Now the captured pink, when they came to examine her, contained very small store of what the buccaneers consider valuable—to wit, gold coins, jewels, or pearls. Merchandise, such as cottons and silks, she was well stocked with; chests of gold-laced clothes she carried, and in these the rude fellows decked themselves during the first search; but all this cargo required further barter before it could be turned into a carouse, and barter was a thing the buccaneers held in small esteem. It was their conceit that as free hunters they could peddle hides and meat and tallow without demeaning themselves; but to trade in merchant stuffs, such as oil, and cloth, and tinsels, and dyewood, was, in their idea, to dirty their fingers. Amongst the Brethren of the Coast there was very great niceness in such small matters as these.
The event, as it happened, fell in very handily with Prince Rupert\'s mood. Small gains were as useful to his Highness as nothing at all; it was constantly in his mind that he had to keep supplied the Court of his Majesty King Charles II. at The Hague; and, in fine, it was pieces-of-eight by the puncheonful and not by the purse which he sought. So he proposed manning the pink more stoutly, saying with purposeful vagueness that he intended to venture out upon the seas again in search of plate ships; and the buccaneers, who had helped him take her, agreed with shouts and a salvo from the guns.
There was little time lost in debauch. The nine surviving buccaneers were, it is true, too drunk and too encumbered by their fine clothes to do much towards the working of the pink; but they sat about the decks, each with an open liquor cask convenient to one hand and a naked sword to the other; and the Spanish prisoners, with the terror of death heavy upon them, were easily persuaded to do the necessary seamen\'s work on this vessel which had so lately been their own. The pink was sailed up a convenient creek of Hispaniola, where forests grew down to the water\'s edge, and there careened by tackles from her lower mast-heads to the tree roots. Five of the buccaneers departed various ways into the country to secure recruits for this new expedition, and the other four, with Prince Rupert and Master Stephen Laughan, his secretary, stayed behind to guard the Spaniards and keep them diligently at their work.
Now this Master Laughan (that was in truth a maid) had been taunted a-many times by rude fellows with being a mere encumbrance to his Highness, and inwardly raged at a certain inborn natural timidity, which on inopportune occasion would out. But at last Master Laughan (moist-eyed, and very sorrowful) was resolved openly to trample these qualms underfoot by some piece of desperate valour, or perish pitifully in the attempt. And here lay an enterprise ready to hand. Beforetime, when a guest with Prince Rupert under the roof of Monsieur D\'Ogeron, the Governor of Tortuga, the secretary had learned concerning a vastly rich pearl fishery of the Spaniards in a bay at the farther side of Hispaniola. This knowledge Master Laughan had kept secret, timorously dreading lest the Prince with a small force should attempt its capture, in spite of the heaviness of its guarding.
But certain sneers that were dropped by two of those barbarous buccaneers after the storming of the pink (whereat indeed Master Laughan\'s sword-arm was reddened to the elbow) had driven the poor creature half frantic with mortification, and in agony of wounded pride the news of the pearl fishery was whispered into Prince Rupert\'s ear.
His Highness heard the scheme with a glowing face. "My lad," he cried, "this is a more profitable adventure than any I have dreamed about. But why have I not been told it before?"
"Because," said Master Laughan, craftily, "your Highness lacked all followers save my poor self, and I feared to tantalise you by pointing out the impossible.
"Arnidieu!" swore Rupert, "you should have left me to be judge of that, Master Laughan. I have done the impossible so many times before, that I begin to think there is small meaning in the word. Besides, as you well knew, I was a desperate man in a desperate case. I have pawned the King\'s fleet for six months without his leave or signature, and it is a fact that if I do not earn plunder without the ships here, I shall earn censure at The Hague."
"I judged all these things," said the secretary, with a sigh, "and the only excuse I can put forward is my poor affection for your Highness\'s safety."
"Thou\'rt a good lad," said the Prince testily—"a well-enough-meaning lad, but at times a short-seeing fool. My life has passed through too many thousand risks to be cut off with a few more. And besides, adventure is meat, drink and opium to me; it is a habit which I cannot shake off, nor wish to do; and let that suffice. And now for a chart, and more of your tale."
They went down to the cabin, which was hard to reach and ill to stand in, since the pink was careened with one of her bilges clear of the water. They found a chart and laid it upon the almost upright table, and to look at it stood on the bunk coamings by reason of the heel. The thump and squeak of the scrapers as the men shredded the growth of weed and barnacles from the planking came to their ears as they handled the chart, and with it a quaintly strange smell of burning as the men breamed the ship\'s bottom.
"We could be cleverer with more knowledge on these fisheries," said the Prince, and thrust his head up through the skylight and shouted that word should be passed for the erstwhile captain of the pink.
The Spaniard came presently, shirtless, with his back a mass of stripes.
"Se?or," said the Prince, "I think you have been foolish, and not bowed to the fortune of war. I see my fellows have been writing their displeasure upon you. It would have been wiser to have shown philosophy and done your appointed tale of work."
"Se?or capitan," said the Spaniard, "I am a philosopher, but not an atheist. Up till now I have worked with all the goodwill that could be expected from a slave, but when your fellows for the le?a para la lumbre—I know not how you call it——"
"Breaming faggots."
"For their breaming faggots, used that which was holy, and would have had me participate in their sin, why then, se?or, I refused to put my soul in jeopardy, and rebelled."
The Prince looked puzzled. "You are speaking beyond me."
"Se?or," said the Spaniard, "as part of my cargo, which you took from me, were three cases of papal indulgences. They were entrusted to my care by the Bishop of Maracaibo, who knows me as a devout Catholic."
"Well?" said the Prince.
"Se?or capitan," said the prisoner, "it is with these parchments, these things of indescribable holiness, that your fellows would have us bream the underplanking of the ship. Some of my compatriots are weak: they have twisted the sacred writings up into torches, and I saw them thereby bartering away their souls before my very eyes. I alone resisted. I alone have earned stripes, and this martyrdom. But you, se?or capitan, you are not a rude man, like those on deck. You will not ensure your eternal damnation by permitting this sacrilege to continue?"
"At present," said the Prince, "I do not see cause for interference, being so curiously constituted as to think that I can earn Heaven without the Pope\'s helping."
"You are a blasphemer."
"No, I am a Protestant, and heed papal thunders as little as a duck fears water; but, se?or, I will permit you to ransom what remains over of this consignment of indulgences on easy terms."
The Spaniard stepped forward eagerly enough, then stopped and frowned. "Se?or," he said, "you are playing with me. You know me to be a ruined man."
"On the contrary," said the Prince, "you still own one small commodity, and I would buy that from you on easy terms. You have information about the pearl fisheries in this bay, which I have marked here on your chart. Tell me how they are guarded and how worked, and I will wed you once more to freedom, amigo, with the parchments as your dowry."
"You ask me to be traitor to my country."
"These good gentlemen on deck," suggested the Prince, "might offer you the alternative of having your nose and other portions of your honoured anatomy carved in slices, and lighted matches put between your fingers. It would injure my feelings sorely if I had to hand you over to their power of persuasiveness. And in the meantime, these excellent parchments from Rome, on which you seem to set so much store, are flickering away to ash. If a layman might judge, it seems to me that you are now personally responsible for their destruction."
"Se?or," said the Spaniard, "your diplomacy is as invincible as your sword-arm. May you live a thousand years. I must ransom these holy writings at whatever cost." And forthwith, so soon as the Prince had bidden those on deck burn no more of the papal indulgences, the Spaniard broke into narrative and told all about the pearls and the manner of their fishing.
It appeared that the industry was then at its zenith. The fishing had gone on for years with always increasing success; but now that many towns of the Main had been raided by enemies, and Spain was still clamouring for the undiminished cargoes of treasure, a greater effort than formerly was made to wrest this wealth from the fastnesses of the sea. First and last two thousand men were toiling at the fishery. It was worked from small brigantines of ten or a dozen tons, of which there were an amazing number. Each night these brought their catch to a great storeship which lay at anchor in the bay, heavily armed. And for the protection of the armed storeship was a war-carrack, full of arms and men always on guard, together with two armed galleys of fifty oars apiece.
The Spaniard said it was the easiest way imaginable of gathering wealth, the only difficulty being a shortness in the supply of the Guinea blackmen who were used for the diving. These, it seemed, through being forced by their masters to remain under water for twenty minutes at a stretch, deteriorated in strength, and indeed with frequency would most exasperatingly die. There was no relying (said the Spaniard) on the blackamoors to be useful servants, and this was the greater pity because no other substitute could be used, since the sharks which abound in these latitudes attack white men or the native Indians when swimming in the water, but avoid the blacks by reason of their pungent smell.
Much more too upon this matter the fellow told, because having once (as he termed it) done treachery to his country, it mattered little whether the treachery was big or small; but it was plain to see that there was a method in his telling. He admitted that the pearls were there, which of course Prince Rupert had learned already; he spoke upon the methods of fishing, which carried with them a certain pleasant interest; but he was unmistakable in his painting of the care with which they were guarded.
"They know, se?or," quoth he, "that your Excellencies, the Brethren of the Coast, would be only too happy to make a transference of these precious gleanings, and they are quite prepared to defend them to the uttermost. The storeship and the guardship are both mighty vessels, and crammed with men. The bay is land-locked and smooth, and they lie there to their anchors, with guns run out and loaded, with boarding nettings triced up to the yard-arms, hand-grenades ranged ready, and close-quarters all set up convenient for a fight. They are fine ships both, with lofty forecastles and aftercastles. Their crews are picked men, and constantly exercised with their weapons. They are in sooth, se?or, floating fortresses, and nothing but an armada could reduce them."
So the Spaniard spoke on, and Master Laughan hearkened to the words with a sinking heart, and mightily regretted ever having yielded to those goadings which, in a moment of desperation, led to the Prince being first told about the fisheries. But Prince Rupert listened with appetite. He smiled pleasantly when he heard of the richness of the pearls in store, and his eye kindled as the Spaniard described with how great accuracy they were guarded; and when at the end of his narration the Spaniard said he hoped he had shown how impossible it was for even the bravest of men to overcome the defenders and ravish the store, the Prince laughed merrily, and said he had done just the reverse. "I am a man," quoth he, "that likes a kernel all the better, and hammers for it all the cleverer, when the nut is hard a-cracking."
"Yet I do not see how you can finger those pearls?" said the Spaniard.
"And I," said the Prince, "shall not tell my plans to you or any other living soul, amigo. Plans shared are easily spread, and plans spread are handily baulked."
Now, it is the custom of the buccaneers, when they sail on an expedition, that the scheme of campaign should be laid open and voted upon by all hands; and it says much for the influence that Prince Rupert gained on the rude men who formed his following and they consented that he should override this hard-and-fast rule. It was not, as most who read these memoirs will at once suppose, that they deferred to his exalted birth: in fact, the item of his being of princely rank rather warred against him in their eyes than otherwise. It was simply his influence as a man, and his obvious power of conducting affairs, which gave him this paramount weight; and these savage fellows, both French and English, who before had owned none as master save their own desires, were content to set Rupert over them with an absolute power of life and death. So a charter-party of rules was drawn up and sworn to with Bible oaths, and a scale was appointed by which all plunder was divided.
Meanwhile, the refitting of the pink was attended to with infinite patience and skill. Her bottom was breamed, as has been said, and scraped to the smoothness of glass, and then varnished over the yellow wood. The rigging, both standing and running, was overhauled and reset-up. The sails were all new bent, and the armament thoroughly attended to. The pink was a vessel with a fine turn of speed, and for his purpose Prince Rupert wanted this speed at its best. For, to be plain, he destined the vessel for a feint attack, and intended to leave her reliant for safety solely upon the nimbleness of her heels.
A dozen days were spent about this industry, and one by one recruits arrived from over the savannahs. And then the pink was warped out into the stream, and towed out of the creek by her boats to a good offing, and there, with a prayer and a psalm, committed to canvas and the care of God. Forty-three seasoned hunters formed her fighting crew, each with powder, bullets, buccaneering-piece, bayonet, and skinning-knives; and for her working, there remained fifteen Spaniards, one of whom, being skilled in the use of backstaff and other utensils of navigation, was appointed sailing-master, with promise of early enlargement. Then for the first time Prince Rupert made known the whole of his schemes, and the buccaneers, in a passion of enthusiasm, ran to the great guns of the pink, and fired off a shotted salute in his honour.
But, great as his influence was, in one matter Prince Rupert was without command. When once they were at sea, with the Spanish prisoners to work the pink, the buccaneers had no notions of restraint or discipline. They ate when and what they pleased, they drank whenever they were sober enough to swallow more. Twice they set the pink on fire, and but for miracles would have consumed her. The stores were few, and yet the waste was incredible. The fellows knew no moderation. They fought at times amongst themselves, they beat the Spanish prisoners, they diced incessantly, and throughout all the watches shouted sea-songs that were often mere ribaldry. When one through sheer exhaustion slept, the others yelled their choruses in his ears, and played their pranks upon his senseless body, till he was waking and with them again. In fine, they made that first part of the voyage one horrid unbroken carouse.
A term was put on the orgie by the failure of supplies. The pink reeked with the lees of stale drink, but there was no whole cask left unbroached. Of food there was scarcely a carcass remaining, and of water but two tepid leaking casks. But these indomitable men did not repine. They had had their frolic, and all that remained was to make the nip-gut time as short as might be. They crowded more canvas on the pink till the Spaniards shivered with fright, and set up preventer backstays to make the spars carry it. The vessel rushed through the seas with a roar of sound, and the savage men within her were rendered doubly savage by their hunger. But the situation fell handily with the Prince\'s plans. There was no question about succeeding now: starvation was the only alternative; and these desperate fellows had no appetite for more of that.
In these circumstances, then, the pink and her people came to the western horn of that bay where the Spaniards plied their pearl fishery, and running inshore with a light wind, dropped the stream anchor in five-fathom water. The boat was launched over-side, and in two journeys set thirty of the buccaneers upon the hot white beach, and with them Prince Rupert and Master Laughan. Then the boat rowed back again, was hoisted in-board, and the pink tripped her stream anchor, and once more got to sea.
Forest sprawled down to the rim of the beach, and the land party were quickly under its cover. Then one Watkin, a man of iron and a mighty shooter, took the lead, he being by consent the best woodsman amongst the buccaneers; Prince Rupert and his secretary followed; and the rest trailed on behind in Indian file.
Word had been given, and they were careful to drop no sound—treading with niceness, and never speaking even in a whisper—since the success of their endeavour depended all upon their presence being unknown till the time came. And so the whole train of them wound through the tree aisles of the forests like some monstrous bristling serpent, whereof every joint was a different hue and shape.
Their march was not a long one, though exhausting by reason of the heat, and the quags they had to traverse, and thickets of barbed thorn which lay in the path and warred most unkindly with the fripperies of their clothes. Still, when they came to the crown of the bay where the fishery was carried on, they were none of them sorry (as even the hardened Watkin owned) to lie for a while in the rim of the undergrowth, and there await fitting season for the attack.
The bay before them was busy with life. Lying each at her anchor were two-and-thirty brigantines, from whose sides the blackamoor divers were constantly beat down into the water, to be drawn up again half-burst a quarter of an hour later with a netful of the rare oysters slung around their gleaming bodies. In the middle of the flock of brigantines were the two great armed carracks, bristling with men at practice on their weapons; but of the two fifty-oared galleys there was no sign, for (as was learned afterwards) they had been sent away, and their soldier crews retained to strengthen the fighting forces of the carracks.
There were two thousand men in these vessels in the bay, all trained to arms, and with every advantage of position; and surely nothing was heard more preposterous than this idea of attacking them with such a trifling handful. But no trace of anything else but pleasure showed on the faces of the buccaneers; the Prince was smiling, as, indeed, was always his habit before an onfall; and Master Laugh............