University of Virginia Library

28. CHAPTER XXVIII.
The voyage in the jollyboat; in which Robin Day makes an interesting
and surprising discovery.

But the maid of my love was to be saved—she
was to be borne, before day, long beyond the view,
and, if possible, the reach of the pirates. I shipped
the rudder, stepped the mast, and spread the little
sail, of the management of which I had but little, of
indeed, any knowledge; and the gentle breeze bore
us softly onwards in a direction which I judged or
hoped, would be most likely to bring us by morning
in sight of the longboat; which gained, I reckoned
upon the wisdom of the padre, or the counsels
of the soldiers, to determine the best steps to be
taken to secure the safety of us all. It was in deciding
upon the direction I must steer to find the invalids,
I discovered that the compass which I had
taken, though it might prove an excellent guide by
day, was but an indifferent one by night, when it
was impossible to see it. But I was happy enough
to get an occasional glimpse at the north star, by
which I laid and maintained my course as well as I
could.

As soon as the sail was set, I took my seat at the
tiller; and there, with my dear Isabel at my side,
maintained it through the best part of the night,
having nothing to do but to steer, to encourage her

spirits, to repeat my vows of love, and to enter
into mutual explanations of the extraordinary circumstances
by which we had been thus thrown
together upon the solitary sea. I told her the story
of my flight from the fortress; and she sobbed with
joy to find it had been compulsory, that I had not
voluntarily accompanied the detestable Brown.

“I told them so,” said the ardent girl; “I told
my father you could never have united in any
enterprise with the wretch from whom you had
saved me, and whom therefore you must hate as
much as I did. But he was angry with me; and
because you had pretended not to know the man
when brought before him—because you did not immediately
expose and denounce him.—Ah! why
did you not so? if you loved me, why did you not
say to my father, `This is the wretch who assailed
my Isabel.”'

I replied, that my reasons were, first, the fear of
being made to appear as his accomplice in the burglary;
that was a foolish fear, but the surprise and
confusion I was in, all the time, prevented my
thinking so; and, in the second place, because, notwithstanding
my many reasons for hating Brown,
he had actually saved my life, and endangered his
own in doing so, among the Indians; and I therefore
could not, without base ingratitude, have denounced
him, when the denunciation would most
certainly have been followed by the severest
punishment.

This matter explained, (and the beautiful girl
accepted my excuses,) I proceeded to relate the remainder
of my adventures among the pirates up to
the moment in which a cruel destiny had brought
her into their hands. I then requested to know

what causes had brought her to sea in her unfortunate
namesake, the Querida.

“Alas,” she replied, again throwing her arms
round my neck, and sobbing on my bosom, “you
are the cause—or rather, I am myself the cause;
for it was not your fault, if I loved you. My
father is good and honourable, but proud, suspicious,
quick in his anger, and stern in his resolutions; and
he saw—indeed, I did not know it myself—that I
was more than grateful for the service you had
done me at Philadelphia; and then I had not told
him all, and he thought I had deceived him; and,
besides, appearances were against you, and he was
angry I should think of one whom he thought badly
of.—But he will think better of you, mi querido,”
she sobbed, “when we go back to him again, and I
tell him how you have saved me a second time.”

After these preliminary expressions, she gave me
an account of the events that had followed, and
some that preceded, my flight from Pensacola.

As soon (after the Intendant had sent me off to
the fortress,) as his angry reproaches had allowed
Isabel an opportunity to speak in my defence, she
acquainted him with those particulars of my story
which I had related to her, explaining the true
nature of my connection with Hellcat in the burglary;
and by and by Captain Dicky, who presently
made his appearance, and was called upon to speak
on the subject, confirmed the account, by telling my
whole story up to the point of my capture by the
Indians, with which I had made him well acquainted:
and, as he did me the honour to say, that,
“although he considered me a very big goose, and
especially too big an one for a soldier, yet he would
stand sponsor for my honour and integrity against

the whole world,” Colonel Aubrey was at last
brought to believe his opinion had done me injustice;
to repair which, he despatched a messenger
to bring me from the fort to his house again. The
messenger arrived just fifteen minutes too late; but
he discovered the flight of the prisoners, and gave
the alarm; the forts were ordered to fire upon us, to
bring us to; which failing, the Querida was hastily
despatched after us, and, as has been seen, to no
other purpose than to witness at a distance the murderous
attack upon the Moro, which she was not
able to prevent.

My flight with Brown, (which none but the
warm-hearted Isabel could believe involuntary,) and,
worse than all, the act of piracy that so immediately
succeeded it, had the natural effect of destroying
every favourable impression in my behalf that had
been made in Colonel Aubrey's mind; and the attempt
of Isabel to advocate my cause only excited
him to deeper indignation at the unworthy perversity
of the maid, who could bestow her regard upon a
wretch so degraded and abandoned as I. And in
this feeling, a week after, he placed her in the Querida,
now ready for her voyage to the Havanna,
under the care of the reverend padre, to be consigned
to a convent, until sufficiently punished for, or cured
of, her romantic fancy.

I expressed my surprise that Colonel Aubrey,
with all his anger, should have been willing to expose
her in a vessel so insufficiently armed, with the
full knowledge that a pirate like Hellcat was now
ranging the Gulf; but she replied, that was an apprehension
that had never entered his mind. No one
doubted but that the desperado had hastened to join
the outlaws at Barrataria Bay, and was, therefore, for
the time at least, out of harm's way; and, besides,

the Querida was considered very well armed and
manned; and, being also a fast vessel, she might
have beaten the corsair off, or escaped by superior
sailing, had her crew been soon enough aware of the
character of the Viper.

These explanations, with many a vow repeated
over and over again with a fervour and tenderness
which our desolate situation both prompted and excused,
occupied us through half the night; during
which our little bark skimmed her way easily and
safely along the sea; when, on a sudden, a gust swept
over us, whipped the mast out of its step, and blew
it with the sail entirely away; by which calamity
we were doubtless saved from being instantly capsized,
though we were left without any other assistance
than the oars to help us along.

To the oars therefore I betook me, as soon as the
gust had passed by; and I plied them diligently until
morning; at which period I looked eagerly around,
to see if the Viper was yet in sight; but she had
vanished, with her prize. I then looked as eagerly
for the longboat; but no longboat was to be seen:
the little jollyboat and ourselves were the only objects
that broke the wide-spread monotony and solitude
of the sea.

My heart sunk; but I concealed my fears from
Isabel, and plied the oars again, although well nigh
exhausted, until another gust swept the waves; by
which I suffered the further misfortune of losing one
of the oars, which was broken in my unskilful hands.
Even the greatness of this calamity I disguised from
Isabel, by assuring her I could use the remaining
oar as a scull, and get along nearly as fast with it as
with two. But my pride, or tender solicitude to
keep Isabel from alarm, could hold me no longer
against a discovery I now made; which was, that

with all my pains to gather into the boat every thing
I could think of that could be serviceable to us on
our voyage, I had forgotten the greatest necessary
of all: bread and meat there were in abundance; but,
ah me! not a single drop of water.

“But we shall soon find the longboat,” said Isabel,
with equal simplicity and confidence in my
nautical abilities; “and then we shall have water
enough.”

Alas! I had now given up all hope of finding the
longboat; my only trust was that Providence would
direct some vessel in our way, that should pick us
up. And with this forlorn expectation I was obliged
to acquaint Isabel, when, long after mid-day, she
began to express wonder at the non-appearance of
the longboat, asking me if I did not think we should
find it.

Upon being made aware of our truly unhappy
situation, she became greatly agitated and terrified,
now throwing herself into my arms and telling me
she would die with me, now dropping upon her
knees and offering such wild and piteous supplications
to Heaven as drew the tears from my eyes;
and then springing to me again, and striving to
comfort me with assurances that she was not afraid,
that she was not thirsty, and would not be, and then
again returning to her prayers. I did, and said, all
I could to re-assure her; and, by and by, she recovered
her composure somewhat; and to fortify her
spirits still further, she drew from her bosom a
rosary, which she began to tell, like a good Catholic;
and doubtless would have continued to do so, until
she had gone through the whole circle of beads, had
I not been suddenly impelled to interrupt her.

I have already observed that I was struck, in the
portrait of the Spanish gentleman, the brother of

Colonel Aubrey, with a rosary worn round his neck,
because of a resemblance which I saw, or fancied, in
the beads to those which my patron Dr. Howard
had obtained from Mother Moll, and preserved for
me with great care, thinking they might, at some
period, contribute to unravel the mystery of my
birth and parentage. The beads which I now saw
in the hands of Isabel, were identical with those in
the portrait—and they were, as I could see, identical
with my own; save that the great central bead, or
cross, in Isabel's rosary was richly studded with gold
and gems, of which the cross in mine was destitute;
although there were cavities on its surface in which
such might have once existed.

The coincidence was remarkable, as the beads
were of a singular kind of wood, and of strange
fashion and carving; and it was to me so much the
greater and more interesting, as to my awakened
fancy it seemed to foreshadow a connection in reality
between my fate and that of the beautiful being to
whom I had just sworn eternal attachment. My
brain teemed with sudden recollections of the foundered
schooner and the mysterious fate of her exiled
passengers; and moved by an irresistible impulse, I
caught the rosary from Isabel's hands, exclaiming,
as well as my great agitation would permit me—
“These beads, Isabel!—they belonged to the original
of the picture—your father's brother, who was lost
in that schooner of which Brown was the mate—
and of which Colonel Aubrey spoke with Brown?”

“Yes,” replied Isabel, surprised out of both devotion
and fear by the interruption, the question, and,
above all, by my disturbed looks.

“And there was a fellow to it?” I cried—“another
similar rosary, of the same strange wood, and fashioning?”

“Yes,” said she, with a sigh; “it was on the neck
of little Juan.”—How my heart leaped at the words!
“They were holy beads from Jerusalem, consecrated
on the Sepulchre of our Lord; and—But if you are
not a Christian—that is, not a Catholic—you will
smile at such things: but we held them as a kind of
talismans, because of their being consecrated on the
Tomb of the Redeemer. But, alas! they have
proved no talismans to us yet!”

“And you will know that other, its fellow?” I
cried, fumbling for the beads, which I had long since
tied round my neck for safety, because my patron
Dr. Howard had so earnestly charged me to preserve
them; though I held them myself in so little estimation
that it was seldom I ever thought of them:
“You will know it?” I cried, loosening the string,
and putting the beads into her hand: “the jewels are
gone; but are not the beads the same?”

At the sight of them, Isabel's agitation became
nearly as great as my own; she gave me a look full
of wild inquiry, and then taking her own rosary into
her hand, she faltered out, “There is a way to prove
whether they are fellows;” and with that, twisting
the cross of the latter between her fingers, she showed
me, what I should never before have dreamed, that
it consisted of two pieces that screwed together in
the centre, so as to make a little box, and that each
piece contained, within the box, a little miniature,
the one a likeness of Colonel Aubrey's brother, as
he was represented in the portrait, the other the semblance
of a young and beautiful woman, somewhat
resembling, as I thought, the dear Isabel herself.

“If this,” said Isabel, placing my own between
her trembling fingers, “if this be, indeed, the fellow,
it must contain the same portraits.”

As she spoke, the cross, which, from the ingenuity

of its construction, neither I nor any one else had
ever supposed to be any thing but solid wood, parted
in twain, and disclosed the same pair of visages concealed
in the little box.

“Dios mio!” cried Isabel, starting up wildly,
“how came you by this rosary?”

I could scarcely articulate a reply: “Seventeen
years ago, a vessel from the West Indies was wrecked
upon the coast of New Jersey; and I, a helpless
infant, the only living thing on board, was taken
from it by wreckers.”

“And?” cried Isabel, eagerly—

“And this rosary was upon my neck!—Oh, my
dear Isabel, it must be so! Nature herself stirred
up the affection that warms our bosoms. It must be
so: that wreck—I can see it all now, and can almost
prove it—that wreck could have been no other than
the fatal schooner; and I, dearest Isabel, I am the
little Juan you spoke of, and your cousin.”

“My cousin? O my God!” cried Isabel, “if it be
so, you are my own brother! We were twin-born
together!”

“How!” I cried, confounded by her words;” and
Colonel Aubrey, your father.”

“My father in name and affection only,” said Isabel,
“the father of my infancy and childhood, whom
I have never called by any other name, who is however,
in reality, but my uncle, my father's brother.
My father—and your father, if you be Juan—perished
in that dreadful schooner, the Sally Ann”

“Yes!” I cried, struck by a sudden recollection:
“here is the very name scratched upon the cross;
though by whom scratched I know not. Dr. Howard
always thought it must be the name of my mother.
And now, too,” I added, “I can understand the expressions
of Duck, which I thought the mere ravings

of delirium, that he could reward my humanity, and
make my fortune by the same act that should obtain
him vengeance on Brown; for it is certain—it was
proved by Brown's own admissions before Colonel
Aubrey, when ignorant that Duck was in Pensacola,
and confirmed by his direct confession to me afterwards,
in the fort—that Duck was actually on board
the Sally Ann, and had been his accomplice in a
deed of villany hitherto unsuspected; for, Isabel, I
know enough to convince me that our father, instead
of being drowned by the foundering of the schooner,
was murdered by her crew, and Brown at their head,
for his money.”

“Yes,” said Isabel; “and so thought my father—
my uncle I can scarce call him; and he was resolved,
upon the arrival of a brig of war attached to the station,
and therefore under his command, but then
absent on a cruise, to despatch her to Barrataria in
pursuit of Brown, with orders to spare no means to
ensure his capture, that his brother's death might be
fully avenged.—But how is this, my brother—my
heart tells me I must call you so!” said Isabel, anxiously:
“how is it the schooner could have come ashore,
and you in it, and yet my uncle, who had instituted
inquiries in America, should hear nothing of it?”

“That,” I said, “was easily accounted for;” and
informed her that the knowledge of the wreck was
for a period of eleven or twelve years confined to
the wreckers themselves; and that, at the end of that
time, Dr. Howard had in vain labored among my
jealous preservers to learn even so much as her
name, or the period of the wreck; which latter he
could only guess at by forming his own conclusions
as to my age, and coupling with them the fact he had
learned, that I was an infant too young to speak,
when I came ashore.

In short, strange and wondrous as the circumstances
all seemed, and imperfect as they were in the
chain of connection, they bore with them such
convincing evidence of my identity, that neither
Isabel nor I could longer doubt we were brother
and sister, the twin-born offspring of parents
long since passed away to the world of death. We
wept and embraced, and exchanged; by a natural
transition, the fervour of lovers for the affection of
brother and sister, which a romantic casuistry has
pronounced to be the purest and heavenliest of all
the bonds that connect the hearts of man and woman.