"I gave a military man an ounce for the setting alone, but the

sapphire-looking stone may be glass. He was going to sail the next

morning in a Spanish brigantine for St. Jago de Cuba, and wanted the

money to pay his bill at the lodging-house adjoining. The senor might

take it for any price he chose to put upon it."

What made that old dealer in precious stones and trinkets turn paler

than his old topaz face as he yelled frantically for his older Creole

wife? The senor had seized the ring as he broke his elbows through the

glass cases which contained the time-honored jewelry, and dashed a

yellow shower of heavy gold ounces over the floor of the little shop,

smashing the glass door of that too in his exit! And when the little

toddling fat woman appeared in the most indecent dress possible to

conceive of, with scarcely time to light her paper cigar, she

exclaimed,

"_Es lunatico, hombre! ay, demonio con oro!_ A crazy man--a demon with

gold!" And forthwith she picked up the pieces and looked at them

critically to be sure of their value. "_Son buenos, campeche!_ All

right, old deary; we'll have such a podrida to-day! Baked duck, with

garlic too! So shut the door. There's the ounce you gave the officer man

for the ring, and I'll guard the rest."

That old woman did, too; and that very night she won--in the most

skillful way--from her shaky old topaz, in his tin spectacle setting,

his last ounce, and locked all up in her own little brass-nailed trunk

for a rainy season for them both, together with their daughter's

pickaninnies.

Paul Darcantel whirled and spun round the corners and along the sandy

streets till he reached the landing, moving like a water-spout, and

clearing every thing from his track. There he sprang into the first boat

he saw, seized the sculls, despite the shrieks and gesticulations of the

old nigger whose property it was, and who jumped overboard with a howl

as if a lobster had caught him by the toe, and paddled into a

neighboring boat, where, with the assistance of another ancient crony,

they both let off volley upon volley of shrieks, which alarmed the

harbor, while the boat went shooting like a javelin toward the

men-of-war.

However, those old stump-tailed African baboons found a gold ounce in

their boat after it had been set adrift from the American frigate. What

a jolly snapping of teeth over a tough old goose stuffed with onions

that night, with two respectable colored ladies and a case-bottle of rum

beside them! You can almost sniff the fragrant odor as it arises, even

at this distance. I do, and shall, mayhap, many a time again, in lands

where stuffed goose and comely colored ladies abound.

CHAPTER XLVI.

PARTING.

"The very stars are strangers, as I catch them

Athwart the shadowy sails that swell above;

I can not hope that other eyes will watch them

At the same moment with a mutual love.

They shine not there as here they now are shining;

The very hours are changed. Ah! do ye sleep?

O'er each home pillow midnight is declining--

May one kind dream at least my image keep!"

There had been a small party on board the "Monongahela" the night before

to bid the commodore good-by--all old friends of both parties--the

Pirons, Burns, Stewart, Stingo, and Jacob Blunt. Clinker was not there,

for he never went where it was damp, and if he got musty it must be from

mildew on shore. The "Martha Blunt," under the careful management of

young Binks, the mate, with Banou and all the baggage on board, was

being towed by two of the frigate's boats down the harbor, with her

yards mast-headed, all ready to sheet home the sails when the black

pilot should say the land-wind would make and the passengers to come on

board.

The lights were twinkling from lattice and veranda in the upper and

lower town, the lanterns of the French and English admirals were shining

from the tops of their flag-ships, and the revolving gleams from the

beacon on the Pallissadoes Point flickered and dazzled over the gemmed

starlit surface of the water. The awning was still spread on the

after-deck of the "Monongahela;" and there, while the officer of the

watch paced the forward part of the deck with the midshipmen to leeward,

the sentries on the high platform outside and on the forecastle, the

party of ladies and gentlemen stood silently watching and thinking.

There is no need explaining their looks or their thoughts; we know all

about them. How Paddy Burns and Tom Stewart, with little Stingo, were

going over the time, thirty years or more back, when with Piron there,

boys together, they all swam on the beach of that fine harbor. The old

school-house, too, with the tipsy old master, who whacked them soundly,

drunk or sober; their frolics at the fandangoes in Spanish Town; their

transient separations in after life on visits to France or the Old

Country; the hearty joy to meet again and drink Jamaica forever. And now

their companion in tropical heat and mountain shade was going to part

with them, and sail away over that restless ocean, never, perhaps, to

meet again!

Even old Clinker, as he sat on his stem by the old worm-eaten desk, with

his dried old lemon of a face lying in his leaves of hands--with no

light in the dark, deserted old counting-house--looked out between his

fibres of fingers and saw the cradle, with the sleeping twins within it,

while the rafters pressed him as flat as the old portfolio before him.

And now, as a drop or two of bitter juice exuded from his shriveled

rind, he saw those lovely twins floating away, never more to be saved

from an earthquake by old Clinker.

Mr. Mouse, likewise, was wide awake, and hopping about with a kangaroo

step, a little in doubt why Miss Rosalie was so pale, why those blue

eyes were so dim, and why she said to him "Go away, little one," with a

quivering, tremulous voice and hand. Mouse told Rat, and Rat told Martin

and Beaver, that the poor girl was in love with him, Tiny, and that he

would make it all right one of these days, when he got an epaulet on his

little shoulder.

Softly, like the cool breath of a slumbering child, came a faint air

from the land. The bell of the frigate, clanging in its brassy throat,

struck for midnight. The sentinels on their posts cried "All's well!"

The old brig was letting fall her top-sails, and the sound of the oars

in the cutter's row-locks ceased.

"Cleveland," said Piron, quietly, "while the ladies and our friends are

getting into the barge, come down with me in your cabin. I wish to have

a parting word with you."

So they go down.

"Now, my dear friend, you have seen as well as I how wildly those young

people are in love with each other; so has my wife and her sister; and,

indeed, _my_ sweet Rosalie seems more in love with him than our niece. I

have not had the heart to put a thorn in the path of their happiness,

and God grant it may all come right. But, Cleveland, you know that we

come from an old and noble stock, where the bar sinister has never

crossed our escutcheon, and I can not yet make up my mind to an

immediate engagement. This our niece has consented to--Stop, Cleveland,

hear me out. I do not, however, carry my prejudices to any absurd

extent, nor have I spoken on this subject to the girl, and only to her

mother and my wife; but I wish you to explain the way we feel, in your

own kind manner, to your friend's son. Say to him what a trial it has

been to us--how we all love him"--he pressed his handkerchief to his

eyes--"and after he has learned all, if he still persists in urging his

suit when the cruise is over, he shall have our consent and blessing.

Time may work changes in them both; and meanwhile I shall not mention

the matter to our little Rosalie, as we fear for the consequences."

"Spoken like a true father and a noble gentleman, my dear Piron! I have

thought as you and your excellent wife do on this matter; but, like you,

I have not had the courage to give even a hint of warning to Henry. I

shall, however, break the matter gently to him, and send my coxswain for

his father also, whom I have not seen for a week, and who, they tell me,

has been raging about Kingston ever since he ran away from you at

Escondido. His son loves him devotedly, and a word from him will do more

than I could say in a lifetime."

"The ladies are in the barge, commodore," squeaked Midshipman Mouse, as

he popped his tiny head into the cabin.

"Very well, sir. And tell Lieutenant Darcantel that I wish to see him

to-morrow morning, before church service. Come, Piron!"

On the lower grating of the accommodation-ladder stood the commodore,

with his first lieutenant, as the barge shoved off.

"I am heartily obliged to you, Commodore Cleveland," said Jacob Blunt,

"for your kindness to me; and if Mr. Hardy will permit, I'll give the

boats' crews a glass of grog for their trouble in towing the old brig."

Certainly! Jacob knew what was proper under the circumstances, and liked

a moderate toss himself after a hard night's work as well as the lusty

sailors in the boats, and the youngsters, Rat and Martin, who steered

them.

So the barge shoved off, with no other words spoken, though there were

white handkerchiefs wet with women's tears, and red bandanas, too,

somewhat moist; while following in the barge's wake went a light

whale-boat gig, pulled by four old tars, who could make her leap, when

they had a mind, half out of water, for it was in those brawny old arms

to do it. But now they merely dipped the long oar-blades in the water,

and could not keep up with the barge.

They knew--those corrugated old salts--that their gallant, considerate

young captain there in the stern-sheets, with the tiller-ropes in his

hands, who steered so wildly about the harbor, had something more

yielding than white-laced rope in his flippers; and that the sweet

little craft under white dimity, with her head throwing off the

sparkling spray as she lay under his bows, was in no hurry to go to

sea--not caring much, either, to what port she was bound, so long as she

found good holding-ground when she got in harbor with both bowers down,

and cargo ready for another voyage--not she!

Finally, old Jacob Blunt, master, again in full command of brig

"Martha," with Mr. Binnacle Binks catting the anchor forward, all sail

made, sheets home, and every thing shipshape, with a fresh, steady

land-wind, and a light gig towing astern, went steering out to sea,

bound to New Orleans by way of the Windward Passage.

At the first ray of sunrise the gig's line was cast off; and with the

waves breaking over her, those four old sons of Daddy Neptune bared

their tattooed arms--illustrative of ships, anchors, and maidens--and

bent their bodies with a will toward the harbor.

"Take keer, sir, if it's the same to you, or we'll be on that ledge off

the ''Postles' Battery.' It looks jist like that 'ere reef in the

Vargin's Passage as I was wunce nearly 'racked on, in the 'Smasher,'

sixteen-gun brig."

"No fear, Harry Greenfield."

"Beg your parding, Mr. Darcantel, but that 'ere wessel you is heading

for is that old clump of a Spanish gun-boat; our craft is off here,

under the quarter of the 'Monongaheelee.'"

"Oh yes, Charley; I see the 'Rosalie.'"

What made these old salts slew gravely round one to the other, as their

sixteen-feet oars rattled with a regular jar in the brass row-locks, and

shut one eye tight, as if they enjoyed something themselves? Probably

they were thinking of a strapping lass, in blue ribbons, who lived

somewhere in a sea-port town long years ago. But yet they loved that

young slip of sea-weed, whose head was bent down to the buttons of his

blue jacket, his epaulet lopsided on his shoulder, his sword hilt

downward, and his brown eyes tracing the lines of the ash grating where

pretty feet had once rested, while he jerked the tiller-ropes from side

to side, and his gig went wild by reef and point toward the "Rosalie."

When the gig's oars at last, in spite of her meandering navigation by

her abstracted helmsman, trailed alongside the schooner, and while her

crew were cracking a few biscuits and jokes on deck, with the sun high

up the little craft's masts, her captain hurried down to his small

cabin, and changed his rig for service on board the frigate.

CHAPTER XLVII.

DEVOTION.

"To walk together to the kirk,

And all together pray,

While each to his Great Father bends--

Old men and babes, and loving friends,

And youths and maidens gay!"

"Farewell! farewell! but this I tell

To thee, thou wedding-guest,

He prayeth well who loveth well

Both man, and bird, and beast!"

Sunday morning in Kingston harbor. The deep-toned bells from cathedral

and church were wafted off from the town; the troops at Park Camp

marching with easy tread to their chapel; matrons and maidens, with bare

heads, fans, and mantillas, going along demurely; portly judges,

factors, and planters trudging beside palanquins of their Saxon spouses;

negroes in white; Creoles in brown, cigarettes put out for a time; while

swinging censers and rolling sound of organs and chants, or prayers and

sermons from kirk and pulpits, told how the people were worshiping God

according to their several beliefs.

On the calm harbor, too, and in Port Royal, lay the men-of-war, the

church pennants taking the place of the ensigns at the peaks, the bells

tolling, and the sailors--quiet, clean, and orderly--were attending

divine service.

On board the "Monongahela" the great spar-deck was comparatively

deserted--all save that officer with his spy-glassing old quarter-master,

and the sentries on gangway and forecastle. The ropes, however, were

flemished down in concentric coils, the guns without a speck of dust

on their shining coats, the capstan polished like an old brass

candlestick, and every thing below and aloft in a faultless condition.

As Harry Darcantel came rather languidly over the gangway, and went down

to the main deck, where the five hundred sailors in snowy-white

mustering clothes were assembled, Commodore Cleveland beckoned to him

with his finger as he stood talking at the cabin door to his first

lieutenant.

"Hardy, I do not feel well this morning; make my excuses to the

chaplain, and go on with the service. Come in, Harry. Orderly, allow no

one, not even the servants, to enter the cabin--except Dr. Darcantel, in

case he should come on board."

The stiff soldier laid his white-gloved finger on the visor of his hat.

Then the chaplain, standing on his flag-draped pulpit at the main-mast,

with those five hundred quiet, attentive sailors seated on capstan-bars

and match-tubs between the silent cannon, and no sound save his mild,

persuasive voice, as he read the sublime service from the good lessons

before him. Then, after a short but impressive sermon, adapted to the

comprehension of the honest tars around him, with a kindly word, too,

for the sagacious officers who commanded them, he closed the holy book

and delivered the parting benediction.

As he began, a shore boat, in spite of the warning of the sentry at the

gangway, came bows on to the frigate's solid side, and as she went

dancing and bobbing back from the recoil of the concussion, a tall,

powerful man leaped out of her, and, by a mighty spring, caught the

man-ropes of the port gangway, and swung himself through the open port

of the gun-deck. Bowing his lofty head with reverential awe as the last

solemn words of the benediction were uttered by the chaplain, he joined,

in a deep, guttural voice, the word "Amen," and strode on and entered

the cabin.

The curtains were closely drawn of the after cabin, even to shut out the

first whisper of the young sea-breeze which was fluttering in from Port

Royal; and there stood that noble officer, with his strong arm thrown

around the gallant youth--the picture of abject woe--talking in his

kind, feeling accents, trying to console him, painting the sky bright in

the distance, and begging him, by all the love and affection he bore him

through so many years, to be a man, and trust to his good conscience and

his right arm to cleave his way through the clouds and gloom which

surrounded him.

"There, Henry, you are calmer now. Sit down here in my stateroom, and

while you think of that fond girl, give a thought to that poor bereaved

mother, Madame Rosalie, who loves you for the resemblance she thinks you

bear to her little boy, who was murdered by pirates just seventeen years

ago off this very island."

"What do you say, Cleveland?" said a voice behind him, with such deep,

concentrated energy that the commodore fairly started. "What did you say

about a lost child and a Madame Rosalie?"

Paul Darcantel stood there in the softened crimson light, with his

sinewy, bony hands upraised, his gaunt breast heaving, with unshorn

beard and tangled, grizzly locks, the iron jaw half open, and his dark,

terrible eyes gleaming with unearthly fire.

"Speak, Harry Cleveland! For the wife you have lost, speak!"

"My dear, dearest friend, do be calm! Why have you been so long away

from me? I wanted you here, but you did not come. Our poor boy has had

_his_ first lesson in this world's grief, and I have felt obliged to

tell him all--yes, every thing! That the grave he has so often wept

over, under the magnolia, does not contain his mother; and that--"

"Merciful God!" said Paul Darcantel, sinking down on his knees, with his

hands clasped together, while the first tears for more than twenty years

streamed from his agonized eyes. "There is a Providence in it all! That

boy is not my son! I saved him from the pirate's grasp, and that woman

must be his mother!"

Lower and lower the lofty head bent till it touched the deck, the bony

hands clasped tight together, and those eyes--ah! those parched eyes--no

longer dry!

"Paul, Paul, what is this I hear? For the love of heaven and those

angels who are waiting for us, speak again!"

"My father--my more than father, I am not illegitimate, then! No such

shame may cause your boy to blush for his mother?"

While strong and loving arms raised the exhausted man from the deck, and

while he becomes once more the same determined Paul Darcantel, and with

hand grasped in hand is rapidly recounting unknown years of his

existence, let us leave the cabin.

CHAPTER XLVIII.

ALL ALIVE AGAIN.

"Among ourselves, in peace, 'tis true,

We quarrel, make a rout;

And having nothing else to do,

We fairly scold it out;

But once the enemy in view,

Shake hands, we soon are friends;

On the deck,

Till a wreck,

Each common cause defends."

Down in the steerage, where a bare cherry table stood, and upright

lockers ranged around, with a lot of half-starved reefers devouring

their dinner--not near so good or well served as the sailors' around

their mess-cloths on the upper decks--with a few urchins utterly

regardless of steerage grub, and a dollar or two in their little fists,

all nicely dressed in blue jackets and white trowsers, waiting for the

hands to be turned to and the boats manned, to go on shore for a lark.

Abaft in the wardroom, two or three of the swabs, the surgeon's mates,

and the jaunty young marine lieutenant were getting into their bullion

coats and fine toggery, and buckling on their armor to do sad havoc

among the planters' families in the evening, away there in Upper

Kingston. As for the first lieutenant, the purser, the fleet surgeon,

the sailing-master, and the old major of marines, they had been ashore

before, and didn't care to go again; growling jocosely among themselves

on board the frigate, and glad to get rid of the juvenile gabble.

Presently, and before the hands were turned to from dinner, the cabin

bell rang so violently that the orderly's brass scale-plate fixtures on

his leather hat fairly rang too as he opened the sacred door.

"Tell the first lieutenant I want him."

The dismayed soldier forgot to lay his white worsted finger on his visor

as he slammed to the door and marched out on the gun-deck.

"Mr. Hardy, unmoor ship! Hoist a jack at the fore and fire a gun for a

pilot! Get the frigate under weigh, sir, and be quick about it!"

"Ay, ay, sir!"

As Hardy rapidly passed his old cronies, who were tramping along the

deck as he mounted the after-ladder, he said, with a nod,

"By the Lord! I haven't seen the commodore in such a breeze since he

blew that pirate out of water at Darien."

In a minute the "Monongahela's" bell struck two, and the boatswain and

his mates, piping as if their hairy throats would split, roared out,

"All hands!" and a moment later, "All hands unmoor ship!"

"What does that mean?" said a cook of a mess to Jim Dreen, the old

quarter-master, who had just come down from his watch.

"Mean? why, you lazy, blind duff b'iler, it means that I've lost my

blessed dinner."

"Hallo!" says Rat to Beaver, "what's that? Unmoor ship on my liberty

day! I swear I'll resign!"

No you won't, reefers, but you'll trip aloft as fast as your little legs

will carry you--Mouse in company--up to the fore, main, and mizzen tops,

and squeak there as much as you like; but jump about and look sharp that

nothing goes wrong, or Mr. Hardy will be down upon you like a main

tack.

Bang from the bow port and the union jack at the fore!

"God bless my soul, fellows, this is the most infernal tyranny I ever

heard of!" came from the wardroom; "all of us engaged to dine and dance

in Kingston this evening, and--"

"It's 'All hands up anchor, gentlemen!'" and away they all went.

Down went the mess-kids, and down came the awnings, and up came the

boats to their davits; in went the bars to both capstans, the nippers

clapped on, and the muddy cables coming in to the tunes of fifes; while

above the running gear was rove, the Sunday bunts to the sails cast off,

and the five hundred sailors dancing about on the decks, spars, and

rigging of that American double-banked frigate, as if they could always

work her sails and battery to the admiration of their good commodore

there, who was looking at them from the quarter-deck.

"Massa captan," said the shining ebony pilot, in his snowy suit, as he

took off his fine white Panama hat, "dis is de ole pilot, sa, Peter

Crabreef--name after dat black rock way dere outside. Suppose you tink

ob beating dis big frigate troo de channel? Unpossible, wid dis

breeze!"

"Peter Crabreef," said the old sailing-master, to whom these observations

were addressed, "you had better not give such a hint to that gentleman

there in the epaulets; for if you do, you'll never see Mrs. Crabreef

again! You had better keep your wits about you, too, and plenty of

water under the keel, for the commodore is fond of water!"

"Sartainly, massa ossifa! I is old Peter, and never yet touch a nail of

man-of-war copper battam on de reefs!"

On board the pigmy black schooner near, half a dozen old salt veterans

were squinting at the flag-ship and holding much deliberate speculation

as to what all the row meant. Old Harry Greenfield, however, with Ben

Brown, who were the gunner and boatswain of the little vessel, observed

that, "In the ewent of our bein' wanted, ye see, Harry, it will be as

well to have the deck tackle stretched along for heavin' in, and get the

prop from under the main boom."

Even as they spoke, a few bits of square bunting went up in balls to the

mizzen of the frigate, and, blowing out clear, said, as plain as flags

could speak, "Prepare to weigh anchor!"

At the same moment the "Rosalie's" gig came bounding like a bubble over

the water with the tall gentleman beside the young commander in the

stern-sheets. There was a great, nervous, bony hand now holding his, but

with as an affectionate pressure as the soft dimpled fingers he himself

had held the night before. Gig not steered at all wild now, but going as

straight as a bullet to the schooner.

The stirring sounds of the fifes as the sailors danced round with the

bars in the capstans, with a beating step to keep time to the lively

music, were still heard on board the frigate, and then came from the

forecastle,

"The anchor's under foot, sir!"

"Pawl the capstan! Aloft, sail-loosers! Trice up! Lay out! Loose away!"

Almost at the instant came down the squeaks from aloft of, "All ready

with the fore! the main! the mizzen!" "Let fall--sheet home! hoist away

the top-sails!"

Again were heard the quick notes of the fifes on both decks, and in less

than five minutes more the anchors were catted, and the "Monongahela,"

under a cloud of canvas, began to move.

But where was the "Rosalie," late "Perdita," all this time? Why, there

she goes, with never a tack, through the narrow strait, lying over under

the press of her white dimity like a witch on a black broomstick, as she

shoots out to sea.

And who is that tall man, on that narrow deck, clapping on to sheet and

tackle, though there was no need of assistance, or skill, or seamanship

to be displayed on board that craft, except by way of love of the thing?

And why does he, during a pause when there was nothing more that could

possibly be done, stand by the weather rail, shaking a great huge old

seaman by both hands till he almost jarred the schooner to her

keel?--Ben Brown, the helmsman, whom you have heard of on board the

"Martha Blunt," who, by some accidental word he dropped near to the tall

gentleman, caused that hand-grasping collision.

It was not another five minutes before the other thirty-nine old

sea-dogs knew all about every body, and where they were bound, and so

on. They did not care a brass button for the thousand silver dollars

they were to have from the tall gentleman--not they! They wanted merely

to lay their eyes along that Long Tom amidships, and to have a cutlass

flashing over their shoulders--so fashion! Pistols and pikes! Fudge!

But where was the "Martha Blunt?" Oh, that old teak brig was bouncing

along past Morant Point, with a good slant from the southward, pretty

much where she was some seventeen years before, with a few more

passengers in her deck cabin, reading their Bibles, and praying for

those who go down to the sea in ships on that Sabbath day--one looking

with her sad eyes out of the stern windows, and another doing the same,

and both thinking of the same boy who had been dashed out of one of

those windows; and though both of them knew the other's thoughts, yet

they did not dream they were thinking of the same person at the time.

And where was the Spanish brigantine, with the exacting _capitano_--who

was a slaver in dull times--and his pleasant mate, who would think no

more of sticking a knife into you than he did of kicking that skulking,

icy-eyed sailor on board--detesting as he did the entire Saxon race ever

since Cadiz was bombarded--and feeding him on rotten jerked beef? There

were no prayers, only curses, on board that brigantine as she dropped

anchor in St. Jago that fine Sunday morning.

And where was our ancient one-eyed mariner, formerly in command of the

colonial guarda costa felucca, the "Panchita," named after his fat

banana of a sposa? Oh, the Don--simply Ignacio now--had had a quiet

confab with the deputy administrador all about some treasure which he

knew was concealed, and where--for he had seen with his bright eye the

light of a torch in a cleft of a crag--and he would go shares with that

official if he would give him a little assistance.

"_Oh, cierto!_" Why not? And there was an old launch, with a torn lateen

sail, which Columbus might have been proud to command; and, in this fine

weather, he might sail back to Port Palos in her.

Oh yes! But, to keep all secret, he would merely take old Pancha, his

wife, for crew. And so, with a few bundles of paper cigars, and some

dried fish and water--the only property they possessed, save his eye

and a pack of cards, and those valuables rescued with difficulty--they

sailed the night before the blessed Sunday. _He_ never came back,

though. No blame attributable to the eye--that was as bright and

wary an old burning spark of suspicious fire as ever; but then old

Pancha held the cards, and this time she won. Very singular it was,

_cierto_. If Ignacio had not gone back again for another bag which

was not there, why, the _sota_ of a knave being the next card--Ah! we

won't anticipate.

But we are all alive yet, except those murdered women, whose white coral

head-stones still stand up there in the cactus, and poor Binks, and

those slashing blades of the poisonous, many-legged "Centipede," who

were eaten by the sharks--all alive the rest of us, and wide awake!

CHAPTER XLIX.

THE ROPE LAID UP.

"The captain is walking his quarter-deck

With a troubled brow and a bended neck;

One eye is down the hatchway cast,

The other turns up to the truck on the mast."

"The breeze is blowing--huzza, huzza!

The breeze is blowing--away, away!

The breeze is blowing--a race, a race!

The breeze is blowing--we near the chase."

Well, the positions of all hands were simply these. The icy-eyed man,

without snuff-box, or ring on that mutilated flipper, with two under

pockets in his shirt, and something in them, a pair of filthy old canvas

trowsers, and no hanger by his side, where there had been so much

hanging in the good old times, slipped overboard like a conger eel, and

swam on shore at St. Jago de Cuba. Without a _real_ of wages--for he was

to work his passage--and because he didn't feel inclined to work, the

_capitano_ in command assisted his agile subordinate to kick him all the

voyage.

Had, however, the mate presented that cold eel his knife for a moment

before he jumped overboard and squirmed to the shore, that cuchillo

would have found a redder sheath than the crimson sash which usually

held it. Fortunately perhaps for the mate, he was not of a generous

disposition, save with kicks and ropes'-ends, or else he might have

regretted his philanthropy.

So soon as the icy-blue man had congealed, as it were, in the sun until

he was quite dry and frozen again, he slunk away to the ditch of the old

fort, where he thawed till nightfall, and then entered the town; hanging

round the pulperias, smacking and cracking his parched lips for a

measure of aguardiente, only two centavos a cup, and not caring for that

fine, generous, pale, amber-colored old Port sent to him by the good

Archbishop of Oporto! But, not having the copper centavos--though his

own coppers stood so much in need of moisture--he continued to skulk

on.

Presently, coming to the wide streets and to the outskirts of the town,

he spied a large mule, ready caparisoned for the road, hitched to the

door of a house, waiting for his owner to mount him. The icy green-eyed

individual, disgusted for the time with blue salt water, and being, as

we know, a capital cavalry-man--in dashing charges among the patriots,

and caprioling also up the Blue Mountains to Escondido--thought he would

take another gallop on the dry ground, just to keep his hand and little

finger in; so he quietly cast off the mule's painter, and flung his

canvas legs over the beast as if he belonged to him. And so he did; for

he told the man at whose place he passed an hour or two that night, and

who thought he knew the master to whom the mule had once belonged, that

it had been presented to him by an old friend, whose name--as had the

mule's--escaped him.

All this time the one-eyed man, with his banana woman, Pancha, were

creeping along the water part of the land--with the Peak of Tarquina in

sight--toward Cape Cruz, bound round that peninsula, and so on to the

Doce Leguas Cays; while the man on the mule navigated by the Sierras del

Cobre of St. Jago, steering by bridle for Manzanillo, and then to take

water again for the same secret destination.

The cargo that both expected to take in there was about ten thousand

pounds sterling in mildewed coin of various realms and denominations;

but it was there, and would pass current any where.

So they sailed and navigated. It was tedious work, though; and it took a

week for the old launch with the torn sail to get into the Tiger's

Trap--fine weather, and no sea--and there make fast to the rocks. At the

same evening hour the mule with his passenger planted his fore feet,

like a pair of kedges over his bows, in the fishing village near

Manzanillo, and foundered bodily, going down with his freight slap-dash

in the mud. The passenger, however, escaped, and skulled along by the

shore, where he fell in with a poor fisherman who was about to shove off

in his trim, wholesome bark for professional recreation on the Esperanza

bank.

Glad was old Miguel Tortuga to have a strong man to assist him for the

privilege of joining in a sip of aguardiente and catching a red snapper

or two; so they jumped on board and spread the sail.

Had old Miguel, however, seen the sharklike eyes of his assistant in the

sunlight, or dreamed what a snapper was about to catch _him_, he would

not have gone fishing that night, and it would have saved him much

tribulation at daylight the next morning, when he was picked off a small

rock by a fisher acquaintance of his from Manzanillo.

But we have nothing to do with old Miguel; and need only say, to console

him, that his stanch boat went safely through the blue gateway of the

roaring ledge of white breakers, and late Sunday night lay calmly in the

inlet abreast Captain Brand's former dwelling.

To go back again for a week, the "Monongahela"--double-banked leviathan

as she was--came plunging out to sea from Kingston, every man and boy,

from Jack Smith on her forecastle to Bill Pump in the spirit-room, and

from Richard Hardy to Tiny Mouse, knowing from the first plunge the

frigate made what they all sailed for.

With her proud head toward the east, she went dashing on past the White

Horse Rocks, and woe to the small angry waves which did not get out of

her way, for she smashed them contemptuously in foaming masses from her

majestic bows, sending them back in sparkling spray and bubbles to hiss

their angry way to leeward in her wake. On she went, far off to sea,

where the trade wind was strongest, disdaining gentle zephyrs near the

land, with her great square yards swinging round at every watch while

beating to windward--the tacks close down, yards as fine as they would

lay, and the heavy sheets flat aft.

Every evening the surgeon, the purser, the chaplain, the major, and the

old sailing-master were in the cabin, going over the chase of a certain

pirate in a schooner "Centipede" away down on the Darien Coast, with

Cape Garotte there under their lee, and the vultures and the sharks

grinding the bones and tearing the flesh of the half of a man with the

tusk gleaming out of his wiry mustache; and the padre, with his eyes

staring wide open, and the crucifix, borne away by the carnivorous birds

of prey.

All of those dreadful particulars, together with matters that had gone

before--of a lost boy, a heart-broken mother, and a murdered mate, Mr.

Binks, on board the brig "Martha Blunt"--the party at Escondido, the

snuff-box, and Paul Darcantel--all about him, too, from the tragedy on

the plantation, his despair, and reckless life afterward, when he served

in slavers, where he did something to allay the sufferings of the poor

wretches; and afterward how he was trepanned to the "Doce Leguas," went

a cruise with Mr. Bill Gibbs, whose leg he hacked off with a hand-saw,

not knowing at the time about the locket; the little child he had saved;

how that child had saved him from his torture on the trestle with his

mouselike teeth; how he had wandered the wide world over searching and

searching for the mother of that boy!

And there the boy was--the manly, brave young fellow now--whom officers

and sailors had always loved, flying away with the dark doctor--no

longer Darcantel, but Harry Piron--with his fond father and mother in

the distance, and the sweet girl he adored with her blonde head resting

in her mother's lap.

[Illustration: THE OLD WATER-LOGGED LAUNCH.]

Ay, every soul in the ship knew all about it, and talked of it, and

drank to the happiness of the young couple--all save Dick Hardy, who

moved energetically about the frigate's decks, with his eyes every

where, below and aloft, prompt, sharp, and quick, quite like Cleveland,

there, beside him, when they were together in the old "Scourge"

during the hurricane, and chased, to her destruction, the "Centipede."

"Sail ho!" sang out the man on the fore-top-sail yard.

"Where away?"

"Right ahead, sir. A brig on the starboard tack!"

Ay, the old "Martha Blunt" bouncing along under all sail, squaring off

at the short-armed seas, and striking them doggedly, as she beat up for

the Windward Passage between Hayti and Cuba.

But there was an old sea-bruiser of a different build, who wore the belt

in the West Indies, and was after that sturdy old brig with teak ribs

for a hearty set-to; and when she came up alongside, in the friendly

sparring-match which ensued while both squared their main yards, and lay

for an hour side by side, there was considerable conversation; so much

talk, in fact--boats going to and fro, mingled with roars and shrieks,

and clasping of hands on board the brig--never a sound on board the

ship--that the blue pennant fluttered in such a way it was hard to tell

whether it was Jacob, or Piron, or the sweet wife, or mademoiselle, or

her lovely mother, who threw their arms around that pennant's truck.

Then yard-arm and yard-arm, the frigate with her canvas canopy of upper

sails furled, and the brig in her best bib and tucker, they both filled

away and moved side by side.

For a day or two they went on, talking and laughing to one another in

these friendly shakes of the hand over blue water, until one day, the

brig being to windward, she came upon an old water-logged launch, with a

broken mast and a torn sail hanging over her side.

It fell calm, and Jacob Blunt ordered young Binks to get into the yawl

and tow the boat alongside, and to be smart about it; for the breeze

might make so soon as the fog rose, and the commodore was not the man to

be kept waiting in a big frigate. Mr. Binks was smart about it, and

presently he returned--though there was no hurry, for the calm lasted a

long time--with his water-logged prize.

There was no human being in this prize; but when she came alongside, and

a yard tackle was hooked on to let the water drain out of her, Jacob

Blunt and the people on board gave a pleasant yell of astonishment.

It was not the soiled pack of Spanish cards, or the few bundles of

saturated paper cigars floating about, which caused this excitement. No,

it was several canvas bags lying there in the stern-sheets, strapped

with strands of a woman's red petticoat to the empty water-cask beneath

the thwarts; and not one of those canvas bags, or what was in them,

injured in the least by salt water. Very carefully were those bags--and

they were weighty--lifted on board the brig, over the rail where the

pirates swarmed some long years ago, on to the quarter-deck; and then

there was another joyous shout from Jacob Blunt, as when he had hailed

the trade wind in that long past time.

"By all that's wonderful, here is my old bag of guineas, and some few

Spanish milled dollars! Look at the mark, my darlings!"

Another weighty bag was set aside for Mrs. Timothy Binks, and the rest

were devoted, with some large doubloon reservations for crew, to Martha

Blunt and Jacob Blunt in their declining years.

Then, the weather being still calm and foggy, Jacob and his passengers

went on board the double-banked frigate for church service, where they

all prayed with much hope and thanksgiving for what had passed and what

was to come; and then they went into the commodore's cabin, where they

remained ever so long a time.

Let us go back this same week again--a very long seven days it has been

for every body, particularly so for the icy-eyed man, who was extremely

anxious, as he kicked and lashed his mule, and kept looking round the

south side of Jamaica, from Portland Point to Pedro Bluff and San

Negril, throwing a ray of cold frost there day and night, expecting that

tall doctor to come striding along in that deep water, heading due

north.

And at last the dark figure hove in sight, in the schooner "Rosalie"--the

sweet little craft skimming exultingly over the seas, kissing them

occasionally with both her dainty, glistening cheeks, reeling joyously

over on her side, with her tidy dimity laced and spread in one flat sheet

of white, while the slender arms bent like whalebone to the freshening

breeze, and she left the dancing bubbles sparkling and flashing lovingly

in her wake.

Two hundred miles to go, and the breeze fell from fresh to light, until

at last, shrouded in a thick fog, one Sunday morning, when there was no

air at all, only a flat calm, the sea as smooth as a glass mirror with

the quicksilver clouded.

Then out sweeps, my lads! Ten of a side, and two of those bronzed old

lads at each sweep! All except the two after ones, where Ben Brown and

the tall doctor handled one apiece.

Thus, with sails down and bare arms, the light little "Rosalie"

continued gliding rapidly over the mirrored surface--a little ashamed of

herself, perhaps, at being seen in such a scanty rig--while her

commander guided her graceful course, and Harry Greenfield peered about

forward to see that no harm should arrest her dainty footsteps.

Presently was heard the toll of a bell. The sweeps paused, the hide

gromets resting on the thole-pins, and the water raining from their

broad blades.

"That must be a man-of-war off here on the quarter," exclaimed the young

officer at the tiller, "ringing for church."

The old seamen at the sweeps unconsciously took off their hats, wiped

the sweat from their brows, and listened.

"It can hardly be the 'Monongahela,'" said Ben, "though p'raps she took

more of a breeze to wind'ard, off the island."

Still the schooner glided on noiselessly over the sea, until, a minute

later, Harry Greenfield sang out,

"Port, sir! or we'll be plump into a vessel here ahead."

The helm was put down, and the "Rosalie" sheered off to starboard within

a biscuit-toss of a large brig.

"By my grandmother's wig!" said Ben, "that's the old 'Martha Blunt!'"

"Henri," said Paul Darcantel, in French, in his deep voice, "the last

request I shall ever make is to keep on. There is not a moment to

lose!"

"Give way, men!" shouted the officer, in a decided tone, as the words

came with a stifled gasp from his heaving breast, while the sigh that

followed was drowned in the splash of the sweeps in the water as they

again chafed in their gromets, and the foam flashed away from the blades

astern.

But there was another splash. A white object sprang with a bound over

the brig's quarter, dipping below the surface of the calm sea, and when

it came up, two great flippers, with a large black head between them,

struck out like the paws of an alligator, breasting the water with a

speed that soon brought him within a few fathoms of the schooner's low

counter. Then, seizing hold of the slack of the main sheet, which was

thrown to him, he came up, hand over hand, as if he could tear the stern

frame out of the schooner. A vigorous grasp caught him by one paw, and,

with the other laid on the taffrail, he leaped on deck as if his feet

had pressed a springboard instead of the yielding water.

Again, as in the olden time, he held his little Henri aloft in his giant

arms; but this time it was Banou who was dripping from a souse, and not

his little master.

"Give way, my souls! Another thousand dollars if we get up to the Key

before dark!" said the deep, low tones of the tall doctor.

"Good Lord!" roared a voice from on board the brig, now shut up again

all alone in the fog--"if that old nigger has not gone and jumped

overboard, my name's not Binks!"

"All right, Mr. Binks; Banou is safe! Send a boat on board the

'Monongahela,' and report that the schooner 'Rosalie' has passed ahead,"

went back in a clear note.

It was some considerable time before Binks could believe that he had not

been hailed by David Jones himself, for he had seen nothing, being at

the time in the lower cabin reading his Bible, and writing his name,

"Binnacle Binks, Master of brig 'Martha Blunt,'" on the fly-leaf; and he

was only disturbed in this praiseworthy occupation by a heavy body

plunging overboard, and by one of the drowsy crew, who had, with his

comrades, been sleeping near, reporting that circumstance with his eyes

half shut.

Then young Binks took considerable more time to get a boat lowered, and

send her, with the cabin-boy, to the large frigate close on his beam,

whose bell had just struck seven.

The boat, too, with four sleepy hands to pull her, took considerable

time to find the ship, and then the whistles were piping to dinner, and

all the good people from the brig, with the flag-officers, had retired

to the commodore's cabin for luncheon.

When Jacob Blunt heard the news, regardless of sherry and cold tongue,

he himself got in his boat, leaving his passengers in an excited frame

of mind, but rather comfortable on the whole, and returned to the teak

bosom of his "Martha."

There he took young Binks firmly by the shoulder, and walked him aft to

the rail where his father--long since dead and murdered--had been used

to sit and sing sailor ditties.

Then he impressively told him that "this 'ere sort of thing wouldn't do!

even if he was a readin' the Bible, which was all very good on occasion,

sich as clear weather out on the broad Atlantic; but in fog times, when

schooners was creepin' about in among the Antilles, and partick'larly

off Jamaiky or the south side of Cuby, mates and men should be wide

awake and lookin' every wheres. And harkee, Binnacle! when you commands

this 'ere old brig, or maybe a bran-new 'Martha Blunt,' and me and my

old woman lying below together in narrow cabins, you must bear in mind

these my words! Well, my boy, don't rub that 'ere sleeve over your eyes

no more, and it will be all right."

Young Binks promised "that from that 'ere minnit he would never sit on

no rails, or sip no grog, or even read his old mother's Bible when he

wos on watch, but always be as keerful as if there wos no lady

passengers or children on board, or bags of shiners in the lower cabin

stateroom--that he would! And his blessed old second father might take

his davy he, young Binks, would never be caught foul again."

Meanwhile the girlish schooner tripped away far out of sight, and when

the fog lifted and the breeze came to blow it to leeward she was once

more tidily dressed in snowy white, and splashing the water from her

black eyes, as the last rays of the setting sun showed her the Tiger's

Trap in the distance.

"Henri, my boy, put your arms around me again as you did when I lay in

torture on the trestle on that island. Have no fears for me; we shall

meet again. There! now listen to me. Here is a packet which I wish you

to carry to Porto Rico with this letter. The old judge is alive, I

think, to whom this letter is addressed, and it may perhaps soothe his

declining years. I wish to take your little gig, with Banou and Ben

Brown--no more force--and if, as I believe, that villain has returned to

his former haunt, I will fulfill my oath to its very letter. Meanwhile,

so soon as we have shoved off, while the breeze still holds, run down to

the frigate--she is not three leagues off--and you will be in your

yearning parent's arms, and those of the girl you love, before they

sleep. There! I know you will think of me. Farewell!"

CHAPTER L.

ON A BED OF THORNS.

"An orphan's curse would drag to hell

A spirit from on high;

But oh! more horrible than that

Is the curse in a dead man's eye!"

"O Heaven! to think of their white souls,

And mine so black and grim!"

"Ho, ho!" said Captain Brand, as he stretched out his straight legs in

their canvas casings on the sand of the little cove, "safe and sound,

and not a soul to share this nice supper of that good old man Miguel!

"Ho, ho!" continued he; "here at last! No Babette to cook for me--no

'Centipede'--nothing but that stanch little boat presented me by that

generous fisherman, who, I fear, is drowned by this time. Well, let us

enjoy ourselves! Excellent real snapper this! Sausage rather too much

garlic perhaps; but the brown bread and the aguardiente unexceptionable.

Blaze away, my little fire; your sticks cost me much labor to dig out of

my once comfortable house, but you are better than gunpowder any day.

"Just to think of the years that have passed! That great bank of sand

there over the sheds, nearly as high as the crag, where my brave fellows

once caroused; the young cocoa-nut springing up on the crag itself--not

a vestige of my old habitation left, or the bright blades or pleasant

guests to dine with me!"

Here there was something of the old cold murderous scowl on the

captain's face as he twisted the point of his nose.

"Ah! yes, there may be my wary-eyed Sanchez left, though the last

I heard of him he was in the Capilla dungeon of the Moro. And

that"--grating his teeth, and glaring with his icy eyes at the

fire, as if those two blocks of ice would put it out--"cursed

doctor who pursues me!

"Well, well, neither of those old friends are here yet, and before

another sun sets I shall bequeath the old den to them both! Ho, ho! with

those solid bags of clinking metal, I shall leave them as much sand and

rocks as they choose to walk over. What a sly devil I was to stow that

treasure away for a rainy day! Never told a living being! Poisoned the

fellow, too, who made the lock! Capital joke, 'pon my soul!"

This was the very last of the very few jokes that Captain Brand ever

enjoyed.

"And, now I think of it, I wonder if my thirsty old mate's bones are yet

lying there in the vault. What _was_ his name? such a bad memory I have!

Oh! Gibbs--Bill Gibbs--with one leg! Ho, ho!"

Here Captain Brand drained some more aguardiente out of a cracked

earthen pot, and slapped his fine legs with rapture.

"And those dear girls who married me! Lucia, too!"

The dirty wretch started as the wing of a sea-bird swooped down over the

pure inlet; and he thought he saw a white fore finger beckoning him on

to his doom.

"Pshaw!" said he, smoothing down his filthy tattered shirt with the

finger of his mutilated left hand, "how nervous I am! But what a bungle

Pedillo made of that marriage! And my good Ricardo, too! What a feast

the sharks must have had on his oily, well-fed carcass! Misericordia!

Ho, ho! I believe I'll bid my friends good-night."

Captain Brand stretched himself out at full length on the shelly strand,

his boat secured by a clove-hitch round his right leg, which rode calmly

in the little inlet; his bald head, with the few dry gray hairs on his

temples, resting on Miguel's sennit hat, and the thin scum of frosty

eyelids drawn over his frozen eyes--cracking their covering at

times--until at last the pirate, aided by fiery aguardiente, slept.

A few late cormorants and sea-birds sailed over him in his fitful

slumber, and uttered a cold cry, as if their pecking-time had not come

yet, but would shortly, as they sought their silent retreats on the wall

of rocks opposite.

And Captain Brand dreamed, too--of the old laird, his father, in prison;

his mother weeping over forged notes; the sleeping, unsuspecting people

he had treacherously murdered; the pillages he had committed; the men he

had slain in open conflict; those he had executed with his own private

cord; the poor woman who had died in worse torments, when, indeed, even

knife or pistol, rope or poison, would have been a mercy; the agony and

sufferings of those who survived them; with all the concomitant horrors

which make the blood run cold to think of, and which made the pirate's

almost freeze in his veins--living years in minutes--did Captain Brand,

as he lay there on the chill sand in his troubled nightmare of a sleep.

"Ah! _Dios! Dios!_" chattered the Senora Banana Pancha, at the other

outlet to the inlet, rolling over on the ledge of the rocks at the

Tiger's Trap.

"What has become of my Ig--Ig--nacio--the one-eyed old villain who has

persecuted me for forty years? Why did I cut the old launch adrift

before I got in myself? And here I am alone and desolate on this cursed

island, and my Ig--Ig--nacio--bless his spark of an eye--not come back

to me! Ah! _Dios! Dios!_ what has become of the little man? He will kill

me, _cierto_, when he comes back and finds the boat gone with all the

money, which nearly broke his thin back to bring here; but, _Dios!

Dios!_ I am dying of thirst, and not a shred of dried fish or jerked

beef has gone into my old mouth--"

Yes there has, Dona Pancha, for just then a piece of hawser-laid

rope--rather dry, perhaps, for mastication--was placed across your

crying mouth that you might bite upon, if you would only stop your old

tongue.

For while you were screaming on the rocks, and yelling for your

Ig--Ig--nacio, who went back for the last bag of gold that wasn't there,

a light gig glided in like a blackfish, and a bigger blackfish jumped up

and stopped your old mouth, Pancha, with that bit of hide rope. But if

you will keep quiet, Pancha, and not exorcise Banou for the Evil One,

that old nigger will give you a cup of liquid not known in the devil's

dominions, and treat you also to some white biscuit to nibble upon.

Ah! you will, eh? and tell all about that thin curl of smoke, which you

believe to have been made by that coal-eyed Ig--Ig--nacio, away up there

by the inlet? Now keep quiet again, old Lady Banana; and while your

screaming mouth is gagged, don't cut this small gig away, or else she

may navigate herself out to sea, as did your Ig's launch, and you be

left desolate again.

The tropical night was still; the lizards wheetled, the breakers roared

on the outer ledge, the ripples washed musically on the shelly shores,

the alligators flapped about on the surface of the lagoon, the insects

buzzed around the mangrove thickets; and as the gray dawn of morning

appeared, and the rain began to fall, a steaming hot mist arose, through

which the sea-birds flapped their wings and sailed away in search of

their morning's meal. The sharks and the deep-sea fish, however, lay

still and motionless low down by the base of the reefs, and watched with

their cold, round eyes. Captain Brand, too, arose, and, opening _his_

green-bluish eyes, smoothing his moulting feathers, and splashing his

fins in the wet sand, took an observation.

This was the rainy day for which Captain Brand had laid by all that

money to spend it in!

It was a Monday morning--Black Monday for Captain Brand--when, after

divesting his leg of the clove-hitch, he secured old Miguel's boat to a

large stone, and then, according to his own ancient practice, he

clambered with difficulty up to the venerable crag. Captain Brand had no

spy-glass, and there was a good deal of rain falling, but yet he thought

he saw a large ship, a brig, and a small schooner in the offing.

So Captain Brand scrambled down again, a good deal disconcerted, knowing

it would be hours and hours before those vessels got up to the island,

even were they so inclined; but, nevertheless, he bestirred himself.

Fortifying his inner man with the last half pint of aguardiente for

breakfast, which quite refreshed him, he went to work.

First, he took Miguel's copper coffee-pot, into which he emptied that

disciple of the net's shark-oil jug, which Miguel himself used for a

torch to attract the fish. Then, with a strip of old canvas--part of one

leg to Captain Brand's trowsers; to such straits was he reduced--seized

like a ball on the end of a stick, and a match-box, he was all ready for

Black Monday's work.

Captain Brand, however, made one serious omission; he snugly stowed away

his beautiful pistols in a locker of the boat to keep them dry, never

having been wet but twice before in all his marine excursions--the first

time at Cape Garotte, and the next when he jumped overboard from the

brigantine at St. Jago. He set great store by these valuable implements,

for they had done him good service in time of need. Miguel came into

possession of them afterward, and sold them almost for their weight in

gold.

But, for the first time, Captain Brand forgot his personal friends and

bosom companions. It was a great oversight; and he was extremely sorry

when it was too late to go back for them. However, with the copper

oil-pot dangling from his little finger, where the sapphire once shone,

and the torch-stick in the other hand, he marched boldly over the sandy

ridges toward the crag.

But, Captain Brand, there had been three pairs of open eyes watching you

through every mouthful of snapper you snapped, and every drop of fiery

white rum you swallowed. Ay! and while you tossed about on the shelly

beach, with the red glow of the embers of the fire lighting up your

cold-blooded, wrinkled face--while, twisting your nose, you muttered ho!

ho's! of murderous satisfaction--there was not a bird that swooped over

you, or a lizard on the rocks with jet beads of eyes, that watched you

so sharply as did those attentive beholders from the crag.

And when you made your observations from the young cocoa-nut clump,

those watchers retired down the opposite side, and two of them clambered

through a hole in the roof of the decaying little chapel, while the

other moved to the little cemetery of coral gravestones, and there

scooped a place in the sand and cactus behind the one cut with the

letter L.

Captain Brand meanwhile came on, picking his way through the dense

cactus, which lacerated his legs, and sadly tore the remains of his

loose canvas. The rain came down in torrents, the thunder growled and

crashed as the tropical storm burst over the island; and just as a vivid

sheet of forked lightning seemed to stride the crag, and the awful peal

that followed shook it to its base, Captain Brand crept for shelter

within the cleft of the rock, and sat down to prepare for a more

extended research.

He may have been gone twenty minutes; but when he again emerged the rain

had ceased, the clouds were breaking away, and the gentle sea-breeze

blowing, while Captain Brand looked a thousand years older. He seemed to

have borrowed all the million of wrinkles from his compadre, in addition

to those he already possessed. The thin lids of his frozen green--now

quite solid--eyes had apparently exhaled by intense cold, and left

nothing but a stony look of horror.

What caused our brave captain to reel and stagger as he plunged with a

bound out into the matted cactus, without his tattered hat, like a wolf

flying from the hounds? Had he trodden on a snake, or seen his compadre,

or had that white finger waved him away? Yes, all three. But the

interview with his one-eyed compadre had shocked him most.

On he came, driving the hot, wet sand before him, toward the Padre

Ricardo's chapel. There he paused for breath, though it was only by a

spasmodic effort that he could unclose his sheet-white lips, where his

sharp teeth had met upon them, and held his mouth together as if he had

the lockjaw, while he snorted through his nostrils.

"Ho!" he gasped, "the spying old traitor has sacked the cavern, and the

gold must have gone in that launch I saw the night I came over the reef.

Ho! the traitor has found the torture I promised him; but I would like

to have killed him a little slower."

Here Captain Brand, having regained some few faculties and energy, moved

on beyond the church, till he came to the white coral headstone, where

he stood still.

It was his last walk on deck or sand! Shading his still horror-stricken

eyes by both hands, he glared to seaward.

"Ho, ho! there you are, my Yankee commodore, with that old brig under

convoy, and that pretty schooner! Reminds me of my old 'Centipede.'

_Bueno!_ there are other 'Centipedes,' and I must begin the world anew.

I am not old; here is my strong right arm yet; and who can stop me?"

Captain Brand made these remarks in a loud tone, as if he wanted the

whole world to hear him; and as if he had failed in early life, and come

to a strong resolution to retrieve his past errors.

As he waved his strong right arm aloft, while, in imagination, blood

rained from the blade of his cutlass after cleaving the skull by a blow

dealt behind the back of an unsuspecting skipper or mate, suddenly he

paused, and the arm fell powerless at his side, where it hung dangling

loose like a pirate from a gibbet on a windy night.

He caught sight of the old broken cocoa-nut trunk to which he had

hitched the green silk rope, with its noose around his victim's neck,

and he endeavored to prevent himself falling to the sand.

"Ho!" he choked out, his jaws rattling like dry bones, "I see it all

now. The column was snapped just where the rope was hitched, and the

trestle must have been torn to pieces by the hurricane. Ho, ho! That's

the way my man escaped, to dog me all over the world. Ho! I have no time

to lose; he may be here at any moment."

This was the last connected speech that Captain Brand ever made in this

world, or in the world to come, perhaps, for at the last word Paul

Darcantel rose in all his revengeful majesty before him. With folded

arms he bent his dark, stern eyes upon the pirate, wherein the revenge

of twenty years was gleaming with a concentrated power.

"You palsied villain! the oath I took to you, and for which I have been

accursed, expired yesterday! I took another myself, when we stood here

last together, and I am come to fulfill that oath, and--strike!"

His terrible voice and words came back in an echo from the crag, and

they seemed with their intense energy to pierce and shrivel the man

before him into sleet. And the pirate would have fallen had not two

huge, black, lignum-vitae paws grappled him about the body, pinioning his

arms to his sides as if they had been bolted through and through, while

at the same moment another pair of tough, sea-weed flippers wound a

lashing round his straight legs, and they laid him gently down on the

sandy esplanade.

"The trestle, Banou. And you, Ben, bring the hide strands, the faded old

cord, and that black altar-cloth!"

The pirate lay on his back, his eyes wide open--for he could not shut

them, since the lids had gone in frost--but the solid balls, light green

now in the light, rolled from side to side. He recognized the old

apparatus too, though it was in different hands than those of Pedillo

and his confederate; and he saw, also, that, though the pale green rope

was rotten, yet his knowledge of nautical matters taught him that it yet

might bear a taut strain, and that those coils of hide thongs never gave

way by any amount of tugging, and he saw as well that they had been

recently dipped in grease.

But what was to be done with that rotten, moth-eaten old cloth, which

the men used to play monte on on Saturday nights in the sheds, and on

which the good padre played _his_ cards likewise in the chapel? It was

not to keep the cold air away from him, or shield his half-naked body

from the poisonous insects. Then what could it be for?

"Lift him up, men, and when you lash him down, leave only that little

finger free!"

Ben Brown squatted himself on a stone beside the bier, and with his

cutlass unbuckled and laid on the sand, and sleeves rolled up, began

his work as if he had a chafing-mat to make for the dead-eyes of the

frigate's lower shrouds, and, though in a hurry, still intended to make

a neat job of it. He had a small and rather sharp-pointed marline-spike,

too, which he wore habitually, like a talisman, round his neck, and

which stood him in hand in the intricate parts of his task.

Taking in at a glance the exact amount of hide stuff he required, he

middled the coils, and passing each strand fair and square, his old

bronzed arms went backward and forward, under and over--sometimes

pricking a little hole by accident in the pirate's own thin hide as he

passed the strips by the aid of his marline-spike, but always

apologizing in his bluff, rough way, though without squirting

tobacco-juice into his victim's face, as did Mr. Gibbs to Jacob Blunt.

"Beg pardon, ye infarnal pirate! but that stick will do ye no harm.

It'll heal much sooner than the iron spike one of yer crew drove through

both cheeks of my watch-mate when you gagged him on board the brig.

"I say, old nigger, hand us a little more of that slush, will ye? this

'ere strand won't lie flat. Thankee, old darkey! Kitch hold on that

lower end, will ye? and draw it square up between his pins, and

straighten out that 'ere knee-joint a bit--so fashion.

"I wouldn't hurt ye, you ugly villain, for a chaw of tobaccy.

"Warm work, shipmate! suppose you just toddle down to the boat for that

'ere grafted bottle lyin' in the starn sheets, and bring a tin pot of

fresh water with you; the gentleman might be thirsty, you know. _I

am_--Benjamin Brown, of Sandy Pint, seaman."

So Benjamin plaited Captain Brand, late of the "Centipede," down on his

bier; not a thong too little, or one in the wrong place. A strand

between each of his toes, and the big ones turned up in quite an

ornamental way, and worked around with a Turk's-head knot.

"Breathin' works all reg'lar, too, no bit of hide bearin' an onequal

strain over his bread-basket. Throat and jaw-tackle in fair talkin'

order, little finger free; and there, Capting Brand, jist let old Ben

reward ye, good for evil, ye child-murdering scoundrel, for the lick

your mate gave him with the pistol on the head, by placing this soft

pillow of green silk rope under your bare skull. There! a little this

side, so as ye can look at your finger, while I pass this broad piece of

stuff over your ear. Don't ye look at me, ye infarnal scoundrel, or I'll

let this 'ere copper spike slip into one of yer junk-bottle glims!

"Now," continued Ben, "I'll take a spell till the doctor and the old

nigger come back."

Ay, the job was done, and the mat over the dead-eyes of the shrouds!

[Illustration: "NOW CAPTAIN BRAND KNEW WHAT WAS COMING."]

During this neat and seamanlike operation Paul Darcantel wandered away

on the tracks of the flying wolf till he came to the cleft in the

rock. There he picked up and lighted the torch and stalked on. Presently

he came to the stones before the low cavern, and pushed his way in with

the blazing torch before him. Had Paul Darcantel had nerves, they would

have shaken at what he saw; but having none to shake, he calmly fixed

his eyes upon the sight.

There lay the head of the ancient Ignacio, caught, as he tried to creep

out of the treasure-chamber, by the falling of the stone slab. It must

have been sudden, for the stump of a paper cigar was still seized in his

wrinkled lips, while the snakelike curls twined about his ears, and his

wary eye looked out with its usual suspicious intensity, and seemed to

throw out a spark of fire in the reflection of the torch. Rising from a

coil in a slimy bed of sand before the head was a venomous serpent, with

his graceful neck curved into the broad flat head, all like an ebony

cane, straight, motionless, and elegant to the curved top--fascinated by

that single living orb of the dead man.

The human intruder left this well-matched pair to their own venomous

devices, and winding his way on, he soon came to the open door to the

vaults. A powerful kick smashed in the door of the dungeon, and while

the rusty bolts were still ringing on the stone pavement, Paul Darcantel

entered the loathsome chamber.

He saw nothing at first save a few fragments of broken crockery and a

rusty metal pot--not even a rat. But flaring the torch down upon the

mouldy floor something sparkled in the light. This he snatched, and it

was the long-lost locket and chain which had last rested around the

baby-boy's neck.

When the doctor strode back to the esplanade of the chapel he found

Benjamin Brown and Banou taking a friendly sip out of the tin pot.

"Well, sir," said Ben, as he got on his pins and strapped on his

cutlass, "there he is, sir! and as neat a piece of cross-lashing as ever

I did. He looks as if he growed there, jist like a hawk-bill turtle

a-bilin' in the ship's coppers, only he can't paddle about.

"I did it marciful, too, sir, and tried to convarse with him, in case he

had any presents to make to his friends.

"Why, sir, and would you believe it? I offered to pour a drop of

grog--mixed or raw--down his tight mouth, but he never had the

perliteness to thank me or ax me a question, but only looked wicked at

me. Consarn him! if he had only winked, I wouldn't mind it!" said Ben,

with much indignation; "but, howsever, I don't b'lieve he's any think to

leave or any friends left!"

But Captain Brand, though speechless without being tongue-tied, and

unable to wink, still thought. And what did the doctor propose to do

with him in case he was not to be stung to death by insects, sand-flies,

musquitoes, and what not?

"Lift the trestle for the last time, men, and stand it here over this

thick bed of cactus, so as the little finger may touch the letter on

this white tomb-stone."

Now Captain Brand's doubts were relieved, and he knew what was coming.

Oh ho! ho!

"There! that is right! Now collect stones and rocks, and wall this

trestle up solid to the edge of the frame, so that a hurricane can't

loosen it."

Big Banou went to work now, and presently his job was done--coral rocks,

and loose head-stones of pirates, well packed down with sand, made the

sides of the living tomb. Then the black pall was drawn over the body,

and they left the pirate to his inevitable doom.

Soon the three executioners reached the Tiger's Trap.

"Banou, take this locket and chain--ah! you know it well--to your young

master. Brown, the two thousand dollars will be placed in your and

Greenfield's hands for distribution among the schooner's crew; make a

good use of it! Tell the commodore that I shall take an old woman we

have found here away with me in a stolen fisherman's boat to Manzanillo,

and within the year I shall be at home! There! shove off, my lads!"

As the gig skimmed through the Tiger's Trap, Paul Darcantel, with the

widow of Ignacio, sailed out by the Alligator's Mouth, and as they

crossed that roaring ledge, the sun sank in its unclouded glory in the

west, and the young moon, with its thin pearly crescent, looked timidly

down upon the island.

And the night passed, and the next and the next, with scorching days and

blazing suns between them; while the mangrove, the palm, the cocoa-nut,

and the cactus--ah! that luxuriant plant throve apace--shooting up its

steel-pointed bayonets two inches of a night in thorny needles as thick

as pins in a paper, growing clean through the hide of ox or man like

blood, till their hard-edged leaves met resistance, when, turning flat

side up, they put forth a score for one of the needle bayonets! No

escape from them. From shoulder to heel one long, hopeless agony. The

fierce sun flaming down, absorbed by the black pall of death! The moon

glimmering in pale white rays of splendor through the moth-eaten holes

upon the finger and the white tomb-stone! All the day and all the

night!

Was it a dream, Captain Brand? No, a frightful reality! Don't you feel a

fresh thorn at every slow pulse of the heart they are aiming at? And

don't you hear those dread croakings of gulls and cormorants flapping in

the air, who have left their prey on the reef to join the vultures in

their feast on the shore? You may almost catch the grating sounds of the

rasping jaws of the sharks as they crowd into the inlet, and rest their

cold noses on the shelly cove where you slept!

Flesh and blood, and pinions and beaks can endure it no longer. A cloud

of carnivorous birds swoop down at last, snap the black pall in their

talons and bills, and fly fighting and screaming away with it. Another

cloud, darker than the rest, light upon the body, and while the

needle-points pierce the palpitating heart, and the breath flutters on

the still clenched lips and nostrils, the eyes are picked out, and the

flesh is torn piecemeal, hide strands and all, till nothing is left but

a hideous white skeleton, with the long bony finger pointing to the

letter L.

The lizards wheetled on the rocks, the alligators lashed the lagoon amid

the steaming mist of the mangrove roots; the sharks and birds returned

to the reefs, the cocoa-nuts waved their tufted tops, the palms crackled

in the shower and gale, and the pure inlet murmured musically on the

shelly shore for years and years over and around the deserted key, until

the whitened bones crumbled into dust, and were borne away by the four

winds of heaven.

* * * * *

The hemp has been tarred and spread, the strands twisted, and the rope

laid up. The knots have been turned in between good sailors and

bad--between pirates and men-of-war's-men--and here Harry Gringo hauls

down his pennant until his reading crew care again to take a cruise with

him in blue water.

THE END.

* * * * *

Standard Works

OF

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=HARPER'S WEEKLY FOR 1864.=

HARPER'S WEEKLY is devoted to Art, Literature, General Information, and

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Essays, Poems, and Tales will be furnished by the ablest writers of both

Continents. A new Novel, by Mr. GEORGE AUGUSTUS SALA, entitled "QUITE

ALONE," will, by special arrangement with the Author, appear in the

WEEKLY simultaneously with its publication in Mr. DICKENS'S "_All the

Year Round_." The Publishers will see to it that the current Volume

shall justify the favorable opinions expressed by the loyal Press upon

the Volume which has just closed.

=Extracts from Notices by the Press.=

"HARPER'S WEEKLY is the best publication of its class in America, and so

far ahead of all other weekly journals as not to permit of any

comparison between it and any of their number. Its columns contain the

finest collections of reading matter that are printed. Thus, if you look

into the Volume for 1863, you will find that its stories, and

miscellaneous articles, and poetry are from the minds of some of the

leading writers of the time. Its matter is of a very various character

from elaborate tales and well-considered editorial articles to the

airiest and briefest jests, good-humored hits at the expense of human

follies, which proceed from the liveliest of minds. It is a vigorous

supporter of the war--discussing all questions that concern the contest

in which we are engaged with an amplitude of perception and a breadth of

patriotism that place it very high indeed on the roll of loyal and

liberal publications. Its illustrations are numerous and beautiful,

being furnished by the chief artists of the country. Most of the

illustrations are devoted to the war, including battle-pieces, scenes

made renowned by great events there occurring, and portraits of eminent

military and civil leaders. Even a person who could not read a line of

its letter-press could intelligently follow the history of the war

through 1863 by going over the pictured pages of this volume,"--_Evening

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"HARPER'S WEEKLY, besides being a literary paper of the first class--the

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consistently and constantly carried out--is at once a leading political

and historical annalist of the nation."--_The Press_ (Philadelphia).

"HARPER'S WEEKLY.--In turning over its pages, we were struck anew with

the fidelity with which it delineates passing events: a true picture of

the times. The scenes of the war, portrayed by the graphic pencils of

artists on the battle-field and in the camp, are re-produced in excellent

wood-cuts with marvelous promptness and accuracy. The letter-press

furnishes an appropriate accompaniment to the illustrations; presenting

a pleasing variety, sprightly and entertaining. We can not wonder at the

popularity of the _Weekly_ when we observe the spirit and enterprise

with which it is conducted."--_Journal_ (Boston).

"HARPER'S WEEKLY FOR 1863.--From a careful examination of this work, as

it came out in it weekly form, we can honestly advise our readers to

purchase the stately and pictured volume. We dare not say how many

duodecimo volumes of matter, and of good and interesting matter, it

contains. As a record of the events and opinions of the past year, and

as literally a picture of the time, it has a permanent value, while its

wealth of excellent stories and essays makes it an endless source of

entertainment. The original editorial articles are of a very high order

of merit, and relate to subjects which attract the attention of all

intelligent and patriotic minds. Soundness of thought, liberality of

sentiment, and thorough-going loyalty find expression in the most

exquisite English. Altogether, we should say that _Harper's Weekly_ is a

necessity in every household."--_The Transcript_ (Boston).

"HARPER'S WEEKLY and MAGAZINE, with their immense circulation, are

grandly loyal and influential. The _Weekly_ especially has been true to

the cause; and while it gives in admirable correspondence and accurate

pictures a complete illustrated history of the war, with all its

battles, incidents, and portraits of generals, it has splendidly

enforced by argument and example its principles. Closer reasoning is not

to be found than that to which its editors might fairly challenge

answer."--_City Item_ (Philadelphia).

_Notices of Harper's Weekly._

"HARPER'S WEEKLY, of which the Seventh Volume is now issued in neat,

substantial binding, shows the industry and zeal with which the cause of

the Union has been maintained in its columns during the year 1863. It

has continued to increase the fervor of patriotic sentiment as well by

its appropriate pictorial illustrations as by its able editorial leaders

commenting on the events of the day. In its present shape, the journal

furnishes copious materials for the history of the war, and can not fail

to find a place in public and private libraries as an important volume

for permanent reference."--_Tribune_ (New York).

"HARPER'S WEEKLY _for_ 1863--a journal of the year, kept in the most

interesting way; and as we turn over the pages we revive many now

almost forgotten sensations, and see, bit by bit, how history has

grown. The volume closed and bound up becomes history; but it would

not be just to this publication to omit a remark on the influence

which it has exerted during the year, and which it continues to exert.

An illustrated journal like _Harper's Weekly_, which circulates, as

we have heard, over one hundred and twenty thousand copies per week,

chiefly among families, and which has probably a million of readers, has

necessarily a great influence in the country. The _Weekly_ has

consistently and very ably supported the Union, the Government, and

the great principles to develop which the Union was founded. Unlike most

illustrated journals, _Harper's Weekly_ has displayed political and

literary ability of a high order as well as artistic merit. Its

political discussions are sound, clear, and convincing, and have done

their share to educate the American people to a right understanding of

their dangers and duties. In its speciality--illustrations of passing

events--it is unsurpassed; and many of the pictures of the year do

honor to the genius of the artists and engravers of this country.

Thus complete in all the departments of an American Family Journal,

_Harper's Weekly_ has earned for itself a right to the title which it

assumed seven years ago, 'A JOURNAL OF CIVILIZATION.'"--_Evening Post_

(New York).

HARPER'S WEEKLY.--This periodical merits special notice at the present

time. There is probably no weekly publication of the country that equals

its influence. More than one hundred thousand copies fly over the land

weekly: they are read in our cars, steamboats, and families. Our youth

especially read them; and as _the_ family newspaper of the nation, its

power over the forming opinions of the next generation of the American

people is an important item.

It is abundant, if not superabundant, in pictorial illustrations--a

means of strong impression, especially on the minds of the young. Both

by its illustrations and its incessant discussion of the occurrences and

questions of the war it is a "current history" and "running commentary"

on the great event, and there is probably no literary agency of the day

more effective in its influence respecting the war in the families of

the common people. Most happy are we then to be able to say that this

responsible power is exerted altogether on the side of loyalty. No paper

in the land is more outspoken, more uncompromising for the Union, for

the war, for even the policy of the President's "great Proclamation."

When the rebellion broke out we did the publishers the injustice of some

anxious fears about their probable course on the subject.

Steadily have they kept up with the Providential development of its

events and questions; not only abreast of them, but, in important

respects, ahead of them. No periodical press in the nation deserves

better of the country for its faithfulness and "pluck" in all matters

relating to the great struggle. And we should do it injustice were we

not to add that, with its outright loyalty and bravery, it combines

commanding ability. The editorial leaders which it continuously

flings out against all political traitors and flunkies strike

directly at their mark. They are evidently from pens both strong and

polished. On even the astuter subjects of policy, finance, &c., it

is eminently able. And it makes no mistake in supposing its readers

capable of an interest and of intelligence in these respects.

American families look keenly into such questions, and with such a

really educational force as this paper wields, it is especially right

and commendable that it seeks to elevate the common mind to the higher

questions of the times. The American people will not fail to notice

and to remember the courageous and patriotic course of _Harper's Weekly_

in these dark times of hideous treason, and of more hideous, because

more contemptible, semi-treason.--_The Methodist, N. Y._

TERMS.

One Copy for Four Months $1 00

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Two Copies for One Year 5 50

"Harper's Weekly" and "Harper's Magazine" one year 5 50

_An Extra Copy of either the Weekly or Magazine will be supplied gratis

for every Club of TEN SUBSCRIBERS, at $2 75 each; or, Eleven Copies for

$27 50._

* * * * *

Transcriber's note:

The author's archaic spelling is preserved, including creative

Spanish spelling such as "Guantamano" and "Hasta huego".

The author's punctuation style is preserved.

Hyphenation has been made consistent.

In addition to making hyphenation consistent, the following

changes were made to the original text:

Page 18: =Escondide= standardized to =Escondido= (Why,

madame, it is only a week ago that a lot of us dined with

him at his estate of =Escondido=)

Page 19: Added quote (he continued, turning toward the

skipper, as the clear sound of the cruiser's bell struck his

ear, ="I must= not forget what I came for.")

Page 29: Added tilde ("_El Doctor =Senor=, con tres de

nosotros._")

Page 34: Removed extra end quote from "ho!" (sputtered the

ruffian, as he pulled a pistol from his belt, ="ho!= you

mean fight, do ye?")

Page 49: Removed accent from "e" ('_=Bueno=!_' There's more

fish in the sea--and under it too!)

Page 85: Changed from single quote (="But= the best of the

joke was, the moment he spoke)

Page 86: Added accent (In the centre arose a huge =epergne=

of silver, fashioned into the shape of a drooping

palm-tree)

Page 92: Added tilde ("And the =senorita's= too, I

think,")

Page 136: Removed dash from =money--you= (I wouldn't remain

another hour in this filthy hole for all the =money you=

have cheated me out of, you old rascal.)

Page 166: =hirtling= changed to =hurtling= (No more pauses

or lulls now in the =hurtling= tempest)

Page 185: =epaulettes= standardized to =epaulets= (in

cocked hat, full-dress coat, a pair of gleaming =epaulets=,

sword by his hip, and his nether limbs cased in white

knee-breeches)

Page 205: Added quote (="Well=, gentlemen, for some weeks

after these occurrences we sailed about the islands)

Page 205: =Mosquito= standardized to =Musquito= (The orders

were to beat up the south side of Cuba, where we expected to

fall in with the =Musquito= fleet and some English vessels)

Page 225: =is= changed to =its= (A minute later, all that

was left of the shattered hull fell broadside into the open

fangs of the ledge, which ground it with =its= merciless

jaws into toothpicks.)

Page 252: Removed repeated "at all" (he didn't like his

looks =at all=, though he did make himself so fascinating to

the beautiful widow who sat next him)

Page 261: =believeing= changed to =believing= (as there is

much reason for =believing= he did--with great disgust, on

board the dirty, dumpy old ballahoo)

Page 284: =tholl-pins= changed to =thole-pins= (The sweeps

paused, the hide gromets resting on the =thole-pins=, and

the water raining from their broad blades.)