The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer Part 12

On the morning of the ninth day after their departure from the harbour of San Juan de Ulua the adventurers sighted Cape Catoche, the most northerly point of the Peninsula of Yucatan, broad on the lee bow, tacked two hours later and made a stretch off the land until sunset, when they tacked again to the southward; and on the following day at noon their reckoning showed that they had accomplished their pa.s.sage through the Strait of Yucatan and were once more in the Caribbean Sea.

Eight days later the treasure island was sighted from aloft at sunrise; and by noon the _Nonsuch_ with her cargo of treasure was safely at anchor under the lee of the island, and as close to the beach as it was prudent to take her. As soon as the canvas was furled and everything made snug aloft, all hands were piped to dinner; and at the conclusion of the meal two boats were lowered and manned, their crews well provided with mattocks, shovels, and other implements for digging, and were dispatched to the sh.o.r.e under the command of Dyer, who had by this time sufficiently recovered from his hurts to be able to sit in a chair and supervise the operations of the working party. And while these were busily engaged in the excavation of a pit capacious enough to receive the enormous amount of treasure in the hold of the _Nonsuch_, George with the remainder of the crew was as busily employed in getting the treasure up on deck in readiness for its transfer to the sh.o.r.e, and making such preparations as they deemed necessary for its adequate protection.

The particular part of the treasure about which Saint Leger was most anxious was the chest of pearls. He had not the most remote idea as to its value, but he knew that it must be almost fabulous; and he knew also how easily the delicate gems might be injured by damp penetrating to them from the surrounding earth; he therefore took the most elaborate precautions for their protection, those precautions being initiated immediately after the departure of the ship from San Juan. His first step was to have the junction of the lid with the box carefully and effectively caulked with cotton; and when this was done to his satisfaction he caused the exterior of the box to be painted several coats of thick paint, with the object of rendering the wood damp-proof.

But, not content with this, he further caused the sailmaker to make two canvas coats to fit tightly over the chest, one coat over the other, and each coat securely fastened by a lacing. Then, when the paint on the chest itself was quite dry, the first canvas coat was slipped on, carefully laced, and then painted four coats, each coat of paint being allowed to dry before the next was applied. Then the second canvas coat was put on, the reverse way of the first, and secured. This was then coated several times with Stockholm tar, to preserve it from decay; and finally, when the last coat of tar was quite dry, the exterior was thickly coated with boiling pitch, as a culminating precaution, after which George decided that he had done everything possible for the preservation of the pearls and that they must now be left to take their chance.

It took the crew a full fortnight to transfer to the sh.o.r.e, bury, and cover up the treasure in such a manner as effectually to obliterate all traces of their operations; and on the morning of the fifteenth day after their arrival they hove up the anchor and made sail southward for Nombre de Dios, where George hoped to obtain some clue to the whereabouts of his brother Hubert.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

HOW THEY LOST TWO MEN, AND ENCOUNTERED A HURRICANE.

It was with a feeling of deep, indeed, almost perfect, satisfaction that George Saint Leger stood upon the p.o.o.p of his vessel that day, and watched the tops of the coconut trees on "Treasure Island," as the men had come to name the place, gradually sink beneath the northern horizon; for not only had he insured the financial success of the expedition--so far as human effort could insure it--by gaining possession of an enormous amount of treasure, but he had placed that treasure beyond the possibility of loss by the chances of battle and shipwreck at least until the time should arrive to shape a course for home. Also, having accomplished these things, he was now absolutely free to prosecute that object which, in his eyes at least, had been the most important one connected with the voyage, namely, the search for and deliverance of his brother Hubert. There was also one other reason why the young captain rejoiced to find himself once more out of sight of land, and that was the state of the weather. Shortly after sunset on the previous day he, in common with others of the ship's company, had noticed a gradual lessening of the strength of the trade-wind, but everybody had then been too busy to do more than just casually comment upon it; moreover the decline had at first been no greater than had been before observed upon more than one occasion. But the lessening process had continued very gradually all through the night and was still continuing, to such an extent indeed that by the time that the last signs of the island's whereabouts had vanished, the speed of the ship had sunk to a bare four knots, and that, too, with the wind broad abeam. It was not, however, the mere softening of the trade-wind that caused George to congratulate himself upon having secured an offing; it was the aspect of the sky, which was beginning to awake within him--and Dyer, too, for that matter--a certain feeling of uneasiness. For the _Nonsuch_ was now within the limits of the hurricane area, the hurricane season had arrived--as Hawkins and Drake had learned to their cost just a year earlier, when, not very far from the spot where the _Nonsuch_ then floated, their fleet had been caught in and all but destroyed by two of those devastating storms that, for three months of the year, sweep, raging, over the face of the Caribbean, leaving death and destruction in their wake--and there were indications that a change of weather was impending. The rainy season had long set in, and skies overcast by great ma.s.ses of slate-blue cloud surcharged with rain and electricity were no new thing to the _Nonsuch's_ crew, but the aspect of the sky on this particular day was of an altogether different character. It had begun with a paling of the brilliant azure, and had been so gradual that it was quite impossible to say when it had begun; the only thing certain was that a change was taking place and that a film of thin, transparent vapour was overspreading the entire sky and gradually reducing the sun in its midst to a shapeless blotch of dull yellow, while the wind continued steadily to decrease in strength. Two hours before the time of sunset the great luminary had become so completely obscured that all trace of him was lost; yet nothing in the shape of a cloud was to be seen, nothing but the veil of colourless vapour which obscured the sky, yet left the whole expanse of ocean almost unnaturally clear from one horizon to the other; and all the time the wind was falling, so that when at length the night suddenly closed down about the ship and she became enveloped in a darkness that might almost be felt, she had no more than bare steerage way; while by eight o'clock in the evening even this was lost, and the _Nonsuch_ lay breathlessly becalmed and slowly swinging with the low heave of the swell, with her head first this way and then that. And with the cessation of the wind, the heat, which had all day been stifling, became so intolerable that the idle crew could no nothing but lie about the decks, gasping, for to go below was altogether out of the question.

Thus matters continued until close upon midnight, when a sudden flicker of sheet-lightning lit up the scene for perhaps a couple of seconds, revealing a sky packed with clouds of so threatening and portentous an aspect that Gorge, suddenly smitten with the apprehension that he had already delayed too long, gave the order for the fore and main topsails to be close-reefed and all other canvas to be furled with the utmost expedition possible, and the men, with much grumbling, crept out from their secluded corners and slowly proceeded to drag their relaxed and sweating bodies up the rigging. To shorten sail in such opaque darkness as then enveloped the ship was a lengthy task, and it was nearly one o'clock in the morning before that task was completed and the exhausted men were once more down on deck.

It was about half an hour later that there came to the crew of the _Nonsuch_ the first premonition of a happening so extraordinary and so gruesome that the historian hesitates to record it, yet, after all, the story but adds one more to the already innumerable confirmations of the statement that "truth is stranger than fiction."

The men had distributed themselves here and there about the main deck, after searching with some care for such spots as were favoured with a light draught of wind set up by the slow roll of the ship upon the oil- smooth swell, and had disposed themselves to court sleep, if peradventure it would visit them and so bring relief from the heat and closeness of the suffocating night, while the young captain and Dyer, the pilot, occupied chairs on the p.o.o.p, where they sat patiently watching for what might next happen--but it is safe to say, never dreaming of what that happening was to be, for their thoughts went not a step beyond the matter of weather.

The night was still intensely dark, so dark indeed that the feeble glimmer of the low-turned lamp in the main cabin, shining through the skylight and faintly irradiating the deck planks in its immediate vicinity was almost irritatingly dazzling, since it effectually blinded the sight to everything outside the irradiated area, and at length George rose to his feet with the intention of calling an order to have the skylight masked by a tarpaulin, when, as he stood upright and his head rose above the level of the bulwark rail, a faint whiff of a strange but peculiarly disgusting and offensive odour a.s.sailed his nostrils.

"Phew!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, forgetting all about the tarpaulin in the sensation of wonder evoked by the strangeness of the effluvium--"what in the world doth this mean? Dost catch it, Dyer?"

"Catch what?" demanded Dyer, also rising to his feet. "Phew!" he continued, as the smell struck his nostrils--"Catch it? That do I, with a murrain on it! Now, what doth this portend? There's no land nearer to us than our treasure island, and it cometh not thence, I dare swear, the smell's too strong for that; indeed I'd say that it cometh from close alongside--and maybe it doth, too; the smell's not unlike to stinking fish, yet there be something else to it beside. And it 'tis a dead fish, cap'n, then all I can say is that it's a mighty big one.

Maybe 'tis a dead whale, yet I don't exactly think it. I've pa.s.sed to leeward of a dead whale, wi' a cloud o' gulls and what not feedin' upon un, and the smell was different from this; just so strong, but different, and if my memory sarves me--even wuss. And if 'twas a whale, the gulls'd be swarmin' about un, fillin' the air wi' their cries, but I don't hear a sound. And, as to seein'--well, I wish 'twould come on to lighten a bit, then us might--"

"Aft there!" came a hail at this moment from the fore deck. "Do 'e happen to smell anything strange in the air, sir?"

"Ay, ay, we do," answered George; "the odour is strong enough, goodness knows. Who is it who is hailing?"

"Drew, the bo's'un, sir," came the answer, with a sharpness in it which effectually prevented its recognition by the two officers upon the p.o.o.p.

There was a note of alarm in the voice, and it was apparent that the men who had been endeavouring to sleep had risen to their feet and were excitedly discussing the phenomenon, for a low murmur of many voices came floating aft from the forecastle.

"Light a lantern, Drew," ordered George, "bend it on to a rope's end, and sling it overside. Maybe the light will show us something."

"Ay, ay, sir," floated back the answer, with that faint, elusive suggestion of sadness in its tone which seems to characterise the human voice when heard in the midst of the lonely ocean on a night of darkness and calm. There followed a slight scuffling of feet, another subdued murmur of voices, a pause of a few moments, then the sharp clink of flint and steel, a tiny spark of light, and finally the mellow glow of a ship's lighted lantern.

"Sling it over the bows, to start with," ordered George, "and then, if you can see nothing, walk slowly aft with it."

Another "Ay, ay," was quickly followed by the disappearance of the lantern over the fore extremity of the topgallant forecastle, and then in the faint upward sheen from the lamp the dimly illuminated outline of the boatswain's face and form appeared, his outstretched right hand grasping the line to which the lantern was attached, while his left held the spare coil. His eyeb.a.l.l.s gleamed as his gaze went out searching to its utmost confines the small s.p.a.ce of illuminated water, apparently without result, for he presently began to move slowly aft, pausing for a short s.p.a.ce of time in the foot of the fore-rigging, outside which he pa.s.sed. Then, as he paused and the light grew steady, the two men on the p.o.o.p caught wavering glimpses of a long line of very faintly lighted figures leaning over the larboard rail, from the after extremity of the forecastle to the fore end of the p.o.o.p, all eagerly scanning the gleaming, oil-like surface of the water, while here and there one pointed as though he believed he saw something. But although both George and Dyer were straining their eyesight to the utmost they could find nothing to reward their search, nay, even although at that moment a flicker of sheet-lightning gleamed for an instant along the north- western horizon. But the ship was at that moment swung with her head to the south-west, consequently the lightning was on the wrong side of her to afford any a.s.sistance. Moreover, it was no sooner come than it was gone again, yet not so soon but that George, and perhaps half a dozen others, raising their heads at the momentary illumination of the sky, saw, suspended overhead, an enormous ma.s.s of black, impending cloud, with jagged, ragged edges so wonderfully suggesting rent and tottering rocks about to fall upon and crush the ship and all in her, that quite involuntarily he uttered a low cry and cringed as though to escape an expected blow. And at that precise moment, as the young captain cowered and crouched, he felt a slight movement in the stagnant air about him, very much as though a great wing had swept immediately over his head so close that it had all but touched him, indeed he believed that it-- whatever it might have been--_had_ actually touched him, for unless his imagination had begun to play tricks with him he could have sworn that he felt the cap on his head move as though it had been grazed by some pa.s.sing object.

"What was that?" he gasped, starting back from the rail over which he had been leaning, and flinging up his hand to his head. "Dyer, did you see or feel anything?"

"I saw the sky for a second, if that's what you mean; and I don't at all like the look o't; I've never see'd a sky quite like that avore--"

answered Dyer.

"No, neither have I," interrupted George; "and I like the look of it as little as yourself. I believe it means that a hurricane is brewing.

But I was not referring to the sky. At the moment when that gleam of lightning came I fancied that I felt something sweep through the air just above my head, and--"

"Hush! hark! what be that?" interrupted Dyer in his turn, placing a restraining hand on George's arm as he spoke, and in the silence that ensued there came to their ears from behind them a low, intermittent, grating sound, like--like what? Well, as much like some rough substance being slowly dragged over the p.o.o.p rail, immediately behind them, as anything to which they could compare it.

"Who be you, and what be 'e doin' there?" demanded Dyer, dashing across the deck. But he was just too late, for a moment before he reached the rail the sound ceased, and he found nothing. But the horrible odour-- something between putrid fish and decaying seaweed--was stronger than ever.

"You, bo's'un, haul up thicky lantern and bring un along here, quick,"

yelled Dyer. "Whatever 'tis that's raising this here smell, 'tis alongside the ship, and 'tis _alive_! And come up here, half a dozen o'

you men down there in the waist--and bring axes wi' ye."

The boatswain quickly hauled up his lantern, and, accompanied by some ten or a dozen of the bolder spirits among the crew--the latter having hastily armed themselves with axes and pikes from the racks--hurried up to the p.o.o.p, and a few moments later George and Dyer were curiously examining with the aid of the lantern's feeble light certain fresh excoriations on the p.o.o.p rail which looked as though they might have been produced by a large and very coa.r.s.e rasp forcibly drawn over it, while the men with pikes and axes crowded close up behind them, peering eagerly over their shoulders. They were still thus engaged when there suddenly flashed up over the rail a long slim, snake-like object, the precise nature of which it was impossible to determine in the intense darkness only faintly dissipated by the inefficient light of the lantern, and while all hands stood gaping dazedly at it the thing curled in over the rail, lightly touched the boatswain upon the chest, and instantly with a lightning-like movement coiled itself tightly about his body, encircling his arms and shoulders.

The man gave vent to a yell of dismay as he felt the coil of the horrible thing tighten round him, and the next instant screamed, in a voice hoa.r.s.e and sharpened by terror:

"He've a-got me! He've a-got me and 's dragging of me overside! Hold on to me, dear souls, and don't let mun take me. Oh! I be goin'--he'm squeezin' the very life out o' me--save me, shipmates, save--"

_Crunch_! George had s.n.a.t.c.hed an axe out of the hand of one of the paralysed seamen near him and, exerting all his strength, had brought it down upon the writhing, straining thing where it crossed the stout timber rail of the p.o.o.p, with the result that the keen blade had completely severed the thing, and the boatswain, with some eight or nine feet of the creature still clinging to his body, and the three men who had seized him in response to his terrified cries, went reeling backward from the rail and fell together in a heap upon the deck, taking the lantern with them, which was smashed and extinguished by the fall. At the same moment a terrific commotion arose in the water alongside, George received a violent blow which swept him off his feet and flung him heavily to the deck, and two men shrieked out the startling news that the thing--whatever it was--had got them and was dragging them overside, while confusion reigned supreme, not only on the p.o.o.p, where a general stampede ensued, but also down on the main deck, where men were hastily arming themselves in defence from--they knew not what. And the sickening odour which had first announced the presence of the creature arose with redoubled strength, pervading the ship from end to end.

For perhaps five or six minutes the confusion and panic aboard the _Nonsuch_ was of a character to defy description; men rushed, yelling, hither and thither in the darkness, colliding with each other and screaming under the impression that the convulsive embrace of their shipmates was the encircling grip of the unknown monster, heavy blows resounded here and there upon the deck, as though a giant cable was threshing the planking, causing the ship to quiver from stem to stern, the two men actually caught in the coils of the creature were shrieking horribly as they clung with tenacious grip to the rail over which they were being inexorably dragged; and over all rose the voice of Dyer calling for more lanterns.

Then suddenly there came a final despairing shriek from the two unfortunate men as they were dragged overboard, carrying with them a length of the stout rail to which they had been desperately clinging, the smashing blows upon the deck ceased, together with the turmoil in the water alongside, and presently four men came hesitatingly along the deck, carrying lighted lanterns. With still greater hesitation they at length permitted themselves to creep up the p.o.o.p ladder, when the first object revealed by the light of their lanterns was the senseless body of the boatswain, his arms and shoulders still encircled by a snake-like object of light brownish-grey colour. The poor man had apparently swooned with terror, or, perhaps, the revulsion of feeling from it when he felt the sudden relaxation of the awful drag upon his body; and near him sat the captain upon the planks, bareheaded, his cap having fallen off, and somewhat ruefully rubbing his aching head where it had come into violent contact with the deck. He looked dazed, and, upon being questioned by Dyer, admitted that he believed he had been momentarily stunned by his fall. And all about him were wet sinuous marks upon the deck which sufficiently accounted for the furious banging sounds that had been heard, and which also conclusively demonstrated that the young captain had experienced an almost miraculous escape from the violent blows which had rained on the deck all round him.

The first thing done was to set about the restoration of the boatswain, and this task was undertaken by Chichester, the doctor, while Dyer, a.s.sisted by two of the men who had come aft with the lanterns, proceeded to free the senseless body from the curious serpent-like thing that still enwrapped it. And when this was presently done, not altogether without difficulty due to muscular contraction, Dyer stood for some moments thoughtfully and somewhat doubtfully regarding the object by the light of the lanterns. Then he bent down and began to handle it, turning it over on the deck and spanning its girth with his two hands.

Finally he straightened himself up and, with the outer extremity grasped in his hand, turned to George and observed:

"Now I know what 'tis, though I'd never ha' believed it if I hadn't seen it wi' these here two good eyes o' mine. 'Tis the arm of a cuttle-fish; that's what 'tis, and nothin' else. Feel to the skin of un, cap'n, and look to the suckers o' mun. I've see'd exactly the same sort o' thing caught by the fishermen over on the French coast about Barfleur and Cherbourg, and I've heard that the things--squids, they calls 'em-- actually attacks the boats sometimes and tries to pull the men out o'

them; but they was babies--infants in arms--to this here monster. I've knowed 'em wi' arms so much as ten or twelve foot long, but the arm that this belonged to must ha' measured all o' forty foot, and maybe more.

Bring along a couple of they lanterns, two of you, and let's see if the brute be still alongside."

The men received the order with visible trepidation, and were none too ready to execute it; but at length Dyer, who was certainly not lacking in courage, s.n.a.t.c.hed a lantern from one of the men, threw the coils of the main topgallant brace off the pin, bent the lantern to the end of it, and climbing into the mizen rigging, lowered it over the side until it hung close to the surface of the water. But there was nothing to be seen; and it was now noticed that the exceedingly offensive odour which had recently pervaded the ship was no longer perceptible, apart from that which emanated from the severed tentacle, which was promptly hove overboard. Then the hands were mustered and the roll called, when it was found that two of the crew were missing, and there could no longer be a shadow of doubt that two of the ship's company had actually been dragged off the deck and drowned, if not devoured by the creature!

But the crew of the _Nonsuch_ were not allowed much time wherein to dwell upon this amazing tragedy, for scarcely had the boatswain been restored to his senses and conveyed below to his hammock to recover from the shock of his terrible adventure, when a low, weird, moaning sound suddenly became audible in the air all about the ship, the canvas of the close-reefed topsails, which had been flapping monotonously with the heave and roll of the ship, shivered and slatted violently for a moment, and a gust of hot wind from the north-west swept wailing over the ship and was gone. Then with equal suddenness a flash of vivid lightning rent the sky low down in the northern board, and presently, coincidently with the muttered booming of distant thunder, another blast of hot wind struck the ship and swept away to the southward in the wake of the first. Then, almost before the sound of the second blast had died away in the distance, there again arose those strange moaning and wailing sounds in the air, seemingly right overhead, louder and more prolonged this time, and accompanied by queer shuddering rustlings of the topsails and momentary scufflings of conflicting draughts of air about the decks.

These conflicting draughts finally resolved themselves into a series of fitful gusts from the northward, which happily lasted long enough to enable her crew to get the _Nonsuch's_ bows round, pointing to the southward, and then, with a screaming roar, the gale rushed down upon the ship, out from due north, and amid the yelling and piping of the wind, and the angry hiss of maddened waters suddenly scourged into white, luminous foam, with the spindrift flying over her in blinding, drenching showers, the ship gathered way and fled southward like a frightened thing.

The hurricane--for such it was--blew with appalling violence for exactly twelve hours, during which the _Nonsuch_ scudded dead before it under close-reefed topsails, with the canvas straining and tugging until opinion became divided as to whether the cloth would part company with the bolt-ropes, or whether, being new and strong, it would uproot the masts and drag them bodily out of the ship, especially when the crest of a sea swept roaring and foaming away ahead of her, and her way was checked as she settled back into the trough. Luckily, neither of these things happened, for if the canvas was new, so too was the good stout hemp rigging, which had, moreover, been set up afresh fore and aft, aloft and alow, after the careening of the ship in that snug little Trinidad creek; consequently, although the masts bent like fishing-rods and groaned ominously from time to time in their partners, everything held, and the ship emerged from the unequal struggle not a penny the worse, although it must be admitted that her rigging had been stretched to such an extent that when at length it was relieved of the strain by the cessation of the gale, it hung loosely in bights that caused the worthy boatswain to shake his head and mutter to himself.

When at length the gale broke and the wind, veering as it fell, gradually worked round until it once more became the trade-wind, blowing out from about due east, the ship had accomplished the record run of her existence up to that date, Dyer's reckoning showing that the craft had averaged twelve knots throughout that mad, desperate race, and that it had swept them to within three hundred and twenty-five miles of their destination.

Late in the afternoon of the second day after the cessation of the gale, land was sighted ahead, and Dyer, having hurried aloft and carefully studied the features of the coast stretching athwart the ship's bows, at length announced with great satisfaction that Nombre de Dios lay straight ahead. Then George and he retired to the main cabin, where, in conjunction with the other responsible officers of the ship, they held a council, at which it was ultimately determined to take the ship into a small creek, some twenty miles to the eastward, which Drake had discovered when in those waters the year previously; there make all preparations for a boat attack upon the town during the night of the following day, capture Nombre, and then propose, as ransom, the surrender of Hubert Saint Leger, and any other Englishmen that might be in the hands of the Spaniards. The project was a sufficiently daring one, for Nombre de Dios had at that time the reputation of being the Treasure-house of the World, since to it was brought across the isthmus, from Panama, all the treasure of Peru, for shipment to Spain, therefore it would almost certainly be well guarded by soldiers. On the other hand, however, probabilities favoured the a.s.sumption--which, as we have already seen, was correct--that the plate ships would by this time have sailed from Nombre on their homeward voyage, in which case, since there would be no treasure to guard, the vigilance of the authorities might be somewhat relaxed, and a surprise might reasonably be expected to result in success. Also it was hoped that from the creek which the adventurers proposed to enter, the party might be able to get into touch with the terrible tribe of Cimarrones--or Maroons, as the English called them.

This tribe originated in a number of African negroes who, some eighty years previously, had escaped from their Spanish masters and taken to the "high woods," or virgin forest, where, having taken to themselves wives from among the neighbouring Indians, they had in process of time grown into a formidable tribe, having one mission in life, and one only, namely, to harry the Spanish settlements generally, and to destroy, with every circ.u.mstance of the most refined and diabolical cruelty, every Spanish man, woman, or child who might be so unfortunate as to fall into their hands. Dyer knew something of these terrible blacks, having already met them in Drake's company; he knew that they were ever to be found lurking in the immediate vicinity of the half-dozen or so Spanish settlements established on the isthmus, and believed that it might be possible to obtain valuable information from them concerning the condition of Nombre, and perhaps even to secure their a.s.sistance in the contemplated attack upon the town. But when he suggested this last proposal, George and the others at once vetoed it from motives of policy and humanity, arguing that if the Cimarrones were permitted to gain access to the interior of the town, there was no knowing what barbarous excesses they might indulge in, which would necessitate the English making common cause with the Spaniards to protect the latter, and so convert the friendly feeling of the Cimarrones for the English into deadly enmity, which was a consummation to be carefully avoided.

The creek which Dyer proposed to enter proved to be so small, when at length the _Nonsuch_ arrived in it, that, anch.o.r.ed as nearly as might be in its centre, there was only barely enough room to allow the vessel to swing clear of the banks when riding to a very short scope of cable. It was so late when the adventurers arrived in this miniature harbour that the fast-fading light showed but little of the surroundings save the fact that the place was completely land-locked, and was so hemmed-in on all sides by lofty trees of the virgin forest that, even moored as she was to a single anchor and a short scope of cable, the ship might ride there safely in practically all weathers, while the lofty trees effectually screened her presence both seaward and landward. The canvas was hastily furled, and then the crew went below to supper, with the understanding that after supper they would be permitted to turn in and take a long night's rest. But they were warned that, secluded and cut off as the place appeared to be, it was not without its dangers, and they must hold themselves prepared to turn out and fight for their lives at a moment's notice, while a strong and alert anchor watch must be maintained all through the night.

Not that there was much danger of an attack from the Spaniards, for close as the creek was to the port and town of Nombre, it was still sufficiently distant to render observation of the presence of the English ship more than doubtful. No, it was of the Cimarrones that Dyer was apprehensive, for if by any chance the presence of the ship in the creek should be prematurely discovered by these, an attack by them upon her would be more than likely to follow. For so deadly was the hatred borne by these savages for the Spaniards that, to find a few of the latter isolated and apparently at their mercy was quite sufficient inducement to the former to attack them. And so ignorant were the Cimarrones that they could scarcely discriminate between an Englishman and a Spaniard, and were equally ready to attack either--both being white--on the general principle that it was better that the innocent should suffer than that the guilty should escape. Yet Drake had already proved that they bore no hatred to white men, as such, for he had been in touch with them during the previous year, and had found them quite disposed to be friendly when once it had been satisfactorily demonstrated that the English were not Spaniards and were, like themselves, the enemies of the Dons. The great thing, of course, was to get into touch with the savages and to establish friendly relations with them before they should find and attack the English.

A sharp look-out was therefore maintained on board the _Nonsuch_ throughout the hours of darkness, but the night pa.s.sed uneventfully, except for the frequent recurrence of certain mysterious sounds emanating from the woods, which Dyer privately informed George were produced by monkeys or a prowling jaguar, and which, innocent enough in themselves, were yet sufficiently uncommon to keep the watch broad awake and on the alert; and at length the dawn of a new day came stealing to them over the tree-tops, and, with it, the dissipation of their apprehensions.

As soon as it was light enough to see, the crew, refreshed by a whole night's rest, went to breakfast; immediately after which they turned to, under the supervision of Ba.s.set and the boatswain, to make every necessary preparation for the boat attack upon Nombre de Dios, while George and Dyer, armed to the teeth, were put ash.o.r.e and went in quest of the Cimarrones.