Part 16

We were in another case when, as we came abreast of the point at the northern extremity of the bay of Caleta, a galley shot forth by the skirts of the rocks and made great speed to sea, not directly towards us, but taking a slantwise course with intent to head us off, as seamen say. It was a hard matter in the darkness to make a nice reckoning, yet I thought we should outstrip even this the most threatening of our pursuers. Being ware of a steady fair breeze off the land, I deemed it mere foolishness to neglect it; accordingly I bade Stubbs choose some few men among the oarsmen that were mariners, and send them on deck to bend the sails. This proceeding caused us to lose way somewhat, the sails having been cast aboard without any care, and so needing time to order them rightly. And when I saw that the captain of the galley in chase of us had foregone me, and being now come into the wind had already gotten his sails ahoist, I was not a little dismayed. Bethinking me of Don Ygnacio and Captain Badillo, hitherto mere idle passengers and burdensome, I resolved to put them to the oars, not without a secret relish in the thought that they would now taste of the toil they had heretofore inflicted upon the slaves. With my own hands therefore I cast Don Ygnacio loose, and bundled both him and the lesser captain to the lower part of the vessel, giving them into the charge of my good Stubbs, with a strait injunction that he should urge them to a decent industry. I did not see with my own eyes how they accommodated themselves to their task, because I returned to the deck to look to the sails and also to keep a watch on the enemy. But Stubbs told me afterwards that he plied the whip right merrily on the backs of those two proud Spaniards, and so wrought them to a just activity, to the great delectation of the galley-slaves, who themselves rowed with the more cheerfulness, beholding their tormentors dealt with after the manner they delighted in.

When our sails took the wind, the speed of the galley sensibly increased, but it was not long before I was troubled to see that our pursuer was gaining on us. She had far outstripped her consorts, the which indeed were no longer visible, and might be left out of the reckoning. The darkness was waxing deeper, and I could scarce have seen our resolute pursuer had we not come opposite to the extreme westward point of the island, where, before the friary of Saint Sebastian, a great fire had been kindled, without doubt of set purpose to enfurther the chase. It was the customary place where beacon fires were made, to give warning of danger on the side of the sea. The ruddy glare, shining forth over the water, showed me that the galley was no more than two furlongs astern. We made all the speed we might, but I could not but perceive that the pursuer crept ever nearer, and I began to be exceeding apprehensive. Her oarsmen, having rowed not above a quarter of the distance we had come, must needs be fresh by comparison with my own men, who had been straining at the oar without remission for close upon an hour. Furthermore, she would certainly have soldiers aboard her, maybe to the number of fifty or more, and we had no sufficiency of arms wherewith to oppose them.

We had come beyond the cast of the beacon fire, into a vast impenetrable blackness. Pacing the deck in sore travail of spirit, and setting my wits on the rack if haply I might devise some stratagem that should profit us, on a sudden I spied by the fore hatch a large vessel of iron shaped like a round bucket, and pierced with holes, which I knew was designed to hold fire, whether for cooking or for illumination. I stood for a while chewing upon a device which the sight of this vessel had set a-working in my mind, and then hied me to Raoul to make him partner of the merry conceit I had fashioned. He heard it joyfully, and I went without delay to put it in practice.

I gathered together some shreds of canvas and rope ends and stuffed them lightly into the vessel, mixing them plentifully with grease that was employed about the rowlocks, and liquid tar out of pots left in the galley by the men that had been caulking her. Then I thrust two short pikes through the topmost holes of the vessel opposite one to the other, as it were at the cardinal points of the circumference, and stopped the others as well as I could. This done I strewed upon the top a handful of gunpowder, and set in the midst a length of slow match that might be two or three minutes in burning. Having kindled the match at its utmost end, I let down the vessel over the stern into the water, and with great satisfaction watched it float in our wake until nought was visible in the darkness save the red glow of the match. Then I ran below and bade Stubbs put the rowers to a very frenzy of labour, so that we might draw as far as we could from the pursuer while that their strength endured.

Returning to the deck I beheld my beacon burst into a bright flare; and the pursuer coming upon it, I saw the galley with great clearness, and sparkling reflections from the morions and harness of the soldiers that were aboard. I knew that so long as the light endured our own galley must be wholly hid from their eyes, and besides, they would be perplexed to know the meaning of the light, and might even suppose it to betoken a floating mine whereof they must be ware. Without doubt it would delay them somewhat, and give me the few minutes I needed for the full accomplishment of my design.

As soon as I saw the galley come within the circle of light I gave the word to Raoul, who put up the helm, so that our vessel swung round in a wide circuit until she was a cable length of her former course. I had already commanded the slaves to cease from rowing, lest the sound of their oars should acquaint the enemy with our movement. As we came round I saw the galley draw out from the radiance, and heard the voices of the men upon her. She sped directly forward, following the course her captain supposed us to have taken.

When she was almost abreast of us, and scarce three fathom length away, I bade the rowers pull with all their might, and Raoul steered straight for the galley. The rattle of the oars must have apprised the enemy that we were nearer than they supposed, but they were not thoroughly aware of us until we were upon them. Then, as they spied our vessel looming big out of the darkness, there was a great outcry among them, and it appeared that divers commands were given, for one moment she seemed to be swinging round to oppose the imminent shock, the next she held on her course as if endeavouring to evade us. By her greater speed she might without difficulty have drawn clear, but in bearing up she lost way, and so enabled us to diminish the gap between her and our galley.

Under the sturdy strokes of our oarsmen the galley in a manner leapt towards her. We were greeted with a pretty hot salvo from her musketeers, but there were no more than two or three of us upon the deck, and we were flat on our faces, all save Raoul, so that what with the sway and toss of the vessels and the flurried aim they took, we suffered no hurt. While the smoke still hung in the air there was a mighty crash: the bow of our galley had cut the other a little abaft of the mainmast. Being fashioned for this very device of ramming, our beak had, I doubted not, stove a hole in her side, whereas I could not suppose that we had been endamaged, though the vessel quivered from stem to stern.

Immediately after we struck I commanded the oarsmen to back water, by which means, and the cunning handling of the helm, we withdrew a space. From the enemy's galley came loud shouts of fear and consternation, and I heard some say that she was sinking. It troubled me that, to save our own skins, we had perforce imperilled the lives of three-score hapless slaves that had done us no wrong, but were indeed in a like case with our own men; but the breeze brought with it the rattle of the oars of the galleys that had first set off to pursue us, and I could very well leave the men of the foundering vessel to be rescued by their fellows. Our need was to draw clear away as swiftly as we might. Accordingly I commanded our men again to ply their oars, and this they did the more willingly, despite their fatigue, because they exulted in the crippling of their adversaries.

We were now come into the open sea. Our men pulled with measured strokes for a full half-hour before I deemed it prudent to suffer any intermission. Then I bade them lie upon their oars while I hearkened for sounds of our pursuers. There was not so much as a whisper. I could not but believe that the commanders of the galleys had given over the attempt to come up with us. Yet, as I took counsel with Raoul, I durst not rest thoroughly assured that all danger was past, nor all need for labour and watchfulness vanished. The galleons in the harbour would surely make sail as soon as they could be put in trim, and scour the sea for leagues around. Furthermore, we might fall in with some vessel homeward bound, or perchance outward bound from Lisbon to the Americas. It behoved us then to be very wary, and, as our proverb says, not to holla until we were out of the wood.

Our men, having fasted since the morning and toiled very hard, were in dire need of food, and I hazarded to rest for so long as they might take their fill of the broth and biscuit which the cookmen had brought aboard, bidding them spare enough for another meal. We should not be utterly safe until we made a French port, Bordeaux being the most likely, and we were distant thence, at the very least reckoning, upwards of three hundred leagues. Within a single day we must needs be in dire straits for food, but I had conceived a plan for supplying ourselves so soon as we were free from the immediate fear of pursuit.

When we had all eaten and drunk very heartily, though in good sooth the fare was of the poorest, we sped on again, the men taking turns to row, and so continued all that night. We directed our course at a venture, but at break of day we saw with thankfulness that we were not a great way from the shore. There was no safety for us but in boldness; accordingly Raoul steered directly for the land, that was very barren hereabout, and we put into a small bay, and ran the vessel abeach, purposing to lie up there and take our rest. I parted the whole company into watches, and we slept by turns, the men of each watch being straitly charged not to stray from the low beach to higher ground. While we stayed in that place I saw several galleys and one great galleon cruising in the offing, which I guessed to be hunting for us; but we were very well hid, and I thought it would scarce come into the heads of the Spaniards that we had adventured ourselves ashore.

During one of the watches I talked long with Raoul concerning the occasion of my venturing upon this course for his behoof. He was in perfect ignorance of the complicity of the Count de Sarney in his kidnapping, and was loath to believe that his uncle could have descended to such a depth of villainy. I was at no pains to bring him to my own persuasion, being content to leave the unravelling of the plot until we should come safely to his home. He drew from me the full tale of my adventures, breaking into a great gust of laughter when I related the manner of my dealing with Don Ygnacio. I assured him that he owed all to my honest mariner William Stubbs, on whom he bestowed thanks without stint, promising me in secret that, if we got safe to Torcy, he would reward him with much more than barren words.

We lay in that spot for near six hours, and then, having consumed all our food, saw ourselves faced by the prospect of famine. Certain of the galley-slaves, who were for the most part desperate and abandoned ruffians that richly deserved their fate, began to murmur, and not without reason, for it is no profit to a man to leap out of the frying-pan into the fire. In this strait I bethought me of the use whereto I had imagined putting our noble prisoners, Don Ygnacio and Captain Badillo. We launched our galley when the tide was full, and mounting into her, coasted along for a league or two until we descried a village of fishers nestling in a hollow between the cliffs. We then ran ashore, and made Don Ygnacio write on his tables a formal requisition for meat and wine, signing it with his full name and titles. And I went up the land with Stubbs and Captain Badillo, together with a dozen of the galley-slaves bearing baskets and buckets; and giving the captain to know that I would certainly use my dagger upon him if he by word, deed, or even with wink of eye betrayed us, we marched boldly to the village, where he presented his mandate to the people, and received from them enough to supply our instant needs. When I saw how grudgingly they furnished us, I pitied the poor folk, and wished with all my heart that I could pay them, suspecting that the minions of the Spanish king were not over scrupulous in honouring this sort of debt; but my purse was well-nigh empty, and I could only trust that Providence would in due season repay them a hundredfold.

The story we gave out was that the Captain-General of the King's galleys was making a voyage to inspect the coast, and we found this served us to a miracle among the ignorant fisher folk, both at this place and at the many other villages on the coast of Portugal where we made like perquisitions on the days succeeding. We pursued our way every night, and rested every day, choosing only small paltry places whereat to obtain food, and such as we might adventure into without raising a wind of suspicion. Nowhere did we come within an ace of danger save at one village, whose parish priest, a canon of Salamanca, would not be stayed from paying a visit of ceremony to the illustrious and worshipful Captain-General. It was a marvellous whimsical thing to behold their meeting, the priest offering gracious incense of flattery to the royal officer, who received his compliments and felicitations, I being at his elbow, in a mood betwixt dudgeon and impotent rage. I caught a look of puzzlement on the worthy canon's face as he made his adieu, and I fear me he carried to his humble parsonage a blighted estimate of the courtliness of princes' servants. As for me, I thanked my stars that the peril of discovery had as it were but lightly brushed us.

Our plan of hugging the coast, yet not so close as to risk our bottom on rocks or shoals, kept us far away from the track of sea-going vessels, and the weather being exceedingly fair, we accomplished fifteen or twenty leagues a day without danger from the elements or man. The voyage was tedious beyond telling, but I did not grudge it, for joy at beholding the amelioration it wrought in the health of my dear friend. I laughed often to think how the transfusion I had proposed in trickery to Don Ygnacio was in process of accomplishment by the agency of nature. He became leaner in proportion as Raoul indued flesh, and my scrupulous care that he should not have the means to overeat, but should perform a fitting share of labour at the oar, did not only reduce his bulk, but also brought his body to a healthful condition whereto he had been strange for many a year. He showed me no gratitude, and paid me no fees, though I declare without boasting that I did more for him than any physician or chirurgeon that ever mixed a powder or wielded a scalpel.

I used my endeavour to wrest from him a full confession of his villainies, but he would never admit further than what we knew: that he had received moneys from his cousin the Count de Sarney. As for the kidnapping, he avouched most solemnly that he was as ignorant as innocent in respect of it; but inasmuch as Raoul had acquainted him of his name and condition, and besought him with many promises to set him free, I concluded that he had found his best interest in playing the horse-leech upon his cousin.

We came in due time to Bordeaux, where our story, when it leaked out, became a nine-days' wonder. I am very sure it would have mightily pleased the Sieur Michel de Montaigne, had he been yet alive; of whose Essays I purchased a very pretty copy before I departed. We sold the galley at a price much above its value, to a rich noble of Perigord, who declared his intention of keeping it for his private pleasure, and for a perpetual memorial of the gullibility of Spaniards. Every galley-slave received his freedom and his proper share of the purchase money, though I confess I was uneasy in my mind when I thought of such rapscallions being loosed among honest people. We delivered Don Ygnacio and Captain Badillo to the mayor, who threw them into prison until he should advise himself concerning their future. Then one fair day I took ship with Raoul and worthy Stubbs in a vessel bound for Calais, being somewhat in pocket by my adventure.

*V*

In the interim between our departure from Cadiz and our arrival at Calais, Raoul's hairs grew again both on his face and on his head, albeit I observed with sorrow a many flecks of grey among them. Besides those and sundry scars and callosities, there was no other enduring mark upon him of his long torture in the galleys when he came ashore with me. We stayed in Calais only so long as that he might provide himself with decent apparel, and then we rode on hired horses, Stubbs following, to Dieppe. There we betook ourselves to Jean Prevost, to learn what had happened during the two months of my absence. He welcomed Raoul with boisterous demonstrations of delight, and having heard our story, cried out in a fury that he would drive his sword through the carcass of the Count de Sarney, and so rid the world of a villain. But I prevailed upon him to leave us to our own courses with the Count, whereupon he told us that the Count had but lately sold his own little domain, the which we took to be an evident sign of his perfect security.

Next day we rode all four to Torcy, and never did I see pleasure so admirably pictured on a man's countenance as it was when the old faithful servitor opened to us and beheld his true master. He lifted up his old cracked voice and called to his fellows, and they came pell-mell from the kitchen and offices, and leapt and laughed in the right Gallic manner, which we sober Englishmen are apt to find ridiculous. Their clamour drew the Count from his cabinet, and he stood at the head of the stairs as still as a stone, his countenance taking the colour of wax when he beheld Raoul at my side, and Stubbs capering (sore against his will) in the arms of a buxom buttery maid. The miserable wretch wreathed his lips to a smile, and said, mumbling in dreadful sort--

"Welcome, my dear nephew; I had given you up for dead."

"You have kept my house warm for me, monsieur," said Raoul, with a fine self-mastery; but Jean Prevost sprang up the stairs, and taking the Count by the collar, bundled him down and out at the door without ceremony. Raoul dispatched a man after him with his hat and cloak, and he went away and sought shelter, as we afterward learnt, in the house of one of his old retainers.

We made diligent search in the cabinet for evidence of his villainy, finding nought save a book of accounts wherein were set down the sums he had paid to Don Ygnacio de Acosta, the addition of which mounted to a monstrous figure. Raoul bade his servants gather up all the Count's chattels ready to be conveyed to him, and having put all things in order for his own occupancy he returned with us to Dieppe, where we spent a merry night at Jean Prevost's house.

We did not delay to seek the king's commissary, before whom we laid the whole matter. He took down our depositions, and examined the account-book, and delivered his opinion at great length, the which was, in brief, that we had nothing to convict the Count of the felony of kidnapping, though we might reasonably presume it; but that Raoul might bring a suit against him in the king's court for restitution of the moneys he had disbursed. This he did, and I had word, many months after, that the slow-footed law upheld his claim, and that the Count, being unable to acquit himself of so heavy a debt, was reduced to beggary and thrown into prison, there to remain at the king's pleasure. With great magnanimity Raoul relented towards him for the sake of his son Armand, whom he sought out in Paris, and, being perfectly assured of his innocency, endowed him with a pension sufficient to keep his father in a decent penury.

As for me, long ere this was accomplished I had returned with Stubbs (rejoicing in Raoul's liberal largess, and bound to my service for ever) to my own land. I was not wholly at ease in my mind, for I had absented myself from my duty in the Queen's Guard without her august leave, and had no expectation but that she would visit my fault upon me somewhat grievously. I betook me to the Palace on the day after my return, and learnt from my comrades that the Queen had been highly incensed against me, and had sworn to show me bitter marks of her anger.

I took up my post in the corridor at the proper hour, and had been there but a brief while, when her Highness herself issued from her cabinet unattended. She halted at sight of me, and, frowning heavily, cried in shrill and shrewish accents (and it went to my heart that she was now most apparently an old woman)--

"How now, sirrah? Dost dare show thy ugly face to me?"

"As for my ugliness, madam," said I, "that is as God pleases."

"It does not please me that thou hast hog's bristles on thy countenance" (my beard and mustachio, in truth, were as yet somewhat like a field of stubble). "Where hast thou been, monkey?"

I told her Grace that I had come from working some mischief among the galleys of her brother of Spain, whereupon she let forth a round oath, exceeding disparaging to the said brother, and bid me go with her into her chamber and inform her more particularly on that matter. I related the incidents in their due order, and when I came to that part where I had made the Captain-General swallow my vile admixture, she burst forth in a fit of laughter so immoderate that I feared lest, tight-laced as she was, she should do herself a hurt.

"Well, well, I pardon thee, my sweet Chris," she said, when I had made an end; "but I must e'en have my moiety of the spoils."

And 'tis sober truth that her Grace made me tell over into her royal palm a half of the French crowns that I had brought back with me. I confess 'twas not an exact reckoning, for knowing her Grace's propensity, I had been careful to make a subtraction from the full sum before I named it, a fault which I trust will be held to be venial, and not laid against me by honest men.

Her Grace's anger being thus mollified, I made bold to proffer a petition whereon I set much store, to wit, that she would suffer me to join myself to Sir Walter Raleigh for his voyage, the ships being at that time, as I had already learnt, on the point of sailing from Plymouth.

"Ods my bodikins!" cried the Queen; "hast thou lost thy silly heart to some Spanish slut, that thou art burning to return among the garlic-eaters?"

"I assure your Highness' Grace," said I, "that in all my wanderings I have never beheld a damsel whose eyes could lure me from devotion to my Queen."

At this her Grace showed as much pleasure as she were a girl of sixteen, and I looked for her to consent to my petition; but in this I was deceived.

"Well, well," she said, "thou'rt a proper bold rascal, but I can't have all my lovers running about the wicked world, in danger of falling into divers snares and temptations. No; ods my life, thou shan't go," she cried in a passion, "and if I see any mumping and glooming, to the Tower with thee!"