Several of the more timid inhabitants made for their homes, where, we afterwards learned, they began to hide their valuables. Others, arming themselves with a medley of weapons, hurried to the fortress, from which a gun was fired and then lanterns hoisted as a signal when a vessel was expected.
In response to the gun, three companies of musketeers, with drums beating and matches burning, marched from their quarters to the fort, followed ten minutes later by a large body of pikemen, their arms glittering in the light as they passed by the huge wood fires that had been hastily kindled on the battlements.
"Hasten, Aubrey! Our place is on board the Gannet," quoth Drake, and alternately running and walking we hurried out of the town, crossed the causeway over the marsh, and arrived at the mud dock, where the vessel lay.
Here, too, was activity and commotion. Captain Poynings was already on board, directing his officers, while gun after gun was dragged over greased planks to the ship's side, there to be "whipped" aboard by heavy tackle.
All night we worked like slaves, sending up topmasts, yards, and rigging, shipping stores and ammunition. In eleven hours of darkness the Gannet was almost her former self, for, being the only warship on the station (the rest being, as I have mentioned, away amongst the Antilles), the governor had sent orders that no exertion was to be spared in getting her ready for sea.
While we worked, all kinds of rumours and reports reached us. First one would come with a tale that war was declared with the Spaniards, or the French, or the Dutch, or else all three. Another would arrive breathless, saying that all the buccaneers of the Indies were off the port, and that our fleet had been worsted. Yet another came with the information that only one battered and shattered ship had arrived during the night, the sole remnant of an English squadron, and that a hostile force had landed at a spot a few miles to the east of the town.
To all these wild rumours Captain Poynings paid but slight heed. Work was to be done, and pressing work too; yet with such a spirit did the men take to the task, without need of threats of rope-ends, such as the masters of other king's ships are wont to use, that our record has never yet been equalled.
At break of day we could gather some true facts of the state of affairs. Under the guns of Port Royal lay a small armed merchant vessel, the Whitby, of ten guns, sadly shattered about the hull. In the offing were five ships that many recognized as belonging to one Lewis, a renegade king's officer, who, attracted by the glamour of easily acquired wealth, had seduced his crew from their allegiance and turned buccaneer. Joined by several others of like nature, Lewis had collected a squadron of seven swift vessels; but the Assurance had captured two of the ships, and Lewis, with four of his fellow rogues, formed the party of captives whose fate now hung in the balance as they lay in irons in the castle.
The Gazelle, a consort of the Whitby, had been captured and sunk by the buccaneers that night; but after a long running fight the latter ship had managed to make Port Royal in the darkness, this being the cause of the firing we had heard.
Captain Poynings lost no time in preparing to float the Gannet out of her mud dock, though it was evident from his puckered brows that he had doubts as to whether the increased weight on board would prevent the ship from coming off.