Across the Spanish Main Part 22

They were placed in position against the ponderous iron-bound door, a train was laid to them, and the men then retreated to a safe distance and lay down, waiting for the explosion.

Presently there was a flicker of light as the spark was struck, and at the same moment Roger and Harry grasped hands for a second, for b.l.o.o.d.y work was about to begin.

There was a splutter, a stream of fire ran along the ground, and, as they gazed, an enormous flash of brilliant white light blazed up, nearly blinding them, followed by a deafening report and a tremendous concussion that seemed to make the very earth tremble. And with it came the sound of wrenching iron, cracking timber, and the crash of falling masonry, and from the interior of the fort the clamour and outcry of the sudden awakening of its occupants.

But the English, with no cheer or shout to announce their approach, leaped to their feet, dashed across the intervening ground, and plunged over the fallen masonry and wreckage of the gate into the interior of the fort and into the dim radiance of hastily kindled lanterns.

Here and there they found a man, only half-awake, confusedly running to ascertain what might be the origin of the uproar, and him they cut down at once. From room to room they went, giving no quarter--knowing that they themselves would receive none,--and one by one the unhappy Spaniards were killed.

There was no organised resistance; it was every man for himself, for they had been taken most completely by surprise.

Roger, with Harry and a few more, ran at once up aloft and came out upon the battlements, where with mallet and spike they industriously proceeded to render the guns useless.

Into the touch-hole of every gun a spike nail was driven as far as it would go, thus effectually preventing the possibility of the weapon being fired until the spike was drilled out, which would necessitate the expenditure of at least an hour of hard work.

In a very short time every gun was effectually spiked, and, the capture of the fort being by this time completely accomplished, the men formed up again outside, and descended at the double to the town, which was now thoroughly awakened and alarmed.

The cathedral was to be the next place of call, the object being to remove the gold and silver plate with which it was known to be furnished.

Meanwhile the tocsins were being sounded. The brazen voices of the church bells pealed out high above all the other clamour. To add to the confusion and terror, the English halted, and, fixing their arquebuses, fired a volley into a square where some troops seemed to be mustering.

Immediately upon the crash of the volley came cries and screams from the terrified populace, bearing eloquent witness to the execution wrought by the flying bullets. Then, picking up their weapons, the English flew like fiends through the town, cutting down all who had the temerity to oppose them.

The cathedral was soon reached, and they entered it.

Lights were glimmering far up the aisles, just lit by the trembling priests, who had come in by ones and twos to find out what all the uproar was about. But the English pressed on, undeterred by their presence, and, moving up the long chancel, reached the altar.

Two or three seamen made their way to the belfry, and, loosing the bell-ropes, in the madness of their excitement began to ring the bells in the steeple; and presently, clang, clang, clang, came from the tower as they hauled on the ropes. Rus.h.i.+ng from one bell-rope to another, they started every bell in the steeple ringing, with an effect that was appalling and terrible.

As the bells gained momentum, and swung on their beams, so did the ropes attached to them fly up and down through their appointed holes in the belfry roof, with ever-increasing velocity.

Now they began to twine round each other like living, twisting serpents, and the sailors pulling them had to spring quickly aside to avoid being caught by the flying and coiling ends.

Clang! clang! The sound of the bells now became a mad jangle, and the steeple fairly rocked to their swinging.

Everywhere the people were pouring out of their houses in terror and panic, not knowing whither to turn for safety.

Those who were below in the church were now tearing all the gold and silver ornamentation from the altar, and the communion plate was scattered on the floor of the chancel.

Vainly the frightened priests strove to stay the work of destruction and violation; the seamen were deaf to all entreaty, and cut and tore the silken hangings from the altar, wrapping the costly fabric over their own tarry and soiled clothing. Every man plundered for himself only, and would allow none to rob him of his intended spoil.

Above the altar stood a life-sized figure of the Blessed Virgin Mother, exquisitely modelled in solid gold, and clothed in rich fabric that was adorned with precious stones innumerable. The sailors saw it, and leaped one after another upon the altar, drawing their swords and hacking off the gems, whilst the priests covered their eyes with horror at the desecration and sacrilege.

The eyes of the figure consisted of two magnificent sapphires of great size, and, being unable to reach these with their swords, the sailors put their weapons behind and under the image, and with a few violent wrenches it came cras.h.i.+ng to the ground with a thunderous noise.

As it fell, from above them in the belfry came a most awful, piercing, and agonising scream of anguish. It rose in one shrill cry above every other sound, and echoed, long-drawn out and ghastly, among the dim arches of the roof high above them.

The fearful cry rose and fell, while all below stood still, frozen into silence by the utter horror of the sound. It was as the voice of a lost soul in the most dreadful torment. As suddenly as it had arisen it ceased, and it was now noticed that the tenor bell was no longer clanging its deep mellow voice above them in the steeple.

An old priest stepped out from among his brethren.

"Cease, ye wicked men!" cried he in excellent English. "Cease, ye heretics and sacrilegious dogs, ere worse befall ye! That awful shriek was the despairing cry of a soul torn from its body in awful torment.

Take warning, ye, from that man's dreadful fate; for a man it was, although ye might have deemed the voice that of a devil!

"I can tell ye his doom. He was caught up by the whirling ropes of the bells which ye have rung to your own confusion, and his body has been torn to pieces in the pipe through which the bell-rope runs. Take warning, I say, and leave this sacred place in peace!"

He spoke no more, for one of the officers, fearing the effect his words might have on the superst.i.tious seamen, seized him by the shoulders and hustled him down the long aisle of the building and through the door into the street.

Harry and Roger could not bring themselves to take part in the shocking work of desecration, and were standing some distance away, surveying the scene with disgust, when suddenly above the b.e.s.t.i.a.l shouts and uproar came the cry: "Save yourselves, lads, run! There is no time to lose; the church is on fire! Run! Run!"

Startled amid their work of destruction, the men paused and looked round to see whence the voice had come, but could not discover its whereabouts.

As they looked, however, columns of smoke were seen drifting about the building and issuing from the crevices of the roof and walls.

Evidently the alarm was genuine, by whomsoever given, and the sailors made for the doors. Those who had overturned the golden figure still clung to their booty, and, raising it in their arms, half-carried and half-dragged it away with them by main force.

It was a scene of the most utter confusion; some staggered away overladen with gold and silver cups, others with costly silks and fabrics, whatever most appealed to their erratic taste.

When nearly all were out of the building, Roger and his friend awoke to the fact that they were being left alone, and ran forward to escape while there was time; but, even as they turned to go, the ground seemed to fall from beneath their feet, and they plunged down, down, until they struck the hard ground below, the shock causing them to lose consciousness.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

IN THE HANDS OF THE INQUISITION.

We must now move forward for a period of four months, during which time many changes have occurred.

When the men had escaped from the burning cathedral, Cavendish had mustered them in the plaza opposite, and found none missing except Roger and Harry.

These two were great favourites with the s.h.i.+p's company, and many willing hands had gone back to bring them out of the smoking edifice; but no traces of them could be found. It was then thought that they might have missed their way on the road down from the fort, and search was made in that direction, but without success.

The town was then thoroughly searched, yet the two friends still remained missing. Eventually, therefore, Cavendish was most reluctantly compelled to sail without them, and many were the conjectures as to what fate could possibly have befallen them.

Since that time Cavendish had taken his fleet round the Horn, and sailed up the western coast of Spanish South America, arriving eventually off the coast of Peru. At Callao he had received news that a plate s.h.i.+p was expected to arrive shortly from Manila on her way to Acapulco, in Mexico, and he had determined to waylay and capture her. And, at the date to which this history has now arrived, he had just intercepted and captured her off the Mexican coast, and taken out of her all her vast treasure--the finest, richest prize that has ever been taken either before or since. And at this point the exigencies of the narrative demand that he must be left.

Meanwhile, our former acquaintance, Alvarez, whom we lost sight of at the Careenage, had successfully made his way through the Cuban jungle, and, arriving at the port of Matanzas, with the remainder of the men, had sailed thence to Vera Cruz, in Mexico, where he had received a high appointment from the viceroy, which he now held.

De Soto had travelled with him to Mexico, and, for so gallant a gentleman, had been singularly unfortunate. Alvarez had found it impossible to disabuse his mind of the idea that de Soto had the cryptogram in his possession, and, remembering what had been said by him about the Holy Office, had brought the fact before the notice of that body, repeating de Soto's remarks and denouncing him as a heretic. The unfortunate man was thereupon seized, thrown into prison, and, under the direction of the villain Alvarez, dreadfully tortured, ostensibly to compel him to retract his words against the Inquisition, but really to enable Alvarez to wring from de Soto the cipher, as the price of his release from prison and torture.

The persistent and unwavering a.s.sertions of de Soto that he had not the paper, and knew naught of its whereabouts, were received with incredulity, and the unhappy man was tortured again and again to force from him the disclosure of its hiding-place.

The supposed burning of the cathedral at La Guayra had been merely a ruse to get rid of the spoilers. Several of the priests had hit upon the ingenious idea of setting fire to large quant.i.ties of damp straw in certain secluded parts of the building, and the smoke, drifting hither and thither through the interior, had caused the English to believe that the place was indeed on fire, and had occasioned their hasty flight.

The disappearance of Harry and Roger, on the other hand, was purely due to chance, and had not, as might be imagined, been brought about by design.

The explanation was simple enough. It happened that the paving of one of the aisles had been undergoing repair at the time of Cavendish's attack upon the town. One of the large paving-slabs was loose, and Harry and Roger, in their haste to escape, had trodden on it, causing it to tilt, and they had fallen into the vault below; their unconscious bodies being soon afterwards discovered by the priests, when the latter went to extinguish the burning straw upon the departure of the raiders.

They were recognised by the priest who had been present in the building during its spoliation, and who had uttered the warning to the sailors; and he hastened to impart the good news that two of the pirate heretics had fallen into their hands. Thereupon the two lads were promptly delivered over to the tender mercies of the Holy Office, who did with them what they would; but their ultimate fate was to be delayed until they should have been publicly exhibited and tortured in every town of importance in New Spain, as an example of what would happen should any heretic ever again dare to set foot upon their sacred territory.