Harry Collingwood

"The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer"

Chapter One.

How George Saint Leger returned from foreign parts.

The time was mid-afternoon, the date was January the 9th, in the year of our Lord 1569; and the good town of Plymouth was basking in the hazy sunlight and mild temperature of one of those delightful days that occasionally visit the metropolis of the West Country, even in mid-winter, under the beneficent influence of the Gulf Stream combined with a soft but enduring breeze from the south-south-east charged with warm air from the Saharan desert and the Mediterranean.

So mild and genial was the weather that certain lads, imbued with that spirit of lawlessness and adventure which seems inherent in the nature of the young Briton, had conspired together to defy the authority of their schoolmaster by playing truant from afternoon school and going to bathe in Firestone Bay. And it was while these lads were dressing, after revelling in their stolen enjoyment, that their attention was attracted by the appearance of a tall ship gliding up the Sound before the soft breathing of the languid breeze.

That she was a foreign-going ship was evident at a glance, first from her size, and, secondly, from the whiteness of her canvas, bleached by long exposure to a southern sun; and as she drew nearer, the display of flags and pennons which she made, and the sounds of trumpet, fife, hautboy, and drum which floated down the wind from her seemed to indicate that her captain regarded his safe arrival in English waters as something in the nature of a triumph.

By the time that she had arrived abreast of Picklecombe Point the bathers had completely resumed their clothing and, having climbed to the highest point within easy reach, now stood interestedly watching the slow approach of the ship, her progress under the impulse of the gentle breeze being greatly retarded by the ebb tide. Speculation was rife among the little group of boys upon the question of the ship’s identity, some maintaining that she must necessarily be a Plymouther, otherwise what was she doing there, while others, for no very clearly denned reason, expressed the contrary opinion.

At length one of the party who had been intently regarding the craft for several minutes, suddenly flung his cap into the air, caught it as it fell, and exclaimed excitedly as he replaced it on his head:

“I know her, I du; ’tis my Uncle Marshall’s Bonaventure, whoam from the Mediterranean and Spain; I’m off to tell my uncle. ’Twas only yesterday that I heard him say he’d give a noble to know that the Bonaventure had escaped the Spaniards; and a noble will pay me well for the flogging that I shall get from old Sir John, if Uncle Richard tells him that I played truant to go bathing. But I don’t believe he will; he’ll be so mighty pleased to hear about the Bonaventure that he’ll forget to ask how I come to be to Firestone Bay instead of to schule.”

And the exultant lad dashed away toward Stonehouse, accompanied by his companions, each of whom was instantly ready to help with suggestions as to the spending of the prospective noble.

The historian of the period has omitted to record whether that worthy, Mr Richard Marshall, one of the most thriving merchants of Plymouth, was as good as his word in the matter of the promised noble; but probably he was, for shortly after the arrival of his nephew with the momentous news, the good man emerged from his house, smiling and rubbing his hands with satisfaction, and made the best of his way to the wharf in Stonehouse Pool, alongside which he knew that the Bonaventure would moor, and was there speedily joined by quite a little crowd of other people who were all more or less intimately interested in the ship and her crew, and who had been brought to the spot by the rapid spread of the news that the Bonaventure was approaching.

To the impatient watchers it seemed an age before the ship hove in sight at the mouth of the Pool. At length, however, as the sun dipped behind the wooded slopes across the water toward Millbrook, a ship’s spritsail and sprit topsail, with a long pennon streaming from the head of the mast which supported the latter, crept slowly into view beyond Devil’s Point, to the accompaniment of a general shout of “There a be!” from the waiting crowd, and a minute later the entire ship stood revealed, heading up the Pool under all sail, to the impulse of the dying breeze which was by this time so faint that the white canvas of the approaching craft scarcely strained at all upon its sheets and yards.

For the period, the Bonaventure was a ship of considerable size, her registered measurement being one hundred and twenty-seven tons. She was practically new, the voyage which she was now completing being only her second. Like other ships of her size and time, she was very beamy, with rounded sides that tumbled home to a degree that in these days would be regarded as preposterous. She carried the usual fore and after castles, the latter surmounting the after extremity of her lofty poop. She was rigged with three masts in addition to the short spar which reared itself from the outer extremity of her bowsprit, and upon which the sprit topsail was set, the fore and main masts spreading courses, topsails, and—what was then quite an innovation—topgallant sails, while the mizen spread a lateen-shaped sail stretched along a sloping yard suspended just beneath the top, in the position occupied in these days by the cross-jack. She was armed with twenty-two cannon of various sizes and descriptions, and she mustered a crew of fifty-six men and boys, all told. Her hull was painted a rich orange-brown colour down to a little above the water-line, beneath which ran a narrow black stripe right round her hull, dividing the brown colour of her topsides from her white-painted bottom which, by the way, was now almost hidden by a rank growth of green weed. She carried one large poop lantern, and displayed from her flagstaff the red cross of Saint George, while from her fore and main topgallant-mastheads, from the peak of her mizen, and from the head of her sprit-topmast lazily waved other flags and pennons. As she swung into view round Devil’s Point the blare of trumpets and the roll of drums reached the ears of the crowd which awaited her arrival; but these sounds presently ceased as her crew proceeded to brail up and furl sail after sail; and some ten minutes later, scarcely stemming the outgoing tide, she drifted slowly in toward her berth alongside the wharf. Ropes were thrown, great hawsers were hauled ashore and made fast to sturdy bollards, fenders were dropped overside, and the Bonaventure was very smartly secured abreast the warehouse which was destined to receive her cargo.

Then, when the ship had been securely moored, fore and aft, her gangway was thrown open, a gang-plank was run out from the deck to the wharf, and Mr Richard Marshall, her owner, stepped on board and advanced with outstretched hand toward a short, stout, grey-haired man who had hitherto occupied a conspicuous position on the poop, but who now descended the poop ladder with some difficulty and hobbled towards the gangway.

The contrast between the two men was great in every way, except perhaps in the matter of age, for both were on the shady side of fifty; but while one of them, Mr Richard Marshall, merchant and shipowner, to wit, was still hale and hearty, carrying himself as straight and upright as though he were still in the prime of early manhood, the other, who was none other than John Burroughs, the captain of the Bonaventure, moved stiffly and limped painfully as a result of many wounds received during his forty years of seafaring life, coupled with a rapidly increasing tendency to suffer from severe attacks of rheumatism. And they differed in dress as greatly as in their personal appearance; for while the merchant was soberly if not somewhat sombrely garbed in dark brown broadcloth, with a soft, broad-brimmed felt hat to match, the captain (in rank defiance of the sumptuary laws then existing) sported trunk hosen of pale pink satin, a richly embroidered and padded satin doublet of the same hue, confined at the waist by a belt of green satin heavily broidered with gold thread, from which depended on one side a long rapier and on the other a wicked-looking Venetian dagger with jewelled hilt and sheath, while, surmounting his grizzled and rather scanty locks, he wore, jauntily set on one side, a Venetian cap of green velvet adorned with a large gold and cameo brooch which secured a long green feather drooping gracefully over the wearer’s left shoulder. But let not the unsophisticated reader imagine, in the innocence of his heart, that the garb above described was that usually affected by mariners of the Elizabethan period, while at sea. It was not. But they frequently displayed a weakness for showy dress while in port, and especially when about to go ashore for the first time after the termination of a voyage.

“Welcome home again, Cap’n John,” exclaimed Marshall, grasping the hand of the sailor and wringing it so heartily that poor Burroughs winced at the pain of his rheumatism-racked wrist and shoulder. “I am glad to see you safely back, for I was beginning to feel a bit uneasy lest the King of Spain had caught you in his embargo.”

“Iss, fegs; and so mun very nearly did,” answered the captain; “indeed, if it hadn’t ha’ been for young Garge Saint Leger—who, bein’ out of his time, I’ve made pilot in place of poor Matthews, who was killed in a bout wi’ the Barbary rovers on our outward voyage—he’d ha’ had us, sure as pigs baint nightingales. But Garge have got the fiend’s own gift for tongues and languages, and the night avore we sailed he happened to be ashore lookin’ round Santander, and while he were standin’ on one side of a pillar in a church he heard two Spanishers on t’other side of that there same pillar talkin’ about the embargo that King Philip was goin’ to declare again’ the English at midnight that very night as ever was. Like a good boy, Garge waited until the two Spanishers had left the church, and then comed straight down aboard and told me what he’d heard. At first I didn’t put very much faith in the yarn, I’ll own to’t, but that there Garge so pestered and worrited me that at last I let mun have mun’s way; and ten minutes afore midnight the Bonaventure was under way and standin’ out o’ the harbour. We managed to get out without bein’ fired upon by the batteries. But if you’ll believe me, sir, they sent a galley out a’ter us, and if it hadn’t ha’ happened that the wind was blowin’ fresh from about west, and a nasty lump of a beam sea runnin’, dang my ugly buttons if that galley wouldn’t ha’ had us! But the galley rolled so heavy that they couldn’t use their oars to advantage, while the Bonaventure is so fast as any dolphin with a beam wind and enough of it to make us furl our topgallants; so we got away.”

“And a very smart piece of work, too, apparently,” said Mr Marshall. “I must not forget to thank George Saint Leger for his share in it. Has your voyage been a success, Captain?”

“So, so; I don’t think you’ll find much to complain about when we comes to go into the figures,” answered Burroughs. “We had a bit of a brush wi’ the rovers, who comed out against us in three ships, during our outward voyage, but we beat ’em off wi’ the loss of only one man—poor Matthews, as I mentioned just now—since when we’ve had no call to fire a single shot.”

“Excellent, excellent!” commented the merchant, rubbing his hands. “Of course I am very sorry to learn that Matthews was slain; but these things will happen at sea from time to time. Well, to-morrow we will have the hatches off and begin discharging. While that is proceeding I must consider what next to do with the ship; for it will be useless to think of further trade with the Mediterranean while the Spanish embargo lasts, and Heaven only knows how long that will be.”

“Ay,” assented Burroughs. “’Tis a pity that her Grace up to Whitehall can’t make up her mind one way or t’other about this here Spanish business; whether she’ll be friends wi’ Philip, or will fight mun. For all this here shilly-shallyin’, first one way and then t’other, be terrible upsettin’ to folks like we. But there, what be I grumblin’ about? ’Twont make a mort o’ difference to me, because I’ve made up my mind as it’s time for me to knock off the sea and settle down snug and comfortable ashore for the rest of my days. I be that bad wi’ the rheumatics that I’ve got to get the cabin boy to help me put on my clothes, and when there be a sea runnin’ and the ship do roll a bit I can’t sleep for the pain in my j’ints. So, Mr Marshall, I may ’s well give ’e notice, here and now, so’s you’ll ha’ plenty of time to look about ’e for another cap’n.”

“Dear me, dear me! I am very sorry to hear that, Cap’n,” exclaimed Mr Marshall. “But,” he continued, “ever since the declaration of the embargo I have been thinking what I would do with the Bonaventure in the event of her escaping from the Spaniards, and I had almost decided to lay her up until the dispute is settled one way or the other. Now if you stay ashore until that time arrives, and take care of yourself, perhaps you will find yourself quite able to take command of her again when she next goes to sea.”

“No,” asserted Burroughs decisively; “I ha’ made up my mind, and I’ll stick to it. The sea’s no place for a man afflicted as I be. Besides, I ha’ done very well in the matter o’ they private ventures that you’ve allowed me to engage in; there’s a very tidy sum o’ money standin’ to my credit in Exeter Bank, and there’s neither chick nor child to use it a’ter I be gone, so I might so well enjoy it and be comfortable for the rest o’ my days, and at the same time make way for a younger man. Now, there be Garge,” he continued, lowering his tone. “’Tis true that he be but a lad; but he’m a sailor to the tips of his fingers; he’m so good a seaman and navigator as I be; he’ve a-got coolness and courage when they be most needed; he knoweth how to handle a crew; he’ve got the gift of tongues; and—he’m a gentleman, which is a danged sight more than I be. You might do a mort worse, Mr Marshall, than give he the Bonaventure when next you sends her to sea.”

“H’m! do you really think so?” returned the merchant. “He is very young, you know, Captain; too young, I think, to bear the responsibility attending the command of such a ship as the Bonaventure. But—well, I will think it over. Your recommendation of course will carry very great weight with me.”

“Ay, and so’t ought to,” retorted the blunt-spoken old skipper. “I’ve served you now a matter of over thirty years, and you’ve never yet had to find fault wi’ my judgment. And you won’t find it wrong either in that there matter o’ Garge.”

After which the subject was dropped, and the pair proceeded to the discussion of various matters which have no bearing upon the present history.

Meanwhile, during the progress of the above-recorded conversation, the crew, having completed the mooring of the ship, proceeded to furl the sails which had been merely hauled down or clewed up as the craft approached the wharf; and when this job had been performed to the satisfaction of a tall, strapping young fellow who stood upon the poop supervising operations, the mariners laid down from aloft and, the business of the ship being over for the day, were dismissed from duty. As every man aboard the Bonaventure happened to call Plymouth “home,” this meant on their part a general swarming ashore to join the relatives and friends who patiently awaited them on the wharf; whereupon the little crowd quickly melted away.

Then, and not until then, the tall, strapping young fellow upon the poop—familiarly referred to by Captain Burroughs as “Garge,” and henceforth to be known to us as George Saint Leger and the hero of the moving story which the writer proposes to set forth in the following pages—descended to the main deck, uttered a word or two of greeting and caution to the two sturdy ship-keepers who had already come on board to take care of ship and cargo during the absence of the crew, and with quick, springy step, strode to the gang-plank, and so to the wharf, whither the captain, in Mr Marshall’s company, had preceded him.

As he strode along the wharf, with that slight suggestion of a roll in his gait which marks the man whose feet have been long accustomed to the feel of a heaving deck, he cast a quick, eager, recognising glance at the varied features of the scene around him, his somewhat striking countenance lighting up as he noted the familiar details of the long line of quaint warehouses which bordered the wharf, the coasters which were moored ahead and astern of the Bonaventure, the fishing craft grounded upon the mud higher up the creek, the well remembered houses of various friends dotted about here and there, the heights of Mount Edgcumbe shadowy and mysterious in the deepening twilight, and the slopes of Mount Wise across the water; and a joyous smile irradiated his features as his gaze settled upon a small but elegant cottage, of the kind now known as a bungalow, standing in the midst of a large, beautifully kept garden, situated upon the very extremity of the Mount and commanding an uninterrupted view of the Sound. For in that cottage, from three windows of which beamed welcoming lights, he knew that his mother, and perchance his elder brother Hubert, awaited his coming. For a moment he paused, gazing lovingly at the lights, then, striding on again, he quickly reached the end of the wharf and, hurrying down the ferry steps, sprang into a boat which he found lying alongside.

“So you’m back again all safe, Mr Garge, sir,” exclaimed the occupant of the boat as he threw out an oar to bear the craft off from the wharf wall, while young Saint Leger seated himself in the stern sheets. “I been here waitin’ for ’e for the last hour or more. The mistress seed the ship a comin’ in, and knowed her, and her says to me—‘Tom, the Bonaventure be whoam again. Now, you go down and take the boat and go across to the wharf, for Master Garge ’ll be in a hurry to come over, and maybe the wherry won’t be there just when he’s ready to come; so you go over and wait for un.’ And here I be. Welcome home again, sir.”

“Thanks, Tom,” answered Saint Leger, “I did not recognise you for the moment. And how is my mother?”

“She’s just about as well as can be reasonably expected, sir, considerin’ the way that she’s been worritin’ about you and Mr Hubert—’specially ’bout you, sir, since the news of the King of Spain’s embargo have been made known,” answered the man Tom, who was in fact the gardener and general handy man at The Nest, as Mrs Saint Leger’s cottage was named.

“Poor dear soul,” murmured George; “she will fret herself to death over Hu and me, before all’s done, I am afraid. So Captain Hawkins has not yet returned, Tom?”

“Not yet a bain’t, sir. But he’ve only been gone a matter o’ fifteen months; and ’tis only a year since mun sailed from the Guinea coast for the Indies, so ’tis a bit early yet to be expectin’ mun back. When he and Franky Drake du get over there a spoilin’ the Egyptians, as one might say, there be no knowin’ how long they’ll stay there. I don’t look to see ’em back till they’m able to come wi’ their ships loaded wi’ Spanish gould; and it’ll take a mort o’ time to vind six shiploads o’ gould,” returned Tom.

“And has no news of the expedition been received since its arrival on the Spanish Main?” asked George.

“Not as I’ve heard of, sir,” answered Tom. “The last news of ’em was that they’d sailed from the Guinea coast some time about the end of January; and how that comed I don’t know. But I expect ’tis true, because Madam got it from Madam Hawkins, who comed over expressly to tell her.”

“Ah, well, I suppose we shall hear in God’s good time,” commented George. “Back water with your starboard oar, Tom, and pull larboard, or you’ll smash in the bows of the boat against the steps. So! way enough. Haul her to and let me get out. If I am not mistaken there is my mother waiting for me under the verandah. Thanks! Good night, Tom, and put that in your pocket for luck.”

So saying the young man handed Tom a ducat, and sprang out of the boat, up the landing steps, and made his way rapidly up the steep garden path toward the house, beneath the verandah of which a female figure could be dimly seen by the sheen of the lighted windows. As George Saint Leger neared the brow of the slope upon which The Nest was built, this same female figure ran down the verandah steps to meet him, and a moment later he and his mother were locked in each other’s arms.

“My boy, my boy!” crooned Mrs Saint Leger as she nestled in her son’s embrace and tiptoed up to kiss the lips that sought her own—“welcome home again, a thousand welcomes! I saw the ship while she was yet outside Saint Nicholas Island and, with the help of the perspective glass that you brought me from Genoa, was able to recognise her as the Bonaventure. And later, when she rounded the point and entered the Pool, I saw you standing beside Captain Burroughs on the poop, and so knew that all was well with you. Come in, my dear, and let me look at you. Supper is all ready and waiting, and there is a fine big coal fire blazing in the dining-room, for I knew you would feel the air chilly after that of the Mediterranean.”

A moment later the pair entered the warm, cosy dining-room, and stood intently regarding each other by the light of a candelabrum which occupied the centre of the handsomely appointed table. And while they stand thus, with their hands upon each other’s shoulders, each scrutinising the face of the other, we may seize the opportunity to make the acquaintance of both; for with one of them at least we purpose to participate in many a strange scene and stirring adventure in those western Indies, the wonders and fabulous wealth of which were just beginning to be made known to Englishmen through that redoubtable rover and slaver, Captain John Hawkins.

Mrs Saint Leger was a small, somewhat delicate and fragile-looking woman, just turned forty-six years of age, yet, although people seemed to age a great deal more quickly in those days than in these, and although, as the widow of one sailor and the mother of two others, she had known much anxiety and mental stress, she retained her youthful appearance to a degree that was a constant source of wonder to her many friends. Her form was still as girlish as when Hugh Saint Leger proudly led her to the altar twenty-eight years before we make her acquaintance. Her cheeks were still smooth and round, her violet eyes, deep and tender, were still bright despite the many tears which anxiety for her husband and sons had caused her to shed, and which her bitter grief had evoked when, some seven years earlier, the news had been brought to her of her husband’s death while gallantly defending his ship against an attack by Salee pirates. Her golden-brown hair was still richly luxuriant, and only the most rigorous search would have revealed the presence of a silver thread here and there. And lastly, she stood just five feet four inches in her high-heeled shoes, and—in honour of her younger son’s safe arrival home—was garbed, in the height of the prevailing mode, in a gown of brown velvet that exactly matched the colour of her hair, with long pointed bodice heavily embroidered with gold thread, voluminous farthingale, long puffed sleeves, ruffed lace collar, lace stomacher, and lace ruffles at her dainty wrists.

George Saint Leger, aged twenty, stood five feet ten inches in his stockings, though he did not look anything like that height, so broad were his shoulders and so robustly built was his frame. He had not yet nearly attained to his full growth, and promised, if he went on as he was going, to become a veritable giant some five or six years hence. He had his mother’s eyes and hair—the latter growing in short soft ringlets all over his head—and he inherited a fair share also of his mother’s beauty, although in his case it was tempered and made manly by a very square chin, firm, close-set lips, and a certain suggestion of sternness and even fierceness in the steady intent gaze of the eyes. He was garbed, like his captain, in doublet, trunk hose, and cap, but in George’s case the garments were made of good serviceable cloth, dyed a deep indigo blue colour, and his cap—which he now held in his hand—was unadorned with either feather or brooch. Also, he wore no weapons of any kind save those with which nature had provided him.

“Egad! it is good to feel your arms round me, little mother, and to find myself in this dear old room again,” exclaimed the lad as he gazed down into his mother’s loving eyes. “And you—surely you must have discovered the whereabout of the fount of perpetual youth, for you do not look a day older than when I went away.”

“Nonsense, silly boy,” returned the delighted little lady as she freed herself from her stalwart son’s embrace, “art going to celebrate thy return home by beginning to pay compliments to thy old mother? But, indeed,” she continued more seriously, “’tis a wonder that I am not grey-headed, for the anxiety that I have suffered on thy account, George, and that of thy brother Hubert, has scarcely suffered me to know a moment’s peace.”

“Dear soul alive, I’ll warrant that’s true,” agreed George. “But, mother, you need never be anxious about me, for there’s not a better or stauncher ship afloat than the Bonaventure, nor one that carries a finer captain and crew. We’ve held our own in many a stiff bout with weather and the enemy, and can do it again, please God. And as for Hu, I think you need fear as little for him as for me, for with Hawkins as admiral, and Frankie Drake as second in command, with six good ships to back them up, they should be able to sweep the Spanish Main from end to end. It cannot now be very long before one gets news of them, and indeed, I confidently look forward to seeing them come sailing into Plymouth Sound ere long, loaded down with treasure.”

“God grant that it may be so,” responded Mrs Saint Leger. “Yet how can I help being fearful and anxious when I think of those daring men thousands of miles away from home and kindred, surrounded as it were by enemies, and with nought to keep them but their courage and the strength of their own right arm? And where there is fighting—as fighting there must be when English and Spaniards come face to face—some must be slain, and why not our Hubert among them? For the boy is hot-headed, and brave even to recklessness.”

“Ay,” assented George, “that’s true. But ’tis the brave and reckless ones that stand the best chance in a fight, for their very courage doth but inspire the enemy with terror, so that he turns and flees from them. Besides, our lads are fighting God’s battle against bigotry, idolatry, and fiendish cruelty as exemplified in the tortures inflicted upon poor souls in the hellish Inquisition, and ’twould be sinful and a questioning of God’s goodness to doubt that He will watch over them who are waging war upon His enemies.”

“Yea, indeed, that is true,” agreed Mrs Saint Leger. “And yet, so weak is our poor human faith that there are times when my heart is sick with fear as to what may be happening to my dear ones. But here is Lucy with the supper. Draw up and sit down, my son. I’ll warrant that the enjoyment of a good roast capon and ale of thy mother’s own brewing will be none the less for the sea fare upon which thou hast lived of late.”

So mother and son sat down to table again for the first time in many months. And while they ate George regaled his mother with a recital of some of the most moving happenings of the voyage just ended, including, naturally, a detailed account of the brush with Barbary pirates, the death of Matthews, the pilot, and George’s own promotion to the post thus rendered vacant; to all of which Mrs Saint Leger listened eagerly, devouring her son with her eyes as he made play with capon and pasty and good nut-brown ale, talking betwixt mouthfuls and eliciting from his absorbed audience of one, now a little exclamation of horror at the tale of some tragic occurrence or narrow escape, and anon a hearty laugh at the recounting of some boyish frolic and escapade in one or another of the foreign cities visited in the course of the voyage. Supper over, they drew their chairs up before the fire and continued their talk, asking and answering questions in that delightfully inconsequent fashion which is possible only between near and dear relatives after a long separation. So the time passed quickly until the hour-glass in the hall marked ten and the maid brought in candles; whereupon, before separating for the night, mother and son knelt down together and rendered heartfelt thanks to God for the safe return of the one wanderer and offered up equally heartfelt petitions for the preservation of the other, as folk were not ashamed to do in those grand old days when belief in God’s interest in the welfare of His creatures was a living, virile thing, and when a man’s religion was as intimate a part of his daily life as were his meat and drink.

Chapter Two.

How Robert Dyer brought news of disaster.

The following morning found George Saint Leger early astir; for the unloading of the Bonaventure’s rich cargo was now to begin, and he must be there to superintend and do his share of the work. And be sure that Mr Richard Marshall and his head clerk were also there to take note of each bale and cask and package as it was hoisted out of the hold and carried across the wharf into the yawning doorway of the warehouse; for while the worthy merchant fully trusted those of his servants who had proved themselves to be trustworthy, he held that there was no method of keeping trustworthy servants faithful so efficacious as personal oversight; he maintained that the man who tempted another to dishonesty by throwing opportunities for dishonesty in his way, was as guilty and as much to blame as the one who succumbed to temptation; therefore he kept his own soul and the souls of his employés clean by affording the latter as little occasion as might be for stumbling. Captain Burroughs—his rheumatism more troublesome than ever—was also present, with his hands full of invoices and bills of lading to which he referred from time to time for information in reply to some question from Mr Marshall; and soon the winches began to creak and the main hatch to disgorge its contents, while a crowd of those curious and idle loafers who, like the poor, are always with us, quickly gathered upon the wharf to gapingly watch the process of unloading the cargo.

That process was much more deliberately carried out then than it is in the present day of hurry and rush, steam and electricity; therefore it was not until nearly a fortnight had elapsed that the last bale had been hoisted out of the Bonaventure’s hold and safely stored in Mr Marshall’s warehouse. Mr Marshall had definitely announced his intention to lay up the ship until the Spanish embargo should be raised. And it was on that same night that, as George and his mother sat chatting by the fire after supper, the maid Lucy entered the room with the intimation that a strange, foreign-looking man, apparently a sailor, stood without, craving speech with Mistress Saint Leger.

Mrs Saint Leger’s apprehensions with regard to the safety of Hubert, her elder son, temporarily allayed by George’s optimism, were quick to respond to the slightest hint or suggestion of disaster; the mere mention, therefore, of a man, foreign-looking and of sailorly aspect, seeking speech with her, and especially at such an untimely hour, was sufficient to re-awaken all her unformed fears into full activity. Her lips blanched and a look of terror leapt into her eyes as she sprang to her feet, regarding the somewhat stolid Lucy as though the latter were some apparition of ill omen.

“A sailor, say you, strange, and foreign-looking?” she gasped. “What for mercy’s sake can such a man want with me at this time of night? Did you ask the man his name?”

“No, ma’am, I—I—didn’t,” stammered the maid, astonished at her mistress’s unusual agitation, and afraid that in omitting to make the enquiry she had been guilty of some terrible oversight; “he said—he—”

But at this point George intervened. To him, as to his mother, the circumstance had at once conveyed a suggestion of ominousness, a hint of possible evil tidings. Like his mother, he had risen to his feet as the thought of what this visit might mean dawned upon him. But, unlike Mrs Saint Leger, he was accustomed to act quickly in the presence of sudden alarms, and now he laid his hand reassuringly upon his mother’s shoulder, as he said soothingly:

“There, there, sit you down, mother; there’s nought to be frightened about, I’ll warrant. Sit you down, again; and I’ll go out and speak to the fellow. Maybe ’tis but some sneaking, snivelling beggar-man who, believing you to be alone here, hopes to terrify you into giving him a substantial alms.”

So saying, with another reassuring pat upon his mother’s shoulder, the lad stalked out of the room, pushing the bewildered maid before him, and made his way to the front door, where Mrs Saint Leger, acutely listening, presently heard him in low converse with the stranger. The conversation continued for a full ten minutes, and then Mrs Saint Leger’s apprehensions were sharpened by hearing footsteps—her son’s and another’s—approaching the room in which she sat. A moment later the door was flung open, and George, pale beneath his tan, re-appeared, ushering in a thick-set, broadly-built man of medium height, whose long, unkempt hair and beard, famine-sharpened features, and ragged clothing told an unmistakable tale of privation and suffering.

“Mother,” said George—and as he spoke his lips quivered slightly in spite of his utmost efforts to keep them steady—“this man is Robert Dyer of Cawsand, one of the crew of the Judith, Captain Drake’s ship, just arrived from the Indies, and he brings us bad news—not the worst, thank God,” he interjected hurriedly as he noted Mrs Saint Leger’s sudden access of pallor—“but bad enough for all that, and it is necessary that you should hear it. The expedition has been a failure, thanks to Spanish treachery; the loss to the English has been terribly heavy, and several of the men are missing.”

For a few moments the poor distracted mother strove vainly to speak; then, clutching George’s arm tightly, she moaned: “Well, why do you pause, George? Tell me the worst, I pray you. I can bear it. Do not keep me in suspense. Do you wish me to understand that Hubert is killed—or is he among the missing? He must be one or the other, I know, or he would be here now to tell his own story.”

“He is a prisoner in the hands of the Spaniards, mother,” answered George. “But be of good cheer,” he continued, as Mrs Saint Leger staggered like one struck and he sprang to her assistance—“sit you down, mother, and let Dyer here tell us his story. I have only just heard the barest outline of it. Perhaps when we have heard it all it may not seem so bad. And don’t you fear for Hubert, dearie; ’tis true that the Spaniards have got him, but they won’t dare to hurt him, be you assured of that; and likely enough he will have escaped by this time. Now, Dyer, come to an anchor, man, and tell us all that befell. And while you’re talking we’ll have some supper prepared for you.”

“Well, madam, and Mr Garge, there ain’t so very much to tell,” answered Dyer, seating himself in the chair which Saint Leger had indicated. “Of course you do both know—all Plymouth knows—that we sailed away from this very port a year ago come the second o’ last October. Six ships strong, we was, well manned, and an abundance o’ munitions o’ war of every kind, even to shore-artillery. And we had Cap’n John Hawkins for our admiral and Frank Drake for our pilot, so what more could a body want?

“We made a very good passage to the Canary Islands, which was our first rondyvoo; and from there, a’ter we’d wooded and watered afresh, and set up our rigging, we sailed for the Guinea coast. On our way there, avore ever we got so far south as Cape Blanc, we captured a Portingal caravel; pickin’ up another of ’em a little way to the nor’ard of Cape Verde. This here last one was called the Grace a Dios, she were a very fine new ship of a hunderd and fifty ton—and we kept ’em both because, bein’ light-draught ships, the admiral knowed they’d be useful for goin’ in over bar on the Coast, where the mouths of the rivers be always shallow.

“Well, in due time—I forget the exact date, now—we arrived on the Coast, and there we stayed for a matter o’ three months, huntin’ blacks and Portingals; goin’ into the rivers in the caravels, landin’ parties, attackin’ native villages, and makin’ prisoners o’ all the strongest and most likely-lookin’ men and women—with a good sprinklin’ o’ childer, too—and cuttin’ out the Portingal caravels wherever we found ’em. Ah! that work o’ boardin’ and cuttin’ out the Portingals! It was fine and excitin’, and suited Cap’n Drake and Mr Saint Leger a sight better than nagur huntin’. They was always the first to come forward for such work, and never was two men so happy as they was when news was brought of a caravel bein’ near at hand.

“Three months we stayed on that there terrible Guinea coast, and durin’ that time we got together over five hunderd nagurs, besides takin’, plunderin’, and burnin’ more than a dozen caravels. Then, wi’ pretty nigh half of our company down wi’ fevers and calentures taken on the Coast and in the rivers, we all sailed for the Spanish Main. A matter o’ seven weeks it took us to cross to t’other side o’ the world, although we had fair winds and fine weather all the way, as is usual on the voyage from Africa to the Indies. Then we arrived at a lovely island called Margarita, one o’ the Spaniards’ Indian possessions, where I was told they find pearls. Here we found several storehouses crammed with food of all sorts and great casks o’ wine intended for distribution among the ports of the Spanish Main; and here our admiral decided to re-victual the fleet. And mun did, too, in spite of the objections o’ the Spaniards, who vowed that they had no food to spare. We took from ’em all that we wanted, but we paid for it in good Portingal goold, seein’ that we was no pirates, but good honest traders.

“Then we sailed westward again, past La Guaira and the great wall of mountains that tower aloft behind it far into the deep blue sky. On the third day after leavin’ Margarita we sailed into as snug a little harbour as you’d wish to see. And there we stayed for a matter o’ two months, landin’ our sick and our blacks, clearin’ out our ships’ holds, cleanin’, careenin’, scrapin’, paintin’, overhaulin’, and refittin’ generally, the blacks helpin’ us willin’ly enough when we made ’em understand what we wanted done.

“By the time that we’d a done everything that we wanted to, our sick had got well again—all except four what died in spite of us—and then we put to sea again, coastin’ along the Main and callin’ in here and there to trade our blacks for goold and pearls. But at first the trade weren’t at all good; and bimeby the admiral lost patience wi’ the silly fules and vowed he’d make ’em trade wi’ us, whether they wanted to or no; so we in the Judith and another ship were sent round to a place called La Hacha. When we arrived and made to enter, the forts opened fire upon us! So we and t’other ship blockaded the place for five days, sufferin’ nothin’ to go in or come out; and then along come the admiral wi’ the rest o’ the ships, and we got to work in earnest. The shore-artillery and two hunderd soldiers was landed, the batteries was stormed, and we took the town, drivin’ all the Spaniards out of it; and be sure that Cap’n Drake and Mr Saint Leger was among the first to get inside. That was enough for they Spanishers; a’ter that they was ready enough to trade wi’ us; and indeed that same night some of ’em comed back, bringin’ their goold and their pearls with ’em; and avore we left the place we’d parted wi’ no less than two hunderd blacks.

“And so things went on until we’d a sold every black that remained; and by that time we’d got so much goold and so many pearls that the admiral was afeard that if we tried to get more we mid lose all, and accordin’ly, a’ter holdin’ a council o’ war, it was decided to make for whoam, and we bore away up north to get into the Gulf Stream to help us to beat up again’ the easterly winds that do blow always in them parts. But, as it turned out, we couldn’t ha’ done a worse thing. For we’d no sooner weathered Cape Yucatan than there fell upon us two o’ the most awful gales that mortal man can pictur’, pretty nigh all our canvas was blowed clean out of the bolt-ropes, some o’ the ships was dismasted, the sea—well, I don’t know what I can compare it to, unless ’tis to mountains, it runned so high; and as for the poor little Judith, ’twas only by the mercy o’ God and Cap’n Drake’s fine seamanship that she didn’t go straight to the bottom. By the time that them there hurricanes was over the ships was not much better nor wrecks, and ’twas useless to think o’ makin’ the v’yage home in ’em in that condition, so our admiral made the signal to bear up and run for San Juan de Ulua. And when we arrived there, if you’ll believe me, madam and Mr Garge, we found no less than twelve big galleons, loaded wi’ goold an’ silver, waitin’ for the rest o’ the Plate fleet and its convoy to sail for Old Spain! And the very next day the ships as was expected arrived off the port and found us English in possession!

“Then there was a pretty to-do, you may take my word for ’t. Some o’ the cap’ns—Mr Saint Leger and Cap’n Drake among ’em, I believe—was for attackin’ the convoy and takin’ the whole o’ the Plate fleet; and, as things turned out, ’twould ha’ been better if we’d done it, for, disabled though our ships were, we could ha’ fought at our anchors and kept the convoy from enterin’ the port. But the admiral wouldn’t hear o’ it; he kept on declarin’ that we was honest traders, and that to capture the Spanish ships ’d be a hact of piracy which would get us into no end o’ trouble to home, and perhaps bring about war betwixt England and Spain; and at last t’others give in to mun and let mun have mun’s own way. Then there was goin’s to an’ fro between our ships and the shore, and I heard say as that the admiral were negotiatin’ wi’ the Viceroy for permission for our ships to stay where they was, and refit; and at last ’twas agreed that we was to be allowed to so do, provided that we didn’t interfere wi’ the Spanish ships.

“That bein’ arranged, the rest of the Plate fleet and the convoy sailed into the harbour and anchored, while we English got to work clearin’ away our wrecked spars, sendin’ down yards, and what not. The Judith bein’ a small ship, Cap’n Drake took her in and moored her alongside a wharf upon which we stowed part of our stores and water casks, so ’s to have more room for movin’ about on deck; but as for the rest, they’d to do the best they could while lyin’ off to their anchors. And one of the first things that we did was to transfer all the goold and pearls that we’d collected to the Jesus. Three days we laboured hard at the work of refittin’, and then, when most o’ our biggest ships was so completely dismantled that they hadn’t a spar aloft upon which to set a sail, them treacherous Spaniards, carin’ nothin’ for their solemn word and promises, must needs attack us, openin’ fire upon us both from the ships and the forts, while a party o’ soldiers came marchin’ down to the wharf especially to attack us of the Judith’s crew. When Cap’n Drake see’d mun comin’ he at once ordered all hands ashore; and while he and Mr Saint Leger and a few more did their best to keep off the soldiers, the rest of us went to work to put the provisions and water back aboard the Judith. But we’d only about half done our work when a lot more soldiers comed swarmin’ down, and Cap’n Drake sings out for everybody to get aboard and to cast off the hawsers—for by this time there was nigh upon five hunderd Spaniards attackin’ us, and we could do nothin’ again so many. Seein’ so many soldiers comin’ again us, some of our chaps got a bit frighted and took the cap’n at his word by castin’ off our shore fasts at once, without waitin’ for everybody to get aboard first. The consequence was that when all the hawsers had been let go exceptin’ the quarter rope—which I was tendin’ to—the Cap’n, Mr Saint Leger, and about half a dozen more was still on the wharf while—an off-shore wind happenin’ to be blowin’ at the

time—the ship’s head had paid off until ’twas pointing out to sea, while there was about a couple o’ fathoms of space atween the ship’s quarter and the wharf. I s’pose that seein’ this, and that there was only a matter o’ seven or eight men to oppose ’em, gived the Spaniards courage to make a rush at the Cap’n and his party; anyway, that’s what they did, and for about a couple o’ minutes there was a terrible fight on that wharf, in which three or four men went down.

“The next thing I noticed, Mr Garge, were your brother layin’ about mun like a very Paladin, fightin’ three big Spanish cavaliers single-handed, and, while I watched, one of ’em aimed a dreadful blow at mun’s head wi’ a heavy two-handed soord. Mr Hubert see’d the blow comin’ and put up his soord to guard the head of mun, but the soord broke off clean, close to the hilt, and there were Mr Hubert disarmed. Then the three Spaniards that was fightin’ mun rushed in afore Mr Hubert could draw his dagger, seized mun by the arms, and dragged mun away out o’ the fight. And while this were happenin’ our Cap’n were so busy that I don’t believe he ever see’d that Mr Hubert were took prisoner. Then I sang out to mun—‘Cap’n Drake,’ says I, ‘if you don’t come aboard this very minute,’ says I, ‘the ship’ll break adrift and go off and leave ye behind.’ The Cap’n took a look round, see’d that evrybody else but hisself was either cut down or took prisoner, and, flinging his soord in the face of a man that tried to stop mun, leaped clean off quay, seized the hawser in ’s hands as mun jumped, and come aboard that way, hand over hand. Then I let go the hawser and jumped to the helm, and we runned off among t’other ships, where we let go our anchor.

“Now by this time the fight were ragin’ most furious everywhere, some of the Spanish havin’ got under way and runned our ships aboard. But they didn’t gain much by that move, for though they sank three of our ships, we sank four of them and reduced their flag-ship to a mere wreck, while their losses in men must ha’ been something fearful. But although we gived ’em such a punishin’, we, bein’ the weakest, was gettin’ the worst o’ it; and bimeby, when they took to sendin’ fireships down to attack us, the admiral thought ’twas time to make a move, so he signalled that such ships as could get to sea was to do so. Accordin’ly, all that was left of us cut our cables, and made sail as best we could, the Jesus leadin’ the way, we in the Judith goin’ next, and the Minion comin’ last and coverin’ our retreat.

“But that didn’t end our troubles by any manner o’ means, for we’d scarcely got clear of the land when the Jesus was found to be so riddled and torn wi’ shot that we only just had time to take her crew off of her when down she went, takin’ with her all the treasure that we’d gathered together durin’ the voyage. Then we parted company wi’ the Minion, and whether she’s afloat, or whether she’s gone to the bottom, God only knows, for I hear that she haven’t arrived home up to now.”

“And when did the Judith arrive?” demanded George, when it became evident that Dyer had brought his story to an end.

“Not above two hours agone,” answered the man. “We got in a’ter dark, and come to an anchor in the Hamoaze; and so anxious were the cap’n to report that he wouldn’t wait till to-morrer, but must needs have a boat lowered and come ashore to see Cap’n William Hawkins to-night. And he bade me walk over here to see madam, give her the news, and say, wi’ his dutiful respec’s, that if time do permit he will call upon her some time to-morrer, to answer any questions as she may wish to ast him.”

“One question which I shall certainly want to ask him will be how it came about that he was so careful to provide for his own safety without making any effort to rescue my son,” remarked Mrs Saint Leger, in a low, strained voice.

“Nay, madam, by your leave, you must not ask mun that,” answered Dyer. “I, who saw everything, saw that the cap’n could not ha’ rescued Mr Hubert, had he tried ever so. He could not ha’ saved Mr Hubert, and if he’d been mad enough to try he’d only ha’ been took hisself. Moreover, from what he’ve a said since ’tis clear to me that he thought Mr Hubert had got safe aboard, or he’d never ha’ left mun behind. I knowed that by the grief o’ mun when he was first told that Mr Hubert had been took.”

“What do you suppose the Spaniards will do with my brother?” impulsively asked George, and could have bitten his tongue out the next moment for his imprudence in asking such a question in his mother’s presence. For Dyer was a blunt, plain-spoken, ignorant fellow, without a particle of tact, as young Saint Leger had already seen, and he knew enough of Spanish methods to pretty shrewdly guess what the reply to his question would be. And before he could think of a plan to avert that reply, it came.

“Well, Mr Garge,” answered Dyer, “you and I do both know how the Spaniards do usually treat their prisoners. I do reckon they must ha’ took a good twenty or thirty o’ our men, and I don’t doubt but what they’ll clap the lot into th’ Inquisition first of all. Then they’ll burn some of ’em at an auto-da-fé; and the rest they’ll send to the galleys for life.”

“What sayest thou?” screamed Mrs Saint Leger, starting to her feet and wringing her hands as she stared at Dyer in horror, as though he were some dreadful monster. “The Inquisition, the auto-da-fé, the galleys for my son? George! I conjure you, on your honour as an Englishman, tell me, is it possible that these awful things can be true?”

For a second or two George hesitated, considering what answer he should return to his mother’s frenzied question. He knew that the horrors suggested by Dyer were true, and the knowledge that his brother was exposed to such frightful perils—might even at that precise instant be the victim of them—held him tongue-tied, for how could he confirm this blunt-spoken sailor’s statement, knowing that if he did so he would be condemning his dearly-loved mother to an indefinite period of heart-racking anguish and anxiety that might well end in destroying her reason if indeed it did not slay her outright? He was as strictly conscientious as most of his contemporaries, but he could not bring himself to condemn his mother to the dreadful fate he foresaw for her if he told her the bald, unvarnished truth. He knew, by what he was himself suffering at that moment, what his mother’s mental agony would be if he strictly obeyed her, therefore he temporised somewhat by replying:

“Calm yourself, mother dear, calm yourself, I beg you. There is no need for us to be unduly anxious about Hubert. I will not attempt to conceal from you that he is in evil case, poor dear fellow—all Englishmen are who fall into the hands of the Spaniards, especially if they happen to be Protestants—and I greatly fear me that some of those who were taken with Hu may be in grave peril of those dangers of which Dyer has spoken. But not Hubert. Hubert was an officer, and it is very rare for even Spaniards to treat captive officers with anything short of courtesy. I fear that our dear lad may have to endure a long term of perhaps rigorous imprisonment; he may be condemned to solitary confinement, and be obliged to put up with coarse food; but they will scarcely dare to torture him, still less to condemn him to the auto-da-fé. Oh, no, they will not do that! But while Dyer has been talking, I have been thinking, and my mind is already made up. Hubert must not be permitted to languish a day longer in prison than we can help. Therefore I shall at once set to work to organise an expedition for his rescue, and trust me, if he does not contrive to escape meanwhile—as he is like enough to do—I will have him out of the Spaniards’ hands in six months from the time of my departure from Plymouth.”

At the outset Dyer had listened to George’s speech in open-mouthed amazement, and some little contempt for what he regarded as the young man’s ignorance; but even his dense intellect could not at last fail to grasp the inward meaning and intention of the speaker; a lightning flash of intelligence revealed to him that it was not ignorance but a desire to spare his mother the anguish of long-drawn-out anxiety and the agony resulting from the mental pictures drawn by a woman’s too vivid imagination; and forthwith he rose nobly to the exigencies of the occasion by chiming in with:

“Ay, ay, Mr Garge, you’m right, sir. Trust your brother to get away from they bloody-minded Spaniards if they gives him half a chance. For all that we knows he may ha’ done it a’ready. And if he haven’t, and you makes up your mind to fit out an expedition to go in search of mun, take me with ye, sir. I’ll sarve ye well as pilot, Mr Garge, none better, sir. I’ve been twice to the Indies wi’ Cap’n Drake, once under Cap’n Lovell and now again under Cap’n Hawkins. And I’ve a grudge to pay off again’ the Spaniards; for at La Hacha they played pretty much the same trick upon Cap’n Lovell as they did this time upon Cap’n Hawkins.”

“Aha! is that the case?” said George. “Then of course you know the Indies well?”

“Ay, that do I, sir,” answered Dyer, “every inch of ’em; from Barbadoes and Margarita, all along the coast of the Main right up to San Juan de Ulua there ain’t a port or a harbour that I haven’t been into. I do believe as I knows more about that coast than the Spaniards theirselves.”

“Very well, Dyer,” returned George. “In that case you will no doubt be a very useful man to have, and you may rest assured that, should I succeed in organising an expedition, I will afford you the opportunity to go with me. Ah! here comes your supper at last—” as the maid Lucy appeared with a well-stocked tray—“Draw up, man, and fall to. You must stay with us to-night—is not that so mother?” And upon receiving an affirmative nod from his mother the young man continued—“and to-morrow I will send you over to Cawsand in our own boat.”

Whereupon, Dyer, pious seaman that he was, having first given God thanks for the good food so bountifully set before him, fell upon the viands with the appetite of a man who has been two months at sea upon less than half rations, and made such a meal as caused Mrs Saint Leger to open her eyes wide with astonishment, despite the terrible anxiety on behalf of her first-born that was tugging at her heart-strings and setting every nerve in her delicate, sensitive frame a-jangle. And, between mouthfuls, the seaman did his best to reply to the questions with which George Saint Leger plied him; for it may as well be set down here at once that no sooner did the youngster learn the fact of his capture by the Spaniards than he came to the resolution to rescue Hubert, if rescue were possible; and, if not, to make the Spaniards pay very dearly for his death. But to resolve was one thing, and to carry out that resolution quite another, as George Saint Leger discovered immediately that he took the first steps toward the realisation of his plan—which was on the following morning. For he was confronted at the very outset with the difficulty of finance. He was a lad of rapid ideas, and his knowledge of seafaring matters, and the Spaniards, had enabled him to formulate the outlines of a scheme, even while listening to Dyer’s relation of the incidents of Hawkins’ and Drake’s disastrous voyage. But he fully recognised, even while planning his scheme, that to translate it into action would necessitate an expenditure far beyond his own unaided resources. True, his mother was very comfortably off, possessing an income amply sufficient for all her needs derived from the well-invested proceeds of her late husband’s earnings, but George was quite determined not to draw upon that if he could possibly help it, although he was well aware that Mrs Saint Leger would be more than willing to spend her last penny in order to provide the means of rescuing her elder son from a fate that might well prove to be worse than death itself. Therefore the younger Saint Leger began operations by calling upon Mr Marshall, the merchant and owner of the Bonaventure, and, having first ascertained that that gentleman had definitely, though reluctantly, decided not to risk his ship in another Mediterranean voyage so long as the relations of England and Spain continued in their then strained condition, unfolded a project for an adventure to the Indies, which, if successful, must certainly result in a golden return that would amply reimburse all concerned for the risks involved. But Mr Marshall had not grown from an errand boy into a prosperous merchant without acquiring a certain amount of wisdom with his wealth, and he at once put his finger on the weak spot in George’s proposal by inquiring what guarantee the latter could offer that his scheme would be successful when a very similar one conducted by such experienced adventurers as Hawkins and Drake had just disastrously failed. He frankly admitted that the young man’s scheme was promising enough, on the face of it, and he also intimated that, as a merchant, he was always ready to take a certain amount of risk where the prospects of success seemed promising enough to justify it, but he no less frankly declared that, while he had the utmost confidence in George’s ability as a seaman, he regarded him as altogether too young and inexperienced to be the head and leader of such an adventure as the one proposed; and he terminated the interview by flatly refusing to have anything to do with it.

Bitterly disappointed at his failure to enlist Marshall’s active sympathy, George called upon some half a dozen other Plymouth merchants. But everywhere the result was the same. The adventure itself met with a certain qualified approval, but the opinion was unanimous that George was altogether too young and inexperienced to be entrusted with its leadership. In despair, George at last called upon Mr William Hawkins, the father of Captain John Hawkins, to obtain his opinion upon the project. Captain John had arrived home a day or two previously, and young Saint Leger was so far fortunate that he was thus able to obtain the opinion of both father and son upon it. As might have been expected, although these two seamen were friends of the Saint Legers, they were so embittered by disappointment at the failure of the recent expedition that they could not find words strong enough to denounce the scheme and to discourage its would-be leader, and so well did they succeed in the latter that for an hour or two George was almost inclined to abandon the idea altogether. Yet how could he reconcile himself to the leaving of his brother to a fate far worse than death itself—for though he had sought to make the best of the matter to his mother, he himself had no illusions as to what that fate would be—and how could he face his mother with such a suggestion? The lad had infinite faith in himself, He knew, better than anybody else, that he had never yet had an opportunity to show of what stuff he was made, he candidly admitted the damaging fact of his extreme youth, but he would not admit to himself that it was a disability, although others regarded it as such; he had been a sailor for seven years and during that time he had mastered the whole of the knowledge that then went to make the complete seaman; moreover, he was also old for his years, a thinker, and he carried at the back of his brain many an idea that was destined to be of inestimable value to him in the near future; therefore, after a long walk to and fro upon the Hoe, he returned home, disappointed it is true, but with his resolution as strong and his courage as high as ever.

And here he found balm and encouragement awaiting him in the person of one Simon Radlett, a shipbuilder, owning an extensive yard at Millbay.

“Old Si Radlett,” as he was generally called, was something of a character in Millbay and its immediate neighbourhood, for, in addition to being admittedly the best builder of ships in all Devon, he was a bit of an eccentric, a man with bold and original ideas upon many subjects, a man of violent likes and dislikes, a bachelor, an exceedingly shrewd man of business, and—some said—a miser. He was turned sixty years of age, and of course had seen many and great changes in Plymouth during his time, yet, although well advanced in the “sere and yellow,” was still a hale and hearty man, able to do a hard day’s work against the best individual in his yard; and although he had the reputation of being wealthy he lived alone in a little four-roomed cottage occupying one corner of his yard, and did everything—cooking, washing-up, bed-making, etcetera, etcetera, for himself, with the assistance of a woman who came, for one day a week, to clean house, and wash and mend for him. He had known George Saint Leger from the latter’s earliest childhood, and had loved the boy with a love that was almost womanly in its passionate devotion, nothing delighting him more than to have the sturdy little fellow trotting after him all over the yard, asking questions about ships and all things pertaining thereto.

He it was who had presented George with the toy ship that still occupied a conspicuous position in the latter’s bedroom at The Nest, and which was such a gorgeous affair, with real brass guns, properly made sails, and splendid banners and pennons of painted silk, that the child had never cared to have another. And the affection which the old man had manifested for the child had endured all through the years, and was as strong to-day as it ever had been, yet such was Radlett’s reputation for close-fistedness that it had never once occurred to George that he might possibly be willing to help him, consequently he had not sought him. No sooner, however, did the youngster enter the house and discover the old tarry-breeks in close and animated conversation with Mrs Saint Leger than his spirits rose; for it had been years since Radlett had so far presumed as to actually call upon madam, and George somehow felt intuitively that such an unwonted and extraordinary circumstance was in some way connected with the realisation of what had now become his most ardent desire.

Chapter Three.

How old Simon Radlett made a certain proposition to George.

“Well, Garge, my son, so you’m safe whoam again,” exclaimed the old shipbuilder, rising to his feet with outstretched hand, as young Saint Leger entered the room. “My word!” he continued, allowing his gaze to rove over the lad’s stalwart frame, “but you’m growed into a reg’lar strapper, and no mistake; a reg’lar young Goliath of Gath a be, no less. And you’ve been a slayin’ of a Philistine or two, here and there, so I do hear” (Mr Radlett was a little mixed in the matter of his Bible imagery, you will perceive, but he meant well). “Ay, ay; I’ve been havin’ a crack wi’ old Cap’n Burroughs, since mun comed whoam, and he’ve a been tellin’ me all about ye. Garge, I’m proud of ’e, boy—and so be madam here, too, I’ll be boun’—for ’twas I that made a sailor of ’e by givin’ of ’e thicky toy bwoat, a matter o’ twelve or vourteen year agone ’tis now. My goodness me! how time du vly, to be sure. It du seem to me only like a vew months ago that I took spokeshave and chisel in hand to make thicky bwoat, and here you be, a’most a man in years, and quite a man in experience as I du hear.

“Wi’ madam your mother’s good leave, I’ll ask ’e to sit down, Garge, for I be comed over expressly to have a talk with ’e. And, first, let me say to ’e—as I’ve already said to madam, here—how sorry I be to hear of what ha’ happened to your brother, Mr Hubert. But—as I was sayin’ to madam when you comed in—you’ll soon have mun out o’ Spanish prison again, for I do hear as you’m arrangin’ an adventure expressly for that purpose.”

“I certainly want to arrange such an adventure, if the thing can be managed,” replied George; “but I have got no farther than wanting, as yet. I have called upon Mr Marshall, the owner of the Bonaventure, and some half-dozen other merchants, and tried to interest them in my scheme, but all to no purpose. They say that I am much too young to be entrusted with the responsibility of heading such an adventure.”

“Too young be danged!” exclaimed Radlett with energy.

“They don’t know ’e as well as I do, Garge, or they wouldn’t talk like thicky. Why, old Cap’n Burroughs told me hisself that if it hadn’t ha’ been for you the Bonaventure ’d ha’ been in the Spaniards’ hands to-day, and all hands o’ her crew, too. Too young? Rubbidge! Now, just you tell thicky plan o’ yours to me, and I’ll soon tell ’e whether I do think you’m too young, or not. And I be an old man; I’ve seed a good many strange happenin’s in my time, and I’ve drawed my own conclusions from ’em; I’m just so well able to form a sound opinion as Alderman Marshall or any other man to Plymouth. Now, Garge, you just go ahead, and when you’ve a done I’ll tell ’e what I do think of your plan, and you too.”

“Well,” replied George, “it is simple enough. My brother was taken prisoner in the course of a treacherous attack made by the Spaniards upon a party of peaceful English traders; therefore I take the ground that his relatives are entitled to demand his release, together with compensation for any suffering or inconvenience that may have resulted from the treacherous action of the Spaniards. I learned, only to-day, that the Queen has already demanded satisfaction for the outrage from the Spanish Ambassador. But we all know what that means. The negotiations may go on for years, and the demand may be withdrawn in the end if by so doing the interests of diplomacy may be served. Therefore I do not propose to wait for that—for who trows what may happen to my brother in the interval? My plan is this: I intend to go on trying until I can find somebody sufficiently interested in my scheme either to advance me the money, or to entrust me with a ship. Then I will get together a crew who will be willing to go with me, taking a certain share of the proceeds of the expedition in lieu of wages—and I believe I shall be able to raise such a crew without difficulty—and I shall sail direct to San Juan de Ulua. Arrived there, I shall make a formal demand for my brother’s immediate release. And if the Spaniards refuse, or attempt to put me off by saying that they do not know what has become of Hubert, I will at once attack the town, take it, and hold it for heavy ransom. And if ransom is refused, I will sack the place, taking every piece of gold or silver and every jewel that I can lay hands upon. And from there I will traverse the entire coast of the Spanish Main, attacking every town that promises to be worth while, until I have succeeded in persuading the Spaniards that it will be to their advantage to free my brother and deliver him over to me.”

“And, supposin’ that they should deliver up your brother at the first town you call at—San Juan de Ulua, I think you named the place—what’ll you do then, boy?” demanded Radlett.

“I shall still require compensation for my brother’s seizure,” replied George. “And,” he added, “that compensation will have to be amply sufficient not only to recompense Hu for his imprisonment, but also to pay handsomely all connected with the expedition. It is my intention, sir, not to return home until I can replace every pig of iron ballast in my ship with gold and silver.”

“Hear to him! hear to him! Gold and silver, quotha!” exclaimed Radlett, delightedly. “And how big’s thy ship to be, then, eh, Garge?”

“The biggest that I can get,” answered George; “the bigger the better, because she will carry the more men, the more guns—and the more gold. I should have liked the Bonaventure, if I could have got her, for I’m used to her, and she is just the right size. But Mr Marshall will have nothing to do with me and my scheme.”

“Ay, the Bonaventure,” remarked the shipwright, meditatively. “Iss, her be a very purty ship, very purty indeed. What be her exact tonnage, Garge?”

“One hundred and twenty-seven,” answered George. “Yes,” he agreed, “she is a pretty ship in every way, and as good as she is pretty. And fast! There’s nothing sailing out of Plymouth that can beat her—although perhaps I ought not to say as much to you, Mr Radlett, seeing that ’twas Mr Mason, your rival, who built her.”

“Never mind vor that, boy, never mind vor that,” answered Radlett, heartily. “’Tis true what you do say of the ship, every word of it; and she be a credit to the man who built her, although he do set up to be my rival. But ’twont be true very much longer, Garge, for I’ve a-got a ship upon my stocks now as’ll beat the Bonaventure every way and in all weathers. I’ve a called her the Nonsuch, because there’s never been nothin’ like her avore. I drawed out the plans of her shortly a’ter the Bonaventure was launched, because I couldn’t abear to be beaten by Mason nor nobody else. And I altered they plans, and altered ’em, and altered ’em until I couldn’t vind no more ways of improvin’ of ’em, and then I started to build. And now the Nonsuch be just ready for launchin’, and I’d like you to come over and look at her avore I puts her into the water.”

“Certainly; I will do so with very great pleasure,” answered George, delightedly, for he had a very shrewd suspicion that this invitation meant more than appeared upon the surface, that indeed—who knew?—it might mean that the eccentric old fellow was rather taken with his (George’s) scheme, and might be induced to take a very important hand in it. “When shall I come?”

“Come just so soon as ever you can, the sooner the better; to-morrow if you do like,” answered Radlett. “And now,” he continued, rising, “I must be gettin’ along, for ’tis growin’ late and I be keepin’ of you from your supper. No, thank’e, madam, I won’t stay. My supper be waitin’ vor me to whoam, and a’ter I’ve had it I’ve a lot o’ things to do that won’t wait for time or tide. So good-bye to ’e both. And you, madam, keep up your spirits about Mr Hubert; for I’ll warrant that Garge, here, ’ll have mun out o’ Spanish prison in next to no time.”

George was up and stirring betimes on the following morning, and, after an early breakfast, set out for Mr Radlett’s shipyard at Millbay. He found the old man busily engaged upon certain papers in the little room which he dignified with the name of “office”; but upon George’s appearance the old fellow hastily swept the documents pell-mell into a drawer, which he locked. Then, pocketing the key, he led the way to the back door of the house, which gave upon the shipyard, upon passing through which young Saint Leger immediately found himself in the midst of surroundings that were as familiar to him as the walls of his own home. But he had no time just then to gaze about him reminiscently, for immediately upon entering the shipyard his gaze became riveted upon the hull of a tall ship, apparently quite ready for launching, and from that moment he had eyes for nothing else. As he came abruptly to a halt, staring at the great bows that towered high above him, resplendent in all the glory of fresh paint and surmounted by a finely carved figure of an unknown animal with the head of a lion, the horns of a bull, the body of a fish, four legs shaped like those of an eagle, and the wings of a dragon, old Radlett nudged him in the ribs and, beaming happily upon him, remarked: “There a be, Garge; that’s the Nonsuch. What do ’e think of her?”

“Upon my word I hardly know,” answered George. “Let me look her over a bit, Mr Radlett, before you ask my opinion of her. Is she finished?”

“Finished?” reiterated the old man. “Iss, sure; quite finished, and all ready for launching. Why? Do ’e miss anything?”

“Why, yes,” said George; “I see neither fore nor after castles. How is that?”

“Swept ’em both away, lad,” was the answer. “What good be they? I allow that they be only so much useless top hamper, makin’ a ship crank and leewardly. ’Tis the fashion to build ’em, I know; but I’ve thought the matter out, and I say that they do more harm than they be worth. Therefore I’ve left ’em out in the Nonsuch, and you’ll see she’ll be all the better for it. But although she have neither fore nor after castles, she’ve a poop, and a raised deck for’ard where guns can be mounted and where, sheltered behind good stout bulwarks, the crew’ll be so safe as in any castle. Do ’e see any other differences in her?”

“Yes, I do,” answered George, as he walked round the hull and viewed it from different standpoints; “indeed I see nothing but differences. The under-water shape of her is different, her topsides have scarcely any tumble-home, and she has not nearly so much sheer as usual. Also I see that you have given her a very much deeper keel than usual. That ought to be of service in helping her to hang to windward.”

“So ’twill, boy; so ’twill,” agreed Radlett. “You’ll find that ’twill make a most amazin’ lot o’ difference when it comes to havin’ to claw off a lee shore, all the difference, perhaps, between losin’ the ship and savin’ of her. Then, about the tumble-home, I don’t see the use o’ it. True, it do help to keep the sea from comin’ over side in heavy weather, and keeps the decks dry. But then it do make the deck space terrible cramped up, so that wi’ guns, and boats, and spare spars and what not, the crew haven’t got room to move. But you’ll see presently, when you goes aboard, that this here Nonsuch have got decks so roomy as a ship o’ double her size. And I do hold that they almost vertical sides o’ hern’ll make mun ever so much finer a sea boat. And I’ve a-worked out the lines o’ mun upon a new principle that, unless I be greatly mistaken, will make this here Nonsuch such a fast sailor that nothin’ afloat’ll be able to escape from mun—or catch mun, if so be that her have got to run away from a very superior force. And I be havin’ the sails cut differently, too. I’ve thought it all out, and I’ve made up my mind that the way sails be cut up to now, they be very much too baggy, so that a ship can’t go to windward. But I be havin’ all the Nonsuch’s sails cut to set so flat as ever they can be made, and—well, I do expect ’twill make a lot of difference. And now, Garge, havin’ looked at her from outside, perhaps you’d like to go aboard and see what she do look like on deck and below.”

George having agreed that this was the case, the old man led his visitor up a ladder reaching from the ground to the entry port. After the spacious deck had been duly admired and commented upon the pair entered the cabins in the poop and below, where again everything proved so admirable that young Saint Leger found himself quite at a loss for words in which to adequately express his approval, to the great delight of the proud designer of the ship.

At length, after a thoroughly exhaustive inspection of the ship, both inside and out, during which Radlett drew attention to and expatiated upon the various new ideas embodied in the design, the curiously contrasted pair retired to the little room which the shipwright called his office, and there sat down for a chat.

“Well, Garge,” exclaimed the old man, as he seated himself comfortably in a great arm-chair, “now that you’ve had a good look at the Nonsuch, what do ’e think of her?”

“She is a splendid craft, and a perfect wonder, well worthy of her name,” pronounced George with enthusiasm. “I should not be surprised to learn that she inaugurates an entirely new system of shipbuilding. She would be the very ship, of all others, for such an adventure as mine; but I suppose you have built her with an especial view to some particular kind of service. Even if you have not, I very much doubt whether I could raise the money in a reasonable time to buy her. What price are you asking for her?”

“She is not for sale, boy,” answered the old man with an inscrutable smile. “I built her in order to put to the test certain theories o’ my own, and now, before ever she touches the water, I be sure, from the look of her, that my theories be right. So I be going to keep her and use her for my own purposes. And one o’ they purposes be to make money so fast as ever I can. I’ve got neither chick nor child to think about and take care of, so my only pleasure in life be to build good ships and make good money with ’em.

“Now, Garge, when I sat listenin’ to you talkin’ last night, I says to myself—‘There’s money, and lots of it, in that there adventure o’ Garge’s, if ’tis only worked right. But it’ll want a good leader, and a good ship; and young as Garge Saint Leger be, I do believe he’ve a-got the brains and the courage for it, while I’ve got the ship. If I’d a built the Nonsuch expressly for such an adventure she couldn’t ha’ been better suited for it.’ So I comed home and thought the thing over until I’d made up my mind about it. Now, Garge, I’m willin’ to do this for ’e. I’ll launch the Nonsuch just as sune as we can get the cradle builded. Then, directly that she be afloat, I’ll put on a strong gang o’ riggers to get her masts in and rigged and her spars across—the sails be makin’ now, and’ll be finished by the time that she’s ready vor ’em; and when she’s all complete I’ll fit her out in ordnance, ammunition, and weapons of all sorts, and provision her for a year’s cruise, all at my own expense. You shall have her for your adventure upon condition that you provide a sufficient crew for her, to my satisfaction, and that, for the use of the ship and her equipment, I be to have one half of all the treasure you brings home; the other half to be disposed of as you thinks fit. Now, what do ’e say? Will that arrangement suit ’e?”

“It will suit me admirably, Mr Radlett, and I agree to your proposal with a thousand thanks and the greatest pleasure,” said George. “Indeed,” he added, “it was precisely such an agreement as I desired to enter into with Mr Marshall, or some other merchant, but none of them would listen to me. And very lucky it is for me that they would not, for with none of them should I have got such a ship as the Nonsuch. What is her tonnage?”

“Just three tons bigger than the Bonaventure, accordin’ to her measurements,” answered Radlett, “but she’ll have twice so much accommodation for a crew as Marshall’s ship have got; because the Bonaventure be built for cargo carryin’ while the Nonsuch be built more for fightin’ and sailin’. Now do ’e see?” And the old fellow accompanied his explanation with a dig in the ribs that was intended to convey to George several things that it was best not to discuss too openly.

Of course George fully understood his companion’s meaning, understood—that is to say—that the Nonsuch had been specially designed and built with a view to her employment as a freebooter, free-trader—as it was then euphemistically termed—or a pirate! But let not the reader be too greatly shocked at this frank admission. For in the days of George Saint Leger piracy was regarded as a perfectly legitimate and honourable trade—always provided that the acts of piracy were perpetrated only against the enemies of one’s country. A pirate, indeed, in those days, was synonymous with the individual who was termed a privateersman at the time of the Napoleonic wars. George Saint Leger, although a perfectly honest and even God-fearing young man, received old Radlett’s hint, with all that it implied, without turning a hair, for it implied nothing worse than he had contemplated from the moment when he first heard of his brother’s capture. It was generally agreed, at that time, that it was not only quite lawful but actually meritorious to make war upon and spoil the enemy of one’s country, and Spain was England’s enemy just then, secretly at all events. Many people maintained that she was God’s enemy as well, therefore it was deemed doubly meritorious to make war upon her; so George Saint Leger had not the ghost of a scruple with regard to his projected raid upon the ports of the Spanish Main.

So the bargain was struck there and then, even to the drafting in duplicate and signing by both parties of a document setting forth the several terms and conditions of the agreement. After this George Saint Leger departed for home with a light step and a still lighter heart, to tell his mother the good news. And she, poor soul, listened to him with strangely mingled feelings; for on the one hand her heart was racked and torn with anxiety and fear for her elder son, a captive in the hands of men whose cruelties to enemies, and especially to so-called heretics, were even then sending thrills of horror and dismay through the Protestant world, while her nights were rendered sleepless by the visions of awful torments, conjured up by her too vivid imagination, which that son might even then be enduring. No wonder was it that, under such circumstances, the one great and paramount desire that possessed her, to the exclusion of all other things, was the deliverance of Hubert from the fate which she pictured for him. Yet, when it came to the point of consenting to the going of her second son to the rescue of her first, her very soul sickened within her lest George, instead of effecting his brother’s deliverance, should himself fall into the toils. For she, like those merchants whom the lad had unavailingly approached, was convinced that the lad was altogether too young, too immature, too inexperienced to undertake the responsibility of leading such an expedition, and if he should fail, her last state would be worse than her first. And what hope of success for him dared she entertain at the very moment when all England was being profoundly stirred at the news of Hawkins’ and Drake’s disastrous failure? If they, seasoned and experienced mariners as they were, found themselves unable to stand against the might of Spain, what chance, she constantly asked herself, would such a mere boy as her George have? Thus she was swayed by first one form of terror and then the other until her reason threatened to give way altogether under the strain, and in sheer desperation she sought, quite unavailingly, to find distraction in preparing George’s wardrobe for the voyage. As for George, he saw the terrible struggle through which his beloved mother was passing, read her every thought, realised her every fear, and when he was not engaged at the shipyard with old Radlett, devoted himself strenuously to the almost superhuman task of allaying those fears, driving them out, and infusing some measure of hopefulness in their place. And so energetically did he strive that at length he actually succeeded in convincing not only Mrs Saint Leger, but also himself, that the expedition would certainly be successful and that he would be able to bring home his brother safe and sound.

Meanwhile, old Si Radlett was nothing if not thorough in his methods, and, having made up his mind to engage in a speculation that, if decidedly risky, might yet result in enormous profit to himself, allowed no grass to grow under his feet. Every man in his yard was at once detailed for service on and about the Nonsuch, the cradle was built, and on a certain raw but brilliant morning of early March, Mrs Saint Leger, well wrapped up in furs, was escorted by George to the shipyard in Millbay, where she had undertaken to preside at the launch of, and perform the ceremony of christening, the ship which was to bear one of her sons across the tempestuous Atlantic to the rescue of the other.

The launch of a ship in those days was a much less ceremonious affair than it is to-day, yet the piety of the time was so real, and so intimately pervaded the affairs of daily life, that a short religious service was deemed as necessary at the christening of a ship as at that of a child; and accordingly a small platform was erected under the bows of the Nonsuch, where, with Mrs Saint Leger beside him, the vicar of the church in which old Radlett worshipped every Sunday morning, read certain passages of scripture, preached a short sermon, and then offered up special prayers beseeching God’s blessing upon the ship. After this the spur-shores were knocked away, and to the blare of trumpets and the roll of drums, Mrs Saint Leger dashed a bottle of wine against the great cutwater of the gaily bedizened ship as she began to move down the ways, exclaiming, as she did so:

“God bless the good ship Nonsuch and all who are to sail in her!” And she said it not perfunctorily, but from her heart; for the lives and fortunes of the two who were nearest and dearest to her in the whole world were irrevocably bound up with the ship.

George did not occupy the platform beside his mother. As soon as he had seen her safely placed, he made his way to a point in the yard from which he could advantageously view the plunge of the ship into “her native element,” and his heart thrilled with joy and pride as he noted with a keen, appreciative, and understanding eye the manner in which the hull took the water, the buoyancy with which, after the first deep plunge, she rose to her bearings and sat upon a perfectly even keel, and the cleanness with which she divided the water as she drove out toward the middle of the bay. Then, too, the craft being farther distant from him than he had ever before viewed her, he was the better able to observe the very marked differences in model which Radlett had introduced into her design, the easier and more flowing lines, the more graceful shape, the shallower hull, and the absence of those towering fore and after castles which rendered the ships of those days so awkward, crank, and uneasy in heavy weather; and he told himself grimly that with such a ship as that, and with a good strong sturdy crew of staunch Devonian hearts to back him up, it should not be his fault if he did not make the word “Englishman” a name of dread from one end to the other of the Spanish Main.

From the moment of the launch the preparations for the voyage progressed rapidly, yet not as rapidly as George could have wished, for the time was one of great difficulty and tension in England; war with France, or Spain, or both, threatened to break out at any moment; the country was swarming with spies, and it was therefore of vital importance to the success of the expedition that the most absolute secrecy concerning it should be maintained. It was even necessary that the very existence of the ship and the fact of her being fitted out should be noised abroad as little as possible, for, as things then were, in the event of a crisis arising it was quite upon the cards that the authorities might lay forcible hands upon the craft and annex her for the service of the country. Such a condition of affairs militated very strongly indeed against extreme rapidity of progress; yet so well did cunning old Radlett manage that, in spite of everything, the process of rigging the Nonsuch and preparing her for sea went forward with surprising speed. It was of course impossible to keep the fact of her fitting-out an absolute secret from everybody, so when inquisitive people came prowling about the wharf, asking all sorts of inconvenient questions, old Radlett gave them to understand, with many nods and winks of mystery, that he had it in his mind to see what could be done with her in the way of a trading voyage to the eastern Indies, where, he understood, pots of money were to be made by those who were willing to take a little risk.

Every day saw a little further progress made, an additional spar raised into position and secured, a little more added to the complicated maze of rigging; and meanwhile George, accompanied by Robert Dyer, who had been hunted up the moment that his services could be made useful, went hither and thither all over Plymouth and its neighbourhood, day after day, hunting up desirable recruits, including many of the Bonaventure’s former crew, until in process of time they contrived, between them, to get together no less than one hundred men, all of them of the true Devon breed, ready to go anywhere and do anything. Under ordinary conditions so large a crew would have found themselves cramped for room in a ship of the Nonsuch’s tonnage. But the Nonsuch was not designed for cargo carrying. She was essentially a fighting ship, her cargo-space being only about half the capacity of other ships of her size, the remainder of the hold being fitted to serve as a spacious ’tween-decks, affording accommodation for an even larger crew than George and her owner had decided was necessary. And, in addition to the ’tween-decks, there were of course the cabins, plainly but comfortably fitted up, which included the captain’s state cabin in the stern of the ship, the main cabin, in which the officers would take their meals and which would be used by them at other times as a council chamber and general living-room, and cabins for the pilot or sailing master, the captain of the soldiers, the chaplain, the surgeon, and the purser.

By the time that this formidable crew had been collected together the Nonsuch was practically complete, so far as rigging and equipment were concerned, and a week later found her with provisions, water, powder, and stores of every description on board, as well as her crew, and only waiting for a fair wind to enable her to go to sea. It was April, and after a long spell of bitter north-easters the weather had changed, a south-westerly wind had set in, with mild, rainy weather, and although George declared himself ready to go to sea and attempt to beat down-channel, old Radlett strenuously opposed the idea, upon the plea that it would be merely a waste of time and a needless risking of the ship. But a day or two later a hint was brought to him to the effect that the attention of the authorities had at last been directed to the Nonsuch and the question of her being taken over by the Government was being discussed, whereupon the old man withdrew his opposition, and, the weather falling opportunely calm at the same moment, George took a hasty farewell of his mother, hurried aboard, gave orders for the lowering and manning of all boats, and on the afternoon of a certain balmy day of mid-April, triumphantly towed his ship out to sea until, abreast of the Mewstone, he fell in with a small southerly air to which he spread his every sail and so passed out of sight to the westward, while Mrs Saint Leger, having crossed to Mount Edgcumbe, stood on Rame Head, watching, until the white sails vanished in the golden haze of evening.

Chapter Four.

How the “Nonsuch” came to Trinidad and was careened there.

In these strenuous days of severe competition and universal education, when there are far more men anxious to obtain responsible positions than there are responsible positions to be filled, a man often reaches middle age before he is able to secure a command of the relative importance conferred upon George Saint Leger when the latter was given the command of the Nonsuch. But in those days competition was nothing like so keen as it is to-day, especially among seafarers, where men of education were comparatively rare. Such men were only needed to take command of the ships which were being built to meet the requirements of England’s rapidly expanding trade with “foreign parts,” and no sooner was a man qualified to command than shipowners were glad enough to snap him up. Also the sum of seafaring knowledge in those days was infinitely less than it is now. The art of navigation was, comparatively speaking, in its infancy, and it was therefore quite possible to produce a finished seaman in the space of five years, or even less. Consequently there were many Elizabethan captains who were little more than boys when they obtained their first command, the immortal Drake, Saint Leger’s illustrious contemporary, being among them. Boys began life earlier then than they do now, and consequently were often occupying positions of great responsibility at an age when the public school-boy of the present day is just beginning to think of abandoning his studies in order to enter upon a career. Hence it is not surprising that, after seven years of active sea life, George Saint Leger, young as he was, was deemed by his old friend Radlett as fully qualified to command what in those days was considered a very fine ship, and to head an expedition of very great importance. True, Mr Marshall, the owner of the Bonaventure, had expressed some doubt as to George being old enough for the responsibility of command, but he did not know the lad so well as old Si Radlett did, and had not followed his career with the same interest; and no sooner was the Nonsuch clear of the channel—which event occurred on the day following that of her departure from Plymouth—than the young commander began to justify the confidence which his new owner had reposed in him.

For, undoubtedly, George Saint Leger was a born seaman. Not only did he ardently love the sea and everything connected with it, but he early developed a faculty of understanding ships, their tackling, and how to handle them. Knowledge that some men acquired only slowly and with difficulty he seemed to grasp intuitively. The mysteries of navigation soon ceased to be mysterious to him, and seven years of active sea experience had taught him all that there was to learn in the way of handling a crew and training it to work together in such a manner that its efforts might be employed to the best advantage. Therefore, once fairly at sea, he began to sedulously exercise his crew, first in the work of reducing and making sail, until he had brought them to a pitch of unsurpassable perfection in that particular direction. Then he as sedulously drilled them in tacking, veering, and other manoeuvres. Finally, he exercised them at the guns, putting them through all the actions of loading, aiming, firing, and sponging out their weapons—but without much expenditure of his precious ammunition—until there was probably no smarter or capable crew afloat than that of the Nonsuch. It must not be supposed that all this was accomplished without developing a certain amount of friction. The ship had not been it sea a full week before her young commander discovered that, despite all his care, he had picked up a few grumblers and shirkers who failed to see the necessity for so much strenuous training, but it was just here that his own personal gifts came to the front. By dint of argument, raillery, and—in one or two particularly bad and obdurate cases—judicious chastisement he finally succeeded in, what is termed in modern parlance, “licking them into shape.”

The usual course to the West Indies in those days was by way of the Azores and the Cape Verdes, at one or both of which places ships were wont to renew their supplies of wood, water, and provisions, and from the last of which mariners shaped a due west course before the trade-winds. But, as already hinted, George Saint Leger was a young man of somewhat original ideas, and geography was one of his favourite studies. He knew that the direct course from the chops of the channel, was, as nearly as might be, south-west; therefore he determined to steer a south-westerly course whenever the wind would permit, instead of following the usual long route via the Azores and the Cape Verde islands; but with the assistance of a roughly made globe he had also puzzled out the fact, not then generally recognised, that in the latitude of sixty degrees a degree of longitude was only about half the length of the same degree at the equator, therefore he also determined to make as much westing as possible at the very outset of his voyage. And this he was able to do with very satisfactory results, for the light southerly air which had sprung up and met him when he towed his ship out of Plymouth Sound not only freshened up into a brisk breeze of such strength that he could only show “topgallants”—as they were then called—to it by rather bold “carrying-on,” but it lasted a full week, during which the reckoning showed that the ship—which proved to be amazingly fast—had sailed a distance of fully twelve hundred miles, or more than half the distance between England and Newfoundland. Then a westerly gale sprang up, which lasted nine days, during which the Nonsuch, under close-reefed canvas, drove southward to the latitude of Madeira, where the ship encountered calms and light variable winds for five days before falling in with the trade-winds; after which the troubles of the voyagers were over. For thereupon ensued not only a constant fair wind, but also fine weather, so that the ship sailed on day after day over a sparkling, gently heaving sea of deepest blue tipped with tiny creaming foam-caps out of which leaped those marine marvels the flying-fish in countless shoals as the bows clove the roaring surges, while overhead the sky daily assumed a deeper, richer tint of sapphire, out of which the sun, scarcely veiled by the solemn drifting trade-clouds, shot his beams with ever-increasing ardour.

And then, at dawn of the thirty-first day after their departure from Plymouth, there was sighted, on the extreme verge of the western horizon, a small wedge-like shape of filmy grey which Dyer, the pilot, pronounced to be the island of Barbados, and the crew, weary by this time of a whole month’s gazing upon nothing but sea and sky, swarmed up on deck at the welcome cry of “Land ho!” and leaned over the bows, gazing rapturously at the little spot of solid earth as it grew in size and strengthened in tint. And lo! as they gazed a cloud formed over the island, darkening it into shadow. The underside of the cloud was black and threatening, and presently its bosom shot forth vivid lightnings, green, blue, rosy red, and sun-bright flashes of dazzling brilliancy, the low, deep booming of thunder was heard, and soon the island vanished behind a violet veil of tropical rain, only to reappear, a quarter of an hour later, fresh, green, and sparkling in the ardent rays of the tropic sun.

But as the ship sped on it was seen, to the bitter disappointment of all, and especially of those who were beginning to suffer from that terrible scourge of sailors, scurvy, that it was not the intention of the young captain to call there, and deep murmurings of discontent arose as the Nonsuch went rolling past the southern extremity of the island, at a distance of not more than a mile, and it was seen to be covered with tropical trees glorious in every conceivable shade of green and gorgeous with many-tinted flowers, for it seemed a very fairy land to those men, whose eyes were weary of the unending sameness of sea and sky, day after day, for thirty-one days. Besides, many of those trees doubtless bore luscious fruits, and oh! how grateful would those fruits be to the palates of men dry and burnt with a solid month of feeding upon salt beef and pork! George heard the murmurings and saw the black looks, and called Dyer to him. Then the two went forward. Mounting the topgallant-forecastle, where he could be seen and heard by everybody, George waved his hand for silence, and presently began to speak.

“Men of Devon,” he said, “I perceive that you are disappointed because I do not intend to touch at yonder island. And I can well understand your disappointment, for truly never have I seen a fairer sight than it presents. I can tell, by my own feelings, how greatly you would enjoy a run ashore there. But, lads, there is a good reason for our avoidance of that island, and it is this. God has been very good to us, so far, in granting us such a splendid passage across the vast Atlantic ocean; but splendid as that passage is, it has still been long enough to develop scurvy among us; and at the suggestion of Doctor Chichester, I have decided, in council, that before making our attempt against the Spaniards I will put in and give you all a fortnight ashore, both to regain your health and also to careen the ship and remove the weed which you have only to look overside to see. Judging from sight alone, no better harbourage could we find than that which we have just passed. But, men, our pilot tells me that the place—which is named Barbados—is much frequented by the Spaniards, if indeed they have not already taken possession of it; and we should find ourselves in sorry plight if, while the ship is hove down, two or three Spanish sail were to appear and attack us. Doubtless we should beat them off; but we’ve not come all this way to fight just for fighting’s sake. I fight when and where I choose, and to please myself, not the enemy. Therefore, instead of touching at Barbados, where we are liable to attack, we are going two days’ sail farther on, to an island twenty times as big as Barbados, twenty times as beautiful, and quite safe, because, beautiful as the island is, the Spaniards have not yet found time to settle upon it. Mr Dyer, here, knows the place, and he’ll tell you all about it.” And he stood aside, giving place to the pilot.

“Shipmates,” said Dyer, turning to the crowd of eager-eyed men clustered thickly about the deck below him, “you do all look most terrible disapp’inted because we’m leavin’ thicky island astern, instead of goin’ in and anchorin’ before mun. But though he do look so good and enticin’ he baint quite so good as he do look. For all about here—and this here island o’ Barbados in partic’lar—I’ve heard tell be subject to the most dreadful hurricanes that it’s possible for mortal man to imagine, and we don’t want to go in there and have our ship hove half a mile up into the woods by a storm-wave so that she won’t be no more use to us. Besides that, as our cap’n have said, the place is used, off and on, by the Spaniards, and we don’t want ’em to come lookin’ for us until we be ready to meet ’em. So we’m going on a matter o’ two days’ sail to the most beautiful island in these here parts, called Trinidad, after the impious fashion o’ the Spaniards, where I knows of a fine, snug little cove where the ship’ll be so safe as ever she was to Millbay, and where we needn’t fear either hurricanes or Spaniards. There we can take our ease and enj’y the lovely fruits that the Almighty have provided for the refreshment of poor sea-worn mariners.”

“Then, baint there no Spaniards to Trinidad, Mr Dyer?” demanded one of the men.

“Not yet there baint,” answered Dyer. “Doubtless in time they’ll find their way there; but at present they’m so eager after gold that they only settles where gold is to be found. And there’s no gold in Trinidad, nothin’ but harmless Indians, and fruit in plenty—and snakes. You’ll have to be wary and keep a good look out for snakes, when you gets ashore to Trinidad; but that du hold good of all the Indies.”

So the men settled down again to wait in patience for the appearance of the earthly paradise promised them by Dyer, and, sure enough, the dawn of the second day after passing Barbados revealed high land on the larboard bow, serrated in outline, and tree-crowned to its very summit. As the ship stood on, driven smoothly forward by the good trade-wind, bringing the saw-like ridges back toward the beam, it was seen that the land consisted of two islands instead of one, the nearer and lesser of which is to-day known as Tobago. But Dyer knew nothing of Tobago, whereas he had been inside the Gulf of Paria once before; therefore the Nonsuch held steadily on until Tobago drew out clear upon the larboard quarter, when a break in the continuity of the land ahead was descried, and presently this break revealed itself as an opening full ten miles wide, in the eastern half of which stood three islands—or four, rather, for upon a still nearer approach it was seen that the middle island was divided into two by a channel so narrow that at a little distance it looked as though a man might leap across it. And upon either side of the opening, up sprang the land sheer out of the sea to a height of eighteen hundred feet, steep, and shaggy, with tropical foliage of the most varied and glorious tints.

Straight for the centre of the passage between the middle and the most easterly island steered Dyer, and when presently the ship entered the passage and her sails were almost becalmed by the intervention of the high land to windward, the amazed seamen found themselves entering a magnificent land-locked gulf so deep and so wide that they could not determine the limits of it. It was not until some time afterward that they found it to measure some fifty miles deep by ninety miles wide! And thus they got their first glimpse of the wonderful Gulf of Paria.

Once clear of the passage—now known as the Boca de Huevos—Dyer trimmed his yards flat and brought the ship as close to the wind as she would lay, keenly watching the various points and indentations as they opened out, one after the other, until at length a group of five small tree-crowned islets opened out clear of an intervening island, when he rubbed his hands and chuckled delightedly.

“Ah, ah!” he exclaimed, “there a be, there a be! I was a’most beginnin’ to fear as I’d forgot, or that an earthquake had happened, or somethin’. But ’tis all right. You see they five little bits of islands away over yonder, Cap’n? Well, they be my landmarks, and as soon as we’ve stood far enough on to fetch ’em we’ll go about.”

As the ship opened out from under the lee of the weather shore it was found that the trade-wind was piping up briskly athwart the gulf, but notwithstanding this it was nearly an hour before the Nonsuch had reached far enough to the southward to enable her to make the islets on the next tack, and when at length she was hove about it was another full hour before she glided close past a low point and rounding-to, let go her anchor in three fathoms, in a snug little cove that looked as though it had been specially formed for the careening of ships.

The cove was situated within a bay, and was formed by a hook-like projection of land high enough not only to hide the ship from the view of any chance voyager who might happen to enter the gulf for reconnoitring purposes, but also effectually to protect her in the unlikely event of the trade-wind dying down and giving place to a gale from the westward. Moreover, the high land to the eastward so effectually protected the place from the trade-wind that a perpetual calm existed in the cove, even when the trade-wind was piping up with the strength of half a gale a few hundred yards away. The shore was a narrow strip of sandy beach, completely submerged at high water, beyond which lay a space of low, flat ground about half a mile in width, gradually rising as it receded from the shore, and running up in a sort of tongue for a distance of about two miles between two lofty, steep-sided hills, densely covered with trees of various kinds, while the entire shore, for miles in either direction, was thickly fringed with coconut trees. Strangely enough, for some unknown reason, the ground between the narrow fringe of coconut trees bounding the shore-line and the base of the hills, was bare of trees, the soil being covered with a dense growth of guinea-grass, with a few bushes and flowering shrubs sparsely dotted about here and there—it therefore offered ideal facilities for camping.

After George and the surgeon, accompanied by Dyer, had gone ashore and very carefully inspected the place, it was decided at once to unbend the ship’s sails, carry them ashore, and temporarily convert them into tents for the accommodation of all hands, which would afford the sick an opportunity to recover their health and strength while the operation of careening and scraping the ship was proceeding. This was accordingly done, and by nightfall the camp was ready for occupation, and the entire crew, with the exception of an anchor watch, slept ashore that night.

The following day was devoted to the task of transferring to the shore the whole of the ordnance, weapons, ammunition, and a considerable portion of the ship’s stores, one party attending to this business while a second party, under George’s personal supervision, proceeded to entrench the camp and otherwise put it into a state of defence, a third party of half-a-dozen men, under Chichester, the surgeon, exploring the woods in the immediate neighbourhood in search of fruit, of which they brought in large quantities, consisting of bananas, mangoes, prickly pears, ananas, custard-apples, soursops, guavas, and a sackful of coconuts which Dyer showed the men how to open so that they could get at and quaff the refreshing “milk.” And oh, how delighted everybody was to find himself in this tropical island paradise, where strange fruits of the most exquisite flavour were to be had for the mere trouble of plucking, where the air was fragrant with a thousand mingled perfumes, where there was a perfect riot of flowers of strange shapes and most gorgeous colouring to delight the eye, and where humming-birds flashed hither and thither like living gems in the dazzling, blistering rays of the sun. True, there were one or two drawbacks—the heat, for instance, was terrific in that hemmed-in valley where only a transient breathing of the trade-wind penetrated at rare intervals; and the men soon found that paradise still harboured the serpent, for several snakes were seen and one was killed—a diabolically handsome but most wicked-looking creature clothed in a skin of greyish black ornamented with a diamond pattern consisting of lattice-like lines of yellow, and having the flat heart-shaped head which betrayed its venomous character. Also there were innumerable insects and creeping things, notably centipedes up to a foot in length, whose bite would certainly result in several hours of excruciating agony which might even terminate in death, and small black ants which insinuated themselves between a man’s clothing and his skin and tormented him to the verge of madness. But these things troubled the men very little, for under Dyer’s tuition they soon learned how to protect themselves against the plagues; and meanwhile the salubrious air, the luscious fruits, the perfume from the flower-laden woods, and the many beautiful sights which surrounded them were real things in the enjoyment of which they forgot all drawbacks. Thus far, no natives, or human beings of any sort other than themselves, had been seen the inference therefore was that the island, at all events that part of it in which the Englishmen had established themselves, was uninhabited, and they therefore went about their work without fear of disturbance or interruption of any kind.

By the end of the week the ship was empty and all ready for heaving down; and when the men knocked off work on the Saturday night George let it be known that nothing would be done on the following day, and that after divine service in the morning all hands would be free for the rest of the day, and at liberty to amuse themselves as they pleased. Nevertheless he warned them all not to stray far from the camp, and even then to keep together in little companies of half a dozen or so, and also to go fully armed. For although they had seen no natives thus far, it was quite possible that the woods might be full of them, watching and only waiting for an opportunity—when the English were off their guard—to rush the camp and destroy every one of its occupants. Accordingly, on the Sunday, after prayers and an early dinner, those who were bent upon exploration armed themselves and wandered off up the valley in small parties in accordance with George’s directions. But the heat was so intense that few of the men were disposed to ramble very far. They had been working hard ever since the arrival of the ship and were more disposed to spend the day in camp, resting quietly or practising archery at the butts which they set up.

Seeing this, George, the parson, and the surgeon decided to rig the quarter boat and proceed on a voyage of exploration eastward in her; and this they did, arriving, after a beat to windward of some five and a half miles, off the mouth of a river which seemed to be discharging down a long and very tempting-looking valley. There were no natives to be seen, or any signs of them; therefore, tempted by the possibilities which the exploration of the river held out to them, they entered and sailed up it until it shoaled so much and its bed became so obstructed with rocks that the boat could proceed no farther. Then it became a question whether they should adopt the dictates of prudence and return to the ship, or whether they should risk something by landing and pursue the further exploration of the river on foot. Eventually they decided that as the afternoon was still young, and nothing had been seen that was in the slightest degree alarming or suggestive of possible danger, they would take such small amount of risk as was involved in landing and investigate the course of the river a little farther, the beauties of the place very strongly appealing to them. Accordingly they landed, concealing the boat beneath the foliage of a remarkable tree that conveniently overhung the stream.

Having cunningly hid the boat and looked carefully to the priming of their firearms, the adventurous trio stepped ashore, George, with drawn sword, leading, while Chichester, the surgeon, brought up the rear. They were compelled to closely follow the course of the stream, since the woods on either hand were so dense and impenetrable that it would have been impossible to pass through them, save by hewing their way, and this was of course not to be thought of. Besides, it was the river that they desired to explore, since only by following its banks could anything be seen of the many strange and beautiful things that surrounded them; therefore they pressed forward, now on the solid ground close by the river margin, and now scrambling, ankle and sometimes knee deep, along the boulder-strewn bed of the stream itself, pausing at frequent intervals to admire some forest giant dressed in vivid scarlet blossoms instead of leaves, or another thickly festooned with trailing creepers gorgeous with blooms of marvellous form and most extravagant hue, or a graceful clump of bamboo, soaring like gigantic plumes of feathers a hundred feet into the heat-palpitating air. Frequently, too, they halted to watch the motions of some tiny humming-bird hovering like a living gem over the cup of a flower, or the flight of a gaudily painted kingfisher or parrot. A great silence pervaded the woods, for the trees were for the most part so lofty that the sough of the wind in their topmost branches was inaudible, and it was the hour when the insect world indulged in its daily siesta. Animals there were none to be seen, but an occasional sudden quick rustle of the grass told them that snakes were to be watched for and guarded against.

In this fashion the trio proceeded slowly up the river, talking but little save when one of them in a low voice directed the attention of the others to some object worthy of notice, until gradually their ears caught a sound which told them that they were approaching a waterfall; and five minutes later they sighted it close at hand—and involuntarily halted, struck dumb and motionless for the moment by the extraordinary beauty of the picture which lay before them. The waterfall, the sound of which had reached them a few minutes earlier, was some sixty feet in height and about twelve feet wide, the river tumbling vertically down the perpendicular face of the cliff into a wide basin, the lofty sides of which were draped with the graceful fronds of giant ferns, the broad leaves of the wild plantain, crimson-leaved acacias, enormous bunches of maidenhair, and several varieties of plant and bush, the names of which were unknown to the trio of gazers, and which were brilliant with blossoms of the most lovely hues. The fall leaped out of a kind of tunnel formed by the intertwined branches of overhanging trees, the sombre foliage of which was brightened by numerous festoons of flowering creepers. But it was not so much the extraordinary fairy-like beauty of the scene as a whole—the charm of which was further enhanced by the loveliness of the humming-birds and great butterflies that flitted hither and thither in the cool, spray-laden atmosphere of the place—nor the marvellous profusion of new and wonderful flowers of every conceivable tint that everywhere met the eye, which so powerfully fascinated the beholder; it was the wonderful, exquisite blue colour of the water in the basin itself, which, although of crystalline transparency, receives its marvellous colouring through some freak of sky reflection penetrating through the branches of the overhanging trees. The effect of this wonderful colouring must be seen to be appreciated. And it is seen and admired every day by enthusiastic sightseers, some of whom have journeyed thousands of miles to feast their eyes upon the beauties of the famous Blue Basin of Trinidad, which is not very greatly altered now from what it was when those three adventurous Devonians stood and gazed enraptured upon it, probably the first white men who ever beheld its magic loveliness.

For a space the trio stood spellbound, silent and motionless; then the spell relaxed its grip upon them sufficiently to permit of renewed movement and speech, and they burst into rapturous ejaculations as they moved forward to gaze again at closer quarters.

“Beautiful! beautiful beyond the power of human mind to imagine, or human tongue to tell,” exclaimed “Sir” Thomas Cole, the ship’s chaplain. “Well might the Psalmist say: ‘O Lord, how manifold are Thy works! In wisdom hast Thou made them all: the earth is full of Thy riches.’ And I’ll warrant that David never looked upon such a scene as this, for ’tis not recorded that he was ever to the tropics. And if God hath seen fit to make this earth so beautiful, think, my masters, what must Heaven, His own abode, be like?”

“Ay, well may you say that, Sir Thomas,” answered Chichester “and yet, if there seems a chance of any of us going there, we’re willing to do almost anything to delay our departure.”

“Well, and ’tis not to be wondered at when this old earth of ours can show such loveliness as this,” commented literal, plain-spoken George. “For my part, I’m willing enough to be here, just now, to enjoy the beauty that the Lord has made to delight His people’s eyes. And what a glorious spot it is for a bathe! Come on, gentles; who’s for a dip? There’s time enough for a swim across and back again if we don’t delay too long. ’Twill be delightfully cooling and refreshing after our long walk from the boat.”

The proposal found immediate acceptance, for the heat had been overpowering, and the trio were streaming perspiration at every pore. It was Chichester only, who by virtue of his professional knowledge was aware of the evil results attending a sudden chill, who first took the precaution of advancing to the edge of the basin and testing the temperature of the water by plunging his hand into it, and it was while he was doing this that his attention was arrested by the peculiar appearance of what he at first took to be a large stone projecting out of the shallow water on the opposite side of the basin. At first sight it looked exactly like a grey boulder of some fifteen or twenty pounds weight, yet there was a certain something in its appearance which caused him to bestow a second and more attentive glance upon it, and now he felt not quite so certain that it really was a stone, after all. To resolve his doubts he picked up a small stone and threw it at the questionable object, the missile falling about a foot short. He felt almost sure that, as the stone plopped into the water, he detected a slight movement on the part of the mysterious object. To make quite sure, he threw a second stone, and this time his aim was better, the stone hitting the target fair and square in the middle. But the sound of the impact was not that of stone upon stone, it was rather that of stone upon wood, or even some still more yielding substance, and it was immediately followed by a loud angry hiss and the uprearing of the object aimed at. The next instant the amazed trio beheld the head and neck of a gigantic serpent lift itself some four or five feet out of the pool, while fierce hissings issued from the wide-opened jaws. For a few breathless seconds the enormous reptile glared around, apparently in search of the audacious disturbers of its slumbers, then, seeing the three white men standing on the opposite shore of the pool, it swung round, and came swimming, with an easy, undulatory movement of its body, straight toward them at an astonishing speed.

“Avaunt, Sathanas!” exclaimed Cole, throwing up his hands. “Surely ’tis the Devil himself in his original form that hath taken possession of this Eden! No mortal serpent was ever so big as thicky. Look to the length of mun! He must be all of thirty foot, or more. And look to the pace at which he cometh! We must run for it, my masters.” And he turned with intent to fly from the scene.

“Not a bit of it,” exclaimed George, who was by this time half undressed. “‘Resist the Devil and he will fly from thee.’ And if he be not the Devil, but only a mortal snake, there is still less reason for flight, seeing that there be three of us to one of him. Besides, I mean to have his skin, and take it home to my mother.” And he snatched up his long, keen sword from the ground where he had thrown it when about to undress, and boldly advanced to the attack.

The python, which was of the species known as “anaconda,” is very common in the forests bordering the Orinoco, and is occasionally found in Trinidad even to this day, the belief current with regard to its presence in the island being that the ancestors of those now found in the island originally reached it by swimming across the strait from the mainland, a distance of only some nine miles. They are very fond of the water, and are not venomous. But George did not know this, therefore it was all the more courageous of him that he should have determined to fight rather than retreat from the huge reptile.

The creature was making straight for a small space of smooth, level beach, free from big boulders and fallen logs, and as this afforded good firm foothold for a fight, young Saint Leger took up his position there, and boldly awaited the approach of the monster. The creature came steadily on, its eyes gleaming balefully; and presently it reached shallow water, when it suddenly threw its extended body into a coil, and raised its great head to the level of George’s face, its immense jaws wide open, and its wire-like forked tongue darting and quivering as it emitted a series of savage hisses that might well have quelled the courage of the bravest man. But George was one of those peculiarly constituted people who know not what fear is. Danger but added a piquant zest to his enjoyment, and steadied instead of upsetting his nerves. He loved to pit himself, his courage, his coolness, his skill and his sagacity against what looked like overwhelming odds, and the formidable aspect of this enormous serpent, which might well have paralysed another man with terror, only had the effect of bracing him and filling him with the joy of combat. With his good sword gripped firmly in his hand he stood his ground, intently watching the movements of his formidable antagonist, with every muscle of his body tense and ready for action, and presently, when the python hurled itself at him with a lightning-like extension of its great coils, the lad as nimbly bounded aside, and at the same moment dealt a slashing blow at the spot where, a fraction of a second later, he knew its great head would be. A jar, which thrilled his sword arm to the shoulder, told him that his stroke had got home, and the next instant he was violently hurled a fathom away as the snake’s severed head fell to the ground, and the enormous body, writhing in a thousand terrific convolutions, churned the blue waters of the basin into diamond-tinted spray. For full ten minutes the amazed trio stood gazing in breathless astonishment at the amazing twistings and writhings of the decapitated body, and then George, taking advantage of a momentary cessation of movement, dashed into the shallow water, seized the creature with both hands by its quivering tail, and drew it ashore. Then, impaling the severed and still gasping head upon his sword blade, and inviting his two friends to help him, the trio, with some difficulty, raised the still convulsively writhing and twitching body upon their shoulders and, thus heavily loaded, made the best of their way back to their boat.

The sun had already sunk behind the high land in the direction where their ship lay, when the adventurers, with their strange prize bestowed in the bottom of the boat, emerged from the river into the open waters of the gulf, and shortly afterward the darkness swept down upon them with the extraordinary suddenness peculiar to the tropics. But they cared nothing for that, for they now had a fair wind to carry them back to camp, the heavens were thickly studded with stars, shining with that exceeding brilliancy and splendour which is also peculiar to the tropics, and the men in camp had kindled a fire on the beach as a beacon to guide them back; they therefore had no difficulty in finding their way.

But their day’s adventures were not yet quite at an end. For as the boat slid smoothly along under the impulse of the fast waning wind Cole, the chaplain, who was sitting on one of the side thwarts, while the surgeon balanced him on the other side of the boat, suddenly looked up from the water, into the dark depths of which he had been gazing, with the startled exclamation:

“Lord ha’ mercy! what be that, now? Look, cap’n, look overside, do ’e, and tell me, if you can, what monstrous thing we’ve a-run foul of now.” And as he spoke he pointed straight downward.

George, thus adjured, leaned over the gunwale and directed his gaze downward. What he saw was startling enough to cause him to suddenly shift his helm, with the result that the sail jibed over unexpectedly and all but capsized the boat. Luckily the wind had been dropping steadily for the last half-hour, so they escaped with no worse consequence than a gallon or two of water over the gunwale.

But what was it that caused young Saint Leger to so far forget himself? Simply a great shape, made brilliantly luminous by its passage through the water as it swam immediately underneath the boat, keeping pace with her. It was lozenge or diamond-shaped, about twenty-five feet long and thirty feet broad, with a tail some ten feet long trailing away behind it. The light generated by its passage through the water revealed it sufficiently to enable the startled beholders to perceive that it was undoubtedly a living thing of some sort, that it was propelling itself by the movement of its wing-like sides, and that at its forward angle—which was of course its head—it was furnished with a pair of great goggle eyes with which it seemed to be regarding the boat intently and not too amiably. Whether or not it was startled by the sudden flap of the sail as the boat jibed, it is of course impossible to say, but, be that as it may, as the boat suddenly swerved away from above it the huge creature rose with a rush to the surface and sprang right out of the water to a height of some twelve feet, and, flapping its enormous wings like a great bird, flew right over the boat, coming down on the other side of her, at a distance of some four or five fathoms, with a boom like the sound of a gigantic drum, and a disturbance of the sea so violent that it all but swamped the boat. Five times it soared into the air in this extraordinary fashion, luckily descending each time at a greater distance from the boat, and then it disappeared altogether, to the great relief of the voyagers.

“Looked as much like a giant thornback as anything I ever saw,” remarked George, when at length the creature had freed them from its presence and their astonishment had sufficiently subsided to permit of their speaking again. “We must ask Dyer about it. I remember him telling me, some time ago, about a thing that he once saw when he was last in these seas, and from his description I think it must have been the same sort of fish. He said that the Indians called it, in their own language, the devil fish, or great sea bat, and they further told him that it is a most dangerous monster, since it has an unpleasant trick of rising alongside a canoe, overlapping it with one of its wings, and forcing canoe and occupants under-water. I think it not unlikely that the brute we just now saw may have been meditating to serve us in the same fashion, but was somehow frightened into thinking better of it.”

Twenty minutes later the trio safely arrived at the camp without further adventure, and found all well there. The men, it seemed, had enjoyed the day of rest, each in his own fashion, some in practising archery, some in repairing and washing their clothes, some in bathing in the shallow water close inshore, while a party of their comrades in a boat kept watch outside them to frighten away intruding sharks; while others had walked up the valley, gathering fruit and flowers. One party, more adventurous than the rest, had, ignoring the order against straying far from the camp, penetrated the valley for a distance of some two miles, as far as the base of the hills at its higher extremity, and had there come upon a small Indian village, the inhabitants of which had at first fled at their approach, but had afterwards been induced to return and barter with them, giving barbed spears, feather head-dresses, parrots, monkeys and a queer-looking little animal something like a miniature pig encased in a shell-like coat—which the men had incontinently named a “hog in armour”—now known as the armadillo, in exchange for brass buttons off the white men’s coats, old knives, fish-hooks and the like. Questioned by George as to the appearance of these same Indians, the men described them as extraordinarily ugly and dirty, wearing no clothing, but ornaments with pieces of bone thrust through their ears, nostrils and lips, very repulsive as to appearance, but apparently quite friendly disposed. And so indeed they proved to be, for on the following day a number of them approached the camp, bringing fruit, vegetables, and a variety of other articles, which they offered in exchange for almost any rubbish which the white men were willing to part with. And being treated kindly, by George’s express orders, they continued this practice so long as the ship remained, to the very great profit and advantage of the English. Of course communication with them was exceedingly difficult, being conducted entirely by signs, hence it was found quite impossible to obtain any information whatever from them, the business transactions being conducted by the Indians exhibiting the goods which they desired to dispose of, and the English producing the articles which they were willing to give in exchange.

The ship was hove down on the following day, and, all hands working hard, one side of her was scraped clean and made ready for painting by the time that the men knocked off work at night. The next day was devoted to painting that side of her which had been scraped, and Wednesday was given up to the drying of the paint and a general overhaul of the stores. On Thursday the ship was righted, swung, and hove down again, exposing the other side of her bottom, and the process of cleaning, painting and drying was repeated, the operation being completed by the end of the week. Sunday was again observed as a day to be devoted to worship and recreation, and on Monday morning the ship was finally righted and the work of replacing her ballast, stores, ordnance, ammunition and so on was begun, the task ending on the following Friday night, by which time the Nonsuch was once more all ataunto and ready for any adventure which her young captain might choose to engage in. And, meanwhile, the invalids, who, at Doctor Chichester’s suggestion, had been spared all labour, had completely recovered from their sickness, and were as well and strong again as ever. And, incidentally, the python which George had slain at the Blue Basin had been most scientifically skinned and the skin cured, stuffed with dry grass, stitched up, and the head joined to it again by an Indian whose services the young captain had contrived to secure; and when the Nonsuch sailed out of the Gulf of Paria on the eventful Saturday which saw the actual beginning of her great adventure, the skin—measuring thirty-four feet eight and a half inches from snout to tail—gracefully, if somewhat gruesomely, adorned the forward bulkhead of her state cabin.

Chapter Five.

How they captured the “Santa Maria” at Margarita.

By the advice of Dyer, the pilot, George kept the mainland aboard upon issuing from the Gulf of Paria; for the island of Margarita was at no great distance to the westward. And not only was Margarita the spot where the Spaniards had established a vastly profitable pearl-fishing industry, but it was also a kind of depot where all sorts of supplies from Old Spain for the maintenance of her West Indian possessions were landed and stored, to be drawn upon as occasion might demand. There was, therefore, the double possibility of securing a more or less rich booty of pearls, and of replenishing the stores, somewhat depleted by two months of usage, at the Spaniards’ expense.

Now, it was usual to approach Margarita from the northward; but that course involved the risk of being sighted from the battery which the Spaniards had constructed on the north-eastern extremity of the island; and to be sighted meant that the garrison of the battery would give timely warning to the colonists, who would thus be afforded ample opportunity to conceal such treasure of pearls or otherwise as they might happen to have on hand before the arrival of the English. Therefore Dyer counselled an approach from the south-eastward, taking care to keep far enough to the southward to escape observation from the inmates of the battery, assuring George that he was thoroughly acquainted with the navigation of those waters and guaranteeing that if his advice were followed the surprise of the colonists should be complete.

Accordingly the Nonsuch hugged the coast of the Main as closely as was at all prudent, a good look-out for rocks and shoals being maintained; and at dawn on the following morning high land was descried on the north-western horizon, which Dyer, having inspected it from aloft, confidently pronounced to be the mountain peaks of the eastern half of Margarita.

The ship was now, as she had been all through the night and the preceding day, within the influence of the land and sea-breezes, and it was under the influence of the former that she was now driving along to the westward. But Dyer was aware that very shortly after sunrise the land breeze would die away and the ship would be becalmed for the best part of an hour before the setting in of the sea-breeze; therefore, knowing exactly where he was, with Margarita in sight, he gave the order to bear up and run off the land, which was done just in time to escape the calm and run into the trade-wind.

Two hours later more land was sighted, this time straight ahead, and a little later it was made out to be a small island, right in the fairway between Margarita and the main. And as, upon a nearer approach, a number of buildings were seen upon it, while in the offing a whole fleet of boats—which Dyer affirmed bore a remarkable resemblance to pearl-fishing-boats—were sighted at anchor, George resolved to give the place an overhaul before calling upon the Margaritans. Now, one advantage possessed by the Nonsuch happened to be that, owing to the peculiarity of her design, she bore a very remarkable resemblance to the Spanish race-ships, or razees, which, in conjunction with the great galleons, transacted almost the whole of the business on the Spanish Main; and Saint Leger determined to avail himself of this peculiarity in the hope that he would thereby be enabled to approach the little settlement without arousing the suspicion of its inhabitants. Accordingly he stood boldly on until he was abreast of the place—which now showed as one large wooden shed and about a dozen smaller ones, together with a small stone building which had the appearance of a church; then, rounding-to, came to an anchor, at a distance of about a mile from the shore, the colour of the water indicating that the island was surrounded by a shoal.

As the Nonsuch let go her anchor and clewed up her canvas, a number of people were seen to emerge from the sheds and stand gazing at her, as though curious to learn what her business might be. But they showed no signs of anxiety or alarm; on the contrary, when two boats, with their crews armed to the teeth, put off from the ship, under the command of George and Captain Basset, who commanded the small contingent of land forces forming part of the ship’s company, the islanders came sauntering down to the beach to meet them.

A steady pull of about a quarter of an hour’s duration took the boats to the beach of the island, which was a low and parched-looking place clothed with guinea-grass with a few clumps of palms and palmetto, and the inevitable coconut trees close down by the water. As George stepped ashore a tall, sallow man attired in trunk hose, gorget, and steel headpiece, with a long straight sword girded to his thigh, stepped forward from the little crowd of about a dozen people and courteously greeted his visitor in good Castilian Spanish.

George, whose trade with the Biscayan ports had enabled him to acquire a pretty thorough acquaintance with the Spanish language, returned the greeting in due form; but there was apparently something not quite right about his accent, for the Spaniard stepped back quickly and, clapping his hand to his sword-hilt, exclaimed:

“Señor, you are not a Spaniard! Who are you, and what is your business here?”

And as he did so his supporters made a movement which seemed the preliminary to a hurried retreat. Whereupon George threw up his right hand warningly and said—of course in Spanish:

“Stand fast, every one of you. The man who attempts to move will be instantly shot down. As to who I am, señor, it matters not. But my business is to examine this island, and particularly to see what yonder shed contains. Therefore I must trouble you and your comrades to surrender your swords for an hour or two. You are my prisoners.”

“But, señor, with all submission, this is an outrage,” expostulated the Spaniard. “I cannot surrender my sword to a stranger who declines to give me his name, and produces no authority for his actions.”

“This is my authority,” exclaimed George, suddenly whipping out his sword with a nourish. “Will you submit to it, or must I resort to sterner measures?”

“I submit, of course,” replied the Spaniard, “seeing that your party is much the stronger of the two. But I do so under protest; and I warn you, señor, that my Government will speedily avenge this outrage, which is worthy only of— Ha! now I know who you are. You are an Englishman—possibly that thrice-accursed corsair, Drake, who, last year, at San Juan de Ulua—”

“You are mistaken, señor; I am not Drake; nor does it matter who I am,” retorted George. “Come, señors, your swords, if you please, for I have little time to waste. Simons—and Way,” to two of his men, “relieve those gentlemen of their swords. A thousand thanks, gentlemen,” as the Spaniards surrendered their weapons. “Now do me the favour to accompany me; and please remember that any man who attempts to escape will instantly be shot down.”

So saying, George, with his drawn sword in his right hand and his left resting suggestively upon the butt of one of the pistols that adorned his belt, led the way toward the little settlement, wondering meanwhile what could possibly be the explanation of certain whiffs of a singularly vile and offensive odour which now and then assailed his nostrils when there occurred an occasional flaw in the trade-wind which was sweeping briskly over the island. He might, of course, have asked, but the thought occurred to him that by doing so he might perhaps be betraying his ignorance, and so lay himself open to the chance of being misled upon a matter that might very well be of importance. A little later on he was very glad that he had held his peace.

A walk of a few minutes’ duration brought the party to the settlement, whereupon George called a halt and directed three of his men to follow him into the first house they came to, and the rest to keep a wary eye upon the prisoners. The building was a small wooden affair, consisting of three rooms only, two of which were sleeping apartments, while the third was furnished with a table, a sideboard, a couch, and a few chairs, and was evidently used as a sitting-room. There was nobody in the house, but upon passing through it to the rear they discovered a small detached structure, the odours proceeding from which seemed to suggest that it was being used as a kitchen. There they found a young Indian woman bending over a fire and preparing a savoury mess of some sort; and it was not without difficulty that they at length made her understand she was a prisoner, and must abandon her cookery and accompany them. In like manner they visited all the remaining houses of the settlement, collecting altogether two white women and some twenty blacks, as well as a priest, the whole of whom, together with their other prisoners, they unceremoniously marched to the little church, locking them therein, and so making prisoners of every soul in the settlement. Then, having posted half a dozen men round the church, to see that nobody broke out, George led the way to the big shed, which was the most conspicuous building in the settlement. Entering it, he found that it was divided into two unequal compartments, the smaller of which contained a few casks of wine, a few bales of cloth of different kinds, and a miscellaneous assortment of goods, evidently intended for the use of the settlers. Then, passing from this into the larger compartment, he at once became aware of a faint suggestion of the same peculiar and offensive odour that had assailed his nostrils while walking up from the beach, and, looking more closely, he found that it proceeded from an enormous heap of something piled high against the further wall, which, upon investigation, he found to be a kind of oyster-shell, the interior of which was more or less thickly coated with a beautiful white, iridescent substance. At once he understood the meaning of everything. Those shells were shells of the pearl oyster; the settlement was a subsidiary pearl-fishing station; and the odour which had so offended him was the odour of decaying oysters laid out to rot in the sun in order that the pearls might be extracted without injury from the dead fish. And it had apparently dawned upon somebody that the shells, as well as the pearls, possessed a market value, and this was where they were being stored after being cleansed from the decayed fish.

But if that enormous heap consisted entirely of pearl oyster-shells, as it unquestionably did, where were the pearls that had been extracted from them? George glanced round the sombre interior, lighted by only one open aperture guarded by a heavily framed shutter, and saw two large boxes dimly revealed in one shadowy corner of the store. He strode across to these, and, flinging them open, stood transfixed with amazement; for one box—the larger of the two—was three-fourths full of small pearls of the kind usually known as seed pearls, while the other was nearly half full of lovely gems of the most exquisite satiny whiteness, ranging in size from that of a small pea up to beauties as big as the top of a man’s thumb! What their value might be he had not the vaguest idea, but there were hundreds of them; ay, possibly a thousand or more, and he knew instinctively that if he never laid hands upon another particle of booty, the contents of those two boxes would pay the whole cost of the expedition and leave a very handsome margin over for prize money. The boxes were iron-bound, and were furnished with stout lids which were capable of being secured by means of strong padlocks which hung in the hasps, with the keys still in them. So, having satisfied his curiosity by closely examining a few of the finer specimens, George closed and locked both boxes, slipped the keys into his pocket, and then, going to the door, called to eight of his men, and, indicating the boxes, instructed the seamen to carry them down to the boats forthwith. Then, waiting until he had seen the task accomplished, he walked to the church door, unlocked and threw it open, and announced to the prisoners that they were now free to come forth and proceed about their business, adding that if they would walk down to the beach after he and his men were gone they would find their swords left for them upon the sand. This done, he gave orders for the men to march down to the boats, himself bringing up the rear.

As George quite expected, the cavalier in gorget and headpiece, who had met the Englishmen upon their arrival, and who seemed to be the officer in charge of the settlement, no sooner found himself free than he proceeded straight to the big shed, entered it, and a moment later re-appeared and came running after the retiring Englishmen.

“Señor,” he cried, as soon as he arrived within speaking distance, “you have taken our pearls, the proceeds of the entire fishing season up to the present, and the loss of them will mean to me irreparable ruin. I beg you to return them to me, señor, and in acknowledgment of your courtesy I pledge you the honour of a Spanish gentleman that I will remain silent as to your visit to this island. Otherwise I promise you that I will immediately spread the news of your presence in these waters, and of your atrocious act of piracy, throughout the length and breadth of the Spanish Main, with the result that you will be hunted by every Spanish ship of war in the Caribbean Sea, with consequences to yourself and your piratical crew which I leave to your own imagination to picture. Come, señor, I beg you to think better of this, and to return the pearls to me. You will find it pay you far better in the long run.”

“Señor,” retorted George, “if I understand you aright, you would buy back your pearls at the expense of your own countrymen in the various settlements scattered along the coast, by leaving them unwarned of my presence in these seas, so that I may have the opportunity to fall upon them unawares. If you are sincere in making this proposal, señor cavalier, you are a traitor to your own countrymen; if not, you have it in your mind to betray me and my crew. In either case your proposal smacks of treachery, and I will have none of it. Now, mark you this, señor. You are at perfect liberty to take whatever steps you please to warn your countrymen of my presence in the region which Spain arrogantly claims as exclusively her own. And you will be doing your compatriots a service by acquainting them with the reason for my presence here.

“Last year Captain Hawkins, my countryman, had occasion to put into San Juan de Ulua in distress. He entered into a solemn covenant and agreement with Don Martin Enriquez, the new Viceroy of Mexico, whereby the English were to be permitted to refit their ships in peace, without let or hindrance from the Spaniards. Yet, despite this covenant, the Spaniards most shamefully and treacherously attacked the English at the very moment when they were least capable of defending themselves, with the result that many of my countrymen were slain—murdered, señor, is the right word—and many ethers taken prisoners, my brother, Mr Hubert Saint Leger, among them. Now, my business here is to rescue that gentleman, and to exact reparation for his imprisonment and such hardships and suffering as he may have been called upon to endure in consequence of the treachery of the Spaniards. My first act, in pursuance of this policy, is the seizure of your pearls. If by any chance you happen to know anything of my brother’s whereabouts, you will be rendering your countrymen a signal service by imparting such information to me. For I intend to carry fire and sword throughout the Main until I have found my brother and exacted reparation; and when I have done that, my ravages will cease. If you can tell me where my brother is to be found, I will proceed thither direct, and spare your other towns. If not, I shall attack each as I come to it. Now, can you tell me where I shall be most likely to find my brother?”

“No, señor Englishman, I cannot,” answered the Spaniard; “nor would I if I could. Your brother is no doubt long since dead, probably at the hands of the Inquisition. It is into its hands that heretics generally fall. Go your way, señor pirate, go your way to the fate that awaits you, and do your worst. I look to have the pleasure of seeing you publicly burnt alive in the square of one of our cities ere long.” And the Spaniard turned upon his heel and left George standing there, in a tumult of feeling too complex for description. But he did not stand long, for his men had continued on their way down to the boats, and were now waiting for him to rejoin them, which he did without further waste of time.

Upon the arrival of the boats alongside they were at once hoisted in, after which the two chests of pearls were taken out of them and carefully deposited below then the anchor was hove up to the bows, and the Nonsuch once more got under way. The distance from the island which they had just left—and which they incontinently called “Pearl Islet,” but which they afterwards learned was named Coche Island—was not far, being a mere matter of some seven miles and when they arrived within a mile of the rock-studded coast the ship was kept away before the wind, and Dyer ascended to the foretop, taking with him a “perspective glass,” or telescope, belonging to George, in order that he might the better be able to find the harbour of which he was in search. And after remaining there nearly an hour and a half he found what he wanted, namely, a low point covered with coconut trees backed up with thick palmetto scrub, with an opening to the westward of it beyond which rose three peaks. This opening was the mouth of the harbour which he was seeking, and a most unpromising-looking place it was, for there was white water stretching apparently right across it, showing that the approach to the harbour was guarded by a reef or bar of some sort. But Dyer knew what he was about; he had already been in that harbour once, and he was aware that somewhere in that barrier, if he could only find it, there was a channel, narrow, it is true, but nevertheless wide enough and deep enough to allow the passage of an even bigger ship than the Nonsuch. And if he wished for confirmation of such knowledge, there it was before his eyes, in the shape of the upper spars of a ship showing above the top of the coco palms, the distance apart of the spars indicating that the craft to which they belonged was at least as big as the English ship, if not a trifle bigger.

It was not, however, until the Nonsuch arrived immediately opposite the opening that Dyer was able, with the assistance of the perspective glass, to pick up the little narrow streak of unbroken water in the midst of the flashing surf which marked the channel through the reef, and from his lofty perch he immediately shouted down the necessary orders to George, who stood aft upon the poop, and who in his turn repeated them to the mariners, whereupon the ship was brought to the wind and, under the pilot’s directions, headed straight for the passage. Then Dyer communicated the further information that there was a large ship lying at anchor in the harbour; upon hearing which Saint Leger, after demanding and receiving certain further information, gave orders for the ordnance, great and small, to be loaded, and for the crew to arm themselves and stand ready for any emergency.

The Nonsuch, when brought to the wind, was within two miles of the shore; a quarter of an hour later, therefore, found her sliding in through the short, narrow passage of clear water, with the surf pounding and thundering and churning in great spaces of white froth on either hand. Then, suddenly, the commotion receded on the quarters and the adventurers found themselves in a gulf some eight miles long, running due east and west, and so narrow that there was only barely width enough in it for a ship of size like the Nonsuch to turn to windward in it—as she must do in order to reach the settlement, some three miles to the eastward, off which the strange ship rode at anchor. The water inside this gulf was almost glass-smooth, being to a considerable extent sheltered from the trade-wind by the high land to the eastward, and Dyer, still occupying his coign of vantage in the foretop, perceived to his amazement, that while the spit on the south side of the gulf gradually widened out as the land trended eastward, the island, at this particular part of it, was so narrow that the gulf was only separated from the sea to the northward by a spit so attenuated that he could see the Caribbean across it less than three miles away. This narrow northern spit was also quite low, fringed with coconut palms, and covered with low, dense scrub, as was the southern spit for a distance of some two miles, while the land to the east and west of the gulf rose up in a series of lofty peaks, tree-crowned to their summits, the vegetation seeming to consist mostly of ceibas, palms, bois immortelles, bamboo, tree ferns, calabash trees, crimson-hued hibiscus, and other tropical trees, gorgeous now with multi-coloured blossoms, the whole presenting a most beautiful and delectable picture as it shimmered under the rays of the mid-day sun.

But there was one part of the scene which was not quite so delectable, and that was a spot some three miles up the gulf, where rode at anchor a race-ship quite as large as, if not something larger than, the Nonsuch. She was surrounded by boats, to the number of twenty or more, into which she was discharging cargo which the boats were conveying to the shore for disposal in certain sheds forming part of a settlement at least four times as large as that on Coche Island. It was a busy scene, some ninety or a hundred men being engaged upon the wharf and about the warehouses, in addition to those in the boats and aboard the ship. Moreover, the Nonsuch was scarcely clear of the channel through the reef, when the red and gold banner of Spain was hoisted upon the flagstaff aboard the other ship, and on a flagstaff ashore, which was of course a polite hint to the new arrival to display her colours in turn. There was therefore very little prospect of the English being able to effect anything in the nature of a surprise, unless they chose to cloak their real character under a display of false colours, and this young Saint Leger positively refused to do. Instead he ordered the white flag bearing the crimson Cross of Saint George—which was at that time the ensign of England—to be bent on to the ensign halliards, but not to be hoisted until he gave the word, since there was no sense in prematurely alarming the enemy if it could be avoided.

The enemy, however, in this case, promised to be less easily hoodwinked than their compatriots over on Coche Island; at all events their suspicions were more readily awakened, for when, after an interval of about five minutes, the Nonsuch still delayed to show her colours, the race-ship fired an unshotted gun by way of calling attention to the invitation implied in the display of her own colours and when this hint also was ignored signs of intense activity began to immediately manifest themselves aboard the ship and at the settlement, the boats alongside the Spaniard hurriedly casting off and pulling for the wharf, while the race-ship’s rigging and yards suddenly grew thick and dark with men hastening aloft to loose her canvas.

“The Don’s goin’ to get under way, Cap’n, I du believe,” hailed Dyer from the foretop where he was still perched. “Do ’e see his men swarmin’ aloft?”

“Ay, ay; I see them,” answered George. “Well, let him come, if so be he will. I would rather fight him here than where he is now, where he could receive the support of his friends. Do you see any sign of galleys anywhere about, Mr Dyer?” Dyer took a long, searching look through his glass, and at length reported that nothing of the kind was to be seen.

“Good!” returned George. “Then our first fight promises to be one of fair play and no favour—that is to say, if the fellow means to fight and not to attempt to slip away, which we must take care that he does not do. Mr Dyer, you may come down as soon as the Spaniard is fairly under way, for I shall want you to help me fight the ship. Now, men of Devon,” he continued, turning to the crew, who had of their own accord and without waiting for orders gone to their stations, “we shall soon be fighting our first fight. Show these haughty Spaniards what you can do, in such fashion that the Nonsuch shall soon become a name of fear throughout the length and breadth of the Spanish Main. Stand to your ordnance, lads; keep cool; and take good aim.”

The Nonsuch had tacked twice, working to windward up the narrow channel, when Dyer shouted the news that the Spanish ship had apparently slipped her cable, and was under way, running down toward them; and he followed up the news by descending the fore-rigging and making his way aft, where he stationed himself on the poop beside George, in readiness to supervise the working of the ship while the latter fought her.

The two men had only time to exchange a few hurried words together when the Spanish ship was seen to windward, coming down toward them under full sail. And a gallant sight she looked, with her brightly-painted hull, her big gilded figure-head and head rails flashing in the sun, her mastheads and yard-arms bedizened with banner and pennons streaming in the breeze, and her painted sails bellying and straining at yard and stay with the warm breathing of the trade-wind. She was still some two miles distant, and it would be at least ten minutes before she arrived within gun-shot.

“Pilot,” said George, turning to Dyer, after he had eyed the stranger carefully, “let the mariners clew up and furl our topgallants. I believe we can do without them, by the look of yonder ship, which seems to be not nearly so fast as ourselves, and there will be the less tackle for the men to handle when it comes to manoeuvring, and consequently the more men free to fight.”

The order was given; the men sprang to the topgallant halliards and sheets, cast them off, manned the clewlines and buntlines, and clewed up the topgallants. Then a dozen of them—six forward and six aft—leapt into the rigging, clambered it with the alacrity of squirrels, neatly furled the sails, and were on their way down again from aloft when the first gun from the Spaniard boomed out across the still waters of the channel, to be echoed a little later by the distant hills. The shot flew wide, striking the water nearly a hundred fathoms away on the Nonsuch’s lee bow.

“Now,” cried George, turning to a man who had for some time been standing by the ensign staff, “you may hoist away and let the Dons see with whom they are about to fight.” And in obedience to his command the glorious Red Cross on its white field floated out over the taffrail and went soaring majestically to the head of the staff, to be greeted with cheer after cheer by the crew.

The Nonsuch was now on the starboard tack, heading to the northward, and it looked as though the Spaniard meditated crossing her stern and raking her at close quarters as she crossed. To counter this manoeuvre, therefore, Dyer gave the order “Ready about!” and as the sail-trimmers sprang to their stations, George shouted an order to the gunners of the starboard battery to be ready to fire at the word of command. The men accordingly blew their smouldering matches vigorously, again looked to the priming of their ordnance, and held themselves ready to discharge at the word. Up swept the Nonsuch into the wind, with all her sails ashiver in the brisk breeze, and, watching carefully, George gave the order to fire at the exact moment when the Spanish ship was square abeam. The Spaniard discharged her broadside at the same instant, and immediately succeeding the thunder of the two broadsides those on board the Nonsuch heard the distant thud of their pounding shot and the crackling crash of splintering spars; and, looking eagerly in the direction of the Spanish ship, they saw that they had shot away her foremast and bowsprit, both of which were in the very act of falling. So they raised three joyous cheers and fell to loading their pieces again, while their comrades, who had not yet fired, looked to see where the Spanish shot had gone. But, with the exception of two holes in the Nonsuch’s mainsail, and a severed brace dangling from the fore-topsail yardarm, no damage was discoverable, whereat they cheered again.

The Spanish ship continued to forge ahead on her original course for a distance of a few fathoms, and then the wreck of her foremast and bowsprit, towing alongside and still attached to her hull by the standing and running rigging, dragged her head round to starboard, whereupon she instantly broached to. Meanwhile the Nonsuch, having stayed, was paying off on the larboard tack, the relative positions of the two ships being such that a collision seemed imminent. George saw that the situation was such as to demand instant decision, and he immediately made up his mind what to do.

“Keep her away, Mr Dyer,” he commanded, “and run alongside the enemy to leeward. Keep your head sail aback to deaden our way, or we shall never get the grapnels to hold. Stand by there to larboard to heave your grappling irons. Archers and musketeers, discharge me a volley upon the decks of yonder ship; and, gunners of the larboard battery, be ready to fire a broadside of ordnance, great and small, into her at the moment when you feel us touch. Then, boarders, be ready to follow me.” And he drew his sword.

The next moment a shower of arrows and musket balls swept the decks of the stranger with devastating effect, as might be gathered from the chorus of shrieks and yells of anguish that arose from the deck of the Spaniard. An answering volley was instantly returned by the enemy, but it was wild, straggling, and feeble, bearing eloquent testimony to the state of confusion that already prevailed on board her, and which did little harm; and this state of confusion was further demonstrated by the sight of an officer on her poop waving his sword violently and shouting orders to which nobody seemed to pay the slightest attention. A minute later the hulls of the two ships crashed together, the grappling irons were thrown at the precise instant that the Nonsuch poured a destructive broadside into her antagonist, and before the ships had time to recoil from the impact, George, at the head of some fifty boarders, leapt from the one ship to the other, and the party proceeded to lay about them with sword, pike, and musket butt with such fell determination that after a few seconds’ resistance on the part of the Spaniards the latter flung down their weapons and called for quarter.

George turned to the officer, who had now descended from the poop to the main deck and was valiantly fighting, single-handed, with his back to the front of the poop cabins, and cried to him:

“Do you surrender, señor?”

“I will, if you will promise me good guerra, señor,” replied the Spaniard, dexterously parrying the thrust of a pikeman and running his antagonist neatly through the shoulder.

“Then stop, men; hold your hands, and leave this cavalier to me,” cried George, dashing in and striking up the points of the English weapons that still threatened the Spaniard. Then, as the men drew sullenly and unwillingly back, the young captain advanced, with lowered point, and his left hand held out. “Your sword, señor,” he demanded. “On the word of an Englishman, I promise you buena guerra.”

Whereupon the Don, taking his sword by the point, tendered it, hilt first, with a bow, to George, who tucked it under his left arm, bowing in turn as he received it. And so the Santa Maria, fifty tons bigger than the Nonsuch, and carrying even more guns, with a crew which, at the beginning of the action, had numbered one hundred and thirty, became the first prize of George’s prowess and that of the Devon mastiffs.

Chapter Six.

How they came to a desert island and buried their treasure.

The ships being still held fast together by the chains of the grappling irons, and driving slowly down the channel before the wind, George first ordered the Nonsuch to be brought to an anchor; and when this was done he further instructed Dyer to take steps for the effectual securing of the unwounded prisoners, and the tending of the wounded on both sides. Then, inviting the officer who had surrendered to him—and whom he rightly assumed to be the captain of the prize—to accompany him into the state cabin of the captured ship, he formally introduced himself as Señor Don George Saint Leger, an Englishman, and captain of the ship Nonsuch; the stranger returning the compliment by explaining that he was Señor Don Pasquale Alfonso Maria Francisco of Albuquerque, a servant of his Most Catholic Majesty, Philip of Spain, and commander of the ship Santa Maria, dispatched from Cadiz by his Majesty to convey munitions of various descriptions to his Majesty’s possessions in the Western Indies. And when requested to specify more particularly of what those munitions consisted, Don Pasquale, etcetera, etcetera, mentioned wines, cloths, silk, and brocades of various descriptions, salt, leather, articles of furniture, arms and ammunition, and—he hesitated, whereupon George gently invited him to complete his enumeration.

“Before I do so, señor,” remarked Don Pasquale, “I should like to ask what you intend to do with my ship, now that you have captured her.”

“Assuredly,” answered George. “I had quite intended to tell you, even if you had not asked for the information. My purpose in coming to this part of the world is to seek my brother, who was last year captured by your countrymen at San Juan de Ulua, when, by order of Don Martin Enriquez, they treacherously attacked the squadron of the English admiral, John Hawkins, while he was peacefully refitting his ships, under an agreement whereby they were to be permitted to do so without let, hindrance, or interference of any kind. My brother, Don Hubert Saint Leger, is still a prisoner in the hands of your countrymen. My intention is to secure his release, if he is still alive; and to exact heavy compensation for his detention—and any discomfort or suffering to which he may have been subjected; or, if he is dead, to wreak my vengeance upon his slayers. Therefore, señor, you will be rendering your countrymen a service—when I have released you—by informing them of my purpose, and saying, further, that as soon as I have found my brother, or had him restored to me, I will hold my hand and leave these shores; but until then I will ravage the Spanish Main from end to end. Thus, you—and your countrymen also, I hope—will see that it is to the interest of every Spaniard in the Indies to find my brother and restore him to me, alive and unhurt, as quickly as possible. And do not forget to lay full emphasis upon the words ‘alive and unhurt,’ señor, because if he has been slain, or even injured in any way, I will exact such terrible reparation as shall linger in the memory of Spaniards for many a long year. It is in pursuance of my policy of exacting reparation for my brother’s detention that I have captured your ship. I shall take from her whatever I may find aboard her that will be of use to me; and, that done, I shall land you all here on the island of Margarita, and either sink or burn the Santa Maria.”

“I presume, señor, from what you say, that you hold a commission from the Queen of England, and that it is she who has dispatched you upon your mission of retribution, in revenge for the attack upon her ships at San Juan de Ulua. Is that so?” demanded Don Pasquale.

“No, señor, it is not so,” answered George. “The Queen of England knows nothing of this expedition, which is entirely a private venture of my own.”

“And the señor holds no commission?” continued the Don.

“No commission save what is conferred by this,” answered George, touching his sword.

“Then it would appear that I have fallen into the hands of a common pirate, señor,” remarked Don Pasquale through his teeth.

“If you choose to so regard me,” answered George.

“Bueno!” remarked the Spaniard. “Then I shall know what to do. There is no question of how I choose to regard you, señor. You hold no commission from your Queen, yet you have dared to make war upon the lieges of his Most Catholic Majesty. Therefore you are a pirate, neither more nor less. And as soon as it pleases you to release me I shall make the best of my way to the Main, there to warn my countrymen of your presence upon the coast, and your alleged object. And you may rest assured, señor, that within a month from this time every Spanish ship in these seas will be on the look-out for you. Your career of piracy will then soon be cut short; and I shall live in the hope of seeing you hanged as a warning and example to all other pirates.”

“That is as may be,” retorted George. “You may be assured, Don Pasquale, that I did not enter upon this expedition without a full realisation of all the risks which it involved. Let me again impress upon you the urgency of remembering the words alive and unhurt in relation to my brother, when you make your report; for if anything has been allowed to happen to him, I will hold responsible every Spaniard who falls into my hands. By the way, was there not something that you were about to add when you were enumerating the items of your ship’s cargo?”

“There was, señor,” answered Don Pasquale, “but I was then under the impression that I had fallen into the hands of a fellow soldier. But now that I find my captor to be merely a common pirate, it is not consonant with my honour to afford you any further information.”

“As you please, señor,” answered George, in nowise ruffled by the Don’s reiteration of the term “pirate,” which in those days carried nothing like the opprobrious signification that it bears to-day. “It matters not; for I shall cause your ship to be thoroughly searched from stem to stern before I destroy her. But as you seem to be imbued with so very strong an animus against me, I must put you in confinement while your ship is being searched, lest you should feel tempted to do something which you would afterwards be sorry for.” So saying, young Saint Leger threw open the door of a state-room in the lock of which he observed a key and, signing to the Spaniard to enter, closed the door and locked the man in, much to the haughty Don’s undisguised disgust. Then, having first called in a man from the deck to stand sentry over the door, he went out on deck to see how matters were proceeding there.

He found that the task of separating the wounded from the dead and the disposal of the former as comfortably as might be on board the ships to which they respectively belonged, was upon the eve of completion, whereupon, after giving Dyer certain further orders, George called to Heard, the purser, and a couple of seamen, to accompany him, and again entering the cabin of the prize, proceeded to subject it to a thorough systematic search, beginning with the captain’s own private state-room. Here, as George quite expected, they found, in a locked desk, a large number of documents, including bills of lading, official instructions, and so on; and among the latter a paper authorising Don Pasquale to deliver over to Don Martin Enriquez, the Viceroy of Mexico, at San Juan de Ulua, the sum of one hundred thousand gold pezos, to be used for payment of the troops and the expenses connected with the government of the country. This was a prize indeed worth having, and George at once proceeded to the cabin in which the Don was confined, and apprising him of the discovery of the document, demanded to be informed where the money was to be found. But the Don flatly refused to supply the information, admitting indeed that the treasure was aboard the ship, but assuring George that it was so carefully concealed that no one but himself would ever be able to lay hands upon it. Whereupon George locked the door again, slipped the key in his pocket, and sent for the carpenter and carpenter’s mate of the Nonsuch, with instructions to come aboard the prize forthwith, bringing with them their tools.

George had a very shrewd suspicion that the money was concealed somewhere down in the run of the ship, that being the part of a vessel where treasure was usually stored, because there it would be under the immediate care of the officers and quite out of reach of the crew; as soon, therefore, as the carpenter and his mate joined them, the search party entered the ship’s lazarette and completely cleared it, sending all the stores up on deck. Then, not finding any traces of the money, they tore up the temporary decking, and not to dwell unduly upon this incident, at length found the treasure, in ten stout, iron-bound cases, very cunningly stowed away in a secret chamber constructed right down alongside the ship’s keelson. It was a difficult job to get the cases on deck, they being heavy, and the space in which they were stowed very confined; but, of course, they managed it at last, and late in the afternoon the whole was transferred to the Nonsuch and safely stowed away in her treasure-room. Meanwhile, Dyer had not been idle; and when the transfer of the treasure had been effected, and George was free to attend to other matters, the pilot reported that all the arms, ammunition, and certain pieces of ordnance, had been removed from the Santa Maria, as well as the large quantity of wine, provisions, rope, canvas, and other matters that might possibly prove useful in the future, and that—subject of course to George’s approval—the prize might now be abandoned. Whereupon, after carefully perusing Dyer’s detailed list of the matters transferred, George issued orders that the boats of both ships were to be lowered and the prisoners, wounded and unwounded, sent down into them, after which the flotilla proceeded, under a flag of truce, to the settlement, some two miles to windward, where the Spaniards were landed. There was a tense moment when, as the flotilla approached the wharf, a body of armed men, numbering about a hundred, suddenly swung into view from behind a cluster of buildings and marched down toward the wharf as though intending to dispute the landing. But when George, in his gig, pulled fearlessly ahead until he arrived within hail—and within musket-shot—and announced the object of his coming, adding that, if any treachery were attempted, his ship would bombard and utterly destroy the settlement, the armed men were hurriedly marched back again out of sight, and the landing of the prisoners was accomplished without difficulty or interference.

By the time that the boats got alongside again, after landing the prisoners, the sun was within an hour of setting, and if the adventurers desired to reach the open sea again before nightfall—as they most assuredly did—it was time to bestir themselves. George, therefore, issued his orders, and while one party of his now pretty well exhausted crew manned the capstan and proceeded to get the Nonsuch’s anchor, a second were set to work to pass a towing hawser aboard the prize and make it fast; after which the ships got under way, the Santa Maria being in tow of the Nonsuch, and safely accomplished the passage of the reef just as the sun’s upper rim was disappearing beneath the western horizon in a flaming glory of gold and crimson. Then, as soon as the ships had secured an offing of some three miles, rendering it exceedingly unlikely that the prize would drive ashore and again fall into the hands of her former crew, she was effectually set fire to and abandoned. This done, the exhausted crew were sent below to get a good substantial meal, and the deck was left practically in charge of the officers, the helmsman and a couple of hands to keep a look-out being air of the crew who were required to keep the deck until the regular night watches should be resumed.

This opportunity was seized by George to explain to the officers his more immediate plans. He reminded them that the primary object of the expedition was to rescue his brother from the Spaniards, and pointed out to them that since the stroke of good fortune which had fallen to their lot, that day, had made them masters of enough booty to ensure the financial success of the expedition, there was now no reason why the great object of the voyage should be further delayed, and intimated his intention of heading the ship directly for San Juan de Ulua. And this was at once agreed to, if not exactly cheerfully, at least with a fairly good grace; for there were some on board the Nonsuch who, having seen how apparently easy it was to obtain rich booty, would fain have had the ship proceed leisurely along the coast, touching at La Guaira, Porto Cabello, La Hacha, Santa Marta, Cartagena—in fact at every spot along the Main where the Spaniards had established themselves, holding the towns to ransom and acquiring all the booty possible while working their way westward. But George would have none of it, he had already acquired quite as much booty as he desired to possess at that moment; for he wanted to keep his men keen, and he knew that nothing saps a man’s courage more, and makes him less willing to engage in a desperate enterprise, than the possession of ample means, and he feared that if he acquired too much treasure before he had succeeded in finding and rescuing his brother, the crew might insist upon abandoning the quest and returning home to enjoy the fruit of their spoils. Therefore, as soon as the south-western extremity of Margarita was cleared, the ship’s head was hauled up to west-north-west for the northern extremity of the peninsula of Yucatan.

On the following forenoon a small island, the northern extremity of which was studded with numerous outlying rocks, was sighted ahead, and passed, close to the northward, about an hour before noon; and late on in the afternoon another and somewhat larger island, grouped about with innumerable rocky satellites, was sighted and passed to larboard. Then nothing more was seen until, on the fifth day out from Margarita, about an hour before midnight, the alarm was suddenly raised that broken water appeared ahead, and the ship was quickly brought to the wind, on the starboard tack, just in time to avoid plunging headlong upon a reef projecting from the northern extremity of a small island, of the existence of which Dyer declared himself to be utterly ignorant. Luckily for the adventurers, there was a half-moon riding high in the sky, which, together with the highly phosphorescent state of the sea, and the admirable look-out which was being maintained by George’s orders, enabled them to detect the danger in time to avoid it.

Hastily summoned from his bunk, upon the occurrence of the emergency, George ascended to the poop, and carefully surveyed the situation. To the northward there appeared what looked like the loom of high land, but if it was what it appeared to be, it was sufficiently distant to be of no immediate consequence, and the young commander scarcely favoured it with a second glance; it was his immediate surroundings that most insistently claimed his immediate attention, for as a matter of fact the ship had blundered up against what is now known as the Pedro Bank and its cays, and there the latter lay, not more than a mile to leeward of the ship, which was already in discoloured water, with the sea breaking heavily at no great distance to the north of her and all round four small islets within easy distance of each other. Fortunately, the weather was fine, and a very brief study of the situation sufficed to convince Saint Leger that the ship was not in any danger, now that the islands had been seen and timely measures taken to avoid running upon them. But the sight of them had crystallised in his mind an idea that had been floating there during the last few days, ever since they had left Margarita, indeed, and he issued orders for sail to be reduced, and for the ship to dodge to and fro to windward of the islets, keeping them in sight until the morning. For he had suddenly made up his mind to devote a few hours to the examination of these islets by daylight, with the object of determining their suitability as a hiding-place for the treasure which he now had on board. He regarded it as altogether too valuable to be risked in a fight with its accompanying possibilities of capture, and he felt convinced, from occasional remarks which had reached his ears, that all hands would fight with greater freedom, and much easier minds, if they felt that, in the event of a reverse, their loss would be confined to that of the ship, and possibly their own freedom—strange to say, they were quite willing to risk the latter, convinced that if they fell into the hands of the enemy their loss of freedom would be but temporary, but if they chanced to lose the treasure it would be gone for ever.

Accordingly the ship dodged off and on during the remaining hours of the night, and at daybreak George was called, and at once proceeded into the foretop, accompanied by Dyer, where the pair again carefully reconnoitred their surroundings. From this elevation it was seen that the four islets occupied the south-eastern extremity of a shoal, or bank, of somewhat irregular shape, widening out from a point at its eastern extremity, to a width of some twenty-five miles at the spot occupied by the islets, and stretching away in a westerly direction to the very verge of the horizon, and possibly farther still. The four islets lay in a group, about four miles apart, nearly equidistant from each other, and ran in a direction approximately North-North-East, and South-South-West, the most southerly islet standing quite close to the edge of the shoal. The one next it to the northward, which was the largest of them all, was only a very small affair, being about half a mile long by about a quarter of a mile broad. But it was the northernmost islet that chiefly appealed to George. All of them were low and shaggy with stunted bush, but this one stood higher out of the water than any of the others, being some twelve or fifteen feet high at its highest part; moreover it had a few coconut trees upon it, which the others had not, and the young captain was quick to see how usefully these might be employed as landmarks in the event of his determining to bury the treasure there. Accordingly, as soon as he and his companion had familiarised themselves with the features of the place, George descended to the deck and took command of the ship, leaving Dyer perched aloft to act as pilot and con the ship to her anchorage. Half an hour later the Nonsuch, having slid round the tail of a reef that jutted out about half a mile from the southern extremity of the island, clewed up her canvas and came to an anchor at a distance of less than a quarter of a mile from the beautifully smooth, sandy beach, and all hands went below to breakfast.

As George more than half-expected, there was a very marked disposition to murmur and to betray strong dissatisfaction when it came to be known that the captain had called a halt at this little group of desolate, uninteresting islets with the express object of burying the rich booty that had been so easily acquired, some of the malcontents going so far as to express aloud their firm conviction that when once the islets had been lost sight of it would be impossible to ever find them again. And such a fear was by no means ill-founded, for it must be remembered that when George Saint Leger embarked upon his great adventure the science of navigation was in a very different condition from what it now is. Latitude was only determinable very roughly by means of one or another of two crude instruments, one of which was called the astrolabe and the other the cross staff, while there was no method of determining the longitude at all, save by what is now known as the “dead reckoning,” that is to say, a more or less careful record of the courses steered and the distances sailed; hence when mariners ventured out of sight of land their only means of reaching any desired point was to sail north or south until they reached the latitude of their port, and then steer east or west, as the case might be, until they arrived at their destination, this plan being further complicated by the intrusion of obstacles in the shape of headlands and what not in the way. But George Saint Leger happened to be better equipped in this respect than perhaps any other man of his time; for as has already been mentioned, he was a lad of ideas, and one of those ideas was that there ought to be some way of ascertaining the longitude of a ship, if one could but hit upon it; and further, that such a way having been found, a mariner might fearlessly venture out of sight of land, remain out of sight of it as long as he pleased, and go whither he pleased, with the certainty of being able to find his way back again. Then, with this postulate firmly fixed in his mind, he had set himself to work in his leisure time to thrash out the question of accurately determining the longitude of an unknown place in relation to a known place. He was convinced that the world was round, globular in shape, although there were many learned men who disputed this assertion, and he also knew that the world revolved on its own axis once in twenty-four hours. Also he knew that when the sun, in the course of its apparent passage round the earth, attained its highest point in the heavens, it was noon at that place, and his astrolabe afforded him the means of determining that moment. Then, still following the train of thought connected with the earth’s diurnal revolution upon its axis whereby the sun was brought to the meridian every day at noon, he had not much difficulty in reasoning out the fact that it cannot possibly be noon at any two or more places at the same moment unless they happen to be situated on the same meridian, or, in other words, are of the same longitude. From this to the assurance that the difference in time between any two places was equivalent to the difference in longitude between them was an easy step, and led naturally enough to the next, which was that, if he happened to possess a time-piece showing, say, the time at Plymouth, he could, by comparing this with the moment of noon somewhere else, as ascertained by his astrolabe, determine the exact distance of that place east or west of Plymouth. The rest was easy; he went to a certain watchmaker in London and ordered the best watch that could be made for money, the cost of it absorbing most of his savings; and this watch, carefully regulated and rated, showing Plymouth time, he took with him when he embarked upon his great adventure in the Nonsuch, and by means of it he had succeeded in ascertaining pretty accurately the longitude of Barbados, Trinidad, and Margarita, and intended also to ascertain the longitude of the islet upon which he proposed to bury his treasure. All this he explained to his crew as well as he could drive so abstruse a matter into their thick heads, and although it is more than doubtful whether any of them understood his explanation, they understood at least that “the Cap’n” was assuring them that he possessed some occult means of finding the islets again, and with that they were fain to be satisfied. It never occurred to them, poor souls, that if the captain lost his watch, or allowed it to run down, his means of finding the islets again would be gone, otherwise it is exceedingly unlikely that they would ever have agreed to his taking the risk.

As soon as breakfast was over, one of the boats was lowered, and George, accompanied by half a dozen men provided with pickaxes and shovels, went ashore, to prepare a suitable hiding-place for the treasure, while Dyer, and Heard, the purser, assisted by the sailmaker, swathed the chest containing the pearls in several folds of tarred canvas, the outer coat of all being thickly smeared with pitch, in order to preserve the delicate gems from injury through being buried in more or less damp earth. The shore party had no difficulty in selecting a suitable spot for the burial, the precise point being determinable again at any time by a series of carefully taken and equally carefully recorded cross bearings; and by the time that a hole of suitable dimensions and depth had been excavated, a signal was flying on board the Nonsuch that all the preparations there had been completed and that the treasure was ready for removal, with the result that before the arrival of mid-day the whole of the treasure was safely deposited in its hiding-place, the soil shovelled back into the hole and well rammed down, and all traces of the excavation carefully obliterated. Then all hands returned to the ship just in time for George to make his noontide observations for the determination of the position of the islets. The anchor was then hove up and the Nonsuch stood out to sea again, while, despite their captain’s assurances to the contrary, most of the crew were more than half convinced that they would never again set eyes upon the treasure which they had taken so much trouble to put out of sight.

Three uneventful days later land was sighted on the larboard bow, and late in the afternoon the headland at the north-eastern extremity of Yucatan peninsula was passed at a distance of some twelve miles, and the course was altered to due west for the run along the northern coast of the peninsula. It was near this spot that, just a year earlier, the squadron under Captain Hawkins’ command had encountered the two successive hurricanes which had played such havoc with them as to compel them to run to San Juan de Ulua to refit, with the result that irremediable disaster had overtaken them; and Dyer, who had looked forward with considerable trepidation to the time when he would again be called upon to sail those treacherous seas, was loud in his thanksgivings for the good fortune which had thus far attended them, for nothing could be more satisfactory and delightful than the weather which the voyagers were now experiencing, the only drawback to their content being an unaccountably heavy sea into which they ran about midnight, and which Dyer was inclined to regard as the forerunner of the much dreaded hurricane. With the passage of the hours, however, the violence of the sea manifested a tendency to moderate, which caused the more experienced ones among the crew to arrive at the conclusion that, instead of being the forerunner of a hurricane, the turbulent sea was merely the aftermath of one which had very recently blown itself out.

And this conclusion was abundantly verified on the following day, for about mid-morning a floating object was sighted on the starboard bow which, as the Nonsuch drew nearer, proved to be the hull of a small ship, dismasted, floating low in the water, and rolling horribly in the trough of the sea. Then, as now, the sight of a ship in distress always appeals irresistibly to the humanity of the British seaman and no sooner was the character of the floating object identified than the helm of the Nonsuch was shifted and she was headed for the wreck. Shortly afterwards the Spanish ensign was hoisted half-way up the ensign staff of the stranger, thus declaring not only her nationality but also that she was in distress, a fact which was sufficiently obvious to all with eyes to see.

When the Nonsuch had arrived within about a mile of the heavily labouring craft, George ordered sail to be shortened, and announced to his officers his intention to stand by the wreck until the sea should moderate sufficiently to enable boats to be lowered, when he would take off the crew, and every preparation was made accordingly. The English ship was so manoeuvred as to enable her to pass athwart the stranger’s stern and heave-to close under the lee of the latter; and presently, as the space between the two craft rapidly narrowed, George was enabled to distinguish, painted in large letters, the name Doña Catalina. Springing into the weather main rigging of his own ship, the young commander waited until but a few fathoms separated the two vessels, and he was able to clearly distinguish the features of the three men who were clinging desperately to the shattered poop bulwark rail of the wreck, and then, with his hand placed trumpet-wise to his mouth as he stood with his back supported by the rigging, he hailed in Spanish:

“Ho! the Catalina, ahoy! Do you wish to be taken off?”

“Si, Señor, si, si,” answered a short, stout, black-bearded individual who formed one of the trio on the stranger’s poop, “we are full of water and sinking. Take us off, for the love of God! We have pumped until we can pump no more, our strength being completely exhausted, and the leak is gaining on us rapidly.”

“Very well,” returned George. “I will remain near you until the sea goes down sufficiently to launch a boat. Until then you must do the best you can.”

“But, Señor,” shrieked the black-bearded one, “if you wait until then it will be too late. It will be hours before the sea goes down enough to permit of a boat being launched, and meanwhile our ship is filling fast. Cannot you devise some means of taking us off at once? See how we are rolling, and how the sea is breaking over us! Every moment I am in fear that a heavier sea than usual will strike us and roll our vessel completely over. Holy Mother of God! Do not leave us to drown like rats in a trap, Señor!”

But by this time the two craft had drifted so far apart that further speech just then was impossible, and as George descended from the rigging he gave orders to fill the main topsail and get way on the ship again. Then he ascended to the poop and joined Dyer, who was already there.

“Well, Cap’n, what be us goin’ to do?” demanded the pilot, whose knowledge of Spanish was just sufficient to enable him to gather the drift of what had passed. “Shall us wait a bit longer, and chance the hooker stayin’ right side up till the sea do go down a bit more; or shall us try to launch a boat? I don’t doubt but what, if us watches carefully and works quickly, we can get a boat afloat and unhooked; but us couldn’t get alongside the wrack to take her people off—they’d have to jump overside and trust to we to pick mun up. Then how would us all get out of the boat a’terwards and get mun hoisted up again? But it do surely look to me as though we must do some’at pretty soon, because I don’t believe as that wrack’ll last so very much longer. Look to mun, how her do roll, and look how the sea do breach her! There must be tons o’ water a-pouring down into her hold every minute, and—Lard be merciful—there a goeth. She be turnin’ over now, as I’m a livin’—No, no; ’tis all right; her be rightin’ again, but Cap’n, her can’t live much longer to that rate.”

“No,” agreed George, who, like Dyer, had been breathlessly watching the outrageous antics of the waterlogged craft, and had seen how very nearly she had come to capsizing as the sea flung her up and hove her over on her beam ends—“I’m afraid she cannot. As you say, something must be done if we are to save those poor wretches; but the only thing that I can think of is to at least make the attempt to launch a boat. We will get to windward of the wreck, and then, everything having been previously made ready, we will lower a boat and—if we can get away without being stove—run down to the wreck in the ‘smooth’ of the Nonsuch’s lee; get under the lee of the wreck; and her people must jump overboard, two or three at a time, and trust to us to pick them up. I will take command of the boat, and as soon as you see us safely under the lee of the wreck you must fill and keep away, pass to leeward of the wreck, and heave-to as close to her as you can, when we will come round under your lee and get the people aboard one at a time by means of a ‘whip’ from the lee mainyard-arm, trusting to luck for the chance to get the boat aboard again without smashing her to staves. Now try her about, Dyer; I think we ought to be able to fetch well to windward of her now. And I believe the starboard quarter boat will be the easiest to lower and unhook.”

Chapter Seven.

How they came to San Juan de Ulua.

Having explained to Dyer his proposed scheme of operations, George left to the pilot the task of attending to the necessary manoeuvring of the ship, and, going forward, called for four volunteers to go with him in the boat to handle her and assist, if it might be, in saving the unfortunate crew of the Spanish ship. As he had anticipated, he met with no difficulty in obtaining a sufficient number of men for his purpose, four of his old Bonaventure’s at once stepping forward at his call. Directing these men to follow him, he then returned aft to where the boat he intended to use hung swinging from the davits and, pointing to her, instructed his volunteers to enter her, remove the plug from her bottom to allow all the water to run out of her, and, while this was doing, pass out the masts, sails, and all other gear not absolutely required in the execution of the task which the intrepid quintette were about to undertake. Then, these things being done, the plug was returned to its place and driven well home, the oars were unlashed, the thole pins shipped, the tackle falls well-greased, the coils cast off the belaying pins, and every preparation made for the delicate operation of launching. While these matters were being attended to the young captain stood looking on, directing the men’s movements, and pondering upon the difficulty which he foresaw in connection with the quick release of the boat from her tackles as soon as she should become water-borne. It was absolutely necessary that this should be infallibly accomplished at precisely the right instant, otherwise there was the risk on the one hand of the boat being smashed to staves by being violently dashed against the side of the heavily rolling ship; or, upon the other, of her being released at one end only, in which case the unreleased end of the boat would be lifted high out of the water again by the counter roll of the ship and her crew all flung into the water.

Suddenly he saw his way clear; the solution of the difficulty had come to him, and he issued his orders rapidly, for time was pressing, the Nonsuch had been hove about, and was now bearing down to take up a position just to windward of the wreck. First of all, the boat was temporarily slung by stout ropes from the davit ends; then the tackles were let go and unhooked. Next, two stout rope strops were passed through the ringbolts by which the boat was suspended from the tackles and one bight passed through the other and secured in place by a well-greased toggle, or piece of wood capable of being easily and quickly withdrawn; and finally the bights thus formed were passed over the hooks of the blocks, the tackles, were boused taut and made fast again, and the temporary supports were cast off, thus leaving the boat once more suspended by the tackles. George explained the device to the men, and when he was satisfied that they perfectly understood the working of it, ordered them into the boat, himself following them and stationing himself at the craft’s tiller, when a short wait occurred during which the Nonsuch was working her way toward the position necessary for the success of the experiment which was about to be made.

At length the critical moment arrived; the Nonsuch rolled and plunged, with creaking timbers and groaning yards, up to windward of and some fifty fathoms distant from the wallowing Spaniard, and, the mainyard having been backed with perfect judgment by Dyer, came to a standstill exactly abreast the dismasted hulk, thus affording a lee and comparatively smooth water in which her boat might make a dash for the wreck; then, taking advantage of a heavy lee roll, the boat was very smartly lowered away upon an even keel, and struck the water with a resounding splash.

“Let go!” yelled George, as he felt the boat take the water, and prompt at the word the two men who were stationed at the tackles drew the well-greased toggles, releasing the boat, oars were thrown out, and away dashed the boat right down to leeward, heading to pass under the stern of the wreck and come up in the comparatively sheltered water under her lee. The passage was but a short one, and some three minutes later the small craft, tossed buoyantly aloft upon the great foaming surges, had safely passed under the stern of the Doña Catalina and rounded-to under her lee. Then the Nonsuch, which had by this time driven down perilously near to the wreck, filled away again and just managed to handsomely draw clear.

The three Spaniards were still clinging for their lives to the broken bulwarks, and as George looked up he caught a momentary glimpse of some seven or eight other heads peering over the rail down in the vessel’s waist; but there was nothing to indicate that anything had been done by those on board to help those who were risking their own lives to save theirs. There was no time for argument or discussion, however; therefore George simply hailed the trio on the poop, tersely explaining that he dared not attempt to lay the boat alongside, and that consequently those who were anxious to have a chance for life must simply jump overboard and trust to those in the boat to pick them up. And at the same time he directed the two bow oarsmen to lay in their oars and hold themselves ready to pick up those who cared to jump while the other two oarsmen paddled the boat up as close to the heaving and staggering wreck as it was prudent to go.

Then ensued a long and heated debate among the Spaniards themselves, not one of whom seemed to possess the courage necessary to trust himself even momentarily to the raging sea, during which the crew of the boat patiently maintained their position within a fathom or so of the wallowing hulk; but at length some sort of a decision seemed to have been arrived at, for the short, stout, black-bearded man suddenly made his appearance at the gangway, grasping a handspike, and, having first inquired whether those in the boat were ready, and receiving an affirmative reply, sprang outward, feet foremost. He struck the water within less than half a fathom of the boat, vanished beneath the surface for a moment, and re-appeared, coughing and spitting, still convulsively clutching the handspike, close enough to enable those in the boat to instantly seize him by the collar and haul him in over the gunwale, none the worse for his plunge and dip. He was at once hustled aft into the stern sheets, out of the way, and his rescue had been effected with such absolute promptitude and simplicity that there was now no further hesitation on the part of those left behind, who, one after another, presented themselves at the gangway, some provided with handspikes, some with oars, and one or two with short lengths of planking, or a grating, and leaped, with the courage of desperation, into the swirling foam, to the number of just a dozen. Then, as no more appeared, George inquired where the remainder were; upon which the black-bearded man, after counting heads, informed him that all the living had now left the ship, the rest of the crew having been either killed or washed overboard when the ship became dismasted.

And now came the most difficult part of the whole undertaking, namely, getting the boat and its cargo safe aboard the parent ship. The Nonsuch was just then about a mile distant from the derelict, hove-to on the larboard tack, awaiting a signal from George indicating that the rescue had been effected and that he was now ready to make the great attempt. That signal was now made by lashing a handkerchief to the end of a boathook and waving it wildly in the air; upon seeing which, Dyer, who had been manoeuvring the ship with the most consummate judgment, filled upon her and brought her close up under the derelict’s lee. Then, and not until then, George gave the word, and the now heavily loaded boat, floating deep in the water, headed out from under the sheltering lee of the derelict, made a dash across the short space of turbulent surges that separated her from the Nonsuch, accomplished the passage safely, slipped round under the stern of the ship, now once more hove-to on the larboard tack, and rounded-to in the comparative “smooth” of her lee.

But now that she was there, how were the people to be got out of her? For it was just as dangerous to attempt to lay her alongside the Nonsuch as it had been to make the same attempt with the Doña Catalina. But Dyer had seen to this; for while the boat had been absent on her errand of mercy the pilot had ordered a block to be lashed to the starboard mainyard-arm, a whip rove through it, a boatswain’s chair made fast to the end of the whip, and a hauling line bent on to the boatswain’s chair; and when the boat ranged up under the Nonsuch’s lee, there was the whole apparatus dangling in the air, ready to effect the transfer. To manoeuvre the boat under it and to lower the chair into the boat was an easy matter, when all that remained was for a man to get into the contrivance and be hoisted aloft and hauled into safety. The transfer of the twelve rescued Spaniards was safely accomplished in considerably less than an hour; and now all that remained was to hook on the boat and hoist her up to the davits. Yes; that was all; but it was the most difficult and delicate part of the whole undertaking; yet the seamanship of George and Dyer proved equal to the task, and another quarter of an hour saw the boat once more safely dangling at the davits, with scarcely a scratch on her paint to show what a trying ordeal she had passed through, and the Nonsuch was again speeding away to the westward, leaving the derelict to her not long delayed fate.

The quarter boat safely hoisted, George at once turned his attention to his guests. The black-bearded man, it appeared, was the captain of the ill-fated Doña Catalina, and he introduced himself as simply Captain Robledo Martinez, without the pretentious prefix of “Don” or anything else. Him, George took under his own wing, ordering a cot to be slung for him down on the half-deck, with a screen of canvas triced up round it to insure privacy. The poor fellow, like all the rest of the rescued Spaniards, had, of course, only the clothes that he stood up in, and they were dripping wet; but, fortunately, the Nonsuch was well provided in the matter of slop chests, and Captain Martinez, together with the other survivors of the Doña Catalina, was soon rigged afresh.

It transpired that the Spanish vessel was on her way from Cartagena to San Juan de Ulua, with despatches to the Viceroy of Mexico, when she encountered the hurricane that had overwhelmed her, and that, before being rescued, her crew had been exposed to the full fury of the elements for twenty-six hours, in momentary expectation that the vessel would founder under their feet; they were therefore given a warm meal, and then dispatched below to make up their arrears of rest and recover from the exhaustion induced by prolonged exposure.

But the conjunction of the names Cartagena and San Juan de Ulua, casually mentioned by Martinez in his brief conversation with George before retiring below, set the young Englishman thinking hard. The conjunction was suggestive, to say the least of it; for Cartagena was the city from which the plate fleet convoy started upon its annual long ocean voyage to Spain, accompanied by the Cartagena contingent of plate ships, with which it proceeded to Nombre de Dios—regarded as “The Treasure-House of the World”—to take charge of the ships which proceeded thence annually, loaded with treasure of incalculable value for the replenishment of the Spanish coffers; while from thence the combined fleet was wont to proceed to San Juan, there to be joined by the ships carrying the Mexican contribution of treasure, of scarcely less value than that shipped from Nombre. George Saint Leger had not been for so many months intimately associated with Dyer, the pilot of the expedition, and a survivor of the disaster which had overtaken Admiral John Hawkins at San Juan de Ulua only a year previously, without hearing all about the twelve large treasure galleons which the Devonians had found lying defenceless in the harbour of that city when they arrived there, torn and shattered by such a hurricane as that which had reduced the Doña Catalina to a waterlogged and sinking hulk, and he wondered whether perchance it might be his good fortune to find another such fleet in the harbour upon his arrival there. If so—well, Admiral Hawkins had spared the treasure which he found there, for the best of all reasons, namely, that his own ships were in no condition to engage in a fight with the shore batteries, which it would be necessary to silence before he could seize the plate ships, while, on the other hand, it was imperative that he should enter the harbour to refit, and he could not do so without the consent of the Spanish authorities; therefore he had been obliged to sign a convention whereby in consideration of his receiving permission to refit in peace and without hindrance, he was to leave the plate ships unmolested. Hawkins had scrupulously adhered to his part of the agreement, but the Spaniards had deliberately broken theirs; and George was determined that now they should dearly pay for their treachery, if Dame Fortune would but favour him. He talked the matter over, first with Dyer, and then they together discussed it with Basset, the captain of the soldiers, and Heard, the purser; with the result that it was unanimously agreed among them that they would make a determined attempt upon the fleet, if it should happen to be in harbour upon their arrival.

But, in order to insure the success of their daring project, it was necessary that they should be possessed of the fullest information possible; therefore when Martinez came on deck that evening, after several hours of refreshing sleep, George informed the unfortunate man, in a perfectly friendly way, that he and the survivors of his crew were prisoners; and demanded to know what had become of the despatches with which he had been entrusted. Martinez, who proved to be quite a simple straightforward sailor, at once replied that he had them in his pocket; and upon Saint Leger demanding them he handed them over with merely a formal protest; whereupon George found himself possessed of a small packet carefully enveloped in several folds of oiled silk in which the honest skipper had wrapped them prior to jumping overboard, when escaping from his wrecked ship.

Of course George opened the despatches forthwith, to find that they consisted, for the most part, of documents which possessed no interest at all for him; but there was one letter which furnished him with precisely the information that it was most important for him to possess. It was from the Governor of the city of Cartagena, and was addressed to “His Excellency Don Martin Enriquez, Viceroy of his Most Catholic Majesty’s Province of Mexico, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera,” and was to the effect that, news having reached the writer from Lima that an epidemic of sickness had broken out among a large body of soldiers due to return home with that year’s plate fleet, the sailing of the Lima contingent had been postponed, to allow time for the epidemic to exhaust itself; and that therefore the departure of the convoy from Cartagena had likewise been postponed. The object of this letter, the writer went on to say, was to acquaint His Excellency with the fact of, and reason for, the delay, that he might not be rendered unduly anxious, through the non-arrival of the convoy; and to request that on no account should the plate ships be allowed to proceed to sea until the arrival of the convoy under the protection of which they were to make the homeward voyage. Which meant, as George pointed out to his officers when he translated the document to them, that upon their arrival at San Juan de Ulua, they would assuredly find a certain number of plate ships in the harbour, laden with treasure, and quite defenceless, save for such protection as the shore batteries might be able to afford. It was the chance of a lifetime, if they could but render those shore batteries innocuous; and an informal council of war was at once held in the great state cabin of the Nonsuch to decide how this most desirable end might be achieved.

To start with, Dyer, who was the only man among them who had ever been in the harbour of San Juan de Ulua, was furnished with pencil and paper, and commanded to draw a chart of the place, to scale, as nearly as he could, from memory; and after half an hour’s arduous labour—for chart drawing was not one of Dyer’s strong points—he produced a sketch that, rough as it was, promised to be of the utmost value to the adventurers. For it showed how, owing to the conformation of the land, Hawkins, with his small squadron, had, a year ago, been able to keep the whole of the Spanish fleet from entering the harbour until he had concluded an agreement with the treacherous Viceroy to permit them to do so; and how a small, well-found fleet outside might, if not driven off by bad weather, effectually blockade the port and prevent the escape of all shipping from it. Further than that, it disclosed to the more acute perceptions of George and Basset, the fact, which Dyer’s denser intellect had failed to grasp, that the much dreaded batteries had been mainly constructed, not so much to defend the place from an attack by sea, but to render a land attack by Indians practically impossible. For if the chart were correctly drawn—and Dyer was very straitly questioned upon this particular point—it showed that there was a certain spot in the harbour where, if a ship were moored, she would be sheltered from the fire of both batteries while at the same time the entire town, which, after all, was but a very small place, would be fully exposed to the artillery fire of the ship. Once completely satisfied upon this point, Saint Leger and Basset believed they saw their way to the capture and subjugation of the town, and laid their plans accordingly.

Three days later, shortly after noon, they made the land and, as soon as Dyer had verified his bearings, hove-to for the night, some ten miles off-shore and well out of sight of the town, the day being by then too far advanced to permit of decisive action. But with the first appearance of dawn on the following day, sail was made, and the Nonsuch stood boldly into San Juan de Ulua harbour and came to an anchor in the spot previously determined upon, where, as Dyer’s chart had indicated, she was safe from the fire of the two batteries which had been constructed to defend the northern and southern extremities of the town, which were its most vulnerable points, from a land attack. Twelve large plate ships were riding at anchor in the harbour, of which ten appeared to be fully loaded, while cargo was being actively transferred from the shore to the other two when the English ship ran in and anchored between them and the shore.

The appearance of the Nonsuch in the harbour was immediately productive of something very nearly approaching to panic, both in the town and on board the plate ships; for she had entered with the cross of Saint George flaunting from her ensign staff, and the first impression of the Spaniards was that their dreaded enemy, Drake, had returned; the bells of the cathedral clanged out a wild alarm; and it was seen that the crews of some of the plate ships were making hasty preparations to get under way, with the evident object of attempting to escape to the open sea. This last, of course, had to be at once put a stop to; therefore the moment that the anchor was down, George caused a boat to be lowered, and, with its crew armed to the teeth, pulled round the Spanish fleet, hailing each ship belonging to it, and informing the captains that any ship seen to be getting under way would at once be fired into and sunk. This threat, backed up as it was by the display of the English ship’s ordnance, had the desired effect, and there were no further attempts at flight just then on the part of the plate ships.

George’s next act was to send Captain Martinez, of the wrecked Doña Catalina, ashore in one of the Nonsuch’s boats, under a flag of truce. The captain was handed his dispatches, and was instructed to either deliver or forward them to the persons to whom they were addressed; and he was also given a letter addressed to the governor or chief magistrate of the town, summoning that functionary, together with twelve of the most influential inhabitants of the place, to a conference on board the English ship, upon a matter of vital import; the conference to begin not later than noon that day; the penalty of non-attendance being the bombardment of the town. Then, every preparation having been made to carry into effect the threatened bombardment, the English sat down and patiently awaited developments.

Half an hour before the expiration of the specified time a large boat, flying a flag of truce, was seen to leave the wharf, and some ten minutes later she came up to within a few fathoms of the Nonsuch gangway, when it was seen that, in addition to eight oarsmen, she carried in her stern sheets thirteen men, most of whom had passed beyond middle age, while all were, in appearance at least, and so far as dress was concerned, men of position and substance.

Arrived within easy hailing distance, the oarsmen ceased their efforts at a sign from the man at the tiller, and an elderly individual, attired in what might be supposed to be robes of office, rose to his feet and, doffing his plumed hat, bowed to the little group of officers mustered on the ship’s poop. Then, hat in hand, he remarked:

“Noble señors, I am Juan Alvarez, the alcalde of San Juan de Ulua, very much at your service; and in response to your somewhat imperatively worded letter I and my fellow townsmen have come out to confer with you. But before we board your ship I should like to ask you just one question. I see by your flag that you are English. Come you in peace, or in war, señors?”

“That,” answered George, stepping forward, “is for you and your fellow townsmen to decide. But meanwhile I give you the assurance of an Englishman who has never yet broken his word to friend or foe, that you may come aboard without fear, and that when our conference is at an end you shall all be permitted to return to the shore without molestation—unless it becomes apparent that hostages are necessary.”

The old gentleman bowed and, still with his hat in his hand, ventured upon a further inquiry. “And pray, noble señor, who is to determine whether or not hostages are regarded as necessary?” he demanded.

“I and my officers will determine that point,” answered George. “But,” he continued, “I give you the further assurance that, should we decide upon the necessity to retain any of you as hostages, their persons will be as safe, and they will be treated with as much honour, on board this ship, as in their own houses—unless treachery of any kind be attempted, in which case I will hang them at my yard-arms as a wholesome warning to others.”

This statement caused the utmost perturbation to the alcalde and his companions, as might easily be seen, for they all at once started to their feet and burst into excited conversation. But, as is usual in such cases, there were two or three—of whom the alcalde was one—who soon obtained an ascendency over the rest, quieting them and themselves carrying on the discussion; and after some ten minutes of earnest debate the rest sat down, leaving the alcalde standing alone to propound a still further question.

“Illustrious señor,” he said, addressing himself to George, “my companions and I feel that, before we proceed further, or place ourselves altogether in your power, it is very necessary that we should know what acts you would be likely to construe as treachery on our part.”

“The reply to such a question is not difficult,” replied George. “We should regard as an act of treachery any attempt on the part of either of those ships to put to sea; and also any attempt to attack us at disadvantage and without due warning, such as was perpetrated last year, in this very harbour, on my countryman, Admiral Hawkins.”