slight vesselwent crashing and bumping and scraping against the side of the flagship,whilst rigging became tangled with rigging, to the straining of yardsand snapping of spars overhead. His six men stood at their posts on thelarboard side, stark naked, each armed with a grapnel, four of them onthe gunwale, two of them aloft. At the moment of impact these grapnelswere slung to bind the Spaniard to them, those aloft being intended tocomplete and preserve the entanglement of the rigging.
Aboard the rudely awakened galleon all was confused hurrying, scurrying,trumpeting, and shouting. At first there had been a desperately hurriedattempt to get up the anchor; but this was abandoned as being alreadytoo late; and conceiving themselves on the point of being boarded,the Spaniards stood to arms to ward off the onslaught. Its slowness incoming intrigued them, being so different from the usual tactics of thebuccaneers. Further intrigued were they by the sight of the giganticWolverstone speeding naked along his deck with a great flaming torchheld high. Not until he had completed his work did they begin to suspectthe truth--that he was lighting slow-matches--and then one of theirofficers rendered reckless by panic ordered a boarding-party on to theshop.
The order came too late. Wolverstone had seen his six fellows dropoverboard after the grapnels were fixed, and then had sped, himself,to the starboard gunwale. Thence he flung his flaming torch down thenearest gaping scuttle into the hold, and thereupon dived overboard inhis turn, to be picked up presently by the longboat from the Arabella.But before that happened the sloop was a thing of fire, from whichexplosions were hurling blazing combustibles aboard the Encarnacion, andlong tongues of flame were licking out to consume the galleon, beatingback those daring Spaniards who, too late, strove desperately to cut heradrift.
And whilst the most formidable vessel of the Spanish fleet was thusbeing put out of action at the outset, Blood had sailed in to open fireupon the Salvador. First athwart her hawse he had loosed a broadsidethat had swept her decks with terrific effect, then going on and about,he had put a second broadside into her hull at short range. Leaving herthus half-crippled, temporarily, at least, and keeping to his course,he had bewildered the crew of the Infanta by a couple of shots from thechasers on his beak-head, then crashed alongside to grapple and boardher, whilst Hagthorpe was doing the like by the San Felipe.
And in all this time not a single shot had the Spaniards contrived tofire, so completely had they been taken by surprise, and so swift andparalyzing had been Blood's stroke.
Boarded now and faced by the cold steel of the buccaneers, neither theSan Felipe nor the Infanta offered much resistance. The sight of theiradmiral in flames, and the Salvador drifting crippled from the action,had so utterly disheartened them that they accounted themselvesvanquished, and laid down their arms.
If by a resolute stand the Salvador had encouraged the other twoundamaged vessels to resistance, the Spaniards might well haveretrieved the fortunes of the day. But it happened that the Salvador washandicapped in true Spanish fashion by being the treasure-ship of thefleet, with plate on board to the value of some fifty thousand pieces.Intent above all upon saving this from falling into the hands of thepirates, Don Miguel, who, with a remnant of his crew, had meanwhiletransferred himself aboard her, headed her down towards Palomas and thefort that guarded the passage. This fort the Admiral, in those days ofwaiting, had taken the precaution secretly to garrison and rearm. Forthe purpose he had stripped the fort of Cojero, farther out on the gulf,of its entire armament, which included some cannon-royal of more thanordinary range and power.
With no suspicion of this, Captain Blood gave chase, accompanied bythe Infanta, which was manned now by a prize-crew under the command ofYberville. The stern chasers of the Salvador desultorily returned thepunishing fire of the pursuers; but such was the damage she, herself,sustained, that presently, coming under the guns of the fort, she beganto sink, and finally settled down in the shallows with part of her hullabove water. Thence, some in boats and some by swimming, the Admiral gothis crew ashore on Palomas as best he could.
And then, just as Captain Blood accounted the victory won, and that hisway out of that trap to the open sea beyond lay clear, the fort suddenlyrevealed its formidable and utterly unsuspected strength. With a roarthe cannons-royal proclaimed themselves, and the Arabella staggeredunder a blow that smashed her bulwarks at the waist and scattered deathand confusion among the seamen gathered there.
Had not Pitt, her master, himself seized the whipstaff and put the helmhard over to swing her sharply off to starboard, she must have sufferedstill worse from the second volley that followed fast upon the first.
Meanwhile it had fared even worse with the frailer Infanta. Althoughhit by one shot only, this had crushed her larboard timbers on thewaterline, starting a leak that must presently have filled her, but forthe prompt action of the experienced Yberville in ordering herlarboard guns to be flung overboard. Thus lightened, and listing nowto starboard, he fetched her about, and went staggering after theretreating Arabella, followed by the fire of the fort, which did them,however, little further damage.
Out of range, at last, they lay to, joined by the Elizabeth and the SanFelipe, to consider their position.
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