With Drake on the Spanish Main

by Herbert Strang

"Come with Haymoss, to be sure, sir. You and me, Haymoss——"

"The words of my dream again, sir!" cried Amos in excitement. "There be summat in your mind, sir; tell it out, and, souls all, lend an ear."

And then Dennis unfolded a scheme which Juan's report and Turnpenny's suggestion had set working in his mind. For some minutes the little group around him hung breathlessly upon his quiet words; then Turnpenny exclaimed—

"We'll do it, we will so, and be jowned if the knaves will not wish themselves anywhere but on Maiden Isle. Come, my hearts, the sky is black and lowering: 'tis the very time o' night for our intent, and with God's help we will prosper in our doings."

And then the rough seaman fell on his knees, and with clasped hands recited the prayer for help in time of need, and every man of the little company responded with a low fervent "Amen!"

Half an hour later, Turnpenny, with Copstone, Juan, and a second maroon, bade farewell to his comrades and clambered down into the second cave. When they were on the farther side of the dividing rock, their weapons, with four belts packed full of grape shot from the stores of the Maid Marian, were handed down to them, and after a final "God speed!" from Dennis they started on the way to the sea.

An hour passed—an hour during which the rest of the company sat in hushed expectancy, scarcely speaking a word. One of the maroons had pushed his way through the heap of loose earth piled at the mouth of the cave, and crawled stealthily to the ledge, where he crouched amid the ruins of the sheds. Presently, from the opposite cliff, came a slight booming sound like the cry of a night beetle. The maroon, invisible in the black shade of the cliff, crept back to the cave. Immediately afterwards the whole company, man by man, crossed into the inner cave, the two men most seriously wounded being lifted up one side of the pillar, and lowered gently down the other. Dennis leading, with Mirandola close behind, they made their way by torch-light down the sloping floor, then, extinguishing the torch, crawled out at the narrow aperture, and, after Dennis had taken a careful look round, stood up, a silent band of twenty-one, on the sea-shore. The two men whose wounds forbade exertion were left in a sheltered spot below the bank; then the rest followed Dennis up through the vegetation, in single file. It was so dark that no man could see the man before him, but each one grasped the caliver of the man ahead, thus guiding themselves through the jungle.

Up they went, quietly, almost as surely as if it were broad daylight, for Dennis knew every foot of the way, which he had trodden many times since that day long before when he had begun his exploration of the island. Winding in and out, he came at length by a long circuit to the high ground approaching the southern bank of the gully. And there he halted. Through the trees before him he saw the watch-fires, dying low, of the enemy encamped on the clearing beyond. All was silent. If any sentinels were awake, they were not conversing. The camp was as quiet as though it were an abode of the dead.

Suddenly the deep silence was broken by the boom of a beetle. It died away. So natural a sound was it that the Spanish sentinels, if any were on guard, would never have suspected that it came from the throat of a maroon. Even Dennis's company might have been deceived had they not known that the sound had been made by one of themselves, the maroon at their leader's side.

Scarcely had it died away when two sharp cracks rent the air from some point beyond the camp. Then came an instant change over the scene—a change which Amos and Tom Copstone had fired to bring about. A loud cry rang out in the camp, followed by a din of many voices and the clash of arms. Some one cast fuel on one of the fires, and the flame, leaping up, shone on a camp in commotion; men were hurrying this way and that, calling to their fellows excitedly. What was this that had disturbed their slumbers? Was some one signalling to them from the vessel out at sea? Could it be that El Draque had sailed up out of the night?