“We have had the news for the last four days,” went on the Spanish officer. “Last month Bonaparte stole our King Ferdinand from us and has named his brother Joseph King of Spain. The Junta of Government has signed a treaty of perpetual alliance and friendship with His Majesty of England. It is with great pleasure. Captain, that I have to inform you that all ports in the dominions of His Most Catholic Majesty are open to you after your most arduous voyage.”
Hornblower still stood dumb. It might all be lies, a ruse to lure the Lydia under the guns of Spanish shore batteries. Hornblower almost hoped it might be — better that than all the complications which would hem him in if it were the truth. The Spaniard interpreted his expression as implying disbelief.
“I have letters here,” he said, producing them from his breast. “One from your admiral in the Leeward Islands, sent overland from Porto Bello, one from His Excellency the Viceroy of Peru, and one from the English lady in Panama.”
He tendered them with a further bow, and Hornblower, muttered an apology — his fluent Spanish had deserted him along with his wits — began to open them. Then he pulled himself up; on deck under the eye of the Spanish officer was no place to study these documents. With another muttered apology he fled below to the privacy of his cabin.
The stout canvas wrapper of the naval orders was genuine enough. He scrutinised the two seals carefully, and they showed no signs of having been tampered with; and the wrapper was correctly addressed in English script. He cut the wrapper open carefully and read the orders enclosed. They could leave him in no doubt. There was the signature — Thomas Troubridge, Rear Admiral, Bart. Hornblower had seen Troubridge’s signature before, and recognised it. The orders were brief, as one would expect from Troubridge — an alliance having been concluded between His Majesty’s Government and that of Spain Captain Hornblower was directed and required to refrain from hostilities towards the Spanish possessions, and, having drawn upon the Spanish authorities for necessary stores, to proceed with all dispatch to England for further orders. It was a genuine document without any doubts at all. It was marked ‘Copy No. 2’; presumably other copies had been distributed to other parts of the Spanish possessions to ensure that he received one.
The next letter was flamboyantly sealed and addressed — it was a letter of welcome from the Viceroy of Peru assuring him that all Spanish America was at his disposal, and hoping that he would make full use of all facilities so that he would speedily be ready to help the Spanish nation in its sacred mission of sweeping the French usurper back to his kennel.
“Ha-h’m,” said Hornblower — the Spanish viceroy did not know yet about the fate of the Natividad, nor about the new enterprise of el Supremo. He might not be so cordial when he heard about the Lydia’s part in these occurrences.
The third letter was sealed merely with a wafer and was addressed in a feminine hand. The Spanish officer had spoken about a letter from the English lady in Panama — what in the world was an English lady doing there? Hornblower slit open the letter and read it.
The Citadel,
Panama.
Lady Barbara Wellesley presents her compliments to the captain of the English frigate. She requests that he will be so good as to convey her and her maid to Europe, because Lady Barbara finds that owing to an outbreak of yellow fever on the Spanish Main she cannot return home the way she would desire.
Hornblower folded the letter and tapped it on his thumb nail in meditation. The woman was asking an impossibility, of course. A crowded frigate sailing round the Horn was no place for females. She seemed to have no doubt about it, all the same; on the contrary, she seemed to assume that her request would be instantly granted. That name Wellesley, of course, gave the clue to that. It had been much before the public of late. Presumably the lady was a sister or an aunt to the two well-known Wellesleys — the Most Hon. the Marquis Wellesley, K.P., late Governor General of India and now a member of the Cabinet, and General the Hon. Sir Arthur Wellesley, K.B., the victor of Assaye and now pointed at as England’s greatest soldier after Sir John Moore. Hornblower had seen him once, and had noticed the high arched arrogant nose and the imperious eye. If the woman had that blood in her she would be the sort to take things for granted. So she might, too. An impecunious frigate captain with no influence at all would be glad to render a service to a member of that family. Maria would be pleased as well as suspicious when she heard that he had been in correspondence with the daughter of an Earl, the sister of a Marquis.