The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer

by Harry Collingwood

“But, señor, with all submission, this is an outrage,” expostulated the Spaniard. “I cannot surrender my sword to a stranger who declines to give me his name, and produces no authority for his actions.”

“This is my authority,” exclaimed George, suddenly whipping out his sword with a nourish. “Will you submit to it, or must I resort to sterner measures?”

“I submit, of course,” replied the Spaniard, “seeing that your party is much the stronger of the two. But I do so under protest; and I warn you, señor, that my Government will speedily avenge this outrage, which is worthy only of— Ha! now I know who you are. You are an Englishman—possibly that thrice-accursed corsair, Drake, who, last year, at San Juan de Ulua—”

“You are mistaken, señor; I am not Drake; nor does it matter who I am,” retorted George. “Come, señors, your swords, if you please, for I have little time to waste. Simons—and Way,” to two of his men, “relieve those gentlemen of their swords. A thousand thanks, gentlemen,” as the Spaniards surrendered their weapons. “Now do me the favour to accompany me; and please remember that any man who attempts to escape will instantly be shot down.”

So saying, George, with his drawn sword in his right hand and his left resting suggestively upon the butt of one of the pistols that adorned his belt, led the way toward the little settlement, wondering meanwhile what could possibly be the explanation of certain whiffs of a singularly vile and offensive odour which now and then assailed his nostrils when there occurred an occasional flaw in the trade-wind which was sweeping briskly over the island. He might, of course, have asked, but the thought occurred to him that by doing so he might perhaps be betraying his ignorance, and so lay himself open to the chance of being misled upon a matter that might very well be of importance. A little later on he was very glad that he had held his peace.

A walk of a few minutes’ duration brought the party to the settlement, whereupon George called a halt and directed three of his men to follow him into the first house they came to, and the rest to keep a wary eye upon the prisoners. The building was a small wooden affair, consisting of three rooms only, two of which were sleeping apartments, while the third was furnished with a table, a sideboard, a couch, and a few chairs, and was evidently used as a sitting-room. There was nobody in the house, but upon passing through it to the rear they discovered a small detached structure, the odours proceeding from which seemed to suggest that it was being used as a kitchen. There they found a young Indian woman bending over a fire and preparing a savoury mess of some sort; and it was not without difficulty that they at length made her understand she was a prisoner, and must abandon her cookery and accompany them. In like manner they visited all the remaining houses of the settlement, collecting altogether two white women and some twenty blacks, as well as a priest, the whole of whom, together with their other prisoners, they unceremoniously marched to the little church, locking them therein, and so making prisoners of every soul in the settlement. Then, having posted half a dozen men round the church, to see that nobody broke out, George led the way to the big shed, which was the most conspicuous building in the settlement. Entering it, he found that it was divided into two unequal compartments, the smaller of which contained a few casks of wine, a few bales of cloth of different kinds, and a miscellaneous assortment of goods, evidently intended for the use of the settlers. Then, passing from this into the larger compartment, he at once became aware of a faint suggestion of the same peculiar and offensive odour that had assailed his nostrils while walking up from the beach, and, looking more closely, he found that it proceeded from an enormous heap of something piled high against the further wall, which, upon investigation, he found to be a kind of oyster-shell, the interior of which was more or less thickly coated with a beautiful white, iridescent substance. At once he understood the meaning of everything. Those shells were shells of the pearl oyster; the settlement was a subsidiary pearl-fishing station; and the odour which had so offended him was the odour of decaying oysters laid out to rot in the sun in order that the pearls might be extracted without injury from the dead fish. And it had apparently dawned upon somebody that the shells, as well as the pearls, possessed a market value, and this was where they were being stored after being cleansed from the decayed fish.

But if that enormous heap consisted entirely of pearl oyster-shells, as it unquestionably did, where were the pearls that had been extracted from them? George glanced round the sombre interior, lighted by only one open aperture guarded by a heavily framed shutter, and saw two large boxes dimly revealed in one shadowy corner of the store. He strode across to these, and, flinging them open, stood transfixed with amazement; for one box—the larger of the two—was three-fourths full of small pearls of the kind usually known as seed pearls, while the other was nearly half full of lovely gems of the most exquisite satiny whiteness, ranging in size from that of a small pea up to beauties as big as the top of a man’s thumb! What their value might be he had not the vaguest idea, but there were hundreds of them; ay, possibly a thousand or more, and he knew instinctively that if he never laid hands upon another particle of booty, the contents of those two boxes would pay the whole cost of the expedition and leave a very handsome margin over for prize money. The boxes were iron-bound, and were furnished with stout lids which were capable of being secured by means of strong padlocks which hung in the hasps, with the keys still in them. So, having satisfied his curiosity by closely examining a few of the finer specimens, George closed and locked both boxes, slipped the keys into his pocket, and then, going to the door, called to eight of his men, and, indicating the boxes, instructed the seamen to carry them down to the boats forthwith. Then, waiting until he had seen the task accomplished, he walked to the church door, unlocked and threw it open, and announced to the prisoners that they were now free to come forth and proceed about their business, adding that if they would walk down to the beach after he and his men were gone they would find their swords left for them upon the sand. This done, he gave orders for the men to march down to the boats, himself bringing up the rear.

As George quite expected, the cavalier in gorget and headpiece, who had met the Englishmen upon their arrival, and who seemed to be the officer in charge of the settlement, no sooner found himself free than he proceeded straight to the big shed, entered it, and a moment later re-appeared and came running after the retiring Englishmen.

“Señor,” he cried, as soon as he arrived within speaking distance, “you have taken our pearls, the proceeds of the entire fishing season up to the present, and the loss of them will mean to me irreparable ruin. I beg you to return them to me, señor, and in acknowledgment of your courtesy I pledge you the honour of a Spanish gentleman that I will remain silent as to your visit to this island. Otherwise I promise you that I will immediately spread the news of your presence in these waters, and of your atrocious act of piracy, throughout the length and breadth of the Spanish Main, with the result that you will be hunted by every Spanish ship of war in the Caribbean Sea, with consequences to yourself and your piratical crew which I leave to your own imagination to picture. Come, señor, I beg you to think better of this, and to return the pearls to me. You will find it pay you far better in the long run.”

“Señor,” retorted George, “if I understand you aright, you would buy back your pearls at the expense of your own countrymen in the various settlements scattered along the coast, by leaving them unwarned of my presence in these seas, so that I may have the opportunity to fall upon them unawares. If you are sincere in making this proposal, señor cavalier, you are a traitor to your own countrymen; if not, you have it in your mind to betray me and my crew. In either case your proposal smacks of treachery, and I will have none of it. Now, mark you this, señor. You are at perfect liberty to take whatever steps you please to warn your countrymen of my presence in the region which Spain arrogantly claims as exclusively her own. And you will be doing your compatriots a service by acquainting them with the reason for my presence here.