The result was worse than mere disappointment. In fifteen days they reached no Spanish town, but only some poor Indian villages, which they found deserted by the natives, who, aware of their coming, had fled, carrying off all the produce of their plantations. These they burnt in their rage, and marched recklessly onwards. They had carried no provision with them, expecting to find everywhere sufficient; and, to render their condition worse, had brought all their 500 men, except five or six who were left to guard each vessel. "These their hopes," says Esquemeling--turning up as usual the whites of his eyes--who looks with great contempt on all unsuccessful attempts at thieving, "were found totally vain, _as not being grounded_." In a few days the hope of plunder, which had first animated them, grew clouded by despondency.
Scarcity rapidly became want, and they were reduced to such extreme necessity and hunger that they gathered the plants that grew on the river"s bank for food. In a fortnight their courage and vigour had entirely gone; their hearts sank, and their bodies were wasted by famine.
Leaving the river they took to the woods, seeking for Indian villages where they might obtain food. Ranging up and down the woods for some days in a fruitless search, they returned to the river, now their only guide, and struck back towards the point of coast where their ships lay.
In this laborious journey they were reduced to much extremity--eating their shoes, their leather belts, and the very sheaths of their knives and swords. They grew at last so ravenous as to resolve to kill and devour the first Indian they could meet; but they could not obtain one either for food or as a guide. Some fell sick, and, fainting by the wayside, were left to perish. Many were killed and eaten by the Indians, and others died of starvation. At last they reached the sh.o.r.e, and, finding some comfort and relief to their present miseries, at once set sail to encounter more. After remaining some time on land, they re-embarked, but a quarrel arising between the French and English Buccaneers, who seldom kept long friends, they separated into small parties, and engaged in fresh expeditions.
CHAPTER VI.
ALEXANDRE BRAS-DE-FER, AND MONTBARS THE EXTERMINATOR.
Bras-de-Fer compared to Alexander the Great--His adventures and stratagems--Montbars--Anecdotes of his childhood--Goes to sea--His first fight--Meets and joins the Buccaneers--Defeats the Spanish Fifties--His uncle killed--His revenge--The negro vessel--Adam and Anne le Roux plunder Santiago.
We now come to a cla.s.s of Buccaneers who lived at we scarcely know what period, although they were probably contemporaries of Oexmelin. Their adventures, though on a narrower scale, are perhaps more interesting than those that had subsequently taken place, and are valuable as ill.u.s.trations of manners.
Oexmelin relates, in his usual shrewd and vivacious manner, the singular exploits of Alexandre Bras-de-Fer, a French adventurer, with whom he was acquainted, and who, unlike his contemporaries, never joined in large expeditions, preferring the prompt.i.tude of a single swift cruiser, with none to share his risks or subtract from his booty. His life seems to have been crowded with romantic and strange incidents. His character appears to have been a strange combination of bravery and chivalry, a love of rapine, and a fantastic vanity. Oexmelin says navely, that this modern Alexander was as great a man among the adventurers of Tortuga as the ancient Alexander was among the conquerors of the East. Nor does he see much difference between the two worthies, except that the Macedonian was the adventurer upon the larger scale.
Our Alexandre was vigorous in body and handsome in feature--so, at least, vouches Oexmelin, who, a surgeon by profession, once cured him of a severe wound that he had received--a cure which, if Alexandre had been generous (which he was not, in this instance at least), might have made the doctor"s fortune.
Bras-de-Fer displayed as great judgment in the conception of his enterprises as he did courage in the carrying them out. His head and hand worked well together, and he seldom had to fight his way out of dangers into which his own incautiousness had led him. The vessel which he commanded he called the _Phoenix_, because it was of such a unique and peculiar structure that it was said to be among vessels what the phoenix was fabled to be among birds.
Alexandre always went alone, in preference to crowding in a fleet. His pride or his prudence may have given him a fondness for solitary cruises, for the _Phoenix_ was a bird of prey. A picked crew and a single swift vessel had many advantages over a rebellious flotilla--and subordinate captains were often mutinous if not treacherous. If solitude increased his risk, it also increased his probability of success.
Oexmelin, the only writer who mentions Alexandre, relates but one of his adventures, which he took down, as he tells us, from the hero"s own lips. The rest of his exploits he suppresses, either from a fear of being tedious or a dread of being considered a mere romancer.
On the occasion of which he speaks, Alexandre was bound upon an expedition of great consequence--which, however, as it did not succeed, the narrator, with a wise modesty, does not think worth mentioning.
After lying some time imprisoned in a tedious calm, his prayers for a change of weather were answered by a great storm, that blew up the sea into mountains--wind and fire seeming to struggle together in the air for the possession of the helpless ship and its pale crew. The furious thunder drowned the very roar of the sea, and the masts soon went by the board. The lightning, striking its burning arrows through the deck, set fire to the powder-magazine, and blew up the part of the vessel in which it was stored. Half of the crew were hurled into the air, and were killed before they reached the boiling sea that eagerly waited for their fall. The remainder of the crew, finding the vessel going down by the head, took to swimming, and soon reached dry land: Alexandre--strong and brawny, brave, but desirous of life, and always awake to the means of its preservation--by no means the last, setting an example at once of prudence, coolness, and decision. On shaking the brine from their limbs and looking around, the wrecked men found that they had been thrown upon a tract of land as much to be dreaded by the Buccaneer as the realm of Polyphemus was by the wise Ulysses. They stood upon an island near the Boca del Drago (Dragon"s Mouth), inhabited by a tribe of Indians, fierce and cruel cannibals. Remaining for some time upon the sh.o.r.e, they exerted themselves in recovering what they could from the scorched driftings of the wreck. Amongst other things they saved--what was more valuable than food, because they presented the means of saving their lives for the present and for the future--a number of their hunters"
muskets, sufficient to arm all their number, together with a quant.i.ty of powder and lead for bullets. Without either of the three requisites the other two had been useless. They now gathered courage from the possibility of escape, and determined to secure themselves from the Indians, reconnoitre the place for fear of surprise, and after that remain patiently encamped till some friendly vessel should arrive.
One day, while some of the band were smoking, singing, and talking, their past dangers already half forgotten in the desire of escaping the present by encountering fresh in the future, the sentinels on the look-out hill gave the signal of an approaching vessel. On all rushing to the spot, the keener eyes detected a large ship, dark against the grey horizon. It presently discharged a gun at the sh.o.r.e, and in the direction in which they stood. Preparing for the worst, Alexandre and his men hid themselves in a wooded hollow and held a council of war.
Some were of opinion that they should wait for the stranger"s arrival, and then quietly beg the captain to take them on board. The more impatient and lawless, less pacific in such an emergency, believed that such a plan would lead, if the vessel proved, as it probably would, a Spaniard, to their all being taken prisoners, and at once strung from the yard-arm, without inquiry, as Frenchmen and pirates. Bras-de-Fer spoke last, and crushed all opposition by his voice and gesture. He was for war to the death, and escape at any risk. Better Spanish rope than Indian fire, better pistol shot than starvation. Quick in decision and firm in execution, he had at once determined not merely to stand on the defensive, but at all risks to a.s.sume the aggressive. The adventurers yielded as if an angel had spoken, for Alexandre had more than the usual ascendancy of a leader over them. Both his mind and body were of a more athletic bulk and iron mould. He could dare and suffer more. His active and his pa.s.sive, his moral and physical courage, were greater than theirs. They loved him because he shared their dangers, and did not humiliate them by the a.s.sumption of his real superiority. He wore the crown, but he was not always dazzling their eyes with its oppressive glitter. They respected him, because he could control both his own pa.s.sions and those of the men whom he led to victory and never to defeat. The success of his victories he doubled by the prudence with which they were followed up, and the skill with which he conducted a retreat rendered his very defeats in themselves successes.
The vessel, which proved to be a Spanish merchant ship, with war equipments, approached nearer, standing off and on, attracted by the fruit and flowers whose perfume spread over the level sea, and allured by that fragrance, a sure proof of the existence of good water not far from the sh.o.r.e. The boats were lowered, and a well-armed party landed with much caution. The captain marched at their head, followed by his best soldiers, dreading an ambuscade of the Indians of that coast, who were known to be warlike and treacherous, but not suspecting the Buccaneers, who kept themselves in the wood, ready to swoop down upon their prey, like the kite upon the dovecote.
Already well acquainted with the paths and foot-tracks, Alexandre"s men crept quietly through the trees, which grew thick and dark, and, defiling by secret avenues, surrounded the princ.i.p.al approach by which the Spaniards had already entered, in good order and on the alert, but with apprehensions already subsiding. The adventurers being very inferior in number and scantily armed, kept themselves hidden, waiting for chance to give them some momentary advantage. When the enemy was well encircled in the defile, mistaking perhaps the lighted matches for fire-flies among the branches, the French suddenly opened a murderous fire upon the soldiers, who found themselves girt by a belt of flame, coming from they knew not where. A pilgrim seeing a volcano opening at his feet could not be more astonished. The Spaniards, seeing no enemies to aim at, withheld their fire, thinking that the Indians were burning the forest. The absence of arrows, and the report of muskets, convinced them more deadly enemies awaited them, and that Europeans and not Indians were the preparers of the ambush. With much prompt.i.tude, instead of flying in a foolish headlong rout, they threw themselves upon their faces; and the captain gave the word of command not to fire till the enemy came in sight, being ignorant yet of their number and their nation.
The adventurers looked through the loopholes which they had cut in the thick underwood for the pa.s.sage of their firearms, to see what effect their volley had produced, the smoke now clearing away and permitting them to see more clearly. To their astonishment they could see no one; the enemy had vanished, as if blown to pieces by the fire. They began to think that they had retreated, although they had heard no sound of their retreat; they could scarcely believe that they were all dead.
Alexandre"s impatience soon decided the question; determined to conquer, he chafed at the delay and mystery. His resolution was soon made. He left his ambush and broke out from the wood into the open. The mystery was quickly solved, for he was instantly attacked by the Spaniards, who, when they saw him break cover, sprang up to their feet, with a shout, as swift as the foes of Cadmus. Alexandre, retreating for a moment to make his spring the surer, leaped upon the hostile captain and aimed a blow at his head with his sabre, which was warded off by a large scull-cap, from which the steel glanced. Bras-de-Fer was about to repeat his blow with better effect, when his foot caught in a root and he fell.
Closely pressed by his antagonist, and requiring all his skill to save his life, rising up, with his left hand and with his strong right arm, he struck the uplifted sabre from the hand of his enemy. This lucky blow of a defenceless man gave Alexandre time to leap up and call the adventurers, who had not then left the ambush, and were now pouring out on every side, pressing the enemy in the rear and on the flank. Having made a great carnage among the Spaniards, the Flibustiers, at a signal from Alexandre, closed in, and, bearing down upon the craven and terrified foe sword in hand, slew them to a man, taking special care that not a single one should escape, for fear of spreading an alarm.
The Spanish crew remaining to keep guard in the vessel, had heard the sound of musketry, and at once supposed that their people had fallen in with some hostile Indians, but knowing that their troops were brave and numerous, and believing they could easily cut a few savages to pieces, they sent no reinforcement, but contented themselves by discharging a noisy broadside to turn the scale of the supposed battle, and increase the terror of the fugitives. On the other hand, the victorious adventurers lost no time in following up their ambush by an ingenious stratagem. They stripped the dead, and arrayed themselves in their dress and arms. They then collected a quant.i.ty of their own Indian arrows, which they had previously taken from savages which they had killed. Then pulling their broad-brimmed Panama hats over their eyes (even the captain"s, with a red gash through it), and shouldering their arms, imitating the Spanish march, and uttering shouts of "victory, victory,"
proceeded to the sh.o.r.e at the point nearest the vessel. The guards on board, seeing their supposed companions returned so soon, victorious, laden with spoil, and each one carrying a sheaf of arrows, received them with open arms as they clambered up by the main-chains. Before they could recover from their astonishment, the Buccaneers were masters of the vessel. There was scarcely any struggle, for only the sailors and a few marines had been left on board. The surprise was complete and sudden, and the most watchful might be pardoned for being deluded by such an artifice. The adventurers found the vessel laden with costly merchandise, and soon started with it upon a trip of a very different nature from that for which it had been first intended.
Oexmelin laments that in many other adventures which Alexandre told him, he found that he pa.s.sed too lightly over his own exploits, and attributed all the glory to the courage of his companions. But when his comerades related the story, they were not so generous to him as he had been to them, and, either from envy or shame, suppressed many of his n.o.blest actions. He concludes his sketch of the two Alexanders with incomparable _navete_ in the following manner: "Au reste, je ne pretends pas que la comparaison soit toute-a-fait juste, car s"il y a quelque rapport, _il y a encore plus de difference_. En effet il etoit aussi brave que temeraire, et lui etoit brave que prudent. Alexandre aymoit le vin, et lui l"eau-de-vie. Aussi Alexandre fuyoit les femmes par grandeur d"ame, et luy les cherchoit par tendresse de coeur; et pour preuve de ce que je dis il s"en trouve une a.s.sez belle dans le vaisseau dont j"ay parle, qu"il prefera a tout l"avantage du butin."
"To conclude: if I have compared him to the Great Alexander, I do not pretend that the comparison is altogether just; for, if there are some points of resemblance, there are many more of difference. Of a truth, the one Alexander was as brave as he was headstrong, the other as brave as he was prudent; the one loved wine, and the other brandy; the one fled from women through real greatness of heart, the other sought them from a natural tenderness of soul; and, as a proof of what I say, he met a beautiful woman in the vessel of which I have spoken, whom he valued more than all the other spoil."
Providence, a French moral philosopher ventures to suggest, raised up the Buccaneers to revenge on the Spaniards all the sufferings and injustices of the Indians. The Spaniard was the scourge of the Indian, and the Buccaneer the scourge of the Spaniard.
Lolonnois and Montbars are always considered as equal claimants for the hateful pre-eminence of being the most ferocious of the whole Buccaneer brotherhood, considering them from their origin to their extinction. But the sovereignty of blood must be at once awarded to Lolonnois. Montbars seldom killed a Spaniard who begged for mercy, while Lolonnois delighted to spurn them from his feet, and slew all he could without pity, or even regard for ransom. It was from the very lips of Lolonnois that Oexmelin was informed that Montbars was sprung from one of the best families in Languedoc. He was well educated, but soon disregarded every other study to practise martial exercise, and particularly shooting. These warlike sports he pursued with a concentrated, unremitting eagerness, approaching insanity. Even as a boy, when firing with his cross-bow, he said he only wished to shoot well that he might know how to kill a Spaniard. His mind had already become filled with a generous but cruel determination, which grew rapidly into monomania. The animal force of a strong but ill-balanced mind all grew to this point, and his thoughts by day, and his dreams by night, became but a reiteration and reblending of the one master pa.s.sion. No one ever became his confidant, but the following is the general explanation given of the deeds of his after life. It is said that, in his early childhood, Montbars had read of the almost incredible cruelties practised by the Spaniards during the conquest of America. In the Antilles, they had exhibited the horrors of the Inquisition in broad daylight. Fanaticism, avarice, and ambition had ruled like a trinity of devils over the beautiful regions, desolated and plague-smitten; whole nations had become extinct, and the name of Christ was polluted into the mere cypher of an armed and aggressive commerce. These books had impressed the gloomy boy with a deep, absorbing, fanatical hatred of the conquerors, and a fierce pity for the conquered. He believed himself marked out by G.o.d as the Gideon sent to their relief. Dreams of riches and gratified ambition spurred him unconsciously to the task. He thought and dreamed of nothing but the murdered Indians. He inquired eagerly from travellers for news from America, and testified prodigious and ungovernable joy when he heard that the Spaniards had been defeated by the Caribs or the Bravos.
He indeed knew by heart every deed of atrocity that history recorded of his enemies, and would dilate on each one with a rude and impatient eloquence. The following story he was frequently accustomed to relate, and to gloat over with a look that indicated a mind capable of even greater cruelty, if once led away by a fanatic spirit of retaliation. A Spaniard, the story ran, was once upon a time appointed governor of an Indian province, which was inhabited by a fierce and warlike race of savages. He proved a cruel governor, unforgiving in his resentments, and insatiable in his avarice. The Indians, unable any longer to endure either his barbarities or his exactions, seized him, and, showing him gold, told him that they had at last been able, by great good luck, to find enough to satisfy his demands. They then held him firm, and melting the ore, poured it down his throat till he expired in torments under their hands.
On one occasion, Montbars openly showed that his reason was somewhat disturbed, and that, on the one subject of his thoughts, he had ceased to be able to reflect calmly. While a boy, he had to take part in a comedy which was to be acted by himself and the fellow-students of the college, for his friends either ignored or disregarded his dreams and fancies. Amongst other scenes was a prologue, in the shape of a dialogue between a Spaniard and a Frenchman. Montbars was to represent the Frenchman, and his companion the Spaniard. The Spaniard, appearing first upon the stage, began to utter a thousand invectives against France, mingled with much ribald rhodomontade, and Montbars became excited, and could not contain his impatience. To his heated mind the mimic scene became a reality. He broke in upon the stage, furiously interrupted his comerade in the middle of his speech, and, loading him with blows, would certainly have put him to death on the spot, as "a Spanish liar and murderer," had the combatants not been separated by the terrified bystanders.
His father, rich, and loving his son much, perhaps all the better for these wayward eccentricities, which, he believed, contact of the world and the pleasures of youth would soon drive from his memory, desired to enrol him in the army, or induce him to enter some profession. But to all his questions and entreaties the boy only replied, that all he wanted was "to fight against the Spaniards." Seeing that his friends would oppose his project, he ran away from his father"s house, and took refuge at Havre with an uncle who commanded one of the French king"s ships. He was about to start on a cruise against Spain, with whom France was then at war, and, pleased at the boy"s avowed attachment to a maritime life, wrote to his father, approving of the boy"s resolution.
The father reluctantly gave what could be construed into a consent, and in a few days the vessel sailed.
During the voyage out, the young fanatic evinced the greatest eagerness for an engagement, and directly a vessel appeared in sight ran to arm himself, hoping it might be a Spaniard. At length, one did in reality appear, and he had an opportunity of distinguishing himself against his declared enemies. They gave chase to the Spanish vessel, and received her broadside. The elder Montbars, seeing his nephew intoxicated with joy, and, disregarding all risk of exposure, determining to throw away his life, clapped him under hatches, as a reckless boy, and only let him rush out when the boarding commenced, and the enemy"s vessel was evidently their own. The liberated youth led the boarders with all the calmness of a veteran man-of-war"s-man. Leaping, sabre in hand, upon the foe, he fought with them pell-mell, broke through their thickest ranks, and, followed by a few whom his courage animated to rival his own rashness, rushed twice from end to end of the Spanish vessel, mowing down all he met to the right and left. The Spaniards were refused quarter, those who escaped the sword perished in the sea, and Montbars, to whom the honour of the victory was unanimously awarded, refused quarter to a single one. The prize was found full of spoil, the hold crammed with riches, containing 30,000 bales of cotton, 2000 bales of silk, besides Indian stuffs, 2000 packets of incense, and 1000 of cloves, which made up the treasure. In addition to all this, they found a small casket of diamonds, the case clasped with iron, and fastened with four locks, which alone outvalued all the bulkier merchandise.
While his uncle and the sailors exulted over these treasures, Montbars was counting the dead Spaniards, and gloating over the first victims of the hecatomb he still hoped to slay. Blood, and not booty, was his object.
In spite of the young victor, a few Spanish sailors and officers had been spared in the general carnage. From these survivors they learnt that two other vessels had been parted from them in a storm, near where they then were (St. Domingo), and that their rendezvous had been fixed at Port Margot. Captain Montbars determined to wait for them there, and to capture them by the stratagem of sending the captured vessel with its Spanish colours out to meet them, as a decoy. While the French vessel and its prize lay waiting at the rendezvous, some huntsmen"s boats came off to sea, bringing boucaned meat to barter for brandy. The Buccaneers apologised for bringing so little meat, saying, "that a band of Spanish Fifties had lately ravaged their district, burnt their hides, stolen their dried meat, and burnt their boucans."
"And why do you suffer it?" said Montbars, impetuously, for he had been listening eagerly all this time, to the recital of a new proof of Spanish perfidy.
"We do not suffer it," answered the huntsmen, roughly. "The Spaniards know well what sort of people we are, and they chose a time when we were all away cow-killing; but our day is coming. We are now collecting our companions, who have suffered worse than we have; we have given notice far and wide, and if the fifty grow to 1000, we shall soon bring them to bay."
"If you are willing," says Montbars, "I will march at your head. I do not want to command you, but to expose myself first, to show you what I am ready to do against these accursed Spaniards."
The old hunters, astonished at the daring of a mere youth, and glad of another musket, accepted his proposal. His uncle, unable to rein him in, and already weary of so hot-brained a volunteer, yielded to his entreaties. He permitted him to go, giving him a party of seamen to guard him, and supplied him with but few provisions, in hopes of bringing him quickly back. He threatened, on parting, to leave him behind if he was not on board to the very hour, then calling him a foolish madcap, and cursing him for a hair-brain, he dismissed him with his blessing, swearing the next minute there wasn"t a braver lad at that moment treading a plank.
Montbars departed with some uneasiness, not caring about his uncle"s advice or the scantiness of provisions, but only afraid that he might miss the Spaniards on land, and be absent also when the Spanish vessels were attacked. He wanted no greater inducement to hurry his return than the prospect of a naval engagement. He had scarcely landed with his men, when the hunters brought them into a small savannah surrounded by hills and woods. They had not taken many steps across this broad hunting-ground before they saw some mounted Spaniards appear in the distance--these men were part of a troop that had collected, hearing that the Buccaneers were a.s.sembling to attack them.
Montbars, transported with rage at the sight of a Spaniard, would have rushed at once upon them, single-handed, but an old experienced Buccaneer caught him by the arm: "Stop," said he, "there is plenty of time, and, if you do what I tell you, not one of these fellows shall escape." These words, "not one," would at any time have arrested Montbars, and they did so then. The old Buccaneer, crying a halt, bade the men turn their backs on the Spaniards, as if they had not seen them.
He next unrolled the linen tent, which he carried in the usual fashion of his craft, and began to pitch it, followed by all his companions, who did the same, imitating their fugleman, without inquiry, trusting to the address that had often before delivered them out of danger. They then drew out their brandy flasks and affected to prepare for a revel, intending to deceive the Spaniards, who, they knew, would give them time to drink, in hopes of surprising them, an easy prey, when asleep. The empty horns were pa.s.sed round with jokes, and songs, and shouts, and the corked flasks circulated as merrily as if the feast had been a real one.
Without appearing to observe, they could see the Spanish patrols disappear over the ridge of the hill, to warn their men in the valley to prepare for a night surprise. The Buccaneer leader, pa.s.sing the signal from hand to hand, sent an _engage_ into the woods to quickly rouse all the "brothers" in the neighbourhood, to bid them come and help them, and to prepare an ambush in the opposite forest. In the mean time, other scouts were sent to watch the motions of the enemy, to be sure that they were coming, and were not making any flank movement.
At dusk the Buccaneers slipped quietly from beneath their tents, and crept into the adjacent woods. Here they found their companions and their _engages_ already a.s.sembled and eager for the attack. Montbars, weary of all preparations, was now burning to see the Spaniards, declared they never would come, and that they had better go out and surprise them while night lasted; but the Spaniards were purposely delaying, knowing that the longer they delayed the deeper would be the sleep of the revellers. At daybreak, they could see a dark troop beginning to move forward over the ridge, and soon to descend the hill into the plain in good order, a small detachment marching before them as a forlorn hope. The Buccaneers, well posted and un.o.bserved, waited for them, sure of their prey, for the tents being pitched at some distance one from the other, they could see every movement of the Spaniards. As they drew nearer, the Fifties broke into small troops, and each encircled a tent. To their astonishment, at that moment the wood grew a flame, and a hot rolling fire led on the advancing Buccaneers, who, breaking out with yell and shout, very terrible in the silence of the dawning, overthrew horse and rider. Montbars, inspired by the fever of the onslaught, which always seemed for a moment to restore the balance of his mind, leaped on a horse, whose rider he had killed, and headed the attack. Wherever resistance was made, he rode in, charging every knot of troopers as they attempted to rally. Hurrying on too far beyond his companions, while breaking into the heart of the squadron, he was surrounded, and would have been quickly overpowered had he not been rescued by a determined rush of his men. More furious at this escape, he pursued the scattered enemy right and left, with increased fury, inflicting blows as dreadful as they were unusual. One of the Buccaneers, seeing many of his men suffering from the Indian arrows, cried out to the Indians, in Spanish, pointing to Montbars, "Do you not see that G.o.d has sent you a liberator, who fights for you, to deliver you from the Spaniards, and yet you still fight for your tyrants?"
Hearing these words, and astonished at Montbars" contempt for death, the archers changed sides and turned their arrows against the Spaniards, who fled, overwhelmed by this new misfortune, and perhaps impelled by an undefinable and superst.i.tious terror.
Montbars looked upon this day as the happiest in his life. He had seen the Indians he had so pitied fighting by his side, and regarding him as their protector. Cleaving down a wounded Spaniard, who clung to his knees and begged for mercy, he cried, "I would it were the last of this accursed race." An eye witness of the battle describes the carnage as horrible--the living trampling on the living, and stumbling over the dying and the dead. The Buccaneers and the Indians, rejoicing in their liberty and their revenge, entreated Montbars to follow up his successes, and wanted at once to ravage the Spanish plantations, and extirpate the survivors, while they were still discouraged. Montbars gladly consented to the proposal, and was about to march exultingly at their head, when the boom of a cannon was heard. It was the report of a gun from his uncle"s vessel, and he could not resist obeying a signal that might be the signal of an approaching battle. He instantly hurried back, but found, to his annoyance, that the signal had been only fired as a warning to announce the hour of instant sailing.
The hunters, already attached to their young leader, refused to leave him, and the Indians were afraid to abide the vengeance of the Spaniards. They were all therefore at once placed on board the prize, and supplied with muskets and sabres. The delighted uncle appointed Montbars as captain, with an old officer, under the name of lieutenant, to act as his guardian.
After eight days" sail, Montbars was attacked, at the mouth of a large key, by four Spanish vessels, each one larger than his own. They surrounded him so suddenly that he had no time to escape, and he lay amongst them like a wolf at bay. They formed, in fact, the van of the great Indian plate fleet, which was, every year, as eagerly expected by the king of Spain as it was by all the marauders of the Spanish main.
The elder Montbars, bold and hardy, unhesitatingly attacked two of the vessels, and several times drove back their boarders. Although gouty himself and unable to move, the staunch old Gascon shouted his orders from his elbow chair; and, cursing alternately the enemy and the disease, defended his ship to the last extremity. Having fought for more than three hours with ferocious obstinacy, and seeing his young hero terribly pressed by his two adversaries, he resolved upon a final effort, the last struggle of a wild beast that feels the knife is at his throat. Firing a tremendous broadside, he attacked both his enemies with such fury that he sank them and himself, and died "laughing" in all the exultation of that revenge which is the only victory of despair.
Montbars the younger made great exertions to save himself and to avenge his uncle. The old lion was dead, but the cub had much life in him yet.
He sank one of his antagonists with a crashing shot and boarded the other. His Indians, seeing their leader enter the Spanish vessel at one end, threw themselves into the water and clambered promptly up the other. Their war-cries and arrows produced a powerful diversion, and took the Spaniards by surprise. Throwing many into the sea, they killed others, while Montbars put all that resisted to the sword. In a short time he was master of a vessel larger even than those that had been sunk. The friendly Indians, who now looked upon him as an invincible demiG.o.d, he employed in a fruitless search for his uncle"s body.
Conquerors and conquered were destined to remain locked in each other"s arms, and piled over with b.l.o.o.d.y trophies of burnt wreck until the day that the sea should give up her dead.
The hunters renewed their proposal of a descent upon the mainland, and Montbars agreed to any scheme which would enable him to avenge his uncle and his friends. He had formerly lived to avenge the wrongs of others, to these were now added his own. The governor of the province, hearing of the contemplated attack, prepared an ambuscade of negroes and militiamen. Putting himself at the head of 800 men, divided into three battalions, his wings strengthened with cavalry and his van guarded with cannon, he prepared to prevent the landing of the "Exterminator."
These preparations only increased the ardour of Montbars. It seemed cowardly to ravage an unprotected country: its devastation, after defeating its defenders, was a reward of conquest. Montbars was the first to leap from the canoes, and the first to rush upon the Spanish pikes. The front battalion was soon repulsed, and some Indians taking the reserve force in the flank, they were driven back in great disorder. Montbars, hotly pursuing, made a prodigious carnage of the enemy, and carried fire and sword far into the interior.
One day, while at sea, the young captain, already a veteran in experience, was obliged to put into a bay to careen. To his great surprise, although the place was a mere track of sand, he saw some Spaniards on a distant plain, marching in good order and well-armed.