CHAPTER I.
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The earliest dawning of a lovely summer
day, in the year 1659, was pouring its sweet
light, unclouded yet with that fierce heat
which renders almost insupportable the noontide
hours, over the forests which encircled,
with a belt of ever-during verdure, the Spanish
city of St. Augustine. It was already in
those days a place of much importance, with
nunneries, and steepled churches, and terraced
dwellings, with white walls and jalousies
peeping from out the foliage of dark
orange groves, and all those beautiful peculiarities
of semi-Moorish taste, which lend so
much of poetry and of romance to the old
towns of Spain. It had its flanking walls,
its ditches, and its palisades, presenting their
impregnable resistance to the fierce and wily
Indian, whom the relentless cruelty of the
white colonist, of whatsoever nation, had at
length goaded into systematic and continual
hostility; in seaward bastions, with water-gate
and demilune, mounted with heavy cannon,
and garrisoned by old Castilians, under
an officer who bore the style of royal governor.
Such was the aspect of the place at the
conclusion of the first century which had
elapsed since its foundation; nurtured into
undue maturity by the stern bigotry and
energetic enterprise of that land, which had
filled the southern continent with giant-cities,
over whose ramparts floated its proud motto
of Plus Ultra, marking every spot whereon its
sons had set a foot by massacre and blood-shed
and drained from El Dorado—as they
justly termed it—these vast but fatal treasures,
which raised it for a little while above
all nations of the earth, only to plunge it in
the end into effeminacy and ruin and effete
barbarism.
The heavy dews, as they were exhaled by
the rising day god, teemed with the incense
of unnumbered perfumes wafted from the ten
thousand vegetable wonders which had given
name to that peninsula, wherein credulity,
insatiate of all that nature had bestowed with
profuse bounty, had placed the seat of all
those monstrous fictions which alchymists
had palmed upon their dupes, until they
brought themselves to deem them real. The
land-breeze swept far seaward the rich odors
from the orange groves, and the vast forests
whence gleamed frequently the snowy chalices
of the superb magnolia, and the dense
star-like blossoms of the flowering dogwood,
and colored the azure waters of the Gulf into
a thousand tiny wavelets, which sparkled
with innumerable smiles to the bright heaven,
while the thrilling and prolonged notes of
the emulous mocking-birds—nightingales of
the west, with scarce inferior song—made
everything resound with their rich liquid
melody. On earth—on ocean—and in the
cloudless ether, all was calm, lovely, peaceful—
but on the bastions of the town there was
the din of arms, the dissonant harsh clang of
mingling voices, the hurrying to and fro of
soldiery, the long roll of the drum beating to
arms in haste, blent with the piercing strain
of trumpets, and the continuous peal of bells,
rung backward, as it seemed, in token of
dismay and danger.
Beneath the yellow flag with its tri-castled
blazonry, surrounded by a group of noble-looking
men, clad for the most part in the
half-armor of the day, with much of waving
plumage, rich lace, and fair embroidery, stood
the governor, Juan Melendez de Aviles, descendant
of that Pedro, of the same noble
name, who, by an exertion of both skill and
valor, which, had they not been tarnished
by the most fiendish cruelty, would have
been deemed heroical, won for the second
Philip the fair province from the French Huguenots
of Coligny. The eyes of all that
little group were intently fixed upon the sea,
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from which it would appear the apprehended
danger—if apprehended danger it were, that
gave rise to those tokens of surprise and
preparation—was most to be expected, and
in the visages of all, an evident expression
of anxiety and doubt was marked, in its least
doubtful character. But in the face of no
one there, were there such signs of perturbation
and dismay, as in that of the governor.
He was a man of large and heavy build, a
veteran of many a bloody war, with limbs
which, although deprived somewhat of agility
and lightness by the unsparing hand of time,
were cast in a mould of iron; his features
prominent, bold, and haughty, with a world
of iron resolution in the firmly compressed
mouth, and massive jaw, and a glance of
intolerable fire in the dark eye; and his bearing,
such as became a cavalier to whom the
camp and court had been alike familiar from
his first boyhood. But now his rich dress
was in disarray; a leathern shoulder-belt
with an immense two-handed sword attached
to it, and a display of cumbersome and illwrought
pistols thrust hastily into a broad
buff-girdle, assorted ill with a fair garb of
courtly fashion; his long hair, once as black
as jet, but now discolored with full many a
streak of wintry grey, hung in disordered
masses over his broad brow, lank, and uncurled,
and graceless—and on his brow the
perspiration stood in drops, like bubbles on
the bosom of some turbid stream—and the
deep olive tints of his complexion wore an
unnatural and ghastly hue—and, as he
grasped a powerful perspective-glass with
which he ever and anon swept the horizon,
his fingers might be seen to work in quick
convulsive twitches, as though they would
have bedded themselves into the polished
brass.
“Nothing?” he said, after a long and
wistful gaze, “I can see nothing seaward.
Yet right sure am I, that those sounds were
of far-distant ordnance. It is the twelfth too
of the month, and long ere this, the caravel
we were advised of should have been safe in
harbor. Hark! hark! heard ye not then,”
he cried, “heard ye not that dull roar to the
eastward? Pedro, Gutierrez, hearken-what
say ye, cavaliers, is 't not the voice of ordnance?”
“Past doubt, it is,” replied the elder of the
gentlemen he had addressed, “and heavy
ordnance too.”
“And lo! a sail!” exclaimed the other,
who had directed his glass instantly towards
the quarter whence the sounds proceeded,
“I marvel how we saw her not before. Here!
here, your Excellency! here! bring your
palmetto in the range of the east angle of the
demilune, and you will catch her! Now, by
St. Jago, I can see her to the courses; three
tiers of wide-spread canvas!”
“I have her now,” replied Melendez,
thoughtfully, “I have her now. 'Tis she;
it is El Santo Espiritu, past doubt; but wherefore
was she firing? Pray Heaven, these
cursed English, these infernal rovers, be not
upon her track!”
“I fear me much it is so,” answered Gutierrez.
“I fear me much it is so; for ever
and anon, I fancy I catch glimpses, as they
rise upon the waves, of smaller sails behind,
and further yet to the eastward. Lo! now
in range with you skiff upon the beach—
there! it has sunk again—and now, again,
I catch it!”
“Ay! and again she fires! pray Heaven
she have the heels of them; once under our
guns, she were in safety from any armament
which they can bring against her!”
Meanwhile the vessel, which had been
first seen hull-down in the far offing, was
rising rapidly as she drew near, not having
met as yet the counter-influence of the land-breeze—
but scarce less rapidly rose, one by
one, the smaller barks, which had at first
escaped the notice of the eager and excited
watchers; until five low and rakish craft
might be distinctly seen in chase of the tall
frigate. One somewhat larger than the rest,
three-masted, but of the same sharp and
picarooning build, was now so near astern,
that she was able to keep up a constant firing
from her bow-guns, which the caravel returned
with her stern chasers; though it was
evident by the rate at which she rode the
waves, staggering along with every stitch of
sail set that could draw, that she was most
sincerely anxious to avoid close action with
her diminutive antagonist. An hour had
elapsed at most since she had been at first
made out; and had there been anything of
real doubt as to the nation of the frigate, or
the character of her pursuers, that doubt was
now entirely at an end; for at the distance
of about five miles, by the aid of strong
glasses, it was not difficult to note the castled
bows and poop of the tall caravella, bristling
with culverin and demi-cannon, or to distinguish
the proud bearings of Castile upon
the yellow colors which, in the hope perhaps
of bringing help and succor from the friendly
fort and city, she wore not only at her three
mastheads, but at the bowsprit-end, and some
six or seven other points conspicuous in her
rigging. Meanwhile, the foremost of the
chasing squadron had hoisted at her peak the
snowy field of England, with the broad
bright St. George's cross, while at each one
of her masts' heads a bloody flag with the
black skull and cross bones proclaimed her
real character.
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And now the agony of Juan de Melendez
had become fearfully, intensely visible; to
and fro upon the narrow esplanade above the
water-gate, with quick, uneven steps, and
features haggard with excitement, did he
stalk during that long hour; now pausing
for an instant to note the progress of the chase,
and now with a despairing gesture again resuming
his distracted walk—his officers surveying
him the while with looks denoting
deep commiseration, but more of that surprise,
which must have been felt by men
ignorant of the cause of his strange gestures
and bewildered mien.
“She will escape them yet! Be of good
cheer,” cried one, a young and noble-looking
gallant, “be of good cheer, your Excellency;
she brings the sea-breeze up with her right
manfully!”
“Aye doth she,” cried another, “for the
nonce; but wait till she strike the counter-blast;
lo! you may see it ruffling the surface
now within a mile of her!”
“And when she doth,” exclaimed the
younger officer, “she can beat in, I trow;
tack and tack, merrily; and they can but
beat after her. Why in half an hour more
she will be safe here, under our batteries!”
“Not so! not so!” cried Juan de Melendez,
mournfully, “she never will lie here at
anchor any more, if she trust to her sails!
Curse on the fool Davila, that turns not on
that paltry picaroon, and crushes her at three
broadsides before her consorts may come up!
See you not, Pedro, and see you not, Diego,
who art a mariner so skilful—see you not
that the sea-breeze even now has failed them,
and that the land-wind dies away momently?
God! God of my fathers! that we must stand
here helpless, and strike no blow in her behalf.
Yet! yet! if he would tack, while
he hath way upon her, he might engage the
pirate yard-arm to yard-arm, and so quell
him; but even now he loses; he hath lost
it! His sails flap idly to the mast; it is dead
calm! Fool! fool! accursed fool! and he
hath anchored.”
“But it is no less calm for them! picaroons
though they be, and manned by devils,
yet cannot they make sail, more than the
caravella!”
“Look!” was the sole reply of the wellnigh
distracted governor—“Look!”—and it
needed but a glance to show that the ill-fated
frigate had now, indeed, no hope but in the
vigor of her own defence—for low and light,
and built no less for oars than sails, the wind
had scarcely left them, a half league at the
most astern of the Spaniard, ere they had
furled their lateen sails, and getting out their
sweeps, came up scarce slower than before,
crowded with men whose weapons might be
seen momentarily glancing to the broad sunshine.
“My child—great God—my child!” cried
Juan de Melendez, his pale features writhing
with horrible intensity of anguish—“Would,
would that thou wert dead, Teresa! And is
all lost?—is all lost, gentlemen? Shake not
your heads, look not so gloomily upon me;
can ye devise no scheme, no hope, no possibility—
and yet how should ye, when we
have neither boat nor even store enough of
pirogues in the bay, to bear them any succor?
Oh! would, would Heaven, that I had died,
I care not how disgracefully, so that I were
but dead, ere I had been so fettered here, to
look thus helpless on the murder of my comrades—
the worse than murder of mine innocent
and lovely child! and thou, Don Amadis,
thou who hast dared to lift the eyes of
love to her—canst thou stand statuelike and
strike no blow for her? Canst thou endure
almost to hear the shrieks, almost to look
upon the form, of her thou wouldst have
wedded, writhing in agony in the foul arms
of the licentious buccaneer! A man! a gentleman!
ha! ha! a soldier—ha! ha! ha! a
man, a gentleman, a soldier, and an old Castilian
look tamely on the violation of his
bride, before the very eyes of her insulted
father!”
“Answer him not, Don Amadis”—the grey-haired
veteran Pedro interposed—“answer
him not, I pray; this is sheer madness—the
pardonable madness of parental anguish!—
And you, Sir Juan”—he continued, turning
half-frantic to the governor—“think you not
if we were to clear the long guns of the
southern bastion, we might yet drive those
picarooning scoundrels from their prey—methinks
the caravella lies even now within
their range?”
“No! no! you but deceive yourselves—
there is no hope! none! none! Nathless we
may essay it—and see, Davila hath slipped
even now his cables, hath got his boats out,
and tows cheerily towards us. Away there,
ye knave cannoniers, clear the long culverins,
ourselves, we will go down and point
them.” And with these words, followed by
all his train, he hastily rushed down the narrow
stairway of the rampart, passed through
the sally-port, and in a moment was engaged
among the guns, with an anxiety and zeal
that for a moment quelled his mental agony.
The caravella now was but a short mile
from the seaward batteries, towed by the
whole strength of her crew, rowing with that
tremendous energy which the consciousness
that all is centred in his own exertions, lends to
the meanest and the feeblest man that draws
the breath of life! One half mile more
would have ensured her safety. It was a
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fearful chase! So close behind her was the
best manned and largest of the picaroons,
that now the fire, which had been for awhile
suspended, again became hot, animated, and
destructive. And now the mizen of the
caravel came thundering, with all its hamper,
over her groaning side, encumbering her
fatally, and lessening her way through the
calm waters; while at the sight a long, loud
yell of savage exultation burst from the desperadoes
who had wrought that ruin, and
penetrated even to the ears of the appalled
spectators. Hitherto no opportunity had been
given to the Spaniards on the fortress for
firing a gun in aid of their companions; since
the three-masted galley, conscious of her advantage,
kept herself by her sweeps and oars
under the stern of the tall frigate, raking her
fore and aft by a continual fire of her single
gun, a culverin of the first class, avoiding
thus alike the heavy ordnance of her broadside,
and the yet heavier metal of the batteries
which were deterred from firing lest they
should injure their own friends! But now
two other of the pirates, which, in the chase,
had made each a long circuit on the starboad
and larboard tacks, keeping as much as possible
out of the frigate's range, having shot
far ahead of her, changed suddenly their
course, putting their bows each right towards
the other, and pulling with great speed to cut
her off from her desired haven. On these, at
the same instant, opened the frigate's fire,
gun after gun from both broadsides, a fierce
incessant cannonade! and the tremendous
salvo of the batteries. The whole shores
seemed to rock with the concussion! the little
air there had been heretofore, stilled by
the fearful shock, sank utterly; and, ere ten
minutes had elapsed, the surface of the water
was covered by a dense mass of volumed
smoke, so closely packed that not an eye of
all who gazed so fearfully upon the scene,
could note vessel, or boat, or any living being,
though still from out the vapory cloud
the glare of the incessant cannonading might
be seen crimsoning the misty wreaths, which
every shot angmented.
“Hold! hold!” after awhile exclaimed
Melendez, “let the smoke lift, this random
firing goes for naught; let it lift, we shall see
anon!”
And at his orders instantly the firing from
the battery stopped, but not for that did the
dense vapors lift at all from the still surface
of the waters, nor did the prospect brighten—
fed constantly as were those murky clouds
by the continual cannonading of the vessels,
which in no degree ceased or abated. If the
sight had been anxious heretofore, the interest
appalling, when every motion of assailant
or assailed might be distinctly noticed,
what must have been the anguish now, the
agony of expectation, when the fierce work
of death was doing at their very doors, under
the muzzles of their cannon, and they might
neither see nor judge by any sense or sign, to
which side fortune was inclining. The first
sound that attracted any near attention, was
the quick dash of oars close to the beach;
and, as each countenance was instantly directed
to the jouful echo, boat after boat of
those—it needed not a second glance to tell
it—which had been last seen towing shoreward
El Santo Espiritu, loomed through the
dusky veil, and, almost as they came in
sight, grated upon the shingly beach; while
their crews, throwing down their oars, rushed
madly up the slope in desperate confusion
towards the sally-port.
“Ten thousand curses on the dogs!”
fiercely hissed Juan de Melendez through his
hard set teeth; “they have deserted her! but
not the better shall they fare for that! level
your arquebuses, guard; depress your culverins;
sweep the deserting scoundrels from
the earth!”
But to his fiery command no answer was
returned, and no obedience rendered; for
during the last pause the firing had sunk, and
from the bosom of the smoke, wild cheers,
and all the tumult of heavy fight, were now
distinctly audible. In a few seconds' space,
the vapors gradually lightened, so that the
vessels might be seen, though faintly, clustered
together in close contact. Anon the
breeze came up again, fitful at first and faint,
but freshening at every moment; and then,
whirled upward from the now rippling waters,
the smoky masses were swept boldly to leeward,
leaving the whole of the bright bay,
the verdant shores, and the pure heavens rejoicing
in the gorgeous sunshine.
Far in the middle of that bay lay the devoted
caravella, her sheets loosened and her
canvas flying disorderly and wild, while grappling
to her sides, her stern, her bows, the
low barques of the pirates hemmed her in,
their savage crews mounting her bulwarks
in resistless numbers, their brandished weapons
glancing to the sun, and their appalling
yells deadening the hearts of all who heard
them. Unharmed by the guns from the too
distant ramparts, the light picaroons had succeeded
in cutting in between the frigate and
her boats, leaving no chance of safety to the
latter but precipitate and sudden flight, and
to the former no hope, save the precarious
chances of a pirate's mercy. Nor was it
long in doubt to the spectators what was that
mercy; for ere the fight, or massacre, more
properly, upon her decks had ceased, the
wily desperadoes anchored just without cannon
shot; and as the Spanish ensign was
torn down, amid a tumult of tremendous
exultation, man after man of the defendants
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was hurled overboard, so that their terrorstricken
countrymen upon the battlements
might see the waters, ever as they fell, lashed
into froth and spray by the ferocious
sharks, which, taught by their voracious instincts
the consequence of battle, seized each
one as he touched the surface, tugging and
snapping at each other for every palpitating
morsel. And still more terrible than this the
howls of men—howls, such as nothing but
the utmost and most excruciating tortures
could force from human lips—mixed with the
shriller and more piteous shrieks of women,
told that the fate of those, who had become a
prey to the disgusting fish, was but a boon
of mercy when compared with the more awful
doom of those preserved from the first carnage
to satiate the victors' love of blood or beauty.
All day long did this fearful sight continue—
all day long were the heavens polluted
by the atrocious deeds they were compelled
to witness, pierced by the frantic cries of
those who called on them in vain for succor
or for mercy. The evening was now drawing
nigh, although, perhaps, some three hours
yet remained of daylight, when by a simultaneous
movement of the frigate's decks, it
might be judged that some new project had
been fixed on by the buccaneers. Nor were
the garrison devoid, if not of absolute fear, at
least of much anxiety; since it was evident
that their relentless enemies were in great
force, not counting less, as they might calculate,
from the known habits of the Caribbean
pirates of stowing, in their long barques, as
many men as possibly could be contained in
them, than seven hundred, or perhaps a thousand
soldiers; more fighting men than which
St. Augustine could not, at that day, have
turned out, though to preserve herself from
utter ruin. Nor was it contrary by any means,
or foreign to the policy of these far-dreaded
rovers to attack villages, or even forts and
cities, when in sufficient numbers to render
success probable, and when enough of plunder
or of licentious pleasure might be looked
forward to, as the result of their bold daring!
A levy of the citizens en masse was instantly
resorted to, arms were distributed, even among
the slaves, whose terrors, not inferior to those
of their masters, rendered it safe to trust them
with the weapon, which, at another time,
they would have probably directed against
the bosoms of the givers. Cannon were
levelled, ammunition piled by every gun, and
all precautions taken which could ensure a
desperate resistance. The pallor and the
gloom had passed away from the dark visage
of Melendez, with the uncertainty which had
so terribly distracted him. Sure as he felt
himself now to be, that she, his treasured
child, the only being on whom his stern soul
doated, had endured the last and most appal
ling woe that can befall a woman! that now
her agonies—her innocence—her woes were
at an end for ever! he had again resumed his
soldierly and high demeanor! His face was
deeply flushed, and his eyebrows contracted
over the fiery orbs they shaded, till these
could scarcely have been noted but for the
flashes of fierce light which they, at times,
shot forth. His lips alone were pale and
ashy, so violent was their compression over
his clenched teeth!
“Would God,” said he, when every preparation
was concluded, “would God, that they
might try it! So should they feel a father's
vengeance.”
Nor did it seem improbable that his vengeful
prayer would be immediately and fully
granted; for now the pirate-barques might be
observed to put off, one by one, from the dismantled
and abandoned frigate; a single
small boat only waiting, as it would seem,
for their commander. Diverging slowly, and
in opposite directions, but carefully preserving
a safe distance from the batteries, they
came to anchor each after each, the nearest
about half a mile from their prize; and as
the last swung round, the crew of the remaining
skiff were seen getting, in all haste, to
their oars. By aid of their naked eyes, the
Spaniards now beheld a group of officers appear
upon the bulwarks of the caravel, from
which were lowered instantly three figures,
two of which were females, into the cutter at
the gangway. All, then, passed over the
ship's side, but one, who disappearing for a
moment through the cabin hatch, returned
bearing a lighted flambeau; deliberately then
he set on fire, in some twenty different places,
the slighter cordage and the sails of the illfated
ship, and ere he glided down a rope
into his boat, the forked tongues of flame
might be seen darting up the shrouds and
masts like fiery serpents; and in a few short
minutes, the whole of that magnificent and
stately fabric, which had so lately walked the
waters like a thing of life, was one huge
pyramid of roaring and devouring flame.
Strongly and rapidly did that boat's crew
give way, and little time enough had they to
place themselves in safety; for fired already
in the hold before they left her, they had not
traversed half the space between her and
their nearest barque, before, with an explosion
that might be heard leagues away into
the pathless forest, startling the wild beast
and the wilder Indian in his lair, and with a
wide and circling glare that for an instant
made the broad daylight pallid, the caravel
blew up! A mass of pitchy smoke settled for
a short space upon the water where she lay,
and as it drifted seaward, a few rent planks
and mouldering spars were all remaining of
that noblest work of man's invention.
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After a little while, the skiff came to under
the lee of the three-masted picaroon, and nothing
more was seen by the excited Spaniards,
until a burst of flame from a bow-port of the
felucca, and the dull roar of an unshotted
gun, woke their attention. With the report,
down came the English ensign from the fore,
down came the red flag from her peak, and
in succession a broad white field, in sign of
truce and amity, waved in the place of each.
Upon the signal, each in succession of the
pirates fired a leeward gun, and hoisted a
white flag; and next, ere half an hour had
elapsed, all the boats of the squadron, twenty
at least in number, might be seen to put off
from the barques, each bearing the same amicable
signal at their bows; and after joining,
which they did at the first practicable point,
to pull on steadily, in beautiful and accurate
array, towards the shore.
Eagerly did the Spaniards watch these
singular manœuvres, and with keen scrutiny
did they observe each several barge; but it
was not until they had arrived within a short
space of the beach, that they might make out
clearly the forms and features of those who
occupied them. Nor could they as yet do
this to their satisfaction, when observing that
no flag of truce was displayed from the ramparts,
they became stationary, just without
the surf, pulling a stroke or two at times
merely to hold their own, for the tide was
now fast ebbing. Scarce had they halted,
before a figure rose up in the bow of the
central boat—a powerful barge pulling with
forty oars—and waving a white flag about
his head, shouted some words, which did not
reach, however, the ears for which they were
intended, although there could be no doubt
of their import.
“Shall we respond to their signal, fair
Senor?” exclaimed the veteran Diego; “I
trow 'twere best to answer them! it may be
well; they hold some of our friends to ransom!”
“No truce; no flag!” fiercely replied Melendez,
“I waited but to get them within our
point blank range! take good sight, cannoniers!
look to your match! fi—”
“Hold! for God's sake, hold!” cried young
Don Amadis, leaping before the muzzle of the
gun, and grasping by the arm the impetuous
governor.
“See you not there,” and with the eyes almost
starting from his head, and lips apart,
and outstretched hands, he pointed to the
signal boat. “See you not it is she?”
Slowly Melendez caught his meaning—
turned his glass towards the barge, wherein
the quick eye of the youthful lover had detected
the form of his intended bride—dropped
it from his unnerved and powerless hand, and
with a quick shrill cry, “My daughter—my
Teresa!” sank helpless as a child into the
arms of his attendants; while, catching instantly
their cue, the cannoniers flung down
their linstocks, and in three minutes' time a
flag of truce was waving in the place of Castile's
gorgeous blazonry.
Herbert, Henry William, 1807-1858 [1847], Tales of the Spanish seas (Burgess, Stringer & Co., New York) [word count] [eaf148].
