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Title: Emmanuel Appadocca; or, Blighted life, Volume 2 (of 2)
        A tale of the boucaneers

Author: Maxwell Philip

Release date: February 7, 2025 [eBook #75314]

Language: English

Original publication: London: Charles J. Skeet, Publisher, 1854

Credits: Emmanuel Ackerman and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EMMANUEL APPADOCCA; OR, BLIGHTED LIFE, VOLUME 2 (OF 2) ***

Transcriber’s Note: Obvious printing errors have been corrected. Original
period spelling, though, has been maintained. There are two CHAPTER
XXIIIs.




                           EMMANUEL APPADOCCA;
                                   OR,
                              BLIGHTED LIFE.

                        A TALE OF THE BOUCANEERS.

                                    BY
                             MAXWELL PHILIP.

                  Φεῦ. ὦ μῆτερ ἥτις ἐκ τυραννικῶν δόμων
                  δούλειον ἦμαρ εἶδες, ὡς πράσσεις κακῶς,
                  ὅσονπερ εὖ ποτ᾽· ἀντισηκώσας δέ σε
                  φθείρει θεῶν τις τῆς πάροιθ᾽ εὐπραξίας.

                                               EURIPIDES.

                             IN TWO VOLUMES.
                                 VOL. II.

                                 LONDON:
                       CHARLES J. SKEET, PUBLISHER,
                 10, KING WILLIAM STREET, CHARING CROSS.

                                MDCCCLIV.




EMMANUEL APPADOCCA;

OR,

BLIGHTED LIFE.

A TALE OF THE BOUCANEERS.




CHAPTER XVI.

    “O conspiracy!
    Shamest thou to show thy dangerous brow by night
    When evils are most free?”

                                        JULIUS CÆSAR.


The small cutter that was carrying Agnes and the other captives held her
course towards the land.

It could not but occur to the priest and to his ward, unaccustomed as
they were to encounter dangers, that their position was one which was in
itself highly, if not imminently perilous. There they were, thrown in an
open vessel on the ocean, and sent on a voyage which was to consist of
three days’ or more beating up against the wind and the waves, while
their little vessel was every moment subjected to the accidents of a very
tedious and difficult navigation.

These thoughts were the more forcibly thrust upon the priest, when after
the lapse of a day, and on the approach of night, it was to be perceived
that no progress towards the land had been made. The little cutter had
tossed about on the high billows, had tacked and re-tacked, still at
the close of the day she was not much nearer the end of her voyage than
when she was thrown off by the schooner. Under the influence of these
thoughts, the priest lost much of his cheerful equanimity. He looked
concerned, and his conversation did not flow so freely as it was wont to
do. Perhaps this was a happy accident for Agnes; for that young lady,
apparently disinclined to speak or to listen, still leaned over the side
of the cutter, and, from time to time, cast a side-long look at the
schooner that was sailing away in another direction.

The first night of the voyage came, and augmented still more the alarm
of the priest. He felt his isolation among the other men whose pursuits
and habits were different from his, and now freely allowed his mind to
conjure up fears of assassination and robbery. To add to his suspicions,
the sailors of the captured ship seemed to herd closely together, and to
sympathise but little with their fellow passengers. The master fisherman,
true to his promise, paid the greatest attention both to the sailing of
his little vessel, and to the safety and comparative comfort of those who
had been placed under his especial care.

When the sun, that true and never disordered timekeeper of the tropics,
had on the next morning illumined the ocean, the first thought and first
action of Agnes, was to cast her eyes around and survey the horizon.
Nothing was to be seen; the Black Schooner had disappeared. Scarcely
believing her eyes, she looked and looked again; it was as the eyes
made it out, and not as the wish would have it; there was no vessel to
be seen. Dejected, wretched, sad, and disappointed, she suspended her
further survey, and began again to contemplate the blue waters that was
rushing pass the jumping cutter. A sad feeling was that of Agnes, the
feeling which arises when we lose the last memento of some dear and
cherished creature: the memento which, in the absence of the object that
it recalls to our memory, receives, perhaps, the same amount of worship
as the being itself which it represents. Whatever be the nature of such
a token, it is all the same: a golden toy, a lock of hair, a favourite
pin, a prayer-book, these are amply sufficient to strike up within us
the active feelings of grief-clothed happiness, and to awake anew the
recollections of periods whose real and unbroken felicity never permitted
us to contemplate or fear a change. To lose one of these imaging toys,
is the breaking away of the last link that binds us, in one way at
least, to the objects which they symbolize. On such sad occasions the
heart is stricken with a prophetic fear, which like the canker-worm ever
afterwards eats deeply, and more deeply into our spirits, until there is
nothing more to eat away.

Agnes felt this when she could no longer see the Black Schooner. As long
as she could gaze on the vessel, there was still a little consolation,
or, perhaps her grief was still subdued, but when that vessel disappeared
from her view, it reached its height and preyed upon her without
mitigation. Who has not stood on the sea-washed strand and watched the
careering ship that was bearing away father, lover, or child, and felt
his tears restrained as long as a waving handkerchief could convey the
ardour of a last “farewell,” but who, a few moments after, experienced
the bitter misery that followed, when the ship had disappeared from
the view, when an unsympathising horizon had veiled in silence and in
obscurity his lost and lonely friends, and his damp spirits were left
free to recoil upon themselves? What person is there, who in the hey-day
of existence, at the age when the heart is fresh, and the spirits are
high, when necessity intervened to drive him away from among friends and
relatives, has not felt the pang of separation more and more as every
familiar object was, one by one, left behind, and gradually disappeared
from his view.

“Agnes, you are sad,” said the priest, who notwithstanding his own
anxiety, and disquiet of mind, could not but mark the unsettled and
unhappy state of his ward.

“Not very, sir,” the young lady replied, “though our present condition is
not the most pleasant.”

“Truly not,” answered the priest, “still we must hope that we shall
soon arrive on land. Recollect, that, although we are not now very
comfortable, we are still on a voyage towards home, and that thought
ought to support us under greater inconveniences than the present.”

“Yes,” replied Agnes, “we are returning home, and that is a comfort....
How beautiful this water is,” she continued, falling naturally into that
romantic train which was necessarily called forth by the present state
of her sentiments, “how remarkably beautiful are those blue waters, and
how pure and transparent is that thin foam which now fringes yon crystal
wave!”

“All the works of the Creator are beautiful, my child,” answered the
priest.

“Yes,” continued Agnes, “and the ocean is so still and quiet: who could
ever imagine that it contained so many terrible monsters.”

“True;” remarked the priest, “surfaces, my child, are, alas! too
frequently deceptive. For instance, take the appearance of the ocean this
beautiful and blessed morning; it looks as pure and unspotted as when
the sun first dawned upon it on the fourth day of creation; still, how
many murderous deeds have there not been done upon it since that time,
and over how many wrecks of human fabrics has it not rolled? If we could
penetrate its depth, and see its bed, we should probably behold the
skeletons of the fierce Caraibs that first inhabited this part of the
world, and their rude instruments of war, blended confusedly together
with the bones and elaborate weapons of their more polished conquerors;
while the large fishes that still hold possession of their medium of
existence, now peer with meaningless eyes into the naked skulls, or
rummage for their food the rotting wrecks of the bristling war-vessels
that once rode these seas.”

Agnes felt thankful for this long and solemn observation, which gave her
time to think on one of the vessels that had not as yet become a wreck
beneath the ocean.

After a pause, the priest continued:

“This basin over which we are now sailing, my dear Agnes, may have once
been high and dry land, and the islands which are scattered about in this
horse-shoe fashion, may have been—.”

“Stop, sare,” interrupted the master fisherman, who the reader may
recollect was constituted the captain and proprietor of the cutter
when it was dispatched from the schooner, and who was now sitting
between Agnes and the priest, steering the boat, “stop, sare,” he said,
endeavouring to make himself understood in English, “me wees hear
something they say there,” and he made an almost imperceptible sign
towards the bows of the cutter, where the sailors of the captured ship
were sitting together, and speaking among themselves in a sort of half
whisper. The master fisherman’s attention had been attracted towards them
by a few words which he had overheard, and being suspicious lest they
should presume upon their numerical strength, and make an attempt to take
possession of the cutter, he was anxious to make himself acquainted with
their plans in order to anticipate them.

“We will never get ashore at this rate, Bill,” said one sailor to another.

“I’ll be d—n—d, if we will,” answered the other, “what the devil does
that d—n—d jack Spaniole know about steering a boat.”

“Don’t speak so loud,” whispered another.

“He don’t understand English, and I don’t care if he did,” answered the
other.

“Yes, I think it is a devilish hard case,” joined in another, “that we
should be obliged to sit here and let that fellow, who don’t know a jib
from a paddle-box, steer the boat.”

“What do you say if we take the management, my hearties?” inquired a
lean, long-featured individual.

“Hum,” groaned one.

“Suppose we do?” inquired another.

They whispered still lower among themselves for a moment.

“I say, you sir—you sir, keep her off, will you, don’t you see the wind
is right a-head?” shouted one to the master fisherman, in a tone of
derision.

“Keep her head up, Mr. Spaniole, d’ye hear? don’t you see the wind is
turning her round?” cried another.

These insults seemed lost on the master fisherman, for he took them with
marvellous fortitude.

“My good men,” said the priest, “forbear: consider where we are, and
under what circumstances we are placed; pray, do no not endeavour to
cause any quarrel.”

“Mind your own business, parson, will you?” shouted a bolder sailor than
the others, “it is you who already prevents us going any faster; so, if
you don’t wish to be sent to Davy Jones, hold your tongue.”

The priest became now quite alarmed:

“Do not answer them,” he whispered to the fisherman.

“Hollo! there; ready about,” continued one of the sailors, apparently
bent on provoking a quarrel, “ready about,” and he proceeded to let go
the jib-sheet.

The master fisherman now quickly stood up, with the marks of anger
already becoming visible in his eyes.

“Stop, or me kill you,” he cried, while he levelled one of the pistols,
with which he was armed, at the audacious sailor.

“Kill him, will you,” simultaneously shouted two of the sailors, and
rushed together towards the stern of the cutter, “kill him, will you, you
cut-throat Spaniard?”

The master fisherman stood firm where he was. He now held both of the
pistols, which Appadocca had given him, and raising them to a small
distance before him, awaited the two men.

Undeterred by the weapons, they rushed on.

“Stop for your life!” cried the master fisherman, highly excited.

“Be reasonable men,” cried the priest, as he also stood up to defend
himself.

The men came on;—flash,—a report—and the bullet pierced the foremost
one. He fell into the bottom of the cutter, and rolled over the master
fisherman’s other man, who had been wrapped in sleep in that part from
the very moment that he had got into the cutter.

“Hon!” he groaned and awoke, as the sailor that was shot rolled heavily
upon him, when, seeing the blood, he jumped up.

The shrieks of Agnes, the fierce and deep Spanish oaths of the master
fisherman at once told him how matters stood. He grasped the first of the
sailors that came within his reach, and wrestled with him. Both fell into
the bottom of the cutter, and rolled about on the ballast.

The quarrel had now assumed a serious aspect; furious at the death of
their comrade, the other sailors rushed to the stern of the cutter. The
master fisherman discharged the other pistol: it told, another sailor
fell. But the shot was no sooner fired, than one of the two other
sailors, closed with the master fisherman. They wrestled: each pressed
successively his adversary on the side of the cutter, endeavouring to
throw him overboard; but they were well matched: their strength was
equal: now, the master fisherman was down, and seemed to be about to be
thrown overboard; now he had the sailor down in the same position. Both
fought with desperation, and clung with the pertinacity of iron to the
side of the vessel. The cutter, having no one to steer it, had flown into
the wind, its sails were flapping, and its boom was swinging violently,
from one side to the other. The master fisherman was now down; over,
over, the sailor was gradually pressing him; his grasp began to relax:
he was bending farther towards the water; the sailor raised himself a
little, so that he might have a better purchase to strike the final blow:
as he did so, the boom swung violently, and struck him on the temple,
with a great splash, he fell a yard or two into the water. The master
fisherman quickly rose, and went to the assistance of the priest, who had
met the attack of the remaining sailor, and was now holding him down in
the bottom of the cutter. The master fisherman clutched a stone, and in
his passion, was going to dash out the brains of the prostrate sailor.

“Hold!” cried the priest, “no more violence: bring a rope, and let us tie
him.”

The master fisherman drew back his arm, and let fall the stone. Even in
his fury he felt the force of his natural veneration. He brought a rope,
and tied the sailor down.

“Do the same to the other,” said the priest, now almost exhausted by his
effort, “tie him too.”

The remaining sailor, who was still languidly rolling at the bottom of
the cutter, with the fisherman, was next pinioned.

“See now to the wounded,” said the priest, who now, when his first terror
was over, displayed great presence of mind.

The two men who had been shot were examined. They still breathed,
although their wounds were very serious.

The attention of the priest was now turned towards Agnes, who sat almost
petrified with fear in the place where she was.

“Thank God, this danger is also past,” said the priest to her, “I must be
guilty of some grievous sin, indeed,” continued the good father, “to have
thus drawn down upon us the chastisement of Providence. Twice have we
passed through bloodshed and death, and who knows what new perils we may
still have to encounter before we reach Trinidad.”

“Yes: and when shall we reach it? It looks as if we were never to get
back,” and Agnes was overwhelmed by a multiplicity of different feelings.

“Let me see,” said the priest, “I think it would be easier to proceed
straight towards it, than to be beating about on these seas.”

“Have you any object to go to Granada in preference to any other place?”
he inquired of the master fisherman, who had now adjusted the sails of
the cutter, and resumed the tiller.

“No, he had not,” was the reply: “he was endeavouring to make that island
because it was the nearest land indicated to him by the pirate captain.”

“Would it not be easier to sail at once to Trinidad?” again asked the
priest.

“Most decidedly,” was the answer; “the distance was greater, it was
true,” added the master fisherman, but that was overbalanced by the
fairness of the wind, because they would then be able to sail with a free
sheet and should gain Trinidad within an infinitely shorter space of time
than it would take to make Granada, by beating up against the wind from
the position in which they then were.

“Then let us steer to Trinidad,” said the priest.

“Very well,” replied the master fisherman.

The cutter was kept off, the sheets and tacks were slackened, and the
little vessel, now feeling the full force of the wind began to tear
through the water.

Away, away, it went. During day and during night the master fisherman sat
gravely at the tiller; neither fatigue nor want of sleep could induce him
to entrust for a moment the command of the little vessel to his man; “He
had taken an oath,” he said to the priest, when he requested him to take
some rest.

It was on a beautiful morning when the priest and Agnes, on awaking from
their uncomfortable slumbers, beheld themselves within the Gulf of Paria.

They looked with highly-pleased astonishment at the master fisherman, who
wearied and worn, still sat at the rudder. He returned the glance with
the same visible contentment and pleasure.

“We are indebted to you, my good fisherman, for your incomparable conduct
towards us. We shall scarcely be ever able to show you sufficient
gratitude,” he said.

“Not at all: we must deal well towards those who conduct themselves in a
proper manner to us,” said the fisherman, in the best manner he could;
“now I am at home again; I am on my own gulf,—where do you wish to be
landed, sir?”

“Land us wherever you please: we will be always able to make our way to
Cedros,” answered the priest.

“To Cedros? I shall take you there at once,” answered the master
fisherman, and then turned the cutter’s head to that part of the island.

“Agnes,” whispered the priest, “I have always found much that is to be
admired in the humbler classes; they require but proper treatment, as all
other men do.”

“This seems to be a very worthy man,” replied Agnes, more in respect to
the priest than from any desire to converse, for Agnes had ceased to be
over communicative since the capture of the vessel in which she had been
a passenger.

The sugar-cane fields arose more conspicuous and beautiful to the view
as the vessel drew nearer and nearer to the land; and within a few hours
Agnes arrived on the plantation and was locked in the affectionate
embrace of her aged father.




CHAPTER XVII.

    “And winds of all the corners kissed your sails
    To make your vessel nimble.”

                                          CYMBELINE.

    “Had not their bark been very slow of sail.”

                              COMEDY OF ERRORS.


The grey dawn of the morning found the crew of the man-of-war busily at
work. The unwieldly machines clanked and reclanked as the sturdy sailors
heartily threw their whole strength upon them, in raising the heavy sails
and weighty anchor.

As soon as there was sufficient light to see, watches, who were provided
with the most powerful telescopes, were sent up to the very top of the
tall masts to survey the horizon, in order to discover, if possible,
the pirate vessel, which was supposed to be hovering about at no great
distance.

After a careful survey, the report was made, that far out to leeward
there was a sail—that it was apparently a vessel which was lying to.

“Look again,” shouted out the officer of the watch, “what is she like? is
she square-rigged?”

“No, your honor.”

“What sort of a thing is she?”

“She looks to be a fore-and-aft, your honor.”

Willmington was called, and, on being required to do so, gave the best
description he could of the pirate vessel.

“It is likely the same vessel,” the officer remarked, after he had heard
Willmington.

“Cheerily, men, look active.”

The sailors scarcely required any exhortation. They went through their
work with more than ordinary good-will. In the first place, the idea
of something like active service excited them, for they felt oppressed
under the ennui of leisurely sailing from one port to another; and they
longed to chastise the rash temerity of those degraded wretches who had
the insolence to make an attempt of rescuing a prisoner from their lordly
ship.

The majestic structure, therefore, was soon put in motion, and was now
to be seen sailing magnificently before the wind. Gradually it gained
on what was at first distant and obscure. As the ship drew nearer and
nearer to it, the vessel grew more and more distinct, and could now be
clearly made out as a long, low, rakish schooner. It was, in fact, the
Black Schooner.

The huge vessel-of-war approached nearer and still nearer, but the
schooner remained still stationary where she was. The sailors of the
man-of-war prepared for action with enthusiasm. They could easily judge,
from the shape of the schooner, and its peculiar rig, that she was the
vessel of a pirate, if not of the pirate of whom they had so often heard.
They saw their prize before them. The schooner, they thought, must yield
to the superior strength of the man-of-war, and her conquest would be
the easiest thing in the world. Besides, the little vessel could not
but perceive their approach, and as she did not sail away, they argued
there must needs be some cause, either mutiny or some other disagreement
on board, which neutralized the authority of those in power, and which,
consequently, would make her a still easier prize. They prepared their
guns, on this account, with the keenest alacrity and lightness of heart,
for men are always the more enthusiastic and brave when they are pretty
well assured that they can command success.

The large vessel sailed down on the small schooner, that was still lying
to, the standard of England was already waving from the spanker, the men
were standing at their several stations, and the commander himself, who
had now come on deck, was anxiously waiting until he came within gun-shot
of the schooner, to signal her to surrender. The ship drew still closer,
the order was given to make ready to fire, when ... like the shadowy
fleetness of a dream, the masts of the Black Schooner at once became
clothed in canvass, the black ensign with the cross bones and skull ran
up the line on her gaff in chilling solemnity, while on the top of her
raking masts floated two long pendant flags as red as blood, and the
sharp vessel began to glide like a serpent silently over the waters.

Fearful of losing his prize, which was well-nigh within his reach, the
commander of the ship-of-war observing the movements of the little
vessel, quickly gave the order to fire. A loud and rending report of
several guns at once echoed over the waves, and the shots dipped, and
dipped, and dipped again, and fell harmless within a short distance of
the schooner. The flag of the pirate schooner was lowered and hoisted,
lowered and hoisted, lowered and hoisted again, in derision, as she
steadily held her course. Another discharge ... and the shots sank as
harmless as before: again the pirates lowered and hoisted their flags.

Every sail was set on the unwieldly ship, and her enormous studding-sails
covered her yards and booms. Her hull could scarcely be seen, under the
vast sheets that shaded her. The waves boiled up on each side of her
bows, and like a whale, furious with a wound, she left behind her a wake
of foam.

The Black Schooner glided along like a slender gar. Confident of the
fleetness of their vessel, the pirates seemed inclined to mock the large
and threatening fabric that was pursuing them. Ever and anon they changed
their tack, and the vessel itself, which seemed to anticipate their
wishes, played gracefully on the blue surface.

When all the ship’s studding-sails were set, and she was sailing rapidly
before the wind, they would suddenly change their course, and draw their
obedient vessel as close as possible up to the wind. As soon again as the
man-of-war went through the labour of taking in her superfluous sails,
again they would change their course. Now they shortened their sails, and
then, as the ship gained on them, they had them up again as if by magic.
Now they sailed away to a great distance, and then tacked and returned as
if to meet and brave the pursuers; all the time, however, they kept out
of the reach of the man-of-war’s guns with astonishing precision.

The chase continued thus the whole day, until night came and veiled
pursuer and pursued.

Vexed with disappointment, and irritated by the taunts of the pirates,
the commander of the man-of-war ordered the sails to be taken in, and the
vessel to be luffed up into the wind. The order was immediately obeyed,
and the crew, in thorough disgust, went away from the station to which
they had that morning rushed with so much buoyancy.

It was, indeed, sufficient, to try the moral fortitude of the
most philosophical. On one side there was a large heavy vessel,
of size sufficiently huge to have crushed two such vessels as the
pirate-schooner, from mere contact: on the other was that small and light
vessel, which could be so easily destroyed, but which, notwithstanding
the most eager desire on the part of the commander and crew to capture
her, had so tantalizingly escaped them. After the continued chase of
a whole day, the large vessel had proved as impotent and as incapable
of carrying out their wishes, as a piece of floating timber; and
what was still more galling, they had, in addition, been exposed to
the most annoying derision of the pirates. Worse again, there was no
probability of her being able, at any time, to overtake the schooner;
for it was too clear that their large vessel could not sail so fast as
she. The only chance of their capturing her was, in their taking her
by surprise, an event which could not be reasonably calculated upon,
when the pirates exhibited so much prudence and precision. The sailors,
therefore, doggedly retired to their respective cots, muttering all the
while, strong and complicated oaths against the individual who built the
fast-sailing schooner.

As for the commander himself, he bore the disappointment with the less
dumb patience, as the discipline of the ship did not bind him down to
so much silence, as it did the crew. He fumed only as seamen can fume,
and vowed, in the extremity of his anger, that he would perpetrate,
Heaven only knew, what extent of cruelty,—which he never meant,—upon the
insolent pirates, if he once had them in his power.

When calmer moments, however, succeeded to his wrathful feelings of
disappointment, he began to think deeply on the course which it was
prudent to adopt, in order to have a probable chance of capturing or
destroying the schooner. The batteries and the crew of the ship, he
rightly concluded, were of no use against an enemy that was sufficiently
wise and experienced always to keep beyond the range of his guns; and, as
for overtaking the schooner, it was a matter of absolute impossibility.
He could decide on no clear plan. He, therefore, resolved, in that
conjuncture, to sail about in those parts under little canvass, and trust
to accident for a means of capturing the pirate vessel. The ship was,
therefore, kept under only a part of her sails that whole night, and she
moved almost imperceptibly.

At the first dawn of the next morning, watches were sent up the masts,
and the horizon was carefully surveyed in search of the enemy which
night had shrouded. Nothing was to be seen. The watch was, nevertheless,
continued.

About four hours after sunrise, a vessel could be barely distinguished
on the horizon. It was steering in the direction of the man-of-war. It
rapidly approached, and as it drew nearer and nearer, it was discovered
to be a long, low, sharp-built brig, with white port-holes, apparently a
Mediterranean trader. She sailed so fast, that within three hours from
the time when she was first discovered, she was opposite the large ship.
She passed her at a short distance, but beyond the range of her guns.

The man-of-war immediately hoisted her ensign as a signal to the brig to
show her colours; in answer to this signal, the strange vessel hoisted
the Mexican flag.

The extraordinary speed of the strange brig, her low hull, the more than
ordinary symmetry of her make and rigging, could not pass unobserved.
They at once attracted the notice, and called forth the admiration of
the sailors on board of the man-of-war; and leaning carelessly on the
bulwarks, they were studying the beautiful brig before them, and were
viewing her with the delight that seamen experience when they see a fine
vessel.

“If that ain’t that ere identical pirate customer as we chased
yesterday,” said an old grey-headed sailor, gravely, as he stood looking
at her, “it’s one of the same sort, I know.”

“What are you saying, now,” asked a young man next to him.

“Why, the vessel we chased yesterday was a fore-and-aft schooner, and
this one is a brig: where are your eyes?”

“Is this all you know?” inquired the old tar, indifferently, with a
slight satirical smile. “Well, let me tell you, younker, that them ere
customers change their skins, just like snakes, by G—d; and these eyes of
mine that you inquire of, winked at a sou-wester long before you knowed
what was what, my boy,” and the old seaman walked away to attend to some
passing occupation, while, from time to time, he cast a stealthy look
from under his spreading straw hat, at the vessel he seemed to hold in
suspicion.

This feeling towards the Mexican brig was not confined to the common
sailors alone: all seamen have an eye for the beautiful in ships. The
commander himself was struck by the remarkably fine proportions of the
vessel. He interrupted his habitual walk to gaze at her.

“A fine craft that is, Charles,” said he to his son.

“Yes, sir,” replied the latter, “a very beautiful model.”

“Look at her run, what a beautiful stern, and how sharp at the bows!”
continued the old gentleman, with enthusiasm.

“And how remarkably fast she sails, too,” rejoined Charles.

“Hum!” remarked the old gentlemen, “she seems very light to be a trader.”

“It strikes me so, too,” replied Charles.

“The merchant who could have built that vessel to carry cocoa and coffee,
must have been a very great fool, Charles,” continued the commander,
still looking at the tidy brig that was sailing away magnificently before
him.

“Yes, sir.”

“I begin to have my suspicions, Charles,” resumed the commander, after a
pause, “that Mexican flag protects many a rascal: I shall make the fellow
heave to.”

So saying, he ordered a gun to be fired, as a signal to the brig to lie
to. The report of the huge machine of destruction rang over the waters,
and the shot skipped the waves and sank. The suspicious brig paid no
attention to it, but held her course, and, in four hours’ time, went out
of sight, leaving the commander in now stronger suspicion with regard to
her nature and character, and, in a furious rage into which he was thrown
by the cool contempt with which his command was treated. He looked at the
brig that was leaving his vessel behind, as if the latter was at anchor,
and fretted, when he considered that his large ship was unable to enforce
his order on account of its comparative slowness. With greater impatience
than reason he looked only at what was, for the moment, a defect in the
large man-of-war, and forgot, at the time, that if the two small vessels
which had so mortified him, those two consecutive days, had over his ship
the accident of speed, she, in her turn, possessed the infinitely more
serviceable advantage of greater strength and more heavy metal.

“Well, younker,” said the same old sailor of the morning, to the same
young man who had doubted his penetration, “well, younker, what do you
think of that ere customer now, eh? He has the wind in his maintopsail,
has’nt he? and seems to have plenty of pride of his own, and won’t speak
to nobody. Ay, ay, them customers, never throw away words or shots, I
know. Come, younker, I’ll give you another wrinkle,” continued the old
tar.

“Well, let’s have it?”

“Mark my word,” continued the old sailor, in a low and mysterious tone,
“if you don’t see that ere customer again, before long, my name is not
what it is, I know,” and winking impressively on his hearers, he rolled
away chuckling with self-satisfaction.

The man-of-war continued there the remaining portion of that day and the
night which ensued: nothing happened, during that period of time, to
relieve the longing anxiety of the man-of-war’s people.

The next morning the usual watches were again sent up the masts. About
noon, a vessel came in sight. It was steering, like the one of the
previous day, directly towards the man-of-war; and seemed to approach her
with an equal degree of speed. As she drew nearer and nearer, she was
made out to be a light brigantine, such as those that are to be seen on
the Mediterranean. Strange, however, the hull and make seemed to be the
same as those of the vessel spoken the day before: but the new comer,
instead of painted port-holes, had but a plain white streak.

The men evinced the same admiration for this “craft,” to use their own
term, as they did for the one of the day before. There was, however,
such a striking similarity in the hulls of the two vessels, that their
admiration soon gave place to a feeling of mixed surprise and suspicion.

“What can those two crafts be?” they mutually asked each other.

“They are men-of-war,” some answered: “but where are the port-holes of
this customer?”

“By jingo! I think they are pleasure boats,” said one.

“Oh, no, they look to me like Malaga boats,” said another.

“But they are of the same make,” observed a third.

“Ay, ay, don’t you see they are sister-vessels, fools, and are on the
same voyage?” said another, gravely, who, up to that time, had maintained
unbroken silence, and had, with the aid of a serious aspect, looked
wisdom itself.

“Ay, that’s it, that’s it,” they all cried, at this suggestion, “they
belong to the same owner, and are on the same voyage.”

All seemed to concur in this opinion, except the same old sailor, who, on
the previous day, regarded the Mexican brig with so much suspicion. He
seemed to entertain doubts about this new vessel, as he did with regard
to the other.

“Well, younker, what do you think of this fresh gentleman, now?” he
said, satirically, to the unfortunate young man who had offended his
self-esteem, and who seemed now to be entirely devoted to the revengeful
ridicule of that elder son of Neptune.

“Don’t know,” was the crabbed reply.

“Don’t know, eh? you will know, perhaps, when them young eyes of yours
have squinted oftner at the sun, my hearty, hi, hi, hi!”

The brigantine drew nearer and nearer, and seemed carefully to measure
the same distance at which the brig of the day before had passed. She
came with her sails filled with the fresh breeze, and was passing the
man-of-war, when one of the heavy guns of the large vessel was fired. The
shot fell across the brigantine’s bows, but at some distance from her.

Her sails still bellied with the wind; she still skipped along, and the
beautiful and pure white wavelets of foam still swelled on each of her
sides.

“Who the devil you may be, I shall have you to-day,” said the commander,
looking intently fierce at the brigantine. “Give him another shot.”

Another deafening report was heard, and the grey smoke shrouded for a
moment the dark riggings of the war-vessel, and then grew thinner and
thinner, and rose above her masts.

A moment after, four flags ran up the peak of the brigantine.

“Ho! read what the fellow says, Mr. Cypher,” cried the commander, with no
small degree of excitement, “he hears what we can say, I see.”

Mr. Cypher took the telescope.

“Y,” he said, “O,” he continued, “U,”—“YOU,” he proclaimed, with a loud
voice.

“Hoist the answering pendant:” it was done.

The first four flags of the brigantine were now lowered, and four others
hoisted in their place.

“A,” proceeded Mr. Cypher, deciphering the new signal, “R,”
“E,”—“ARE,”—“you are.”

“Hoist the answering pendant:” it was done again.

The four flags were again lowered on board the brigantine, and four new
ones were again hoisted. They were read, and were found to signify ‘too.’

“What can the fellow want to say?” inquired the commander, vaguely:
“answer his signal.”

The signal was answered, and other flags were again hoisted on board the
brigantine. When all the signals were taken together, they read—

“You are too far, your guns don’t carry.”

While at the conclusion of the process of exchanging signals, the broad
black flag, with its head and bones, was spread over the mainsail.

“The rascals,” muttered the old commander, as he moved away from the
bulwarks, with indignant disgust, “it is the same set, may the devil take
them!”

“Ha, younker, what d’you see now, eh? You will believe old Jack Gangway
another time, I know,” said the same old sailor, who all along had been
so knowing and so suspicious.

“Crack on, crack on,” cried the old commander, “and haul your wind, we
may edge up to her on a close bowline, and let her feel our metal.”

All the sails of the large vessel were now set. She was drawn closely to
the wind, and leaned under the fresh breeze.

No sooner was this manœuvre completed, than the brigantine’s sails were
also trimmed, her long yards were braced sharp; her vast mainsail was
pulled in almost on a line with her rudder, and her head was put almost
into the point of the wind itself, or, as seamen would designate it,
into the “eye of the wind,” her stern was turned to the ship-of-war, and
as she gradually left the latter behind, other four flags ran along the
signal line. When read they said—

“Au revoir.”

And the black flag rose and fell, rose and fell again, at the mocking
ceremony, that was intended to accompany this salutation.

This chase continued the rest of the day. The hours quickly fleeted by,
and when gauzy twilight had shed its soothing and dreamy haze around, a
few waves of the pirate’s flag, might still be dimly perceived, like the
trembling of the phantom—leaves of dream; and then darkness spread its
shrouding mantle over the ocean.

       *       *       *       *       *

The sun had risen, the man-of-war was lying-to under one or two sails,
the others had been taken in during the night; at some distance in the
direction, in which the brigantine had disappeared, a vessel, apparently
a wreck, was to be seen. She was a barque: portions of her masts were
broken away; her rigging was slack, loose, and dry; her racketty yards
waved from one direction to the other, as she clumsily rolled into the
trough of the sea, or rose heavily on its crest. Their braces dangled
loosely and neglectedly about, and either dragged overboard, or swung
with a spring from one part of the deck to the other. In keeping with
her disordered gear, her hull itself exhibited the greatest neglect and
uncleanliness: the barnacles grew unmolested, to a considerable height,
and the marks of the lee-water from the cuppers, stained her sides. The
few sails which still remained on the unsteady yards were tattered and
worn, and tied up in the oddest manner imaginable. The vessel had her
English ensign tied upside down, in token of distress, on the little that
remained of the mainmast’s rigging: an indication, which was not by any
means required, in as much as the miserable manner in which she rolled
about, was quite sufficient in itself, to tell that she was in a wretched
condition.

As soon as the distressed vessel was perceived, signals were made to her
to launch her boats, and to send alongside; but they seemed to be either
not understood, or the people of the barque had no means of answering
them.

But one solitary individual was to be seen standing on its deck, at the
gangway, and wistfully looking towards the man-of-war.

The commander was not willing to launch any of his boats, he had,
during the three or four days that had lately expired been so much
cheated by pirates, that he was now made more than ordinarily cautious,
and he repeated his signals, and waited many hours, either to have them
answered, or to force the people of the distressed ship to launch their
boat and come alongside his vessel: but neither the one thing or the
other was done.

“These fellows can’t be cheats,” he said, “else they would have sailed
away, though, it strikes me, it would be difficult for them to spread a
sail on those yards of theirs,” said the commander, as his good feelings
began to press upon him.

“They may be starved to death, or ill, have a boat launched, sir,” said
he to the officer, after this short soliloquy, “and let them pull to
those poor fellows. Tell the officer he must not let any of the men go on
board, he may do so himself, if he thinks it necessary.”

Joyfully the true-hearted sailors, eager to succour their suffering
brothers, lowered a boat, which a moment afterwards was bounding away in
the direction of the distressed vessel.

They soon approached near enough to admit of speaking, and at his order,
the men rested on their oars to allow the midshipman in command to hail
the barque.

“What ship is that?” asked the midshipman.

“The Sting,” answered the solitary individual, who was standing at the
gangway.

“Where from, and whither bound?”

“From Pernambuco to Liverpool,” answered the individual.

“What cargo?” demanded the midshipman.

“Cayenne pepper,” answered the individual.

“What is the matter with you?” asked the midshipman.

“Have been boarded by pirates—by a Black Schooner—men cut down in
defending the vessel—the pirates left but me and another man, who is now
ill below—they took away every thing,” answered the individual.

“It must be those same devils of pirates,” whispered the boatmen one to
the other, “who have raked that cove; what fellows they seem to be, we
will singe them some of those days though—be damn’d if we don’t.”

“If you would only let one of your men come on board for a moment to help
me trim the yards, I should be all right,” added the individual at the
gangway.

“Hum!” muttered the young midshipman; “that’s not much, but I fancy, old
boy, you will do yourself no good in setting your sails, unless you wish
the wind to help you take them in. Pull along side, men,” he said, after
a second or two, “I shall go on deck and help him.”

The boat soon boarded the vessel.

“Keep the boat off,” said the officer, as he grasped the ropes of the
steps.

“Ay, ay, sir,” said the boatswain, and the boat was shoved off from the
vessel.

A shrill sound was heard, the apparent sides of the distressed barque
opened, the stern fell heavily into the water, the racketty yards and old
ropes went over the side, and from amidst the wreck of the skeleton ship,
the Black Schooner sprang forth as she felt the power of her snow-white
sails, which, with the rapidity of lightning, had now clothed her tall
masts.

This metamorphosis was so sudden, that the schooner had already begun
to move before the boatmen comprehended the change. They quickly pulled
alongside, and fastened their hooks, but no hand of man could hold them.
They were all torn away by the speed with which the schooner went. Every
man in his turn let go his hold, and the boat, with its angry crew, was
left floating far behind in the wake of the flying schooner.




CHAPTER XVIII.

    “Demand me nothing; what you know you know;
    From this time forth I never will speak word.”

                                         OTHELLO.

    “Torments will ope your lips,”

                            IBID.


After he had been defeated by the untoward accident of the shark in his
attempt to rescue his captive chief, Lorenzo betook himself on board the
schooner, a victim to disappointment and disgust.

He felt irresistibly inclined to break out in the most violent terms,
and hurried down into his cabin as soon as he got on the deck of the
schooner. He then partially gave vent to his feelings by speaking almost
aloud.

“It would have been bearable,” he said, “bearable, if we had fought, and
had been driven back; but to be foiled at the very moment when we were
completing a breach, by a brute of a shark: confound it, and all other
sharks, the brutes!” and thrusting his hand deeply into the bosom of his
coat, he paced rapidly up and down his narrow cabin, while, from time
to time, his lips moved violently as if he were repeating his anathemas
against the particular shark and all the others.

This fit, however, did not continue long.

Schooled under the continual insecurity and danger which attended the
life that he led, in which safety itself demanded the exercise of the
greatest foresight and calmness, he speedily curbed his instinctive
impulses of rage, and immediately began to deliberate with coolness and
precision on the next measures which it was requisite for him to take.

He did not deliberate long. Accustomed to act in the face of danger,
and to oppose his ready resources to sudden contingencies, he never
required much time to debate with himself on the best and most prudent
course to be adopted under unforeseen circumstances of danger. At this
conjuncture, he resolved to watch the man-of-war closely, and to embrace
the very first opportunity either to steal away Appadocca, or to rescue
him at a calculated sacrifice of some of his men. For that purpose, the
schooner was kept in the same position in which she was, until, as we
have seen, the man-of-war made the descent upon her. Lorenzo purposely
awaited the approach of the large vessel, so that he might have the
opportunity of keeping, as he intended, close to the man-of-war. Nothing
ever escaped the disciplined vigilance of the pirates, and although they
seemed to be taken by surprise, still they had their eyes all the time
on the movements of the pursuing vessel; and, as the reader has seen,
disappointed so signally the encouraged expectations of its crew and
commander.

When night had put an end to the chase of that day, Lorenzo put his men
busily at work.

In a few moments, the ordinary sails of the Black Schooner were
symmetrically folded within the smallest imaginable size, and carefully
covered up at the foot of each of the masts, and from under the deck,
yards, cordage, and sails for a square-rigged vessel were brought up,
and, in as short a time, the thin tapering masts were seen garnished
with the numerous ropes, yards, and sails of a full-rigged brig; while,
to complete the metamorphosis, stripes of new canvass were carefully cut
in the shape of the imitation port-holes, which are generally painted on
the sides of merchant vessels, and were closely fastened to the sides of
the Black Schooner, and adjusted in such a careful manner as to conceal
completely the guns of the disguised vessel.

It was in this guise that the Black Schooner passed before the
man-of-war, and showed Mexican colors.

After Lorenzo had closely reconnoitered his pursuer, and had raised the
suspicion which procured him the salute of a gun, he again sailed away
out of sight, and with the same expedition as of the night before, the
mainmast of the apparent brig was immediately divested of its yards, and,
in their places, the sharp sails of a schooner were again set. In the rig
of a brigantine, the Black Schooner again passed before the man-of-war.

But these distant surveys, for caution prevented him from going within
the range of the ship’s guns, were not sufficient to satisfy Lorenzo, who
now began to suffer under the most impatient anxiety with regard to the
safety of his chief and friend.

The brave officer feared, that annoyed by his inability to overtake the
schooner, the commander of the ship might, perhaps, have immediately
ordered the execution of his prisoner; that Appadocca might, by that
time, have been dealt with in the summary manner in which pirates were
usually treated, and had been hanged on the yard-arm without accusation,
hearing, or judgment.

“If so,” cried Lorenzo, as this fear grew more and more upon him, “if so,
I swear, by the living G—d, that I shall burn that large vessel to the
very keel, and shall not spare one, not a single one of its numerous
crew to tell the tale—cost what it may, by G—d, I’ll do it.”

To procure information, therefore, about the fate of one whom he loved
as a brother: and in order to satisfy his doubts, he resolved at once on
taking one or two of the man-of-war’s men, and settled on the expedient
of the distressed barque, with which the reader has just been made
acquainted.

The young midshipman had no sooner laid his foot on the deck of the
disguised schooner, before he was strongly grasped by the powerful arm of
a man who had been carefully concealed behind the false bulwarks of the
skeleton barque, while the voice of Jim Splice—it was the man—whispered
in his ear,—

“Don’t resist, young countryman, all right.”

But as soon as the first impulse of the young officer had passed away,
and he discovered that he was left on board a vessel which presented
an unmistakable appearance of being engaged in some forbidden trade,
and when he saw before him numbers of fierce-looking, armed men, he
struggled for a moment, and succeeded in drawing his sword. But Lorenzo,
the formerly solitary man on the deck of the distressed vessel, calmly
stepped up to him, and said,—

“Young gentleman, be not alarmed, no violence will be done to you:
sheath your sword,” and casting his eyes around on the men, continued,
“you see, it will not be of much service to you against such odds.”

“Who are you?” peevishly inquired the young officer, “what do you intend
to do with me?”

“I shall soon tell you,” replied Lorenzo, “if you will be good enough to
accompany me to my cabin.”

“What cabin? and what to do? You may cut my throat here,” said the
midshipman, angrily.

“Perhaps you would not be so unreasonable,” remarked Lorenzo, softly, “if
you were to hear the little that I have to inquire of you: pray, come
with me.”

“I shall not go with you,” angrily rejoined the midshipman, “I am in the
hands of pirates, I know. You may murder me, where I am, but I shall not
go down with you to any cabin.”

“Then stay where you are,” coolly answered Lorenzo, and he walked away
to the after part of the schooner, and ordered Jim Splice to let go the
young man.

The older sailor relaxed his grasp, but availed himself of the
opportunity which he now had, to whisper in the ears of the midshipman—

“Don’t attempt to crow too high here, shipmate, else you will get the
worst of it, ’d’ye hear?”

And the old tar winked his eye to the young midshipman. The familiar
sign of knowingness contrasted strangely with the terrible moustachios
and beard with which Jim Splice had deemed it characteristic to ornament
his homely and good-natured old face.

In the mean time all sail was set, and the man-of-war was left far
behind. The sailors had now again posted themselves at their regular
stations, and the ordinary quiet had now succeeded to the short
excitement of making sail. The midshipman was still standing in the same
spot where Lorenzo had left him. His anger, however, had evaporated to
a considerable extent, under the wise prescription of leaving the angry
man to himself, which Lorenzo was wise enough to make, and like all men
who are not absolutely fools, the midshipman had thrown off as much as
possible of that wasting and useless attendant—rage, as soon as his first
impulses had somewhat subsided.

Instead of continuing in that dogged sulkiness, in which he had been
left by Lorenzo, he was now examining, with an interested eye, the make,
rigging, and equipment of the strange schooner.

It was at this moment that a steward approached him, and inquired if he
was then at leisure to attend his master in his cabin, and led the way
to the part of the vessel in which that was situated. The midshipman,
without answering, followed. Lorenzo was already there, waiting for him.
The officer politely stood, bowed to the stranger, pointed to a cabin
chair: the midshipman seated himself.

“Before mentioning the business for which I have entrapped you, young
gentleman,” said Lorenzo, “I must tell you, that you need be under no
apprehension as long as you are on board this schooner, and that you
shall receive the proper treatment that one gentleman owes to another,
unless, it is understood, you force us, by your own conduct, to act
otherwise than we usually do.”

“Gentleman! how dare you compare yourself to me, and call yourself a
gentleman?” said the midshipman, with more of impulse than of reason.

Like one who has disciplined his mind to pursue his purposes with a
stedfast straightness which is not to be diverted by any accident, though
not, perhaps, without some disdain for the immoderation of the young man,
the pirate officer heeded not his last remark, but proceeded as if he had
not heard it.

“My purpose for enticing you on board this vessel, is to procure
information about my chief, who is now a prisoner on board the ship to
which you belong. You will be good enough to give clear and categorical
answers to the questions which I shall put to you.”

This was said in a firm, although cool tone.

“What? do you imagine,” inquired the young officer, with scorn, “I am
going to tell to a pirate what takes place on board a vessel in which I
have the honor to serve? By Jove, no!—it is hard enough to be kidnapped
by a set of rascals, without being asked to play traitor and spy, to
boot. But—”

“Cease this nonsense,” interposed Lorenzo, “you waste time, answer me
first, is Appadocca alive?”

“I shall not give you any information,” peevishly replied the young
officer.

“I do not see,” remarked Lorenzo, mildly, and almost paternally, “I do
not see that it can possibly affect your honor if you give me a very
simple answer to a very simple question. I ask, if Emmanuel Appadocca is
alive?”

“I shall answer you nothing,” said the midshipman, insultingly.

“Shall answer me nothing,” calmly echoed Lorenzo, while, like the still
and steady terrors of an earthquake, the signs of anger were now fast
gathering on his brow. He reflected a moment.

“Young man,” he said firmly, “men do not usually speak with negatives to
me, or such as I am. You seem disposed to run great risks—risks, of the
nature of which you are not, perhaps, aware. Let me caution you again;
I put my former question,—is the captain of this schooner, who is now a
prisoner on board the ship to which you belong, alive and safe?”

“I have said I shall answer none of your questions,” replied the
midshipman, “trouble me no more.”

The pirate officer rose, and drew forth a massive gold watch.

“You see,” said he, pointing to the time-piece, “that the minute-hand
is now on twelve, when it reaches the spot which marks the
quarter-of-an-hour, I shall expect an answer. In the meantime make your
reflections. If you wish for any refreshment speak to the man outside,
and you shall have whatever you desire.” So saying, the officer rose,
made a slight bow, and left the cabin.

The young officer being left alone, seemed by no means inclined to
trouble himself about the last speech of the pirate officer. He moved
about the cabin restlessly. Sometimes he stopped to examine one object,
and then another.

No further thought than that of the moment seemed to intrude on his
mind; and the consequence of his persistence in refusing to answer the
questions of the pirate officer never seemed to break in upon him. The
levity of youth was, perhaps, one of the principal causes of this strange
carelessness. He was also highly swayed by the notions which he had
gathered from among those in whose society he lived. These led him to
entertain an extravagant idea of his own importance, which, among other
things, could not admit of accepting terms from the officer of any nation
that was lower than his own, and, least of all, from a villainous pirate.
He, therefore, affected to treat the pirate officer with a contempt,
which it was as inexpedient to show, as it was silly to entertain.

He was moving about in the temper which we have described, when the door
of the cabin opened, and Lorenzo entered. He moved up to the upper part
of the cabin, and seated himself.

“Will you now answer my question?” he demanded, “the hand is on the
quarter.”

“I have already told you, no,” replied the youth.

Lorenzo called—an attendant appeared.

“Let the officer of the watch send down four men,” he said.

The attendant retired. In a few moments four men, under the command
of a junior officer, entered the cabin. Lorenzo stood—pointed to the
midshipman—

“Torture him until he speaks,” he said, and abruptly left the cabin.

The pirates silently advanced on their victim.

“The first man that dares approach me, shall die under this sword,”
shrieked the midshipman, furiously, and brandished his sword, madly.
Still the pirates advanced more closely to him. They beat down his guard,
surrounded him, and, in the twinkling of an eye, he was bound hand and
foot. Lifting him bodily, the pirates carried him on their shoulders out
of the cabin.

He was then taken to a narrow compartment at the very bows of the vessel,
that was, it seemed, the torture-room.

The appearance of the room was sufficient to strike one at once with an
idea of the bloody and cruel deeds that might be perpetrated there. It
was a narrow cabin into which the light could never penetrate; for there
was no opening either for that or for fresh air. The small door which
led into it was narrow and low: it turned on a spring, and seemed so
difficult to be opened, that one was forced to imagine that it was either
loth to let out those that had once got in, or that it was eager to close
in for ever upon those that might enter through it.

The deck was scoured as white as chalk, and, like the shops of cleanly
butchers in the morning, was scattered over with sand. The sides of the
cabin, as if to augment the darkness that already reigned, were painted a
dark, sombre, and gloomy colour, which was here and there stained by the
damp.

In contrast to this prevalent hue of frightful black, hung a variety of
exquisitely-polished torturing instruments. Cruelty, or expediency, or
necessity, seems to have exhausted its power of invention in designing
them, so different were they in form, and so horridly suited to the
purpose of giving pain.

These seemed to frown malignantly on those who entered that narrow place;
and the imagination might even trace, in their burnished hue, and high
efficient condition, a morbid desire, or longing, to be used.

To make the “darkness visible,” and to reveal the horror of the place, an
old bronzed lamp hung from the beams of the upper deck, and threw a faint
and sickly light around.

In the centre of this cabin lay a long, narrow, and deep box, which was
garnished within with millions of sharp-pointed spikes. The torture which
the victim suffered in this machine, was a continued pricking from the
spikes, against which he was every moment suddenly and violently driven
by the lurching of the vessel.

In this the midshipman was immediately thrown, and he shrieked the shriek
of the dying when he was roughly thrown on the sharp instruments.

“Hell! hell! the torments of hell,” he yelled out, as the sharp spikes
pierced him to the quick.

As he made an effort to turn, he increased his agony, and as the vessel
heaved, the points went deeper and deeper into his flesh.

Already the suffering of the young man was at its height, and by the
livid light of the glimmering lamp, large drops of death-like sweat,
could now be seen flowing over his pallid face, which was locked in
excruciating pain.

“Oh, God!” he cried, frantic with suffering, “Heaven save me.”

His executioners stood around immovable, calm, and fierce, as they always
were, more like demons sucking in the pleasure of mortals’ pains, than
men.

The young man seemed maddened with pain, his shrieks pierced through even
the close sides of the torture-room.

“Will you speak?” inquired the officer.

“Yes—no. Oh, good God! No—yes: curse you all—you devils; you demons—d—n
you,” were the frenzied replies.

An hour passed; his pains and shrieks continued; albeit the latter now
grew fainter and fewer. Nature could endure no more; his nervous system
sank under pain and exhaustion, and he swooned.

The pirates removed him, and plied him with restoratives, and he
gradually revived.

The suffering of the midshipman had produced a weakening effect upon him,
such as disease produces on the strongest minds; it had destroyed his hot
and fierce spirit. Yes, the pain of the body had conquered the resolution
of the mind, and after the first torturing, the young officer was less
spirited, less boisterous, and less impatient.

Animation had scarcely returned, when the wretched victim was again
thrown on the spikes which, piercing through his fresh wounds, added
still more to the agony which he had before endured. The pain this time
was not bearable.

“Oh! save me from this,” the young man cried, convulsively, “kill me at
once.”

“We want not your life, what good is that to us?” replied the junior
officer in command of the pirates, “we wish only to hear about our
captain, who may be at this moment undergoing the same pains as you.”

“Then remove me, and I shall speak. No, yes, no, yes.”

“You will then cease to play the fool at your own cost,” was the laconic
and unsympathising reply of the above-mentioned officer, who, at the same
time, dispatched one of his men to report that the prisoner was willing
to speak.

Lorenzo, in a few moments, crept into the narrow room.

“Will you now answer my question?” he inquired of the victim.

“Yes.”

“Is the captain alive and safe?”

“Yes.”

“What are the intentions of your captain about him?”

“To—oh! take me away from these spikes: oh! these cursed spikes.”

“Speak.”

“To take him to Trinidad, to be tried.”

“When is your ship to direct her course to that place?—Take him out, men.”

The victim was taken out.

“She was—oh! what happiness—she was to do so, to-day.”

“That’s enough. Young man, I admire your spirit: it might be developed
into something useful under proper discipline; as you are, at present,
you are only a slave of impulses, that are as wild as your original self.
Take him to the surgeon’s room.”

Giving this order to his men, Lorenzo left the cabin of torture.




CHAPTER XIX.

    “If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing
    That none but fools would keep; a breath thou art,
    Servile to all the skyey influences,
    That dost this habitation where thou keepest
    Hourly afflict:”

                                  MEASURE FOR MEASURE.


When the men of the man-of-war pulled on board, after their young officer
had been entrapped into the schooner, and reported the occurrence to
the commander, notwithstanding the great command which, considering his
life and avocation, he had over himself, he flew into a violent passion.
The success which had, up to that time, attended the pirates, either in
flying from him, or in outwitting him, had already tried his patience to
the utmost. To have met an enemy equally armed, to have tried the fortune
of a fight with him, and to have been beaten would not, perhaps, have
had such a mortifying effect on the mind of the old commander as to have
been subjected to the tantalizing deceptions and mocking cunning of the
pirates.

He walked the deck as furiously as his gouty old limbs would carry him,
and spoke to himself in a voice that was hoarse with passion.

“First,” said he, “the blackguards waited until I was just about to
give the order to fire, and then sprang out of my reach. Then their
d—n—d schooner sailed so fast, and this tub of a thing was so slow,
that by G—d, by making the masts creak again, I could not force her to
move faster; while all the time those d—n—d villains were playing about
me, and amusing themselves at my expense: the devil take them. Then
the rascals went, and took down their own sails, and rigged themselves
up in a brig’s canvass, and passed by me—fool as I was. I showed the
blackguards bunting, instead of sending a broad-side into them at once,
d—n them; and now, at noon-day, when the sun is high in the heavens, when
every man can see fifty miles before him, I have let those rascals come
almost alongside, and kidnap one of my officers. D—n them, d—n them.

“I tell you what it is, Charles,” continued the old gentleman, red in the
face with rage, “the weight of a feather in my mind would make me hang—by
G—d, yes—hang at once that astronomical friend of yours; hang, I say, on
one yard-arm, and that d—n—d rascally looking father of his on the other:
for it is these fellows, d—n them, that have been the cause of my being
insulted and duped by a set of ruffianly cut-throats,” and the old man
walked the deck even still more violently than before.

His son, who had listened to this explosion, was too prudent to interrupt
it or to reply to it.

He knew his father: he knew that, like the generality of persons of
a warm, generous, frank and open disposition, his outbreaks were as
furious and unmeaning, while they lasted, as they were short-lived; he,
therefore, remained silent, and permitted the fit to exhaust itself.

“Hark you,” continued the commander in a tone that indicated a subsiding
of the paroxysm, “let the course of the vessel be changed immediately,
and let us go to Trinidad. I shall not be lumbered with rascally pirates,
and villainous planters, on board my ship. My vessel was made to fight
better foes than these scurvy sea-thieves. Crowd on canvass, crowd on
canvass, and let us steer for Trinidad at once, and deliver these foul
fellows into the hands of the lawyers. But first, call up that friend of
yours: a fine companion for a British officer, Mr. Charles—a very fine
companion!”

“You forget, sir,” meekly remarked his son, “that when I knew Appadocca
he was not a pirate.”

“Well, well, that will do, let the man be brought before me.”

In a short time Appadocca, under the charge of two marines, was led into
the presence of the commander.

Imprisonment and anxiety, if he was still capable of of feeling the
latter, seemed to have had no effect upon him. His calmness, his cynicism
was the same. Solitude, which to other men is at best but dreary, and
is ordinarily but the provocative of reflections which may, perhaps, be
embittered by the events and scenes which they recall—solitude which,
to Appadocca in particular, one might suppose could have been only an
encouragement to musings, which were likely to be attended if not with
sorrow, at least with but little happiness, appeared to have had no
effect on him. He seemed, if we can use the expression, but to enjoy
his own misanthropic seclusion, and as for the circumstance that he was
a prisoner, that made no change in him. He looked upon every position
with the eye of fatalism, ay, and of that fatalism which does not arise
from the obligation of any religious creed, but which is the tasteless
fruit of a long series of disappointments and calamities—the fatalism of
despondent resignation.

Such a feeling has influenced more than one mortal in his earthly career.
Full many a warrior, whose praises are now chimed through an admiring
world, has gone forth to achieve wonders, to conquer, and to be great,
with such a sentiment rooted in his heart. Full many a conqueror has let
loose the eaglet of his ambition, without seeing the rock or prominence
on which the still young and strengthless master of the far skies could
rest, save, indeed, the shadowy foot-hold that hope could fancy to
discover in the sombre workings of inscrutable fate.

Such was the feeling of Emmanuel Appadocca, the pirate captain: such was
the strengthening thought which buoyed and supported him in the unnatural
career into which cruelty and unkindness had drawn him, and that idea
imparted to him equanimity under all adversities, courage and valour in
the fight, unscrupulousness in according judgment, boldness in working
retribution, and stoicism in imprisonment.

“Tell me, sir,” said the commander, endeavouring to resume as much of his
native dignity as his heated blood would permit him; “tell me, sir, in
what bay those lawless men—the pirates who follow you—hide themselves,
and where I can surprise them. I expect the truth from you, sir, although
you may denounce your associates by speaking it.”

The lips of Appadocca curled a little.

“My lord,” he answered, “as long as I was on board my schooner, we sought
no other shelter than that which was afforded us by the high and wide
seas.”

The commander looked at Appadocca fiercely in the eyes.

“I should be sorry,” he said, “to suspect you of falsehood or
prevarication, since you have been the fellow-student of my son: but your
answer is vague and unsatisfactory. Do you mean to say that you have
no harbour, no creek whither you were accustomed to resort, after your
piratical cruizes?”

“None, my lord: after our ‘piratical cruizes,’ as you, I dare say justly,
call them, we were in the habit of taking our booty for sale to the
nearest port and of depending upon our own skill and watchfulness for
safety.”

“Hum!” muttered the commander, after a pause, “you are aware, sir, that
one of my officers has been kidnapped by your rascally associates, as I
presume them to be,” continued the commander, with his temper evidently
breaking through the composed dignity which he endeavoured to retain.

“Now, sir, the punishment that I should feel justified in inflicting upon
you, would be to have you hanged, at once, on that yard,” and he pointed
to the main yard.

“My lord,” calmly replied Appadocca, “I am in your power, the yard is
before you, you have men at your command, do whatever you may choose with
me.”

The commander looked at him steadfastly for a moment or two.

“D—n him!” he muttered, and turned away.

The frankness and generosity of his nature were again gaining ground upon
his temper.

“I should not like to have anything to do with the death of this fellow,
after all. It is a pity that his bravery is thrown away among those
rascally devils,” he whispered to his son. Then, addressing the two men
who guarded Appadocca, “take the prisoner away. See that canvass be put
on the ship, and steer for the Island of Trinidad, Mr. Charles.”

“If you will allow me the liberty, my lord,” said Appadocca, as the
marines were about to lead him away, “I would tell your lordship that you
need be under no apprehension on account of your officer: we are not in
the habit of using violence, or of ill-treating our captives when there
is no occasion for doing so.”

“Hum!” groaned the commander somewhat incredulously.

“And, if you allow me, my lord, I shall request my officer to be
especially careful of putting any restraint whatever upon your
midshipman,” continued Appadocca.

“What the devil do you mean, sir?” briskly inquired the commander, “do
you wish to insult me?”

“By no means, my lord,” answered Appadocca.

“And how do you tell me, then,” continued the commander, “that you will
‘request your officer,’ when there is no officer to be requested?”

“Although there is no officer to be seen, my lord,” answered Appadocca,
“still I can request him: all things can be done by a variety of ways, my
lord.”

“How am I to understand you, sir?” inquired the commander.

“Simply in this manner,” replied Appadocca, “that if you allow me, I
shall communicate with my chief officer, and request him to take care of
your officer.”

“And how do you propose to do so,” asked the commander, after a
considerable pause.

“Only with four flags,” answered Appadocca.

“What will you do with those?”

“I shall make signals with them.”

“But there is no vessel in sight.”

“No, my lord.”

“How, then, can your signals be of service?” inquired the commander.

“Pardon me, my lord, if I decline to answer this question. The sparrow
by caution flies the heavens with the hawk.”

“I should suppose, sir, when you have now no prospect of ‘flying the
heavens’ again,” said the commander, “you could have no objection to
give us a piece of information, which cannot but be serviceable to us.
However, make the signals, sir. Bring four flags there.”

Appadocca took the flags and adjusted them in a particular manner on the
line.

“Stop!” cried the commander, when they were about to be hoisted. “What
warrant have I that you will not say more than is necessary?” he inquired
of Appadocca.

“None, my lord, except my word,” cooly replied Appadocca, “if you
consider this of any value, take it, if not, reject it. But recollect,
my lord, if I had been inclined to be a deceiver, I should have remained
in the society of mankind, and should have prospered by coating over my
rascality with the varnish either of mock benevolence or of sanctimony;
I should not have openly braved the strength and ordinary notions of the
world.”

“Very well, sir, proceed,” said the commander.

“Within a few minutes after the completion of the signals, you will
hear the answer—the report of many guns fired at the same time,” said
Appadocca, and made a sign to hoist.

“What is the fellow going to do?” inquired the sailors one of the other.

“He is going to speak to the ‘old boy,’ I suppose,” answered one.

“He won’t do him much good, I fancy,” remarked the other.

“No, he will leave him in the hands of the landsharks, I guess,” said
another.

In the mean time, continuing to make the signals, Appadocca adjusted and
re-adjusted the four flags in a great variety of ways, and, at last, said
to the commander:—

“Now, my lord, listen.”

In a few moments the report of distant guns fell on the ear.

“Magic, by G—d!” each sailor exclaimed.

“How very strange,” the commander remarked.

“Bring up all the glasses, there,” he said, “and send up there Charles,
and see where that firing comes from.”

Men immediately climbed the masts, and surveyed the horizon. No telescope
of the man-of-war could discover whence came the report of the guns.

After this Appadocca was led back to his cabin, and sails were put on the
huge vessel that now began to move majestically through the water.

There is a soft and sweet pleasure in sailing among the West India
Islands. He who has not sailed in the Caribean sea, he who has not stood
on the deck of his gliding vessel, and felt the cooling freshness of the
trade winds, and seen the white winged birds plunge and rise in silent
gracefulness, he who has not marked the shining dolphin in its playing
course, and seen the transparent foam rise and melt before the scattering
breeze, with the blue waters below, a high smiling sky above, and the
rich uninterrupted beams of a fierce and powerful sun, gilding the scene,
can scarcely say that he knows what nature is. For, he who has not seen
the tropics has not seen her as she is in her most perfect form.

The ship held her course through the waters which, reflecting the rays
of the sun, undulated like a sheet of molten silver, in which she seemed
but the gathered dross floating on its surface. As she moved and broke
that shining surface, the waters frothed for a time about her and then
closed in smoothness again; while the sea birds playfully gathered in the
silvery wake, the weeds which shone, like golden drops, in the pebbly bed
of some clear and limped stream.

With nature smiling thus around him, with the silence which brings not
gloom surrounding him, with the balmy breeze rising fresh and sweet
from the bosom of the waters, fanning him into contemplation, the
hardest-natured man must feel if only for a moment, the chastening
quietude, which only nature, and he who is mirrored in nature, can impart
and bestow.

The bosom in which the snakes of envy or hatred have long nestled and
brooded, may feel itself relieved of half its oppression and suffering
whilst gazing at nature’s beautiful works, as manifested among the
islands of the tropics, and beholding in its embodiment of splendour the
omnipotence of the Creator. How many a heart whose life-blood has been
frozen under the influence of ingratitude, cruelty, revenge, and pride,
or, perhaps, of the sad consciousness of a country’s thankfulness—a
country in whose cause youth, energy, wealth, and talents—may all have
been spent, has not been soothed into mild quiescence by scenes like
these?

There are countries around which the works of man have thrown a veil of
enchantment; there are climes that are sacred, because some Heaven-born
poet sang there; there are spots about which the memory of mankind
has clung, and will for ever cling: such countries and such places
are made famous, great and enchanting by man alone. Their beauties
sprang from his hand. The idea which plants on them the ever-enduring
standard of veneration arose from his valour, his heroism, or perhaps
his benevolence, but whatever charm or interest the tropics possess they
derive from nature, and from nature only.

For three days together, the ship continued her course, amidst the
horse-shoe formed islands of the West-Indian Archipelago, which, at a
distance at sea, appear merely like heavy clouds where nothing is real,
nothing is animated, resting on the surface of the waters.

On the morning of the fourth, the towering mountain-peaks of Trinidad
which inspired in the devout Columbus, the name which the island now
bears, appeared in sight.

Gradually the bold and rocky coast which girds the island on the north,
grew more and more distinct and as the day waned, the ship entered the
channel that separates the small island of Tobago from Trinidad, and
bears the name of the latter.

The old commander, with necessary caution, ordered the greater part of
the sails to be taken in; the vessel moved along slowly, and was borne
down principally by the strength of the current.

The commander stood on the quarter-deck admiring the romantic scenery
which presented itself on the left to his view. There the overhanging
rocks rose perpendicularly from the heaving ocean, whose long lasting
and lashing billows broke on their rugged base, and shrouded them in one
constant sheet of white bubbling foam, and as they towered and seemed to
lose themselves in the clouds, they bore on their hoary heads forests
of gigantic trees, whose many colored blossoms appeared far out at sea;
while down their furrowed sides torrents of the purest water fell foaming
in angry precipitance. Here some cave hollowed by no hand of man—the home
of the untiring pelicans that ply the wing the live-long day, would send
forth its hollow murmurs, as it regurgitated some heaving rolling wave
that had intrusively swept into its inmost recess. There some rock from
whose side time had torn away its fellows, stood naked and bare, sullen
in its solitude, and resisting the powerless waves that dashed themselves
into a thousand far-flying sprays upon its jagged front; and here
again some secluded creek, eaten deeply into the heart of the frowning
highlands, in which the waters lay smooth and quiet, like tired soldiers
after the toil and strife of battle.

Such scenes might well make an impression on those who looked on; and
even the rough weather-beaten sailors, to whose eyes nature may have long
grown familiar, stood leaning on spar or anchor viewing the awe-inspiring
scene.

Among those on deck stood also James Willmington: and what were his
feelings, he whose memory had been so recently recalled to deeds which
could not render him an easier-minded man, if they had not had the effect
of making him a better one? Nature is itself an accuser! To the bosom
where all is not right, she speaks in terror. The trembling of a leaf,
the sudden flight of a startled insect, the gliding of a lizard appals
the guilty conscience. Could the man on whose head the crime of huge
injustice pressed heavily—the man whose cruelty had blasted the life
which he gave, and who was at that moment conducting to the gallows, the
child whom he had begotten—could such a man mingle the stirred sentiments
of his soul with the sublime grandeur of nature, and send them forth with
the voice of the mighty proclaimer, in mute veneration to the throne of
God. No! nature is not cruel, nature deserts not its humblest offspring,
she, therefore, could receive no sympathy from the heart of such a man.

Let us now go to the cabin of Appadocca. He was sitting on the rude
accommodation which had been afforded him, with his arms crossed over
his breast, and his earnest eyes fixed on the mountains of Paria, which
he could see on the right, through the port-hole that admitted air and
light into his cabin, and which had now been opened, inasmuch as it was
considered a matter of impossibility for him to escape, while the ship
was under sail on the high seas.

He was absorbed in deep thought; and he watched the neighbouring
mountains with more and more earnestness, as they rose higher and higher
to the view, on the gradual approach of the vessel. Twilight came, and
threw its mellow hue around. It soon departed, and the scene, which was
but a short time before enlivened by the powerful sun, was left in gloomy
silence.

As the ship approached the little islands of the Bocas, nothing could
be heard but the roars of the lashing surges, as they broke at regular
intervals on the rocks.

Night came, dark and dreary. The ship approached the largest of the
three small outlets. Every one on board was fixed in silent attention
to his duty. The senior officer stood at the shrouds, trumpet in hand,
with the aged commander by his side. Every man was at his post, awaiting
in anxiety the command to trim sails, in order to enter the difficult
passage.

That was always a moment of anxiety in every vessel going through it;
for such was its narrowness, and the strength of the current that swept
down the channel along the Venezuelan coast, that if a ship once went but
a yard further down than where she ought to trim her sails, and luff up
through the passage, it became a labour of many weeks to beat up against
the wind and current to the proper place.

The critical moment came; the ship was within the Dragon’s Mouth; she
trembled as if she had been lashed by the tail of some sea-monster, ten
times larger than herself, as she mounted the cross chopping seas, which
always run high and heavy at that entrance to the Gulf of Paria.

“Lee braces all,” the commanding officer trumpeted forth.

“Luff.”

The ropes glided through a thousand pullies, and the heavy chains of
the tacks clanked through their iron blocks as they were eased away.
The sailors moved in disciplined order from rope to rope, and the deck
sounded with their rolling foot-falls. The serious marine intermitted his
monotonous and limited march for a moment, and leaned in a corner to give
room to the busy mariners.

Appadocca had continued to sit in the same position as we have mentioned
a few lines back, from the fading of the short twilight up to that time,
which was now near midnight.

Although he could not see, nevertheless he seemed during the whole time
to use his ears for the same earnest purpose as he had done his eyes; and
as soon as he felt the heaving labours of the vessel, and heard the noise
that was made by the falling of the blocks on the deck, he sprang from
his seat like a young horse when it is goaded.

“Ha! this is the time at last,” he exclaimed, in a subdued tone, and
springing towards the port-hole with one effort of impulsive strength, he
tore down its framework: next, he grasped the stool on which he had sat.

“Confusion,” he cried, “it will not yield:” the stool was tied to a ring
on the deck.

When Appadocca discovered this, he seemed slightly alarmed: he stood for
a moment thinking how he could unfasten the stool. To undo it with his
hands was a labour of hours, and he had nothing with which he could cut
it. His eyes quickly surveyed the cabin; he rushed towards a basin which
had been allowed him, he placed it on the deck, and jumped upon it. With
the pieces of the brittle ware, he began to saw at the lashing of the
stool.

It was a tedious labour, one which required an unconquerable perseverance
to overcome.

Full ten minutes—minutes that on such occasions are more precious than
years—had expired, and he had made scarcely any progress. As he sawed
through one fold of twine, another appeared, but still he persevered, and
blunted every piece of the broken basin in succession.

The stout heart and persevering hand will conquer immensities of
obstacles.

At last, at last, the folds were sawed through. Appadocca seized the
stool with both hands.

“Now for life again, and the accomplishment of my design,” he said, and
endeavoured to pitch it through the hole, but ill-fortune stepped in
again to baulk him. The stool was too large to pass through the opening,
he tried it various ways, but with no success.

“Destiny,” he calmly muttered, as he put it down with the fortitude of a
Diogenes.

He cast his eyes around him; there was a large Spanish pitcher of clay,
such as are used in the tropics, in which water was brought to him: a
drowning man, they say, will grasp at a straw: he laid hold of it, he
tried it, it passed the opening.

“Now, farewell, good ship,” he said, and leaned over the side of the
vessel. He allowed the pitcher to fall quietly into the water, and he
himself, plunged after it into the unfathomable waste.

“A man overboard!” some one cried on deck.

“No, no:” said another, “it’s only the slack of the main-brace.”

“Are you sure of that?”

“Quite sure.”

“All right.”




CHAPTER XX.

    “The torrent roar’d; and we did buffet it
    With lusty sinews; throwing it aside
    And stemming it with hearts of controversy.”

                                  JULIUS CÆSAR.


On jumping into the sea, Appadocca swam dexterously after the pitcher,
which he had thrown before him; then resting one hand upon it, and moving
the other easily through the water, he paused a moment to gaze at the
large ship that was now looming in the darkness, and was rapidly leaving
him far behind.

The vessel continued her course. It was evident no one on board of her
had seen his escape. He was left alone on the sea. He now began to
swim in the direction in which long habit had taught him the coast of
Venezuela was situated. As he progressed through the water he pushed
the pitcher before him. Now and then he paused, and rested as before,
with one hand on the pitcher, while he lightly floated himself with the
other. Hours passed, and every succeeding one found the indefatigable
Appadocca buffetting the waves with a heart of resolution, and an eye of
determination. The thick darkness of the night was fast passing away, the
gray dawn of morning was appearing, and the dark mountains of Venezuela
began to rise to the view with that cheating delusion which mountains at
that early hour of the morning present, and by their apparent nearness,
one moment seduce the weary oarsman into the grateful belief that he is
fast approaching the end of his irksome labour, only to irritate him the
next by their constant and still greater recession.

The swimming fugitive felt encouragement and support from these two happy
circumstances. More and more vigorously he stretched out his arms. Only
three miles now seemed to separate him from the land. The currents and
the sweep of the waves were in his favour.

On, on he pushed his befriending pitcher, and swam and rested
alternately. The desperate hazard which he had incurred in throwing
himself overboard in a boiling sea in a part where all the sharks of the
neighbouring waters assemble to feed upon the refuse that is borne down
by the gulf-current, seemed about to terminate happily and prosperously,
and the act which at first may have borne the appearance of a voluntary
seeking of death on his part, was about to result in deliverance and
safety.

Perhaps even the seared, stoical heart of the cynical Appadocca, under
these happy forebodings, throbbed a little more highly than usual.

But the grounds on which pleasure and hope are built, are too often
sandy: our highest subjects of joy and congratulation are, alas! too
liable to be converted, in the imperceptible space of a second, into
those of misery and woe. So it proved with Emmanuel Appadocca.

When, as we have remarked, these prospects dawned in reality upon him,
his strokes were made with more vigour; he became, consequently, the
sooner tired, and was obliged to pause for rest more frequently.

After one of these intervals, after having “screwed up his courage to
the sticking point,” he gave his pitcher a push before him. The vessel
floated to a considerable distance in front, then suddenly melted to
pieces and sank for ever.

The soft clay of which it was made was dissolved by the water, and could
no longer hold together.

If Appadocca had, a moment before, permitted his cynicism to incline
beyond its medium point towards joy, so now he could not prevent it
from verging to an equal distance on the opposite side. He had, but a
few minutes ago, been induced to hope that he should be able to reach
the land. Prospects of once more heading his faithful followers warmed
his heart; and the prospect, too, of still being able to execute his
design upon the man whose heart was too bad to open to repentance and
justice from the lessons of his victim-judge, and from the perils out
of which only the sheerest hazard had delivered him: but now, with the
assisting pitcher his hopes also sank. It was now next to impossible
that he could reach the shore; for although like the pedestrian who,
with certain intervals of rest, may walk the whole globe, he could swim
a considerably greater distance than seven miles—the distance which now
intervened between him and the land—by now and then holding to something
which could assist him in floating until he had rested, still it was
impossible now for him to accomplish, much fatigued as he already was, at
the utmost more than a mile; and the shore was still three miles away.
Despair, utter despair would have seized a mind that was more susceptible
of ungovernable influences, but Appadocca made up his mind not to be
drowned, and continued to swim. He had not swum to any great distance,
when he began to experience the want of his pitcher; his limbs began to
feel exhaustion, he muttered something to himself, and went on still;
his limbs became more tired; sensibility began to diminish; his arms
grew stiffer and stiffer; on, on, still he went; his features manifested
exhaustion, his respiration grew shorter and shorter; already nature
could bear no more; his eyeballs glared like those of one in the last
agony of drowning; his strokes became weaker and still weaker; already
he swam more heavily; his chest sank deeper and deeper into the water;
the mountains before him began to wheel, and pass, and vanish like clouds
floating over a mist; his vision was indistinct, and nature drooped,
exhausted with one long breathing; he was sinking, sinking, sinking ...
when ... something met his feet, and Appadocca stood on a sunken rock
with the water to his chin.

Surprised to a certain extent by such an unexpected occurrence, he at
once remained where he was, fearful less the first step he would take
should lead him again into the danger which he had, at least temporarily,
escaped.

He stood there for a considerable time; but although the position was
one, which, on the point of drowning, might be very advantageous, still
it ceased to be so when the immediate danger had passed; and now, on
the contrary, presented another peril; for Appadocca was now exposed, in
his motionless state, to become the prey of the very first hungry shark
that might happen to swim in that direction, and what was still worse,
he felt that the sea was every moment rising higher and higher. It was
therefore clear that he could not stay much longer where he was. He began
to resolve, but before he could determine on any definite resolution, a
large wave broke over him; for mere safety, he was again obliged to swim.
He had not gone far, when in spite of his strong will, his limbs would
not move. Thus with his resolution still strong, and his volition still
active, Appadocca, nevertheless, found himself rapidly sinking.

“Oh! destiny,” he bubbled out, as the water now almost choked him, “is
there such a thing as destiny?” He was sinking, sinking, sinking, when
something, something again met his feet.

Appadocca quickly planted his nerveless feet as firmly as he could, upon
the support which it would appear that destiny, which he had well nigh
invoked for the last time, had again placed under them. He concluded at
once, that he had fortunately alighted on a layer of rocks, which ran far
out to sea, and of which the one that first received him, was about the
beginning. To ascertain the correctness of his judgment he ventured,
after he had rested a little, to put one foot forward, it rested also on
the rock; the other, it rested too.

Appadocca now waded along towards the shore, swimming now and then,
when a larger chasm than usual intervened. As he approached the land,
however, the rocks began to sink lower and lower, until at last he was
left without a footing. There was yet a considerable distance between
where he was, and the shore, and in his condition, the prospect of being
saved, even after the succession of unexpected auxiliary accidents was
but slight and precarious. Nevertheless, he was obliged to hazard all;
so he began to swim again. His arms after the rest they had had, were
more powerful. On—on, he went—closer, and closer—he drew to the land;
still the distance was immense to a well-nigh exhausted man. His strength
began again to fail; but a few strokes Appadocca, and you are on land.
His strength diminished more and more, shadows again began to flit across
his vision, his senses reeled; he was sinking, no befriending rock now
met his feet; he disappeared.... In a moment he rose again, in the second
stage of drowning, with his features locked in despairing agony. As he
came to the surface the rolling volume of a sweeping billow met him,
carried him roughly to the shore, and threw him high and dry on the
white sandy beach, that was glimmering under the scorching rays of a
fiery sun.

The tide ebbed away and left Appadocca on that which was now dry land.
Nature was overwhelmed, and he seemed scarcely strong enough to rally
from the swoon. There he lay, far from human succour, with the land
rising perpendicularly from the beach, for a great distance away along
the shore, and thus shutting out to those who might inhabit that part
of the country, any immediate view of the sea, or the shore below. The
fugitive might, have lain in this state until nature, by an effort
scarcely to be expected in his condition, might have suddenly revived,
or what was the more probable, life might have quietly departed from
the miserable man, had not the same fortune which seemed all along to
befriend him, again interposed to foster still the spark of life which
now scarcely lived in him.

A wild bull, maddened with fury, came bounding over the heights. The
animal was so headlong in its race, that rushing to the ridge of the
precipitous highlands, ere it could abate its speed, it was borne away by
its own impetus over the ledge, and with a tremendous bound, it rolled
dead at the foot of the still insensible Appadocca.

In a few moments two horsemen appeared above, and reining up their
horses carefully at the edge, looked down on the late object of their
chase. They were children of the Savannahs—the Bedouins of South America.
They were two Llaneros, their lassos were coiled in wide circles round
one arm, while with the other, they clutched a short spear and the
powerful reins with which they governed their still unbroken horses.
They looked carefully at the now motionless animal, which but a second
before careered so proudly over the plain, and was so formidable to them,
shrugged their shoulders, and were turning their horses’ heads to return,
when the attention of one of them, seemed attracted by an object at the
foot of which the body of the dead bull lay.

“Es un hombre—’Tis a man,” both of them said, with great excitement.
“’Tis a man, go you and look at him, Juancito.”

One dismounted, and, leaving his horse in charge of the other, scrambled
down the rocks to the beach. He examined the body and cried out to his
companion above, that life was still in it.

“Esta un hombre de cualidad, he is a great man,” he added.

Moved by their spirit of native hospitality, and partly influenced by
the not unselfish motive of saving the life of a great man, the two
Llaneros began to devise the means of getting Appadocca on the dry land
above, and of conveying him to the house of the Ranchero, whose oxen they
tended. But it was next to impossible to carry him up those rocks on
which only the most steady-footed could manage to move; besides, it was
necessary for one to remain above to hold the horses which, unguarded and
unrestrained, would have obeyed their strong instinct and scampered off
to their native wilds.

In this difficulty the natural recourse of the Llaneros was to their
lassos. But those could scarcely be used, as the projections of the rocks
would have shattered in a thousand pieces the person whom they designed
to save, if they undertook to hoist him up along their rugged surface.
They, therefore, had to think of some other expedient: but no other
occurred to them, and they were obliged to recur to their lassos, in the
use of which they were so long and perfectly practiced. They thought,
however, in conjunction with the resolution of adopting this expedient,
of removing Appadocca to another part of the beach, from which the rocks
did not rise so roughly. This was easily done, and having fastened their
lassos together, they secured one end to Appadocca, and the other to one
of the horses; one of the Llaneros spurred the animal forward, while the
other remained at the edge to guide the rope as much as it was in his
power to do.

By this means the still insensible Appadocca, was brought safely on the
table land. After the violent shaking he had received, he seemed to come
to himself a little; he opened his eyes, but it was only for a moment. He
was no longer insensible, but he was totally prostrated, and sank again
into an inactive condition. He was then placed on the saddle before one
of the Llaneros, and they rode off towards the house, whose roof could
be barely discerned from amidst the clustering branches of the trees by
which it was surrounded.

The Llaneros soon alighted at the door, where they were met by the
Ranchero, and the insensible stranger was carried in.

Like all the houses of the Ranchas of South America, this was an
extensive wooden building, built of only one storey—a necessary measure
against the ravages of the frequent earthquakes which shake so terribly
those tropical regions.

The large and shady fronds of the beautiful palms that decorate the level
and grassy Savannahs, were cleverly sewn together to form a covering,
which was as effectual in excluding the dews and rains, as it was
in itself romantic. No ceiling concealed the beams and rafters which
supported this primitive roof; but from the exigences of the climate,
and probably from the unwillingness to raise highly finished structures
in the wilds, where the inhabitant scarcely ever saw the face of any
one beside those of the Llaneros who tended his numerous and half-wild
herds, the space between the low flooring and the roof was entirely
unoccupied. The apartments were extensive, and as airy as such a climate
required. Windows opened in all directions, and the winds of heaven
swept freely through every crevice of the house. The furniture seemed to
be as simple and as primitive as the building that contained it. A few
heavy chairs, made of the hides of the oxen, that formed the wealth of
the Ranchero, were placed about, here and there, more for the service of
the few individuals who occupied the place, than for the accommodation
of visitors or strangers, both of whom were exceedingly rare, if ever
seen in those solitary wilds. Indian hammocks hung in several places,
and moved to and fro, before the power of the wind that blew into the
apartment; and on supports from the walls, rested beautiful Spanish
saddles, whose bows and stirrups of massive silver, attracted immediate
attention. Around the house stood some magnificent trees, under the
shady boughs of which, herds of oxen, which were partially reclaimed
from the wild state in which they had been bred, now quietly chewed their
cud, not without, however, casting from time to time, a wistful look on
the strong pallisades that fenced them in. Wild looking undressed horses,
restively cropped the short grass that grew around the house, and now
and then tugged with evident impatience, the tethers of cowskin, that
restrained their liberty.

Away, at a short distance from the inhabited house itself, stood also
pens for cattle, and apparently a slaughter-house, on whose roof the
large heavy vultures of South America, pressed and fought and nibbled
each other for a footing, while around it were strewed a thousand horns,
the spoils of the fierce natives of the plains, that had fallen there
under the Picador’s knife. To complete the peculiarity of the scene a
few half naked and fierce looking individuals, loitered here and there,
carelessly smoking their cigars; or leaned against the fences, and
criticised the ruminating oxen within, as objects among which their
entire life had been spent, and with such apparent skill and earnestness,
as to leave one to fancy that the world contained nothing that deserved
so much interest in their estimation as the animals which formed the
tissue of their associations, and of their fathers’ before them. The
horses that were tied in their rude accoutrements, to the posts of the
fences, and the huge spurs of solid silver, which were tightly thonged to
the naked heels of those men, showed that they belonged entirely to the
plains, and were probably there, only for the purpose of receiving the
orders of the master.

“Feliciana,” cried the Ranchero, as Appadocca was carried into the large
chamber that formed, what in Europe, would be called the with-drawing
room—“Feliciana ben aca,—Feliciana, come hither.”

At this call, a beautiful young lady appeared, and started back as she
beheld the pallid, wasted, and haggard, but still beautiful face of
Appadocca, while, at the same time, the low interjection of “Jesu!”
escaped her lips.

“Que se haga todo necessario por ese infeliz,” “Let every thing be done
for this unhappy man,” said the Ranchero, who even in the half barbarous
life that he led, did not entirely lose the distinguishing politeness of
his people.




CHAPTER XXI.

    “O, thou didst then ne’er love so heartily:
    If thou remember’st not the slightest folly
    That ever love did make thee run into,
    Thou hast not loved:”

                                 AS YOU LIKE IT.


Appadocca, under the care of the fair Venezuelan, was carried into an
extensive chamber, which was much more comfortable than any one would
have imagined any part of the house could be. He was laid on a couch that
was unornamented, but that was as white as the flock of the cotton-tree.
It was not to rest, however, that he was thus accommodated. His fatigues
and privations overpowered the strength which his peculiar philosophy
had tended to maintain, and the movement and exercise of the hoisting,
and transporting on horseback, had completed what they had begun. He was
seized with a violent fever, which now terribly manifested itself in the
wildest ravings.

Alarmed at the state of the stranger, Feliciana called every one into
service. Peons flew here and there and everywhere, for herbs and weeds,
while she herself remained by the bedside of the delirious sick man,
watching every movement that he made, and listening to every word that he
uttered.

Nature overcame even this passing madness, and Appadocca fell into a
light slumber. Feliciana, with looks even more serious than when she went
to attend her unknown patient, left the apartment.

Feliciana was a little above the middle size, exceedingly well formed,
and majestic in her appearance. Her face was in itself a study, on
account of the many different expressions which it wore at one and the
same time. Her forehead was large and expansive, indicative of a large
amount of intellect. Her nose was slightly elevated at the centre, and
at the same time full and rounded at its termination; her lips were full
and well formed, while the compression which marked the slight pout
that they possessed, pointed to much firmness of character. To heighten
all these separate individual expressions, nature had bestowed upon her
large melting eyes, that swam like the gazelle’s, in a bed of transparent
moisture, and in which, it would be difficult to say, whether sentiment,
or the serious contemplation of the Spanish character prevailed the most.

Upon the whole, a student of physiognomy would have pronounced, on seeing
the beautiful Venezuelan, that Heaven had bestowed on her a high degree
of intellect, a high degree of sentiment, and a high degree of firmness.
She would have been at once pronounced one who was capable of great
discernment, of forming high designs, and of overcoming every obstacle
that might oppose their execution; while, at the same time, the sentiment
which was clearly perceptible in her eyes, could be very accurately
predicated as that, which, from its decided prevalence and preponderance,
would always act as the leader of her mental and more solid endowments.

Her dress, in addition, was calculated to make these striking features,
and her handsome person still more conspicuous. It was of dark materials,
and adjusted in a manner that attracted from the general idea of
simplicity that prevailed in it, while, at the same time, it displayed to
advantage the gracefulness of the wearer. As a head-dress, a dark veil or
mantilla, hanged loosely from a high and valuable comb, down along the
side of her face over her shoulders, and enhanced by the contrast her
beautiful and clear complexion.

Nature in youth, especially when such youth has been weakened by no
unphilosophical propensities, ever inclines to amendment. In Appadocca,
especially, whose life-time had, up to that period, been spent in the
practice of that strengthening discipline which consists in the happy
combination of exercise for mind and body, it turned towards health with
extraordinary vigour; so that the stranger, who but a few days ago had
been as near death as mortal man could be, and during whose feverish
paroxysms one would have imagined that the reason which regulated the
form that still writhed in its madness, was about to take a last farewell
of the machinery which it had up to that time animated and guided, now
presented the clear eye, the earnest look, and the same stern resolution
that usually compressed his lips. The only remaining indication of the
fatigue which he had undergone, and of the subsequent illness, was the
increased pallor of his complexion, and the slight attenuation of his
body; in a word, it was in body and not in mind that Appadocca now showed
signs of illness.

It was a day or two after this gratifying change had shown itself, when
Appadocca and the beautiful daughter of the house were seated together in
the large apartment which we have before described.

The stranger was sitting in one of the peculiar but luxurious chairs of
cow-hide at one side of the wide window, and Feliciana at the other.

Politeness and gratitude, independently of a sense of duty, called forth
the gallantry of Appadocca in entertaining the lady. He discoursed on
a life in the wilds, on the marvels that nature can there continually
display to the eyes of the wondering spectator, of the free and
independent life of those who inhabited the “Llanos;” and from this high
and general theme he descended to the particular beauties that surrounded
the romantic abode of his host himself.

He spoke on. But his greatest and most graceful eloquence could not draw
a word from his beautiful auditor, or even secure a silent nod. She sat
with her head turned away towards the window, her eyes fixed on the
ground, and wore an air of more than ordinary seriousness. She seemed
entirely wrapped in a web of her own reflections.

Appadocca could not but remark this reverie. After having yielded several
times to his habit of silence, and given way to his own abstracted moods,
he would awake himself suddenly, and seeming to feel the embarrassment
of the situation, would address the young lady again on some new and
interesting topic. But it was in vain.

“Senora, I hope, is not ill?” he at last inquiringly observed.

“No, senor,” was the laconic reply.

“Then senora is a little melancholy,” rejoined Appadocca, after a moment
or two.

No answer.

“Banish, senora, that pernicious feeling. Life is itself sufficiently
insipid and sour, and does not require to be made more bitter by
melancholy. Look out, see how nature softly smiles before you. The birds
fly from branch to branch, and chirp, and are happy; the insects—listen
to the hoarse cicada—seem enjoying their insect happiness; even the very
grass, as the breeze turns its blades to the beams of the beautiful sun,
reflect on our minds an idea of felicity. How can you be melancholy when
you look out?”

Feliciana turned and bent her large eyes fully on Appadocca, looked at
him intently for a few moments, and then turned away again.

Struck by the action, and not feeling himself as indifferent as he
usually was, Appadocca said nothing.

A long interval ensued.

Feliciana kept her head in the same direction: at the side of her eyes
two drops began to gather; they grew larger and larger, and in a few
moments stood like two crystal beads ready to burst. Not a muscle,
however, not a fibre of the beautiful weeper, seemed to sympathise, or
quiver in unison with this silent grief. Like a statue of alabaster
she remained rooted where she sat, and one could judge of the emotions
which might affect her, only by the two transparent drops which balanced
heavily at the corners of her eyes.

Appadocca saw this, and remained silent from respect to the sorrow of
Feliciana. He thought of leaving the room, and giving the young lady
freedom to indulge in that grief which seemed so deep and overpowering.
Although prompted to do so by his sense of propriety, still he found
himself detained by he knew not what, and seemed half to suspect that the
sorrow had some sort of connexion with himself,—“Else,” he reasonably
argued, “the young lady would have concealed her grief in the privacy of
her own apartment.”

Appadocca, therefore, remained where he was, in deep silence, watching
the tear drops that now again grew gradually smaller and smaller.

“Can one who owes, senora, a large amount of gratitude,” he at last said,
in a mild, subdued tone, “be of any service to her?”

She was still silent.

“Can I do anything to dry these tears?” Appadocca again inquired.

Feliciana suddenly turned her head, and fixed her expressive eyes
steadily on the inquirer. She maintained her earnest look for some time,
then rising, said, with great excitement,—

“Yes, you can dry these tears. Shun the wicked pursuit in which you are
engaged, and then these tears may never again escape to betray me. Nature
could never have intended you for a pirate.”

At this sudden action, and unexpected language of Feliciana, Appadocca
required all his self-command to conceal the surprise which he felt.

“I a pirate, senora!” he said, “may I ask how it is you have been induced
to suppose me one?”

“Put no idle questions,” she quickly replied, “I feel that you have
sacrificed yourself to such a life. You, too, have confessed it. Why was
it, that in your ravings, you called on your men to board, to cut down,
to make prisoners? that you spoke of blood, of booty, and still worse,
of revenge; and revenge, too, it would seem, on your own father? Do you
think, to persons as I am, in my position, the least word of those—of
those—of those—” she contended with herself for the expression, “those
whom we wish well, can fail of its meaning. I am a stranger to you: but
let me not prevail the less on that account; let me pray and beseech you,
in the name of God and the saints,” she continued, clasping her hands,
“to promise me to abandon a life that is hateful both to Heaven and
earth, and to think no more of those terrible projects of slaughter and
revenge, about which you spoke so much in your sleep.”

“Pray, senora, sit down,” said Appadocca, as he rose quickly from his
seat to conduct her to hers.

“No, leave me,” she exclaimed, more excited, “I shall not sit down till
you pass your word. Remember the dear person whose picture you now wear
on your heart, and which you so affectionately pressed to your bosom,
when the fever was on you. Can you suppose that she can look down from
heaven, with joy or pleasure, on the son that she nourished, when he
has abandoned himself to a course that God and man alike reprobate and
condemn? Picture her in the society of the saints and angels looking down
upon you, at the head of your lawless and cruel men, red with the blood
of your murdered victims, and rushing forward to plunder, and to spread
misery around as you go. Do you think that the sight of her child—her
son, in this position, can impart to her either happiness or pleasure?
Think of that: and, when ever you press her picture to your heart,
recollect you only go through a cheating mockery, that the life you
lead takes away from her happiness, from the happiness even of heaven.
Remember the tears that she may have shed for you while here: remember
the cares and anxieties she may have suffered for you; those, surely,
were enough: and, if death ended her miseries on earth, do not you spoil
the joy which she may now enjoy in heaven?”

“Enough—enough,” cried Appadocca, with more warmth than was his habit,
“stop, stop, I implore you.”

“Then promise me.”

“My vow is recorded in heaven, I cannot promise,” answered Appadocca,
drily.

Feliciana staggered stupified to her seat, while she gazed, without the
power of utterance, on the person before her.

“You will not promise!” she said, recovering herself, “you will not
promise! Well, I shall promise,—I now vow,—that I shall follow you to
the end of the world, until you consent to renounce for ever this wicked
life.”

So saying, she sprang violently from her chair, and rushed out of the
room.

Appadocca, after the disappearance of the agitated Feliciana, sank back
into the cow-hide chair, almost confounded by the scene which had just
been enacted, and well-nigh distracted by the thousand reflections which
it made to rush upon him. The first thought was of his safety.

“Suppose,” he quickly reasoned, “others beside Feliciana, should have
heard his disclosures during the fever; what could he expect under such
circumstances, but to see the kindness with which he had been treated,
suddenly changed into a most ferocious spirit of revenge.” For he knew,
too well, what cruelties the pirates of the West-Indian sea had, under
Llononois and other captains, practiced on the unfortunate inhabitants of
those coasts.

Those atrocities could not be blotted out from the memory for centuries,
and it was likely, that at the very name of pirate, the revenge of the
Spaniards would break out as uncontrollably as fire in its favourite food.

And it was probable, that not stopping to consider whether he was
actually what he was supposed to be, they would at once immolate him, to
the memory of their slaughtered and plundered countrymen. This thought,
however, soon gave way to those of a different nature,—to those which
in his own manner of thinking, affected the most important accident
of existence, and was, in his estimation, higher in value than life
itself—namely, his honour.

It had not escaped him from the very moment that his convalescence had
permitted him to exercise his discernment, that his beautiful and kind
nurse, was in love with him. That could not but strike him; and though
his stoicism balanced violently on the contemplation of the handsome
form, and on appreciating the character of the mind which was as pure,
as simple, and as artless, as the flourishing wilds which had reared
and still surrounded it, still it required no great restraint over
himself—himself, who had long banished from his heart the sentiment,
that lends to life a charm, and who was now well exercised in choking to
instant death any fresh feeling as it began to spring—to renounce for
ever every desire to encourage or foster the affection that showed itself
to him as clear as the sun at noonday. It would have been dishonor to
steal away the heart of the innocent creature that watched over him with
a mother’s fondness and anxiety. He resolved, therefore, to be always on
his guard, and to maintain more than ordinary restraint in conversing
with her, in the hopes that the feeling which evidently animated her,
might perish from the absence of sympathy.

It was, consequently, with alarm that he beheld the violence of feelings
which Feliciana exhibited during the scene which we have depicted.
“No ordinary interest,” thought Appadocca, “could call forth such an
impassioned remonstrance as Feliciana had made, and make her surmount
all maidenly timidity, and speak to him as she did. For in what could
it interest a stranger? whether an unhappy man, whom she had accidently
succoured was a pirate or not: and those tears; persons of her race,
he thought, weep only on deep subjects. And, finally, the desperate
resolution of following him all over the world, professedly to hold back
his hand from crime, was a thought that only one great feeling could
inspire.”

Such were the reflections of Appadocca, they were made in a moment: and
they immediately produced a resolution as firm as it was sudden. “I must
leave the house of this good Ranchero,” said Appadocca to himself, with
much energy of mind. “God knows, I am already pledged to the causing of
sufficient misery. I shall not stay here to add any more to the necessary
amount. Not in this place particularly, where I have met with so much
hospitality and kindness.”

These reflections had scarcely been ended, and Appadocca’s brow was still
knit in the energy of his own thoughts, and his eyes still glimmered
forth the fire of his excited mind, when soft footsteps were heard
within the room, and on turning his head, he beheld Feliciana, who had
again entered the room, and was now advancing towards him.

She was, by this time, comparatively calm; the paroxysm of her feeling
had passed, but she appeared still determined on one purpose. Feliciana
walked to the window as she entered, and said to Appadocca, who stood up
to receive her:

“Pray forgive me, sir, for the lengths to which I, a mere stranger, was
bold enough to proceed just now.”

“There needs no forgiveness, senora,” quickly rejoined Appadocca, as he
led her to the other cow-hide chair at the window, “where no offence
has been given: on the contrary, might I speak so freely, I should say,
that the warmth you have so lately manifested, can be taken only as the
indication of a high degree of feeling.”

Appadocca spoke in a calm and serious strain. The young lady coloured
slightly at the end of this speech.

“Among different persons, senora,” continued Appadocca, with the apparent
purpose of bringing about an intended end, “it would, perhaps, be a
breach of civilized politeness to speak with the same latitude that I
now intend to do. But, I think as we understand each other, it would
be well nigh folly to keep back a few necessary words, simply from the
circumstance that the laws of polished social intercourse may tend
to render their plainness awkward. It is very clear, senora, that I
have been fortunate enough to enlist in my favour, your most friendly
sympathy, perhaps I should be justified in mentioning a much stronger
feeling.”

Feliciana coloured deeply.

“For my part, I cannot but express myself sensible to the existence of
such a sentiment, and can only say, that from a self-same affection, I
am capable of appreciating and responding to yours. But, senora, there
are but few instances of real happiness under the sun. The beautiful sky
that frequently enlivens our spirit, and cheers us up for a moment, is,
alas! but too frequently, suddenly darkened and obscured by the dark
clouds that bring tempests in their course. The innocent and snowy lily
that gladdens our sight to-day, decays and falls away to-morrow. The days
and years on which we may have been counting, during a long life-time,
for the realization of a few moments of joy, may arrive at last, loaded
with bitterness. The thoughts and sentiments which oft gladden us in our
waking dreams, wean us away for a time from care, and foster in us the
hope of undecaying felicity, then pass like the flashes of the lightning
away, to leave only gloom and desolation behind.

“For my own part senora, I have long sacrificed myself to one object. I
have long banished away Emmanuel Appadocca, from Emmanuel Appadocca: it
boots not to tell the reason why. The world to me, it is true, is the
world; the stars, the stars; but the halo that once surrounded them is
gone—the feeling with which I may have regarded them is gone from them,
and has centred itself in the now single end of my existence. For a long
time mental anguish and I have been companions, and from its constant
proximity it has chased away the softer feelings, whose aspect is too
cheerful to bear the approaching shadow of that demon. My heart is
wasted and its tenderness gone; gratitude for you, senora, is all that
I dare encourage in my bosom. Let me exhort you, for your own sake, to
forget the unfortunate man whom accident and distress brought into your
presence. Forget him, and by doing so, avoid much suffering on your part,
and, at the same time, confer much happiness on him. For if at the hour
when this existence of mine will be about to terminate, there should
linger in my fading memory some object that I could not look upon with
cold indifference; if when the breath of life shall be on the point of
passing I should not be able to shut my eyes and say, ‘mankind, you have
among you nothing that is dear to me,’ the pains of succumbing nature
would be tenfold heavier than they might.”

In speaking thus, Appadocca had unwittingly to himself risen from his
seat, and approached Feliciana, who, deeply affected, hanged down her.

Warming more than usual, Appadocca caught her hand as he spoke.

“To throw away a thought on a person of this temper, Feliciana,” he
proceeded, “I need not tell you, is doing an injustice to yourself, but
fear not that I am insensible to your kindness. I feel it as much as I am
now permitted to feel such things, and may destiny,” continued he, with
more warmth, “be ever propitious to you;” so saying, he abruptly let fall
her hand, and walked towards the door.

“Stay,” cried Feliciana, as she rose to keep him back: but Appadocca
rushed out of the room.

The young lady resumed her seat; her high temper had now yielded to
a more tender feeling: one that buoys not up, nor supports so much,
for there is a spirit of pride in high wrought vexation, that imparts
strength to the other faculties and to the body. Like the last convulsion
of the dying madman, it derives from its very extremity and excess,
uncontrollable strength; but when that is broken—when it is softened
down by tenderness or pity, the mind which was but now strong under a
fierce influence is left weak, impressible, and like the vision of a man
rising from a swoon, when that influence is removed. Thus the feelings
of Feliciana instead now of following the course of her stronger and
more predominant powers, yielded entirely to the softer endowments of
her nature, and her affection vented itself in a more seductive, more
natural, more overcoming way. She no longer endeavoured to disguise to
herself the extent to which her affection had already gone. She perceived
at once that the sorrow which the involuntary revelations of Appadocca
had cost her, had a different source from that which she would fain have
believed at first; and that her apparently chivalrous denunciation of
his course of life, and her resolution to follow him, and like a good
angel, to stay his piratical hand, did not spring from a mere instinct of
abstract right and wrong, but rose from a more interesting and personal
feeling.

This great point being laid bare, she at once considered the
circumstances, and the recollection of the last speech of Appadocca
fell upon her heart, like the chilling hand of death. She sat in silent
sorrow, and the evening had long yielded to night, when her father
returned from the Savannahs to interrupt her grief, and to divert for a
few moments the dark and troubled currents of her thoughts.




CHAPTER XXII.

    “This week he hath been heavy, sour, sad,
    And much, much different from the man he was;
    But till this afternoon, his passion
    Ne’er brake into extremity of rage.”

                                COMEDY OF ERRORS.


The night was far advanced, when Appadocca undertook to carry into
execution, the design which he had formed of leaving the Rancha. He
cautiously went out of the apartment which he occupied, and found no
difficulty in opening the carelessly fastened door of the house. He
went out softly, and when he had got outside, he had to stand still for
a moment, in order to have recourse to his memory to help him to form
some sort of idea of the position in which he found himself: such was
the excessive darkness. Had he previously petitioned nature for a night,
which might effectually shroud him from any one that might pursue him,
she could not have sent one that was more dark or dismal. The blackness
of the wilds, heightened a thousand-fold that of the night, which itself
required no augmentation. Objects seemed heaped together in one pitchy
chaos, and nature seemed to sleep heavily under a canopy of gloom. The
fire flies that flew low and lonely on the level Savannahs, seemed to
show their light, merely to point out the surrounding darkness. In the
same proportion with this thick gloom was the silence of the hour, which
permitted the faintest sounds to be heard. At long intervals the brief
but sonorous cry of the owl, as it signaled to its mate, would fall upon
the ear; or there might be heard the hoarse and unearthly shriek of the
night raven, as it vented its rage at the falling of some fruit, which
it carried in its beak; or, perhaps, the low sound of some tethered and
invisible horse that cropped the short grass hard by.

Incapable of seeing one foot before him, Appadocca could not proceed.
He remembered well where he was, but the darkness confounded his
calculation, and he knew not in what direction to move.

“The pen lies there,” he said, “no there—no there,” and vainly pointed
where he could not see his own hand before him.

In this dilemma he bethought him of the stars: full of hope he quickly
looked up: the heavens were as dark as the earth, not a star was to be
seen.

“Shall I stay where I am,” he inquired of himself, “until the morning
star shows itself? this gloom will not, it cannot last!” No there might
be a chance of his being discovered, and who knew the inconveniences,
that such a circumstance would bring.

“The wind—there is no wind.”

Appadocca wet the tip of his index finger with his saliva and turned it
round.

“Ha! there is a breath,” he said, as he felt the chill, on the tip of the
moistened finger. “The wind,” he argued, “blows at this hour in these
regions, at a point varying from north-east to east. Following such a
course, I shall assuredly open on the ocean: good.”

Appadocca now began to move along, keeping his index finger straight
before him, and taking care to moisten it from time to time. He proceeded
under the pilotage of his sense of feeling, and heard the drowsy dialogue
of some Llaneros, as they lazily turned in their hammocks, in some
neighbouring pen, and asked each other, if he did not hear some one
walking.

The soft breeze still gently blew, and afforded the same means of
directing himself. He tumbled here and there into the deep farrows
which the heavy rains had made. The severe shocks and bruises which he
received, as he fell into those holes, were quite sufficient to try
the endurance of a strong man, much less that of one who was but just
recovering from illness. Fortunately the point to be attained was not far
off, and Appadocca, after having groped his way for an hour, heard the
low moaning of the ocean before him. He approached as much as he thought
he could with prudence, for he conjectured that the ground would be the
more broken and torn, as it verged nearer toward the sea; and, finally,
sat down on the grass to await the approach of morning.

The gray light which temporarily chases away darkness immediately before
the advent of morning, to leave a moment afterward the gloom which it
dispelled for a time, came. Careful not to lose one favourable moment,
Appadocca immediately got up, and advanced in the direction in which the
sea was rolling. Again, however, he was obliged to suspend his progress,
for darkness again returned.

At the approach of the real light Appadocca felt his sensibility deeply
moved by the view which opened before him. The great Atlantic rolled
heavily below, and it was only where the horizon limited vision that its
silently rising mountains would appear as if they were at last levelled
into easy quietness. Its moving volumes were as yet undisturbed by the
wind, and the transparent haze that still floated over its surface,
imparted an air of repose that well befitted the hour. The mountain-peaks
of the little islands that lined the shore, rose forth to contrast the
wild waste of waters, and then came the high land on which he stood, that
verged to the north-west into capacious bays and havens, and pointed
out towards the east, and advanced high and lofty like a battalion of
fearless soldiers, against the billows that lashed them, and that had
likely lashed them long long before they bore the adventurous Columbus to
its foot. At his back, also, lay the level and wide-spreading Savannahs,
where, too, only the horizon bourned the sight.

Solitary and alone in such a situation, Appadocca could not refuse to
his heart the pleasure of admiring such a scene; and, although prudence,
not to say safety, pressed him to hie away from the Rancha, he could not
resist the temptation of resting and feasting his eyes upon that which
was before and around him.

Rousing himself, however, from the influence of this feeling, he
endeavoured, and succeeded in descending the cliffs, and resolved to wait
until fortune, or, to use his own expression, destiny, should send in his
way, one of the numerous little vessels that trade along that coast.

That day passed, and destiny—the broken reed—was not kind enough to send
a vessel his way. Worn out with anxiety, and weakened by the want of
food, he drew himself up in the chasm of a rock, with the intention of
resting himself there in the best way that his unbroken fast, and the
uninviting accommodation would permit.

Despite these two unfavourable circumstances, he fell into a deep sleep,
and had been under its influences for some hours, when he was startled by
a most terrifying noise. It seemed that numbers of savage animals were
assembled immediately above his head, and were designedly giving vent in
one unbroken roar to their dismal and fearful howlings, that rose above
the measured breakings of the billows below.

“What can this be,” said Appadocca to himself, as he awoke; “what now
comes to break this slumber that weans me from the sense of hunger?” So
saying, he jumped up and walked a little way from the foot of the cave,
across the beach, and looked up. He perceived the dark outlines of some
large animals, that were moving about restlessly on the ridge, and were
howling in the manner we have described.

“Ha!” he exclaimed, “shall I have escaped from the scaffold, the waves of
the Atlantic ocean, and from the jaws of the sharks that fill the bocas,
to be, at last, ignominiously devoured by wild beasts; by Heaven, then,
whatsoever you be, if you attack me, I warn you, you will attack one that
is prepared for you, and one who is ready, at this moment, to make any
one, or any thing, bear a heavy amount of chastisement.”

This was spoken in a resolute and even fierce and over-confident tone.
The speaker seemed impatient.

There has not been, perhaps, a single philosopher since the human race
began, to ruminate on rules and plans of human excellence, who can be
said to have entirely controlled the emotion of anger. All our other
feelings seem to give way, and yield to the discipline of a well-watched
life, and to the strong volition of our reason, but that passion alone
still remains uncontrollable; smothered it may be for a time, it is true,
but it is liable on the very first occasion, to be fiercely kindled.
It seems to be so intimately connected, although negatively with the
pleasures of the mind and body, and consequently with the gratification
of the actual cultivation of philosophy itself, that any derangement of
any of these things acts in producing the feeling which human perfection
is too weak to avoid.

Notwithstanding his cynicism, Appadocca was irritated by the numberless
difficulties that fell to his lot to surmount.

‘But a feather breaks the loaded camel’s back’: he had undergone
privations, borne sufferings, staked life, happiness—all that was dear
and solacing to man—on the accomplishment of a design; after exerting
himself to an extent that such as he, only, could exert themselves; after
sacrificing the happiness that a lovely and angelic being was willing to
confer, he was, at the eleventh hour, of his suffering, when hope began
to beam again, now exposed to be devoured by vile unreasonable creatures.

These reflections might have been made on another occasion, without
endangering the temper of the person who made them. But Appadocca was
now almost maddened by fatigue and hunger. Famine makes the most steady
violent, and human nature has already a sufficiently hard duty to contain
itself, even when starvation is not present to gall it into rage.

In this mood he stood boldly on the shore, looking up at the wild beasts,
with his chest heaving highly and quickly, and apparently desiring that
they should rush upon him at once, and afford a but to his fury, and put
an end to his unsweetened existence. His wishes were partly fulfilled.

The animals rushed to and fro and seemed to be looking for a footing
to descend the crag; but their instinct apparently did not deem it
sufficiently secure for that purpose, for they drew back and howled as
if disappointed of their prey.

“Fools,” cried Appadocca, addressing them with more rage than reason, “go
further down the ridge if you would have me to feast upon.”

One of the animals, bolder than the others, went as far forward as
possible, and seemed to have found a means of descending, but as the
creature endeavoured to rest the weight of its body on the projection,
on which it had laid one of its paws, it gave way. Its balance was lost
and headlong it tumbled down the precipice. It had no sooner reached the
ground, than Appadocca, wild as the animals themselves, threw himself
upon it and buried his thumb and finger into its neck.

“Now you must either kill me, or I shall kill you, vile creature that
assails me, as if mankind could not inflict sufficient injury without
your coming from your native wilds and forests to aid them. Die, by
Heaven! or I shall”—saying this, he contracted his muscles as tightly as
the sinews of a convulsive man.

The animal lay for awhile stunned by the fall; but as soon as the blood
commenced to circulate again, it felt the pressure on its wind-pipe, and
began to kick violently.

“Kick your spirit away, vile brute, I shall not budge,” cried Appadocca,
now half mad with fury.

On its legs the creature stood, and shook its head and plunged, and away
it went with Appadocca still clutching its wind-pipe with the grasp of
the dying crocodile. The animal staggered a few paces and fell heavily to
the ground, strangled to death.

Appadocca got up from the ground to which he had been borne by the beast
in its fall, and walked round his prey in triumph.

“Whatever you are,” said he, “provided you are flesh and blood, I shall
have a meal of you.”

He groped about among the small stones that strewed the upper part of
the beach, and found what he seemed to have been searching for, a flint.
He dashed it against a larger one and with the sharp pieces of it he
began to cut through the hide of the animal that he had killed. He then
succeeded in cutting a large portion of the still quivering flesh, and
eat it.

What will not famine relish? Oh! hunger, that eternally tells us of our
lowliness. Hunger levels. Hunger brings down the highest and proudest
individuals to the standard of the meanest creature, whose instinct is to
eat, whose life is concentrated in devouring, and whose death comes by
over-feeding.

After Appadocca had fed upon the reeking flesh of his victim, he seemed
recalled to himself: the madness of famine was past. He now looked upon
the carcass before him with the indifference that formed the greater part
of his nature, and the faint glimmerings of the fact that he had defied
that beast which was now before him, and had engaged it in mortal combat,
disgusted him: he contemned himself, too, when he recollected a little,
the vain boastful and undignified language that he had held, and bent his
steps in much sadness towards the same crevice where he had slept away
the first part of the night. The other animals had fled after the fall of
the one we have mentioned, and the stillness of the night was, as before,
broken upon only by the moans of the ocean.

The next morning revealed to Appadocca the extent of the danger that
he had escaped the night before. The animal was discovered to be one
of those American tigers or jaguars, which pervade the plains of
South America, and whose hunger has not unfrequently surmounted their
instinctive cowardice so far as to bring them to the very houses of the
Rancheros. The huge and powerful jaws of the animal, in which his bones
could have been ground to pieces, attracted the attention of Appadocca;
and when he observed the wound on the animal—the rude incision that he
had made with the flint, and recollected the bloody meal that he had made
of its flesh, he shuddered in disgust.

It was now that, withdrawing his eyes from the jaguar, he perceived at
a distance a small craft tossing about on the heavy billows. He nimbly
climbed the eminence to have a better view of what he feared his fancy
may have too flatteringly pictured to him. It was in reality a small
_fallucha_ that was labouring on the heavy seas. Her course was under
the land, but on the reach she was edging sea-ward. Alarmed at this
appearance, he came down the cliff and ran along the beach towards the
little vessel. Having got nearly opposite, he halloed as loudly as he
could. He was not heard; again he cried, but with as little success as
before.

“Am I destined again to meet with other misfortunes?” he muttered,
calmly. “Am I destined to be left to perish on this unfrequented shore!
Oh my father! how many events seem to arise to befriend you. Were I not
sufficiently grounded in my belief, I would be almost tempted to believe
that destiny, or Providence, or something else, exerted itself to shield
you from your merited chastisement. But avaunt, vain, and stupid thought,
the fatalities that have befallen thee, Emmanuel Appadocca, are only the
acting of one of the grand laws by which yon sun stands where it is,
while the earth wheels around it; or by which thou thyself throttled
the huge beast last night. Dost thou not see that the distance is too
far for thy voice to reach? Providence has instruments enough among his
creatures, he does not interfere with our little concerns.”

Muttering this, Appadocca climbed the heights, took off the jacket with
which the hospitable Ranchero had provided him, and waved it in the air.

The mariners on board the _fallucha_ held their oars in mid-air.

“They have seen me,” said Appadocca, and waved the jacket again.

The _fallucha_ had discovered the signal.

Casting away the jacket, Appadocca threw himself at once from an
overhanging rock into the sea, and began to swim boldly out to meet the
vessel that was now slowly approaching him.

His eagerness however, was now well nigh proving his death; for
miscalculating the distance as well as his strength, he had ventured
farther than his fatigues could justify. He was just sinking from
exhaustion, when the powerful arm of a sailor from on board the
_fallucha_ grasped him.

He was laid on one of the rower’s benches, where he lay insensible.
The sailors gravely bent over him, and tried every means for producing
re-animation, which was not easily attained, for the Spaniards had no
effectual restoratives, and Appadocca was now so overwhelmed, that the
healthy elasticity of nature was almost destroyed.

Appadocca proffered his thanks to the four men who formed the crew of
that little vessel for their kindness, as soon as he had come to himself.

“Who are you?” asked the captain, after receiving the thanks, “and where
do you come from, you do not seem to me to be a seaman?”

“No,” readily answered Appadocca, “I went out from Trinidad in my
pleasure boat, together with some friends; we were taken through the
bocas by the force of the currents, and having inadvertently approached
too near a whirlpool, we were capsized. My friends have been drowned. I
am the only one who have survived: I managed to swim ashore, and had to
encounter a number of accidents, and a large amount of suffering. I at
last saw your vessel.”

“And where are you going,” he demanded in his turn, anxious to divert
further inquiry.

“To Trinidad.”

“To which port,” again demanded Appadocca.

“To any one where I may be able to sell my cargo,” answered the captain
of the _fallucha_.

Appadocca yielded himself up to his reflections.

The captain could not withdraw his eyes from the stranger. He looked at
him with the peculiar expression of the face, which indicates the absence
of entire mental satisfaction, with regard to the reality of the object
gazed upon. Still there was nothing in the appearance of Appadocca that
could warrant any definite suspicion; but there was a combination in it,
nevertheless, which forcibly attracted attention, and inspired a peculiar
sort of feeling that probably was akin to awe.

The morning gradually passed. When the strong trade-wind sprang about
eleven o’clock, the rowers pulled in their sweeps; the feather-like sails
of the _fallucha_ were hoisted; her head was pointed towards the bocas,
and the little vessel began to mount over the waves under her closely
boarded sheets. The sailors now carelessly threw themselves at full
length on the rowers’ benches; the captain kept his eye on the bows of
the little vessel; and Appadocca gazed pensively on the ocean before him.
Had any of those who were on board the _fallucha_ cast his eyes towards
the land that lay on the lee, he would probably have made out the dim
outlines of a female form that was waving a white handkerchief in the
air.

At night-fall, the _fallucha_ was in the chops of the outlets.

Appadocca thus saw himself, by a strange coincidence, in the same place
and about the same time that he had jumped from the man-of-war. He gazed
on the rolling waves which nature had surrounded with the terrors both of
the animated and unanimated portions of creation. For the rocks beneath
the impending mountains, together with the waves that looked merciless
and unrelenting, raised at first sight the idea of sure destruction:
while the huge repulsive sharks that are there to be seen in thousands
reminded one of a still more painful and frightful death.

“Nil arduum,” muttered Appadocca, as he gazed on the scene of his
daring adventure, “said the Roman poet, and no mortal ever enunciated a
greater truth. Here are these overwhelming waves that seem to carry sure
destruction on their frowning crest, that roll over an abyss, which if
it were dry, would be difficult for man to fathom, that contain within
themselves all sorts of huge and destructive monsters, in comparison to
the smallest fins of which, man, enterprizing, achieving man, dwindles
to the insignificance of the rose-twig by the side of the towering
magnolia: still the human race subjugates them even in their fiercest
mood, and from their frail fabric of boards and pitch, men make war on
their dangerous denizens. Not only that, but I, my very self, at the
hour of midnight, when man and beast retire to their habitations, and
sleep away darkness and its horrors, I plunged into the terrific waters
with only a clay-pot to help me through, and here I am, principally
by dint of perseverance, safe and sound. Oh, human race, you know not
your power; you know not what you could do if you would only throw away
the superstitious fears in which you have enthralled yourselves, and
venture to assume a position, which the indefiniteness of your intellect
assuredly intends you for. But you must study the law of nature: until
you do that, you cannot be fit to achieve great things; as you are, you
are living merely like brutes, with this aggravation, that the resources
of your reason give you a greater facility of corrupting yourselves, and
of becoming cowardly and base, the natural effect of corruption.

“Had I permitted myself,” continued Appadocca, “to be nursed in the
lap of an enervating luxury, either mental or bodily, to be surrounded
with numbers of base menials, whose care was to prevent even the dew of
heaven from falling too heavily upon me, who were to prepare the couches
of indolence for me, who were to pamper my body, beyond the power of
endurance, and at last transform me into an animal lacking thews and
muscles? if I had been tutored to look upon the falling of a picture as
a calamity, or been taught to tremble at the ramblings of a mouse; and
more, had I permitted my mind to be enslaved by the ignorant notions
of fiends, of horrors after death, and of all those things by which
the world is made to quake in utter fear, should I have undertaken the
execution of a design that would have been made to appear, even more
terrible than that death in which its entire failure could have resulted?
No, decidedly not.

“And, my good father,” a sardonic smile might have been marked about
his lips, “rejoice while you can, amidst vain pomps and ceremonies,
surrounded as you are again by smiling and sympathising sycophants, for
your time of merry-making will be but short.”

Such were the half-muttered reflections of Appadocca as the _fallucha_
crossed the bocas.

Having once cleared the straits, the little vessel drew closely under
the land on the left side with her sails filled by the cool and gentle
land breeze. She was sailing up to Port-of-Spain, among the beautiful
little islands with which the reader was made acquainted at the beginning
of this narrative. The curling wavelets of the smooth gulf broke on
the sharp prow of the fast-sailing _fallucha_, and kept up a soothing
music that invited to repose. The rustling of the trees that grew to the
water’s edge, charmed the ear of the mariner; the land breeze wafted far
out to sea the sweet perfumes of the wild flowers, which nature has known
to create only in the tropics.

The little vessel was doubling a small promontory, and entering the
beautiful bay which indents the coast about that part, and is known as
“Chaguaradmas Bay,” when the hasty splashes of several oars were suddenly
heard, while, from the darkness of the night, the approaching boat was
still unseen.

The splashes every moment grew more and more loud and distinct, they
sounded more and more near, and suddenly a large boat, pulled by ten
armed men, appeared, and the next instant the _fallucha_ was boarded; as
nimbly as antelopes the men jumped into the little craft.

“Que es ese?” the Spaniards simultaneously cried, and each drew his knife.

“Lorenzo,” exclaimed Appadocca, with more warmth than his cynicism could
justify, and, in a moment, that officer—for it was he—was affectionately
shaking his chief by the hand: they were both much affected.

How sweet it is when loving relatives have died away, one by one, when
lover has been inconstant, and has shot the arrow—coldness—through the
loving heart; when the ingratitude of professed friends has frozen the
limpid currents of our feelings, when the world has heaped upon us
miseries on miseries, and then has cast us forth; when father shews the
front of enmity to filial deservedness, when we are isolated in ourselves
in this great world of numbers of movements and of alacrity; how sweet
it is to meet, after separation, the friend whose heart-strings throb in
sympathy with ours, and about whose head the shadows of suspicion could
never play.

At the sound of the captain’s well-known voice, a loud and prolonged
cheer from the men in the boat, echoed in the silence of the night far
and wide over the gulf, and was repeated long and loudly by the ringing
dales on the shore.

“Thanks, thanks,” exclaimed Lorenzo, in his joy, “to the chance that sent
us after this vessel.”

“Where is the schooner?” inquired Appadocca.

“Behind that promontory, that you barely see: she is there safely hidden.”

“Then take the helm,” said Appadocca, “and steer to her.”

Lorenzo attempted to take the tiller out of the hands of the captain, but
met with strong resistance.

The captain of the _fallucha_ brandished his knife, and called on his men
to assist.

“Stop,” coolly said Appadocca, “do not resist: I shall give you five
hundred dollars for your little vessel and its cargo. Submit, I am
Appadocca, the young pirate.”

“Jesu!” cried the captain of the _fallucha_, “whom did I receive on board
my vessel?” and he resignedly gave up the tiller.

The command of the _fallucha_ was now taken by the pirate party. She was
immediately put about. On making two or three tacks she headed the small
promontory, and discovered the long Black Schooner that lay enshrouded,
in the silence of night, on the smooth and deepening bay.




CHAPTER XXIII.

    “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
    Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

                                                 HAMLET.


After Lorenzo had been satisfactorily informed, by the confessions of
the midshipman, with regard to the safety of his chief, deeming it no
longer necessary to hazard any nearer approach to the man-of-war, he kept
the schooner where she was: while, at the same, he continued to keep the
ship-of-war still within sight. He was enabled to do so by an instrument
of a very peculiar and strange device. From the tall masts of the
schooner, there were reared to an immense height into the air long poles
of steel that were joined and joined again to each other, and were, at
the same time, carefully secured on all sides; at the top of these were
adjusted large globe-shaped metallic mirrors, that were filled with a
thick white liquid, which was continuously agitated by a small electric
engine, which received its power from a battery on deck. These mirrors,
when the sun was at a certain height, were made, by a trigonometrical
principle, to receive impressions of objects that were beyond the scope
of the human eye, and by conveying those impressions to other mirrors,
that were fixed in a thousand different ways, to the several parts of the
vessel, gave the power to an individual on deck to see every movement of
any vessel which would otherwise be invisible, while his own remained
unseen.

Thus, by the force of the same genius with which he might have shone
among men on the side of good, Appadocca was enabled to excel, to be
unapproachable and irresistible in his career of crime and evil. The
firmness of mind which enabled him to curb the natures of even pirates,
and to establish a discipline on board the Black Schooner that made
his men simultaneously act as if they were but the individual members
of only one single body moved but by one spirit, might, perhaps, have
procured for him the reputation of a wise and great leader; the powers
of invention, which supplied even the deficiencies of human nature, and
permitted him to make almost every element his servant, could again have
handed down his name to posterity as that of a profound philosopher, if
his talents had been turned to a proper object. But the combination of
circumstances—destiny, decided otherwise, and instead of finding himself
in the high position of good, Appadocca found himself, by the very
necessity of those self-same talents, in the high position of evil.

It is not Emmanuel Appadocca alone that has been thus doomed to bury a
high intellect in obscurity, or been impelled by circumstances to expend
its force in guilt. No: the world seems scarcely as yet prepared for
genius, a higher humanity is required and must exist, before the man who
possesses it can find a congenial place of existence on this planet. Mere
chance now moves the balance in which he is weighed; circumstances either
hazardously call him forth, or he is left to feed upon his own disgust,
until his rough sands are run, then earth covers over the fire that ought
to burn only in the skies. From among one hundred men of genius scarcely
one ever goes beyond the boundary of the desert on which so many flowers
are destined to “blush unseen.”

It was two hours after noon, on the day which we have above mentioned,
that Lorenzo was standing by the helmsman of the schooner, eagerly
reading the reflections of the mirrors, when the signals of Appadocca
from the man-of-war fell upon his eyes.

“What is this?” involuntarily exclaimed the officer, as he read the
well-known symbols of his chief.

“Too late, too late! his stupidity has already made him undergo the
torture,” he exclaimed, as he deciphered,—

“TREAT WELL THE OFFICER, FOR THEY TREAT ME WELL.—SCORPION.”

Lorenzo gave an order to the officer on duty; a piercing sound was then
heard; in a moment or two, the sides of the schooner became peopled with
men, whose brawny arms were bared up to the shoulders. Not a word was
spoken. The polished and shining guns of the schooner were immediately
pointed, they seemed to thrust their muzzles through the port-holes, as
if they worked by one impulse, by their own choice and their own action,
for the slightest difference could not be traced either in the time or in
the manner in which each separate piece was moved to its proper place.

Another piercing sound: each gun was fired at the precise moment. The
schooner shook under the deafening explosion that followed, and the ocean
rang, and rang again with the echo.

This was Lorenzo’s reply to the request of Appadocca.

By the aid of the same machine, that officer perceived when the
man-of-war set all her sails, and began her voyage to Trinidad, as
he concluded, both from the revelation of the young officer, and the
direction in which she was steering. He rejoiced when he observed this,
for he was persuaded that, in the event of the man-of-war entering the
Gulf of Paria, he would be able triumphantly to rescue his chief. For
the thousand bays and creeks which diversify the shore, the distance at
which large vessels are obliged to remain on account of the harbour’s
shallowness, and the lukewarmness of the inhabitants of the town with
regard to pirates, for they have seldom or never been subjected to the
ravages of those people, he calculated, would afford him all assistance,
while they should, on the contrary, tend to perplex, hinder, and
embarrass the enemy.

He immediately ordered a certain quantity of sails to be put on the
schooner, and began to follow the man-of-war. He kept always out of
sight, and at noon on each day, the sails were lowered, the same machine
was erected, and he made his observations on the ship-of-war, which
sailed away majestically, its commander little knowing that he was
followed by a cunning, vigilant, and determined enemy.

Four hours had not elapsed since the man-of-war had crossed the bocas,
before the Black Schooner also passed them, and thus left in the water
behind her the person to whose rescue she was going.

Lorenzo kept her head still towards the centre of the gulf, then went
about, and, with one tack, gained the headland, behind which the schooner
now lay concealed.

In that position, Lorenzo quickly disguised himself, and taking
possession of one of the many little vessels that sail along the shore
from the Spanish main, went up to Port-of-Spain, and heard the confused
intelligence that Appadocca had committed suicide.

His cargo was sold, and he could remain no longer in the harbour for fear
of detection, so he resolved upon the plan of taking another _fallucha_,
and of returning to Port-of-Spain as a different captain. He lay in watch
for the first vessel which might pass, and destiny willed that the one
which he should board should carry Appadocca.

       *       *       *       *       *

As soon as Appadocca had arrived on board of the schooner, after
having bowed to the officer and men, who saluted him, he descended the
companion-steps and requested Lorenzo to follow.

They arrived at the Captain’s cabin: and Jack Jimmy, who met Appadocca
at the door, stood on tiptoe, threw his head forward, opened his eyes,
and was just on the point of venting some exclamation, when Appadocca
made a sign to him to be silent. The little man, almost bursting with the
internal ebullition of the greeting which he was obliged to restrain,
retreated into an angle, and Appadocca passed on.

“Sit down,” said he to Lorenzo, when they had arrived into the cabin,
“and allow me to express my approval of the brave and wise manner in
which you have discharged your duty during my absence.”

The officer bowed modestly.

“Has the crew always acted up to its office?” Appadocca demanded.

“Yes, your excellency,” replied Lorenzo.

“The unfortunate accident,” proceeded Appadocca, “which happened,
deprived us of our last booty: but, in two days’ time I shall let the
men have as much as they can desire. I shall let them have pleasure
to-morrow. Lorenzo, let us drink together.”

Appadocca pressed a spring, and one of his attendants appeared and laid
on a table wine and drinking-cups. Appadocca filled a goblet and passed
the decanter to Lorenzo.

“Thanks to you, Lorenzo,” said Appadocca, and drank.

“To the joy of your return, your excellency,” said Lorenzo, and did the
same.

In a few moments after the officer left the cabin.




CHAPTER XXIII.

    “For valour, is not love a Hercules,
    Still climbing trees in the Hesperides?”

                      LOVE’S LABOUR’S LOST.


At early dawn on the morning that followed the departure of Appadocca,
Feliciana was sitting in the principal apartment of the Rancha. She was
occupying her favourite chair by the window, and with her cheek resting
upon her hand, was gazing listlessly and absently on the green grass
without, on which the dew still sparkled in the silvery rays of the
rising sun.

She seemed occupied by her own thoughts, although the beautiful picture
of waking nature—a scene always enchanting in the tropics—was before
her, and every moment, as she heard the rustling of the _carat_ that
roofed the house, or the creaking of the cedar windows as they became
heated with the sun, or any other sound which might resemble a footfall,
she turned her head eagerly to look, and turned away again, evidently
disappointed when she saw nothing.

The morning merged more and more towards noon, she more and more
frequently turned round to look, but seemed every time disappointed as
before, for Appadocca, whom she was expecting, did not appear.

“Can he be ill,” thought Feliciana, “Maria, Maria!” she cried, as she
became more and more alarmed by the idea.

An old servant appeared, and was immediately sent to see if the stranger
was well.

She soon returned, and said that there was no one in the room.

Feliciana jumped up and rushed into the apartment which Appadocca had
occupied. No one had slept on the bed.

The truth now broke in upon the young lady. Her countenance fell; she
walked back dejectedly to her chair, and looked out as before.

“What shall I do?” asked the old domestic, who had now a long time waited
in vain for the orders of her absent mistress.

Feliciana started: “Tell my papa,” she said, and turned away her head.

The old domestic went slowly and in a side-long manner out of the
apartment, gazing at the young lady the whole time, and muttering “what
is the matter with the child?”

Feliciana remained where she was the greater part of the day, closed
her ears to the repeated exhortations of her old servant to take food,
and declared, in answer to her pressing questions, that she had had
a disagreeable dream the night before, which had thrown a feeling of
melancholy over her the whole of that day. When she retired to her
apartment in the evening, the young lady hastily gathered her valuables,
and wrote a letter, which she addressed to her father, and sat quietly
and pensively until the night was half spent. She then rose, and
carefully let herself out of the house, and walked slowly and cautiously
away, until she got to a considerable distance from the Rancha. Once
in the open field, the bold Feliciana began to run, for it was only by
running that she could keep pace with the rapidity and activity of her
thoughts. The next day she was by the sea shore, and was just in time to
catch a glimpse of the little _fallucha_ which had received Appadocca on
board, as she was sailing away. She waved her handkerchief, but no one on
board saw her, and the _fallucha_ left her behind.

Undaunted by this accident, the young lady continued her journey along
the shore, moving, however, in an easterly direction.

Oppressed with fatigue, she sat for a moment, in the evening, on the
grass, to rest herself.

The dull sounds of horses’ hoofs in a short time were distinctly heard.

“I am undone,” Feliciana exclaimed, and turned to look.

Two horsemen were seen rapidly approaching in the direction by which she
herself had come.

“They are my father’s men,” she said to herself, and looked about for
some tree, or other object, behind which she might conceal herself: but
there was not a thing at hand.

The horsemen drew closer and closer again; she looked round once more: at
a short distance, the grass seemed to grow richer and thicker. She crept
along towards this point, and threw herself flat into the tuft: but she
was barely concealed, and durst not hope to escape being seen.

“I cannot avoid being taken,” she said to herself, and seemed unnerved
by the thought. The horsemen approached nearer and nearer. The thoughts
of Appadocca crowded on her; the conflict of undefined feelings which
had taken place in her mind, had ended in leaving her a being that was
devoted to that mysterious man, and one who could now form no idea of
life in which he was not the beginning and the end. Her fears now yielded
to a stronger feeling; she drew from her bosom a gilded poniard, and
vowed that she would not be deterred from fulfilling her vow as long as
she lived. The horsemen had almost arrived to where she was, they came
opposite to her, they looked neither on one side nor on the other, but
seemed entirely absorbed by the subject on which they were conversing in
a loud tone of voice.

From her hiding place Feliciana could see them distinctly. Joy, joy! they
were not her father’s men. But may they not be other persons that were
sent after her in one direction, while her father’s own Llaneros went in
another? She remained quiet and listened.

“No, I shall not take less than seven piastres each for my oxen; and, as
for my jack-asses, I shall not let them go for less than four piastres
a-head,” said one of the horsemen.

“You are quite right,” replied the other; “those people in Trinidad can
afford to pay a good price for their bullocks. By-the-bye, have you
remarked what a number more of beasts we sell since the English took that
island. I understand these fellows live entirely on beef, and that is
the reason why they are such good soldiers.”

“Good or bad soldiers,” answered the other, “if they eat beef, and make
us sell our cattle, that is all we care about.”

“They are merchants,” said Feliciana to herself, and resolved at once to
speak to them.

“Yes, continued the first speaker, I shall not—”

“Ho!” cried Feliciana, springing from the ground, “senores, senores, ho!”

The horsemen looked round, and crossed themselves, and at the same time,
cried, “Jesu!”

“Stop, stop, I wish to speak to you,” Feliciana continued.

The horseman reined up their horses, and remained apparently under the
effect of some powerful fear.

“What may she be?”

“Who knows what she may be! that’s just the reason why we should obey
her,” replied the other.

In the mean time Feliciana came up.

“Shall we speak to her?” one inquired of the other.

“Where are you riding to, senores?” she inquired.

They looked inquiringly at each other, and then asked each other in a
whisper, “Shall I answer?”

“Where are you going to, senores?” she repeated.

“To Guiria, beautiful lady,” one at last answered.

“Be good enough to take me with you,” said Feliciana.

The horsemen looked amazed at each other.

“I shall give you two hundred piastres.”

The two horsemen opened their eyes.

“Two hundred piastres?” they repeated inquiringly.

“Yes.”

“And who are you, beautiful lady, that are thus solitary in the
Savannahs? are you one of us or some blessed spirit that is permitted
to walk the earth. We are good and true catholics, do not harm us,
we beseech you.” The two horsemen here devoutly crossed themselves
respectively.

“I am no spirit,” answered Feliciana, “but an unfortunate lady, who is
flying to the rescue of—of—her—husband: pray take me on with you, and I
shall reward you, as I have said.”

The horsemen mused, and whispered to each other for a moment. Then one of
them dismounted.

“Senora,” he said, “Heaven forbid that we should ever commit the crime of
leaving a lady in the wilds without shelter or protection. Allow me to
assist you in mounting my horse.”

Feliciana was supported on the saddle. The three persons then proceeded
on their journey. The horsemen changed places alternately at the various
stages of the journey; and while one walked at the side of Feliciana’s
horse, the other rode by turns, until they arrived in the environs of
the town of Guiria, where Feliciana found a number of opportunities to
continue her wanderings in search of Appadocca.




CHAPTER XXIV.

            “How would you be,
    If He, who is the top of judgment, should
    But judge you as you are? O, think on that;
    And mercy then will breathe between your lips,
    Like men new made.”

                              MEASURE FOR MEASURE.


After Appadocca had jumped overboard, the large ship passed the bocas
safely, entered upon the still waters of the gulf, and within a few hours
afterwards her large Anchor was cast off the harbour of Port-of-Spain.

As the vessel approached nearer to her port of destruction, Charles
Hamilton had become more and more anxious, and uneasy about the fated
doom which he saw every moment hanging lower and lower over his friend.
He reasonably argued that, with such a willing witness as James
Willmington, and with such a stoical disposition as his friend had formed
to himself, there would not be the slightest chance of Appadocca’s
acquittal when he should be tried. For Willmington, it was to be
supposed, would not attenuate the least feature of the case, nor would
Appadocca descend from his high notions of philosophy to conceal or deny
the charges that would be brought against him.

In this state of mind, Charles Hamilton considered a long time, and
endeavoured to think of some means of still saving his friend. It was,
however, a difficult and perplexing matter, for the only available
measures that he could adopt, were doggedly repudiated by Appadocca
himself.

“Confound his obstinacy,” the young officer muttered, when he thought of
his friend’s infatuation; “he might have been saved long ago if it were
not for that.”

Among a number of expedients and plans, Hamilton at last adopted the
one of having an interview with James Willmington, of endeavouring to
soften down his persecuting feeling, and of establishing, if not terms
of kindness and affection, at least those neutrality and indifference
between him and Appadocca.

It was in this disposition, that long before the sun had risen on the
morning after the man-of-war had come to an anchor, Charles Hamilton
requested a servant to ask James Willmington to be good enough to attend
him in his cabin. Willmington, whose excitement had kept him awake the
whole night, shortly appeared.

“Be good enough to sit down, sir,” said Hamilton.

Willmington sat down.

“I have taken the liberty, sir, of asking you to my cabin, to speak to
you on a subject that I am aware must be very delicate; but my great
anxiety for my friend, and the just apprehension that I entertain with
regard to his life itself, have led me to put aside whatever reluctance I
should otherwise feel, and to speak to you on that head.”

Willmington looked stolidly and vaguely at Hamilton, and said not a word.

“You are aware, sir,” continued Hamilton, “that Appadocca runs, at this
moment, the risk of his life.”

“I am aware, sir,” replied Willmington, briefly.

“Well, sir, shutting my eyes to all family quarrels—”

“There are no quarrels in my family that I know of, sir,” interrupted
Willmington.

“Perhaps you will hear me out,” remarked Hamilton.

Willmington exhibited the rudiments of a bow.

“Shutting my eyes to all private quarrels between you, I say, I cannot
but consider it a misfortune that a young man, like Appadocca, should be
brought to a disgraceful death on a scaffold at such an early age. You
will be the only prosecutor in this case, and, to a certain extent, you
hold his life in your hands; will you suspend—suspend your animosity, and
give Appadocca a chance of escape?”

“I do not understand you, sir,” said Willmington.

“I do not think there is much obscurity about what I said,” remarked
Hamilton, in his turn.

“Do you mean, sir, to ask me to connive at a felony, and to permit a
criminal to escape?”

“Call it what you choose, sir; I ask you to save Appadocca from an
ignoble and untimely death,” answered Hamilton.

“Then, sir, I must tell you at once, I cannot. The law must take its
course. Beside, sir, I feel called upon by public justice and morality,
to bring to punishment the individual in whose favour you are making
these representions.”

“Hum,” groaned Hamilton—“you forget one great point,” he said after a
short pause.

“What is that, sir?” inquired Willmington.

“That by bringing Appadocca to the scaffold, you will disgrace your own
blood,” answered Hamilton.

“I do not care much for that, sir,” answered Willmington.

“But you might show some consideration, at least, to your own son,” said
Hamilton.

“He did not show any to me,” sullenly replied Willmington.

“That is no reason why you should not: and you must recollect, he
justified his harshness to you precisely on the same grounds as you now
do yours. Besides, he may again, one day, justify any vengeance that he
may be inclined to wreak upon you by your conduct to day.”

“There will not be much chance left of his doing so, I warrant you,”
replied Willmington, with a sardonic smile.

“There is many a slip between the cup and the lip,” said Hamilton.

A pause ensued.

“Beside,” continued Willmington, re-opening the dialogue—“besides, he is
my son only of a sort.”

“What do you mean,” inquired Hamilton.

“That his mother was not Mrs. Willmington,” answered Willmington.

“Do you mean to say, then, that you do not consider you owe any duty to
your children that may not have been born in wedlock?” inquired Hamilton.

“Scarcely,” answered Willmington.

“You consider, therefore, that where the word of a priest has not been
pronounced on your union, you are absolved from your honor, and from
natural obligations?” inquired Hamilton.

“I do,” answered Willmington.

The lips of the young officer curled up with scorn, as he stood up and
said, with ill-concealed disgust:

“Leave my cabin, sir; leave my cabin. By G—d you are not made worse than
you are. If I were Appadocca, I should have hanged you outright, and not
sent you with a philosophical scheme to float on a cask and to be picked
up.

“Hark you, sir,” continued Hamilton, in a suffocating temper, “if you
have a son that resembles you more than Appadocca does, born of Mrs.
Willmington, understood—send him to me, sir, and, by his own appointment,
I shall give him satisfaction for ordering you out of my cabin.”

Willmington turned to leave, but met face to face a servant that came
rushing it.

“Your honour, your honour,” the man cried with much excitement, “the
pirate prisoner has drowned himself.”

“What?” exclaimed Hamilton, and fell back into his chair.

“The pirate prisoner, your honour, has jumped overboard. When the
steward went into his cabin this morning, he was not to be found: on
examination, the skylight was discovered to be open.”

The officer leaned his forehead on his hand.

“There, sir,” he said, “your vengeance is satisfied: public justice and
morality are vindicated.”

“Scarcely,” muttered Willmington between his teeth, and left the cabin.

Charles Hamilton was deeply affected by the supposed suicide of his
friend; recollections of bygone days crowded on his mind. He recalled
vividly to himself the happy hours which he and his friend Appadocca
had spent together in the lightheartedness and warm fellowship which
only students can feel, when strong and mutual sympathy links them, and
carries them together through study and through recreation: he pictured
to his mind, the ardent and aspiring youth, such as his friend then
was, with a mind that was stored with learning, and a heart that was
overflowing with abundant benevolence, and then contrasted him with
the cold soured, cynical man, whose mind was now entirely engrossed
with schemes of death and revenge, and whose heart now beat but in
cold indifference, or throbbed with a more active feeling, only when
retribution and punishment quickened its action. He then thought of the
career which hope would have foretold on the one picture—a career, that
like the stars themselves which Appadocca measured, was to be ever bright
and brilliant, that might have shed its light on humanity, and might,
perhaps, have signalized an epoch of philosophy and certain truth: and
he thought, on the other hand, of the actual reality of a life spent in
the degrading society of the reputed scum of mankind, with its energies
and powers exercised and lost in devising methods for robbing others, and
closed at last in immorality and crime.

Such thoughts weighed heavily on Charles Hamilton, and when he proceeded
on deck, his step might be observed to be less light, and his eye less
quick than they were wont to be.

As for James Willmington he walked on one side of the deck restlessly,
and bit his nails.

“The fellow,” he interjected to himself, “to go and drown himself when
I expected to have made him feel the consequences of his insolence, in
having me put on a cask and set adrift. The villain! to go and drown
himself, when the gallows and the hangman’s hand ought to have sent him
to his account. Never mind, he is out of the world, and one way is as
good as another, there is no fear now of being judged again in the name
of nature.”

Willmington smiled satanically.

“He is gone, and that is one blessing, at least, and he will, no doubt,
meet those in the other world who will be better able to answer his
philosophy than I.”

And a diabolical smile played on the lips of that heartless and selfish
man.

“Have that man landed at once, Charles?” said the commander dryly, who
was attentively watching Willmington, from the quarter-deck.

His attention had been at first attracted by the restless and impatient
movements of Willmington. He had remarked the workings of his lips, and
had noticed the bitter sneer that settled upon them at the end. The
dislike which he had always entertained for that man, was worked up to
its height by this exhibition.

“He could not have been uttering a prayer for his son,” he justly
thought; “prayers do not end so. No—no—he must be truly a vile
individual. Death ought to suspend, at least, the enmity of the bitterest
foes. It is a strange father that can curse the memory of his own son,
however great a reprobate he may have been. Have that gentleman landed
immediately, Charles,” he again said to his son.

In a few moments, James Willmington was made acquainted with this order,
and was told that a boat was ready to take him ashore.

“Thank God, thank God!” he cried, almost aloud, and quickly ascended the
steps of the quarter-deck, to take leave of the commander.

“My lord, I have to bid you, good morning,” said he, as he approached the
commander.

“Good morning,—good morning,” quickly replied the person addressed,
apparently desiring to have as little as possible to say to the
individual, who was taking his leave.

“I am much obliged to you,” continued Willmington, “for the protection
and assistance, and—”

“Not at all, sir,” dryly rejoined the commander, “I have only discharged
the duty which I owe to all His Majesty’s subjects on these seas.”

“Yes, my lord,” pursued Willmington, “and I trust my lord, when you land,
you will condescend to remember your former guest.”

“I thank you, sir,” replied the commander, as dryly, as before.

“Good morning, my lord.”

“A very good morning, sir.”

The boat, soon bore Willmington away from the ship.

“If the world possessed many more like that man,” said the commander
to his son, while he pointed to Willmington, who was now on his little
voyage toward the shore, “it would indeed be worse than a den of thieves.”

“I am afraid there are many more of this sort, sir, than you imagine,”
replied Charles, “and that the world is not even as good as a den of
thieves, for they say, those individuals recognize a certain code of
honor.”

“Things were not so in my time,” replied the commander; “when I was
young, Charles, we feared God, honored the king, and dealt justly and
honorably by all men.”

“The times, then, are changed, sir,” said Charles, “and the greatest
misfortune is, that such characters as that Willmington, unluckily for
humanity, make as many Appadoccas.”

“True,” observed the commander, “it is a misfortune. I always thought I
perceived much to be admired in that unfortunate Appadocca. I am rather
glad, I must say, that he has drowned himself rather than permit himself
to be dealt with by the executioner.”

On landing, Willmington hurried up the magnificent walk of almond-trees,
which lead from King’s-wharf, into Port-of-Spain. He pursued his way
through the city, and scarcely recognised the many wondering friends and
acquaintances, who proceeded forward to congratulate him on his return,
for they had heard of the accident which had befallen the ship in which
he had taken passage; and also of the manner in which he, in particular,
was treated.

When he had arrived at the beautiful Savannah which lies at the
Northern-end of the city, he diverged into a footpath that led to the
beautiful villas with which Saint Ann’s-road is ornamented. He quickly
walked up the road a little way, and immediately stopped at the gate of a
magnificent and romantic suburban house that stood in solitary grandeur,
amidst the beautiful trees that belted it.

He rang at the gate-bell, and was immediately admitted by the servant,
who started back, and almost went into hysterics at seeing his master
back again.

“Gad bless me, massa, da you, or you ’pirit?” inquired that official,
as he opened the gate and let his master in, who, without noticing the
wonderment of the man, rushed into the house.

“Ah! is it you, Mr. Willmington?” said his wife, with fear, surprise, and
joy, all confusedly pictured on her face.

“Heavens be praised, and thanked,” and she embraced him affectionately.

“Tell me, tell me all about the accident that befell you,” she asked.

“Not to-day, dear,” answered Willmington; “not to-day, dear. Only thank
Providence that I am again safe. I shall relate everything when I am more
composed.”




CHAPTER XXV.

    “Avaunt! and quit my sight! let the earth
    Hide thee!
    Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold!
    Thou hast no speculation in those eyes
    Which thou dost glare with.”

                                        MACBETH.


It was with the greatest difficulty that James Willmington succeeded in
restraining the curiosity of his wife until the period which he himself
had appointed to tell her the particulars of the capture of the ship, and
also the singular circumstance of his trial, punishment and rescue.

The period had now arrived.

In a beautiful and fantastic pavilion, into which the soft evening breeze
wafted the sweet perfume of a thousand delicate flowers which bloomed
around, sat James Willmington. He was seated at the head of a vast,
spreading table that was loaded with the choicest and most delicious
fruits that the tropics produce. Opposite to him sat Mrs. Willmington, on
whose side two very beautiful infant daughters were respectively placed.
On the right hand of Willmington was his son, a youth of about eighteen,
who was dressed in the uniform of an officer.

The pure wax tapers that burnt in chaste and elegant candlesticks of
solid silver, shed a cheerful and soft light around. The faint music of
a small fountain that played hard by, fell soothingly on the ear, as it
grew louder and louder, or fell fainter and still fainter, according
to the direction and strength of the lulling breeze that seemed to
sport with its jets. The old family pictures that hung on the walls
looked down fiercely and frowningly, or smiled upon the happy and quiet
group, according to the stern and warlike disposition or the benignant
characters of each.

The servants had all retired for the time to their own apartments; and
Willmington sat quietly smoking an exquisite cigar, and sipping from time
to time the crystal iced water that stood in a tumbler by his side.

“I shall now tell you,” he said, “the succession of accidents which has
brought me back to Trinidad,” and he began to relate the particulars of
the capture of the merchant vessel, the distribution of the shares,
his trial, his being thrown overboard, the agony that he suffered on
the cask, and finally his providential rescue, the capture of the
pirate captain and his supposed suicide. He narrated circumstance on
circumstance, quickly passed over the alleged causes of his sufferings,
and mentioned Appadocca as one who claimed to be his son.

“Confound his impudence,” cried the youth of eighteen. “I wish I had been
there, I should have caned his insolence out of him. The idea! to call
my father, his father, vile cut-throat as he was. I wish I had him now.
But do you know anything at all of him? How came he to claim you as his
father, sir?” he inquired, after a time.

“Do not interrupt me;—do not interrupt me,” was the only answer
Willmington made to this home and embarrassing question.

Time had flown during his long narrative. The clock had already struck
eleven—a late hour in the tropics—when he was concluding.

“Yes, my children,” he said at the end, with great solemnity,
endeavouring to make the contemplated impression, “there is one above to
punish evil doers.”

“Ay, and he never slumbers,” replied a deep sonorous voice from without,
and in a moment afterwards the pirate captain stood before James
Willmington.

The cigar fell from his jaws, that palsied with terror, now gaped
asunder. His hands trembled, and threw over the glass of iced water
towards which it was being stretched, his silvery hair seemed to stand
on end, and with a sudden bound, Willmington started from his seat and
reeled over his chair towards a corner of the apartment.

“Get out of my sight, get out of my sight, accursed, damned spirit; in
the name of Christ, I conjure you!” he cried, while his eyeballs glared,
and large drops of sweat trickled down his forehead that was almost green
with fear.

Appadocca calmly raised the chair from the floor, drew it to the head of
the table, folded his thin cloak around him and sat down.

“I did not design to deliver you up to the authorities,” shrieked
Willmington, almost inarticulately. “No, no! I had only intended to
frighten you, I would have allowed you to escape. Oh, yes, I would have
protected you; yes, yes, I would have protected you like a father.
Forgive, forgive me, and scare me no more.”

Appadocca looked round upon the miserable Willmington, who, contracted
with terror within the smallest possible heap, crouched in a corner.

“Do not look at me,” cried Willmington still more terrified, “vanish,
vanish, in the name of Heaven and all the saints. If you come from
Hell—to-to haunt me,—return, return. It was not I that wronged you.
Forgetfulness, forgetfulness—I intended—I intended always—always to find
you out. Your mother, aye, your—your mother loved me. Have mercy—mercy—on
me,—the vessel—the vessel took me by—by chance to St. Thomas. I did
not—I did ask him: no—no—I was sorry—sorry, when—when—you were drowned.
Mercy—mercy.”

“Come here and make your will,” said Appadocca, authoritatively, without
paying the slightest attention to the cries of the wretched and almost
distracted man.

“Make my will? will!” recommenced Willmington, “do you intend to murder
me? Hence, hence, I am a christian, you have no power on me. No, no,—do
not—do not—out, out of my sight, damned, reprobate spirit.”

“I am no spirit. Speak not to me so sillily. Make your will, I say,” said
Appadocca, with more authority, “and do not let these children suffer
from your loss. The minutes that you can remain with them are counted.”

“Will, will!” exclaimed Willmington, as if already staggering in his
intellect.

“Will? I have no will to make. My will is made already. Do not speak to
me of wills—do not speak to me of wills, I do not wish to die—I will not
die. Leave my sight—leave my sight—leave my sight.”

“Then settle your other affairs,” said Appadocca with the same authority
as before. “I allow you five minutes; at the end of that time you must go
with me.”

“No—no, I will not go with you,” shrieked Willmington, “I did you no
harm——I intended you no harm. Let me live a little longer—give me but
seven years to live—five—two;—half a year;—a month—a week, a day;—do not
take me away so soon. Let me live, let me live. Do not take me with you.
It was not I that drowned you.”

“It would be prudent on your part to fill the five minutes, which are
accorded you more profitably than by these vain petitions. I—”

“Vain petitions! Let them not be vain; look at the children that I
have to maintain and protect: do not take me away from them,” cried
Willmington, interrupting Appadocca.

“I am no ghost,” continued Appadocca, “but something worse.”

“Was he not drowned?” Willmington began to mutter. “Did he not jump into
the sea—at the bocas—or farther out?—Can he—could he have been saved?
no, no, delusion—delusion. His face is as pale as death. He is still
and quiet as the grave;” continued Willmington, as he gazed intently on
Appadocca, who was still sitting calmly at the table.

The period had elapsed, the moment of doom had now arrived.

“The period is past, your time is come,” said Appadocca, “rise and go
with me.”

“No—no,” shrieked Willmington, madly,—“no—no—no.”

And with a sudden spring he jumped from the corner to one of the doors:
he was roughly thrown back by some person who was outside: he then
rushed to another, and was again repelled—to another, and he was once
more forced back. He sprang on to the jalousies, and as he succeeded in
opening one, he was quickly shoved back by some powerful arm from the
outside, into the room again.

Like one who endeavours to flee from devouring flames, that rush in
merciless fury to close him in, and finds every passage, every outlet,
or crevice for escape barred against him, the unhappy man reeled back
into the room in the madness of despair.

“Murder—murder,” he shouted,
“John!—Charles!—James!—Edward!—Murder!—Murder!—pirates!—fiends, pirates,
robbers, police, police.”

“Ho! there! Domingo,—Gregoire!—Alphonso!—Jose!” called Appadocca, with
his habitual calmness.

Four men on the call entered the room. Their flashing eyes shone from
beneath their overhanging red caps, and their long beards and mustachios
exhibited a peculiar appearance under the silvery light of the tapers,
which tended to display to the full their dark and dry complexions.

“Secure him,” said Appadocca pointing to Willmington, as the men entered.

“Do not touch him for your lives,” cried the young officer, the son of
James Willmington, that sat on his right.

He, like his father, had been under the power of a supernatural terror
from the moment that Appadocca entered, and had been addressed as a
visitant from another world; but when he became awake to the fact that
the intruder was a being of flesh and blood, he grasped his sword that
lay on a table, and rushed at Appadocca.

“Do not touch him for your lives,” he cried, while he made a lunge at
the breast of the pirate-captain who still retained his seat. The point
was already touching the cloak of Appadocca, when the heavy weapons of
some unseen individuals from without, shattered the slender sword into a
thousand pieces.

“Secure you the young man, Baptiste,” said Appadocca, unmoved by the
danger which he had so narrowly escaped.

A man immediately stepped into the room and threw his arm round the
unresisting young officer.

The four men had rushed upon Willmington. Despair had maddened him into
a sort of courage: he met the foremost one of them half way, and grasped
him around the throat, with the clutch of death. The pirate also seized
him, and the two men, animated with passions which though different in
their natures were equally fierce in themselves, grappled like madmen,
and staggered violently to and fro. The strong effort of the pirate,
could not throw off Willmington, who clung to him with the tenacity of
the serpent that tightens its refolded coils around the triumphant tiger
that still presses its paw on its bruised head.

Lashed into rage, the pirate drew his knife: it gleamed for a moment
overhead, and was descending, with certain death upon its point, when——

“Hold!” cried Appadocca, “no blood; help him Gregoire, Jose, help him,
there.”

The voice of the captain arrested the disciplined arm.

Spurred by the immediate commands of their chief, the other pirates
closed in upon Willmington, and by the exercise of violent force tore him
away from their comrade, who stood for a moment with his eyes fiery and
glaring from anger, and with his chest heaving heavily and quickly.

The prisoner kicked and shouted until the words rattled hoarsely in his
throat; but he was now in no soft or gentle hands. Sooner than we can
write it, he was tied hand and foot; his cries, nevertheless, still
resounded through the place.

“Gag him,” was the immediate order.

The prisoner’s neckcloth was roughly undone, and violently thrust into
his mouth.

“Away with him.”

The pirates stretched out two pikes: the prisoner was laid across them,
they raised him on their shoulders, and walked silently out of the
apartment.

“Now unhand your prisoner, Baptiste,” said Appadocca, to the man who held
young Willmington. Baptiste let go his hold.

“My father, my father,” shouted young Willmington and rushed first to one
door, and then to the other, all of which he found guarded on the outside.

“Sir, you cannot go out,” said Appadocca.

“I will go out—I will go after my father,” ejaculated young Willmington.

“You cannot, and shall not,” answered Appadocca.

The young officer rushed to all the doors in succession, and was rudely
pushed back at each.

“You see you cannot go out,” observed Appadocca.

“Who are you? what do you wish to do with my father?” inquired the young
Willmington, as he turned disappointedly from the door.

“I shall tell you, by-and-bye,” answered Appadocca.

“Tell me at once, and let me out,” cried young Willmington.

“That cannot be.”

“That must be: I must rescue my father,” rejoined young Willmington.

“Banish the idea: you will never be able to do so,” replied Appadocca.

“Why not?”

“Because you will be prevented,” answered Appadocca.

“Prevented?—prevented? Hell, itself, with all its legions, shall not
prevent me,” shouted young Willmington. “I will rescue my father.”

“Do so,” answered Appadocca.

The young man rushed to the doors again, and was thrust back as before.
After a series of vain attempts, he staggered, almost exhausted, into the
centre of the room.

“You see, sir, I make no ungrounded assertions. It is impossible for you
to follow your father,” said Appadocca.

“Why impossible? Confound you as a cut-throat—murderer,” asked young
Willmington.

“Because,” answered Appadocca, without noticing the harsh epithets,
“because he is implicated in a vow that must be fulfilled.”

“I understand no such vow,” said young Willmington, “and if I had a
sword, I should force my way in spite of you.”

“Ha! we shall now understand each other, sir,” said Appadocca, then threw
aside his cloak, unbelted his richly-ornamented sword, and laid it on the
table. “You can use that, sir,” he said to young Willmington, while he
pointed to it, and stepping towards the door—

“Lend me your sword,” he said to one of the men.

The person gave up his sword at once to Appadocca, who went round the
room, and carefully bolted every door, one after the other. After that,
he said to his men.

“Retire into the high road, and remain there until I call.”

The men retired from the doors, and Appadocca closed with the same care
the one by which he had entered.

He was now left in the apartment only with young Willmington, Mrs.
Willmington, who lay insensible on the floor, where she had fallen at the
appearance of Appadocca, and her two infant daughters, who stared on in a
state of absolute stupefaction.

“Now, sir,” said Appadocca to young Willmington, standing by the table,
and leaning on the sword which he had borrowed, “allow me to speak to
you. I am your father’s son.”

“You are not,” indignantly remarked young Willmington.

“It is an honor,” said Appadocca with a smile, while he bowed to the
young man, “which I have never prized, I believe your stock is stamped
with a peculiar mark: behold it!” and Appadocca opened his little finger
as widely apart as possible from the other, and pointed to something
between the two fingers.

Young Willmington looked, stared, and started back in astonishment, but
spoke not a word.

“He,” continued Appadocca, after this disclosure, “treated me with
harshness, injustice, and cruelty, and wronged, in addition, one whose
place I now supply, and in whose name I seek vengeance. I owe him nothing
except punishment. I am, therefore, your father’s sworn persecutor, and
retributioner. You, he has always treated with kindness and affection;
the bonds of natural obligation have been drawn the tighter on you by
good deeds. You are, therefore, by the principles of justice, his natural
defender. Now he is named in a vow that I have made, and I cannot let
you rescue him. I have the power to prevent you from making any attempt
to that effect, and I shall do it. But there is yet a satisfaction which
I can give you, and I shall do so. With my life, the persecution which
is now carried on against your father will cease; for I shall leave none
behind me to take up my cause. I am willing, therefore, to throw life
and death on a hazard, and to afford you as fair a chance as possible
of purchasing your father’s deliverance by your valour and bravery. My
sword, which I offer you, is of the finest metal, you may rely upon its
fidelity. I challenge you to mortal combat.”

Appadocca put himself in an attitude of defence, bent his left arm over
his back, raised his head proudly, and held his sword straight before
him.

Young Willmington was undecided: he seemed to be under the power of a
thousand different and conflicting feelings. There was no possibility of
denying the well-known family mark with which Appadocca was stamped; he
saw, consequently, before him his brother, by the laws which nature had
made, whatever he might be by those which man had framed, and was forced
to recognize in that brother the prosecutor, enemy, and almost murderer
of his father. He was divided between two duties, the duty which he owed
to a father, and that which he owed to a brother.

“I shall not fight with you,” he said after a long pause. “If you grudge
us any of his property, take as much as you please, but render us back
our father.”

“Will not fight!” exclaimed Appadocca, “I had imagined that your father
was the only selfish coward in an old race of reputedly brave men.”

“Coward do you call me?” inquired young Willmington, with a frown.

“Ay, coward,” answered Appadocca. “First you made a thrust at me when my
attention was directed otherwise, and now you seek to wound my feelings
by supposing the possibility that I could grudge you your father’s
wealth. Grudge, indeed! his most precious jewels would disgrace me. My
men, however—the friends that received me, shall enjoy it. Coward, ay,
thrice four times coward; again, and again, I proclaim you as such.”

“No more, defend yourself,” cried young Willmington, and he clutched the
sword which Appadocca had laid on the table.

Young Willmington warmly pressed on Appadocca who still stood on
the defensive. Thrust after thrust, lunge after lunge came in rapid
succession from young Willmington. Respiration came short and quickly.
He made a desperate thrust at Appadocca, who with a slight but quick
movement of the wrist at once disarmed his adversary.

Young Willmington bowed haughtily, while his face grew crimson with
vexation.

Appadocca quickly picked up the sword and presented it again to the young
officer.

“No, no, I am satisfied,” said the last-mentioned person, and refused it.

“You ought scarcely to be so, sir. Recollect this is the only chance
that will probably be afforded you,” replied Appadocca, “to recover your
father. Try it again.”

“Have you any object in pressing me to fight longer? By the law of arms
you are not justified in thus asking me again when I am defeated,” said
young Willmington.

“Perhaps not,” answered Appadocca, “but you must recollect this is a very
particular case. To be frank, I must confess I am scarcely satisfied with
the chance that I have afforded you, I like to satisfy justice, sir. Pray
try it again.”

“Strange man, I shall,” answered young Willmington, and then began to
prepare himself more deliberately for this second combat.

The swords were again crossed. Willmington no longer thrust so widely
as he did—he fenced more cautiously. Appadocca still maintained the
defensive. The combat proceeded but coldly—Willmington tried every
skilful pass and cunning trick. He had contrived to edge his sword, as he
imagined, imperceptibly to Appadocca, within but a short distance from
his adversary’s hilt, and was just inclining his hand inwards to thrust
home, when Appadocca met the inclination by an opposite movement, and by
a sudden jerk again unarmed his adversary.

“Sir, destiny seems to favour me at these. I presume you have pistols,
shall we try them?” inquired Appadocca.

“It strikes me you are longing for my blood?” remarked young Willmington.

“By no means,” answered Appadocca, “I have waded through too much of
that already. But I am willing to give you the greatest opportunity of
redeeming your father. Then am I to understand that you will fight no
more?”

“No more,” answered young Willmington.

Appadocca drew forth a small silver whistle, he blew it, and in a moment
the pavilion was again surrounded by his men.

“Sir,” said Appadocca, on the arrival of the men, “the safety of my
followers require that you should be rendered incapable of alarming the
town. You must consent to be gagged and bound. Ho! outside there.”

Three or four pirates entered the room,

“Gag and pinion him,” said Appadocca, and pointed to young Willmington.

In less than a few minutes the order was executed upon him.

“Take him to the remotest room in the house.”

Young Willmington was carried bodily out of the apartment.

“Ho! Jack Jimmy,” cried Appadocca.

That individual immediately rushed into the room, trembling with
excitement.

“Rummage the whole house, and bring all the silver and gold. Pedro, help
him.”

“Yes, massa,” Jack Jimmy answered, and hurried out of the apartment.

While Jack Jimmy and the other man were intent on searching for whatever
valuables the villa contained, Appadocca seated himself on the same chair
that still stood at the head of the table.

His eyes had become gradually more and more intently fixed on the two
beautiful children, who clung in wakeful unconsciousness to their pale
and still insensible mother.

They seemed actually petrified with fear, while their large interesting
eyes were firmly rivetted in a vacant stare on the terrible being whose
coming had brought so much horror to the happy villa.

“Yes, it is too true,” muttered Appadocca, “the sins of the fathers are
visited on their children. Were it not for the injustice of your father,
my little ones, I should not be here to-night to terrify you with my
fierce and unfriendly looks. If my heart had not been long seared, if
there was still in it one single portion that continued as fresh as once
the whole was, your silent looks, your unspeaking terror, would move me
more than the eloquence of a thousand glib-tongued orators. Nay, I might,
perhaps, forget my vow.

“How poisonously bitter are the cups that others season for our lips?
Still, may Heaven preserve in your minds the deeds of to-night, and when
you shall have grown up, always recollect this sad retribution, and speak
a word whenever you may be able, and say that you know, by the experience
of a scene of your childhood, that certain creatures who are branded and
repudiated by society are beings who possess feelings, and who claim the
same measure of justice as is meted out to all.”

“Me get all, massa,” said Jack Jimmy, who now came in with an air of
serious importance.

Appadocca rose and pointed to the door; the two men then walked off from
the villa, and were immediately followed by the captain himself.

The villa which, but a short time before, presented a scene of domestic
happiness, was now left in the desolation of death, with the lights still
burning, and the superfluity of luxury still scattered about. The gate
was heavily drawn after them by the three persons that had just passed
through, and silence settled over the place.

The pirates, who with their prisoner and booty, awaited the captain in
the road, were drawn up in order, and after saying a few words to an
officer, Appadocca gave the word to march, and they silently went down
the road. He himself remained behind.




CHAPTER XXVI.

    “How now, you secret, black, and midnight hags,
    What is’t you do?”

                                           MACBETH.


It was dark, on a certain evening, to which the attention of the reader
is now called, when, amidst the rocks and bushes of the mountainous
district that flanks Port-of-Spain on the east, and that is known by name
of La-vantille, two female forms might be perceived.

They were following a rough and narrow path which led up to the mountains
through a thousand rugged ascents and yawning and frightful precipices.
The two travellers seemed foot-sore and exhausted, and were compelled
now and then to grasp a root or twig of the Guava-bushes that grew here
and there to assist them, as they arrived at a more broken and difficult
part of the small road. The air was also oppressive—the rocks were still
radiating the beams which the sun, that had not long set, had shot full
upon them as it was sinking in the west. Nature was hushed: but the
distant and faint barking of the cur that guarded some invisible hut, and
bayed at some imaginary danger, fell on the ear.

The two persons still followed the path, and ascended still higher and
higher up the mountain that overlooks Port-of-Spain.

“You are tired, madame,” said one of the persons, whose dress indicated
an humble condition in life, and who was evidently conducting the other.

“Yes,” replied the other, who appeared to be of a different class.

“We shall not have very much farther to go,” said the guide.

“The place is certainly a great distance from town,” remarked the other.

“Yes, it is, and the path is very rough and unpleasant; but we shall
presently come to a beautiful spot, where we shall be able to rest for a
few moments.”

“No, no,” answered the other; “it would be better to proceed at once: the
night is now quickly coming on, and we do not know what dangers there may
be among these solitary rocks. What, if robbers were to attack us?”

“Robbers,” replied the other; “madame needs not fear robbers; bless me,
people would not take the trouble to come and remain here for the purpose
of robbing others. Robbers are never heard of in Trinidad, I assure you.”

“Indeed,” replied the other.

“Yes, indeed: I know persons who have traversed this place at all hours
of the night. I myself have passed here on one of the darkest nights, and
quite alone, also: you need not be under any fear, I assure you.”

In the mean time the wayfarers arrived at a small level piece of ground
that was covered with grass. It was quite an “oasis” in those rough and
flinty parts.

“Ah,” cried the guide, “here is the place, let us rest here,” and sat
down on the grass. The lady did the same.

“This is a beautiful little spot, is it not, madame?” remarked the guide
interrogatingly.

“It seems so,” answered the lady.

“If it was day, you should be able to see the whole country round from
this,” proceeded the guide: “on that side is Caroni, where we first
settled when my master and his family came from Carriacou; a disagreeable
and muddy place, madame; there is Maraval, a sweet pretty spot, with
beautiful hills and scenes; and straight before us lies the sea. If it
were light, you would be able to perceive the five islands, and the large
bay where Admiral Appadocca—”

At this name the lady started suddenly.

“What is the matter, madame?” asked the guide.

“Nothing, nothing,” hastily replied the lady.

“Do not be alarmed; it is, no doubt, a cricket, that has jumped on you.
There are not many snakes here: Caroni is the place for them,” observed
the female cicerone.

“Well, as I was saying, madame,—what was I saying?—I was telling you
about the large bay where Admiral Appadocca—”

The lady started again, but more slightly than before.

“Let me drive it away for you,” said the guide, “these crickets are
sometimes very troublesome; but they are a sign of good luck—they are a
sign of good luck. People say, those on whom they may happen to jump, are
sure to have money—plenty of money. Where is it? let me catch it.”

“Oh, never mind, never mind,” the lady said hastily, “continue, continue
your story.”

“When Admiral Appadocca, I was saying, set the Spanish ships on fire,
at the time when the English took the island, I remember the blaze they
made. People say they were laden with gold: what a pity that was.”

“Why did he set them on fire?” inquired the lady.

“Because he would not let the money fall into the hands of the English,”
answered the guide.

“And what became of the admiral himself?” the lady inquired again.

“I really cannot say,” answered the guide.

A short pause ensued.

“Had he any son, do you know?” asked the lady after a time,

“I do not know, madame,” answered the guide.

“The money that I spoke of just now, has been all lost. They say that
sometimes the fishermen manage to bring up a portion. I don’t think that
is true,” said the guide.

“Do you not think we had better go on,” inquired the lady—“I wish very
much to see that old woman, as soon as possible.”

“Come, then,” answered the guide, and the two travellers continued their
journey. As they proceeded, the path became still more rough, steep, and
trying. They, however, went on.

“I should be very much disappointed,” said the lady, “if after all this
trouble and labour, the person that you tell me of, should not be able
to give me the information I require.”

“Never fear that, madame, never fear that,” replied the guide, “she is a
wonderful woman.”

“Do you know of any instance in which, what she said, turned out to be
the truth?” asked the lady.

“Bless me, yes, madame, great many, I can assure you. She has often
foretold what would happen, and what she said, proved as true as
possible.”

“She may be able,” said the lady, “to speak about what is to come, but
can she say any thing about the present?”

“All,” replied the guide.

“Do you think, she will be able, to give me any information, about the
person whom I am now seeking?” inquired the lady.

“I am sure she will,” answered the guide.

“Let us walk faster,” said the lady, and, at the same time, quickened her
pace.

“I should not advise you to walk faster, madame,” said the guide, “we
have still a considerable way to go.”

“True,” said the lady, and fell again into the measured and leisurely
pace of the guide.

“You are sure she will give me the information, you say?” observed the
lady.

“Quite sure,” answered the guide, dryly, “I can point you out a hundred
families in town, who were landed here as poor myself, and who made the
great fortunes they now possess, only by consulting her. In the time of
slavery, when a planter lost any of his slaves, he had nothing else to
do, but to come to her, and she would send him to the very corner, where
he would be sure to find his run-a-way.”

“Indeed!” cried the lady.

“It is true,”—replied the guide, “beside, she can cure all sorts of
disorders. Those that are pronounced incurable by the doctors in town,
resort to her, and are sure to be restored to health.”

“I remember one case in particular,” said the guide, seriously, “of a
man who had been suffering for two years, from a hand that was swollen
to a very great size. He could not get any rest, either night or day,
but groaned continually. He consulted every doctor—they did everything
in their power but could not relieve him. His hand grew daily worse and
worse: and he was reduced to the size of a nail. Well, some one told him
about this old woman, and he came to her. She examined the hand, then
pressed the fingers; from under the nails of each she took out a rusty
pin. Next day the hand was perfectly cured.”

“Impossible,” said the lady.

“Quite true,” replied the guide.

“There is another case,” continued the guide, “that is as striking. There
was once an unfortunate man who was afflicted with madness; sometimes
he was quiet, at others he would break out in the greatest violence and
beat his wife and children almost to death. All the doctors saw him and
said he was quite gone, there was no curing him. His illness daily gained
ground upon him, until at last he went violently mad. His friends were
grieved on his account, and were at last persuaded to take him to the
old woman. They did so: as soon as she saw him, she took a little stick
and struck him on the head; his skull opened: she took out twenty small
fishing hooks that were stuck into his brains; and closed the skull
again. In a few moments the man was cured.”

“Is that possible?” exclaimed the lady.

“It is remarkable,” observed the guide.

“Did you see the cure yourself?” inquired the lady.

“No, I did not,” answered the guide, “but every one in the town knows it.”

The path in the meantime became more rugged, broken, and steep.

“Ha, we are now arrived,” said the guide, taking a long inspiration.

The travellers made two or three steps forward, and they immediately
perceived a faint light that glimmered indistinctly through the brushwood.

“Now, madame, you must disguise yourself, or else she won’t speak to
you,” said the guide.

“Why so?”

“Because,” replied the guide, “there is a law in this country against
those who tell fortunes. If it was to be known that she told anything to
any one, she would be burnt alive. Leave your veil here, madame, there,
so, and hide your comb with it. That’s it, that’s it; now take this
handkerchief, tie it round your head—let me do it.”

The guide tied and adjusted a Madras handkerchief on the head of the lady.

“Now let us go: and recollect let me speak.”

The two travellers diverged into a still narrower part that was almost
entirely hidden by the bush which grew thickly and fully about it.

The angry barking of a dog was now heard. The travellers still went on,
until they could now distinguish the outlines of a low and narrow hut,
in the open part of which the embers of a wood fire still smouldered. By
its faint light, was to be indistinctly seen, the form of the wakeful
watch-dog, that stood determinedly a little way in front of the hut, and
barked fiercely and fretfully.

The two women stood, afraid of approaching nearer. The dog still barked
noisily.

“Ho, mother! mother Celeste,” called the guide. “Mother Celeste!”

No one answered.

“She does not hear,” observed the lady, “she is asleep; call louder.”

“Ho, Mother Celeste! Mother Celeste! it is I, it is I,” repeated the
guide.

Still there was no answer,—the dog barked still more loudly.

“Heavens! I hope we have not come all this way for nothing,” exclaimed
the lady, in a voice that faltered with anxiety.

“It is to be hoped not,” answered the guide, and she began to call out
more loudly than before. “Mother Celeste! Mother Celeste!”

“Who is is that comes to disturb me at this lonely hour of the night?”
said a weak and obscure voice, that came from within the fragile hut.

“It is I, it is I, and another person, who wish to see you,” answered the
guide.

“You cannot see me to-night. I do not know what you have to see me
about,” answered the same voice.

“We have come a great distance, and we cannot return without seeing you:
let us in.”

“I cannot open my door at this hour of the night,” replied the voice:
“return.”

“That we cannot,” replied the guide. “Call your dog, Mother Celeste, and
open the door to us; you will see what a present we have brought you.”

“What present can you bring me this time of night?”

“Fifty dollars, Mother Celeste, fifty dollars.”

“I can’t open to you,” replied the voice, “I can’t open to you.”

“Say a hundred,” said the lady.

“Well, a hundred dollars,” cried the guide.

“It is very late, I do not know who you may be; I shall consider—I shall
consider,” said the same voice.

“She will open now,” said the guide, “that is what she always says, she
is now hiding all her things.”

Truly enough, in a short time, the voice from within was again heard.

“Approach, my children; come and tell me your woes,” it said.

“But the dog, the dog,” cried the guide.

“True,” replied the same voice, “Fidele, Fidele,” it called, and the dog
immediately became silent and disappeared.

The two females now approached the hut. It was a little cabin, that was
built of a few pieces of round timber, which were now black with smoke.
Palmeto leaves formed a slight covering to it. A few reeds roughly
fastened to the primitive posts, fenced in the part which lay in the
direction from which the wind usually came. The other, or inner part of
the hut, however, was fenced entirely in, and covered, as the sleeping
apartment.

“Wait until I strike a light,” said the same voice.

In a few moments a rudely constructed old door opened.

“Enter, enter, quickly, my children,” said the same voice.

The lady hesitated a moment.

“Go in, go in, madame,” said the guide, and gently pushed her.

The two travellers entered.

The hut presented as peculiar an appearance on the inside as it did on
the outside. The rough pieces of Palmeto bark that boarded it, was hung
with drapery of spider’s webs, that either floated black with time and
dust, or was still spread in the process of extension, under the industry
of the master insect himself. From crooked nails, that were driven into
this primitive wall, a number of bottles, of peculiar fashions and makes,
hung suspended by cord that had long lost its colour under the many dyes
which it may have received from the black, yellow, green, brown, and
bluish liquors which those bottles seemed to contain.

In one corner stood a rough bed, that seemed constructed of four branches
of a Guava-bush; and around, a number of nasty, greasy, barrels were
ranged, and had their heads carefully covered over by pieces of plastered
old canvass.

In one of the deep angles of the hut there burnt a lamp, constructed of
a hollow gourd, in which some cotton and some oil were adjusted, and
was made to throw around a dim light, whose faint radii did not extend
farther than a foot or two beyond its centre.

At the side of this lamp was huddled up a being which at first view,
might appear to be one from whom life had long departed, and whom the
veneration of friends or kindred persisted in still retaining among them.
She was a little black woman of diminutive size, with an old greasy
dress, that lay slack and loose about her. Her knees were drawn up to
her jaws, which protruded largely and hideously. Her skin was shrivelled
and dry, and seemed to flap as she moved her toothless jaws. A Madras
handkerchief was tied carelessly round her head, and from a corner, or a
hole here and there, her short gray and matted hair peeped out.

“Good night to you, Mother Celeste,” said the guide, as she drew a
three-legged stool for the lady, and sat, herself, on the ground.

“Good night to you, my children, good night,” said Mother Celeste.

“I have brought this friend of mine,” said the guide, “to see you on a
matter of great importance.”

“To see me? to see me, my child,” mumbled Mother Celeste: “what can I do
for her, poor old woman as I am, except give her my blessing?”

“She wants some information about a person she is seeking,” said the
guide.

“How can I give it, how can I give it, my child?” answered Mother Celeste.

“Try, mother, try,” remarked the guide.

A pause ensued, during which Mother Celeste seemed thoughtful.

“What friend of yours is this, my child?” inquired Mother Celeste.

“She is from the Spanish main,” answered the guide.

Mother Celeste raised the rude lamp to the face of the lady: “Yes, yes,”
she muttered, and replaced it on the ground, and then grasped her hand:
the lady started when she felt the rough hacked skin of the sorceress.

“Do not start, my child,” said Mother Celeste, “do not start; and now
tell me your story,” she mumbled. “Will you go into the front awhile?”
she added to the guide.

The latter opened the little door, and went out.

“I love,” said Feliciana, whom the reader may have recognised before
this, “I love a man—a stranger to me—I cannot tell you how I love him. He
was taken to my father’s house, from the beach on which he was found half
drowned. I loved him the very first moment I saw him, he is so handsome.
He suddenly left my father’s house, and now I wish to know where to find
him. Do tell me: there are a hundred dollars for you.”

The sorceress clutched the money and pressed her flabby lips to it again
and again, then tottered towards her rude bed and laid it under her
pillow.

“Yours is a difficult case, child,” mumbled the old woman.

“What is the man?”

“Alas, mother,” answered Feliciana, “I fear he is a pirate.”

“Is he short or tall?”

“Tall.”

“Dark or fair?”

“Pale.”

“Retire for a moment, child,” said mother Celeste.

Feliciana went out of the small apartment.

An hour passed. During this time, Feliciana and her guide were alarmed by
the horrible noises that were heard from the room of the sorceress. Now
the most fearful yells—now the most heart-rending groans broke forth—the
violent stamping of several individuals were at one time heard, at
another, the strangest jargon grated harshly on the ear, while, at the
same time, the stench that penetrated through the chinks in the partition
almost suffocated those without.

Feliciana and her guide trembled in utter fear.

“Shall we run away?” said one to the other.

“No, no,” answered Feliciana, her whisper almost inarticulate with terror.

Even at this trying moment the thought of Appadocca was the most powerful
in her mind. The hope of finding him, sustained her against all terrors.

At the end of the hour the little door of the hut was violently opened,
and the little sorceress was seen standing in a body of flame.

“Seek your lover, amidst the tombstones to-morrow, at the lonely hours of
night,” she said, and the door was violently closed.

This uncertain answer fell on the ears of Feliciana like a thunderbolt.

“Oh, he is dead—he is dead,” she cried, and wept bitterly.

The guide stood aside and allowed the young lady to give vent to her
sorrow.

“Who knows, madame,” she said, after a few moments, “the answer may not
mean that.”

The young lady raised her head for a moment, a new thought seemed to
strike her.

“Let us ask,” she said, “let us ask?”

“Oh, she will not open the door now, for the world,” the guide replied.

“Will she not? Mother Celeste, Mother Celeste,” cried Feliciana.

The barking of the dog that now reappeared drowned their voices.

“I tell you, madame, she will not open the door,” said the guide. “I
ought to know her, since I bring people to her almost every day.”

Feliciana remained buried in thought where she was for a moment. “Let us
go,” she shortly said.

The two travellers began to retrace their steps towards Port-of-Spain.

Feliciana was sad and pensive; the guide was less talkative than before,
and after half-an-hour’s walk, the barking of the dog still reached their
ears.




CHAPTER XXVII.

          ——“Who’s there?
    Who is it that consorts, so late, the dead?”

                              ROMEO AND JULIET.


Appadocca stood for a while, and watched his men, who, in military order,
were marching down the dark and solitary road. When even their footsteps
could no longer be heard; he cast one more look on the desolated villa,
that still shone resplendently under the many lights which burnt within,
and that now presented the appearance of a place, in which the pleasures
of a marriage feast, may have been broken in upon, by some unexpected and
chilling calamity.

What ever reflections he may have made, while he gazed at the house
before him, were short and transitory and perhaps unpleasant, for he
suddenly turned away his head, and bent his steps rapidly towards the
beautiful Savannah, that opened before the splendid house of James
Willmington.

Having immediately approached the Savannah, Appadocca climbed over the
iron rails that enclose it, and got within.

The night was one of a peculiar sort. It was dark, but the air was soft
and dry, and the numberless stars that shone, seemed to twinkle more, and
more, and more brightly, and by their brilliant light, the imaginative,
may have seen, or fancied to have seen, to a vast depth into the bluish
ethereal fluid, in which they were suspended. Appadocca directed his
steps immediately across the Savannah. He walked on pensively and
moodily, without even raising his head for a moment, to gaze on the stars
above; or, to listen to the faint and peculiar insect-sounds, that might
now be heard, amidst the general calm and lull of nature.

When he had arrived at the western end of the Savannah, he again climbed
over the railing, and found himself in the road which runs parallel in
that direction, with the Saint Ann’s road, on the opposite side. He then
diverged towards the left, and continued down the road, until he had
arrived to a certain street, which ran to the right.

Appadocca walked along this street, and was obliged to stop from time to
time, in order to drive away the numbers of dogs that followed, and that
kept up an unceasing noise at his heels.

The street opened on the extensive cemetery, that lies to the west-ward
of Port-of-Spain, and that looks picturesque and beautiful by day, under
the grove of magnificent trees, that shelter it; but which, by night,
looks as dark and as gloomy, as the thoughts themselves which it calls up.

Appadocca stood for a moment, and looked over the wall; no one, nothing
was to be seen, save a few white and spotted goats, that silently cropped
the grass at a distance, or frisked capriciously over the tombstones.

He scaled the wall, and held his way straight down the road, which lies
concealed beneath the thickly knotted branches of the trees that overhang
it, and that unseen, leads into the innermost parts of that long and
lasting home of thousands.

Having reached the utmost end of this road, he turned towards the left,
into one of the many cross-formed paths, that bisect the cemetery. He
walked carefully along, and examined attentively every tomb that he
passed, until he had arrived at a simple grave, that with a plain cross
at its head, lay sheltered beneath the rich spreading foliage, of a thick
cluster of bamboos. Here Appadocca stood, and remained motionless and
entranced, at the foot of that unornamented tomb; his arms were folded
over his breast, and he was in the attitude of one whose thoughts were
veiled in an absorbing and holy feeling.

In a moment he approached nearer and nearer; then seated himself down at
the head of the grave, and remained there, his brow resting on his hand,
as if his spirit was in communion with that of the body which the grave
contained.

Time fled, still the pirate captain remained in the same position. The
deeds of a whole life-time, one would have said, were returning in rapid
succession on his memory. The pursuits, the pleasures and pains, the
endearments and enjoyments of childhood, of boyhood, of youth, of all,
seemed to fly back like administering angels, or like fiends of hell upon
his mind; for his recollections were freshened, his sensibilities were
awakened by his mother’s grave:—his mother’s grave, which he approached
now a different man from what he was, when he bade the farewell which
proved the last on earth to that mother. He had left her with the halo
of those virtues, which she had taught more by example than by precepts,
still surrounding his head, with his spirits fresh and expanding,
with his heart good and at ease, with his intellect aspiring higher
and higher; now he revisited her in the cold tomb, with a callous
indifference either to virtue or to vice, with a heart that was poisoned
to the centre, with spirits lacerated and torn to shreds and tatters. How
to wreak retribution now engrossed his whole intellect—retribution on the
man whom that mother had once too fondly loved, and whose placid nature
had, no doubt, long long forgiven. How could he be certain that her
spirit now looked down upon him with pleasure, the spirit of her whose
life was a speaking lesson of patient endurance.

Such might be the feelings and thoughts of Emmanuel Appadocca, whose
manhood could not restrain the tears that trickled down his cheeks, and
flowed, as it were, in mockery over the hilt of the sword that lay across
his knees, and moistened the mound before him.

The fleeting hours glided by, Appadocca was in the same position. The
brilliant stars shone beautifully above him, the fire-flies played about
the tombstones, the tall dark trees rustled, and the pliant bamboos
creaked melancholily before the gentle night breeze.

“I may not look upon you again: still, let me—let me perform, perhaps,
the last office that I may be permitted,” said Appadocca, as if speaking
to some one by his side, and began to pluck the weeds that grew over the
grave.

Time passed quickly. His labour was completed. Appadocca took one last
and earnest gaze at the grave, then muffled his cloak leisurely around
him, and turned moodily away.

He followed the same path that led to the grave, and came out on the
wide gravelly walk. His footsteps echoed in the silence of the hour, and
he proceeded with his eyes fixed upon the ground. From time to time,
however, he raised them to look at the morning star. He had now done so,
when he beheld before him a tall female form, that was clad in black,
standing under the branches of a rose-apple tree, which edged the road.

“Heavens!” muttered Appadocca, “is there, then, such a thing as a spirit?”

He stood for a moment.

“Oh, human mind,” he cried, “how weak thou art in all thy greatness! how
imperfectly thou canst cut away the indifferent portions of thyself.
Behold, whither imagination now hurries thee. Can there be such a thing
as a spirit?”

Appadocca began again to walk. The form began to advance towards him.
They met.

“Appadocca,” it cried, and grasped the hand of the pirate captain.

“Feliciana! impossible: my ears play upon me,” said Appadocca.

“No, no: it is—it is Feliciana; Feliciana, who has tracked you from
her father’s humble house, and who will still follow you as long as
life continues under the labours she will undertake for you, and the
privations she may have to endure on your account.”

“At this place, and at this dismal hour!” remarked Appadocca.

“Better this place with all its horrors than the palace in which I could
not find you,” answered Feliciana.

“Strange devotedness,” muttered Appadocca.

“But how came you to know that I was here,” asked Appadocca.

“A sorceress told me you would be,” answered Feliciana. “I entered this
cemetery. Heavens, how I trembled! and trod its solitary walk, and
examined each whitened monument until—until—I—saw you—at—at—a grave.
Return, return, with me, let me pray with you, let me join my prayers
with yours.”

On saying this, Feliciana proceed down the walk, and led the unresisting
captain after her.

Arrived at the simple grave, she threw herself on her knees, and began to
pray. Appadocca stood by, now resting on his sword.

“Oh grant,” said the lady, in conclusion to her prayer; and she repeated
the part aloud, “grant that his heart may be turned from the unholy
pursuit which now throws his soul into the hands of demons, and let the
spirit of his mother inspire him with the thoughts that she possessed.”

This loud conclusion sounded solemnly in the silence of the night. The
sternness of Appadocca’s character could scarcely resist it.

“Come and join me; say you renounce the life you now lead,” said
Feliciana.

Appadocca made no answer.

“Come, come—for your mother’s sake, come,” said Feliciana.

“Pray you, senora. I will not pray, and I cannot renounce.”

“I entreat you: imagine you behold the mother that you have loved so
much, making the same petition to you. Could you refuse her?”

“Senora, speak no more on this theme, I say I cannot renounce; my vow is
made.”

“Heaven looks not upon unholy vows; not on vows of vengeance,” said
Feliciana, “renounce your life and forget that oath.”

“Senora, the morning star is sinking; my followers must be growing
impatient. I must go;” and Appadocca moved a step.

Feliciana sprang from her knees and grasped him by the hand; “do not go
from this spot the same man as you came to it. Wash yourself by prayer
from the blood which you may have shed, and ask—ask her spirit to forgive
you, if you offended it.”

Appadocca drew his hand quickly across his brow. “Feliciana, your are
ungenerous, unkind: my—feelings—require—no—further laceration. Life and
my miseries have already made me too, too well acquainted with anguish.
Spare me, spare me the thought of an offended mother—the only—the
only—the only—friend that I had in this bitter, bitter, world.”

“Say—say not so,” quickly rejoined Feliciana, still more melted by
the grief of one who appeared always so indifferent. “You have still,
still a friend. Oh fly, fly with me to some wilderness; there enjoy
your thoughts, your silence, your feelings. I shall be your slave, your
dog, that will gather the inkling of the wish from your very eyes. My
_fallucha_ is by the shore; Appadocca will you go?”

A pause ensued.

“No, no, Feliciana,” said Appadocca; “I shall not: lean not, good, good
girl, upon a broken reed. To me all things, save one idea, are stale and
indifferent. My life is gloomy, dark, and troublesome: my existence is
already a heavy, heavy oppression. My soul, like the cumbrous tower, fell
but once, it can never rise again. Your presence would create a new grief
in me, for I could not see you love one whose blood was chilled.”

“I require no love—I require no love,” quickly rejoined Feliciana, “I
shall be your slave.”

“That, I shall not endure; my idol is woman. I ought to worship, not she.”

“Still you will let me follow you?” eagerly inquired Feliciana.

“No, no, my career may still lie through blood,” answered Appadocca.

“Speak no more of blood,” cried Feliciana, “forswear your vengeance.”

“Never,” answered Appadocca sternly.

“Say, why doom yourself for ever,” Feliciana was going to inquire—when—

“That the world may profit by my conduct,” answered Appadocca.

“But the world will not know, will not attend to what you do.”

“I care not, I care not,” answered Appadocca, “my word is passed and I
shall fulfil it. I am resolved, the sacrifice must be made.”

“But see, the morning star is sinking fast. I must away.”

“But do not——”

“Come, come, let me lead you hence,” so saying Appadocca grasped the arm
of the faint Feliciana, and hurried out of the cemetery.

They walked down the street that runs from north to south on the western
side of Port-of-Spain, and soon reached the principal landing-place,
where the crew of the Black Schooner were impatiently waiting for their
captain.

“Feliciana, I bid you a long, long adieu,” said Appadocca, as they
stopped under one of the almond trees that form the shady walk we have
already mentioned.

“Do not say so,” said Feliciana indistinctly, as she leaned against the
tree, “oh do not say so.”

There was no answer, not a word.

“Feliciana let me ask you—to—to—place this near your heart, and whenever
you gaze upon it, let one thought return—to—to—the—the sick man of your
father’s house.” So saying, Appadocca drew his sword and cut off a lock
of his flowing hair, and presented it to the lady.

“Look—look—there,” she cried faintly, as she received the token.

Appadocca turned round and beheld a crowd of people who, with torches and
lanterns, were following a company of soldiers that were marching quickly
down the walk.

“Flee,” cried Feliciana.

“One more request,” said Appadocca. “Forget not, Feliciana, the place
where you first saw me to-night. If foul and rank weeds grow upon it,
pluck them as you pass by. Farewell, farewell.”

Appadocca walked down the wharf and was received by his men.

“Shove off,” he cried, as he threw himself on the stern sheets of the
boat, and folded his cloak around him.

The soldiers arrived at the wharf just in time to see the boat disappear
in the gray light of the morning.

They fired—the air resounded with their repeated volleys.




CHAPTER XXVIII.

    “Go back again thou slave, and fetch him home.”

                                 COMEDY OF ERRORS.


It was not until an early hour of the morning, when Mrs. Wilmington
recovered from her swoon, that it was possible to give any alarm of the
outrage that had been committed at the villa of James Willmington.

When the lady recovered from her state of insensibility, and saw before
her the scattered and disordered furniture, the flickering wax candles
that had now burnt down to the very sockets, and her children, who,
after the departure of the pirate party, had fallen asleep around her,
recollections of the supposed apparition, and of the terror of her
husband, flashed across her mind. Alarmed at the silence that reigned
around, and not being able to understand why she had been permitted
to remain in the same place where she had fainted away, she rushed
impulsively to the bell, that lay on the sideboard, and rang it violently.

No one came.

She rang again—no one came: she rang again, and again, more and more
violently; still no one came.

She then looked out of the parlour, and beheld the whole house still
lighted up. She ventured out a little, and still a little farther, until
she summoned sufficient courage, traversed the court yard, and entered
the servant’s apartments.

In the principal room nothing was to be seen. Mrs. Willmington raised the
light high up, while she stood at the entrance, and looked into every
corner and hole. She could see nothing.

“Good God! can I be abandoned here with my children,” she said in a low
tone, fearful to hear even her own voice, in such a silent and deserted
situation.

She entered the room, and proceeded towards a door, which opened into
another apartment. She turned the handle, and went into that room also;
nothing was to be seen. She was turning to leave, when a low groan was
heard. Mrs. Willmington started two paces backwards, but raised the light
and looked back intently towards the part from which the groan came. In
a dark recess, that lay in a remote corner of a room, two white shining
balls seemed to glare upon her. She started still farther back: another
groan was heard; she raised the light still higher; it fell upon a part
of the recess, and discovered the shining face of the individual to whom
the eyes belonged and from whom the groans proceeded.

“It is Jack, it is Jack!” cried Mrs. Willmington, and walked up towards
the recess.

It was, indeed, Jack, who had his mouth as well filled with grass and
cloths as it could possibly hold, and whose arms were as tightly tied
behind his back, as mortal arms could be: and whose short legs were
stretched straighter than they had ever been stretched before in Jack’s
life. He was lying on his side, and his eyes were playing in their
sockets like those fierce-looking things which German ingenuity has
designed to represent the visual apparatus of man, and which are to be
seen every day in some of the back streets of London in full play, to the
infinite excitement and gratification of the awe-struck and wondering
urchins.

“Jack, cook!” cried Mrs. Willmington, “what state is this you are in?”

“Jack, cook,” groaned, and his eyes played still more rapidly.

“How can I assist?” said Mrs. Willmington, “I think of it!” she ran
hastily out of the room, and returned a few moments afterwards, with a
large knife.

With this, she cut the cords which bound the limbs of the unfortunate
Jack. A task of no little labour, for those who secured him, had done so
with a marvellous amount of skill and success.

“Do the rest for yourself, now,” she said, when she had completed part of
the work.

Jack required no exhortation, but as soon as his arms were free, he began
with all his might to pluck out the number of things, with which his not
incapacious mouth had been filled.

“Tenk Gad,” he cried, as he nimbly jumped on his legs, and shook himself
like a newfoundland dog coming from the water.

“Where is your master?” quickly inquired Mrs. Willmington.

“Me massa, ma’am!” answered Jack in the manner that is rather peculiar to
his class.

“Yes, your master; and where are the other servants?” Mrs. Willmington
asked again.

“Dem gane?” asked Jack again, in his turn.

“Who, gone?” inquired Mrs. Willmington.

“De paniole, ma’am:” answered Jack.

“Tell me, Jack, will you; tell me quickly,” said Mrs. Willmington, now
waxing impatient, “where is your master and the other servants?”

“Let me see if dey gane,” said Jack, and he walked on tiptoe towards the
door, then carefully and cautiously peeped out, then ventured a little
way into the courtyard, then ran hurriedly towards the great gate, and
bolted it and rebolted it.

“Awh!” he cried, “Garamighty! Dey gane now! awh! me, neber see such ting
in all my barn days. Wha dat? Me hab time foo blow now: put big, big,
bundle so nan me mout! tap my breath, awh! But me can blow now—tshwh,
tshwh!” and Jack took along breath in the fashion which seems to be
peculiar to his people—a fashion which compresses a vast quantity of
air, and sends it vehemently forth, so that the same hissing noise which
the steam makes when it comes through the valve of a railway engine, is
produced. A fashion which, be it said within parentheses, may be very
economical, inasmuch as it affords a certain large amount of respiration
within a certain small period of time.

This soliloquy, in the making of which, the illustrious cook by no means
limited himself as to time, being over, and after having cast searching
glances about the gate, and having looked and relooked above, below,
sideways, before, and behind, Jack then, and not till then, deemed it
proper to return to his mistress, who had also come to the door, and was
endeavouring to discover what the cook was about.

“Me shet it, ma’am, me shet it,” cried Jack, as he returned.

“Now, perhaps, you will tell me what I ask,” said Mrs. Willmington,
getting still more excited and angry, “where is your master?”

“Tap, missus,” answered Jack, “I’ll tell you all bout it.”

“Make haste, then.”

“Yes, missus,” said Jack, and began to tell all about it. He had the
preliminary caution, however, of looking carefully round to see if no
more “paniole,” as he called the pirates, were concealed thereabouts.
Being for the time satisfied on that point, he proceeded—

“Last night, ma’am—no, the night before the night, ma’am, ee already dis
ma’aning, Bekky come in, and find me da smoke me pipe. ‘Good night.—’”

“What has that to do with Mr. Willmington, Jack? Tell me where your
master is, will you,” said Mrs. Willmington, still more angry.

“Me da tell you, missus,” answered Jack. “‘Good night, buddee Jack,’
say Bekky, says she. ‘Good night, sissee Bekky,’ me say, says I. ‘Awh!
Jack!’ Bekky say, ‘wha tobacca you da smoke dey Jack, ee smell bad! da——’”

“No more of this, Jack,” said Mrs. Willmington; “tell me.”

“Tap, missus, tap, if you plase; me da come to it, me da come to it now,”
said Jack.

Mrs. Willmington looked resignation itself.

“‘Da tobacca I buy dis ma’aning, Bekky,’ me say ma’am,” continued Jack;
“and dat was all. Last night wen me finish de fowl, and bin da clean the
kitchen, who me see, but Bekky. ‘Good even, buddee Jack,’ she said, says
she. ‘Good even, sissee,’ I say, says I. ‘Look, some good tobacca a bring
foo you, Jack,’ she say; and give me a bundle tobacca. So last night,
when I sen in the dinna, I went into the garden foo try dis tobacca.

“Me sit down unda de bread-fruit tree; me tink me see somebody walk in
de garden. Garamighty! me say, wha jumbee want early, early so. Me look
agin, and me see de purson hab big, big beard like Paniole. Me frieghten!
Da who you, me bin go halla out, and bin da go run away, when somebody
hold me fram behind, and chucked grass and ivery ting into my mout, tie
me han an foot, and trow me into the little room way you fin’ me ma’am.”

“And where is your master?” asked Mrs. Willmington.

“Me no know, ma’am,” answered Jack.

“And where are the servants?”

“Me no know, ma’am,” again answered Jack.

“Rummage the house, you simpleton,” said Mrs. Willmington, and lighted
him the way to the other parts. Jack went cautiously, and turned his head
round in all directions.

They entered another room. “Garamighty! Jim, dey tie you, too,” exclaimed
Jack, as his eyes alighted upon the “Jim” who was exactly in the same
predicament from which Jack himself had but a short time ago been
delivered.

The only intimation of intelligence that Jim could make was, rolling his
eyes about.

All the apartments were now searched, and the servants were found,
one here, the other there, among them. They said that they were all
simultaneously laid hold of by a number of “panioles,” and were gagged,
bound hand and foot, and deposited separately in the different rooms.

“And where is your master; and your young master?” asked Mrs. Willmington.

“Dey carry old massa away pon their shoulders, ma’am, and dey took young
massa up-stairs.”

“Heavens!” cried Mrs. Willmington, “and was it not then a spirit?” she
asked.

“He looked more like a paniole than a pirit, ma’am,” said the individual
who gave the information, who was the chief servant in the house, and
whose especial destiny it had been to be gagged and otherwise dealt with
in his pantry, wherein he was at the moment busy about some particulars
connected with his avocation.

“Run up stairs. Go you, Edward, to—to—Mr. ——, the magistrate; alarm the
town; tell the soldiers at the fort,” exclaimed Mrs. Willmington, while
she herself rushed up-stairs with a servant.

Young Willmington was found duly gagged and tied in the favourite style
of the pirates. He was immediately released, and he got up from the bed
on which the kind consideration of the unwelcome visitors had laid him.
He exhibited less pleasure at his freedom than one would have expected to
see.

“What is the matter with you, James?” said Mrs. Willmington, not a little
surprised at the strange calmness of her son. “Do you know that your
father has been carried away from his house?”

“Yes, mother, I know it.”

“Then why not make more haste, James, and go to see about it?” rejoined
Mrs. Willmington.

No answer.

“I shall go,” said young Willmington, after a pause, “but my mind
misgives me about this whole affair. My father ought not to have
concealed the truth from us. The man who came into the house, last night,
is my brother.”

“Your brother!”

“Yes, dear mother; he possesses the family peculiarity,” answered James.
“However, I shall go and alarm the authorities.”

The magistrates were awakened, the alarm was given at the forts, and the
whole town was shortly in commotion. The streets were searched, but no
pirates could be found. A body of soldiers was then marched down to the
wharf, as the reader already knows.

       *       *       *       *       *

At early dawn the magistrates went alongside the English man-of-war, and
related to the commander what had taken place.

“There is not much mystery about all this, gentlemen,” said the
commander, after he had reflected a moment, “I shall promise you,
that when it is clear, you will be able to see a long, sharp, and
strange-looking schooner in these waters. I have, unfortunately, been
made too familiar of late with the boldness of that set of pirates. I
am so certain of what I am telling you, that I shall at once give orders
for weighing anchor: so that I shall be ready, as soon as it is light, to
give chase, and I shall see,” muttered the commander to himself; “if I
cannot get to windward of those fellows this time.”

True enough, the pirate schooner was seen in the light of the morning
opposite the harbour of Port-of-Spain, but at an immense distance out at
sea.

The heavy sails of the large ship then began leisurely to ascend its
encumbered masts, in preparation for the chase of the pirate vessel.




CHAPTER XXIX.

    “The deed is done.”

              MACBETH.


When Appadocca with his party had gained the schooner, he immediately
ordered the prisoner Willmington to be taken to the torture-room and to
be there kept in custody: at the same time the men were summoned to the
main deck, and the booty of the previous night, was distributed in the
same manner as we have described at the beginning of this tale.

In the meantime the morning dawned more brightly, and the waters of the
gulf lay smooth and shining before the piercing rays of the morning sun,
unbroken as they were by the faintest breath.

The heavy sails of the man-of-war were still seen to ascend one by one,
and fall, as they were spread, heavily against the masts.

They reflected the sunbeams from their white and clear surface, far
and wide: and amidst the number of vessels in the harbour, the huge
ship-of-war, with all its canvass spread, and its stern decorated with
the fiery ensign of England, looked like a gigantic monarch of the sea
that floated at the head of its smaller subjects.

She was now ready to weigh anchor, and was now evidently only waiting
for the wind which was certain to spring about the hour of ten in the
forenoon.

When Appadocca had superintended the division of the spoil amongst his
followers, he ordered the young midshipman to be brought before him.

That individual, in a few moments, made his appearance. He had scarcely
as yet recovered from the effects of his torture; he was pale, and
appeared still weak and emaciated. Yet in his eye there could now be
read a more earnest seriousness—the fruit of the self dependent position
in which he had for some time so accidentally found himself, and the
consequence of the example to whose power he had been exposed, in the
stern and manly society into which he had been thrown.

From a boy whose yearnings had been continually after excitement and
pleasure, he was suddenly transformed into a man, whose thoughts began to
be characterised by the seriousness of purpose which alone can be worthy
of the highest of the animal creation.

A change was marked on his face, and his demeanour was more subdued and
more self-possessed.

“Young man,” said Appadocca, as he stood before him, “I set you at
liberty, you shall have a small boat, which will in a moment be ready for
you, you will be able to skull to your ship. I cannot, I am sorry to say,
spare any of my men to help you. I see she is preparing to weigh anchor.
Take my compliments to the commander himself, and tell him, to take the
advice of one, who has experienced much kindness at his hands, and by no
means to move from his anchorage to-day. Ask him to consult a calculation
which I made on the partition of the cabin in which I was confined, and
he will know the reason. Before you leave the schooner, ask the officer
of the watch for a letter which I shall send to your commander’s son.”

Appadocca then descended into his cabin and wrote thus:—

    “DEAR HAMILTON,

    “The consummation of my existence is now fast approaching;
    I, therefore, write to you, as I fear it will be the last
    time that I may have the opportunity of communicating with
    a dear friend, from whose heart I have experienced so much
    consideration, and from whose hands I have received so much
    kindness! It is scarcely necessary for me to tell you, that
    destiny preserved me from the perils from which few could have
    hoped to escape.

    “I am at the head of my faithful followers once more, and it
    rejoices me to think that my escape was effected entirely by my
    own efforts and quite unknowingly to one on whose escutcheon
    I should not have even virtue itself accidentally to paint a
    blot. I shall lead the men who have followed me so bravely, and
    who have served me so faithfully, to some remote spot on the
    fertile and vast continent that lies on our right, and build
    them a city in which they may live happily, quietly, and far
    removed from the world, whose sympathy they cannot hope, and
    care not, to possess. For myself....

    Receive, my dear Charles, the sincere good wishes of one who
    esteems you.

                                               “EMMANUEL APPADOCCA.”

    “N.B.—Recollect and prevail upon your father not to set sail
    to-day. Remember the tempest of which I spoke, it will come
    within these twenty-four hours.

                                                             “E. A.”

The young midshipman was withdrawn and in a few moments he pushed off
gladly from the schooner, and was soon seen gradually leaving it behind.

Ten o’clock came, and with it the steady trade wind. The placid gulf
curled before it—the vessels at anchor in the harbour, swung to and fro
on their long cables, as they felt its force, and the vessel-of-war
sheered off under her canvass that swelled and looked full and turgid
with the wind. The sprays flew about her broad bows, and she was bearing
straight down on the schooner with the wind on her quarter. Every sail
that could be hoisted was set, and her commander seemed again determined
to make another powerful effort, in order to have a chance of bringing
his batteries to bear against the Black Schooner. As for that vessel
herself, she remained in the same place where she was, and seemed quite
indifferent to the movements of the man-of-war.

Appadocca pensively paced her deck, and looked from time to time towards
the eastern shore.

“The rash and fiery old man,” he muttered, with an expression half
anxious, half indignant, when he saw the large vessel fall off from her
anchorage.

When the wind had become fairly settled in, the order was given to set
sail.

With the usual rapidity, the masts of the schooner became sheeted in her
ample sails, her small kedges were let go, and she turned gracefully
to the wind. Her bow pointed to the southern outlet of the gulf—the
Serpent’s Mouth.

The calm and placid picture which the two vessels presented, as they
sailed in the same direction, bore in itself but a faint resemblance to
the fierce passions that might animate their crews, or the bloody deeds
which might be done if once they came within gun-shot of each other.

The usually quiet gulf smiled under the freshness of the morning: the two
vessels sailed smoothly on its even bosom. There was no labouring, no
plunging, no heaving of terrible seas, to call forth any feeling, akin to
terror.

The dark blue waves appeared through the thin vapours of the morning
like a landscape in a picture, and the light slender fishing canoes,
with their feather-like sails, which seemed to play on the waters, like
butterflies in the beams of a sunny day, added a peculiar and peaceful
appearance to the scene.

The high and solitary mountain of Naparima, with a few scattered and
scathed trees on its crown, rose in the distance; while the low sloping
shores before, seemed entirely to enclose the gulf, and to hem it round
against the violence of intrusive winds. Upon the whole, a beholder,
on seeing the two vessels together, with the thousand sailing boats and
sloops that followed in the wake of the man-of-war in order to witness
the exciting scene of an action, might have taken them to be the pleasure
ships of luxurious lordlings, who had launched forth on the deep to seek
another subject of excitement, in order to cheat monotony of some of its
victim-days.

The pirate schooner held its course with an indifference that would not
have led one to believe she was pursued. The watchful chief stood by the
shroud of the mainmast, with his arms folded on his breast, calm and
impassable as he was at almost all the moments of his life.

Not so the pursuing man-of-war. Ever and anon, as any of the small
sailing vessels that navigate the gulf came in sight, signals upon
signals went up her masts, to intimate that the vessel ahead was a
pirate, and to command it to be harassed and hindered in its course. But
all these were lost on the simple skippers of those simple crafts.

The chase continued. The terrible rock that is known by the name of
the “soldier,” and that true to its appellation, seems to guard with
unsurprizeable vigilance the passage of the Serpent’s Mouth, was passed.
Point Icacos, too, was doubled, and the two vessels were now riding on
the atlantic billows, with the low Orinoco marshes on the right, and the
rocky and wild coast of Trinidad on the left.

The sun was setting, when, suddenly, as if some monster screen had been
abruptly raised from earth to heaven, in order to keep one part of the
globe from the other, the wind fell, and the sails lay like humid sheets
against the masts.

“Nature will now begin to speak,” said Appadocca to himself, with a
certain air of contentment now lighting up his stern brow, and then
looked aloft and around.

At his order, the spars were instantaneously armed with steel spears,
from whose feet, conducting wires hung down along the shrouds and dipped
into the sea. At another order, the large jibs, foresail, and mainsail
of the schooner were stripped from the masts, and in their place, small
narrow sails, which, from their size, could not have been supposed to be
capable of having the least effect, were set.

The guns were doubly secured in their places, and the arms were fastened
with even greater care than usual in their cases, in the bulwarks.

The two vessels now lay on the ocean, that now heaved as if from its own
convulsions; for the lightest vane hung straight and stiffly down. There
was not a breath of air. The vessels turned round and round helplessly
on the seas, and as they rose on this wave, and were beaten athwart, or
astern by the other, for the billows rolled at this time in no regular
course, they fell into the troughs, or rose on the brows of the waves
with such sudden and straining movements, that the wood and iron that
formed them, seemed scarcely strong enough to hold together.

Night closed in; with it came a darkness that in itself was awful. No man
could see his hand before him, shipmate could not see even the shipmate
that stood at his side; which was the sea, which the deck, no one could
tell, save when some counter-running wave broke suddenly on the side or
bow of the schooner, and threw up the myriads of shining insects that
inhabited its full and swollen bosom.

Those that were obliged to move about, clung cautiously to the bulwarks,
and set one foot carefully before the other, that they might not throw
themselves over.

The cries of the terror-stricken sea-birds, as they wandered on the still
and suffocating air, with even instinct failing to lead them to their
resting place on the shore, sounded hoarse and ominous to the ear.

Not a sound was heard on board the schooner, except the creaks of the
straining cordage, as the vessel violently and madly plunged.

Now, like molten lead, the rain began to fall in large, heavy, and
leisurely drops. Then distant sounds, like the groans of a labouring
world, when earthquakes shake it to its base, were heard. A sudden and
faint gush of wind, like the fluttering of gigantic wings, came and
turned the schooner round and round, and passed away, leaving the deadly
calm as it was before. Flash—flash—the lightning came, and by its lurid
light, the ocean to the southward shone in one sheet of foam.

“How is your helm?” inquired Appadocca of the steersman.

“Very slack, your excellency. She does not feel it,” the man replied.

The sounds increased; they approached nearer and nearer; they came, and
like a toy in the hand of a giant, the schooner was suddenly thrown on
her beam-ends. The water washed one-half of her long deck, and the first
gust of the hurricane swept with a terrible noise, over the prostrate
vessel, and seemed to crush her, like a mountain that had fallen from its
base, and had met some paltry obstacle in its way, while it was rolling
along to find its level.

“Luff,” cried the chief to the steersman.

“Luff.”

The schooner lay on her side for a few minutes, as if she would never
right again: at last, like an impatient steed, whose course has been
arrested by some temporary barrier, after sustaining the violence of
the gust, she sprang forth into the face of the wind, and seemed like a
thing of passion and pride, roused to brave the power of the overwhelming
hurricane.

With the scanty storm sails, which the foresight of Appadocca had had
bent, she shot through the mountain billows with her usual speed,
cleaving them through, and throwing the sprays mast high.

On—on, she went, as if actuated by the bold spirit of the man who
commanded her, she sought to penetrate the very bosom of the hurricane.

Her slender masts bent like willows to and fro, as she mounted the
mountains of rushing water, that struck and shook her to the very keel.

By the flashes of glaring and frequent lightning, the fierce sailors
could now and then be seen standing stolidly at their respective
stations, their red caps drawn far down over their puckered brows, and
their black beards dripping with spray and rain.

A rope fastened each man to his post, and unmoved, like carved wood,
they stood in the terrors of the howling winds: the bonds of discipline
were still on them.

As for Appadocca himself far from evincing any anxiety, he seemed to
take pleasure in the terrible convulsions of nature. With the dark
heavens above him re-echoing far and wide with the rolls of the loud
and never-ceasing thunder; with the balancing ocean below him, and the
terrifying howls of the devastating hurricane around him, he was the same
unimpassioned, collected, intrepid man, as when the schooner rode on the
calmest sea, under the most smiling sky. He seemed to take pleasure—if
his nature could receive pleasure—in the awe-striking scene. Ever and
anon he took up his red cap, and pressed his hand over his brow in
apparent delight.

The schooner still laboured in the seas that now began to grow higher and
higher, and heavier and heavier. The lightnings came and played about
her masts, like the spirits of the tempest, that seemed marking her as
their victim; but the fluid glided down the wires, and lost itself in the
foaming deep.

Still on—on—on she went. A terrible gust.... She was laid on her beams
again. The wind was gone: the air was calm and close: not a breath;—her
narrow sails hung to her masts, and she was tossed about without wind
enough to feel her helm.

At this frightful interval the echoes of rending broadsides were heard
towards the north. They were the reports of the man-of-war’s distress
guns.

“Take in the fore and mainsail,” cried Appadocca, in a voice that seemed
to sound solitary and lonely amidst the terrors of the night.

“Reef the jib.”

The order was scarcely executed, when the rumbling sounds were again
heard. It was coming—it was coming; the schooner was thrust forward, as
if some immense rock had been let to fall against her; her bows were
dashed through the approaching billows; as she emerged for a moment,
the same power thrust her backwards; her stern sank under the volumes
of water that washed over her decks; and then, as quick as thought,
she was lifted from the surface, and twisted, and twisted, and turned
reelingly round in mid-air, and was let to fall with a tremendous crash
again. Crack—crack—her two tapering masts snapt from the deck. They were
overboard, and the lately resisting schooner was now borne with the
rapidity of lightning before the hurricane.

“Get up the anchors,” the voice of Appadocca was again heard; as he
recovered from the concussion of the whirlwind.

The prostrate sailors scrambled from the corners into which they had been
thrown; the hatches were raised, and the only hope of the schooner,—the
anchors—were quickly drawn on deck.

The hurricane was now at its height. Like a feather on the overturning
currents of an overflowing cataract, the vessel was furiously borne away
before the sweeping wind.

The anchors, with their immense coils of chain-cable were thrown
overboard, to arrest the progress of the vessel for a time, until
jury-masts could be rigged.

It was of no avail.—Fast—fast—before the wind the schooner went; and then
a grating noise, and a dreadful shock;—every man fell on his face—she was
ashore—on the rocks.

“Save yourselves, my brave men,” the deep-toned Appadocca cried, as he
stood boldly prominent amidst the surrounding rack and ruin.

The ocean was fringed with foam, as it broke on the rocks of Trinidad,
on which the once beautiful schooner was at this moment being dashed to
pieces.

The sailors now thought of saving themselves. The distance from dry land
was not much, and it might be gained on the crest of the waves, if no
rock dashed to pieces the daring fugitives in their attempt.

Each bold pirate watched his time, and leapt boldly on the crest of the
billow, as it came washing by, and in the twinkling of an eye, was thrown
up high and dry, alive or dead, on the top of the rocks.

Already every man had left the schooner, and had perished or been tossed
up alive.

Appadocca still stood leaning on the bulwarks, contemplating the sad
remnants of his once all but animated vessel.

Lorenzo and Jack Jimmy drew together imperceptibly to his sides. They
stood around him silent, and unperceived.

The schooner was breaking up; still Appadocca stood where he was.

“Will not your excellency go on shore?” Lorenzo at last ventured to say.

Appadocca started slightly, as if awakened from a dream or reverie.

“Yes, Lorenzo; but save yourselves first. Watch the wave; here it is—jump
in—you, too, Jack Jimmy, quickly, so, so.”

The two men jumped on the billow as it swept by the schooner, Appadocca
followed, and they reached the shore.

Now the wind suddenly ceased as before.

Appadocca, with Lorenzo and Jack Jimmy, were sitting on the top of a
lofty rock: they were viewing the last struggles of their vessel.

“A terrible night, this is, Lorenzo,” said Appadocca.

“It is, indeed, your excellency, a frightful night! for——hark! What cry
is that? It is from the schooner,” cried Lorenzo, as he stood up.

A supernatural shriek fell on the ear. It came from the schooner. Again
it came—again—and again—as she was battered against the rock.

The three persons were silent.

“Oh, I know,” cried Lorenzo.

“It is the prisoner—I may save him yet—I may save him yet,” said Lorenzo.

They were the shrieks of James Willmington, who was still battened down
in the narrow torture-room, into which he had been thrown, and was
undergoing more than a thousand deaths; dying as he was, thus cooped up
in a dark narrow cabin, and the vessel breaking asunder under him.

The cabin was so close, that his terrified shrieks could not be heard
before; but now, when the seams were opened, they alone, prolonged, and
agonizing as they were, were now to be heard in the lull of the wind, on
the silent, close, and death-strewn air.

Lorenzo rushed down the rock, but ere he could devise a means to rescue
him, the schooner broke in two, and the unhappy Willmington sank for
ever, still a prisoner in the torture-room.

The schooner went to pieces, and soon the billows rolled on the rocks
over her once graceful form.

Appadocca silently watched the gradual destruction of his vessel, and
silently listened to the shrieks of his father.

When not a timber of her remained above water, he heaved a heavy sigh.
The first, that Lorenzo had ever heard from him. It was the sigh that
came from a hurricane of feelings within him, which equalled the raging
hurricane of nature without.




CHAPTER XXX.

    “I ’gin to be aweary of the sun,
    And wish the estate o’ the world were now undone.”

                                             MACBETH.


“Lorenzo,” said Appadocca to his officer who had returned to the wreck,
“that was a good and faithful vessel.”

“Ay, your excellency,” replied Lorenzo, sorrowfully, “she was.”

“All things must end, Lorenzo,” continued Appadocca.

“True, your excellency,” answered Lorenzo.

“If so, Lorenzo, the honours and greatness of men are scarcely to be
longed after. The pursuits that engross us during an entire lifetime, and
lead us too frequently, to sacrifice health, happiness, and sometimes
even drag us into crime, must all—all end in this—in nothing.”

“True, your excellency,” answered Lorenzo.

“You know not, Lorenzo, how different the world appears to me now, from
what it did when I was a happy student of eighteen. It was then tinged
with golden hues, and shone in whatever light I viewed it. Greatness:
oh, greatness, seemed so captivating to me! My nights were devoted to
its attainment, my days the same. Now, the world is charmless, scarcely
tolerable, and my beautiful dreams have all passed away like the crystal
dew before the sucking sun.”

“There is still hope, your excellency,” remarked Lorenzo.

“What among all things seems the most deserving of preservation,
Lorenzo,” continued Appadocca, “is our honour, our consciousness of
acting right. How many a mind that is curbed down by misfortune and
sorrow, finds its own little relief in the simple idea, that it has acted
up to the dictates of its honor.”

Lorenzo made no reply, he saw that his chief was deeply affected.

“Lorenzo,” resumed Appadocca, after a pause, “there is destiny—there is
destiny—there is a synchronism of events and a simultaneousness of the
actings of nature’s general laws that constitute destiny; against which
no men from the absence of any power to read the future can provide.
Thus, in the whirlwind, that raises in mid-air the light feather, there
is to be seen the hand of destiny, for there is the synchronism of the
feather’s being separated from the bird with the acting of the law of
nature that produces the wind. It would have been as impossible to the
bird, granting that its reasoning powers were less limited, to have
provided against the falling of its feather and the eventual taking of it
up by storm, as it was impossible to foresee the whirlwind that overcame
the schooner which was made to pass through every danger.”

“Too true, your excellency,” answered Lorenzo.

“So that it follows,” continued Appadocca, “that since men are subject
to the former of this destiny, their most strenuous efforts must always
prove impotent in restraining its action, and that they are liable every
moment, whether they are good, or whether they are bad, to be subjected
to misfortune and calamity. And this corroborates what I have already
said, that the only thing which we are bound to consider in life, is our
honor, which alone is, or ought to be, the source of satisfaction or
misery to us.”

Lorenzo assented to the philosophy of Appadocca.

“If ever I should be suddenly overtaken by the hand of this destiny
recollect, beneath the solitary fig-tree that grows on the Island of
Sombrero, you will find a treasure. Devote half to the erection of a
college for abandoned children, and with the rest provide for my men who
have served me truly. Do not forget that peculiar old servant,” he said
in a low tone, and pointed to Jack Jimmy.

“Your excellency is growing melancholy,” observed Lorenzo, with some
anxiety.

“No, no,” replied Appadocca. “Still, who knows how soon destiny may end
his days.”

“For you, Lorenzo, you have acted towards me in a manner that I have duly
appreciated,” continued Appadocca, while he grasped his officer’s hand,
“here is my sword, wear it, and may the time soon arrive when you may use
it in the cause to which you are pledged, farewell!”

With a spring Appadocca jumped from the rock and threw himself headlong
into the thundering waves below.

His movement was so sudden that Lorenzo, and Jack Jimmy, who sprang to
their feet at once, were too late to hold him back and save him.

The little negro silently returned to the spot where he had sat since he
had come on shore, and hid his face in his hands. Not a word—not a sob
escaped him. His grief was too deep and strong for tears.

Morning dawned on the devastated scene of the late hurricane.

Like a strong man who is recovering from illness, nature presented a
smiling, though languid look. The billows still ran high, but unlashed
now by the wind, they rolled heavily against the rocks.

High and dry lay the bodies of the dead, their pallid faces still locked
in the grim passions which had attended the departure of life.

The dawn had scarcely come, when Jack Jimmy might have been seen moving
totteringly along the ruffled beach, with a dead body on his shoulders.
Away into a solitary recess of the picturesque little bay, he bore his
burden. He lay it down, and then slowly began to scoop a hole.

Solemnly he worked—his arms rose and fell like his heart—heavily.

But who comes to interrupt the sacred work! Lorenzo! It was Lorenzo. He
had followed Jack Jimmy to the spot. The officer began to dig, too.

“Tap, massa—tap,” said Jack Jimmy, solemnly grasping his arm—“let me one
do it.”

The hole was dug:—Jack Jimmy adjusted the uniform and hair of the corpse,
composed its features, and laid it carefully in it.

His arms again rose and fell as heavily as before:—the grave was closed,
and made even with the ground. Jack Jimmy knelt at its foot, raised his
eyes to heaven—his lips rapidly moved, and a heavy tear fell on the
simple grave of the pirate captain.

It was about this time that a little _fallucha_ came labouring over the
still perturbed waves under four powerful sweeps. At its stern sat the
captain and a lady.

Attracted by the signs of the shipwrecked pirates, she drew towards the
shore.

The tale of the wreck was soon told. The lady raised her hands and held
her forehead as if it were about to split asunder. She landed, and walked
along the strand and studied each dead man’s face that she passed by. She
arrived at the spot where Jack Jimmy was completing the grave, and was
adjusting each tiny pebble in its proper place.

Her heart sank within her. Quickly she approached the one who was toiling
in so sad a mood.

“Whose grave is this?” the lady quickly asked.

“My young massa’s,” Jack Jimmy slowly answered, without raising his eye
from his work.

“What was his name?” again asked the lady.

“Emmanuel Appadocca,” again answered Jack Jimmy, as slowly as before.

“Emmanuel Appadocca!”

The lady raised her hands to her burning brows, and pressed her eyes. She
remained for a few moments in this position. Then her arms fell languidly
by her sides, an expression of vagueness spread itself over her face, she
looked absently around, a ringing laugh broke forth from her lips, her
jaws then hung mopingly. Feliciana fell mad over Appadocca’s grave.




CHAPTER XXXI.


    “Of that, and all the progress, more and less,
    Resolvedly more leisure shall express:
    All yet seems well; and if it end so meet,
    The bitter past, more welcome is the sweet.”

                        ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL.

Feliciana was taken to her _fallucha_, which immediately changed her
course, and returned to Trinidad.

Lorenzo built a camp on the shore for the protection of his men, until
he should be able to send a vessel to their rescue, and then began to
traverse the island under the guidance of Jack Jimmy, whose excitability
had now yielded to a melancholy and dull sombreness.

One evening the sun had set, the twilight was passing away, and gloom was
settling over the forests, when Lorenzo, exhausted and fatigued, thought
of going to ask shelter on a plantation, which he knew to be near at
hand, by the repeated crowings of cocks, that noisely vented their loud
farewell-clarions to the departing day.

“Jack Jimmy, do you know who is the proprietor of the estate which I
think we are approaching?”

“No, massa,” answered Jack Jimmy.

“Do you think they would give us shelter for to-night?” inquired Lorenzo.

“Yes, massa,” answered Jack Jimmy.

“Then will you endeavour to find your way to it?”

“Yes, massa.”

In about half an hour, Lorenzo and Jack Jimmy came out amidst a number
of flourishing gardens, that lay smiling at the back of a village of
labourer’s houses.

The two travellers quickly crossed there, and opened into a long lane
that was shaded by tall tamarind and sappodilla trees.

An ecclesiastic was seen calmly pacing this umbrageous retreat, while his
lips rapidly moved as he pored over the dark and riband-marked breviary,
which he held open before.

The father was so wrapped up in what he was reading, that he did not
perceive the two strangers until they had almost met face to face.

The priest started back, as he came on Lorenzo. “Mercy on us! the pirate
officer!” he cried.

“What, what new deed is it, sir;” he said, after a pause: “which now
tarnishes your soul again, and draws you to this peaceful and quiet
retreat?”

“Pirate officer no longer, good father,” answered Lorenzo, “and I bring
no outrage on your peaceful retreat. My spirit now itself requires too
much calm to break it wherever it already exists.”

The priest folded his arms across his breast, and looked silently and
sympathisingly on the unhappy man before him.

“My son,” he said, with a countenance that beamed with charity; “my son,
there is one above that can relieve our bitterest woes. Seek consolation
in the afflictions which, press upon your soul from His hand.”

“I am now in your power, good father,” said Lorenzo. “The schooner is
wrecked on these shores; Appadocca is no more.”

“Is he dead?” cried the priest.

“Yes.”

The priest turned towards heaven, and prayed for the soul of the pirate
captain.

“God forbid that I should ever refuse charity to the afflicted:
come with me, sir, and my good patron will, I doubt not, afford you
hospitality.”

The three persons walked up the lane, and discovered a comfortable
planter’s house, that stood in an open space amidst a number of orange
trees. They quickly approached the house; and Agnes, who was sitting
at the open window enjoying the evening breeze, fell senseless to the
ground, as she beheld Lorenzo.

       *       *       *       *       *

“Accommodate the stranger as soon as possible,” said a fiery looking
old man, whose gray hair floated over his shoulders, and fell over a
large and turned-down collar, while the boots which had not crossed the
threshold for many a day, still shone with heavy and immense silver spurs.

“Accommodate the stranger, and get him a guide as soon as possible,” he
said, as soon as the priest told him of Agnes’s illness, and had no doubt
expressed his own surmises.

       *       *       *       *       *

The time for Lorenzo’s departure approached. He was informed that a
guide and a mule awaited his leisure.

“I must see the master of the house,” he said.

The servant withdrew, and shortly afterwards conducted the officer into
the presence of the old man, who stood up as well as he could, bowed, and
asked Lorenzo to be seated.

“Sir,” said Lorenzo, speaking without any preliminaries; “your daughter
and I love each other.”

“What, sir! mention my daughter!” cried the old man, furiously, without
hearing any more. “Sir, the mule and guide are ready.”

But there was a softening balm even for the inflammable spirit of the old
gentleman. He, like all other men, had the particular point by which he
could be lead!

The pirate officer immediately disclosed that his real name was not
Lorenzo, but St. James Carmonte; and that he was the lineal descendant of
the Carmontes, who fell fighting for the Prince. He went on to explain
that his people before him had vegetated in a number of corners all over
Europe; but that he and the others that then survived had been eventually
expelled from France at the epoch of the great revolution. That he had
then taken to the sea, there to seek adventures; as he imagined he had
been long-enough on the enduring side.

“What! the descendant of Carmonte,” cried the old man, who was touched
in a sensitive part: “Carmonte, whose fathers fought at the side of mine.
How can you vouch this, sir?”

Lorenzo presented a ring.

“The word, sir.”

Lorenzo said something.

“Agnes, Agnes, come hither, Agnes,” vociferated the old man.

The young lady appeared. She was still pale and emaciated.

“Take her, take her, man,” cried the old cavalier. “May God bless you,
and preserve you to see the day when the king shall enjoy his own again.”

The priest blessed the union, and Lorenzo, after disposing of Appadocca’s
followers, lived happy in the retreat of the plantation.

Jack Jimmy served the officer of his young master with fidelity. A smile,
however, was never seen more on his face; and when the winds howled more
loudly than usual, the drops calmly fell from his now aged eyes.

In a certain city of Venezuela, Feliciana might be seen in her white
veil, and her sombre dress, amidst the abodes of the heart-stricken and
afflicted; she was known as the “Succouring Mother.” Twice a-year she
might also be seen on her pilgrimage to Trinidad, when she plucked the
weeds from off his mother’s tomb, and tended the sea-grape tree that grew
over the lonely grave of EMMANUEL APPADOCCA.


THE END.

LONDON: SAMUEL BIRD, PRINTER, BOW STREET, COVENT GARDEN.





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