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Updated: June 23, 2025
Meanwhile Marshall, assisted by his co-adventurers Dyer and Harvey, proceeded to overhaul the prize systematically, with the view of determining her value. The first fact ascertained was that the ship was named the Santa Clara; the second, that she hailed from Cadiz, in Old Spain; and the third, that she was homeward-bound from Cartagena, from which port she was twenty-two days out.
"Man, Ringan," I said, "I see your kindly purpose. But tell me, did ever you hear of such a tangle as ours being straightened out? "Why, yes," he said. "I've been in worse myself, and here I am. I have been in a cell at Cartagena, chained to a man that had died of the plague, with the gallows preparing for me at cock-crow.
In the course of the morning, after the Dolphin had been hauled in alongside the wharf and Fidd had set all hands to work overhauling the rigging, I learned from the admiral that it was his intention to send me down on the Venezuelan coast to cruise, in conjunction with my former acquaintance the Dido, on the lookout for a Spanish treasure-ship which, it was rumoured, was about to sail from Cartagena with important despatches.
The next day they took some five or six small frigates, bound from Santiago de Tolu to Cartagena, with ladings of "live hogs, hens, and maize, which we call Guinea wheat." They examined the crews of these ships for news "of their preparations for us," and then dismissed them, reserving only two of the half-dozen prizes "because they were so well stored with good victuals."
The Holy Office had delivered them to the secular arm, and the letter closed with a circumstantial account of a great auto-de-fé in the square of Cartagena. Without the wood, upon the edge of white sand, the men of the Sea Wraith waited for their Captain. At last he came, so quiet of mien and voice that only Robin-a-dale stared, caught his breath, and gazed hard upon an ashen face.
Not only did that eminence afford them a valuable and obvious strategic advantage, but it commanded the only road that led from Cartagena to the interior, and once it were held there would be no further question of the Spaniards attempting to remove the wealth of the city. That to M. de Rivarol was as Captain Blood had judged that it would be the crowning argument.
The base of the allied powers was on the Atlantic, the principal military ports being Brest, Ferrol, and Cadiz. Behind these, within the Mediterranean, were the dock-yards of Toulon and Cartagena, over against which stood the English station Port Mahon, in Minorca.
Everything depended upon the question of what was the galley's business just there, of all places in the world; and it did not take the Englishmen long to make up their minds that in all probability she had been stationed there to keep a lookout for them, as the passage out at the back of Baru was so obviously the one that would be most likely to be taken by people anxious to escape from Cartagena by water.
They were now bound for Cartagena with double letters of advice, "to certify that Captain Drake had been at Nombre de Dios, and taken it; and had it not been that he was hurt with some blessed shot, by all likelihood he had sacked it. He was yet still upon the coast," ran the letter, "and they should therefore carefully prepare for him."
"Well," said I, "it appears that you have a story to tell that may be well worth listening to at some future time. Now, tell me, do you know where this frigate was last from, and whither she was bound?" "Yes," answered Hoard, "I can tell you that, sir. She sailed from Cartagena five days ago, and was bound to Cadiz with despatches; at least such was the talk among the crew." "With despatches!"
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