HF - 03 - The Devil's Own by Christopher Nicole Page B

them.
    'A mule train, you think?' Jackman whispered.
    'How can that be?' Sharp demanded. 'There is not a Spaniard in all America but knows we are in this forest.'
    'That bell is the cathedral in Panama City,' Morgan said, grinning at them. 'We have arrived, my bravos. Awake your men, and bring them forward. We will leave the forest under cover of this mist, and be in position before the city awakes.' He drew his cutlass, and raised it above his head. 'This day we unlock the doors to more wealth than any man here has ever dreamed of, let alone seen. Today we make ourselves immortals, lads. This day Henry Morgan comes to Panama.'
     
    Supposing they lived to tell of it. For now the mist would lift. Kit knew the signs too well, from his years in Hispaniola. There was the sudden increase in heat, the sudden closeness of the air, the sudden change in the colour of the vapour around them, from white to yellow. And where were they, in relation to their goal? He doubted even the Admiral knew that. The bell had ceased to toll some time before, or its knell had been lost in the clank and rustle of twelve hundred men tramping across the ground.
     
    Certainly they had left the forest, some time ago, and now
     
    followed a well-defined path down the hillside, but even the path was flattening out. And was this path not the Gold Road, which led straight through the main gate of Panama City itself? Would they not see the enemy until they banged on those iron-bound portals?
     
    Or could Panama also have been abandoned? There was a dream, born of fear, of the nagging, grinding pain in his belly, a pain induced as much by fear as by hunger. Now he marched on the Spaniards, as they had once marched on him. He had been less afraid, then. He had known less of what life and death were about.
    The mist cleared. The sun drew it from the ground as a woman might whisk the sheet from the bed she would remake. And the buccaneer army stopped, and stared, while a rumble of amazed murmur rose from their ranks. They had almost arrived at the foot of the empty hillside, worn free of trees and most of its grass by the fall of how many hundreds of thousands of feet, down which the Gold Road flowed? The road itself continued in front of them, skirting the plain to arrive at the gates of the city, huge timber erections studded with iron, which filled the open spaces in the high stone walls, while beyond the walls there could be no doubt that here was a city; the rooftops and the balconies rose above the battlements, and above even the rooftops there rose the towers of the four cathedrals. These towers now once again gave off a peal of bells, summoning the people of Panama to arms.
    Panama promised wealth; the district around it already provided beauty. To their right the plain undulated towards the sea, clearly not the parade ground they had first supposed it, but rather a rabbit warren of bushes and ravines, not deep, but sufficient to hide a man. Or men. And beyond it the eternal surf played on the endless beach, guardians of an ocean which stretched half-way round the world to the kingdoms of the Great Khan, and the Mikado of Japan. The sun, rising from out of the forest behind them, sent a long swathe of glowing gold across that fathomless sea, suggestive of the prize they sought, if they had the courage, and the stamina, and the ability.
    For Panama was awake. The gates were open, and out there came squadron after squadron o f lancers, dressed in bright uniforms, with brighter pennants flying from their spearheads, yellow and red. Kit looked around, and found Jean and Bart Le Grand staring with him. How many men present had a long score to settle with the Spanish lancers?
    Behind the lancers there came the tramp of infantry, displacing as much dust as even the horses, an immense mass of men in breastplates and helmets, pikes or muskets at their shoulders, every step matching every other. This was the Spanish tercio, the infantry division which had