University of Virginia Library

20. CHAPTER XX.
Robin Day is surprised by the appearance of Skipper Duck and
other old friends.

I thought at that moment, I had never seen so
celestial a creature, and felt prompted to say I know
not what silly things, and perhaps should have said
them, had not the maiden requested me, with an
enchanting smile, to inform her what other extraordinary
adventures, (“for truly,” said she, “you seem
to have been born for extraordinary adventures,”)
had followed my flight from Mr. Bloodmoney's.

I took up the tale accordingly, and had proceeded
as far as my unlucky mistake with the British sailors,
and the discovery of it, while marching into
battle with them against my own countrymen, an
incident which recalled the mirth of the beautiful
hearer; when Colonel Aubrey suddenly returned,
and being surprised at his daughter's merriment,
requested to know the cause of it. “Oh,” quoth
she, “the Señor Day has been entertaining me with
the history of his surprising adventures, which I
hope, some time,” (and here I thought she gave me
a significant look, besides emphasizing the word some
time) “he will also relate to my dear father.”

“I shall be happy to hear all that the Señor Day
may think proper to relate,” said the Intendant;
“but, in the meanwhile, I must beg of him the

favour to attend me to the audience chamber,
where—” Here Isabel looked pale, and I, thinking
the summons must have some reference to the
Bloody Volunteers, interrupted him by hoping that
nothing unpleasant had resulted from their quarrelsome
outbreak.

“Nothing at all,” said he: “they had, some how,
got into their heads a ridiculous idea that they were
to be sent off to South America, to be condemned
to the mines. But all is now quiet; and Captain
Dare, who chooses to remain with them awhile,
will presently return to favour us with his agreeable
society.” He added, that the business at which
he begged my assistance, was the examination of
several men, the crew of a small vessel, which had
that day entered the port under suspicious circumstances,
but who claimed to be good and honest
American citizens; in which case it would, doubtless,
be advantageous, as well as agreeable, to them to
have a gentleman, their own countryman, present
as an interpreter. The suspicious circumstances
were chiefly the want of sufficient papers, and of
cargo; the disproportion between the crew and vessel,
the latter being a mere coasting shallop, while the
former comprised eighteen or twenty men, of whom
nearly two thirds were negroes; and, what was more
suspicious still, a great piratical looking long-tom,
stowed away with a quantity of small arms and ammunition,
in her hold. In short, Colonel Aubrey
suspected the vessel to be a pirate, a stray member
perhaps of the fraternity then known to exist under
Lafitte at Barrataria Bay; though the master, or chief
man among them, insisted he was an honest negro-trader
from the Carolinas, come to try his luck, with
a small cargo of slaves, among the Spaniards of the
Gulf.

Having given me this explanation, the Intendant
led me, all loath to leave the charming Isabel, into
the audience chamber; where among a number of
soldiers, who kept guard over them, were six or
seven men in sailor's clothes, whose appearance
startled me a little out of my propriety; because some
of them I immediately recognised as my quondam
friends of the Jumping Jenny, the followers of honest
Tom Gunner; and another look showed me, standing
foremost among them, and looking excessively dogged,
yet discomposed, the detestable Skipper Duck;
whom, of all the men in the world, I least expected
to stumble upon in this remote quarter. When I
first caught sight of the fellow, he was stealing a
glance at the Intendant that expressed perhaps more
than a rogue's usual fear of the face of Justice; but
when, rolling his eyes askant from Colonel Aubrey,
they fell upon me, I was myself astonished at the
actual dismay into which his uneasiness was immediately
converted.

“What!” cried Colonel Aubrey, “you seem to
know the fellow?”

Before I could reply, one of the sailors, having
caught sight of me, exclaimed, pointing me out to
his messmates, “I'm blasted if that an't our little
fighting-cock, Day, that was with us in the Chesapeake,
and was snatched up by the blasted Yankees
at Norfolk!”

These words covered me with confusion; for I
knew not, in the moment, what unlucky construction
the Intendant might put upon this portion of
my history, unless told him in my own version; and
the embarrassment was increased by his suddenly
giving me a sharp look, and saying, “he thought it
proper to inform me, that, although long years of
disuse had made it a very painful and disagreeable

task to him to speak English, it was nevertheless
his mother tongue, and he retained sufficient knowledge
of it to understand every word that was
spoken.” Yet I recovered my courage in a moment,
upon reflecting that neither Skipper Duck
nor any of his men could accuse me of murder, or
highway robbery, or burglary; and immediately replied—“Señor,
I have no objection you should
understand any thing, or all, that these men may
say to me, or I to them. In truth, I do know them;
this fellow,”—pointing to Skipper Duck, who still
looked frightened out of his wits—“in particular,
who is as foul a knave as the sun ever shone
on. The others are, or were, British sailors, with
whom, and with others, their comrades, it was my
misfortune to be compelled to bear arms—or rather
to appear to bear arms, against my own countrymen
on the Chesapeake; an adventure which I was
but this moment engaged relating to the Señorita
Aubrey.”

“Ah!” cried the Intendant; “you told her? And
it was that she was laughing at?” Upon my assenting
to which, he looked pleased, and smiled,
declared he was impatient to hear my whole story,
and then requested I would inform him more particularly
in regard to Duck and his accomplices.

I told him, that if the vessel was, as I supposed,
the Jumping Jenny, Duck was her skipper, and, I
believed, her owner;—that she had been captured
by the British in the Chesapeake, manned, armed,
(whence, doubtless, the long-tom and the ammunition,)
and employed, with other similar vessels, in
their plundering expeditions; and that Duck had
served on board as their pilot; that he had been,
after a time, taken prisoner by the Americans, or

made his escape to them; at all events, he must
have told them a good story, as I had seen him, apparently
at liberty, fighting with them against his
late employers, the British; and there ended my
knowledge of him and the Jumping Jenny. How
he got possession of her again, I knew not; but I
suspected he must have returned to her voluntarily;
and then, with the sailors who were now with him,
and who, it could scarce be doubted, were deserters,
had run away with her, at a convenient period,
when the rest of her crew, with their officers, were
ashore upon some adventure. As for the negroes,
I supposed they were slaves whom he had stolen
from their masters; or that they had been picked
up along shore, with other plunder, by his British
associates, and merely carried off by him, to make
his flight more profitable.

In this very reasonable explanation, I, at a future
period, learned I had exactly hit the truth; and, indeed,
upon examining them a little, Colonel Aubrey
was satisfied the sailors were deserters from the
British navy, and Skipper Duck a trader in stolen
goods: for which reason, he directed they should
be confined in the fort, to be surrendered, with the
vessel and slaves, to the first British commander
who should visit Pensacola.

But before he sent them away, I told him the
story of little Tommy, the son, I assured him of my
benefactor, Dr. Howard, the kinsman of his friend
Mr. Bloodmoney; and I immediately taxed Duck
to his face with having stolen him. The villain was
greatly disconcerted, and denied that Tommy was
Dr. Howard's son: but he admitted he was still on
board the vessel, having been, like the negroes,
thought too insignificant to be brought before the Intendant;

and Colonel Aubrey, who was much struck
and even affected, by the story, immediately gave
orders to have him brought to the house, declaring
he would find means to have him restored to his
father.