Captain Brand of the "Centipede"
by H. A. Wise · English · Gutenberg #29047 · 643,855 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Captain Brand of the "Centipede"
Author: H. A. Wise
Release date: June 5, 2009 [eBook #29047]
Language: English
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Transcriber's note:
A Table of Contents and List of Illustrations have been added.
Text in italics is enclosed by _underscores_.
Text in bold face is enclosed by =equal signs=.
Specific changes to the text are listed at the end of the book.
CAPTAIN BRAND, OF THE "CENTIPEDE."
A Pirate of Eminence in the West Indies:
His Loves and Exploits,
Together with Some Account of the Singular Manner
by Which He Departed This Life.
by
HARRY GRINGO,
(H. A. WISE, U.S.N.),
Author of "Los Gringos," "Tales for the Marines," and
"Scampavias."
"Our God and sailors we alike adore,
In time of danger--not before;
The danger passed, both are alike requited:
God is forgotten, and the sailor slighted."
With Illustrations.
[Illustration: CAPTAIN BRAND.]
New York:
Harper & Brothers, Publishers,
Franklin Square.
1864.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousand
eight hundred and sixty-four, by
Harper & Brothers,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District
of New York.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
Part I
I. Spreading the Strands 5
II. Calm 7
III. High Noon 15
IV. Sunset 21
V. Darkness 24
VI. Danger 33
VII. The Meeting and Mourning 42
VIII. Captain Brand at Home 44
IX. Captain and Mate 53
X. An Old Spaniard with One Eye 61
XI. Conversation in Pockets and Sleeves 69
XII. Doctor and Priest 73
XIII. A Manly Fandango 79
XIV. A Pirates' Dinner 85
XV. Drowning a Mother to Murder a Daughter 92
XVI. Nuptials of the Girl with Dark Eyes 103
XVII. Doom of Doña Lucia 112
XVIII. End of the Banquet 119
XIX. Fandango on One Leg 122
XX. Business 133
XXI. Treasure 138
XXII. Pleasure 144
XXIII. Work 150
XXIV. Caught in a Net 154
XXV. The Mouse that Gnawed the Net 160
XXVI. The Hurricane 166
XXVII. The Virgin Mary 168
XXVIII. The Ark that Jack Built 173
Part II
XXIX. Laying Up the Strands 179
XXX. Old Friends 186
XXXI. The Commander of the "Rosalie" 193
XXXII. A Splice Parted 198
XXXIII. The Blue Pennant in the Cabin 201
XXXIV. The Devil to Pay 203
XXXV. And the Pitch Hot 208
XXXVI. The Chase 214
XXXVII. The Wreck of the "Centipede" 220
XXXVIII. Vultures and Sharks 226
XXXIX. Escondido 231
XL. Paul Darcantel 236
XLI. Instinct and Wonder 243
XLII. Truth and Terror 247
XLIII. Peace and Love 252
XLIV. Snuff out of a Diamond Box 256
XLV. Lilies and Sea-weed 262
XLVI. Parting 266
XLVII. Devotion 270
XLVIII. All Alive Again 273
XLIX. The Rope Laid Up 278
L. On a Bed of Thorns 288
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
Captain Brand Frontispiece
"When the Wind Comes from Good San Antonio" 12
The Pirates Boarding the Brig 26
The Night Chase 38
The Pirate Den 47
The "Panchita" 50
"He Touched the Bell Overhead as He Spoke" 65
A Pirates' Dinner 85
The Pirate's Prey 94
"A Supernatural Warning!" 116
Shriving a Sinner 124
"He Crept Forward on Hands and Knees" 141
"A Dull, Heavy, Booming Roar" 156
"See If You Can Not Slip That Pretty Silk Rope Over my
Head" 162
Building the Boat 174
The United States Frigate "Monongahela" 183
"Queer Old Stick, That!" Said the Commodore 188
And the Pitch Hot 208
The Stern Chase 217
"His Right Arm Poised with Clenched Hand Aloft," Etc. 256
The Old Water-Logged Launch 280
"Now Captain Brand Knew What Was Coming" 294
PART I.
CHAPTER I.
SPREADING THE STRANDS.
"Shout three times three, like Ocean's surges,
Join, brothers, join, the toast with me;
Here's to the wind of life, which urges
The ship with swelling waves o'er sea!"
"Masters, I can not spin a yarn
Twice laid with words of silken stuff.
A fact's a fact; and ye may larn
The rights o' this, though wild and rough
My words may loom. 'Tis your consarn,
Not mine, to understand. Enough--"
It was in the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and five, and in the
River Garonne, where a large, wholesome merchant brig lay placidly on
the broad and shining water. The fair city of Bordeaux, with its great
mass of yellow-tinted buildings, towers, and churches, rose from the
river's banks, and the din and bustle of the great mart came faintly to
the ear. The sails of the brig were loosed, the crew were hauling home
the sheets and hoisting the top-sails with the clear, hearty songs of
English sailors, while the anchor was under foot and the cable rubbing
with a taut strain against the vessel's bluff bows. At the gangway stood
a large, handsome seaman, bronzed by the sun and winds of about half a
century, dressed in a square-cut blue jacket and loose trowsers, talking
to the pilot--a brown little Frenchman, in coarse serge raiment and
large, clumsy sabots. The conversation between them was carried on
partly by signs, for, in answer to the pilot, the other threw his
stalwart arm aloft toward the folds of the spreading canvas, and nodded
his head.
"_Fort bien! vite donc! mon Capitaine_," said the pilot; "the tide is on
the ebb; let us go. Up anchor!"
"Ay, pilot!" replied the captain, pulling out his watch; "in ten
minutes. The ladies, you know, must have time to say 'good-by.' Isn't it
so, my pilot?"
The gallant little Frenchman smiled in acquiescence, and, taking off his
glazed hat with the air of a courtier, said, "_Pardieu!_ certainly; why
not? Jean Marie would lose his pilotage rather than hurry a lady."
Going aft to the raised cabin on the quarter-deck, the captain softly
opened the starboard door, and looking in, said, in a kindly tone,
"It is time to part, my friends; the pilot says we are losing the
strength of the tide, so we must kiss and be off."
Two lovely women were sitting, hand clasped in hand, on the sofa of the
transom. You saw they were sisters of nearly the same age, and a little
boy and girl tumbling about their knees showed they were mothers--young
mothers too, for the soft, full, rounded forms of womanhood, with the
flush of health and matronly pride tinged their cheeks, while masses of
dark hair banded over their smooth brows and tearful eyes told the story
at a glance. They rose together as the captain spoke.
"_Adieu, chère Rosalie!_ we shall soon meet again, let us hope, never
more to part."
"Adieu, Nathalie! adieu, dearest sister! adieu! adieu!"
The loving arms were twined around each other in the last embrace; the
tears fell like gentle rain, but with smiles of hope and trustfulness
they parted.
"Ay," said the sturdy skipper, as he stood with eyes brimful of moisture
regarding the sisters, "ay, trust me for bringing you together again.
Well do I remember when you were little wee things, when I brought you
to France after the earthquake in Jamaica; just like these little rogues
here"--and he laid his brawny hands on the heads of the children, who
clung to each other within the folds of their mothers' dresses; "but
never fear, my darlings," he went on, "you will meet happily again. Ay,
that you shall, if old Jacob Blunt be above land or water."
A boat which was lying alongside the brig shoved off; the little boy,
who had been left on board, was held high above the rail in the arms
of a sturdy negro, while the mother stood beside him, waving her
handkerchief to the boat as it pulled rapidly away toward the shore.
"Man the windlass, lads!" cried the captain. "Mister Binks, brace round
the head-yards, and up with the jib as soon as the anchor's a-weigh."
The windlass clinked as the iron palls caught the strain of the cable,
the anchor was wrenched from its oozy bed, the vessel's head fell off,
and, gathering way, she moved quietly down the River Garonne.
CHAPTER II.
CALM.
"It ceased: yet still the sails made on
A pleasant noise till noon--
A noise like that of a hidden brook
In the leafy month of June.
Till noon we quietly sailed on,
Yet never a breeze did breathe;
Slowly and smoothly went the ship,
Moved onward from beneath."
The great lumbering brig, with yards square, main-sail hauled up, and
the jib and trysail in the brails, lay listlessly rolling on the easy
swell of the water, giving a gentle send forward every minute or so,
when the sluggish sails would come with a thundering slap against the
masts, and the loose cordage would rattle like a drum-major's ratan on a
spree. The sea was one glassy mirror of undulations, shimmering out into
full blaze as the rising sun just threw its rays along the crest of the
ocean swell; and then, dipping down into the rolling mass, the hue would
change to a dark green, and, coming up again under the brig's black
counter, would swish out into a little shower of bubbles, and sparkle
again joyously.
Away off in the distance lay the island of Jamaica--the early haze about
the mountain tops rising like a white lace veil from the deep valleys
below, with here and there a white dot of a cluster of buildings
gleaming out from the sombre land like the flicker of a heliotrope, and
at intervals the base of the coast bursting forth in a long, heavy
fringe of foam, as the lazy breakers chafed idly about the rocks of some
projecting headland. Nearer, too, were the dark succession of waving
blue lines in parallel bars and patches of the young land wind, tipping
the backs of the rollers in a fluttering ripple of cats'-paws, and then
wandering sportively away out to sea.
On board the brig, forward, were three or four barefooted sailors, in
loose frocks and trowsers, moving lazily about the decks, drawing
buckets of water over the side and dashing it against the bulwarks,
while others were scrubbing and clearing up the vessel for the day. The
caboose, too, began to show signs of life, and a thin column of smoke
rose gracefully up in the calm morning air until it came within the
eddying influence of the sails and top-hamper, when a bit of roll would
puff it away in blue curls beyond.
Abaft stood a low, squat-built sailor at the wheel, his striped Guernsey
cap hanging on one of the spokes, and his body leaning, half asleep,
over the barrel, which gave him a sharp twitch every now and then when
the sea caught the rudder on the wrong side. Near at hand, with an arm
around an after top-mast backstay, and head resting over the rail, was
the mate, Mr. Binks, with a spy-glass to his eye, through which he was
peering at the distant hills of Jamaica. Presently, as he was about to
withdraw the brass tube, and as the old brig yawed with her head
inshore, something appeared to arrest his attention; for, changing his
position, and climbing up to the break of the deck cabin, he steadied
himself by the shrouds, and rubbing his eye with the sleeve of his
shirt, he gave a long look through the glass, muttering to himself the
while. At last, having apparently made up his mind, he sang out to the
man at the wheel in this strain:
"Ben, my lad, look alive; catch a turn with them halliards over the lee
wheel; and just take this 'ere glass and trip up to the fore-yard, and
see what ye make of that fellow, here away under the eastermost
headland."
Ben, without more ado, secured the spokes of the wheel, clapped his cap
on his head, hitched up his trowsers, and, taking the glass from the
mate, rolled away up the fore-rigging. Meanwhile Mr. Binks walked
forward, stopping a moment at the caboose to take a tin pot of coffee
from the cook, and then, going on to the topsail-sheet bitts, he
carefully seated himself, and leisurely began to stir up the sugar in
his beverage with an iron spoon, making a little cymbal music with it on
the outside while he gulped it down. He had not been many minutes
occupied in this way when Ben hailed the deck from the fore-yard.
"On deck there!"
"Hallo!" ejaculated Mr. Binks.
"I see that craft," cried Ben; "she's a fore and after, sails down, and
sweeping along the land. She hasn't got a breath of wind, sir."
"Very well," said Mr. Binks, speaking into the tin pot with a sound like
a sheet-iron organ; "come down."
As Ben wriggled himself off the fore-yard and caught hold of the futtock
shrouds to swing into the standing rigging, he suddenly paused, and
putting the glass again to his eye, he sang out:
"I say, sir! here is a big chap away off on the other quarter, under
top-sails. There! Perhaps ye can see him from the deck, about a
handspike clear of the sun"--pointing with the spy-glass as he spoke in
the proper direction.
"All right!" said the mate, as he began again the cymbal pot and spoon
music; "becalmed, ain't he?"
"Yes, sir; not enough air to raise a hair on my old grandmother's wig!"
muttered Ben, as he slowly trotted down the rigging.
The sun came up glowing like a ball of fire. The land wind died away
long before it fluttered far off from the island, and, saving the uneasy
clatter at times of the loose sails and running gear, all remained as
before. It was getting on toward eight o'clock, and while the cook was
dishing the breakfast mess for the crew beneath an awning forward of the
quarter-deck, the captain came up from his cabin below. The stalwart old
seaman stepped to the bulwarks, and, shading his eyes with his hand from
the glare, he took a broad glance over the water to seaward, nodded to
the mate, and said, in a cheerful voice,
"Dull times, matey! No signs of a breeze yet, eh?"
"No, captain," said Mr. Binks; "dead as ditch water; not been enough air
to lift a feather since you went below at four o'clock. But we have
sagged inshore by the current a few leagues during the night, and here's
old Jamaica plain in sight broad off the bow."
"Well, it's not so bad after all, a forty-four days' passage--so I'll
tell my Lady Bird passenger."
Going to the latticed door of the deck cabin, the jolly skipper threw it
wide open, clapped his hands together thrice, and then, placing them to
his mouth like a speaking-trumpet, he bellowed out, in a deep, low
roar,
"Heave out there, all hands! Heave out, Lady Bird and baby! Land ho!"
There came a joyous note from a soft womanly voice within a screen drawn
across the after cabin, mingled with a little cooing grunt from a child,
and presently an inner door swung back, and the sweetest little tot of a
boy came tumbling out into the open space, and sprang at once into the
captain's arms. The little fellow buried his brown curly head into the
old skipper's whiskers, and then, kicking up his fat naked legs, he
laughed and chattered like a magpie.
"Aha! you young scamp, this small nose smells the oranges and cinnamon,
eh? And dear lazy mamma shuts her pretty eyes, and won't look for papa,
and so near home, too!"
Here Madame Rosalie's low sweet voice trilled out merrily in a slightly
foreign accent, while the contralto tones vibrated on the ear like the
note of a harp.
"Ah! _bon capitaine_, how could you deceive me? Still, I forgive you for
telling me last night that we were so far from Kingston. When you know,
too," she went on in her Creole accent, "how I love and want to see my
dear husband these last four years, since you carried him away in your
good big ship. But never mind, my good friend, I shall pay you off one
of these days; and now send, please, for Banou to dress his little
boy."
Scarcely had the worthy skipper reached a bell-rope near at hand, and
given it one jerk, than the cabin door opened, and in stepped a brawny
black, whose bare woolly head and white teeth and eyes glittered with
delight. There was that about his face which indicated intelligence,
courage, devotion, and humanity--those indescribable marks of expression
which Nature sometimes stamps in unmistakable lines on the skin, whether
it be white or black. He was below the middle height, but the large head
was set with a great swelling throat on the shoulders of a Titan. His
loose white and red striped shirt was thrown well back over his black
and broad chest; and putting out a pair of muscular arms that seemed as
massive and heavy as lignum vitæ, the boy jumped from the captain to
meet them; and then sticking his little soft legs down the slack of
Banou's shirt, he ran his rosy fingers in his wool, and shouted with
glee.
"Oho!" said the black, as he passed his huge arms around the little
fellow, and smoothed down his scanty night-dress as if it were the
plumage of a bird, "oho! little Master Henri loves his Banou, eh? Good,
he take bath."
Bearing his charge out upon the quarter-deck beneath the awning, he
pulled a large tub from under a boat turned upside down over the deck
cabin; and then, while the young monkey had scrambled round to his back,
and was beating a tattoo with his tiny fists on his shoulders, Banou
caught up a bucket and proceeded to draw water from over the side, which
he dashed into the tub. When he had nearly filled the tub he felt around
with his black paws as delicately as if he was about to seize a
musquito, and, clutching the kicking legs with one hand, he spun the
little fellow a somersault over his head, and skinning off at the same
time his diminutive frock, plunged him into the sparkling brine, singing
the while in a laughing chant:
"Dis is the way strong Banou catch him,
First he strip and den he 'plash him;
Henri he jump and 'cream for his moder,
But Banou lub him more dan his broder!"
Here the brawny nurse would souse him head over heels in the sparkling
water, lift him up at every dip, rub his black nose all over him, making
mock bites at the little legs and stomach; and, finally, holding him
aloft, dripping, laughing, and struggling, go on with his refrain:
"What will papa say when he sees him,
Picaninny boy dat is sure to please him?
Big Banou he rub and dress him,
But little Henri he kick and pinch him!"
All this time the men seated forward on the deck, pegging away deep into
their mess-kids, would pause occasionally, shake their great tarry
fingers at the imp, and chuckle pleasantly with their mouths full of
lobscouse, as if the urchin belonged to them as individual property.
"What a tidy little chap he'll make some of these days," said Ben,
"a-furlin' the light sails in a squall! My eye! wouldn't I like to live
and see him!"
"No, no, messmates," replied that worthy, as he crunched a biscuit and
took a sip of coffee out of the pot, "that 'ere child will, some of
these times, when he's growed a bit, be a-wearing gold swabs on his
shoulders, and a-givin' his orders like a hadmiral of a fleet!"
"Quite right, my hearty! It'll never do for sich a knowin' little chub
to spend his days along shore a-bilin' sugar-cane on a plantation, and
a-footin' up accounts; for, ye mind, he was like the chip as was
"'Born at sea, and his cradle a frigate,
The boatswain he nursed him true blue;
He'll soon learn to fight, drink, and jig it,
And quiz every soul of the crew!'"
While these old salts were thus carving out a destiny for the youngster,
the black gave him a final souse in the tub, and then holding him up to
drain, as it were, for the last time, exclaimed, while his face lighted
up with pleasure,
"Oho, my little massa! what will papa say to-morrow when he sees his
brave Henri?"
"Ah! how happy he will be, Banou!" said the lovely mother, who had just
come on deck, as she kissed the mouth of the young scamp, while the
black wrapped and dried his little naked body in a large towel.
"Ah! yes, my mistress, we all will be happy once more to get home to
master on the plantation."
"Tell me! tell me, good _capitaine_," said she, turning in a pretty
coquettish way to the skipper, "when shall we get in port?"
It was a sight to see her, in the loose white morning-gown folded in
plaits about the swelling bosom, her slender waist clasped by a flowing
blue sash, the dark brown satin bands of her hair confined by a large
gold filigree pin, and half concealed by a jaunty little French cap,
with the ribbons floating about her pear-shaped ears; and while her
soft, dark hazel eyes were bent eagerly toward the solid old skipper,
her round, rosy, dimpled fingers clasped a miniature locket fastened by
a massive linked gold chain around her neck. Ah! she was a sight to see
and love!
"Tell me, _mon cher Capitaine_ Blunt, how many hours or minutes will it
be before I shall behold my husband?"
The good-natured skipper laughed pleasantly at the eagerness of his
beautiful passenger, and opening his hands wide, he gave vent to a long,
low whistle, and replied,
"When the wind comes from good San Antonio, my Lady Bird--when the
sea-breeze makes--then the old brig will reel off the knots! But see!
just now not a breath to keep a tropic bird's wings out. There, look at
that fellow!"
High up in the heavens, two or three men-of-war birds, with wide-spread
pointed wings, and their swallow tails cut as sharp as knife-blades,
were heading seaward, and every little while falling in a rapid sidelong
plunge, as if in a vacuum, and then again giving an almost imperceptible
dash with their pinions as they recovered the lost space and continued
on in their silent flight.
"That's a sure sign, Madame Rosalie," continued the skipper, "that the
trade wind has blown itself out, and the chances are that this hot sun
will drink up the flying clouds, and leave us in a dead calm till the
moon quarters to-night. What say you, Mr. Binks? am I right?"
"Never know'd you to be wrong, sir," said the mate, with an honest
intonation of voice, as he tried to stare the sun out of countenance in
following the captain's glance.
"_Hélas!_" said the young mother, with a little sigh of sadness, as she
stood peering over the lee rail to the green hills and slopes of the
island, standing boldly out now with the lofty blue mountains cutting
the sky ten thousand feet in mid-heaven; "so near, too; and he is
thinking and waiting for us!"
"Come," exclaimed the skipper, heartily, "the youngster wants his
breakfast!"
[Illustration: "WHEN THE WIND COMES FROM GOOD SAN ANTONIO, MY LADY
BIRD--"]
CHAPTER III.
HIGH NOON.
"No life is in the air, but in the waters
Are creatures huge, and terrible, and strong;
The swordfish and the shark pursue their slaughters;
War universal reigns these depths along.
The lovely purple of the noon's bestowing
Has vanished from the waters, where it flung
A royal color, such as gems are throwing
Tyrian or regal garniture among."
High noon! Still the stanch old brig bowed and dipped her bluff bows
into the long, easy swell of the tropics; the round, flat counter sent
the briny bubbles sparkling away in the glare of the noontide sun; the
sails flapped and chafed against the spars and rigging, while the crew
sheltered themselves beneath the awnings, and dozed on peacefully.
Off to seaward a few dead trade-clouds showed their white bulging cheeks
along the horizon, and occasionally a fluttering blue patch of a breeze
would skim furtively over the backs of the rollers; but long before they
reached the brig they had expended their force, and expired in the
boundless calm.
Not so, however, with the large sail that had been seen from the brig in
the early morning. For, with a lofty spread of kites and a studding-sail
or two, she at times caught a flirting puff of air, and when the sun had
passed the zenith she had approached within half a mile or less of the
brig. There was no mistaking the stranger's character. Her taunt, trim
masts, square yards, and clear, delicate black tracery of rigging,
shadowed by a wide spread of snow-white canvas over the low, dark
hull--which at every roll in the gentle undulations exposed a row of
ports with a glance of white inner bulwarks--while the brass stars of
her battery reflected sparks of fire from the blazing rays of the sun,
showed she was a man-of-war.
"She's one of our cruisers, I think, sir," said the mate, as he handed
the spy-glass to the captain; "but Ben here believes contrariwise, and
says she is a French corvette."
"Have to try again, Mr. Binks; for, to my mind, she's an out-and-out
Yankee sloop-of-war. Ay! there goes his colors up to the gaff! so up
with our ensign, or else he'll be burning some powder for us."
Even while they were speaking a flag went rapidly up in a roll to the
corvette's peak, when, shaking itself clear, it lay white and red, with
a galaxy of white stars in a blue union, on the lee side of the spanker;
while at the same instant a long, thin, coach-whip of a pennant unspun
itself from the main truck, and hung motionless in the calm down the
mast. Her decks were full of men, standing in groups under the shade of
the sails to leeward; and on the poop were three or four officers in
uniform and straw hats. One of these last stood for some time gazing at
the brig--one hand resting on the ratlines of the mizzen shrouds, and
the other slowly swinging a trumpet backward and forward. Presently an
officer with a pair of gleaming epaulets on his shoulders mounted the
poop ladder, touched his hat, and waved his hand toward the brig. A
moment after--
"Brig ahoy!" came in a sharp, clear, manly tone through the trumpet.
"Sir?"
"What brig is that?"
"The 'Martha Blunt!' named after my dear old wife, God bless her! and
myself, Jacob Blunt, God bless me!" added the jolly skipper, in a sotto
voce chuckle to the fair passenger who stood beside him.
"Where are you from, and where bound?" came again through the trumpet.
"Bordeaux, and bound to Kingston. We have a free passport from Sir
Robert Calder and Admiral Villeneuve."
There was a wave of the trumpet as the speaker finished hailing, and
then touching his hat to the officer with the gold swabs, and pausing
only a moment, he moved to the other side of the corvette's poop.
"It would be no more nor polite in him to tell us what his name is,
arter all the questions he's axed."
"Don't ye know, Mr. Binks," broke in the captain, "that the dignity of a
man-of-war is sich that it wouldn't be discreet to tell no more than
that she has a cargo of cannon balls, and going on a cruise any wheres?
which ye may believe is as much valuable information as we might get out
of our own calabashes without asking a question."
"You are allers right, Captain Blunt, but I did not tax my mind to think
when I spoke them remarks," said Binks, deferentially.
The cruiser, however, seemed more communicative than the mate gave her
credit for, and a moment after the officer with the trumpet sang out,
"This is the United States ship 'Scourge,' from Port Royal, bound on a
cruise! Please report us."
And again, after a few words apparently with the officer with the
epaulets, the trumpet was raised to his lips, and he asked, "Have you
seen any vessels lately?"
The skipper was on the point of answering the hail, when his mate said,
"Beg pardon, Captain Blunt, but Ben and me made out a fore-and-aft
schooner airly this morning, with sweeps out, pulling in under the
outermost headland there," pointing with his horny finger as he spoke.
"Nothing, sir, but a small schooner at daylight sweeping to windward."
"What?" came back in a clear, quick note from the corvette.
"Small fore-and-after, sir, with sails down and sweeps out, close under
the land."
In a moment two or three officers on the cruiser's deck put their heads
together, several glasses were directed toward the now dim mirage-like
shadow of the island, and the next instant the sharp ring of a
boatswain's whistle was heard, followed by a gruff call of, "Away there!
Ariels, away!"
Immediately a cluster of sailors, in white frocks and trowsers and straw
hats, sprang over the ship's quarter to the davits; and then with a
chirruping, surging pipe, a boat fell rapidly to the water. The falls
were cast off, the cutter hauled up to the gangway, and soon an officer
stepped over the side and tripped down to the boat. The white blades of
the oars stood up on end in a double line, the boat pushed off, the oars
fell with a single splash, and she steered for the brig. Descending down
into the gentle valley of the long swell, she would disappear for an
instant, till nothing but the white hats and feather blades of the oars
were visible; and again rising on the crest, the water flashed off in
foam from her bows as she came dancing on.
In a few minutes the coxswain cried, "Way enough," and throwing up his
hand with the word "Toss," the cutter shot swiftly alongside; the
boat-hooks of the bowmen brought her up with a sudden jar, and the next
moment an officer with an epaulet on his right shoulder and a sword by
his side stepped over the gangway. The skipper was there to receive him,
to whom he touched his cap with his fore finger; but as his eye glanced
aft he saw a lady, and he gracefully removed his cap and bowed like a
gentleman to her. He was a man of about eight-and-twenty, with a fine,
manly, sailor-like figure and air, and with a pair of bright, determined
gray eyes in his head that a rascal would not care to look into twice.
"I am the first lieutenant of the 'Scourge,' sir," he said, turning to
the skipper, "and if you will step this way, I'll have a few words with
you."
This was said in a careless tone of command, but withal with frankness
and civility. The captain led him aft toward the taffrail, but in
crossing the deck the little tot of a boy followed closely in his wake,
and getting hold of the officer's sword, which trailed along by its
belt-straps on the deck, he got astride of it, and seized on to the
coat-skirts of the wearer. The little tug he gave caused the officer to
turn round, and with a cheerful smile and manner he snatched the urchin
up in his arms, kissed him on both cheeks, and as he put him down again
and detached his sword for him to play with, he exclaimed,
"What a glorious little reefer you'll make one of these days! Won't
you?"
"_Oui! oui! mon papa!_" said the little scamp, as he looked knowingly up
in the officer's face.
"Excuse my little boy, sir," said his mother, who was in chase of him;
and then turning to the child with a blush spreading over her lovely
face, "It is not your papa, Henri! papa is in Kingston."
"Ah! madame, I love children. I had once a dear little fellow like this,
but both he and his sweet mother are in heaven now. God bless them!"
A flush of sadness tinged his cheeks, and he passed his hand rapidly
across his eyes, as if the dream was too sad to dwell upon; but changing
his tone, and while with one hand he patted the little fellow's head, he
went on: "Madame lives in Jamaica?"
"Oh yes; I was born there, but my parents were destroyed by an
earthquake when I was quite a little child, and this good captain here
carried my sister and myself to France soon after, where Monsieur--"
here she hesitated and blushed with pleasure--"where I married my
husband, who is a planter on the island. Perhaps you may know Monsieur
Jules Piron?"
"Piron!" said the navy man, with warmth. "Ay, madame, for as fine a
fellow as ever planted sugar! Know him? Why, madame, it is only a week
ago that a lot of us dined with him at his estate of Escondido; you know
it, madame? in the grand piazza which looks down the gorge. But he
behaved very shabbily," said the officer, as his face lighted up gayly,
"for he kept a spy-glass to his eye oftener than the wine-glass to his
lips, in looking out seaward, and in talking of his wife and the little
boy he had never seen."
"Oh, monsieur! you make me so happy," said the lovely woman, as with
sparkling eyes and heaving bosom she cried, "Banou! Banou! this
gentleman has just seen your good master."
The black, who had been standing near and guarding every movement of his
little charge, who was trailing the sword about the deck, immediately
approached the officer, and, falling on his knees, seized his hand and
drew it toward his face.
"Ah! madame, I see that kindness meets with a return as well from a dark
as a fair skin," said the officer, in a low tone, as he gently withdrew
his hand from Banou's grasp.
"But," he continued, turning toward the skipper, as the clear sound of
the cruiser's bell struck his ear, "I must not forget what I came for."
"You say, captain, that you saw a schooner at daylight, eh? This way, if
you please"--as he raised his cap to Madame Piron and walked over to the
other side of the deck. "What was she like?"
"She was reported to me by the mate," replied Jacob Blunt.
"Please send for him."
"Oh! Mr.--a'--"
"Binks, sir," said that individual, touching his hat and making an
awkward scrape at a bow.
"Well, Mr. Binks, did you clearly make out the vessel you saw this
morning under the land?"
"Can't say exactly, sir, as I did; but Ben Brown there was on the
fore-yard, and he got a good squint at her."
"Ah! can I see the man?"
The mate straightway went forward, and, after a few pokes about the lee
waist, Ben was roused out from under the jolly-boat and came rolling
aft.
"_You_ saw the schooner, eh?" said the lieutenant, as if he was in the
habit of asking sharp questions and getting quick answers.
"Yes, sir," said the squat seaman, as he hitched up his knife-belt, and
wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and took off his cap.
"Where?"
"Here away, sir," with a wave of his paw, "just clear of that bluff
foreland where the gap opens with the Blue Mountain."
"How was she rigged?"
"Bare sticks, sir, not much of a bowsprit, and no sail spread. I see her
first by the flash of her sweeps in the rising sun, as she was heading
about sou'-sou'-east into the land."
"Two masts, you say?"
"Ay, sir; but I thought as 'ow there was a jigger-like yard a-sticking
out over her starn, though I wasn't sartin."
"So!" said the lieutenant, in a musing tone, and with rather a grave
face and compressed lip; "that will do; thank you, my man." Then placing
his hand on the skipper's shoulder, he drew him to one side, out of
ear-shot, and said,
"Captain Blunt, are you much acquainted in these latitudes?"
"Oh yes, sir, me and my old brig are regular traders here, from Bordeaux
to Jamaica, and so home to England."
"No treasure, I presume?" went on the officer, with a smile.
"Why, lieutenant, none to speak of, p'raps; just a handful of dollars
and a guinea or two in the bag for a few sacks of sugar or coffee, or a
pipe of rum, or sich like, on my own account."
"Well, my friend, there is probably nothing to fear, but if the breeze
springs up, keep as close to the corvette as you can, and I shall ask
the captain to keep a look-out for you during the night."
"By the way"--the officer continued in a low tone as he moved toward the
gangway--"in case any thing should happen, you had better hoist a
lantern at your peak or in the main-rigging--we have sharp eyes for ugly
customers, and one or two of them have been particularly troublesome of
late hereabouts."
Turning for a moment to bid adieu to the fair lady passenger on the
quarter-deck, and recovering his sword after a playful struggle with the
youngster, he buckled it around his waist, and, stepping lightly over
the side and into the boat, the oars fell with a single splash, and the
cutter shot rapidly away toward the corvette.
CHAPTER IV.
SUNSET.
"Light is amid the gloomy canvas spreading,
The moon is whitening the dusky sails,
From the thick bank of clouds she masters, shedding
The softest influence that o'er night prevails.
Pale is she, like a young queen pale with splendor,
Haunted with passionate thoughts too fond, too deep;
The very glory that she wears is tender,
The very eyes that watch her beauty fain would weep."
Not a breath from the lungs of Æolus. The sun went down like a globe of
fire; but just as it touched the horizon it flattened out into an oval
disk, and, sinking behind a dead, slate-colored cloud, shot up half a
dozen broad rose and purple bands, expanding as they mounted heavenward,
and then fading away in pearly-tinted hues in the softening twilight
until it mingled in the light of the half moon nearly at the zenith.
There lay the island, too, now all clear again, with the blue tops of
the mountains marked in pure distinct outline, and falling away from
peak to peak on either hand, till the sea flashed up in sluggish creamy
foam at the base. The man-of-war birds came floating in from seaward,
high up, like black musquitoes, with their pointed wings wide spread and
heading toward the land, but now with never a quiver to their silent
pinions. A school of porpoises, too, broke water from the opposite
direction, and, crossing and recrossing each other's track, came leaping
and puffing over the gentle swells until they struck the brig's wake,
when they wheeled around her bows, dashed off on a swift visit to the
corvette, and then, closing up in watery phalanx, went gamboling,
leaping, and breaking water again to windward. Presently, along the
eastern horizon, the banks of clouds, which had been lying dead and
motionless all the sultry day, seemed to be imbued with life, and,
separating in their fleecy masses, mounted up above the sea, and soon
spread out, like a lady's fan, in all directions.
"Ho! ho!" shouted Captain Blunt, clapping his hands, "what said I,
Madame Rosalie, when we saw the sun setting up his lee backstays a while
ago? A breeze, eh? Come, Mr. Binks, be wide awake! We shall be bowling
off the knots before the watch is out."
The mate caught the enthusiasm of the skipper, and, jumping up on the
break of the deck cabin, he sang out,
"D'ye hear there, lads? give us a good pull of the top-sail halliards,
and round in them starboard braces a bit! That's your sort! Well, the
head-yards! That'll do with the main! Up with the flying jib, and trim
aft them starboard jib and staysail sheets! There! Belay all."
Meanwhile the corvette, with her lofty dimity kissing the sky, caught
the first light airs before the slightest ripple darkened the surface of
the water; and with her helm a-starboard, and her after-yards braced
sharp up, she silently swung round on her heel, while the spanker came
flat aft, like a sheet of white paper, and with the head-sails trimmed,
she slowly moved athwart the stern of the brig. The sharp whistles of
the boatswain and his mates, piping like goldfinches, were the only
sounds that were heard; and as the cruiser moved on in her course, the
declining moon cast a mellow light over the folds of her canvas, and,
like a girl in bridal attire, she threw a graceful shadow over the
smooth and swelling waters away off to windward.
The sails of the brig, which had begun to swell out in easy drooping
lines, fell back again flat to the masts as the ship crossed her wake.
But as the corvette passed, the officer of the watch on the poop raised
his cap to the lovely woman who was standing out in graceful relief on
the upper cabin deck, with her little boy held up beside her in the
sturdy arms of the black, and placing the trumpet to his lips, said, in
a distinct voice, as if addressing the skipper,
"We shall go about at midnight. Remember the directions I gave you this
morning. _Bon voyage, madame!_" He shook his trumpet playfully at the
boy, who put out his chubby arms with delight to the speaker, and then
hammered away with great glee on the crown of his bearer's head.
"Thank you, sir," said Captain Blunt, who was leaning over the rail; and
then turning to his mate, he added,
"Them Yankees, Mr. Binks, always treats a merchantman like gentlemen on
the high seas, and I never knew one on 'em to turn their backs on
friends or foes. What a pity they ever cut adrift from the Old Country!
Howsoever, matey, it can't be helped, and you had better up with the
port studding-sails, hang out all the rags, and make the old drogher
walk."
Now came the rippling breeze all at once over the sea, fluttering
furtively for a minute or two, so as to make the top-sails of the brig
swell out and then fall back in a tremulous shiver; but again bulging
forward in a full-breasted curve, the vessel felt the tug, and began to
dash the spray from her bluff bows till it fell away beyond the lee
cathead in flying masses of foam. The studding-sail booms rolled out,
the sailors busied themselves aloft in making the additional sail, and
by-and-by the old brig floundered along, the bubbles gurgling out ahead
in the ruffled water, tipping over astern as the crests broke on her
quarter; at times plunging her bows into the rolling swell, but coming
up sturdily again, and so on as before.
Meanwhile the corvette had edged away in a parallel course with the
brig, running past her at first as if she were at anchor, when she let
her topgallant-sails slide down to the caps, and, with the weather clew
of her main-sail triced up, she held way with the brig a mile or more to
windward.
The moon was sinking well down in the west, and the clear, well-defined
crescent was occasionally obscured by the light fleecy clouds moving
under the influence of the trade wind, when, toward eight bells, the
moon gave one pure white glimmer, threw a rippling flood of light over
the waves, and sunk below the horizon. Still the stars twinkled and the
planets flamed out like young moons--masked at intervals by the
darkening clouds as they swept overhead in heavy masses--and tinging the
sea with shade, which would again break out in phosphorescent flashes as
the waves caught the reflection.
"Now, Madame Rosalie," said the kind old skipper, "it is nearly
midnight; take your last snooze in the old barky, and wake up bright and
happy for Port Royal and--you know who, in the morning."
The charming woman had been watching, with soul-rapt gaze, the lofty
hills of Jamaica from the last blaze of the setting sun, and until the
moon too had vanished and left only a dim blue haze over the island. She
started as the captain spoke, gave a deep sigh, kissed her hand to the
good old skipper, said "_Bon soir, mon ami_," and with a smile she
entered her cabin.
The black was seated within the partition of the apartment, near a small
swinging cot, urging it gently to and fro, and watching over his little
charge.
"Good-night, Banou," she said, in patois French; "you may go to bed, and
I will take care of my little boy."
The black grinned so as to show his double range of white teeth beneath
the rays of the cabin lamp, and without a word he moved silently away.
The lady stood for a few moments gazing lovingly at the sleeping child,
and then drawing the miniature from her bosom, she detached it with the
chain from her neck, and after pressing it to her lips, she leaned
softly over the cot and fastened it around the little sleeper. As light
and zephyr-like as was the effort, it caused the little fellow to stir,
and reaching out his tiny arms, while a baby smile played around the
dimples of his cheeks, he clasped his mother's neck.
Ah! fond and devoted mother! That was the last sweet infantile caress
your child was ever destined to give you! Treasure it up in joy and
sorrow, in sunshine and gloom, for long, long years will pass before you
press him to your heart again!
CHAPTER V.
DARKNESS.
"The busy deck is hushed, no sounds are waking
But the watch pacing silently and slow;
The waves against the sides incessant breaking,
And rope and canvas swaying to and fro.
The topmost sail, it seems like some dim pinnacle
Cresting a shadowy tower amid the air;
While red and fitful gleams come from the binnacle,
The only light on board to guide us--where?"
On went the "Martha Blunt" with no fears of danger near. The bell struck
eight, the watch had been called, and the captain, taking a satisfactory
look all around the horizon, glanced at the compass, and, with a slight
yawn, said,
"Well, Mr. Binks, I believe I'll turn in for a few hours; keep the brig
on her course, and at daylight call me. It will be time enough then to
bend the cables, for I don't think we shall want the anchors much afore
noon to-morrow. Where's the corvette?"
"There she is, sir, away off on the port beam. She made more sail a few
minutes ago, and now she appears to be edging off the wind, and steering
across our forefoot. I s'pose she's enjoying of herself, sir, and
exercisin' the crowds of chaps they has on board them craft."
"Well, good-night, matey"--pausing a moment, however, as the honest old
skipper stepped down the companion-way, and half communing with himself,
and then, with his head just above the slide, he added, "I say, Mr.
Binks, there's no need, p'r'aps, but you may as well have a lantern
alight and bent on to the ensign halliards there under the taffrail, in
case you want to signalize the corvette. Ah, Banou! that you, old
nigger? Good-night!"
So Captain Blunt went slowly down below, and at the same time the black
went aft, coiled himself down on the deck, and made a pillow of the
brig's ensign.
Mr. Binks wriggled himself upon the weather rail, where, with a short
pipe in his mouth, he kicked his heels against the bulwarks, and while
the old brig plunged doggedly on, he indulged himself with a song, the
air, however, being more like the growl of a bull-dog than a specimen of
music:
"If lubberly landsmen, to gratitude strangers,
Still curse their unfortunate stars;
Why, what would they say did they try but the dangers
Encounter'd by true-hearted tars?
If life's vessel they put 'fore the wind, or they tack her,
Or whether bound here or there,
Give 'em sea-room, good-fellowship, grog, and tobaker,
Well, then, damme if Jack cares where!"
"What d'ye think of that, Ben?" said Mr. Binks, as he finished his
ditty, and sucked away on his pipe.
"Why, Mr. Mate," replied Ben, as he gave the wheel a spoke or two to
windward and glanced at the binnacle, "the words is first-rate, but it
seems to me your singing gear is a bit out o' condition, and I thought
you wos a prayin'; but the fact is," concluded Ben, apologetically,
"that whenever I hears grog and tobaker jined together, I likes to see
them in my fist."
"Oh! you would, eh? Well, shipmate, turn and turn about is fair play; so
here, just take a pull at the pipe, and I'll step to the cuddy for the
bottle, and we'll have a little sniffler all around!"
Saying this, Mr. Binks swung off the rail, handed Ben the pipe, and
after an absence of a few moments, he returned with a square case-bottle
and a pewter mug.
"Now, Ben," said he, "this 'ere is not a practice, as you know, I often
is guilty of; but you bein' a keerful hand and a stiddy helmsman, and
port here close aboard, I've no objections to take a toss with ye." Then
pouring out a moderate quantity of the fluid, the mate handed it to Ben,
who, taking the pipe out of his mouth, and with one hand on the
king-spoke of the wheel and one eye at the compass-card, threw his head
back and pitched the dram down his throat.
"My sarvice to ye, sir!" said Ben, as he smacked his lips and then shut
them tight together, fearful lest a breath of the precious liquid might
escape; "a little of that stuff goes a great ways."
Mr. Binks hereupon measured himself off an allowance, and touching Ben
on the shoulder, raised the pewter to his lips. Before, however,
draining the cup, he tuned his pipes once more, and croaked forth in
this strain:
"While up the shrouds the sailor goes,
Or ventures on the yard,
The landsman, who no better knows,
Believes his lot is hard.
But Jack with smiles each danger meets;
Casts anchor, heaves the log,
Trims all the sails, belays the sheets,
And drink his can of grog!"
"Here comes the corvette, sir!" broke in Ben, as he stood on tiptoe,
holding on to the spokes of the wheel, and taking his eyes off the
binnacle a moment to get a clear view over the rail. "Here she comes,
with her starboard tacks aboard, athwart our bow, and moving like an
albatross!"
The man-of-war had for an hour or more crept well to windward, and then,
wearing round, she came down close upon the wind under royals, and her
three jibs and spanker as flat as boards. As she whirled on across the
brig's bow, a few cables' length ahead, the sharp ring of the whistles
was again heard, and the moment after the head-sails fluttered and shook
in the wind, the sheets and blocks rattled, and with a clear order of
"Main-sail haul!" the after-yards swung round like magic, the sails
filled, and without losing headway the head-yards were swung, and she
gathered way on the other tack. On she came, with the spray flying up
into the weather leech of her fore-sail, the dark mazes of her rigging
marked out in clear lines against her white canvas, and the watch
noiselessly coiling up the ropes on her decks. As she pushed her sharp
snout through the water, and grazed along the brig's lee quarter, an
officer on the poop gave a rapid and searching glance around, peered
sharply along the brig's deck, waved his trumpet to the mate, and
resumed his rapid tramp to windward. In ten minutes after she had passed
the brig's wake nothing was seen of her save a dark, dim outline; a
light halo reflected on the water from her white streak, and an
occasional luminous flash of foam as it bounded away from her lean
bows.
Half an hour went by. The mate was sitting on the weather rail droning
out an old sea-song to himself, and the four or five men of the watch
were dozing away along the bulwarks. Presently, however, Ben, the
helmsman, happened to let his eyes wander away from the compass-card for
a moment, as he steadied the wheel by his legs and bit a quid from his
plug of niggerhead to last him to suck for the remainder of the watch,
when, glancing beneath the bulging folds of the lee clew of the
main-sail, he clapped both hands again on the steering spokes, and
shouted,
"Mr. Mate, here's a sail close under our lee beam!"
"Where?" said Binks. But, before he had fairly time to run over to the
other side of the vessel and take a look for himself, a quick rattle of
oars was heard as a boat grated against the brig's side, and, before you
could think, a swarm of fellows started up like so many shadows above
the rail. In five seconds they had jumped on the deck, Ben fell like a
bullock from a blow from the butt-end of a pistol, the helm was jammed
hard down, the lee braces let fly, and, as the old brig gave a lurching
yaw in bringing her nose to windward, the weather leeches shivered
violently in the wind, and, taking flat aback, the studding-sail booms
snapped short off at the irons, and, with the sails, fell slamming and
thumping below.
[Illustration: THE PIRATES BOARDING THE BRIG.]
Meanwhile the mate had barely time to spring to the companion-way and
sing out, "We're boarded by pirates, Captain Blunt!" when he, too,
received an ugly overhand lick from a cutlass on his skull, and went
senseless and bleeding down the hatchway like a scuttle of coals.
At the first noise, however, the black Banou sprang to his feet, and, as
he caught a glimpse of the fellows swarming over the side, he snatched
hold of the ensign halliards where the signal lantern had been bent on,
and in an instant it was dancing away up to the gaff, shrouded from view
to leeward of the vessel by the spread of the spanker. In another moment
the black leaped to the deck cabin and darted through the door. But in
less time than it has taken to tell it, the "Martha Blunt" had changed
hands.
There, on the quarter-deck, stood in groups some sixteen barefooted
villains, in coarse striped gingham shirts, loose trowsers, and
skull-caps, and all with glittering, naked knives or cutlasses, and
pistols in their belts and hands. In the midst of this cluster of
swarthy wretches, near the companion-way, stood a burly, square-built
ruffian, with a pistol in his right hand, and his dexter paw pushing up
a brown straw hat as he ran his fingers across his dripping forehead and
a tangled mass of carroty, unshorn locks. There was a wisp of a red silk
kerchief tied in a single knot around his bare bull neck; the shirt was
thrown back, and exposed a tawny, hairy chest, as a ray of light flashed
up from the binnacle. He looked--as indeed he was--the lowest type of a
sailor scoundrel. His companions were of lighter build, and their dress,
complexion, and manner--to say nothing of their black hair and rings in
their ears--indicated a birth and breeding in other and hotter climes.
"Well, my lads," said the big fellow, who seemed to be in command, "the
barkey is ours, and we've cheated that infarnal cruiser handsomely. Go
forward, Pedro, and gag them lubbers, and then tell the boys to trim aft
them jib sheets; and round in them after-braces, some of you, so we can
keep way with the schooner and take things easy."
Here he laughed in a husky, spirituous, low chuckle, and then went on:
"This will make up for lost time, _amigos_! _Christo!_ there may be some
ounces on board. But who's left in the boat, Gomez?" This was addressed
to a bow-legged, beetle-browed individual, with a hare-lip, which kept
his face in a perpetual and skeleton-like grin, who hissed out from
between his decayed front tusks,
"_El Doctor Señor, con tres de nosotros._" "_Bueno!_ all right; three of
the chaps will do to look out for her; but tell the doctor to drop the
boat astern, and veer him a rope from the gangway. There! that's well
with the braces! Keep her off a point; so--that'll do."
As the orders were promptly obeyed, and the crew of the brig gagged,
and the vessel surged slowly on her course, the same speaker turned to
his men and said,
"Now, my hearties! let's have an overhaul of the skipper. Hand him up
here, will ye? or, never mind," he added, "I'll just step down and have
a growl with him myself."
As the mate pitched head foremost down the companion ladder, two of the
pirates jumped after him, and, dealing him another cruel stab with a
knife deep into the back, they passed on into the lower cabin. There was
a brief struggle, the sound of voices mingled with curses and threats,
and then all quiet again.
In pursuance of his expressed purpose, the stout ruffian slewed himself
round, took a sweep about the horizon, then sticking his pistol in its
belt, he slowly descended the ladder, gave the wounded and dying mate a
kick, and with a hoarse laugh entered the cabin.
There, on a small sofa abaft, between the two stern air-ports, sat
Captain Blunt. Blood was trickling down in heavy drops from a lacerated
bruise on his forehead; but, notwithstanding the swelling and pain of
the wound, his features were calm, stern, and honest. On either side of
him sat as villainous a brace of mongrel Portuguese or Spaniards as ever
infested the high seas; and his arms were pinioned by a stout cord to
the bolt above the transom.
"My sarvice to you, sir!" said the leader of the gang, with a devilish
smile of derision, as he stuck his arms akimbo and squirted some
tobacco-juice from his filthy mouth across the cabin table at the
pinioned prisoner.
"I s'pose you know by this time that you're a lawful prise, captured by
an hindependent constable of the West Indies, notwithstandin' ye had
sich safe escort and convoy all the arternoon?"
Here he chuckled, squirted more juice over the table, then dropped down
on a sea-chest cleated to the deck, took off his hat, and scratched his
yellowish red hair. The poor captain said not a word, but shook a great
clot of blood from his brow.
"Well, now, my old hearty, the first thing for you to do is to poke out
your manifest, and any other little matters of vallew ye may have stowed
away; and be quick, mind ye, for you haven't much time to sail in this
'ere craft. Howsoever, I s'pose ye can swim?"
"You'll find the manifest and the ship's papers there, inside that
instrument-box; and all the money in the vessel is in that locker; and I
trust in Heaven it may burn your hands to cinders, you devils!"
"Ho! smash my brains! keep a stopper on your jaw, or I'll squeeze your
dead carcass through that 'ere starn port."
The fellow rose as he spoke, and, stepping up to the narrow state-cabin
near by, he jerked open the upper drawer of a small bureau affair, and
pulling out a canvas bag, sealed at the mouth, tossed it on to the
cabin table. The coin fell with the heavy dead sound peculiar to gold,
and the ruffian, after taking it up again and weighing it tenderly,
growled out, "This chink will do for a yapper, at any rate! So now let's
have a peep at what the cargo consists on."
Then stepping a second time to the berth, he gave a kick to the
instrument-box, the lid flew off, and diving in his fist he drew out a
bundle of papers. Once more seating himself at the table beneath the
swinging lamp, he clumsily undid the papers and spread them before him.
"What a blessed thing is edication," muttered he to himself, "and what a
power o' knowledge reading 'riting does for a man!" Putting his fat
stumpy finger on each line of the manuscript as he slowly began to spell
out the contents, he began, "Man-i-fest of Brig 'Martha Blunt'--Ja-cob
Blunt, master:" here he paused, and, squirting more tobacco-juice over
at the skipper, as if to attract his attention, he suddenly ejaculated,
"Hark ye! Master Blunt, what was the name of that man-o'-war vessel as
was lyin' by you this morning?"
"The 'Scourge,'" replied the skipper, faintly, as he shook another great
drop of blood from his brow.
"The what? The 'Scourge!' That Yankee snake! Smash my brains! D'ye know
that that ship has been a hangin' about the north side of Cuba for ever
so long, interruptin' our trade? And you an Englishman, to go and ax him
to purtect ye! take that!"
Here he snatched a pistol from his sash, and, taking aim full at the
skipper's breast, he pulled the trigger. Fortunately, the weapon snapped
and did not explode. The ruffian held it a moment in his hand, and then
letting it rest upon the table, he said, with a horrible imprecation,
"Ye see you wos not born to be shot; but we'll try what salt water will
do for ye by-and-by."
Taking out his knife at the conclusion of this speech, he picked the
flint of his pistol, opened the pan, shook the priming, and then shoved
the weapon back in his belt. The mention of the "Scourge," however, had
evidently caused him some trepidation, for when he resumed the perusal
of the manifest it was in a hurried, agitated sort of way, and not at
all at his ease.
Smoothing the papers again before him, he went on, making running
commentaries as he read: "Eighty-six cases of silks--light, and
easily stowed away; twenty-nine tons bar iron; sixty-four sugar-kettles!
it will help to sink the brig; forty pipes of Bordeaux; two hundred
baskets Champagne; three hundred and fifty boxes of claret--sour
stuff, I warrant you; two casks Cognac brandy--but I say, you Blunt,"
said the fellow, looking up, "where's your own private bottle? It's
thirsty work spellin' out all this 'ritin', and my mouth's as dry as a
land-crab's claws. Howsoever," he continued, as he caught the
glance of satisfaction which came over the swarthy faces of his
companions beside the captain, "wait a bit, and we'll punch a hole in a
fresh barrel presently."
Having run through the manifest, he opened another paper and exclaimed,
"Hallo! what have we here? List of passengers--Madame Rosalie Piron
and--ho! that's a French piece, I knows by the name. Where is she?
Hasn't died on the v'yage, has she? D'ye hear there, ye infarnal
Blunt?"
The captain's face was troubled, and his head dropped down on his breast
without replying; but one of the scoundrels at his side struck him a
brutal blow with the back of his knife-hilt on the mouth, and jerking
up, he said, with an effort,
"Yes, we have a female passenger on board, with a helpless child; but I
pray you, in God's name, to leave the innocent woman in peace. You've
robbed and ruined me and my poor old wife--turn me adrift if you like,
drown or hang me, but don't harm the poor lady."
The tears blinded him as he spoke, and mingled with the bloody stream
which trickled down his cheeks. The ruffian's ugly face and bloodshot
eyes lighted up with a devilish and sinister satisfaction as the skipper
began his appeal, but before he had well finished speaking he broke in,
"Avast your jaw! will ye? You'll have enough to look out for your own
gullet, my lad, without mindin' any body else's; so turn to and say your
prayers afore eight bells is struck, because there's sharks off
Jamaiky."
Then addressing his own scoundrelly myrmidons, he exclaimed, "Look out
sharp for that old chap, my lads, while I goes to sarch for the woman
passenger!" As he turned, however, to leave the cabin, one of his
subordinates began to rummage about in a locker, when the burly brute
said, "Tonio, don't get to drinkin' too airly, boy, for ye know it's
agin the law till the prize is snug in harbor, or sunk, as the case may
be."
"_Si, señor_," replied the man, with a nod and a grin, and he resumed
his seat again; but no sooner had their leader left the cabin than a
bottle and glasses were placed upon the table, and they fell to with a
will, complimenting the bound and wounded prisoner by pitching the last
drops from their tumblers into his face.
CHAPTER VI.
DANGER.
"What tale do the roaring ocean
And the night wind, bleak and wild,
As they beat at the crazy casement,
Tell to that little child?
And why do the roaring ocean
And the night wind, wild and bleak,
As they beat at the heart of the mother,
Drive the color from her cheek?"
In all this time so little noise had been made that even the watch
below, in the brig's forecastle, were snoozing away without a dream of
danger; though, had one of them shown his nose above the fore-peak, he
would have either been knocked down and murdered like the mate, or, with
a gag in his jaws, been hurled overboard. When the leader of the pirates
stepped again on deck, he said to his companions, who were still
clustered around the companion-way,
"Well, my boys, we have 'arned a good prize--a fine cargo of the real
stuff--silks, wines, and what not, besides a few of the shiners!" Here
he jingled the bag of gold and dollars in his paws, and then threw it,
with an easy, indifferent toss, on to the slide of the companion-way.
"But what think ye, lads?" he continued, in a hoarse whisper, "there's a
petticoat aboard! and, as sure as my name's Bill Gibbs, here goes for a
look; for there's nothing like lamplight for the lovely creeturs!"
As he slewed round on his bare feet to approach the entrance to the deck
cabin, a move was made in the same direction by two or three of the
wretches of his band; but, shoving them roughly back with his heavy
fist, and clapping a hand to his belt, he said, in a threatening tone,
"None o' that, my souls! I takes the first look myself; and if I think
her beauty'll suit the chief, why--I shall be able to judge, ye know,
whether she'll go furder on the cruise or swim ashore with the rest of
the lubbers at daylight to Jamaiky. Keep your eye on the schooner,
Pedro, and don't make no more sail! D'ye hear?"
"Ay, ay, _si señor_!" quoth that worthy, as he and his followers fell
sulkily back. It took but three strides for Mr. Bill Gibbs to reach the
cabin door, when, finding it hard to open, after several trials at the
knob, he placed his burly shoulder against the edge of the panelwork,
and, throwing his powerful weight upon it, the door yielded with a snap
of the lock, and he pitched forward full length upon the cabin floor.
The noise startled the lady within, and speaking as if half asleep, she
called,
"Banou! Banou! what is the matter?"
"_Mon dieu, madame!_ we are prisoners in the hands of pirates!"
Before more words were uttered, Mr. Bill Gibbs, who by this time had
regained his feet while giving vent to a volley of blasphemous curses,
roared out as he beheld the black, "Ho! nigger passengers, hay? A
mounseer of color, as I'm a Christian! I say, cucumber shins, is that
'ere woman as is talkin' as black as you be?"
He was not left long in doubt concerning the color of the person he
alluded to, for at the instant the stateroom door flew open, and the
lovely woman, in her loose night-dress and hair streaming in brown,
heavy silken tresses over her fair neck and shoulders, with a pale and
terror-stricken face, stood before him. Speechless with agony, she gazed
at the coarse ruffian, who had, at the moment, reached the swinging cot
which held the little boy, and while he was in the act of looking at the
sleeping child, the mother uttered a fearful cry and the boy awoke.
"Sarvice, madam! don't be scared! come and take the little chap! I ain't
goin' to hurt him--that is, if it be a him."
The frightened mother, spell-bound at first, needed no second bidding,
and, forgetful of her disheveled dress, sprang forward, and with
outstretched arms, bare to the shoulder, was about to snatch her child.
The pirate, however, with his red eyes gleaming with unholy fire, threw
his great arm around the lovely woman's waist, and with a hoarse,
fiendish chuckle of triumph, attempted to draw her toward him. But,
quick as lightning, two black, sinewy paws clutched him with such a
steel-like grip about the throat that his sacrilegious arm dropped by
his side, and he was hurled violently back against the cabin bulkhead.
Then standing before him, the negro glared like an angry lion roused
from his lair as he looked round inquiringly at his mistress.
"Ho!" sputtered the ruffian, as he pulled a pistol from his belt, "ho!
you mean fight, do ye?"
"_Banou! mon pauvre Banou!_" screamed the terrified woman. "Yield! Oh,
sir, spare him! Don't harm us, and we will give you all we possess!"
The burly scoundrel hesitated a moment, and balanced the cocked pistol
in his hand, as if undecided whether to blow the black's brains out on
the spot where he stood; and then shoving the weapon back in his sash,
and keeping a wary eye on his assailant, he exclaimed in an angry tone,
"Well, come here, then, my deary, and give us a kiss for this nigger's
bad manners."
Moving forward as he spoke, he caught up the little boy from the cot,
tore the gold chain and locket from his neck, which he thrust into his
pocket, and shook him roughly at arm's length, in hopes, perhaps, of
enticing the tender mother within his merciless grasp. But again the
black interposed his heavy frame before his mistress.
"What! at it again, are ye? Well, then"--fumbling with his left hand for
his pistol--"say your prayers, ye imp of darkness."
The black seemed, however, in no mood for praying; and putting forth his
slabs of arms like the paws of an alligator, he tried to grapple his foe
by the throat. The cries of the mother now mingled with those of the
child as he put out his little arms to shield his black protector. The
ruffian, foiled in his purpose, with baffled rage evaded the negro by
stepping to one side; and as he did so, he hurled the helpless child
with great force from him. The large cabin windows at the stern were
open to let in the breeze; and as the brig sank slowly down with her
counter to the following waves, and gurgled up as the sea eddied and
surged around the rudder, the faint, plaintive cry of the little boy
arose above the seething waters--a light splash followed--and the mother
had lost her child!
"Oh, monster!" cried the heart-broken woman. "Oh, my boy! my boy! May
Heaven curse you forever!" as she sank down senseless on the deck.
The awful howl of vengeance which burst from the deep lungs of Banou
came simultaneously with the report of the pirate's pistol, the bullet
from which struck the black hard in the left shoulder; but putting out
for the third time his sinewy arms, and this time with an iron grip that
only left the ruffian time to yell with a stifled curse for help, he was
hurled headlong, smashing through the latticed cabin door, and fell
stunned upon the outer deck. In an instant half a dozen pistol balls
whistled around the negro's head, and the knives of the pirates flashed
from their sashes as they rushed forward to bury the blades in his body;
but leaping to one side, and while two more bullets were driven into
him, he seized an iron-shod pump brake from the bulwarks, and, with a
mighty bound, whirled it once with the rapidity of thought high above
his head, and brought it down on the leg of his prostrate foe. Such was
the force of the blow that it smashed both bones, and drove the white
splinters through the brute's trowsers, where they gleamed out red and
bloody by the light of the binnacle lamp. Even then, wounded, and the
blood flowing from several places, and though almost encircled in the
grasp of the scoundrels, Banou made good his retreat to the cabin, and
planted his powerful body firmly against the door.
With a volley of polyglot curses and yells in all languages, two or
three of the pirates stopped to raise their fallen leader, while the
others, leaving the wheel and vessel to herself, rushed in pursuit of
the black. Scarcely, however, had they made a step, when their ears were
saluted by a stunning crash from a heavy cannon, and the peculiar
humming sound of a round shot as it flew just above their heads between
the brig's masts.
There, within half a cable's length to windward, loomed up the dark hull
of a large ship. The crew were evidently at quarters, with the battle
lanterns lit and gleaming in the ports, while the rays shot up the black
rigging and top-hamper, and spread out over the sails in fitful flashes
as she slowly forged abreast the brig, with her main top-sail to the
mast. For a minute not a sound was heard, though the decks were full of
men, some with their heads poked out of the open ports beside the guns,
or swarming along over the lee hammock-nettings and about the quarter
boats; but the next instant there came in a voice of thunder through the
trumpet,
"What's the matter on board that brig?"
There was no answer for a few seconds, until a choking voice, as if with
a pump-bolt athwart the speaker's mouth, mumbled out,
"We're captured by pi--"
A dull, heavy blow cut short these words; and though the reply to the
hail could hardly have been heard on board the ship, yet, as if divining
the true state of the case, loud, clear orders were given--
"Away, there, third and fourth cutters! away! Spring, men!"
Then came the surging noise of the whistles as the falls dropped the
boats from the davits; then the men, leaping down into cutters--silently
and quick--no sound save the clash of a cutlass or the rattle of an
oar-blade as they took their places and shoved off. Again an order
through the trumpet--
"Clear away the starboard battery! Load with grape! Sail trimmers!
stations for wearing ship! Hard up the helm! Fill away the main-yard!"
The "Scourge" had by this time forged ahead of the brig, her sails aback
or shivering, as she came up and fell off from the wind, and the boats
dancing with full crews toward her. No sooner, however, had the presence
of the unwelcome stranger been made known on board the brig than the
pirates seemed seized with a panic, and, without a second thought, they
scudded to leeward, where their boat had been hauled alongside, and
forgetful or indifferent for the fate of their companions below, though
dragging the while their maimed comrade to the rail, they lowered him
into the boat, jumped in themselves, and pulled away with all their
strength toward the schooner near. They were not, however, a moment too
soon; for as the last of the band disappeared, their places were
supplied by a crowd of nimble sailors to windward, headed by an officer
with his sword between his teeth as he swung over the bulwarks. The
first sound which greeted the new-comers was from below, and from the
throat of the honest skipper. Down the open companion-way leaped the
officer, with half a dozen stout, eager sailors at his heels, and dashed
right into the lower cabin. There was the brave old skipper, with but
one arm free, shielding himself and struggling--faint and well-nigh
exhausted--from the knives of the drunken brace of rascals who had been
left to guard him. A pistol in the hands of one of this pair was pointed
with an unsteady aim at the officer as he entered, but the ball struck
the empty rum-bottle on the table and flew wide of its mark; and before
the smoke of the powder had cleared away, a sword and cutlass had passed
through and through both their bodies, and they fell dead upon the cabin
floor.
While Captain Blunt found breath to give a rapid explanation of the
trouble, and while the brig was once more got under control and the
wounded cared for, we will take a look at the man-of-war and the part
she bore in the business.
At the first sound of the warning gun from the cruiser the schooner
began to show life; and drawing her head sheets, she wore short round on
her heel, with every thing ready to run up her fore and aft sails, and a
stay-tackle likewise rove and hanging over the low gunwale to hook on to
the boat and hoist it in the moment it came alongside. Meanwhile the
"Scourge" had shot ahead of the brig, and wearing round her forefoot,
with her starboard tacks on board, she emerged out beyond, like a hound
just slipped from the leash. As she cleared the brig, the schooner lay
with bare masts about three cables' length to windward, and the rattle
of oars told that her boat had just scraped alongside. At that moment a
clear, determined voice shouted through the trumpet,
"Level your guns! Take good aim! Fire!"
A brilliant series of sheets of flame burst forth from the corvette's
battery, lighting up the water and jet black wales, and away aloft to
the great towering maze of rigging and sails to the trucks, with the
topmen clustering to windward, and their very eyes and teeth lit up in
the glare; then, too, the crews of the guns, in their trim frocks and
trowsers; the marines on the top-gallant forecastle, with their
firelocks and white cross-belts; and abaft a knot of officers on the
poop, with night-glasses to their eyes, all standing out as clear as day
in the sudden flashes from the cannon. Then followed the concussive
roar, and the next instant you could hear the hurtling rush of the iron
hail as it flew singly or in bunches through the air, or skipped in its
deadly flight from wave to wave, until it went crashing into the
pirate's boat, slapping with heavy thumps against the schooner's side,
or furrowing along her decks; while a shower of white splinters flew
high over her low rail, and told how well the iron had done its
bidding. Then, with many a groan and imprecation, the shattered and
sinking boat was cut adrift, and, a moment after, the sails of the
vessel were spread, the sheets hauled flat aft, and, taking the breeze,
she heeled over till her lee rail was all awash, and away she walked,
right up to windward.
But again came the clear, commanding tones on board the cruiser, mingled
with the jumping of the crew and ramming home the charges in the guns:
"Load! round shot! Run out! One point abaft the beam! Fire as you bring
the schooner to bear!"
Out belched the red flames; the heavy globes of iron, like so many black
peas in daylight, sung their deadly note as they darted on their way,
and the corvette gave a little heel to leeward as the shock of the
explosion was felt. One shot dropped within fifty yards of the low hull
of the schooner, bounded just clear of her after-deck, knocked off the
head and shoulder of a man at the tiller, and then went skipping away
over the water like a black foot-ball. Another messenger cut off the
schooner's delicate fore-top-mast as clean as a bit of glass, bringing
down the gaff-top-sail, and, what was equally pleasant, the fellow who
was setting it--pitching him over and over like a wheel, until he fell,
a bruised and lifeless lump of jelly, on the oak bitts at the fore-mast.
Before, however, they were treated to another of these metallic doses,
the pirates had got their craft in splendid trim; and with every stitch
of her canvas spread, and tugging and straining, she rushed on with the
heels of a race-horse, within three points of the wind. The "Scourge,"
too, was now close hauled, her yards braced as fine as needles, and
crowded with every inch of sail that would draw; while every ten minutes
or so she would let slip two or more guns from a division at the chase.
But the uncertain gloom of starlight, and the darkening effect of the
passing trade-clouds, made the little vessel a very difficult object to
see; and though one of the last balls struck her on the narrow deck,
passed through that and the waterways, and out to windward, spoiling two
of her timbers, and no end of planking, yet this was the last damage she
received. Her crew, also, had got as well as could be out of harm's
way--both the sound and wounded--and were lying quietly as possible deep
down in the vessel's run. When daylight broke the breeze began to
slacken, but she was by this time hull down from the corvette, a long
way beyond the reach of her long eighteens in the bow ports, and eating
her way to windward, with no chance of being taken.
[Illustration: THE NIGHT CHASE.]
"It's no use," said the captain of the corvette to his first lieutenant,
as they stood watching the receding chase. "We may as well give it up;
she has the heels of us in this light wind, and will soon be out of
sight. I think, however," continued the captain, with a smile, "that
he'll remember the 'Scourge' when he meets her again. This is the second
time we have chased that fellow; and this heat, by the way the splinters
flew, we must have peppered the skin off his back."
Shutting up the joints of the spy-glass which he held in his hand, he
took hold of the man-ropes of the poop ladder, and as he put his feet on
the steps, he said,
"You can go about, Mr. Cleveland, and run down to the brig."
CHAPTER VII.
THE MEETING AND MOURNING.
"Moan! moan, ye dying gales!
The saddest of your tales
Is not so sad as life!
Nor have you e'er began
A theme so wild as man,
Or with such sorrow rife.
"Then, when the gale is sighing,
And when the leaves are dying,
And when the song is o'er,
Oh! let us think of those
Whose lives are lost in woes--
Whose cup of grief runs o'er!"
The afternoon following the night when the foregoing events transpired,
the "Martha Blunt" sailed slowly along the sandy tongue of land which
separates Port Royal from Kingston, and dropped anchor in the harbor. As
the cable rumbled out with a grating sound through the hawse-hole, and
the crew aloft were furling the sails, a large, gayly-painted barge,
pulled by a dozen blacks shaded by a striped awning, shot swiftly
alongside. Jabbering were those darkies, and clapping their hands, and
shouting joyously. A rope was immediately thrown from the gangway of the
brig, and a tall, handsome man, with a broad Panama hat, loose white
jacket and trowsers, sprang with a bound up the side, and leaped on
deck.
Captain Blunt stood there to receive him. A broad white bandage was
passed around his head, and the tears trickled slowly down his bronzed
and honest cheeks. Just beyond him, under the shade of the awning, lay
Banou, stretched out at full length on a mattress; while Ben, the
helmsman, was kneeling beside him, fanning his hot and fevered face with
his tarpaulin. A yard or two beyond, on a broad plank resting on
trestles, lay the mate, Mr. Binks, cold and rigid in the grasp of death,
with the union jack folded modestly over his corpse. The black breathed
heavily and in pain; but when he caught sight of the gentleman as he
stepped on deck, a deathly blue pallor came over his countenance, and,
closing his eyes, the hot salt tears started in great drops from the
lids.
"My God! captain," said the gentleman, with a bewildering stare, "what's
all this? What has happened?"
The old skipper merely made a motion with his hand toward the cabin,
and, leaning painfully against the rail, wept like a child. The
gentleman's blood forsook his cheeks, and, with his knees knocking
together, he staggered like a drunken man toward the cabin door. A few
minutes later he emerged, bearing in his arms the sobbing, drooping form
of his wife. Starting from his close embrace for a moment as he bore her
to the gangway, she gave one shuddering, terrified, searching gaze over
the blue water to seaward, and then, with a wailing cry of agony, that
would have shaken the hardest heart, she fell sobbing again into her
husband's arms.
The voices and joyous shrieks of the negroes in the barge alongside
subsided into low moaning groans; four or five came up, and carefully
lowered Banou down; then all got into the boat, and she moved mournfully
away toward the shore.
CHAPTER VIII.
CAPTAIN BRAND AT HOME.
"From his brimstone bed at break of day,
A-walking the Devil is gone,
To visit his snug little farm the Earth,
And see how his stock goes on."
Upon a broad, flat, rocky ledge, near a small, landlocked narrow inlet
of one of the clustering Twelve League Keys on the south side of Cuba,
stood a red-tiled stone building, with a spacious veranda in front,
covered by plaited matting and canvas curtains triced up all around. The
back and one side of the building rested against a craggy eminence which
overlooked the sea on both sides of the island, and commanded a wide
sweep of reef and blue water beyond. A few clumps of cocoa-nut-trees and
dwarf palms, with bare gaunt stems and tufted tops, stood out here and
there along the rocky slopes, while lesser vegetation of cactus and
mangrove bushes were scattered thickly over the island, cropping out
with jagged edges of rock down to the sandy beaches of the sea-shore. A
deep narrow inlet of blue water lay pure and still near the base of the
rocky height, where, too, was a shelving curve of white sand, sprinkled
about by a few mat sheds, while on the other side the rocks arose to an
elevation of a hundred and fifty feet, forming a precipitous wall to the
water. The inlet here took a sharp turn, scooped out in a secluded
basin, and then narrowing to less than forty yards in width, it wound
and twisted for a good mile in a thin blue channel to the open sea. Half
that distance farther out was a roaring ledge of white breakers, where
the long swell came hammering on it, bursting up in the air in brightish
green masses, and then tumbling over the reef and bubbling smoothly on
toward the shore. On a level with the water no channel could be
discerned through the ledge; but, looking down from the heights around
the inlet, a narrow blue gateway was marked out, skirted on the surface
by frothy crests of dead foam, and near where flocks of cormorants and
gulls were riding placidly on the inner side of the ledge. The island
itself was about two miles broad and seven long; and about midway of its
width the inlet formed a forked strait, one branch finding its way to
the north, between a low succession of sandy hummocks, where the water
was too shallow to float a duck, and the other finding an outlet,
scarcely a biscuit-toss wide, between two bluff rocks. With the trade
wind this passage was safe and accessible; but on the change of the
moon, with a breeze and swell from the south, the sea came bowling in,
in boiling eddies and whirlpools, and it required a nerve of iron to
attempt an entrance. Just within this narrow mouth, on a flat beveled
ledge of rock but a few feet above the water, was a small battery of two
long eighteen-pounders, and two twenty-four pounder carronades mounted
on slides and trucks, with platforms laid on a bed of sand. Near by,
beneath a low shed of tiles and loose stones, were a pile of round shot,
nicely blacked, and some stands of grape and canister in canvas bags and
cases, together with a large copper magazine of cartridges. Seated a
little way off on a low stool was a dingy Spaniard with a telescope laid
across his knees, which every little while he would raise to his eye and
take a steady glance around the horizon to seaward. At other times he
would roll and light a paper cigar, murmuring some low ditty to himself
as he sent the smoke in volumes through his nose. A small brass bell
hung beside the shed near the battery, together with a telegraphic card,
which was connected by a wire strung on low posts, or hooked from rock
to rock to the stone building away up at the basin. To return, however,
to the building: the veranda rested on square rough masonry full twenty
feet from the ground, which was loopholed for musketry, and with but one
narrow slip of a doorway that fell like a portcullis, banded and
strapped with bars and studs of wrought iron. Within this stone
inclosure was a large and roomy vault, half filled with cases, barrels,
and packages, and at the upper angle was a narrow subterranean vaulted
passage, barred also by an iron-bound door, which led to a succession of
whitewashed chambers--dark, damp, and gloomy--and then on, in a
fissure-like pathway, to another equally strongly secured outlet on the
other side of the crag. Leading to the veranda was a tautly-stretched
rope ladder lashed to eye-bolts let into the natural rock below, and
hooked on to the edge of the floor above. This was the only approach to
the main floor of the building from the outside, though within were
heavy trap-doors like the hatches of a ship, which communicated to the
chambers beneath. The whole structure was of stone and tiles, roughly
built, but yet strong and durable, and capable of resisting any assault,
unaided by cannon, that could be brought against it. The floor was
divided into four rooms, the smallest used for a kitchen, the next for a
magazine of small arms, and the third a spacious bedchamber, which
opened into a large square apartment facing the veranda, and which
deserves more notice.
[Illustration: THE PIRATE DEN.]
The lofty ceiling came down with the slant, showing the bare red tiles
and heavy square beams which supported the roof. In one of the stoutest
of these beams was an eye-bolt and copper-strapped block, through which
was rove a long green silk rope, with one end secured by a cleat on the
wall, and the other dangling loose, and squirming, whenever a current of
air struck it, like a long, slim snake. Around the sides of the room,
which were paneled with cedar, stood four or five quaint ebony armoires,
and as many cabinets, clocks, and bookcases, with here and there a
woman's work-stand, some of them curiously inlaid with pearl and silver.
The walls were hung with a great number of pictures of all kinds of
vessels--generally, however, of the merchant description--under full
sail, with vivid light-houses in the distance, and combing breakers
under the lee; and all portraying gallant crews and buoyant freights,
which probably had never reached their destinations. Among this gallery
of marine display was a broad framing of the "Flags of All Nations;" and
codes of signals, too, in bright colors, hung beside them. Farther on,
in a pretty panel by itself, surrounded by an edging of mother-o'-pearl,
was a triple row of female miniatures, a number of them of great beauty,
and many executed in excellent taste and art. In one corner was a large
chart-stand, covered with rolls of maps and nautical instruments, while
above were suspended, by white rope grummets, a pyramidal line of
spy-glasses and telescopes of all sizes and make. Near the centre of the
apartment stood a large round dining-table, on which was laid things for
a breakfast, a box of cigars, and a small silver pan of live coals.
There were but two windows to this room, both hung with striped muslin
curtains, the casements going to the floor, and looking out upon the
veranda; and but two doors, one leading to the kitchen, and the other to
the sleeping-chamber on the opposite side.
Presently this last door opened, and, pushing aside a blue gauze curtain
which hung before it, an individual of about eight-and-twenty years of
age stepped languidly into the room. He was a tallish man, over six feet
in stature, rather spare in build, but with great breadth of shoulders,
and though pale, apparently from long illness, yet he was evidently very
active and muscular when his nerves were called into action. Had it not
been for a downward choleric curve to his large nose, and a little
parting at the corners of his wide mouth and compressed lips, the face
might have been thought handsome. The eyes were light blue, set close
together, but hard and stony, with no ray of mercy or humanity in them.
He wore no beard, and his light brown hair was thin and dry, and
carefully parted at the side. He was dressed in a snow-white pair of
loose drilling trowsers, cut sailor fashion, straw slippers, and silk
stockings; and above he wore a brown linen jacket with large pearl
buttons, and pockets. As he entered the room he held a delicate cambric
handkerchief, with a fine lace border, in his hands, which he seemed to
regard with curious interest as he lounged toward the windows of the
veranda.
"I wish I could remember," he muttered musingly to himself, "which of
those sisters this bit of cambric belonged to, marked with an E.--Ellen
or Eliza--hum! They _would_ die--silly things!--tried to stab me! Ho!
what fun! Never left me even a miniature, either, for my collection.
'_Bueno!_' There's more fish in the sea--and under it too!" he
concluded, with an unpleasant elevation of his eyebrows.
By this time he had approached the open window, and, shoving the
delicate fabric daintily in his pocket, he gave a slight yawn and looked
out. Before him lay the deep blue basin of the inlet, with a couple of
boats hauled up on the shore; a few idle sailors moving about, or
squatted beneath the sheds playing cards or sewing. Without letting his
eye rest more than a moment on this scene, he turned and gave a long,
earnest gaze between an opening of the rocks to seaward. Then, with an
angry frown, he approached the table, poured out a cup of black coffee,
threw rather than dropped in a lump of sugar, and sat himself down for
his morning's meal. He had scarcely, however, gulped down his cup of
coffee and choked after it a slice of toast, than he pushed away the
breakfast things, snapped his teeth together like a steel clasp, biting
a tooth-pick in twain by the effort; and then, tossing the pieces away,
he dashed his hand into the cigar-box, extracted one, touched it to the
pan of coals, and began to smoke savagely. At first the grateful smoke
appeared to soothe his chafed spirit, for he threw himself lazily into a
large cane-bottomed settee, and, stretching out his legs, seemed to
enjoy the tranquil scene around him with uninterrupted pleasure. But
soon a scowl darkened his face; he dropped his cigar on the floor, and
springing to his feet as if touched by a galvanic battery, he snatched
down a telescope from the wall, steadied it at the window-sash, and
peered again long and anxiously to windward. He saw nothing, however,
save the long, glassy, unbroken undulations of a calm tropical sea,
rolling away off beyond the ledge under a burning sun; no sign of a
breeze--not even a cat's-paw; and only now and then the leap of a
deep-sea fish sparkling for a moment in the air, and some sluggish gulls
and pelicans sailing and diving about the reef for their prey. Shutting
up the glass with a crash that made the joints ring, he strode to the
settee, where hung several knotted bell-ropes, and, seizing one, gave it
a sharp jerk. Then putting his ear to an aperture in the wall, where was
a hollow cane tube like the mouth of a speaking-trumpet, he listened
attentively till a hoarse whisper uttered the word,
"_Señor._"
Putting his mouth to the tube, he said,
"Can you make out the 'Centipede' from the crag station?"
"Not sure, sir, this morning; but last evening, at sunset, I saw a sail
which I took to be her. The sea-breeze is just beginning to make, and if
she's to windward of Punta Arenas she'll soon heave in sight."
This colloquy was held in Spanish; and when the signal-man had ceased
speaking, the interlocutor lit another cigar mechanically, kicked a
foot-stool out of his way like a foot-ball, and thus communed with
himself as he rapidly paced between the table and the veranda:
"Fourteen weeks ago yesterday since the schooner was off Matanzas; not a
word of news to cheer me through all that cursed fever; the spring trade
done, and the track deserted by this time!"
Then pausing in his walk, he stopped at the chart-stand, and unrolling a
map, he went on:
"Where, in the devil's name, could she possibly have gone to? She might
have been to Cape Horn and back before this. Miserable fool that I was
to trust the craft with that thirsty, thick-headed Gibbs! _Diavolo!_ he
may have been captured, and if he has, I hope his neck has been
stretched like a shred of jerked beef."
Even while he was talking a bell struck near the settee, and, putting
his ear again to the tube, the hoarse voice said,
"I can make her out now, _señor_. She's just caught the strong young
breeze, and is, hull up, coming along with the bonnet off her fore-sail
and a reef in her main-sail! There's a felucca to windward of her, which
I take to be the 'Panchita!'"
"Ah ha!" laughed the individual in the room. "The 'Centipede' is safe,
then; and I am to have the pleasure, too, of a visit from the Tuerto,
the mercenary old owl, with his account of sales and his greed. But let
me once catch him foul, and, my one-eyed friend, I'll treat you to such
a dance that you won't need shoes!"
Here he glanced with a meaning look at the silk rope swaying from the
beam above his head, and the laugh of satisfaction which followed was
not one a timid man would care to hear in a dark night; nor did it come
from his heart, as any one might have discovered from the ferocious
gleam of inward passion which shot out in the cold sparkle of his eyes
and flitted away over his grating teeth.
Controlling his feelings, however, and stepping out on the veranda, he
drew aside the curtains and sung out to the men in the huts, "One of you
fellows, tell the boatswain I want him."
The men started up, and a moment after a man in a blue jacket stood out
from one of the sheds and threw up his hand to his straw hat.
[Illustration: THE "PANCHITA"]
"Get together the people! Let run the cable at the Alligator's mouth,
and have three or four warps ready for the schooner when she passes the
point! The 'Panchita' is coming too, so look out, and have enough lines
to tow both vessels in case the breeze fails. Tell Mr. Gibbs to moor
close under the other shore in the old berth, and to come to me when
he's anchored! D'ye hear?"
All this was said in a sharp tone of command, and by the alacrity with
which the orders were executed the men seemed to be accustomed to a
master who knew how to rule them.
CHAPTER IX.
CAPTAIN AND MATE.
"So I hauled him off to the gallows' foot,
And blinded him in his bags;
'Twas a weary job to heave him up,
For a doomed man always lags;
But by ten of the clock he was off his legs
In the wind, and airing his rags!"
A couple of hours had passed since the occupant of the stone building
had last spoken to his subordinates down at the inlet, but the
interval he devoted to a minute inspection of weapons in the armory
adjoining his bedroom. They were all in excellent order, of the best
make, and very neatly arranged in stands and cases around the room.
When he emerged again, after locking the door, he held an exquisite
pair of small pistols inlaid with gold in his hand, which he gently
polished with his cambric handkerchief, and then slipped them into
his trowsers pockets. Then he held short dialogues with the voice at
the signal-station, and, without looking out of the window, he
informed himself of what was doing outside, and what progress the
vessels made toward their haven. When, however, the schooner poked her
slim, low black bows, with her sails down, around the point, he gave one
stealthy peep, or glare rather, at her. He took all in at that glance,
from the patches of sheet-lead nailed over the shot-holes in her side,
to the sawed-off stump of the fore-top-mast; and then he remarked the
absence of the boat which was carried amidships, and the few men moving
about her deck. Ay! he took it all in with that one comprehensive
glance, and when he had done, he raised his fore finger quivering
with anger, and slowly and unconsciously passed it with an ominous
gesture across his throat.
Soon was heard a sullen plunge as an anchor was let go, and the
splashing of the warps upon the water as the stern of the "Centipede"
was being moored to the rocks, to make room for her companion the
felucca, now shortly expected.
"Mr. Gibbs is coming on shore, _señor_, and he seems to have a wooden
leg," came through the tube. "The doctor is coming with him, and there
is a little boy in the boat."
"Ho!" muttered the man in the saloon, "where was that brat picked up?"
Nothing more was said. The tall man lit a cigar, threw himself into an
easy attitude on the settee, opened a richly-bound volume, and waited.
Ten minutes may have gone by when the trampling of feet was heard on the
smooth rocks outside the building, and the voice of Mr. Gibbs
exclaimed,
"Easy, will ye? Doctor! Don't ye see it tears the narves out of me to
hobble with this broomstick-handle of a leg! There! Stop a bit! How in
thunder am I to climb this ladder? Oh!" Here a low howl of pain.
"Another shove. Easy, old Sawbones! So--give us another push, will ye?
All right! There, that'll do."
The next minute Mr. Bill Gibbs stood on the broad piazza, and, with the
assistance of a crutch, he hobbled to the entrance of the apartment, and
only pausing to recover his wind and compose his features, he pulled off
his straw hat and entered.
"So ho! Mr. Gibbs," said the man on the settee, as the burly, lame
ruffian darkened the entrance, laying the book down as he spoke, and
waving his delicate handkerchief before him.
"So ho! Mr. Gibbs, you've come back at last! Delighted to see you. I am,
'pon my soul. Ah! one of those stout pins gone? Why, how's this? Some
little accident? Santa Cruz rum and a tumble down the hatchway, perhaps,
eh? D'ye smoke? Take a cheroot. Put that bag on the table."
All this was said in a gay, gibing tone, with an indifference and _sang
froid_ that a tight-rope dancer might have been proud of; and as he
ended, he threw a handful of cigars across the table, and pushed the pan
of coals toward his visitor. Before, however, Gibbs had time to utter a
word in reply, his companion, while lolling over the settee, caught up
an opera-glass from the table, and, placing it to his eyes, went on:
"Ha! ho! the fore-top-mast of my pretty long-legged schooner is gone.
Pretty stick it was! I suppose, Master Gibbs, that _you_"--he nodded
fiercely without removing the glass--"cut it up for that lovely new leg
you've mounted. Ay, my beauty!" again apostrophizing the vessel, which
lay like a wounded bird in the calm inlet before him; "but where's my
handsome barge, that used to cover the long gun? Ho! stormy weather
you've seen of late."
During all this one-sided conversation Gibbs had managed to wriggle his
mutilated body on to a wicker chair, where he steadied himself with his
crutch, evincing manifest signs of choler the while by running his fat
fingers through the reddish door-mat of hair, hitching up his trowsers,
and rapping nervously his timber stump of a leg on the floor, until at
last, unable, apparently, longer to control himself, he burst out, with
his bad face suffused with passion,
"I say, Captain Brand, it's time to end them 'ere gibes. What's took
place is unfortinate; but, howsoever, I has a bag of shiners and a
wooden leg to show for it, and d----n the odds."
"Stop, stop, my bull-dog! Don't be profane in my presence, if you
please. We are both Christians, you know, and friends too, I hope."
This was said in a very precise, emphatic, and clear enunciation, and
without apparent heat; and Captain Brand smiled too--but such a smile,
as his wide mouth came down with a twitch at the corners, and left a
sort of hole, where the cigar was habitually stuck, to see his teeth
through.
"And now, my friend, suppose you give me some little account of your
cruise, and fill up, if you can, any chinks that I haven't seen through
already," he concluded, throwing his legs again over the back of the
settee, and elevating his eyebrows as the cigar smoke curled in spiral
wreaths around his face.
Mr. Gibbs hereupon settled himself more at ease in his chair, laid his
crutch across his knees, and began:
"I s'pose, sir, you got the news I sent in a letter from Matanzas, after
we'd been chased out of the Nicholas Channel by that Yankee corvette?"
Captain Brand nodded at the eye-bolt which held the green silk rope from
the ceiling, as if calculating mentally the strain it would bear, merely
as a matter of philosophical speculation, perhaps.
"Well, arter that--and a very tight race it was--we ran down to the
Behamey Banks. There we picked up a Yankee schooner loaded with shingles
and lumber; and as the skipper was sarsy, I just made him and his crew
walk one of his own planks, and then bored a couple of holes through his
vessel, arter taking out some water which we stood in need of. You
hasn't a drop of summut to drink, has you, Captain Brand? becase it
makes my jaw-tackle dry to talk much."
The captain merely motioned with a wave of his cambric handkerchief
to an open liquor-case which stood on a cabinet near, and to which
Mr. Gibbs hobbled; when, seizing a square flask of crystal incased in
a network of frosted silver, he returned with it to the table. Had
Mr. Gibbs chosen he might have brought with the flask a small,
thimble-shaped liqueur glass; but he did not, and contented himself
with a china coffee-cup which stood on the tray before him. He seemed a
little near-sighted too; and as he inverted the flask, gave no heed to
the quantity of fluid he poured into the cup. But he took care, however,
that it did not run over; and then, raising it with a trembling hand
to his lips, he said, "My sarvice to you, Captain Brand," and tossed it
down his capacious throat. The captain gave no response to this
compliment, but as Mr. Gibbs put down the coffee-cup he said blandly,
"Thank you; but suppose you put that flask back in the case. I am
rather choice with that brandy; it was a--given to me by a--person who
was a--unfortunately hanged, and a--I rarely offer it a--the second
time."
Puffing his cigar as he spoke in an easy manner, he then turned round to
listen to Mr. Gibbs's narrative. Becoming more genial as the brandy
loosened his tongue, Mr. Gibbs continued:
"Well, sir, from the Behameys we ran to leeward, nearly to the Spanish
Main, in hopes, perhaps, of finding some stray fellow as was bound to
Europe; but we see nothing for days and days, and weeks and weeks, till
finally the water fell short again, and we beats up and runs into Santa
Cruz. There, as luck would have it, Eboe Pete and French Tom got into a
bit of a scrimmage up on a gentleman's plantation arter sunset, and was
werry roughly handled by a patrol of sogers as happened to be near. I
believe as how Eboe Pete died that night; and I heerd, too, that French
Tom had his skull cracked; and what does he go for to do but make a
confession to the authorities that the 'Centipede' was a pirate!
"Well, captain, the moment that information reached me, and seein'
a sogers' boat gettin' ready, and the sogers running about the
water-battery of the fort, than I just slips the cable, and runs
out to sea like a bird; and, Lord love ye, sir! the way they pitched
round shot arter us was--was--" Here Master Gibbs paused for a
simile, and the captain observed with a hacking, cough-like laugh,
"You saved the water-casks, though?"
"Why no, sir; and we was forced to go upon a 'lowance of a pint a water
a man!"
"Ho!" rejoined the listener. "Capital! Didn't suffer, I hope? Go on."
"Howsomever, I says to myself, the captain wants a good valy'ble cargo,
and so we beats up again and stretches away back along the coast of
Jamaiky, on the look-out for any think that might be comin' that 'ere
way. Well, sir, d'ye see, airly one morning, as we was a lying as close
as wax under the land, we spies a big brig becalmed off to seaward; but
we diskivered at the same time that same Yankee cruiser as was in chase
of us off Matanzas. I know'd as how you would be displeased at any risks
being run, so we keeps clean and snug inshore, under a pint o' land,
till set of sun, and until arter the moon went down. Then the breeze
sprung up fresh from the old trade quarter, and says I, now we'll make a
dash at that 'ere drogher, and squeeze him as dry as bone-dust; more
pertikerly, ye see, captain, since the corvette, arter dodgin' about him
all day, had yawed off, and, with his port-tacks aboard, was beatin' to
wind'ard."
Here Mr. Gibbs's auditor took the cigar from his mouth and rolled his
light blue eyes at him, puffed a thick volume of smoke through the
corner of his mouth, but said never a syllable.
The narrator gave a wistful look at the brandy-flask, drained the last
few drops from the coffee-cup, pushed out his timber leg, and resumed:
"So you see, sir, as I was a sayin', I says to myself, I'll get the boat
in the water with the lads, and, to make sure of all being conducted
shipshape, I'll go myself."
"Oh!" said the captain, as his eyebrows went up and the corners of his
mouth came down, with the faintest breath of a sardonic smile, while he
lit a fresh cigar, "oh! you did!"
"Ay, sir! So we let the old drogher go bouncing on past us, at about the
rate of five mile in four hours, when we crossed his wake under the jib,
and then we ups with the fore and main-sail, got a pull of the sheets,
and--"
Captain Brand shook the point of his curved nose at the speaker, who
checked himself, and, giving an emphatic rap with his crutch on the
floor, went on with--
"Beg parding, sir; but, Lord love ye! we just walked up under his lee,
and afore he know'd where he wos, we boarded him, knocked over two or
three chaps, and had the skipper lashed down in his cabin as quick as
winkin' and as quiet as could be. Ay, sir, we had it all our own way;
but during the scrimmage wot should I see (here he inclined his head out
like a loggerhead turtle) but the lovelyest young 'oman as ever I
clapped eyes on!" Here his timber stump grated nervously on the floor.
"Says I, that's just the craft, with such a clean run and full bows, as
would please Captain Brand"--at which that individual rolled round on
his elbow and brought his eye to the opera-glass in the direction of the
schooner.
"She isn't there, captain!" parenthesized the narrator, following the
motion with his head. "So I just fisted hold of her to hand her tenderly
into the boat, with a bag of shiners as wos found on board, when, so
help me---- --beg parding, sir--if a dwarfed giant of a nigger didn't
take an overhand lick at me with an iron pump-break, and nearly cut this
'ere larboard pin in two pieces; and, smash my brains!" he continued,
shaking his broad paw aloft with rage, "but what does I do, with all the
pain from the clip that da--(beg parding, sir) give me, I slams away
with a pistol bullet through the nigger's head--"
"Didn't I see a little boy on board the 'Centipede?' Perhaps I was
mistaken, the sun blazes so fiercely, eh?" broke in Captain Brand,
though the sun didn't blaze with a fiercer light than shot out of his
deadly cold blue eyes.
"Ho, ay, sir! that young imp was a bitin' at my t'other leg like a bull
terrier pup, while the nigger was attackin' me, and then he goes and
crawls out of the cabin winders, and was fished out of the water by the
chaps as wos towin' astarn in the boat."
"Oh, really! how very fortunate!" muttered the captain; "go on; don't
stop, I pray you, Master Gibbs."
"Well, sir, I knows very little what happened arter this, for the young
'oman was a screamin' and our chaps a cursin' about the decks, when all
of a sudden I fell off into a faint like, and the same time a heavy gun
came slamming into our very ears; and there was that infarnal corvette
agen bowlin' down within five cables' length of the brig, her battery
all alight and the whistles a callin' away the boats, in as violent a
haste as any think I can remember," said Gibbs, as he paused to catch
his breath.
"You must have kept a sharp look-out, though?" But, without heeding this
remark, the burly scoundrel went on--
"Well, Captain Brand, the boys tumbled me over the side--"
"Not forgetting the little bag of shiners!" sneered his auditor.
"Tumbled me into the boat, sir, and then pulled like mad for the
schooner. I know'd, d'ye mind, captain, or leastways I felt sartain we
could show any think afloat our heels, and so away we scrambles aboard,
and off we splits. But ye must see by this time, sir, the corvette had
come down and rounded to on the weather beam of the drogher, acting like
a screen for the schooner close under his lee. It wos only a minnit,
though, while he was holding some jaw with those lubbers aboard the
brig, before he filled away again, and wearing sharp round her bows, he
diskivered us sartain. I don't think, as matters stood by this time,
that our boat was a boat-hook's length from the schooner when I jist see
a burst of red flashes from the man-o'-war's starboard ports, and heerd
an officer roar out, 'Give him the whole three divisions of grape!' when
I'm da--your parding agin, sir; I'm blest if ever I heerd sich a rain of
cold iron in all my sea-goin' experience. Ay, sir, by G--gracious, sir,
if about two bushels of them grape didn't riddle the barge like the
nozzle to a watering-pot, and same time tore seven of our noble fellows
all to rags--"
"You saved the boat, of course?" suggested his companion, in a kind
voice, but with a frightful sneer.
"Why, captain, we unfortinately lost her; for ye see, arter tumbling me
aboard the schooner, and arter bailing nigh as much blood as water--"
"Capital! excellent! best joke I ever heard," broke in Captain Brand,
with a hollow laugh of much enjoyment.
"Arter bailin' as much blood as water, and finding the man-o'-war was
heaving in stays to slam another broadside into us, we cut the boat
adrift, and then got the sheets flat aft, the gaff-top-sails up, and
away we drove with a crackin' breeze right up to wind'ard, like a
swordfish. Lord love ye, sir! we walked away from the cruiser, a eatin'
the wind out of him like a knife, and notwithstandin' he hove more nor
forty round shot at us, he only knocked away the fore-top-mast and some
other triflin' little damage about the hull, and"--he hesitated--"Lascar
Joe's head."
"That counts off about half your crew, eh?" said Captain Brand, smiling
in his peculiar manner. "Well, what next?"
"Why, sir, the next mornin' Belize Paul--as is part doctor, you
know--said as how my leg was to come off below the knee, and arter
givin' me a sip or two o' rum--"
"Bottle," interjected the captain, twisting the beak of his nose in a
puff of smoke.
"--Rum, why, smash my brains, sir, if he didn't hack it off with a
wood-saw!"
"Well, what next?"
"Then, sir, ye see, we run the schooner down Cape Cruz, where we kept
werry snug and quiet till sich times as the old one-eyed Diego judged
the coast clear to return to head-quarters."
"Well, what then?"
"That's all, Captain Brand!" concluded the narrator his garbled yarn, as
he again had recourse to scratching the door-mat on his head, and cast a
thirsty look at the brandy-flask.
"That's all, is it?" hissed the man with the iron jaws, in a tone of
concentrated passion, as he sprang with a single bound from the settee,
and clutched Master Gibbs with both hands around his hairy throat until
his face turned livid purple and his eyes started from the sockets.
"That's all, is it, you drunken beast? That's all you have to tell after
idling away the summer, losing anchors and boats, and more than half my
crew, and bringing a hornet's nest down about our ears! That's all, is
it? And what would you say, now, if I should order the doctor to cut off
your other leg close behind your ears, you beast?"
In the last stages of suffocation, the man was hurled on his back to the
floor, and there lay, bleeding a torrent from his mouth and nose. His
superior stood over him for a moment and put his hand in his trowsers
pocket for a pistol, and then he glanced rapidly at the green rope
squirming from the beams above; but, changing his purpose apparently, he
strode back to the settee and shouted "Babette!"
Presently the door opened from the passage leading to the kitchen, and
there appeared a large, powerfully-made negro-woman, with her arms
akimbo, and a pair of bloodshot eyes gleaming from beneath a striped
Madras turban wound round her head.
"Babette!" repeated the captain, resuming his seat and his habitual
polite air and voice, "serve out a barrel of Bordeaux and a beaker of
old Antigua rum to the 'Centipede's' crew to drink my health; and I say,
my beauty! have a pig or two killed; tell the boatswain to haul the
seine, and have a good supper for all hands to-night. And, Baba"--he
went on as if he had just thought of something--"there's my friend Gibbs
lying there--I believe he has fallen down in a fit--be very careful of
him--a bed in the vault--a little biscuit and water--he may be feverish
when he wakes up, you know. And, Babette, old girl, if you are in want
of kindling wood, you may as well use that timber leg of our friend
Gibbs! I don't think he'll want it again. There! _doucement_, Baba!"
The negress gave a deep grunt of assent, and, seizing the senseless body
lying on the floor, she dragged it out of the room. Returning a few
moments after, she wiped up the blood with a cloth dipped in hot water,
and finally disappeared.
CHAPTER X.
AN OLD SPANIARD WITH ONE EYE.
"I fear thee, Ancient Mariner!
I fear thy skinny hand!
For thou art long, and lank, and brown,
As is the ribbed sea-sand."
"The 'Panchita' has passed Mangrove Point," came in the hoarse whisper
from the signal-man. "You can see her now from below, sir."
Captain Brand put on a fine Panama hat, and stepped out on the veranda,
where, with a cigar in his mouth, he leaned over the balustrade, and
kept sharp watch on every thing that was going on below him. In a few
minutes a long pointed brown bowsprit protruded itself beyond the wall
of rocks, followed by a great triangular lateen sail, bent to a yard a
mile long, and tapering away like a fly-fishing-rod, where, at the end,
was a short bit of yellow and red pennant. As her bows came into view
they showed above a curved prow falling inboard, with a huge bunch of
sheepskin for a chafing-mat on the knob, and a thin red streak along the
wales, on a lead-colored ground, above her bottom, which was painted
green. As more of her proportions came into the picture, you saw a stout
stump of a mast, raking forward, with short black ropes of purchases for
hoisting the single yard, and heavy square blocks close down to the foot
of the mast. When this great sail had come out from the screen of rocks,
another light stick of a mast stood up over the taffrail, with another
lateen sail and whip-stalk of a yard, to which was bent the Spanish
Colonial Guarda Costa flag. In fact, she was a Spanish felucca all over,
from stem to stern, and truck to water-line. A few dingy hammocks were
stowed about halfway along her rail, and there were a good many men
moving about her decks in getting the cable clear, and a lot more
clinging like so many lizards along the bending yard, and all in some
attempt at uniform dress, in readiness to roll up the sail when the
anchor was down. There was a long brass gun, too, burnished like gold,
on a pivot slide, with all its equipment, trained muzzle forward in
front of the main-mast. No sooner had she sagged into the open basin,
with her immense sail hanging flat and heavy in the light air, than a
boat from the schooner boarded her, and presently she let go an anchor.
There were a few coarse compliments and greetings exchanged between the
crews of the two vessels, and some rough jokes made, as the last comer
veered out the cable, rolled up his sails, and set taut his running gear
in quite a tidy and man-of-war style.
"Go on board the felucca, José, and give my compliments to Don Ignaçio,
and say I shall be happy to see him," cried Captain Brand from the
piazza to a man at the cove; "and tell him," continued he, "that I
should have called in person, but I can't bear the hot sun since I
caught the fever. Take my gig."
This was said in Spanish, and when he had finished speaking he shaded
his face behind the curtain and scowled.
"You're a bird of ill omen, my one-eyed friend; but one of these days
I'll wipe out old scores, and new ones too, perhaps," Captain Brand
muttered to himself; and, from his murderous expression of face, he
seemed just the man to carry out his threat. Meanwhile, a light
whale-boat of a gig, manned by four men and a coxswain, pushed off from
the shore, and in three strokes of the oars she was alongside the
felucca. The coxswain stepped over the low rail, and, walking aft,
turned down a cuddy of a cabin, took off his hat, and delivered his
message. A minute later he again got into the boat, and pulled to the
cove, where he said to the captain,
"Don Ignaçio says he'll come in his own boat when he's ready."
"_Bueno!_" was responded aloud; and then to himself: "Don't ask or
receive favors, eh? What an old file the brute is!"
He said no more, but watched. Presently a small man came up out of the
cabin of the "Panchita," but so very slow, and with such a quiet motion
did he emerge, that one might suppose it was a wary animal rather than a
human being. He was scrupulously neat in attire--a brown pair of linen
trowsers, a Marseilles vest with silver filigree buttons, an embroidered
shirt-bosom with gold studs, and a dark navy-blue broadcloth coat, with
standing collar and anchor gilt buttons. His head-gear was simply a
white chip hat, with a very narrow brim and a fluttering red ribbon; but
beneath it his coal-black hair behind was chopped as close as could be,
leaving a single long and well-oiled ringlet on each side, which curled
like snakes around a pair of large gold rings pendent from his ears. His
complexion was dark, bilious, and swarthy, with a thin, sharp nose, and
a million of minute wrinkles, all meeting above, at the corners, and
under a small line of a mouth; quite like rays, in fact, and only
relaxed when the lips parted to show a few ragged, rotten pegs of sharp
teeth. But perhaps the most noticeable feature in his face was his
eye--for he had but one--and the spot where the other is seen in the
species was merely a red, closed patch of tightly-drawn skin, with a few
hairs sticking out like iron tacks. His single eye, however, was a jet
black, round, piercing organ, which seemed to do duty for half a dozen
ordinary glims, and danced with a sharp, malevolent scrutiny, as if the
owner was always in search of something and never found it, and every
body and every thing appeared to slink out of its light wherever it
glanced around. His age might have been any where from forty to sixty.
As he stepped on deck, clear of the cuddy cabin hatch, his sinister
optic played about in its socket--now scanning the long brass gun, the
half-furled sails, the crew, the ropes, or taking a steady, unwinking
glance at the midday sun, and then shining off to the shore, and
sweeping in the "Centipede," the little pool of blue water, and the
mouth of the inlet. Feeling apparently satisfied with the present aspect
of affairs, he slowly pulled out a machero from his waistcoat pocket,
plucked a cigarette from the case, and then proceeded deliberately to
strike a light. Even while performing this simple operation, his uneasy
orb, like unto a black bull's-eye, traversed about in its habitual way;
and when he raised the spark of fire with his brown, thin hand, and the
claws of fingers loaded with rings, he seemed to be looking into his own
mouth. Nodding to a fellow who stood near, with a crimson sash around
his waist, he inclined his eye toward the shore, blew out a thin wreath
of smoke from his lungs--all the while his vigilant organ shining like a
burning spark of lambent jet through the smoke--and merely said,
"The boat!"
In a moment a small cockle-shell of a punt was lowered from the stern of
the felucca, when, stepping carefully in, he seized a scull, and with a
few vigorous twists pushed her to the landing at the cove.
During all these movements of the commander of the felucca Captain Brand
was by no means an inattentive observer; and, indeed, he was so
extremely critical that he stuck the tube of a powerful telescope
through an aperture of the curtains around him, and not only looked at
his cautious visitor, but he actually watched the expression of his
uneasy eye, and almost counted every wrinkle--finely engraved as they
were--on his swarthy visage; but, if Captain Brand's own visage
reflected an index of his mind, he did not seem over and above pleased
with what he saw.
"Has a bundle of papers under his arm! I can see the hilt of that
delicate blade, too, sticking out from his wristband. Ah! I've seen him
throw that short blade from his coat-sleeve and strike a dollar at
twenty yards! Wonderful skill with knives you have, Don Ignaçio; but you
never yet tried your knack with _me_! Oh no, my Tuerto--bird of ill omen
that you are! We can't do without one another just yet, so let us wait
and see what's in the wind!"
Soliloquizing these remarks, Captain Brand withdrew his telescope as the
commander of the felucca approached, and, with a cheerful smile, waited
to receive him. A few moments later the one-eyed individual mounted the
rope-ladder stairway, carefully feeling the strands, however, and
looking suspiciously around him as he stepped lightly on the piazza.
"_Ah! compadre mio!_" exclaimed Captain Brand, in Spanish, as he seized
his visitor by the flipper, and squeezed his fingers till the pressure
on his valuable rings made him wince, as he was led into the large and
spacious saloon, while at the same time the captain gave him a hearty
slap between his narrow shoulders.
"_Ah! compadre!_ How goes the friend of my soul?"
The small man gave no symptoms of joy at this warm greeting; but,
screwing his wiry frame out of the captain's caresses, his eye flashed
like a spark of fire quickly up and down and all around the apartment,
as if making a mental inventory of the furniture, and not omitting his
tall companion, from the crown of his head to the toes of his straw
slippers, when he quietly remarked through his closed teeth,
"_Como estamos?_"--"How are we?"
"Ah, Don Ignaçio, _poco bueno, poco malo_! Half and half. Just getting
well over that maldito attack of Yellow Jack."
"Hum! more bad than good. No? I've brought you some letters from the
agent at Havana."
"Thanks--thanks, my friend. Ho! Babette! Babette! Some anisette for Don
Ignaçio. _Presto!_ my good Baba. There--that will do!" he said, merrily,
as the liqueur and glasses were placed on the table. "And don't omit the
turtle-soup for dinner, and tell Lascar Joe to make it. Ah! I
forget--the best cook I had--the devil's making soup of him now.
However, do the best you can, my Baba, and let us have dinner about
sunset."
Then turning to his visitor, with a graceful bow and a laugh, he added,
"And we'll have the doctor to join us, and tell how he cut off our poor
friend Gibbs's leg with a hand-saw. _Dios! amigo!_ Capital joke, 'pon my
honor!"
Captain Brand's honor! Lord have mercy upon us! And he had very few
jokes, and never told one himself.
"Hum!" replied the Tuerto, in the pause of the conversation. "There's
better jokes than that to hear. _Mira!_ look!"
With this brief rejoinder he threw a bundle of newspapers on the table,
and, pulling out a packet of letters from a breast pocket, pitched it
toward his host. Then helping himself to a thimbleful of anisette, he
took off his narrow-brimmed chip hat for the first time, polished up his
eye a bit with the knuckle of his fore finger, and looked at his
companion fixedly.
"Letters, I see, from our old friend Moreno, at Havana," said Captain
Brand, as he sat down on the settee, and with a pretty tortoise-shell
knife cut round the seals. "Ah! what says he? 'Happy to inform you,' is
he? 'Packages of French silks seized by custom-house on account of
informal invoice and clearance.' Why didn't the fool forge others, then?
Well, what next? 'Schooner "Reel," from Barbadoes, with cargo of rum and
jerked beef, wrecked going into Principe, and crew thrown into prison on
suspicion of being engaged in--' Oh! ah! served them right, when I
ordered them to St. Jago--delighted they must be! 'Bills for advances
and stores now due, please remit, per hands of Don Ignaçio Sanchez--'"
Here Captain Brand caught a ray from the one eye of his companion, which
he returned with interest; and then laying the letters down on the table
with the softest motion in life, he exclaimed, with a sigh,
"Not the best news in the world, as you say, _compadre_; all those rich
goods, and those bags of coffee, and pipes of rum gone to the devil. But
these are little accidents in our profession."
"_Como?_" said Señor Ignaçio, "_our_ profession?" shaking his fore
finger before his paper cigar in a deprecating manner. "Speak for
yourself, _amigo_."
"Ah! true," the other went on--"my profession. The freedom of the seas,
the toll of the tropics, the right of search, and all that sort of
buccaneering pastime, is liable, you know, to the usual risks."
Here he inclined his head to one side and gave a slight clack to his
lips, as if to illustrate in a humorous way a man choking to death with
a knotted rope under his ear. "However, we must be more cautious in
future and retrieve the past disasters, for there are still on the sea
as good barks as ever floated."
Captain Brand said this as if he were a merchant of large means and
strict integrity, and was about to enter into some shrewd commercial
speculation.
"Hum!" murmured Señor Ignaçio, while pouring out another little glass of
anisette. "_Amigo mio!_ you had better read the papers from Havana
before you talk of another cruise."
"Oh! delighted to read the news--quite refreshing to get a peep at the
world after being cooped up here for months! Another French revolution!
Bonaparte alive yet! A Patriot war! Nelson and Villeneuve! All
interesting."
Thus glancing rapidly over the prints, pausing at times at a paragraph
that arrested his attention, then tossing a paper away and taking up
another, till suddenly Captain Brand's hand shook with passion as he
read aloud,
[Illustration: "HE TOUCHED THE BELL OVERHEAD AS HE SPOKE, AND, PUTTING
HIS MOUTH TO THE TUBE, ASKED, 'ANY THING IN SIGHT?'"]
"His Britannic majesty's squadron has been augmented on the West India
station. The brig 'Firefly,' corvettes 'Croaker' and 'Joker,' touched at
Nassau, New Providence, on the 2d instant, bound to leeward. We also
learn that the United States have fitted out a squadron of small
vessels, called the Musquito Fleet, to search for the noted pirate
Brand, who has so long committed atrocities among the islands. He was
last chased by the American corvette 'Scourge,' off Morant Bay, on the
east coast of Jamaica, but escaped during the night. The following day a
shattered boat was picked up, which had been cut adrift from the
piratical schooner, containing several dead and dying bodies of the
pirates. One of the latter gave such information to the captain of the
'Scourge' as leads to the hope that Brand's retreat may soon be
discovered and his nest of pirates be destroyed. Recent advices from
Principe state that a vessel loaded with valuable merchandise struck on
the Cavallo Reef and went down. The crew, however, five in number, were
rescued, but on landing were identified by the mate of the English bark
'Trident' as a portion of the men who robbed that vessel and murdered
the master and several of the passengers. Our readers may remember that
among the latter were two sisters, who leaped overboard and were
drowned, to save themselves the horror of a more cruel fate. The men
alluded to, who were wrecked in the brig off Principe, were sent in
chains to Havana, and were yesterday publicly garroted in the Plaza of
Moro Castle."
CHAPTER XI.
CONVERSATION IN POCKETS AND SLEEVES.
"He holds him with his skinny hand:
'There was a ship,' quoth he.
'Hold off! unhand me, graybeard loon!'
Eftsoons his hand dropp'd he."
Captain Brand laid down the paper without a sign of outward emotion, and
nodded his head several times at the one-eyed man facing him. He then
extracted his perfumed handkerchief, examined the cipher in the corner,
and waved it before his face. Don Ignaçio pulled out a red silk bandana,
and polished his eye as if it were the lens of a spy-glass. At length
the former spoke:
"_Amigo mio!_ The nets are spreading, but the fish are not in them
yet!"
"No, _amigo_!"
"Ah! _compadre, viento y ventura poca dura!_ the fair breezes have
chopped round in our teeth. Success, my friend, creates jealousy, envy,
hatred, and malice. Now here were we swimming along as quietly as sharks
under water, only coming up for a bite occasionally, when on come those
villainous swordfishes, and wish to drive us away."
Captain Brand gave expression to this pious homily in a tone of virtuous
reproach against the world at large, and as if he were a very much
maligned and ill-used gentleman. He touched the bell overhead as he
spoke, and, putting his mouth to the tube, asked,
"Any thing in sight?"
"Nothing, _señor_."
"Telegraph the man at the Tiger-trap station to keep a bright look-out,
and direct the gunner to keep the battery manned day and night! Tell the
boatswain to set taut the chain on the other side at the Alligator's
mouth!"
Don Ignaçio gave a rather suspicious glimmer at his vessel as this last
order was given, and smiled; that is, if a one-sided twitch to the
wrinkles about the line of his mouth could be tortured into a smile. His
companion seemed to divine what was passing in the Don's mind, for he
added politely,
"The cable won't interfere with the 'Panchita!'"
"No, _amigo_; the felucca is anchored just _out_side of it." The Tuerto
was not a man to leave any thing to chance, and he had taken the
precaution to be on the safe side of the pirates, either as friends or
enemies. He had indeed been as near an approach to a pirate himself as
could be, and had only abandoned the business for a profession quite as
bad, where there was less risk and more profit. In other words, he was
now a colonial officer in command of a Guarda Costa, winking--but
without shutting his eye--at piracy whenever he was well paid for it;
and he invariably was well paid for it, or else he made mischief.
Withal, he was as crafty and determined an old villain as ever sailed
the West Indies. He had amassed a large fortune, and owned several
tobacco estates--pretty much all his wealth acquired by the easy trouble
of holding his tongue. Yet his greed was insatiable, and he probably
would have sold the fingers from his hands, and his legs and arms with
them--all, save his single black ball of an optic, which was invaluable
to him--for doubloons. In fact, this feverish thirst after gold which
always raged in his hot veins had induced him to pay Captain Brand a
visit, and we shall see with what result. The truth is, however, that
Captain Brand was the only man of his numerous villainous acquaintance
afloat for whom he felt the least dread. He knew him to be bold,
skillful, and wary, and so the Don had a tolerably positive conviction
that, should he play him false, his own neck might get a wrench in the
garrote while he was throwing the noose for his coadjutor.
To return, however, to the pair of worthies sitting in conclave in the
pirate's saloon: the captain, resuming the conversation, observed in a
careless tone, quite as if the subject under discussion was a mere
ordinary matter,
"When will this swarm of hornets be down upon us?"
The Spaniard blew a thick puff of smoke from his cigarette, and still
holding it between his teeth, while his eye glittered through the murky
cloud, he replied,
"Perhaps a fortnight, a little more or less. I left St. Jago five days
ago, with orders from the Administrador to run down this side of the
island, and procure information for the English consul."
"Any cruisers down that way?"
"Ay! the corvette 'Scourge,' and the 'Snapper' schooner; they arrived
the night before I sailed."
"Did you happen to see their officers, _amigo_?"
"_Oh si!_ I had a long talk with the captain of the corvette at the
custom-house."
"Holloa! and you told him--"
"Yes; I showed him a chart of the Isle of Pines, and pointed out how to
get into the old hole."
Here the pair laughed short laughs, when Brand continued his questions
with,
"And how did he take the bait?"
"Hooked him; for I heard him order his first lieutenant to be ready for
weighing at daylight, and say that my description tallied with that of
the dying man they picked up in the 'Centipede's' boat," replied the
Tuerto, with a chuckle.
"_Bueno!_" exclaimed the pirate, as his face assumed an unwonted
sternness, while he rested his cheek on his left hand with the elbow on
the table, and slipped his right into the pocket of his trowsers.
"_Bueno! amigo mio!_ But how do I know but you may have made a little
mistake, and described another haunt besides the Island of Pines, off in
this direction?"
There was the faintest click of a noise in the captain's pocket as he
spoke, but not so faint but that it vibrated on the ear of the Spaniard,
and, pushing back his chair a foot or two from the table, he raised his
right hand, the fore fingers and thumb slightly bent inward, but
grasping a jewel-hilted knife, whose dim blue blade glimmered up the
loose sleeve. There was nothing threatening apparently in the movement,
though the two villains looked at each other with a cold, murderous,
unflinching glare.
The Don was the first to break the silence; and he said, in a low,
hissing tone,
"_Maldito!_ Because I had a little account of plata to settle with you
before the men-o'-war should roast you out. But beware, _Capitano mio_!
I left a little paper at St. Jago with directions where to find me in
case I did not return in a certain time."
"Ho, _compadre_, how very cautious with your friends! Why, what has put
such thoughts into your head? _Diavolo!_ we have stood by one another
too long to separate now. There, my hand upon it."
Saying this, Captain Brand's whole manner changed, and, drawing his hand
from his pocket, he reached over toward his companion. The Don, however,
watched him narrowly, and his eye shot out a wary sparkle as he withdrew
his hand, when, cautiously putting forth his own left, he touched his
cold, thin brown fingers to those of the man before him. This operation
ended, he quietly sipped a few drops of anisette, and rolled and lighted
another paper cigar.
"Well, _amigo_, let us now proceed to business," said Brand, gayly, "for
dinner will soon be ready, and we have no time to lose. How stands the
account?"
"The papers are on board the felucca, and it will be more convenient,
when the settlement is made, to come on board with the money. How would
to-morrow morning do? There's no hurry."
"Just as you choose, friend of my soul! The doubloons, or the silk, or
broadcloth are ready for you at any moment. Pay you in any thing except
the delicious wines of France. _Bueno!_" he added, pulling out a
splendid gold repeater, with a marquis's coronet on the chased back.
"And now, _amigo_, accept this little token into the bargain."
Don Ignaçio's fiery eye twinkled with greed, but it was only for a
moment, when, giving a quick glance at the coronet and coat of arms, he
waved his fore finger gently to and fro, and shook his head.
"What! No? Why, you know it once belonged to the Captain General of
Cuba, old Tol de rol de riddle rol--what was his name? He gave it me,
you know, together with some other trinkets, for saving his life--a--you
remember? Very generous old gentleman--nobleman indeed--he was. May he
live a thousand years, or more, if he can!"
Ay, Don Ignaçio did remember the circumstance attending that generous
transaction, and he remembered to have heard, also, that the Captain
General made a present of all his money and jewels with the point of a
broad blade quivering at his throat. He said nothing, however, in
allusion to this interesting episode, but he smiled meaningly, and went
on with his cigar.
"Not take it, eh? Well, _amigo_, I must look you up something else;
but now for dinner. Babette, clear away for dinner. Here are the keys
of the wine-cellar. The best, my beauty, and plenty of it." Then
turning to his companion: "Suppose we take a stroll to the Tiger's Trap;
the sun is sinking, and a walk will give us an appetite for the
turtle-soup--_vamanos!_"
CHAPTER XII.
DOCTOR AND PRIEST.
"But soon I heard the dash of oars,
I heard the pilots' cheer;
My head was turned perforce away,
And I saw a boat appear.
"The pilot and the pilot's boy,
I heard them coming fast;
Dear Lord in heaven! it was a joy
The dead men could not blast."
While Captain Brand and Don Ignaçio Sanchez walked pleasantly along the
pebbly shore of the clear blue inlet to the Tiger's Trap, let us, too,
saunter amid the habitations which sheltered the pirate's haunt.
Apart from the mat sheds of the shelly cove of the basin, where the
"Centipede" and "Panchita" were anchored, there was a nest of red-tiled
buildings which served the crew of the former vessel for a dwelling when
in port. It was pleasantly situated on a little sandy plateau, within a
stone's-throw of the water, and shaded by a cluster of palm-trees; while
in the rear was a dense jungle of canes and bushes, through which led
numerous paths to a small lagoon beyond. The buildings were of one
story, constructed of loose stones, the holes plastered with yellow
clay, with broad, projecting eaves extending over roughly-built piazzas.
They stood in a double row, leaving a stone pavement yard between, where
one or two cocoa-nut-trees lifted their slim trunks like sentinels on
guard. Two of the largest of these huts were mere shells inside, and
used for mess-rooms, exposing the unhewn girders and roof above, but all
whitewashed and tolerably clean. The floors were of rough mahogany
boards, or heavy dark planks, and no doubt part of the cargo of some
Honduras trader who had fallen into the pirates' hands. Around the sides
of these mess-rooms were arranged small tables and canvas camp-stools,
with eating utensils of every variety of pattern and value, from stray
sets of French porcelain to common delf crockery. A large open chimney
stood a little way off, where was a kitchen, in which the cookery was
carried on, under the superintendence of a couple of old negroes. Beyond
the mess-rooms were the sheds used for sleeping apartments, with lots of
hammocks of canvas and straw braid hanging by their clews from the
beams, quite like the berth-deck of a ship of war. Bags and sea-chests
stood out from the walls, with bits of mirrors here and there, some with
the glasses cracked, and others in square or round gilt frames. All,
however, was arranged with a certain degree of order, and the floor was
clean and well scrubbed. Another detached building, much smaller than
the rest, was divided by a board partition into two rooms. The first was
used for a storeroom, and was filled with bread in barrels, bags of
coffee and sugar, hams, dried fruits, beans, salt meats, and what not,
but every thing in abundance, and apparently the very best the market of
the high seas could produce. A strong door protected this repository,
with a wrought iron bar and padlock. The other portion of the building
was more habitable. There were chairs and tables; a couple of upright
bookcases with glass doors, one filled with books, odd numbers of
magazines, and old newspapers, and the other containing a multitude of
vials, pots, and bottles of medicine--a small apothecary's shop, in
fact, together with two or three cases of surgical instruments. Two
elegant bureaus, with rosewood doors and mouldings, like those furnished
passenger ships to the East Indies, stood against the wall at either
side; and near to each, in opposite corners, were low iron bedsteads,
without mattresses or bedding, and merely stretched with dressed and
embossed leather. For pillows were Chinese heel stools, and as for
covering, the climate dispensed with it altogether. Hanging against the
wall were a couple of brace of pistols and two or three muskets, and on
the table stood a square case-bottle of gin, some glasses, and a
richly-bound breviary clasped with a heavy gold strap; but in no other
part of these huts were fire-arms ever allowed, and very rarely was
liquor served out in more than the usual daily half-gill allowance.
Seated at the table in the last room we have described were two men.
One, the shorter of the two, was dressed in a long, loose bombazine
cassock, girded about his waist by a white rope, which fell in knotted
ends over his knees. Around his open neck was hung a string of black
ebony beads, hooked on to a heavy gold cross, which rested on his
capacious breast, and which the wearer was continually feeling, and
occasionally pressing to his lips. His face was dark and sensual--thick,
unctuous lips, a flat nose, and large black eyes--while a glossy fringe
of raven hair went like a thick curtain all around his head, only
leaving a bluish-white round patch on the shaved crown. This individual
was the Padre Ricardo, who, for some good reasons best known to himself,
had left his clerical duties in his native city of Vera Cruz and taken
service with Captain Brand. One of the reasons for leaving--and rather
abruptly, too--was for thrusting a cuchillo into the heart of his own
father, who had reported him to his superior for his monstrous
licentiousness. The padre, however, always declared that he was
actuated entirely by filial duty in killing his old parent, to save him
the pain and disgrace which would have followed the exposure of his son!
He still clung, though excommunicated, to the priestly calling, and
prided himself upon his fasts and vigils, never omitting the smallest
forms or penances, and saying mass from Ave Maria in the early morning
to Angelus at vesper time in the evening. For Captain Brand he was ready
to shrive a dying pirate--and pretty busy he was, too, at times--or hear
the confession of one with a troubled conscience in sound health; which,
if important to the safety or well-being of the fraternity, he took a
quiet opportunity of imparting to his superior in command. In these
pursuits he not only made himself useful to Captain Brand, but he became
more or less his confidant and adviser, and seemed to maintain his
influence by ghostly advice over the superstitious feelings of the men.
The padre, however, utterly detested the sea, and never touched his soft
feet in the water if he could by any possibility avoid it; but since he
had plenty to eat and drink on the island, and no end of prayers for his
amusement when in charge of the haunt--as he was--to look out for the
people who were left when the "Centipede" sailed on a cruise, he thus
passed the time in a delightfully agreeable manner.
The companion who sat opposite to the padre was a tall, gaunt,
cadaverous person, evidently of French extraction, with something kind
and humane about his face, but yet the physiognomy expressed the utmost
determination of character--such a heart and eye as could perform a
delicate surgical operation without a flutter of nerve or eyelid, and
who would stand before a leveled pistol looking calmly down the barrel
as the hammer fell. His face was intellectual, and he never smiled. His
whole appearance portrayed a thorough seaman. Where he came from no one
knew; nor did he ever open his lips, even to the captain, with a reason
for taking service among his band. All known about him was that he
landed from a slaver at St. Jago, and was engaged by Don Ignaçio to
serve professionally with Brand in assisting the patriots on the Spanish
Main. When, however, he reached the rendezvous of the pirates, and
discovered that they were altogether a different sort of patriots than
he had bargained for, he nevertheless made no objections to remain, and
took the oath of allegiance, only stipulating that he should not be
called upon to take an active part in their proceedings. Here, then, he
remained for nearly three years, attending to the sick or wounded,
taking no interest in the accounts of the exploits of the freebooters
around him--rarely, indeed, holding speech with any one save his
room-mate, the padre, or occasionally a dinner or a walk with Captain
Brand. On the last expedition, however, of the "Centipede," he had been
induced to go on board, so that he might become a check and guard over
the brutal ruffian who had been placed temporarily in command; but, as
we have already seen, his influence had been of little avail.
There was yet another occupant of the room inhabited by the doctor and
Padre Ricardo; and a low moaning cry caused the former to rise quietly
from his chair and approach the low iron bedstead on his side of the
lodging. There, beneath a light gauze musquito net, lay our poor little
Henri--his once round, rosy, innocent face now pale and thin, with a red
spot on each cheek, and a dark, soft line beneath the closed eyes.
Uneasily he moved in his fitful slumber; and putting his little hands
together as if in prayer, he murmured, "Oh mamma, mamma!"
Beside the bed stood an unglazed jar of lemonade, together with a vial
and a spoon. The doctor drew nigh, and, gently pushing aside the
curtain, stood looking at the child for some minutes. Presently the
little sick boy feebly stretched out his delicate, thin limbs, and
unclosed his eyes. Oh! how dim, and sad, and touching was that look, as
he gave a timid, half-wild stare, and then, closing the lids tight
together, the hot drops bubbled out and coursed slowly down his tender
cheeks.
The doctor, with the gentleness of a woman, bent over him, and taking up
his poor, limp little hand, he remained feeling the fluttering pulse and
catching the hot breath on his dark cheeks. As if communing with
himself, while a glow of compassion lighted up his careworn visage, he
muttered,
"By the great and good God, who hears me, if I save this child I will
restore him to his heart-broken mother!"
He sank down on his knees by the bedside as he made his vow, and letting
the little hand rest on the bed, he buried his face in his large bony
hands. What thoughts passed through that man's mind none but the
Almighty knows; but when he arose his stern features had resumed their
wonted expression, and, pouring a little lemonade in a glass, he held it
to the sleeper's lips. Then moving noiselessly back to the table, he
said, in a low tone,
"Padre, the boy will live. His fever is leaving him, and he will get
well."
"_Ave Maria! Santissima!_" ejaculated the padre, crossing himself and
kissing his cross; "I pray for him. You must give him to me, doctor. I
will make him a little priest, and he shall swing the censer and chant
the Misericordia when I get the new chapel built."
"Time enough to think of that, _mi padre_, when he gets strong again.
But just now all the prayers _you_ can say for him will do him no good,
and so I hope you won't put yourself to the trouble."
"_Cierto, amigo_, doctor; but don't sneer at the prayers of the Church.
They do good; they ease the soul and soothe the pangs of Purgatory."
"Ah! and how long do you expect to stop in Purgatory?"
"_Ave purissima!_ What a question to ask your pious and devout Padre
Ricardo!"
"Question the devil when you want fire," retorted the doctor, as he
opened a book lying on the table before him, and put an end to the
dialogue. His companion quietly helped himself to a measure of pure gin,
and unclasped the covers of his richly-bound missal.
Scarcely, however, had their conversation ceased, when a hoarse hum of
many voices was heard in the direction of the sheds without, mingled
with shouts in all tongues and uproarious laughter.
"_Peste!_" said the doctor, looking out of an open window; "the people
have knocked off work and are coming home to their supper. They seem to
have brought some of the crew of the felucca with them too. We shall
have a loud night of it, for the captain has sent them a pipe of wine
and a barrel of rum to carouse with."
"_Pobre çitos!_ they have had a hard time of it during the summer--short
of rum, and water too, I hear, and they need refreshment and repose. So
many of my poor flock killed, too, by that savage American corvette, and
I not near to administer the last consolations and holy rite!" sighed
the padre, as he kissed the crucifix and bowed his head. "There is
Lascar Joe, too, among the missing! He refused the sacrament, infidel as
he was, the day before he sailed; but what turtle-soup he made!" The
padre hereupon sighed deeply again, but whether for the loss of the
Lascar or the soup, no one knows.
The noise without increased--the rattle of crockery, the clinking of
glasses, the moving of feet, and all the sounds of hungry, boisterous
sailors at table. Soon, too, a shout or cheer would be heard, then a
verse of a song, roars of laughter, and now and then the tinkle of a
guitar struck by vigorous fingers in waltz or fandango.
"_Merçi!_" muttered the doctor, as he looked compassionately at the sick
child on the bed; "those noisy wretches will, I fear, disturb the little
boy, and it's as hot here too, padre, as the place we all are going
to."
"It _is_ warm, my son!" he replied, as his thick unctuous lips parted
with a smile at his companion's allusion to another and a hotter place;
"but I think our good _capitano_ would have a cot slung for my little
priest in the saloon of the big building there. It is always cool on the
crag, you know."
"Ah! perhaps he will," said the doctor, reflectively; "I'll see about
it."
Stepping again to the bedside of the little sufferer, he laid a hand
gently on his forehead, where the soft curls lay in confusion about his
temples, and then quickly touching his pulse, he regarded him
attentively for a few moments, while at the same time a light glow of
perspiration came faintly over the innocent face and spread itself down
the neck.
"His fever is breaking! _Grace à Dieu!_" whispered the doctor to the
padre; "his breath is regular and cool, and he is sleeping sweetly. Now,
if you like, we will go to see the captain, and, if he consents, I will
carry the child when he wakes to the dwelling."
The doctor carefully closed the door of the room as he and his companion
stepped out into the open court-yard, and moved toward the spacious
sheds beyond.
CHAPTER XIII.
A MANLY FANDANGO.
"While feet and tongues like lightning go
With--What cheer, Luke? and how do, Joe?
Dick Laniard chooses Meg so spruce,
And buxom Nell takes Kit Caboose."
"Now around they go, and around and around,
With hop, skip, and jump, and frolicsome bound,
Such sailing and gliding,
Such sinking and sliding,
Such lofty curvetting
And grand pirouetting,
Mix'd with the tones of a dying man's groans,
Mix'd with the rattling of dead men's bones."
Twilight had taken the place of the red sun, the stars came timidly out
one by one, and then in sparkling clusters the brilliant constellations
illumined the blue heavens as the rosy twilight faded again away. Then
the ripple of the inlet came with a tranquil musical sound upon the
white pebbly beach, the lizards in the holes and crevices of the rocks
began their plaintive wheetlings, the frogs and alligators joined in the
chorus from the low lagoon in the distance, and the early night of the
tropic had begun.
But louder far than the hum of the insects and reptiles, and brighter
than the lamps of heaven, arose the wild shouts and songs of the pirates
carousing, where the torches and wax-lights lit up the scene of their
orgies with the glare of day. The great mess-room was a blaze of light
from candles and lamps, stuck in brackets or gilt sconces about the
walls, or hanging awry in broken chandeliers from the lofty beams. The
remains of their feast had been cleared away, and the tables were
covered with bottles, cups, and glasses, with boxes of cigars and pans
of lighted coals. At one end of the room was a large table, on which was
laid a black cloth with a broad silver border--sometimes used by the
padre on great occasions--and covered with cards and piles of Mexican or
Spanish dollars. At the other end was a raised platform, where four or
five swarthy fellows with guitars in their hands were strumming away in
the clear rattling harmony of Spanish boleros and dances, shrieking out
at intervals snatches of songs in time to the music, or twirling the
instruments around their heads in a frenzy of excitement. At the
tables, too, were more of the excited band, vociferating with almost
superhuman fluency in various languages their exploits, pausing
occasionally amid the hubbub to clink their glasses together, and then
chattering and yelling on as before. In the centre of the apartment were
some half dozen of the same sort, either spinning around the floor in
the waltz, or moving with a certain air of careless, manly grace one
toward another in the gavotte or bolero. There were at the least some
sixty or seventy of these fellows in the room together, most of them
above the middle height, with finely-developed muscles, broad shoulders,
bushy whiskers, and flowing hair. They came apparently from all climes,
from Africa to the Mexican Gulf, and their features and complexions
partook of every imaginable type, from the light skin and florid
complexion of the Swede, to the low brow, oval olive cheek of the
Mediterranean, and the coal-black hue and flat nose of the Bight of
Benin. Their dress was uniform--frock collars cut square and thrown well
back over their ample chests; their nether limbs incased in clean duck
or brown linen trowsers, with silk sashes around their waists, and large
gold rings in their ears. Mingled here and there in the moving throng,
or leaning over the large table with the black cloth cover, were a few
fellows in the uniform rig of the Guarda Costa, in navy jackets and
black silk belchers around their throats; but all were without weapons
of any description, and were enjoying themselves each after his fancy.
Sentinels stood at the doors of the mess-room with drawn cutlasses over
their shoulders, so that in case of a violent quarrel or row, in dance,
drinking, or gaming, the culprits might be cared for.
While the uproar was at its height, and the lofty tiled roof was ringing
with the gay and ribald songs and shouts of the excited crowds, two
persons appeared in the doorway at the middle of the room, and entered.
In a moment, as the busy revelers beheld them, the dance ceased, the
music of the guitars died away in a tinkling cadença, the glasses
stopped clinking, the dollars no longer chinked, and the songs and
shouts were hushed. You might have heard a _real_ drop for a minute,
until one of the individuals who had entered slowly walked forward a few
paces and threw his right hand aloft in salutation. Then burst forth a
hoarse, simultaneous shout of
"_Viva nuestro amigo! Viva el capitano!_"
Captain Brand did not pause until he had reached the centre of the great
hall, where he stood calmly looking around upon the swarthy groups, who
crowded about in circles at a respectful distance from him; and then
amid the silence he spoke up, in a frank, off-hand manner,
"Well, my men, I am glad to see you all once more around me. You have
not been so successful as I hoped, but we must take the good and ill
luck as it comes, and I have no fault to find with you. The times,
however, are bad enough; for I have certain news that our retreat here,
where we have so long been hid, may be discovered"--the villains around
held their breath and let their cigars lie dead in their mouths--"but,"
went on their commander, "I shall do all that is prudent in the
circumstances for the benefit of all of us; and when we leave here you
will still have me for your leader, with my head, heart, and blade ever
ready to advise or protect you." As he stopped speaking another cheer
arose:
"_Viva, nuestro amigo! viva! viva! El 'Centipede' y el capitano! Hasta
muerto!_ Long live the captain! We stand by you until death!"
"Thank you, my friends; I have but one more word to say. The men who
have the relief at the signal-stations and the water-battery must keep
sober. Now go on again with the music."
The captain, however, did not immediately quit the hall, but, while the
revel began once more with all its enthusiasm, he moved amid the crowd
of its adherents and said a cheerful word to many.
"Ah! Pepe, your arm in a sling, eh! a graze of a grape-shot, eh? Why,
Hans, you here! nothing can hurt _you_! Well, Monsieur Antoine, how well
thou art looking; and that pretty sweetheart of thine at St. Lucie! Bah!
never look sad, man; thou shalt see her again. What, my jolly Jack Tar!
an ugly scratch, that, across your jaw--a splinter, eh? Never mind; a
little plaster and half allowance of grog will put you all right again.
So good-night, my friends. _Adios!_"
Saying these words, all addressed to the individuals in their different
languages, he gave a graceful wave of his hand and passed out of the
building. As he rejoined his friend, the commander of the "Panchita,"
who had waited at the threshold, while his wary glim of an eye searched
the faces and read the thoughts of all the villains who clustered about
the room--they both stepped out into the court-yard and sauntered
pleasantly on toward the crag. They had not, however, proceeded many
paces before they encountered the padre and the doctor.
"Ah!" exclaimed the captain, who was in advance, "how goes it with my
doctor?" shaking his hand as he spoke. "Oh, _mi padre_, how art thou?"
turning to Ricardo.
"_Salve!_ my son; not been so well this morning, with the old rheumatism
in my head."
"Drunk!" said sententiously the doctor.
Then again with a gay laugh to the other, "Well, my doctor, your first
cruise has not been so pleasant in the 'Centipede' as I hoped it might
be, but the next may be more agreeable."
"Perhaps so, Captain Brand; but I shall have a word or two with you on
that subject to-morrow; and, in the mean while, _señor_, I brought a
little boy back with me who is ill from fever, and my quarters are so
stifling hot, and the air from the lagoon is so bad, that I would like
to stow him for a day or so, with your permission, in your quarters,
where it is cooler."
"Certainly, doctor; why not? my house and all in it are at your service.
By the way, I was about to ask you and the padre to dine with me and Don
Ignaçio there. Will you join us? Yes? Then let us move on, for dinner
must be ready by this time, and it would be a sin to keep Babette
waiting."
Excusing himself for a few minutes, the doctor went for his sick charge,
and returned with him in his arms to the pirate's dwelling.
CHAPTER XIV.
A PIRATES' DINNER.
"But the best of the joke was, the moment he spoke
Those words which the party seemed almost to choke,
As by mentioning Noah some spell had been broke,
And, hearing the din from barrel and bin,
Drew at once the conclusion that thieves had got in."
When the guests had assembled in the pirate's saloon it was some minutes
before their host appeared. When, however, he did step into the room
from his private apartment adjoining, he was altogether a different man
in outward appearance than in the early morning. In place of the loose
sailor summer rig which he then wore, he was now attired as a gentleman
of elegant fashion of the time in which we write. His lower limbs were
clothed with flesh-colored silk stockings, and fitted into a pair of
pointed toed pumps with buckles of brilliants that a duchess might have
envied. A pair of white cassimere breeches, which set off to advantage
his well-shaped leg, were tied in a dainty bow of rose-colored satin
ribbon below the knee, and fitted him like a second skin. His waistcoat
was of rose-colored watered silk, embroidered with silver, and which,
with its flaps and ample proportions, was halfway hidden by a dress coat
of green velvet. This last garment had a sort of navy cut, with standing
collar richly laced with silver, gold buttons in a double row of the
size of doubloons, with loose sleeves and cuffs heavily laced with
silver also. His linen was of the most gossamer fineness, the collar
thrown slightly back and confined by a single clasp of rubies the size
of beans, while below was a frill of cambric ruffles sparkling with opal
studs framed in diamonds. The ruffles, too, at his wrist were of the
most beautiful point lace, secured by royal brilliants, and he was
altogether a dandy of such princely magnificence that the courtiers of
the days of the old French monarchy might have taken him for a study.
His manner, likewise, was every way in keeping with his splendid attire;
and the ease and grace with which he excused himself to his guests for
keeping them waiting certainly denoted a knowledge of a higher order of
breeding and society than that in which his lot had been cast.
[Illustration]
From the very moment of his entrance, however, Don Ignaçio had measured
him at a glance. His single glittering eye of jet had taken him in from
the laced collar of his coat to the buckles of his shoes. Not a jewel in
his dress, from the flaming opals in his bosom to the brilliant stones
at his wrists, and down to the sparkling clusters at his feet, did not
his one uneasy optic drink in the flash and estimate the value. Nay, he
calculated by instinct the weight of the gold buttons on his coat and
the price of the exquisite lace which fell in snowy folds about his
hands. Oh, a rare mathematician was Don Ignaçio! What greedy thoughts,
too, passed through that little Spaniard's brain! "Ah!" thought he,
"shall I take my debt in those priceless gems, each one the ransom of a
princess, which the old Captain General may one of these days reclaim?
Hola! no! Or shall I receive more negotiable commodities in gold,
cochineal, or silks? Well! _Veremos!_ we shall see!"
The effect produced upon the good Padre Ricardo was altogether
different. As the captain entered with all his glorious raiment upon
him, he started back, and, bowing before him as if he were Saint Paul
himself, he seized his superior's white hand, and kissed it with fervent
devotion. Not satisfied with this mark of respect, he raised his dingy
paws, holding his crucifix before him, and murmured, in a sort of
ecstasy,
"_Mi hico! mi capitano! que brillante!_"--"My son! my captain! what a
brilliant being you are!"
Singularly in contrast, however, was the effect produced upon the
doctor, who merely raised his dark eyes in an abstracted gaze, gave
a careless and rather contemptuous nod of recognition, and then turned
to examine one of the richly-inlaid cabinets which adorned the
saloon. All these various phases of sympathy, attraction, or contempt
flickered like a sunbeam into Captain Brand's reflecting brain, as, with
a delicately-perfumed handkerchief in one hand, and a gold-enameled
and diamond-incrusted snuff-box in the other, he bowed gracefully to
his visitors, and seated himself at table.
The table was now rolled out into the centre of the saloon, laid with a
snowy-white damask cloth, and covered with the equipage for a banquet.
At either corner were noble branches of solid silver candelabra, which
would have graced an altar, as perhaps they had, and holding clusters of
wax-lights, which shed their rays over the display below. In the centre
arose a huge épergne of silver, fashioned into the shape of a drooping
palm-tree, whose leaves were of frosted silver, and about the trunk
played a wilderness of monkeys. Beneath, around the board, were
cut-glass decanters, flat bulbous flasks of colored Bohemian glass,
crystal goblets, delicate and almost shadowy wine-cups from Venice,
silver wine-coolers, all mingled in with a heterogeneous collection of
rare china and silver dishes. Such wines, too, as filled those vessels!
not a prince or magnate in all the lands where the vine is planted could
boast of so rare and exquisite a collection. Pure, thin, rain-water
Madeira, full threescore years in bottle! Pale, limpid Port, whose color
had long since gone with age, and left only the musk-like odor; flasks
of Johannisberg of pearly light; bottles of Tokay for lips of cardinals;
tall, slim stems of the taper flasks of the Rhine; while the ruby hues
of wine from the Rhone stood clustering about amid pyramids of
pine-apples, oranges, and bananas, and all loading the air of the saloon
with their delicious fragrance.
When the party had become fairly seated around the board, and while the
host was bailing out the soup from an enormous silver tureen with a
tea-cup--for it did not appear that he had ever been presented in the
usual way with a ladle--fishing out the floating morsels of rich
callipee, with the delicate frills of his sleeves turned back, he began
the conversation in the Castilian language:
"Well, _amigos_, we are taking our last feast together, I fear, on this
little cluster of rocks, for a long time to come."
"How!" exclaimed the padre, as he stuffed a wedge of turtle fat in his
oily mouth, and opened his round black eyes to their fullest extent in
manifest surprise.
"_Como, mi hico!_" he repeated, as he passed a dirty paw over his smooth
chin, and looked inquiringly.
"Yes, holy father, our good friend Don Ignaçio here has brought us
somewhat startling intelligence. Capital soup, this. I shall give
Babette a dollar. Yes, the eagles and vultures are after us; all the
West India fleet; the Lord only knows how many ships, and brigs, and
gun-boats. Glass of Madeira with you, doctor?" wiping his thin lips with
a corner of the damask table-cloth as he spoke; "and they have tampered,
too, with my old friends the custom-house people. Take away the tureen,
Babette--and, in point of fact, I shouldn't be the least surprised to
see a swarm of those navy gentlemen off the reef here at any moment. A
sharp knife, Babette, for these teal--a duck should be cut, not torn.
Try that Moselle, Don Ignaçio; I know your fancy for light wines. This
was given me by a Captain--'pon my soul, I forget his name; he had such
a pretty wife, Madame Matilde," glancing at the frame of miniatures on
the wall; "sweet creature she was; took quite a fancy for me, I believe,
and might have been sitting here at this moment, but a--really I forget
her other name. However, it makes no difference: the wine is called
Moselle."
Now be it here observed that Don Ignaçio drank very little wine or
stimulants of any sort, and never by any chance a drop from any vessel
which, with his single bright eye, he did not see his host first indulge
in. This self-imposed sacrifice may have been owing to his diffidence,
or modesty, or deference to Captain Brand, or, perhaps, other and
private reasons of his own; but yet he never broke through that rule of
politeness and abstemiousness. Sometimes, indeed, he carried his
principles so far as to refuse a meat or the fruits which his host had
not partaken of, and always with a slow shake of his brown fore finger,
as if he did not like even to smell the dish presented to him.
"What! not even a sip of that nectar, _compadre mio_?"
The compadre shook his digit, and observed that drinking nectar
sometimes made people sick.
The captain laughed gayly, and said, "Bah! learning to drink does the
harm, and not the art, when properly acquired."
During all the foregoing interlude the doctor remained in his grave,
calm humor, and only when the captain alluded to the lady whose
husband's name escaped him did he show signs of interest. Then his eye
followed the look toward the miniature, and his jaws came together with
a slight grating spasm.
Padre Ricardo, however, was in excellent sympathetic spirits, eating and
drinking like a glutton of all within his reach, and turning his full
eyes at times, as if to a deity, upon his friend the captain. Once he
spoke--
"But, my son, you were talking of leaving this quiet retreat, where we
have passed so many happy hours."
"Yes, friend of my soul! Those fellows with commissions, and pennants at
their mast-heads, and guns, and what not, seem determined to do us a
mischief." The devout padre crossed himself, and pressed the crucifix to
his greasy lips. "Ay! they would no doubt arraign us before some one of
their legal tribunals. Put us in prison, perhaps; or maybe give us a
slight squeeze in a rope or iron collar!"
The padre groaned audibly, and dropped the wing of a teal he was
gnawing, forgetting, strange as it may seem, to cross himself.
"_Hola, mi padre!_ cheer up! We are worth a million of dead men yet. The
world is wide, the sea open, and with a stout plank under our feet and
one of these fellows"--here he balanced a long carving-knife, dripping
with blood-red gravy, in his hand--"in our belts, who can stop us?"
There was the cold, ferocious-eyed gleam of a dying shark in the
speaker's eyes as he went on with his carving; but the priest gave a
jerk of trepidation with his chin, and appeared anxious to hear more.
"Don Ignaçio, try a bit of this roast _guana_; it's quite white and
tender. No? Babette, give me some of that rabbit stew!" The one-eyed
individual was likewise helped to some of that savory ragoût, and
proceeded to pick the bones with much care and deliberation.
"Still _triste_, my _padre_! Come, come, this will never do. Join me in
a bumper of this generous old Port. _Bueno!_ may we attain the same age!
By the way, where did this rich stuff come from?" holding up the
decanter between the light and his face as he spoke.
Don Ignaçio's glittering optic pierced clear through the light ruby
medium of the wine, cut-glass decanter and all, as he furtively watched
his host, and was prepared to dodge in case the heavy vessel should slip
out of the captain's hand. Such things had happened, and might again;
besides, a hard flint substance with a multitude of sharp projections,
two or three inches thick and five or six pounds in weight, falling from
a height on a man's head, might kill him. The Don thought of all this,
and twitched something up his sleeve with his hand under the table. But
Captain Brand, it seemed, had no intention of smashing his elegant
dinner set of glass, and putting down the decanter and raising a finger
to his forehead, he said, "How did that wine come into my possession?"
"Somebody gave it to you, perhaps. _Quien sabe?_ (Who knows?)" suggested
Don Ignaçio.
Without heeding the interruption, the captain's eye rested on the
brilliant snuff-box on the table beside him, where the letter L was set
in diamonds and blue enamel on the back, and catching it with a rap, his
face lighted up, and as he took a pinch and passed the box to the padre,
he exclaimed,
"Ah! now I remember, my old friend--the Portuguese countess from Oporto.
_Dios! de mi alma!_ (God of my soul!) what a stately beauty was her
daughter!"
Here Captain Brand sneezed, and, drawing a delicately-perfumed lace
handkerchief from his waistcoat pocket, blew his nose. Meanwhile the box
went round the table; Padre Ricardo took a huge pinch with his dirty
fingers, and feasted his eyes upon the precious lid. The doctor scarcely
gave the elegant bawble a glance as he helped himself. The Don, however,
examined it with the eye of a connoisseur, and not only that, but he
threw a spark at the captain's flashy waistcoat, and thought he detected
some other article in the capacious pockets vice the handkerchief.
Perhaps he may have been mistaken and perhaps not, though he was so very
suspicious an old villain that he sometimes did his friends injustice.
Nor did he put his thin brown fingers, with the few grains of snuff he
had dipped from the box, to his sheepskin nostrils till he had watched
the effect it had produced on those around him.
"Ah! my friends, I remember distinctly now all about it," continued the
captain, as he returned the kerchief and shook a few specks of the
titillating dust from his point-lace sleeve; "it is about three years
ago, just before you came to live with me, padre, that we fell in with a
large ship bound to Porto Rico. She had been disabled in an awful
hurricane, which had taken two of her masts clean off at the decks, and
was leaking badly. We, too, had been a little hurt in the same gale, and
having made a pretty good season, I was anxious to get back here and
give the crews a rest. Well, we made out the ship about an hour before
sunset, and it was quite dark before we came up with her. There she lay,
rolling like a log, though there was not much sea on, and we could hear
her chain-pumps clanking, and saw the water spouting out from her
scuppers as pure almost as it went into her hold. As we came up
alongside they hailed me for assistance, and said the ship was sinking,
and could not live till morning.
"Of course I could give them no actual assistance, situated as I
was"--here the narrator smiled as he glanced round upon his guests--"it
would have been simply absurd, you know, the idea of my putting men on
board to keep her afloat for the nearest gibbet. Bah! I did not dream of
such ridiculous nonsense. However, I determined to make her a visit,
and, if there should be any thing to save from the wreck in an undamaged
condition, why, I should look around.
"Not too much of that Port, _mi padre_; think of your rheumatism in the
morning! Doctor, you don't drink!
"Well, going on board, I found two lady passengers--the wife and
daughter of an old judge of the island of Porto Rico, with half a dozen
servants, who were all screaming, and praying, and beseeching me to save
them--all but one, a tall, graceful girl, with a large India shawl
wrapped around her shoulders, her white arms glancing through the folds,
and a pair of dark, liquid, almond-shaped eyes, such as I had never
before seen. The fact is, my friends, I had always before fancied blue.
But there stood this girl, with eyes like a wounded stag, leaning up
against the weather bulwarks near the open cabin door.
"Babette, take away all but the wine and fruit, and bring fire. Pass
that box this way, if you please, _compadre_! Thank you."
Don Ignaçio seemed to have an affection for the trifle, and had counted
the brilliants over and over again, and made a mental calculation of
their weight and value; and when he did move it as he was desired, his
greedy eye followed it with fascination.
"Yes, it's very pretty, and I set a great store by it," parenthesized
the host, as he resumed his tale:
"The girl never screamed or even spoke, and, amid all the hubbub of a
drunken skipper and a disorderly crew, she remained quiet and unmoved.
To assure the people, I told them that I would stay by the ship and do
what I could for them. At this the old lady clasped me around the neck,
and kissed me, and blubbered over me more than ever she did, I imagined,
to the old Spanish judge, her husband--imploring me too, by all the
saints she could think of, to take herself and daughter out of the
sinking vessel at once. You may believe that I would much rather have
been treated in that way by the lovely girl with the wonderful eyes
instead of the fat, rancid old woman beside her; but there was no help
for it just then, and so I consented, with all the professions of
sympathy I could make, to do as she desired."
Here the captain lit a pure Havana, and, after a few puffs and a sip of
Port, continued:
CHAPTER XV.
DROWNING A MOTHER TO MURDER A DAUGHTER.
"At last she startled up,
And gazed on the vacant air
With a look of awe, as if she saw
Some dreadful phantom there."
"No sooner had I assured the old lady that I would transfer them to my
vessel than her daughter made a step forward, and, letting her shawl
fall upon the deck, she seized my hand with both of hers, and said, in a
low contralto voice,
"'Heaven bless you, _señor_!'
"By the cestus of Venus, _caballeros_, the pressure of that girl's hand,
and the deep, speaking look of gratitude she gave me out of her liquid
eyes, quite did my business!"
"And the señorita's too, I think," chimed in the one-eyed commander, as
he wagged his uneasy head at the narrator.
"_Quien sabe?_" (who knows?) went on Captain Brand: "at all events, I
raised her soft patrician hand to my lips and kissed it respectfully.
Ha! I noticed, too, as I released her round, slender fingers, that she
wore a sapphire of great brilliancy--ay, here it is now. I keep it in
remembrance of the girl."
Saying this, the host shook back the lace ruffles of his sleeve, and,
crooking his little finger, exhibited the jewel to his guests.
"Go on, my son," said the padre, as his sensual face expressed his
satisfaction at the recital--"_Vamonos!_"
"My holy father," responded the narrator, "beware of that wine-flask!
You have grand mass to-morrow! it is the feast of our patron saint, you
know."
"_Si! si! hijo mio!_ your padre is always ready," crossing himself in a
half tipsy way as he spoke--"_Vamonos!_" The doctor looked as cold as
marble, and said not a word.
"Well, gentlemen," went on Captain Brand, "I soon got that ship in a
tolerably wholesome state of command. I made my trusty old boatswain,
Pedillo, lock the fuddled skipper up sound and tight in his own
stateroom, and the rest of my men took a few ropes' ends, and belted the
lubbers of a crew until they went to work at the pumps with renewed
vigor. I also insisted upon the scared male servants of the passengers
lending a hand at that innocent recreation, for you see I had no
intention of letting the ship go down--"
"With the Capitano Brand in her," interrupted Señor Sanchez.
"No, by no manner of means; for the ship, I felt, was settling fast, and
I could hear the loose cargo, which had broken adrift below in the main
hold, playing the devil's own game; smashing and crushing from side to
side as the vessel rolled, and coming in contact with the stanchions and
beams, with a surging swash of water, too, which told the tale without
the trouble of breaking open the hatches. I took, however, the
precaution to run my eye over the manifest to see if, perchance, there
was any treasure in the after run or any where else, as, in case there
had been, I should have made some little effort to get at it. However,
there was nothing on board but wine, dried fruits, and heavy bale goods,
not worth the time or trouble, in the aspect of affairs at that time, to
save as much as a single cask or a drum of prunes. I glanced, too, at
the clearance list, and saw that the names of the passengers were La
Señora Luisa Lavarona, and the Señorita Lucia, lady and daughter, with
half a dozen orders and titles, of the judge in _Puerto Rico_. _Bueno!_
roll me an orange, if you please, doctor! Ah! _gracias_, thanks."
The doctor rolled the orange, and, had it been a grape-shot or any other
iron missile, its aim would have gone straight through the captain's
body, just above his left waistcoat pocket.
"In the mean while the old lady rushed around in a tremendous hurry, in
and out of the cabin, losing her balance occasionally in the lurches,
ordering her maids to pull out trunks and boxes on to the deck; then
giving me a hug to relieve her feelings, and praying and crying between
whiles in the most whimsical manner. Not contented either with getting
out a pile of luggage and chests that would have swamped a jolly-boat,
she insisted upon waiting until a locker was broken open in the cabin
pantry for the purpose of rescuing six cases of old Port wine, which had
been, she told me, sent as a present from the Archbishop of Lisbon to
his friend the judge. At this juncture I persuaded her to send her
daughter and a few light articles first on board my vessel, when the
boat would then return for herself and the remainder of their property.
Accordingly, I carefully wrapped the lovely girl in shawls and cloaks,
and got her over the side and down into my boat, pitched a few light
caskets and cases in after the young beauty, and then, with a quiet word
or two into Pedillo's sharp ear, the boat shoved off. I suppose it may
have been half an hour before my boat returned, and then I learned from
the coxswain that he had shown his charge down into my private cabin,
and she appeared as comfortable and resigned as possible. Well, we made
quick work of it now, tumbled a good many things into the boat, when I
myself got in to receive the old lady and her retinue. By the way, among
the articles were the boxes of wine--this is some of it"--tapping the
decanter, now nearly empty from the attacks of the priest--"and in my
opinion it does great credit to the taste and judgment of that venerable
archbishop."
"_Ave, purissima!_" said the padre, with a hiccough; "I shall be a
bishop myself one of these days. _Ora pro nobis!_"
"You'll be a cardinal," gibed in the doctor, "if swilling wine will do
it."
Captain Brand went on with his narrative:
"Where was I? Oh! ah! We were waiting alongside the ship, with her lower
chain-plates not a foot above water, for the donna to be hoisted over
the rail, since she would not permit any of her attendants to precede
her--though Heaven knows they were anxious enough to do so. By this
time, too, after my men had left the deck of the ship, the crew had
somehow got hold of a barrel of wine, and, letting the pumps work
themselves, were guzzling away in grand style. I began to lose patience
at last, and shouted to the old lady to come at once, or I should be
compelled to leave her. She merely leaned over the rail, however, and
chattered forth that all she had in the world was at my service--of
course, figuratively she meant--but she must stay another minute to find
a jar of preserved ginger, which was her only cure for the cholic."
"You didn't take the offer of the old lady as a figure of speech, I
presume?" asked the doctor.
"No!" muttered the one-eyed old wretch, with a sneer. "And that jar of
ginger spared her any more attacks of cholic!"
"_Caballeros_, you are both right. I did accept the gift of her worldly
goods in the frank spirit in which it was offered, without any
reservation; and, to my almost certain knowledge, the Señora Lavarona
was never more troubled with illness of any kind.
"The fact was, that, finding the ship fast sinking, and her crew
becoming boisterous and rebellious as the imminent danger burst upon
them, they proposed, since their own boats were stove, to take
possession of mine! That _was_ a joke, to be sure! A dozen drunken
swabs, with naked hands, to capture ten of the old 'Centipede's' picked
men, with a pistol and knife each under their shirts; and"--here the
speaker laughed heartily--"and Captain Brand beside them! _Diavolo!_
what silly people there are in this world!"
The good padre joined his superior in this ebullition of feeling, and
seemed to enjoy the joke immensely, rolling his goggle eyes and head
from side to side, kissing his crucifix, and exclaiming, with devotion,
"_Que hombre es eso!_"--"What a man he is!"
[Illustration: THE PIRATE'S PREY.]
"Well, _señores_, the next minute we let go the painter and floated
astern past the ship's counter, and a few strokes of the oar-blades sent
us dancing away to leeward, where the schooner was lying with her
main-sail up, and the jib-sheet hauled well to windward. We made no
unnecessary noise in getting alongside, and it took no great time to get
the boat clear, a tackle hooked on, and to swing her on board over the
long gun. Then we drew aft the sheets, set the fore-sail, and the
'Centipede' was once more reeling off the knots on her course."
"But the ship, my son?"
"Why, my padre, I was so busy attending to the schooner, and afterward
going below to break the sad news to my lovely dark-eyed passenger of
the loss of her mother, that I had no time to devote to the ship.
Pedillo, however, told me that he heard a good deal of frantic
shrieking, and prayers, and cursing, with, for a little while, the
renewed clank of the chain-pumps, but after that we had got too far to
windward to hear more. About midnight, though, Pedillo and some of the
watch thought they saw a white shower of foam like a breaking wave, and
a great commotion in the water, but that was all. So, you see, what
really became of that old craft we do not positively know; though for a
long time afterward I read the marine lists very attentively, yet I
never saw any accounts of her arrival at her destination.
"Perhaps," added Captain Brand, with a peculiar smile, as he lit a fresh
cigar, "her arrival may have escaped my notice, as I hope it may, though
I think not."
Don Ignaçio intimated, by waving his fore finger to and fro, that such a
hope had no possible foundation in fact; and he stated, too, that he
knew the underwriters had paid the full insurance on the missing ship.
"Ah! well, that seems to settle the matter, truly," murmured the
captain, as if he had long entertained painful doubts on the subject,
and now his mind was finally relieved.
"But, _hico mio_! Son of mine! _La Señorita_--hiccough--with the
almond-shaped eyes--_Santissima!_--hic--how did she bear the--death of
her--hic--mother?"
"_Por Dios, padre!_ there was a scene which would have drawn tears from
a--"
"Pirate," suggested the doctor.
The padre blubbered outright, and his round, tipsy eyes nearly popped
out of his head.
"Ay, _monsieur_, even from mine! But to go back a little. When I had got
all snug on board the schooner, I went below, and moved softly on tiptoe
along the passage to the door of my beautiful cabin.
"You remember, _amigo_," said the narrator, turning toward Don Ignaçio,
"how that cabin was fitted, and how much it cost to do it. I think you
paid the bill for me? No?"
Oh yes, Captain Brand was quite right. Don Ignaçio remembered it well,
and the bill was a thousand gold ounces, sixteen thousand hard silver
dollars; and by no means dear at that, for the Don never allowed any
body to cheat _him_.
"Cheats himself, though, sometimes. Don't charge more than the usual
commission."
The one-eyed usurer looked wicked at this remark, but he said nothing,
being occupied at the moment rolling up a paper cigar with one hand, and
wetting the brown fore finger of the other.
"Well, _caballeros_, I peeped through the lattice-work of the cabin
door, and there reclined my pretty prize--I recall her as if it were
yesterday--on one of the large blue satin damask lounges of the after
transoms. Her head rested on one of her round ivory arms, half hidden in
the luxurious pillows; her shawl, too, was thrown back; and with a
somewhat disordered dress, and a mass of glossy hair clustering in
ringlets about her neck and white shoulders, I thought then, as I do
now, that she was a paragon of loveliness. I saw her, as she thus
reclined, by the light of a large shaded crystal lamp, which hung by
silver chains from the cabin beams, and shed a rose-tinted effulgence
over the whole apartment. When I first approached the door the girl was
looking out of her own large liquid lamps, so superbly framed in a heavy
fringe of dark lashes, in evident curiosity around the elegant cabin.
Her looks wandered from the Turkey carpet on the floor to the beautiful
silk hangings, that exquisite set of inlaid pearl ebony furniture, the
display of knickknacks, and Dresden porcelain panels of the sides, and,
in fact, nothing seemed to escape her; and the good taste of the
fittings evidently met her approbation. At times, too, she would turn
her gaze out of the narrow little window of the stern, and peer
anxiously over the vessel's wake, which by this time was skimming along
like a wild duck, and leaving countless bubbles behind her. At the first
sound I made, however, in opening the door, she started up and stepped
forward to meet me.
"'Oh, _Señor Capitano_, _mi madre_! (My mother!) What detains her? We
seem to be going very fast through the water!'
"I gently took the girl's outstretched hands and led her back to the
cushioned transom. Then I told her, as kindly as I could, that I did
all in my power to save her good mother, but that the crew had
mutinied--they had taken possession of the unfortunate ship--great
confusion existed--and as I feared, you know, that my own boat would be
swamped by remaining longer alongside, I was compelled to leave her to
her fate.
"'But my mother, _señor_!' exclaimed the girl, with anguish; 'she was
saved?'
"'No, _señorita_,' I said, 'she went down with the ship; but the last
words she uttered--that is to me--were to invoke a blessing on my head,
and to consign all she possessed to my care.' The poor thing swooned
away as I uttered these words, and it was a long time before she came to
again. When she did, however, regain consciousness, tears came to her
relief, and I did all I could to soothe her distress by telling her
that, if the wind came fair, she would in the course of a few days be
restored to her father."
"But the wind didn't come fair, eh?" broke in Don Ignaçio, "and she
didn't see--"
"No, _amigo_, the wind held steady from the opposite quarter, and I
thought it better not to beat up with a fished fore-mast, and all
that--and a--she did _not_ see her father."
Captain Brand here wet his thin lips with a few sips of wine, said,
"Babette, bring coffee!" and resumed his story.
"When the girl became a little more calm I induced her to retire to my
stateroom, where I left her to sob herself to sleep. Don't spill that
coffee, Babette, and put the liqueurs on the table. There, that will do,
old lady.
"Well, _señores_, the next morning my pretty prize was too ill to leave
her room; but, as I handed her a cup of chocolate through the door
curtains, she thanked me with much gratitude for what I had done, and
knew that her dear father, the judge, would bless me."
"So he will," snarled the one-eyed old rascal, "if he ever catches you,
when he draws the black cap over your head."
"Possibly he may, though perhaps it will be some considerable time
before he has that pleasure."
"Ah! _cuidado hico mio!_ Take care of yourself, my son," hiccoughed the
priest as he crossed himself. The captain gave a light laugh, sipped his
coffee, and went on as if a dungeon, scaffold, and noose were the last
things he ever thought of.
"I amused myself during the day in looking over the trunks, caskets, and
what not we had saved from the sinking trader--presented to me, as you
know, by the old lady who was on board. There were, of course, a great
quantity of ladies' dresses, and a good many jewels and trinkets; among
the latter this fine snuff-box here, which our friend Don Ignaçio so
much admires, and which I set aside as an especial testimonial of the
old lady's regard. Try another pinch, _amigo_? No? _Bueno!_ I caused
what I believed to be the daughter's elegant raiment to be placed in the
after cabin. For three days I never even saw my pretty passenger, though
I heard her low, sweet voice occasionally when I laid out something for
her to eat in the adjoining cabin. She sang, too, some little sad songs
with a voice which vibrated upon my ear like the notes of an Æolian harp
sighing in the night wind. _Dios!_ how I regretted then and afterward
that I did not have a cabinet piano!"
"Presented to you," suggested the doctor.
"Yes, presented to me, so that she might have touched the keys with
those ivory and rose-tipped fingers.
"So the time passed, the schooner flying on under whole sails, the wind
about two points free, and the weather as fine as silk. It was the
fourth evening, I think, after parting with the Oporto trader that I
induced my fair passenger to come on deck and take a little breath of
sea-air. You will observe, _caballeros_, that I did not make this
suggestion in the daytime, because the 'Centipede's' crew, you know,
were rather numerous, and some of them not so handsome in point of
personal looks as ladies at all times care to behold. Besides, there
were certain things about the decks--racks of cutlasses, lockers of
musketry along the rail, and a long brass twelve-pounder, which is not
altogether hidden by the boat, you know, and might have given rise to a
little curiosity, or maybe suspicion, even in the mind of a girl, as to
our character, pursuits, and so forth, which I should have been puzzled
to answer. Therefore I chose a clear starlight night to pay my homage,
and accordingly I went below about four bells of the first watch to
escort the little lady to the deck. She was dressed, and waiting for me
in the cabin; and if I was so struck with her beauty when I first saw
her, my heart thumped now against my ribs like a volley of musket-balls
against an oak plank. She wore a black silk robe, such as Spanish women
wear at early mass, and around the back part of her head--where the hair
was gathered in a glossy knot, and secured by a gold bodkin--fell the
heavy folds of a black lace mantilla, the lower end fastened sash
fashion around her lithe waist. She stepped, too, like a queen on a pair
of slim, long, delicate feet, with arched ball and instep, as if she
were in command of the schooner.
"By my right arm!" exclaimed Captain Brand, shaking that member aloft in
a glorious fit of enthusiasm, "I am quite sure she had conquered me, and
that was more than half the battle!
"Well, I led her to the quarter-deck, where some cushions and flags had
been placed for her near the weather taffrail, and where she sat down.
The schooner was at the time under the two gaff-top-sails, the main boom
and sheets eased off a little, those long masts, with the sticks above
them running clear away up the sky, almost out of sight, bending like
whalebone, and reeling over the long swell when the breeze freshened;
and not a sound to be heard save now and then a light creak from the
main boom as the broad white sail strained flat and taut over to
leeward, or the rush of the water as it came hissing along from her
sharp, clean bows, with a noise like a breeze through the leaves of a
forest, away off over the counter into luminous sparkles as it swished
out into our wake. The 'Centipede' was indeed doing her best, and you
all know what that is, when we have been chased many and many a time by
some of the fastest cruisers going.
"You remember, Don Ignaçio, how the 'Juno' frigate nearly ran us under,
and yet never gained a fathom on us in nine hours?"
"Ay, _amigo_; but, had she not carried away her fore-top-mast, in
another hour there would have been nothing left of you afloat but
a--hencoop perhaps."
"_Quien sabe, compadre?_ If hads had been shads you w
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