"Aye, I'm beginnin' to get the thrust of your thinkin'." He gazed ruefully back up at the burning fort. "If that should happen, and I grant you there's some likelihood it just might, then there's apt to be damned little future here for a God-fearin' Englishman. So either we keep on sailin' for some other French bastard or we find ourselves another harbor."
"That's how I read the situation now." Winston continued on down the hill. "So why don't we hold a vote amongst the men and see, Master Bartholomew? Maybe a few of them are game to try making a whole new place."
JAMAICA
[Chapter Twenty-two]
A cricket sang from somewhere within the dark crevices of the stone wall surrounding the two men, a sharp, shrill cadence in the night. To the older it was a welcome sign all was well; the younger gave it no heed, as again he bent over and hit his steel against the flint, sending sparks flying into the wind. Finally he cursed in Spanish and paused to pull his goatskin jerkin closer.
Hipolito de Valera had not expected this roofless hilltop outpost would catch the full force of the breeze that rolled in off the bay. He paused for another gust to die away, then struck the flint once more. A shower of sparks scattered across the small pile of dry grass and twigs by the wall, and then slowly, tentatively the tinder began to glow. When at last it was blazing, he tossed on a large handful of twigs and leaned back to watch.
In the uneven glow of the fire his face was soft, with an aquiline nose and dark Castilian eyes. He was from the sparsely settled north, where his father don Alfonso de Valera had planted forty-five acres of grape arbor in the mountains. Winemaking was forbidden in the Spanish Americas, but taxes on Spanish wines were high and Spain was far away.
"!Tenga cuidado! The flame must be kept low. It has to be heated slowly." Juan Jose Pereira was, as he had already