“Where’s Brandon—where’s Mr Pomfrett?” were Morgan’s first words. “Rouse him out—he must be gone before Murch comes, and you too, or there’ll be the devil to pay.” The noise of firing was so loud, I could hardly hear what she said. “I’m in charge of the Governor’s house, while he’s away directing the defence,” Morgan went on, with a pleasant smile. “Now, fetch Brandon, and I’ll get some victuals the while. Smart’s the word, Harry.”
She blew upon a whistle, and a sentry, from the other side of the house, answered the call, and began shouting to the crew, who were quartered somewhere out of sight. Brandon Pomfrett lay as I had left him. This face, at least, suffered little change in sleep; there was the same simple, stubborn honesty which ever marked the owners’ agent. Mark you now these two reflections of different souls; for the souls themselves were already in conflict one with another, and the weakest must lose the game.
A minute or two, and I had Brandon Pomfrett out on the verandah; but Mistress Morgan had found time enough to arrange her hair, and so forth, cares which were lost on Mr Pomfrett. The men brought relics of last night’s sumptuous banquet; and it was Mr Pomfrett’s glass that must be filled with wine, and his silver plate heaped with delicacies, by Morgan’s hands—hands that shook at the noise of artillery and tumult in the town below. As for Mr Winter, he was glad to shift for himself. So we crammed our victuals, standing and looking upon the empty garden, where the extinguished lamps were hanging in the trees and a few withered flowers lay upon the trodden sands of the walks.
“I don’t like this firing,” said Morgan. “But it’s a comfort to think there’ll be no one hurt—the dear Governor will care for that. You don’t understand? It’s just Mr Murch’s way, you see. We enter the town by the back door, all as you saw last night, while Mr Murch lies-to outside the harbour. We visit the Governor, introduced by the sentry—all as you saw.... His Excellency is giving a banquet. So much the better—we get the chief burgesses and soldier people, wives and all, in a bag. We secure the entrances, and there they are, prisoners of war, everyone in his best clothes. I have four pistols in my sash (only one is loaded, because I hate pistols, but how is his Excellency to know that?), and I present myself with my best bow and my whitest hand—a messenger of peace. I take his Excellency by his frill, and lead him apart from the giddy throng. ‘Sir,’ says I, ‘Admiral Jevon Murch is lying off the harbour bar, with the Black Flag at the main, and a dozen tall ships at his call——’”
“But has he?” asked Brandon, round-eyed.
“What a question!” Morgan returned. “Have you never heard of a ruse de guerre? You forget I was employed in saving all those poor people’s lives. Don’t interrupt—there’s no time. If Murch catches you here, my pretty gentlemen—well, I can’t help you, as I said before.” She glanced about, terror in her face. “To be brief, I told the Governor that Murch would burn the town unless it was ransomed before ten o’clock to-morrow—to-day, that is—for two hundred thousand pieces of eight. Moreover, he and his friends would be hanged on the trees of the garden at sunrise.”
As she talked, in a high voice of feverish rapidity, her eyes shone, laughter passed upon her face like light and was gone, and all the time she kept glancing about and stopping in her talk, as though to listen, amid the noise of the firing, for the tramp of the pirates’ nearing footsteps.
“You would never have done it,” said Brandon, stolidly.
“Not I,” said she, “but Murch would. I was play-acting. And the old gentleman submitted. Perhaps he remembered the visit of Sir Henry Morgan to Porto-Bello. He little knew whose granddaughter he was making submission to. But he stood on a condition that he should be allowed to set up a sham defence, to save his honour before the world. Bless the man, of course he should! He’s making it now—hark to the Governor’s cannon. And off he went to take the shot from all guns, with a guard of honour from the Wheel of Fortune to attend him, in case of accidents. That’s all. Now, would you like a ship?”
She flashed the question at Pomfrett.