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Authors: Kerry Newcomb

BOOK: Mad Morgan
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“How did you know I intended to take the
Santa Rosa
tonight?” Morgan said, driven to ask and yet not certain he wanted to know. The timbers underfoot began to creak and groan, the sails above slapped and grew taut as they captured the wind. The ship trembled as if with a life of her own.
“A little bird told me,” Don Alonso beamed. He was delighted by this turn of events. The shame of Maracaibo had been expunged from his soul. Don Alonso del Campo had captured
el Tigre del Caribe.
But the punishment this miscreant deserved had only begun. Upon the governor's order, a crewman at the stern of the ship signaled the
San Bartolomeo,
waving a hurricane lantern from side to side then up and down.
The frigate had also caught the wind and was gathering momentum. The warship tacked across the bay and picked up speed. As the vessel passed within a hundred yards of Port Royal, the
San Bartolomeo's
array of twelve- and fourteen-pound guns loosed a vicious broadside, belching smoke and tongues of fire from its gunports. The thunderous discharge reverberated throughout the bay. The effects were horrible to witness.
Lead shot brought down the rigging on the
Glenmorran,
severed the mainmast on the
Jericho,
crippled another pair of schooners. A second broadside of explosive shot hammered the waterfront, blasting the gun redoubts and starting numerous fires throughout the port.
Warehouses burst into flame. Men and women poured into the streets, their silhouettes a blur as they stumbled about in confusion or hurried to man the port's defenses. In the glare of the explosions, Morgan noticed Thomas LeBishop and Tregoning in their johnnyboat.
LeBishop frantically waved his hands in an attempt to ward off a second volley. Geysers erupted around the johnnyboat. Behind them
on the pier a gun redoubt exploded with enough impact to knock the Black Cleric off balance and capsize his small craft, pitching both men into the bay. Another redoubt exploded. Bodies were hurled into the air, arms and legs flailing against the firelight.
“You were under a flag of truce,” Morgan exclaimed.
“There can be no truce with the likes of thieves and kidnappers and murderers!” The governor bellowed for all his men to hear and approve. A cheer rose from the throats of his musketeers. The waterfront was ablaze now. A few of Port Royal's guns opened fire but their sights were off, the elevation too high, and the iron shot did little more than rip a few holes in the sails.
Morgan could no longer tolerate the carnage and tried to make a grab for the Spanish governor. He tripped on the shackles and landed humiliatingly, facedown at Don Alonso's feet. Don Alonso ordered him dragged upright and a pair of soldiers roughly hauled him to his feet, keeping a tight grip on his arms.
“Ah, my dear, I think we have redeemed your honor,” said the governor, looking past Morgan. Elena Maria emerged from the captain's cabin below. “My little bird, she sang the song, sweet to my ears.”
Don Alonso moved his hands as if conducting a piece of music, as if hearing a melody everyone else was deaf to. “Can you not hear it? What a sweet melody.” He sang: “All is lost,
Señor Morgan.”
Don Alonso walked over to Elena Maria and kissed her hand then turned back to his prisoner. “Listen well: All is lost.”
Morgan stared at Elena Maria. Her part in this was impossible to deny. She had set the stage and he had played the fool. No man could have performed the part any better, bowing and scraping to her passion, her desires, and treacherous beauty. She met his gaze but showed no emotion. The glare of the fires ashore played upon her well-turned features as Morgan was led amidships to the knotted rope that dangled above an open hatch.
His hands were quickly bound and the noose slipped over his head. The rough hemp dug into his throat. Morgan stared down into the black opening. The rope was assurance he wouldn't have far to fall.
Father
…
bless me now.
The crew in the rigging halted their labors to stare down at the execution. The musketeers gathered around, hoping to see their prisoner break and beg for mercy. But none of them really expected him to. Elena Maria folded her hands upon her apron and waited. And watched. She glanced in the direction of her future husband. Something
unspoken seemed to pass between them, for he nodded then ambled forward.
“So it is come to this, Señor Morgan. Make your peace with God.”
“I have never been at odds with God,” Morgan replied. “Only bastards like yourself. A pox be on you and your kind. And cursed be faithless love.” He looked up at the stars, took a last breath, stepped forward.
And dropped like a rock.
W
e are Brethren of Blood,
we are sons of the sea.
We are children of havoc
and born to be free.
Betrayed by a passion, he will live to regret,
The power of a woman, the traps she can set.
But beware
el Tigre
who prowls in his cage,
What you sow with betrayal, you shall reap with red rage.
I
t had taken ten long days for the
Santa Rosa
to make the journey from Jamaica to Portobello on the Caribbean coast of Panama. Arriving in the Spanish-held port, in the shadow of the fortress that protected the settlement, Henry Morgan emerged from the ship's hold, filthy, hungry, but unbroken. Thrown in with a band of Kuna slaves recently captured during a raid on the Portobello piers, Morgan was forced to labor alongside the sullen natives and unload the trade goods from the
Santa Rosa
and
San Bartolomeo
onto large, oxen-drawn freight wagons.
Don Alonso was anxious to reach his governor's estate in Panama City, and ordered the wagon train to set out from the port the following morning. Morgan and the Indians marched at the rear of the column, choking on the dust, driven along by whip and the occasional prodding of the lancers escorting the governor and his intended bride.
Three of the Kuna raiders died trying to escape during the four-day march across the isthmus. The wagon train kept to the heavily patrolled military road and avoided the Indian-infested jungles that were home to the rebellious remnants of the rebellious natives. Morgan could sense the dread the Spaniards felt toward the impenetrable vastness of swamps and vine-choked forest that stretched off to either side of the narrow line of ridges, highbacked hills, and plateaus the road followed.
Not a day went by that Morgan didn't see Dona Elena Maria de Saucedo, always from a distance. Only once, Elena met his gaze when none were watching and she flashed him a brave smile of encouragement that puzzled Morgan all the more. Sympathy from the woman who had so skillfully betrayed him to his enemies?
On a warm and cloudy afternoon in late September, the wagon train bearing Don Alonso del Campo arrived at the walls of the fabled city on the Pacific. Soldiers at the gates cheered and waved their tricorn hats. Messengers were dispatched throughout the city to proclaim the arrival of the new governor.
Panama City was a glorious sight. But standing in the dust churned by the wagons, Morgan took note of its sparsely defended walls and the practically unattended redoubts. So, the Spaniards considered themselves secure from a landward attack. It made sense. Any force larger than a Kuna war party would have to approach over the mountain roads and be forced to battle its way past a number of fortified outposts before reaching the city and by then Panama's defenders would have been alerted and prepared a nasty welcome for their enemies.
Of course, there were always the swamps and the jungle, but then, only a madman would attempt to lead a force along such a route. Yes, a jungle approach was suicidal. Still, throughout the trek from the Caribbean coast, Morgan had studied the dense rain forest choking the valley floor below the mountain road. An army could hide down there. But beneath the forest's emerald canopy, the undergrowth defied the unwary trespasser. No one could live in the jungle for long, and keeping one's bearings down in that forbidding terrain had to be next to impossible.
Church bells shattered the buccaneer's moment of introspection. The first set of bells begat another, then another, until they pealed throughout the city, welcoming Don Alonso and his entourage. The wagons started forward with the new governor taking the lead. He wanted to make a positive first impression. Then came a detachment of lancers, next the beautiful Elena Maria de Saucedo, the city's own “princess,” and behind her coach, a column of Spanish dragoons, then the freight wagons hauling trade goods from the opposite coast. On entering the city, it was Don Alonso who received the bulk of the attention. No one paid attention to the prisoners at the rear of the column, the impassive, sole surviving Kuna warrior and with him, Henry Morgan, the Tiger of the Caribbean, a legend in the dust.
 
 
“Welcome to Panama City,” said the hangman, his gruff though morbid humor brightened by a day of perfect sunshine. Clad only in coarse cotton breeches and well-worn black boots, the Spanish executioner was a burly fellow, with hairy shoulders and long arms, his legs slightly bowed. The black hood he wore did little to conceal his features. The man's thick lips, bulbous nose, and close-set eyes were clearly visible through the ragged openings in the cloth.
Henry Morgan looked around at the crowd of people who had come to watch him die. His first day in the city promised to be a short one, unless Don Alonso had once more ordered the rope to be only loosely secured. Was this a ruse or the real execution? He steeled himself for the inevitable discovery. It was hard for Morgan to feel confident with a rope around his neck; still, he doubted the governor would wish to be rid of him so easily.
Morgan searched the upturned faces in the compound for Elena Maria. Then he lifted his eyes to the haciendas atop the rolling hills that defined the northernmost reaches of the city. Was she there on a balcony, watching from a distance, afraid to meet his accusing stare, to see what her betrayal had wrought? The question remained—what part was she playing? Her passion for him had been real. He could have loved her. But she had taken his emotions and used them against him; he had made it easy for her. Nell Jolly had warned him. Lord, but he hated it when Toto was right. He wondered how Elena Maria had revealed his plans to Purselley and Don Alonso without incriminating herself. Anything was possible with her.
She had played him like that damn harp. And though it galled him, he had to stand somewhat in awe of her mercurial affections, a caress in one hand and a dagger in the other. What did the señorita have in store for the governor, a man that she was being compelled to marry though it was against her own wishes? Here was a man she did not love and who would, by right of marriage, receive control of all her father's wealth.
I may be getting off lightly
. Morgan winced as the hemp noose chafed his flesh.
Then again, maybe not.
“Make your peace, señor,” the executioner whispered.
From the scaffold, Henry Morgan could see beyond the barracks walls. He had a surprisingly clear view of Castillo del Oro. The City of Gold.
The crowd thought he was praying. Morgan looked to the
sparkling blue bay and the spacious waterfront with its warehouses and guarded vaults. It was common knowledge among the Brethren that through this port passed the plunder of the world: gold ingots and bars of silver stolen from the mines of Mexico and throughout South America; pearls and silks, jewels and dyes and rare woods from the Orient and East Indies; and from the local plantations along the coast, sugar, tobacco, coffee, and cacao, all of it stored and awaiting transport across the isthmus for the yearly departure of the treasure fleet bound for Spain.
A forest of masts and sails crowded the harbor, merchant ships from Portugal and Holland, Spain and Genoa and Morocco, bringing in goods and slaves from along the coast and across the vast ocean. No force of freebooters on earth could challenge the might of a Spanish Gold Fleet with its escort of Spanish frigates and brigs. But here in the vaults and warehouses of Panama, the fortune of a lifetime waited. Emeralds and rubies and delicately carved jade had a siren call all their own.
Henry Morgan, standing on the gallows, on the brink of death, inhaled the warm fragrant air and smelled … treasure. And his mind was filled with possibilities. He had not been born to die at the hands of a Spanish executioner or dance a fatal jig at the end of a hangman's rope. Morgan was determined to live.
Then the hangman tugged on the latch. The gallows trapdoor fell open and Morgan dropped through the opening beneath his feet. He saw the patch of dirt race toward him. He experienced a momentary rush, a brutal tensing of his muscles as he awaited the tightening of the noose, a flash of pain to be followed by the pop of his neck, one last breath, then strangling, his limbs numb, legs kicking.
But the rope, as aboard the
Santa Rosa,
had not been secured. Morgan plummeted through the gallows floor and landed on the hard-packed earth beneath. His knees buckled on impact and he rolled onto his back and lay there in a patch of sunlight, looking up into a painfully bright blue sky.
It was noon and the bells of
Santa Maria
began to toll the hour. The invocation from one belfry was quickly taken up by the bells of San Francisco Cathedral on Bolivar Plaza and Las Mercedes, joined by those of Cathedral de Santa Ana and San Domingo and San Felipe. The pealing of the bells drifted across the city where more than fifteen hundred residences—from fine estates built of brick and stone, to thatched-roof
jacals
with mud floors—covered a stretch of rolling
hills and grasslands nestled between mangrove swamps, and farther inland, impenetrable jungle.
The city formed a crescent overlooking the bay of Panama, a place of sheltered harbors protected by walled battlements and island forts. The governor's hacienda and the military barracks dominated the north side of the city. It was here in the Plaza de los Armas that prisoners were brought for public execution.
The presence of Henry Morgan had ensured a good crowd this day. But the men, women, and children who made up the onlookers had not been informed of the governor's ruse. A collective gasp had risen from the throng when the trapdoor had sprung open, dropping the pirate to the ground below. For a brief moment, the crowd had thought Morgan's head had been severed by the weight of his body against the resistance of the hangman's rope—such grisly occurrences were not unheard-of. Then the people in the plaza realized the rope itself had slipped from the crossbeam and lay coiled on the pirate sprawled beneath the scaffold.
The soldiers surrounding the gallows had a merry laugh at Morgan's expense. They appreciated the show. Don Alonso, in all his finery, dressed in a scarlet coat and white breeches and gold-buckled shoes, swaggered forward, acknowledging the applause of his compatriots. The governor had made a good impression.
Don Alonso issued an order and a pair of burly soldiers scrambled under the gallows and dragged Morgan back into the daylight. The Plaza de los Armas outside the main barracks in the heart of the city was crowded with soldiers and civilians alike. They had turned out to see the dreaded Captain Morgan,
el Tigre del Caribe
. Here was the persecutor of the Church, the widowmaker, the despoiler of cities. Here was Morgan, the prisoner, the former slave returned to the servitude from which he had escaped so many years ago. Slaves did not need leg irons, nor even shackles. There was no place to run. The city was ringed by a wall and beyond the wall was the sea on one side, the treacherous swamp and the Darien jungle on the other, where war parties of the hated Kuna waited to kill and mutilate the unwary intruder.
“Not today,” said the governor, stroking his close-cropped beard. “But one day perhaps. First, however, I will see you broken, the great Henry Morgan humbled, a slave laboring once more for the glory of Spain. You shall load our ships, you shall haul and sweat in the warehouses and on the docks. The treasures of an empire you will bear upon your back, and you will do this until you die.”
He reached up and tightened the noose until the rough hemp rope cut into his neck, until Morgan's breath came in ragged gasps. It appeared the governor intended to strangle him here and now, despite his flowery threats. Then Don Alonso released his hold and loosened the knot, dragged the noose over the man's head, and dropped the rope in the dirt at his feet. “Now, what do you have to say to that?”
“You had better kill me now,” Morgan hoarsely replied, struggling to maintain his balance.
“Of course,” said Don Alonso. “Elena Maria said you would prefer death. It was she who convinced me that slavery was crueler than death. No, I shall not help you escape your fate. Better to see you bend to the lash, to work and strain, to be humbled before all the people of Panama. She was right. That is the fate you dread more than the gallows itself.”
Henry Morgan grinned. His eyes were red-rimmed, his once fine clothes were ragged remnants of his former glory. His scraggly beard and hair were matted with dirt and his neck was chafed raw from the mock hanging he had endured aboard the
Santa Rosa.
But he laughed. And the soft sound of his voice sent a chill up the spines of his enemies. Citizen and soldier alike, both men and women, heard that voice on the warm wind and shuddered. It was like something unnatural, fearfully strong, as if fate had reversed itself and the people in the plaza were at Morgan's mercy.
“Take him to the stockade!” Don Alonso exclaimed gruffly, breaking the freebooter's hold on the crowd. Half a dozen dragoons rushed forward and surrounded the buccaneer and dragged him off toward the slave compounds down near the waterfront. It seemed the rabble issued a communal sigh of relief once
el Tigre
had been led off to his cage.

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