heAlmirante Recalde, for such was the name of the galleon, was easily and speedily repaired by the skilled seamen of theMary Roseunder such leadership and direction as the experience of Morgan and the officers afforded. By the beginning of the first dog-watch even a critical inspection would scarcely have shown that she had been in action. With the wise forethought of a seaman, Morgan had subordinated every other duty to the task of making the vessel fit for any danger of the sea, and he had deferred any careful examination of her cargo until everything had been put shipshape again; although by his hurried questioning of the surviving officers he had learned that theAlmirante Recaldewas indeed loaded with treasure of Peru, which had been received by herviathe Isthmus of Panama for transportation to Spain. On board her were several priests returning to Spain headed by one Fra Antonio de Las Casas, together with a band of nuns under the direction of an aged abbess, Sister Maria Christina.
In the indiscriminate fury of the assault one or two of the priests had been killed, but so soon as the ship had been fully taken possession of the lives of the surviving clerics and the lives of the good sisters had been spared by Morgan's express command. These unfortunate women had been forced into the great cabin, where they were guarded by men in whom confidence could be placed. The priests were allowed to minister to their dying compatriots so long as they kept out of the way of the sailors. No feeling of pity or compassion induced Morgan to withhold the women from his crew. He was a man of prudent foresight and he preserved them for a purpose, a purpose in which the priests were included.
In the hold of the ship nearly one hundred and fifty wretched prisoners were discovered. They were the crew of the buccaneer shipDaring, which had been commanded by a famous adventurer named Ringrose, who had been captured by a Spanish squadron after a desperate defense off the port of Callao, Peru. They were being transported to Spain, where they had expected summary punishment for their iniquities. No attention whatever had been paid to their protests that they were Englishmen, and indeed the statement was hardly true for at least half of them belonged to other nations. In the long passage from Callao to the Isthmus and thence through the Caribbean they had been kept rigorously under hatches. Close confinement for many days and enforced subsistence upon a scanty and inadequate diet had caused many to die and impaired the health of the survivors. When the hatch covers were opened, the chains unshackled and the miserable wretches brought on deck, their condition moved even some of the buccaneers to pity. The galleon was generously provided for her long cruise across the ocean, and the released prisoners, by Morgan's orders, were liberally treated. No work was required of them; they were allowed to wander about the decks at pleasure, refreshed by the open air, the first good meal they had enjoyed in several months, and by a generous allowance of spirits. As soon as they learned the object of the cruise, without exception they indicated their desire to place themselves under the command of Morgan. Ringrose, their captain, had been killed, and they were without a leader, which was fortunatein that it avoided the complications of divided command. Fortunate, that is, for Ringrose, for Morgan would have brooked no rival on such an expedition.
As soon as it could be done, a more careful inspection and calculation satisfied the buccaneer of the immense value of his prize. The lading of the galleon, consisting principally of silver bullion, was probably worth not far from a million Spanish dollars—pieces of eight! This divided among the one hundred and eighty survivors of the original crew meant affluence for even the meanest cabin boy. It was wealth such as they had not even dreamed of. It was a prize the value of which had scarcely ever been paralleled.
They were assembled forward of the quarter-deck when the announcement was made. When they understood the news the men became drunk with joy. It would seem as if they had been suddenly stricken mad. Some of them stared in paralyzed silence, others broke into frantic cheers and yells, some reeled and shuddered like drunken men. The one person who preserved his imperturbable calmness was Morgan himself. The gratitude of these men toward him was overwhelming. Even those who had good cause to hate him forgot for the time being their animosity—all except Hornigold, whose hatred was beyond all price. Under his leadership they had achieved such a triumph as had scarcely ever befallenthem in the palmiest days of their career, and with little or no loss they had been put in possession of a prodigious treasure. They crowded about him presently with enthusiastic cheers of affection and extravagant vows of loving service. All, that is, except Hornigold, whose sense of injury, whose thirst for vengeance, was so deep that all the treasure of Potosi itself would not have abated one jot or one tittle of it.
The general joy, however, was not shared by the rescued buccaneers. Although they had but a few hours before despaired of life in the loathsome depths of the vile hold, and they had been properly grateful for the sudden and unexpected release which had given them their liberty and saved them from the gibbet, yet it was not in any human man, especially a buccaneer, to view with equanimity the distribution—or the proposed distribution—of so vast a treasure and feel that he could not share in it. The fresh air and the food and drink had already done much for those hardy ruffians. They were beginning to regain, if not all their strength, at least some of their courage and assurance. They congregated in little groups here and there among Morgan's original men and stared with lowering brows and flushed faces at the frantic revel in which they could not participate. Not even the cask of rum which Morgan orderedbroached to celebrate the capture, and of which all hands partook with indiscriminate voracity, could bring joy to their hearts. After matters had quieted down somewhat—and during this time the galleon had been mainly left to navigate herself—Morgan deemed it a suitable occasion to announce his ultimate designs to the men.
"Gentlemen, shipmates, and bold hearts all," he cried, waving his hand for silence, "we have captured the richest prize probably that floats on the ocean. There are pieces of eight and silver bullion enough beneath the hatches, as I have told you, to make us rich for life, to say nothing of the gold, jewels, spices, and whatnot, besides——"
He was interrupted by another yell of appreciation.
"But, men," he continued, "I hardly know what to do with it."
"Give it to us," roared a voice, which was greeted with uproarious laughter, "we'll make away with it."
Morgan marked down with his eye the man who had spoken and went on.
"The ports of His Majesty, the King of England, will be closed to us so soon as our capture of theMary Roseis noted. England is at peace with the world. There is not a French or Spanish port that would give us a haven. If we appeared anywhere in Europeanwaters with this galleon we would be taken and hanged. Now, what's to be done?"
"Run the ship ashore on the New England coast," cried the man who had spoken before. "Divide the treasure. Burn the ship and scatter. Let every man look to his own share and his own neck."
"A plan, a plan!"
"Ay, that'll be the way of it!"
"Sawkins is right!"
"To the New England shore! Ben Hornigold will pilot the ship!" burst in confused clamor from the crew to whom the plan appealed.
"By heaven, no!" shouted Morgan. "That's well enough for you, not for me. I'm a marked man. You can disappear. I should be taken, and Hornigold and Raveneau and the rest. It won't do. We must stay by the ship."
"And what then?"
"Keep to the original plan. We'll sail this ship down to the Spanish Main and capture a town, divide our treasure, make our way overland to the Pacific, where we'll find another ship, and then away to the South Seas! Great as is our booty, there is still more to be had there for the taking. We'll be free to go where we please with the whole South American coast at hand. There are islands, tropic islands, there, where it's always summer. They are ours for thechoosing. We can establish ourselves there. We'll found a community, with every man a law for himself. We'll——"
But the recital of this Utopian dream was rudely interrupted.
"Nay, Master," cried Sawkins, who had done most of the talking from among the crew, "we go no farther."
He was confident that he had the backing of the men, and in that confidence grew bold with reckless temerity. Flushed by the victory of the morning, the rum he had imbibed, intoxicated by the thought of the treasure which was to be shared, the man went on impudently:
"No, Sir Harry Morgan, we've decided to follow our latest plan. We'll work this ship up to the New England coast and wreck her there. There are plenty of spots where she can be cast away safely and none to know it. We'll obey you there and no further. We've got enough treasure under hatches to satisfy any reasonable man. We're not afeared o' the King if you are."
"You fool!" thundered Morgan. "You will be hanged as soon as your part in the adventure is known."
"And who is to make it known, pray? As you said, we are poor ignorant men. It's nothing to us ifyou are marked, and you, and you," he continued, stepping forward and pointing successively at Morgan and the little band of officers who surrounded him. "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, we'd have you understand, and we're content with what we've got. We don't take no stock in them islands of yours. We can get all the women we want, and of our own kind without crossing the Isthmus. We don't want no further cruisin'. There's no need for us to land on the Spanish Main. We've made up our minds to 'bout ship and bear away to the northward. Am I right, mates?"
"Ay, ay, right you are!" roared the men surging aft.
"You mutinous hound!" yelled Morgan, leaning forward in a perfect fury of rage, and his passion was something appalling to look upon.
Hornigold clutched at the helm, which had been deserted by the seamen detailed to it during the course of the hot debate. The old man cast one long, anxious glance to windward where a black squall was apparently brewing. But he said nothing. The argument was between Morgan and his crew, there was no need for him to interfere. Teach, Raveneau, Velsers, and the officers drew their pistols and bared their swords, but most of the crew were also armed, and if it came to a trial of strength the cabin gangwas so overwhelmingly outnumbered that it would have been futile to inaugurate a contest.
Morgan, however, was frantic with rage. To be braved by a member of his crew, to have his plans balked by any man, and to be openly insulted in this manner! He did not hesitate a second. He rushed at Master Bartholomew Sawkins, and, brave man as that sailor was, he fairly quailed before the terrific incarnation of passionate fury his captain presented. The rest of the crew gave back before the furious onset of Sir Henry.
"You dog!" he screamed, and before the other realized his intention he struck him a fearful blow in the face with his naked fist. Always a man of unusual strength, his rage had bestowed upon him a Herculean force. He seized the dazed man by the throat and waist belt ere he fell to the deck from the force of the blow, and lifting him up literally pitched him overboard. Before the crew had recovered from their astonishment and terror at this bold action, the buccaneer officers closed behind their captain, each covering the front ranks of the men with a pistol. At the same instant the other men, Ringrose's crew, came shoving through the crowd, snatching such arms as they could in the passage, although most of them had to be satisfied with belaying pins.
"We're with you, Captain Morgan," cried one oftheir number. "We've had no treasure, and it seems we're not to have a share in this either. We've been in the South Seas," continued the speaker, a man named L'Ollonois, noted for his cruelty, rapacity, and success, "and the captain speaks truly. There are all that can delight brave men and a race of cowards to defend them. What's this treasure? It is great, but there are other things we want—wine and women!"
The man who had been thrown overboard had shrieked for help as he fell. The splash he had made as he struck the water had been followed by another. A Spanish priest standing by the rail had seized a grating and thrown it to the man. Morgan took in the situation in a glance.
"Who threw that grating?" he cried.
"I, señor," composedly answered the priest, who understood English.
Morgan instantly snatched a pistol from de Lussan's hand and shot the man dead.
"I allow no one," he shouted, "to interfere between me and the discipline of my men! You speak well, L'Ollonois. And for you, hounds!" he roared, clubbing the smoking pistol and stepping toward the huddled, frightened men, "get back to your duties unless you wish instant death! Scuttle me, if I don't blow up the galleon unless you immediately obey!Bear a hand there! If you hesitate—Fire on them!" he cried to his officers, but the men in the front did not linger. They broke away from his presence so vehemently that they fell over one another in the gangways.
Morgan instantly snatched a pistol from de Lussan's hand and shot the man dead.Morgan instantly snatched a pistol from de Lussan's hand and shot the man dead.
"Don't fire!" they cried in terror. "We'll go back to duty."
Morgan was completely master of the situation.
"I am to be obeyed," he cried, "implicitly, without question, without hesitation!"
"Ay, ay!"
"We will, we will!"
"That's well. Heave that carrion overboard," kicking the body of the priest. "Now we'll go back and pick up Sawkins," he continued. "Ready about, station for stays!"
"Look you, Captain Morgan," cried Hornigold, pointing to leeward. "The squall! 'Twill be soon on us. We'd best reduce sail and run for it."
"Nay," said Morgan, "I'll allow not even a storm to interfere with my plans. Flow the head sheets there! Hard down with the helm! Aft, here some of you, and man the quarter boat. I said I'd pick him up, and picked up he shall be, in spite of hell!"
The ship, like all Spanish ships, was unhandy and a poor sailor. Morgan, however, got all out of her that mortal man could get. With nice seamanshiphe threw her up into the wind, hove her to, and dropped a boat overboard. Teach had volunteered for the perilous command of her and the best men on the ship were at the oars. Sawkins had managed to catch the grating and was clinging feebly when the boat swept down upon him. They dragged him aboard and then turned to the ship. The sinister squall was rushing down upon them from the black horizon with terrific velocity. The men bent their backs and strained at the oars as never before. It did not seem possible that they could beat the wind. The men on the ship beseeched Morgan to fill away and abandon their comrades.
"No!" he cried. "I sent them there and I'll wait for them if I sink the ship!"
Urged by young Teach to exertion superhuman, the boat actually shot under the quarter of the galleon before the squall broke. The tackles were hooked on and she was run up to the davits with all her crew aboard.
"Up with the helm!" cried Morgan the instant the boat was alongside. "Swing the mainyard and get the canvas off her. Aloft, topmen, settle away the halliards! Clew down! Lively, now!"
And as the ship slowly paid off and gathered away the white squall broke upon them. The sea was a-smother with mist and rain. The wind whippedthrough the shrouds and rigging, but everything held. Taking a great bone in her teeth the oldAlmirante Recaldeheeled far over to leeward and ripped through the water to the southward at such a pace as she had never made before. On the quarter-deck a drenched, shivering, and sobbing figure knelt at Morgan's feet and kissed his hand.
"Wilt obey me in the future?" cried the captain to the repentant man.
"'Fore God, I will, sir," answered Sawkins.
"That's well," said the old buccaneer. "Take him forward, men, and let him have all the rum he wants to take off the chill of his wetting."
"You stood by me that time, Sir Henry," cried young Teach, who had been told of Morgan's refusal to fill away, "and, by heaven, I'll stand by you in your need!"
"Good. I'll remember that," answered Morgan, glad to have made at least one friend among all he commanded.
"What's our course now, captain?" asked Hornigold as soon as the incident was over.
"Sou'west by west-half-west," answered Morgan, who had taken an observation that noon, glancing in the binnacle as he spoke.
"And that will fetch us where?" asked the oldman, who was charged with the duty of the practical sailing of the ship.
"To La Guayra and Venezuela."
"Oho!" said the old boatswain, "St. Jago de Leon, Caracas, t'other side of the mountains will be our prize?"
"Ay," answered Morgan. "'Tis a rich place and has been unpillaged for a hundred years."
He turned on his heel and walked away. He vouchsafed no further information and there was no way for Master Ben Hornigold to learn that the object that drew Morgan to La Guayra and St. Jago was not plunder but the Pearl of Caracas.
HOW THEY STROVE TO CLUB-HAUL THE GALLEON AND FAILED TO SAVE HER ON THE COAST OF CARACAS
wo days later they made a landfall off the terrific coast of Caracas, where the tree-clad mountains soar into the clouds abruptly from the level of the sea, where the surf beats without intermission even in the most peaceful weather upon the narrow strip of white sand which separates the blue waters of the Caribbean from the massive cliffs that tower above them.
In the intervening time the South Sea buccaneers had picked up wonderfully. These men, allured by the hope of further plunder under a captain who had been so signally successful in the past and in the present, constituted a most formidable auxiliary to Morgan's original crew. Indeed, with the exception of the old hands they were the best of the lot. L'Ollonois had been admitted among the officers on a suitable footing, and there was little or no friction among the crews. They were getting hammered into shape,too, under Morgan's hard drilling, and it was a vastly more dangerous body of men than the drunken gang who had sailed away from Jamaica. Though not the equal of the former buccaneering bands who had performed in their nefarious careers unheard of prodigies of valor and courage, they were still not to be despised. Had it been known on the Spanish Main that such a body was afloat there would have been a thrill of terror throughout the South American continent, for there were many who could remember with the vividness of eye-witnesses and participants the career of crime and horror which the old buccaneers had inaugurated.
Like a politic captain, Morgan had done his best to get the men whom he had subdued by his intrepid courage and consummate address into good humor. Rum and spirits were served liberally, work was light, in fact none except the necessary seaman's duties were required of the men, although an hour or two every day was employed in hard drill with swords, small arms, and great guns. In martial exercises the veterans were perfect, and they assiduously endeavored to impart their knowledge to the rest.
It was Morgan's plan to run boldly into La Guayra under the Spanish flag. No one could possibly take theAlmirante Recaldefor anything but a Spanishship. There was no reason for suspecting the presence of an enemy, for Spain had none in these seas. If there were other ships in the roadstead, for the harbor of La Guayra was really nothing more than an open road, the buccaneer could easily dispose of them in their unprepared condition. Indeed, Morgan rather hoped that there might be others, for, after he captured them, he would have a greater force of guns to train upon the forts of the town, which he expected to take without much difficulty, and then be governed in his manœuvres toward Caracas by circumstances as they arose.
Two days after the capture of the galleon, then, with the wind fresh from the northeast, on a gray, threatening, stormy morning, she was running to the westward along the shore. A few hours at their present speed would bring them opposite La Guayra, whose location at the foot of the mighty La Silla of Caracas was even then discernible. Morgan could see that there were two or three other vessels opposite the town straining at their anchors in the heavy sea. Every preparation for action had been made in good time and the guns had been loaded. The sea lashings had been cast off, although the gun-tackles were carefully secured, for the wind was blowing fresher and the sea running heavier every hour.
The men were armed to the teeth. There happened to be a goodly supply of arms on the Spanish ship in addition to those the buccaneers had brought with them, which were all distributed. Many a steel cap destined for some proud Spanish hidalgo's head now covered the cranium of some rude ruffian whom the former would have despised as beneath his feet.
Everything was propitious for their enterprise but the weather. The veterans who were familiar with local conditions in the Caribbean studied the northeastern skies with gloomy dissatisfaction. The wind was blowing dead inshore, and as the struck bells denoted the passing hours, with each half-hourly period it grew appreciably stronger. If it continued to blow, or if, as it was almost certain, the strength of the wind increased, it would be impossible without jeopardizing the ship to come to anchor in the exposed roadstead. They would have to run for it. Nay, more, they would have to beat out to sea against it, for the coast-line beyond La Guayra turned rapidly to the northward.
Morgan was a bold and skilful mariner, and he held his course parallel to the land much longer than was prudent. He was loath, indeed, to abandon even temporarily a design upon which he had determined, and as he had rapidly run down his southing in this brief cruise his determination had been quickened by the thought of his growing nearness to the Pearl ofCaracas, until for the moment love—or what he called love—had almost made him forget the treasure in the ship beneath his feet. For the Pearl of Caracas was a woman.
Mercedes de Lara, daughter of the Viceroy of Venezuela, on her way home from Spain where she had been at school, to join her father, the Count Alvaro de Lara in the Vice-regal Palace at St. Jago de Leon, sometimes called the City of Caracas, in the fair valley on the farther side of those towering tree-clad mountains—the Cordilleras of the shore—had touched at Jamaica. There she had been received with due honor, as became the daughter of so prominent a personage, by the Vice-Governor and his wretched wife. Morgan's heart had been inflamed by the dark, passionate beauty of the Spanish maiden. It was only by a severe restraint enjoined upon himself by his position that he had refrained from abusing the hospitality he extended, by seizing her in the old buccaneer fashion. The impression she had made upon him had been lasting, and when he found himself alone, an outlaw, all his dreams of the future centered about his woman.
He would carry out the plans which he had outlined to his men, but the Pearl of Caracas, for so Donna Mercedes was called, must accompany him to the South Seas to be the Island Queen of that Buccaneer Empire of which he was to be the founder. That Donna Mercedes might object to this proposition; that she might love another man, might even be married by this time, counted for nothing in Morgan's plans. He had taken what he wanted by dint of his iron will and the strength of his right arm in the past and he should continue the process in the future. If the hand of man could not turn him, certainly the appeal of woman would avail nothing.
Consequently he was most reluctant that morning, for his passion had increased with each o'er-run league of sea, to bear away from La Guayra, which was the port of entry for Caracas; but even his ardent spirit was at last convinced of the necessity. It was blowing a gale now and they were so near the shore, although some distance to the eastward of the town, that they could see the surf breaking with tremendous force upon the strip of sand. The officers and older men had observed the course of the ship with growing concern, but no one had ventured to remonstrate with Morgan until old Ben Hornigold as a privileged character finally summoned his courage and approached him.
"Mark yon shore, Captain Morgan," he said, and when he made up his mind he spoke boldly. "The wind freshens. We're frightfully near. Should itcome on to blow we could not save the ship. You know how unseamanly these Spanish hulks are."
"Right you are, Hornigold," answered Morgan, yet frowning heavily. "Curse this wind! We must claw off, I suppose."
"Ay, and at once," cried Hornigold. "See, the wind shifts already! It blows straight from the north now."
"Hands by the braces there!" shouted Morgan, following with apprehension the outstretched finger of the old boatswain. "Ease down the helm. Brace up. Lively, lads!"
In a few moments the great ship, her yards braced sharply up, was headed out to seaward on the starboard tack. The wind was now blowing a whole gale and the masts of the ship were bending like whips.
"We'll have to get sail off her, I'm thinking, Hornigold," said Morgan.
"Ay, ay, sir, and quick!"
"Aloft!" yelled Morgan, "and take in the to'gallant s'l's. Close reef the tops'l's and double reef the courses then."
The shaking shrouds were soon covered with masses of men, and as the ship was exceedingly well handled the canvas was promptly snugged down by the eager crew. Hornigold with young Teach to assist him went to the helm. Morgan gave his personal attention to the manoeuvering of the ship, and the other officers stationed themselves where they could best promote and direct the efforts of the seamen.
Thus during the long morning they endeavored to claw off the lee shore. Morgan luffed the ship through the heavy squalls which rose to the violence of a hurricane, with consummate skill. Absolutely fearless, a master of his profession, he did all with that ship that mortal man could have done, yet their situation became more and more precarious. They had long since passed La Guayra. They had had a fleeting glimpse of the shipping in the harbor driving helplessly on shore as they dashed by under the gray clouds which had overspread the sea. That town was now hidden from them by a bend of the coast, and they found themselves in a curious bight of land, extending far into the ocean in front of them. The mountains here did not so nearly approach the water-line, and from the look of the place there appeared to be a shoal projecting some distance into the ocean from the point ahead. Some of the buccaneers who knew these waters confirmed the indications by asserting the existence of the shoal.
In spite of all that Morgan could do it was quite evident that they could not weather the shoal on their present tack. There was not sea-room to wear andbear up on the other tack. The vessel, in fact, like all ships in those days and especially Spanish galleons, had a tendency to go to leeward like a barrel, and only Morgan's resourceful seamanship had saved them from the fatal embraces of the shore long since. The canvas she was carrying was more than she could legitimately bear in such a hurricane. If there had been sea-room Morgan would have stripped her to bare poles long since, but under the circumstances it was necessary for him to retain full control and direction of the ship; so, although he reduced sail to the lowest point, he still spread a little canvas.
The men were filled with apprehension, not only for their lives but, such was their covetousness, for the treasure they had captured, for they stood about a hundred chances to one of losing the ship. Each squall that swept down upon them was harder than the one before. Each time the vessel almost went over on her beam ends, for Morgan would not luff until the last moment, since each time that he did so and lost way temporarily he found himself driven bodily nearer the land. The men would have mutinied had it not been patent to the most stupid mind that their only salvation lay in Morgan. Never had that despicable villain appeared to better advantage than when he stood on the weather quarter overlooking the ship, his long gray hair blown out inthe wind, fighting against a foe whose strength was not to be measured by the mind of man, for his life and his ship.
Hornigold and Teach, grasping the wheel assisted by two of the ablest seamen, were steering the ship with exquisite precision. Sweat poured from their brows at the violence of the labor required to control the massive helm. The men lay to windward on the deck, or grouped in clusters around the masts, or hung to the life lines which had been passed in every direction. At Morgan's side stood Velsers and Raveneau, prime seamen both.
"What think ye, gentlemen?" asked Morgan, at last pointing to the point looming fearfully close ahead of them. "Can we weather it?"
"Never!" answered de Lussan, shaking his head. "Well, it has been a short cruise and a merry one. Pity to lose our freightage and lives."
"And you, Velsers?"
"No," said the German, "it can't be done. Why did we ever come to this cursed coast?"
"Avast that!" cried Morgan, thinking quickly. "Gentlemen, we'll club-haul the ship."
"The water's too deep, my captain, to give holding ground to the anchor," urged Raveneau shrugging his shoulders.
"It shoals yonder, I think," answered Morgan. "We'll hold on until the last minute and then try."
"'Tis wasted labor," growled Velsers.
"And certain death to hold on," added the Frenchman.
"Have you anything else to propose, sirs?" asked Morgan sharply. "We can't tack ship against this wind and sea. There's no room to wear. What's to do?"
The men made no answer.
"Forward there!" cried the old buccaneer, and it was astonishing the force and power with which he made himself heard in spite of the roar of the wind and the smash of the sea. "Get the lee anchor off the bows there! L'Ollonois?"
"Ay, ay."
"Run a hawser from the anchor in aft here on the quarter. We'll club-haul the ship. See the cable clear for running."
"Very good, sir," cried the Frenchman, summoning the hardiest hands and the most skilful to carry out his commander's orders.
"Ready it is, sir," answered Hornigold, tightening his grasp on the spokes and nodding his head to his superior.
"To the braces, lads! Obey orders sharply. It's our last chance."
The water was roaring and smashing against the shore not a cable's length away. Usually in those latitudes it deepened tremendously a short distance from the low water mark, and there was a grave question whether or not the anchor, with the scope they could give it, would reach bottom. At any rate it must be tried, and tried now. Morgan had held on as long as he dared. Another minute and they would strike.
"Down helm!" he shouted. "Flow the head sheets! Round in on the fore braces, there! Show that canvas aft!"
The lateen sail on the crossjack yard had been furled, and Morgan, to force her head around, directed the after guard to spring into the mizzen-rigging with a bit of tarpaulin and by exposing it and their bodies to the wind to act as a sail in assisting her to head away from the shore.
"Helm-a-lee! Hard-a-lee!" cried Hornigold, who with his men was grasping the spokes like a giant.
Slowly the old galleon swung up into the wind, the waves beating upon her bows with a noise like crashes of thunder. A moment she hung. She could go no farther.
"She's in irons! Swing that yard!" roared Morgan. "Cut and veer away forward!"
There was a splash as the anchor dropped overboard.
"Hands on that hawser!" he shouted. "Everybody walk away with it!"
The whole crew apparently piled on to the anchor hawser in the hope of pulling the ship's stern around so that the wind would take her on the other bow. She was still hanging in the wind and driving straight on shore.
"Haul away, for God's sake!" cried Morgan; but the hawser came in board through their hands with a readiness and ease that showed the anchor had not taken the ground. The drag of the cable to the anchor, however, and the still unspent impetus of the first swing, turned the galleon's stern slightly to windward. Her head began slowly to fall off.
"She stays! She makes it!" cried the captain. "Meet her with the helm! Let go and haul! Cut away the hawser!"
It had been a tremendous feat of seamanship and bade fair to be successful. It was yet touch and go, however, and the breakers were perilously near. They were writhing around her forefoot now, yet the wind was at last coming in over the other bow.
"We're safe!" cried Morgan. "Flatten in forward! Haul aft the sheets and braces!"
At that instant there was a terrific crash heardabove the roar of the tempest. The foretopmast of theAlmirante Recaldecarried sharply off at the hounds. Relieved of the pressure, she shot up into the wind once more and drove straight into the seething seas. They were lost with their treasure, their hopes, and their crimes! At the mercy of wind and wave!
The men were as quick to see the danger as was Morgan. They came rushing aft baring their weapons, pouring curses and imprecations upon him. He stood with folded arms, a scornful smile on his old face, looking upon them, Carib watching and ready by his side. In another second, with a concussion which threw them all to the deck, the doomed ship struck heavily upon the sands.
DISCLOSES THE HOPELESS PASSION BETWEEN DONNA MERCEDES DE LARA AND CAPTAIN DOMINIQUE ALVARADO, THE COMMANDANTE OF LA GUAYRA
aptain Dominique Alvarado stood alone on the plaza of the ancient castle which for over a century had been the home of the governors of La Guayra. He was gazing listlessly down over the parapet which bordered the bare sheer precipice towering above the seaport town. There was nothing in his eyes, but a great deal in his heavy heart.
Captain Alvarado, who filled the honorable station of commandante of the port, was a soldier of proven courage. Theprotégéand favorite officer of his serene highness the Count Alvaro de Lara, Grandee of Spain and Viceroy of Venezuela, he hadbeen honored with great responsibilities, which he had discharged to the satisfaction of his master. From a military point of view the office of Governor of La Guayra, which he then filled, was of sufficient importance to entitle him to high position and much consideration in the vice-regal court of Caracas.
Of unknown parentage, Alvarado had been received into the family of the viceroy when an infant. He had been carefully reared, almost as he had been de Lara's son, and had been given abundant opportunity to distinguish himself. In the course of his short life he had managed to amass a modest fortune by honorable means. He was young and handsome; he had been instructed, for the viceroy had early shown partiality for him, in the best schools in the New World. His education had been ripened and polished by a sojourn of several years in Europe, not only at the court of Madrid but also at that of Versailles, where the Count de Lara had been sent as ambassador to the Grand Monarch during a period in which, for the sake of supervising the education of his only daughter, he had temporarily absented himself from his beloved Venezuela. That an unknown man should have been given such opportunities, should have been treated with so much consideration, was sufficient commentary on the unprecedented kindness of heart of the old Hidalgo who representedthe failing power of His Most Catholic Majesty of Spain, Carlos II., the Bewitched, in the new world. Whatever his origin, therefore, he had been brought up as a Spanish soldier and gentleman, and the old count was openly proud of him.
With assured station, ample means, increasing reputation; with youth, health, and personal good looks, the young Governor should have been a happy man. But it was easy to see from the heavy frown upon his sunny face—for he was that rare thing in Spain, a blue-eyed blond who at first sight might have been mistaken for an Englishman—that his soul was filled with melancholy. And well it might be, for Alvarado was the victim of a hopeless passion for Mercedes de Lara, the Viceroy's daughter, known from one end of the Caribbean to the other, from her beauty and her father's station, as the Pearl of Caracas.
Nor was his present sadness due to unrequited passion, for he was confident that the adoration of his heart was met with an adequate response from its object. Indeed, it was no secret to him that Mercedes loved him with a devotion which matched his own. It was not that; but her father had announced his intention to betroth the girl to Don Felipe de Tobar y Bobadilla, a young gentleman of ancient lineage and vast wealth, who had been born in America and was the reputed head in the Western Hemisphere of the famous family whose name he bore.
The consent of Donna Mercedes to the betrothal had not been asked. That was a detail which was not considered necessary by parents in the year of grace 1685, and especially by Spanish parents. That she should object to the engagement, or refuse to carry out her father's plan never crossed the Viceroy's imagination. That she might love another, was an idea to which he never gave a thought. It was the business of a well-brought-up Spanish maiden to be a passive instrument in the carrying out of her father's views, especially in things matrimonial, in which, indeed, love found little room for entrance. But Donna Mercedes loved Captain Alvarado and she cared nothing for Don Felipe. Not that Don Felipe was disagreeable to her, or to any one. He was a Spanish gentleman in every sense of the word, handsome, distinguished, proud, and gallant—but she did not, could not, love him. To complicate matters still further de Tobar was Captain Alvarado's cherished companion and most intimate friend.
The progress of the love affair between Alvarado and Donna Mercedes had been subjective rather than objective. They had enjoyed some unusual opportunities for meeting on account of the station the former filled in the Viceroy's household and the placehe held in his heart, yet the opportunities for extended freedom of intercourse between young men and women of the gentler class in those days, and especially among Spaniards of high rank, were extremely limited. The old count took care to see that his daughter was carefully watched and shielded; not because he suspected her of anything, for he did not, but because it was a habit of his people and his ancestry. The busy life that he led, the many employments which were thrust upon him, his military duties, had kept the days of the young soldier very full, and under the most favorable circumstances he would have had little time for love making. Fortunately much time is not required to develop a love affair, especially in New Spain and near to the equator.
But though they had enjoyed brief opportunity for personal intercourse, the very impossibilities of free communication, the difficulties of meeting, had but added fuel and fire to their affection. Love had flamed into these two hearts with all the intensity of their tropic blood and tropic land. Alvarado's passion could feed for days and grow large upon the remembrance of the fragrance of her hand when he kissed it last in formal salutation. Mercedes' soul could enfold itself in the recollection of the too ardent pressure of his lips, the burning yet respectfulglance he had shot at her, by others unperceived, when he said farewell. The memory of each sigh the tropic breeze had wafted to her ears as he walked in attendance upon her at some formal function of the court was as much to her as the flower which she had artfully dropped at his feet and which had withered over his heart ever since, was to him.
The difficulties in the way of the exchange of those sweet nothings that lovers love to dwell upon and the impossibility of any hoped for end to their love making intensified their passion. Little or nothing had been spoken between them, but each knew the other loved. For the first moment the knowledge of that glorious fact had sufficed them—but afterwards they wanted more. Having tasted, they would fain quaff deeply. But they could see no way by which to manage the realization of their dreams.
The situation was complicated in every possible way for Alvarado. Had he been a man of family like his friend, de Tobar, he would have gone boldly to the Viceroy and asked for the hand of his daughter, in which case he thought he would have met with no refusal; but, being ignorant of his birth, having not even a legal right to the name he bore, he knew that the proud old Hidalgo would rather see his daughter dead than wedded to him. Of all the ancient splendors of the Spanish people there was leftthem but one thing of which they could be proud—their ancient name. De Lara, who belonged to one of the noblest and most distinguished families of the Iberian Peninsula, would never consent to degrade his line by allying his only daughter to a nobody, however worthy in other respects the suitor might prove to be.
Again, had Mercedes' father been any other than the life-long patron and friend to whom he literally owed everything that he possessed, such was the impetuosity of Alvarado's disposition that, at every hazard, he would have taken the girl by stealth or force from her father's protection, made her his wife, and sought an asylum in England or France, or wherever he could. So desperate was his state of mind, so overwhelming his love that he would have shrunk from nothing to win her. Yet just because the Viceroy had been a father to him, just because he had loved him, had been unexampled in his kindness and consideration to him, just because he reposed such absolutely unlimited confidence in him, the young man felt bound in honor by fetters that he could not break.
And there was his friendship for de Tobar. There were many young gallants about the vice-regal court who, jealous of Alvarado's favor and envious of his merits, had not scrupled in the face of his unknownorigin to sneer, to mock, or to slight—so far as it was safe to do either of these things to so brave and able a soldier. Amid these gilded youths de Tobar with noble magnanimity and affection had proved himself Alvarado's staunchest friend. A romantic attachment had sprung up between the two young men, and the first confidant of de Tobar's love affairs had been Alvarado himself. To betray his friend was almost as bad as to betray his patron. It was not to be thought of.
Yet how could he, a man in whose blood—though it may have been ignoble for aught he knew—ran all the passions of his race with the fervor and fire of the best, a man who loved, as he did, the ground upon which the Señorita de Lara walked, stand by tamely and see her given to another, no matter who he might be? He would have given the fortune which he had amassed by honorable toil, the fame he had acquired by brilliant exploits, the power he enjoyed through the position he had achieved, the weight which he bore in the councils of New Spain, every prospect that life held dear to him to solve the dilemma and win the woman he loved for his wife.
He passed hours in weary isolation on the plaza of the great castle overlooking the stretched-out town upon the narrow strand with the ceaseless waves beating ever upon the shore from the heavenly turquoiseblue of the Caribbean wavering far into the distant horizon before him. He spent days and nights, thinking, dreaming, agonizing, while he wrestled vainly with the problem. Sometimes he strove to call to his mind those stern resolutions of duty which he had laid before himself at the beginning of his career, and to which he had steadfastly adhered in the pursuit of his fortunes; and he swore that he would be true to his ideals, that the trust reposed in him by the Viceroy should not be betrayed, that the friendship in which he was held by de Tobar should never be broken, that he would tear out of his heart the image of the woman he loved. And then, again, he knew that so long as that heart kept up its beating she would be there, and to rob him of her image meant to take away his life. If there had been a war, if some opportunity had been vouchsafed him to pour out, in battle against the enemy, some of the ardor that consumed him, the situation would have been ameliorated; but the times were those of profound peace. There was nothing to occupy his mind except the routine duties of the garrison.
Spain, under the last poor, crazed, bewitched, degenerate descendant of the once formidable Hapsburgs, had reached the lowest depths of ignominy and decay. Alone, almost, under her flag Venezuela was well governed—from the Spanish standpoint,that is; from the native American point of view the rule of even the gentlest of Spaniards had made a hell on earth of the fairest countries of the new continent. Of all the cities and garrisons which were under the sway of the Viceroy de Lara, La Guayra was the best appointed and cared for. But it did not require a great deal of the time or attention from so skilled a commander as Alvarado to keep things in proper shape. Time, therefore, hung heavily on his hands. There were few women of rank in the town, which was simply the port of entry for St. Jago de Leon across the mountains which rose in tree-clad slopes diversified by bold precipices for ten thousand feet back of the palace, and from the commoner sort of women the young captain held himself proudly aloof, while his love safeguarded him from the allurement of the evil and the shameless who flaunted their iniquity in every seaport on the Caribbean.
On the other side of the mountain range after a descent of several thousand feet to a beautiful verdant valley whose altitude tempered the tropic heat of the low latitude into a salubrious and delightful climate, lay the palace of the Viceroy and the city which surrounded it, St. Jago, or Santiago de Leon, commonly called the City of Caracas.
Many a day had Alvarado turned backward from the white-walled, red-roofed town spread out at hisfeet, baking under the palms, seething in the fierce heat, as if striving to pierce with his gaze the great cordilleras, on the farther side of which in the cool white palace beneath the gigantic ceibas the queen of his heart made her home. He pictured her at all hours of the day; he dwelt upon her image, going over again in his mind each detail of her face and figure. The perfume of her hand was still fragrant upon his lips; the sound of her voice, the soft musical voice of Andalusia, still vibrated in his ear; her burning glance pierced him even in his dreams like a sword.
He was mad, mad with love for her, crazed with hopeless passion. There seemed to be no way out of his misery but for him to pass his own sword through his heart, or to throw himself from the precipice, or to plunge into the hot, cruel blue of the enveloping Caribbean—the color of the sea changed in his eye with his temper, like a woman's mood. Yet he was young, he hoped in spite of himself. He prayed—for he was not old enough to have lost faith—and he planned. Besides, he was too brave a soldier to kill himself, and she was not yet married. She was not formally betrothed, even; although it was well known that her father looked favorably upon de Tobar's suit, no formal announcement had been made of it as yet. So in spite of his judgment he dreamed—thethoughts of youth and love are long, long thoughts, indeed.
That morning the young captain, engrossed in his emotions, was not aware of the approach of a messenger, until the clank of the man's sword upon the stone flags of the plaza caused him to lift his head. He was a soldier, an officer of the bodyguard of the Viceroy, and he bore in his hand a letter sealed with the de Lara coat of arms. The messenger saluted and handed the packet to the captain.
"Yesterday evening, His Excellency, the Viceroy, charged me to deliver this letter to you to-day."
"Fadrique," called Alvarado, to a servitor, "a flagon of wine for the cavalier. By your leave, sir," he continued with formal politeness, opening the packet and reading the message: