“Did you hear that?”
“Yes,” she replied, “it sounded as though somebody had fired a pistol far away over yonder on the high land.”
We listened intently several minutes for a repetition of the sound, but as we heard nothing the impression soon passed away; for our conversation, however uninteresting it would seem if written down, was, I assure you, of most absorbing interest, at least to me, though we talked of nothing in particular, and like children laughed at everything out of mere high spirits. We went now with our plantains to the house, where Mr. Millward was gone to look after the roast. He came out to meet us, smiling at our evident enjoyment as he heard the merry ringing laughter of his daughter, over some nonsense or other I had been putting into words. As we all three stood in the shadow of the great veranda, upon its brick pavement, between the joints of which the rank vegetation was sprouting, I heard again, and this time borne on the wind quite distinctly, two shots in quick succession. There was no mistaking the sound this time. I saw instantly in the faces of both my companions that each had heard the unusual sound. Mr. Millward cried quickly: “A gun! who can be firing a gun on the island?”
“What can this mean?” thought I. And again we listened, but there was no repetition of the report.
“Somebody besides ourselves is on the island,” said Mr. Millward.
We stood now looking at each other in silence for several minutes. My mind reverted at once to the pearl-fishers. They had doubtless returned, and the shots we had heard indicated that they were pig-hunting. The same thought had occurred to Mr. Millward, and he immediately expressed his fear that the pearl-fishers had come back. Indeed, it did not need any great power of divination to determine this, because the chances were as a hundred to one against any other visitors. All the picnic and holiday hilarity of our excursion was over. We were full of anxiety and care at once. The probability was that we had neighbors, of a most undesirable character,—lawless adventurers who would have small respect and consideration for us if we stood in their way, or even if they thought so. If they discovered that we had surprised their secret it was impossible to say what they might do. I had often thought of the contingency which now apparently presented itself, and had cogitated much and to no purpose as to what I should do when it arose. And now the thing so long feared as a possibility was actually upon us. Unexpectedly at the last it came like a skeleton to mar our happy feast. We hurried through our dinner in anxious mood and immediately started back home, laden with the fruit we had collected.
When we reached home everything was as we had left it. There had been, so far as we could tell, no visitor in our absence. We arrived about three o’clock in the afternoon. I was restive with the uncertainty and anxiety that the sound of those three gunshots had occasioned. I felt that I must know speedily the exact truth. Our own personal safety, to say nothing of the treasure ship, was possibly involved, and I determined to go at once to Farm Cove, where they would probably be encamped, and reconnoitre the enemy secretly. Of course there would be danger of encountering the pig-hunter, or party of pig-hunters on the way, but I must endeavor by caution to avoid this. When I announced my intention both Mr. Millward and Alice opposed my going; but I was able very soon to convince them that it was necessary.
About four o’clock I started alone, not permitting the dog to accompany me. I took the small axe from Mr. Millward’s boat, my lasso, some food, and a small gourd of water slung as a canteen over my shoulder. I told them I might not return until the next day; but that if I did not get back before the next night they might conclude I had been captured; and in that event it would be wise for them to embark in their boat and make the best of their way to Martinique. But Mr. Millward proposed a better plan, which was that if I did not return by the next night, he and Alice, provided the weather was such as to permit it, would take both boats out of the creek and anchor just beyond the breakers, and wait there another day. This was such an excellent idea that I at once agreed to it.
Bidding them farewell I plunged into the forest and made my way cautiously to the central elevated plateau, climbing the rocks by the path which I had first ascended. Here the open nature of the growth made the utmost caution indispensable, for I might at any moment now come upon the visitors, if they were still out pig-hunting. It was necessary that I should see them before they saw me. This made my progress very slow. Looking carefully about in every direction, and listening for every sound, I advanced a hundred yards or so and repeated the observation, concealing myself as thoroughly as the nature of the ground permitted. On the connecting ridge between the central plateau and the shore cliffs I came upon convincing evidence of the presence of visitors on the island. Here a pig had been killed and disembowelled. The viscera still fresh lay upon the ground, and a broad mark where the carcass had been dragged along led away toward the shore cliffs in the direction of Farm Cove. I had now little doubt that I should find the visitors at that place. It was fully an hour before sunset, and I thought it best to conceal myself and wait until dark before advancing further. I secreted myself therefore amid a thick clump of ferns, and patiently waited for the friendly shelter of the night.
As I sat thus buried in the ferns among the moss-grown rocks, looking out through a break in the forest toward the southern sky, where lay a battlemented mass of sun-dyed cloud, heavy and fantastic in outline, there passed through my mind thoughts of the life and curious adventures of that Henry Morgan, my ancestor’s brother, who two hundred years ago had roamed these seas and besieged the Spanish strongholds. Fancy pictured in the tinted clouds the fortified city of Porto Bello, the seaport of Panama on the Atlantic side of the isthmus, which the intrepid Morgan attacked with four hundred and sixty of his men, having resolved to reduce this strongly fortified place as a preliminary to the capture of the rich city of Panama itself. There was in my mind the vision of the gray walls, the gorgeous banners, the smoke and roar of guns, the white-faced priest and pale nuns looking from the convent walls, the scaling-ladders, the grim, determined Anglo-Saxon sailors, mingled with the equally determined Dutch and the black-bearded Frenchmen, constituting Morgan’s little band. I could see in fancy the flashing, blood-stained blades, and hear the hoarse battle-cry. I could even fancy my ancestral uncle himself, broad-shouldered and commanding in appearance as he needs must have been, standing, fire-balls in hand, on the scaling-ladder, grimy with powder, and with his face set toward the doomed city. There must have been something more than mere brute force in this great leather-clad ancestral uncle of mine with his flashing eyes and sturdy figure; for did he not control absolutely at one time all this region; conquer the all-conquering Spaniard; quell mutinies among his reckless followers with ease; lead them without food across the fever-stricken isthmus, travelling amid inconceivable obstacles ever onward until they were actually reduced to eating their leathern doublets; then with this starved crew did he not besiege and capture the rich city of Panama? When a mutiny rose and some of his desperate followers threatened to desert him for a piratical cruise in one of the captured ships, Morgan, like Hernando Cortez, but with his own hand, chopped down the masts and rigging. Ah, there must have been a spirit in this man greater than a mere piratical thirst for blood. Then too, did not his sovereign, Charles II., bestow upon him subsequently the order of knighthood, make him Sir Henry Morgan, and place him as governor over the island of Jamaica? He died without descendants of his own, the honors bestowed upon him in the later days of his career are no longer remembered, and in the region he once dominated his name is used to frighten children with. He is now remembered only as a buccaneer, a name almost synonymous with “pirate;” a dauntless, reckless, blood-thirsty, unconquerable embodiment of energy and will, brooking no power near him save his own,—truly a leader of men, but exercising his leadership to no good purpose. Though he once controlled the Spanish main, we fail to see it recorded that he ever did good to any man.