Part 7 (2/2)
”It is I,” softly answered Peter Blood in the fluent Castillan of which he was master
”Is it you, Pedro?” The Spaniard came a step nearer
”Peter is ”
”How?” quoth the sentry, checking
”This way,” said Mr Blood
The wooden taffrail was a low one, and the Spaniard was taken completely by surprise Save for the splash heone of the crowded boats that waited under the counter, not a sound announced his misadventure Armed as he ith corselet, cuissarts, and headpiece, he sank to trouble the rebels-convict ”Come on, now, and without noise”
Within five minutes they had swar fro on the quarter-deck itself Lights showed ahead Under the great lantern in the prow they saw the black figure of the other sentry, pacing on the forecastle Froun-deck: a richan obscene ballad to which the others chanted in chorus: ”Y estos son los usos de Castilla y de Leon!”
”From what I've seen to-day I can well believe it,” said Mr Blood, and whispered: ”Forward - after lided, noiseless as shadows, to the quarter-deck rail, and thence slipped without sound down into the waist Two thirds of them were armed with muskets, some of which they had found in the overseer's house, and others supplied from the secret hoard that Mr Blood had so laboriously asseainst the day of escape The remainder were equipped with knives and cutlasses
In the vessel's waist they hung awhile, until Mr Blood had satisfied himself that no other sentinel showed above decks but that inconvenient fellow in the prow Their first attention must be for him Mr Blood, hi the others in the charge of that Nathaniel Hagthorpe whose soave him the best title to this office
Mr Blood's absence was brief When he rejoined his comrades there was no watch above the Spaniards' decks
Meanwhile the revellers below continued to make merry at their ease in the conviction of coarrison of Barbados was overpowered and disarmed, and their colutting themselves hideously upon the fruits of victory What, then, was there to fear? Even when their quarters were invaded and they found themselves surrounded by a score of wild, hairy, half-naked men, who - save that they appeared once to have been white - looked like a horde of savages, the Spaniards could not believe their eyes
Who could have dreaotten plantation-slaves would have dared to take so much upon thehter suddenly quenched, the song perishi+ng on their lips, stared, stricken and bewildered at the levelled muskets by which they were checkes that beset theht-blue eyes in a tawny face, eyes in which glinted the light of a wicked humour He addressed them in the purest Castilian
”You will save yourselves pain and trouble by regarding yourselvesyourselves to be quietly bestowed out of harunner, which did no justice at all to an amazement beyond expression
”If you please,” said Mr Blood, and thereupon those gentlemen of Spain were induced without further trouble beyond a h a scuttle to the deck below
After that the rebels-convict refreshed thes in the consumption of which they had interrupted the Spaniards To taste palatable Christian food after s was in itself a feast to these unfortunates But there were no excesses Mr Blood saw to that, although it required all the firmness of which he was capable
Dispositions were to be ainst that which must follow before they could abandon themselves fully to the enjoyment of their victory This, after all, was no h it was one that afforded them the key to the situation It reht be drawn from it Those dispositions occupied soht But, at least, they were complete before the sun peeped over the shoulder of Mount Hilibay to shed his light upon a day of some surprises
It was soon after sunrise that the rebel-convict who paced the quarter-deck in Spanish corselet and headpiece, a Spanish musket on his shoulder, announced the approach of a boat It was Don Diego de Espinosa y Valdez co each twenty-five thousand pieces of eight, the ransom delivered to him at dawn by Governor Steed He was accompanied by his son, Don Esteban, and by six ate all was quiet and orderly as it should be She rode at anchor, her larboard to the shore, and the main ladder on her starboard side Round to this cao and his treasure Mr Blood had disposed effectively It was not for nothing that he had served under de Ruyter The swings aiting, and the windlass un-crew held itself in readiness under the counner in the Royal Navy before he went in for politics and followed the fortunes of the Duke of Monmouth He was a sturdy, resolute felloho inspired confidence by the very confidence he displayed in hio mounted the ladder and stepped upon the deck, alone, and entirely unsuspicious What should the poor man suspect?
Before he could even look round, and survey this guard drawn up to receive him, a tap over the head with a capstan bar efficiently handled by Hagthorpe put him to sleep without the least fuss
He was carried away to his cabin, whilst the treasure-chests, handled by thehauled to the deck That being satisfactorily accomplished, Don Esteban and the felloho had manned the boat came up the ladder, one by one, to be handled with the sas, and almost, I suspect, an eye for the dramatic Dramatic, certainly, was the spectacle now offered to the survivors of the raid
With Colonel Bishop at their head, and gout-ridden Governor Steed sitting on the ruins of a wall beside hiht boats containing the weary Spanish ruffians who had glutted themselves with rapine, murder, and violences unspeakable
They looked on, between relief at this departure of their rees which, temporarily at least, had wrecked the prosperity and happiness of that little colony
The boats pulled away fro Spaniards, ere still flinging taunts across the water at their surviving victims They had come midway between the wharf and the shi+p, when suddenly the air was shaken by the booun
A round shot struck the water within a fatho a shower of spray over its occupants They paused at their oars, astounded into silence for a rily voluble they anatheunner, who should know better than to fire a salute fro him when a second shot, better aimed than the first, ca its crew, dead and living, into the water
But if it silenced these, it gave tongue, still ry, vehement, and bewildered to the crews of the other seven boats From each the suspended oars stood out poised over the water, whilst on their feet in the excite Heaven and hell to inforuns
Plu a second boat with fearful execution Followed again athose Spanish pirates all was gibbering and jabbering and splashi+ng of oars, as they atte ashore, others for heading straight to the vessel and there discovering what ravely amiss there could be no further doubt, particularly as whilst they discussed and fumed and cursed two more shots came over the water to account for yet a third of their boats
The resolute Ogle washis claiunnery In their consternation the Spaniards had siether
After the fourth shot, opinion was no longer divided ast them As with one accord they went about, or attempted to do so, for before they had accomplished it two more of their boats had been sunk
The three boats that re theling in the water, headed back for the wharf at speed
If the Spaniards understood nothing of all this, the forlorn islanders ashore understood still less, until to help their wits they saw the flag of Spain co of England soar to its empty place Even then some bewilderment persisted, and it ith fearful eyes that they observed the return of their eneht vent upon thele, however, continued to give proof that his knowledge of gunnery was not of yesterday After the fleeing Spaniards went his shots The last of their boats flew into splinters as it touched the wharf, and its remains were buried under a shower of loosened masonry
That was the end of this pirate crehich not ten ht that would fall to the portion of each for his share in that act of villainy Close upon threescore survivors contrived to reach the shore Whether they had cause for congratulation, I am unable to say in the absence of any records in which their fate may be traced That lack of records is in itself eloquent We know that they werethe offence they had given I aret the survival
The mystery of the succour that had coeance upon the Spaniards, and to preserve for the island the extortionate ransoht, reas was now in friendly hands could no longer be doubted after the proofs it had given But who, the people of Bridgetown asked one another, were the men in possession of her, and whence had they come? The only possible assumption ran the truth very closely A resolute party of islanders ht, and seized the shi+p It remained to ascertain the precise identity of thesehonour
Upon this errand - Governor Steed's condition not pero in person - went Colonel Bishop as the Governor's deputy, attended by two officers
As he stepped from the ladder into the vessel's waist, the Colonel beheld there, beside the main hatch, the four treasure-chests, the contents of one of which had been contributed alladso it
Ranged on either side, athwart the deck, stood a score of men in tell-ordered files, with breasts and backs of steel, polished Spanishtheir faces, and muskets ordered at their sides
Colonel Bishop could not be expected to recognize at a glance in these upright, furbished, soldierly figures the ragged, unke in his plantations Still less could he be expected to recognize at once the courtly gentleentleman, dressed in the Spanish fashi+on, all in black with silver lace, a gold-hilted sword dangling beside hiold e plulets of deepest black
”Be welcouely familiar addressed the planter ”We've made the best of the Spaniards' wardrobe in honour of this visit, though it was scarcely yourself we had dared hope to expect You find yourself a friends - old friends of yours, all” The Colonel stared in stupefaction Mr Blood tricked out in all this splendour - indulging therein his natural taste - his face carefully shaven, his hair as carefully dressed, seeer man The fact is he looked no e
”Peter Blood!” It was an ejaculation of amazement Satisfaction folloiftly ”Was it you, then?”
”Myself it was - ood friends and yours” Mr Blood tossed back the fine lace fro to attention there
The Colonel looked more closely ”Gad's my life!” he crowed on a note of foolish jubilation ”And it ith these fellows that you took the Spaniard and turned the tables on those dogs! Oddswounds! It was heroic!”
”Heroic, is it? Bedad, it's epic! Ye begin to perceive the breadth and depth of enius”