All would have gone well had they not fallen in with three large ships bound for Havannah, which, becoming suspicious, gave chase, and, as they were much faster vessels than the new-found prize of the buccaneers, they quickly overhauled it, battered at it with their guns, and before long had made the captors captives, with whom they set sail for Campechy.
Portugues had a reputation that was not warranted to make him loved in Campechy, and when he arrived there men lifted up their voices and cried:
“Behold, this is Bartholomew Portugues, the biggest scoundrel in the world, who has done more harm to Spanish trade than all the other pirates put together.” And in due course the governor, in the name of the King of Spain, sent soldiers, who took the buccaneer to another ship, where he was clapped into irons to await the morning—and the gallows, which were promptly erected. Bartholomew, made aware of the preparations being made in his honour, considered it necessary to do something on his own account for his safety. So in the night he freed himself from his shackles, and, being ingenious and a non-swimmer, fashioned strange water-wings, in the shape of a couple of leathern jars he found in his cabin. Then, having waited till silence on the ship told him that everyone was asleep—excepting, he surmised, the sentry at his door—he resolved to make a bid for freedom. The sentry he stabbed with a knife he had concealed, and then slipped over the ship’s side, clambered down the mainchains into the sea, and, supported by his jars, made his way to shore.
Into the woods he darted, and for three days hid there, on a diet of wild herbs, listening to the sounds of baying bloodhounds and angry citizens seeking him high and low. Fortunately for the buccaneer, his place of concealment was in a hollow tree partly covered by water, which put the bloodhounds off the scent.
In due course the searchers became convinced that the pirate had eluded them, and gave up the search, and Bartholomew decided it was safe to venture forth. He wanted to get to Gulfo Triste, 160 miles away, and thither he bent his steps. It was a long way and a weary way, and a hungry and thirsty way, too, for he had no provisions and little water. He came to rivers that he must cross, and he had no boats. He found a board with a few old nails in it, and out of these he fashioned crude knives, with which he laboriously cut down branches of trees, and made a raft by which to cross the rivers. Sometimes the rivers were fordable, but were filled with alligators. At these he flung stones to scare them away, and then sallied forth across the stream. Once a mangrove swamp lay between him and the place where he would fain go. There was no road; only the swamp, that would swallow him up if he put foot upon it. He solved the problem of progress by swinging from bough to bough of the mangrove, travelling for miles in that way. Truly, Bartholomew was a hardy traveller!
Thus for a whole fortnight the buccaneer kept on his lonely way, and at last reached Gulfo Triste, where he found what he had hoped would be there—a buccaneer ship, careening.
The pirates were friends of his, and he poured into their attentive ears the story of his adventures and misadventures. They listened even more attentively when he told them that, if they would help him, he would put in their way a ship that would enable them to brave any vessel that the Spanish Dons might send out against them; besides which it contained goodly treasures.
“Give me a boat and thirty men,” he said, “and I will go back to Campechy and bring back the ship that took me prisoner.”
His friends gave the boat and the men, and Bartholomew set out, hugging the coast, and eight days later came to Campechy. Then, under the cover of darkness, he put his boat alongside the great vessel, scrambled up her side, and prepared to rush. The sentry challenged him. Bartholomew, in Spanish, murmured soothingly that they were part of the crew returning, after an evening ashore, with smuggled goods, and the sentry kept quiet. He was quieter still soon, for a knife-thrust laid him low.
Then, with a rush, the buccaneers fell upon the watch, overpowered them, cut the cable and set the vessel adrift; after which they ran below. The sleeping crew awoke in a great fright, and, with pistols at their heads, were compelled to surrender.