At that moment, another glass window shattered, and Cazalla landed on the floor of the room, his sword in his hand. He was gray and blackened from the powder explosion. The girl screamed.
“Dress, madam,” Hunter said, as his blade engaged Cazalla’s. He saw her hastily pulling on an elaborate white dress.
Cazalla panted as he fought. He had the desperation of fury and something else, perhaps fear.
“Englishman,” he said, starting another taunt. Then Hunter flung his sword across the room. The blade pierced Cazalla in the throat. He coughed and sat backward, into the chair by his heavy ornate desk. He leaned forward, pulling at the blade, and in his posture, he seemed to be examining charts on the desk. Blood dripped onto the charts. Cazalla made a gurgling sound. Then he collapsed.
“Come on,” the woman said.
Hunter led her through the window, out of the room. He did not look back at Cazalla’s body.
He stood with the woman on the north face of the parapet. The ground was thirty feet below, hard earth with a few scrubby plants. Lady Sarah clutched him.
“It’s too far,” she said.
“There’s no choice,” he said, and pushed her. With a shriek, she fell. He looked back, and saw the Cassandra pull into the channel, under the main battery of the fortress. The gun crews were ready to fire. Hunter jumped to the ground. The girl was still lying there, holding her ankle.
“Are you hurt?”
“Not badly, I think.”
He got her to her feet, and drew her arm over his shoulder. Supporting her, they ran toward the water. They heard the first guns open fire on the Cassandra.
The guns of Matanceros were fired serially, one second apart. Each one breeched one second apart, spitting hot powder and fragments of bronze into the air, sending the crews diving for cover. One by one, the big guns rocked back to their recoil position, and were still.
The crews slowly got to their feet, and approached the guns in astonishment. They examined the blown touch-holes and chattered excitedly among themselves.
And then, one by one, the charges under the carriages blew, sending splinters of wood flying, dropping the guns to the ground. The last of the cannon went rolling along the parapet, with terrified soldiers racing out of its path.
Less than five hundred yards offshore, the Cassandra sailed untouched into the harbor.
Don Diego was treading water, shouting at the top of his lungs as the Cassandra bore down on him. For a horrified moment he thought no one would see or hear him, and then the bow of the sloop veered to port, and strong hands reached over the side and hauled him, dripping, onto the deck. A flask of kill-devil was thrust into his hands; his back was pounded and there was laughter.
Diego looked around the boat. “Where is Hunter?” he said.
In the early-dawn light, Hunter was running with the girl to the shore at the eastern point of Matanceros. He was now just beneath the fort’s walls; directly above him were the barrels of some of the guns, now lying at odd and irregular angles.
They paused by the water to catch their breath.
“Can you swim?” Hunter asked.
The girl shook her head.
“Not at all?”
“No, I swear.”
He looked at the Cassandra’s stern, as she moved up the channel to the galleon.
“Come on,” he said. They ran toward the harbor.
Enders, the sea artist, delicately maneuvered the Cassandra alongside the galleon. Immediately, most of the crew jumped to the larger boat. Enders himself went aboard the galleon, where he saw Lazue and the Moor at the railing. Sanson was at the tiller.
“My pleasure, sir,” Sanson said with a bow, handing the helm to Enders.
“Don’t mind if I do, mate,” Enders said. Immediately, he looked aloft, where seamen were scrambling up the rigging. “Hoist the foretop. Smart there with the jib!” The sails were let out. The big ship began to move.
Alongside them, the small crew remaining with the Cassandra tied the bow to the stern of the galleon and swung around, sails luffing.
Enders paid no attention to the little ship.
His attention was fixed on the galleon. As she began to move, and the crews worked the capstan to bring up the anchor, he shook his head. “Soggy old bitch,” he said. “Moves like a cow.”
“But she’ll sail,” Sanson said.
“Oh, she’ll sail, in a manner of speaking.”
The galleon was moving east, toward the harbor mouth. Enders now looked toward the shore, for Hunter.
“There he is!” Lazue shouted.
And indeed, there he was, standing at the shore with some woman.
“Can you stop?” Lazue demanded.
Enders shook his head. “We’ll go into irons,” he said. “Throw a line.”
The Moor had already thrown a line. It hit the shore. Hunter grabbed it with the girl, and they were immediately yanked off their feet and dragged into the water.
“Better get them up smartly, before they drown,” Enders said, but he was grinning.
The girl nearly drowned, she was coughing for hours afterward. But Hunter was in fine spirits as he took command of the treasure nao and sailed, in tandem with the Cassandra, out into the open seas.
By eight in the morning, the smoking ruins of Matanceros lay far astern. Hunter, drinking heavily, reflected that he now had the distinction of successfully leading the most extraordinary privateering expedition in the century since Drake attacked Panama.
Chapter 24
THEY WERE STILL in Spanish waters, and they moved southward quickly, under every inch of canvas they could muster. The galleon normally carried as many as a thousand people, and crews of two hundred seamen or more.
Hunter had seventy men, including prisoners. But most of the Spanish prisoners were garrison soldiers, not sailors. Not only were they untrustworthy, they were also unskilled. Hunter’s crews had their hands full managing the sails and rigging.
Hunter had interrogated the prisoners in his halting Spanish. By midday, he knew a good deal about the ship he now commanded. She was the nao Nuestra Señora de los Reves, San Fernando y San Francisco de Paula, Captain José del Villar de Andrade, owner the Marques de Canada, a vessel of nine hundred tons, built in Genoa. Like all Spanish galleons — which were invariably cumbersomely christened — this ship had a nickname, El Trinidad. The origin of the name was obscure.
El Trinidad had been built to carry fifty cannon, but after formal departure from Havana the previous August, the ship had stopped along the Cuban coast, and most of the cannon offloaded to permit the ship to carry more cargo. She was presently fitted with only thirty-two twelve-pounders. Enders had gone over the ship thoroughly and pronounced her seaworthy but filthy. A party of prisoners were now clearing some of the refuse from the holds.
“She’s taking on water, too,” Enders said.
“Badly?”
“No, but she’s an old ship, and bears watching. Not kept in good repair.” Enders’s frown seemed to encompass the long tradition of shoddy Spanish seamanship.
“How does she sail?”
“Like a pregnant sow, but we’ll make do, with fair weather and no trouble. We’re short, is the truth.”
Hunter nodded. He paced the deck of the ship and looked at the canvas. Fully rigged, El Trinidad carried fourteen separate sails. Even the simplest task — such as letting out a reefed topsail — required almost a dozen strong backs.