CHAPTER XVIII. THE MILAGROSA
The affair at Maracaybo is to be considered as Captain Blood'sbuccaneering masterpiece. Although there is scarcely one of the manyactions that he fought--recorded in such particular detail by JeremyPitt--which does not afford some instance of his genius for navaltactics, yet in none is this more shiningly displayed than in those twoengagements by which he won out of the trap which Don Miguel de Espinosahad sprung upon him.
The fame which he had enjoyed before this, great as it already was, isdwarfed into insignificance by the fame that followed. It was a famesuch as no buccaneer--not even Morgan--has ever boasted, before orsince.
In Tortuga, during the months he spent there refitting the three shipshe had captured from the fleet that had gone out to destroy him, hefound himself almost an object of worship in the eyes of the wildBrethren of the Coast, all of whom now clamoured for the honour ofserving under him. It placed him in the rare position of being ableto pick and choose the crews for his augmented fleet, and he chosefastidiously. When next he sailed away it was with a fleet of five fineships in which went something over a thousand men. Thus you behold himnot merely famous, but really formidable. The three captured Spanishvessels he had renamed with a certain scholarly humour the Clotho,Lachesis, and Atropos, a grimly jocular manner of conveying to the worldthat he made them the arbiters of the fate of any Spaniards he shouldhenceforth encounter upon the seas.
In Europe the news of this fleet, following upon the news of the SpanishAdmiral's defeat at Maracaybo, produced something of a sensation. Spainand England were variously and unpleasantly exercised, and if you careto turn up the diplomatic correspondence exchanged on the subject, youwill find that it is considerable and not always amiable.
And meanwhile in the Caribbean, the Spanish Admiral Don Miguel deEspinosa might be said--to use a term not yet invented in his day--tohave run amok. The disgrace into which he had fallen as a result of thedisasters suffered at the hands of Captain Blood had driven the Admiralall but mad. It is impossible, if we impose our minds impartially,to withhold a certain sympathy from Don Miguel. Hate was now thisunfortunate man's daily bread, and the hope of vengeance an obsession tohis mind. As a madman he went raging up and down the Caribbean seekinghis enemy, and in the meantime, as an hors d'oeuvre to his vindictiveappetite, he fell upon any ship of England or of France that loomedabove his horizon.
I need say no more to convey the fact that this illustrious sea-captainand great gentleman of Castile had lost his head, and was become apirate in his turn. The Supreme Council of Castile might anon condemnhim for his practices. But how should that matter to one who already wascondemned beyond redemption? On the contrary, if he should live to laythe audacious and ineffable Blood by the heels, it was possible thatSpain might view his present irregularities and earlier losses with amore lenient eye.
And so, reckless of the fact that Captain Blood was now in vastlysuperior strength, the Spaniard sought him up and down the tracklessseas. But for a whole year he sought him vainly. The circumstances inwhich eventually they met are very curious.
An intelligent observation of the facts of human existence will revealto shallow-minded folk who sneer at the use of coincidence in the artsof fiction and drama that life itself is little more than a series ofcoincidences. Open the history of the past at whatsoever page you will,and there you shall find coincidence at work bringing about events thatthe merest chance might have averted. Indeed, coincidence may be definedas the very tool used by Fate to shape the destinies of men and nations.
Observe it now at work in the affairs of Captain Blood and of someothers.
On the 15th September of the year 1688--a memorable year in the annalsof England--three ships were afloat upon the Caribbean, which in theircoming conjunctions were to work out the fortunes of several persons.
The first of these was Captain Blood's flagship the Arabella, which hadbeen separated from the buccaneer fleet in a hurricane off the LesserAntilles. In somewhere about 17 deg. N. Lat., and 74 deg. Long., shewas beating up for the Windward Passage, before the intermittentsoutheasterly breezes of that stifling season, homing for Tortuga, thenatural rendezvous of the dispersed vessels.
The second ship was the great Spanish galleon, the Milagrosa, which,accompanied by the smaller frigate Hidalga, lurked off the Caymites,to the north of the long peninsula that thrusts out from the southwestcorner of Hispaniola. Aboard the Milagrosa sailed the vindictive DonMiguel.
The third and last of these ships with which we are at present concernedwas an English man-of-war, which on the date I have given was at anchorin the French port of St. Nicholas on the northwest coast of Hispaniola.She was on her way from Plymouth to Jamaica, and carried on board avery distinguished passenger in the person of Lord Julian Wade, whocame charged by his kinsman, my Lord Sunderland, with a mission ofsome consequence and delicacy, directly arising out of that vexatiouscorrespondence between England and Spain.
The French Government, like the English, excessively annoyed by thedepredations of the buccaneers, and the constant straining of relationswith Spain that ensued, had sought in vain to put them down by enjoiningthe utmost severity against them upon her various overseas governors.But these, either--like the Governor of Tortuga--throve out of ascarcely tacit partnership with the filibusters, or--like the Governorof French Hispaniola--felt that they were to be encouraged as a checkupon the power and greed of Spain, which might otherwise be exerted tothe disadvantage of the colonies of other nations. They looked, indeed,with apprehension upon recourse to any vigorous measures which mustresult in driving many of the buccaneers to seek new hunting-grounds inthe South Sea.
To satisfy King James's anxiety to conciliate Spain, and in response tothe Spanish Ambassador's constant and grievous expostulations, my LordSunderland, the Secretary of State, had appointed a strong man to thedeputy-governorship of Jamaica. This strong man was that ColonelBishop who for some years now had been the most influential planter inBarbados.
Colonel Bishop had accepted the post, and departed from the plantationsin which his great wealth was being amassed with an eagerness that hadits roots in a desire to pay off a score of his own with Peter Blood.
From his first coming to Jamaica, Colonel Bishop had made himself feltby the buccaneers. But do what he might, the one buccaneer whom hemade his particular quarry--that Peter Blood who once had been hisslave--eluded him ever, and continued undeterred and in great forceto harass the Spaniards upon sea and land, and to keep the relationsbetween England and Spain in a state of perpetual ferment, particularlydangerous in those days when the peace of Europe was precariouslymaintained.
Exasperated not only by his own accumulated chagrin, but also by thereproaches for his failure which reached him from London, Colonel Bishopactually went so far as to consider hunting his quarry in Tortugaitself and making an attempt to clear the island of the buccaneers itsheltered. Fortunately for himself, he abandoned the notion of so insanean enterprise, deterred not only by the enormous natural strength of theplace, but also by the reflection that a raid upon what was, nominallyat least, a French settlement, must be attended by grave offence toFrance. Yet short of some such measure, it appeared to Colonel Bishopthat he was baffled. He confessed as much in a letter to the Secretaryof State.
This letter and the state of things which it disclosed made my LordSunderland despair of solving this vexatious problem by ordinary means.He turned to the consideration of extraordinary ones, and bethought himof the plan adopted with Morgan, who had been enlisted into the King'sservice under Charles II. It occurred to him that a similar course mightbe similarly effective with Captain Blood. His lordship did not omitthe consideration that Blood's present outlawry might well have beenundertaken not from inclination, but under stress of sheer necessity;that he had been forced into it by the circumstances of histransportation, and that he would welcome the opportunity of emergingfrom it.
Acting upon this conclusion, Sunderland sent out his kinsman, LordJulian Wade, with some
commissions made out in blank, and fulldirections as to the course which the Secretary considered it desirableto pursue and yet full discretion in the matter of pursuing them. Thecrafty Sunderland, master of all labyrinths of intrigue, advised hiskinsman that in the event of his finding Blood intractable, or judgingfor other reasons that it was not desirable to enlist him in the King'sservice, he should turn his attention to the officers serving under him,and by seducing them away from him leave him so weakened that he mustfall an easy victim to Colonel Bishop's fleet.
The Royal Mary--the vessel bearing that ingenious, tolerablyaccomplished, mildly dissolute, entirely elegant envoy of my LordSunderland's--made a good passage to St. Nicholas, her last port ofcall before Jamaica. It was understood that as a preliminary Lord Julianshould report himself to the Deputy-Governor at Port Royal, whence atneed he might have himself conveyed to Tortuga. Now it happened that theDeputy-Governor's niece had come to St. Nicholas some months earlier ona visit to some relatives, and so that she might escape the insufferableheat of Jamaica in that season. The time for her return being now athand, a passage was sought for her aboard the Royal Mary, and in view ofher uncle's rank and position promptly accorded.
Lord Julian hailed her advent with satisfaction. It gave a voyage thathad been full of interest for him just the spice that it requiredto achieve perfection as an experience. His lordship was one of yourgallants to whom existence that is not graced by womankind is more orless of a stagnation. Miss Arabella Bishop--this straight up and downslip of a girl with her rather boyish voice and her almost boyish easeof movement--was not perhaps a lady who in England would have commandedmuch notice in my lord's discerning eyes. His very sophisticated,carefully educated tastes in such matters inclined him towards theplump, the languishing, and the quite helplessly feminine. MissBishop's charms were undeniable. But they were such that it would take adelicate-minded man to appreciate them; and my Lord Julian, whilst of amind that was very far from gross, did not possess the necessary degreeof delicacy. I must not by this be understood to imply anything againsthim.
It remained, however, that Miss Bishop was a young woman and a lady; andin the latitude into which Lord Julian had strayed this was a phenomenonsufficiently rare to command attention. On his side, with his title andposition, his personal grace and the charm of a practised courtier, hebore about him the atmosphere of the great world in which normally hehad his being--a world that was little more than a name to her, who hadspent most of her life in the Antilles. It is not therefore wonderfulthat they should have been attracted to each other before the RoyalMary was warped out of St. Nicholas. Each could tell the other much uponwhich the other desired information. He could regale her imaginationwith stories of St. James's--in many of which he assigned himself aheroic, or at least a distinguished part--and she could enrich his mindwith information concerning this new world to which he had come.
Before they were out of sight of St. Nicholas they were good friends,and his lordship was beginning to correct his first impressions of herand to discover the charm of that frank, straightforward attitude ofcomradeship which made her treat every man as a brother. Consideringhow his mind was obsessed with the business of his mission, it is notwonderful that he should have come to talk to her of Captain Blood.Indeed, there was a circumstance that directly led to it.
"I wonder now," he said, as they were sauntering on the poop, "ifyou ever saw this fellow Blood, who was at one time on your uncle'splantations as a slave."
Miss Bishop halted. She leaned upon the taffrail, looking out towardsthe receding land, and it was a moment before she answered in a steady,level voice:
"I saw him often. I knew him very well."
"Ye don't say!" His lordship was slightly moved out of animperturbability that he had studiously cultivated. He was a young manof perhaps eight-and-twenty, well above the middle height in statureand appearing taller by virtue of his exceeding leanness. He had a thin,pale, rather pleasing hatchet-face, framed in the curls of a goldenperiwig, a sensitive mouth and pale blue eyes that lent his countenancea dreamy expression, a rather melancholy pensiveness. But they werealert, observant eyes notwithstanding, although they failed on thisoccasion to observe the slight change of colour which his question hadbrought to Miss Bishop's cheeks or the suspiciously excessive composureof her answer.
"Ye don't say!" he repeated, and came to lean beside her. "And whatmanner of man did you find him?"
"In those days I esteemed him for an unfortunate gentleman."
"You were acquainted with his story?"
"He told it me. That is why I esteemed him--for the calm fortitude withwhich he bore adversity. Since then, considering what he has done, Ihave almost come to doubt if what he told me of himself was true."
"If you mean of the wrongs he suffered at the hands of the RoyalCommission that tried the Monmouth rebels, there's little doubt that itwould be true enough. He was never out with Monmouth; that is certain.He was convicted on a point of law of which he may well have beenignorant when he committed what was construed into treason. But, faith,he's had his revenge, after a fashion."
"That," she said in a small voice, "is the unforgivable thing. It hasdestroyed him--deservedly."
"Destroyed him?" His lordship laughed a little. "Be none so sure ofthat. He has grown rich, I hear. He has translated, so it is said, hisSpanish spoils into French gold, which is being treasured up for him inFrance. His future father-in-law, M. d'Ogeron, has seen to that."
"His future father-in-law?" said she, and stared at him round-eyed, withparted lips. Then added: "M. d'Ogeron? The Governor of Tortuga?"
"The same. You see the fellow's well protected. It's a piece of news Igathered in St. Nicholas. I am not sure that I welcome it, for I amnot sure that it makes any easier a task upon which my kinsman, LordSunderland, has sent me hither. But there it is. You didn't know?"
She shook her head without replying. She had averted her face, and hereyes were staring down at the gently heaving water. After a moment shespoke, her voice steady and perfectly controlled.
"But surely, if this were true, there would have been an end to hispiracy by now. If he... if he loved a woman and was betrothed, and wasalso rich as you say, surely he would have abandoned this desperatelife, and..."
"Why, so I thought," his lordship interrupted, "until I had theexplanation. D'Ogeron is avaricious for himself and for his child. Andas for the girl, I'm told she's a wild piece, fit mate for such a man asBlood. Almost I marvel that he doesn't marry her and take her a-rovingwith him. It would be no new experience for her. And I marvel, too, atBlood's patience. He killed a man to win her."
"He killed a man for her, do you say?" There was horror now in hervoice.
"Yes--a French buccaneer named Levasseur. He was the girl's lover andBlood's associate on a venture. Blood coveted the girl, and killedLevasseur to win her. Pah! It's an unsavoury tale, I own. But men liveby different codes out in these parts...."
She had turned to face him. She was pale to the lips, and her hazel eyeswere blazing, as she cut into his apologies for Blood.
"They must, indeed, if his other associates allowed him to live afterthat."
"Oh, the thing was done in fair fight, I am told."
"Who told you?"
"A man who sailed with them, a Frenchman named Cahusac, whom I found ina waterside tavern in St. Nicholas. He was Levasseur's lieutenant,and he was present on the island where the thing happened, and whenLevasseur was killed."
"And the girl? Did he say the girl was present, too?"
"Yes. She was a witness of the encounter. Blood carried her off when hehad disposed of his brother-buccaneer."
"And the dead man's followers allowed it?" He caught the note ofincredulity in her voice, but missed the note of relief with which itwas blent. "Oh, I don't believe the tale. I won't believe it!"
"I honour you for that, Miss Bishop. It strained my own belief that menshould be so callous, until this Cahusac afforded me the explanation."
"What?
" She checked her unbelief, an unbelief that had uplifted her froman inexplicable dismay. Clutching the rail, she swung round to face hislordship with that question. Later he was to remember and perceive inher present behaviour a certain oddness which went disregarded now.
"Blood purchased their consent, and his right to carry the girl off. Hepaid them in pearls that were worth more than twenty thousand pieces ofeight." His lordship laughed again with a touch of contempt. "A handsomeprice! Faith, they're scoundrels all--just thieving, venal curs. Andfaith, it's a pretty tale this for a lady's ear."
She looked away from him again, and found that her sight was blurred.After a moment in a voice less steady than before she asked him:
"Why should this Frenchman have told you such a tale? Did he hate thisCaptain Blood?"
"I did not gather that," said his lordship slowly. "He related it... oh,just as a commonplace, an instance of buccaneering ways.
"A commonplace!" said she. "My God! A commonplace!"
"I dare say that we are all savages under the cloak that civilizationfashions for us," said his lordship. "But this Blood, now, was a manof considerable parts, from what else this Cahusac told me. He was abachelor of medicine."
"That is true, to my own knowledge."
"And he has seen much foreign service on sea and land. Cahusacsaid--though this I hardly credit--that he had fought under de Ruyter."
"That also is true," said she. She sighed heavily. "Your Cahusac seemsto have been accurate enough. Alas!"
"You are sorry, then?"
She looked at him. She was very pale, he noticed.
"As we are sorry to hear of the death of one we have esteemed. Once Iheld him in regard for an unfortunate but worthy gentleman. Now...."
She checked, and smiled a little crooked smile. "Such a man is bestforgotten."
And upon that she passed at once to speak of other things. Thefriendship, which it was her great gift to command in all she met, grewsteadily between those two in the little time remaining, until the eventbefell that marred what was promising to be the pleasantest stage of hislordship's voyage.
The marplot was the mad-dog Spanish Admiral, whom they encountered onthe second day out, when halfway across the Gulf of Gonaves. The Captainof the Royal Mary was not disposed to be intimidated even when DonMiguel opened fire on him. Observing the Spaniard's plentiful seaboardtowering high above the water and offering him so splendid a mark,the Englishman was moved to scorn. If this Don who flew the banner ofCastile wanted a fight, the Royal Mary was just the ship to oblige him.It may be that he was justified of his gallant confidence, and thathe would that day have put an end to the wild career of Don Miguel deEspinosa, but that a lucky shot from the Milagrosa got among some powderstored in his forecastle, and blew up half his ship almost before thefight had started. How the powder came there will never now be known,and the gallant Captain himself did not survive to enquire into it.
Before the men of the Royal Mary had recovered from their consternation,their captain killed and a third of their number destroyed with him, theship yawing and rocking helplessly in a crippled state, the Spaniardsboarded her.
In the Captain's cabin under the poop, to which Miss Bishop had beenconducted for safety, Lord Julian was seeking to comfort and encourageher, with assurances that all would yet be well, at the very moment whenDon Miguel was stepping aboard. Lord Julian himself was none so steady,and his face was undoubtedly pale. Not that he was by any means acoward. But this cooped-up fighting on an unknown element in a thing ofwood that might at any moment founder under his feet into the depthsof ocean was disturbing to one who could be brave enough ashore.Fortunately Miss Bishop did not appear to be in desperate need of thepoor comfort he was in case to offer. Certainly she, too, was pale, andher hazel eyes may have looked a little larger than usual. But she hadherself well in hand. Half sitting, half leaning on the Captain's table,she preserved her courage sufficiently to seek to calm the octoroonwaiting-woman who was grovelling at her feet in a state of terror.
And then the cabin-door flew open, and Don Miguel himself, tall,sunburned, and aquiline of face, strode in. Lord Julian span round, toface him, and clapped a hand to his sword.
The Spaniard was brisk and to the point.
"Don't be a fool," he said in his own tongue, "or you'll come by afool's end. Your ship is sinking."
There were three or four men in morions behind Don Miguel, and LordJulian realized the position. He released his hilt, and a couple offeet or so of steel slid softly back into the scabbard. But Don Miguelsmiled, with a flash of white teeth behind his grizzled beard, and heldout his hand.
"If you please," he said.
Lord Julian hesitated. His eyes strayed to Miss Bishop's. "I think youhad better," said that composed young lady, whereupon with a shrug hislordship made the required surrender.
"Come you--all of you--aboard my ship," Don Miguel invited them, andstrode out.
They went, of course. For one thing the Spaniard had force to compelthem; for another a ship which he announced to be sinking offered themlittle inducement to remain. They stayed no longer than was necessary toenable Miss Bishop to collect some spare articles of dress and my lordto snatch up his valise.
As for the survivors in that ghastly shambles that had been the RoyalMary, they were abandoned by the Spaniards to their own resources. Letthem take to the boats, and if those did not suffice them, let them swimor drown. If Lord Julian and Miss Bishop were retained, it was becauseDon Miguel perceived their obvious value. He received them in his cabinwith great urbanity. Urbanely he desired to have the honour of beingacquainted with their names.
Lord Julian, sick with horror of the spectacle he had just witnessed,commanded himself with difficulty to supply them. Then haughtily hedemanded to know in his turn the name of their aggressor. He was inan exceedingly ill temper. He realized that if he had done nothingpositively discreditable in the unusual and difficult position intowhich Fate had thrust him, at least he had done nothing creditable.This might have mattered less but that the spectator of his indifferentperformance was a lady. He was determined if possible to do better now.
"I am Don Miguel de Espinosa," he was answered. "Admiral of the Naviesof the Catholic King."
Lord Julian gasped. If Spain made such a hubbub about the depredationsof a runagate adventurer like Captain Blood, what could not Englandanswer now?
"Will you tell me, then, why you behave like a damned pirate?" he asked.And added: "I hope you realize what will be the consequences, and thestrict account to which you shall be brought for this day's work, forthe blood you have murderously shed, and for your violence to this ladyand to myself."
"I offer you no violence," said the Admiral, smiling, as only the manwho holds the trumps can smile. "On the contrary, I have saved yourlives...."
"Saved our lives!" Lord Julian was momentarily speechless before suchcallous impudence. "And what of the lives you have destroyed in wantonbutchery? By God, man, they shall cost you dear."
Don Miguel's smile persisted. "It is possible. All things are possible.Meantime it is your own lives that will cost you dear. Colonel Bishop isa rich man; and you, milord, are no doubt also rich. I will consider andfix your ransom."
"So that you're just the damned murderous pirate I was supposing you,"stormed his lordship. "And you have the impudence to call yourselfthe Admiral of the Navies of the Catholic King? We shall see what yourCatholic King will have to say to it."
The Admiral ceased to smile. He revealed something of the rage that hadeaten into his brain. "You do not understand," he said. "It is that Itreat you English heretic dogs just as you English heretic dogs havetreated Spaniards upon the seas--you robbers and thieves out of hell!I have the honesty to do it in my own name--but you, you perfidiousbeasts, you send your Captain Bloods, your Hagthorpes, and your Morgansagainst us and disclaim responsibility for what they do. Like Pilate,you wash your hands." He laughed savagely. "Let Spain play the part ofPilate. Let her disclaim responsibility for me, w
hen your ambassadorat the Escurial shall go whining to the Supreme Council of this act ofpiracy by Don Miguel de Espinosa."
"Captain Blood and the rest are not admirals of England!" cried LordJulian.
"Are they not? How do I know? How does Spain know? Are you not liarsall, you English heretics?"
"Sir!" Lord Julian's voice was harsh as a rasp, his eyes flashed.Instinctively he swung a hand to the place where his sword habituallyhung. Then he shrugged and sneered: "Of course," said he, "it sorts withall I have heard of Spanish honour and all that I have seen of yoursthat you should insult a man who is unarmed and your prisoner."
The Admiral's face flamed scarlet. He half raised his hand to strike.And then, restrained, perhaps, by the very words that had cloaked theretorting insult, he turned on his heel abruptly and went out withoutanswering.