Chapter 5
Exultant, flushed, many of them bearing wounds, the officers of the expedition and the gentlemen adventurers who had staked with them crowded the cabin of the _Mere Honour_. The sunshine streaming through the windows showed in high light bandaged heads or arms and faces haggard with victory. Wine had been spilled, and in the air there was yet the savor of blood. About each man just breathed some taint of savagery that was not yet beaten back after yesterday's wild outburst and breaking of the bars. In some it took the form of the sleek stillness of the tiger; others were loud-voiced, restless, biting at their nails. Only to a few was it given to bear triumph soberly, with room for other thoughts; to the most it came as a tumultuous passion, an irrational joy, a dazzling bandage to their eyes, beneath which they saw, with an inner vision, wealth a growing snowball and victory their familiar spirit. Among the adventurers from the _Cygnet_ there was, moreover, an intoxication of feeling for the man who had led them in that desperate battle, whose subtle gift it was to strike fire from every soul whose circle touched his own. He was to them among ten thousand the Captain of their choice, not loved the least because of that quality in him which gave ever just the praise which bred strong longing for desert of fame. Now he stood beside the Admiral, and spoke with ardor of the Englishmen who had won that fight, and very tenderly of the dead. They were not a few, for the battle had been long and doubtful. Simply and nobly he spoke, giving praise to thirsty souls. When he had made an end, there was first a silence more eloquent than speech, pregnant with the joy a man may take in his deed when he looks upon it and sees that it is good; then a wild cheer, thrice repeated, for Sir Mortimer Ferne. The name went out of the windows over the sea, and up to every man who sailed the ship. One moment Ferne stood, tasting his reward; then, "Silence, friends!" he said. "To God the victory! And I hear naught of New Cadiz and other fortunate ships." He drew swiftly from its sling his wounded arm and waved it above his head. "The Admiral!" he cried, and then, "The _Marigold_!"
When at last there was quiet in the cabin, Nevil, a man of Humphrey Gilbert's type, too lofty of mind to care who did the service, so that the service was done, began to speak of the captured galleon. "A noble ship--the _Star_ come again, glorious in her resurrection robes! Who shall be her captain, teaching her to eschew old ways and serve the Queen?" His eyes rested upon the galleon's conqueror. "Sir Mortimer Ferne, the election lies with you."
Ferne started sharply. "Sir, it is an honor I do not desire! As Admiral, I pray you to name the Captain of the _Phoenix_."
A breathless hush fell upon the cabin. It was a great thing to be captain of a great ship--so great a thing, so great a chance, that of the adventurers who had bravely fought on yesterday more than one felt his cheek grow hot and the blood drum in his ears. Arden cared not for preferment, but Henry Sedley's eyes were very eager. Baldry, having no hopes of favor, sat like a stone, his great frame rigid, his nails white upon the hilt of his sword, his lips white and sneering beneath his short, black, strongly curling beard.
The pause seemed of the longest; then, "Not so," said the Admiral, quietly. "It is your right. We know that you will make no swerving from your duty to God, the Queen, and every soul that sails upon this adventure, which duty is to strengthen to the uttermost this new sinew of our enterprise. Mailed hand and velvet glove, you know their several uses, and the man whom you shall choose will be one to make the galleon's name resound."
Ferne signed to the steward, and when the tankard was filled, raised the sherris to his lips. "I drink to Captain Robert Baldry, of the _Phoenix_!" he said, bowed slightly to the man of his nomination, then turned aside to where stood Henry Sedley.
Around the cabin ran a deep murmur of reluctant assent to the wisdom of the choice and of tribute to the man who had just heaped before his personal enemy the pure gold of opportunity. Few were there from whom Baldry had not won dislike, but fewer yet who knew him not for a captain famous for victory against odds, trained for long years in the school of these seas, at once desperate and wary, a man of men for adventure such as theirs. He had made known far and wide the name of that his ship which the sea took, and for the _Phoenix_ he well might win a yet greater renown.
Now the red blood flooded his face, and he started up, speaking thickly. "You are Admiral of us all, Sir John Nevil! I do understand that it is yours to make disposition in a matter such as this. I take no favor from the hand of Sir Mortimer Ferne!"
"I give you none," said Ferne, coldly. "Favors I keep for friendship, but I deny not justice to my foe."
The Admiral's grave tones prevented Baldry's answer. "Do you appeal to me as Admiral? Then I also adjudge you the command of the galleon. The _Star_ did very valiantly; look to it that the _Phoenix_ prove no laggard."
"Hear me swear that I will make her more famous than is Drake's _Golden Hind_!" cried Baldry, his exultation breaking bounds. "Sir John, you have knowledge of men, and I thank you! Sir Mortimer Ferne, I will give account--"
"Not to me, sir," interrupted Ferne, haughtily. "I have but one account with you, and that my sword shall hereafter audit."
"Sir, I am content!" cried the other, fiercely, then turning again to the Admiral, broke into a laugh that was impish in its glee. "Ah, I've needed to feel my hand on my ship's helm! Sir John, shall I have my sixty tall fellows again, with just a small levy from the _Mere Honour_, the _Marigold_, and the _Cygnet_?"
"Yes," answered the Admiral, and presently, by his rising, declared the council ended, whereupon the adventurers dispersed to their several ships where they lay at anchor in the crystal harbor, the watchmen in the tops straining eyes, on the decks mariners and soldiers as jubilant as were ever men who did battle on the seas. Only the _Cygnet's_ boat, rocking beneath the stern of the _Mere Honour_, waited for its Captain, who tarried with the Admiral.
In the state-cabin the two men sat for some moments in silence, the Admiral covering with his hand his bearded lips, Ferne with head thrown back against the wall and half-closed eyes. In the strong light with which the cabin was flooded his countenance now showed of a somewhat worn and haggard beauty. Drunken and forgotten was the wine of battle, gone the lofty and impassioned vein; after the exaltation came the melancholy fit, and the man who, mailed in activities, was yet, beneath that armor, a dreamer and a guesser of old riddles, had let the fire burn low, and was gone down into the shadowy places.
"Mortimer," spoke the Admiral, and waited. The other moved, drew a long breath, and then with a short laugh came back to the present.
"My friend ... How iron is our destiny! Do I hate that man too greatly? One might say, I think, that I loved him well, seeing that I have lent my shoulder for him to climb upon."
"Mortimer, Mortimer," said Nevil, "you know that I love you. My friend, I pray you to somewhat beware yourself. I think there is in your veins a subtle poison may work you harm."
Ferne looked steadfastly upon him. "What is its name?"
The other shook his head. "I know not. It is subtle. Perhaps it is pride--ambition too inwrought with fairest qualities to show as such,--security of your self of selves too absolute. Perhaps I mistake and your blood doth run as healthfully as a child's. But you are of those who ever breed in others speculation, wilding fancies.... When a man doth all things too well, what is there left for God to do but to break and crumble and remould? If I do you wrong, blame, if you will, my love, which is jealous for you--friend whom I value, soldier and knight whom I have ever thought the fair ensample of our time!"
"I hold many men, known and unknown, within myself," said Ferne, slowly. "I think it is always so with those of my temper. But over that hundred I am centurion."
"God forgive me if I misjudge one of their number," answered the other. "The centurion I have never doubted nor will doubt."
Another silence; then, "Will you see that Spaniolated Englishman, my prisoner?" asked Sir Mortimer. "He is under charge without."
The Admiral put to his lips a golden whistle, and presently there stood in the cabin a slight man of not unpleasing countenance--blue eyes, brown hair, unfurrowed brow, and beneath a scant and silky beard a chin as softly rounded as a woman's.--His name and estate? Francis Sark, gentleman.--English? So born and bred, cousin and sometime servant to my lord of Shrewsbury.--And what did my English gentleman, my cousin to an English nobleman, upon the galleon _San José_? Alack, sirs! were Englishmen upon Spanish ships so unknown a spectacle?
"I have found them," quoth the Admiral, "rowing in Spanish galleys, naked, scarred, chained, captives and martyrs."
Said Ferne, "You, sir, fought in Milan mail, standing beside the captain of soldiers from Nueva Cordoba."
"And if I did," answered boldly their prisoner, "none the less was I slave and captive, constrained to serve detested masters. Where needs must I fight, I fought to the purpose. Doth not the galley-slave pull strongly at the oar, though the chase be English and of his own blood?"
"He toils under the whip," said Ferne. "Now what whip did the Spaniard use?"
"He is dead, and his men await succor on that lonely coast where you left them," was Master Francis Sark's somewhat singular reply. "There is left in the fortress of Nueva Cordoba a single company of soldiers; the battery at the river's mouth hath another. Luiz de Guardiola commands the citadel, and he is a strong man, but Pedro Mexia at the Bocca is so easy-going that his sentinels nod their nights away. In the port ride two caravels--eighty tons, no more--and their greatest gun a demi-cannon. The town is a cowardly place of priests, women, and rich men, but it holds every peso of this year's treasure gathered against the coming of the plate-fleet. There is much silver with pearls from Margarita, and crescents of gold from Guiana, and it all lies in a house of white stone on the north side of the square. Mayhap De Guardiola up in the fortress watches, but all else, from Mexia to the last muleteer, think themselves as safe as in the lap of the Blessed Virgin. The plate-fleet stays at Cartagena, because of the illness of its Admiral, Don Juan de Maeda y Espinosa.... I show you, sirs, a bird's nest worth the robbing."
"You are a galley-slave the most circumstantial I have ever met," said Ferne. "If there are nets about this tree, I will wring your neck for the false songster that you are."
"You shall go with us bird's-nesting," said the Admiral.
"That falls in with my humor," Master Sark made answer. "For, look you, there are such things as a heavy score and an ancient grudge, to say nothing of true service to a true Queen."
"Then," quoth the other, "you shall feed fat your grudge. But if what you have told me is leasing and not truth, I will hang you from the yard-arm of my ship!"
"It is God's truth," swore the other.
Thus it was that, having, like all English adventurers upon Spanish seas, to trust to strange guides, the _Mere Honour_, the _Cygnet_, the _Marigold_, and the _Phoenix_ shaped their course for the mainland and Nueva Cordoba, where were bars of silver, pearls, and gold crescents, and up in the castle that fierce hawk De Guardiola, who cared little for the town that was young and weak, but much for gold, the fortress, and his own grim will and pleasure.
V
Luiz De Guardiola, magnificent Castilian, proud as Lucifer, still as the water above the reef offshore, and cruel as the black fangs beneath that serenity, looked over the wall of the fortress of Nueva Cordoba. He looked down into the moat well stocked with crocodiles, great fish his mercenaries, paid with flesh, and he looked at the tunal which ringed the moat as the moat ringed the squat white fortress. A deadly girdle was the tunal, of cactus and other thorny things, thick, wide, dark, and impenetrable, a forest of stilettoes, and for its kings the rattlesnake and viper. Nor naked Indian nor mailed white man might traverse that thicket, where wall on wall was met a spiked and iron growth. One opening there was, through which ran the road to the town, but a battery deemed impregnable commanded this approach, forming an effectual clasp for that strong cestus which the fecund, supple, and heated land made possible to all Spanish fortifications. Beyond the tunal the naked hillside fell steeply to a narrow plain, all patched with golden flowers, and from this yellow carpet writhed tall cacti, fantastic as trees seen in a dream. Upon the plain, pearl pink in the sunset light, huddled the town. Palm-trees and tamarinds overhung it; palm-trees, mimosas, and mangroves marked the course of a limpid river. Above the battery at the river's mouth drooped a red cross in a white field. Caravels there were none in the road, but riding there, close inshore, the four ships that had sunk the caravels and silenced the battery.
High in the air of evening, blown from the town, a trumpet sounded. De Guardiola ground his teeth, for that jubilant silver calling was not for San Jago, but St. George. The notes gathered every memory of the past few days and pressed them upon him in one cup of chagrin. The caravels were gone, the battery at the Bocca gone, the town surrendered to these English dogs who now daily bared their teeth to the fortress itself. De Guardiola admitted the menace, knew from experience in the Low Countries that this breed of the North sprang strongly, held firmly. "Hounds of hell!" he muttered. "Where is the fleet from Cartagena?"
The tropic ocean answered not, and the words of the wind were unintelligible. The sun dropped lower; the plain appeared to move, to roll and welter in the heated air and yellow light. Tall starvelings, the cacti spread their arms; from a mimosa wood arose a cloud of vultures; it was the hour of the Angelus, but no bells rang in the churches of the town. The town sat in fear, shrinking into corners from its cup of trembling. "Ransom!" cried the English from their ships and from their quarters in the square. "Pay us ransom, or we burn and destroy!" "Mother of God!" wailed Nueva Cordoba. "Why ask but fifty thousand ducats? As easy to give you the revenue of all the Indies! Moreover, every peso is housed in the fortress. Day before yesterday we carried there--oh, señors, not our wealth, but our poverty!" Quoth the English: "What has gone up may come down," and sent messengers, both Spanish and English, to Don Luiz de Guardiola, Governor of Nueva Cordoba, who from his stronghold swore that he found himself willing to hang these pirates, but not to dispense to them the King of Spain his treasure. Ransom! What word was that for the lips of Lutheran dogs!
A sea bird flew overhead with a wailing cry; down in the moat a crocodile raised his horrible, fanged snout, then sank beneath the still water. Don Luiz turned his bloodshot eyes upon the town in jeopardy and the bland and mocking ocean, so guileless of those longed-for sails. The four ships in the river's mouth!--silently he cursed their every mast and spar, the holds agape for Spanish treasure, the decks whereon he saw men moving, the flags and streaming pennants flaunting interrogation of Spain's boasted power. A cold fury mounted from Don Luiz's heart to his brain. Of late he had slept not at all, eaten little, drunken no great amount of wine. Like a shaken carpet the plain rose and fell; a mirage lifted the coasts of distant islands, piling them above the horizon into castles and fortifications baseless as a dream. The sun dipped; up from the east rushed the night. The tunal grew a dark smudge, drawn by a wizard forefinger around De Guardiola, his men-at-arms, the silver bars and the gold crescents from Guiana. Out swung the stars, blazing, mighty, with black spaces in between. Again rang the trumpet, a high voice proclaiming eternal endeavor. The wind began to blow, and on the plain the cacti, gloomy and fantastic sentinels, moved their stiff bodies, waved their twisted arms in gestures of strangeness and horror. The Spaniard turned on his heel, went down to his men-at-arms where they kept watch and ward, and at midnight, riding like Death on a great, pale steed, led a hundred horsemen out of the fortress, through the tunal, and so down the hillside to the town.
The English sentries cried alarm. In the square a man with a knot of velvet in his helm swung himself into the saddle of a captured war-horse, waved aside the blue-jerkined boy at the rein, in a word or two cried over his shoulder managed to impart to those behind him sheer assurance of victory, and was off to greet Don Luiz. They met in the wide street leading from the square, De Guardiola with his hundred cavaliers and Mortimer Ferne with his chance medley of horse and foot. The hot night filled with noise, the scream of wounded steeds and the shouting of men. Lights flared in the windows, and women wailed to all the saints. Stubbornly the English drove back the Spanish, foot by foot, the way they had come, down the street of heat and clamor. In the dark hour before the dawn De Guardiola sounded a retreat, rode with his defeated band up the pallid hillside, through the serpent-haunted tunal, over the dreadfully peopled moat into the court of the white stone fortress. There, grim and gray, with closed lips and glowing eyes, he for a moment sat his horse in the midst of his spent men, then heavily dismounted, and called to him Pedro Mexia, who, several days before, had abandoned the battery at the river's mouth, fleeing with the remnant of his company to the fortress. The two went together into the hall, and there, while his squire unarmed De Guardiola, the lesser man spoke fluently, consigning to all the torments of hell the strangers in Nueva Cordoba.
"Go to; you are drunken!" said De Guardiola, coldly. "You speak what you cannot act."
"I have three houses in the town," swore the other. "A reasonable ransom--"
"There is no longer any question of ransom," answered Don Luiz. "Fellow"--to the armorer,--"fetch me a surgeon."
Mexia sat upright, his eyes widening: "No question of ransom! I thank the saints that I am no hidalgo! Now had simple Pedro Mexia been somewhat roughly handled, unhorsed mayhap, even the foot of an English heretic planted on his breast, I think that talk of the ransom of Nueva Cordoba would not have ceased. But Don Luiz de Guardiola!--quite another matter! Santa Teresa! if the town is burnt I will have payment for my three houses!" His superior snarled, then as the surgeon entered, made signs to the latter to uncover a bruised shoulder and side.
At sunrise a trumpet was blown without the tunal, and the English again made demand of ransom money. The fortress crouching upon the hilltop gave no answer, stayed silent as a sepulchre. Shortly afterwards from one quarter of the town arose together many columns of smoke; a little later an explosion shook the earth. The great magazine of Nueva Cordoba lay in ruins, while around it burned the houses fired by English torches. "Shall we destroy the whole of your city?" demanded the English. "Judge you if fifty thousand ducats will build it again!"
Nueva Cordoba, distracted, sent petitioners to their Governor. "Pay these hell-hounds and pirates and let them sail away!" "Pay," advised also Pedro Mexia, "or presently they may have the fortress as well as the town! The squadron--it is yet at Cartagena! Easier to torment the caciques until more gold flows than to build another Nueva Cordoba. Scarpines and strappado won't lay stone on stone!"
Don Luiz kept long silence where he stood, a man of iron, cold as the stone his long fingers pressed, venomous as any snake in the tunal, proud as a Spaniard may be, and like the rest of his world very mad for gold; but at last he turned, and despatching to the English camp a white flag, proposed by mouth of his herald a brief cessation of hostilities, and a meeting between himself, Don Luiz de Guardiola, Governor of Nueva Cordoba, and the valorous Señor John Nevil, commandant of Englishmen. Whereto in answer came, three-piled with courtesy, an invitation to Don Luiz de Guardiola and ten of his cavaliers to sup that evening in Nueva Cordoba with John Nevil and his officers. Truce should be proclaimed, safe-conduct given; for table-talk could be no better subject than the question of ransom.
Facing the square of Nueva Cordoba was a goodly house, built by the Church for the Church, but now sacrilegiously turned to other uses and become the quarters of Sir John Nevil and Sir Mortimer Ferne, who held the town and menaced the fortress, while Baptist Manwood and Robert Baldry kept the fleet and conquered battery. The place had a great arched refectory, and here the English prepared their banquet.
Indian friends by now had they, for in the town they had found and set at liberty three caciques, penned like beasts, chained with a single chain, scored with marks sickening to look upon. The caciques proved not ungrateful. Down the river this very day had come canoes rowed by men of bronze and filled with spoils of the chase, fish of strange shapes and brilliant hues, golden, luscious fruits, flowers also fairer than amaranth or asphodel, gold beads and green stones. Gold and gems went into the treasure-chests aboard the ships, but all besides came kindly in for the furnishing of that rich feast. Nor were lacking other viands, for grain and flesh and wine had been abundant in Nueva Cordoba, whose storehouses now the English held. They hung their borrowed banqueting-hall with garlands of flowers, upon the long table put great candles of virgin wax, with gold and silver drinking-vessels, and brought to the revel of the night a somewhat towering, wild, and freakish humor. Victory unassuaged was theirs, and for them Fortune had cogged her dice. They had taken the _San José_ and sunk the caravels, they had sacked the pearl-towns and Nueva Cordoba, they had gathered laurels for themselves and England. For the fortress, they deemed that they might yet drain it of hoarded treasure. The poison of the land and time had touched them. The wind sang to them of conquest; morn and eve, the sun at noon, and at night the phosphorescent sea, were of the color of gold, and the stars spoke of Fame. The great mountains also, to the south,--how might the eye leap from height to height and the soul not stir? In Time's hornbook ambition is an early lesson, and these scholars had conned it well. Of all that force, scarce one simple soldier or mariner in whom expectation ran not riot, while the gentlemen adventurers in whose company were to sup De Guardiola and his ten cavaliers saw that all things might be done with ease and that evil chances lurked not for them.
The Captain of the _Cygnet_ and the Captain of the _Phoenix_, with Arden and Sedley, awaited beside the great window of the hall their guests' appearance. The sunset was not yet, but the moment was at hand. The light, dwelling upon naked hillside and the fortress crowning it, made both to seem candescent, hill and castle one heart of flame against the purple mountains that stretched across the south. Very high were the mountains, very still and white that fortress flame; the yellow plain could not be seen, but the palm-trees were gold green above the walls of Nueva Cordoba. The light fell from the hilltop, a solitary trumpet blew, and forth from that guarded opening in the tunal rode De Guardiola on his pale horse, and at his back ten Spanish gentlemen.