The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer

by Harry Collingwood

These feelings he had wit enough to understand he must conceal from George and the alcalde, and he contrived to do so pretty successfully; but the effort only caused them to gall and rankle the more intolerably, and when, at the termination of his interview with them, he quitted their presence with a certain scarcely veiled hint of insolence in his manner, he was in the throes of a perfect frenzy of anger and humiliation; in the precise frame of mind, in fact, as that of the man who, forgetting everything but his own grievances, is ready to commit any crime, however atrocious, in order to avenge himself and salve his wounded feelings. Too often, unhappily, reflection does not come until it is too late, and the crime has been perpetrated, and Don Manuel’s first impulse was to muster his soldiers, follow after the Englishmen, and slay them, if possible, before they should reach the Inquisition building. But as he hurried toward the barracks with this fell intention, he realised that what he meditated was impossible; before he could muster his soldiers and put them upon the track, the Englishmen would have reached their goal; and once within the massive walls of the building, they would be safe. But there was no reason, he told himself, why they should not be attacked as they came out—and here his meditations came to a sudden halt. There was a very good reason, which was that, even if his meditated attack should prove successful, only a paltry dozen of Englishmen would fall, and their comrades would remain to wreak a terrible retribution, in the course of which he, among others, would have to pay the full penalty. No, that would not do at all; it was not that Don Manuel Rebiera was a coward; very far from it; but with the speed of thought he pictured to himself the happenings that must inevitably follow the perpetration of an act of such base treachery as he meditated; he saw in imagination the execution of the hostages—among whom, he suddenly remembered, were one or two very dear friends of his own; the bombardment of the town, with the concomitant slaughter of women and children as well as men; the exasperation of the citizens at the author of the deed which had brought such a frightful calamity upon them, and his own arrest and summary execution. No; that would not do; he was not in the least afraid to face death in fair fight, but to be arrested by his own countrymen, handed over by them to the hated English, and publicly hanged by the latter from one of the yard-arms of their ship—No; he could not face that ignominy.

Then what was to be done—for something he was determined to do? He somehow found his way back to the private room in his quarters, and there, flinging himself into a chair, set himself to think. And gradually from out the chaos of his thoughts there emerged an idea, a plan, a mad, desperate plan that, if successful, would mean the destruction or capture of the Nonsuch and every Englishman aboard her, which was what Rebiera wanted; while, if it failed—! But it must not, should not fail; no, he would see to that. So presently he took pen and paper, and proceeded to jot down his plan of campaign, altering its details here and there as he went on, until finally he had evolved a scheme that commended itself to him as eminently satisfactory. Then he proceeded to jot down a number of names of persons whose co-operation it was necessary to secure; and, this done, he called for an orderly, who forthwith proceeded to ride hither and thither about the city, calling at this house and that and leaving instructions that the persons whom he named were to present themselves without fail at the Commandant’s office at a certain hour, namely, four o’clock in the afternoon, which just gave the Commandant nice time to complete his plans before the arrival of the persons whom he had summoned to meet him.

And in due time, with very commendable punctuality, those persons turned up and were ushered into the Commandant’s private office. There were some thirty of them in all, and when the whole of them were present Don Manuel proceeded to address them, at first in quick, tense tones, which gradually changed to the fiery, impassioned language and gestures characteristic of an invocation. For a man of his parts he was rather an able orator, moreover he was more profoundly stirred than, probably, he had ever before been in the whole course of his life. It is not to be greatly wondered at, therefore, that before he ended he had wrought his audience up to almost as high a pitch of ferocity and enthusiasm as himself; and when at length he reached his peroration and concluded by making a certain demand, the men who had hitherto sat listening to him sprang to their feet with one accord and vowed, by all they held sacred, that they would obey him and perform his behest, or die in the attempt. And they were all resolute, determined men, too, of the seafaring class, who looked as though they might be safely counted upon to keep their word; wherefore, as soon as their excitement had subsided sufficiently to permit of a return to business, Don Manuel drew toward him a bundle of documents which he had already prepared, and which were, in fact, temporary commissions, and distributed them, one to each man present. Then, selecting a particular memorandum from a number which were lying upon his desk, and referring to it for guidance from time to time, he proceeded to give specified instructions to each person, who, having received them, at once rose and bowed himself out, by which arrangement the party gradually dissolved and left the building one man at a time, thus reducing to a minimum the chances of attracting undue attention.

The afternoon was well advanced when at length George Saint Leger and his party returned to the Nonsuch, and handed over to Jack Chichester, the surgeon, the three human wrecks whom they had rescued from the clutches of the Inquisition, with special instructions that no pains were to be spared, no trouble to be regarded as too great, nothing that the ship contained too precious for the mitigation of their suffering and, as all hoped, their ultimate restoration to something approaching as nearly as might be to perfect health. It was pitiful to witness the almost incredulous joy and transport manifested by the unfortunates at finding themselves once more in the midst of their fellow-countrymen, and especially of men who spoke in the accents of that beloved Devon whose scented orchards, winding lanes, swelling moors, and lonely tors they had utterly despaired of ever again beholding. But they were sturdy fellows, too, and even broken down as they were, with their strength sapped and their courage almost quelled by long months of protracted agony and privation, they quickly recovered spirit when once they found themselves outside the gloomy precincts of the Inquisition building; and though, despite the utmost precaution and the most tender care in getting them out of the boat and up the ship’s lofty side, the pain they suffered in the process must have been excruciating, they made light of it, declaring, with a laugh that moved those who heard it to tears—so hollow and pathetic was it—that such pain was less than nothing compared with the awful long-drawn-out torments to which they had almost grown accustomed!

And if the three rescued Englishmen were glad to find themselves once more, against all hope, delivered from the power of their tormentors, and comparatively safe under the shelter of the glorious Cross of Saint George, the hostages who had most unwillingly remained on board the English ship to insure the good faith of their countrymen—in which, if the truth must be told, they had no very profound belief—were scarcely less so when they saw the little party of adventurers return in safety from their desperate errand; for that return meant that one great danger at least had been safely passed, and surely now they might rely upon the citizens of San Juan to do nothing foolish. So they plucked up heart of grace, and became quite cheery and affable with the Englishmen until Heard, the purser, rather maliciously reminded them that the matter of the indemnity still remained unsettled and that many things might happen before the citizens consented to part with such an enormous sum of money. And the hostages would have felt very much more disconcerted at his remark than they actually were, had they dreamed that the Englishman was speaking truer than he knew.

By the time that the excitement attendant upon the safe return of the Captain and his escort had begun to simmer down a little, night had fallen, and those who were not on duty began to think of retiring to rest, for the day had been a long and rather trying one to all hands, and especially so to those who had been of the shore-going party. But George did not forget, nor would he allow anyone else on board to forget, that the ship was in a hostile port, surrounded on all sides by enemies; and that although, for the moment, a truce prevailed, nobody could possibly say how long that truce might last, or at what moment it might be broken. He reminded his compatriots that the harbour of San Juan de Ulua, where they now lay, was the scene of that act of stupendous treachery which it was a part of their business to avenge; he pointed out that it was the very people who now surrounded them who had perpetrated that act of treachery and were therefore quite capable of perpetrating another if they believed that they saw the opportunity to do so successfully, and he drew their attention to the fact that although, thank God, they had a sound ship under them, they were very much fewer in numbers than those who were the victims of the tragedy of a year ago, and were consequently at least as tempting a mark as those others had been; and finally he issued his commands that the same watches should be maintained as though the ship were at sea, and that the utmost vigilance should be observed by the look-outs and especially by the officers, that the ordnance should be kept loaded, that no man should lay aside his arms, even to sleep; and that, lastly, if any craft or boat of any kind were seen to be approaching the ship during the hours of darkness, she was to be first challenged, and then fired upon if she did not immediately reply.

The night fell dark and overcast, with a brisk easterly breeze and occasional heavy rain squalls, taxing the vigilance of the look-outs to the utmost, and causing young Saint Leger to frequently quit his cabin to personally assure himself that his instructions were being carried out in their entirety. But nothing in the slightest degree suspicious was observed until shortly after three o’clock in the morning, when Dyer, the pilot, whose watch it then was, suddenly presented himself at the door of George’s cabin with the startling intimation that two of the plate ships, if not three, seemed to have slipped their cables and were getting under way. “There baint a light to be seed aboard any of ’em,” he reported, “and it’s so dark as Tophet, but I be certain sure that two of they ships is settin’ their canvas, and there be another that, to my mind, be adrift.”

“But how can that be, when we have the officers of the ships aboard here?” demanded George as he sprang from his cot and followed Dyer out on deck.

“Don’t know, I’m sure,” answered Dyer; “but it’s a fact that some of ’em be gettin’ under way.”

As the pair emerged from the poop cabin, they were met by Drew, the boatswain, who reported: