And yet here they were, carrying their arms and a wounded man as though the weight was thistledown, and walking their good five miles to the hour. A linen tunic and short drawers reaching only to mid-thigh was all their wear, and these were dyed purple with constant bloodyings. Their powder they carried in waxed calabashes, their skinning knives in a case of cayman skin, with bullet pouch attached. Their one article of luxury and gentility was a toothpick of polished spider's leg.
To the Prince, hardened as he was by a lifelong education in camps, following in the tracks of these buccaneers was a heavy exertion. To poor Stephen Laughan (that was but a delicately nurtured maid) it was a horrid torment. Her feet seemed like lead, her legs mere whisps of stockings. Her eyes swam and her body swayed, and nothing but the dreadful thought that if she fell the Prince might slacken her dress and so discover her sex, kept her from fainting each step of the way. Yet even at that terrible situation can she look back now, and say that never once did she regret the step that she took to follow across the seas and guard this gallant gentleman she so truly and reverently loved.
The details, then, of this march are omitted, as the historian made the journey in a state bordering on the insensible; and for the same reason nothing can be said of the first coming into the main camp of the buccaneers. Even Prince Rupert, as he was afterwards gallant enough to own, was almost sinking with weariness when these strange headquarters were reached.
But sleep is a great refresher, and next morning saw his Highness quite restored, and Master Laughan remembering what was due to borrowed manhood, and making shift to disown all inconvenience from fatigue.
It was a Sabbath, and a day of great council. These strange men, the buccaneers, had come in from far and wide across the great savannahs, to recount losses, and to register vengeances against their natural enemies, the Spaniards. All were by their custom equal that had served a due apprenticeship; there was no king, there were no chiefs, there were no inferiors; and if any by his natural wit or prowess held a kind of natural headship amongst the rest, he was careful not to show it. One would suppose that they would have welcomed amongst them a prince of birth and breeding, whom they could have looked up to and followed as a natural leader; but a truthful historian must confess that they did not seize upon this inestimable advantage as readily as might be supposed.
There was no order and method about the council, but it must be owned there was little enough of boisterousness. The buccaneers sat or lounged amongst the sweet-smelling grasses, some smoking tobacco, some polishing their arms. Overhead a great delicately foliaged tree, decked with scarlet blossoms, sheltered them from the sun; and to windward fires had been built that the blue wood-reek might chase away the flies. One spoke at a time, and the others listened. All had something to tell: all were fierce against the tyrannous Spaniard.
At last came Prince Rupert's turn, and what he spoke was on a different matter.
"Gentlemen," said he, "you see in me an admiral out of employ, and I come to offer you my services for a while as leader. The Spaniards harry you on land, and you wish for vengeance. Believe me, sirs, you will not hurt them deeply by cutting off a few of their ragged horsemen. A Spaniard's deepest feelings are in his pocket, and his pocket he sends back over seas for safe keeping in Spain. Find me a canoe, give me twenty stout men, and I will engage to cut a deeper wound in the Spaniard on the seas in a month than you would here ashore in a dozen years."
Zebedee from the other side of the shadow nodded. "He's a nice notion of stratagem, brethren."
"But I seed 'im let a fight slip by when it might 'a' bin 'ad for t' axin'," said Simpson.