THERE IS NO MISTAKING THE MANNER OF
BUCCANEERS RETURNING WELL-LADEN
But even this supply did not provision them for long, and they were forced to run across to Hispaniola, come into touch with the French and English hunters there, and buy from them bucaned cows' flesh in the usual way. There is a routine about these matters, and when it is departed from one soon finds that the routine has its reason for being.
It will be seen that here were all the makings of a voyage which would be prosperous, if somewhat slow; but it must be owned that all was not peace and easiness. The Spaniards on board were the root of the unpleasantness. They held that they had worked equally with the others in gathering the plunder. The French and English held that they were duly-admitted members of the Brotherhood of the Coast, and therefore of superior clay to any Spaniard; and, moreover, when it came to the distribution of the plunder, they attended armed to the teeth and certainly took the lion's share. They said at the time that the Spaniards might feel grateful that they were given so much as a flavour; and on that day, being overawed by weapons, these Spaniards accepted what was left for them with at least an outward show of civility. But it seems they still carried rage and discontent in their hearts, which indeed is the custom of their disgusting nation, and from then onwards were forever making a great plot or cabal.
In number these Spaniards might well be vainglorious, seeing that there were one hundred and forty of them, to some twenty-seven all told of the buccaneers, and in fierceness they were above the ordinary. They were criminals all of them, condemned to the galleys by their own countrymen, who found them intolerable at home, and had it not been that their liberation was useful at the time to Prince Rupert, one is free to confess that the galleys was their proper place, as they were unfitted for any other rank in society. However, there they were on the carrack, possessors of some considerable store of plunder, and very wishful to seize more and to have a say in their final destination.
Once indeed a deputation came aft to put forward their views.
What was to be the carrack's destination?
"Tortuga," said Rupert, civilly.
They appeared to hear the name with consternation.
"But, Señor," said their spokesman, "that is the metropolis of the buccaneers."