 A float with Henry Morgan, written for radio by Warren Barry and a George Edwards production. Jeffrey Hunter and Hero aboard the sloop overtake Henry Morgan's small fleet. But Morgan believing Jeffrey is a treacherous scoundrel has him seized the moment he comes aboard and put an irons and thrown into the darkest part of the ship. In vain, Jeffrey pleads to be taken to Morgan, who not knowing the danger about which Jeffrey has come to warn him, takes his ships under cover of night up the river towards the town of Santa Paula. In the darkness, Jeffrey tells Hero that it is now too late to warn Henry Morgan. He will be trapped. Why has problem been so unkind? After coming all this way to not be able to get my warning through. But you don't know just what to warn him about, Mrs. Jeffrey. For we know you might be just a fear of nothing. My fears are well founded. The Spanish spy escaped from Jamaica. She safely got back to her homeland somewhere on the Spanish-American mainland in full possession of Morgan's plans. The Spanish have been for years trying to catch him. They wouldn't let a chance like this trip to their fingers. I know not in what form the danger will come. I know not from what quarter. But now he is in the river, the whole success of this campaign is on surprise. What if Santa Paula has been warned? A warned enemy can spring on you in a hundred different ways. Listen, Mrs. Jeffrey, they're getting might excited up there and dead. That can mean but one thing. The ships are up the river. Santa Paula has been reached. You and I, Hero, can only wait down here in this darkness and wonder what is going to happen next. Jeffrey's surmise is correct. As the late moon rises above the tops of the jungle trees, so do the ships of Henry Morgan round the bend, which brings into view the town of Santa Paula. Snug and tranquil it lies, carved from out of the ever-encroaching jungle. Quite under the pale light of the moon, it sleeps with no thought of a mess less intruder at its gates. No watchful eye of light shows in any slumbering window trusting and helpless at the mercy of a plunderer's hand. There is not even a whisper from the men armed to the teeth who silently and hundred slip over the sides of the ships into the boats waiting below. They're doing what they've done many times before. There is grim excitement in their eyes. Only the faint sound of muckled oars echoes in the river as the boats push forward to the shore, cutting broadening arrowheads of water which ripple out from thin bars. Silently the boats are grounded. Dark figures with a pamp as thread dissolve into the shadows. Quietness everywhere. Intruders swallowed up in the deep shadows of the sleeping town to be disgorged as fiends incarnate. Peaceful and quiet, Santa Paula is in a deep slumber. The veil of night is rent by a shriek, long and piercing it seems to re-echo up to the very perlomest star. Santa Paula wakes with no mind and sleep drug body, shouts and pistol shots, the sickening thud of steel upon soft yielding flesh, mingled with the agonizing female screams to make the macabre symphony of death and destruction. Everywhere noise and confusion, cries of men, screams of women, loot dragged from homes and secret hiding places. Diamonds, rubies, pearls torn from fingers, rifle from chests. The bloodlust of Troy, the eve of torture, flames shoot red and spread around the city, while to the screams of torture, the town spews forth its treasure. Daughters are torn from their pen and to a cut down where they stand, wives from their dead and tortured husbands. Carnage, bedlam violence, rains for this night, the flames spread, showing clear in the red light victims fleeing in vain from the unceasable rapacious covetous buccaneers, and the white paving stones glistened with the slippery, sticky red in the firelight of a ravaged town. The light from the moon is overpowered and through the smoke and haze seems red with blood. The riverbank piles high with loot and captives. Then there is no more for the city to discourage, and the drunken, bawdy buccaneers struggle back to the riverbank, drunk with wine and excess, laden down with loot and dragging captive victims. Strangling like sheep, the boats return to their ships. There are still hours for revelry before daylight breaks the spell of this night of horror. Once again, Pachai. Once again, Henry Morgan has succeeded. What other man of the Caribbean sea as far as the keys of Florida would have been successful tonight? What other man, Pachai, would have had the courage to do what I did tonight? Yeah, it's been a goodly night, Captain. A goodly night. Hey, Pachai, and you were in the thick of it. You served me well. The days when we're at sea and when we're back at Port Royal, they just exist in days, Captain. I only live for raids such as this. So on a night such as this, I'd feel fully alive to be the conquerors of a city, to have it lying like dust beneath our feet, eh, it's good, Captain, it's good. Yes, what power have other men compared to Captain Morgan? Come, Pachai, bring forth more drink. This night's work has given me a mighty thirst. Your gloom has gone, Captain. You're the Captain I've known for so long, but Captain, I'd say Landis is so long. Gloom? The taking and sacking of a city's enough to dispel any man's gloom. The men are making merry. The lust for sport and kill is still upon them. Tonight, Pachai, we shall give them more sport. Yes, let's make it a night to be long remembered. Let's do it while my hands are still stained with blood. Eh, you want to deal with the prisoners tonight, Captain Morgan? Yes, let's deal with Hunter. While the men are in this mood, they can think up many and various punishments for him. Have him brought to me right away. And then when I've finished with him, I'll pass him over to you men to make the punishment fit his crime. Bring him in, Pachai. And spend two. That's right. You can leave now. I'll call you when I'm ready. It's been easier than I expected. I knew eventually I'd find you, but I didn't think you'd come back to me willingly. Do you know what's going to happen to you now? Have you nothing to say? Look, you're there through that opening. See how red the sky, how black the trees stand with a glow of fire behind them. Just a few hours ago, that red glow was Santa Paula. Tomorrow, it's ashes and dust destroyed. In a month, the jungle will start to creep in. In two years, there'll not be a Santa Paula, not even a sign of where Santa Paula stood. Aye, aye, Henry Morgan did that, Hunter? Yes, Hunter. I did that. And you, a mere pitiable human being thought you could betray me, you swine! I know you, Captain Morgan, to be a hard man. I know you to be a man who gets what he wants, but I believe you're also a just man. Just your thieving scum, fool you to talk of being just! I pleased you with all my trust and you betrayed your scum to a Spanish spy to gain possession of that which I treasured most. Your anger at the loss of the Aztec method has blinded your sense of reason. What did you do with that necklace? Tell me, before you die, Hunter, you'll scream out its hiding place. Ho, ho, ho! You mean to think that you can come back within my grasp and tell me that you didn't take it? The necklace was taken by the Aztec and the woman you unmasked at the Spanish spy. Oh, so it was taken by the Aztec? So that's your story, is it? You concocted that story and then fought yourself safe enough to come out here after me and once more find favor in my graces. So the Aztec took it, eh? Now, I know only too well what happened to the arts. You knew that he was ashore that night and so you disposed of him to give credence to your fantastic story. And just how do you, Jeffrey Hunter, explain your absence and your disappearance? And how do you explain your fancy friend Kitty wearing the Aztec necklace in the Dolphin Tavern on that dirty same night? On the night the Aztec necklace was taken, I was captured in the escape complex. My recaptured disappearance was all part of a plot which the Spanish fly and the Aztec concocted. The Aztec deserted your ship. He has returned to the Spanish woman to some Spanish possession and he has taken with him Kitty as an unwilling captive. Papi Cuck. Captain Morgan, all that I say is true. I was sent to work at the swamp. My friend here with me here, though, managed to help me escape from there. I have told all of my stories to Thomas Watford. He believed me. And because I knew you to be in mortal danger, he granted me permission to take a shloop and tell him in pursuit of you and give you warning. Warning? Warn me about what? To warn you you were sailing right into a trap. A trap? Well, there's been no trap. How could only one trap me? The woman who escaped and went back to a Spanish possession was aware of your plans to attack the city of Santa Paula. Once the Spanish know of your intentions and your destination, do you think they're likely to let you slip right through their fingers? Look once again towards where Santa Paula was. So much for their preparations. You still don't believe my story, do you, Captain Morgan? Of course I don't. Why else do you think I set out across the ocean after you if my intentions were not of the best? I have no idea at all. Except perhaps that you planned more treachery. I want that necklace back. I'll tell you where it is. Oh, so you admit it? You know that your story will not be accepted. The Aztec necklace is in the possession of the woman who was masquerading as Antonette de Vecille. She's been in her safekeeping somewhere in some Spanish possession. And she returned there knowing all your plans. That statement, Hunter, in itself, mails you for a liar. There was no one who knew my plans. I did. Yes. Heaven forgive me for trusting you. And I unwittingly revealed them to her. I trusted her. I thought she was in love with me and I in love with her. Oh, that is what you thought of my trust. Although I... I must be fair. I believed in her as much as you did. And I know full well the damage a pretty woman can do with a man when she makes up her mind. I know full well how they can weedle secrets within from the most silent lips. But your story likes proof, Hunter. I have succeeded in my mission. There was no trap set for me. Only proof, Hunter, would convince me that there was any truth in what you've just said. Atoy. What is it? Captain Morgan. Captain Morgan, some of the men have just come back from the raiding of the fort at the mouth of the river. And bring that word that there's a Spanish fleet at the entrance of the river waiting for you to come out. Would you call that the trap, Captain Morgan? Captain Morgan's fleet is in the river. The might of Spain waits for him in the open sea. What will happen now? Listen to the next episode of A Float with Henry Morgan.