The Queen's Cup

by G. A. Henty

"Dominique had to go round with me. The captain evidently did not want to give him a chance of speaking to anyone. The mate and two of the sailors posted themselves at the gangway, so that the two blacks should not be able to talk to the niggers on board. And now, sir, what is to be done next?"

"We will go below and talk it over, captain.

"You come down, too, George. Yes, and Dominique. He may be useful.

"Now, Hawkins," he went on, when they had taken their seats at the table, "of course, I have been thinking it over all the morning, and I have come to the conclusion that our only chance now is to fight them with their own weapons. As long as we lie here there is no chance whatever of Miss Greendale being brought on board again, so the chase now has got to be carried on on land. If we go to work the right way, there is no reason why we should not be able to trace her. I propose to take Lechmere and Dominique and the four black boatmen. If we stain our faces a little, and put on a pair of duck trousers, white shirts, red sashes, and these broad straw hats I bought at San Domingo, we shall look just like the half-caste planters we saw in the streets there. I should take Pedro, too, but you will want him to translate anything you have to say to Jake.

"I propose that as soon as it is dark tonight we muffle the oars of the dinghy, and row away and land lower down, say a mile or so; and then make off up into the hills before tomorrow morning. Dominique will try to find out something by inquiring at some of the huts of the blacks. They are not likely to know, but if he offers them a handsome reward to obtain news for him, they will go down to the villages and ferret out something. The people there would not be likely to know where they have been taken, but they would be able to point out the direction in which they went on starting. Then we could follow that up, and inquire again.

"We might take a couple of the villagers with us. Belonging here, they would have more chance of getting news from other blacks than strangers would have."

"Don't you think, sir, that it would be as well to have four or five men with you?" Hawkins said. "There is no doubt this fellow that you are after is a desperate chap, and he may have got a strong body of these blacks as a guard. He might suspect that, after having pursued him all this way, you might try to follow him on land. You could put the men in hiding somewhere every day while you were making inquiries, and they would be mighty handy if it came to fighting, which it seems to me it is pretty sure to do before you see the lady off."

"Well, perhaps it would be best, Hawkins; and, as you say, by keeping them hid all day I don't see that they could increase our difficulties. But then, you see, you will want all your hands here; for if the brigantine sails, whether by night or day, you are to sail too, and to keep close to her wherever she goes. It is not likely that Carthew and Miss Greendale will be on board, but he may very well send orders down to the brigantine to get up the anchor. He would know that we should stick to her, as Miss Greendale might have been taken on board again at night. In that way he would get rid of us from here, and would calculate that we should get tired of following the brigantine in time, or that she would be able to give us the slip, and would then make for some place where he could join her again. So my orders to you will be to stick to her, but not to interfere with her in any way, unless, by any chance, you should discover that Miss Greendale is really on board. In that case I authorise you to board and capture her. They won't have the blacks on board, and as the wounded are going on all right, and three of them, anyhow, will be able to lend a hand in a couple of days, you will be a match for them; especially as they will soon make up their minds that you don't mean to attack them, and you will get a chance of running alongside and taking them by surprise."

"Well, sir, I think that we can do that with four hands less than we have now. You see, there are nineteen and the two mates and myself. Say two of the wounded won't be able to lend a hand, that makes us twenty, to say nothing of Jake and Pedro. So, even if you took four hands, we should be pretty even in numbers; and if our men could not each whip two Belgians, they had better give up the sea."

"Yes, I have no doubt that they could do that, and were it not for Carthew and his friend I would not hesitate to take eight men. I don't know about the other, but you may be sure that Carthew will fight hard. He is playing a desperate game. Still, I think that I might take four, especially as I think the chance of Miss Greendale's being brought on board, until he believes that we have left these waters, is very small.