"Crash, crash!..."
The great fire blazed, devouring the thatched village. And the blue smoke rising from the flames could be seen clearly across the entire island. The Portuguese waited patiently for half a day, but in the end, no natives came to throw themselves into the net. All they heard were faint sobs drifting from the jungle. Perhaps the terror of the cannon had been too great, or perhaps this village was too small and could not scrape together enough men to fight.
"Foda-se! These damned natives! If not for that evil black-oil lake... even if they hid in the woods... they still wouldn't have gotten away!"
The Portuguese sailors carried all the food they had found in the village onto the ships, adding several days' worth of supplies. And if not for the "evil" of the black-oil lake, they would certainly have gone ashore to search and kill thoroughly!
With terrain like this archipelago, the advantage the Portuguese fleet held over the natives on each island was, in truth, crushing. The fleet could easily cut off contact between the islands; the smaller islands had no room to maneuver at all and could not gather enough people to resist. If the colonists wanted to slaughter the natives on an island, it was like catching birds in a cage—there were no obstacles whatsoever. And killings in the name of the Lord would never be few...
"May the Holy Mother protect us! May your souls be saved by the Lord's mercy!..."
The Lesser Antilles stretched out like a string of clear coordinates, guiding the fleet onward to the north. And after holding a simple burial at sea, Bruno once again counted the number of sailors.
On this long voyage, five men had been lost in the storm, and four more on Black