Black Bartlemys Treasure | Page 6

smoke, the sharp crack of a caliver, and one of
the officers beside Don Miguel threw up his hands and, twisting on his
heels, fell clashing in his armour. When I looked again for the red cap,
it was gone. But Don Miguel waited, silent and impassive as ever.
Suddenly he gestured with his hand, I saw the heave of the steersmen's
shoulders as they obeyed, while the air rang with shouts of command as,
the starboard oars holding water, the larboard thrashed and churned
amain and the great "Esmeralda" galleass (turning thus well-nigh in her
own length) drove straight for the side of her foe.
Never had I seen it better done, and I set my teeth, waiting for the
grinding crash that was to send the English ship to the bottom, but lo!
her creaking yards were braced round, and, paying off before the wind
(which now blew strongly) she stood away upon a course at right
angles to her old, whereby both vessels were running parallel as before.

Yet it had been close, so very close indeed that as we drove past her I
heard the sickening crack of our oars as they snapped off one after the
other against her side, tossing those that manned them in bloody,
struggling heaps.
And now from every English gun leaped roaring flame; the air was full
of shrieks and groans and the crash of splintering wood, and through
the eddying smoke I could see many of our soldiery that lay in strange,
contorted attitudes while others crawled, sobbing on hands and knees;
but on the scarlet-dropping rowing-benches I dared not look.
Hotter waxed the fight, louder swelled the din and tumult with the
never-ceasing thunder of the guns; and amid it all Don Miguel paced to
and fro, impassive as always, the blade of his long rapier gleaming here
and there as he directed the fire.
Up rolled the smoke thicker and denser, but, ever and anon, through
some rift I might catch a glimpse of the scarred, blackened side of the
English ship, or the litter and confusion of our decks. Twice shots
ploughed up the planking hard by me, and once my post itself was
struck, so that for a moment I had some hope of winning free of my
bonds, yet struggle how I would I could not move; the which filled me
with a keen despair, for I made no doubt (what with the smoke and
tumult) I might have plunged overboard unnoticed and belike have
gained the English ship.
Slowly and by degrees our fire slackened, one by one the guns fell
silent and in their place rose the more hateful sounds of anguish. Now
as I stood thus, my eyes smarting with burnt powder, my ears yet
ringing with the din, I grew aware how the deck sloped in strange
fashion; at first I paid small heed, yet with every minute this slope
became steeper, and with this certainty came the knowledge that we
were sinking and, moreover (judging by the angle of the deck) sinking
by the stern.
Hereupon, impelled by that lust of life the which is implanted in each
one of us, I fell to a wild struggling against my bonds, until, seeing in a
little the hopelessness of this, I grew resigned to despair, and, ceasing

my passionate efforts, looked about me, for the smoke was thinned
away. And truly an evil sight was this great galleass, with its shot-torn
decks and huddled heaps of dead, its litter of broken spars and
dismantled guns, and with everywhere great gouts and pools of blood,
while below and beyond were the shattered rowing-benches cumbered
now with awful red heaps, silent for the most part, yet some there were
who screamed high and shrill.
Save for myself and divers of the dead the poop lay deserted, but
forward such of the soldiers and mariners who yet lived were fighting
for the boats, and all was riot and confusion.
As I stared about me thus I espied Don Miguel lying among the
wreckage of a dismantled gun; his face was towards me and looked as I
had seen it an hundred times, save for a smear of blood upon his cheek.
Even as I gazed his eyes met mine full and square. For a moment he lay
without motion, then (his face a-twitch with the effort) he came slowly
to his elbow, gazed about him and so back to me again. Then I saw his
hand creep down to the dagger at his hip, to fumble weakly
there--howbeit, at the third essay he drew the blade and began to creep
towards me. Very slowly and painfully he dragged himself along, and
once I heard him groan, but he stayed not till he was come within