CHAPTER TWENTY.

I PERFORM AN IMPORTANT SERVICE.

The task with which I had been intrusted was one of the very greatest responsibility; for the descent of a combined French and Spanish fleet upon West Indian waters could only be assumed to point to an intention, on the part of our enemies, to wrest at least some of our West Indian possessions from us; an intention which our available resources on the spot would be utterly inadequate to frustrate, in view of the formidable force possessed by the enemy. It was therefore of the last importance that any British reinforcements which might be hastening to the support of the colonies should be quickly found and communicated with; and it was equally important that they should be furnished with the latest possible intelligence with regard to the movements of the enemy. The duty, therefore, that I was asked to perform, single-handed, was such as actually called for the employment of several vessels. Unfortunately, however, there were absolutely none available for the Admiral at this juncture, the only ship in port at the moment of my arrival in Jamaica being the schooner Firefly, which vessel had immediately been despatched to the several islands belonging to the British Crown with a warning that a formidable force was approaching; for the reception of which the best possible dispositions were to be made. It thus came about that I, a young, untried hand, found myself called upon to perform a service of almost national importance with only my own discretion to guide me. My instructions, however, were simple and explicit enough, and I resolved to carry them out to the letter.

After giving the subject the best consideration of which I was capable, I came to the conclusion that if Monsieur Villeneuve really intended to attack the islands in our possession, he would probably begin with the Windward Islands. Instead, therefore, of working my way out into the Atlantic, through the Windward Passage between Cuba and Saint Domingo, I stretched across the Caribbean Sea on a taut larboard bowline, and noon on the fourth day after sailing from Port Royal found us some ninety miles west-north-west of the French island of Martinique, and while I was at dinner the mate stuck his head through the skylight to report land right ahead. I went up on deck to get a look at it, and soon identified it as the summit of Mont Pelee, the highest point in the island. We stood on, keeping a sharp look-out for vessels, but saw nothing; and about two bells in the first watch that night we found ourselves within the influence of the land breeze which was blowing off the island. Half an hour later saw us off the mouth of the bay of Fort Royal, and as the night was dark I came to the conclusion that it might be worth my while to stand inshore a little closer, upon the chance of being able to pick up some information. Accordingly, we worked in against the land breeze, and had arrived within half a mile of Pigeon Island, when we encountered a small trading felucca coming out. We allowed her to get to seaward of us, when we bore up in chase, and a few minutes later we were alongside the craft, and had secured quiet possession of her. The felucca carried five hands, whom I caused to be transferred to the schooner; and my first business was to get the master of the craft down into the cabin, where I informed him that all I wanted from him was some information, and that if he would answer my questions truly, I would at once release him and return his vessel to him; but if I found that he was attempting to deceive me, I would burn his felucca, and retain him and his crew as prisoners. The man was eager in his protestations that he would tell me everything that I wanted to know, and begged me not to destroy his vessel, as she represented his entire possessions, and was his sole means of earning a livelihood; a piece of information that led me to hope he would not attempt to deceive me; so I went to work to question him forthwith, jotting his answers down upon a piece of paper.

The information I obtained from the fellow was important enough to have justified me in running a far greater risk than I had actually incurred to procure it, and was to the effect that the combined fleets had been off the island that very day, with some forty prizes, comprising the Antigua convoy, in company; that it had captured Diamond Rock; and that, in consequence of certain information supposed to have been received from a schooner that had that day arrived from Europe, it had made all sail to the eastward. As to the character of the information, however, that had caused so powerful a force to take so unexpected a step, the man professed to know nothing. Having obtained this information from him, I sent the skipper on deck and had him conveyed forward, where he was placed in charge of two men, while I had his crew down into the cabin, one by one, and questioned them. Their answers bore out what the skipper had already told me. I therefore concluded that the news was true, and accordingly released the felucca, with a strict caution that he was to proceed forthwith on his voyage to Mariegalante--the island to which he was bound--and on no account to attempt to re-enter the harbour of Fort Royal, under penalty of instant recapture. The fellow was evidently only too glad to get out of our hands upon such easy terms; and no sooner found himself once more safely on the deck of his little hooker than he made all sail to the northward, and was soon lost in the darkness. Dumaresq, who had remained with me thus far, thought this a good opportunity to rejoin his countrymen, and, with my cordial permission, took a passage in the felucca.

So far I had done very well; the combined fleet was only a few hours distant; and I had no doubt that, with so nimble-heeled a craft as the Sword Fish, I should have very little difficulty in overtaking them in the course of a day or two. The question now was whether I should proceed forthwith in pursuit of Monsieur Villeneuve, or whether I should devote an hour or two to an endeavour to ascertain the precise nature of the information said to have been brought from Europe by the schooner. This information might be of value, or it might not; but after giving the matter brief but careful consideration I came to the conclusion that it was hardly worth while troubling about; as, if the vessel had brought out despatches, they would have been delivered long since; and in any case, the captain and crew would know nothing of their contents. I therefore filled away forthwith, and by midnight had brought the island over our larboard quarter.

There was now another question that bothered me somewhat, and it was this: I could not understand why the combined fleet should be steering east, or why they should have gone off in such a hurry as had been represented to me. I racked my brains for a long time in search of a satisfactory solution of this problem, as I felt that until I had found such I should be quite in the dark as to the course which I ought to steer in order to overtake them. For although I had been informed that, when last seen, the fleet was steering to the southward and eastward, close-hauled, I had no data upon which to base an opinion as to the length of time during which they would continue to steer in that direction, for the simple reason that there was no apparent object in their steering in that direction at all. We had no possessions in that quarter to tempt them, unless it might be Barbados; and even that island lay considerably to leeward of the course that Monsieur Villeneuve was said to be steering. At length, however, a possible explanation suggested itself. It occurred to me that the schooner, which was supposed to have brought the information leading to the precipitate departure of Monsieur Villeneuve, might have fallen in with and succeeded in eluding the British pursuing fleet, of the existence of which the admiral at Jamaica had felt so certain; and if she had, and had brought news to Martinique of the approach of such a fleet, I could understand Monsieur Villeneuve's anxiety to be off; for we were all fully persuaded that there was nothing the French admiral desired so little as to encounter Nelson. And, upon considering the matter further, the conviction forced itself irresistibly upon me that, if Monsieur Villeneuve had been given good reason to believe that he was pursued, his chief anxiety would be to get back to Europe as quickly as possible. Such a desire would fully account for everything in his movements that I had found difficult to understand, and it would also account for the course that he was said to be steering; that course being the only one that would at once lead him homeward and at the same time enable him to avoid a meeting with the suppositious British fleet. So thoroughly at length did I convince myself that this represented the actual state of the case that I unhesitatingly set the Sword Fish's head in the same direction that I believed the combined fleet to be steering; and then, having issued orders that the schooner was to be driven at the highest speed consistent with safety to her spars, I went below and turned in.

During the remainder of that night and the whole of the next day we carried on, without sighting anything in the shape of a sail; but at dawn of the second day my persistence was rewarded by the sight of a large fleet of ships strung out along the horizon, and by mid-day we had approached them near enough to enable us to identify them as the fleet of which we were in search. There was a big fleet of merchantmen in company, which I assumed to be the captured Antigua convoy; and by and by one of these--a fine full-rigged ship--wore round, in response to a signal, and headed for us. I allowed her to approach within a couple of miles of us, when we in turn shifted our helm and going round upon the starboard tack, assumed all the appearance of being in precipitate flight. But I was particular to flatten in all sheets and braces to such an extent that, by careful and persistent wind-jamming, the schooner became as sluggish as a log; and in this way we played with the ship until we had decoyed her a good twenty miles away from the rest of the fleet, sometimes allowing her to gain upon us a trifle, and then drawing away from her again, my object, of course, being to capture her if I could. And of my ability to do this--provided that I could decoy her far enough away from all possible support--I had very little doubt; for I did not consider it in the least likely that she would have more than sixty Frenchmen on board her as a prize crew, while I had an equal number of Englishmen.

At length, about an hour before sunset, we allowed the ship to approach us within gun-shot, and shortly afterwards she opened fire upon us with a six-pounder. The shot flew wide; but all the same I caused our helm to be put down, and as the schooner slowly luffed into the wind I gave orders for all our sheets to be let fly, presenting an appearance of terrible confusion. The ruse was successful; the ship ceased firing, and came booming along toward us under every inch of canvas that she could spread. Meanwhile our lads, hugely delighted at the fun in prospect, armed themselves, got the grappling-irons ready, and prepared for boarding the stranger. The weather was quite fine enough to admit of our running alongside in the schooner, there being very little swell on; so as soon as we were ready the men stationed themselves at the sheets and braces, and by a little judicious manipulation of these and the helm we contrived to get sternway upon the schooner just as the ship came booming down upon our weather quarter. Nobody on board her seemed to think of shortening sail until she was fairly abreast of us, and then a terrific hullabaloo broke out as her crew endeavoured to clew up and haul down everything at once--they even let run their topsail-halliards in their excitement. Then, in the midst of it all, just as the ship went surging past us, with a great rustling of canvas and lashing of loose cordage in the wind, a man sprang into her mizzen-rigging and hailed us in French, ordering us to follow until he could heave-to, when he would send a boat on board us. This suited my plans to a nicety; so we filled upon the schooner and followed the ship closely, luffing up for her lee quarter as we did so; and so well had everything worked with us that I believe none of the Frenchmen had the slightest suspicion that anything was wrong until we had actually run them aboard and thrown our grappling-irons. Then the excitement was even more distracting than before, everybody crying out at once; officers and men vying with each other in giving the most contradictory orders, and nobody dreaming of obeying any single one of them. The surprise was complete; and when our lads followed me over the ship's bulwarks, with drawn cutlasses, we found as our opponents only a shouting, shrieking, gesticulating mob, who reviled us for our perfidious mode of fighting in one breath, and in the next passionately conjured us not to overlook the fact that they surrendered. It was as amusing a bit of business as I had been engaged in for many a day.

We lost no time in securing our prisoners--who were only some forty in number--and then I turned my attention to the ship, which I ascertained to be the Caribbean, of London, of twelve hundred and forty-three tons register, laden with sugar and rum. She was therefore a valuable recapture. She carried thirty-two passengers, and by great good luck her own British crew was also on board. It was not necessary, therefore, for me to weaken my own force by putting a prize crew on board her; my chief mate being quite sufficient to represent and watch over the interests of the Sword Fish and her owners. The individual who had been put on board her as prize-master, when she was captured by Monsieur Villeneuve's fleet, happened to be a very talkative fellow, and accordingly I had not much difficulty in extracting from him the information that it had been rumoured through the fleet that the suddenness of Monsieur Villeneuve's departure from the West Indies was due to intelligence that Lord Nelson was in pursuit. This statement, if true, exactly bore out my theory; and a little more judicious questioning enabled me to ascertain that it had further been stated that, at the time of departure from Martinique, the British fleet was believed to be not more than four days' sail distant. I thus obtained something in the shape of a clue as to the direction in which my further search ought to be prosecuted; and accordingly hauled up to the southward, close-hauled on the starboard tack, with our recapture in company.

It was more than a week, however, before we contrived to obtain any definite information as to the whereabouts of the British fleet, and even then I was four days longer in finding it; but when at length this was achieved, I had the satisfaction of learning that my information was the very latest of an authentic character that had been furnished to Nelson; and it had the effect of causing him instantly to determine to retrace his steps to Europe. This was good news to me, for it enabled me to send my recapture across the Atlantic with the British fleet as a protector, instead of taking her into Kingston, in Jamaica, where the necessary formalities connected with the capture would have involved us in a vast amount of trouble and expense. I accordingly wrote a brief letter or two home, which I forwarded by the Caribbean, and parted company with her and the fleet within an hour of having fallen in with the latter. And thus terminated, successfully and profitably, the service which I had undertaken at the instigation of the Admiral stationed at Jamaica.

I was now my own master once more, free to go wherever my whim prompted me, and I determined that I would put into effect a plan that had long commended itself to me; namely, to cruise along the Spanish Main in the hope of picking up one of the galleons or plate-ships that were still despatched from time to time from Cartagena. Upon parting company, therefore, with the British fleet, I cruised along the whole line of the Windward Islands as far south as Tobago and Trinidad, and then bore up for the Main. In leisurely fashion and under easy canvas we coasted along the shore, taking a look into the Cariaco Gulf without finding anything worth picking up, and thence across to Cape Codera, off which the wind came out from the westward, compelling us to make a stretch off the land. This occurred about midnight. I secured an observation for my longitude at nine o'clock the next morning, and another for my latitude at noon, about which time I became aware that the barometer was falling, although not rapidly enough to give cause for any uneasiness. As the afternoon wore on, however, there were indications that a change of weather was impending. The sky lost the pure brilliancy of its blue, and by insensible degrees assumed an ashen pallor, which the sun vainly struggled to pierce until he merged from a palpitating, rayless ball of light to a shapeless blotch of dim, watery radiance, and then disappeared. At the same time the wind died away until we were left becalmed and rolling rail-under upon a swell that gathered strength every hour as it came creeping up from the westward. In a short time it became a fine example of what the Spaniards call a "furious calm", the schooner rolling so heavily that I deemed it prudent to send the yards and topmasts down on deck to relieve the lower-masts. And I did this the more readily because the steady, continuous decline of the mercury in the tube assured me that we were booked for a stiff blow. Yet hour succeeded hour until the darkness closed down upon us, and still, beyond the portents already mentioned, there was no sign of the coming breeze. The night fell as dark as a wolf's mouth; the air was so close and hot that the mere act of breathing was performed with difficulty; and the quick, jerky roll of the schooner at length became positively distressing in its persistent monotony. Of course, under the circumstances, turning in was not to be thought of, so far as I was concerned. I therefore made myself as comfortable as I could upon the wheel-grating, and awaited developments.

The fact is that I was puzzled. I did not know what to make of the weather. Had it not been for the steady, continuous fall of the mercury I should have expected nothing worse than a fresh breeze from the westward, preceded perhaps by a thunder-squall; but the barometer indicated something more serious than that, yet the sky gave no verifying sign of the approach of anything like a heavy blow. But I had long ago taken in everything except the boom-foresail, to save the sails from beating themselves to pieces, so I was pretty well prepared for any eventuality.

It was close upon midnight when the change came, and then it was nothing at all alarming, being merely a sudden but by no means violent squall out from about due west, followed by a heavy downpour of rain. The rain lasted about a quarter of an hour, and when it ceased we were again becalmed. Suddenly I became conscious of a faint luminousness somewhere in the atmosphere, and looking about me to discover the cause, I observed what looked like a ball of lambent, greenish flame clinging to the foremast-head, where it swayed about, elongating and contracting with the roll of the ship, exactly as a gigantic soap-bubble might have done. It clung there, swaying, for some moments, and then glided slowly down the mast until it reached the jib-stay, down which it slid to the bowsprit, whence, after wavering for a few seconds, it travelled along the bowsprit, inboard, and vanished, not, however, until it had revealed by its corpse-like light the horror-stricken features of some half a dozen of the watch huddled together on the forecastle, in attitudes every curve and bend of which were eloquent of consternation.

"That's a bad sign, sir; so they say," remarked Saunders, my chief mate, whose watch it was.

"What? The appearance of that light?" demanded I.

"Not so much the appearance of it, sir, but the way that it travelled. They say that if a corposant appears aboard a vessel and stays aloft, or travels upwards, it's all right; but if it comes down from aloft, it means a heavy gale of wind at the very least," answered Saunders.

"Pooh!" said I; "mere superstition. Everybody knows nowadays that a corposant is nothing whatever but an electrical phenomenon, and therefore merely an indication that the atmosphere is surcharged with electricity. As to whether it travels up or down, that, in my opinion, is mere chance or accident, call it which you will."

"Have you ever seen any of those things before, sir?" inquired the mate.

"No," said I; "this is the first time that I have ever been shipmates with one."

"Ah!" remarked the mate, with a distinct accent of superior experience in his tone; "I've seen 'em often enough; too often, I may say. Why, there was one time when I was aboard the little Fox, bound from Jamaica to New Providence. We were lying becalmed, just as we are to- night, close to the Diamond Bank, and with pretty much the same sort of weather, too, when one of them things boarded us, making its appearance on the spindle of the vane at our main-topmast head. It wavered about for a minute or two, exactly like that thing just now, and then rolled, as it might be, down the spar until it met the topmast-stay, down which it travelled to the foremast-head, and from thence it came down the topsail sheet to the deck, where it bursted. Ten minutes after that happened, sir, we were struck by a squall that hove us over on our beam- ends. We had to cut both masts away before she would right with us, and when at length she rose to an even keel, there was five feet of water in the hold. Of course we could do nothing but scud before it, and, the squall hardening into a furious gale of wind, we went ashore about two hours afterwards on South Point, Yuma Island, and out of a crew of thirty-four men only seven of us was saved! Now, what d'ye think of that, sir?"

"Why, I think it was a terribly unfortunate affair; but I don't believe that the corposant had anything to do with it," answered I.

"Well, sir," answered the mate, "I only hope that it hadn't; because, d'ye see, if your view is the correct one, we needn't fear anything happening in consequence of--Why, bust me, but there's another of 'em!"

It was true. While Saunders was in the very act of speaking, another of the strange, weird lights had suddenly become visible, this time on the mainmast-head, where it hung for a few minutes, finally sliding down the mast to the deck, where it rolled to and fro for perhaps half a minute, presenting the appearance of a sphere of luminous mist, the most brilliant part of which was its centre. I am by no means a superstitious person, but I am free to admit that the sight of this weird, uncanny thing gliding about the deck and emitting its ghostly light, almost at my feet, produced a sufficiently creepy feeling to make me unfeignedly glad when it presently disappeared.

"Now, you mark my words, sir, if we don't have some very ugly weather after this," observed Saunders, producing his tinder-box and lighting his pipe.

I walked to the skylight and took a squint at the barometer. It was still falling, and by this time the depression had assumed such proportions as to fully justify such an expectation as that entertained by the mate. I thought, therefore, that it might be only prudent to make some further preparation, and I accordingly gave orders to reef the foresail and fore-staysail. All this time it continued as dark as pitch, and so breathlessly calm that the helmsman, wishing to prick up the wicks of the binnacle-lamps, was able to do so in the open air, the only wind affecting the naked flame being the draught occasioned by the heavy roll of the schooner.

But this was not destined to last very long. Some ten minutes or a quarter of an hour after the second corposant had vanished we felt a faint movement in the atmosphere which caused our small spread of canvas to flap heavily once or twice; then came a puff of hot, damp air that lasted long enough to give the schooner steerage-way; and when this was on the point of dying, a scuffle of wind swept over us that careened the schooner to her bearings, and before she had recovered herself the true breeze was upon us, with a deep, weird, moaning sound that was inexpressibly dismal, and that somehow seemed to impart a feeling of dire foreboding to the listener. Not that there was anything in the least terrifying in the strength of the wind--far from it, indeed,--for it was no heavier than a double-reefed topsail breeze, to which the schooner stood up as stiff as a church, but there was a certain indescribable hollowness in the sound of it--that is the only fitting term I can find to apply--that was quite unlike anything that I had heard before, and that somehow seemed, in its weirdness, to indisputably forebode disaster.

The schooner was now forging through the water at a speed of some four knots, and looking well up into the wind, which had come out from the westward. As I have said, there was already a very heavy swell running, and upon the top of this a very steep, awkward sea soon began to make, so that within half an hour of the breeze striking us we were pitching bows under, and the decks to leeward were all afloat. By this time, too, it had become perfectly apparent that the wind was rapidly gaining strength; so rapidly, indeed, that about an hour after the first puff it came down upon us with all the fury of a squall, laying the schooner down to her rail, and causing her to plunge with fearful violence into the fast-rising sea. Within the next half-hour the wind had increased so greatly in strength that I began to think there really might be something in Saunders's theory after all, and I was inwardly debating whether I should haul the fore-sheet to windward and heave the schooner to, or whether it would be better to up helm and run before it until the weather should moderate a bit, when a third corposant suddenly appeared, this time on the boom-foresail gaff-end.

"Now, sir," remarked Saunders, "we shall soon know whether we've got the worst of the blow yet or not. If we have, that thing'll shift higher up; but if we haven't, it'll come down like the others."

I did not answer him, for I was at the moment straining my eyes into the blackness on the weather-bow, where I fancied I had caught, a second or two before, a deeper shadow. There were moments when I thought I saw it again, but so profound was the darkness that it really seemed absurd to suppose it possible to discern anything in it; to make sure, however, I sang out to the look-out men on the forecastle to keep their eyes wide open, and their answer came so sharp and prompt as to convince me that they were fully on the alert, and that I had allowed my imagination to deceive me. I therefore turned to Saunders with some remark upon my lips in reply to his, when I saw the corposant suddenly leave the gaff- end and go driving away to leeward on the wings of the gale. I naturally expected that it would almost immediately vanish, but it did not; on the contrary, it had all the appearance of having been arrested in its flight, for I saw it elongating and collapsing again, as it had done with the motion of the schooner, and it also appeared to me to be describing long arcs across the sky. For a moment I was puzzled to account for so strange a phenomenon, and then the explanation came to me in a flash. I had not been deceived when I believed I caught sight of a shadowy something sweeping athwart our bows. I had seen a ship, and there she was to leeward of us, with the corposant clinging to one of her spars. I had just time to give the order to bear up in pursuit, and to get the schooner before the wind, when the corposant seemed to settle down nearer to the water, and in another instant it had vanished.

CHAPTER TWENTY

ONE.

A TERRIBLE ADVENTURE.

With the disappearance of the corposant there was nothing whatever to betray the presence of a strange sail in our vicinity; for now, strain my eyes as I would, I could not be at all certain that I saw anything, although there were times when the same vague, shapeless blot of deeper darkness that had previously attracted my attention seemed to loom up momentarily out of the Stygian murkiness ahead. There were times also when, the water being highly phosphorescent, it appeared to me that, among the ghostly gleamings of the breaking surges, I could faintly discern a more symmetrical space of luminosity, corresponding to the foaming track of a ship moving at a high rate of speed through the water. But, to make sure of the matter, I ordered the reef to be shaken out of the foresail, and also set the mainsail, close-reefed, with the boom topped well up. This increased the speed of the schooner quite as much as I thought desirable, more, indeed, than was at all prudent; for, let me tell you, it is risky work to be flying along before a gale of wind at a speed of fully nine knots an hour on a pitch-black night, with a suspicion, amounting almost to absolute certainty, that there is another vessel directly ahead, and close aboard of you for aught that you can tell to the contrary. And, indeed, we soon had evidence of this; for, feeling uneasy upon the matter, I had started to go forward with the intention of warning the look-out men that I had reason to believe there was a ship close ahead of us, and that they must therefore keep an extra bright look-out, when, as I arrived abreast the fore- rigging, my eyes still straining into the darkness ahead, the schooner was hove up on the breast of a heavy, following sea, and as she topped it with the ghostly sea-fire of its fiercely-hissing crest brimming almost to the rail, a black shape seemed to suddenly solidify out of the gloom ahead, apparently within biscuit-toss of our jib-boom end, with an unmistakable wake of boiling foam on each side of it, and the two look- out men yelled, as with one voice, and in the high-pitched accents of sudden alarm.

"Hard-a-port! hard a-port! There's a ship right under our bows, sir!"

The helm was promptly put over, the schooner sheered out of the wake of the black mass ahead--apparently a craft of considerable size,--and we ranged up on her starboard quarter. It will convey some idea of the closeness of the shave we made of it when I say that, even above the howling of the gale, the fierce hiss of the rapidly rising sea, and the roar of our bow-wave, we caught the sound of an unintelligible hail from the stranger, which almost immediately displayed a lantern over her taffrail for a few seconds, as a warning to us, her people being doubtless under the impression that our encounter had been accidental, and that we had only that moment seen her for the first time.

Having now established beyond all question the fact of the stranger's proximity to us, I ordered our mainsail to be hauled down, balance- reefed, and reset, by which means we presently found that the stranger was gradually drawing ahead of us again; and the danger of collision being thus averted, I began to ask myself whether it was advisable to continue the chase any longer. The fact is, I had followed this craft instinctively, for I knew that there were so few vessels flying British colours in that precise part of the world that the presumption was strongly in favour of this one being either a Spaniard or a Dutchman, and in either case an enemy. But assuming her to be one or the other, she was just as likely to be a man-o'-war as a merchantman--she had appeared to be quite large enough to be the former, in that brief, indistinct glance that we had caught of her,--and if she happened to be a man-o'-war we should probably find ourselves in the wrong box when daylight broke. On the other hand she had not appeared to be so large as to preclude the possibility of her being a merchantman--a Spanish or Dutch West Indiaman; and should she prove to be either of these, she would be well worth fighting for. I considered the question carefully, and at length came to the conclusion that the risk of following her was quite worth taking, and we accordingly held all on as we were.

Meanwhile the gale was steadily growing fiercer, and the sea rising higher and becoming more dangerous with every mile that we traversed in our blind, headlong flight before it; and it appeared to me that the option whether I should continue the pursuit of the stranger would soon be taken from me by the imperative necessity to heave-to if I would avoid the almost momentarily increasing danger of the schooner being pooped, when a piercing cry of "Breakers ahead?" burst from the two men on the look-out forward, instantly followed by the still more startling cry of "Breakers on the port bow!"

"Breakers on the starboard bow!"

I sprang to the rail and looked ahead. Merciful Heaven! it was true, right athwart our path, as far as the eye could penetrate the gloom on either bow, there stretched a barrier of wildly-leaping breakers and spouting foam, gleaming spectrally against the midnight blackness of the murky heavens; and even as I gazed, spell-bound, at the dreadful spectacle I saw the black bulk of the strange ship outlined against the ghostly whiteness, and in another instant she had swung broadside-on; and as a perfect mountain of white foam leaped upon her, enfolding her in its snowy embrace, her masts fell, and methought that, mingled with the sudden, deafening roar of the trampling breakers, I caught the sound of a despairing wail borne toward us against the wind.

Oh! the horror of that moment! I shall never forget it. There was nothing to be done, no means of escape; for the walls of white water had seemed to leap at us out of the darkness so suddenly that they were no sooner seen than we were upon them; and the only choice left us was whether we would plunge into them stem-on, or be hove in among them broadside-on, as had been the case of the strange ship. With the lightning-like celerity of decision that seems to be instinct in moments of sudden, awful peril, I determined to drive the schooner ashore stem- on; hoping that, aided by our light draught of water, we might be hove up high enough on the beach, or whatever it was, to permit of the escape of at least a few of us with our lives; and I shouted to the helmsman to steady his helm, the breakers right ahead of us seeming to be less high and furious than those on either bow. There was no time for more; no time to order all hands on deck; no time even to utter a warning cry to those already on deck to grasp the nearest thing to hand and cling for their lives, for my cry to the helmsman was still on my lips when the schooner seemed to leap down upon the barrier of madly-plunging breakers, and in an instant we were hemmed about with a crashing fury of white water that boiled and leaped about us, smiting the schooner in all parts of her hull at once, foaming in over the rail here, there, and everywhere like a pack of hungry wolves, spouting high in air and flying over us in blinding deluges of spray until the poor little craft seemed to be buried; while I, without knowing how I got there, found myself on the wheel-grating, assisting the helmsman, with the yeasty water swirling about our knees as it boiled in over the taffrail. I caught a momentary glimpse of the strange ship as we swept athwart her stern at a distance of less than a hundred fathoms. Her black bulk was sharply outlined against the luminous loam as a whelming breaker passed inshore of her, and left her, for a second, up-hove on the breast of the next one; and I could see that she was on her beam-ends--a large ship of probably twelve hundred tons. I could see no sign of people on board her, but that was not surprising; they had probably been all swept overboard by the first mountain--wall of water that swept over her after she had broached-to.

And such was to be our fate also. My only wonder was that it had not come already; but come it must, and I braced myself for the shock, already feeling in imagination the terrific grinding concussion, the sickening jar, the awful upheaval of the schooner's quivering frame, and the wrenching of her timbers asunder. But second after second sped, and the shock did not come; and half-buried in the boiling swirl of maddened waters, the schooner swept ahead, now up-hove on the breast of a fiery breaker that swept her from stem to stern as it flung her forward like a cork, now struggling and staggering in a hollow of seething, yeasty foam. At length, as the schooner settled down into one of these swirling hollows, she actually did strike, but the blow was a light one, only just sufficient to swear by and not enough to check her headlong rush for the smallest fraction of a second; and shortly afterwards I became aware that the breakers were perceptibly less weighty, so much so that in about another minute they ceased to break inboard.

It now dawned upon me that we must be passing over a submerged reef of considerable extent, and my hopes began to revive; for since we had traversed it thus far in safety, there was just the ghost of a chance that we might manage to blunder across the remainder of it without serious damage. As my thoughts took this direction my eyes fell upon a figure clinging to the main rigging, and I made it out to be Saunders, my chief mate. I shouted to him, and by good luck my voice reached him, and he came staggering aft to me. Without relaxing my grip on the wheel, I hurriedly explained to him my impression with regard to our situation, and directed him to go forward and see both anchors clear for letting go; for I had determined that, should my supposition prove correct, and should we be so extremely fortunate as to traverse the remaining portion of the reef in safety, I would anchor immediately that we should emerge into clear water. Fortunately for us all in our present strait, our cables were always kept bent, so that there was not very much to be done; and in a few minutes Saunders returned aft with the intelligence that all was ready for anchoring at any moment.

And now I really began to hope in earnest that we might perchance escape, for the sea was not breaking nearly so heavily around us; indeed I could distinguish, at no great distance ahead, small patches of unbroken water, with wider patches beyond; and, best of all, we had only touched the reef once, and that but lightly. Presently the schooner shot into a patch of unbroken water that appeared to communicate at one point with a larger patch, and I at once steered for the point of junction, at the same time singing out to the mate to get in the mainsail, and for the hands to stand by the fore and staysail halliards. A line of breakers still extended for some distance ahead of us, but they were now detached, with clear water between them, and if we could only contrive to keep the schooner in the unbroken water all might yet be well. We were still rushing along at a great pace, for the gale was blowing, if possible, more fiercely than ever; but the water was smooth, and I was consequently hopeful that, by letting go both anchors and giving the schooner the full scope of her cables, we might manage to ride it out without dragging. At length we brought the last of the visible breakers fair on our quarter, and I was in the act of putting the helm over, singing out at the same time to haul down the staysail and foresail, when the mate, who was on the forecastle ready to attend to the letting go of the anchors, shouted that he thought he could make out something like a large rock or small islet a short distance ahead. Hurriedly instructing the helmsman to keep the schooner as she was going, I ran forward, and immediately made out the object, which looked amply large enough to give us a lee to anchor under. We were pretty close to it; so without further ado the schooner was stripped of her remaining canvas and conned into a berth close under the lee of the huge mass, when both anchors were let go, the port anchor first and the starboard anchor half a minute later; and in less than five minutes we had the supreme satisfaction of finding the Sword Fish riding snugly, and in smooth water, with some three fathoms between her keel and the sandy bottom.

I was by this time pretty well fagged out, for the hour was drawing well on toward daybreak. Nevertheless my curiosity was so powerfully excited with regard to the spot which we had stumbled upon that, after thoroughly satisfying myself that the schooner was safe, and before turning in, I got out my chart and spread it open upon the cabin table. Our position at noon on the previous day was of course laid down upon it, and it needed but a few moments' consideration of the courses and distances that we had subsequently steered to demonstrate that we had blundered right into the heart of Los Roques, or the Roccas, the most dangerous group of islets, without exception, in the whole of the Caribbean Sea. They are situated some seventy-five miles due north of La Guayra, and extend over an area of ocean measuring about twenty-five miles from east to west, and about half that distance from north to south. The group consists of two islands proper, Cayo Grande and Cayo de Sal, the first being triangular in shape, and measuring some six and a half miles each way along the perpendicular and base of the triangle, while Cayo de Sal is about seven and a half miles long by perhaps half a mile broad.

There are about thirty other islets in the group, all of them very much smaller than the two above named, and some of them so small as to deserve rather the name of rocks than islets. But the peculiarity about the group which renders it so exceedingly dangerous to strangers is that it forms part of an extensive reef, roughly of quadrangular form, the belt of reef being about three miles wide, with a fine open space inside divided into two fairly good anchorages by a reef stretching across it in a north-westerly direction, from the westerly extremity of Cayo Grande to the main reef. There are several passages leading through the main reef into these anchorages, notably one on the northern side of the reef, but the difficulties of the navigation are so great to strangers that, if report is to be believed, it was, up to a comparatively recent date, a favourite resort of pirates, who, once through the reef, were practically safe from pursuit. Such was the spot into which the Sword Fish had rushed, blindfold as it were. And I can only account for our escape from destruction by supposing that we had providentially hit off one of the channels through the reef, or else that the gale had heaped the water upon the reef to such an extent that, with our light draught, we were able to pass over it. However, I had only to look at the group, as portrayed upon the chart, to feel thoroughly assured as to the safety of the schooner and ourselves; so I turned into my bunk with an easy mind and a grateful heart at our truly miraculous escape, and fell asleep the moment that my head touched the pillow.

When the steward came to call me at seven bells the gale was still raging furiously; but about four bells in the forenoon watch a break in the sky appeared to windward, and shortly afterwards there was a noticeable decrease in the strength of the wind. Meanwhile the break in the clouds widened, patches of blue sky appeared here and there, extending rapidly, and when noon arrived I was able to get a meridian altitude of the sun, which conclusively demonstrated the truth of my surmise that we were anchored in the Rocca group. The rock that sheltered us was some forty feet high, and about twenty acres in extent, situate nearly in the middle of the northern anchorage; and astern of us, at a distance of four miles, lay Cayo Grande, with Cayo de Sal about the same distance on our larboard beam. Now that it was daylight it was a perfectly simple and easy matter to identify our surroundings with the aid of the chart.

By the time that dinner was over the gale had so far moderated that, in our sheltered position, it had become perfectly safe to lower a boat. I therefore ordered away the gig, and, taking the ship's telescope with me, landed upon the rock which had afforded us so welcome and timely a shelter, and climbed to its summit to see whether any portion of the wreck of the unfortunate stranger that had been in company with us during the preceding night still hung together. To my surprise I found that quite a considerable portion of her was visible; indeed at times it appeared to me that I could see almost if not quite the whole of her hull; but as she was some eight miles distant I could not be at all certain of this. The sea appeared to be still breaking heavily over her at times, but she seemed to have beaten almost entirely across the reef, there being but little broken water between us and her; and to this circumstance I attributed the fact that she was still in existence. I spent quite half an hour upon the summit of the rock, gazing upon the strange, wild scene by which I was surrounded; and when at length I rejoined the boat the wind had moderated to such an extent that, although it was still rather too strong for an eight-mile pull to windward, there was no reason why we should not sail as far out as the wreck, to see whether any of her crew still survived. I therefore returned to the schooner, and, procuring the boat's mast and sails, started upon our expedition. But we were rather late in getting away; so that it took us until within half an hour of sunset to work up to the wreck, and even then we could not approach her nearer than within a cable's length because of the broken water; but we got near enough to enable us to make out that she was an armed ship--she had all the look of a small frigate--and I took her to be Spanish. But although her hull was not nearly so much battered about as I had expected it would be, there was no sign of life aboard her, at which I was not surprised when I looked at the broad belt of still angry surf through which she had beaten. But I saw enough to determine me to pay the wreck a visit before leaving the group, and accordingly, when I got back to the schooner, which Saunders had made all ataunto once more during my absence, I made arrangements to weigh and beat up to the wreck immediately after breakfast next morning.

By daylight the wind had dwindled away to a gentle breeze, while the sea had gone down to such an extent that I anticipated no difficulty whatever in boarding the wreck. Nor was I disappointed, for when we reached the craft, shortly after six bells in the forenoon, the sea was no longer breaking over her, or even round her, the breakers now being confined to the outer fringe of the reef. But imagine, if you can, my astonishment at seeing a man--a wretched, ragged, scarecrow of a fellow he looked to be--on the poop, who, as we drew near, began to wave and signal to us with frantic energy. He appeared to be desperately afraid that we had not seen him, or that, having seen him, we should still not trouble to take him off, for he was waving a large, dark cloth when we first made him out, and he continued to do so until the boat was almost alongside. We bumped against the wreck in the wake of her mizzen chains--her main and fore chains were under water--and, the instant that the bowman hooked on, this man, who seemed to be the only survivor of the wreck, came slipping and sliding down the steeply inclined deck until he stood just above us, when he stood for a few seconds staring down upon us in silence. Then he cried, in a piercing voice: "Say, for the love of God, are you English?"

"Ay, ay, my hearty; you have guessed right the first time," I answered. "But, pray, who in the name of fortune are you? And what ship is this?"

For answer the fellow plumped down upon his knees, clasped his hands before him, lifted up his eyes to heaven, and by the movement of his lips I supposed him to be engaged either in prayer or thanksgiving. One or two of the men in the boat with me laughed, and a third must needs display his wit by calling out a profane jest; but I silenced them sharply, for there was an intense abandonment in this strange man's manner and behaviour that showed him to be under the influence of extraordinary emotion. Presently he rose to his feet, and, scrambling down into the boat with the most astonishing activity, grasped my hand and pressed it to his lips fervently. Then he looked me in the face and said:

"Oh, sir, I thank God most humbly and heartily for this His great mercy to me, a poor, miserable sinner. But you'll take me away with you, sir; you'll not leave me aboard here to fall into the hands of my enemies again? Sir, sir, you are an Englishman, you say, and your tongue is English. You have a kind, good face. Sir, take me with you, and make me your slave if you will, but let me not fall into the hands of those incarnate fiends the Spaniards again."

"Have no fear, my good fellow," answered I. "Of course we will take you with us, not as a slave, but as a shipmate if you will. But you have not yet answered the question I asked you. Who are you? And what ship is this?"

"Who am I?" he repeated, staring wildly at me. "Why, I used to be called Isaac Hoard to home in Exmouth, and among my shipmates, but for the last five years, ever since I've been in the hands of the accursed Spaniards, I've known no other name than `heretico'."

"And the ship," I reiterated; "is she Spanish?"

"Yes, sir; she is Spanish," answered the poor fellow, who looked half- mad as well as haggard, and thin almost like a skeleton. "She was a fine frigate forty-eight hours ago, named the Magdalena; now the vengeance of God has fallen upon her and her crew, and she lies a wreck, while every one of them has perished and gone to his own place."

"And how happens it that you survive while all the rest of the crew have perished?" I demanded.

"By the mercy of God and the inhumanity of the Spaniards," he answered. "They made me a slave of the crew, at whose every beck and call I was from the beginning of the morning watch until four bells in the first watch; and when my day's work was over they used to lock me into a cell under the forecastle. So that when the ship struck I was unable to rush on deck with the rest of them, and so my life was saved."

"Well," said I, "it appears that you have a story to tell that may be well worth listening to at some future time. Now, tell me, do you know where this frigate was last from, and whither she was bound?"

"Yes," answered Hoard, "I can tell you that, sir. She sailed from Cartagena five days ago, and was bound to Cadiz with despatches; at least such was the talk among the crew."

"With despatches!" I ejaculated. "Good! Now, do you happen to know where those despatches are to be found?"

"No, sir; that I don't," answered Hoard. "I've never been abaft the mainmast until to-day, if you'll believe me; and I don't even know the cap'n's name. But I expect his despatches will be in his cabin, along with any other papers of value that he may have had in his possession."

"Quite so; most likely they are," I remarked. "I'll go on board and give the craft an overhaul. Jump on deck, a couple of you, to lend me a hand in case I should need you; and catch a turn with the painter somewhere."

So saying, I climbed up on the ship's poop, and with considerable difficulty--owing to the exceedingly steep slope of the deck--made my way to the companion, which I descended. At the foot of the ladder, I found myself confronted by a bulkhead which, as I soon found, partitioned off the captain's quarters from the other part of the ship. Opening a door that faced me, I entered a fine, handsome cabin, magnificently fitted up, and very little damaged, except that the two guns which had evidently been in it seemed to have broken adrift and gone through the vessel's side, the gun on the weather side having smashed a handsome mahogany table to smithereens in its passage athwart the cabin. There were stains of wet on the sofas on the lee side and on the carpeted deck, showing that the water had entered through the breach in the ship's side: but that, with the smashed table and the hole in the side, constituted all the visible damage in the cabin. There was another bulkhead in front of me, with an open door in it, through which I caught a glimpse of stern windows, together with certain indications that the cabin into which I was looking was in all probability the captain's state-room. Here, if anywhere, I thought I should be most likely to find the despatches which constituted the chief object of my search; and I accordingly made my way into the after-cabin. A handsome and roomy cot, slung on the starboard side, confirmed my impression that this must be the captain's private sanctum; and I at once looked round for a likely receptacle for papers of importance and other articles of value. I had not far to look. Close to the door, against the bulkhead, stood a massive and handsome cabinet writing-table, so placed that the light from the stern windows would fall over a sitter's shoulders on to the table. Right up against the starboard side of the ship stood a large chest of drawers, with the top arranged as a dressing-table: and against the port side was a book-case with glazed doors, three or four of the panes of glass being smashed so completely that several of the volumes had tumbled out on to the floor. I took up one or two of the books and opened them, but could make nothing of their contents, they being in Spanish, which was all but a sealed language to me. The book- case was full of books from top to bottom, so it was clear that it was useless to look there for the documents I desired to find; I therefore turned to the next nearest object, which was the writing-table. This was fitted with a sloping top that evidently lifted, and a nest of capacious drawers occupied the back of the affair, above the writing- desk, while a large cupboard on each side formed the base, with room for a man's legs between the two. I tried the top, the cupboards, and the drawers, but all were locked; and the article was so solidly constructed that I at once saw it would be useless to think of breaking it open without proper tools. I therefore sang out to the two men on deck to take the boat and return to the schooner for the carpenter, bidding him bring with him everything necessary to pick a number of locks, or otherwise open some drawers and cupboards. And while the boat was gone I turned my attention to the dressing-table.

CHAPTER TWENTY

TWO.

HOARD COMMUNICATES TO ME SOME VERY IMPORTANT INFORMATION.

This, too, was a very substantial and handsomely made piece of furniture, the material being Spanish mahogany. But, unlike the writing-table, all its drawers were unlocked; and, opening them one after the other, I found them to be full of apparel: shirts of finest linen, silk stockings, a brand-new suit of uniform, coats, breeches--in short everything necessary to complete the toilet of a man in the very pink of fashion. And, hanging by its belt from one of several brass hooks screwed to the bulkhead, I saw a very handsome sword with a gold hilt. This I took down and examined, drawing the weapon from its sheath to do so. The blade proved to be of Toledo make, a magnificent piece of steel, so elastic that by exerting a considerable amount of strength I succeeded in bringing the point and hilt together, and when I released it, the blade at once straightened itself out again as perfectly as before my experiment. The steel was elaborately damascened with a most beautiful and intricate pattern in gold, and altogether the weapon so irresistibly took my fancy that I unhesitatingly appropriated it forthwith. The shirts and stockings, too, and a few other articles of clothing that looked as if they would fit me, promised to make a very welcome addition to my rather meagre wardrobe; so I made them up into a good-sized bundle for transference to the schooner.

By the time that this was done the boat was alongside again, with the carpenter; and presently that individual came clawing his way below with his tools. I showed him what I wanted done, and he immediately set to work; but so substantially put together was the table, and so strong and intricate the locks appertaining to it, that the man was compelled to virtually take the whole affair to pieces before we could get at its contents. But the trouble was amply worth the taking; for I found the despatches, locked in an iron box and sealed with the great seal of the Governor of Cartagena, together with several other important-looking documents which subsequently proved to be of the utmost value. In fact, as my knowledge of Spanish was altogether too imperfect to admit of my determining what papers were valuable and what were valueless, I took every one that I could find.

This was not all, however. There were five Orders--what they were I knew not, but they were handsome enough, being elaborately set with superb jewels, to show that the late captain of the Magdalena was a man of very considerable distinction. Also a magnificent pair of long-barrelled pistols, the barrels of which were damascened like the sword. And last, but not least, an oaken casket, strongly bound with heavy, handsomely-worked iron clamps and hinges, also sealed with the seal of the Governor of Cartagena, and which, upon being broken open, was found to contain a quantity of uncut gems, among which I recognised some rubies of extraordinary size and fire. All these valuables, needless to say, I unhesitatingly appropriated, for the twofold reason that if I did not they would certainly go to the bottom of the sea when the ship broke up, as she probably would in a few days; and in the next place, they were spoils of the enemy, to which we of the Sword Fish had as valid a title as anybody.

Having at length thoroughly ransacked the captain's cabin, I proceeded to overhaul the rest of the ship, devoting, indeed, practically the whole day to the work; but nothing else was found worthy of mention, except a chest containing a thousand gold Spanish dollars, in what I took to be the purser's room. And as for the rest of the ship, everywhere forward of the stump of the mainmast, she was so strained and battered as to be nothing better than a basket, the water washing in and out of her as she lay. We removed from the wreck the dollars, the casket of gems, and the few other matters that seemed to be worth taking, and still had daylight enough left to find our way out through the northern channel. Sunset, that night, therefore, found us once more at sea, and heading for Jamaica, I having determined to place the despatches and other documents, found on board the wreck, in the Admiral's hands without loss of time. The trade-wind was again blowing, and blowing strong, too, so that, by carrying on, night and day, we made the passage in exactly three days, almost to a minute, from the Roccas; and I had the satisfaction of handing the despatches to the Admiral that same night. The jolly old fellow was at dinner when I presented myself, and was entertaining a number of officers, naval and military; but upon my name being announced he at once ordered me to be admitted and directed a knife and fork to be placed on the table for me. He received me with much cordiality, and also introduced me to his guests; but I could see that my presence was deemed an intrusion by most of them, the naval men especially, who were not only jealous of privateersmen, but were also very much inclined to look down upon us as inferior beings to themselves. There were one or two exceptions, however, notably the Honourable Augustus Montague and his first lieutenant, both of the frigate Calypso, then in port; the former a most amiable and genial young officer, with no nonsense at all about him, while his lieutenant, Mr Birdwood, was as fine a fellow in every way as I had ever met. The Admiral thanked me most warmly for the despatches, which he handed over at once to his secretary for translation; and I had the intense satisfaction of learning, before I left the Pen that night, that the documents were deemed of sufficient importance to justify their immediate despatch to England by a frigate. The Admiral was kind enough to invite me to sleep at the Pen; but I excused myself, the fact being that the schooner's rigging needed overhauling, and her supply of stores and water required replenishing. I therefore slept in Kingston that night; and having arranged, the first thing next morning, for the supply of the stores and water, I went aboard to give orders to send down topmasts and have the rigging lifted. But an interview with Hoard, the man that we had taken off the wreck of the Spanish frigate, suddenly altered all my plans.

The way that it came about was this. I reached the schooner about ten o'clock in the morning, and at once gave my orders to Mr Saunders, who forthwith set all hands to work. I then went below to my cabin to write some letters home, to be forwarded by the frigate that was to take the Spanish despatches; and whilst I was thus engaged a timid, hesitating knock came to the door.

"Come in!" shouted I; and forthwith entered the man Hoard, carefully closing the door behind him.

"Beg pardon, Cap'n Bowen, for interrupting you," he began; "but there's a matter that I should like to speak to you about, if I ain't making too bold."

"Not at all, Hoard," I answered. "But is the matter important? Won't it wait? You see I am very busy just now, but I can give you as long as you like this afternoon."

"Well, sir," answered the man, fidgeting uneasily with his cap, "it's for you to say whether it's important or not. It's about a galleon that's loading at Cartagena for Spain; and, understandin' that this schooner is a privateer, I thought that maybe you'd like to have a try for her, and if so, sir, I'd advise you--beggin' pardon for bein' so bold--not to start so much as a rope-yarn of this vessel's rigging, or mayhap you'll be too late for the galleon."

"By George, man," exclaimed I, "this is important news indeed! Why in the world did you not speak to me about it before?"

"Well, sir," he answered, "you see, the way of it is this. Five years ago I belonged to the brig, Mary Rose, of Plymouth. She was a slaver; and in one of our runs across to the Coast she caught fire, and burnt us out of her. We took to the boats, and two days afterwards the boat that I was in, bein' separated from the others in a strong breeze, was picked up by a Spanish ship called the San Sebastian, and we were taken on to Cartagena. We were a wild set, I can tell you, and perhaps I was the wildest and wickedest of the lot; and we offended the Spaniards because we scoffed and laughed at 'em for plumpin' down on their marrow-bones and prayin', in a stiffish gale that we fell in with, instead of goin' to work to shorten sail, and take care of the ship. Me and my mates did that for 'em while they prayed; but we'd offended 'em mortally, and they never forgave us. So the first thing that they does, when we arrived at Cartagena, was to denounce us as heretics, and we was all clapped into prison. What happened to my mates I never knowed, but I never saw any of 'em again. But as for me, if you'll believe me, sir, the five years that I've been in the hands of the Spaniards I've been in hell! They wanted to convert me, so they said; and the way that they went about it, was to make my life a burden to me. They put me to work in chains on the roads; they sent me into the country, away from the coast, to work in their mines; they even tortured me! If you'll believe me, Cap'n Bowen," and I saw the poor fellow's eyes grow wild, and begin to blaze as he spoke of his sufferings, "for four years I never had the chains off my hands and legs, except when I was bein' tortured!

"But there," he continued, pulling himself together, "I didn't come down into this cabin to tell you about my sufferin's; but I will tell you, sir, that by God's mercy those same sufferin's did convert me, not the sort of conversion that the Spaniards wanted to bring about, but the conversion that, I humbly trust, has caused me to see and repent of my former wicked life. Not but what the old Adam is strong in me yet at times, sir, I won't deny it, and he's never stronger than when I think of the wrongs and the sufferin's that I've endured at the Spaniards' hands. And it was just that, and nothin' else, that's kept my lips closed all this while about the galleon. We are told, sir, that we must forgive our enemies, and return good for evil; and that's exactly what I've been trying to do, ever since I set foot aboard of this schooner. As soon as ever I came to myself, and was able to understand that I'd escaped from my enemies, and was once more safe under the flag of dear old England, the devil comes to me, and says:--

"`Now's your time, Isaac, to be revenged upon your enemies, and to pay 'em off for a little of the misery that they've been makin' you suffer all them five years that they had you in their power. You know that they're goin' to send away this galleon, hopin' that by keepin' well to the south'ard she'll escape capture. You know, too, that her cargo's to be a rich one, and that, over and above her cargo she's to ship an astonishin' quantity of gold and precious stones, brought down to the coast from Peru; and of course you know that Cap'n Bowen and his lads 'ud lay wait for her, and maybe get her, if you was to tell 'em about her. And if they was to get her, only think what a blow the loss of her 'd be to the Spaniards! Why, it 'ud be so tremendous heavy that it 'ud go a good ways towards payin' 'em off for all that they've made you suffer. It 'ud be a fine bit of revenge, now, wouldn't it?'

"Now, I know well enough that this cravin' for revenge is wrong, and I've been fightin' against it with all my strength. But, somehow or another, it won't do, Cap'n! it won't do! The temptation is too great for me, miserable sinner that I am!" He smote his forehead despairingly with his hand. "I feel that I can't keep quiet and let that galleon slip by! That gold and them jewels that she's goin' to ship has been dragged out of God's earth by God's creatures with sufferin', and tears, and blood more than any man can measure; and I say that it ain't right that the Spaniards should have it. If all this heap of treasure was to get safely across the Atlantic, and into the Spaniards' treasure-chests, it would just encourage 'em to strive for more; and then there would be more tears, more blood, more despair, more lives rendered a burden and a curse to their owners. But if all this treasure that they keeps sendin' across to Old Spain was to be taken from 'em, then, perhaps, they'd cease to collect it; and the poor, unhappy wretches who're made to dig for it would have some peace. And above and beyond all that, I want the cowardly curs to suffer, in return for all the sufferin' that they've inflicted upon me and thousands that are a good deal better than me. They love wealth. Then make 'em suffer, by takin' it from 'em. And they love their lives. Make 'em suffer all the horrors of death, by goin' against 'em with fire and steel! Let 'em know the pain, and horror, and despair of feelin' that they're not only goin' to lose their treasure, but that they stand a good chance to lose their lives as well. And, above all, Cap'n, let me be there to witness their anguish. They taunted me, and gloated over me when they'd made my misery such that I begged 'em to finish me off at once, and have done with it; and now I want to pay off some of my debt to 'em, I do."

It was really terrible to witness the frenzy of passion and fury into which this unhappy man goaded himself, as he recalled his past sufferings, and spoke of those who had made him endure them. His eyes gleamed and flashed like those of a savage beast; his face went deadly pale; his lips contracted into a snarl that showed his clenched teeth; he actually foamed from the mouth at last, and his hands clawed the air, as though he saw the Spaniards before him, and was reaching for their throats! I thought it my duty to check so maniacal an intensity of hatred, and I said to him:

"Come, come, Hoard, this will never do! I understood you to say, just now, that you had been converted from the error of your ways, and had become a Christian. Do you call it Christian-like to hate with such intensity as you exhibit? The Bible says that we should love our enemies, bless those who curse us, and do good to those who despitefully use us. How do you reconcile your present feelings with such an injunction as that?"

"Ah!" he groaned, sinking back upon the locker from which he had risen in his excitement; "you have me there, sir; I can't reconcile it; that's just where it is. I can't forgive my enemies, nor I can't love 'em; and I can't bring myself to do good to 'em. No; I've tried, I've kept my lips closed, I've prayed, I've done all that a man can do, and it's no good; I shall never be able to rest until I've seen them cruel, haughty, overbearin' wretches brought low. They're the enemies of God and man, because they drive poor, weak souls to curse their Maker for permittin' such cruelty. I've done it myself, over and over again! the good Lord forgive me! No, sir, it ain't in man's power to forgive a Spaniard who's got you into his power, and I can't believe that such an impossibility is expected of us. I don't believe that the passage you quoted just now was ever meant to apply to Spaniards at all!"

"Well," said I, "I am afraid that such a question is altogether too difficult a one for me to argue with you; you had better see a clergyman, and discuss the whole matter with him. But we have wandered somewhat from our original subject, which was the galleon. What more can you tell me about her? When is she to sail?"

"It was said," answered Hoard, "that she was to sail exactly a fortnight after the Magdalena. That's why I've made so bold as to come down and tell you about it now. If you start to overhaul your rigging, I'm afraid that you'll not be ready in time to catch her. She is a big ship, sir; close upon sixteen hundred tons, I should call her, and I ought to know; for the Magdalena laid within a cable's length of her for more than a week. She is heavily armed, too; mounts twenty-eight eighteen-pound carronades; and carries on her books a complement of close upon two hundred men. Her name is Nostra Senora del Carmen."

"Ah!" answered I musingly; "then she is likely to prove a pretty tough customer!"

"Not too tough for this schooner and her crew, sir," exclaimed Hoard eagerly. "Why, sir, one Englishman is equal to six Spaniards, any day; and as to her guns, a little management will keep the schooner out of the way of their shot. Besides, sir, I don't suppose you'd engage her in a regular `hammer and tongs' fight? The proper way 'll be to let her pass ahead, and then run alongside, and carry her by boardin'! She'll be but a slow ship, from the looks of her. For the Lord's sake," he continued anxiously, "don't go to say or to think that she's too big for you! Or, if you think that she is, get a man-o'-war to help you! You've only to repeat in the proper quarter what I've told you, and you'll be certain to get all the help you want--"

"No doubt," interrupted I drily; "but if I undertake the matter at all, I will undertake it single-handed. Meanwhile, it is so well worth consideration that I will countermand my orders for overhauling the rigging; so, if you have nothing more to tell me at present, Hoard, just ask the mate to step below, will you?"

"Ay, that will I, most gladly, sir," answered Hoard. "And I'm quite sure, Cap'n Bowen," he continued, pausing with his hand upon the handle of the door, "that when you've had time to think about the matter, you'll make up your mind to have a try for the Senora."

With which he turned and left the cabin, and presently, in obedience to my message, Saunders came down. I gave him my instructions, and then proceeded with my letters, which I had to considerably abbreviate in consequence of the rather heavy demand that Hoard had made upon my time. However, I got them finished in time for the Calypso--which was the vessel selected by the Admiral for the conveyance of the Spanish despatches to England--and had the satisfaction of placing them in the hands of the Honourable Augustus Montague himself, and of receiving his assurance that he would undertake to forward them to their destination upon his arrival home.

During the afternoon a boat came alongside the schooner with a note from the Admiral, inviting me to dine with him that evening, the invitation being accentuated by the statement that he had some news of importance for me. I despatched an acceptance by the boat that had brought the information, and in due time once more found myself within the hospitable portals of the Pen. As usual, the room was full of guests, but after dinner my host found an opportunity to invite me into his office for a short time, when I learned that the important news referred to in his note of invitation consisted simply of some intelligence, gleaned from the Spanish documents taken by me out of the wreck of the Magdalena, confirming Hoard's story of the galleon.

"I have told you this for a twofold reason," said the Admiral, when he had read out from his translation the extracts relating to the galleon. "In the first place, I am, as usual, without a ship upon which I can lay my hands; the departure of the Calypso to-day depriving me of the only vessel I had in a fit state to go to sea. And, in the next place, as you brought me this news I think it only right that you should be the one to profit by it. So there you are, and, if you will take my advice, you will not remain in port a single hour longer than is absolutely necessary, or you may miss her; and, if what these papers state be true--as I have no doubt it is--she is a ship worth taking a good deal of trouble to find."

I thanked the Admiral for his information, but deemed it best to let him understand that I was indebted to him only for details, and shortly afterwards took my leave, having suddenly made up my mind to sail that same night, if I found that the stores and water had been sent aboard that afternoon, as promised.

I reached the schooner about half-past ten o'clock, and found all hands excepting the mate turned in. Saunders was considerably surprised to see me, as he did not expect me aboard that night; but, upon my questioning him with regard to the stores and water, he informed me that both had come alongside almost immediately after my departure for Kingston. There was consequently no reason why we should delay another moment; and within half an hour we had got up our anchor and were bowling away to the southward and westward before the land breeze. Before daylight the high land of Jamaica had sunk beneath the horizon, and we had caught the trade-wind.

It now became necessary for me to form some sort of a plan of operations; and for this purpose I determined to consult with Hoard. As soon, therefore, as I had secured my sights for the longitude, after breakfast, I sent for him, and he came down into the cabin.

"I have sent for you, Hoard," said I, "because, as no doubt you already guess, I have made up my mind to have a try for the galleon; and as I understood you to say that you had spent some time ashore, at or near Cartagena, it occurs to me that you may be able to furnish me with some valuable information. And I want to ask you, first, whether, while you were in Cartagena harbour, you heard anything said that might lead you to suppose the Spaniards deem it so far possible that the news of the galleon may have spread far enough to lead to her captain taking extra precautions against capture by steering a course right out to sea, instead of making the best of his way to the eastward along the land, as far as, say, Point Gallinas?"

"I think, Cap'n, I understand what's in your thoughts," answered the man. "No, sir; I never heard anything that 'ud seemed to point to their imaginin' that any news of the ship 'ud be likely to get to an enemy's ears. At the same time, I don't doubt, from what was rumoured about the amount of the treasure that she's to ship, that her skipper'll do everything his wit 'll teach him to keep out of the road of our cruisers and privateers. That, however, ain't very valuable information to give you, because you'll have guessed as much as that yourself. And I'm afraid that I ain't able to tell you any more--except this: that it'll never do for this schooner to be seen dodgin' about anywheres near Cartagena. If she was seen once I don't suppose any harm would come of it, especially if she happened to be under a fairish amount of canvas, because it 'ud probably be supposed that she was bound south to the Gulf of Darien. But if she should happen to be seen twice, it 'ud be all up with us, for a time, at least; they'd be pretty sure to delay her sailin' and send something out to watch us. And as to cuttin' her out, Cap'n, I'm afraid it couldn't be done. Besides, it 'ud be no use to try it unless all the treasure was aboard; and I don't suppose they'll ship that until her hatches are on, and she's all ready for sea, so that she can up anchor and make a start directly the last ingot's hoisted in."

"Quite so," I assented; "that will no doubt be their mode of procedure. But, on the other hand, she may be all ready for sea, even to having all the treasure on board, and yet not sail for a day or two. Because it is quite clear to me that, for some reason or other, they believe this galleon to have a very fair prospect of safely reaching her destination, or they would keep her back until they could send her home under convoy. Now, if they entertain such a belief as that, it seems to me highly probable that some of their big officials will embrace so apparently safe an opportunity to take a passage home in her, and they might not be ready quite so soon as the ship. Now, if that should happen, what is to prevent our cutting her out?"

"Do you happen to know what Cartagena harbour is like, sir?" inquired Hoard, beginning his answer to my question by asking another.

"No," said I. "I have never been near it; nor have I ever seen a chart of it."

"Of course you haven't, sir," answered my companion; "for the simple reason that the Spaniards won't let a chart of it be made, for fear that it should get into an enemy's hands. But I can tell you what it's like, sir. It is about eight miles long, with a width varyin' from four miles down to about one and a half. It is completely landlocked by the island of Tierra Bomba, that forms the seaward face of it, and there's only one channel, called the Boca Chica, about half a cable's length wide, by which a ship can get in or out. And just abreast the narrowest part of this here channel there's a battery, called the San Fernando Battery, mounting twelve sixty-eight pounders. So, you see, sir, that cuttin' a ship out of Cartagena harbour ain't to be thought of."

"Are there any other forts or batteries anywhere along the shores of the harbour?" asked I, my thoughts flitting back to our exploit at Abervrach.

"No, sir," answered Hoard, in surprise at my question. "But you'd find the San Fernando more than enough, if you was to try to get in. They're always on the watch, whenever there's a craft headin' for the harbour; and they won't let her pass until the port cap'n have been off to her, and is satisfied that she's all right."

"Well," said I, "I must have some clearer information than you have been able to give me. I must ascertain the precise date fixed for the sailing of the galleon; and I must have a look at Cartagena harbour, so that I may be able to judge for myself what will be the best mode of action. Now, how is this to be done?"

"Oh, sir," answered Hoard, "so far as getting news is concerned, I'll undertake to do that for you. I speak Spanish like a native, and contrived to make a friend or two here and there among the fishermen and porters and people of that class, in spite of the priests and the soldiers. There's one man in particular, named Panza--I took the blame of something that he did one day, when he was a fellow-prisoner, and was flogged instead of him, he being at the time a'most dead with fever, he's a fisherman, and lives in the little village of Albornos, some four miles out of Cartagena; he'll do anything for me. He don't know--nobody exceptin' the prison authorities knows--that I was shipped off aboard the Magdalena; so all I've got to do is to get ashore and make my way to his hut, tellin' him that I've escaped from prison--which God knows is the truth,--and he'll hide me as long as I like to stay with him, and tell me all the news into the bargain."

"Well, perhaps that might be managed--if you are not afraid to venture back among your enemies," said I.

"Lord bless you, sir, I ain't afraid! not a bit of it," answered Hoard. "The priests and soldiers believes me to be aboard the Magdalena; so, as long as I keeps out of their sight--which I'll take precious good care to do--I shall be all right."

"Very well, then," said I; "we can settle the details of your scheme later on. The next question is: How am I to get a view of Cartagena harbour?"

"Ah, sir! that'll be a very difficult and dangerous matter," was the reply. "And yet," he continued correcting himself, "I don't know but what it may be done without so very much risk a'ter all, if the weather is but favourable. But the only way that you could do it would be to land durin' the night on Tierra Bomba, and remain on the island all day, viewin' the harbour from the top of a hill that stands pretty nearly in the centre of the island. You'd have to conceal yourself among the bushes; and as there are very few people movin' about on the island you'd not be so very likely to be seen. Then the boat 'ud have to come ashore for you next night; and the schooner 'ud have to be kept well in the offing during the daytime."

"Should I be able to obtain a good, uninterrupted view of the harbour from the point you name?" I demanded.

"First-rate, sir; couldn't be better," answered Hoard. "The harbour 'ud be spread out like a map below ye, and you'd see from one end to t'other of it; ay, and you'd see the galleon herself, lying in the small inner harbour."

"Then I'll risk it," exclaimed I decisively. "There is a new moon coming on in about a week's time, so that the nights will be dark, and therefore favourable to our adventure. Thank you, Hoard; that is all I want with you now. I will have another chat with you when we reach the coast."

CHAPTER TWENTY

THREE.

I PLAN A MOST DARING AND HAZARDOUS ENTERPRISE.

Our run across to the Main was uneventful, and on the sixth morning out from Port Royal we made Point Gallinas, arriving off Cartagena some twenty hours afterwards.

By great good luck the weather happened to be favourable for our immediate embarkation upon our adventure, so after a further and final chat with Hoard, the schooner was headed in for the land. The night was dark as pitch, the sky being overcast, and there was a gentle breeze blowing off the land, affording us smooth water for the delicate operation of landing. But there was no time to be lost, it wanting only four hours to daylight, by which time it would be necessary that the schooner should have secured a good offing; so, having under Hoard's pilotage stood in until the lead gave us twenty-one fathoms--at which point Hoard informed us that we might consider ourselves half a mile from the land--the gig was lowered, and, with her crew armed to the teeth, we shoved off, the second mate being in charge, with Hoard and myself sitting on either side of him in the stern-sheets, the former still acting as pilot. We paddled gently in, with muffled oars, and in the course of about ten minutes the boat gently grounded on a narrow strip of smooth, sandy beach at the base of a low, rugged cliff in a shallow bay. Here Hoard and I landed, the second mate receiving instructions to be at the same spot with the boat and a small supply of cooked provisions every night at midnight, and to remain a couple of hours, when, if he saw nothing of either of us, he was to return to the schooner until the next night.

We stood on the beach until the boat had shoved off again and was lost in the darkness, when we turned away, and, Hoard leading, proceeded to climb the face of the cliff, which was by no means a difficult matter, as the ground, although somewhat precipitous, was grass-grown and thickly dotted with low, sturdy bushes. Five minutes sufficed us to reach the top, when we found ourselves facing a hillside, rising on our right to a very respectable height. This, however, was not the hill to which Hoard had alluded in his conversation with me. To reach the latter we should have to walk about a mile, he informed me; so, having paused for a minute or two to get our breath after our unwonted exertions, we struck inland, passing over the spur of the hill on our right and dipping down into a shallow valley, along which we passed, steering a southerly course for a pair of steep, lofty hills, the summits of which were within half a mile of each other. The more southerly of these two was the one for which I was bound, and an hour's steady climbing carried us to the top of it, when we lay down in the long grass among the bushes, and, regardless of insects and possible reptiles, snatched a catnap while we waited for daylight.

At daybreak we roused up, and, making our way to a clear space on the very summit of the hill, looked abroad at the scene. Seaward, the ocean stretched away, a vast plain of delicate blue, to the horizon, and some twenty miles in the offing we made out a speck of white, gleaming in the brilliant morning sun, which we decided must be the schooner. Then, turning our backs upon the sea, we had the hilly foreground of the island before us, sloping away to right and left and in front of us down to the smooth, placid waters of the spacious harbour. On our right was the Boca Chica, the only entrance to the harbour, a narrow, winding channel with a sort of bar at its inner extremity, whereon, Hoard informed me, there is scarcely four fathoms of water. Nevertheless, viewed from the elevation which I occupied, the navigation of the channel appeared simple enough, the submerged sand-banks on each side of it showing up quite clearly through the blue water. At the inner extremity of the channel lies the outer harbour, a sheet of water roughly circular in shape, and measuring some four miles across in either direction. I noticed a few small shoals dotted about here and there in this outer harbour, but there was only one that appeared to be at all dangerous, and that one was to be easily avoided. The northern boundary of the outer harbour seemed to be pretty well defined by a cluster of decidedly dangerous shoals stretching right across from the island of Tierra Bomba to the mainland, but with fairly wide channels of deep water between, and north of this lay what might be termed the intermediate harbour. This is a sheet of water of about half the area of the outer harbour, with a good clean bottom and plenty of water. It is formed by a shoal uniting the island of Tierra Bomba with the mainland, a reef of rocks projecting above the sand and rendering the Boca Grande--once the main entrance to the harbour--quite impassable by anything larger than a boat. Then, inside this again, and rendered especially safe and snug by being inclosed by two long, low, projecting spits with a narrow channel between them, is the inner harbour, having an area of about three-quarters of a square mile, with plenty of water for the largest ships. The head of this harbour washes the walls and wharves of the town of Cartagena; indeed it does more, for, as Hoard informed me, it divides the town into two nearly equal parts, the tide flowing right through it and for some distance beyond. In this inner harbour lay quite a fleet of small coasting-craft, and towering high among them all could be made out the tall spars of the galleon. Immediately in front of us, and on the opposite side of the harbour, the country was low, swampy, and thickly covered with scrub and bush, among which could be made out the whitewashed mud walls of the villages of Buenavista, Gospique, and Albornos, in the latter of which Hoard's friend Panza had his habitation. The fishing-boats from these villages were dotted all over the bay--they had probably been out all night,--and having pointed out to me the several objects of interest in the noble scene that stretched around us, my companion intimated that the time had arrived for him to leave me, as he intended to get a passage across to the mainland forthwith, and then make his way to the town for the purpose of acquiring information. He cautioned me to keep a bright look-out for chance stragglers, and to carefully avoid them, for he assured me that, if discovered, I should certainly be dragged off to the town, and probably meet with the same fate that he had suffered. And finally, he undertook to return, if possible, the next night to the spot whereon we then stood, adding that, should he fail to appear, I was not to be alarmed. I watched him make his way down the hillside, lost sight of him among the bush, and finally made him out again, with the aid of my glass, just as he was entering a little hamlet on the harbour shore of the island. I watched him sauntering hither and thither among the dozen or so of huts that composed the hamlet, saw him engage in conversation with several people, and at length observed him making his way down to the beach, accompanied by a couple of men. The trio entered a boat and pushed off, and I watched the crazy craft heading straight across the harbour to the village of Gospique, from whence I concluded he would make the best of his way to Albornos.

I had now the rest of the day before me in which to look round and make my observations, and I determined to do so to the utmost extent of my ability. But I was by this time hungry and thirsty, so before doing anything else I sought out a comfortable spot in the shadow of a clump of bush, and sat down to discuss a portion of the viands that I had been careful to bring with me. Then, my meal finished, I produced pencil and paper, and proceeded to very carefully draw a map of the harbour, preserving as accurately as I could the just proportions of every feature, and marking the shoals in their proper places, as also the battery guarding the entrance channel, and the position of the villages dotted here and there along the shore. I had taken the precaution to bring a small pocket-compass with me, and this I found most useful as a means of laying down the bearings of the various features from my point of observation. By drawing the whole roughly to scale, judging my distances as accurately as possible, and freely using my pocket-compass, I found that by the end of the day I had secured a sketch map that had the appearance of being fairly accurate. Not a soul came near me throughout the day, but several small craft passed out of or into the harbour, and these afforded verification of Hoard's statement as to the extraordinary precautions observed by the authorities, every one of them being obliged to heave-to until a boat from the battery had boarded them. A large ship, apparently a Spanish Indiaman, also arrived pretty late in the afternoon, so that I had an opportunity of witnessing for myself the manner in which such craft made their way through the channel to the inner anchorage.

At length, when the sun was within an hour of setting, I observed a fishing-boat under sail emerge from among the group of islets that block the approach to the village of Albornos, and it presently became evident that she was making for the island, on the highest point of which I was perched. I brought my telescope to bear upon her, but for some time was unable to distinguish her occupants, the sail being in my way. At length, however, one of them moved forward and stood for a few minutes under the lee of the sail, and the boat being by this time more than half-way across, I was able to recognise the ragged habiliments worn by Hoard when we took him off the wreck of the Magdalena, and which he had resumed for the occasion. The sun was just dipping beneath the western horizon, and the shadow of the island of Tierra Bomba had enshrouded the waters of the harbour in a soft dusk, when the boat entered a shallow lagoon at the north-eastern extremity of the island, and grounded on the low, swampy shore. I saw Hoard disembark and stand talking with his companions for a few minutes, and then the boat shoved off again and made her way to about mid-channel, when her crew doused her sail and proceeded to shoot their nets. Meanwhile I had lost sight of Hoard behind a hill that lay between me and the lagoon where he had landed, and I saw no more of him until he suddenly appeared against the star-lit sky only a few paces from me.

"Well, sir," said he, as he ranged up alongside, "I've got some news for you, and no mistake; but I greatly doubt whether it'll be very acceptable."

"How so?" I exclaimed; "has anything gone wrong?"

"Well, I don't exactly know about `gone wrong'," was his reply; "but the way of it is this: The galleon is finished loadin', and her hatches is on. The gold is expected to arrive in the town to-morrow evening, and if it does, it'll be got aboard the day after to-morrow; and next day three hundred sojers is to be marched aboard of her, and she'll then sail for Europe!"

"Three hundred soldiers!" exclaimed I incredulously. "No wonder that they consider the vessel capable of making her way home without a convoy!"

"Ay, you may well say so, sir," was the reply. "It seems that the whole thing have been planned out for a long time. These three hundred sojers is to go home as invalids, so I hear; and the relief has arrived to-day in the Injieman that, mayhap, you saw come into the harbour this a'ternoon. She's been expected this three weeks, so my friend Panza tells me."

"Well," said I, "that is, as you say, news indeed; and it was a most fortunate thing that we came ashore, as we did. Had we simply dodged off and on, waiting for the galleon to come out, those three hundred soldiers would have done for us. You say that the gold train is expected to arrive to-morrow. Is this expectation pure conjecture, or have they reason for it?"

"Oh, they've reason enough for it, sir; so I understand," answered Hoard. "You see, the shippin' off of this here gold is the talk of the town; nobody's thinkin' of anything else; and everything that happens concernin' it is knowed at once all over the place. That's how I got my news. Panza had heard all about it, and as soon as he sees me he starts talkin' about it, not knowin' that I'd been shipped off in the Magdalena; and I just let him talk, puttin' in a question here and there until I'd found out all about it. As to the gold train, I don't think there's much doubt about it, because the news in the town is that a runner came in from Barranca this morning with a message from the commandant that the train had arrived there last night, and might be expected at Cartagena some time to-morrow, most likely pretty late in the evening. I was wondering whether it 'ud be possible for us to lay in wait for the train somewhere on the road, and get hold of the gold that way; but that plan ain't any good, because the three hundred sojers that's to go home in the ship are comin' down with it; and sixty men again' three hundred is rather long odds."

"Yes," I agreed, "too long for my purpose, at all events; for I have no doubt that the rascals would make a stubborn fight for it; and even if we should succeed in capturing the gold, we should certainly lose a good number of our men, while I want to get the gold, and the ship too, without any loss at all, if it can be managed."

"Ay, sir," answered Hoard. "But I don't see how it can."

"Well, I have a plan," said I, "and you, perhaps, with your knowledge of the place, will be able to tell me what chance there is of its being successful. And, first of all, do you happen to know how many men are stationed in that battery there that guards the entrance channel?"

"Yes, sir, I think I can tell you pretty nearly," answered Hoard; "because, d'ye see, afore I was sent aboard the Magdalena I was one of the slaves that had to man the water-boat that took 'em their daily supply of fresh water, there bein' none on the island. How many men? Well, I should say that, countin' all hands, officers and men together, there's a matter of nigh on to eighty of 'em."

"No more than that?"

"No, sir; certainly not more than eighty. Call 'em eighty, and you'll not be very far wrong; over the mark a trifle, if anything."

"Very well, then," said I. "This is my plan. You say that the gold is to be put aboard the galleon the day after to-morrow. The fact of its shipment must be absolutely established, and, in order that it may be so, I propose that you shall remain ashore--if you think you can do so without fear of discovery--and witness for yourself the loading of it. Then, when it is all aboard the ship, you will make the best of your way across to this island, and wait for me at the spot where we landed last night. I shall come ashore with all the boats and the whole of the crew, except the idlers, fully armed. Then, if the gold has been shipped, we will land on a little strip of sandy beach at the seaward end of the channel, which I noticed to-day, march across the point, and take the battery, spiking the guns. And, when this is done, we will pull up the harbour, board the galleon, and carry her out to sea before the soldiers are embarked."

"The very thing, sir! the very thing!" exclaimed Hoard delightedly. "What a fool I was not to think of such a simple plan as that myself! Yes, sir, it'll do, I don't doubt. The sojers is sure not to be put aboard that night; they'll give 'em a day or two to rest after their journey down the country, not for the sake of the men, sir, but because the officers 'll want it."

"Then you think that my plan will do?" asked I.

"Yes, sir, I do; I haven't a doubt about it," was the confident answer.

"Then, in that case," said I, "I shall go aboard the schooner to-night, leaving you ashore to find out all the news you can. I shall not come ashore to-morrow night, because there appears to be no need, and the less frequently that the schooner approaches the land the less will be the danger of discovery. But the night after to-morrow, at midnight, I shall be at the spot where we landed, with all the boats, and fully prepared to capture the battery. So you must find means to meet me there. Are you quite sure that you will run no risk by remaining ashore?"

"Oh, yes, sir; I shall be all right. Never fear for me! I know the town now, and know how to take care of myself. But how will you manage, sir, supposin' that it happens to be blowin' strong, with the wind on the shore, when you wants to land, the night after to-morrow?"

"Does that ever happen here?" I inquired, considerably taken aback by the suggestion.

"It do sometimes, sir, but not often," answered Hoard. "Mostly the land breeze springs up about eight o'clock, and blows until about seven in the mornin'."

"Well," answered I, after considering awhile, "in the case that you mention, it appears to me that our best plan will be to make boldly for the channel, the four boats keeping abreast, so as to show as little as possible; let the wind blow them past the battery, and land in the little bay about half a mile inside. I noticed a big rock, the only one, jutting out of the sand there to-day. That should be a very good spot at which to meet you."

"Yes, sir, I know the rock well; I've seen it hundreds of times," remarked Hoard. "You can't do better, sir, unless the wind happens to be off shore. If it is, the other plan will be best."

"Very well, then, that is understood," said I. "And now, how will you manage about getting back to the mainland?"

"Oh," remarked my companion, "I shall have to stay on this here island all night. But Panza will keep a look-out for me and take me across to- morrow morning."

"Then," said I, "you had better walk with me as far as the beach, and get the fresh stock of provisions that they will bring ashore. And how are you off for money, in case you should want any?"

"Why, the fact is that I haven't got any, and I was goin' to ask you to let me have some, sir; it might come handy," was the reply.

I happened to have a few dollars that I had taken the precaution to slip into my pocket before leaving the ship; these I handed to him, and we then sauntered slowly toward the spot where the boat was to meet us.

I went on board the schooner that night, and devoted the whole of the following day to the preparations for our great coup, setting all hands to work sharpening cutlasses, cleaning pistols, effectually muffling the boats' oars and rowlocks, and, in fact, making every possible provision that I could think of to ensure our success. And the next day I made the men rest all day, so that they might be fit for a long and arduous night's work.

It may be imagined that I kept an exceedingly anxious eye on the barometer throughout that day, for I realised that the weather would have much to do with the making or marring of our fortunes on the eventful night. The mercury remained steady in the tube until close upon sunset, and then it began to drop a little, the drop continuing until it had gone down nearly three-tenths of an inch. I scarcely knew what to make of this; whether to expect a shift of wind and a strong breeze, or whether it merely meant rain, or a thunder-storm. The sun, however, had scarcely set when we got a hint of what was to come, in the shape of a bank of dark, purplish, slate-coloured clouds that began to pile themselves along the eastern horizon, their edges as sharply defined against the clear sky as though the masses had been clipped out of paper. We were to be treated to a thunder-storm, and a pretty severe one, too, if the promise of those clouds was to be relied upon. We had been hove-to all day, some twenty miles in the offing, under mainsail and jib only; so that, by keeping our canvas low, we might escape observation from the land, although I had but little fear of this unless anyone happened to have wandered up to the top of one of the hills of Tierra Bomba, from which it would have been possible to see us. But the moment that the sun had fairly disappeared below the horizon, sail was packed upon the schooner, and we proceeded to work in toward the land, my chief anxiety now being lest the thunder-storm should gather and break before we had succeeded in effecting a landing, in which case we stood a very fair chance of being discovered, and of finding everybody on the alert to give us a warm reception. We reached in, on the starboard tack, until we were within about two miles of Punta de Canoas, when we hove about and reached along the land to the southward. By this time the thunder-clouds had completely overspread the sky; it was as dark as the inside of a cavern, and the storm might burst upon us at any moment. It hung off, however, and at length, much to my relief, we found ourselves close to the northern extremity of Tierra Bomba, and within half a mile of the shore. It was so dark that it was quite impossible to see anything, the land merely showing as a slightly deeper shadow against the intense blackness of the overcast sky. But I had so thoroughly studied all the natural features of the harbour and its surroundings during my day's sojourn ashore that I now seemed to be perfectly familiar with them all. I therefore had no hesitation whatever in hauling the schooner in under the lee of the island until we were actually becalmed, when, the lead giving us a depth of barely four fathoms, I let go the anchor and stripped the schooner of all her canvas, not furling it, however, but simply passing a few turns of the gaskets, so that everything might be ready for making sail again at a moment's notice.

We were now, according to my judgment--for, as I have said, we could actually see nothing,--in the shallow bay where Hoard and I had landed three nights previously; and I believed, moreover, that we were so close to the land as to be completely shut in and hidden, both from the north and from the south. Needless to say, I had long ago issued orders to extinguish all unnecessary lights, and for those that were indispensable to be closely masked. There was therefore nothing to betray to the sight our whereabouts; and as to sound, every sheave and tackle that was in the least likely to be used had been so thoroughly greased that it worked in absolute silence, while the men, although shod for our tramp across the narrow point at the southern extremity of the island, had lashed thick wads of oakum to the soles of their shoes, and consequently moved about the decks as silently as ghosts. Moreover, the boats had all been so thoroughly prepared, hours beforehand, for the expedition, that there remained nothing whatever to be done but to lower them into the water, unhook the tackles, and shove off. When we let go our anchor it still wanted a good hour to midnight; nevertheless, so anxious was I lest the threatening storm should break, and the lightning betray our movements, that I determined to man the boats forthwith, and beach them if necessary, believing that thus we should run less risk of detection.

All these precautions, it must be understood, were adopted not so much from any apprehension of ultimate failure, for I had determined to have the galleon, but because I wanted to save my men. I now summoned Saunders down into the cabin, and read over to him the instructions that I had carefully prepared for his guidance during the earlier part of the day, explained them to him fully, and then handed him the paper. The men who were to accompany me on the expedition were next mustered in the 'tween-decks and sent to supper, after which their weapons were carefully inspected, and a liberal quantity of ammunition served out to them; and then, when I had satisfied myself that all was right, I made them a little speech, explaining what I purposed doing, and how I wanted it done; when, having enjoined them to observe the most absolute silence, the light was extinguished, all hands groped their way on deck, the boats were lowered and manned, and we shoved off, each boat attached by her painter to the one ahead, so that we might not part company in the profound darkness. It was presently found, however, that this precaution was unnecessary, the water being so brilliantly phosphorescent as to afford all the guidance that was needed; indeed, there was altogether too much luminosity to please me. We were even closer to the shore than I had imagined, for we had not been under way five minutes, when the gig, in which I led the way, grounded upon the sand. And as she did so, I became aware of a weird, gaunt-looking figure, clad in rags, standing at the water's edge, close to the boat's stem.

"All right, Cap'n, it's me--Hoard--sir," explained this figure, in a low, hoarse whisper, as I sprang ashore and gripped the fellow by the throat. "There was nothing to keep me," he continued, as I relaxed my grip upon him; "so I came right on here, thinkin' that, mayhap, you'd be a little bit afore your time, and wouldn't want to be kept waitin'. Everything is just as right, sir, as if you'd planned the whole thing yourself; the gold is all shipped; the Senora has been hauled out to the Manzanilla anchorage, ready to sail as soon as the sojers is shipped to-morrow morning; and the commandant is givin' a farewell festa, as they calls it, to all the officers to-night; so that the chances are not one of 'em will think of goin' aboard until daylight."

"Good heavens!" I exclaimed; "what carelessness! what folly! I should have thought they would have been afraid to leave so vast an amount of treasure unguarded."

"Why so, sir?" demanded Hoard. "They believe that the whole thing has been kept as secret as the grave--and so it would have been, too, but for the wreck of the Magdalena--so they don't expect any such attack as you're preparin' for 'em. And as to anybody ashore attemptin' to meddle with the ship--why, they'd sooner jump overboard and drownd theirselves. So that it ain't so very wonderful, a'ter all, to my mind, that they believes their gold to be perfectly safe. Besides, there's the San Fernando battery: who'd ever dream of that bein' attacked and took?"

"Well," said I, "it all seems fairly reasonable as you put it, Hoard; still I cannot understand such an extraordinary lack of precaution. But, of course, it is so much the better for us. What about her crew?"

"Oh! they're all aboard, sir; but they'll be turned in and sound asleep by this time,--anchor watch and all, as likely as not," was the reply.

"Do you happen to know how many they muster?" asked I.

"Panza told me that he'd heard it said that her full complement was two hundred and twenty-six men, countin' officers and all. But if we can only manage to surprise 'em, and get aboard afore the alarm's given, I don't reckon that they'll give us so very much trouble," answered Hoard.

"We must risk that," remarked I. "And now, as you happen to be here, there is nothing to detain us; we may, therefore, as well be moving. The sooner that we get this battery business over, the better."

"Very well, sir, I'm quite ready," answered Hoard. "I suppose you didn't happen to think of slippin' a cutlash, or a pair of pistols, or anything into the boat for me, sir?" he continued.

"Oh, yes, I did!" said I. "Thomson, the coxswain of the gig, will fit you out. And you had better come in the gig with me, as we shall probably want you to act as pilot."

"All right, sir, I'll do that with all the pleasure in life," was the answer. And therewith he clambered noiselessly into the boat and made his way aft to the stern-sheets, where I presently found him with a naked cutlass in his hand, the edge of which he was testing with his thumb, and mumbling his satisfaction at its condition.

We now shoved off, and the gig leading, gave way at a long steady stroke, for the southern extremity of the island, which we reached within the hour, although it was a pull of fully three miles. Arrived at the low point, and leaving each boat in charge of a couple of men, we landed; and as I was marshalling the men upon the beach, the blackness of the night was momentarily dispelled by a blaze of vivid lightning that flashed from the clouds immediately overhead; and almost simultaneously with the flash there came a crash of thunder that seemed to make the solid ground beneath our feet vibrate and tremble. This was horribly annoying; for to advance upon the battery in the midst of a storm of lightning was almost certainly to betray ourselves, while time was now of some importance, I being anxious to be aboard the galleon not much later than two o'clock in the morning, that being the hour when man is supposed to sleep his soundest and to be least liable to awake prematurely.

However, there was nothing for it but to wait, so I hurriedly ordered the men to lie down behind the ridge of sand which formed the junction of the beach with the grass-land; and there we crouched, with the lightning flashing and quivering all about us for fully a quarter of an hour. Then down came the rain, not in drops, but in sheets, with the lightning flashing and darting and quivering hither and thither through it, until we appeared to be enveloped in a gigantic diamond; so exquisitely beautiful were the glancing colours of the lightning through the rain. Of course we were wetted to the skin in an instant, but that did not very greatly matter, as our pistols and ammunition were carried in waterproof cases; moreover, the rain afforded us an excellent curtain under cover of which to advance; so at a word from me the men sprang to their feet, and we pushed rapidly forward. The battery was but a quarter of a mile from the spot where we had landed, and so accurately had I taken my bearings that, in about five minutes after we began to move, the structure loomed up, dark and grim, before us. Hoard had informed me that its landward sides were protected by a deep moat, connected with the sea, and spanned by a drawbridge; and it was for this bridge that I was keeping a sharp look-out. I was so close aboard of it before I saw it that three or four paces sufficed to carry me to the sentry-box at its landward end; and just as I reached this box a vivid flash of lightning revealed its interior, and there, bolt upright, stood a tall Spanish grenadier, with his musket resting in a corner of the hut, close to his hand. I realised instantly that the briefest period of hesitation now meant our undoing; for as I had seen the soldier, he had also undoubtedly seen me; so the man no sooner stood revealed before me than, with one bound, I was in the sentry-box with him, one hand grasping his throat to prevent him from crying out, while with the other I seized his musket and passed it out to the man next behind me. The soldier struggled manfully, and did his utmost to free his throat, but I held him fast, and in so fierce a grip that ere many seconds were over I felt him sink powerless to the ground. To lash him, hands and feet together, like a trussed fowl, with his own cross-belts, and to gag him with a good-sized stone, secured in his mouth by a strip slashed from his own coat, was but the work of two or three minutes; and when at length, satisfied that the fellow was secure and harmless, I emerged from the box, I had the satisfaction of finding that Tom Hardy,--now acting as the schooner's second mate,--had promptly followed my example by securing the sentry at the far side of the drawbridge.

We were now consequently in possession of this structure, and that, too, without the slightest alarm having been given to the garrison, and in another minute all hands of us stood inside the battery, which was a fine, solid earthwork, with casemates, very like the battery that we had seized at Abervrach harbour. Unlike the French battery, however, all the casemates were open, with the exception of four, two of which were converted into the officers' quarters, while the other two constituted the magazine; and in the shelter of these open casemates the artillerymen were slumbering soundly in hammocks, despite the storm, with their muskets piled under the shelter of a verandah that ran all along the front of the casemates. To possess ourselves of these muskets, and to heave them into the moat was the work of but a few minutes; and when this was done I went up on to the platform, and with my own hands effectually spiked every one of the guns. It was a most unaccountable thing to me that the whole garrison should have slept so soundly through the terrific crash and roar of the thunder, and the blaze of the lightning; but they did, perhaps because they were accustomed to that kind of disturbance; and as the thunder was practically continuous, I had no difficulty in carrying out my operations without a single clink of the leather-covered hammer being audible.

The battery was now useless for some hours at least; and, since we had been so fortunate as to render it so without any of the garrison becoming any the wiser, I thought it would be an advantage to leave them in ignorance for a few hours longer, I therefore quietly withdrew my men, and, taking the two gagged and bound sentinels with us, effected an orderly retreat to the beach.

CHAPTER TWENTY

FOUR.

THE CAPTURE OF NOSTRA SENORA DEL CARMEN.

Arrived at the boats, we lost not a moment in tumbling into them and getting under way again, for time was now a precious commodity, there being still a journey of some four miles before us ere the galleon could be reached. But, once fairly clear of the Boca, or channel, we should be able to use our sails, which I had taken the precaution to have placed in the boats, and then we should make good progress, while the men would be resting.

The first question for consideration, however, was what to do with our two prisoners. This was speedily settled by Hoard, who suggested that they should be landed upon a small islet, called Brujas Island, situate on the opposite side of the harbour, and lying but little out of our regular way. This we did, of course first casting them loose and taking the gags out of their mouths; but although they were thus freed from actual physical restraint they remained as harmless as before, so far as we were concerned, for Brujas Island was uninhabited, and separated from the mainland by two channels which, although only narrow, were so dangerous, in consequence of the sharks with which the harbour was infested, that the Spaniards were not at all likely to imperil their lives by attempting to swim them. There they were, therefore, harmless enough, so far as we were concerned, until morning, when probably some passing fisherman might be attracted by their cries, and would release them. But, whether released or not, I had very little fear that they would attempt to return to the battery and give the alarm there; the fact that they had allowed themselves to be surprised and made prisoners would be accounted by their officers an unpardonable crime; and the probability was that, when released from the island, they would take to the forest and make for the interior to escape punishment.

By the time that we had landed these two unfortunate men the thunder- storm had passed away to seaward, the crash of the thunder had become modulated to a booming rumble, and a steady, drenching downpour of rain had set in; the clouds overhead, however, were not nearly so heavy and black as they had been previous to the outbreak of the storm, and there was sufficient light to enable us to see where we were going. We accordingly shoved off from Brujas in high spirits, and, hoisting our sails, headed up the harbour. The land wind was blowing, although not very strongly, and when we had been under way about half an hour we began to look out for the galleon. Hoard was the first to see her-- probably because he knew best of us all where to look for her,--and, the moment that she was sighted, the gig's sails were lowered, as a signal for the other boats to close round us. This they immediately did, when I repeated, in a low voice, the orders that I had already given before leaving the schooner, in order that every man might know exactly what duty was expected of him, and do it. Then, having thus refreshed every man's memory, I gave the order to draw cutlasses and paddle quietly alongside.

A few minutes sufficed to take us to the galleon; and a fine, stately, noble-looking craft she was, towering out of the water like a line-of- battle ship; her lofty masts and wide-spreading yards seeming to pierce the sky and lose themselves among the few stars that now came twinkling mistily out, here and there overhead.

We got alongside without being challenged--to my great surprise; and, half of us boarding her to port and the other half to starboard, in less than a minute we were all on deck, and gliding softly and noiselessly as shadows here and there; some securing the fore-scuttle, others the companions and sky-lights; while others again were briskly swarming up the shrouds to loose the canvas; the carpenter--with his axe specially sharpened for the occasion--at once stationing himself by the cables, ready to cut them at a sign from me, while two men placed themselves at the ponderous and highly-ornamented wheel.

The singular circumstance that we had succeeded in getting alongside without being challenged was fully accounted for by the fact that not a single soul was on deck when we had glided in over the galleon's lofty bulwarks. If an anchor watch had been set, the men composing it had--as Hoard had predicted--quietly ignored their duty, in the absence of the officers, by turning in and leaving the ship to take care of herself. The surprise was complete; the galleon had fallen into our hands without so much as a single blow being struck. Of course, there was the crew below to be reckoned with still, but meanwhile they were close prisoners and asleep; and, even in the event of their awaking at once and proceeding to force their way on deck, it would be some time ere they would be able to break out; and by that time, if all went well, we should be far enough from the neighbourhood of the town to render any prospect of assistance from that quarter practically out of the question. What I most feared was that somebody on board one or another of the many craft that were anchored in our immediate vicinity might notice the operation of loosing and setting the galleon's canvas, and suspecting something to be wrong, man a boat and go ashore to give the alarm; in which case we should soon have three or four swift galleys after us; when we were likely enough to find ourselves in an exceedingly awkward scrape. That, however, was a danger that we had to face. And after all it was not so very great; for if no anchor watch was being kept on board the galleon, how much less likely was it that such a watch would be kept on board the comparatively valueless coasters by which we were surrounded.

I had carefully explained to my crew beforehand what it was that we had to do; and I had also given instructions that the whole of the work was to be carried forward in absolute silence, no one calling out unless the necessity for so doing was urgent. Consequently, from the moment when we first dropped in over the bulwarks, not a sound save the soft patter of muffled feet was heard aboard the galleon until first the topsails and then the courses were let fall, when, of course, there arose a sound of canvas fluttering in the wind, which, to my excited imagination, seemed loud enough to wake the dead. Then came the sharp cheep, cheep of sheaves upon their pins as the topsails were sheeted home and the yards mast-headed, followed by a still louder flapping of canvas as the jib was hoisted. Then came the dull, heavy crunch of the carpenter's axe as he smote at the cables. I suppose it was these sounds that awakened the galleon's crew, for while the carpenter was still hacking away there arose from the interior of the fore-scuttle a loud knocking, and the muffled sounds of voices angrily demanding that the hatch should be lifted. Hoard, however, had been standing by, in expectation of something of this sort, and the moment that there came a pause in the knocking and shouting I heard him informing the prisoners that the ship was in the hands of the English, and that unless they--the Spaniards-- immediately ceased their row the whole lot of them would be quickly subjected to certain dreadful pains and penalties which I but imperfectly understood. The threat, however, had the desired effect of quieting our prisoners, who promptly subsided into silence.

It was a somewhat difficult matter to get so big a ship under way in the rather thickly crowded anchorage, and we were obliged at the outset to make a rather long and complicated stern-board, which entailed two or three very narrow shaves of fouling one or another of the craft that were in our way. The sky, however, was clearing fast, the stars were shining brightly through great and rapidly increasing rifts in the clouds and affording us enough light to see what we were about; moreover, the land breeze was piping up strong, and whistling shrilly through our rigging, so that as soon as we were able to swing the yards and get headway upon the lumbering old wagon of a craft, we managed well enough, and contrived to scrape clear of everything; and that, too, without attracting any very serious amount of attention, only one hail-- and that, apparently, from somebody more than half drunk--saluting us as we glided with a slow and stately movement out of the anchorage toward the somewhat contracted passage between the island of Tierra Bomba and the Main.

Once fairly clear of the anchorage, and the shipping that encumbered it, we crowded sail upon the old hooker, and were soon booming down toward the chain of shoals at the rate of fully seven knots. And now Hoard once more made himself useful by undertaking to pilot us through the shoals, which he did very successfully, hugging Brujas Island pretty closely, and then bearing almost square away for the Boca Chica channel. A short half-hour sufficed to carry us to the inner end of it; and here our utmost vigilance was called into play in the navigation of the sharply-winding passage. But we managed to achieve it successfully, all still being dark and silent in the San Fernando battery as we passed it, and after an anxious ten minutes I had the satisfaction of feeling Nostra Senora del Carmen rising and falling ponderously upon the swell of the open Caribbean.

In anticipation of the possibility that we might be pursued, I now shaped a course due west, right off the land, that being, in my opinion, the direction in which we were least likely to be looked for, and when we had been running to leeward for about half an hour, and had made an offing of nearly four miles, I burned three portfires simultaneously as a preconcerted signal to the schooner that all was well and that she was to follow us, and an hour later she came foaming up on our weather quarter and hailed us. We now hove-to and sent alongside her the boats that had hitherto been towing astern; and as soon as they were hoisted in we both filled away once more, still standing straight off the land, so that when day dawned I had the satisfaction of finding that we had run the coast out of sight.

We had, of course, long ere this secured our prisoners, numbering in all two hundred and twenty-six men, and now the problem was how to get rid of them; for I did not at all care to have so many men aboard who would require to be constantly watched in order that they might not rise upon and overpower us at some unguarded moment. Happily, the problem was soon solved; for about noon we sighted a trading felucca, bound from Porto Bello to Santa Marta, which the schooner brought to, and as she proved to be a fine, roomy craft I hove-to, lowered the boats, and transhipped our prisoners into her, despite the protests of her unhappy captain, who called all the saints to witness that the food he had on board would not suffice to feed so many men more than a couple of days at most. This objection I met by pointing out to him that he could bear up for Tolu, on the Gulf of Morrosquillo, which he could easily fetch in twenty-four hours, and so left him to settle the matter in whichever way seemed best to him.

As soon as we had parted company with the felucca, and were fairly under way again, I set to work to search for the treasure, of the actual presence of which on board I had as yet had no time to satisfy myself. Hoard was of opinion that it would be found stowed away in a strong-room beneath the cabin deck, in the position usually occupied by the lazarette, and there, sure enough, I found such a room--a solidly built structure of hard timber, fully six inches thick, plated with iron, the door being secured by three massive iron bars passed through thick iron bands, and secured at either end by heavy iron padlocks, six in all, the keyholes of which were sealed with great seals the size of the palm of my hand. These seals I broke without a particle of hesitation or reverence for the great personage who had caused them to be placed there, and then instituted a hunt for the keys, which resulted, as I had feared it would, in failure. The keys were doubtless at that moment at Cartagena, in the possession of the unfortunate captain of the ship, or in the hands of the official to whose custody the treasure had been confided. There was nothing for it, therefore, but to set the armourer to work upon the padlocks, and by dint of hard work he managed to get them off and the door open by eight bells in the afternoon watch.

The room, when opened, proved to be an apartment measuring about five feet each way, and it was lined inside as well as outside, with thick sheets of iron. But it was more than half full of gold ingots; that is to say the ingots were packed in rows of twenty each athwart the room. There were five rows of twenty each, constituting a tier, and the ingots were stored eight tiers high; so that, if the lower tiers contained the same number of ingots as the top tier, as was pretty certain to be the case, there were eight hundred ingots of solid gold, each weighing approximately half a hundredweight! the ingots being made uniformly of this size and weight in order that they might be conveniently transported from the mines to the coast by means of trains of Indians. I was struck dumb with astonishment and admiration as I stood gazing at the pile of dingy packages, each ingot being tightly sewn up in a wrapper of raw hide. I could scarcely believe my eyes for the moment. Twenty tons of gold! Why, there was a fabulous fortune before me! I reckoned its value roughly, and found that, at the then ruling price of gold, the value of the packages before me approximated well on toward three millions sterling.

Nor was this all. There was a heavy, oaken, iron-bound case, measuring about two feet square by about a foot and a half high. This, I presumed, contained the uncut gems which Hoard had told me were to be sent home in this lumbering old treasure-tub. Man alive! when I came to realise in a measure the approximate value of all this wealth, I tell you I was frightened; fairly terrified to think that I was now responsible for it all. For upon me devolved the task of conveying this enormous wealth safely across the ocean and delivering it into the hands of my owner, to be by him subdivided into the shares to which each of us was entitled. I believe I never realised so vividly as at that moment the manifold perils of the sea: the peril of fire, of tempest, of shipwreck, and of the enemy. And to think that it had all been intrusted to a bottom that, under the most favourable circumstances, could hardly be expected to get up a speed of ten knots, and that consequently was open to capture by the first fast-sailing picaroon that happened to fall in with her. It was positively frightful to merely contemplate such a very likely eventuality. "But, thank goodness," thought I, "that danger is easily provided against!" And, going on deck, I immediately ordered the ship to be hove-to, and the launch hoisted out, and I also signalled the schooner to close.

It was a lovely evening; the water quite smooth, and a gentle westerly breeze blowing. I determined, therefore, to seize that opportunity to transfer the whole of the treasure to the Sword Fish, in the hold of which craft I considered it would be far safer than where it was then. And, that done, I determined to make my way, first to Jamaica, to pick up a few more hands to help in working the galleon, and then to make the best of my way home without risking the loss of all by engaging in any more fighting, however tempting might be the opportunity. The men went to work cheerily; easily divining my motive for transhipping the treasure, and being, of course, each in his own degree, as anxious for its safety as I was. Moreover, the galleon's launch was a fine big lump of a boat; so we managed to tranship the whole and get it safely stowed away before sundown. That night I resumed command of the schooner, and turned the command of the galleon over to Saunders, who was a thoroughly steady, reliable fellow.

At midnight, as arranged by me prior to leaving the galleon, both craft hauled up to the northward for Jamaica, and we then found that--so slow was the galleon, with the wind anywhere but on her quarter--the schooner, under mainsail, stay foresail, and jib, was quite able to keep pace with her even when she was carrying topgallant-sails, above which the galleon set nothing. This promised a long, wearisome voyage across the Atlantic, and doubly justified me in transhipping the treasure to the schooner. Nevertheless I looked forward with a great deal of pride to the day when I should take the prize into Weymouth harbour. It was early days, however, to think of that as yet, for there was the whole of the Atlantic and two-thirds of the Caribbean between ourselves and home, with who could say how many chances of shipwreck or capture before that distance could be traversed.

And, as though to enforce the recollection of the latter contingency more effectively upon us, the dawn next morning revealed a long, snake- like two-masted craft hovering some five miles to windward, which I by and by made out to be one of those pestilent war-galleys which were apt to prove such formidable antagonists, and to give so much trouble in such moderate weather as we were then experiencing. I judged that this galley, which was under sail when first sighted, had come out from Cartagena in search of us, and from the fact that she did not at once bear down upon us, but hung persistently to windward, I conjectured that she was not alone, that she had one or more consorts somewhere to windward, and that, upon fully identifying the galleon, she would lower her sails, out sweeps, and be off to windward for help to tackle us. This I was most anxious to prevent, if possible, and after considering awhile I hit upon a plan which I thought might serve. I accordingly closed with the galleon, and ordered Saunders to at once bear up before the wind and run away to leeward, piling all the sail possible upon the old tub, to convey the impression that he was terribly frightened, and was exceedingly anxious to escape recapture. At the same time all sail was crowded upon the schooner, the precaution being taken, however, to tow an old spare foresail overboard, abreast the lee gangway, which had the effect of causing the schooner to sail as if she were water-logged. I also shaped a course with the schooner diverging about four points from that of the galleon.

The latter now, of course, ran away from us, hand over hand; while now the galley manifested a disposition to edge down a little and get a nearer look at us both. This was precisely what I wanted, my hope being that our precipitate retreat would be construed by the Spaniards as a sign of weakness and fear on our part, and that the commander of the galley would thus be inveigled into attempting the recapture of the galleon single-handed, instead of sharing the honour with his consorts. I anticipated that, if he should yield to my blandishments, he would make a dash straight for the galleon without troubling himself about the schooner, the sluggish movements of which would render her in his eyes an altogether contemptible adversary, utterly beneath his notice, and only to be tackled and submitted to an exemplary punishment after the recapture of the galleon had been achieved. And, should I prove correct in this line of reasoning, he would run away to leeward after the galleon, when I should have him exactly where I wanted him, namely, to leeward of the schooner, when it would be my business to see that he did not again get to windward of us.

CHAPTER TWENTY

FIVE.

I END MY CAREER AS A PRIVATEERSMAN.

For fully an hour the galley dallied with the tempting bait that I had thrown out, now edging down towards us for a few minutes, and anon hauling her wind again, her commander apparently suspecting some ruse on our part. But at length our seemingly single-hearted anxiety to place as much water as possible between ourselves and him, together with the fact that both vessels were perceptibly increasing their distance from him--the galleon fairly rapidly, the schooner much less so,--got the better of his prudence; and, suddenly putting up his helm, he came booming along down to leeward, wing and wing, steering a course that, as I had expected, would soon carry him alongside the Senora.

The moment that it became apparent that he was in earnest I sent my scanty crew to quarters, the long thirty-two was cleared away and loaded, and all hands stood by to haul inboard again the sail that had hitherto served so efficiently as a drag. But, beyond this preparation, no other change was made, the schooner still adhering to her course, as though only anxious to escape from so formidable an adversary.

About half an hour after bearing up, by which time the galley had neared us to within about a mile and a half, she fired a shotted gun in the direction of the galleon, and hoisted her colours. Saunders, to whom I had communicated my intentions, took no notice whatever of this; nor did we. The shot fell a long way short, and was of course merely intended as a hint for the galleon to heave-to. Another quarter of an hour brought the galley down abreast of us, and about a mile distant, but she took no notice whatever of us, her object evidently being to recapture the galleon first, and so secure--as they would suppose--the treasure that had been embarked aboard her; after which her commander would doubtless have a word to say to the schooner which had so audaciously presumed to appropriate, even temporarily, the gold of His Most Catholic Majesty the King of Spain. As the galley swept past us I observed, with keen satisfaction, that she was not going much over eight knots; and I estimated that, when we should have got rid of our drag, we should be fully a knot and a half better than she was. Of course it would be in her power to rig out her sweeps to increase her speed; but I considered that, with the breeze that was then blowing, they would be practically useless except when going directly head to wind; and what I had to do was so to manoeuvre the schooner as to cut off her escape in that direction. What I was chiefly afraid of was that the consorts of the galley--for I was confident that she had consorts somewhere or other-- were close enough at hand to hear the sound of firing; and to make certain upon this point I shinned up to the royal-yard and had a good look round, and I was greatly relieved to find that there was nothing in sight.

I allowed her to get about a mile to leeward of us, and then, instead of hauling our drag inboard, as I had at first intended, we cut it adrift and let it go altogether, at the same time jibbing over our main-boom and giving chase to the galley. For a space of perhaps ten minutes no perceptible notice was taken, by those on board the galley, of our change of tactics; but by the end of that time our sudden and--to the Spaniards--unaccountable improvement in speed had become so marked that it could not fail to attract attention; and presently signs became observable that it was occasioning considerable uneasiness. The galley's sweeps--forty in number--were suddenly rigged out, and she assumed the appearance of a gigantic centipede hurrying over the surface of the sea, her long oars rising and falling swiftly, with a gun-like flash of sunlight off their wet blades, as they churned the water into snow-white foam on each side of her.

But a very few minutes sufficed to prove the correctness of my judgment as to their uselessness under the present circumstances, a very distinct confusion of movement among the shining blades revealing--what I had foreseen--that her canvas was driving her too fast through the water for her oarsmen to keep pace with her. The confusion rapidly became more pronounced, until every individual oar-blade was rising and falling independently of all the others, while frequent pauses of movement, accompanied by a great splashing of water, revealed that the unhappy oarsmen were busily engaged in the unseamanlike operation of "catching crabs". As a matter of fact, her sweeps were proving to be a hindrance rather than a help to her, and we began to overhaul her so fast that we were soon within point-blank range of her. Tom Hardy had assumed charge of our Long Tom, and he had gradually worked himself up into such an uncontrollable condition of fidgety impatience, running his eye along the sights and then glancing round at me, that it seemed cruel to keep him thus any longer on the tenter-hooks of suspense, and I, rather reluctantly, nodded permission to him to fire. The next instant the gun spoke out, the shock of its discharge jarring the schooner to her keel, and the shot flew high over the mast-heads of the galley and a little wide of her.

"I expected as much, Tom," remarked I reprovingly. "You are far too much excited. Take it coolly, man; take it coolly. That galley must be effectually disabled, or she will give us the slip to windward and bring two or three more like herself after us, which I have no desire at all to see. And I have no desire to take her, for she would be worse than useless to us, she would be a really dangerous possession. Ah! I expected as much; down comes her canvas; she is going to try to dodge us and work out to windward in the wind's eye! Never mind the gun just now; in with the stunsails, for your lives, or she will be too quick for us!"

What I feared and expected had come to pass. Our heavy shot had fairly frightened the people aboard the galley; they realised at last that a trick had been played upon them, and her commander's great anxiety now evidently was to get as quickly as possible out of the trap that he had been decoyed into. And, with this object, he had suddenly lowered his sails and put his helm hard over, with the object of returning by the way that he had come. But we were to windward of the galley, and, our stunsails coming in with a run, we were able to haul close upon a wind almost as quickly as the galley, when--the latter now depending upon her oars alone--the schooner proved to be considerably the faster of the two, thus effectually cutting off our antagonist's escape in that direction.

"Now, back to your gun, and load as quickly as you like!" exclaimed I; for I knew that a very critical moment was at hand for us; a moment that would decide whether it was the galley or ourselves that was to be victorious. And presently my anticipation became realised; the Spaniard, finding his escape cut off, again putting over his helm until the vessel swerved round with her long, keen bows pointing straight at us. Her commander intended to run us aboard--if he could--and, should he succeed, the schooner would either be sent to the bottom by the violence of the shock, or we should fall into the hands of the Spaniards, to endure, in all probability, a fate even more horrible than that from which Hoard had escaped.

Straight as an arrow for us came the galley, her two masts keeping steadily in one as her helmsman relentlessly followed the schooner's movement through the water, while the long oar-blades now rose and fell quickly in perfect time, urging the long, snake-like hull toward us at a speed of fully seven knots. Tom Hardy mopped the perspiration of excitement from his brow with a bright red handkerchief as he muttered anathemas upon his previous ill-luck, but I saw that he had pulled himself together, for his hand was as steady as yours is at this moment as he gently waved it in direction of those who were training the gun.

"Now, Tom," said I, when he had reported all ready, "this shot must go home, mind; there must be no missing this time! So take it coolly; let her approach us to within a hundred fathoms before you think of firing-- I will give you the word--and then let her have it as soon as you are certain of your aim."

"Ay, ay, sir," answered Tom. "I'll have her this time or you may call me a sojer. Give the word, sir, whenever you like."

"There is no hurry, Tom," said I. "Keep her covered for another three minutes, and then you may do as you like. And you, my man," I continued, turning to the helmsman, "steer small for the next few minutes, and give Tom a chance."

"Ay, ay, sir; `steer small' it is!" answered the man.

"They're at work upon that gun of theirs, sir," reported Hardy at this moment. "Shall I fire and stop 'em, sir?"

"Yes," said I; "she will do now. But don't fire until you are absolutely certain of her."

The galley was now within about a hundred and fifty fathoms of us, coming on at a tremendous pace, the water leaping and foaming and glancing about her bows, and her long length still pointed obstinately at us. There was a brass gun mounted upon her forecastle, the rays of the sun flashing off it as though it had been made of gold; and about this gun some seven or eight figures could be distinctly seen busily moving; while aft upon her poop were grouped four men in brilliant uniforms and with their swords drawn. And beyond her forecastle, grouped along either rail, could be just made out the heads and the flashing weapons of a strong body of boarders, ready to spring in upon our decks at the instant when the two hulls should come together. Despite the anxiety and suspense of the moment I could not help remarking to myself that, if they intended to carry us by boarding, the commander of the galley was conning his craft in a very lubberly, unseamanlike way.

As the thought passed through my brain there was a bright flash, a stunning report, and a jarring of the whole frame of the schooner as our long gun again spoke out; and, so instantly following the report that it seemed to be almost a part of it, I distinctly heard a crash, immediately followed by a dreadful outcry of screams and yells and groans of mortal anguish, seeming all to start at the same instant out of a hundred throats. Our shot had evidently gone home, and it had as evidently told severely; but exactly how much damage it had done could not be guessed at for the moment until our smoke had blown away to leeward of the galley. And ere it had done this there came a flash and a report from her, and the next instant I was aware of a shot that came humming so closely past my head that the wind of it actually blew my cap off and all but overboard. I stooped, picked it up, and replaced it on my head.

As I again turned my gaze to leeward, there was the galley, with a clean, neat shot-hole in her starboard bow, so close to the water-line that the furrow ploughed up by her rush through the water was flashing and leaping right over it; and--what was of at least equal importance to us just then--both banks of oars were trailing limp and motionless, as if suddenly paralysed, in the water alongside of her. And paralysed they certainly were, for the moment at least, because our thirty-two- pound shot had evidently raked the oarsmen's benches from end to end of the ship. Her way immediately began to slacken; and although I saw an officer dash aft and with his own hands jam the helm hard over to lay us aboard, her movements became so sluggish that we had no difficulty in avoiding her, she being fully ten fathoms distant when she went drifting slowly across our stern. As she did so, a heavy, confused volley of musketry was poured into us from the boarders that lined her gunwale, but although the bullets flew past us like hail, not one of us was touched; and immediately afterwards a loud outcry arose aboard the galley, upon which every man at once threw down his arms and jumped below.

"Ready about!" shouted I. "And you, Tom, load again, and stand by to give her another shot as we cross her bows. We must not leave her now until we have rendered it impossible for her to get up to windward again and tell of our whereabouts, and that of the galleon. If you could contrive to smash a good number of her oars with a raking shot it would be better even than hulling her; for, after all, it would be a terrible thing to destroy so much life. She must have at least two hundred and fifty people aboard her."

"Ay; all that--or more, sir. It'll take at least four men to handle one of them long, heavy sweeps, the way that they was handled just now. But, as to smashing of 'em, I don't know as I can do it; a man would have to be a very tidy shot to hit more'n one or two of 'em. But I'll do my best, sir; and no man can't do no more."

The schooner's helm was put down, and she was hove round upon the opposite tack, and at once kept away for the galley, which had by this time fallen broadside-on to the sea, her oars still remaining motionless. We steered a little to leeward of her, with the intention of luffing into the wind athwart her stern and throwing our topsail aback, so giving Hardy time to level and point his thirty-two-pounder; and we had gained our position and were in the act of backing our topsail, when the officer of whom I have already spoken reappeared upon the poop and, hastily hauling down the galley's colours, hailed in very fair English:

"We surrender, senor; we surrender! In the name of the Blessed Virgin I pray you not to fire again! The galley is in a sinking condition; and unless we can quickly stop the leak she will go down and drown us all. What is it you will that we shall do in the matter?"

"Where is the leak situated?" demanded I.

"In the bow, senor; so close to the water-line that the sea is pouring into the vessel like a river," was the answer.

"Then," said I, "you had better cut both your sails adrift and fother them over the leak; after which your only chance of safety will be to make for the nearest port--which I take to be Porto Bello. I will stand by you until you have choked the leak; but I can do no more for you, as my carpenter is aboard the galleon; and moreover he does not understand Spanish, and therefore could not direct your people."

"A thousand thanks, senor," answered the Spaniard, bowing low to me. "I will follow your instructions, and am in hopes that, by adopting the plan you have suggested, we may be able to reach the land."

Then, with another bow to me, which I duly returned, he disappeared; and a moment later I heard him shouting some orders to his people, some twenty or thirty of whom at once sprang on deck and began to cut the lateen sails away from the long, tapering yards. Meanwhile, I could now see that the galley was gradually filling, as she was perceptibly deeper in the water than when we had first encountered her; and thinking it possible that I might be of use, I ordered our people to launch the dinghy, in which, with one hand, I went under the bows of the galley. The shot-hole which was the cause of all the mischief was now completely under water more than half the time, showing only when the bows of the vessel lifted over a swell. I saw that they had plugged it with canvas from the inside, and the officer informed me that two men were engaged in holding the canvas in place against the pressure of the water, while the rest of the crew were, as I could see, engaged in baling. I thought I could see my way to improve matters a little; so I directed the officer to launch his gun overboard, to lift the bows a little, and to shift all his movable weight as far aft as possible. I then returned to the schooner, and procured a thin sheet of lead, a dozen nails, and a hammer, and with these I contrived, with some difficulty, to pretty well stop the leak, although I was careful not to stop it too effectually, lest the officer should decide to take the risk of making his way to windward instead of to the nearest land. But I do not think I had any real ground for apprehension, for I could see that the poor fellow was thoroughly frightened; and when I had patched up the hole, and had told him that there would be no need to use the sails, save to help him to reach Porto Bello as quickly as possible, he was overpoweringly profuse in his expressions of gratitude for my help and what he was pleased to term my "generosity."

It was drawing well on toward noon when at length the galley was once more in a condition to get under weigh, which she did forthwith, heading to the southward under oars and sails; and inexpressibly thankful was I to see the last of her, and still more so to think that I had contrived to get rid of her without sending her and all her company to the bottom. Before parting I contrived to elicit from her commander that two of his consorts had proceeded to search for us in the Gulf of Darien, while three more had made the best of their way to Point Gallinas, to intercept us there in the event of our trying to make our way to the eastward.

Having thus successfully shaken off our formidable foe, I crowded sail upon the schooner in pursuit of the galleon--which all this while had, in pursuance of my orders, been running off the wind to leeward,--and when at length we overtook her, the galley had long vanished in the south-eastern board. We consequently hauled up to the northward once more, and shaped a course for Jamaica, where,--not to make the story too long,--we arrived without further adventure on the fourth morning after our encounter with the galley.

As may be supposed, I lost no time in waiting upon my very good friend, the Admiral; whom I found up to the eyes in business in his office at Port Royal. Nevertheless, busy though he was, he gave orders for me to be admitted, and shook hands with me heartily as I presented myself.

"Good morning, Mr Bowen," said he. "I won't ask you to sit down, for I am so busy this morning that I positively don't know which job to tackle first. I merely consented to see you in order that I might congratulate you--for I hear that you have brought in a prize of some sort, and a big lump of a craft she is, too," casting his eyes toward her as she lay full in view of his office window. "Not the galleon, though, I suppose? No such luck--What? is it really so? Upon my honour, I very heartily congratulate you, my dear sir, I do indeed. And my ears are tingling to hear your story, which I am certain will be well worth listening to; but I haven't the time for it just now. Come up to the Pen to dinner to- night, and tell it me then, will you? That's right; sharp seven, mind! And now, good-bye until this evening, you lucky young dog!"

Upon leaving the Admiral, I proceeded up the harbour to Kingston in a boat manned by negroes. A large fleet of ships of all sizes occupied the anchorage abreast of the town; and as we drew nearer two vessels seemed to stand out from among the rest and challenge my recognition. I looked at them more intently. Surely I could not be mistaken!

"Cuffee, what are the names of those two vessels--the brigantine and the schooner--that are moored close together there?" demanded I of the captain of the boat.

"My name not Cuffee, sah; my name am Julius Caesar Mark Anthony Brown, sah! And dem two vessels am called respectably de Dolphin and de Tiger; bofe of dem privateers, sah," was the boatman's answer, given with great dignity and the utmost gravity.

"Thank you, Julius Caesar Mark Anthony Brown," retorted I, with equal gravity. "Have the goodness to shove me alongside the Dolphin, will you?"

"Certainly, sah; wid de utmost pleasure, sah," answered the negro, with a broad grin of delight at the unwonted receipt of his full cognomen. And in a few minutes we ranged up alongside the old familiar schooner, and I recognised many old familiar faces looking curiously down into the boat.

"By the living jingo if it ain't Mr Bowen come back to life!" I heard one man say; and in a moment there was an eager rush to the gangway to meet me. The unexpected sight of so many well-known faces, most of them hailing from the same birthplace as myself, and all of them evidently glad to see me again, moved me strongly; and almost before I knew where I was I found myself on deck and heartily shaking hands all round. Then, as soon as the excitement had abated somewhat, I inquired for Captain Winter.

"He is ashore, Mr Bowen," answered the mate, who had caught my name and evidently appeared to be familiar with it, although the man was a total stranger to me. "He went ashore directly after breakfast, and I don't much expect to see him aboard again until pretty late in the afternoon. But I expect you'll find him and Cap'n Comben either at Anderson's store, or at Mammy Williamson's hotel. Or, if you don't find 'em, you'll be sure to get news of 'em at one or the other of them two places."

"Thank you," said I; "I will look them up. But in case I should not find them, please say that I will call aboard again to-morrow morning about nine o'clock."

So saying, I climbed down into Julius Caesar's boat again, and ten minutes later was landed upon the wharf.

It was by this time drawing well on toward noon, or "second breakfast" time; so I shaped a course for Mammy Williamson's in the first place; and there, sure enough, I came upon my old skipper and Comben, seated at table among a number of other ship-masters and a sprinkling of civilians. As I entered I heard my name mentioned by Winter, and thought I also caught the word "galleon."

"Speak of an angel, Captain Winter, and--you know the rest," said I, as I stepped up to him with outstretched hand.

In a moment every man had started to his feet, and I was surrounded-- hemmed in--by an enthusiastic crowd, who, having somehow got wind of my lucky capture, were eager to congratulate me. Nothing would do but I must sit down and take breakfast with them and relate my adventure; and it was past two o'clock that day before any of us budged. For not only had I to tell the whole story of my doings from the day when I parted company in the Manilla, but I also had to hear Captain Winter's story as well. The latter I shall not relate here, as it would require a whole volume to do justice to it; but for the gratification of the reader's curiosity, I may say that the Dolphin and the Tiger, after a protracted fight, in which both suffered severely, succeeded in beating off the French frigate. Since then they had both been knocking about in the Atlantic, with only moderate success, making Barbados their head-quarters; hence they had heard nothing of me save in a letter received from Mr White, in which he stated that, up to the time of writing, no news had been received of the Manilla, and that he greatly feared she must have been lost or captured.

Having at length transacted the business that had taken me to Kingston, I returned to the schooner pretty late in the afternoon, Winter and Comben accompanying me to have a look at the galleon and the Sword Fish; and later on I returned with them to Kingston to keep my dinner appointment with the Admiral.

I found my host, as usual, with his table full of company, among them being the captain of the Triton frigate, and several other naval officers, all of whom were exceedingly civil to me, especially after I had related the particulars of the capture of the galleon. We spent a very pleasant evening; and when at length the guests rose to go, the Admiral whispered to me to remain as he had something to say to me. Accordingly, when all hands but myself had left, my host conducted me to what he called his "snuggery", which was a comer of his spacious verandah inclosed with large glazed partitions, and fitted up as a smoking-room. His negro butler set out the table with glasses, decanters, a big crystal jug of sangaree, and a box of cigars, and left us.

As soon as we were alone and had made ourselves comfortable, the old gentleman turned to me, seemed to look me through and through for several seconds, so intently did he rivet his gaze upon me, and then he remarked:

"I dare say you are wondering what this important matter can be that has caused me to keep you behind in order that I may have an opportunity to talk it over with you. Well, my dear fellow, I am a poor hand at beating about the bush; if I have a thing to say, I like to say it outright; so tell me, now, has it ever occurred to you to wish that you were a king's officer, instead of being merely a privateersman?"

"Upon my word, Sir Peter, that is a strange question indeed to ask," said I; "but I do not mind confessing to you that I have over and over again regretted that circumstances did not permit me to enter His Majesty's service. Not that I have any real cause to complain, for I suppose I may now call myself a fairly rich man, with the division of the galleon's prize-money in prospect; much richer than I should have been by this time had I had an opportunity to enter the navy. At the same time I have been impressed over and over again with the honour and distinction attaching to His Most Gracious Majesty's service, and which are wholly apart from any question of the length of a man's purse; and it is impossible to shut one's eyes to the fact that, if a man happens to be ambitious, there is no service where his ambition has more scope for gratification than in the British navy."

"Precisely," agreed the Admiral. "And do you happen to be ambitious?"

"Yes," I answered frankly. "Every one of my successes, such as they have been, has been robbed of a very appreciable amount of its sweetness by the reflection of the far greater honour and glory that would have been mine had I happened to have been a wearer of the King's uniform."

"Then," said the Admiral, "may I take it that, if an opportunity were to offer for you to enter the King's service, you would accept it?"

"Undoubtedly you may, sir," answered I excitedly, as the drift of the conversation suggested itself to me for the first time. Then, in a flash, I qualified my statement by adding: "Of course I mean if I could enter as a commissioned officer. As a warrant-officer I fear I should be quite out of place. I have had so much liberty, and have been, so to speak, my own master for so long--"

"That you think you would find the discipline irksome?" interrupted the Admiral. "My dear boy, I have no doubt you would, and nobody but a fool would ever think of spoiling a fine, dashing, young fellow like yourself by attempting any such transformation. As you say, you would be woefully out of place in such a position. You would be wasted. But upon your own quarter-deck, with a good crew of thoroughly disciplined men to back you up, and the authority of the King's commission to give you confidence, you would soon make a name and a place for yourself. Now, you did a very important and valuable service to the State when you brought timely intelligence of the approach of the combined French and Spanish fleets to West Indian waters, and you did a still more important and valuable service in watching that fleet, and afterwards communicating with Lord Nelson. In recognition of those services, therefore, it affords me very great pleasure to offer you a commission as lieutenant in His Majesty's navy. There it is, my boy," producing a large official-looking document from his pocket; "and I sincerely hope that you will not only accept it, but that also, with such friendly help as I may be able to afford you, you will rapidly distinguish yourself and do credit to my penetration in selecting you for so unusual an honour."

For the moment I was altogether too thoroughly overwhelmed to utter a word, which the old gentleman at once perceived, for he said hastily:

"There, there! no thanks, no thanks; I know exactly what you are struggling to say, and I will take it as said. You need not trouble to thank me in words. Let your deeds express your gratitude; and if you behave as well under the pennant as you have hitherto done under the merchant flag, I shall be more than satisfied. And I intend to give you every opportunity of distinguishing yourself and doing me credit. For it happens that the Triton's boats captured a becalmed pirate schooner last week, and brought her in. The lieutenant who led the attack lost his life, poor fellow, in boarding, so that he has not to be considered; and I propose, therefore, to purchase the craft into the service and give you the command of her. She sails like a witch, I am told, and is a wonderfully powerful vessel, just the sort of craft to give a smart, young fellow like yourself every chance to race up the ratlines of promotion. So now, all that you have to do is to arrange somehow to be relieved of your present command as soon as possible, and then to step into your new berth."

This I had no difficulty whatever in doing, thanks to the lucky chance of Captain Winter being in the same port. I slept at the Pen that night, my kind friend, the Admiral, insisting upon my so doing; and the next evening I found myself in a position to inform him that all arrangements had been made to relieve me of the command of the Sword Fish, and to take the galleon home to England. And within forty-eight hours of the receipt of my commission I had entered upon my new career, and had ceased to be a privateersman.

THE END.

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