With Drake on the Spanish Main

by Herbert Strang

He sent one of the maroons up the path to keep watch on the enemy, and another to cross the gully, clamber up the opposite face, and hide among the trees there to give notice of an approach from the north-east. The other maroons, with several of the Englishmen, he set to fortify the extremity of the ledge with a wall of branches, so that the party might be screened from gunshot on the far side. Turnpenny, with the strongest of the mariners, went down to the pinnace, and at the cost of great exertion brought up the falcon and rabinets which formed, with the addition of a saker, her armament. The saker was a muzzle-loader weighing more than half a ton, and too cumbrous to be hauled up the steep cliff; but the falcon was less than half that weight, and the two rabinets weighed only three hundred pounds apiece. The falcon was seven feet long, had a bore of two and a half inches, and threw a shot of three pounds weight, with a similar weight of powder. The rabinet was only two and a half feet in length, its bore was one inch, and its shot weighed only half a pound. Both guns had a point-blank range of from a hundred and twenty to a hundred and fifty yards, and, mounted on the ledge, in embrasures of the extemporized wall, they would prove very effective weapons of defence.

While the guns were being hauled into position, others of the men brought buckets of water, filled at the cliff stream, and emptied them into the casks which during the months spent on the island by Dennis and the sailors had been depleted of the stores they had held when brought from the hold of the Maid Marian. Two casks still remained full of cider, but this having gone sour in the heat, it was poured away, the casks were swilled out, and re-filled with water. It was fortunate that a pure spring welled in the cliff, for the water of the rivulet draining the marsh was unfit for drinking.

All the men worked with a will. They knew not as yet how many the enemy numbered, but since there were three vessels, of which each, if fully manned, might contain from forty to seventy men, they had to reckon with a force that might be from a hundred and twenty to more than two hundred strong. The odds were tremendously against them. All told, they numbered only twenty-six, of whom six were maroons. But they had only two courses open to them: to fight, and at least sell their lives dearly, or to yield, and be shot or hanged or haled away to a slavery worse than death. Not one of them hesitated in his choice.

As a last resort, Dennis had the cave to fall back upon; but he was loath to retire to it until he had made a good fight at the gully, for while, from the ledge on which his hut stood, he could command the entrance of the gully, and to some extent protect the pinnace, the cave was deeper in the cliff and out of sight, and however strenuously the party might defend itself there, the pinnace would then be at the mercy of the enemy. It was true that, even if the pinnace were carried away or destroyed, a canoe could be dug out by the maroons, so that they would still have a means of leaving the island; but Dennis was determined to sail the Minion back to Port Diego and to Francis Drake.

Midday came, and passed. The maroons had finished their wall; the guns were mounted and charged; the water-casks were filled: and still there was no sign of the enemy. But the scouts had not returned, and Dennis began to feel somewhat uneasy. What were the Spaniards doing?

"Have we left aught undone, think you?" he said to Turnpenny, as they sat on upturned tubs eating their dinner.

"Nowt, sir, as I can see. But methinks 't'ud be well to withdraw the muzzles of our guns somewhat. If the knaves come on t'other side and spy them, they may sheer off and seek some other way of troubling us; and I would that they came to close quarters here, where we can strike them down."

"'Tis good counsel. Not perceiving the guns they will be the more emboldened to attack us, and 'twere well we have occasion to teach them a sound lesson."

Accordingly the guns were withdrawn so that their muzzles did not project from the other side of the wall. Hardly had this been done when the nose of a boat was seen shooting round the shoulder of the cliff.

"Lookeedesee!" cried Turnpenny. "The knaves that followed us did assuredly go back to their comrades and tell them of the gully and the path downwards, and they have sent their cock-boat to spy the place from the sea."