“One half of me is yours, the other half yours—
Mine own I would say, but if mine then yours
And so all yours.”
MERCHANT OF VENICE.
On the next morning when Agnes—by that name the priest called her—the
fair captive, was going towards the door of the cabin which was given
up to her use, she beheld a sealed letter at her feet. After her first
surprise had somewhat lessened, she remained standing for a time in deep
reflection over it, endeavouring to conjecture whose it might be, to
whom addressed, and what could be its purport. At last, being unable to
restrain her impulse of curiosity, she took it up and saw that it was for
her. But the superscription was in the handwriting of a man—and not that
of her guardian.
What mystery could that indicate? What could it portend?
Before opening the letter, the beautiful young lady remained for a long
time gazing on it, while at the same time she was led away into a train
of strange and complicated thoughts. Could that letter be, she inquired
of herself, the forerunner of some attempt that the pirate captain
contemplated against her safety and honor? She trembled at the thought:
she recollected that among the outrages and ravaging descents of the
Boucaneers, their cold-blooded cruelties upon the sex were not the least
of their horrible deeds; and should this captain now design to add her
to the multitude of those of her condition, who had been sacrificed to
the profligacy of similarly lawless men?... It is true, up to that time,
she had been treated with an amount of respect and kindness that could
not be exceeded even by the fastidious solicitude of the most polite, or
by the benevolence of the most virtuous; and this captain seemed to be
somewhat different from the heartless freebooters of whom she had heard:
but might he not carry under that stern, and apparently callous exterior,
designs which would be the more to be feared as they should be the more
premeditated. If so, what chance had she of resisting him? Words would
not prevail with him; entreaties could have no effect on him; for she had
seen him send his own father adrift on a cask on the wide ocean, and
every thing, and every one on board of that schooner seemed to give way
to him and sink under his will: what could move him,—what protect her?
A blush suffused her beautiful face. She was inclined to fancy that there
might be one on board who would protect her. But yet they were both
pirates, and why should she expect that they should incur one another’s
displeasure and enmity for her sake—an unfortunate captive. But although
Agnes feared, still there was hope in her. Something told her, perhaps
her own heart, that mysterious and unerring index of the truth, that he
who had been so attentive to her from the moment when she set foot on
board the schooner—that Lorenzo would defend her.
There is a mystery of mind, a language of thought, and a sympathy of
soul, for which the greatest philosophers are still unable to account.
There is that which conveys from the loving to the loved a mute and
silent intelligence: there is that in us which converses without being
heard, which communicates without being seen, and even while the tongue
is tied and the eye is closed, tells to those we love of the sentiment
that we foster and cherish in our breast. The mind of the young lady
told her that Lorenzo would protect her innocence and honor, and she was
somewhat calmed by this assurance, however slight and ungrounded, a more
sceptical thinker would no doubt have considered it. Escaping in this
manner from these unpleasant and dark thoughts that alarmed her, she was
immediately recalled to herself, and proceeded to open the letter. She
hastily and eagerly glanced over it, raised her head for a time, and then
read, and read, and read again.
The letter was this:—
“Lady, though I am a pirate, recoil not from me. I am sensible
to the feelings of honor, and need not be feared by any lady;
in the uprightness of my soul I have dared to love you; deign
to cast but one look on me, and let me believe I may hope.
LORENZO.”
Agnes read this over and over again in nervous trepidation, then folded
it, and put it by.
She was a victim to strong contending emotions. She felt she knew not
what for Lorenzo, but he was a pirate. She could not imagine that she
loved: no, she did not; but she was grateful to the man as she had always
seen him, gentle and kind, and apparently unstained by any crime: but she
recoiled from the _pirate_. It would appear that even her gratitude could
not succeed in mantling the hideousness of that name. Yet he was always
so respectful to her! Could a pirate at heart be so? And if he were a
pirate, such as she had heard those men were, could he write to her in
that manner? No, it could not be. And joy glistened in her face as she
seemed to congratulate herself on having come to a conclusion that was so
favourable to Lorenzo.
Upon this she seemed to fall into an agreeable reverie: pleasure seemed
to play on her face, as she thought she had successfully washed away the
stain from the man on which her sentiments had already been anchored.
Distressing thoughts, however, will force themselves on the happiest
moments of our existence. At the height of her self-gratulation, the idea
of the pirate again occurred.
“But who is he?” she inquiringly muttered, “what is he—a—? Oh! no, I
cannot, I will not, I must not think of him,” and she burst into a
flood of tears. She wept and wept: now roused herself to extraordinary
firmness, and resolutely dried her tears, but it was to let them flow in
larger and fuller currents a moment after.
She was weeping over the ruined hopes of her own feelings:—of her first
love.
Agnes had been born and brought up in the seclusion which necessarily
surrounds a residence in the West Indies. She had seen but few persons
besides the neighbours that had their plantations in the vicinity
of her father’s estate. She had never met any one on whom she could
pour out the love that a tropical nature had lavished upon her. Her
feelings at the moment when she got into the position which led to her
meeting with Lorenzo were strong and fresh, and were in that state in
which the mysterious law of human sociality required, that they should
find an object on which they could alight and rest. They had alighted
on Lorenzo—not by reasoning—not by calculation. They had alighted on
Lorenzo, because they had alighted on him. Her feelings had flown and
rested upon him, either independently of her volition, or so closely
united with it, that it was not possible to say whether she loved,
because she chose to love, or whether she loved because she found herself
loving.
Such was the nature of her love: but if nature had implanted in her,
feelings that were so strong, pure, and good, education had taught her
that to control them was also necessary. She reflected that, above all
instances, that was the one in which she required all the power that she
might possess to restrain herself; for common prudence itself, unassisted
by the imparted precepts of propriety, was sufficient to make her careful
how she fostered the feelings, which had already risen in her breast.
Lorenzo was a stranger to her and hers, and the little that was known
of him was disadvantageous to him, for it consisted of the certainty
that he was a pirate—an outcast of human society. That was a sufficient
consideration, and when the full force of it fell on the mind of the
beautiful girl, she wept. She wept the tears that are the bitterest—the
tears that flow when we are called away, by the dictatorial voice of
principle and duty, from the pursuit of some fond object on which all the
feelings of our nature are concentrated, and which we had complacently
looked upon as the magnet of our happiness. On the one side she had her
will and her affections; on the other she had the danger of an ignorance
which was broken only by that which made it still more horrible.
Like one, therefore, who is resigned to death, from the sheer insipidity
of disappointed life, Agnes sat weeping in her cabin.
The tears fell not with the vigour of energetic sorrow, such as when the
soul concentrates her strength to mourn away with one effort some heavy
grief, but they dropped with the languor of oversettling despondency,
such as when even the full tide of anguish cannot wash away the rooted
sorrow.
She was in this condition, when the priest knocked at her door and
entered.
“Was she ill?” the good father inquired, “she had remained so long in her
cabin that morning?”
“No.”
“Ah! but you are weeping: cheer up, child; come, come, dry those tears:
you are, I see, thinking of home. Yes: there is a great difference
between your good father’s house and this vessel; but do not give way to
sorrow, my child, we must be thankful to Providence for having delivered
us from the death and dishonour which, it is likely, would have overtaken
us if we had fallen into other hands, and we must not repine at its
dispensations in any instance: cheer up. Besides, I have just been told
to get ready to go ashore; they will put us on land soon, I suppose,
although I cannot see it as yet myself.”
Agnes saw very clearly that the good father had mistaken the cause of
her grief, and was not a little glad to observe that he had so readily
attributed it to the reminiscences of home. She remained silent. But the
priest had only increased her embarrassment of mind, by the news which he
brought, and which, he considered, as indeed he himself had felt them to
be, the most joyful; for she learnt by his report that she was to leave
the schooner: she was glad, and, at the same time, she was sorry.
She was naturally glad to be again restored to safety, and to revisit
that home with its dear ones from which she was so nearly torn away for
ever: and she was sorry to leave the schooner, because her heart had
already begun to hover about it.
Which of the two feelings was the greater; judge for yourself reader.
Duty, however, and even safety called her away, and she must obey.
“When shall we go from this—when shall we be landed, I mean?” she
inquired of the priest.
“I do not know exactly, child, but they told me to be prepared. But you
have not, as yet, tasted food to-day; they have brought our morning meal:
I have waited for you long,—come in and take some nourishment.”
Agnes briefly excused herself from accepting the kind invitation of the
priest.
“She was not absolutely ill,” she said, “but certain thoughts had put her
in a melancholy mood, and she felt no desire for food.”
She insisted, at the same time, on his going to take his morning repast.
He hesitated for some time to leave her, but was, at length, prevailed
upon to go, by her persisting assurances that she was not ill.
Left to herself, the innocent girl gave vent again to her tears; but she
had not now any opportunity to indulge her feelings, for she was soon
aroused from her sorrow by the re-appearance of the priest who invited
her to go on deck.
They went up together.
The long schooner was now lying on the waves like some fish, that had
concentrated its strength for a dart, waiting for its prey. She rose and
sank with the waves, as she lay to the wind, like something that a more
powerful hand than that of man had made to inhabit the element on which
she so familiarly floated.
The usual silence reigned; every man of the watch stood mute and
motionless at his station; the captain himself stood by the steersman
with his arms folded across his breast.
The schooner had been thrown in the wind, to wait for the prize ship
which was still at a considerable distance, but which was approaching
fast under the press of her extensive sails.
She was, as we have said before, a fast sailer, but few vessels could
keep up with the Black Schooner.
When the two vessels had set sail together from that part where they
had remained since the fight and the capture, it was found necessary to
reduce from time to time the sails of the schooner that the ship might
be always kept within sight. Notwithstanding this, however, the former
had imperceptibly outreached and distanced the latter, and it was now
found necessary to put her in the wind, in order to allow time for the
ship to come up.
Notwithstanding the information that they would be landed that day, the
priest and Agnes could not see any preparations which might indicate such
a thing. Far, however, to the east, land might be seen, high and blue,
and like a passing cloud in the fleecy atmosphere of the tropics; still
no boats were as yet got ready, and not an order was given. In course of
time the ship drew nearer and nearer, until she had arrived within but a
few yards of the schooner, when she was brought up heavily to the wind;
her heavy canvass flapped, the waves broke on her huge bows, and she lay
like a sluggish whale.
A boat was launched from the schooner and was despatched with a number of
men on board the ship. After the lapse of a few moments, the cutter of
the ship was launched, and was forthwith rigged out, and the sails were
quickly bent. When this was done she was sailed up to the schooner, where
provision to last for three days was put into her, and she stood ready
for sea.
Orders were now given for the strangers to come forward and embark.
Lorenzo, who had been in his cabin the whole of the morning, now came on
deck. His appearance was not the same as it was wont to be. On his manly
brow sat gloomy care and anxiety, and there was even something fierce in
the expression of his lips. There was anxiety, deep anxiety, furrowed in
his looks, but there were also marks of a deeper and sterner feeling.
When he came on deck, Agnes and her guardian were standing almost
opposite the captain, on the starboard side of the vessel.
He saw them, but his eyes could not rest on them. Was he bashful?—was
he afraid to meet the looks of a frail old man, and the timid glances
of a helpless maiden?—he who had encountered enemies that every human
passion had excited and embittered against him?—he whose daily life was
a continuous challenge to man, to the powers that ruled the earth, and
to the controlless element itself which he had made his home? No, he
was afraid of himself: he was afraid of his pride. He had never placed
himself before in a position to meet either slight or insult. He expected
nothing from humanity, and he never placed himself in a way to be the
object of its kindness or beneficence. But love—love—the leveller—had
now overcome him: he had declared his feeling to a girl, he had, as he
fancied, humbled himself, by putting himself in her power, and his pride
was completely at her mercy. He therefore feared to look at her, lest in
her looks he might read that which was—oh! more horrible than anything
else to his nature—slight, indifference, or contempt. He had had a fierce
struggle with himself at first to write the letter which he had put into
the cabin of Agnes.
But he had no sooner done so than he repented of his act. The mastery
that love had gained over pride was but temporary, it soon ceased, and
he was left to be crushed under the tyranny of that unrelenting feeling.
How many conflicts such as Lorenzo experienced, are there not? How many
hearts that nature formed but to be united and to swell and beat but in
the community of each other, have shrunk, withered, and dried away in
cold and comfortless solitude, because the love of another could not
over-ride the fear of a risk, or an exposure of the love of one’s self!
How many a one has traversed this beautiful world, and moved on it as on
the barren bareness of a desert land, with no congenial soul to enhance
the pleasures of existence by its participation, or to diminish its
miseries by its sympathy, because pride forbad him to disclose to some
loving heart how much happiness it was in its power to administer.
These feelings, on the part of Lorenzo, did not arise from any low
conceit that he entertained for himself: nor were they the emanation of
that vulgar selfishness that concentrates existence, the capacity of
possessing feelings, the desire of happiness, in one’s single self, and
there traces out their bournes and limits; nor did they spring from the
senseless and stupid vanity that bolsters itself up in all the “pomp
and circumstance” of its full-fed ignorance. No: in the sturdy and the
bold, such feelings do not, cannot exist. It was something better—nobler;
something that could exist and thrive only in the community of exalted
thoughts, and delicate sensibilities. It was a sensitive self-respect.
Lorenzo approached the pirate captain, and saluted him. The latter
returned the salute, and, at the same time, fixed his keen eyes on his
officer.
We have already said there was something peculiar in the eyes of the
pirate captain: there was something that seemed to penetrate the inmost
soul, and read the mind, and see what was passing there. This power he
used on this occasion. The deep, earnest, steady look which he fixed on
Lorenzo seemed to overcome the latter and his eyes bent before it. When
the captain had looked long and stedfastly at his officer, he turned
suddenly on one side, and seemed to contemplate in the same manner, the
fair Agnes, that stood still leaning on the taffrail of the schooner,
with her eyes fixed on the deck.
The captain had at once read in the manner of Lorenzo, that he was
in love with the beautiful captive. His studious mind had long been
exercised in connecting deductions and his deep knowledge of human
actions and their springs, enabled him to trace, in one moment, the
change which was perceptible in the appearance of his chief officer to
its proper cause. He was at once convinced that Lorenzo loved Agnes,
and he now looked on her with some interest. One would have said he
was examining her in order to discover whether she was worthy of the
affection of one whom he prized so highly.
The examination lasted long, and Agnes was justly alarmed concerning the
meaning of this scrutiny on the part of the captain.
The persons to be landed were now assembled on the deck of the schooner.
The captain made a sign to the master fisherman to follow him, and he
descended the cabin steps. When he had arrived into his apartment, he
drew from a case a pair of pistols, and, at the same time, took from his
desk a purse of money.
“Listen to me,” he said, to the master fisherman, “you have hitherto
acquitted yourself well of that in which I have employed you, and I have
rewarded you: now I require your further services.——I shall put you and
the captives in a boat in a few moments. There is a young lady among
them, together with an old priest: you must take care of her, and protect
her. There are arms,” pointing to the pistols, “for you, the others are
unarmed. You, with these and the assistance of your men, can defend her
against the sailors in the boat, in case any attempt be made by them to
use the advantage of number which they possess. There is your reward,”
pointing to the purse.—“But, first swear by God and the Holy Virgin, that
you will protect her at all risks.”
“Senor, I swear.”
“You shall be the master of the boat, and it shall be yours after you are
all landed. Beat up to the land which you see before you from the deck.
That is Granada. In three day’s time you will be there. Remember your
oath. I never forget to punish.”
“Senor, I shall,” answered the master fisherman, who had all the gravity
of the people to which he belonged, half by race and wholly by feelings.
The captain pointed towards the door, and the master fisherman was led
away by one of the black boys who was in constant attendance there.
When the captain had disappeared from the deck with the master fisherman,
Lorenzo was in a manner recalled to himself. He looked about him,
his eyes met those of Agnes. His heart leapt. That look of kindness
penetrated his soul; the gloomy conjurings of his pride vanished before
it, and he seemed to be in the enjoyment of something to which, up to
that moment, he had been quite a stranger. But, may he not have mistaken
that expression of the eyes.
He looked again and again—their eyes met. Oh, no, he was not mistaken. He
drew towards the young lady.
“Madam,” he began....
“Lorenzo,” sounded the deep voice of the captain, who had by this time
come on deck again. He turned round and encountered the reproachful looks
of his chief.
He went away from the side of Agnes, seemingly ashamed of having given so
much license to his feelings, as to have neglected discipline for their
sake.
The captives, the master fisherman, and his men were ordered into the
cutter, and the captain himself assisted Agnes and the elderly priest
into the boat.
The boat was ready to be cast off from the schooner, when the master
fisherman remarked that one of his men was not in it. Jack Jimmy was
missing.
“Ho! Jack Jimmy,” went round the cry.
Jack Jimmy “heard it, but heeded it not.” He was standing with his arms
crossed over his chest.
“Jack Jimmy.”
But he took not the slightest notice of the call. At last one of the
sailors perceived him, and looking towards him, said,
“Jack Jimmy, will you come along?”
Jack Jimmy still remained silent where he stood.
“Will you come along?” and laying hold of him by the arm he attempted to
drag him along.
“Massa, me no go—me no leave dis ya ’chooner as long as massa in ea,” the
little man said, with much determination.
“Will you come along sir?” and the sailor gave his ear a twitch—Jack
Jimmy passively let himself fall on the deck, repeating—
“Me no go massa.”
But another sailor came up at this moment, and the two of them dragged
him along the deck to the gang-way.
“Oh! my young massa,” he cried, as he approached the captain, “let me tap
wid you, me no want foo go, me neber leafe dis ’chooner lang you ga—oh
let me tap wid you,” and he clasped the knees of the captain.
“Let him remain,” said the latter to the men, who were approaching to
drag him away again.
“Garamighty bless you, my young massa—me neber leabe you,” and the tears
trickled down the cheeks of the faithful little man.
The cutter was cast off from the schooner, her sails were set and she
began to move through the water on her voyage towards land.
In the stern sheets sat Agnes, by the side of her guardian: her
handkerchief was in her hands, and her head was bent over the side of
the little vessel, and now and then she might be seen to apply the
handkerchief to her face as if to brush away the spray of the sea.