With Drake on the Spanish Main Part 7

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Captain singled out Captain."]

Dennis was scarcely conscious of his wound. At this fierce moment his practice on the deck of the _Maid Marian_ served him well. To attempt a second cut would have been to give another opening. He shortened his arm and gave point. The Spaniard was no tyro. With a turn of the wrist he parried the thrust, which was aimed low, but could not prevent the blade from entering his shoulder. He staggered and reeled back towards the doorway of the cabin, and the two men immediately behind him rushed into the fight. Turnpenny meanwhile had been engaged in a similar duel, and by the sheer force of his bulk had borne his opponent to the deck. Side by side Dennis and he faced their new a.s.sailants.

One of these, a long sinewy fellow, had an amazing dexterity with his knife, and a most perplexing nimbleness of movement. Dennis kept him at bay only by the length of his cutla.s.s. For a few moments there was brisk work around the mast. Making a sweeping cut, Dennis somewhat overreached himself, and it would have gone ill with him had not Turnpenny, who had run a second man through, perceived his danger in the nick of time. Springing forward, he pierced the fellow to the heart.

Three of the Spaniards had now fallen. The rest, who had barely held their own against the maroons, were stricken with fear when they saw their comrades' fate. Two of them sprang overboard; the remaining four, finding the three maroons now reinforced by the Englishmen, rushed back after their captain into the cabin, and, before they could be overtaken, slammed-to the door and shot the bolt. Dennis s.n.a.t.c.hed up a belaying pin and brought it with all his force against the door, but made no impression on its stout timbers. There was a roar and a flash close to his ear; he felt his cheek singed; one of the Spaniards had fired through a loophole in the cabin wall. The moment after, there was another flash from a loophole on the other side, and one of the maroons uttered a cry of pain. In the open waist of the vessel the little party had no protection from musket fire; the loopholes had doubtless been pierced against the contingency of such an a.s.sault as this, and nothing but the darkness could prevent the Spaniards in the cabin from bringing down a man at every discharge. They had the whole armoury of the s.h.i.+p to draw upon; there was no means of checking their fire; and realizing the situation Dennis called on Turnpenny and the rest to seek cover. Some found shelter just forward of the mainmast; two swarmed on to the p.o.o.p, and, climbing to the edge of its break, held themselves ready with their half-pikes to attack any one attempting a sortie from the cabin. Dennis and the sailor, picking up the calivers they had laid down when they boarded the vessel, dropped down behind a coil of rope towards the forecastle.

"My heart!" exclaimed Turnpenny, as he primed his weapon. "'Twas brisk work, and not the end neither."

"They are run to earth, Amos, 'tis true, got away like foxes. Our case is not too good. We are baulked, my friend."

"Ay, sir. With all the victuals and munitions abaft, the knaves have the better of us. We cannot get at them; say we made endeavour to scuttle the s.h.i.+p, they could shoot us afore we got away."

"And there are sick maroons in the forecastle, I bethink me you said.

I would fain save them alive. We must do something to bring the knaves to an engagement. There are five of them now. With time to recover themselves somewhat, and fortify themselves with food, they can if it so please them lie low till morning light, then sally out upon us with arms loaded, several pistols apiece, and we, fasting, would be of a surety overmatched."

"Ay, and we cannot feed ourselves even on that n.o.ble store of bananas, for they lie athwart the very course of bullets from the cabin."

"Could we smoke them out? Could we blow the door in?"

"With a sufficiency of powder, but the magazine is beneath the cabin."

"Is there none elsewhere?"

"Why, now I do mind me, the boatswain hath a vast relish for wild fowl, and is never loath to go a-shooting on sh.o.r.e. 'Tis like he hath a little secret store."

"Then I will go rummage the forecastle. Do you bide here, Amos, and keep ward over my caliver until I return."

When the party boarded the vessel, there had been a dim light in the forecastle. It was now extinguished. Dennis went in through the open entrance; then, feeling safe from the enemy's bullets, he took a candle from his pouch and having lit it, held it above his head. He shrank back, startled for the moment. The pale flame had fallen full on the face of a big negro, crouching in the corner of an upper bunk. A second glance a.s.sured him that he had nothing to fear; the black face was sickly with terror. In a flash Dennis remembered the negro cook of whom Amos had spoken. As cook, being allowed a certain freedom of movement about the vessel, the man would probably know where the boatswain kept his powder, and search might be unnecessary. Dennis called to him; the negro only showed more of the whites of his eyes.

Dennis beckoned him with his finger; he only cowered and groaned.

"'Tis to be main force then, you white-livered rascal!" cried Dennis, and, setting down his candle, caught the man by his waist-band and began to haul his oily ma.s.s out of the bunk. "You gibber more brutishly than Mirandola; come, or I'll shake your fat bulk to a jelly."

Not without labour he lugged the negro forth, and dragged him aft to the place where Amos was crouching.

"Here's a fat knave that's like to dissolve with fright," he said. "I do not understand his monkey-talk; speak to him, Amos. Ask of him what we need to know, and tell him we intend him no harm, and will certainly not expect such a craven to fight."

"Ay, sir, 'tis Baltizar the cook, and a very whey-blooded knave. I'll ferret it out of him, trust me."

He took some minutes in his sc.r.a.ps of Spanish to make the man understand what was required of him. When he understood, the negro became very voluble. He said that the boatswain did indeed keep a small jar of powder in his sea-chest, but there was a much larger quant.i.ty concealed among the s.h.i.+p's stores under hatches. It had been placed there by the mate--"the long knave I spitted," Amos explained--who was accustomed to do a little private trading with the natives of the mainland, and had destined the powder as a bribe for certain pearl-fishers of the coast.

"Is it in the fore-peak?" asked Dennis, remembering where he had found powder on the _Maid Marian_.

"No, worse luck!" replied Turnpenny, after questioning the man. "'Tis in the lazaretto, and the hatchway being but a few feet from the break of the p.o.o.p, we cannot come at it 'ithout running the hazard of a shot from the cabin."

"'Tis darker now; could I not risk the deed?"

"The knaves med not see you, 'tis true; but you could not knock out the battens 'ithout raising a din, and they would know your whereabouts, and not all on 'em would miss your carcase. Be jowned if I'd like to see 'ee make the venture."

Releasing the negro, Dennis crouched again behind the coil of rope.

"We must find a way to get that powder," he said. "A mariner like you, Amos, ought to be fertile in devices. Come, set your brains on the rack."

"I be afeard they be soft wi' four years' misery, but I'll rouse 'em.

If I had but the second sight, now, like the old witch as lived within a cable-length o' my grandad's hut on the moors!"

But Amos had done his brains an injustice. He had not pondered many minutes before he exclaimed--

"My heart! We have them on the hip! We'll e'en s.h.i.+n up the shrouds and lower the mainsail. She's furled on the yards, but we can unreeve her 'ithout noise, and when she's down, she'll be a barricade betwixt the mainmast and the break o' the p.o.o.p, and not a knave of them can see what is toward in the waist."

Dennis applauded the notion, and the two instantly set about their task. Crawling to the starboard side, they crept along by the rope netting that replaced in the waist the wooden bulwarks which bounded the decks, and reached the shrouds of the mainmast unperceived by the enemy in the cabin. To swarm up was the work of a few moments to Turnpenny, and Dennis was little less expert, having practised himself on the _Maid Marian_ in many details of the mariners' duties. Gaining the yards, they cast off the robands, made the buntlines fast, then, easing the earings, lowered away by the buntlines and the clew-garnets.

Scarcely five minutes after they had left the shelter of the rope-coil, a wall of canvas shut the waist from the view of the Spaniards.

They had barely finished their task when two musket-shots rang out, and two holes were cut in the sail. Clearly the enemy was on the alert.

There was no time to be lost. Turnpenny knocked out the battens as quickly as possible, and lifting the hatch, disclosed a small ladder leading down into the lazaretto.

"I will go down," said Dennis, "being of less bulk than you, Amos."

He climbed nimbly down, struck a light, and after a little search discovered a jar of powder among a miscellaneous collection of s.h.i.+p's stores. Hoisting the jar up, he gave it into the hands of Turnpenny, climbed up again, and returned with the sailor to the coil of rope, to be out of harm's way while they went on with their preparations.

"If we fire the whole jar we shall of a surety sink the s.h.i.+p," said Dennis; "and that I am loath to do. We must needs make a petard; but how?"

"That cook knave shall find us a tin vessel, or I'll firk him," said Turnpenny.

He went into the forecastle. Dennis heard a brisk exchange of bad Spanish; then the sailor returned, with a small canister out of which he poured a heap of peppercorns.

"Most admirable!" said Dennis, who had meanwhile forced off the top of the jar. Making a hole in the rim of the canister near the lid, he filled the vessel with powder and firmly closed it.

"There's our petard, Amos. Now to place it."

"That be my job, sir."

"No, no, we go shares in this work. 'Twas your idea to lower the sail.

I carry less flesh than you, and therefore can go more lightly."

"But mayhap I be surer footed on the plank, being a mariner of forty year."

"I doubt it not, yet the deed shall be mine."

Carrying the canister, and in the pouch slung at his neck a handful of powder for the train, he crept to the side of the vessel, ran lightly along the gangway by the rope netting, and lifting a corner of the sail, stood between it and the wall of the cabin. Then he dropped on hands and knees, and wormed his way forward until he touched the wall, following it along until he reached the door. Being beneath the line of loopholes, he was in no danger so long as he moved quietly; but at the slightest sound the enemy would fling open the door and give him his quietus before help could reach him from beyond the barricade. He might have felt still more confident had he known that Turnpenny had crept along after him, and was waiting at the corner of the sail, ready to spring to his aid in case of need.

Feeling with his hand for the middle panel of the door, Dennis laid the canister down close against it. To ensure that the hole he had made in it, to connect with the train of powder, should rest upon the planks and not turn over, he pressed a slight dent in the rim. Then he crept backwards the way he had come, laying close to the cabin wall a train of powder from his pouch, not stinting the quant.i.ty, so that there might be no gaps in the line. He drew a breath of relief when he came once more to the further side of the canvas and stood erect. There was not a gust of air stirring; the confined s.p.a.ce between the sail and the cabin was hot and stuffy; and what with holding his breath during the minutes his task had occupied, and the strain upon his nerves, he had felt almost suffocated.

He said not a word when he found Turnpenny awaiting him, but placed his finger on his lips and motioned the man to return. The charge having been laid in safety, it remained to arrange a course of action when the door should be blown in. While the sail was still lowered it would be impossible to dash forward into the cabin. The screen was no longer required now that there was no further need for the open hatchway; to remove it might indeed put the enemy on their guard, but they could not know what to expect, and there would be no time after the explosion to hoist the sail, even if it were possible to spare men for the task. So Turnpenny volunteered to replace the hatch and hoist and bend the sail, work which he would do more quickly and expertly than Dennis. It was then necessary to communicate with the maroons, for to attack the cabin in less than full strength, against superior weapons, would be to court disaster. A loud whisper reached the men who had taken shelter behind some tackle forward of the mainmast, and brought them crawling to their leaders. It was not so easy to attract the attention of the two men who had s.h.i.+nned up the p.o.o.p, and to whom, though they had probably seen Dennis as he crawled beneath the sail, he had not dared to make a sign.

The difficulty was removed by a word from Turnpenny to one of the maroons. The man made a strange clicking in his throat, and within a couple of minutes his comrades had crept noiselessly along the port side of the vessel, and the party was complete.

With great solemnity and many repet.i.tions the sailor exhausted his small stock of Spanish in explaining what was required of them. They were all to charge together the instant after the petard had done its work. If the force of the explosion proved sufficient to blow in the door, they would dash through into the cabin and engage the enemy hand to hand. If, on the other hand, the door should be only partially shattered--as Turnpenny pointed out, there was no calculating on the precise effect of a charge of gunpowder--two men were to break it in with a short spar unrigged for a battering ram. Dennis counted on gaining a few moments while the Spaniards recovered from the surprise and shock of the explosion. In that brief interval it might be possible for him and Turnpenny to find the loopholes in the cabin wall and thrust the muzzles of their calivers through. By the time they had fired the door would be burst in, and then it would be a fight to the death.

If the occupants of the cabin had felt any wonder or misgiving at the manipulation of the sail, there was nothing during the pause to give them either explanation or rea.s.surance. They might have suspected that the intention of lowering the sail was to screen an approach to the hatchway; but as, according to Baltizar the cook, the jar of powder had been appropriated by the mate secretly, and he was now dead, it would never have occurred to them that their enemy would seek there anything but food. Otherwise they would a.s.suredly have made some effort, beyond the firing of two random shots, to avert their fate.