"I hear nothing, George."
"No ... no—nor I, now. Mayhap I was indeed but dreaming. Ay, dreaming as I ever do, Adam, that this misery is but fearsome nightmare and that soon I shall wake to find it so. And unless I do ... and soon, Adam, I shall kill myself and be done, for I can bear little more of this."
"Hush!" whispered Adam, sitting up suddenly. "Listen, George, ha—listen!" A soft, faint tapping on the massive door, a vague, muffled whispering beneath it.
"Cap'n Adam.... Oh, Cap'n Penfeather—ahoy!"
Adam was down upon his face, whispering through the gap 'twixt door and worn flagstone:
"Yes ... yes! I am here. Who wants me....? I am Adam." And close to his ear came the whispered answer:
"'Tis only me, sir, your old seadog Smidge. I've stole the key ... guards and all be drunk to-night, so I took the key and be agoing for to open door."
"Easy, Smidge! Softly, old seadog,—unlock but open slowly, and but an inch or so ... careful now, old shipmate!" And presently came faint sound of oiled lock, squeak of heavy bolts, unheeded by any save Adam and D'Arcy. Then as the ponderous door moved, Adam arose, whispering.
"Warn our Dreadnoughts, George, them only, bid 'em stand by and wait for me." Then, unheard and unseen, Adam edged himself through the narrow opening—out into the sweet, cool freshness of the night, and closing the door, beheld, in the starry dusk, a small shape dight in the splendid livery of a page.
"Smidge!" he whispered. "Oh, God bless thee, Smidge, I—— Ha, what's yonder?"
"Only drunk soldiers, sir, a-singing i' the guard-house."
"How many?"
"Two—three, I dunno exackly, Cap'n."
"Bide here—no, get you to Ned and John Fenn, bid them go round and warn every man to be ready yet silent to wait my coming ... silent or all's amiss."
Then Adam turned and, speeding on naked, soundless feet, came to the guard-house, so long familiar, where lights gleamed and a drunken voice sang unmelodiously, and peering in through open doorway he saw four men, three who sprawled fast asleep and snoring and one whose misfortune it was to be awake and sober enough to glimpse the brown, sinewy arm outstretched towards the naked sword that chanced in reach. The man started afoot, groped for the pistol on littered table and, in that moment, choked and died....
Then, sword in hand, back sped Adam to hear a murmurous hum from the roused slaves and stifled clink of fetters. Then Adam swung wide the door and standing before them outlined against starry background, lifted sword and spoke in hushed tone and well as he might in English, French and Spanish:
"Silence for your lives! In the harbour lies ship to our deliverance, her officers and crew ashore, she is our only hope of life; except we take her we be all lost men to die by fire, noose or torment, so take her we must and silent as maybe ... keep your chains from least rattle. Now line up, two by two, and follow me."
And so these men, made desperate by cruel usage and cunning by fear of death as cruel, followed Adam's white head—out and away from bestial suffering to chance of freedom and hope for new life. A grimly silent company, they flitted through the dark, by narrow alleys and crooked ways, with ears on the strain and eyes that glared watchful on the night, hands griping silenced fetters ready to smite and slay for dear freedom, they followed the gleam of Adam's silvery hair.
From the town above them came sounds of life and revelry, with fitful strains of music; from the harbour below them rose the sighing, languorous murmur of the flowing tide. They reached the haven at last, this grim and silent company of ghosts; they launched the nearest boats lying there, manned and paddled them cautiously, with oars, stretchers, or eager hands, towards where, riding at her moorings, lay the great galleon Santissima Trinidad with none aboard save drowsy anchor watch. Nearer they crept until she loomed mightily above them, a vast shape in the velvety darkness. Boat after boat they reached her, and man after man they boarded her, climbing her lofty sides with gripping fingers and clutching toes; by portcills, broad rubbing-strakes and carved mouldings they clambered up—and up; then some man's fetters clashed loudly, a voice challenged from above to end with a dreadful suddenness.
Panting and breathless Adam surmounted the broad bulwark, and with him, after him, his desperate company, mostly experienced sailors, who instantly set to work, some swarming aloft to loose sails, others to cast off moorings, while John Fenn and his fellows looked to the ordnance.
Suddenly, from somewhere below, a voice crying out in Spanish was answered by an English curse, this followed by the thunderous discharge of a caliver.
"Rouse away!" shouted Adam, running towards the steerage.
"Ho, sheets and tacks!" roared Ned, amidships.
"Gunners, stand by!" shouted John. "Here be matches a-plenty, thank the Lord! Bring me yon lanthorn, Sim! Ha, the dons are yare to us at last, they've marked summat amiss! Be ready now!" Even as he spoke, lights twinkled in the castles to right and left of them, drums beat and trumpets blared a wild alarm. Then came the shattering roar of cannon to fill the night with thunderous tumult and echo as awfully in the distant mountains.
And at this most fateful moment that was to be their death or salvation, Adam standing upon this lofty poop, in his filthy rags and scarred nakedness, raised sinewy arms to starry heaven and cried aloud:
"A wind, oh God! Now of Thy kind mercy, send us a wind!" And, like an answer, it came—to fan his haggard brow, to stir his long, white hair, while down below him on the quarterdeck, Sir Benjamin, looking back on the town where bells now clamoured and many lights hovered, exclaimed very piously:
"Ha, thank God for this good wind!"
"Ay, she feels it!" chuckled Ned, with his gaze on the huge bellying sails, and then came he clambering up the poop ladder where Adam conned the ship, with Silas Guppy and Nicholas Cobb at the steerage.
"Hard a-larboard! Easy ... as she goes! Starboard,—so! Amidships. Steady as she is!"
Slowly the huge vessel gathered way, while guns boomed from the castles and their shot began to whizz ever nearer, what time from town and harbour came growing din and confused uproar.
"'Tis pity," said Adam, looking thitherward, "ay, 'tis great pity we might not have fired their shipping. See, Ned, there's one making after us already!"
"Ay, but we've the wind of her, Cap'n."
"How many are we, think you, Ned?"
"There's a hundred and sixty-eight o' the galley, sir, but with others we be somewheers about a hundred and seventy-four, sir, I reckon, for——"
"No! A hundred and seventy-five, sirs!" piped a shrill voice. "For here's me, sir, and wiv a cutlash, Cap'n Adam, sir!" And from somewhere appeared little Smidge and on his shoulder a sword long as himself.
"Ah, Smidge!" cried Adam, clasping an arm about him. "Now God forgive me, I'd forgotten thee! How came ye aboard, shipmate?"
"Froo one o' the gun ports, sir, that's how I got me this yere sword so fine, and nobody stayed me 'cause o' my Spanish rig. Ye see, Cap'n, I were page to the Governor's lady, I were, and can speak the lingo—somewhat."
"And but for thee, Smidge, we were all of us back yonder ... caged like so many animals. Av, 'tis thyself hast made us men again. Now for this, Smidge, I make thee my own seadog and special officer to be ever near me." Thus said Adam, to the boy's tremulous joy, while his keen eyes watched now the harbour astern and now the headlands before them.
"Below there!" he cried suddenly. "Ho, John, 'tis no matter for the castle batteries, they'll soon be out o' range, man our stern-chase guns, for we're pursued."
"Ay, ay, sir!" cried John, cheerily. "Lord, 'tis sweet to tread deck again and handle such guns, cannons royal and culverin! With such we might battle a whole fleet—of dons or Portugals."