by Harold Lamb
“Send out small boats and work them back to anchorage,” commanded the governor. “Has a wind sprung up of a sudden?”
“No, your Excellency, there is little air stirring. The ships seem to be moving out of their own accord. All the seventeen are in motion. It is clear starlight, and we can see them passing well from the shore.”
The governor gestured angrily for silence and whispered to one of his captains who started and clapped hand to his sword. Slowly at first the buzz of whispered tidings spread around the hall. To Fray Raymundo the rumor came as he was repeating his prayer against heretic black arts. The corsair was in the harbor! What the guards had taken to be the vessel from Panama was no other than the devil ship of El Andreque. It had slipped in among the other vessels and begun its work of evil unnoticed.
It was now too late for the priest to tell his tidings, and he stepped back from his position before the governor to seek the harbor and learn the truth of what was happening. He had scarce taken a step when the buzz of whispers in the hall were broken by the sound of a cannon in the harbor. And when the echo had died away, no one spoke. The priest went no further toward the door.
For he saw, quite clearly by the torches held by the halberdiers at the entrance, three Englishmen walk into the Audencia, and advance through the crowd toward the governor. The leader of the trio was a stocky man with red checks and a fair beard, and eyes that seemed to take in everything in the hall with a single glance. Behind him came two tall gentlemen who curled their beards and cast sidelong glances at the mestizos.
The unexpectedness of their entrance cleared the way for the Englishmen, when the halberdiers stopped them in the open space before the governor. The leader of the English prisoners, Falconer, gave a cry of surprise which was drowned in the uproar of the crowd.
Soldiers, officials and populace, once they were sure that no more of the English dogs were in the street, gazed open-mouthed at the trio who stood calmly in the midst of the Audencia. Although armed, their weapons were sheathed, and they showed no disposition to use them. Above the confusion the voice of the English leader reached the ears of Fray Raymundo.
“I have come, señor,” he began, in very fair Spanish, “to pay you a promised visit, and to see that my men whom you hold prisoners, are released without ado.”
Not until then did Fray Raymundo realize that before him stood the notorious El Andreque, corsair and heretic. Surely, he thought, the man was stricken with madness to come to the trial as he had done, with two companions and swords sheathed.
Only by a slight lift of the eyebrows did that astute personage, his Excellency Don Francisco de Toledo, show his astonishment and gratification.
“You come at an excellent time, Señor Andreque,” he responded, his mouth twitching into a smile, “for we were sitting in judgment upon other pirates and robbers of your breed. Now it will be possible to hang seven instead of four. You remember the vow that I made after your sack of Nombre de Dios? Tomorrow it will cease to be a vow, because its purpose will be fulfilled.”
El Andreque swept off his hat in a bow which would not have discredited a Spanish courtier.
“I also made a vow, señor,” he said in his hearty voice, “that goads me to fulfilment. I have sworn that I would make my way to the waters of the South Sea, if I lived, and I have done so. Even have I come to your court, which, I am told, is the second richest in the world.”
“As you may see,” the governor swept his hand gracefully around the room, while a slight frown crossed his brow as he considered the English captain. “Yet tomorrow, I regret, señor, that you will not see it, for vultures will be pecking at your eyes, and your body will hang upon our gibbet.”
Whereupon Fray Raymundo saw Falconer start forward as if to speak, being checked by a quick word from El Andreque. The two spoke together in English briefly, while his Excellency’s glance wandered from one to the other and darkened when Falconer threw back his yellow head in a hearty laugh.
“You will not laugh,” he said harshly, “when your bones crack in the grip of the rack tomorrow. Enough of this play, my men will see that you have good entertainment in irons and shackles. How came you here?”
“Through the courtesy of an Indian, señor,” returned the visitor calmly, “who met us when we landed on the shore further south, where we learned from a tribe hostile to you that the trial was to be ended tonight, with other things. We encountered this same Indian at the outskirts of Lima, and he consented to smuggle us into an inn where the patrons were so deep in wine, they would not have noticed had we been Neptune himself. It was there I wrote my letter, a few minutes ago to advise you of my coming.”
Fray Raymundo’s thoughts flew to the native who had been insulted by the governor. He might well have come to the town to inform the Spaniards of the arrival of the English, being friendly to them before his encounter with the governor. After that, with a Peruvian’s deep hatred of injury, he had lent his aid to El Andreque. If the priest had been able to make friends with the Indian in the tavern, different events might have followed. But God, he considered, had willed otherwise.
Meanwhile El Andreque had stepped to the side of Falconer, and drawn his sword to cut the cords which bound him, when two Spanish soldiers grasped him. At once he turned to the governor.
“Release me, señor,” he cried, “and my companions, including the prisoners. God’s truth, they are worthless mutineers, but they are Englishmen, and such shall not hang from a gibbet. Give us a guard of safe conduct down to the water-front, with a pinnace to leave the shore, in order to reach our ship.”
“Rather a safe conduct to the devil and a pinnace to sail in purgatory, señor,” retorted the governor. “I have no mind to release you here hence, save in that fashion.”
“An you do that,” warned El Andreque, “all Lima will grieve, and your life as governor will have short shrift.”
“How mean you?” questioned his Excellency, biting his beard, for he saw that there was something held back in the words of the Englishman. Yet he was surrounded by two thousand men with swords in their hands, and the corsair was distant from the town by the length of the harbor. Surely, there could be no danger from the English. The man’s words were bred of madness.
El Andreque waved his hand good-naturedly. “An you would know how matters stand,” he said, “conceive that my ship has cut your craft from their moorings, and now sixteen sail are in our hands, drifted by the wind, out of the harbor. Not a vessel of size remains on the waterfront of Lima. An you see not what this means, conceive that without ships you can not reach another port, nor will other craft come to you, for we shall take and sink those that we meet up the coast. Lima will be barred from the rest of the world by the loss of sixteen sail, if we are not returned unharmed to my ship by dawn.”
There was a stir at these words, and Fray Raymundo saw the governor’s hands writhe together in anger.
“Dog!” shouted his Excellency. “Think you to deceive me with a threat? Your life will need a greater price than that. What if Lima is cut off from the outside for months? We can live. Better that than to surrender to you on such terms.”
“A higher price?” smiled El Andreque. “Well, I will be generous, and give it you. The Santa Maria, with the king’s treasure is with the other ships in port, as I learned from the Indians. She is, in truth, in our hands. How like you the thought of losing the king’s tax?”
The priest saw how heavy these tidings lay on his Excellency, for the Santa Maria was loaded with thousands of bars of silver. For a moment there was silence in the Audencia while the governor stared at the Englishman, and the hands of the Spanish captains itched to the swords they feared to use.
“The gun you heard,” went on El Andreque, “was a signal to me that my ship had done what I planned. The guards of your vessels—too few, forsooth—were crowded into one galleon, and all the cables were cut. The forts on shore are helpless. They can not see one ship from another in the darkness. In the hands of m
y men there is a ransom for a dozen dukes, the price of a kingdom.”
His Excellency winced and shot a black look at the unfortunate customs guards.
“Our ransom, the sixteen ships, including the Santa Maria,” resumed El Andreque carelessly, “will be paid, on my word, when we reach our ship. Otherwise, you will not see the ships again, and the Santa Maria will make the trip to England as a present to our sovereign lady, the queen. By my faith, King Philip will reward you well when be hears how his tax slipped through your fingers, señor.”
There was a murmur of agreement from the crowd who knew the value of the cargo of the galleon, but his Excellency bared his teeth in rage.
“Your word!” he snarled. “The word of a pirate and thief—how can I know it will be kept?”
“My faith,” answered the Englishman, and Fray Raymundo marveled to see him smile, as at a good jest. “I have kept the vow I swore at Nombre de Dios, while yours has slight chance of honor. Am I not a man of my word?”
“Your life lies in my hand.”
“Slight avail would it be to you, señor, if you lose all your shipping. Ships are uneasy to make from the trees on this coast, and none come from Spain.”
“I could send a thousand men out in small boats to take your ship under cover of darkness. What is to prevent?”
“Naught save that there are no small boats. Pinnace and cockboat alike have been stove in by my men, save a half-dozen that lay on the shore.”
“The forts can fire on all the shipping in the harbor. Perchance—”
“The first ship to be sunk would be the Santa Maria, señor,”
And Fray Raymundo knew that the governor could do naught but yield his prisoners safe conduct. There were some words between the caballeros, who found the remedy not to their liking, but his Excellency waved them to silence and ordered the guards to take the English to the shore and put them in a small boat. When the tall Falconer bowed before his Excellency and said—
“I warrant your Excellency’s beard is chaffed to a turn, and as for your jewels, you will know more presently.”
Whereupon the English left the Audencia, making courteous farewells to the governor, and swaggering from the door. Fray Raymundo said a prayer of thanksgiving that no man had been hurt on either side, and blessed the happy chance that rid the shores of the English, and especially El Andreque.
Which ends his testimony, except for the remark that when the Santa Maria was returned to port with the other ships, when the English ship sailed the next morning, she floated strangely high in the water. Officials of his Excellency who boarded her found, pinned to the mast in the hold a receipt for two hundred and fifty thousand pounds in silver, paid by his Majesty, King Philip II of Spain, to Elizabeth, Queen of England.
KHLIT (1917)
When the noonday sun struck through clouds and fell upon the saber on his knee, Khlit made up his mind it was time to eat. Putting aside the sheepskin rag with which he had been wiping specks of rust from his weapon, Khlit drew from the pocket of his coat several hard barley cakes. These he broke over the silver heel of his boot and munched. Thus did Khlit satisfy his noonday hunger.
All the forenoon, seated beside one of the streets of the Zaporogian Siech, as the Cossacks of the sixteenth and well into the seventeenth century called their isolated war encampment—an island midway between the Russian and the Tatar banks of the great river Dnieper—Khlit had been polishing his cherished saber, a curved Turkish blade, of Damascus forging. That morning, when he had awakened, after a night of wine-guzzling, Khlit had heard rumors of war bandied about the kurens, or barracks, and like the scent of game to a wolfhound, the tidings had set the warrior to nursing his sword.
Peering out under shaggy brows, the keen eyes of the Cossack, which every now and then sought the river, noticed a stirring among the kurens. Knights of the Siech were gathering in groups, to learn if there was truth in the rumors. As the hammering on blacksmith forges became louder, young Cossacks sprang to horse.
Khlit sat still, sheepskin hat on the back of his sunburned head, bald save for the long scalp lock that trailed over his shoulders. His gray sheepskin coat was flung back under the rays of a midday sun, a broad leather belt making it fast at the waist. The warrior’s costly nankeen breeches of brilliant red were tucked in his heavy boots. A short pipe stuck out from under his long gray mustaches.
In Khlit’s mind the matter was clear enough. He could not understand why comrades bickered and bayed like dogs about war when all the Koshevoi Ataman, their leader, needed to do was to say the word and forth the Zaporogian Siech would fare, thousands in number, the flower of the world’s knighthood, ready to take the field against Turk, Tatar, Pole, or other foe of the Orthodox Church.
Why, wondered Khlit, was there any hesitation, when their godfather, the Czar himself, had appointed them watchdogs of the Ukraine and the Russian land? Watchdogs of stout heart and good red blood did not lie in kennels and stuff their carcasses with food. Nor did they wait for an adversary to come to the kennel door and poke a stick at them before they sallied forth. Why then, the Cossack asked himself, did the flower of the Ukraine linger on the island encampment in the middle of the wide Dnieper and waste the strength and sinews of the young men in mimic battles suited to the entertainment of women, not full-grown men?
In a people where few grow old before cut down by an enemy sword, Khlit had been fortunate to survive many wars. The old knight had marched into Poland and he had laid waste the territory of the khans hundreds of versts away across the Volga. In his cottage in the village of Rusk he kept treasures of these campaigns, weapons wrested from the unbelievers, ransoms gleaned from wealthy Turks, and pillage from sacked towns. But the eyes of Khlit did not turn toward the cottage. They searched the distant banks of the Dnieper where foes might be found. If his thoughts wandered to home, it was to the young Cossacks who were coming to the Siech from the village that day, and especially to Menelitza, his foster son who would join him before sundown.
A shout from a nearby group attracted his attention. Several Cossacks were crouched over dice, and a burly warrior who seemed to have met with bad fortune stood up with a curse. Hesitating a second, he tore off his heavy coat and boots and threw them on the ground. His sword had been claimed by his adversary as payment for all debts, and he signified that he would wager his coat and shoes against the sword, which he was loath to relinquish.
Those in the ring about them peered at the dice casually as the big Cossack threw, and one clapped him on the back with a loud laugh as the result was known. He had won.
Next the Cossack wagered his coat and shoes against some gold sequins of his adversary, a thin, hook-nosed warrior with a scarred cheek. He lost.
Refusing all offers of further wagers, the Cossack thrust his sword in his belt and marched off up the street, swaying a little from the effects of drink. Coming abreast of Khlit he halted irresolutely.
“A health to you, noble sir,” he muttered, raising a huge hand in drink-solemn greeting. “You are of the Rusk kuren? I know you among many, Khlit, bogatyr. That son of a devil’s dog, Taravitch, diced me out of coat and shoes. And with the young Cossack brood coming from Rusk to our kuren tonight.”
“Have you other boots, or money to buy them? There is talk of war,” said Khlit after a moment’s inspection of the other, whose face he now recognized.
“Hey—money?” The giant shook his head and grinned. “I gave the silver in my heels to the Jews for corn brandy last night. I have not the smell of a sequin.”
“Then say to the hetman of our kuren,” replied Khlit, “that I bid him give you boots and whatever you may need. There will be war, and the Siech will march.”
“Hey—that is good,” chuckled the Cossack. “I shall swagger before the striplings tonight.”
“You can thank your sword for it, offspring of swine,” explained Khlit, “for you would not lose that. A Cossack and his sword are one until death.”
The giant shook his h
ead, as though he did not grasp this piece of wisdom. Staggering, he went on his way, but no more wine was to pass his bearded lips. The magic word “war” was a talisman that brought the light of anticipation to his bloodshot eyes and purpose to his heavy steps. When the Siech went to war no drunkards were tolerated.
Khlit looked up a second time to find Taravitch, the successful gambler, watching him. Khlit mistrusted Taravitch, for the hook-nosed Cossack was a person rare among the folk of the Siech, a shrewd getter of money. To the open-handed warriors money was only a means to wine and weapons, to cherish it for itself was a symptom of the malady that afflicted the Jewish camp followers. Taravitch was known to be a winner at dice or other games, a hard bargainer, and a heartless creditor. Many of the Cossacks had been poor and worse than poor for years at a stretch for owing Taravitch money.
On the other hand Taravitch had no love for Khlit, whose name was coupled with much spoil and riches, and who was forever urging the men of the Ukraine to war, when the camp proved more profitable to Taravitch. If the truth were known, Khlit wasted no words of ceremony in speaking of the gambler, and some of these remarks had come to the ears of the other.
Several of the Cossacks who had been watching the dice stood beside Taravitch and contemplated Khlit as the latter, his meal ended long since, wiped at his saber with the sheepskin cloth. Finally Taravitch was moved to speak.
“Hail to you, Khlit,” he said, mouthing his words and watching the other the while. “Do you polish your saber to show the young men who come to the Rusk kuren at sundown today? Or are you ready to give it to a better warrior and return to your cottage with the women?”
There was a laugh at this from the watchers, but Khlit did not even look up.
“I have heard,” continued Taravitch, “that the young men from Rusk are not as fine a lot as when we smoked our pipes in the ruins of Anatolian churches. Devil take them! None of the lot will come to camp as we did; like a good knight, with a brave display.”