Prince Rupert, the Buccaneer

by Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne

The march, then, it may be gathered, was infinitely wearisome and tedious, and when at last they did gain the tree clump which yielded up the thin feather of smoke, the Prince was owning to a sentiment of fatigue, and his secretary was ready to drop with weariness. They were fitter for bed than for fighting, and yet fighting was nearer to them than they at all expected.

As all the world now most thoroughly knows, the Spaniards of the New World were growing alarmed at the increasing numbers of French and English adventurers who were coming out to wrest a living from the Main and the islands of the Carib Sea, and were resolved to make great effort to oust these intruders and to continue possessing the countries to themselves alone. And seeing that all sooner or later must pass their traffic through ships, the Spaniards thought to strike at the root of the evil by exterminating the cow killers of Hispaniola, who alone could supply these ships with the necessary bucaned meat. But these men, "buccaneers" as they are currently named, indignantly resented any attempt at extermination, and rather relishing war than otherwise, fought the Spaniards who were sent to hunt them with such indescribable ferocity, that for one buccaneer killed twenty Spaniards were often left dead upon the field. For which reason the Spaniards had grown wary, scoured the country in bands which had acquired the byename of Fifties, and avoided the hunters most timidly, unless they could come upon them singly or in bands of two or three.

The smoke which the Prince and his companion had seen, rose from the cooking fire of a buccaneers' camp; and, as it chanced, other eyes besides theirs had spied it also—to wit, those set under the helmets of a prowling Spanish Fifty. But this troop and their horses were masked by an undulation of the ground, which they had cleverly made use of to secure an unobserved advance, and the buccaneers went on with their cookery with little expectation of surprise. Still by custom they always kept arms handy to their fingers, and when the Prince and Master Laughan stepped out into sight from amongst the tree stems, two steady muskets covered them, and they were roundly bidden to stop and recite their business. Even after this had been said, the buccaneers received them none too civilly, and it was not till Prince Rupert had begun to charm them with his talk—as he could charm even the most uncouth of men when he chose—that they relaxed their churlishness and invited the travellers to share their meal.

There were three of these buccaneers, two only being sound men. The third, an engagé, had been sadly gored by a wounded bull, his ribs being bared some ten inches on one side, and his thigh ripped down all its length on the other. At first sight the two visitors looked upon this engagé as a dying man; but neither he nor his companions seemed to think much of the wound, and it appeared that from the active, open-air, well-fed life that these men lead, their flesh heals after a gash with almost miraculous quickness.

There was great store of meat in the camp—the spoils, in fact, of four great bulls; but the buccaneers had grown dainty in their feeding, and nothing but the udders of cows would satisfy them, and so they had shot three other poor beasts to provide them with a single meal. For sauce there was lemon and pimento squeezed together in a calabash, and for further seasoning a knob of stone salt; plaintains served them for bread; and for drink they had the choice between water and nothing. Once the buccaneers had offered hospitality, they were gracious enough with it, pointing out the tit-bits, and insisting that their guests should do well by the meal. And in truth his Highness played a rare good trencher-hand, for he was keen set with the walk, and the cookery was surprisingly delicate. But through over-fatigue his secretary lacked appetite, and these rude hunters said they held in but scurvy account one who was so small an eater.

The meal, however, was not uninterrupted. When it was half way through its course, the Prince held up his hand for silence, and then—

"Gentlemen," said he, "were we in Europe, I should say a troop of horse were reconnoitring us, possibly with a view to making an onfall."

The buccaneers cocked their ears to listen, and one of them, a tall, pock-marked man named Simpson, whispered that the Prince was right.

"And by gum, maister," said he, "tha'd better ate up t' rest o' thee jock, or happen tha'lt find theesel' de-ad wi' an empty belly. Tha' sees this buccaneering-piece of mine? Four an' a half foot long, square stocked, an' carries a ball sixteen to t' pund. She's a real Frenchy, pupped by Gelu o' Nantes, an' she's t' finest piece i' Hispaniola. I'll drop one o' th' beggars when they top yon rise, an' I'll get three more as they come up. My mate here 's good for other three wi' 'is piece, an' when they comes to hand-grips, we'll give 'em wild-cats wi' t' skinnin' knives. If thee an' thy young man do yer shares, maister, we should bring a round score o' t' beggars to grass afore we're down on t' floor wi' 'em."

"I'm thinking," said the other buccaneer, "we'd better knock Tom's brains out before we start. I'd not like an engagé o' mine to be taken by the dons alive."