“Of that, and all the progress, more and less,
Resolvedly more leisure shall express:
All yet seems well; and if it end so meet,
The bitter past, more welcome is the sweet.”
ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL.
Feliciana was taken to her _fallucha_, which immediately changed her
course, and returned to Trinidad.
Lorenzo built a camp on the shore for the protection of his men, until
he should be able to send a vessel to their rescue, and then began to
traverse the island under the guidance of Jack Jimmy, whose excitability
had now yielded to a melancholy and dull sombreness.
One evening the sun had set, the twilight was passing away, and gloom was
settling over the forests, when Lorenzo, exhausted and fatigued, thought
of going to ask shelter on a plantation, which he knew to be near at
hand, by the repeated crowings of cocks, that noisely vented their loud
farewell-clarions to the departing day.
“Jack Jimmy, do you know who is the proprietor of the estate which I
think we are approaching?”
“No, massa,” answered Jack Jimmy.
“Do you think they would give us shelter for to-night?” inquired Lorenzo.
“Yes, massa,” answered Jack Jimmy.
“Then will you endeavour to find your way to it?”
“Yes, massa.”
In about half an hour, Lorenzo and Jack Jimmy came out amidst a number
of flourishing gardens, that lay smiling at the back of a village of
labourer’s houses.
The two travellers quickly crossed there, and opened into a long lane
that was shaded by tall tamarind and sappodilla trees.
An ecclesiastic was seen calmly pacing this umbrageous retreat, while his
lips rapidly moved as he pored over the dark and riband-marked breviary,
which he held open before.
The father was so wrapped up in what he was reading, that he did not
perceive the two strangers until they had almost met face to face.
The priest started back, as he came on Lorenzo. “Mercy on us! the pirate
officer!” he cried.
“What, what new deed is it, sir;” he said, after a pause: “which now
tarnishes your soul again, and draws you to this peaceful and quiet
retreat?”
“Pirate officer no longer, good father,” answered Lorenzo, “and I bring
no outrage on your peaceful retreat. My spirit now itself requires too
much calm to break it wherever it already exists.”
The priest folded his arms across his breast, and looked silently and
sympathisingly on the unhappy man before him.
“My son,” he said, with a countenance that beamed with charity; “my son,
there is one above that can relieve our bitterest woes. Seek consolation
in the afflictions which, press upon your soul from His hand.”
“I am now in your power, good father,” said Lorenzo. “The schooner is
wrecked on these shores; Appadocca is no more.”
“Is he dead?” cried the priest.
“Yes.”
The priest turned towards heaven, and prayed for the soul of the pirate
captain.
“God forbid that I should ever refuse charity to the afflicted:
come with me, sir, and my good patron will, I doubt not, afford you
hospitality.”
The three persons walked up the lane, and discovered a comfortable
planter’s house, that stood in an open space amidst a number of orange
trees. They quickly approached the house; and Agnes, who was sitting
at the open window enjoying the evening breeze, fell senseless to the
ground, as she beheld Lorenzo.
* * * * *
“Accommodate the stranger as soon as possible,” said a fiery looking
old man, whose gray hair floated over his shoulders, and fell over a
large and turned-down collar, while the boots which had not crossed the
threshold for many a day, still shone with heavy and immense silver spurs.
“Accommodate the stranger, and get him a guide as soon as possible,” he
said, as soon as the priest told him of Agnes’s illness, and had no doubt
expressed his own surmises.
* * * * *
The time for Lorenzo’s departure approached. He was informed that a
guide and a mule awaited his leisure.
“I must see the master of the house,” he said.
The servant withdrew, and shortly afterwards conducted the officer into
the presence of the old man, who stood up as well as he could, bowed, and
asked Lorenzo to be seated.
“Sir,” said Lorenzo, speaking without any preliminaries; “your daughter
and I love each other.”
“What, sir! mention my daughter!” cried the old man, furiously, without
hearing any more. “Sir, the mule and guide are ready.”
But there was a softening balm even for the inflammable spirit of the old
gentleman. He, like all other men, had the particular point by which he
could be lead!
The pirate officer immediately disclosed that his real name was not
Lorenzo, but St. James Carmonte; and that he was the lineal descendant of
the Carmontes, who fell fighting for the Prince. He went on to explain
that his people before him had vegetated in a number of corners all over
Europe; but that he and the others that then survived had been eventually
expelled from France at the epoch of the great revolution. That he had
then taken to the sea, there to seek adventures; as he imagined he had
been long-enough on the enduring side.
“What! the descendant of Carmonte,” cried the old man, who was touched
in a sensitive part: “Carmonte, whose fathers fought at the side of mine.
How can you vouch this, sir?”
Lorenzo presented a ring.
“The word, sir.”
Lorenzo said something.
“Agnes, Agnes, come hither, Agnes,” vociferated the old man.
The young lady appeared. She was still pale and emaciated.
“Take her, take her, man,” cried the old cavalier. “May God bless you,
and preserve you to see the day when the king shall enjoy his own again.”
The priest blessed the union, and Lorenzo, after disposing of Appadocca’s
followers, lived happy in the retreat of the plantation.
Jack Jimmy served the officer of his young master with fidelity. A smile,
however, was never seen more on his face; and when the winds howled more
loudly than usual, the drops calmly fell from his now aged eyes.
In a certain city of Venezuela, Feliciana might be seen in her white
veil, and her sombre dress, amidst the abodes of the heart-stricken and
afflicted; she was known as the “Succouring Mother.” Twice a-year she
might also be seen on her pilgrimage to Trinidad, when she plucked the
weeds from off his mother’s tomb, and tended the sea-grape tree that grew
over the lonely grave of EMMANUEL APPADOCCA.
THE END.
LONDON: SAMUEL BIRD, PRINTER, BOW STREET, COVENT GARDEN.