Chapter 1 The Eloping Hidalga — The Fortunes of Captain Blood by Rafael Sabatini
Word was brought to Tortuga by a half-caste Indian, who had shipped as one of the hands on a French brig, of the affair in which the unfortunate James Sherarton lost his life. It was a nasty story with which we are only indirectly concerned here, so that it need be no more than briefly stated. Sherarton and the party of English pearl-fishers he directed were at work off one of the Espada Keys near the Gulf of Maracaybo. They had already garnered a considerable harvest, when a Spanish frigate came upon them, and, not content with seizing their sloop and their pearls, ruthlessly put them to the sword. And there were twelve of them, honest, decent men who were breaking no laws from any but the Spanish point of view, which would admit no right of any other nation in the waters of the New World.
Captain Blood was present in the Tavern of the King of France at Cayona when the half-caste told in nauseous detail the story of that massacre.
'Spain shall pay,' he said. And his sense of justice being poetic, he added: 'And she shall pay in pearls.'
Beyond that he gave no hint of the intention which had leapt instantly to his mind. The inspiration was as natural as it was sudden. The very mention of pearl-fisheries had been enough to call to his mind the Rio de la Hacha, that most productive of all the pearl-fisheries in the Caribbean from which such treasures were brought to the surface, to the profit of King Philip.
It was not the first time that the notion of raiding that source of Spanish wealth had occurred to him; but the difficulties and dangers with which the enterprise was fraught had led him hitherto to postpone it in favour of some easier immediate task. Never, however, had those difficulties and dangers been heavier than at this moment, when it almost seemed that the task was imposed upon him by a righteously indignant Nemesis. He was not blind to this. He knew how fiercely vigilant was the Spanish Admiral of the Ocean-Sea, the Marquis of Riconete, who was cruising with a powerful squadron off the Main. So rudely had Captain Blood handled him in that affair at San Domingo that the Admiral dared not show himself again in Spain until he had wiped out the disgrace of it. The depths of his vindictiveness might be gauged from the announcement, which he had published far and wide, that he would pay the enormous sum of fifty thousand pieces of eight for the person of Captain Blood, dead or alive, or for information that should result in his capture.
If, then, a raid on Rio de la Hacha were to succeed, it was of the first importance that it should be carried out smoothly and swiftly. The buccaneers must be away with their plunder before the Admiral could even suspect their presence off the coast. With a view to making sure of this, Captain Blood took the resolve of first reconnoitring the ground in person, and rendering himself familiar with its every detail, so that there should be no fumbling when the raid took place.
Moulting his normal courtly plumage, discarding gold lace and Mechlin, he dissembled his long person in brown homespun, woollen stockings, plain linen bands, and a hat without adornment. He discarded his periwig, and replaced it by a kerchief of black silk that swathed his cropped head like a skullcap.
In this guise, leaving at Tortuga his fleet, which consisted in those days of four ships manned by close upon a thousand buccaneers, he sailed alone for Curaçao in a trading-vessel and there transferred himself to a broad-beamed Dutchman, the Loewen, that made regular voyages to and fro between that island and Carthagena. He represented himself as a trader in hides and the like, and assumed the name of Tormillo and a mixed Dutch and Spanish origin.
It was on a Monday that he landed from the Dutchman at Rio de la Hacha. The Loewen would be back from Carthagena on the following Friday, and even if no other business should bring her to Rio de la Hacha, she would call there again so as to pick up Señor Tormillo, who would be returning in her to Curaçao. He had contrived, largely at the cost of drinking too much bumbo, to establish the friendliest relations with the Dutch skipper, so as to ensure the faithful observance of this arrangement.
Having been put ashore by the Dutchman's cockboat, he took lodgings at the Escudo de Leon, a decent inn in the upper part of the town, and gave out that he was in Rio de la Hacha to purchase hides. Soon the traders flocked to him, and he won their esteem by the quantity of hides he agreed to purchase, and their amused contempt by the liberal prices he agreed to pay. In the pursuit of his business he went freely and widely about the place, and in the intervals between purchases he contrived to observe what was to be observed and to collect the information that he required.
So well did he employ his time that by the evening of Thursday he had fully accomplished all that he came to do. He was acquainted with the exact armament and condition of the fort that guarded the harbour, with the extent and quality of the military establishment, with the situation and defences of the royal treasury, where the harvest of pearls was stored; he had even contrived to inspect the fishery where the pearling-boats were at work under the protection of a ten-gun guarda-costa; and he had ascertained that the Marquis of Riconete, having flung out swift scouting-vessels, had taken up his headquarters at Carthagena, a hundred and fifty miles away to the south-west. Not only this, but he had fully evolved in his mind the plan by which the Spanish scouts were to be eluded and the place surprised, so that it might quickly be cleaned up before the Admiral's squadron could supervene to hinder.
Content, he came back to the Escudo de Leon on that Thursday evening for his last night in his lodgings there. In the morning the Dutchman should be back to take him off again, his mission smoothly accomplished. And then that happened which altered everything and was destined to change the lives and fortunes of persons of whose existence at that hour he was not even aware.
The landlord met him with the news that a Spanish gentleman, Don Francisco de Villamarga, had just been seeking him at the inn, and would return again in an hour's time. The mention of that name seemed suddenly to diminish the stifling heat of the evening for him. But, at least, he kept his breath and his countenance.
'Don Francisco de Villamarga?' he slowly repeated, giving himself time to think. Was it possible that there were in the New World two Spaniards of that same distinguished name? 'I seem to remember that a Don Francisco de Villamarga was deputy-governor of Maracaybo.'
'It is the same, sir,' the landlord answered him. 'Don Francisco was governor there, or, at least Alcalde, until about a year ago.'
'And he asked for me?'
'For you, Señor Tormillo. He came back from the interior today, he says, with a parcel of green hides which he desires to offer you.'
'Oh!' It was almost a gasp of relief. The Captain breathed more freely, but not yet freely enough. 'Don Francisco with hides to sell? Don Francisco de Villamarga a trader?'
The fat little vintner spread his hands. 'What would you, sir? This is the New World. Here such things can happen to a hidalgo when he is not fortunate. And Don Francisco, poor gentleman, has had sad misfortune, through no fault of his own. The province of his governorship was raided by Captain Blood, that accursed pirate, and Don Francisco fell into disgrace. What would you? It is the way of these things. There is no mercy for a governor who cannot protect a place entrusted to him.'
'I see.' Captain Blood took off his broad hat, and mopped his brow that was beaded with sweat below the line of the black scarf.
So far all was well, thanks to the fortunate chance of his absence when Don Francisco had called. But the danger of recognition which so far had been safely run was now only just round the corner. And there were few men in New Spain by whom Captain Blood would be more reluctant to be recognized than by this sometime deputy-governor of Maracaybo, this proud Spanish gentleman who had been constrained, for the reasons given by the inn-keeper, to soil his hands in trade. The impending encounter was likely to be as sweet for Don Francisco as it would certainly be bitter for Captain Blood. Even in prosperity Don Francisco would not have been likely to spare him. In adversity the prospect of earning fifty thousand pieces of eight would serve to sharpen the vindictiveness of this official who had fallen upon evil days.
Shuddering at the narrowness of the escape, thankful for that timeliest of warnings, Captain Blood perceived that there was only one thing to be done. Impossible now to await the coming of the Dutchman in the morning. In some sort of vessel, alone if need be in an open boat, he must get out of Rio de la Hacha at once. But he must not appear either startled or in flight.
He frowned annoyance. 'What misfortune that I should have been absent when Don Francisco called! It is intolerable to put a gentleman born to the trouble of seeking me again. I will wait upon him at once, if you will tell me where he is lodged.'
'Oh, certainly. You will find his house in the Calle San Bias; that is the first turning on your right; anyone there will show you where Don Francisco lives.'
The Captain waited for no more. 'I go at once,' he said, and stepped out.
But either he forgot or he mistook the landlord's directions, for instead of turning to his right, he turned to his left and took his way briskly down a street, at this hour of supper almost deserted, that led towards the harbour.
He was passing an alley, within fifty yards of the mole, when from the depths of it came ominous sounds of strife; the clash of steel on steel, a woman's cry, a man's harsh, vituperative interjections.
The concern supplied him by his own situation might well have reminded him that these murderous sounds were no affair of his, and that he had enough already on his hands to get out of Rio de la Hacha with his life. But the actual message of the vituperative exclamation overheard arrested his flight.
'Perro inglés! Dog of an Englishman!'
Thus Blood learnt that in that dark alley it was a compatriot who was being murdered. It was enough. In foreign lands, to any man who is not dead to feeling, a compatriot is a brother. He plunged at once into the gloom of that narrow way, his hand groping for the pistol inside the breast of his coat.
As he ran, however, it occurred to him that here was noise enough already. The last thing he desired was to attract spectators by increasing it. So he left the pistol in his pocket and whipped out his rapier instead.
By the little light that lingered, he could make out the group as he advanced upon it. Three men were assailing a fourth, who, with his back to a closed door, and his left arm swathed in his coat so as to make a buckler, offered a defence that was as desperate as it must ultimately prove futile. That he could have stood so long even against such odds was evidence of an unusual toughness.
At a little distance beyond that brawling quartet, the slight figure of a woman, cloaked and hooded by a light mantle of black silk, leaned in helplessness against the wall.
Blood's intervention was stealthy, swift, and practical. He announced his arrival by sending his sword through the back of the nearest of the three assailants.
'That will adjust the odds,' he explained, and cleared his blade just in time to engage a gentleman who whirled to face him, spitting blasphemies with that fluency in which the Castilian's only rival is the Catalan.
Blood broke ground nimbly, enveloped the vicious thrust in a counter-parry, and, in the movement, drove his steel through the blasphemer's sword-arm.
Out of action, the man reeled back, gripping the arm from which the blood was spurting, and cursing more fluently than ever, whilst the only remaining Spaniard, perceiving the sudden change in the odds, from three to one on his side to two to one against it, and not relishing this at all, gave way before Blood's charge. In the next moment he and his wounded comrade were in flight, leaving their friend to lie where he had fallen.
At Blood's side the man he had rescued, breathing in gasps, almost collapsed against him.
'Damned assassins!' he panted. 'Another minute would ha' seen the end of me.'
Then the woman who had darted forward surged at his other side.
'Vamos, Jorgito! Vamos!' she cried in fearful urgency. Then shifted from Spanish to fairly fluent English. 'Quick, my love! Let us get to the boat. We are almost there. Oh, come!'
This mention of a boat was an intimation to Blood that his good action was not likely to go unrewarded. It gave him every ground for hoping that in helping a stranger he had helped himself; for a boat was, of all things, what he most needed at the moment.
His hands played briskly over the man he was supporting, and came away wet from his left shoulder. He made no more ado. He hitched the fellow's right arm round his neck, gripped him about the waist to support him, and bade the girl lead on.
Whatever her panic on the score of her man's hurt, the promptitude of her obedience to the immediate need of getting him away was in itself an evidence of her courage and practical wit. One or two windows in the alley had been thrust open, and from odd doorways white faces dimly seen in the gloom were peering out to discover the cause of the hubbub. These witnesses, though silent, and perhaps timid, stressed the need for haste.
'Come,' she said. 'This way. Follow me.'
Half supporting, half carrying the wounded man, Blood kept pace with her speed, and so came out of the alley and gained the mole. Across this, disregarding the stare of odd wayfarers who paused and turned as they went by, she led him to a spot where a long-boat waited.
Two men rose out of it: Indians, or half-castes, their bodies naked from shoulder to waist. One of them sprang instantly ashore, then checked, peering in the dusk at the man Captain Blood was supporting.
'Que tal el patron?' he asked gruffly
'He has been hurt. Help him down carefully. Oh, make haste! Make haste!'
She remained on the quay, casting fearful glances over her shoulder whilst Blood and the Indians were bestowing the wounded man in the sternsheets. Then Blood, standing in the boat, proffered her his hand.
'Aboard, ma'am.' He was peremptory, and so as to save time and argument he added: 'I am coming with you.'
'But you can't. We sail at once. The boat will not return. We dare not linger, sir.'
'Faith, no more dare I. It is very well. I've said I am coming with you. Aboard, ma'am!' and without more ado, he almost pulled her into the boat, ordering the men to give way.