The Danger ( PDFDrive.com )

08 September 1665
Captain James Blade came to regret his decision to have his Spanish
prisoners put to death. This was not out of any sense of compassion. Rather, he
now realized that he could have used them as slave labor to move the enormous
treasure from Nuestra Señora to the barque.
The treasure. For the likes of Samuel Higgins, who had never held in his
threadbare pockets more than a few coppers, the galleon’s hold was the king’s
counting house. There could not possibly be more wealth in all the world. The
gleaming silver pieces of eight made a mountain thrice the height of the tallest
man aboard the Griffin. There were enough gold bricks to build a palace. Pearls
and gemstones spilled out of huge chests. Just the loose objects on the deck
planking, lying where they had fallen like so much garbage, would have bought
and sold empires.
The gold bricks were the heaviest. Each one seemed to weigh four times
what it should have, and even the smallest armload was almost too much for the
exhausted and wounded privateers. Only forty men remained. Of their number,
five were too grievously injured to work. One thing was certain, though. There
would be no amputations now. York the barber had fallen in the battle for
Nuestra Señora, a musket ball having pierced his heart.
Samuel thanked God that the bone-handled whip had been flung into the sea,
for surely they all would have tasted it at some point during their labors. The
work was slow, and the captain was not a patient man.
As the sun rose high over the yardarm and then began to set, Blade stood by
the makeshift gangway that connected the Griffin to the much higher deck of the
galleon. From that vantage point, he took stock of every coin and candlestick,
cursing and berating the seamen who bore the burden of his newfound riches.
“Stir your stumps, you lice-ridden scum! I intend to be many days from here
when the Spanish fleet comes looking for this rubbish barge!”
The captain would not even take the time to move the treasure below to the
barque’s hold, so anxious was he to be away. With the wealth of the East and the
New World piled about the deck among coiled lines and water barrels, he gave