Of the Indian's sincerity and goodwill towards himself Captain Blood entertained no single doubt. The bitter hatred of Spain smouldering in the breast of all Indians under Spanish rule made them the instinctive allies of any enemy of Spain.
Captain Blood sat on the locker under the stern windows and looked out over the sun–kissed waters of the lagoon.
«How many men would be required?» he asked at last.
«Forty ten, fifty ten, perhaps,» said Brazo Largo, from which the Captain adduced that he meant four or five hundred.
He questioned him closely as to the nature of the country they would have to cross and the fortifications defending Santa Maria. Brazo Largo put everything in the most favourable light, smoothed away all difficulties, and promised not only himself to guide them, but to provide bearers to convey their gear. And all the time, with gleaming, anxious eyes, he kept repeating to Captain Blood:
«Much gold. Much Spanish gold. Caramba!»
So often did he repeat this parrot–cry, and with such obvious intent to allure, that Blood began to ask himself did not this Indian protest too vehemently for utter honesty.
Pondering him, the Captain voiced his suspicion in a question.
«You are very eager that we should go, my friend?»
«Go. Yes. Go you,» the Indian answered. «Spaniards love gold. Guanahani no love Spaniards.»
«So that you want to spite them? Indeed, you seem to hate them very bitterly.»
«Hate!» said Brazo Largo. His lips writhed, and he made guttural noises of emphatic affirmation. «Huh! Huh!»
«Well, well, I must consider.»
He called the boatswain and delivered the cacique into his care for entertainment.
A council, summoned by bugle–call from the quarter–deck of the Arabella, was held as soon there after as those concerned were come aboard.
Assembled about the oak table in the admiral's cabin, they formed a motley group, truly representative of the motley host encamped ashore. Blood, at the table's head, looking like a grande of Spain in the sombre richness of his black and silver, the long ringlets of his sable hair reaching to his collar of fine point; young Jerry Pitt, ingenuous of face, and in plain grey homespun, like the West of England Puritan that he had been; Hagthorpe, stiffly built, stern–faced, wearing showy clothes without grace, looked the simple, downright captain of fortune he was become; Wolverstone, herculean of build, bronzed of skin, and picturesquely untidy of person, with a single eye of a fierceness far beyond his nature, was perhaps the only one whose appearance really sorted with his trade; Mackett and James had the general appearance of mariners; lastly, Yberville, who commanded a French contingent, vying in elegance with Blood, had more the air and manner of a Versailles exquisite than of a leader of desperate and bloody pirates.
The admiral — for such was the title by now bestowed by his following upon Captain Blood — laid before them the proposal brought by Brazo Largo. He merely added that it came opportunely, inasmuch as they were without immediate plans.
Opposition sprang naturally enough from those who were, first and foremost, seamen — from Pitt, Mackett, and James. Each in turn dwelt upon the hardships and the dangers attending long overland expeditions. Hagthorpe and Wolverstone, intent upon striking the Spaniard where he most would feel it, favoured the proposal, and reminded the council of Morgan's successful raid upon Panama. Yberville, a French Huguenot proscribed and banished for his faith, and chiefly intent upon slitting the throats of Spanish bigots, wherever and whenever it might be done, proclaimed himself also for the venture in accents as mild and gentle as his words were hot and bloodthirsty.
Thus stood the council equally divided, and it remained for Blood to cast the vote that should determine the matter. But the admiral hesitated, and in the end resolved to leave the decision to the men themselves. He would call for volunteers, and if their numbers reached the necessary, he would lead them across the isthmus, leaving the others with the ships.
The captains approving this, they went ashore at once, taking the Indians with them. There Blood harangued the buccaneers, fairly expounding what was to be said for and what against the venture.
«I myself,» he announced, «have resolved to go if so be that I am sufficiently supported.» And then, after the manner of Pizarro on a similar occasion, he whipped out his rapier, and with the point of it drew a line in the sand. «Let those who choose to follow me across the isthmus, step now to windward of this line.»
A full half of them responded noisily to his invitation. They included to a man the boucan–hunters from Hispaniola — who were by now amphibious fighters, and the hardiest of all that hardy host — and most of the lumbermen from Campeachy, for whom swamp and jungle had no terrors.
Brazo Largo, his coppery face aglow with satisfaction, departed to collect his bearers; and he marched them, fifty stalwart savages, into the camp next morning. The adventurers were ready. They were divided into three companies, each commanded respectively by Wolverstone, Yberville — who had shred his fripperies and dressed himself in the leather garb of the hunter — and Hagthorpe.
In this order they set out, preceded by the Indian bearers, who carried their heavier gear — their tents, six small brass cannons of the kind known as sakers, cans for fireballs, good store of victuals — doughboys and strips of dried turtle — and the medicine–chest. From the decks of the fleet bugles called farewell, and, in pure ostentation, Pitt, who was left in charge, fired a salute from his guns as the jungle swallowed the adventurers.
Ten days later, having covered a distance of some 160 miles, they encamped within striking distance of their destination.
The first part of the journey had been the worst, when their way lay over precipitous mountains, laboriously scaled on the one side and almost as laboriously descended on the other. On the seventh they rested in a great Indian village, where dwelt the king or chief cacique of the Indians of Darien, who, informed by Brazo Largo of their object, received and treated them with all honour and consideration. Gifts were exchanged, knives, scissors, and beads on the one side, against plantains and sugarcane on the other; and, reinforced here by scores of Indians, the buccaneers pushed on.
They came on the morrow to the river of Santa Maria, on which they embarked in a fleet of some seventy canoes of Indian providing. But it was a method of travelling that afforded at first little of the ease it had seemed to promise. All that day and the next they were constrained, at the distance of every stone's cast, to turn out, to haul the boats over shallows or rocks or over trees that had fallen across the channel. At last the navigation grew clearer, and presently, the river becoming broad and deep, the Indians discarded the poles, with which hitherto they had guided the canoes, and took to paddles and oars.
And so they came at length by night within sakershot of Santa Maria. The town stood on the riverbank a half–mile beyond the next bend.
The buccaneers proceeded to unload their arms, which were fast lashed to the insides of the canoes, the locks, as well as their cartridge–boxes and powder–horns, well cased and waxed down. Then, not daring to make a fire lest they should betray their presence, they posted sentries, and lay down to rest until daybreak.
It was Blood's hope to take the Spaniards so completely by surprise as to seize their town before they could put themselves in posture of defence, and so snatch a bloodless victory. This hope, however, was dispelled at dawn, when a distant discharge of musketry, followed by a drum beating frenziedly a travailler within the town, warned the buccaneers that they had not stolen upon the Spaniards as unobserved as they imagined.