CHAPTER XXIII.

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.