PART II.

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CHAPTER XXIX.
LAYING UP THE STRANDS.

“Ever drifting, drifting, drifting
On the shifting
Currents of the restless main,
Till in sheltered coves and reaches
Of sandy beaches,
All have found repose again.”

It was in the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and twenty-two, and in the broad and commodious harbor of Kingston, a great mercantile haven, crowded with shipping from all parts of the commercial globe; landlocked by reef and ridge, with the rocks and heights crowned by frowning batteries of heavy cannon; while beyond were spread the lower and upper town, in masses of low two-story buildings, with piazzas, bright green jalousies, stately palm, tamarind, and cocoa-nut-trees waving above them. At the mouth of the harbor strait, where stands Fort Augusta, lay a magnificent double-banked American frigate, with a broad blue swallow-tailed pennant at her main, standing out stiff, like a dog-vane, from the lofty mast, as the ship rode to the strong sea-breeze.

The stays and rigging came down from trucks, cross-trees, and tops in straight black lines, from the great length of lower masts and enormously square yards fore and aft; and from side to side, till they met the long majestic hull and taper head-booms; while below were two rows of ports, with the guns run out and the brass tompions gleaming in their muzzles. The awnings were spread in one flat extended sheet of white cotton canvas from bowsprit to taffrail, and from the wide-spread lower booms at the fore-chains boats were riding by their painters. Within a cable’s length of the frigate’s black quarter lay a low rakish schooner, like a minnow alongside a whale, with a thin little coach-whip streaming from her main-mast head, a long brass gun amidships, and looking as trig and tidy as a French maid beside her portly mistress.

The bell struck in twin notes eight on board the frigate, echoed 180 back from the pigmy schooner in a faint, double succession of tinkles; the whistles resounded from deck to deck in ear-splitting notes, surging and chirruping all together, and then suddenly ceasing with a rattling beat of a drum and a short bellow of “Grog, ho!”

Between the guns of the main deck, and about the spar-deck battery forward of the main-mast, sat five hundred lusty sailors on the white decks around their mess-cloths, bolting hot pea soup after their grog, and chatting and laughing in a devil-may-care sort of a strain, as if the grub was good and the timbers sound, as they were, of the stanch frigate beneath them. No noise, no confusion, but just as polite and courteous, in their honest, seamanlike way, as half a legion of French dancing-masters, they whacked off the salt pork before them with their sheath-knives, munching the flinty biscuit, and all as happy and careless of the past and future as clams at high water. Ay, there they clustered, those five hundred sailors, in their snowy duck trowsers and white, coarse linen frocks, with the blue collars laid square back over their broad shoulders, exposing their bronzed and hairy throats, wagging their jaws, and ready at any moment, at the tap of the drum, day or night, to spring to the guns, and make the battery dance a jig as the solid iron food went amid sheets of flame toward a foe. Yes, and ready, too, in the gentle breeze or the howling tempest, to leap at the shrill pipe of the whistle from the busy deck or their snug hammocks, and, like so many monkeys, jump up the shrouds, lie out on the enormous yards while the frigate was plunging bows under in the tumultuous seas, grasp the writhing canvas in their sinewy paws, and wrap it up close and tight in the hempen gaskets. Man-of-war sailors, for battle, or gale, or spree, every one of them.

On board that little consort near were about forty more of the same sort, only older, more bronzed, and more deliberate and methodical in manner, sipping their pea pottage after blowing away the steam, cutting their pork after much reflection, and cracking their biscuit tranquilly. Their conversation, too, was slow and dignified, each word well considered before it came out, and never interrupting one another in a yarn, as did the younger harum-scarum chaps in the big ship near. But yet those weather-beaten old sons of Neptune, who had each one of them seen sights that would make your hair stand on end to think of, could handle that schooner when her low deck was buried waist-deep to the combings of the main hatch in angry water, and make that Long Tom amidships there spin round on its pivot, and never threw away idly one of its solid globular messengers. Ay, trust them for that.

Then honor to them all, those gallant tars who have fought the battles of our country by sea and lake, and upheld those Stars and 183 Stripes until they are respected to the uttermost ends of the earth! Glory to them, ye wise legislators, who sit in council upon the nation’s wealth and grandeur! Think of the fearless arms that have shielded your otherwise unprotected shores when circled in a ring of dreadful fire from the guns of a haughty foe.

THE UNITED STATES FRIGATE “MONONGAHELA.”

And you, too, ye rich traders! whose valuable cargoes roll hither and thither over the trackless deep, cared for by those toiling tars who fight and bleed for the flag that waves o’er your treasure––in stinging gale, with frozen fingers, or under burning suns, with panting breasts––think of them when your noble ships come gallantly into your superb ports, and unlade their floating mines of wealth into your spacious warehouses, while you in your lordly mansions sip your wine! Think of those arms grasping the shivering sail in the mighty tempest, in the black night, and the coarse fare they eat, the sometimes putrid water they drink, and the hard beds they lie upon, while you are reposing on downy pillows with your wives and little ones beside you! Ah! take pity on the sailor, and scatter your shining gold over him in his distress.

When the time comes, as come it may, when the cannon of a hostile fleet are thundering at your ports; when your lumbering craft are flying before the rapacious grasp of quick-heeled cruisers, and fiery bombs are hissing through the pure air, bursting in your marble palaces and blasting your stores of wealth to dust, then you will turn with blanched faces to the sea, and wonder why you have so long forgotten the noble hearts and stalwart arms that once were thrown around you. But not before.

On the flush quarter-deck of the frigate, by the raised signal lockers abaft, stood a bronzed old quarter-master, a spy-glass resting on his arm, through which every minute he peered around the harbor, giving an eye, too, occasionally to the half-hour glass, whose sands dribbled steadily into the lower bulb on the locker beside him.

What cared he––no wife or child to cheer him! No cares save but to see that the ensign did not roll foul of the halyards, that the broad pennant blew out straight, that the half-hour glass did not need turning, and that no boat approached the frigate without his reporting it to the officer of the watch. Naught else save, perhaps, whether the other old quarter-master, Charley Holmes, down below there on the gun-deck, had wiped from his lips the moisture of the midday grog, and would be up in time to take the relief while the pea soup was warm. Nothing else.

The lieutenant of the watch briskly paced the solid deck, scrubbed white as milk with lime-juice and molasses, the even seams between the planks glistening like the strands of a girl’s raven tresses as his profane and rapid feet pressed upon them. What thought he in his careless walk, with the gleaming bunch of bullion on his right 184 shoulder, sword by his side, white trowsers, and gilt eagle buttons on his navy-blue coat?

He was thinking how his pittance of pay would support, in a scrimpy way, his poor mother and sister, who looked unto him as their only hope and refuge. And he thought, too, as he tramped that noble deck, made glorious by many a battle and victory in which he had borne a humble part, that his rich and powerful country would eventually reward him with increased pay and promotion. Were the single dollar which lay alone in his trowsers pocket, and the light mist which arose off there beyond the Apostles’ Battery, opposite Port Royal Harbor, an evidence of one or a sign of the last aspiration? We hope not; but we shall see.[*]

Three or four midshipmen, too, pranced over that frigate’s white quarter-deck, on the port side, in their blue jackets and duck trowsers. Little gay madcaps they were, scarcely well into their teens, with little glittering toasting-forks of dirks dangling at their sides, and ready for any lark or mischief.

And what thought those boyish imps of reefers? Did they trace the flight of that tropic man-of-war bird, sailing high up in the heavens, heading seaward, away into the distant future, through clouds and sunshine, rain and storm? And did they think, as they fluttered along the deck, that their own career might lead them in that direction, toward the star of promotion which shone so brightly near at hand, and was never reached; or else, by a chance shot, to come tumbling down with a crippled pinion, and hobble out their lives on shore? No. Those gay young blades, whose mothers were dreaming and sighing for them, had no reflections of that kind. They were chattering about the little frolic they had on their last liberty day, when the captain ordered them off to the frigate at sunset, and planning another for the week to come. Happy little scamps, let them dance their careless thoughts away!

“Two bells, sir,” said the quarter-master to the officer of the watch.

“Very good! Young gentlemen, tell the boatswain to turn the hands to, and have the barge manned. Let the first lieutenant and the marine officer know that the commodore is going to leave the ship. There, no larking on the quarter-deck, Mr. Mouse!”

This last command was addressed to a tiny youngster who was hardly big enough to go without pantalettes, much less to wear a jacket and order half a hundred huge sailors about, any one of whom was old enough to be his great-grandfather. But yet that small lad did it, and could steer a boat, too, or fly about like a ribbon in a high wind up there in the mizzen-top, while the men on the yard were taking the last reef in the top-sail.

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“Go down to the cabin, sir, and let the commodore and his friend know the boat is ready.”

Down the ladder skipped Mr. Mouse, and while he was gone, the guard, in their white summer uniform and cross-belts, stood at ease, resting on their muskets on the quarter-deck, eight side-boys and the boatswain at the starboard gangway, with the first lieutenant and the officer of the watch standing near.

Presently there came up from the after cabin hatchway a fine, handsome man, in the very prime of life, in cocked hat, full-dress coat, a pair of gleaming epaulets, sword by his hip, and his nether limbs cased in white knee-breeches, silk stockings, and pumps. The one who followed him was apparently a much older man, with grizzled locks, a dark, stern face, and without epaulets. The first raised his hat as he stepped on the quarter-deck––not a thread of silver was seen in his dark hair––and then both bowed to the officers, who saluted them as they moved toward the gangway. The boatswain piped, the marines presented arms, the drum gave three quick rolls, and the commodore went over the gangway, preceded by his companion.


[*]

This was written before the “Pay Bill” was passed.


186

CHAPTER XXX.
OLD FRIENDS.

“What though when storms our bark assail,
The needle trembling veers,
When night adds horror to the gale,
And not a star appears?
True to the pole as I to thee,
It faithful still will prove––
An emblem dear of constancy,
And of a sailor’s love.”

The barge left the side of the frigate, a broad blue pennant with white stars on a staff at her bow, with fourteen handsome sailors to man her, all in clean white frocks and trowsers, with straw hats and flowing black ribbons around them, on which was stamped in gold letters, “Monongahela.”

The double bank of white ash oars flashed in the rippling waves of the harbor as the barge was urged over the water, the current seething and buzzing under her bows, and bubbling into her wake as she flew on toward the town. In a mahogany box at the stern sat a bushy-whiskered coxswain, whose body swayed to the stroke of the oars, while his hand grasped the brass tiller as he steered amid the shipping. The commodore had settled himself down under the boat’s awning on the snow-white covered cushions in the stern-sheets, and, with one foot resting on the elegant ash grating beneath, he began to talk to the grave gentleman who sat opposite to him.

“It is many a long year since I last visited this superb harbor, but I remember it as if it were yesterday. You never were here before, I think? No? Well, if any of the old set I once knew, when I was first lieutenant of the old ‘Scourge,’ are yet alive, we shall have a pleasant time!”

“One fine fellow,” went on the commodore, “I know is. His name is Piron. I had a note from him as soon as the frigate anchored yesterday, and I shall ask him to dine sociably with me on board this evening. I hope you will join us.”

The grave gentleman said that he had business which would detain him on shore all night.

The barge swept up to the mole, the oars were thrown up at a wave of the coxswain’s hand, and came into the boat on either side 187 like shutting up a pair of fans, while the boat-hooks checked her way, and she remained stationary at the steps of the landing. The awning was canted, the commodore and his friend got out and mounted the stairway, while the boat’s crew stood up with their hats off. On the mole were four or five people in light West India rig of brown and white, and broad Guayaquil sombreros.

“Cleveland!” exclaimed a tall, handsome man, as he seized the commodore by both hands, “how glad we are to see you! Here is Tom Stewart, and Paddy Burns, and little Don Stingo, attorneys, factors, and sugar-boilers, all of us delighted to welcome you back once more to Jamaica!”

Crowding about the commodore, shaking hands and slapping one another on the back, standing off a step or two to see the effect of time on each other’s appearance, laughing heartily with many a happy allusion to days gone by, those old friends and former companions, unmindful of the hot sun, stood there with their faces lighted up and talking all together.

“And you are a commodore, eh! Cleveland, with a broad pennant and a squadron? Ah! we have kept the run of you, though. Read all about that action you were in with the ‘President,’ and that bloody battle in the ‘Essex’ and ‘Phebe’ at Valparaiso, with Porter. And here you are again, safe and sound, and hearty!”

“And you too, Piron! The same as ever! Not tired of cane-planting yet? But how is madame?”

“Lovely a girl as ever, Cleveland, but never entirely got over that sad loss of the little boy, you know. However, she will be overjoyed to see you. She’s been talking of you ever since we saw your appointment to the station fifteen months ago. Apropos, we have her widowed sister with us, whose husband was killed at Waterloo, and our little niece who came from France––all out there at the old place of Escondido, where you must come and pass a week with us. Nay, man, no excuse! The thing is arranged, and it would be the death of Stingo, Tom Stewart, and Paddy Burns if you disappoint us.”

“Well, Piron, I am your man, but not for a day or two, until I have made some official calls here on the authorities. Meanwhile, gentlemen, you all dine with me this evening on board the frigate, every mother’s soul of you! Coxswain, go on board and tell my steward to have dinner for six. Stop at the schooner as you go off, and say to Mr. Darcantel that I shall expect him to join us. Now, my friends, that matter is arranged, and we will all go off in the barge at sunset.”

“Dry talking, isn’t it, Stingo?” said Piron; “so, commodore, come, and we’ll have a sip of sangaree and a deviled biscuit to keep our mouths in order. But, halloo! where is your friend, Cleveland? that tall man in black? Parson or chaplain, eh?”

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“No,” replied the officer; “an old friend of mine, my brother-in-law, who takes a cruise with me occasionally; but he never goes in society, and has taken himself off, as he always does when we get in port. He is a glorious fellow, though, and I hope to present him to you yet. Never mind him now.”

Arm in arm went the blue coat and bullion, locked in white grass sleeves, along the busy quays, crowded with mule-carts and drays for stores or shipping. Spanish dons, dapper Frenchmen, burly John Bulls, standing at warehouse and posadas, all with cigars in their teeth, which they puffed so lazily that the smoke scarcely found its way beyond the brims of their wide sombreros. Negroes, too, with scanty leg gear, and still scantier gingham shirts, having bales, or boxes, or baskets of fruit on their heads, never any thing in their hands, chattering and laughing one with another as they danced and jostled along the busy mart; then through the hot, sandy ruts of streets, pausing now and then to shake hands with some old acquaintance beneath the overhanging piazzas; sedan-chairs moving about, with a negro in a glazed hat and red cockade at either end of the poles, in a long easy trot, as they bore their burdens of Spanish matron, or English damsel, or maybe a portly old judge, or gouty admiral, on a shopping or business excursion to the port; so on to the upper town, where the dwellings stand in detachments by themselves––single or in pairs––with spacious balconies and bright green Venetian blinds, all surrounded by gardens and vines; with noble tamarind-trees, and cocoa-nuts swaying their lofty trunks, and rattling their branches and leaves over the negro huts and offices below. Here the party stopped, and, entering a house, were ushered into a cool, lofty room, where there were a lot of mahogany desks, and a single old clerk, who resembled a last year’s dried lemon, with some few drops of acid juice for blood, perched up on a hard stem of a high stool, with four or five quill pens, like so many thorns, sticking out above his yellow leafy ears.

“All by myself here, Cleveland, as I told you. All my people are living out there at Escondido. Very little business doing just now, and Paddy Burns and Tom Stewart haven’t had a suit or a fight for the last six months. Inkstands dry, and my old clerk, Clinker, there, has forgotten how to write English.

“However,” went on Piron, as the party threw themselves back on the wicker arm-chairs, and enjoyed the breeze which fluttered merrily through the blinds, “the cellar isn’t quite dry yet; and I say, Clinker, suppose you tell Nimble Jack, or Ring Finger Bill, to spread a little luncheon here, with a bottle or two of Bordeaux, or something of that sort!” The dried, fruity old gentleman dropped off his branch at the desk like a withered nut, and then, with a husky kind of shuffle, betook himself off.


“QUEER OLD STICK, THAT!” SAID THE COMMODORE.

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“Queer old stick, that!” said the commodore, as he unbuckled his sword and laid it on the table.

“Ah! he grew here, and will blow away one of these days. My father used to tell me that he looked just the same when he first sprouted as he does now. But he is a dear faithful old stump; and you must remember hearing, Cleveland, of that frightful earthquake here in seventeen hundred and eighty-three, which killed so many people? Yes? Well, it was old Clinker who saved my sweet wife that is now––and her sister; though he was nearly squeezed––drier, if any thing, than he is now––in doing it. He lay, you know, Stingo, supporting the whole second story of the house for seven hours, pressed as flat as a tamarind-leaf, while they were getting those twin babies out of their cradle. Yes, God bless him!” Starting up, while a flush of feeling darkened his face––“but, what is more, he threw himself precisely where he did, as he saw the walls giving way, so that not a hair of those children should be injured when the beams came down. My father has told me since, that when they got a lever under the timber and wedged old Clinker out, he gave a kind of cackle; but, in my opinion, he has not drawn a breath from that day to this. And, generally, he is a very taciturn old root, and rarely opens his rind; but latterly he talks a good deal about the earthquake; says he’s sure there’ll be another awful one before an interval of forty years has passed, and wants us to go away. No objection, however, to coming back when the thing is over, and then waiting forty years for another. Don’t laugh, you Paddy Burns, for if ever the ‘Tremblor’ gives you one little shake, you’ll jump higher than you did when that ugly Frenchman ran you through your waistcoat pocket, and you thought it was your midriff. Now, Tom Stewart and Don Stingo, what are you grinning about? Your teeth will chatter so fast at the next quake that you won’t, either of you, be able to deliver a charge to the jury over a false invoice, or suck another drop of old Antigua rum.”

“But really, Piron,” broke in the commodore upon this voluble harangue, “do you give heed to these barkings of that old clerk?”

“Why, yes, Cleveland,” replied Piron, with rather a grave manner, “I do; and, moreover, my sweet wife Rosalie out yonder, who has never got over her grief for the loss of our boy, regards every word old Clinker says as so much prophecy; and the upshot of the business is, I have made up my mind to leave the island.”

“For where, my friend––back to France?”

“No. Since the war and the peace, with Bonaparte at St. Helena, France is no place for an Englishman, even with a French father, and I am going to try America.”

“Truly, Piron, I am charmed to hear it. But what part of America?”

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“Why, I’ve bought a fine sugar estate at a bargain in Louisiana, and there we shall pass the remainder of our days.”

“He! he!” sniggled Tom Stewart, while Don Stingo and Paddy Burns cackled incredulously; but, at the same moment, Ring Finger Bill and Nimble Jack, two jet-black persons, in loose striped gingham shirts and bare feet, with an attempt at a grave expression of thick-lipped coffee-coolers, the whites of their eyes turned up with becoming decorum, and preceded by the old twig of a clerk, who seemed to crackle in the sea-breeze as he again hung himself, stern on, to his stool of a trunk, entered the cool counting-house, bearing trays, fruits, and bottles, which they methodically arranged on the large table.

“Massa! him want small, red, plump snapper, make mizzible brile?” said Nimble Jack. “S’pose Massa Ossifa him pick shell of land-crab, wid crisp pepper for salad?”

“No, no! Put those cool water-monkeys on the table and be gone! Come, Clinker, take a bite with us!”

Leaving this pleasant party to sip their claret and water, and nibble their midday food, while they rambled back to the past or schemed into the future, we will return to the frigate.


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CHAPTER XXXI.
THE COMMANDER OF THE “ROSALIE.”

“The handsomest fellow, Heaven bless him!
Setting the girls all wild to possess him,
With his dark mustache and his hazel eyes,
And cigars in those pretty lips––”

“That girl who fain would choose a mate,
Should ne’er in fondness fail her,
May thank her lucky stars if Fate
Should splice her to a sailor.”

“The ‘Rosalie’s’ gig coming alongside, sir,” reported the quarter-master to the officer of the watch.

“Very well. A boatswain’s mate and two side-boys. Mr. Rat, have the barge manned, and send her on shore for the commodore. Mr. Martin, tell the boatswain to call all hands to furl awnings.”

While these orders were being executed, the whistles ringing through the ship, the sailors lining the white hammocks, stowed in a double line, fore and aft, around the nettings of the frigate, in readiness to cast off the stops and lacings and let fall the awnings, the officer on deck stood near the gangway. At the same time there tripped up the accommodation-ladder, lightly touching the snowy man-ropes, a young fellow of about one-and-twenty, dressed in undress frock-coat, one epaulet, smooth white trowsers, and shoes. Catching up his sword in his left hand as he reached the upper grating of the ladder, he took off his blue, gold-banded cap, and half bounded, with a springy step, on to the frigate’s deck.

Observe him well, young ladies, as he stands there; for of all the scarlet or blue jackets on whose arm you have leaned and looked up at with your soft violet, blue, or dark eyes, you never saw a young fellow that you would sooner give those eyes, or those warm hearts too, throbbing under your bodices, or who would drive you wilder to possess him, than that gallant young sailor standing on the “Monongahela’s” deck. Ay, observe him well, that tall, graceful youth, with a waist you might span with one of your short plump arms; those slim patrician feet, that might wear your own little satin slippers; then that swelling chest and those elegantly turned shoulders, which will take both of your arms, one of these days, to entwine and clasp around them! Ah! but the round throat and chin, the smiling 194 mouth, half hiding a double row of even teeth, with the merest moonshine of a mustache darkening the short upper lip, and then those large, fearless hazel eyes, sparkling with health and fun, shaded by a mass of chestnut curls, which cluster about his clear open forehead! Ay, there he stands, “a king and a kingdom” for the girl who wins him!

“Well, Harry, give us your fist, my boy! How do you get on aboard your prize? Not so roomy as the old frigate, eh? And a little more work than when you were playing flag-lieutenant, eh? Well, glad to see you, but can’t stop to talk. So jump down below there in the wardroom; the mess are just through dinner, and yours won’t be ready for an hour yet. Come, bear a hand, or I’ll let these awnings fall on your new gold epaulet.”

The new-comer tripped as lightly down the ladder to the gun-deck as Mr. Mouse, and making another dive down to the berth-deck, exchanging a rapid volley of pleasantry with the midshipmen in the steerage, he opened the wardroom door and entered. There, in a large open space, transversely dividing the stern of the ship, with rows of latticed-doored staterooms on either side, lighted by open skylights from above, with a barrel of a wind-sail coming down between the sashes, and every thing, from beams to bulkheads, painted a glistening white, and the deck so clean that you might have rubbed your handkerchief on it without leaving a stain on the cambric, around a large extension mahogany table stretching from side to side, the cloth removed, decanters and wine-glasses here and there, and water-monkeys in flannel jackets hanging like criminals from a gallows from the beams above, sat the wardroom mess of the frigate.

“By all that’s handsome, here’s Darcantel! Why, Harry, we are delighted to see you!” exclaimed half a dozen voices; “come, sit down here and take a glass of wine with us!”

As the handsome young fellow entered the wardroom, all faces lighted up as they saw him. The old sailing-master, who seldom indulged in more than a scowl since he lost his right ear by the stroke of a cutlass in capturing the tender to the “Plantagenet” seventy-four off the Hills of Navesink; the rigid old major of marines, who pipe-clayed his very knuckles, and wore a stiff sheet-iron padding to his stock to encourage discipline in the guard; the dear, kind old surgeon, who swallowed calomel pills by the pint, out of pure principle, and who lopped off limbs and felt yellow fever pulses all through the still watches of the hot nights with never a sign or look of encouragement; and the staid old chaplain, who had often assisted the surgeon and helped to fill cartridges, contributing his own cotton hose for the purpose when those government stores gave out in battle, and who never smiled, even when committing a marine to the briny deep; the purser, too, prim and business-like, looking as if he 195 were a complicated key with an iron lock of his own strong chest, calculating perpetually the amount of dollars deposited in his charge, the total of pay to be deducted therefrom, and never making a mistake save when he overcharged the dead men for chewing tobacco; and the gay, young, roistering lieutenants, who never did any thing else but laugh, unmindful of navigation, pipe-clay, pills, parsons, or pursers, though standing somewhat in awe of the sharpish, exacting executive officer at the head of the table––all welcomed, each in his peculiar way, the bright, graceful young blade who dawned upon them. And not only the mess were cheered by his presence, but also a troop of clean-dressed sable attendants, whose wide jaws stretched wider, while the whites of their eyes seemed painfully like splashes of whitewash on the outside of the galley coppers, as they nudged one another and yaw-yaw’d quietly away aft there in the region of the pantry.

“Here, my salt-water pet, come and sit down by me, where all those old fellows can see you! Steward, a wine-glass for Mr. Darcantel! What? you won’t take a sip of Tinta, and you can only stop a minute because you are to dine with your uncle the commodore, eh? Well, I’ll drink your uncle’s health even if you don’t!” said the first lieutenant, as he familiarly laid his hand on the young fellow’s shoulder and drained his glass.

“Why, Harry, what the deuce did you come down here for?” squeaked out the purser, as he unscrewed his lips into a pleasant smile. “You’ve put an end to that interesting account the master was giving us of how he lay inside Sandy Hook for six months with a glass to his––”

“Mouth,” broke in the surgeon.

“It was Sam Jones the fisherman,
Who was bound to Sandy Hook;
But first upon the Almanac
A solemn oath he took––
That he would catch a load of clams!”

“Silence there, you roarer!” said the surgeon, as he popped a filbert into the wide mouth of the rollicking fourth lieutenant, which cut his song short off. “Yes, Harry, that’s what you have done in coming here for a minute. But stay a week with us, and the master will tell it you again. We’ve heard it once or twice before.”

The old grizzled sea veteran scratched the remains of his ear, and growled jocosely while nodding to young Darcantel.

“Ah! my dear boy, and I’ll tell you how the surgeon and nipcheese there were entertained by a one-eyed old Spaniard at St. Jago.”

“Let’s hear it!” roared every body except the medico and purser. “Out with it, master!”

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“Well, messmates, when we were in the old ‘Scourge,’ a long time ago, one day we anchored in St. Jago de Cuba.”

Here the surgeon and purser smiled horribly, and implored the grizzled old navigator not to go on; every body had heard that old story; he might fall ill with the vomito pietro, and would require pills; or else there might be found a mistake in his pay account, and he would like, perhaps, to draw for the imaginary balance not due to him, and to drink his grog and scratch the remains of his old ear, or turn his attention to the load of clams waiting for him at Sandy Hook! But, for mercy’s sake, don’t repeat that silly, long-forgotten yarn!

“Well, messmates, in less than an hour after we had anchored in St. Jago they went on shore, and made the acquaintance of a little thin, sharp old villain, with one eye, who invited them to make him a visit, and pass the evening on a fine estate he owned near the base of the Copper Hills, some distance––about four leagues, I believe––from the town. He was a most respectable person, very rich, and commanded a Cuban guarda costa to boot. The capitano, Don IgnaÇio Sanchez––wasn’t that his name, doctor? Oh! you forget––all right! Off they started with a guide, on hired mules; but when they pulled up at their destination they found the Don wasn’t there, though they were handsomely entertained by the seÑora––a comely, fat, and waspish body, with very few clothes on––who cursed her Don for sending people to see her, and the visitors too for coming. However, as her guests had not dined, she fed them bountifully on a supper of the nastiest jerked beef and garlic they had ever smelled. You told me so, purser.”

Both Pills and Purser had forgotten all about it, and thought it would be better to talk of something else; that there was plenty of good wine to drink in place of drying his lips on such dusty old rubbish.

“Well, messmates, after the supper the old lady demanded a little game of montÉ, and she insisted, too, on making herself banker, though she had no money on the table to pay with in case she lost––which she had no intention of doing. So she won every ounce, dollar, real, and centavo they had in their pockets! The doctor and purser told me they saw her cheat boldly; but yet she not only bagged all the money, but she won their mules into the bargain!”

Here those individuals confessed roundly––standing on the defensive––that the fat old seÑora had a false pack of cards always ready in her ample bosom, and had cheated them in the barest manner conceivable; but yet they had no appeal, and were inclined, out of gallantry for the sex, to behave like gentlemen, though she did drink aguardiente.

“Well, messmates, toward midnight that hospitable wife of the 197 Don began to abuse our friends for not bringing more cash with them when they visited ladies, and then fairly kicked them out of the house! Yes, you both told me so when I lent you the money to pay the boatmen, after being obliged to tramp all the way back to the port on foot, nearly missing their billets in the old ‘Scourge.’”

“Go on, master! Tell us all about it; don’t stop!”

“Well, messmates, I was on deck while beating out of the channel, and just abreast the Star Castle I saw a boat with two gentlemen in the stern, stripped to a girt-line, and howling at rather than hailing the ship. Bear in mind, doctor, the men refused to take either of you unless you gave them your coats and trowsers before shoving off. And don’t you remember, Hardy, how they yelled at us, and we thought they were deserters from that English gun-boat in St. Jago? And how the captain arrested the pair of them when they got on board for going out of signal distance? This is the first time I ever told this yarn,” concluded the old navigator, tugging away at the lobe of his lost ear.

The young lieutenants shouted, and the old major of marines, forgetful of his iron-stuffed stock, laughed till he nearly sawed his chin off, rubbing his chalky knuckles into his eyes the while.

“But first upon the Almanac
A solemn oath he took––
That he would catch a load of clams––”

“The barge is coming off, Mr. Hardy, with the pennant flying, sir!” reported a reefer, in the midst of the conversation, to the first lieutenant, as he shoved his bright face through the wardroom door.

“Very good, Mr. Beaver; but hark ye, sir! the next time you go ashore in the market-boat, look sharp that the men don’t suck the monkey. Three of them came off drunk this morning. And inform Mr. Rat and Mr. Mouse that if I see their heels on the cutter’s cushions again, I’ll take a better look at them from the main-top-mast cross-trees. You understand, sir? Steward, a glass of wine for Mr. Beaver!” Saying this, the executive officer, with Harry Darcantel, arose and went on deck to receive the commodore.


198

CHAPTER XXXII.
A SPLICE PARTED.

“Oh! for thy voice, that happy voice,
To breathe its loving welcome now!
Fame, wealth, and all that bids rejoice,
To me are vain! For where art thou?”

“What is glory––what is fame?
That a shadow––this a name,
Restless mortal to deceive.
Are they renown’d––can they be great,
Who hurl their fellow-creature’s fate,
That mothers, children, wives may grieve?”

The drum rolled, the marines presented arms, the boatswain piped, the side-boys and officers took off their caps; and as the colors dropped with the last ray of sunset from the peak, and the broad blue day-pennant came fluttering down from the lofty main truck, Commodore Cleveland and his friends stood on the splendid deck of the flag-ship “Monongahela.”

It must have been with conscious pride that the brave and loyal commander gazed around him on the noble frigate and her gallant crew. The white decks, the tiers of cannon polished like varnished leather, with the breechings and tackles laid fair and even over and around them; the bright belaying-pins, holding their never-ending coils of running gear––the burnished brass capstan––the great boom––board to the boats amidships with a gleaming star of cutlasses, reflecting a glitter on the ring of long pikes stuck around the main-mast near, all inclosed by the high and solid bulwarks; while towering above, like mighty leafless columns of forest pines, stood the lofty masts, running up almost out of sight to the trucks in the fading light, supported by stays and shrouds, singly and in pairs, and braided mazes––black, and straight, and taut––never a thread loose on rigging or ratlin––and spreading out as they came down in a heavy hempen net, till they disappeared over the rail, and were clenched and spliced, or seized and clamped to the bolts and dead-eyes of the chain-plates outside. Holding up too, in mid-heaven, on those giant trunks––like a child its toys––the great square yards of timber branches, laying without a quiver, in their black lifts and trusses, with their white leaves of sails crumpled and packed in 199 smooth bunts in the middle, and running away to nothing on either hand at the tapering yard-arms.

Grand and imposing is the sight. And well may you wonder, ye land lubbers, why all that mass of timber, sails, and cordage, with its enormous weight, does not crush with the giant heels of the masts through the bottom of the ship like unto an egg-shell, and tear the stanch live-oak frame to splinters!

The commander of the frigate saw all this, and he beheld at the same time the clusters of happy sailors, sauntering with light step and pleasant faces up and down the waist and gangways; and he heard, too, the scraping of a fiddle on the forecastle, the shuffling, dancing feet, and the least notion of a jovial sea-song coming up from the gun-deck. Yes, it must have been a glorious pride with which that gallant officer gazed around him from the quarter-deck of the magnificent frigate.

Did he say to himself, “I am monarch of this floating kingdom; my will is law; I say but the word, and those sails are spread and the ship moves to wherever I command. My subjects, too, who watch my slightest look and whisper, with that flag above, will pour broadside upon broadside––ay, they have!––from those terrible guns upon whoever dares to cross my track. Yes. They will fight for me so long as there is a plank left in this huge ship to stand upon, and while there is a rope-yarn left to hold the ensign––ay! even until my pennant, nailed to the truck, sinks beneath the bloodstained waves?” Did the commander think of all this? Perhaps he did.

And yet, in all the pride of rank and power, bravely won and maintained in many a scene of strife and deadly conflict, with visions of honest patriotism and ambition for the future, did his thoughts go back long years ago into the shadowy past, and was his spirit in the silent church-yard, where the magnolia was drooping over a grass-green grave? The sweet mother and her baby boy––the girl who had so fondly loved him, and the child who played about his knees––oh that they could have lived to share the wreaths of victory which were hung around his brow; that they could have lived to see the sword his country gave him, to twine but for one little moment their loving arms around his neck! No, the magnolia waves its white flowers over mother and boy, and they sleep on in their heavenly and eternal rest.

Did Commodore Cleveland, as a saddened flash of thought swept over his handsome face, while he stood on his quarter-deck, dwell on those scenes? Yes, we know he did. By day and night, in war and peace, in gale or calm, on deck or at banquet, in dream and action, the girl and mother he so dearly loved was close clasped to his heart, and the child still playing at his knee.

“Gentlemen, let me make you acquainted with the first lieutenant, 200 Mr. Hardy; and permit me also to present my nephew, Mr. Darcantel, captain, if you please, my friends, of the one-gun schooner ‘Rosalie,’ formerly the slaver ‘Perdita,’ cut out of a river on the Gold Coast by the young gentleman who stands before you.”

“Rosalie! why that’s the name of my niece,” exclaimed Piron; “and she is prettier and whiter than your trim little craft, sir. But you must come with the commodore to Escondido, and judge for yourself. But, bless my soul! you resemble our Rosalie, even if your schooner don’t. Why, look at him, Paddy Burns!”

Don Stingo, and Tom Stewart, and the Paddy did look at him, and all shook hands with him, laughing the while at Piron, and asking when old Clinker looked for another earthquake.

“Come, Piron, come, gentlemen, don’t let us keep the soup waiting! By the way, Mr. Hardy, will you do me the favor to take a glass of wine with us after gun-fire?”

“Thank you.”

“Suppose you bring little Mouse with you; I like children; and perhaps you will excuse the younker from keeping his watch to-night? A little extra sleep in hammock won’t hurt him, you know.”

And so Commodore Cleveland raised his hat, followed by the eyes of respect and devotion from officer and sailor, as he passed down the ladder and entered his spacious cabin.


201

CHAPTER XXXIII.
THE BLUE PENNANT IN THE CABIN.

“To Bachelors’ hall we good fellows invite
To partake of the chase that makes up our delight.”

“Ask smiling honor to proclaim
What is glory, what is fame?
Hark! the glad mandate strikes the list’ning ear!
‘The truest glory to the bosom dear,
Is when the soul starts soft compassion’s tear.’”

“Now, gentlemen, let me get off this heavy coat and epaulets. There! all right, Domino! put the sword in its case, and give me a white jacket. Choose your own places, my friends. Piron, sit here on my right; Henri, take the foot of the table.”

These last words were said in French; whereupon Piron started and whispered to the commodore, “By George, Cleveland, is that youth’s name Henry, and does he speak French?”

“Hush, Piron, he may hear you. His mother was French, and he speaks the language like a native. She died when he was a baby, and he doesn’t like to allude to it. Come, steward, we are all ready. Serve the gumbo!”

The cabin of the frigate was divided by a light lattice-work bulkhead in two parts, running from quarter to quarter of the vessel. The after part had a large sleeping stateroom on either side, resting on the quarter galleries, and opening on to another gallery which hung over the stern of the frigate. Inside, in the open space, was a round table, cushioned lounges, a few chairs, with a bronze lamp pendent from a beam above, while taking the curve of the stern over the after windows was a range of bookcases, half hidden by the gilt cornice and curtains of the windows. The entire fittings and furniture of cabin and staterooms, including the neat Brussels carpet on the deck, were elegant and useful, though by no means luxurious. The forward cabin, where no carpet graced the floor, was much more spacious. It took in the two after ports of the gun-deck; and the carriages and cannon within the sills of the ports were painted a marble white, as were the ropes, in covered canvas, that held them. In a recess forward was a large mahogany sideboard, or buffet, the top fitted with a framework for glasses and decanters, which were reflected from a large mirror let into the bulkhead. In the middle of 202 this space was the dining-table, lighted by a pair of globe lamps hanging from above, while neat racks for bottles and water-jugs, moving on sliding brass rods, were also suspended from the paneled beams and carlines of the upper deck ceiling. On the right––the starboard side––was a door leading into a roomy pantry, where the steward and Domino, and the servants of the commodore, bestirred themselves at dinner-time.

“So, my friends,” exclaimed the commodore, “you wish to hear what became of me after I last parted with you?”

“By all means, Cleveland! we are all dying to hear, and––” Here Piron’s appeal was interrupted by the heavy report of a bow gun, which gave a slight, though almost imperceptible jar to the frigate.

“Smithereens! Stingo! what noise is that?” exclaimed Burns.

“Only the nine o’clock gun, sir,” replied Darcantel.

“Hech, mon!” said Stewart, “ye needna upset ma glass of auld Madeira in yer mickle fright, for I’ve seen the time when ye ha’ laughed at the music in the report of a peestol and the ping of a bullet! But your nervous seestem seems to be unstrung ever since the sma’ French dancing count untied the string o’ your waistcoat with his rapeer.”

“You don’t think, Paddy, the commodore here is going to bang a forty-two pound shot into our stomachs after all the good prog he’s filled them with?” added Stingo, sotto voce, while the rotund Milesian threw his head back and twinkled careless defiance at them all.

Just then the orderly swung the port-cabin door open, and standing up as rigid as a pump-bolt, with a finger to the visor of his stovepipe hat, in cross-belts and bayonet, he announced “Lieutenant Hardy and Midshipman Mouse!”

“Ah! Hardy, glad to see you!” rising as he spoke; “squeeze in there between Stewart and Burns, or Darcantel! Here, gentlemen, let me exhibit to you Mr. Tiny Mouse! Don’t move, Piron; I’ll make a place for him near me.”

Saying this, the commodore took the lad affectionately by the hand, and as he sat him down on a chair at his elbow, and while the conversation went on with his guests, he said, in a kindly tone,

“Tiny, my dear, the first lieutenant tells me you are a good boy and attend to your duty. I hope you pay attention to your studies also, and write often to your dear mother. Ah! you do? That is right; for you know you are her only hope since your brave father was killed. There, sir, you may swig a little claret, but don’t touch those cigars.”

“Come, Cleveland! Cleveland! you are forgetting your adventures, my boy!”

“Well, my friends, you shall hear them.”


“And how then was the devil dressed?
Oh! he was dressed in his Sunday’s best;
His jacket was red and his breeches were blue,
And there was a hole where the tail came through.”

“Hairy-faced Dick understands his trade,
He stands by the breech of a short carronade,
The linstock glows in his bony hand,
Waiting that grim old skipper’s command!”

“The last dinner I had in Jamaica, and a very jolly one it was, as you all know, was out at Escondido, where we kept it up so late that I only got on board the ‘Scourge’ at daylight, in time to get her under way with the land wind. Well, we were bound to windward, and for a week afterward we rolled about in a calm off Morant Bay, maybe twenty leagues off the island, and one morning we discovered a sail. She was a large merchant brig, heading any way, and bobbing about, as we were, in the calm. Toward noon, however, a light air sprang up, and we got within hail, and I went on board to say a word or two to the skipper, for we had news before leaving Kingston that that infamous pirate Brand, in his long-legged schooner ‘Centipede,’ had been seen off Guadaloupe; and, in fact, we had actually chased him off Matanzas three months before; so I was ordered to give the brig a warning, particularly as she had reported a suspicious craft in sight that same morning at sunrise. When I got on board of her I saw––”

Here Piron placed both hands to his face as he leaned his elbows on the table, and the commodore, checking himself, hurried on:

“Ah! well, we kept the brig in sight all day, and ran round her once or twice in the evening, but toward midnight the trade wind freshened, and, as the coast seemed clear, and we were anxious to make up for lost time in the calm, we gradually came up to our course, and went bowling away to windward.

“I remember going below at the time, and just as I was about to turn in, I heard a quarter-master sing out to Hardy there, who was junior lieutenant of the ship, and who had the middle watch, that he saw a light going up to the brig’s gaff. In five seconds I was on the poop, where I met the captain.

204

“This is his only son, gentlemen, and a braver or more skillful seaman never trod a ship’s deck,” said the commodore, as he passed his hand affectionately over the boy’s head, who was sitting beside him.

But he forgot, perhaps, to say that he, Cleveland, had stood by the father when he was struck dead by a cannon-shot, and that afterward he had the boy appointed a reefer, and, out of his own means, helped the widow to eke out her pittance of a pension. Yes, Cleveland forgot all that as he smoothed the youngster’s soft hair, while, with the men around him, he drained his glass in silence to the memory of his departed friend and chief. Then resuming, he went on:

“In less than no time after the light was seen––for you must know, gentlemen, that it was an understood signal between us––the ‘Scourge’ was flying off with a stiff breeze abaft the beam, the crew at quarters, and the boats ready to be lowered from the davits. When we ranged up alongside the brig, and even before, we felt certain that our misgivings would prove true, and so they did; and merely slamming a shot over her, and dropping a couple of armed boats into the water, we luffed round her bows, and there we saw that cursed schooner––venomous snake as she was––just hoisting her sails, and creeping away to windward.

“We let her have two or three divisions of grape, and followed the dose up with round shot. I am sure we hit her, and that pretty hard, for we knocked away her fore-top-mast, and we saw the splinters fly in showers from her hull. However, she was well handled, and lying nearer the wind than the ‘Scourge,’ when day dawned she was clear out of range, and leaving us every minute. So we up helm and ran down again to the brig, to see what mischief had been done and to pick up our boats.

“Ah! yes, you all know what had taken place, so I won’t go over the details; but the same afternoon, after seeing the brig pointed straight for Port Royal, and while we were once more on our course, we fell in with a water-logged boat, in which were half a dozen dead and dying men. One, a mongrel Indian from Yucatan, who was frightfully torn by two or three grape-shot, before he died on board––as did all the others––gave us, in his confused dialect, some account of the pirate he had served under, and the haunt he frequented. As near as we could learn, the haunt was situated somewhere on the south side of Cuba, on a rocky island having a safe and secure inlet; but as he did not know the latitude or longitude, we were left somewhat in the dark. The last words, however, the mangled wretch uttered, as the gasping breath was leaving his body, were, that the spot could be distinguished by a tall cocoa-nut-tree which grew from a craggy eminence in the middle of the island. We buried them all, pirates as they were, decently, and then we clapped on all sail on our course.

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“Steward, another bottle of the old Southside that Mr. March sent me from Madeira! Here, Domino, take Mr. Mouse up gently, and lay him down on my cot in the after cabin. Dear little fellow, he is sound asleep; and mind you draw the curtains around him, lest he take cold from the draught of the stern windows!”

Rather a striking contrast this to the way Captain Brand, the pirate, treated the little Henri in the den there in the DoÇe LÉguas.“Well, gentlemen, for some weeks after these occurrences we sailed about the islands, touching here and there, until at last we arrived at the Havana, took in stores and water, and then continued the cruise. The orders were to beat up the south side of Cuba, where we expected to fall in with the Musquito fleet and some English vessels, especially detailed to destroy two or three nests of pirates who had for some years swarmed in those seas and infested that coast. In the course of time we beat all around the south side of Cuba, and at last dropped anchor in St. Jago, where we learned from the English consular agent that five or six fellows, who had been wrecked on the Carvalo reef, were identified as having been part of a piratical crew who had plundered an English vessel with a free passport bound to Havana, and had been sent there in irons for trial.

“The truth was, that the Spanish colonial authorities had so long connived, winked at, or been indifferent to what was going on during the wars of the Continent, that they allowed these piratical hordes to exist and thrive at their very doors. The matter had already been brought to the notice of the administrador of the port, and all other ports as far along the coast as Cienfuegos, and in such a threatening manner, too, that the governor at St. Jago, fearful of having his town blown down, exerted himself in the arrest of the rascals I have alluded to, and likewise in procuring information by dispatching guarda costas along the south side of the island.

“Accordingly, the very morning we anchored I went ashore with the captain of the custom-house, where we met the deputy administrador and a little withered, one-eyed old rascal, who was in the colonial service, and who professed to know the haunt, or at least he said he thought he did, of that notorious villain Brand.

“I remember distinctly spreading a chart before him, and while he traced with the end of his cigarette a course for the captain to steer by, I stood near, watching him narrowly. But the fact was, that he had the very sharpest spark of an eye set, or rather standing out, beside his nose that any body ever saw in a human being’s head; and instead of me watching him, he seemed to be looking straight through me, and divining my thoughts and suspicions. However, the spot he pointed out, and the way he described it, with a cocoa-nut-tree on top of a rock, and the passage through the reef, so nearly corresponded with the confused account the Yucatanese gave us before he died, 206 that the captain was entirely convinced we were on the scent, though I myself was not more than half satisfied. The place indicated was near the Isle of Pines, three hundred miles off; but, to make the thing more plausible, that one-eyed old scoundrel was detailed to run along the DoÇe LÉguas Cays, see what information he could pick up there, and then follow down after us.

“That night, or early the next morning, we were off again, and ran down the coast, with a good offing to keep the wind, until we got to the ground, and passed in by Cape St. Francis, and doubled round into the Bight of Pines. There we fell in with a whole fleet of English and American cruisers and schooner craft, who informed us that they had searched every accessible spot where a man could walk dry-shod upon, from Guayabos to the Isle of Mangles; that they had destroyed several old and deserted piratical nests, and hung two or three ostensible fishermen by way of wholesome warning to their allies the pirates; but that was all; and from what they had learned, there did not seem to have been an established retreat in that maze of cays and reefs for four or five years.

“So you see we had our cruise for nothing, and then the captain agreed with me that we had both been most egregiously deceived by the Spanish commander of the guarda costa. Well, we hauled our wind once more, standing well out to sea, and after a tedious beat of some days we again edged in toward the coast, somewhere near the Boca Grande of the Twelve League Cays on the westernmost side. It was in the morning when we made the land, and, steering close in, we got a good slant off the shore, and kept the glasses going from the topmost cross-trees down all through the day. For my part, as Hardy may perhaps remember, I scarcely took the glass from my eye for eight hours, and from the mizzen-top I feel quite sure that there were not many objects, from the size of a blade of grass to a mangrove bush, that I did not examine, from the coral reefs up to the rocky heights, let alone the cocoa-nut-tree that we were in search of.

“Toward afternoon, however, the weather came up hazy, the wind began to fall off, and the barometer began to exhibit very queer spasms indeed, rising with a sort of jerk at first, and then dropping down the tenth of an inch at a clip, with the atmosphere becoming close and sultry, and the men gasping about the decks as if we were about to choke at the next breath. It was during the hurricane months, and the indications certainly should have led us as far as our legs could carry us to open water, instead of being caught embayed perhaps with half a thousand reefs around us on what might prove a lee-shore; but, nevertheless, the captain decided to hold on till sunset, and then make an offing. The breeze still held in the upper sails, and so we slipped on in smooth water till about five o’clock, when I heard a fellow sing out from the main royal yard,

207

“‘On deck there! I can see a tall cocoa-nut-tree on an island here on the port bow!’

“Before the words were well out of his mouth I too caught the object, and I knew at the first glance that it was the spot we were looking for. At the same time the haze lighted up a bit, and we saw the ridge of rocks and every thing as the haunt of that pirate Brand had been described to us. So, my friends, we were all alive once more on board the ‘Scourge,’ and the captain resolved to dash in upon the scoundrel’s nest before he could have time to leave it.

“The engine was rigged and water spirted over the sails from the trucks down, to make the canvas hold the wind, and in an hour after we were within two leagues of the island, and just as the sun fell below the horizon we caught sight of the mast-heads of a large vessel sticking up over some bluff rocks near the bold shore. Not five minutes later the hull of the craft came slowly out from the gap, under all sail, and we discovered her to be a long and rather lumbering-looking brigantine, painted lead-color, and bearing no resemblance to the schooner we had twice chased before. Simultaneously, however, with her coming out into full view, as she rounded in her head-yards and got a pull of the main-sheet, with the breeze abeam and heading to the eastward, we beheld a great volume of white smoke spout up over the rock near the cocoa-nut-tree, with a vivid sheet of flame at the base, and before the vast column turned, like the crown of a palm-tree, in its descent, we were greeted by a dull, heavy roar, the concussion of which fairly made the ‘Scourge’ tremble. Then, as the white smoke partially broke away, an avalanche of rocks and timbers was scattered far and near, and nothing visible but a veil of dust and masses of heavy smoke. Nearly at the same moment of this explosion wreaths of heavy black smoke arose from another spot nearer to the gap, lit up in the fading, hazy twilight with forked red fires, and soon after a great conflagration burst forth, swirling flakes of burning cinders all over the island, and casting a lurid glare upon the water around us.”


208

CHAPTER XXXV.
AND THE PITCH HOT.

“He is born for all weathers;
Let the winds blow high or blow low,
His duty keeps him to his tethers,
And where the gale drives he must go.

“The wind blew hard, the sea ran high,
The dingy scud drove ’cross the sky,
All was safe lashed, the bowl was slung,
When careless thus Ned Halyard sung.”

Said the commodore, with a knowing shake of his head, “Ah! gentlemen, if the fellow, whoever he was, who was creeping away so nimbly in that lazy-looking brigantine, with English colors at the peak, had written down in detail what he had been doing on that secluded nook of an island, and sent the information off to us in a letter, we could have read it without breaking the seal. We could have told him that that little scoundrel with one eye had purposely misled us, and had given him warning to quit his strong-hold; and that he had hastily got his plunder and people on board his vessel, blown up and set fire to his nest, and that the brigantine he was now on board of was once upon a time the notorious schooner ‘Centipede!’ Yes, we knew all that by instinct.”

Piron sat with his eyes fixed upon the speaker, taking in every word as it fell from his lips, the teeth set close together and the hand clenched which supported his head on the table. Paddy Burns and Tom Stewart, too, looked eagerly that way, as did Harry Darcantel, while Hardy sipped his wine and puffed his cigar leisurely, as if he knew the tale by heart.

“It had fallen nearly calm. A light air perhaps in the royals, though nothing down below. But as we hauled down our colors at sunset, which had been hoisted to let the fellow know who we were, down came his also. Then there we both lay looking at each other. He knew by instinctive experience that we were the American corvette ‘Scourge,’ mounting eighteen twenty-four-pounder carronades and two long eighteens in the bow ports; for the brigantine had once or twice determined their exact calibres, and that we were the fastest cruiser, with the wind a point or two free, that had been seen in the West Indies for twenty years.

211

“Yes, he knew all about us, but he was still a little in doubt whether we knew all about him. He lay––unfortunately, perhaps, for him––a little beyond the range of our long guns, or else he might have been spared a good deal of time and uneasiness, and we a long chase and considerable risk. Ah! as the night came, the very fires he had kindled in his den on shore prevented his escape; for while the calm lasted the bright flames shone upon him with the glare of hell! There we lay all that night without moving a muscle or a mile until day dawned––and such a day as did dawn!

“Meanwhile the barometer had fallen an inch and a half, until the master began to believe the bulb leaked, and the mercury was dropping into the case. Then, through the murky gloom of daylight, with the sea one flat greasy surface, with never the splash of a fish to disturb it, while the lowest whisper of the topmen aloft could be distinctly heard on deck, as if we were hung in the vacuum of an exhausted receiver where a feather would drop like a bullet, suddenly there came a sound from the direction of the cays. Suppose, Burns, you saw a forty-two pound shot coming toward you, and without you dodged quick, your head would be flying off with it in the same direction?”

“Whist, mon!” said Stewart, with a groan, “dinna be calling up sic peectures of the brain, Cleveland. Paddy, there, ne’er thinks of ony meesals bigger than a peestol bullet.”

“Well, my friends, we ran precisely a similar risk, though the cloudy embrasures over the island had not quite enough thunder to reach us. However, the brigantine knew what would follow as well as we did––better, perhaps––and before you could swallow that glass of wine she was stripped as bare as a bone, and down came her yards too, but keeping the sticks up, and spreading a patch of a storm staysail forward that you might apparently have put in your pocket. Her decks and rigging were crowded with men while she was doing all this, but the moment it was done, and well done too, they ran into their holes below like so many rats, and we could only see a man or two left on deck near the helm.

“All hands had been called on board the ‘Scourge’ at four o’clock, and, with the exception of securing the battery, every thing was ready to make a skeleton of the ship the moment we saw the brigantine begin; for she was a wary fish, and we had no idea of letting her give us the slip the third time. I had the trumpet, however, and with the captain at my elbow, the instant he saw that the brigantine was once more rigged nearly in her old way, he gave me the word, ‘Now, Cleveland, work sharp!’

“With a hundred and twenty men aloft, jumping about like cats, the light sails, studding-sail booms, royal and top-gallant yards came down, the top-gallant masts after them, and the flying jib-boom rigged 212 in. Then the top-sails close reefed and furled with extra gaskets, and so with the courses; preventer braces clapped on, rolling tackles hooked, and the spare purchases set up by the lower pennants. Meanwhile the divisions on deck had got hawsers over the launch amidships, the chains unbent, the anchors lashed down on the forecastle, and the quarter boats triced well inboard and secured with the davits. At the same time the light stuff from aloft was got below, the hammocks piped down, and the carpenters slapped the gratings on the hatches, and stood ready with the tarpaulins to batten them down. I never beheld a smarter piece of work done afloat––not even, Hardy, in the ‘Monongahela.’

“As I turned round an instant a hoarse, howling bellow struck my ear from the island, and I just caught a glimpse of the tall cocoa-nut-tree flying round and round in the air like an inverted umbrella with a broken stick; while at the same time the men from aloft had reached the deck, and, jumping to the battery, the guns were run in and housed, spare breechings and extra lashings passed, and life-lines rove fore and aft. After that, gentlemen, there was no farther need of a trumpet.

“You all know pretty well what sort of a thing a hurricane is, and the one I speak of must, I think, have given you a touch of its quality here in Jamaica.”

“Ay, by the holy Moses! we remember it well, bad luck to it; and so does Tom Stewart and Piron there, for it didn’t lave a stick of sugar-cane standing from Montego Bay to Cape Antonio.”

“Yes,” said Stewart; “and to show ye what a piff of wind can do, the whirl of it caught up an eighteen-foot Honduras plank, and laid it crosswise, like an axe, full seven inches into an old tamarind trunk standing in my garden, and then twisted off the ends like a heather broom! Hech, mon, ye may see it there now any day!”

Piron was thinking of the barks that were driving before that hurricane, with no thought of the damage done to his own plantations.

“Well, then, I shall spare you all prolix description of it; and you need only fancy a ship blown every where and every how except out of water––now with the lower yard-arms cutting deep into the sea like rakes, the lee hammock-nettings under water, the stern boat torn away into splinters, the main-top-sail picked, bolt by bolt, from the yard until there was not a thread left, and the lee anchor twisted bodily out of its lashings and swept overboard!

“Then a lull, while the sea got up and the ship dashed down on the other side on her bow; then staggering back and making a stern-board till the water was plunged up in a deluge over the poop. Recovering herself again, and almost quivering on her beam-ends, the guns groaning and creaking as the terrible strain came upon the breechings, with the shot from the racks bounding about the decks, 213 dinting holes in the solid oak waterways big enough to wash your face in, and then hopping out of the smashed half-ports to leeward. The spar-deck up to your armpits in water, and every man of us holding on to the life-lines or standing rigging like grim death, while all the time the roaring, thundering yell of the hurricane taught us how powerless we were, by hand or voice, to cope with the winds when they were let loose in all their might and fury!

“Nor need I relate to you the scene presented below––mess-chests, bags, tables, crockery, flying from deck and beam to stanchion, smashing about in the most dangerous way, pell-mell, while the worst of the tempest lasted. But, gentlemen, the ‘Scourge’ had a frame of live-oak, to say nothing of two or three acres of tough yellow-pine timber in her, a good deal of fibrous hemp to hold the masts up; and, moreover, she was well manned, and, though I say it myself, she had a skillful captain and thorough-bred officers, in whose sagacity the crew could rely, to manage that old ‘Scourge.’”

“That she had,” exclaimed Hardy; “and the most skillful and the coolest of them all was the first lieutenant!” The “Monongahela’s” executive officer here bounced off his chair as if he was prepared to fight any man breathing who did not subscribe to that opinion.

“Well, my friends, that awful hurricane continued for about twenty hours, from late one morning till the beginning of the next. As for day, there was none; for the sea and black clouds made one long night of it. Fortunately, too, we had been driven off shore, and when the murky gloom broke away, and we were able to look around, our first anxiety was to see what had become of the brigantine.

“Yes, and I truly believe, in all that turmoil of the elements, while we were on the brink of foundering and going down to old Davy’s locker, that there was not an officer or man, from the captain to the cook, who was not thinking of that pirate, and hoping that he might go down first. I myself, however, felt a sort of confidence, as I was held lashed on the poop to the mizzen rigging, that the brigantine might be caught and whirled about––so long as she was above water––by the same blows of the hurricane that beat upon the ‘Scourge;’ and when the tornado broke, and some one sang out ‘Sail ho!’ I knew by instinct it must be the ‘Centipede.’”


214

CHAPTER XXXVI.
THE CHASE.

“With sloping masts and dipping prow,
As who pursued with yell and blow
Still treads the shadow of his foe,
And forward bends his head,
The ship drove past, loud roared the blast,
And southward aye we fled.”

“Clap on more sail, pursue, give fire––
She is my prize, or ocean whelms them all.”

“So many slain––so many drowned!
I like not of that fight to tell.
Come, let the cheerful grog go round!
Messmates, I’ve done. A spell, ho, spell!”

“It was all hands again, gentlemen. The hurricane had settled down into a moderate gale from northeast, though it was some time before the awfully confused sea got to roll regularly. Then we judged ourselves––for reckoning and observation had been out of the question––to be a long way south of Jamaica, and even to the southward of the great Pedro Bank. We did not wait this time for the pirate to lead us in getting ready for a race, but we got up a bran-new suit of top-sails and courses out of the sail-room, and, so soon as the men could go aloft with safety, they were ordered not to unbend the few tattered rags still clinging to the yards, but to cut away at once. Up went the top-sails and courses, and they were soon brought to the yards and set close-reefed, with a storm-jib to steady the ship forward. Presently we gave her the whole fore-sail and main-sail, and I think that even then, for some hours, but one half the corvette’s upper works could have been visible as she plunged through the angry heaving seas.

“It left us dry enough, however, to pay some heed to the brigantine ahead of us. She was about four miles off, a little on our weather bow, and as she rode up––splendid sea-boat that she was––like a gull on the back of a mighty roller, we could see that her bulwarks––mere boards and canvas, probably––had been washed away, the house between her masts gone too, and, no doubt, her long gun, or whatever else had been lying hid under it. And now she was once more the 217 schooner ‘Centipede,’ long and sharp, and without any rail to speak of, so that we could see her deck from the stem to her taffrail at every lurch she made. The only difference in her appearance was a short fore-mast with cross-trees, and a top-mast for square sails. Almost as soon as our top-sail sheets were hauled home, her own yards went up and the sail was spread, while with the bonnet off her fore-sail, the whole jib and a close-reefed main-sail, she went flying to the southward with the gale a point abaft the beam.


THE STERN CHASE.

“Thus we went on, the sea getting more regular every hour, so that we could send up the top-gallant masts, get the yards across, shake a reef or two out, and put the ‘Scourge’ in order. The schooner needed no encouragement from us, but cracked on more sail until her long main-mast reeled and bent over, as she came up on the breaking ridge of a wave, like a whip-stalk. By noon the clouds had gone, and left us a clear sky, with the gale going down into a full top-gallant breeze, sending the corvette along good eleven knots. We got an observation for latitude, and five hours later we determined the longitude and our position to be a few leagues to leeward of the Sarrana Keys, with that bird of a schooner before us heading for the Musquito coast.

“If we had caught a cataract of water as it rolled over our bows in the morning, the schooner was taking her bath in the afternoon, for occasionally, for five minutes at a time, there was nothing seen of her deck, and only the masts and broad white canvas above, like jury-sticks out of a raft. But when she did slide up with her low, long hull shooting clean out of water, till nearly half her keel, with the copper sheathing flashing in the sun, was visible, she looked like a dolphin making a spring after a shoal of flying-fish. And then on her narrow deck we could see a few fellows lashed about the fore-mast, and a couple more abaft steering her like a thread through a needle.

“We began to gain upon her now, and whenever she kept a little away before the wind the gap between us closed more rapidly; for the ship could evidently outcarry the schooner, and, had the breeze freshened and the sea kept up, we could have run her under if her masts didn’t go out of her, as we hoped and expected every minute they would. Gradually, however, she watched her chance and hauled up till she brought the wind barely abeam, and steered true for the Musketeers––a bad cluster of low keys nearly surrounded by as terrible ledges and reefs as any to be found in the Caribbean Sea.

“Her captain was evidently bent upon playing a desperate game, but, if he thought he would not find another ready to lay down the same stake, he was greatly mistaken! It was about sunset when we made the keys, and there we went––the schooner leading us about a mile––at a rate which would have made both vessels leap clear over 218 the first ledge they struck, and perhaps have thrown summersaults of us into the bargain. I asked the captain, who had never left my side on the poop, if we should keep on.

“‘Yes, sir,’ he replied, ‘so long as we have a gun and a plank to float it!’

“And, by Saint Paul! we kept on. And there was not a soul on board the ‘Scourge,’ from the drummer-boy up, who did not agree with the captain. How those villains on board the pirate relished this decision we could only surmise; but, at all risks, he held his course with a nerve that might have made the devil himself shudder.

“By this time the sun was well down, and a brilliant moon was riding high in the heavens; but, as bright as it was, the fellow who commanded that schooner required an eye as keen as an albatross and a hand as steady as an iron bar to guide his craft in the direction he was going––too late for either of us to think of hauling off.

“He must, too, have had a thorough knowledge of the reefs and keys, and trusted, perhaps, if he got clear himself, that the corvette, drawing eighteen feet water and ignorant of the channel, might touch something which would throw the game in his hands. Our men had the ropes stretched along the decks and the battery clear on both sides, so as to be ready to wear, or tack, or fire, as our pilot ahead might require.

“The reefs were to leeward of the string of low keys, which made the water comparatively smooth, though the wind still swept strongly over us and sang through the rigging; and it was here the ‘Centipede’ entered, going like wild pigeons the pair of us. The outer reef had a fair, deep passage, and so had the next; but the inner one presented but one narrow gateway, scarcely wide enough for a ship to scrape through, with the whole reef one uninterrupted fringe of black pointed rocks and roaring white breakers, which toppled over, and boiled and eddied like a thousand whirlpools into the smoother water inshore.

“As the ‘Centipede’s’ stern gave a sharp pitching jerk when she entered this boiling gorge, we saw, in the moonlight, her head-yards laid square, the fore and aft sails flowing in the sheets as she fell off with wide wings and the wind on her quarter, and flew down inside the reef.

“Five minutes after we too entered this maelstrom chasm, and, though the helm was hove hard up, and the after-sails shivered, yet, before the ‘Scourge’s’ bows, going at the rate she was, could turn the sharp angle of that water-gate, her port bilge grated against a coral ledge, and grooved and broomed the planks and copper away like so much sea-weed! But yet that slight graze never stopped us a hair’s weight, and, with additional sail, we rushed after our pilot, 219 mile after mile, through reef, ledge, breakers, inlets, and keys, now braced sharp up, and again going free, until at last the fellow, having run us a dance of full ten miles, once more emerged into the open water, close jammed on the wind, steering nearly due east.

“There, Hardy!” exclaimed the commodore, “I am tired of talking; suppose you take up the thread of the yarn. Domino, another bottle of tinta!”


220

CHAPTER XXXVII.
THE WRECK OF THE “CENTIPEDE.”

“Gun bellows forth to gun, and pain
Rings out her wild, delirious scream;
Redoubling thunders shake the main,
Loud crashing falls the shot-rent beam.
The timbers with the broadsides strain;
The slippery decks send up a steam
From hot and living blood; and high
And shrill is heard the death-pang cry!”

“She struck where the white and fleecy waves
Looked soft as carded wool;
But the cruel rocks they gored her side
Like the horns of an angry bull.”

Piron turned his gaze toward the first lieutenant, moved away the full glasses of wine, which he had never raised to his lips since the commodore began, and, resting his bloodless cheek on his other hand, listened.

“It’s vera interesting indeed.” “Tear an’ ages, boy! Fire away!” quoth the Scotchman and his Milesian crony in a breath.

Hardy threw his arm over the shoulder of Harry Darcantel as if it was a pleasant Corinthian column to lean upon, and breaking off the ashes of his cigar on the rim of a wine-glass which he had specially devoted to that purpose, he forthwith began:

“I am quite confident, gentlemen, that I can not describe what afterward took place so well as Commodore Cleveland, but, at all events, I’ll do my best. Nor do I remember very distinctly the events of the night after we got out of the Musketeers Keys; for I was pretty well fagged out myself, and all of us who had the watch below turned in to take the first wink of sleep we could catch for forty hours.

“The next morning, however, when I took the deck, I found the corvette under royals and flying-jib, with a fresh trade wind blowing from about east-northeast, and a smooth sea; though close hauled as we were, and going ten knots, the spray was flying well up the weather leech of the fore-sail. The ‘Centipede’ was about a mile and a half ahead, jammed on the wind, and trying all she could to eat the wind out of us; but, as the commodore there said at the time, he had thrown that trick away when he cut off eight or ten feet of his fore-mast, 221 and made a brigantine of the craft, so that he could not brace his head-yards sharper, or lie nearer the wind than we did.

“I remember, also, that two or three of the officers and half a hundred of the sailors were very anxious to pitch shot at the chase from the long eighteen in the weather bridle port; but the captain refused, and said we might lose a cable’s length or two in yawing off to fire, and it would be better to save the powder until we could slam a broadside into him. But all the while that ‘Centipede’ was handled and steered in such a thorough seamanlike manner, and proved herself such a beautiful sea-boat, that I doubt if there was a man on board the ‘Scourge’ who would not have given a year’s pay to have taken her whole, and only expended a spare top-mast studding-sail halliards for the necks of her crew.

“From the top-gallant forecastle we could see every thing that took place on the schooner’s deck: sometimes a lot of fellows forward reeving some fresh gear, peering about the low bowsprit, or putting on a seizing to a traveler on the jib-stay; with a chap or two aloft stitching a chafing-mat on the lee backstays; and then aft a man shinning up the main shrouds with a tin pot hung around his neck, greasing the jaws of the main gaff, and twitching a wrinkle out of the gaff-top-sail, so that it would lie as flat as this dining-room table set on end.

“But always, from the very first moment we descried her––before the hurricane and afterward––there were two fellows abaft by the taffrail. One a large fat man, in a long dark dress, who appeared at times to be leaning over the rail as if he were sea-sick; and the other a spare, tall-built fellow, who sat there with a quadrant in his hands and smoking cigars, measuring the distance between the two vessels as if he were a government surveyor, and especially appointed to make a hydrographical chart of the Caribbean Sea. Occasionally, too, we could see him approach the binnacle, spread a chart on the deck at his feet, examine it closely with a pair of dividers in his hands, and then he would return to his seat on the taffrail, cigar in his mouth and quadrant to his eye as before.

“Nor were we idle on board the ‘Scourge;’ for when the breeze lulled we slacked up the lower rigging and stays, got down all extra weight and hamper from the tops, sent the watch below to the berth-deck with a round shot apiece in their hammocks, moved a couple of carronades about the spar-deck till we got the ship in the best sailing trim, and then we went skipping and springing through the water with the elasticity of an India-rubber ball.

“At noon the sailing-master reported the position of the ship to be two hundred and eighty miles from the nearest land, which was the Darien Coast. So all that day and all that night, with a moon to make a lover weep to see, we went bowling after our waspish 222 consort in hopes before long of taking the sting out of her. No kite ever pursued its quarry with a keener eye than we did. No hound ever leaped after a wolf with the froth streaming from his jaws and blood-red thirsty eyes, than did the ‘Scourge’ chase that infamous pirate. The delay only made our eyes sparkle and our teeth sharper in expectation; for we knew we would have our prey sooner or later, and it was only a bite and a pleasure deferred.

“The next morning and all the day there was no change to speak of in our respective positions. The ‘Centipede’ went skimming on over the water with every thread of canvas she could spread, reeling over on her side at times when the breeze freshened, while the spray flashed up joyously and sparkled in the sun, leaving a bubbling current of foam in her wake, which, before it had been entirely lost in the regular waves of the sea, the corvette’s sharp bows would plunge into, and again make it flash high up to her fore-yard, and then go seething, and hissing, and kissing her black sides until it rippled around her rudder and was lost again in the wake astern.

“And all the time that man sat with a cigar in his mouth on the pirate’s taffrail, while Commodore Cleveland there stood with a spy-glass to his eye on the poop of the ‘Scourge.’

“You may imagine, gentlemen,” continued Hardy, as he again knocked the ashes off his cigar, “that going to sea is attended with some few discomforts, such as battening down the hatches in a sirocco in the Mediterranean off Tripoli; a simoom in the China Seas; a bitter northwest gale off Barnegat, with the rigging and sails frozen as hard as an iceberg; but if a man can catch forty winks of sleep once in a while, whether in a hammock, or on an oak carronade slide with the breech of a gun for a pillow, he may manage to weather through it. But from the moment we first saw that pirate till we saw the last of him, neither the first lieutenant of the ‘Scourge’ nor the commander of the ‘Centipede’ once closed their eyes, unless––well, I won’t anticipate.”

Piron reached over his hand and shook that of his friend Cleveland convulsively.

“Vera weel, mon! vera weel!” “He’s the very man to do it!” said Stewart and Burns to Stingo, nodding backward at the commodore.

Another striking contrast to the hand-shaking, virtuous compact between Captain Brand and his friend, the pious padre Ricardo! I wonder if they are shaking hands now! Probably not.

“Gentlemen,” resumed Hardy, as he shook the ashes level in his wine-glass, as if he wished to preserve them to clean his teeth with after smoking, “I will not detain you much longer. Both vessels were making great speed, and long before sunset we had been keeping a bright look-out for the land. At last it was reported, trending 223 all around both bows, low and with a trembling mirage of pines and mangroves looming up, and a multitude of rocky keys dead ahead. We were steering directly for Las Mulatas Islands, a cluster then little known to any navigators save, perhaps, the buccaneers of the Gulf of Columbus, and perhaps, too, with the intention of running us just such another dance as our pilot had a night or two before. However, we were again all prepared to explore the unknown reefs; and, moreover, we got the starboard anchor off the bow, and bent the cables to that and the spare anchors amidships, so as to be all ready to moor ship in case our pilot required us to do so. And likewise the cutters were hanging clear from the davits––the same boats which had once before paid a complimentary visit to some of his friends––supposing he would like to entertain us in person.

“The sun went down again in a fiery blaze, and with its last ray there slowly rose to the main truck of the pirate a swallow-tailed black flag, with a white skull and cross-bones in the dark field. It fluttered for a moment out straight and clear, and then twisted itself around the thin mast, never more to be released by hands or halliards! That was the last glimpse those pirates ever caught of the murderous symbol they had so often fought and sailed under; and it was the last sun that a good many aching eyes ever looked upon who were sailing there in that half league of blue water. The moon, however, was riding bright and beaming, as clear as a bell, overhead, and that was all the light we cared for. The ‘Centipede,’ no doubt, would have preferred no moon at all, with a cloudy sky and a bit of a rain squall, to pursue the intricate navigation before her; but Heaven arranged the atmospheric scenery otherwise.

“‘By the deep eight!’ sang out the leadsman in the port chains. ‘The mark five!’ came from the opposite side. ‘Another cast, lads––quick!’ ‘And a half four!’ ‘Six fathoms, sir!’

“‘We must have stirred up the sand, Cleveland,’ said the captain; but even as he spoke the man in the starboard chains cried, ‘Three fathoms, sir!’ and while each instant we expected the ship to bring up all standing, and the masts to go by the board, the other leadsman sung out, joyfully, ‘No bottom with the line, sir!’

“Well, we were safely through that bed of coral, doing, no doubt, some trifling damage to the tender shoots and branches, as we flew through a narrow channel, with the waves breaking and moaning on the sandy shores over the keys, out into deep water again.

“Four or five miles beyond stood out a bluff rock, looking in the moonlight like a dozing lion with his paws crossed before him, ready to bound upon any who should approach his lair in the dense jungle of pines and tangled thickets which stood up like a bristling mane on the ridge behind.

“The ‘Centipede’ was now but a short half-mile ahead of us, her 224 deck alive with men, and manifestly ready for some desperate devilment. On her after rail, too, stood that man, tall and erect, his feet steadied by the cavil of the main boom, a spy-glass to his eye, and looking at the rocky lion now close aboard him, still with a cigar in his mouth; and we thought we could even see the thin puffs of smoke curling around his face. Suddenly, too, we saw the spy-glass whirled around his head, and at the instant the vessel fell dead off before the wind, the great main-sail flew over with a stunning crash and clatter of blocks and sheets as the wind caught it on the other quarter, making the long switch of a mast to spring like a bow, while the weather-shrouds slacked up for a moment in bights, and then came back taut with a twang you might have heard a mile! We could now see, as the space opened behind the rock, another frightful jagged ledge, on which the rollers were heaving in liquid masses high up a precipitous rock, and where the channel was not a cable’s length wide, leading into a foaming gloomy inlet, where not even the beams of the moon could penetrate! I heard the captain say, in his old decided way,

“‘Now for it, Cleveland! You take the battery, and I’ll look out for the ship!’

“Then, gentlemen,” said Hardy, with unusual animation, as he waved his right arm aloft with an imaginary cutlass swinging over his head, “came the word ‘Fire!’

“Yes, the entire starboard broadside, round shot, grape, and canister, all pointed toward a centre, were delivered with one simultaneous shock––the hurricane a mere cat’s-paw in comparison––which shook the corvette as if she had struck a rock, while the smoke and sheets of flame spouted out from the cannon, half hiding the black torrent which gushed forth from so many hoarse throats; and as the roar of the concussion was taken up in terrible echoes from the lion on the rock, a peppering volley of musket-balls from the marines on the poop and forecastle made a barking tenor to the music.

“Meanwhile the helm of the ‘Scourge’ was hove hard down, and as she just swirled, by a miracle, clear of the ledge under our lee, and came up to the wind with the sails slamming and banging hard enough to send the canvas out of the bolt-ropes, the courses were clewed up, every thing aloft came down by the run; anchor after anchor went plunging to the bottom, and before the cables had fairly begun to fly out of the hawse-holes with their infernal jar and rattle, high above the sounds of flapping sails, snapping blocks, running chains, and what not, came another clear order, ‘Fire!’

“Then pealed out the port broadside at a helpless, dismasted hulk within two hundred yards of our beam, rolling like a worm-eaten log on the top of a ruffled broad roller, going to break, in ten seconds, on the ledge, whose pointed rocks stood up like black toothed fangs 225 to grind its prey to atoms! But before the fangs closed upon it our own teeth gave it a shake; and as the breath of our bull-dogs was swept aft by the fresh breeze, we could see the sluggish mass almost rise bodily out of water as it was torn and split by the round iron wedges, the fragments flying up in dark, ragged strips and splinters with squirming ropes around them, looking, in the moonlight, like skeletons of gibbeted pirates tossed, gallows and chains, into the air, and then coming down in dips and splashes into the unforgiving water.

“A minute later, all that was left of the shattered hull fell broadside into the open fangs of the ledge, which ground it with its merciless jaws into toothpicks. But in all the lively music and destruction going on around us––which takes longer to tell than to act––we heard no human voice save one, and that came in a loud, terrified yell amid the crunching roar of the ledge,

“‘O Madre! Madre dolorosa!

“This, gentlemen, was the last sound that came from the piratical schooner ‘Centipede.’”


“Oh ho! oh ho! Above! below!
Lightly and brightly they glide and go;
The hungry and keen on the top are leaping,
The lazy and fat in the depths are sleeping!”

“Ah! well-a-day! What evil looks
Had I from old and young;
Instead of the cross, the albatross
About my neck was hung.”

When Hardy had concluded his part of the tale, he stuck the stump of his cigar into the wine-glass of ashes, as if he had no farther use for either, moistened his throat with a bumper of tinta, and almost unconsciously passed his left arm around Harry Darcantel’s neck.

Stingo drank two bumpers, as if he had a particularly parched throat; but Paddy Burns and Tom Stewart, strange to relate, never wet their lips, and passed their hands in a careless way across their eyes, as if there were moisture enough there––as, indeed, there was; feeling, as they did, in the founts of their own generous natures, for their dear friend who sat opposite.

Piron’s head rested, face downward, on his outspread hands, and a few drops trickled through his close-pressed fingers, but they were not wine. And as he raised his head and looked around the board, where glowing, sympathizing eyes met his, he said, in a low, subdued voice,

“I trust I may thank Heaven for avenging the murder of our child!”

Even as he uttered these words, his gaze rested on the face of Darcantel; and striking the table with a blow that made the glasses jingle, he started back, as he had done on the frigate’s quarter-deck, and exclaimed,

“Great God! can it be possible that that boy was saved from the clutches of the drowned pirate!”

Not so fast, good Monsieur Piron––not so fast. Your boy was saved, and Captain Brand was not drowned. So keep quiet for a time, and you shall not only see that bloody pirate, but hear how he departed this life; only keep quiet!

Paddy Burns said, with a violent attempt at indignation, “Wirra, 227 ye spalpeen! is it thinking of old Clinker and his ’arthquake ye are?” While Tom Stewart ejaculated, “Heeh, mon! are you for breaking the commodoor’s decanters and wine-glasses, in the belief that ye are the eerthquak yersel?” Stingo, who was more calm, and a less excitable Creole, merely murmured, “Commodore, we want to hear more of what took place, and then what became of you for the past sixteen or seventeen years.”

“You shall hear more if you are not tired, gentlemen, though I have very little to add to what Hardy has already related of the ‘Centipede.’ Steward, let the servants turn in; and brew us, yourself, a light jorum of Antigua punch! Now, then,” said Commodore Cleveland, “I’m your man!

“After we had scaled the guns on both sides of the ‘Scourge,’ as Hardy has told you, the captain thought it an unnecessary trouble to lower the boats to pick up the chips floating about the mouth of the channel; and, besides, it would have been a bit dangerous, since the sea was coming in savagely, boiling about the ship, with a very uncertain depth of water around and under us; and, moreover, we had our hands full the best part of the night in reeving new running-gear, bending a new sail or two that had flapped to pieces when every thing was let go by the run in coming to anchor. However, before morning, we were in cruising trim once more, and ready to cut and run in case it was expedient to lose our ground-tackle, and get out of what we afterward learned was the Garotte Gorge. But by sunrise the wind fell away into a flat calm, and with the exception of the long, triple row of rollers heaving in occasionally from seaward, we lay as snug and quiet as could be.

“After breakfast the quarter boats were lowered, and Hardy took one, and I got in the other, and we pulled in toward the jaws of the channel, between the Lion Rock and the ledge on the opposite side.

“There were still a good many fragments of the wreck, which had escaped the reacting current out to sea, floating about on the water; some of the timbers, too, of the hull were jammed in the black gums of the ledge, shrouded in sea-weed and kelp, as if all had grown there together. Farther on was part of the fore-mast and top-mast, swimming nearly in mid-channel, anchored as it were by one of the shrouds––twisted, perhaps, around a sharp rock below. The top-sail was still fast to the yards, hoisted and sheeted home, and laid in the water transversely to the masts, just as it fell under the raking fire of our first broadside, jerking over the main-top-mast with it.

“A myriad of sea-birds, from Mother Carey’s chickens to gulls and cormorants, and even vultures and eagles from the shore, were clustered on the wreck as thick as bees––screaming, croaking, and snapping at each other with their hard beaks and bills, while thousands 228 more were hurrying in from seaward, and either swooped down over the ledge, or tried to find a place on the floating spars.

“The gorge, too, was alive with barracoutas and sharks, leaping out of water, or with their stiff triangular fins cutting just above the surface, and sometimes even grazing the blades of the cutter’s oars. I pulled slowly toward the wreck of the fore-mast, and hooked on to the reef-cringle of the fore-top-sail. The birds did not move at our approach, and one old red-eyed vulture snapped on the polished bill of the boat-hook, leaving the marks of his beak in the smooth iron. Down in the clear green depths, too, the water was alive with ravenous fish, and we could see at times hundreds of them with their heads fastened on to some dark object, rolling it, and biting it, and pulling every way, with now and then the glance of a clean-picked bone shining white in the limpid water as the mass was jerked out of our sight.

“The bowmen, however, attracted my attention, and one of them sang out, as he pointed with his finger, ‘I say, Mr. Cleveland, here’s the captain and his priest lying in the belly of the top-sail!’

“I walked forward, while the men fired a few pistols to scare away the birds, and looked in. There, about a foot below the water, lay one drowned man and half the body of another, who had evidently been cut in twain by a twenty-four pound shot at the stomach, leaving only a few revolting shreds of entrails dangling beneath the carcass. The other corpse was a large, burly, fat man, wrapped in a black cassock, with a knotted rope to confine it at the midriff, and around his thick bare neck was a string of black beads, holding a gold and ebony crucifix, pendent in the water. The eyes of the one with half a body had been picked out by the gulls, but he still possessed a fang-like tusk, sticking through a hare-lip under a fringe of wiry mustache, which gave me a tolerable correct idea of his temper even without seeing his eyes. The truck and shivered stump of the main-top-mast, too, with the piratical flag still twisted around it, lay across his chest; but, as we approached, an eagle seized it in his beak, and, tearing it in tattered shreds, flew aloft, with the remains of the parted halliards streaming below his talons.

“The large lump rolling slowly over beside him had the crown of the head shaved, and the mouth and eyes were wide staring open, as if it was chanting forth a misericordia for his own soul. As I stood gazing at these revolting objects, and while the men were firing pistols and slashing the oars and boat-hooks around to drive away the greedy birds, a huge pelican, unmindful of powder or ash, made one dashing swoop into the sail, and as he came up and spread his broad pinions––nearly as broad as the sail itself––he held in his pouch the crucifix from the padre’s neck, and as he slowly flapped his great wings and sailed away, with the beads dropping pit-a-pat-pat on the 229 glassy surface of the water, a cloud of cormorants, gulls, and vultures took after him to steal his plunder.

“At the same time the sharks––many of them resting their cold, sharp noses on the very leech of the top-sail––waiting like hungry dogs for a bone, with a thousand more diving and cutting in the water beneath, at last cut through the canvas belly of the sail, and, before you could think, the floating corpses were within their serrated jaws. In another moment the bodies rose again to the surface outside the sail and wreck; then another dash from the monsters, and a greedy dive and peck from the birds; a few bubbles and shreds of black threads, and that was the last of those wretches until the sea shall give up its dead.

“As for Hardy, he pulled higher up the gorge, and examined the rocks and pools on both sides, but saw nothing living or dead, and we both returned to the ship.”

Had Dick Hardy landed at the flat rock where the eddy swept in under the Lion’s paws, he might have seen the footprint of a man, with a straw slipper in it; and following the track a few yards farther, he would have passed his sword through a villain lying bleeding in a mangrove thicket; and found, too, in his belt, snugly stowed away, a lot of gleaming jewels, with a sapphire gem of priceless value on the finger of his bloody hand. But never mind, Hardy! You will hear more of that man one of these days, and you will have no cause for regrets––though he will, perhaps; and, meanwhile, let him wander in quest of fresh villainies over Spanish South America.

“Well, gentlemen,” resumed Commodore Cleveland, “although I have doubts whether the mangled carcass we saw in the sail was the captain of that notorious ‘Centipede,’ yet I felt confident at the time, and do now, that it was scarcely possible for him or a man of his crew to have escaped our fire and the water and rocks combined. So that evening, when the land-wind made, we tripped anchor and sailed away from the coast of Darien.”

“Come, my friends,” said Piron, in a low, tremulous voice, rising as he spoke, “we must not push Cleveland too far to-night, for it is getting late, you know, and they keep early hours on board men-of-war.”

“No hurry, Piron! I’ll talk to you all night, if you have the patience to listen to me. No? Then I’ll have the boat manned.” He touched a bell-rope which hung over his head, and the cabin door opened. “Orderly, my compliments to the officer of the watch, and desire him to call away the barge.”

While some of the gentlemen in the forward cabin left the table, and stood about in groups chatting till the boat was reported, Piron put his arm around the commodore’s belt, and they moved aft into the starboard stateroom. Little Mouse was lying sound asleep on 230 the elegant cot, with all his clothes on, but with a smile on his lips, and dreaming, maybe, of the dear widowed mother he would one of those days make proud of him.

“Cleveland, my old friend, tell me more of that young Darcantel!”

“Hist! Piron, don’t wake little Tiny! There’s nothing to tell more than he is my adopted nephew, and the son of the gentleman who occupies that stateroom opposite. But when we go out to Escondido I’ll tell you about his father, who has led a very adventurous life.”

“Well, good-night! You will bring young Darcantel with you, and this little rogue, too, here in the cot. My wife and her sister will be delighted to see you all. Good-night!”

As the “Monongahela’s” bell struck eight for midnight, the commodore’s guests got in the barge and pulled toward the shore.

At the same time, a light gig, with handsome Harry Darcantel, went alongside the “Rosalie,” and Commodore Cleveland turned into his friend’s cot opposite, leaving small Mr. Mouse to sleep his dream out till morning; while, as the barge ran up to the landing at Kingston Harbor, and a gold ounce was slipped into the old coxswain’s honest paw, what did they all think about? Good-night!


231

CHAPTER XXXIX.
ESCONDIDO.

“They bore her far to a mountain green,
To see what mortal never had seen;
And they seated her high on a purple sward,
And bade her heed what she saw and heard;
And note the changes the spirits wrought,
For now she lived in the land of thought.”

“’Twixt Africa and Ind, I’ll find him out,
And force him to restore his purchase back,
Or drag by the curls to a foul death,
Cursed as his life.”

Hidden in a cleft of the hills of Jamaica, fifteen hundred feet above that blue tropical sea below, on the brow of a cool valley, where that bounding stream of white water rushes from the tall peak in the sky in tiny cataracts, till it forms a pool there, held in by the smooth rim of rocks, where the cane-mill is lazily turning its overshot wheel, with the spray flying off in streaming mist, and the happy blacks stacking the sugar-cane in even fagots as they unlade the huge carts with solid wheels cut out of a single drum of a cotton-tree; the six or eight yoke of oxen ahead ruminating under the shade of the tropical foliage, with never a switch to their tails; while the lively young sea-breeze comes flurrying up the valley, whistling among the coffee bushes below, bending the standing cane on the slopes, rattling the tamarinds, cocoa-nuts, and plantains, and then climbing with noisy wings up the mountain, is lost with a whirl in the heavy cloud which obscures the lofty peak.

Below the mill, where the mule-path crosses the foaming torrent by the shaky bridge, which stands on cocoa-nut stilts, and never yet has been thrown down by an earthquake, nestling under a precipitous crag, stood the mountain seat of Escondido. Vines and parasitical plants, mingled with scarlet creeping geraniums, made a living wall of dewy green and red on the face of the hoary rock, falling over here and there at some projecting acclivity in leafy torrents, and then forming a glowing green cornice along the topmost edges of the height.

The buildings stood on a flat esplanade below, looking down the gorge as from the apex of a triangle, and taking in the overseer’s 232 houses on the plantations, with their cone-shaped roofs, the fields of cane and coffee groves, the cataract between, down to the white snowy beach at the sea-shore, and the blue water crested by waves as far as the sight could reach.

The main house was square––standing on stilts, too, like the shaky bridge––the lower part fenced in by straight bamboos, of one story, with a broad roomy veranda going all round, where half a dozen grass hammocks were slung between the windows which opened into the dwelling. A great airy saloon and dining-room faced the valley, while six or eight cool bedchambers looked out from the rear up at the green wall of the precipice, and down on the sparkling stream of the mill.

But there were no loopholes for musketry, nor vaults and dungeons.

The sun had long passed the tall peaks of the blue mountains above, and the shadows had fallen down the valley until even the patch of white pebbly cove at the shore had become dim; and no sounds were heard save the rustling of the sea-breeze, the splash of the torrent as it fell off from the rickety old wheel of the cane-mill, mingled with the shrill cries and songs of the negroes as they unloaded the carts.

Yes; but there were other sounds––the low, sweet tones of women’s voices––inside the villa of Escondido. Two lovely matrons were sitting within that lofty saloon, hand clasped in hand, and gazing with glowing pride upon a lovely girl, who waved lithe as a lily on its stem before them.

It is about seventeen years since we last saw this charming trio. And now look at them, old bachelors, and tell me if, while old Time has been scraping the hair off your own selfish heads, and pinching the noses, too, of the ancient maids beside you, has not the scything old wretch spared these lovely matrons? Look at their rounded forms, those soft dimpled cheeks, and those bands of brown tresses, kissing the pear-shaped ears before they are looped up in one magnificent knot of satin at the back of the head. Look at them, you miserable old procrastinators, and then kneel down before the ancient damsels you have sneered at, even if they have the pelican gout and a crow’s-foot at the corners of their eyes! They are better than you are, any day; so bear a hand, send for the parson––and now stand back.

But come here, my young gallants, and take a peep at that Bordelaise demoiselle standing before those fair matrons. Strange to say, she is nearly a blonde, with large blue eyes, so very blue that––fringed with lashes that cast a shade over the cheek––they seem almost black. Then, too, that low, pure forehead, with great plaits of hair going round and round her elegant head like a golden turban, 233 and thin hoops of rings quivering in the pearl-tipped ears. Tall and waving in figure, as maidens are; with slim, arched feet, dimpled at the ankle; and round, tapering fingers too, with a wrist so plump and soft that no manacles of bracelets could press it without slipping off the ivory hand. Dressed she was in a light mousseline, coyly cowering in loose folds around her budding bosom to the slender waist, where, clasped by a simple buckle of mother-o’-pearl, it fell flowing in gauzy, floating waves to her feet. Look at her, my gallants, for she is Rosalie!

“They are coming to-day, my aunt; and Uncle Jules says that our dear old Captain Blunt has just arrived at Kingston, and is coming with them.”

“What else, my daughter?”

The girl held a letter before her face, maybe to hide a little blush which suffused her cheeks.

“Why, mamma, he writes that the spring-cart, with Banou, was to start overnight with the ‘traps’––that means trunks, I suppose––and that––”

“What, Rosalie?”

“That there is a handsome young officer, the nephew of Commodore Cleveland––merci, mamma! some of Uncle Jules’s nonsense!”

No such great nonsense, after all, mademoiselle, when your uncle Piron tells you to keep that fluttering little heart safe within your bodice, for there are thieves in blue jackets in the island of Jamaica. Strange, too, as she spoke––with her animated face, large blue eyes, and graceful, wavy figure––how much she resembled both those lovely women, with their darker coloring, who sat smiling sweetly upon her.

“Oh! here comes Uncle Banou. Well, my good Banou, what news of your master?” said Madame Piron, as she put out her hand to the black, who raised it respectfully to his lips.

“He will be here with his friends at sunset, eh! And Mademoiselle Rosalie must place the gentlemen’s things in their rooms, and see that the billiard-house has some cots made ready in it.”

“Nothing more?”

“No, madame.”

Allons! Rosalie, we have no time to lose.”

Winding through the mazes of the tropical forest, over the broken stony road, leading through a brilliant labyrinth of wild fig and acacia, plume-like palms, white shafts of silk and cotton, and lance-wood, mahogany, and ebony, parasitical plants in green and red, with endless varieties of gay flowers strung and laced in superb festoons on trunk and branch; singing birds and paroquets making the forest alive; while, mingled with the delicious fragrance of orange-blossoms, cinnamon, and pimento, the fresh breeze wheeled through clump and 234 leaf, changing the hues of plant and flower from white to crimson, green, purple, and gold, as Nature painted them in gorgeous dyes.

Through this brilliant vegetation, along the uneven road, came the sound of horses’ feet, with hearty shouts and laughter; and presently appeared a cavalcade, mounted on mules and horses, all making the forest ring with merriment.

Ahead came Tom Stewart, on a small, sure-footed pony; and beside him Mr. Tiny Mouse, reefer, on a high mule, with a scrubbing-brush mane, looking like a fly pennant at the mast-head of the frigate, kicking his little heels into the old mule, as if that mule minded it even so much as to shake his long ears! Then straggling in the centre were Darcantel, Stingo, and Paddy Burns; and behind them came a tall, muscular man, on a mettled barb, which he controlled by a touch of his little finger. And at his side, on the most diminutive of the donkey breed, with feet touching the ground, clung stout Jacob Blunt, the sailor, in a more dreadful trepidation than he had ever known on board his old teak-built brig, lying there in the Roads of Kingston; while the rear was brought up by Piron and Commodore Cleveland.

“Now, you little madcap, look sharp when we turn the curve of the mountain, and you’ll catch a peep at Escondido; and don’t you pinch that old mule again on her back, or she’ll pitch you up into that silk cotton-tree.”

“If it pleases Providence to restore me safely to my dear old ‘Martha Blunt,’ I’ll take my davy never to sit astride of any d–– brute on four legs again!” This mild vow came from the lips of Jacob Blunt, and he honestly meant every word he said.

“Give us another jolly song, Stingo; it will keep your throat clear for the claret.”

“For the sake of my old timbers, sir, and as you vally my wife’s blessing, don’t sing! There, you infarnal beast, you’ve yawed sharp up into this ere bush, and put my starboard glim out forever! I say, Don Spanisher, don’t sing––I’m going fast enough!” shouted the poor skipper, as he passed his paws around the little brute’s neck, with his hat over his eyes.

“Colonel,” said Burns, as he reined up, and gave the perverse little donkey a cut with his whip, which elicited another hoarse roar from the old sailor as the animal half doubled himself up, and then ambled away like a yawl in a short sea, until he came up to the people ahead, when he stood stock-still and brayed maliciously, “have you another cigar, colonel? Thankee! Fine scenery this about here––never visited Jamaica before? Ye have been off the island, eh? It’s a nate little spot Piron has there, that it is; and the whole of us will be mighty sorry to lose him. Is he going to lave? Yes, he is; and, what is worse, he is going to take his swate wife and her sister. 235 Is the sister handsome? Begorra! handsome? Why, man, she’s a beauty! And didn’t I crack the elbow-joint of that ugly, abusive divil, Peter Growler, for saying he had seen a gray hair in her head, when I knew it was only a loose thread from her lace cap––and me in love with her all the time. Bad luck to him! he’s never fired a pistol since.”

Here Paddy Burns’s small eyes twinkled as he slowly raised the stock of his riding-whip at a slender lance-wood-tree about twelve yards off, and gave the lash a sharp crack.

The person on the spirited barb almost unconsciously put his right hand in his pocket.

Take care, Paddy Burns; the colonel has a cool hand and a colder eye, and has made a study of pistols––cannon and swivels too, perhaps. Knows the cutlass exercise as well, and has had considerable experience in bullets, knives, and ropes. Has murdered women––lots of them. Wouldn’t stick at killing a child with a junk bottle. And as for men––pshaw! Keep a bright look-out, Paddy. Why, he’d drown your mother if you had a sister to love. For didn’t he drag his own old father and mother down to a dishonored grave? and do you think, you brave, honest little Irishman, that he would sleep a wink the less sound for putting you to death? Bah! man. Shoot all the game you spring, but don’t waste powder on a tiger or a shark. You would like to take a mutual shot with him, though? Of course you would––who doubts it? But then, gentlemen fight gentlemen; and this colonel at your elbow is a scoundrel, miscreant, villain, assassin, and––pirate! So you can’t take a crack at him, Paddy Burns.


236

CHAPTER XL.
PAUL DARCANTEL.

“From the strong will, and the endeavor,
That forever
Wrestles with the tide of fate;
From the wrecks of hope far scattered,
Tempest shattered,
Floating waste and desolate.”

“Well, Piron, as I have told you, after the peace was made in 1815, I had command of a brig, and took a cruise on the coast of Brazil. After that I was appointed to a thirty-six gun frigate––the old ‘Blazer’––and went, for three years, to the East Indies, and round home by the Pacific. When we were paid off I made a tour in Europe with that boy’s father, Dr. Darcantel, and––”

“But you promised to tell me, Cleveland, something about him.”

“Nothing easier; and, if we have half an hour before we get to Escondido, I will give you all I know, in a general way, of his history. Yes? Well, then, Darcantel is descended from one of the oldest and best Creole families in our State of Louisiana, and the plantations of my family and his father were contiguous to each other on the Mississippi, some leagues up the coast above New Orleans. We had the same tutor when we were children, and we grew up from infancy to boyhood together. He was passionate and ungovernable even as a child; but as he was the heir to a large estate, and his father dead, his weak mother humored and allowed no one to curb him. I myself, one of a numerous family, was put in the navy, and I went away on cruise after cruise, and did not get home again to the old plantation for full seven years. I was a man then, had seen some active service, and I held a commission as a lieutenant in the navy.

“In the mean while, Paul Darcantel, who had taken, at the time I left, a strong fancy for medicine and surgery, had been sent to France to begin his studies. How he applied himself we do not know; but with a large letter of credit he spent a great deal of money; and we heard that, with great talents and wonderful skill in his profession, he was yet unfitted for close application, and plunged madly into the vortex of dissipation around him. I heard, too––or at least my brothers told me––that his extravagances had seriously impaired his 237 fortune, and that his duels had been so numerous and desperate as to make his name dreaded even in Paris. On one occasion, at a cafÉ, he had cut a bullying hussar’s head clean off with his own sabre for knocking a woman down; and in another duel, where he had detected a French count cheating him at cards, he shot his nose off for a bet. With this unenviable reputation, and at the urgent solicitations of his agent, after years of absence he returned to his ancestral home. We met as of old––it was Paul and Henry––and though still the same restive, hot-headed spirit as he had ever been, he yet always listened patiently to what I said, and I could, in a manner, control him. He paid very little attention to his property, however, and when he did go to the city to consult with his factor or trustee, he got into some wild frolic, duel, and scrape, and came back worn out with fatigue and dissipation. He was a fine, stern-looking youth in those days, with great muscular power, which, even with the endurance put upon it by gaming and drinking, seemed not to be lessened.

“After one of these visits to New Orleans, where his long-forbearing agents had at last awakened him to a bitter sense of his delinquencies, and when mortgage upon mortgage were laid with all their shocking truth before him, he returned and came to me. With all his vices and faults, he was truthful and generous. He told me all, and how he would try to do better, and soothe the declining years of his too indulgent mother.

“I always had great faith in the companion almost of my cradle, and I loved him, I think, better than my own brothers. Well, he spread all his affairs before me, and in my little den of an outhouse on the plantation we both went systematically over the papers. We were two days and nights at the business; and when, at last, I showed him that he would still, with a little prudent economy, have a fair income, and eventually, perhaps, redeem his hereditary property, he burst out in a wild yell of delight, and hugged me in his arms. When he had put away the papers, I said,

“‘Paul, you know I am engaged to be married, and I have not seen my sweetheart for two whole days; she has a sister, too, prettier than my Fifine, whom you have never seen since we were boys together. Come, will you go with me? We can pull ourselves across the river.’

“He hesitated; and it would have been, perhaps, better had he refused to accompany me, for dreadful misery came of it.”

The commodore gave a deep sigh, and touched his horse with the spur.

“I don’t know, though, Piron; there is a fate marked out for us all, and we should not exclaim against the decrees of Providence. Paul went with me across the river. There, on the bank, was a little bower of an old French-built stone house, where dwelt the last 238 of a line of French nobility who dated back to the days of Charlemagne. It was an impoverished family, consisting of a reckless brother and two sisters, who, with a few acres of sugar-cane and some old faithful servants, managed to make both ends meet, and to support the establishment in a certain air of elegance and comfort to which they had been accustomed. They were of a proud and haughty race––the brother a disdainful and imperious gentleman, smarting and brooding over the reverses of his family, and rarely visiting his neighbors. His sisters––and they were twins––were trustful, happy girls, and Josephine had been my childish love.”

Here Cleveland bent over his saddle-bow, and if the quiet old horse he bestrode believed the large drops which fell upon his sleek neck came from the clouds, or the drooping foliage of the forest, that animal was never more deceived in his quadruped life. We know that fact, for it stands upon the angelic record.

“Well, my dear Piron, as we entered the little saloon where Fifine was seated at the piano, playing the sweet airs she had sung to me when a little bit of a girl, and her beautiful sister bending over a table near, absorbed in a book, while the candles under the glass shades lighted up her dark passionate eyes and brunette complexion, Paul approached her. It was not love at first sight, because they had played together when children; but it was such a love as only begins and dies with man or woman. The brother came in soon afterward, but there was no love exchanged between him and Paul, and they met in a manner which seemed to revive the early dislike they had entertained one toward the other in boyhood.

“So the time passed, and in the course of a few months Josephine and I were married, and our home was made on my own old place. Still, night by night, in storm, calm, or freshet, Paul pulled himself in a skiff across that mighty river, and we could see the lights shining to a late hour in the little bower. He had changed a great deal, for he loved with the whole force of his fiery and impetuous nature. Pauline loved too, though still she feared him. The brother, however, bitterly opposed their union, and stormy scenes arose. Josephine and I did all we could to put matters on a happy footing, but Jacques, the brother, grew more determined as his sister refused to cast off her lover, till at last his feeling against him broke out into open scornful insult; and though Paul still persisted in seeing Pauline, yet we feared that the impetuous spirits of the two men would, at any moment, burst out into open violence.

“Darcantel, however, controlled himself, avoided as much as possible any altercations with Jacques, applied himself to the duties of his plantation, and always promised me that he would wait and see if time would not induce the brother to give his consent to the marriage. Meanwhile Paul’s mother died. A year passed. Fifine gave 239 me a little boy, who was called after me, and then I went again to sea. Nearly three years later I returned, and the very night before I reached the plantation a dreadful tragedy had occurred. I might, perhaps, have prevented it had I been there, but it was ordered otherwise.

“It seems that two days previously Jacques wrote to Paul––I saw the letter––and it was something painful to read; for he not only recapitulated his vices and follies, but he taxed him with being a ruined gambler, who had brought his mother in sorrow to the grave, and ended by swearing, in the most solemn manner, that if he dared again to speak to his sister or darken their doors, he would shoot him like a dog!

“That evening, as usual, the skiff pursued its way across the river, and late at night when it returned there was a fluttering white dress in the stern. Scarcely, however, had the skiff left the bank than a boat shoved out from the other side manned by four negroes, and came swiftly over in pursuit. What afterward transpired I heard from an old married couple of servants who had passed their lives with the family. It appears that Paul, with Pauline in his arms, had barely reached the hall of the great house, and was giving orders to close the doors, when Jacques rushed in with a naked rapier in one hand and a pistol in the other. Paul adjured him, by all he held sacred, not to attack him, as his blood was up, and, unarmed as he was, he would do him a mischief. Pauline, too, implored him by a sister’s love to desist; but seeing him still advance, as she partially shielded Paul, she told him that the man she loved was her husband.

“Blinded with haughty rage, this last admission rendered him ungovernable, and he lunged with all his force at Darcantel. Paul parried his rapid passes, though receiving some sharp thrusts in his arm and shoulder, and still supporting his drooping, terrified wife on his left arm till, by a quick spring, he got within Jacques’s guard, and, seizing him by the wrist, wrenched the weapon from his grasp. This was enough to make the brother totally insane by passion from baffled revenge, when he leveled his pistol and fired. There was a faint cry with the report, and a groan from Jacques as the sword went through his body and heart, till the hilt struck hard against his ribs as he fell, a dead man, on the marble pavement. But the bullet from his pistol had pierced the fair forehead of his sister, and she lay a bridal corpse in her husband’s arms. It was horrible.

“I spare you all the afflicting details, Piron, and will only add that Paul left the plantation that night, and when I got home I found an envelope post-marked ‘New Orleans,’ inclosing a paper, which constituted me his sole executor, and leaving our little boy his heir. I had but a short leave of a month, and duty called me again away. It was on the anniversary of the day the tragedy occurred, after another 240 long interval of four years in the ‘Scourge,’ that I again returned, and then there was wailing and moaning in my own dwelling. My poor Josephine had never recovered from the shock; she drooped away like a lily, her little boy by her side, and both died during my absence.”

What makes the strong man’s eyelids quiver and voice tremble––those eyes that have looked calmly on death and carnage in every shape, with his deep, calm voice cheering on the men to battle at his side? Ah!

“It was midnight, and I walked out to the little grave-yard where my fathers had been buried, and bending my steps to a cluster of magnolias on a little mound by itself, I––I––a––kneeled down beside the sod where reposed all I had loved on earth! I do not know how long I remained there, but presently I heard a groan near by, and a tall man rose up from where he had been stretched, face downward, on the ground, and I beheld Paul Darcantel! I could hardly recognize him at first, for he seemed fifty years older than when we had last parted.

“‘Cleveland,’ he said, in a hollow, choking voice, ‘forgive me! I am a changed, and, I trust, a better man. I have been drawn to this holy spot by the same errand which brought you hither, and though I did not expect to meet you, yet I am glad of it now. Speak, and say you forgive me, and you will shed a ray of hope and salvation into the heart of one who will suffer unto the end! Speak!’

“Old memories crowded around me, and I saw before me the child in the cradle, and with our arms round each other’s necks as we played together. I forgot, for the moment, the sisters lying there––bride, mother, and baby-boy. The magnolias bowed their white flowers in the light of the waning moon, and we fell again into each other’s arms.

“After a time he said, ‘My only friend, I have brought home with me a little helpless boy; he is named Henry, after you, and will take the place of the lost little one lying here. Whoever of us survives shall inherit that estate. Come with me and look at him!’

“He led me to the other mound, and there, beside the tree, a beautiful child lay calmly sleeping, wrapped in a sailor’s jacket, with his curls escaping from a straw hat, and the head resting on one arm on the grave beneath him.

“‘Be good to him,’ Paul went on, ‘for the sake of those we have lost ourselves! His mother’s name was Rosalie.’

“He stooped down as he said this, and, raising the boy in his arms, he kissed him passionately, and then put him gently in mine. ‘Let him kneel sometimes at this grave, my friend, and pray for me.’

“In another moment Paul Darcantel had gone. The little fellow partly woke, and put his arms affectionately around my neck, and 241 whispered ‘Mamma! mamma!’ That dashing, brave young fellow ahead there was once that boy.

“Well, I took the child to the house, where my good mother and sisters went wild over him, and there he passed a happy boyhood. Years went by, and he grew apace, the pride and delight of us all; and as he evinced the greatest fondness for me and the accounts I gave him of my life at sea, I had him appointed a reefer in the navy. Since that he has seen a great deal of service; been distinguished in action; and, on shipboard as well as on shore, liked and respected by all who know him.

“In the mean while his father went away, nobody knew whither, for years and years. He wrote to me, however, and to his son, from all parts of the world; and when I made the tour in Europe I spoke about, Darcantel was my companion. But while there he passed a retired life, never went into society, but visited every hospital in every sea-port from the Mediterranean to Aberdeen in Scotland; for he is not only a surgeon, as I have reason to know, of wonderful skill, but a thorough-bred seaman too; and when he has been with me on board ship there is no one whose opinion of the weather, or other nautical matters, do I place greater reliance on. I could tell you of half a dozen times when his advice to me has saved serious damage. And during all these years Darcantel’s estates, under the careful supervision of my eldest brother, have been redeemed from their load of debt, and now he enjoys a noble income––or, rather, he spends nothing on himself, but devotes it to widows and orphans, and sick or worn-out sailors.

“In the seventeen years which have gone by since he brought his child to me he has made several visits of a month or two’s duration to the plantations, but only when Henry was on leave from duty. Then it was a pleasant sight to see them both together, and the touching air of affection which bound the youth to his father. Henry, from a child, often went and prayed beside the grave under the magnolias, and to this day he believes that his own mother lies buried there. Perhaps it is as well that he should cherish this early belief; for I may tell you in confidence, Piron, that we believe there at home that he is the illegitimate offspring of some erring passion of Darcantel, though none of us have ever learned it positively from his father’s lips. He is not a person to be questioned by any one, not even by me; and as he seems anxious to throw a thick veil over the past, we never venture to draw it aside.

“When, however, I was appointed to my present command, Darcantel desired to sail with me, and see the West India Islands, which he had not visited for an age. I was only too happy to have him, especially as Harry there––whom I love like a father––was named to the little schooner he had cut out in Africa on his last cruise, and 242 ordered to join my squadron. But whenever we get into port his father goes quietly on shore; passes his time, I think, among the sailors of the foreign shipping, spending money freely among the deserving, and again coming back in his calm, stern way. He told me, however, Piron, yesterday, that perhaps he might accept your kind invitation to come up here, though not for some days. By George!” said the commodore, “that must be Escondido!”

Piron sighed as if a pleasant dream had vanished.


243

CHAPTER XLI.
INSTINCT AND WONDER.

“‘Ho! sailor of the sea!
How’s my boy––my boy?’
‘What’s your boy’s name, good wife,
And in what good ship sailed he?’”

“Through the night, through the night,
In the saddest unrest,
Wrapped in white, all in white,
With her babe on her breast,
Walks the mother so pale,
Staring out on the gale,
Through the night!”

As the cavalcade trotted round the curve of the peak, and then walked the cattle down the steep zigzag road of the beautiful valley, the commodore said, “But, Piron, tell me who that large man is with the black hair and blue eyes.”

“Why, Cleveland, all I know of him is that he landed at Kingston in a vessel from the Isthmus of Panama, and is going to Cuba on his way to England. He came to me, hearing that I was the consignee of old Blunt’s older brig, bound to New Orleans, and so home, to know if he could be dropped at St. Jago, where he has some property or debts to collect; and since the old skipper has no objection, he has taken passage in the brig when she goes with me and my family. I have since met him––he calls himself Colonel Lawton––at dinners of our set, and he seems to be an Englishman or Scotchman. Tom Stewart thinks the latter from his accent, and for his liking for snuff; but Paddy Burns differs, and believes he don’t like snuff, but only takes it to show his splendid box. Any way, he speaks all languages, Spanish, French, Italian, and English, and can talk slang in them all like a native. He has served, too, from his own account, with Bolivar there on the Spanish Main; and he was with Cochrane in that desperate affair of cutting out the ‘Esmeralda’ in Callao Bay. A very amusing, entertaining vagabond he is, and I asked him to join us to make the acquaintance of my people on our last frolic to the valley; but, somehow, I am rather sorry that I gave him a passage with us in the brig, for I don’t altogether like his looks.”

244

“Neither do I, Piron; his hair is too black for his light blue eyes. However, we must make the most of him.”

Over the shaky bridge of the torrent, where Jacob Blunt prayed earnestly for Martha Blunt, and d––d his donkey as if he had never rocked on water before; Mr. Mouse, with a last tiny kick on the saddle-flaps of his lofty mule, tumbled off; Colonel Lawton swinging himself from the saddle of his barb as if he had been part of him; Tom Stewart, Paddy Burns, and Don Stingo sliding off any way; Harry Darcantel trying to descend in fine style, and failing miserably; Piron and the commodore doing the thing leisurely; Jacob Blunt pulled off bodily; while the laughing blacks took the beasts and led them away.

There were three pair of eyes that watched all this grace and clumsiness from the windows of the saloon. Two pair of dark ones smiled, and the pair of blue opened until they seemed like azure globes, and then they closed until the fringe of chestnut lashes nearly hid them from sight.

“Colonel Lawton, do me the favor to follow my old friend Banou––you too, Captain Jacob, and Lieutenant Darcantel and Mr. Mouse; Paddy Burns and Stingo, here, will show you your quarters in the old billiard-room. Come, commodore, the rest of us will find quarters in the casa.”

An hour later the saloon and sala were all alight, and the sashes of the jalousies closed, for it was cool at times up there at Escondido. There, too, stood the party of gentlemen, Mr. Mouse being a prominent figure in the background. Then came a rustling of robes, and as the great folding doors swung open, the three ladies lit up the saloon in a halo of loveliness with brighter rays than were shed from the wax-lights in the chandelier. Two fair hands were placed in those of Cleveland, and the look which accompanied went back to the happy morning on the old brig’s deck, away off there to sea.

“Oh, monsieur, I can not say how glad I am to see you once more! Let me present you to my sister, Madame Nathalie Delonde, and our daughter. Ah! my dear Captain Blunt, both your children before you again, and you have come to take us away.”

“Colonel Lawton, ma chÈre,” said Piron.

“And, mesdames,” said the commodore, “let me also present my nephew, Lieutenant Darcantel, and Mr. Mouse.”

What caused that woman to start as the girl took the tiny reefer by the hand, and impulsively clasped those white hands together, while her heart beat in yearning throbs, and her bosom rose and fell like billows by the shore? Why did she then raise one hand to her fair neck, and, as if in a dream, feel for the golden links of the chain, with the other hand pressed to her panting heart for the locket which once reposed there? How was it that, bewildered by a mother’s instinct, 245 she gazed at the youth before her, and then turned her eyes hopelessly around in search of her husband in the crowd?

“Yes, madame. This is my nephew, Henry Darcantel.”

“Ah! Henri! Excuse me, monsieur. I am charmed to see you!”

Why, now, did the touch of his hand make her heart beat faster, and send a thrill of joy through her frame? Only be a little calm, madame, for a while longer, and don’t be sad and ponder all night, like your good Jules Piron does habitually. Wait; Jules will tell you all he knows when you are alone to-night.

The doors of the sala were thrown open. The broad pennant leading with Madame Rosalie; the military chieftain marching beside Madame Nathalie, much to the animosity of Paddy Burns. Then Mr. Mouse convoying mademoiselle, to the infinite disgust of the commander of the “Rosalie,” one-gun schooner, formerly the “Perdita.” But what made that old negro in spotless white, standing at the door, jerk his head back and open his great eyes till there was no black left in them? And why did he blunder about the table afterward, and pour wine over the colonel’s richly-laced coat, while staring like an ogre at the young blue-jacket opposite? That old Banou, perhaps, did not like to see his young mistress too much attended to by every gay scamp who came near her. Oh no; of course not. But then, if that brawny negro in white had only known over whose arm and mutilated hand he was pouring light wine in his abstraction, he would have crammed that heavy cut decanter in powdered glass splinters down the chieftain’s throat. There would have been claret of a different color spilled then––quantities of it. You needn’t feel in your pockets, colonel, or look round the sala to see if perchance there is a green silk rope squirming from the ceiling. We don’t keep any of those pretty things out at Escondido. So go on with your dinner, you cold-eyed scoundrel, and tell all the lies you can to that lovely woman at your elbow; how you wanted to save Bolivar’s life, and it was saved without you. Don’t forget, either, to tell her how that patriot had you drummed out of his army, suspecting you of having assassinated the officer near you in the confusion of battle, and robbing him of his watch to replace the one presented to you by the captain general. Paddy Burns is watching you, Colonel Lawton, and that whole-souled little Irishman is not the man to be trifled with. Now remove the covers. But take care, Banou––you nearly twitched off the military gentleman’s hair. Tom Stewart saw it, and he noticed, too, a broad red seam, like the track of a musket bullet––honorable wound, no doubt––under your black glossy wig.

Mr. Mouse had fallen desperately in love with the perfumed damsel beside him, and he knew she was up to her rose-tipped ears in love with him, oh! fifty fathoms deep; but his mother liked girls, 246 and he would leave her half-pay! Still he didn’t forget his adoration for the roast duck; and he slyly swigged some Madeira too, with a wary eye on the broad pennant through the flowers of the Épergne. Talked, too, did that reefer––ay, chattered––and said that the quiet young officer on her left was very well liked in the steerage, and commanded a pretty little craft named the “Rosalie.” She knew that before, did she? Well, his father was a cold, stern man, but he was kind and generous, and had been very good to his poor mother, God bless him!

Commodore Cleveland talked in a low tone, all through the dinner, to the lady who did not eat at the head of the table, but who occasionally rested her white hand, with a trustful reliance, on the great tanned-leather paw of Jacob Blunt, that honest mariner not wishing to talk to any body, man or woman. That ancient mariner was mentally cursing donkeys; speculating how he should get back to the “Martha Blunt” brig, in Kingston harbor; and praying for Martha Blunt, wife, riding at single anchor near Plymouth beach. Piron took wine with every body, said a word or two all around the table, and talked to Tom Stewart about certain business matters connected with the plantation when he had gone.

Then came the last course, and the dessert of delicious fruits, which quite stopped Mr. Mouse’s mouth, and even his palpitating heart ceased beating; while Mademoiselle Rosalie nibbled some lady-finger biscuit, and bent her graceful head to listen to the music of the earnest lips beside her.

We told you, miss, how it would be; and, in spite of the warning, there you are––the color coming and going over your girlish cheeks, and never saying a word! “What a couple that would make!” thought Madame Nathalie. And what a resemblance in expression there is between them––he with his dark hair and eyes, and she fair and blue. Be careful, my sweet Rosalie! And so thought her sister and her sister’s husband; Stingo, too, old Banou, and every one save Tiny Mouse, who had no rivals but Rat, Beaver, and Martin, and he could take the wind out of their sails any day.

The party of ladies rose from the table, and leaving the men––all except the captain of the “Rosalie” and Mr. Mouse, who would have remained had he not seen a shake of the broad pennant’s finger––went into the saloon. Then there was a brilliant prelude on the piano, a touch of a guitar by stronger fingers, an air from an opera, a song or two, much conversation––while Reefer Mouse slept on the sofa––and coffee. Then it was late; every one was fatigued, bon soirs were said, and the party––coffee and all––separated.


“In slumbers of midnight the sailor-boy lay,
His hammock swung loose at the sport of the wind;
But watch-worn and weary, his cares flew away,
And visions of happiness danced o’er his mind.”

“And how the sprites of injured men
Shriek upward from the sod;
Ay! how the ghostly hand will point
To show the burial clod;
And unknown facts of guilty acts
Are seen in dreams from God!”

In a great square room, standing, as usual, on cocoa-nut stilts, which had once been used for a billiard-room, were half a dozen iron-framed cots, ranged along the walls, in which some of the Escondido’s guests were to bivouac. Every thing, however, was tidy and comfortable; snow-white bedclothes and gauze musquito nets, lots of napkins and ewers, and things for bathing behind a screen of dimity curtains; and not forgetting a large table––vice the billiard-table––in the centre, on which stood plenty of sugar and limes, cinnamon and nutmeg, bottles and flasks, red and white, and––very little water, in jugs.

The occupants of this bivouac had turned in, and the lights had been doused. Conversation, however, was kept up, especially by the thin little voice of Mr. Mouse, who, having enjoyed a nap in the early evening, and having been danced and tumbled about on the trip to the lodge by Harry Darcantel, who was in tiptop condition, the reefer was as wide awake as a blackfish. Don Stingo chanted a few convivial airs and snored; so did Jacob Blunt, with a spluttering groan intermixed; and Paddy Burns fell off into a doze, saying blasphemous words addressed to the world at large, with a mutter against the military, hoping he might look at a Bolivian patriot edgewise with a friend and companion of his, Mr. Joe Manton, at his side; he would put an end to any more lies about charges of cavalry, and cutting out frigates in Callao Bay. That Paddy Burns would, though he didn’t wear a wig and a large sapphire on the only finger he had left on his left hand, and with a diamond snuff-box, too! Presented to you by a connection of your family, was it? Take a pinch out of 248 it? D–– him, no! Begorra, the snuff is not Lundy Foot’s, and the box is brass, sir, brass!

“I say, Mouse, keep quiet, will you, and let me go to sleep!” Harry Darcantel did not think of going to sleep; that was a fib he told the reefer; he wanted merely to shut his eyes and dream of––you know who––a tall, graceful girl with blue eyes and light hair, who looked at him once or twice such looks that there was no sleep for him for ever so long. What did she say? Why, she never opened her pouting lips to show those even pearly teeth. She only looked out of those soft blue eyes. That was all!

“Mr. Darcantel, I think of getting married.”

“The d–– you do! And who to, pray?”

“Why,” said Mr. Mouse, as he rolled over and kicked the sheet off his slate-pencil built legs, “I haven’t made up my mind; but do you know that that pretty girl up there at the big house has taken quite a fancy to me, and when you were presented to her mother she gave me such a squeeze of the hand! Oh my!”

Here Mr. Mouse’s narrative was cut short by a pillow hitting him plump on the mouth, clean through his musquito net.

“Very charming young lady, Mr. Mouse,” said a quiet voice, in a cool tone, on the other side of him; “she did seem to take a violent fancy to you.”

Mr. Mouse rolled over, and then, sitting up in his cot, replied, “Yes, sir! and that was her mother sitting by you when the big nigger in white capsized the wine over your sleeve, and nearly pulled your a––hair off.”

Look out, Mr. Mouse! If that man there beside you once gives a twitch at your curls, he’ll pull something more than hair––perhaps a little scalp with it!

“Oh!” was the sound that came back.

“Yes, sir; and the other beautiful lady next the commodore is her sister. She had a son just mademoiselle’s age, who was murdered by pirates off Jamaica ever so many years ago, and Commodore Cleveland chased them in a ship he was first lieutenant of––my father commanded the ship––she was the old ‘Scourge.’”

“Hold your tongue!” came from the cot where the spare pillow was thrown from.

“Ho!” said the military chieftain; but if the room had not been so dark, the way his eyes opened and emitted an icy glare of surprise would have made Tiny Mouse shiver with cold.

“Oh dear, yes, colonel, I heard the commodore tell all about it the other night on board the frigate. He thought I was asleep, but I kept awake through the best part of it.”

“The best part of it?”

“Why, sir, how an old one-eyed Spaniard deceived my father, and 249 sent him on a fool’s errand from St. Jago down to the Isle of Pines, and afterward how the ‘Scourge’ chased the piratical schooner in a hurricane for ever so long, clear away to the coast of Darien, where they blew her out of water, and killed every scoundrel on board!”

Not every one, Mr. Mouse. There is the very greatest of those scoundrels grinding his teeth and glaring your way at your elbow.

“What was the name of that cape, Darcantel, where the schooner was destroyed? No, I won’t be quiet; the colonel wants to hear all about it. There’s a good fellow, tell me!”

“Garotte Cape.”

The listener slowly raised the mutilated hand, and put the finger with the sapphire ring to his throat, evidently not liking the name of that cape, for it caused a choking sensation to utter it––“Ho! Cape Garotte!”

“Yes, sir; and Darcantel’s father here once chartered a vessel, and went all the way down there to explore the place, and was gone fifteen months! Wasn’t he, Darky?” said the boy, familiarly.

“Mouse, I tell you what it is, if you don’t shut up that little flytrap of yours, I’ll make Rat lick you when you go on board!”

“Rat lick me?” said Tiny, as he jumped straight up in the cot; “I gave him and Martin a black eye apiece only on our last boat-duty day for saying your father, the doctor, had killed his brother-in-law in a duel!”

“Hush, my dear little fellow! you did a very foolish thing. There, say no more on that subject; it gives me pain, my Tiny. So talk on as much as you like.”

“My dear friend,” exclaimed the lad, in a broken voice; as he plunged through his net and put his arms around Darcantel, “I wouldn’t grieve you for the world; but do you suppose, little as I am, that I wouldn’t fight for the doctor, who is so kind to me, and has done so much for my poor dear sweet mother?”

Here there was a sob as he wound his arms closer round his friend’s neck, and cried like a child, as he was.

“Well, never mind, Tiny; go to sleep, now! I am not angry. There, turn in!”

“I won’t speak another word to-night, Harry, for any soul breathing––little fool that I am!”

“I beg your pardon, monsieur,” said the colonel, in French, with a slight quiver on his tongue, “but did your father really go all the way down to Darien out of mere curiosity?”

“Yes, sir, he did go there to see if by any chance one of the pirates had escaped; and he traveled, too, a good deal about among the Indians, making inquiries.”

“Ho! and did he pick up any information there?”

“Why, sir, I am not positive, but I believe that he got a hint that 250 a European had wandered over that country who had been wounded in the head and hand, and was almost naked; but the natives could give him but very meagre accounts. He continued on, however, down the Isthmus, on the Pacific side, by sea, as far as Chili, when he went into the interior to Peru, crossed the Andes, and followed down the Orinoco to Para, when he sailed again for England.”

“Oh! no other motive than curiosity?”

“Perhaps he had; for he once told me he had some old scores to settle with the man who commanded the pirate, and if he was alive he felt quite sure he would, one of those days, put him to death. My father, sir, is a very determined person, and never forgets an oath.”

“Truly, monsieur, you interest me. But what sort of a man in appearance is your father––a doctor, I think you said?”

“He is a tall gentleman of about fifty, sir, though he looks much older; for he has suffered deeply in early life, when my mother––a––died; but I shall have the pleasure of introducing him to you, colonel. He is now on board our frigate at Kingston, and told me he would be up here to-morrow or the next day.”

“Ah! thank you extremely, Monsieur Darcantel. I shall have––a––much curiosity to see him.”

No more words that night; but much thinking and moving of thin lips, and eyes staring in the dark, wide open. There was low grating of teeth, too! And a man lay in that large room on a narrow cot, surrounded by a gauze net; and, so far as mental torture went, it was not unlike a trestle net we once saw without gauze, where a gaunt frame was stretched, with myriads of sand-flies, musquitoes, and stinging insects sucking his heart’s blood. Sometimes the eyelids closed, as if they were a film of ice forming over the blue cold orbs within; and again the fabric cracked, and they were wide open once more. They could read, too, those frozen orbs; and like heavy flakes of snow falling on bloodstained decks, till it covered with a weight of lead the stark, stiff corpse beneath, they yet tried to pierce into the dark region beyond. And the heart beat with a slow and measured tramp, like a moose crunching through the sharp, treacherous crust of snow, and then stood stock-still! Had a letter, traced with the fingers of an icicle, been congealed a hundred feet deep in the heart of a toppling iceberg on the coast of Labrador, those eyes could have read it as clear as day!

“You infamous pirate, Captain Brand!” it began––“the son of the man who destroyed the ‘Centipede’ and her crew, and the boy whom your brutal mate tore from the mother you saw at dinner to-day, are near you! That calm, stern, determined doctor, too, whom you laced down on the trestle for poisonous insects to kill, has been on your track for the past seventeen years, and will soon hold you in his iron gripe! There will be no mercy then!”

251

The eyes closed, the heart stopped beating, and the thin lips and tongue, as dry as cartridge-paper, now took up the strain, while the mutilated hand clutched convulsively, as if there were fifty fingers fingering knives and pistols.

“Shall I assassinate my old doctor, and run the risk of being arrested and hung? No! He thinks me dead, and I will go back to the island, redeem my treasure, and pass the remainder of my life tranquilly in the highlands of Scotland!”

Don’t be too sanguine, Colonel Lawton; for, though your ten thousand pounds in gold is still in the vault, yet there is Don IgnaÇio Sanchez, whose estates have been confiscated, and who has just got out of ten years’ imprisonment in the Moro of Havana, glad to save his neck from the iron collar, and, without the little jewel-hilted blade up his sleeve, is now turning about to see how he may redeem his lost fortunes. Don’t be an hour too late, I pray you, Captain Brand, for that sharp eye of Don IgnaÇio has already, perhaps, looked at the shiny cleft in the crag, and thinks he knows what lies hidden there! Oh, si! nothing but mouldy beans and paper cigars to live upon for ten years, and fond of more substantial food, even though it were yellow greenish gold, mildewed by damp, but yet solid and refreshing. Cierto––certainly! Quien sabe––who knows?

But be careful, Don IgnaÇio! Don’t take your old wife with you on that projected expedition, for you have treated that old woman––who resembles a rotten banana––badly! You have won back in montÉ all she ever won by cheating, besides the half ounces you used to give her for the Church––cheated her by drawing two cards at a time when you saw the numerals with that spark of an eye, and when you knew that she would win if you drew fairly! Yes, you have, you old sinner, for more than two score of years! And she hates you now––though you don’t think it––worse than you did Captain Brand! Have an eye to that old banana!

So passed that short night––long enough, however, for somebody––and before the fresh land-wind had woke up to creep down the valley, there was a mettled barb, with open nostrils, galloping up the broken road as if he had the devil on his back––as perhaps he had, or Colonel Lawton, or Captain Brand, possibly all three, but it makes very little odds to us.


252

CHAPTER XLIII.
PEACE AND LOVE.

“And many a dim o’erarching grove,
And many a flat and sunny cove;
And terraced lawns, whose bright cascades
The honeysuckle sweetly shades;
And rocks whose very crags seem bowers,
So gay they are with grass and flowers.”

It was a delightful breakfast with the merry party at Escondido as they sat under the wide, cool piazza in the shade, with the sun throwing his slanting rays through the vines and clusters of purple grapes, and through the orange-trees, where the yellow fruit was fast losing its fragrant dew––all the men once more in summer rig, and the ladies in flowing muslin and tidy caps.

“My dear,” said Piron to his wife, “we have lost one of our guests, Colonel Lawton; he went away at daylight this morning, and left a message to me, and compliments to you all, that business of importance, which he had forgotten, demanded his immediate return to Kingston.”

There was no sorrow expressed by the lady or her fair sister, and even the men treated it with indifference, except Mr. Burns, who remarked, as he snapped a tooth-pick in twain, that, for his part, he was glad the fellow had gone; he didn’t like his looks at all, though he did make himself so fascinating to the beautiful widow who sat next him.

“Ah! Monsieur Burns, think you I would prefer a scarlet coat when––”

“You might get a blue!” broke in Paddy, with a comical twinkle of his eye, as he winked in the direction of Commodore Cleveland, who sat opposite.

“No, no,” exclaimed the pretty widow, hastily, as she shook her finger at her despairing admirer, “that is not what I was going to say––when those red coats there from England killed my poor husband at Quatre Bras.”

“Ah! yes, my dear––bad luck to them! But an Irishman would never have been so cruel, you know, though, ’pon me sowl,” went on Paddy, as he stuck a fork in an orange and began to divest it of its 253 peel, West India fashion, to present it to the matron beside him, “I fear I should like to kill any man who loved ye, Madame Nathalie, myself.”

“What a droll man you are, Monsieur Burns,” replied the widow, laughing outright, “when you know you would prefer a jug of Antigua punch, any day, to me. Stop, now! didn’t you say, at your grand dinner in Kingston, that you would never allow a woman to darken your doors?”

“I––a meant––a black woman, my dear; as true as me name’s Paddy Burns, I did!”

“What are you two laughing at, my sister?”

“Why, here is Mr. Burns making love to me at breakfast, and before night he will be abusing me for not pouring enough rum in his punch!”

“That’s his caractur, Madame Nathalie; for I, Tom Stewart, am the only person he ever loved, and he sometimes offers to shoot me for giving him unco’ good advice.”

“Howld yer tongue, ye divil ye! and you too, Stingo, or the pair of ye shall niver taste another sip of the old claret. Ye’ve ruined me cause entirely! But I’ll lave ye me property, madame, when I’m gone.”

“He’s been talking of going, Nathalie,” said Piron, “for the last twenty years, and has left his estate to at least thirty women, to my certain knowledge; but he hasn’t got off yet, and––”

“Tom Stewart, ye miserable limb of the law! make out me will this very night.”

Jacob Blunt unclosed his salt-junk mouth, and roared out in a peal of laughter that would have shivered his old brig’s spanker, and caused, perhaps, Martha Blunt, sposa, to have spanked him, Jacob, had she heard and seen that mariner wagging his old bronzed face at the lovely woman facing him.

Mr. Tiny Mouse, who could not touch bottom on his high chair, with his little heels dangling about, forgetful of discipline, fairly kicked the broad pennant on the shins of his white ducks, screaming joyously; the three women made the piazza vibrate with their musical trills; Stingo and Stewart choked; Cleveland and Darcantel were amused; and old black Banou looked at his master, and grinned till his double range of teeth seemed like a white wave breaking at the cove. And then Paddy Burns took up the chorus, and after one or two Galway yells his friends took him up, thumped him smartly on the back, and stood him up against one of the posts of the piazza to have his laugh out. When he did, however, recover the power of speech, he wiped his eyes and looked around till they rested on Madame Nathalie, when, with his white napkin held up like a shield beside his rubicund visage, he spluttered,

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“By me sowl, Tom Stewart, I mane what I say; and Paddy Burns’s word is his bond!”

Ay, and so it was, you generous, whole-souled Milesian! And you did this time make a will. Tom Stewart and Stingo witnessed it, with handsome legacies therein set forth; and when one night you tumbled down––Well, we won’t mention the particulars; but Paddy kept his word.

As the party rose from the breakfast table to get ready for a stroll down to the mill and around the plantation, one fair woman’s hand was placed with a confiding, friendly clasp in that of Monsieur Burns; and then, as a graceful girl reached up to pull down her great flat straw hat from the post, Paddy Burns kissed her on the forehead, and she returned it too, as if she knew how to perform that ceremony even before people. Mr. Reefer Mouse had some thoughts of getting jealous, and calling Mr. Burns out, at ten paces, ships’ pistols, and all that sort of thing; but the round, red-faced gentleman kissed him too, declaring the while, as he held him aloft, that he was first-rate kissing––that he was; nearly as good as mademoiselle, which quite disarmed Tiny’s wrath, and then he hooked on to the damsel’s delicate flipper, and tripped away with her down the valley.

Harry Darcantel exchanged a nod––not of defiance––with Paddy Burns, as much as to hint that those were not dangerous kisses––oh, not at all; and passing his hand over his brown mustache, he followed after the couple before him. Yes, Harry, Tiny’s legs will get tired soon, and he will be hungry, and come back to old Banou for luncheon, while you will be putting aside the coffee bushes, and imploring mademoiselle to keep her straw hat about her lovely face, and not to get tanned by the sun. And when she turns her humid eyes toward you, you begin to believe the sky is never so blue as those eyes!

Tom Stewart, Stingo, and Burns never walked; they preferred lounging about the veranda, smoking cigars, and talking over the price of sugar and coffee, together with minor matters connected with factors’ profits and suits at law. Jacob Blunt leaned over the bridge, thinking of the “Martha Blunts,” brig and wife––not unfrequently confounding the two together––thinking this was to be his last voyage by land or sea, and that young Binks, his mate, should take command, and steer that old teak-built vessel carefully––oh, ever so keerful––or else the old hulk might come to grief.

Piron and his wife going mournfully down the valley––she with her mother’s eyes gazing far out to sea, and he with his strong arm around her, whispering words of consolation; both looking, night and morning, out over the blue water, from chamber and piazza, and seeing nothing but a breaking wave and a baby-boy drowning beneath it––nothing more!

Madame Nathalie and Cleveland went on gallantly ahead––he with 255 his blue pennant flying, and she with a black silk widow’s ribbon around the frill of her cap, and a broader band about that muslin waist––talking of those they had both lost years ago, and trusting they were in heaven, as they believed they were; hope to meet again themselves in Louisiana, and see a great deal of one another in time to come––not a doubt of it! Yes, the cruise was more than half over, and he was quite tired of the sea. She, however, thought the sea beautiful, and never tired of looking at it. True, not rolling on top of it all the time––liked to sleep without rocking.

When the sea-breeze came fluttering up the gorge again, through the canes and the coffee-trees, and shaking up the superb foliage of the tropical forest, with the brilliant feathered tribes nestling close together on the lofty branches, and before the first salt breath had been exhaled in the clouds about the topmost peaks of the Blue Mountains, thousands of feet in the air, the party at Escondido had again returned to the broad piazzas, where, with blinds open, and swinging in cool grass hammocks, the men took siesta, while the ladies sought the pretty bowers within.

So passed one happy day, like the one gone before; and before the close of the week Dr. Darcantel joined the party, to take the place of Colonel Lawton; and a few days after old Clinker crackled up, very dry and thorny, with parchment in his pockets to take inventories, and do musty business generally.

Then the fair women, escorted by the navy men, and the Droger and Stingo, took their departure for the town house and ships in Kingston, leaving Paddy Burns, and Tom Stewart, and Clinker with Piron to close up matters, prior to his leaving the island. Paul Darcantel said he would remain with them likewise, since he had got through his business in Spanish Town and Port Royal, and wanted quiet. Madame Rosalie was the last to leave; and before her husband lifted her into the saddle, they stood together on the piazza, she looking with that still yearning gaze over the sea, and seeing nothing but breaking waves. That was the last look from Escondido!


256

CHAPTER XLIV.
SNUFF OUT OF A DIAMOND BOX.

“Hark! a sound,
Far and slight,
Breathes around
On the night;
High and higher,
Nigh and nigher,
Like a fire
Roaring bright.”

“Not a word to each other; we kept the great pace––
Neck by neck, stride by stride, never changing our place;
I turned in my saddle and made its girths tight,
Then shortened each stirrup, and set the pique right;
Rebuckled the check-strap, chained slacker the bit,
Nor galloped less steadily, Roland, a whit.”

Another week rolled on. Old Clinker had pounded the parchment down as flat as last year’s palm-leaves, rustling himself like the leaves of an old book, and began to squeeze out a few dry remarks about earthquakes. He at last got Paddy Burns, who was a round, fat man, with much blood in him, in such a state of excitement, by talking about cracks, and yawning chasms, and splits in the earth, clouds of dust, sulphureous smells, and beams falling down and pressing people to powder over their wine, that Paddy declared he thought he was swallowing sawdust and eating dried codfish at every sip of Antigua punch and suck of orange he took.

Tom Stewart, likewise, said he couldn’t sleep a wink for quaking, and had cut a slice clean out of his chin while shaving, because his glass shook by a slamming door, and he thought his time had come.

Darcantel said nothing, but he took a quiet fancy to old Clinker, and talked for hours with him of the effect earthquakes had upon ships, and especially of general matters connected with the shipping interest, being withal very particular with regard to the appearance of the crews.

Piron looked grave, and heard the old clerk out, as if dried fruit were better than fresh, and limes sweeter than oranges.

Well, they were all sitting over their dessert at their last dinner at Escondido, for they were all going to leave old Clinker in the morning.


“HIS RIGHT ARM POISED WITH CLENCHED HAND ALOFT,” ETC.

259

“Well, Clinker,” said Piron, kindly, “don’t let us talk any more about the earthquake. You told me yesterday that you had a note from Colonel Lawton, saying he would not take passage in the brig with us to New Orleans, as his business obliged him to leave before we could sail?”

Clinker choked out something like “Yes,” as if it were the last sound a body could sigh with three or four hundred tons on his back.

“I’m dooced glad to hear it, Piron; for your military friend didn’t enlist my fancy at all, and I don’t believe any more of his patriot sarvice than I do in Clinker’s earthquake. That colonel is a baste; and if my words prove true, I’ll lave a thousand pounds to old Clinker there.”

Paddy Burns’s words did prove true; and old Clinker was with him when he gave a quake the earth had nothing to do with, it being entirely of an apoplectic nature; but he got the thousand pounds nevertheless.

“For once in your life, Burns, I agree with ye; and if that military mon went to shoot grouse with me in the Hielands, I’d tramp behind him, and keep both barrels of me gun cocked. The devil take his black wig and his green eyes! and he passing himsel’ aff for a Scot, too! Tut, mon!”

“By the way, Clinker,” said Piron, during a pause in the conversation, “if the colonel is not going with us, I must take him back his magnificent snuff-box he forgot when he left us so suddenly the other morning. Here it is, with the letters of his name on it in brilliants. I thought it too valuable to send by one of the blacks, and I kept it to carry myself.”

How singular it was that the colonel should have forgotten his royal treasure! Keep your wits about you, Captain Brand, or one of these days you’ll be forgetting your pistols.

“Given to him by a connection of his family, was it, Paddy? Weel, mon, let’s take a peench for the honor of Sackveel Street, and then push it along to Meester Darcantel.”

The doctor was sitting in his calm, grave way, listening to the disjointed words––like dry nuts dropping on the ground––from the shriveled lips of Clinker; but as he abstractedly put his fingers in the box, and turned his eyes languidly as he pushed down the lid, he gave a bound from his chair––with the box clutched in his left hand––giving a jar to the room and table that even made Clinker believe the forty-year earthquake had come before its time.

Standing there, with his tall, majestic figure, like a statue of bronze, his right arm poised with clenched hand aloft in a threatening attitude, his dark, grizzled locks bristling above his head, the black eyes flaming with an inhuman light, as if prepared to crush, with the power 260 of a god, the pigmies around him, he said, in a deep low voice, which made the glasses ring and shudder,

“Who owns this bawble?”

“It belongs to a Colonel Lawton who has been staying here!” exclaimed Piron, quickly and hurriedly.

“What sort of man?” came again from those terrible lungs, without relaxing a muscle of his frame.

“A square-built, tallish fellow, of about feefty, with greenish-blue eyes, a black wig, and a glorious sapphire ring on the only finger of his left hand!” roared Burns and Stewart together.

Again came the jar of the earthquake to make the building, table, glasses, and all shake, as Paul Darcantel strode with his heels of adamant out of the sala and to the veranda; then a bound, which was heard in the room; and after five minutes’ stupid silence Banou appeared.

The buckra gentleman had torn rather than led his master’s barb from the stable, and scarcely waiting for a saddle, had thrown himself like an Indian across his back. There! his master might hear the clattering of the hoofs up the steep.

“The mon’s daft––clean daft, mon!” “Be me sowl, it’s the only pair of eyes I iver wouldn’t like to look at over me saw-handled friend, Joe Manton!” “He’s taken the box with him,” crackled Clinker.

But that was the last that Paddy Burns, or Stewart, or Clinker ever saw of man or box. Piron rose and listened to the sound of the receding hoofs from the veranda; and when he resumed his place his lips were sealed for the night. He saw, however, and the rest of them heard a good deal about the man and the box in time to come.

Did that blooded horse, as he dashed round the curve of the peak, with his thin nostrils blazing red in the dark night, know who his rider was, and on what errand he was bound? It was not snuff that distended those wide nostrils as he plunged down the broken road, through the close, deep forest, over rocks and water-courses, without missing a step with his sure, ringing hoofs; and mounting the sharp gorge beyond with the leap of a stag, his mane and tail streaming in the calm, thick night; the eyes lanterns of pursuing light, flashing out before his precipitous tread in jets of fire, as his feet struck the flinty stones, with a regular, enduring throb from his heaving chest, as an encouraging hand patted his shoulder and urged him onward.

Down the mountain again, with never a shy or a snort––the horse knowing the rider, and the man the noble beast; the lizards wheetling merrily, and the paroquets on the tree-tops waking up to chatter with satisfaction. Then into the beaten track along by the sea-shore, the horse increasing his stride at every minute, the spume flying in flakes from his flaming nostrils, and the man bending to his 261 hot neck, smoothing away the white foam, until, with a panting stagger, horse and rider stood still in the town of Kingston.

“Here, my boys, rub this your master’s horse down well, and walk him about the court-yard for an hour. There! Take this between you!”

One last pat of the steed’s arched neck, a grateful neigh as the dark face pressed against his broad head, and Paul Darcantel strode away in the gray light of the morning.

“Gorra mighty! Nimble Jack, look at dis! Bress my modder in hebben, it am one gold ounce apiece, sure as dis gemman’s name Ring Finger Bill! De Lord be good to dat tall massa! Him must hab plenty ob shiner to hove him away on poor niggers!”

Even while the tall man strode on toward the port, and as the happy blacks were chattering over their yapper, and walking the gallant steed up and down the paved court-yard, a dull, heavy-sailing Spanish brigantine was slowly sagging past Gallows Point and the Apostles’ Battery, when, creeping on by the frowning forts of Port Royal, she held her course to sea.

Very different sort of craft from the counterfeit brigantine, with clean, lean bows, slipping out from the Tiger’s Trap one sultry evening before a hurricane, which went careering, with a sea-hound after her, down to the Garotte Gorge. Different kind of a crew too; and Captain Brand must have remarked the contrast, with his keen, critical, nautical eye––that is, if he chanced to sail in both brigantines, as there is much reason for believing he did––with great disgust, on board the dirty, dumpy old ballahoo now just clear of Drunkenman’s Cay, and heading alongshore for Helshire Point, bound for St. Jago de Cuba.


262

CHAPTER XLV.
LILIES AND SEA-WEED.

“Oh leave the lily on its stem!
Oh leave the rose upon the spray!
Oh leave the elder bloom, fair maids,
And listen to my lay!”

“When descends on the Atlantic
The gigantic
Storm-wind of the equinox,
Landward in his wrath he scourges
The toiling surges,
Laden with sea-weed from the rocks.”

By day and night, under sun or moon, and in breeze or calm––by the resounding shore––on the rippling water––in saloon and grove, picnicking and boating––under vine or awning––all around in the whirling waltz, the measured contra-danza––amid the tinkle of guitar or trill of piano, the rattle and crash of the full band on board the frigate––gently rocking on the narrow deck of the “Rosalie,” or down in the brig of teak, there was ever a white arm linked in the arm of blue––now timidly, then with a confiding pressure––now a furtive look of blue eyes into dark, then a fixed, steady gaze from the brown to the light––here a palpitating pause, and then the blue arms wound around the waving stem––two white arms clasping, with a passionate caress, the neck of the weed––and, yes! the lily floating on the white cheek of the pond had been caught by the strong weed, and with the reacting tide was going out to sea! Ay! the sailor had won the maiden!

But while the lily rocked hither and thither on the pond, with its blond leaves and petals of blue, and its pliant stem in danger at every tide, did the fond mothers watch it from the bank? That they did, thinking of the time when they were lilies of the pond themselves, with no fears of danger near. But at last it came, and, like blooming flowers, they swung to and fro in the rain, dropping a tear or two from their own rosy leaves––more in dewy sorrow than in fear––and waiting for sunshine; bending their beautiful heads of roses the while one toward another, peeping out with their dark violet eyes, and listening, as the wind shook them, with a tremble of apprehension, and clinging hopefully to the straight support on which they reclined.

By day and night, in burning sun with not a drop to drink, and in 263 the sultry night with no morsel of food to eat––through the searing sand in the streets and lanes, down by the quays––to every vessel in the crowded harbor––in every hotel and lodging-house in Kingston––up and down Spanish Town––away off to Port Royal––occasionally going on board the frigate for gold, then on shore again––in ribald wassail and drunken dance, gaming hells especially, and low crimping houses, maroon and negro huts, and wretched haunts of vice––scattering gold like cards, dice, rum, and water––no end to it––in large yellow drops too––and still striding on, questioning, gleaming with those revengeful eyes––never resting brain or body, without drink or meat––went Paul Darcantel.

Oh, Paul, that cowardly villain saw you from the very moment you took that pinch of snuff out of his blue enameled box––ay, even before, when you walked your mule slowly up the broken road, while a goaded barb was curbed back in the gloomy forest till you had passed, with his rider’s finger in his waistcoat pocket. And in all your ceaseless wanderings, by day and night, that now timid, terror-stricken villain has been following you; dodging behind corners––under the well-worn cloths of montÉ banks––in the back rooms of pulperias––hiding in nests of infamy––every where and in all places steering clear of you.

Oh, Paul! what a deceived man you are!

And while you are doing all this, just turn your eyes out to the calm spot off Montego Bay, where that leaky old brigantine is bobbing about. The dirty, surly capitano kicking and beating the hands from taffrail to bowsprit, particularly one great tall fellow, without a hat, and but a few dry thin hairs to shield his skull from the scorching sun; cursing him, as he puffs a cigarette, for being the most idle scoundrel of a skulk on board! But he––the scoundrel!––laughing with a hollow laugh up the sleeve of his filthy shirt, with never a dollar in his belt or an extra pair of trowsers in the forecastle, with bare feet, and still, cold eyes, now turned to green––eating nasty jerked beef and drinking putrid water––never sleeping for vermin––kicked and cuffed about the decks.

But yet he smiled with a devilish satisfaction, Paul, for he has escaped you, and was bound to St. Jago de Cuba! From there he would charter––steal, perhaps––a small boat, and run over to the DoÇe LÉguas Cays, where there were ten thousand pounds in mildewed gold!––if nobody had discovered it, which was not probable––and he––the scoundrel!––would gather it up in bags, and slink away to some other part of the world.

You must be very quick, Captain Brand, for the leaky brigantine does not sail so fast as the “Centipede,” and your ancient compadre, Don IgnaÇio, is just out of prison. His old, fat, banana wife is very sorry for it, but that’s none of your business.

264

And you, Doctor Paul! don’t you pity that flying, dirty wretch, with his mutilated hand, and soul-beseeching gaze out of those greenish frozen eyes, where a ray of mercy never entered, but whose icy lids fairly crack as your shadow stamps across them?

No, not a ray of pity or mercy for the infamous villain; not even a twitch of the little finger of his bloody, mutilated white hand! No, not the faintest hope of pity! He shall die in such torments as even a pirate never devoted a victim.

But you are worn out, Darcantel; your prey has escaped you. The people think you mad, as you are, for revenge; and though your stride is the same, and your frame still as nervous as a galvanized corpse, yet flesh and blood can not stand it. Go on board the “Monongahela,” and talk to that true friend whose counsels you have ever listened to since you were rocking in your cradle; or take that noble, gallant youth in your arms and console him––for he needs consolation––and think of the mouse who gnawed the net years and years ago.

Well, you will, Paul Darcantel; but before you do, you will step into that jeweler’s shop and buy a trifle for old Clinker there, out at Escondido. You want a ring, the finest gem that can be found on the island of Jamaica. There it is––its equal not to be bought in the whole West India Islands, or the East Indies either.

“I gave a military man an ounce for the setting alone, but the sapphire-looking stone may be glass. He was going to sail the next morning in a Spanish brigantine for St. Jago de Cuba, and wanted the money to pay his bill at the lodging-house adjoining. The seÑor might take it for any price he chose to put upon it.”

What made that old dealer in precious stones and trinkets turn paler than his old topaz face as he yelled frantically for his older Creole wife? The seÑor had seized the ring as he broke his elbows through the glass cases which contained the time-honored jewelry, and dashed a yellow shower of heavy gold ounces over the floor of the little shop, smashing the glass door of that too in his exit! And when the little toddling fat woman appeared in the most indecent dress possible to conceive of, with scarcely time to light her paper cigar, she exclaimed,

Es lunatico, hombre! ay, demonio con oro! A crazy man––a demon with gold!” And forthwith she picked up the pieces and looked at them critically to be sure of their value. “Son buenos, campeche! All right, old deary; we’ll have such a podrida to-day! Baked duck, with garlic too! So shut the door. There’s the ounce you gave the officer man for the ring, and I’ll guard the rest.”

That old woman did, too; and that very night she won––in the most skillful way––from her shaky old topaz, in his tin spectacle setting, his last ounce, and locked all up in her own little brass-nailed 265 trunk for a rainy season for them both, together with their daughter’s pickaninnies.

Paul Darcantel whirled and spun round the corners and along the sandy streets till he reached the landing, moving like a water-spout, and clearing every thing from his track. There he sprang into the first boat he saw, seized the sculls, despite the shrieks and gesticulations of the old nigger whose property it was, and who jumped overboard with a howl as if a lobster had caught him by the toe, and paddled into a neighboring boat, where, with the assistance of another ancient crony, they both let off volley upon volley of shrieks, which alarmed the harbor, while the boat went shooting like a javelin toward the men-of-war.

However, those old stump-tailed African baboons found a gold ounce in their boat after it had been set adrift from the American frigate. What a jolly snapping of teeth over a tough old goose stuffed with onions that night, with two respectable colored ladies and a case-bottle of rum beside them! You can almost sniff the fragrant odor as it arises, even at this distance. I do, and shall, mayhap, many a time again, in lands where stuffed goose and comely colored ladies abound.


266

CHAPTER XLVI.
PARTING.

“The very stars are strangers, as I catch them
Athwart the shadowy sails that swell above;
I can not hope that other eyes will watch them
At the same moment with a mutual love.
They shine not there as here they now are shining;
The very hours are changed. Ah! do ye sleep?
O’er each home pillow midnight is declining––
May one kind dream at least my image keep!”

There had been a small party on board the “Monongahela” the night before to bid the commodore good-by––all old friends of both parties––the Pirons, Burns, Stewart, Stingo, and Jacob Blunt. Clinker was not there, for he never went where it was damp, and if he got musty it must be from mildew on shore. The “Martha Blunt,” under the careful management of young Binks, the mate, with Banou and all the baggage on board, was being towed by two of the frigate’s boats down the harbor, with her yards mast-headed, all ready to sheet home the sails when the black pilot should say the land-wind would make and the passengers to come on board.

The lights were twinkling from lattice and veranda in the upper and lower town, the lanterns of the French and English admirals were shining from the tops of their flag-ships, and the revolving gleams from the beacon on the Pallissadoes Point flickered and dazzled over the gemmed starlit surface of the water. The awning was still spread on the after-deck of the “Monongahela;” and there, while the officer of the watch paced the forward part of the deck with the midshipmen to leeward, the sentries on the high platform outside and on the forecastle, the party of ladies and gentlemen stood silently watching and thinking.

There is no need explaining their looks or their thoughts; we know all about them. How Paddy Burns and Tom Stewart, with little Stingo, were going over the time, thirty years or more back, when with Piron there, boys together, they all swam on the beach of that fine harbor. The old school-house, too, with the tipsy old master, who whacked them soundly, drunk or sober; their frolics at the fandangoes in Spanish Town; their transient separations in after life on visits to France or the Old Country; the hearty joy to meet again and drink Jamaica forever. And now their companion in tropical 267 heat and mountain shade was going to part with them, and sail away over that restless ocean, never, perhaps, to meet again!

Even old Clinker, as he sat on his stem by the old worm-eaten desk, with his dried old lemon of a face lying in his leaves of hands––with no light in the dark, deserted old counting-house––looked out between his fibres of fingers and saw the cradle, with the sleeping twins within it, while the rafters pressed him as flat as the old portfolio before him. And now, as a drop or two of bitter juice exuded from his shriveled rind, he saw those lovely twins floating away, never more to be saved from an earthquake by old Clinker.

Mr. Mouse, likewise, was wide awake, and hopping about with a kangaroo step, a little in doubt why Miss Rosalie was so pale, why those blue eyes were so dim, and why she said to him “Go away, little one,” with a quivering, tremulous voice and hand. Mouse told Rat, and Rat told Martin and Beaver, that the poor girl was in love with him, Tiny, and that he would make it all right one of these days, when he got an epaulet on his little shoulder.

Softly, like the cool breath of a slumbering child, came a faint air from the land. The bell of the frigate, clanging in its brassy throat, struck for midnight. The sentinels on their posts cried “All’s well!” The old brig was letting fall her top-sails, and the sound of the oars in the cutter’s row-locks ceased.

“Cleveland,” said Piron, quietly, “while the ladies and our friends are getting into the barge, come down with me in your cabin. I wish to have a parting word with you.”

So they go down.

“Now, my dear friend, you have seen as well as I how wildly those young people are in love with each other; so has my wife and her sister; and, indeed, my sweet Rosalie seems more in love with him than our niece. I have not had the heart to put a thorn in the path of their happiness, and God grant it may all come right. But, Cleveland, you know that we come from an old and noble stock, where the bar sinister has never crossed our escutcheon, and I can not yet make up my mind to an immediate engagement. This our niece has consented to––Stop, Cleveland, hear me out. I do not, however, carry my prejudices to any absurd extent, nor have I spoken on this subject to the girl, and only to her mother and my wife; but I wish you to explain the way we feel, in your own kind manner, to your friend’s son. Say to him what a trial it has been to us––how we all love him”––he pressed his handkerchief to his eyes––“and after he has learned all, if he still persists in urging his suit when the cruise is over, he shall have our consent and blessing. Time may work changes in them both; and meanwhile I shall not mention the matter to our little Rosalie, as we fear for the consequences.”

“Spoken like a true father and a noble gentleman, my dear Piron! 268 I have thought as you and your excellent wife do on this matter; but, like you, I have not had the courage to give even a hint of warning to Henry. I shall, however, break the matter gently to him, and send my coxswain for his father also, whom I have not seen for a week, and who, they tell me, has been raging about Kingston ever since he ran away from you at Escondido. His son loves him devotedly, and a word from him will do more than I could say in a lifetime.”

“The ladies are in the barge, commodore,” squeaked Midshipman Mouse, as he popped his tiny head into the cabin.

“Very well, sir. And tell Lieutenant Darcantel that I wish to see him to-morrow morning, before church service. Come, Piron!”

On the lower grating of the accommodation-ladder stood the commodore, with his first lieutenant, as the barge shoved off.

“I am heartily obliged to you, Commodore Cleveland,” said Jacob Blunt, “for your kindness to me; and if Mr. Hardy will permit, I’ll give the boats’ crews a glass of grog for their trouble in towing the old brig.”

Certainly! Jacob knew what was proper under the circumstances, and liked a moderate toss himself after a hard night’s work as well as the lusty sailors in the boats, and the youngsters, Rat and Martin, who steered them.

So the barge shoved off, with no other words spoken, though there were white handkerchiefs wet with women’s tears, and red bandanas, too, somewhat moist; while following in the barge’s wake went a light whale-boat gig, pulled by four old tars, who could make her leap, when they had a mind, half out of water, for it was in those brawny old arms to do it. But now they merely dipped the long oar-blades in the water, and could not keep up with the barge.

They knew––those corrugated old salts––that their gallant, considerate young captain there in the stern-sheets, with the tiller-ropes in his hands, who steered so wildly about the harbor, had something more yielding than white-laced rope in his flippers; and that the sweet little craft under white dimity, with her head throwing off the sparkling spray as she lay under his bows, was in no hurry to go to sea––not caring much, either, to what port she was bound, so long as she found good holding-ground when she got in harbor with both bowers down, and cargo ready for another voyage––not she!

Finally, old Jacob Blunt, master, again in full command of brig “Martha,” with Mr. Binnacle Binks catting the anchor forward, all sail made, sheets home, and every thing shipshape, with a fresh, steady land-wind, and a light gig towing astern, went steering out to sea, bound to New Orleans by way of the Windward Passage.

At the first ray of sunrise the gig’s line was cast off; and with the waves breaking over her, those four old sons of Daddy Neptune bared 269 their tattooed arms––illustrative of ships, anchors, and maidens––and bent their bodies with a will toward the harbor.

“Take keer, sir, if it’s the same to you, or we’ll be on that ledge off the ‘’Postles’ Battery.’ It looks jist like that ’ere reef in the Vargin’s Passage as I was wunce nearly ’racked on, in the ‘Smasher,’ sixteen-gun brig.”

“No fear, Harry Greenfield.”

“Beg your parding, Mr. Darcantel, but that ’ere wessel you is heading for is that old clump of a Spanish gun-boat; our craft is off here, under the quarter of the ‘Monongaheelee.’”

“Oh yes, Charley; I see the ‘Rosalie.’”

What made these old salts slew gravely round one to the other, as their sixteen-feet oars rattled with a regular jar in the brass row-locks, and shut one eye tight, as if they enjoyed something themselves? Probably they were thinking of a strapping lass, in blue ribbons, who lived somewhere in a sea-port town long years ago. But yet they loved that young slip of sea-weed, whose head was bent down to the buttons of his blue jacket, his epaulet lopsided on his shoulder, his sword hilt downward, and his brown eyes tracing the lines of the ash grating where pretty feet had once rested, while he jerked the tiller-ropes from side to side, and his gig went wild by reef and point toward the “Rosalie.”

When the gig’s oars at last, in spite of her meandering navigation by her abstracted helmsman, trailed alongside the schooner, and while her crew were cracking a few biscuits and jokes on deck, with the sun high up the little craft’s masts, her captain hurried down to his small cabin, and changed his rig for service on board the frigate.


“To walk together to the kirk,
And all together pray,
While each to his Great Father bends––
Old men and babes, and loving friends,
And youths and maidens gay!”

“Farewell! farewell! but this I tell
To thee, thou wedding-guest,
He prayeth well who loveth well
Both man, and bird, and beast!”

Sunday morning in Kingston harbor. The deep-toned bells from cathedral and church were wafted off from the town; the troops at Park Camp marching with easy tread to their chapel; matrons and maidens, with bare heads, fans, and mantillas, going along demurely; portly judges, factors, and planters trudging beside palanquins of their Saxon spouses; negroes in white; Creoles in brown, cigarettes put out for a time; while swinging censers and rolling sound of organs and chants, or prayers and sermons from kirk and pulpits, told how the people were worshiping God according to their several beliefs.

On the calm harbor, too, and in Port Royal, lay the men-of-war, the church pennants taking the place of the ensigns at the peaks, the bells tolling, and the sailors––quiet, clean, and orderly––were attending divine service.

On board the “Monongahela” the great spar-deck was comparatively deserted––all save that officer with his spy-glassing old quarter-master, and the sentries on gangway and forecastle. The ropes, however, were flemished down in concentric coils, the guns without a speck of dust on their shining coats, the capstan polished like an old brass candlestick, and every thing below and aloft in a faultless condition.

As Harry Darcantel came rather languidly over the gangway, and went down to the main deck, where the five hundred sailors in snowy-white mustering clothes were assembled, Commodore Cleveland beckoned to him with his finger as he stood talking at the cabin door to his first lieutenant.

“Hardy, I do not feel well this morning; make my excuses to the 271 chaplain, and go on with the service. Come in, Harry. Orderly, allow no one, not even the servants, to enter the cabin––except Dr. Darcantel, in case he should come on board.”

The stiff soldier laid his white-gloved finger on the visor of his hat. Then the chaplain, standing on his flag-draped pulpit at the main-mast, with those five hundred quiet, attentive sailors seated on capstan-bars and match-tubs between the silent cannon, and no sound save his mild, persuasive voice, as he read the sublime service from the good lessons before him. Then, after a short but impressive sermon, adapted to the comprehension of the honest tars around him, with a kindly word, too, for the sagacious officers who commanded them, he closed the holy book and delivered the parting benediction.

As he began, a shore boat, in spite of the warning of the sentry at the gangway, came bows on to the frigate’s solid side, and as she went dancing and bobbing back from the recoil of the concussion, a tall, powerful man leaped out of her, and, by a mighty spring, caught the man-ropes of the port gangway, and swung himself through the open port of the gun-deck. Bowing his lofty head with reverential awe as the last solemn words of the benediction were uttered by the chaplain, he joined, in a deep, guttural voice, the word “Amen,” and strode on and entered the cabin.

The curtains were closely drawn of the after cabin, even to shut out the first whisper of the young sea-breeze which was fluttering in from Port Royal; and there stood that noble officer, with his strong arm thrown around the gallant youth––the picture of abject woe––talking in his kind, feeling accents, trying to console him, painting the sky bright in the distance, and begging him, by all the love and affection he bore him through so many years, to be a man, and trust to his good conscience and his right arm to cleave his way through the clouds and gloom which surrounded him.

“There, Henry, you are calmer now. Sit down here in my stateroom, and while you think of that fond girl, give a thought to that poor bereaved mother, Madame Rosalie, who loves you for the resemblance she thinks you bear to her little boy, who was murdered by pirates just seventeen years ago off this very island.”

“What do you say, Cleveland?” said a voice behind him, with such deep, concentrated energy that the commodore fairly started. “What did you say about a lost child and a Madame Rosalie?”

Paul Darcantel stood there in the softened crimson light, with his sinewy, bony hands upraised, his gaunt breast heaving, with unshorn beard and tangled, grizzly locks, the iron jaw half open, and his dark, terrible eyes gleaming with unearthly fire.

“Speak, Harry Cleveland! For the wife you have lost, speak!”

“My dear, dearest friend, do be calm! Why have you been so long away from me? I wanted you here, but you did not come. 272 Our poor boy has had his first lesson in this world’s grief, and I have felt obliged to tell him all––yes, every thing! That the grave he has so often wept over, under the magnolia, does not contain his mother; and that––”

“Merciful God!” said Paul Darcantel, sinking down on his knees, with his hands clasped together, while the first tears for more than twenty years streamed from his agonized eyes. “There is a Providence in it all! That boy is not my son! I saved him from the pirate’s grasp, and that woman must be his mother!”

Lower and lower the lofty head bent till it touched the deck, the bony hands clasped tight together, and those eyes––ah! those parched eyes––no longer dry!

“Paul, Paul, what is this I hear? For the love of heaven and those angels who are waiting for us, speak again!”

“My father––my more than father, I am not illegitimate, then! No such shame may cause your boy to blush for his mother?”

While strong and loving arms raised the exhausted man from the deck, and while he becomes once more the same determined Paul Darcantel, and with hand grasped in hand is rapidly recounting unknown years of his existence, let us leave the cabin.


273

CHAPTER XLVIII.
ALL ALIVE AGAIN.

“Among ourselves, in peace, ’tis true,
We quarrel, make a rout;
And having nothing else to do,
We fairly scold it out;
But once the enemy in view,
Shake hands, we soon are friends;
On the deck,
Till a wreck,
Each common cause defends.”

Down in the steerage, where a bare cherry table stood, and upright lockers ranged around, with a lot of half-starved reefers devouring their dinner––not near so good or well served as the sailors’ around their mess-cloths on the upper decks––with a few urchins utterly regardless of steerage grub, and a dollar or two in their little fists, all nicely dressed in blue jackets and white trowsers, waiting for the hands to be turned to and the boats manned, to go on shore for a lark.

Abaft in the wardroom, two or three of the swabs, the surgeon’s mates, and the jaunty young marine lieutenant were getting into their bullion coats and fine toggery, and buckling on their armor to do sad havoc among the planters’ families in the evening, away there in Upper Kingston. As for the first lieutenant, the purser, the fleet surgeon, the sailing-master, and the old major of marines, they had been ashore before, and didn’t care to go again; growling jocosely among themselves on board the frigate, and glad to get rid of the juvenile gabble.

Presently, and before the hands were turned to from dinner, the cabin bell rang so violently that the orderly’s brass scale-plate fixtures on his leather hat fairly rang too as he opened the sacred door.

“Tell the first lieutenant I want him.”

The dismayed soldier forgot to lay his white worsted finger on his visor as he slammed to the door and marched out on the gun-deck.

“Mr. Hardy, unmoor ship! Hoist a jack at the fore and fire a gun for a pilot! Get the frigate under weigh, sir, and be quick about it!”

“Ay, ay, sir!”

274

As Hardy rapidly passed his old cronies, who were tramping along the deck as he mounted the after-ladder, he said, with a nod,

“By the Lord! I haven’t seen the commodore in such a breeze since he blew that pirate out of water at Darien.”

In a minute the “Monongahela’s” bell struck two, and the boatswain and his mates, piping as if their hairy throats would split, roared out, “All hands!” and a moment later, “All hands unmoor ship!”

“What does that mean?” said a cook of a mess to Jim Dreen, the old quarter-master, who had just come down from his watch.

“Mean? why, you lazy, blind duff b’iler, it means that I’ve lost my blessed dinner.”

“Hallo!” says Rat to Beaver, “what’s that? Unmoor ship on my liberty day! I swear I’ll resign!”

No you won’t, reefers, but you’ll trip aloft as fast as your little legs will carry you––Mouse in company––up to the fore, main, and mizzen tops, and squeak there as much as you like; but jump about and look sharp that nothing goes wrong, or Mr. Hardy will be down upon you like a main tack.

Bang from the bow port and the union jack at the fore!

“God bless my soul, fellows, this is the most infernal tyranny I ever heard of!” came from the wardroom; “all of us engaged to dine and dance in Kingston this evening, and––”

“It’s ‘All hands up anchor, gentlemen!’” and away they all went.

Down went the mess-kids, and down came the awnings, and up came the boats to their davits; in went the bars to both capstans, the nippers clapped on, and the muddy cables coming in to the tunes of fifes; while above the running gear was rove, the Sunday bunts to the sails cast off, and the five hundred sailors dancing about on the decks, spars, and rigging of that American double-banked frigate, as if they could always work her sails and battery to the admiration of their good commodore there, who was looking at them from the quarter-deck.

“Massa captan,” said the shining ebony pilot, in his snowy suit, as he took off his fine white Panama hat, “dis is de ole pilot, sa, Peter Crabreef––name after dat black rock way dere outside. Suppose you tink ob beating dis big frigate troo de channel? Unpossible, wid dis breeze!”

“Peter Crabreef,” said the old sailing-master, to whom these observations were addressed, “you had better not give such a hint to that gentleman there in the epaulets; for if you do, you’ll never see Mrs. Crabreef again! You had better keep your wits about you, too, and plenty of water under the keel, for the commodore is fond of water!”

“Sartainly, massa ossifa! I is old Peter, and never yet touch a nail of man-of-war copper battam on de reefs!”

275

On board the pigmy black schooner near, half a dozen old salt veterans were squinting at the flag-ship and holding much deliberate speculation as to what all the row meant. Old Harry Greenfield, however, with Ben Brown, who were the gunner and boatswain of the little vessel, observed that, “In the ewent of our bein’ wanted, ye see, Harry, it will be as well to have the deck tackle stretched along for heavin’ in, and get the prop from under the main boom.”

Even as they spoke, a few bits of square bunting went up in balls to the mizzen of the frigate, and, blowing out clear, said, as plain as flags could speak, “Prepare to weigh anchor!”

At the same moment the “Rosalie’s” gig came bounding like a bubble over the water with the tall gentleman beside the young commander in the stern-sheets. There was a great, nervous, bony hand now holding his, but with as an affectionate pressure as the soft dimpled fingers he himself had held the night before. Gig not steered at all wild now, but going as straight as a bullet to the schooner.

The stirring sounds of the fifes as the sailors danced round with the bars in the capstans, with a beating step to keep time to the lively music, were still heard on board the frigate, and then came from the forecastle,

“The anchor’s under foot, sir!”

“Pawl the capstan! Aloft, sail-loosers! Trice up! Lay out! Loose away!” Almost at the instant came down the squeaks from aloft of, “All ready with the fore! the main! the mizzen!” “Let fall––sheet home! hoist away the top-sails!”

Again were heard the quick notes of the fifes on both decks, and in less than five minutes more the anchors were catted, and the “Monongahela,” under a cloud of canvas, began to move.

But where was the “Rosalie,” late “Perdita,” all this time? Why, there she goes, with never a tack, through the narrow strait, lying over under the press of her white dimity like a witch on a black broomstick, as she shoots out to sea.

And who is that tall man, on that narrow deck, clapping on to sheet and tackle, though there was no need of assistance, or skill, or seamanship to be displayed on board that craft, except by way of love of the thing? And why does he, during a pause when there was nothing more that could possibly be done, stand by the weather rail, shaking a great huge old seaman by both hands till he almost jarred the schooner to her keel?––Ben Brown, the helmsman, whom you have heard of on board the “Martha Blunt,” who, by some accidental word he dropped near to the tall gentleman, caused that hand-grasping collision.

It was not another five minutes before the other thirty-nine old sea-dogs knew all about every body, and where they were bound, 276 and so on. They did not care a brass button for the thousand silver dollars they were to have from the tall gentleman––not they! They wanted merely to lay their eyes along that Long Tom amidships, and to have a cutlass flashing over their shoulders––so fashion! Pistols and pikes! Fudge!

But where was the “Martha Blunt?” Oh, that old teak brig was bouncing along past Morant Point, with a good slant from the southward, pretty much where she was some seventeen years before, with a few more passengers in her deck cabin, reading their Bibles, and praying for those who go down to the sea in ships on that Sabbath day––one looking with her sad eyes out of the stern windows, and another doing the same, and both thinking of the same boy who had been dashed out of one of those windows; and though both of them knew the other’s thoughts, yet they did not dream they were thinking of the same person at the time.

And where was the Spanish brigantine, with the exacting capitano––who was a slaver in dull times––and his pleasant mate, who would think no more of sticking a knife into you than he did of kicking that skulking, icy-eyed sailor on board––detesting as he did the entire Saxon race ever since Cadiz was bombarded––and feeding him on rotten jerked beef? There were no prayers, only curses, on board that brigantine as she dropped anchor in St. Jago that fine Sunday morning.

And where was our ancient one-eyed mariner, formerly in command of the colonial guarda costa felucca, the “Panchita,” named after his fat banana of a sposa? Oh, the Don––simply IgnaÇio now––had had a quiet confab with the deputy administrador all about some treasure which he knew was concealed, and where––for he had seen with his bright eye the light of a torch in a cleft of a crag––and he would go shares with that official if he would give him a little assistance.

Oh, cierto!” Why not? And there was an old launch, with a torn lateen sail, which Columbus might have been proud to command; and, in this fine weather, he might sail back to Port Palos in her.

Oh yes! But, to keep all secret, he would merely take old Pancha, his wife, for crew. And so, with a few bundles of paper cigars, and some dried fish and water––the only property they possessed, save his eye and a pack of cards, and those valuables rescued with difficulty––they sailed the night before the blessed Sunday. He never came back, though. No blame attributable to the eye––that was as bright and wary an old burning spark of suspicious fire as ever; but then old Pancha held the cards, and this time she won. Very singular it was, cierto. If IgnaÇio had not gone back again for another bag which was not there, why, the sota of a knave being the next card––Ah! we won’t anticipate.

277

But we are all alive yet, except those murdered women, whose white coral head-stones still stand up there in the cactus, and poor Binks, and those slashing blades of the poisonous, many-legged “Centipede,” who were eaten by the sharks––all alive the rest of us, and wide awake!


278

CHAPTER XLIX.
THE ROPE LAID UP.

“The captain is walking his quarter-deck
With a troubled brow and a bended neck;
One eye is down the hatchway cast,
The other turns up to the truck on the mast.”

“The breeze is blowing––huzza, huzza!
The breeze is blowing––away, away!
The breeze is blowing––a race, a race!
The breeze is blowing––we near the chase.”

Well, the positions of all hands were simply these. The icy-eyed man, without snuff-box, or ring on that mutilated flipper, with two under pockets in his shirt, and something in them, a pair of filthy old canvas trowsers, and no hanger by his side, where there had been so much hanging in the good old times, slipped overboard like a conger eel, and swam on shore at St. Jago de Cuba. Without a real of wages––for he was to work his passage––and because he didn’t feel inclined to work, the capitano in command assisted his agile subordinate to kick him all the voyage.

Had, however, the mate presented that cold eel his knife for a moment before he jumped overboard and squirmed to the shore, that cuchillo would have found a redder sheath than the crimson sash which usually held it. Fortunately perhaps for the mate, he was not of a generous disposition, save with kicks and ropes’-ends, or else he might have regretted his philanthropy.

So soon as the icy-blue man had congealed, as it were, in the sun until he was quite dry and frozen again, he slunk away to the ditch of the old fort, where he thawed till nightfall, and then entered the town; hanging round the pulperias, smacking and cracking his parched lips for a measure of aguardiente, only two centavos a cup, and not caring for that fine, generous, pale, amber-colored old Port sent to him by the good Archbishop of Oporto! But, not having the copper centavos––though his own coppers stood so much in need of moisture––he continued to skulk on.

Presently, coming to the wide streets and to the outskirts of the town, he spied a large mule, ready caparisoned for the road, hitched to the door of a house, waiting for his owner to mount him. The icy green-eyed individual, disgusted for the time with blue salt water, 279 and being, as we know, a capital cavalry-man––in dashing charges among the patriots, and caprioling also up the Blue Mountains to Escondido––thought he would take another gallop on the dry ground, just to keep his hand and little finger in; so he quietly cast off the mule’s painter, and flung his canvas legs over the beast as if he belonged to him. And so he did; for he told the man at whose place he passed an hour or two that night, and who thought he knew the master to whom the mule had once belonged, that it had been presented to him by an old friend, whose name––as had the mule’s––escaped him.

All this time the one-eyed man, with his banana woman, Pancha, were creeping along the water part of the land––with the Peak of Tarquina in sight––toward Cape Cruz, bound round that peninsula, and so on to the DoÇe LÉguas Cays; while the man on the mule navigated by the Sierras del Cobre of St. Jago, steering by bridle for Manzanillo, and then to take water again for the same secret destination.

The cargo that both expected to take in there was about ten thousand pounds sterling in mildewed coin of various realms and denominations; but it was there, and would pass current any where.

So they sailed and navigated. It was tedious work, though; and it took a week for the old launch with the torn sail to get into the Tiger’s Trap––fine weather, and no sea––and there make fast to the rocks. At the same evening hour the mule with his passenger planted his fore feet, like a pair of kedges over his bows, in the fishing village near Manzanillo, and foundered bodily, going down with his freight slap-dash in the mud. The passenger, however, escaped, and skulled along by the shore, where he fell in with a poor fisherman who was about to shove off in his trim, wholesome bark for professional recreation on the Esperanza bank.

Glad was old Miguel Tortuga to have a strong man to assist him for the privilege of joining in a sip of aguardiente and catching a red snapper or two; so they jumped on board and spread the sail.

Had old Miguel, however, seen the sharklike eyes of his assistant in the sunlight, or dreamed what a snapper was about to catch him, he would not have gone fishing that night, and it would have saved him much tribulation at daylight the next morning, when he was picked off a small rock by a fisher acquaintance of his from Manzanillo.

But we have nothing to do with old Miguel; and need only say, to console him, that his stanch boat went safely through the blue gateway of the roaring ledge of white breakers, and late Sunday night lay calmly in the inlet abreast Captain Brand’s former dwelling.

To go back again for a week, the “Monongahela”––double-banked leviathan as she was––came plunging out to sea from Kingston, every 280 man and boy, from Jack Smith on her forecastle to Bill Pump in the spirit-room, and from Richard Hardy to Tiny Mouse, knowing from the first plunge the frigate made what they all sailed for.

With her proud head toward the east, she went dashing on past the White Horse Rocks, and woe to the small angry waves which did not get out of her way, for she smashed them contemptuously in foaming masses from her majestic bows, sending them back in sparkling spray and bubbles to hiss their angry way to leeward in her wake. On she went, far off to sea, where the trade wind was strongest, disdaining gentle zephyrs near the land, with her great square yards swinging round at every watch while beating to windward––the tacks close down, yards as fine as they would lay, and the heavy sheets flat aft.

Every evening the surgeon, the purser, the chaplain, the major, and the old sailing-master were in the cabin, going over the chase of a certain pirate in a schooner “Centipede” away down on the Darien Coast, with Cape Garotte there under their lee, and the vultures and the sharks grinding the bones and tearing the flesh of the half of a man with the tusk gleaming out of his wiry mustache; and the padre, with his eyes staring wide open, and the crucifix, borne away by the carnivorous birds of prey.

All of those dreadful particulars, together with matters that had gone before––of a lost boy, a heart-broken mother, and a murdered mate, Mr. Binks, on board the brig “Martha Blunt”––the party at Escondido, the snuff-box, and Paul Darcantel––all about him, too, from the tragedy on the plantation, his despair, and reckless life afterward, when he served in slavers, where he did something to allay the sufferings of the poor wretches; and afterward how he was trepanned to the “DoÇe LÉguas,” went a cruise with Mr. Bill Gibbs, whose leg he hacked off with a hand-saw, not knowing at the time about the locket; the little child he had saved; how that child had saved him from his torture on the trestle with his mouselike teeth; how he had wandered the wide world over searching and searching for the mother of that boy!

And there the boy was––the manly, brave young fellow now––whom officers and sailors had always loved, flying away with the dark doctor––no longer Darcantel, but Harry Piron––with his fond father and mother in the distance, and the sweet girl he adored with her blonde head resting in her mother’s lap.


THE OLD WATER-LOGGED LAUNCH.

Ay, every soul in the ship knew all about it, and talked of it, and drank to the happiness of the young couple––all save Dick Hardy, who moved energetically about the frigate’s decks, with his eyes every where, below and aloft, prompt, sharp, and quick, quite like Cleveland, there, beside him, when they were together in the old 283 “Scourge” during the hurricane, and chased, to her destruction, the “Centipede.”

“Sail ho!” sang out the man on the fore-top-sail yard.

“Where away?”

“Right ahead, sir. A brig on the starboard tack!”

Ay, the old “Martha Blunt” bouncing along under all sail, squaring off at the short-armed seas, and striking them doggedly, as she beat up for the Windward Passage between Hayti and Cuba.

But there was an old sea-bruiser of a different build, who wore the belt in the West Indies, and was after that sturdy old brig with teak ribs for a hearty set-to; and when she came up alongside, in the friendly sparring-match which ensued while both squared their main yards, and lay for an hour side by side, there was considerable conversation; so much talk, in fact––boats going to and fro, mingled with roars and shrieks, and clasping of hands on board the brig––never a sound on board the ship––that the blue pennant fluttered in such a way it was hard to tell whether it was Jacob, or Piron, or the sweet wife, or mademoiselle, or her lovely mother, who threw their arms around that pennant’s truck.

Then yard-arm and yard-arm, the frigate with her canvas canopy of upper sails furled, and the brig in her best bib and tucker, they both filled away and moved side by side.

For a day or two they went on, talking and laughing to one another in these friendly shakes of the hand over blue water, until one day, the brig being to windward, she came upon an old water-logged launch, with a broken mast and a torn sail hanging over her side.

It fell calm, and Jacob Blunt ordered young Binks to get into the yawl and tow the boat alongside, and to be smart about it; for the breeze might make so soon as the fog rose, and the commodore was not the man to be kept waiting in a big frigate. Mr. Binks was smart about it, and presently he returned––though there was no hurry, for the calm lasted a long time––with his water-logged prize.

There was no human being in this prize; but when she came alongside, and a yard tackle was hooked on to let the water drain out of her, Jacob Blunt and the people on board gave a pleasant yell of astonishment.

It was not the soiled pack of Spanish cards, or the few bundles of saturated paper cigars floating about, which caused this excitement. No, it was several canvas bags lying there in the stern-sheets, strapped with strands of a woman’s red petticoat to the empty water-cask beneath the thwarts; and not one of those canvas bags, or what was in them, injured in the least by salt water. Very carefully were those bags––and they were weighty––lifted on board the brig, over the rail where the pirates swarmed some long years ago, on to the quarter-deck; 284 and then there was another joyous shout from Jacob Blunt, as when he had hailed the trade wind in that long past time.

“By all that’s wonderful, here is my old bag of guineas, and some few Spanish milled dollars! Look at the mark, my darlings!”

Another weighty bag was set aside for Mrs. Timothy Binks, and the rest were devoted, with some large doubloon reservations for crew, to Martha Blunt and Jacob Blunt in their declining years.

Then, the weather being still calm and foggy, Jacob and his passengers went on board the double-banked frigate for church service, where they all prayed with much hope and thanksgiving for what had passed and what was to come; and then they went into the commodore’s cabin, where they remained ever so long a time.

Let us go back this same week again––a very long seven days it has been for every body, particularly so for the icy-eyed man, who was extremely anxious, as he kicked and lashed his mule, and kept looking round the south side of Jamaica, from Portland Point to Pedro Bluff and San Negril, throwing a ray of cold frost there day and night, expecting that tall doctor to come striding along in that deep water, heading due north.

And at last the dark figure hove in sight, in the schooner “Rosalie”––the sweet little craft skimming exultingly over the seas, kissing them occasionally with both her dainty, glistening cheeks, reeling joyously over on her side, with her tidy dimity laced and spread in one flat sheet of white, while the slender arms bent like whalebone to the freshening breeze, and she left the dancing bubbles sparkling and flashing lovingly in her wake.

Two hundred miles to go, and the breeze fell from fresh to light, until at last, shrouded in a thick fog, one Sunday morning, when there was no air at all, only a flat calm, the sea as smooth as a glass mirror with the quicksilver clouded.

Then out sweeps, my lads! Ten of a side, and two of those bronzed old lads at each sweep! All except the two after ones, where Ben Brown and the tall doctor handled one apiece.

Thus, with sails down and bare arms, the light little “Rosalie” continued gliding rapidly over the mirrored surface––a little ashamed of herself, perhaps, at being seen in such a scanty rig––while her commander guided her graceful course, and Harry Greenfield peered about forward to see that no harm should arrest her dainty footsteps.

Presently was heard the toll of a bell. The sweeps paused, the hide gromets resting on the thole-pins, and the water raining from their broad blades.

“That must be a man-of-war off here on the quarter,” exclaimed the young officer at the tiller, “ringing for church.”

The old seamen at the sweeps unconsciously took off their hats, wiped the sweat from their brows, and listened.

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“It can hardly be the ‘Monongahela,’” said Ben, “though p’raps she took more of a breeze to wind’ard, off the island.”

Still the schooner glided on noiselessly over the sea, until, a minute later, Harry Greenfield sang out,

“Port, sir! or we’ll be plump into a vessel here ahead.”

The helm was put down, and the “Rosalie” sheered off to starboard within a biscuit-toss of a large brig.

“By my grandmother’s wig!” said Ben, “that’s the old ‘Martha Blunt!’”

“Henri,” said Paul Darcantel, in French, in his deep voice, “the last request I shall ever make is to keep on. There is not a moment to lose!”

“Give way, men!” shouted the officer, in a decided tone, as the words came with a stifled gasp from his heaving breast, while the sigh that followed was drowned in the splash of the sweeps in the water as they again chafed in their gromets, and the foam flashed away from the blades astern.

But there was another splash. A white object sprang with a bound over the brig’s quarter, dipping below the surface of the calm sea, and when it came up, two great flippers, with a large black head between them, struck out like the paws of an alligator, breasting the water with a speed that soon brought him within a few fathoms of the schooner’s low counter. Then, seizing hold of the slack of the main sheet, which was thrown to him, he came up, hand over hand, as if he could tear the stern frame out of the schooner. A vigorous grasp caught him by one paw, and, with the other laid on the taffrail, he leaped on deck as if his feet had pressed a springboard instead of the yielding water.

Again, as in the olden time, he held his little Henri aloft in his giant arms; but this time it was Banou who was dripping from a souse, and not his little master.

“Give way, my souls! Another thousand dollars if we get up to the Key before dark!” said the deep, low tones of the tall doctor.

“Good Lord!” roared a voice from on board the brig, now shut up again all alone in the fog––“if that old nigger has not gone and jumped overboard, my name’s not Binks!”

“All right, Mr. Binks; Banou is safe! Send a boat on board the ‘Monongahela,’ and report that the schooner ‘Rosalie’ has passed ahead,” went back in a clear note.

It was some considerable time before Binks could believe that he had not been hailed by David Jones himself, for he had seen nothing, being at the time in the lower cabin reading his Bible, and writing his name, “Binnacle Binks, Master of brig ‘Martha Blunt,’” on the fly-leaf; and he was only disturbed in this praiseworthy occupation by a heavy body plunging overboard, and by one of the drowsy crew, 286 who had, with his comrades, been sleeping near, reporting that circumstance with his eyes half shut.

Then young Binks took considerable more time to get a boat lowered, and send her, with the cabin-boy, to the large frigate close on his beam, whose bell had just struck seven.

The boat, too, with four sleepy hands to pull her, took considerable time to find the ship, and then the whistles were piping to dinner, and all the good people from the brig, with the flag-officers, had retired to the commodore’s cabin for luncheon.

When Jacob Blunt heard the news, regardless of sherry and cold tongue, he himself got in his boat, leaving his passengers in an excited frame of mind, but rather comfortable on the whole, and returned to the teak bosom of his “Martha.”

There he took young Binks firmly by the shoulder, and walked him aft to the rail where his father––long since dead and murdered––had been used to sit and sing sailor ditties.

Then he impressively told him that “this ’ere sort of thing wouldn’t do! even if he was a readin’ the Bible, which was all very good on occasion, sich as clear weather out on the broad Atlantic; but in fog times, when schooners was creepin’ about in among the Antilles, and partick’larly off Jamaiky or the south side of Cuby, mates and men should be wide awake and lookin’ every wheres. And harkee, Binnacle! when you commands this ’ere old brig, or maybe a bran-new ‘Martha Blunt,’ and me and my old woman lying below together in narrow cabins, you must bear in mind these my words! Well, my boy, don’t rub that ’ere sleeve over your eyes no more, and it will be all right.”

Young Binks promised “that from that ’ere minnit he would never sit on no rails, or sip no grog, or even read his old mother’s Bible when he wos on watch, but always be as keerful as if there wos no lady passengers or children on board, or bags of shiners in the lower cabin stateroom––that he would! And his blessed old second father might take his davy he, young Binks, would never be caught foul again.”

Meanwhile the girlish schooner tripped away far out of sight, and when the fog lifted and the breeze came to blow it to leeward she was once more tidily dressed in snowy white, and splashing the water from her black eyes, as the last rays of the setting sun showed her the Tiger’s Trap in the distance.

“Henri, my boy, put your arms around me again as you did when I lay in torture on the trestle on that island. Have no fears for me; we shall meet again. There! now listen to me. Here is a packet which I wish you to carry to Porto Rico with this letter. The old judge is alive, I think, to whom this letter is addressed, and it may perhaps soothe his declining years. I wish to take your little gig, 287 with Banou and Ben Brown––no more force––and if, as I believe, that villain has returned to his former haunt, I will fulfill my oath to its very letter. Meanwhile, so soon as we have shoved off, while the breeze still holds, run down to the frigate––she is not three leagues off––and you will be in your yearning parent’s arms, and those of the girl you love, before they sleep. There! I know you will think of me. Farewell!”


288

CHAPTER L.
ON A BED OF THORNS.

“An orphan’s curse would drag to hell
A spirit from on high;
But oh! more horrible than that
Is the curse in a dead man’s eye!”

“O Heaven! to think of their white souls,
And mine so black and grim!”

“Ho, ho!” said Captain Brand, as he stretched out his straight legs in their canvas casings on the sand of the little cove, “safe and sound, and not a soul to share this nice supper of that good old man Miguel!

“Ho, ho!” continued he; “here at last! No Babette to cook for me––no ‘Centipede’––nothing but that stanch little boat presented me by that generous fisherman, who, I fear, is drowned by this time. Well, let us enjoy ourselves! Excellent real snapper this! Sausage rather too much garlic perhaps; but the brown bread and the aguardiente unexceptionable. Blaze away, my little fire; your sticks cost me much labor to dig out of my once comfortable house, but you are better than gunpowder any day.

“Just to think of the years that have passed! That great bank of sand there over the sheds, nearly as high as the crag, where my brave fellows once caroused; the young cocoa-nut springing up on the crag itself––not a vestige of my old habitation left, or the bright blades or pleasant guests to dine with me!”

Here there was something of the old cold murderous scowl on the captain’s face as he twisted the point of his nose.

“Ah! yes, there may be my wary-eyed Sanchez left, though the last I heard of him he was in the Capilla dungeon of the Moro. And that”––grating his teeth, and glaring with his icy eyes at the fire, as if those two blocks of ice would put it out––“cursed doctor who pursues me!

“Well, well, neither of those old friends are here yet, and before another sun sets I shall bequeath the old den to them both! Ho, ho! with those solid bags of clinking metal, I shall leave them as much sand and rocks as they choose to walk over. What a sly devil I was to stow that treasure away for a rainy day! Never told a living being! Poisoned the fellow, too, who made the lock! Capital joke, ’pon my soul!”

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This was the very last of the very few jokes that Captain Brand ever enjoyed.

“And, now I think of it, I wonder if my thirsty old mate’s bones are yet lying there in the vault. What was his name? such a bad memory I have! Oh! Gibbs––Bill Gibbs––with one leg! Ho, ho!”

Here Captain Brand drained some more aguardiente out of a cracked earthen pot, and slapped his fine legs with rapture.

“And those dear girls who married me! Lucia, too!”

The dirty wretch started as the wing of a sea-bird swooped down over the pure inlet; and he thought he saw a white fore finger beckoning him on to his doom.

“Pshaw!” said he, smoothing down his filthy tattered shirt with the finger of his mutilated left hand, “how nervous I am! But what a bungle Pedillo made of that marriage! And my good Ricardo, too! What a feast the sharks must have had on his oily, well-fed carcass! Misericordia! Ho, ho! I believe I’ll bid my friends good-night.”

Captain Brand stretched himself out at full length on the shelly strand, his boat secured by a clove-hitch round his right leg, which rode calmly in the little inlet; his bald head, with the few dry gray hairs on his temples, resting on Miguel’s sennit hat, and the thin scum of frosty eyelids drawn over his frozen eyes––cracking their covering at times––until at last the pirate, aided by fiery aguardiente, slept.

A few late cormorants and sea-birds sailed over him in his fitful slumber, and uttered a cold cry, as if their pecking-time had not come yet, but would shortly, as they sought their silent retreats on the wall of rocks opposite.

And Captain Brand dreamed, too––of the old laird, his father, in prison; his mother weeping over forged notes; the sleeping, unsuspecting people he had treacherously murdered; the pillages he had committed; the men he had slain in open conflict; those he had executed with his own private cord; the poor woman who had died in worse torments, when, indeed, even knife or pistol, rope or poison, would have been a mercy; the agony and sufferings of those who survived them; with all the concomitant horrors which make the blood run cold to think of, and which made the pirate’s almost freeze in his veins––living years in minutes––did Captain Brand, as he lay there on the chill sand in his troubled nightmare of a sleep.

“Ah! Dios! Dios!” chattered the SeÑora Banana Pancha, at the other outlet to the inlet, rolling over on the ledge of the rocks at the Tiger’s Trap.

“What has become of my Ig––Ig––naÇio––the one-eyed old villain who has persecuted me for forty years? Why did I cut the old launch adrift before I got in myself? And here I am alone and desolate 290 on this cursed island, and my Ig––Ig––naÇio––bless his spark of an eye––not come back to me! Ah! Dios! Dios! what has become of the little man? He will kill me, cierto, when he comes back and finds the boat gone with all the money, which nearly broke his thin back to bring here; but, Dios! Dios! I am dying of thirst, and not a shred of dried fish or jerked beef has gone into my old mouth––”

Yes there has, DoÑa Pancha, for just then a piece of hawser-laid rope––rather dry, perhaps, for mastication––was placed across your crying mouth that you might bite upon, if you would only stop your old tongue.

For while you were screaming on the rocks, and yelling for your Ig––Ig––naÇio, who went back for the last bag of gold that wasn’t there, a light gig glided in like a blackfish, and a bigger blackfish jumped up and stopped your old mouth, Pancha, with that bit of hide rope. But if you will keep quiet, Pancha, and not exorcise Banou for the Evil One, that old nigger will give you a cup of liquid not known in the devil’s dominions, and treat you also to some white biscuit to nibble upon.

Ah! you will, eh? and tell all about that thin curl of smoke, which you believe to have been made by that coal-eyed Ig––Ig––naÇio, away up there by the inlet? Now keep quiet again, old Lady Banana; and while your screaming mouth is gagged, don’t cut this small gig away, or else she may navigate herself out to sea, as did your Ig’s launch, and you be left desolate again.

The tropical night was still; the lizards wheetled, the breakers roared on the outer ledge, the ripples washed musically on the shelly shores, the alligators flapped about on the surface of the lagoon, the insects buzzed around the mangrove thickets; and as the gray dawn of morning appeared, and the rain began to fall, a steaming hot mist arose, through which the sea-birds flapped their wings and sailed away in search of their morning’s meal. The sharks and the deep-sea fish, however, lay still and motionless low down by the base of the reefs, and watched with their cold, round eyes. Captain Brand, too, arose, and, opening his green-bluish eyes, smoothing his moulting feathers, and splashing his fins in the wet sand, took an observation.

This was the rainy day for which Captain Brand had laid by all that money to spend it in!

It was a Monday morning––Black Monday for Captain Brand––when, after divesting his leg of the clove-hitch, he secured old Miguel’s boat to a large stone, and then, according to his own ancient practice, he clambered with difficulty up to the venerable crag. Captain Brand had no spy-glass, and there was a good deal of rain falling, but yet he thought he saw a large ship, a brig, and a small schooner in the offing.

So Captain Brand scrambled down again, a good deal disconcerted, knowing it would be hours and hours before those vessels got up to the island, even were they so inclined; but, nevertheless, he bestirred himself. Fortifying his inner man with the last half pint of aguardiente for breakfast, which quite refreshed him, he went to work.

First, he took Miguel’s copper coffee-pot, into which he emptied that disciple of the net’s shark-oil jug, which Miguel himself used for a torch to attract the fish. Then, with a strip of old canvas––part of one leg to Captain Brand’s trowsers; to such straits was he reduced––seized like a ball on the end of a stick, and a match-box, he was all ready for Black Monday’s work.

Captain Brand, however, made one serious omission; he snugly stowed away his beautiful pistols in a locker of the boat to keep them dry, never having been wet but twice before in all his marine excursions––the first time at Cape Garotte, and the next when he jumped overboard from the brigantine at St. Jago. He set great store by these valuable implements, for they had done him good service in time of need. Miguel came into possession of them afterward, and sold them almost for their weight in gold.

But, for the first time, Captain Brand forgot his personal friends and bosom companions. It was a great oversight; and he was extremely sorry when it was too late to go back for them. However, with the copper oil-pot dangling from his little finger, where the sapphire once shone, and the torch-stick in the other hand, he marched boldly over the sandy ridges toward the crag.

But, Captain Brand, there had been three pairs of open eyes watching you through every mouthful of snapper you snapped, and every drop of fiery white rum you swallowed. Ay! and while you tossed about on the shelly beach, with the red glow of the embers of the fire lighting up your cold-blooded, wrinkled face––while, twisting your nose, you muttered ho! ho’s! of murderous satisfaction––there was not a bird that swooped over you, or a lizard on the rocks with jet beads of eyes, that watched you so sharply as did those attentive beholders from the crag.

And when you made your observations from the young cocoa-nut clump, those watchers retired down the opposite side, and two of them clambered through a hole in the roof of the decaying little chapel, while the other moved to the little cemetery of coral gravestones, and there scooped a place in the sand and cactus behind the one cut with the letter L.

Captain Brand meanwhile came on, picking his way through the dense cactus, which lacerated his legs, and sadly tore the remains of his loose canvas. The rain came down in torrents, the thunder growled and crashed as the tropical storm burst over the island; and just as a vivid sheet of forked lightning seemed to stride the crag, and 292 the awful peal that followed shook it to its base, Captain Brand crept for shelter within the cleft of the rock, and sat down to prepare for a more extended research.

He may have been gone twenty minutes; but when he again emerged the rain had ceased, the clouds were breaking away, and the gentle sea-breeze blowing, while Captain Brand looked a thousand years older. He seemed to have borrowed all the million of wrinkles from his compadre, in addition to those he already possessed. The thin lids of his frozen green––now quite solid––eyes had apparently exhaled by intense cold, and left nothing but a stony look of horror.

What caused our brave captain to reel and stagger as he plunged with a bound out into the matted cactus, without his tattered hat, like a wolf flying from the hounds? Had he trodden on a snake, or seen his compadre, or had that white finger waved him away? Yes, all three. But the interview with his one-eyed compadre had shocked him most.

On he came, driving the hot, wet sand before him, toward the Padre Ricardo’s chapel. There he paused for breath, though it was only by a spasmodic effort that he could unclose his sheet-white lips, where his sharp teeth had met upon them, and held his mouth together as if he had the lockjaw, while he snorted through his nostrils.

“Ho!” he gasped, “the spying old traitor has sacked the cavern, and the gold must have gone in that launch I saw the night I came over the reef. Ho! the traitor has found the torture I promised him; but I would like to have killed him a little slower.”

Here Captain Brand, having regained some few faculties and energy, moved on beyond the church, till he came to the white coral headstone, where he stood still.

It was his last walk on deck or sand! Shading his still horror-stricken eyes by both hands, he glared to seaward.

“Ho, ho! there you are, my Yankee commodore, with that old brig under convoy, and that pretty schooner! Reminds me of my old ‘Centipede.’ Bueno! there are other ‘Centipedes,’ and I must begin the world anew. I am not old; here is my strong right arm yet; and who can stop me?”

Captain Brand made these remarks in a loud tone, as if he wanted the whole world to hear him; and as if he had failed in early life, and come to a strong resolution to retrieve his past errors.

As he waved his strong right arm aloft, while, in imagination, blood rained from the blade of his cutlass after cleaving the skull by a blow dealt behind the back of an unsuspecting skipper or mate, suddenly he paused, and the arm fell powerless at his side, where it hung dangling loose like a pirate from a gibbet on a windy night.

He caught sight of the old broken cocoa-nut trunk to which he had 293 hitched the green silk rope, with its noose around his victim’s neck, and he endeavored to prevent himself falling to the sand.

“Ho!” he choked out, his jaws rattling like dry bones, “I see it all now. The column was snapped just where the rope was hitched, and the trestle must have been torn to pieces by the hurricane. Ho, ho! That’s the way my man escaped, to dog me all over the world. Ho! I have no time to lose; he may be here at any moment.”

This was the last connected speech that Captain Brand ever made in this world, or in the world to come, perhaps, for at the last word Paul Darcantel rose in all his revengeful majesty before him. With folded arms he bent his dark, stern eyes upon the pirate, wherein the revenge of twenty years was gleaming with a concentrated power.

“You palsied villain! the oath I took to you, and for which I have been accursed, expired yesterday! I took another myself, when we stood here last together, and I am come to fulfill that oath, and––strike!”

His terrible voice and words came back in an echo from the crag, and they seemed with their intense energy to pierce and shrivel the man before him into sleet. And the pirate would have fallen had not two huge, black, lignum-vitÆ paws grappled him about the body, pinioning his arms to his sides as if they had been bolted through and through, while at the same moment another pair of tough, sea-weed flippers wound a lashing round his straight legs, and they laid him gently down on the sandy esplanade.

“The trestle, Banou. And you, Ben, bring the hide strands, the faded old cord, and that black altar-cloth!”

The pirate lay on his back, his eyes wide open––for he could not shut them, since the lids had gone in frost––but the solid balls, light green now in the light, rolled from side to side. He recognized the old apparatus too, though it was in different hands than those of Pedillo and his confederate; and he saw, also, that, though the pale green rope was rotten, yet his knowledge of nautical matters taught him that it yet might bear a taut strain, and that those coils of hide thongs never gave way by any amount of tugging, and he saw as well that they had been recently dipped in grease.

But what was to be done with that rotten, moth-eaten old cloth, which the men used to play montÉ on on Saturday nights in the sheds, and on which the good padre played his cards likewise in the chapel? It was not to keep the cold air away from him, or shield his half-naked body from the poisonous insects. Then what could it be for?

“Lift him up, men, and when you lash him down, leave only that little finger free!”

Ben Brown squatted himself on a stone beside the bier, and with his cutlass unbuckled and laid on the sand, and sleeves rolled up, began 294 his work as if he had a chafing-mat to make for the dead-eyes of the frigate’s lower shrouds, and, though in a hurry, still intended to make a neat job of it. He had a small and rather sharp-pointed marline-spike, too, which he wore habitually, like a talisman, round his neck, and which stood him in hand in the intricate parts of his task.

Taking in at a glance the exact amount of hide stuff he required, he middled the coils, and passing each strand fair and square, his old bronzed arms went backward and forward, under and over––sometimes pricking a little hole by accident in the pirate’s own thin hide as he passed the strips by the aid of his marline-spike, but always apologizing in his bluff, rough way, though without squirting tobacco-juice into his victim’s face, as did Mr. Gibbs to Jacob Blunt.

“Beg pardon, ye infarnal pirate! but that stick will do ye no harm. It’ll heal much sooner than the iron spike one of yer crew drove through both cheeks of my watch-mate when you gagged him on board the brig.

“I say, old nigger, hand us a little more of that slush, will ye? this ’ere strand won’t lie flat. Thankee, old darkey! Kitch hold on that lower end, will ye? and draw it square up between his pins, and straighten out that ’ere knee-joint a bit––so fashion.

“I wouldn’t hurt ye, you ugly villain, for a chaw of tobaccy.

“Warm work, shipmate! suppose you just toddle down to the boat for that ’ere grafted bottle lyin’ in the starn sheets, and bring a tin pot of fresh water with you; the gentleman might be thirsty, you know. I am––Benjamin Brown, of Sandy Pint, seaman.”

So Benjamin plaited Captain Brand, late of the “Centipede,” down on his bier; not a thong too little, or one in the wrong place. A strand between each of his toes, and the big ones turned up in quite an ornamental way, and worked around with a Turk’s-head knot.

“Breathin’ works all reg’lar, too, no bit of hide bearin’ an onequal strain over his bread-basket. Throat and jaw-tackle in fair talkin’ order, little finger free; and there, Capting Brand, jist let old Ben reward ye, good for evil, ye child-murdering scoundrel, for the lick your mate gave him with the pistol on the head, by placing this soft pillow of green silk rope under your bare skull. There! a little this side, so as ye can look at your finger, while I pass this broad piece of stuff over your ear. Don’t ye look at me, ye infarnal scoundrel, or I’ll let this ’ere copper spike slip into one of yer junk-bottle glims!

“Now,” continued Ben, “I’ll take a spell till the doctor and the old nigger come back.”

Ay, the job was done, and the mat over the dead-eyes of the shrouds!


“NOW CAPTAIN BRAND KNEW WHAT WAS COMING.”

During this neat and seamanlike operation Paul Darcantel wandered away on the tracks of the flying wolf till he came to the cleft 297 in the rock. There he picked up and lighted the torch and stalked on. Presently he came to the stones before the low cavern, and pushed his way in with the blazing torch before him. Had Paul Darcantel had nerves, they would have shaken at what he saw; but having none to shake, he calmly fixed his eyes upon the sight.

There lay the head of the ancient IgnaÇio, caught, as he tried to creep out of the treasure-chamber, by the falling of the stone slab. It must have been sudden, for the stump of a paper cigar was still seized in his wrinkled lips, while the snakelike curls twined about his ears, and his wary eye looked out with its usual suspicious intensity, and seemed to throw out a spark of fire in the reflection of the torch. Rising from a coil in a slimy bed of sand before the head was a venomous serpent, with his graceful neck curved into the broad flat head, all like an ebony cane, straight, motionless, and elegant to the curved top––fascinated by that single living orb of the dead man.

The human intruder left this well-matched pair to their own venomous devices, and winding his way on, he soon came to the open door to the vaults. A powerful kick smashed in the door of the dungeon, and while the rusty bolts were still ringing on the stone pavement, Paul Darcantel entered the loathsome chamber.

He saw nothing at first save a few fragments of broken crockery and a rusty metal pot––not even a rat. But flaring the torch down upon the mouldy floor something sparkled in the light. This he snatched, and it was the long-lost locket and chain which had last rested around the baby-boy’s neck.

When the doctor strode back to the esplanade of the chapel he found Benjamin Brown and Banou taking a friendly sip out of the tin pot.

“Well, sir,” said Ben, as he got on his pins and strapped on his cutlass, “there he is, sir! and as neat a piece of cross-lashing as ever I did. He looks as if he growed there, jist like a hawk-bill turtle a-bilin’ in the ship’s coppers, only he can’t paddle about.

“I did it marciful, too, sir, and tried to convarse with him, in case he had any presents to make to his friends.

“Why, sir, and would you believe it? I offered to pour a drop of grog––mixed or raw––down his tight mouth, but he never had the perliteness to thank me or ax me a question, but only looked wicked at me. Consarn him! if he had only winked, I wouldn’t mind it!” said Ben, with much indignation; “but, howsever, I don’t b’lieve he’s any think to leave or any friends left!”

But Captain Brand, though speechless without being tongue-tied, and unable to wink, still thought. And what did the doctor propose to do with him in case he was not to be stung to death by insects, sand-flies, musquitoes, and what not?

“Lift the trestle for the last time, men, and stand it here over this 298 thick bed of cactus, so as the little finger may touch the letter on this white tomb-stone.”

Now Captain Brand’s doubts were relieved, and he knew what was coming. Oh ho! ho!

“There! that is right! Now collect stones and rocks, and wall this trestle up solid to the edge of the frame, so that a hurricane can’t loosen it.”

Big Banou went to work now, and presently his job was done––coral rocks, and loose head-stones of pirates, well packed down with sand, made the sides of the living tomb. Then the black pall was drawn over the body, and they left the pirate to his inevitable doom.

Soon the three executioners reached the Tiger’s Trap.

“Banou, take this locket and chain––ah! you know it well––to your young master. Brown, the two thousand dollars will be placed in your and Greenfield’s hands for distribution among the schooner’s crew; make a good use of it! Tell the commodore that I shall take an old woman we have found here away with me in a stolen fisherman’s boat to Manzanillo, and within the year I shall be at home! There! shove off, my lads!”

As the gig skimmed through the Tiger’s Trap, Paul Darcantel, with the widow of IgnaÇio, sailed out by the Alligator’s Mouth, and as they crossed that roaring ledge, the sun sank in its unclouded glory in the west, and the young moon, with its thin pearly crescent, looked timidly down upon the island.

And the night passed, and the next and the next, with scorching days and blazing suns between them; while the mangrove, the palm, the cocoa-nut, and the cactus––ah! that luxuriant plant throve apace––shooting up its steel-pointed bayonets two inches of a night in thorny needles as thick as pins in a paper, growing clean through the hide of ox or man like blood, till their hard-edged leaves met resistance, when, turning flat side up, they put forth a score for one of the needle bayonets! No escape from them. From shoulder to heel one long, hopeless agony. The fierce sun flaming down, absorbed by the black pall of death! The moon glimmering in pale white rays of splendor through the moth-eaten holes upon the finger and the white tomb-stone! All the day and all the night!

Was it a dream, Captain Brand? No, a frightful reality! Don’t you feel a fresh thorn at every slow pulse of the heart they are aiming at? And don’t you hear those dread croakings of gulls and cormorants flapping in the air, who have left their prey on the reef to join the vultures in their feast on the shore? You may almost catch the grating sounds of the rasping jaws of the sharks as they crowd into the inlet, and rest their cold noses on the shelly cove where you slept!

Flesh and blood, and pinions and beaks can endure it no longer. 299 A cloud of carnivorous birds swoop down at last, snap the black pall in their talons and bills, and fly fighting and screaming away with it. Another cloud, darker than the rest, light upon the body, and while the needle-points pierce the palpitating heart, and the breath flutters on the still clenched lips and nostrils, the eyes are picked out, and the flesh is torn piecemeal, hide strands and all, till nothing is left but a hideous white skeleton, with the long bony finger pointing to the letter L.

The lizards wheetled on the rocks, the alligators lashed the lagoon amid the steaming mist of the mangrove roots; the sharks and birds returned to the reefs, the cocoa-nuts waved their tufted tops, the palms crackled in the shower and gale, and the pure inlet murmured musically on the shelly shore for years and years over and around the deserted key, until the whitened bones crumbled into dust, and were borne away by the four winds of heaven.


The hemp has been tarred and spread, the strands twisted, and the rope laid up. The knots have been turned in between good sailors and bad––between pirates and men-of-war’s-men––and here Harry Gringo hauls down his pennant until his reading crew care again to take a cruise with him in blue water.


THE END.


Standard Works
of
Discovery and Adventure in Africa.

published by
HARPER & BROTHERS, Franklin Square, N. Y.

? Sent by Mail, postage pre-paid, on receipt of price.

The amount of travel literature which Harper & Brothers have published relating to Africa makes a curious list, and illustrates the bent of geographical and political examination for some time past. The octavos of Burton, Barth, Livingstone, Du Chaillu, Davis, and a number of other celebrated travellers, form a small library, all the result of the last few years’ devotion to African exploration––N.Y. Journal of Commerce.

Speke’s Africa. Journal of the Discovery of the Sources of the Nile. By John Hanning Speke, Captain H.M. Indian Army, Fellow and Gold Medalist of the Royal Geographical Society, Hon. Corr. Member and Gold Medalist of the French Geographical Society, &c. With Map and Portraits, and numerous Illustrations, chiefly from Drawings by Captain Grant. 8vo, Cloth, $350.

Reade’s Savage Africa. Western Africa: being the Narrative of a Tour of Equatorial, Southwestern, and Northwestern Africa; with Notes on the Habits of the Gorilla; on the Existence of Unicorns and Tailed Men; on the Slave Trade; on the Origin, Character, and Capabilities of the Negro, and of the future Civilization of Western Africa. By W. Winwood Reade, Fellow of the Geog. and Anthropological Soc. of Lond., and Corr. Member of the Geog. Soc. of Paris. With Illustrations and a Map. 8vo, Cloth, $350.

Du Chaillu’s Equatorial Africa. Explorations and Adventures in Equatorial Africa; with Accounts of the Manners and Customs of the People, and of the Chase of the Gorilla, the Crocodile, Leopard, Elephant, Hippopotamus, and other Animals. By Paul B. du Chaillu, Corr. Member of the Amer. Ethnological Soc.; of the Geog. and Statistical Soc. of New York, and of the Bost. Soc. of Nat. Hist. Maps and numerous Illustrations. 8vo, Cloth, $375.

Baldwin’s African Hunting. African Hunting from Natal to the Zambesi, including Lake Ngami, the Kalahari Desert, &c., from 1852 to 1860. By William Charles Baldwin, F.R.G.S. With Map, Fifty Illustrations by Wolf and Zwecker, and a Portrait of the Great Sportsman. 12mo, Cloth, $150.

Andersson’s Okavango River. The Okavango River: A Narrative of Travel, Exploration, and Adventure. By Charles John Andersson, Author of “Lake Ngami.” With Steel Portrait of the Author, numerous Wood-cuts, and a Map showing the Regions explored by Andersson, Cumming, Livingstone, Burton, and Du Chaillu. 8vo, Cloth, $250.

Andersson’s Lake Ngami. Lake Ngami; or, Explorations and Discoveries during Four Years’ Wanderings in the Wilds of Southwestern Africa. By Charles John Andersson. With numerous Illustrations, representing Sporting Adventures, Subjects for Natural History, Devices for destroying Wild Animals, &c. New Edition. 12mo, Cloth, $100.

Livingstone’s South Africa. Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa; including a Sketch of a Sixteen Years’ Residence in the Interior of Africa, and a Journey from the Cape of Good Hope to Loando on the West Coast; thence across the Continent, down the River Zambesi, to the Eastern Ocean. By David Livingstone, LL.D., D.C.L. With Portrait, Maps, and numerous Illustrations. 8vo, Cloth, $300.

Davis’s Carthage. Carthage and her Remains: Being an Account of the Excavations and Researches on the Site of the Phoenician Metropolis in Africa and other adjacent Places, under the Auspices of Her Majesty’s Government. By Dr. N. Davis, F.R.G.S. Profusely illustrated with Maps, Wood-cuts, Chromo-Lithographs, &c., &c. 8vo, Cloth, $300.

Burton’s Central Africa. The Lake Regions of Central Africa. A Picture of Exploration. By Richard F. Burton, Capt. H.M.I. Army; Fellow and Gold Medalist of the Royal Geographical Society. With Maps and Engravings on Wood. 8vo, Cloth, $300.

Barth’s North and Central Africa. Travels and Discoveries in North and Central Africa. Being a Journal of an Expedition undertaken under the Auspices of H.B.M.’s Government in the Years 1849-1855. By Henry Barth, Ph.D., D.C.L. Profusely and elegantly illustrated. Complete in 3 vols. 8vo, Cloth, $9.

Cumming’s South Africa. Five Years of a Hunter’s Life in the Interior of South Africa. With Notices of the Native Tribes, and Anecdotes of the Chase of the Lion, Elephant, Hippopotamus, Giraffe, Rhinoceros, &c. By Gordon Cumming. With Illustrations. 2 vols. 12mo, Cloth, $250.

Wilson’s Western Africa. Western Africa: Its History, Condition, and Prospects. By Rev. J. Leighton Wilson, Eighteen Years a Missionary in Africa. With numerous Engravings. 12mo, Cloth, $125.

Mr. Wilson, an American missionary, has written the best book I have seen on the West Coast.––Dr. Livingstone, Rivershire, W. Africa, Feb. 20, 1863.

Discovery and Adventures in Africa. Condensed Abstracts of the Narratives of African Travellers. By Professor Jameson, James Wilson, and Hugh Murray. 18mo, Cloth, 50 cents.

The Life and Adventures of Bruce, the African Traveller. By Major Sir Francis B. Head. 18mo, Cloth, 50 cents.

Lander’s Niger Expedition. Journal of an Expedition to explore the Course and Termination of the Niger. With a Narrative of a Voyage down that River to its Termination. By R. and J. Lander. Engravings. 2 vols. 18mo, Cloth, $100.

Urquhart’s Pillars of Hercules. The Pillars of Hercules; or, A Narrative of Travels in Spain and Morocco in 1848. By David Urquhart, M.P. 2 vols. 12mo, Cloth, $250.

Owen’s Voyages. Voyages to explore the Shores of Africa, Arabia, and Madagascar: performed under the Direction of Captain W. F. W. Owen, R.N. 2 vols. 12mo, Cloth, $150.

Mungo Park’s Central Africa. Travels of Mungo Park, with the Account of his Death, from the Journal of Isaaco, and later Discoveries relative to his lamented Fate, and the Termination of the Niger. 18mo, Cloth, 50 cents.


MADAGASCAR.

The Last Travels of Ida Pfeiffer: inclusive of a Visit to Madagascar. With an Autobiographical Memoir of the Author. Translated by H. W. Dulcken. Steel Portrait. 12mo, Cloth, $125. (Uniform with Ida Pfeiffer’s “Second Journey round the World”).

Three Visits to Madagascar, during the Years 1853-1854-1856. Including a Journey to the Capital, with Notices of the Natural History of the Country and of the Present Civilization of the People. By the Rev. William Ellis, F.H.S. With a Map and Wood-cuts from Photographs, &c. 8vo, Cloth, $300.


HARPER’S WEEKLY FOR 1864.

Harper’s Weekly is devoted to Art, Literature, General Information, and Politics. It will contain a carefully condensed and impartial record of the events of the day, pictorially illustrated wherever the pencil of the Artist can aid the pen of the Writer. In Politics it will advocate the National Cause, wholly irrespective of mere party grounds. Its Essays, Poems, and Tales will be furnished by the ablest writers of both Continents. A new Novel, by Mr. George Augustus Sala, entitled “QUITE ALONE,” will, by special arrangement with the Author, appear in the Weekly simultaneously with its publication in Mr. Dickens’sAll the Year Round.” The Publishers will see to it that the current Volume shall justify the favorable opinions expressed by the loyal Press upon the Volume which has just closed.


Extracts from Notices by the Press.

Harper’s Weekly is the best publication of its class in America, and so far ahead of all other weekly journals as not to permit of any comparison between it and any of their number. Its columns contain the finest collections of reading matter that are printed. Thus, if you look into the Volume for 1863, you will find that its stories, and miscellaneous articles, and poetry are from the minds of some of the leading writers of the time. Its matter is of a very various character from elaborate tales and well-considered editorial articles to the airiest and briefest jests, good-humored hits at the expense of human follies, which proceed from the liveliest of minds. It is a vigorous supporter of the war––discussing all questions that concern the contest in which we are engaged with an amplitude of perception and a breadth of patriotism that place it very high indeed on the roll of loyal and liberal publications. Its illustrations are numerous and beautiful, being furnished by the chief artists of the country. Most of the illustrations are devoted to the war, including battle-pieces, scenes made renowned by great events there occurring, and portraits of eminent military and civil leaders. Even a person who could not read a line of its letter-press could intelligently follow the history of the war through 1863 by going over the pictured pages of this volume,”––Evening Traveller (Boston.)

Harper’s Weekly, besides being a literary paper of the first class––the only one among American or European Pictorials with a definite purpose consistently and constantly carried out––is at once a leading political and historical annalist of the nation.”––The Press (Philadelphia).

Harper’s Weekly.––In turning over its pages, we were struck anew with the fidelity with which it delineates passing events: a true picture of the times. The scenes of the war, portrayed by the graphic pencils of artists on the battle-field and in the camp, are re-produced in excellent wood-cuts with marvelous promptness and accuracy. The letter-press furnishes an appropriate accompaniment to the illustrations; presenting a pleasing variety, sprightly and entertaining. We can not wonder at the popularity of the Weekly when we observe the spirit and enterprise with which it is conducted.”––Journal (Boston).

Harper’s Weekly for 1863.––From a careful examination of this work, as it came out in it weekly form, we can honestly advise our readers to purchase the stately and pictured volume. We dare not say how many duodecimo volumes of matter, and of good and interesting matter, it contains. As a record of the events and opinions of the past year, and as literally a picture of the time, it has a permanent value, while its wealth of excellent stories and essays makes it an endless source of entertainment. The original editorial articles are of a very high order of merit, and relate to subjects which attract the attention of all intelligent and patriotic minds. Soundness of thought, liberality of sentiment, and thorough-going loyalty find expression in the most exquisite English. Altogether, we should say that Harper’s Weekly is a necessity in every household.”––The Transcript (Boston).

Harper’s Weekly and Magazine, with their immense circulation, are grandly loyal and influential. The Weekly especially has been true to the cause; and while it gives in admirable correspondence and accurate pictures a complete illustrated history of the war, with all its battles, incidents, and portraits of generals, it has splendidly enforced by argument and example its principles. Closer reasoning is not to be found than that to which its editors might fairly challenge answer.”––City Item (Philadelphia).


Notices of Harper’s Weekly.

Harper’s Weekly, of which the Seventh Volume is now issued in neat, substantial binding, shows the industry and zeal with which the cause of the Union has been maintained in its columns during the year 1863. It has continued to increase the fervor of patriotic sentiment as well by its appropriate pictorial illustrations as by its able editorial leaders commenting on the events of the day. In its present shape, the journal furnishes copious materials for the history of the war, and can not fail to find a place in public and private libraries as an important volume for permanent reference.”––Tribune (New York).

Harper’s Weekly for 1863––a journal of the year, kept in the most interesting way; and as we turn over the pages we revive many now almost forgotten sensations, and see, bit by bit, how history has grown. The volume closed and bound up becomes history; but it would not be just to this publication to omit a remark on the influence which it has exerted during the year, and which it continues to exert. An illustrated journal like Harper’s Weekly, which circulates, as we have heard, over one hundred and twenty thousand copies per week, chiefly among families, and which has probably a million of readers, has necessarily a great influence in the country. The Weekly has consistently and very ably supported the Union, the Government, and the great principles to develop which the Union was founded. Unlike most illustrated journals, Harper’s Weekly has displayed political and literary ability of a high order as well as artistic merit. Its political discussions are sound, clear, and convincing, and have done their share to educate the American people to a right understanding of their dangers and duties. In its speciality––illustrations of passing events––it is unsurpassed; and many of the pictures of the year do honor to the genius of the artists and engravers of this country. Thus complete in all the departments of an American Family Journal, Harper’s Weekly has earned for itself a right to the title which it assumed seven years ago, ‘A Journal of Civilization.’”––Evening Post (New York).

Harper’s Weekly.––This periodical merits special notice at the present time. There is probably no weekly publication of the country that equals its influence. More than one hundred thousand copies fly over the land weekly: they are read in our cars, steamboats, and families. Our youth especially read them; and as the family newspaper of the nation, its power over the forming opinions of the next generation of the American people is an important item.

It is abundant, if not superabundant, in pictorial illustrations––a means of strong impression, especially on the minds of the young. Both by its illustrations and its incessant discussion of the occurrences and questions of the war it is a “current history” and “running commentary” on the great event, and there is probably no literary agency of the day more effective in its influence respecting the war in the families of the common people. Most happy are we then to be able to say that this responsible power is exerted altogether on the side of loyalty. No paper in the land is more outspoken, more uncompromising for the Union, for the war, for even the policy of the President’s “great Proclamation.” When the rebellion broke out we did the publishers the injustice of some anxious fears about their probable course on the subject.

Steadily have they kept up with the Providential development of its events and questions; not only abreast of them, but, in important respects, ahead of them. No periodical press in the nation deserves better of the country for its faithfulness and “pluck” in all matters relating to the great struggle. And we should do it injustice were we not to add that, with its outright loyalty and bravery, it combines commanding ability. The editorial leaders which it continuously flings out against all political traitors and flunkies strike directly at their mark. They are evidently from pens both strong and polished. On even the astuter subjects of policy, finance, &c., it is eminently able. And it makes no mistake in supposing its readers capable of an interest and of intelligence in these respects. American families look keenly into such questions, and with such a really educational force as this paper wields, it is especially right and commendable that it seeks to elevate the common mind to the higher questions of the times. The American people will not fail to notice and to remember the courageous and patriotic course of Harper’s Weekly in these dark times of hideous treason, and of more hideous, because more contemptible, semi-treason.––The Methodist, N.Y.


TERMS.

One Copy for Four Months $1 00
One Copy for One Year 3 00
Two Copies for One Year 5 50
“Harper’s Weekly” and “Harper’s Magazine” one year 5 50

An Extra Copy of either the Weekly or Magazine will be supplied gratis for every Club of Ten Subscribers, at $275 each; or, Eleven Copies for $2750.


Transcriber's Note

The author’s archaic spelling is preserved, including creative Spanish spelling such as “Guantamano” and “Hasta huego”.

The author’s punctuation style is preserved.

Hyphenation has been made consistent.

A Table of Contents and List of Illustrations have been added.

In addition to making hyphenation consistent, the following changes were made to the original text:

Page 18: Escondide standardized to Escondido (Why, madame, it is only a week ago that a lot of us dined with him at his estate of Escondido)

Page 19: Added quote (he continued, turning toward the skipper, as the clear sound of the cruiser’s bell struck his ear, “I must not forget what I came for.”)

Page 29: Added tilde (“El Doctor SeÑor, con tres de nosotros.”)

Page 34: Removed extra end quote from “ho!” (sputtered the ruffian, as he pulled a pistol from his belt, “ho! you mean fight, do ye?”)

Page 49: Removed accent from “e” (‘Bueno!’ There’s more fish in the sea––and under it too!)

Page 85: Changed from single quote (“But the best of the joke was, the moment he spoke)

Page 86: Added accent (In the centre arose a huge Épergne of silver, fashioned into the shape of a drooping palm-tree)

Page 92: Added tilde (“And the seÑorita’s too, I think,”)

Page 136: Removed dash from money––you (I wouldn’t remain another hour in this filthy hole for all the money you have cheated me out of, you old rascal.)

Page 166: hirtling changed to hurtling (No more pauses or lulls now in the hurtling tempest)

Page 185: epaulettes standardized to epaulets (in cocked hat, full-dress coat, a pair of gleaming epaulets, sword by his hip, and his nether limbs cased in white knee-breeches)

Page 205: Added quote (“Well, gentlemen, for some weeks after these occurrences we sailed about the islands)

Page 205: Mosquito standardized to Musquito (The orders were to beat up the south side of Cuba, where we expected to fall in with the Musquito fleet and some English vessels)

Page 225: is changed to its (A minute later, all that was left of the shattered hull fell broadside into the open fangs of the ledge, which ground it with its merciless jaws into toothpicks.)

Page 252: Removed repeated “at all” (he didn’t like his looks at all, though he did make himself so fascinating to the beautiful widow who sat next him)

Page 261: believeing changed to believing (as there is much reason for believing he did––with great disgust, on board the dirty, dumpy old ballahoo)

Page 284: tholl-pins changed to thole-pins (The sweeps paused, the hide gromets resting on the thole-pins, and the water raining from their broad blades.)


*******

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