Chapter Five.

Chapter Five.How they disarmed the Batteries on Tierra Bomba.As Chichester neared the now familiar spot where he had left the longboat, he suffered himself to indulge in a returning feeling of elation, for the notion somehow came to him that he would find Marshall in the boat calmly awaiting his return; and this feeling presently grew so strong within him that he could scarcely credit his eyes when, upon passing through the screen of concealing foliage, he saw only the three seamen curled up in the boat. They roused themselves from their semi-somnolent condition and sat up to receive him, with glances of mute enquiry in their eyes.For a few moments Dick remained silent, absolutely speechless with disappointment. Then he remarked:“What, lads, has the Captain not yet returned, then?”“No, sir,” they answered in chorus. “We have seen naught of him, or indeed of anybody else, since you left us this morning.”“Then,” said Dick, “I greatly fear that evil has befallen him and that he has been discovered and taken by the Spaniards. For this is the last day of our stay here; and his orders to me were that if he returns not by midnight we are to proceed to sea and rejoin the ship; for his failure to return will be due to the fact of his having been captured. Still, there are six hours to run yet before midnight, and he may return even at the very last moment. Let us hope that he will. And now, men, give me some supper, for I have eaten nothing since I left you this morning.”The time between then and midnight was passed by Dick in a state of feverish suspense, that toward the end became almost unendurable, causing him to start and jump at every trivial sound that reached his ear. A dozen times at least he sprang to his feet with the joyous exclamation of “Here he is!” when the flutter of a dry leaf falling from its parent bough, the soft rustle of foliage in the night wind, or the movement of some restless bird broke the silence of that secluded spot; but he was always mistaken. The Captain came not; and at length his watch informed him that the time was half an hour after midnight. Then he rose to his feet with a sigh of bitter disappointment and said:“It is no good, lads; we must not delay our departure any longer; we have allowed the Captain half an hour’s grace, and if he could have come he would have been with us before now. Without doubt he is a prisoner, and we can best serve him now by returning to the ship with all speed and reporting the fact of his capture to the others, who must then decide whether or not we shall sail into the harbour, attack the town, and endeavour to rescue him. Cast off the painter, and let us be moving without further delay.”Almost careless now whether or not they attracted attention, they hauled the boat out from her place of concealment and, stepping the masts, hoisted their sails and got under way, the wind just permitting them to lay their course down past the sand spit and out through the entrance of the cove into the lower bay without breaking tacks. Then, to save time, Dick determined to risk the passage of the Boca Chica, the usual harbour entrance, instead of taking the longer route out to sea behind the island of Baru, relying upon the indifferent lookout of the sentinels as reported by Marshall to enable the boat to pass undetected. In this they were completely successful, the occupants of the batteries giving no sign that the passage of the boat had been observed; and half an hour after emerging from their place of concealment they found themselves safely clear of everything and out at sea.The night was dark but clear, with a fresh land breeze blowing, and a sky heavily flecked with fast-scurrying clouds, between which the stars and moon blinked down upon them intermittently. They were no sooner clear of the land than they began to look about them for the ship, and within a few minutes they caught sight of her signal lanterns about eight miles distant, dead to leeward. After that everything went quite smoothly; they hoisted their own signal lamp, and bore away dead before the wind, leaving it to the ship to pick them up, which she did about an hour later.Their shipmates manifested the utmost interest in their return, all hands mustering on deck to see the boat come alongside and hear the news. When, upon the boat being brought to the lee gangway, Dick led the way up the side, he was met at the entrance port by Bascomb, Winter, Dyer, and Harvey, each of whom at the same instant fired at him the question:“Where is the Captain?”“Lost—taken, I fear,” answered Dick. “He left us four nights ago, intending to make his way into the city of Cartagena, for the purpose of learning precisely when the galleon is to sail, together with any other information which he might be able to pick up. His instructions were that I was to await his return until midnight to-night, and if he then failed to return it would be because something untoward had happened to him, in which case I was to rejoin the ship at once and report to you, when you would act according to your discretion after consulting together.”For a moment there was a dead silence; then Bascomb turned to his fellow officers, and said:“My masters, this loss of our general is a very serious matter, and needs looking into. Let us all, therefore, retire to the cabin and hear what Mr Chichester has to tell us about it; after which, as was arranged when Captain Marshall left us six nights ago, we must all consult together and decide what our next step is to be. Come then, gentlemen, to the cabin. Mr Chichester, you will be pleased to accompany us.”Therewith the three principal officers of the ship and the two gentlemen adventurers retired to the great cabin, where, seated upon the lockers, and with Dick occupying a chair in front of them, the tale was told of all that had befallen the boat and its crew, from the moment of her departure to that of her return, including the several expeditions to the top of the hill on Tierra Bomba, and the drawing of the chart.“And where is that chart now?” demanded Bascomb. “Have you it, or did Captain Marshall take it with him?”“I have it,” answered Dick, “and here it is,” producing the sketch. “Fortunately the Captain left it with me, not needing it himself, since all the information required to enable him to make his way to Cartagena he could carry in his head.”The four who were sitting on the opposite side of the table bent over the document, examining it closely for several minutes. At length Bascomb looked up and said:“My masters, if this chart be reliable—and it should be, judging from the pains taken by our Captain and Mr Chichester—it should suffice to enable us to take the ship right up to Cartagena and lay her alongside the galleon. And if that ship can be taken by surprise and without loss on our part, as I think she may, what is to hinder us from taking the town and demanding a good heavy ransom for it, part of which ransom shall consist in the return to us, sound and unhurt, of our Captain? And if they refuse, or are unable to return our Captain to us in the condition specified, what say you to sacking the place and giving it to the flames? Depend upon it, by so doing we shall soon learn the fate of Captain Marshall, and where he is to be found, for there will be a hundred who will be only too ready to curry favour with us by telling us all that they know, in the hope that thereby we may be induced to spare their property.”“Ay, that will they, I warrant,” answered Winter. “And woe betide the city and all in it if aught of evil has been done to our Captain! We will find every man who has been in anywise responsible for that evil, and will hang him before his own door for all men to see how dangerous a thing it is for a Spaniard to lay violent hands upon an Englishman! Now, what say ye, gentles, shall we go in at once and do the work while our blood is hot within us?”“Nay, sirs,” answered Dick; “that may scarcely be. For if our Captain be indeed taken, as I greatly fear me he is, depend upon it the authorities will have identified him as an Englishman, in despite of any tale that he may have told them, and will, in consequence, suspect the presence of an English ship somewhere in the neighbourhood. And, following that suspicion, their first act would be to warn those in the forts on Tierra Bomba to be on the watch for that ship’s appearance. And once seen it will, according to the Captain’s own account, be impossible for us to force our way into the harbour unless the guns in those forts be first spiked. Now, gentles, I am the youngest of you all, but I have been inside and seen the place. Moreover, I have been privileged to discuss with the Captain this very question of taking the ship up to the town, from which discussion arose my determination to make that chart; and my advice is, that we defer our attempt until to-morrow night, and that in the meantime I be permitted to return in the longboat to our former hiding-place, provided with hammers and nails for the spiking of the guns and such other necessaries as I may require, together with a crew of six of our best men. We can get back to our place of concealment before daylight, and there remain in hiding until midnight or later, when we will sally forth, steal into those two forts, overpower and gag the sentinels, and spike the guns, after which we will signal the ship by the burning of portfires where they cannot be seen from the town, when you will sail in, I meeting you outside and piloting you in. We can then land a party, destroy both batteries by blowing them up, capture the galleon and the town, and sail out to sea again, unscathed, when we have finished our business with the Spaniards.”“Thy plan sounds promising, young sir,” answered Bascomb presently, after considering the matter a little; “but there is one weak point in it, which is this. If, as you seem to think, the Spaniards have taken our Captain, and thereby are led to suspect the presence of an English ship in the neighbourhood; and, suspecting such presence, should warn the garrisons of those two forts to be on the lookout for her—all of which I grant to be more than likely—what hope have you of being able to surprise those forts and spike their guns?”“The task will be a difficult one, I admit,” answered Dick, with a shrug of the shoulders; “but, with all submission, sirs, my plan is the only one offering a chance of success. For—and this is the fundamental fact governing all else—the guns must be spiked and the forts destroyed before this ship can enter Cartagena harbour or, having entered, get out again. But the forts once in our possession the whole town and harbour, with all within them, will be at our mercy. The important matter, therefore, to be determined is: By what means can we ensure obtaining possession of the forts with the minimum of loss to ourselves?”“Yes,” agreed Bascomb, “that is undoubtedly the point. Now, gentles, let us have your opinions. Has any one of you a better plan to offer than that of our junior lieutenant?”At this moment a stateroom door opened and Stukely emerged from the smaller room. Approaching the table, he stood and looked smilingly down upon the company assembled.“Your pardon, fair sirs,” he said, “for thrusting myself uninvited into your counsels. The surgeon is supposed to know but little of warfare beyond the healing of such hurts as may be received therein, but I happened to be lying awake in my cabin when this conference began, and I could not avoid hearing all that has passed, and I am of opinion that I can help you. As my friend, Chichester, here has put it, the problem which confronts you is that of securing possession of the forts without suffering loss of men. Now, the chief danger, to my mind, arises from the difficulty of entering the forts without attracting the attention of the sentinels, thus causing them to raise the alarm and bring the entire garrison about our ears. Is not that so?”The party at the table signified that it was.“Very good, then,” resumed Stukely. “Now we can go on. Though you are probably not aware of it, my chief delight is research, the investigation of, among other things, the properties and action upon the human system of the juices of herbs. Now, while we were at Barbados I spent much time in the collection of the leaves, roots, seeds, and fruits of several plants; and since then I have been diligently experimenting with them, with the result that I have evolved from one of them a liquor, one inhalation of the odour of which will plunge a man into a state of such complete insensibility that, as I believe, a limb might be removed from him without his feeling it or being any the wiser. My suggestion, therefore,” continued Stukely, ignoring the expressions of wonder evoked by his statement, “is that I be permitted to go in the boat with Chichester, taking a vial of the liquor with me, and upon our arrival ashore I will enter the forts with him, subject the sleeping sentinels—I humbly trust that they may be sleeping—to the stupefying influence of the decoction, whereby they may be bound and gagged without difficulty or the raising of an alarm which would put their fellow soldiers on the alert; and then between us the guns can be spiked at our leisure. The remaining details I leave to your riper judgment and experience, gallant sirs.”“But, doctor,” demanded Bascomb, “are you quite sure that this elixir or essence of yours may be depended upon to produce the effect stated?”“I am,” answered Stukely, with a smile, “for I have already tested it upon myself—no matter how—and the effect is everything that can possibly be desired.”“Then—what say you, gentles—shall we allow the surgeon to go with Mr Chichester and further test the efficacy of his decoction upon the Spanish sentinels?” asked the master.“’Twould be folly in us if we did not avail ourselves of the virtues of Mr Stukely’s most fortunate discovery,” said Winter; “and I for one am in favour of acceding to his proposal.”“And I, also,” agreed Dick, in response to a glance from Bascomb.The two gentlemen adventurers, when appealed to for their opinion, at once agreed that the experiment was quite worth trying; and Bascomb’s proposal was accordingly agreed tonem. con.“That matter, then, is disposed of,” remarked Bascomb. “Now, the next thing which we have to decide is this—assuming that Mr Chichester succeeds in spiking the guns of the forts—what is to be our next step? Are we to take the ship boldly into the harbour and proceed with our business of capturing the galleon and the town, trusting that Dame Fortune will so far favour us as to permit of our getting out again before the soldiers can unspike their guns; or should we anchor, as soon as inside, land a strong party, and capture and destroy the forts before attempting anything else? It is the guns, and they only, not the forts, which we have to fear; and if we could but permanently disable those guns, the forts and their garrisons might go hang, so far as we are concerned.”“Certainly, sir,” cut in Dick, before anyone else could speak. “You have hit the nail on the head. We need trouble about naught except the ordnance, and them we must destroy. And I know how to do it, too. We will take with us enough powder to double charge each gun; having done which we will seal their muzzles with clay. I know where to find as much clay as we shall need; and then we will prime each piece, lay a quick match from priming to priming, light the match, and run for our lives. The guns will burst, and we can then do what we please with the galleon and the town. But in order to ensure complete success, the ordnance in both batteries must be fired as nearly as possible at the same moment; therefore a resolute man must be left in the lower battery to fire the match upon the instant that he hears the explosion of the guns in the upper battery, after which he must run for his life. I can see exactly how the thing is to be done, sirs; and if you approve of my plan we will be starting at once, with your good leave; for it is already late, and we shall have none too much time for the work which is to be done.”“You are right, young sir,” agreed Bascomb; “time is so valuable now that we dare waste no more in further discussion; therefore your plan, which is an excellent one, must serve. I would that I could go in your stead, for you appear to be already worn-out with fatigue and lack of sleep; but you have been over the ground already, and know it, therefore weary though you may be I fear that you must needs go. So pick your men, sir, as many as you need, remembering that your party must be strong enough to carry the powder up to the forts; procure from the gunner all that you require; and get you gone. And may God go with you! Amen.”Half an hour later the longboat, under Dick’s command, and with Stukely sitting in the stern-sheets beside him, was once more under way and beating in toward the land under a press of sail, while theAdventure, with all lights out, lay to in the offing, awaiting the signal of the explosion of the ordnance in the forts to fill away and stand boldly in toward the harbour. So sorely were they pressed for time that Dick dared not waste any in the attempt to elude observation by creeping in, as on the first occasion, behind the island of Baru; he headed as straight as the wind would allow for the Boca Chica, trusting that he might be fortunate enough to slip through unobserved in the darkness, especially as it was now past three o’clock in the morning—and if the sentinels slept at all at their posts, after the warning to hold themselves on the alert which they might be supposed to have received from the authorities, they might be expected to be asleep now. His hope appeared to be justified; for the longboat slid past the smaller battery down on the beach, unchallenged, and some five minutes later, grounded on the sand about a quarter of a mile farther in. Then, silently as ghosts, the men lowered the sails, leaving the masts standing, and stepped out on the sand, each bearing his appointed load of powder upon his shoulder, while Dick and Stukely, with swords drawn, and the former carrying a coil of quick match wound round his waist, led the way.They directed their steps southward toward the battery which they had sailed past a few minutes earlier, and which could just be distinguished as a darker blur against the blackness of the night. Not a light of any description showed about the building, nor was there a sound to be heard save the soft lap and splash of the water on the margin of the beach to the left of them, and the sough of the land breeze among the trees and bushes on their right. Noiseless as drifting shadows, the party sped forward, and within some five minutes of their landing arrived beneath the walls of the fort. Here Dick, Stukely, and a man named Barker removed their shoes and, walking to the northward angle of the fort, examined it to ascertain what means of ascent it afforded. They found, as Marshall had said, that although the walls were so smooth as to be quite unclimbable, the angles of the building were set with quoin stones of so rough a surface that an ascent by means of them might be made easily; accordingly Stukely, who by virtue of his discovery of the anaesthetic now claimed to take the lead, at once began to climb the angle, closely followed by Dick and Barker. In less than two minutes the trio had accomplished the ascent and found themselves standing on the platform which constituted the flat roof of the battery. The eight pieces of heavy ordnance, their muzzles projecting far over the low parapet, were easily distinguishable, as were also the great piles of shot, notwithstanding the darkness of the night; but for the moment no sentinels were visible. Whispering his companions to remain where they were, Stukely moved away with noiseless tread, swiftly making the circuit of the gun platform; and presently he rejoined the other two.“It is all right,” he whispered. “I found the rascals sound asleep, even as the Captain did, and, withdrawing the stopper from my vial, allowed them to inhale the vapour for a moment. They are now insensible, and will remain so for at least half an hour, therefore you may now do your share of the work, Barker. Come with me, and I will show you where they lie.”The two moved away together, Barker uncoiling a long length of fine line from his waist as he did so; while Dick, leaning over the parapet, dropped a small pebble down among the group below, as a signal that all was well and they might now safely make the ascent without fear of detection. All arrangements having been previously made, every man of the party knew exactly what he had to do; and within five minutes the platform was alive with English seamen, some of whom were engaged in hauling up powder and clay from below, while others were employed in silently loading the guns with heavy charges of powder, upon the top of which they tightly rammed down stiff clay, with which they filled each gun to its very muzzle. Then, when each piece had been similarly treated, the whole were very carefully primed, after which a length of quick match, long enough to allow of the safe retreat of the man who should ignite it, was securely inserted among the priming; the two insensible sentinels, bound hand and foot, and effectually gagged, were lowered to the ground, and the entire party retreated as they had come, with the exception of one man who volunteered to remain and ignite the length of match immediately that he saw a portfire burned from the wall of the castle which stood on the top of the adjacent hill. The whole business had occupied scarcely twenty minutes, and when it was finished there was nothing to show that the garrison had become aware of what was happening above their heads.Once more assembled on the ground beneath the walls of the battery, the party was rapidly counted by Dick, to ascertain that all were present, save the man left above on the gun platform; and this formality having been quickly gone through, the unconscious sentinels were picked up and carried away to a distance of about a hundred yards from the battery, where they were effectually concealed in a thick clump of bushes, after which the Englishmen rapidly pushed forward up the hill. Arrived near the top, Dick halted them for a moment near a clump of bamboo, two long stout stalks of which were quickly cut down, and, without waiting to strip them of their leaves, converted into a light ladder by lashing cross-pieces of bamboo to them. Then, with this improvised ladder carried by two men, the party resumed its way, arriving about a quarter of an hour later beneath the frowning walls of the castle, which, like the battery below, was found to be in total darkness, at least so far as the face fronting them was concerned. They crossed the dry ditch without difficulty, and once on the other side, reared their ladder against the wall, finding it amply long enough for their purpose.Here again Stukely took the lead, being the first to ascend the ladder. But as he reached the top and peered cautiously over the parapet he was disconcerted at the discovery that here at least the sentinels did not sleep; for the first object that met his gaze was a man standing at the extreme end of the parapet, apparently gazing steadfastly out to sea, while his crossed hands rested upon the muzzle of his grounded matchlock. Luckily for the English, the man’s back was turned toward the spot where Stukely stood staring at him. In an instant the latter had made up his mind what to do, and, cautiously climbing in through the embrasure before him, stole noiselessly toward the unconscious man. A few breathless seconds and Stukely had crept close up behind his intended victim; and the next instant, as he knocked the man’s hat off with one hand, he dealt him with the other a blow on the head with the heavy butt of his pistol, which felled the unfortunate fellow as a butcher fells an ox. Quickly bending over the prostrate body, he now held his unstoppered vial to the man’s nostrils for three or four seconds, then rose cautiously to his feet. He could see no other sentinels posted anywhere on the parapet, but passed quickly round it in order to make quite sure. Then, finding that only the one sentinel had been posted here, he gave the signal for the rest of the party to ascend; and a few minutes later the scene of a short while before was being re-enacted on the parapet of this much more important structure. They worked silently but with strenuous haste, for although the heavens as yet gave no sign of the approaching dawn, the sudden comparative coolness of the atmosphere and the twitterings of a few early morning birds told them that it could not now be very far off; indeed they had scarcely finished their preparations when a faint brightening of the eastern horizon told them that a new day was at hand.“Now, are we all ready?” asked Dick, as he personally put the last finishing touches to the preparations. “Then down you all go except the five men who are to help me with the firing of the quick matches. You go last, Phil, and when you are down ignite the portfire which is to be the signal to that man in the battery yonder; I and the five who are remaining with me will see to the rest of the business up here. Now, off you go quickly, for the daylight will be upon us in five minutes.”Dick watched his friend as the latter slid out through the embrasure and descended the ladder; and when at length Stukely reached the ground and was preparing to ignite the portfire, Chichester sprang back among the five men who were awaiting his word, and whispered “Now!” Instantly the six darted to their respective stations, and each man at once proceeded rapidly, yet with the nicest care, to ignite the five ends of quick match which were his especial care. It was swiftly done, the lighting of the whole occupying less than half a minute; yet before the last five were ignited the still air was heavily charged with the fumes of gunpowder and there was a sound of hissing and sizzling suggestive of a whole army of angry snakes.“Smartly, men; smartly!” urged Dick; “the matches are burning much more rapidly than I anticipated; and if we are not pretty lively we shall be caught by the first explosions. That’s your sort; that will do, Parsons, don’t stand there fiddling with that match, it is burning all right. Now, lads, away you go; over with you; I go last.”Thus exhorted they stood not upon the order of their going, but went, Chichester bringing up the rear; and the latter was still in the very act of descending the ladder when six crashing explosions, occurring almost simultaneously on the parapet above, shattered the early morning stillness, the sounds being instantly followed by a great rush of wings and an outburst of startled screams that issued from the throats of the affrighted birds in the immediate neighbourhood of the castle, who, thus rudely awakened, dashed away in every direction, loudly proclaiming their terror. An answering explosion almost instantly roared out from the battery on the beach; then when half a dozen further explosions on the parapet pealed out, the little party of precipitately retreating Englishmen heard heavy thuds all round them as fragments of the burst ordnance came showering to the ground. And in between the shattering reports of bursting cannon which were now almost continuous they faintly caught the sounds of human outcry as the astounded garrison, awakened by the reports, sprang from their beds and rushed hither and thither in blind panic, each man demanding of every other an explanation of the extraordinary happenings that were taking place overhead. But long before the bravest of the Spaniards had summoned up courage enough to ascend to the parapet, and ascertain for himself the source of those terrific reports and crashing blows which were causing the castle to tremble to its very foundations, the last of the Englishmen—who happened to be Dick—had vanished over the brow of the hill and was racing down the steep slope toward the spot where the longboat had been left in hiding, urging those ahead of him to redoubled efforts, lest the Spaniards, rallying from their first surprise and panic, should sally forth and attempt to cut off the fugitives.The disturbance was all over in less than a minute; the echo of the last explosion died away along the mangrove-bordered shore; the thud of the last falling piece of fractured ordnance, as it crashed through the boughs of the trees, had faintly reached the ears of the flying Englishmen; and the birds were rapidly beginning to persuade themselves that the whole thing had been no more than a peculiarly weird and startling dream, when the whole party—which had been joined on the way by the man from the lower battery—reached the boat and pulled up for a moment to listen and recover their breath. But there was neither sight nor sound of pursuit; and presently, after Dick had counted his party and found that all were present and perfectly sound, the order was given to get the boat afloat and shove off. This was done in a perfectly quiet and orderly manner; and five minutes later, with the beams of the rising sun brilliantly gilding her sails, the little craft slid down the harbour entrance on her way to seaward, passing close under the walls of the beach battery, the bewildered garrison of which had by this time summoned up the courage necessary to enable them to go up on the gun platform, to ascertain precisely what had happened. Most of them were gazing earnestly out to seaward as the longboat slid past, consequently they did not see her until it was too late, when, with loud outcries, they seized their calivers and poured a hot but absolutely ineffective fire after the bold adventurers. Two minutes later the boat swept round the low point which forms the southern extremity of Tierra Bomba Island; and then her occupants saw what it was that had so strongly attracted the attention of the Spaniards; for, scarcely three miles away, they beheld theAdventurebeating up toward the Boca Chica under a heavy press of canvas. Bascomb had seen and interpreted aright the explosions in the two batteries on Tierra Bomba, and was now fearlessly working the ship in toward the land, knowing that, the guns in those two batteries having been destroyed, there was now nothing to restrain him from sailing right into Cartagena harbour itself and demanding the restoration of their Captain, safe and sound. And he meant to do it, too!

As Chichester neared the now familiar spot where he had left the longboat, he suffered himself to indulge in a returning feeling of elation, for the notion somehow came to him that he would find Marshall in the boat calmly awaiting his return; and this feeling presently grew so strong within him that he could scarcely credit his eyes when, upon passing through the screen of concealing foliage, he saw only the three seamen curled up in the boat. They roused themselves from their semi-somnolent condition and sat up to receive him, with glances of mute enquiry in their eyes.

For a few moments Dick remained silent, absolutely speechless with disappointment. Then he remarked:

“What, lads, has the Captain not yet returned, then?”

“No, sir,” they answered in chorus. “We have seen naught of him, or indeed of anybody else, since you left us this morning.”

“Then,” said Dick, “I greatly fear that evil has befallen him and that he has been discovered and taken by the Spaniards. For this is the last day of our stay here; and his orders to me were that if he returns not by midnight we are to proceed to sea and rejoin the ship; for his failure to return will be due to the fact of his having been captured. Still, there are six hours to run yet before midnight, and he may return even at the very last moment. Let us hope that he will. And now, men, give me some supper, for I have eaten nothing since I left you this morning.”

The time between then and midnight was passed by Dick in a state of feverish suspense, that toward the end became almost unendurable, causing him to start and jump at every trivial sound that reached his ear. A dozen times at least he sprang to his feet with the joyous exclamation of “Here he is!” when the flutter of a dry leaf falling from its parent bough, the soft rustle of foliage in the night wind, or the movement of some restless bird broke the silence of that secluded spot; but he was always mistaken. The Captain came not; and at length his watch informed him that the time was half an hour after midnight. Then he rose to his feet with a sigh of bitter disappointment and said:

“It is no good, lads; we must not delay our departure any longer; we have allowed the Captain half an hour’s grace, and if he could have come he would have been with us before now. Without doubt he is a prisoner, and we can best serve him now by returning to the ship with all speed and reporting the fact of his capture to the others, who must then decide whether or not we shall sail into the harbour, attack the town, and endeavour to rescue him. Cast off the painter, and let us be moving without further delay.”

Almost careless now whether or not they attracted attention, they hauled the boat out from her place of concealment and, stepping the masts, hoisted their sails and got under way, the wind just permitting them to lay their course down past the sand spit and out through the entrance of the cove into the lower bay without breaking tacks. Then, to save time, Dick determined to risk the passage of the Boca Chica, the usual harbour entrance, instead of taking the longer route out to sea behind the island of Baru, relying upon the indifferent lookout of the sentinels as reported by Marshall to enable the boat to pass undetected. In this they were completely successful, the occupants of the batteries giving no sign that the passage of the boat had been observed; and half an hour after emerging from their place of concealment they found themselves safely clear of everything and out at sea.

The night was dark but clear, with a fresh land breeze blowing, and a sky heavily flecked with fast-scurrying clouds, between which the stars and moon blinked down upon them intermittently. They were no sooner clear of the land than they began to look about them for the ship, and within a few minutes they caught sight of her signal lanterns about eight miles distant, dead to leeward. After that everything went quite smoothly; they hoisted their own signal lamp, and bore away dead before the wind, leaving it to the ship to pick them up, which she did about an hour later.

Their shipmates manifested the utmost interest in their return, all hands mustering on deck to see the boat come alongside and hear the news. When, upon the boat being brought to the lee gangway, Dick led the way up the side, he was met at the entrance port by Bascomb, Winter, Dyer, and Harvey, each of whom at the same instant fired at him the question:

“Where is the Captain?”

“Lost—taken, I fear,” answered Dick. “He left us four nights ago, intending to make his way into the city of Cartagena, for the purpose of learning precisely when the galleon is to sail, together with any other information which he might be able to pick up. His instructions were that I was to await his return until midnight to-night, and if he then failed to return it would be because something untoward had happened to him, in which case I was to rejoin the ship at once and report to you, when you would act according to your discretion after consulting together.”

For a moment there was a dead silence; then Bascomb turned to his fellow officers, and said:

“My masters, this loss of our general is a very serious matter, and needs looking into. Let us all, therefore, retire to the cabin and hear what Mr Chichester has to tell us about it; after which, as was arranged when Captain Marshall left us six nights ago, we must all consult together and decide what our next step is to be. Come then, gentlemen, to the cabin. Mr Chichester, you will be pleased to accompany us.”

Therewith the three principal officers of the ship and the two gentlemen adventurers retired to the great cabin, where, seated upon the lockers, and with Dick occupying a chair in front of them, the tale was told of all that had befallen the boat and its crew, from the moment of her departure to that of her return, including the several expeditions to the top of the hill on Tierra Bomba, and the drawing of the chart.

“And where is that chart now?” demanded Bascomb. “Have you it, or did Captain Marshall take it with him?”

“I have it,” answered Dick, “and here it is,” producing the sketch. “Fortunately the Captain left it with me, not needing it himself, since all the information required to enable him to make his way to Cartagena he could carry in his head.”

The four who were sitting on the opposite side of the table bent over the document, examining it closely for several minutes. At length Bascomb looked up and said:

“My masters, if this chart be reliable—and it should be, judging from the pains taken by our Captain and Mr Chichester—it should suffice to enable us to take the ship right up to Cartagena and lay her alongside the galleon. And if that ship can be taken by surprise and without loss on our part, as I think she may, what is to hinder us from taking the town and demanding a good heavy ransom for it, part of which ransom shall consist in the return to us, sound and unhurt, of our Captain? And if they refuse, or are unable to return our Captain to us in the condition specified, what say you to sacking the place and giving it to the flames? Depend upon it, by so doing we shall soon learn the fate of Captain Marshall, and where he is to be found, for there will be a hundred who will be only too ready to curry favour with us by telling us all that they know, in the hope that thereby we may be induced to spare their property.”

“Ay, that will they, I warrant,” answered Winter. “And woe betide the city and all in it if aught of evil has been done to our Captain! We will find every man who has been in anywise responsible for that evil, and will hang him before his own door for all men to see how dangerous a thing it is for a Spaniard to lay violent hands upon an Englishman! Now, what say ye, gentles, shall we go in at once and do the work while our blood is hot within us?”

“Nay, sirs,” answered Dick; “that may scarcely be. For if our Captain be indeed taken, as I greatly fear me he is, depend upon it the authorities will have identified him as an Englishman, in despite of any tale that he may have told them, and will, in consequence, suspect the presence of an English ship somewhere in the neighbourhood. And, following that suspicion, their first act would be to warn those in the forts on Tierra Bomba to be on the watch for that ship’s appearance. And once seen it will, according to the Captain’s own account, be impossible for us to force our way into the harbour unless the guns in those forts be first spiked. Now, gentles, I am the youngest of you all, but I have been inside and seen the place. Moreover, I have been privileged to discuss with the Captain this very question of taking the ship up to the town, from which discussion arose my determination to make that chart; and my advice is, that we defer our attempt until to-morrow night, and that in the meantime I be permitted to return in the longboat to our former hiding-place, provided with hammers and nails for the spiking of the guns and such other necessaries as I may require, together with a crew of six of our best men. We can get back to our place of concealment before daylight, and there remain in hiding until midnight or later, when we will sally forth, steal into those two forts, overpower and gag the sentinels, and spike the guns, after which we will signal the ship by the burning of portfires where they cannot be seen from the town, when you will sail in, I meeting you outside and piloting you in. We can then land a party, destroy both batteries by blowing them up, capture the galleon and the town, and sail out to sea again, unscathed, when we have finished our business with the Spaniards.”

“Thy plan sounds promising, young sir,” answered Bascomb presently, after considering the matter a little; “but there is one weak point in it, which is this. If, as you seem to think, the Spaniards have taken our Captain, and thereby are led to suspect the presence of an English ship in the neighbourhood; and, suspecting such presence, should warn the garrisons of those two forts to be on the lookout for her—all of which I grant to be more than likely—what hope have you of being able to surprise those forts and spike their guns?”

“The task will be a difficult one, I admit,” answered Dick, with a shrug of the shoulders; “but, with all submission, sirs, my plan is the only one offering a chance of success. For—and this is the fundamental fact governing all else—the guns must be spiked and the forts destroyed before this ship can enter Cartagena harbour or, having entered, get out again. But the forts once in our possession the whole town and harbour, with all within them, will be at our mercy. The important matter, therefore, to be determined is: By what means can we ensure obtaining possession of the forts with the minimum of loss to ourselves?”

“Yes,” agreed Bascomb, “that is undoubtedly the point. Now, gentles, let us have your opinions. Has any one of you a better plan to offer than that of our junior lieutenant?”

At this moment a stateroom door opened and Stukely emerged from the smaller room. Approaching the table, he stood and looked smilingly down upon the company assembled.

“Your pardon, fair sirs,” he said, “for thrusting myself uninvited into your counsels. The surgeon is supposed to know but little of warfare beyond the healing of such hurts as may be received therein, but I happened to be lying awake in my cabin when this conference began, and I could not avoid hearing all that has passed, and I am of opinion that I can help you. As my friend, Chichester, here has put it, the problem which confronts you is that of securing possession of the forts without suffering loss of men. Now, the chief danger, to my mind, arises from the difficulty of entering the forts without attracting the attention of the sentinels, thus causing them to raise the alarm and bring the entire garrison about our ears. Is not that so?”

The party at the table signified that it was.

“Very good, then,” resumed Stukely. “Now we can go on. Though you are probably not aware of it, my chief delight is research, the investigation of, among other things, the properties and action upon the human system of the juices of herbs. Now, while we were at Barbados I spent much time in the collection of the leaves, roots, seeds, and fruits of several plants; and since then I have been diligently experimenting with them, with the result that I have evolved from one of them a liquor, one inhalation of the odour of which will plunge a man into a state of such complete insensibility that, as I believe, a limb might be removed from him without his feeling it or being any the wiser. My suggestion, therefore,” continued Stukely, ignoring the expressions of wonder evoked by his statement, “is that I be permitted to go in the boat with Chichester, taking a vial of the liquor with me, and upon our arrival ashore I will enter the forts with him, subject the sleeping sentinels—I humbly trust that they may be sleeping—to the stupefying influence of the decoction, whereby they may be bound and gagged without difficulty or the raising of an alarm which would put their fellow soldiers on the alert; and then between us the guns can be spiked at our leisure. The remaining details I leave to your riper judgment and experience, gallant sirs.”

“But, doctor,” demanded Bascomb, “are you quite sure that this elixir or essence of yours may be depended upon to produce the effect stated?”

“I am,” answered Stukely, with a smile, “for I have already tested it upon myself—no matter how—and the effect is everything that can possibly be desired.”

“Then—what say you, gentles—shall we allow the surgeon to go with Mr Chichester and further test the efficacy of his decoction upon the Spanish sentinels?” asked the master.

“’Twould be folly in us if we did not avail ourselves of the virtues of Mr Stukely’s most fortunate discovery,” said Winter; “and I for one am in favour of acceding to his proposal.”

“And I, also,” agreed Dick, in response to a glance from Bascomb.

The two gentlemen adventurers, when appealed to for their opinion, at once agreed that the experiment was quite worth trying; and Bascomb’s proposal was accordingly agreed tonem. con.

“That matter, then, is disposed of,” remarked Bascomb. “Now, the next thing which we have to decide is this—assuming that Mr Chichester succeeds in spiking the guns of the forts—what is to be our next step? Are we to take the ship boldly into the harbour and proceed with our business of capturing the galleon and the town, trusting that Dame Fortune will so far favour us as to permit of our getting out again before the soldiers can unspike their guns; or should we anchor, as soon as inside, land a strong party, and capture and destroy the forts before attempting anything else? It is the guns, and they only, not the forts, which we have to fear; and if we could but permanently disable those guns, the forts and their garrisons might go hang, so far as we are concerned.”

“Certainly, sir,” cut in Dick, before anyone else could speak. “You have hit the nail on the head. We need trouble about naught except the ordnance, and them we must destroy. And I know how to do it, too. We will take with us enough powder to double charge each gun; having done which we will seal their muzzles with clay. I know where to find as much clay as we shall need; and then we will prime each piece, lay a quick match from priming to priming, light the match, and run for our lives. The guns will burst, and we can then do what we please with the galleon and the town. But in order to ensure complete success, the ordnance in both batteries must be fired as nearly as possible at the same moment; therefore a resolute man must be left in the lower battery to fire the match upon the instant that he hears the explosion of the guns in the upper battery, after which he must run for his life. I can see exactly how the thing is to be done, sirs; and if you approve of my plan we will be starting at once, with your good leave; for it is already late, and we shall have none too much time for the work which is to be done.”

“You are right, young sir,” agreed Bascomb; “time is so valuable now that we dare waste no more in further discussion; therefore your plan, which is an excellent one, must serve. I would that I could go in your stead, for you appear to be already worn-out with fatigue and lack of sleep; but you have been over the ground already, and know it, therefore weary though you may be I fear that you must needs go. So pick your men, sir, as many as you need, remembering that your party must be strong enough to carry the powder up to the forts; procure from the gunner all that you require; and get you gone. And may God go with you! Amen.”

Half an hour later the longboat, under Dick’s command, and with Stukely sitting in the stern-sheets beside him, was once more under way and beating in toward the land under a press of sail, while theAdventure, with all lights out, lay to in the offing, awaiting the signal of the explosion of the ordnance in the forts to fill away and stand boldly in toward the harbour. So sorely were they pressed for time that Dick dared not waste any in the attempt to elude observation by creeping in, as on the first occasion, behind the island of Baru; he headed as straight as the wind would allow for the Boca Chica, trusting that he might be fortunate enough to slip through unobserved in the darkness, especially as it was now past three o’clock in the morning—and if the sentinels slept at all at their posts, after the warning to hold themselves on the alert which they might be supposed to have received from the authorities, they might be expected to be asleep now. His hope appeared to be justified; for the longboat slid past the smaller battery down on the beach, unchallenged, and some five minutes later, grounded on the sand about a quarter of a mile farther in. Then, silently as ghosts, the men lowered the sails, leaving the masts standing, and stepped out on the sand, each bearing his appointed load of powder upon his shoulder, while Dick and Stukely, with swords drawn, and the former carrying a coil of quick match wound round his waist, led the way.

They directed their steps southward toward the battery which they had sailed past a few minutes earlier, and which could just be distinguished as a darker blur against the blackness of the night. Not a light of any description showed about the building, nor was there a sound to be heard save the soft lap and splash of the water on the margin of the beach to the left of them, and the sough of the land breeze among the trees and bushes on their right. Noiseless as drifting shadows, the party sped forward, and within some five minutes of their landing arrived beneath the walls of the fort. Here Dick, Stukely, and a man named Barker removed their shoes and, walking to the northward angle of the fort, examined it to ascertain what means of ascent it afforded. They found, as Marshall had said, that although the walls were so smooth as to be quite unclimbable, the angles of the building were set with quoin stones of so rough a surface that an ascent by means of them might be made easily; accordingly Stukely, who by virtue of his discovery of the anaesthetic now claimed to take the lead, at once began to climb the angle, closely followed by Dick and Barker. In less than two minutes the trio had accomplished the ascent and found themselves standing on the platform which constituted the flat roof of the battery. The eight pieces of heavy ordnance, their muzzles projecting far over the low parapet, were easily distinguishable, as were also the great piles of shot, notwithstanding the darkness of the night; but for the moment no sentinels were visible. Whispering his companions to remain where they were, Stukely moved away with noiseless tread, swiftly making the circuit of the gun platform; and presently he rejoined the other two.

“It is all right,” he whispered. “I found the rascals sound asleep, even as the Captain did, and, withdrawing the stopper from my vial, allowed them to inhale the vapour for a moment. They are now insensible, and will remain so for at least half an hour, therefore you may now do your share of the work, Barker. Come with me, and I will show you where they lie.”

The two moved away together, Barker uncoiling a long length of fine line from his waist as he did so; while Dick, leaning over the parapet, dropped a small pebble down among the group below, as a signal that all was well and they might now safely make the ascent without fear of detection. All arrangements having been previously made, every man of the party knew exactly what he had to do; and within five minutes the platform was alive with English seamen, some of whom were engaged in hauling up powder and clay from below, while others were employed in silently loading the guns with heavy charges of powder, upon the top of which they tightly rammed down stiff clay, with which they filled each gun to its very muzzle. Then, when each piece had been similarly treated, the whole were very carefully primed, after which a length of quick match, long enough to allow of the safe retreat of the man who should ignite it, was securely inserted among the priming; the two insensible sentinels, bound hand and foot, and effectually gagged, were lowered to the ground, and the entire party retreated as they had come, with the exception of one man who volunteered to remain and ignite the length of match immediately that he saw a portfire burned from the wall of the castle which stood on the top of the adjacent hill. The whole business had occupied scarcely twenty minutes, and when it was finished there was nothing to show that the garrison had become aware of what was happening above their heads.

Once more assembled on the ground beneath the walls of the battery, the party was rapidly counted by Dick, to ascertain that all were present, save the man left above on the gun platform; and this formality having been quickly gone through, the unconscious sentinels were picked up and carried away to a distance of about a hundred yards from the battery, where they were effectually concealed in a thick clump of bushes, after which the Englishmen rapidly pushed forward up the hill. Arrived near the top, Dick halted them for a moment near a clump of bamboo, two long stout stalks of which were quickly cut down, and, without waiting to strip them of their leaves, converted into a light ladder by lashing cross-pieces of bamboo to them. Then, with this improvised ladder carried by two men, the party resumed its way, arriving about a quarter of an hour later beneath the frowning walls of the castle, which, like the battery below, was found to be in total darkness, at least so far as the face fronting them was concerned. They crossed the dry ditch without difficulty, and once on the other side, reared their ladder against the wall, finding it amply long enough for their purpose.

Here again Stukely took the lead, being the first to ascend the ladder. But as he reached the top and peered cautiously over the parapet he was disconcerted at the discovery that here at least the sentinels did not sleep; for the first object that met his gaze was a man standing at the extreme end of the parapet, apparently gazing steadfastly out to sea, while his crossed hands rested upon the muzzle of his grounded matchlock. Luckily for the English, the man’s back was turned toward the spot where Stukely stood staring at him. In an instant the latter had made up his mind what to do, and, cautiously climbing in through the embrasure before him, stole noiselessly toward the unconscious man. A few breathless seconds and Stukely had crept close up behind his intended victim; and the next instant, as he knocked the man’s hat off with one hand, he dealt him with the other a blow on the head with the heavy butt of his pistol, which felled the unfortunate fellow as a butcher fells an ox. Quickly bending over the prostrate body, he now held his unstoppered vial to the man’s nostrils for three or four seconds, then rose cautiously to his feet. He could see no other sentinels posted anywhere on the parapet, but passed quickly round it in order to make quite sure. Then, finding that only the one sentinel had been posted here, he gave the signal for the rest of the party to ascend; and a few minutes later the scene of a short while before was being re-enacted on the parapet of this much more important structure. They worked silently but with strenuous haste, for although the heavens as yet gave no sign of the approaching dawn, the sudden comparative coolness of the atmosphere and the twitterings of a few early morning birds told them that it could not now be very far off; indeed they had scarcely finished their preparations when a faint brightening of the eastern horizon told them that a new day was at hand.

“Now, are we all ready?” asked Dick, as he personally put the last finishing touches to the preparations. “Then down you all go except the five men who are to help me with the firing of the quick matches. You go last, Phil, and when you are down ignite the portfire which is to be the signal to that man in the battery yonder; I and the five who are remaining with me will see to the rest of the business up here. Now, off you go quickly, for the daylight will be upon us in five minutes.”

Dick watched his friend as the latter slid out through the embrasure and descended the ladder; and when at length Stukely reached the ground and was preparing to ignite the portfire, Chichester sprang back among the five men who were awaiting his word, and whispered “Now!” Instantly the six darted to their respective stations, and each man at once proceeded rapidly, yet with the nicest care, to ignite the five ends of quick match which were his especial care. It was swiftly done, the lighting of the whole occupying less than half a minute; yet before the last five were ignited the still air was heavily charged with the fumes of gunpowder and there was a sound of hissing and sizzling suggestive of a whole army of angry snakes.

“Smartly, men; smartly!” urged Dick; “the matches are burning much more rapidly than I anticipated; and if we are not pretty lively we shall be caught by the first explosions. That’s your sort; that will do, Parsons, don’t stand there fiddling with that match, it is burning all right. Now, lads, away you go; over with you; I go last.”

Thus exhorted they stood not upon the order of their going, but went, Chichester bringing up the rear; and the latter was still in the very act of descending the ladder when six crashing explosions, occurring almost simultaneously on the parapet above, shattered the early morning stillness, the sounds being instantly followed by a great rush of wings and an outburst of startled screams that issued from the throats of the affrighted birds in the immediate neighbourhood of the castle, who, thus rudely awakened, dashed away in every direction, loudly proclaiming their terror. An answering explosion almost instantly roared out from the battery on the beach; then when half a dozen further explosions on the parapet pealed out, the little party of precipitately retreating Englishmen heard heavy thuds all round them as fragments of the burst ordnance came showering to the ground. And in between the shattering reports of bursting cannon which were now almost continuous they faintly caught the sounds of human outcry as the astounded garrison, awakened by the reports, sprang from their beds and rushed hither and thither in blind panic, each man demanding of every other an explanation of the extraordinary happenings that were taking place overhead. But long before the bravest of the Spaniards had summoned up courage enough to ascend to the parapet, and ascertain for himself the source of those terrific reports and crashing blows which were causing the castle to tremble to its very foundations, the last of the Englishmen—who happened to be Dick—had vanished over the brow of the hill and was racing down the steep slope toward the spot where the longboat had been left in hiding, urging those ahead of him to redoubled efforts, lest the Spaniards, rallying from their first surprise and panic, should sally forth and attempt to cut off the fugitives.

The disturbance was all over in less than a minute; the echo of the last explosion died away along the mangrove-bordered shore; the thud of the last falling piece of fractured ordnance, as it crashed through the boughs of the trees, had faintly reached the ears of the flying Englishmen; and the birds were rapidly beginning to persuade themselves that the whole thing had been no more than a peculiarly weird and startling dream, when the whole party—which had been joined on the way by the man from the lower battery—reached the boat and pulled up for a moment to listen and recover their breath. But there was neither sight nor sound of pursuit; and presently, after Dick had counted his party and found that all were present and perfectly sound, the order was given to get the boat afloat and shove off. This was done in a perfectly quiet and orderly manner; and five minutes later, with the beams of the rising sun brilliantly gilding her sails, the little craft slid down the harbour entrance on her way to seaward, passing close under the walls of the beach battery, the bewildered garrison of which had by this time summoned up the courage necessary to enable them to go up on the gun platform, to ascertain precisely what had happened. Most of them were gazing earnestly out to seaward as the longboat slid past, consequently they did not see her until it was too late, when, with loud outcries, they seized their calivers and poured a hot but absolutely ineffective fire after the bold adventurers. Two minutes later the boat swept round the low point which forms the southern extremity of Tierra Bomba Island; and then her occupants saw what it was that had so strongly attracted the attention of the Spaniards; for, scarcely three miles away, they beheld theAdventurebeating up toward the Boca Chica under a heavy press of canvas. Bascomb had seen and interpreted aright the explosions in the two batteries on Tierra Bomba, and was now fearlessly working the ship in toward the land, knowing that, the guns in those two batteries having been destroyed, there was now nothing to restrain him from sailing right into Cartagena harbour itself and demanding the restoration of their Captain, safe and sound. And he meant to do it, too!

Chapter Six.How they took the great Galleon and a vast Treasure.There was no enthusiasm, no cheering, nothing in the nature of hysterical exultation displayed by the crew of theAdventure, when the longboat ran alongside and those who had performed the audacious feat of rendering two powerful batteries innocuous rejoined their shipmates; everything was accepted as a matter of course. It was fully realised by all hands that the deed was one, the successful accomplishment of which required the display of nerve and courage of superlative character, but it was understood that the entire expedition, from start to finish, from its departure from Topsham to its return thither, demanded the constant exhibition of these same qualities—and would receive it. Therefore a murmur or two of approval and satisfaction from Bascomb, when Dick made his report, was all that was said in the way of commendation.“And now, sirs,” said the master, dismissing the topic of the disarmament of the batteries, “Cartagena and the galleon are at our mercy; and the sooner that the Spaniard can be brought to understand this, the better is it like to be for our general. Therefore we will enter the harbour forthwith, lay the galleon aboard and take her, and then open negotiations with the authorities for the ransom of the town and the deliverance of Captain Marshall. Mr Chichester, you know more about the harbour than any of the rest of us. It must be your duty, therefore, to pilot the ship alongside the galleon; the others I will ask to go straight to their fighting stations and prepare the ship for battle, after which, if there be time, we will take breakfast. If not—well, we must e’en fight fasting, and eat after the galleon is taken.”So Dick went up on the poop and, stationing himself to windward, conned the ship as she beat in toward the Boca Chica against the fast-failing land breeze. But, good ship as theAdventurewas, her progress was exasperatingly slow, as was that of all ships of that date when they attempted to beat up against a foul wind; for neither the form of the hull nor the cut of the sails was at that day favourable to such a manoeuvre, and the ship was still a good mile from the harbour’s mouth when the land breeze suddenly failed, and she was left helplessly wallowing upon the oily swell outside.This, of course, was exasperating enough; for when deeds of desperate emprise are toward it is well to carry them through before the enthusiasm has time to cool. But it could not be helped, the wind was dead, and the ship could not be handled now until the sea breeze sprang up; and, after all, the delay was not an unmitigated misfortune, for it ensured to the crew time enough to complete their preparations for the coming fight and take breakfast afterward; and even at that day it was fully recognised that an Englishman fights best when his hunger has been satisfied. So they finished the work upon which they were engaged, and then went quietly to breakfast, which meal they were able to dispose of comfortably before a cry from the deck apprised them of the arrival of the sea breeze.Yes; there it came, far away in the offing, ruling the horizon as a band of dark blue that grew lighter and lighter still along its landward edge, until it stopped short at a distance of about two miles from the shore, blowing fresh right up to a certain well-defined point, between which and the land all was gleaming, glassy swell, unruffled by even so much as a cat’s-paw. But the boundary line which divided breeze from calm was not stationary by any means, on the contrary, it was creeping nearer rapidly. When Bascomb came up on the poop he merely glanced at it for a moment and then called to the seamen to trim the yards in readiness to meet it. By the time that this had been done the line of demarcation was so near that the musical tinkling of the advancing ripples could be distinctly heard, although the sails still hung limp, idly flapping to the roll of the ship. Another minute, however, sufficed, then with a gentle preliminary rustling the canvas filled, the blue ripples reached the ship, passed inshore of her, and she began to draw slowly through the water and her helm was put up to keep her away for the narrow harbour entrance.“Starboard you may,” said Dick to the helmsman, when the ship had presently fallen square off before the fast-freshening breeze; “we must shave that low point on the left quite closely, for that is where the channel runs, and there is a small shoal right in the mouth of the fairway which we must avoid. So! that will do; now, steady as you go. Mr Bascomb, you see that dark object just opening out over the southernmost end of Tierra Bomba? Well, that is the shore battery, and as it possesses certain small ordnance, such as falconets and swivels, which we could not spare the time to destroy, I would recommend that, as we must pass it close, the men be instructed to lie down behind the bulwarks as we sail by, lest haply any of them be hit; for I make no doubt that they will discharge at us every piece they have as we pass.”“Say you so?” returned Bascomb. “Then, by the Lord Harry, we will be beforehand with them. Ho, there! Load the larboard broadside of ordnance, great and small, and train your pieces to sweep the top of yonder battery as we pass. We cannot afford to risk the loss of any of our number through a mistaken sense of magnanimity.”With swelling sails distended by the ever-freshening sea breeze, theAdventurenow swept boldly in for the mouth of the Boca Chica, and presently a curl of white water revealed the presence of the shoal of which Dick Chichester had spoken, right in the middle of the fairway. Dick directed the helmsman to steer to the north of this, between it and the island of Tierra Bomba, with its swelling wood-crowned heights. Dick glanced aloft at the castle which crowned the summit of the southernmost hill, but although the golden flag of Spain flaunted itself insolently in the breeze from the flagstaff on its northern turret, not a man was to be seen upon the parapet. Many of the embrasures, one-half of which they could now see, had been destroyed by the bursting of the ordnance, and it soon became clear that none of its garrison intended to make any effort to dispute the passage of the English ship. Whether the garrison of the battery down on the beach would be less prudent still remained to be seen, but one thing was perfectly clear, and that was that the Spanish soldiery were very busy upon the gun platform, their movements being directed by a tall man in a full suit of black armour, the helmet of which was surmounted by a splendid plume of long crimson feathers. The English, however, were not left long in doubt as to the intentions of this individual, who was, doubtless, the commander of the garrison; for as the ship swept along the narrow channel, hugging the northern shore closely, and every moment shortening the distance between the battery and herself, he was seen to draw his sword, which flashed like a white flame in the brilliant sunshine as he waved it above his head, and the next moment a perfect storm of bullets from falcon and falconet, patarero, saker, and swivel, came hurtling from the battery across the narrow water toward the ship. But the gallant cavalier had been just a trifle too eager to display his valour, for most of the missiles fell short, having been fired at rather too long a range, while those which hit were so nearly spent that only a few of them lodged in the solid woodwork of the ship’s bulwarks, and not a man on board was hit.“Now, men,” roared Bascomb, “give yonder presumptuous fool a lesson; fire as your guns come to bear, and not before. I want that parapet swept clean!”And swept clean it was, the English holding their fire and the ship sweeping on in grim, inexorable silence until she was within some two hundred feet of the structure, when all her larboard ordnance, great and small, bellowed and barked back its answer. As the smoke drove away ahead before the wind the wall was seen to crumble into dust under the impact of the heavy iron shot, while the lighter missiles mowed down the soldiers like corn beneath the sickle, until not a man was left standing upon his feet, even the magnifico in armour going down before the hail of iron and lead, to say nothing of the Spanish standard, the staff of which was cut clean in two, so that it toppled over and fell, carrying the flag with it, to the ground at the base of the wall.“So much for thicky!” exclaimed Bascomb, relapsing into broad Devon for a moment, under the influence of excitement. “If it weren’t that we have a long and hot morning’s work before us I would anchor the ship, land a party, and blow their footy batteries into the air. But perhaps we may have time to do that when we come back this way. Now, my masters, load again, this time with double charges, consisting of a half-keg of bullets to each culverin, with a chain shot on top, and the smaller ordnance in proportion. We will not fire again, if we can help it, until we run alongside the galleon, and not then until we rub sides with her.”The ship had by this time traversed so much of the Boca that it became necessary for her to shift her helm in order to avoid grounding upon a sandspit that stretched athwart her course, and here the advantage and value of Dick Chichester’s previous observations became apparent; for so sharp was the bend, and so little was there to indicate the existence of the shoal, that if Dick had not previously had the opportunity to note its position, the ship would undoubtedly have driven right upon it, under full sail, when she would certainly have been in an exceedingly awkward predicament, and might even have been lost, presuming the Spaniards to have been courageous enough to attack her while placed at so serious a disadvantage. But she was not allowed to get into any such awkward situation; for Dick had noticed everything connected with the dangers of the harbour, while looking out and watching from the summit of the hill on Tierra Bomba, and he carried a complete and perfectly accurate chart of the harbour in his head, in addition to the one which he and Marshall had made together. The helm was, therefore, shifted at the proper moment, and the ship swerved away in a south-easterly direction, making as though for the middle of the lower bay.The danger did not reveal itself until the ship was actually slipping past it, and in less than five minutes she was clear and the course was again altered, this time to the north-eastward, where the island of Tierra Bomba, thrusting its north-easterly angle inward, divided the upper from the lower bay, narrowing the passage between to a width of less than a mile. Now the ship was fairly inside, and heading for a part of the harbour where Dick remembered to have observed certain other dangers in the shape of rocks and shoals, no sign of which could he perceive from the deck; he therefore mentioned the matter to Bascomb, and obtained that officer’s permission to go aloft to the fore topsail-yard and con the ship from there.In this fashion, then, theAdventure, with the red cross of Saint George flying defiantly from her main truck, swept up Cartagena harbour and, rounding the eastern extremity of Tierra Bomba, headed straight for the inner roadstead, where could now be seen, among a small forest of more insignificant masts, the towering spars of the great galleon, with a vast crimson flag bearing a coat of arms floating at her main, and the Spanish flag drooping from the ensign staff reared at her stern. The town being built on low land, the lofty masts of the galleon were at once seen, upon the English ship rounding the point and opening up the city, and a great cry of “There she is!” instantly leapt from every English throat.“Ay; there she is, men,” returned Bascomb. “We can’t make any mistake about her, I think; and in halt an hour you shall be alongside her. The rest of the work will be for you to do. I’ll tell you my plan, men. We will range up alongside her and lay her aboard, and just before our sides touch we will pour our broadside into her, throw the grapnels and hook on, and then dash aboard in the midst of the smoke and drive her crew below. The secret is to strike hard and often, and keep them on the run. If any man attempts to stand, though only for a moment, run him through at once with a pike. That is all that I have to say, men; you know how to do the trick as well as I.”With Cartagena city and the galleon in plain view, Dick Chichester’s work aloft was done, and he, therefore, returned to the deck and the spot upon it from which he had previously been conning the ship, where he resumed his duty as pilot.As theAdventureslid smoothly and rapidly up the harbour, heading straight for the galleon, it was seen that nearly twenty large boats, full of armed men, were pulling off to her from the shore. It was clear, therefore, that the authorities had received notice of the approach of the English, possibly from one or another of the officers in charge of the defences on Tierra Bomba, and, shrewdly guessing that one object, at least, of the unwelcome visit was the galleon, were determined to defend her to the last. But this discovery in nowise disconcerted the sturdy lads of Devon, who had long ago learned to regard themselves as invincible, so far as the Spaniards were concerned; so they continued with the utmost calmness to add here and there some refinement of finish to the preparations which had been completed an hour or more ago. Even the ship’s cook, whom nobody regarded as a fighting man, must needs add his little quota to the general preparations, the same taking the form of several gallons of greasy boiling water with which he had filled his coppers, the which he proposed to employ at such time as might seem to him most suitable. As for Dick, he decided that the handspike which he had used in the fight off Barbados had proved so effective that, regarded as a weapon, it could scarcely be improved upon, and he was on the point of providing himself with another when his eye chanced to fall upon a heavy iron bar which had been brought on deck for some purpose, so, having tested its weight, he at once decided that it was the very thing he needed, and appropriated it accordingly.TheAdventurehad arrived within about half a mile of the galleon when the latter opened fire with her heavy ordnance, of which she carried two tiers. But whether it was that the Spaniards designed to shoot away the English ship’s masts, and so leave her helpless and unmanageable, or whether it was that the pieces were badly aimed, every one of the shot went humming high overhead, leaving the intruder to pass on unscathed and in grim silence; for not one of her guns replied. But Bascomb stepped forward to the front of the poop and issued an order.“Let every man of you,” he said, “take bow or musket, and prepare to discharge a volley upon the deck of yonder galleon when I give the word. Then, that done, return to your ordnance and prepare to fire, for the time will be at hand. Sail trimmers, stand by to let fly all sheets and halliards at the word of command; then be ready to heave the grapnels as we range up alongside.”The English ship, still conned by Dick Chichester, was now steering a course which if persevered in would carry her across the stern of the galleon, at a distance of about twice her own length from that vessel; and it seemed evident, from the uncertain movements of those on board the Spaniard, that they were considerably puzzled as to the intentions of the English. For, having discharged the whole of her starboard broadside at the approachingAdventure, the crew of the galleon first began with feverish haste to reload all the guns on that side of their ship; then, seeming suddenly to suspect that their antagonist intended to lay them aboard on their inshore side, they left their starboard broadside only half-loaded and precipitately dashed across the deck to their larboard broadside of ordnance, which they began to clear away hurriedly with the intention of loading. TheAdventurewas at this moment less than twice her own length from the galleon, and Bascomb, standing on the poop, was able to look down from there into the crowded waist of the other ship and clearly see the Spaniards crowding together about the larboard ordnance. The opportunity seemed much too good to be let slip, so calling his bowmen and musketeers up on to the poop, he directed them to discharge a volley into the surging mass of men, which they did instantly, with terribly destructive effect.“Good!” he exclaimed, as he saw some twenty or thirty Spaniards fall writhing to the deck; “now back to your ordnance, men, and be ready to fire when I give the word. Sail trimmers, let fly all sheets and halliards, and stand by with your grapnels!”As the sailing master issued these orders Dick signed to the helmsman, who thereupon thrust the ponderous tiller hard down, and theAdventure, answering her helm perfectly, swept round in a short curve and went gliding up on the starboard side of the galleon.“Now, gunners all, let fly your ordnance!” roared Bascomb, drawing his sword. And as the bright blade flashed in the air the English artillery, loaded with round, bar, and chain shot, musket balls, spike nails, and every kind of missile that the men had been able to lay hands upon, were discharged when the two vessels were scarcely a fathom apart, and the Spanish ship’s upper deck instantly became a shambles, scarcely a man remaining uninjured upon it.“Throw your grapnels,” shouted Bascomb, “and then let every man follow me aboard the Spaniard.” As he spoke theAdventurecrashed alongside the galleon, there was a sound of ripping and rending timber, and a heavy rebound; and then, as the two ships rolled toward each other after the rebound the English crew went swarming over their own bulwarks and down upon the Spanish deck, where they found scarcely half a dozen men to oppose them. But at the head of them stood a very magnificent looking personage in full armour, whom Bascomb took to be the captain of the ship.“Do you surrender, señor?” demanded Bascomb, speaking in English for the very good reason that he “had” no Spanish.It is probable that the Spaniard was as destitute of English as Master William Bascomb was of Spanish; but there is a language of intonation and gesture as well as of words, and doubtless that of the Englishman was intelligible enough, for the Spaniard, by way of reply, grasped his sword by the point and offered it to the sturdy Devonshire seaman who confronted him, and who accepted it with a very fair imitation of the bow with which the Spaniard had tendered it.“That’s well, so far,” commented Bascomb. “Now”—looking about him and noticing Dick standing near, grasping his iron bar—“that ends the trouble up here. But what about down below, Mr Chichester? You had better take a dozen men and this gentleman down with you; and perhaps he will explain to those of his people who are on the main deck that he has surrendered. If they will lay down their arms, well and good; if they won’t—well, you will just have to make ’em, that’s all. Now go; and report to me here when you’ve gained complete possession of the ship.”Dick took his dozen men and, insinuating his hand in the crook of the Spanish captain’s arm, led that individual below to the main deck, where they found a few Spanish seamen still hanging about between the great culverins, apparently quite uncertain what to do, or whether they ought to do anything. The Spanish captain spoke sharply to them; apparently he was very much surprised and disappointed to find so few men there, and seemed to be asking them where the rest were, for by way of reply the seamen said something and pointed to the hatchways. The Spanish captain relieved his feelings by stamping on the deck, grinding his teeth, and indulging in a good deal of Castilian profanity; after which he seemed to give certain instructions, the result of which was that the men laid down their arms and went up on deck, one of their number having previously gone to the main hatchway and shouted something down it which caused the remainder of the crew to come up from below and surrender their weapons.It took Dick and his party about half an hour to explore thoroughly the interior of the galleon—which they discovered was named theSanta Margaretta—and satisfy themselves that none of the Spanish crew were lurking below in hiding; and when at length they returned to the upper deck to report, they found that Bascomb and Winter had mustered the surviving Spaniards forward on the fore deck, under a strong guard, while the English had lowered one of the galleon’s boats and in her had boarded and captured a small coasting felucca, which they were at that moment towing alongside their bigger prize. This, Bascomb explained, he had done with the object of getting rid of his Spanish prisoners, whom he proposed to send ashore in the felucca, having no fancy for keeping them aboard the prize, where they would need a strong body of the English to maintain an efficient guard over them. And, with the released prisoners, he proposed to send ashore a letter to the Governor of the city, demanding the immediate surrender of Captain Marshall, safe and sound, together with payment of the sum of five hundred thousand ducats ransom for the city, failure of either condition to be followed by the sack and destruction of the place.“But,” objected Dick, “you can neither speak nor write Spanish; and it may very well be that there will be nobody in Cartagena who understands English; in that case we shall be at a deadlock, and how will you manage then?”“That,” replied Bascomb, sententiously, “will be their lookout. If they cannot find anyone to translate my letter, so much the worse for them. But there should be no trouble about that; for if they can find nobody else the captain will make my meaning clear to them.”It was considerably past midday when at length the whole of the Spaniards, together with their dead and wounded, were transferred to the felucca and dispatched to the shore, the Spanish captain being entrusted with the letter to the governor or commandant of the town; and then the English found time to look into their own affairs and take a meal. It was found that by a marvellous stroke of good fortune the galleon had been captured without the loss of a man, or even so much as a single casualty on the English side; and, this being the case, the question arose whether or not they should retain possession of the vessel, dividing theAdventure’screw equally between her and the prize. There arose quite a sharp difference of opinion on this point, Bascomb and the two gentlemen adventurers maintaining that the prize was far too valuable to be parted with or destroyed, now that they had her; while Winter and Dick contended that they were far too few in number to justify the proposed division, the effect of which would be to put them in possession of two perilously short-handed ships, instead of one fully manned. Moreover, theSanta Margarettawas nearly twice the size of theAdventure, the proposal therefore to divide the crew of the latter into two equal parts would hardly meet the case, since a crew of forty men could handle the galleon only in fine weather, while as to fighting her effectually in the event of their falling in with an enemy, it simply could not be done. Winter’s proposal, in which Dick backed him up, was that everything of value—or at least as much of it as they could find room for—should be transferred to theAdventure, after which a ransom of, say, twenty thousand ducats could be demanded for the ship and what remained of her cargo, failing the payment of which she might be burnt at her anchors as a wholesome example! The dispute at length grew so warm that Stukely, who was present but took no part in it, suggested that the matter should be left for Captain Marshall to decide, upon his return.The afternoon of that day was busily spent by the English, one party of whom, under the joint leadership of the carpenter and boatswain, devoted themselves to the task of repairing the slight damage sustained by theAdventurein running aboard the galleon, while the remainder engaged in the work of thoroughly rummaging the prize and transferring from her to theAdventureall the valuables they could find. At first some fear was entertained that the treasure which it was intended the ship should take home had not yet been put on board, for it could be found nowhere; but at length a sort of strong room was discovered, cunningly built in the run of the ship, its entrance hidden by a big pile of sails; and when this was entered, there, sure enough, lay the treasure, consisting of no less than five hundred gold bricks, each weighing some forty pounds; two thousand bars of silver averaging about fifty pounds each, a chest of pearls the value of which was so great that they made no attempt even to estimate it approximately; and a small chest of uncut precious stones, chiefly emeralds and rubies, which of itself would have sufficed to make every man of them rich for life. The whole of this stupendous treasure they at once proceeded to transfer to theAdventure; and so much of it was there that, working watch and watch, one watch mounting guard to render impossible anything in the nature of a surprise attack from the shore, while the other watch carried the treasure from the one ship to the other, it was long past midnight when at length the work was done and the weary men were permitted to snatch a little rest.The authorities ashore had been given until sunrise of the following morning in which to find someone capable of interpreting Bascomb’s letter, and to come to a decision as to whether or not they would accede to the terms of the said letter; and the first light of dawn revealed a large boat putting off from the shore, pulled by twelve oarsmen, and flying a white flag at the stern. This was the first boat that had attempted to approach either of the ships since the appearance of theAdventureupon the scene, and her approach was watched with the utmost interest and curiosity. She carried three officials in brilliant uniforms and four other individuals in her stern-sheets, but it was Stukely’s keen eyes which were the first to detect the fact that Captain Marshall was not in her; and his announcement of this fact at once raised a storm of indignation among those who had hastily turned out and gone on deck when the approach of the boat had been reported.“Not in her?” incredulously repeated Bascomb—“Not in her? Then what a plague do the Dons mean by coming off to us at all? Surely I made it plain enough to them all that the surrender of our Captain was the very first article of our demand? Then what—?”“Nay, nay; let be,” interposed Winter, speaking quite calmly, but his lips white, and his eyes glowing sombrely like smouldering fires. “No need to work thyself into a passion, Will Bascomb, until thou hast heard what their lordships have to say. Maybe they have not seen the Captain and know naught of him.”“Not seen him? Know naught of him? Why—why—!” spluttered Bascomb. Then he suddenly calmed down. This was no time for disputatiousness or the display of warm feeling between himself and the man who, if haply anything had gone wrong with the Captain, might become the head of them all. Besides, there was wisdom in that suggestion to wait and hear what the Dons had to say before jumping to a conclusion. Thus the little group of Englishmen on the high poop of theAdventurelapsed into sudden silence as the boat drew near; but it was a silence that was ominous, menacing, a silence of set lips and burning eyes, pregnant with dire possibilities for the city and all within it if aught of evil had befallen their Captain therein. For not only was Marshall, rough almost to uncouthness of manner though he was at times, beloved by all there, but also there was the feeling stirring in every breast that it was vitally important to each one of them that the Spaniard must be taught, once and for all, to regard an Englishman’s life as sacred, no matter what the circumstances might be under which he might fall into their hands, or however helpless and friendless he might at the moment seem. So it was a very grim-visaged, uncompromising-looking group of Englishmen at whom the newcomers stared upward when the boat arrived within easy hailing-distance and lay upon her oars.An elderly man, attired in the usual mariner’s costume of the period, rose in the stern-sheets of the boat and, doffing his cap, opened the conversation by remarking in English:“Good morning, gentlemen! I am Gaspar Pacheco, lately a master of mariners, but now retired from the sea; and I am here to-day to act the part of interpreter between yourselves and the illustrious Señors Don Luis Maria Alfonso Calderon, Governor of the city of Cartagena; Don Ricardo Picador Garcia, Alcalde of Cartagena; Don Hermoso Morillo, our Intendant; Don Sebastian Campana; Don Ferdinand Miguel Pavia; and Don Ramon Sylva, merchants of Cartagena.” And as each individual was named he rose in the stern-sheets of the boat, bowed deeply, and seated himself again.“I am instructed by my illustrious fellow townsmen to inform you, señors, that although your cartel was handed to the Governor immediately upon the arrival of your messenger in the town, yesterday, it was not until very late in the day that anyone could be found possessed of a sufficient knowledge of your language to interpret it, the only person possessed of such knowledge being myself, who live not in Cartagena itself but in a small hacienda a few miles north of the city. Then, señors, when I had been found and conveyed to Cartagena, and had translated your letter to the authorities, a difficulty at once arose; for mention is therein made of one Capitan Marshall, who is said to have entered the city five days ago, and whose safe return you demand. Now, neither his Excellency the Governor nor Don Ricardo Garcia, our Alcalde, had ever before heard of such a person as el Capitan Marshall, or indeed of any other stranger, being in the city; and it at once became necessary, before anything else could be done, that enquiries should be set on foot to ascertain whether any such person had been seen, so that his whereabouts might be traced. Those enquiries, señors, were at once instituted, and are still being actively pursued; but we are regretfully obliged to confess that thus far they have been entirely without result. Meanwhile—”“Stop!” interrupted Bascomb, throwing up his hand with an imperative gesture. “Do you mean to tell me that it is possible for a stranger—and that stranger an Englishman—to be four days and five nights in your city without anyone being the wiser?”The interpreter shrugged his shoulders and spread his hands abroad deprecatingly.“It would greatly depend upon the skill, courage, and resourcefulness of the stranger, señor,” he answered. “If your Capitan Marshall speaks Spanish fluently, and possesses the knowledge of how to look and act like a Spaniard, it is quite possible that he might do so.”“But,” objected Bascomb, “he could not well have been in your city yesterday and have remained in ignorance of what was happening. And I know him well enough to feel certain that were he alive, in good health, and free, he would have rejoined the ship ere now. That he has not done so is evidence conclusive and convincing to us all that something untoward has happened to him, for which we shall hold the entire population of your city, individually and collectively, responsible.“Now,” he continued, turning and addressing his companions on the deck, “that is speaking plainly enough for even a Spaniard to understand, isn’t it? But since Captain Marshall’s safety and well-being must be our first consideration, I think we ought not to make our conditions so hard as to be impossible of fulfilment; I therefore propose that we allow them a little more time in which to find him, before we proceed to extremities. Let us make it clear to them that he must be found and delivered up to us, safe and sound, within a certain time, say noon to-day; and that failure to comply with this demand will be followed by the bombardment and sack of the town. What say you, gentles?”“Agreed!” came the answer, as with one voice, from all present.“Very well, then,” concluded Bascomb; and turning toward the boat, he hailed:“Now, listen to me, Señor Interpreter, and mark well my words. It has come to the ears of us English that the Spaniards of the New World, in their selfish determination to retain in their own hands the whole of the trade of this rich country, are making a practice of seizing every Englishman upon whom they can lay hands, and delivering him over to your so-called Holy Inquisition in order that, while salving your own consciences with the plea of religious zeal, my countrymen may be subjected to fiendish tortures, and so be discouraged from attempting to secure a share of the immeasurable wealth which you enjoy. Now the time has come when your minds must be disabused of this notion. No amount of torture which you can possibly inflict upon solitary, helpless Englishmen will deter their fellow countrymen from striving, by fair means or foul, to secure a share of what they are as much entitled to as yourselves; and they will never rest until they have obtained it! Mark you that. And, further, remember this—that henceforward, for every Englishman who is lost on these shores, and is found to have perished under the hands of your Inquisitors, the English will take a terrible vengeance, exacting the lives of ten of the most distinguished Spaniards upon whom they can lay hands.“Now, our Captain is somewhere in your city at this moment, and for your own sakes he must be found and brought on board this ship before noon. And when that is done we will talk further with you. But if by noon he is not found and delivered up to us, then I say to you that we will first bombard your town, and afterwards sack and destroy it, as a lesson to you and all Spaniards to beware henceforward how you meddle with Englishmen, even when they seem to be absolutely at your mercy. Now, translate that to the illustrious señors your companions.”The interpreter did so; and as he proceeded the varied emotions of indignation, horror, and fear that were evoked by Bascomb’s plain speaking were easily enough discernible upon the countenances of his audience. They flushed and turned pale by turns, they wrung their hands, and once his Excellency the Governor started to his feet and shook his fist savagely at the little group on theAdventure’spoop, but was instantly dragged down again by his comrades, who evidently feared the English more than they did him. When at length the interpreter had finished and the Governor burst into a torrent of apparently violent language, which he seemed to wish the interpreter to translate to the Englishmen, the others interposed with what appeared to be an emphatic veto. This was followed by a somewhat lengthy and very animated discussion among themselves, during which the boat was kept in place by an occasional stroke of the oars. At length a resolution of some sort seemed to be arrived at, for the alcalde was seen to speak earnestly to the interpreter, who presently rose to his feet and hailed.“Illustrious señors,” he said, “I am desired by Don Ricardo Garcia, our respected Alcalde, to say that every possible effort shall be made to find the missing Capitan; and when found he shall at once be restored to you. But, señors, the time you have allowed us is much too brief for an effective search to be made, and—”“Did you not say that the search was begun yesterday, and is still being actively prosecuted?” interrupted Bascomb.“Even so, illustrious General,” answered the interpreter.“Very well, then,” retorted the master; “if he is in the city, and is alive and well, he will be found before noon. If he is not found, then it will be because some evil has befallen him, for which Cartagena shall be made to suffer. Look in your Inquisition for him, señor; he is as likely to be there as anywhere. And tell your Inquisitors that if he is not forthcoming by noon, the Inquisition shall be the first building to suffer from our shot. Now, go!”So they went, with much shaking of heads and wringing of hands.

There was no enthusiasm, no cheering, nothing in the nature of hysterical exultation displayed by the crew of theAdventure, when the longboat ran alongside and those who had performed the audacious feat of rendering two powerful batteries innocuous rejoined their shipmates; everything was accepted as a matter of course. It was fully realised by all hands that the deed was one, the successful accomplishment of which required the display of nerve and courage of superlative character, but it was understood that the entire expedition, from start to finish, from its departure from Topsham to its return thither, demanded the constant exhibition of these same qualities—and would receive it. Therefore a murmur or two of approval and satisfaction from Bascomb, when Dick made his report, was all that was said in the way of commendation.

“And now, sirs,” said the master, dismissing the topic of the disarmament of the batteries, “Cartagena and the galleon are at our mercy; and the sooner that the Spaniard can be brought to understand this, the better is it like to be for our general. Therefore we will enter the harbour forthwith, lay the galleon aboard and take her, and then open negotiations with the authorities for the ransom of the town and the deliverance of Captain Marshall. Mr Chichester, you know more about the harbour than any of the rest of us. It must be your duty, therefore, to pilot the ship alongside the galleon; the others I will ask to go straight to their fighting stations and prepare the ship for battle, after which, if there be time, we will take breakfast. If not—well, we must e’en fight fasting, and eat after the galleon is taken.”

So Dick went up on the poop and, stationing himself to windward, conned the ship as she beat in toward the Boca Chica against the fast-failing land breeze. But, good ship as theAdventurewas, her progress was exasperatingly slow, as was that of all ships of that date when they attempted to beat up against a foul wind; for neither the form of the hull nor the cut of the sails was at that day favourable to such a manoeuvre, and the ship was still a good mile from the harbour’s mouth when the land breeze suddenly failed, and she was left helplessly wallowing upon the oily swell outside.

This, of course, was exasperating enough; for when deeds of desperate emprise are toward it is well to carry them through before the enthusiasm has time to cool. But it could not be helped, the wind was dead, and the ship could not be handled now until the sea breeze sprang up; and, after all, the delay was not an unmitigated misfortune, for it ensured to the crew time enough to complete their preparations for the coming fight and take breakfast afterward; and even at that day it was fully recognised that an Englishman fights best when his hunger has been satisfied. So they finished the work upon which they were engaged, and then went quietly to breakfast, which meal they were able to dispose of comfortably before a cry from the deck apprised them of the arrival of the sea breeze.

Yes; there it came, far away in the offing, ruling the horizon as a band of dark blue that grew lighter and lighter still along its landward edge, until it stopped short at a distance of about two miles from the shore, blowing fresh right up to a certain well-defined point, between which and the land all was gleaming, glassy swell, unruffled by even so much as a cat’s-paw. But the boundary line which divided breeze from calm was not stationary by any means, on the contrary, it was creeping nearer rapidly. When Bascomb came up on the poop he merely glanced at it for a moment and then called to the seamen to trim the yards in readiness to meet it. By the time that this had been done the line of demarcation was so near that the musical tinkling of the advancing ripples could be distinctly heard, although the sails still hung limp, idly flapping to the roll of the ship. Another minute, however, sufficed, then with a gentle preliminary rustling the canvas filled, the blue ripples reached the ship, passed inshore of her, and she began to draw slowly through the water and her helm was put up to keep her away for the narrow harbour entrance.

“Starboard you may,” said Dick to the helmsman, when the ship had presently fallen square off before the fast-freshening breeze; “we must shave that low point on the left quite closely, for that is where the channel runs, and there is a small shoal right in the mouth of the fairway which we must avoid. So! that will do; now, steady as you go. Mr Bascomb, you see that dark object just opening out over the southernmost end of Tierra Bomba? Well, that is the shore battery, and as it possesses certain small ordnance, such as falconets and swivels, which we could not spare the time to destroy, I would recommend that, as we must pass it close, the men be instructed to lie down behind the bulwarks as we sail by, lest haply any of them be hit; for I make no doubt that they will discharge at us every piece they have as we pass.”

“Say you so?” returned Bascomb. “Then, by the Lord Harry, we will be beforehand with them. Ho, there! Load the larboard broadside of ordnance, great and small, and train your pieces to sweep the top of yonder battery as we pass. We cannot afford to risk the loss of any of our number through a mistaken sense of magnanimity.”

With swelling sails distended by the ever-freshening sea breeze, theAdventurenow swept boldly in for the mouth of the Boca Chica, and presently a curl of white water revealed the presence of the shoal of which Dick Chichester had spoken, right in the middle of the fairway. Dick directed the helmsman to steer to the north of this, between it and the island of Tierra Bomba, with its swelling wood-crowned heights. Dick glanced aloft at the castle which crowned the summit of the southernmost hill, but although the golden flag of Spain flaunted itself insolently in the breeze from the flagstaff on its northern turret, not a man was to be seen upon the parapet. Many of the embrasures, one-half of which they could now see, had been destroyed by the bursting of the ordnance, and it soon became clear that none of its garrison intended to make any effort to dispute the passage of the English ship. Whether the garrison of the battery down on the beach would be less prudent still remained to be seen, but one thing was perfectly clear, and that was that the Spanish soldiery were very busy upon the gun platform, their movements being directed by a tall man in a full suit of black armour, the helmet of which was surmounted by a splendid plume of long crimson feathers. The English, however, were not left long in doubt as to the intentions of this individual, who was, doubtless, the commander of the garrison; for as the ship swept along the narrow channel, hugging the northern shore closely, and every moment shortening the distance between the battery and herself, he was seen to draw his sword, which flashed like a white flame in the brilliant sunshine as he waved it above his head, and the next moment a perfect storm of bullets from falcon and falconet, patarero, saker, and swivel, came hurtling from the battery across the narrow water toward the ship. But the gallant cavalier had been just a trifle too eager to display his valour, for most of the missiles fell short, having been fired at rather too long a range, while those which hit were so nearly spent that only a few of them lodged in the solid woodwork of the ship’s bulwarks, and not a man on board was hit.

“Now, men,” roared Bascomb, “give yonder presumptuous fool a lesson; fire as your guns come to bear, and not before. I want that parapet swept clean!”

And swept clean it was, the English holding their fire and the ship sweeping on in grim, inexorable silence until she was within some two hundred feet of the structure, when all her larboard ordnance, great and small, bellowed and barked back its answer. As the smoke drove away ahead before the wind the wall was seen to crumble into dust under the impact of the heavy iron shot, while the lighter missiles mowed down the soldiers like corn beneath the sickle, until not a man was left standing upon his feet, even the magnifico in armour going down before the hail of iron and lead, to say nothing of the Spanish standard, the staff of which was cut clean in two, so that it toppled over and fell, carrying the flag with it, to the ground at the base of the wall.

“So much for thicky!” exclaimed Bascomb, relapsing into broad Devon for a moment, under the influence of excitement. “If it weren’t that we have a long and hot morning’s work before us I would anchor the ship, land a party, and blow their footy batteries into the air. But perhaps we may have time to do that when we come back this way. Now, my masters, load again, this time with double charges, consisting of a half-keg of bullets to each culverin, with a chain shot on top, and the smaller ordnance in proportion. We will not fire again, if we can help it, until we run alongside the galleon, and not then until we rub sides with her.”

The ship had by this time traversed so much of the Boca that it became necessary for her to shift her helm in order to avoid grounding upon a sandspit that stretched athwart her course, and here the advantage and value of Dick Chichester’s previous observations became apparent; for so sharp was the bend, and so little was there to indicate the existence of the shoal, that if Dick had not previously had the opportunity to note its position, the ship would undoubtedly have driven right upon it, under full sail, when she would certainly have been in an exceedingly awkward predicament, and might even have been lost, presuming the Spaniards to have been courageous enough to attack her while placed at so serious a disadvantage. But she was not allowed to get into any such awkward situation; for Dick had noticed everything connected with the dangers of the harbour, while looking out and watching from the summit of the hill on Tierra Bomba, and he carried a complete and perfectly accurate chart of the harbour in his head, in addition to the one which he and Marshall had made together. The helm was, therefore, shifted at the proper moment, and the ship swerved away in a south-easterly direction, making as though for the middle of the lower bay.

The danger did not reveal itself until the ship was actually slipping past it, and in less than five minutes she was clear and the course was again altered, this time to the north-eastward, where the island of Tierra Bomba, thrusting its north-easterly angle inward, divided the upper from the lower bay, narrowing the passage between to a width of less than a mile. Now the ship was fairly inside, and heading for a part of the harbour where Dick remembered to have observed certain other dangers in the shape of rocks and shoals, no sign of which could he perceive from the deck; he therefore mentioned the matter to Bascomb, and obtained that officer’s permission to go aloft to the fore topsail-yard and con the ship from there.

In this fashion, then, theAdventure, with the red cross of Saint George flying defiantly from her main truck, swept up Cartagena harbour and, rounding the eastern extremity of Tierra Bomba, headed straight for the inner roadstead, where could now be seen, among a small forest of more insignificant masts, the towering spars of the great galleon, with a vast crimson flag bearing a coat of arms floating at her main, and the Spanish flag drooping from the ensign staff reared at her stern. The town being built on low land, the lofty masts of the galleon were at once seen, upon the English ship rounding the point and opening up the city, and a great cry of “There she is!” instantly leapt from every English throat.

“Ay; there she is, men,” returned Bascomb. “We can’t make any mistake about her, I think; and in halt an hour you shall be alongside her. The rest of the work will be for you to do. I’ll tell you my plan, men. We will range up alongside her and lay her aboard, and just before our sides touch we will pour our broadside into her, throw the grapnels and hook on, and then dash aboard in the midst of the smoke and drive her crew below. The secret is to strike hard and often, and keep them on the run. If any man attempts to stand, though only for a moment, run him through at once with a pike. That is all that I have to say, men; you know how to do the trick as well as I.”

With Cartagena city and the galleon in plain view, Dick Chichester’s work aloft was done, and he, therefore, returned to the deck and the spot upon it from which he had previously been conning the ship, where he resumed his duty as pilot.

As theAdventureslid smoothly and rapidly up the harbour, heading straight for the galleon, it was seen that nearly twenty large boats, full of armed men, were pulling off to her from the shore. It was clear, therefore, that the authorities had received notice of the approach of the English, possibly from one or another of the officers in charge of the defences on Tierra Bomba, and, shrewdly guessing that one object, at least, of the unwelcome visit was the galleon, were determined to defend her to the last. But this discovery in nowise disconcerted the sturdy lads of Devon, who had long ago learned to regard themselves as invincible, so far as the Spaniards were concerned; so they continued with the utmost calmness to add here and there some refinement of finish to the preparations which had been completed an hour or more ago. Even the ship’s cook, whom nobody regarded as a fighting man, must needs add his little quota to the general preparations, the same taking the form of several gallons of greasy boiling water with which he had filled his coppers, the which he proposed to employ at such time as might seem to him most suitable. As for Dick, he decided that the handspike which he had used in the fight off Barbados had proved so effective that, regarded as a weapon, it could scarcely be improved upon, and he was on the point of providing himself with another when his eye chanced to fall upon a heavy iron bar which had been brought on deck for some purpose, so, having tested its weight, he at once decided that it was the very thing he needed, and appropriated it accordingly.

TheAdventurehad arrived within about half a mile of the galleon when the latter opened fire with her heavy ordnance, of which she carried two tiers. But whether it was that the Spaniards designed to shoot away the English ship’s masts, and so leave her helpless and unmanageable, or whether it was that the pieces were badly aimed, every one of the shot went humming high overhead, leaving the intruder to pass on unscathed and in grim silence; for not one of her guns replied. But Bascomb stepped forward to the front of the poop and issued an order.

“Let every man of you,” he said, “take bow or musket, and prepare to discharge a volley upon the deck of yonder galleon when I give the word. Then, that done, return to your ordnance and prepare to fire, for the time will be at hand. Sail trimmers, stand by to let fly all sheets and halliards at the word of command; then be ready to heave the grapnels as we range up alongside.”

The English ship, still conned by Dick Chichester, was now steering a course which if persevered in would carry her across the stern of the galleon, at a distance of about twice her own length from that vessel; and it seemed evident, from the uncertain movements of those on board the Spaniard, that they were considerably puzzled as to the intentions of the English. For, having discharged the whole of her starboard broadside at the approachingAdventure, the crew of the galleon first began with feverish haste to reload all the guns on that side of their ship; then, seeming suddenly to suspect that their antagonist intended to lay them aboard on their inshore side, they left their starboard broadside only half-loaded and precipitately dashed across the deck to their larboard broadside of ordnance, which they began to clear away hurriedly with the intention of loading. TheAdventurewas at this moment less than twice her own length from the galleon, and Bascomb, standing on the poop, was able to look down from there into the crowded waist of the other ship and clearly see the Spaniards crowding together about the larboard ordnance. The opportunity seemed much too good to be let slip, so calling his bowmen and musketeers up on to the poop, he directed them to discharge a volley into the surging mass of men, which they did instantly, with terribly destructive effect.

“Good!” he exclaimed, as he saw some twenty or thirty Spaniards fall writhing to the deck; “now back to your ordnance, men, and be ready to fire when I give the word. Sail trimmers, let fly all sheets and halliards, and stand by with your grapnels!”

As the sailing master issued these orders Dick signed to the helmsman, who thereupon thrust the ponderous tiller hard down, and theAdventure, answering her helm perfectly, swept round in a short curve and went gliding up on the starboard side of the galleon.

“Now, gunners all, let fly your ordnance!” roared Bascomb, drawing his sword. And as the bright blade flashed in the air the English artillery, loaded with round, bar, and chain shot, musket balls, spike nails, and every kind of missile that the men had been able to lay hands upon, were discharged when the two vessels were scarcely a fathom apart, and the Spanish ship’s upper deck instantly became a shambles, scarcely a man remaining uninjured upon it.

“Throw your grapnels,” shouted Bascomb, “and then let every man follow me aboard the Spaniard.” As he spoke theAdventurecrashed alongside the galleon, there was a sound of ripping and rending timber, and a heavy rebound; and then, as the two ships rolled toward each other after the rebound the English crew went swarming over their own bulwarks and down upon the Spanish deck, where they found scarcely half a dozen men to oppose them. But at the head of them stood a very magnificent looking personage in full armour, whom Bascomb took to be the captain of the ship.

“Do you surrender, señor?” demanded Bascomb, speaking in English for the very good reason that he “had” no Spanish.

It is probable that the Spaniard was as destitute of English as Master William Bascomb was of Spanish; but there is a language of intonation and gesture as well as of words, and doubtless that of the Englishman was intelligible enough, for the Spaniard, by way of reply, grasped his sword by the point and offered it to the sturdy Devonshire seaman who confronted him, and who accepted it with a very fair imitation of the bow with which the Spaniard had tendered it.

“That’s well, so far,” commented Bascomb. “Now”—looking about him and noticing Dick standing near, grasping his iron bar—“that ends the trouble up here. But what about down below, Mr Chichester? You had better take a dozen men and this gentleman down with you; and perhaps he will explain to those of his people who are on the main deck that he has surrendered. If they will lay down their arms, well and good; if they won’t—well, you will just have to make ’em, that’s all. Now go; and report to me here when you’ve gained complete possession of the ship.”

Dick took his dozen men and, insinuating his hand in the crook of the Spanish captain’s arm, led that individual below to the main deck, where they found a few Spanish seamen still hanging about between the great culverins, apparently quite uncertain what to do, or whether they ought to do anything. The Spanish captain spoke sharply to them; apparently he was very much surprised and disappointed to find so few men there, and seemed to be asking them where the rest were, for by way of reply the seamen said something and pointed to the hatchways. The Spanish captain relieved his feelings by stamping on the deck, grinding his teeth, and indulging in a good deal of Castilian profanity; after which he seemed to give certain instructions, the result of which was that the men laid down their arms and went up on deck, one of their number having previously gone to the main hatchway and shouted something down it which caused the remainder of the crew to come up from below and surrender their weapons.

It took Dick and his party about half an hour to explore thoroughly the interior of the galleon—which they discovered was named theSanta Margaretta—and satisfy themselves that none of the Spanish crew were lurking below in hiding; and when at length they returned to the upper deck to report, they found that Bascomb and Winter had mustered the surviving Spaniards forward on the fore deck, under a strong guard, while the English had lowered one of the galleon’s boats and in her had boarded and captured a small coasting felucca, which they were at that moment towing alongside their bigger prize. This, Bascomb explained, he had done with the object of getting rid of his Spanish prisoners, whom he proposed to send ashore in the felucca, having no fancy for keeping them aboard the prize, where they would need a strong body of the English to maintain an efficient guard over them. And, with the released prisoners, he proposed to send ashore a letter to the Governor of the city, demanding the immediate surrender of Captain Marshall, safe and sound, together with payment of the sum of five hundred thousand ducats ransom for the city, failure of either condition to be followed by the sack and destruction of the place.

“But,” objected Dick, “you can neither speak nor write Spanish; and it may very well be that there will be nobody in Cartagena who understands English; in that case we shall be at a deadlock, and how will you manage then?”

“That,” replied Bascomb, sententiously, “will be their lookout. If they cannot find anyone to translate my letter, so much the worse for them. But there should be no trouble about that; for if they can find nobody else the captain will make my meaning clear to them.”

It was considerably past midday when at length the whole of the Spaniards, together with their dead and wounded, were transferred to the felucca and dispatched to the shore, the Spanish captain being entrusted with the letter to the governor or commandant of the town; and then the English found time to look into their own affairs and take a meal. It was found that by a marvellous stroke of good fortune the galleon had been captured without the loss of a man, or even so much as a single casualty on the English side; and, this being the case, the question arose whether or not they should retain possession of the vessel, dividing theAdventure’screw equally between her and the prize. There arose quite a sharp difference of opinion on this point, Bascomb and the two gentlemen adventurers maintaining that the prize was far too valuable to be parted with or destroyed, now that they had her; while Winter and Dick contended that they were far too few in number to justify the proposed division, the effect of which would be to put them in possession of two perilously short-handed ships, instead of one fully manned. Moreover, theSanta Margarettawas nearly twice the size of theAdventure, the proposal therefore to divide the crew of the latter into two equal parts would hardly meet the case, since a crew of forty men could handle the galleon only in fine weather, while as to fighting her effectually in the event of their falling in with an enemy, it simply could not be done. Winter’s proposal, in which Dick backed him up, was that everything of value—or at least as much of it as they could find room for—should be transferred to theAdventure, after which a ransom of, say, twenty thousand ducats could be demanded for the ship and what remained of her cargo, failing the payment of which she might be burnt at her anchors as a wholesome example! The dispute at length grew so warm that Stukely, who was present but took no part in it, suggested that the matter should be left for Captain Marshall to decide, upon his return.

The afternoon of that day was busily spent by the English, one party of whom, under the joint leadership of the carpenter and boatswain, devoted themselves to the task of repairing the slight damage sustained by theAdventurein running aboard the galleon, while the remainder engaged in the work of thoroughly rummaging the prize and transferring from her to theAdventureall the valuables they could find. At first some fear was entertained that the treasure which it was intended the ship should take home had not yet been put on board, for it could be found nowhere; but at length a sort of strong room was discovered, cunningly built in the run of the ship, its entrance hidden by a big pile of sails; and when this was entered, there, sure enough, lay the treasure, consisting of no less than five hundred gold bricks, each weighing some forty pounds; two thousand bars of silver averaging about fifty pounds each, a chest of pearls the value of which was so great that they made no attempt even to estimate it approximately; and a small chest of uncut precious stones, chiefly emeralds and rubies, which of itself would have sufficed to make every man of them rich for life. The whole of this stupendous treasure they at once proceeded to transfer to theAdventure; and so much of it was there that, working watch and watch, one watch mounting guard to render impossible anything in the nature of a surprise attack from the shore, while the other watch carried the treasure from the one ship to the other, it was long past midnight when at length the work was done and the weary men were permitted to snatch a little rest.

The authorities ashore had been given until sunrise of the following morning in which to find someone capable of interpreting Bascomb’s letter, and to come to a decision as to whether or not they would accede to the terms of the said letter; and the first light of dawn revealed a large boat putting off from the shore, pulled by twelve oarsmen, and flying a white flag at the stern. This was the first boat that had attempted to approach either of the ships since the appearance of theAdventureupon the scene, and her approach was watched with the utmost interest and curiosity. She carried three officials in brilliant uniforms and four other individuals in her stern-sheets, but it was Stukely’s keen eyes which were the first to detect the fact that Captain Marshall was not in her; and his announcement of this fact at once raised a storm of indignation among those who had hastily turned out and gone on deck when the approach of the boat had been reported.

“Not in her?” incredulously repeated Bascomb—“Not in her? Then what a plague do the Dons mean by coming off to us at all? Surely I made it plain enough to them all that the surrender of our Captain was the very first article of our demand? Then what—?”

“Nay, nay; let be,” interposed Winter, speaking quite calmly, but his lips white, and his eyes glowing sombrely like smouldering fires. “No need to work thyself into a passion, Will Bascomb, until thou hast heard what their lordships have to say. Maybe they have not seen the Captain and know naught of him.”

“Not seen him? Know naught of him? Why—why—!” spluttered Bascomb. Then he suddenly calmed down. This was no time for disputatiousness or the display of warm feeling between himself and the man who, if haply anything had gone wrong with the Captain, might become the head of them all. Besides, there was wisdom in that suggestion to wait and hear what the Dons had to say before jumping to a conclusion. Thus the little group of Englishmen on the high poop of theAdventurelapsed into sudden silence as the boat drew near; but it was a silence that was ominous, menacing, a silence of set lips and burning eyes, pregnant with dire possibilities for the city and all within it if aught of evil had befallen their Captain therein. For not only was Marshall, rough almost to uncouthness of manner though he was at times, beloved by all there, but also there was the feeling stirring in every breast that it was vitally important to each one of them that the Spaniard must be taught, once and for all, to regard an Englishman’s life as sacred, no matter what the circumstances might be under which he might fall into their hands, or however helpless and friendless he might at the moment seem. So it was a very grim-visaged, uncompromising-looking group of Englishmen at whom the newcomers stared upward when the boat arrived within easy hailing-distance and lay upon her oars.

An elderly man, attired in the usual mariner’s costume of the period, rose in the stern-sheets of the boat and, doffing his cap, opened the conversation by remarking in English:

“Good morning, gentlemen! I am Gaspar Pacheco, lately a master of mariners, but now retired from the sea; and I am here to-day to act the part of interpreter between yourselves and the illustrious Señors Don Luis Maria Alfonso Calderon, Governor of the city of Cartagena; Don Ricardo Picador Garcia, Alcalde of Cartagena; Don Hermoso Morillo, our Intendant; Don Sebastian Campana; Don Ferdinand Miguel Pavia; and Don Ramon Sylva, merchants of Cartagena.” And as each individual was named he rose in the stern-sheets of the boat, bowed deeply, and seated himself again.

“I am instructed by my illustrious fellow townsmen to inform you, señors, that although your cartel was handed to the Governor immediately upon the arrival of your messenger in the town, yesterday, it was not until very late in the day that anyone could be found possessed of a sufficient knowledge of your language to interpret it, the only person possessed of such knowledge being myself, who live not in Cartagena itself but in a small hacienda a few miles north of the city. Then, señors, when I had been found and conveyed to Cartagena, and had translated your letter to the authorities, a difficulty at once arose; for mention is therein made of one Capitan Marshall, who is said to have entered the city five days ago, and whose safe return you demand. Now, neither his Excellency the Governor nor Don Ricardo Garcia, our Alcalde, had ever before heard of such a person as el Capitan Marshall, or indeed of any other stranger, being in the city; and it at once became necessary, before anything else could be done, that enquiries should be set on foot to ascertain whether any such person had been seen, so that his whereabouts might be traced. Those enquiries, señors, were at once instituted, and are still being actively pursued; but we are regretfully obliged to confess that thus far they have been entirely without result. Meanwhile—”

“Stop!” interrupted Bascomb, throwing up his hand with an imperative gesture. “Do you mean to tell me that it is possible for a stranger—and that stranger an Englishman—to be four days and five nights in your city without anyone being the wiser?”

The interpreter shrugged his shoulders and spread his hands abroad deprecatingly.

“It would greatly depend upon the skill, courage, and resourcefulness of the stranger, señor,” he answered. “If your Capitan Marshall speaks Spanish fluently, and possesses the knowledge of how to look and act like a Spaniard, it is quite possible that he might do so.”

“But,” objected Bascomb, “he could not well have been in your city yesterday and have remained in ignorance of what was happening. And I know him well enough to feel certain that were he alive, in good health, and free, he would have rejoined the ship ere now. That he has not done so is evidence conclusive and convincing to us all that something untoward has happened to him, for which we shall hold the entire population of your city, individually and collectively, responsible.

“Now,” he continued, turning and addressing his companions on the deck, “that is speaking plainly enough for even a Spaniard to understand, isn’t it? But since Captain Marshall’s safety and well-being must be our first consideration, I think we ought not to make our conditions so hard as to be impossible of fulfilment; I therefore propose that we allow them a little more time in which to find him, before we proceed to extremities. Let us make it clear to them that he must be found and delivered up to us, safe and sound, within a certain time, say noon to-day; and that failure to comply with this demand will be followed by the bombardment and sack of the town. What say you, gentles?”

“Agreed!” came the answer, as with one voice, from all present.

“Very well, then,” concluded Bascomb; and turning toward the boat, he hailed:

“Now, listen to me, Señor Interpreter, and mark well my words. It has come to the ears of us English that the Spaniards of the New World, in their selfish determination to retain in their own hands the whole of the trade of this rich country, are making a practice of seizing every Englishman upon whom they can lay hands, and delivering him over to your so-called Holy Inquisition in order that, while salving your own consciences with the plea of religious zeal, my countrymen may be subjected to fiendish tortures, and so be discouraged from attempting to secure a share of the immeasurable wealth which you enjoy. Now the time has come when your minds must be disabused of this notion. No amount of torture which you can possibly inflict upon solitary, helpless Englishmen will deter their fellow countrymen from striving, by fair means or foul, to secure a share of what they are as much entitled to as yourselves; and they will never rest until they have obtained it! Mark you that. And, further, remember this—that henceforward, for every Englishman who is lost on these shores, and is found to have perished under the hands of your Inquisitors, the English will take a terrible vengeance, exacting the lives of ten of the most distinguished Spaniards upon whom they can lay hands.

“Now, our Captain is somewhere in your city at this moment, and for your own sakes he must be found and brought on board this ship before noon. And when that is done we will talk further with you. But if by noon he is not found and delivered up to us, then I say to you that we will first bombard your town, and afterwards sack and destroy it, as a lesson to you and all Spaniards to beware henceforward how you meddle with Englishmen, even when they seem to be absolutely at your mercy. Now, translate that to the illustrious señors your companions.”

The interpreter did so; and as he proceeded the varied emotions of indignation, horror, and fear that were evoked by Bascomb’s plain speaking were easily enough discernible upon the countenances of his audience. They flushed and turned pale by turns, they wrung their hands, and once his Excellency the Governor started to his feet and shook his fist savagely at the little group on theAdventure’spoop, but was instantly dragged down again by his comrades, who evidently feared the English more than they did him. When at length the interpreter had finished and the Governor burst into a torrent of apparently violent language, which he seemed to wish the interpreter to translate to the Englishmen, the others interposed with what appeared to be an emphatic veto. This was followed by a somewhat lengthy and very animated discussion among themselves, during which the boat was kept in place by an occasional stroke of the oars. At length a resolution of some sort seemed to be arrived at, for the alcalde was seen to speak earnestly to the interpreter, who presently rose to his feet and hailed.

“Illustrious señors,” he said, “I am desired by Don Ricardo Garcia, our respected Alcalde, to say that every possible effort shall be made to find the missing Capitan; and when found he shall at once be restored to you. But, señors, the time you have allowed us is much too brief for an effective search to be made, and—”

“Did you not say that the search was begun yesterday, and is still being actively prosecuted?” interrupted Bascomb.

“Even so, illustrious General,” answered the interpreter.

“Very well, then,” retorted the master; “if he is in the city, and is alive and well, he will be found before noon. If he is not found, then it will be because some evil has befallen him, for which Cartagena shall be made to suffer. Look in your Inquisition for him, señor; he is as likely to be there as anywhere. And tell your Inquisitors that if he is not forthcoming by noon, the Inquisition shall be the first building to suffer from our shot. Now, go!”

So they went, with much shaking of heads and wringing of hands.

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