[image]I MADE BOLD TO ACCOST HIM"We wait for a pestilent Englishman, monsieur," he said raspingly, "a sluggard eater of beef, that will come up when the tide fails and expect us to sail against wind and weather to please his almightiness. And he must needs fill the boat with meat enough for a regiment: our provision is not good enough for him.""I would delay for no Englishman alive," I said, "and as for his creature comforts, divide them among your mariners: I will see to it that you suffer nought."Very soon thereafter he did indeed cast off. I responded with a grave salutation to Jean's wafture of his bonnet, and sat me down on a coil of rope to digest as well as I might Ambrose Parey his Latin.We made good passage to Antwerp, where I did not delay to visit the goldsmith upon whom the Count de Sarney's bill of exchange was drawn. He held me in no suspicion, and was vastly serviceable in negotiating with the skipper of a vessel bound for Cadiz, as well as in conducting the other necessary parts of my business. I was some little troubled in my mind what course to pursue with my mariner. I proposed to him that, seeing the risks of my adventure, he should take ship for London, carrying a letter from me to Sir Walter Raleigh, who I made no doubt would find him employment. But he begged me so earnestly to permit him to accompany me that I yielded, though not without misgiving. I showed him that for a runagate slave to venture himself in Cadiz would be a mere running into the lion's jaws, to which he answered that, whereas on the galley his head and face were shaved, he was now as shaggy as a bear, and so would not easily be known of any man, slave or free. Furthermore I showed him how in Spain he could not hope to pass either for a Spaniard or a Frenchman, whereupon, with a readiness that raised him in my estimation, he said that he would pass very well for a Muscovite, and invented a fable of his having escaped fifteen years before from the clutches of Ivan the Terrible, and conveyed himself aboard a vessel of Sweden. To this he gave countenance by venting a torrent of outlandish phrases, assuring me 'twas a mingle-mangle of sea terms employed by the Muscovites and the Swedes; whereat I laughed very heartily, and declared that he at least would have been at no loss among the builders of Babel. The matter being thus settled to our mutual contentment, we tarried a few days in Antwerp until the time of our vessel's sailing, and then embarked together on an adventure whereof neither of us foresaw the end.III'Twas a fair bright day when we put into the harbour of Cadiz, and I set foot in that comely town. We took up our lodging in an inn (calledventain the Castilian tongue) built all of stone, as indeed are all the buildings, whether large or small. I spent a day in learning my way about the town, or, as Stubbs worded it, taking my bearings, and could not but admire its goodly cathedral and abbey, and its exceeding fine college of the Jesuits. The streets were for the most part so narrow, none being commonly broader than Watling Street in London, as but two men or three at the most together could in any reasonable sort march through them, and I was somewhat astonied to see that the town was altogether without glass, save only the churches. Yet the windows were fair and comely, having grates of iron to them, and large folding leaves of wainscot or the like.Having attained a reasonable knowledge of the place, I made my way on the second day to the large flat-topped house (as are they all) which I had learnt to be the mansion of Don Ygnacio de Acosta. Before I left Antwerp I had taken pains to seal up the Count de Sarney's epistle (God pardon my duplicity!), and this I presented to a servant of exceeding magnificence at the door; the Spaniards call such majordomo: by whom I was after a tedious waiting conducted to the presence of the Captain of the Galleys. The Spaniards, as all the world knows, have the name for the nicest punctilio and courtliness, but I own that the Captain received me none too graciously. Indeed, his first words, after a briefer greeting than was seemly, were a complaint of the Count's delay in dispatching the draft, the which had occasioned Don Ygnacio to take a loan from a Jew of his town at a usurious rate of interest. I made humble excuses on my father's behalf: you are to remember that I personated Armand de Sarney: and it needed no wondrous shrewdness to discern, by the manner of the Spaniard's putting up the papers in his cabinet, that he was of a right avaricious nature. When he read the postscriptum wherein the Count de Sarney warned him against a meddlesome Englishman, he seemed to me to resemble a cock ruffling his feathers. He poured scorn upon the Count's fears and alarms, asking me whether Cadiz was Calais or even Cartagena that it lay open to any English adventurer. I might have reminded him how Sir Francis Drake burnt the King's galleys in this very harbour, but I forbore; nor would he have taken any profit of it, for the unquenchable pride and self-sufficiency of the Spaniards after so many buffets and calamities is one of the wonders of the age.With great condescension Don Ygnacio offered me a lodging in his house until such time as I should pursue my way to Seville, and I guessed that his manner was nicely proportioned to the remote degree of his relationship to my supposed father. Moreover it bespoke no great relish for the company of a mere student. None the less I thanked him in terms whose warmth would have befitted one that had done me unimaginable honour, but declined his proffered hospitality, saying that even on my travels I diligently pursued my studies, so that I was in no wise suited to the thronging life of the world wherein so high a magnifico moved. His countenance confirmed the justness of my surmise. Then, summoning my gravest look, I said—"I devote the greater part of my time, señor, to the investigation of the ills that affect theRamus stomachichus, wherewith I have perceived, even in the so little time I have sojourned in your town, that many of its inhabitants are afflicted. My father bade me inquire very particularly after your health, the which by your last advice was not all that could be wished. I fear that theRamus stomachichusis the seat of your disorder, and I trust that the treatment of your physician is meeting with the desired success."I threw this out as a bait, and to my exceeding joy I saw that it was swallowed as greedily as a gudgeon snaps up a worm. Don Ygnacio was a mountainous man, as Stubbs had told me on the voyage, with the girth but not the hardness of an oak, his face like dough with two raisins for eyes, his whole frame betokening a consuming love of the flesh-pots and strong liquors. During my speech, delivered with a measured gravity, his face put on a look of great dolefulness, and broke out into a sweat."I cannot sleep," said he, in most dolorous accents."A certain sign," said I, nodding my head gravely."I dream of horrors," said he."Devils, and serpents, dark dens and caves, sepulchres, and dead corpses," said I, quoting the words of Ambrose Parey, which I had diligently conned on board ship, "all arising from the putrefaction and inflammation of theRamus stomachichus, together with the afflux of noisome humours to the brain. The diaphragm hath a close community with that organ, by the nerves of the sixth conjugation which are carried in the stomach.""I reel in the street," said he, with lamentable groans, "and when I lay my head on the pillow, I hear noises like the sound of many waters."I shook my head solemnly, having at the moment no more of Ambrose Parey's sentences at my command. Taking him delicately by the wrist, I put my finger on his pulse, which in truth fluttered unsteadily."Show me your tongue," I said, and could barely avoid laughing at the grimace he made when he displayed that monstrous organ.Then, presuming on his manifest discomposure, I dealt him a lusty buffet above the fifth rib, so that he catched at his breath, and at his outcry I inquired solicitously whether he felt any pain."The pains of Gehenna," he said, groaning.I was mute, bending on him a mournful look, whereat his excitation of mind did but increase."I pray you, cousin, be open with me," he said. "I will steel my heart to bear it.""Your case is not utterly hopeless," I replied with deliberation, having first hemmed and hawed in the style approved of the faculty, "but it demands careful treatment. Methinks from the symptoms that it has hitherto been treated somewhat negligently. I will return to my lodging and ponder upon it, consulting Fernelius, hisPathologia" (a work I had seen named in the pages of Ambrose Parey). "To-morrow, by your good leave, I will see you again. The true course is not to be lightly determined, but I trust that my art has resources wherewith to counter the worst symptoms of your distemper and perchance to work a cure.""Do so, good cousin," he said. "Come early, I pray you, and by St. Iago, I shall know how to recompense you becomingly."I took my leave, and when the door was between us, gave a loose to my merriment, hastily composing my features when the majordomo approached to conduct me to the street.I returned to my inn, and buried my nose for some while in the folio; then betook myself to an apothecary's, where I purchased a quantity of barley creams, poppy seeds, and seeds of lettuce, purslain, and sorrel, commanding him to make a decoction of them and have it ready against I came on the morrow. This was a prescription of Ambrose Parey. I bade him also compound an admixture of the infusion of sundry simples, exceeding nauseous, yet like to do no great hurt, to wit, valerian, quassia, a trifling quantity of colocynthis (which grows very plentifully in Spain), andpix atra, by the which you shall understand common tar. This also, a bolus of my own devising, I commanded the man to have in readiness, and then found that I had a good relish for my dinner.[image]I BETOOK MYSELF TO AN APOTHECARY'SStubbs had already shown me where the king's galleys lay; 'twas off the east side of the town, betwixt the island and the mainland. They were four in number: these were the principal galleys, there being sixteen of an inferior sort that rode nigh to the bulwark ofSt. Philip, at the north-east extremity of the town. A strong fortification of stone-work ran from this bulwark towards the water-side, having its southern end beside the king's storehouse of provision and munition for his ships of war. Here, moreover, was the barrack in which certain of the galley-slaves were cabined at night, for when the galleys lay idle the greater number of the oarsmen was employed on shore in sundry laborious exercises—repairing the fortifications and the like. A little way southward of this barrack was a rampire of earth built close against the sea-wall, and furnished with three great pieces of ordnance. This kind of bulwark is called in military parlance aterrapleno. There was in the inner harbour also a fleet of near forty merchant vessels, making ready for the American voyage, and a goodly number of galleons and galliasses for the intended invasion of Ireland.I marvelled greatly at the bravado of my companion as we passed through the marketplace, thronged with folk of all conditions—orange-sellers, horse-dealers, chapmen and hucksters innumerable—and came near to the barrack wherein he had spent many hours in anguish both of body and mind. He showed me the two portions of the building, and the window of the very room where he had lain. He showed me also a mighty fine galley lying in a manner of dock near to the king's storehouse, and on my asking a wayfarer what the vessel did there, he told me 'twas the galley of Don Ygnacio de Acosta being new furbished and fitted for sea. A great way off I saw some of the slaves, with shaven polls, and naked save for a strip of cloth about their loins, moving hither and thither about their labour, under guard of soldiers armed with halberds and arquebuses. A hot fire of wrath raged within me when I thought that my bosom friend perchance toiled among them, but I gave great heed so as that I should not approach them too nearly, lest he might spy me and by some gesture ruin the plan I had conceived for his salvation.As we were returning to our inn from this inquisition, by way of the market-place, I observed that many curious glances were cast upon us, and being in some dubience how to account for this, I was at first ready to fear that some suspicion was entertained of me and my purposes, or else that some person had recognized my companion despite his shaggy locks and beard. But on a sudden the true explication smote upon my slumbering wits, and I took myself to task for my heedlessness. Stubbs was attired in the common garb of sailor men, and I perceived that it must indeed seem passing strange to the Spaniards, of all people the stiffest on decorum and punctilio, to see a grave student of medicine in familiar converse with a man so meanly habited. No sooner did this illumination flash upon my mind than I bid Stubbs leave me, giving him at the same time money wherewith to buy him a Spanish gaberdine, which would in some sort cloak his quality. I went on to my inn alone, pondering upon how prone men are, when devising machinations of great poise and moment, to omit some small trifling matter, which lacking, all their cunning is like to turn to futility.Sallying forth of the inn about three of the clock, I went to my apothecary's, and took from him the vials containing the preparations he had compounded for me, together with a small Turkey sponge and a new medicine glass nicely graduated. These I gave into the hands of Stubbs, now clad in a capacious gaberdine that suited with his quality as my henchman, and bade him follow me at a reasonable interval. At the door of Don Ygnacio's house I received them from him again, and being admitted as before by the don's gentleman-usher, I found my grandee awaiting me in a quivering expectancy. His heavy countenance lightened at sight of me, and he told me with plentiful groaning that he had not shut an eye all the night through, but tossed wakeful and tormented upon his bed. I felt of his pulse and scanned his furred and sickly tongue, and then, mustering all my new-gotten lore, I discoursed very learnedly for the space of five minutes upon the distempers of theRamus stomachichus, ending my allocution somewhat as follows—"Having now full assurance, señor, as well by the observation of my senses as also by your own description, that this is in good sooth the distemper whereof you suffer, I must tell you in all sobriety that 'tis high time 'twere taken in hand ere it grow beyond remedy. My counsel is that you instantly command the attendance of a skilful surgeon.""Ods my soul!" he cried (for so I render his words in our homely English), "I have employed surgeons without number, and they bleed me, both of blood and money. Do you undertake me, good cousin; but do not let my blood, I pray you, for I am not a whit better for all the gallons they have drawn from my exhausted veins."I affected to shrink from the conduct of so serious a case, on the score of my youth and pupillary condition, and of the high nobility of his captainship; but the more backward I showed myself, so much the more instancy did he employ; in brief, he would take no denial. Whereupon I insisted that he must follow my directions without reck or hesitation, the which he avowed himself ready to do in all points. Accordingly I stripped the wrappings from my vials, and poured from the larger of them into the medicine glass, with the nicest measurement, a good dram of the villainous admixture, and called for water to allay it, and this I added with deliberate care, he keeping a wary watch on all my movements. I then bade him drink it at a draught, the which he did, afterwards spluttering and wrying his countenance to such a picture of abhorrence as came nigh to overset my studied gravity."Ay de mi! ay de mi!" he groaned; "'tis a very vile draught, cousin, a very villainous concoction. Must I discomfit my inwards with the whole bottle?""Thrice a day, señor, you must take your dose," I said."Permit me at least to qualify the savour of it: it is so exceeding nasty and rough upon the tongue," he said pleadingly."One sole glass of sherris," said I, with a great show of reluctancy; "no more, or the merits of this most potent medicine will be utterly quelled."He drank the wine with great relish, eyeing the decanter very wistfully as I set it out of his reach. Then calling for a basin, I poured into it a little of the contents of my second vial, and dipping the sponge into the liquid, I delicately anointed his sweating brows, telling him 'twas a sure begetter of sleep tranquil as a child's."Your hand is rather that of a swordsman than of a physician, cousin," he said, thereby giving me a wrench in my soul, lest he began to suspect me. But he proceeded: "Yet it is delicate in its touch as a woman's; you give me great comfort, cousin."I continued to bathe his temples until I had wrought him to a fair placidity; then admonishing him to be punctual in taking his doses of the former admixture, I left him, promising to visit him again on the morrow.My next concern was to certify myself that Raoul was still among the galley-slaves, and whether he was of those that remained aboard or of those that were employed ashore. To this end I dispatched Stubbs to the sea-wall in the afternoon, a little before the time when, as he had told me, the day's work was wont to end, there to keep a watch. He returned soon after sunset, and told me that he had seen his whilom comrade among those that were marched into the barracks. I inquired eagerly how he looked, and my heart was very bitter when he replied that my friend was worn to a shadow, with lamentable sunken cheeks and haggard eyes. Nevertheless I rejoiced that he was yet alive, and comforted with this assurance I bent my mind to the working out of the plan I had devised for his deliverance.On the morrow I went somewhat earlier to see my patient, whom I found wondrously gracious, for that he had slept a good four hours without waking. Indeed, he believed himself to be already cured, and I had much ado to persuade him to take his dose. I showed him that his distemper being of long standing, it was sheer madness to suppose that it could be wholly banished in so short a space of time, and proceeded to expound the necessity of continuing not only in the course he had begun, but also in a subsidiary treatment which I would forthwith explain.Don Ygnacio, as I have said, was of enormous bulk, and the ills from which he suffered, when they were not merely figments of a disordered imagination, proceeded from too instant a devotion to meat and drink and an over-softness of living. In a word, his greatest need was temperance in these things, together with a more frequent use of his muscles. Accordingly I made him strip to his shirt and stand in his stocking feet in the middle of the room, and then put him through such simple exercises as the Dutch captains use with the common soldiers—extensions of the arms, bending of the trunk, and so forth. It was matter for merriment to see the great hulks, at my urging, make desperate endeavour to touch his toes, and come not within half a yard of accomplishing it. I kept him at these motions, paying no heed to his protestations, for a good half-hour, by the which time I had wrought him to a fine heat and perspiration, so that when finally I permitted him to sink back upon the cushions of his divan he was more wholesomely tired, I warrant, then he had been ever in his life before. While he sat and fanned himself, and quaffed slowly the cup of sherris I allowed for his refreshment, I made him a neat discourse for which I was beholden not to Master Ambrose Parey, but to my own wit. 'Twas sound sense as well as a furtherance of my device."You must know, señor," I said, "that this distemper of yours never assails men of spare frames and active bodies. The husbandman, the mariner, the poor scavenger of the street never suffer in this wise, nor is theirRamus stomachichusever in peril of dissolution. In truth, their bodily exercise does but strengthen the nerves in all their conjugations, so that their inward parts perform their offices to perfection, and furthermore furnish to them in some sort an armour against the assaults of disease. For a speaking ensample you have the slaves of your galleys, those reprobates whom you have in your august charge. Did ever you know one of them to suffer from any derangement of theRamus stomachichus?"Since I conjectured Don Ygnacio's knowledge of the anatomy of man to be less than my own, and that was infinitely little, I got the answer that I expected, with the addition that if any galley-slave should have the impudency to suffer from a gentleman's complaint, he would certainly be cured by the bastinado."Now therefore," I continued, here drawing largely upon my invention, for a purpose, as you are to see—"now therefore, it is one of the miracles of our nature that a man beset by this dreadful distemper, being set in juxtaposition with a man of exceeding spareness, but otherwise sound in his members and organs, the infirmity of the one is in a manner fortified by the wholeness of the other, or as Spegelius hath it in his renowned tractate, the debility of the one is engraffed and mingled with the virtue of the other. The trial of this remedy is attended with sundry notable perils and incommodities, wherefore it is not to be lightly undertaken, and I leave it for this present until we have made a proper experimentum of the more vulgar means."The captain heard this with great attention, and made me many compliments on the profundity of my learning, though he might have read Spegelius his tractate from cover to cover without finding the passage that I gave forth with so great unction. Leaving the precious seed to germinate, I betook myself away in high contentment, though not without a qualm and tremor at the lengths whereto my audacity was carrying me.Having sought my faithful attendant, I dispatched him to make sundry purchases at the armourers of the town, a knife at one, a dagger at another, small weapons in goodly number, but not more than one weapon at any one shop, lest suspicion or curiosity should be excited. These weapons, when he brought them to the inn, I bade him enfold them in strips of cloth I held in readiness, and wrap them in two several parcels. While this was adoing, I took my way to the sea-wall, noting very particularly the positions of the four galleys, the extent of water betwixt them and the shore, the manner in which the shore curved to a point, and all other information that was necessary to the execution of my plan. As I walked hither and thither, I was observed by a captain of soldiers that chanced, as it seemed, to be taking the air by the sea-wall, and who accosted me, asking me with a kind of truculency what I did there."Noble excellency," I replied, "I am but a poor student of medicine of the French nation, making a brief sojourn in this your town.""A Frenchman, and I warrant me a spy!" he cried, and hailing a soldier from the guard-house near by, he assured me that I should soon company with rats and beetles in the castle dungeon."Beseech you, señor," I said, "my illustrious cousin Don Ygnacio de Acosta, captain of the royal galleys, will have somewhat to say to that. Come with me straightway to his house, and we shall learn if such immodesty of language pleasures him."My bold and assured mien daunted this strutting fellow, and he began incontinently to make excuse how that he wot not of my condition, and craved my pardon for the unmannerliness whereinto he had been betrayed. I took him very coldly, and set forth to return to my inn. This is a slight matter, unworthy of mention but for that which ensued.That same evening, a little before the hour when the slaves were wont to be immured in their barrack, I came to the door of Don Ygnacio's house and inquired of the majordomo how the worshipful captain did."Desperately sick, señor," he replied. "He has but now commanded me to summon hither Don Diaz de Rotta, physician to the constable of the castle.""Is the messenger gone forth?" I demanded, in no little perturbation, for the presence of a true physician was like not only to undo all my stratagems, but also to stand me in a pretty hobble. Hearing that the lackey was even then donning his outdoor livery (for among the Spaniards punctilio rules over high and low alike), I bade him stay the man until I should have seen his excellency.When I entered to him I was amazed beyond measure to see his pitiful condition. He lay back on his divan, uttering most dismal groans, his countenance of a deathly pallor, and his eyes astare as with the very fear of death. He thrust out a feeble arm when he saw me, and cried in a faint voice—"Out of my sight, rapscallion! You have killed me with your vile nostrums."[image]"OUT OF MY SIGHT, RAPSCALLION!"My terror and amazement were little less than his own, for I knew my drugs to be harmless, albeit nauseous, and I could not come at any reasonable explanation of his distemperature.I inquired of the majordomo, who had followed me into the room, the time when this alteration had manifested itself, and his answer removed all my apprehensions that Don Ygnacio was in imminent peril of dissolution. He had eaten a very hearty dinner soon after I left him, and fallen asleep, but was awakened by a violent commotion in his inward parts, and had been, to put it in plain English, as sick as a dog. It was told me afterwards by my good friend and physician Sir Miles Ruddall that my drugs themselves would not have wrought so mightily upon him but for the unwonted exercise whereto he had been enforced, and his monstrous gluttony thereafter. Having a shrewd suspicion that this was all that ailed him, I made him drink a cup of sherris mingled with cognac, and spoke soothingly to him, resolving with a stubborn hardness of heart to turn his incapacity to my own purposes. I upbraided him, mildly, yet with earnestness, for that his imprudence had well-nigh undone all my cure, and avouched that it was high time to attempt the experimentum I had formerly suggested."I am very sure," said I, "that there will be found among your galley-slaves a man of the right degree of leanness to accommodate your excellency, and I will instantly command your coach to attend you, so that we may go down to their place and make trial of this sovereign remedy without delay."The strong liquors had already revived him, and his face was recovering its proper ruddiness. Likewise his spirit took on its natural hue, the proof whereof was his exceeding fierce outcry."Ods my valiancy!" he cried, "shall I join skins with a rascal, I, hidalgo of Spain? Never will I permit such scum to approach my person.""Truly, señor," said I, "it is impossible to conceive a gentleman of your exalted rank coming within a span's-length of a mean rascal, but I opine that there are among the slaves some of reputable condition, perchance some English prisoners, or Flemings, only they are in general of a brawny lustiness that suiteth not with the experimentum.""Why, so there is, now you put me in mind of it," he said with a brightened eye. "There is a Frenchman, a notorious reprobate, but that is nothing against his rank, which is but little less than my own. And for leanness a rake could hardly match him; his leanness is not far short of transparency.""That is right good hap," said I, raging inwardly that he should speak thus of my friend, for I made no doubt it was he. After fortifying him with more wine, I linked my arm with his, and took him slowly to his coach, and when we had mounted into it, gave the word to the driver to convey us to the barrack. We halted for a brief space at the inn, and I brought out my henchman, carrying the two parcels which, as I told Don Ygnacio, held things needful for our trial. I bade Stubbs perch himself beside the driver, and we went on.We had to pass on our way the small dock wherein the captain's galley lay, and here I let fall a word of admiration of the fine lines of the vessel, asking very innocently whether it were one of the royal galleys of his charge."It is my own vessel," he said with much complacency, and then nothing would content him but I must instantly go with him and see the vessel more closely. It was plain he held it in high esteem, and since I had a reason of my own for desiring a nearer acquaintance with it, I yielded to his wish in the manner of one humouring a sick person. He was by this time, in truth, so nearly returned to his wonted state that I began to fear lest he should declare the experiment of transfusion unnecessary. I accompanied him aboard the vessel, where he showed me the place for the crew, and those for the rowers and the soldiers, and his own place, very richly caparisoned; also the piles of arms and some barrels of gunpowder. Having admired the galley and all its appurtenances with great fluency of utterance, I entreated him to proceed to the barrack, advising him that the day was already far spent, and it were best to accomplish our purpose before the chill of night descended on us. And so we came to the barrack.IVNotwithstanding, or maybe by reason of, the marvellous good hap that had attended all my devices up to this present time, I was aware of a flutter of disquietude about my heart as I followed Don Ygnacio into the building. What I purposed doing must needs be done very quickly, and one untoward accident might very well prick the bladder of my imposture and wreathe a noose about my neck. I had laid my plans as warily as I might, and now all stood upon my composure, the degree of brazen-facedness I could muster, and the degree to which the Spaniard could be gulled.We came first, having entered the passage, to the guard-room, where some dozen soldiers were assembled, casting the dice and taking their ease. The door of a room adjacent to it stood open, and there my eyes lit upon the captain that had accosted me by the sea-wall, who, when he beheld me, rose up from his seat with trepidation, believing without doubt that I had brought his general to punish him. I paid not the least heed to him, and he made haste at Don Ygnacio's bidding to go to the hall beyond, where the galley-slaves were confined, and bring forth the Frenchman.When he was gone I asked Don Ygnacio whether there were not some private room where we might do our business, since it was not seemly that we should be at the gaze of so many goggling eyes while the experimentum was a-doing. He led me to a small ante-chamber some few steps along the passage towards the hall, Stubbs remaining with his parcels at the door of the guard-room, perfectly at ease, though he stood within arm's-length of the men that had formerly oppressed him. Presently I heard a clanking of chains, and the captain returned, bringing with him a lean and lanky scarecrow of a man, naked save for his loin-cloth, his poll and face being shaven clean. It smote me to the heart to see in his hollow eyes and sunken cheeks the altered lineaments of my dear friend, erstwhile comely and jocund as any you would see. He lifted his eyes as he came in, and regarded Don Ygnacio with a look of gall, not turning his gaze upon me."A sorry knave," said the Spaniard to me. "Think you, cousin, there is enough virtue in him for our business?""We can but try, excellency," I said, and at the words Raoul shivered and looked at me with such amazement that I feared lest an unlucky word should betray me. I dealt upon him a sudden and meaning frown, the which escaped the observation of the others, they having eyes for the slave alone. To my exceeding joy he had the wit to take me, and cast down his eyes in the manner of one that hath no more hold upon the world. Then I turned to Don Ygnacio and said:"He hath a wild look, señor. It were meet that we have two soldiers here with us, so that we may make our trial in comfort and security.""Certes," he replied, "we have already Captain Badillo; we will have a man from the guard-room.""By your pardon, señor," I said, "the señor captain did me the honour to affront me a while ago, and his presence at this time will so trouble the conjugations of the nerves, the which needs must be in perfect tranquillity, as to imperil the good success of our undertaking.""It was a lamentable error, excellency," stammered the captain. "I wot not that the worthy physician was akin to your excellency.""Go, sirrah," said Don Ygnacio sternly. "Who affronts my kin affronts me. Send hither two men from the guard-room."I was never better pleased in my life than when the captain departed, for the two common ignorant soldiers would be much less like to suspect me. Thereupon I called to Stubbs to bring in the parcels, and when he came, a little behind the soldiers, I shut the door, bade him undo one of his bundles, and said gravely that all would soon be ready for the experimentum.Stubbs loosed the ropes and laid them, in the manner of a careful servant, beside the bundle. From this when it was unrolled he took first three strips of a dark cloth, about an ell long, which he laid over his arm. Then he brought forth a small roll of white canvas and gave it to me. I motioned him to withdraw to a little distance, as also the soldiers; then I made Raoul stand a few paces from Don Ygnacio, facing him. Posting myself betwixt the two, I drew from my pocket a small box of powder of chalk, and unrolled the canvas, yet so that the Spaniard might not see its inner side, and with solemn circumstance I dusted it with the powder. This done, I stretched it out between my arms, and making two strides towards Raoul I bade him look intently thereupon while I counted ten. I heard Don Ygnacio breathing hard behind me as I gravely told the numbers one by one, and when Raoul informed me with his eyes that he had read the words I had carefully imprinted on the canvas (they were: "Grip the Spaniard by the neck whenas I give the sign") I rolled up the canvas and stepped slowly backward, beckoning with the one hand Don Ygnacio, with the other Stubbs and the soldiers, to draw near.You are now to observe that Raoul and Don Ygnacio were within a hand-breadth of each other, that one of the soldiers was close to me, and the second beside Stubbs. All was silent. On a sudden I let forth, very sharply but without raising my voice, the one word "Now!" Instantly Raoul was at Don Ygnacio's throat; I closed with my soldier and held him in a strangling embrace; and Stubbs, with the neatness of a skilled hand, dealt his man a blow that stretched him senseless on the floor. Quick as thought he handed to us two of the cloths that he had upon his arm, and we clapped them into the mouths of our prisoners, he doing the like with the third. So sudden were our motions that there had been not the least opportunity of resisting us, and though Don Ygnacio offered to cry out before the gag was comfortably settled between his teeth, Raoul bade him in a fierce whisper be silent or his life was forfeit. It was short work to truss them with the ropes, thanks to Stubbs his deftness, and I knew with infinite gladness of heart that the first part of my device was accomplished.[image]INSTANTLY RAOUL WAS AT DON YGNACIO'S THROATThere was still much to do, and our peril was but beginning. In two words I acquainted Raoul with my plan. I asked him how many soldiers were on guard among the galley-slaves; he told me four, and every one had a key to the padlocks wherewith they were fettered to the wall. My design was to set free the slaves, seize upon the Captain-General's galley, the which he had so obligingly shown me, and put to sea. It was necessary to our success that the soldiers in the guard-room should be silenced, and also the Captain Badillo, if he was yet at hand; but since we could not hope, being but three, to overcome a dozen men, we must perforce first set free the slaves, by whose assistance the feat might be easily compassed. Moreover, there was great need for haste, Stubbs having told me that it was drawing near the time when the cookmen were wont to bring in the slaves' supper from the outhouses.I opened the door stealthily, and peered along the passage to the guard-room. There was none in sight, but neither was there so much noise proceeding from the room as I should have liked. Nevertheless, since our case was desperate and would not abide long rumination, we durst not stay for the nice weighing of chances, but had to act at once. I had had the soldiers brought into the room for a purpose, namely, that we might dress ourselves in their garments and so gain some covert for our device. I bade Stubbs strip the two soldiers of their gaberdines, and these we donned, he and I, and then proceeded with all quietness along the passage to the slaves' hall, Raoul being carried betwixt us, so that the clanking of his chains might not draw the soldiers forth of the guard-room.Coming to the door of the hall we set Raoul down, and thrust him before us into the room, entering close behind him. I saw in a quick glance the miserable slaves lying in a long row by the wall, and four soldiers conversing in a group about the middle of the room. The dusk of evening forbade them to perceive at once that the two supposed soldiers that had entered were not their comrades, and when at our approach they were certified thereof they had not the time to collect their wits, for Stubbs, by a little the foremost, smote one of them a dint that sent him headlong against the wall, and then immediately grappled with another. Meanwhile Raoul and I had not been idle, each dealing with his man, and in a few moments we had all four at our feet, begging for mercy.This had not passed without some noise, but having been careful to shut the stout oaken door behind me I had a reasonable hope that the sound would not have penetrated to the guard-room. The clamour that might have been feared from the slaves did not arise, so great was their consternation. I asked Raoul to acquaint them with our design, whiles that with Stubbs' aid I stripped the soldiers of their outer garments and their arms, and trussed and gagged them as we had done afore with the others.Raoul told the men that all who could muster their courage had a good chance of escape, but they must in all points obey me, a countryman of the great Dragon (so Sir Francis Drake was commonly known among them), who had come to their succour, and had already made a prisoner of Don Ygnacio. He promised them hard work, and maybe their fill of fighting, and adjured every man that had no stomach for it to remain in his fetters rather than irk the rest. Then we went swiftly from one to another, unlocking their chains with the keys we had taken from the soldiers. Never a man of them elected to remain, and though Raoul was for leaving certain of them that he knew to be poor-spirited, I deemed it best to release them all, lest those that were left should raise an uproar and so bring us into danger.We arrayed four of the stoutest of them in the garments we had taken from the soldiers, covering their shaven heads with the morions that hung on pegs to the wall. Then with these four and four others, Raoul remaining in the hall, we ran swiftly down the passage to the guard-room, burst open the door, and by the vehemency of our onset overthrew the soldiers there in marvellous brief time. Stubbs and myself we set to a-trussing the fellows, but the slaves contemned such delicate work, and gave quietus to their whilom oppressors with such weapons as came first to hand.While we were in the midst of this hurly-burly, on a sudden lifting of my eyes I saw Captain Badillo standing in the door betwixt the guard-room and his own apartment, and gazing at us in the manner of one bereft of his wits. I left trussing my fellow and sprang towards the captain, whom I caught by the scruff of his neck, and, showing him my dagger, bade him hold his peace on peril of his life. At that same conjuncture some one cried that the cookmen were crossing the outer court, bearing hugeous baskets of biscuit and great two-handed caldrons of meagre broth, as they were wont to do at this time. Extremity, I must believe, sharpens a man's wits, for in the twinkling of an eye I thrust the captain into the passage and towards the outer door, straitly charging him to bid the men carry their burdens to the Captain-General's galley, since he had taken a sudden purpose to go a cruise. I had Spanish enough, to be sure, to give the command myself, but I knew it would come with authority from Captain Badillo, whereas from me, a stranger, it might be slighted. My naked dagger was sufficient enforcement of my bidding, and in a trice I saw with satisfaction the cookmen change their course and stagger with their loads to the quayside. By this means I obtained for the slaves a modest dole of food, whereof I doubted not they stood in need.[image]SHOWING HIM MY DAGGER, I BADE HIM HOLD HIS PEACEHasting back to the slaves' hall, I found that Raoul had ranged them all in readiness for departure. I had bidden Stubbs see to it that the slaves in the guard-room should don as much as they could of the soldiers' garments and cover their bald pates with their morions, and bring also the weapons from his bundles, and then, myself going at the head, holding Captain Badillo by the sleeve, we marched out and made our way as swiftly as we might without sign of hurry to where the galley awaited us. There was a sentry at the gate of the munition-house some two-score paces distant, but the dusk in some sort enshrouded us, and certain it is we came to the galley without molestation or so much as a cry.But there a peril that I had not foreseen lay in wait for us. The cookmen, having bestowed their burdens aboard, stood carelessly on the quay to witness our embarkation. A dozen of the slaves had shipped themselves before these men were aware of aught amiss; but then one spied the villainous countenance of a notorious desperado beneath a soldier's morion, and communicating his discovery to his fellows, they with one consent took to their heels and fled towards their quarters with hue and cry. Sundry of them were felled by the slaves whom they encountered, but the rest got themselves clear away, and it was plain that ere long the alarm would be sounded in every part of the town. I cast Captain Badillo into the galley, and urged the rest of the men to quicken their speed, and they came helter-skelter, falling one over another in their haste.Now it seemed that all were aboard, but I had not observed Stubbs among them, and began to fear lest he had been intercepted. But I then perceived him, and three of the galley-slaves, staggering towards me with a heavy burden which as they drew near I discerned to be none other than the mountainous bulk of Don Ygnacio de Acosta. I cried to them to hasten their steps, the which they did, and arriving at the quayside they let their load fall with no more tenderness than if it had been a bale of merchandise, and the Captain-General fell with a monstrous thwack upon the galley's deck.At Raoul's bidding the men had already gotten out the sweeps. But at this the eleventh hour I observed a pile of sails lying over against the sea-wall, and I commanded Stubbs and those with him to bring them to the galley. The men who were aboard, in their haste to depart, had slipped the moorings, and could hardly be restrained from pushing off without us. I heard Raoul upbraid them with great vehemency, and ask them how they supposed they could escape with oars alone, whereupon they left their striving and gave us time to tumble the sails in among them. Then the rest of us leapt aboard, I last of all, and the slaves, thrusting their oars with desperate violence against the quay-wall, drove the rocking vessel out into the basin.It was high time, for already there was stir and hubbub not a great way from the quay, and at the very moment when we sheered off a shot was fired, I doubt not by the sentry at the munition-house. Through the gathering dusk I saw a concourse of folk swarm upon the sea-wall and the quay, there being not a few soldiers among them. But all things had been done so suddenly as that none but the sentry had had time to kindle his match, and the galley was come forth out of the dock ere they arrived at the quay. Shouting and cursing they ran hither and thither, in a perfect medley and confusion, there being as yet none to direct them what they should do. I could not forbear making them a most courteous salutation with my hat, though I fear the darkness and their fury forbade them to mark the exceeding grace of it.Turning to observe how things were ordered, I perceived that Raoul, whose knowledge of the harbour was the fruit of long and bitter travail, had established himself at the helm. I descended to the lower deck, where Stubbs had put himself over the oarsmen, who were set in their due ranks, and tugged at the sweeps with a vigour wherewith they had never laboured before, I warrant you. In sooth, Stubbs was constrained to bid them moderate their ardour, inasmuch as there lay a reef of rocks on the starboard side, and it would go hard with us if we by any ill-hap ran upon them. But the resolute and assured look upon their faces, villainous and forbidding as the most part were, confirmed me in my belief that, barring any untoward accident, we should in no long time be beyond reach of pursuers.The harbour of Cadiz, you are to understand, hath a northward trend to the mouth of the river Guadaloto, whence the coast of the mainland runs north-westerly until we come to the mouth of the Guadalquivir. Four galleys, as I have said, were at anchor nigh the munition-house, and at the bulwark of Saint Philip at the north-east extremity of the island lay other sixteen. The first four we had already passed, but we must run the gauntlet of the sixteen, the which when we should have done we had nought to fear save perchance from the ordnance established on the coast of the bay of Caleta. I knew right well that notwithstanding the clamour that filled the town, where alarm bells were dinning amain, some time must needs be consumed before the occasion of the pother was thoroughly known, and the galleys could be put in fair trim to pursue us. So indeed the event answered to my expectation, for we came pretty near to the mouth of the harbour without anything whatsoever happening to mar our security.It was now dark, yet not so black but that we could see our course, and besides there were the lights of the town to serve our helmsman as guide posts. That the town was mightily astir was demonstrated by a shot that was belched out upon us by one of the great pieces mounted on the bulwark of Saint Philip. But it did us no harm, unless some slight defacement of our figurehead that I observed next day was the work of this shot. Taking warning, Raoul steered the vessel hard over against the mainland, though I deplored the loss of time we suffered thereby. Indeed, but for this circuit which we made, and which, being a prudent measure, I could not gainsay, verily I believe we should have run out into the open sea without any let or hindrance whatsoever. But it happed that as we again bore westward, I perceived the black shape of a galley move from its anchorage in our wake, and presently after other of the same sort. This gave me no manner of apprehension, for we were fully manned, and our men, rowing for their very lives, were not like to be outdone by the hapless slaves in our pursuers, even though they were urged by the whip.We were in another case when, as we came abreast of the point at the northern extremity of the bay of Caleta, a galley shot forth by the skirts of the rocks and made great speed to sea, not directly towards us, but taking a slantwise course with intent to head us off, as seamen say. It was a hard matter in the darkness to make a nice reckoning, yet I thought we should outstrip even this the most threatening of our pursuers. Being ware of a steady fair breeze off the land, I deemed it mere foolishness to neglect it; accordingly I bade Stubbs choose some few men among the oarsmen that were mariners, and send them on deck to bend the sails. This proceeding caused us to lose way somewhat, the sails having been cast aboard without any care, and so needing time to order them rightly. And when I saw that the captain of the galley in chase of us had foregone me, and being now come into the wind had already gotten his sails ahoist, I was not a little dismayed. Bethinking me of Don Ygnacio and Captain Badillo, hitherto mere idle passengers and burdensome, I resolved to put them to the oars, not without a secret relish in the thought that they would now taste of the toil they had heretofore inflicted upon the slaves. With my own hands therefore I cast Don Ygnacio loose, and bundled both him and the lesser captain to the lower part of the vessel, giving them into the charge of my good Stubbs, with a strait injunction that he should urge them to a decent industry. I did not see with my own eyes how they accommodated themselves to their task, because I returned to the deck to look to the sails and also to keep a watch on the enemy. But Stubbs told me afterwards that he plied the whip right merrily on the backs of those two proud Spaniards, and so wrought them to a just activity, to the great delectation of the galley-slaves, who themselves rowed with the more cheerfulness, beholding their tormentors dealt with after the manner they delighted in.
[image]I MADE BOLD TO ACCOST HIM
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I MADE BOLD TO ACCOST HIM
"We wait for a pestilent Englishman, monsieur," he said raspingly, "a sluggard eater of beef, that will come up when the tide fails and expect us to sail against wind and weather to please his almightiness. And he must needs fill the boat with meat enough for a regiment: our provision is not good enough for him."
"I would delay for no Englishman alive," I said, "and as for his creature comforts, divide them among your mariners: I will see to it that you suffer nought."
Very soon thereafter he did indeed cast off. I responded with a grave salutation to Jean's wafture of his bonnet, and sat me down on a coil of rope to digest as well as I might Ambrose Parey his Latin.
We made good passage to Antwerp, where I did not delay to visit the goldsmith upon whom the Count de Sarney's bill of exchange was drawn. He held me in no suspicion, and was vastly serviceable in negotiating with the skipper of a vessel bound for Cadiz, as well as in conducting the other necessary parts of my business. I was some little troubled in my mind what course to pursue with my mariner. I proposed to him that, seeing the risks of my adventure, he should take ship for London, carrying a letter from me to Sir Walter Raleigh, who I made no doubt would find him employment. But he begged me so earnestly to permit him to accompany me that I yielded, though not without misgiving. I showed him that for a runagate slave to venture himself in Cadiz would be a mere running into the lion's jaws, to which he answered that, whereas on the galley his head and face were shaved, he was now as shaggy as a bear, and so would not easily be known of any man, slave or free. Furthermore I showed him how in Spain he could not hope to pass either for a Spaniard or a Frenchman, whereupon, with a readiness that raised him in my estimation, he said that he would pass very well for a Muscovite, and invented a fable of his having escaped fifteen years before from the clutches of Ivan the Terrible, and conveyed himself aboard a vessel of Sweden. To this he gave countenance by venting a torrent of outlandish phrases, assuring me 'twas a mingle-mangle of sea terms employed by the Muscovites and the Swedes; whereat I laughed very heartily, and declared that he at least would have been at no loss among the builders of Babel. The matter being thus settled to our mutual contentment, we tarried a few days in Antwerp until the time of our vessel's sailing, and then embarked together on an adventure whereof neither of us foresaw the end.
III
'Twas a fair bright day when we put into the harbour of Cadiz, and I set foot in that comely town. We took up our lodging in an inn (calledventain the Castilian tongue) built all of stone, as indeed are all the buildings, whether large or small. I spent a day in learning my way about the town, or, as Stubbs worded it, taking my bearings, and could not but admire its goodly cathedral and abbey, and its exceeding fine college of the Jesuits. The streets were for the most part so narrow, none being commonly broader than Watling Street in London, as but two men or three at the most together could in any reasonable sort march through them, and I was somewhat astonied to see that the town was altogether without glass, save only the churches. Yet the windows were fair and comely, having grates of iron to them, and large folding leaves of wainscot or the like.
Having attained a reasonable knowledge of the place, I made my way on the second day to the large flat-topped house (as are they all) which I had learnt to be the mansion of Don Ygnacio de Acosta. Before I left Antwerp I had taken pains to seal up the Count de Sarney's epistle (God pardon my duplicity!), and this I presented to a servant of exceeding magnificence at the door; the Spaniards call such majordomo: by whom I was after a tedious waiting conducted to the presence of the Captain of the Galleys. The Spaniards, as all the world knows, have the name for the nicest punctilio and courtliness, but I own that the Captain received me none too graciously. Indeed, his first words, after a briefer greeting than was seemly, were a complaint of the Count's delay in dispatching the draft, the which had occasioned Don Ygnacio to take a loan from a Jew of his town at a usurious rate of interest. I made humble excuses on my father's behalf: you are to remember that I personated Armand de Sarney: and it needed no wondrous shrewdness to discern, by the manner of the Spaniard's putting up the papers in his cabinet, that he was of a right avaricious nature. When he read the postscriptum wherein the Count de Sarney warned him against a meddlesome Englishman, he seemed to me to resemble a cock ruffling his feathers. He poured scorn upon the Count's fears and alarms, asking me whether Cadiz was Calais or even Cartagena that it lay open to any English adventurer. I might have reminded him how Sir Francis Drake burnt the King's galleys in this very harbour, but I forbore; nor would he have taken any profit of it, for the unquenchable pride and self-sufficiency of the Spaniards after so many buffets and calamities is one of the wonders of the age.
With great condescension Don Ygnacio offered me a lodging in his house until such time as I should pursue my way to Seville, and I guessed that his manner was nicely proportioned to the remote degree of his relationship to my supposed father. Moreover it bespoke no great relish for the company of a mere student. None the less I thanked him in terms whose warmth would have befitted one that had done me unimaginable honour, but declined his proffered hospitality, saying that even on my travels I diligently pursued my studies, so that I was in no wise suited to the thronging life of the world wherein so high a magnifico moved. His countenance confirmed the justness of my surmise. Then, summoning my gravest look, I said—
"I devote the greater part of my time, señor, to the investigation of the ills that affect theRamus stomachichus, wherewith I have perceived, even in the so little time I have sojourned in your town, that many of its inhabitants are afflicted. My father bade me inquire very particularly after your health, the which by your last advice was not all that could be wished. I fear that theRamus stomachichusis the seat of your disorder, and I trust that the treatment of your physician is meeting with the desired success."
I threw this out as a bait, and to my exceeding joy I saw that it was swallowed as greedily as a gudgeon snaps up a worm. Don Ygnacio was a mountainous man, as Stubbs had told me on the voyage, with the girth but not the hardness of an oak, his face like dough with two raisins for eyes, his whole frame betokening a consuming love of the flesh-pots and strong liquors. During my speech, delivered with a measured gravity, his face put on a look of great dolefulness, and broke out into a sweat.
"I cannot sleep," said he, in most dolorous accents.
"A certain sign," said I, nodding my head gravely.
"I dream of horrors," said he.
"Devils, and serpents, dark dens and caves, sepulchres, and dead corpses," said I, quoting the words of Ambrose Parey, which I had diligently conned on board ship, "all arising from the putrefaction and inflammation of theRamus stomachichus, together with the afflux of noisome humours to the brain. The diaphragm hath a close community with that organ, by the nerves of the sixth conjugation which are carried in the stomach."
"I reel in the street," said he, with lamentable groans, "and when I lay my head on the pillow, I hear noises like the sound of many waters."
I shook my head solemnly, having at the moment no more of Ambrose Parey's sentences at my command. Taking him delicately by the wrist, I put my finger on his pulse, which in truth fluttered unsteadily.
"Show me your tongue," I said, and could barely avoid laughing at the grimace he made when he displayed that monstrous organ.
Then, presuming on his manifest discomposure, I dealt him a lusty buffet above the fifth rib, so that he catched at his breath, and at his outcry I inquired solicitously whether he felt any pain.
"The pains of Gehenna," he said, groaning.
I was mute, bending on him a mournful look, whereat his excitation of mind did but increase.
"I pray you, cousin, be open with me," he said. "I will steel my heart to bear it."
"Your case is not utterly hopeless," I replied with deliberation, having first hemmed and hawed in the style approved of the faculty, "but it demands careful treatment. Methinks from the symptoms that it has hitherto been treated somewhat negligently. I will return to my lodging and ponder upon it, consulting Fernelius, hisPathologia" (a work I had seen named in the pages of Ambrose Parey). "To-morrow, by your good leave, I will see you again. The true course is not to be lightly determined, but I trust that my art has resources wherewith to counter the worst symptoms of your distemper and perchance to work a cure."
"Do so, good cousin," he said. "Come early, I pray you, and by St. Iago, I shall know how to recompense you becomingly."
I took my leave, and when the door was between us, gave a loose to my merriment, hastily composing my features when the majordomo approached to conduct me to the street.
I returned to my inn, and buried my nose for some while in the folio; then betook myself to an apothecary's, where I purchased a quantity of barley creams, poppy seeds, and seeds of lettuce, purslain, and sorrel, commanding him to make a decoction of them and have it ready against I came on the morrow. This was a prescription of Ambrose Parey. I bade him also compound an admixture of the infusion of sundry simples, exceeding nauseous, yet like to do no great hurt, to wit, valerian, quassia, a trifling quantity of colocynthis (which grows very plentifully in Spain), andpix atra, by the which you shall understand common tar. This also, a bolus of my own devising, I commanded the man to have in readiness, and then found that I had a good relish for my dinner.
[image]I BETOOK MYSELF TO AN APOTHECARY'S
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I BETOOK MYSELF TO AN APOTHECARY'S
Stubbs had already shown me where the king's galleys lay; 'twas off the east side of the town, betwixt the island and the mainland. They were four in number: these were the principal galleys, there being sixteen of an inferior sort that rode nigh to the bulwark ofSt. Philip, at the north-east extremity of the town. A strong fortification of stone-work ran from this bulwark towards the water-side, having its southern end beside the king's storehouse of provision and munition for his ships of war. Here, moreover, was the barrack in which certain of the galley-slaves were cabined at night, for when the galleys lay idle the greater number of the oarsmen was employed on shore in sundry laborious exercises—repairing the fortifications and the like. A little way southward of this barrack was a rampire of earth built close against the sea-wall, and furnished with three great pieces of ordnance. This kind of bulwark is called in military parlance aterrapleno. There was in the inner harbour also a fleet of near forty merchant vessels, making ready for the American voyage, and a goodly number of galleons and galliasses for the intended invasion of Ireland.
I marvelled greatly at the bravado of my companion as we passed through the marketplace, thronged with folk of all conditions—orange-sellers, horse-dealers, chapmen and hucksters innumerable—and came near to the barrack wherein he had spent many hours in anguish both of body and mind. He showed me the two portions of the building, and the window of the very room where he had lain. He showed me also a mighty fine galley lying in a manner of dock near to the king's storehouse, and on my asking a wayfarer what the vessel did there, he told me 'twas the galley of Don Ygnacio de Acosta being new furbished and fitted for sea. A great way off I saw some of the slaves, with shaven polls, and naked save for a strip of cloth about their loins, moving hither and thither about their labour, under guard of soldiers armed with halberds and arquebuses. A hot fire of wrath raged within me when I thought that my bosom friend perchance toiled among them, but I gave great heed so as that I should not approach them too nearly, lest he might spy me and by some gesture ruin the plan I had conceived for his salvation.
As we were returning to our inn from this inquisition, by way of the market-place, I observed that many curious glances were cast upon us, and being in some dubience how to account for this, I was at first ready to fear that some suspicion was entertained of me and my purposes, or else that some person had recognized my companion despite his shaggy locks and beard. But on a sudden the true explication smote upon my slumbering wits, and I took myself to task for my heedlessness. Stubbs was attired in the common garb of sailor men, and I perceived that it must indeed seem passing strange to the Spaniards, of all people the stiffest on decorum and punctilio, to see a grave student of medicine in familiar converse with a man so meanly habited. No sooner did this illumination flash upon my mind than I bid Stubbs leave me, giving him at the same time money wherewith to buy him a Spanish gaberdine, which would in some sort cloak his quality. I went on to my inn alone, pondering upon how prone men are, when devising machinations of great poise and moment, to omit some small trifling matter, which lacking, all their cunning is like to turn to futility.
Sallying forth of the inn about three of the clock, I went to my apothecary's, and took from him the vials containing the preparations he had compounded for me, together with a small Turkey sponge and a new medicine glass nicely graduated. These I gave into the hands of Stubbs, now clad in a capacious gaberdine that suited with his quality as my henchman, and bade him follow me at a reasonable interval. At the door of Don Ygnacio's house I received them from him again, and being admitted as before by the don's gentleman-usher, I found my grandee awaiting me in a quivering expectancy. His heavy countenance lightened at sight of me, and he told me with plentiful groaning that he had not shut an eye all the night through, but tossed wakeful and tormented upon his bed. I felt of his pulse and scanned his furred and sickly tongue, and then, mustering all my new-gotten lore, I discoursed very learnedly for the space of five minutes upon the distempers of theRamus stomachichus, ending my allocution somewhat as follows—
"Having now full assurance, señor, as well by the observation of my senses as also by your own description, that this is in good sooth the distemper whereof you suffer, I must tell you in all sobriety that 'tis high time 'twere taken in hand ere it grow beyond remedy. My counsel is that you instantly command the attendance of a skilful surgeon."
"Ods my soul!" he cried (for so I render his words in our homely English), "I have employed surgeons without number, and they bleed me, both of blood and money. Do you undertake me, good cousin; but do not let my blood, I pray you, for I am not a whit better for all the gallons they have drawn from my exhausted veins."
I affected to shrink from the conduct of so serious a case, on the score of my youth and pupillary condition, and of the high nobility of his captainship; but the more backward I showed myself, so much the more instancy did he employ; in brief, he would take no denial. Whereupon I insisted that he must follow my directions without reck or hesitation, the which he avowed himself ready to do in all points. Accordingly I stripped the wrappings from my vials, and poured from the larger of them into the medicine glass, with the nicest measurement, a good dram of the villainous admixture, and called for water to allay it, and this I added with deliberate care, he keeping a wary watch on all my movements. I then bade him drink it at a draught, the which he did, afterwards spluttering and wrying his countenance to such a picture of abhorrence as came nigh to overset my studied gravity.
"Ay de mi! ay de mi!" he groaned; "'tis a very vile draught, cousin, a very villainous concoction. Must I discomfit my inwards with the whole bottle?"
"Thrice a day, señor, you must take your dose," I said.
"Permit me at least to qualify the savour of it: it is so exceeding nasty and rough upon the tongue," he said pleadingly.
"One sole glass of sherris," said I, with a great show of reluctancy; "no more, or the merits of this most potent medicine will be utterly quelled."
He drank the wine with great relish, eyeing the decanter very wistfully as I set it out of his reach. Then calling for a basin, I poured into it a little of the contents of my second vial, and dipping the sponge into the liquid, I delicately anointed his sweating brows, telling him 'twas a sure begetter of sleep tranquil as a child's.
"Your hand is rather that of a swordsman than of a physician, cousin," he said, thereby giving me a wrench in my soul, lest he began to suspect me. But he proceeded: "Yet it is delicate in its touch as a woman's; you give me great comfort, cousin."
I continued to bathe his temples until I had wrought him to a fair placidity; then admonishing him to be punctual in taking his doses of the former admixture, I left him, promising to visit him again on the morrow.
My next concern was to certify myself that Raoul was still among the galley-slaves, and whether he was of those that remained aboard or of those that were employed ashore. To this end I dispatched Stubbs to the sea-wall in the afternoon, a little before the time when, as he had told me, the day's work was wont to end, there to keep a watch. He returned soon after sunset, and told me that he had seen his whilom comrade among those that were marched into the barracks. I inquired eagerly how he looked, and my heart was very bitter when he replied that my friend was worn to a shadow, with lamentable sunken cheeks and haggard eyes. Nevertheless I rejoiced that he was yet alive, and comforted with this assurance I bent my mind to the working out of the plan I had devised for his deliverance.
On the morrow I went somewhat earlier to see my patient, whom I found wondrously gracious, for that he had slept a good four hours without waking. Indeed, he believed himself to be already cured, and I had much ado to persuade him to take his dose. I showed him that his distemper being of long standing, it was sheer madness to suppose that it could be wholly banished in so short a space of time, and proceeded to expound the necessity of continuing not only in the course he had begun, but also in a subsidiary treatment which I would forthwith explain.
Don Ygnacio, as I have said, was of enormous bulk, and the ills from which he suffered, when they were not merely figments of a disordered imagination, proceeded from too instant a devotion to meat and drink and an over-softness of living. In a word, his greatest need was temperance in these things, together with a more frequent use of his muscles. Accordingly I made him strip to his shirt and stand in his stocking feet in the middle of the room, and then put him through such simple exercises as the Dutch captains use with the common soldiers—extensions of the arms, bending of the trunk, and so forth. It was matter for merriment to see the great hulks, at my urging, make desperate endeavour to touch his toes, and come not within half a yard of accomplishing it. I kept him at these motions, paying no heed to his protestations, for a good half-hour, by the which time I had wrought him to a fine heat and perspiration, so that when finally I permitted him to sink back upon the cushions of his divan he was more wholesomely tired, I warrant, then he had been ever in his life before. While he sat and fanned himself, and quaffed slowly the cup of sherris I allowed for his refreshment, I made him a neat discourse for which I was beholden not to Master Ambrose Parey, but to my own wit. 'Twas sound sense as well as a furtherance of my device.
"You must know, señor," I said, "that this distemper of yours never assails men of spare frames and active bodies. The husbandman, the mariner, the poor scavenger of the street never suffer in this wise, nor is theirRamus stomachichusever in peril of dissolution. In truth, their bodily exercise does but strengthen the nerves in all their conjugations, so that their inward parts perform their offices to perfection, and furthermore furnish to them in some sort an armour against the assaults of disease. For a speaking ensample you have the slaves of your galleys, those reprobates whom you have in your august charge. Did ever you know one of them to suffer from any derangement of theRamus stomachichus?"
Since I conjectured Don Ygnacio's knowledge of the anatomy of man to be less than my own, and that was infinitely little, I got the answer that I expected, with the addition that if any galley-slave should have the impudency to suffer from a gentleman's complaint, he would certainly be cured by the bastinado.
"Now therefore," I continued, here drawing largely upon my invention, for a purpose, as you are to see—"now therefore, it is one of the miracles of our nature that a man beset by this dreadful distemper, being set in juxtaposition with a man of exceeding spareness, but otherwise sound in his members and organs, the infirmity of the one is in a manner fortified by the wholeness of the other, or as Spegelius hath it in his renowned tractate, the debility of the one is engraffed and mingled with the virtue of the other. The trial of this remedy is attended with sundry notable perils and incommodities, wherefore it is not to be lightly undertaken, and I leave it for this present until we have made a proper experimentum of the more vulgar means."
The captain heard this with great attention, and made me many compliments on the profundity of my learning, though he might have read Spegelius his tractate from cover to cover without finding the passage that I gave forth with so great unction. Leaving the precious seed to germinate, I betook myself away in high contentment, though not without a qualm and tremor at the lengths whereto my audacity was carrying me.
Having sought my faithful attendant, I dispatched him to make sundry purchases at the armourers of the town, a knife at one, a dagger at another, small weapons in goodly number, but not more than one weapon at any one shop, lest suspicion or curiosity should be excited. These weapons, when he brought them to the inn, I bade him enfold them in strips of cloth I held in readiness, and wrap them in two several parcels. While this was adoing, I took my way to the sea-wall, noting very particularly the positions of the four galleys, the extent of water betwixt them and the shore, the manner in which the shore curved to a point, and all other information that was necessary to the execution of my plan. As I walked hither and thither, I was observed by a captain of soldiers that chanced, as it seemed, to be taking the air by the sea-wall, and who accosted me, asking me with a kind of truculency what I did there.
"Noble excellency," I replied, "I am but a poor student of medicine of the French nation, making a brief sojourn in this your town."
"A Frenchman, and I warrant me a spy!" he cried, and hailing a soldier from the guard-house near by, he assured me that I should soon company with rats and beetles in the castle dungeon.
"Beseech you, señor," I said, "my illustrious cousin Don Ygnacio de Acosta, captain of the royal galleys, will have somewhat to say to that. Come with me straightway to his house, and we shall learn if such immodesty of language pleasures him."
My bold and assured mien daunted this strutting fellow, and he began incontinently to make excuse how that he wot not of my condition, and craved my pardon for the unmannerliness whereinto he had been betrayed. I took him very coldly, and set forth to return to my inn. This is a slight matter, unworthy of mention but for that which ensued.
That same evening, a little before the hour when the slaves were wont to be immured in their barrack, I came to the door of Don Ygnacio's house and inquired of the majordomo how the worshipful captain did.
"Desperately sick, señor," he replied. "He has but now commanded me to summon hither Don Diaz de Rotta, physician to the constable of the castle."
"Is the messenger gone forth?" I demanded, in no little perturbation, for the presence of a true physician was like not only to undo all my stratagems, but also to stand me in a pretty hobble. Hearing that the lackey was even then donning his outdoor livery (for among the Spaniards punctilio rules over high and low alike), I bade him stay the man until I should have seen his excellency.
When I entered to him I was amazed beyond measure to see his pitiful condition. He lay back on his divan, uttering most dismal groans, his countenance of a deathly pallor, and his eyes astare as with the very fear of death. He thrust out a feeble arm when he saw me, and cried in a faint voice—
"Out of my sight, rapscallion! You have killed me with your vile nostrums."
[image]"OUT OF MY SIGHT, RAPSCALLION!"
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"OUT OF MY SIGHT, RAPSCALLION!"
My terror and amazement were little less than his own, for I knew my drugs to be harmless, albeit nauseous, and I could not come at any reasonable explanation of his distemperature.
I inquired of the majordomo, who had followed me into the room, the time when this alteration had manifested itself, and his answer removed all my apprehensions that Don Ygnacio was in imminent peril of dissolution. He had eaten a very hearty dinner soon after I left him, and fallen asleep, but was awakened by a violent commotion in his inward parts, and had been, to put it in plain English, as sick as a dog. It was told me afterwards by my good friend and physician Sir Miles Ruddall that my drugs themselves would not have wrought so mightily upon him but for the unwonted exercise whereto he had been enforced, and his monstrous gluttony thereafter. Having a shrewd suspicion that this was all that ailed him, I made him drink a cup of sherris mingled with cognac, and spoke soothingly to him, resolving with a stubborn hardness of heart to turn his incapacity to my own purposes. I upbraided him, mildly, yet with earnestness, for that his imprudence had well-nigh undone all my cure, and avouched that it was high time to attempt the experimentum I had formerly suggested.
"I am very sure," said I, "that there will be found among your galley-slaves a man of the right degree of leanness to accommodate your excellency, and I will instantly command your coach to attend you, so that we may go down to their place and make trial of this sovereign remedy without delay."
The strong liquors had already revived him, and his face was recovering its proper ruddiness. Likewise his spirit took on its natural hue, the proof whereof was his exceeding fierce outcry.
"Ods my valiancy!" he cried, "shall I join skins with a rascal, I, hidalgo of Spain? Never will I permit such scum to approach my person."
"Truly, señor," said I, "it is impossible to conceive a gentleman of your exalted rank coming within a span's-length of a mean rascal, but I opine that there are among the slaves some of reputable condition, perchance some English prisoners, or Flemings, only they are in general of a brawny lustiness that suiteth not with the experimentum."
"Why, so there is, now you put me in mind of it," he said with a brightened eye. "There is a Frenchman, a notorious reprobate, but that is nothing against his rank, which is but little less than my own. And for leanness a rake could hardly match him; his leanness is not far short of transparency."
"That is right good hap," said I, raging inwardly that he should speak thus of my friend, for I made no doubt it was he. After fortifying him with more wine, I linked my arm with his, and took him slowly to his coach, and when we had mounted into it, gave the word to the driver to convey us to the barrack. We halted for a brief space at the inn, and I brought out my henchman, carrying the two parcels which, as I told Don Ygnacio, held things needful for our trial. I bade Stubbs perch himself beside the driver, and we went on.
We had to pass on our way the small dock wherein the captain's galley lay, and here I let fall a word of admiration of the fine lines of the vessel, asking very innocently whether it were one of the royal galleys of his charge.
"It is my own vessel," he said with much complacency, and then nothing would content him but I must instantly go with him and see the vessel more closely. It was plain he held it in high esteem, and since I had a reason of my own for desiring a nearer acquaintance with it, I yielded to his wish in the manner of one humouring a sick person. He was by this time, in truth, so nearly returned to his wonted state that I began to fear lest he should declare the experiment of transfusion unnecessary. I accompanied him aboard the vessel, where he showed me the place for the crew, and those for the rowers and the soldiers, and his own place, very richly caparisoned; also the piles of arms and some barrels of gunpowder. Having admired the galley and all its appurtenances with great fluency of utterance, I entreated him to proceed to the barrack, advising him that the day was already far spent, and it were best to accomplish our purpose before the chill of night descended on us. And so we came to the barrack.
IV
Notwithstanding, or maybe by reason of, the marvellous good hap that had attended all my devices up to this present time, I was aware of a flutter of disquietude about my heart as I followed Don Ygnacio into the building. What I purposed doing must needs be done very quickly, and one untoward accident might very well prick the bladder of my imposture and wreathe a noose about my neck. I had laid my plans as warily as I might, and now all stood upon my composure, the degree of brazen-facedness I could muster, and the degree to which the Spaniard could be gulled.
We came first, having entered the passage, to the guard-room, where some dozen soldiers were assembled, casting the dice and taking their ease. The door of a room adjacent to it stood open, and there my eyes lit upon the captain that had accosted me by the sea-wall, who, when he beheld me, rose up from his seat with trepidation, believing without doubt that I had brought his general to punish him. I paid not the least heed to him, and he made haste at Don Ygnacio's bidding to go to the hall beyond, where the galley-slaves were confined, and bring forth the Frenchman.
When he was gone I asked Don Ygnacio whether there were not some private room where we might do our business, since it was not seemly that we should be at the gaze of so many goggling eyes while the experimentum was a-doing. He led me to a small ante-chamber some few steps along the passage towards the hall, Stubbs remaining with his parcels at the door of the guard-room, perfectly at ease, though he stood within arm's-length of the men that had formerly oppressed him. Presently I heard a clanking of chains, and the captain returned, bringing with him a lean and lanky scarecrow of a man, naked save for his loin-cloth, his poll and face being shaven clean. It smote me to the heart to see in his hollow eyes and sunken cheeks the altered lineaments of my dear friend, erstwhile comely and jocund as any you would see. He lifted his eyes as he came in, and regarded Don Ygnacio with a look of gall, not turning his gaze upon me.
"A sorry knave," said the Spaniard to me. "Think you, cousin, there is enough virtue in him for our business?"
"We can but try, excellency," I said, and at the words Raoul shivered and looked at me with such amazement that I feared lest an unlucky word should betray me. I dealt upon him a sudden and meaning frown, the which escaped the observation of the others, they having eyes for the slave alone. To my exceeding joy he had the wit to take me, and cast down his eyes in the manner of one that hath no more hold upon the world. Then I turned to Don Ygnacio and said:
"He hath a wild look, señor. It were meet that we have two soldiers here with us, so that we may make our trial in comfort and security."
"Certes," he replied, "we have already Captain Badillo; we will have a man from the guard-room."
"By your pardon, señor," I said, "the señor captain did me the honour to affront me a while ago, and his presence at this time will so trouble the conjugations of the nerves, the which needs must be in perfect tranquillity, as to imperil the good success of our undertaking."
"It was a lamentable error, excellency," stammered the captain. "I wot not that the worthy physician was akin to your excellency."
"Go, sirrah," said Don Ygnacio sternly. "Who affronts my kin affronts me. Send hither two men from the guard-room."
I was never better pleased in my life than when the captain departed, for the two common ignorant soldiers would be much less like to suspect me. Thereupon I called to Stubbs to bring in the parcels, and when he came, a little behind the soldiers, I shut the door, bade him undo one of his bundles, and said gravely that all would soon be ready for the experimentum.
Stubbs loosed the ropes and laid them, in the manner of a careful servant, beside the bundle. From this when it was unrolled he took first three strips of a dark cloth, about an ell long, which he laid over his arm. Then he brought forth a small roll of white canvas and gave it to me. I motioned him to withdraw to a little distance, as also the soldiers; then I made Raoul stand a few paces from Don Ygnacio, facing him. Posting myself betwixt the two, I drew from my pocket a small box of powder of chalk, and unrolled the canvas, yet so that the Spaniard might not see its inner side, and with solemn circumstance I dusted it with the powder. This done, I stretched it out between my arms, and making two strides towards Raoul I bade him look intently thereupon while I counted ten. I heard Don Ygnacio breathing hard behind me as I gravely told the numbers one by one, and when Raoul informed me with his eyes that he had read the words I had carefully imprinted on the canvas (they were: "Grip the Spaniard by the neck whenas I give the sign") I rolled up the canvas and stepped slowly backward, beckoning with the one hand Don Ygnacio, with the other Stubbs and the soldiers, to draw near.
You are now to observe that Raoul and Don Ygnacio were within a hand-breadth of each other, that one of the soldiers was close to me, and the second beside Stubbs. All was silent. On a sudden I let forth, very sharply but without raising my voice, the one word "Now!" Instantly Raoul was at Don Ygnacio's throat; I closed with my soldier and held him in a strangling embrace; and Stubbs, with the neatness of a skilled hand, dealt his man a blow that stretched him senseless on the floor. Quick as thought he handed to us two of the cloths that he had upon his arm, and we clapped them into the mouths of our prisoners, he doing the like with the third. So sudden were our motions that there had been not the least opportunity of resisting us, and though Don Ygnacio offered to cry out before the gag was comfortably settled between his teeth, Raoul bade him in a fierce whisper be silent or his life was forfeit. It was short work to truss them with the ropes, thanks to Stubbs his deftness, and I knew with infinite gladness of heart that the first part of my device was accomplished.
[image]INSTANTLY RAOUL WAS AT DON YGNACIO'S THROAT
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INSTANTLY RAOUL WAS AT DON YGNACIO'S THROAT
There was still much to do, and our peril was but beginning. In two words I acquainted Raoul with my plan. I asked him how many soldiers were on guard among the galley-slaves; he told me four, and every one had a key to the padlocks wherewith they were fettered to the wall. My design was to set free the slaves, seize upon the Captain-General's galley, the which he had so obligingly shown me, and put to sea. It was necessary to our success that the soldiers in the guard-room should be silenced, and also the Captain Badillo, if he was yet at hand; but since we could not hope, being but three, to overcome a dozen men, we must perforce first set free the slaves, by whose assistance the feat might be easily compassed. Moreover, there was great need for haste, Stubbs having told me that it was drawing near the time when the cookmen were wont to bring in the slaves' supper from the outhouses.
I opened the door stealthily, and peered along the passage to the guard-room. There was none in sight, but neither was there so much noise proceeding from the room as I should have liked. Nevertheless, since our case was desperate and would not abide long rumination, we durst not stay for the nice weighing of chances, but had to act at once. I had had the soldiers brought into the room for a purpose, namely, that we might dress ourselves in their garments and so gain some covert for our device. I bade Stubbs strip the two soldiers of their gaberdines, and these we donned, he and I, and then proceeded with all quietness along the passage to the slaves' hall, Raoul being carried betwixt us, so that the clanking of his chains might not draw the soldiers forth of the guard-room.
Coming to the door of the hall we set Raoul down, and thrust him before us into the room, entering close behind him. I saw in a quick glance the miserable slaves lying in a long row by the wall, and four soldiers conversing in a group about the middle of the room. The dusk of evening forbade them to perceive at once that the two supposed soldiers that had entered were not their comrades, and when at our approach they were certified thereof they had not the time to collect their wits, for Stubbs, by a little the foremost, smote one of them a dint that sent him headlong against the wall, and then immediately grappled with another. Meanwhile Raoul and I had not been idle, each dealing with his man, and in a few moments we had all four at our feet, begging for mercy.
This had not passed without some noise, but having been careful to shut the stout oaken door behind me I had a reasonable hope that the sound would not have penetrated to the guard-room. The clamour that might have been feared from the slaves did not arise, so great was their consternation. I asked Raoul to acquaint them with our design, whiles that with Stubbs' aid I stripped the soldiers of their outer garments and their arms, and trussed and gagged them as we had done afore with the others.
Raoul told the men that all who could muster their courage had a good chance of escape, but they must in all points obey me, a countryman of the great Dragon (so Sir Francis Drake was commonly known among them), who had come to their succour, and had already made a prisoner of Don Ygnacio. He promised them hard work, and maybe their fill of fighting, and adjured every man that had no stomach for it to remain in his fetters rather than irk the rest. Then we went swiftly from one to another, unlocking their chains with the keys we had taken from the soldiers. Never a man of them elected to remain, and though Raoul was for leaving certain of them that he knew to be poor-spirited, I deemed it best to release them all, lest those that were left should raise an uproar and so bring us into danger.
We arrayed four of the stoutest of them in the garments we had taken from the soldiers, covering their shaven heads with the morions that hung on pegs to the wall. Then with these four and four others, Raoul remaining in the hall, we ran swiftly down the passage to the guard-room, burst open the door, and by the vehemency of our onset overthrew the soldiers there in marvellous brief time. Stubbs and myself we set to a-trussing the fellows, but the slaves contemned such delicate work, and gave quietus to their whilom oppressors with such weapons as came first to hand.
While we were in the midst of this hurly-burly, on a sudden lifting of my eyes I saw Captain Badillo standing in the door betwixt the guard-room and his own apartment, and gazing at us in the manner of one bereft of his wits. I left trussing my fellow and sprang towards the captain, whom I caught by the scruff of his neck, and, showing him my dagger, bade him hold his peace on peril of his life. At that same conjuncture some one cried that the cookmen were crossing the outer court, bearing hugeous baskets of biscuit and great two-handed caldrons of meagre broth, as they were wont to do at this time. Extremity, I must believe, sharpens a man's wits, for in the twinkling of an eye I thrust the captain into the passage and towards the outer door, straitly charging him to bid the men carry their burdens to the Captain-General's galley, since he had taken a sudden purpose to go a cruise. I had Spanish enough, to be sure, to give the command myself, but I knew it would come with authority from Captain Badillo, whereas from me, a stranger, it might be slighted. My naked dagger was sufficient enforcement of my bidding, and in a trice I saw with satisfaction the cookmen change their course and stagger with their loads to the quayside. By this means I obtained for the slaves a modest dole of food, whereof I doubted not they stood in need.
[image]SHOWING HIM MY DAGGER, I BADE HIM HOLD HIS PEACE
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SHOWING HIM MY DAGGER, I BADE HIM HOLD HIS PEACE
Hasting back to the slaves' hall, I found that Raoul had ranged them all in readiness for departure. I had bidden Stubbs see to it that the slaves in the guard-room should don as much as they could of the soldiers' garments and cover their bald pates with their morions, and bring also the weapons from his bundles, and then, myself going at the head, holding Captain Badillo by the sleeve, we marched out and made our way as swiftly as we might without sign of hurry to where the galley awaited us. There was a sentry at the gate of the munition-house some two-score paces distant, but the dusk in some sort enshrouded us, and certain it is we came to the galley without molestation or so much as a cry.
But there a peril that I had not foreseen lay in wait for us. The cookmen, having bestowed their burdens aboard, stood carelessly on the quay to witness our embarkation. A dozen of the slaves had shipped themselves before these men were aware of aught amiss; but then one spied the villainous countenance of a notorious desperado beneath a soldier's morion, and communicating his discovery to his fellows, they with one consent took to their heels and fled towards their quarters with hue and cry. Sundry of them were felled by the slaves whom they encountered, but the rest got themselves clear away, and it was plain that ere long the alarm would be sounded in every part of the town. I cast Captain Badillo into the galley, and urged the rest of the men to quicken their speed, and they came helter-skelter, falling one over another in their haste.
Now it seemed that all were aboard, but I had not observed Stubbs among them, and began to fear lest he had been intercepted. But I then perceived him, and three of the galley-slaves, staggering towards me with a heavy burden which as they drew near I discerned to be none other than the mountainous bulk of Don Ygnacio de Acosta. I cried to them to hasten their steps, the which they did, and arriving at the quayside they let their load fall with no more tenderness than if it had been a bale of merchandise, and the Captain-General fell with a monstrous thwack upon the galley's deck.
At Raoul's bidding the men had already gotten out the sweeps. But at this the eleventh hour I observed a pile of sails lying over against the sea-wall, and I commanded Stubbs and those with him to bring them to the galley. The men who were aboard, in their haste to depart, had slipped the moorings, and could hardly be restrained from pushing off without us. I heard Raoul upbraid them with great vehemency, and ask them how they supposed they could escape with oars alone, whereupon they left their striving and gave us time to tumble the sails in among them. Then the rest of us leapt aboard, I last of all, and the slaves, thrusting their oars with desperate violence against the quay-wall, drove the rocking vessel out into the basin.
It was high time, for already there was stir and hubbub not a great way from the quay, and at the very moment when we sheered off a shot was fired, I doubt not by the sentry at the munition-house. Through the gathering dusk I saw a concourse of folk swarm upon the sea-wall and the quay, there being not a few soldiers among them. But all things had been done so suddenly as that none but the sentry had had time to kindle his match, and the galley was come forth out of the dock ere they arrived at the quay. Shouting and cursing they ran hither and thither, in a perfect medley and confusion, there being as yet none to direct them what they should do. I could not forbear making them a most courteous salutation with my hat, though I fear the darkness and their fury forbade them to mark the exceeding grace of it.
Turning to observe how things were ordered, I perceived that Raoul, whose knowledge of the harbour was the fruit of long and bitter travail, had established himself at the helm. I descended to the lower deck, where Stubbs had put himself over the oarsmen, who were set in their due ranks, and tugged at the sweeps with a vigour wherewith they had never laboured before, I warrant you. In sooth, Stubbs was constrained to bid them moderate their ardour, inasmuch as there lay a reef of rocks on the starboard side, and it would go hard with us if we by any ill-hap ran upon them. But the resolute and assured look upon their faces, villainous and forbidding as the most part were, confirmed me in my belief that, barring any untoward accident, we should in no long time be beyond reach of pursuers.
The harbour of Cadiz, you are to understand, hath a northward trend to the mouth of the river Guadaloto, whence the coast of the mainland runs north-westerly until we come to the mouth of the Guadalquivir. Four galleys, as I have said, were at anchor nigh the munition-house, and at the bulwark of Saint Philip at the north-east extremity of the island lay other sixteen. The first four we had already passed, but we must run the gauntlet of the sixteen, the which when we should have done we had nought to fear save perchance from the ordnance established on the coast of the bay of Caleta. I knew right well that notwithstanding the clamour that filled the town, where alarm bells were dinning amain, some time must needs be consumed before the occasion of the pother was thoroughly known, and the galleys could be put in fair trim to pursue us. So indeed the event answered to my expectation, for we came pretty near to the mouth of the harbour without anything whatsoever happening to mar our security.
It was now dark, yet not so black but that we could see our course, and besides there were the lights of the town to serve our helmsman as guide posts. That the town was mightily astir was demonstrated by a shot that was belched out upon us by one of the great pieces mounted on the bulwark of Saint Philip. But it did us no harm, unless some slight defacement of our figurehead that I observed next day was the work of this shot. Taking warning, Raoul steered the vessel hard over against the mainland, though I deplored the loss of time we suffered thereby. Indeed, but for this circuit which we made, and which, being a prudent measure, I could not gainsay, verily I believe we should have run out into the open sea without any let or hindrance whatsoever. But it happed that as we again bore westward, I perceived the black shape of a galley move from its anchorage in our wake, and presently after other of the same sort. This gave me no manner of apprehension, for we were fully manned, and our men, rowing for their very lives, were not like to be outdone by the hapless slaves in our pursuers, even though they were urged by the whip.
We were in another case when, as we came abreast of the point at the northern extremity of the bay of Caleta, a galley shot forth by the skirts of the rocks and made great speed to sea, not directly towards us, but taking a slantwise course with intent to head us off, as seamen say. It was a hard matter in the darkness to make a nice reckoning, yet I thought we should outstrip even this the most threatening of our pursuers. Being ware of a steady fair breeze off the land, I deemed it mere foolishness to neglect it; accordingly I bade Stubbs choose some few men among the oarsmen that were mariners, and send them on deck to bend the sails. This proceeding caused us to lose way somewhat, the sails having been cast aboard without any care, and so needing time to order them rightly. And when I saw that the captain of the galley in chase of us had foregone me, and being now come into the wind had already gotten his sails ahoist, I was not a little dismayed. Bethinking me of Don Ygnacio and Captain Badillo, hitherto mere idle passengers and burdensome, I resolved to put them to the oars, not without a secret relish in the thought that they would now taste of the toil they had heretofore inflicted upon the slaves. With my own hands therefore I cast Don Ygnacio loose, and bundled both him and the lesser captain to the lower part of the vessel, giving them into the charge of my good Stubbs, with a strait injunction that he should urge them to a decent industry. I did not see with my own eyes how they accommodated themselves to their task, because I returned to the deck to look to the sails and also to keep a watch on the enemy. But Stubbs told me afterwards that he plied the whip right merrily on the backs of those two proud Spaniards, and so wrought them to a just activity, to the great delectation of the galley-slaves, who themselves rowed with the more cheerfulness, beholding their tormentors dealt with after the manner they delighted in.