Across the Spanish Main Part 2

With a wild cheer the seamen, headed by Cavendish--who was closely supported by Roger and Harry, who were respectively second and third on the enemy's decks,--dashed at the Spaniards.

One of the two Spanish s.h.i.+ps was now blazing fiercely, having been set on fire by the discharges of the English guns, and her crew were beginning to think that the time had arrived for them to leave her. In this opinion they were confirmed by the English, who were gradually driving them from their own decks to those of their consort. They were thus, as it were, between two fires, and were badly hampered by the necessity to climb from the one vessel to the other. Those of them who could not gain the deck of the other s.h.i.+p were driven overboard, and very few of them survived to reach their goal.

"Quickly, lads," shouted Roger; "drive these fellows off the deck, and let us regain our own s.h.i.+p while we can. The other Spaniards are drawing up, and will be on us before we are ready for them if we do not look sharp."

The seamen, animated by his voice, and seeing the necessity for doing as he said, redoubled their efforts, and, with hearty cheers, ma.s.sed themselves together and charged along the reeking and slippery decks.

The Spaniards, unable to resist the weight of the charge, scattered, and, finding no other way of escape, dashed below; but they could not so easily avoid the victorious English, who followed and hunted them out of their hiding-places.

As Roger and Harry, having dashed below in pursuit, were running down one of the narrow alleyways, searching for hidden Spaniards, a man sprang from behind a curtain and aimed a heavy blow with his sword at Roger, who was foremost, cutting him down.

With a faint groan Roger fell, and Harry stumbled over his body, thus enabling the Spaniard to effect his escape.

Half-stunned from the force of his fall, Harry raised himself and bent over Roger.

"Roger, Roger," he exclaimed, "are you much hurt? Speak to me, lad."

But Roger made no reply, lying perfectly still, with a stream of red slowly spreading from under his head and staining the white planking.

Suddenly, from above sounded a harsh cry.

"Back, back, every man of you, and cut the s.h.i.+ps adrift; the Spaniards are firing the magazines; back, for your lives!" Loud and imperative rang out the voice of Cavendish. "Quick, lads, for your lives, or we shall be all blown up together!"

"Roger, Roger, wake, lad," cried Harry; "the s.h.i.+p has been set on fire, and will blow up directly. Heavens, what can I do?"

But Roger never stirred; so, as there was nothing else to be done, Harry took his body under the arms and began to drag him along toward the nearest hatchway.

At this moment the broadsides of the English again rang out, showing that the other three Spaniards were drawing up, and were within gunshot.

Meanwhile, on board the Spanish s.h.i.+p no sound was to be heard save the roar and crackle of the flames, as Harry, putting out all his strength, lifted the inanimate body of his friend to his shoulder, and plunged along the pa.s.sage through the blinding and suffocating smoke.

He was das.h.i.+ng forward, holding his breath as much as possible, with his eyes smarting with smoke, and feeling as though they would burst from their sockets, when he crashed up against some obstacle, dropping the body of Roger from the force of the contact. A puff of fresh air now blew the smoke aside for a moment, and Harry saw what was the cause of his stoppage. His way was blocked by a stout oaken door, that had evidently been closed by some seaman when he retreated upon hearing the alarm that the magazine was in danger of being fired.

Harry dragged frantically at the handle and turned it wildly, but in vain; the door was secured on the other side by some kind of spring latch, and escape seemed impossible.

The smoke meanwhile was momentarily becoming more and more dense, and it was now an agony to breathe, while every second of delay meant awful danger; and Roger seemed to be rapidly bleeding to death for want of attention to his wound.

Harry looked round for some instrument with which to force the door, and his eye fell upon a handspike, probably dropped by some flying foe.

Seizing this, he smashed madly at the door, till at length the panel splintered under his frantic blows; then, putting his hand through the opening, he felt for the latch, found it, and the door opened at his touch.

Once again raising Roger in his arms, he staggered blindly along; and at last, bleeding from contact with splinters, and his hands almost raw with wielding the handspike, he reached the foot of the companion-ladder and dashed up it with his still inanimate burden in his arms.

On reaching the deck he saw that the grapnels had been cut, the three English vessels had drifted some hundreds of yards away, and were even then engaging the three other Spanish s.h.i.+ps which had come up; and the air was again full of the roar of cannon, the cras.h.i.+ng of timbers, falling of masts, shrieks, groans, cries, orders, and imprecations.

The Spanish s.h.i.+p which had been in company with the craft that caught fire had vanished, and only a few timbers and fragments were floating on the surface; she had evidently been sunk by the terrible fire of the English guns.

The s.h.i.+p on which they now were, the _Maria Dolorosa_, was by this time a spouting fountain of flame, from her bows as far aft as her mainmast.

Her guns were exploding one after another as the fire reached them, and added their thunder to the already awful din.

Harry raised his voice, and shouted over the water with all the power of his lungs to the English s.h.i.+ps, but the continued roar of the cannon, mingled with the rattling crash of musketry volleys, the shouted commands of the officers, the hoa.r.s.e outcries of toiling and fighting men, and the crash of rending wood as the broadsides tore their way into the vitals of the reeling s.h.i.+ps effectually drowned his outcries; while everybody was far too busily engaged to notice his critical situation.

"Ah, Roger!" said he, apostrophising the inanimate figure that lay at his feet as he stood at the extreme edge of the p.o.o.p, in order to be as far away from the furnace heat as possible,--"Ah, Roger, I fear, dear lad, that our lives are coming to an end even before we are fairly launched on our adventures! Oh, why cannot they--!"

At this moment there was a roar as if all earth and heaven were dissolving in chaos, and Harry, feeling as if he were being whirled downward into everlasting night, knew no more.

The fire had at last reached the magazine!

CHAPTER FOUR.

WHAT HAPPENED TO ROGER ON BOARD THE GLORIA DEL MUNDO.

When Roger next opened his eyes he was at a loss to to recall immediately to mind the preceding events; nor could he for the moment imagine where he might be.

He was in great pain from the wound in his head, received on board the Spanish s.h.i.+p which he and Harry had boarded together, and this served to bring his memory back to what had occurred.

He remembered rus.h.i.+ng with Harry down a dark alleyway, with cutla.s.s in hand, and also that a man had suddenly sprung at him and cut him down; that he had received so violent a blow on his head that he had felt certain his skull was cloven asunder; and then his memory ceased abruptly. But where was Harry, his inseparable companion?

Roger raised his throbbing head painfully, and tried to look round, but could nowhere discover the presence of his dear friend. He shouted his name: "Harry; Harry, where are you?" but there was no reply. Only somewhere above him he could hear the roar of cannon, hoa.r.s.e cries of command, angry shouts, and the trampling feet of many men.

Looking about him, he perceived that he lay in a cabin of some sort, very richly furnished, but lit by a light so dim that he could only make out objects in it very indistinctly. There was no port-hole or sky-light of any description in the apartment, which led him to the conclusion that he must be in some room far away below the water-line.

This impression was heightened by the fact that exterior noises came to his ears m.u.f.fled, as by distance.

In the cabin itself there was no sound, save the gnawing of a rat somewhere on the floor below him. On the walls he could dimly discern two or three pictures, and just above his bunk was a portrait of a lady.

There were also several star trophies of weapons arranged at intervals; and at one end of the cabin--which was of unusually s.p.a.cious dimensions--stood a large cabinet or escritoire, one of the drawers of which had apparently been pulled out hastily, as papers were to be seen protruding from it, and several doc.u.ments had fallen to the floor.

Oh, how he wished he might venture to rise from his bunk and make an investigation of the cabin! But he was afraid to attempt any such exploit, for his head ached so atrociously, and he felt so deadly sick and giddy from the anguish of his wound and loss of blood, that he felt certain if he exerted himself but ever so little he would sink helpless and insensible to the deck. While thinking thus he abstractedly raised his hand to his head, and thus discovered that his wound had been bandaged, evidently by a skilled hand, for the wrappings were all neatly put on, adjusted, and sewn, instead of being merely tied. This was so far satisfactory, for it seemed to point to the fact that he had fallen into friendly hands, although his returning senses, enabled him to come to the conclusion that he must certainly be aboard a Spanish s.h.i.+p. With a sigh of relief he was preparing to pull the coverlet over him and lie down once more, when his ear caught the sound of footsteps approaching.

He was just about to shout to the person or persons, whoever they might be, and enquire as to where he was, and whether they could afford him any information as to what had become of Harry, when his quick ear caught one or two words of the conversation which the unknown persons were carrying on. It was in Spanish. Then his surmise was a true one, and he was indeed aboard one of the enemy's s.h.i.+ps. With a stifled cry he flung himself down in the bunk, and pulled the coverlet over him once again, closing his eyes, and simulating heavy breathing, in the hope of persuading the new-comers that he was in a deep slumber.

He was only just in time, for as he composed his limbs into a comfortable position, in the event of the strangers making a lengthy stay, two men entered.

Roger looked at them from between his nearly-closed eyelids and saw that both were tall men, slender and dark, both wearing long black mustachios and closely trimmed beards. Roger happened to possess a slight knowledge of Spanish, and was thus able to gather the meaning of at least part of their conversation. With one accord they approached Roger's bunk and leaned over, looking at his face.

"He sleeps," said the elder of the two men.

"Well, let him sleep as long as he will," replied his companion sardonically, "for it is little enough sleep the young heretic will get when once he is delivered over to the Holy Inquisition."

Roger shuddered.

He had heard quite enough of the methods of that inst.i.tution to understand the significance of the words. He longed to open his eyes and take more particular note than he had yet been able to do of the personality of his two visitors; but he withstood the temptation, and kept his eyes closed, listening hard to catch all he could of the ensuing conversation.

"And what, Alvarez, are the captain's orders with regard to the boy?"

said the elder man, whose name, it transpired, was de Soto.

"Senor Don Guzman's orders," answered the other, "are that he is to be kept in this cabin until we have finally disposed of these three pestilent English s.h.i.+ps; and when that is done, and we have captured them, he is to be locked up in the fore hold, with the other prisoners we shall take--if the rascals do not in this case fight to the death, as they often do. Then when we return to Cadiz they are all to be handed over to the Holy Inquisition."

Roger felt the cold perspiration start in beads on his forehead.