University of Virginia Library

19. CHAPTER XIX.
In which Robin Day makes a rapid progress in the regards of the
fair Isabel.

It seemed as if Colonel Aubrey divined the meaning
of Captain Dicky's questions, or, at least, the
latter one; for banishing his fervour with a smile, he
bade us “sit down;” adding, “that from all I had
told him of my forest feats, he did not doubt I would
prefer a good dinner to all the fine words he could
utter, or the warm embraces he could give me.”
But as soon as the reverend padre had delivered a
benediction on the meal, and we had taken our seats,
he renewed the subject, and requested that his daughter
would now inform him of the particulars of the
adventure in which I had played a part so interesting
and questionable,

But Isabel looked again embarrassed, and gave
me a quick uneasy glance, while she replied:

“Indeed, my father,” she said, “I have told you
nearly all I know. As to the robber, he was a vile
fellow, a sailor Mr. Bloodmoney informed me,
who had applied to him to have the command of
the vessel, which it was supposed Mr. Bloodmoney
was equipping as a privateer; and the wretch, to
convince Mr. Bloodmoney he was the best man for
his purpose, assured him he had passed his life in an
employment, which is doubtless the best school for

privateersmen,—piracy;—nay, that he was a famous
villain too, called Tiger-cat, or Hell-cat, or some
such name of renown —”

“Hah!” said Colonel Aubrey, “there was some
such fellow in the gulf here, that I have heard
of; El Gato I think they call him, and sometimes
El Infernal. But they said he was marooned or
murdered by his own men, because too bloody-mided
a villain even for a pirate. And this fellow
would have commanded the brig then? What said
Bloodmoney to that?”

“Oh,” replied the damsel, “he would have none
of him, and threatened, besides, to hand him over
to the police. But Mr. Bloodmoney did not, in
reality, believe he was the rogue he so freely professed
to be, thinking that that was a mere braggadocio,
crack-brained piece of bantering; and he
threatened him with the police only to get rid of
him. But, however this might be, the man broke
into the house that very night, collecting with unexampled
audacity all the plate and other valuables;
with which he would undoubtedly have got off undisturbed,
had it not been for my misfortune in
walking in my sleep, and so stumbling upon him in
the midst of his operations. He was seized and
overpowered, yet made his escape, after dangerously
stabbing a watchman, who had been called in from
the street to take charge of him. And this, my dear
father,” added the maiden, giving me another uneasy
glance, “is all I know of the man; for the brig sailed
away from Philadelphia with me a few days after.”

“All this is very well,” quoth the Intendant;
“but you say nothing of my young friend here;
who, I presume, is a friend or connection of Mr.
Bloodmoney's?”

“Yes, sir—I believe so,” said the young lady,

giving me a third, and very piteous look. But as I
had never seen him before, and sailed away immediately
after —”

“Never seen him before!” said Colonel Aubrey
with surprise; upon which, I, feeling that it was
necessary to prevent his astonishment going any
further, and perceiving that the fair Isabel was no
longer able to help me, hastened to explain that I
was, in reality, neither friend nor kinsman of Mr.
Bloodmoney, and that I had never been in his house
before the eventful night; but that I was on my way
to him with letters of recommendation and credit
from a gentleman, Dr. Howard, who was his connection,
and my friend.

“Yes,” cried Isabel, here eagerly interrupting
me: “Dr. Howard came himself, soon afterwards;
and Mr. Bloodmoney told me he was his kinsman,
and a man of great wealth and respectability.”

Encouraged by this interruption of the young
lady, who, I could not but see, was as anxious as
myself to make the most of every favourable circumstance,
and to avoid all unfavourable ones, I proceeded
to assure the Intendant, that “a strange accident,”
(and so it was a strange accident,) “together
with my ignorance of the city, and other circumstances,
had prevented my reaching Mr. Bloodmoney's
house until a late hour—in fact, when all
were asleep; but that I should never regret the
irregularity of a visit which had enabled me to be
of service to the young lady, his daughter.”

“Nor I neither, by my faith,” said Colonel
Aubrey, warmly. “But I wonder Bloodmoney did
not inform me of the affair, were it only to afford
me an opportunity to show what kind of gratitude
was due to the preserver of my Isabel.”

He then asked me what was my relationship to

Dr. Howard; to which I—being seized with a devil
of mendacity and deception, for I was ashamed to
confess my humble origin in the presence of the fair
Isabel—replied that it was a very distant one; but
added (what I was not ashamed to confess,) that I
owed every thing, my education and even my subsistence,
to his benevolence. And I would have
added more in his praise, had not Colonel Aubrey,
with great delicacy, immediately shifted the subject,
by asking jocularly, “whether I had gone to
Mr. Bloodmoney for the purpose of turning privateersman,
like honest Captain Hellcat?”

Upon my replying that, in fact, I had, he looked
surprised, and laughed very heartily, and informed
me that the vessel was no privateer after all; that he
had bought her, through Mr. Bloodmoney, and
fitted her out for his own purposes; that she lay
then in the port, though under another name; for he
had called her La Querida, because she brought
back to him his querida, or beloved Isabel, after
two years of absence; which the young lady had
passed in Philadelphia, completing her education.

He then alarmed me by a question, which was,
doubtless, very natural and appropriate to the occasion—what,
since I had set out to go to sea, had
turned me from my purpose, and converted me
into a soldier? But I got over the difficulty by
hinting that my friend and schoolmate Dicky Dare
had persuaded me to follow him to the wars—and,
truly, had he not?—an explanation that perfectly satisfied
the Intendant. And from that moment, giving
over his questions, he addressed himself to the
business of the table, bestowing a due share of his
attentions upon Captain Dicky, who had been previously
rescued from neglect by the fair Isabel addressing
him in English, and thus giving him an

opportunity to enter into conversation without the
intervention of an interpreter.

At the dessert, in which we were feasted with the
delicious fruits of the tropics, fresh brought from
the neighbouring island of Cuba, the reverend padre
left the table to attend, I presumed, to some clerical
duty: and, presently after, the servants were
discharged; and we were left a little party of four
persons, who were enjoying ourselves very agreeably
in conversation; when a messenger came running
post haste from the fort, with an account that
the Bloody Volunteers, for some reasons best known
to themselves, suspicious perhaps, from the long
absence of their captain, that some foul play was
intended them had burst into a mutiny, which it was
feared would terminate in bloodshed. Upon this,
the Intendant got up in haste, with Captain Dicky,
whom he invited to go with him and appease the
tumult; committing me, who, he said, might remain
to entertain his daughter, to her sole charge
and keeping.

The moment the two had left the room, Isabel,
starting up and advancing a step or two towards me,
exclaimed, in low and hurried, but earnest tones, and
in English—“Señor! lay no misconstruction upon
what I have said and done. If I have deceived my
father—if I have descended to evasion, and almost
to falsehood, know that I was paying a debt of gratitude,
which makes me forget things my father
could not have judged but with harshness. I lament
that one so young, so warmly befriended, so seemingly
full of promise, should have fallen into evil
hands and practices; but fear not exposure from me,
who neither can nor will betray you.”

I was confounded by the words and manner of
the beautiful girl, who, it was apparent, thought me

a rogue in earnest. A moment before, I fancied I
required nothing but an opportunity to speak to her
in private, to retrieve my character in her eyes, and
convince her I was no robber. But on a sudden I
felt it might be no such easy matter.

“Alas,” I cried, in extremity, “have you seen
Dr. Howard—was he at Mr. Bloodmoney's house
—and can you still think me a burglar? Did he
think me one?”

“What otherwise could he think?” replied Isabel,
firmly; “what ought he to have thought, after what
had preceded? After a beginning in murder—
Ah! you perceive, he told us all! And, though he
softened the circumstances, and the poor man did
not actually die —”

“M'Goggin did not die? Thank Heaven for
that!” cried I; “for that was the only thing which
to myself seemed like crime. And yet that was no
murder, had the wretch died twenty times over:
and, if you know the circumstances of that unfortunate
affair, you must be aware it was a mere silly
schoolboy scheme of vengeance, in which a serious
injury to the pedagogue was neither desired nor intended.”

“But,” said Isabel, “there was still more they
spoke of: that—but it seemed to me, even then, too
extraordinary for belief:—there were people who
charged you and your companion with a highway
robbery upon a poor sailor, on the road to Philadelphia!”

“Oh, the confounded wagoners! it all arose from
them, I have no doubt.” And with that, I told the
whole story to the young lady; who, listening at
first with eager interest, at last, when I came to
describe the audacious trick of Brown, by which,
the inconveniences of the crime were transferred

from the robber to the robbed, suddenly burst into
a most unromantic fit of laughter.

“And this impudent sailor, then,” she cried,
“was the same man, the fellow with the horrid
name, from whom you—But gratitude makes me
too readily take sides with you! How, señor,” she
demanded, more seriously—“how comes it that
you are the next moment found in company with
this man, whom you already knew to be a robber,
in Mr. Bloodmoney's house—or, indeed any
where?”

Upon this, I told her how, having changed his
clothes and removed his hideous beard, he had made
me believe he was Mr. Bloodmoney himself, robbed
me of my letter of introduction and money, carried
me into Mr. Bloodmoney's house; in short, I told
her the whole of that unlucky adventure, which
moved her to as much risibility as before; though
she soon reproved her mirth by the expression,—
“Alas, señor! it is not well to laugh at an adventure,
which, however ridiculous, was the cause, and perhaps
is yet, of pain to your friends, and of injury to
your good name. And it is still less proper for me
to laugh,” she added, “since it brought me relief
at a moment of need and terror.”

I told her, with much fervour, I cared not how
much she laughed at my folly, provided she was
satisfied of my innocence. Upon which, she said my
story was too ridiculous not to be true; that it explained
all the circumstances of my case very perfectly;
and that she believed it. “And, indeed,” said
she, with charming frankness, “I always thought
there must be some delusion in the matter, and that
you could not be a robber in reality; because you
did not look like one, and because, you know, you
told me so.”