“Ten thousand pardons, your Excellency,” exclaimed Montalvo, still grinning delightedly. “It was not so much the Englishman’s threats at which I was amused—although I think we may perhaps permit ourselves to smile at them, too; what I was chiefly amused at was the stroke of genius by which I have fortunately been able to save our city from sack by those pestilent English to-day.”
“You—you have saved Nombre from being sacked to-day?” exclaimed Don Sebastian. “Still I fail to understand you, señor.”
“Did you not observe, your Excellency, that, in reply to a question by the young English pirate, I mentioned that the cavalry from Panama might be expected to appear here at any moment? That was a little slip of the tongue on my part, the result of a happy inspiration. Had I replied truthfully I should have said that the cavalry could hardly by any possibility arrive until some time to-morrow; and the result of that reply would in all probability have been an instant order by that young English dog to sack the city, which work might easily be accomplished before the appearance of the cavalry upon the scene. But did you mark the expression of Señor Englishman’s face when I said that the cavalry might be expected at any moment? It was terror, your Excellency—terror and consternation! And the result is an order for the instant evacuation of this battery and the retreat of the English from the town. That youngster at once recognised that if the cavalry were close at hand there would be no time to sack the town: he and his people would be caught and exterminated to a man. Hence his magnanimous resolve to spare us for the time being. Now does your Excellency understand?”
“Ah! yes; of course I do, and I beg your pardon for my hasty rebuke, Montalvo,” exclaimed Don Sebastian, seizing his companion’s hand and shaking it heartily. “Caramba! that was a brilliant idea of yours about the cavalry, and it has had the effect that you foresaw; the rascally Englishmen are much too anxious regarding the safety of their own skins to think of plundering the town now; and, please the Virgin, in a few hours we shall be well rid of them, and I shall have escaped getting into very serious trouble—thanks to you, Montalvo. You have placed me under a very heavy obligation, my friend, and I shall not forget it.
“But there is still the future to be thought of. It is true that we have escaped by the skin of our teeth for the moment, Montalvo; for the moment only. But if I am any judge of character, that English muchacho will return, as he threatened he would; and then what are we going to do?”
“Sufficient unto the day is the evil, your Excellency,” answered Montalvo, “and we shall have time enough to think of that when these dogs have gone. Did you notice what the boy captain said? He will return again, but not until the soldiers now expected have been withdrawn from the town. Well, it must be your care, Excellency, that the soldiers shall not be withdrawn from Nombre until the patience of these English pirates has become thoroughly exhausted, and they have taken themselves off elsewhere—precisely where they go is a matter that need not concern us so long as it is sufficiently far from Nombre. And while we are enjoying the protection of the soldiers it must be our business to so strengthen the defences of the town that—Madre de Dios! what is happening now?”
The worthy secretary might well exclaim, for his illuminating discourse was at this moment broken in upon and interrupted by a series of deafening explosions of so violent a character that they set the very walls of the building trembling. They were caused by the bursting of the cannon mounted in the battery, and the blowing-up of the defences which Basset had devised and caused to be constructed with so much labour, and the destruction of which Saint Leger had ordered as a preliminary to his abandonment of the place. The Governor and his secretary had scarcely recovered from the consternation engendered by those alarming explosions when George appeared with the information that they were now free to leave the battery and return to Government House whenever they pleased; and the two Spaniards were still painfully scrambling through and over the débris of the destroyed defences, on their way back to the town, when they saw the Englishmen jump into their boats and push off from the beach.
It was long after sundown on that same day when the anxious watchers on board the Nonsuch, anchored in that tiny unsuspected harbour, heard the roll and splash of oars sounding from the seaward of them, and were soon afterward greeted with a hail which told them that their comrades, as to whose safety they were beginning to feel somewhat anxious, were returning; and a few minutes later the boats were alongside and a general reunion had taken place.
It was too late to do anything further that night, apart from the fact that the returned ones were pretty thoroughly tired out by the time that they had shaken down and had their supper; but on the following morning George, Dyer and a guard of two men were landed upon the beach and forthwith proceeded to make the best of their way to the Cimarrone village ruled over by the chief named Lukabela.
As it chanced, the chief was “at home” when they reached the village, and he accorded his visitors a very cordial welcome. He was highly amused and delighted when he learned that the English had held the city of Nombre at their mercy for five days, but looked both puzzled and disgusted when he learned that they had left the place as they found it, without sacking the city, exacting a ransom, or making the Spaniards suffer in any way; for the Cimarrones hated the Spaniards with a hatred that was perfectly fiendish, and woe betide any Spaniard or body of Spaniards whose evil fortune it was to fall into their hands. Death was the least of the evils that any man, woman or child of Spanish blood had to fear at the hands of the ferocious Cimarrones. But he brightened up again when he learned that the young English captain had hatched a particularly audacious scheme, in the execution of which he besought Lukabela’s assistance.