With Drake on the Spanish Main

by Herbert Strang

Before he had finished, there was a flash and a roar from Turnpenny's saker just below. The Spaniards on deck, who the moment before had been laughing at the futile shots from the men on the quay, skipped down the companion way with exceeding nimbleness. Dennis looked eagerly for the result of the shot. That something had been carried away was clear from the clattering noise on board and the rush of the crew towards the stern-works; but neither the fore nor the mainmast had been hit, and the vessel still glided seawards. Turnpenny growled with rage, and ran to the next gun, from which, however, it would be useless to fire until the bark had come quite out from the harbour mouth.

Dennis's heart leapt within him as he saw that the course of the vessel would bring her in a few seconds within range of his gun. Now was his chance of showing how he had profited by Sir Martin's lessons in gunnery. How ardently he hoped that the bore was true and the windage not too great to spoil his aim! He waited with lighted match until, sighting with the gunner's half-circle—the quadrant with which every piece of ordnance was equipped—he knew that the Spaniard was well within range. He applied the match and sprang forward to the very edge of the parapet to watch the effect of his shot. There was a sound of rending and splitting from the deck; and through the smoke he saw the mainmast collapse with all its rigging. A great shout from the battlements and from the crowd below acclaimed the famous shot. There had been no time to run up a sail on the foremast; the vessel lost way; and the crew, having been deserted by the officers, huddled into the forecastle, leaving several of their number prone upon the deck.

When the motion of the vessel ceased, two of the Spaniards rushed up the companion-way and called on the crew frantically to hoist the foresail. But in vain. The men were helpless with terror. And while the Spaniards were storming and gesticulating, Turnpenny, exerting his immense strength, hauled round the eight-foot minion which had been removed from the embrasure by which the intruders had entered the fort, and next moment a carcass crammed with case-shot plumped amidships of the hapless bark, and the Spaniards, cowering from the flying splinters, scuttled down the companion-way—all but one fellow, bolder than the rest. The vessel had swung round a little, so that her stern-chaser, a culverin twelve feet long, pointed full at the fort. It was already loaded. The Spaniard, with a shout of defiance, altered the elevation of the gun, lit a match, and applied it to the touch-hole. A round shot crashed through the embrasure from which Turnpenny had fired, scattering a shower of stone-chips around, and dealing wounds among the group who were watching and assisting the seaman to reload. The crashing sound brought the Spaniards again from below, and they began feverishly to clean out and reload the piece. But another shot from Dennis's gun fell plump into the round-house on the half-deck; and now the Spanish commandant, perceiving that the men on the quay had sprung into the fishers' canoes that lay alongside, and were making direct to board his vessel, saw that the game was up, and, raising his arms aloft, shouted that he surrendered.

"Go and board her," cried Dennis to Turnpenny. "I'll stay by the guns in case he meditates treachery."

The seaman hurried away with a mixed crowd of maroons and white men. In a few minutes he was pulling lustily for the vessel. Dennis, with gun loaded, watched him climb the side and receive the Spaniard's sword. Then a hawser was fixed to the headboards, and the vessel was towed back to the quay side.

Dennis hastened down. The crestfallen commandant with all his men was brought ashore and escorted to his house, where they were left under guard. Hugh Curder, with three other seamen, was placed in charge of the vessel, and then Dennis re-entered the fort-enclosure with Turnpenny and the rest, eager to see, now that day had fully dawned, what had happened during his absence.

He could not repress a shudder as he saw the ground strewn with dead and wounded men; and he was horrified to observe that some of the slave-fishers had broken out of their huts, and were moving about the court-yard, giving the finishing stroke to the wounded of their late masters who were yet alive. Dennis sent Ned Whiddon among them to put a stop to this ruthless butchery; then his intervention was called for at the round tower from which the prisoners had been released. A group of them, headed by a big ruffianly seaman, had burst open the door of the room in which the unarmed Spanish guards had been locked, and were beginning a work of butchery there when Dennis, with Turnpenny and a few others, rushed to the scene. Dashing into the room, Dennis sprang at the ringleader just as he was thrusting at a Spaniard who had thrown himself down on his knees and was pleading for mercy.

"Hold, knave!" he cried, hauling the man away.

"Zounds! and who be you?" shouted the fellow, recovering himself and lunging furiously at Dennis.

"I'll teach 'ee, Jan Biddle!" roared Turnpenny. Seizing the man, he lifted him as though he were a child and hurled him over his head in true Devonian style. Biddle's head struck the floor with a loud thud, and he lay as one killed.