CAPTAIN BRAND AT HOME.
"From his brimstone bed at break of day,
A-walking the Devil is gone,
To visit his snug little farm the Earth,
And see how his stock goes on."
Upon a broad, flat, rocky ledge, near a small, landlocked narrow inlet
of one of the clustering Twelve League Keys on the south side of Cuba,
stood a red-tiled stone building, with a spacious veranda in front,
covered by plaited matting and canvas curtains triced up all around. The
back and one side of the building rested against a craggy eminence which
overlooked the sea on both sides of the island, and commanded a wide
sweep of reef and blue water beyond. A few clumps of cocoa-nut-trees and
dwarf palms, with bare gaunt stems and tufted tops, stood out here and
there along the rocky slopes, while lesser vegetation of cactus and
mangrove bushes were scattered thickly over the island, cropping out
with jagged edges of rock down to the sandy beaches of the sea-shore. A
deep narrow inlet of blue water lay pure and still near the base of the
rocky height, where, too, was a shelving curve of white sand, sprinkled
about by a few mat sheds, while on the other side the rocks arose to an
elevation of a hundred and fifty feet, forming a precipitous wall to the
water. The inlet here took a sharp turn, scooped out in a secluded
basin, and then narrowing to less than forty yards in width, it wound
and twisted for a good mile in a thin blue channel to the open sea. Half
that distance farther out was a roaring ledge of white breakers, where
the long swell came hammering on it, bursting up in the air in brightish
green masses, and then tumbling over the reef and bubbling smoothly on
toward the shore. On a level with the water no channel could be
discerned through the ledge; but, looking down from the heights around
the inlet, a narrow blue gateway was marked out, skirted on the surface
by frothy crests of dead foam, and near where flocks of cormorants and
gulls were riding placidly on the inner side of the ledge. The island
itself was about two miles broad and seven long; and about midway of its
width the inlet formed a forked strait, one branch finding its way to
the north, between a low succession of sandy hummocks, where the water
was too shallow to float a duck, and the other finding an outlet,
scarcely a biscuit-toss wide, between two bluff rocks. With the trade
wind this passage was safe and accessible; but on the change of the
moon, with a breeze and swell from the south, the sea came bowling in,
in boiling eddies and whirlpools, and it required a nerve of iron to
attempt an entrance. Just within this narrow mouth, on a flat beveled
ledge of rock but a few feet above the water, was a small battery of two
long eighteen-pounders, and two twenty-four pounder carronades mounted
on slides and trucks, with platforms laid on a bed of sand. Near by,
beneath a low shed of tiles and loose stones, were a pile of round shot,
nicely blacked, and some stands of grape and canister in canvas bags and
cases, together with a large copper magazine of cartridges. Seated a
little way off on a low stool was a dingy Spaniard with a telescope laid
across his knees, which every little while he would raise to his eye and
take a steady glance around the horizon to seaward. At other times he
would roll and light a paper cigar, murmuring some low ditty to himself
as he sent the smoke in volumes through his nose. A small brass bell
hung beside the shed near the battery, together with a telegraphic card,
which was connected by a wire strung on low posts, or hooked from rock
to rock to the stone building away up at the basin. To return, however,
to the building: the veranda rested on square rough masonry full twenty
feet from the ground, which was loopholed for musketry, and with but one
narrow slip of a doorway that fell like a portcullis, banded and
strapped with bars and studs of wrought iron. Within this stone
inclosure was a large and roomy vault, half filled with cases, barrels,
and packages, and at the upper angle was a narrow subterranean vaulted
passage, barred also by an iron-bound door, which led to a succession of
whitewashed chambers--dark, damp, and gloomy--and then on, in a
fissure-like pathway, to another equally strongly secured outlet on the
other side of the crag. Leading to the veranda was a tautly-stretched
rope ladder lashed to eye-bolts let into the natural rock below, and
hooked on to the edge of the floor above. This was the only approach to
the main floor of the building from the outside, though within were
heavy trap-doors like the hatches of a ship, which communicated to the
chambers beneath. The whole structure was of stone and tiles, roughly
built, but yet strong and durable, and capable of resisting any assault,
unaided by cannon, that could be brought against it. The floor was
divided into four rooms, the smallest used for a kitchen, the next for a
magazine of small arms, and the third a spacious bedchamber, which
opened into a large square apartment facing the veranda, and which
deserves more notice.
[Illustration: THE PIRATE DEN.]
The lofty ceiling came down with the slant, showing the bare red tiles
and heavy square beams which supported the roof. In one of the stoutest
of these beams was an eye-bolt and copper-strapped block, through which
was rove a long green silk rope, with one end secured by a cleat on the
wall, and the other dangling loose, and squirming, whenever a current of
air struck it, like a long, slim snake. Around the sides of the room,
which were paneled with cedar, stood four or five quaint ebony armoires,
and as many cabinets, clocks, and bookcases, with here and there a
woman's work-stand, some of them curiously inlaid with pearl and silver.
The walls were hung with a great number of pictures of all kinds of
vessels--generally, however, of the merchant description--under full
sail, with vivid light-houses in the distance, and combing breakers
under the lee; and all portraying gallant crews and buoyant freights,
which probably had never reached their destinations. Among this gallery
of marine display was a broad framing of the "Flags of All Nations;" and
codes of signals, too, in bright colors, hung beside them. Farther on,
in a pretty panel by itself, surrounded by an edging of mother-o'-pearl,
was a triple row of female miniatures, a number of them of great beauty,
and many executed in excellent taste and art. In one corner was a large
chart-stand, covered with rolls of maps and nautical instruments, while
above were suspended, by white rope grummets, a pyramidal line of
spy-glasses and telescopes of all sizes and make. Near the centre of the
apartment stood a large round dining-table, on which was laid things for
a breakfast, a box of cigars, and a small silver pan of live coals.
There were but two windows to this room, both hung with striped muslin
curtains, the casements going to the floor, and looking out upon the
veranda; and but two doors, one leading to the kitchen, and the other to
the sleeping-chamber on the opposite side.
Presently this last door opened, and, pushing aside a blue gauze curtain
which hung before it, an individual of about eight-and-twenty years of
age stepped languidly into the room. He was a tallish man, over six feet
in stature, rather spare in build, but with great breadth of shoulders,
and though pale, apparently from long illness, yet he was evidently very
active and muscular when his nerves were called into action. Had it not
been for a downward choleric curve to his large nose, and a little
parting at the corners of his wide mouth and compressed lips, the face
might have been thought handsome. The eyes were light blue, set close
together, but hard and stony, with no ray of mercy or humanity in them.
He wore no beard, and his light brown hair was thin and dry, and
carefully parted at the side. He was dressed in a snow-white pair of
loose drilling trowsers, cut sailor fashion, straw slippers, and silk
stockings; and above he wore a brown linen jacket with large pearl
buttons, and pockets. As he entered the room he held a delicate cambric
handkerchief, with a fine lace border, in his hands, which he seemed to
regard with curious interest as he lounged toward the windows of the
veranda.
"I wish I could remember," he muttered musingly to himself, "which of
those sisters this bit of cambric belonged to, marked with an E.--Ellen
or Eliza--hum! They _would_ die--silly things!--tried to stab me! Ho!
what fun! Never left me even a miniature, either, for my collection.
'_Bueno!_' There's more fish in the sea--and under it too!" he
concluded, with an unpleasant elevation of his eyebrows.
By this time he had approached the open window, and, shoving the
delicate fabric daintily in his pocket, he gave a slight yawn and looked
out. Before him lay the deep blue basin of the inlet, with a couple of
boats hauled up on the shore; a few idle sailors moving about, or
squatted beneath the sheds playing cards or sewing. Without letting his
eye rest more than a moment on this scene, he turned and gave a long,
earnest gaze between an opening of the rocks to seaward. Then, with an
angry frown, he approached the table, poured out a cup of black coffee,
threw rather than dropped in a lump of sugar, and sat himself down for
his morning's meal. He had scarcely, however, gulped down his cup of
coffee and choked after it a slice of toast, than he pushed away the
breakfast things, snapped his teeth together like a steel clasp, biting
a tooth-pick in twain by the effort; and then, tossing the pieces away,
he dashed his hand into the cigar-box, extracted one, touched it to the
pan of coals, and began to smoke savagely. At first the grateful smoke
appeared to soothe his chafed spirit, for he threw himself lazily into a
large cane-bottomed settee, and, stretching out his legs, seemed to
enjoy the tranquil scene around him with uninterrupted pleasure. But
soon a scowl darkened his face; he dropped his cigar on the floor, and
springing to his feet as if touched by a galvanic battery, he snatched
down a telescope from the wall, steadied it at the window-sash, and
peered again long and anxiously to windward. He saw nothing, however,
save the long, glassy, unbroken undulations of a calm tropical sea,
rolling away off beyond the ledge under a burning sun; no sign of a
breeze--not even a cat's-paw; and only now and then the leap of a
deep-sea fish sparkling for a moment in the air, and some sluggish gulls
and pelicans sailing and diving about the reef for their prey. Shutting
up the glass with a crash that made the joints ring, he strode to the
settee, where hung several knotted bell-ropes, and, seizing one, gave it
a sharp jerk. Then putting his ear to an aperture in the wall, where was
a hollow cane tube like the mouth of a speaking-trumpet, he listened
attentively till a hoarse whisper uttered the word,
"_Senor._"
Putting his mouth to the tube, he said,
"Can you make out the 'Centipede' from the crag station?"
"Not sure, sir, this morning; but last evening, at sunset, I saw a sail
which I took to be her. The sea-breeze is just beginning to make, and if
she's to windward of Punta Arenas she'll soon heave in sight."
This colloquy was held in Spanish; and when the signal-man had ceased
speaking, the interlocutor lit another cigar mechanically, kicked a
foot-stool out of his way like a foot-ball, and thus communed with
himself as he rapidly paced between the table and the veranda:
"Fourteen weeks ago yesterday since the schooner was off Matanzas; not a
word of news to cheer me through all that cursed fever; the spring trade
done, and the track deserted by this time!"
Then pausing in his walk, he stopped at the chart-stand, and unrolling a
map, he went on:
"Where, in the devil's name, could she possibly have gone to? She might
have been to Cape Horn and back before this. Miserable fool that I was
to trust the craft with that thirsty, thick-headed Gibbs! _Diavolo!_ he
may have been captured, and if he has, I hope his neck has been
stretched like a shred of jerked beef."
Even while he was talking a bell struck near the settee, and, putting
his ear again to the tube, the hoarse voice said,
"I can make her out now, _senor_. She's just caught the strong young
breeze, and is, hull up, coming along with the bonnet off her fore-sail
and a reef in her main-sail! There's a felucca to windward of her, which
I take to be the 'Panchita!'"
"Ah ha!" laughed the individual in the room. "The 'Centipede' is safe,
then; and I am to have the pleasure, too, of a visit from the Tuerto,
the mercenary old owl, with his account of sales and his greed. But let
me once catch him foul, and, my one-eyed friend, I'll treat you to such
a dance that you won't need shoes!"
Here he glanced with a meaning look at the silk rope swaying from the
beam above his head, and the laugh of satisfaction which followed was
not one a timid man would care to hear in a dark night; nor did it come
from his heart, as any one might have discovered from the ferocious
gleam of inward passion which shot out in the cold sparkle of his eyes
and flitted away over his grating teeth.
Controlling his feelings, however, and stepping out on the veranda, he
drew aside the curtains and sung out to the men in the huts, "One of you
fellows, tell the boatswain I want him."
The men started up, and a moment after a man in a blue jacket stood out
from one of the sheds and threw up his hand to his straw hat.
[Illustration: THE "PANCHITA"]
"Get together the people! Let run the cable at the Alligator's mouth,
and have three or four warps ready for the schooner when she passes the
point! The 'Panchita' is coming too, so look out, and have enough lines
to tow both vessels in case the breeze fails. Tell Mr. Gibbs to moor
close under the other shore in the old berth, and to come to me when
he's anchored! D'ye hear?"
All this was said in a sharp tone of command, and by the alacrity with
which the orders were executed the men seemed to be accustomed to a
master who knew how to rule them.