Across the Spanish Main: A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess

by Harry Collingwood

  CHAPTER NINE.

  THE MAROONED MAN TELLS HIS STORY.

  Crouching over the fire, the marooned man proceeded to tell his story.

  "Well," he began, "I must tell you first that I was born in the year1532, in the town of Monmouth, in Wales, of purely Welsh parents,bearing the ancient name of Evans. In my early youth I kept about thehouse and tended our flock of sheep, of which we had a great many, onthe dear old Welsh mountains. This life suited me well, for I was of astudious frame of mind, fond of learning, and I read and studied muchwhile out on the hills with the sheep. At this time our family was veryprosperous; but not long afterwards England began to be torn by thosereligious struggles, which I doubt not you two older men will wellremember, and we were unfortunate enough to have our lands confiscatedby that tyrant, King Henry the Eighth, and, from a state of prosperityand the possession of all we could reasonably wish, my family founditself landless, without money, and even without a home. Besidesmyself, there were two other children, both girls; and what worried mypoor parents most was the problem of what to do with us three children.Fortunately an uncle of my mother--a man whose religious convictions hada habit of changing with the times--had retained all his property, andhe undertook to take my two young sisters and bring them up as his ownchildren. This kindness on his part relieved my parents of muchanxiety; but there was still the difficulty as to what to do with me.At last it was decided, in the absence of anything better, that I shouldgo to sea; and accordingly, although I did not at all care for the idea,to sea I had to go, since no other course was open to me. My fathersecured me a berth as cabin-boy on board a vessel called the _Delight_,trading between London and ports on the Mediterranean, and commanded bya man named Thomas West. It had happened that my father, in the time ofhis prosperity, had been able to do this man a service, and that was thereason why he took me on board his ship; and I am bound to say that hewas always very kind to me. The time for the next voyage came roundonly too quickly for my liking, and I bade a sad farewell to my fatherand mother, who somehow scraped up money enough to go to London with meto see me off, little dreaming, poor souls, that they would never see meagain."

  The pirate's voice shook slightly; he paused for a moment, and brushedthe back of his hand across his eyes; then, clearing his throat, heresumed: "We left London in the latter part of the year 1547, when I wasvery nearly sixteen years of age, and, sailing down the English Channel,we entered the Bay of Biscay and touched at our first port, which wasBordeaux. From thence we sailed again, and--just before Christmas itwas, I remember--we cleared the Straits of Jebel-al-Tarik, as the Moorscall them, and entered the great inland sea. We coasted down itsshores, touching first at Barcelona, for we were not then at war withSpain, and then at Marseilles, from which port we struck across forSicily, intending to call at Palermo. But on the way there we fell inwith a Barbary corsair. Our captain was a brave man, and determined tofight to the last, as he had a very valuable cargo on board. The fightbegan early in the morning, and the pirate tried at first to ram ourship with his sharp beak; but the wind was good, and our ship was sonimble, and answered her helm so well, that we were able to avoid therushes of the corsair, although he nearly had us on one occasion.Finding that these tactics did not answer, he drew off and, turning hisbroadside to us, lacked us through and through with his ordnance untilwe were a mere floating wreck, and half our ship's company lay dead onour decks. We replied as well as we could; but, being only amerchant-ship, we were not nearly so heavily armed as the corsair; and,our men being untrained in warfare, very few of our shot hit him, sothat the rascal was but little the worse. Their captain then hailed us,and asked whether we would surrender; but the master of the _Delight_shouted back that if he wanted the ship he must come and take her.

  "Whereat he came at us again, and laid himself alongside us, we notbeing able to move by this time, owing to our having lost all our masts,and being so encumbered with wreckage that we could do nothing. About ahundred fierce and bloodthirsty ruffians swarmed aboard us and began tocut us down and drive us toward the fore-part of the ship, while we, onour side, fought bravely enough with what weapons we could lay our handson. But at last our gallant captain fell dead, cut down by the scimitarof a gigantic blackamoor, and the rest of us--very few by that time, Ican assure you,--seeing this, threw down our arms and surrendered to thecorsairs. There were then but seventeen of us left, all told, and notone of us but had his wound to show as the result of the fight. Fiveout of that seventeen, indeed, were so badly wounded that they died oftheir hurts before the corsair reached her port, leaving only twelve ofus, all Englishmen, to be sent into slavery. After the corsairs hadremoved us to their own ship, they stripped the _Delight_ of all thatshe carried, transferring all her cargo to their own hold. They weregreatly pleased at the result of their day's work--for they had made agood haul--and made all haste to return to their port, which was Tunis.But before bearing up they set fire to our ship, and when we last sawthe _Delight_ she was blazing merrily. I make no doubt that she sankshortly afterwards, leaving no trace behind."

  "You'm wrong there, mate," broke in Jake Irwin. "Don't you mind that itrained heavily soon afterwards? Well, the rain put out the fire, and anEnglish ship comin' up found her still smoulderin', with enough of herleft to show that she was the _Delight_. She brought the news of theloss of the _Delight_ into Plymouth--I remember hearin' all about it,--and it was thought she had took fire in the ordinary way, and that hercrew, havin' gone off in the boats, was a'terwards lost. No one evergave a thought to pirates or corsairs."

  "Ah," resumed Evans, "would to God that that vessel had come up sooner!We should have been saved--those left of us--from a living death thatlasted for many years. Yes, now you come to mention it, I remember therain; but we never dreamed that it would put out the fire, for we lefther burning furiously. Well, the other ship was too late, and it makesno difference now. But, to get on with my yarn. We reached the port ofTunis about ten days later, and there was much joy there when it wasfound what a valuable cargo the corsair had brought back; and the joywas all the greater because of the twelve white prisoners, for whiteslaves are reckoned very valuable in those parts, and there hadn't beenany taken for a very long while. We were all put up to auction, and theman who bid highest got the man he fancied. A big Moor from theback-country took a liking for me, for I was a fine strapping youngsterthen, although you mightn't think it to look at me now. Well, he boughtme, but me only; so I said good-bye to my comrades, never expecting tosee them again, and we set off with my master's caravan for theinterior.

  "His home must have been some hundreds of miles in the interior, for ittook us over two months of travelling every day to get there. We struckfrom the town of Tunis south-eastwards, as I could tell by the sun.After travelling for a long time we came to a big river, with fields ofrice on each side of it, and beyond them the burning desert, with hillsand mountains behind that again. When we came to the river we left thecamels, and proceeded in boats until we came to a mighty waterfall,where we quitted the river for a time, and went a little way overland;then we took to the river again. This we did four times, and at last,after more than two months, travelling all the time, we came to a bigtown, built all of white stone, very fine to see. All around were greenplaces like parks, with wells of good water in them; and there werepalm-trees all about, and palaces of white marble; it was a lovely placefor a free man to live in, but for a slave it was dreadful.

  "Well, my masters, I was kept here for ten long years, during which Ilearnt the language, and found that the city in which I dwelt was namedKhartoum. Then I began to fall ill; I looked old with suffering, andcould not do the tasks allotted to me. I was whipped, and burnt withred-hot irons; but even such cruelties as these did not make me do anymore work--for indeed I was more dead than alive,--so at last my mastersaid he would send me down the river to the sea-coast, and sell me thereas a galley-slave, as I was of no more use to him, while I should bemade to work when I was in the
galleys. So, with six others in likecondition, I was sent off one morning, in charge of a guard, down theriver, passing on our way six waterfalls or cataracts, as also manyruined temples and palaces of great age and beauty, with no men in them.

  "After nearly two months of travelling, having passed many towns andvillages on the way, we came one morning to a place on the river wherewe halted; and away in the desert I could see three great buildings,broad and square at the bottom, rising to a great height, andterminating in a point. I asked about them of our captors, and theytold me that they were tombs of ancient kings of Egypt, and of greatage.

  "Leaving these, we went on again, and in course of time came to the cityof Alexandria, where our journey ended. We stayed there several weeks,and then I--being by this time recovered from my sickness,--with theother six men, was sold to the captain of a corsair galley, who wanted afew more slaves to make up his complement of rowers.

  "And now began the worst years of my life. For six long years, mymasters, I sweated in a hot sun, with no shelter; toiling at the greatheavy sweeps with the other slaves; always kept to our work by the whipof the bo'sun. Ah, the torment of those years! The recollection ofthem would never leave me, were I to live to the age of the patriarchsof old. We pursued other craft--mostly merchantmen--and took them; andthose of the slaves who were killed by the shot of the other ships werereplaced by their crews.

  "Many a time did I pray that I should be one of those to find death; butit never came to me, though often enough to the men by my side. Atlast, one day we attacked a Spanish vessel--for we had gone down towardsthe Straits of Jebel-al-Tarik--that looked like a harmlessmerchant-ship, but she proved to be a war-ship disguised on purpose totake us, and others like us. After more than an hour's fighting, duringwhich nearly all our men were killed, she took us; and I, with the otherEnglishmen on board the galley, gave thanks to God, for we foolishlythought that all our troubles were now over. But we were soon to findout our mistake. There was now war between England and Spain, and wequickly discovered that we had merely made an exchange of masters.

  "We were taken on board the Spaniard and the galley was sunk. Herowners were all hanged, being heathens, but we Englishmen wereconsidered heretics, and we were to be reserved for the HolyInquisition, that that office might convert us from our sins, and `saveus from everlasting flame', as the Spanish Dons put it. We were landedat Cartagena, in Spain, and I, with eight others, was thrown intoprison, to await my trial at the hands of the Holy Office. One by onewe were tried, and all found guilty of `heresy'. Then they asked if wewould recant. We all refused, with the natural result that we were putto the torture. Oh, my masters, pray daily and nightly that you maynever fall into the hands of the Holy Inquisition! Those years that Ispent on the galley were as heaven compared to being in the hands of theDons.

  "I will not tell you how they tortured us--for indeed the story will notbear telling,--but I bear the marks of their irons and the rack to thisday. My companions steadfastly refused to renounce their faith, andafter enduring the most hideous and awful tortures they were burntalive. I know not whether my tortures were worse than theirs, but atlast I could bear them no longer, and I recanted, to gain release frommy daily pain. But I was mistaken in supposing that this lateconversion was going to save me. I was tortured again, for my pastobstinacy, and then, instead of being released, I was sent to theirgalleys, to spend the remainder of my life therein. By turning RomanistI had indeed saved myself from burning, but not from that living hell,the life of a galley-slave.

  "I was, then, sent to the galleys, and remained there, how long I knownot, but it seemed to be several years. During the time that I was inthe Spanish galley--for I remained on the same vessel all the time,--we,together with other vessels, made several attacks upon English ships,but we were beaten off with heavy loss in every case except one, andthat was when we captured a small English merchantman called the_Dainty_, the unfortunate crew of which, I suppose, were put into theInquisition, as I had been. These many conflicts were productive ofheavy casualties among the slaves, many more, indeed, than among thesoldiers and sailors who composed our fighting-crew, for, when chasinganother vessel, or attacking her broadside to broadside, our enemygenerally depressed his guns in order to hull and if possible sink us,as in that way only could they prevent us from running alongside. Andevery shot that pierced a galley's hull was certain to kill or maim atleast four or five slaves. But our masters cared nothing for that; whenone crew of galley-slaves was exhausted, another batch was sent for totake their place. There were always plenty of slaves to be had from theSpanish prisons, and the men we got from them were an even more crueland wicked set of rascals than the men who called themselves ourmasters.

  "Well, I had been a galley-slave among the Spaniards for some years--howmany years, exactly, I cannot tell you, for after a time my sensesbecame so deadened that I could not take the trouble to count up andremember the days and weeks as they passed; indeed I became more like ananimal than a human being. I had been with the Spaniards for severalyears, I say, when one day we sighted an English merchantman, as wethought, and chased her. She appeared to be sailing but slowly, and wevery soon caught her up, to find that we had walked, or rather sailed,into a deeply-laid trap. The Englishman, it appeared, had adopted aruse similar to that practised by the Spaniards when they captured thecorsair from Alexandria. The English had disguised their vessel--whichwas a war-ship--to look like an innocent and harmless merchant'strading-vessel, and to retard her speed and allow us to come up with herthey had dropped overboard a couple of light spars connected together bya broad piece of stout sail-cloth, the whole of the apparatus beingsecured to the stern of the vessel by a stout rope. Thus the passage ofthe ship through the water caused this piece of canvas between the twospars to open, when it acted as a drag upon her, and reduced her speedso considerably that we soon overtook her. But no sooner were we wellunder her guns than she opened fire, and before we could get alongsideher she had worked fearful execution both among our fighting-crew andalso the slaves. Our eyes were now opened to the true character of thevessel, and the crew no longer had any desire to come to close quarterswith her; so they put up their helm and bore away with all speed forCadiz, the port nearest to us.

  "And then began a chase that I shall never forget so long as I live,sirs. With our full crew we might perhaps have been a match for theEnglish ship in point of speed, but half our galley-slaves were killed,and the Englishman, having now cut away his drag, was coming up with ushand over hand. The slave-drivers came down among us, and, standing onthe drivers' plank, running down the centre of the galley, drove us tosuperhuman exertions by the merciless blows of their heavy-thongedwhips, the lashes of which were plaited up with small lead balls onthem. They even used the flat of their sword-blades to our backs, andafter that, when the English ship still continued to overhaul us, theydrew the edges of their weapons along our flesh, making the blood spurt.We were, as you perhaps know, all manacled together, and at least halfour slaves were killed by the enemy's shot. The floor of the vessel wasankle-deep in blood, and the corpses of the dead, still manacled to theliving--for there was no time to separate us,--kept time with ourstrokes as we pulled, in a manner most horrible to look upon. The mannext me had had his head cut off by a cannon-shot--I remember at thetime wishing it had been mine,--and with every stroke I pulled hiscorpse moved also, and with each movement jets of blood gushed up fromthe torn veins, which were protruding from the gory neck, and floodedme. Well, the vessel still continued to gain on us, and I saw theSpanish dogs of slave-drivers whispering together, and presently theycalled for buckets of fire. These were brought, full of glowingcharcoal, and into them irons were thrust. The unhappy slaves saw whatwas in store for them, and pulled until their muscles cracked. Soon theirons were white-hot, and the chief driver called to us in Spanish: `Wemust escape that cursed heretic-ship yonder. Now, you all see theseirons? If I see one of you flagging in your efforts, that man will bebranded
with them, and when we get into harbour will be handed over tothe office of the Holy Inquisition as a heretic and an aider and abettorof heretics.' This cruel threat drove us all nearly mad, and--for weknew what that meant--our muscles cracked again as we laboured on at theoars, hampered as we were by the bloody corpses of our fellow-slaves.For myself, I was away from the centre of the galley, I thank God! andnear an open port, so I got a little air, which refreshed me; but Ipresently saw one of the poor fellows near the middle of the vessel,where the air was stifling, begin to relax his exertions. He wasfainting with the heat and fatigue of the chase. The chiefslave-driver, whose name, I remember, was Alvarez, saw it too, andcalled out: `Juan, this heretic is fainting; bring the fire-bucket.'

  "The man brought it; Alvarez took out a white-hot iron, and--oh, sirs, Icannot describe what then happened, but I can hear that man's shrieksnow, as I tell of it! It was awful; and would shrivel my tongue torelate, and your ears to hear. Well, sirs, not to harrow you further bythose fearful methods of making us work, we at last got into Cadiz, andescaped the English ship; but more than half of the remaining slavesdied from their exertions.

  "Our diminished crew was replenished by a lot of men from the prisons ofSpain, and among them was a man named Jose Leirya. This man was my evilgenius; and, as he marked the turning-point in my life from good toevil, I may as well describe his appearance; for he is on these seasnow, and I wish you to know the man, so that if you should meet him witha sufficient force to capture him, you may recognise the villain. Hewas sent down to the galley one morning with a number of other men, tomake up her complement afresh after the encounter with the Englishman.I recognised him for a leader of men the moment he came aboard thegalley, and, as he was chained next to me on the same tier, I had ampleopportunity for observing his appearance. He was an enormously tall andbroad man, of extremely dark complexion. He said he was of Portugal,but I should say he had more Moorish blood in him than anything else.He wore his hair long, and it fell in thick black ringlets over hisbroad shoulders. A huge moustache concealed his lips, and a long blackbeard hid his chin; indeed the man was so hairy that he had theappearance of being an ape rather than a man. One of his eyes--whichwere jet black in colour, with whites which turned red when he flew intoa rage--had a very perceptible cast in it; the left eye, I remember itwas. His nose had been broken, and had a tremendous twist to starboard;and he had lost his right ear in a stabbing affray in the streets ofLisbon. In the left he now wears a huge gold ear-ring, shaped somethinglike a nut, with an enormous emerald set in it. Such was the exteriorappearance of the man who was to change both my life and that of others,Jose Leirya, murderer and galley-slave, then mutineer, and, lastly,pirate and villain of villains, slayer of hundreds of innocent folk,slave-dealer, incendiary, and bloodthirsty monster, for whom no death isbad enough. Remember my description of the man, sirs, for he presentsthe very same appearance at the present day. I should know, for but twoshort months since I was on his vessel; and, God forgive me, I believe Iwas not much better than he. But to continue my yarn. This man cameaboard with about a hundred others; and I perceived at once--althoughour jailers did not seem to notice the fact--that there was some kind ofarrangement or understanding between Jose Leirya and a number of the newgalley-slaves. What it meant I did not know until afterwards. We leftCadiz, and our captain, thinking perhaps that the Mediterranean Sea wasnot suitable for his enterprises, determined to take the galley to theWest Indies and try his fortune there. So we started away across thegreat Atlantic Ocean.

  "As I have told you, Jose Leirya was chained next to me; but he neveronce spoke to me until after we had left the Western Isles. A few daysafter that, however, he one evening disclosed to me his plan for seizingthe galley, and I then knew what the understanding had been betweenhimself and a large number of the prisoners who came aboard the galleywith him. On a certain night--which would fall about eight days later--at midnight, on a given signal, all were to rise and overpower thesoldiers and sailors of the ship, seize her for ourselves, and use herfor our own purposes. You will ask, how were we to get rid of ourmanacles? Well, it was thus arranged, sirs. Jose Leirya had brought onboard, cunningly concealed in his clothing, a number of small saws, ofexceeding fine temper and sharpness. They would cut through ourmanacles as a knife cuts through wood. These he gave out to some of theslaves, and on the night arranged they were to cut the links of theiriron manacles and pass the tools on to the others. This would, ofcourse, leave the iron rings round our wrists and ankles, but we shouldbe free to move and fight; and after we had won the ship we could getthe rings off at our leisure. The saws were given out one by one, thegreatest care being taken that they were not discovered, and immediatelyafter dark on the eventful night we began to cut our fetters, the galleybeing then under sail and the oars laid in. By midnight we were ready,and waiting for the signal. It came as a shrill whistle from Leirya'slips. At the sound we all swarmed up on deck; and, as most of theofficers and seamen were asleep below, we quickly overcame the watch.We gave no quarter, knowing that none would be given to us, and we tookno prisoners. Then, going to the companion-hatches, we cried `Fire!'and as our former masters came running up in their shirts, they wereseized and flung overboard. None of them suspected any plot, and thevessel was soon in our hands.

  "We then took counsel among ourselves to elect officers, and determineupon our future movements. Jose Leirya was, of course, elected captain,and, for some reason that I cannot make out, I was chosen for firstmate. Then for our plans. We were about in the middle of the NorthAtlantic, perhaps a little more than half-way to the West IndianIslands; so we determined to run there, take a ship on our way, if wecould, and if not, capture one in the first port we could reach--for thegalley was of little use to us for our purposes. Ah! if I had butknown, if I could but have foreseen what was to happen in the future,what deeds I should be called upon to do, rather would I have suffereddeath by torture than have joined in the mutiny! But I did not thenknow that Jose Leirya intended to become a pirate, or that he meditatedthose awful atrocities that have made men curse his name, and swear tohunt him down and make his end worse than a dog's! At length, when theship had been ours for a matter of fifteen days, and was approaching theislands, our lookout one afternoon reported a large ship coming up fromthe westward. Our hearts leaped with anticipation, but we kept a verycautious lookout lest she should prove to be a war-vessel. As she camenearer, however, we saw that she was a large merchant-vessel flying theflag of Spain--that country that we had grown to hate with a hatredpassing words. She had not noticed us as yet, for we lay low in thewater and had no sail set. As soon, however, as she saw us comingtoward her, she made all sail to escape, and we followed in fullpursuit. Then, finding that we _were_ gaining upon her, she went about,evidently with the intention of returning to the islands; but she wasdoomed to be our prey. Every man of us, even Leirya himself, joined thecrew of oarsmen below, leaving only the helmsman on deck to steer and toreport progress to us below. Thus every oar was fully manned, and weswept along after her, gaining on her hand over hand, until about themiddle of the afternoon the man at the helm threw us alongside her--forshe was unarmed with cannon and could not fire at us--and we all swarmedup from below and on to her decks. Such was our ferocity that wecleared their deck at once, leaving dead and wounded in our path, thewhole of whom--quick and dead alike--we at once flung overboard.

  "We did not require the galley any longer, so we took all her guns andarms, and furnished the ship with them, sinking the galley afterwards,and thus hiding all trace of our former crime. We got under waydirectly after this, still making for the islands, and then provisionsand wine, of which there were plenty on the ship, were got up, and wecaroused and made merry for the rest of the day.

  "We soon found that the new vessel was not suitable for us; but she wasere long the means of enabling us to obtain another to suit our purpose,without any loss of life to us."