When Captain Hawkins' maritime lieutenant brought up a very real problem, he didn't expect it to turn out to be true. However, this is often the time when it happens. About a mile in front of the port side of the merchant ship piloted by Captain Hawkins, a small Portuguese armed escort ship waved the Portuguese flag against the "Nemesis" ahead.

"Captain, the Portuguese escort ship is asking Captain Walton." The marine adjutant lying on the port side fence looked back at Captain Hawkins with some nervousness.

"Oh...?" Captain Hawkins immediately walked over to the Adjutant of Maritime Affairs and looked at the Portuguese ships in the sea in front of him.

At this time, the face of John Hawkins, the captain of the "Nemesis", became extremely grim, and he stood beside Isabel with the hilt of his sword in his hand, staring closely at the Portuguese armed escort ship about 3 miles away from him on the sea. Then, he looked at her again, "Captain, what are we going to do now?" The Portuguese have already waved their flags. ”

Standing on the aft lookout, Isabel stared at the Portuguese standard-bearer, and turned to ask the Portuguese navigator, "Pedro Almeida, can you answer their flag for me?" ”

If the navigator had become smarter at this time, he could have taken advantage of the fact that everyone on the merchant ship did not know Portuguese to make secret contact with his own escort ships, and completely sunk Isabel's fleet in the Gulf of Guinea. Unfortunately, when he saw the falcon-like look Isabel gave him, he was terrified that the other party would see through his schemes.

Resignedly, he responded to the other party's eyes and said truthfully, "Captain, I only know some Portuguese flags. They're probably saying, where did we come from? ”

In fact, Isabel also became a little nervous in the face of the Portuguese inquiries. Of course, she herself had only learned the 26-letter naval flag and the same Morse code, and the English sailors on merchant ships only knew the English version of the flag. In order to answer a very simple Portuguese flag from the Portuguese, it is necessary to use a Portuguese or Spanish flag.

She didn't believe that the Portuguese Pedro would be truly obedient to her, so she glanced at Pedro and quickly looked at the navigator, "John, go and get the standard-bearer." ”

Next, she took advantage of the safe distance between the two ships and the short time between them to delay the response, and taught her flag bearer some common knowledge of the Spanish alphabet. Since the Spanish alphabet only has three more letters than the English alphabet, "ch", "ll, and ñ", and the arrangement is different from that of English words, the flag bearer quickly learned a Spanish flag word.

A little later, the flag bearer nodded to her and immediately ran to the top of the port side stern and waved a Spanish flag to the Portuguese escort ships marching side by side: "Santo Domingo." ”

Unexpectedly, this trick really worked. The Portuguese escort ignored Isabel's fleet and sailed silently along the channel towards the Gulf of Guinea. The navigator was also a little surprised by Isabel's performance, and smiled flatteringly, "Captain, you... How did you do that? ”

Isabel glanced at him, walked back to her captain's seat and sat down to enjoy the sea breeze, looking at the sea ahead, and speaking only a 15th-century Spanish Castilian language, "Navigator, what do you think of my Spanish?" ”

Pedro came to her left front from near port side and stood up straight, chuckling softly, "Captain, it sounds like your Spanish is exactly the same as the language spoken by Spaniards from Europe. ”

During her voyage from the "Pirate Port" in the western part of the Spanish island to the island of São Tomé, Isabel did another thing in addition to her daily patrols, checking the safety of the ships, listening to the reports of the officers, and supervising the sailors and gunners in the steps of arquebus operation.

Every day when she has free time, she scrambles the Spanish grammar book given to her by Diego Alvarado, the plantation owner of Santo Domingo. Of course, the main topics she studied were Spanish words, vocabulary, grammar and popular expressions related to the 15th and 16th centuries.

For 5 weeks on the vast sea, there was nothing to entertain, except to read a book. After a simple, tedious and long study life, she did not believe that her Spanish listening, speaking, reading and writing skills would be questioned by others. Now, after experiencing the Portuguese asking in the flag language, she began to think that learning Portuguese would definitely bring great benefits to future voyages.

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"Captain, the sailors report seeing the land of the island of São Tomé!" Boatswain Brady Hawkins ran up to the lookout and came to Isabel to report.

"yes, I see." Isabel elegantly held a glass of wine and looked at the Portuguese on her left, "Navigator, it's up to you now." ”

Pedro nodded respectfully, "Yes, Captain. ”

"Remember, you only need to lead my fleet outside the port of Neves on the north shore of the island, not into the port."

"Captain, I see." As Pedro Almeida was about to follow the boatswain towards the lookout stairs, Isabel called the boatswain again and whispered in his ear, "If the navigator has any rebellious thoughts, kill him immediately." ”

When the navigator and boatswain left, she turned her head and smiled helplessly at the adjutant of maritime affairs standing on the right, "Baldwin, it looks like we should learn Portuguese." ”

"Portuguese? Captain, is it because of what happened? ”

"Well, if I had the navigator tell the flagbearer some Portuguese flags, we might have found ourselves in a situation where we were besieged by Portuguese convoys."

Baldwin thought for a moment and nodded, "Captain, I think so. Perhaps, the navigator will tell the Portuguese ships that we are English. ”

Isabel snorted lightly, "I'm not worried about a naval battle with the Portuguese, I'm only worried about damage to the ships." If the ship is damaged or sunk here, the only thing that awaits us is slavery and death. ”

Under the watchful eye of the boatswain, the navigator led the fleet to the most suitable route into the deep sea off the port of Neves, on the north coast of São Tomé. At this time, the vicinity of the port of Neves was almost full of Portuguese merchant ships and escort ships. Isabel's fleet disguised itself as a queue to enter the harbor and stayed on the sea in the distance. In accordance with previous practice, surveillance activities began on Portuguese merchant ships carrying black slaves.