A Gentleman-at-arms

I was a lank youth of sixteen years when I fell into the hands of the Spaniards of Hispaniola-an accident wherein my grandam saw the hand of Providence chastising a prodigal son; but of that you shall judge.

In the summer of the year 1587, riding from school home by way of Southampton, I was told there of a brigantine then fitting out, to convey forth a company of gentlemen adventurers to the Spanish Main in quest of treasure. Sir Francis Drake had lately come home from spoiling the Spaniards' ships in the harbour of Cadiz, and the ports of our south coast were ringing with the tale of his wondrous doings; and I, being known for a lad of quick blood and gamesome temper, was resolved to go where Francis Drake had gone aforetime, and gain somewhat of the wealth then lying open to adventurers bold to pluck the King of Spain's beard. Wherefore one fine night I stole from my bed-chamber, hied me to the quay at Southampton, and bestowed myself secretly aboard the good ship Elizabeth.

Of my discovery in the hold, and the cuffs I got, and the probation I was put to, and my admission thereafter to the company of gentlemen adventurers, I will say nothing. The Elizabeth made in due time the coast of Hispaniola, and when Hilary Rawdon, the captain, sent a party of his crew ashore to fill their water-casks, I must needs accompany them; 'twas the first land we had touched for two weary months, and I felt a desperate urgency to stretch my legs. And while we were about our business, up comes a posse of Spaniards swiftly out of the woods, and there is a sudden onfall and a sharp tussle, and our party, being outnumbered three to one, is sore discomfited and utterly put to the rout, but not until all save myself and another are slain, and I find myself on my back, with a Spanish bullet in my leg. And you see me now borne away among the victors, and when I am healed of my wound, I learn that I am a slave on the lands of a most noble hidalgo of Spain, one Don Alfonso de Silva de Marabona, and an admiral to boot.

Now I had left home to spoil the Spaniards and with no other intent; wherefore to toil and sweat under a hot sun on the fields of a Spanish admiral, however noble, was no whit to my liking. Moreover, Don Alfonso proved an exceeding hard taskmaster, and bore heavily upon me his prisoner, a thing that was perhaps no cause for wonder, seeing that of all who had suffered when Master Drake sacked San Domingo, he had suffered the most. His mansion had been plundered and burnt; his pride had been wounded by the despite done to his galleons; and when a Spaniard is hurt both in pride and in pocket, he is not like to prove himself a very generous foe. And so I was in a manner the scapegoat for Master Drake's offences, and had in good sooth to smart for it. My noble master made no ado about commanding me to be flogged if he were not content with me; and to rub the juice of lemons, laced with salt and pepper, into the wounds made by the lash, is a marvellous shrewd way (though nowise commendable) of fostering penitence and remorse.

But in this unhappy plight I was not left without a friend. One midday, when I was resting from my toil in the fields, there came to me a spare and sallow boy, somewhat younger than myself, and spoke courteously to me in a kind of French, the which I, being by no means without my rudiments, made shift to understand. I soon perceived that we had a something in common, namely, a heavy and grievous grudge against Don Alfonso de Silva de Marabona, the which became a bond of unity betwixt us. Antonio (so was he named) was nephew to the admiral, and dependent on him-though his father had been a rich man,-by him, moreover, treated with great rigour. Ere long I was well acquainted with Antonio's doleful case. It was eleven years since his father the elder Antonio had sailed away for Spain, being summoned thither about some question of law concerning his estates in Castile. He took with him, in the galleon San Felipe, a store of treasure belonging to his brother the admiral, together with a yet costlier freight for behoof of his Catholic Majesty of Spain. And there was Antonio, a motherless infant of four years, left in his uncle's charge, his father purposing to return for him in the following summer, by the which time he hoped to have set his affairs in order.

The stormy season of the year was at hand when he departed, and divers of his friends had warned him against the perils of the long voyage. But Don Antonio feared the elements less than the French and English rovers who then infested the seas, and he had indeed chosen this time advisedly, for that it was little likely to tempt the pirates from their lairs. It fell out, however, that he had not left port above three days when a great tempest arose, suddenly, as the manner is in those regions, and to the wonted terrors of the tornado was added an earthquake, with fierce rumblings and vast upheavals of the soil, so that the admiral made great lament about his brother and the wealth he had in charge. Don Antonio came no more to Hispaniola; the galleon San Felipe was heard of never more; and his son had remained under the austere governance of Don Alfonso, who showed him no kindness, but ever seemed to look upon him as a burthen. When Antonio came to the age of twelve, he inquired of his uncle whether the estates of his late father would not one day be his; but the admiral made answer that he had long since purchased the property from his brother, who had purposed sometime to quit the island and spend the remnant of his days in Spain.

Such was Antonio's story, as he told it to me. He called his uncle a fiend; as for me, I called him, in the English manner, Old Marrow-bones; we both signified one and the same thing-that we held him in loathing and abhorrence. This was our bond of union, and soon it became our custom to meet daily and rehearse our woes in consort. Antonio was ever careful to keep these our meetings secret, since he knew that, coming perchance to the admiral's ears, they would be deemed a cause of offence, and be punished, beyond doubt, with many stripes.

But to dub your enemy with opprobrious names brings you no contentment, and does him no hurt. In no great while I began to consider of some means whereby I might contrive to slip the leash of my illustrious master. Having made Antonio swear by all his saints that he would not betray me, I took counsel with him; indeed, I essayed to persuade the boy to put all to the hazard, and make his escape with me. But Antonio could not screw his resolution to this pitch. He was content to throw himself with right good-will into the perfecting of my plans. And so it came to pass that one fine day, about sunset, I took French leave (as the saying is) and set off on my lonely way to liberty. I had nothing upon me save my garments, and a long machete (so their knives are called) given me by Antonio; but as Samson slew countless Philistines with the jawbone of an ass, and David laid Goliath low with a pebble from the brook; so I, though I did not liken myself to those heroes of old, yet knew myself to be a fellow-countryman with Francis Drake, and needed no doughtier ensample to inspire me.

Following Antonio's wise and prudent counsel I set my face towards the north-west angle of the island, for the reason that, parted from it by only a narrow strip of sea, there lay the smaller island of Tortuga, where it was possible that some countrymen of my own might be. Tortuga had been at some time a settlement of the Spaniards, but they had now abandoned it, and if an English ship should chance to have put in to water there, or to burn the barnacles off its hull, I might light upon the crew and join myself to them, and so bring my tribulations to an end. And after near a week's trudging-with herbs for my meat and water from the streams for my drink-I came one day to the further shore of Hispaniola, and with great gladness beheld the strange hump-backed island, like a monstrous tortoise floating on the sea, for which cause it was named Tortuga.

A day or two I spent in roaming to and fro, gazing hungrily seawards for a ship. And when none appeared, I bethought me that I should certainly be none the worse conditioned-nay, I might be a great deal the better-if I should cross to the smaller island and there make my abode. Having once been the habitation of Christian folk, methought it would retain some remnants of its former plantations, so that I need not want for food; and of a surety, with a wider expanse of sea before me, I should be in better case to spy a passing vessel than if I remained on Hispaniola. I was minded at first to swim the channel-'twould be no great feat-but, observing at the water's edge a pair of ground-sharks lying in wait for a toothsome meal, I gave up this design very readily, and considered of some safer way.

There were woods growing almost to the shore. To a boy with his mind set on it, and a sharp knife to his hand, the making of a raft is a task of no great labour or hardship. 'Twas the work of two days to lop branches meet for my purpose, strip them, and bind them together with strands of bejuca, a climbing plant of serviceable sort; and on the third day I launched my raft, and oared myself across the still water, being companied by a disappointed shark the better part of the way. I went ashore in some fear and trembling lest I should meet Spaniards, or other hostile men; but I saw no sign of present habitation, and wandered for near a day without lighting on any traces of mankind. But at length in my course I spied a heap of wood ashes, and some rinds of fruit, and a little beyond a broken hen-coop, whereby I knew that men sometimes resorted to the island, as Antonio had said. It came into my mind that my late companions of the Elizabeth had perchance set foot here no long while before me, and I felt a great longing to look on them again. I wondered where they might be, whether they had fought the Spaniards on the Main and gained great treasure, or whether they had given up their quest and sailed away for home.

Some days I spent in solitude, never straying far from the coast, lest I should be out of sight if a ship came near. There was food in plenty-such is the bounty of Providence in those climes; and of nights I ensconced myself in a little hut I built of branches in a nook on the shore.

One evening as I roamed upon the cliff, and with vain longing scanned the sea, on a sudden I espied, moving among the tree trunks on my right hand, a patch of red. In great perturbation of spirit I sprang behind a tree. I had not seen clearly what the object was: it might be a man, it might be a beast. In the wildernesses about the middle of Hispaniola there were, I knew, herds of wild dogs and boars, a terror to human kind; and a fear beset me lest Tortuga also were the haunt of savage creatures, which might come upon me in the night. Meseemed I must at the least resolve my doubts, wherefore I went forward stealthily, bending among creeping plants, skipping from trunk to trunk, straining my eyes for another glimpse of that patch of red. For some little while I sought in vain, and I was in a sweat of apprehension lest I should stumble into danger; but after stalking for near half-an-hour, as I supposed, of a sudden I saw some moving thing among the trees within a hundred paces of me. Even as I watched, a quaint and marvellous figure came forth into a little open space-the form of a man, arrayed from doublet to shoes in garments of bright red. His head was bare; a rapier hung at his side; and as I looked he plucked the weapon by the hilts, and made sundry passes in the air, going from me slowly into the woodland. Never in my life had I beheld a man so oddly apparelled, and to find such an one here, on this lone island of Tortuga, set me athrill with admiration. I deemed that I should have no security of mind until I had learnt somewhat of this stranger, and whether there were others with him; wherefore with stealthy steps I followed him into the woodland, and there, after near losing him, I saw him enter a little hut set in the midst of a narrow laund. From behind a tree I watched the red man. He kindled a fire, and I looked for him to cook his supper; but instead, he laid himself down on a bed of dried grass, so that the smoke from the fire might be carried by the light wind across him, the which in a moment I guessed to be his device for warding off the insects; I had suffered many things from their appetite in the nights I had slept in the woods of Hispaniola.

Seeing that the red man had composed himself to sleep, I returned quietly to my hut on the shore, and when I fell asleep dreamed that I beheld him defending at the rapier's point young Antonio against the whip of the noble admiral Don Alfonso de Silva de Marabona. I rose with the sun and stole back to the woodland, in hope to see the man quit his sleeping-place and to gain some light upon his manner of life and his doings upon this lone island. But the hut was empty; its inhabitant was already astir. Not that day nor for several days after did I set eyes on him again; but one high noon I had a glimpse of him roaming along the cliff, and while I was following, a great way off, he suddenly vanished from my sight as 'twere into the earth.

The numbness of terror seized upon me; I stood fixed to the ground, never doubting (being then but a boy) that 'twas the foul fiend in his very person who had descended into the bowels of the earth. But bethinking me that I had discerned no horns upon his head, nor the tail that was his proper appendage, but, instead, a rapier such as mortal men use, I plucked up heart to draw nigh to the spot where he had disappeared. And when I came to it, 'twas not, as I feared, a chasm, horrid with blue flame and sulphurous fume, but a short, steep path in the cliff-side.

Gathering my courage, I trod with wary steps until I came to a small opening in the cliff. And when I had overcome my tearfulness and ventured to peep in, I was struck with a great amazement, for I beheld a vast vaulted chamber. There came some little daylight into it through fissures in its further wall, and when my eyes had grown accustomed to the twilight, and comprehended the whole space, I saw there, before and below me, the hull of a galleon, lying somewhat upon its side, with a little water about its keel. And as I looked, I beheld the red man how he waded to the vessel, whose side he ascended by a ladder of rope, and then, having gained the deck, he was no more to be seen.

I stood rooted in amazement. I durst not follow the red man further, conceiving that in a land where all save Spaniards were intruders, the odds were that he was of that race, and that to accost him, even to discover myself to him, might put my life in jeopardy. Besides, the man's aspect, and my remembrance of the fierceness of his sword-play as I saw it in my dream, counselled wariness: he was not a man to approach but with caution. Moreover, I was in presence of a great marvel, perceiving no means whereby the galleon had come into this vault. Save for the narrow entrance, and the jagged rents in the walls, the chamber was wholly enclosed; nor was there any passage whereby so great a vessel could have been hauled in from the sea.

Perplexed and bewildered, I waited long, but vainly, for the red man to show himself again. Then, when from sheer weariness and hunger I was in a mind to return to the cliff, I beheld him rise from below deck, descend by the ladder, and, again wading through the water, make towards me. Incontinently and in silence I fled, but halted when I gained the cliff, and lay hid until the man had come forth and gone his way. Whereupon I stole back and descended to the floor of the vault, to quench, if I might, my burning curiosity.

I LAY HID UNTIL THE MAN HAD COME FORTH AND GONE HIS WAY

I walked about the vessel, and when I came to the stern, I started back, smitten with stark amazement. Her name was painted in great golden letters there; I read it: 'twas SAN FELIPE, the name of the galleon wherein the father of my friend Antonio had sailed from San Domingo eleven years since, and which had never more been heard of.

I thought of witchcraft, and questioned whether 'twere not the very work of the devil, for sure no mortal hands had brought the vessel through solid walls into this rock-bound chamber. But the galleon itself was in truth a thing of substance; thee were real shells at the brink of the water; the water itself (when I dipped my finger and licked it) was salt; beyond doubt the vault had communication with the sea. And even while I stood there I perceived the water to be rising; 'twas deeper now than when the man had first waded through it to the vessel. In haste I made the full circuit of the place, searching for an entrance, but in vain. Save the fissures letting in the light, there was not a hole through which a rat might wriggle, nor could I find the passage by which the water came.

In much perplexity, oppressed by the wonder of it, I left the place by and by and returned to my hut. But I could not long withhold myself from the cavern, the which lured and (in a manner) beckoned me by some strange spell. Next day I came again to it, and did as I had seen the red man do-to wit, waded through the water and climbed on board. My feet had scarce touched the deck when I beheld the red form standing in the narrow entrance at the further end of the vault. Quick as thought I slipped into hiding on the lofty poop and there kept watch. The man came aboard and descended by the companion, and a little after I heard the tinkling of metal. I was drawn as by strong cords to learn what he was doing, and crept silently as a mouse after him to the cabin. As I drew near I heard again the clink of metal, and when I came to the door I beheld the man kneeling before an open chest, gloating over it, plunging his hands into it, bathing them in the pieces of eight that filled it to the brim.

I BEHELD THE MAN KNEELING BEFORE AN OPEN CHEST, GLOATING OVER IT, PLUNGING HIS HANDS INTO IT

Spellbound, I stood and gazed. This discovery did but deepen the wonder. I questioned whether this were Antonio's father, who had never sailed to Spain at all, but by some strange means, belike with the help of demons, had brought the vessel hither. And then, as I mused, the red man seemed to become aware by some subtle sense that he was not alone. Suddenly he turned his head, espied me, sprang to his feet, and, whipping out his rapier, leapt with a fierce cry towards me. I turned to flee, being unarmed save for my machete, the which was no match for a rapier. But I was a thought too late. The red man was upon my heels ere I could slip overboard, crying out upon me in words which I was too busy saving my life to heed.

Then began a hot chase round the deck of the galleon, the which might have continued until the pursuer, being the elder, became exhausted, had not I espied, in my running, a half-pike lying over against the bulwarks. This I snatched up, and put myself in a posture of defence. "Voleur! voleur!" cried the red man, glaring at me; and now I had certainty he was no Spaniard. We fought, and doubtless I had fared ill but for my youth and the exercise I had had in this very opposition of pike against sword upon the voyage in the Elizabeth. I was but sixteen; the Frenchman wore the grave aspect of a man of fifty; and though he fought as one well practised in the handling of his weapon, 'twas with a stiffness and want of sureness that bespoke disuse.

Yet 'twas a desperate fight. Once and again I came very near to lose my life, and escaped the Frenchman's point solely by my nimbleness. Twice, indeed, the weapon found my flesh; there was blood upon my sleeve. And then came my opportunity. The Frenchman in lunging at me over-reached himself, and I brought my pike down with all my strength upon his arm. His rapier fell to the deck, and before he could recover himself I sprang upon him, and, by a trick of wrestling I had learnt in bouts at our country fairs, threw him upon his back.

And there were we two, he stretched on the deck, I pinning him down, and both of us breathing hard, and gazing each into the other's eyes. Then I spoke in French: what I said I know not; but he smiled, a vacant smile that made me sorry I had hurt him.

"Thou art one of my children," he said. "How didst thou escape?"

By this, and the strangeness of his smile, I knew that his wits were wandering, and deemed it best to humour him.

"Yes, one of your children," I made answer, understanding the word enfants as doubtless he intended, as meaning his company, or crew. "You were mistaken, sir; and I hope I have not broken your arm."

"It is bruised, not broken," said the man, lifting it and smiling upon me again. "I do not remember thy name, but thou shalt be my corporal."

"Wherein I am mightily favoured," said I. "Marvellously, too, I have forgotten your name, mon Capitaine."

"My name!" he said, in manifest puzzlement. "My name!" And then, smiling once more, he said, "I cannot tell. It is so long, so long since I heard it. My children called me Captain, but that was before the storm. I forget many things; my children left me; they were reft from me by the storm; they died-all but you; and I cannot remember your name! They called me Captain; and in truth I am Captain, by the choice and election of the great Condé. Yes, the great Condé made me Captain, a stripling from Quimperlé."

"Captain Q," said I, on the spur of the moment.

He looked puzzled; then the same smile, like the empty smile of a babe, beamed upon his face, and he said-

"Captain Q; and thou shalt be Corporal R. Is it not so?"

"And so it is," I said. "My name is Rudd; I am an Englishman."

"And we will fight the Spaniards together, shall we not? They must never get my gold-never!"

"Indeed they shall not!" I replied. "And now let us go out into the open, and I will bathe your arm at a brook. 'Tis pity we did not remember each other sooner."

"Ah, but it is such a long time!" said Captain Q.

We went out together, and after I had bathed his arm ('twas bruised from elbow to wrist) the Captain invited me to his hut, and to a share of his dinner of herbs.

Such was the strange beginning of a friendship that endured for near forty years. Though he was by so much my elder, he dealt with me as though I had been his brother. We roamed the shore together, together fished and snared animals in the woods, and would have shared the same lodging but that I preferred to keep my little hut on the shore, where I had fresher air and was within close call of any ship that should chance to pass in the night. Little by little I pieced together the story of the rock-girt galleon and of Captain Q. He could not talk in orderly sequence for long together, but whatsoever the subject of our discourse, he would break off to prattle of his childhood in the little village of Quimperlé, and of his youth and manhood to the time when destiny brought him to Tortuga. He was a Huguenot, and had fought under Condé at St. Denis, and under Admiral Coligny at Jarnac. After the dread day of St. Bartholomew he fled from France, and became a corsair in his own vessel, haunting the coasts of the Spanish Main. One day he fell in with the galleon San Felipe, and took it after a long fight. His own ship being small, he put his crew aboard the galleon, and the crew and company of the galleon upon his ship, and then sailed away for Tortuga, designing to land there and divide the spoil. And his little vessel, with the Spaniards on board, had gone down before his very eyes, having received sore damage in the action.

Before the San Felipe made Tortuga she was caught in a great storm, which swept upon her suddenly and sent her masts by the board. During a lull she was warped into a cove on the Tortuga coast, and there refitted. Then, as she was being towed out, all hands busy in the work, the sea was cast up by a great earthquake; the cliffs on either hand were upheaved and flung sheer upon the vessel, killing outright every man upon it and in the boats save only the Captain and two or three beside. The Captain was struck on the head by a fragment of rock, and thrown senseless to the deck. (And here, as he told the story, he lifted his long, grizzling locks and showed a great seam upon his skull.) When he came to himself all was at first mere blankness to him. He got upon his feet, lost in amaze to behold the galleon encompassed by a vault of rock, and tended the few men that had survived the cataclysm, but they lingered for a little and then all died, leaving him alone.

Little by little the past came back to him, and he was not aware of any change in himself save that his memory played him tricks. But I perceived that the shock and the blow on the head had done his intellects more harm than he knew. He had long fits of silence, wherein he would sit and gaze vacantly out to sea, or would march with drawn sword into the woodland, seeking an enemy that had come to steal his gold. Other whiles he would weave baskets of grass, humming little songs, or babbling in the manner of children. He never ceased to regard me as one of his whilom crew, and in my pity I said nought to undeceive him.

He knew not how long he had dwelt upon the island. I asked him whether he had been alone all the time, and why he had not discovered himself to the French and English pirates who had doubtless sometimes come ashore.

He smiled cunningly, and said, "Could I trust them? They were not my friends. Say that I told them of the ship, and the great treasure it contained, think you they would not have desired it for their own, and taken it from me, and left me poor? I trusted La Noue" (his thoughts were straying to his youth and the siege of La Rochelle): "all men trusted him. He was saved at Jarnac."

And then he fell a-musing. At another time he told me that he had been minded once to join a party that had landed, telling them nothing, with intent to return at some convenient season for his treasure. But he feared lest during his absence it should be discovered, and he might return only to find that the vessel had been stripped bare. The treasure was the sole thing he clung to; he could not bring himself to part from it even for a day; once a day at the least he descended into the cabin and feasted his eyes on the great store of gold and jewels. He had become a miser. And so he carefully shunned such men as had come ashore; and once he had been near to starving, when a crew encamped beneath the cliff wherein was the entrance to his cavern, and remained there for several days, he not daring to issue forth for food, lest he should be seen.

I marvelled often that the Captain never showed any distrust of me. He took me often into the cabin, and sometimes set me to count the money piece by piece, and to display the jewels on the lids of the chests. Indeed, he took, methought, a childish pleasure in thus exhibiting his wealth, and when the precious things were all set in array before him, he would gaze from them to me with a simple pride and contentation which I found infinitely moving.