With Drake on the Spanish Main Part 16

CHAPTER XIV

Vae Victis

The intention of Dennis had been to release the prisoners and then make for the bark that lay alongside the quay. She was only of some fifty tons burden; her crew would not be a large one; and it ought to be a comparatively easy matter to overpower the men on board and warp the vessel clear before the discomfited Spaniards could recover from their confusion and make an organized attack.

But he had not reckoned on the rapidity with which events had moved, and the impossibility of communicating his design to the men who had been released. They had scattered in all directions in pursuit of the Spaniards; Copstone and the maroons were carried away by the l.u.s.t of vengeance, and, wounded as they were, had rushed away with the rest; and Dennis found that only Turnpenny was left at his side.

There were elements of peril in the situation. Some of the Spaniards had swarmed over the wall of the officers' quarters. If they found efficient leaders.h.i.+p they might yet rally and prove a very formidable enemy. Dennis and the seaman held a hurried consultation. They were unarmed save for their swords; they had left their calivers in the pa.s.sage of the round tower, and the weapons were no doubt now in the hands of two of the released prisoners. Adventurous as they both were, it seemed the height of folly and rashness to attempt, they two alone, to cope with unknown numbers beyond the wall. While they were still perplexed as to the best course to follow, they heard a roar and a crash from the direction of the commandant's house, followed by a babel of cries. Running round, they found that the maroons, headed by Copstone, had blown open the door of the house, and were hunting through it in the darkness for the man under whose authority they had suffered so many grievous wrongs. There were only four rooms; it was the work of a few minutes to ransack them thoroughly; not a trace of the commandant or his household could be discovered.

"Be jowned if they bean't stolen a march on us," cried Turnpenny, "and made for the harbour first!"

"Let us after them at once, then. If they get away ours will be a bad case indeed."

Calling to the half-dozen men who were at hand, Turnpenny led the way at a great pace to the gate in the eastern wall of the fort. It was locked. Almost beside himself with baffled rage, the seaman threw his great bulk against the timbers; but they were stout, and even his weight failed to force the lock.

"Is there no other way out?" asked Dennis.

"Not as I knows on. Where be Tom Copstone? Hey, my heart, be there any other way out o' this yard?"

"Ay, there be a postern in the nor'-east tower."

The words were scarcely out of his mouth before Dennis dashed towards the tower, the others following him with a rush. The door at the foot of the tower was open; he sprang up the spiral stairway three steps at a time, and almost broke his head against the postern door, that opened inwards and blocked the way. The dawn was bursting in the eastern sky, and Dennis looked eagerly out. The postern faced the sea, and the harbour and quay were hidden from him by the circ.u.mference of the tower; but he spied a rope ladder dangling from the opening to the narrow footway below. It was clear that the commandant and his party, while the combat was at its height, had slipped out of the house and made their escape by this exit.

By this time Turnpenny and half a dozen others were crowding the narrow staircase.

"They have made for the bark," cried the seaman, "and if there be true mariners aboard she'll be warped clear and out to sea."

"She is not there yet. We have one chance. Copstone, run back to the gate; blow up the lock and lead as many of your comrades as you can find hot foot along the quay, in case it be still possible to seize the vessel. Amos, can we train the fort guns on the mouth of the harbour?"

"Ay, sure, and I'll do it, being once gunner's mate aboard the _Anne Gallant_."

"And I can aid you; G.o.d be praised that Sir Martin practised us venturers in the usage of ordnance in the _Maid Marian_."

He slammed-to the postern door, freeing the stairway, and rushed up to the narrow open archway leading on to the battlements, stumbling in the dim light over the prostrate body of the gagged sentry as he leapt through. Vaulting on to the parapet, he looked down at the quay to see how the men were faring. A cry of bitter mortification burst from his lips as he saw the bark slowly moving towards the sea. Her sails were hoisted on the mainmast, and filling with the light westerly breeze; a group of officers, among whom the commandant was easily distinguished, crowded her deck, in addition to the crew; and there was not one of Dennis's party or the prisoners in sight.

But at that moment there was a loud explosion; the gate fell with a crash; and a crowd of men, white and black, headed by Copstone, rushed out on to the quay. They roared with fury when they saw that they were too late. Those of them who had loaded calivers ran along the quay, firing ineffectually at the moving vessel. They were answered with a volley from her decks, and two maroons fell, shouts from the Spaniards acclaiming the lucky shots.

But Turnpenny had now taken his post at the nearest gun.

"Body o' me, sure 'tis a saker taken from the Jesus herself!" he cried joyfully. "And here be powder and round shot and stone shot, and a half circle for the sighting. Haymoss Turnpenny be no true man an he do not send a good un plump into the midst of the knaves."

But none knew better than Turnpenny that, at any considerable distance, it was easier to miss than to hit. Seeing that it was impossible to depress the gun so as to get a shot at the vessel until she had drawn clear of the harbour, he ran to the ordnance on the northern wall, and loaded them in readiness in case his first shot missed. Meanwhile Dennis had spied the muzzle of a demi-culverin projecting from the roof of the round tower, and summoning to his a.s.sistance a white man who was among his party, he ran up and began with all haste to load the gun.

Before he had finished, there was a flash and a roar from Turnpenny's saker just below. The Spaniards on deck, who the moment before had been laughing at the futile shots from the men on the quay, skipped down the companion way with exceeding nimbleness. Dennis looked eagerly for the result of the shot. That something had been carried away was clear from the clattering noise on board and the rush of the crew towards the stern-works; but neither the fore nor the mainmast had been hit, and the vessel still glided seawards. Turnpenny growled with rage, and ran to the next gun, from which, however, it would be useless to fire until the bark had come quite out from the harbour mouth.

Dennis's heart leapt within him as he saw that the course of the vessel would bring her in a few seconds within range of his gun. Now was his chance of showing how he had profited by Sir Martin's lessons in gunnery. How ardently he hoped that the bore was true and the windage not too great to spoil his aim! He waited with lighted match until, sighting with the gunner's half-circle--the quadrant with which every piece of ordnance was equipped--he knew that the Spaniard was well within range. He applied the match and sprang forward to the very edge of the parapet to watch the effect of his shot. There was a sound of rending and splitting from the deck; and through the smoke he saw the mainmast collapse with all its rigging. A great shout from the battlements and from the crowd below acclaimed the famous shot. There had been no time to run up a sail on the foremast; the vessel lost way; and the crew, having been deserted by the officers, huddled into the forecastle, leaving several of their number p.r.o.ne upon the deck.

When the motion of the vessel ceased, two of the Spaniards rushed up the companion-way and called on the crew frantically to hoist the foresail. But in vain. The men were helpless with terror. And while the Spaniards were storming and gesticulating, Turnpenny, exerting his immense strength, hauled round the eight-foot minion which had been removed from the embrasure by which the intruders had entered the fort, and next moment a carca.s.s crammed with case-shot plumped amids.h.i.+ps of the hapless bark, and the Spaniards, cowering from the flying splinters, scuttled down the companion-way--all but one fellow, bolder than the rest. The vessel had swung round a little, so that her stern-chaser, a culverin twelve feet long, pointed full at the fort.

It was already loaded. The Spaniard, with a shout of defiance, altered the elevation of the gun, lit a match, and applied it to the touch-hole. A round shot crashed through the embrasure from which Turnpenny had fired, scattering a shower of stone-chips around, and dealing wounds among the group who were watching and a.s.sisting the seaman to reload. The cras.h.i.+ng sound brought the Spaniards again from below, and they began feverishly to clean out and reload the piece.

But another shot from Dennis's gun fell plump into the round-house on the half-deck; and now the Spanish commandant, perceiving that the men on the quay had sprung into the fishers' canoes that lay alongside, and were making direct to board his vessel, saw that the game was up, and, raising his arms aloft, shouted that he surrendered.

"Go and board her," cried Dennis to Turnpenny. "I'll stay by the guns in case he meditates treachery."

The seaman hurried away with a mixed crowd of maroons and white men.

In a few minutes he was pulling l.u.s.tily for the vessel. Dennis, with gun loaded, watched him climb the side and receive the Spaniard's sword. Then a hawser was fixed to the headboards, and the vessel was towed back to the quay side.

Dennis hastened down. The crestfallen commandant with all his men was brought ash.o.r.e and escorted to his house, where they were left under guard. Hugh Curder, with three other seamen, was placed in charge of the vessel, and then Dennis re-entered the fort-enclosure with Turnpenny and the rest, eager to see, now that day had fully dawned, what had happened during his absence.

He could not repress a shudder as he saw the ground strewn with dead and wounded men; and he was horrified to observe that some of the slave-fishers had broken out of their huts, and were moving about the court-yard, giving the finis.h.i.+ng stroke to the wounded of their late masters who were yet alive. Dennis sent Ned Whiddon among them to put a stop to this ruthless butchery; then his intervention was called for at the round tower from which the prisoners had been released. A group of them, headed by a big ruffianly seaman, had burst open the door of the room in which the unarmed Spanish guards had been locked, and were beginning a work of butchery there when Dennis, with Turnpenny and a few others, rushed to the scene. Das.h.i.+ng into the room, Dennis sprang at the ringleader just as he was thrusting at a Spaniard who had thrown himself down on his knees and was pleading for mercy.

"Hold, knave!" he cried, hauling the man away.

"Zounds! and who be you?" shouted the fellow, recovering himself and lunging furiously at Dennis.

"I'll teach 'ee, Jan Biddle!" roared Turnpenny. Seizing the man, he lifted him as though he were a child and hurled him over his head in true Devonian style. Biddle's head struck the floor with a loud thud, and he lay as one killed.

"Souse him, my hearts!" cried Turnpenny. "The saucy knave!"

And in a few minutes a plentiful drenching from a water-b.u.t.t at the door brought some glimmering of sense into the man's bruised noddle.

Meanwhile the Spaniards who had survived the fight and escaped from their pursuers, had barricaded themselves in the officers' quarters, where they were unmolested while the majority of their late prisoners were on the quay. The victory could not be considered complete while they remained shut up, for they no doubt had arms and ammunition at their disposal. Some of the victors were for blowing up the house and all in it; but Dennis and Turnpenny dissuaded them from this, and declared for insisting on unconditional surrender. To obtain this they made use of the captive commandant. At Dennis's suggestion, Turnpenny put the case to him, pointing out how hopeless was the position of his men, and promising to spare their lives if they surrendered at once.

The commandant was then led to the officers' house between two men with drawn swords, and after a few minutes' colloquy the men agreed to hand over their weapons.

Dennis meanwhile collected his whole party. They were a very ragged regiment. None was quite so tattered as Tom Copstone, but all were dirty, unkempt, unshorn, bearing many marks of toil and suffering, as well as the more recent marks of fight. Of the five maroons who had scaled the fort wall two were dead; the rest were all wounded. Not one of the little band had escaped unhurt. Dennis had several gashes in his arms. Turnpenny's big face was disfigured with cuts and bruises, while Copstone, who had fought with utter recklessness, seemed to have borne a charmed life, so many were his wounds. The released prisoners had come off best. With the exception of the two men shot down from the vessel, one being killed and the other badly wounded, they had escaped with a few scratches. They were a wild, rough lot, and Dennis wondered, as he looked them over, whether they would show themselves amenable to discipline.

The Spaniards having been disarmed and locked in the house, Turnpenny const.i.tuted himself master of the ceremonies. After a brief talk with Ned Whiddon and Hugh Curder, his special friends, he said to Dennis--

"Here we be, sir, masters of the fort, twenty-two all told, five being French. We must needs have a captain, and that be you, for 'tis all owed to your wit, and we pay you our humble duty."

"Thank 'ee, Amos, but I will not be captain save by the wish of all.

Methinks 'tis an office for one older in years."

"Be jowned if it be, sir. Comrades, list while I tell the tale of these rare doings."

He related to the crowd the story of his rescue from the Spaniards on the island, the capture of the lumber-s.h.i.+p, the voyage in the maroons'

canoe, and all that had happened since.

"And now, comrades," he concluded, "I ax 'ee, who so fit to be our captain as Master Dennis Hazelrig, of Shaston in Devon? We owe our lives to him, and there be many a thing to face afore we get across the thousand leagues to home. Who but him shall be our captain?"

The election was ratified with a great shout.

"Thank 'ee, comrades," said Dennis. "'Tis not a post I covet; willingly would I serve under an older man, my good friend Amos, to wit. But I accept your choice. One thing I say. There may be more fighting before us; if we fight, let us fight like Englishmen, not like savages, and treat our enemies according to the manner of civilized nations. Do you agree to that?"

"Ay, ay!" shouted the men,--all but Jan Biddle, whose growling protests were howled down by the rest.