Dive 2. - The Deep [antikvár]

29 August 1665 The sword was the smallest that could be found aboard the Griffin, yet thirteen-year-old Samuel Hig-gins could barely lift it with both hands. "But what am I to do with this, sir?" the cabin boy asked in alarm. York, the ship's barber and surgeon, regarded him sternly. "We're going into battle, Lucky. You won't be picking your teeth with it." Samuel was aghast. "Me? I'm to join the fight?" The word had spread like wildfire through the English privateer fleet that the invasion of Portobelo was at hand. This was what they had crossed the perilous Atlantic for, losing fully a third of their number to scurvy, fever, and the malevolent sea. At the end of this day lay riches beyond their wildest dreams. In a secluded inlet, forty miles north of the treasure city, the nine remaining privateer ships lay at anchor. Each vessel was manned by a skeleton crew. The majority of the English seamen were loaded onto a flotilla of twenty-four canoes. These had been car- THE DEEP