The Treasure of Pearls: A Romance of Adventures in California
overawed the little brigantine. Before this manoeuvre, Gladsden was
fain to believe it was only one of the smugglers which often run up the
Gulf and await the result of the negotiation of the consignees and the
port officers before returning to Guaymas or elsewhere, and discharging
a cargo on which, thus, the Exchequer of Mexico is neatly defrauded and
the public deficit is kept from lessening.
With his glass captain Gladsden had recognised as the officer on the
steamer deck none other than the double traitor Ignacio. It needed
nothing more to understand that the newcomer would stick at nothing
on this desolate coast where the ship duel would have no seconds or
interferers.
He was ordering Mr. Holdfast, after having pointed out the Mexican
to him, to hurry all hands over breakfast with a little intimation
that some of them would dine in paradise if they did not beat off the
unwelcome visitor.
Suddenly the old Indian tutor and friend of Benito pointed shoreward.
The canoe of the pearl diver was putting off with him and doña Dolores.
Instantly, being a little nearer, and seeing the same sight, there was
a bustle on the quarterdeck of the _Susana_, and there appeared in
gorgeous array, even eclipsing that of the Chilian representative in
which he had last been admired, the celebrated don Aníbal Cristobal de
Luna.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE HAUL OF MILLIONS.
Soon a cutter was lowered, in which the Mexican got, with the radiant
Ignacio as his coxswain, and four oarsmen, while the moment it started
in pursuit, or as matters stood then, for the encounter of Benito's
little piragua, doña Maria Josefa de Miranda hoisted herself up the
stairs and lumbered to the side of the steamer to gloat over the
proceeding.
Gladsden saw that, though he had a boat got ready, the canoe must be
met before he could intervene, to say nothing of the probability of a
volley from the bow of the _Casta Susana_ checking his attempt in mid
career. If, besides, the pearl diver ran himself ashore, encumbered
with the young lady, he was almost sure to fall among the mesquite
brush under the pistols of the salteador and his lieutenant.
It was no question till the young Mexican and his wife were out of
peril, of attacking the formidable steamer.
Benito's red ally, who had whispered to his grandson and drawn a nod of
comprehension from the latter, had stripped himself, as did the youth,
for diving. All other eves were on the chase. They slipped over the
low board unnoticed, opposite the _Casta Susana_, and as silently took
to the water and swam away. It looked as if they deemed the impending
combat hopeless, and, like the rat, quitted the surely defeated ship.
In the meantime, poor Benito, recognising with whom he had to deal,
was plying the paddle manfully, whilst Dolores, falling on her knees
in the canoe, set ardently to praying, her hands clasped, and her
eyes on the profound sky. All at once, without giving a warning to
the girl, so that she was shaken in her devotions, Benito turned the
pirogue somewhat, evaded the Susamalis boat, and went straight to a
little rocky islet of some height, well covered with rushes and other
vegetation. It would mask him from the _Casta Susana's_ crew, though
leaving that vessel between him and his friends. Possibly, he had no
other aim than to deposit Dolores thereon, and stand in defence of her
against all comers.
The Mexicans began to cheer their captain, whose boat, clumsily turned,
resumed the hunt.
Very little could be seen now of the chase from the low-lying goleta,
and though Gladsden recklessly climbed up the rigging to get a view
over the thronged deck of the steamer, soon the piragua and the cutter
were veiled by the islet from all the spectators, friends and foes.
"Every man to the boats!" cried the Englishman. "Arm to the teeth, and,
cook, all the matches and tar; we'll board that beast of a smoky tub,"
appealing to the seamen's hatred of a steamer to fire their energy,
"take her or leave her a prey to the flames! Every man, active and
idlers, away!"
There was, indeed, a very fair prospect of the _Casta Susana_ being
taken by surprise, so enwrapt was the attention of all the people of
the Mexican, taking the cue of doña Maria Josefa, with interest and
anxiety.
But the _coup de main_ never came off. Halfway to the target, Gladsden
was startled to see her, previously riding, doubly secured, so stiffly,
nod, and begin to rock, then cant at such an incline whilst settling
down slowly, as to cause the Mexicans to catch hold of every near
object.
A great outcry arose.
It was repeated with anguish, as the careering continued as if a giant
hand was rolling her over. Then the black faces of the stokers and
engineer were seen as they came climbing up on deck to add themselves
to the no less terrified crew. The steamer's deck was at a slope
of forty-five, everybody clinging to the uppermost gunwale, save
the unlucky ones who had rolled to the down scuppers, in among the
rubbish which a Mexican captain allows to encumber his upper planks.
The swaying cannon above threatened to break loose and crush these
struggling wretches to marmalade, whilst their _vis-à-vis_, bursting
the port lids, ran out to the carriages and kissed the agitated water.
Poor Maria Josefa, grasping a sailor round the body whilst he hung
on the taut guy of the reeling smoke pipe, hovered over the knot of
writhing, fighting men trying to get a footing on a surface every
moment changing its centre of gravity.
At that direful instant the boat of Gladsden was slightly pulled down
on the opposite side to the steamer, and two dark heads succeeded two
pair of red arms, abruptly seizing the gunwale by chin and hands. In
the mouths of both were the formidable _navajas_, "gapped" by recent
rough usage and pointless.
"You, Diego? And young Diego?" cried the captain, assisting them on
board.
"Yes; you see um steamer go down, and you see um pirates go up pretty
soon dam quick! Old Diego and young Diego play swordfish--we scuttle
the steamer, see?"
In fact an ominous hissing seemed to indicate that the water rising
within the steamer, well on her side now, was menacing a blow up of
the boilers. The engineer and his mate fully foresaw this, and were
scrambling into a boat, jammed of its fall in the blocks.
"Heaven guard us!" was the shout on the ill-fated steamer. Some forty
men were seen preparing to launch the boats, or even leap into the
water, when a louder scream, though from one pair of lungs, was audible
over the clamour. Doña Maria Josefa, with the sailor on whom she would
not relax her grasp, had rolled like a ball across the perpendicular
decks, bounded over the bulwarks, now washed by the water, and splashed
out of sight.
As if her plunge had been arranged for the eliciting of a salute,
pistol shots from the rock islet announced that the pirates and Benito
were at firing range.
There was chaos.
The hissing steam, the splitting vessel, the straining yards and masts,
the knocking about of everything loose within the half-flooded hull,
the exclamations of the men in the water, some of whom mounted on
the drift, shouted out "shark!" no pen can do justice to, and to the
critical situation which doña Maria was the most prominent object, the
centre, the feminine hub of a wheel of frantic men.
The Englishman took the only course, however risky, towards desperadoes
who might not appreciate humanity. He rowed to the spot, reached the
centre, and after nearly capsizing the boat, dragged the woman safe
to the stern sheets. The heavy mass lay there, inert as a stranded
porpoise.
Shrieks, and the disappearance of men in the water, of whom no further
traces were yielded up but the ruddy bubbles which marked a shark's
wake, incited the _Burlonilla's_ crew to greater speed in their rescue.
But they would have been swamped by the concourse of frightened men,
whom not even the presentation of a cutlass or loaded pistol kept off;
luckily the steamer had finished her going down, having attained the
level which was her altered draught, while the compressed air buoyed
her. The Mexicans, seeing her deck become almost level, climbed upon
her in dread of the tintorera. Gladsden left these to count their
missing, whilst he conveyed his cargo, as prisoners, to his vessel,
where they were secured. He had the swivel trained for precaution on
the unfortunate _Casta Susana_, smokeless, fireless, waterlogged, and
retraced his course with a circuit to avoid the disabled foes, so as to
bear the too long delayed succour to his young friends.
Benito had run the canoe up a little cleft in the rocks, shoaled her on
a stretch of sand, taken out Dolores and placed her in a grotto. Before
her he rolled a stone, as a breakwater, gave her his revolver, and
stood on guard only with the pearl diver's knife, which, however, he
well knew how to swing and thrust, as well as cast--a siring enabling
this latter trick to be executed without the knife being lost.
Urged madly on by Matasiete, the noise on the other side of the islet
on his ship puzzling him, and giving him an earnest desire to wipe out
the present vexation and return to his post, the boat stove itself on
the rock. The water was not deep, the men could leap from stone to
stone or wade. The waders, two in number, trod on a stingray or an
electric fish, for they were heard to groan and seen to fall palsied in
their tracks.
The rest confronted Benito. He drew their fire, expressly to prevent
a shot being directed at his wife, and then met their charge in a
mass. As the mob enveloped him, Dolores fired the revolver twice, more
at random than with careful aim. One shot told, for a seaman left
the struggle to go on of itself, whilst he reeled aloof, and tumbled
off the rock into the water. Two more Benito gave a quantum of steel
to Ignacio and his commander were left alone to quell the dangerous
young Mexican. So far they had not been able to use their firearms
without the hazard of injuring their own. They drew off to fire with
deliberation, when the young wife, whose head had cleared after her
first shot, and who was made a heroine by seeing that the life of her
beloved perhaps rested on the true flight of the little globes of lead
in the revolver, let fly at Ignacio, whose backbone was broken by the
two shots. As he fell in a heap, the salteador chief, aghast at being
so quickly placed solitary before his foeman, wheeled round and fired
at the smoke oozing out of the young woman's cave. She screamed, for a
fragment of stone, cut off by the bullet, had fallen on her neck, and
she believed she was killed, supporting the delusion by swooning away.
Receiving no reply, therefore, to his heartrending call, Benito flew at
the murderer with so awful a countenance and so menacing a flourish of
the blood-smeared knife, that Matasiete did not pause to try to raise
his name to _Mata-ocho_, "the slayer of eight." He backed, and then
plunged into the bush.
"¡Hola, cobarde!" cried Benito, but the other made no reply.
There was a crashing of the bush wood, a splash, and all was silence.
The young Mexican heard his name behind him in a faint voice, and
renouncing vengeance at the appeal of love, went quickly to his wife.
Dame Dolores required nothing but his presence as a proof of his safety
to be recovered of her fright.
After making certain that the assailants were incapable of mischief,
the two who had been stunned by the fish surrendering with as much
alacrity as their confused senses permitted, the couple had the
satisfaction of being hailed from the boat of Gladsden.
It is regrettable to say that the latter, in his concentration of
thoughts upon the rescue of his friends, was deaf to his oarsmen