Transcriber's Notes:
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(Princeton University)
Across the Salt Seas.
ACROSS
THE SALT SEAS
A ROMANCE OF THE
WAR OF SUCCESSION
BY
JOHN BLOUNDELLE-BURTON
AUTHOR OF "IN THE WAY OF ADVERSITY,"
"THE HISPANIOLA PLATE," "A GENTLEMAN ADVENTURER," ETC.
HERBERT S. STONE & CO.
CHICAGO & NEW YORK
MDCCCXCVII
COPYRIGHT, 1897, BY
HERBERT S. STONE & CO.
Across the Salt Seas.
CHAPTER I.
Dreams he of cutting foreign throats, of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades; of healths five fathoms deep.--Shakespeare.
"Phew!" said the captain of La Mouche Noire, as he came up to me where I paced the deck by the after binacle. "Phew! It is a devil in its death agonies. What has the man seen and known? Fore Gad! he makes me shudder!"
Then he spat to leeward--because he was a sailor; also, because he was a sailor, he squinted into the compass box, then took off his leather cap and wiped the warm drops from his forehead with the back of his hand.
"Death agonies!" I said. "So! it is coming to that. From what? Drinking, old age, or----"
"Both, and more. Yet, when I shipped him at Rotterdam, who would have thought it! Old and reverend-looking, eh, Mr. Crespin? White haired--silvery. I deemed him some kind of a minister--yet, now, hearken to him!"
And as he spoke he went to the hatchway, bent his head and shoulders over it, and beckoned me to come and do likewise; which gesture I obeyed.
Then I heard the old man's voice coming forth from the cabin where they had got him, the door of it being open for sake of air, because, in this tossing sea, the ports and scuttles were shut fast--heard him screaming, muttering, chuckling and laughing; calling of healths and toasts; dying hard!
"The balustrades!" he screamed. "Look to them. See! Three men, their hands stretched out, peering down into the hall; fingers touching. God!"--he whispered this, yet still we heard--"how can dead men stand thus together, gazing over, glancing into dark corners, eyes rolling? See how yellow the mustee's eyes are! But still, all dead! Dead! Dead! Dead! Yet there they stand, waiting for us to come in from the garden. Ha! quick--the passado--one--two--in--out--good! through his midriff. Ha! Ha! Ha!" and he laughed hideously, then went on: "The worms will have a full meal. Or"--after a pause, and hissing this: "Was he dead before? Hast run a dead man through?"
"Like this all day long," the captain muttered in my ear, "from the dawn. And now the sun is setting; see how its gleams light up the hills inland. God's mercy! I hope he dies ere long. I want not his howlings through my ship all night. Mr. Crespin," and he laid his hand on my arm, "will you go down to him, to service me? You are a gentleman. Maybe can soothe him. He is one, too. Will you?"
I shrugged my shoulders and hitched my sea cloak tighter round me; then I said:
"To do you a service--yes. Yet I like not the job. Still, I will go," and I put my hand on the brass rail to descend. Then, as I did so, we heard him again--a-singing of a song this time. But what a song! And to come from the dying lips of that old, white-haired, reverend-looking man! A song about drinkings and carousings, of girls' eyes and lips and other charms, which he should have thought no more of for the past two score years! and killing of men, and thievings and plunder. Then another change, orders bellowed loudly, as though he trod on deck--commands given to run out guns--cutlasses to be ready. Shrieks, whooping and huzzas!
"He has followed the sea some time in his life," the captain whispered as I descended the companion steps. "One can tell that. And I thought him a minister!"
I nodded, looking up at him as I went below, then reached the open door of the cabin where the man lay.
He was stretched out upon his berth, the bedding all dishevelled and tossed beneath him, with, over it, his long white hair, like spun flax, streaming. His coat alone of all his garments was off, so that one saw the massive gold buttons to his satin waistcoat; could observe, too, the richness of his cravat, the fineness of his shirt. His breeches, also, were of satin, black like his waistcoat--the stuff of the very best; his buckles to them gold; his shoes fastened with silver latchets. That he was old other things than his hair showed--the white face was drawn and pinched with age, the body lean and attenuated, the fingers almost fleshless, the backs of his hands naught but sinews and shrivelled skin. And they were strange hands, too, for one to gaze upon; white as the driven snow, yet with a thickness at the tips of the fingers, and with ill-shapen, coarse-looking nails, all seeming to say that, once, in some far off time, those hands had done hard, rough work.
By the side of the berth, upon one of the drawers beneath it, pulled out to make a seat, there squatted a mulatto--his servant whom he had brought on board with him when we took him into the ship in the Maas. A mulatto, whose brown, muddy looking eyeballs rolled about in terror, as I thought, of his master's coming death, and made me wonder if they had given his distempered brain that idea of the "mustee's yellow eyes," about which he had been lately shrieking. Yet, somehow, I guessed that 'twas not so.
"How is 't with him now?" I asked the blackamoor, seeing that his master lay quiet for the time being; "is this like to be the end?"
"Maybe, maybe not," the creature said in reply. "I have seen him as far gone before--yet he is alive."
"How old is he?"
"I know not. He says he has seventy years."
"I should say more," I answered. Then I asked: "Who is he?"
"The captain has his name."
"That tells nothing. When he is dead he will be committed to the sea unless we reach Cadiz first. And he has goods," casting my eye on two chests, one above the other, standing by the cabin bulkhead. "They will have to be consigned somewhere. Where is he going?"
"To Cadiz."
"Ha! Well, so am I. He is English?"
"Yes--he is English."
'Twas evident to me that this black creature meant to tell nothing of his master's affairs--for which there was no need to blame him--and I desisted from my enquiries. For, in truth, this old man's affairs were not my concern. If he died he would be tossed into the sea, and that would be the end of him. And if he did not die--why still 'twas no affair of mine. I was but a passenger, as he was.
Therefore, I turned me on my heel to quit the cabin, when, to my astonishment, nay, almost my awestruck wonderment, I heard the old man speaking behind me as calmly as though there were no delirium in his brain nor any fever whatever. Perhaps, after all, I thought, 'twas but the French brandy and the Geneva he had been drinking freely of since we took him on board, and which he brought with him in case bottles, that had given him his delirium, and that the effect was gone now with his last shriekings and ravings.
But that which caused most my wonderment was that he was speaking in the French--which I had very well myself.
"What brings you here, Grandmont?" he asked, his eyes, of a cold grey, fixed on me.
"So," thinks I, "you are not out of your fever yet, to call me by a name I never heard of." But aloud, I answered:
"I have taken passage the same as you yourself. And we travel the same road--toward Cadiz."
Meanwhile the negro was a-hushing of him--or trying to--saying: "Master, master, you wander. Grandmont is not here. This gentleman is not he"; and angered me, too, even as he said it, by a scornful kind of laugh he gave, as though to signify: "Not anything like him, indeed."
But the old man took no heed of him--pushing him aside with a strength in the white coarse hand which you would not have looked to see in one so spent--and leaned a little over the side of the berth, and went on:
"Have you heard of it, yet, Grandmont?"
Not knowing what to do, nor what answer to make, I shook my head--whereon he continued: "Nineteen years of age now, if a day. Four years old then--two hundred crowns' worth of good wood burnt,--all burnt--a mort o' money! But we have enough left and to serve, 'tis true. A plenty o' money--though 'tis soaked in blood. Nineteen years old, and like to be a devil--like yourself, Grandmont!"
"Grandmont is dead," the negro muttered. "Drownded dead, master. You know."
This set the old man off on another tack, doubtless the words "drownded dead" recalling something to him; and once more he began his chantings--going back to the English--which were awful to hear, and brought to my mind the idea of a corpse a-singing:
"Fishes' teeth have eat his eyes; His limbs by fishes torn."
Then broke off and said: "Where am I? Give me to drink."
This the negro did, taking from out the drawer he sat upon a bottle of Hungary water, and pouring a draught into a glass, which, when the old man had tasted, set him off shrieking curses.
"Brandy!" he cried, "Brandy! French brandy, not this filth. Brandy, dog!" and as he spoke he raised his hand and clutched at the other's wool, "If I had you in Martinique----" then, exhausted, fell back on his pillows and said no more, forgetting all about the desired drink.
Now, that night, when I sat with the captain after supper, he being a man who had roamed the world far and wide, and had not always been, as he was now, a carrier of goods only, with sometimes a passenger or two, from London to the ports of France, Spain and Portugal, we talked upon that hoary-headed old sinner lying below in the after-starboard cabin; I telling him all that had passed in my hearing.
And he, smoking his great pipe, listened attentively, nodding his head every now and again, and muttering much to himself; then said:
"Spoke about two hundred crowns' worth of good wood being burnt, eh? That would be at Campeachy. Humph! So! So! We have heard about that. Told the black, too, that he wished he had him in Martinique, did he? Also knew Grandmont. Ha! 'tis very plain." Then he rose and went to his desk, lifted up the sloping lid and took out a book and read from it--I observing very well that it was his log.
"See," he said, pushing it over to me, "that's what he calls himself now. Yet 'tis no more his name than 'tis mine--or yours."
Glancing my eye down the column, I came to my own name--after a list of things by way of cargo which he had on board, such as a hundred and seventy barrels of potash, sixty bales of hemp, a hundred bales of Russia leather, twenty barrels of salted meat, twenty-eight barrels of whale oil and many other things. Came to my own name, Mervyn Crespin, officer, passenger to Cadiz. Then to the old man's:
"John Carstairs, gentleman, with servant, passenger to Cadiz."
"No more his name than 'tis mine--or yours," the captain repeated.
"What then?" I asked.
"It might be--anything," and again he mused. "Martinique," he went on, "Campeachy. A friend of Grandmont's. Let me reflect. It might be John Cuddiford. He was a friend of Grandmont's. It might be Alderly. But no, he was killed, I think, by Captain Nicholas Crafez of Brentford. Dampier, now--nay, this one is too old; also William Dampier sailed from the Downs three years ago. I do believe 'tis Cuddiford."
"And who then is Grandmont, Captain? And this Cuddiford--or Carstairs?"
"Ho!" said he, "'tis all a history, and had you been sailor, or worn that sword by your side for King William as you wear it now for Queen Anne, you would have known Grandmont's name. Of a surety you would have done so, had you been sailor."
"Who are they, then?"
"Well now, see. Grandmont was--for he is dead, drowned coming back from the Indies in '96--that's six years agone--with a hundred and eighty men, all devils like himself."
As he said this I started, for his words were much the same as those which the old man had used an hour or so before when he had spoken of something--a child, as I guessed--that had been four years old, and was now nineteen and "like to be a devil" like himself--Grandmont. It seemed certain, therefore, that this man, Grandmont, was a friend in life, and that now there was roaming about somewhere a son who had all the instincts of its father, and who was known to Carstairs, or Cuddiford.
This made the story of interest to me, and caused me to listen earnestly to the captain's words.
"Coming back from the Indies, and not so very long, either, after the French king had made him a lieutenant of his navy--perhaps because he was a villain. He does that now and again. 'Tis his way. Look at Bart, to wit. There's a sweet vagabond for you. Has plagued us honest merchants and carriers more than all Tourville's navy. Yet, now, he is an officer, too."
"But Grandmont, Captain! Grandmont."
"Ah! Grandmont. Well, he was a filibuster--privateer--buccaneer--pirate--what you will! Burnt up all their woods at Campeachy--the old man spake true--because the commandant wouldn't pay the ransom he and his crew demanded; also because the commandant said that when he had slaughtered them all, if he did so, he would never find out where their buried wealth was. Then he took a Pink one day with four hundred thousand francs' worth of goods and money on board, and slew every soul in the ship. Tied dead and living together, back to back, and flung them into the sea. Oh! He was a devil," he concluded. "A wicked villain! My word! If only some of our ships of war could have caught him."
"Yet he is dead?"
"Dead enough, the Lord be praised."
"And if this is a friend of his--this Cuddiford, or Carstairs--he must needs be a villain, too."
"Needs be! Nay, is, for a surety. And, Mr. Crespin," he said, speaking slowly, "you have heard his shrieks and singings--could you doubt what he has been?"
"Doubt? No," I answered. "Who could? Yet, I wonder who were the dead men looking down the stairs, as they came in from the garden."
"Who? Only a few of their victims. If he and Grandmont worked together they could not count 'em. Well, one is dead; good luck when the other goes too. And, when he does, what a meeting they will have there!" and he pointed downward.
CHAPTER II.
SECRET SERVICE.
It seemed not, however, as though this meeting were very likely to take place yet, since by the time we were off Cape St. Vincent--which was at early dawn of the second morning following the old man's delirium--that person seemed to have become very much restored. 'Tis true he was still very weak, and kept his berth; but otherwise seemed well enough. Also all his fever and wanderings were gone, and as he now lay in his bunk reading of many papers which the negro handed to him from the open uppermost chest, he might, indeed, have passed for that same reverend minister which the captain had, at the beginning, imagined him to be.
Both of us--the captain because he was the captain, and I because I was the only other passenger--had been in and out to see him now and again and to ask him how he did. Yet, I fear, 'twas not charity nor pity that induced either of us to these Christian tasks. For the skipper was prompted by, I think, but one desire, namely, to get the man ashore alive out of his ship, and, thereby, to have done with him. He liked not pirates, he said, "neither when met on the high seas, nor when retired from business"; while as for myself, well! the man fascinated me. He seemed to be, indeed, so scheming an old villain, and to have such a strange past behind him, that I could not help but be attracted.
Now in these visits which I had paid him at intervals, he had told me that he was on his way to Cadiz, where he had much business to attend to; sometimes, he said, in purchasing goods that the galleons brought in from the Indies, sometimes in sending out other goods, and so forth. Also he said--which was true enough, as I knew very well--the galleons were now due; it was for this reason he was on his way to the south of Spain.
"So," said the captain, when I repeated this, "the devil can speak truth sure enough when he needs. To wit, it is the truth that the galleons are on their way home. What else has he said to you, Mr. Crespin?"
"He has asked me what my business may be."
"And you have told him?"
"Nay. I tell no one that," I replied, "It is of some consequence, and I talk not of it."
Yet here, and with a view to making clear this narrative which I am setting down, 'tis necessary that I should state who and what I am, and also the reason why I, Mervyn Crespin, am on my road to Cadiz on board a coasting vessel, La Mouche Noire--once a French ship of merchandise, now an English one. She was taken from that nation by some of our own vessels of war, sold by public auction, and bought by her present captain, who now is using her in his trade between England and Holland, and Holland and Spain--a risky trade, too, seeing that war has broken out again, that England and Austria are fighting the French and Spanish, and that the sea swarms with privateers; yet, because of the risk, a profitable trade, too, for those who can make their journeys uncaught by the enemy.
However, to myself.
I am, let me say, therefore, an officer of the Cuirassiers, or Fourth Horse, which, a short time before the late King William's death, has been serving in the Netherlands under the partial command of Ginkell, Earl of Athlone. The rank I hold is that of lieutenant--aspiring naturally to far greater things--and already I have had the honor of taking part in several sieges, amongst others Kaiserswerth, with which the war commenced, as well as in many skirmishes. Now, 'twas at this place, where my Lord the Earl of Athlone commanded, that I had the extreme good fortune, as I shall ever deem it, of being wounded, and thereby brought under his Lordship's notice. As for the wound, 'twas nothing, one of M. Bouffler's lancers having run me through the fleshy part of my arm, and it was soon healed; but the earl happened to see the occurrence, as also the manner in which I cut the man down a second later, and from that moment he took notice of me--sent for me to his quarters when the siege was over, spoke with commendation of my riding and my sword play, and asked me of my family, he being one who, although a Dutchman who came only into England with his late master, knew much of our gentry and noble homes.
"Of the Crespins of Kent, eh?" he said. "The Crespins--a fair, good family. I knew Sir Nicholas, who fell at the Boyne. What was he to you?"
"My uncle, sir. The late king gave me my guidon in the Cuirassiers because of his service."
"Good! He could do no less. Your uncle was a solid man--trustworthy. If he said he would do a thing, he did it--or died. 'Twas thus in Ireland. You remember?"
"I remember, sir. He said he would take prisoner Tyrconnel with his own hands, and would have done it had not a bullet found his brain."
"I do believe he would. Are you as trustworthy as he?"
"Try me," and I looked him straight in the face.
"Maybe I will. A little later," and even as he spoke fell a-musing, while he drank some schnapps, which was his native drink, and on which, they say, these Hollanders are weaned--from a little glass. Then soon spake again:
"What languages have you? Any besides your own?"
"I have the French. Also some Spanish. My grandmother was of Spanish descent, and dwelt with us in Kent. She taught me."
"Humph!" And again he mused, then again went on, though now--doubtless to see if my French was any good, and to try me--he spoke in that tongue.
"Could you pass for a Frenchman, think you, amongst those who are not French, say in Spain itself?"
"Yes, amongst those who are not French, I am sure I could. Even amongst those who are French, if I gave out that I was, say, a Dutchman speaking with an accent," and I laughed, for I could not help it. The earl had a bottle nose and eyes like a lobster's, and made a queer grimace when I said this boldly. Then he, too, laughed.
"So I've an accent, eh, when I speak French? You mean that?"
"I mean, sir, that however well one speaks a language not their own, there is some accent that betrays them to those whose native tongue they are speaking. A Dutchman, a Swiss, most Englishmen and many Germans can all speak French, and 'twould pass outside France for French. But a native of Touraine, or a Parisian, or any subject of King Louis could not be deceived."
"True. Yet you or I could pass, say in Spain, for Frenchmen."
"I am sure."
"Humph! Well, we will see. And, perhaps, I will, as you say, try you. Only if I do, 'twill be a risky service for you. A lieutenant-colonelcy or a gibbet. A regiment or a bullet. How would you like that?"
"I risk the bullet every moment that the Cuirassiers are in action, and there is no lieutenant-colonelcy in the other scale if I escape. I prefer the 'risky service,' when there is one. As for the gibbet; well, one death is the same as another, pretty much, and the gibbet will do as well as any other, so long as 'tis not at Tyburn--which would be discreditable."
"You are a man of metal!" the Dutchman exclaimed, "and I like you, although you don't approve of my accent. You will do. I want a man of action, not a courtier----"
"I meant no rudeness," I interposed.
"Nor offered any. Tush! man, we Dutch are not courtiers, either. But we are staunch. And I will give you a chance of being so. Come here again to-morrow night. You shall have a throw for that colonelcy--or that gibbet."
"My Lord, I am most grateful to you."
"Good day. Come to-morrow night. Now I must sleep." And he began to divest himself of his wig and clothes, upon which I bowed and withdrew.
Be sure I was there the next night at the same time, exchanging my guard with Bertram Saxby, who, alas! was killed shortly afterward at Ruremonde. The day I had passed in sleeping much, for I had a suspicion that it was like enough Ginkell would send me on the service he had spoken of that very night; might, indeed, order me to take horse within the next hour, and I was desirous of starting fresh--of beginning well. He was a rough creature, this Dutch general--or English, rather, now!--and would be as apt as not to give me my instructions as I entered the room, and bid me be miles away ere midnight struck. Therefore I went prepared. Also my horse was ready in its stall.
He was not alone when I did enter his quarters. Instead, he was seated at a table covered with papers and charts, on the other side of which there sat another gentleman, a man of about fifty, of strikingly handsome features; a man who, in his day, I guessed, must have played havoc with women's hearts--might, indeed, I should think, have done so now had he been inclined that way. Those soft, rounded features, and those eyes, themselves soft and liquid--I saw them clearly when he lifted them to scan my face!--would, I guessed, make him irresistible to the fair sex.
He spoke first after I had saluted the Earl of Athlone--and I observed that, intuitively, he also returned my salute by a bend of his head, so that I felt sure he was used to receive such courtesies wherever he might be and in whatever company--then he said to the Dutchman, in a voice that, though somewhat high, was as musical as a chime of bells.
"This is the gentleman, Ginkell?"
"This is the gentleman. A lieutenant of the Fourth Horse."
"Sir," said the other, "be seated," and he pointed with a beautifully white hand to a chair by the table. "I desire some little conversation with you. I am the Earl of Marlborough." And as he mentioned his name he put out that white hand again and offered it to me, I taking it with all imaginable respect. He was at this time the most conspicuous subject of any sovereign in the world; his name was known from one end of Europe to the other. Also it was the most feared, although he had not yet put the crowning point to his glory nor risen to the highest rank for which he was destined. But he was very near his zenith now--his greatness almost at its height--and, I have often thought since, there was something within him at this time which told him it was close at hand. For he had an imperturbable calmness, an unfailing quiet graciousness, as I witnessed afterward on many occasions, which alone could be possessed by one who felt sure of himself. In every word he spoke, in his every action, he proclaimed that he was certain of, and master of, his destiny!
"My Lord Athlone tells me," he continued, when I was seated, the soft voice flowing musically, "that you have the fitting aspirations of a soldier--desire a regiment, and are willing to earn one."
I bowed and muttered that to succeed in my career was my one desire, and that if I could win success I would spare no effort. Then he went on:
"You speak French. That is good. Also Spanish. That, too, is good. Likewise, I hear, can disguise your identity as an Englishman if necessary. That is well, also. Mr. ----" and he took up a piece of paper lying before him, on which I supposed my name was written, "Mr. Crespin, I--we--are going to employ you on secret service. Are you willing to undertake it?"
"I am willing, my Lord, to do anything that may advance my career. Anything that may become a soldier."
"That is as it should be. The light in which to regard matters--anything that may become a soldier. That before all. Well, to be short, we are going to send you to Cadiz."
"To Cadiz, my Lord!" I said, unable to repress some slight feeling of astonishment.
"Yes. To Cadiz, where you will not find another English soldier. Still that will, perhaps, not matter very much, since we do not desire you when there to appear as a soldier yourself. You are granted leave from your regiment indefinitely while on this mission, and, at the first at least, you will be a private gentleman. Also, when at Cadiz, you will please to be anything but an English gentleman."
"Or a Dutch one," put in the other earl with a guttural laugh. "Therefore, assume not the Dutch accent."
Evidently my Lord Marlborough did not know of the joke underlying this remark, since he went on:
"As a Frenchman you will have the best chance. Or, perhaps, as a Swiss merchant. But that we leave to you. What you have to do is to get to Cadiz, and, when there, to pass as some one, neither English nor Dutch, who is engaged in ordinary mercantile pursuits. Then when the fleet comes in----"
"The fleet, my Lord!"
"Yes. The English fleet. I should tell you--I must make myself clear. A large fleet under Admirals Rooke and Hopson, as well as some Dutch admirals, are about to besiege Cadiz. They will shortly sail from Portsmouth, as we have advices, and it is almost a certainty that they will succeed in gaining possession of the island, which is Cadiz. That will be of immense service to us, since, while we are fighting King Louis in the north, the Duke of Ormond, who goes out in that fleet in command of between thirteen and fourteen thousand men, will be able to attack the Duke of Anjou, or, as he now calls himself, King Philip V of Spain, in the south. But that is not all. We are not sending you there to add one more strong right arm to His Grace's forces--we could utilize that here, Mr. Crespin," and he bowed courteously, "but because we wish you to convey a message to him and the admirals."
I, too, bowed again, and expressed by my manner that I was listening most attentively, while the earl continued:
"The message is this: We have received information from a sure source that the galleons now on their way back to Spain from the Indies have altered their plan of arrival because they, in their turn, have been informed in some way, by some spy or traitor, that this expedition will sail from England. Therefore they will not go near Cadiz. But the spot to which they will proceed is Vigo, in the north. Now," and he rose as he spoke, and stood in front of the empty fireplace, "your business will be to convey this intelligence to Sir George Rooke and those under him, and I need not tell you that you are like enough to encounter dangers in so conveying it. Are you prepared to undertake them?"
CHAPTER III.
I FIND A SHIP.
"You see," the Earl of Marlborough continued, while Ginkell and I stood on either side of him, "that neither your risks nor your difficulties will be light. To begin with, you must pass as a Frenchman, or, at least, not an Englishman, for Cadiz, like all Spanish ports and towns, will not permit of any being there. Therefore, your only way to get into it is to be no Englishman. Now, how, Mr. Crespin, would you suggest reaching the place and obtaining entry? It is far away."
I thought a moment on this; then I said:
"But Portugal, my lord, is not closed to us. That country has not yet thrown in its lot with either France or Austria."
"That is true. And the southern frontier of Portugal is very near to Spain--to Cadiz. You mean that?"
"Yes. I could proceed to the frontier of Portugal, could perhaps get by sea to Tavira--then, as a Frenchman, cross into Spain, and so to Cadiz."
He pondered a little on this, then said: "Yes, the idea is feasible. Only, how to go to Tavira?" and he bent over a chart lying on the table, and regarded it fixedly as he spoke. "How to do that?" running his finger down the coast line of Portugal as he spoke, and then up again as far north as the Netherlands, stopping at Rotterdam.
"All traffic is closed," he muttered, "between Spain and Holland now, otherwise there would be countless vessels passing between Rotterdam and Cadiz which would doubtless put you ashore on the Portuguese coast. But now--now--there will scarce be any."
Ginkell had been called away by one of his aides-de-camp as his lordship bent over the chart and mused upon it, or, doubtless, his astute Dutch mind might have suggested some way out of the difficulty that stared us in the face; but even as we pondered over the sheet an idea occurred to me.
"My Lord," I said, "may I suggest this: That I should make my way to Rotterdam to begin with--by some chance there may be a ship going south--through some part of the bay at least. But even if it is not so--if all traffic is stopped--why then I could at least get to England, might arrive there before the fleet sails for Cadiz."
"Nay," his Lordship interrupted; "you would be too late. They may have sailed by now."
"I know not what further to propose, my Lord."
"We must risk it," he said, promptly. "Chance your finding some vessel by which you can proceed, even if only part of the way. The hope is a poor one, yet 'tis worth catching at. King Louis wants the money those galleons are bringing; his coffers are empty; he hardly knows where to turn for the wherewithal to pay his and his grandson's men; we want it, too, if we can get it. Above all, we want to prevent the wealth falling into the hands of Spain, which now means France. Mr. Crespin, on an almost forlorn chance you must start for Rotterdam."
"When shall I go, my Lord? To-night? At once?"
"You are ready?"
"I am ready."
"Good! You have the successful soldier's qualities. Yes, you must go at once--at once."
* * * * * * * * *
That night I was on the road for Rotterdam, which is fifty leagues and more to the northeast of Kaiserswerth, so that I had a fair good ride before me ere I reached what might prove to be the true outset of my journey.
I did not go alone, however, since at this time I rode in the company of my Lord Marlborough, who was returning to the Hague, to which he had come in March as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the States General, as well as Captain General of all Her Majesty's forces, both at home and abroad. Also, his Lordship had been chosen to command the whole of the allied forces combined against the King of France and his grandson, the King of Spain, whom we regarded only as the Duke of Anjou; and he was now making all preparations for that great campaign, which was already opened, and was soon to be pushed on with extreme vigour and with such success that at last the power and might of Louis were quite crushed and broken. This concerns not me, however, at present.
Nor did my long ride in company with his Lordship and a brilliant staff offer any great incident. Suffice it, therefore, if I say that on the evening of the second day from my setting out, and fifty hours after I had quitted Kaiserswerth, I rode into Rotterdam, and, finding a bed for the night at the "Indian Coffee House," put up there.
This I did not do, however, without some difficulty, since, at this time, Rotterdam was full of all kinds of people from almost every part of Europe, excepting always France and Spain, against the natives of which countries very strict laws for their expulsion had been passed since the declaration of war which was made conjointly by the Queen, the Emperor and the States General, against those two countries on the 4th of May of this year, 1702.
But of other peoples the town was, as I say, full. In the river there lay coasting vessels, deep sea vessels, merchant ships, indeed every kind of craft almost that goes out to sea, and belonging to England, to Holland, to Denmark and other lands. Also there were to be seen innumerable French vessels; but these were prizes which had been dragged in after being taken prisoners at sea, and would be disposed of shortly, as well as their goods and merchandise, by the Dyke-Grauf, or high bailiff. And of several of these ships, the captains and the seamen, as well as in many cases the passengers who were belated on their journeys, were all ashore helping to fill up the inns and taverns. Also troops were quartered about everywhere, these being not only the Dutch, or natives, who were preparing to go forward to the Hague and thence to wheresoever my Lord Marlborough should direct, but also many of our own, brought over by our great ships of war to Helvetsluys, and, themselves, on their way to serve under his command.
The room, therefore, which I got at the Indian Coffee House, was none of the best, yet, since I was a soldier, I made shift with it very well, and in other ways the place was convenient enough for my purpose. It may be, indeed, that I could scarce have selected a better house at which to stop, seeing that the "ordinary" below was the one most patronized by the merchant captains who flocked in daily for their dinner, and for the conversation and smoking and drinking which succeeded that meal.
And now, so that I shall arrive as soon as may be at the description of all that befell me, and was the outcome of the mission which the Earl of Marlborough confided to me, let me set down at once that it was not long before I, by great good chance, stumbled on that very opportunity which I desired, and which was so necessary to the accomplishment of what his Lordship wanted.
This is how it happened:
After the ordinary, at which I myself took a seat every day at one o'clock, the drinking and the smoking and the conversation began, as I have said, and none, however strange they might be at first to the customers of the place, could be there long without the making of acquaintances; for all the talk ran on the one subject in which all were interested and absorbed, namely, the now declared war and the fighting which had been done, and was also to do; on the stoppage to trade and ruin to business that must occur, and such like. And I can tell you that many an honest sea captain and many a burly Rotterdam burgher drank down his schnapps or his potato brandy or seidel of brown beer, as his taste might be, while heaving also of sighs, or muttering pious exclamations or terrible curses--also as his taste might direct--at the threatened ruin, and also at the fear which gripped his heart, that soon he would not have the wherewithal left for even these gratifications, humble as they were.
"Curse the war!" said one, to whom I had spoken more than once. He was, indeed, my captain of La Mouche Noire, in whose ship you have already found me; "it means desolation for me and mine if it lasts, hunger and shoelessness for my wife and little ones at home in Shadwell. Above all I curse the ambition of the French king, who has plunged all Europe into it; placed all honest men 'twixt hawk and buzzard, as to fortune. Curse him, I say."
"Ay, gurse him!" chimed in a fat Friesslander captain, who sat at his elbow. "Gurse him, I say, too. I was now choost maging for Chava; should have peen out of the riffer mit meine vreight if his vleet had not gorne along mit that von gursed Chean Part in it, ven I had to put pack. And here I am mit all mein goots----"
"And here am I, mit all mein!" broke in my captain, a-laughing in spite of himself, "yet--yet I know not if I will not make a push for it. I think ever of the home at Shadwell and the little ones. I could not abide to think also of their calling for bread, and of their mother having none to give them. Yet 'twill come to that ere long. And the war may last for years."
"Where were you for?" I asked him, using indeed what had become a set phrase in my mouth since I had consorted with all these sailors. For by enquiring of each one with whom I conversed what his destination had been, or would be if he had courage to risk the high seas outside, I thought that at last I might strike upon one whose way was mine. For all were not afraid to go forth; indeed there was scarcely a dark night in which one or two did not get down the river and sneak out into the open, thinking that, when there, there was a chance of escaping the French ships of war and privateers and of reaching their destination, while by remaining here there was no chance of earning a brass farthing. And I had known of several ships going out since I had been in Rotterdam, only they were of no use to me. One was bound for Archangel, another one for the Indies, a third for our colony of Massachusetts.
"I," said my captain, whose name I knew afterward to be Tandy. "I? Oh, I was freighted for Cadiz. But of course, that can never be now. Yet if I could but get away I might do much with my goods. At Lisbon they would sell well, or even farther south. Though, 'tis true, there's not much money below that till one comes to Spain."
Though I had thought the time must come when I should hear one of these sailors say that Cadiz was, or had been, his road (I knew that if it did not come soon 'twould be no good for me, and I might as well make my way back to my regiment), yet now, when I did so hear it, I almost started with joyful surprise. Yet even in so hearing, what had I gained? The captain had but said that at one time, before the declaration of hostilities, he had been ready to sail for Cadiz. He did not say that at this moment--almost three months later--he was still likely to go. Instead, had said it could never be now.
But--for it meant much to me!--my heart beat a little faster as I asked, leaning across the beer and spirit-slopped table to him:
"Do you ever on your cruises carry passengers?"
He gave me a quick glance. I read it to mean that he would be glad to know what my object could be in such a question, put seriously and in a somewhat low tone, as though not intended for other people's ears. Then he said:
"Oh! ay! I carry 'em, when I can get 'em, if they will pay fairly. But who do you think would trust themselves aboard a coaster now, in such times as these, unless she was under convoy of one of the queen's ships in company with others?"
"I would," I replied, leaning even a little more forward than before, and speaking in a still lower tone. "I would, to get as near to Cadiz as might be. And pay well, too."
He did not speak for a moment; instead, he glanced his eye over me as though scanning my outward gear for proof of what I had said as to paying handsomely. Yet I did not fear this scrutiny, for I was well enough appareled at all points, having when I left Venloo put off my uniform and donned a very fair riding suit of blue cloth, well faced and passemented; also my plain sword and wig were of the best, such as befitted a gentleman.
"Pay well," he said, when he had concluded this inspection, "pay well. Humph! That might induce me, since I am like enough to lose my goods ere I sight Cape Finisterre. Pay well. You mean it? Well, now see! What would you pay? Come. A fancy price? To be put as near Cadiz as can be compassed. And no questions asked," and he winked at me so that I wondered what he took me for. Later on I found that he supposed me to be one of the many spies in the pay of France, who, because they had both the English and French tongue, were continually passing from one part of the continent of Europe to another.
"As to the questions," I replied, "you might ask as many as you desired. They would not be answered. As to the pay, what will you take?"
He thought a moment, and again his eye ranged over my habiliments; then he said, sharply:
"A hundred guineas. Fifty down, on the nail, the rest at the end of the journey. You to take all risks. That is, I mean, even though we get no further than the mouth of the Scheldt--which is like enough. Say, will you give it?"
"'Tis, indeed, a fancy price, yet, on conditions, yes," I answered promptly.
"Those conditions being----"
"That you weigh within twenty-four hours; that if we are chased you run, or even fight, till there is no further hope, and that if we escape capture you approach to the nearest point to Cadiz possible. Tavira to be that point."
He got up and went out of the door into the street, and I saw him looking up into the heavens at the clouds passing beneath the sun. Then he came back and resumed his seat, after which he said:
"If the wind keeps as 'tis now I will weigh ere twenty-four hours are past. The conditions to be as you say. And the fifty guineas to be in my hands ere we up anchor. They," he added, half to himself, "will be something for the home even though I lose my ship."
And this being settled and all arrangements concluded, we went off in his boat, which was lying at the steps of the BoÖmjes, to see the ship. Then, I having selected my cabin out of two which he had unoccupied, returned to the coffee house to write my Lord Marlborough word of what I had done, to dispose of my horse--which I was sorry enough to do, since it was a good, faithful beast that had carried me well; yet there was no use in keeping it, I not knowing if I should ever see Rotterdam again--to make one or two other preparations, and to write to my mother at home.
As to the hundred guineas--great as the demand was, I felt justified in paying it, since, if I succeeded in my task, the result might be splendid for England. Also I had a sufficiency of money with me, the earl having ordered two hundred guineas to be given me out of the regimental chest (which was pretty full, seeing that at Venloo eight great chests of French gold were taken possession of by us on gaining the town), and had also given me bills for three hundred more guineas, signed by his own hand, which the money changers would be only too glad to pay anywhere. And, besides this, I had some money of my own, and should have more from the sale of the horse.
There remains one thing, however, to mention, which I have almost forgot to set down, namely, that at the Indian Coffee House I had given my name accurately, his Lordship, who was perfectly acquainted with France--indeed, he had once served her under Turenne, in his capacity of colonel of the "English Regiment" sent out by King Charles the Second--having said that Crespin was as much a French as an English name. And although no questions had as yet been asked as to what my business was, there being, indeed, none who had any right or title to so ask, I had resolved that, if necessary, I would do this: namely, here in Holland I would be English, since, at the time, and we being allies, it was almost one and the same thing; and that in Spain I would be French, which was also at the period one and the same thing. And if we were to be captured by any of Louis' privateers or ships of war also I should be French, in that case possibly a Canadian, to account for any strangeness in my accent.
And with this all fixed in my mind I made my preparations for going to sea in La Mouche Noire.
CHAPTER IV.
AN ESCAPE.
The wind shifted never a point, so that, ere sunset the next day, we were well down the river and nearing the mouth, while already ahead of us we could see the waves of the North Sea tumbling about. Also, we could see something else, that we could have done very well without, namely, the topmasts of a great frigate lying about three miles off the coast, or rather cruising about and keeping off and on, the vessel being doubtless one of Louis' warships, bent on intercepting anything that came out of the river.
"Yet," said Captain Tandy, as he stood on the poop and regarded her through his perspective glass, "she will not catch us. Let but the night fall, and out we go, while, thanks to the Frenchman who built our little barky, we can keep so well in that she can never come anear us."
"She can come near enough, though, to send a round shot or two into our side," I hazarded, "if she sees our lights."
"She won't see our lights," the captain made answer, and again he indulged in that habit which seemed a common one with him--he winked at me; a steady, solemn kind of a wink, that, properly understood, conveyed a good deal. And, having favoured me with it, he gave orders that the light sail under which we had come down the river should be taken in, and, this done, we lay off the little isle of Rosenberg, which here breaks the Maas in two, until nightfall.
And now it was that Tandy gave me a piece of information which, at first, I received with anything but satisfaction; the information, to wit, that at the last moment almost--at eleven o'clock in the morning, and before I had come on board--he had been fortunate enough to get another passenger, this passenger being the man Carstairs--or Cuddiford, as he came to consider him--whom, at the opening of this narrative, you have seen in a delirium.
"I could not refuse the chance, Mr. Crespin," he said, for he knew my name by now. "Things are too ill with me, owing to this accursed fresh war, for me to throw guineas away. So when his blackamoor accosted me at the 'Indian' and said that he heard I was going a voyage south--God, He knows how these things leak out, since I had never spoke a word of my intention, though some of the men, or the ship's chandler, of whom I bought last night, may have done so--and would I take his master and him? I was impelled to do it! There are the wife and the children at home."
"And have you got another hundred guineas from him?" I asked.
"Ay, for him and the black. But they will not trouble you. The old gentleman--who seems to be something like a minister--tells me he is not well, and will not quit his cabin. The negro will berth near him; they will not interfere with you."
"Do they know there is another passenger aboard?"
"I have not spoken to the old man; maybe, however, some of the sailors may have told the servant. Yet none know your name; but I--it can be kept secret an you wish." And again he winked at me, thinking, of course, as he had done before, that my business was of a ticklish nature, as indeed it was, though not quite that which he supposed. Nay, he felt very sure it must be so, since otherwise he would have got no hundred guineas out of me for such a passage.
"I do not wish it known," I said. "It must be kept secret. Also my country. There must be no talking."
"Never fear," he replied. "I know nothing. And I do not converse with the men, most of whom are Hollanders, since I had to pick them up in a hurry. As for the old man, you need not see him; and, if you do, you can keep your own counsel, I take it."
I answered that I could very well do that; after which the captain left me--for now the night had come upon us, dark and dense, except for the stars, and we were about to run out into the open. But even as I watched the men making sail, and felt the little ship running through the water beneath me--I could soon hear her fore foot gliding through it with a sharp ripple that resembled the slitting of silk--I wished that those other passengers had not come aboard, that I could have made the cruise alone.
Yet we were aboard, he and I, and there was no help for it; it must be endured. But still I could not help wondering what any old minister should want to be making such a journey as this for; especially wondered, also, why he should be attended by a black servant; and why, again, it should be worth his while to pay a hundred guineas for the passage.
But you know now as well as I do that this man was no minister, but rather, if Tandy's surmises were right, some villainous old filibuster who had lived through evil days and known evil spirits; my meditations are, therefore, of no great import. Rather let me get on to what was the outcome of my journey.
When we were at sea we showed no light at all; no! not at foremast, main or mizzen; so that I very well understood now why the captain had winked as he said that the Frenchman, if she was that, would not see us; and especially I understood it when, on going below, I found that the cabin windows were fastened with dead lights so that no ray could steal out from them. Also, the hatches were over the companions so that neither could any light ascend from below. In truth, as we slapped along under the stiff northeast breeze that blew off the Holland coast, we seemed more like some dark flying spectre of the night than a ship, and I could not but wonder to myself what we should be taken for if seen by any passer-by. Yet, had I only known, there were at that time hundreds of ships passing about in all these waters in the same manner--French ships avoiding the English war vessels, and English and Dutch avoiding the French war vessels; and--which, perhaps, it was full as well I did not know--sometimes two of them came into contact with each other, after which neither was ever more heard of. Only, in different ports there were weeping women and children left, who--sometimes for years!--prayed for the day to come when the wanderers might return, they never knowing that, instead of those poor toilers of the sea having been made prisoners (as they hoped) who would at last be exchanged, they were lying at the bottom of the sea.
"'Tis a gay minister, at any rate," I said to Captain Tandy when I returned to the deck--for all was so stuffy down below, owing to the closing up of every ingress for the fresh air, that I could not remain there--"and he at least seems not to mind the heat."
"What is he doing, then?" the captain asked.
"He is singing a little," I replied, "and through the half open door of his cabin one may hear the clinking of bottle against glass. A merry heart."
"The fiend seize his mirth! I hope he will not make too much turmoil, nor set the ship afire. If he does we shall be seen easy enough."
I hoped so, too, and as each night the old man waxed more noisy and the clink of the bottle was heard continuously--until at last his drinking culminated as I have written--the fear which the captain had expressed took great hold of me, so that I could scarce sleep at all. Yet those fears were not realized, the Lord be praised! or I should scarcely be penning this narrative now.
The first night passed and, as 'twas summer, the dawn soon came, by which time we were running a little more out to sea, though--since to our regret we saw that the frigate was on our beam instead of being left far behind, as we had hoped would be the case--we now sailed under false colours. Therefore at our peak there flew at this time the lilies of France, and not our own English flag. Yet 'twas necessary--imperative, indeed--that such should be the case if we would escape capture. And even those despised lilies might not save us from that. If the frigate, which we knew by this time to be a ship of war, since her sides were pierced three tiers deep for cannon, and on her deck we could observe soldiers, suspected for a moment those colours to be false she would slap a shot at us; the first, perhaps, across our bows only, but the second into our waist, or, if that missed, then the third, which would doubtless do our office for us.
At present, however, she did nothing, only held on steadily on her course, which nevertheless was ominous enough, for this action told plainly that she had seen us leave the river, or she would have remained luffing about there still. And, also, she must have known we were not French, for what French ship would have been allowed to come out of the Maas as we had come?
She did nothing, I have said; yet was not that sleuth-like following of hers something? Did it not expound the thoughts of her captain as plainly as though he had uttered them in so many words? Did it not tell that he was in doubt as to who and what we were; that he set off against the suspicious fact of our having quitted the river, which bristled with the enemies of France, the other facts, namely, that our ship was built French fashion, that maybe he could read her French name on her stern, and that she flew the French flag?
Yet what puzzled us more than aught else was, how had the frigate known that we had so got out? The night had been dark and black, and we showed no lights.
Still she knew it.
The day drew on and, with it, the sea abated a little, so that the tumbling waves, which had often obscured the frigate from us for some time, and, doubtless, us from it, became smoother, and Tandy, who had never taken his eye off the great ship, turned round and gave now an order to the men to hoist more sail. Also another to the man at the wheel to run in a point.
Then he came to where I was standing, and said:
"She draws a little nearer; I fear they will bring us to. Ha! as I thought." And even as he spoke there came a puff from the frigate's side; a moment later the report of a gun; another minute, and, hopping along the waves went a big round shot, some fifty yards ahead of us.
"What will you do?" I asked the captain. "The next will not be so far ahead."
"Run for it," he said. "They may not hit us--short of a broadside--and if I can get in another mile or so they cannot follow. Starboard, you below," he called out again to the man at the wheel, and once more bellowed his orders to the men aloft.
This brought the ship's head straight for where the land was--we could see it plain enough with the naked eye, lying flat and low, ten miles away--also it brought our stern to the frigate, so that we presented nothing but that to them--a breadth of no more than between twenty and twenty-five feet.
"'Twill take good shooting to hit us this way," said Tandy very coolly. "Yet, see, they mean to attempt it."
That this was so, one could perceive in a moment; then came three puffs, one after the other, from their upper tier; then the three reports; then the balls hurtling along on either side of us, one just grazing our larboard yard-arm--we saw the splinters fly like feathers!--the others close enough, but doing no harm.
"Shoot, and be damned to you," muttered Tandy; "another ten minutes more, and you can come no further. Look," and he pointed ahead of us to where I saw, a mile off, the water crisping and foaming over a shoal bank, "'tis eight miles outside Blankenberg, and is called 'The Devil's Bolster.' And we can get inside it, and they cannot." Then again he bellowed fresh orders, which even I, a landsman, understood well enough, or, at least, their purport. They were to enable us to get round and inside the reef, and so place it between us and the frigate.
They saw our move as soon as it was made, however, whereupon the firing from their gun-ports grew hotter, the balls rattling about us now in a manner that made me fear the ship must be struck ere long; nay, she was struck once, a round shot catching her on her starboard quarter and tearing off her sheathing in a long strip. Yet, at present, that was all the harm she had got, excepting that her mizzen shroud was cut in half.
But now we were ahead of the reef and about half a mile off it; ten minutes later we were inside it, and, the frigate being able to advance no nearer because of her great draught, we were safe. They might shoot, as the captain said, and be damned to them; but shoot as much as they chose, they were not very like to hit us, since we were out of range. We were well in sight of each other, however, the reef lying like a low barricade betwixt us, and I could not but laugh at the contempt which the sturdy Dutch sailors we had on board testified for the discomfited Frenchmen. There were three of them at work on the fo'castle head at the time the frigate left off her firing, and no sooner did she do so and begin to back her sails to leave us in peace--though doubtless she meant lying off in wait for us when we should creep out--than these great Hollanders formed themselves into a sort of dance figure, and commenced capering and skipping about, with derisive gestures made at the great ship. And as we could see them regarding us through their glasses, by using our own, we knew very well that they saw these gestures of contempt. Tandy, however, soon put a stop to these, for, said he, "They may lie out there a week waiting for us, and if then they catch us, they will not forget. And 'twill go all the harder with us for our scorn. Peace, fools, desist." Whereon the men left off their gibes.
"Lie out there a week," thinks I to myself. "Fore Gad! I trust that may not be so. For if they do, and one delay follows another, heaven knows when I shall see Cadiz. Too late, anyway, to send the fleet after the galleons, who will, I fear, be in and unloaded long before the admiral can get up to Vigo."
Yet, as luck would have it, the frigate was not to lie there very long--not even so long as an hour. For, see, now, how Providence did intervene to help me on my way, and to remove at least that one obstacle to my going forward on my journey.
Scarce had those lusty Dutch sailors been ordered off the head by Tandy than, as I was turning away from laughing at them, my attention was called back by a shout from the same quarter, and on looking round, I saw two of them spring up the ladder again to the very spot they had left, and begin pointing eagerly away beyond the frigate. And following their glances and pointing, this is what I saw:
Two other great ships looming large on the seascape, rising rapidly above the water, carrying all their canvas, coming on at a mighty rate. Two great ships sailing very free but near together, which in a few moments spread apart, so that they put me in mind of some huge bird opening of its wings--I know not why, yet so it was!--and then came on at some distance from each other, their vast black hulls rising every moment, and soon the foam becoming visible beneath their bows as their fore feet flung it asunder.
"Down with that rag," shouted Tandy, squinting up at the lilies on our peak, and hardly shifting his perspective glass to do so. "Down with it, and up with our own. My word! The Frenchman will get a full meal now. Look at their royal masts and the flag of England flying on them."
I did look, and, after a hasty glance, at something else--the French frigate, our late pursuer!
Be very sure that she had seen those two avengers coming up in that fair breeze--also that she was making frantic efforts to escape. But her sails were all laid aback as I have said, also, she was off the wind. The glasses showed the confusion that prevailed on board her. And she had drifted so near the shoal that her danger was great. Unless she boldly ran out to meet those two queen's ships she would be on it ere long, and that was what she dared not do.
For now from the others we saw the puff of smoke, like white balls of wool, come forth; we saw the spits of flame; saw the Frenchman's mainmast go down five minutes later, and hang over the side nearest us like some wounded creature all entangled in a net. And still she neared the shoal, and still the white balls puffed out till they made a long fleecy line, through which the red flames darted; borne on the air we heard shouts and curses; amidst the roaring of the English cannon firing on the helpless, stricken thing, we heard another sound, a grinding, crashing sound, and we knew she was on the bank. Then saw above, at her mizzen, the French flag pulled down upon the cap, and heard through their trumpets their loud calls for assistance from the conquerors.
"Humph! Humph!" said Tandy. "Old Lewis," for so he spoke of him, "has got one ship the less--that's all. Loose the foresheet, there, my lads; stand by the mainsail halyards. Good. That's it; all together!"
And away once more we went.
CHAPTER V.
THE ENGLISH SHIPS OF WAR.
After that we met with no further trouble or interference, not even, so far as we knew, being passed by anything of more importance than a few small carrying craft similar to ourselves, who bore away from us on sighting with as much rapidity as we were prepared to bear away from them, since in those days, and for long after, no ship passing another at sea but dreaded it as though it was the Evil One himself; dreaded that the cabin windows, with their clean dimity cloths run across them, might be, in truth, nothing but masked gun ports with the nozzles of the cannon close up against the other side of those running curtains; dreaded, also, that, behind the bales of goods piled up in the waist, might be lurking scores of men, armed to the teeth, and ready for boarding!
Also, as though to favour us--or me, who needed to get to the end of my journey as soon as might be--the wind blew fresh and strong abaft us from the north, so that by the evening of the fifth day from leaving Rotterdam we were drawing well to our journey's end, and were, in fact, rounding Cape St. Vincent, keeping in so near the coast that we could not only see the cruel rocks that jut out here like the teeth of some sea monster, but also the old monks sitting sunning themselves in front of their monastery above the cliffs.
And now it was at that time, and when we were getting very near to Tavira--which must be our journey's end, unless the English fleet, of which Lord Marlborough had spoken, was already into Cadiz, and masters of the place--that the old man who called himself Carstairs was taken with his delirium, of which I have written already.
But, as also I have told, he was better the next day, by noon of which we were well into the Bay of Lagos, and running for Cape Santa Maria; and 'twas then that he told me that story of his having much business to attend to at Cadiz, and that, the galleons being now due there, he was on his way to meet them.
That I laughed in my sleeve at the fool's errand on which this old man had come--this old man, who had been a thieving buccaneer, if his wanderings and Tandy's suspicions were true--you may well believe. Also, I could not help but fall a-wondering how he would feel if, on nearing Tavira, we learnt that our countrymen were masters of Cadiz. For then he would do no business with his precious galleons, even should my Lord Marlborough be wrong--which, however, from the sure way in which he had spoken, I did not think was very like to be the case--and even if they had made for Cadiz, since they would at once be seized upon.
It was, however, of extreme misfortune that just at this time when all was so well for my chances, and when we were nearing our destination, the weather should have seen fit to undergo a sudden change, and that not only did the wind shift, but all the summer clearness of the back end of this fair August month should have departed. Indeed, so strange a change came over the elements that we knew not what to make of it. Up to now the heat had been great, so great, indeed, that I--who could neither endure the stuffiness of my cabin below nor the continual going and coming of the negro in the gangway which separated his master's cabin from mine, nor the stench of some drugs the old man was continually taking--had been sleeping on the deck. But now the tempest became so violent that I was forced to retreat back to the cabin, to bear the closeness as best I might, to hear the flappings of the black creature's great feet on the wooden floor at all hours of the night, and, sometimes again, the yowlings of the old man for drink.
For with the shifting of the wind to the east, or rather east by south, a terrible storm had come upon us; across the sea it howled and tore, buffeting our ship sorely and causing such destruction that it seemed like enough each moment that we should go to the bottom, and this in spite of every precaution being taken, even to striking our topmasts. Also we lay over so much to our starboard, and for so long, that again and again it seemed as though we should never right, while as we thus lay, the sea poured into us from port and scuttle. But what was worse for me--or would be worse if we lived through the tempest we were now in the midst of--we were being blown not only off our course, but back again the very way we had come, and out into the western ocean, so that to all else there had to be added the waste of most precious time. Time that, in my case, was golden!
