The Monarchs of the Main; Or, Adventures of the Buccaneers. Volume 1 (of 3)Thornbury, Walter
History
The Monarchs of the Main; Or, Adventures of the Buccaneers. Volume 1 (of 3)
Thornbury, Walter
Buccaneers; Pirates; Spanish Main
Montbars the younger made great exertions to save himself and to avenge
his uncle. The old lion was dead, but the cub had much life in him yet.
He sank one of his antagonists with a crashing shot and boarded the
other. His Indians, seeing their leader enter the Spanish vessel at one
end, threw themselves into the water and clambered promptly up the
other. Their war-cries and arrows produced a powerful diversion, and
took the Spaniards by surprise. Throwing many into the sea, they killed
others, while Montbars put all that resisted to the sword. In a short
time he was master of a vessel larger even than those that had been
sunk. The friendly Indians, who now looked upon him as an invincible
demigod, he employed in a fruitless search for his uncle's body.
Conquerors and conquered were destined to remain locked in each other's
arms, and piled over with bloody trophies of burnt wreck until the day
that the sea should give up her dead.
The hunters renewed their proposal of a descent upon the mainland, and
Montbars agreed to any scheme which would enable him to avenge his uncle
and his friends. He had formerly lived to avenge the wrongs of others,
to these were now added his own. The governor of the province, hearing
of the contemplated attack, prepared an ambuscade of negroes and
militiamen. Putting himself at the head of 800 men, divided into three
battalions, his wings strengthened with cavalry and his van guarded with
cannon, he prepared to prevent the landing of the "Exterminator."
These preparations only increased the ardour of Montbars. It seemed
cowardly to ravage an unprotected country: its devastation, after
defeating its defenders, was a reward of conquest. Montbars was the
first to leap from the canoes, and the first to rush upon the Spanish
pikes. The front battalion was soon repulsed, and some Indians taking
the reserve force in the flank, they were driven back in great
disorder. Montbars, hotly pursuing, made a prodigious carnage of the
enemy, and carried fire and sword far into the interior.
One day, while at sea, the young captain, already a veteran in
experience, was obliged to put into a bay to careen. To his great
surprise, although the place was a mere track of sand, he saw some
Spaniards on a distant plain, marching in good order and well-armed.
Fearing that if they saw his men they would take to flight, he sent a
few of his favourite Indians to decoy them towards him. Then falling
upon them with fury as they cried out for quarter Montbars shouted, in
Spanish, that they had nothing to hope for till they had killed himself
and all his men. These dreadful words, together with his revengeful
looks, drove them to take up their arms and fight with dogged and brutal
despair, till they were slain almost to a man. Advancing into the
country in search of more human prey, Montbars carried off the arms of
the Spaniards and a great quantity of fruits and provisions.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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