“I always knew he was a jerk,” put in Kaz. “But I never thought he was a murderer.”
“I have no proof, me,” English said sternly. “When I talk to him, he seems very surprised. Conviction without trial — this is not civilized.”
“But how else could he know about the deeper wreck?” Dante persisted.
“We have a saying — on a small island, all the world knows your underwear size. A secret — on Saint-Luc there is no such thing. Me, I do not accuse Monsieur Cutter of murder — yet. Alors, however he learns of this treasure, I think he dives for it Saturday.”
“We’ve got to stop him,” Star exclaimed determinedly. “Otherwise we’re letting him get rich off the captain’s death.”
“Stop him,” repeated English. “How to do this?”
“By beating him to the treasure,” Kaz reasoned. “You know saturation diving; I know where the wreck is. I’ll go with you.”
“Absolument, no.”
“I made it to three hundred feet; I can do this, too.”
English nodded. “You are brave, monsieur. But you are a boy, and no boy is ready for the sat dive.”
Kaz stuck out his chin. “I can dive in a helmet; I can handle an air hose; I can sit in a chamber and decompress—”
“Ah, oui,” English interrupted. “All these things you can learn. But I ask you this: You have been on my island for more than a month. How many old divers do you see? And the men who yet live, they limp, they ache from the bends, from the arthritis, from the injury. You are children from a wealthy country where danger is for the daredevils. I must do this job — I cannot trade the shares on Wall Street. You have the choice. Be smart.”
“It’s the only way to stop Cutter,” argued Kaz. “And you can’t do it without me.”
“And me,” added Adriana. “This is plundered Spanish treasure in the wreckage of an English privateer! Living history! I have to be a part of it.”
“Not me,” said Dante. “I’ll do what I can; I’ll help on the boat. I swore I’d never dive again.”
“Bravo,” English approved. “Someone has the intelligence.”
“It can work,” Kaz persisted. “You know it can.”
English thought it over. “We will need a ship,” he said finally. “A bell. Crew who can be trusted. Très difficile—”
“But not impossible,” Kaz finished.
The guide took a deep breath. “I will try, me.”
Star sat down on the bed. “I can’t believe I won’t be going down there with you.”
“We’ll e-mail you,” Adriana vowed. “You’ll get every detail.”
Star regarded the friends who had been closer than family for the past few weeks. “I’ll miss you guys,” she told them soberly. “I hope we can figure out a way to keep in touch back home.”
“If this works, we’ll be millionaires,” Dante reminded her. “Plane tickets are chicken feed compared to the kind of money we’re going to have.”
Star choked on the notion that this was really good-bye. “I’d trade it all for the chance to go on one more dive with you.”
08 September 1665
Samuel had tasted battle before, but the long slow approach to the galleon brought out in him a cold, numbing dread he would not have believed possible.
“Why do they not flee?” he whispered to York. “Or fire upon us? Do they not understand our intentions?”
“See how she lists, boy,” the barber pointed out. “She’s aground. A reef, mayhap. There are treacherous shoals in these seas.”
Suddenly, smoke and flame belched from the galleon’s gun ports. The roar of the volley echoed across the water. Lethal shot came screaming in on the barque. With a sickening crunch, a cannonball shattered a section in the stern, well above the waterline. The deck collapsed for a few feet around it, sending a handful of seamen sliding into the hold. But most of the projectiles sailed over the Griffin and disappeared into the water.
Samuel waited for the barque’s guns to respond in kind. Then he noticed that all the gunners were assembled with the attack force, swords and muskets at the ready. Captain Blade had no intention of sinking this galleon, not until her treasure was safely aboard his own vessel.
The Griffin came alongside the Spaniard, and the grappling hooks were airborne. It seemed only a heartbeat later that scores of heavily armed privateers were scrambling up the ropes to the higher decks of the galleon. Steel-helmeted Spanish troops awaited them there. Muskets fired, and sailors with whom Samuel had broken bread for many months dropped lifeless into the sea.
The second wave of privateers caught the defenders reloading. The Englishmen streamed onto the deck. Swords clashed. Men fell.
This was a fight to the death.
It was well known in the New World that a Spanish galleon was an easy target for corsairs and pirates. The ships were overloaded and slow. The sailors were not trained to fight, and the soldiers were underpaid, underfed, and eager to surrender.
No one had shared this information with the gallant crew of a ship called Nuestra Señora de la Luz. The defenders battled like lions, sailors alongside soldiers, and even passengers. The treasure in their hold was the property of His Most Catholic Majesty King Carlos II, and no English pirate was going to get it.
Samuel had not raised his sword in Portobelo, but he fought today on the deck of this galleon. He did so to preserve his own life. Not a moment went by without razor-sharp steel slicing his way, or a musket ball whizzing past his ear. To the best of his knowledge, he harmed no one. He used his weapon only to ward off the strokes against him.
But that did not keep the blood off him. It was everywhere, spurting and spraying like water. The deck ran with gore, a flood that spilled over the gunwales until the surrounding seas were filled with sharks, driven to frenzy by the taste and smell of a fresh kill.
At the center of the carnage fought Captain James Blade, a broadsword in one hand and his bone-handled whip in the other. This was a man, Samuel knew, who gloried in battle, even enjoyed it. Yet the expression on his face as he flailed about himself was one of naked fear. The possibility of losing this encounter had occurred to him. It was not a thought that had ever crossed his arrogant mind before.
But the privateers had not traversed half a world only to fall short when their prize lay right under the deck planks beneath their feet. When the tide turned in favor of the English, it was through sheer force of stubborn will.
Seven and eighty privateers had gone into battle just an hour before. Fewer than half that number looked on as the Spanish commander yielded his weapon to Captain Blade, representing the surrender of Nuestra Señora de la Luz.
Blade accepted the sword in a sullen rage. He raised his whip and began to lash the commander, cursing him for putting up such resistance.
A young Spaniard, the first officer, threw himself at Blade, made furious by this dishonorable conduct. He wrested the whip from the corsair’s hand and flung it contemptuously overboard.
Samuel never knew what gave him the courage to step forward and try to calm his captain down. “You’ve won, sir. The treasure is yours. You can buy a thousand whips with gems even bigger than that one.”