Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer: A Romance of the Spanish Main

"That surprises you, does it?" continued the man with boasting condescension. "You did not think I designed so to honor you after last night, madam? Scuttle me, these" – pointing to his face – "are fierce love taps, but I fancy a strong will – when I can break it to mine own," he muttered, "and I have yet to see that in man or woman that could resist mine."

She noted with painful fascination the powerful movements of his lean fingers as he spoke, for his sinewy right hand, wrinkled and hideous, lay stretched out on the table before him, and he clasped and unclasped it unconsciously as he made his threat.

"I like you none the less for your spirit, ma'am. 'Fore God, it runs with your beauty. You are silent," he continued, staring at her with red-eyed, drunken suspicion. "You do not answer?"

"My lord," cried Mercedes, "I know not what to say."

"Say, 'Harry Morgan, I love you and I am yours.'"

"There is another present, señor."

"Where? Another? Who has dared – " roared the buccaneer glaring about him.

"Thy servant – the negro."

"Oh," he laughed, "he is nothing. Black Dog, we call him. He is my slave, my shadow, my protection. He is always by."

An idea had swiftly flashed into the young girl's mind. If she could get rid of the slave she could deal more easily with the master. She was tall, strong, and Morgan, it appeared, was not in full possession of his faculties or his strength from the liquor he had imbibed.

"Still," she urged, "I do not like to be wooed in the presence of another, even though he be a slave. 'Tis not a Spanish maiden's way, sir."

"Your will now, lady," said the buccaneer, with a hideous attempt at gallantry, "is my law. Afterwards – 'twill be another matter. Out, Carib, but be within call. Now, madam, we are alone. Speak you the English tongue?"

The conversation had been carried on in Spanish heretofore.

"Indifferently, señor."

"Well, I'll teach it you. The lesson may as well begin now. Say after me, 'Harry' – I permit that though I am a belted knight of England, made so by His Merry Majesty, King Charles, God rest him. Drink to the repose of the king!" he cried, shoving a cup across the table toward her.

Resisting a powerful temptation to throw it at him, and divining that the stimulant might be of assistance to her in the trying crisis in which she found herself, the girl lifted the cup to her lips, bowed to him, and swallowed a portion of the contents.

"Give it back to me!" he shouted. "You have tasted it, I drain it. Now the lesson. Say after me, 'Harry Morgan' – "

"Harry Morgan," gasped the girl.

"'I love thee.'"

With a swift inward prayer she uttered the lying words.

"You have learned well, and art an apt pupil indeed," he cried, leering upon her in approbation and lustful desire – his very gaze was pollution to her. "D'ye know there are few women who can resist me when I try to be agreeable? Harry Morgan's way!" he laughed again. "There be some that I have won and many I have forced. None like you. So you love me? Scuttle me, I thought so. Ben Hornigold was right. Woo a woman, let her be clipped willingly in arms – yet there's a pleasure in breaking in the jades, after all. Still, I'm glad that you are in a better mood and have forgot that cursed Spaniard rotting in the dungeons below, in favor of a better man, Harry – no, I'll say, Sir Henry – Morgan – on this occasion, at your service," he cried, rising again and bowing to her as before.

She looked desperately at the clock. The hour was close at hand. So great was the strain under which she was laboring that she felt she could not continue five minutes longer. Would Alvarado never come? Would anybody come? She sat motionless and white as marble, while the chieftain stared at her in the pauses of his monologue.

"Now, madam, since you have spoke the words perhaps you will further wipe out the recollection of this caress – " he pointed to his cheek again. "Curse me!" he cried in sudden heat, "you are the only human being that ever struck Harry Morgan on the face and lived to see the mark. I'd thought to wait until to-morrow and fetch some starveling priest to play his mummery, but why do so? We are alone here – together. There is none to disturb us. Black Dog watches. You love me, do you not?"

"I – I – " she gasped out, brokenly praying for strength, and fighting for time.

"You said it once, that's enough. Come, lady, let's have happiness while we may. Seal the bargain and kiss away the blows."

He came around the table and approached her. Notwithstanding the quantity of liquor he had taken he was physically master of himself, she noticed with a sinking heart. As he drew near, she sprang to her feet also and backed away from him, throwing out her left hand to ward him off, at the same time thrusting her right hand into her bosom.

"Not now," she cried, finding voice and word in the imminence of the peril. "Oh, for God's sake – "

"Tis useless to call on God in Harry Morgan's presence, mistress, for he is the only God that hears. Come and kiss me, thou black beauty – and then – "

"To-morrow, for Christ's sake!" cried the girl. "I am a Christian – I must have a priest – not now – to-morrow!"

She was backed against the wall and could go no further.

"To-night," chuckled the buccaneer.

He was right upon her now. She thrust him, unsuspicious and unprepared, violently from her, whipped out the dagger that Hornigold had given her, and faced him boldly.

It was ten o'clock and no one had yet appeared. The struck hour reverberated through the empty room. Would Alvarado never come? Had it not been that she hoped for him she would have driven the tiny weapon into her heart at once, but for his sake she would wait a little longer.

"Nay, come no nearer!" she cried resolutely. "If you do, you will take a dead woman in your arms. Back, I say!" menacing herself with the point.

And the man noted that the hand holding the weapon did not tremble in the least.

"Thinkest thou that I could love such a man as thou?" she retorted, trembling with indignation, all the loathing and contempt she had striven to repress finding vent in her voice. "I'd rather be torn limb from limb than feel even the touch of thy polluting hand!"

"Death and fury!" shouted Morgan, struggling between rage and mortification, "thou hast lied to me then?"

"A thousand times – yes! Had I a whip I'd mark you again. Come within reach and I will drive the weapon home!"

She lifted it high in the air and shook it in defiance as she spoke.

It was a frightful imprudence, for which she paid dearly, however, for the hangings parted and Carib, who had heard what had gone on, entered the room – indeed, the voices of the man and woman filled with passion fairly rang through the hall. His quick eye took in the situation at once. He carried at his belt a long, heavy knife. Without saying a word, he pulled it out and threw it with a skill born of long practice, which made him a master at the game, fairly at the woman's uplifted hand. Before either Morgan or Mercedes were aware of his presence they heard the whistle of the heavy blade through the air. At the same moment the missile struck the blade of the dagger close to the palm of the woman and dashed it from her hand. Both weapons rebounded from the wall from the violence of the blow and fell at Morgan's feet.

Mercedes was helpless.

"Well done, Carib!" cried Morgan exultantly. "Never has that old trick of thine served me better. Now, you she-devil – I have you in my power. Didst prefer death to Harry Morgan? Thou shalt have it, and thy lover, too. I'll tear him limb from limb and in thy presence, too, but not until after – "

"Oh, God! oh, God!" shrieked Mercedes, flattening herself against the wall, shrinking from him with wide outstretched arms as he approached her. "Mercy!"

"I know not that word. Wouldst cozen me? Hast another weapon in thy bodice? I'll look."

Before she could prevent him he seized her dress at the collar with both hands and, in spite of her efforts, by a violent wrench tore it open.

"No weapon there," he cried. "Ha! That brings at last the color to your pale cheek!" he added, as the rich red crimsoned the ivory of her neck and cheek at this outrage.

"Help, help!" she screamed. Her voice rang high through the apartment with indignant and terrified appeal.

"Call again," laughed Morgan.

"Kill me, kill me!" she begged.

"Nay, you must live to love me! Ho! ho!" he answered, taking her in his arms.

"Mercy! Help!" she cried in frenzy, all the woman in her in arms against the outrage, though she knew her appeal was vain, when, wonder of wonders —

"I heard a lady's voice," broke upon her ears from the other end of the room.

"De Lussan!" roared Morgan, releasing her and turning toward the intruder. "Here's no place for you. How came you here? I'd chosen this room for myself, I wish to be private. Out of it, and thank me for your life!"

"I know not why you should have Donna de Lara against her will, and when better men are here," answered the Frenchman, staring with bold, cruel glances at her, beautiful in her disarray, "and if you keep her you must fight for her. Mademoiselle," he continued, baring his sword gracefully and saluting her, "will you have me for your champion?"

His air was as gallant as if he had been a gentleman and bound in honor to rescue a lady in dire peril of life and honor, instead of another ruffian inflamed by her beauty and desirous to possess her himself.

"Save me! Save me," she cried, "from this man!"

She did not realize the meaning of de Lussan's words, she only saw a deliverer for the present. It was ten minutes past the hour now. She welcomed any respite; her lover might come at any moment.

"I will fight the both of you for her," cried the Frenchman; "you, Black Dog, and you, Master Morgan. Draw, unless you are a coward."

"I ought to have you hanged, you mutinous hound!" shouted Morgan, "and hanged you shall be, but not until I have proved myself your master with the sword, as in all other things. Watch the woman, Carib, and keep out of this fray. Lay hand on her at your peril! Remember, she is mine."

"Or it may be mine," answered de Lussan, as Morgan dashed at him.

They engaged without hesitation and the room was filled with the sound of ringing, grating steel. First pulling the pins from her glorious hair, Mercedes shook it down around her bare shoulders, and then stood, fascinated, watching the fencers. She could make no movement from the wall as the negro stood at her arm. For a space neither of the fighters had any advantage. De Lussan's skill was marvelous, but the chief buccaneer was more than his match. Presently the strength and capacity of the older and more experienced swordsman began to give him a slight advantage. Hard pressed, the Frenchman, still keeping an inexorable guard, slowly retreated up the room.

Both men had been so intensely occupied with the fierce play that they had not heard the sound of many feet outside, a sudden tumult in the street. The keen ear of the half-breed, however, detected that something was wrong.

"Master," he cried, "some one comes. I hear shouts in the night air. A shot! Shrieks – groans! There! The clash of arms! Lower your weapons, sirs!" he cried again, as Spanish war cries filled the air. "We are betrayed; the enemy is on us!"

Instantly Morgan and de Lussan broke away from each other.

"To-morrow," cried the buccaneer captain.

"As you will," returned the other.

But now, Mercedes, staking all upon her hope, lifted her voice, and with tremendous power begot by fear and hope sent ringing through the air that name which to her meant salvation —

"Alvarado! Alvarado!"

CHAPTER XIX

HOW CAPTAIN ALVARADO CROSSED THE MOUNTAINS, FOUND THE VICEROY, AND PLACED HIS LIFE IN HIS MASTER'S HANDS

The highway between La Guayra and Venezuela was exceedingly rough and difficult, and at best barely practicable for the stoutest wagons. The road wound around the mountains for a distance of perhaps twenty-five miles, although as the crow flies it was not more than five miles between the two cities. Between them, however, the tremendous ridge of mountains rose to a height of nearly ten thousand feet. Starting from the very level of the sea, the road crossed the divide through a depression at an altitude of about six thousand feet and descended thence some three thousand feet to the valley in which lay Caracas.

This was the road over which Alvarado and Mercedes had come and on the lower end of which they had been captured. It was now barred for the young soldier by the detachment of buccaneers under young Teach and L'Ollonois, who were instructed to hold the pass where the road crossed through, or over, the mountains. Owing to the configuration of the pass, that fifty could hold it against a thousand. It was not probable that news of the sack of La Guayra would reach Caracas before Morgan descended upon it, but to prevent the possibility, or to check any movement of troops toward the shore, it was necessary to hold that road. The man who held it was in position to protect or strike either city at will. It was, in fact, the key to the position.

Morgan, of course, counted upon surprising the unfortified capital as he had the seaport town. It was the boast of the Spaniards that they needed no walls about Caracas, since nature had provided them with the mighty rampart of the mountain range, which could not be surmounted save in that one place. With that one place in the buccaneer's possession, Caracas could only rely upon the number and valor of her defenders. To Morgan's onslaught could only be opposed a rampart of blades and hearts. Had there been a state of war in existence it is probable that the Viceroy would have fortified and garrisoned the pass, but under present conditions nothing had been done. As soon as a messenger from Teach informed Morgan that the pass had been occupied and that all seemed quiet in Caracas, a fact which had been learned by some bold scouting on the farther side of the mountain, he was perfectly easy as to the work of the morrow. He would fall upon the unwalled town at night and carry everything by a coup de main.

Fortunately for the Spaniards in this instance, it happened that there was another way of access to the valley of Caracas from La Guayra. Directly up and over the mountain there ran a narrow and difficult trail, known first to the savages and afterwards to wandering smugglers or masterless outlaws. Originally, and until the Spaniards made the wagon road, it had been the only way of communication between the two towns. But the path was so difficult and so dangerous that it had long since been abandoned, even by the classes which had first discovered and traveled it. These vagabonds had formerly kept it in such a state of repair that it was fairly passable, but no work had been done on it for nearly one hundred years. Indeed, in some places, the way had been designedly obliterated by the Spanish Government about a century since, after one of the most daring exploits that ever took place in the new world.

Ninety years before this incursion by the buccaneers, a bold English naval officer, Sir Amyas Preston, after seizing La Guayra, had captured Caracas by means of this path. The Spaniards, apprised of his descent upon their coasts, had fortified the mountain pass but had neglected this mountain trail, as a thing impracticable for any force. Preston, however, adroitly concealing his movements, had actually forced his men to ascend the trail. The ancient chroniclers tell of the terrific nature of the climb, how the exhausted and frightened English sailors dropped upon the rocks, appalled by their dangers and worn out by their hardships, how Preston and his officers forced them up at the point of the sword until finally they gained the crest and descended into the valley. They found the town unprotected, for all its defenders were in the pass, seized it, held it for ransom, then, sallying forth, took the surprised Spanish troops in the pass in the rear and swept them away.

After this exploit some desultory efforts had been made by the Spaniards to render the trail still more impracticable with such success as has been stated, and it gradually fell into entire disuse. By nearly all the inhabitants its very existence had been forgotten.

It was this trail that Alvarado determined to ascend. The difficulties in his way, even under the most favorable circumstances, might well have appalled the stoutest-hearted mountaineer. In the darkness they would be increased a thousand-fold. He had not done a great deal of mountain climbing, although every one who lived in Venezuela was more or less familiar with the practice; but he was possessed of a cool head, an unshakable nerve, a resolute determination, and unbounded strength, which now stood him in good stead. And he had back of him, to urge him, every incentive in the shape of love and duty that could move humanity to godlike deed.

Along the base of the mountain the trail was not difficult although it was pitch-dark under the trees which, except where the mighty cliffs rose sheer in the air like huge buttresses of the range, covered the mountains for the whole expanse of their great altitude, therefore he made his way upward without trouble or accident at first. The moon's rays could not pierce the density of the tropic foliage, of course, but Alvarado was very familiar with this easier portion of the way, for he had often traversed it on hunting expeditions, and he made good progress for several hours in spite of the obscurity.

It had been long past midnight when he started, and it was not until daybreak that he passed above the familiar and not untrodden way and entered upon the most perilous part of his journey. The gray dawn revealed to him the appalling dangers he must face.

Sometimes clinging with iron grasp to pinnacles of rock, he swung himself along the side of some terrific precipice, where the slightest misstep meant a rush into eternity upon the rocks a thousand feet below. Sometimes he had to spring far across great gorges in the mountains that had once been bridged by mighty trunks of trees, long since moldered away. Sometimes there was nothing for him to do but to scramble down the steep sides of some dark cañon and force himself through cold torrential mountain streams that almost swept him from his feet. Again his path lay over cliffs green with moss and wet with spray, which afforded most precarious support to his grasping hands or slipping feet. Sometimes he had to force a way through thick tropic undergrowth that tore his clothing into rags.

Had he undertaken the ascent in a mere spirit of adventure he would have turned back long since from the dangers he met and surmounted with such hardship and difficulty; but he was sustained by the thought of the dreadful peril of the woman he loved, the remembrance of the sufferings of the hapless townspeople, and a consuming desire for revenge upon the man who had wrought this ruin on the shore. With the pale, beautiful face of Mercedes to lead him, and by contrast the hateful, cruel countenance of Morgan to force him, ever before his vision, the man plunged upward with unnatural strength, braving dangers, taking chances, doing the impossible – and Providence watched over him.

It was perhaps nine o'clock in the morning when he reached the summit – breathless, exhausted, unhelmed, weaponless, coatless, in rags; torn, bruised, bleeding, but unharmed – and looked down on the white city of Caracas set in its verdant environment like a handful of pearls in a goblet of emerald. He had wondered if he would be in time to intercept the Viceroy, and his strained heart leaped in his tired breast when he saw, a few miles beyond the town on the road winding toward the Orinoco country, a body of men. The sunlight blazing from polished helms or pointed lance tips proclaimed that they were soldiers. He would be in time, thank God!

With renewed vigor, he scrambled down the side of the mountain – and this descent fortunately happened to be gentle and easy – and running with headlong speed, he soon drew near the gate of the palace. He dashed into it with reckless haste, indifferent to the protests of the guard, who did not at first recognize in the tattered, bloody, wounded, soiled specimen of humanity his gay and gallant commander. He made himself known at once, and was confirmed in his surmise that the Viceroy had set forth with his troops early in the morning and was still in reaching distance on the road.

Directing the best horse in the stables to be brought to him, after snatching a hasty meal while it was being saddled, and not even taking time to re-clothe himself, he mounted and galloped after. An hour later he burst through the ranks of the little army and reined in his horse before the astonished Viceroy, who did not recognize in this sorry cavalier his favorite officer, and stern words of reproof for the unceremonious interruption of the horseman broke from his lips until they were checked by the first word from the young captain.

"The buccaneers have taken La Guayra and sacked it!" gasped Alvarado hoarsely.

"Alvarado!" cried the Viceroy, recognizing him as he spoke. "Are you mad?"

"Would God I were, my lord."

"The buccaneers?"

"Morgan – all Spain hates him with reason – led them!"

"Morgan! That accursed scourge again in arms? Impossible! I don't understand!"

"The very same! 'Tis true! 'tis true! Oh, your Excellency – "

"And my daughter – "

"A prisoner! For God's love turn back the men!"

"Instantly!" cried the Viceroy.

He was burning with anxiety to hear more, but he was too good a soldier to hesitate as to the first thing to be done. Raising himself in his stirrups he gave a few sharp commands and the little army, which had halted when he had, faced about and began the return march to Caracas at full speed. As soon as their manœuvres had been completed and they moved off, the Viceroy, who rode at the head with Alvarado and the gentlemen of his suite, broke into anxious questioning.

"Now, Captain, but that thou art a skilled soldier I could not believe thy tale."

"My lord, I swear it is true!"

"And you left Donna Mercedes a prisoner?" interrupted de Tobar, who had been consumed with anxiety even greater than that of the Viceroy.

"Alas, 'tis so."

"How can that be when you are free, señor?"

"Let me question my own officer, de Tobar," resumed the Viceroy peremptorily, "and silence, all, else we learn nothing. Now, Alvarado. What is this strange tale of thine?"

"My lord, after we left you yesterday morning we made the passage safely down the mountain. Toward evening as we approached La Guayra, just before the point where the road turns into the strand, we were set upon by men in ambush. The soldiers and attendants were without exception slain. Although I fought and beat down one or two of our assailants, they struck me to the earth and took me alive. The two ladies and I alone escaped. No indignity was offered them. I was bound and we were led along the road to a camp. There appeared to be some three hundred and fifty men under the leadership of a man who claimed to be Sir Henry Morgan, sometime pirate and robber, later Vice-Governor of Jamaica, now, as I gathered, in rebellion against his king and in arms against us. They captured the plate galleon with lading from Porto Bello and Peru, and were wrecked on this coast to the westward of La Guayra. They had determined upon the capture of that town, whence they expected to move on Caracas."

"And Mercedes?" again interrupted the impetuous and impassioned de Tobar.

"Let him tell his tale!" commanded the Viceroy, sternly. "It behooves us, gentlemen, to think first of the cities of our King."

"They had captured a band of holy nuns and priests. These were forced, especially the women, by threats you can imagine, to plant scaling ladders against the walls, and, although the troops made a brave defense, the buccaneers mastered them. They carried the place by storm and sacked it. When I left it was burning in several places and turned into a hell."

"My God!" ejaculated the old man, amid the cries and oaths of his fierce, infuriated men. "And now tell me about Mercedes."

"Morgan – who met her, you remember, when we stopped at Jamaica on our return from Madrid?"

"Yes, yes!"

"He is in love with her. He wanted to make her his wife. Therefore he kept her from the soldiery."