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 laughan, though inwardly a prey to the most horrid fears, strove bravely to keep a good colour, and to seem pleased like the rest.
presently, too, the tedium of the waiting was relieved. from round the farther horn of the bay the pink came sailing in under a cloud of canvas, and began discharging her cannon at the outermost of the brigantines. instantly the whole scene bubbled with disorder. drums beat to quarters, and trumpets rang out defiances. the guardship vaingloriously made a discharge of her great pieces on both broadsides (though the pink was far out of any range), and then sent her top-slaves aloft to set canvas. from their lair those on shore could hear the clacking of her capstan as she heaved in cable to get her anchor. and then, after some men had run out on her towering bowsprit to loose the sprit-sail, they canted her head with that, and sent her clumsily surging off to seaward, pluming her as she ran, and never ceasing the useless cannonade.
but the handful of buccaneers in the pink, recking little of the noise and bustle, sailed gallantly in, and ran aboard the outermost of the brigantines. this was going beyond their orders, for prince rupert had commanded that they were only to show themselves in the offing so as to draw pursuit, and then sail out again. but it was easy to see what was compelling them. they drove the crew over-side, and then threw of food and water all the brigantine contained on to their own decks, and, casting off their grapples, sailed away again. they were half mad with starvation and thirst, and they risked capture and the wrecking of the enterprise to satisfy their intolerable cravings.
by this time the great war-carrack had drawn near, and her shot was falling merrily about the fabric of the pink, though the aim for the most part was ill enough. but once the pink was in charge of her canvas again, the handful of buccaneers left the spanish prisoners to attend to her sailing, and after a drink and a bite apiece, took up their hand guns, and with deliberate aim brought down a man on the carrack for every shot, so continuing till they drew out of range.
the carrack was a dull sailer, much time having passed since her last careen, and her bottom being in consequence a very garden of trailing weeds and barnacles. the pink, thanks to recent attention, had, in sea phrase, the heels of her. but the carrack did not desist from the chase, lumbering along in the wake of the smaller vessel, blazing off her futile artillery, wallowing with helpless wrath. and so the pair of them passed out of sight round the western horn of the bay. the sun was just upon its setting, and they sailed as coal-black ships with coal-black spars and cordage, through a sea and an air of blood—fit emblems, as it seemed to master laughan, of the desperate work which was shortly to befall.
night came suddenly, like the shutting down of a box, there being no such thing as twilight known in these latitudes; and amongst the forest trees of the shore there arose a thin blue film of mist, which thickened as the night grew, and spread out over the bay, and swallowed the shipping away from sight. but the ambush lay still in its lair, for no attack was to be made till midnight passed, and those on the shipping were locked in their deepest slumber.
prince rupert and the buccaneers were in high feather. their scheme had succeeded with exactness. the pink had drawn away the war-carrack, and there remained only a bare fifteen hundred spaniards to oppose to their lusty score and a half. to hear them, one might have supposed they were going to a wedding, where all was frolic and gaiety; and yet in all the annals of men it would be hard to find any scheme more desperate than that which lay before them. for their proposal was this: to swim out and seize the nearest brigantine; with her to capture the store-carrack; and then to take the great ship to sea, and so to their rendezvous with the pink. heard any man ever such harebrained recklessness?
there was no boat, no canoe upon the beach—nothing but a few logs, which would help to bear the weapons, and assist those that could not swim; and when the time came, the buccaneers stripped off all clothes except their breeches, for ease in the water. if they got drowned or killed, these reckless fellows said they could die as easy naked as clad; and if they took the carrack, there would be plenty more clothes in her store; while if they did not take her, why, then, they were as good as dead.
here again, then, was a very horrid situation for the poor secretary; for to strip was to confess her sex, than which she would liefer have died, and to go into the water clad (being indeed no swimmer) was to court drowning. she did indeed make one attempt to escape the ordeal, saying that it was beneath his highness's dignity to render up his clothes, and suggested that the taking of a brigantine—surely an easy matter—should be left to the common buccaneers, and that they should send a row-boat to the shore when they were ready for the attack on the carrack.
but the prince only laughed. "my scrupulous stephen," said he, "we are not in england now, or even europe. perhaps i am rupert palatine, as you say, though i have almost forgot. but, for the time, i am just a tarry sailor, that for risks and plunder goes share and share alike with his crew. and so, my lad, i am e'en going to play water-rat and dodge the sharks. but do you stay behind, if you please, and i'll send a boat for you when the affair is over."
"nay," said master laughan, "if your highness goes, your humble secretary follows;" and with that stepped into the water, laid hold of one of the logs which the swimmers stood ready to tow, and shut her eyes, and inwardly commended her soul to god. and so the greatest stroke of the enterprise began.
now the present historian has to confess that of this horrible passage through the water no detail can be given here, for she made it in a condition close upon fainting. let alone the new sensation of being afloat in unstable water, there was the dreadful fear of sharks with which those seas abounded, and this over-rid all dread of what the reception might be on the brigantine and beyond, and made the passage seem infinitely tedious. but, as it so fell out, no sharks attacked; and when the brigantine was reached, master laughan, burning with shame at all this pitiful display of cowardice, was the first to board and the first to strike a blow.
the taking of that dead-fish-stinking brigantine was in itself a small matter, as there were barely forty men on board, and some number of them negro and other slaves; but it was not accomplished without some dispute, and many cries rose shrilly up into the night before all could be silenced. a gun was fired from the storeship, which showed that she at least was awake; and presently, when the buccaneers had cut the cable, and were moving the brigantine with her sweeps, a breeze sprang up and drove away the mists from the whole surface of the bay.
here then, it seemed, was the whole enterprise laid bare to public sight, and the one little vessel in the midst of such a huge force of enemies could do nothing better than surrender and sue for quarter. but such was the indomitable courage of the prince and these savage buccaneers who followed him, that nothing was further from their thoughts. a trumpet pealed out from the great carrack, and they answered the challenge by wild shouts and stronger labour at their oars. those on board the carrack understood the capture then, and retorted with a broadside from their great guns, which tore the waters of the bay into foam and fountains.
not a shot hit; but the prince was as wise as he was daring, and knowing that a couple of those iron messengers might well sink the brigantine before she had accomplished her purpose, steered her so as to meet the carrack bow to bow—which, as they had no spring ready to warp round their broadside, they could not avoid. they had only two bow pieces which could be brought to bear, and to these no reply could be made, as all the powder of the buccaneers had been wetted by the swimming. but their aim was bad and their loading slow, and most of the shots hummed through the rigging overhead, or spouted harmlessly in the water alongside.
so the brigantine made her advance, and finally fouled her foremast rigging with the sprit-sail yard on the carrack's towering boltsprit, and came to a standstill little harmed.
"boarders away!" cried the prince, and led the storm himself, sword in teeth. the carved woodwork of the great ship's beak hung above, sawing up and down with the motion of the seas. he caught his fingers in this and hauled himself up, amid a storm of missiles sent down from the high forecastle roof. his secretary, fearing horribly, but impelled by love, was close upon his heels; and the buccaneers, climbing like cats, followed close after.
but here came a check. under their feet were the gratings of the great ship's beak; before them was the high plain wall of her lofty forecastle; and at its summit were the outraged spaniards lusting for their destruction. for general use ladders led from the gratings of the beak to the high roof of the forecastle above, but these had been drawn up or cast overboard before the actual moment of the attack. the wall of wood before them was as naked as the wall of a house, and quite unscalable; and the spaniards above, with shouts of triumph, rained down shot and grenades into the huddled crowd of the buccaneers, till it seemed that in another minute not one soul of them would remain alive.
but presently watkin the hunter, being a man of resource, bethought himself of one of the two forecastle gun ports, which, though shut down and fastened from within, offered a slight gap. into this he thrust his hanger, and prised it open another half-inch, till he could get a hold with his fingers; and then, being a fellow of vast and ponderous strength, wrenched the whole port lid from its fastenings, and fell backward with it amongst the corpses and the confusion.
the prince's secretary was the first to hazard life through the gap, and got in, wounding two opponents; and then in came the rest of the buccaneers, the prince with his accustomed courage being the last to seek the shelter.
here, then, they had got possession of the interior of the carrack's forward castle, and had a moment to gain breathing time, and to tie up the more pressing of their hurts. within all was dark, but without all was bright-lit with battle lanterns, and alive with the curses and movements of savage armed men. it was plain that the ship was far from taken yet, and the pearls, which they were chiefly concerned with, lay in the lazaret, under the after-cabin floor. so, as the spaniards were raging before the doors of the forecastle and in the waist of the ship, though not daring to attack them in this gloomy stronghold, the buccaneers slewed round the two demi-culverins which armed its ports, loaded them with grape, and twice shot lanes through the thick of the enemy, before they gave way and fled in confusion, to spots where the missiles could not reach.
"now!" cried the prince, "at them again, brethren, before they can re-form!" and led the way out on to the main deck, sword in hand.
but here in an instant the boarders were penned in. the buccaneers might be brave, but the spaniards were no cowards, and moreover they were exasperated by what had befallen already. right desperately did the boarders fight, but their numbers were already small, and they grew fewer; and although dozens of the spaniards were killed, there were always others behind to fill their places. the buccaneers began to yield ground. it seemed as though they would be driven overboard.
but again prince rupert called upon them.
"brethren!" he shouted, "let us go and find their pearls. it is unprofitable waiting here in this debate. one fine charge, and we'll have their after-castle all to ourselves to dine in!" whereupon he headed the rush in his own person with invincible valour, and with wild laughter those of the buccaneers who survived followed close upon his heels. a red lane was cut through the mob of spaniards, and the doors were reached. so sudden and furious had been the charge, that none were inside the barricadoes to defend them, and once more the little company of the buccaneers found themselves in a stout fortress from which nothing but cannon could dislodge them.
the table in the great cabin was set for supper, and the scraps on the platters showed that it had been left half eaten. down the centre of the table were vast jugs of wine and silver pannikins, and the throats of the buccaneers being parched with fighting, they did not omit to drink. but it was not a time for loitering, though watkin and one or two of the others were for sitting down then and making a meal whilst they had the chance. for the moment the spaniards outside were quiet, but it was easy to guess they were in some way plotting their destruction. so the prince with his cheery voice urged all hands to search for the hatch to the lazaret.
"let's win our way down there, brethren," cried he, "and get their pearls, and then we'll be off and away. their silly ship's too hot and heavy to take with us, so we'll leave her afire to give them occupation whilst we make our clearance."
"the lazaret hatch is here under the table," said one.
"and heavily padlocked at that," said another.
but locks cause small delay to lusty men. a shower of axe-blows beat away the staples, the hatch was wrenched back, and the lazaret yawned blackly beneath. a couple of fellows slipped below and passed up the pearls, which were in handy leather bags; and these the buccaneers fastened conveniently about their waists, with jibes at the spaniards for making their plunder so easy for the carrying.
now it was in prince rupert's mind that he would fire the carrack, jump from the stern gallery into the water, swim to another brigantine and take her, and so to sea before pursuit could be made.
but of a sudden this plan was upset. one who was spying through an after-castle port, cried that the spaniards had drawn up eight cannon across the main deck, and were then in the very act and article of shooting, with intent to scatter their own after-castle and the pestilential buccaneers which it contained far over the sea beyond, in mere rags and splinters. whereupon there occurred something very akin to a panic, and the buccaneers incontinently leaped down through the hatch into the lazaret. prince rupert was left behind helpless; and for a moment busied himself; and then followed, swearing, at their heels.
"now," cried he, "i'm for no surrender, brethren; and if you do not choose to roast like bacon, you'll cut your way out like men. there's no retreat the way we came. i've fired the ship above our heads."
what he said next was lost, for the spaniards had begun the bombardment of their own after-castle (deeming the buccaneers to be still within its shelter) and all words were choked with the crashing of timbers overhead, and the din of the bellowing guns. dust fell in clouds, and the frail gleam of a single lantern was the only illumination. but his highness showed by signs what he wanted done, and the buccaneers were quick to carry out his wishes.
between the lazaret and the main hold was a strong bulkhead of spanish oak, and this had to be cut through. the axes were plied with frenzied strength, and the heat grew as the fire above gained hold. the tough wood resisted stubbornly, but the axe-men hewed with an ecstasy of strength, and at last a gap was splintered through. giant fingers gripped hold of the ragged wood and wrenched it away, and at last a road was made.
into the hold beyond the buccaneers forced their way, fire and smoke licking at their heels, and the vengeful guns still thundering overhead; blunderingly they picked their way over the crates and barrels with which the hold was filled; and at its farther end fortune smiled, for they found a sliding panel which led to the cable tier. there was a ladder from this to a hatch in the forward castle deck above, and the ladder head was so stoutly defended that two more men fell before it was forced.
but then the prince himself headed the attack, and forced a passage through the gap; and when once he and his buccaneers had stormed the forecastle and cleared it from those it contained, and had the place to themselves, they were very little more disturbed. the aftercastle of the carrack, shattered into easily burning splinters by her own artillery, was by this time a mass of spouting flames; and those of the spaniards who still offered offence did it half-heartedly, and were clearly anxious to be shut of their unneighbourly visitors on whatever terms they would take.
the brigantine still hung where she had first lodged, with her foremast rigging fouled on the carrack's spritsail yard; and the prince and his men, having the pearls at their belts, and knowing of nothing else that was not too hot or too heavy to carry off, struck up a jaunty song and made retreat by the way they had come. none molested them; not a gun was fired with purpose to do them harm: the spaniards were all too busy in trying to quell the flames and save their ship.
but the flames had an unbreakable hold, and by the time the little brigantine had got herself clear, and was slipping away from this prickly neighbourhood as fast as sail and sweep could drive her, the spaniards had got their boats into the water, and were thinking more of saving their lives than of saving the proud ship of which they had made their boast. and what more happened to them the present writer cannot tell, for after the fire reached her powder, and the carrack blew up, all was darkness till the dawn rose and the brigantine found herself alone on a lonely sea. but from the desperate nature of the foray it is sure that they must have lost a great number killed, for of the buccaneers themselves only thirteen live men sailed back to sea again, including the prince, and master laughan, and the wounded.
much excellent booty was wasted in the carrying off, as is always inevitable in these matters; and although the carrack had, before she was touched, the pearls of a whole season's fishing stored in her lazaret, only one-half of these found their way into the brigantine to offer themselves for division.
over this division too, when they came to the rendezvous, and found the pink in waiting for them, there was like to have been another turmoil; for it is the custom of the buccaneers, when sharing up their spoil, that each should strip naked to show that he has no wealth concealed—the which was an ordeal to which poor master laughan (who could have wept at the thought) strenuously refused to submit. where all conformed, this very refusal seemed in itself suspicious, as even the prince himself was forced to admit. but at last, after offering to fight all who challenged his honesty, and forthwith being told that it was impossible to fight the lot of them, master laughan compounded by being allowed to keep his decency in exchange for all his share of the plunder. which compounding the secretary accepted with much mortification, having as large an appetite for pearls as other people, and having laboured very keenly and bravely in the getting of them.
but there was no other way of evading this law of the buccaneers, and so all that could be set aside from this venture for the maintenance of his gracious majesty's court at the hague were the five shares given to prince rupert as captain. verily, a maid who undertakes to act a man's part for the sake of being always near one she loves, meets with more trials and disappointments than ever she could dream of at the outset. but master laughan did not repine, and all who know prince rupert will understand how natural it was to feel devotion for him.