SANGRE POR SANGRE.
Seated under a banana tree, with my back resting against its trunk, I
had read thus far; and lulled by the ceaseless hum of insects among
the leaves, and by the equally monotonous chafing of the sea on the
beach far down below, I permitted the book, so valuable under the
circumstances in which I was placed, to drop from my hands, and I was
about to sleep, when the appearance of a distant object on the waters
gave me a species of electric shock.
A SHIP!
Under a cloud of canvas, she was running direct for the island from
the west, and must have been some hours visible before she caught my
eye.
I started up as if I would have met her half way, and then seated
myself again, and watched her in a species of ecstasy.
Ah! how my heart leaped at this sight! My emotions were
suffocating, and with them there was a nervous fear that it might
prove another optical delusion--another Fata Morgana--another ship
that would melt away on a nearer approach.
But no! On she came--on and on, with the white foam curling under
her sharp bows, a long wake weltering under the counter, and running
far astern, every thing set upon her that would draw, from deck to
trucks; even her studding-sails were rigged out from the lower, the
topsail, and top-gallant yards.
She seemed a very large vessel, ship-rigged, and apparently about
fifteen miles distant.
How I dreaded that she might change her course! How I longed for
some means of attracting her, ere evening came on. How I panted. I
rose, and in an incredibly short space reached the summit of the
great bluff which overhangs the sea.
There, under a blazing sun, I exhausted myself by waving my tattered
jacket, and by shouting as if her crew could have heard me.
Then I felt my brain almost boiling in the heat, and sat down in the
shade of a thicket to fan myself with a large leaf, and lave water
from a spring upon my face and head.
Forgetting all about Antonio, or what his views or purposes might now
be, I descended to the beach, and stood upon the white stripe of
sand, in the hope that some one on board who might be using a
telescope would distinguish me; and about two hours after she came in
sight, I supposed this was the case, for when the wind veered more
upon her quarter, I saw her ensign floating as it was run up to the
gaff peak; but my eyes failed to make out its color or nation.
And now her hull became black and all her canvas assumed a purple hue
as the sun set; but her sails grew white again when the shadow of the
mountain fell across the sea she sailed on.
She was about three miles off, when the wind became light, and ere
long almost died away. I felt as if bursting with impatience--with
excited hope, with joy to behold her, and with desire for
deliverance. All this created a delirium in my head and heart, like
intoxication or fever.
During the day, I had seen nothing of Antonio, whom I supposed to be
either on board the wreck, or employed with his beloved case of
Jamaica rum in some thicket on the other side of the island. Indeed
I forgot all about him, and thought only of the approaching ship.
I felt certain that I had been seen; why else would she have shown
her colors?
The sunset was followed by a deep and solemn crimson, which
overspread the western quarter of the sky and sea. The line of the
horizon could no longer be distinguished, so softly did cloud and
water blend together in the distance.
In the dark blue vault above, the diamond stars were sparkling. No
sound met the ear but the gurgle of a spring from a rock plashing on
the pebbled channel, and the ceaseless chafing of the sea upon the
lonely shore.
The passing breeze stirred the pendent leaves of the palms, and then
died away, for it came in puffs that caused the canvas of the coming
ship to shiver aloft; so ere long her courses were brailed up, as
they collapsed against the masts.
Slowly and imperceptibly the large and stately craft came on. There
was a trim squareness in her hamper aloft, and a clean, flush run in
her hull that gave her somewhat the aspect of a man-o'-war; but she
was not one, evidently.
Nearer and nearer she came. The look-out ahead evidently saw the bar
or coral reef, with the ridge of white foam that boiled at the
entrance of the bay, for now a leadsman was busy in the forechains to
leeward.
Anon her cloud of canvas, topsails, topgallantsails, and royals,
seemed to tower between me and the sky. I could see every sail and
rope distinctly, and could count the men upon her deck.
Now her royals were hauled down, and the fore-yards slewed round as
her head was thrown in the wind; then the rushing sound of the great
chain cable, as it roared hoarsely through the iron hawse-pipe,
reached my ear over the ripples within the bay, as she came to anchor
outside the reef; and I saw her crew swarming up aloft, and laying
out upon the yards to hand her canvas, and in a few minutes she was
bared of every thing.
I panted with eagerness for the next movement in the drama of my
deliverance, and laughed exultingly when one of her quarter boats was
lowered and manned.
For a time, it hung off the larboard quarter, as the great ship swung
round at her moorings, and the bow-man held on to the mizzen channels
by a boat-hook, while the men kept their oars up-ended.
During this delay, I endured an agony of impatience. At last a smart
fellow slid down the falls to the stern sheets, seated himself,
seized the tiller rope, and the oars dipped in the water as she was
shoved off with her bow pointed to the shore.
They were pulling for a part of the beach where a ledge of rock
formed a kind of natural pier within the northern horn of the bay,
and I was about to run in that direction, when the voice of Antonio,
rendered husky by his recent potations, reached me.
"Hola! Stop, or it may be the worse for you," said he.
I turned, and saw him start from behind some large boulders which lay
on the beach to my right. There he had evidently been lurking and
observing the ship's approach; and now he stood, with bare knife in
hand, between me and the coming boat.
The pile of weedy boulders concealed us both at that moment from the
ship, and from those in her boat; and by the light of the moon, I
could read the fell intention of Antonio in his dark and deep-set eye.
In tangled masses, his black hair fell over a low and narrow brow,
and met the equally black whiskers that mingled with the beard which
grew like a furze-bush over his chin and cheeks. Naked to the waist,
he resembled in every way a brawny savage. Inflamed by alcohol, the
expression of his eye was terrible, and he seemed to tremble with the
ferocity of his emotions, as he grasped his knife, with the thumb of
his right hand placed firmly over the pommel.
The moonlight shone brightly on the beach; so whatever he meant to
do, he resolved should be done behind the screen formed by the
boulders among which he had been concealed.
I had still the sword which had been taken from the wreck, and I drew
it with the resolution of defending my life to the last. Antonio
started on beholding me armed so unexpectedly.
"You see the boat which is making for the shore?" said he.
"I do, and am on my way to meet it; so stand aside, Cubano," I
replied, firmly.
"And you will tell her crew of all that happened in the _Eugenie_,
and cry _sangre por sangre_!" said he, grinding his teeth.
"That is as may be," said I, without consideration.
Then uttering a howl like a wild animal, he rushed upon me with his
knife uplifted; but quite undaunted I met him half-way, and thrust
the sword under his right arm-pit. Springing back, before the great
lumbering ruffian could renew the attack, I gave him another
dangerous wound in the breast, which tumbled him down on his face;
and without looking to see whether or not he moved again, I ran along
the moonlit beach, and reached the boat, which had just sheered
alongside the ledge of rock already mentioned.