_ BOOK V
CHAPTER XXIV. IN WHICH SIR HENRY MORGAN APPEALS UNAVAILINGLY ALIKE TO THE PITY OF WOMAN, THE FORGIVENESS OF PRIEST, THE FRIENDSHIP OF COMRADE, AND THE HATRED OF MEN
"And bless me also, my father," cried Mercedes, kneeling by Alvarado's side.
"Most willingly, my fair daughter," answered the old man. "A fit helpmate indeed thou hast shown thyself for so brave a soldier. By your leave, your Excellency. You will indulge an old man's desire to bless the marriage of the son as he did that of the mother? No obstacle, I take it, now exists to prevent this most happy union."
"None," answered the Viceroy, as the young people rose and stood before him, "and glad I am that this happy solution of our difficulties has come to pass."
"And when, sir," questioned the priest further, "may I ask that you design----"
"The sooner the better," said the Viceroy smiling grimly. "By the mass, reverend father, I'll feel easier when he hath her in his charge!"
"I shall prove as obedient to thee as wife, Don Francisco----" said Mercedes with great spirit, turning to him.
"Nay, call me Alvarado, sweet lady," interrupted her lover.
"Alvarado then, if you wish--for it was under that name that I first loved thee--I shall prove as obedient a wife to thee as I was a dutiful daughter to thee, my father."
"'Tis not saying o'er much," commented the Viceroy, but smiling more kindly as he said the words. "Nay, I'll take that back, Mercedes, or modify it. Thou hast, indeed, been to me all that a father could ask, until----"
"'Twas my fault, your Excellency. On me be the punishment," interrupted the lover.
"Thou shalt have it with Mercedes," answered the Viceroy, laughing broadly now. "What say ye, gentlemen?"
"My lord," said Agramonte, from his age and rank assuming to speak for the rest, "there is not one of us who would not give all he possessed to stand in the young Lord de Guzman's place."
"Well, well," continued the old man, "when we have restored order in the town we shall have a wedding ceremony--say to-morrow."
"Ay, ay, to-morrow, to-morrow!" cried the cavaliers.
"Your Excellency, there is one more thing yet to be done," said Alvarado as soon as he could be heard.
"Art ever making objections, Captain Alvarado--Don Francisco, that is. We might think you had reluctance to the bridal," exclaimed the Viceroy in some little surprise. "What is it now?"
"The punishment of this man."
"I gave him into your hands."
"By God!" shouted old Hornigold, "I wondered if in all this fathering and mothering and sweethearting and giving in marriage he had forgot----"
"Not so. The postponement but makes it deeper," answered Alvarado gravely. "Rest satisfied."
"And I shall have my revenge in full measure?"
"In full, in overflowing measure, senor."
"Do you propose to shoot me?" asked the buccaneer chieftain coolly. "Or behead me?"
"That were a death for an honorable soldier taken in arms and forced to bide the consequences of his defeat. It is not meet for you," answered Alvarado.
"What then? You'll not hang me? Me! A knight of England! Sometime Governor of Jamaica!"
"These titles are nothing to me. And hanging is the death we visit upon the common criminal, a man who murders or steals, or blasphemes. Your following may expect that. For you there is----"
"You don't mean to burn me alive, do you?"
"Were you simply a heretic that might be meet, but you are worse----"
"What do you mean?" cried the buccaneer, carried away by the cold-blooded menace in Alvarado's words. "Neither lead, nor steel, nor rope, nor fire!"
"Neither one nor the other, sir."
"Is it the wheel? The rack? The thumbscrew? Sink me, ye shall see how an Englishman can die! Even from these I flinch not."
"Nor need you, from these, for none of them shall be used," continued the young soldier, with such calculating ferocity in his voice that in spite of his dauntless courage and intrepidity the blood of Morgan froze within his veins.
"Death and destruction!" he shouted. "What is there left?"
"You shall die, senor, not so much by the hand of man as by the act of God."
"God! I believe in none. There is no God!"
"That you shall see."
"Your Excellency, my lords! I appeal to you to save me from this man, not my son but my nephew----"
"S'death, sirrah!" shouted the Viceroy, enraged beyond measure by the allusion to any relationship, "not a drop of your base blood pollutes his veins. I have given you over to him. He will attend to you."
"What means he to do then?"
"You shall see."
"When?"
"To-morrow."
The sombre, sinister, although unknown purpose of the Spaniards had new terrors lent to it by the utter inability of the buccaneer to foresee what was to be his punishment. He was a man of the highest courage, the stoutest heart, yet in that hour he was astonied. His knees smote together; he clenched his teeth in a vain effort to prevent their chattering. All his devilry, his assurance, his fortitude, his strength, seemed to leave him. He stood before them suddenly an old, a broken man, facing a doom portentous and terrible, without a spark of strength or resolution left to meet it, whatever it might be. And for the first time in his life he played the craven, the coward. He moistened his dry lips and looked eagerly from one face to another in the dark and gloomy ring that encircled him.
"Lady," he said at last, turning to Mercedes as the most likely of his enemies to befriend him, "you are a woman. You should be tender hearted. You don't want to see an old man, old enough to be your father, suffer some unknown, awful torture? Plead for me! Ask your lover. He will refuse you nothing now."
There was a dead silence in the room. Mercedes stared at the miserable wretch making his despairing appeal as if she were fascinated.
"Answer him," said her stern old father, "as a Spanish gentlewoman should."
It was a grim and terrible age. The gospel under which all lived in those days was not that of the present. It was a gospel writ in blood, and fire, and steel.
"An eye for an eye," said the girl slowly, "a tooth for a tooth, life for life, shame for shame," her voice rising until it rang through the room. "In the name of my ruined sisters, whose wails come to us this instant from without, borne hither on the night wind, I refuse to intercede for you, monster. For myself, the insults you have put upon me, I might forgive, but not the rest. The taking of one life like yours can not repay."
"You hear?" cried Alvarado. "Take him away."
"One moment," cried Morgan. "Holy Father--your religion--it teaches to forgive they say. Intercede for me!"
His eyes turned with faint hope toward the aged priest.
"Not for such as thou," answered the old man looking from him. "I could forgive this," he touched his battered tonsure, "and all thou hast done against me and mine. That is not little, for when I was a lad, a youth, before I took the priestly yoke upon me, I loved Maria Zerega--but that is nothing. What suffering comes upon me I can bear, but thou hast filled the cup of iniquity and must drain it to the dregs. Hark ye--the weeping of the desolated town! I can not interfere! They that take the sword shall perish by it. It is so decreed. You believe not in God----"
"I will! I do!" cried the buccaneer, clutching at the hope.
"I shall pray for thee, that is all."
"Hornigold," cried the now almost frenzied man, his voice hoarse with terror and weakness, "they owe much to you. Without you they had not been here. I have wronged you grievously--terribly--but I atone by this. Beg them, not to let me go but only to kill me where I stand! They will not refuse you. Had it not been for you this man would not have known his father. He could not have won this woman. You have power. You'll not desert an old comrade in his extremity? Think, we have stood together sword in hand and fought our way through all obstacles in many a desperate strait. Thou and I, old shipmate. By the memory of that old association, by the love you once bore me, and by that I gave to you, ask them for my death, here--now--at once!"
"You ask for grace from me!" snarled Hornigold savagely, yet triumphant. "You--you hanged my brother----"
"I know, I know! 'Twas a grievous error. I shall be punished for all--ask them to shoot me--hang me----"
He slipped to his knees, threw himself upon the floor, and lay grovelling at Hornigold's feet.
"Don't let them torture me, man! My God, what is it they intend to do to me?"
"Beg, you hound!" cried the boatswain, spurning him with his foot. "I have you where I swore I'd bring you. And, remember, 'tis I that laid you low--I--I--" He shrieked like a maniac. "When you suffer in that living death for which they design you, remember with every lingering breath of anguish that it was I who brought you there! You trifled with me--mocked me--betrayed me. You denied my request. I grovelled at your feet and begged you--you spurned me as I do you now. Curse you! I'll ask no mercy for you!"
"My lord," gasped out Morgan, turning to the Viceroy in one final appeal, as two of the men dragged him to his feet again, "I have treasure. The galleon we captured--it is buried--I can lead you there."
"There is not a man of your following," said the Viceroy, "who would not gladly purchase life by the same means."
"And 'tis not needed," said the boatswain, "for I have told them where it lies."
"If Teach were here," said Morgan, "he would stand by me."
A man forced his way into the circle carrying a sack in his hand. Drawing the strings he threw the contents at the feet of the buccaneer, and there rolled before him the severed head of the only man save Black Dog upon whom he could have depended, his solitary friend.
Morgan staggered back in horror from the ghastly object, staring at it as if fascinated.
"Ha, ha! Ho, ho!" laughed the old boatswain. "What was it that he sang? 'We'll be damnably mouldy'--ay, even you and I captain--'an hundred years hence.' But should you live so long, you'll not forget 'twas I."
"You didn't betray me then, my young comrade," whispered Morgan, looking down at the severed head. "You fought until you were killed. Would that my head might lie by your side."
He had been grovelling, pleading, weeping, beseeching, but the utter uselessness of it at last came upon him and some of his courage returned. He faced them once more with head uplifted.
"At your will, I'm ready," he cried. "I defy you! You shall see how Harry Morgan can die. Scuttle me, I'll not give way again!"
"Take him away," said Alvarado; "we'll attend to him in the morning."
"Wait! Give me leave, since I am now tried and condemned, to say a word."
A cunning plan had flashed into the mind of Morgan, and he resolved to put it in execution.
"It has been a long life, mine, and a merry one. There's more blood upon my hands--Spanish blood, gentlemen--than upon those of any other human being. There was Puerto Principe. Were any of you there? The men ran like dogs before me there and left the women and children. I wiped my feet upon your accursed Spanish flag. I washed the blood from my hands with hair torn from the heads of your wives, your sweethearts, and you had not courage to defend them!"
A low murmur of rage swept through the room.
"But that's not all. Some of you perhaps were at Porto Bello. I drove the women of the convents to the attack, as in this city yesterday. When I finished I burned the town--it made a hot fire. I did it--I--who stand here! I and that cursed one-eyed traitor Hornigold, there!"
The room was in a tumult now. Shouts, and curses, and imprecations broke forth. Weapons were bared, raised, and shaken at him. The buccaneer laughed and sneered, ineffable contempt pictured on his face.
"And some of you were at Santa Clara, at Chagres, and here in Venezuela at Maracaibo, where we sunk the ships and burned your men up like rats. Then, there was Panama. We left the men to starve and die. Your mother, Senor Agramonte--what became of her? Your sister, there! Your wife, here! The sister of your mother, you young dog--what became of them all? Hell was let loose in this town yesterday. Panama was worse than La Guayra. I did it--I--Harry Morgan's way!"
He thrust himself into the very faces of the men, and with cries of rage they rushed upon him. They brushed aside the old Viceroy, drowning his commands with their shouts. Had it not been for the interference of Hornigold and Alvarado they would have cut Morgan to pieces where he stood. And this had been his aim--to provoke them beyond measure by a recital of some of his crimes so that he would be killed in their fury. But the old boatswain with superhuman strength seized the bound captain and forced him into a corner behind a table, while Alvarado with lightning resolution beat down the menacing sword points.
"Back!" he cried. "Do you not see he wished to provoke this to escape just punishment? I would have silenced him instantly but I thought ye could control yourselves. I let him rave on that he might be condemned out of his own mouth, that none could have doubt that he merits death at our hands to-morrow. Sheath your weapons instantly, gentlemen!" he cried.
"Ay," said the Viceroy, stepping into the crowd and endeavoring to make himself heard, "under pain of my displeasure. What, soldiers, nobles, do ye turn executioners in this way?"
"My mother----"
"My sister----"
"The women and children----"
"The insult to the flag----"
"The disgrace to the Spanish name!"
"That he should say these things and live!"
"Peace, sirs, he will not say words like these to-morrow. Now, we have had enough. See!" cried the old Viceroy, pointing to the windows, "the day breaks. Take him away. Agramonte, to you I commit the fort. Mercedes, Alvarado, come with me. Those who have no duties to perform, go get some sleep. As for you, prisoner, if you have preparation to make, do so at once, for in the morning you shall have no opportunity."
"I am ready now!" cried Morgan recklessly, furious because he had been balked in his attempt. "Do with me as you will! I have had my day, and it has been a long and merry one."
"And I mine, to-night. It has been short, but enough," laughed Hornigold, his voice ringing like a maniac's in the hall. "For I have had my revenge!"
"We shall take care of that in the morning," said Alvarado, turning away to follow the Viceroy and Mercedes. _