The Danger

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 the order to set fire to Nuestra Señora de la Luz.

Dusk was falling as the Griffin pulled away from the blazing galleon. James Blade straddled his deck, chortling with triumph.

“Aye, Lucky is the name for you, boy. Fortune smiled upon me the day you came aboard this vessel.”

A figure suddenly appeared amid the smoke of the burning ship. The Spaniard was not much older than Samuel, a cabin boy who had hidden himself deep in the galleon’s many lower decks.

With a howl of defiance, the boy twirled a smoking ceramic firepot in a sling over his head. And then the flaming weapon was flung into the air, a streak of orange in the darkening sky. Every soul aboard the Griffin saw it, and yet it could not be stopped. It struck the deck not ten feet from Captain Blade and Samuel. As the earthenware pot shattered, the burning matchsticks ignited the packed gunpowder at its core.

There was a sharp report as the device exploded, spraying hot pitch in all directions. Cries of pain went up among the crew as the searing brimstone splashed onto exposed flesh. Samuel felt a hot stab on his beardless cheek. The captain bellowed in agonized fury.

As the embers flew, a single fleck of fiery sulfur found the collapsed area of deck in the barque’s stern. Directly below were stored the ship’s powder kegs.

No attacking navy could have had the effect of that single speck of flame as it settled upon the vola-tile barrel stacked among two and twenty others.

The Griffin blew herself to pieces. In a matter of seconds, Samuel found himself in the water. It was that sudden.

Like most of the crew, he could not swim. He floundered in the waves, splashing wildly for just a few seconds before dipping beneath them.

This is it, then, he thought. What a strange place for an English climbing boy to end his life.

That life had not been a happy one. Yet as he sank deeper into the blackness, he realized wistfully how very much he wanted to live.

Suddenly, he was struck in the chest by a hard object rising from below. Instinctively, he clasped his arms around it, and it bore him upward. He broke to the surface, gasping and choking, and stared at the object that was keeping him afloat. It was a piece of the ship’s carved figurehead, broken off in the explosion.

“Boy — Samuel! Over here!”

A short distance away, the captain flailed at the water in some semblance of swimming.

Samuel stared. There were no other cries for help, no struggling sailors. Of forty men, he and Blade were the only two left alive.

“Samuel — hold on, lad, and kick your way over to me!”

In this most dire of circumstances, Samuel thought of the murdered Spanish prisoners, the victims in Portobelo, the abused crew of the Griffin, and of Evans the sail maker, who had died at this cruel man’s hands.

“Hurry, boy! Your captain needs you!”

Without hesitation, Samuel began to paddle in the opposite direction. He paid no attention to the volley of threats and oaths that were hurled after him. And when the tirade stopped, Samuel looked back and noted that James Blade had disappeared into the sea.