THE FAMILY OF THE SPANISH MERCHANT.
I was wakened by some one flashing a lantern in my face, and hastily
starting to my feet, for I feared that I might have been discovered,
I found myself standing beside a personage well-stricken in years,
of grave but pleasant aspect, and soberly clad, as one of those old
decent serving men, who become, as it were, members of the family on
whom they attend.
‘Fear for nothing, young man,’ said the servitor, seeing, I suppose,
the momentary flurry and tremor in which I was; ‘you are in a very
secure asylum. My good mistress, whom heaven preserve! is known for
her charity, and the Virgin directed the steps which led you here
to-night.’
This discourse, you may be sure, was very pleasant to me; and while
I was blessing my stars for my good luck, the old man, who was
sufficiently garrulous, went on praising his mistress and the Virgin
alternately, so that it became difficult to determine which he held
in the greatest respect.
‘Not a lady is there, either in Old Spain or in New—the saints be
blessed for it! who hath even a tithe of my mistress’s virtues. So
was it indeed with her father before her, and so will it be with her
daughter after her; for I have well-known all three—albeit my young
mistress is not yet turned of seventeen. Notwithstanding, however,
she is already a most dainty and brave lady; her equal not being to
be found in any city or colony in the Main, for which I bless the
saints, and particularly Saint Gieronimo, who is indeed my mistress’s
patron saint, and would be mine also, were it not that I would
not venture to intrude upon his holy notice my poor concerns, his
attention being no doubt, fully taken up with those of my betters.’
Running on in this random way, the old man led me, while he talked,
through the garden towards the house. It was his lady’s pleasure, he
said, that I should eat a good supper, repose me in a good bed, and
that I should to-morrow be introduced to herself and her daughter,
they having, however, as I learned much to my surprise, already been
made acquainted with some portions of my story, and longing to know
the rest. As we spoke thus, we entered a wing of a handsome mansion,
pillared and porticoed all round, and having a flat roof, whereon
were set pots and tubs containing delicate flowering shrubs. We
traversed divers passages, through which the fresh night air freely
penetrated, and I could not but admire the delicate carving of the
polished wood which formed the wainscoting of the walls. At length we
entered a pleasant chamber, where was a bed, and a table well laid
out for supper. You may imagine that I played a very good knife and
fork, and the old steward or intendant, or whatever he was, bore me
company with rare good will. After supper, we drank some of the most
delicious wine to which I ever put my lips; and then, in answer to my
earnest entreaties, my companion informed me of the name and quality
of my preservers and hosts.
‘You are not to suppose, Master Mariner,’ quoth he, ‘that you are in
the mansion of a grandee of Spain. Because, for many generations,
the family of the late Bartholomew Moranté were merchants, having
great possessions both in Old and New Spain, at Alicant, upon the
Mediterranean Sea, and on this side the ocean, at Havanna in Cuba,
and here at Carthagena. Now, the wealth of Señor Bartholomew, my
late master, who is with the saints, was so exceeding, that the king
would have made him a noble, but to this dignity Señor Bartholomew
did not in any way aspire. The first part of his life was very
fortunate; not a galley, not a caravel sent he out, but it returned
to him with the venture increased manyfold. But as he waxed old,
the saints, doubtless having a mind to try his faith, it was so
ordered that he experienced many crosses and losses, in such wise
indeed that he left Alicant, not having any longer the means to keep
up the brave state he had formerly supported, and came hither, and
settled in this house at Carthagena. But his ill-fortune—praise to
the saints, who, doubtless, took great interest in my late master,
seeing that they were pleased thus to afflict him!—his ill-fortune,
I say, following him, he was obliged to send away his agents at the
Havanna, and at length, his greatest bark, richly freighted, being
taken at sea, and all on board of her killed or sold into slavery,
by a French devil incarnate, whom they call Montbars, and whom may
heaven, in its mercy, cause to be eternally tormented—my good master
took to his bed, and we weeping all around him, and blessing the
saints, who, without doubt, had thus broken his heart, in order that
they might take him to themselves, the worthy Bartholomew Moranté
departed this life to enter into a better world where are neither
spoilers nor stealers, nor doth there happen any manner of trouble or
cross. His widow, whom still I serve, dwells here in this house, and
places great confidence in me, looking up, although I say it, to my
advice and counsels; for I am old in the world, and have seen much
appertaining to domestic service, and am also much enlightened in
visions by the holy saints, who are pleased to make my hours of sleep
as profitable to my good patroness as my times of waking.’
From this rambling discourse of the old gentleman, I saw plainly
of what kidney he was—to wit, a very honest-hearted simpleton, who
loved his mistress dearly, while she, if her steward spoke sooth, was
probably as simple-minded as himself. But, desiring to know somewhat
of the young lady, the serving-man broke out into raptures concerning
her innocence and her beauty.
‘Her name,’ quoth he, ‘thanks to the saints! is Joseffa—Joseffa
Moranté—a rare brave name for a rare brave damsel. But she will
change it sometime, mayhap. Nay, very soon—if all go right, and the
saints will it.’
So saying, the old fellow began to smirk and nod, and look as wise
and as sly as he could, and then fell to chuckling to himself.
‘The rarest match,’ he presently commenced again. ‘Her mother,
having as I said great confidence in me, consulted with me on the
matter. “Martin y Vesdras,” says she to me, “Joseffa is marriageable;
and here hath come a suitor well-favoured and marvellously
well-recommended, and a nobleman to boot. Thou wilt do well, Martin,
to see him; nay, hold converse with him, and report to me your
opinion.”
‘But I, having no opinions save what the saints send me, went
straight to bed and dreamed upon the matter. Never had I a more
encouraging vision. Good Master Mariner, as I am a true man, St.
Gieronimo himself appeared at the foot of the bed, holding a wedding
ring, which he seemed to throw towards me with a very pleasant smile,
and so when I woke I actually found the symbol upon the coverlid.’
‘Truly,’ says I, ’ Martin, this was but little short of a miracle.’
‘Master Mariner,’ quoth the simpleton, ‘I rejoice to hear you say so.
So indeed think I, and so thinks my mistress, only——’
‘What,’ cries I, ‘does any one refuse to believe the token?’
‘Ay, verily,’ answered the old steward, ‘even Mistress Joseffa
herself, who is in noways inclined, at the present time at least,
to this wedding, and so she contends, half in mirth half in pretty
pettishness—the saints guard her!—that the ring is not a marriage
ring, but truly only one of the brass curtain rings which she sayeth
dropped upon my nose in the night, and gave me my dream. “Look you,
Martin,” says she, “the ring is plain, just like the other curtain
rings.”
‘“But look you again, Mistress Joseffa,” says I, “all wedding rings
are plain, just like this ring.”
‘But she, sir, in noways put down by my argument, answers, “Truly,
but wedding rings are also gold, and this is brass, Master Martin.”’
‘Well,’ says I, ‘how did you answer that consideration? Methought, it
pushed you home.’
‘Answer it,’ cried he, ‘I hope I know better than to dispute
obstinately with the daughter of my good mistress. No, Master
Mariner, I held my peace, as became me, being but a servant; yet I
do, nevertheless, steadfastly believe the vision, and I hope that the
saints will inspire the sweet Joseffa with kinder thoughts to her
suitor, who is truly a goodly man and an honest, and what is better
than both, favoured of St. Gieronimo.’
Then I, making inquiries of the steward as to the young lady’s
features and carriage, he answered that to-morrow my own eyes would
inform me better than his tongue, which could in no way do justice
to such a theme as the great virtues and loveliness of his charming
young mistress, whose single fault was that she laughed at the
wedding ring of St. Gieronimo. Soon after this, our conversation
broke off, the steward telling me he would be with me betimes in
the morning. I lay long awake that night, conjuring up visions of
Joseffa; at length, as sleep was coming over me, I heard, or dreamed
I heard, the low tinkle of a guitar, and a manly voice, as of a
serenader singing to it beneath an outside balcony.
‘The favoured suitor,’ I murmured, half asleep; and forthwith began
to dream that I was his rival, and that Saint Gieronimo appeared
again to explain that he meant the wedding ring with a view to my
coming, and that Martin’s interpretation of the vision was quite
erroneous.
The morning came, and I was ushered into the presence of my most
kind benefactors. They sat—the elder lady on a couch, the younger
on a footstool at her feet—in a great lofty withdrawing-chamber,
the walls and ceiling rarely carved, the floor of sweet-smelling
wood, highly polished, and almost as slippery as ice, and the whole
apartment darkened by blinds of a peculiar construction, which
excluded the heat, but allowed the fresh breeze to pass in freely.
As I advanced, the Señora Moranté held out her jewelled hand, which
I kissed very respectfully. She was a tall, stately-looking dame,
dressed in morning-robes, and her hair, which was beginning to turn
grey, covered with festoons of black lace, gracefully arranged, and
falling down upon her shoulders. But my eyes were, as the reader may
guess, fixed with a far more delighted gaze upon Joseffa. She was,
indeed, a beauty of the true Spanish mould. Her form vibrated, as
it were, with a graceful suppleness which made her every movement a
charm to see. Her oval face—lighted by eyes which alternately flashed
and melted—was beaming, sometimes with the joyous rapture of gaily
flushing spirits, sometimes, as it were, shaded by a grave expression
of pretty coquettish modesty and bashfulness. Her lips were full and
pouting, and every moment there came a merry smile upon them, with
a sudden arching of her dark eyebrows, which quite enabled me to
understand the sportive nature which laughed at poor Martin, with
his ring of St. Grieronimo. She bowed slightly as I advanced, and
then, flirting and twirling and shaking a fan made of gaily-coloured
feathers before her face, stole rapid glances at me; all the while
pouting her lips, and sometimes looking down to the ground, and then
starting up, and whispering and laughing softly in her mother’s
ear, or unto herself, playing all the while with one hand among her
long black hair—her white fingers glancing nimbly amid the glossy
clustering locks.
The señora received me with a sort of goodnatured dignity, and
bade me sit on a low seat hard by. She then began to inspect me, as
I thought, as curiously as though I had been some sort of strange
animal, muttering to herself, and sometimes whispering her daughter;
to my no small embarrassment; all at once, she said—
‘Young man, I fear me you are a heretic?’
I replied softly that I was of the religion of my fathers.
‘But you are a pirate,’ she commenced again; ‘and you put our people
to death very cruelly, and you pillage our ships. See, what being a
heretic leads you to. Perhaps it was very weak in me to save you, and
I know not what father Anselmo will say when next I go to confession.’
I answered that, far away in Scotland I had a mother, who I was sure
would do for any poor hunted Spaniard what she had done for me, and
that, though we did not worship in the same fashion, yet that never
would my mother forget in her prayers the kind heart that had saved
her son.’
I spoke this very earnestly, for I felt what I said deeply, and
kneeling down, I took the señora’s hand again, and kissed it. She
paused a little time, and then asked, what made my countrymen and the
French so vengeful against the Spaniards. Now, this was an argument
which I had no will to enter into—seeing that such a debate could
but breed angry feelings on both sides; and so I endeavoured to
turn the matter off by saying, that it was the two nations, and not
individuals, who made war—on account of the heritage of the new world.
‘But, señor,’ said Joseffa, and all my nerves tingled as I heard her
voice, ‘you are of a very cruel and vindictive nation; for when my
poor father’s great bark, the Trinidada, was taken, all the sailors
were struck down and murdered upon the deck.’
To this I answered, that I understood that the Trinidada had been
captured by Louis Montbars, a Frenchman; that I had myself been
prisoner in the hands of that captain; and that it was only by a
dangerous flight that I escaped being sold into slavery by him in the
isle of Tortugas.
This revelation all at once seemed to alter the position in which I
stood in the favour of the ladies, who, up to that time, although
they had, as I understood, received a good report—but from whence
I could not guess—of my conduct before the alcaide—were yet partly
prepossessed against me, as a heretic and a pirate of that class
which had brought so much desolation on their house. So, presently,
they desired to hear somewhat of my adventures, which I told them
very faithfully—the narration occupying the greatest portion of the
day. While I sat speaking, my eyes often encountered the dark orbs
of Joseffa fixed on mine. Then would we both drop our glances to the
ground, and my voice, despite myself, would falter, and a red blush
would spring over the bright olive cheeks of the young Spanish lady,
and her feather-fan would flutter more violently than before.
That day I dined with my hosts. In the cool of the evening I
walked with them in the garden; but at the board, and beneath the
orange-trees, I saw but one face and one form. In my sleep the
star-like eyes of Joseffa haunted me; her voice rang unceasingly in
my brain. When I ventured to take her hand, mine trembled as though I
were a palsied old man—when she left me, the salt of existence seemed
to have lost its savour. I went and came musing. I took no pleasure
in aught save what related to her. In short, I had fallen certain
fathoms deep in love.
And, verily, it was not wonderful. I lived in a state of existence so
new, that it seemed to me, then, and seems to me still, a Dreamland—a
long, sweet unreal vision. Consider what I was—a rude mariner,
ever-brought up in the coarse company of rough and unpolished men,
with hands fit to swing a lead-line, or tie a reef-point; with a
voice good for hailing the fore-top in a gale of wind; but with
neither hands nor voice trained for the soft requirements of a lady’s
bower.
I laugh, with a melancholy mirth, now, when I think of what my
uncouthness must have been. Here was I a rough and round sailor—a
fellow who had been kicked about in Scotch brigs, and buccaneering
small craft all my days—to whose tongue the lingo of the forecastle
came as my mother-speech; who had hardly slept but in a swinging
hammock—ate but of lobscouse and sea-pie—sang but roaring
sea-ballads, or thought but of storms and calms, and ships and rigs,
with now and then a waking dream of old boyish days, of the Royal
Thistle and the Balwearie Burn, or mayhap the memory of an ancient
Scots legend, or a warm gush of feeling when I pondered on my old
mother, by the ingle-nook in the fisher’s cottage, near Kirkleslie
Pier. Such was I then, such my very nature, body and soul, and yet
now did I find myself the lover of a gentle Spanish lady, walking
with her through garden bowers, communing with her under shady
verandahs, talking of things I hardly dreamt of even as lurking in
the bottom of my soul. And she neither jeered at my port, nor flouted
my rough speech. She loved to hear of my country, and when I told
her our gallant tales of the Bruce, of how he was crowned King of
Scotland, crowned not in an abbey, by no holy hand of priest, and
without the ancient symbol of the sovereignty of the realm, but in
a wilderness, with a circlet of gold hastily wrought out, and by
the hands of a famous heroine, dear to the heart and memory of a
Scot, for ever—the Countess of Marr—when, I say, I told such tales,
Joseffa would hang, as it were, upon my lips, and then saying that
Spain also had its great heroes and mighty men of old, would draw her
fingers strongly across the thrilling strings of her guitar, and with
flashing eye and widened nostril, sing the glorious ballads of her
nation, of the battles between the Spanish chivalry and the Paynim
Moors, of the conquest of Alhama, and the life and death of Diaz de
Bivar, the peerless Cid.
And so flew weeks away. I know not to this day how the Señora Moranté
observed not what was passing in our minds. She had taken me into
great favour, and consulted me much upon family matters, and upon
her design to cross the ocean and return to Alicant; and often she
hinted mysteriously at the noble husband her daughter would espouse
after her return to Spain. This suitor I knew to be in Carthagena, I
knew he ofttimes visited the house. Yet, upon these occasions, the
mother managed somehow adroitly to receive him when I was not by.
From Joseffa I could learn but this, that the gallant favoured by her
mother was not loved by her; that she received him but to humour the
fancies of her parent, who was but a weak, though good kind of woman;
and finally, she said to me, in low tones, for her eyes were looking
closely into mine, and her breath was warm upon my cheek,
‘Do not regard him—Leonard, my own sailor, I will marry only you.’
But a week before these sweet words were spoken, we had (the custom
is of Scotland) broken together a crooked coin. Joseffa wore one half
of it attached by a braid round her neck and next to her heart, and I
wore the other.
So, as I have said, weeks flew by; sometimes I thought sadly of my
comrades, and wondered upon what seas the gallant Will-o’-the-Wisp
was sailing; but these were only passing moments. My life was a
long sweet dream, checkered only by such considerations as I have
mentioned, and by doubtings and misgivings touching the strange
suitor who persecuted Joseffa with his importunities.
‘Tell me but his name,’ I would say; ‘bring me but face to face with
him; I ask no more.’
But she would reply, ‘Be tranquil, Leonard! You have my heart. My
mother loves me well, and it pleases her to nurse herself in fancies
which can never turn to reality. Before you arrived here, a ship
sailed hence to Spain; she must be now upon the ocean again, with her
bows hitherward. When that ship sails a second time, I trust well
that my mother’s eyes will be opened, and that what is now passing
will be remembered but as an idle cloud, which hath come and gone.’
But I was not satisfied. And so I applied very earnestly to Martin,
professing to consult him as to a vision with which the saints had
blessed me, touching the wedding favoured of St. Gieronimo. All I
could obtain from the old man was, that the cavalier, for certain
private reasons, wished that his visits should be kept secret until
the nuptials had actually been arranged.
Now, all this appeared to me a most strange and needless complication
of a simple matter, and, calling to mind certain words of Joseffa, I
could not help wondering whether the cavalier held the same language
to the mother as to the daughter. The allusions to the persecution
which Joseffa was undoubtedly undergoing, out of deference to her
mother’s foibles and prejudices, coming probably to an end when a
certain vessel sailed for Spain, would seem to imply that in that
vessel would also sail her tormentor; and, pondering upon this
circumstance, a thought suddenly flashed upon me, which made me
certain I had caught a clue to the mystery. As all this came up into
my mind, my brow flushed and my blood boiled.
‘Come what may of it,’ I swore, ‘the next time that this man crosses
the threshold, ’tis I who will receive him.’ I hided my time warily
and well. I watched; I lay in wait; not a motion of the old steward
or of the señora but I followed; and the next day I had my will. I
knew the mysterious suitor was in the house. I knew that the señora
had gone to summon her daughter, who, I also knew, would be long of
coming. Therefore, gathering up body and soul for the interview, as
I had done once before for the torture, I burst hurriedly into the
withdrawing room, and saw there, dangling his bonnet and playing with
his sword-knot, the man I had expected to see—Don José!
Making a great effort, I composed myself, and stood firm, looking at
him, but not daring to allow my tongue to utter a sound. On his side,
Don José showed not the slightest emotion, only a dark shadow seemed
for a moment to pass over his face, but it went almost as soon as it
had come; and then, stepping up to me, he said, in such a frank, open
fashion, that I could hardly believe my ears:
‘Hey, my old friend, the Scots Mariner! I am heartily glad to
see thee again. I knew that thou hadst found refuge in this very
hospitable mansion. And so, friend, thou hast doubled both upon
blood-hound and alcaide. It was very well done, man. I gave
thee a good character to the Señora Moranté, and I hope it hath
availed thee. But indeed the ladies lately told me, that thou wert
still here, behaving thyself most reasonably, for a pirate and
a heretic—nay, that, in sooth, thou wert getting to be quite a
favourite. A rare time for thee, Friend Buccaneer. How wilt thou like
sea-fare and sea-company, after such an interlude?’
‘Don José,’ said I, speaking in a low and tremulous voice, for very
passion; ‘it were best that you leave this house.’
‘Truly, friend,’ replied the cavalier—‘you are the least
hospitable person within it. What may be the meaning, I pray, of a
recommendation, which, in thy mouth, I find somewhat singular?’
‘Don José,’ I replied, ‘you have saved my life. It is now in your
hands again. I am a rough, untutored mariner, not skilled in your
courtly ironical phrase,—I say again, you must leave this house, or
I will drive you from it—you may return with officers and alguazils,
but at any rate, you will not return in the character which now you
falsely pretend to.’
‘My good man,’ said Don José, still playing with his sword-knot,
and, as he spoke, flinging himself on a sofa, and dangling his
legs gracefully—‘My good man, have you ever, in the course of
your buccaneering, come across a cut on the forehead from a well
wielded piece of steel? Because if so, at certain seasons, the brain
may still feel the smart. You ought to purge and bleed—my good
pirate,—purge and bleed.’
I was likely to lose my senses in reality at this cool effrontery,
and so, going up close to the Spanish nobleman, I said—
‘Remember, Don Ottavio y St. Jago, who is known to every duenna at
the Court of Madrid—remember, your mutual bargain, and the message
which you sent your friend by the mouth of Señor Davosa, a merchant,
who has doubtless by this time sailed for Old Spain, on board of the
galleon.’
Don José started to his feet, as though a cannon-shot had been fired
close to his ear. His tawny features were flushed with a sudden
redness, and as he jumped up erect upon the floor, he drew his
rapier, as though an armed enemy had leaped suddenly upon him. As for
me, I thought it just as well to be run through where I stood, as to
be dragged again to prison—again tortured and finally hanged. So I
remained motionless, gazing upon him. He paused for a moment, with
his arm upraised, as though to strike, and then suddenly lowering
his weapon, he said—‘Have you nought wherewith to defend yourself?’
I replied, that I was unarmed, as he saw, but that I was not afraid
of dying, that he had already given me life, and that now he might
himself revoke his gift. He seemed to pause again, to take inward
counsel. His face, from being flushed, grew suddenly pale, and his
features worked, and his lips quivered. At last he spoke—
‘Eavesdropper!’ he cried, ‘you were lurking in your boat, beneath the
cabin galleries of the galleon.’
I answered, composedly, that I was no eavesdropper, but an adventurer
who sought, as is common in war-time, to obtain information as to the
designs of his enemy. He laughed scornfully, and then turning on his
heel, sheathed his rapier with a clash. In an instant, however, he
swung round again, with his fierce eyes all aflame.
‘Ha!’ he exclaimed, ‘I see it—a rival. By all the gods, a rival!
A successful rival! Good!—a jest worth telling. The blood of Old
Castile against a tar barrel—and the tar the favoured fluid of the
twain.’
As he spoke thus—his hand again clutched the hilt of his rapier, but
he withdrew it, with a loud angry ‘Pshaw!’—and strode, fuming, up and
down the room. Then he paused, came close to me, and said—
‘Most grateful mariner—most worthy pirate—a goodly return have
you made to the man who gave you liberty and life. Why! thou
heartless knave! were it not for me, you would long ago have swung a
hundred-weight of carrion from a gallows, and now this—this is the
gratitude thou showest.’
‘Yes, Don José,’ I said, vehemently, ‘it is. To save a gentleman from
committing a base action, is to make the worthiest recompence for a
favour he has conferred.’
The Spaniard looked at me from head to foot, raised his eyebrows, and
gave a slight whistle.
‘Truly, a pirate of a most moral breed—he reproves incontinence, he
rebukes sin. Most righteous of Buccaneers, thou hast mistaken thy
trade. Turn priest, man. Ha! I daresay you heard me tell the story of
the diamond and pearls on the Virgin’s petticoat? Behold a career for
thee. Get thee to the Cathedral on the Hill. To rob gaping Spaniards
in a church is more profitable and more safe than to plunder fighting
Spaniards on the sea. Turn priest, man. I warrant thee the rarest
hand at the confessional.’
‘Don José,’ I answered, ‘promise me, on your honour, to give up
the wicked purpose with which you visit this house. You may then
betray me to my enemies, and I swear to you, that not a word of what
accidentally I overheard shall pass my lips.’
He turned impetuously to me. ‘You know me not, mariner,’ he cried,
vehemently. ‘Your life is safe for me. We Spaniards are not all of
us alguazils!—human bloodhounds! Go! You have crossed my path, and
chance has given you the advantage. But you have spoken well and
acted well. I do not blame you—I think well of you. Once I would
myself have done what you have done; nay, perhaps so would I still.
But, caramba! Why put myself in a heat about such a trifle. Win her
and wear her, man! The stakes are yours.’
Don José took two or three turns from one end of the apartment to the
other, I still remaining motionless where I had first addressed him;
then suddenly stopping, he said, ‘If ever in future years you visit
Madrid, seek me out, and I will be your friend.’
Just then, the Señora Moranté entered. ‘Don José,’ she said, ‘I have
looked everywhere for Joseffa, but——’
Here she observed me, and suddenly became silent. Don José went up to
her, and took her hand.
‘Señora,’ he said, ‘you will think me fickle, but I have become
convinced, that in Joseffa’s hand, should I be fortunate enough to
secure it, I should find no heart. The saints would prosper no such
union, señora. What I say I have full warrant for believing. Señora,
adieu! Here is your persecuted Scotch mariner. Make much of him—he
is a leal man and true. I told you that I thought so, now I know it.
Adieu, señora. Adieu, my flower of pirates. May Heaven prosper thee!
Be moral—and a Buccaneer!’
And so saying, with a reverence the most graceful and profound, Don
José stepped gaily from the room. Oh, heart of man, what strange
wild tunes thou playest—what discords mingling with and marring thy
harmonies—what harmonies mingling with and attuning thy discords!
Courteous and rude, paltry and noble, magnanimous and base. A man can
be all these in an hour, in a breath, the grandest and the foulest
thing in nature!
Now, that I have told at length the strange chances which brought
Don José and I face to face so often, and in such curious relations
to each other at Carthagena, I would fain pass quickly over the
story of my after stay in that city. The history leads to but a sad
ending. Often and often, since I left the Spanish main, in rough
dark middle watches, as well as in soft and balmy nights, when my
ship stole through a waveless and shining sea, have I flown in fancy
back to those bright days of hope and love—often have I meditated
and pondered, until the very image of Joseffa has seemed to waver
in the air and smile upon me, until the well-remembered tones of
her voice have sounded audibly in mine ear amid the dash of waves,
or the rustle of the swelling canvas. Sometimes crouching alone in
the rocking top, with straining ropes and surging sails around me,
I have peopled that airy platform with the household of the old
merchant’s dwelling at Carthagena. The señora Moranté has pleaded
with me, urging me that I should abandon my heresies and become
a true son of the ancient church—the prating Martin has told his
visions of angels and of saints, and Joseffa—Joseffa, who wore the
token of our love upon her heaving heart, has looked up with her dark
eyes and her smiling lips into my face.
Vain phantoms all! the stately señora, the garrulous old steward,
Joseffa herself—the sea entombs them all! The crooked coin I gave my
love lies deep with her in caves which no line hath ever plumbed. The
ocean is the most inscrutable of sepulchres. I know not, and no man
knows, the place of their resting. The breeze was fair, and the sea
smooth, which bore from Carthagena the ship in which they embarked to
return to Spain. She was a stately merchantman, and as she left the
port cannon thundered and church bells clashed from echoing steeples.
Then spreading her fair white wings to the wind, and towering in her
pride over the fleet of small craft which joyously, with shout and
blessing, convoyed her out to sea—the good ship disappeared, holding
her steady course for home. Since that day, no man has seen her or
aught of her. No token of the ill-starred craft has been driven on
any coast, or picked up on any sea; no bottle or flask, carrying a
despairing message from dying to living men, has floated to any human
hand. The fierce fire may have seized on her—the starting of a plank
may have brought on the fatal leak. A sudden tornado may have crushed
her under the howling waters. Beaten and belaboured by a long-blowing
gale, she may at length have succumbed to the force of roaring winds
and seas. God only knows her fate. She never came to land. She
joined that mighty navy which rests, manned by bleaching bones, far
down beneath those good keepers of secrets—the waves and swells of
the ocean; those waves on which gallant fleets and living men ride
buoyantly, joyously, all unwitting and unthinking that, mayhap, a
mile below the keel, rise the topmasts of what was once a merrily
bounding ship, now peeping forth amid the green branches and slowly
waving boughs of those great forests which learned men say grow at
the bottom of the sea.
Sleep well, Joseffa, in your mystic entombment! It was a long tryste
which we gave each other. When we parted we agreed to meet again in
Spain, and there, being married, you would have sailed with me to see
that Scotland of which we so often spoke. Man proposes—God disposes.
It was not to be so. Although years had gone by, and I knew well
that the ship which bore you had perished, still I kept the tryste
at Alicant. I stood upon the sea-stretching quay upon the day and
the hour we had covenanted. I kept the tryste as though it were a
duty of my faith; it was soothing to my spirit to do so: but not
even a shadowy phantom of my beloved flitted to my side. There were
loud voices and busy throngs around. It is in the silence and the
dusk of evening and of dawn that best we seem to see each other. And
even these moments, what are they?—Times of musing, idle phantasy.
People laugh at them and at me, and, perhaps, with reason. Who,
indeed, would believe, seeing the grizzled locks and weather-beaten
visage and horny hands of the man who is now captain of the Scotch
brig ‘Royal Thistle,’ why so called we know well—that he, that jolly
yarn-telling mariner—that tough old tangled lump of sea-weed—can yet
remember the day when the flush of loving blood was hot within him?
Who will credit that that pair of oozy, blinking eyes can yet see,
as it were, looking into them bright and loving human orbs, long ago
turned into pearls beneath the deep waters; and, finally, who will
conceive that that square-built, stout-paunched veteran of the ocean
was once a slim youth, with flowing love-locks, whom the voice of
beauty thrilled, whose tears, the well-remembered tones of that voice
will still provoke to flow?
I have here shot a-head in my story, and anticipated other things.
Were I, however, to have persevered in narrating, point by point,
the adventures of my Buccaneer life, I should, perhaps, have left
the tale of my early love but half told. I have, therefore, thought
it better at once to make an end with that sad history. In a few
words—Joseffa and I were betrothed, and her mother blessed us.
Marriage then was impossible, for further claims against the father
were every day arising, and when all were finally adjusted, the
mother and daughter would be nearly as poor as myself. At length,
all such matters being settled, they sailed for Spain, as I have
narrated. Long before that time, however, I had quitted Carthagena,
after solemnly engaging to meet my betrothed in three years at the
city of her family, at Alicant.
During that time I trusted well to amass treasures. The days whereof
I write were those in which a single lucky capture made a fortune—in
which one daring assault upon a Spanish battery might send the
conqueror rolling home upon ingots of Indian gold. God forgive us
if we were thieves and robbers of the sea; such we did not account
ourselves. The Spaniards loudly swore that no European banner but
their own should stream upon the trade-winds of the tropic—that no
Europeans but themselves should traffic with those golden regions of
the west. Upon this quarrel we fought, and—to the death. I never drew
trigger upon a Spanish ship, that I did not deem myself as helping to
unshackle the fettered enterprise of Protestant Europe. Why should
we not, as well as its first discoverers, share in the spoils of the
new world? The Spaniards held but inconsiderable portions of the
soil—islands lay desert, great stretches of continent were tenanted
only by handfuls of savages; but the Spaniard would keep all to
himself. We did not admit the claim, and hence arose the Buccaneers.
I said, that these adventurers ofttimes made a great fortune in a
day. In many cases, these masses of wealth were no sooner won than
they were lost. A week in Jamaica was quite sufficient to dissipate
the spoils of the luckiest cruize. What brave sabres won, cogged
dice lost; what gallant but foolish men amassed, at peril of their
lives, infamous women squandered on brazen orgies. Little indeed
of the wealth wrested by Englishmen from the Spaniards turned to
happiness and content in the captor’s grasp. Well was it said, by
an ancient Buccaneer, that gold ill-won by Spaniards, and ill-spent
by Englishmen, enriched the latter no more than the former; that in
the end the spoil slipped from the hands which grasped, as well as
from those which held it; and that after all the fighting—all the
suffering of these long wars—the yellow metal, for as much as it
benefited either party, might well have been left in the mines by the
Spaniards, or flung into the sea by the English.
Still, as I have said, there were great exceptions to the general
rule, and of these I trusted to prove one. Therefore, when last we
saw each other—when last I felt Joseffa’s form clasped to mine, I
whispered in her ear, that I well trusted in three years at Alicant,
to come to her, not a poor-hearted fugitive, but a well-endowed
lover. And thus we parted. When I write these latter words I doubt
not but that I have penned all necessary to be said, to picture the
scene by those who take interest in such passages. We parted, and we
never met again!
Interest had been made with the captain of a small coasting craft, a
good fellow, and a friend of Martin’s, bound eastward to the Pearl
Fishery, to take me along with him. Once at sea again, I trusted
speedily to find means to transfer me to a deck above which floated
the battle-banner of England. The Pearl fisherman sailed to join the
fleet by night. Nearly four months had by that time elapsed, since I
was captured in Carthagena harbour. Don José had obtained a reversal
of his sentence of banishment, and had sailed for Spain. Concerning
the alcaide and his clerk, I heard nothing; but Captain Guzman I
saw as, in the gathering darkness of the evening, I hurried to the
beach—lurking, like a troubled spirit, round the shop of the Jew
money-lender.
Joseffa had wept upon my neck—her mother had blessed me—Martin had
told me of a special vision, in which St. Gieronimo had appeared and
promised to watch over me!
‘God bless them all!’ I had not thought shame to weep in saying it.
Another half-hour and the ocean was again beneath my feet.
‘Hurrah, for a new cruize! Hurrah, for new shipmates! Hurrah, for the
riches of the ocean! Hurrah, for the pearl banks of the Rio de la
Hacha!’