Two Gallant Sons of Devon: A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess

Harry Collingwood

"Two Gallant Sons of Devon"

Chapter One.

How Phil Stukely and Dick Chichester narrowly escaped drowning.

It was a little after seven o’clock on June 19 in the year of Our Lord 1577, and business was practically over for the day. The taverns and alehouses were, of course, still open, and would so remain for three or four hours to come, for the evening was then, as it is now, their most busy time; but nearly all the shops in Fore Street of the good town of Devonport were closed, one of the few exceptions being that of Master John Summers, “Apothecary, and Dealer in all sorts of Herbs and Simples”, as was announced by the sign which swung over the still open door of the little, low-browed establishment.

The shop was empty of customers for the moment, its only occupants being two persons, both of whom were employees of Master John Summers. One—the tall, thin, dark, dreamy-eyed individual behind the counter who was with much deliberation and care completing the preparation of a prescription—was Philip Stukely, the apothecary’s only assistant; while the other was one Colin Dunster, a pallid, raw-boned youth whose business it was to distribute the medicines to his master’s customers. He was slouching now, outside the counter, beside a basket three-parts full of bottles, each neatly enwrapped in white paper and inscribed with the name and address of the customer to whom it was to be delivered in due course. Apparently the package then in course of preparation would complete the tale of those to be delivered that night; for as Stukely tied the string and wrote the address in a clear, clerkly hand, the lad Dunster straightened himself up and laid a hand upon the basket, as though suddenly impatient to be gone.

At this moment another youth, with blue-grey eyes, curly, flaxen hair, tall, broad-chested, and with the limbs of a young Hercules, burst into the shop, taking at a stride the two steps which led down into it from the street, as he exclaimed:

“Heyday, Master Phil, how is this? Hast not yet finished compounding thy potions? My day’s work ended an hour and more ago; and the evening is a perfect one for a sail upon the Sound.”

“Ay, so ’tis, I’ll warrant,” answered Stukely, as he deposited the package in the basket. “There, Colin, lad,” he continued, “that is the last for to-night; and—listen, sirrah! See that thou mix not the parcels, as thou didst but a week agone, lest thou bring sundry of her most glorious Majesty’s lieges to an untimely end! There”—as the boy seized the basket and hurried out of the shop—“that completes my day’s work. Now I have but to put up the shutters and lock the door; and then, have with thee whither thou wilt. Help me with the shutters, Dick, there’s a good lad, so shall I be ready the sooner.”

Five minutes sufficed the two to put up the shutters, and for Stukely to wash his hands, discard his apron, change his coat, and lock up the shop; then the two somewhat oddly contrasted friends wended their way quickly down the narrow street on their way to the waterside.

As they go, let us take the opportunity to become better acquainted with them both, for, although they knew it not, they were taking their first steps on the road to many a strange and wild adventure, whither we who also love adventure propose to accompany them.

Philip Stukely, the elder of the two, aged twenty-three and a half years, tall, spare, sallow of complexion, with long, straight, black hair, and dark eyes—the precise colour of which no man precisely knew, for it seemed to change with his varying moods—was, as we have seen, by some strange freak of fortune, an apothecary’s assistant. But merely to say that he was an apothecary’s assistant very inadequately describes the man; for, in addition to that, he was both a poet and a painter in thought and feeling, if not in actual fact. He was also a voracious reader of everything that treated of adventure, from the story of the Flood, and Jonah’s memorable voyage, to Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, and everything else of a like character that he could lay hands upon. Altogether, he was a very strange fellow, who evidently thought deeply, and originally, and held many very remarkable opinions upon certain subjects.

This it was that made his friendship for and deep attachment to Dick Chichester, and Chichester’s equally deep attachment to him, so strange a thing; for the two had not a trait in common. To begin with, Chichester was much younger than Stukely, being just turned seventeen years of age, although this difference in age was much less apparent than usual, for while Stukely, in his more buoyant and expansive moments, seemed considerably younger than his years, Chichester might easily have been, and indeed often was, mistaken for a young man of twenty-one or twenty-two. While Stukely was spare of frame and sallow of complexion, Chichester possessed the frame, stature, and colouring of a young Viking, being already within a quarter of an inch of six feet two inches in height, although he had by no means done growing, broad in proportion, with eyes of steel blue, and a shock of curly hair which his friends would in these latter days have called auburn, while his enemies—if he had possessed any—would have tersely described it as “carrots”. In temperament, too, Chichester was the very antithesis of Stukely, for he was absolutely unimaginative and matter-of-fact. Perhaps his occupation may have had something to do with this; for he was apprenticed to a shipwright, and delighted in his work. He was also an orphan; his nearest relative being his uncle Michael Chichester, a merchant of Plymouth, who had adopted him upon the death of his parents, and with whom he now lived.

Not much was said as the strangely assorted pair strode along side by side on their way to the water, for both of them loved boats, and sailing, and all that pertained to the sea life, and both were equally eager to get afloat as quickly as possible, so as not to waste unnecessarily a moment of that glorious evening. At last, however, as Dick turned unexpectedly into a narrow side alley, Stukely pulled up short with:

“Hillo, Master Dick! whither away, my lad? This is not the way to the spot where our boat is moored.”

“No,” answered Dick, “it is not, I know. But we are not going to take our own boat to-night, Phil; we are going to take Gramfer Heard’s lugger. Gramfer is to Tavistock to-night; and he told me this morning that I might use the lugger whenever I pleased, if he did not want her himself. We’ll have something like a sail to-night, Phil, for there is enough wind blowing to just suit the lugger, while it and the sea would be rather too much for our own boat.”

So saying, Chichester led the way down the alley, and halted at a door in the wall, nearly at its farthest extremity. Then, drawing a key from his pocket, he unlocked the door, flung it open, and Stukely found himself looking in upon Gramfer Heard’s shipyard, the scene of Dick Chichester’s daily labours. He gazed, for a few seconds, with appreciative eyes at the forms of three goodly hulls in varying stages of progress, inhaled with keen enjoyment the mingled odours of pine chips and Stockholm tar, and then hurried after Dick, who was already busily engaged in unmooring a small skiff, in which to pull off to a handsome five-ton lugger-rigged boat that lay lightly straining at her moorings in the tideway.

A few minutes later they were aboard the lugger, busily engaged in loosing and setting the sails; and presently they were under way, having slipped their moorings and transferred them to the skiff, which they left behind to serve as a buoy to guide them to the moorings upon their return. The lugger was a beautiful boat, according to the idea of beauty that then prevailed, having been constructed by Mr George Heard—familiarly known as Gramfer Heard—shipbuilder of Devonport, and Dick Chichester’s master, as a kind of yacht, for his own especial use and enjoyment. She was a very roomy boat, being entirely open from stem to stern, and was conveniently rigged with two masts, the main and mizzen, upon which were set two standing lugs and a jib, the mizzen sheet being hauled out to the end of a bumpkin; consequently when once her sails were set she could easily be handled by one man.

Stukely, who was the master spirit, took the tiller, quite as a matter of course, while Dick was perfectly content to tend the jib and main sheets; and away they went down the Hamoaze, with the water buzzing and foaming from the boat’s lee bow and swirling giddily in her wake as she sped swiftly along under the impulse of a fresh westerly breeze, the full strength of which was however not yet felt, the lugger being under the lee of Mount Edgecumbe, beautiful then as it is to-day. But the prospect which delighted the eyes of the two friends—or of Stukely rather, for Dick Chichester somehow seemed almost entirely to lack the keen sense of beauty with which his friend was so bountifully endowed—was very different from that which greets the eye of the beholder to-day. Devonport and Stonehouse were mere villages; Mount Wise was farm land; where the citadel now stands was a trumpery fort which a modern gunboat would utterly destroy in half an hour; Drake’s island was fortified, it is true, but with a battery even more insignificant than the citadel fort; while the Hoe showed a bare half-dozen buildings, chief of which was the inn, afterwards re-named the Pelican Inn, in honour of Drake’s ship, famous as the spot behind which, eleven years later, Drake and Hawkins played their never-to-be-forgotten game of bowls.

As the boat slid out from under the lee of Drake’s island, however, and headed straight for the Eddystone, she gradually began to feel the full strength of the breeze, and her two occupants settled themselves down to enjoy thoroughly a good long evening’s sail, perhaps to be extended into the small hours of the next morning, if the conditions continued favourable. For there was nothing that these two more thoroughly enjoyed than a good tussle, in a well-found boat, against a strong breeze and a heavy sea; and they were like enough to have both to-night, so soon as they cleared the Sound and reached open water. In fact, although probably neither of them had thus far suspected it, both were strongly imbued with the spirit of born adventurers.

An hour’s sailing sufficed to carry them to seaward of Penlee Point, when they found that there was just wind and sea enough to make for perfect enjoyment, therefore instead of contenting themselves with a mere sail round the Eddystone and back they determined to make a night of it; and the sheets were accordingly hauled aft for a long stretch to windward, close-hauled, towards the chops of the Channel.

Away sped the boat to the southward and westward, careening gunwale-to, and sending the spray flying in such drenching showers over the weather bow, that presently the water rose above the bottom boards and splashed like a miniature sea in the lee bilge, compelling Dick to abandon the mainsheet to Stukely while he took a bucket and proceeded to bale. But the wind showed a disposition to freshen, careening the boat so steeply that, despite Stukely’s utmost care, the water began to slop in over the lee gunwale, as well as over the bows; and at length they decided to take a reef in the mainsail, for Dick had no fancy for spending the rest of the cruise in an ineffectual endeavour to free the boat of water that came in faster than he could throw it out. This was done, and the boat resumed her headlong rush to the southward, until by the time that the sun sank, red and angry, beneath the western wave, the land lay a mere film of grey along the northern board.

Then occurred a thing common enough in the tropics but much less usual in our more temperate climate; the wind suddenly dropped to a stark calm, and then, a few minutes later, came away in a terrific squall from about north-north-east.

So violent was the outfly that there was but one thing to do, namely, to keep the boat away dead before it; and away went the lugger, still heading to the southward and westward, but with the wind now dead aft instead of over the starboard bow. But they had scarcely been scudding five minutes when there occurred a sudden rending crack of timber, and the mainmast, weakened by an unsuspected flaw in the heart of it, snapped, about midway between the heel of it and the sheave, and went over the bows, broaching-to the lugger with the drag of the mainsail in the water, and nearly filling her as she came slowly round head to wind.

The friends were now in a situation of imminent peril, the squall raised a very awkward choppy sea with almost magical rapidity, and, more than half-full of water as the boat now was, she was liable to be swamped out of hand by some unlucky sea pouring in over her bows; the occupants, therefore, set to work with a will to bale her out, Stukely taking the bucket from Dick and handing him the baler instead. But it was both back-breaking and heartbreaking work; for, rendered heavy and sluggish by the large quantity of water in her, the boat frequently failed to rise to the lift of the seas, several of which poured in over her bows from time to time, filling her faster than she could be freed by the joint efforts of her crew; so that at length the unwelcome conviction forced itself upon the two friends that, unless something quite unforeseen happened, the boat must inevitably founder under them.

This conviction caused the toiling pair to cease from their labours for a moment and glance about them anxiously, in the hope that the twilight might reveal to them some craft to which they might signal for assistance. To their great relief, they perceived that there was indeed such a craft within a short two miles to the eastward of them; moreover she was outward-bound, and was heading in such a direction that she would probably pass within half a mile of the waterlogged lugger.

“Thanks be!” devoutly exclaimed Stukely, as his eyes fell upon her. “If we can but attract her attention before the boat founders, we shall escape, after all. Go on with your baling, Dick, while I wave my coat. The thing to do is to catch the eye of somebody aboard that ship and make it understood that we are in distress; then, since we can both swim, it will not greatly matter if the lugger should go down before yonder ship reaches us.”

Dick obediently did as he was told, while Stukely, whipping off his coat, sprang upon the mast thwart and, with his left arm flung round the splintered stump to steady himself, proceeded to wave his coat energetically. Luckily for the pair in distress, they were to the westward of the approaching ship, with the evening sky, in which still lingered a pale primrose glow, behind them, and against this background their figures and that of the boat stood out black as silhouettes cut in ebony. It is possible that, even with this advantage, they might have escaped notice, had not Phil thought of waving his coat; but the figure of him standing there, apparently upon nothing—for it was only now and then that a small portion of the hull became visible—waving frantically something big enough to show up strongly, soon attracted attention on board the approaching ship, and Stukely had scarcely been ten minutes engaged on his waving operations when he had the gratification of seeing a flag float out over the rail and go soaring up to the main truck, while the stranger’s helm was slightly shifted and she swerved perceptibly toward them.

“Glory be! they have seen us, and are bearing away for us, so it matters little now whether the lugger sinks or swims,” exclaimed Stukely, as he sprang off the thwart and resumed his task of baling with renewed zest. “Nevertheless,” he continued, “it will be well to keep her afloat as long as we may, since she affords a bigger mark to steer for than would the heads of us two afloat upon the darkling water.”

The stranger—a tall and stately ship of some two hundred and forty tons measurement—was now close aboard of the dismasted lugger; and well was it for the occupants of the latter that such was the case; for as the ship cleverly rounded-to, with her topsails lowered, alongside and to windward of the boat, so near was the latter to foundering that the bow wave of the rescuing craft completed the disaster by surging in over the gunwale in sufficient volume to fill her; and down she went, at the precise moment when some half a dozen ropes, hurled by the sailors above, came whirling down about the shoulders of Dick and Stukely.

“Haul away!” shouted the two, with one accord, each grasping the rope’s end that came first to hand as they felt the lugger sinking and themselves going down with her; and the next moment they were dragged, dripping wet, up the lee side of the ship and in over her high bulwarks.

“Better late than never; iss, fegs!” exclaimed a stout, burly man of middle height, clad in a crimson doublet of slashed silk, and trunk hose, with a crimson velvet cap, in front of which was stuck a feather of the same hue, secured by a gold brooch, set jauntily upon his head. “But by my faith, my masters, we were only just in time. Mr Bascomb, put up your helm, and hoist away your topsails again. And now, gentles both, who be ye; and how came ye to be in so awkward a scrape as that from which we have just rescued ye?”

This was evidently the captain of the ship; so Stukely, taking the lead as usual, explained in a few brief words the particulars of their mishap, thanked the unknown for his kindness in taking the trouble to pick them up, and concluded by expressing the hope that the individual to whom he was speaking would have the great goodness to stand inshore and land them on the nearest point that he could conveniently fetch.

The captain—for such he proved to be, introducing himself as John Marshall, captain of the good ship Adventure of Topsham, westward bound to the Indies in quest of Spanish booty—shook his head good-naturedly but firmly.

“Nay, friend, that I cannot and will not do, for here have we spent the whole of last night and to-day working down channel as far as this, and now that we have at last caught a fair slant of wind I will make the most thereof, not risking the loss of it to land any man, yea, even though he were my own brother! The utmost that I can promise is, that if we should fall in with a coaster, or other ship, bound up-channel, or should sight a fishing boat, I will delay my voyage just long enough to put ye on board, but not a minute longer. And if so be we do not encounter another craft, you will e’en both have to join us, for we have here no room for idlers. And now, hie you both away into the cabin, and take off your wet clothes; Mr Bascomb, the master, will furnish you with dry clothing from the slop chest—though I misdoubt me,” he continued, running his eye dubiously over Chichester’s stalwart frame, “whether he will find any ample enough to clothe your friend withal. And when ye have changed, sup with us in the cabin, and we will talk further together.”

Marshall then beckoned to Bascomb, and gave the latter instructions to open the slop chest and do his best to provide the newcomers with dry clothes; whereupon the master, in turn, beckoned to Philip and Dick to follow him below, where in due time both were provided with a change of clothing, the resources of the slop chest happily proving fully equal to the strain upon its resources imposed by Chichester’s bulky proportions. The change was effected in good time to allow the two friends to join the occupants of the poop cabin at supper, where Captain Marshall made them duly acquainted with his fellow adventurers. These were five in number, consisting respectively of Mr George Lumley and Mr Thomas Winter, Marshall’s lieutenants, Mr Walter Dyer and Mr Edmund Harvey, gentlemen adventurers who, with Marshall, had provided the wherewithal for the fitting out of the expedition, and Mr William Bascomb, the master aforesaid. They were all fellow Devonians, a genial and hearty company, in the best of good spirits at the prospect of stirring times before them, with the chance of returning home made men. It is true that—not to put too fine a point upon it—they were pirates, of a sort; but so were Grenvile, Drake, Hawkins, and the rest of their illustrious contemporaries; and piracy was at that time regarded as a quite honourable profession—provided that the piracies were perpetrated solely against the hated Spaniard.

It was by this time dark enough to render necessary the lighting of the great cabin lamp which swung in the skylight; and the apartment, with its long table draped with snowy napery and abundantly furnished with smoking viands flanked with great flagons of foaming ale, presented a particularly cosy and inviting appearance as Dick and Phil, having been introduced in due form to the others, took their seats; the more so, perhaps, from the fact that both of them, having been too eager for their sail to wait for a meal at the conclusion of their day’s labours, had tasted neither bite nor sup since midday, and were now each in possession of a truly voracious appetite. Then, the conversation as the meal progressed—the wonderful, almost incredible, stories of past adventure related by Marshall and Bascomb, both of whom had already once visited the Indies, and the confidence with which all anticipated their return to England laden with wealth unimaginable—exercised an almost irresistible fascination over the two newcomers, one at least of whom—Philip Stukely to wit—began to feel, before the meal was over, that he cared not a jot though he should be compelled by force of circumstances to join those daredevil adventurers who made it clearly understood that, so far as the outside world was concerned, they intended to be a law unto themselves. Marshall’s and Bascomb’s talk, especially, of cloudless skies of richest blue, out of which the sun darted his flaming rays by day, and in which the stars blazed like jewels at night; of tranquil seas of sapphire in which creatures of strange forms and brilliant hues disported themselves; of tropic shores, coral fringed and clothed with graceful feathery palms backed by noble forest trees of precious woods, made glorious by flowers of every conceivable hue and shape, amid which hovered birds of such gorgeous plumage that they gleamed and shone in the sun like living gems; of rich and luscious fruits to be had for the mere trouble of plucking; of fireflies spangling the velvet darkness with their fairy lamps; and of the gentle Indians who—at least when not brought under the malign influence of the cruel Spaniard—regarded white men as gods; all these appealed with singular force and fascination to Stukely, who sat listening breathlessly and with glowing eyes to everything that the two sailors said about these wonders.

For, singularly enough, although the man had never until now been out of sight of English soil, and although he had never read about them, all these things seemed strangely familiar to him. Times without number, as he had sat meditating over the fire on a winter’s night, or had sprawled among the hay or upon the sandy beach on a summer evening, had visions of just such lands and just such enchanting scenes as Marshall and Bascomb described come floating to him like vague and distant but cherished memories.

He awoke, as from a delightful dream, when, the meal being finished, Marshall arose from his chair and invited his guests to accompany him out on deck. It was quite dark when they emerged from the cabin; so dark indeed that for a moment, their eyes being still dazzled by the bright light of the cabin lamp, they groped their way like blind men, and were fain to stand still, clinging to whatsoever their hands happened to find. Then, their sight coming to them again, they followed Marshall up the poop ladder, and stood, staring out upon a night of blusterous wind and faintly phosphorescent, foam-capped sea; of flying clouds amid which the stars twinkled mistily and vanished, to re-appear presently with the tall spars and swelling canvas of the ship swaying dizzily and black among them; a night full of unaccustomed sounds of creaking and groaning timbers, of the splashing and roaring of water under the ship’s bows, along her bends, and about her rudder; of strange sighings and moanings aloft; and of the low murmur of men’s voices as the watch clustered under the shelter of the towering forecastle, discussing, mayhap, like their superiors aft, the prospects of the voyage.

The Captain peered about him on either side of the ship, anon stooping to send his glances forward into the darkness beyond the heaving bows; then he hailed the lookouts upon the forecastle, demanding in sharp, imperative tones whether there were sail of any kind in sight. The answer was in the negative.

“Well, my masters,” said he, turning to Stukely and Chichester, “you see how it is; there is nothing in sight; and every mile that we travel lessens your chance of our falling in with anything into which we can transfer you. If this good breeze holds—as I trust in God that it will—we shall be off Falmouth shortly after midnight, but much too far out to render it at all likely that we shall sight any of its fishing craft; and, once to the westward of Falmouth, your last chance of getting ashore will be gone. Now, what say ye? Will ye, without more ado, up and join us? I talked the matter over with my partners while you were changing your duds before supper, and I can find room in the ship for both of you. We have no surgeon with us, so that berth will fit you finely, Mr Stukely; while, as for you, my young son of Anak,” turning to Chichester, “a lad of your thews and sinews can always earn his keep aboard ship. But I can offer ye something better than the berth of ship’s boy; we have but one carpenter among us, and I will gladly take you on with the rating of carpenter’s mate, if that will suit ye. Iss, fegs, that I will! Now, what say ye? Shall us call it a bargain, and have done wi’ it?”

“So far as I am concerned, you certainly may—if Dick will join, too,” answered Stukely. “I will not let him go ashore alone to answer for the loss of the boat; for the accident which caused the plight in which you found us was at least as much my fault as his. But I do not believe that we are going to have the chance to get ashore, therefore—what say you, Dick, shall we accept Captain Marshall’s very generous offer, and so settle the matter?”

“I am not thinking of the boat—Gramfer Heard is rich enough to bear the loss of her without feeling it—but it is my uncle that I’m troubling about. I am afraid that he will be greatly distressed at my sudden and unaccountable disappearance,” answered Dick.

“True,” assented Stukely; “doubtless he will. But what about thy aunt, Dick? Will not she rejoice that your worthy uncle’s exchequer is relieved of the cost of your maintenance? I have heard that she keeps a tight hold upon her husband’s purse strings; and it has been whispered that she begrudges every tester that the good man spends upon thee. Believe me, she will soon find words to console him for thy loss.”

“That is true, Phil,” returned Dick, with a sigh. “She would sit and watch me eating, like any cat, so that often enough, for very shame, I rose from the table still hungry. But my uncle is not a rich man, and he has three maidens of his own to feed and clothe, so that perhaps it may be just as well that I should take advantage of this opportunity to relieve him of the cost of an extra mouth to fill, and an extra body to cover. But what of Master Summers, Phil? How will he manage without thee?”

“Master Summers must e’en get another dispenser,” answered Stukely, with a shrug. “I trow there are plenty of them to be had. But I would that I had my books with me. Not having them, however, I must contrive as best I can to do without them.”

“Then,” cut in the Captain, somewhat impatiently, “may I understand that you are willing to join us? You will never have another such an opportunity to make your fortunes.”

Phil looked enquiringly at Dick, who, after a moment’s hesitation, nodded; whereupon Stukely, speaking for both, announced that they were ready to sign the agreement whenever it might be convenient for them to do so.

“No time like the present,” asserted Marshall. “You may as well do it now.” And, leading the way into the cabin, he produced a parchment setting forth the articles of agreement, which he read over to them. The two friends then took the pen and inscribed their names at the foot of the document, thus forging the last link in a chain which was to drag them into a series of adventures of so extraordinary a character that it is doubtful whether even Stukely, with all his inborn love of adventure, would have been willing to proceed, could he but have foreseen what awaited him in the future.

Chapter Two.

How the “Adventure” fought and took the “Santa Clara” off Barbados.

And now, at the very outset, almost before the ink of their signatures had fairly dried, a hitch threatened to occur over the matter of berthing the two new recruits. For, Stukely being entered as surgeon, Marshall offered him, as a matter of course, a stateroom aft, while Chichester, being shipped merely as carpenter’s mate, was directed to go forward and establish himself in the house abaft the fore hatch, in which were lodged the other petty officers. Dick, to do him justice, was willing enough to accept the lodging assigned to him; but it was Stukely who objected to being separated from his friend. He insisted that Dick, being a gentleman, although merely a shipwright’s apprentice, was as much entitled to a cabin aft as he was himself; and when the unreasonableness of this demand was pointed out to him he proposed that he also should be permitted to berth forward. But neither could this be managed, for there was only one spare bunk available in the petty officers’ house, namely that assigned to Chichester; therefore the Captain’s arrangement had perforce to stand, after all.

“Very well,” said Stukely, when at last he was convinced that what he desired was impossible; “let be; you and I, Dick, can at least walk and talk together when we are off duty. And—listen, lad—in an adventure such as this is like to be, many changes are both possible and probable; my advice therefore is that you make friends with Master Bascomb and get him to instruct you in the science of navigation, so that you may be fully qualified to act as pilot, should the occasion arise. You will be no worse a pilot because you happen to be a good shipwright; and your proper place is aft among the gentles, where I hope to see thee soon.”

“That’s as may be,” answered Dick, with a laugh. “Nevertheless thy advice is good, and I will take it.”

“And I, for my part, will give friend Bascomb a hint that he is to teach thee all that thou art willing to learn,” cut in Marshall. “For the doctor is right; many changes are like to occur among us before we see old England’s shores again; and I shall be glad to know that I have one aboard who is fit to take Bascomb’s place, should aught untoward befall him. And now, my masters both, away to your quarters and get a good night’s rest. You, doctor, will of course sleep in all night, and be on duty all day; but as for you, Chichester, I will put you in a watch to-morrow morning.”

The next day saw the good ship Adventure clear of the Channel; for the breeze which had interfered so unceremoniously with the fortunes of Dick and his friend held all through the night and contrary to expectation increased, at the same time hauling gradually round from the north-east, to the great joy of the Captain and Bascomb, who at eight o’clock in the morning shaped a course for the Azores, where it was intended to wood and water the ship, and lay in a goodly stock of fruit and vegetables to stave off the scurvy among the crew for as long a time as might be.

The weather continued fine and the wind fair for four days, during which the ship, with squared yards, made excellent progress; then came a strong breeze from the westward which drove them nearly a hundred miles out of their course. This, in its turn, was followed by light winds and fair weather, with a sun so hot that the pitch began to melt and bubble out of the deck seams, so that the mariners, who had hitherto been going about their duty barefoot, were fain to don shoes to save their feet from being blistered. Finally, after a voyage of twenty-four days, they came to the Azores, where they remained four days, filling up their fresh water, replenishing their stock of wood, and taking in a bounteous supply of vegetables and fruit, especially “limmons”—as Marshall called them—for the prevention of scurvy.

Then, greatly refreshed by their short sojourn, and by the entire change of diet which they enjoyed during their stay, they again set sail, and, making their way to the southward and westward, at length fell in with that beneficent wind which blows permanently from the north-east, and which in after-years came to be known as the Trade Wind. With this blowing steadily behind them day after day, they squared away for the island of Barbados, where, if there happened to be no Spaniards to interfere with them, it was Marshall’s intention to lay up for a while, to give his men time to recruit their health, and also to careen the ship and clear her of weed before beginning his great foray along the Spanish Main.

And in due time—on the fiftieth day from that on which Dick and Phil were rescued from the sinking boat, to be precise—with the rising of the sun a faint blue blur, wedge-shaped, with the sharp edge pointing toward the south, appeared upon the horizon, straight ahead, and the joyous shout of “Land ho!” burst from the lips of the man stationed as lookout upon the lofty forecastle. Yes; there it was; land, unmistakably, sharp and clear-cut, with a slate-blue cloud—the only cloud in the sky—hovering over it, from the breast of which vivid lightning flashed for a space, until, having emptied itself of electricity, the cloud-pall passed away, leaving the island refreshed by the shower that had accompanied the storm, gradually to change from soft blue to a vivid green as the Adventure, with widespread pinions, rushed toward it before the favouring breeze. And with the cry of the lookout the ship at once awoke to joyous life; the watch below, ay, and even the sick, sprang from their hammocks and rushed—or crawled, as the case might be—on deck to feast their eyes once more upon the sight of a bit of solid earth, green with verdure, and promising all manner of delights to those who had been pent up for so long between wooden bulwarks, and whose eyes had for so many weary days gazed upon naught but sea and sky. It is true that Stukely had never tired of gazing upon that same sea and sky; with the spirit of the artist that dwelt within him he had been able to see ever-changing beauty where others had beheld only monotony; but to the crew at large that wedge of land, growing in bulk and importance as the ship rushed toward it, was more beautiful than the most glorious sunset that had ever presented itself to their wondering eyes.

“What island is that?” demanded Stukely of the master, who was standing halfway up the poop ladder, gazing at the distant land under the foot of the foresail.

“It should be Barbados, unless I am a long way out of my reckoning. But there is no fear of that; besides, I know the look and shape of the place; I have been there before; and it was just so that it looked when I got my last glimpse of it. Yes, that is Barbados; and, please God, we shall all sleep ashore to-night. There is good, safe anchorage round on the other side of that low point, with a snug creek into which the ship, with but a little lightening, may be taken and careened. I pray that there may be no Spaniards there, for there is no better place on God’s good earth for landing and recruiting a scurvy-ridden crew.”

“Are there any Indians on the island?” asked Stukely.

“There may be; I cannot say; but I never saw any,” answered Bascomb. “And if there be,” he continued, “they are not likely to interfere with us. Such Indians as I have met have ever been very shy of showing themselves to the whites, and always keep out of their way, if they can. That is to say, they do so among the islands. On the Main, where they have been cruelly ill-treated and enslaved by the Spaniard, they are very different, being cruel and treacherous, and ever ready to attack the whites and destroy them with the poisoned darts which they discharge from blowpipes, and their poisoned arrows. But, have no fear; the Indians on yonder island—if indeed there be any—will be of a very different temper, and quite gentle.”

“Indeed, then, I pray that they may be,” returned Stukely. “For though we have been marvellously fortunate, thus far, in the matter of sickness, there are still too many men in the sick bay for my liking; and we ought to have every one of them sound and fit for duty again before we go on with our great adventure. But, look now, what comes yonder? Surely that is a ship’s canvas just beginning to show over the land there near the southern end of the island?”

Bascomb shaded his eyes with his hand and looked toward where Stukely pointed. The island was by this time about five miles distant, and the colours of the vegetation were showing up clearly in the brilliant light of the tropic day. But beyond it again, and showing over the tree-tops, there was a faint grey film that was evidently moving, sliding along, as it were, toward the low point. Even as they looked the filmy grey object suddenly became a strong white and assumed a definite form as it emerged from the shadow of a cloud, revealing itself as the upper canvas of a large ship which had either just got under way from the anchorage on the lee side of the point, or—and this seemed to be the more likely of the two—was working up to windward in the smooth water, having sighted the island on her way to the eastward.

“Iss, sure,” agreed Bascomb, relapsing into the Devonshire dialect in his excitement; “that’s a ship, sure enough, moreover a Spaniard at that, most likely; and, if so, we shall have a fight on our hands afore long. Do ’e see thicky ship t’other side of the island, yonder, Cap’n Marshall?” he continued, addressing himself to the Captain, who was on the poop, conversing earnestly with Messrs Dyer and Harvey, his partners in the adventure.

“Ship, sayest thou? Where then?” demanded Marshall, breaking off his conversation and running forward to the head of the poop ladder.

“Why, there a be, with the sails o’ mun just showing over the low point,” answered the master. “She’ll be clear of the land in another minute or two; and then they’ll see us as clearly as we see them. She’s a Spaniard, to my thinking, Cap’n; and there may be fine pickings aboard of her—if her don’t turn and run so soon’s she sees us.”

“She’ll not do that, Master Bascomb; she be a bigger ship nor we. Besides, how’s she to know we baint a Spaniard like herself, if we don’t tell her. We’ll clear the decks and make all ready before we show our flag, gentles; and see what comes of it. Let the mariners get to work at once, Mr Bascomb.”

The excitement aroused by the appearance of land on the horizon, after so many weary weeks of gazing upon sea and sky only, was intensified tenfold when the strange sail—the first they had seen since leaving the Azores—was discovered; and when it was further understood that the chances were in favour of her proving to be a Spaniard, the preparations for a possible fight were entered upon with the utmost eagerness and alacrity. Fortunately, there was not very much that needed to be done; for Marshall, rendered wise by past experience, had consistently made a point of always having the decks kept clear of unnecessary lumber of every kind; but the bulwarks were strengthened and raised, for the purpose of affording the crew as much protection as possible from the enemy’s musketry fire; the lower yards were fitted with chain slings, so that the risk of their being shot away, and the ship thus disabled at a critical moment, might be minimised as much as possible; parties of musketrymen were sent aloft into the round tops, with instructions to hamper the enemy as much as possible by their fire, especially by picking off the helmsman and the officers; the powder room was opened, and ammunition sent on deck for the culverins, sakers, and swivels, all of which were loaded; and the men, having armed themselves with cutlass, pistol, bow, and pike, stripped to their waists, bound handkerchiefs round their heads, and took up their several stations by the guns, or at the halliards and sheets. Marshall took command of the ship as a whole; while Lumley and Winter, his lieutenants, assumed charge of the poop and forecastle respectively, Bascomb, the master, taking charge of the main deck. Stukely, with his knives, saws, and bandages, established himself in the cockpit; and Dick Chichester, who had contrived to gain the reputation of being the best helmsman in the ship, was ordered to the tiller.

Meanwhile, the strange ship, having cleared the land, revealed herself as a craft of probably quite a hundred tons bigger than the Adventure, and carrying four more pieces of great ordnance than the latter. But this fact by no means dismayed the English; for the stranger was what was called a race ship, and was nearly twice as long as the Adventure; Marshall therefore confidently reckoned that, should the two vessels come to blows, the superior nimbleness of his own ship would more than counterbalance the advantage conferred upon the other by her greater weight of metal. The stranger, when she cleared the land, was close-hauled on the larboard tack, heading about south-south-east, and it was judged, from her position relative to the land, that she had not actually touched at the island, but had simply availed herself of its presence to gain a few miles by turning to windward in the smooth water under its lee. The discovery of the presence of the English ship did not appear to have caused any uneasiness to her commander, for he did not deviate a hairbreadth from his course, but stood on, maintaining his luff, the only indication that he had observed the Adventure at all being the display of the yellow flag of Spain, which he had hoisted to the head of his ensign staff within five minutes of the time when he cleared the island. Probably he imagined that the Adventure was also Spanish.

The English, on their part, took no notice of the stranger, except by gradually edging down toward her, until their preparations for battle were complete; then indeed they hoisted the white flag bearing the crimson cross of Saint George, and hauled their wind sufficiently to enable them to intercept the Spaniard. At this invitation to battle symptoms of alarm and indecision began to manifest themselves on board the latter, for she first put up her helm and kept away, as though about to turn tail and run, but presently came to the wind again and tacked, heading now to the northward.

“Over with the helm, and steer for the northern end of the island,” cried Marshall to Dick; “that ought to enable us to intercept him. Thank God, he means to fight instead of running, and the matter will the sooner be settled. Look to that, now; he is stripping for battle, for in comes all his light canvas, and up goes his mainsail. The man who commands that ship is a right valiant cavalier, and will put up a good fight; therefore, let no man put match to culverin or finger to trigger until I give the word. Now, let the waits play up ‘The brave men of Devon!’”

Therewith the waits, five in number, stationed on the main deck, between the poop and the mainmast, struck up that favourite and inspiring air with such good effect that before two minutes had passed every man and boy in the ship was singing the song at the top of his voice, and feeling quite ready to fight all the Spaniards who might care to come against them.

A quarter of an hour later the two ships had closed to within musket shot of each other, the Adventure having the weather gage, when crash came the whole of the Spaniard’s broadside, great guns and small; but so bad was the aim that every shot flew high overhead, and not so much as a rope was touched.

“Good!” ejaculated Marshall. “Now, steersman, up with your helm, and shave past as close under his stern as you can without touching. Starboard gunners, be ready to pour your shot into his stern as we pass! Musketrymen and archers, pick off as many men as you can see, and especially the helmsman! Sail trimmers, to your stations, and be ready to go about!”

Two minutes later the Adventure slid square athwart the towering, gilt-bedizened stern of the Spaniard, and one after another, as they were brought to bear, her ordnance belched forth their charges of round and canister, smashing the Spanish gingerbread work to splinters, shivering every pane of glass in the stern windows, and sweeping the decks of the stranger from end to end, the deadly nature of the discharge being evidenced by the outburst of shrieks which instantly followed aboard the stranger.

“Well done, gallants!” cried Marshall, waving his sword. “Now, ready about, and larboard gunners stand by to repeat the dose. Down helm, steersman, and let her come round! Raise fore tack and sheet! Ha! she is falling off, and means to give us her larboard broadside while we are in stays—if she can. Topmen, do your best, now, and pick me off her helmsman before it is too late. Well done!”—as the Spaniard began to come ponderously to the wind again, showing that her helmsman was down—“Let the man who did that come to me by and by, and he shall have a noble for that good shot. Swing the mainyard! Musketrymen, clear the enemy’s tops of archers, and shoot down any that may attempt to take their places! Trim aft the head sheets! Swing the foreyard! Starboard gunners, reload your ordnance! We will try that trick again if they will but give us the chance. Now, larboard gunners, be ready, and let her have it as we pass!”

A minute later, and the Adventure’s broadside again crashed into the Spaniard’s stern; and again uprose the hideous answering outburst of shrieks and yells on board the latter as the English ship, with her sails clean full, slid square across her antagonist’s stern, the only reply to her broadside being four shot discharged from the enemy’s stern ports, not one of which did a groat’s worth of damage.

A tall figure completely encased in armour sprang up on the Spanish ship’s poop rail and, shaking his naked sword at Marshall, shouted in Spanish:

“You are a coward, señor Englishman! Why do you not fight fair, broadside to broadside, instead of sheltering yourself under my stern, where my shot cannot reach you?”

“Because, señor, I do not happen to be a fool,” retorted Marshall in the same language. “But neither am I a coward,” he continued, “as I will prove to you within the next five minutes, if you will do me the honour to meet me on your own deck, whither I intend to come without further ado.”

“I shall be most happy, señor,” was the reply; and down jumped the Spaniard in a hurry, to issue certain orders apparently, for his voice, hollow in his helmet, was heard pealing out in a tone of command as the two ships drew apart.

“Larboard gunners, load your pieces again,” commanded Marshall, “and level them so as to take her on the main deck while we are in stays. Luff, helmsman, all you can; I want to get far enough to windward to be able to run down and lay her aboard on the next tack. Boarders, see to the priming of your pistols, and be ready to follow me presently. Now, ready about again, men! Down helm!”

As the Adventure hove in stays both ships fired their broadsides simultaneously, one of the English shot entering a port and dismounting a gun, while the rest struck fair in the wake of the deck and went clean through the Spaniard’s side, as could clearly be seen; while the Spaniard’s shot, as usual, flew overhead, again by great good luck missing everything.

“Now, up helm, steersman, and lay us aboard!” commanded Marshall. “Be ready, men, to throw your grapnels the moment that we touch; and boarders, stand by to follow me into the enemy’s main chains!”

As the two ships closed in toward each other for the final grip which was to decide the matter, the Spaniard holding her luff while the English ship bore up and ran down with the wind free, the archers and musketeers on both sides became busy, the Spaniards having a slight advantage because of the superior height of their ship, although this was more than counterbalanced by the greater quickness and accuracy of aim on the part of the English, who shot as coolly as though they had been practising at the butts, and seldom failed to hit their mark. Nevertheless, several Englishmen went down during the ensuing five minutes, and were carried below to Stukely, who now began to find himself surrounded by quite as many patients as he could conveniently attend to. Then the two ships crashed together, the grapnels were thrown, and Marshall, followed by every man whose legs could carry him and whose hands could wield a weapon, sprang into the Spaniard’s main rigging, leaving the Adventure to take care of herself.

It was a rash thing to do, perhaps; but it succeeded; for the Spaniards were too busily engaged in endeavouring to keep the enemy out of their own ship to think of boarding the other. And most desperate was the fight that ensued, the English being fully determined to force their way aboard the Spaniard, while the Spanish were as fully determined that they should not. The air became thick with flying arrows, and with the smoke of grenades and stinkpots flung down upon the boarders out of the enemy’s tops; while swords and pikes flashed in the sun, pistols popped, and men shouted and execrated as they cut and slashed at each other; and the glorious tropic morning was filled with the sounds of deadly strife. Dick Chichester—to let the reader into a secret—had, upon the first appearance of the Spanish ship, been greatly exercised in his mind lest he should fail in courage when the two ships came to blows; but with the discharge of the first shot the queer agitated feeling which he had mistaken for fear completely passed away, and was instantly forgotten; and now, his services being no longer required at the helm, he armed himself with a handspike snatched from the deck, and, watching his opportunity, flung himself from the Adventure’s poop into the enemy’s mizzen chains, climbing thence to the Spaniard’s poop, where was no one to oppose him. From thence he made his way down to the main deck, where were gathered all the crew in one spot, crowding together to resist the attack of the English; and upon the rear of these he flung himself with indescribable fury, whirling the terrible handspike with such destructive effect that the astounded Spaniards, thus taken unexpectedly in the rear, went down like ninepins, while their yells of anguish and dismay quickly threw the entire crew into complete disorder. So violent, indeed, was the commotion that the attention of the Spaniards was momentarily distracted from what may be termed the frontal attack, and of this distraction Marshall instantly availed himself to dash in on deck, where, with a few sweeps of his sword, he soon cleared standing room, not only for himself but also for half a dozen of his immediate followers. These in turn cleared the way for others, and thus in the course of a couple of breathless minutes every man of the Adventure’s crew had gained the deck of the Spaniard, after which the capture of the ship was a foregone conclusion. The rush of Marshall and his party on the one hand, and the onslaught of Dick Chichester with his whirling handspike on the other so utterly distracted and demoralised the Spaniards that they presently broke and fled, flinging away their weapons, and crying out that their foes were a crew of demons who had assumed for the nonce the outward semblance of Englishmen! The hatches were promptly clapped on over the fugitive Spaniards, then Marshall and his followers paused to recover their breath and look about them.

The first thing to claim their attention was the ships themselves. These, being lashed together by means of the grapnels, were grinding and rasping each other’s sides so alarmingly, as they rolled and plunged in the sea that was running, that they had already inflicted upon each other an appreciable amount of damage, and threatened to do a great deal more if prompt preventive measures were not taken. Marshall therefore called upon Winter, one of his lieutenants, to take a party of twenty men, and with them return to the Adventure, cast her adrift from the prize, and lie off within easy hailing-distance of the latter. This was done at once, Dick Chichester being one of those called upon by Winter to follow him aboard the Adventure, and as soon as the two ships were parted an investigation was made into the extent of the damage incurred by each ship. The result of this investigation was the discovery that the Adventure was much the greater sufferer of the two, her larboard main channel piece having been wrenched off, and the seams in the immediate neighbourhood opened, while three of the channel plates were broken, thus leaving the mainmast almost entirely unsupported on the larboard side. Water was entering the ship in quite appreciable quantities through the opened seams, and the men were therefore at once sent to the pumps to keep the leak from gaining, while the carpenter and Dick went below to see what could be done toward stopping it.

Meanwhile Marshall, assisted by his co-adventurers Dyer and Harvey, proceeded to overhaul the prize systematically, with the view of determining her value. The first fact ascertained was that the ship was named the Santa Clara; the second, that she hailed from Cadiz, in Old Spain; and the third, that she was homeward-bound from Cartagena, from which port she was twenty-two days out. Her cargo, although valuable enough in its way, was not of such a character as to tempt the English to go to the labour of transferring any portion of it to their own vessel. But, apart from the cargo proper, she was taking home ten chests of silver ingots, two chests of bar gold, and a casket of pearls, all of which were quickly transhipped to the Adventure, the crew of which thus found themselves the possessors of a fairly rich booty, while still upon the very threshold, as it were, of those seas wherein they hoped to make their fortune. But this was not all; for, in the process of rummaging the captain’s cabin, Marshall found certain letters which he unhesitatingly opened and read, and among these was a communication from the governor of Cartagena advising the home authorities of the impending dispatch of a rich plate ship for Cadiz. The probable date of dispatch was given as three months after the departure of the Santa Clara, or about ten weeks from the date of that vessel’s capture by the English. That letter Marshall thrust into his pocket, together with certain other documents which he thought might possibly prove of value; then, summoning the unhappy Spanish captain to his presence, he informed him that the English having now helped themselves to all that they required, he was at liberty to proceed upon his voyage; and this Marshall recommended him to do with all diligence and alacrity, lest peradventure he should fall into the hands of certain other British buccaneers, at the existence of whom the Englishman darkly hinted, hoping thus to nip in the bud any plan which the Spaniard might have formed for a return to Cartagena with a report of the presence of English corsairs in the Caribbean Sea. The two ships then parted company, the Santa Clara steering northward close-hauled against the trade wind, while the Adventure bore up for Barbados, shaping a course to pass round its southern extremity. Two hours later the English ship was riding snugly at anchor in what is now known as Carlisle Bay, in five fathoms of water, within four hundred feet of the beach, and the same distance from the mouth of a small river, within which, as Bascomb explained, lay the creek which he had fixed upon in his mind as a suitable spot wherein to careen the ship.

Chapter Three.

How they came to Barbados; and what they did there.

The rumbling of the great hempen cable out through the hawse-pipe served as a signal to some dozen or more of poor scurvy-stricken wretches who lay gasping in their hammocks in the stifling forecastle. They had heard the cry of “Land ho!” some hours before, and had groaned with bitter impatience when the subsequent sounds from the deck had made it clear to them that a battle must be fought before they could feast their eyes upon the sight of solid earth and green trees once more, and satisfy their terrible craving for the luscious fruits which they had been given to understand were to be obtained on the delectable island in sight for the mere trouble of plucking. But now at last the time of waiting was over; the sounds and shouts incidental to the taking in of sail, and, still more, the splash of the anchor and the roar of the cable as it rushed through the hawse-pipe told them that the ship had arrived, and with one accord they rolled out of their hammocks—the less heavily stricken helping their weaker fellow sufferers—and made their way on deck, where the business of stowing the ship’s canvas was still in full progress. The poor wretches were constantly getting in the way of those who were well and busy, but the latter were themselves just then much too happy to grumble or find fault, so the invalids were good-humouredly assisted up the ladder to the top of the forecastle, where they could enjoy an uninterrupted view of the island, and left there to feast their eyes upon its beauties in peace, until the time should arrive when their shipmates would be ready to man the boats and take them ashore.

And what a glorious sight it was that met their gaze. First of all there was the green and placid water, alive with fish, rippling gently to a narrow beach of golden sand, and beyond that sand nothing but vegetation, rich, green, and luxuriant. Green! yes, but of a hundred different tints, from the tender hue of the young shoots that was almost yellow, to a deep olive that turned to black in the shadows. If the tints of the vegetation were admirable, no less so were its forms; for there were palms of many different kinds, including the coconut palm in thousands, close down to the water’s edge. The traveller tree, shaped like a fan made of organ pipes; the banana and plantain, loaded with great bunches of fruit, each bunch a fair load for a man; there were great clumps of feathery bamboo; there were big trees covered with scarlet flowers instead of leaves; there was the flaming bougainvillea in profusion; and, in addition, there were great trailing cables of orchids, of weird shapes and vivid colouring reaching from bough to bough. Yes, there was plenty to see and marvel at, and there would be more when those few yards of rippling water had been spanned and their feet pressed the lush grass of yonder flowery mead close by the river’s margin; humming birds, the plumage of which shone in the sun like burnished gold and glowing gems, butterflies as big as sparrows, with wings painted in hues so gorgeous that the painter who should attempt to reproduce them would be driven to despair, enormous dragon-flies flitting hither and thither over the still surface of the river, kingfishers as big as parrots, monkeys in hundreds, agoutis, and, alas!—to strengthen its resemblance to that other Eden—serpents as well, contact with which meant death.

At last! at last! the sails were furled, the ropes coiled neatly down, the decks restored to order, and the word was given to lower the boats. Never, probably, was an order more joyously obeyed. The men rushed to the tackles with shouts and laughter, like schoolboys who have unexpectedly been given a holiday, and in an incredibly short time the boats were all afloat and were being brought one by one to the gangway. Then, under the joint supervision of the Captain and Stukely, the sick were led or carried along the deck and handed gently down over the side, the whole of them being sent ashore in the first boat that left the ship, with Bascomb, the master, in charge, his duty being to see that no unwholesome fruit or poisonous berries were eaten unwittingly. Next, the sick having been temporarily disposed of, there followed the strong and able-bodied, who took ashore with them spars, tackles, and spare sails, with which to rig up temporary tents; and soon the greensward was dotted with busy men, who, in the intervals of their labour, drank coconuts or eagerly devoured bananas, prickly pears, guavas, soursops, grapes, mangoes, and the various other fruits with which the island abounded. By and by, when a certain large tent had been erected beneath the shade of a giant ceiba tree, a boat put off from the shore to the ship, and presently returned bearing nine wounded men—the result of their fight that morning—under the especial care of Philip Stukely. These men, lying in their hammocks as they had been taken out of the ship, were then carried up to the completed tent, when their hammocks were re-slung to stout poles firmly driven into the ground, and where Stukely once more, and at greater leisure, attended to their hurts. But there was one form, lying stark in a laced-up hammock deeply stained with blood, which was not brought up to the tent. It was all that remained of George Lumley, Captain Marshall’s chief lieutenant, who had been shot to death in the very act of boarding the Spaniard, a few hours before; and a grave having been prepared in a small open space on the opposite side of the river, under the shadow of a splendid bois immortelle which strewed the ground with its glowing scarlet flowers, a trumpet was blown, calling the crew together. Then, when they were all assembled, they entered the boats, at a sign from Marshall, took in tow the boat containing the body of the officer, with Saint George’s Cross at half-mast trailing in the water astern of her, and, having reached the other side, reverently bore the shrouded corpse to its last resting-place, lowered it into the grave, Marshall, meanwhile, reading the burial service, and covered it up with the rich brown earth. This service rendered they returned to the site of the camp, and rapidly proceeded to put up the other tents needed to enable all hands to sleep ashore that night.

The sun was within an hour of setting when at length everything was completed to Marshall’s satisfaction, and the men were told that they might cease work and amuse themselves as they pleased, the permission being accompanied by a caution that they were not to wander more than a quarter of a mile from the camp, not to go even as far as that, singly, and not to go unarmed; for although it was assumed that the island was uninhabited, save by themselves, it was recognised as quite possible that a band of Spaniards might be somewhere upon it; and, if so, they would probably have witnessed the arrival of the ship, and might, if strong enough, attempt to surprise and capture both camp and ship. The men therefore made up little parties, and for the most part went off into the woods, either to gather more fruit or to look for gold, some of them seeming to be possessed of a firm conviction that, being now in “the Indies”, they must inevitably find the precious metal if they only searched for it with sufficient diligence. As for Dick and Stukely, the latter having by this time done all that he could for his patients, they went off for a stroll together along the beach, in the direction of the southern end of the bay.

“Well, Dick, what think ye of fighting, now that you have had a taste of it?” demanded Stukely, slipping his hand under Chichester’s arm as they turned their backs upon the camp. “And, by the way,” he continued, without waiting for a reply to his question, “you must permit me to offer the tribute of my most respectful admiration; for I am told that you carried yourself like a right valiant and redoubtable cavalier; indeed the Captain has not hesitated to say that, but for your most furious onslaught upon the Spaniards’ rear this morning, while he was leading the attack by way of the main rigging, matters were like enough to have gone very differently with us.”

“Oh, that is all nonsense,” laughed Dick. “I saw that Marshall wished to reach the deck of the Spaniard; I noticed that the Spanish crew had all congregated together in one place to stop him; and it struck me that I could best help by falling upon them in the rear, which I saw might be done right easily, there being no man to stop me—so—I did it.”

“Precisely; with the result that the Spaniards, finding themselves thus suddenly and furiously assailed by one who bore himself like a very Orson, and feeling no desire to have their brains beaten out with so heathenish a weapon as a handspike, incontinently gave way before you and scattered, affording Marshall an opportunity to climb in over the bulwarks. But were ye not afraid, lad, that some proud Spaniard, resenting your interference, might slit your weasand with his long sword?”

“Afraid?” returned Dick. “Not a whit. ’Tis true that when we first sighted the enemy coming out from behind this same island, and I learned that our Captain meant to attack him, I turned suddenly cold, hot as was the morning, and was seized with a plaguy doubt as to whether I should be able to carry myself as an Englishman and a Devon man should in the coming fight; but when the battle began I forgot all about my doubts, and thought no more of them until the fight was over and done with. Indeed, to be quite frank with ye, Phil, I was never happier, nor enjoyed myself more, than during the few minutes that the fight lasted. You know not what it feels like, for you were down in the cockpit, which was your proper place; but you may take my word for it that there is nothing in this world half so exhilarating as a good brisk fight.”

Stukely laughed. “True, lad,” he said; “I do not know from actual experience what it feels like to be engaged in a life-and-death struggle; for I have never yet taken part in such. Yet I can well believe that it is as you say; for even down in the cockpit I felt the thrill and tingle of it all as I listened to the booming of the ordnance and heard the shouts of the men and the commands of the Captain; nay, I will go even farther than that, and confess that I had much ado to restrain myself from deserting my post and rushing up on deck to take my part in it all. And, a word in your ear, Dick—I believe I should make a far better leader than I am ever like to be a surgeon; for as I stood there, listening to the sounds of the conflict, the strangest feeling of familiarity with it all came to me. I suddenly felt that I had fought many’s the time before; fleeting, indistinct visions of contending hosts, strangely armed and arrayed, floated before me; cries in a strange language, which still I seemed to understand, rang in my ears; and for a moment I completely lost sight of my surroundings, being transported to a land of cloudless skies, even as this, clothed with vegetation very similar to what we now behold around us, although the land of my vision was mountainous, with lakes that shone like mirrors embosomed among the mountains and were dotted with islands, some of them palm-crowned, while others bore stately temples of strange but beautiful architecture. And the strangest part of it all was that, while it lasted, it was like a vivid memory of some scene that my eyes had rested upon often enough to grow familiar with, ay, as familiar as I am with the streets of Devonport and Plymouth!”

“Ay; you were ever a fanciful fellow and a dreamer, Phil,” replied Dick, who was one of the most matter-of-fact individuals who ever breathed. “I mind me how, many a time, when we have been sailing together outside Plymouth Sound, where a clear view could be had of the setting sun, you used to trace cloudy continents with bays, inlets, harbours, and outlying islands in the western sky; yes, and even ships sailing among them, and cities rearing themselves among the golden edges of the clouds.”

“Well, and was that so very wonderful?” retorted Stukely. “Look at yonder sky, for instance. Can you not imagine that great purple mass of cloud to be a vast island set in the midst of the sea represented by the blue-green expanse of sky beyond it? And can you not see how the shape of the cloud lends itself to the fancy of jutting capes and forelands, of gulfs and sounds and estuaries? And look at those small, outlying clouds nearest us; are not they the very image and similitude of islets lying off the coast of the main island? And, as to cities, what can be a more perfect picture of a golden city built along the shore of a landlocked bay than that golden fringe of cloud yonder? And behold the mountains and valleys—ay, and there is a lake opening up now in the very centre of the island. Oh, Dick, my son, if you have not imagination enough to translate these pictures of the evening sky into glimpses of fairy land, and to derive pleasure therefrom, I pity you from my very soul.”

“Nay, then, no need to waste your pity on me, Sir Dreamer, for I need it not,” retorted Dick. “Doubtless you take joy of your fancies; but realities are good enough for me, at least such realities as these. Look at that bird hovering over yonder flower, for instance; smaller, much smaller, than a wren is he, yet how perfectly shaped and how gloriously plumaged. Look to the colour of him, as rich a purple as that of your sunset cloud, with crest and throat like gold painted green. And then, the long curved beak of him, see how daintily he dips it into the cup of the flower and sips the honey therefrom. And his wings, why they are whirring so quickly that you cannot see but can only hear them! Can any of your fancies touch a thing like that for beauty?”

“That is as may be, Dick,” answered Stukely. “The bird is beautiful, undoubtedly, and no less beautiful is the flower from which he sips the honey that constitutes his food; indeed all things are lovely, had we but eyes to perceive their loveliness. But come, the sun has set, and darkness will be upon us in another five minutes; it is time for us to be getting back to the camp.”

Despite the croaking of the frogs, the snore of the tree toads, the incessant buzz and chirr of insects, and the multitudinous nocturnal sounds incidental to life upon a tropical island overgrown with vegetation, ay, and despite the mosquitoes, too, all hands slept soundly that night, and awoke next morning refreshed and invigorated, the sick especially exhibiting unmistakable symptoms of improvement already, due doubtless to the large quantities of fruit which they had consumed on the preceding day. The wounded, too, were doing exceedingly well, the coolness of the large tent in which they had passed the night, as compared with the suffocating atmosphere of their confined quarters aboard ship, being all in their favour, to say nothing of the assiduous care which Phil bestowed upon them.

The first thing in order was for all hands who were able to go down to the beach and indulge in a good long swim, shouting at the top of their lungs, and splashing incessantly, in accordance with Marshall’s orders, in order to scare away any sharks that might chance to be prowling in the neighbourhood. Then, a spring of clear fresh water having been discovered within about three-quarters of a mile of the camp, one watch was sent off to the ship to bring ashore all the soiled clothing, while the other watch mounted guard over the camp; after which all hands went to breakfast; and then, working watch and watch about, there ensued a general washing of soiled clothes at the spring, and a subsequent drying of them on the grass in the rays of the sun. This done, a gang was sent on board the ship to start the remaining stock of water and pump it out; after which the ship was lightened by the removal of her stores, ammunition, and ordnance, until her draught was reduced to nine feet, when her anchor was hove up and she was towed into the river, where she was moored, bow and stern, immediately abreast of the camp. The completion of this job finished the day’s work, at the end of which Marshall, having mustered all hands, proclaimed that in consequence of the lamented death of their gallant shipmate and officer, Mr Lumley, he had decided to promote Mr Winter to the position thus rendered vacant; and further that, as a second lieutenant was still required, he had determined, after the most careful consideration, to promote Mr Richard Chichester to that position, in recognition of the extraordinary valour which he had displayed on the previous day by boarding the Spanish ship and attacking her crew, single-handed, in the rear, thereby distracting the attention of the enemy and contributing in no small measure to their subsequent speedy defeat. This decision on the part of the Captain, strange to say, met with universal and unqualified approval; for Dick’s unassuming demeanour and geniality of manner had long since made him popular and a general favourite, while his superior intelligence, his almost instinctive grasp of everything pertaining to a ship and her management, and his dauntless courage, marked him out as in every respect most suitable for the position which he had been chosen to fill.

The next two days were spent in clearing everything movable out of the ship, in preparation for heaving her down; after which she was careened until her keel was out of water, when the grass, weed, and barnacles which had grown upon her bottom during the voyage were effectually removed, her seams were carefully examined, and re-caulked where required, and then her bottom was re-painted. This work was pushed forward with the utmost expedition, lest an enemy should heave in sight and touch at the island while the ship was hove down—for a ship is absolutely helpless and at the mercy of an enemy while careened—and when this part of the work was satisfactorily completed, all necessary repairs made, and the hull re-caulked and re-painted right up to the rail, the masts, spars, rigging, and sails were subjected to a strict overhaul and renovation. This work was done in very leisurely fashion; for Marshall had by this time quite made up his mind to lie in wait for the plate ship which, as he had learned through documents found on board the Santa Clara, was loading at Cartagena for Cadiz, and he speedily arrived at the conclusion that a considerable amount of the waiting might as well be done at Barbados as elsewhere. For the climate of the island was healthy, the sick were making excellent progress on the road toward recovery, and it was essential to the success of his enterprise that every man of his crew should be in perfect health; moreover, apart from the crew of the Santa Clara—which ship, he had every reason to believe, was daily forcing her way farther toward the heart of the North Atlantic—not a soul knew, or even suspected, the presence of the Adventure in those seas; consequently he resolved to remain where he was until the last possible moment. Such work, therefore, as needed to be done was done with the utmost deliberation and nicety; and when at length all was finished there still remained time to spare, which the men were permitted to employ pretty much as they liked, it having by this time been ascertained conclusively that, apart from themselves, the island was absolutely without inhabitants.

At length, however, the time arrived when it became necessary to put to sea again; and on a certain brilliant morning the camp was struck, all their goods and chattels were taken back to the ship; and, with every man once more in the enjoyment of perfect health, with every water cask full to the bung-hole of sweet, crystal-clear water, and with an ample supply of fruit and vegetables on board, the Adventure weighed anchor and stood away to the westward under easy sail, passing between the islands of Saint Vincent and Becquia with the first of the dawn on the following morning.

Marshall had estimated that the passage from Barbados to Cartagena would occupy eight days; but to provide against unforeseen delays he allowed twelve days for its accomplishment, with the result that, no unforeseen delays having arisen, the Adventure arrived off Cartagena just four days before the date upon which, according to the information obtained from the Santa Clara, the plate ship was to sail. It was just about midnight when, according to Bascomb’s reckoning, the ship reached the latitude of Cartagena, when she was hove-to. But as Marshall had observed the precaution of maintaining a good offing during the entire passage, merely hauling in to the southward sufficiently to sight Point Gallinas in passing, and thus verify his position, it was not surprising that when the daylight came no land was in sight, even from the masthead. This was perfectly satisfactory and as it should be; nevertheless it was important that explicit information should now be at once obtained concerning the plate ship, the progress which she was making toward the completion of her loading, and especially whether she would be ready to sail on the date originally named. Marshall therefore summoned a council of war consisting of, in addition to himself, Bascomb, the master, Winter and Dick Chichester, the lieutenants, and Messrs Dyer and Harvey, the two gentlemen adventurers. The meeting was held in the main cabin; a chart of the coast was produced; and after a considerable amount of discussion it was finally determined to provision, water, and equip the longboat, remain hove-to where they were until nightfall, and then, filling on the ship, work her in toward the land until she was as close inshore as it would be prudent to take her, when the longboat was to be hoisted out and dispatched with a crew of four men, under the command of Marshall himself—who was the only man aboard who could speak Spanish reasonably well. Then, while the Adventure, under Bascomb’s command, bore up again and regained an offing of some thirty miles due west of Cartagena, the longboat was to proceed inshore, enter the bight between the island of Baru and the mainland, and there remain in concealment while Marshall should attempt to make his way into Cartagena harbour, and, if necessary, even penetrate into the town itself, in an endeavour to secure precise information relative to the movements of the plate ship. It was further arranged that the Adventure should remain in the offing during the whole of the succeeding day, working in toward the land again after nightfall, and hoisting two lanterns, one over the other, at her ensign staff as a guide for the longboat—should the latter by that time have accomplished her mission. A bright lookout was to be maintained for the longboat, which was to signal her approach by displaying a single lantern; but should she be unable for any reason to rejoin the ship on the night agreed upon, the same tactics were to be pursued night after night for six nights; when, if she did not then return, it was to be assumed that she and her crew had fallen into the hands of the Spaniards, and Bascomb was to act as might be determined upon after consultation with the rest of the officers.

This arrangement, then, was adhered to; the Adventure remained hove-to in the offing during the whole of that day, filling away and beginning to work in toward the land about half an hour before sunset. Captain Marshall then picked his longboat’s crew—which consisted of Dick Chichester, George Burton, Robert Hogan, and Edward Fenner—and directed them to make all necessary preparations for accompanying him; after which they were to turn in and take their rest until they should be summoned on deck.

It was just half-past two o’clock in the morning when Dick, having been aroused from a sound sleep by the cabin boy, presented himself, fully dressed, in the main cabin, where he found Captain Marshall already seated at the table, partaking of an early breakfast, in which, by a wave of the hand, he invited Chichester to join, which the latter promptly did, falling to with a good appetite. A quarter of an hour later, having finished their meal, the pair passed out on deck, where they found the longboat, with six beakers of fresh water in her to serve as ballast, with her locker full of provisions, with her rudder shipped, and oars, masts, and sails lying upon her thwarts already slung and ready for hoisting out.

It was a fine night, the sky clear, excepting for a few small drifting clouds, between which the stars shone brilliantly, the water smooth, the wind a moderate offshore breeze, and the land clearly in view some eight miles to windward; it was in fact a perfectly ideal night for such an expedition as was in contemplation. The task of preparing the longboat had been entrusted to Mr Winter, who now reported her as ready; nevertheless Captain Marshall, like a prudent mariner, subjected her to a very close and careful scrutiny before giving the word to hoist her out. Everything, however, was found to be quite as it should be, therefore, the crew’s weapons having also been subjected to a rigid inspection, the order was given to heave the ship to and hoist out the boat. Every preparation having been previously made, this business was soon accomplished; and on the stroke of three, by the ship’s clock, the longboat shoved off and, stepping her masts, made sail for the land, being sped on her way by a hearty cheer from all hands aboard the Adventure, who had mustered to assist in and witness her departure. Then, the moment that the boat was clear, the ship’s helm was put up and she was headed out to sea again under a press of canvas, with the object of running out of sight of the land before the arrival of daylight.

As for the longboat, she was brought close to the wind, on the larboard tack, with Dick at the helm and Marshall sitting beside him, while the three mariners, perceiving that their services were not likely to be required further for some time, stretched themselves out in the bottom of the boat and were soon fast asleep.

For the first hour of their progress the land to windward merely presented the appearance of a black blur, indistinctly seen under the star-spangled indigo of the night sky; but by the end of that time something in the nature of outline began to reveal itself, while, half an hour later, a long tongue of land became distinctly visible broad on their weather bow, with two or three much smaller detached blotches rising out of the sea ahead. Standing up in the stern-sheets, Marshall scrutinised these appearances with the greatest care for several minutes; then, with a sigh of contentment, he sat down again.

“It is all right, Dick,” he said; “we have made a most excellent landfall. That long stretch of land yonder is Baru Island, and the small detached blots of blackness are the detached islets at its southernmost extremity which we saw marked on the chart. We must pass to leeward of them, lad, giving them a berth of at least a mile, because, if our chart is correct, there is a reef between us and them which we must avoid. If we can only get up abreast of those islets before the daylight comes I shall be satisfied, because we shall then be hidden from the sight of any fishing canoes which may happen to be outside Cartagena harbour; and, once inside Baru, I think we need not have the slightest fear of discovery. Moreover, I have an idea that we can make our way into the harbour from the back of Baru, without being obliged to go outside again, which will be a great advantage.”

“Have you formed any plan of action to be followed after we arrive at the back of the island?” demanded Dick.

“Well, no; I can’t say that I have,” answered Marshall. “My experience is that, in the case of expeditions of this kind, it is of little use to scheme very far ahead. I have found that the best plan is to trust to luck, and be guided entirely by circumstances. My object, of course, is to penetrate to the town of Cartagena itself, and there pick up all the news that I can get hold of relative to the movements of the plate ship, seeing her, if possible, and so acquainting myself with her build, rig, and general appearance, so that if by any chance she should sail in company with other ships I may know for certain which is the craft that we must single out for attack. It may be possible for us to go up the harbour in the longboat, although I do not regard such a thing as very likely; there would be too much risk in it, I think, to justify such an attempt, at least until all other schemes have failed; and we are not out now in quest of adventure, or to incur unnecessary risks, but to obtain information; the adventure may come later on.”

“It is more than likely that it will,” returned Dick, dryly; “for I cannot for the life of me see how we are to enter the town without exposing ourselves to very grave risk of discovery.”

“Oh, it may be done,” asserted Marshall, with far more confidence than Dick thought was justified by the occasion. “Cartagena has a population of several thousands, you know; and I do not suppose it is at all likely that everybody will know everybody else, even by sight; it will be very difficult for anybody to point to anybody else and say, with assured certainty, that he is a stranger who has no right to be there. But, of course, we shall not all enter the town; at least I do not at present contemplate anything so foolhardy. I shall attempt to get into the town alone, leaving the longboat snugly concealed but within easy reach, in case of the necessity for a rapid retreat arising; and you must keep your eyes open to guard against detection, and at the same time maintain a bright lookout for me, and be ready to come to my help, should I be hard pressed. Ah! there is the reef that I spoke of a little while ago; see there, broad off the weather bow; you can see the surf breaking upon it—and there is a small island right ahead of us. Keep her away, lad; up helm and let her go off a point. So! steady as you go; that ought to carry us clear of everything. And, thank God, there is the dawn coming; we shall just get nicely in before it grows light enough for anybody to see us.”

The longboat had by this time drawn close in with the land, the island of Baru looming up black and clear-cut to windward, with the islets and their adjacent reef, now known as Rosario Islands, a short quarter of a mile broad on the weather bow, and a clump of hills on the main beyond, just beginning to outline themselves sharply against the lightening sky behind them. Daylight and darkness come with a rush in those latitudes, and by the time that the Rosario Islands were abeam the eastern sky had paled from indigo to white that, even as one looked, became flushed with a most delicate and ethereal tint of blush rose, which in its turn warmed as rapidly to a tone of rich amber, against which a cluster of mangrove-bordered islands, occupying what looked like the embouchure of a river, suddenly revealed themselves a point or two on the weather bow. Like magic the amber tint spread itself right and left along the horizon and upward toward the zenith, to be pierced, the next moment, by a broad shaft of pure white light which shot upward far into the delicate azure, which was now flooding the heavens and drowning out the stars, one after the other. Then up shot another and another shaft of light, radiating from a point just below the horizon, like the spokes of a wheel. Suddenly a little layer of horizontal clouds, a few degrees above the mangrove tops, became visible, rose-red and gold-edged; and an instant later a spark of molten, palpitating gold flashed and blazed through the ebony-black mangrove branches, dazzling the eye and tipping the ripples with a long line of scintillating gold which stretched clear from the shore to the boat, flooding her and those in her with primrose light. Quickly the golden spark grew and brightened until, before one could draw breath a dozen times, it had expanded into the upper edge of a great throbbing, burning, golden disk, flooding land and sea with its golden radiance—and it was day. The sea changed from purple to a clear translucent green; the vegetation ashore, still black immediately under the sun, merged by a thousand subtle gradations, right and left, into olive-green of every imaginable tint, and finally into a delicate rosy grey in the extreme distance; a multitude of trivial details of outline and contour, tree and rock, suddenly leapt into distinctness, a flock of pelicans rose from among the cluster of islands inshore and went flapping heavily and solemnly out to seaward; the dorsal fin of a shark drifted lazily past the boat—and the full extent of the bight behind the island of Baru swept suddenly into view.

“Just in time,” exclaimed Marshall, with a sigh of relief, as he rose and stretched himself. “Round with her, lad, and head her up the bight while the wind lasts. It will be a flat calm here in half an hour from now.”

“I hope not,” said Dick, “for this bight is quite twelve miles long, by the look of it, and it will be no joke for four of us to be obliged to pull this heavy boat the greater part of that distance.”

“There will be no need,” said Marshall. “We are not in such a desperate hurry as that amounts to. Take the boat close in under the shore of the island, and when the wind fails us we will anchor and have breakfast. The calm will probably last no longer than about an hour; then will come the sea breeze, which, I should say, from the trend of the coast just here, will probably draw right up the bight, and be a fair wind for us.”

Thus it proved; the force of the land breeze rapidly declined, until, in the course of half an hour, the boat scarcely retained steerage way. But during that half-hour she had progressed about two miles up the bight, while Dick had hugged the eastern shore of the island of Baru as closely as the depth of water would permit; and when at length the wind failed he took advantage of its last expiring breath to run the boat in behind a small rocky, tree-crowned bluff, where she was not only completely hidden from sight, but where her crew enjoyed the further advantage of being sheltered from the too ardent rays of the sun. Here, having lowered their sails and moored the boat to a rock, they breakfasted comfortably and at their leisure upon fish caught during their progress up the bight, and which they broiled over a fire kindled by means of a pocket lens which Marshall made a point of carrying with him constantly. The Captain was also pretty nearly correct in his estimate of the duration of the calm, for they had little more than finished their meal when the first cat’s-paws heralding the approach of the sea breeze were seen playing here and there upon the surface of the water, and five minutes later the wind was roaring with the strength of half a gale over the top of the island, and whipping the surface of the bight into small, choppy, foam-capped seas. Of this fine breeze they at once took advantage by casting off from the rock and hoisting their canvas, when away they went bowling merrily up the bight, at the head of which they arrived about an hour and a half later.

The shape of the bight proved to be, roughly speaking, triangular, measuring about twelve miles long by about four miles wide at its entrance, narrowing at its upper end to a channel about twelve hundred feet wide, separating Baru from the mainland. They passed through this channel before they fully realised where they were going, and upon issuing from its northern extremity suddenly found themselves in a broad sheet of water some eight miles long by about half that width—Cartagena harbour, without a doubt! That would never do, at least in broad daylight; therefore, hastily putting the boat about, they ran back into the channel which they had just quitted, and beached the boat upon the shore of Baru, where, leaving the craft in charge of the three men, Marshall and Dick landed to reconnoitre. The part of the island upon which they landed was quite low, and bordered with mangroves, of which fact they took advantage by concealing themselves among the trees, and from that secure hiding-place examining the harbour at leisure.

They found that they were on the north-eastern extremity of the island of Baru, with the whole of the harbour of Cartagena before them, the roofs and spires of the town just showing waveringly, in a sort of mirage, over the low land which forms the easternmost extremity of the island of Tierra Bomba. It is this same island of Tierra Bomba, by the way, which converts what would otherwise be an open roadstead into a landlocked harbour, for it forms the western side of the harbour, and serves as a natural breakwater, sheltering the roadstead very effectually when the wind happens to blow from the westward. Also, being roughly triangular in shape, its eastern and western sides each measuring about four miles long, and its northern side about three miles, it divides the entire harbour into two parts, namely, the upper and the lower bay. The upper bay in its turn is divided into the inner and the outer harbour by two irregularly shaped spits of low land, the western spit jutting out south and east in a sort of elbow from the promontory on which the city is built, while the eastern spit is divided from the mainland by a narrow channel, and is called Manzanillo Island.

The foregoing is a brief and rough description of Cartagena harbour, given for the information of the reader and to enable him the better to understand what follows; but comparatively few of the above details were apparent to the two Englishmen lurking among the mangroves on the north-eastern extremity of Baru, for the island of Tierra Bomba, the most prominent object in sight, shut out much of the upper bay. They obtained, however, a good view of the Boca Chica, or harbour entrance, and took careful note of the fact that it was effectually commanded, at its narrowest and most difficult point, by a battery built on the very beach itself, and a fort, or castle, crowning the crest of a hill immediately above. They both agreed that if this was the only entrance to the harbour, and if the garrisons of those forts maintained a proper lookout, it should be quite impossible for a ship to enter or leave Cartagena harbour, except with the full permission of the authorities.

“Well,” exclaimed Marshall at last, when they had both familiarised themselves with everything that there was to see from their viewpoint, “this is all very well, and we have already learned quite enough to repay us for all our trouble in taking this trip. But I have not yet seen nearly all that I want to see; therefore, by hook or by crook, I must get ashore upon that island yonder”—pointing to Tierra Bomba. “That hill at its north-eastern angle ought to command a view of the whole harbour and town, and I must get up there. Now, how is it best to be done?”

“It appears to me,” said Dick, “that there is an opening of some sort—either a creek or the mouth of a small river—immediately opposite us, just to the right of that bay, and also to the right of those two hills, one of which is showing just clear of the other. There are two small islets standing in the mouth of it—”

“Yes, yes; I see what you mean,” interrupted Marshall. “Well, what is your suggestion?”

“My suggestion,” answered Dick, “is that we remain concealed until nightfall, and then that we should take the boat and explore that creek, or whatever it is; and if it proves to be a suitable hiding-place, well and good. We will conceal the boat and her crew there, and to-morrow morning you and I can climb to the top of that hill and make all the observations we need, even, perhaps, to the extent of drawing a rough chart of the place. It will cost us twenty-four hours of time; but I believe that the information which we shall thus obtain will more than repay us.”

“I am sure of it,” answered Marshall, heartily; “and we’ll do it, my lad. Meanwhile, the mosquitoes are becoming something more than troublesome; so, as we have now seen all that it is possible for us to see from here, we’ll get away back to the boat, or the men will begin to think that something has happened to us.”

Chapter Four.

How Marshall and Dick entered Cartagena Harbour in the longboat.

As Marshall had anticipated, the men were beginning to feel distinctly alarmed at the prolonged absence of their officers, admitting, indeed, that they were seriously debating the advisability of leaving the boat and instituting a search at the moment when Marshall and Dick reappeared. This admission drew forth a sharp rebuke from the Captain, who there and then gave them strict orders that under no circumstances were they ever to dream of doing such a thing. “For instance,” said he, “what a pretty pickle should we all be in if, being discovered and pursued hotfoot by the enemy, we were to retreat to the boat and find that you men had left her. It would mean that Mr Chichester and I would be obliged to shove off without you; and that in turn would mean that sooner or later you would inevitably fall into the hands of the enemy. And let me tell you, men, that to fall into the hands of the Spaniards here means being clapt into the Inquisition. And of those who get into the Inquisition not one in a hundred ever gets out again. Therefore, never leave your boat, under any circumstances whatsoever, except at the express command of your officers.”

It was by this time considerably past noon; the food was therefore produced, and all hands partook of a meal, after which there was nothing to be done until the evening; the men therefore disposed themselves in the bottom of the boat and took such snatches of sleep as the mosquitoes permitted, while Marshall and Dick sat in the stern-sheets and discussed plans for the morrow.

At length, however, after an interval of waiting that soon grew terribly wearisome, the sun went down, darkness fell, and they pushed off the boat and got under way. There was now a young moon of about four days old, and before she too set she afforded them light enough to make their way across the lower bay, a distance of about three and a half miles, to the island of Tierra Bomba, and to find the indentation to which Dick had directed Marshall’s attention earlier in the day. It proved to be a particularly snug little cove, about half a mile long by perhaps a quarter of a mile wide, with thickly wooded hills sloping down toward it on either side at its upper extremity. Two small islets pretty effectually masked its entrance; and a dry sandbank in the middle of it occupied more than half its area, leaving a narrow channel all round it, the water in which was only just deep enough to afford unimpeded passage to the boat. It was stark calm inside the cove, they were, therefore, obliged to lower the sails, strike the masts, and use the oars to reach the head of the creek; but when they arrived there they found a steep bank so completely overhung with trees and bushes that, when once the boat had been forced in underneath the branches, she might remain there for days with little or no fear of discovery.

In this exceedingly snug berth it seemed almost ridiculous to think of keeping a watch; yet, being in the enemy’s territory, they decided to do so; Marshall undertaking to stand the first watch of two hours, while Dick agreed to take the second.

When, at ten o’clock, Marshall aroused Dick, in order that the latter might stand his watch, the Captain whispered:

“I’ve been thinking about a good many things while I have been sitting here these two hours agone in the stern-sheets of this boat. And, among other matters, I have thought that it might be very useful to know something more than we do about those two batteries that we took notice of while we were on the point yonder to-day. Now, I’m not a bit sleepy. I don’t believe I could get to sleep if I tried—also the night is delightfully cool; and, although the moon has gone down, the stars give quite enough light for my purpose, therefore, I am going to take a little walk along the shore to that battery on the beach. It can’t be very much more than two miles away; and night is the only time when it will be possible to examine the forts without running too much risk. If I do not feel too tired I’ll take that fort on the top of the hill on my way back; so if I do not return until close before daybreak you need not be unduly alarmed.”

“Very well, sir,” answered Dick. “We will keep a bright lookout. And if by any chance things should go amiss, and you should be pursued, if you will fire two pistol shots, one close after the other, I will come, with one of the men, to meet you, provided, of course, that we are within hearing of the shots.”

“Yes; you may do that—if you hear the signal shots,” agreed Marshall. “But,” he added, “I shall need to be very hard pressed indeed to fire my pistols. For shots at night-time anywhere near a battery would be certain to put everybody on the alert, and probably bring a bigger hornet’s nest about my ears than you and all hands could beat off. Still, if I want help very badly I shall know what to do. And now, I’ll be off. Keep a sharp lookout, and don’t allow yourself to be surprised. Good night!” As Dick murmured an answering “Good night” the Captain turned and disappeared in the darkness.

All through the night a careful watch was maintained, but nothing in the slightest degree alarming occurred; and about an hour before daybreak Captain Marshall returned, having accomplished his mission to his own complete satisfaction.

“I had no difficulty whatever,” he explained to Dick, “nor did I encounter a single soul; indeed I am strongly of opinion that the island, or at least the southern half of it, is uninhabited, except for the garrisons of the fort and battery. I tackled the battery first, making my way to it by passing round the base of the hill until I reached the shore-line of the next bay, which I then followed for the remainder of the distance. And heavy walking I found it, with a murrain on it; for the sand was loose and deep, except where I came upon mangroves, and there the mud was even deeper than the sand, while, as for the mosquitoes, they were as eager for my blood as the Spaniards themselves would be if they but knew what my business is here. However, I was not to be turned back by the mosquitoes, even though they assailed me in legions; and after trudging through the heavy sand for a full hour or more I found myself beneath the walls of the battery.

“It is planned like a triangle, one face, mounting four guns, commanding the seaward end of the Boca, while the second face commands its inner extremity, the third face being turned toward the land and containing the entrance gate. The point or apex of the triangle juts out into the water; I was therefore unable to walk completely round it; nevertheless I examined both sides by walking past the back of it. The faces of the walls are quite smooth, and about twelve feet high; but the angles are set with rough quoin stones, up which, there being no lights in the battery, and no sign of a sentinel, I essayed to climb, accomplishing the ascent with no greater difficulty or hurt than the wearing of the soles off my stockings—for I took off my shoes for the sake of quietness and to gain a better foothold. Having gained the parapet, I found two sentries sitting there, with their backs against the wall, fast asleep, with their matchlocks beside them. Gently lifting their weapons in my hand, I shook out the priming—lest perchance they should awake and, seeing me, open fire upon me before I could get away—and then, replacing the weapons as I had found them, passed quietly on to examine the ordnance. The guns are very formidable, of a pattern such as I have never before seen, being a good twenty foot in length, and of a bigness to take a shot the size of a man’s head, as I learned by passing my hands over the topmost shot of a pile which stood beside each gun. There are eight of these pieces of great ordnance, besides falcons and swivels which I did not stay to count, the heavy ordnance being all that caused me any anxiety. And even now they do not greatly trouble me; for if they keep no better watch there on other nights than they did on this, it would be easy for a couple of resolute men to enter the place, even as I did, bind and gag the sentinels, and spike all eight of the guns, and never a man of them any the wiser until they came to put fire to their pieces.

“Then, having seen all that I desired, I left the battery as I had entered it, and made my way up the hill to the castle on the top. Here, however, I was less fortunate, there being no way of entering the building, save by walking in through the gate, or climbing the walls with the help of a scaling ladder. The place is much more formidable looking than the battery, being in appearance a strong castle, with dry ditch, drawbridge, and portcullis to the main and, so far as I could see, the only entrance. In plan it is shaped like the letter L, with the angle turned harbour-ward; and it must mount about thirty pieces of ordnance, for I managed to count that number of embrasures on its two faces. But of sentinels I saw none; so, if they set a watch, I presume that, like those in the battery, the rascals are in the habit of sleeping their watch through; which is so much the better for freebooters like ourselves. For the dry ditch is not difficult to cross, and I estimate that, once on the other side, a ladder of twenty foot in length should enable a party of half a dozen to reach the top; and, once on the parapet, they should be able to spike the whole thirty of those footy ordnance in ten minutes. And all this means, friend Dick, that with the whole of the heavy ordnance spiked, in castle and in battery, there is nothing to prevent the Adventure from sailing into the harbour, coming to an anchor, storming and blowing up both defences, and then holding the town to ransom, as well as capturing the galleon! For, as my soul liveth, I firmly believe that the castle and the battery constitute the entire defences of Cartagena! And then, hey for old England again; for, with the ransom of the town and the booty from the galleon, there ought to be enough to make us all rich for life.”

“And if there is not, it ought not to be very difficult for us to play the same game with two or three other towns,” remarked Dick. “For I suppose it is safe to reckon that all the towns along the Main are wealthy enough to pay for looting?”

“Ay; no doubt there are good pickings to be had out of every one of them,” answered Marshall. “But ‘one thing at a time’ is a good maxim in such a business as ours, my lad; and we will see what Cartagena yields before we begin to think seriously about any of the other towns. And now, here comes the dawn at last, for which thanks be; for I am as hungry as if I had spent all night to the top of Dartymoor, and want my breakfast.”

An hour later the meal had been prepared and eaten; after which Marshall and Dick, having provided themselves with food and water sufficient to last them until nightfall, if necessary, and having given the crew of the longboat most precise instructions as to how to act in the event of certain contingencies arising, cautiously emerged from their place of concealment, and, carrying the boat compass with them for the purpose of enabling them to take such bearings as might be required, set out upon their way to the top of the hill which dominated the north-east corner of the island. The going was exceedingly difficult, for the slope was rough and steep, also it was so thickly overgrown with vegetation that for a good part of the distance they had literally to cut a way for themselves; therefore, although the distance which they had to traverse was little more than a mile it was well on toward noon when at length they reached the summit. But, when there, they were fain to admit that their labour had been well spent; for as they topped the last rise the vegetation suddenly became much thinner, so that they found themselves able to force a way through it without being obliged to have recourse to their hangers; and presently they emerged upon the bare hilltop, and beheld, spread out at their feet, a magnificent panorama embracing a view of the whole upper bay and inner harbour, with the town of Cartagena a bare four miles distant. And there, in the midst of a whole fleet of smaller craft, they also beheld a tall and stately ship, a single glance at which sufficed to assure them that she could be none other than the plate ship which was the great object of their quest.

“There she be!” exclaimed Marshall, pointing. “All of seven hundred ton, or more; and deep in the water, too. She must have pretty nearly, or quite, finished loading. Seems to me that we’re only just in time. Now, Dick, my lad, this is your opportunity to make the chart that you were talking about. Come along, and let’s get about it; I’ll help you. To-night we must make our way into the city, somehow, and find out by hook or by crook exactly when she is to sail. Now, how do we begin upon the chart?”

“Well,” said Dick, “to be of any use it must be tolerably accurate, and drawn to scale; and the top of this hill is admirably adapted for our purpose. Our first business must be to measure off as correctly as possible the longest line we can get—and, with a little management, I think we ought to be able to make that line a mile in length, which will be long enough for our purpose. Then, having measured off our line, and taken its compass bearing, all that will remain to be done will be to take, from each end of the line, the compass bearing of as many objects as we require; and where the several bearings intersect will be the correct positions of those objects. Then we can complete the chart accurately enough for our purpose by sketching in the details between the objects, the positions of which we have determined. See, this is the sort of thing I mean.” And, drawing a scrap of paper from his pocket, Chichester rapidly sketched a diagram illustrating his meaning.

Marshall took the sketch and considered it attentively. “Yes,” he said at length, “that ought to be near enough for our purpose. But how are you going to measure your line?”

“Quite easily,” answered Dick. “When I learned that I was to accompany you, the idea of drawing a chart of the harbour at once occurred to me, and I thought out the plan that I have just explained to you. I also borrowed from the carpenter a ball of fine cord, which I then proceeded to knot very carefully at every foot, measured with the carpenter’s rule. Here it is, just one hundred feet long; and with the help of it we ought to have no difficulty in measuring our line.”

Nor had they: for the hilltop was quite level enough for their purpose. They measured it twice, going and returning, in order to ensure the greater accuracy, and, laying down their work on paper to scale as they proceeded, managed before dark to secure an exceedingly useful and tolerably complete chart of the upper bay and inner harbour, with the help of which they felt that they ought to be able to find their way to the town, even on the darkest night. Of course they were not able to ascertain the depth of water by this means; but the even colour of it seemed to indicate that there were no hidden dangers to guard against anywhere except just inside the entrance of the inner harbour, where the presence of a shoal obstructing the fairway was clearly indicated by a certain glassiness of surface, which was duly recorded upon the chart.

The preparation of this chart served to familiarise them with the principal features of the harbour in a really wonderful manner, and to fix in their memories the relative positions of them one with another. But that was not all; for while they were at work their eyes were busy noting various details, one of which was that a small fishing village existed at the base of the hill upon which they were at work, and not more than half a mile from the spot where the longboat lay concealed. This was a discovery of some importance to them, for it at once suggested the possibility of “borrowing” a canoe from the village, after dark, and proceeding in her to the city; by which plan they would run much less risk of detection than if they attempted to reach the city with the longboat.

They completed their labours and set out to walk down the hill on their way to the boat while the sun was still nearly an hour above the horizon, and were safely aboard her again ere darkness fell. Then, having partaken of a meal, Marshall and Dick stretched themselves along in the stern-sheets of the boat, in order to snatch an hour or two of sleep before embarking upon by far the most hazardous part of their enterprise, namely, their excursion to the city of Cartagena.

Marshall had given instructions that he and Dick were to be called punctually at eight o’clock; but when that hour arrived and the man who had the watch proceeded to arouse them, it appeared that the Captain was already awake, not having been to sleep at all, in fact; and as Dick seemed to be fast locked in the arms of slumber, Marshall softly whispered to the man who was about to arouse him, that he was to be permitted to sleep on, at the same time composing himself to rest and giving fresh instructions that both were to be called at midnight. From which it was evident that in the interim he had modified his original plan.

When at length midnight arrived and the pair were duly awakened Marshall remarked with a grin which the darkness effectually concealed:

“Well, lad, hast had a good sleep?”

“Excellent,” answered Dick. “I feel as fresh as a lark, and can scarcely realise that I have only been asleep two hours.”

“Two hours!” retorted Marshall, with a laugh. “Thou hast had six hours of good, honest sleep; and ’tis midnight instead of eight o’clock. The fact is,” he continued in more serious tones, “I could not sleep when I first attempted to do so. My thoughts were busy with the task that lay before me; and I could not see how it was to be done in the time that I had allowed myself. The way that I looked at the matter was this: I had arranged that we were to start from here at eight o’clock. By the time that we had found our way round to the village where we hoped to get a canoe, it would be nearly or quite nine; and by the time that we reached Cartagena it would be ten o’clock, or after; there would be no work doing, and most of the good folk would be abed; thus I should stand a very poor chance of gaining any information worth having. The proper time for me to be ashore, there, is during the day, when everybody is astir, when there are plenty of people about to talk to and ask questions of, and when they will be too busy to take particular note of me, and wonder who I am and where I came from. So I altered my plan, deferring our departure until now, which will afford me plenty of time to get into the city before daylight. Then I shall have the whole day before me, if I find that I require it, in which to look about me and make a few discreet enquiries; and as soon after dark as it is safe to return I will come back; reaching the boat, if all be well, in time to go out and rejoin the Adventure to-morrow night about this time. Now, I shall want you to go with me as far as the village, to help me, if need be, to secure a canoe; and when I have done that, and am fairly under way, you can come back here to the boat, and wait for me; for the work that I have to do can best be done single-handed. Now, if you have any questions to ask, ask them; but if not, we may as well be off, for I want to allow myself plenty of time to make my way into the town.”

Dick intimated that he believed he quite understood the scheme which the Captain had outlined, and that he had only one question to ask, namely, how long the boat was to remain where she was in the event of Marshall being detained in Cartagena longer than he anticipated.

“How long?” repeated Marshall. “Let me see. This will make the second complete night that we have been absent from the ship—although it seems very much longer. Stay here, if necessary, for four days and nights longer, as arranged with Bascomb; and if I am not back by midnight of the fourth night my orders are that you are to rejoin the ship, report to Winter and Bascomb all that we have done and learned; and say it is my wish that they shall act as may seem to them best, and without any reference at all to what may have become of me; for if I do not return to you by the time that I have named it will be because I cannot, having fallen into the hands of the Spaniards. And now, if you are ready, let us be going.”

Silently, and with the observance of every precaution to prevent betrayal of the longboat’s hiding-place to any chance wanderer in the neighbourhood, the pair forced a way through their leafy bower and up the steep bank until they emerged upon clear ground, when, bearing away to the eastward round the foot of the hill which they had that day ascended, they groped their way cautiously over the unfamiliar ground until, in the course of about half an hour, they caught the dim shimmer of starlight upon water, and, between them and it, a group of dark, shapeless blotches which, upon their nearer approach, they identified as the hovels constituting the fishing village which they had seen during the day from the top of the hill.

Circling round these, they presently reached the water’s edge, where, as they had fully anticipated, they found a dozen or more canoes of various sizes hauled up on the beach, most of them with their nets piled up in their sterns. They looked about for the smallest canoe they could find, and having overhauled her as carefully as the light would allow, and satisfied themselves as to her seaworthiness, removed the nets from her to the craft nearest at hand and, lifting her by her two ends, carried her down to the water, and set her afloat. Then, with a quick hand-clasp and a low-murmured “Goodbye, lad, and take care of yourself and the men,” Marshall stepped softly into the crank little craft, seated himself in the stern, and with a vigorous thrust of the paddle sent himself off into deep water, where a few minutes later he was swallowed up by the darkness. Dick stood by the water’s edge, watching the small black blur which represented man and canoe as it receded from the shore until it vanished; and then turned slowly away to retrace his steps to the longboat, happily unconscious that he had looked his last upon his gallant leader.

Returning safely and without difficulty to the longboat, Dick Chichester whispered to the man who was keeping watch that thus far all was well; and then bestowed himself in the stern-sheets to snatch another hour or two of sleep. Then, after a somewhat late breakfast, he emerged cautiously from his leafy refuge and climbed to the top of the hill again, ensconcing himself well within the shadow of a thick bush, from beneath which he commanded an uninterrupted view of the entire upper bay and harbour. Not that he expected to see much, or, indeed, anything in particular; but he thought it well to keep a watchful eye upon things in general and, if anything particular should happen ashore, take care to be where he might perchance be able to detect some indication of it. But he saw nothing at all to indicate that anything unusual had taken place, or was taking place, in Cartagena, the only occurrence of a noticeable character that came under his observation that day being a violent quarrel among certain of the inhabitants of the fishing village below, which quarrel, he shrewdly conjectured, might possibly have something to do with a missing canoe.

He remained on the hill the whole of that day, allowing himself only just daylight enough to find his way back to the longboat, and then, having partaken of a meal, disposed himself to secure a good long uninterrupted night’s rest, warning the men, however, to be alert during their watch, so that if the Captain should return during the night and need assistance, they might be prepared to render it quickly.

But Captain Marshall did not return during that night; therefore after an early breakfast the next morning Dick again ascended the hill to keep watch upon the town and harbour, thinking that mayhap he might thus catch an early glimpse of Marshall returning; and if haply he should chance to be pursued, learn the fact in time to go to his assistance. But this day, too, passed uneventfully away, the galleon, with the great golden flag of Spain flaunting at her stern, showing no visible sign of an early departure.

Dick felt so firmly convinced that the Captain would return some time during the ensuing night that he sat up, waiting for him, and taking watch after watch as it came round. But the morning dawned with still no sign of Marshall; and then the young officer began to feel seriously apprehensive; for he could not imagine that his leader should spend two whole days in Cartagena without learning all that he desired to know upon a matter which must be so widely discussed as the departure of an exceptionally rich treasure ship for Old Spain. Yet of course there was the chance that Marshall might be voluntarily prolonging his stay for the purpose of obtaining some especially valuable item of information; meanwhile, the four days having not yet expired, his duty was to remain where he was, and keep a sharp lookout. So again Dick wended his way to the top of the hill, and ensconced himself in his now familiar hiding-place beneath the bush.

And on this day his vigilance was rewarded by signs of activity on board the galleon, to wit, a slow and very deliberate bending of her sails; so slow and deliberate, indeed, that at the end of the day only about half her canvas had been secured to the yards. This of course indicated that the date of her sailing was drawing nigh; and he comforted himself with the reflection that possibly this date had not yet been definitely fixed—the Spaniards were notoriously dilatory in this respect, thinking nothing of a fortnight’s, or even a month’s delay—and it might perhaps be that Marshall was patiently awaiting the fixing of this date before rejoining them, knowing that the boat would be awaiting him whenever he might find it convenient to return to her.

Thinking and reasoning thus, Dick at length succeeded in so completely convincing himself that Marshall’s delay was entirely voluntary, that the anxiety which had gradually been growing upon him passed away; so completely, indeed, that he composed himself to rest with the absolute conviction that the Captain would return sometime during the night; the only orders which he deemed it necessary to give the men being, that they were to maintain a sharp lookout, and awake him immediately upon their general’s arrival.

But the night passed; and day—the fourth day since Marshall had left them, and the last of their prescribed sojourn where they were—dawned without sign of the absentee; and when at length Dick Chichester awakened and this fact was borne in upon him, all his former apprehensions returned with redoubled force. Something had gone wrong with the Captain; he was convinced of it; Marshall would never deliberately tarry so long in a town, every man, woman, and child in which was an enemy; his identity as an Englishman had been discovered, and he had been taken, without a doubt. Yet, with a sudden revulsion of feeling, Dick remembered that one trait of his Captain’s character was a certain daredevil recklessness which made peril, or rather the overcoming of it, a joy and a delight, and caused him actually to court danger for the pleasurable excitement which the evasion of it afforded him. Might it not be, then, that Marshall, knowing the fate that awaited him in the event of detection, was deliberately lingering in Cartagena in order that he might enjoy to the fullest possible extent the gratification of hoodwinking his enemies and moving freely among them unsuspected?

Swayed thus between hope and fear, the harassed young lieutenant once more, and for the last time, mounted the hill and resumed his anxious watch of the town and harbour. But no indication of any happening of an unusual character, either in the town or in the harbour, was perceptible; everything seemed to be going forward precisely as usual; the only occurrence that in the slightest degree interested the watcher being that the crew of the galleon resumed their occupation of bending sails, which operation, proceeding with the same deliberation as before, they contrived to complete about half an hour before sunset; when Dick, unutterably weary and discouraged with his long and fruitless watch, arose and made his way down the hill to the place where the longboat lay hidden.

Chapter Five.

How they disarmed the Batteries on Tierra Bomba.

As Chichester neared the now familiar spot where he had left the longboat, he suffered himself to indulge in a returning feeling of elation, for the notion somehow came to him that he would find Marshall in the boat calmly awaiting his return; and this feeling presently grew so strong within him that he could scarcely credit his eyes when, upon passing through the screen of concealing foliage, he saw only the three seamen curled up in the boat. They roused themselves from their semi-somnolent condition and sat up to receive him, with glances of mute enquiry in their eyes.

For a few moments Dick remained silent, absolutely speechless with disappointment. Then he remarked:

“What, lads, has the Captain not yet returned, then?”

“No, sir,” they answered in chorus. “We have seen naught of him, or indeed of anybody else, since you left us this morning.”

“Then,” said Dick, “I greatly fear that evil has befallen him and that he has been discovered and taken by the Spaniards. For this is the last day of our stay here; and his orders to me were that if he returns not by midnight we are to proceed to sea and rejoin the ship; for his failure to return will be due to the fact of his having been captured. Still, there are six hours to run yet before midnight, and he may return even at the very last moment. Let us hope that he will. And now, men, give me some supper, for I have eaten nothing since I left you this morning.”

The time between then and midnight was passed by Dick in a state of feverish suspense, that toward the end became almost unendurable, causing him to start and jump at every trivial sound that reached his ear. A dozen times at least he sprang to his feet with the joyous exclamation of “Here he is!” when the flutter of a dry leaf falling from its parent bough, the soft rustle of foliage in the night wind, or the movement of some restless bird broke the silence of that secluded spot; but he was always mistaken. The Captain came not; and at length his watch informed him that the time was half an hour after midnight. Then he rose to his feet with a sigh of bitter disappointment and said:

“It is no good, lads; we must not delay our departure any longer; we have allowed the Captain half an hour’s grace, and if he could have come he would have been with us before now. Without doubt he is a prisoner, and we can best serve him now by returning to the ship with all speed and reporting the fact of his capture to the others, who must then decide whether or not we shall sail into the harbour, attack the town, and endeavour to rescue him. Cast off the painter, and let us be moving without further delay.”

Almost careless now whether or not they attracted attention, they hauled the boat out from her place of concealment and, stepping the masts, hoisted their sails and got under way, the wind just permitting them to lay their course down past the sand spit and out through the entrance of the cove into the lower bay without breaking tacks. Then, to save time, Dick determined to risk the passage of the Boca Chica, the usual harbour entrance, instead of taking the longer route out to sea behind the island of Baru, relying upon the indifferent lookout of the sentinels as reported by Marshall to enable the boat to pass undetected. In this they were completely successful, the occupants of the batteries giving no sign that the passage of the boat had been observed; and half an hour after emerging from their place of concealment they found themselves safely clear of everything and out at sea.

The night was dark but clear, with a fresh land breeze blowing, and a sky heavily flecked with fast-scurrying clouds, between which the stars and moon blinked down upon them intermittently. They were no sooner clear of the land than they began to look about them for the ship, and within a few minutes they caught sight of her signal lanterns about eight miles distant, dead to leeward. After that everything went quite smoothly; they hoisted their own signal lamp, and bore away dead before the wind, leaving it to the ship to pick them up, which she did about an hour later.

Their shipmates manifested the utmost interest in their return, all hands mustering on deck to see the boat come alongside and hear the news. When, upon the boat being brought to the lee gangway, Dick led the way up the side, he was met at the entrance port by Bascomb, Winter, Dyer, and Harvey, each of whom at the same instant fired at him the question:

“Where is the Captain?”

“Lost—taken, I fear,” answered Dick. “He left us four nights ago, intending to make his way into the city of Cartagena, for the purpose of learning precisely when the galleon is to sail, together with any other information which he might be able to pick up. His instructions were that I was to await his return until midnight to-night, and if he then failed to return it would be because something untoward had happened to him, in which case I was to rejoin the ship at once and report to you, when you would act according to your discretion after consulting together.”

For a moment there was a dead silence; then Bascomb turned to his fellow officers, and said:

“My masters, this loss of our general is a very serious matter, and needs looking into. Let us all, therefore, retire to the cabin and hear what Mr Chichester has to tell us about it; after which, as was arranged when Captain Marshall left us six nights ago, we must all consult together and decide what our next step is to be. Come then, gentlemen, to the cabin. Mr Chichester, you will be pleased to accompany us.”

Therewith the three principal officers of the ship and the two gentlemen adventurers retired to the great cabin, where, seated upon the lockers, and with Dick occupying a chair in front of them, the tale was told of all that had befallen the boat and its crew, from the moment of her departure to that of her return, including the several expeditions to the top of the hill on Tierra Bomba, and the drawing of the chart.

“And where is that chart now?” demanded Bascomb. “Have you it, or did Captain Marshall take it with him?”

“I have it,” answered Dick, “and here it is,” producing the sketch. “Fortunately the Captain left it with me, not needing it himself, since all the information required to enable him to make his way to Cartagena he could carry in his head.”

The four who were sitting on the opposite side of the table bent over the document, examining it closely for several minutes. At length Bascomb looked up and said:

“My masters, if this chart be reliable—and it should be, judging from the pains taken by our Captain and Mr Chichester—it should suffice to enable us to take the ship right up to Cartagena and lay her alongside the galleon. And if that ship can be taken by surprise and without loss on our part, as I think she may, what is to hinder us from taking the town and demanding a good heavy ransom for it, part of which ransom shall consist in the return to us, sound and unhurt, of our Captain? And if they refuse, or are unable to return our Captain to us in the condition specified, what say you to sacking the place and giving it to the flames? Depend upon it, by so doing we shall soon learn the fate of Captain Marshall, and where he is to be found, for there will be a hundred who will be only too ready to curry favour with us by telling us all that they know, in the hope that thereby we may be induced to spare their property.”

“Ay, that will they, I warrant,” answered Winter. “And woe betide the city and all in it if aught of evil has been done to our Captain! We will find every man who has been in anywise responsible for that evil, and will hang him before his own door for all men to see how dangerous a thing it is for a Spaniard to lay violent hands upon an Englishman! Now, what say ye, gentles, shall we go in at once and do the work while our blood is hot within us?”

“Nay, sirs,” answered Dick; “that may scarcely be. For if our Captain be indeed taken, as I greatly fear me he is, depend upon it the authorities will have identified him as an Englishman, in despite of any tale that he may have told them, and will, in consequence, suspect the presence of an English ship somewhere in the neighbourhood. And, following that suspicion, their first act would be to warn those in the forts on Tierra Bomba to be on the watch for that ship’s appearance. And once seen it will, according to the Captain’s own account, be impossible for us to force our way into the harbour unless the guns in those forts be first spiked. Now, gentles, I am the youngest of you all, but I have been inside and seen the place. Moreover, I have been privileged to discuss with the Captain this very question of taking the ship up to the town, from which discussion arose my determination to make that chart; and my advice is, that we defer our attempt until to-morrow night, and that in the meantime I be permitted to return in the longboat to our former hiding-place, provided with hammers and nails for the spiking of the guns and such other necessaries as I may require, together with a crew of six of our best men. We can get back to our place of concealment before daylight, and there remain in hiding until midnight or later, when we will sally forth, steal into those two forts, overpower and gag the sentinels, and spike the guns, after which we will signal the ship by the burning of portfires where they cannot be seen from the town, when you will sail in, I meeting you outside and piloting you in. We can then land a party, destroy both batteries by blowing them up, capture the galleon and the town, and sail out to sea again, unscathed, when we have finished our business with the Spaniards.”

“Thy plan sounds promising, young sir,” answered Bascomb presently, after considering the matter a little; “but there is one weak point in it, which is this. If, as you seem to think, the Spaniards have taken our Captain, and thereby are led to suspect the presence of an English ship in the neighbourhood; and, suspecting such presence, should warn the garrisons of those two forts to be on the lookout for her—all of which I grant to be more than likely—what hope have you of being able to surprise those forts and spike their guns?”

“The task will be a difficult one, I admit,” answered Dick, with a shrug of the shoulders; “but, with all submission, sirs, my plan is the only one offering a chance of success. For—and this is the fundamental fact governing all else—the guns must be spiked and the forts destroyed before this ship can enter Cartagena harbour or, having entered, get out again. But the forts once in our possession the whole town and harbour, with all within them, will be at our mercy. The important matter, therefore, to be determined is: By what means can we ensure obtaining possession of the forts with the minimum of loss to ourselves?”

“Yes,” agreed Bascomb, “that is undoubtedly the point. Now, gentles, let us have your opinions. Has any one of you a better plan to offer than that of our junior lieutenant?”

At this moment a stateroom door opened and Stukely emerged from the smaller room. Approaching the table, he stood and looked smilingly down upon the company assembled.

“Your pardon, fair sirs,” he said, “for thrusting myself uninvited into your counsels. The surgeon is supposed to know but little of warfare beyond the healing of such hurts as may be received therein, but I happened to be lying awake in my cabin when this conference began, and I could not avoid hearing all that has passed, and I am of opinion that I can help you. As my friend, Chichester, here has put it, the problem which confronts you is that of securing possession of the forts without suffering loss of men. Now, the chief danger, to my mind, arises from the difficulty of entering the forts without attracting the attention of the sentinels, thus causing them to raise the alarm and bring the entire garrison about our ears. Is not that so?”

The party at the table signified that it was.

“Very good, then,” resumed Stukely. “Now we can go on. Though you are probably not aware of it, my chief delight is research, the investigation of, among other things, the properties and action upon the human system of the juices of herbs. Now, while we were at Barbados I spent much time in the collection of the leaves, roots, seeds, and fruits of several plants; and since then I have been diligently experimenting with them, with the result that I have evolved from one of them a liquor, one inhalation of the odour of which will plunge a man into a state of such complete insensibility that, as I believe, a limb might be removed from him without his feeling it or being any the wiser. My suggestion, therefore,” continued Stukely, ignoring the expressions of wonder evoked by his statement, “is that I be permitted to go in the boat with Chichester, taking a vial of the liquor with me, and upon our arrival ashore I will enter the forts with him, subject the sleeping sentinels—I humbly trust that they may be sleeping—to the stupefying influence of the decoction, whereby they may be bound and gagged without difficulty or the raising of an alarm which would put their fellow soldiers on the alert; and then between us the guns can be spiked at our leisure. The remaining details I leave to your riper judgment and experience, gallant sirs.”

“But, doctor,” demanded Bascomb, “are you quite sure that this elixir or essence of yours may be depended upon to produce the effect stated?”

“I am,” answered Stukely, with a smile, “for I have already tested it upon myself—no matter how—and the effect is everything that can possibly be desired.”

“Then—what say you, gentles—shall we allow the surgeon to go with Mr Chichester and further test the efficacy of his decoction upon the Spanish sentinels?” asked the master.

“’Twould be folly in us if we did not avail ourselves of the virtues of Mr Stukely’s most fortunate discovery,” said Winter; “and I for one am in favour of acceding to his proposal.”

“And I, also,” agreed Dick, in response to a glance from Bascomb.

The two gentlemen adventurers, when appealed to for their opinion, at once agreed that the experiment was quite worth trying; and Bascomb’s proposal was accordingly agreed to nem. con.

“That matter, then, is disposed of,” remarked Bascomb. “Now, the next thing which we have to decide is this—assuming that Mr Chichester succeeds in spiking the guns of the forts—what is to be our next step? Are we to take the ship boldly into the harbour and proceed with our business of capturing the galleon and the town, trusting that Dame Fortune will so far favour us as to permit of our getting out again before the soldiers can unspike their guns; or should we anchor, as soon as inside, land a strong party, and capture and destroy the forts before attempting anything else? It is the guns, and they only, not the forts, which we have to fear; and if we could but permanently disable those guns, the forts and their garrisons might go hang, so far as we are concerned.”

“Certainly, sir,” cut in Dick, before anyone else could speak. “You have hit the nail on the head. We need trouble about naught except the ordnance, and them we must destroy. And I know how to do it, too. We will take with us enough powder to double charge each gun; having done which we will seal their muzzles with clay. I know where to find as much clay as we shall need; and then we will prime each piece, lay a quick match from priming to priming, light the match, and run for our lives. The guns will burst, and we can then do what we please with the galleon and the town. But in order to ensure complete success, the ordnance in both batteries must be fired as nearly as possible at the same moment; therefore a resolute man must be left in the lower battery to fire the match upon the instant that he hears the explosion of the guns in the upper battery, after which he must run for his life. I can see exactly how the thing is to be done, sirs; and if you approve of my plan we will be starting at once, with your good leave; for it is already late, and we shall have none too much time for the work which is to be done.”

“You are right, young sir,” agreed Bascomb; “time is so valuable now that we dare waste no more in further discussion; therefore your plan, which is an excellent one, must serve. I would that I could go in your stead, for you appear to be already worn-out with fatigue and lack of sleep; but you have been over the ground already, and know it, therefore weary though you may be I fear that you must needs go. So pick your men, sir, as many as you need, remembering that your party must be strong enough to carry the powder up to the forts; procure from the gunner all that you require; and get you gone. And may God go with you! Amen.”

Half an hour later the longboat, under Dick’s command, and with Stukely sitting in the stern-sheets beside him, was once more under way and beating in toward the land under a press of sail, while the Adventure, with all lights out, lay to in the offing, awaiting the signal of the explosion of the ordnance in the forts to fill away and stand boldly in toward the harbour. So sorely were they pressed for time that Dick dared not waste any in the attempt to elude observation by creeping in, as on the first occasion, behind the island of Baru; he headed as straight as the wind would allow for the Boca Chica, trusting that he might be fortunate enough to slip through unobserved in the darkness, especially as it was now past three o’clock in the morning—and if the sentinels slept at all at their posts, after the warning to hold themselves on the alert which they might be supposed to have received from the authorities, they might be expected to be asleep now. His hope appeared to be justified; for the longboat slid past the smaller battery down on the beach, unchallenged, and some five minutes later, grounded on the sand about a quarter of a mile farther in. Then, silently as ghosts, the men lowered the sails, leaving the masts standing, and stepped out on the sand, each bearing his appointed load of powder upon his shoulder, while Dick and Stukely, with swords drawn, and the former carrying a coil of quick match wound round his waist, led the way.

They directed their steps southward toward the battery which they had sailed past a few minutes earlier, and which could just be distinguished as a darker blur against the blackness of the night. Not a light of any description showed about the building, nor was there a sound to be heard save the soft lap and splash of the water on the margin of the beach to the left of them, and the sough of the land breeze among the trees and bushes on their right. Noiseless as drifting shadows, the party sped forward, and within some five minutes of their landing arrived beneath the walls of the fort. Here Dick, Stukely, and a man named Barker removed their shoes and, walking to the northward angle of the fort, examined it to ascertain what means of ascent it afforded. They found, as Marshall had said, that although the walls were so smooth as to be quite unclimbable, the angles of the building were set with quoin stones of so rough a surface that an ascent by means of them might be made easily; accordingly Stukely, who by virtue of his discovery of the anaesthetic now claimed to take the lead, at once began to climb the angle, closely followed by Dick and Barker. In less than two minutes the trio had accomplished the ascent and found themselves standing on the platform which constituted the flat roof of the battery. The eight pieces of heavy ordnance, their muzzles projecting far over the low parapet, were easily distinguishable, as were also the great piles of shot, notwithstanding the darkness of the night; but for the moment no sentinels were visible. Whispering his companions to remain where they were, Stukely moved away with noiseless tread, swiftly making the circuit of the gun platform; and presently he rejoined the other two.

“It is all right,” he whispered. “I found the rascals sound asleep, even as the Captain did, and, withdrawing the stopper from my vial, allowed them to inhale the vapour for a moment. They are now insensible, and will remain so for at least half an hour, therefore you may now do your share of the work, Barker. Come with me, and I will show you where they lie.”

The two moved away together, Barker uncoiling a long length of fine line from his waist as he did so; while Dick, leaning over the parapet, dropped a small pebble down among the group below, as a signal that all was well and they might now safely make the ascent without fear of detection. All arrangements having been previously made, every man of the party knew exactly what he had to do; and within five minutes the platform was alive with English seamen, some of whom were engaged in hauling up powder and clay from below, while others were employed in silently loading the guns with heavy charges of powder, upon the top of which they tightly rammed down stiff clay, with which they filled each gun to its very muzzle. Then, when each piece had been similarly treated, the whole were very carefully primed, after which a length of quick match, long enough to allow of the safe retreat of the man who should ignite it, was securely inserted among the priming; the two insensible sentinels, bound hand and foot, and effectually gagged, were lowered to the ground, and the entire party retreated as they had come, with the exception of one man who volunteered to remain and ignite the length of match immediately that he saw a portfire burned from the wall of the castle which stood on the top of the adjacent hill. The whole business had occupied scarcely twenty minutes, and when it was finished there was nothing to show that the garrison had become aware of what was happening above their heads.

Once more assembled on the ground beneath the walls of the battery, the party was rapidly counted by Dick, to ascertain that all were present, save the man left above on the gun platform; and this formality having been quickly gone through, the unconscious sentinels were picked up and carried away to a distance of about a hundred yards from the battery, where they were effectually concealed in a thick clump of bushes, after which the Englishmen rapidly pushed forward up the hill. Arrived near the top, Dick halted them for a moment near a clump of bamboo, two long stout stalks of which were quickly cut down, and, without waiting to strip them of their leaves, converted into a light ladder by lashing cross-pieces of bamboo to them. Then, with this improvised ladder carried by two men, the party resumed its way, arriving about a quarter of an hour later beneath the frowning walls of the castle, which, like the battery below, was found to be in total darkness, at least so far as the face fronting them was concerned. They crossed the dry ditch without difficulty, and once on the other side, reared their ladder against the wall, finding it amply long enough for their purpose.

Here again Stukely took the lead, being the first to ascend the ladder. But as he reached the top and peered cautiously over the parapet he was disconcerted at the discovery that here at least the sentinels did not sleep; for the first object that met his gaze was a man standing at the extreme end of the parapet, apparently gazing steadfastly out to sea, while his crossed hands rested upon the muzzle of his grounded matchlock. Luckily for the English, the man’s back was turned toward the spot where Stukely stood staring at him. In an instant the latter had made up his mind what to do, and, cautiously climbing in through the embrasure before him, stole noiselessly toward the unconscious man. A few breathless seconds and Stukely had crept close up behind his intended victim; and the next instant, as he knocked the man’s hat off with one hand, he dealt him with the other a blow on the head with the heavy butt of his pistol, which felled the unfortunate fellow as a butcher fells an ox. Quickly bending over the prostrate body, he now held his unstoppered vial to the man’s nostrils for three or four seconds, then rose cautiously to his feet. He could see no other sentinels posted anywhere on the parapet, but passed quickly round it in order to make quite sure. Then, finding that only the one sentinel had been posted here, he gave the signal for the rest of the party to ascend; and a few minutes later the scene of a short while before was being re-enacted on the parapet of this much more important structure. They worked silently but with strenuous haste, for although the heavens as yet gave no sign of the approaching dawn, the sudden comparative coolness of the atmosphere and the twitterings of a few early morning birds told them that it could not now be very far off; indeed they had scarcely finished their preparations when a faint brightening of the eastern horizon told them that a new day was at hand.

“Now, are we all ready?” asked Dick, as he personally put the last finishing touches to the preparations. “Then down you all go except the five men who are to help me with the firing of the quick matches. You go last, Phil, and when you are down ignite the portfire which is to be the signal to that man in the battery yonder; I and the five who are remaining with me will see to the rest of the business up here. Now, off you go quickly, for the daylight will be upon us in five minutes.”

Dick watched his friend as the latter slid out through the embrasure and descended the ladder; and when at length Stukely reached the ground and was preparing to ignite the portfire, Chichester sprang back among the five men who were awaiting his word, and whispered “Now!” Instantly the six darted to their respective stations, and each man at once proceeded rapidly, yet with the nicest care, to ignite the five ends of quick match which were his especial care. It was swiftly done, the lighting of the whole occupying less than half a minute; yet before the last five were ignited the still air was heavily charged with the fumes of gunpowder and there was a sound of hissing and sizzling suggestive of a whole army of angry snakes.

“Smartly, men; smartly!” urged Dick; “the matches are burning much more rapidly than I anticipated; and if we are not pretty lively we shall be caught by the first explosions. That’s your sort; that will do, Parsons, don’t stand there fiddling with that match, it is burning all right. Now, lads, away you go; over with you; I go last.”

Thus exhorted they stood not upon the order of their going, but went, Chichester bringing up the rear; and the latter was still in the very act of descending the ladder when six crashing explosions, occurring almost simultaneously on the parapet above, shattered the early morning stillness, the sounds being instantly followed by a great rush of wings and an outburst of startled screams that issued from the throats of the affrighted birds in the immediate neighbourhood of the castle, who, thus rudely awakened, dashed away in every direction, loudly proclaiming their terror. An answering explosion almost instantly roared out from the battery on the beach; then when half a dozen further explosions on the parapet pealed out, the little party of precipitately retreating Englishmen heard heavy thuds all round them as fragments of the burst ordnance came showering to the ground. And in between the shattering reports of bursting cannon which were now almost continuous they faintly caught the sounds of human outcry as the astounded garrison, awakened by the reports, sprang from their beds and rushed hither and thither in blind panic, each man demanding of every other an explanation of the extraordinary happenings that were taking place overhead. But long before the bravest of the Spaniards had summoned up courage enough to ascend to the parapet, and ascertain for himself the source of those terrific reports and crashing blows which were causing the castle to tremble to its very foundations, the last of the Englishmen—who happened to be Dick—had vanished over the brow of the hill and was racing down the steep slope toward the spot where the longboat had been left in hiding, urging those ahead of him to redoubled efforts, lest the Spaniards, rallying from their first surprise and panic, should sally forth and attempt to cut off the fugitives.

The disturbance was all over in less than a minute; the echo of the last explosion died away along the mangrove-bordered shore; the thud of the last falling piece of fractured ordnance, as it crashed through the boughs of the trees, had faintly reached the ears of the flying Englishmen; and the birds were rapidly beginning to persuade themselves that the whole thing had been no more than a peculiarly weird and startling dream, when the whole party—which had been joined on the way by the man from the lower battery—reached the boat and pulled up for a moment to listen and recover their breath. But there was neither sight nor sound of pursuit; and presently, after Dick had counted his party and found that all were present and perfectly sound, the order was given to get the boat afloat and shove off. This was done in a perfectly quiet and orderly manner; and five minutes later, with the beams of the rising sun brilliantly gilding her sails, the little craft slid down the harbour entrance on her way to seaward, passing close under the walls of the beach battery, the bewildered garrison of which had by this time summoned up the courage necessary to enable them to go up on the gun platform, to ascertain precisely what had happened. Most of them were gazing earnestly out to seaward as the longboat slid past, consequently they did not see her until it was too late, when, with loud outcries, they seized their calivers and poured a hot but absolutely ineffective fire after the bold adventurers. Two minutes later the boat swept round the low point which forms the southern extremity of Tierra Bomba Island; and then her occupants saw what it was that had so strongly attracted the attention of the Spaniards; for, scarcely three miles away, they beheld the Adventure beating up toward the Boca Chica under a heavy press of canvas. Bascomb had seen and interpreted aright the explosions in the two batteries on Tierra Bomba, and was now fearlessly working the ship in toward the land, knowing that, the guns in those two batteries having been destroyed, there was now nothing to restrain him from sailing right into Cartagena harbour itself and demanding the restoration of their Captain, safe and sound. And he meant to do it, too!

Chapter Six.

How they took the great Galleon and a vast Treasure.

There was no enthusiasm, no cheering, nothing in the nature of hysterical exultation displayed by the crew of the Adventure, when the longboat ran alongside and those who had performed the audacious feat of rendering two powerful batteries innocuous rejoined their shipmates; everything was accepted as a matter of course. It was fully realised by all hands that the deed was one, the successful accomplishment of which required the display of nerve and courage of superlative character, but it was understood that the entire expedition, from start to finish, from its departure from Topsham to its return thither, demanded the constant exhibition of these same qualities—and would receive it. Therefore a murmur or two of approval and satisfaction from Bascomb, when Dick made his report, was all that was said in the way of commendation.

“And now, sirs,” said the master, dismissing the topic of the disarmament of the batteries, “Cartagena and the galleon are at our mercy; and the sooner that the Spaniard can be brought to understand this, the better is it like to be for our general. Therefore we will enter the harbour forthwith, lay the galleon aboard and take her, and then open negotiations with the authorities for the ransom of the town and the deliverance of Captain Marshall. Mr Chichester, you know more about the harbour than any of the rest of us. It must be your duty, therefore, to pilot the ship alongside the galleon; the others I will ask to go straight to their fighting stations and prepare the ship for battle, after which, if there be time, we will take breakfast. If not—well, we must e’en fight fasting, and eat after the galleon is taken.”

So Dick went up on the poop and, stationing himself to windward, conned the ship as she beat in toward the Boca Chica against the fast-failing land breeze. But, good ship as the Adventure was, her progress was exasperatingly slow, as was that of all ships of that date when they attempted to beat up against a foul wind; for neither the form of the hull nor the cut of the sails was at that day favourable to such a manoeuvre, and the ship was still a good mile from the harbour’s mouth when the land breeze suddenly failed, and she was left helplessly wallowing upon the oily swell outside.

This, of course, was exasperating enough; for when deeds of desperate emprise are toward it is well to carry them through before the enthusiasm has time to cool. But it could not be helped, the wind was dead, and the ship could not be handled now until the sea breeze sprang up; and, after all, the delay was not an unmitigated misfortune, for it ensured to the crew time enough to complete their preparations for the coming fight and take breakfast afterward; and even at that day it was fully recognised that an Englishman fights best when his hunger has been satisfied. So they finished the work upon which they were engaged, and then went quietly to breakfast, which meal they were able to dispose of comfortably before a cry from the deck apprised them of the arrival of the sea breeze.

Yes; there it came, far away in the offing, ruling the horizon as a band of dark blue that grew lighter and lighter still along its landward edge, until it stopped short at a distance of about two miles from the shore, blowing fresh right up to a certain well-defined point, between which and the land all was gleaming, glassy swell, unruffled by even so much as a cat’s-paw. But the boundary line which divided breeze from calm was not stationary by any means, on the contrary, it was creeping nearer rapidly. When Bascomb came up on the poop he merely glanced at it for a moment and then called to the seamen to trim the yards in readiness to meet it. By the time that this had been done the line of demarcation was so near that the musical tinkling of the advancing ripples could be distinctly heard, although the sails still hung limp, idly flapping to the roll of the ship. Another minute, however, sufficed, then with a gentle preliminary rustling the canvas filled, the blue ripples reached the ship, passed inshore of her, and she began to draw slowly through the water and her helm was put up to keep her away for the narrow harbour entrance.

“Starboard you may,” said Dick to the helmsman, when the ship had presently fallen square off before the fast-freshening breeze; “we must shave that low point on the left quite closely, for that is where the channel runs, and there is a small shoal right in the mouth of the fairway which we must avoid. So! that will do; now, steady as you go. Mr Bascomb, you see that dark object just opening out over the southernmost end of Tierra Bomba? Well, that is the shore battery, and as it possesses certain small ordnance, such as falconets and swivels, which we could not spare the time to destroy, I would recommend that, as we must pass it close, the men be instructed to lie down behind the bulwarks as we sail by, lest haply any of them be hit; for I make no doubt that they will discharge at us every piece they have as we pass.”

“Say you so?” returned Bascomb. “Then, by the Lord Harry, we will be beforehand with them. Ho, there! Load the larboard broadside of ordnance, great and small, and train your pieces to sweep the top of yonder battery as we pass. We cannot afford to risk the loss of any of our number through a mistaken sense of magnanimity.”

With swelling sails distended by the ever-freshening sea breeze, the Adventure now swept boldly in for the mouth of the Boca Chica, and presently a curl of white water revealed the presence of the shoal of which Dick Chichester had spoken, right in the middle of the fairway. Dick directed the helmsman to steer to the north of this, between it and the island of Tierra Bomba, with its swelling wood-crowned heights. Dick glanced aloft at the castle which crowned the summit of the southernmost hill, but although the golden flag of Spain flaunted itself insolently in the breeze from the flagstaff on its northern turret, not a man was to be seen upon the parapet. Many of the embrasures, one-half of which they could now see, had been destroyed by the bursting of the ordnance, and it soon became clear that none of its garrison intended to make any effort to dispute the passage of the English ship. Whether the garrison of the battery down on the beach would be less prudent still remained to be seen, but one thing was perfectly clear, and that was that the Spanish soldiery were very busy upon the gun platform, their movements being directed by a tall man in a full suit of black armour, the helmet of which was surmounted by a splendid plume of long crimson feathers. The English, however, were not left long in doubt as to the intentions of this individual, who was, doubtless, the commander of the garrison; for as the ship swept along the narrow channel, hugging the northern shore closely, and every moment shortening the distance between the battery and herself, he was seen to draw his sword, which flashed like a white flame in the brilliant sunshine as he waved it above his head, and the next moment a perfect storm of bullets from falcon and falconet, patarero, saker, and swivel, came hurtling from the battery across the narrow water toward the ship. But the gallant cavalier had been just a trifle too eager to display his valour, for most of the missiles fell short, having been fired at rather too long a range, while those which hit were so nearly spent that only a few of them lodged in the solid woodwork of the ship’s bulwarks, and not a man on board was hit.

“Now, men,” roared Bascomb, “give yonder presumptuous fool a lesson; fire as your guns come to bear, and not before. I want that parapet swept clean!”

And swept clean it was, the English holding their fire and the ship sweeping on in grim, inexorable silence until she was within some two hundred feet of the structure, when all her larboard ordnance, great and small, bellowed and barked back its answer. As the smoke drove away ahead before the wind the wall was seen to crumble into dust under the impact of the heavy iron shot, while the lighter missiles mowed down the soldiers like corn beneath the sickle, until not a man was left standing upon his feet, even the magnifico in armour going down before the hail of iron and lead, to say nothing of the Spanish standard, the staff of which was cut clean in two, so that it toppled over and fell, carrying the flag with it, to the ground at the base of the wall.

“So much for thicky!” exclaimed Bascomb, relapsing into broad Devon for a moment, under the influence of excitement. “If it weren’t that we have a long and hot morning’s work before us I would anchor the ship, land a party, and blow their footy batteries into the air. But perhaps we may have time to do that when we come back this way. Now, my masters, load again, this time with double charges, consisting of a half-keg of bullets to each culverin, with a chain shot on top, and the smaller ordnance in proportion. We will not fire again, if we can help it, until we run alongside the galleon, and not then until we rub sides with her.”

The ship had by this time traversed so much of the Boca that it became necessary for her to shift her helm in order to avoid grounding upon a sandspit that stretched athwart her course, and here the advantage and value of Dick Chichester’s previous observations became apparent; for so sharp was the bend, and so little was there to indicate the existence of the shoal, that if Dick had not previously had the opportunity to note its position, the ship would undoubtedly have driven right upon it, under full sail, when she would certainly have been in an exceedingly awkward predicament, and might even have been lost, presuming the Spaniards to have been courageous enough to attack her while placed at so serious a disadvantage. But she was not allowed to get into any such awkward situation; for Dick had noticed everything connected with the dangers of the harbour, while looking out and watching from the summit of the hill on Tierra Bomba, and he carried a complete and perfectly accurate chart of the harbour in his head, in addition to the one which he and Marshall had made together. The helm was, therefore, shifted at the proper moment, and the ship swerved away in a south-easterly direction, making as though for the middle of the lower bay.

The danger did not reveal itself until the ship was actually slipping past it, and in less than five minutes she was clear and the course was again altered, this time to the north-eastward, where the island of Tierra Bomba, thrusting its north-easterly angle inward, divided the upper from the lower bay, narrowing the passage between to a width of less than a mile. Now the ship was fairly inside, and heading for a part of the harbour where Dick remembered to have observed certain other dangers in the shape of rocks and shoals, no sign of which could he perceive from the deck; he therefore mentioned the matter to Bascomb, and obtained that officer’s permission to go aloft to the fore topsail-yard and con the ship from there.

In this fashion, then, the Adventure, with the red cross of Saint George flying defiantly from her main truck, swept up Cartagena harbour and, rounding the eastern extremity of Tierra Bomba, headed straight for the inner roadstead, where could now be seen, among a small forest of more insignificant masts, the towering spars of the great galleon, with a vast crimson flag bearing a coat of arms floating at her main, and the Spanish flag drooping from the ensign staff reared at her stern. The town being built on low land, the lofty masts of the galleon were at once seen, upon the English ship rounding the point and opening up the city, and a great cry of “There she is!” instantly leapt from every English throat.

“Ay; there she is, men,” returned Bascomb. “We can’t make any mistake about her, I think; and in halt an hour you shall be alongside her. The rest of the work will be for you to do. I’ll tell you my plan, men. We will range up alongside her and lay her aboard, and just before our sides touch we will pour our broadside into her, throw the grapnels and hook on, and then dash aboard in the midst of the smoke and drive her crew below. The secret is to strike hard and often, and keep them on the run. If any man attempts to stand, though only for a moment, run him through at once with a pike. That is all that I have to say, men; you know how to do the trick as well as I.”

With Cartagena city and the galleon in plain view, Dick Chichester’s work aloft was done, and he, therefore, returned to the deck and the spot upon it from which he had previously been conning the ship, where he resumed his duty as pilot.

As the Adventure slid smoothly and rapidly up the harbour, heading straight for the galleon, it was seen that nearly twenty large boats, full of armed men, were pulling off to her from the shore. It was clear, therefore, that the authorities had received notice of the approach of the English, possibly from one or another of the officers in charge of the defences on Tierra Bomba, and, shrewdly guessing that one object, at least, of the unwelcome visit was the galleon, were determined to defend her to the last. But this discovery in nowise disconcerted the sturdy lads of Devon, who had long ago learned to regard themselves as invincible, so far as the Spaniards were concerned; so they continued with the utmost calmness to add here and there some refinement of finish to the preparations which had been completed an hour or more ago. Even the ship’s cook, whom nobody regarded as a fighting man, must needs add his little quota to the general preparations, the same taking the form of several gallons of greasy boiling water with which he had filled his coppers, the which he proposed to employ at such time as might seem to him most suitable. As for Dick, he decided that the handspike which he had used in the fight off Barbados had proved so effective that, regarded as a weapon, it could scarcely be improved upon, and he was on the point of providing himself with another when his eye chanced to fall upon a heavy iron bar which had been brought on deck for some purpose, so, having tested its weight, he at once decided that it was the very thing he needed, and appropriated it accordingly.

The Adventure had arrived within about half a mile of the galleon when the latter opened fire with her heavy ordnance, of which she carried two tiers. But whether it was that the Spaniards designed to shoot away the English ship’s masts, and so leave her helpless and unmanageable, or whether it was that the pieces were badly aimed, every one of the shot went humming high overhead, leaving the intruder to pass on unscathed and in grim silence; for not one of her guns replied. But Bascomb stepped forward to the front of the poop and issued an order.

“Let every man of you,” he said, “take bow or musket, and prepare to discharge a volley upon the deck of yonder galleon when I give the word. Then, that done, return to your ordnance and prepare to fire, for the time will be at hand. Sail trimmers, stand by to let fly all sheets and halliards at the word of command; then be ready to heave the grapnels as we range up alongside.”

The English ship, still conned by Dick Chichester, was now steering a course which if persevered in would carry her across the stern of the galleon, at a distance of about twice her own length from that vessel; and it seemed evident, from the uncertain movements of those on board the Spaniard, that they were considerably puzzled as to the intentions of the English. For, having discharged the whole of her starboard broadside at the approaching Adventure, the crew of the galleon first began with feverish haste to reload all the guns on that side of their ship; then, seeming suddenly to suspect that their antagonist intended to lay them aboard on their inshore side, they left their starboard broadside only half-loaded and precipitately dashed across the deck to their larboard broadside of ordnance, which they began to clear away hurriedly with the intention of loading. The Adventure was at this moment less than twice her own length from the galleon, and Bascomb, standing on the poop, was able to look down from there into the crowded waist of the other ship and clearly see the Spaniards crowding together about the larboard ordnance. The opportunity seemed much too good to be let slip, so calling his bowmen and musketeers up on to the poop, he directed them to discharge a volley into the surging mass of men, which they did instantly, with terribly destructive effect.

“Good!” he exclaimed, as he saw some twenty or thirty Spaniards fall writhing to the deck; “now back to your ordnance, men, and be ready to fire when I give the word. Sail trimmers, let fly all sheets and halliards, and stand by with your grapnels!”

As the sailing master issued these orders Dick signed to the helmsman, who thereupon thrust the ponderous tiller hard down, and the Adventure, answering her helm perfectly, swept round in a short curve and went gliding up on the starboard side of the galleon.

“Now, gunners all, let fly your ordnance!” roared Bascomb, drawing his sword. And as the bright blade flashed in the air the English artillery, loaded with round, bar, and chain shot, musket balls, spike nails, and every kind of missile that the men had been able to lay hands upon, were discharged when the two vessels were scarcely a fathom apart, and the Spanish ship’s upper deck instantly became a shambles, scarcely a man remaining uninjured upon it.

“Throw your grapnels,” shouted Bascomb, “and then let every man follow me aboard the Spaniard.” As he spoke the Adventure crashed alongside the galleon, there was a sound of ripping and rending timber, and a heavy rebound; and then, as the two ships rolled toward each other after the rebound the English crew went swarming over their own bulwarks and down upon the Spanish deck, where they found scarcely half a dozen men to oppose them. But at the head of them stood a very magnificent looking personage in full armour, whom Bascomb took to be the captain of the ship.

“Do you surrender, señor?” demanded Bascomb, speaking in English for the very good reason that he “had” no Spanish.

It is probable that the Spaniard was as destitute of English as Master William Bascomb was of Spanish; but there is a language of intonation and gesture as well as of words, and doubtless that of the Englishman was intelligible enough, for the Spaniard, by way of reply, grasped his sword by the point and offered it to the sturdy Devonshire seaman who confronted him, and who accepted it with a very fair imitation of the bow with which the Spaniard had tendered it.

“That’s well, so far,” commented Bascomb. “Now”—looking about him and noticing Dick standing near, grasping his iron bar—“that ends the trouble up here. But what about down below, Mr Chichester? You had better take a dozen men and this gentleman down with you; and perhaps he will explain to those of his people who are on the main deck that he has surrendered. If they will lay down their arms, well and good; if they won’t—well, you will just have to make ’em, that’s all. Now go; and report to me here when you’ve gained complete possession of the ship.”

Dick took his dozen men and, insinuating his hand in the crook of the Spanish captain’s arm, led that individual below to the main deck, where they found a few Spanish seamen still hanging about between the great culverins, apparently quite uncertain what to do, or whether they ought to do anything. The Spanish captain spoke sharply to them; apparently he was very much surprised and disappointed to find so few men there, and seemed to be asking them where the rest were, for by way of reply the seamen said something and pointed to the hatchways. The Spanish captain relieved his feelings by stamping on the deck, grinding his teeth, and indulging in a good deal of Castilian profanity; after which he seemed to give certain instructions, the result of which was that the men laid down their arms and went up on deck, one of their number having previously gone to the main hatchway and shouted something down it which caused the remainder of the crew to come up from below and surrender their weapons.

It took Dick and his party about half an hour to explore thoroughly the interior of the galleon—which they discovered was named the Santa Margaretta—and satisfy themselves that none of the Spanish crew were lurking below in hiding; and when at length they returned to the upper deck to report, they found that Bascomb and Winter had mustered the surviving Spaniards forward on the fore deck, under a strong guard, while the English had lowered one of the galleon’s boats and in her had boarded and captured a small coasting felucca, which they were at that moment towing alongside their bigger prize. This, Bascomb explained, he had done with the object of getting rid of his Spanish prisoners, whom he proposed to send ashore in the felucca, having no fancy for keeping them aboard the prize, where they would need a strong body of the English to maintain an efficient guard over them. And, with the released prisoners, he proposed to send ashore a letter to the Governor of the city, demanding the immediate surrender of Captain Marshall, safe and sound, together with payment of the sum of five hundred thousand ducats ransom for the city, failure of either condition to be followed by the sack and destruction of the place.

“But,” objected Dick, “you can neither speak nor write Spanish; and it may very well be that there will be nobody in Cartagena who understands English; in that case we shall be at a deadlock, and how will you manage then?”

“That,” replied Bascomb, sententiously, “will be their lookout. If they cannot find anyone to translate my letter, so much the worse for them. But there should be no trouble about that; for if they can find nobody else the captain will make my meaning clear to them.”

It was considerably past midday when at length the whole of the Spaniards, together with their dead and wounded, were transferred to the felucca and dispatched to the shore, the Spanish captain being entrusted with the letter to the governor or commandant of the town; and then the English found time to look into their own affairs and take a meal. It was found that by a marvellous stroke of good fortune the galleon had been captured without the loss of a man, or even so much as a single casualty on the English side; and, this being the case, the question arose whether or not they should retain possession of the vessel, dividing the Adventure’s crew equally between her and the prize. There arose quite a sharp difference of opinion on this point, Bascomb and the two gentlemen adventurers maintaining that the prize was far too valuable to be parted with or destroyed, now that they had her; while Winter and Dick contended that they were far too few in number to justify the proposed division, the effect of which would be to put them in possession of two perilously short-handed ships, instead of one fully manned. Moreover, the Santa Margaretta was nearly twice the size of the Adventure, the proposal therefore to divide the crew of the latter into two equal parts would hardly meet the case, since a crew of forty men could handle the galleon only in fine weather, while as to fighting her effectually in the event of their falling in with an enemy, it simply could not be done. Winter’s proposal, in which Dick backed him up, was that everything of value—or at least as much of it as they could find room for—should be transferred to the Adventure, after which a ransom of, say, twenty thousand ducats could be demanded for the ship and what remained of her cargo, failing the payment of which she might be burnt at her anchors as a wholesome example! The dispute at length grew so warm that Stukely, who was present but took no part in it, suggested that the matter should be left for Captain Marshall to decide, upon his return.

The afternoon of that day was busily spent by the English, one party of whom, under the joint leadership of the carpenter and boatswain, devoted themselves to the task of repairing the slight damage sustained by the Adventure in running aboard the galleon, while the remainder engaged in the work of thoroughly rummaging the prize and transferring from her to the Adventure all the valuables they could find. At first some fear was entertained that the treasure which it was intended the ship should take home had not yet been put on board, for it could be found nowhere; but at length a sort of strong room was discovered, cunningly built in the run of the ship, its entrance hidden by a big pile of sails; and when this was entered, there, sure enough, lay the treasure, consisting of no less than five hundred gold bricks, each weighing some forty pounds; two thousand bars of silver averaging about fifty pounds each, a chest of pearls the value of which was so great that they made no attempt even to estimate it approximately; and a small chest of uncut precious stones, chiefly emeralds and rubies, which of itself would have sufficed to make every man of them rich for life. The whole of this stupendous treasure they at once proceeded to transfer to the Adventure; and so much of it was there that, working watch and watch, one watch mounting guard to render impossible anything in the nature of a surprise attack from the shore, while the other watch carried the treasure from the one ship to the other, it was long past midnight when at length the work was done and the weary men were permitted to snatch a little rest.

The authorities ashore had been given until sunrise of the following morning in which to find someone capable of interpreting Bascomb’s letter, and to come to a decision as to whether or not they would accede to the terms of the said letter; and the first light of dawn revealed a large boat putting off from the shore, pulled by twelve oarsmen, and flying a white flag at the stern. This was the first boat that had attempted to approach either of the ships since the appearance of the Adventure upon the scene, and her approach was watched with the utmost interest and curiosity. She carried three officials in brilliant uniforms and four other individuals in her stern-sheets, but it was Stukely’s keen eyes which were the first to detect the fact that Captain Marshall was not in her; and his announcement of this fact at once raised a storm of indignation among those who had hastily turned out and gone on deck when the approach of the boat had been reported.

“Not in her?” incredulously repeated Bascomb—“Not in her? Then what a plague do the Dons mean by coming off to us at all? Surely I made it plain enough to them all that the surrender of our Captain was the very first article of our demand? Then what—?”

“Nay, nay; let be,” interposed Winter, speaking quite calmly, but his lips white, and his eyes glowing sombrely like smouldering fires. “No need to work thyself into a passion, Will Bascomb, until thou hast heard what their lordships have to say. Maybe they have not seen the Captain and know naught of him.”

“Not seen him? Know naught of him? Why—why—!” spluttered Bascomb. Then he suddenly calmed down. This was no time for disputatiousness or the display of warm feeling between himself and the man who, if haply anything had gone wrong with the Captain, might become the head of them all. Besides, there was wisdom in that suggestion to wait and hear what the Dons had to say before jumping to a conclusion. Thus the little group of Englishmen on the high poop of the Adventure lapsed into sudden silence as the boat drew near; but it was a silence that was ominous, menacing, a silence of set lips and burning eyes, pregnant with dire possibilities for the city and all within it if aught of evil had befallen their Captain therein. For not only was Marshall, rough almost to uncouthness of manner though he was at times, beloved by all there, but also there was the feeling stirring in every breast that it was vitally important to each one of them that the Spaniard must be taught, once and for all, to regard an Englishman’s life as sacred, no matter what the circumstances might be under which he might fall into their hands, or however helpless and friendless he might at the moment seem. So it was a very grim-visaged, uncompromising-looking group of Englishmen at whom the newcomers stared upward when the boat arrived within easy hailing-distance and lay upon her oars.

An elderly man, attired in the usual mariner’s costume of the period, rose in the stern-sheets of the boat and, doffing his cap, opened the conversation by remarking in English:

“Good morning, gentlemen! I am Gaspar Pacheco, lately a master of mariners, but now retired from the sea; and I am here to-day to act the part of interpreter between yourselves and the illustrious Señors Don Luis Maria Alfonso Calderon, Governor of the city of Cartagena; Don Ricardo Picador Garcia, Alcalde of Cartagena; Don Hermoso Morillo, our Intendant; Don Sebastian Campana; Don Ferdinand Miguel Pavia; and Don Ramon Sylva, merchants of Cartagena.” And as each individual was named he rose in the stern-sheets of the boat, bowed deeply, and seated himself again.

“I am instructed by my illustrious fellow townsmen to inform you, señors, that although your cartel was handed to the Governor immediately upon the arrival of your messenger in the town, yesterday, it was not until very late in the day that anyone could be found possessed of a sufficient knowledge of your language to interpret it, the only person possessed of such knowledge being myself, who live not in Cartagena itself but in a small hacienda a few miles north of the city. Then, señors, when I had been found and conveyed to Cartagena, and had translated your letter to the authorities, a difficulty at once arose; for mention is therein made of one Capitan Marshall, who is said to have entered the city five days ago, and whose safe return you demand. Now, neither his Excellency the Governor nor Don Ricardo Garcia, our Alcalde, had ever before heard of such a person as el Capitan Marshall, or indeed of any other stranger, being in the city; and it at once became necessary, before anything else could be done, that enquiries should be set on foot to ascertain whether any such person had been seen, so that his whereabouts might be traced. Those enquiries, señors, were at once instituted, and are still being actively pursued; but we are regretfully obliged to confess that thus far they have been entirely without result. Meanwhile—”

“Stop!” interrupted Bascomb, throwing up his hand with an imperative gesture. “Do you mean to tell me that it is possible for a stranger—and that stranger an Englishman—to be four days and five nights in your city without anyone being the wiser?”

The interpreter shrugged his shoulders and spread his hands abroad deprecatingly.

“It would greatly depend upon the skill, courage, and resourcefulness of the stranger, señor,” he answered. “If your Capitan Marshall speaks Spanish fluently, and possesses the knowledge of how to look and act like a Spaniard, it is quite possible that he might do so.”

“But,” objected Bascomb, “he could not well have been in your city yesterday and have remained in ignorance of what was happening. And I know him well enough to feel certain that were he alive, in good health, and free, he would have rejoined the ship ere now. That he has not done so is evidence conclusive and convincing to us all that something untoward has happened to him, for which we shall hold the entire population of your city, individually and collectively, responsible.

“Now,” he continued, turning and addressing his companions on the deck, “that is speaking plainly enough for even a Spaniard to understand, isn’t it? But since Captain Marshall’s safety and well-being must be our first consideration, I think we ought not to make our conditions so hard as to be impossible of fulfilment; I therefore propose that we allow them a little more time in which to find him, before we proceed to extremities. Let us make it clear to them that he must be found and delivered up to us, safe and sound, within a certain time, say noon to-day; and that failure to comply with this demand will be followed by the bombardment and sack of the town. What say you, gentles?”

“Agreed!” came the answer, as with one voice, from all present.

“Very well, then,” concluded Bascomb; and turning toward the boat, he hailed:

“Now, listen to me, Señor Interpreter, and mark well my words. It has come to the ears of us English that the Spaniards of the New World, in their selfish determination to retain in their own hands the whole of the trade of this rich country, are making a practice of seizing every Englishman upon whom they can lay hands, and delivering him over to your so-called Holy Inquisition in order that, while salving your own consciences with the plea of religious zeal, my countrymen may be subjected to fiendish tortures, and so be discouraged from attempting to secure a share of the immeasurable wealth which you enjoy. Now the time has come when your minds must be disabused of this notion. No amount of torture which you can possibly inflict upon solitary, helpless Englishmen will deter their fellow countrymen from striving, by fair means or foul, to secure a share of what they are as much entitled to as yourselves; and they will never rest until they have obtained it! Mark you that. And, further, remember this—that henceforward, for every Englishman who is lost on these shores, and is found to have perished under the hands of your Inquisitors, the English will take a terrible vengeance, exacting the lives of ten of the most distinguished Spaniards upon whom they can lay hands.

“Now, our Captain is somewhere in your city at this moment, and for your own sakes he must be found and brought on board this ship before noon. And when that is done we will talk further with you. But if by noon he is not found and delivered up to us, then I say to you that we will first bombard your town, and afterwards sack and destroy it, as a lesson to you and all Spaniards to beware henceforward how you meddle with Englishmen, even when they seem to be absolutely at your mercy. Now, translate that to the illustrious señors your companions.”

The interpreter did so; and as he proceeded the varied emotions of indignation, horror, and fear that were evoked by Bascomb’s plain speaking were easily enough discernible upon the countenances of his audience. They flushed and turned pale by turns, they wrung their hands, and once his Excellency the Governor started to his feet and shook his fist savagely at the little group on the Adventure’s poop, but was instantly dragged down again by his comrades, who evidently feared the English more than they did him. When at length the interpreter had finished and the Governor burst into a torrent of apparently violent language, which he seemed to wish the interpreter to translate to the Englishmen, the others interposed with what appeared to be an emphatic veto. This was followed by a somewhat lengthy and very animated discussion among themselves, during which the boat was kept in place by an occasional stroke of the oars. At length a resolution of some sort seemed to be arrived at, for the alcalde was seen to speak earnestly to the interpreter, who presently rose to his feet and hailed.

“Illustrious señors,” he said, “I am desired by Don Ricardo Garcia, our respected Alcalde, to say that every possible effort shall be made to find the missing Capitan; and when found he shall at once be restored to you. But, señors, the time you have allowed us is much too brief for an effective search to be made, and—”

“Did you not say that the search was begun yesterday, and is still being actively prosecuted?” interrupted Bascomb.

“Even so, illustrious General,” answered the interpreter.

“Very well, then,” retorted the master; “if he is in the city, and is alive and well, he will be found before noon. If he is not found, then it will be because some evil has befallen him, for which Cartagena shall be made to suffer. Look in your Inquisition for him, señor; he is as likely to be there as anywhere. And tell your Inquisitors that if he is not forthcoming by noon, the Inquisition shall be the first building to suffer from our shot. Now, go!”

So they went, with much shaking of heads and wringing of hands.

Chapter Seven.

How they set out to rescue Captain Marshall, and failed.

The morning was passed strenuously by the English in preparing both the Adventure and her prize for the grim business of bombarding Cartagena, if need were; the hope in every man’s heart being that the spectacle of the preparations—which was clearly visible from the water front of the town—would have the effect of breaking down the stubborn wills of the Spaniards, and constraining them to surrender their prisoner. For up to this moment there had never been any real doubt in the mind of any one of the Englishmen that Marshall had been discovered and made a prisoner; and they were steadfastly resolved to secure his freedom, let the cost be what it would.

After carefully considering and discussing the matter together, Bascomb and Winter arrived at the conclusion that it would be possible to effect such a division of the crew as would enable both ships to employ the whole of their heaviest ordnance against the town; and this was accordingly done, the Adventure being afterward moved to a berth astern of the galleon, so that neither ship should obstruct the fire of the other.

It wanted about a quarter of an hour of noon, and the preparations aboard both ships were complete, when the boat which had visited them in the morning was observed to be putting out again from the wharf and pulling toward the Adventure; but it was soon perceived that on this occasion she carried only one figure, which was presently seen to be that of the interpreter.