With Drake on the Spanish Main

by Herbert Strang

"Nay, never a soul has broken out of they dungeons. It was in this wise with me. One day a fearsome storm blew up without a minute's warning. The harbour yonder, that is wont to be safe, was a seething whirlpool then, and a bark that lay beside the pier, laden with a treasure of pearls in readiness for the voyage, was dashed hither and thither by the fury of the waves until she was like to be battered into splinters. There was a cry for all hands to save her, and we were driven out of the gate to do what we could. The sky was black as pitch, though 'twas an hour or two from sunset; and in the midst of that coil, covered by the darkness, I dropped down over the embankment wall, clinging on with my hands, and so worked myself along till I came to the extremity of the walk, fearing every moment lest a wave should come and sweep me away. But by the mercy of God I came safe to the end of the walk, where the round tower juts out—you mind, Haymoss?—its foundations being struck into jagged rocks, with many a cleft in between. There I refuged myself till the night came, beat upon by the waves till the breath was well-nigh battered out of my body. But there, a drenched mortal, I clung until the tempest fell to a calm, and in the darkness I got me away to the woods."

"My heart! 'twas a deed of daring and peril," said Turnpenny. "But list! What be adoing down yonder?"

The silence below was suddenly broken by the ringing sound of picks. Men were apparently at work on the face of the fort nearest the observers. The labourers were out of sight, and Copstone confessed himself unable to guess what their task might be. The fort seemed complete; for a month before Copstone's escape the work had indeed been hurried on in response to urgent orders from Cartagena, where the Governor desired more men to assist in his own defences. His commands resulted in the prisoners being treated with increased brutality, and Copstone said that it was a stock joke with the Spanish garrison that by the time they had done with the captives at Porto Aguila there would be little work left in them.

For an hour or more the three men stood scanning the fort and its surroundings, until Dennis felt that every detail was firmly graven upon his mind. Then, as they had a long journey back to the boat, and it was desirable that they should reach their companions before the fall of night, they set off to return to the creek. Copstone knew it well; under his guidance the others took a short cut through the forest, that saved them, he said, more than a mile, and the short tropical twilight had only just begun when they arrived at the canoe. The maroons had not been disturbed during their absence. One of the Spaniards, who recognized the creek, had tried to persuade the natives to set them at liberty, promising them a rich reward. But they had no faith in him or any of his race, and their answer was to make his bonds more secure.

Knowing that they were several leagues from the fort, with a long wooded hill between them, the sailors agreed that it would be safe to kindle a fire on shore, beside which they might camp for the night without molestation by insects. But they had little sleep. The three sat long over the fire, Copstone relating incidents in his prison life that made the blood of his hearers boil with rage and indignation. With the good food given him from the stock they had brought, and the companionship of his countrymen, he had already become a very different being from the famished solitary creature they had met in the forest; and when, fired with passionate hatred of the Spanish oppressors and with pity for their hapless prisoners, Dennis and Turnpenny vowed that they would go through with their enterprise, no matter at what cost, Copstone declared himself heart and soul with them, and only longed for the moment of action to come.

But it was not enough to be full of zeal. The greatest courage and determination would not suffice alone to achieve their object.

"We are but ten against fifty," said Dennis, "and one of the ten a fat negro whom the sight of a bare blade would cause to shake like a jelly."

"Leave him out, sir," said Turnpenny. "He would squeal like a stuck pig if his finger were pinched."

"There are but nine of us, then, and what can nine do against fifty?"

"If all the nine were men of Devon like Tom Copstone and me," said Turnpenny, "we would face fifty don Spaniards and beat 'em too. But you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, as the saying is, and you can't turn a negro or maroon into a true fighting man that will never say die. Men of their sort cannot play a losing game, though they be full of courage if things go well with them."