Colonel Courtney conceived that here was a deal of wasted labour. Why trouble to conceal fortifications whose display should have the effect of deterring an assailant?
Blood explained. «If he's intimidated, he'll merely be postponing attack until some time when I'm not here to defend you. I mean either to destroy him or so to maul him that he'll be glad to leave British settlements alone in future.»
That night Blood slept aboard the Arabella at her anchorage under the bluff. In the morning Saint John's was awakened and alarmed by the sound of heavy gunfire. The Captain–General ran from his house in a bed–gown, conceiving that the Spaniards were already here. The firing, however, proceeded from the new earthworks, and was directed upon the completely dismasted hull of the Atrevida which had been anchored fore and aft athwart the narrow fairway, right in the middle of the channel.
The Captain–General dressed in haste, took horse and rode out to the bluff with Macartney. As he reached it, the firing ceased. The hulk, riddled with shot, was slowly settling down. She sank with a gurgle, as the now furious Governor flung himself from his horse beside the earthworks. Of Captain Blood, who with a knot of his rude followers was observing the end of the Atrevida, he stormily demanded to know in the name of Heaven and of Hell what folly this might be. Did Captain Blood realize that he had completely blocked the entrance to the harbour for all but vessels of the lightest draught?
«That was the aim,» said Blood. «I've been at pains to find the shallowest part of the channel. She lies in six fathoms, reducing the depth to a bare two.»
The Captain–General conceived that he was being mocked. Livid, he demanded why so insane a measure should have been taken, and this without consulting him. With a note of weariness in his voice, Captain Blood explained what should have been obvious. It gave some pause to the Governor's anger. Yet the suspicions natural to a man of such limited vision were not quieted.
«But if to sink the hulk there was your only object, why in the devil's name did you waste shot and powder on her? Why didn't you scuttle her?»
Blood shrugged. «A little gunnery practice. We accomplished two objects in one.»
«Gunnery practice?» His Excellency was savage. «At that range? What are you telling me, man?»
«You'll understand better when Don Miguel arrives.»
«I'll understand now, if you please. I will so! Stab me! Ye'll observe that I command here in Antigua.»
Blood was annoyed. He had never learnt to suffer fools gladly. «Faith, then your command outstrips your understanding if my object isn't plain. Meanwhile, there are some other matters yet to be settled, and time may be short.» With that he swung on his heel, and left the Captain–General spluttering.
Blood had surveyed the coast, and found a snug inlet known as Willoughby's Cove, not two miles away, where the Arabella could lie concealed and yet so conveniently at hand that he and all his men might remain aboard. This at least was good news to Colonel Courtney, who was in dread of having pirates quartered on the town. Blood demanded that his men should be victualled, and required fifty head of cattle and twenty hogs. The Captain–General would have haggled with him, but was overborne in terms which did not improve their relations. The beasts were duly delivered and in the days that followed the buccaneers became buccaneers in earnest; the boucan fires were lighted on the shores of Willoughby's Cove, and there the flesh of the slaughtered animals was boucanned together with a quantity of turtle which the adventurers captured thereabouts.
In these peaceful arts three days were consumed, until the Captain–General began to ask himself if the whole thing were not some evil game to cover nefarious ends of Captain Blood and his pirates. Blood, however, explained the delay. Not until Don Miguel had abandoned hope of being joined by Don Vicente de Casanegra with the Atrevida would he decide to sail without him.
Another four days of inactivity went by, on each of which the Captain–General rode out to Willoughby's Cove to vent his suspicions in searching questions. The interviews increased daily in acrimony. Daily Blood expressed more and more plainly to the Captain–General that he saw little hope for the colonial future of a country which exercised so little discrimination in the election of her overseas governors.
Don Miguel's squadron appeared off Antigua only just in time to avert an open rupture between the Captain–General and his buccaneer ally.
Word being brought of this to Willoughby's Cove, early one Monday morning by one of the guards left in charge of the earthworks, Captain Blood landed a hundred of his men, and marched them across to the bluff. Wolverstone was left in command aboard. Ogle, that formidable gunner, was already quartered at the fort with a gun–crew.
Six miles out at sea standing directly for the harbour of Saint John's, with a freshening breeze from the northwest to temper the increasing heat of the morning sun, came four stately ships under full spread of sail, the banner of Castile afloat from the head of each mainmast.
From the parapet of the old fort Captain Blood surveyed them through his telescope. At his elbow, with Macartney in attendance, stood the Captain–General perceiving at last that the Spanish menace was a reality.
Don Miguel commanded at the time the Virgen del Pilar, the finest and most powerful vessel in which he had yet sailed since Blood had sunk the Milagrosa some months before. She was a great black–hulled galleon of forty guns, including in her armament several heavy demi–cannon with a range of three thousand yards. Of the other three ships, two, if inferior, were still formidable thirty–gun frigates, whilst the last was really little better than a sloop of ten guns.
Blood closed his telescope and prepared for action in the old fort. The new one was for the moment left inactive.
Within a half–hour battle was joined. Don Miguel's advance had all the rashness which Blood knew of old.
He made no attempt to shorten sail until within two thousand yards. He conceived, no doubt, that he was taking the place entirely unawares, and that the antiquated guns of the fort would probably be inadequate. Nevertheless, he must dispose of them before attempting to enter the harbour. To be sure of making short work of it, he continued to advance until Blood computed him within a thousand yards.
«On my soul,» said Blood, «he'll be meaning to get within pistol–range, or else he thinks the fort of no account at all. Wake him up, Ogle. Let him have a salute.»
Ogle's crew had been carefully laying their guns, and they had followed the advance with the twelve sakers from the Atrevida. Others stood at hand with linstocks, rammers, and water–tubs, to serve the gunners.
Ogle gave the word, and the twelve guns were touched off as one, with a deafening roar. Within that easy range even the five–pound shot of these comparatively small cannon did some little damage to two of the Spanish ships. The moral effect of thus surprising those who came to surprise was even greater. The Admiral instantly signalled them to go about. In doing so they poured broadside after broadside into the fort, and for some minutes the place was a volcano, smoke and dust rising in a dense column above the flying stones and crumbling masonry. Blinded by it the buccaneers had no vision of what the Spaniards might be doing. But Blood guessed it, and cleared every man from the fort into shelter behind it during the brief respite before the second broadsides came. When that was over, he drove them back again into the battered fortress, which for a while now had nothing more to fear, and the original antiquated guns of Saint John's were brought into action. The faucons were fired at random through the cloud of dust that hid them merely as a display and to let the Spaniards know that the fort was still alive. Then, as the cloud lifted, the five–pounders spoke, in twos and threes, carefully aimed at the ships which were now beating to windward. They did little damage; but this was less important than to keep the Spaniards in play.