University of Virginia Library

4. CHAPTER IV.

AN AMERICAN SLOOP OF WAR—A CHASE—FIGHT OFF THE MORO
CASTLE—CLOSING SCENE—CONCLUSION.

“My eye, Bill, but that's a rare tit-bit in the offing,”
exclaimed a sailor straddled athwart the mainyard
of an American sloop of war, anchored near the
entrance of the harbour, ostensibly securing a gasket,
but in reality roving his one eye over the harbour
of Havana—its lofty castellated Moro—its
walls, towers, and cathedral domes—its fleet of
shipping—and its verdant scenery, luxuriant and
green even in the second month of winter.

“That she is!” returned his shipmate, further in
on the same yard, at the same time cocking his larboard
eye to windward, hitching up his loose trowsers,
and thrusting into his cheek a generous quid
tobacco, dropped from the top-gallant-yard by a
brother tar. “That she is, Sam; and she moves
in stays, like a Spanish girl in a jig, and that's as
fine as a fairy, to my fancy.”

“Lay to, there, my hearty. Blast my eyes, if I

have'nt seen the broadside of that craft before now.
If it's not a clipper we chased when I was in the
schooner last month, cruising off St. Domingo, you
may say, `stop grog'.”

“What! one o' your bloody pirates?” inquired
Sam, with an oath.

“Aye! and she run in shore, and lay along side
of a high rock, up which they mounted like so many
wild monkeys. We followed as fast—but they
beat us off, and sent to the bottom of the sea, twenty
as brave fellows as ever handled cutlass.”

“What is this,” observed languidly one of the
lieutenants on deck, interrupting a most luxurious
yawn; “that those fellows can feel an interest in,
this infernal hot weather? Take that glass, will
you Mr. Edwards, and make us wise in the matter.”

The young midshipman rose indolently from an
ensign on which he had ensconced himself to leeward
of the mizen mast, to avoid the extreme heat,
even on that winter day; for winter holds no empire
through all that lovely clime, and after two or
three unsuccessful attempts, at last brought the instrument
handed him by the officer, into conjunction
with his visual organ. He then gazed a moment
seaward, and his face, before expressionless,
now beamed with pleasure.

“By all that's lovely, that craft carries a pretty
foot. She glides over the water like a swan; and
yet there's hardly breeze enough to fan a lady's
cheek. Look at her, sir.”

The officer took the glass, and slightly raising
himself, so that he could see over the quarter, the
next moment convinced those around him, that his
features had not lost all their flexibility, and that his
muscles were not really dissolved by the heat, by
exclaiming still more eagerly than the midshipman,

“Beautiful! admirable!”

“Can you make out her colours?” inquired one
lying upon the deck, under the awning, without
raising his head, or moving from his indolent attitude.

“She carries the stars and stripes; yet she cannot
be an American. There is not a boat in the
navy to be compared to this craft for beauty and
velocity.”

“She is not an armed vessel?”

“Evidently; although she shows gun nor port.
She looks too saucy for a quakeress; her whole
bearing is warlike; and there is a frigate half a mile
to windward of her, I believe, in chase.”

By this time, the officers, yielding to curiosity,
abandoned, though reluctantly, their various comfortable
positions, and gathered themselves up, to
take a view of a vessel, that had induced even their
ease-loving first lieutenant to throw off his lethargy.

The object of general interest—a beautiful taunt-rigged
rakish schooner now advanced, steadily towards
the entrance of the harbour. The air was
scarcely in motion, yet the little vessel glided over
the water with the ease and rapidity of a bird on
the wing.

“By Heaven! that craft has been in mischief!”
exclaimed an officer, “or that frigate would not
spread such a cloud of studden-sails in chase.”

“He is no doubt a pirate,” said Edwards. “Shall
we give him a gun for running under our flag.”

“No, no! we will remain neutral. As true as
that schooner has lighter heels than any craft that
ever sailed the sea, she will escape her pursuer!”
exclaimed the lieutenant with animation.

“Unless taken between wind and water;” added
another officer. “See that!”

As he spoke a flame flashed from the bows of the
frigate, and a shot, followed by the report of a heavy
gun, recochetted over the waves, and carried away
the bowsprit of the schooner, which was about half
a mile from the frigate.

“My God! we shall be blown out of the water
by that hasty count!” exclaimed Lafitte, as the
shot struck his vessel—for on board the Gertrude
we now take our readers—“Hoist that white flag
at the peak,” he shouted.

The order was obeyed; and still the frigate bore
down upon them, and a second shot shivered her
foremast, killed several of the crew including his
mate Ricardo, and mortally wounding his favorite
slave Cudjoe.

The schooner was now wholly unmanageable,
and defeated in his exertions to get into the harbor,
Lafitte put her before the wind, which was now increasing,
and run her ashore, about a mile to the
eastward of the Moro.

The frigate continued in chase until the water
became too shallow for her draught, when she lay
to and put off two of her boats filled with men, the
smallest of which was commanded by the count in
person.

Lafitte, although determined not to fight unless
compelled to do so in self-defence, ordered his men
to their guns. Every officer was at his post. The
carronades were double shotted, and hand grenades,
boarding-pikes and cutlasses, strewed the deck.
He himself, was armed with a cutlass and brace of
pistols, and a shade of melancholly was cast over
his features, which, or the thoughts occasioning
it, he sought to dispel by giving a succession of rapid
and energetic orders to his men.

The count, who learned from the prisoner he had
taken at Barritaria, that this was Lafitte's vessel,

—which he had fallen in with the day before, after
missing him at the Balize—stood in the stern of his
boat which swiftly approached the grounded schooner.
His face was pale and rigid with settled passion.
He grasped the hilt of his cutlass nervously,
and his eye glanced impatiently over the rapidly
lessening distance between him and his revenge.
He saw his rival standing calmly upon the quarter-deck,
surveying his approach with seeming indifference.
This added fuel to his rage, and he cheered
his oars-men on with almost frenzied energy.

“Count D'Oyley” said Lafitte aloud as the boat
came near the schooner; “she whom you seek is
safe, and in honor.”

“Thou liest! slave! villain!” shouted the count,
and at that moment, as the boat struck the side of
the schooner, he leaped, sword in hand, on to her
deck, followed by a score of his men.

“Now, or we shall be massacred, fire!” cried
Lafitte, in a voice that rung above the shouts of the
boarders, at the same time parrying a blow aimed at
his breast by the count; and the light vessel recoiled
shuddering in every joint, from the discharge of her
whole broadside.

The iron shower was fatally hurled. The larger
boat, which was within a few fathoms of the schooner,
was instantly sunk, and fifty men were left struggling
in the waves. The barge along side, shared
the same fate before half its crew had gained the
deck of the vessel.

A fierce and sanguinary contest now took place.
In vain Lafitte called to the count to desist—that
Constanza was on board and in safety.

“Liar in thy throat! villain!” with more rapid
and energetic blows of his cutlass, was alone the
reply he received from his infuriated antagonist.

Lafitte now fought like a tiger at bay upon the
quarter-deck of his schooner, his followers encircling
him, each hand to hand and steel to steel with
a boarder.

Two nobler looking men than the distinguished
combatants, have seldom trode the battle deck of a
ship of war. In courage, skill, and physical energies,
they seemed nearly equal, although the count
was of slighter make, and possessed greater delicacy
of features. Cutlass rung against cutlass, and
the loud clangor of their weapons was heard far
above the din and uproar of battle.

The combatants on both sides, as if actuated by
one impulse, simultaneously suspended the fight to
gaze upon their chief, as if victory depended alone
upon the issue of this single encounter.

They fought for some moments with nearly equal
success, mutually giving and receiving several slight
wounds, when a blow, intended by Lafitte who
fought in the defensive, to disarm his antagonist,
shivered his steel boarding-cap, which dropped to
the deck, while a profusion of rich auburn hair fell
down from his head, clustered with almost feminine
luxuriance around his neck. At the same instant,
the sword of the count passed through the breast of
his antagonist.

A wild exclamation, not of pain, but of surprise
and horror escaped from Lafitte, and springing
backward, he stood staring with dilated nostrils, a
heaving breast, from which a stream of blood flowed
to the deck, and eyes almost starting from their
sockets, upon his foeman.

“Art thou of this world? speak!” he cried in
accents of terror, while his form seemed agitated
with super-human emotion.

The count remained in an attitude of defence,
displaying by the derangement of his hair, a scar

in the shape of a crescent over his brow, and transfixed
with astonishment, gazing upon his foe, who
moved not a muscle, or betraying any sign of life,
except in the deep sepulchral tones, with which
he conjured him `to speak!'

The count slightly changing his position, an exclamation
of joy escaped the venerable Lafon, and
tottering forward, he fell into his outstretched arms.

“Henri, my son—my only son!”

“My father!” and they were clasped in each
other's arms.

Their close embrace was interrupted by a deep
groan and the heavy fall of Lafitte to the deck.

“Henri! It is indeed my brother!” exclaimed
the wounded man, raising his head—“for—forgive
me, Henri, before I die!” and he fell back again to
the deck.

At the sound of his name, the count started, gazed
earnestly upon his pale features for an instant,
and all the brother yearned in his bosom.

With a heart bursting with the intensity of his
feelings, he silently kneeled beside his brother.

“Achille!”

“Henri!”

They could utter no more, but wept together in
a silent embrace; the count laying his head upon
his brother's bosom, whose arms encircled him with
fraternal love, while the aged parent kneeling beside
them, with his uplifted hands, blessed them.

Suddenly a loud scream pierced their ears—and
starting up, the count beheld Constanza making her
way with a wild air towards him, followed by Theodore,
who had, till now, detained her in the state-room,
lest in her excitement of mind, she should mingle
among the combatants. The voice of her lover
reached her ears in the silence that followed the
discovery of the brothers, and she flew to the deck.

“Oh, my Alphonze! my only love! we will
part no more!” she exclaimed, throwing herself
into his arms.

The count affectionately embraced her; but his
face betrayed the whilst, unusual emotion, and his
eye sought his brother's.

“Take her! fold her in your arms, Henri! she
is yours—pure as an angel!” he replied, comprehending
the meaning of his glance. “Here, Constanza,
let me take your hand—yours, Henri”—and
he joined them together:—“May God bless and
make you truly happy!” he continued, while his
voice grew more feeble.

“My father! my venerable father! I am ashamed
to look you in the face! forgive your repentant son!
I am dying, father!

The aged man kneeled by his son, and blessed
him! and wept over him! in silence.

“My brother—Henri!” continued the dying man:
“I have wronged you; but I have suffered! Oh!
how deeply! How true, that crime brings its own
punishment! Forgive! forgive me, Henri! Think
not you have slain me—mine is the blame. I armed
your hand against my life!

“Constanza! forgive! I have loved you in death!
Farewell,” he added, after a moment's silence, while
they all kneeled around him. “Farewell, my father—brother—Constanza—farewell!
Théodore!”
he said, affectingly taking the hand of the youth—
“Théodore, my orphan boy, farewell! May God
bless and protect you, my child! Henri! be a
brother to him.”

The count pressed his hand in silence.

“Now, once more—adieu, for—for ever! May God
forgive!”—and, with this prayer on his lips, he expired
in the arms of his father and brother.