Emmanuel Appadocca; or, Blighted Life. Volume 2 of 2

CHAPTER XVI.

CHAPTER XVII.

The grey dawn of the morning found the crew of the man-of-war busily at work. The unwieldly machines clanked and reclanked as the sturdy sailors heartily threw their whole strength upon them, in raising the heavy sails and weighty anchor.

As soon as there was sufficient light to see, watches, who were provided with the most powerful telescopes, were sent up to the very top of the tall masts to survey the horizon, in order to discover, if possible, the pirate vessel, which was supposed to be hovering about at no great distance.

After a careful survey, the report was made, that far out to leeward there was a sail—that it was apparently a vessel which was lying to.

“Look again,” shouted out the officer of the watch, “what is she like? is she square-rigged?”

“No, your honor.”

“What sort of a thing is she?”

“She looks to be a fore-and-aft, your honor.”

Willmington was called, and, on being required to do so, gave the best description he could of the pirate vessel.

“It is likely the same vessel,” the officer remarked, after he had heard Willmington.

“Cheerily, men, look active.”

The sailors scarcely required any exhortation. They went through their work with more than ordinary good-will. In the first place, the idea of something like active service excited them, for they felt oppressed under the ennui of leisurely sailing from one port to another; and they longed to chastise the rash temerity of those degraded wretches who had the insolence to make an attempt of rescuing a prisoner from their lordly ship.

The majestic structure, therefore, was soon put in motion, and was now to be seen sailing magnificently before the wind. Gradually it gained on what was at first distant and obscure. As the ship drew nearer and nearer to it, the vessel grew more and more distinct, and could now be clearly made out as a long, low, rakish schooner. It was, in fact, the Black Schooner.

The huge vessel-of-war approached nearer and still nearer, but the schooner remained still stationary where she was. The sailors of the man-of-war prepared for action with enthusiasm. They could easily judge, from the shape of the schooner, and its peculiar rig, that she was the vessel of a pirate, if not of the pirate of whom they had so often heard. They saw their prize before them. The schooner, they thought, must yield to the superior strength of the man-of-war, and her conquest would be the easiest thing in the world. Besides, the little vessel could not but perceive their approach, and as she did not sail away, they argued there must needs be some cause, either mutiny or some other disagreement on board, which neutralized the authority of those in power, and which, consequently, would make her a still easier prize. They prepared their guns, on this account, with the keenest alacrity and lightness of heart, for men are always the more enthusiastic and brave when they are pretty well assured that they can command success.

The large vessel sailed down on the small schooner, that was still lying to, the standard of England was already waving from the spanker, the men were standing at their several stations, and the commander himself, who had now come on deck, was anxiously waiting until he came within gun-shot of the schooner, to signal her to surrender. The ship drew still closer, the order was given to make ready to fire, when ... like the shadowy fleetness of a dream, the masts of the Black Schooner at once became clothed in canvass, the black ensign with the cross bones and skull ran up the line on her gaff in chilling solemnity, while on the top of her raking masts floated two long pendant flags as red as blood, and the sharp vessel began to glide like a serpent silently over the waters.

Fearful of losing his prize, which was well-nigh within his reach, the commander of the ship-of-war observing the movements of the little vessel, quickly gave the order to fire. A loud and rending report of several guns at once echoed over the waves, and the shots dipped, and dipped, and dipped again, and fell harmless within a short distance of the schooner. The flag of the pirate schooner was lowered and hoisted, lowered and hoisted, lowered and hoisted again, in derision, as she steadily held her course. Another discharge ... and the shots sank as harmless as before: again the pirates lowered and hoisted their flags.

Every sail was set on the unwieldly ship, and her enormous studding-sails covered her yards and booms. Her hull could scarcely be seen, under the vast sheets that shaded her. The waves boiled up on each side of her bows, and like a whale, furious with a wound, she left behind her a wake of foam.

The Black Schooner glided along like a slender gar. Confident of the fleetness of their vessel, the pirates seemed inclined to mock the large and threatening fabric that was pursuing them. Ever and anon they changed their tack, and the vessel itself, which seemed to anticipate their wishes, played gracefully on the blue surface.

When all the ship’s studding-sails were set, and she was sailing rapidly before the wind, they would suddenly change their course, and draw their obedient vessel as close as possible up to the wind. As soon again as the man-of-war went through the labour of taking in her superfluous sails, again they would change their course. Now they shortened their sails, and then, as the ship gained on them, they had them up again as if by magic. Now they sailed away to a great distance, and then tacked and returned as if to meet and brave the pursuers; all the time, however, they kept out of the reach of the man-of-war’s guns with astonishing precision.

The chase continued thus the whole day, until night came and veiled pursuer and pursued.

Vexed with disappointment, and irritated by the taunts of the pirates, the commander of the man-of-war ordered the sails to be taken in, and the vessel to be luffed up into the wind. The order was immediately obeyed, and the crew, in thorough disgust, went away from the station to which they had that morning rushed with so much buoyancy.

It was, indeed, sufficient, to try the moral fortitude of the most philosophical. On one side there was a large heavy vessel, of size sufficiently huge to have crushed two such vessels as the pirate-schooner, from mere contact: on the other was that small and light vessel, which could be so easily destroyed, but which, notwithstanding the most eager desire on the part of the commander and crew to capture her, had so tantalizingly escaped them. After the continued chase of a whole day, the large vessel had proved as impotent and as incapable of carrying out their wishes, as a piece of floating timber; and what was still more galling, they had, in addition, been exposed to the most annoying derision of the pirates. Worse again, there was no probability of her being able, at any time, to overtake the schooner; for it was too clear that their large vessel could not sail so fast as she. The only chance of their capturing her was, in their taking her by surprise, an event which could not be reasonably calculated upon, when the pirates exhibited so much prudence and precision. The sailors, therefore, doggedly retired to their respective cots, muttering all the while, strong and complicated oaths against the individual who built the fast-sailing schooner.

As for the commander himself, he bore the disappointment with the less dumb patience, as the discipline of the ship did not bind him down to so much silence, as it did the crew. He fumed only as seamen can fume, and vowed, in the extremity of his anger, that he would perpetrate, Heaven only knew, what extent of cruelty,—which he never meant,—upon the insolent pirates, if he once had them in his power.

When calmer moments, however, succeeded to his wrathful feelings of disappointment, he began to think deeply on the course which it was prudent to adopt, in order to have a probable chance of capturing or destroying the schooner. The batteries and the crew of the ship, he rightly concluded, were of no use against an enemy that was sufficiently wise and experienced always to keep beyond the range of his guns; and, as for overtaking the schooner, it was a matter of absolute impossibility. He could decide on no clear plan. He, therefore, resolved, in that conjuncture, to sail about in those parts under little canvass, and trust to accident for a means of capturing the pirate vessel. The ship was, therefore, kept under only a part of her sails that whole night, and she moved almost imperceptibly.

At the first dawn of the next morning, watches were sent up the masts, and the horizon was carefully surveyed in search of the enemy which night had shrouded. Nothing was to be seen. The watch was, nevertheless, continued.

About four hours after sunrise, a vessel could be barely distinguished on the horizon. It was steering in the direction of the man-of-war. It rapidly approached, and as it drew nearer and nearer, it was discovered to be a long, low, sharp-built brig, with white port-holes, apparently a Mediterranean trader. She sailed so fast, that within three hours from the time when she was first discovered, she was opposite the large ship. She passed her at a short distance, but beyond the range of her guns.

The man-of-war immediately hoisted her ensign as a signal to the brig to show her colours; in answer to this signal, the strange vessel hoisted the Mexican flag.

The extraordinary speed of the strange brig, her low hull, the more than ordinary symmetry of her make and rigging, could not pass unobserved. They at once attracted the notice, and called forth the admiration of the sailors on board of the man-of-war; and leaning carelessly on the bulwarks, they were studying the beautiful brig before them, and were viewing her with the delight that seamen experience when they see a fine vessel.

“If that ain’t that ere identical pirate customer as we chased yesterday,” said an old grey-headed sailor, gravely, as he stood looking at her, “it’s one of the same sort, I know.”

“What are you saying, now,” asked a young man next to him.

“Why, the vessel we chased yesterday was a fore-and-aft schooner, and this one is a brig: where are your eyes?”

“Is this all you know?” inquired the old tar, indifferently, with a slight satirical smile. “Well, let me tell you, younker, that them ere customers change their skins, just like snakes, by G—d; and these eyes of mine that you inquire of, winked at a sou-wester long before you knowed what was what, my boy,” and the old seaman walked away to attend to some passing occupation, while, from time to time, he cast a stealthy look from under his spreading straw hat, at the vessel he seemed to hold in suspicion.

This feeling towards the Mexican brig was not confined to the common sailors alone: all seamen have an eye for the beautiful in ships. The commander himself was struck by the remarkably fine proportions of the vessel. He interrupted his habitual walk to gaze at her.

“A fine craft that is, Charles,” said he to his son.

“Yes, sir,” replied the latter, “a very beautiful model.”

“Look at her run, what a beautiful stern, and how sharp at the bows!” continued the old gentleman, with enthusiasm.

“And how remarkably fast she sails, too,” rejoined Charles.

“Hum!” remarked the old gentlemen, “she seems very light to be a trader.”

“It strikes me so, too,” replied Charles.

“The merchant who could have built that vessel to carry cocoa and coffee, must have been a very great fool, Charles,” continued the commander, still looking at the tidy brig that was sailing away magnificently before him.

“Yes, sir.”

“I begin to have my suspicions, Charles,” resumed the commander, after a pause, “that Mexican flag protects many a rascal: I shall make the fellow heave to.”

So saying, he ordered a gun to be fired, as a signal to the brig to lie to. The report of the huge machine of destruction rang over the waters, and the shot skipped the waves and sank. The suspicious brig paid no attention to it, but held her course, and, in four hours’ time, went out of sight, leaving the commander in now stronger suspicion with regard to her nature and character, and, in a furious rage into which he was thrown by the cool contempt with which his command was treated. He looked at the brig that was leaving his vessel behind, as if the latter was at anchor, and fretted, when he considered that his large ship was unable to enforce his order on account of its comparative slowness. With greater impatience than reason he looked only at what was, for the moment, a defect in the large man-of-war, and forgot, at the time, that if the two small vessels which had so mortified him, those two consecutive days, had over his ship the accident of speed, she, in her turn, possessed the infinitely more serviceable advantage of greater strength and more heavy metal.

“Well, younker,” said the same old sailor of the morning, to the same young man who had doubted his penetration, “well, younker, what do you think of that ere customer now, eh? He has the wind in his maintopsail, has’nt he? and seems to have plenty of pride of his own, and won’t speak to nobody. Ay, ay, them customers, never throw away words or shots, I know. Come, younker, I’ll give you another wrinkle,” continued the old tar.

“Well, let’s have it?”

“Mark my word,” continued the old sailor, in a low and mysterious tone, “if you don’t see that ere customer again, before long, my name is not what it is, I know,” and winking impressively on his hearers, he rolled away chuckling with self-satisfaction.

The man-of-war continued there the remaining portion of that day and the night which ensued: nothing happened, during that period of time, to relieve the longing anxiety of the man-of-war’s people.

The next morning the usual watches were again sent up the masts. About noon, a vessel came in sight. It was steering, like the one of the previous day, directly towards the man-of-war; and seemed to approach her with an equal degree of speed. As she drew nearer and nearer, she was made out to be a light brigantine, such as those that are to be seen on the Mediterranean. Strange, however, the hull and make seemed to be the same as those of the vessel spoken the day before: but the new comer, instead of painted port-holes, had but a plain white streak.

The men evinced the same admiration for this “craft,” to use their own term, as they did for the one of the day before. There was, however, such a striking similarity in the hulls of the two vessels, that their admiration soon gave place to a feeling of mixed surprise and suspicion.

“What can those two crafts be?” they mutually asked each other.

“They are men-of-war,” some answered: “but where are the port-holes of this customer?”

“By jingo! I think they are pleasure boats,” said one.

“Oh, no, they look to me like Malaga boats,” said another.

“But they are of the same make,” observed a third.

“Ay, ay, don’t you see they are sister-vessels, fools, and are on the same voyage?” said another, gravely, who, up to that time, had maintained unbroken silence, and had, with the aid of a serious aspect, looked wisdom itself.

“Ay, that’s it, that’s it,” they all cried, at this suggestion, “they belong to the same owner, and are on the same voyage.”

All seemed to concur in this opinion, except the same old sailor, who, on the previous day, regarded the Mexican brig with so much suspicion. He seemed to entertain doubts about this new vessel, as he did with regard to the other.

“Well, younker, what do you think of this fresh gentleman, now?” he said, satirically, to the unfortunate young man who had offended his self-esteem, and who seemed now to be entirely devoted to the revengeful ridicule of that elder son of Neptune.

“Don’t know,” was the crabbed reply.

“Don’t know, eh? you will know, perhaps, when them young eyes of yours have squinted oftner at the sun, my hearty, hi, hi, hi!”

The brigantine drew nearer and nearer, and seemed carefully to measure the same distance at which the brig of the day before had passed. She came with her sails filled with the fresh breeze, and was passing the man-of-war, when one of the heavy guns of the large vessel was fired. The shot fell across the brigantine’s bows, but at some distance from her.

Her sails still bellied with the wind; she still skipped along, and the beautiful and pure white wavelets of foam still swelled on each of her sides.

“Who the devil you may be, I shall have you to-day,” said the commander, looking intently fierce at the brigantine. “Give him another shot.”

Another deafening report was heard, and the grey smoke shrouded for a moment the dark riggings of the war-vessel, and then grew thinner and thinner, and rose above her masts.

A moment after, four flags ran up the peak of the brigantine.

“Ho! read what the fellow says, Mr. Cypher,” cried the commander, with no small degree of excitement, “he hears what we can say, I see.”

Mr. Cypher took the telescope.

“Y,” he said, “O,” he continued, “U,”—“YOU,” he proclaimed, with a loud voice.

“Hoist the answering pendant:” it was done.

The first four flags of the brigantine were now lowered, and four others hoisted in their place.

“A,” proceeded Mr. Cypher, deciphering the new signal, “R,” “E,”—“ARE,”—“you are.”

“Hoist the answering pendant:” it was done again.

The four flags were again lowered on board the brigantine, and four new ones were again hoisted. They were read, and were found to signify ‘too.’

“What can the fellow want to say?” inquired the commander, vaguely: “answer his signal.”

The signal was answered, and other flags were again hoisted on board the brigantine. When all the signals were taken together, they read—

“You are too far, your guns don’t carry.”

While at the conclusion of the process of exchanging signals, the broad black flag, with its head and bones, was spread over the mainsail.

“The rascals,” muttered the old commander, as he moved away from the bulwarks, with indignant disgust, “it is the same set, may the devil take them!”

“Ha, younker, what d’you see now, eh? You will believe old Jack Gangway another time, I know,” said the same old sailor, who all along had been so knowing and so suspicious.

“Crack on, crack on,” cried the old commander, “and haul your wind, we may edge up to her on a close bowline, and let her feel our metal.”

All the sails of the large vessel were now set. She was drawn closely to the wind, and leaned under the fresh breeze.

No sooner was this manœuvre completed, than the brigantine’s sails were also trimmed, her long yards were braced sharp; her vast mainsail was pulled in almost on a line with her rudder, and her head was put almost into the point of the wind itself, or, as seamen would designate it, into the “eye of the wind,” her stern was turned to the ship-of-war, and as she gradually left the latter behind, other four flags ran along the signal line. When read they said—

“Au revoir.”

And the black flag rose and fell, rose and fell again, at the mocking ceremony, that was intended to accompany this salutation.

This chase continued the rest of the day. The hours quickly fleeted by, and when gauzy twilight had shed its soothing and dreamy haze around, a few waves of the pirate’s flag, might still be dimly perceived, like the trembling of the phantom—leaves of dream; and then darkness spread its shrouding mantle over the ocean.

The sun had risen, the man-of-war was lying-to under one or two sails, the others had been taken in during the night; at some distance in the direction, in which the brigantine had disappeared, a vessel, apparently a wreck, was to be seen. She was a barque: portions of her masts were broken away; her rigging was slack, loose, and dry; her racketty yards waved from one direction to the other, as she clumsily rolled into the trough of the sea, or rose heavily on its crest. Their braces dangled loosely and neglectedly about, and either dragged overboard, or swung with a spring from one part of the deck to the other. In keeping with her disordered gear, her hull itself exhibited the greatest neglect and uncleanliness: the barnacles grew unmolested, to a considerable height, and the marks of the lee-water from the cuppers, stained her sides. The few sails which still remained on the unsteady yards were tattered and worn, and tied up in the oddest manner imaginable. The vessel had her English ensign tied upside down, in token of distress, on the little that remained of the mainmast’s rigging: an indication, which was not by any means required, in as much as the miserable manner in which she rolled about, was quite sufficient in itself, to tell that she was in a wretched condition.

As soon as the distressed vessel was perceived, signals were made to her to launch her boats, and to send alongside; but they seemed to be either not understood, or the people of the barque had no means of answering them.

But one solitary individual was to be seen standing on its deck, at the gangway, and wistfully looking towards the man-of-war.

The commander was not willing to launch any of his boats, he had, during the three or four days that had lately expired been so much cheated by pirates, that he was now made more than ordinarily cautious, and he repeated his signals, and waited many hours, either to have them answered, or to force the people of the distressed ship to launch their boat and come alongside his vessel: but neither the one thing or the other was done.

“These fellows can’t be cheats,” he said, “else they would have sailed away, though, it strikes me, it would be difficult for them to spread a sail on those yards of theirs,” said the commander, as his good feelings began to press upon him.

“They may be starved to death, or ill, have a boat launched, sir,” said he to the officer, after this short soliloquy, “and let them pull to those poor fellows. Tell the officer he must not let any of the men go on board, he may do so himself, if he thinks it necessary.”

Joyfully the true-hearted sailors, eager to succour their suffering brothers, lowered a boat, which a moment afterwards was bounding away in the direction of the distressed vessel.

They soon approached near enough to admit of speaking, and at his order, the men rested on their oars to allow the midshipman in command to hail the barque.

“What ship is that?” asked the midshipman.

“The Sting,” answered the solitary individual, who was standing at the gangway.

“Where from, and whither bound?”

“From Pernambuco to Liverpool,” answered the individual.

“What cargo?” demanded the midshipman.

“Cayenne pepper,” answered the individual.

“What is the matter with you?” asked the midshipman.

“Have been boarded by pirates—by a Black Schooner—men cut down in defending the vessel—the pirates left but me and another man, who is now ill below—they took away every thing,” answered the individual.

“It must be those same devils of pirates,” whispered the boatmen one to the other, “who have raked that cove; what fellows they seem to be, we will singe them some of those days though—be damn’d if we don’t.”

“If you would only let one of your men come on board for a moment to help me trim the yards, I should be all right,” added the individual at the gangway.

“Hum!” muttered the young midshipman; “that’s not much, but I fancy, old boy, you will do yourself no good in setting your sails, unless you wish the wind to help you take them in. Pull along side, men,” he said, after a second or two, “I shall go on deck and help him.”

The boat soon boarded the vessel.

“Keep the boat off,” said the officer, as he grasped the ropes of the steps.

“Ay, ay, sir,” said the boatswain, and the boat was shoved off from the vessel.

A shrill sound was heard, the apparent sides of the distressed barque opened, the stern fell heavily into the water, the racketty yards and old ropes went over the side, and from amidst the wreck of the skeleton ship, the Black Schooner sprang forth as she felt the power of her snow-white sails, which, with the rapidity of lightning, had now clothed her tall masts.

This metamorphosis was so sudden, that the schooner had already begun to move before the boatmen comprehended the change. They quickly pulled alongside, and fastened their hooks, but no hand of man could hold them. They were all torn away by the speed with which the schooner went. Every man in his turn let go his hold, and the boat, with its angry crew, was left floating far behind in the wake of the flying schooner.

CHAPTER XVIII.

After he had been defeated by the untoward accident of the shark in his attempt to rescue his captive chief, Lorenzo betook himself on board the schooner, a victim to disappointment and disgust.

He felt irresistibly inclined to break out in the most violent terms, and hurried down into his cabin as soon as he got on the deck of the schooner. He then partially gave vent to his feelings by speaking almost aloud.

“It would have been bearable,” he said, “bearable, if we had fought, and had been driven back; but to be foiled at the very moment when we were completing a breach, by a brute of a shark: confound it, and all other sharks, the brutes!” and thrusting his hand deeply into the bosom of his coat, he paced rapidly up and down his narrow cabin, while, from time to time, his lips moved violently as if he were repeating his anathemas against the particular shark and all the others.

This fit, however, did not continue long.

Schooled under the continual insecurity and danger which attended the life that he led, in which safety itself demanded the exercise of the greatest foresight and calmness, he speedily curbed his instinctive impulses of rage, and immediately began to deliberate with coolness and precision on the next measures which it was requisite for him to take.

He did not deliberate long. Accustomed to act in the face of danger, and to oppose his ready resources to sudden contingencies, he never required much time to debate with himself on the best and most prudent course to be adopted under unforeseen circumstances of danger. At this conjuncture, he resolved to watch the man-of-war closely, and to embrace the very first opportunity either to steal away Appadocca, or to rescue him at a calculated sacrifice of some of his men. For that purpose, the schooner was kept in the same position in which she was, until, as we have seen, the man-of-war made the descent upon her. Lorenzo purposely awaited the approach of the large vessel, so that he might have the opportunity of keeping, as he intended, close to the man-of-war. Nothing ever escaped the disciplined vigilance of the pirates, and although they seemed to be taken by surprise, still they had their eyes all the time on the movements of the pursuing vessel; and, as the reader has seen, disappointed so signally the encouraged expectations of its crew and commander.

When night had put an end to the chase of that day, Lorenzo put his men busily at work.

In a few moments, the ordinary sails of the Black Schooner were symmetrically folded within the smallest imaginable size, and carefully covered up at the foot of each of the masts, and from under the deck, yards, cordage, and sails for a square-rigged vessel were brought up, and, in as short a time, the thin tapering masts were seen garnished with the numerous ropes, yards, and sails of a full-rigged brig; while, to complete the metamorphosis, stripes of new canvass were carefully cut in the shape of the imitation port-holes, which are generally painted on the sides of merchant vessels, and were closely fastened to the sides of the Black Schooner, and adjusted in such a careful manner as to conceal completely the guns of the disguised vessel.

It was in this guise that the Black Schooner passed before the man-of-war, and showed Mexican colors.

After Lorenzo had closely reconnoitered his pursuer, and had raised the suspicion which procured him the salute of a gun, he again sailed away out of sight, and with the same expedition as of the night before, the mainmast of the apparent brig was immediately divested of its yards, and, in their places, the sharp sails of a schooner were again set. In the rig of a brigantine, the Black Schooner again passed before the man-of-war.

But these distant surveys, for caution prevented him from going within the range of the ship’s guns, were not sufficient to satisfy Lorenzo, who now began to suffer under the most impatient anxiety with regard to the safety of his chief and friend.

The brave officer feared, that annoyed by his inability to overtake the schooner, the commander of the ship might, perhaps, have immediately ordered the execution of his prisoner; that Appadocca might, by that time, have been dealt with in the summary manner in which pirates were usually treated, and had been hanged on the yard-arm without accusation, hearing, or judgment.

“If so,” cried Lorenzo, as this fear grew more and more upon him, “if so, I swear, by the living G—d, that I shall burn that large vessel to the very keel, and shall not spare one, not a single one of its numerous crew to tell the tale—cost what it may, by G—d, I’ll do it.”

To procure information, therefore, about the fate of one whom he loved as a brother: and in order to satisfy his doubts, he resolved at once on taking one or two of the man-of-war’s men, and settled on the expedient of the distressed barque, with which the reader has just been made acquainted.

The young midshipman had no sooner laid his foot on the deck of the disguised schooner, before he was strongly grasped by the powerful arm of a man who had been carefully concealed behind the false bulwarks of the skeleton barque, while the voice of Jim Splice—it was the man—whispered in his ear,—

“Don’t resist, young countryman, all right.”

But as soon as the first impulse of the young officer had passed away, and he discovered that he was left on board a vessel which presented an unmistakable appearance of being engaged in some forbidden trade, and when he saw before him numbers of fierce-looking, armed men, he struggled for a moment, and succeeded in drawing his sword. But Lorenzo, the formerly solitary man on the deck of the distressed vessel, calmly stepped up to him, and said,—

“Young gentleman, be not alarmed, no violence will be done to you: sheath your sword,” and casting his eyes around on the men, continued, “you see, it will not be of much service to you against such odds.”

“Who are you?” peevishly inquired the young officer, “what do you intend to do with me?”

“I shall soon tell you,” replied Lorenzo, “if you will be good enough to accompany me to my cabin.”

“What cabin? and what to do? You may cut my throat here,” said the midshipman, angrily.

“Perhaps you would not be so unreasonable,” remarked Lorenzo, softly, “if you were to hear the little that I have to inquire of you: pray, come with me.”

“I shall not go with you,” angrily rejoined the midshipman, “I am in the hands of pirates, I know. You may murder me, where I am, but I shall not go down with you to any cabin.”

“Then stay where you are,” coolly answered Lorenzo, and he walked away to the after part of the schooner, and ordered Jim Splice to let go the young man.

The older sailor relaxed his grasp, but availed himself of the opportunity which he now had, to whisper in the ears of the midshipman—

“Don’t attempt to crow too high here, shipmate, else you will get the worst of it, ’d’ye hear?”

And the old tar winked his eye to the young midshipman. The familiar sign of knowingness contrasted strangely with the terrible moustachios and beard with which Jim Splice had deemed it characteristic to ornament his homely and good-natured old face.

In the mean time all sail was set, and the man-of-war was left far behind. The sailors had now again posted themselves at their regular stations, and the ordinary quiet had now succeeded to the short excitement of making sail. The midshipman was still standing in the same spot where Lorenzo had left him. His anger, however, had evaporated to a considerable extent, under the wise prescription of leaving the angry man to himself, which Lorenzo was wise enough to make, and like all men who are not absolutely fools, the midshipman had thrown off as much as possible of that wasting and useless attendant—rage, as soon as his first impulses had somewhat subsided.

Instead of continuing in that dogged sulkiness, in which he had been left by Lorenzo, he was now examining, with an interested eye, the make, rigging, and equipment of the strange schooner.

It was at this moment that a steward approached him, and inquired if he was then at leisure to attend his master in his cabin, and led the way to the part of the vessel in which that was situated. The midshipman, without answering, followed. Lorenzo was already there, waiting for him. The officer politely stood, bowed to the stranger, pointed to a cabin chair: the midshipman seated himself.

“Before mentioning the business for which I have entrapped you, young gentleman,” said Lorenzo, “I must tell you, that you need be under no apprehension as long as you are on board this schooner, and that you shall receive the proper treatment that one gentleman owes to another, unless, it is understood, you force us, by your own conduct, to act otherwise than we usually do.”

“Gentleman! how dare you compare yourself to me, and call yourself a gentleman?” said the midshipman, with more of impulse than of reason.

Like one who has disciplined his mind to pursue his purposes with a stedfast straightness which is not to be diverted by any accident, though not, perhaps, without some disdain for the immoderation of the young man, the pirate officer heeded not his last remark, but proceeded as if he had not heard it.

“My purpose for enticing you on board this vessel, is to procure information about my chief, who is now a prisoner on board the ship to which you belong. You will be good enough to give clear and categorical answers to the questions which I shall put to you.”

This was said in a firm, although cool tone.

“What? do you imagine,” inquired the young officer, with scorn, “I am going to tell to a pirate what takes place on board a vessel in which I have the honor to serve? By Jove, no!—it is hard enough to be kidnapped by a set of rascals, without being asked to play traitor and spy, to boot. But—”

“Cease this nonsense,” interposed Lorenzo, “you waste time, answer me first, is Appadocca alive?”

“I shall not give you any information,” peevishly replied the young officer.

“I do not see,” remarked Lorenzo, mildly, and almost paternally, “I do not see that it can possibly affect your honor if you give me a very simple answer to a very simple question. I ask, if Emmanuel Appadocca is alive?”

“I shall answer you nothing,” said the midshipman, insultingly.

“Shall answer me nothing,” calmly echoed Lorenzo, while, like the still and steady terrors of an earthquake, the signs of anger were now fast gathering on his brow. He reflected a moment.

“Young man,” he said firmly, “men do not usually speak with negatives to me, or such as I am. You seem disposed to run great risks—risks, of the nature of which you are not, perhaps, aware. Let me caution you again; I put my former question,—is the captain of this schooner, who is now a prisoner on board the ship to which you belong, alive and safe?”

“I have said I shall answer none of your questions,” replied the midshipman, “trouble me no more.”

The pirate officer rose, and drew forth a massive gold watch.

“You see,” said he, pointing to the time-piece, “that the minute-hand is now on twelve, when it reaches the spot which marks the quarter-of-an-hour, I shall expect an answer. In the meantime make your reflections. If you wish for any refreshment speak to the man outside, and you shall have whatever you desire.” So saying, the officer rose, made a slight bow, and left the cabin.

The young officer being left alone, seemed by no means inclined to trouble himself about the last speech of the pirate officer. He moved about the cabin restlessly. Sometimes he stopped to examine one object, and then another.

No further thought than that of the moment seemed to intrude on his mind; and the consequence of his persistence in refusing to answer the questions of the pirate officer never seemed to break in upon him. The levity of youth was, perhaps, one of the principal causes of this strange carelessness. He was also highly swayed by the notions which he had gathered from among those in whose society he lived. These led him to entertain an extravagant idea of his own importance, which, among other things, could not admit of accepting terms from the officer of any nation that was lower than his own, and, least of all, from a villainous pirate. He, therefore, affected to treat the pirate officer with a contempt, which it was as inexpedient to show, as it was silly to entertain.

He was moving about in the temper which we have described, when the door of the cabin opened, and Lorenzo entered. He moved up to the upper part of the cabin, and seated himself.

“Will you now answer my question?” he demanded, “the hand is on the quarter.”

“I have already told you, no,” replied the youth.

Lorenzo called—an attendant appeared.

“Let the officer of the watch send down four men,” he said.

The attendant retired. In a few moments four men, under the command of a junior officer, entered the cabin. Lorenzo stood—pointed to the midshipman—

“Torture him until he speaks,” he said, and abruptly left the cabin.

The pirates silently advanced on their victim.

“The first man that dares approach me, shall die under this sword,” shrieked the midshipman, furiously, and brandished his sword, madly. Still the pirates advanced more closely to him. They beat down his guard, surrounded him, and, in the twinkling of an eye, he was bound hand and foot. Lifting him bodily, the pirates carried him on their shoulders out of the cabin.

He was then taken to a narrow compartment at the very bows of the vessel, that was, it seemed, the torture-room.

The appearance of the room was sufficient to strike one at once with an idea of the bloody and cruel deeds that might be perpetrated there. It was a narrow cabin into which the light could never penetrate; for there was no opening either for that or for fresh air. The small door which led into it was narrow and low: it turned on a spring, and seemed so difficult to be opened, that one was forced to imagine that it was either loth to let out those that had once got in, or that it was eager to close in for ever upon those that might enter through it.

The deck was scoured as white as chalk, and, like the shops of cleanly butchers in the morning, was scattered over with sand. The sides of the cabin, as if to augment the darkness that already reigned, were painted a dark, sombre, and gloomy colour, which was here and there stained by the damp.

In contrast to this prevalent hue of frightful black, hung a variety of exquisitely-polished torturing instruments. Cruelty, or expediency, or necessity, seems to have exhausted its power of invention in designing them, so different were they in form, and so horridly suited to the purpose of giving pain.

These seemed to frown malignantly on those who entered that narrow place; and the imagination might even trace, in their burnished hue, and high efficient condition, a morbid desire, or longing, to be used.

To make the “darkness visible,” and to reveal the horror of the place, an old bronzed lamp hung from the beams of the upper deck, and threw a faint and sickly light around.

In the centre of this cabin lay a long, narrow, and deep box, which was garnished within with millions of sharp-pointed spikes. The torture which the victim suffered in this machine, was a continued pricking from the spikes, against which he was every moment suddenly and violently driven by the lurching of the vessel.

In this the midshipman was immediately thrown, and he shrieked the shriek of the dying when he was roughly thrown on the sharp instruments.

“Hell! hell! the torments of hell,” he yelled out, as the sharp spikes pierced him to the quick.

As he made an effort to turn, he increased his agony, and as the vessel heaved, the points went deeper and deeper into his flesh.

Already the suffering of the young man was at its height, and by the livid light of the glimmering lamp, large drops of death-like sweat, could now be seen flowing over his pallid face, which was locked in excruciating pain.

“Oh, God!” he cried, frantic with suffering, “Heaven save me.”

His executioners stood around immovable, calm, and fierce, as they always were, more like demons sucking in the pleasure of mortals’ pains, than men.

The young man seemed maddened with pain, his shrieks pierced through even the close sides of the torture-room.

“Will you speak?” inquired the officer.

“Yes—no. Oh, good God! No—yes: curse you all—you devils; you demons—d—n you,” were the frenzied replies.

An hour passed; his pains and shrieks continued; albeit the latter now grew fainter and fewer. Nature could endure no more; his nervous system sank under pain and exhaustion, and he swooned.

The pirates removed him, and plied him with restoratives, and he gradually revived.

The suffering of the midshipman had produced a weakening effect upon him, such as disease produces on the strongest minds; it had destroyed his hot and fierce spirit. Yes, the pain of the body had conquered the resolution of the mind, and after the first torturing, the young officer was less spirited, less boisterous, and less impatient.

Animation had scarcely returned, when the wretched victim was again thrown on the spikes which, piercing through his fresh wounds, added still more to the agony which he had before endured. The pain this time was not bearable.

“Oh! save me from this,” the young man cried, convulsively, “kill me at once.”

“We want not your life, what good is that to us?” replied the junior officer in command of the pirates, “we wish only to hear about our captain, who may be at this moment undergoing the same pains as you.”

“Then remove me, and I shall speak. No, yes, no, yes.”

“You will then cease to play the fool at your own cost,” was the laconic and unsympathising reply of the above-mentioned officer, who, at the same time, dispatched one of his men to report that the prisoner was willing to speak.

Lorenzo, in a few moments, crept into the narrow room.

“Will you now answer my question?” he inquired of the victim.

“Yes.”

“Is the captain alive and safe?”

“Yes.”

“What are the intentions of your captain about him?”

“To—oh! take me away from these spikes: oh! these cursed spikes.”

“Speak.”

“To take him to Trinidad, to be tried.”

“When is your ship to direct her course to that place?—Take him out, men.”

The victim was taken out.

“She was—oh! what happiness—she was to do so, to-day.”

“That’s enough. Young man, I admire your spirit: it might be developed into something useful under proper discipline; as you are, at present, you are only a slave of impulses, that are as wild as your original self. Take him to the surgeon’s room.”

Giving this order to his men, Lorenzo left the cabin of torture.

CHAPTER XIX.

When the men of the man-of-war pulled on board, after their young officer had been entrapped into the schooner, and reported the occurrence to the commander, notwithstanding the great command which, considering his life and avocation, he had over himself, he flew into a violent passion. The success which had, up to that time, attended the pirates, either in flying from him, or in outwitting him, had already tried his patience to the utmost. To have met an enemy equally armed, to have tried the fortune of a fight with him, and to have been beaten would not, perhaps, have had such a mortifying effect on the mind of the old commander as to have been subjected to the tantalizing deceptions and mocking cunning of the pirates.

He walked the deck as furiously as his gouty old limbs would carry him, and spoke to himself in a voice that was hoarse with passion.

“First,” said he, “the blackguards waited until I was just about to give the order to fire, and then sprang out of my reach. Then their d—n—d schooner sailed so fast, and this tub of a thing was so slow, that by G—d, by making the masts creak again, I could not force her to move faster; while all the time those d—n—d villains were playing about me, and amusing themselves at my expense: the devil take them. Then the rascals went, and took down their own sails, and rigged themselves up in a brig’s canvass, and passed by me—fool as I was. I showed the blackguards bunting, instead of sending a broad-side into them at once, d—n them; and now, at noon-day, when the sun is high in the heavens, when every man can see fifty miles before him, I have let those rascals come almost alongside, and kidnap one of my officers. D—n them, d—n them.

“I tell you what it is, Charles,” continued the old gentleman, red in the face with rage, “the weight of a feather in my mind would make me hang—by G—d, yes—hang at once that astronomical friend of yours; hang, I say, on one yard-arm, and that d—n—d rascally looking father of his on the other: for it is these fellows, d—n them, that have been the cause of my being insulted and duped by a set of ruffianly cut-throats,” and the old man walked the deck even still more violently than before.

His son, who had listened to this explosion, was too prudent to interrupt it or to reply to it.

He knew his father: he knew that, like the generality of persons of a warm, generous, frank and open disposition, his outbreaks were as furious and unmeaning, while they lasted, as they were short-lived; he, therefore, remained silent, and permitted the fit to exhaust itself.

“Hark you,” continued the commander in a tone that indicated a subsiding of the paroxysm, “let the course of the vessel be changed immediately, and let us go to Trinidad. I shall not be lumbered with rascally pirates, and villainous planters, on board my ship. My vessel was made to fight better foes than these scurvy sea-thieves. Crowd on canvass, crowd on canvass, and let us steer for Trinidad at once, and deliver these foul fellows into the hands of the lawyers. But first, call up that friend of yours: a fine companion for a British officer, Mr. Charles—a very fine companion!”

“You forget, sir,” meekly remarked his son, “that when I knew Appadocca he was not a pirate.”

“Well, well, that will do, let the man be brought before me.”

In a short time Appadocca, under the charge of two marines, was led into the presence of the commander.

Imprisonment and anxiety, if he was still capable of of feeling the latter, seemed to have had no effect upon him. His calmness, his cynicism was the same. Solitude, which to other men is at best but dreary, and is ordinarily but the provocative of reflections which may, perhaps, be embittered by the events and scenes which they recall—solitude which, to Appadocca in particular, one might suppose could have been only an encouragement to musings, which were likely to be attended if not with sorrow, at least with but little happiness, appeared to have had no effect on him. He seemed, if we can use the expression, but to enjoy his own misanthropic seclusion, and as for the circumstance that he was a prisoner, that made no change in him. He looked upon every position with the eye of fatalism, ay, and of that fatalism which does not arise from the obligation of any religious creed, but which is the tasteless fruit of a long series of disappointments and calamities—the fatalism of despondent resignation.

Such a feeling has influenced more than one mortal in his earthly career. Full many a warrior, whose praises are now chimed through an admiring world, has gone forth to achieve wonders, to conquer, and to be great, with such a sentiment rooted in his heart. Full many a conqueror has let loose the eaglet of his ambition, without seeing the rock or prominence on which the still young and strengthless master of the far skies could rest, save, indeed, the shadowy foot-hold that hope could fancy to discover in the sombre workings of inscrutable fate.

Such was the feeling of Emmanuel Appadocca, the pirate captain: such was the strengthening thought which buoyed and supported him in the unnatural career into which cruelty and unkindness had drawn him, and that idea imparted to him equanimity under all adversities, courage and valour in the fight, unscrupulousness in according judgment, boldness in working retribution, and stoicism in imprisonment.

“Tell me, sir,” said the commander, endeavouring to resume as much of his native dignity as his heated blood would permit him; “tell me, sir, in what bay those lawless men—the pirates who follow you—hide themselves, and where I can surprise them. I expect the truth from you, sir, although you may denounce your associates by speaking it.”

The lips of Appadocca curled a little.

“My lord,” he answered, “as long as I was on board my schooner, we sought no other shelter than that which was afforded us by the high and wide seas.”

The commander looked at Appadocca fiercely in the eyes.

“I should be sorry,” he said, “to suspect you of falsehood or prevarication, since you have been the fellow-student of my son: but your answer is vague and unsatisfactory. Do you mean to say that you have no harbour, no creek whither you were accustomed to resort, after your piratical cruizes?”

“None, my lord: after our ‘piratical cruizes,’ as you, I dare say justly, call them, we were in the habit of taking our booty for sale to the nearest port and of depending upon our own skill and watchfulness for safety.”

“Hum!” muttered the commander, after a pause, “you are aware, sir, that one of my officers has been kidnapped by your rascally associates, as I presume them to be,” continued the commander, with his temper evidently breaking through the composed dignity which he endeavoured to retain.

“Now, sir, the punishment that I should feel justified in inflicting upon you, would be to have you hanged, at once, on that yard,” and he pointed to the main yard.

“My lord,” calmly replied Appadocca, “I am in your power, the yard is before you, you have men at your command, do whatever you may choose with me.”

The commander looked at him steadfastly for a moment or two.

“D—n him!” he muttered, and turned away.

The frankness and generosity of his nature were again gaining ground upon his temper.

“I should not like to have anything to do with the death of this fellow, after all. It is a pity that his bravery is thrown away among those rascally devils,” he whispered to his son. Then, addressing the two men who guarded Appadocca, “take the prisoner away. See that canvass be put on the ship, and steer for the Island of Trinidad, Mr. Charles.”

“If you will allow me the liberty, my lord,” said Appadocca, as the marines were about to lead him away, “I would tell your lordship that you need be under no apprehension on account of your officer: we are not in the habit of using violence, or of ill-treating our captives when there is no occasion for doing so.”

“Hum!” groaned the commander somewhat incredulously.

“And, if you allow me, my lord, I shall request my officer to be especially careful of putting any restraint whatever upon your midshipman,” continued Appadocca.

“What the devil do you mean, sir?” briskly inquired the commander, “do you wish to insult me?”

“By no means, my lord,” answered Appadocca.

“And how do you tell me, then,” continued the commander, “that you will ‘request your officer,’ when there is no officer to be requested?”

“Although there is no officer to be seen, my lord,” answered Appadocca, “still I can request him: all things can be done by a variety of ways, my lord.”

“How am I to understand you, sir?” inquired the commander.

“Simply in this manner,” replied Appadocca, “that if you allow me, I shall communicate with my chief officer, and request him to take care of your officer.”

“And how do you propose to do so,” asked the commander, after a considerable pause.

“Only with four flags,” answered Appadocca.

“What will you do with those?”

“I shall make signals with them.”

“But there is no vessel in sight.”

“No, my lord.”

“How, then, can your signals be of service?” inquired the commander.

“Pardon me, my lord, if I decline to answer this question. The sparrow by caution flies the heavens with the hawk.”

“I should suppose, sir, when you have now no prospect of ‘flying the heavens’ again,” said the commander, “you could have no objection to give us a piece of information, which cannot but be serviceable to us. However, make the signals, sir. Bring four flags there.”

Appadocca took the flags and adjusted them in a particular manner on the line.

“Stop!” cried the commander, when they were about to be hoisted. “What warrant have I that you will not say more than is necessary?” he inquired of Appadocca.

“None, my lord, except my word,” cooly replied Appadocca, “if you consider this of any value, take it, if not, reject it. But recollect, my lord, if I had been inclined to be a deceiver, I should have remained in the society of mankind, and should have prospered by coating over my rascality with the varnish either of mock benevolence or of sanctimony; I should not have openly braved the strength and ordinary notions of the world.”

“Very well, sir, proceed,” said the commander.

“Within a few minutes after the completion of the signals, you will hear the answer—the report of many guns fired at the same time,” said Appadocca, and made a sign to hoist.

“What is the fellow going to do?” inquired the sailors one of the other.

“He is going to speak to the ‘old boy,’ I suppose,” answered one.

“He won’t do him much good, I fancy,” remarked the other.

“No, he will leave him in the hands of the landsharks, I guess,” said another.

In the mean time, continuing to make the signals, Appadocca adjusted and re-adjusted the four flags in a great variety of ways, and, at last, said to the commander:—

“Now, my lord, listen.”

In a few moments the report of distant guns fell on the ear.

“Magic, by G—d!” each sailor exclaimed.

“How very strange,” the commander remarked.

“Bring up all the glasses, there,” he said, “and send up there Charles, and see where that firing comes from.”

Men immediately climbed the masts, and surveyed the horizon. No telescope of the man-of-war could discover whence came the report of the guns.

After this Appadocca was led back to his cabin, and sails were put on the huge vessel that now began to move majestically through the water.

There is a soft and sweet pleasure in sailing among the West India Islands. He who has not sailed in the Caribean sea, he who has not stood on the deck of his gliding vessel, and felt the cooling freshness of the trade winds, and seen the white winged birds plunge and rise in silent gracefulness, he who has not marked the shining dolphin in its playing course, and seen the transparent foam rise and melt before the scattering breeze, with the blue waters below, a high smiling sky above, and the rich uninterrupted beams of a fierce and powerful sun, gilding the scene, can scarcely say that he knows what nature is. For, he who has not seen the tropics has not seen her as she is in her most perfect form.

The ship held her course through the waters which, reflecting the rays of the sun, undulated like a sheet of molten silver, in which she seemed but the gathered dross floating on its surface. As she moved and broke that shining surface, the waters frothed for a time about her and then closed in smoothness again; while the sea birds playfully gathered in the silvery wake, the weeds which shone, like golden drops, in the pebbly bed of some clear and limped stream.

With nature smiling thus around him, with the silence which brings not gloom surrounding him, with the balmy breeze rising fresh and sweet from the bosom of the waters, fanning him into contemplation, the hardest-natured man must feel if only for a moment, the chastening quietude, which only nature, and he who is mirrored in nature, can impart and bestow.

The bosom in which the snakes of envy or hatred have long nestled and brooded, may feel itself relieved of half its oppression and suffering whilst gazing at nature’s beautiful works, as manifested among the islands of the tropics, and beholding in its embodiment of splendour the omnipotence of the Creator. How many a heart whose life-blood has been frozen under the influence of ingratitude, cruelty, revenge, and pride, or, perhaps, of the sad consciousness of a country’s thankfulness—a country in whose cause youth, energy, wealth, and talents—may all have been spent, has not been soothed into mild quiescence by scenes like these?

There are countries around which the works of man have thrown a veil of enchantment; there are climes that are sacred, because some Heaven-born poet sang there; there are spots about which the memory of mankind has clung, and will for ever cling: such countries and such places are made famous, great and enchanting by man alone. Their beauties sprang from his hand. The idea which plants on them the ever-enduring standard of veneration arose from his valour, his heroism, or perhaps his benevolence, but whatever charm or interest the tropics possess they derive from nature, and from nature only.

For three days together, the ship continued her course, amidst the horse-shoe formed islands of the West-Indian Archipelago, which, at a distance at sea, appear merely like heavy clouds where nothing is real, nothing is animated, resting on the surface of the waters.

On the morning of the fourth, the towering mountain-peaks of Trinidad which inspired in the devout Columbus, the name which the island now bears, appeared in sight.

Gradually the bold and rocky coast which girds the island on the north, grew more and more distinct and as the day waned, the ship entered the channel that separates the small island of Tobago from Trinidad, and bears the name of the latter.

The old commander, with necessary caution, ordered the greater part of the sails to be taken in; the vessel moved along slowly, and was borne down principally by the strength of the current.

The commander stood on the quarter-deck admiring the romantic scenery which presented itself on the left to his view. There the overhanging rocks rose perpendicularly from the heaving ocean, whose long lasting and lashing billows broke on their rugged base, and shrouded them in one constant sheet of white bubbling foam, and as they towered and seemed to lose themselves in the clouds, they bore on their hoary heads forests of gigantic trees, whose many colored blossoms appeared far out at sea; while down their furrowed sides torrents of the purest water fell foaming in angry precipitance. Here some cave hollowed by no hand of man—the home of the untiring pelicans that ply the wing the live-long day, would send forth its hollow murmurs, as it regurgitated some heaving rolling wave that had intrusively swept into its inmost recess. There some rock from whose side time had torn away its fellows, stood naked and bare, sullen in its solitude, and resisting the powerless waves that dashed themselves into a thousand far-flying sprays upon its jagged front; and here again some secluded creek, eaten deeply into the heart of the frowning highlands, in which the waters lay smooth and quiet, like tired soldiers after the toil and strife of battle.

Such scenes might well make an impression on those who looked on; and even the rough weather-beaten sailors, to whose eyes nature may have long grown familiar, stood leaning on spar or anchor viewing the awe-inspiring scene.

Among those on deck stood also James Willmington: and what were his feelings, he whose memory had been so recently recalled to deeds which could not render him an easier-minded man, if they had not had the effect of making him a better one? Nature is itself an accuser! To the bosom where all is not right, she speaks in terror. The trembling of a leaf, the sudden flight of a startled insect, the gliding of a lizard appals the guilty conscience. Could the man on whose head the crime of huge injustice pressed heavily—the man whose cruelty had blasted the life which he gave, and who was at that moment conducting to the gallows, the child whom he had begotten—could such a man mingle the stirred sentiments of his soul with the sublime grandeur of nature, and send them forth with the voice of the mighty proclaimer, in mute veneration to the throne of God. No! nature is not cruel, nature deserts not its humblest offspring, she, therefore, could receive no sympathy from the heart of such a man.

Let us now go to the cabin of Appadocca. He was sitting on the rude accommodation which had been afforded him, with his arms crossed over his breast, and his earnest eyes fixed on the mountains of Paria, which he could see on the right, through the port-hole that admitted air and light into his cabin, and which had now been opened, inasmuch as it was considered a matter of impossibility for him to escape, while the ship was under sail on the high seas.

He was absorbed in deep thought; and he watched the neighbouring mountains with more and more earnestness, as they rose higher and higher to the view, on the gradual approach of the vessel. Twilight came, and threw its mellow hue around. It soon departed, and the scene, which was but a short time before enlivened by the powerful sun, was left in gloomy silence.

As the ship approached the little islands of the Bocas, nothing could be heard but the roars of the lashing surges, as they broke at regular intervals on the rocks.

Night came, dark and dreary. The ship approached the largest of the three small outlets. Every one on board was fixed in silent attention to his duty. The senior officer stood at the shrouds, trumpet in hand, with the aged commander by his side. Every man was at his post, awaiting in anxiety the command to trim sails, in order to enter the difficult passage.

That was always a moment of anxiety in every vessel going through it; for such was its narrowness, and the strength of the current that swept down the channel along the Venezuelan coast, that if a ship once went but a yard further down than where she ought to trim her sails, and luff up through the passage, it became a labour of many weeks to beat up against the wind and current to the proper place.

The critical moment came; the ship was within the Dragon’s Mouth; she trembled as if she had been lashed by the tail of some sea-monster, ten times larger than herself, as she mounted the cross chopping seas, which always run high and heavy at that entrance to the Gulf of Paria.

“Lee braces all,” the commanding officer trumpeted forth.

“Luff.”

The ropes glided through a thousand pullies, and the heavy chains of the tacks clanked through their iron blocks as they were eased away. The sailors moved in disciplined order from rope to rope, and the deck sounded with their rolling foot-falls. The serious marine intermitted his monotonous and limited march for a moment, and leaned in a corner to give room to the busy mariners.

Appadocca had continued to sit in the same position as we have mentioned a few lines back, from the fading of the short twilight up to that time, which was now near midnight.

Although he could not see, nevertheless he seemed during the whole time to use his ears for the same earnest purpose as he had done his eyes; and as soon as he felt the heaving labours of the vessel, and heard the noise that was made by the falling of the blocks on the deck, he sprang from his seat like a young horse when it is goaded.

“Ha! this is the time at last,” he exclaimed, in a subdued tone, and springing towards the port-hole with one effort of impulsive strength, he tore down its framework: next, he grasped the stool on which he had sat.

“Confusion,” he cried, “it will not yield:” the stool was tied to a ring on the deck.

When Appadocca discovered this, he seemed slightly alarmed: he stood for a moment thinking how he could unfasten the stool. To undo it with his hands was a labour of hours, and he had nothing with which he could cut it. His eyes quickly surveyed the cabin; he rushed towards a basin which had been allowed him, he placed it on the deck, and jumped upon it. With the pieces of the brittle ware, he began to saw at the lashing of the stool.

It was a tedious labour, one which required an unconquerable perseverance to overcome.

Full ten minutes—minutes that on such occasions are more precious than years—had expired, and he had made scarcely any progress. As he sawed through one fold of twine, another appeared, but still he persevered, and blunted every piece of the broken basin in succession.

The stout heart and persevering hand will conquer immensities of obstacles.

At last, at last, the folds were sawed through. Appadocca seized the stool with both hands.

“Now for life again, and the accomplishment of my design,” he said, and endeavoured to pitch it through the hole, but ill-fortune stepped in again to baulk him. The stool was too large to pass through the opening, he tried it various ways, but with no success.

“Destiny,” he calmly muttered, as he put it down with the fortitude of a Diogenes.

He cast his eyes around him; there was a large Spanish pitcher of clay, such as are used in the tropics, in which water was brought to him: a drowning man, they say, will grasp at a straw: he laid hold of it, he tried it, it passed the opening.

“Now, farewell, good ship,” he said, and leaned over the side of the vessel. He allowed the pitcher to fall quietly into the water, and he himself, plunged after it into the unfathomable waste.

“A man overboard!” some one cried on deck.

“No, no:” said another, “it’s only the slack of the main-brace.”

“Are you sure of that?”

“Quite sure.”

“All right.”

CHAPTER XX.

On jumping into the sea, Appadocca swam dexterously after the pitcher, which he had thrown before him; then resting one hand upon it, and moving the other easily through the water, he paused a moment to gaze at the large ship that was now looming in the darkness, and was rapidly leaving him far behind.

The vessel continued her course. It was evident no one on board of her had seen his escape. He was left alone on the sea. He now began to swim in the direction in which long habit had taught him the coast of Venezuela was situated. As he progressed through the water he pushed the pitcher before him. Now and then he paused, and rested as before, with one hand on the pitcher, while he lightly floated himself with the other. Hours passed, and every succeeding one found the indefatigable Appadocca buffetting the waves with a heart of resolution, and an eye of determination. The thick darkness of the night was fast passing away, the gray dawn of morning was appearing, and the dark mountains of Venezuela began to rise to the view with that cheating delusion which mountains at that early hour of the morning present, and by their apparent nearness, one moment seduce the weary oarsman into the grateful belief that he is fast approaching the end of his irksome labour, only to irritate him the next by their constant and still greater recession.

The swimming fugitive felt encouragement and support from these two happy circumstances. More and more vigorously he stretched out his arms. Only three miles now seemed to separate him from the land. The currents and the sweep of the waves were in his favour.

On, on he pushed his befriending pitcher, and swam and rested alternately. The desperate hazard which he had incurred in throwing himself overboard in a boiling sea in a part where all the sharks of the neighbouring waters assemble to feed upon the refuse that is borne down by the gulf-current, seemed about to terminate happily and prosperously, and the act which at first may have borne the appearance of a voluntary seeking of death on his part, was about to result in deliverance and safety.

Perhaps even the seared, stoical heart of the cynical Appadocca, under these happy forebodings, throbbed a little more highly than usual.

But the grounds on which pleasure and hope are built, are too often sandy: our highest subjects of joy and congratulation are, alas! too liable to be converted, in the imperceptible space of a second, into those of misery and woe. So it proved with Emmanuel Appadocca.

When, as we have remarked, these prospects dawned in reality upon him, his strokes were made with more vigour; he became, consequently, the sooner tired, and was obliged to pause for rest more frequently.

After one of these intervals, after having “screwed up his courage to the sticking point,” he gave his pitcher a push before him. The vessel floated to a considerable distance in front, then suddenly melted to pieces and sank for ever.

The soft clay of which it was made was dissolved by the water, and could no longer hold together.

If Appadocca had, a moment before, permitted his cynicism to incline beyond its medium point towards joy, so now he could not prevent it from verging to an equal distance on the opposite side. He had, but a few minutes ago, been induced to hope that he should be able to reach the land. Prospects of once more heading his faithful followers warmed his heart; and the prospect, too, of still being able to execute his design upon the man whose heart was too bad to open to repentance and justice from the lessons of his victim-judge, and from the perils out of which only the sheerest hazard had delivered him: but now, with the assisting pitcher his hopes also sank. It was now next to impossible that he could reach the shore; for although like the pedestrian who, with certain intervals of rest, may walk the whole globe, he could swim a considerably greater distance than seven miles—the distance which now intervened between him and the land—by now and then holding to something which could assist him in floating until he had rested, still it was impossible now for him to accomplish, much fatigued as he already was, at the utmost more than a mile; and the shore was still three miles away. Despair, utter despair would have seized a mind that was more susceptible of ungovernable influences, but Appadocca made up his mind not to be drowned, and continued to swim. He had not swum to any great distance, when he began to experience the want of his pitcher; his limbs began to feel exhaustion, he muttered something to himself, and went on still; his limbs became more tired; sensibility began to diminish; his arms grew stiffer and stiffer; on, on, still he went; his features manifested exhaustion, his respiration grew shorter and shorter; already nature could bear no more; his eyeballs glared like those of one in the last agony of drowning; his strokes became weaker and still weaker; already he swam more heavily; his chest sank deeper and deeper into the water; the mountains before him began to wheel, and pass, and vanish like clouds floating over a mist; his vision was indistinct, and nature drooped, exhausted with one long breathing; he was sinking, sinking, sinking ... when ... something met his feet, and Appadocca stood on a sunken rock with the water to his chin.

Surprised to a certain extent by such an unexpected occurrence, he at once remained where he was, fearful less the first step he would take should lead him again into the danger which he had, at least temporarily, escaped.

He stood there for a considerable time; but although the position was one, which, on the point of drowning, might be very advantageous, still it ceased to be so when the immediate danger had passed; and now, on the contrary, presented another peril; for Appadocca was now exposed, in his motionless state, to become the prey of the very first hungry shark that might happen to swim in that direction, and what was still worse, he felt that the sea was every moment rising higher and higher. It was therefore clear that he could not stay much longer where he was. He began to resolve, but before he could determine on any definite resolution, a large wave broke over him; for mere safety, he was again obliged to swim. He had not gone far, when in spite of his strong will, his limbs would not move. Thus with his resolution still strong, and his volition still active, Appadocca, nevertheless, found himself rapidly sinking.

“Oh! destiny,” he bubbled out, as the water now almost choked him, “is there such a thing as destiny?” He was sinking, sinking, sinking, when something, something again met his feet.

Appadocca quickly planted his nerveless feet as firmly as he could, upon the support which it would appear that destiny, which he had well nigh invoked for the last time, had again placed under them. He concluded at once, that he had fortunately alighted on a layer of rocks, which ran far out to sea, and of which the one that first received him, was about the beginning. To ascertain the correctness of his judgment he ventured, after he had rested a little, to put one foot forward, it rested also on the rock; the other, it rested too.

Appadocca now waded along towards the shore, swimming now and then, when a larger chasm than usual intervened. As he approached the land, however, the rocks began to sink lower and lower, until at last he was left without a footing. There was yet a considerable distance between where he was, and the shore, and in his condition, the prospect of being saved, even after the succession of unexpected auxiliary accidents was but slight and precarious. Nevertheless, he was obliged to hazard all; so he began to swim again. His arms after the rest they had had, were more powerful. On—on, he went—closer, and closer—he drew to the land; still the distance was immense to a well-nigh exhausted man. His strength began again to fail; but a few strokes Appadocca, and you are on land. His strength diminished more and more, shadows again began to flit across his vision, his senses reeled; he was sinking, no befriending rock now met his feet; he disappeared.... In a moment he rose again, in the second stage of drowning, with his features locked in despairing agony. As he came to the surface the rolling volume of a sweeping billow met him, carried him roughly to the shore, and threw him high and dry on the white sandy beach, that was glimmering under the scorching rays of a fiery sun.

The tide ebbed away and left Appadocca on that which was now dry land. Nature was overwhelmed, and he seemed scarcely strong enough to rally from the swoon. There he lay, far from human succour, with the land rising perpendicularly from the beach, for a great distance away along the shore, and thus shutting out to those who might inhabit that part of the country, any immediate view of the sea, or the shore below. The fugitive might, have lain in this state until nature, by an effort scarcely to be expected in his condition, might have suddenly revived, or what was the more probable, life might have quietly departed from the miserable man, had not the same fortune which seemed all along to befriend him, again interposed to foster still the spark of life which now scarcely lived in him.

A wild bull, maddened with fury, came bounding over the heights. The animal was so headlong in its race, that rushing to the ridge of the precipitous highlands, ere it could abate its speed, it was borne away by its own impetus over the ledge, and with a tremendous bound, it rolled dead at the foot of the still insensible Appadocca.

In a few moments two horsemen appeared above, and reining up their horses carefully at the edge, looked down on the late object of their chase. They were children of the Savannahs—the Bedouins of South America. They were two Llaneros, their lassos were coiled in wide circles round one arm, while with the other, they clutched a short spear and the powerful reins with which they governed their still unbroken horses. They looked carefully at the now motionless animal, which but a second before careered so proudly over the plain, and was so formidable to them, shrugged their shoulders, and were turning their horses’ heads to return, when the attention of one of them, seemed attracted by an object at the foot of which the body of the dead bull lay.

“Es un hombre—’Tis a man,” both of them said, with great excitement. “’Tis a man, go you and look at him, Juancito.”

One dismounted, and, leaving his horse in charge of the other, scrambled down the rocks to the beach. He examined the body and cried out to his companion above, that life was still in it.

“Esta un hombre de cualidad, he is a great man,” he added.

Moved by their spirit of native hospitality, and partly influenced by the not unselfish motive of saving the life of a great man, the two Llaneros began to devise the means of getting Appadocca on the dry land above, and of conveying him to the house of the Ranchero, whose oxen they tended. But it was next to impossible to carry him up those rocks on which only the most steady-footed could manage to move; besides, it was necessary for one to remain above to hold the horses which, unguarded and unrestrained, would have obeyed their strong instinct and scampered off to their native wilds.

In this difficulty the natural recourse of the Llaneros was to their lassos. But those could scarcely be used, as the projections of the rocks would have shattered in a thousand pieces the person whom they designed to save, if they undertook to hoist him up along their rugged surface. They, therefore, had to think of some other expedient: but no other occurred to them, and they were obliged to recur to their lassos, in the use of which they were so long and perfectly practiced. They thought, however, in conjunction with the resolution of adopting this expedient, of removing Appadocca to another part of the beach, from which the rocks did not rise so roughly. This was easily done, and having fastened their lassos together, they secured one end to Appadocca, and the other to one of the horses; one of the Llaneros spurred the animal forward, while the other remained at the edge to guide the rope as much as it was in his power to do.

By this means the still insensible Appadocca, was brought safely on the table land. After the violent shaking he had received, he seemed to come to himself a little; he opened his eyes, but it was only for a moment. He was no longer insensible, but he was totally prostrated, and sank again into an inactive condition. He was then placed on the saddle before one of the Llaneros, and they rode off towards the house, whose roof could be barely discerned from amidst the clustering branches of the trees by which it was surrounded.

The Llaneros soon alighted at the door, where they were met by the Ranchero, and the insensible stranger was carried in.

Like all the houses of the Ranchas of South America, this was an extensive wooden building, built of only one storey—a necessary measure against the ravages of the frequent earthquakes which shake so terribly those tropical regions.

The large and shady fronds of the beautiful palms that decorate the level and grassy Savannahs, were cleverly sewn together to form a covering, which was as effectual in excluding the dews and rains, as it was in itself romantic. No ceiling concealed the beams and rafters which supported this primitive roof; but from the exigences of the climate, and probably from the unwillingness to raise highly finished structures in the wilds, where the inhabitant scarcely ever saw the face of any one beside those of the Llaneros who tended his numerous and half-wild herds, the space between the low flooring and the roof was entirely unoccupied. The apartments were extensive, and as airy as such a climate required. Windows opened in all directions, and the winds of heaven swept freely through every crevice of the house. The furniture seemed to be as simple and as primitive as the building that contained it. A few heavy chairs, made of the hides of the oxen, that formed the wealth of the Ranchero, were placed about, here and there, more for the service of the few individuals who occupied the place, than for the accommodation of visitors or strangers, both of whom were exceedingly rare, if ever seen in those solitary wilds. Indian hammocks hung in several places, and moved to and fro, before the power of the wind that blew into the apartment; and on supports from the walls, rested beautiful Spanish saddles, whose bows and stirrups of massive silver, attracted immediate attention. Around the house stood some magnificent trees, under the shady boughs of which, herds of oxen, which were partially reclaimed from the wild state in which they had been bred, now quietly chewed their cud, not without, however, casting from time to time, a wistful look on the strong pallisades that fenced them in. Wild looking undressed horses, restively cropped the short grass that grew around the house, and now and then tugged with evident impatience, the tethers of cowskin, that restrained their liberty.

Away, at a short distance from the inhabited house itself, stood also pens for cattle, and apparently a slaughter-house, on whose roof the large heavy vultures of South America, pressed and fought and nibbled each other for a footing, while around it were strewed a thousand horns, the spoils of the fierce natives of the plains, that had fallen there under the Picador’s knife. To complete the peculiarity of the scene a few half naked and fierce looking individuals, loitered here and there, carelessly smoking their cigars; or leaned against the fences, and criticised the ruminating oxen within, as objects among which their entire life had been spent, and with such apparent skill and earnestness, as to leave one to fancy that the world contained nothing that deserved so much interest in their estimation as the animals which formed the tissue of their associations, and of their fathers’ before them. The horses that were tied in their rude accoutrements, to the posts of the fences, and the huge spurs of solid silver, which were tightly thonged to the naked heels of those men, showed that they belonged entirely to the plains, and were probably there, only for the purpose of receiving the orders of the master.

“Feliciana,” cried the Ranchero, as Appadocca was carried into the large chamber that formed, what in Europe, would be called the with-drawing room—“Feliciana ben aca,—Feliciana, come hither.”

At this call, a beautiful young lady appeared, and started back as she beheld the pallid, wasted, and haggard, but still beautiful face of Appadocca, while, at the same time, the low interjection of “Jesu!” escaped her lips.

“Que se haga todo necessario por ese infeliz,” “Let every thing be done for this unhappy man,” said the Ranchero, who even in the half barbarous life that he led, did not entirely lose the distinguishing politeness of his people.

CHAPTER XXI.

Appadocca, under the care of the fair Venezuelan, was carried into an extensive chamber, which was much more comfortable than any one would have imagined any part of the house could be. He was laid on a couch that was unornamented, but that was as white as the flock of the cotton-tree. It was not to rest, however, that he was thus accommodated. His fatigues and privations overpowered the strength which his peculiar philosophy had tended to maintain, and the movement and exercise of the hoisting, and transporting on horseback, had completed what they had begun. He was seized with a violent fever, which now terribly manifested itself in the wildest ravings.

Alarmed at the state of the stranger, Feliciana called every one into service. Peons flew here and there and everywhere, for herbs and weeds, while she herself remained by the bedside of the delirious sick man, watching every movement that he made, and listening to every word that he uttered.

Nature overcame even this passing madness, and Appadocca fell into a light slumber. Feliciana, with looks even more serious than when she went to attend her unknown patient, left the apartment.

Feliciana was a little above the middle size, exceedingly well formed, and majestic in her appearance. Her face was in itself a study, on account of the many different expressions which it wore at one and the same time. Her forehead was large and expansive, indicative of a large amount of intellect. Her nose was slightly elevated at the centre, and at the same time full and rounded at its termination; her lips were full and well formed, while the compression which marked the slight pout that they possessed, pointed to much firmness of character. To heighten all these separate individual expressions, nature had bestowed upon her large melting eyes, that swam like the gazelle’s, in a bed of transparent moisture, and in which, it would be difficult to say, whether sentiment, or the serious contemplation of the Spanish character prevailed the most.

Upon the whole, a student of physiognomy would have pronounced, on seeing the beautiful Venezuelan, that Heaven had bestowed on her a high degree of intellect, a high degree of sentiment, and a high degree of firmness. She would have been at once pronounced one who was capable of great discernment, of forming high designs, and of overcoming every obstacle that might oppose their execution; while, at the same time, the sentiment which was clearly perceptible in her eyes, could be very accurately predicated as that, which, from its decided prevalence and preponderance, would always act as the leader of her mental and more solid endowments.

Her dress, in addition, was calculated to make these striking features, and her handsome person still more conspicuous. It was of dark materials, and adjusted in a manner that attracted from the general idea of simplicity that prevailed in it, while, at the same time, it displayed to advantage the gracefulness of the wearer. As a head-dress, a dark veil or mantilla, hanged loosely from a high and valuable comb, down along the side of her face over her shoulders, and enhanced by the contrast her beautiful and clear complexion.

Nature in youth, especially when such youth has been weakened by no unphilosophical propensities, ever inclines to amendment. In Appadocca, especially, whose life-time had, up to that period, been spent in the practice of that strengthening discipline which consists in the happy combination of exercise for mind and body, it turned towards health with extraordinary vigour; so that the stranger, who but a few days ago had been as near death as mortal man could be, and during whose feverish paroxysms one would have imagined that the reason which regulated the form that still writhed in its madness, was about to take a last farewell of the machinery which it had up to that time animated and guided, now presented the clear eye, the earnest look, and the same stern resolution that usually compressed his lips. The only remaining indication of the fatigue which he had undergone, and of the subsequent illness, was the increased pallor of his complexion, and the slight attenuation of his body; in a word, it was in body and not in mind that Appadocca now showed signs of illness.

It was a day or two after this gratifying change had shown itself, when Appadocca and the beautiful daughter of the house were seated together in the large apartment which we have before described.

The stranger was sitting in one of the peculiar but luxurious chairs of cow-hide at one side of the wide window, and Feliciana at the other.

Politeness and gratitude, independently of a sense of duty, called forth the gallantry of Appadocca in entertaining the lady. He discoursed on a life in the wilds, on the marvels that nature can there continually display to the eyes of the wondering spectator, of the free and independent life of those who inhabited the “Llanos;” and from this high and general theme he descended to the particular beauties that surrounded the romantic abode of his host himself.

He spoke on. But his greatest and most graceful eloquence could not draw a word from his beautiful auditor, or even secure a silent nod. She sat with her head turned away towards the window, her eyes fixed on the ground, and wore an air of more than ordinary seriousness. She seemed entirely wrapped in a web of her own reflections.

Appadocca could not but remark this reverie. After having yielded several times to his habit of silence, and given way to his own abstracted moods, he would awake himself suddenly, and seeming to feel the embarrassment of the situation, would address the young lady again on some new and interesting topic. But it was in vain.

“Senora, I hope, is not ill?” he at last inquiringly observed.

“No, senor,” was the laconic reply.

“Then senora is a little melancholy,” rejoined Appadocca, after a moment or two.

No answer.

“Banish, senora, that pernicious feeling. Life is itself sufficiently insipid and sour, and does not require to be made more bitter by melancholy. Look out, see how nature softly smiles before you. The birds fly from branch to branch, and chirp, and are happy; the insects—listen to the hoarse cicada—seem enjoying their insect happiness; even the very grass, as the breeze turns its blades to the beams of the beautiful sun, reflect on our minds an idea of felicity. How can you be melancholy when you look out?”

Feliciana turned and bent her large eyes fully on Appadocca, looked at him intently for a few moments, and then turned away again.

Struck by the action, and not feeling himself as indifferent as he usually was, Appadocca said nothing.

A long interval ensued.

Feliciana kept her head in the same direction: at the side of her eyes two drops began to gather; they grew larger and larger, and in a few moments stood like two crystal beads ready to burst. Not a muscle, however, not a fibre of the beautiful weeper, seemed to sympathise, or quiver in unison with this silent grief. Like a statue of alabaster she remained rooted where she sat, and one could judge of the emotions which might affect her, only by the two transparent drops which balanced heavily at the corners of her eyes.

Appadocca saw this, and remained silent from respect to the sorrow of Feliciana. He thought of leaving the room, and giving the young lady freedom to indulge in that grief which seemed so deep and overpowering. Although prompted to do so by his sense of propriety, still he found himself detained by he knew not what, and seemed half to suspect that the sorrow had some sort of connexion with himself,—“Else,” he reasonably argued, “the young lady would have concealed her grief in the privacy of her own apartment.”

Appadocca, therefore, remained where he was, in deep silence, watching the tear drops that now again grew gradually smaller and smaller.

“Can one who owes, senora, a large amount of gratitude,” he at last said, in a mild, subdued tone, “be of any service to her?”

She was still silent.

“Can I do anything to dry these tears?” Appadocca again inquired.

Feliciana suddenly turned her head, and fixed her expressive eyes steadily on the inquirer. She maintained her earnest look for some time, then rising, said, with great excitement,—

“Yes, you can dry these tears. Shun the wicked pursuit in which you are engaged, and then these tears may never again escape to betray me. Nature could never have intended you for a pirate.”

At this sudden action, and unexpected language of Feliciana, Appadocca required all his self-command to conceal the surprise which he felt.

“I a pirate, senora!” he said, “may I ask how it is you have been induced to suppose me one?”

“Put no idle questions,” she quickly replied, “I feel that you have sacrificed yourself to such a life. You, too, have confessed it. Why was it, that in your ravings, you called on your men to board, to cut down, to make prisoners? that you spoke of blood, of booty, and still worse, of revenge; and revenge, too, it would seem, on your own father? Do you think, to persons as I am, in my position, the least word of those—of those—of those—” she contended with herself for the expression, “those whom we wish well, can fail of its meaning. I am a stranger to you: but let me not prevail the less on that account; let me pray and beseech you, in the name of God and the saints,” she continued, clasping her hands, “to promise me to abandon a life that is hateful both to Heaven and earth, and to think no more of those terrible projects of slaughter and revenge, about which you spoke so much in your sleep.”

“Pray, senora, sit down,” said Appadocca, as he rose quickly from his seat to conduct her to hers.

“No, leave me,” she exclaimed, more excited, “I shall not sit down till you pass your word. Remember the dear person whose picture you now wear on your heart, and which you so affectionately pressed to your bosom, when the fever was on you. Can you suppose that she can look down from heaven, with joy or pleasure, on the son that she nourished, when he has abandoned himself to a course that God and man alike reprobate and condemn? Picture her in the society of the saints and angels looking down upon you, at the head of your lawless and cruel men, red with the blood of your murdered victims, and rushing forward to plunder, and to spread misery around as you go. Do you think that the sight of her child—her son, in this position, can impart to her either happiness or pleasure? Think of that: and, when ever you press her picture to your heart, recollect you only go through a cheating mockery, that the life you lead takes away from her happiness, from the happiness even of heaven. Remember the tears that she may have shed for you while here: remember the cares and anxieties she may have suffered for you; those, surely, were enough: and, if death ended her miseries on earth, do not you spoil the joy which she may now enjoy in heaven?”

“Enough—enough,” cried Appadocca, with more warmth than was his habit, “stop, stop, I implore you.”

“Then promise me.”

“My vow is recorded in heaven, I cannot promise,” answered Appadocca, drily.

Feliciana staggered stupified to her seat, while she gazed, without the power of utterance, on the person before her.

“You will not promise!” she said, recovering herself, “you will not promise! Well, I shall promise,—I now vow,—that I shall follow you to the end of the world, until you consent to renounce for ever this wicked life.”

So saying, she sprang violently from her chair, and rushed out of the room.

Appadocca, after the disappearance of the agitated Feliciana, sank back into the cow-hide chair, almost confounded by the scene which had just been enacted, and well-nigh distracted by the thousand reflections which it made to rush upon him. The first thought was of his safety.

“Suppose,” he quickly reasoned, “others beside Feliciana, should have heard his disclosures during the fever; what could he expect under such circumstances, but to see the kindness with which he had been treated, suddenly changed into a most ferocious spirit of revenge.” For he knew, too well, what cruelties the pirates of the West-Indian sea had, under Llononois and other captains, practiced on the unfortunate inhabitants of those coasts.

Those atrocities could not be blotted out from the memory for centuries, and it was likely, that at the very name of pirate, the revenge of the Spaniards would break out as uncontrollably as fire in its favourite food.

And it was probable, that not stopping to consider whether he was actually what he was supposed to be, they would at once immolate him, to the memory of their slaughtered and plundered countrymen. This thought, however, soon gave way to those of a different nature,—to those which in his own manner of thinking, affected the most important accident of existence, and was, in his estimation, higher in value than life itself—namely, his honour.

It had not escaped him from the very moment that his convalescence had permitted him to exercise his discernment, that his beautiful and kind nurse, was in love with him. That could not but strike him; and though his stoicism balanced violently on the contemplation of the handsome form, and on appreciating the character of the mind which was as pure, as simple, and as artless, as the flourishing wilds which had reared and still surrounded it, still it required no great restraint over himself—himself, who had long banished from his heart the sentiment, that lends to life a charm, and who was now well exercised in choking to instant death any fresh feeling as it began to spring—to renounce for ever every desire to encourage or foster the affection that showed itself to him as clear as the sun at noonday. It would have been dishonor to steal away the heart of the innocent creature that watched over him with a mother’s fondness and anxiety. He resolved, therefore, to be always on his guard, and to maintain more than ordinary restraint in conversing with her, in the hopes that the feeling which evidently animated her, might perish from the absence of sympathy.

It was, consequently, with alarm that he beheld the violence of feelings which Feliciana exhibited during the scene which we have depicted. “No ordinary interest,” thought Appadocca, “could call forth such an impassioned remonstrance as Feliciana had made, and make her surmount all maidenly timidity, and speak to him as she did. For in what could it interest a stranger? whether an unhappy man, whom she had accidently succoured was a pirate or not: and those tears; persons of her race, he thought, weep only on deep subjects. And, finally, the desperate resolution of following him all over the world, professedly to hold back his hand from crime, was a thought that only one great feeling could inspire.”

Such were the reflections of Appadocca, they were made in a moment: and they immediately produced a resolution as firm as it was sudden. “I must leave the house of this good Ranchero,” said Appadocca to himself, with much energy of mind. “God knows, I am already pledged to the causing of sufficient misery. I shall not stay here to add any more to the necessary amount. Not in this place particularly, where I have met with so much hospitality and kindness.”

These reflections had scarcely been ended, and Appadocca’s brow was still knit in the energy of his own thoughts, and his eyes still glimmered forth the fire of his excited mind, when soft footsteps were heard within the room, and on turning his head, he beheld Feliciana, who had again entered the room, and was now advancing towards him.

She was, by this time, comparatively calm; the paroxysm of her feeling had passed, but she appeared still determined on one purpose. Feliciana walked to the window as she entered, and said to Appadocca, who stood up to receive her:

“Pray forgive me, sir, for the lengths to which I, a mere stranger, was bold enough to proceed just now.”

“There needs no forgiveness, senora,” quickly rejoined Appadocca, as he led her to the other cow-hide chair at the window, “where no offence has been given: on the contrary, might I speak so freely, I should say, that the warmth you have so lately manifested, can be taken only as the indication of a high degree of feeling.”

Appadocca spoke in a calm and serious strain. The young lady coloured slightly at the end of this speech.

“Among different persons, senora,” continued Appadocca, with the apparent purpose of bringing about an intended end, “it would, perhaps, be a breach of civilized politeness to speak with the same latitude that I now intend to do. But, I think as we understand each other, it would be well nigh folly to keep back a few necessary words, simply from the circumstance that the laws of polished social intercourse may tend to render their plainness awkward. It is very clear, senora, that I have been fortunate enough to enlist in my favour, your most friendly sympathy, perhaps I should be justified in mentioning a much stronger feeling.”

Feliciana coloured deeply.

“For my part, I cannot but express myself sensible to the existence of such a sentiment, and can only say, that from a self-same affection, I am capable of appreciating and responding to yours. But, senora, there are but few instances of real happiness under the sun. The beautiful sky that frequently enlivens our spirit, and cheers us up for a moment, is, alas! but too frequently, suddenly darkened and obscured by the dark clouds that bring tempests in their course. The innocent and snowy lily that gladdens our sight to-day, decays and falls away to-morrow. The days and years on which we may have been counting, during a long life-time, for the realization of a few moments of joy, may arrive at last, loaded with bitterness. The thoughts and sentiments which oft gladden us in our waking dreams, wean us away for a time from care, and foster in us the hope of undecaying felicity, then pass like the flashes of the lightning away, to leave only gloom and desolation behind.

“For my own part senora, I have long sacrificed myself to one object. I have long banished away Emmanuel Appadocca, from Emmanuel Appadocca: it boots not to tell the reason why. The world to me, it is true, is the world; the stars, the stars; but the halo that once surrounded them is gone—the feeling with which I may have regarded them is gone from them, and has centred itself in the now single end of my existence. For a long time mental anguish and I have been companions, and from its constant proximity it has chased away the softer feelings, whose aspect is too cheerful to bear the approaching shadow of that demon. My heart is wasted and its tenderness gone; gratitude for you, senora, is all that I dare encourage in my bosom. Let me exhort you, for your own sake, to forget the unfortunate man whom accident and distress brought into your presence. Forget him, and by doing so, avoid much suffering on your part, and, at the same time, confer much happiness on him. For if at the hour when this existence of mine will be about to terminate, there should linger in my fading memory some object that I could not look upon with cold indifference; if when the breath of life shall be on the point of passing I should not be able to shut my eyes and say, ‘mankind, you have among you nothing that is dear to me,’ the pains of succumbing nature would be tenfold heavier than they might.”

In speaking thus, Appadocca had unwittingly to himself risen from his seat, and approached Feliciana, who, deeply affected, hanged down her.

Warming more than usual, Appadocca caught her hand as he spoke.

“To throw away a thought on a person of this temper, Feliciana,” he proceeded, “I need not tell you, is doing an injustice to yourself, but fear not that I am insensible to your kindness. I feel it as much as I am now permitted to feel such things, and may destiny,” continued he, with more warmth, “be ever propitious to you;” so saying, he abruptly let fall her hand, and walked towards the door.

“Stay,” cried Feliciana, as she rose to keep him back: but Appadocca rushed out of the room.

The young lady resumed her seat; her high temper had now yielded to a more tender feeling: one that buoys not up, nor supports so much, for there is a spirit of pride in high wrought vexation, that imparts strength to the other faculties and to the body. Like the last convulsion of the dying madman, it derives from its very extremity and excess, uncontrollable strength; but when that is broken—when it is softened down by tenderness or pity, the mind which was but now strong under a fierce influence is left weak, impressible, and like the vision of a man rising from a swoon, when that influence is removed. Thus the feelings of Feliciana instead now of following the course of her stronger and more predominant powers, yielded entirely to the softer endowments of her nature, and her affection vented itself in a more seductive, more natural, more overcoming way. She no longer endeavoured to disguise to herself the extent to which her affection had already gone. She perceived at once that the sorrow which the involuntary revelations of Appadocca had cost her, had a different source from that which she would fain have believed at first; and that her apparently chivalrous denunciation of his course of life, and her resolution to follow him, and like a good angel, to stay his piratical hand, did not spring from a mere instinct of abstract right and wrong, but rose from a more interesting and personal feeling.

This great point being laid bare, she at once considered the circumstances, and the recollection of the last speech of Appadocca fell upon her heart, like the chilling hand of death. She sat in silent sorrow, and the evening had long yielded to night, when her father returned from the Savannahs to interrupt her grief, and to divert for a few moments the dark and troubled currents of her thoughts.

CHAPTER XXII.

The night was far advanced, when Appadocca undertook to carry into execution, the design which he had formed of leaving the Rancha. He cautiously went out of the apartment which he occupied, and found no difficulty in opening the carelessly fastened door of the house. He went out softly, and when he had got outside, he had to stand still for a moment, in order to have recourse to his memory to help him to form some sort of idea of the position in which he found himself: such was the excessive darkness. Had he previously petitioned nature for a night, which might effectually shroud him from any one that might pursue him, she could not have sent one that was more dark or dismal. The blackness of the wilds, heightened a thousand-fold that of the night, which itself required no augmentation. Objects seemed heaped together in one pitchy chaos, and nature seemed to sleep heavily under a canopy of gloom. The fire flies that flew low and lonely on the level Savannahs, seemed to show their light, merely to point out the surrounding darkness. In the same proportion with this thick gloom was the silence of the hour, which permitted the faintest sounds to be heard. At long intervals the brief but sonorous cry of the owl, as it signaled to its mate, would fall upon the ear; or there might be heard the hoarse and unearthly shriek of the night raven, as it vented its rage at the falling of some fruit, which it carried in its beak; or, perhaps, the low sound of some tethered and invisible horse that cropped the short grass hard by.

Incapable of seeing one foot before him, Appadocca could not proceed. He remembered well where he was, but the darkness confounded his calculation, and he knew not in what direction to move.

“The pen lies there,” he said, “no there—no there,” and vainly pointed where he could not see his own hand before him.

In this dilemma he bethought him of the stars: full of hope he quickly looked up: the heavens were as dark as the earth, not a star was to be seen.

“Shall I stay where I am,” he inquired of himself, “until the morning star shows itself? this gloom will not, it cannot last!” No there might be a chance of his being discovered, and who knew the inconveniences, that such a circumstance would bring.

“The wind—there is no wind.”

Appadocca wet the tip of his index finger with his saliva and turned it round.

“Ha! there is a breath,” he said, as he felt the chill, on the tip of the moistened finger. “The wind,” he argued, “blows at this hour in these regions, at a point varying from north-east to east. Following such a course, I shall assuredly open on the ocean: good.”

Appadocca now began to move along, keeping his index finger straight before him, and taking care to moisten it from time to time. He proceeded under the pilotage of his sense of feeling, and heard the drowsy dialogue of some Llaneros, as they lazily turned in their hammocks, in some neighbouring pen, and asked each other, if he did not hear some one walking.

The soft breeze still gently blew, and afforded the same means of directing himself. He tumbled here and there into the deep farrows which the heavy rains had made. The severe shocks and bruises which he received, as he fell into those holes, were quite sufficient to try the endurance of a strong man, much less that of one who was but just recovering from illness. Fortunately the point to be attained was not far off, and Appadocca, after having groped his way for an hour, heard the low moaning of the ocean before him. He approached as much as he thought he could with prudence, for he conjectured that the ground would be the more broken and torn, as it verged nearer toward the sea; and, finally, sat down on the grass to await the approach of morning.

The gray light which temporarily chases away darkness immediately before the advent of morning, to leave a moment afterward the gloom which it dispelled for a time, came. Careful not to lose one favourable moment, Appadocca immediately got up, and advanced in the direction in which the sea was rolling. Again, however, he was obliged to suspend his progress, for darkness again returned.

At the approach of the real light Appadocca felt his sensibility deeply moved by the view which opened before him. The great Atlantic rolled heavily below, and it was only where the horizon limited vision that its silently rising mountains would appear as if they were at last levelled into easy quietness. Its moving volumes were as yet undisturbed by the wind, and the transparent haze that still floated over its surface, imparted an air of repose that well befitted the hour. The mountain-peaks of the little islands that lined the shore, rose forth to contrast the wild waste of waters, and then came the high land on which he stood, that verged to the north-west into capacious bays and havens, and pointed out towards the east, and advanced high and lofty like a battalion of fearless soldiers, against the billows that lashed them, and that had likely lashed them long long before they bore the adventurous Columbus to its foot. At his back, also, lay the level and wide-spreading Savannahs, where, too, only the horizon bourned the sight.

Solitary and alone in such a situation, Appadocca could not refuse to his heart the pleasure of admiring such a scene; and, although prudence, not to say safety, pressed him to hie away from the Rancha, he could not resist the temptation of resting and feasting his eyes upon that which was before and around him.

Rousing himself, however, from the influence of this feeling, he endeavoured, and succeeded in descending the cliffs, and resolved to wait until fortune, or, to use his own expression, destiny, should send in his way, one of the numerous little vessels that trade along that coast.

That day passed, and destiny—the broken reed—was not kind enough to send a vessel his way. Worn out with anxiety, and weakened by the want of food, he drew himself up in the chasm of a rock, with the intention of resting himself there in the best way that his unbroken fast, and the uninviting accommodation would permit.

Despite these two unfavourable circumstances, he fell into a deep sleep, and had been under its influences for some hours, when he was startled by a most terrifying noise. It seemed that numbers of savage animals were assembled immediately above his head, and were designedly giving vent in one unbroken roar to their dismal and fearful howlings, that rose above the measured breakings of the billows below.

“What can this be,” said Appadocca to himself, as he awoke; “what now comes to break this slumber that weans me from the sense of hunger?” So saying, he jumped up and walked a little way from the foot of the cave, across the beach, and looked up. He perceived the dark outlines of some large animals, that were moving about restlessly on the ridge, and were howling in the manner we have described.

“Ha!” he exclaimed, “shall I have escaped from the scaffold, the waves of the Atlantic ocean, and from the jaws of the sharks that fill the bocas, to be, at last, ignominiously devoured by wild beasts; by Heaven, then, whatsoever you be, if you attack me, I warn you, you will attack one that is prepared for you, and one who is ready, at this moment, to make any one, or any thing, bear a heavy amount of chastisement.”

This was spoken in a resolute and even fierce and over-confident tone. The speaker seemed impatient.

There has not been, perhaps, a single philosopher since the human race began, to ruminate on rules and plans of human excellence, who can be said to have entirely controlled the emotion of anger. All our other feelings seem to give way, and yield to the discipline of a well-watched life, and to the strong volition of our reason, but that passion alone still remains uncontrollable; smothered it may be for a time, it is true, but it is liable on the very first occasion, to be fiercely kindled. It seems to be so intimately connected, although negatively with the pleasures of the mind and body, and consequently with the gratification of the actual cultivation of philosophy itself, that any derangement of any of these things acts in producing the feeling which human perfection is too weak to avoid.

Notwithstanding his cynicism, Appadocca was irritated by the numberless difficulties that fell to his lot to surmount.

‘But a feather breaks the loaded camel’s back’: he had undergone privations, borne sufferings, staked life, happiness—all that was dear and solacing to man—on the accomplishment of a design; after exerting himself to an extent that such as he, only, could exert themselves; after sacrificing the happiness that a lovely and angelic being was willing to confer, he was, at the eleventh hour, of his suffering, when hope began to beam again, now exposed to be devoured by vile unreasonable creatures.

These reflections might have been made on another occasion, without endangering the temper of the person who made them. But Appadocca was now almost maddened by fatigue and hunger. Famine makes the most steady violent, and human nature has already a sufficiently hard duty to contain itself, even when starvation is not present to gall it into rage.

In this mood he stood boldly on the shore, looking up at the wild beasts, with his chest heaving highly and quickly, and apparently desiring that they should rush upon him at once, and afford a but to his fury, and put an end to his unsweetened existence. His wishes were partly fulfilled.

The animals rushed to and fro and seemed to be looking for a footing to descend the crag; but their instinct apparently did not deem it sufficiently secure for that purpose, for they drew back and howled as if disappointed of their prey.

“Fools,” cried Appadocca, addressing them with more rage than reason, “go further down the ridge if you would have me to feast upon.”

One of the animals, bolder than the others, went as far forward as possible, and seemed to have found a means of descending, but as the creature endeavoured to rest the weight of its body on the projection, on which it had laid one of its paws, it gave way. Its balance was lost and headlong it tumbled down the precipice. It had no sooner reached the ground, than Appadocca, wild as the animals themselves, threw himself upon it and buried his thumb and finger into its neck.

“Now you must either kill me, or I shall kill you, vile creature that assails me, as if mankind could not inflict sufficient injury without your coming from your native wilds and forests to aid them. Die, by Heaven! or I shall”—saying this, he contracted his muscles as tightly as the sinews of a convulsive man.

The animal lay for awhile stunned by the fall; but as soon as the blood commenced to circulate again, it felt the pressure on its wind-pipe, and began to kick violently.

“Kick your spirit away, vile brute, I shall not budge,” cried Appadocca, now half mad with fury.

On its legs the creature stood, and shook its head and plunged, and away it went with Appadocca still clutching its wind-pipe with the grasp of the dying crocodile. The animal staggered a few paces and fell heavily to the ground, strangled to death.

Appadocca got up from the ground to which he had been borne by the beast in its fall, and walked round his prey in triumph.

“Whatever you are,” said he, “provided you are flesh and blood, I shall have a meal of you.”

He groped about among the small stones that strewed the upper part of the beach, and found what he seemed to have been searching for, a flint. He dashed it against a larger one and with the sharp pieces of it he began to cut through the hide of the animal that he had killed. He then succeeded in cutting a large portion of the still quivering flesh, and eat it.

What will not famine relish? Oh! hunger, that eternally tells us of our lowliness. Hunger levels. Hunger brings down the highest and proudest individuals to the standard of the meanest creature, whose instinct is to eat, whose life is concentrated in devouring, and whose death comes by over-feeding.

After Appadocca had fed upon the reeking flesh of his victim, he seemed recalled to himself: the madness of famine was past. He now looked upon the carcass before him with the indifference that formed the greater part of his nature, and the faint glimmerings of the fact that he had defied that beast which was now before him, and had engaged it in mortal combat, disgusted him: he contemned himself, too, when he recollected a little, the vain boastful and undignified language that he had held, and bent his steps in much sadness towards the same crevice where he had slept away the first part of the night. The other animals had fled after the fall of the one we have mentioned, and the stillness of the night was, as before, broken upon only by the moans of the ocean.

The next morning revealed to Appadocca the extent of the danger that he had escaped the night before. The animal was discovered to be one of those American tigers or jaguars, which pervade the plains of South America, and whose hunger has not unfrequently surmounted their instinctive cowardice so far as to bring them to the very houses of the Rancheros. The huge and powerful jaws of the animal, in which his bones could have been ground to pieces, attracted the attention of Appadocca; and when he observed the wound on the animal—the rude incision that he had made with the flint, and recollected the bloody meal that he had made of its flesh, he shuddered in disgust.

It was now that, withdrawing his eyes from the jaguar, he perceived at a distance a small craft tossing about on the heavy billows. He nimbly climbed the eminence to have a better view of what he feared his fancy may have too flatteringly pictured to him. It was in reality a small fallucha that was labouring on the heavy seas. Her course was under the land, but on the reach she was edging sea-ward. Alarmed at this appearance, he came down the cliff and ran along the beach towards the little vessel. Having got nearly opposite, he halloed as loudly as he could. He was not heard; again he cried, but with as little success as before.

“Am I destined again to meet with other misfortunes?” he muttered, calmly. “Am I destined to be left to perish on this unfrequented shore! Oh my father! how many events seem to arise to befriend you. Were I not sufficiently grounded in my belief, I would be almost tempted to believe that destiny, or Providence, or something else, exerted itself to shield you from your merited chastisement. But avaunt, vain, and stupid thought, the fatalities that have befallen thee, Emmanuel Appadocca, are only the acting of one of the grand laws by which yon sun stands where it is, while the earth wheels around it; or by which thou thyself throttled the huge beast last night. Dost thou not see that the distance is too far for thy voice to reach? Providence has instruments enough among his creatures, he does not interfere with our little concerns.”

Muttering this, Appadocca climbed the heights, took off the jacket with which the hospitable Ranchero had provided him, and waved it in the air.

The mariners on board the fallucha held their oars in mid-air.

“They have seen me,” said Appadocca, and waved the jacket again.

The fallucha had discovered the signal.

Casting away the jacket, Appadocca threw himself at once from an overhanging rock into the sea, and began to swim boldly out to meet the vessel that was now slowly approaching him.

His eagerness however, was now well nigh proving his death; for miscalculating the distance as well as his strength, he had ventured farther than his fatigues could justify. He was just sinking from exhaustion, when the powerful arm of a sailor from on board the fallucha grasped him.

He was laid on one of the rower’s benches, where he lay insensible. The sailors gravely bent over him, and tried every means for producing re-animation, which was not easily attained, for the Spaniards had no effectual restoratives, and Appadocca was now so overwhelmed, that the healthy elasticity of nature was almost destroyed.

Appadocca proffered his thanks to the four men who formed the crew of that little vessel for their kindness, as soon as he had come to himself.

“Who are you?” asked the captain, after receiving the thanks, “and where do you come from, you do not seem to me to be a seaman?”

“No,” readily answered Appadocca, “I went out from Trinidad in my pleasure boat, together with some friends; we were taken through the bocas by the force of the currents, and having inadvertently approached too near a whirlpool, we were capsized. My friends have been drowned. I am the only one who have survived: I managed to swim ashore, and had to encounter a number of accidents, and a large amount of suffering. I at last saw your vessel.”

“And where are you going,” he demanded in his turn, anxious to divert further inquiry.

“To Trinidad.”

“To which port,” again demanded Appadocca.

“To any one where I may be able to sell my cargo,” answered the captain of the fallucha.

Appadocca yielded himself up to his reflections.

The captain could not withdraw his eyes from the stranger. He looked at him with the peculiar expression of the face, which indicates the absence of entire mental satisfaction, with regard to the reality of the object gazed upon. Still there was nothing in the appearance of Appadocca that could warrant any definite suspicion; but there was a combination in it, nevertheless, which forcibly attracted attention, and inspired a peculiar sort of feeling that probably was akin to awe.

The morning gradually passed. When the strong trade-wind sprang about eleven o’clock, the rowers pulled in their sweeps; the feather-like sails of the fallucha were hoisted; her head was pointed towards the bocas, and the little vessel began to mount over the waves under her closely boarded sheets. The sailors now carelessly threw themselves at full length on the rowers’ benches; the captain kept his eye on the bows of the little vessel; and Appadocca gazed pensively on the ocean before him. Had any of those who were on board the fallucha cast his eyes towards the land that lay on the lee, he would probably have made out the dim outlines of a female form that was waving a white handkerchief in the air.

At night-fall, the fallucha was in the chops of the outlets.

Appadocca thus saw himself, by a strange coincidence, in the same place and about the same time that he had jumped from the man-of-war. He gazed on the rolling waves which nature had surrounded with the terrors both of the animated and unanimated portions of creation. For the rocks beneath the impending mountains, together with the waves that looked merciless and unrelenting, raised at first sight the idea of sure destruction: while the huge repulsive sharks that are there to be seen in thousands reminded one of a still more painful and frightful death.

“Nil arduum,” muttered Appadocca, as he gazed on the scene of his daring adventure, “said the Roman poet, and no mortal ever enunciated a greater truth. Here are these overwhelming waves that seem to carry sure destruction on their frowning crest, that roll over an abyss, which if it were dry, would be difficult for man to fathom, that contain within themselves all sorts of huge and destructive monsters, in comparison to the smallest fins of which, man, enterprizing, achieving man, dwindles to the insignificance of the rose-twig by the side of the towering magnolia: still the human race subjugates them even in their fiercest mood, and from their frail fabric of boards and pitch, men make war on their dangerous denizens. Not only that, but I, my very self, at the hour of midnight, when man and beast retire to their habitations, and sleep away darkness and its horrors, I plunged into the terrific waters with only a clay-pot to help me through, and here I am, principally by dint of perseverance, safe and sound. Oh, human race, you know not your power; you know not what you could do if you would only throw away the superstitious fears in which you have enthralled yourselves, and venture to assume a position, which the indefiniteness of your intellect assuredly intends you for. But you must study the law of nature: until you do that, you cannot be fit to achieve great things; as you are, you are living merely like brutes, with this aggravation, that the resources of your reason give you a greater facility of corrupting yourselves, and of becoming cowardly and base, the natural effect of corruption.

“Had I permitted myself,” continued Appadocca, “to be nursed in the lap of an enervating luxury, either mental or bodily, to be surrounded with numbers of base menials, whose care was to prevent even the dew of heaven from falling too heavily upon me, who were to prepare the couches of indolence for me, who were to pamper my body, beyond the power of endurance, and at last transform me into an animal lacking thews and muscles? if I had been tutored to look upon the falling of a picture as a calamity, or been taught to tremble at the ramblings of a mouse; and more, had I permitted my mind to be enslaved by the ignorant notions of fiends, of horrors after death, and of all those things by which the world is made to quake in utter fear, should I have undertaken the execution of a design that would have been made to appear, even more terrible than that death in which its entire failure could have resulted? No, decidedly not.

“And, my good father,” a sardonic smile might have been marked about his lips, “rejoice while you can, amidst vain pomps and ceremonies, surrounded as you are again by smiling and sympathising sycophants, for your time of merry-making will be but short.”

Such were the half-muttered reflections of Appadocca as the fallucha crossed the bocas.

Having once cleared the straits, the little vessel drew closely under the land on the left side with her sails filled by the cool and gentle land breeze. She was sailing up to Port-of-Spain, among the beautiful little islands with which the reader was made acquainted at the beginning of this narrative. The curling wavelets of the smooth gulf broke on the sharp prow of the fast-sailing fallucha, and kept up a soothing music that invited to repose. The rustling of the trees that grew to the water’s edge, charmed the ear of the mariner; the land breeze wafted far out to sea the sweet perfumes of the wild flowers, which nature has known to create only in the tropics.

The little vessel was doubling a small promontory, and entering the beautiful bay which indents the coast about that part, and is known as “Chaguaradmas Bay,” when the hasty splashes of several oars were suddenly heard, while, from the darkness of the night, the approaching boat was still unseen.

The splashes every moment grew more and more loud and distinct, they sounded more and more near, and suddenly a large boat, pulled by ten armed men, appeared, and the next instant the fallucha was boarded; as nimbly as antelopes the men jumped into the little craft.

“Que es ese?” the Spaniards simultaneously cried, and each drew his knife.

“Lorenzo,” exclaimed Appadocca, with more warmth than his cynicism could justify, and, in a moment, that officer—for it was he—was affectionately shaking his chief by the hand: they were both much affected.

How sweet it is when loving relatives have died away, one by one, when lover has been inconstant, and has shot the arrow—coldness—through the loving heart; when the ingratitude of professed friends has frozen the limpid currents of our feelings, when the world has heaped upon us miseries on miseries, and then has cast us forth; when father shews the front of enmity to filial deservedness, when we are isolated in ourselves in this great world of numbers of movements and of alacrity; how sweet it is to meet, after separation, the friend whose heart-strings throb in sympathy with ours, and about whose head the shadows of suspicion could never play.

At the sound of the captain’s well-known voice, a loud and prolonged cheer from the men in the boat, echoed in the silence of the night far and wide over the gulf, and was repeated long and loudly by the ringing dales on the shore.

“Thanks, thanks,” exclaimed Lorenzo, in his joy, “to the chance that sent us after this vessel.”

“Where is the schooner?” inquired Appadocca.

“Behind that promontory, that you barely see: she is there safely hidden.”

“Then take the helm,” said Appadocca, “and steer to her.”

Lorenzo attempted to take the tiller out of the hands of the captain, but met with strong resistance.

The captain of the fallucha brandished his knife, and called on his men to assist.

“Stop,” coolly said Appadocca, “do not resist: I shall give you five hundred dollars for your little vessel and its cargo. Submit, I am Appadocca, the young pirate.”

“Jesu!” cried the captain of the fallucha, “whom did I receive on board my vessel?” and he resignedly gave up the tiller.

The command of the fallucha was now taken by the pirate party. She was immediately put about. On making two or three tacks she headed the small promontory, and discovered the long Black Schooner that lay enshrouded, in the silence of night, on the smooth and deepening bay.

CHAPTER XXIII.

After Lorenzo had been satisfactorily informed, by the confessions of the midshipman, with regard to the safety of his chief, deeming it no longer necessary to hazard any nearer approach to the man-of-war, he kept the schooner where she was: while, at the same, he continued to keep the ship-of-war still within sight. He was enabled to do so by an instrument of a very peculiar and strange device. From the tall masts of the schooner, there were reared to an immense height into the air long poles of steel that were joined and joined again to each other, and were, at the same time, carefully secured on all sides; at the top of these were adjusted large globe-shaped metallic mirrors, that were filled with a thick white liquid, which was continuously agitated by a small electric engine, which received its power from a battery on deck. These mirrors, when the sun was at a certain height, were made, by a trigonometrical principle, to receive impressions of objects that were beyond the scope of the human eye, and by conveying those impressions to other mirrors, that were fixed in a thousand different ways, to the several parts of the vessel, gave the power to an individual on deck to see every movement of any vessel which would otherwise be invisible, while his own remained unseen.

Thus, by the force of the same genius with which he might have shone among men on the side of good, Appadocca was enabled to excel, to be unapproachable and irresistible in his career of crime and evil. The firmness of mind which enabled him to curb the natures of even pirates, and to establish a discipline on board the Black Schooner that made his men simultaneously act as if they were but the individual members of only one single body moved but by one spirit, might, perhaps, have procured for him the reputation of a wise and great leader; the powers of invention, which supplied even the deficiencies of human nature, and permitted him to make almost every element his servant, could again have handed down his name to posterity as that of a profound philosopher, if his talents had been turned to a proper object. But the combination of circumstances—destiny, decided otherwise, and instead of finding himself in the high position of good, Appadocca found himself, by the very necessity of those self-same talents, in the high position of evil.

It is not Emmanuel Appadocca alone that has been thus doomed to bury a high intellect in obscurity, or been impelled by circumstances to expend its force in guilt. No: the world seems scarcely as yet prepared for genius, a higher humanity is required and must exist, before the man who possesses it can find a congenial place of existence on this planet. Mere chance now moves the balance in which he is weighed; circumstances either hazardously call him forth, or he is left to feed upon his own disgust, until his rough sands are run, then earth covers over the fire that ought to burn only in the skies. From among one hundred men of genius scarcely one ever goes beyond the boundary of the desert on which so many flowers are destined to “blush unseen.”

It was two hours after noon, on the day which we have above mentioned, that Lorenzo was standing by the helmsman of the schooner, eagerly reading the reflections of the mirrors, when the signals of Appadocca from the man-of-war fell upon his eyes.

“What is this?” involuntarily exclaimed the officer, as he read the well-known symbols of his chief.

“Too late, too late! his stupidity has already made him undergo the torture,” he exclaimed, as he deciphered,—

“Treat well the officer, for they treat me well.—SCORPION.”

Lorenzo gave an order to the officer on duty; a piercing sound was then heard; in a moment or two, the sides of the schooner became peopled with men, whose brawny arms were bared up to the shoulders. Not a word was spoken. The polished and shining guns of the schooner were immediately pointed, they seemed to thrust their muzzles through the port-holes, as if they worked by one impulse, by their own choice and their own action, for the slightest difference could not be traced either in the time or in the manner in which each separate piece was moved to its proper place.

Another piercing sound: each gun was fired at the precise moment. The schooner shook under the deafening explosion that followed, and the ocean rang, and rang again with the echo.

This was Lorenzo’s reply to the request of Appadocca.

By the aid of the same machine, that officer perceived when the man-of-war set all her sails, and began her voyage to Trinidad, as he concluded, both from the revelation of the young officer, and the direction in which she was steering. He rejoiced when he observed this, for he was persuaded that, in the event of the man-of-war entering the Gulf of Paria, he would be able triumphantly to rescue his chief. For the thousand bays and creeks which diversify the shore, the distance at which large vessels are obliged to remain on account of the harbour’s shallowness, and the lukewarmness of the inhabitants of the town with regard to pirates, for they have seldom or never been subjected to the ravages of those people, he calculated, would afford him all assistance, while they should, on the contrary, tend to perplex, hinder, and embarrass the enemy.

He immediately ordered a certain quantity of sails to be put on the schooner, and began to follow the man-of-war. He kept always out of sight, and at noon on each day, the sails were lowered, the same machine was erected, and he made his observations on the ship-of-war, which sailed away majestically, its commander little knowing that he was followed by a cunning, vigilant, and determined enemy.

Four hours had not elapsed since the man-of-war had crossed the bocas, before the Black Schooner also passed them, and thus left in the water behind her the person to whose rescue she was going.

Lorenzo kept her head still towards the centre of the gulf, then went about, and, with one tack, gained the headland, behind which the schooner now lay concealed.

In that position, Lorenzo quickly disguised himself, and taking possession of one of the many little vessels that sail along the shore from the Spanish main, went up to Port-of-Spain, and heard the confused intelligence that Appadocca had committed suicide.

His cargo was sold, and he could remain no longer in the harbour for fear of detection, so he resolved upon the plan of taking another fallucha, and of returning to Port-of-Spain as a different captain. He lay in watch for the first vessel which might pass, and destiny willed that the one which he should board should carry Appadocca.

As soon as Appadocca had arrived on board of the schooner, after having bowed to the officer and men, who saluted him, he descended the companion-steps and requested Lorenzo to follow.

They arrived at the Captain’s cabin: and Jack Jimmy, who met Appadocca at the door, stood on tiptoe, threw his head forward, opened his eyes, and was just on the point of venting some exclamation, when Appadocca made a sign to him to be silent. The little man, almost bursting with the internal ebullition of the greeting which he was obliged to restrain, retreated into an angle, and Appadocca passed on.

“Sit down,” said he to Lorenzo, when they had arrived into the cabin, “and allow me to express my approval of the brave and wise manner in which you have discharged your duty during my absence.”

The officer bowed modestly.

“Has the crew always acted up to its office?” Appadocca demanded.

“Yes, your excellency,” replied Lorenzo.

“The unfortunate accident,” proceeded Appadocca, “which happened, deprived us of our last booty: but, in two days’ time I shall let the men have as much as they can desire. I shall let them have pleasure to-morrow. Lorenzo, let us drink together.”

Appadocca pressed a spring, and one of his attendants appeared and laid on a table wine and drinking-cups. Appadocca filled a goblet and passed the decanter to Lorenzo.

“Thanks to you, Lorenzo,” said Appadocca, and drank.

“To the joy of your return, your excellency,” said Lorenzo, and did the same.

In a few moments after the officer left the cabin.

CHAPTER XXIII.

At early dawn on the morning that followed the departure of Appadocca, Feliciana was sitting in the principal apartment of the Rancha. She was occupying her favourite chair by the window, and with her cheek resting upon her hand, was gazing listlessly and absently on the green grass without, on which the dew still sparkled in the silvery rays of the rising sun.

She seemed occupied by her own thoughts, although the beautiful picture of waking nature—a scene always enchanting in the tropics—was before her, and every moment, as she heard the rustling of the carat that roofed the house, or the creaking of the cedar windows as they became heated with the sun, or any other sound which might resemble a footfall, she turned her head eagerly to look, and turned away again, evidently disappointed when she saw nothing.

The morning merged more and more towards noon, she more and more frequently turned round to look, but seemed every time disappointed as before, for Appadocca, whom she was expecting, did not appear.

“Can he be ill,” thought Feliciana, “Maria, Maria!” she cried, as she became more and more alarmed by the idea.

An old servant appeared, and was immediately sent to see if the stranger was well.

She soon returned, and said that there was no one in the room.

Feliciana jumped up and rushed into the apartment which Appadocca had occupied. No one had slept on the bed.

The truth now broke in upon the young lady. Her countenance fell; she walked back dejectedly to her chair, and looked out as before.

“What shall I do?” asked the old domestic, who had now a long time waited in vain for the orders of her absent mistress.

Feliciana started: “Tell my papa,” she said, and turned away her head.

The old domestic went slowly and in a side-long manner out of the apartment, gazing at the young lady the whole time, and muttering “what is the matter with the child?”

Feliciana remained where she was the greater part of the day, closed her ears to the repeated exhortations of her old servant to take food, and declared, in answer to her pressing questions, that she had had a disagreeable dream the night before, which had thrown a feeling of melancholy over her the whole of that day. When she retired to her apartment in the evening, the young lady hastily gathered her valuables, and wrote a letter, which she addressed to her father, and sat quietly and pensively until the night was half spent. She then rose, and carefully let herself out of the house, and walked slowly and cautiously away, until she got to a considerable distance from the Rancha. Once in the open field, the bold Feliciana began to run, for it was only by running that she could keep pace with the rapidity and activity of her thoughts. The next day she was by the sea shore, and was just in time to catch a glimpse of the little fallucha which had received Appadocca on board, as she was sailing away. She waved her handkerchief, but no one on board saw her, and the fallucha left her behind.

Undaunted by this accident, the young lady continued her journey along the shore, moving, however, in an easterly direction.

Oppressed with fatigue, she sat for a moment, in the evening, on the grass, to rest herself.

The dull sounds of horses’ hoofs in a short time were distinctly heard.

“I am undone,” Feliciana exclaimed, and turned to look.

Two horsemen were seen rapidly approaching in the direction by which she herself had come.

“They are my father’s men,” she said to herself, and looked about for some tree, or other object, behind which she might conceal herself: but there was not a thing at hand.

The horsemen drew closer and closer again; she looked round once more: at a short distance, the grass seemed to grow richer and thicker. She crept along towards this point, and threw herself flat into the tuft: but she was barely concealed, and durst not hope to escape being seen.

“I cannot avoid being taken,” she said to herself, and seemed unnerved by the thought. The horsemen approached nearer and nearer. The thoughts of Appadocca crowded on her; the conflict of undefined feelings which had taken place in her mind, had ended in leaving her a being that was devoted to that mysterious man, and one who could now form no idea of life in which he was not the beginning and the end. Her fears now yielded to a stronger feeling; she drew from her bosom a gilded poniard, and vowed that she would not be deterred from fulfilling her vow as long as she lived. The horsemen had almost arrived to where she was, they came opposite to her, they looked neither on one side nor on the other, but seemed entirely absorbed by the subject on which they were conversing in a loud tone of voice.

From her hiding place Feliciana could see them distinctly. Joy, joy! they were not her father’s men. But may they not be other persons that were sent after her in one direction, while her father’s own Llaneros went in another? She remained quiet and listened.

“No, I shall not take less than seven piastres each for my oxen; and, as for my jack-asses, I shall not let them go for less than four piastres a-head,” said one of the horsemen.

“You are quite right,” replied the other; “those people in Trinidad can afford to pay a good price for their bullocks. By-the-bye, have you remarked what a number more of beasts we sell since the English took that island. I understand these fellows live entirely on beef, and that is the reason why they are such good soldiers.”

“Good or bad soldiers,” answered the other, “if they eat beef, and make us sell our cattle, that is all we care about.”

“They are merchants,” said Feliciana to herself, and resolved at once to speak to them.

“Yes, continued the first speaker, I shall not—”

“Ho!” cried Feliciana, springing from the ground, “senores, senores, ho!”

The horsemen looked round, and crossed themselves, and at the same time, cried, “Jesu!”

“Stop, stop, I wish to speak to you,” Feliciana continued.

The horseman reined up their horses, and remained apparently under the effect of some powerful fear.

“What may she be?”

“Who knows what she may be! that’s just the reason why we should obey her,” replied the other.

In the mean time Feliciana came up.

“Shall we speak to her?” one inquired of the other.

“Where are you riding to, senores?” she inquired.

They looked inquiringly at each other, and then asked each other in a whisper, “Shall I answer?”

“Where are you going to, senores?” she repeated.

“To Guiria, beautiful lady,” one at last answered.

“Be good enough to take me with you,” said Feliciana.

The horsemen looked amazed at each other.

“I shall give you two hundred piastres.”

The two horsemen opened their eyes.

“Two hundred piastres?” they repeated inquiringly.

“Yes.”

“And who are you, beautiful lady, that are thus solitary in the Savannahs? are you one of us or some blessed spirit that is permitted to walk the earth. We are good and true catholics, do not harm us, we beseech you.” The two horsemen here devoutly crossed themselves respectively.

“I am no spirit,” answered Feliciana, “but an unfortunate lady, who is flying to the rescue of—of—her—husband: pray take me on with you, and I shall reward you, as I have said.”

The horsemen mused, and whispered to each other for a moment. Then one of them dismounted.

“Senora,” he said, “Heaven forbid that we should ever commit the crime of leaving a lady in the wilds without shelter or protection. Allow me to assist you in mounting my horse.”

Feliciana was supported on the saddle. The three persons then proceeded on their journey. The horsemen changed places alternately at the various stages of the journey; and while one walked at the side of Feliciana’s horse, the other rode by turns, until they arrived in the environs of the town of Guiria, where Feliciana found a number of opportunities to continue her wanderings in search of Appadocca.

CHAPTER XXIV.

After Appadocca had jumped overboard, the large ship passed the bocas safely, entered upon the still waters of the gulf, and within a few hours afterwards her large Anchor was cast off the harbour of Port-of-Spain.

As the vessel approached nearer to her port of destruction, Charles Hamilton had become more and more anxious, and uneasy about the fated doom which he saw every moment hanging lower and lower over his friend. He reasonably argued that, with such a willing witness as James Willmington, and with such a stoical disposition as his friend had formed to himself, there would not be the slightest chance of Appadocca’s acquittal when he should be tried. For Willmington, it was to be supposed, would not attenuate the least feature of the case, nor would Appadocca descend from his high notions of philosophy to conceal or deny the charges that would be brought against him.

In this state of mind, Charles Hamilton considered a long time, and endeavoured to think of some means of still saving his friend. It was, however, a difficult and perplexing matter, for the only available measures that he could adopt, were doggedly repudiated by Appadocca himself.

“Confound his obstinacy,” the young officer muttered, when he thought of his friend’s infatuation; “he might have been saved long ago if it were not for that.”

Among a number of expedients and plans, Hamilton at last adopted the one of having an interview with James Willmington, of endeavouring to soften down his persecuting feeling, and of establishing, if not terms of kindness and affection, at least those neutrality and indifference between him and Appadocca.

It was in this disposition, that long before the sun had risen on the morning after the man-of-war had come to an anchor, Charles Hamilton requested a servant to ask James Willmington to be good enough to attend him in his cabin. Willmington, whose excitement had kept him awake the whole night, shortly appeared.

“Be good enough to sit down, sir,” said Hamilton.

Willmington sat down.

“I have taken the liberty, sir, of asking you to my cabin, to speak to you on a subject that I am aware must be very delicate; but my great anxiety for my friend, and the just apprehension that I entertain with regard to his life itself, have led me to put aside whatever reluctance I should otherwise feel, and to speak to you on that head.”

Willmington looked stolidly and vaguely at Hamilton, and said not a word.

“You are aware, sir,” continued Hamilton, “that Appadocca runs, at this moment, the risk of his life.”

“I am aware, sir,” replied Willmington, briefly.

“Well, sir, shutting my eyes to all family quarrels—”

“There are no quarrels in my family that I know of, sir,” interrupted Willmington.

“Perhaps you will hear me out,” remarked Hamilton.

Willmington exhibited the rudiments of a bow.

“Shutting my eyes to all private quarrels between you, I say, I cannot but consider it a misfortune that a young man, like Appadocca, should be brought to a disgraceful death on a scaffold at such an early age. You will be the only prosecutor in this case, and, to a certain extent, you hold his life in your hands; will you suspend—suspend your animosity, and give Appadocca a chance of escape?”

“I do not understand you, sir,” said Willmington.

“I do not think there is much obscurity about what I said,” remarked Hamilton, in his turn.

“Do you mean, sir, to ask me to connive at a felony, and to permit a criminal to escape?”

“Call it what you choose, sir; I ask you to save Appadocca from an ignoble and untimely death,” answered Hamilton.

“Then, sir, I must tell you at once, I cannot. The law must take its course. Beside, sir, I feel called upon by public justice and morality, to bring to punishment the individual in whose favour you are making these representions.”

“Hum,” groaned Hamilton—“you forget one great point,” he said after a short pause.

“What is that, sir?” inquired Willmington.

“That by bringing Appadocca to the scaffold, you will disgrace your own blood,” answered Hamilton.

“I do not care much for that, sir,” answered Willmington.

“But you might show some consideration, at least, to your own son,” said Hamilton.

“He did not show any to me,” sullenly replied Willmington.

“That is no reason why you should not: and you must recollect, he justified his harshness to you precisely on the same grounds as you now do yours. Besides, he may again, one day, justify any vengeance that he may be inclined to wreak upon you by your conduct to day.”

“There will not be much chance left of his doing so, I warrant you,” replied Willmington, with a sardonic smile.

“There is many a slip between the cup and the lip,” said Hamilton.

A pause ensued.

“Beside,” continued Willmington, re-opening the dialogue—“besides, he is my son only of a sort.”

“What do you mean,” inquired Hamilton.

“That his mother was not Mrs. Willmington,” answered Willmington.

“Do you mean to say, then, that you do not consider you owe any duty to your children that may not have been born in wedlock?” inquired Hamilton.

“Scarcely,” answered Willmington.

“You consider, therefore, that where the word of a priest has not been pronounced on your union, you are absolved from your honor, and from natural obligations?” inquired Hamilton.

“I do,” answered Willmington.

The lips of the young officer curled up with scorn, as he stood up and said, with ill-concealed disgust:

“Leave my cabin, sir; leave my cabin. By G—d you are not made worse than you are. If I were Appadocca, I should have hanged you outright, and not sent you with a philosophical scheme to float on a cask and to be picked up.

“Hark you, sir,” continued Hamilton, in a suffocating temper, “if you have a son that resembles you more than Appadocca does, born of Mrs. Willmington, understood—send him to me, sir, and, by his own appointment, I shall give him satisfaction for ordering you out of my cabin.”

Willmington turned to leave, but met face to face a servant that came rushing it.

“Your honour, your honour,” the man cried with much excitement, “the pirate prisoner has drowned himself.”

“What?” exclaimed Hamilton, and fell back into his chair.

“The pirate prisoner, your honour, has jumped overboard. When the steward went into his cabin this morning, he was not to be found: on examination, the skylight was discovered to be open.”

The officer leaned his forehead on his hand.

“There, sir,” he said, “your vengeance is satisfied: public justice and morality are vindicated.”

“Scarcely,” muttered Willmington between his teeth, and left the cabin.

Charles Hamilton was deeply affected by the supposed suicide of his friend; recollections of bygone days crowded on his mind. He recalled vividly to himself the happy hours which he and his friend Appadocca had spent together in the lightheartedness and warm fellowship which only students can feel, when strong and mutual sympathy links them, and carries them together through study and through recreation: he pictured to his mind, the ardent and aspiring youth, such as his friend then was, with a mind that was stored with learning, and a heart that was overflowing with abundant benevolence, and then contrasted him with the cold soured, cynical man, whose mind was now entirely engrossed with schemes of death and revenge, and whose heart now beat but in cold indifference, or throbbed with a more active feeling, only when retribution and punishment quickened its action. He then thought of the career which hope would have foretold on the one picture—a career, that like the stars themselves which Appadocca measured, was to be ever bright and brilliant, that might have shed its light on humanity, and might, perhaps, have signalized an epoch of philosophy and certain truth: and he thought, on the other hand, of the actual reality of a life spent in the degrading society of the reputed scum of mankind, with its energies and powers exercised and lost in devising methods for robbing others, and closed at last in immorality and crime.

Such thoughts weighed heavily on Charles Hamilton, and when he proceeded on deck, his step might be observed to be less light, and his eye less quick than they were wont to be.

As for James Willmington he walked on one side of the deck restlessly, and bit his nails.

“The fellow,” he interjected to himself, “to go and drown himself when I expected to have made him feel the consequences of his insolence, in having me put on a cask and set adrift. The villain! to go and drown himself, when the gallows and the hangman’s hand ought to have sent him to his account. Never mind, he is out of the world, and one way is as good as another, there is no fear now of being judged again in the name of nature.”

Willmington smiled satanically.

“He is gone, and that is one blessing, at least, and he will, no doubt, meet those in the other world who will be better able to answer his philosophy than I.”

And a diabolical smile played on the lips of that heartless and selfish man.

“Have that man landed at once, Charles?” said the commander dryly, who was attentively watching Willmington, from the quarter-deck.

His attention had been at first attracted by the restless and impatient movements of Willmington. He had remarked the workings of his lips, and had noticed the bitter sneer that settled upon them at the end. The dislike which he had always entertained for that man, was worked up to its height by this exhibition.

“He could not have been uttering a prayer for his son,” he justly thought; “prayers do not end so. No—no—he must be truly a vile individual. Death ought to suspend, at least, the enmity of the bitterest foes. It is a strange father that can curse the memory of his own son, however great a reprobate he may have been. Have that gentleman landed immediately, Charles,” he again said to his son.

In a few moments, James Willmington was made acquainted with this order, and was told that a boat was ready to take him ashore.

“Thank God, thank God!” he cried, almost aloud, and quickly ascended the steps of the quarter-deck, to take leave of the commander.

“My lord, I have to bid you, good morning,” said he, as he approached the commander.

“Good morning,—good morning,” quickly replied the person addressed, apparently desiring to have as little as possible to say to the individual, who was taking his leave.

“I am much obliged to you,” continued Willmington, “for the protection and assistance, and—”

“Not at all, sir,” dryly rejoined the commander, “I have only discharged the duty which I owe to all His Majesty’s subjects on these seas.”

“Yes, my lord,” pursued Willmington, “and I trust my lord, when you land, you will condescend to remember your former guest.”

“I thank you, sir,” replied the commander, as dryly, as before.

“Good morning, my lord.”

“A very good morning, sir.”

The boat, soon bore Willmington away from the ship.

“If the world possessed many more like that man,” said the commander to his son, while he pointed to Willmington, who was now on his little voyage toward the shore, “it would indeed be worse than a den of thieves.”

“I am afraid there are many more of this sort, sir, than you imagine,” replied Charles, “and that the world is not even as good as a den of thieves, for they say, those individuals recognize a certain code of honor.”

“Things were not so in my time,” replied the commander; “when I was young, Charles, we feared God, honored the king, and dealt justly and honorably by all men.”

“The times, then, are changed, sir,” said Charles, “and the greatest misfortune is, that such characters as that Willmington, unluckily for humanity, make as many Appadoccas.”

“True,” observed the commander, “it is a misfortune. I always thought I perceived much to be admired in that unfortunate Appadocca. I am rather glad, I must say, that he has drowned himself rather than permit himself to be dealt with by the executioner.”

On landing, Willmington hurried up the magnificent walk of almond-trees, which lead from King’s-wharf, into Port-of-Spain. He pursued his way through the city, and scarcely recognised the many wondering friends and acquaintances, who proceeded forward to congratulate him on his return, for they had heard of the accident which had befallen the ship in which he had taken passage; and also of the manner in which he, in particular, was treated.

When he had arrived at the beautiful Savannah which lies at the Northern-end of the city, he diverged into a footpath that led to the beautiful villas with which Saint Ann’s-road is ornamented. He quickly walked up the road a little way, and immediately stopped at the gate of a magnificent and romantic suburban house that stood in solitary grandeur, amidst the beautiful trees that belted it.

He rang at the gate-bell, and was immediately admitted by the servant, who started back, and almost went into hysterics at seeing his master back again.

“Gad bless me, massa, da you, or you ’pirit?” inquired that official, as he opened the gate and let his master in, who, without noticing the wonderment of the man, rushed into the house.

“Ah! is it you, Mr. Willmington?” said his wife, with fear, surprise, and joy, all confusedly pictured on her face.

“Heavens be praised, and thanked,” and she embraced him affectionately.

“Tell me, tell me all about the accident that befell you,” she asked.

“Not to-day, dear,” answered Willmington; “not to-day, dear. Only thank Providence that I am again safe. I shall relate everything when I am more composed.”

CHAPTER XXV.

It was with the greatest difficulty that James Willmington succeeded in restraining the curiosity of his wife until the period which he himself had appointed to tell her the particulars of the capture of the ship, and also the singular circumstance of his trial, punishment and rescue.

The period had now arrived.

In a beautiful and fantastic pavilion, into which the soft evening breeze wafted the sweet perfume of a thousand delicate flowers which bloomed around, sat James Willmington. He was seated at the head of a vast, spreading table that was loaded with the choicest and most delicious fruits that the tropics produce. Opposite to him sat Mrs. Willmington, on whose side two very beautiful infant daughters were respectively placed. On the right hand of Willmington was his son, a youth of about eighteen, who was dressed in the uniform of an officer.

The pure wax tapers that burnt in chaste and elegant candlesticks of solid silver, shed a cheerful and soft light around. The faint music of a small fountain that played hard by, fell soothingly on the ear, as it grew louder and louder, or fell fainter and still fainter, according to the direction and strength of the lulling breeze that seemed to sport with its jets. The old family pictures that hung on the walls looked down fiercely and frowningly, or smiled upon the happy and quiet group, according to the stern and warlike disposition or the benignant characters of each.

The servants had all retired for the time to their own apartments; and Willmington sat quietly smoking an exquisite cigar, and sipping from time to time the crystal iced water that stood in a tumbler by his side.

“I shall now tell you,” he said, “the succession of accidents which has brought me back to Trinidad,” and he began to relate the particulars of the capture of the merchant vessel, the distribution of the shares, his trial, his being thrown overboard, the agony that he suffered on the cask, and finally his providential rescue, the capture of the pirate captain and his supposed suicide. He narrated circumstance on circumstance, quickly passed over the alleged causes of his sufferings, and mentioned Appadocca as one who claimed to be his son.

“Confound his impudence,” cried the youth of eighteen. “I wish I had been there, I should have caned his insolence out of him. The idea! to call my father, his father, vile cut-throat as he was. I wish I had him now. But do you know anything at all of him? How came he to claim you as his father, sir?” he inquired, after a time.

“Do not interrupt me;—do not interrupt me,” was the only answer Willmington made to this home and embarrassing question.

Time had flown during his long narrative. The clock had already struck eleven—a late hour in the tropics—when he was concluding.

“Yes, my children,” he said at the end, with great solemnity, endeavouring to make the contemplated impression, “there is one above to punish evil doers.”

“Ay, and he never slumbers,” replied a deep sonorous voice from without, and in a moment afterwards the pirate captain stood before James Willmington.

The cigar fell from his jaws, that palsied with terror, now gaped asunder. His hands trembled, and threw over the glass of iced water towards which it was being stretched, his silvery hair seemed to stand on end, and with a sudden bound, Willmington started from his seat and reeled over his chair towards a corner of the apartment.

“Get out of my sight, get out of my sight, accursed, damned spirit; in the name of Christ, I conjure you!” he cried, while his eyeballs glared, and large drops of sweat trickled down his forehead that was almost green with fear.

Appadocca calmly raised the chair from the floor, drew it to the head of the table, folded his thin cloak around him and sat down.

“I did not design to deliver you up to the authorities,” shrieked Willmington, almost inarticulately. “No, no! I had only intended to frighten you, I would have allowed you to escape. Oh, yes, I would have protected you; yes, yes, I would have protected you like a father. Forgive, forgive me, and scare me no more.”

Appadocca looked round upon the miserable Willmington, who, contracted with terror within the smallest possible heap, crouched in a corner.

“Do not look at me,” cried Willmington still more terrified, “vanish, vanish, in the name of Heaven and all the saints. If you come from Hell—to-to haunt me,—return, return. It was not I that wronged you. Forgetfulness, forgetfulness—I intended—I intended always—always to find you out. Your mother, aye, your—your mother loved me. Have mercy—mercy—on me,—the vessel—the vessel took me by—by chance to St. Thomas. I did not—I did ask him: no—no—I was sorry—sorry, when—when—you were drowned. Mercy—mercy.”

“Come here and make your will,” said Appadocca, authoritatively, without paying the slightest attention to the cries of the wretched and almost distracted man.

“Make my will? will!” recommenced Willmington, “do you intend to murder me? Hence, hence, I am a christian, you have no power on me. No, no,—do not—do not—out, out of my sight, damned, reprobate spirit.”

“I am no spirit. Speak not to me so sillily. Make your will, I say,” said Appadocca, with more authority, “and do not let these children suffer from your loss. The minutes that you can remain with them are counted.”

“Will, will!” exclaimed Willmington, as if already staggering in his intellect.

“Will? I have no will to make. My will is made already. Do not speak to me of wills—do not speak to me of wills, I do not wish to die—I will not die. Leave my sight—leave my sight—leave my sight.”

“Then settle your other affairs,” said Appadocca with the same authority as before. “I allow you five minutes; at the end of that time you must go with me.”

“No—no, I will not go with you,” shrieked Willmington, “I did you no harm——I intended you no harm. Let me live a little longer—give me but seven years to live—five—two;—half a year;—a month—a week, a day;—do not take me away so soon. Let me live, let me live. Do not take me with you. It was not I that drowned you.”

“It would be prudent on your part to fill the five minutes, which are accorded you more profitably than by these vain petitions. I—”

“Vain petitions! Let them not be vain; look at the children that I have to maintain and protect: do not take me away from them,” cried Willmington, interrupting Appadocca.

“I am no ghost,” continued Appadocca, “but something worse.”

“Was he not drowned?” Willmington began to mutter. “Did he not jump into the sea—at the bocas—or farther out?—Can he—could he have been saved? no, no, delusion—delusion. His face is as pale as death. He is still and quiet as the grave;” continued Willmington, as he gazed intently on Appadocca, who was still sitting calmly at the table.

The period had elapsed, the moment of doom had now arrived.

“The period is past, your time is come,” said Appadocca, “rise and go with me.”

“No—no,” shrieked Willmington, madly,—“no—no—no.”

And with a sudden spring he jumped from the corner to one of the doors: he was roughly thrown back by some person who was outside: he then rushed to another, and was again repelled—to another, and he was once more forced back. He sprang on to the jalousies, and as he succeeded in opening one, he was quickly shoved back by some powerful arm from the outside, into the room again.

Like one who endeavours to flee from devouring flames, that rush in merciless fury to close him in, and finds every passage, every outlet, or crevice for escape barred against him, the unhappy man reeled back into the room in the madness of despair.

“Murder—murder,” he shouted, “John!—Charles!—James!—Edward!—Murder!—Murder!—pirates!—fiends, pirates, robbers, police, police.”

“Ho! there! Domingo,—Gregoire!—Alphonso!—Jose!” called Appadocca, with his habitual calmness.

Four men on the call entered the room. Their flashing eyes shone from beneath their overhanging red caps, and their long beards and mustachios exhibited a peculiar appearance under the silvery light of the tapers, which tended to display to the full their dark and dry complexions.

“Secure him,” said Appadocca pointing to Willmington, as the men entered.

“Do not touch him for your lives,” cried the young officer, the son of James Willmington, that sat on his right.

He, like his father, had been under the power of a supernatural terror from the moment that Appadocca entered, and had been addressed as a visitant from another world; but when he became awake to the fact that the intruder was a being of flesh and blood, he grasped his sword that lay on a table, and rushed at Appadocca.

“Do not touch him for your lives,” he cried, while he made a lunge at the breast of the pirate-captain who still retained his seat. The point was already touching the cloak of Appadocca, when the heavy weapons of some unseen individuals from without, shattered the slender sword into a thousand pieces.

“Secure you the young man, Baptiste,” said Appadocca, unmoved by the danger which he had so narrowly escaped.

A man immediately stepped into the room and threw his arm round the unresisting young officer.

The four men had rushed upon Willmington. Despair had maddened him into a sort of courage: he met the foremost one of them half way, and grasped him around the throat, with the clutch of death. The pirate also seized him, and the two men, animated with passions which though different in their natures were equally fierce in themselves, grappled like madmen, and staggered violently to and fro. The strong effort of the pirate, could not throw off Willmington, who clung to him with the tenacity of the serpent that tightens its refolded coils around the triumphant tiger that still presses its paw on its bruised head.

Lashed into rage, the pirate drew his knife: it gleamed for a moment overhead, and was descending, with certain death upon its point, when——

“Hold!” cried Appadocca, “no blood; help him Gregoire, Jose, help him, there.”

The voice of the captain arrested the disciplined arm.

Spurred by the immediate commands of their chief, the other pirates closed in upon Willmington, and by the exercise of violent force tore him away from their comrade, who stood for a moment with his eyes fiery and glaring from anger, and with his chest heaving heavily and quickly.

The prisoner kicked and shouted until the words rattled hoarsely in his throat; but he was now in no soft or gentle hands. Sooner than we can write it, he was tied hand and foot; his cries, nevertheless, still resounded through the place.

“Gag him,” was the immediate order.

The prisoner’s neckcloth was roughly undone, and violently thrust into his mouth.

“Away with him.”

The pirates stretched out two pikes: the prisoner was laid across them, they raised him on their shoulders, and walked silently out of the apartment.

“Now unhand your prisoner, Baptiste,” said Appadocca, to the man who held young Willmington. Baptiste let go his hold.

“My father, my father,” shouted young Willmington and rushed first to one door, and then to the other, all of which he found guarded on the outside.

“Sir, you cannot go out,” said Appadocca.

“I will go out—I will go after my father,” ejaculated young Willmington.

“You cannot, and shall not,” answered Appadocca.

The young officer rushed to all the doors in succession, and was rudely pushed back at each.

“You see you cannot go out,” observed Appadocca.

“Who are you? what do you wish to do with my father?” inquired the young Willmington, as he turned disappointedly from the door.

“I shall tell you, by-and-bye,” answered Appadocca.

“Tell me at once, and let me out,” cried young Willmington.

“That cannot be.”

“That must be: I must rescue my father,” rejoined young Willmington.

“Banish the idea: you will never be able to do so,” replied Appadocca.

“Why not?”

“Because you will be prevented,” answered Appadocca.

“Prevented?—prevented? Hell, itself, with all its legions, shall not prevent me,” shouted young Willmington. “I will rescue my father.”

“Do so,” answered Appadocca.

The young man rushed to the doors again, and was thrust back as before. After a series of vain attempts, he staggered, almost exhausted, into the centre of the room.

“You see, sir, I make no ungrounded assertions. It is impossible for you to follow your father,” said Appadocca.

“Why impossible? Confound you as a cut-throat—murderer,” asked young Willmington.

“Because,” answered Appadocca, without noticing the harsh epithets, “because he is implicated in a vow that must be fulfilled.”

“I understand no such vow,” said young Willmington, “and if I had a sword, I should force my way in spite of you.”

“Ha! we shall now understand each other, sir,” said Appadocca, then threw aside his cloak, unbelted his richly-ornamented sword, and laid it on the table. “You can use that, sir,” he said to young Willmington, while he pointed to it, and stepping towards the door—

“Lend me your sword,” he said to one of the men.

The person gave up his sword at once to Appadocca, who went round the room, and carefully bolted every door, one after the other. After that, he said to his men.

“Retire into the high road, and remain there until I call.”

The men retired from the doors, and Appadocca closed with the same care the one by which he had entered.

He was now left in the apartment only with young Willmington, Mrs. Willmington, who lay insensible on the floor, where she had fallen at the appearance of Appadocca, and her two infant daughters, who stared on in a state of absolute stupefaction.

“Now, sir,” said Appadocca to young Willmington, standing by the table, and leaning on the sword which he had borrowed, “allow me to speak to you. I am your father’s son.”

“You are not,” indignantly remarked young Willmington.

“It is an honor,” said Appadocca with a smile, while he bowed to the young man, “which I have never prized, I believe your stock is stamped with a peculiar mark: behold it!” and Appadocca opened his little finger as widely apart as possible from the other, and pointed to something between the two fingers.

Young Willmington looked, stared, and started back in astonishment, but spoke not a word.

“He,” continued Appadocca, after this disclosure, “treated me with harshness, injustice, and cruelty, and wronged, in addition, one whose place I now supply, and in whose name I seek vengeance. I owe him nothing except punishment. I am, therefore, your father’s sworn persecutor, and retributioner. You, he has always treated with kindness and affection; the bonds of natural obligation have been drawn the tighter on you by good deeds. You are, therefore, by the principles of justice, his natural defender. Now he is named in a vow that I have made, and I cannot let you rescue him. I have the power to prevent you from making any attempt to that effect, and I shall do it. But there is yet a satisfaction which I can give you, and I shall do so. With my life, the persecution which is now carried on against your father will cease; for I shall leave none behind me to take up my cause. I am willing, therefore, to throw life and death on a hazard, and to afford you as fair a chance as possible of purchasing your father’s deliverance by your valour and bravery. My sword, which I offer you, is of the finest metal, you may rely upon its fidelity. I challenge you to mortal combat.”

Appadocca put himself in an attitude of defence, bent his left arm over his back, raised his head proudly, and held his sword straight before him.

Young Willmington was undecided: he seemed to be under the power of a thousand different and conflicting feelings. There was no possibility of denying the well-known family mark with which Appadocca was stamped; he saw, consequently, before him his brother, by the laws which nature had made, whatever he might be by those which man had framed, and was forced to recognize in that brother the prosecutor, enemy, and almost murderer of his father. He was divided between two duties, the duty which he owed to a father, and that which he owed to a brother.

“I shall not fight with you,” he said after a long pause. “If you grudge us any of his property, take as much as you please, but render us back our father.”

“Will not fight!” exclaimed Appadocca, “I had imagined that your father was the only selfish coward in an old race of reputedly brave men.”

“Coward do you call me?” inquired young Willmington, with a frown.

“Ay, coward,” answered Appadocca. “First you made a thrust at me when my attention was directed otherwise, and now you seek to wound my feelings by supposing the possibility that I could grudge you your father’s wealth. Grudge, indeed! his most precious jewels would disgrace me. My men, however—the friends that received me, shall enjoy it. Coward, ay, thrice four times coward; again, and again, I proclaim you as such.”

“No more, defend yourself,” cried young Willmington, and he clutched the sword which Appadocca had laid on the table.

Young Willmington warmly pressed on Appadocca who still stood on the defensive. Thrust after thrust, lunge after lunge came in rapid succession from young Willmington. Respiration came short and quickly. He made a desperate thrust at Appadocca, who with a slight but quick movement of the wrist at once disarmed his adversary.

Young Willmington bowed haughtily, while his face grew crimson with vexation.

Appadocca quickly picked up the sword and presented it again to the young officer.

“No, no, I am satisfied,” said the last-mentioned person, and refused it.

“You ought scarcely to be so, sir. Recollect this is the only chance that will probably be afforded you,” replied Appadocca, “to recover your father. Try it again.”

“Have you any object in pressing me to fight longer? By the law of arms you are not justified in thus asking me again when I am defeated,” said young Willmington.

“Perhaps not,” answered Appadocca, “but you must recollect this is a very particular case. To be frank, I must confess I am scarcely satisfied with the chance that I have afforded you, I like to satisfy justice, sir. Pray try it again.”

“Strange man, I shall,” answered young Willmington, and then began to prepare himself more deliberately for this second combat.

The swords were again crossed. Willmington no longer thrust so widely as he did—he fenced more cautiously. Appadocca still maintained the defensive. The combat proceeded but coldly—Willmington tried every skilful pass and cunning trick. He had contrived to edge his sword, as he imagined, imperceptibly to Appadocca, within but a short distance from his adversary’s hilt, and was just inclining his hand inwards to thrust home, when Appadocca met the inclination by an opposite movement, and by a sudden jerk again unarmed his adversary.

“Sir, destiny seems to favour me at these. I presume you have pistols, shall we try them?” inquired Appadocca.

“It strikes me you are longing for my blood?” remarked young Willmington.

“By no means,” answered Appadocca, “I have waded through too much of that already. But I am willing to give you the greatest opportunity of redeeming your father. Then am I to understand that you will fight no more?”

“No more,” answered young Willmington.

Appadocca drew forth a small silver whistle, he blew it, and in a moment the pavilion was again surrounded by his men.

“Sir,” said Appadocca, on the arrival of the men, “the safety of my followers require that you should be rendered incapable of alarming the town. You must consent to be gagged and bound. Ho! outside there.”

Three or four pirates entered the room,

“Gag and pinion him,” said Appadocca, and pointed to young Willmington.

In less than a few minutes the order was executed upon him.

“Take him to the remotest room in the house.”

Young Willmington was carried bodily out of the apartment.

“Ho! Jack Jimmy,” cried Appadocca.

That individual immediately rushed into the room, trembling with excitement.

“Rummage the whole house, and bring all the silver and gold. Pedro, help him.”

“Yes, massa,” Jack Jimmy answered, and hurried out of the apartment.

While Jack Jimmy and the other man were intent on searching for whatever valuables the villa contained, Appadocca seated himself on the same chair that still stood at the head of the table.

His eyes had become gradually more and more intently fixed on the two beautiful children, who clung in wakeful unconsciousness to their pale and still insensible mother.

They seemed actually petrified with fear, while their large interesting eyes were firmly rivetted in a vacant stare on the terrible being whose coming had brought so much horror to the happy villa.

“Yes, it is too true,” muttered Appadocca, “the sins of the fathers are visited on their children. Were it not for the injustice of your father, my little ones, I should not be here to-night to terrify you with my fierce and unfriendly looks. If my heart had not been long seared, if there was still in it one single portion that continued as fresh as once the whole was, your silent looks, your unspeaking terror, would move me more than the eloquence of a thousand glib-tongued orators. Nay, I might, perhaps, forget my vow.

“How poisonously bitter are the cups that others season for our lips? Still, may Heaven preserve in your minds the deeds of to-night, and when you shall have grown up, always recollect this sad retribution, and speak a word whenever you may be able, and say that you know, by the experience of a scene of your childhood, that certain creatures who are branded and repudiated by society are beings who possess feelings, and who claim the same measure of justice as is meted out to all.”

“Me get all, massa,” said Jack Jimmy, who now came in with an air of serious importance.

Appadocca rose and pointed to the door; the two men then walked off from the villa, and were immediately followed by the captain himself.

The villa which, but a short time before, presented a scene of domestic happiness, was now left in the desolation of death, with the lights still burning, and the superfluity of luxury still scattered about. The gate was heavily drawn after them by the three persons that had just passed through, and silence settled over the place.

The pirates, who with their prisoner and booty, awaited the captain in the road, were drawn up in order, and after saying a few words to an officer, Appadocca gave the word to march, and they silently went down the road. He himself remained behind.

CHAPTER XXVI.

It was dark, on a certain evening, to which the attention of the reader is now called, when, amidst the rocks and bushes of the mountainous district that flanks Port-of-Spain on the east, and that is known by name of La-vantille, two female forms might be perceived.

They were following a rough and narrow path which led up to the mountains through a thousand rugged ascents and yawning and frightful precipices. The two travellers seemed foot-sore and exhausted, and were compelled now and then to grasp a root or twig of the Guava-bushes that grew here and there to assist them, as they arrived at a more broken and difficult part of the small road. The air was also oppressive—the rocks were still radiating the beams which the sun, that had not long set, had shot full upon them as it was sinking in the west. Nature was hushed: but the distant and faint barking of the cur that guarded some invisible hut, and bayed at some imaginary danger, fell on the ear.

The two persons still followed the path, and ascended still higher and higher up the mountain that overlooks Port-of-Spain.

“You are tired, madame,” said one of the persons, whose dress indicated an humble condition in life, and who was evidently conducting the other.

“Yes,” replied the other, who appeared to be of a different class.

“We shall not have very much farther to go,” said the guide.

“The place is certainly a great distance from town,” remarked the other.

“Yes, it is, and the path is very rough and unpleasant; but we shall presently come to a beautiful spot, where we shall be able to rest for a few moments.”

“No, no,” answered the other; “it would be better to proceed at once: the night is now quickly coming on, and we do not know what dangers there may be among these solitary rocks. What, if robbers were to attack us?”

“Robbers,” replied the other; “madame needs not fear robbers; bless me, people would not take the trouble to come and remain here for the purpose of robbing others. Robbers are never heard of in Trinidad, I assure you.”

“Indeed,” replied the other.

“Yes, indeed: I know persons who have traversed this place at all hours of the night. I myself have passed here on one of the darkest nights, and quite alone, also: you need not be under any fear, I assure you.”

In the mean time the wayfarers arrived at a small level piece of ground that was covered with grass. It was quite an “oasis” in those rough and flinty parts.

“Ah,” cried the guide, “here is the place, let us rest here,” and sat down on the grass. The lady did the same.

“This is a beautiful little spot, is it not, madame?” remarked the guide interrogatingly.

“It seems so,” answered the lady.

“If it was day, you should be able to see the whole country round from this,” proceeded the guide: “on that side is Caroni, where we first settled when my master and his family came from Carriacou; a disagreeable and muddy place, madame; there is Maraval, a sweet pretty spot, with beautiful hills and scenes; and straight before us lies the sea. If it were light, you would be able to perceive the five islands, and the large bay where Admiral Appadocca—”

At this name the lady started suddenly.

“What is the matter, madame?” asked the guide.

“Nothing, nothing,” hastily replied the lady.

“Do not be alarmed; it is, no doubt, a cricket, that has jumped on you. There are not many snakes here: Caroni is the place for them,” observed the female cicerone.

“Well, as I was saying, madame,—what was I saying?—I was telling you about the large bay where Admiral Appadocca—”

The lady started again, but more slightly than before.

“Let me drive it away for you,” said the guide, “these crickets are sometimes very troublesome; but they are a sign of good luck—they are a sign of good luck. People say, those on whom they may happen to jump, are sure to have money—plenty of money. Where is it? let me catch it.”

“Oh, never mind, never mind,” the lady said hastily, “continue, continue your story.”

“When Admiral Appadocca, I was saying, set the Spanish ships on fire, at the time when the English took the island, I remember the blaze they made. People say they were laden with gold: what a pity that was.”

“Why did he set them on fire?” inquired the lady.

“Because he would not let the money fall into the hands of the English,” answered the guide.

“And what became of the admiral himself?” the lady inquired again.

“I really cannot say,” answered the guide.

A short pause ensued.

“Had he any son, do you know?” asked the lady after a time,

“I do not know, madame,” answered the guide.

“The money that I spoke of just now, has been all lost. They say that sometimes the fishermen manage to bring up a portion. I don’t think that is true,” said the guide.

“Do you not think we had better go on,” inquired the lady—“I wish very much to see that old woman, as soon as possible.”

“Come, then,” answered the guide, and the two travellers continued their journey. As they proceeded, the path became still more rough, steep, and trying. They, however, went on.

“I should be very much disappointed,” said the lady, “if after all this trouble and labour, the person that you tell me of, should not be able to give me the information I require.”

“Never fear that, madame, never fear that,” replied the guide, “she is a wonderful woman.”

“Do you know of any instance in which, what she said, turned out to be the truth?” asked the lady.

“Bless me, yes, madame, great many, I can assure you. She has often foretold what would happen, and what she said, proved as true as possible.”

“She may be able,” said the lady, “to speak about what is to come, but can she say any thing about the present?”

“All,” replied the guide.

“Do you think, she will be able, to give me any information, about the person whom I am now seeking?” inquired the lady.

“I am sure she will,” answered the guide.

“Let us walk faster,” said the lady, and, at the same time, quickened her pace.

“I should not advise you to walk faster, madame,” said the guide, “we have still a considerable way to go.”

“True,” said the lady, and fell again into the measured and leisurely pace of the guide.

“You are sure she will give me the information, you say?” observed the lady.

“Quite sure,” answered the guide, dryly, “I can point you out a hundred families in town, who were landed here as poor myself, and who made the great fortunes they now possess, only by consulting her. In the time of slavery, when a planter lost any of his slaves, he had nothing else to do, but to come to her, and she would send him to the very corner, where he would be sure to find his run-a-way.”

“Indeed!” cried the lady.

“It is true,”—replied the guide, “beside, she can cure all sorts of disorders. Those that are pronounced incurable by the doctors in town, resort to her, and are sure to be restored to health.”

“I remember one case in particular,” said the guide, seriously, “of a man who had been suffering for two years, from a hand that was swollen to a very great size. He could not get any rest, either night or day, but groaned continually. He consulted every doctor—they did everything in their power but could not relieve him. His hand grew daily worse and worse: and he was reduced to the size of a nail. Well, some one told him about this old woman, and he came to her. She examined the hand, then pressed the fingers; from under the nails of each she took out a rusty pin. Next day the hand was perfectly cured.”

“Impossible,” said the lady.

“Quite true,” replied the guide.

“There is another case,” continued the guide, “that is as striking. There was once an unfortunate man who was afflicted with madness; sometimes he was quiet, at others he would break out in the greatest violence and beat his wife and children almost to death. All the doctors saw him and said he was quite gone, there was no curing him. His illness daily gained ground upon him, until at last he went violently mad. His friends were grieved on his account, and were at last persuaded to take him to the old woman. They did so: as soon as she saw him, she took a little stick and struck him on the head; his skull opened: she took out twenty small fishing hooks that were stuck into his brains; and closed the skull again. In a few moments the man was cured.”

“Is that possible?” exclaimed the lady.

“It is remarkable,” observed the guide.

“Did you see the cure yourself?” inquired the lady.

“No, I did not,” answered the guide, “but every one in the town knows it.”

The path in the meantime became more rugged, broken, and steep.

“Ha, we are now arrived,” said the guide, taking a long inspiration.

The travellers made two or three steps forward, and they immediately perceived a faint light that glimmered indistinctly through the brushwood.

“Now, madame, you must disguise yourself, or else she won’t speak to you,” said the guide.

“Why so?”

“Because,” replied the guide, “there is a law in this country against those who tell fortunes. If it was to be known that she told anything to any one, she would be burnt alive. Leave your veil here, madame, there, so, and hide your comb with it. That’s it, that’s it; now take this handkerchief, tie it round your head—let me do it.”

The guide tied and adjusted a Madras handkerchief on the head of the lady.

“Now let us go: and recollect let me speak.”

The two travellers diverged into a still narrower part that was almost entirely hidden by the bush which grew thickly and fully about it.

The angry barking of a dog was now heard. The travellers still went on, until they could now distinguish the outlines of a low and narrow hut, in the open part of which the embers of a wood fire still smouldered. By its faint light, was to be indistinctly seen, the form of the wakeful watch-dog, that stood determinedly a little way in front of the hut, and barked fiercely and fretfully.

The two women stood, afraid of approaching nearer. The dog still barked noisily.

“Ho, mother! mother Celeste,” called the guide. “Mother Celeste!”

No one answered.

“She does not hear,” observed the lady, “she is asleep; call louder.”

“Ho, Mother Celeste! Mother Celeste! it is I, it is I,” repeated the guide.

Still there was no answer,—the dog barked still more loudly.

“Heavens! I hope we have not come all this way for nothing,” exclaimed the lady, in a voice that faltered with anxiety.

“It is to be hoped not,” answered the guide, and she began to call out more loudly than before. “Mother Celeste! Mother Celeste!”

“Who is is that comes to disturb me at this lonely hour of the night?” said a weak and obscure voice, that came from within the fragile hut.

“It is I, it is I, and another person, who wish to see you,” answered the guide.

“You cannot see me to-night. I do not know what you have to see me about,” answered the same voice.

“We have come a great distance, and we cannot return without seeing you: let us in.”

“I cannot open my door at this hour of the night,” replied the voice: “return.”

“That we cannot,” replied the guide. “Call your dog, Mother Celeste, and open the door to us; you will see what a present we have brought you.”

“What present can you bring me this time of night?”

“Fifty dollars, Mother Celeste, fifty dollars.”

“I can’t open to you,” replied the voice, “I can’t open to you.”

“Say a hundred,” said the lady.

“Well, a hundred dollars,” cried the guide.

“It is very late, I do not know who you may be; I shall consider—I shall consider,” said the same voice.

“She will open now,” said the guide, “that is what she always says, she is now hiding all her things.”

Truly enough, in a short time, the voice from within was again heard.

“Approach, my children; come and tell me your woes,” it said.

“But the dog, the dog,” cried the guide.

“True,” replied the same voice, “Fidele, Fidele,” it called, and the dog immediately became silent and disappeared.

The two females now approached the hut. It was a little cabin, that was built of a few pieces of round timber, which were now black with smoke. Palmeto leaves formed a slight covering to it. A few reeds roughly fastened to the primitive posts, fenced in the part which lay in the direction from which the wind usually came. The other, or inner part of the hut, however, was fenced entirely in, and covered, as the sleeping apartment.

“Wait until I strike a light,” said the same voice.

In a few moments a rudely constructed old door opened.

“Enter, enter, quickly, my children,” said the same voice.

The lady hesitated a moment.

“Go in, go in, madame,” said the guide, and gently pushed her.

The two travellers entered.

The hut presented as peculiar an appearance on the inside as it did on the outside. The rough pieces of Palmeto bark that boarded it, was hung with drapery of spider’s webs, that either floated black with time and dust, or was still spread in the process of extension, under the industry of the master insect himself. From crooked nails, that were driven into this primitive wall, a number of bottles, of peculiar fashions and makes, hung suspended by cord that had long lost its colour under the many dyes which it may have received from the black, yellow, green, brown, and bluish liquors which those bottles seemed to contain.

In one corner stood a rough bed, that seemed constructed of four branches of a Guava-bush; and around, a number of nasty, greasy, barrels were ranged, and had their heads carefully covered over by pieces of plastered old canvass.

In one of the deep angles of the hut there burnt a lamp, constructed of a hollow gourd, in which some cotton and some oil were adjusted, and was made to throw around a dim light, whose faint radii did not extend farther than a foot or two beyond its centre.

At the side of this lamp was huddled up a being which at first view, might appear to be one from whom life had long departed, and whom the veneration of friends or kindred persisted in still retaining among them. She was a little black woman of diminutive size, with an old greasy dress, that lay slack and loose about her. Her knees were drawn up to her jaws, which protruded largely and hideously. Her skin was shrivelled and dry, and seemed to flap as she moved her toothless jaws. A Madras handkerchief was tied carelessly round her head, and from a corner, or a hole here and there, her short gray and matted hair peeped out.

“Good night to you, Mother Celeste,” said the guide, as she drew a three-legged stool for the lady, and sat, herself, on the ground.

“Good night to you, my children, good night,” said Mother Celeste.

“I have brought this friend of mine,” said the guide, “to see you on a matter of great importance.”

“To see me? to see me, my child,” mumbled Mother Celeste: “what can I do for her, poor old woman as I am, except give her my blessing?”

“She wants some information about a person she is seeking,” said the guide.

“How can I give it, how can I give it, my child?” answered Mother Celeste.

“Try, mother, try,” remarked the guide.

A pause ensued, during which Mother Celeste seemed thoughtful.

“What friend of yours is this, my child?” inquired Mother Celeste.

“She is from the Spanish main,” answered the guide.

Mother Celeste raised the rude lamp to the face of the lady: “Yes, yes,” she muttered, and replaced it on the ground, and then grasped her hand: the lady started when she felt the rough hacked skin of the sorceress.

“Do not start, my child,” said Mother Celeste, “do not start; and now tell me your story,” she mumbled. “Will you go into the front awhile?” she added to the guide.

The latter opened the little door, and went out.

“I love,” said Feliciana, whom the reader may have recognised before this, “I love a man—a stranger to me—I cannot tell you how I love him. He was taken to my father’s house, from the beach on which he was found half drowned. I loved him the very first moment I saw him, he is so handsome. He suddenly left my father’s house, and now I wish to know where to find him. Do tell me: there are a hundred dollars for you.”

The sorceress clutched the money and pressed her flabby lips to it again and again, then tottered towards her rude bed and laid it under her pillow.

“Yours is a difficult case, child,” mumbled the old woman.

“What is the man?”

“Alas, mother,” answered Feliciana, “I fear he is a pirate.”

“Is he short or tall?”

“Tall.”

“Dark or fair?”

“Pale.”

“Retire for a moment, child,” said mother Celeste.

Feliciana went out of the small apartment.

An hour passed. During this time, Feliciana and her guide were alarmed by the horrible noises that were heard from the room of the sorceress. Now the most fearful yells—now the most heart-rending groans broke forth—the violent stamping of several individuals were at one time heard, at another, the strangest jargon grated harshly on the ear, while, at the same time, the stench that penetrated through the chinks in the partition almost suffocated those without.

Feliciana and her guide trembled in utter fear.

“Shall we run away?” said one to the other.

“No, no,” answered Feliciana, her whisper almost inarticulate with terror.

Even at this trying moment the thought of Appadocca was the most powerful in her mind. The hope of finding him, sustained her against all terrors.

At the end of the hour the little door of the hut was violently opened, and the little sorceress was seen standing in a body of flame.

“Seek your lover, amidst the tombstones to-morrow, at the lonely hours of night,” she said, and the door was violently closed.

This uncertain answer fell on the ears of Feliciana like a thunderbolt.

“Oh, he is dead—he is dead,” she cried, and wept bitterly.

The guide stood aside and allowed the young lady to give vent to her sorrow.

“Who knows, madame,” she said, after a few moments, “the answer may not mean that.”

The young lady raised her head for a moment, a new thought seemed to strike her.

“Let us ask,” she said, “let us ask?”

“Oh, she will not open the door now, for the world,” the guide replied.

“Will she not? Mother Celeste, Mother Celeste,” cried Feliciana.

The barking of the dog that now reappeared drowned their voices.

“I tell you, madame, she will not open the door,” said the guide. “I ought to know her, since I bring people to her almost every day.”

Feliciana remained buried in thought where she was for a moment. “Let us go,” she shortly said.

The two travellers began to retrace their steps towards Port-of-Spain.

Feliciana was sad and pensive; the guide was less talkative than before, and after half-an-hour’s walk, the barking of the dog still reached their ears.

CHAPTER XXVII.

Appadocca stood for a while, and watched his men, who, in military order, were marching down the dark and solitary road. When even their footsteps could no longer be heard; he cast one more look on the desolated villa, that still shone resplendently under the many lights which burnt within, and that now presented the appearance of a place, in which the pleasures of a marriage feast, may have been broken in upon, by some unexpected and chilling calamity.

What ever reflections he may have made, while he gazed at the house before him, were short and transitory and perhaps unpleasant, for he suddenly turned away his head, and bent his steps rapidly towards the beautiful Savannah, that opened before the splendid house of James Willmington.

Having immediately approached the Savannah, Appadocca climbed over the iron rails that enclose it, and got within.

The night was one of a peculiar sort. It was dark, but the air was soft and dry, and the numberless stars that shone, seemed to twinkle more, and more, and more brightly, and by their brilliant light, the imaginative, may have seen, or fancied to have seen, to a vast depth into the bluish ethereal fluid, in which they were suspended. Appadocca directed his steps immediately across the Savannah. He walked on pensively and moodily, without even raising his head for a moment, to gaze on the stars above; or, to listen to the faint and peculiar insect-sounds, that might now be heard, amidst the general calm and lull of nature.

When he had arrived at the western end of the Savannah, he again climbed over the railing, and found himself in the road which runs parallel in that direction, with the Saint Ann’s road, on the opposite side. He then diverged towards the left, and continued down the road, until he had arrived to a certain street, which ran to the right.

Appadocca walked along this street, and was obliged to stop from time to time, in order to drive away the numbers of dogs that followed, and that kept up an unceasing noise at his heels.

The street opened on the extensive cemetery, that lies to the west-ward of Port-of-Spain, and that looks picturesque and beautiful by day, under the grove of magnificent trees, that shelter it; but which, by night, looks as dark and as gloomy, as the thoughts themselves which it calls up.

Appadocca stood for a moment, and looked over the wall; no one, nothing was to be seen, save a few white and spotted goats, that silently cropped the grass at a distance, or frisked capriciously over the tombstones.

He scaled the wall, and held his way straight down the road, which lies concealed beneath the thickly knotted branches of the trees that overhang it, and that unseen, leads into the innermost parts of that long and lasting home of thousands.

Having reached the utmost end of this road, he turned towards the left, into one of the many cross-formed paths, that bisect the cemetery. He walked carefully along, and examined attentively every tomb that he passed, until he had arrived at a simple grave, that with a plain cross at its head, lay sheltered beneath the rich spreading foliage, of a thick cluster of bamboos. Here Appadocca stood, and remained motionless and entranced, at the foot of that unornamented tomb; his arms were folded over his breast, and he was in the attitude of one whose thoughts were veiled in an absorbing and holy feeling.

In a moment he approached nearer and nearer; then seated himself down at the head of the grave, and remained there, his brow resting on his hand, as if his spirit was in communion with that of the body which the grave contained.

Time fled, still the pirate captain remained in the same position. The deeds of a whole life-time, one would have said, were returning in rapid succession on his memory. The pursuits, the pleasures and pains, the endearments and enjoyments of childhood, of boyhood, of youth, of all, seemed to fly back like administering angels, or like fiends of hell upon his mind; for his recollections were freshened, his sensibilities were awakened by his mother’s grave:—his mother’s grave, which he approached now a different man from what he was, when he bade the farewell which proved the last on earth to that mother. He had left her with the halo of those virtues, which she had taught more by example than by precepts, still surrounding his head, with his spirits fresh and expanding, with his heart good and at ease, with his intellect aspiring higher and higher; now he revisited her in the cold tomb, with a callous indifference either to virtue or to vice, with a heart that was poisoned to the centre, with spirits lacerated and torn to shreds and tatters. How to wreak retribution now engrossed his whole intellect—retribution on the man whom that mother had once too fondly loved, and whose placid nature had, no doubt, long long forgiven. How could he be certain that her spirit now looked down upon him with pleasure, the spirit of her whose life was a speaking lesson of patient endurance.

Such might be the feelings and thoughts of Emmanuel Appadocca, whose manhood could not restrain the tears that trickled down his cheeks, and flowed, as it were, in mockery over the hilt of the sword that lay across his knees, and moistened the mound before him.

The fleeting hours glided by, Appadocca was in the same position. The brilliant stars shone beautifully above him, the fire-flies played about the tombstones, the tall dark trees rustled, and the pliant bamboos creaked melancholily before the gentle night breeze.

“I may not look upon you again: still, let me—let me perform, perhaps, the last office that I may be permitted,” said Appadocca, as if speaking to some one by his side, and began to pluck the weeds that grew over the grave.

Time passed quickly. His labour was completed. Appadocca took one last and earnest gaze at the grave, then muffled his cloak leisurely around him, and turned moodily away.

He followed the same path that led to the grave, and came out on the wide gravelly walk. His footsteps echoed in the silence of the hour, and he proceeded with his eyes fixed upon the ground. From time to time, however, he raised them to look at the morning star. He had now done so, when he beheld before him a tall female form, that was clad in black, standing under the branches of a rose-apple tree, which edged the road.

“Heavens!” muttered Appadocca, “is there, then, such a thing as a spirit?”

He stood for a moment.

“Oh, human mind,” he cried, “how weak thou art in all thy greatness! how imperfectly thou canst cut away the indifferent portions of thyself. Behold, whither imagination now hurries thee. Can there be such a thing as a spirit?”

Appadocca began again to walk. The form began to advance towards him. They met.

“Appadocca,” it cried, and grasped the hand of the pirate captain.

“Feliciana! impossible: my ears play upon me,” said Appadocca.

“No, no: it is—it is Feliciana; Feliciana, who has tracked you from her father’s humble house, and who will still follow you as long as life continues under the labours she will undertake for you, and the privations she may have to endure on your account.”

“At this place, and at this dismal hour!” remarked Appadocca.

“Better this place with all its horrors than the palace in which I could not find you,” answered Feliciana.

“Strange devotedness,” muttered Appadocca.

“But how came you to know that I was here,” asked Appadocca.

“A sorceress told me you would be,” answered Feliciana. “I entered this cemetery. Heavens, how I trembled! and trod its solitary walk, and examined each whitened monument until—until—I—saw you—at—at—a grave. Return, return, with me, let me pray with you, let me join my prayers with yours.”

On saying this, Feliciana proceed down the walk, and led the unresisting captain after her.

Arrived at the simple grave, she threw herself on her knees, and began to pray. Appadocca stood by, now resting on his sword.

“Oh grant,” said the lady, in conclusion to her prayer; and she repeated the part aloud, “grant that his heart may be turned from the unholy pursuit which now throws his soul into the hands of demons, and let the spirit of his mother inspire him with the thoughts that she possessed.”

This loud conclusion sounded solemnly in the silence of the night. The sternness of Appadocca’s character could scarcely resist it.

“Come and join me; say you renounce the life you now lead,” said Feliciana.

Appadocca made no answer.

“Come, come—for your mother’s sake, come,” said Feliciana.

“Pray you, senora. I will not pray, and I cannot renounce.”

“I entreat you: imagine you behold the mother that you have loved so much, making the same petition to you. Could you refuse her?”

“Senora, speak no more on this theme, I say I cannot renounce; my vow is made.”

“Heaven looks not upon unholy vows; not on vows of vengeance,” said Feliciana, “renounce your life and forget that oath.”

“Senora, the morning star is sinking; my followers must be growing impatient. I must go;” and Appadocca moved a step.

Feliciana sprang from her knees and grasped him by the hand; “do not go from this spot the same man as you came to it. Wash yourself by prayer from the blood which you may have shed, and ask—ask her spirit to forgive you, if you offended it.”

Appadocca drew his hand quickly across his brow. “Feliciana, your are ungenerous, unkind: my—feelings—require—no—further laceration. Life and my miseries have already made me too, too well acquainted with anguish. Spare me, spare me the thought of an offended mother—the only—the only—the only—friend that I had in this bitter, bitter, world.”

“Say—say not so,” quickly rejoined Feliciana, still more melted by the grief of one who appeared always so indifferent. “You have still, still a friend. Oh fly, fly with me to some wilderness; there enjoy your thoughts, your silence, your feelings. I shall be your slave, your dog, that will gather the inkling of the wish from your very eyes. My fallucha is by the shore; Appadocca will you go?”

A pause ensued.

“No, no, Feliciana,” said Appadocca; “I shall not: lean not, good, good girl, upon a broken reed. To me all things, save one idea, are stale and indifferent. My life is gloomy, dark, and troublesome: my existence is already a heavy, heavy oppression. My soul, like the cumbrous tower, fell but once, it can never rise again. Your presence would create a new grief in me, for I could not see you love one whose blood was chilled.”

“I require no love—I require no love,” quickly rejoined Feliciana, “I shall be your slave.”

“That, I shall not endure; my idol is woman. I ought to worship, not she.”

“Still you will let me follow you?” eagerly inquired Feliciana.

“No, no, my career may still lie through blood,” answered Appadocca.

“Speak no more of blood,” cried Feliciana, “forswear your vengeance.”

“Never,” answered Appadocca sternly.

“Say, why doom yourself for ever,” Feliciana was going to inquire—when—

“That the world may profit by my conduct,” answered Appadocca.

“But the world will not know, will not attend to what you do.”

“I care not, I care not,” answered Appadocca, “my word is passed and I shall fulfil it. I am resolved, the sacrifice must be made.”

“But see, the morning star is sinking fast. I must away.”

“But do not——”

“Come, come, let me lead you hence,” so saying Appadocca grasped the arm of the faint Feliciana, and hurried out of the cemetery.

They walked down the street that runs from north to south on the western side of Port-of-Spain, and soon reached the principal landing-place, where the crew of the Black Schooner were impatiently waiting for their captain.

“Feliciana, I bid you a long, long adieu,” said Appadocca, as they stopped under one of the almond trees that form the shady walk we have already mentioned.

“Do not say so,” said Feliciana indistinctly, as she leaned against the tree, “oh do not say so.”

There was no answer, not a word.

“Feliciana let me ask you—to—to—place this near your heart, and whenever you gaze upon it, let one thought return—to—to—the—the sick man of your father’s house.” So saying, Appadocca drew his sword and cut off a lock of his flowing hair, and presented it to the lady.

“Look—look—there,” she cried faintly, as she received the token.

Appadocca turned round and beheld a crowd of people who, with torches and lanterns, were following a company of soldiers that were marching quickly down the walk.

“Flee,” cried Feliciana.

“One more request,” said Appadocca. “Forget not, Feliciana, the place where you first saw me to-night. If foul and rank weeds grow upon it, pluck them as you pass by. Farewell, farewell.”

Appadocca walked down the wharf and was received by his men.

“Shove off,” he cried, as he threw himself on the stern sheets of the boat, and folded his cloak around him.

The soldiers arrived at the wharf just in time to see the boat disappear in the gray light of the morning.

They fired—the air resounded with their repeated volleys.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

It was not until an early hour of the morning, when Mrs. Wilmington recovered from her swoon, that it was possible to give any alarm of the outrage that had been committed at the villa of James Willmington.

When the lady recovered from her state of insensibility, and saw before her the scattered and disordered furniture, the flickering wax candles that had now burnt down to the very sockets, and her children, who, after the departure of the pirate party, had fallen asleep around her, recollections of the supposed apparition, and of the terror of her husband, flashed across her mind. Alarmed at the silence that reigned around, and not being able to understand why she had been permitted to remain in the same place where she had fainted away, she rushed impulsively to the bell, that lay on the sideboard, and rang it violently.

No one came.

She rang again—no one came: she rang again, and again, more and more violently; still no one came.

She then looked out of the parlour, and beheld the whole house still lighted up. She ventured out a little, and still a little farther, until she summoned sufficient courage, traversed the court yard, and entered the servant’s apartments.

In the principal room nothing was to be seen. Mrs. Willmington raised the light high up, while she stood at the entrance, and looked into every corner and hole. She could see nothing.

“Good God! can I be abandoned here with my children,” she said in a low tone, fearful to hear even her own voice, in such a silent and deserted situation.

She entered the room, and proceeded towards a door, which opened into another apartment. She turned the handle, and went into that room also; nothing was to be seen. She was turning to leave, when a low groan was heard. Mrs. Willmington started two paces backwards, but raised the light and looked back intently towards the part from which the groan came. In a dark recess, that lay in a remote corner of a room, two white shining balls seemed to glare upon her. She started still farther back: another groan was heard; she raised the light still higher; it fell upon a part of the recess, and discovered the shining face of the individual to whom the eyes belonged and from whom the groans proceeded.

“It is Jack, it is Jack!” cried Mrs. Willmington, and walked up towards the recess.

It was, indeed, Jack, who had his mouth as well filled with grass and cloths as it could possibly hold, and whose arms were as tightly tied behind his back, as mortal arms could be: and whose short legs were stretched straighter than they had ever been stretched before in Jack’s life. He was lying on his side, and his eyes were playing in their sockets like those fierce-looking things which German ingenuity has designed to represent the visual apparatus of man, and which are to be seen every day in some of the back streets of London in full play, to the infinite excitement and gratification of the awe-struck and wondering urchins.

“Jack, cook!” cried Mrs. Willmington, “what state is this you are in?”

“Jack, cook,” groaned, and his eyes played still more rapidly.

“How can I assist?” said Mrs. Willmington, “I think of it!” she ran hastily out of the room, and returned a few moments afterwards, with a large knife.

With this, she cut the cords which bound the limbs of the unfortunate Jack. A task of no little labour, for those who secured him, had done so with a marvellous amount of skill and success.

“Do the rest for yourself, now,” she said, when she had completed part of the work.

Jack required no exhortation, but as soon as his arms were free, he began with all his might to pluck out the number of things, with which his not incapacious mouth had been filled.

“Tenk Gad,” he cried, as he nimbly jumped on his legs, and shook himself like a newfoundland dog coming from the water.

“Where is your master?” quickly inquired Mrs. Willmington.

“Me massa, ma’am!” answered Jack in the manner that is rather peculiar to his class.

“Yes, your master; and where are the other servants?” Mrs. Willmington asked again.

“Dem gane?” asked Jack again, in his turn.

“Who, gone?” inquired Mrs. Willmington.

“De paniole, ma’am:” answered Jack.

“Tell me, Jack, will you; tell me quickly,” said Mrs. Willmington, now waxing impatient, “where is your master and the other servants?”

“Let me see if dey gane,” said Jack, and he walked on tiptoe towards the door, then carefully and cautiously peeped out, then ventured a little way into the courtyard, then ran hurriedly towards the great gate, and bolted it and rebolted it.

“Awh!” he cried, “Garamighty! Dey gane now! awh! me, neber see such ting in all my barn days. Wha dat? Me hab time foo blow now: put big, big, bundle so nan me mout! tap my breath, awh! But me can blow now—tshwh, tshwh!” and Jack took along breath in the fashion which seems to be peculiar to his people—a fashion which compresses a vast quantity of air, and sends it vehemently forth, so that the same hissing noise which the steam makes when it comes through the valve of a railway engine, is produced. A fashion which, be it said within parentheses, may be very economical, inasmuch as it affords a certain large amount of respiration within a certain small period of time.

This soliloquy, in the making of which, the illustrious cook by no means limited himself as to time, being over, and after having cast searching glances about the gate, and having looked and relooked above, below, sideways, before, and behind, Jack then, and not till then, deemed it proper to return to his mistress, who had also come to the door, and was endeavouring to discover what the cook was about.

“Me shet it, ma’am, me shet it,” cried Jack, as he returned.

“Now, perhaps, you will tell me what I ask,” said Mrs. Willmington, getting still more excited and angry, “where is your master?”

“Tap, missus,” answered Jack, “I’ll tell you all bout it.”

“Make haste, then.”

“Yes, missus,” said Jack, and began to tell all about it. He had the preliminary caution, however, of looking carefully round to see if no more “paniole,” as he called the pirates, were concealed thereabouts. Being for the time satisfied on that point, he proceeded—

“Last night, ma’am—no, the night before the night, ma’am, ee already dis ma’aning, Bekky come in, and find me da smoke me pipe. ‘Good night.—’”

“What has that to do with Mr. Willmington, Jack? Tell me where your master is, will you,” said Mrs. Willmington, still more angry.

“Me da tell you, missus,” answered Jack. “‘Good night, buddee Jack,’ say Bekky, says she. ‘Good night, sissee Bekky,’ me say, says I. ‘Awh! Jack!’ Bekky say, ‘wha tobacca you da smoke dey Jack, ee smell bad! da——’”

“No more of this, Jack,” said Mrs. Willmington; “tell me.”

“Tap, missus, tap, if you plase; me da come to it, me da come to it now,” said Jack.

Mrs. Willmington looked resignation itself.

“‘Da tobacca I buy dis ma’aning, Bekky,’ me say ma’am,” continued Jack; “and dat was all. Last night wen me finish de fowl, and bin da clean the kitchen, who me see, but Bekky. ‘Good even, buddee Jack,’ she said, says she. ‘Good even, sissee,’ I say, says I. ‘Look, some good tobacca a bring foo you, Jack,’ she say; and give me a bundle tobacca. So last night, when I sen in the dinna, I went into the garden foo try dis tobacca.

“Me sit down unda de bread-fruit tree; me tink me see somebody walk in de garden. Garamighty! me say, wha jumbee want early, early so. Me look agin, and me see de purson hab big, big beard like Paniole. Me frieghten! Da who you, me bin go halla out, and bin da go run away, when somebody hold me fram behind, and chucked grass and ivery ting into my mout, tie me han an foot, and trow me into the little room way you fin’ me ma’am.”

“And where is your master?” asked Mrs. Willmington.

“Me no know, ma’am,” answered Jack.

“And where are the servants?”

“Me no know, ma’am,” again answered Jack.

“Rummage the house, you simpleton,” said Mrs. Willmington, and lighted him the way to the other parts. Jack went cautiously, and turned his head round in all directions.

They entered another room. “Garamighty! Jim, dey tie you, too,” exclaimed Jack, as his eyes alighted upon the “Jim” who was exactly in the same predicament from which Jack himself had but a short time ago been delivered.

The only intimation of intelligence that Jim could make was, rolling his eyes about.

All the apartments were now searched, and the servants were found, one here, the other there, among them. They said that they were all simultaneously laid hold of by a number of “panioles,” and were gagged, bound hand and foot, and deposited separately in the different rooms.

“And where is your master; and your young master?” asked Mrs. Willmington.

“Dey carry old massa away pon their shoulders, ma’am, and dey took young massa up-stairs.”

“Heavens!” cried Mrs. Willmington, “and was it not then a spirit?” she asked.

“He looked more like a paniole than a pirit, ma’am,” said the individual who gave the information, who was the chief servant in the house, and whose especial destiny it had been to be gagged and otherwise dealt with in his pantry, wherein he was at the moment busy about some particulars connected with his avocation.

“Run up stairs. Go you, Edward, to—to—Mr. ——, the magistrate; alarm the town; tell the soldiers at the fort,” exclaimed Mrs. Willmington, while she herself rushed up-stairs with a servant.

Young Willmington was found duly gagged and tied in the favourite style of the pirates. He was immediately released, and he got up from the bed on which the kind consideration of the unwelcome visitors had laid him. He exhibited less pleasure at his freedom than one would have expected to see.

“What is the matter with you, James?” said Mrs. Willmington, not a little surprised at the strange calmness of her son. “Do you know that your father has been carried away from his house?”

“Yes, mother, I know it.”

“Then why not make more haste, James, and go to see about it?” rejoined Mrs. Willmington.

No answer.

“I shall go,” said young Willmington, after a pause, “but my mind misgives me about this whole affair. My father ought not to have concealed the truth from us. The man who came into the house, last night, is my brother.”

“Your brother!”

“Yes, dear mother; he possesses the family peculiarity,” answered James. “However, I shall go and alarm the authorities.”

The magistrates were awakened, the alarm was given at the forts, and the whole town was shortly in commotion. The streets were searched, but no pirates could be found. A body of soldiers was then marched down to the wharf, as the reader already knows.

At early dawn the magistrates went alongside the English man-of-war, and related to the commander what had taken place.

“There is not much mystery about all this, gentlemen,” said the commander, after he had reflected a moment, “I shall promise you, that when it is clear, you will be able to see a long, sharp, and strange-looking schooner in these waters. I have, unfortunately, been made too familiar of late with the boldness of that set of pirates. I am so certain of what I am telling you, that I shall at once give orders for weighing anchor: so that I shall be ready, as soon as it is light, to give chase, and I shall see,” muttered the commander to himself; “if I cannot get to windward of those fellows this time.”

True enough, the pirate schooner was seen in the light of the morning opposite the harbour of Port-of-Spain, but at an immense distance out at sea.

The heavy sails of the large ship then began leisurely to ascend its encumbered masts, in preparation for the chase of the pirate vessel.

CHAPTER XXIX.

When Appadocca with his party had gained the schooner, he immediately ordered the prisoner Willmington to be taken to the torture-room and to be there kept in custody: at the same time the men were summoned to the main deck, and the booty of the previous night, was distributed in the same manner as we have described at the beginning of this tale.

In the meantime the morning dawned more brightly, and the waters of the gulf lay smooth and shining before the piercing rays of the morning sun, unbroken as they were by the faintest breath.

The heavy sails of the man-of-war were still seen to ascend one by one, and fall, as they were spread, heavily against the masts.

They reflected the sunbeams from their white and clear surface, far and wide: and amidst the number of vessels in the harbour, the huge ship-of-war, with all its canvass spread, and its stern decorated with the fiery ensign of England, looked like a gigantic monarch of the sea that floated at the head of its smaller subjects.

She was now ready to weigh anchor, and was now evidently only waiting for the wind which was certain to spring about the hour of ten in the forenoon.

When Appadocca had superintended the division of the spoil amongst his followers, he ordered the young midshipman to be brought before him.

That individual, in a few moments, made his appearance. He had scarcely as yet recovered from the effects of his torture; he was pale, and appeared still weak and emaciated. Yet in his eye there could now be read a more earnest seriousness—the fruit of the self dependent position in which he had for some time so accidentally found himself, and the consequence of the example to whose power he had been exposed, in the stern and manly society into which he had been thrown.

From a boy whose yearnings had been continually after excitement and pleasure, he was suddenly transformed into a man, whose thoughts began to be characterised by the seriousness of purpose which alone can be worthy of the highest of the animal creation.

A change was marked on his face, and his demeanour was more subdued and more self-possessed.

“Young man,” said Appadocca, as he stood before him, “I set you at liberty, you shall have a small boat, which will in a moment be ready for you, you will be able to skull to your ship. I cannot, I am sorry to say, spare any of my men to help you. I see she is preparing to weigh anchor. Take my compliments to the commander himself, and tell him, to take the advice of one, who has experienced much kindness at his hands, and by no means to move from his anchorage to-day. Ask him to consult a calculation which I made on the partition of the cabin in which I was confined, and he will know the reason. Before you leave the schooner, ask the officer of the watch for a letter which I shall send to your commander’s son.”

Appadocca then descended into his cabin and wrote thus:—

The young midshipman was withdrawn and in a few moments he pushed off gladly from the schooner, and was soon seen gradually leaving it behind.

Ten o’clock came, and with it the steady trade wind. The placid gulf curled before it—the vessels at anchor in the harbour, swung to and fro on their long cables, as they felt its force, and the vessel-of-war sheered off under her canvass that swelled and looked full and turgid with the wind. The sprays flew about her broad bows, and she was bearing straight down on the schooner with the wind on her quarter. Every sail that could be hoisted was set, and her commander seemed again determined to make another powerful effort, in order to have a chance of bringing his batteries to bear against the Black Schooner. As for that vessel herself, she remained in the same place where she was, and seemed quite indifferent to the movements of the man-of-war.

Appadocca pensively paced her deck, and looked from time to time towards the eastern shore.

“The rash and fiery old man,” he muttered, with an expression half anxious, half indignant, when he saw the large vessel fall off from her anchorage.

When the wind had become fairly settled in, the order was given to set sail.

With the usual rapidity, the masts of the schooner became sheeted in her ample sails, her small kedges were let go, and she turned gracefully to the wind. Her bow pointed to the southern outlet of the gulf—the Serpent’s Mouth.

The calm and placid picture which the two vessels presented, as they sailed in the same direction, bore in itself but a faint resemblance to the fierce passions that might animate their crews, or the bloody deeds which might be done if once they came within gun-shot of each other.

The usually quiet gulf smiled under the freshness of the morning: the two vessels sailed smoothly on its even bosom. There was no labouring, no plunging, no heaving of terrible seas, to call forth any feeling, akin to terror.

The dark blue waves appeared through the thin vapours of the morning like a landscape in a picture, and the light slender fishing canoes, with their feather-like sails, which seemed to play on the waters, like butterflies in the beams of a sunny day, added a peculiar and peaceful appearance to the scene.

The high and solitary mountain of Naparima, with a few scattered and scathed trees on its crown, rose in the distance; while the low sloping shores before, seemed entirely to enclose the gulf, and to hem it round against the violence of intrusive winds. Upon the whole, a beholder, on seeing the two vessels together, with the thousand sailing boats and sloops that followed in the wake of the man-of-war in order to witness the exciting scene of an action, might have taken them to be the pleasure ships of luxurious lordlings, who had launched forth on the deep to seek another subject of excitement, in order to cheat monotony of some of its victim-days.

The pirate schooner held its course with an indifference that would not have led one to believe she was pursued. The watchful chief stood by the shroud of the mainmast, with his arms folded on his breast, calm and impassable as he was at almost all the moments of his life.

Not so the pursuing man-of-war. Ever and anon, as any of the small sailing vessels that navigate the gulf came in sight, signals upon signals went up her masts, to intimate that the vessel ahead was a pirate, and to command it to be harassed and hindered in its course. But all these were lost on the simple skippers of those simple crafts.

The chase continued. The terrible rock that is known by the name of the “soldier,” and that true to its appellation, seems to guard with unsurprizeable vigilance the passage of the Serpent’s Mouth, was passed. Point Icacos, too, was doubled, and the two vessels were now riding on the atlantic billows, with the low Orinoco marshes on the right, and the rocky and wild coast of Trinidad on the left.

The sun was setting, when, suddenly, as if some monster screen had been abruptly raised from earth to heaven, in order to keep one part of the globe from the other, the wind fell, and the sails lay like humid sheets against the masts.

“Nature will now begin to speak,” said Appadocca to himself, with a certain air of contentment now lighting up his stern brow, and then looked aloft and around.

At his order, the spars were instantaneously armed with steel spears, from whose feet, conducting wires hung down along the shrouds and dipped into the sea. At another order, the large jibs, foresail, and mainsail of the schooner were stripped from the masts, and in their place, small narrow sails, which, from their size, could not have been supposed to be capable of having the least effect, were set.

The guns were doubly secured in their places, and the arms were fastened with even greater care than usual in their cases, in the bulwarks.

The two vessels now lay on the ocean, that now heaved as if from its own convulsions; for the lightest vane hung straight and stiffly down. There was not a breath of air. The vessels turned round and round helplessly on the seas, and as they rose on this wave, and were beaten athwart, or astern by the other, for the billows rolled at this time in no regular course, they fell into the troughs, or rose on the brows of the waves with such sudden and straining movements, that the wood and iron that formed them, seemed scarcely strong enough to hold together.

Night closed in; with it came a darkness that in itself was awful. No man could see his hand before him, shipmate could not see even the shipmate that stood at his side; which was the sea, which the deck, no one could tell, save when some counter-running wave broke suddenly on the side or bow of the schooner, and threw up the myriads of shining insects that inhabited its full and swollen bosom.

Those that were obliged to move about, clung cautiously to the bulwarks, and set one foot carefully before the other, that they might not throw themselves over.

The cries of the terror-stricken sea-birds, as they wandered on the still and suffocating air, with even instinct failing to lead them to their resting place on the shore, sounded hoarse and ominous to the ear.

Not a sound was heard on board the schooner, except the creaks of the straining cordage, as the vessel violently and madly plunged.

Now, like molten lead, the rain began to fall in large, heavy, and leisurely drops. Then distant sounds, like the groans of a labouring world, when earthquakes shake it to its base, were heard. A sudden and faint gush of wind, like the fluttering of gigantic wings, came and turned the schooner round and round, and passed away, leaving the deadly calm as it was before. Flash—flash—the lightning came, and by its lurid light, the ocean to the southward shone in one sheet of foam.

“How is your helm?” inquired Appadocca of the steersman.

“Very slack, your excellency. She does not feel it,” the man replied.

The sounds increased; they approached nearer and nearer; they came, and like a toy in the hand of a giant, the schooner was suddenly thrown on her beam-ends. The water washed one-half of her long deck, and the first gust of the hurricane swept with a terrible noise, over the prostrate vessel, and seemed to crush her, like a mountain that had fallen from its base, and had met some paltry obstacle in its way, while it was rolling along to find its level.

“Luff,” cried the chief to the steersman.

“Luff.”

The schooner lay on her side for a few minutes, as if she would never right again: at last, like an impatient steed, whose course has been arrested by some temporary barrier, after sustaining the violence of the gust, she sprang forth into the face of the wind, and seemed like a thing of passion and pride, roused to brave the power of the overwhelming hurricane.

With the scanty storm sails, which the foresight of Appadocca had had bent, she shot through the mountain billows with her usual speed, cleaving them through, and throwing the sprays mast high.

On—on, she went, as if actuated by the bold spirit of the man who commanded her, she sought to penetrate the very bosom of the hurricane.

Her slender masts bent like willows to and fro, as she mounted the mountains of rushing water, that struck and shook her to the very keel.

By the flashes of glaring and frequent lightning, the fierce sailors could now and then be seen standing stolidly at their respective stations, their red caps drawn far down over their puckered brows, and their black beards dripping with spray and rain.

A rope fastened each man to his post, and unmoved, like carved wood, they stood in the terrors of the howling winds: the bonds of discipline were still on them.

As for Appadocca himself far from evincing any anxiety, he seemed to take pleasure in the terrible convulsions of nature. With the dark heavens above him re-echoing far and wide with the rolls of the loud and never-ceasing thunder; with the balancing ocean below him, and the terrifying howls of the devastating hurricane around him, he was the same unimpassioned, collected, intrepid man, as when the schooner rode on the calmest sea, under the most smiling sky. He seemed to take pleasure—if his nature could receive pleasure—in the awe-striking scene. Ever and anon he took up his red cap, and pressed his hand over his brow in apparent delight.

The schooner still laboured in the seas that now began to grow higher and higher, and heavier and heavier. The lightnings came and played about her masts, like the spirits of the tempest, that seemed marking her as their victim; but the fluid glided down the wires, and lost itself in the foaming deep.

Still on—on—on she went. A terrible gust.... She was laid on her beams again. The wind was gone: the air was calm and close: not a breath;—her narrow sails hung to her masts, and she was tossed about without wind enough to feel her helm.

At this frightful interval the echoes of rending broadsides were heard towards the north. They were the reports of the man-of-war’s distress guns.

“Take in the fore and mainsail,” cried Appadocca, in a voice that seemed to sound solitary and lonely amidst the terrors of the night.

“Reef the jib.”

The order was scarcely executed, when the rumbling sounds were again heard. It was coming—it was coming; the schooner was thrust forward, as if some immense rock had been let to fall against her; her bows were dashed through the approaching billows; as she emerged for a moment, the same power thrust her backwards; her stern sank under the volumes of water that washed over her decks; and then, as quick as thought, she was lifted from the surface, and twisted, and twisted, and turned reelingly round in mid-air, and was let to fall with a tremendous crash again. Crack—crack—her two tapering masts snapt from the deck. They were overboard, and the lately resisting schooner was now borne with the rapidity of lightning before the hurricane.

“Get up the anchors,” the voice of Appadocca was again heard; as he recovered from the concussion of the whirlwind.

The prostrate sailors scrambled from the corners into which they had been thrown; the hatches were raised, and the only hope of the schooner,—the anchors—were quickly drawn on deck.

The hurricane was now at its height. Like a feather on the overturning currents of an overflowing cataract, the vessel was furiously borne away before the sweeping wind.

The anchors, with their immense coils of chain-cable were thrown overboard, to arrest the progress of the vessel for a time, until jury-masts could be rigged.

It was of no avail.—Fast—fast—before the wind the schooner went; and then a grating noise, and a dreadful shock;—every man fell on his face—she was ashore—on the rocks.

“Save yourselves, my brave men,” the deep-toned Appadocca cried, as he stood boldly prominent amidst the surrounding rack and ruin.

The ocean was fringed with foam, as it broke on the rocks of Trinidad, on which the once beautiful schooner was at this moment being dashed to pieces.

The sailors now thought of saving themselves. The distance from dry land was not much, and it might be gained on the crest of the waves, if no rock dashed to pieces the daring fugitives in their attempt.

Each bold pirate watched his time, and leapt boldly on the crest of the billow, as it came washing by, and in the twinkling of an eye, was thrown up high and dry, alive or dead, on the top of the rocks.

Already every man had left the schooner, and had perished or been tossed up alive.

Appadocca still stood leaning on the bulwarks, contemplating the sad remnants of his once all but animated vessel.

Lorenzo and Jack Jimmy drew together imperceptibly to his sides. They stood around him silent, and unperceived.

The schooner was breaking up; still Appadocca stood where he was.

“Will not your excellency go on shore?” Lorenzo at last ventured to say.

Appadocca started slightly, as if awakened from a dream or reverie.

“Yes, Lorenzo; but save yourselves first. Watch the wave; here it is—jump in—you, too, Jack Jimmy, quickly, so, so.”

The two men jumped on the billow as it swept by the schooner, Appadocca followed, and they reached the shore.

Now the wind suddenly ceased as before.

Appadocca, with Lorenzo and Jack Jimmy, were sitting on the top of a lofty rock: they were viewing the last struggles of their vessel.

“A terrible night, this is, Lorenzo,” said Appadocca.

“It is, indeed, your excellency, a frightful night! for——hark! What cry is that? It is from the schooner,” cried Lorenzo, as he stood up.

A supernatural shriek fell on the ear. It came from the schooner. Again it came—again—and again—as she was battered against the rock.

The three persons were silent.

“Oh, I know,” cried Lorenzo.

“It is the prisoner—I may save him yet—I may save him yet,” said Lorenzo.

They were the shrieks of James Willmington, who was still battened down in the narrow torture-room, into which he had been thrown, and was undergoing more than a thousand deaths; dying as he was, thus cooped up in a dark narrow cabin, and the vessel breaking asunder under him.

The cabin was so close, that his terrified shrieks could not be heard before; but now, when the seams were opened, they alone, prolonged, and agonizing as they were, were now to be heard in the lull of the wind, on the silent, close, and death-strewn air.

Lorenzo rushed down the rock, but ere he could devise a means to rescue him, the schooner broke in two, and the unhappy Willmington sank for ever, still a prisoner in the torture-room.

The schooner went to pieces, and soon the billows rolled on the rocks over her once graceful form.

Appadocca silently watched the gradual destruction of his vessel, and silently listened to the shrieks of his father.

When not a timber of her remained above water, he heaved a heavy sigh. The first, that Lorenzo had ever heard from him. It was the sigh that came from a hurricane of feelings within him, which equalled the raging hurricane of nature without.

CHAPTER XXX.

“Lorenzo,” said Appadocca to his officer who had returned to the wreck, “that was a good and faithful vessel.”

“Ay, your excellency,” replied Lorenzo, sorrowfully, “she was.”

“All things must end, Lorenzo,” continued Appadocca.

“True, your excellency,” answered Lorenzo.

“If so, Lorenzo, the honours and greatness of men are scarcely to be longed after. The pursuits that engross us during an entire lifetime, and lead us too frequently, to sacrifice health, happiness, and sometimes even drag us into crime, must all—all end in this—in nothing.”

“True, your excellency,” answered Lorenzo.

“You know not, Lorenzo, how different the world appears to me now, from what it did when I was a happy student of eighteen. It was then tinged with golden hues, and shone in whatever light I viewed it. Greatness: oh, greatness, seemed so captivating to me! My nights were devoted to its attainment, my days the same. Now, the world is charmless, scarcely tolerable, and my beautiful dreams have all passed away like the crystal dew before the sucking sun.”

“There is still hope, your excellency,” remarked Lorenzo.

“What among all things seems the most deserving of preservation, Lorenzo,” continued Appadocca, “is our honour, our consciousness of acting right. How many a mind that is curbed down by misfortune and sorrow, finds its own little relief in the simple idea, that it has acted up to the dictates of its honor.”

Lorenzo made no reply, he saw that his chief was deeply affected.

“Lorenzo,” resumed Appadocca, after a pause, “there is destiny—there is destiny—there is a synchronism of events and a simultaneousness of the actings of nature’s general laws that constitute destiny; against which no men from the absence of any power to read the future can provide. Thus, in the whirlwind, that raises in mid-air the light feather, there is to be seen the hand of destiny, for there is the synchronism of the feather’s being separated from the bird with the acting of the law of nature that produces the wind. It would have been as impossible to the bird, granting that its reasoning powers were less limited, to have provided against the falling of its feather and the eventual taking of it up by storm, as it was impossible to foresee the whirlwind that overcame the schooner which was made to pass through every danger.”

“Too true, your excellency,” answered Lorenzo.

“So that it follows,” continued Appadocca, “that since men are subject to the former of this destiny, their most strenuous efforts must always prove impotent in restraining its action, and that they are liable every moment, whether they are good, or whether they are bad, to be subjected to misfortune and calamity. And this corroborates what I have already said, that the only thing which we are bound to consider in life, is our honor, which alone is, or ought to be, the source of satisfaction or misery to us.”

Lorenzo assented to the philosophy of Appadocca.

“If ever I should be suddenly overtaken by the hand of this destiny recollect, beneath the solitary fig-tree that grows on the Island of Sombrero, you will find a treasure. Devote half to the erection of a college for abandoned children, and with the rest provide for my men who have served me truly. Do not forget that peculiar old servant,” he said in a low tone, and pointed to Jack Jimmy.

“Your excellency is growing melancholy,” observed Lorenzo, with some anxiety.

“No, no,” replied Appadocca. “Still, who knows how soon destiny may end his days.”

“For you, Lorenzo, you have acted towards me in a manner that I have duly appreciated,” continued Appadocca, while he grasped his officer’s hand, “here is my sword, wear it, and may the time soon arrive when you may use it in the cause to which you are pledged, farewell!”

With a spring Appadocca jumped from the rock and threw himself headlong into the thundering waves below.

His movement was so sudden that Lorenzo, and Jack Jimmy, who sprang to their feet at once, were too late to hold him back and save him.

The little negro silently returned to the spot where he had sat since he had come on shore, and hid his face in his hands. Not a word—not a sob escaped him. His grief was too deep and strong for tears.

Morning dawned on the devastated scene of the late hurricane.

Like a strong man who is recovering from illness, nature presented a smiling, though languid look. The billows still ran high, but unlashed now by the wind, they rolled heavily against the rocks.

High and dry lay the bodies of the dead, their pallid faces still locked in the grim passions which had attended the departure of life.

The dawn had scarcely come, when Jack Jimmy might have been seen moving totteringly along the ruffled beach, with a dead body on his shoulders. Away into a solitary recess of the picturesque little bay, he bore his burden. He lay it down, and then slowly began to scoop a hole.

Solemnly he worked—his arms rose and fell like his heart—heavily.

But who comes to interrupt the sacred work! Lorenzo! It was Lorenzo. He had followed Jack Jimmy to the spot. The officer began to dig, too.

“Tap, massa—tap,” said Jack Jimmy, solemnly grasping his arm—“let me one do it.”

The hole was dug:—Jack Jimmy adjusted the uniform and hair of the corpse, composed its features, and laid it carefully in it.

His arms again rose and fell as heavily as before:—the grave was closed, and made even with the ground. Jack Jimmy knelt at its foot, raised his eyes to heaven—his lips rapidly moved, and a heavy tear fell on the simple grave of the pirate captain.

It was about this time that a little fallucha came labouring over the still perturbed waves under four powerful sweeps. At its stern sat the captain and a lady.

Attracted by the signs of the shipwrecked pirates, she drew towards the shore.

The tale of the wreck was soon told. The lady raised her hands and held her forehead as if it were about to split asunder. She landed, and walked along the strand and studied each dead man’s face that she passed by. She arrived at the spot where Jack Jimmy was completing the grave, and was adjusting each tiny pebble in its proper place.

Her heart sank within her. Quickly she approached the one who was toiling in so sad a mood.

“Whose grave is this?” the lady quickly asked.

“My young massa’s,” Jack Jimmy slowly answered, without raising his eye from his work.

“What was his name?” again asked the lady.

“Emmanuel Appadocca,” again answered Jack Jimmy, as slowly as before.

“Emmanuel Appadocca!”

The lady raised her hands to her burning brows, and pressed her eyes. She remained for a few moments in this position. Then her arms fell languidly by her sides, an expression of vagueness spread itself over her face, she looked absently around, a ringing laugh broke forth from her lips, her jaws then hung mopingly. Feliciana fell mad over Appadocca’s grave.

CHAPTER XXXI.

Feliciana was taken to her fallucha, which immediately changed her course, and returned to Trinidad.

Lorenzo built a camp on the shore for the protection of his men, until he should be able to send a vessel to their rescue, and then began to traverse the island under the guidance of Jack Jimmy, whose excitability had now yielded to a melancholy and dull sombreness.

One evening the sun had set, the twilight was passing away, and gloom was settling over the forests, when Lorenzo, exhausted and fatigued, thought of going to ask shelter on a plantation, which he knew to be near at hand, by the repeated crowings of cocks, that noisely vented their loud farewell-clarions to the departing day.

“Jack Jimmy, do you know who is the proprietor of the estate which I think we are approaching?”

“No, massa,” answered Jack Jimmy.

“Do you think they would give us shelter for to-night?” inquired Lorenzo.

“Yes, massa,” answered Jack Jimmy.

“Then will you endeavour to find your way to it?”

“Yes, massa.”

In about half an hour, Lorenzo and Jack Jimmy came out amidst a number of flourishing gardens, that lay smiling at the back of a village of labourer’s houses.

The two travellers quickly crossed there, and opened into a long lane that was shaded by tall tamarind and sappodilla trees.

An ecclesiastic was seen calmly pacing this umbrageous retreat, while his lips rapidly moved as he pored over the dark and riband-marked breviary, which he held open before.

The father was so wrapped up in what he was reading, that he did not perceive the two strangers until they had almost met face to face.

The priest started back, as he came on Lorenzo. “Mercy on us! the pirate officer!” he cried.

“What, what new deed is it, sir;” he said, after a pause: “which now tarnishes your soul again, and draws you to this peaceful and quiet retreat?”

“Pirate officer no longer, good father,” answered Lorenzo, “and I bring no outrage on your peaceful retreat. My spirit now itself requires too much calm to break it wherever it already exists.”

The priest folded his arms across his breast, and looked silently and sympathisingly on the unhappy man before him.

“My son,” he said, with a countenance that beamed with charity; “my son, there is one above that can relieve our bitterest woes. Seek consolation in the afflictions which, press upon your soul from His hand.”

“I am now in your power, good father,” said Lorenzo. “The schooner is wrecked on these shores; Appadocca is no more.”

“Is he dead?” cried the priest.

“Yes.”

The priest turned towards heaven, and prayed for the soul of the pirate captain.

“God forbid that I should ever refuse charity to the afflicted: come with me, sir, and my good patron will, I doubt not, afford you hospitality.”

The three persons walked up the lane, and discovered a comfortable planter’s house, that stood in an open space amidst a number of orange trees. They quickly approached the house; and Agnes, who was sitting at the open window enjoying the evening breeze, fell senseless to the ground, as she beheld Lorenzo.

“Accommodate the stranger as soon as possible,” said a fiery looking old man, whose gray hair floated over his shoulders, and fell over a large and turned-down collar, while the boots which had not crossed the threshold for many a day, still shone with heavy and immense silver spurs.

“Accommodate the stranger, and get him a guide as soon as possible,” he said, as soon as the priest told him of Agnes’s illness, and had no doubt expressed his own surmises.

The time for Lorenzo’s departure approached. He was informed that a guide and a mule awaited his leisure.

“I must see the master of the house,” he said.

The servant withdrew, and shortly afterwards conducted the officer into the presence of the old man, who stood up as well as he could, bowed, and asked Lorenzo to be seated.

“Sir,” said Lorenzo, speaking without any preliminaries; “your daughter and I love each other.”

“What, sir! mention my daughter!” cried the old man, furiously, without hearing any more. “Sir, the mule and guide are ready.”

But there was a softening balm even for the inflammable spirit of the old gentleman. He, like all other men, had the particular point by which he could be lead!

The pirate officer immediately disclosed that his real name was not Lorenzo, but St. James Carmonte; and that he was the lineal descendant of the Carmontes, who fell fighting for the Prince. He went on to explain that his people before him had vegetated in a number of corners all over Europe; but that he and the others that then survived had been eventually expelled from France at the epoch of the great revolution. That he had then taken to the sea, there to seek adventures; as he imagined he had been long-enough on the enduring side.

“What! the descendant of Carmonte,” cried the old man, who was touched in a sensitive part: “Carmonte, whose fathers fought at the side of mine. How can you vouch this, sir?”

Lorenzo presented a ring.

“The word, sir.”

Lorenzo said something.

“Agnes, Agnes, come hither, Agnes,” vociferated the old man.

The young lady appeared. She was still pale and emaciated.

“Take her, take her, man,” cried the old cavalier. “May God bless you, and preserve you to see the day when the king shall enjoy his own again.”

The priest blessed the union, and Lorenzo, after disposing of Appadocca’s followers, lived happy in the retreat of the plantation.

Jack Jimmy served the officer of his young master with fidelity. A smile, however, was never seen more on his face; and when the winds howled more loudly than usual, the drops calmly fell from his now aged eyes.

In a certain city of Venezuela, Feliciana might be seen in her white veil, and her sombre dress, amidst the abodes of the heart-stricken and afflicted; she was known as the “Succouring Mother.” Twice a-year she might also be seen on her pilgrimage to Trinidad, when she plucked the weeds from off his mother’s tomb, and tended the sea-grape tree that grew over the lonely grave of Emmanuel Appadocca.

THE END.

LONDON: SAMUEL BIRD, PRINTER, BOW STREET, COVENT GARDEN.