With Drake on the Spanish Main Part 22

Juan the Maroon

It was now past midday, and the sun's rays beat down upon them with cruel power. Yet none of them was glad when the wind freshened, bringing a touch of coolth; for it filled the sails of the vessel in chase, which loomed ever larger and larger in their wake. The land appeared to be very close, but to Dennis's anxious eyes it scarcely seemed to grow closer. For mile after mile the rowers toiled on in the sweltering heat. Dennis ventured to leave the tiller for a few moments to give them water when they flagged. One of the men collapsed, and Dennis crawled to his thwart and took his oar, bidding him go to the tiller. So the chase went on, until, when the boat was still more than a mile from land, the enemy began to fire. The mere sight of the shots splas.h.i.+ng in the sea astern stirred the wearied rowers to renewed efforts. When, after a few minutes, a shot fell immediately in their wake, sending up a terrific burst of spray, their energy seemed to be doubled again.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "A shot fell immediately in their wake."]

Dennis now had his back to the sh.o.r.e. It could not, he thought, be more than half a mile away: how far would the enemy venture to follow them? Surely she would not come much farther, at the imminent risk of running aground on a shoal. He saw a man at the chains taking soundings. Then suddenly the vessel was thrown into the wind, and she fired the whole of her broadside, in the hope, no doubt, that at least one shot would strike the target. The men were so played out that they were not able even to raise a feeble cheer when they found that they had escaped scot-free. Any gladness they may have felt was extinguished as soon as the smoke cleared away and the enemy perceived that they had failed to hit the boat. The galleon had hove to: the Spaniard was lowering her boats; and in a few minutes all three, long-boat, c.o.c.k-boat, and jolly-boat, crowded with men, came sweeping across the water.

But they were as yet half a mile away; looking over his shoulder Dennis judged that his boat was now within less than a quarter-mile of the sh.o.r.e. Calling cheerfully to the men for a final spurt, he bade the steersman run them aground on the first shoal or spit of land that presented itself. A minute later the boat was brought up with a jerk.

The men flung down their oars and began with desperate haste to gather up some of the stores and the weapons.

"Billy Hawk, take the treasure," said Turnpenny.

But Biddle was too quick for him. Hawk managed to secure one of the goatskin bags; Biddle seized the two others. There was no time to make any alteration. Trembling with their exertions, the men were staggering up the beach, some loaded with articles from the boat, some carrying the two wounded men. Amos, remaining till the last, drove a boat anchor through the bottom and hastened after the others. But the Spaniards' boats, fully manned with crews fresh and vigorous, had sped over the water at a tremendous rate, and it seemed to Dennis, looking back and marking how near they were to land, that after all he and his party stood but a poor chance of getting away. In the three boats there were at least sixty well-armed men. It was clearly their intention to run ash.o.r.e and continue the pursuit on land. Within half an hour they must be upon them.

There was only a few yards of beach. The thick vegetation came down almost to the water's edge. It was a wild part of the sh.o.r.e; not a path was to be seen through the undergrowth, and beyond rose the forest. But the foremost of the fugitives had struck out a way for themselves through the plants, and Dennis and Turnpenny hurried along, bringing up the rear.

The fugitives were greatly impeded by the necessity of carrying the wounded men and the stores. Even when they reached the forest, where there was less undergrowth, their pace must be slower than that of the Spaniards, who had only their arms to carry. And to avoid them was quite impossible, for the Spaniards were not unused to tracking runaway slaves, and would not fail to follow up the broad trail left by the party.

"'Tis vain to go farther," said Dennis to Amos, as they hastened on.

"We must be caught. And we shall need all the poor remnant of our strength. Yonder is a thick clump of bush where with our calivers we may perchance give pause to the enemy. I will run on and tell our comrades ahead to betake themselves thither."

"Ay, do so, though meseems 'tis but to stay for our death. You be lighter of foot than me. I will go into the thicket and there hide."

Dennis ran forward, but had not gone far when he found the two wounded men lying on the ground, deserted by their bearers. The rest of the party had disappeared. Part of the stores also had been abandoned.

Clearly the men had bolted, perhaps in panic fright at some noise in the forest, perhaps--Dennis saw in a flash the explanation. Among the things abandoned there was no sign of the bags of treasure. Even at this critical moment Jan Biddle's cupidity had got the better of all other feelings, and he had made off with the booty and his fellow mutineers.

Dennis bent over the wounded men. One was past help; the shock of being left to his fate had hastened the end that was probably in any case inevitable. The other man Dennis helped to bring back to where Amos had taken up his position.

"Where be Billy Hawk, then?" said Turnpenny, when Dennis had acquainted him with what had happened. "He had one of the bags of pearls.

Od-rat-en for a traitorous f.a.ggett!"

But his attention was immediately diverted from Billy Hawk's shortcomings by the sight of the enemy making their way through the trees. Dennis and the mariner had no hope of saving themselves. They two could not contend long with numbers so overwhelming. But they were resolved not to surrender. They knew well--Amos by experience, Dennis by the tales he had heard--what their fate would be as captives. Their whole aim was to sell their lives as dearly as might be. Amos had already kindled matches for their calivers. These as they burnt gave out an acrid smoke, which was bound to attract the attention of the Spaniards if they came near. Confident of their immense superiority in point of numbers, even if the whole band of fugitives stood up against them, the enemy were pressing forward without caution. Dennis for a moment debated with himself whether to fire on them or let them pa.s.s.

He owed nothing to Jan Biddle and the mutineers. Twice had they behaved treacherously towards him; they would receive no more than their deserts if he allowed the Spaniards to go by unmolested. But then he reflected that after all some of the fugitives were his fellow-countrymen; all had been miserable slaves; and what he had learned of the Spaniards' dealings with those in their power made him regard them as enemies of mankind.

Turnpenny for his part had no scruples. To him, as to the majority of the Englishmen of his time, the Spaniard was a hateful oppressor, who appropriated the riches of the New World in order to set the nations of the Old by the ears. Even if he had not suffered personally at their hands, the whole race of Spaniards was in his eyes no better than vermin. So when Dennis gave the word, he levelled his caliver with right good will at the body of men that presented so easy a target, as they came hurrying through the forest. The two fired together; one man fell; the rest halted, looking about them with an air of fright that set Dennis mightily wondering. While they hesitated, Amos and he reloaded with what haste they might, and had not completed that troublesome process when the enemy, plucking up courage, advanced again in somewhat more extended order, firing as they marched. Bullets pattered on the tree trunks all around. Dennis had come scatheless through the action at sea, but now he felt a burning pang in his forearm, and saw that the sleeve of his doublet was singed. But at the same moment he heard a deep sigh from the wounded man who lay at his feet. The poor wretch had again been hit. There was no time to attend either to him or to his own wound, for the Spaniards, taking heart at the cessation of the fire from the copse, were preparing to make a rush.

By this time both Dennis and Turnpenny had reloaded, and stood waiting to make a last stand against what they felt must be an irresistible attack. To their amazement, however, just when they were expecting to hear the order to charge, they saw that a number of the enemy had swung round, and were facing towards the coast, the direction in which they had come. Next moment there was a yell from among the trees: "Yo peho!

yo peho!" The strange cry was taken up at point after point, until the whole surrounding forest seemed to ring with fierce whoops and battle-cries. Then they caught sight of dark figures flitting among the trees beyond the Spaniards, who had now clearly given up the idea of advancing, and were crowded in a serried ma.s.s to meet another foe.

There was the sharp crackle of fire-arms, followed by the tw.a.n.g of bow-strings. A long arrow whizzed past Dennis's ear, perilously close.

The newcomers had formed, as it appeared, an immense semicircle about the Spaniards; several of these had fallen, and the semicircle seemed to be drawing ever closer.

"The maroons! O Jaykle!" whispered Turnpenny.

Driven together now into a compact body, the Spaniards fired a volley.

Before the smoke had cleared away, from all around the maroons, dusky forms clad in smocks that reached their knees, were among them. Then began a desperate hand-to-hand fight. The Spaniards, in their turn outnumbered by three to one, were wielding their swords with the courage of despair against the javelins of their furious yelling enemy, striving to break through the ring.

"Yo peho! yo peho!" The maroon war-cry rose ever fiercer and fiercer.

It was an affair of a few minutes. Half of the Spaniards were on the ground; the survivors broke and scattered, some speeding towards the copse, forgetful that their first check had come from thence.

Turnpenny levelled his caliver and fired at the foremost of them.

"Shoot 'em, sir!" he cried to Dennis, who had hesitated, feeling some compunction. "Shoot 'em, or we shall have the maroons in upon us, and they will not stop to ask our names."

Dennis fired. The Spaniards broke away to the left, and dashed into the forest, pursued hotly by the exultant maroons. Seeing that the tide had pa.s.sed them by, Turnpenny stepped out into the open and, raising his arms, shouted "Amigos!" at the top of his voice to the maroons within hail. One or two let fly their arrows at him; some were about to fire; but a big fellow among them called loudly to them in a tongue that the Englishman did not understand.

"My heart, 'tis Juan!" cried Turnpenny, and as the man advanced towards them Dennis recognised the leader of the maroons he had rescued on the island--the man who had with Amos supported the ladder for his climb into Fort Aguila.

Juan shook hands with them with every sign of delight. While the others continued the pursuit, he explained to Amos that his attention had been attracted by the sound of firing at sea, and from a point some distance along the coast he had watched, from among the trees, the race in the boats. Never loath to seize a chance of striking a blow at the hated Spaniards, he had hurried with his comrades along the fringe of forest. He was overjoyed to think that the men whom his sudden onslaught had saved were his old friends and the leaders of the attack on Fort Aguila. He invited them to accompany him to his village deep in the forest, and wound a horn to recall his comrades. Within a few minutes they were all a.s.sembled. The Englishmen recognized among them some who had been with them at the attack on the fort. Soon they were on the march. They took no prisoners; it was not the maroons' way to spare any Spaniard who fell into their hands. Four of them carried the twice-wounded sailor, but ere they had gone far he succ.u.mbed to his hurts, and they buried him under leaves in the forest.

An hour's march brought them to the maroons' village, built on a hillside circled by a narrow river. It was surrounded by a broad d.y.k.e, and a mud wall ten feet high. It had one long street and two cross streets, very clean and tidy; and the huts of mud and wattle, thatched with palm-leaves, and with doors of bamboo, were kept with a neatness that surprised the Englishmen, who mentally contrasted them with the dirty cottages of labourers at home. Juan made them very welcome, supplying them with a feast of wild hog, turkeys, oranges and other pleasant fruits.

"I'f.e.c.k, it be a dinner fit for a lord," said Turnpenny, appreciatively.

He related the events that had brought them to the straits in which Juan had found them. When the maroon learnt that some of their party had deserted with the treasure, he despatched a band of his men to follow them up. And then he told his visitors a piece of news that mightily cheered them. El Draque, he said, the Dragon, the great English sea-captain, had lately raided Nombre de Dios, the port whence the great treasure fleets were wont to sail for Spain. Then he had disappeared. The Spaniards were in a state of nervous dread. So bold, so sudden were his movements, that not a settlement on the coast but lived in constant terror of his appearance. The very mystery that surrounded him, their ignorance of his whereabouts, added to the fear his name inspired.

"They do not know where he is," said Juan, with a chuckle; "but I know.

He is a long day's march from this place, in a little harbour that no pa.s.sing s.h.i.+p can spy. And there he waits till he can swoop like a jaguar on the dogs of Spain."

"My heart, it be joyful tidings!" said Turnpenny. "I knew Master Francis would come again to these sh.o.r.es, to have a proper t.i.t-for-tat for the base dealings of the Spaniards at St. John d'Ulua. Good-now, sir, shall we take a journey and see the worthy captain, and peradventure join with him in spoiling the knaves?"

"With all my heart, Amos," replied Dennis. "Without doubt Juan will furnish us with a guide."

Turnpenny spoke to the maroon.

"Better than that!" he said, after a brief colloquy. "He says he will e'en come himself with a party. Master Francis, he says, does hurt to no woman nor unarmed man; he is kind to the maroons; and not a man of them but loves him and would serve him to the death. Ay sure, a n.o.ble man is Master Francis, that loves G.o.d and hates the Spaniards; and Ise warrant we could do naught better than join ourselves to him.

Crymaces! he will list with a ready ear to the tale of our adventures."

"'Twill be overlong for the captain," said Dennis, with a smile. "But I would fain see him and speak with him, for he may perchance spare a vessel to go and seek for our poor comrades penned up in Maiden Isle."

"G.o.d-a-mercy, I had a'most forgotten, sir. True, there be Tom Copstone, and Hugh Curder, and Ned Whiddon all lone and lorn. Master Francis will help us to save them, or he be no true man."

CHAPTER XIX

Drake's Camp

Early in the afternoon of the second day thereafter, Dennis and Turnpenny, with Juan and a company of maroons, came to the outskirts of a large clearing at a little recess of the sh.o.r.e. A bark and three trim little pinnaces lay rocking in a secluded roadstead. Neatly thatched huts of the maroons' pattern bordered the clearing. At one end of it stood two archery b.u.t.ts at which men were shooting; a smith was l.u.s.tily plying his sledge at an anvil; and in the middle, on a stretch of sward, two stalwart bearded figures were disporting themselves at a game of bowls.

"I'fegs, 'tis very like home," said Turnpenny. "'Tis Master Francis himself, as I live, and Master John Oxnam, a gallant soul; and there be Master Ellis Hixom, the captain his man, and a very worthy gentleman.

And Bob Pike, busy with the rum bowl--a good man, when not betoatled with the drink. And O cryal! lookeedesee, sir; Bob hath a monkey at his elbow, and hang me if he be not teaching the poor beast the taste of rum. Oh Bobby, Bobby, the drink will be your undoing, an ye have not a care. They spy us, sir; 'tis a right merry sight, good-now, and warming to the heart."

A maroon came from among the company to meet them. He greeted Juan warmly, looking with surprise and curiosity at his white companions.

Then they advanced into the clearing. Bob Pike, a red-faced mariner, sitting on a tub, looked up as they approached, and raised his bowl unsteadily, singing--

"Let us laugh, and let us quaff, Good drinkers think none ill a.

Welcome, Haymoss; I know not where be coom from but here be a sup for 'ee, comrade.