With Drake on the Spanish Main

by Herbert Strang

"That be my job, sir."

"No, no, we go shares in this work. 'Twas your idea to lower the sail. I carry less flesh than you, and therefore can go more lightly."

"But mayhap I be surer footed on the plank, being a mariner of forty year."

"I doubt it not, yet the deed shall be mine."

Carrying the canister, and in the pouch slung at his neck a handful of powder for the train, he crept to the side of the vessel, ran lightly along the gangway by the rope netting, and lifting a corner of the sail, stood between it and the wall of the cabin. Then he dropped on hands and knees, and wormed his way forward until he touched the wall, following it along until he reached the door. Being beneath the line of loopholes, he was in no danger so long as he moved quietly; but at the slightest sound the enemy would fling open the door and give him his quietus before help could reach him from beyond the barricade. He might have felt still more confident had he known that Turnpenny had crept along after him, and was waiting at the corner of the sail, ready to spring to his aid in case of need.

Feeling with his hand for the middle panel of the door, Dennis laid the canister down close against it. To ensure that the hole he had made in it, to connect with the train of powder, should rest upon the planks and not turn over, he pressed a slight dent in the rim. Then he crept backwards the way he had come, laying close to the cabin wall a train of powder from his pouch, not stinting the quantity, so that there might be no gaps in the line. He drew a breath of relief when he came once more to the further side of the canvas and stood erect. There was not a gust of air stirring; the confined space between the sail and the cabin was hot and stuffy; and what with holding his breath during the minutes his task had occupied, and the strain upon his nerves, he had felt almost suffocated.

He said not a word when he found Turnpenny awaiting him, but placed his finger on his lips and motioned the man to return. The charge having been laid in safety, it remained to arrange a course of action when the door should be blown in. While the sail was still lowered it would be impossible to dash forward into the cabin. The screen was no longer required now that there was no further need for the open hatchway; to remove it might indeed put the enemy on their guard, but they could not know what to expect, and there would be no time after the explosion to hoist the sail, even if it were possible to spare men for the task. So Turnpenny volunteered to replace the hatch and hoist and bend the sail, work which he would do more quickly and expertly than Dennis. It was then necessary to communicate with the maroons, for to attack the cabin in less than full strength, against superior weapons, would be to court disaster. A loud whisper reached the men who had taken shelter behind some tackle forward of the mainmast, and brought them crawling to their leaders. It was not so easy to attract the attention of the two men who had shinned up the poop, and to whom, though they had probably seen Dennis as he crawled beneath the sail, he had not dared to make a sign. The difficulty was removed by a word from Turnpenny to one of the maroons. The man made a strange clicking in his throat, and within a couple of minutes his comrades had crept noiselessly along the port side of the vessel, and the party was complete.

With great solemnity and many repetitions the sailor exhausted his small stock of Spanish in explaining what was required of them. They were all to charge together the instant after the petard had done its work. If the force of the explosion proved sufficient to blow in the door, they would dash through into the cabin and engage the enemy hand to hand. If, on the other hand, the door should be only partially shattered—as Turnpenny pointed out, there was no calculating on the precise effect of a charge of gunpowder—two men were to break it in with a short spar unrigged for a battering ram. Dennis counted on gaining a few moments while the Spaniards recovered from the surprise and shock of the explosion. In that brief interval it might be possible for him and Turnpenny to find the loopholes in the cabin wall and thrust the muzzles of their calivers through. By the time they had fired the door would be burst in, and then it would be a fight to the death.

If the occupants of the cabin had felt any wonder or misgiving at the manipulation of the sail, there was nothing during the pause to give them either explanation or reassurance. They might have suspected that the intention of lowering the sail was to screen an approach to the hatchway; but as, according to Baltizar the cook, the jar of powder had been appropriated by the mate secretly, and he was now dead, it would never have occurred to them that their enemy would seek there anything but food. Otherwise they would assuredly have made some effort, beyond the firing of two random shots, to avert their fate.

There was absolute silence when Turnpenny had concluded his whispered instructions to the maroons. The vessel rocked gently, almost imperceptibly; the tide was on the turn. Dennis crept once more to the gangway by the rope netting, stole along on bare feet, and stooped with a beating heart to apply the match which Turnpenny had made for him. It had an inch or two to burn before it reached the train of powder; and he stood back against the side, out of danger from the explosion, ready to rush across to the nearest loophole when the moment came.