Chapter XII: The Treasure Ship

There was no hint of triumph in my great-uncle’s manner as the sloop came about and lay to under our lee quarter; nor did he exhibit excitement when she unloosed the small boat she towed astern and a half-dozen swarthy fellows commenced to pull it toward us. He indulged in a pinch of snuff and took his station by the starboard rail at the break of the poop. Peter and I followed him. Besides us there was only Martin, who stood aft by the man at the wheel. For’ard on the spar-deck men slouched away from the starboard bulwarks as Murray appeared. The gunports were all closed because of the swell which rolled the _Royal James_ until it seemed she must dip her yard-arms under. So I think--aside from the lookouts lashed in the crosstrees of all three masts--we on the poop were the only ones who watched the little boat come sliding across the great, heaving mountains of water that surged out of the misty reaches of the Caribbean as if they would overflow the shores of Hispaniola, which loomed purple in the north beyond leagues of indigo sea.

The rowboat was as infinitesimal as an insect in those tossing wastes; but the man at the steering-oar guided it with uncanny skill, up the toppling crests that threatened to crush it, down the dizzy steeps that bade fair to hurl it to the ocean’s oozy bottom, and brought it to rest a scant fifty feet from the _James’_ hull, his long sweep fending and twisting to maintain the position. He was very dark and lean, with bare, corded limbs and a sinewy trunk covered by the remnants of a cotton shirt and trousers. His hair was a stringy black. His voice, when he spoke in answer to a sign from my great-uncle, was harshly rhythmical, but what he said I could not understand, for both he and Murray used Spanish.

My great-uncle asked two questions, both brief, and he answered as briefly. My great-uncle waved his hand again; he dug his steering-oar into the crest of one of the monstrous surges, and the little boat shot away like a roundshot from a gun. A few moments later we saw them make fast to the sloop and leap aboard, one by one. The sloop hauled her wind and beat off to westward in long, slanting tacks, and the _James_ was once more alone in the western mouth of the Mona Passage, Hispaniola a blur in the north and Porto Rico somewhere out of sight southeast of us.

Murray dusted a second pinch of snuff into his nostrils as he turned from the rail.

“Our three weeks’ waiting hath not been in vain,” he said. “The _Santissima Trinidad_ was to sail from Porto Bello within the forty-eight hours after Diego put forth. She will be up with us in another five days--before the week is over at the latest.”

I was conscious of a conflict of emotions.

“She may slip by you. ’Tis a wide gut--and what’s to do if she comes in the night?”

“She can not slip by,” returned my great-uncle. “For all the leagues of channel and the darkness of the nights, she can not slip by, Robert. The fools have delivered her into our hands. By her sailing-orders, so Diego told me, she must hug the south shore of Hispaniola, that she may be within easy run of Santo Domingo in case of accident. As for the nights, she’ll be lighted up like Bartholomew’s Fair.”

“_Ja_, it’s all right if dot Englishman we sighted last week don’t find a frigate,” said Peter.

Murray’s face fell a trifle.

“Yes, we have always that to reckon with,” he acknowledged. “Stap me, I see not what the fellow could have suspected to send him kiting from us. But with any luck he’ll not flush a frigate this side of Jamaica, and that should give us time.”

“If he suspected us, why not some of the other craft that have passed us on our beat?” I interjected. “There ha’ been plenty.”

My great-uncle pointed to the white ensign floating from the mizzen-truck.

“They were all Spaniards or Frenchmen,” he answered. “They took us for a King’s ship. No, there’s little chance of interference. If there is--” his jaw squared--“I’ll hunt the _Santissima Trinidad_ into Cadiz port.”

He broke off abruptly.

“Master Martin!”

“Aye, aye, sir,” responded the mate, stepping for’ard from the wheel.

“I would have all lookouts notified that I shall give ten onzas to him who first hails the deck for a large Spaniard of forty-four guns coming from the west. She’ll show a red-and-yellow light o’ nights at her fore-peak. You will also see that all men sent aloft carry night-glasses.”

Martin touched his forelock.

“Aye, aye, sir! I’ll pipeclay the ---- ---- ---- who misses the ---- dago. Curse me for a lubber, but I knew there must be fat game a-comin’ after such a spell o’ idleness.”

“She’ll be the fattest prize we have ever boarded,” rejoined Murray. “You may tell all hands as much.”

There was no formal mustering of the _James’_ crew; but Martin evidently had his own means of circulating information, for the polyglot seamen had shaken off their lethargy and sullen quiet within a glass of the sloop’s departure. All around the decks men were oiling pistols, sharpening cutlasses and whispering in secret. Coupeau was busier than ever about the battery, testing breech-ropes, pinning tighter carriage-wheels, filing glassy-smooth a pile of shot for the chase-guns that might be called upon to lop a vital spar at extreme range.

But nothing happened that day or the next. And so three more days passed with increasing tension. The lookouts in the crosstrees were relieved every two hours, that the men’s vision might be fresh and unstrained. The sight of a sail anywhere on the horizon sent the crew scampering to the guns and swung the ship’s bows in that quarter; and four times in those five days the _James_ boomed down upon Spanish fishermen, a Martinico brig, a Yankee schooner and a Plymouth snow, tacking away again the moment she identified each one as impossible to be her prey.

The sixth day was like its predecessors, blazing hot, bubbling the pitch out of the deck-seams, a gentle sou’east breeze barely sufficient to keep the sails drawing. The swell, which had bothered us for several weeks, had almost disappeared, and the Caribbean might have been a land-locked lake. Daylight found us farther to the south than we usually plied, since Murray feared the Spaniard might have missed his reckoning and shifted the designed course he was to follow.

For the first time in days we could descry the shadowy hills of Porto Rico as we wore around and beat north again. As the sun rose higher a haze danced along the horizon’s rim. Porto Rico was swallowed up; Hispaniola’s soaring peaks were buried before we had come within normal view of them.

Noon observation saw us returned to our customary station, and to guard against the possibility that the _Santissima Trinidad_ had passed us in the heat-haze whilst we were beating up from the south my great-uncle ran down the wind into the mouth of the passage for several glasses. We encountered a fishing-periagua then, and the Indians of its crew shouted back to Murray’s question that no great ship had entered the passage that day. So back again we beat to windward the whole weary afternoon.

Night brought rest to nobody. Even my great-uncle paced the poop by the hour, snatching an occasional nap upon a pallet which Ben Gunn laid for him where it would catch the breeze. Peter and I dozed on the deck-planks with the crew.

In the shadowy hour that precedes the dawn the hail came from the mast-head----

“Lights ho!”

Murray was on his feet as quickly as any of us.

“How do you make them?” he trumpeted.

“Red and yellow, over and under,” answered the main crosstrees.

“Very good,” replied my great-uncle. “Master Martin, you will single out that man and present him this purse.”

He handed it over.

“Pipe all hands to breakfast, and serve an extra ration of rum.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” sighed Martin. “And here’s to luck, ---- my eyes!”

The dawn came all at once, as if a magician had waved his wand. A crimson glow in the east, soft at first, then spreading and deepening, and the light expanded almost like an explosion in the night. The red disk of the sun lifted over the horizon. And it was day. Westward, perhaps half a league, a great ship was wallowing toward us before the freshening wind. The coloring of her figurehead sparkled in the level rays which touched her dingy canvas and turned the sails to cloth-of-gold. The gaudy banner of Spain flapped with a splendid insolence in the pure light. The spray which was tossed over her bowsprit as she buried her stem in the easy swell was transformed into threaded amethysts, turquoises, emeralds!

“She is heavy-laden!” exclaimed my great-uncle, staring at her through his prospect-glass.

“Heavy-armed too,” I added, pointing at the band of cannon along her sides.

“We’ll make light of that,” he answered. “But I shall have to pay somewhat for my Quixotic promise to you, Robert, to spare her crew. Ho, Coupeau!” he hailed the gunner who was passing on the spardeck.

The former galley-slave turned his terrible face to the poop and saluted.

“Pass the word, Coupeau, that the prize must not be pierced betwixt wind and water. I would bring down a spar or two at the beginning of the action, but concentrate your fire upon her decks.”

“_Oui, m’sieu’_.”

“But what of O’Donnell and his daughter!” I exclaimed. “On a shot-swept deck!”

My great-uncle regarded me curiously.

“’Tis not a game of lawn bowls we are about to play, Robert,” he replied. “I ask you to remember that the Spaniard carries forty-four cannon which he will discharge against us, with some probability of slaying certain of our people, including perhaps ourselves.”

“But the girl!”

He took snuff.

“Tut, tut, my boy! You concern yourself needlessly. ’Tis a risky business and can not be otherwise. Yet she’ll probably come safe through it. What part do you and Peter purpose to play in the action?”

I was about to answer hotly that we would have naught to do with piracy when Peter said--

“Maybe we better go aboardt der Spaniard and catch der little gal, _ja_.”

“An excellent idea,” returned my great-uncle, looking expectantly at me. “I shall lead the boarders myself, and in the confusion I may be hard put to it, single-handed, to direct the fighting and save the O’Donnells from injury. If you two----”

“We’ll do it,” I said ungraciously. “’Tis of a parcel with your crazy notions that you can not even safeguard your accomplice without aid.”

“That is quite true,” he agreed mildly. “I am free to admit, Robert, your presence takes a load off my mind, notwithstanding your escape from Flint hath created other difficulties for me to contend with. However, I shall be sufficiently grateful to you if you will assist me. My notions, whether ‘crazy’ or not, are not easily carried into execution.”

I nodded to the white ensign at the main peak.

“Will you fight under false colors?”

“They are not false,” he retorted with tightened lips. “We fight for England today.”

“England and Flint and Long John Silver and Bill Bones and Martin and Coupeau and----”

“Myself? Perhaps. But if those you have named share in the rewards of victory ’tis that England may profit thereby and the Good Cause triumph. What doth it matter if King James return to London?”

“What indeed?” I echoed sarcastically, yet impressed against my will by his deadly earnestness.

“’Tis not my way, Robert, to fight under false colors,” he proceeded, as if determined to argue me over to his view-point. “Any sailorman will tell you that, whatever other slander he may relate of Captain Rip-Rap. As for the Jolly Roger--pho! ’Tis a tradition required by any pirate crew. I look upon it as a somewhat humorous attempt to terrify the timid; but I ha’ fought under it without shame, since ’tis the only emblem of the sea outlaw. But today ’tis different. We fight, not as pirates, but as servants of King James.”

A white puff of smoke jetted from our fo’csle, and a crackling explosion smote our ears. Coupeau had fired the first shot from one of the chase guns, long eighteens, beautiful bronze pieces of prodigious range. Involuntarily we all focused our eyes upon the treasure-ship, and a cheer from the gun-crews applauded the flapping rent that showed in the bulge of the Spaniard’s foretops’l.

“Excellent!” murmured my great-uncle.

The _Santissima Trinidad_ staggered for an instant like a man who has been struck unexpectedly by one he supposed to be a friend. Then she yawed to give us a full view of her colors; and as she yawed, broadening the target, Coupeau fired again. ’Twas a low shot, fired as the _James_ dropped into the trough betwixt two waves, and all we could see of it was that apparently it plowed into the waist.

The Spaniard fired a gun to leeward and put over his helm, aiming to cross our bows and head up for Santo Domingo. Plainly he did not know what to make of the incident. To all appearances the _Royal James_ was a King’s ship. She showed the English naval ensign. To a Spanish eye, at any rate, she might well seem to possess the solidly rakish aspect which was the usual keynote of an English frigate. So he evidently decided that hostilities must have broken out between the two countries, and in obedience to his sailing-orders endeavored to avoid a fight and make for the nearest fortified Spanish port.

But the _James_ sailed two feet to the treasure-ship’s one; and, splendidly handled, we overhauled her within a glass of the first shot. In the meantime Coupeau kept pecking away at her, and as we came within range of our main battery her foretopmast crashed, covering her fo’csle with a tangle of top-hamper.

This was too much for her people, and she put up her helm, brought her entire battery to bear and let fly at us with all her starboard metal. ’Twas a poorly managed salvo, yet three or four round-shot swished across our decks, and an eighteen-pounder smashed a couple of men to jelly just for’ard of the poop.

Murray stepped to the poop-rail to examine the damage and shouted to Coupeau:

“Hold your broadside, Master Gunner! He must come to to clear his decks.”

And to Martin, who was conning the ship:

“Bear up! Bear up! He still hath the weather gage of us.”

Coupeau, working like a madman with his chase guns, was firing both together, laid on the same target, and now he succeeded in cutting down the foremast about twenty feet from the deck, sending the heavy spar and billowing canvas a-tumbling after the fallen topmast. The bulk of the wreckage fell overside, dragging the _Santissima Trinidad_ down by the head and forming a sea-anchor to hold her stationary.

My great-uncle smiled with grim satisfaction.

“Ho, Saunders!” he hailed the second mate, who was stationed amidships. “Rig grappling-irons on the larboard bulwarks. We’ll round the Spaniard as he lies.”

The _Royal James_ forged abeam of the treasure-ship, approaching at an angle which diminished the effectiveness of her second broadside, and as we entered the filmy cloud-bank of smoke from her guns Murray gave the order to fire.

“Let go your broadside, Coupeau!” he called.

The gunner ran to the open main-hatch and bellowed the order down to the gun-deck. The planks seemed to spring under our feet. A thunderous series of detonations shook the _James’_ whole fabric. The smoke-clouds were first driven away, then thickened to an impalpable mist, and the acrid stench of saltpeter and brimstone was choking in the nostrils. I had a wavery glimpse of a vast gilded figurehead, a heap of torn canvas and rigging.

“Sta’b’d your helm, Master Martin!” shouted Murray.

We headed up into the wind with much creaking of yards and slatting of sails, and I heard faintly a clamor of wailing outcries from the smoke-bank that masked the _Santissima Trinidad_. Almost at once our broadside roared again, the red flames from the gun-muzzles licking out like hungry tongues. Another dim vision of shot-rent bulwarks and towering sails, and the gray gloom became denser than ever. Figures on our own deck were indistinct in it.

The Spaniard blindly returned our fire as the _James_ felt her way toward him, the thunder of the two broadsides overpowering, numbing, like the roaring of two beasts fighting in the night. I felt my great-uncle’s hand on my arm; his voice was low, but distinct.

“We shall soon be broadside on with her,” he said. “The O’Donnells will be on the poop. You had best get for’ard, Robert. If we board from abaft the foremast ’twill place you strategically to seize upon them. Where is Peter?”

The Dutchman leaned through the smoke-whorls.

“We better go aboardt der Spaniard, _ja_, Murray?” he answered calmly.

My great-uncle chuckled as he dusted snuff into his nostrils.

“We had, friend Peter. And you and Robert had best carry arms. I fear the Spaniards will not seek to differentiate betwixt you and my wicked self.”

“_Ja_,” assented Peter. “We go.”

Amidships we encountered Saunders and a horde of men pouring up from the gun-deck to augment the boarding-parties. Peter and I tarried to select weapons from a rack by the main mast. He took a boarding-pike, and I contented myself with a cutlass.

Murray, having inspected the grapplings and ascertained that hooks had been rigged from our yard-arms to clutch the Spaniard’s rigging, rejoined us. He was dressed with his usual exquisite taste in watered gray silk, with white silk stockings and gray shoes with jeweled buckles. He wore no hat, and his white hair was clubbed and cued. The only weapon he carried was a dress-sword, which he held unsheathed.

“An end to our immediate worries soon, Robert,” he announced cheerfully. “The action has gone perfectly. I would not have varied a move so far. We have not lost a dozen men.”

A final blast from our guns tore the smoke-clouds to shreds, and a vagrant wind-puff snatched them aside. ’Twas like the drawing of the curtain at a play. The treasure-ship lurched helplessly not twenty fathoms distant, her rigging in tatters, her spars split and wounded, her fo’csle and foredeck one red litter, her bulwarks splintered, gunports blown in, guns dismounted. A handful of men were laboring to cut loose the wreck of the fore-mast, and a few other brave fellows were still fighting a couple of guns which raked us as the bowsprit of the _James_ nudged over her rail.

The two ships jolted together, and in response to wind and helm the _Royal James_ swung broadside on against the Spaniard, our bowsprit becoming entangled in her mizzen rigging. A dozen grappling-irons clattered in air and ground their hooks into her bulwarks. There was a brisk popping of small-arms, an exchange of threats and shouts of defiance.

My great-uncle, regardless of the firing, mounted the breach of a cannon which elevated him above the bulwarks, and Peter and I climbed into the forerigging, whence we had a fair view of both decks. The larboard bulwarks of the _Royal James_ were crowded with men. Stripped to the waist, their lowering faces smutted with powder-stains, their hairy chests barred with tattooing, their backs more often than not scarred by the cruel welts of the lash, they tussled for first place and clung with their bare toes wherever there was a bit of running gear or an inch of space, gripping cutlasses in their teeth to leave hands free for pistol work or to steady themselves as they waited an opportunity to leap the narrowing gap between the vessels.

My eyes strayed to the Spaniard’s decks. Little knots of men ran about confusedly. A stolid-looking fellow aimed a pistol at me, and a ratline over my head fell apart. Officers were driving the sailors forward to meet us. A man in a laced coat and periwig was shouting orders from the poop, and my pulse quickened, for at his shoulder was the lanthorn-jawed face of Colonel O’Donnell--aye, and in rear of both a skirt fluttered in the midst of a huddle of raven-black figures, priests and nuns.

“Jump!” squeaked Peter in my ear.

We jumped together, but my great-uncle was ahead of us. He leaped all of ten feet, sword in hand, alighted on the Spaniard’s bulwarks, poised himself a moment and dropped into the center of a ring of foes. Before he had recovered his balance he parried the slash of a cutlass and pinked an antagonist in the throat. And he beat down a leveled pistol as I gained the treasure-ship’s deck, inclined his head to avoid a murderous blow, ran the man through and almost in the same breath stepped a pace to the right to engage a fourth opponent--and all this with the cool precision of a fencing-master, unhurried, a flush of obvious enjoyment on his pallid cheeks.

But I saw no more. My task was to fight my way aft and protect the O’Donnells, and Peter and I turned our backs upon the struggle amidships. One wave of the pirates stormed in Murray’s wake; the rest followed Peter and me. They were as brave as they were vicious, and we made rapid progress and were nearly at the foot of the poop-ladder when Murray’s whistle shrilled behind us. I realized too that both O’Donnell and the officer in the laced coat were shouting volubly, the one in English and the other in Spanish, trying to make themselves heard above the din.

“--asks parley,” came in broken phrases from O’Donnell. “--can not understand--regrettable mistake----”

“Der Spaniard wants quarter,” grunted Peter.

Indeed, those of the _Santissima Trinidad’s_ men who had been resisting us promptly flung down their arms, glad of the excuse to quit the fight; but the wolves of the _James’_ crew were not schooled to show mercy, and they killed three poor fellows before Peter and I could knock up their cutlasses.

Murray’s whistle blew a second time. There was a sudden hush, punctuated by the grinding of the two vessels, the thudding of unshod feet as more of the _James’_ pirates dropped aboard the treasure-ship, the gagging cries of the wounded, the nasal singsong of a priest pattering Latin prayers.

I seized the opportunity to look around. We were too close under the poop to see what went on beyond the rail directly overhead; but the maindeck, fore and aft, was a pitiful spectacle--cluttered with wreckage and dead men and bits of men and men wounded in every conceivable fashion, its yellow-sand carpet gemmed with carmine pools and rivulets.

My great-uncle, as immaculate as when he had ascended the _James’_ bulwarks, stood a little ahead of the mass of his followers, his serene face and rich clothing in startling contrast with their nakedness and frank brutality. A trickle of blood dripped from the point of his slender sword. His attitude was that of an honorable man who wishes to be reasonable in a difficult situation.

“I believe I heard an appeal for quarter,” he said quietly.

“Sir, you did,” replied O’Donnell. “I have spoken for the gentleman beside me, Señor Don Ascanio de Hurtado y Custa, who is captain of this vessel.”

“I am honored, sir,” returned my great-uncle. “And yourself?”

O’Donnell did not altogether relish the playing of his part. He bit his lip and hesitated an instant before he answered.

“I am Colonel O’Donnell, an officer in the service of his Most Catholic Majesty.”

“Ah; and what can I do for you, gentlemen?” inquired my great-uncle.

O’Donnell hesitated again and conferred with the Spanish officer.

“Sir,” he said then, “Don Ascanio asks you by me: Since when have your country and Spain been at war?”

“To the best of my knowledge, they are not at this present,” my great-uncle answered blandly.

“Then to what cause must we attribute this--this--ah--unwarrantable attack?” demanded O’Donnell.

“I am afraid,” replied my great-uncle almost with sorrow, “that I am unable to satisfy your curiosity upon that point.”

The Spaniard burst into a declaration of passionate intensity, which Murray interrupted.

“I am so fortunate as to comprehend the noble Spanish tongue,” he said. “Would you be so kind, Colonel O’Donnell, as to acquaint your friend with the fact, and to assure him that I regret he must accept the situation as it stands? I am desirous of sparing the lives of those of his people who survive, but at a pinch I will slay them all to compass my intention.”

“And what is that?” asked O’Donnell.

“To relieve Don Ascanio of the consignment of treasure he carries,” answered my great-uncle. “When it is aboard my ship he shall be at liberty to continue his voyage.”

O’Donnell proceeded haltingly to translate this statement. He never finished it. The Spaniard launched a fresh torrent of curses, broke his sword across his knee and tossed the pieces overside. My great-uncle nodded sympathetically.

“’Tis an unpleasant plight, I know,” he said. “Had Don Ascanio not discarded his sword I should have been delighted to yield him an opportunity for such satisfaction as one gentleman may give another.

“However--I must stipulate further, Colonel O’Donnell, that the crew of the _Santissima Trinidad_ shall be placed in confinement for so long as suits my purpose. Any resistance must cause additional bloodshed, which, I am sure, you will agree is unnecessary.”

“Don Ascanio will say no more,” returned O’Donnell. “He washes his hands of the whole proceeding. Abandoned by his crew----”

“Enough,” interrupted my great-uncle.

He rattled off a sentence in Spanish, and there was an answering rattle of arms thrown on the deck. He spoke again, and the _Santissima Trinidad’s_ men all shifted to starboard and marched into the fo’csle, herded by a bristle of pirate cutlasses.

Murray walked aft to where Peter and I still stood, uncertain what to do next.

“Have you seen her?” he asked.

“I think she is in that group of priests and nuns under the stern lanthorn,” I said.

He compressed his lips, a habit he had whenever he must turn to some task he did not overly care for.

“’Tis a trick I shall find as distasteful as O’Donnell did our colloquy just now,” he said shortly. “But we must be about it without delay. Our cannonade will have been heard ashore in Hispaniola with this wind. We must gather our loot and away.”