The Buccaneer Chief: A Romance of the Spanish Main

"Good! These four hundred men will be commanded by myself; as this expedition is the most difficult and dangerous, I will undertake it. Michel le Basque will accompany me. I have aboard a guide, who will conduct us to Grand Fond. You, Drake, and you, David, will attack Leogane with your ships, while Bowline, with only fifteen men, will seize on Tortuga. Let us combine our movements, brothers, so that our three attacks may be simultaneous, and the Spaniards, surprised on three points at once, may not be able to assist one another. Tomorrow you will sail, gentlemen, taking with you one hundred and eighty-five men, more than sufficient, I believe, to capture Leogane. As for you, Bowline, you will keep the lugger with the fifteen men left you, and remain here, while watching Tortuga closely. This is the fifth of the month, brothers; on the fifteenth we will attack, as ten days will be sufficient for all of us to reach our posts, and take all the necessary measures. Now, gentlemen, return aboard your vessels, and send ashore, under orders of their officers, the contingents I intend to take with me."

The two Captains bowed to the Admiral, left the cabin, and returned to their ships.

"As for you," Montbarts added, turning to Lepoletais, "this is what you will do, brother. You will go with Omopoua to the Grand Fond, as if hunting, but you will carefully watch the town of San Juan, and the hatto del Rincón; we must, if possible, make sure of the inhabitants of that hatto; they are rich and influential, and their capture may be of considerable importance to us. You will arrange with Omopoua on the subject of the allies he promises to bring us; perhaps it will be as well for the Chief to try and lead the Spaniards on to his track, and force them to quit their positions: by managing cleverly we might then be able to defeat them in detail. Have you understood me, brother?"

"Zounds!" Lepoletais answered, "I should be an ass if I did not. All right! I will manoeuvre as you wish."

Montbarts then turned to the engagé, and made him a sign.

L'Olonnais drew nearer.

"Go ashore with the Carib and Lepoletais," the Admiral whispered in his ear – "look at everything, hear everything, watch everything; in an hour you will receive through Bowline a letter, which you must deliver into the hands of Doña Clara de Bejar, who resides in the hatto on the Grand Fond."

"That is easy," L'Olonnais answered, "if it must be, I will hand it to her in the midst of all her servants, in the hatto itself."

"Do nothing of the sort; arrange it so that she must come and fetch the letter."

"Hang it! That is more difficult! Still, I will try to succeed."

"You must succeed!"

"Ah! In that case, on the word of a man, you may reckon on it – though, hang me if I know how I shall manage it!"

Lepoletais had risen.

"Farewell, brother," he said; "when you land tomorrow I shall be on my way to the Grand Fond; I shall, therefore, not see you again till we meet there; but do not be alarmed – you shall find everything in order when you arrive. Ah! By the way, shall I take my body of buccaneers with me?"

"Certainly; they will be of the greatest use to you in watching the enemy; but hide them carefully."

"All right," he said.

At this moment Michael the Basque rushed suddenly into the cabin, with his features distorted by passion.

"What is the matter, messmate? Come, recover yourself," Montbarts said coolly to him.

"A great misfortune has happened to us," Michael exclaimed, as he passionately pulled out a handful of hair.

"What is it? Come, speak like a man, messmate."

"That villain, Antonio de la Ronda – "

"Well?" Montbarts interrupted, with a nervous tremor.

"He has escaped!"

"Malediction!"

"Ten men have set out in pursuit."

"Stuff! It is all up now; they will not catch him. What is to be done?"

"What has happened?" Lepoletais asked.

"Our guide has escaped."

"Is it only that? I promise to find you another."

"Yes, but this one is probably the cleverest spy the Spaniards possess; he knows enough of our secrets to make our expedition fail."

"Heaven preserve us from it! Stuff!" the buccaneer added, carelessly – "Think no more about it, brother; what is done is done – let us go ahead all the same."

And he left the cabin, apparently quite unaffected by the news.

CHAPTER XXV

FRAY ARSENIO

Let us now tell the reader who these buccaneers were of whom we have several times spoken, and what was the origin of the name given them, and which they gave themselves.

The red Caribs of the Antilles were accustomed, when they made prisoners in the obstinate contests they waged with each other, or which they carried on against the whites, to cut their prisoners into small pieces, and lay them upon a species of small hurdles, under which they lit a fire.

These hurdles were called barbacoas, the spot where they were set up boucans, and the operation boucaning, to signify at the same time roasting and smoking.

It was from this that the French boucaniers (anglicised into buccaneers) derived their name, with this difference, that they did to animals what the others did to men.

The first buccaneers were Spanish settlers on the Caribbean islands, who lived on intimate terms with the Indians; hence when they turned their attention to the chase, they accustomed themselves without reflection to employ these Indian terms, which were certainly characteristic, and for which it would have been difficult to substitute any others.

The buccaneers carried on no other trade but hunting; they were divided into two classes, the first only hunting oxen to get their hides, the second killing boars, whose flesh they salted and sold to the planters.

These two varieties of buccaneers were accoutred nearly in the same way, and had the same mode of life.

The real buccaneers were those who pursued oxen, and they never called the others by any name but hunters.

Their equipage consisted of a pack of twenty-four dogs, among which were two bloodhounds, whose duty it was to discover the animal; the price of these dogs, settled among themselves, was thirty livres.

As we have said, their weapon was a long fusil, manufactured at Dieppe or Nantes; they always hunted together, two at the least, but sometimes more, and then everything was in common between them. As we advance in the history of these singular men, we shall enter into fuller details about their mode of life and strange habits.

When Don Sancho and the Major-domo left them, Lepoletais and L'Olonnais had for a long time looked with a mocking glance after the two Spaniards, and then went on building their ajoupa and preparing their boucan, as if nothing had happened. So soon as the boucan was arranged, the fire lit, and the meat laid on the barbacoas, L'Olonnais set about curing the hide he had brought with him, while Lepoletais did the same to that of the bull which he had killed an hour previously.

He stretched the hide out on the ground, with the hairy side up, fastened it down by sixty-four pegs, driven into the earth, and then rubbed it vigorously with a mixture of ashes and salt, to make it dry more quickly.

This duly accomplished, he turned his attention to supper, the preparations for which were neither long nor complicated. A piece of meat had been placed in a small cauldron, with water and salt, and soon boiled; L'Olonnais drew it out by means of a long pointed stick, and laid it on a palm leaf in lieu of a dish; then he collected the grease with a wooden spoon, and threw it into a calabash. Into this grease he squeezed the juice of a lemon, added a little pimento, stirred it all up, and the sauce, the famous pimentado, so liked by the buccaneers, was ready. Placing the meat in a pleasant spot in front of the ajoupa, with the calabash by its side, he called Lepoletais, and the men sitting down facing each other, armed themselves with their knife and a wooden spit instead of a fork, and began eating with a good appetite, carefully dipping each mouthful of meat in the pimentado, and surrounded by their dogs, which, though not daring to ask for anything, fixed greedy glances on the provisions spread out before them, and followed with eager eyes every morsel swallowed by the adventurers.

They had been eating this in silence for some time, when the bloodhounds raised their heads, inhaling the air restlessly, and then gave several hoarse growls; almost immediately the whole pack began barking furiously.

"Eh, eh!" Lepoletais said, after drinking a mouthful of brandy and water, and handing the gourd to the engagé, "What is the meaning of this?"

"Some traveller, no doubt," L'Olonnais answered carelessly.