As the sun rose higher, the force of the tide waned; now it wasn’t so pleasant at all, with the sail hanging slack and the green caymans drifting past them, eyeing them contemptuous-like, as their way fell off. Morgan gave the order to set to the oars. John rose to strip off his waterproof jacket, and hit Jago in the eye with his elbow, at which Jacques had something to say. He didn’t say much of it, though, before Morgan bid them be quiet, not loud but with such threat in his voice that they shut up one and all and bent to the oars.
An hour or more after noon John saw one bare trunk of a dead tree jutting up on the bank off to starboard, so scoured down by rain and wind it was silver-white, and having besides a funny sort of resemblance to something that doesn’t bear mentioning in polite company. He nudged Blackstone and pointed, and there were some sniggers in the boat for a while, until it fell behind them. But a great while later there it was again, to larboard this time; and with a groan John realized that they’d just rowed a long weary way to navigate around a point of land they might have marched straight across in two minutes’ time. The river snaked back and forth on itself like this the whole way.
Now and again one of the boats grounded, and all her crew had to clamber out amongst the mangrove roots and work her off, which was a muddy, nasty business, and many a man climbed back onto the thwarts and settled down, only to yell with horror as he spied a leech on his bare leg. They did no real harm; the boucaniers amongst them quite coolly took them off by holding the hot bowls of their pipes against the nasty things. John was grateful for his boots, all the same.
And now and again, and more and more as they went higher up the river, the way branched, with two or three or five riverlets flowing into it, and here were the deserted huts of Indians. John and his mates kept a sharp eye out, but no arrows came sailing out at them from anywhere. Men left off rowing and peered through the green shadows, scratching their heads.
Each time, though, Morgan conferred with the tillerman in a low voice and then directed them the way they must go on. He watched from the stern, his face somber, and John could tell he wasn’t any too happy about the time this was taking.
By twilight, when the monkeys and the birds began to scream loud, they’d made no more than eighteen miles up the Chagres. Then around a bend, they came out suddenly on an open place and glimpsed roof-beams, and John nudged the Reverend.
“Best you start considering how sinful them Papists are, messmate,” he said. “There’s our dinner, but we’ll have to fight for it.”
“What is this place, Admiral?” Tom Blackstone inquired, looking back over his shoulder.
“De los Barcos,” said Morgan, drawing his pistol. He was staring at the empty landing. John knew well enough that barcos meant boats, like as the place was a port; but there weren’t any boats in sight but their own, and not a cry nor a rustle from the huts, but only a thin plume of smoke going up from a bed of gray ash where a fire had been. Even the birds and the monkeys had fallen silent.
“Two volunteers to go ashore,” said Morgan, and Jago stood up brisk and jumped lightly to the bank, with Jacques scrambling after him. They walked in warily amongst the sheds and huts, but nothing attacked. Slipping into the trees they circled the place, before coming back and reporting all was deserted. Morgan gave the order to go ashore; a little late, for hungry men were already scrambling up the banks with cutlasses drawn, eager to kill something.
But, as it turned out, the Spanish hadn’t left so much as a goat nor a chicken behind to be slaughtered. No maize, no manioc cakes, scarcely even a dry stick of firewood; poking around in the ashes of the open fire, John realized the villagers must have heaped everything they couldn’t take away in the boats there and burned it. He noticed something more too; someone had been there since the fire had burned down, for here and there in the ashes were the tracks of small naked feet.
Morgan, following John’s gaze, saw them too.
“Would you know the print of her foot?” he asked John, quietly. John swallowed hard and nodded.
“Well then, that’s something,” said Morgan, and laughed. He had a sick look in his eyes, as though it had just occurred to him (as indeed it had) that the Spanish might well have played this game at every village along the Chagres.
But he turned round and made a fine speech to the rest of his men, about what cowards the Spaniards were, to clear out so before an enemy, and how if they were like to be so bold at Panama herself, why, the privateers might just stroll in and help themselves to the riches there. If there was no food here, what then? He was no weakling, that a night of fasting would do him any harm, nor were they.
There was some grumbling, but most men didn’t mind it too much, as it was such a relief to be ashore after being bent over an oar or a paddle all blessed day. So sentry-duty was assigned, and those not on watch at the boats pulled down some of the huts and built cheerful fires, around which they sprawled, lighting up their pipes.
Sleep came sweet and easy to most of them, even with the mosquitoes, but not to John. He lay awake a great while, looking up at the stars and wondering where the girl was, whether he had missed her by hours or days. He got up once and saw Morgan sitting awake in the lead boat, watching the fires ashore; he reckoned Morgan must be wondering the same thing.
Whether or not he’d slept much himself, Morgan had them up early and back in the boats, rowing on. This day passed much as the first one had, except it was harder; for the river narrowed and grew shallower, and now and again they came to great snags of dead trees, that must be dredged and hacked and hauled to clear their way. The heat was fearful, except when cloudbursts drenched them; but they were cunning enough to catch the rainwater in every vessel they had, and eased their thirst at least.
The sun had sunk down low in the west when they spotted a great cross on a hillside, made of two logs stripped and carved; Morgan nodded and said, “This should be Cruz de Juan Gallego. Weapons at the ready, if you please.”
But when they came up level with it, they saw no village; only a sort of landing and a couple of sheds, and two or three boats abandoned. John guessed that the cross marked only a place to disembark and portage, and talking with the men who’d been up the river before he learned that was so; also that the cross marked a grave.
They’d kept plenty of company with dead men, though, so nobody minded camping there for the night. Morgan did some close talking with the surviving guide who’d come with them from Old Providence, who told him the jungle opened out soon, easy for steady marching.
There were no attacks in the night, not even by the shade of Juan Gallego. Come morning, Morgan left a column of men to guard the boats and took the rest overland, to see whether they mightn’t hack a path through the jungle. He kept John close by his side, and Jacques too. Jacques was the first to spot the cut and broken twigs that meant somebody had passed that way not long before; he pointed to them silently. Morgan looked, and said nothing. John thought he saw again the mark of a slender bare foot, tiptoe here and there as though the girl had been running.
A fairy-lass might slip through the trees easy, but an army of a thousand men is something else again. There were nasty things in the jungle too: spiders as big as kittens, scorpions, snakes, swarming ants whose bite was like the touch of a red-hot poker.
When they’d made not more than a mile or two in two hours, Morgan bid them turn back. The cargo-boats couldn’t get any further up the river, but the canoes could just be floated; so upriver they went, paddle and dig, in shifts, and twice John fell into the muck and had to scramble back to his perch on the thwarts, with his knees sticking up about his ears, and was roundly cursed by his shipmates for being so big.