CHAPTER V.

FIGHTING ON LAND AND AT SEA.

“Ay, at set of sun The breeze will freshen when the day is done. Sling on thy bugle; see that free from rust My carbine-look springs worthy of my trust; Be the edge sharpened of my boarding-brand, And give the guard more room to fit my hand. This let the armourer with speed dispose; Last time it more fatigued my arm than foes.” BYRON.

I had read books about Morgan before making Captain Reeves’s acquaintance, but somehow, hearing the dreadful story told first-hand, as it were, from the log of one who had seen the many fearful tragedies, it seemed all the more realistic and awful.

It was some time before I fell asleep that night, for from thinking of the atrocities committed by pirates my mind turned to the fearful and indescribable cruelties perpetrated upon British women and children in the inhuman Indian Mutiny.

Naturally enough there arose a question that did not tend towards inducing

“Tired Nature’s sweet restorer, balmy sleep”--

namely, Why should God, our God, permit such cruelties to overtake innocent girls and little children? But, after all, what are we that we should dare to arraign the Maker of heaven and earth before the tribunal of our imperfect knowledge? I live in hope--a hope which nothing, I trust, shall ever be able to take from me--that all shall yet be revealed in another and a better world; all made clear as the noonday sun.

* * * * *

When I went over next evening, accompanied by Dash as usual, I found all the trees lit up as they had been on the first night I had wandered hither.

Don Miguel had, therefore, I felt sure, already arrived. Nor was I mistaken.

Here he was, looking as bold, handsome, and interesting as ever, only sun-browned beyond all belief: for betwixt the Spanish blood or skin and the sun an affinity seems to exist.

Miguel hastened to shake hands with me.

“You look happy and jolly,” I said.

“Yes, and I am happy and jolly,” he replied. “Who wouldn’t be who has been favoured as I have been? My harvest was but a holiday and all the girls fell in love with me. I had plenty to eat and drink, and every evening they all danced while I played. Then, to finish off, we had a ball--girls all in white, lads mostly in the kilt, and a nice string band; so I myself could dance, and did dance till morning light.

“They all said I was the merriest minister ever they had met, and if only their own parish parson came to a dance now and then, and didn’t carry quite so long a face, they would go to his church much oftener than they did.”

“Bravo, Miguel!” I replied. “Well, I for one am happy to see you; and I am like yourself, for I do not believe we were sent into this world to moan and groan, and shake our faces from side to side till they look as long as to-day and to-morrow.”

“Ah, well,” I added, “I am sure you will give us a song to-night.”

“That will I, with the greatest of pleasure.”

“But dinner first,” cried Captain Reeves, laughing. “The mind, you know, takes its cue from the state of the body.”

And a most tasteful and delightful little dinner it was which was now placed on the captain’s hospitable board, and everybody, including even Mina, did ample justice to it.

I have always thought that the violin and the Spanish guitar were made for each other--made to be wedded to each other, as it were, in sweet accord. I could not help thinking so to-night, as the soft, delightful music--madly merry one minute, tender and plaintive next--filled all the room.

But the instruments were laid aside at last, and then, encouraged by a few questions put to him by Captain Reeves and Mina, Miguel entertained us with a delightful narrative of harvest life at “An Auld Fairm Toon.” That is the quaint title he gave it.

It was indeed a laughable and delightful yarn, and had I been able to take it down just as it fell from the young fellow’s lips, it should have been all in print somewhere ere now.

But at last Mina, showing some signs of fatigue, was advised to retire.

There was no sleepiness about any one else, not even about honest Dash, whose eyes were very open indeed.

Perhaps he was wondering what kind of sport he should have next day among the hills, and after the ptarmigan and grouse.

Captain Reeves sat for a short time holding the bowl of that great meerschaum in his hand, and blowing a cloud which quite hid the upper part of his body. Seeing his feet and his legs up as far as the knees, we came to the conclusion, from a process of analogical reasoning, that he was behind that cloud somewhere; and presently we knew we were right, for an arm appeared, and the pipe was laid down. Then the fog cleared away, and there was Reeves smiling.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said; “I always think best when smoking.”

The captain was a most temperate man, and now what he called his “brew” was a very small allowance indeed of the wine of Green Caledonia. He sipped it slowly.

Then he arose, and soon returned to the table with the weather-stained old piratical log itself. Considering that it was fully two hundred years of age, it was certainly very well preserved indeed.

“I am only,” he said, “going to read a few snatches more of Morgan’s fearful life. I consider it is too horrible for any young man to listen to. However, there is a ring of truthfulness in every line penned by our ancient ancestor, Captain Bassanto; and when he comes down to the hiding of the treasure, he gives very definite instructions indeed. The only wonder is that no one has ever found it before now.”

“Can you be sure,” I asked, “that this is not the case?”

“Quite certain, my friend Gordon; because this log had been lost for more than a hundred years, and there is ample evidence to show that it has never been tampered with or even read.”

“Well, I shall epitomize,” he continued. “I have myself carefully read the horrors described with no unmasterly hand over and over again, till they interfered even with my sleep at night, and I have then had to hide the log even from myself, and try to banish its awful story from my mind by working hard in the garden or climbing the mountains that rise high on every side of this glen.

“Bassanto says: ‘I sent much of my own gold home, and I knew it was safe. Fain would I have gone home myself to end my days in peace, and only the thought that by remaining under Morgan’s command I might be able to save the lives of some of my countrymen now and then prevented me from retiring.

“‘The wrath of Heaven,’ continues my ancestor, ‘seemed to be opened at last against those inhuman wretches. Pestilence broke out, and many died in the most awful agonies. Still the torture of the people in order to get them to reveal the hiding-places of their treasure was continued, and it is terrible to think of the sufferings endured by the poor wretches. Death to me personally would at times have been welcomed, and more than once have I clutched my dagger to plunge into the black and hardened heart of my friend Morgan himself. No shark of the ocean, no panther of the jungle, could have been more callous than he; while his pirate crews regarded the sufferings and the struggles of the men or maidens under torture as calmly and heartlessly as the fisherman beholds the worm that wriggles on his hook.

“‘Morgan was a man of very great skill--a man made to command men. Had his talents been expended in a good cause, he might have been a blessing to the world, instead of a firebrand and a curse.

“‘The skill with which he could manœuvre his troops was well seen before he left Puerto Velo. For even while the awful plague was still raging, he found out that the Governor of Panama was coming on to attack him and cut off his retreat. He hurriedly brought his ships into the harbour and placed all the collected plunder on board.

“‘Quickly indeed did he repair the ports and remount the guns. Then, with a well-armed but small and well-chosen force, he sallied forth to give battle to the governor.

“‘They hid miles from the town, in a dense, impenetrable jungle, through which the narrow road went winding, every man making a loophole where he could command the advancing foe, certain that his bullet would find a billet in some bosom.

“‘The Spaniards numbered about five hundred, and expecting no such ambuscade, were soon in the very centre of this terrible hornet’s nest.

“‘The signal was given by Morgan himself. No more fatal volley was ever fired. Not a pirate fired at the same man, and one hundred Spaniards bit the dust.

“‘The confusion and terror were fearful to witness, for I myself was there, though I fired but in blank.

“‘Again and again the pirates, invisible themselves, poured in their volleys. Alas! how my heart bled for my poor countrymen. Had I seen Morgan then, I should certainly have slain him. The victory was complete. The Spaniards were almost annihilated. The wounded were murdered and robbed, and then we returned to the pestilential city.

“‘But Puerto Velo was at last left to its fate: it was destroyed by fire, sword, and pestilence, and by torture, out and out. Fiends from the lower regions could not have behaved with greater cruelty.

“‘And the reward of the pirates for all the crimes they had committed was but little. They found this out when they came to divide the spoil. This they did in a solitary harbour off the coast of Cuba.

“‘We next returned to Jamaica, and were received with public rejoicings by the people. We were made heroes of, and the excesses of the pirates, in drinking, gambling, and worse, were so great that their gold was nearly all squandered in a few weeks or a month. Morgan thought it time then to plan some other expedition.

“‘Tortuga was at this time a hot-bed of pirates.

“‘Morgan went to Isle de la Vaca, on the southern-most shore of Hispaniola, and was speedily refitted and remanned.

“‘By-and-by there came from Tortuga a big Frenchman who had no less than three-and-thirty guns. Trade was bad, however, and the crew wanted to turn their talents to buccaneering. Morgan had his eye on that ship, and asked them to join his next expedition. The officers, however, would have none of him. Little did they know the craft and cunning of this immortal pirate. He had found out that they had taken provisions from an English ship at sea, paying only in paper money. This was enough. He invited the captain and officers on board to a carousal, and charging them with piracy, when they were still drinking, Morgan clapped them in irons and seized their ship.

“‘There was a fleet of merchant ships (Spaniards) expected every day off Saona Island, near to San Domingo, and thither they determined to sail. A terrible carousal followed on board the captured Frenchman. The drunken men were actually staggering about firing volley after volley by way of rejoicing.

“‘Suddenly the magazine in the fore part of the ship blew up with terrible force.

“‘Although those carousing in the cabin escaped with their lives, all forward perished, and this was the terrible end of the captured ship.

“‘But Morgan had still fifteen ships and nearly a thousand men, and recruiting their provisions from an English ship, they pressed on to Ocoa, on the south shore of the great island of Hispaniola.

“‘Seven of his ships had not come up when Morgan and I reached Ocoa, so we determined to wait for them.

“‘Here we ran a risk of being starved; for the Spaniards, although unable to attack, drove away all the cattle. Here, too, a band of fifty men sent on shore to hunt were surrounded by the Spaniards and almost decimated.

“‘Morgan himself landed with two hundred men to take full vengeance, but could find no one to fight with, and had therefore to return, but he burned every house or hut he came across.’”

Captain Reeves paused, and began to turn over the pages of the old yellow-leaved log somewhat languidly.

“I must say,” he observed, “that my ancestor has spared no pains to make the history of this great pirate as exact and complete as possible, and I have material from which one day to build a book.

“Many of the writers on the pirates of the Spanish Main differ, and doubtless several of them are dependent upon their imagination for their facts. On the contrary, this Miguel Bassanto, our far-distant ancestor, seems to be nothing unless truthful and punctilious.

“The more I read about Morgan, afterwards made Sir Henry Morgan by the British Government, the more I admire his skill as a commander of forces, either by sea or on land, and the more I abhor and detest his character. To call him inhuman is to pay him a compliment. He was more than inhuman, he was a fiend incarnate, and instead of being honoured with high rank, made Governor of Jamaica, and Governor of Gibraltar, he ought to have been burned alive over a slow fire.

“At Maracaybo, another writer tells us, all kinds of inhuman cruelties were practised upon the innocent people. Those who would not confess, or who had nothing to declare, died under the hands of those tyrannical men. Those tortures and racks continued for the space of three whole weeks, during which time the pirates ceased not to send out daily parties of men to seek for more people to torment and rob. They never returned home without booty and riches.”

“Thank God,” I said, “we live in less perilous, less terrible times.”

“Ah! thank God indeed.”

“But now I come to the last adventure described in this book, and it is this to which I wish to draw your particular attention, as it is connected with the buried treasure which I hesitate not again to say belongs to me and mine.

“If we set about the business properly and scientifically, I do not doubt for a single moment that we shall be able to unearth it.--Then, my dear nephew, my sister’s struggles, and yours too, will be at an end.”