Part 18 (1/2)

”The worthy Mateo tells me that you were the officer in command of the little schooner that gave the _Tiburon_ such a severe dressing down a little while ago. Is that really the fact?”

”Yes,” I answered, ”I am proud to say that it is.”

”Well,” he returned, ”I can scarcely credit it. Why, you are only a boy!”

”So people are constantly reminding me,” I retorted. ”But in the British Navy boys soon learn to do men's work.”

”So it would appear,” a.s.sented my interlocutor, apparently in nowise offended at my brusque method of answering him. ”And you are an Englishman, of course. What is your name?”

I told him.

”Well, Senor Delamere,” he said, ”it is perhaps a lucky thing for you that Captain Garcia went to sea four days ago in the refitted _Tiburon_, and that he may possibly not return for nearly a month. Had he been here at this moment I do not for an instant believe that he would have given you the chance that I am going to offer you; for he has vowed that if ever he can lay hands upon you he will make such an example of you as will strike terror to the heart of his every enemy. Of course I sympathise with him to a great extent, for he has never in his life had such a trouncing as you gave him with that ridiculous little schooner of yours; and, apart from other considerations, his self-love has been very severely wounded. Therefore, being a man who never forgets nor forgives an injury, he will not be satisfied until he has salved his wounded pride by making you pay in full in a manner that will cause every sailor in West Indian waters to shudder with horror. But I am not vindictive-- as he is; I am always willing to subordinate revenge to the good of the community, by which, of course, I mean our community, the little republic which at present is bounded by the cliffs which enclose this cove, but which in process of time is destined to include the whole of this magnificent island of Hayti and--who knows?--possibly the entire group of islands now known as the West Indies. And you, young as you are, have proved yourself to be a formidable enemy; you have courage, resolution, and apparently all the other qualities that go to the making of a successful leader; therefore I think it a thousand pities that you should be wasted, uselessly expended, in the mere gratification of a petty revenge which will benefit n.o.body anything; on the contrary, I am convinced that we should gain immensely by making you one of ourselves-- Nay, do not interrupt me, please; hear me to the end before you attempt to reply. In the absence of Garcia I am supreme here; I can secure your election as a member of our band, and once a member, you are absolutely safe from Garcia, for it is one of the rules of our brotherhood that 'One is for all, and all are for one;' private jealousies and animosities are absolutely forbidden, and the punishment for transgressing this law is _death_, let the offender be who he will.

”Now, that is one argument in favour of your joining us. But there are others. We are weak, as yet, it is true; but that is because, as a community, we are still very young. We are, however, gaining strength almost daily; every capture we make adds to our numbers, because we give our prisoners the choice between joining us, and--death; and nine of every ten choose the former. Also, we are rapidly acc.u.mulating wealth, which is power; and with the power which unlimited wealth will give us, added to the power of constantly increasing numbers, all things are possible to us, even to the conquest of the world! Now, a lad of your intelligence ought to be able to see, without much persuasion, how tremendous an advantage it will be to belong to such a formidable band as we shall soon become, therefore I put it to you in a nutsh.e.l.l--Will you join us?”

Upon discovering the direction in which my companion's arguments were trending, my first impulse had been to interrupt him indignantly by declaring that I saw through his purpose, and would have naught to do with it. But he would not permit me to do this; he insisted upon saying his say to the end; and while he was doing this I had time for reflection. I perceived that the man was an enthusiastic visionary possessed of such boundless ambition that he was able to see nothing except the impossible goal which he and his fellow-leaders had set before themselves. I saw that this fellow Fernandez, at all events, had dwelt upon the mad scheme of conquest, first of Hayti, then of the West Indian Islands, and ultimately, as he had declared, of the whole world, until it had become an obsession with him in which all difficulties were swept away and his gorgeous dream had seemed to be a thing already almost within reach. It occurred to me that by pretending to listen to this dreamer, to appear to treat his dreams as though it was possible for them to eventually materialise, and to seem to weigh the proposal seriously which he had made to me, I might gain time enough to mature some plan of escape, and to put it into effect before the return of the _Tiburon_ and my arch-enemy Garcia; and while, as a general rule, I most emphatically disapprove of everything that savours of deception, I felt that, taking all the circ.u.mstances of the case into consideration, I should be perfectly justified in practising such dissimulation as might be necessary to extricate myself from the exceedingly awkward situation in which I now found myself.

Therefore when, with eyes ablaze with enthusiasm, Fernandez flashed the question at me, ”Will you join us?” I hesitated just for a second or two, and then replied:

”I suppose you hardly expect me to answer offhand so momentous a question as that, do you? It is all very well, of course, for you, who have given the matter much careful thought, to feel so confident as you do that your plans are capable of realisation, but with me it is very different; the entire idea is absolutely new to me, and--if I may be permitted to say so--looks little short of chimerical.”

”But it is _not_ chimerical,” Fernandez impatiently insisted; ”on the contrary, it is perfectly feasible and, as we have planned it, absolutely certain of realisation.”

There is no need for me to repeat at length all the arguments that this man adduced in support of his contention; let it suffice me to say that I listened to him with deep attention--for I wanted to learn as many particulars as I possibly could concerning the plans of this extraordinary band, with a view to future contingencies--and when at length I left his presence I believe I also left him under the impression that he had more than half convinced me of the advisability of acceding to his proposal.

Meanwhile the man Pacheco, in obedience to the command conveyed through Carlos, had been patiently waiting in the antechamber for the summons to appear and receive the commands of Fernandez concerning me; and now, the interview being at an end, the former was called into the room.

”Pacheco,” said Fernandez, ”this young gentleman is Senor Delamere, the officer who commanded the small British man-o'-war schooner that lately attacked the _Tiburon_. His vessel foundered in the gale that sprang up immediately after the action, and he contrived somehow to make his way to the sh.o.r.e, where he was nursed back to health and strength in the hacienda of Bella Vista, belonging to Senor Don Luis Calderon y Albuquerque. That hacienda was attacked by Petion and his band in the early hours of this morning, and--as Carlos has doubtless already told you--Petion was killed during the attack, while Senor Delamere subsequently fell into the hands of Mateo, Petion's second-in-command, who very thoughtfully sent him on to us.

”Now, Senor Delamere, being, although still very young, a naval officer of considerable experience and undoubted courage, will be an acquisition of the utmost value to us if we can but succeed in inducing him to join us--and I have hopes, very great hopes of doing so. I, therefore, want you to take him in charge for the present, showing him the utmost consideration, and allowing him free range of the settlement,--since it will be impossible for him to escape,--because I desire him to become thoroughly acquainted with all our resources, and to see for himself the perfection of all our arrangements for securing the success of our great enterprise.”

I could scarcely believe my ears when I heard Fernandez give this extraordinary and, as I deemed it, most imprudent order. It seemed too good to be true! Why, if the foolish man had but known it, there was nothing I could possibly have more ardently wished for than liberty to range freely the settlement and become fully acquainted with all its resources! If I had ever dreamed of such a possibility as this it would not have needed that I should be brought a prisoner to the place; I should have been but too eager to make my way to it voluntarily. But, of course, it was much better as it was, for now all that I had to do was to keep my eyes and ears wide-open, learn everything I possibly could, and, generally, make the very best use of my time before the return of Garcia, while humouring Fernandez to the top of his bent in his delusion that he would ultimately convince me of the advantage of joining the band. Moreover, I believed I should not have much difficulty in accomplis.h.i.+ng this last; for, although I was at first somewhat at a loss to understand his great eagerness to secure me as a recruit, it became perfectly intelligible when I learned a little later on that the only weak point in the entire scheme consisted in the extreme scarcity of trained sailors capable of undertaking the more important executive duties. Seamen, of the kind to be found in a s.h.i.+p's forecastle, they possessed, not exactly in abundance, but sufficient for their ordinary necessities; but it appeared that, apart from Garcia, his first lieutenant, and one other, they had not a single navigator among them; and it was easy to understand that, if anything untoward should happen to either of these men, the activities of the brotherhood would be seriously crippled, while a fatality that swept the whole of them away might well mean the utter ruin of all their hopes. I did not learn this quite at once, for it seemed to be the one item of information upon which Fernandez desired me to remain ignorant; but, mingling freely with everybody, as I was permitted to do, it was impossible for them to prevent the secret from ultimately leaking out, and I had not been in the settlement more than three days before I became acquainted with it, and with a good many other things as well.

For instance, I learned that of the three navigators which the community boasted, two--namely, Garcia and another--were on board the _Tiburon_, while the third was in command of a most respectable-looking brig, which, provided with a complete set of false papers, was engaged in conveying to various ports such portions of the cargoes of plundered s.h.i.+ps as were not needed by the pirates themselves, disposing of the same for cash, and procuring with that cash such commodities as were required from time to time. The felucca that lay at anchor in the bay had also been similarly employed; but she was now idle, the man who had commanded her being with Garcia in the _Tiburon_, in place of an officer who had been killed in the action with the _Wasp_.

At the time of my arrival this extraordinary pirate settlement, or community, consisted of some forty seamen of various nationalities-- except Englishmen--who had thrown in their lot with Garcia, Fernandez, and the rest; and about a hundred others who, although not seamen, were most useful for the performance of such strictly sh.o.r.e duty as the erection of houses, the loading and discharging of the trading brig, the storage of the various commodities needed by the community, the working up of rough spars into spare masts, yards, booms, etcetera, for the brig and schooner, the making of spare sails for the same, and, in short, the execution of all those mult.i.tudinous kinds of work that are essential to the comfort of man in his civilised condition. And exceedingly comfortable the rascals made themselves, for the houses were well-built, and in many cases beautifully furnished; also they enjoyed many luxuries, procured either from the cargoes of plundered s.h.i.+ps, or purchased out of the proceeds of the sale of such plunder as they did not require for their own use.

It was not long before I discovered that there was a mystery of some sort attaching to the felucca that lay at anchor in the bay. I had made more than one attempt to go on board her, with the object of giving her an overhaul, but each attempt had been quietly met and frustrated in such a way that I soon grew to understand I could not persist further without exciting grave suspicion, which was the one thing of all others that I most desired to avoid. For it was this felucca that I regarded as my only possible means of escape from the pirates, and, that being the case, it was of the utmost importance that I should do nothing to betray the thought that lurked at the back of my mind. She was a fine, st.u.r.dy-looking little craft, measuring somewhere about sixty tons; and I felt that if I could but once get aboard her, and get enough sail hoisted to take me out to sea, the most difficult part of my adventure would be over; for Jamaica lay to leeward, and I could not very well lose my way, even if I were compelled to go to sea without a chart. It is true that the rig of a felucca--namely, a single latteen-sail, its head stretched along an enormously long, tapering yard, hoisted to the top of a stout, stumpy mast raking well forward--is not precisely the rig that I would willingly choose to go to sea alone with; but beggars must not be choosers, and it seemed to me to be Hobson's choice--that or nothing. I must therefore make up my mind to face the difficulties of the rig and do the best I could with it, or remain until Garcia's return, and so miss my only chance. Of course, there was just the bare possibility that I might find a man, or even two or three, willing to share the adventure with me--for I could scarcely believe that every member of the community had quite willingly joined it without compulsion of any kind--but I had no intention of jeopardising my chances of success by making inquiries, of however cautious a character. If such men were to be found it would have to be almost by pure accident; meanwhile it was for me to make my plans in such a manner that, if necessary, they could be carried out single-handed.

But it was imperative that I should visit the felucca, by hook or by crook; and since I had already discovered that it could not be managed during the day, there was nothing for it but to make the attempt at night. Now, I was in Pacheco's charge, he was responsible for me, and although I was nominally free to come and go as I would, it was not long before I discovered that it was practically impossible for me to get out of his sight for more than five or ten minutes at a time, except at night time, when I was granted the privilege of a small room to myself in his house. Even then, for the first week of my sojourn, I could scarcely stir in my bed but at the creaking of it he would be at my door, inquiring why I was moving, and whether I required anything, the questioning being, I fancied, simply for the purpose of a.s.suring himself that I was still in the room. But as the days--or rather the nights-- went on his vigilance gradually relaxed, for I so shaped my speech as to convey the impression that, at least in my own mind, I had practically decided to join the band. It was this, perhaps, that so far threw him off his guard as to betray him, on a certain night, into the indulgence of his favourite vice, which was a too-marked devotion to the rum bottle. For several nights in succession--ever since I had been placed in his charge, in fact--he had been perforce compelled to remain perfectly sober in order that he might keep a strict watch upon me, but at length when, while we were sitting at table together, taking supper, I allowed him to believe that I had finally decided to go to Fernandez the next morning and take the oath, he ventured to celebrate my conversion by drinking my health in a stiff nor'wester of rum and water--rather more rum than water. That act of weakness was his undoing, for at the first taste of the spirit after his forced abstention he completely lost all control of himself, and could no more refrain from taking a second tumbler than he could have flown. The second naturally led to a third, and the third to a fourth; whereupon, recognising that my chance was at hand, I yawned twice or thrice most portentously, complained of fatigue, and retired to my room, he following as far as the door and locking me in, as was his custom before going to his own room. But that troubled me not a whit, for the house was of one story only, and to slip out of it by way of the open window was almost as easy as walking out through the door, once my gaoler became so deeply wrapped in sleep that my stealthy movements would not awake him.

I moved quite carelessly about the room for a minute or two, and then flung myself heavily upon the bed, fully dressed; and as I did so I heard Pacheco go tiptoeing clumsily back to the table, stumbling against a chair on the way, and muttering imprecations at his own clumsiness as he went. A further gurgling of liquor being poured into a gla.s.s followed, then a deep sigh of satisfaction as the gla.s.s was emptied, the bang of it as it was noisily replaced on the table, and finally the man's staggering footsteps along the floor as he made his way to his own room. Then came the kicking off of his shoes, followed by other sounds indicative of the fact that he was undressing, a heavy creaking of the bedstead as he flung himself upon it, and, a minute or two later, deep snoring.

But it was still much too early for me to think of making a move, for sounds reached me from the outside which told me that quite a number of people were still up and about; I therefore waited, with such patience as I could muster, until these had all ceased, and then allowed something like another half-hour to elapse, in order to make all sure-- for this was a case where it were better to be half-an-hour late than half-a-minute too early, and by undue haste spoil everything.

At length, however, the complete absence of all sound suggestive, of human movement outside, and the steady, regular, resonant snore of Pacheco in the next room, encouraged me to make my preliminary move, which I did by rising, slowly and with infinite caution, to a sitting position on my bed. This done, I next got off the bed altogether, not, however, without causing the thing to give forth sundry most alarming creaks, each of which brought my heart into my mouth. But the snoring in the next room went on steadily, without pause or break, and two minutes later I found myself standing, barefooted, outside my window, ready to scramble back into the room upon the first suggestion of danger. Nothing happened, however; and with my shoes in my hand I next proceeded to creep very cautiously round to the front of the house.

The night was clear, with no moon, but the sky was brilliant with stars affording even more light than I really wanted; and at length, having peered cautiously round me and noted that the buildings were all dark, showing that the inhabitants had retired to rest, I stole slowly, crouching, across the open and so down to the beach. Among the boats drawn up on the sand there was a small Norwegian boat, much used as a dinghy, and consequently not drawn as far up on the beach as the others; this was the craft that I was on the lookout for, and by and by I found her, half afloat, and secured by her painter to a small anchor dug well into the sand. Lifting the anchor with the utmost care, I noiselessly deposited it in her bows, and then, making sure that her oars were in her, I lifted her bow and slid her off the sand until she was fairly afloat, when I gently turned her round, gave her a vigorous push, and scrambled in over her stern, taking care to do everything without noise.

Then, throwing out an oar over the stern, I headed the boat in the direction of the scarcely visible felucca, and proceeded to scull off to her.

Thus far everything had gone smoothly and without the ghost of a hitch, but the really difficult part of my enterprise was still to come. I estimated that a good four hundred miles lay between the cove and Port Royal harbour, which distance, at an average speed of six knots, would take me the best part of three days and nights to cover, under the most favourable conditions. To do this, I should need both food and water, and I had not the most remote idea whether either was to be found on board the felucca, although I hoped they might be, for I had seen half-a-dozen men go off to her regularly every day, for some purpose which I could not divine, unless perchance it were to pump her out. But food and water were absolutely necessary to ensure my success, and unless I could find at least a sufficiency to last me three days, I must return and take measures to provide a supply; for to start without would be simply courting disaster. That, however, was a point which could only be settled upon my arrival on board.