The former horror of my companions for Antonio was now revived and increased by the mystery of his almost supernatural escape, and their eyes wandered upward to the brow of the steep cliff whereon he lurked. It was visible about two miles from where we were assembled on the beach, and presented a rugged and savage outline.
Some of them, among whom were Hislop and Probart the carpenter, urged that at all hazards we should still attempt to storm his nest, and punish him by lynch law.
"With his revolver, rusty as it is," said I, "he is as strong as he was when on board the Eugenie, and when he held the cabin against us all; he could shoot each of us down at leisure, and with his knife finish what the bullet might leave undone."
"We can fire the jungle," said Tattooed Tom, "and burn him out like a rat."
Others proposed that we should act as we had hitherto done—keeping a strict watch upon our boat and property, and permitting Antonio to remain unmolested until the arrival of a ship, to whose captain we should commit the whole affair.
We came to no decision, but talked a great deal while supping on the roasted kid in the moonlight at the door of the hut; but ere long there occurred an incident so strange, and apparently so unaccountable, that it soon decided the intentions of our crew.
The moon had risen, as it only rises in these latitudes, with the brilliance of day, and with a white light that is dazzlingly pure. From where we were squatted among the sea-grass that bordered the shore, the whole sweep of the bight or bay which we had first entered, and on the margin of which we had built our hut beside the rocks, could be seen vividly in all its details.
It was an opening of about two miles from headland to headland. Each of these were bold and rugged bluffs of great height—one being that stupendous rock which was tufted with trees, and which (with the mountain now shrouded in light clouds) we had first descried from the sea.
The beach between was a complete bow of white sand, beyond which were thick groves of trees, and some wild palmettoes that tufted the dark rocks which formed the horns of the bay.
In a straight line from each of these horns ran a slender ridge of snow-white surf, that was forever boiling up, rolling and breaking over a hidden coral reef, or sandbank. Within it the bay, and without it the sea, were, on this night, smooth, waveless, and calm as the cloudless sky, whose deep immensity of blue was mirrored in them.
There was scarcely a breath of wind to stir the pendent forest leaves.
I have been somewhat minute in describing all this, in consequence of the phenomenon which occurred on this night, and thus fixed the features of the scene in my memory.
It might have been about the hour of ten, and we were still loitering on the moonlit beach, when the cry of "A sail in sight!" made every heart leap wildly and with hope.
'Twas Tom Lambourne who spoke, but every eye caught the ship at once, and even those who had been dozing on the warm sand or within the hut were awake and on the beach in a moment, stretching their hands toward her with joy and exultation, but the aspect of the ship gradually changed all this into suspense and utter bewilderment.
She was a large square-rigged vessel—a ship running close-hauled on the port-tack (to use a man-o'-war phrase) and with nearly all her canvas set.
She was about four miles off the reef at the entrance of the bay, and was bearing directly toward it. Her canvas glimmered like snow in the moonshine, and we could see the red lights of her cabin windows flash at times upon the sea astern, and the whiteness of her long flush deck, as she careened before the breeze.
Yet how was it, we all asked, that there was not a breath of wind with us?
"Perhaps she brings it with her," suggested Hislop.
"And how came it to pass that she appeared right in the offing and outside the bay all at once?" asked Tom Lambourne.
"She must have rounded the high bluff while we were all palavering," said Probart.
Nothing more was said for a time, but whether it was the effect of imagination or of an overstrained eyesight, I know not, she seemed to melt as it were in the brightness of the moonshine—to become so indistinct that we could see the line of the horizon through her topsails; and next it seemed as if her hull, her spars, and rigging, were edged with bright prismatic hues.
But on she came, right for the bay, braced sharp to the wind; and now we saw her sail-trimmers set the flying jib and haul the spanker further aft to steady her steerage.
At that moment the sea assumed a singularly luminous aspect; and now she was but a mile off the surf-beaten reef.
On came the large ship, with every thing set aloft and alow—a cloud of white canvas from her deck to her trucks; but that which puzzled us most and silenced us all, was the circumstance that although there was not a breath of wind to stir the leaves on shore, as she approached she careened well over, like a vessel under the influence of a fine spanking breeze—rising and falling regularly and gracefully, as if she rode over the heaving of a succession of long waves—her courses, top-sails, topgallant-sails, royals, headsails, and spanker, all bellying out—the leaches forming complete arcs over her deck, her loose rigging all blown out in bends, and yet there was not an inch of foam under her forefoot, and she left no wake astern upon the sea.
What mystery was this?
She was like the mere reflection of a ship cast by a magic lantern on a wall, save that she seemed instinct with life, for we had seen fresh canvas set upon her, while her royals and topgallant-sails shivered at times, as if the breeze we could not feel failed with her somewhat aloft, or the hand at her wheel was unsteady, and unable to keep her full and by. Then, just as she approached the entrance of the little bay, all her cabin fights went out!
"She will be ashore on the reef if she draws deep!" cried every voice. But no! she glided over it or through it, without shivering, shock, or hindrance, and ran into the bay.
"Her false keel must have gone through it like a knife," said Lambourne, with amazement.
"Perhaps her draught of water is small," suggested the carpenter, while the excitement of our men increased every moment.
"Why don't the lubbers take some canvas off her?" exclaimed one.
"Or heave her in the wind?" added another.
"There's the jib-sheet let fly: down royals and in topgallant-sails! Why don't you heave her in the wind? Ready your anchors!" cried Hislop loudly in his astonishment, as he shouted to those on board, and rushed mid-leg into the water. "Heavens!" he added, "she still bears on, cracking under every thing! She will be ashore in a minute, and then all her sticks will snap by the board like tobacco-pipes!"
A cry escaped us all as her flying jib-boom appeared right over a grove of little trees; then her bow touched the white sandy beach; but there was neither shock nor pause as she seemed to sail right on and inland, still careening over and still rising, falling, and heaving, as if upon the sea.
As I gazed upon her a strange and paralyzing sensation came over me, and all my faculties became frozen. The profound silence of the scene, the calm landscape of the moonlit isle, and the noiselessness of the ocean, made us stare at her and at each other as men in a trance. My breath became suspended, my heart seemed to stand still in all its pulses, while this mysterious—this most spectral ship—passed before us like a living thing, and then melted away in the moonshine, apparently right under the cliff of Antonio, leaving us to gaze at each other, in doubt as to whether we were mad or not.
Hislop was the first to recover himself, and striking his hands together, with the air of one to whose astonishment had succeeded the bitterness of a deep disappointment, he exclaimed,—
"It is only the phenomenon called Fata Morgana!"
It is impossible for me to describe the blank astonishment, or rather the intense consternation, of our men on the disappearance of this vessel, which was the object of so many hopes and wishes.
Some time elapsed before the poor fellows rallied sufficiently to speak on the subject; and meanwhile, there flashed upon my memory, some strange and weird old Celtic tales, which a Highland boy at Eton was wont to tell us, of ships which in the days of Ossian, traversed the steep hills and the salt lochs of Morven with equal facility.
"It is a ship—or rather the representation of a veritable ship—which cannot be far off the island, and is making for it at this moment," said Hislop, emphatically.
"How far off do you think she is, sir?" asked Hugh Chute, mockingly.
"Perhaps twenty miles—perhaps a hundred—it is impossible to say."
"Perhaps ten thousand?" queried Tom Lambourne, with great irritation.
"It was the ship of the Flying Dutchman!" said Probart, the carpenter.
"I've seen many a queer thing in my time, but never the like of this before!" exclaimed Carlton.
"Though foul weather don't matter much to us here, it will be sure to follow;—so I say, mates," resumed Probart, "it was the Flying Dutchman and nought else!"
"Vanderdecken or the devil come for Antonio," added Ned Carlton; "and whether he has shipped aboard that craft or not, hang me shipmates, if we should stay another hour on the island with it, or with him, or where such things are seen."
"Yes, yes," said all the rest; "let us take to the long-boat again, and sheer off."
"For where?" asked Hislop, coming forward.
"Anywhere," replied Lambourne, sulkily.
"Stuff! You must hang on by the island, or it will be the worse for you," responded the wary mate.
"How will it be worse for us?" asked Probart.
"In more ways than one."
"Indeed!"
"Yes. And moreover, it is my orders."
"Lookee, now, Master Hislop," said Henry Warren, our oldest seaman, with great gravity, "in everything that is reasonable, I have obeyed you, and I will still obey you all the same as if the deck of the Eugenie was under our feet, and the blue water round us; but as for living on this here 'chanted island for a longer spell, with a murdering villain like the Spaniard Antonio, who can make ships sail on sea and land alike, for all the world like pictures in a lantern or a penny show, is more than flesh and blood can bear; so I say, mates, let us embark all our provisions, set sail, clap dry nippers on our oars, and make out Gough's Island, or Tristan da Cunha, leaving the devil and Antonio to keep company here as long as they please—and that is likely to be long enough, I can tell you."
"Tristan da Cunha can't be above three hundred miles off," added Probart; and the proposition met with such universal approbation, that Marc Hislop became seriously alarmed.
He begged the crew to listen to him; but they did so with evident reluctance and impatience, muttering the while, and twitching their hats and trousers.
He said every thing he could think of to assure them that the ship they had seen was quite an optical illusion; and his arguments, though they might have been convincing enough to the old Dominican friar, Antonio Minasi, who thrice saw the Fata Morgana in the Straits of Messina, or to Sir David Brewster, they totally failed to assure Tattooed Tom, old Probart our carpenter, Jack Burnet the cook, and others, that it was merely a natural phenomenon, to be accounted for through some form of dioptrical refraction, by means of which a ship sailing on one part of the ocean might be reflected on another, or, as we had just seen, even on the land itself.
"I assure you, my lads," he continued, "she was the representation of a vessel now under sail elsewhere. You all saw that the sea and bay were calm as glass, that the ship was braced sharp to the wind, with her port tacks aboard, while we had none, not even a catspaw on the water, or a leaf stirring on shore. You saw that she careened, as if beneath its influence, and rose and fell as if running through a heavy sea. You saw the cabin lights go out, and the flying-jib hoisted. Thus it was quite evident that by something indescribable in the state of the atmosphere, her form and motions were taken up elsewhere, and mirrored here."
"I don't understand all this fine talk," said Tom Lambourne, sulkily, "and I don't care if I never do. I ain't a scholar, but a hardworking foremast-man, that has seen every land under the sun. So by your leave, or without it, we shall make the long-boat ready for sea. Come, my lads; we shall fill the watercasks at the spring yonder, and get what remains in the bread bags, with all the other stuff we've collected, aboard."
"Hurrah!" cried the crew, "hurrah for blue water!"
"Get the mast stepped, and all the gear ready; we'll be at sea in an hour, or my name ain't Tattooed Tom Lambourne."
"Rodney," said Hislop, turning to me, bitterly, "Goethe says that painting and tattooing are natural symptoms—the savage hankering after the brute—and faith, I begin to think so."
Old Tom Lambourne only half understood the remark; but it stung him deeply.
"I don't deserve this at your hands, Master Hislop," said he; "and it ain't manly to upbraid a poor fellow with his misfortunes when shipwrecked among savages, and I tell you so—for all your book-learning," he added, bitterly.
"You are right, Tom, and I am wrong. Pardon me, old ship-mate," said Hislop, as they shook hands.
So thoroughly were our companions scared by the recent spectral appearance, which they connected in some way with the dreadful character of Antonio el Cubano, that they at once commenced with alacrity the preparations for putting to sea.
It may be that somewhat of the professional restlessness of sailors confirmed their resolution.
They were already tired of their sojourn on the island, and inspired by the desire of reaching Tristan da Cunha, which is inhabited by about eighty families of Portuguese, English, and mulattoes, among whom Hislop assured them they might linger long enough before they were taken off by a passing ship—quite as long as if they remained on the Isle of Alphonso—and where, for subsistence, they would be forced to work as day laborers in the savannas and on the highways.
As for the Island of Diego Alvarez, our Scotch mate, who seemed to know every thing, assured them that it produced only moss and sea-grass, and that if cast there they would die of starvation. Moreover, without chart or compass, how could they hope to steer with certainty in any direction?
They might all perish in detail by the most dreadful deaths in their open boat, gasping with unquenched thirst under the blaze of a tropical sun. He said much more; but they would listen to nothing save their own fears and restless impulses.
I, too, was weary of the island; and though feeling all the despondency that follows a severe disappointment on the disappearance of the illusory ship, I in no way shared the wild and ill-regulated wishes of the crew, though assured that I would be compelled to follow their desperate fortunes.
Hislop made a last effort to convince them that all they had seen was only the reflection of a real object produced by natural causes, such as the dead calm that prevailed upon the sea—the moon shining from a point where its incident ray formed an angle of 45° on the water—the influence of saline and other effluvia suspended in the air, producing, as in a catoptric theatre, a vision by reflection; but finding that they heeded all this no more than the wind, he fairly lost his temper, and bade them "go and be hanged for stupid dolts."
It was perfectly natural that all this should sound strange to unlettered seamen; so they continued their preparations with all speed and in silence, for they all loved Hislop, and were loth to offend him.
Two bags of bread which still remained, the kegs of rum, and four casks newly filled with fresh water, were put on board the longboat, together with all our arduously collected store of kids' flesh, boars' hams, and sea-fowls' eggs.
The oars, boat tackle, and blankets were also shipped, and the whole crew embarked at the mangrove creek, where the boat lay.
Hislop and I still lingered; so we were told peremptorily that if we did not come on board at once, they would shove off without us. Thus compelled, we stepped in most reluctantly and seated ourselves in the stern, and he assumed the tiller. The oars were run through the row-locks, and Lambourne was about to shove off, when Probart, who had the bow oar, suddenly remembered that he had left his hatchet near our wigwam, and asked me to get it.
I jumped ashore, and was proceeding along the beach for it, when suddenly I was confronted by Antonio, who from a thicket had been watching our operations and departure.
His tawny skin—for he was naked to the waist—his ferocious aspect, his head of matted hair, his colossal strength, and atrocious character were not without a due effect upon the boat's crew at this crisis.
"Shove off—shove off!" I heard several voices cry in the boat; "here comes that dog of a Cubano."
I struggled with Antonio; but he laughed loudly, and drew his pistol with the air of one who would enforce obedience; besides, his eyes, which the tangled masses of his hair overhung, were flashing with malignant fire, as all the slumbering devil was roused within him.
The whole crew saw this, and I perceived that Marc Hislop made an attempt to rise up and spring overboard to my succor; but as all their hopes of reaching Tristan da Cunha depended entirely upon his skill and knowledge of navigation, he was seized by Warren, Chute, and others, roughly thrust down in the stern sheets, and forcibly held there.
I saw now that the fear and selfishness of the rest prevailed over all that Hislop, Lambourne, and Carlton could urge; for amid a storm of contending tongues, I perceived the oars dipping in the water again and again, and flashing like silver blades in the moonlight as they were feathered; and the longboat with all my companions, shot from the creek into the bay, and bore away to seaward about two in the morning, leaving me on the beach alone—marooned with the fiendish Cubano!
Had not Antonio held me fast, and menaced me with his pistol, I would have sprung into the water, and undeterred by the sharks that were forever gliding stealthily about in the bay, would have swam after the boat; for desperate though the fortune of those who were there, I would rather have shared it than live on the island of Alphonso with such a companion.
His fierce mocking laugh grated harshly in my ear, but I heeded him not, and continued to gaze after the boat and the lessening forms of those who had abandoned me, not without a fond and desperate hope that they would return for me. Every moment I expected to see her put about; but no! she held steadily on, till hull, and sail, and crew were blended into one little dark spot, which ere long could scarcely be discerned on the moonlit morning sea.
Her course was trimmed north-east, for where they supposed the isle of Tristan da Cunha lay. She had caught a breeze, and before four o'clock in the morning, the last vestige of her had disappeared.
Still I did not entirely despair!
When day dawned, while my eyes were almost blinded by tears of rage and bitterness, I clambered in haste to the summit of the great bluff, and gazed eagerly to seaward, in the hope that the arguments or wishes of Hislop, of Carlton, and of blunt old Tom Lambourne might have prevailed, and that I should see her returning; but alas! there was nothing visible save a lonely albatross skimming lazily between me and the rising sun.
Except for the sake of Marc Hislop and one or two others, who in our parting interview had acted as my friends, I hoped—but this was in the intense bitterness of my heart, at an abandonment so cruel—that the longboat might swamp, founder, or perish, how I cared not.
What was to become of me now?
The boat might fall in with some ship, and thus afford me a double chance of being taken off the island. But would the captain of this supposed ship bear up for the land if it lay far from his course?
Amid these perplexing thoughts and surmises, my greatest source of annoyance was the odious companionship of the Cubano.
I felt neither hunger nor sleep, though all the preceding night I had never closed an eye; but now I remained upon the bluff, gazing on the sunlit sea, from under the shadow of a broad-leaved plantain, until I was roused in the afternoon by Antonio, who joined me.
"Hola! mio muchacho!" (hallo! my boy), he exclaimed; "you promised me a dozen of biscuits if I released you from my hiding hole in yonder rock. Now, biscuits are biscuits here, so where are those for which I ransomed you?"
"Gone in the boat with every thing else," I replied, sulkily and sternly.
"What!—all?"
"Every thing."
"What shall we do when my powder is done?"
"I know not, and I care not."
"There are but ten charges left," said he, gloomily, as he opened the tin case.
"What is that to me?" I asked, with growing anger.
"It is this much to you, that if provisions fall short, I shall eat you!" he replied, with a fiendish grin, accompanied by an emphatic oath. "Now, my fine fellow, what do you think of that?"
The words of the wretch, his herculean frame and ferocious aspect, which the wild life he had lately spent among the woods of Alphonso had not improved, made me shudder.
On remembering the manner in which we first found him floating in the open boat at sea, the suspicions of Weston, Hislop, and Lambourne regarding the disappearance of a companion who had probably been with him—suspicions which all his future conduct seemed to confirm, and knowing all he was capable of committing, my heart sickened with disgust and apprehension; but the imminence of my own danger made me dissemble.
While pretending to smile and to disbelieve him, I mentally considered how to arm myself, or how to deprive him of those weapons which, when added to his muscular strength and singularly brutal nature, rendered him an enemy so formidable.
The idea of swimming to one of the adjacent isles occurred to me; but the straits between were full of foaming breakers and sharks; the rocks, moreover, were inaccessible, and wherever I might go Antonio could easily follow.
I remembered the carpenter's little hatchet, which was still lying upon the beach, and resolved to possess myself of it, to conceal it about me, and to use it without mercy if occasion served or required.
"Did you hear me speak, you English heathen?" shouted Antonio, striking me on the shoulder.
"Yes," said I, shuddering again; for in addition to the load of crime which covered Antonio, I loathed him as the primary cause of all our misfortunes, and of my present misery.
"Bueno—then look to it!" said he, nodding.
"Look to what!"
"We must take to kid-catching, and boar-hunting, else I may feed myself, as I have done before, with whatever comes most readily to hand."
"Shall we not place a signal again on the mountain?"
"For what purpose?" he asked with a grimace.
"To attract a passing ship."
"Of what shall we make it?"
"The studding-sail boom—where is it concealed?"
At the mention of the boom, the revengeful Cubano gnashed his teeth, and replied,—
"I have cast it where man's hand shall never get it, into a chasm on the other side of the mountain; but voto! let us go down and repair the hut those ladrones have left, and you," he added, with a grin, "shall be my camarada de casa."
The sun was now setting beyond the sea, and the shadow of the great mountain was falling eastward over the island as we began to descend from the bluff, where I had lingered so long, by one of the narrow and winding tracks made through the gorse by the wild goats.
Hunger now assailed me, and saying I would hasten forward and procure some bananas, I reached the beach before Antonio was half-way down the rocks, and found Probart's hatchet where—so unfortunately for me—he had left it in the hurry of embarkation.
I snatched it up, and as the handle was short, and the blade, though sharp, was small, I secured it in the waistband of my trousers, and buttoned my now tattered jacket over it, determined to prove therewith the hardness of Antonio's head on the first opportunity.
An emotion of security now filled my heart, as I felt that I had a weapon with which to strike at least one blow in defence of my life, if it was assailed.
As it was alike dangerous and uncomfortable to sleep under the dews that descended after sunset, for two nights after the departure of the boat, I was compelled to share the wigwam with Antonio, but did so with dread and loathing, and kept as far away from him as possible.
His dreams, which were full of oaths, ejaculations, and frequently cries of "El aparicion! El espectro!" came on him as of old; and as sleep to me became an impossibility, I resolved to leave him to his own devices. Certainly the island was large enough for us both.
Moreover, he had become so sparing of his ten charges of powder, that he would not fire a single shot at either bird, or goat, or wild boar. I have since believed that he saved them with the resolution of defending himself to the last, if Hislop ever returned to arrest him; and now, being lord and master of the whole island, and of me too, he exhibited a new phase of character.
He became too lazy to procure food, and forced me to find it for him, under threats of shooting me. Thus for two days after the departure of the boat, being totally incapable of catching one of the fleet goats alone, and being in no way disposed to encounter singly one of the wild boars, I had to climb the steep rocks above the breakers to steal the sea-birds' eggs.
This feat I achieved with considerable peril, for the birds, when roused from their eyries, whooped, screamed, and wheeled in flocks and circles about me, flapping their huge wings; so that once I became so bewildered, that instead of clambering again to the summit of the cliff, I began a descent toward the foaming sea below.
In reascending, my hat was blown away, and with it the wretched eggs for which I had risked my life and limbs.
After this event I resolved to procure food for myself alone, and instead of returning to Antonio, who usually loitered about the hut our men had left, I went to the opposite side of the island, and found a banana grove, wherein I took up my quarters.
The fruit, as it fell ripe from the trees, formed my food, and of the broad leaves and some branches I made a little gipsy-like hut, wherein I might sleep at night without being drenched by the baleful tropical dew; for of it, and its subsequent fevers and ague, I had a great dread, for to become ill would ensure a death of hunger and thirst.
In that place, which resembled the lair of a wild animal, though I had no fear of the awful solitude around me, I lay awake for half the night, listening to the chafing of the surge, and shedding many a bitter tear for my home and those who were there—those whom I might never see again—and longing, oh, how earnestly, how eagerly, and how prayerfully, for a passing ship!
Anon, I would start up and rush forth to look about me and to listen, fearing that some craft might heave in sight on the other side of the isle, take off Antonio, and leave me!
Such a catastrophe would, I am assured, have driven me distracted.
In the wild life I led there, on the Island of Alphonso, it was strange how sharp, how keenly acute every sense became, but more especially those of touch and hearing.
I had been thirty-six hours without seeing my pleasant chum, the Cubano, or being near him with food. I knew that his rage would be great, and feeling myself unusually weak, after all the mental excitement and bodily exposure I had undergone, necessity now compelled me to avoid him strictly, as I was totally incapable of contending with him in any way.
If he found me, to plead that I had lost my way or had missed him, in a space so small as our island, though wild and wooded, would scarcely prove an excuse.
Another dread haunted me, that if a ship of any nation, but more especially of Spain, hove in sight, Antonio, to provide for his own future safety, might deem it necessary to dispose of me forever, lest I should accuse him of the many crimes he had committed.
Without the evidence of Hislop and others, such accusations, if made by me alone, would have no great weight; but he might not think of that; and, moreover, was no doubt a steady believer in the old buccaneer maxim, "that dead men tell no tales."
When searching for berries, about sunrise, on the western side of the isle, and while the sun, though up, was yet below the great mountain, and cast its shadow to the extreme horizon of the hazy morning sea, I encountered Antonio at last.
Stooping on my hands and knees, I was turning over the great leaves of some creeping plants that were unknown to me in search of some wild berries, which, as I had seen the birds eat them, must, I knew, be harmless, when a severe blow on the head almost stunned me.
On looking up, there stood Antonio bending over me, with a savage scowl on his face, and his pistol clubbed as if about to repeat the assault. His intentions were evidently hostile, as he placed a foot upon my hatchet, which lay near, and his left hand grasped his knife.
Every way I was totally at his mercy!
Hunger, apparently, had rendered him furious; but feeling certain in a moment that timidity would do me no service, I started back and said in Spanish,—
"Villain! for what have you dared to strike me?"
"Dared," he reiterated; "ha! ha! much daring there is about it."
"Yes, you dog of a picaro!"
"For what reason did you desert me, you raterillo?"
"Because I could scarcely procure food for myself, and still less for a lazy ruffian like you."
"Ha! ha! I told you what would happen when I wanted food," said he, feeling the point of his knife.
My blood ran cold at these words, and I cast a longing eye upon my lost hatchet; he saw the glance, and trampled upon the weapon with a mocking laugh.
"What do you mean, Cubano?" I asked, in an almost breathless voice.
"Simply this: that as self-preservation is the first law of nature, I am bound to kill you."
He had the revolver in his hand, and while he cast a glance at the caps on the breech, as if to see that they were all right, and sheathed his knife, I made a bound aside, and placed a banana-tree between us. The dastard fired, and the ball, as it whistled past, stripped off a piece of bark.
In the same manner, I escaped a second shot, so Antonio, finding that his much-prized ammunition was likely to be expended fruitlessly, rushed forward to use his knife.
The tendril of a pumpkin caught his left foot; he fell heavily, and hurt himself severely. Then, darting past, I secured my hatchet, and rendered furious by all that had occurred, and by the imminent danger which menaced me, a light seemed to flash before my eyes, I trembled with rage, and felt as if endued by a supernatural strength.
I was about to spring upon Antonio, with hands, feet, and teeth,—to hew at him with the hatchet as I would have hewn at a tree—when a new object suddenly caught my eye.
It was a ship—but a ship ashore!
"Cubano," I exclaimed, in a husky voice, "look there!"
Antonio looked in the direction indicated, and pausing in his murderous intention, uttered a fierce laugh of satisfaction.
In the rocky channel which opened between the inaccessible island and ours, there lay the wave-beaten hull of a dismasted vessel, which must have been drifted in over night, as it was certainly not there yesterday, and it was now jammed hard and fast upon a reef of rock that connected them.
This new object changed at once the terrible current of the Cubano's ideas. A grim smile passed over his olive countenance; he shook back the elf-like masses of coal-black hair which, in Skye-terrier fashion, overhung his wild dark eyes, and sheathing his knife, said,—
"Mio muchacho—come; I was only joking. Yonder we shall find food, perhaps, and who knows what more? Come, it is a bargain; and if you don't desert me, I shall not molest you again."
He proceeded at once toward the beach, and I was hungry enough, and perhaps reckless enough now, to be glad of a truce, and to follow him, in the hope of finding something eatable on board.
Descending the rocks, which were steep and rugged, we reached their base, where a dangerous and treacherous beach sloped abruptly down into the deep water. It was covered with frothy sea-weed, bright-colored shells, strange-looking pieces of blubber, and decayed fish of many kinds.
Over some large misshapen rocks, which were covered by masses of barnacles and long tangles of sea-weed that waved in the water, but which adhered to the stone with the tenacity of steel bands, we reached—but not without considerable difficulty, and being partly immersed in the foam that boiled over the reef connecting the islands—the wreck that lay hard and fast upon it.
By her build she was evidently a new Spanish brig of somewhere about one hundred and fifty tons burden, and straight as an arrow in her sheer stroke, which had been painted yellow.
Her masts were gone by the board, and her bowsprit had been snapped off near the cap. Every vestige of the bulwarks had long since been torn away by the waves that had swept over her; and the skeleton row of her timber-heads, the windlass-bitts, and the booby-hatch, alone remained.
Her hull had been swept of every thing else.
She had evidently been long tossing to and fro, perhaps for six months, exposed to wind and weather. Nearly every vestige of paint had long since been washed from her hull by the waves, or scorched from it by the sun.
Her copper was thickly encrusted with barnacles, and coated with long trailers of sea-weed.
Singularly lonely, silent, and desolate she looked, as she lay on the reef, heeled over to starboard, with the bleached or washed ends of her shrouds and rattlins hanging from the dead-eyes over the side channel-boards in the water; and then, to add to the effect of the whole, three huge and lazy albatrosses gorged with star-fish and blubber, alighted on her taffrail, and flapped their dusky wings with a melancholy booming sound.
As we clambered on board by the ruins of the main-rigging, which hung pendent over the port-side, an exclamation of disgust escaped even Antonio when we saw the miserable remains of a poor human being, hanging by the wasted and bony legs, which were jammed in the iron gear about the fore-channel; it had, when in life, been lashed thereto, and now hung pendent, with the head, arms, and body immersed in the water; and these relics had evidently been dragged about with the wreck exposed to the waves, the sun, the fish, and the sea-birds for many months.
Of the crew we saw no other traces, and their probable fate was left to gloomy conjecture.
Removing the booby-hatch, we descended into her cabin, and found it half full of water, amid which the débris of the lockers had been long washed to and fro. There were blankets and clothing, cushions and pillows, bottles, glasses, cigar-boxes, Spanish packs of cards having cudgels for clubs, espados for spades; and there, too, were charts and books reduced to mere pulp by long immersion.
The skylight was gone; but on the cabin-windows we still saw the dead-lights, as those ports or shutters are named which are usually shipped in rough weather to prevent high seas from breaking in.
The place had a chill feeling—a dreary and desolate aspect; for many months the water had been washing there from bulkhead to bulkhead and from stem to stern.
With the aid of my hatchet we forced a passage into the bread-room, as the locker wherein bread or biscuit is usually kept is named. It was entirely lined with tin, to exclude rats; but this had failed to exclude water, for the bags of biscuit, which to us would have been more valuable than sacks of diamonds or doubloons, had all been reduced to mouldy pulp and paste long ago.
Antonio seemed in his element; his eyes sparkled with a lurid glare; his limbs appeared to dilate and strengthen as he hewed and hacked away at the panels and bulkheads in quest of food and plunder, so he soon forced his way through the fore and after holds, and, indeed, over all the wreck; while the blows of the hatchet, and the sound of his voice, as he shouted and swore to himself, sounded hollow and strange in the hitherto long-abandoned ship.
A little examination proved her to be a Spanish brig, timber laden, principally with mahogany, and completely waterlogged. Thus she could never sink.
She was probably from the Bay of Honduras. We found several coils of Manilla rope on board, and some cocoa-nuts entire. She was oak-built, copper-fastened, and coppered to the bends.
"She had not made the land in her last voyage," said Antonio; "and a storm must have overtaken and dismasted her at sea."
"How do you know this?" I asked.
"Because one anchor—her best bower—still remains in the bow, and the cables have not been bent, but are stowed in the tier below. Her working anchor and kedge have both gone or been sent overboard to lighten her."
And then, as if he had wasted time enough, Antonio descended to renew the ransacking of the vessel; and ere long I heard him utter a shrill howl of delight.
He had discovered a square box, entirely filled with case-bottles of Jamaica rum! To one who, like him, had been so long deprived of his favorite stimulants, this discovery was more valuable than a gold mine.
I cannot say that I shared his delight in this matter, knowing well that the wretch would drink to excess, and then there would be greater reason than ever to dread his presence.
Our investigation had occupied almost the entire day, and it was about the time of sunset when Antonio found his prize. Knowing well the danger of getting ashore in the dusk along the ridge of the reef and up the weed-covered rocks of the island, I urged the Cubano to return at once, as I had a dislike of remaining all night in a waterlogged wreck, which any rise of the wind or sea might take off the coast again; but Antonio only mocked me, and was deaf to my advice.
He drank at least a pint of rum in a few minutes, and this prostrated his energies for the time; so, leaving him half-seated in the water that washed and gurgled about the cabin, with his back propped against the after bulkhead, the spirit box placed between his legs, and a square case-bottle in each hand, I prepared to sheer off and get ashore ere worse came to pass.
All the plunder I brought away with me consisted of a book, which I found, half defaced by water, on a shelf, and a small sword, like a couteau de chasse, that hung on a hook in one of the cabin berths, and which, unseen by Antonio, I concealed in my trousers, as he had lost my hatchet somewhere in the fore-hold, and I had no other weapon with which to defend myself if attacked.
I had eaten nothing but half a cocoa-nut all day, and felt weak and giddy when lowering myself off the wreck by the main-chains.
In the tropics the sun sets rapidly, and already the reef was darkened by the shadows of the two islands between which it lay. Their rocks were black as marble; but the sea, and all the surf between them, were white as milk by the reflection of the snowy clouds on which the rising moon was shining.
The whole scene of the silent and waterlogged wreck was solemn and impressive; and a gloomy horror was added to it by the ghastly remains of the dead man, which hung and were washed to and fro alongside, head downward, from the fore-channel—swaying with a gurgling sound, as if he was essaying to rise from the water.
Shudderingly I turned away, and wading through the surf, clambered over the piles of slippery and weedy boulders, to regain the higher portion of the Island of Alphonso.
As I ascended, the voice of Antonio, now somewhat cracked and wavering, reached me, as he put his head above the booby-hatch, and sung a Spanish ditty, one verse of which ran thus:
"Companero, companero,
She is gone that ruled my heart!
Companero, companero,
That was sorrow's deepest smart.
But companero, companero,
Here's the bota, drink your fill;
For companero, companero,
Wine's the cure for every ill!"
At this point of his song he suddenly vanished. Probably his foot slipped, and if so, he would fall souse into the water, which flooded all the cabin and companion-way. If stunned by the fall, or stupefied by the rum of which he had partaken so freely, he might lie there and drown.
But what was the fate of such a wretch to me? If I returned on board, could I save him? No; it was more than probable that in his intoxication he would assail me, and I might perish by his hand; so leaving the Cubano to his fate, I continued my ascent, until I reached the banana thicket, where my little hiding-place lay. There I placed the sword I had found beside me for security, and coiling myself up on my bed of dry leaves, strove to sleep, and dream of deliverance and of home. But the idea of Antonio perishing there in the wreck haunted me, and kept me long miserable and awake.
Next morning my doubts about Antonio were dispelled, when, from my place of concealment (which was on the brow of a wooded rock), I heard him shouting for me; and once or twice I obtained a glimpse of him, stumbling about as if intoxicated, with the box of case-bottles slung over his back in a Manilla rope.
How he had got either the box or himself ashore was a mystery, the passage along the reef, and the ascent from thence to the upper part of the island being so difficult and so dangerous; but heedless of his invitations to join him, and of his threats for absenting myself, I remained close in my place of concealment, being well aware that if the Cubano was a hateful and perilous companion when sober, he would be doubly so in his present state.
The morning was clear and bright in all its tropical loveliness. My first glance was turned to the sea, where its waters blended in the faintest blue with the flat horizon; but no sail was in sight.
So long had this been the case—so often had I swept the sea at sunrise and at sunset with haggard eyes in vain,—that I repressed the usual sigh; and placing the book I had found open in the sunshine, that its damp leaves might dry, I selected a ripe banana, brought some water in a large leaf from a spring, and proceeded to make my breakfast like a hermit of old.
Concealed by thick shrubs and beds of gigantic tulips, I was certain that Antonio could neither discover nor molest me—at least, that he could not take me by surprise, which was somewhat consoling; for the events of yesterday morning had given me a greater terror of him.
At my feet apparently lay the bay, on the margin of which stood the rude wigwam built by the men of the Eugenie; and it made me think sadly of good Marc Hislop and others who were gone.
There lay the rocks which formed the horns of that beautiful bay, tufted with feathery trees, and between them extended the long white line of the coral reef, over which the shadowy vessel had appeared to sail on that eventful night.
On my right towered through the clouds the great mountain, which is yet unnamed; and on my left rose, sheer from the water, the mighty bluff we had first descried at sea.
I took up the book, the leaves of which the warm sunshine had dried and crisped, and its pages made me think of home and of that civilization from which I was exiled—of Eton and other times; and for nearly an hour my eyes were full, my heart sick and heavy, with intense longing for relief, and a weariness of the life I was passing on this lonely island.
After a time I began to read, and in this new or old (it was both to me) sense of pleasure, I forgot all my sorrow and peril.
It was a Spanish book, the title-page of which was gone, but proved to be the first volume of a collection of the voyages and discoveries made by the Spaniards in the olden time.
It related* the adventures of Alphonso de Albuquerque, detailing how he and Tristan da Cunha, each with seven caravels, had sailed from Europe and touched at Teneriffe, while there was an eruption from the crater of the great peak, during which a mighty mass of rock fell down, and brought to light the great diamond, which had since shone at times with such wondrous brilliance in the night, but the exact locality of which baffled all search during day.
* I subsequently learned from Marc Hislop that the work was probably a volume of the Collection de los Viages y Descubrimientos de los Espanoles en Indias.
Sailing from thence to the isles named Tristan da Cunha, a storm dispersed the fleet; but Alphonso, after being separated from Don Tristan discovered the island, which he named from himself, and had his name cut on one of the rocks, in the year in which Philip, King of Castile and Emperor of Austria, died; and this was the rock which we had discovered.
Then, in the following year, he sailed to India, of which he became viceroy, for Ferdinand the Catholic. It detailed how, thereafter, he went from the city of Cochin unto the Straits of Malacca, and sent a certain valiant Portuguese knight, named Ruy Nunnez da Cunha, as ambassador to the king of the Seguiers: how he sailed to Java, where he found the wonderful birds of paradise, that came in flights from the southern isles of India, and were fabled to be always on the wing without the power of alighting, till they found some that were drunk with the strength of the nutmeg, which always intoxicates them.
In that sea huge lampreys adhered to the keels of his caravels, and for a time retarded their progress, which was deemed to be enchantment.
Sailing thence, Alphonso discovered an island where the sea-serpent coiled up his monstrous length for certain seasons, guarding caverns that were filled with piles of golden ingots, and casks of orient pearls, rubies, and diamonds; and in this isle were deep bights and bays, where ships with all their crews lay spell-bound by necromancers.
On another island he found a white nation, whose cavaliers were arrayed in fine shirts, slashed doublets of taffeta, and trunk hose, with long swords and short mantles, exactly like the Portuguese; and having money of silver, with many other incredible statements, all tending to assure the reader that this settlement was one of the seven Christian colonies that, under seven bishops, had fled from the Spanish Peninsula when the cross was trampled under the feet of the Moors, and when the churches of Christ were converted into mosques for the worship of Mohammed, as a punishment for the wickedness of Roderick the Last of the Goths.
Returning westward from this wonderful voyage, in 1513, Don Alphonso went from the city of Goa to the straits of Mecca, and passing with twenty caravels through the narrow Gate of Tears into the Red Sea, he bombarded the city of Aden, after which a cross appeared in heaven, shining before his ship, like the pillar of fire that shone before the children of Israel; and two years after, this worthy cavalier, just as he was about to make Shah Ishmael, king of Persia, pay tribute to his master the king of Castile, "passed away to the company of the saints," dying like a true Hidalgo, with his armor on, and his toledo at his girdle.
The real and the marvellous were so curiously blended in these voyages, that I read on, forgetful of all about me, and charmed in spite of my deplorable situation.
At last I came to the history of a valiant mariner who invented a steamship in the time of Charles V.—a narrative which seemed to illustrate the old aphorism, that there is nothing new under the sun.
When Charles the First of Spain and Fifth of Germany was emperor, there lived in the busy town of Barcelona, a certain Blasco de Garay, captain of a merchant ship.
In his youth, Blasco had been one of the mariners of Columbus, whom he accompanied in all those voyages which gave to Castile and Leon a new realm beyond the seas of the southern and western world. He was with him when he landed in Guana Bay, and erected the standard of Ferdinand and Isabella on a shore never before trod by a Christian foot; so this land, which is one of the Bahamas, by the suggestion of Blasco, he named San Salvador; and he was also with him at the discovery of Cuba, of Hispaniola, and the discovery of that mighty continent, the nominal honor of which was robbed from Columbus, by Amerigo Vespucius, the Florentine.
But all this was when Blasco was a boy; so fifty-one years after, that is, in the year of grace 1543, he conceived the idea "of an engine able to move large vessels in calm weather without the use of oars or sails."
So coldly were his proposals met at home, that he was on the point of applying to James V. of Scotland, a monarch then far in advance of any other in Europe, in the cultivation of the arts, of commerce, music, architecture, and painting; but unfortunately he died of a broken heart, and, moreover, his mariners were the scourge of the shores of Portugal and Spain.
But Blasco did not lose heart, for after enduring torrents of ridicule, and experiencing incredible abuse, with threats from the Dominicans that they would burn him as a sorcerer, the Emperor agreed to permit a trial of his great invention, and it took place in presence of a mighty concourse, at Barcelona, on the 17th of June, 1543.
The harbor there is formed by a kind of bight, which lies between the citadel of Monjuich and the city; all the shore of this bay was covered with spectators; the battlements of the governor's palace, and those of the palaces of the counts of Barcelona and of the kings of Arragon, with the spire of St. Mary-of-the-Sea, were also covered by a multitude.
The Emperor was on horseback, surrounded by his courtiers, the commanders of St. Jago of Calatrava, of Alcantara, and other religious and military orders, wearing their crosses and mantles, and all the officials of his splendid household, while his guard of archers, the guards of Monteros de Espinosa, and the old German Lanzknechts, lined the beach with their great gilded partisans, the staves of which were covered with crimson velvet and tasselled with gold.
On beholding all these preparations, and such a concourse of the noble, the wealthy, and great around the Emperor, Blasco de Garay believed that the fortunate hour—"the hour which, according to the general saying, presents itself to every man once in his life for making fame and fortune," had now arrived.
He had spent the night in prayer, at Montserrat, for the success of his invention—dreamt of in youth, studied in manhood, and now matured in age—the ship that would be alike independent of wave and wind.
Montserrat is a few miles from Barcelona, and had then a famous abbey, which was much frequented in consequence of a miraculous image of the Virgin, which was kept in a chapel on the summit of a rock; and in this chapel ninety lamps of solid silver, filled with perfumed oil, burned night and day, and on each was engraved the name and arms of Alphonso de Albuquerque, who brought them from the mosques of the East, beyond the realms of Prester John. In the caverns beneath dwelt many aged hermits and others who wished to seclude themselves from the world; so there did Blasco de Garay spend the night preceding the 17th of June, in meditation and prayer for the success of his wonderful scheme.
A vessel of two hundred tons, named La Trinidad, commanded by Captain Pedro de Scarza, was then passing the high bar which is formed at the entrance of the bay by the waters of the Bezos, and the Llobregat mingling with the sea; and when she caught the eye of the Emperor, he ordered Blasco to try his experiment on her.
She was laden with corn, and had just come from Monte Colibre or the Columbretes islets, which lie near the coast of Valencia, and poor Pedro de Scarza, in his ignorance and fear of what was about to be done to his ship, rent his beard and tore his slashed doublet as he stamped about her deck and gave himself up for lost, when ordered to furl every thing aloft as La Trinidad was to sail without canvas, or as he believed, about to be bewitched.
Blasco told his secret to none; but it was observed that he placed across the vessel's deck, and bolted thereto an axle, at each end of which was a large wooden wheel. Amidships were several other mysterious wheels with bands and bars, and a necromantic-looking iron boiler of great size, which he filled, however, with water from the holy well of Montserrat.
The moment this water attained boiling heat, by means of a fire which burned in a grating underneath, the wheels revolved, and again Pedro de Scarza rent his beard, while most of his crew jumped overboard; for now the vessel ran right across the Bay of Barcelona against the wind which was blowing fresh, to the great astonishment and terror of the people.
Charles V., whose mind was more occupied by wars and conquests, by battles and sieges, than the arts of science and peace, ordered his treasurer to inspect this strange machine and report upon it.
The treasurer, in doing so, got his trunk breeches torn by a portion of the machinery, by which accident about three pecks (Spanish) of fine cedar sawdust, which formed the bombasting thereof, were spilled on the deck of La Trinidad; so being a solemn, proud, and pompous grandee of Old Castile, he justly considered himself insulted by a vile mechanical contrivance, which he loudly denounced, stating "that it was not worth adopting, as the vessel did not go more than eight miles in two hours, which any caravel might do; and that the boiler was a Satanic affair, which was liable to burst and scald good Christians."
The Emperor, who was on the eve of departing from Spain to invade France, thus forbade Blasco to think more of his invention; but he bestowed upon him forty thousand maravedis, and created him a knight of the Dove of Castile—an order instituted in 1379, by Henry II., King of Castile and Lord of Biscay—the same who was poisoned by a handsome pair of buskins sent to him by Mohammed II., the Red-faced king of Granada.
But Blasco de Garay, on seeing no further hope of success with his long-cherished steam engine, in the bitterness of his heart dashed it to pieces with a hammer, thus destroying in an instant all that the fond hopes, the deep thoughts, and the labor of a lifetime had developed and constructed.
Disgusted with the world and weary of it, he retired to one of the little hermitages in the Rock of Montserrat, only in time to prevent the Inquisition from burning him as a sorcerer, and there he died, in the year of the Emperor's abdication, 1555.
Seated under a banana tree, with my back resting against its trunk, I had read thus far; and lulled by the ceaseless hum of insects among the leaves, and by the equally monotonous chafing of the sea on the beach far down below, I permitted the book, so valuable under the circumstances in which I was placed, to drop from my hands, and I was about to sleep, when the appearance of a distant object on the waters gave me a species of electric shock.
A SHIP!
Under a cloud of canvas, she was running direct for the island from the west, and must have been some hours visible before she caught my eye.
I started up as if I would have met her half way, and then seated myself again, and watched her in a species of ecstasy.
Ah! how my heart leaped at this sight! My emotions were suffocating, and with them there was a nervous fear that it might prove another optical delusion—another Fata Morgana—another ship that would melt away on a nearer approach.
But no! On she came—on and on, with the white foam curling under her sharp bows, a long wake weltering under the counter, and running far astern, every thing set upon her that would draw, from deck to trucks; even her studding-sails were rigged out from the lower, the topsail, and top-gallant yards.
She seemed a very large vessel, ship-rigged, and apparently about fifteen miles distant.
How I dreaded that she might change her course! How I longed for some means of attracting her, ere evening came on. How I panted. I rose, and in an incredibly short space reached the summit of the great bluff which overhangs the sea.
There, under a blazing sun, I exhausted myself by waving my tattered jacket, and by shouting as if her crew could have heard me.
Then I felt my brain almost boiling in the heat, and sat down in the shade of a thicket to fan myself with a large leaf, and lave water from a spring upon my face and head.
Forgetting all about Antonio, or what his views or purposes might now be, I descended to the beach, and stood upon the white stripe of sand, in the hope that some one on board who might be using a telescope would distinguish me; and about two hours after she came in sight, I supposed this was the case, for when the wind veered more upon her quarter, I saw her ensign floating as it was run up to the gaff peak; but my eyes failed to make out its color or nation.
And now her hull became black and all her canvas assumed a purple hue as the sun set; but her sails grew white again when the shadow of the mountain fell across the sea she sailed on.
She was about three miles off, when the wind became light, and ere long almost died away. I felt as if bursting with impatience—with excited hope, with joy to behold her, and with desire for deliverance. All this created a delirium in my head and heart, like intoxication or fever.
During the day, I had seen nothing of Antonio, whom I supposed to be either on board the wreck, or employed with his beloved case of Jamaica rum in some thicket on the other side of the island. Indeed I forgot all about him, and thought only of the approaching ship.
I felt certain that I had been seen; why else would she have shown her colors?
The sunset was followed by a deep and solemn crimson, which overspread the western quarter of the sky and sea. The line of the horizon could no longer be distinguished, so softly did cloud and water blend together in the distance.
In the dark blue vault above, the diamond stars were sparkling. No sound met the ear but the gurgle of a spring from a rock plashing on the pebbled channel, and the ceaseless chafing of the sea upon the lonely shore.
The passing breeze stirred the pendent leaves of the palms, and then died away, for it came in puffs that caused the canvas of the coming ship to shiver aloft; so ere long her courses were brailed up, as they collapsed against the masts.
Slowly and imperceptibly the large and stately craft came on. There was a trim squareness in her hamper aloft, and a clean, flush run in her hull that gave her somewhat the aspect of a man-o'-war; but she was not one, evidently.
Nearer and nearer she came. The look-out ahead evidently saw the bar or coral reef, with the ridge of white foam that boiled at the entrance of the bay, for now a leadsman was busy in the forechains to leeward.
Anon her cloud of canvas, topsails, topgallantsails, and royals, seemed to tower between me and the sky. I could see every sail and rope distinctly, and could count the men upon her deck.
Now her royals were hauled down, and the fore-yards slewed round as her head was thrown in the wind; then the rushing sound of the great chain cable, as it roared hoarsely through the iron hawse-pipe, reached my ear over the ripples within the bay, as she came to anchor outside the reef; and I saw her crew swarming up aloft, and laying out upon the yards to hand her canvas, and in a few minutes she was bared of every thing.
I panted with eagerness for the next movement in the drama of my deliverance, and laughed exultingly when one of her quarter boats was lowered and manned.
For a time, it hung off the larboard quarter, as the great ship swung round at her moorings, and the bow-man held on to the mizzen channels by a boat-hook, while the men kept their oars up-ended.
During this delay, I endured an agony of impatience. At last a smart fellow slid down the falls to the stern sheets, seated himself, seized the tiller rope, and the oars dipped in the water as she was shoved off with her bow pointed to the shore.
They were pulling for a part of the beach where a ledge of rock formed a kind of natural pier within the northern horn of the bay, and I was about to run in that direction, when the voice of Antonio, rendered husky by his recent potations, reached me.
"Hola! Stop, or it may be the worse for you," said he.
I turned, and saw him start from behind some large boulders which lay on the beach to my right. There he had evidently been lurking and observing the ship's approach; and now he stood, with bare knife in hand, between me and the coming boat.
The pile of weedy boulders concealed us both at that moment from the ship, and from those in her boat; and by the light of the moon, I could read the fell intention of Antonio in his dark and deep-set eye.
In tangled masses, his black hair fell over a low and narrow brow, and met the equally black whiskers that mingled with the beard which grew like a furze-bush over his chin and cheeks. Naked to the waist, he resembled in every way a brawny savage. Inflamed by alcohol, the expression of his eye was terrible, and he seemed to tremble with the ferocity of his emotions, as he grasped his knife, with the thumb of his right hand placed firmly over the pommel.
The moonlight shone brightly on the beach; so whatever he meant to do, he resolved should be done behind the screen formed by the boulders among which he had been concealed.
I had still the sword which had been taken from the wreck, and I drew it with the resolution of defending my life to the last. Antonio started on beholding me armed so unexpectedly.
"You see the boat which is making for the shore?" said he.
"I do, and am on my way to meet it; so stand aside, Cubano," I replied, firmly.
"And you will tell her crew of all that happened in the Eugenie, and cry sangre por sangre!" said he, grinding his teeth.
"That is as may be," said I, without consideration.
Then uttering a howl like a wild animal, he rushed upon me with his knife uplifted; but quite undaunted I met him half-way, and thrust the sword under his right arm-pit. Springing back, before the great lumbering ruffian could renew the attack, I gave him another dangerous wound in the breast, which tumbled him down on his face; and without looking to see whether or not he moved again, I ran along the moonlit beach, and reached the boat, which had just sheered alongside the ledge of rock already mentioned.