University of Virginia Library

3. CHAPTER III.

The schooner having been brought to
by the hawser, and made stationary, and
the sails brailed up instead of being furled,
that we might move at a moment's
warning, we assembled at the tea-table,
there to discuss further proceedings.—
The Lieutenant had a very little appetite,
and was quite as restless and impatient
as became a lover under his circumstances.
At length it was decided that
a spy should be sent into the camp to see
where the young lady then was, and to
take note of the state of things at the
house.

The young officer at once offered himself
as the spy in question; but to this
arrangement Captain Velasco wisely and
very properly objected on the score that
he might be detected and recognized.

`But not in my disguise,' answered our
friend.

`Your disguise alone would be utter
ruin to our plans,' said the Spaniard
laughing. `Leave it to me, amigo mio.'
Be quiet and in due time we shall get to
the windward of the Colonel. Come, I
will be the spy! By and by I will return
and report myself to you!'

Captain Velasco then retired to his
state-room and in a little while returned
dressed with great elegance and taste as
a Spanish gentleman, to which station
his appearance and address, as well as his
education gave him full title. Without
explaining his intention, he ordered his
boat to be ready, and with a smile bade
us good evening and descended into the
yawl. The sun had just set, but still a
bright and glowing twilight filled the atmosphere.
We saw him land at the foot
of the lawn and slowly, with the air of a
stranger admiring the grounds, loiter towards
the portico of the villa on which
we could see the form of the Colonel.—
We looked in vain hoping to catch a
glimpse of his daughter. As the Captain
advanced, and came near the house,
he turned abruptly aside as if to avoid it,
when we beheld the Colonel, who had
been watching his progress, leave the
portico and approach him with an air of
hospitable courtesy. His salutation was
returned in the most graceful manner by
the young Spaniard, and after what
seemed sundry formal iuterchanges of
civilities, we saw Velasco accompanying
him to the house and enter it with him.

The twilight deepened and night veiled
objects from our sight, and full an
hour passed ere we heard the boat returning
to the schooner. We met the
young Spaniard as he ascended the side,
but asked him no questions until we were
all three seated in the cabin. He then
began:

`You saw me enter the house. My

ruse had the effect I contemplated; for
the Colonel supposing me to be a passenger
who had landed to view his grounds,
came out and invited me in!'

`Did you see her, my dear Captain?'
demanded the lover with anxiety mingled
with hope.

`In a moment you shall learn all, amigo
mio,' responded the Captain with an
encouraging smile. `I entered the drawing
room and took a seat directly opposite
a window which commanded a view
of the schooner. The Colonel and I
then entered into conversation. I commented
upon the beauty of his grounds,
and he alternated by putting me questions
touching my travels. I satisfied
him on that score, and as he ordered
wine, we soon became very civil to each
other, and drank one another's healths.
He particularly inquired if we had not
even seen any boat any where at sea, and
as he three times put questions concerning
the `stolen boat,' I asked him who
he suspected had taken her?

Well, being warmed with his own
wine, and finding me a very free and easy
companion after his liking, he opened
his heart to me, and told me the whole
affair.

`Is it possible?' exclaimed the lieutenant.

`Yes, only he gave his own complexion
to your physiognomy of course, and did
not compliment you at all!'

`I dare say,' remarked the young officer,
biting his lips.

`After he had got through, I of course
gave him my full sympathy, on being so
near losing his daughter; and I so won
upon his favor that he looked as if he
would have been very glad to have made
me his son-in-law! Don't be jealous,
my friend,' said the Captain laughing;
`for I have an Isabel of my own, you
know. When I found I had got well into
the Colonel's good opinion, through my
sympathy for him, I ventured to say that
it would afford me great satisfaction to
have the honor of seeing his daughter.

`She is in her chamber now,' he answered,
`and has not left it to-day, being
very highly incensed against me. But I
will go and see if I can prevail upon her
to come down!'

While he was gone I took a card and
wrote rapidly upon it these words:

`Your friend Lieutenant — is safe.
He awaits you on board the schooner
which picked him up in the boat. Her
Captain is his friend, and is here to befriend
him and you. Be secret and courageous.'

`Noble Velasco!' cried the lover, pressing
his hands.

`No, don't thank me yet. I had no
time to write more; for, at this moment
the Colonel re-entered and said that his
daughter declined leaving her room that
night. He seemed highly displeased and
I was not a little disappointed; for I had
hoped to have seen her and slipped the
card in her hand!'

`And you did not see her?'

`Listen, mi amigo! I set my wits to
work and finally hit upon a plan. I said,
I trust I shall have the pleasure of seeing
your fair daughter on my return from
up the river; in the meanwhile permit
me to send up my card, so that, if she
should chance never to see me, she may
know who has solicited that honor. He
bowed and said he should be most happy
to have me send my card up to his
daughter. I then wrote upon a blank
card, the name of `Don Carlos Ferdinand
del Cabellero,' a fancy name of my own,
and handed him the card, at reading the
name upon which he bowed very profoundly
at the card and then as profoundly
at me.

`John,' said he to a slave, `take up
this card to your mistress and tell her it

is that of the gentleman who has done
her the honor to inquire for her.'

As the servant was leaving the room I
called him back, saying,

`Stay, I omitted to affix my address to
the card, sir!' and taking it from him I
wrote upon it, after the name, `Havana,
Cuba;' then watching my opportunity,
I exchanged one card for the other, and
gave the slave the one which I had first
written.

`Admirable!' we both exclaimed with
gratified surprise.

`He left the room with it, while I,
having laid my train, proceeded to engage
the Colonel in conversation upon
cotton, tobacco and politics. In about
twenty minutes a female slave came into
the room and approaching me said,

`Mistress says she sends you her card,
sir!' and the girl handed me a card which
I immediately put up lest the Colonel
should desire to examine it. But he only
said with a smile,

`My daughter is coming to, I perceive
sir! If your schooner was to wait till
to-morrow I have no doubt you could
then see her. I would like to have your
opinion, as a stranger, of our Southern
females; and Isabel has been no little admired.'

I told him I regretted I could not detain
the schooner but gave him hopes
after the cotton had been taken in, I
might again call at the villa. I then proceeded
to speak of you, as adroitly as I
could,' added the Captain looking at the
lieutenant; `and after getting from him
his objections to you, (which all lumped
in one, amounted to only this, that you
were like myself and half of the finest
fellows in the world, poor!) I eloquently
took up the gloves in your defence, as an
entire stranger to you of course, and
showing how much wiser it was to marry
his daughter to a noble, honorable young
ellow with a heart to love her and a
sword to defend her, than to some fellow
without a soul and whose only merit lay
in having so many negroes, and making
so many bales of cotton or hogsheads of
tobacco! Well, the old gentleman listened
to me! I used the argumentum ad
hominem, alluding to his own title (a
militia one at that though) and the honor
of the profession. Said I, `Sir, Mr.
— is a young man now it is true.—
He is a lieutenant it is true, and lives on
the miserable pay with which Congress
starves the army officers, as if they were
trying a great national experiment, to ascertain
practically how much a young
man in the army can live upon per annum
and not be obliged to eat his sword.
(The Colonel laughed, and I meant he
should.) He is a lieutenant and he is
young; but he will not always be a lieutenant!
he will not always be young.
There are steps in the army, and they
keep going up and up till by and by the
lieutenant becomes a General! Your
daughter may marry a poor lieutenant;
but you forget she may be the wife of a
General! Besides, said I, if he is poor,
and this is your only objection, it is in
your power to remove it. You can make
them rich and happy. You have enough
for all. If it is eventually to be your
daughter's, you think she would prefer
sharing it now with the man of her
choice. My dear sir, I continued, on
your own account and your daughter's,
I should be delighted if you could reverse
your decision in this matter and make
two young persons perfectly happy!'

We listened to the young Spaniard's
eloquent recital of his address to the
Colonel, with surprise and admiration.

`He consented—he yielded!' I at once
exclaimed.

`No—no, never!' repeated the lieutenant
shaking his head. `I am sure he
did not.'

`You are right, my friend. He did not

yield. He listened and at first seemed
softened; but at length looked very
black, and said that you had stolen away
his daughter, and this act would forever
bar all reconciliation with you. Finding
that all my eloquence had been thrown
away, I felt not a little annoyed, and
soon rose to take leave; pleading the
necessity of being on board. But as I
left I said,

`Perhaps, sir, the destruction of the
young gentleman you so inhumanly
treated, by shipwreck and death, may
forever prevent any reconciliation. I
question if he survives.'

`I care not, if he be at the bottom of
the sea,' he said warmly and with this
I left him. `Now cabelleros,' continued
the young Spaniard, `after this I consider
Colonel — as having placed himself
out of the limits of our forbearance
and courtesies. I shall treat him without
ceremony. It had been my wish to
endeavor to reconcile him to the match
and then acquaint him that you were on
board. But I must change my tactics,
and treat him as he deserves.'

`But the card? What was it?' cried
the lover.

`I did not read it in the house, and
tried by moonlight to make it out, but
without success. I could only see it
contained writing on the side opposite to
that the name was written upon Here
it is.' Taking it from his pocket, he extended
it to the lieutenant who passionately
pressed it to his lips, and then read,
first to himself, and then aloud as follows:

`She will be on the watch from her
window for every movement on board
the schooner,' said the lover. `Dearest
Isabel! Noble and brave and true to me
to the last.'

`She suggests the best plan for her
escape,' said the Captain. `In two hours
the moon will cast the front of the house
in shadow. By that time the Colonel
will have retired. I will drop the vessel
down a few rods so as to be hidden to
his eyes by that group of trees on shore,
and he will then go to bed with more
confidence. In the meanwhile let us
have a ladder made in two parts so that
we can easily carry it and with joints to
put it together readily. Soon as the
moon gives us shadow enough on this
side of the house we will start on our adventure.'

Every thing was propitious. At the
time given we went ashore, all three of
us, well armed, with four oarsmen, and
bearing the joints of the ladder, which
we had made more like stairs with board
steps than like a ladder. I first advanced
and carefully reconnoitered the house,
and reported all quiet. The Lieutenant
then left a group of trees which had sheltered
the party, and coming near her window
made a signal with the wave of a
handkerchief. The blind was slowly
opened and a white signal fluttered in
answer. We then advanced with our
ladders, jointed it, and planted it. The
lover lightly ascended to the balcony.—
He was lost to us a moment below, but

the audible sounds of a brace of kisses
and a subdued exclamation of joy in a
female voice, told us he had not gone
astray. The next moment he appeared
descending the ladder with her, and the
Captain rescued her in his arms, and
placed her upon the ground in safety.—
We immediately retreated, the Captain
leaving the ladder as a significant sign
to the Colonel not only that his daughter
had flown but that she had had ample
assistance from friends outside the garrison.

In ten minutes afterwards we were
safely on board the schooner; and as
Oglethrope, the lieutenant's frlend, (I
had forgot to say) had been discovered
by us from the deck before dark, still
hovering in the neighborhood on the opposite
shore, waiting for his friend or
some intelligence from him, and had the
horses harnessed again and in readiness
with the carriage, after a short delay for
mutual congratulations on board the
schooner, we pulled to the other shore,
and saw our lovers safely in the carriage,
with Oglethrope on the box. We bade
them a hearty farewell, and amid a
shower of adieus and words of gratitude
the carriage rolled off at ten miles an
hour in the direction of Charleston.

The next morning, as the sun rose,
Cape — at the mouth of the river
where we had perpetrated our buccaneering
adventure, bore from us N.N.W.
1-2 North, twelve miles distant.

We afterwards learned by letter, from
the Lieutenant, that they arrived in
Charleston by daylight, drove to the
house of a Justice of the Peace and were
married just as the sun was rising. The
Colonel afterwards became reconciled to
them both, and when he was made fully
acquainted with the conspiracy he laughed
heartily, and swore he would go a
thousand miles to see and have another
evening `with that rare rogue, Don Velasco.'