“Agreed!” exclaimed Dick. “We will leave here as soon as the darkness is deep enough to conceal our movements; and we will begin our voyage by slipping across the bay and going out to sea by way of the channel at the back of the island of Baru, by which means we shall reach the open sea some twenty-five miles south of Cartagena, and so avoid the risk of being seen and informed upon by any of the local fishing boats. I would that I had one of Mr Bascomb’s charts with me; but as I haven’t we must e’en do without it and trust to memory. I have some recollection of having seen a river of some importance marked on the chart not very far south of this; and if we hug the shore pretty closely we can scarcely fail to find it.”
This matter settled, they proceeded to take stock of their possessions, which totalled as follows: a pair of pistols each, the locks of which had fortunately been fitted with new flints immediately before the disastrous attempt to force a way to the Inquisition at Cartagena; two powder horns full of powder; thirty bullets each, together with a considerable quantity of greased rags to serve as wadding; a good, serviceable hanger, each; and last, but not least, the splendid sword which Dick had taken from the Spanish cavalier during the fight in the square. These, the clothes which they stood up in, and the boat in which they had made their escape, were all that they possessed in the world; and thus scantily provided these two young men were calmly about to plunge into the very heart of a hostile country, of which they knew nothing, in search of fortune! Truly was it said of these men and their contemporaries that “they feared God and naught else!” and it was they who laid the foundations of that greatness among the nations of the world which Britain enjoys to-day. May she have the wisdom to retain it!
All day the two fugitives lay in their place of concealment, resting and otherwise preparing for a wakeful and busy night; and when at length the sun plunged down into the western sea in a transient blaze of glory, and the sea breeze began to die away, they cautiously pushed out from underneath their leafy screen and proceeded to paddle quietly down the little cove toward the south bay, which they reached just as the last of the daylight was fading out of the sky and the stars were beginning to twinkle out, one after the other, in swift succession, in the great purple dome of heaven above. The evanescent twilight now shrouded everything in mystery; a few boats could be seen moving about here and there, but only by the lingering golden light in the western sky reflected gleamingly from the ripple of bow or paddle, and the fugitives passed across the bay and entered the narrow channel between the island of Baru and the main, just as the first soft breathings of the land wind began to make themselves felt. To these they gladly spread their sail—for paddling was rather too warm work to be agreeable—and went gliding easily and pleasantly along, closely hugging the weather shore, for the sake of the smooth water and the deep shadow afforded by the mangroves that thickly lined the beach.
They had reached thus along the shore for about an hour and a half when a sudden brightening of the sky to the eastward heralded the rising of the moon; and presently the orb, now nearly at the full, sailed up over the tops of the trees which lined the shore, and flooded the entire scene with her soft orange radiance. And the first thing upon which the eyes of the fugitives fell was a large galley lying at anchor right in the middle of the fairway, scarcely a mile ahead. There were no lights visible on board her; but the frequent flash of the moonlight upon polished steel showed that someone at least, probably a sentinel, was moving and presumably on the watch on board her.
Now arose the question: What was to be done? Should they stand boldly on and take the risk of being challenged; or should they run the boat ashore and take to the woods? Everything depended upon the question of what was the galley’s business just there, of all places in the world; and it did not take the Englishmen long to make up their minds that in all probability she had been stationed there to keep a lookout for them, as the passage out at the back of Baru was so obviously the one that would be most likely to be taken by people anxious to escape from Cartagena by water. If that were the case they could not possibly hope to slip past the craft unchallenged, for the moon was every moment soaring higher into the sky and more clearly lighting up the scene, and especially the surface of the water. And if they were challenged and, refusing to reply, attempted to escape, what hope of success had they? Absolutely none! Therefore they put down their helm, hove the boat about, and headed in for the land.
If any doubt remained in their minds as to the character and intentions of the galley, it was speedily dissipated, for they had scarcely got their boat round upon the other tack when a musket was discharged on board the craft, and a hail was faintly heard pealing across the water from her, and some two minutes later a ruddy flash succeeded by a puff of smoke leapt from her forecastle, followed, a second or two later, by the splash of a heavy shot in the water a dozen yards or so astern of the boat. Five breathless minutes followed for the fugitives, and then a whole forest of oars suddenly sprang from the galley’s sides, plunged into the water, and she was under way, heading straight after the boat.
“Shall we do it, Dick, think you?” demanded Stukely, as he peered anxiously under the foot of the sail.
“Yes,” answered Dick, “if the wind holds. Blow, good breezes, blow!” he murmured, and began to whistle softly. Suddenly he sat more upright in the boat and gazed eagerly ahead.
“Look ahead and all along past our weather bow, Phil,” he said. “Is my sight deceiving me, or do I see a number of water channels running into the land there? To me it looks as though there was an indentation of some sort, like—well, like the mouth of a river choked with islands, away ahead of us. And, if so, we are saved, for it will be strange indeed if we cannot dodge the galley among those islands—even if she can get in among them,” he added. “For unless I am very greatly mistaken the water shoals close inshore of us. Do you notice how smooth it is?”
“I do,” said Stukely. “I humbly hope it may not be too shoal for us as well as for the galley. All right, fire away,” he continued, apostrophising the galley; “fire away and waste your powder! You will have to shoot a good deal better than that to hit us.” For the people in the galley were loading and firing in feverish haste, evidently anxious to hit the boat before she should reach the shelter of the islands, now less than a quarter of a mile ahead.