David shrugged. “Perhaps some day we may. But I don’t see the Spanish letting any foreigners, least of all a pack of Protestants, live here without a fight.”
As if David’s words were a signal, they heard a whistling sound, and a moment later, an arrow seemed to sprout out of the tar some distance in front of them. The sailors dropped into their trench, which was the only nearby cover.
“Keep your heads low; see if you can spot them.” As David spoke, a second arrow plunged into the lake to their left, and was quickly swallowed up. Some seconds later, it was followed by a third arrow, better aimed, which nonetheless fell short of their position.
David mentally retraced their trajectories. He realized that they had most likely come from the vicinity of one of the grassy patches he had noticed earlier. He looked for one, along the estimated path, with bushes or trees for cover. Yes, that one, he was sure of it. It was much too far away for the attacker to have expected to hit anything. They were being warned off, he concluded. Probably, given the rate and direction of fire, by a single Indian. But it was possible that a second Indian was already running for help.
“Joris,” he said, “I want only you to fire.” Joris nodded; he was the best shot in the party. David pointed out the shooter’s putative refuge. “Our target is there, I believe. Give him something to think about.
“The rest of you, let’s gather up our tar and head for the ship. Where there’s one Indian, there are probably more close by, and they probably have sent a messenger to the garrison at Puerto de los Hispanioles by now.”
The men collected their tools and put them in the empty wheelbarrows. They headed slowly back to the ship, with the rear guard, led by Joris, making sure that the Indian, or Indians, didn’t get close enough to be a real threat.
“Arwaca Indians,” David told Philip. “When I was in the Caribbean last year, I was told that the Trinidados brought them in some years ago. The native Indians had allied themselves with Sir Walter Raleigh, so, after he left . . .” David drew his finger across his throat. Snick.
* * *
The Walvis, with eighteen guns, was accompanied by another fluyt, the fourteen-gun Koninck David, and a yacht, the Hoop. They passed through the sometimes treacherous Dragon’s Mouth, between Trinidad and the peninsula of Paria, without incident. Another day’s sailing brought them amidst the islands the up-time maps called “Los Testigos.” Dunes several hundred feet high towered over aquamarine waters, and marine iguanas left footprints and tail tracks as they scurried to and fro.
Some didn’t scurry quickly enough.
“Tastes like chicken,” David pronounced, and his fellow captains, who had joined him for dinner, agreed.
“Anything to report?” he asked.
“My crew is grumbling,” said Jakob Schooneman, the skipper of the Koninck David. “It’s been more than six months since the Battle of Dunkirk, and we’ve done nothing to hurt the Spanish. Or to punish the English and French for their treachery.”
“It’s not as though we haven’t been looking for prizes.”
“I know, Captain de Vries. But the mood is turning fouler and fouler. We should have sacked Puerto de los Hispanioles, or San José de Oruña, back on Trinidad.”
“And where would the profit have been in that? All they have is tobacco, and we had plenty of that from Captain Marshall. So why take the risk?”
Captain Marinus Vijch of the yacht Hoop, cleared his throat. “The men weren’t that keen on your letting the English stay upriver, either.”
“I know. But we’re weakened by Dunkirk and we can’t afford to fight everyone. The Spanish are the real enemy and we have to focus on them.”
“So let’s find a Spanish town to raid,” said Schooneman.
Vijch nodded. “Portobello,” he suggested.
Schooneman protested. “Too tough a nut to crack, for a force our size.”
“We could probably find some more Dutch ships by one of the salt flats along the way, recruit them.”
“Rely, for an operation like that, on captains and crews you don’t know?”
“Perhaps Trujillo,” mused David. “We have to go to Nicaragua for rubber, and then from there the currents carry us up the coast anyway.”
Schooneman smiled. “The gold and silver of Tegucigalpa is shipped down to Trujillo.” He turned his head to look at Marinus. “Might that satisfy you, Captain Vijch?”
* * *
David brought up the sextant, bringing the skyline into view on the clear side of the horizon glass. Smoothly, he edged up the index arm until the early morning sun’s reflection could be seen on the half-silvered side. He gently rocked the sextant, causing the sun’s image to swing to and fro above the horizon. He delicately twisted the fine adjustment until the yellow-white disk, bright even through smoked glass, seemed to just barely graze the edge of the sea. “Mark!”