he? 'Packages of French silks seized by custom-house on account of
informal invoice and clearance.' Why didn't the fool forge others, then?
Well, what next? 'Schooner "Reel," from Barbadoes, with cargo of rum and
jerked beef, wrecked going into Principe, and crew thrown into prison on
suspicion of being engaged in--' Oh! ah! served them right, when I
ordered them to St. Jago--delighted they must be! 'Bills for advances
and stores now due, please remit, per hands of Don Ignaçio Sanchez--'"

Here Captain Brand caught a ray from the one eye of his companion, which
he returned with interest; and then laying the letters down on the table
with the softest motion in life, he exclaimed, with a sigh,

"Not the best news in the world, as you say, _compadre_; all those rich
goods, and those bags of coffee, and pipes of rum gone to the devil. But
these are little accidents in our profession."

"_Como?_" said Señor Ignaçio, "_our_ profession?" shaking his fore
finger before his paper cigar in a deprecating manner. "Speak for
yourself, _amigo_."

"Ah! true," the other went on--"my profession. The freedom of the seas,
the toll of the tropics, the right of search, and all that sort of
buccaneering pastime, is liable, you know, to the usual risks."

Here he inclined his head to one side and gave a slight clack to his
lips, as if to illustrate in a humorous way a man choking to death with
a knotted rope under his ear. "However, we must be more cautious in
future and retrieve the past disasters, for there are still on the sea
as good barks as ever floated."

Captain Brand said this as if he were a merchant of large means and
strict integrity, and was about to enter into some shrewd commercial
speculation.

"Hum!" murmured Señor Ignaçio, while pouring out another little glass of
anisette. "_Amigo mio!_ you had better read the papers from Havana
before you talk of another cruise."

"Oh! delighted to read the news--quite refreshing to get a peep at the
world after being cooped up here for months! Another French revolution!
Bonaparte alive yet! A Patriot war! Nelson and Villeneuve! All
interesting."

Thus glancing rapidly over the prints, pausing at times at a paragraph
that arrested his attention, then tossing a paper away and taking up
another, till suddenly Captain Brand's hand shook with passion as he
read aloud,

[Illustration: "HE TOUCHED THE BELL OVERHEAD AS HE SPOKE, AND, PUTTING
HIS MOUTH TO THE TUBE, ASKED, 'ANY THING IN SIGHT?'"]

"His Britannic majesty's squadron has been augmented on the West India
station. The brig 'Firefly,' corvettes 'Croaker' and 'Joker,' touched at
Nassau, New Providence, on the 2d instant, bound to leeward. We also
learn that the United States have fitted out a squadron of small
vessels, called the Musquito Fleet, to search for the noted pirate
Brand, who has so long committed atrocities among the islands. He was
last chased by the American corvette 'Scourge,' off Morant Bay, on the
east coast of Jamaica, but escaped during the night. The following day a
shattered boat was picked up, which had been cut adrift from the
piratical schooner, containing several dead and dying bodies of the
pirates. One of the latter gave such information to the captain of the
'Scourge' as leads to the hope that Brand's retreat may soon be
discovered and his nest of pirates be destroyed. Recent advices from
Principe state that a vessel loaded with valuable merchandise struck on
the Cavallo Reef and went down. The crew, however, five in number, were
rescued, but on landing were identified by the mate of the English bark
'Trident' as a portion of the men who robbed that vessel and murdered
the master and several of the passengers. Our readers may remember that
among the latter were two sisters, who leaped overboard and were
drowned, to save themselves the horror of a more cruel fate. The men
alluded to, who were wrecked in the brig off Principe, were sent in
chains to Havana, and were yesterday publicly garroted in the Plaza of
Moro Castle."

CHAPTER XI.

CONVERSATION IN POCKETS AND SLEEVES.

    "He holds him with his skinny hand:
      'There was a ship,' quoth he.
    'Hold off! unhand me, graybeard loon!'
      Eftsoons his hand dropp'd he."

Captain Brand laid down the paper without a sign of outward emotion, and
nodded his head several times at the one-eyed man facing him. He then
extracted his perfumed handkerchief, examined the cipher in the corner,
and waved it before his face. Don Ignaçio pulled out a red silk bandana,
and polished his eye as if it were the lens of a spy-glass. At length
the former spoke:

"_Amigo mio!_ The nets are spreading, but the fish are not in them
yet!"

"No, _amigo_!"

"Ah! _compadre, viento y ventura poca dura!_ the fair breezes have
chopped round in our teeth. Success, my friend, creates jealousy, envy,
hatred, and malice. Now here were we swimming along as quietly as sharks
under water, only coming up for a bite occasionally, when on come those
villainous swordfishes, and wish to drive us away."

Captain Brand gave expression to this pious homily in a tone of virtuous
reproach against the world at large, and as if he were a very much
maligned and ill-used gentleman. He touched the bell overhead as he
spoke, and, putting his mouth to the tube, asked,

"Any thing in sight?"

"Nothing, _señor_."

"Telegraph the man at the Tiger-trap station to keep a bright look-out,
and direct the gunner to keep the battery manned day and night! Tell the
boatswain to set taut the chain on the other side at the Alligator's
mouth!"

Don Ignaçio gave a rather suspicious glimmer at his vessel as this last
order was given, and smiled; that is, if a one-sided twitch to the
wrinkles about the line of his mouth could be tortured into a smile. His
companion seemed to divine what was passing in the Don's mind, for he
added politely,

"The cable won't interfere with the 'Panchita!'"

"No, _amigo_; the felucca is anchored just _out_side of it." The Tuerto
was not a man to leave any thing to chance, and he had taken the
precaution to be on the safe side of the pirates, either as friends or
enemies. He had indeed been as near an approach to a pirate himself as
could be, and had only abandoned the business for a profession quite as
bad, where there was less risk and more profit. In other words, he was
now a colonial officer in command of a Guarda Costa, winking--but
without shutting his eye--at piracy whenever he was well paid for it;
and he invariably was well paid for it, or else he made mischief.
Withal, he was as crafty and determined an old villain as ever sailed
the West Indies. He had amassed a large fortune, and owned several
tobacco estates--pretty much all his wealth acquired by the easy trouble
of holding his tongue. Yet his greed was insatiable, and he probably
would have sold the fingers from his hands, and his legs and arms with
them--all, save his single black ball of an optic, which was invaluable
to him--for doubloons. In fact, this feverish thirst after gold which
always raged in his hot veins had induced him to pay Captain Brand a
visit, and we shall see with what result. The truth is, however, that
Captain Brand was the only man of his numerous villainous acquaintance
afloat for whom he felt the least dread. He knew him to be bold,
skillful, and wary, and so the Don had a tolerably positive conviction
that, should he play him false, his own neck might get a wrench in the
garrote while he was throwing the noose for his coadjutor.

To return, however, to the pair of worthies sitting in conclave in the
pirate's saloon: the captain, resuming the conversation, observed in a
careless tone, quite as if the subject under discussion was a mere
ordinary matter,

"When will this swarm of hornets be down upon us?"

The Spaniard blew a thick puff of smoke from his cigarette, and still
holding it between his teeth, while his eye glittered through the murky
cloud, he replied,

"Perhaps a fortnight, a little more or less. I left St. Jago five days
ago, with orders from the Administrador to run down this side of the
island, and procure information for the English consul."

"Any cruisers down that way?"

"Ay! the corvette 'Scourge,' and the 'Snapper' schooner; they arrived
the night before I sailed."

"Did you happen to see their officers, _amigo_?"

"_Oh si!_ I had a long talk with the captain of the corvette at the
custom-house."

"Holloa! and you told him--"

"Yes; I showed him a chart of the Isle of Pines, and pointed out how to
get into the old hole."

Here the pair laughed short laughs, when Brand continued his questions
with,

"And how did he take the bait?"

"Hooked him; for I heard him order his first lieutenant to be ready for
weighing at daylight, and say that my description tallied with that of
the dying man they picked up in the 'Centipede's' boat," replied the
Tuerto, with a chuckle.

"_Bueno!_" exclaimed the pirate, as his face assumed an unwonted
sternness, while he rested his cheek on his left hand with the elbow on
the table, and slipped his right into the pocket of his trowsers.

"_Bueno! amigo mio!_ But how do I know but you may have made a little
mistake, and described another haunt besides the Island of Pines, off in
this direction?"

There was the faintest click of a noise in the captain's pocket as he
spoke, but not so faint but that it vibrated on the ear of the Spaniard,
and, pushing back his chair a foot or two from the table, he raised his
right hand, the fore fingers and thumb slightly bent inward, but
grasping a jewel-hilted knife, whose dim blue blade glimmered up the
loose sleeve. There was nothing threatening apparently in the movement,
though the two villains looked at each other with a cold, murderous,
unflinching glare.

The Don was the first to break the silence; and he said, in a low,
hissing tone,

"_Maldito!_ Because I had a little account of plata to settle with you
before the men-o'-war should roast you out. But beware, _Capitano mio_!
I left a little paper at St. Jago with directions where to find me in
case I did not return in a certain time."

"Ho, _compadre_, how very cautious with your friends! Why, what has put
such thoughts into your head? _Diavolo!_ we have stood by one another
too long to separate now. There, my hand upon it."

Saying this, Captain Brand's whole manner changed, and, drawing his hand
from his pocket, he reached over toward his companion. The Don, however,
watched him narrowly, and his eye shot out a wary sparkle as he withdrew
his hand, when, cautiously putting forth his own left, he touched his
cold, thin brown fingers to those of the man before him. This operation
ended, he quietly sipped a few drops of anisette, and rolled and lighted
another paper cigar.

"Well, _amigo_, let us now proceed to business," said Brand, gayly, "for
dinner will soon be ready, and we have no time to lose. How stands the
account?"

"The papers are on board the felucca, and it will be more convenient,
when the settlement is made, to come on board with the money. How would
to-morrow morning do? There's no hurry."

"Just as you choose, friend of my soul! The doubloons, or the silk, or
broadcloth are ready for you at any moment. Pay you in any thing except
the delicious wines of France. _Bueno!_" he added, pulling out a
splendid gold repeater, with a marquis's coronet on the chased back.
"And now, _amigo_, accept this little token into the bargain."

Don Ignaçio's fiery eye twinkled with greed, but it was only for a
moment, when, giving a quick glance at the coronet and coat of arms, he
waved his fore finger gently to and fro, and shook his head.

"What! No? Why, you know it once belonged to the Captain General of
Cuba, old Tol de rol de riddle rol--what was his name? He gave it me,
you know, together with some other trinkets, for saving his life--a--you
remember? Very generous old gentleman--nobleman indeed--he was. May he
live a thousand years, or more, if he can!"

Ay, Don Ignaçio did remember the circumstance attending that generous
transaction, and he remembered to have heard, also, that the Captain
General made a present of all his money and jewels with the point of a
broad blade quivering at his throat. He said nothing, however, in
allusion to this interesting episode, but he smiled meaningly, and went
on with his cigar.

"Not take it, eh? Well, _amigo_, I must look you up something else;
but now for dinner. Babette, clear away for dinner. Here are the keys
of the wine-cellar. The best, my beauty, and plenty of it." Then
turning to his companion: "Suppose we take a stroll to the Tiger's Trap;
the sun is sinking, and a walk will give us an appetite for the
turtle-soup--_vamanos!_"

CHAPTER XII.

DOCTOR AND PRIEST.

    "But soon I heard the dash of oars,
      I heard the pilots' cheer;
    My head was turned perforce away,
      And I saw a boat appear.

    "The pilot and the pilot's boy,
      I heard them coming fast;
    Dear Lord in heaven! it was a joy
      The dead men could not blast."

While Captain Brand and Don Ignaçio Sanchez walked pleasantly along the
pebbly shore of the clear blue inlet to the Tiger's Trap, let us, too,
saunter amid the habitations which sheltered the pirate's haunt.

Apart from the mat sheds of the shelly cove of the basin, where the
"Centipede" and "Panchita" were anchored, there was a nest of red-tiled
buildings which served the crew of the former vessel for a dwelling when
in port. It was pleasantly situated on a little sandy plateau, within a
stone's-throw of the water, and shaded by a cluster of palm-trees; while
in the rear was a dense jungle of canes and bushes, through which led
numerous paths to a small lagoon beyond. The buildings were of one
story, constructed of loose stones, the holes plastered with yellow
clay, with broad, projecting eaves extending over roughly-built piazzas.
They stood in a double row, leaving a stone pavement yard between, where
one or two cocoa-nut-trees lifted their slim trunks like sentinels on
guard. Two of the largest of these huts were mere shells inside, and
used for mess-rooms, exposing the unhewn girders and roof above, but all
whitewashed and tolerably clean. The floors were of rough mahogany
boards, or heavy dark planks, and no doubt part of the cargo of some
Honduras trader who had fallen into the pirates' hands. Around the sides
of these mess-rooms were arranged small tables and canvas camp-stools,
with eating utensils of every variety of pattern and value, from stray
sets of French porcelain to common delf crockery. A large open chimney
stood a little way off, where was a kitchen, in which the cookery was
carried on, under the superintendence of a couple of old negroes. Beyond
the mess-rooms were the sheds used for sleeping apartments, with lots of
hammocks of canvas and straw braid hanging by their clews from the
beams, quite like the berth-deck of a ship of war. Bags and sea-chests
stood out from the walls, with bits of mirrors here and there, some with
the glasses cracked, and others in square or round gilt frames. All,
however, was arranged with a certain degree of order, and the floor was
clean and well scrubbed. Another detached building, much smaller than
the rest, was divided by a board partition into two rooms. The first was
used for a storeroom, and was filled with bread in barrels, bags of
coffee and sugar, hams, dried fruits, beans, salt meats, and what not,
but every thing in abundance, and apparently the very best the market of
the high seas could produce. A strong door protected this repository,
with a wrought iron bar and padlock. The other portion of the building
was more habitable. There were chairs and tables; a couple of upright
bookcases with glass doors, one filled with books, odd numbers of
magazines, and old newspapers, and the other containing a multitude of
vials, pots, and bottles of medicine--a small apothecary's shop, in
fact, together with two or three cases of surgical instruments. Two
elegant bureaus, with rosewood doors and mouldings, like those furnished
passenger ships to the East Indies, stood against the wall at either
side; and near to each, in opposite corners, were low iron bedsteads,
without mattresses or bedding, and merely stretched with dressed and
embossed leather. For pillows were Chinese heel stools, and as for
covering, the climate dispensed with it altogether. Hanging against the
wall were a couple of brace of pistols and two or three muskets, and on
the table stood a square case-bottle of gin, some glasses, and a
richly-bound breviary clasped with a heavy gold strap; but in no other
part of these huts were fire-arms ever allowed, and very rarely was
liquor served out in more than the usual daily half-gill allowance.

Seated at the table in the last room we have described were two men.
One, the shorter of the two, was dressed in a long, loose bombazine
cassock, girded about his waist by a white rope, which fell in knotted
ends over his knees. Around his open neck was hung a string of black
ebony beads, hooked on to a heavy gold cross, which rested on his
capacious breast, and which the wearer was continually feeling, and
occasionally pressing to his lips. His face was dark and sensual--thick,
unctuous lips, a flat nose, and large black eyes--while a glossy fringe
of raven hair went like a thick curtain all around his head, only
leaving a bluish-white round patch on the shaved crown. This individual
was the Padre Ricardo, who, for some good reasons best known to himself,
had left his clerical duties in his native city of Vera Cruz and taken
service with Captain Brand. One of the reasons for leaving--and rather
abruptly, too--was for thrusting a cuchillo into the heart of his own
father, who had reported him to his superior for his monstrous
licentiousness. The padre, however, always declared that he was
actuated entirely by filial duty in killing his old parent, to save him
the pain and disgrace which would have followed the exposure of his son!
He still clung, though excommunicated, to the priestly calling, and
prided himself upon his fasts and vigils, never omitting the smallest
forms or penances, and saying mass from Ave Maria in the early morning
to Angelus at vesper time in the evening. For Captain Brand he was ready
to shrive a dying pirate--and pretty busy he was, too, at times--or hear
the confession of one with a troubled conscience in sound health; which,
if important to the safety or well-being of the fraternity, he took a
quiet opportunity of imparting to his superior in command. In these
pursuits he not only made himself useful to Captain Brand, but he became
more or less his confidant and adviser, and seemed to maintain his
influence by ghostly advice over the superstitious feelings of the men.
The padre, however, utterly detested the sea, and never touched his soft
feet in the water if he could by any possibility avoid it; but since he
had plenty to eat and drink on the island, and no end of prayers for his
amusement when in charge of the haunt--as he was--to look out for the
people who were left when the "Centipede" sailed on a cruise, he thus
passed the time in a delightfully agreeable manner.

The companion who sat opposite to the padre was a tall, gaunt,
cadaverous person, evidently of French extraction, with something kind
and humane about his face, but yet the physiognomy expressed the utmost
determination of character--such a heart and eye as could perform a
delicate surgical operation without a flutter of nerve or eyelid, and
who would stand before a leveled pistol looking calmly down the barrel
as the hammer fell. His face was intellectual, and he never smiled. His
whole appearance portrayed a thorough seaman. Where he came from no one
knew; nor did he ever open his lips, even to the captain, with a reason
for taking service among his band. All known about him was that he
landed from a slaver at St. Jago, and was engaged by Don Ignaçio to
serve professionally with Brand in assisting the patriots on the Spanish
Main. When, however, he reached the rendezvous of the pirates, and
discovered that they were altogether a different sort of patriots than
he had bargained for, he nevertheless made no objections to remain, and
took the oath of allegiance, only stipulating that he should not be
called upon to take an active part in their proceedings. Here, then, he
remained for nearly three years, attending to the sick or wounded,
taking no interest in the accounts of the exploits of the freebooters
around him--rarely, indeed, holding speech with any one save his
room-mate, the padre, or occasionally a dinner or a walk with Captain
Brand. On the last expedition, however, of the "Centipede," he had been
induced to go on board, so that he might become a check and guard over
the brutal ruffian who had been placed temporarily in command; but, as
we have already seen, his influence had been of little avail.

There was yet another occupant of the room inhabited by the doctor and
Padre Ricardo; and a low moaning cry caused the former to rise quietly
from his chair and approach the low iron bedstead on his side of the
lodging. There, beneath a light gauze musquito net, lay our poor little
Henri--his once round, rosy, innocent face now pale and thin, with a red
spot on each cheek, and a dark, soft line beneath the closed eyes.
Uneasily he moved in his fitful slumber; and putting his little hands
together as if in prayer, he murmured, "Oh mamma, mamma!"

Beside the bed stood an unglazed jar of lemonade, together with a vial
and a spoon. The doctor drew nigh, and, gently pushing aside the
curtain, stood looking at the child for some minutes. Presently the
little sick boy feebly stretched out his delicate, thin limbs, and
unclosed his eyes. Oh! how dim, and sad, and touching was that look, as
he gave a timid, half-wild stare, and then, closing the lids tight
together, the hot drops bubbled out and coursed slowly down his tender
cheeks.

The doctor, with the gentleness of a woman, bent over him, and taking up
his poor, limp little hand, he remained feeling the fluttering pulse and
catching the hot breath on his dark cheeks. As if communing with
himself, while a glow of compassion lighted up his careworn visage, he
muttered,

"By the great and good God, who hears me, if I save this child I will
restore him to his heart-broken mother!"

He sank down on his knees by the bedside as he made his vow, and letting
the little hand rest on the bed, he buried his face in his large bony
hands. What thoughts passed through that man's mind none but the
Almighty knows; but when he arose his stern features had resumed their
wonted expression, and, pouring a little lemonade in a glass, he held it
to the sleeper's lips. Then moving noiselessly back to the table, he
said, in a low tone,

"Padre, the boy will live. His fever is leaving him, and he will get
well."

"_Ave Maria! Santissima!_" ejaculated the padre, crossing himself and
kissing his cross; "I pray for him. You must give him to me, doctor. I
will make him a little priest, and he shall swing the censer and chant
the Misericordia when I get the new chapel built."

"Time enough to think of that, _mi padre_, when he gets strong again.
But just now all the prayers _you_ can say for him will do him no good,
and so I hope you won't put yourself to the trouble."

"_Cierto, amigo_, doctor; but don't sneer at the prayers of the Church.
They do good; they ease the soul and soothe the pangs of Purgatory."

"Ah! and how long do you expect to stop in Purgatory?"

"_Ave purissima!_ What a question to ask your pious and devout Padre
Ricardo!"

"Question the devil when you want fire," retorted the doctor, as he
opened a book lying on the table before him, and put an end to the
dialogue. His companion quietly helped himself to a measure of pure gin,
and unclasped the covers of his richly-bound missal.

Scarcely, however, had their conversation ceased, when a hoarse hum of
many voices was heard in the direction of the sheds without, mingled
with shouts in all tongues and uproarious laughter.

"_Peste!_" said the doctor, looking out of an open window; "the people
have knocked off work and are coming home to their supper. They seem to
have brought some of the crew of the felucca with them too. We shall
have a loud night of it, for the captain has sent them a pipe of wine
and a barrel of rum to carouse with."

"_Pobre çitos!_ they have had a hard time of it during the summer--short
of rum, and water too, I hear, and they need refreshment and repose. So
many of my poor flock killed, too, by that savage American corvette, and
I not near to administer the last consolations and holy rite!" sighed
the padre, as he kissed the crucifix and bowed his head. "There is
Lascar Joe, too, among the missing! He refused the sacrament, infidel as
he was, the day before he sailed; but what turtle-soup he made!" The
padre hereupon sighed deeply again, but whether for the loss of the
Lascar or the soup, no one knows.

The noise without increased--the rattle of crockery, the clinking of
glasses, the moving of feet, and all the sounds of hungry, boisterous
sailors at table. Soon, too, a shout or cheer would be heard, then a
verse of a song, roars of laughter, and now and then the tinkle of a
guitar struck by vigorous fingers in waltz or fandango.

"_Merçi!_" muttered the doctor, as he looked compassionately at the sick
child on the bed; "those noisy wretches will, I fear, disturb the little
boy, and it's as hot here too, padre, as the place we all are going
to."

"It _is_ warm, my son!" he replied, as his thick unctuous lips parted
with a smile at his companion's allusion to another and a hotter place;
"but I think our good _capitano_ would have a cot slung for my little
priest in the saloon of the big building there. It is always cool on the
crag, you know."

"Ah! perhaps he will," said the doctor, reflectively; "I'll see about
it."

Stepping again to the bedside of the little sufferer, he laid a hand
gently on his forehead, where the soft curls lay in confusion about his
temples, and then quickly touching his pulse, he regarded him
attentively for a few moments, while at the same time a light glow of
perspiration came faintly over the innocent face and spread itself down
the neck.

"His fever is breaking! _Grace à Dieu!_" whispered the doctor to the
padre; "his breath is regular and cool, and he is sleeping sweetly. Now,
if you like, we will go to see the captain, and, if he consents, I will
carry the child when he wakes to the dwelling."

The doctor carefully closed the door of the room as he and his companion
stepped out into the open court-yard, and moved toward the spacious
sheds beyond.

CHAPTER XIII.

A MANLY FANDANGO.

    "While feet and tongues like lightning go
    With--What cheer, Luke? and how do, Joe?
    Dick Laniard chooses Meg so spruce,
    And buxom Nell takes Kit Caboose."

    "Now around they go, and around and around,
    With hop, skip, and jump, and frolicsome bound,
           Such sailing and gliding,
           Such sinking and sliding,
           Such lofty curvetting
           And grand pirouetting,
    Mix'd with the tones of a dying man's groans,
    Mix'd with the rattling of dead men's bones."

Twilight had taken the place of the red sun, the stars came timidly out
one by one, and then in sparkling clusters the brilliant constellations
illumined the blue heavens as the rosy twilight faded again away. Then
the ripple of the inlet came with a tranquil musical sound upon the
white pebbly beach, the lizards in the holes and crevices of the rocks
began their plaintive wheetlings, the frogs and alligators joined in the
chorus from the low lagoon in the distance, and the early night of the
tropic had begun.

But louder far than the hum of the insects and reptiles, and brighter
than the lamps of heaven, arose the wild shouts and songs of the pirates
carousing, where the torches and wax-lights lit up the scene of their
orgies with the glare of day. The great mess-room was a blaze of light
from candles and lamps, stuck in brackets or gilt sconces about the
walls, or hanging awry in broken chandeliers from the lofty beams. The
remains of their feast had been cleared away, and the tables were
covered with bottles, cups, and glasses, with boxes of cigars and pans
of lighted coals. At one end of the room was a large table, on which was
laid a black cloth with a broad silver border--sometimes used by the
padre on great occasions--and covered with cards and piles of Mexican or
Spanish dollars. At the other end was a raised platform, where four or
five swarthy fellows with guitars in their hands were strumming away in
the clear rattling harmony of Spanish boleros and dances, shrieking out
at intervals snatches of songs in time to the music, or twirling the
instruments around their heads in a frenzy of excitement. At the
tables, too, were more of the excited band, vociferating with almost
superhuman fluency in various languages their exploits, pausing
occasionally amid the hubbub to clink their glasses together, and then
chattering and yelling on as before. In the centre of the apartment were
some half dozen of the same sort, either spinning around the floor in
the waltz, or moving with a certain air of careless, manly grace one
toward another in the gavotte or bolero. There were at the least some
sixty or seventy of these fellows in the room together, most of them
above the middle height, with finely-developed muscles, broad shoulders,
bushy whiskers, and flowing hair. They came apparently from all climes,
from Africa to the Mexican Gulf, and their features and complexions
partook of every imaginable type, from the light skin and florid
complexion of the Swede, to the low brow, oval olive cheek of the
Mediterranean, and the coal-black hue and flat nose of the Bight of
Benin. Their dress was uniform--frock collars cut square and thrown well
back over their ample chests; their nether limbs incased in clean duck
or brown linen trowsers, with silk sashes around their waists, and large
gold rings in their ears. Mingled here and there in the moving throng,
or leaning over the large table with the black cloth cover, were a few
fellows in the uniform rig of the Guarda Costa, in navy jackets and
black silk belchers around their throats; but all were without weapons
of any description, and were enjoying themselves each after his fancy.
Sentinels stood at the doors of the mess-room with drawn cutlasses over
their shoulders, so that in case of a violent quarrel or row, in dance,
drinking, or gaming, the culprits might be cared for.

While the uproar was at its height, and the lofty tiled roof was ringing
with the gay and ribald songs and shouts of the excited crowds, two
persons appeared in the doorway at the middle of the room, and entered.
In a moment, as the busy revelers beheld them, the dance ceased, the
music of the guitars died away in a tinkling cadença, the glasses
stopped clinking, the dollars no longer chinked, and the songs and
shouts were hushed. You might have heard a _real_ drop for a minute,
until one of the individuals who had entered slowly walked forward a few
paces and threw his right hand aloft in salutation. Then burst forth a
hoarse, simultaneous shout of

"_Viva nuestro amigo! Viva el capitano!_"

Captain Brand did not pause until he had reached the centre of the great
hall, where he stood calmly looking around upon the swarthy groups, who
crowded about in circles at a respectful distance from him; and then
amid the silence he spoke up, in a frank, off-hand manner,

"Well, my men, I am glad to see you all once more around me. You have
not been so successful as I hoped, but we must take the good and ill
luck as it comes, and I have no fault to find with you. The times,
however, are bad enough; for I have certain news that our retreat here,
where we have so long been hid, may be discovered"--the villains around
held their breath and let their cigars lie dead in their mouths--"but,"
went on their commander, "I shall do all that is prudent in the
circumstances for the benefit of all of us; and when we leave here you
will still have me for your leader, with my head, heart, and blade ever
ready to advise or protect you." As he stopped speaking another cheer
arose:

"_Viva, nuestro amigo! viva! viva! El 'Centipede' y el capitano! Hasta
muerto!_ Long live the captain! We stand by you until death!"

"Thank you, my friends; I have but one more word to say. The men who
have the relief at the signal-stations and the water-battery must keep
sober. Now go on again with the music."

The captain, however, did not immediately quit the hall, but, while the
revel began once more with all its enthusiasm, he moved amid the crowd
of its adherents and said a cheerful word to many.

"Ah! Pepe, your arm in a sling, eh! a graze of a grape-shot, eh? Why,
Hans, you here! nothing can hurt _you_! Well, Monsieur Antoine, how well
thou art looking; and that pretty sweetheart of thine at St. Lucie! Bah!
never look sad, man; thou shalt see her again. What, my jolly Jack Tar!
an ugly scratch, that, across your jaw--a splinter, eh? Never mind; a
little plaster and half allowance of grog will put you all right again.
So good-night, my friends. _Adios!_"

Saying these words, all addressed to the individuals in their different
languages, he gave a graceful wave of his hand and passed out of the
building. As he rejoined his friend, the commander of the "Panchita,"
who had waited at the threshold, while his wary glim of an eye searched
the faces and read the thoughts of all the villains who clustered about
the room--they both stepped out into the court-yard and sauntered
pleasantly on toward the crag. They had not, however, proceeded many
paces before they encountered the padre and the doctor.

"Ah!" exclaimed the captain, who was in advance, "how goes it with my
doctor?" shaking his hand as he spoke. "Oh, _mi padre_, how art thou?"
turning to Ricardo.

"_Salve!_ my son; not been so well this morning, with the old rheumatism
in my head."

"Drunk!" said sententiously the doctor.

Then again with a gay laugh to the other, "Well, my doctor, your first
cruise has not been so pleasant in the 'Centipede' as I hoped it might
be, but the next may be more agreeable."

"Perhaps so, Captain Brand; but I shall have a word or two with you on
that subject to-morrow; and, in the mean while, _señor_, I brought a
little boy back with me who is ill from fever, and my quarters are so
stifling hot, and the air from the lagoon is so bad, that I would like
to stow him for a day or so, with your permission, in your quarters,
where it is cooler."

"Certainly, doctor; why not? my house and all in it are at your service.
By the way, I was about to ask you and the padre to dine with me and Don
Ignaçio there. Will you join us? Yes? Then let us move on, for dinner
must be ready by this time, and it would be a sin to keep Babette
waiting."

Excusing himself for a few minutes, the doctor went for his sick charge,
and returned with him in his arms to the pirate's dwelling.

CHAPTER XIV.

A PIRATES' DINNER.

    "But the best of the joke was, the moment he spoke
    Those words which the party seemed almost to choke,
    As by mentioning Noah some spell had been broke,
    And, hearing the din from barrel and bin,
    Drew at once the conclusion that thieves had got in."

When the guests had assembled in the pirate's saloon it was some minutes
before their host appeared. When, however, he did step into the room
from his private apartment adjoining, he was altogether a different man
in outward appearance than in the early morning. In place of the loose
sailor summer rig which he then wore, he was now attired as a gentleman
of elegant fashion of the time in which we write. His lower limbs were
clothed with flesh-colored silk stockings, and fitted into a pair of
pointed toed pumps with buckles of brilliants that a duchess might have
envied. A pair of white cassimere breeches, which set off to advantage
his well-shaped leg, were tied in a dainty bow of rose-colored satin
ribbon below the knee, and fitted him like a second skin. His waistcoat
was of rose-colored watered silk, embroidered with silver, and which,
with its flaps and ample proportions, was halfway hidden by a dress coat
of green velvet. This last garment had a sort of navy cut, with standing
collar richly laced with silver, gold buttons in a double row of the
size of doubloons, with loose sleeves and cuffs heavily laced with
silver also. His linen was of the most gossamer fineness, the collar
thrown slightly back and confined by a single clasp of rubies the size
of beans, while below was a frill of cambric ruffles sparkling with opal
studs framed in diamonds. The ruffles, too, at his wrist were of the
most beautiful point lace, secured by royal brilliants, and he was
altogether a dandy of such princely magnificence that the courtiers of
the days of the old French monarchy might have taken him for a study.
His manner, likewise, was every way in keeping with his splendid attire;
and the ease and grace with which he excused himself to his guests for
keeping them waiting certainly denoted a knowledge of a higher order of
breeding and society than that in which his lot had been cast.

From the very moment of his entrance, however, Don Ignaçio had measured
him at a glance. His single glittering eye of jet had taken him in from
the laced collar of his coat to the buckles of his shoes. Not a jewel in
his dress, from the flaming opals in his bosom to the brilliant stones
at his wrists, and down to the sparkling clusters at his feet, did not
his one uneasy optic drink in the flash and estimate the value. Nay, he
calculated by instinct the weight of the gold buttons on his coat and
the price of the exquisite lace which fell in snowy folds about his
hands. Oh, a rare mathematician was Don Ignaçio! What greedy thoughts,
too, passed through that little Spaniard's brain! "Ah!" thought he,
"shall I take my debt in those priceless gems, each one the ransom of a
princess, which the old Captain General may one of these days reclaim?
Hola! no! Or shall I receive more negotiable commodities in gold,
cochineal, or silks? Well! _Veremos!_ we shall see!"

The effect produced upon the good Padre Ricardo was altogether
different. As the captain entered with all his glorious raiment upon
him, he started back, and, bowing before him as if he were Saint Paul
himself, he seized his superior's white hand, and kissed it with fervent
devotion. Not satisfied with this mark of respect, he raised his dingy
paws, holding his crucifix before him, and murmured, in a sort of
ecstasy,

"_Mi hico! mi capitano! que brillante!_"--"My son! my captain! what a
brilliant being you are!"

Singularly in contrast, however, was the effect produced upon the
doctor, who merely raised his dark eyes in an abstracted gaze, gave
a careless and rather contemptuous nod of recognition, and then turned
to examine one of the richly-inlaid cabinets which adorned the
saloon. All these various phases of sympathy, attraction, or contempt
flickered like a sunbeam into Captain Brand's reflecting brain, as, with
a delicately-perfumed handkerchief in one hand, and a gold-enameled
and diamond-incrusted snuff-box in the other, he bowed gracefully to
his visitors, and seated himself at table.

The table was now rolled out into the centre of the saloon, laid with a
snowy-white damask cloth, and covered with the equipage for a banquet.
At either corner were noble branches of solid silver candelabra, which
would have graced an altar, as perhaps they had, and holding clusters of
wax-lights, which shed their rays over the display below. In the centre
arose a huge épergne of silver, fashioned into the shape of a drooping
palm-tree, whose leaves were of frosted silver, and about the trunk
played a wilderness of monkeys. Beneath, around the board, were
cut-glass decanters, flat bulbous flasks of colored Bohemian glass,
crystal goblets, delicate and almost shadowy wine-cups from Venice,
silver wine-coolers, all mingled in with a heterogeneous collection of
rare china and silver dishes. Such wines, too, as filled those vessels!
not a prince or magnate in all the lands where the vine is planted could
boast of so rare and exquisite a collection. Pure, thin, rain-water
Madeira, full threescore years in bottle! Pale, limpid Port, whose color
had long since gone with age, and left only the musk-like odor; flasks
of Johannisberg of pearly light; bottles of Tokay for lips of cardinals;
tall, slim stems of the taper flasks of the Rhine; while the ruby hues
of wine from the Rhone stood clustering about amid pyramids of
pine-apples, oranges, and bananas, and all loading the air of the saloon
with their delicious fragrance.

When the party had become fairly seated around the board, and while the
host was bailing out the soup from an enormous silver tureen with a
tea-cup--for it did not appear that he had ever been presented in the
usual way with a ladle--fishing out the floating morsels of rich
callipee, with the delicate frills of his sleeves turned back, he began
the conversation in the Castilian language:

"Well, _amigos_, we are taking our last feast together, I fear, on this
little cluster of rocks, for a long time to come."

"How!" exclaimed the padre, as he stuffed a wedge of turtle fat in his
oily mouth, and opened his round black eyes to their fullest extent in
manifest surprise.

"_Como, mi hico!_" he repeated, as he passed a dirty paw over his smooth
chin, and looked inquiringly.

"Yes, holy father, our good friend Don Ignaçio here has brought us
somewhat startling intelligence. Capital soup, this. I shall give
Babette a dollar. Yes, the eagles and vultures are after us; all the
West India fleet; the Lord only knows how many ships, and brigs, and
gun-boats. Glass of Madeira with you, doctor?" wiping his thin lips with
a corner of the damask table-cloth as he spoke; "and they have tampered,
too, with my old friends the custom-house people. Take away the tureen,
Babette--and, in point of fact, I shouldn't be the least surprised to
see a swarm of those navy gentlemen off the reef here at any moment. A
sharp knife, Babette, for these teal--a duck should be cut, not torn.
Try that Moselle, Don Ignaçio; I know your fancy for light wines. This
was given me by a Captain--'pon my soul, I forget his name; he had such
a pretty wife, Madame Matilde," glancing at the frame of miniatures on
the wall; "sweet creature she was; took quite a fancy for me, I believe,
and might have been sitting here at this moment, but a--really I forget
her other name. However, it makes no difference: the wine is called
Moselle."

Now be it here observed that Don Ignaçio drank very little wine or
stimulants of any sort, and never by any chance a drop from any vessel
which, with his single bright eye, he did not see his host first indulge
in. This self-imposed sacrifice may have been owing to his diffidence,
or modesty, or deference to Captain Brand, or, perhaps, other and
private reasons of his own; but yet he never broke through that rule of
politeness and abstemiousness. Sometimes, indeed, he carried his
principles so far as to refuse a meat or the fruits which his host had
not partaken of, and always with a slow shake of his brown fore finger,
as if he did not like even to smell the dish presented to him.

"What! not even a sip of that nectar, _compadre mio_?"

The compadre shook his digit, and observed that drinking nectar
sometimes made people sick.

The captain laughed gayly, and said, "Bah! learning to drink does the
harm, and not the art, when properly acquired."

During all the foregoing interlude the doctor remained in his grave,
calm humor, and only when the captain alluded to the lady whose
husband's name escaped him did he show signs of interest. Then his eye
followed the look toward the miniature, and his jaws came together with
a slight grating spasm.

Padre Ricardo, however, was in excellent sympathetic spirits, eating and
drinking like a glutton of all within his reach, and turning his full
eyes at times, as if to a deity, upon his friend the captain. Once he
spoke--

"But, my son, you were talking of leaving this quiet retreat, where we
have passed so many happy hours."

"Yes, friend of my soul! Those fellows with commissions, and pennants at
their mast-heads, and guns, and what not, seem determined to do us a
mischief." The devout padre crossed himself, and pressed the crucifix to
his greasy lips. "Ay! they would no doubt arraign us before some one of
their legal tribunals. Put us in prison, perhaps; or maybe give us a
slight squeeze in a rope or iron collar!"

The padre groaned audibly, and dropped the wing of a teal he was
gnawing, forgetting, strange as it may seem, to cross himself.

"_Hola, mi padre!_ cheer up! We are worth a million of dead men yet. The
world is wide, the sea open, and with a stout plank under our feet and
one of these fellows"--here he balanced a long carving-knife, dripping
with blood-red gravy, in his hand--"in our belts, who can stop us?"

There was the cold, ferocious-eyed gleam of a dying shark in the
speaker's eyes as he went on with his carving; but the priest gave a
jerk of trepidation with his chin, and appeared anxious to hear more.

"Don Ignaçio, try a bit of this roast _guana_; it's quite white and
tender. No? Babette, give me some of that rabbit stew!" The one-eyed
individual was likewise helped to some of that savory ragoût, and
proceeded to pick the bones with much care and deliberation.

"Still _triste_, my _padre_! Come, come, this will never do. Join me in
a bumper of this generous old Port. _Bueno!_ may we attain the same age!
By the way, where did this rich stuff come from?" holding up the
decanter between the light and his face as he spoke.

Don Ignaçio's glittering optic pierced clear through the light ruby
medium of the wine, cut-glass decanter and all, as he furtively watched
his host, and was prepared to dodge in case the heavy vessel should slip
out of the captain's hand. Such things had happened, and might again;
besides, a hard flint substance with a multitude of sharp projections,
two or three inches thick and five or six pounds in weight, falling from
a height on a man's head, might kill him. The Don thought of all this,
and twitched something up his sleeve with his hand under the table. But
Captain Brand, it seemed, had no intention of smashing his elegant
dinner set of glass, and putting down the decanter and raising a finger
to his forehead, he said, "How did that wine come into my possession?"

"Somebody gave it to you, perhaps. _Quien sabe?_ (Who knows?)" suggested
Don Ignaçio.

Without heeding the interruption, the captain's eye rested on the
brilliant snuff-box on the table beside him, where the letter L was set
in diamonds and blue enamel on the back, and catching it with a rap, his
face lighted up, and as he took a pinch and passed the box to the padre,
he exclaimed,

"Ah! now I remember, my old friend--the Portuguese countess from Oporto.
_Dios! de mi alma!_ (God of my soul!) what a stately beauty was her
daughter!"

Here Captain Brand sneezed, and, drawing a delicately-perfumed lace
handkerchief from his waistcoat pocket, blew his nose. Meanwhile the box
went round the table; Padre Ricardo took a huge pinch with his dirty
fingers, and feasted his eyes upon the precious lid. The doctor scarcely
gave the elegant bawble a glance as he helped himself. The Don, however,
examined it with the eye of a connoisseur, and not only that, but he
threw a spark at the captain's flashy waistcoat, and thought he detected
some other article in the capacious pockets vice the handkerchief.
Perhaps he may have been mistaken and perhaps not, though he was so very
suspicious an old villain that he sometimes did his friends injustice.
Nor did he put his thin brown fingers, with the few grains of snuff he
had dipped from the box, to his sheepskin nostrils till he had watched
the effect it had produced on those around him.

"Ah! my friends, I remember distinctly now all about it," continued the
captain, as he returned the kerchief and shook a few specks of the
titillating dust from his point-lace sleeve; "it is about three years
ago, just before you came to live with me, padre, that we fell in with a
large ship bound to Porto Rico. She had been disabled in an awful
hurricane, which had taken two of her masts clean off at the decks, and
was leaking badly. We, too, had been a little hurt in the same gale, and
having made a pretty good season, I was anxious to get back here and
give the crews a rest. Well, we made out the ship about an hour before
sunset, and it was quite dark before we came up with her. There she lay,
rolling like a log, though there was not much sea on, and we could hear
her chain-pumps clanking, and saw the water spouting out from her
scuppers as pure almost as it went into her hold. As we came up
alongside they hailed me for assistance, and said the ship was sinking,
and could not live till morning.

"Of course I could give them no actual assistance, situated as I
was"--here the narrator smiled as he glanced round upon his guests--"it
would have been simply absurd, you know, the idea of my putting men on
board to keep her afloat for the nearest gibbet. Bah! I did not dream of
such ridiculous nonsense. However, I determined to make her a visit,
and, if there should be any thing to save from the wreck in an undamaged
condition, why, I should look around.

"Not too much of that Port, _mi padre_; think of your rheumatism in the
morning! Doctor, you don't drink!

"Well, going on board, I found two lady passengers--the wife and
daughter of an old judge of the island of Porto Rico, with half a dozen
servants, who were all screaming, and praying, and beseeching me to save
them--all but one, a tall, graceful girl, with a large India shawl
wrapped around her shoulders, her white arms glancing through the folds,
and a pair of dark, liquid, almond-shaped eyes, such as I had never
before seen. The fact is, my friends, I had always before fancied blue.
But there stood this girl, with eyes like a wounded stag, leaning up
against the weather bulwarks near the open cabin door.

"Babette, take away all but the wine and fruit, and bring fire. Pass
that box this way, if you please, _compadre_! Thank you."

Don Ignaçio seemed to have an affection for the trifle, and had counted
the brilliants over and over again, and made a mental calculation of
their weight and value; and when he did move it as he was desired, his
greedy eye followed it with fascination.

"Yes, it's very pretty, and I set a great store by it," parenthesized
the host, as he resumed his tale:

"The girl never screamed or even spoke, and, amid all the hubbub of a
drunken skipper and a disorderly crew, she remained quiet and unmoved.
To assure the people, I told them that I would stay by the ship and do
what I could for them. At this the old lady clasped me around the neck,
and kissed me, and blubbered over me more than ever she did, I imagined,
to the old Spanish judge, her husband--imploring me too, by all the
saints she could think of, to take herself and daughter out of the
sinking vessel at once. You may believe that I would much rather have
been treated in that way by the lovely girl with the wonderful eyes
instead of the fat, rancid old woman beside her; but there was no help
for it just then, and so I consented, with all the professions of
sympathy I could make, to do as she desired."

Here the captain lit a pure Havana, and, after a few puffs and a sip of
Port, continued:

CHAPTER XV.

DROWNING A MOTHER TO MURDER A DAUGHTER.

    "At last she startled up,
      And gazed on the vacant air
    With a look of awe, as if she saw
      Some dreadful phantom there."

"No sooner had I assured the old lady that I would transfer them to my
vessel than her daughter made a step forward, and, letting her shawl
fall upon the deck, she seized my hand with both of hers, and said, in a
low contralto voice,

"'Heaven bless you, _señor_!'

"By the cestus of Venus, _caballeros_, the pressure of that girl's hand,
and the deep, speaking look of gratitude she gave me out of her liquid
eyes, quite did my business!"

"And the señorita's too, I think," chimed in the one-eyed commander, as
he wagged his uneasy head at the narrator.

"_Quien sabe?_" (who knows?) went on Captain Brand: "at all events, I
raised her soft patrician hand to my lips and kissed it respectfully.
Ha! I noticed, too, as I released her round, slender fingers, that she
wore a sapphire of great brilliancy--ay, here it is now. I keep it in
remembrance of the girl."

Saying this, the host shook back the lace ruffles of his sleeve, and,
crooking his little finger, exhibited the jewel to his guests.

"Go on, my son," said the padre, as his sensual face expressed his
satisfaction at the recital--"_Vamonos!_"

"My holy father," responded the narrator, "beware of that wine-flask!
You have grand mass to-morrow! it is the feast of our patron saint, you
know."

"_Si! si! hijo mio!_ your padre is always ready," crossing himself in a
half tipsy way as he spoke--"_Vamonos!_" The doctor looked as cold as
marble, and said not a word.

"Well, gentlemen," went on Captain Brand, "I soon got that ship in a
tolerably wholesome state of command. I made my trusty old boatswain,
Pedillo, lock the fuddled skipper up sound and tight in his own
stateroom, and the rest of my men took a few ropes' ends, and belted the
lubbers of a crew until they went to work at the pumps with renewed
vigor. I also insisted upon the scared male servants of the passengers
lending a hand at that innocent recreation, for you see I had no
intention of letting the ship go down--"

"With the Capitano Brand in her," interrupted Señor Sanchez.

"No, by no manner of means; for the ship, I felt, was settling fast, and
I could hear the loose cargo, which had broken adrift below in the main
hold, playing the devil's own game; smashing and crushing from side to
side as the vessel rolled, and coming in contact with the stanchions and
beams, with a surging swash of water, too, which told the tale without
the trouble of breaking open the hatches. I took, however, the
precaution to run my eye over the manifest to see if, perchance, there
was any treasure in the after run or any where else, as, in case there
had been, I should have made some little effort to get at it. However,
there was nothing on board but wine, dried fruits, and heavy bale goods,
not worth the time or trouble, in the aspect of affairs at that time, to
save as much as a single cask or a drum of prunes. I glanced, too, at
the clearance list, and saw that the names of the passengers were La
Señora Luisa Lavarona, and the Señorita Lucia, lady and daughter, with
half a dozen orders and titles, of the judge in _Puerto Rico_. _Bueno!_
roll me an orange, if you please, doctor! Ah! _gracias_, thanks."

The doctor rolled the orange, and, had it been a grape-shot or any other
iron missile, its aim would have gone straight through the captain's
body, just above his left waistcoat pocket.

"In the mean while the old lady rushed around in a tremendous hurry, in
and out of the cabin, losing her balance occasionally in the lurches,
ordering her maids to pull out trunks and boxes on to the deck; then
giving me a hug to relieve her feelings, and praying and crying between
whiles in the most whimsical manner. Not contented either with getting
out a pile of luggage and chests that would have swamped a jolly-boat,
she insisted upon waiting until a locker was broken open in the cabin
pantry for the purpose of rescuing six cases of old Port wine, which had
been, she told me, sent as a present from the Archbishop of Lisbon to
his friend the judge. At this juncture I persuaded her to send her
daughter and a few light articles first on board my vessel, when the
boat would then return for herself and the remainder of their property.
Accordingly, I carefully wrapped the lovely girl in shawls and cloaks,
and got her over the side and down into my boat, pitched a few light
caskets and cases in after the young beauty, and then, with a quiet word
or two into Pedillo's sharp ear, the boat shoved off. I suppose it may
have been half an hour before my boat returned, and then I learned from
the coxswain that he had shown his charge down into my private cabin,
and she appeared as comfortable and resigned as possible. Well, we made
quick work of it now, tumbled a good many things into the boat, when I
myself got in to receive the old lady and her retinue. By the way, among
the articles were the boxes of wine--this is some of it"--tapping the
decanter, now nearly empty from the attacks of the priest--"and in my
opinion it does great credit to the taste and judgment of that venerable
archbishop."

"_Ave, purissima!_" said the padre, with a hiccough; "I shall be a
bishop myself one of these days. _Ora pro nobis!_"

"You'll be a cardinal," gibed in the doctor, "if swilling wine will do
it."

Captain Brand went on with his narrative:

"Where was I? Oh! ah! We were waiting alongside the ship, with her lower
chain-plates not a foot above water, for the donna to be hoisted over
the rail, since she would not permit any of her attendants to precede
her--though Heaven knows they were anxious enough to do so. By this
time, too, after my men had left the deck of the ship, the crew had
somehow got hold of a barrel of wine, and, letting the pumps work
themselves, were guzzling away in grand style. I began to lose patience
at last, and shouted to the old lady to come at once, or I should be
compelled to leave her. She merely leaned over the rail, however, and
chattered forth that all she had in the world was at my service--of
course, figuratively she meant--but she must stay another minute to find
a jar of preserved ginger, which was her only cure for the cholic."

"You didn't take the offer of the old lady as a figure of speech, I
presume?" asked the doctor.

"No!" muttered the one-eyed old wretch, with a sneer. "And that jar of
ginger spared her any more attacks of cholic!"

"_Caballeros_, you are both right. I did accept the gift of her worldly
goods in the frank spirit in which it was offered, without any
reservation; and, to my almost certain knowledge, the Señora Lavarona
was never more troubled with illness of any kind.

"The fact was, that, finding the ship fast sinking, and her crew
becoming boisterous and rebellious as the imminent danger burst upon
them, they proposed, since their own boats were stove, to take
possession of mine! That _was_ a joke, to be sure! A dozen drunken
swabs, with naked hands, to capture ten of the old 'Centipede's' picked
men, with a pistol and knife each under their shirts; and"--here the
speaker laughed heartily--"and Captain Brand beside them! _Diavolo!_
what silly people there are in this world!"

The good padre joined his superior in this ebullition of feeling, and
seemed to enjoy the joke immensely, rolling his goggle eyes and head
from side to side, kissing his crucifix, and exclaiming, with devotion,

"_Que hombre es eso!_"--"What a man he is!"

[Illustration: THE PIRATE'S PREY.]

"Well, _señores_, the next minute we let go the painter and floated
astern past the ship's counter, and a few strokes of the oar-blades sent
us dancing away to leeward, where the schooner was lying with her
main-sail up, and the jib-sheet hauled well to windward. We made no
unnecessary noise in getting alongside, and it took no great time to get
the boat clear, a tackle hooked on, and to swing her on board over the
long gun. Then we drew aft the sheets, set the fore-sail, and the
'Centipede' was once more reeling off the knots on her course."

"But the ship, my son?"

"Why, my padre, I was so busy attending to the schooner, and afterward
going below to break the sad news to my lovely dark-eyed passenger of
the loss of her mother, that I had no time to devote to the ship.
Pedillo, however, told me that he heard a good deal of frantic
shrieking, and prayers, and cursing, with, for a little while, the
renewed clank of the chain-pumps, but after that we had got too far to
windward to hear more. About midnight, though, Pedillo and some of the
watch thought they saw a white shower of foam like a breaking wave, and
a great commotion in the water, but that was all. So, you see, what
really became of that old craft we do not positively know; though for a
long time afterward I read the marine lists very attentively, yet I
never saw any accounts of her arrival at her destination.

"Perhaps," added Captain Brand, with a peculiar smile, as he lit a fresh
cigar, "her arrival may have escaped my notice, as I hope it may, though
I think not."

Don Ignaçio intimated, by waving his fore finger to and fro, that such a
hope had no possible foundation in fact; and he stated, too, that he
knew the underwriters had paid the full insurance on the missing ship.

"Ah! well, that seems to settle the matter, truly," murmured the
captain, as if he had long entertained painful doubts on the subject,
and now his mind was finally relieved.

"But, _hico mio_! Son of mine! _La Señorita_--hiccough--with the
almond-shaped eyes--_Santissima!_--hic--how did she bear the--death of
her--hic--mother?"

"_Por Dios, padre!_ there was a scene which would have drawn tears from
a--"

"Pirate," suggested the doctor.

The padre blubbered outright, and his round, tipsy eyes nearly popped
out of his head.

"Ay, _monsieur_, even from mine! But to go back a little. When I had got
all snug on board the schooner, I went below, and moved softly on tiptoe
along the passage to the door of my beautiful cabin.

"You remember, _amigo_," said the narrator, turning toward Don Ignaçio,
"how that cabin was fitted, and how much it cost to do it. I think you
paid the bill for me? No?"

Oh yes, Captain Brand was quite right. Don Ignaçio remembered it well,
and the bill was a thousand gold ounces, sixteen thousand hard silver
dollars; and by no means dear at that, for the Don never allowed any
body to cheat _him_.

"Cheats himself, though, sometimes. Don't charge more than the usual
commission."

The one-eyed usurer looked wicked at this remark, but he said nothing,
being occupied at the moment rolling up a paper cigar with one hand, and
wetting the brown fore finger of the other.

"Well, _caballeros_, I peeped through the lattice-work of the cabin
door, and there reclined my pretty prize--I recall her as if it were
yesterday--on one of the large blue satin damask lounges of the after
transoms. Her head rested on one of her round ivory arms, half hidden in
the luxurious pillows; her shawl, too, was thrown back; and with a
somewhat disordered dress, and a mass of glossy hair clustering in
ringlets about her neck and white shoulders, I thought then, as I do
now, that she was a paragon of loveliness. I saw her, as she thus
reclined, by the light of a large shaded crystal lamp, which hung by
silver chains from the cabin beams, and shed a rose-tinted effulgence
over the whole apartment. When I first approached the door the girl was
looking out of her own large liquid lamps, so superbly framed in a heavy
fringe of dark lashes, in evident curiosity around the elegant cabin.
Her looks wandered from the Turkey carpet on the floor to the beautiful
silk hangings, that exquisite set of inlaid pearl ebony furniture, the
display of knickknacks, and Dresden porcelain panels of the sides, and,
in fact, nothing seemed to escape her; and the good taste of the
fittings evidently met her approbation. At times, too, she would turn
her gaze out of the narrow little window of the stern, and peer
anxiously over the vessel's wake, which by this time was skimming along
like a wild duck, and leaving countless bubbles behind her. At the first
sound I made, however, in opening the door, she started up and stepped
forward to meet me.

"'Oh, _Señor Capitano_, _mi madre_! (My mother!) What detains her? We
seem to be going very fast through the water!'

"I gently took the girl's outstretched hands and led her back to the
cushioned transom. Then I told her, as kindly as I could, that I did
all in my power to save her good mother, but that the crew had
mutinied--they had taken possession of the unfortunate ship--great
confusion existed--and as I feared, you know, that my own boat would be
swamped by remaining longer alongside, I was compelled to leave her to
her fate.

"'But my mother, _señor_!' exclaimed the girl, with anguish; 'she was
saved?'

"'No, _señorita_,' I said, 'she went down with the ship; but the last
words she uttered--that is to me--were to invoke a blessing on my head,
and to consign all she possessed to my care.' The poor thing swooned
away as I uttered these words, and it was a long time before she came to
again. When she did, however, regain consciousness, tears came to her
relief, and I did all I could to soothe her distress by telling her
that, if the wind came fair, she would in the course of a few days be
restored to her father."

"But the wind didn't come fair, eh?" broke in Don Ignaçio, "and she
didn't see--"

"No, _amigo_, the wind held steady from the opposite quarter, and I
thought it better not to beat up with a fished fore-mast, and all
that--and a--she did _not_ see her father."

Captain Brand here wet his thin lips with a few sips of wine, said,
"Babette, bring coffee!" and resumed his story.

"When the girl became a little more calm I induced her to retire to my
stateroom, where I left her to sob herself to sleep. Don't spill that
coffee, Babette, and put the liqueurs on the table. There, that will do,
old lady.

"Well, _señores_, the next morning my pretty prize was too ill to leave
her room; but, as I handed her a cup of chocolate through the door
curtains, she thanked me with much gratitude for what I had done, and
knew that her dear father, the judge, would bless me."

"So he will," snarled the one-eyed old rascal, "if he ever catches you,
when he draws the black cap over your head."

"Possibly he may, though perhaps it will be some considerable time
before he has that pleasure."

"Ah! _cuidado hico mio!_ Take care of yourself, my son," hiccoughed the
priest as he crossed himself. The captain gave a light laugh, sipped his
coffee, and went on as if a dungeon, scaffold, and noose were the last
things he ever thought of.

"I amused myself during the day in looking over the trunks, caskets, and
what not we had saved from the sinking trader--presented to me, as you
know, by the old lady who was on board. There were, of course, a great
quantity of ladies' dresses, and a good many jewels and trinkets; among
the latter this fine snuff-box here, which our friend Don Ignaçio so
much admires, and which I set aside as an especial testimonial of the
old lady's regard. Try another pinch, _amigo_? No? _Bueno!_ I caused
what I believed to be the daughter's elegant raiment to be placed in the
after cabin. For three days I never even saw my pretty passenger, though
I heard her low, sweet voice occasionally when I laid out something for
her to eat in the adjoining cabin. She sang, too, some little sad songs
with a voice which vibrated upon my ear like the notes of an Æolian harp
sighing in the night wind. _Dios!_ how I regretted then and afterward
that I did not have a cabinet piano!"

"Presented to you," suggested the doctor.

"Yes, presented to me, so that she might have touched the keys with
those ivory and rose-tipped fingers.

"So the time passed, the schooner flying on under whole sails, the wind
about two points free, and the weather as fine as silk. It was the
fourth evening, I think, after parting with the Oporto trader that I
induced my fair passenger to come on deck and take a little breath of
sea-air. You will observe, _caballeros_, that I did not make this
suggestion in the daytime, because the 'Centipede's' crew, you know,
were rather numerous, and some of them not so handsome in point of
personal looks as ladies at all times care to behold. Besides, there
were certain things about the decks--racks of cutlasses, lockers of
musketry along the rail, and a long brass twelve-pounder, which is not
altogether hidden by the boat, you know, and might have given rise to a
little curiosity, or maybe suspicion, even in the mind of a girl, as to
our character, pursuits, and so forth, which I should have been puzzled
to answer. Therefore I chose a clear starlight night to pay my homage,
and accordingly I went below about four bells of the first watch to
escort the little lady to the deck. She was dressed, and waiting for me
in the cabin; and if I was so struck with her beauty when I first saw
her, my heart thumped now against my ribs like a volley of musket-balls
against an oak plank. She wore a black silk robe, such as Spanish women
wear at early mass, and around the back part of her head--where the hair
was gathered in a glossy knot, and secured by a gold bodkin--fell the
heavy folds of a black lace mantilla, the lower end fastened sash
fashion around her lithe waist. She stepped, too, like a queen on a pair
of slim, long, delicate feet, with arched ball and instep, as if she
were in command of the schooner.

"By my right arm!" exclaimed Captain Brand, shaking that member aloft in
a glorious fit of enthusiasm, "I am quite sure she had conquered me, and
that was more than half the battle!

"Well, I led her to the quarter-deck, where some cushions and flags had
been placed for her near the weather taffrail, and where she sat down.
The schooner was at the time under the two gaff-top-sails, the main boom
and sheets eased off a little, those long masts, with the sticks above
them running clear away up the sky, almost out of sight, bending like
whalebone, and reeling over the long swell when the breeze freshened;
and not a sound to be heard save now and then a light creak from the
main boom as the broad white sail strained flat and taut over to
leeward, or the rush of the water as it came hissing along from her
sharp, clean bows, with a noise like a breeze through the leaves of a
forest, away off over the counter into luminous sparkles as it swished
out into our wake. The 'Centipede' was indeed doing her best, and you
all know what that is, when we have been chased many and many a time by
some of the fastest cruisers going.

"You remember, Don Ignaçio, how the 'Juno' frigate nearly ran us under,
and yet never gained a fathom on us in nine hours?"

"Ay, _amigo_; but, had she not carried away her fore-top-mast, in
another hour there would have been nothing left of you afloat but
a--hencoop perhaps."

"_Quien sabe, compadre?_ If hads had been shads you would have had fish
for your breakfast," rejoined the narrator; and then throwing back
the lappels of his green velvet coat with an air of gentlemanly
satisfaction, he hooked his thumbs in the arm-holes of his fine
waistcoat, and went on.

"Well, _señores_, the graceful girl beside me never spoke scarcely for
half an hour. I divined, however, what her thoughts might have been in
dwelling on the painful scenes she had recently witnessed, and I held my
peace also; for, you see, I have had considerable experience with women,
and I have ever found that a man loses more by talking than by remaining
watchful and attentive."

Captain Brand looked, as he gave utterance to this philosophical
sentiment, as if he were a thirsty, cold-eyed tiger, lying in wait to
spring upon an unwary passer-by.

"Yes, I waited, until at last she spoke.

"'_Capitano_,' she said, 'what a beautiful vessel you command, and how
fast she sails!'

"What I replied, my friends, is neither here nor there; but I sank down
on the cushions beside the lovely girl, and poured out a torrent of
passionate words--which I really felt, too, at the time--as I don't
think I ever uttered before or since. She was a little startled and
nervous at first, but after a while I saw her stately head droop to one
side till it rested on my shoulder; I stole my arm around her yielding
waist and clasped her to my breast."

Here Captain Brand looked as if the tiger had already sprung upon the
passer-by, and was sucking the blood, with his claws buried deep into
the carcass.

"'_Señor_,' she murmured, in the low, sweet, plaintive note of a
nightingale, 'I am a young and inexperienced girl, of an old and noble
family; you have saved my life; my mother is gone, and I have no one to
advise with, and, if my dear father smiles upon my choice, I will marry
you; but do not, I implore you, deceive me!'"

"And you did not deceive her, I hope?" broke in the doctor, with a
shiver of light from his determined eyes that was almost painful to see,
so earnest and terrible it was, as he leaned forward with both of his
clenched hands quivering nervously on the table.

Captain Brand looked at the doctor with rather a suspicious stare, and
letting his thumbs drop from his armpits till they rested on the flaps
of his waistcoat pockets, he replied, in a careless tone,

"Oh no, _monsieur_, I never deceived--a--that is to say, intentionally
deceived a woman in all my life!"

"Let us hear more, my son," said the priest, thickly, who had now woke
up from a short nap.

"_Bueno, caballeros!_" continued the narrator, as he tossed off a
thimbleful of maraschino from a wicker-bound square bottle after his
coffee. "Well, gentlemen, the young Portuguese damsel, Señorita
Lucia, and I sat there under the weather rail till the first faint
streaks of early dawn in the tropics began to announce the coming of
the gray morning. Then she arose, and, leaning with a soft pressure on
my arm, I took her to her cabin, kissed her sweet hands, and bade her
good-night."

At this stage of the narrative Captain Brand threw himself triumphantly
back in his large Manilla chair, and ran his white muscular hands
through his dry light hair. Ay! the tiger had clutched his prey. An
unprotected, young, and lovely girl had been won and lost, and her
palpitating heart was soon to be torn from her tender body.

CHAPTER XVI.

NUPTIALS OF THE GIRL WITH DARK EYES.

    "With a pint and a quarter of holy water
      He made the sacred sign,
    And he dashed the whole on the only daughter
      Of old Plantagenet's line!"

    "But the count he felt the nervous work
    No more than any polygamous Turk,
        Or bold piratical skipper,
    Who, during his buccaneering search,
    Would as soon engage a 'hand' at church
        As a hand on board his clipper."

The captain got up from his chair, stepped to the settee, and, pulling
the signal-cord on the wall, held a short dialogue with the man at the
station; then, saying in a low, sharp whisper through the tube, "A
bright look-out, Pedro!" he resumed his place at the table. The doctor
had, in the mean while, got up and gone to the veranda, where, swinging
in a Yucatan grass hammock, shielded from the night wind, lay his little
patient sleeping soundly. Carefully closing the curtains again around
him, he returned to his place. The padre was now all awake again, with
his thick lips open, waiting for the captain to go on with his story. As
for Don Ignaçio, he never stirred body or limb, but his eye traveled
about perpetually, and he observed the movements of his companions all
at the same time. Still the hoarse roar of the pirates in their carouse
arose from the covered sheds in the calm night, and the two solitary
lights from each mast-head of the felucca and schooner twinkled above
the basin of the inlet.

"And now, _amigos_," began again Captain Brand, after he had assured
himself that all was going on as he could wish without, "I shall inform
you of the sequel of my adventure with the Señorita Lucia. The evening
after the night on which I had declared my passion, we were seated at
dinner in the after cabin. Such a choice little dinner, too, as only our
late friend, Lascar Joe, could prepare! Poor fellow, he'll never make
another of those famous curries, though, no doubt, he'll find fire and
pepper enough where he is, if the devil chooses to employ him. What a
neat hand he was, too, with that spiral-bladed Malay creese of his! Ah!
well--we were sitting over the dessert, and I was relating to my pretty
passenger some account of my early days, and of my lady mother and my
old squire of a father, omitting, perhaps, some few uninteresting
details--"

Here the old commander of the felucca cackled, and his black, beady eye
glittered as the thought flashed through his head as to what details his
villainous compeer had omitted. How he forged his old father's name,
which brought down his gray hairs in sorrow and disgrace to the grave;
and how his poor mother, too, died of grief, together with other bitter
memories, all of which Captain Brand, the pirate, omitted to mention.

"Yes, I related likewise some of my early privateering adventures, when
all the broad Atlantic was alive with the fleets of France, England, and
Spain; how I was captured by a Spanish brigantine"--omitting again to
state that he got up a mutiny with the crew of that brigantine,
poniarded the captain and mate in their sleep, and, assuming command of
the vessel, changed her colors for a black flag, and began his career as
a pirate in the Caribbean Sea--"and how I escaped. To all this she
listened with great interest, her large eyes dilating, and her bosom
swelling with sympathy as I proceeded, when suddenly the cabin door
opened, and my ugly friend Pedillo put his head in, and gave me a
warning nod.

"'What is it?' I said, rather sharply, to Pedillo; 'and how dare you
intrude inside my cabin?' I fear, too, that I came very near doing a
mischief to my boatswain; for I am rather impulsive at times, and by the
merest accident I happened to have a small pistol in my pocket."

Don Ignaçio twitched his sleeve, and looked as if he believed such
accidents as pistols being found in the narrator's pockets happened
quite often.

"'_Señor_,' said Pedillo, 'there are two sail standing out from the lee
of Culebra Island, and one of them appears to be a large--'

"I stopped any farther particulars from the lips of my subordinate by a
motion of my finger, and then, kissing the hands of the girl, who was
somewhat surprised at what had transpired, I left the cabin and jumped
on deck.

"The schooner was now running down through the Virgin's Passage between
St. Thomas and Porto Rico, with a fine breeze on the quarter, and the
sun was just sinking behind the last-named island. I snatched a
spy-glass from the rail, and looked ahead. There, sure enough, was a
sixteen-gun brig on the starboard tack heading across our track, and a
large frigate under single-reefed top-sails stretching away over to the
opposite shores of Culebra, while they were telegraphing bunting one
with another as fast as the bright-colored flags could talk. And, as
luck would have it, as I swept the glass round, what should I see but a
long rakish corvette in company with a huge whale of a line-of-battle
ship, with her double tier of ports glimmering away in the slanting rays
of the sun, both on the wind, and coming out from under the lee of
Culebra Point, just a mile or two astern of us. By the blood of
Barabbas, _caballeros_, we were in a trap for wolves, and the hounds
were in full cry! I immediately, however, luffed the schooner up, and
steered boldly for the frigate; and, as a puff of smoke spouted out from
the lee bow of the admiral to windward, and before the boom of the gun's
report reached us, I hoisted American colors. Seeing this, the brig hove
in stays, and, perhaps being ordered to board me, came staggering along
on the other tack across our forefoot, while the frigate went round too,
and held her wind toward her consorts to windward. Now this was just the
disposition which I wanted of the vessels, and it could not have been
done better for my plans had I been the admiral of the squadron. In less
than a quarter of an hour, the brig--and no great things she was, with a
contemptible battery, as I could see, of short carronades--hove aback a
little on the bow of the schooner, and gave us a warning of a
twenty-four pound shot across our forefoot, to heave to also, at the
same time hoisting the English ensign.

"So ho!" ejaculated Captain Brand, as he twisted the point of his nose,
accompanied by a malevolent scowl, "_señores_, I at once hauled flat aft
the fore-sail, dropped the main peak, and put the helm up, as if to
round to under the brig's stern; whereupon my man-of-war friend dropped
a cutter into the water, and she had just shoved off in readiness to
board me, when, before you could light a paper cigar, I ran up the main
peak, got a pull of the sheets, and the 'Centipede' was off again like a
shark with his fin above water, heading for the narrow passage between
Culebra and Crab Islands. It was at least five minutes before that
stupid brig could believe his eyes, and ten more before he got hold of
the boat again, when she filled away and began to pop gun after gun at
me as fast as he could bring his battery to bear! There was only one
shot that skipped on board us, and that only smashed both legs of a
negro, and then hopped off through the fore-sail to windward.

"Had I not had a good dinner that day and pleasant society on
board"--how peculiarly the speaker smiled--"I should perhaps have taught
that brig such a lesson that he would not have cared to report it to his
admiral. But as I knew I had the heels of him, and as the rest of the
squadron were now crowding all sail and keeping off in chase of me, I
ordered Pedillo, just by way of touching my hat and saying '_Adios_,' to
clear away the long gun and return the brig's salute. The shot struck
him just forward the night-heads by the bowsprit, and by the way the
splinters flew and his jib and head-sails came down, I knew I had
crippled him for an hour at least. At the same time, to prevent any
mistakes as to our quality, and to satisfy the admiral's curiosity, we
hauled down the Yankee colors and set our swallow-tailed flag!"

"Rather dark bunting! no?" edged in Don Ignaçio.

"Ay, _amigo_! as black as that eye of thine, though not half so
murderous," retorted the pirate as he continued his narrative.

"_Bueno_, there came the whole of the squadron down after us, spitting
out from their bridle ports mouthfuls of cold iron, which all went to
the bottom of the Virgin's Passage, for not one came within a mile of
the schooner; and then I led them such a dance through that intricate
cluster of reefs and islets, that soon after dark they gave up the game,
and I said '_Buenos noches_' to them all!"

Here Captain Brand paused, made a careful selection of a beautifully
turned trabuco cigar from the box, shouted to Babette to produce some
old Santa Cruz rum, sugar, lemons, and hot water--screeching hot, he
said--at which the padre crossed himself; and then throwing his fine
legs, incased in the lustrous silk stockings, on a chair beside him, and
while his eyes gazed fondly on the brilliants sparkling in the buckles
of his shoes, he resumed his tale.

"When I went below again, after every thing had become quiet on deck, I
found my stag-eyed sweetheart waiting to receive me! How superbly she
looked as she made a movement from the cushions where she had been
reclining, and exclaimed,

"'Oh, _señor_, what has happened, and what was the cause of all that
noise of guns, and those cries of agony I heard above?'

"'_Querida Lucia_, dearest,' I replied, 'we have been where there
are--a--pirates, but fortunately have escaped, and the cries you heard
were from one of my poor crew who got slightly wounded by a shot!'

"'Ah, _malditos piratos_! cursed pirates!' exclaimed the charming
beauty, as she put both her hands in mine, 'and how thankful am I that
you are not hurt! But, _querido mio_! dear one!' she went on, 'when
shall we get to Porto Rico and _our_ dear father? We must be near, for I
heard one of your sailors shout to you the name of the island!'

"In reply, I told her that we had been near Porto Rico, but
that--a--circumstances were such, on account of the dangerous pirates
who infested those seas, that I felt obliged, for her safety--you
understand--to run along by way of Hispaniola--she not having a very
clear idea of the position and geography of those parts--and that our
cruise might probably be prolonged for a few days more."

"And into h----, perhaps," said the doctor, with a hollow voice and a
calm cold eye.

"Oh no, my friends, certainly nothing so bad as that. Possibly to
heaven! but, _quien sabe_? no one can tell!

"However," pursued the captain, "I soon succeeded in allaying her
apprehensions, and then I threw myself at her feet, and implored her to
risk her father's displeasure and to marry me at once; that she knew her
father was cold, stern, and obdurate, and should he frown upon my suit I
should die of despair!"

"_Cierto!_" murmured Ignaçio, with the grin of a skeleton.

"I used these passionate appeals and many more, until at last the fond
girl yielded her consent to my entreaties.

"'But the priest, _querido mio_!' she exclaimed, as she rose and
disengaged herself from my arms. I told her that I chanced to have one
on board as a passenger, who would perform the ceremony.

"And so I had," added Captain Brand, "or at least a very near approach
to one, for my ugly boatswain, Pedillo, had been bred up--as an
acolyte--you comprehend--in the house of a rich old prelate of San Paulo
Cathedral in Trinidad, to whom Pedillo, one fine morning, gave about
eight inches of his cuchillo!"

"_Jesus Maria!_" exclaimed Padre Ricardo, starting back with horror, and
telling his beads.

"Ay, _mi padre_! Pedillo assassinated the holy father, and plundered his
cash-box besides; and so you see Pedillo was just the man I wanted."

Don Ignaçio nodded his wicked old head through a cloud of cigar smoke as
a sign of approval.

"Accordingly, _señores_, the next day I made the trusty Pedillo cut off
all the bushy beard about his ugly face, and had the crown of his head
shaved besides--quite like that round, oily spot there on the top of
good Ricardo's poll--and then he rigged himself out in a clerical gown,
to which the trunks of my bride's old mother contributed, and, take my
word for it, he was as proper and rascally a looking priest as could be
found on the island of Cuba. He performed the ceremony, too, by way of
practice, on Lascar Joe and the second cook beforehand, with as much
decorum and solemnity, and gave as pious a benediction, as his old
Trinidad uncle, the prelate, ever did. Well, that evening we were
married."

"How many times has the _capitano_ been married?" grunted out Don
Ignaçio.

"Why, let me reflect," as he threw his cold, icy look at the frame of
miniatures on the opposite wall. "You mean, _compadre_, how often the
ceremony has been performed. Ah! I think on eleven occasions. No, it was
only ten. Madame Mathilde had two husbands living when I made love to
her, and declined to take a third. But then, you know, I have an
affectionate disposition, and I can not set my heart against the
fascinations of the sex."

He gave vent to these moral sentiments as if he really meant them to be
believed and generally adopted by his audience.

"Well, that same evening I was married to the beautiful Señorita Lucia
Lavarona, though I am sorry to say that Pedillo did not perform his part
of the business as well as I had expected of him, from his practice in
the morning. He stammered a good deal, and when he raised the crucifix
to the lips of the young girl, her innocent looks and maidenly majesty
of deportment so struck my coadjutor with confusion that he let the
crucifix fall to the deck at her dainty feet. This little incident
caused me some displeasure; but, reflecting that the poet tells us

    'A tiger, 'tis said, will turn and flee
    From a maid in the pride of her purity,'

I said nothing to the abashed Pedillo as I gave him back the emblem; but
I favored him with a look, with my right hand in my pocket--this
fashion."

Here the cold-blooded scoundrel dipped his thumb and fore finger into
the flap of his waistcoat, while the commander of the "Guarda Costa"
waved his brown digit before him, as if he knew what was there all the
time.

"Ah! that restored my new-made priest to his senses, and he then got
through the ceremony entirely to my satisfaction.

"However," said Captain Brand, turning with lazy indifference toward
Padre Ricardo, "ever after this I resolved not to take the risk of such
another chance of failure, and this is the reason why I first sought
your services."

"_Gracias à Dios!_ Thanks be to heaven, my son, that you found me!" said
the sacrilegious wretch, as he bowed to his superior and sipped a glass
of rum punch. "_Vamonos!_ let us hear more."

"At the conclusion of our nuptials, while I held my sweet Lucia to my
heart, and kissed her pale brow, and while tears of crystal drops, half
in rapture and half in sorrow, dimmed her large, sparkling black eyes,
she withdrew this royal sapphire from her slender finger, and gently
placing the gem on mine--where you see it, _amigos_--she said,

"'My dear and only love, this is the talisman of my race. It has been
for ages in my family, and it has been the guardian of our hope and
honor. Receive it, friend of my heart, and be the protector of the young
girl who yielded up to you her very soul!'"

The doctor started as if he had been stung by a scorpion; but Captain
Brand, heedless or inattentive to the movement, went on:

"Yes, _caballeros_, those were her very words; murmured, too, in her low
contralto tones with a pure, lisping Castilian accent, as she laid her
stately head on my shoulder.

"Ay, those were rapturous moments; and it was in some degree--yes, I may
say in truth--entirely her own fault that they did not last.

"Well, for some days--eight or ten, perhaps--with light baffling winds,
we crept stealthily along the south side of St. Domingo; but the weather
was delightful, and the time passed on the wings of a zephyr. In the
warm, soft evenings, with the moon or stars shedding their pearly gleams
over the sea, she sat beside me on the deck of the schooner, watching
with girlish interest the white sails above her head, or singing to me
the sweet little sequidillas of her native land. And again, starting up
from my arms, she would peep over the counter, trace the foam as it
flashed and bubbled in our wake, or point to the track of a dolphin as
he leaped above the luminous waves and went like a bullet to windward.

"I flatter myself, _caballeros_, that there have been periods in my
career on the high seas, or on land, and may be again, for aught I
know," continued the elegant pirate, as he crossed his legs and threw
back the lappels of his velvet coat, so as to expose the magnificence of
his waistcoat, and the frills on his broad, muscular chest, "when men of
high birth and breeding, and lovely women too of noble lineage, have not
thought it beneath them to dine with or to receive the homage
of--a--Captain Brand.

"And, _por Dios_!"--the narrator did not consider it unbecoming his
cloth and profession to swear in a foreign language--"_por Dios!_
_señores_, I have known the time, too, when I have played whist with a
French prince of the blood and two knights of the Golden Fleece."

"And you fleeced them? No?" muttered Don Ignaçio, with an envious
glimmer from his greedy eye, as if no one had a right to rob the
community but himself.

"And not only that," continued the captain, rapidly, "but the daughter
of an English peer of the realm once proposed to run away with me. Ho!
ho! yes, she actually proposed to elope with me; but as she was verging
on fifty years, and only weighed fifty pounds, with never a pound in her
pocket, I sighed my regrets. Ay, great compliment it was, but I declined
the honor. You yourself, _compadre_, must remember how I was received by
the people on the Buena Vista villa at Principe; how the obispo blessed
me, the old general embraced me, and the beautiful marquesa, with the
hour-glass waist, smiled on me."

"_Cierto!_" That astute old Spaniard never forgot any thing, particularly
a debt due to him; and he remembered, moreover, to have heard that when
the noble _Mi Lord Inglez_ left the villa one dark night, a good deal of
plate, jewels, doubloons, and other valuable property disappeared with
him. Ay, the sly old fellow had a faint recollection as well of seeing
a heavily-armed schooner running the gauntlet through the forts before
daylight, and that she left a certain bag of gold ounces for him--Don
Ignaçio Sanchez--somewhere in a secret hole beneath a well-known rock
inside the harbor. Oh, a wonderful memory for matters of this nature
had our rapacious one-eyed acquaintance!

"Yes," went on his partner in many a scene of pillage and crime, "I have
every reason to know that I won the hearts, and purses too, sometimes,
of some of the fine people I met in refined society. But yet there have
been occasions when the game has gone against me--"

Don Ignaçio's tenacious memory came again into play, and he looked back
to the time when he himself had cleaned his profuse friend out of all
his gains at the card-table, even to the buttons off his coat; but he
gave no sign of remembrance of those days, and only blew a dense cloud
of smoke from his thin yellow nostrils as the captain spoke.

"--Though those occasions have not been of frequent recurrence."

The good Padre Ricardo at this juncture hoped that, by Saint Barnabas,
luck might, in all time to come, befriend his son and patron; croaking,
too, with a goblet of punch to his unctuous lips, "_Vamonos!_ Tell us
more of the adorable Doña Lucia!"

Captain Brand rapped his snuff-box, opened the diamond-crusted lid, took
a dainty pinch, laid his cambric handkerchief over his kerseymere
breeches, and resumed his narrative.

"So passed the days, _caballeros_; and when, one morning, the high
mountains back of Port Guantamano were reported to me, I felt a
presentiment that my dream of bliss was drawing to a close. Indeed, I
might probably have remained at sea a week or two longer, but the men
were getting a little impatient, and I thought it better to sacrifice my
own pleasure to theirs. That day we caught a cracking breeze out of the
Windward Passage, and toward midnight we came up with this little sandy
island here.

"The preparations for going into port excited the curiosity of my bride;
for, poor thing! she believed we were bound into Porto Rico, and I had
some trouble in inducing her to go below before we crossed the reef.
_Bueno!_ the coast was clear, the signals were all right, and an hour
later the schooner had her anchor down and sails furled pretty much in
the spot where she now lies moored.

"While, however, we were sweeping up the inlet, I sent a boat ahead,
with directions for my tidy old housekeeper, Babette, to have every
thing prepared to receive her new mistress. Just then one of those
terrible thunder-storms came up; heavy masses of clouds obscured the
sky, followed by such double-barrel shocks and intensely vivid lightning
as is only beheld in the tropics preceding the equinox. The rain, too,
came along in horizontal sheets, driven by a squall which burst in fury
over the island, and it seemed to me that all the devils from hell were
howling and shrieking in the air.

"Shielded from the storm by a large boat-cloak, I carried my beautiful
bride, with her face nestling on my breast, to the cove, and then I bore
her into this fine saloon.

"I shall never forget the sweet words she whispered, and the loving
caresses she gave me on that little journey, even while the tempest
almost dashed me to the ground, and the sharp flashes of lightning
nearly blinded me. They were the last she ever lavished upon me."

No sigh escaped the lips of this cold-blooded monster as he uttered
these words; no sign of feeling for the ruin of a gentle girl whom he
had betrayed to his piratical den of infamy and crime--whose dream of
life was destroyed like a crushed rose-leaf, and all her hope gone from
that moment.

CHAPTER XVII.

DOOM OF DOÑA LUCIA.

      "I went into the storm,
    And mocked the billows of the tossing sea;
    I said to Fate, What wilt thou do to me?
      I have not harmed a worm!

      "Thy dim eyes tell a tale--
    A piteous tale of vigils; and the trace
    Of bitter tears is on thy beauteous face;
      Beauteous, and yet so pale!"

"Thus it ever is, _caballeros_, and ever will be," went on Captain
Brand, in rather a reflecting strain. "There is a point to begin
and stop, and an end to joy as well as grief. We should, however,
take the world as it comes and as it goes. I do, and so do you,
_compadre_!"--pitching a cigar spear fashion at Don Ignaçio to
attract his attention--"and, therefore, we should never look too
far ahead, and live only for the present.

"Indulging then in this train of thought, as I set down my lovely burden
here, and the cloak fell from her shoulders, I was prepared for any
thing which might happen. I wore a slightly different costume at the
time than that she had been accustomed to see me in, as I always do when
I think there might be a chance of a surprise or trap laid for us in
entering the inlet. So, instead of fine linen and velvet, I had on a red
flannel shirt, canvas trowsers, with a cutlass slung to my side, and a
pair of pistols in my belt. I don't think I appear handsome in that rig,
but the fellows at my back somehow think it is becoming to me,
especially when we are engaged in a hand-to-hand fight! What say you,
_compadre_?"

The Don said nothing, and merely waved his fore finger, as if dress was
not a matter to which he devoted much attention. He thought, however,
that sleeves should be cut loose for knives when the pockets were not
too small for pistols; but he uttered no word.

"_Bueno!_ There I stood"--pointing to the corner of the room as he
spoke--"drenched with rain, and there stood my tall and lovely wife!

"The saloon was brilliantly lighted; a profusion of plants and flowers
were clustered here, there, and every where, on cabinets and tables, in
striking contrast to the display exhibited yonder in that armory, where
pikes, muskets, and knives were gleaming through the open door.

"Quick as the lightning which was piercing deep into the inmost crevices
of the rocks and lighting up the crag without, Lucia's dark eyes flashed
around the apartment from floor to ceiling, from flower to blade,
resting an instant on the frame of miniatures there--hers was not among
the collection _then_; it is the one in the middle, doctor--"

There were no knives on the table, or else, from the deadly look the
doctor gave, he might have perhaps sprinkled the narrator's heart's
blood on the floor.

"--Until at last her gaze of terror rested on _me_! No one, I fancy, can
tell the power of Spanish girls, who has never seen them when the whole
passion of their souls, either in love or hate, comes pouring in a black
blaze of jet from their gleaming eyes.

"Advancing a step toward me, with her white hands clasped together, she
said, in a hurried, beseeching voice--and low as was the sound, I heard
it distinctly during the crashing thunder which shook the rocks of the
crag to their foundations--

"'_Señor!_ where am I? My father! Who--who--in the name of the Blessed
Virgin, art _thou_?'

"Again giving a look of the utmost horror around the room, she pressed
her hands to her eyes, and said, in the same low, distinct tone,

"'Speak, _señor_! For the love of our holy Savior, speak!'

"I felt that the girl had saved me, by her own instinctive perception, a
world of painful explanations, and I replied,

"'Lucia! I divine that all farther concealments are useless; you are in
the haunt of the most noted pirate of these seas, and that man stands
before you.'

"_Caballeros!_" continued Captain Brand, "had my pretty prize swooned
away, or fallen down in a fit, or gone into hysterics and torn her
hair out by the roots, I should not have been greatly surprised; but
she did none of those things. On the contrary, she became as calm as
marble--frightfully so, in fact--and pushing back the bands of her
magnificent tresses from her pale forehead, she raised her round
white arm aloft, with her slender fore finger quivering like the tongue
of a viper in mid air, and then poured forth such a torrent of
awfully impressive words that I quailed before her.

"Yes, _señores_, I am no coward, take me when you will; but on this
occasion I must honestly admit that I stood powerless before the gaze
and gesture of that slight, delicately-formed woman.

"'Pirate--wretch--monster! may the curses of hell be heaped upon thee!
Murderer--betrayer! may thy heart be burned, and thy soul blasted
forever!'

"I need not pain you, _señores_, by reciting the cruel words that came
hissing through her closed teeth, nor yet farther describe the terrible
concentrated gaze of hate and fury which streamed from those gleaming
eyes. Suffice it to say, that though often afterward I was treated in
the same manner, yet, on the occasion alluded to, I cut short the
interview by summoning Babette to see her mistress to her chamber, and
then, glad to escape, I went out of the house and attended to the duties
which required my presence."

The padre, with his flat lips half open, eagerly drinking in--with his
Santa Cruz punch--the words of his patron; the doctor, calm, unmoved
now, and thoughtful; the one-eyed old rascal, still puffing his
cigarettes and allowing no rest to his uneasy, suspicious optic, all sat
listening, with each an interest peculiarly his own, to the fate of Doña
Lucia. The narrator leisurely arose and held his hourly confab with the
man at the signal-station, and then returning to his place, proceeded
with his discourse:

"I shall pass rapidly over, my friends, many little incidents of a
rather unpleasant nature which occurred here, in this my rocky retreat,
for some months after the interview which I have described. I tried
every argument and persuasion I was master of to bring my proud bride to
reason, but to all my entreaties she turned a cold and chilling stare of
obdurate hate. Day by day the intensity of her detestation grew stronger
and stronger, and seemed to have become a part of her nature. Yes; the
gentle, yielding girl I had won on board the 'Centipede' had now become
as stern and unbending as a rock, and my controlling power over her mind
and love was gone. I left her entirely to herself for some weeks, until
one day I thought her passion might have subsided, and once more,
attired in a rich and splendid suit, I came in here, as she sat like a
marble statue at table. She never looked up at my entrance, but her eyes
shone like stars as she mechanically went through the forms of the
dinner laid before her.

"'Lucia!' I said, gayly. No answer by word or look. 'Lucia! _querida
mia!_' I repeated, and, sinking on one knee beside her, attempted to
take her hand.

"By all the saints, _señores_, that came near--very near--being the last
time that I ever should kneel to a woman; for with a movement so sudden
that I had barely time to leap aside, she snatched a long pointed
carving-knife from the table and lunged full at my throat! The blade
just grazed my jugular artery, inflicting a slight wound. But she never
turned round to see the extent of her effort, and again sat calm and
rigid at the table.

"This was my last visit save one. I had long before abandoned these
comfortable quarters entirely, and occupied the rooms you do, _mi
padre_, out there among the men. In fact, my stern young bride was in
entire command of the island; and even my good Babette here stood in
such awe of her that she always crossed herself when called to approach
her mistress.

"Month by month matters went on in this way, until the rainy season had
gone, and I was preparing for another cruise in the schooner; but hour
by hour the consuming passion which flamed in the veins of Lucia was
doing its work. I sometimes beheld her standing out on the veranda, tall
and stately as ever; and when the moon was at the full, it threw its
light upon her wan and sunken cheeks, and thin, wasted frame. Ay, there
she stood, like an almost transparent statue of alabaster, with her dark
eyes shining with an unearthly light, turned in one long tearless gaze
upon the ledge and combing breakers to seaward. It was singular, too,
the effect she produced even upon the horde of these brave fellows of
mine, for no persuasion could induce a man of them to come within
pistol-shot of that part of the house while she was thus keeping her
nightly vigils. And as for Pedillo, he acquired such a superstitious
dread of the girl he had married, and lived in such a state of abject
terror, that I had serious thoughts of shooting him through the head to
avoid the contaminating influence he exercised over his comrades.

"Well, _caballeros_, late one Saturday night, while the men were
carousing and drinking success to the coming cruise--we were to sail on
the following Monday--and while I was returning from my usual stroll to
the Tiger's Trap to see the battery in order and the look-outs wide
awake, I met Babette toddling along, nearly out of breath.

"'What is it, old lady?' You know, _amigos_, that Babette never spoke a
word in her life, but she made signs to let me know that I was wanted at
the crag, and that there was no time to be lost. I quickened my pace,
and, preceded by Babette, I once more darkened my own threshold. The
curtains and hangings were all closely drawn in the saloon here, and it
was dark as a tomb; but there was a light burning yonder in the passage
leading to the chamber, and I made my way to the door.

"I shall never forget what I saw, though I should like to, as it comes
to me sometimes in the night, or when I am left much alone by myself."

The pirate passed his hands over his eyes as if he saw something while
he spoke, and then, letting his voice drop to an almost sepulchral
pitch, he went on hurriedly:

"I stood at the door, _caballeros_, and looked in. On the bed, which was
drawn to the middle of the chamber to get the air through the narrow
loopholed windows, with the gauze curtains falling square on all sides,
lay Lucia. Her attenuated frame scarcely presented an uneven surface
beneath the snowy sheet which covered it. Her superb hair was spread in
great black masses on the pillow, and her pale marble face reposed
there like an ivory picture in an ebony setting. Her eyes were wide
open, large and luminous, and her thin delicate hands were clasped
around a silver and pearl crucifix, which rested on her hollow breast. A
single taper in a silver lamp threw a lurid, flickering ray about the
room, and beside it was Babette on her knees quivering with terror,
while from one of the loopholed windows a broad white band of moonlight
streamed directly across the pillow and face of the dying girl."

Captain Brand's face assumed a deathly pallor, and, with his icy blue
eyes fixed on vacancy, and his voice sunk to a hoarse whisper, he went
on:

"As I appeared in the portals of the door, Lucia slowly raised her fore
finger, and beckoned me to approach. I could no more have resisted the
summons than if a chain cable to a frigate's anchor had caught me in its
iron coils, and was dragging me to the bottom of the sea. I moved to the
foot of the bed.

"'_Pirato!_' came from her slightly-parted lips, in her old low and
distinct tones. '_Pirato_, behold your cruel work! Destroyer of mother
and child--of soul and body--may the curses of a dying woman and her
unborn child haunt you by day and by night!' I was dumb, and my pulse
stopped beating.

"'_Ave Maria purissima!_' were the last words that came in a sweet, pure
whisper from her parted lips; she clasped the crucifix tighter, and the
spirit departed. I tore aside the gauze net to lay my hand on her heart,
when, on my soul! her right hand slowly relaxed its death-grasp on the
crucifix, and, rising to a vertical line, with the fore finger pointing
upward, quivered in the light of the waning moon, like, as it was, a
supernatural warning! Yes, that finger--"

[Illustration: "A SUPERNATURAL WARNING! YES, THAT FINGER--"]

"Mamma! mamma!" came in a weak, plaintive voice from the piazza, while
the villain, with his hands before him as if to shut out a frightful
vision, and eyeballs starting from their sockets, was hoarsely
whispering to his horror-stricken audience the last warning of the dead
Lucia.

As the low moaning cry in the stillness which reigned around the saloon
struck his ear, he sprang with a bound to his feet, and, quick as
thought, with a pistol in each hand, he shouted, "Who's there?"

"It is the little sick boy, _señor_. Do him no harm at your peril!" and
the doctor stood towering before the pirate's leveled weapons.

"_Maldito_ on the brat! Pshaw!" said Captain Brand, quieting down, and
returning the pistols to his pockets. "How nervous I am! Excuse me,
_caballeros_. I was thinking of something else."

CHAPTER XVIII.

END OF THE BANQUET.

    "There was turning of keys, and creaking of locks,
    As he stalked away with his iron box.
    Oh, ho! oh, ho! The cock doth crow,
    It is time for the fisher to rise and go.
    Fair luck to the abbot, fair luck to the shrine!
    He hath gnawed in twain my choicest line;
    Let him swim to the north, let him swim to the south,
    The _pirate_ will carry my hook in his mouth."

In the pause which followed the dreadful episode just recounted by
Captain Brand, the padre was occupied in pattering a prayer, counting
his beads, and elevating his crucifix as if he was mumbling high mass at
the altar. Don Ignaçio slowly waved his brown fore finger, and his
single spark of glowing eye glared fiercely and fixedly at his host. A
clammy sweat burst out on the pallid brow of the doctor, and his hands
were clutched before him on the table like the jaws of a steel vice. And
still the drunken shrieks and cheers of the piratical crew at the sheds
arose wild and shrill in the calm night, making a gloomy echo for the
banquet. The doctor was the first to break the awkward silence which
pervaded the saloon.

"_Capitano!_" said he, in his habitual calm, deep voice, "with respect
to what you said in the early part of the evening, of breaking up this
establishment, what, may I ask, are your plans for the future?"

"_Gracias!_ _amigo_ doctor! Thank you, my friend, for changing the
conversation. My plans! eh! ah! Well, they are these--"

Here Captain Brand's face assumed its usual expression; and entirely
himself again, he went on to state, in a precise, business-like way, the
views he had resolved upon for future action.

"--To-morrow, gentlemen, is Sunday. Those boisterous fellows out there,
after mass, will need rest all the day. On Monday, however, I shall
begin to change the rig of the schooner, fill up with provisions for a
long cruise, take on board all the loose odds and ends we have stowed
here, of course," he added, as he remarked an inquiring and a rather
alarmed mercenary look from the Tuerto's glim--"of course, after having
squared up all claims of our _compadre_ there!"

"Hum!" croaked that sharp rascal, with a nod of satisfaction quite like
an old raven.

"Then, _señores_, I shall burn or destroy the old sheds, and bury the
cannon and heavy articles we can not find room for in the 'Centipede;'
when, if nothing happens, we shall trip anchor and spread our sails for
sea!

"Babette! Babette! Really I believe that dear old negress has fallen
asleep. Babette! ah! there you are, my beauty! See if you can't give us
a bowl of okra gumbo before we break up here!"

Babette had not been asleep. Oh no! She had her ear to the door of the
saloon, and was listening to the sad history of Doña Lucia, and when her
master came to the final scene the old woman fell on her knees and
shivered all over, where she remained until the sound of the captain's
voice again called her to her duties.

"And when we have left these quiet waters, my son!" broke in the padre,
"what then?"

The fact was, that the carnivorous and vinous Father Ricardo knew that
his stomach was not suited for high winds and rough oceans, and was
hoping that some scheme might be devised to allow him to remain
tranquilly on the island.

"Why, holy padre, I propose to steer clear of the West Indies by some
unfrequented track, and, striking the broad Atlantic, stretch down the
coast of Brazil. Perhaps we may double Cape Horn, and see what those
miserable patriots are fighting for in Chili and Peru; then maybe across
the Pacific, to the lovely islands and maidens of Polynesia; so on to
the China Seas, where we may fall in with an outward-bound Canton
trader, or a galleon with a ton or two of silver on board--who
knows?--there is plenty of blue water and fine ships every where; so we
must be content."

Padre Ricardo made the sign of the cross, kissed his thumb and fore
finger, and, reaching his dirty paw over to the captain, shook hands
with him.

"Ay, _amigos_!" continued the leader, without minding the friendly
interruption; "yes, my friends, we shall, I trust, give the hounds in
search of us the slip; and even should they scent out this retired
little spot, they will have their trouble for their chase, and find
nothing but a few stones and heaps of rubbish above ground."

"They may find some little matters below, though," chimed in the
commander of the felucca.

"If they do," retorted the pirate, with a meaning scowl, "I'll put the
spy who betrays it to such a torture as that he'll wish himself below
ground when I come back here."

"_Cierto, amigo!_ no fear of that!" muttered the Tuerto, with some
little trepidation of manner. "_My_ papers are white."

"Captain Brand," said the doctor, "my contract with you is nearly up,
and since I only agreed--as you know--to enlist my professional services
here on shore, I presume you will have no objections to permit me to
depart with Don Ignaçio in the felucca."

It would be difficult to say what caused the flush of passion which
overspread the leader's face as he listened to this simple request, but
it was full a minute before he replied, and then, having weighed the
matter carefully in his mind, he said, in a precise and determined tone,
in French,

"_Monsieur le Docteur!_ the compacts that I have made with all those
that have taken service with me have never been broken except by death.
I can not, therefore, consider your request, and I shall expect you to
sail with me in the schooner."

Then he added, quickly, as he noticed a certain haughty expression in
his subordinate's face, "Pardon me, _monsieur_; we had better not
discuss this question now. Suppose you see me on the morrow."

"Willingly, _señor_, and you will find my resolution unchangeable."
Rising as he spoke, he bowed to his companions at table, and saying
"_Buenas noches!_ (good-night!)" he passed from the saloon to the
piazza. There he paused a moment, as if communing with himself, and then
approaching the grass hammock where the sick boy was sleeping, he gently
took the little fellow up in his arms. The child murmured "Mamma,
mamma!" and was borne away.

Captain Brand followed the doctor with his searching, sharklike eyes
until he had left the apartment, and there was something that denoted
danger in the look; but he uttered no sound, and, placing a finger on
his lip, he nodded meaningly to the padre.

A moment after Babette brought in the steaming gumbo soup, and the
pirate's feast was nearly ended. Don Ignaçio waited until his companions
had swallowed a goodly portion of the grateful mess, when he too
refreshed himself. Then making his salutations in his usual observant
manner, he departed. He declined, however, the offer of his host's
society to his boat, saying he had, he knew, half a dozen of the
felucca's crew outside the building to guard his footsteps, and he would
not put the _capitano_ to the trouble.

When the padre rose to give his benediction to his patron, the captain
took him impressively by the rope which girded his cassock about the
loins, and giving it a sharp jerk or two, he said,

"My holy father, I think we shall have a sad duty to perform to-morrow.
Our old friend Gibbs has behaved badly, and I shall punish him. He is
now in the Capella dungeon. After early mass go and console him."

The padre returned a meaning smile, crossed himself, and slowly left the
pirate alone in his saloon.

CHAPTER XIX.

FANDANGO ON ONE LEG.

    "God! 'tis a fearsome thing to see
    That pale wan man's mute agony--
    Those pinioned arms, those hands that ne'er
    Shall be lifted again--not even in prayer!
    That heaving chest! Enough; 'tis done!
    The bolt has fallen! the spirit is gone."

Day dawned in the east. The early spikes of morning shot up in rosy
bands from behind the lofty hills of Cuba and announced the coming of
the sun. The inlet and basin, framed in by their rocky walls, were still
clothed in the gloom of night, and dimly reflecting the fading stars on
the calm unruffled surface where the schooner and felucca were moored.
Away off in the distance a dense white misty vapor hung flat and low
over the lagoon and thickets of mangroves, with not a breath of air to
disturb the noxious fog or quiver a leaf in the silent groves. The
revels, too, of the drunken sailors had long since ceased; the
sentinels, with their cutlasses in the sheaths, paced slowly to and fro
before the doors of the sheds, and the look-outs at the signal-stations
and battery peered through the early dawn to seaward; else not a sound
or moving thing, save a teal or two fluttering with a sharp cry up and
down the lagoon; the music of the tiny ripples lapping on the shelly
beach; and the low roar, in a deep bass, breaking and moaning over the
ledge beyond the island. Such was the appearance of things where our
scene is laid in the Twelve League Group of Keys, on a Sunday morning,
in the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and five.

Half a mile, perhaps, inland from the sheds where the sailors lived, and
beneath the steep face of the ridge-like crag which split the island in
two parts, stood a low chapel, built of loose stones nicely fitted
together and roofed with tiles. A rough iron cross was fastened over the
doorless entrance, and at the other end was a stone balustrade, with a
rude painting of the Virgin over the altar, on which stood four or five
tall brass candlesticks and a lighted taper. Outside the building was a
narrow and secluded inclosure, surrounded by a low wall of coral rocks,
with a few head-stones marked with black crosses--the graves of the
pirates whose bones reposed beneath. At one end of this burial-place was
still another subdivision, where stood ten upright flat white stones,
on whose faces were rudely carved initial letters, with the years in
which the eternal sleepers had been laid beneath the sand. Far and near
sprang up close and almost impenetrable thickets of cactus, whose sharp
and pointed needle-shoots defied the passage of any thing more bulky
than land-crabs and lizards. One or two narrow pathways had been cut out
here and there, but they were overgrown again by the stubborn, hardy
vegetation; and only with the risk of losing one's trowsers, and having
one's legs cut in gashes, could a human being struggle through it.

Within the chapel kneeled a dozen or more of the "Centipede's" crew, the
coarse and sodden faces and uncombed locks, from their night's debauch,
in striking contrast to the place and the apparent devoutness of manner
in which they crossed themselves while the rites of the Church were
going on. Before the altar stood Padre Ricardo, with his breviary on the
chancel beneath the taper, and chanting forth from his deep lungs the
services of the mass. In a few minutes the unholy hands and lips which
performed the solemn ceremony ceased word and gesture, and with a
sonorous benediction at the elevation of the Host, and a tinkle of a
bell, the sailors arose from their knees and again staggered back to the
sheds, to slumber through the day. When all had gone, the padre clasped
his missal, tucked it into his bosom, and making the sign of the cross
with a genuflexion before the Virgin, the sacrilegious wretch turned and
left the chapel.

Pursuing the winding path which led to his own habitation for a certain
distance, he then turned to the left, and carefully picking his way
through the sharp cactus and Spanish bayonets along the face of the
crag, he stopped at a yawning fissure which gaped open in the rock.
Here, too, the same wiry vegetation had crept, and it was with great
difficulty, and many an "_Ave!_" and "_Santa Maria!_" that the padre
succeeded in passing into the dark, rugged mouth of the cavern.

"By the ashes of San Lorenzo!" he muttered, "there are serpents and
venomous insects in this pit of purgatory. Oh, _misericordia_! what has
pierced my leg? Why should my son drag me through this hole? Ah! blessed
Saint Barnabas! a slimy reptile has crossed my instep!"

Feeling with his outspread hands in his fright, as he gradually made his
way into the dripping cavern, getting narrower and lower as he
proceeded, he at last, after stumbling prayerfully along for about a
hundred and fifty yards, came to a loose pile of stones. Here opened
another low narrow fissure on the left, and, in some doubt, he was about
to enter; but the noise he made by stepping on a stone was answered by
the hissing warning of a serpent, and the scared padre fell back at his
full length in a pool of stagnant slimy water.

"_O Madre di Dios!_ I am stung by a cobra! Holy Virgin! my new cassock
ruined too! _Ave Maria!_ light me out of this abode of the devil!"

Slowly recovering, however, from his fright, he once more regained his
feet, and, after a few steps, which he was obliged to accomplish by
scraping his crown against the jagged rocks above, his outstretched
hands touched an iron-bound door.

"_Gracias à Dios!_ Thanks be to all the saints, I am here at last; but,
alas! curses on me, I shall be obliged to return by the same path unless
my son allows me to escape by the casa."

Cautiously searching with his fingers as he muttered these words, he
touched a bolt, and, grasping it with both hands, drew it partly out
like the knob of a bell. Then, placing his ear to the door, he presently
heard a rattling, creaking noise, as if a beam of timber, with pulley
and chain, was being raised from behind the entrance. When the sound
ceased the door yielded to the padre's sturdy shoulder, and there was
just room to admit his portly body. Here the passage was wider, the rock
evidently chiseled away by the hands of man, and on one side was an
artificial chamber, blasted out of the solid rock, with a narrow door
with heavy iron bolts on the outside. At this opening the padre paused
and listened. No sound caught his ear at first, but as he clutched the
bolt and it grated back in its bands, he was saluted by such a volley of
frightful curses as to make him start back and cross his ample breast.
It was the voice of Master Gibbs, lying there on a low iron settle in
the noisome dungeon, with not a ray of light to cheer him, and only a
jug of water and some weevily biscuit to save him from starvation. All
through the day and during the long, long hours of the awful night, in
pain and suffering from his lopped-off limb and bruises, had he lain on
his hard bed with clenched hands, blaspheming and impotently raging in
his agony and despair. No prayer, however, dawned in his ruthless heart,
or was breathed from his brutal lips; but curses upon curses came thick
and fast, till his tongue refused to give them utterance, and he fell
back in utter exhaustion. As the noise, however, of the bolt struck his
ear, he clutched the stone water-jug from the floor, and hurled it, with
a yell of execrations, toward the door, where the fragments fell with a
clattering crash on the stone pavement.

Grinding his teeth in his frightful passion, he howled,

"Let me but once put these hands on your bloodstained carcass, and if
the mother that bore ye will know her spawn again, my name's not Bill
Gibbs! Ha! you miserable swab, with your soft words and white hands!
when I get out of this hole I'll blow you and your infarnal hounds
to ----! Give me fair play, and, even on one of my legs, I'll cut the
cowardly heart out of you, Captain Brand! Come in, will ye? ye son of
the devil, and I'll bite the tongue out of your mouth by the roots!"

[Illustration: SHRIVING A SINNER.]

 Here the hoarse and panting wretch again ceased his roarings, and
the padre timidly opened the door.

"Ha! who's that? Babette?"

"No, my son, it is your good Padre Ricardo, come to console you."

What the maimed villain replied to the priest, and what means the holy
father took to allay the passion and assuage the sorrows of the man
lying helpless in the dungeon, or whether successful in his mission, is
not important to state in detail. An hour later, however, the priest
seemed relieved in body and spirit as he retired from the loathsome
hole, and shooting the bolt as he closed the door, cautiously felt his
way along the dark and narrow passage. Presently, as he turned an angle,
a ray of light from the loopholes of the great stone vault beneath the
pirate's dwelling lighted his pathway; and a moment after, with a hearty
sigh of satisfaction, he seized a cord above his head and gave it a
jerk. A bell sounded above, and then a large, square-hinged trap-hatch
fell down, swinging gently to and fro from the beams above. At the same
time the padre put his arms about a square wooden stanchion which
supported the floor of the saloon, and then painfully sticking his toes
in some deep-cut notches at the sides, he slowly began to mount upward.
When, however, his oily shaved crown appeared nearly at the level of the
floor, a vigorous grasp was laid on his shoulders, and he was pulled up
like a flapping lobster and rolled into the apartment. It was Captain
Brand who kindly assisted the holy father, and it was the captain's
hollow laugh which saluted him in his torn and soiled raiment, as, with
difficulty, he regained his perpendicular.

"Laugh not, _hijo mio_, at my sorrowful plight," said the bruised
Ricardo, with some asperity; "I have met with dangers of venomous
serpents, and been stabbed cruelly by those villainous cactus."

"But I raised the beam, my padre, the moment you made the signal."

"You did, my son; but what I suffered in the cavern was as nothing to
what I endured when I entered the dungeon of the English Gibbs. _Jesus
Maria_, what an infidel he is!"

"You did not find his spirit subdued, then, by bread and water?"

"Far from it, my friend. He rages like a wild beast. He consigns your
body and soul to everlasting torments! But, what is more impious still,"
went on the padre, as he crossed himself, "he damned your holy father,
and hoped I would roast in hell!"

"But he confessed, Ricardo, and you gave him absolution?"

"If calling me thief and assassin, and hurling his stone water-jug at my
head, be confession and forgiveness of sins, the ceremony has been
performed. Ah! my son, he needs no more mercy in this world!"

"Of course not, my padre; and we will give him a short shrift and a long
rope."

"Babette!" continued Captain Brand. "Ah! my Baba, you have not forgotten
to feed our jolly Gibbs there below? No? I thought not. Well, then, it
is Sunday, you know; give him a pint of pure rum for his morning's
draught. And, Baba, my beauty, slip a pair of iron ruffles over his
wrists, and then pass a cloth over those bloodshot eyes of his, and lug
him here beneath this hatch. Go down by your own ladder, and be quick,
my Baba, as I wish my breakfast presently!"

All this was said in a cool and rather an affectionate tone, as Captain