Part 15

"Is the messenger gone forth?" I demanded, in no little perturbation, for the presence of a true physician was like not only to undo all my stratagems, but also to stand me in a pretty hobble. Hearing that the lackey was even then donning his outdoor livery (for among the Spaniards punctilio rules over high and low alike), I bade him stay the man until I should have seen his excellency.

When I entered to him I was amazed beyond measure to see his pitiful condition. He lay back on his divan, uttering most dismal groans, his countenance of a deathly pallor, and his eyes astare as with the very fear of death. He thrust out a feeble arm when he saw me, and cried in a faint voice--

"Out of my sight, rapscallion! You have killed me with your vile nostrums."

My terror and amazement were little less than his own, for I knew my drugs to be harmless, albeit nauseous, and I could not come at any reasonable explanation of his distemperature.

I inquired of the majordomo, who had followed me into the room, the time when this alteration had manifested itself, and his answer removed all my apprehensions that Don Ygnacio was in imminent peril of dissolution. He had eaten a very hearty dinner soon after I left him, and fallen asleep, but was awakened by a violent commotion in his inward parts, and had been, to put it in plain English, as sick as a dog. It was told me afterwards by my good friend and physician Sir Miles Ruddall that my drugs themselves would not have wrought so mightily upon him but for the unwonted exercise whereto he had been enforced, and his monstrous gluttony thereafter. Having a shrewd suspicion that this was all that ailed him, I made him drink a cup of sherris mingled with cognac, and spoke soothingly to him, resolving with a stubborn hardness of heart to turn his incapacity to my own purposes. I upbraided him, mildly, yet with earnestness, for that his imprudence had well-nigh undone all my cure, and avouched that it was high time to attempt the experimentum I had formerly suggested.

"I am very sure," said I, "that there will be found among your galley-slaves a man of the right degree of leanness to accommodate your excellency, and I will instantly command your coach to attend you, so that we may go down to their place and make trial of this sovereign remedy without delay."

The strong liquors had already revived him, and his face was recovering its proper ruddiness. Likewise his spirit took on its natural hue, the proof whereof was his exceeding fierce outcry.

"Ods my valiancy!" he cried, "shall I join skins with a rascal, I, hidalgo of Spain? Never will I permit such scum to approach my person."

"Truly, senor," said I, "it is impossible to conceive a gentleman of your exalted rank coming within a span's-length of a mean rascal, but I opine that there are among the slaves some of reputable condition, perchance some English prisoners, or Flemings, only they are in general of a brawny lustiness that suiteth not with the experimentum."

"Why, so there is, now you put me in mind of it," he said with a brightened eye. "There is a Frenchman, a notorious reprobate, but that is nothing against his rank, which is but little less than my own. And for leanness a rake could hardly match him; his leanness is not far short of transparency."

"That is right good hap," said I, raging inwardly that he should speak thus of my friend, for I made no doubt it was he. After fortifying him with more wine, I linked my arm with his, and took him slowly to his coach, and when we had mounted into it, gave the word to the driver to convey us to the barrack. We halted for a brief space at the inn, and I brought out my henchman, carrying the two parcels which, as I told Don Ygnacio, held things needful for our trial. I bade Stubbs perch himself beside the driver, and we went on.

We had to pass on our way the small dock wherein the captain's galley lay, and here I let fall a word of admiration of the fine lines of the vessel, asking very innocently whether it were one of the royal galleys of his charge.

"It is my own vessel," he said with much complacency, and then nothing would content him but I must instantly go with him and see the vessel more closely. It was plain he held it in high esteem, and since I had a reason of my own for desiring a nearer acquaintance with it, I yielded to his wish in the manner of one humouring a sick person. He was by this time, in truth, so nearly returned to his wonted state that I began to fear lest he should declare the experiment of transfusion unnecessary. I accompanied him aboard the vessel, where he showed me the place for the crew, and those for the rowers and the soldiers, and his own place, very richly caparisoned; also the piles of arms and some barrels of gunpowder. Having admired the galley and all its appurtenances with great fluency of utterance, I entreated him to proceed to the barrack, advising him that the day was already far spent, and it were best to accomplish our purpose before the chill of night descended on us. And so we came to the barrack.

*IV*

Notwithstanding, or maybe by reason of, the marvellous good hap that had attended all my devices up to this present time, I was aware of a flutter of disquietude about my heart as I followed Don Ygnacio into the building. What I purposed doing must needs be done very quickly, and one untoward accident might very well prick the bladder of my imposture and wreathe a noose about my neck. I had laid my plans as warily as I might, and now all stood upon my composure, the degree of brazen-facedness I could muster, and the degree to which the Spaniard could be gulled.

We came first, having entered the passage, to the guard-room, where some dozen soldiers were assembled, casting the dice and taking their ease. The door of a room adjacent to it stood open, and there my eyes lit upon the captain that had accosted me by the sea-wall, who, when he beheld me, rose up from his seat with trepidation, believing without doubt that I had brought his general to punish him. I paid not the least heed to him, and he made haste at Don Ygnacio's bidding to go to the hall beyond, where the galley-slaves were confined, and bring forth the Frenchman.

When he was gone I asked Don Ygnacio whether there were not some private room where we might do our business, since it was not seemly that we should be at the gaze of so many goggling eyes while the experimentum was a-doing. He led me to a small ante-chamber some few steps along the passage towards the hall, Stubbs remaining with his parcels at the door of the guard-room, perfectly at ease, though he stood within arm's-length of the men that had formerly oppressed him. Presently I heard a clanking of chains, and the captain returned, bringing with him a lean and lanky scarecrow of a man, naked save for his loin-cloth, his poll and face being shaven clean. It smote me to the heart to see in his hollow eyes and sunken cheeks the altered lineaments of my dear friend, erstwhile comely and jocund as any you would see. He lifted his eyes as he came in, and regarded Don Ygnacio with a look of gall, not turning his gaze upon me.

"A sorry knave," said the Spaniard to me. "Think you, cousin, there is enough virtue in him for our business?"

"We can but try, excellency," I said, and at the words Raoul shivered and looked at me with such amazement that I feared lest an unlucky word should betray me. I dealt upon him a sudden and meaning frown, the which escaped the observation of the others, they having eyes for the slave alone. To my exceeding joy he had the wit to take me, and cast down his eyes in the manner of one that hath no more hold upon the world. Then I turned to Don Ygnacio and said:

"He hath a wild look, senor. It were meet that we have two soldiers here with us, so that we may make our trial in comfort and security."

"Certes," he replied, "we have already Captain Badillo; we will have a man from the guard-room."

"By your pardon, senor," I said, "the senor captain did me the honour to affront me a while ago, and his presence at this time will so trouble the conjugations of the nerves, the which needs must be in perfect tranquillity, as to imperil the good success of our undertaking."

"It was a lamentable error, excellency," stammered the captain. "I wot not that the worthy physician was akin to your excellency."

"Go, sirrah," said Don Ygnacio sternly. "Who affronts my kin affronts me. Send hither two men from the guard-room."

I was never better pleased in my life than when the captain departed, for the two common ignorant soldiers would be much less like to suspect me. Thereupon I called to Stubbs to bring in the parcels, and when he came, a little behind the soldiers, I shut the door, bade him undo one of his bundles, and said gravely that all would soon be ready for the experimentum.

Stubbs loosed the ropes and laid them, in the manner of a careful servant, beside the bundle. From this when it was unrolled he took first three strips of a dark cloth, about an ell long, which he laid over his arm. Then he brought forth a small roll of white canvas and gave it to me. I motioned him to withdraw to a little distance, as also the soldiers; then I made Raoul stand a few paces from Don Ygnacio, facing him. Posting myself betwixt the two, I drew from my pocket a small box of powder of chalk, and unrolled the canvas, yet so that the Spaniard might not see its inner side, and with solemn circumstance I dusted it with the powder. This done, I stretched it out between my arms, and making two strides towards Raoul I bade him look intently thereupon while I counted ten. I heard Don Ygnacio breathing hard behind me as I gravely told the numbers one by one, and when Raoul informed me with his eyes that he had read the words I had carefully imprinted on the canvas (they were: "Grip the Spaniard by the neck whenas I give the sign") I rolled up the canvas and stepped slowly backward, beckoning with the one hand Don Ygnacio, with the other Stubbs and the soldiers, to draw near.

You are now to observe that Raoul and Don Ygnacio were within a hand-breadth of each other, that one of the soldiers was close to me, and the second beside Stubbs. All was silent. On a sudden I let forth, very sharply but without raising my voice, the one word "Now!" Instantly Raoul was at Don Ygnacio's throat; I closed with my soldier and held him in a strangling embrace; and Stubbs, with the neatness of a skilled hand, dealt his man a blow that stretched him senseless on the floor. Quick as thought he handed to us two of the cloths that he had upon his arm, and we clapped them into the mouths of our prisoners, he doing the like with the third. So sudden were our motions that there had been not the least opportunity of resisting us, and though Don Ygnacio offered to cry out before the gag was comfortably settled between his teeth, Raoul bade him in a fierce whisper be silent or his life was forfeit. It was short work to truss them with the ropes, thanks to Stubbs his deftness, and I knew with infinite gladness of heart that the first part of my device was accomplished.

There was still much to do, and our peril was but beginning. In two words I acquainted Raoul with my plan. I asked him how many soldiers were on guard among the galley-slaves; he told me four, and every one had a key to the padlocks wherewith they were fettered to the wall. My design was to set free the slaves, seize upon the Captain-General's galley, the which he had so obligingly shown me, and put to sea. It was necessary to our success that the soldiers in the guard-room should be silenced, and also the Captain Badillo, if he was yet at hand; but since we could not hope, being but three, to overcome a dozen men, we must perforce first set free the slaves, by whose assistance the feat might be easily compassed. Moreover, there was great need for haste, Stubbs having told me that it was drawing near the time when the cookmen were wont to bring in the slaves' supper from the outhouses.

I opened the door stealthily, and peered along the passage to the guard-room. There was none in sight, but neither was there so much noise proceeding from the room as I should have liked. Nevertheless, since our case was desperate and would not abide long rumination, we durst not stay for the nice weighing of chances, but had to act at once. I had had the soldiers brought into the room for a purpose, namely, that we might dress ourselves in their garments and so gain some covert for our device. I bade Stubbs strip the two soldiers of their gaberdines, and these we donned, he and I, and then proceeded with all quietness along the passage to the slaves' hall, Raoul being carried betwixt us, so that the clanking of his chains might not draw the soldiers forth of the guard-room.

Coming to the door of the hall we set Raoul down, and thrust him before us into the room, entering close behind him. I saw in a quick glance the miserable slaves lying in a long row by the wall, and four soldiers conversing in a group about the middle of the room. The dusk of evening forbade them to perceive at once that the two supposed soldiers that had entered were not their comrades, and when at our approach they were certified thereof they had not the time to collect their wits, for Stubbs, by a little the foremost, smote one of them a dint that sent him headlong against the wall, and then immediately grappled with another. Meanwhile Raoul and I had not been idle, each dealing with his man, and in a few moments we had all four at our feet, begging for mercy.

This had not passed without some noise, but having been careful to shut the stout oaken door behind me I had a reasonable hope that the sound would not have penetrated to the guard-room. The clamour that might have been feared from the slaves did not arise, so great was their consternation. I asked Raoul to acquaint them with our design, whiles that with Stubbs' aid I stripped the soldiers of their outer garments and their arms, and trussed and gagged them as we had done afore with the others.

Raoul told the men that all who could muster their courage had a good chance of escape, but they must in all points obey me, a countryman of the great Dragon (so Sir Francis Drake was commonly known among them), who had come to their succour, and had already made a prisoner of Don Ygnacio. He promised them hard work, and maybe their fill of fighting, and adjured every man that had no stomach for it to remain in his fetters rather than irk the rest. Then we went swiftly from one to another, unlocking their chains with the keys we had taken from the soldiers. Never a man of them elected to remain, and though Raoul was for leaving certain of them that he knew to be poor-spirited, I deemed it best to release them all, lest those that were left should raise an uproar and so bring us into danger.

We arrayed four of the stoutest of them in the garments we had taken from the soldiers, covering their shaven heads with the morions that hung on pegs to the wall. Then with these four and four others, Raoul remaining in the hall, we ran swiftly down the passage to the guard-room, burst open the door, and by the vehemency of our onset overthrew the soldiers there in marvellous brief time. Stubbs and myself we set to a-trussing the fellows, but the slaves contemned such delicate work, and gave quietus to their whilom oppressors with such weapons as came first to hand.

While we were in the midst of this hurly-burly, on a sudden lifting of my eyes I saw Captain Badillo standing in the door betwixt the guard-room and his own apartment, and gazing at us in the manner of one bereft of his wits. I left trussing my fellow and sprang towards the captain, whom I caught by the scruff of his neck, and, showing him my dagger, bade him hold his peace on peril of his life. At that same conjuncture some one cried that the cookmen were crossing the outer court, bearing hugeous baskets of biscuit and great two-handed caldrons of meagre broth, as they were wont to do at this time. Extremity, I must believe, sharpens a man's wits, for in the twinkling of an eye I thrust the captain into the passage and towards the outer door, straitly charging him to bid the men carry their burdens to the Captain-General's galley, since he had taken a sudden purpose to go a cruise. I had Spanish enough, to be sure, to give the command myself, but I knew it would come with authority from Captain Badillo, whereas from me, a stranger, it might be slighted. My naked dagger was sufficient enforcement of my bidding, and in a trice I saw with satisfaction the cookmen change their course and stagger with their loads to the quayside. By this means I obtained for the slaves a modest dole of food, whereof I doubted not they stood in need.

Hasting back to the slaves' hall, I found that Raoul had ranged them all in readiness for departure. I had bidden Stubbs see to it that the slaves in the guard-room should don as much as they could of the soldiers' garments and cover their bald pates with their morions, and bring also the weapons from his bundles, and then, myself going at the head, holding Captain Badillo by the sleeve, we marched out and made our way as swiftly as we might without sign of hurry to where the galley awaited us. There was a sentry at the gate of the munition-house some two-score paces distant, but the dusk in some sort enshrouded us, and certain it is we came to the galley without molestation or so much as a cry.

But there a peril that I had not foreseen lay in wait for us. The cookmen, having bestowed their burdens aboard, stood carelessly on the quay to witness our embarkation. A dozen of the slaves had shipped themselves before these men were aware of aught amiss; but then one spied the villainous countenance of a notorious desperado beneath a soldier's morion, and communicating his discovery to his fellows, they with one consent took to their heels and fled towards their quarters with hue and cry. Sundry of them were felled by the slaves whom they encountered, but the rest got themselves clear away, and it was plain that ere long the alarm would be sounded in every part of the town. I cast Captain Badillo into the galley, and urged the rest of the men to quicken their speed, and they came helter-skelter, falling one over another in their haste.

Now it seemed that all were aboard, but I had not observed Stubbs among them, and began to fear lest he had been intercepted. But I then perceived him, and three of the galley-slaves, staggering towards me with a heavy burden which as they drew near I discerned to be none other than the mountainous bulk of Don Ygnacio de Acosta. I cried to them to hasten their steps, the which they did, and arriving at the quayside they let their load fall with no more tenderness than if it had been a bale of merchandise, and the Captain-General fell with a monstrous thwack upon the galley's deck.

At Raoul's bidding the men had already gotten out the sweeps. But at this the eleventh hour I observed a pile of sails lying over against the sea-wall, and I commanded Stubbs and those with him to bring them to the galley. The men who were aboard, in their haste to depart, had slipped the moorings, and could hardly be restrained from pushing off without us. I heard Raoul upbraid them with great vehemency, and ask them how they supposed they could escape with oars alone, whereupon they left their striving and gave us time to tumble the sails in among them. Then the rest of us leapt aboard, I last of all, and the slaves, thrusting their oars with desperate violence against the quay-wall, drove the rocking vessel out into the basin.

It was high time, for already there was stir and hubbub not a great way from the quay, and at the very moment when we sheered off a shot was fired, I doubt not by the sentry at the munition-house. Through the gathering dusk I saw a concourse of folk swarm upon the sea-wall and the quay, there being not a few soldiers among them. But all things had been done so suddenly as that none but the sentry had had time to kindle his match, and the galley was come forth out of the dock ere they arrived at the quay. Shouting and cursing they ran hither and thither, in a perfect medley and confusion, there being as yet none to direct them what they should do. I could not forbear making them a most courteous salutation with my hat, though I fear the darkness and their fury forbade them to mark the exceeding grace of it.

Turning to observe how things were ordered, I perceived that Raoul, whose knowledge of the harbour was the fruit of long and bitter travail, had established himself at the helm. I descended to the lower deck, where Stubbs had put himself over the oarsmen, who were set in their due ranks, and tugged at the sweeps with a vigour wherewith they had never laboured before, I warrant you. In sooth, Stubbs was constrained to bid them moderate their ardour, inasmuch as there lay a reef of rocks on the starboard side, and it would go hard with us if we by any ill-hap ran upon them. But the resolute and assured look upon their faces, villainous and forbidding as the most part were, confirmed me in my belief that, barring any untoward accident, we should in no long time be beyond reach of pursuers.

The harbour of Cadiz, you are to understand, hath a northward trend to the mouth of the river Guadaloto, whence the coast of the mainland runs north-westerly until we come to the mouth of the Guadalquivir. Four galleys, as I have said, were at anchor nigh the munition-house, and at the bulwark of Saint Philip at the north-east extremity of the island lay other sixteen. The first four we had already passed, but we must run the gauntlet of the sixteen, the which when we should have done we had nought to fear save perchance from the ordnance established on the coast of the bay of Caleta. I knew right well that notwithstanding the clamour that filled the town, where alarm bells were dinning amain, some time must needs be consumed before the occasion of the pother was thoroughly known, and the galleys could be put in fair trim to pursue us. So indeed the event answered to my expectation, for we came pretty near to the mouth of the harbour without anything whatsoever happening to mar our security.

It was now dark, yet not so black but that we could see our course, and besides there were the lights of the town to serve our helmsman as guide posts. That the town was mightily astir was demonstrated by a shot that was belched out upon us by one of the great pieces mounted on the bulwark of Saint Philip. But it did us no harm, unless some slight defacement of our figurehead that I observed next day was the work of this shot. Taking warning, Raoul steered the vessel hard over against the mainland, though I deplored the loss of time we suffered thereby. Indeed, but for this circuit which we made, and which, being a prudent measure, I could not gainsay, verily I believe we should have run out into the open sea without any let or hindrance whatsoever. But it happed that as we again bore westward, I perceived the black shape of a galley move from its anchorage in our wake, and presently after other of the same sort. This gave me no manner of apprehension, for we were fully manned, and our men, rowing for their very lives, were not like to be outdone by the hapless slaves in our pursuers, even though they were urged by the whip.