Just when Emerald thought she understood him, the captain of the Regale portrayed himself more enigmatic than she had supposed. That he was a fine seaman, she knew, but was the viscount-turned-buccaneer capable of becoming an outright pirate as well? She came to the conclusion that he could quite easily merge into the role of pirate—and do so without apparent qualm.
Emerald minimized her shock upon learning of the planned attack, for the unnecessarily cruel horrors she had witnessed by the Spaniards at the cove were still fresh upon her mind. An attack also appeared to be the answer to her prayers for Minette’s rescue. A lookout from Farrow’s crew, hiding on the beach, had reported that a priest and a young woman captive had been transported from the guarda costa’s barca longa onto the Spanish ship. Whereas the barca longa was returning to Caracas, the ship from Cartagena was on its way either to Cumaná, Margarita, or on to Trinidad.
Emerald thought the young woman had to be Minette.
Captain Farrow was convinced as well. As soon as he arrived at the beach, he left Emerald with Yorke and ordered his crewmen to board a longboat and row out to the Warspite to set sail.
Baret had not yet arrived when Yorke and another crewman prepared a smaller pinnace to row her to the Regale. She wondered what was delaying him. Yorke did not seem concerned, however, even when the remaining crew from the Black Dragon came scrambling up the beach, hailing them.
“Foxworth is taking us as far as Pierre’s Bonaventure,” one announced.
Lex Thorpe was nowhere to be seen, and Emerald turned to Yorke uneasily. “Shouldn’t your captain have returned by now?”
He grinned. “You don’t need to worry about him, Miss Emerald. It’s Thorpe who best worry. The captain will return later tonight. He knows some boucaniers in these parts he wants to meet with first.”
“But aren’t the boucaniers mainly on Hispaniola?”
“Aye, sometimes called Cow Island. You know of the hunters, miss?”
“My father spoke of them when I was growing up in Jamaica. He had friends among them also. He spoke in glowing terms of their hunting abilities. He used to anchor off northern Hispaniola, and the men would row out to barter with him for their dried beef, boucan. It’s an Arawak Indian name, isn’t it—‘green willow branch’?”
He looked at her, obviously admiring her insight into their ways. “Aye, and my grandfather was one of them early colonists.” His ruddy face darkened with memory. “Then an edict came down from the Spanish colonial government in Madrid to kill off the heretics migrating to the West Indies.” He leaned over and spat onto the sand. “Some of us stayed alive in the woods by hunting the wild cows there. So we learned the Arawak’s ways of smoking and curing raw meat. Most of us at Tortuga come from grandparents who fled persecution against Protestants in France, Holland, and England.”
He looked suddenly sheepish. “Looks like we’ve forgotten the faith of our fathers. Most of us drifted from Hispaniola to Tortuga and became what we are now, the Brotherhood. The boucaniers have become the Buccaneers—or worse, pirates like the captain of the Black Dragon. It’s a fact, miss, even old Thorpe’s grandparents came from Scotland. They was some of the finest Presbyterians you’d ever keep company with on Sunday. But all of us, seeing atrocity after atrocity done by the Spaniards, was soon raised not on the Bible but on vengeance and hate. Well—I’m not making excuses, miss. It’s the way of things. Not much of our grandparents remains in us now ‘cept a burning hatred for the ways of the inquisitors.”
She had heard this before from her father, but Yorke put a face on the history. “Your captain also despises Spain,” she said quietly. “His mother died in Holland.”
His eyes turned granite blue. “With good cause he hates ’em. He knows better than me how the Spanish government works in the Indies. The presidents, the captains-general, the royal governors are all bound by orders issued through the Holy Office of the Inquisition. That means there’s no place for us in the Caribbean, an’ there isn’t a cruelty that isn’t blessed by heaven to be used on us. So they say to the soldiers.”
Yorke smiled suddenly, but it was a brittle smile without mercy. “When we’re through with their fancy galleons and treasure ships, ol’ King Philip will be absent his silver, and his army in Europe will be broke. Then let’s see how them devils can war against us and Protestant Holland!”
He turned abruptly to Thorpe’s crew, hanging back apprehensively. “Wait here for Foxworth. Dugan—guard these men till the captain comes!”
He took Emerald to a smaller boat and sat her on a low seat toward the back. Then Yorke and his comrade shoved off, quickly hopped aboard, and took up their oars.
As the pinnace pulled away from the beach, she felt the unsteady movement of the water beneath them and heard the oars slicing through the quiet blue water of the cay.
She looked back. A dozen men waited on the beach with the bigger longboat that would return their captain to the Regale. She wondered why Baret wanted to meet with the boucaniers, but Yorke had not seemed eager to explain.
As they neared the Regale, Emerald looked up the tall side of the ship to a young lad with a thatch of chestnut hair and unusually tender brown eyes.
“Jeremy, my lad, how goes it?” Yorke called up in friendly fashion.
The young man, perhaps eighteen, smiled. “I’m still disappointed the captain made me stay behind, Yorke. You leave with a crew of buccaneers and return with a lady!”
“The captain’s lady, my lad. You best remember that!”
“Aye, how could I forget? There isn’t many of us who hasn’t seen that drawing!”
The exchange made no sense to Emerald, who was completely absorbed in the task before her—climbing the rope ladder up the side of the ship. She remembered the first time she climbed it with Zeddie, thinking the Regale belonged to her pirate cousin, Rafael Levasseur. What a surprise greeted her when Baret had found her rummaging through his belongings!
“Make haste! Get the lady aboard!” called up Yorke. “She’s got a bad sprain in her ankle.”
She set her good foot onto a swaying rung and, with the help of Yorke, cautiously began the steep ascent, gripping the rough rope. When she neared the top, Jeremy carefully hauled her over the side, and she felt her feet touch the deck. She took hold of the rail to steady her balance.
Jeremy smiled shyly. “Morning, miss. You sure do justice to that drawing the captain keeps.”
“What drawing?”
“Later, me lad,” said Yorke. “Tell Hob to bring tea and something to eat. Is the cabin ready?”
Jeremy cast him a cautious glance. “The captain’s cabin is already borrowed, remember?”
“I know as much. What of the cabin below?”
“I did my best.” Jeremy looked at Emerald, obviously anxious to please. “I hope you’ll be comfortable, miss.”
“I’m sure I will, thank you. Is my father in the captain’s cabin?”
Jeremy looked at Yorke, saying nothing.
“First, I’ll get you settled,” said Yorke evasively.
Wondering, she said no more and found herself being carried down the steps to the lower deck. Unlike the last time she’d sailed on Baret’s ship, she wasn’t taken to the main cabin. Finding herself in smaller quarters, she supposed it was because her father was taken there to have his injuries cared for.
“Is my father all right?” she repeated anxiously.
It came as a surprise when Yorke explained that both Sir Karlton and Zeddie had been transported to Captain Farrow’s ship.
“My father’s on the Warspite? Why?”
“It was by his own asking,” Yorke said.
This puzzled her. She had naturally thought that he would sail on the Regale with her. As she mulled over his request to be brought to Erik’s vessel instead, a dark intuition of trouble arising between him and Baret settled over her soul. Her father would have a good deal of explaining to do to Baret about how he knew where to locate the treasure of the Prince Philip. And
obviously he would not feel prepared to take him on now. She believed that Baret was in no fraternal mood either, though he had risked much to rescue them from Lex Thorpe.
She became curious about the plans that Baret had already made with Captains Farrow and LaMonte, and why they had rendezvoused off Venezuela, contrary to earlier plans to join Henry Morgan in a raid against Porto Bello. Had the Dutch war intervened, cutting short their plans? Even now they were close to Dutch-held Curaçao, and north from Spanish Margarita were other Dutch holdings: St. Eustatius, Saba, and St. Martin. Did they plan to aid the Dutch against England? When last she had seen Baret on Tortuga, he had implied that he’d promised his grandfather that he would fight for England to please King Charles.
Hob, the old turtler from Chocolata Hole who was now Baret’s serving man, entered with tea and something to eat. The familiar sight of the short, grizzled man in canvas breeches and a faded red scarf tied over his thick, white locks brought a smile to Emerald’s face. His shrewd blue eyes were bright with wry humor beneath walruslike brows. He chuckled and glanced at Yorke.
“Tea, Miss Emerald. Be a kind hour to see ye aboard his lordship’s pert ship again.”
She thanked him, taking the hot, sweet drink gratefully. Then, as Hob sliced meat from a roasted wild hen to serve her, she questioned Yorke about Baret’s plans.
Yorke remained vague, saying only that they were to weigh anchor to voyage in the direction of Margarita to trade.
“Trade? Will the Spanish governor allow it? The laws of Madrid forbid her colonists to buy or sell with privateers from England, France, or Holland.”
Yorke rubbed his chin and smiled a little. “Well, miss, the captain don’t always abide by the laws of Madrid.”
Hob chuckled.
“I’m aware of that,” she said, “but isn’t it dangerous to sail to Margarita? What if they open fire when the Regale nears port?”
“The captain has his friendly ways,” Yorke said.
To Emerald that was no explanation at all, and she could see he was deliberately avoiding giving a plain answer. Her curiosity grew even stronger to know what Baret was about.
“The royal governor of Madrid isn’t likely to be won over by his friendly ways,” she said with a crooked smile.
“Aye, but what the captain has to trade will make him a mite more friendly.”
She wondered at his underlying tone. Just what did Baret have that the governor of Margarita was likely to want badly enough to allow the Regale to do business there? And what manner of business did Baret have on Margarita that would cause him to risk going into the heart of Spanish territory? She remembered what her father had said about the treasure of the Prince Philip. Could it really be hidden on Margarita?
As she rested, drinking tea and nibbling on the succulent slice of fowl, she felt safe and secure among trusted men for the first time in a week. She settled comfortably back into her chair and watched Hob and Yorke, trying to read their guarded expressions. They were on their best behavior but seemed determined to remain mute about anything the captain was up to.
“The governor won’t be friendly once he learns Captain Foxworth helped seize that ship from Cartagena,” she suggested. “Is it … um … a treasure ship, by any chance?”
Treasure galleons often carried as much as one million pieces of eight, plus emeralds, pearls, bars of silver from the Peruvian mines, and all manner of silk, spices, and other rich commodities.
Hob looked slyly at Yorke, who cleared his throat.
“You best wait for the captain to answer your questions, miss,” Yorke said. “Now, excuse me—I best be getting back to the beach. Foxworth will be arriving soon, an’ he may have more fightin’ men with him if the boucaniers be joining us, as he hopes. They’re some of the best fightin’ men in these parts. They know all the ways and customs of the Spaniards.”
She tensed, and Yorke, as though he had already said too much, murmured something about not wanting to keep Baret waiting. He ducked his head under the door frame and departed.
Hob remained, turning his attention to her injured ankle, clucking his tongue as he gently inspected it. “Thorpe be a cullion, says I. Ought to be strung out for what he done to ye and Sir Karlton. That ankle—” he shook his head sadly “—ye not be walkin’ on that foot for a few days. A mite o’ turtle rum soaked in rawhide be helpin’. Har, a good thing Cap’n Foxworth be in these waters.”
Emerald agreed and guided the conversation back to Baret’s plans, thinking she might get more out of Hob, who loved to talk, than she had from the more cautious Officer Yorke.
“Why are you so certain the governor of Margarita will be friendly with Captain Foxworth?”
He glanced at her, then toward the door that stood open allowing the breeze to enter, then back again. “Because his lordship—I means, Cap’n Foxworth—be holding the governor’s niece as ransom to bargain with. He done moved out of the great cabin and loaned it to her.” He grinned. “He’ll be surprised to find ye in this one, seein’ as how this was to be his new quarters. He told Yorke to take ye to Farrow’s ship. Maybe Yorke misheard. Cap’n Foxworth didn’t want ye to know he’s plannin’ to teach the Spaniards a hard lesson. He has himself plans to attack Cumaná, Puerto Cabello, and Coro.”
She stared at him.
The governor’s niece!
Baret was accustomed to seeing rough-looking scoundrels in Tortuga and Port Royal as well, but he had never seen anything that approached the friendly boucanier hunters. They smoked odd-looking pipes, wore round, rawhide hats, and their stiff leather breeches and sandals still bristled with animal hair. Strips of leather bound their chests in crisscross fashion, and cowskin pouches hung from belts bulging with leaden balls that were eighteen to the pound.
They carried a host of weapons: long-barreled muskets that Baret knew to be supremely accurate, firelocks, snaphauches, arquebuses, and broad-bladed cutlasses. Accompanying them were large mastiffs, used to flush out wild pigs and cattle from the tropical underbrush. The men spoke mostly French, mingled with English and Dutch.
The remaining boucan hunters were dwindling in favor of life on the sea. Those who remained to hunt and sell their dried meat instead of joining the Brotherhood of the Coast were a hearty group.
Baret lounged near the glowing firestones, where a favorite delicacy of the men—heaps of marrow bones—splattered and sizzled. Barbados rum was hauled out from somewhere and passed around in halved coconut shells.
Marquet, their spokesman, described with a flourish how the process of curing the boucan took place. Strips of meat three or four feet long and half an inch thick were laid across strong racks fashioned of thick green branches. The strips, heavily salted and lashed around green wooden rods, were rotated from time to time, some two feet above a thick bed of hot coals upon which the hunters cast bones and offal, creating a thick greasy smoke.
Marquet then spilled out horror tales of past persecutions by the guarda costa. “Nevair have we seen such cruelties, ma foi, and out of decency I would not speak of zem even now. You know well enough zair ways. Ze Spaniards have no pity. Nor have we pity for ze likes of papists. Our brethren on Tortuga will sink every ship zey come across. And we, monsieur? Ah! We will slay every Spaniard we shall find!”
Baret knew the sad history of the French, Dutch, and English who had come out of desperation to the West Indies, escaping the religious wars in Europe. With wives and children killed, the remaining male colonists had banded together to survive. They sold their dried jerky to passing merchant ships by rowing out to them in their canoes, barca longas, or piraguas.
As Spanish expeditions persisted, the boucaniers discovered they could turn their canoes and small barks into raiding vessels. They were able to row quietly up to the side of an unsuspecting larger vessel at night, board silently, and actually take over the ship. Eventually, the wild cow hunters began to use bigger vessels, which in turn were able to attack still the larger and more prosperous Spanish ships called treasur
e galleons. Their success became a growing and frightening reality all along the Main.
Though they were first called boucaniers because of their smoked boucan, the word eventually came to mean any freebooter who preyed on Spain’s shipping. Most of the early boucaniers had already left northern Hispaniola for Tortuga, where the Confederacy continued to grow, drawing ruffians and pirates as well and creating a force that Baret estimated to be near 700 men. A common cause bound them: intense hatred for Spain and a passion for booty, all the more dear because it was taken from the Spanish throne.
The first admiral of this nationless group of freebooters had been a fiery old Hollander by the name of Edward Mansfield, but as he grew older there was talk of following Henry Morgan instead.
“You have us the smaller vessel we need?” Marquet asked.
“She’s a ketch, a mere fifty feet in length at her waterline. Like Morgan’s Free Guift, I’ve had a blunderbuss mounted in the main crosstrees. At that height, we’ll have a clean shot of the San Pedro’s deck if needed.”
Baret and Marquet looked at each other, pleased.
The small-sized ketch forbade carrying heavy cannon, and the shot of the smaller demi-culverin was no larger than a man’s hand. But the brass guns called “murdering pieces,” the big blunderbusses mounted on swivels, could shoot everything from musket balls and rocks to glass. A single well-aimed blast across an enemy’s deck was frightfully effective.
“Monsieur, we will join you,” Marquet said. “There is no more place for us as hunters. First we left Hispaniola, now we leave zese parts. Zis idea of yours to take ze San Pedro in ze old way of ze boucaniers will be a mission most dear to our hearts. When do we leave, mon foi?”
Smiling, Baret gestured to the sizzling strips of smoking meat. “As soon as we eat.”
They laughed, and Marquet leaned over and heaped Baret’s hollowed-out coconut plate with barbecued beef.
6
THE PIRATE’S SAVAGE VIRTUE
Buccaneers Series Page 51