Page:Cup of Gold-1929.djvu/178

inch was needed for men and weapons. As it was, the water washed over the low decks of the artillery rafts. It was well known that many plantations bordered the river, whereat a hungry army might refresh itself, and this knowledge had sent the pirates foodless toward Panama. All day they had watched for the plantation and had seen nothing but the green tangled jungle.

In the evening, the first boat came abreast of a landing of sticks. A languid coil of smoke rose from behind a planted row of tall trees. With loud cries of joy, the buccaneers leaped from their boats and waded to the shore. Curses and despair; the buildings were burned and deserted. This little smoke drifted from the black heap of what had been a granary, in which no single grain remained for the men to eat. Deep tracks led off into the wet jungle to show where the cattle had been driven away, but the tracks were two days old.

The hungry men went back to their boats. Ah, well; they must go hungry to-day. Hunger was a part of war, a matter to be expected and endured. To-morrow, surely, they would come on houses where wine was stored, cold and delicious; corrals where fat cows nodded stupidly, waiting to be slaughtered. A buccaneer—a true buccaneer—would sell out his life for a cup of sour wine or a bit of converse with one of the brown women of half-Spain. These were the joys of life, and a fair thing it was if the man were stabbed before he finished his drink or his conversation; but hunger—Well, to-morrow there would be food surely.