Chapter XXIV (2)

‘No, no, no! Señor Buccaneer, although I have much traffic with the seed of Abraham, I am none of their kindred; were I such, I would be wiser than to come here to live in a sty on this scorching coast, driving hard bargains for sick oysters.’

My entertainer then went on with his stories of European courts, and I was listening with open mouth, as he told, with many a quip and many a sneer, how, under the guidance of one Chiffinch, he had one night passed up the back stairs at Whitehall to hold a secret interview with Louise de Querailles, since Duchess of Portsmouth, touching certain jewels which it was convenient to raise money upon until there should come a remittance from the court of Versailles, through Monseigneur Barillon, the ambassador of Louis; when all at once there came a loud rap, accompanied by a shrill whistle, at the door. Peralta started quickly up, but without appearing at all discomposed, and opening the door with speed, a handsome fellow, a mulatto, dressed like a sailor, bounded in, exclaiming at the same moment, in a loud whisper:

‘Juan and Blanco are both detected!’

Then seeing me, he stopped as suddenly as though he had been shot. But Peralta speedily reassured him.

‘Go on, man; go on. He who standeth there is my friend; he is one of us. Go on. Have they confessed?’

‘All,’ replied the mulatto. ‘They first told the truth, and then a great deal more than the truth, in hopes the better to save their necks. I squeezed in with them into the fort, and heard it all. The soldiers are coming. I heard the order given.’

Peralta stood still for a moment, and then said hurriedly, ‘Doth it blow?’

The mulatto replied, that there was a light air only, from the eastward.

‘With the tide two hours on the ebb. That will do well. Disco is on board the piragua?’

The mulatto nodded eagerly. Peralta turned to me—‘I suppose,’ quoth he, ‘you have no objection to make a start of it this very hour?’

‘None, none,’ I replied; wondering with my whole soul at the meaning of this strange scene.

‘Follow me, then, and do as I do,’ replied Peralta. He swallowed his last cup of wine, and smiled when he saw me copying his example to the letter. Then, blowing the lamp out, we all three sallied forth into the night, walking quickly but cautiously amongst the scattered huts. I knew that it was no time for questions, so put none, though I was almost bursting with curiosity. In a minute or two we heard the measured tramp of soldiers advancing, and presently the clash of their arms and the gleam of their lamps burst forth together as they marched round the corner of a small street, followed by a great many Indians. There was a hollow place close by where we stood, with ridges of oyster shells on either side. Into this Peralta sank suddenly, flinging himself flat upon the ground, while the mulatto and I followed his example. In a minute the soldiers marched by, with their attendant rout of Indians gabbling and chattering very eagerly.

‘Now,’ quoth Peralta, ‘for the beach, and make as little noise as you can in running.’

With these words off he set, going over the ground much faster than to look at him I should have thought possible. However, the mulatto and I kept close behind him, meeting nobody, although we heard a distant tumult of voices in the ranchiera, and the tramp of people running hither and thither. There were half a dozen skiffs and canoes moored to as many stakes rising from a small slippery jetty, and sheering backwards and forwards as the current of the ebbing tide ran swiftly beneath them. Into the outermost of these skiffs Peralta leaped as nimbly and steadily as if he had been a waterman at Whitehall Stairs, we following closely upon his heels; but just as we had, as by instinct, sat down to the oars, Peralta cried out to us to hold, and then stepping back upon the jetty, very coolly cast loose the painters of the whole of the remainder of the boats from their fastenings, and gathering the ends of the ropes together, as a coachman does his reins, he shuffled back again into the stern sheets, casting off our moorings as he passed by, and then, with a low chuckle to himself, we pushed off and rowed into the stream, the squadron of boats following in our wake.

‘Pull away, my good fellows,’ Peralta then said, taking an oar out of one of the skiffs behind us, ‘I will steer you.’ Our course was down the stream, and we swept along very rapidly, while, looking back, we could see, by the lights which came dancing all down the beach from the houses, that the Spaniards were in hard pursuit. In a minute more a cluster of these lanterns shone upon the jetty, and instantly their bearers raised a clamour and shouting that all the boats were gone. Señor Peralta only laughed to himself.

‘Well,’ he muttered in a moment or two, ‘it is a shabby way to leave old friends, but needs must when the devil or an angry Spaniard drives.’

All this time we were shooting swiftly down the river, the broad surface of which, gleaming in the starlight, now began to heave and undulate, as the swells of the sea, rolling over the bar, affected it. As we pulled, Peralta, taking advantage of a great shout faintly heard from the shore, hailed, ‘Disco! Disco, ahoy!’

A long shrill whistle was the reply, and, looking round, we saw the low dusky form of the piragua, with her two high raking masts, and, pausing on our oars, we heard the rush of the tide against her sharp bows.

‘Disco is all awake,’ said Peralta, and in a moment more we were alongside and tumbling into the piragua, which, notwithstanding her very considerable size, was so light as to rock violently as, one by one, we leaped over her gunwale.

Disco himself, a Mosquito Indian, as I judged him, appeared to have been just aroused by the clamour on shore, and he asked eagerly what the matter was.

‘The matter,’ said Peralta, ‘is, that we must get to sea as soon as we can. Thank God the breeze comes fresher—that puff quite ruffled the water. Jenipa,’ this was to the mulatto, ‘jump forward and cut the cable—no time for weighing. Disco, get a sweep or an oar out on the larboard bows to cant her head round. Lindsay, bear a hand, my man, and get the canvas upon her, or some of our friends ashore will be swimming down upon us with their knives in their teeth.’

The coolness of Peralta was capital to see. Just as Jenipa’s knife went with a cheep through the strands of the hemp, Disco’s oar dashed into the water, and the stream catching the larboard bows of the piragua, she swung round with her head towards the shore we had just left, while Peralta, who worked as though he had been afloat all his life, flung loose the foresail from the long supple bamboo yard, and then both of us clapping on to the haulyards with all our might, the light canvas, all dripping with the night dew, rose steadily to the top of the mast, and then catching the faint puff of the sea breeze, which has but little power when it blows in the night-time, the sail swelled gracefully out, while Peralta, with the sheet in his hand, leaped aft, catching hold of the tiller, and calling to us all to get the mainsail upon the piragua. We were, as the reader may guess, in no humour for trifling, and accordingly the big lugsail was very soon hoisted by rapid jerks, up the mast, and when, after having made fast the haulyards, and trimmed the sheet aft, I paused a moment and looked round, I was quite bewildered. The breeze was hardly sufficient to keep the wide sails sleeping. I heard no loud rushing gurgle, such as a vessel makes travelling fast through the water; yet the lights upon shore were flying by us as though we were borne on horseback towards the sea—the great white flakes and stripes of froth which had floated into the river from the bar, glanced past, showing like light veins and streaks in dark marble—while the skiffs which Peralta had cut loose were almost out of sight astern.

I uttered an exclamation of wonder, at which Peralta laughed pleasantly.

‘Your Will-o’-the-Wisp may be fast, Señor Buccaneer,’ he said, ‘but no craft that ever came off the stocks of European ship-builders will sail with the boats which the Indians—savages we call them—can scoop with rude tools out of a single glorious tree. Do we not move like an apparition—a sea spirit? Let the Spaniards chase us in their clumsy wooden boxes, the piragua will earn her right to her name though all the navy of Old and New Spain were flashing in her wake. I call her the “Ghost;” does not she glide like one fleeting to the sepulchre at the first glimpse of the light of the morning?’

I looked at Peralta, beginning to suspect that the sudden flurry, coming after the humming wine, caused him to vapour a little—but, if it were so, he very soon came to himself.

‘Hark!’ said Disco, ‘the surf on the bar.’

‘And see,’ added Jenipa, ‘the lights of the Pearl Fleet close to in the offing.’

‘Forward, and look out, both of you,’ cried Peralta, sharply. ‘Keep your eyes open on either bow.’

Meantime I crouched down by the steersman on the weather-quarter. The lofty lights of the frigate were much further to sea than the squadron she guarded. Indeed, the great ship cared not for approaching too closely the many banks and spits of sand, which run out from the bar, and over which most of the smaller barks could float very well. The leading ships, however, appeared to be as close to the bar on one side as we were on the other.

‘Now,’ said Peralta, ‘grant that the stupidity of those fellows on shore will keep them from making any signal to their comrades out at sea.’ But the words were hardly out of his mouth, when the water and the sky were lit up with a mighty flash, and the loud report of a great gun—a small battery of which was planted before the fort—came rolling down the river; and immediately afterwards a straggling volley of small arms rattled all along the bank, as though the soldiers were dispersed and running down towards the sea. By this time, the white water on the bar was close ahead.

‘Starboard—starboard. Keep her a little away, master, the channel is on the lee-bow,’ cried Disco. The course of the piragua was altered accordingly, and glancing ahead, I saw the streak of dark water, leading to the open sea; at the same time that the fleet of pearl fishers answered the alarm from ashore, by kindling torches, waving lanterns, and shouting and blowing horns, just as they had done the night that the privateer had swooped down in the centre of them, and carried off one of the very best in his clutch. At this moment, we having drawn clear of the sand hills on shore, the breeze freshened, sweeping down the coast, heavy with the dew of the night air. The light sails swelled stiffly out, the sheets tautened, the thin supple masts swayed and creaked, and the few ropes which stayed them upon the weather-side stretched out as rigid as iron-bars. And yet the piragua flew by every swell which rolled in from the offing—not plunging into the great green seas, and flashing the foam sparklingly up into the air, but moving rather like a bird, which, with spreading and far-stretched pinion, just glances over the sea, rather flying than swimming—borne more by the winds than the waves. Truly, I had never sailed in so wonderfully-fashioned a craft—so thin and slight was her construction, that she appeared, as it were, to yield, and bend, and quiver in the seas—but ever on, gaily and lightsomely, she went, sliding, as it were, without noise and without shock, leaping with a quick, buoyant, bounding motion, right over and over the swells, which now, as the water shoaled upon the bar, began to roll by us, white with milky foam. Verily, Peralta did well when he likened his piragua to a noiseless gliding ghost.

While I was still wrapped in amazement at the performances of the canoe, she was flying across the bar in the very midst of the fleet of pearl fishers. The whole thing passed over me like a vision—a dream of flashing foaming water, plunging and dripping ships, with their canvas flapping, and their booms, and yards, and ropes, creaking and moaning, and rattling together—of fierce, eager faces, and hurrying, dusky forms, running on the decks, leaping into the riggings, flashing their torches and lanterns; shouting, yelling, and hailing the piragua and Peralta to lie to, and put about—and some of them flourishing glimmering knives and firing pistols in the air.

All this, I say, appeared to pass by me like a vision, or a dream—and it only lasted for a few brief moments—for the piragua, which was steered in a fashion which made me look upon Peralta as a sailor rather than a merchant, flew through the panic-struck squadron, who could no more catch her, than they could the shadow of her tall sails upon the water. Once, and once only, a heavy hook or grapnel, attached to a stout line, was flung by a lusty arm, and lighted in the piragua’s fore-rigging, but even before the rope had tightened, Disco leaped to the spot, his knife flashed, the severed hemp fell back into the sea, and the useless iron tumbled down into the bottom of the canoe. The next moment we were fairly at sea, with the whole of the squadron, save one or two loiterers, behind us. Just then the frigate, who was a couple of miles or so in the offing, fired a heavy cannon, and showed a number of lights, by which we saw swarms of men, rushing from the high carved bulwarks into the rigging, as if they designed to make sail in all haste.

‘Ho! ho! ho!’ laughed Peralta. ‘Here comes the elephant chasing the weasel, and the elephant thinks that the best way to begin the race is to roar a little.’

And, indeed, any attempt of the big ship to follow us would have been just about as hopeless a chase as that to which Peralta had likened it. So, after firing a few more guns, whether with shot in them or not we neither knew nor cared, she stood cautiously in for the bar of the river, sending her boats before her, as we conjectured, to learn the cause of all the uproar. Meantime we had struck a light, keeping the lantern, however, well masked, and then setting the head of the boat about nor-nor-west, that being as near the wind as we could lie, and at the same time make good way through the water, we trimmed the sails neatly, and cried, ‘Northward Ho! for Jamaica.’

For about an hour, during which time little was spoken, Peralta held the helm. He then called us all round him, and apportioned the watches in the ordinary seaman fashion—I being placed with Disco, and he taking his turn of duty with Jenipa. This settled, we tossed up whose watch should begin first, and it falling to the turn of Disco and myself, Peralta gave me the helm, instructing me, as I was not well acquainted with the management of piraguas, to call him if the wind freshened so much as to seem to demand the taking in of a reef. Then creeping beneath the half-deck, which extended from the bows to abaft the foremast, he coiled himself up along with Jenipa, and the pair went very quietly to sleep. During our watch, which was tranquil, I tried to obtain some information from the Indian touching the habits and pursuits of his master, and also relating to the causes of our very sudden departure. But the fellow, although he would talk glibly enough upon the weather, or the piragua, or the manner of our escape, was as close as wax as regarded everything else. Indeed, he reminded me very truly that I ought to know more about the reason of our departure than he, having come from the shore, while he had been sleeping on board the piragua. At that I told him what I had heard from Jenipa, about Juan and Blanco having been detected and taken to the fort, where they had confessed not only the truth, but, as I had heard, more than the truth. The Mosquito man merely shrugged his shoulders, and said he could make nothing of it, although I saw very well, by the intelligent look of the fellow’s face, as the binnacle lamp shone upon his bronzed features, that he understood much more of the matter than he chose to confess. Finding I could make nothing of the Indian, I set myself to consider the whole affair, and putting Peralta’s hints about the way to get pearls cheap, in connexion with what I had actually witnessed and heard, I was not long in arriving at the conclusion, that, in all probability, for every pearl which the merchant bought of the captain of the fishery, he obtained another, and at a very considerably cheaper rate, by dealing quietly with the openers themselves, to which class I concluded that Juan and Blanco must belong. This solution of the riddle seemed the more probable, when I remembered much that I had heard touching the great number of pearls supposed to be secreted by the Indians, in spite of the utmost vigilance of the Spaniards. Jamaica sloops had, I knew, ere now gone to hover near the Rio de la Hacha, having their agents and correspondents, in various disguises, lurking upon the coast, and of course keeping up communication with the Indian divers and openers; but the adroitness and courage shown by Peralta in living as a Spaniard openly amongst Spaniards, and supporting the character of a regular pearl merchant, communicating with the captain of the fishery, while in reality he was driving the best part of his trade by underhand dealing with the Indians, conducted, no doubt, at great and constant risk of detection and death; all this inspired me with no small respect for the abilities and the nerve of the owner of the piragua. Then I thought with what cool generalship he had conducted the retreat, not losing a moment by delay, yet taking his measures with as great composure and deliberation as if he were departing upon a pleasure cruise. Afterwards, I began to wonder that I had not observed him, when leaving the hut, take with him the amount of pearls which I felt sure that he must have amassed; but a few minutes’ reflection convinced me, from the perfect unconcern with which he had walked out of the hut, not caring to pick up any one article of those strewn about, that all the valuables which he possessed on shore, he carried constantly concealed about his person. Indeed, in the matter of such costly toys as pearls, or precious stones, a man’s own garments formed by far the safest depository to be found in the ranchiera.

While brooding over these things, the night passed silently away. With the grey dawn, Peralta relieved me, and we crept in our turn under the half-deck, and slept until the sun rose high into the unclouded heaven, and the piragua was staggering along under reefed canvas, bending over to the whistling trade-wind, and leaping from sea to sea, like a hunted stag. During the day, little of note occurred. Peralta avoided taking me further into his confidence, and I had tact enough to see that I ought to refrain from seeming to intrude upon his mystery. As I watched him, however, I often saw him bite his thin lips, and wrinkle his forehead, and clench his hand, as if distressing thoughts haunted him; and at last he broke out, addressing nobody in particular, but speaking moodily to himself—

‘Those poor fellows!’ he cried, ‘those poor fellows Juan and Blanco—I would give every pearl the venture hath brought that they were safe and sound in this piragua. The Spaniards will hang them; nay, indeed, it may have been already done, and their bodies are swinging in this same sea-breeze!’

Here Jenipa interposed very respectfully, and said that no effort we could have possibly made would have sufficed to rescue the Indians, and that we had nothing to reproach ourselves with on that score.

‘No, no,’ said Peralta. ‘We could not have got them out of trouble; but we have been the cause that they fell into it.’

He pondered for a minute. Then putting his hand into his bosom, he drew it forth, the hollow of the palm filled with small pearls, all glistening in the sun, like beads of frozen milk. Then he poured the precious morsels from one hand to the other, the pearls pattering and rattling like chips of shivered glass and pebbles, and began again to speak, like a man who talks in his sleep.

‘Ay,’ he cried, ‘and you will sparkle in the coronets of nobles, or mayhap you will rise and fall on the white bosom of some peerless beauty across the western sea. Little will she think how her braveries have been won. Little will she think that the gems of her adornment are but as coagulated drops of human blood. Red, red, you ought to be, and not of that lying virgin whiteness—red, red, you ought to be, as the guilt of him who hath purveyed you, and the blood of the hapless men who, ere now, are doubtless but as lumps of brown carrion—only good to feed the vultures and the crows!’

At this, I observed Jenipa and Disco exchange curious glances with each other; but Peralta, after musing for a short space further, put the pearls back into their hiding-place, and resumed, to a certain degree, his usual manner.

‘I doubt not,’ he said to me, presently, ‘but that your acuteness hath taught you much of what last night you burned to know. The two poor savages, of whom I spoke, were indeed my agents among their brethren; and, thanks to their ingenuity and courage, many a rare pearl hath come to my wallet, instead of the poke of their Spanish task-masters. But all is over now. While I remained on shore, I risked the danger borne by my confederates. Had it been within the power of man to have saved them, I would have perilled limbs and life to bring them off, but it fell out otherwise. What is writ, is writ. Adieu, poor Juan and Blanco, and may you find the next world a better one than this.’

Having pronounced this curious sort of funeral oration, Peralta straightway resumed his former demeanour, and I never heard him allude to the subject again. Meantime, we bounded merrily across the ocean, masts bending, canvas swelling, and sheet and haulyard cracking and straining; the blue heaven, with not a cloud to fleck it, all a blaze of azure light and glory above, and the crystal sea foaming, and tumbling, and gambolling beneath the swift piragua, as, with dripping prow and polished sides, she tore away upon her headlong course. My spirits, long drooping under captivity, now came flushing back, sending the young hot blood tingling through my veins. I leaped and danced about the piragua for very cheery-heartedness—Peralta smiling slily at my antics—and sometimes lifting up my voice, I sang an echoing chorus to the music of wind and wave! ‘A day or two,’ I thought, ‘and I shall see, sleeping in the smooth water landward of the Palisades, my gallant schooner, which I love, and hear ringing from beneath her snow-white awning the cheery voices of my old comrades, of Stout Jem, the true-hearted, and Nicky Hamstring, the merry-minded!’

Alas! not so fast, Leonard Lindsay—not so fast! There are perils and sufferings for you, by sea and land, ere you step upon English ground again!