With Drake on the Spanish Main Part 30

"That we can, sir; trust me."

With her courses set, and Turnpenny at the helm, the vessel stood out half a mile until all danger of striking a shoal was past; then she was headed southward. Meantime Dennis superintended the loading of all her ordnance, five guns on each side. Soon they saw the dark hulls of the two Spanish vessels anch.o.r.ed off the south-west corner of the island.

"There's room enough betwixt 'em, sir, for us to pa.s.s and rake 'em with a broadside. Not a man aboard 'em will suppose this craft is manned by any but their own comrades, nor will they know better till they hear our popguns."

As they approached, a voice hailed them from the vessel on the port side, asking the meaning of the uproar lately heard.

"A fight ash.o.r.e, but it is now over," sang out Juan the maroon.

The _Minion_ came between the two vessels. So confident was Turnpenny in the unpreparedness of the Spaniards that he hove to, not a dozen yards separating the s.h.i.+ps on either side. The guns were manned; the matches, already lighted, were screened from observation; then, at the word, the five guns on the starboard side belched forth their heavy charges of round shot. Almost before the roar had died away the gunners rushed to the larboard. Again there was a mighty thunder and crash as the shots raked the hapless vessel. Through the cloud of smoke the adventurous bark was got under way. In a few minutes she ran clear; Turnpenny put the helm down, and she beat up against the wind until she reached her former anchorage westward of the gully.

Then Dennis, with Turnpenny and a dozen men, got into the boat which had followed astern at the end of a rope, and rowed for the entrance between the cliffs. There was no guard over the pinnace. The Spaniards who had been surprised in their camp had fled to the other side of the island. Even those who had lately landed, hearing the thunder of the guns to the south, had rushed inland, believing that El Draque, the terror of their coasts, had suddenly come upon them.

Unmolested, Dennis and some of his party landed on the rocks.

Turnpenny made a rapid inspection of the pinnace.

"Her stern works be sore battered and her rudder s.h.i.+vered to splinters," he said, "but she will take no water, a' b'lieve. With a strong pull we will have her off, sir."

The rope by which the Spaniards had attempted to tow her was still fixed. Under the haulage of twelve st.u.r.dy mariners she was slowly s.h.i.+fted; she floated; and in twenty minutes lay alongside the Spanish vessel.

Then, the men giving a parting cheer that echoed and re-echoed from the sh.o.r.e, the s.h.i.+p stood away under full sail with the pinnace riding merrily astern. And when morning broke the long coast-line of the mainland was already in sight.

CHAPTER XXV

The Mule Trains

"No Bobby Pike this time," whispered Turnpenny to Dennis, as they lay eating their supper amid the scrub a mile or more south of Nombre de Dios. "And with all my soul I hope the Frenchmen be sober men, for to fail of our purpose now through any frowardness would break Master Drake his n.o.ble heart and send me into a decline."

"Hus.h.!.+" returned Dennis, in a voice equally low. "List to the church bells, Amos, and the clatter of the hammers. Does it not mind you of home--the church on the cliff, and the busy carpenters in the docks below? My soul yearns for home, Amos."

"Ay, and so do I. But I would fain return home with full hands--money enough to buy a little fis.h.i.+ng craft, and a cottage by the sea. 'Tis five year and more since I sailed in the _Jesus_ out of Plimworth Sound, and there was Margery Tutt a-waving her little handkercher to me, thinking, poor soul, to see me again within a twelvemonth. And I warrant the pretty maid counted the days and went to every wedden in church, to larn the fearsome promises word by word, so that she might not fail when we should come to stand afore holy pa'son. 'With all my worldly goods I thee endow': so it runs for the man to say, and here I be, five year after, with not so much worldly goods as I had then, saving some few pearls; and I warrant some knavish land-lubber has come along and s.n.a.t.c.hed up my little Margery, and I'll find her a bowerly 'ooman that has clean forgot poor Haymoss Turnpenny. Ah me! I be sick of adventures, be jowned if I bean't."

"Be of good cheer, Amos. If Fortune stand our friend, we shall have more gold and silver than we can bear away before this night be ended; and then Master Drake will sail away home, and who knows?--Margery may be looking for you even yet. 'Twas seven years that Jacob served for Rachel."

"Ay, but always within arm's length. I warrant he kept an eye on the wench. There was never a thousand leagues of sea betwixt him and the maid. Od-rat-en, if I find Margery have changed her name with any lubberly chaw-bacon, dang me if I don't deal en a clout he'll remember, good-now, I will."

Turnpenny relapsed into silence, brooding on his melancholy forebodings.

It was the night of March 31. Some forty men lay in the scrub overlooking Nombre de Dios, awaiting the clang of mule-bells that would announce the approach of a treasure train from Venta Cruz. Half of them were French, for a week or two before, as Drake and his men were sportively pitching stones at the land crabs on the beach, a s.h.i.+p came down from the west, whose captain proved to be a French Huguenot named Le Testu, with a company of some seventy men and boys. They were peris.h.i.+ng for want of water. Having obtained from Drake, ever generous to adventurers like himself, the supplies they needed, they prepared to join themselves to him, in the hope of obtaining some share of Spanish gold.

Drake hesitated to admit the Frenchmen to a partners.h.i.+p, for he had but thirty-one men left, and feared that the seventy would claim too large a portion of the booty if his projected attack on the mule-train should succeed. But the matter was compromised by Captain Le Testu joining Drake with twenty men. These, with fifteen Englishmen and a few maroons, sailed in two of Drake's pinnaces for the mouth of the Francisco river, fifteen miles from Nombre de Dios. The rest of the company were left at a secret spot in charge of one Richard Doble.

When the river mouth was made, Drake sent a few maroons back with the pinnaces, ordering them to remain in hiding with Doble and to return in four days' time to take off the adventurers.

Dennis and Turnpenny were among those who accompanied Drake in the _Minion_. They had won great praise from him for their exploits in Maiden Isle and their capture of the Spanish s.h.i.+p, whose stores of food and ammunition were very welcome. The damage to the pinnace was speedily repaired, Drake saying with a laugh that had she been rendered unseaworthy he would have pinioned Dennis between decks and kept him there until they dropped anchor in Plymouth Sound.

The adventurers were encamped on rising ground above the town. Taking a lesson from the previous failure, the men spoke in the lowest of whispers, even though they were a mile away from the track. All through the night they heard the clatter of hammers from the bay, where the Spanish s.h.i.+pwrights, avoiding the heat of the day, were preparing the s.h.i.+ps of the treasure fleet for sea. The ambuscaders were grimly resolved that the cargoes should be less by the weight of a good many tons of silver and gold.

The hours pa.s.sed too slowly for the impatient adventurers. But at length, a little before dawn, they heard a faint tinkle of bells afar in the woods, and soon the maroon scouts came in with the news that three trains, numbering nearly two hundred mules in all, were approaching from Venta Cruz. Such good fortune was unlooked for; and though the scouts reported that the trains were escorted by soldiers, not a man gave a thought to the odds against them. Instantly they all seized their calivers and bows and arrows, and hastened to the trackway, where, as before, they posted themselves in the long gra.s.s on either side.

On came the mules, their bells jangling and clanging in musical discord. In the gra.s.s lurked the raiders, silent--though Turnpenny gave Dennis a nudge and whispered, "'Tis All Fools' Day!" Suddenly there sounded a blast from Drake's whistle; the men started up, and, sending a volley of bullets and arrows at the Spanish infantrymen that guarded the convoy, made straight for the heads of the leading mules.

Nothing loath to rest a while, the mules behind lay down contentedly on the ground. But the soldiers, who had blown on their matches as they marched, to keep them alight, rallied in a group and fired back at the a.s.sailants. A maroon was killed outright: Captain Le Testu fell seriously wounded; but the rest, kneeling down and supporting their weapons on the prostrate mules, briskly returned the fire; then, springing up before the enemy could reload, charged upon them with fierce cries and drove them helter-skelter towards the town.

Immediately afterwards two men came rus.h.i.+ng up to Turnpenny.

"Be jowned if it bean't Billy Hawk and fat Baltizar!" he cried in astonishment. "Oh Billy, poor soul, what a scarecrow 'ee do look! Get out, you jelly!" he cried to Baltizar, speeding him with a kick. "You be fat as b.u.t.ter; all is well with 'ee; get 'ee to the town after your masters, and thank G.o.d your oily carca.s.s be not left to fatten the land.--Billy, dear heart, what hath happed to thee?"

Hawk told his story while Turnpenny and the other seamen, selecting the mules that bore the heaviest loads, with nimble fingers cast off their packs, unstrapped them, and helped themselves to the precious contents--bars and quoits of solid gold, and silver uncountable. He had followed Biddle and the other mutineers in the hope of persuading them to return to their duty; but they had soon fallen upon him, robbed him of his bag of pearls, and left him bound in the forest. There he had been found by some fugitives from the routed Spaniards, who carried him to their vessel, and conveyed him to Nombre de Dios. Believing him to be one of Drake's men, they tortured him to make him confess where his captain's secret haven was, which he stedfastly refused to do; and since then he had been kept in slavery, drudging as a muleteer between Nombre de Dios and Panama.

"G.o.d be praised we have found 'ee!" cried Turnpenny. "You shall come back with us, and I'll give 'ee a share of all my treasure."

The raiders did up in bundles and bestowed about their persons as much as they could stagger under, and set to work to bury what they could not carry in the burrows of landcrabs and under the great trunks of fallen trees. For two hours they toiled on; then, hearing the clatter of hoofs from the direction of the town, they seized their booty and made off to the woods. Up came a troop of horse; but when they reached the mules they halted, for they heard in the woods the "Yo peho!" of the maroons, and shrank from engaging those terrible forest fighters.

Staggering under the weight of their treasure, the raiders tramped with what haste they might through the jungle. They had not gone far when Captain Le Testu lay down groaning; weak from loss of blood, he could go no farther. Two of his men volunteered to stay with him, and help him on after he had rested. The others hurried on, and after struggling through the forest for two days and nights, drenched by terrible rainstorms, burnt black by the torrid heat, reached their landing-place on the bank of the Francisco River.

It was four days since they had left it; the pinnaces should have been there awaiting them; but not a sign of them met their hungry eyes.

Instead, seven Spanish pinnaces were observed rowing from the island, where the maroons had been ordered to shelter with Richard Doble. The drenched and footsore raiders were aghast. Had their enemies captured the pinnaces, and slain their comrades? Were they to be imprisoned in this swampy jungle, with no means of sailing or rowing away to Fort Diego? Loud murmurs, cries of despair, curses at being deserted, broke from the seamen. They cried out that they were betrayed; that the Spaniards would fall on them and overwhelm them; that they would never see home again. Drake expostulated with them; the maroons offered to lead them the sixteen days' journey overland, and promised, if the s.h.i.+ps proved indeed to be taken, to give them shelter in their villages. But the men cried out the more; some threw down the treasure they had dared so much to win; some began to cry out against their leader himself.

Then Drake showed the stuff of which he was made.

"Silence, you knaves!" he cried. "Am I any whit better off than you?

Is this a time to yield to craven fear? Nay, but rather to pluck up heart and play the man. If the Spaniards have in truth taken our pinnaces, which G.o.d forbid, yet they must have time to search them, time to examine the mariners, and, if they compel them by torture to confess where our s.h.i.+ps are, time to execute their resolution after it is determined. Before all these times be taken, we may get to our s.h.i.+ps if ye will. We may not hope to go by land, for that the journey is too long and the ways too foul. But we may surely go by water.

Look at the trees here rolling down upon the flood, thrown down by the storms that beset us so sorely. May we not build ourselves a raft, and put ourselves to sea? I will be one; who will be the others?"

"That will I," said Dennis, stepping forward.

"And I too, good-now," cried Turnpenny.

"Nay, Master Hazelrig, you I will leave to command these timid rascals if ill befall me; but Amos I will take, and go fetch those laggard pinnaces."

Then the maroons, taking hands and forming into a line, stepped into the river and intercepted the trees as they came down on the torrent.

With their hatchets they lopped off the branches; they bound the trunks together with leathern thongs taken from the mules, and with tendrils of creepers from the jungle. A stout sapling was reared as a mast, and with his own hands Turnpenny rigged up a biscuit sack for a sail, and fas.h.i.+oned a crutch in which another sapling might serve as a rudder.

The raft being now ready, Drake selected two of the Frenchmen who could swim well to accompany him and Turnpenny. The four men stepped on to the frail craft, and as she was hauled off over the bar at the river mouth, Drake cried out:

"Be of good cheer, my hearts. If it please G.o.d I put my foot in safety aboard my frigate, I shall, G.o.d willing, by one means or other get ye all aboard, in despite of all the Spaniards in the Indies."

And the seamen, with new hope born within their b.r.e.a.s.t.s, sped their gallant captain with a cheer.

"My heart, 'twas a fearsome voyage!" said Turnpenny, relating the adventure to Dennis afterwards. "We sat inches deep in water, holding on for very life, and the sea came tumbling aboard, swingeing us to the armpits at every surge of the waves. We scudded along before the wind, but though 'twas strong, it scarce tempered the great heat; and what with the parching of the sun, and what with the beating of the salt water, we had all of us our skins much fretted away. We had sailed for six hours, and were making our third league, when G.o.d gave us the sight of two pinnaces bearing towards us. 'G.o.d be praised!' cried our captain; 'there is now no cause to fear.' But the sky was become dark, and the men on the pinnaces as they laboured towards us, the wind driving the spray into their eyes, did not perceive us; and the gale being exceedingly fierce, they bore up to the lee of a point of land, and vanished from our sight. Whereupon our captain ran ash.o.r.e to windward of the headland, and being mightily enraged for that the knaves had not obeyed his command to wait us at the river, he was minded to play a trick on them and turn their hearts sick with very fear. So when we did land, we ran in great haste towards where the pinnaces were at anchor, making such speed as if we had been chased by the enemy. My heart! their eyes were astare with fear when they espied us. They hauled us aboard their boats, crying out, this one and that, 'Where be our comrades?' 'How fares it with them?' and other such questions, to all which our Captain in a cold voice did answer only 'Well!' Whereupon they began to lament with tears, crying out that verily their dear comrades were dead or in captivity.

"Our captain for a s.p.a.ce looked sternly upon them in their misery. But then, being willing to rid all doubts and fill them with joy, he took from out his s.h.i.+rt a quoit of gold, and bade them praise G.o.d, for their comrades were safe and had of that treasure enough and for all. Then he commanded them to get their anchors up, for that he was resolved that very night to come back to the river. And we rowed hard through the darkness and in the teeth of the gale, and here we be, with blistered skins indeed, but sound men and hearty."

Dennis had collected the men on the sh.o.r.e, and built a fire to keep their spirits up. With great joy they heard their comrades hailing them as the vessels came up out of the dark, and they begged Drake's forgiveness for their mutinous murmurs. As soon as day dawned they embarked; the pinnaces ran before the wind, picked up Richard Doble in his frigate, and before noon arrived safely at Port Diego. The treasure was carried on sh.o.r.e, and in the middle of the smooth open s.p.a.ce, amidst cries of wonderment from those who had not had a part in the adventure, Drake weighed the gold and silver on the steward's meat-scales, delivering to the Frenchmen the half agreed upon. These then sailed away westward, to get news of their ill-fated captain.

Drake was not easy in mind about Le Testu. It was pitiful to think of him wounded and left with only two of his men deep in the woods. So while his vessel, the _Pascha_, too foul to be easily fitted for the voyage home, was being stripped to equip the Spanish frigate Dennis had captured, he prepared to lead an expedition in search of the French Captain. But his men raised such an outcry at his leaving them that he gave the command to Oxnam, contenting himself with accompanying them to the Francisco River.

Oxnam had not gone far up stream when a haggard figure emerged tottering from the reeds, and falling on his knees, burst into tears and thanked G.o.d that help had come. Not many minutes after Drake had left him and his comrade with Captain Le Testu, some Spanish arquebusiers came upon them. The Captain bade the two men flee, and they ran off in haste, carrying their treasure. But the Spaniards gave chase, and this man, fearing that, burdened as he was, he must be overtaken, flung away his possessions one after another. Among them was a box of jewels, and this his comrade, cupidity getting the better of his fear, stopped to pick up. The delay was fatal. He was caught and carried away with the captain. The other fugitive was not farther pursued; he reached the river after wandering for several days, during which he had seen a great host of near two thousand Spaniards and negroes searching for the treasure that had been buried.

Hearing this, Oxnam was not willing to return until he had seen whether anything was left. The Spaniards had dug up the ground over nearly a square mile; but Oxnam found in the crab-holes a small quant.i.ty of gold, with silver weighing about five hundred pounds. Loaded with this, his men returned to their pinnace, and came merrily back to Port Diego.