"Avast that!" cried Morgan, thinking quickly. "Gentlemen, we"ll club-haul the ship."
"The water"s too deep, my captain, to give holding ground to the anchor," urged Raveneau shrugging his shoulders.
"It shoals yonder, I think," answered Morgan. "We"ll hold on until the last minute and then try."
""Tis wasted labor," growled Velsers.
"And certain death to hold on," added the Frenchman.
"Have you anything else to propose, sirs?" asked Morgan sharply. "We can"t tack ship against this wind and sea. There"s no room to wear.
What"s to do?"
The men made no answer.
"Forward there!" cried the old buccaneer, and it was astonishing the force and power with which he made himself heard in spite of the roar of the wind and the smash of the sea. "Get the lee anchor off the bows there! L"Ollonois?"
"Ay, ay."
"Run a hawser from the anchor in aft here on the quarter. We"ll club-haul the ship. See the cable clear for running."
"Very good, sir," cried the Frenchman, summoning the hardiest hands and the most skilful to carry out his commander"s orders.
"Ready it is, sir," answered Hornigold, tightening his grasp on the spokes and nodding his head to his superior.
"To the braces, lads! Obey orders sharply. It"s our last chance."
The water was roaring and smashing against the sh.o.r.e not a cable"s length away. Usually in those lat.i.tudes it deepened tremendously a short distance from the low water mark, and there was a grave question whether or not the anchor, with the scope they could give it, would reach bottom. At any rate it must be tried, and tried now. Morgan had held on as long as he dared. Another minute and they would strike.
"Down helm!" he shouted. "Flow the head sheets! Round in on the fore braces, there! Show that canvas aft!"
The lateen sail on the crossjack yard had been furled, and Morgan, to force her head around, directed the after guard to spring into the mizzen-rigging with a bit of tarpaulin and by exposing it and their bodies to the wind to act as a sail in a.s.sisting her to head away from the sh.o.r.e.
"Helm-a-lee! Hard-a-lee!" cried Hornigold, who with his men was grasping the spokes like a giant.
Slowly the old galleon swung up into the wind, the waves beating upon her bows with a noise like crashes of thunder. A moment she hung. She could go no farther.
"She"s in irons! Swing that yard!" roared Morgan. "Cut and veer away forward!"
There was a splash as the anchor dropped overboard.
"Hands on that hawser!" he shouted. "Everybody walk away with it!"
The whole crew apparently piled on to the anchor hawser in the hope of pulling the ship"s stern around so that the wind would take her on the other bow. She was still hanging in the wind and driving straight on sh.o.r.e.
"Haul away, for G.o.d"s sake!" cried Morgan; but the hawser came in board through their hands with a readiness and ease that showed the anchor had not taken the ground. The drag of the cable to the anchor, however, and the still unspent impetus of the first swing, turned the galleon"s stern slightly to windward. Her head began slowly to fall off.
"She stays! She makes it!" cried the captain. "Meet her with the helm!
Let go and haul! Cut away the hawser!"
It had been a tremendous feat of seamanship and bade fair to be successful. It was yet touch and go, however, and the breakers were perilously near. They were writhing around her forefoot now, yet the wind was at last coming in over the other bow.
"We"re safe!" cried Morgan. "Flatten in forward! Haul aft the sheets and braces!"
At that instant there was a terrific crash heard above the roar of the tempest. The foretopmast of the _Almirante Recalde_ carried sharply off at the hounds. Relieved of the pressure, she shot up into the wind once more and drove straight into the seething seas. They were lost with their treasure, their hopes, and their crimes! At the mercy of wind and wave!
The men were as quick to see the danger as was Morgan. They came rushing aft baring their weapons, pouring curses and imprecations upon him. He stood with folded arms, a scornful smile on his old face, looking upon them, Carib watching and ready by his side. In another second, with a concussion which threw them all to the deck, the doomed ship struck heavily upon the sands.
BOOK III
WHICH TREATS OF THE TANGLED LOVE AFFAIRS OF THE PEARL OF CARACAS
CHAPTER IX
DISCLOSES THE HOPELESS Pa.s.sION BETWEEN DONNA MERCEDES DE LARA AND CAPTAIN DOMINIQUE ALVARADO, THE COMMANDANTE OF LA GUAYRA
Captain Dominique Alvarado stood alone on the plaza of the ancient castle which for over a century had been the home of the governors of La Guayra. He was gazing listlessly down over the parapet which bordered the bare sheer precipice towering above the seaport town. There was nothing in his eyes, but a great deal in his heavy heart.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
Captain Alvarado, who filled the honorable station of commandante of the port, was a soldier of proven courage. The _protege_ and favorite officer of his serene highness the Count Alvaro de Lara, Grandee of Spain and Viceroy of Venezuela, he had been honored with great responsibilities, which he had discharged to the satisfaction of his master. From a military point of view the office of Governor of La Guayra, which he then filled, was of sufficient importance to ent.i.tle him to high position and much consideration in the vice-regal court of Caracas.
Of unknown parentage, Alvarado had been received into the family of the viceroy when an infant. He had been carefully reared, almost as he had been de Lara"s son, and had been given abundant opportunity to distinguish himself. In the course of his short life he had managed to ama.s.s a modest fortune by honorable means. He was young and handsome; he had been instructed, for the viceroy had early shown partiality for him, in the best schools in the New World. His education had been ripened and polished by a sojourn of several years in Europe, not only at the court of Madrid but also at that of Versailles, where the Count de Lara had been sent as amba.s.sador to the Grand Monarch during a period in which, for the sake of supervising the education of his only daughter, he had temporarily absented himself from his beloved Venezuela. That an unknown man should have been given such opportunities, should have been treated with so much consideration, was sufficient commentary on the unprecedented kindness of heart of the old Hidalgo who represented the failing power of His Most Catholic Majesty of Spain, Carlos II., the Bewitched, in the new world. Whatever his origin, therefore, he had been brought up as a Spanish soldier and gentleman, and the old count was openly proud of him.
With a.s.sured station, ample means, increasing reputation; with youth, health, and personal good looks, the young Governor should have been a happy man. But it was easy to see from the heavy frown upon his sunny face--for he was that rare thing in Spain, a blue-eyed blond who at first sight might have been mistaken for an Englishman--that his soul was filled with melancholy. And well it might be, for Alvarado was the victim of a hopeless pa.s.sion for Mercedes de Lara, the Viceroy"s daughter, known from one end of the Caribbean to the other, from her beauty and her father"s station, as the Pearl of Caracas.
Nor was his present sadness due to unrequited pa.s.sion, for he was confident that the adoration of his heart was met with an adequate response from its object. Indeed, it was no secret to him that Mercedes loved him with a devotion which matched his own. It was not that; but her father had announced his intention to betroth the girl to Don Felipe de Tobar y Bobadilla, a young gentleman of ancient lineage and vast wealth, who had been born in America and was the reputed head in the Western Hemisphere of the famous family whose name he bore.
The consent of Donna Mercedes to the betrothal had not been asked. That was a detail which was not considered necessary by parents in the year of grace 1685, and especially by Spanish parents. That she should object to the engagement, or refuse to carry out her father"s plan never crossed the Viceroy"s imagination. That she might love another, was an idea to which he never gave a thought. It was the business of a well-brought-up Spanish maiden to be a pa.s.sive instrument in the carrying out of her father"s views, especially in things matrimonial, in which, indeed, love found little room for entrance. But Donna Mercedes loved Captain Alvarado and she cared nothing for Don Felipe. Not that Don Felipe was disagreeable to her, or to any one. He was a Spanish gentleman in every sense of the word, handsome, distinguished, proud, and gallant--but she did not, could not, love him. To complicate matters still further de Tobar was Captain Alvarado"s cherished companion and most intimate friend.
The progress of the love affair between Alvarado and Donna Mercedes had been subjective rather than objective. They had enjoyed some unusual opportunities for meeting on account of the station the former filled in the Viceroy"s household and the place he held in his heart, yet the opportunities for extended freedom of intercourse between young men and women of the gentler cla.s.s in those days, and especially among Spaniards of high rank, were extremely limited. The old count took care to see that his daughter was carefully watched and shielded; not because he suspected her of anything, for he did not, but because it was a habit of his people and his ancestry. The busy life that he led, the many employments which were thrust upon him, his military duties, had kept the days of the young soldier very full, and under the most favorable circ.u.mstances he would have had little time for love making. Fortunately much time is not required to develop a love affair, especially in New Spain and near to the equator.
But though they had enjoyed brief opportunity for personal intercourse, the very impossibilities of free communication, the difficulties of meeting, had but added fuel and fire to their affection. Love had flamed into these two hearts with all the intensity of their tropic blood and tropic land. Alvarado"s pa.s.sion could feed for days and grow large upon the remembrance of the fragrance of her hand when he kissed it last in formal salutation. Mercedes" soul could enfold itself in the recollection of the too ardent pressure of his lips, the burning yet respectful glance he had shot at her, by others unperceived, when he said farewell. The memory of each sigh the tropic breeze had wafted to her ears as he walked in attendance upon her at some formal function of the court was as much to her as the flower which she had artfully dropped at his feet and which had withered over his heart ever since, was to him.
The difficulties in the way of the exchange of those sweet nothings that lovers love to dwell upon and the impossibility of any hoped for end to their love making intensified their pa.s.sion. Little or nothing had been spoken between them, but each knew the other loved. For the first moment the knowledge of that glorious fact had sufficed them--but afterwards they wanted more. Having tasted, they would fain quaff deeply. But they could see no way by which to manage the realization of their dreams.
The situation was complicated in every possible way for Alvarado. Had he been a man of family like his friend, de Tobar, he would have gone boldly to the Viceroy and asked for the hand of his daughter, in which case he thought he would have met with no refusal; but, being ignorant of his birth, having not even a legal right to the name he bore, he knew that the proud old Hidalgo would rather see his daughter dead than wedded to him. Of all the ancient splendors of the Spanish people there was left them but one thing of which they could be proud--their ancient name. De Lara, who belonged to one of the n.o.blest and most distinguished families of the Iberian Peninsula, would never consent to degrade his line by allying his only daughter to a n.o.body, however worthy in other respects the suitor might prove to be.
Again, had Mercedes" father been any other than the life-long patron and friend to whom he literally owed everything that he possessed, such was the impetuosity of Alvarado"s disposition that, at every hazard, he would have taken the girl by stealth or force from her father"s protection, made her his wife, and sought an asylum in England or France, or wherever he could. So desperate was his state of mind, so overwhelming his love that he would have shrunk from nothing to win her.
Yet just because the Viceroy had been a father to him, just because he had loved him, had been unexampled in his kindness and consideration to him, just because he reposed such absolutely unlimited confidence in him, the young man felt bound in honor by fetters that he could not break.
And there was his friendship for de Tobar. There were many young gallants about the vice-regal court who, jealous of Alvarado"s favor and envious of his merits, had not scrupled in the face of his unknown origin to sneer, to mock, or to slight--so far as it was safe to do either of these things to so brave and able a soldier. Amid these gilded youths de Tobar with n.o.ble magnanimity and affection had proved himself Alvarado"s staunchest friend. A romantic attachment had sprung up between the two young men, and the first confidant of de Tobar"s love affairs had been Alvarado himself. To betray his friend was almost as bad as to betray his patron. It was not to be thought of.