With Drake on the Spanish Main

by Herbert Strang

Stroke by stroke the boat drew nearer to the ship. At length a voice hailed it, and a flare was kindled in the waist of the vessel for its guidance.

"Why do you return so late?" came the question in Spanish.

Turnpenny answered in passable Spanish, but in a muffled tone—

"Wait till we come aboard."

A few seconds later the boat came beneath the vessel's side and was made fast. The biggest of the maroons—he who had flung his axe at the Spaniard—got up and clambered aboard. On his back he bore a huge load of bananas. Close to his clanking heels swarmed a second man; before the first was well over the bulwarks a third was beginning the ascent, each carrying a similar bundle. The fourth man had but just set his foot on the rope ladder that hung over the side when there came to the ears of Dennis and the sailor, nervously awaiting their turn, the sound of altercation above. One of the Spaniards had bestowed a kick upon the foremost of the slaves, and, laughing loud, grabbed at the load of fruit upon his back. The maroon, instead of dropping his burden and cowering away, as was the wont of slaves, held firmly to it, and stepped back to avoid the Spaniard's clutch.

"You hound!" cried the man, with an oath, and snatched a knife from his belt.

Then, to his utter amazement, the maroon let his load fall indeed, contriving as he did so to rip out of it a shortened half-pike which was cunningly concealed there. The light of the torch fell on the naked steel. With a loud cry of rage the Spaniards who had been lolling on the vessel's side sprang towards the slave, cursing his audacity, shouting to their supposed comrades in the boat below to ask the meaning of this unheard-of act of mutiny. But he stood his ground, glaring upon them, holding his weapon to ward them off. And now at his side his three fellow-slaves were ranged, their bundles lying at their feet, glistening half-pikes in their hands. Yelling with fury the Spaniards, armed at the moment only with their knives, pressed forward to teach these mutineers a lesson. What access of madness had seized them? Where was the abject look of terror with which they usually shrank from their masters? What could the men in charge have been about? The Spaniards rushed to the fray with the violence of wrath and outraged bewilderment.

At this first moment the fight was not unequal. The six Spaniards who had been on deck found that with their knives they could not come to close quarters with the four stalwart maroons wielding half-pikes. The latter, moreover, had kicked off the fetters loosely set about their ankles, and moved with freedom. And while the Spaniards were shouting for their comrades in the cabin and, as they supposed, in the boat below to come to their aid, the numbers of the mutineers were suddenly augmented. At the first sound of the scuffle, Dennis and Turnpenny, each armed with a cutlass, had sprung on to the ship, the former by the ladder behind the last maroon, the latter, with a sailor's agility, leaping up to the gunwale and hauling himself over. When they reached the deck they found the Spaniards dancing round the little group of slaves, who were keeping them at bay with valorous lunges of their weapons.

No sooner had the two Englishmen joined the combatants than they found that they had now the whole ship's company to reckon with. A huge Spaniard rushed from the main cabin behind the maroon, a machete in one hand, a pistol in the other. There was a flash, a sharp barking sound; one of the slaves staggered and fell. Other Spaniards came headlong out, in their haste not pausing to bring fire-arms. From the forecastle ran one of the sick maroons. The instant his eyes took in the scene, he snatched up a belaying pin from the deck and, weak as he was, threw himself into the mêlée. Now had come the chance for which he had so long hungered, and his black blood seethed as he rushed to pay off old scores.

There was hot work then amidships that narrow vessel. Cutlass and pike were matched, not for the first time, against the long Spanish knife. Under the disadvantage of surprise the Spaniards, though they outnumbered their assailants, were not so effectively armed for the fray. The maroons laid about them doughtily; they knew how terrible a weapon was the knife at close quarters, and their whole purpose was to hold their masters off and cripple them if they could.