A Middy of the King Part 17

With these thoughts uppermost in my mind I approached the prostrate figures, one of whom was moaning most piteously, while the other lay still, with half-closed eyes staring upward at the sky.

"Well, _picaro_," I said to the man who was moaning, "what is the matter with you?"

"Oh, Senor," he gasped, "for the love of G.o.d help me to get into the shadow of yonder bush. I am perishing of thirst, and this scorching sun is adding to my torments. If you will raise me to my knees perhaps I can manage to crawl to--Ah, good! I have him! Quick, Jose, help me!

He is strong as a horse, and--So, that is right; now kneel upon him while I lash his wrists together. And Miguel,"--as the man I had left in the road a minute before came running up--"take the gun and those pistols, they will be safer in your hands than in his."

The surprise was perfectly managed. Completely taken off my guard by the admirably a.s.sumed helplessness of the three scoundrels, I was easily captured. For as I incautiously laid down my gun for a moment to place my hands under the arms of the moaning hypocrite who had begged me to a.s.sist him, the rascal flung his arms and legs round me, pinning me in a grip that for the moment held me helpless, and dragged me to the ground, rolling over on top of me, while the other, springing with equal suddenness into vigorous life and activity, also flung himself upon me and held me face downward in the sandy soil while his comrade swiftly bound my hands behind my back with the long silken sash which he had rapidly unwound from his waist. While he was doing this up came the third man, who had been so dreadfully afraid of being devoured alive by the ants, and took possession of my weapons. Now, when it was too late, the truth dawned upon me; the villains, far from being seriously hurt, were as sound as I was, and had simply been left behind in feigned helplessness upon the off-chance that some one of the whites might incautiously venture out, as I had done, with the object of ascertaining where the retreating brigands were actually going, and thus be captured.

Oh! how I execrated my folly, now that it was too late, and I was being hurried along the rough path by the jubilant trio who had captured me and who were in a great hurry to rejoin the main body of outlaws. And how fervently I hoped and prayed that none of the rest of the whites at Bella Vista might be as foolish as I had been. My thoughts went back to the wounded men lying scattered here and there round the house and within musket-shot of it, and for a moment my soul sickened with dread as I thought of what might happen if they too were merely shamming. But the fear was only momentary; I remembered that the hurts of every one of them were visibly, indisputably real, serious enough to disable and render them harmless; and I hoped that my failure to return would put the whole household upon its guard and, by demonstrating to them my imprudence, open their eyes to the fact that all danger was not necessarily over because the brigands had withdrawn.

My companions were in high feather at having achieved my capture, and extolled the shrewdness of a certain Mateo--who, I gathered from their remarks, was their new chief, in place of the deceased Petion--in having devised so ingenious a trap as the one into which I had unsuspectingly fallen. Moreover, they endeavoured to beguile the way by drawing vivid word-pictures--presumably in the hope of frightening me and enjoying my terror--of the unspeakable torments that would be inflicted upon me by way of appeasing the manes of those of their comrades who had fallen in the attack upon the house. Truly I might very well have been excused had I blenched at the prospect which, according to them, lay before me; for if they were to be believed, it was not an hour or two, but several days of excruciating suffering which I might expect. However, I did not by any means believe all that they said. They might be clever enough actors, so far as shamming being wounded was concerned, but in the finer art of inflicting suffering in antic.i.p.ation they were mere clumsy bunglers, for they lacked that finer sense of dissimulation which endows a man with the power of lying with conviction; they allowed their motive to become apparent; and, seeing this, I disappointed them by laughing in their faces. Besides, whether what they said was truth or falsehood, I was not going to afford a trio of sable outlaws the satisfaction of boasting that they had succeeded in frightening an Englishman.

Enlivening the way with such conversation as I have hinted at, we trudged along the upward path for a distance of about a mile and a half, when we suddenly came upon a wide-open s.p.a.ce where the main body of the outlaws had halted to rest and refresh themselves, and also, as I soon became aware by the trend of the general conversation, to determine whether they should return to their head-quarters, or proceed to attack some other estate in the immediate neighbourhood.

My appearance, in the character of a prisoner, was the signal for a great yell of ferocious delight on the part of the outlaws, immediately followed by a brisk fusillade of scurrilous, ribald jests concerning the sport that they would have with me upon their return to their mountain stronghold; and so bloodcurdling were the suggestions thrown out by some of those fiends that I confess a qualm of fear surged over me for a second or two; for I saw at once that, unlike my captors, these ruffians were not endeavouring merely to frighten me, but were in deadly earnest.

Not that I feared death; no man who ever knew me could dub me coward.

In the heat of battle, or under most ordinary circ.u.mstances I can face death--ay, and have faced it a hundred times--without a tremor; but to be triced up, helpless, and to have one's strength sapped and one's life slowly drained away by a long drawn-out succession of unspeakable torments is a prospect that I venture to say few can bring themselves to face without some manifestation of discomposure. Although my cheeks and lips may have blanched for a moment, I permitted no further and greater sign of fear to escape me. I returned their glances of fiendish ferocity with an unquailing eye, and listened to their diabolical jests in apparently unruffled silence, as I was conducted through their ranks by my captors toward a small hillock, overshadowed by a gigantic _bois immortelle_, upon which sat a negro in solitary state, appeasing his hunger by wolfishly tearing, with his strong white teeth, the flesh from three or four roast ribs of goat which he grasped with both hands.

I do not think I ever encountered a lower, or more b.e.s.t.i.a.l type of humanity than was this man. He was a pure-blooded black, of almost herculean proportions, and evidently of enormous strength, as are many of the pure-blooded West African negroes; but one completely lost sight of his splendid physique in contemplation of the expression of low cunning and ferocious cruelty that blazed out of his small, narrow eyes and contorted his wide, flat nostrils, his thick, blubber lips, and his unnaturally prominent chin and jaws; he was the very embodiment and picture of all the most savage and debasing pa.s.sions that characterise the worst specimens of humanity, and reminded me of nothing so much as a combination of snake, tiger, and monkey clothed in the outward semblance of a human form. "Heaven have mercy upon the unfortunate who stirs this brute to anger!" thought I. He was undoubtedly well aware of the feelings of horror and repulsion that he inspired in the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of others, and seemed rather to pride himself upon it, I thought; for as I was led forward into his presence he paused in his wolfish feeding and glared upon me with an expression of concentrated malignity that seemed to freeze the very marrow in my bones. But I believed that he was deliberately striving to frighten me, and horrified though I actually was, I was determined he should not have the satisfaction of feeling that he had succeeded. I, therefore, steadily returned his stare with all the coolness and nonchalance I could summon to my aid, and after the lapse of a full minute or more he turned his glance aside to one of the men who held me, and said:

"Well, Carlos, my ruse succeeded, it would appear. But it is a poor sort of capture that you have made; I hoped you would contrive to get hold of Don Luis, or at least of Don Esteban, or one of his sons; but who is this? He is a mere boy!"

"True, he is," answered the man addressed as Carlos--the scoundrel who had taken advantage of an appeal to my humanity to catch me unawares.

"But," he continued, "boy though he is, he is as strong as a young lion, and will afford us sport for three or four days, if things are carefully managed; and after that--" He added a few words in some language that I did not understand.

"But who is he, and what is he?" snarled the other. "He does not look like a Spaniard."

"He is not a Spaniard," answered Carlos. "Pepe, one of the Bella Vista 'boys' who joined us last night, told me that there was a young Englishman in the house who had been found by old Toma.s.so, Don Luis'

fisherman, floating about on a piece of wreckage, nearly dead, and had been brought ash.o.r.e by him and, at Don Luis' orders, taken up to the house and nursed back to health by Mama Elisa; and without doubt this is he."

"Is this so?" demanded the quintessence of ugliness, turning his gaze upon me.

"It is," answered I. "And perhaps it may prevent misunderstanding and attachment of blame to the wrong people if I explain that it is I who am responsible for the defence of Bella Vista and the losses that you have sustained. It was I who supervised the erection of the barricades, and who also arranged the plan upon which we fought."

"A-h!" he breathed, and the note of diabolical malignity with which he contrived to imbue that single word sent a shudder of fear through me, so intense was it. "Then, perhaps," he continued, "you may be able to tell us whose hand it was who slew Petion, our late leader?"

"As well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb," thought I, and answered at once "Yes. As a matter of fact I am responsible for that, too; and I am glad of it. It was my finger that pulled the trigger that sent the bullet through his heart; and my only regret is that you did not stay long enough to enable me to send a few more of you after him."

Carlos, my captor, actually released my arm and stepped a pace away, the better to gaze upon me, so astounded was he at the unimaginable rashness of my speech. And, to speak truth, I was astounded at myself; I knew perfectly well that I was in all probability only adding fuel to the flame which would ultimately consume me, yet some perverse influence altogether beyond my control seemed to urge me to speak as I did, whether I would or no. And, strangest circ.u.mstance of all, my words, instead of evoking from my questioner the white-hot explosion of wrath that I fully expected, seemed to gratify the man rather than otherwise, for he grinned appreciation as he gazed into my flashing eyes. Then a thought seemed to suddenly strike him.

"You were picked up floating upon a piece of wreckage, you say?" he remarked. "Now, I wonder whether, by any chance, that piece of wreckage happened to belong to the British man-o'-war schooner that engaged a pirate schooner a few miles in the offing, about a month or two ago?"

"It did," I answered. "It belonged to His Britannic Majesty's schooner _Wasp_, which foundered in the gale that sprang up immediately after the engagement; and I, her commander, was, so far as I know, the only person saved."

"You her commander!" he reiterated incredulously. "Why, you are only a boy!"

"Nevertheless, what I have told you is the truth," I answered.

The fellow sat considering this statement for so long a time that I began to wonder whether perchance it was destined to affect my fate in any way. At length, however, he appeared to have arrived at a decision, for, drawing a greasy notebook from one pocket and a stub of pencil from another, he proceeded with much labour to indite a communication of some kind upon it, which, when completed, he folded in a peculiar way and handed to Carlos, at the same time giving him, in a tongue with which I had no acquaintance, what I took to be certain instructions. Whatever the nature of the communication may have been it appeared to meet with Carlos' emphatic disapproval, for he began to argue strenuously with the other, the argument lasting some ten minutes and rapidly growing more heated, until finally something was said that apparently convinced him of the futility of further dispute on his part. Then he suddenly desisted and, seizing me by the arm, dragged me away to a spot where we were somewhat isolated from the rest of the camp, where he left me in charge of his companions Jose and Miguel while he went off elsewhere.

His absence, however, was of but brief duration, for presently he returned, followed by two other negroes who bore in a large calabash an ample supply of boiled rice, roasted yams, and substantial portions of roast goat mutton, which they deposited on the ground within easy reach of us before they departed and left us to ourselves.

As soon as they had gone fairly out of ear-shot Carlos turned to me and, pointing to the provisions, said, as he released me from my bonds:

"Help yourself, and eat freely, Senor Englishman, for we have a long march before we are likely to again see a decent meal."

"Indeed!" I exclaimed. "Is your camp, or head-quarters, or whatever you call it, so far off, then, as that would seem to imply?"

"We are not going to head-quarters," he replied rather tartly; "and you may thank the good G.o.d that it is so; for, whatever may be your mode of death, you may accept my a.s.surance that it will not be anything like so protracted or unpleasant as that which awaited you among the mountains yonder."

"Well," said I, "that at least is good hearing. But if we are not going to head-quarters, pray where are we going?"

"My orders from Mateo, our new chief--whose beauty doubtless impressed you," he replied, with a grin, "are to conduct you down to the coast and deliver you over to his very good friend Manuel Garcia, the pirate, whose schooner _Tiburon_ you and your crew punished so severely when-- according to your own admission, mind--you engaged her some little time ago. Mateo is under the impression that Garcia would be peculiarly gratified to find in his power the officer who commanded the schooner which mauled the _Tiburon_ so severely; so, as you have confessed that you are the man, he has decided to make a present of you to his friend, and to take the risk of the rumpus that will certainly arise when the band learns that it is not to have the pleasure of amusing itself with you."

"And how far is your friend Garcia's lair from here?" I demanded.

"Not very far," was the answer. "But it will take us until close upon sunset to do the distance, because Mateo prefers that we should not start until the rest of the band are on the move. He fears that if you were seen going toward the sea, instead of up into the mountains, some of our 'lambs' might begin to ask awkward questions, and insist upon your accompanying them. Therefore, if you feel at all tired, you had better avail yourself of the present opportunity to s.n.a.t.c.h a little sleep."

As a matter of fact I did not feel in the least tired, but I wanted an opportunity to think quietly over this change in my prospects; I, therefore, gladly accepted the suggestion made by Carlos and, stretching myself out beneath the shade of an adjacent clump of bush, closed my eyes and, before I knew it, was fast asleep.

I was awakened by the sound of many voices and the stir of many feet, and sat up to see that the whole band of marauders was in motion; and ten minutes later there was nothing to betray their presence save a cloud of dun-coloured dust rising into the air over the tops of the bushes. It appeared to me, however, that instead of wending their way toward the mountains they were bearing away in a westerly direction toward a spot where, at a distance of some eight or ten miles, I knew a group of extensive and prosperous plantations existed. As soon as the last of the stragglers had vanished, Carlos rose to his feet and said:

"Now, Senor Englishman, if you are sufficiently rested we will be moving; because, if it should be noticed that you are not among them, some of our people might return to look for you; and it would be very bad indeed for you if they should do that--and find you."

"I am quite ready," I answered, as I sprang to my feet; and in another minute our little party also--consisting of Carlos, Jose, Miguel, and myself--had disappeared from the scene.

Our way lay in precisely the opposite direction to that taken by the raiders; that is to say, while they marched toward the west, we followed a narrow, winding footpath that, if it could be said to have any definite direction at all, trended toward the east. For three hours we trudged steadily onward, Carlos, with one of my pistols in his belt, in addition to his own weapons, walking on one side of me, with Jose, similarly equipped, on the other, while Miguel, with my gun upon his shoulder, brought up the rear. For several miles we traversed the lower slopes of the range, winding hither and thither but steadily working our way eastward, now pa.s.sing over sterile, rocky ground, spa.r.s.ely dotted here and there with clumps of th.o.r.n.y scrub, and anon opening out a glorious prospect of gently undulating, fertile country, dotted with plantations,--the smoke-blackened roofless walls of some of the mansions built on them clearly suggesting a recent visit from the late Petion and his fellow-outlaws,--and, beyond all, the grand old ocean, blue, save where darkened by the drifting cloud shadows, and flecked here and there with white from the scourging of the trade-wind. At length, however, when the sun had declined to within a span's length of the western horizon, we bore away sharply toward the north, and presently came in sight of an indentation in the coast which, at the first glimpse, had the appearance of being land-locked; but which, as we approached it more closely, I saw was really a nearly circular bay about a mile in diameter, the entrance of which was most effectively masked by a small islet stretching completely across it and leaving only two narrow pa.s.sages, one to the east and the other to the west of it. A small felucca lay at anchor a cable's length from the sh.o.r.e; and when at length we reached the lip of the basin-like depression, the bottom of which formed the bay, or cove rather, I perceived, to my amazement, that a sort of village of quite respectable extent had been built along its southern margin, some of the buildings being so large that I at once set them down as storehouses. A number of people were moving about the buildings; and quite a dozen boats were hauled up on the beach above high-water mark.

And now I noticed a very remarkable peculiarity in connection with the cove: the sides of the basin wherein it lay consisted everywhere of perfectly vertical cliffs, some two hundred feet high, so that, look where I would, I could at first discover no way down into it. Looking a little closer, however, I presently became aware of an exceedingly narrow and dangerous zigzag path traversing the cliff-face, about a quarter of a mile farther on, and toward this we at once made our way.

A quarter of an hour later, having first encountered a sentry at the upper end of the path, to whom Carlos whispered some pa.s.sword which I could not catch, we found ourselves safely at the base of the cliff and at the extreme end of the village. Arrived here, we directed our steps toward the most important-looking house in the place, at the door of which Carlos knocked. An ancient, frosty-headed negro responded to the knock and, in reply to Carlos' question, stated that Don Manuel Garcia was at the moment away in the schooner, but that Senor Fernandez was, as usual, in charge of the settlement, and possibly might do as well; to which suggestion Carlos a.s.sented, whereupon we were ushered into a large bare room, furnished in such a manner as to suggest the idea that it was chiefly used as a council chamber, and the door was shut upon us.

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

IN THE PIRATE'S STRONGHOLD.

Here we waited nearly half-an-hour, at the conclusion of which a door at the upper end of the chamber opened, and a tall, rather good-looking man, dressed entirely in white, entered. At his appearance Carlos sprang to his feet and, saluting, handed over the note which Mateo had scrawled. The stranger, who was none other than "Don" Victor Fernandez, Captain Manuel Garcia's second-in-command, took the note, read it, glanced at me curiously, and then nodded curtly to Carlos and his companions.

"Good!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "The Captain will highly appreciate the thoughtfulness of your new chief, Mateo, in sending him this Englishman.

In his name I desire to tender his warmest thanks to Mateo, and request you to convey them, with every expression of his highest consideration.

Do you leave us to-night, or will you remain until the morning? If the latter--"

"_Mille gracias, senor_!" answered Carlos; "we should greatly like to stay here for the night, and rest, for this day has been an exceptionally trying and fatiguing one for us; but Mateo's instructions that we should rejoin him at the earliest possible moment were imperative and must not be neglected. But if we may be permitted to stay long enough to share your people's supper, we will gladly do so."

"So be it," answered Fernandez. "Find Pacheco, and tell him that you will sup in the great hall with the rest of the hands, and then request him to come to me." Whereupon Carlos and his two fellow-cut-throats saluted and retired.

For a minute or two after the departure of the trio, Fernandez sat meditatively regarding me in silence, twisting and turning Mateo's note in his fingers meanwhile. At length, with just the ghost of a smile flickering over his features, he said, tapping the note in his hand: