Chapter Seven.

Chapter Seven.How they set out to rescue Captain Marshall, and failed.The morning was passed strenuously by the English in preparing both theAdventureand her prize for the grim business of bombarding Cartagena, if need were; the hope in every man’s heart being that the spectacle of the preparations—which was clearly visible from the water front of the town—would have the effect of breaking down the stubborn wills of the Spaniards, and constraining them to surrender their prisoner. For up to this moment there had never been any real doubt in the mind of any one of the Englishmen that Marshall had been discovered and made a prisoner; and they were steadfastly resolved to secure his freedom, let the cost be what it would.After carefully considering and discussing the matter together, Bascomb and Winter arrived at the conclusion that it would be possible to effect such a division of the crew as would enable both ships to employ the whole of their heaviest ordnance against the town; and this was accordingly done, theAdventurebeing afterward moved to a berth astern of the galleon, so that neither ship should obstruct the fire of the other.It wanted about a quarter of an hour of noon, and the preparations aboard both ships were complete, when the boat which had visited them in the morning was observed to be putting out again from the wharf and pulling toward theAdventure; but it was soon perceived that on this occasion she carried only one figure, which was presently seen to be that of the interpreter.“The Captain is not there!” exclaimed Bascomb, when this was recognised. “Now, what a plague do they mean by sending off the boat without him? Are they going to beg for more time, I wonder? And, if so, why? For I will never believe but that they know where he is, but are determined to exhaust every artifice and subterfuge in the endeavour to avoid giving him up!”The others said nothing, for what was the use of hazarding conjecture when they would soon know for certain? So they held their tongues and watched the approach of the boat with gloomy, louring glances. They were disappointed, and in a savage, dangerous mood, ready to plunge at a word into any desperate enterprise.The boat ranged up alongside, and the oarsmen rested upon their oars as before.“Hallo! the boat ahoy!” hailed Bascomb. “What does this mean, señor? Why have you not brought off our Captain? Are the people ashore aware that within five minutes the bombardment of the town will begin?”“Alas! yes, most illustrious señors,” answered the interpreter, “unless I should prove fortunate enough to be successful in the mission that has been entrusted to me—that of pleading with your excellencies for a further extension of time.”“Upon what grounds, señor?” demanded Bascomb. “I have already granted an extension of six hours—without result, it would appear. Why should I grant another moment?”“Because, Excellency, it is now believed that a clue to the whereabouts of your Capitan has at last been found, and it is hoped that in the course of another hour or two his freedom may be obtained,” answered the interpreter.“Ah!” returned Bascomb, with a sigh of relief. “So our Captain has been found at last, has he? And where is he thought to be?”“In the Inquisition, señor,” answered the interpreter.“The Inquisition!” interrupted Bascomb. “Odds bodikins! didn’t I say so? And how long has he been there, friend?”“If the clue which has been obtained proves to be a true one, your Capitan will have been there close upon four days,” was the reply. “The man whom we believe to be he was noticed in a small posada four evenings ago, and the landlord of the house is of opinion that someone must have suspected and informed upon him, for during the evening four familiars of the Inquisition called at the house and, in spite of his violent resistance, took him and carried him away.”“They did, did they?” retorted Bascomb. “If I can lay my hand upon those four familiars I’ll make them wish their hands had withered rather than that they had laid them upon an Englishman! But there seems to be a good deal of uncertainty even now about this story of yours, señor interpreter, and I think our best plan will be to take up and investigate the matter ourselves. What say you, gentles? Four days! Why, they will have had time to maim the man for life in those four days! But if they have—! Well, what say ye, my masters; shall us take a strong party of men, go ashore, make our way to their Inquisition, and see for ourselves whether or not Captain Marshall is there? And if he is there, and they have mis-used him, we shall be able to take vengeance upon the evildoers themselves instead of punishing a lot of innocent men and women by knocking their homes about their ears.”“I say that we ought to do as you propose, without a moment’s unnecessary delay,” replied Winter. “And I, too,” answered each of the others present.“Then it shall be done,” answered Bascomb, determinedly. “My proposal, Mr Winter, is that we make equal division of our force; one-half under my leadership to go ashore and look for our Captain, while the other half under you remains aboard theAdventureto take care of her and the prize. Is that agreeable to your worship?”“Yes,” answered Winter; “it is as good a plan as we are like to devise, even though we were to cogitate for the rest of the day. It is true that I would have preferred to lead the landing-party, since if aught should happen to you we shall be left without a navigator.”“Nay, that you need not be,” answered Bascomb, “for I will leave young Chichester with you, and he can be your navigator; he has been an apt pupil, and now knows as much about navigation as I do, so that difficulty is soon overcome. Hallo! the boat ahoy!” he continued, directing his conversation once more to the interpreter; “come aboard, señor, will you? We shall require your services anon.”“Have I your word, most illustrious, that no evil shall befall me if I put myself into your hands?” asked the man.“You have,” answered Bascomb. “You may trust yourself to us without fear; indeed you are like to be a great deal more safe with us than elsewhere during the next few hours.”“It is enough,” returned the interpreter, and signed to the boatmen to put him alongside, climbing to the deck and stepping in through the gangway without fear when they had done so.“Now then, Señor Pacheco,” said Bascomb, when the Spaniard, peering about him curiously, had joined the party on the poop; “I am about to land a party and march it to the Inquisition, in order that I may ascertain for myself whether or not our Captain is within its walls. Whereabout is the place? Can it be seen from here?”“Nay, most illustrious, it cannot, for it lies at the back, or northern extremity, of the western half of the town,” answered Pacheco. “It lies in the direction of the western tower of the cathedral, but far beyond it.”“Um–m!” commented Bascomb; “then, after all, there would not have been much chance of reaching it with our guns. Is it a strong place? Shall we find it very difficult to force our way in?”“I have never been inside—the saints be praised—so cannot tell you very much about it,” answered Pacheco. “So far as the building itself is concerned, it is a strong place, being built entirely of stone, with high walls, which are said to be nowhere less than three feet thick. But the main entrance is guarded only by a pair of oaken doors—massive, no doubt, but probably fastened only with bolts of ordinary strength; for who would ever dream of attempting to break into the Inquisition? Heaven forgive me for affording information to these heretical English,” he muttered under his breath in his native tongue; “but, indeed, if in their fury they should tear the place down, I for one should not be sorry!”“Are there many troops in the town?” demanded Bascomb.“About a hundred, illustrious señor,” answered Pacheco. “Five hundred are on their way down from the interior, it having been intended to send them home in the galleon, but I have not heard that they have yet arrived.”“If they had arrived, do you think you would have heard of it?” demanded Bascomb.“I might, señor; but, on the other hand, I might not,” answered Pacheco. “If they had arrived and marched into the town openly, doubtless I and every other inhabitant of Cartagena would have been aware of the fact. But, señor, your question has given rise to a doubt in my mind, and I am now wondering whether, in view of your presence in the harbour and your threat to bombard the town, his Excellency the Governor may not have taken steps to have the expected troops intercepted and introduced into the town secretly during the dead of night. If you were to ask my advice, señor, I should recommend you not to trust overmuch to the fact that I have heard nothing of the arrival of those soldiers.”“See here, sirrah!” ejaculated Bascomb, suddenly rounding upon the man, “you are extraordinarily free and glib with your information. Now, are you a traitor to your own people, or is your information false and intended to mislead us?”“Neither, señor, on my honour as a Spaniard,” answered Pacheco. “The fact is,” he continued in explanation, “that I have seen much of the English during my business as a seafarer, and have learned to like them, in spite of their overbearing ways and the fact that they are heretics. Moreover, señor, you are about to attack the Inquisition, and good Catholic though I am, it would not grieve me were you to take it and give it to the flames, for I like it not, and that’s the truth, the saints forgive me!”“Now, gentles,” said Bascomb, “you have heard what Señor Pacheco has said about the troops, and if it be truth—as I doubt not it is—it behoves us to be careful how we thrust our noses into that city of Cartagena yonder. Yet go I must, and will; for it is not to be thought of that our Captain may be in their accursed Inquisition, perhaps suffering torments unimaginable, and we doing nothing to help him. Therefore, in view of the possibility of those troops having arrived, and having been secreted somewhere in the town, I think we must modify our plans a little, to the extent, that is to say, of making the landing-party as strong as we can at the expense of the party remaining behind. Now, Mr Winter, what is the smallest number of men that you would care to be left with?”“If I am to defend the ship successfully in the event of a possible attack,” said Winter, “I must have at least twenty men. I cannot do with less. Leave me twenty, and you may take all the rest, even including young Chichester, who is like to be a great deal more useful ashore than he would be with me.”“Very well,” agreed Bascomb, “twenty be it; you can scarce do with less, for it is more than likely that, while we are busy ashore, they will endeavour to recover possession of the treasure. And now, Señor Pacheco, we shall need you as guide to show us the shortest way to the Inquisition. Art willing to do us that service?”“I am, most illustrious,” answered Pacheco; “but, with your favour, señor, it must be under at least seeming compulsion, for if it were known that I did such a thing save under the fear of instant death, I should never again be able to show my face in Cartagena. Therefore, most valiant Englishman, if I am to lead you, it must be with my hands bound and a pistol held to my head.”“Very well,” answered Bascomb. “We will manage that for thee, old sea-horse, as natural as life, so that nobody seeing thee being driven along at the head of us shall guess but that thou’rt quaking in thy shoes at every step thou takest. Take charge of him, Dick; he is to be thy prisoner, remember. Bind his hands behind him so firmly that he cannot get away, and just tightly enough to leave a mark. Put a halter round his neck, and hold the end of it in thy hand, and threaten him with thy drawn pistol at every street corner. And now, gentles, to our preparations. Every man of the shore party shall go armed with hanger on hip, a pair of loaded pistols in his belt, a good bow in his hand, and a quiver full of arrows slung over his shoulder. We muster on the main deck twenty minutes hence, and the pinnace, with the interpreter’s boat, ought to be sufficient to carry us all from the ship to the wharf.”The first half-dozen men who were ready slid down the ship’s side into the interpreter’s boat so swiftly and silently that they took her astonished crew completely by surprise, and held them in subjection until the rest were ready; then Señor Pacheco, slung in a noose, was lowered down the ship’s side, and roughly ordered into the stern-sheets by Dick, who followed him there and kept him in apparent awe with a drawn pistol. Within the twenty minutes all were ready and embarked in the two boats—the pinnace having been lowered in the interim, when they pushed off from theAdventure, the attenuated crew of which bade them Godspeed with a hearty cheer—and headed up the harbour toward the north-western half of the town.The distance which they had to pull, in order to reach the wharf indicated by Pacheco, was about three-quarters of a mile, and as they neared the landing-place they perceived that a good many people had gathered, and were watching them curiously; but of soldiers there was not one to be seen, which Bascomb confessed he regarded as rather a bad sign, as the absence of any visible inclination to resist their landing seemed to him to point to the preparation of a trap somewhere on the road. He asked Pacheco what he thought about it.“God forgive me! I know not what to think, most illustrious,” answered that worthy. “But I like it not, for I think with you that the Governor would never permit you to land unresisted, had he not prepared a warm reception for you at some point where you will be at even greater disadvantage than you would be on the wharf. And yet I do not know how that could be either, for he has had no means of learning your destination, so how could he know where to set his trap? But, lest he should have guessed, I will lead you by the less direct way, for there are two roads by which it is possible to reach the Inquisition.”As the boats ranged up alongside the wharf, and the Englishmen mounted and formed up on the quay, the mob, which consisted of about two hundred wharf labourers, with a small sprinkling of half-breed women and fifty or sixty boys, gave back sullenly and scowlingly with a few low-muttered threats and an occasional hissing gibe ofhereticos! But there was no attempt at violence except when some half-dozen boys began to throw stones. But the stringing of the Englishmen’s bows, and the fitting of a few arrows to the strings, sent the mischievous young urchins to the right-about in double-quick time, and within a minute the landing had been accomplished and the march begun.Pacheco, with his hands lashed behind him and a halter round his neck, the end of which was in Dick’s hand, led the way, marching between Chichester and Stukely, the latter having come ashore in Bascomb’s boat, bringing his case of instruments and a pocket case of drugs with him. The road lay, for a short distance, along the water front, and they had not been marching two minutes before they came to a wide and busy street which seemed to run right through the very heart of the town to its farther end.“That,” remarked Pacheco, “is the direct road to the Inquisition, and it is for your excellencies to decide whether you will choose it, or whether you will go on and take the longer and narrower road to the same place.”“Which road do you recommend, señor?” demanded Bascomb.“Nay, most illustrious, it is not for me to recommend either,” answered the Spaniard; “the responsibility is far too great for me—for if disaster were to overtake you after you had accepted my advice, I should be blamed for it. I can only repeat what I have already said, that this is the direct road to the Inquisition, and the road which the authorities will naturally expect you to take if they have any suspicion as to your destination.”“Then in that case,” decided Bascomb, “we will take the other one. Forward!”The march was thereupon resumed, the little band of Englishmen being followed, at a respectful distance, by a rapidly increasing mob which seemed, from its appearance, to be composed of all the ruffians and cut-throats of the city. But they did not offer to molest the invaders, beyond occasionally shouting insulting epithets at them, of which the English took no notice. The mob seemed simply to follow out of curiosity, and possibly with the hope of witnessing some interesting developments later on.A quarter of a mile farther on they came to another street, not nearly so wide as the first—a street of lofty, more or less dilapidated houses, with narrow, cage-like balconies before the upstairs windows, and small cellars of shops on the ground floor. The street was paved with rough cobble stones, and sloped from each side toward the centre, through which ran a kennel or gutter encumbered with garbage and filth of every description, through which a foul stream of evil-smelling water wound its devious way. The street had apparently at one time been one of some pretensions, but had now fallen upon evil days and become the abode of a number of petty tradesmen, such as cobblers, sellers of fruit and cheap drinks, dealers in second-hand goods of every description, and riffraff generally. It swarmed with dirty, slatternly women, still dirtier half-naked children, lean and hungry-looking dogs, and lazy, hulking men with brass ear-rings in their ears, the rags of tawdry finery upon their bodies, and their sashes perfect batteries of murderous-looking knives. They were a villainous, scowling, criminal-looking lot of ruffians without exception, and low murmurs of anger and astonishment, not unmingled with dismay, passed from one to another when the English suddenly wheeled into the street.They gradually seemed to acquire courage, however, as they noted the small number of the intruders, and the fact that the latter took no notice of them, and presently, when the mob which had followed the English from the wharf swung into the street and began to explain in response to the questions with which they were eagerly plied, many of the tenants and frequenters of the Calle de Santa Catalina joined the procession, which by this time numbered some three or four hundred and completely blocked up the narrow street in the rear of the English. It was becoming an ugly, dangerous-looking crowd, too, the kind of mob whose courage grows with the consciousness of increasing superiority in numbers, and it now began to flaunt its fearlessness before its admiring women folk by joining vociferously in the insulting epithets which were now being raucously yelled after the little band of strangers. The situation was becoming distinctly threatening, and Bascomb quietly dropped to the rear, for it was in that direction that trouble seemed to loom largest.He had just joined the rearmost file when one boastful ruffian, egged on by the rest, suddenly ran out in front of the crowd and whipping a long, murderous-looking knife from his sash, hurled it with deadly aim at him. Luckily for the master, he caught the movement out of the corner of his eye, and wheeled round just in time to parry the flying missile with the blade of his sword.“Halt!” he cried, “and extend yourselves across the street, facing outward!” And at the same instant he whipped a pistol from his belt, levelled it, and fired at the aggressor, who flung up his hands and, with a shriek, fell prostrate in the gutter, with the blood rapidly dyeing purple the dirty white of his shirt. A howl of execration and dismay from the Spaniards immediately followed this act of retaliation, knives were whipped from their sheaths, and for an instant it looked as though the mob were about to charge; but the business-like promptitude with which the English fitted their arrows to their bows, and drew the latter, quelled the courage of their assailants for the moment, who contented themselves by yelling execrations as they lifted the injured man and carried him into the nearest house. Then, satisfied with the effect of their demonstration, the English resumed their march; but the mob continued to hang tenaciously upon their skirts, like a pack of hungry wolves, and it became every moment increasingly evident that it would need but a little encouragement to induce them to attack in deadly earnest.In this fashion the English proceeded for nearly half a mile when they perceived what appeared to be a square opening out before them; and a moment later, as they debouched into it, they saw that this square was full of soldiers, both cavalry and infantry.“Back for your lives into the street; you will stand a better chance there!” yelled Stukely, halting and facing the little band who followed him. But it was too late; the street behind them had in some unaccountable fashion also filled with soldiers, and the retreat of the English was cut off. They were trapped as neatly and effectually as their enemies could possibly have desired.“Did you know anything of this?” demanded Dick of the man who had led them thus far.“On my soul, no, señor, as I hope for salvation!” fervently answered Pacheco, looking fearlessly into Chichester’s eyes.“I believe you,” returned Dick, releasing his grasp upon the halter round the Spaniard’s neck. “Go, and save yourself while it is possible. One of your own countrymen will doubtless free your hands; I have no time to do it. Go!”“My thanks, señor; and may the Blessed Mother and the saints protect you!” And, bending forward, he went at a run, with his hands still bound behind him, toward the soldiers, who, seeing that he was an apparently escaped prisoner, opened out and allowed him to pass through their ranks.At this moment an officer wearing a full suit of plate armour, and mounted on horseback, advanced, and, lifting the visor of his helmet, demanded, in fairly good English:“Where is the officer in command of this force?”“Here,” answered Bascomb, pushing his way to the front.The Spaniard bowed. Then, indicating with a wave of his hand the troops present, which must have numbered some eight hundred at least, he said with a smile:“Señor, do you need any further argument than these to convince you of the desirability of surrendering at discretion?”“A buena querra?” demanded Bascomb, who had picked up a phrase or two of Spanish during his conversations with Marshall.“Certainly, señor, if, as I presume to be the case, you hold a commission from your queen.”“I hold no such commission, señor,” answered Bascomb, who began to realise that he and his followers were in a very tight place.“You hold no such commission, eh? Then, is one to assume that you are merely a band of ordinary, commonplace pirates, eh?” demanded the officer.“You are at liberty to assume what you please,” retorted Bascomb. “I repeat that I hold no commission, no authority save that which is conferred by my own sword. And I surrenderà buena querra, or not at all.”“You surrender at discretion, or not at all, señor pirate. Which is it to be?” was the rejoinder.“Not at all, then,” answered Bascomb. “We will fight to the death, rather than surrender to perish in your hellish Inquisition!”The Spaniard bowed, closed the visor of his helmet, and reined his horse back very slowly until he had returned to his place at the head of the regiment of cavalry which he commanded; while Bascomb, turning to his followers, shouted:“Now, dogs of Devon, show these cowardly Spaniards a bit of your quality. Look to the troops, horse and foot, that they’ve brought against us, eight hundred of ’em to our forty; that’s just twenty to one, twenty soldiers that each man of us must kill before we can get back to the ship. For that’s where we’re going; we can’t take the town with all these soldiers against us. But let us get back to the ship and we’ll tell ’em another story; all their soldiers and twice as many again won’t save ’em from the heavy ordnance of the galleon and theAdventure; and half an hour’s bombardment will make ’em glad enough to come to terms wi’ us. Now, the one half of you charge back along, down the street; the other half will follow, retiring backward and facing the enemy. Now, have at ’em, my hearts, for here they come! Clear the way with your arrows first; and then give ’em the cold steel!”While Bascomb had been delivering his pithy address, the officer in armour had also been haranguing his troops with much gesticulation and sword nourishing, which he had wound up with a command to charge, himself leading the attack upon the little band of English seamen wedged, so to speak, in the throat of the narrow street. At Bascomb’s word to “Have at ’em” the half nearest the street faced quickly about, and the whole party fitted arrows to their bows, drew them to the head, and let fly, half of the arrows winging their way to rake the narrow street, while the other half whistled into the ranks of the soldiers in the square, who had just put spurs to their horses. The range was short, and the aim deadly, consequently every arrow found its mark, some of them indeed twice over, for there were at least a dozen of the cloth yard shafts that passed clean through the body of their first victim to find lodgment in the body of the second. As for Dick, he distinguished himself by sending an arrow neatly between the bars of the visor of the officer on horseback, who thereupon reeled out of his saddle, and crashed down upon the cobbled pavement of the square with a rattle like that of a whole cartload of spilled ironmongery, close to Chichester’s feet, who thereupon dashed nimbly in and snatched up the splendid sword that flew from the fallen warrior’s grasp. Some twenty soldiers fell to that first discharge; and so great was the dismay occasioned by their fall that their comrades, instead of continuing their charge and riding the Englishmen down, as they might easily have done, reined their horses sharply back upon their haunches, with the result that their comrades in the rear dashed headlong into them, and in an instant the whole of that part of the square which abutted upon the street became a confused medley of plunging, squealing, and fallen horses, and dead and wounded men.Meanwhile, the other front of the English had been equally successful, their first discharge of arrows having been so deadly that the soldiers drawn up across the end of the street to cut off their retreat, had simply crumpled up and withered away, leaving the street open for the retirement of the English; and the latter had accordingly availed themselves of the opportunity to dash in, and, as they fondly believed, secure protection for their flanks. But although the soldiers had given way before that terrible discharge of arrows, they were by no means beaten; and presently an officer succeeded in rallying about twenty, whom he drew across the street in a double rank, with their matchlocks unslung. Bascomb, however, was quick to see the danger.“Don’t let ’em bring their ordnance into use, or it will be all up with us,” he shouted. “Keep ’em moving, lads, keep ’em moving; so long as we does that we’m so good as they be—and better; but once let ’em bring their firearms into play, and we’m done. So, keep ’em moving.” And he himself set the example by rushing upon the enemy, sword in hand, and laying about him so shrewdly that the Spanish line was once more broken and forced into full retreat.And indeed what could the heavily accoutred Spanish soldiers, tightly strapped up in a suffocatingly hot uniform, do against the nimble English, who, for the most part, fought in shirt, breeches, and shoes only, whose arrows flew with such irresistible force that they pierced right through a man’s body, flesh, muscle, bones, and all, and who seemed to be governed by no laws of fighting, but instead of observing all the niceties, the rules, and the punctilio of fence, simply rushed in and cut a man down before the poor wretch could guess what they would be at!For ten minutes the fight raged with unimaginable fury before a single Englishman was hit; and then one poor fellow dropped, with a long knife quivering in his skull, flung from an upper window of one of the houses. The man who did the dastardly deed was seen to withdraw hurriedly from the window; but it was enough; half a dozen of the fallen man’s comrades instantly dashed into the house, were gone about half a minute, and then returned with a perfectly satisfied look upon their faces, and once more plunged into the mêlée. No more knives were thrown from that house; but unfortunately the deed, and not the swift retribution which followed, had been seen and thought worthy of imitation, and within five minutes there was scarcely a window within range of the fighting which was not vomiting missiles of one sort or another, with disastrous effect upon the English, who, under this new form of attack, began to fall thick and fast. For now that the populace had the support of several hundred soldiers, their courage became so reckless that they could no longer restrain themselves; and they accordingly engaged in the attack upon the English with avidity—from the comparatively safe position of the upstairs windows of the houses on either side of the street. Stukely and Dick were with the rearguard, making a vigorous and successful stand against the attack of the soldiery, when this new feature in the fighting was introduced, and they knew nothing about it until a great stone, hurled from the attic window of the house in front of which they were fighting, crashed down fair upon young Chichester’s head and sent him reeling senseless to the ground.

The morning was passed strenuously by the English in preparing both theAdventureand her prize for the grim business of bombarding Cartagena, if need were; the hope in every man’s heart being that the spectacle of the preparations—which was clearly visible from the water front of the town—would have the effect of breaking down the stubborn wills of the Spaniards, and constraining them to surrender their prisoner. For up to this moment there had never been any real doubt in the mind of any one of the Englishmen that Marshall had been discovered and made a prisoner; and they were steadfastly resolved to secure his freedom, let the cost be what it would.

After carefully considering and discussing the matter together, Bascomb and Winter arrived at the conclusion that it would be possible to effect such a division of the crew as would enable both ships to employ the whole of their heaviest ordnance against the town; and this was accordingly done, theAdventurebeing afterward moved to a berth astern of the galleon, so that neither ship should obstruct the fire of the other.

It wanted about a quarter of an hour of noon, and the preparations aboard both ships were complete, when the boat which had visited them in the morning was observed to be putting out again from the wharf and pulling toward theAdventure; but it was soon perceived that on this occasion she carried only one figure, which was presently seen to be that of the interpreter.

“The Captain is not there!” exclaimed Bascomb, when this was recognised. “Now, what a plague do they mean by sending off the boat without him? Are they going to beg for more time, I wonder? And, if so, why? For I will never believe but that they know where he is, but are determined to exhaust every artifice and subterfuge in the endeavour to avoid giving him up!”

The others said nothing, for what was the use of hazarding conjecture when they would soon know for certain? So they held their tongues and watched the approach of the boat with gloomy, louring glances. They were disappointed, and in a savage, dangerous mood, ready to plunge at a word into any desperate enterprise.

The boat ranged up alongside, and the oarsmen rested upon their oars as before.

“Hallo! the boat ahoy!” hailed Bascomb. “What does this mean, señor? Why have you not brought off our Captain? Are the people ashore aware that within five minutes the bombardment of the town will begin?”

“Alas! yes, most illustrious señors,” answered the interpreter, “unless I should prove fortunate enough to be successful in the mission that has been entrusted to me—that of pleading with your excellencies for a further extension of time.”

“Upon what grounds, señor?” demanded Bascomb. “I have already granted an extension of six hours—without result, it would appear. Why should I grant another moment?”

“Because, Excellency, it is now believed that a clue to the whereabouts of your Capitan has at last been found, and it is hoped that in the course of another hour or two his freedom may be obtained,” answered the interpreter.

“Ah!” returned Bascomb, with a sigh of relief. “So our Captain has been found at last, has he? And where is he thought to be?”

“In the Inquisition, señor,” answered the interpreter.

“The Inquisition!” interrupted Bascomb. “Odds bodikins! didn’t I say so? And how long has he been there, friend?”

“If the clue which has been obtained proves to be a true one, your Capitan will have been there close upon four days,” was the reply. “The man whom we believe to be he was noticed in a small posada four evenings ago, and the landlord of the house is of opinion that someone must have suspected and informed upon him, for during the evening four familiars of the Inquisition called at the house and, in spite of his violent resistance, took him and carried him away.”

“They did, did they?” retorted Bascomb. “If I can lay my hand upon those four familiars I’ll make them wish their hands had withered rather than that they had laid them upon an Englishman! But there seems to be a good deal of uncertainty even now about this story of yours, señor interpreter, and I think our best plan will be to take up and investigate the matter ourselves. What say you, gentles? Four days! Why, they will have had time to maim the man for life in those four days! But if they have—! Well, what say ye, my masters; shall us take a strong party of men, go ashore, make our way to their Inquisition, and see for ourselves whether or not Captain Marshall is there? And if he is there, and they have mis-used him, we shall be able to take vengeance upon the evildoers themselves instead of punishing a lot of innocent men and women by knocking their homes about their ears.”

“I say that we ought to do as you propose, without a moment’s unnecessary delay,” replied Winter. “And I, too,” answered each of the others present.

“Then it shall be done,” answered Bascomb, determinedly. “My proposal, Mr Winter, is that we make equal division of our force; one-half under my leadership to go ashore and look for our Captain, while the other half under you remains aboard theAdventureto take care of her and the prize. Is that agreeable to your worship?”

“Yes,” answered Winter; “it is as good a plan as we are like to devise, even though we were to cogitate for the rest of the day. It is true that I would have preferred to lead the landing-party, since if aught should happen to you we shall be left without a navigator.”

“Nay, that you need not be,” answered Bascomb, “for I will leave young Chichester with you, and he can be your navigator; he has been an apt pupil, and now knows as much about navigation as I do, so that difficulty is soon overcome. Hallo! the boat ahoy!” he continued, directing his conversation once more to the interpreter; “come aboard, señor, will you? We shall require your services anon.”

“Have I your word, most illustrious, that no evil shall befall me if I put myself into your hands?” asked the man.

“You have,” answered Bascomb. “You may trust yourself to us without fear; indeed you are like to be a great deal more safe with us than elsewhere during the next few hours.”

“It is enough,” returned the interpreter, and signed to the boatmen to put him alongside, climbing to the deck and stepping in through the gangway without fear when they had done so.

“Now then, Señor Pacheco,” said Bascomb, when the Spaniard, peering about him curiously, had joined the party on the poop; “I am about to land a party and march it to the Inquisition, in order that I may ascertain for myself whether or not our Captain is within its walls. Whereabout is the place? Can it be seen from here?”

“Nay, most illustrious, it cannot, for it lies at the back, or northern extremity, of the western half of the town,” answered Pacheco. “It lies in the direction of the western tower of the cathedral, but far beyond it.”

“Um–m!” commented Bascomb; “then, after all, there would not have been much chance of reaching it with our guns. Is it a strong place? Shall we find it very difficult to force our way in?”

“I have never been inside—the saints be praised—so cannot tell you very much about it,” answered Pacheco. “So far as the building itself is concerned, it is a strong place, being built entirely of stone, with high walls, which are said to be nowhere less than three feet thick. But the main entrance is guarded only by a pair of oaken doors—massive, no doubt, but probably fastened only with bolts of ordinary strength; for who would ever dream of attempting to break into the Inquisition? Heaven forgive me for affording information to these heretical English,” he muttered under his breath in his native tongue; “but, indeed, if in their fury they should tear the place down, I for one should not be sorry!”

“Are there many troops in the town?” demanded Bascomb.

“About a hundred, illustrious señor,” answered Pacheco. “Five hundred are on their way down from the interior, it having been intended to send them home in the galleon, but I have not heard that they have yet arrived.”

“If they had arrived, do you think you would have heard of it?” demanded Bascomb.

“I might, señor; but, on the other hand, I might not,” answered Pacheco. “If they had arrived and marched into the town openly, doubtless I and every other inhabitant of Cartagena would have been aware of the fact. But, señor, your question has given rise to a doubt in my mind, and I am now wondering whether, in view of your presence in the harbour and your threat to bombard the town, his Excellency the Governor may not have taken steps to have the expected troops intercepted and introduced into the town secretly during the dead of night. If you were to ask my advice, señor, I should recommend you not to trust overmuch to the fact that I have heard nothing of the arrival of those soldiers.”

“See here, sirrah!” ejaculated Bascomb, suddenly rounding upon the man, “you are extraordinarily free and glib with your information. Now, are you a traitor to your own people, or is your information false and intended to mislead us?”

“Neither, señor, on my honour as a Spaniard,” answered Pacheco. “The fact is,” he continued in explanation, “that I have seen much of the English during my business as a seafarer, and have learned to like them, in spite of their overbearing ways and the fact that they are heretics. Moreover, señor, you are about to attack the Inquisition, and good Catholic though I am, it would not grieve me were you to take it and give it to the flames, for I like it not, and that’s the truth, the saints forgive me!”

“Now, gentles,” said Bascomb, “you have heard what Señor Pacheco has said about the troops, and if it be truth—as I doubt not it is—it behoves us to be careful how we thrust our noses into that city of Cartagena yonder. Yet go I must, and will; for it is not to be thought of that our Captain may be in their accursed Inquisition, perhaps suffering torments unimaginable, and we doing nothing to help him. Therefore, in view of the possibility of those troops having arrived, and having been secreted somewhere in the town, I think we must modify our plans a little, to the extent, that is to say, of making the landing-party as strong as we can at the expense of the party remaining behind. Now, Mr Winter, what is the smallest number of men that you would care to be left with?”

“If I am to defend the ship successfully in the event of a possible attack,” said Winter, “I must have at least twenty men. I cannot do with less. Leave me twenty, and you may take all the rest, even including young Chichester, who is like to be a great deal more useful ashore than he would be with me.”

“Very well,” agreed Bascomb, “twenty be it; you can scarce do with less, for it is more than likely that, while we are busy ashore, they will endeavour to recover possession of the treasure. And now, Señor Pacheco, we shall need you as guide to show us the shortest way to the Inquisition. Art willing to do us that service?”

“I am, most illustrious,” answered Pacheco; “but, with your favour, señor, it must be under at least seeming compulsion, for if it were known that I did such a thing save under the fear of instant death, I should never again be able to show my face in Cartagena. Therefore, most valiant Englishman, if I am to lead you, it must be with my hands bound and a pistol held to my head.”

“Very well,” answered Bascomb. “We will manage that for thee, old sea-horse, as natural as life, so that nobody seeing thee being driven along at the head of us shall guess but that thou’rt quaking in thy shoes at every step thou takest. Take charge of him, Dick; he is to be thy prisoner, remember. Bind his hands behind him so firmly that he cannot get away, and just tightly enough to leave a mark. Put a halter round his neck, and hold the end of it in thy hand, and threaten him with thy drawn pistol at every street corner. And now, gentles, to our preparations. Every man of the shore party shall go armed with hanger on hip, a pair of loaded pistols in his belt, a good bow in his hand, and a quiver full of arrows slung over his shoulder. We muster on the main deck twenty minutes hence, and the pinnace, with the interpreter’s boat, ought to be sufficient to carry us all from the ship to the wharf.”

The first half-dozen men who were ready slid down the ship’s side into the interpreter’s boat so swiftly and silently that they took her astonished crew completely by surprise, and held them in subjection until the rest were ready; then Señor Pacheco, slung in a noose, was lowered down the ship’s side, and roughly ordered into the stern-sheets by Dick, who followed him there and kept him in apparent awe with a drawn pistol. Within the twenty minutes all were ready and embarked in the two boats—the pinnace having been lowered in the interim, when they pushed off from theAdventure, the attenuated crew of which bade them Godspeed with a hearty cheer—and headed up the harbour toward the north-western half of the town.

The distance which they had to pull, in order to reach the wharf indicated by Pacheco, was about three-quarters of a mile, and as they neared the landing-place they perceived that a good many people had gathered, and were watching them curiously; but of soldiers there was not one to be seen, which Bascomb confessed he regarded as rather a bad sign, as the absence of any visible inclination to resist their landing seemed to him to point to the preparation of a trap somewhere on the road. He asked Pacheco what he thought about it.

“God forgive me! I know not what to think, most illustrious,” answered that worthy. “But I like it not, for I think with you that the Governor would never permit you to land unresisted, had he not prepared a warm reception for you at some point where you will be at even greater disadvantage than you would be on the wharf. And yet I do not know how that could be either, for he has had no means of learning your destination, so how could he know where to set his trap? But, lest he should have guessed, I will lead you by the less direct way, for there are two roads by which it is possible to reach the Inquisition.”

As the boats ranged up alongside the wharf, and the Englishmen mounted and formed up on the quay, the mob, which consisted of about two hundred wharf labourers, with a small sprinkling of half-breed women and fifty or sixty boys, gave back sullenly and scowlingly with a few low-muttered threats and an occasional hissing gibe ofhereticos! But there was no attempt at violence except when some half-dozen boys began to throw stones. But the stringing of the Englishmen’s bows, and the fitting of a few arrows to the strings, sent the mischievous young urchins to the right-about in double-quick time, and within a minute the landing had been accomplished and the march begun.

Pacheco, with his hands lashed behind him and a halter round his neck, the end of which was in Dick’s hand, led the way, marching between Chichester and Stukely, the latter having come ashore in Bascomb’s boat, bringing his case of instruments and a pocket case of drugs with him. The road lay, for a short distance, along the water front, and they had not been marching two minutes before they came to a wide and busy street which seemed to run right through the very heart of the town to its farther end.

“That,” remarked Pacheco, “is the direct road to the Inquisition, and it is for your excellencies to decide whether you will choose it, or whether you will go on and take the longer and narrower road to the same place.”

“Which road do you recommend, señor?” demanded Bascomb.

“Nay, most illustrious, it is not for me to recommend either,” answered the Spaniard; “the responsibility is far too great for me—for if disaster were to overtake you after you had accepted my advice, I should be blamed for it. I can only repeat what I have already said, that this is the direct road to the Inquisition, and the road which the authorities will naturally expect you to take if they have any suspicion as to your destination.”

“Then in that case,” decided Bascomb, “we will take the other one. Forward!”

The march was thereupon resumed, the little band of Englishmen being followed, at a respectful distance, by a rapidly increasing mob which seemed, from its appearance, to be composed of all the ruffians and cut-throats of the city. But they did not offer to molest the invaders, beyond occasionally shouting insulting epithets at them, of which the English took no notice. The mob seemed simply to follow out of curiosity, and possibly with the hope of witnessing some interesting developments later on.

A quarter of a mile farther on they came to another street, not nearly so wide as the first—a street of lofty, more or less dilapidated houses, with narrow, cage-like balconies before the upstairs windows, and small cellars of shops on the ground floor. The street was paved with rough cobble stones, and sloped from each side toward the centre, through which ran a kennel or gutter encumbered with garbage and filth of every description, through which a foul stream of evil-smelling water wound its devious way. The street had apparently at one time been one of some pretensions, but had now fallen upon evil days and become the abode of a number of petty tradesmen, such as cobblers, sellers of fruit and cheap drinks, dealers in second-hand goods of every description, and riffraff generally. It swarmed with dirty, slatternly women, still dirtier half-naked children, lean and hungry-looking dogs, and lazy, hulking men with brass ear-rings in their ears, the rags of tawdry finery upon their bodies, and their sashes perfect batteries of murderous-looking knives. They were a villainous, scowling, criminal-looking lot of ruffians without exception, and low murmurs of anger and astonishment, not unmingled with dismay, passed from one to another when the English suddenly wheeled into the street.

They gradually seemed to acquire courage, however, as they noted the small number of the intruders, and the fact that the latter took no notice of them, and presently, when the mob which had followed the English from the wharf swung into the street and began to explain in response to the questions with which they were eagerly plied, many of the tenants and frequenters of the Calle de Santa Catalina joined the procession, which by this time numbered some three or four hundred and completely blocked up the narrow street in the rear of the English. It was becoming an ugly, dangerous-looking crowd, too, the kind of mob whose courage grows with the consciousness of increasing superiority in numbers, and it now began to flaunt its fearlessness before its admiring women folk by joining vociferously in the insulting epithets which were now being raucously yelled after the little band of strangers. The situation was becoming distinctly threatening, and Bascomb quietly dropped to the rear, for it was in that direction that trouble seemed to loom largest.

He had just joined the rearmost file when one boastful ruffian, egged on by the rest, suddenly ran out in front of the crowd and whipping a long, murderous-looking knife from his sash, hurled it with deadly aim at him. Luckily for the master, he caught the movement out of the corner of his eye, and wheeled round just in time to parry the flying missile with the blade of his sword.

“Halt!” he cried, “and extend yourselves across the street, facing outward!” And at the same instant he whipped a pistol from his belt, levelled it, and fired at the aggressor, who flung up his hands and, with a shriek, fell prostrate in the gutter, with the blood rapidly dyeing purple the dirty white of his shirt. A howl of execration and dismay from the Spaniards immediately followed this act of retaliation, knives were whipped from their sheaths, and for an instant it looked as though the mob were about to charge; but the business-like promptitude with which the English fitted their arrows to their bows, and drew the latter, quelled the courage of their assailants for the moment, who contented themselves by yelling execrations as they lifted the injured man and carried him into the nearest house. Then, satisfied with the effect of their demonstration, the English resumed their march; but the mob continued to hang tenaciously upon their skirts, like a pack of hungry wolves, and it became every moment increasingly evident that it would need but a little encouragement to induce them to attack in deadly earnest.

In this fashion the English proceeded for nearly half a mile when they perceived what appeared to be a square opening out before them; and a moment later, as they debouched into it, they saw that this square was full of soldiers, both cavalry and infantry.

“Back for your lives into the street; you will stand a better chance there!” yelled Stukely, halting and facing the little band who followed him. But it was too late; the street behind them had in some unaccountable fashion also filled with soldiers, and the retreat of the English was cut off. They were trapped as neatly and effectually as their enemies could possibly have desired.

“Did you know anything of this?” demanded Dick of the man who had led them thus far.

“On my soul, no, señor, as I hope for salvation!” fervently answered Pacheco, looking fearlessly into Chichester’s eyes.

“I believe you,” returned Dick, releasing his grasp upon the halter round the Spaniard’s neck. “Go, and save yourself while it is possible. One of your own countrymen will doubtless free your hands; I have no time to do it. Go!”

“My thanks, señor; and may the Blessed Mother and the saints protect you!” And, bending forward, he went at a run, with his hands still bound behind him, toward the soldiers, who, seeing that he was an apparently escaped prisoner, opened out and allowed him to pass through their ranks.

At this moment an officer wearing a full suit of plate armour, and mounted on horseback, advanced, and, lifting the visor of his helmet, demanded, in fairly good English:

“Where is the officer in command of this force?”

“Here,” answered Bascomb, pushing his way to the front.

The Spaniard bowed. Then, indicating with a wave of his hand the troops present, which must have numbered some eight hundred at least, he said with a smile:

“Señor, do you need any further argument than these to convince you of the desirability of surrendering at discretion?”

“A buena querra?” demanded Bascomb, who had picked up a phrase or two of Spanish during his conversations with Marshall.

“Certainly, señor, if, as I presume to be the case, you hold a commission from your queen.”

“I hold no such commission, señor,” answered Bascomb, who began to realise that he and his followers were in a very tight place.

“You hold no such commission, eh? Then, is one to assume that you are merely a band of ordinary, commonplace pirates, eh?” demanded the officer.

“You are at liberty to assume what you please,” retorted Bascomb. “I repeat that I hold no commission, no authority save that which is conferred by my own sword. And I surrenderà buena querra, or not at all.”

“You surrender at discretion, or not at all, señor pirate. Which is it to be?” was the rejoinder.

“Not at all, then,” answered Bascomb. “We will fight to the death, rather than surrender to perish in your hellish Inquisition!”

The Spaniard bowed, closed the visor of his helmet, and reined his horse back very slowly until he had returned to his place at the head of the regiment of cavalry which he commanded; while Bascomb, turning to his followers, shouted:

“Now, dogs of Devon, show these cowardly Spaniards a bit of your quality. Look to the troops, horse and foot, that they’ve brought against us, eight hundred of ’em to our forty; that’s just twenty to one, twenty soldiers that each man of us must kill before we can get back to the ship. For that’s where we’re going; we can’t take the town with all these soldiers against us. But let us get back to the ship and we’ll tell ’em another story; all their soldiers and twice as many again won’t save ’em from the heavy ordnance of the galleon and theAdventure; and half an hour’s bombardment will make ’em glad enough to come to terms wi’ us. Now, the one half of you charge back along, down the street; the other half will follow, retiring backward and facing the enemy. Now, have at ’em, my hearts, for here they come! Clear the way with your arrows first; and then give ’em the cold steel!”

While Bascomb had been delivering his pithy address, the officer in armour had also been haranguing his troops with much gesticulation and sword nourishing, which he had wound up with a command to charge, himself leading the attack upon the little band of English seamen wedged, so to speak, in the throat of the narrow street. At Bascomb’s word to “Have at ’em” the half nearest the street faced quickly about, and the whole party fitted arrows to their bows, drew them to the head, and let fly, half of the arrows winging their way to rake the narrow street, while the other half whistled into the ranks of the soldiers in the square, who had just put spurs to their horses. The range was short, and the aim deadly, consequently every arrow found its mark, some of them indeed twice over, for there were at least a dozen of the cloth yard shafts that passed clean through the body of their first victim to find lodgment in the body of the second. As for Dick, he distinguished himself by sending an arrow neatly between the bars of the visor of the officer on horseback, who thereupon reeled out of his saddle, and crashed down upon the cobbled pavement of the square with a rattle like that of a whole cartload of spilled ironmongery, close to Chichester’s feet, who thereupon dashed nimbly in and snatched up the splendid sword that flew from the fallen warrior’s grasp. Some twenty soldiers fell to that first discharge; and so great was the dismay occasioned by their fall that their comrades, instead of continuing their charge and riding the Englishmen down, as they might easily have done, reined their horses sharply back upon their haunches, with the result that their comrades in the rear dashed headlong into them, and in an instant the whole of that part of the square which abutted upon the street became a confused medley of plunging, squealing, and fallen horses, and dead and wounded men.

Meanwhile, the other front of the English had been equally successful, their first discharge of arrows having been so deadly that the soldiers drawn up across the end of the street to cut off their retreat, had simply crumpled up and withered away, leaving the street open for the retirement of the English; and the latter had accordingly availed themselves of the opportunity to dash in, and, as they fondly believed, secure protection for their flanks. But although the soldiers had given way before that terrible discharge of arrows, they were by no means beaten; and presently an officer succeeded in rallying about twenty, whom he drew across the street in a double rank, with their matchlocks unslung. Bascomb, however, was quick to see the danger.

“Don’t let ’em bring their ordnance into use, or it will be all up with us,” he shouted. “Keep ’em moving, lads, keep ’em moving; so long as we does that we’m so good as they be—and better; but once let ’em bring their firearms into play, and we’m done. So, keep ’em moving.” And he himself set the example by rushing upon the enemy, sword in hand, and laying about him so shrewdly that the Spanish line was once more broken and forced into full retreat.

And indeed what could the heavily accoutred Spanish soldiers, tightly strapped up in a suffocatingly hot uniform, do against the nimble English, who, for the most part, fought in shirt, breeches, and shoes only, whose arrows flew with such irresistible force that they pierced right through a man’s body, flesh, muscle, bones, and all, and who seemed to be governed by no laws of fighting, but instead of observing all the niceties, the rules, and the punctilio of fence, simply rushed in and cut a man down before the poor wretch could guess what they would be at!

For ten minutes the fight raged with unimaginable fury before a single Englishman was hit; and then one poor fellow dropped, with a long knife quivering in his skull, flung from an upper window of one of the houses. The man who did the dastardly deed was seen to withdraw hurriedly from the window; but it was enough; half a dozen of the fallen man’s comrades instantly dashed into the house, were gone about half a minute, and then returned with a perfectly satisfied look upon their faces, and once more plunged into the mêlée. No more knives were thrown from that house; but unfortunately the deed, and not the swift retribution which followed, had been seen and thought worthy of imitation, and within five minutes there was scarcely a window within range of the fighting which was not vomiting missiles of one sort or another, with disastrous effect upon the English, who, under this new form of attack, began to fall thick and fast. For now that the populace had the support of several hundred soldiers, their courage became so reckless that they could no longer restrain themselves; and they accordingly engaged in the attack upon the English with avidity—from the comparatively safe position of the upstairs windows of the houses on either side of the street. Stukely and Dick were with the rearguard, making a vigorous and successful stand against the attack of the soldiery, when this new feature in the fighting was introduced, and they knew nothing about it until a great stone, hurled from the attic window of the house in front of which they were fighting, crashed down fair upon young Chichester’s head and sent him reeling senseless to the ground.

Chapter Eight.How Phil and Dick escaped from Cartagena.When Dick recovered consciousness it was evening; the street was quiet, and he was lying upon a couch in a darkened room, with Philip Stukely and an elderly woman bending over him; the woman holding a basin of warm water, while Stukely assiduously bathed an ugly scalp wound on the crown of his head. The said head was throbbing and aching most atrociously, and when the young man sat up and attempted to rise to his feet he discovered, to his astonishment and chagrin, that he had no control over himself, the room seemed to be whirling and spinning round with him at bewildering speed, and his legs immediately collapsed under him.“Now, then, none of that, youngster,” exclaimed Stukely, as he flung his arm round Chichester and gently lowered the lad back on the couch. “What a plague induced you to start up like that, all of a sudden, before I was ready for you? You will just have to lie still, young man, until I tell you that you may move. And how do you feel, now that you have seen fit to at last come to your senses?”“How do I feel?” reiterated Dick, trying to pass his hand over his forehead, and failing, for the member seemed heavier than lead. “Why, I seem to have no more strength than a baby; my head is nothing but one big, atrocious ache; and I don’t seem to be able to remember things very well. For instance, I don’t in the least know where we are, or how we got here; and—and—who is the—ah—lady, Phil?”“Don’t you worry about the lady, youngster, she is all right, and proved herself to be a friend just when we badly needed one,” answered Stukely. “The important thing just now is to find out precisely what is the matter with you; so have the goodness to answer my questions as clearly as possible, will ye?”And while Stukely is closely questioning his patient the opportunity may be taken to explain, in a very few words, how the two friends came to find themselves where they were. As has already been stated, they were fighting among the party who were defending the rear during the retreat of the English back along the street by which they had come, when Dick was felled to the ground by a great stone hurled from the top story of one of the houses opposite which they were at the moment engaged. Stukely, who was fighting behind him, heard the crash of the stone on Dick’s head, saw the lad reel and fall, and instantly stooped to raise him to his feet again. But Dick Chichester was no light weight for a man like Stukely to lift unaided, and before it could be done the whole fight seemed to sweep right over them. Stukely was knocked down and trodden under foot, men locked together in the grip of deadly strife reeled and staggered and stumbled over him, and finally he received a kick in the temple which so nearly robbed him of his senses that he was only very vaguely conscious of what was happening during the next minute or two. The next thing of which he was fully aware being that he was being held by the shoulders and dragged along over uneven ground, then he became suddenly conscious of being inside a building, and of hearing a door closed and barred; and, finally, of finding himself sitting upon the floor of the room where Dick and he now were, with the old lady supporting his head on her knee while a young woman endeavoured to pouraguardientedown his throat. Then he fully recovered his senses, to find, to his great joy, that Dick also had been rescued, and was then lying senseless on a couch in the same room. Then, somehow, the young woman had disappeared, and rising to his feet, he had devoted himself to the task of wooing back Dick Chichester’s senses. This, however, had proved a far more difficult task than he had at first anticipated; and it was not until the golden quality of the light streaming in through the closed jalousies proclaimed the near approach of sunset that Dick manifested any indication of returning consciousness, with the result already recorded. And now a protracted and careful examination of the wound, coupled with much questioning of his patient, convinced Stukely that his friend Dick had sustained a very serious injury to the head which had so far affected the brain that it would be several days at least before the young man could possibly be moved! Meanwhile, what was happening to the ship and the rest of the crew?That was a question that could not be answered just then, for the old lady, who, for some mysterious reason, had chosen to play the part of Good Samaritan, could not speak a word of English, while Stukely spoke no Spanish; and as for venturing outside the house in quest of information, that was obviously impossible, for two excellent reasons; the first being that Dick’s condition was such that he could not possibly be left, even for so short a time as half an hour; while the other equally good reason was that to venture into the street would be to invite immediate assassination.Well, Stukely told himself, matters could not be helped; Dick and he were the victims of circumstance, and there was nothing for it but to submit, with the best grace possible. And so far as their future was concerned, that must take care of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the anxiety thereof. So, with the elderly dame’s assistance, he devoted himself to the task of doing what he could to relieve and help Dick, philosophically leaving the future to take care of itself.Presently it became too dark to see, and the old lady went to the door of the room and called. Two female voices replied; and a few minutes later two young women entered, one bearing a lighted oil lamp, while the other carried a tray upon which were set out a bowl of soup, a dish containing some roast ribs of kid, some heads of young Indian corn boiled, a loaf of bread, and a flask of wine. These viands were placed upon a table together with the lamp, and the young women retired again, after indicating by signs that the food was intended for the two Englishmen.Dick’s hurt proved to be very much more serious than was at first supposed; he became delirious; and for a whole week Phil was kept busy, night and day, constantly attending to him, his watch being shared by the old lady and her two daughters, who proved extraordinarily kind and solicitous. Then the patient began to mend, slowly; and the young women—who proved to be twins, named respectively Clara and Dolores—did their best to beguile the time for their two guests by teaching them Spanish. And remarkably efficient teachers they proved to be, too; their pupils making enough progress within the next three weeks to enable them to gather a tolerably correct general idea of what was said to them. Thus, little by little, and by dint of frequent reiteration, accompanied by much laughter and many blushes on the part of their fair instructresses, the two young Englishmen learned that they owed their lives to the compassion of the Señoritas Clara and Dolores; who, watching the fight from their window, had been so greatly impressed by the gallant bearings of Dick and Phil, that when the two were seen to go down in the mêlée, the girls, moved by a common impulse, had dashed out of the house, the moment that a favourable opportunity had presented itself, and had dragged the apparently inanimate bodies indoors unnoticed in the prevailing confusion. And they also learned that, according to common report, some eight or ten survivors of the ill-advised landing-party had succeeded in fighting their way back to the ship, which had thereupon got under way and sailed out of the harbour, leaving theSanta Margarettaablaze from stem to stern.Thus the time went on until Dick and Phil had been secreted in Cartagena nearly six weeks, by which time the former was so nearly approaching convalescence that the pair had begun to discuss seriously the question of their future. Then, one night, about nine o’clock, the two girls, who had been out taking the air upon the alameda, came rushing home in consternation with the news that somebody had somehow acquired an inkling of the fact that they were harbouring two Englishmen in their house, and that the soldiers might be expected to arrive at any moment to take the whole party prisoners! But, as the girls breathlessly explained, if the Englishmen got away at once—as they must for their own sakes—no harm need be expected to befall their hostesses, as it would then appear that some enemy had been spreading a false and malicious report.The two young Englishmen hardly liked the idea of going off and leaving their kind entertainers to bear unaided the brunt of a strict and severe cross-examination; but it was obviously the only thing to be done, for it would be far worse for the family if the hatedIngleseswere actually found in the house, than if their recent presence there were only suspected; they therefore agreed to go at once; and, since they had no belongings to pack, were ready to depart upon the instant. But the girls, who were bitterly distressed at the idea of so sudden and unceremonious a leave-taking, would not let them leave the house alone, to take their chance of finding their way, unmolested, down to the harbour; they insisted upon accompanying them and guiding them by the least-frequented ways; and this they did, following a number of narrow, winding, deserted lanes and alleys which at length brought them out upon the wharf where they had landed on the ill-fated day when they had attempted the rescue of Captain Marshall. Here, after a long, lingering, and tearful parting on the part of the girls, the two young men eventually found themselves alone, about half-past ten o’clock at night; by which hour the wharf was deserted, save for themselves.Now, the whole thing had been so hurried, and the girls had had so much to say during the journey from the house to the wharf, that the two friends had been quite unable to form anything in the nature of a plan; and even now it was not wise to linger on the wharf, discussing the question of what they should do, for the city guard, or watchmen, might come along at any moment and surprise them. They therefore hastily surveyed such boats and canoes as were moored to the wharf, chose the first useful-looking craft they came to, jumped into her, cut her painter, and pushed off down the harbour on their way to the island of Tierra Bomba, which Dick decided had better be their first halting-place.The night was, fortunately, fine, with a high and spacious sky of indigo, star-studded, flecked with a few thin, fleecy clouds driving up solemnly out of the eastward, and the moon, in her second quarter, sailing high overhead and affording them all the light that they needed, with perhaps a little to spare. The boat which they had appropriated was a very good craft of her kind, about fifteen feet long, very shallow and beamy, and equipped with a pair of oars, a tiller and rudder, and a mast and sail. The latter they were especially thankful for, as the journey before them was one of about seven miles; and as soon as they were fairly clear of the town and had reached a point at which they could bear away far enough to the southward to permit of setting the sail, they stepped their mast, unfurled their canvas, and went buzzing merrily down the harbour, passing on their way the hulk of theSanta Margaretta, which had been burnt to the water’s edge before the flames could be extinguished. Their destination was the creek in the eastern shore of Tierra Bomba in which the longboat had lain hidden when Dick and Marshall had reconnoitred the town together; and they reached it about midnight, secreted the boat beneath the well-remembered bushes, and then composed themselves to sleep as well as they could in her stern-sheets.The sun was a full hour above the horizon when his beams, piercing the thick canopy of foliage which overhung their place of concealment, awakened the two fugitives, who arose from their hard couch refreshed but hungry. A plunge into the shallow waters of the creek washed the lingering remains of sleep out of their eyes, and further refreshed them, when, having allowed their bodies to dry in the brisk warm breeze, they dressed and scrambled ashore to hunt for food. Of this they obtained without difficulty as much as they required; for Tierra Bomba was at that time densely overgrown with trees and bushes of various kinds, among which several fruit-bearing varieties flourished wild, particularly plantains and bananas. Upon these, then, they satisfied their hunger, at the same time taking the precaution to secure a bunch of sufficiently generous dimensions to meet all their needs for several days to come. Then, their immediate wants satisfied, they retreated to their place of concealment and, seating themselves in their boat, proceeded to discuss their plans for the future.The information respecting the doings of theAdventure, communicated to them by their fair friends the Señoritas Clara and Dolores, left little doubt in their minds that the crew, thoroughly discouraged at the disastrous result of their adventure in Cartagena, had decided to rest satisfied with the treasure which they had already acquired—and which, indeed, was considerable enough to satisfy most reasonable people—and had sailed direct for England upon quitting the harbour, too hastily concluding, perhaps, that all the missing were dead; or, if not dead, at least captive beyond all hope of deliverance. This assumption seemed to Stukely and Chichester to be the only one at which they could reasonably arrive; and since its acceptance shut them out from all hope of ever again seeing theAdventureand being able to rejoin her, the question that naturally arose in their minds was: What were they to do now?It was Dick who first put this question into words; and by way of reply Stukely put another question—“Why did we come here at all?”“Well,” retorted plain, matter-of-fact Dick, “because we couldn’t help ourselves, I suppose.”“Very well,” agreed Stukely, “I will concede that, if you like. We came because we could not help ourselves; because, in other words, after we were picked up by theAdventure, no opportunity occurred to land us again, and therefore we had no choice but to remain in the ship. But why did we consent to become members of her crew?”“Why, in the hope of making our fortunes, of course,” returned Dick. “And we did so, too; or should have done so, rather, if thicky stone had not cracked my skull for me.”“Precisely,” agreed Stukely. “If your skull had not been cracked, and if we had both contrived to get back to the ship, as some of the others appear to have done. But it is just those little ifs, my dear Dick, that rule the destinies of men. If this, that, or the other thing had, or had not, happened, everything would have been very different. Now, for my own part, I am a great believer in destiny; I do not believe that there is such a thing as accident or chance, but that what we usually call by one or the other of those names is ordered by what some men call Fate, but what I prefer to call Providence. I will not attempt to argue this matter out with you just now, but will simply content myself with the assertion that you and I were destined to be left behind. If you ask, for what purpose, I reply that I do not know; I cannot even guess; but I have no doubt that it will be revealed in due time. If my theory is correct and Providence is indeed interfering in our affairs, we may do as we will, but we shall be guided and governed, in spite of ourselves, until we have accomplished the work which we are destined to do. That being the case, let us leave ourselves in the hands of Destiny, to do as she will with us, watching for such right impulses as she may impart to us, and following them implicitly, under the belief and conviction that she is guiding us.“Now, why did we come to this Golden West? Was it not to make our fortunes, to acquire a share of the wealth with which the land teems? Of course it was; and since we are here, and cannot get away, I say let us push into the interior and see if we cannot find for ourselves some of the gold, or gems, with which the soil is said to abound. There must be scores, nay, hundreds, of undiscovered mines in the lonely fastnesses to which no man has thus far penetrated; and I can see no reason why we should not find one of them. Now, what say you?”“Simply, that I agree with every word you have said, Phil, and am quite ready to go to the world’s end with you,” answered Dick. “Now, when do we start, and which way do we go?”“Well,” returned Stukely, “our first business is to get safely away from Cartagena; and the sooner the better. For it is evident that the authorities have somehow obtained an inkling of the fact that two Englishmen belonging to the band who have wrought them so much damage have been lurking hidden in the city; and if my estimate of the Spanish character be correct I believe they will take a good deal of trouble to find us; and if they find us we may rest assured that they will clap us into the Inquisition, by hook or by crook. Therefore, I say, let us get away to-night, immediately after dark, so that we may have a chance to put as many miles as possible between ourselves and Cartagena before daylight. Then, as to which way we should go, the interior is where we are bound for, and the interior lies to the southward, therefore when we get out to sea, let us steer south, and enter the first river of any importance that we happen to come to, knowing that all rivers lead to the interior.”“Agreed!” exclaimed Dick. “We will leave here as soon as the darkness is deep enough to conceal our movements; and we will begin our voyage by slipping across the bay and going out to sea by way of the channel at the back of the island of Baru, by which means we shall reach the open sea some twenty-five miles south of Cartagena, and so avoid the risk of being seen and informed upon by any of the local fishing boats. I would that I had one of Mr Bascomb’s charts with me; but as I haven’t we must e’en do without it and trust to memory. I have some recollection of having seen a river of some importance marked on the chart not very far south of this; and if we hug the shore pretty closely we can scarcely fail to find it.”This matter settled, they proceeded to take stock of their possessions, which totalled as follows: a pair of pistols each, the locks of which had fortunately been fitted with new flints immediately before the disastrous attempt to force a way to the Inquisition at Cartagena; two powder horns full of powder; thirty bullets each, together with a considerable quantity of greased rags to serve as wadding; a good, serviceable hanger, each; and last, but not least, the splendid sword which Dick had taken from the Spanish cavalier during the fight in the square. These, the clothes which they stood up in, and the boat in which they had made their escape, were all that they possessed in the world; and thus scantily provided these two young men were calmly about to plunge into the very heart of a hostile country, of which they knew nothing, in search of fortune! Truly was it said of these men and their contemporaries that “they feared God and naught else!” and it was they who laid the foundations of that greatness among the nations of the world which Britain enjoys to-day. May she have the wisdom to retain it!All day the two fugitives lay in their place of concealment, resting and otherwise preparing for a wakeful and busy night; and when at length the sun plunged down into the western sea in a transient blaze of glory, and the sea breeze began to die away, they cautiously pushed out from underneath their leafy screen and proceeded to paddle quietly down the little cove toward the south bay, which they reached just as the last of the daylight was fading out of the sky and the stars were beginning to twinkle out, one after the other, in swift succession, in the great purple dome of heaven above. The evanescent twilight now shrouded everything in mystery; a few boats could be seen moving about here and there, but only by the lingering golden light in the western sky reflected gleamingly from the ripple of bow or paddle, and the fugitives passed across the bay and entered the narrow channel between the island of Baru and the main, just as the first soft breathings of the land wind began to make themselves felt. To these they gladly spread their sail—for paddling was rather too warm work to be agreeable—and went gliding easily and pleasantly along, closely hugging the weather shore, for the sake of the smooth water and the deep shadow afforded by the mangroves that thickly lined the beach.They had reached thus along the shore for about an hour and a half when a sudden brightening of the sky to the eastward heralded the rising of the moon; and presently the orb, now nearly at the full, sailed up over the tops of the trees which lined the shore, and flooded the entire scene with her soft orange radiance. And the first thing upon which the eyes of the fugitives fell was a large galley lying at anchor right in the middle of the fairway, scarcely a mile ahead. There were no lights visible on board her; but the frequent flash of the moonlight upon polished steel showed that someone at least, probably a sentinel, was moving and presumably on the watch on board her.Now arose the question: What was to be done? Should they stand boldly on and take the risk of being challenged; or should they run the boat ashore and take to the woods? Everything depended upon the question of what was the galley’s business just there, of all places in the world; and it did not take the Englishmen long to make up their minds that in all probability she had been stationed there to keep a lookout for them, as the passage out at the back of Baru was so obviously the one that would be most likely to be taken by people anxious to escape from Cartagena by water. If that were the case they could not possibly hope to slip past the craft unchallenged, for the moon was every moment soaring higher into the sky and more clearly lighting up the scene, and especially the surface of the water. And if they were challenged and, refusing to reply, attempted to escape, what hope of success had they? Absolutely none! Therefore they put down their helm, hove the boat about, and headed in for the land.If any doubt remained in their minds as to the character and intentions of the galley, it was speedily dissipated, for they had scarcely got their boat round upon the other tack when a musket was discharged on board the craft, and a hail was faintly heard pealing across the water from her, and some two minutes later a ruddy flash succeeded by a puff of smoke leapt from her forecastle, followed, a second or two later, by the splash of a heavy shot in the water a dozen yards or so astern of the boat. Five breathless minutes followed for the fugitives, and then a whole forest of oars suddenly sprang from the galley’s sides, plunged into the water, and she was under way, heading straight after the boat.“Shall we do it, Dick, think you?” demanded Stukely, as he peered anxiously under the foot of the sail.“Yes,” answered Dick, “if the wind holds. Blow, good breezes, blow!” he murmured, and began to whistle softly. Suddenly he sat more upright in the boat and gazed eagerly ahead.“Look ahead and all along past our weather bow, Phil,” he said. “Is my sight deceiving me, or do I see a number of water channels running into the land there? To me it looks as though there was an indentation of some sort, like—well, like the mouth of a river choked with islands, away ahead of us. And, if so, we are saved, for it will be strange indeed if we cannot dodge the galley among those islands—even if she can get in among them,” he added. “For unless I am very greatly mistaken the water shoals close inshore of us. Do you notice how smooth it is?”“I do,” said Stukely. “I humbly hope it may not be too shoal for us as well as for the galley. All right, fire away,” he continued, apostrophising the galley; “fire away and waste your powder! You will have to shoot a good deal better than that to hit us.” For the people in the galley were loading and firing in feverish haste, evidently anxious to hit the boat before she should reach the shelter of the islands, now less than a quarter of a mile ahead.Presently the boat shot into the belt of smooth water that Dick’s keen eye had detected, and Phil seized a paddle and plunged it over the side, to withdraw it a moment later and inspect it by the light of the moon.“Four foot of water, with any quantity of soft black mud under it,” he announced. “If thicky galley keeps as she is going for another five minutes, Dick, she’ll be stuck so hard and fast in that same mud that she’ll have something else to think about than chasing us. Ah!” as the boat luffed round a small mangrove-covered island, and the galley was shut out from view, “there goes their last chance of hitting us with their footy ordnance—with a murrain on them!”The fugitives now suddenly found themselves sailing through a labyrinth of small, mangrove-covered islets intersected by water lanes so narrow and winding that they were only able to sail the boat along them by exercising the utmost care and vigilance. This intricate and difficult navigation continued for nearly three hours, at the end of which time they suddenly emerged from the maze of islets and found themselves in a stream of thick, muddy water, averaging about a quarter of a mile in width, with low banks fringed by mangrove trees, beyond which it was occasionally possible to catch glimpses of more lofty vegetation. The water here was so deep that, except when close to the bank on either side, it was impossible to reach bottom with a six-foot paddle; but when they had traversed the river far enough to enable them to get a vista of a clear mile astern of them there was still no sign of the galley, which they therefore concluded had been unable to pass the mud bar at the entrance of the river.The course of the stream which they were now following was, approximately, north-north-east, for a distance of about twenty-two miles, which was traversed in a trifle over four hours. Here the river suddenly bent sharply round in a south-easterly direction; the mangroves disappeared, being replaced by a thick fringe of reeds, the banks of the river gradually increased in height, and were covered to the water’s edge with a thick tangle of bushes, amid which towered the outposts of a forest of magnificent trees that could be seen stretching away for miles ahead. The fugitives considered that they were now well beyond all likelihood of pursuit, and the thick beds of reeds which fringed the river at frequent intervals afforded them excellent opportunities for concealment; but the wind continued favourable, and the moon afforded them ample light; they therefore determined to press forward so long as the conditions continued favourable, one of them remaining on watch and steering the boat while the other slept.In this fashion they sped up the stream hour after hour, all through the night, the width of the waterway remaining about the same, but the character of the country ever-changing, the banks in places rising to a height of quite a hundred feet, here in the form of a gentle, tree-clad slope, and there towering precipitously, a rocky face, with overhanging bushes and great clumps of fern springing from every fissure. At length the moon sank beneath the tree-tops on the western bank, and the light became so uncertain that the voyagers were seriously debating the advisability of seeking a suitable spot in which to tie up the boat, when a sudden chilliness in the wind warned them that the dawn was at hand, and a few minutes later the sky to the eastward paled, so that the tops of the trees stood out against the pallor black as though drawn in Indian ink, the stars dimmed and blinked out, one after another, the eastern pallor became suffused with delicate primrose that rapidly warmed into clear amber, a beam of golden light flashed through the branches of the trees on the eastern bank of the river, and in a moment the whole scene changed as if by magic, a thousand lovely tints of green, blue, orange, crimson, and white, leapt into view as daylight flooded the landscape, revealing great masses of flowering shrubs and enormous festoons of queer-shaped and gorgeously coloured orchids; colibris that flashed like living gems darted hither and thither; flocks of gaily plumaged parrots winged their way, screaming discordantly, across the stream; brilliantly painted kingfishers darted like streams of living fire from bough to bough, or perched staring intently down into the water from some overhanging branch; enormous butterflies of exquisite colours, and dragon-flies with transparent rose-tinted wings flitted inconsequently over the surface of the water and were leaped at by fish as brilliantly tinted as themselves—and it was day in the South American forest. Half an hour later, as the boat rounded a low bluff, a break in the forest appeared ahead, beyond which a wide expanse of water was seen sparkling in the rays of the early morning sun; and presently the boat shot out of the stream which she had been traversing all night, and the wanderers found themselves floating upon the bosom of a magnificent river about a mile wide, flowing as nearly as might be due north.For a few seconds the young Englishmen were silent, lost in admiration at the spaciousness, the grandeur, and the tropical luxuriance and beauty of the scene upon which their gaze rested entranced; then Dick broke the silence by murmuring:“Now, what river is this, I wonder? Surely it cannot be the Magdalena, of which we have heard so many wonderful stories? And yet, if it is not, I know not what river it can be. The Magdalena lies somewhere in this direction, I believe, and—but what matters the name? It is a superb waterway, however it may be called, the current is not so strong but that we can easily stem it with the help of our sail, and it comes from the direction in which we want to go. What say you, Phil? Which is it to be, north or south?”“South, of course,” answered Stukely; “why ask such a totally unnecessary question?” He spoke with so much irritation of manner that Dick looked at him anxiously, fearing that he might be suffering from a slight touch of fever. But no, there was nothing in Stukely’s appearance to suggest that he was suffering either from fever or any other malady; but he was glancing about him keenly, eagerly, yet with a puzzled expression, as though he recognised what he was looking at, but could not understand why he recognised it. And his next words conveyed precisely the same impression, for he murmured, as though speaking to himself:“Now, this is most extraordinary! This scene is absolutely familiar to me; I seem to have gazed upon it—or upon something precisely similar to it in every respect, thousands of times before. Look at those gigantic ceibas yonder; those long, trailing ropes of purple orchids; see those flamingoes with their scarlet, black-barred wings, their long thin legs, and their curiously twisted beaks; observe those graceful white birds with their handsome crested heads; ay, and even the very monkeys swinging down by the creepers to dip up the water and drink it out of the palms of their hands; it is all much more familiar and homelike to me than ever was the scenery of Devon. Yet I have never been here before, unless indeed it has been in my dreams. But could a dream, or even a series of dreams, impart to me the perfect knowledge that I seem to possess of everything upon which my eye rests? Now, yonder, for instance, is a tree out of which I used to make—I mean that in some strange way I seem to know that splendid bows can be made out of the wood of that particular tree; and there, growing close beneath its shade, in the water, is a clump of rushes which, when dried in the sun, make perfect shafts for arrows. And that reminds me, Dick, that, since we must save our powder and shot for very special occasions, we ought to provide ourselves with bows and a good stock of arrows, if only to enable us to procure game. Now, I know perfectly well, in some mysterious manner, how to make bows and arrows; and since the materials for making both are at this moment before our eyes, we ought to avail ourselves of the opportunity. Don’t you think so?”“Certainly,” answered Dick. “Though what you mean by saying that you know what particular kinds of trees make the best bows, and all the rest of it, I confess I don’t understand.”“Nor do I,” admitted Stukely. “But, all the same, I possess the knowledge, however strange it may appear; and perhaps, later on, understanding will come to me. Now, there is a good place to land, among the reeds; push the boat in through them, Dick; we shall find the bank low just there, with water enough for the boat alongside it.”“Now, how can you possibly know that?” demanded Dick. “Nevertheless,” he continued, “we will try, because it will afford an excellent opportunity to test the accuracy of your boasted knowledge.” And he put the helm up and headed the boat straight for the reeds, into the midst of which she plunged a minute later, pushing them easily aside as she drove through them, while they closed up again behind her, effectually screening her from view from the river, and as effectually obliterating the track which she had temporarily made through them.

When Dick recovered consciousness it was evening; the street was quiet, and he was lying upon a couch in a darkened room, with Philip Stukely and an elderly woman bending over him; the woman holding a basin of warm water, while Stukely assiduously bathed an ugly scalp wound on the crown of his head. The said head was throbbing and aching most atrociously, and when the young man sat up and attempted to rise to his feet he discovered, to his astonishment and chagrin, that he had no control over himself, the room seemed to be whirling and spinning round with him at bewildering speed, and his legs immediately collapsed under him.

“Now, then, none of that, youngster,” exclaimed Stukely, as he flung his arm round Chichester and gently lowered the lad back on the couch. “What a plague induced you to start up like that, all of a sudden, before I was ready for you? You will just have to lie still, young man, until I tell you that you may move. And how do you feel, now that you have seen fit to at last come to your senses?”

“How do I feel?” reiterated Dick, trying to pass his hand over his forehead, and failing, for the member seemed heavier than lead. “Why, I seem to have no more strength than a baby; my head is nothing but one big, atrocious ache; and I don’t seem to be able to remember things very well. For instance, I don’t in the least know where we are, or how we got here; and—and—who is the—ah—lady, Phil?”

“Don’t you worry about the lady, youngster, she is all right, and proved herself to be a friend just when we badly needed one,” answered Stukely. “The important thing just now is to find out precisely what is the matter with you; so have the goodness to answer my questions as clearly as possible, will ye?”

And while Stukely is closely questioning his patient the opportunity may be taken to explain, in a very few words, how the two friends came to find themselves where they were. As has already been stated, they were fighting among the party who were defending the rear during the retreat of the English back along the street by which they had come, when Dick was felled to the ground by a great stone hurled from the top story of one of the houses opposite which they were at the moment engaged. Stukely, who was fighting behind him, heard the crash of the stone on Dick’s head, saw the lad reel and fall, and instantly stooped to raise him to his feet again. But Dick Chichester was no light weight for a man like Stukely to lift unaided, and before it could be done the whole fight seemed to sweep right over them. Stukely was knocked down and trodden under foot, men locked together in the grip of deadly strife reeled and staggered and stumbled over him, and finally he received a kick in the temple which so nearly robbed him of his senses that he was only very vaguely conscious of what was happening during the next minute or two. The next thing of which he was fully aware being that he was being held by the shoulders and dragged along over uneven ground, then he became suddenly conscious of being inside a building, and of hearing a door closed and barred; and, finally, of finding himself sitting upon the floor of the room where Dick and he now were, with the old lady supporting his head on her knee while a young woman endeavoured to pouraguardientedown his throat. Then he fully recovered his senses, to find, to his great joy, that Dick also had been rescued, and was then lying senseless on a couch in the same room. Then, somehow, the young woman had disappeared, and rising to his feet, he had devoted himself to the task of wooing back Dick Chichester’s senses. This, however, had proved a far more difficult task than he had at first anticipated; and it was not until the golden quality of the light streaming in through the closed jalousies proclaimed the near approach of sunset that Dick manifested any indication of returning consciousness, with the result already recorded. And now a protracted and careful examination of the wound, coupled with much questioning of his patient, convinced Stukely that his friend Dick had sustained a very serious injury to the head which had so far affected the brain that it would be several days at least before the young man could possibly be moved! Meanwhile, what was happening to the ship and the rest of the crew?

That was a question that could not be answered just then, for the old lady, who, for some mysterious reason, had chosen to play the part of Good Samaritan, could not speak a word of English, while Stukely spoke no Spanish; and as for venturing outside the house in quest of information, that was obviously impossible, for two excellent reasons; the first being that Dick’s condition was such that he could not possibly be left, even for so short a time as half an hour; while the other equally good reason was that to venture into the street would be to invite immediate assassination.

Well, Stukely told himself, matters could not be helped; Dick and he were the victims of circumstance, and there was nothing for it but to submit, with the best grace possible. And so far as their future was concerned, that must take care of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the anxiety thereof. So, with the elderly dame’s assistance, he devoted himself to the task of doing what he could to relieve and help Dick, philosophically leaving the future to take care of itself.

Presently it became too dark to see, and the old lady went to the door of the room and called. Two female voices replied; and a few minutes later two young women entered, one bearing a lighted oil lamp, while the other carried a tray upon which were set out a bowl of soup, a dish containing some roast ribs of kid, some heads of young Indian corn boiled, a loaf of bread, and a flask of wine. These viands were placed upon a table together with the lamp, and the young women retired again, after indicating by signs that the food was intended for the two Englishmen.

Dick’s hurt proved to be very much more serious than was at first supposed; he became delirious; and for a whole week Phil was kept busy, night and day, constantly attending to him, his watch being shared by the old lady and her two daughters, who proved extraordinarily kind and solicitous. Then the patient began to mend, slowly; and the young women—who proved to be twins, named respectively Clara and Dolores—did their best to beguile the time for their two guests by teaching them Spanish. And remarkably efficient teachers they proved to be, too; their pupils making enough progress within the next three weeks to enable them to gather a tolerably correct general idea of what was said to them. Thus, little by little, and by dint of frequent reiteration, accompanied by much laughter and many blushes on the part of their fair instructresses, the two young Englishmen learned that they owed their lives to the compassion of the Señoritas Clara and Dolores; who, watching the fight from their window, had been so greatly impressed by the gallant bearings of Dick and Phil, that when the two were seen to go down in the mêlée, the girls, moved by a common impulse, had dashed out of the house, the moment that a favourable opportunity had presented itself, and had dragged the apparently inanimate bodies indoors unnoticed in the prevailing confusion. And they also learned that, according to common report, some eight or ten survivors of the ill-advised landing-party had succeeded in fighting their way back to the ship, which had thereupon got under way and sailed out of the harbour, leaving theSanta Margarettaablaze from stem to stern.

Thus the time went on until Dick and Phil had been secreted in Cartagena nearly six weeks, by which time the former was so nearly approaching convalescence that the pair had begun to discuss seriously the question of their future. Then, one night, about nine o’clock, the two girls, who had been out taking the air upon the alameda, came rushing home in consternation with the news that somebody had somehow acquired an inkling of the fact that they were harbouring two Englishmen in their house, and that the soldiers might be expected to arrive at any moment to take the whole party prisoners! But, as the girls breathlessly explained, if the Englishmen got away at once—as they must for their own sakes—no harm need be expected to befall their hostesses, as it would then appear that some enemy had been spreading a false and malicious report.

The two young Englishmen hardly liked the idea of going off and leaving their kind entertainers to bear unaided the brunt of a strict and severe cross-examination; but it was obviously the only thing to be done, for it would be far worse for the family if the hatedIngleseswere actually found in the house, than if their recent presence there were only suspected; they therefore agreed to go at once; and, since they had no belongings to pack, were ready to depart upon the instant. But the girls, who were bitterly distressed at the idea of so sudden and unceremonious a leave-taking, would not let them leave the house alone, to take their chance of finding their way, unmolested, down to the harbour; they insisted upon accompanying them and guiding them by the least-frequented ways; and this they did, following a number of narrow, winding, deserted lanes and alleys which at length brought them out upon the wharf where they had landed on the ill-fated day when they had attempted the rescue of Captain Marshall. Here, after a long, lingering, and tearful parting on the part of the girls, the two young men eventually found themselves alone, about half-past ten o’clock at night; by which hour the wharf was deserted, save for themselves.

Now, the whole thing had been so hurried, and the girls had had so much to say during the journey from the house to the wharf, that the two friends had been quite unable to form anything in the nature of a plan; and even now it was not wise to linger on the wharf, discussing the question of what they should do, for the city guard, or watchmen, might come along at any moment and surprise them. They therefore hastily surveyed such boats and canoes as were moored to the wharf, chose the first useful-looking craft they came to, jumped into her, cut her painter, and pushed off down the harbour on their way to the island of Tierra Bomba, which Dick decided had better be their first halting-place.

The night was, fortunately, fine, with a high and spacious sky of indigo, star-studded, flecked with a few thin, fleecy clouds driving up solemnly out of the eastward, and the moon, in her second quarter, sailing high overhead and affording them all the light that they needed, with perhaps a little to spare. The boat which they had appropriated was a very good craft of her kind, about fifteen feet long, very shallow and beamy, and equipped with a pair of oars, a tiller and rudder, and a mast and sail. The latter they were especially thankful for, as the journey before them was one of about seven miles; and as soon as they were fairly clear of the town and had reached a point at which they could bear away far enough to the southward to permit of setting the sail, they stepped their mast, unfurled their canvas, and went buzzing merrily down the harbour, passing on their way the hulk of theSanta Margaretta, which had been burnt to the water’s edge before the flames could be extinguished. Their destination was the creek in the eastern shore of Tierra Bomba in which the longboat had lain hidden when Dick and Marshall had reconnoitred the town together; and they reached it about midnight, secreted the boat beneath the well-remembered bushes, and then composed themselves to sleep as well as they could in her stern-sheets.

The sun was a full hour above the horizon when his beams, piercing the thick canopy of foliage which overhung their place of concealment, awakened the two fugitives, who arose from their hard couch refreshed but hungry. A plunge into the shallow waters of the creek washed the lingering remains of sleep out of their eyes, and further refreshed them, when, having allowed their bodies to dry in the brisk warm breeze, they dressed and scrambled ashore to hunt for food. Of this they obtained without difficulty as much as they required; for Tierra Bomba was at that time densely overgrown with trees and bushes of various kinds, among which several fruit-bearing varieties flourished wild, particularly plantains and bananas. Upon these, then, they satisfied their hunger, at the same time taking the precaution to secure a bunch of sufficiently generous dimensions to meet all their needs for several days to come. Then, their immediate wants satisfied, they retreated to their place of concealment and, seating themselves in their boat, proceeded to discuss their plans for the future.

The information respecting the doings of theAdventure, communicated to them by their fair friends the Señoritas Clara and Dolores, left little doubt in their minds that the crew, thoroughly discouraged at the disastrous result of their adventure in Cartagena, had decided to rest satisfied with the treasure which they had already acquired—and which, indeed, was considerable enough to satisfy most reasonable people—and had sailed direct for England upon quitting the harbour, too hastily concluding, perhaps, that all the missing were dead; or, if not dead, at least captive beyond all hope of deliverance. This assumption seemed to Stukely and Chichester to be the only one at which they could reasonably arrive; and since its acceptance shut them out from all hope of ever again seeing theAdventureand being able to rejoin her, the question that naturally arose in their minds was: What were they to do now?

It was Dick who first put this question into words; and by way of reply Stukely put another question—“Why did we come here at all?”

“Well,” retorted plain, matter-of-fact Dick, “because we couldn’t help ourselves, I suppose.”

“Very well,” agreed Stukely, “I will concede that, if you like. We came because we could not help ourselves; because, in other words, after we were picked up by theAdventure, no opportunity occurred to land us again, and therefore we had no choice but to remain in the ship. But why did we consent to become members of her crew?”

“Why, in the hope of making our fortunes, of course,” returned Dick. “And we did so, too; or should have done so, rather, if thicky stone had not cracked my skull for me.”

“Precisely,” agreed Stukely. “If your skull had not been cracked, and if we had both contrived to get back to the ship, as some of the others appear to have done. But it is just those little ifs, my dear Dick, that rule the destinies of men. If this, that, or the other thing had, or had not, happened, everything would have been very different. Now, for my own part, I am a great believer in destiny; I do not believe that there is such a thing as accident or chance, but that what we usually call by one or the other of those names is ordered by what some men call Fate, but what I prefer to call Providence. I will not attempt to argue this matter out with you just now, but will simply content myself with the assertion that you and I were destined to be left behind. If you ask, for what purpose, I reply that I do not know; I cannot even guess; but I have no doubt that it will be revealed in due time. If my theory is correct and Providence is indeed interfering in our affairs, we may do as we will, but we shall be guided and governed, in spite of ourselves, until we have accomplished the work which we are destined to do. That being the case, let us leave ourselves in the hands of Destiny, to do as she will with us, watching for such right impulses as she may impart to us, and following them implicitly, under the belief and conviction that she is guiding us.

“Now, why did we come to this Golden West? Was it not to make our fortunes, to acquire a share of the wealth with which the land teems? Of course it was; and since we are here, and cannot get away, I say let us push into the interior and see if we cannot find for ourselves some of the gold, or gems, with which the soil is said to abound. There must be scores, nay, hundreds, of undiscovered mines in the lonely fastnesses to which no man has thus far penetrated; and I can see no reason why we should not find one of them. Now, what say you?”

“Simply, that I agree with every word you have said, Phil, and am quite ready to go to the world’s end with you,” answered Dick. “Now, when do we start, and which way do we go?”

“Well,” returned Stukely, “our first business is to get safely away from Cartagena; and the sooner the better. For it is evident that the authorities have somehow obtained an inkling of the fact that two Englishmen belonging to the band who have wrought them so much damage have been lurking hidden in the city; and if my estimate of the Spanish character be correct I believe they will take a good deal of trouble to find us; and if they find us we may rest assured that they will clap us into the Inquisition, by hook or by crook. Therefore, I say, let us get away to-night, immediately after dark, so that we may have a chance to put as many miles as possible between ourselves and Cartagena before daylight. Then, as to which way we should go, the interior is where we are bound for, and the interior lies to the southward, therefore when we get out to sea, let us steer south, and enter the first river of any importance that we happen to come to, knowing that all rivers lead to the interior.”

“Agreed!” exclaimed Dick. “We will leave here as soon as the darkness is deep enough to conceal our movements; and we will begin our voyage by slipping across the bay and going out to sea by way of the channel at the back of the island of Baru, by which means we shall reach the open sea some twenty-five miles south of Cartagena, and so avoid the risk of being seen and informed upon by any of the local fishing boats. I would that I had one of Mr Bascomb’s charts with me; but as I haven’t we must e’en do without it and trust to memory. I have some recollection of having seen a river of some importance marked on the chart not very far south of this; and if we hug the shore pretty closely we can scarcely fail to find it.”

This matter settled, they proceeded to take stock of their possessions, which totalled as follows: a pair of pistols each, the locks of which had fortunately been fitted with new flints immediately before the disastrous attempt to force a way to the Inquisition at Cartagena; two powder horns full of powder; thirty bullets each, together with a considerable quantity of greased rags to serve as wadding; a good, serviceable hanger, each; and last, but not least, the splendid sword which Dick had taken from the Spanish cavalier during the fight in the square. These, the clothes which they stood up in, and the boat in which they had made their escape, were all that they possessed in the world; and thus scantily provided these two young men were calmly about to plunge into the very heart of a hostile country, of which they knew nothing, in search of fortune! Truly was it said of these men and their contemporaries that “they feared God and naught else!” and it was they who laid the foundations of that greatness among the nations of the world which Britain enjoys to-day. May she have the wisdom to retain it!

All day the two fugitives lay in their place of concealment, resting and otherwise preparing for a wakeful and busy night; and when at length the sun plunged down into the western sea in a transient blaze of glory, and the sea breeze began to die away, they cautiously pushed out from underneath their leafy screen and proceeded to paddle quietly down the little cove toward the south bay, which they reached just as the last of the daylight was fading out of the sky and the stars were beginning to twinkle out, one after the other, in swift succession, in the great purple dome of heaven above. The evanescent twilight now shrouded everything in mystery; a few boats could be seen moving about here and there, but only by the lingering golden light in the western sky reflected gleamingly from the ripple of bow or paddle, and the fugitives passed across the bay and entered the narrow channel between the island of Baru and the main, just as the first soft breathings of the land wind began to make themselves felt. To these they gladly spread their sail—for paddling was rather too warm work to be agreeable—and went gliding easily and pleasantly along, closely hugging the weather shore, for the sake of the smooth water and the deep shadow afforded by the mangroves that thickly lined the beach.

They had reached thus along the shore for about an hour and a half when a sudden brightening of the sky to the eastward heralded the rising of the moon; and presently the orb, now nearly at the full, sailed up over the tops of the trees which lined the shore, and flooded the entire scene with her soft orange radiance. And the first thing upon which the eyes of the fugitives fell was a large galley lying at anchor right in the middle of the fairway, scarcely a mile ahead. There were no lights visible on board her; but the frequent flash of the moonlight upon polished steel showed that someone at least, probably a sentinel, was moving and presumably on the watch on board her.

Now arose the question: What was to be done? Should they stand boldly on and take the risk of being challenged; or should they run the boat ashore and take to the woods? Everything depended upon the question of what was the galley’s business just there, of all places in the world; and it did not take the Englishmen long to make up their minds that in all probability she had been stationed there to keep a lookout for them, as the passage out at the back of Baru was so obviously the one that would be most likely to be taken by people anxious to escape from Cartagena by water. If that were the case they could not possibly hope to slip past the craft unchallenged, for the moon was every moment soaring higher into the sky and more clearly lighting up the scene, and especially the surface of the water. And if they were challenged and, refusing to reply, attempted to escape, what hope of success had they? Absolutely none! Therefore they put down their helm, hove the boat about, and headed in for the land.

If any doubt remained in their minds as to the character and intentions of the galley, it was speedily dissipated, for they had scarcely got their boat round upon the other tack when a musket was discharged on board the craft, and a hail was faintly heard pealing across the water from her, and some two minutes later a ruddy flash succeeded by a puff of smoke leapt from her forecastle, followed, a second or two later, by the splash of a heavy shot in the water a dozen yards or so astern of the boat. Five breathless minutes followed for the fugitives, and then a whole forest of oars suddenly sprang from the galley’s sides, plunged into the water, and she was under way, heading straight after the boat.

“Shall we do it, Dick, think you?” demanded Stukely, as he peered anxiously under the foot of the sail.

“Yes,” answered Dick, “if the wind holds. Blow, good breezes, blow!” he murmured, and began to whistle softly. Suddenly he sat more upright in the boat and gazed eagerly ahead.

“Look ahead and all along past our weather bow, Phil,” he said. “Is my sight deceiving me, or do I see a number of water channels running into the land there? To me it looks as though there was an indentation of some sort, like—well, like the mouth of a river choked with islands, away ahead of us. And, if so, we are saved, for it will be strange indeed if we cannot dodge the galley among those islands—even if she can get in among them,” he added. “For unless I am very greatly mistaken the water shoals close inshore of us. Do you notice how smooth it is?”

“I do,” said Stukely. “I humbly hope it may not be too shoal for us as well as for the galley. All right, fire away,” he continued, apostrophising the galley; “fire away and waste your powder! You will have to shoot a good deal better than that to hit us.” For the people in the galley were loading and firing in feverish haste, evidently anxious to hit the boat before she should reach the shelter of the islands, now less than a quarter of a mile ahead.

Presently the boat shot into the belt of smooth water that Dick’s keen eye had detected, and Phil seized a paddle and plunged it over the side, to withdraw it a moment later and inspect it by the light of the moon.

“Four foot of water, with any quantity of soft black mud under it,” he announced. “If thicky galley keeps as she is going for another five minutes, Dick, she’ll be stuck so hard and fast in that same mud that she’ll have something else to think about than chasing us. Ah!” as the boat luffed round a small mangrove-covered island, and the galley was shut out from view, “there goes their last chance of hitting us with their footy ordnance—with a murrain on them!”

The fugitives now suddenly found themselves sailing through a labyrinth of small, mangrove-covered islets intersected by water lanes so narrow and winding that they were only able to sail the boat along them by exercising the utmost care and vigilance. This intricate and difficult navigation continued for nearly three hours, at the end of which time they suddenly emerged from the maze of islets and found themselves in a stream of thick, muddy water, averaging about a quarter of a mile in width, with low banks fringed by mangrove trees, beyond which it was occasionally possible to catch glimpses of more lofty vegetation. The water here was so deep that, except when close to the bank on either side, it was impossible to reach bottom with a six-foot paddle; but when they had traversed the river far enough to enable them to get a vista of a clear mile astern of them there was still no sign of the galley, which they therefore concluded had been unable to pass the mud bar at the entrance of the river.

The course of the stream which they were now following was, approximately, north-north-east, for a distance of about twenty-two miles, which was traversed in a trifle over four hours. Here the river suddenly bent sharply round in a south-easterly direction; the mangroves disappeared, being replaced by a thick fringe of reeds, the banks of the river gradually increased in height, and were covered to the water’s edge with a thick tangle of bushes, amid which towered the outposts of a forest of magnificent trees that could be seen stretching away for miles ahead. The fugitives considered that they were now well beyond all likelihood of pursuit, and the thick beds of reeds which fringed the river at frequent intervals afforded them excellent opportunities for concealment; but the wind continued favourable, and the moon afforded them ample light; they therefore determined to press forward so long as the conditions continued favourable, one of them remaining on watch and steering the boat while the other slept.

In this fashion they sped up the stream hour after hour, all through the night, the width of the waterway remaining about the same, but the character of the country ever-changing, the banks in places rising to a height of quite a hundred feet, here in the form of a gentle, tree-clad slope, and there towering precipitously, a rocky face, with overhanging bushes and great clumps of fern springing from every fissure. At length the moon sank beneath the tree-tops on the western bank, and the light became so uncertain that the voyagers were seriously debating the advisability of seeking a suitable spot in which to tie up the boat, when a sudden chilliness in the wind warned them that the dawn was at hand, and a few minutes later the sky to the eastward paled, so that the tops of the trees stood out against the pallor black as though drawn in Indian ink, the stars dimmed and blinked out, one after another, the eastern pallor became suffused with delicate primrose that rapidly warmed into clear amber, a beam of golden light flashed through the branches of the trees on the eastern bank of the river, and in a moment the whole scene changed as if by magic, a thousand lovely tints of green, blue, orange, crimson, and white, leapt into view as daylight flooded the landscape, revealing great masses of flowering shrubs and enormous festoons of queer-shaped and gorgeously coloured orchids; colibris that flashed like living gems darted hither and thither; flocks of gaily plumaged parrots winged their way, screaming discordantly, across the stream; brilliantly painted kingfishers darted like streams of living fire from bough to bough, or perched staring intently down into the water from some overhanging branch; enormous butterflies of exquisite colours, and dragon-flies with transparent rose-tinted wings flitted inconsequently over the surface of the water and were leaped at by fish as brilliantly tinted as themselves—and it was day in the South American forest. Half an hour later, as the boat rounded a low bluff, a break in the forest appeared ahead, beyond which a wide expanse of water was seen sparkling in the rays of the early morning sun; and presently the boat shot out of the stream which she had been traversing all night, and the wanderers found themselves floating upon the bosom of a magnificent river about a mile wide, flowing as nearly as might be due north.

For a few seconds the young Englishmen were silent, lost in admiration at the spaciousness, the grandeur, and the tropical luxuriance and beauty of the scene upon which their gaze rested entranced; then Dick broke the silence by murmuring:

“Now, what river is this, I wonder? Surely it cannot be the Magdalena, of which we have heard so many wonderful stories? And yet, if it is not, I know not what river it can be. The Magdalena lies somewhere in this direction, I believe, and—but what matters the name? It is a superb waterway, however it may be called, the current is not so strong but that we can easily stem it with the help of our sail, and it comes from the direction in which we want to go. What say you, Phil? Which is it to be, north or south?”

“South, of course,” answered Stukely; “why ask such a totally unnecessary question?” He spoke with so much irritation of manner that Dick looked at him anxiously, fearing that he might be suffering from a slight touch of fever. But no, there was nothing in Stukely’s appearance to suggest that he was suffering either from fever or any other malady; but he was glancing about him keenly, eagerly, yet with a puzzled expression, as though he recognised what he was looking at, but could not understand why he recognised it. And his next words conveyed precisely the same impression, for he murmured, as though speaking to himself:

“Now, this is most extraordinary! This scene is absolutely familiar to me; I seem to have gazed upon it—or upon something precisely similar to it in every respect, thousands of times before. Look at those gigantic ceibas yonder; those long, trailing ropes of purple orchids; see those flamingoes with their scarlet, black-barred wings, their long thin legs, and their curiously twisted beaks; observe those graceful white birds with their handsome crested heads; ay, and even the very monkeys swinging down by the creepers to dip up the water and drink it out of the palms of their hands; it is all much more familiar and homelike to me than ever was the scenery of Devon. Yet I have never been here before, unless indeed it has been in my dreams. But could a dream, or even a series of dreams, impart to me the perfect knowledge that I seem to possess of everything upon which my eye rests? Now, yonder, for instance, is a tree out of which I used to make—I mean that in some strange way I seem to know that splendid bows can be made out of the wood of that particular tree; and there, growing close beneath its shade, in the water, is a clump of rushes which, when dried in the sun, make perfect shafts for arrows. And that reminds me, Dick, that, since we must save our powder and shot for very special occasions, we ought to provide ourselves with bows and a good stock of arrows, if only to enable us to procure game. Now, I know perfectly well, in some mysterious manner, how to make bows and arrows; and since the materials for making both are at this moment before our eyes, we ought to avail ourselves of the opportunity. Don’t you think so?”

“Certainly,” answered Dick. “Though what you mean by saying that you know what particular kinds of trees make the best bows, and all the rest of it, I confess I don’t understand.”

“Nor do I,” admitted Stukely. “But, all the same, I possess the knowledge, however strange it may appear; and perhaps, later on, understanding will come to me. Now, there is a good place to land, among the reeds; push the boat in through them, Dick; we shall find the bank low just there, with water enough for the boat alongside it.”

“Now, how can you possibly know that?” demanded Dick. “Nevertheless,” he continued, “we will try, because it will afford an excellent opportunity to test the accuracy of your boasted knowledge.” And he put the helm up and headed the boat straight for the reeds, into the midst of which she plunged a minute later, pushing them easily aside as she drove through them, while they closed up again behind her, effectually screening her from view from the river, and as effectually obliterating the track which she had temporarily made through them.

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