Part 16 (1/2)
”Panza told me that he'd heard it said that her full complement o hundred and twenty-six e to surprise 'eiven, I don't reckon that they'll give us so very much trouble,” answered hoard
”We must risk that,” re to detain us; we et this battery business over, the better”
”Very well, sir, I'm quite ready,” answered hoard ”I suppose you didn't happen to think of slippin' a cutlash, or a pair of pistols, or anything into the boat for me, sir?” he continued
”Oh, yes, I did!” said I ”Tho, will fit you out And you had better co with me, as we shall probably want you to act as pilot”
”All right, sir, I'll do that with all the pleasure in life,” was the answer And therewith he clambered noiselessly into the boat and made his way aft to the stern-sheets, where I presently found hie of which he was testing with his thu his satisfaction at its condition
We now shoved off, and the gig leading, gave way at a long steady stroke, for the southern extreh it was a pull of fully threeeach boat in charge of a couple ofthe ht wasthat flashed from the clouds immediately overhead; and almost simultaneously with the flash there caround beneath our feet vibrate and tre; for to advance upon the battery in thewas almost certainly to betray ourselves, while ti anxious to be aboard the galleon notthe hour when man is supposed to sleep his soundest and to be least liable to awake pre for it but to wait, so I hurriedly ordered the e of sand which forrass-land; and there we crouched, with the lightning flashi+ng and quivering all about us for fully a quarter of an hour Then down ca flashi+ng and darting and quivering hither and thither through it, until we appeared to be enveloped in a gigantic dia colours of the lightning through the rain Of course etted to the skin in an instant, but that did not very greatly matter, as our pistols and ammunition were carried in waterproof cases; moreover, the rain afforded us an excellent curtain under cover of which to advance; so at a word fro to their feet, and we pushed rapidly forward The battery was but a quarter of a mile from the spot where we had landed, and so accurately had I taken an to rim, before us hoard had informed me that its landward sides were protected by a deep e; and it was for this bridge that I was keeping a sharp look-out I was so close aboard of it before I saw it that three or four paces sufficed to carry me to the sentry-box at its landward end; and just as I reached this box a vivid flash of lightning revealed its interior, and there, bolt upright, stood a tall Spanish grenadier, with hisin a corner of the hut, close to his hand I realised instantly that the briefest period of hesitation now ; for as I had seen the soldier, he had also undoubtedly seen me; so the man no sooner stood revealed before me than, with one bound, I was in the sentry-box with hi out, while with the other I seized his musket and passed it out to the led manfully, and did his utmost to free his throat, but I held hirip that ere round To lash hiether, like a trussed foith his own cross-belts, and to gag hiood-sized stone, secured in his mouth by a strip slashed from his own coat, was but the work of two or three th, satisfied that the felloas secure and hared fro that To as the schooner's secondthe sentry at the far side of the drawbridge
We were now consequently in possession of this structure, and that, too, without the slightest alararrison, and in another minute all hands of us stood inside the battery, which was a fine, solid earthwork, with casemates, very like the battery that we had seized at Abervrach harbour Unlike the French battery, however, all the casemates were open, with the exception of four, two of which were converted into the officers' quarters, while the other two constituted the azine; and in the shelter of these open case soundly in hammocks, despite the storm, with their muskets piled under the shelter of a verandah that ran all along the front of the casemates To possess ourselves of these muskets, and to heave them into the moat was the work of but a few minutes; and when this was done I went up on to the platforuns It was a arrison should have slept so soundly through the terrific crash and roar of the thunder, and the blaze of the lightning; but they did, perhaps because they were accustomed to that kind of disturbance; and as the thunder was practically continuous, I had no difficulty in carrying out le clink of the leather-covered ha audible
The battery was now useless for some hours at least; and, since we had been so fortunate as to render it so without any of the garrison becoe to leave theer, I therefore quietly withdrew ed and bound sentinels with us, effected an orderly retreat to the beach
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
THE CAPTURE OF NOSTRA SENORA DEL CARMEN
Arrived at the boats, we lost not a ain, for ti still a journey of soalleon could be reached But, once fairly clear of the Boca, or channel, we should be able to use our sails, which I had taken the precaution to have placed in the boats, and then we should
The first question for consideration, however, hat to do with our two prisoners This was speedily settled by hoard, who suggested that they should be landed upon a small islet, called Brujas Island, situate on the opposite side of the harbour, and lying but little out of our regular way This we did, of course first casting theh they were thus freed from actual physical restraint they remained as harmless as before, so far as ere concerned, for Brujas Island was uninhabited, and separated froh only narroere so dangerous, in consequence of the sharks hich the harbour was infested, that the Spaniards were not at all likely to i to swih, so far as ere concerned, until ht be attracted by their cries, and would release them But, whether released or not, I had very little fear that they would atteive the alarm there; the fact that they had allowed themselves to be surprised and made prisoners would be accounted by their officers an unpardonable crime; and the probability was that, when released from the island, they would take to the forest and make for the interior to escape punishment
By the time that we had landed these two unfortunate men the thunder- storm had passed away to seaward, the crash of the thunder had beco downpour of rain had set in; the clouds overhead, however, were not nearly so heavy and black as they had been previous to the outbreak of the storht to enable us to see where ere going We accordingly shoved off fro our sails, headed up the harbour The land as blowing, although not very strongly, and e had been under way about half an hour we began to look out for the galleon hoard was the first to see her-- probably because he knew best of us all where to look for her,--and, the 's sails were lowered, as a signal for the other boats to close round us This they immediately did, when I repeated, in a low voice, the orders that I had already given before leaving the schooner, in order that every ht know exactly what duty was expected of hi thus refreshed every ave the order to draw cutlasses and paddle quietly alongside
A few alleon; and a fine, stately, noble-looking craft she was, towering out of the water like a line-of- battle shi+p; her loftyto pierce the sky and lose the side without being challenged--toher to port and the other half to starboard, in less than asoftly and noiselessly as shadows here and there; so the fore-scuttle, others the coain were briskly swar up the shrouds to loose the canvas; the carpenter--with his axe specially sharpened for the occasion--at once stationing hin frohly-ornaular circuside without being challenged was fully accounted for by the fact that not a single soul was on deck e had glided in over the galleon's lofty bulwarks If an anchor watch had been set, the nored their duty, in the absence of the officers, by turning in and leaving the shi+p to take care of herself
The surprise was coalleon had fallen into our hands without sostruck Of course, there was the crew below to be reckoned with still, but meanwhile they were close prisoners and asleep; and, even in the event of their awaking at once and proceeding to force their way on deck, it would be some time ere they would be able to break out; and by that tihbourhood of the town to render any prospect of assistance from that quarter practically out of the question What I most feared was that somebody on board one or another of the ht notice the operation of loosing and setting the galleon's canvas, and suspecting soive the alaralleys after us; ere likely enough to find ourselves in an exceedingly aard scrape That, however, was a danger that we had to face And after all it was not so very great; for if no anchor watch was being kept on board the galleon, how much less likely was it that such a watch would be kept on board the comparatively valueless coasters by which ere surrounded
I had carefully explained to my crew beforehand what it was that we had to do; and I had also given instructions that the whole of the as to be carried forward in absolute silence, no one calling out unless the necessity for so doing was urgent Consequently, from the moment e first dropped in over the bulwarks, not a sound save the soft patter of alleon until first the topsails and then the courses were let fall, when, of course, there arose a sound of canvas fluttering in the wind, which, to h to wake the dead Then came the sharp cheep, cheep of sheaves upon their pins as the topsails were sheeted home and the yardsof canvas as the jib was hoisted Then came the dull, heavy crunch of the carpenter's axe as he smote at the cables I suppose it was these sounds that awakened the galleon's crew, for while the carpenter was still hacking away there arose fro, and thethat the hatch should be lifted hoard, however, had been standing by, in expectation of so of this sort, and theI heard hi the prisoners that the shi+p was in the hands of the English, and that unless they--the Spaniards-- immediately ceased their row the whole lot of them would be quickly subjected to certain dreadful pains and penalties which I but imperfectly understood The threat, however, had the desired effect of quieting our prisoners, who promptly subsided into silence
It was a so a shi+p under way in the rather thickly crowded anchorage, and ere obliged at the outset toand complicated stern-board, which entailed two or three very narrow shaves of fouling one or another of the craft that were in our way The sky, however, was clearing fast, the stars were shi+ning brightly through great and rapidly increasing rifts in the clouds and affording us enough light to see ere about;shrilly through our rigging, so that as soon as ere able to swing the yards and get headway upon the luh, and contrived to scrape clear of everything; and that, too, without attracting any very serious amount of attention, only one hail-- and that, apparently, frolided with a slow and stately e toward the soe between the island of Tierra Boe, and the shi+pping that encumbered it, we crowded sail upon the old hooker, and were soon boo doard the chain of shoals at the rate of fully seven knots And now hoard once h the shoals, which he did very successfully, hugging Brujas Island pretty closely, and then bearing almost square away for the Boca Chica channel
A short half-hour sufficed to carry us to the inner end of it; and here our utation of the sharply-winding passage But wedark and silent in the San Fernando battery as we passed it, and after an anxious ten_Nostra Senora del Car ponderously upon the swell of the open Caribbean
In anticipation of the possibility that we ht off the land, that being, in my opinion, the direction in which ere least likely to be looked for, and e had been running to leeward for about half an hour, and hadof nearly four miles, I burned three portfires sinal to the schooner that all ell and that she was to follow us, and an hour later she ca up on our weather quarter and hailed us We now hove-to and sent alongside her the boats that had hitherto been towing astern; and as soon as they were hoisted in we both filled away once ht off the land, so that when day dawned I had the satisfaction of finding that we had run the coast out of sight
We had, of course, long ere this secured our prisoners, nu in all two hundred and twenty-six et rid of them; for I did not at all care to have so many men aboard ould require to be constantly watched in order that they uarded moment Happily, the proble felucca, bound froht to, and as she proved to be a fine, roomy craft I hove-to, lowered the boats, and transhi+pped our prisoners into her, despite the protests of her unhappy captain, who called all the saints to witness that the food he had on board would not suffice to feed so many men more than a couple of days atout to him that he could bear up for Tolu, on the Gulf of Morrosquillo, which he could easily fetch in twenty-four hours, and so left him to settle the matter in whichever way seemed best to him
As soon as we had parted coain, I set to work to search for the treasure, of the actual presence of which on board I had as yet had no time to satisfy myself
hoard was of opinion that it would be found stoay in a strong-room beneath the cabin deck, in the position usually occupied by the lazarette, and there, sure enough, I found such a room--a solidly built structure of hard ti secured by three h thick iron bands, and secured at either end by heavy iron padlocks, six in all, the keyholes of which were sealed with great seals the size of the palm of my hand These seals I broke without a particle of hesitation or reverence for the great personage who had caused them to be placed there, and then instituted a hunt for the keys, which resulted, as I had feared it would, in failure The keys were doubtless at that ena, in the possession of the unfortunate captain of the shi+p, or in the hands of the official to whose custody the treasure had been confided There was nothing for it, therefore, but to set the armourer to work upon the padlocks, and by dint of hard work he ht bells in the afternoon watch
The roo about five feet each way, and it was lined inside as well as outside, with thick sheets of iron But it was ots were packed in rows of twenty each athwart the roo a tier, and the ingots were stored eight tiers high; so that, if the lower tiers contained the saots as the top tier, as was pretty certain to be the case, there were eight hundred ingots of solid gold, each weighing approxi ht be conveniently transported from the mines to the coast by means of trains of Indians