CHAPTER X
THE BLACK TRANSPORT
"You don't mean to say it's all over!" exclaimed Guert, staring at the place from which the pirate schooner had vanished. "Seems to me it doesn't take long to fight a battle at sea."
"Yes, it does," said one of the older sailors, "if there's chasin' and manoeuvrin' and long range firin'. I've been in some that took all day and the next day, too. But we were too heavy guns for that feller."
"It's awful!" remarked Vine Avery, very thoughtfully. "I was trying to make out if we could have saved any more of 'em."
"No," said the captain, "I don't see how we could, considerin' where we were and the time it took us to come about. They grappled each other in the water, too."
"The fact is, boys," said Sam Prentice, "the savin' o' those fellers wouldn't ha' been of any use, anyhow. Spanish law isn't as slow and careful as ours is. It wouldn't ha' called for any trial by a court, you know. The nearest army or navy commander of any consequence would ha' taken hold of 'em. They'd all ha' been shot within a day after he seized 'em."
"Leastwise," said Vine, "'twasn't any fault of ours. I'm glad Guert made out to haul in one of 'em."
Guert had turned somewhat quickly away, while they were speaking, for his rescued man had been allowed to come and speak with him.
"Hullo!" said the captain. "They are talkin' Dutch. That's it! Guert's a New Yorker. He learned it at home."
"What sort is he, Guert?" asked the mate.
"He isn't any pirate, at all," eagerly responded Guert. "He's a Hollander that was on a ship they took. One of 'em knew him and saved him, and they 'pressed him in. He had to make believe he was one of 'em, but he never was."
"Pretty good story," said Captain Avery. "Maybe it's true. There's enough of 'em killed. We'll take care of him."
"I wish you would," said Guert. "Seems to me the right man got away."
"Not all of 'em," said the man himself in English that had very little foreign accent. "There were three more a good deal like me. Some o' the black men weren't reg'lar pirates. All the rest of 'em, though, belonged to the sharks. It was one o' the worst crews that ever floated. My name's Groot. I'm from Amsterdam, but I was brought up mostly in Liverpool. Sailed on British craft and French, too. I'm a true man, Captain Avery!"
The captain was willing to believe it, if he could, and he questioned him closely, all the crew of the Noank agreeing among themselves that Groot was their prize, anyhow, and ought not to be turned over to any Spanish authority.
All the while, the rescued Santa Teresa was drifting nearer, her bulwarks lined with eager people of all sorts, who were gazing gratefully at what seemed to them the very beautiful American schooner. She had arrived just in time to save them, and they had never before seen a ship that they were so pleased with. Loud hails were exchanged, and then followed, from the Spanish ship, a perfect storm of thanks.
"Guert," said Captain Avery, "I'm goin' aboard of her. You may come along. You may find some more Dutchmen. I can talk Spanish and French. I want to know just what shape they're in."
A boat was already lowered, and in a few minutes they were on the deck of the Santa Teresa.
"Women and children!" was Guert's first thought and exclamation. "To think of all of them being murdered! I don't feel half so sorry as I did about the pirates. I wish mother could see just what we've been saving from 'em. I guess it's perfectly right to shoot straight, sometimes. Glad I didn't miss once!"
All his shudders of regret and of horror over the work of the sharks passed away from him as those passengers crowded around him. There were four more Noank sailors, but the Spanish crew had captured them. The two captains were talking business, therefore Guert was taken in hand by the women and young people. One short, fat señora, who came at him first, had long, white hair tumbling down over her shoulders. She hugged him and kissed him, and cried and laughed, and she pointed – saying a great deal in Spanish – at a woman who was throwing her arms around a pretty pair of children. It was easy for Guert to understand that the old woman was thanking God and the Americans for the lives of her daughter and her grandchildren.
Other women did not altogether follow her example, for Guert showed a little bashfulness, there were so many of them; but he shook hands quite freely with the boys and girls. The Spanish youngsters showed him their weapons, too, trying to tell him how ready they had been to fight the buccaneers.
"It isn't a long run from this to Porto Rico," he heard Captain Avery say. "We'll see you safe in. We didn't lose a man."
"We lost five," replied the Spanish commander. "The sharks would have had all of us, instead of all of them, but for you. God bless you! We will patch up and spread all the canvas we can."
At that moment a friendly hand was laid upon Guert's arm, drawing him away from his women friends. Señor Alvarez held him hard for a breath or two, as if he were trying to speak and had lost his voice.
"My boy," he then exclaimed, "you came in time! This is my wife, Señora Laura Alvarez. These are my boy and girl. This is my wife's mother, Señora Paez. They told me that you fired that blessed long gun, yourself."
"Up-na-tan, the Indian chief, and I fired it," said Guert. "I'm a beginner."
"I understand," said the Spaniard. "You are a young cadet studying navigation. You must come home with me and study a Porto Rico plantation house. You must be my guest. We will treat you like a king."
"I shall be ever so glad, if Captain Avery'll let me," answered Guert. "He says we're likely to be in port quite a while. I'll ask him."
Captain Avery was near enough to hear, and he replied for himself. "It's all right, Guert," he said. "You may go. I want you to, even if we sail and come back while you're ashore. You see, my boy, you know a little Spanish now. Here's a chance for you to get ahead so you can begin to speak and read it. Every American sea-captain ought to know Spanish."
"Yes, sir, I'd like it first-rate," said Guert; "but I wouldn't like to have the Noank sail without me on board."
"We'll see 'bout that," replied the captain. "You'll obey orders, anyhow."
"I guess I'll have to," almost grumbled Guert, as he was compelled to get away from his friends and hasten back in the boat to the schooner; "but I didn't come to loaf on shore. I'd rather be a gunner."
There was a great deal of talk and excitement upon both vessels, but things were rapidly getting back into order. The sails were spread, and both were quickly in motion. The wind was fair, and night was coming on. As for the Noank, in particular, all that she had done for either pirates or Spaniards could not diminish the necessity she was under for keeping up a sharp lookout for anything sailing under the British flag. That banner might be fluttering nearer at any hour, and it might be upon a "sugar-boat," or it might be streaming out from the dangerous rigging of a cruiser.
Once the schooner was under way, Guert found himself more at liberty than usual, for all kinds of his sea schooling were given a vacation. His head was even more full than ordinary, however, and he had an especial reason for getting away with Sam Prentice during their next watch on deck. He had several times heard the mate talk about pirates. He had also heard something about them from Up-na-tan and Coco and the crew. Until now, however, all that he had heard at any time had been listened to as if it were unreal. He had never read a novel, and so he did not know that all of it had seemed to him a kind of pretty, interesting story of fiction, and not anything more. It was very different, now that he had seen a black flag and sent a heavy shot into the hull under it, and had watched while that hull went down.
"About the buccaneers, eh?" said Sam, as they leaned over the quarter-rail and looked out into the darkness. "Well! I s'pose there are books about 'em. You can learn a good deal from books, but I don't know any that'll tell you all there is 'bout those islands. There's too many of 'em, hundreds, mebbe, with outlyin' reefs and ledges. Then there are any number o' bays and inlets and lagoons. That's why it's so hard to follow up and ketch light draft pirate vessels. They can hide in a thousand out o' the way places until they git ready to run out and make a strike. One o' their biggest helps is the caves on some o' the islands. Safest kind o' places for men to hide plunder in, too. Some of 'em open right down at the water line, and some of 'em have deep water for quite a way in from the mouth. You can row a boat right on in at high tide, or even at low water, I've heard tell. Big cruisers ain't of any use 'mong the shoals and ledges and lagoons. Somehow the governments have been too busy 'bout other matters to build and arm the right pattern o' gunboats. That there picaroon that we sunk to-day was as large a craft as I ever heard o' their usin'. Oftener, they go out in canoes and rowboats and sailboats, and make surprises in light winds or calms, or in the night. All the shore people are afraid to tell on 'em, and they're good friends with the Caribs and the slaves. Of course, they've got to be all rooted out, some day, but it's goin' to be a tough job, I tell ye."
Many more things he had to tell, as Guert questioned him. Before he got through, it almost seemed as if all the nations of the world had once been pirates, of one kind or another, each nation thinking it right to capture ships of other nations on sight, if opportunity made it safe to do so.
"I tell you what," said Guert, at last, "I want to read books! I never had a chance at 'em. Rachel Tarns lent me a few, long ago, when we were at home in New York, before the British came. The war drove us out, you know, and we can't guess when we're to get back. I want to read."
"Now!" exclaimed the mate, "I've thought of one thing. You'll be at the Velasquez plantation. Mebbe for some time. They'll have heaps o' books. It'll help you learn Spanish if you'll try and read anything you find there. Learn all you can, wherever you happen to be."
"I just will!" said Guert.
"Now," said Prentice, "I'm goin' below. Some time to-morrer, if the wind holds good, we'll be in Porto Rico. Then you'll see something new."
Guert also had to go below and turn in, but it was not easy to sleep with his head so full, even after so very fatiguing a day. He was lying awake, therefore, long afterward, when he was startled by sounds on deck.
"Hullo!" he exclaimed. "Something's happened! What if they should have sighted a British man-o'-war? If there's going to be any more fighting, I want to be at my gun!"
He was getting to be a genuine sailor, therefore, and the cannon he was stationed with had become a sort of pet and much as if it were his own property.
Not much careful dressing was called for after he sprung out of his bunk, and then he was up on deck without waiting for orders.
Not a great deal of noise had been made, after all, and most of the weary crew were still keeping their watch below, as soundly asleep as ever. Two pairs of ears, however, had been as keen as Guert's, and here were Coco and Up-na-tan, already at the pivot-gun, prepared for anything that might turn up. The moon was shining brightly and the wind was fair. The sparkling, foaming sea looked beautiful, and all was peace except upon the deck of the privateer. Away to leeward Guert could dimly see a sail that he believed to be the Santa Teresa, and at that moment a red ball rocket went up from her deck and burst, to inform her American friends that she was doing well.
"She's all right, then," Guert heard Captain Avery say to the man at the wheel. "I wish I knew what this feller is to wind'ard. Up-na-tan, be ready, there, with that gun. It looks to me like a brig o' some sort. It might happen to be one o' these 'ere British ten-gun brigs. I don't know, yet, whether or not one o' them 'd prove too much for us, if we got in the first broadside."
"Well, Captain," said the steersman, "we can't very well get out of her way, jest now. She has managed to come up to wind'ard of us, and she can hold on, best we can do. It's our bad luck!"
"Maybe it's her's," said the captain, grimly. "I won't call up the men for a bit. If there's a hard fight a-comin', a rest won't hurt 'em. It may be a Spanish coast-guard or a Frenchman. Everything down this way isn't British. Up-na-tan, take this night-glass and see what you can make of her."
The Manhattan came at once for the telescope, but a sudden change had come over the manners of Coco. It began with a curious kind of sniffing, sniffing, like a pointer dog in the neighborhood of game. Then he left his precious gun and glided to the rail, shaking his head and chattering harsh words in a tongue which nobody who heard could recognize.
Guert went over to join him, and his first glance at the face of the old African astonished him. It was absolutely convulsed with fury. The black man's hands were clenched, his teeth were grinding, and his eyes seemed to flash fire.
"What's the matter?" asked Guert. "Can you see anything out there?"
An angry screech, and then a guttural, wrathful war-cry, sprung from the lips of Coco.
At that moment Up-na-tan had been looking at the strange sail through the telescope.
"Brig," he had said. "All sail set. Big as the Santa Teresa. No cruiser. No Englishman ever set a foresail like that."
His implied compliment to the neatness of British seamanship was cut short by the yell of Coco, and he instantly lowered his glass.
"Whoo-oop!" he responded. "'Peak out! What Coco find?"
"Slaver!" screeched the African. "Coco smell him! Where Up-na-tan lose he nose?"
"Slaver?" exclaimed Captain Avery. "Bless my soul! We've nothing to do with men-stealers. I don't want any such prize as that, even if it's an Englishman. I wouldn't take a slave cargo into port."
"Nor I, either," said the steersman. "We're not in that trade."
Nearer and nearer, now, the strange craft was drawing, from the opposite tack. The men below had heard the yell of Coco and the Manhattan's warwhoop, and were tumbling up on deck in search of information. Their comments were various as they heard the remarkable announcement.
"Not a doubt of it, Lyme," said Sam Prentice to the captain, after a whiff of the wind from the stranger. "They're slave thieves. I always heard tell that a slave-ship could smell worse'n anything else. I say we ought not to try to do anything with her. Let her go!"
"Of course we will," said the captain; "but we'll speak her. Here she comes."
In a few minutes more the two ships were within hailing distance.
"What brig's that?" asked Avery.
"Slaver Yara, Captain Liscomb. Congo River to Cuba," came back with all cheerfulness. "What schooner's that?"
"American privateer, Noank, Captain Avery. We don't want you. How many on board?"
"We've only lost about a third of 'em on the passage," came jauntily back from the Yara. "We shall land over two hundred good ones. First-rate luck! Last trip we lost more'n half by getting stuck in a calm. How's your luck? Are you taking anything worth while?"
It was precisely as if a prosperous merchant, engaged in what he considered an honorable, legitimate business, were exchanging trade politeness with another merchant in a somewhat similar line.
"We're not long out," replied Captain Avery. "We've done fairly well, though. We sunk a West India picaroon to-day."
"Did you? That's a good thing to do. Glad you did," said the slaver, heartily. "Those chaps annoy even us African traders. They stopped me twice last year, and took away dozens of my best pieces, men and women. The rascals said they were collecting their import duties. Sink 'em all!"
He was so near, by this time, that the bright moonlight gave them a pretty good view of him. He did not seem to be by any means a bad-looking fellow, and it was only too evident that he was either an American or Englishman of good education. He asked for the latest news politely, and then he declared concerning the existing difficulties between King George Third and his American colonies: —
"You chaps have more interest in that affair than I have. If you're not all shot or hung, you'll make fortunes out of it, if it goes on long enough. Privateering sometimes pays better than slaving. All you need be afraid of, except the king's cruisers, is too sudden an end of the war. That would ruin all your business at once. The war hasn't hurt us, to speak of. Our market is as good as ever it was; we can sell all we can bring over."
The Noank was sweeping on and there could be no more exchange of news or opinions with Captain Liscomb.
He was evidently a man without the prejudices of other men. He could see only the money side of the war for American independence, and he took it for granted that a privateersman would look at it in precisely that way. At least one of the crew of the Noank was not in agreement with him, for Coco was as furious as ever.
"Ole Coco stuck in slaver hold, once," he snarled tigerishly. "No water. Iron on hand, on foot. Hot like oven. Most of 'em die. Some go bline. Some get kill. Not many left. Sell Coco in Cuba. Whip him. Burn him. Make him work hard. Ole brack man got away, though. Big fire 'bout that time. Planter lose he house. Kidd men better'n slaver men. All the same, anyhow."
"Isn't that awful!" was all that Guert could think or say.
"Boy fool!" growled Coco. "Captain Avery all wrong. He let 'em go. Better take 'em."
"What could he do with all those slaves if he took 'em?" asked Guert.
"What he do with 'em?" replied Coco, with some surprise. "Drown slaver, not brack fellers. Sell 'em all. Make pile o' money."
"He wouldn't do that," said Guert.
"Then go ashore in Cuba," persisted the old Ashantee. "Buy sugar plantation. Have he slaves all for nothing. That's what Coco think. He do it, quick. All African chief have plenty slave. Make 'em work, kill 'em, do what he please."
The fierce anger of the grim old African, therefore, had been aroused by a memory of his own sufferings and not by any sentimental notions concerning human rights. He saw no evil whatever in the mere owning of slaves. Very much like him in that respect, to tell the truth, were most of his Yankee friends. Slave-holding had not yet been abolished in the northern American colonies any more than in the southern. The great movement for the abolition of all property in human beings came a long time afterward. Nevertheless, even then, a strong odium was beginning to attach to the business of catching black men for the market, and the cause of this feeling was mainly the cruel and wasteful manner in which the business was carried on. The gathering of slaves in Africa for export purposes was understood to be exceedingly murderous, and too many of the captives died on shipboard from barbarous ill-treatment.
Away had swung the badly smelling Yara upon her intended course. Her polite captain had bowed as she did so, his last farewell expressing his wish that his privateer acquaintances might have good luck and make money. If he were indeed an Englishman, he had no narrow, national feeling concerning business matters.
"Sam Prentice!" exclaimed Captain Avery. "I was glad to be rid of 'em. They're only another kind of pirate, anyhow. I believe that feller'd send up the black flag any day, if it was safe, – and if he could make money by it."
"Lyme," replied his mate, "don't you know that slave catchers do fly the skull and bones every now and then, in the far seas? They're none too good to scuttle a ship and make her crew walk the plank."
"I've heard so," said the captain, "but we hadn't any duty to do by 'em, jest now. What we want to do is to sight a British flag on a craft that doesn't carry too many guns for us. Port your helm, there!"
CHAPTER XI
A DANGEROUS NEIGHBORHOOD
"So! You report that you were chased by some enemy? I've read it – I've read the commodore's letter. What were you chased by, sir?"
"I can't be sure what they were, sir. I took them for privateers. The first of 'em gave me a shot my fourth day out. Another followed me three days later. Peppered at me for an hour at long range. Both times I escaped 'em in the night."
"I'm glad you did! I think the commodore is right about you, sir. Take your own course, always. Be ready to take the Termagant across again as soon as she's loaded."
"Repairs, sir," said Captain Watts, for the dignified officer before whom he stood was the port admiral in command of the British port of Liverpool. "Foremast sprung, sir. She wants a new maintopmast. She'll need all her spars, or I'm mistaken. If I'm to be in her she'll use her canvas, sir. I've no fancy for falling again into the clutches of the rebels."
"They might hang you this time, eh?" said the admiral, pleasantly, as if that were a bit of a joke. "They might, indeed. Send in your requisitions; you shall have your repairs. I'll order them at once. Now, sir, is there anything else?"
"Yes, sir," said Watts; "I wish to report what I heard concerning rebel privateers and new provincial cruisers. That is, it may all be already reported."
"Heave ahead!" interrupted the admiral. "Tell what you've heard. Your news is as likely to be correct as any other. Go on, sir."
"It's the old story o' the rats and the cheese, sir," said Luke. "The bigger the cheese, the more the rats. Our trade's the fat they mean to cut into, sir. I heard o' rebel privateers fittin' out all along the New England coast. They told me o' some in North Carolina, out o' the Neuse River. Some from Virginny, up the Potomac and the James. Some down in South Carolina and Georgia; but I can't say but what as bad as any are comin' out o' the Chesapeake and the Delaware. What we're goin' to need is more light cruisers off the Irish coast, sir, and in the channels."
"Ha, ha!" laughed the great official. "The Yankee pirates'll never show themselves on this coast. Go now; we can pick 'em up as fast as they come."
Captain Luke Watts had kept his word to the British authorities. He had piloted the Termagant safely into her harbor. He was, therefore, above and beyond any possible suspicions as to his loyalty. There was nothing to prevent him from delivering, not only his packages of valuable furs, but also any other parcels which he had brought with him from America.
"All right!" he said to himself, as he swung out of the port admiral's office. "They'll know better one o' these days. I'm glad to be told, though, that they mean to remain off their guard till they're waked up. I wish they'd send a few more o' their best ships somewhere else. Captain Lyme Avery and a lot more like him are coming this way pretty soon."
He was only halfway correct in that assertion, for Captain Avery and the Noank were not just then in shape to sail for England. After their noteworthy adventures with pirates and slavers, there had been many hours of plain sailing, in company with the rescued Santa Teresa. The second morning was well advanced when the two vessels found themselves only a mile or so outside of the ample harbor of Porto Rico. They had also tacked within speaking distance of each other.
"Señor Avery," sang out Captain Velasquez, "I have the honor to make a friendly suggestion."
"I'm ready, thank you, señor," said Captain Avery. "What is it?"
"Let the Santa Teresa go ahead and look in. I'll send a boat back with a Carib pilot. There might be a British cruiser in port."
"That's the very thing I was thinkin' of," said the captain of the Noank. "A thousand thanks, señor. We'll heave to."
Very little more needed to be said. There were other sails in sight, of various sorts and sizes, but not one of them carried the red-cross flag of England.
As for the Noank, all her ports were closed, there was a tarpaulin over her pivot-gun, and she was a peaceable appearing merchant schooner. Even the bunting at her masthead was a fraud, for it declared of her that she came from France, and was not to be molested without proper authority.
"It's a kind of lie!" muttered Guert Ten Eyck. "They say all is fair in war, but I don't want to run up anything but an American flag. I don't half like to go ashore, either."
Nobody else on board, perhaps, was in sympathy with that part of his prejudices, but then his "going ashore" might mean a longer stay than that of any other sailor. The more he thought of it, the less he liked it.
"Father," said Vine Avery, after hearing the Spanish captain, "let Guert and me take a boat now, and pull in behind 'em. If we see any danger, we can streak it back at once."
"Good!" said the captain. "Take the small cutter and Coco and the Indian. They speak Spanish."
Off went Vine, and in a few minutes more a small and sharp-nosed boat manned by four rowers was dancing along into the harbor mouth.
"Splendid!" exclaimed Guert, staring this way and that way, landward, as he pulled. "This all beats anything I ever heard of it. Hullo!"
"Lobster!" growled Coco.
"One, two, three, four sugar-boat," came from Up-na-tan. "Noank get some of 'em. Big frigate no good."
That may have been his opinion, but she looked as if she would be of some account in a naval combat, that splendid British frigate, so taut and trim, lying there at her anchor. The sails now furled along her yards could be opened quickly enough, and there would then be no other ship of her size, of any other nation on earth, that she need fear to meet.
"Forty guns," said Up-na-tan. "Knock hole in Noank. Wait, now. See what ole Spaniard do."
"It looks kind o' rugged for us," thought Guert. "We can't run into port at all. If we did we'd never get out again."
The captain of the Santa Teresa was keeping his promise. His ship was taking in sail, and a well-manned boat was lowering from her side.
"Here they come," said Guert. "We'll know more when they get here."
"No," said Up-na-tan. "Ole chief see frigate himself. Know what do. All Cap'n Avery want is Carib pilot. Tell him where go. Up-na-tan know Cuba lagoons, not Porto Rico. So Coco."
On came the Spanish boat, and as it drew nearer they could recognize Captain Velasquez himself in the stern-sheets, ready to answer their hail.
"Señor," he said to Vine Avery, "there is one more British cruiser, farther in. Pedro, here, will go back with you and pilot your schooner to a safe mooring, up the coast. Only friends will come to see you there. You may watch for a green flag on the shore, or a green light after dark."
"Thank you, señor," said Vine. "All right. Let him come aboard."
Lightly as a panther, with wonderful quickness of motion, a short, slight, dark-faced fellow sprang over into the cutter.
"Me Pedro," he said. "Fight for Americano. Save he troat from picaroon."
The Carib, therefore, could make himself understood in English, and he was eager to express his personal gratitude for his rescue from pirates and sharks.
"Now, señor," said Captain Velasquez, "we will run in and make our report. After that is done, you may rely upon all that our authorities can do for you. You will find that Spaniards can be grateful. Señora Alvarez and Señora Paez wish me to say that their young friend must soon be at their house."
Guert expressed his thanks and willingness a little lamely, and the uppermost thought in his mind was: —
"There! I hardly know what I said. I'll pick up every Spanish word I can get hold of, while I'm among 'em."
"Pull back hard!" said Up-na-tan. "Vine lose no time. Ole chief see men jump around on frigate. See go to capstan. Come out soon."
He had a red man's eye for signs, and nothing escaped him. None of his companions, not even Coco, had noticed the fact that a number of British sailors were going aloft, or that there were men gathering at the frigate's capstan as if they had designs upon the anchor.
A very different kind of man, as sharp in some respects as the Manhattan himself, had all that while been taking observations through a good telescope. He was in a somewhat weather-beaten uniform of a British first lieutenant, and he stood on the quarter-deck of the Tigress, reporting to his captain: —
"Small boat, sir, from outside the harbor. Yankee-built cutter. Two American sailors, I take 'em to be. One nigger. One mulatto, I'd say. Now they are meeting a boat from the Spanish trader that's coming in. Of course, sir, there's a rebel craft o' some sort somewhere outside, waiting to know if it's safe to come in."
"All right, Mackenzie," replied the captain of the Tigress. "We must catch her. Up anchor!"
"Ay, ay, sir," said Mackenzie, "but no canvas out till that Yankee scout-boat gets away. They needn't suspect we're after em."
"Trust your head, my boy," replied his bluff commander. "You're a sea-fox, my dear fellow, but you won't steal a march on any Yankee, right away. They're as cunning as Mohawks. Speak that Spaniard, if she comes within hail."
That was precisely what the captain of the Santa Teresa had decided not to do, if he could help it. The moment he was again on board of his own ship, he took the helm himself, and he made as wide a sheer easterly as he could. Owing to the channel and the position of the Tigress, however, the best he could do was to escape miscellaneous conversation. He could not quite avoid coming within speaking-trumpet range. The hoarse hail of the British lieutenant reached him clearly enough.
"Ship ahoy! What ship's that?"
"Santa Teresa. Barcelona to Porto Rico. Passengers and cargo. What ship's that?"
"His Britannic Majesty's Tigress, Captain Frobisher," replied Mackenzie. "You've seen rough weather, eh? One o' your sticks gone?"
"Knocked out," returned Velasquez. "We were mauled by a buccaneer. We got away from him."
"Where did you leave the American?" was the lieutenant's next question, made as confidently as if he had actually seen the Noank. "What is she, anyhow?"
The Spanish captain was silent for a moment in utter astonishment. How could the Englishman have known anything about it? His very surprise, however, defeated his prudence, and he answered: —