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“While feet and tongues like lightning go |
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, 80 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. 81 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 82 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.
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.
From the very moment of his entrance, however, Don Ignaçio had measured him at a glance. His single glittering eye of jet had taken 86 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 87 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 88 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 89 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 90 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 91 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:
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“At last she startled up, |
“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 93 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 94 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!”
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 97 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 98 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 99 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.