Prince Rupert, the Buccaneer

by Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne

The Governor sat moodily, with his chin in the butt of his hand; and for a while he answered nothing. At last he said, "Master Benson, this is a matter on which I must confer with my Council. I pray you give me a day or two for consideration, so that I can send a well-weighed reply to your Prince's courtesy. And in the meanwhile, if you would use my poor house, and all that it contains as your own, I should be overwhelmed by your condescension."

"Your Excellency," said the envoy, "is vastly polite. Both Master Laughan and myself are highly honoured to rest under so distinguished a roof. But you must permit us first to go round to some of the stores of the city to procure more suitable wearing apparel than these filthy rags."

"I will send one of my officers to be your guide. He," added the Governor with a sour smile, "shall provide you with the wherewithal to buy."

"I could not trespass upon your Excellency's kindness to that extent. I have no gold money to pay for my purchases, it is true. But we have in our privy purse some small store of pearls, which, at a push, will doubtless serve as currency."

Don Jaime grinned like a man in pain.

"Master Benson," said he, "you are a most provident gentleman. If you and Master Laughan will wait in this chamber for a short while longer, I will send to you a guide who shall be entirely devoted to your honoured service."

In this fashion, then, another stage of Prince Rupert's enterprise was successfully carried out, and the Governor of Caraccas, though fully alive to the unbounded impudence of the demands made upon him, was for the present, at any rate, civil and self-contained. What he might do in the future remained to be seen. He might within another day order the pair of his visitors to gaol, or death, or (still more horrid fate) hand them over to the gluttonous cruelties of the Inquisition, which spares neither rank nor sex. Or, again, he might act the prudent part, and despatch them whence they came with ten thousand pieces-of-eight, to save his splendid city from the Prince's harrying.

But in the meantime the envoy and Master Laughan dressed themselves in all the niceness and bravery which they could procure on so brief a notice, and prepared to revisit for a short time genteel society, such as they had been divorced from for so many a tempestuous month.

Now, in the household of Don Jaime de Soto, it is a safe thing to say that if Master Laughan had held command, the enterprise would not have been damaged; whilst it is a matter of history that the Prince, by his own action, completely wrecked it. Master Laughan, it is true (though being in reality a maid), would have had but small temptation, as she herself quite recognised; but the Prince, being man, must needs get enslaved in a vulgar love affair with a lady whose charms Master Laughan was quite at a loss to discover.

To be precise, this Lady of Destruction was that very Donna Clotilde, the niece of the Governor, of whom they had heard before; and for those that care for the Spaniards' appearance, she certainly had some claim to comely looks. Indeed, Prince Rupert never tired of extolling her beauty; and it may as well be owned here, at once, that the secretary, who in secret loved his Highness madly herself, was torn with horrid jealousness. But the Prince, of course, knew naught about this, scoffed at all warnings, and in his masquerade of "Master Thomas Benson" pressed his suit with fire and diligence. The two days for the consideration of the Governor's reply lengthened out to four, and four to a week; and when the poor secretary dared now and again to hint that duty required a settlement of the business, he was sharply bidden to hold his pedant's tongue. And so the affair progressed.