II
Could you but have seen the town of Port Royal as it appeared in the
year 1665 you would have beheld a sight very well worth while looking
upon. There were no fine houses at that time, and no great
counting-houses built of brick, such as you may find nowadays, but a crowd
of board and wattled huts huddled along the streets, and all so gay with
flags and bits of color that Vanity Fair itself could not have been
gayer. To this place came all the pirates and buccaneers that infested
those parts, and men shouted and swore and gambled, and poured out
money like water, and then maybe wound up their merrymaking by dying of
fever. For the sky in these torrid latitudes is all full of clouds
overhead, and as hot as any blanket, and when the sun shone forth it
streamed down upon the smoking sands so that the houses were ovens and
the streets were furnaces; so it was little wonder that men died like
rats in a hole. But little they appeared to care for that; so that
everywhere you might behold a multitude of painted women and Jews and
merchants and pirates, gaudy with red scarfs and gold braid and all
sorts of odds and ends of foolish finery, all fighting and gambling and
bartering for that ill-gotten treasure of the be-robbed Spaniard.
Here, arriving, Captain Morgan found a hearty welcome, and a message
from the Governor awaiting him, the message bidding him attend his
Excellency upon the earliest occasion that offered. Whereupon, taking
our hero (of whom he had grown prodigiously fond) along with him, our
pirate went, without any loss of time, to visit Sir Thomas Modiford,
who was then the royal Governor of all this devil's brew of wickedness.
They found his Excellency seated in a great easy-chair, under the
shadow of a slatted veranda, the floor whereof was paved with brick. He
was clad, for the sake of coolness, only in his shirt, breeches, and
stockings, and he wore slippers on his feet. He was smoking a great
cigarro of tobacco, and a goblet of lime-juice and water and rum stood
at his elbow on a table. Here, out of the glare of the heat, it was all
very cool and pleasant, with a sea-breeze blowing violently in through
the slats, setting them a-rattling now and then, and stirring Sir
Thomas's long hair, which he had pushed back for the sake of coolness.
The purport of this interview, I may tell you, concerned the rescue of
one Le Sieur Simon, who, together with his wife and daughter, was held
captive by the Spaniards.
This gentleman adventurer (Le Sieur Simon) had, a few years before,
been set up by the buccaneers as Governor of the island of Santa
Catherina. This place, though well fortified by the Spaniards, the
buccaneers had seized upon, establishing themselves thereon, and so
infesting the commerce of those seas that no Spanish fleet was safe
from them. At last the Spaniards, no longer able to endure these
assaults against their commerce, sent a great force against the
freebooters to drive them out of their island stronghold. This they
did, retaking Santa Catherina, together with its Governor, his wife,
and daughter, as well as the whole garrison of buccaneers.
This garrison were sent by their conquerors, some to the galleys, some
to the mines, some to no man knows where. The Governor himself--Le
Sieur Simon--was to be sent to Spain, there to stand his trial for
piracy.
The news of all this, I may tell you, had only just been received in
Jamaica, having been brought thither by a Spanish captain, one Don
Roderiguez Sylvia, who was, besides, the bearer of despatches to the
Spanish authorities relating the whole affair.
Such, in fine, was the purport of this interview, and as our hero and
his Captain walked back together from the Governor's house to the
ordinary where they had taken up their inn, the buccaneer assured his
companion that he purposed to obtain those despatches from the Spanish
captain that very afternoon, even if he had to use force to seize them.
All this, you are to understand, was undertaken only because of the
friendship that the Governor and Captain Morgan entertained for Le
Sieur Simon. And, indeed, it was wonderful how honest and how faithful
were these wicked men in their dealings with one another. For you must
know that Governor Modiford and Le Sieur Simon and the buccaneers were
all of one kidney--all taking a share in the piracies of those times,
and all holding by one another as though they were the honestest men in
the world. Hence it was they were all so determined to rescue Le Sieur
Simon from the Spaniards.
