“Ah, señor, it is easy to see that you are a stranger to these waters, or you would not need to ask for information respecting that fiend Morillo,” answered the Spaniard. “He is a cruel, avaricious, and bloodthirsty pirate, sparing neither man nor woman, friend nor foe. But little is really known about him, señor, for those who meet him rarely survive to tell the tale; but there have been one or two who, by a miracle, have escaped him, and it is from them that we have gained the knowledge that it is better to perish by his shot than to fall alive into his hands.”
“Is the vessel by means of which he perpetrates his piracies a brigantine, very handsome, and wonderfully fast?” I inquired, suddenly bethinking me of poor Captain Tucker and his story.
“Certainly, señor, that answers perfectly to the description of the accursed Guerrilla. Have you seen her of late? But no, of course you have not, or you would not now be here; for Morillo is said to be especially vindictive against the English, inflicting the most atrocious tortures upon all who fall into his hands. In the dim light we at first mistook your schooner for the Guerrilla, and that is why we fired upon you as we did. Permit me, señor, to express my profound regret at my so unfortunate mistake, and my extreme gratification that it was not followed by a disastrous result.”
At this compliment we of course exchanged bows once more; after which I took the liberty of addressing to this very polite and polished skipper a few questions with regard to his ship, coupled with a hint that I was anxious to complete without delay my arrangements for placing a prize crew on board and bearing up for Jamaica.
Our prize, I then learned, was the Doña Dolores of Cadiz, a Spanish West Indiaman of eleven hundred and eighty-four tons register, homeward-bound from Cartagena, Maracaibo, and La Guayra, with a very valuable general cargo and twenty-eight passengers, ten of whom were ladies. Captain Manuel Fernandez—the skipper—was most polite, and anxious to meet my views in every way; at least, so he informed me. He conducted me into the ship’s handsome saloon and introduced me to his passengers,—the female portion of which seemed to be frightened nearly out of their wits,—and was kind enough to promise me that, if it would be agreeable to me, the whole of his people should assist my prize crew to work the ship. This suggestion, however, did not happen to be agreeable to me, so I was compelled to explain, as politely as I could phrase it, that my duty compelled me not only to decline his magnanimous offer, but to secure the whole of his crew, officers and men, below, and also to remove all arms of every description from the ship; after which, if he would give me his parole, it would afford me much pleasure to receive him as a guest on board the schooner. I could see that this was a bitter pill for the haughty don to swallow, but I was politely insistent, and so of course he had to yield, which he eventually did with the best grace he could muster; and an hour later the Dolores, with Christie, the master’s mate, in command, and ten of our lads as a prize crew, was bowling along before the wind with studding-sails set aloft and alow, while the Tern followed almost within hail; it being my intention to escort so valuable a prize into port, and thus take every possible precaution against her recapture.
Chapter Nine.
We encounter and fight the Guerrilla.
On the morning but one succeeding the capture of the Dolores,—the schooner and her prize then being some two hundred and forty miles to the westward of Dominica,—a sail was discovered at daybreak some twelve miles to the southward and westward of us, beating up against the trade wind, close-hauled upon the starboard tack; and a few minutes later she was made out to be a brigantine. We paid but scant attention to her at first, craft of her rig being frequently met with in the Caribbean, trading to and fro between the islands; but when the stranger, almost immediately after her rig had been identified, tacked to the northward, as though with the intention of getting a closer look at us, I at once scented an enemy, and, possessing myself of the telescope, forthwith made my way into the fore crosstrees for the purpose of subjecting her to a rigorous examination, wondering, meanwhile, whether by any adverse chance the stranger might eventually turn out to be the notorious pirate Morillo in his equally notorious brigantine the Guerrilla. I had no sooner got the craft fairly within the field of the instrument than I discovered my conjecture to be correct, a score of trifling details of rig and equipment becoming instantly recognisable as identical with similar peculiarities already noticed by me when I before saw the pirate vessel.