“Say that upon the altar of her beauty
You sacrifice your tears, your sighs, your heart.”
TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA.
Silence reigned over the schooner. The pirates had retired to their
hammocks, and all, except the men of the watch, were wrapped in sleep.
In his cabin, in the centre of the vessel, Lorenzo sat alone and pensive.
The hour when he ought to have betaken himself to his berth had already
long passed, but he still sat in his chair at the head of the table that
stood in the middle of his cabin. He was still dressed in his uniform,
nor were his arms even removed from the sash that bore them.
He sat gazing silently on the lamp which burnt suspended from the deck.
One would have imagined he was in deep contemplation of that vessel,
if the vagueness observable in the fixed gaze of his eye, did not
too plainly tell that the subject of his thoughts, the object of his
contemplation was not the thing which was at that moment before him, but
some other which was in his mind.
The flying hours passed: Lorenzo was still sitting in his chair in the
same absorbed contemplation. Now a placid smile would play over his
features, now they would be locked in the fiercest sternness. There
seemed to be in him at that moment a conflict of emotions deep and
violent.
At last, as if he had taken a final resolution, “I shall do it!” he
exclaimed. He then drew from a desk materials for writing and penned a
letter.
When this was done, he took off his boots, put on his slippers, and
enveloped himself in his thick boat cloak.
He then cautiously opened the door of his cabin, in which the light was
carefully extinguished, and went out.
He proceeded down the long passage which led to the captain’s quarters,
and in which opened a door that led to the cabins occupied by the priest
and his beautiful ward.
Stealthily and quietly Lorenzo moved down the passage; a lamp faintly
burnt at some distance from the entrance to the captain’s cabin, and
by its dim light might be seen the dark outlines of the men who, at
intermediate distances, guarded the corridor.
Lorenzo could not but feel some alarm when his eyes fell upon those tall
forms, for he was conscious that he was treading on forbidden ground,
where, to be found without the ring—the usual passport—was instant death.
Such was the rigour of the discipline in which alone suspicion could hope
to find security.
It is true he was not within the circle of the captain’s quarters, but,
nevertheless, his being discovered in the passage at that time of night,
and in such guise, would lead to consequences equally as fatal, as if he
had trespassed on interdicted ground.
His careful concealment of his person, and the change of his boots, would
have worn such an aspect of conspiracy in the eyes of his superior, that
nothing could have been strong enough to blot out the distrust which the
latter would ever afterwards entertain of him, if even the consideration
of his services and old friendship should have proved strong enough to
induce the captain to spare his life.
The thoughts rushed in an instant on the officer as he stood for a moment
looking at the erect and steady sentinel at the end of the passage before
him.
They fell on him with all the weight and dreadful truthfulness which
they possessed. He remained for a moment irresolute, but at length the
daring spirit which his mode of life had fostered, and that indescribable
feeling people call love, but which is as incomprehensible as it is
omnipotent in its influence, nerved him against the danger which he
apprehended, and he took two or three steps forwards with the same
caution with which he had come into the passage. But he had gone only a
few steps when he saw that the attention of the sentinel was drawn in
his direction. The latter had changed his straightforward look and was
seemingly endeavouring to discover some object which had attracted his
notice up the passage.
Lorenzo stood—his worst fears he thought were about to be realized. He
saw at once the certainty of his being detected, and the consequences of
that pressed on his mind.
The thought, too, which always afflicts ingenuous minds, when they are
conscious that they are not culpable of an offence from which they
instinctively recoil with horror, but with which circumstances conspire
to charge them, fell heavily and miserably upon him.
The most desperately situated always hope—there is a hope almost in
despondency itself; Lorenzo still hoped, in spite of the peril before
him, that he would escape discovery. He knew that he could not be
seen by the sentinel in the darkness of the passage, and expected that
the latter would turn away, when he found that nothing was to be seen.
Lorenzo, therefore, remained quietly where he was. The sentinel continued
to gaze earnestly up the passage, and at last came out of his niche, and
began to walk straightway towards Lorenzo.
“I am lost,” the officer said to himself, and at once made up his mind
to stay where he was and surrender to the sentinel. The man came towards
him, but there was such indecision in his walk, that the officer could
not fail to perceive, at once, that the man on duty was only taking a
walk to see if there really was any one in the passage, without being
actually certain of his presence.
“There may be a chance of escape, yet,” he said to himself, and drew
himself closely up against the side of the passage.
As the sentinel approached, his anxiety increased. The sentinel drew
nearer and nearer: the officer drew himself up closely—and more closely;
the sentinel was now but a few steps from him, he pressed still more
closely on the side. Gently it yielded, and Lorenzo caught himself as he
was just falling in the inside of a cabin.
With wonderful presence of mind, he closed the little door that had
admitted him, and heard the heavy footsteps of the sentinel as he passed
it on the outside.
With breathless anxiety he listened to the steps; he heard them diminish
until the sentinel had arrived at the extreme end of the passage, and
heard them grow more and more distinct as he returned at the same
leisurely pace.
Again and again the man on duty passed his door; it was, therefore,
clear that he had not been discovered; but, as his anxiety about the man
outside diminished, new fears arose with regard to the place in which he
found himself. How was it that the door of that cabin had been left open,
when such regularity usually existed on board the schooner? Was there any
one at the time in the cabin? if so, the same danger that threatened him
outside would meet him within: for self-preservation had taught every
officer, and every sailor of the Black Schooner, that their safety could
consist only in the strict observance of its laws in their own persons,
and the rigorous enforcement of them in others. Every one seemed to know,
instinctively, that the chain which was so variously formed, could be
preserved only by a careful protection of each particular link. Lorenzo
knew if any one was in the cabin, and if he were there seen under such
circumstances, the person would make it a point of duty to report it to
the chief. His alarm, therefore, which had partly subsided, grew again
upon him. He remained in the deepest silence and attention, listening to
the steps of the sentinel outside, who was still patroling the passage
from his niche to its extreme end.
He endeavoured, also, to listen for the breathing of any one that might
be in the cabin, for he wisely concluded, that if any person was there,
he must assuredly be asleep, or else he should have heard him when he
accidentally tumbled in. But he heard nothing.
His anxiety, however, was not satisfied. He crept softly by the bed, and
listened again, but still he could hear nothing; he passed his hand over
the narrow berth, but there was no one there.
“Ah! I see,” the officer said to himself, “it is the cabin of José.”
It was the cabin of the officer who was then on duty, and Lorenzo
breathed more freely; but his anxiety was soothed down for a moment only,
for he immediately recollected that the night was already much spent,
and that the watch on deck would shortly be relieved; his difficulty was
thus in no manner removed. He reflected for some time, and concluded, in
a sort of despair, that fate was determined to ruin him, and he calmly
yielded himself up to the unfortunate destiny which seemed to pursue him
that luckless night.
He calculated that within half an hour’s time the watch of José would
have expired, and that he should surely be discovered when that officer
came down to his cabin. There might be a chance—though a desperate
one—of escaping the certain detection of the sentinel outside, although
suspicion would inevitably be raised: but that was the less of the two
evils that beset him. He resolved, accordingly, to wait until the watch
on deck should be near expiration, and then to make a desperate effort to
escape from his dangerous position.
He remained, then, standing by the door, on the outside of which the
measured footsteps of the guard were still heard. The time passed away,
and the sentinel still walked the passage. The watch was nearly expired
and he was there still.
“All is lost,” Lorenzo said to himself, and then he drew up his cloak
around him in that resolute manner that indicates the determination
which, from its extremeness, becomes the kindred of despair; as he drew
his cloak around him, something fell from it: it was the letter which
he had written. He felt about for it in the dark until it was found.
It seemed to revive the feelings which had begun to slumber under the
absorbing solicitude for his own safety.
“Shall I have put myself in danger and still not succeed in sending
this?” thought he, “what advantage do we derive from all our
acquirements, our high and glorious reputations, our friendships, our
exposures, and our perils?”—he hastily reasoned—“if we are driven by the
necessity of preserving these to sacrifice the happiness which we fondly
hope to realize from them? away vain and timid thoughts—I will hazard
everything; but, happen what may, I shall send this.”
Having come to this resolution, Lorenzo waited until the sentinel had
arrived at the head of the passage, and had, on his return to his niche,
passed the door of the cabin in which he was concealed: he then opened it
softly, and stepped into the passage: and, gathering himself up closely
under its side, began to retire with as much caution as he had come in.
He kept his eyes all the while fixed on the sentinel or his shadow, so
that he might easily anticipate his movements, in case he was discovered.
He had reached the top of the large passage, and was about to take the
one which led to his own apartments, when the footsteps ceased, and the
man drew himself up as before in his niche. It was evident that whatever
suspicions he may have entertained at first had now entirely vanished,
and that the greater part of the continued walk which he took, was
intended more for his own recreation than for the interception of any one
who he might have suspected was trespassing on the circle of his guard,
for he seemed to be entirely given up to his own reflections. Lorenzo
stopped when he saw this; he mused for a moment, but his resolution was
not long in being taken. He bent himself on his knees and hands, and
crept down the passage again; he stopped several times to study the
movements of the sentinel, all which times he seemed to be the more
assured of his safety; he crept in this manner until he reached a certain
door, and was now but a few yards from the man on duty. The latter seemed
still absorbed in his own thoughts; Lorenzo drew the letter from his
breast, and pushed it under the door. As he supported himself on one
hand, in doing so, the vessel lurched, and the hand holding the letter
struck against the door. The sentinel raised his head for a moment, but,
concluding that it was the inmate of the cabin who had struck by accident
against the partition, he relapsed into his meditative state.
Lorenzo drew himself carefully back in the same manner as he had gone
forwards. When he got to the head of the passage, he jumped on his feet
and hastened to his own cabin.
He had scarcely shut the door, when he heard the heavy footsteps of
the officer, who had now been relieved, on the companion stairs as he
descended to his cabin.