Across the Salt Seas. John Bloundelle-Burton
I feared-became maddened and distraught almost at the very idea-that, having done their work, my countrymen should have left the place, gone out to the open on, perhaps, their way back to England. Became maddened because, if such were the case, there was no opportunity left me of advising them about the galleons. While, on the other hand, if that passing fleet was in truth the galleons, then were they saved, since never would they come near the coast of Spain again while British ships remained there. Rather would they keep the open for months, rather put back again to the Indies than run themselves into the lion's jaws.
Truly I was sore distressed in pondering over all this; truly my chance of promotion seemed very far off now. Yet I had one consolation: I had done my best; it was not my fault.
That night, to make things more unpleasant than they already were-and to me it seemed that nothing more was wanting to aid my melancholy! – Cuddiford began his drinkings and carousals again, shutting off himself with the negro in his cabin, from whence shortly issued the sounds of glasses clinking, of snatches of songs-in which the black joined-of halloaing and of toasts and other things. Ribald bawlings, too, of a song of which I could catch only a few words now and again, but which seemed to be about a mouse which had escaped from a trap and also from a great fierce cat ready to pounce on it. Then, once more, clappings and clinkings of glasses together-an intolerable noise, be sure! – and presently, with an oath, confusion drank to England.
"So," thinks I, "my gentleman, that is how you feel, is it? Confusion to England! Who and what are you, then, in the devil's name? Spy of France or Spain, besides being retired filibuster, or what? Confusion to England, eh?"
And even as I thought this and heard his evil toast, I determined to hear more. Whereon I slipped quietly off my bunk, got out into the gangway and listened across it to his cabin opposite, feeling very sure as I did so that both he and his black imagined I was up on deck.
Then I heard him say, going on, evidently, with a phrase he had begun:
"Wherefore, I tell you, my lily, my white pearl, that those accursed seamen and soldiers-this Rooke, who chased me once so that I lost all my goods in my flight-are tricked, hoodwinked, embustera; flanqués comme une centaine d'escargots! Done for-and so is this white-livered Englishman over there in t'other cabin-who I do believe is an English spy. Ho! that we had him in Maracaibo or Guayaquil. Hein! Hey! my snowball?"
"Hoop! Hoop!" grunted the brute, his companion. "Hoop! Maracaibo! Hoop! But, but, John" – "John," thinks I, "and to his master!" – "don't speak so loud. Perhaps they hear you."
"Let them hear and be damned to them. What care I?" Yet still he lowered his voice, though not so low but what I made out his words:
"Fitted out a fleet, did they, to intercept the galleons? Oh! the beautiful galleons! Oh! the sweet and lovely galleons! Oh, my beautiful Neustra Senora de Mercedes. You remember how she sits on the water like a swan, Cæsar? And the beautiful Santa Susanna! What ships! what lading! Oh! I heard it all in London. I know. Thought they would catch 'em in Cadiz, did they? Ha! Very well. Now, see, my lily white. They have been too quick; got in too soon-and-and what's the end on't? Those are the galleons going out-back again to the sea-and the English fleet can stop in Cadiz till the forts sink 'em or they rot. Give me some more drink. 'Of all the girls that there can be, the Indy girl's the girl for me,'" and he fell a-singing.
"If he is right, my Lord Marlborough has been deceived," I whispered to myself. "Yet which knows the most? Still this old ruffian must be right. Who else could be putting to sea but the galleons?" and I went back once more to my cabin to ponder over matters.
But now-all in a moment-there arose such an infernal hubbub from that other cabin that one might have thought all the fiends from below had been suddenly let loose; howls from the negro, so that I thought the other must be killing of him in his drunken frenzy; peals of laughter from the old man, bangings and kickings of bulkheads and the crash of a falling glass. And, in the middle of it all, down ran Tandy from the deck above, with, as I thought, a more concerned look upon his face than even such an uproar as this called for. Then he made at once for the cabin where those two were; yet, even as he advanced swiftly, he paused to ask me if I had heard him speak a passing picaroon a quarter of an hour back.
"Not I," I replied. "Who could hear aught above in such a din as this below? What did they tell you?"
"Bad! Bad news. But first to quell these brutes," and he ran on as he spoke, and kicked against the fast-closed cabin door.
"Bad news!" I repeated to myself, even as I followed him. "Bad news. My God! the old villain is right and the galleons have escaped. Farewell, my hopes of promotion; I may as well get back to the regiment by the first chance that comes."
But now I had to listen to Tandy setting his other passenger to his facings, which he did without more ado, since, the cabin door not being opened quick enough, he applied his brawny shoulder to it and soon forced it to slide back in its frame, the lock being torn out by his exertion. Then after a few oaths and curses, which need not be set down here, he roared as follows:
"See here, you drunken, disreputable old vagabond, out you go from this ship to-morrow morning, either ashore in Lagos bay or in the first Guarda Costa or sailing smack that comes anigh us carrying the Portygee colours. And as for you, you black, shambling brute," turning to the negro and seizing him by the wool, whereby he dragged him into the gangway, after which he administered to him a rousing kick, "get you forward amongst the men, and, by God! if you come back aft again I'll shoot you like a dog."
"My friend," said old Carstairs, speaking now with as much sobriety and dignity as though he had been drinking water all these days; "my good friend, you forget. I have paid my passage to Cadiz, and to Cadiz I will go, or the nearest touching point. Also, there are laws-"
"There are," roared Tandy, "and 'twill not suit you to come within a hundred leagues of any of them. To-morrow you go ashore."
"I have business with the in-coming galleons," said Carstairs, leering at him. "Those galleons going out now will come in again, you know. Soon!" and still he leered.
"Galleons, you fool!" replied the captain. "Those are the English warships. Your precious galleons may be at the bottom of the ocean. Very like are by now."
And then that old man's face was a sight to see, as, suddenly, it blanched a deathly white.
"The English warships," he murmured. "The English warships," and then fell back gasping to his berth, muttering: "Out here! Out here!"
"Is this true?" I asked him a moment later, as we went along forward together. "Is it true?"
"Ay, partly," he replied. "Partly. They are the English ships of war, but, my lad, I have had news which I did not tell him. They are in retreat. Have failed. Cadiz is not taken, and they are on their way back to England."
"My God!" I exclaimed. And I know that as I so spoke I, too, was white to the lips.
"On their way back to England!" I repeated.
"Ay-that's it," he said.
CHAPTER VI.
GALLEONS ABOUT!
"What's to do now? That's the question," said Tandy, an hour later, as he and I sat in his little cabin abaft the mainmast, while, to hearten ourselves up, we sipped together a bottle of Florence wine which he had on board, and he sucked at his great pipe. "What now? No use for me to think of Cadiz, though what a chance I would have had if our countrymen had only made themselves masters of it! And for you, Mr. Crespin? For you? I suppose, in truth, you knew of this-had some affair of commerce, too, which brought you this way, on the idea that they would be sure to capture the place."
"Ay, I had some idea," I answered, moodily, thinking it mattered very little what I said now, short of the still great secret that the galleons were going into Vigo, and never did mean coming into these more southern regions. This secret I still kept, I say-and for one reason. It was this, namely, that I thought it very likely that, even though the fleet under Rooke might be driven back from Cadiz, they yet had a chance of encountering the galleons making their way up to Vigo, and, if they did so, I felt very sure that they would attack those vessels, even in their own hour of defeat. Therefore, I said nothing about the