"You mean I will be free?"
"Yes - you and all the prisoners I have taken, providing you give your word that you will not prevent my Marines leaving. I should warn you that the Calypso - she was the frigate that came alongside you in Santa Cruz - is close by, so that between us we can sink the Santa Barbara in a matter of moments."
"You have my word, " Velasquez said, and Ramage knew he meant it. "You have my word, " he repeated bitterly, "although God knows that from now on my own people will place little value on it."
Ramage looked puzzled, and Velasquez held his hands out, palms upwards. "As soon as the Captain-General hears of this, I shall be put under arrest. There was not even a pistol loaded when you boarded us."
"At least you are still alive! " Ramage exclaimed, surprised and vaguely irritated by the sympathy he was beginning to feel for the Spaniard.
"I may live to regret that, " Velasquez said bitterly. Then he glanced up at Ramage. "Have you captured any of the English mutineers who originally brought in this ship? Many have sailed in neutral ships."
"Some. In time we'll capture most of them."
"There was one man, one of their leaders. He could handle the ship well. He brought her round from La Guaira - with a Spanish guard, of course. I remember him well. His name - for the moment I cannot remember it."
"Summers?"
"Ah, that was it. You know him?"
"He was captured a few weeks ago and court-martialled."
"And?"
"And he was hanged."
"He deserved it, " Velasquez said quietly. "He brought us a frigate, but he was evil. He boasted that he planned the entire mutiny and was responsible for killing all the officers. I think he was the most evil man I ever met. It was wrong for Spain to benefit from the activities of such men. We needed the ship, but mutiny knows no frontiers."
Ramage suddenly felt a kinship with Velasquez; the kinship of men who faced the responsibilities of command. He stood up and held out his hand.
"I have your word about my Marines?"
"You have." Velasquez shook hands. "And thank you for freeing us. I am in your debt. Now you return to report to your Admiral?"
"Yes, " Ramage said, thinking of the letters in the drawer.
"What about the other English frigate, the one which came a month ago?"
"Her captain was making a reconnaissance, " Ramage said. "We needed to know if we could cut out La Perla."
"And he reported that you could?" Velasquez asked incredulously. "Caramba! He must be a brave man! And you, Captain Ramage, you have done the impossible."
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
By sunrise the Jocasta was running westward under studding sails with a stiff north-east wind. To the south a series of mountain peaks stretched into the distance along the coast of the Main, fading purple like old bruises, while ahead, fine on the starboard bow, was Isla de Margarita, its high mountains making it seem as if the island had been formed by a giant wrenching off a handful of the mainland and tossing it into the sea a dozen miles from the coast. There were two small islands in the channel between, Coche and Cabagua.
Daylight had been a melancholy time on board the frigate because Ramage had to conduct a funeral service for the Iwenty-three Spaniards and then for the five men from the Calypso who had been killed while boarding the Jocasta. Yet the ship's company had soon cheered up after the last body, sewn into a hammock and with a roundshot at the feet, had disappeared over the side. Ramage sensed that the men had, like him, expected far heavier casualties, and most of them were too concerned with the wonder of being alive to mourn five lost shipmates for long.
Ramage paused to look ahead at Isla de Margarita and then resumed his pacing of the starboard side of the quarterdeck. By now the Santa Barbara would be in Santa Cruz and Velasquez and Lopez - and the Captain-General's nephew - would be telling their story. By now a messenger (two or three of them if the Mayor had any sense) would be galloping along the coast, carrying the warning to the Captain-General in Caracas that La Perla had been captured. Looking across the mountains, which swept on westwards like enormous petrified waves, Ramage did not envy the messengers.
The last cast of the log showed that the Jocasta was making nine and a half knots. If they could keep up this speed they would arrive off La Guaira soon after dawn tomorrow. In fact it mattered little whether it was dawn or noon, providing they reached there in daylight and before the messengers.
"A particular cargo." The phrase nagged him. The word "particular" had a certain significance when used in the Royal Navy, usually meaning that something was both important and secret. When Admiral Nelson had been given the task of covering the English Channel against the threat of invasion, he had been given command of a squadron "to be employed upon a particular service".
Ramage cursed his deficient Spanish. Normally it was good enough to pass himself off as a Spaniard, but occasionally he was caught out by the deeper significance of a particular word. Southwick might be right; the "particular cargo" from Cartagena could be a present from the Viceroy, something intended to curry favour at Court.
In steering for La Guaira he was now acting without orders. If anything went wrong Admiral Davis would be quite justified in accusing him of actually disobeying orders, since his instructions had been commendably brief: he was to sail to the Main, recapture the Jocasta and bring her back to English Harbour. There was not an inch of slack in the wording.
If Ramage brought back a nice fat prize, the Admiral would not throw up his hands in horror and refuse his share, but if Ramage lost the Jocasta or the Calypso while going after a prize of unknown value, it would be a different story. Captain Ramage would probably spend the rest of his life on the beach on half-pay, being used as an object lesson to other young captains, like a carrion crow strung up on a piece of string beside a gamekeeper's lodge.
Should he forget about that damned merchant ship?
Supposing he managed to cut her out and found that the "particular cargo" was an elaborate suite of furniture made of some exotic tropical wood, or even cages of parrots or rare birds intended to amuse the vapid ladies of the Spanish Court? It could be something like that, because the normal exports to Spain from the Main were items like indigo, tobacco, hides and sometimes cotton.
From Admiral Davis's point of view, he could have had the Jocasta back, with the destruction of the two fortresses guarding Santa Cruz as a bonus. His orders would have been obeyed. He could report to the Admiralty that their instructions were carried out. If Ramage brought back a merchant ship full of birds and furniture as a prize it would be doubtful if the Admiral's dispatch to London would even mention it.
He picked up the telescope and looked to the north. There was no sign of the Calypso. The lookouts aloft could probably still see her sails, but from down here at deck level she had disappeared below the curvature of the earth. She was fast - faster than the Jocasta - and Wagstaffe would waste no time. Would he go along the north side of the chain of islands, or stay south? Either way there was no chance of the Jocasta catching up with her before she reached the rendezvous.
Southwick, the officer of the deck, caught his eye, obviously wanting to chat.
"The chart doesn't help us much, sir."
"It rarely does along this coast, " Ramage commented sourly. "But surely the Spanish ones I gave you are better than ours?"
"They give a few more soundings, but the current is marked 'strong and variable'. This Margarita Channel - I just hope there are no shoals the chartmakers missed."