With Drake on the Spanish Main Part 5

"My heart! I never thought to taste beer or cider again. 'Twill comfort my nattlens, sure, and I was once a good man at a tankard."

The fetters were soon struck off; a mug of beer was drawn, and drained at a gulp; but Turnpenny was still ill at ease. He went to the entrance of the hut and looked nervously up and down the gully, listening with head c.o.c.ked aside. Dennis could not guess at the terrible past which had made this stout English mariner as timid as a child.

"Let us get back to the black men," he said, knowing from his own experience the value of action in banishing sad thoughts. "Are they Indians of America?"

"Maroons, sir, half Injun, half negro; l.u.s.ty fighters, and faithful souls when they do love 'ee."

"We'll knock off their chains and give them arms. What can they use?"

"Not muskets, nor harquebuses, but anything that will dint a blow."

"Half-pikes and swords, then. For yourself, take your pick."

"Ay, it do give me heart to handle a cutla.s.s again. Here's a fine blade, now, and a musket--give me a harquebus; I could shoot once, but my arm is all of a wamble now. Lookeedesee!"

He raised the heavy weapon to his shoulder and tried to steady it.

"See! Shaking like a man with the palsy," he said, his nervousness returning. "I be no more good than a bulrush."

"Pish, man!" said Dennis cheerily. "You are overwrought; your arm is tired with wielding the axe. An hour's rest will set you up. Come, bring the file and the weapons; we must see that the others are not scared in our absence."

The four maroons had remained on the spot where they had been left, keeping guard over the Spaniard, who had now quite recovered from his blow. They eyed Dennis with a wide stare, and fell silent when he approached, seeming scarcely to comprehend the wonderful good fortune that had befallen them. The removal of their fetters and the gift of arms struck them as a crowning mercy; they grovelled upon the ground as in the act of worship.

"They take 'ee for a magician, sir," said Turnpenny. "'Tis marvellous to their simple poor minds. All the world be full of spirits to them; a storm at sea be the stirring of witches, and the Spaniards be devils.

My heart!" he exclaimed suddenly, "the fear has took me again! When they do miss the sound of the axes they will jealous summat wrong, and then they'll come and we'll be all dead men."

"Cheer up!" said Dennis. "'Tis easy to cure that. Two of the men can set-to upon the trees again, and one can steal to the sh.o.r.e and keep an eye on the ship, and acquaint us if he sees any stirring there."

"But what of the Spaniard, lad? 'Tis then only one maroon to watch him, and 'tis not enough. If so be the knave be left to himself, he'll run to the beach and give the alarm."

"We'll stop that, too. When he has had a portion of food, we will gag and bind him, and all will be well."

When the Spaniard was secured, the whole party returned to the scene of the tree-felling, and while one of the men went stealthily forward to spy upon the ship, two others plied their axes upon the fallen trunks.

Dennis, more alert of mind than the sailor, foresaw that the trick could have only a temporary success. When the time came for the wood-cutting party to return to the vessel, their non-appearance would awaken suspicion among the Spaniards on board. Believing the island to be uninhabited, they would not guess what had happened; it would not even occur to them as possible that cowed and unarmed slaves would have courage enough to turn on their masters, much less overcome them. But if the party did not return at nightfall, the captain would certainly send some of his men to discover the cause. Of all men the Spaniards were the most superst.i.tious; when they landed, their very superst.i.tions would put them on their guard. Their approach would be cautious; they would probably discover the escaped slaves before these could strike at them effectively; and then, when the inevitable fight came, the party of six, of whom only two could use firearms, and one had partially lost his nerve, would stand a poor chance against men armed cap-a-pie and doubtless inured to the practice of warfare. Besides, even if the landing party could be taken by surprise and routed, the sound of the combat would alarm the Spaniards still remaining on the ship. They would sail away, and in a few days return in overwhelming strength.

Dennis was at first staggered by the difficulties and perils of the situation, and he dared not consult with Turnpenny until the sailor had regained his courage. For the present the important thing was to keep him employed, so as to turn his thoughts from anything that would feed his fears.

"We must bury these two knaves," said Dennis, glancing at the bodies of the Spaniards. "You and I can do that. Your name, I bethink me, is----"

"Turnpenny, by nature, Haymoss by the water o' baptism, sir."

"Haymoss?"

"Ay, sure, a religious good name, sir; a' comes betwixt Joel and Obydiah somewheres after the holy psa'ms. Born at Chard, sir, in Zummerzet, but voyaged to Plimworth when that I was a little tiny boy, and served 'prentice aboard the _Seamew_--master, John Penworthy."

Dennis had heard only the first sentence of this string of facts. He was in the very act of stooping to dig a grave with one of the maroons'

big axes, when there flashed into his mind an idea which set him aglow with hope.

"Well, friend Amos," he said, so quietly that none could have suspected his inward eagerness, "think you not we may strip the outer garments from these knaves before we bury them? Your back would be the better for a covering, and this leathern doublet would well beseem you."

"True, sir, but I never donned a stranger's coat yet. I be English true blue, and though the Spaniard's doublet might span my back, 'twould irk my feeling mind, sir!"

"To please me, Amos. I would fain you covered your arms--the red is too like blood, and we may see enough of that ere we be many hours older."

To Dennis's gratification the sailor did not again blench at the suggestion of a fight with the Spaniards. He laughed.

"My heart! 'Tis easy to see you be a new man in this new world, sir.

The stains of logwood don't worrit me; 'tis a n.o.ble dye, you must own, and many's the n.o.ble garment that has been dyed for a Spaniard's madam out o' the logwood I've cut. But since it offends your innocent eye, I'll e'en don the knave's coat afore I put him out o' sight in earth too good for him."

Overjoyed at the man's recovered spirits, Dennis hastened, as they went on with their task, to press his advantage.

"You are two enemies the less, Amos--nay, three, counting the knave we have in pound among the trees yonder. What say you to our making a shift to put a few more in the same case?"

"What mean you, sir?"

"Tell me, what people hath the ship yonder, besides the ten Spanish knaves of whom you spoke?"

"Why, sir, as a true man I answer, a black cook--no maroon, but a swart fat knave from the Guinea coast; and three maroons, who fell sick, or rather were well-nigh beat to death, in an island over against the continent yonder we visited on the same errand."

"And they are gyved, as you were?"

"All but the cook. He goes free, but, my heart! 'tis little he gains by it. He is every man's football and whipping-boy."

"Why then do the Spaniards remain aboard the ship when there are so few slaves to guard?"

"'Tis first because they be idle knaves, who would never do a hand's turn save by necessity. Item, because they be but poor seamen, and need a dozen to handle a craft, only forty ton burden, that three true-born Englishmen could sail into the devil's jaws. Item, because the spot where she lies at anchor is ill-protected; 'tis rather an open roadstead than a bay, and if a squall should come up sudden, as 'tis nature in this meridian, they'd need all the lubbers' work to get a fair offing."

"So three true-born Englishmen are a match for a dozen base cullies of Spain? Is that your thought, Amos?"

"Ay, at musket, pike, or quarter-staff; there's never a doubt on it."

"Think you two, then, are a match for ten? The balance turns a little in favour of the Spaniards; by right proportion it should be two to eight; but mayhap four maroons on t'other scale would even the odds."

Turnpenny desisted from his work, and a shadow of his former fear came upon his face. Dennis did not allow time for the fit to lay hold of him.

"There is advantage to him who strikes first," he went on, quietly.

"If we wait, a.s.suredly we shall have to fight against heavy odds. But if we a.s.sume a bold part, and jump the risks, we may gain all the vantage of surprise, and enforce it with that English blood you hold so high in estimation, to say naught of English thews and sinews. Why, man, that stout arm of yours would fell an ox."

"True, sir," said the simple mariner, bending his arm to raise the muscle, and looking at the knotty protuberance with great complacency; "I ha' done desperate deeds of strength in my time. But, heart alive!

do 'ee think to capture the ship?"

"I think of venturing for it; and, unless I be mightily mistaken, Amos Turnpenny is not the man to turn his back on a venture of that kind."

"Not by nature, sir," said the man, uneasiness struggling with simple vanity in his mind. "By nature I be as bold as a lion. But the lion in the story was meshed in with ropes, and could do no harm to a silly mouse; and for four year past, sir, the ropes of mischance have held my spirit in thrall, wherefore it is that----"

"That you are afraid? Nonsense! You are the lion; I am the mouse.

Let us say that I, by good luck, have gnawed those confining ropes asunder, and now, on this island, you are free of mind as of limb, and a man of heart and vigour."