CHAPTER XVII
WHICH DESCRIBES AN AUDIENCE WITH SIR HENRY MORGAN AND THE TREACHERY BY WHICH CAPTAIN ALVARADO IS BENEFITED
he clock on the wall was striking eleven as Hornigold forced his prisoners into the guardroom of the first fort that had been captured, which, as it was the larger of the two, Morgan had selected as his head quarters. Mercedes' soul had turned to stone at the sights and sounds which met her as she passed through the town where the hellish revelry was now in full blast. The things she witnessed and heard were enough to appall the stoutest heart that ever beat within the rudest breast. She forgot her own danger in her sympathy for the suffering inhabitants of the devoted town. Ghastly pale and sick with horror, she tottered and staggered as she entered the room. As for the Señora Agapida, she had collapsed long since, and for the last one hundred yards of the journey had been dragged helplessly along by two of her captors, who threw her in a senseless heap on the stone flagging of the great vaulted chamber.
The agony and suffering, the torture and death, the shame and dishonor of his people affected Alvarado differently. His soul flamed within his breast with pity for the one, rage for the other. He lusted and thirsted to break away and single-handed rush upon the human wolves and tigers, who were despoiling women, torturing men, murdering children, as if they had been devils. The desire mastered him, and he writhed and struggled in his bonds, but unavailingly.
It was a haggard, distracted pair, therefore, which was brought before the chief buccaneer. Morgan sat at the head of the guardroom, on a platform, a table before him strewn with reckless prodigality with vessels of gold and silver stolen from altar and sideboard indifferently, some piled high with food, others brimming with a variety of liquors, from the rich old wines of Xeres to the fiery native rum. On one side of the captain was a woman. Pale as a ghost, the young and beautiful widow of a slaughtered officer, in her disordered array she shrank terrified beneath his hand. L'Ollonois, Teach and de Lussan were also in the room. By each one cowered another woman prisoner. Teach was roaring out a song, that song of London town, with its rollicking chorus:
"Though life now is pleasant and sweet to the sense,
We'll be damnably moldy a hundred years hence."
The room was full of plunder of one sort and another, and the buccaneers were being served by frightened negro slaves, their footsteps quickened and their obedience enforced by the sight of a dead black in one corner, whom de Lussan had knifed a short time since because he had been slow in coming to his call. The smell of spilled liquor, of burnt powder, and of blood, indescribable and sickening, hung in the close, hot air. Lamps and candles were flaring and spluttering in the room but the greater illumination came through the open casements from the roaring fires of burning houses outside. The temptation to join in the sack of the town had been too much for Hornigold's remaining men, consequently he and those conveying Señora Agapida alone attended the prisoners. These last, after throwing the duenna recklessly upon the floor, hurried out after the rest, leaving the officers and women alone.
"Silence!" roared Morgan, as his eye fell upon the group entering the lower end of the great hall. "Pipe down, thou bellowing bull!" he shouted, throwing a silver cup that Cellini might have chased, at the head of the half drunken Teach. "Who's there? Scuttle me, 'tis our spitfire and the gallant captain, with that worthy seaman Hornigold! Advance, friends. Thou art welcome to our cheer. Drive them forward, Hornigold," he cried, as he saw Mercedes and Alvarado made no attempt to move.