Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer Part 11

Urged by young Teach to exertion superhuman, the boat actually shot under the quarter of the galleon before the squall broke. The tackles were hooked on and she was run up to the davits with all her crew aboard.

"Up with the helm!" cried Morgan the instant the boat was alongside.

"Swing the mainyard and get the canvas off her. Aloft, topmen, settle away the halliards! Clew down! Lively, now!"

And as the s.h.i.+p slowly paid off and gathered away the white squall broke upon them. The sea was a-smother with mist and rain. The wind whipped through the shrouds and rigging, but everything held. Taking a great bone in her teeth the old _Almirante Recalde_ heeled far over to leeward and ripped through the water to the southward at such a pace as she had never made before. On the quarter-deck a drenched, s.h.i.+vering, and sobbing figure knelt at Morgan's feet and kissed his hand.

"Wilt obey me in the future?" cried the captain to the repentant man.

"'Fore G.o.d, I will, sir," answered Sawkins.

"That's well," said the old buccaneer. "Take him forward, men, and let him have all the rum he wants to take off the chill of his wetting."

"You stood by me that time, Sir Henry," cried young Teach, who had been told of Morgan's refusal to fill away, "and, by heaven, I'll stand by you in your need!"

"Good. I'll remember that," answered Morgan, glad to have made at least one friend among all he commanded.

"What's our course now, captain?" asked Hornigold as soon as the incident was over.

"Sou'west by west-half-west," answered Morgan, who had taken an observation that noon, glancing in the binnacle as he spoke.

"And that will fetch us where?" asked the old man, who was charged with the duty of the practical sailing of the s.h.i.+p.

"To La Guayra and Venezuela."

"Oho!" said the old boatswain, "St. Jago de Leon, Caracas, t'other side of the mountains will be our prize?"

"Ay," answered Morgan. "'Tis a rich place and has been unpillaged for a hundred years."

He turned on his heel and walked away. He vouchsafed no further information and there was no way for Master Ben Hornigold to learn that the object that drew Morgan to La Guayra and St. Jago was not plunder but the Pearl of Caracas.

CHAPTER VIII

HOW THEY STROVE TO CLUB-HAUL THE GALLEON AND FAILED TO SAVE HER ON THE COAST OF CARACAS

Two days later they made a landfall off the terrific coast of Caracas, where the tree-clad mountains soar into the clouds abruptly from the level of the sea, where the surf beats without intermission even in the most peaceful weather upon the narrow strip of white sand which separates the blue waters of the Caribbean from the ma.s.sive cliffs that tower above them.

In the intervening time the South Sea buccaneers had picked up wonderfully. These men, allured by the hope of further plunder under a captain who had been so signally successful in the past and in the present, const.i.tuted a most formidable auxiliary to Morgan's original crew. Indeed, with the exception of the old hands they were the best of the lot. L'Ollonois had been admitted among the officers on a suitable footing, and there was little or no friction among the crews. They were getting hammered into shape, too, under Morgan's hard drilling, and it was a vastly more dangerous body of men than the drunken gang who had sailed away from Jamaica. Though not the equal of the former buccaneering bands who had performed in their nefarious careers unheard of prodigies of valor and courage, they were still not to be despised.

Had it been known on the Spanish Main that such a body was afloat there would have been a thrill of terror throughout the South American continent, for there were many who could remember with the vividness of eye-witnesses and partic.i.p.ants the career of crime and horror which the old buccaneers had inaugurated.

Like a politic captain, Morgan had done his best to get the men whom he had subdued by his intrepid courage and consummate address into good humor. Rum and spirits were served liberally, work was light, in fact none except the necessary seaman's duties were required of the men, although an hour or two every day was employed in hard drill with swords, small arms, and great guns. In martial exercises the veterans were perfect, and they a.s.siduously endeavored to impart their knowledge to the rest.

It was Morgan's plan to run boldly into La Guayra under the Spanish flag. No one could possibly take the _Almirante Recalde_ for anything but a Spanish s.h.i.+p. There was no reason for suspecting the presence of an enemy, for Spain had none in these seas. If there were other s.h.i.+ps in the roadstead, for the harbor of La Guayra was really nothing more than an open road, the buccaneer could easily dispose of them in their unprepared condition. Indeed, Morgan rather hoped that there might be others, for, after he captured them, he would have a greater force of guns to train upon the forts of the town, which he expected to take without much difficulty, and then be governed in his manoeuvres toward Caracas by circ.u.mstances as they arose.

Two days after the capture of the galleon, then, with the wind fresh from the northeast, on a gray, threatening, stormy morning, she was running to the westward along the sh.o.r.e. A few hours at their present speed would bring them opposite La Guayra, whose location at the foot of the mighty La Silla of Caracas was even then discernible. Morgan could see that there were two or three other vessels opposite the town straining at their anchors in the heavy sea. Every preparation for action had been made in good time and the guns had been loaded. The sea las.h.i.+ngs had been cast off, although the gun-tackles were carefully secured, for the wind was blowing fresher and the sea running heavier every hour.

The men were armed to the teeth. There happened to be a goodly supply of arms on the Spanish s.h.i.+p in addition to those the buccaneers had brought with them, which were all distributed. Many a steel cap destined for some proud Spanish hidalgo's head now covered the cranium of some rude ruffian whom the former would have despised as beneath his feet.

Everything was propitious for their enterprise but the weather. The veterans who were familiar with local conditions in the Caribbean studied the northeastern skies with gloomy dissatisfaction. The wind was blowing dead insh.o.r.e, and as the struck bells denoted the pa.s.sing hours, with each half-hourly period it grew appreciably stronger. If it continued to blow, or if, as it was almost certain, the strength of the wind increased, it would be impossible without jeopardizing the s.h.i.+p to come to anchor in the exposed roadstead. They would have to run for it.

Nay, more, they would have to beat out to sea against it, for the coast-line beyond La Guayra turned rapidly to the northward.

Morgan was a bold and skilful mariner, and he held his course parallel to the land much longer than was prudent. He was loath, indeed, to abandon even temporarily a design upon which he had determined, and as he had rapidly run down his southing in this brief cruise his determination had been quickened by the thought of his growing nearness to the Pearl of Caracas, until for the moment love--or what he called love--had almost made him forget the treasure in the s.h.i.+p beneath his feet. For the Pearl of Caracas was a woman.

Mercedes de Lara, daughter of the Viceroy of Venezuela, on her way home from Spain where she had been at school, to join her father, the Count Alvaro de Lara in the Vice-regal Palace at St. Jago de Leon, sometimes called the City of Caracas, in the fair valley on the farther side of those towering tree-clad mountains--the Cordilleras of the sh.o.r.e--had touched at Jamaica. There she had been received with due honor, as became the daughter of so prominent a personage, by the Vice-Governor and his wretched wife. Morgan's heart had been inflamed by the dark, pa.s.sionate beauty of the Spanish maiden. It was only by a severe restraint enjoined upon himself by his position that he had refrained from abusing the hospitality he extended, by seizing her in the old buccaneer fas.h.i.+on. The impression she had made upon him had been lasting, and when he found himself alone, an outlaw, all his dreams of the future centered about his woman.

He would carry out the plans which he had outlined to his men, but the Pearl of Caracas, for so Donna Mercedes was called, must accompany him to the South Seas to be the Island Queen of that Buccaneer Empire of which he was to be the founder. That Donna Mercedes might object to this proposition; that she might love another man, might even be married by this time, counted for nothing in Morgan's plans. He had taken what he wanted by dint of his iron will and the strength of his right arm in the past and he should continue the process in the future. If the hand of man could not turn him, certainly the appeal of woman would avail nothing.

Consequently he was most reluctant that morning, for his pa.s.sion had increased with each o'er-run league of sea, to bear away from La Guayra, which was the port of entry for Caracas; but even his ardent spirit was at last convinced of the necessity. It was blowing a gale now and they were so near the sh.o.r.e, although some distance to the eastward of the town, that they could see the surf breaking with tremendous force upon the strip of sand. The officers and older men had observed the course of the s.h.i.+p with growing concern, but no one had ventured to remonstrate with Morgan until old Ben Hornigold as a privileged character finally summoned his courage and approached him.

"Mark yon sh.o.r.e, Captain Morgan," he said, and when he made up his mind he spoke boldly. "The wind freshens. We're frightfully near. Should it come on to blow we could not save the s.h.i.+p. You know how unseamanly these Spanish hulks are."

"Right you are, Hornigold," answered Morgan, yet frowning heavily.

"Curse this wind! We must claw off, I suppose."

"Ay, and at once," cried Hornigold. "See, the wind s.h.i.+fts already! It blows straight from the north now."

"Hands by the braces there!" shouted Morgan, following with apprehension the outstretched finger of the old boatswain. "Ease down the helm. Brace up. Lively, lads!"

In a few moments the great s.h.i.+p, her yards braced sharply up, was headed out to seaward on the starboard tack. The wind was now blowing a whole gale and the masts of the s.h.i.+p were bending like whips.

"We'll have to get sail off her, I'm thinking, Hornigold," said Morgan.

"Ay, ay, sir, and quick!"

"Aloft!" yelled Morgan, "and take in the to'gallant s'l's. Close reef the tops'l's and double reef the courses then."

The shaking shrouds were soon covered with ma.s.ses of men, and as the s.h.i.+p was exceedingly well handled the canvas was promptly snugged down by the eager crew. Hornigold with young Teach to a.s.sist him went to the helm. Morgan gave his personal attention to the manoeuvering of the s.h.i.+p, and the other officers stationed themselves where they could best promote and direct the efforts of the seamen.

Thus during the long morning they endeavored to claw off the lee sh.o.r.e.

Morgan luffed the s.h.i.+p through the heavy squalls which rose to the violence of a hurricane, with consummate skill. Absolutely fearless, a master of his profession, he did all with that s.h.i.+p that mortal man could have done, yet their situation became more and more precarious.

They had long since pa.s.sed La Guayra. They had had a fleeting glimpse of the s.h.i.+pping in the harbor driving helplessly on sh.o.r.e as they dashed by under the gray clouds which had overspread the sea. That town was now hidden from them by a bend of the coast, and they found themselves in a curious bight of land, extending far into the ocean in front of them.

The mountains here did not so nearly approach the water-line, and from the look of the place there appeared to be a shoal projecting some distance into the ocean from the point ahead. Some of the buccaneers who knew these waters confirmed the indications by a.s.serting the existence of the shoal.

In spite of all that Morgan could do it was quite evident that they could not weather the shoal on their present tack. There was not sea-room to wear and bear up on the other tack. The vessel, in fact, like all s.h.i.+ps in those days and especially Spanish galleons, had a tendency to go to leeward like a barrel, and only Morgan's resourceful seamans.h.i.+p had saved them from the fatal embraces of the sh.o.r.e long since. The canvas she was carrying was more than she could legitimately bear in such a hurricane. If there had been sea-room Morgan would have stripped her to bare poles long since, but under the circ.u.mstances it was necessary for him to retain full control and direction of the s.h.i.+p; so, although he reduced sail to the lowest point, he still spread a little canvas.

The men were filled with apprehension, not only for their lives but, such was their covetousness, for the treasure they had captured, for they stood about a hundred chances to one of losing the s.h.i.+p. Each squall that swept down upon them was harder than the one before. Each time the vessel almost went over on her beam ends, for Morgan would not luff until the last moment, since each time that he did so and lost way temporarily he found himself driven bodily nearer the land. The men would have mutinied had it not been patent to the most stupid mind that their only salvation lay in Morgan. Never had that despicable villain appeared to better advantage than when he stood on the weather quarter overlooking the s.h.i.+p, his long gray hair blown out in the wind, fighting against a foe whose strength was not to be measured by the mind of man, for his life and his s.h.i.+p.

Hornigold and Teach, grasping the wheel a.s.sisted by two of the ablest seamen, were steering the s.h.i.+p with exquisite precision. Sweat poured from their brows at the violence of the labor required to control the ma.s.sive helm. The men lay to windward on the deck, or grouped in cl.u.s.ters around the masts, or hung to the life lines which had been pa.s.sed in every direction. At Morgan's side stood Velsers and Raveneau, prime seamen both.

"What think ye, gentlemen?" asked Morgan, at last pointing to the point looming fearfully close ahead of them. "Can we weather it?"

"Never!" answered de Lussan, shaking his head. "Well, it has been a short cruise and a merry one. Pity to lose our freightage and lives."

"And you, Velsers?"

"No," said the German, "it can't be done. Why did we ever come to this cursed coast?"