There was absolute silence when Turnpenny had concluded his whispered instructions to the maroons. The vessel rocked gently, almost imperceptibly; the tide was on the turn. Dennis crept once more to the gangway by the rope netting, stole along on bare feet, and stooped with a beating heart to apply the match which Turnpenny had made for him.

It had an inch or two to burn before it reached the train of powder; and he stood back against the side, out of danger from the explosion, ready to rush across to the nearest loophole when the moment came.

Suddenly a line of flame shot like a lightning flash across the planks.

In an instant there was a deafening crash, and though each man of the attacking party knew what was coming, and was beyond reach of actual harm, they were all somewhat dazed by the explosion. But it was only for the fraction of a second. Then Dennis and Turnpenny sprang forward, one on each side of the cabin entrance, towards the loopholes whose position they had marked in the previous fight. For a few moments they were baffled by the blinding smoke, but finding the holes almost simultaneously, they thrust in the muzzles of their weapons, and fired at random into the cabin. A m.u.f.fled cry from within announced that one or other of the shots had taken effect, but the next instant there was a roar as the Spaniards discharged their muskets together at the gaps rent in the door by the explosion. At the time the Englishmen knew not whether any man was. .h.i.t, for, dropping their calivers, they seized their cutla.s.ses, and, just as the spar carried by two l.u.s.ty maroons levelled the shattered door, they dashed at the opening.

The light from a horn lantern hanging in its gimbals struggled with the smoke that filled the room. Dennis stumbled over a body that lay across the entrance. He had barely recovered his footing when he was amazed to hear a frenzied shriek from the further end of the cabin, and two men rushed forward with uplifted hands, shouting again and again a single word which, being Spanish, he did not understand.

"My heart! they cry for quarter!" cried Turnpenny, as much amazed as Dennis.

One of the maroons who had carried the spar, either not understanding or not heeding the wild despairing cry, thrust at the foremost Spaniard with a half-pike, and the wretch fell forward, hurling Dennis to the floor and doubly blocking the entrance. Dennis threw the man off and scrambled to his feet; but before he could take a step forward there was a second explosion, louder and more shattering than the first, and when he recovered his dazed senses he found himself lying at the fore end of the waist, twenty feet away from the cabin.

CHAPTER IX

Amos Tells his Story

"Body o' me! Will 'ee squall like babbies? Make for the boat, you howling knaves!"

And then Turnpenny launched into a tirade of Spanish abuse, which came somewhat more trippingly from his lips than sentences of sound instruction. Dennis rose, and staggered towards the sailor.

"G.o.d be praised! I feared you were dead, sir. The knave has blowed up the powder magazine, and in five minutes by the clock the ship will tottle down by the stern. These black rascals were howling like souls in bale, in the stead of swinging overboard into the boat while there is time. Come away, sir; the craft will sink to the bottom or ever we gain the island."

Bruised and sore, dropping blood from his untended wound, Dennis hastened with Amos to the side, and was in the act of following the maroons into the boat when he suddenly remembered the two sick men in the forecastle.

"I'll be with you anon," he cried, hurrying across the waist.

"What a murrain!" muttered Amos, scrambling back and running after him.

"Shall we drown for a brace of savages! Wilful! Wilful!"

He reached the forecastle in time to see Dennis hauling from his bunk the fat negro, who lay there huddled and shivering with terror.

"Make the fat fool understand!" cried Dennis, shoving the cook into Amos's arms. Then he hurried to the further end, where the maroons lay in a stupor of fright. Having no words to acquaint them with their peril, he sought to move them by signs; but the men gazed at him in fear, regarding him doubtless as a new oppressor.

"Amos, leave that lump of jelly and come hither," he shouted. The sailor bawled a word or two in Spanish, and sped the negro towards the side with a kick. Then he made haste to join Dennis.

"The wretches are helpless," said the boy. "We must carry them--fair and softly, Amos."

"Ay, sir, an you will; but our case is parlous; I fear me our leisure will not serve."

"No delay, then. Hoist this fellow upon my back; do you bring the other. We cannot suffer the knaves to drown."

They staggered forth with their burdens, Dennis foremost. As he stumbled towards the side he caught sight of a man crawling slowly from the direction of the cabin. The man called to him feebly, but Dennis did not pause until he had reached the gangway by the netting, where he laid the maroon down.

"Call to his fellows below there to a.s.sist him into the boat," he cried to Amos. "There is a man yet alive; we must save him."

"Beseech you let the knave drown," returned the sailor. "'Tis a pestilent Spaniard--a meal for sharks. Be jowned if the lad be not a mere dunderpate," he grumbled, as he lowered his burden into the hands of the men below.

Meanwhile Dennis had hastened to meet the wounded man, who groaned miserably as he dragged his limbs along. Half supporting, half carrying him, Dennis brought him to the side just as the second maroon had been bestowed safely in the boat. Turnpenny, still growling under his breath, helped to lift the Spaniard down. Then the boat was cast off, and the men rowed for the sh.o.r.e.

"Canst see any sign of the knaves that leapt overboard?" said Dennis, looking around.

"Never a hair," replied Turnpenny, "Sure they be swallowed quick by the sharks, and there's an end."

Dennis shuddered. It was his first acquaintance with the tragedy of adventure on the Spanish Main, and his unschooled heart turned sick at the thought of the terrible fruit his scheme had borne. He gazed at the dark form of the vessel that was gradually fading into the night.

The p.o.o.p was already under water. He had not foreseen this end to his enterprise; the rapid sequence of events had bewildered him. What had caused the second explosion? Had the magazine been fired by accident?

What a mercy it was that he and all his party had not been blown to atoms! He could not but feel a poignant pity for the poor wretches who had thus suddenly met their doom.

The boat grounded on the shoals. He sprang into the water and a.s.sisted Turnpenny and the maroons to carry the helpless men to the fringe of gra.s.s, and to haul the boat up the beach. Then he turned once more to look at the vessel. No longer was her dark form outlined against the starlit sky; she had gone down, leaving no trace.

Joining the men on the stretch of greensward where they were a.s.sembled, he suddenly heard the shrill voice of Mirandola close at hand, and next moment felt the touch of the animal's paw upon his arm. The monkey had followed the party at a distance when they came down to the sh.o.r.e in the dusk, and sat forlorn on the gra.s.s, watching the boat that carried his master away. Could the poor beast think human thoughts, Dennis wondered, as he felt its body trembling against his? Had it believed that it was deserted by the being who had treated it with kindness?

Certainly it showed clear signs of gladness now, and its joy at recovering its one friend had vanquished its dislike and suspicion of the rest.

"Here we be, sir, ten martal souls," said Turnpenny, "reckoning Baltizar, who in sooth is more like a jellyfish than a man. What be us to do?"

"We cannot tramp across the island in the dark, Amos. What say you to camping in the logwood grove? 'Tis nigh at hand, and we can lie there with fair comfort until the dawn."

"With all my heart. 'Twill be a drier bed than those villanous knaves yonder can boast."

"Poor wretches! How came it that the magazine blew up, think you?"

"I know not, sir. I will ask the knave you brought last from the vessel--a deed of merciful madness."

He spoke a few words to the wounded prisoner, while the maroons who had formed the wood-cutting party conveyed their sick comrades to the grove. The man replied in feeble accents.

"This was the manner of it, sir," said Amos, after a minute or two.

"The captain being sore wounded, and two killed outright, the other knaves, seeing how that they stood in danger of being sliced by our bilbos, did incontinently call upon him to render up the vessel, hoping thereby to come off with their lives. But the captain, a tall man and of a good spirit, did resolutely refuse to yield to their entreaties, swearing that he would with his own hand blow up the vessel rather than deliver it to heretics and dogs of English. Straightway he pa.s.sed into his own cabin, and made fast the door; which seeing, and knowing that what he had said, that would he perform, the knaves began to whoop and hallo for quarter. Then did the captain, as 'tis to be supposed, make into the after cabin and fire his pistol into the magazine, and so dealt the ship that mighty blow."

"And this man--who is he?"

"A man of Portingale, sir, not of Spain, and so somewhat nearer grace.

He thanks you and all the saints that he remains alive, though his limbs be maimed withal."

"Let us convey him softly to the grove; on the morrow we will look to his wounds and bind them up with balsam and other salves from the wreck."

"Marry, you use him too gently. 'Tis like warming a snake in your bosom; and, since charity begins at home, we will look to our own hurts first."

When the party was settled as comfortably as possible in the grove, Dennis and the sailor disposed themselves side by side to sleep. But both were wakeful, for all their fatigue. They lay for a time in silence, each fearful of disturbing the other; but Dennis, hearing at last a long pent-up groan from his companion, asked what ailed him.

"Thinking, sir--old thoughts of home."

"I have been minded to ask you of your history, Amos, but we have had other matters to speak of. How came you to be a prisoner of the Spaniards?"

"'Tis a tale long in the telling, sir, but I will give 'ee the drift of it. I were a young c.o.c.kerel of twelve when I ran away to sea. It kept a-calling me; night and day I heard the sound; and when I could no longer endure it, I went and joined myself ship-boy to a worthy mariner o' Plimworth. Afterwards he made me his prentice, and so a mariner I have been from that day to this. Ay, 'twas a brave life for a man, in the days of King Hal, lad. I mind me I were but rising seventeen when the French king took a conceit to invade England. My heart! he had reason enough, for King Hal had before sent a power to capture Boolonny, on the French coast, which they did, and burnt it with fire.

The French king would have his t.i.t for tat, and he gathered a great power and a mighty fleet to strike at Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight.

"I was rising seventeen, as I said, and gunner's mate aboard the _Anne Gallant_, a n.o.ble gallea.s.s. The fleet made a brave show, lying off Spithead, and I was hot to show my mettle; 'twas my first fight, by the token, and sure 'twas a famous fight. The _Anne Gallant_ and others of her sort, with the shallops and rowing-pieces, did so handle the French galleys that our great ships in a manner had little to do. The only hurt we suffered was the breaking of a few oars. We anch.o.r.ed for the night, as did the French fleet, we hoping to come at them in the morning; but when daylight broke, hang me if the French were anywhere to be seen, and though we gave chase they got away and ran into their ports. But a little after, the _Anne Gallant_, with three other gallea.s.ses and four pinnaces, was set upon off Ambletoosy by eight great galleys. There was great shooting betwixt us; we drew alongside of the _Blancherd_ galley in the smoke, and leaping aboard her, we took her captive, with two hundred and thirty pikemen and musketeers, and a hundred and forty rowers. Master King Francis got the wrong pig by the ear when he tackled King Harry.