University of Virginia Library

29. CHAPTER XXIX.
Robin Day and Isabel are rescued from the jollyboat by an American
schooner; which is taken by the pirates, and Robin is again
their prisoner.

I learned from Isabel, what I had in part been
informed of—that my father, with his younger brother,
the present Intendant, had emigrated from
South Carolina in the war of the Revolution, being
loyalists, whom the fall of the British power in the
colonies reduced to ruin. They had entered the
Spanish service in Cuba; where the elder brother
acquired rank in the army, and rose to wealth by
espousing a Spanish heiress, my mother and Isabel's;
but, in an unfortunate moment, was drawn
into some treasonable project or conspiracy to subvert
the Spanish power in the island. The conspiracy
was discovered, and my father escaped from
the officers appointed to arrest him, only through
the instrumentality of the younger brother; who,
faithful throughout to the government he served, yet
ardently attached to my father, procured him the
means of flight in the fatal schooner. One boat carried
to her my father and little Juan—myself—with
a single attendant, and such valuables as he had time
to collect; another following with my mother and
sister, was intercepted; and my father was compelled
by extreme peril to set sail alone. Neither

my father, nor the schooner, nor any of her crew
were ever heard of afterwards, until Brown's sudden
appearance in Pensacola. Grief for her husband's
fate, which had been followed by the confiscation
of his estates, drove my mother to the tomb.
Isabel, a portionless orphan, was adopted by her
uncle; whose own wife (for he also had married in
the island,) died in a few years, leaving him childless;
and who, partly by purchase, and partly
through the bounty of the government which could
thus reward his own long and faithful services, had
effected the recovery of a great part of his brother's
estates; which, with his own, were destined to swell
the dowry, or inheritance, of his adopted daughter.

This discovery, brought about by a means so simple,
and at a time so perilous, had the happiest effect
on the spirits of Isabel, who declared, with pious
fervour, that the Providence which had in so extraordinary
a manner brought us together and revealed
the secret of our relationship, could not have done
so only to let us perish in each other's arms on the
broad deep; and her confidence restored me in part
to mine.

But, alas, the night came upon us, and passed
away, without relief; and then another day and night,
and yet another; in short, the third day passed away,
and the fourth night was approaching, and we were
yet upon the sea. My poor Isabel was dying in
my arms—dying of the thirst, which, to lessen the
misery of my self-accusing despair, she protested to
the last she did not feel. At that time, Heaven sent
us relief. A vessel drew in sight, approached us,
caught sight of us, despatched a boat to our assistance;
and, just as the sun sank at last in the ocean, I had
the inexpressible happiness to find myself with Isabel
in safety on board an American schooner, homeward

bound from Jamaica, where she had been, under the
protection of a British pass, with a cargo of supplies,
which had been converted into money. I need not
inform the historic reader that such passes were, in
in those days, granted by the British Admirals on
the American coasts to such honest Americans as
were willing for a price to supply the wants of their
own national enemies; and that there were always
to be found spirits sordid enough to accept the advantages
and profits of such a trade, until a special
act of Congress, passed during that very year, put a
sudden end to it.

It might be inferred from such a circumstance that
Captain Galley of the Fair American (for such was
the name of the commander and the vessel, of which
he was also a part owner,) was not exactly the person
to whom I should have chosen to owe the obligations
of life, or from whom the most hospitable or
generous treatment was to be expected. Yet sordid
as he might be, I found him not deficient in good
feeling; and his wife, a young woman whom he
had married at Jamaica, and was taking home to
America, displayed the warmest and kindest sympathy
for the distresses of Isabel, which she immediately
addressed herself to relieve.

I know not whether it was from an impulse of
humanity infused into his breast by his warm hearted
wife, of whom he was excessively fond, or from a
a coarser motive of gain, or from the two feelings
combined, that Captain Galley upon learning in what
relationship Isabel stood to the rich Governor of
Pensacola, began to express his regrets that that
port was so very far out of his way; hinting that, if
it were the Havanna, from which, he said, having a
fair wind, we were scarce distant twenty-four hours'
sail, he would not hesitate to carry her thither to

her friends, without asking of them any thing further
in recompense than the payment of his expenses.
His schooner was partly his own; he was his own
insurer; his partners would not find fault with him;
it would be a pity to carry the young lady so far
from her friends, leaving them so long mourning
for her supposed death.

Upon my informing Isabel of this, she eagerly
entreated that he should carry her to the Havanna,
where there were many of her father's friends, and
her own, who would recompense him for his trouble
and humanity—her father was rich, and would think
no sum of money too great to reward the preserver
and restorer of his Isabel.

Upon such assurances, Galley immediately put up
his helm for the Havanna; promising if the wind
held, we should see the harbour lights before midnight
of the ensuing day.

But the wind did not hold, being in a few hours,
succeeded by calms and baffling breezes, that occupied
us during two whole days; at the end of which
we were no nearer to the Havanna than before, and
with so little prospect of reaching it, that Captain
Galley declared he must give it up and resume his
voyage; a resolution that, however, yielded to the
supplications of Isabel, and especially to her assurances
that he should be munificently rewarded for
every moment of delay; for, notwithstanding that
he still said he desired nothing but his expenses, I
could fancy he had some secret expectations of
turning a very pretty penny by his adventure.

But the Fair American was never destined to conduct
us to the Havanna. That day, soon after noon,
while we were vainly struggling against a south-east
wind, which was directly in our teeth, two
vessels, a brig and a schooner, came in sight; and

when they had approached us sufficiently nigh to be
made out with the glass, I was struck with horror
to find they were nothing less than the Viper and
her late prize the Querida.

Captain Galley, whom I immediately informed of
their character, was greatly alarmed; although he
had several times before declared he was not afraid
of pirates, because he relied upon the swiftness
of his vessel, and had in her, moreover, a large
eighteen-pound gun, with which he thought he
could beat a single antagonist off. But two pirates
together, one of them carrying a piece as heavy as
his own, were enemies to awake the most serious
fears; and these became agonized apprehensions,
when, the pirates immediately giving chase, it was
found, after a little trial, that they were actually
gaining upon us, with every probability of over-hauling
us before night.

Upon this, Captain Galley asked me, with much
agitation, if I thought the pirates would let him off
with his life and vessel, provided he should give
them up all his money, the proceeds of his cargo:
and I saw by this, that he already had thoughts of
surrendering to them. I told him “no;—that I had
no doubt every soul of us would be murdered, except
the poor women,” whom I begged him to remember,
and for whose sake I besought him to defend the
schooner to the last drop of his blood; assuring him
that, for my part, rather than fall again into their
hands, I would immediately jump with my sister
into the sea, and there perish with her. If we could
but resist them until night, we might escape them
in the darkness; and, certainly, we might keep
them off until then. I begged him to observe, that
the Viper, which proved to be a faster sailer than
the Querida, and was, for that reason, and because

she carried an eighteen-pounder, (the Querida's
guns being light,) our most dangerous enemy, was
superior to us only in the numbers of her crew;
that that superiority was of no account, while she
was so far off as to be able to fight us only with the
great gun, because our crew of six men (which was
the number, excluding ourselves) was as competent
to the management of our piece of ordnance as
thrice the number could be; and that it was not improper
to hope we might cripple her by a lucky
shot; in which case, we could avoid the Querida
until night, and thereby escape her altogether.

These representations had their effect upon Galley,
as well as upon the crew; who, being driven into
courage by sheer desperation, and further fortified
by a glass of grog, that was served round to each
man, swore they would stand by each other, their
captain, their ship, and above all the helpless women
on board, to the last moment. And they immediately
began their preparations for battle, by bringing
up shot and cartridges from below, and changing
the position of the cannon from the bow to the
stern, where it was soon in readiness for the pursuers.
Some muskets and cutlasses were also collected,
to arm us against boarders, in case it should
be our hard fate to be brought to close quarters.

While the men were engaged in these preliminaries,
the captain took me aside to assist him in removing
Isabel and his wife to a place of safety—
that is, out of reach of the cannon-shot. We carried
them, both half dead with fright, into the lowest
hold; where Galley knocked out the head of an
empty puncheon, in which he placed them, having
previously rolled it into a dark nook among the
ballast; with which, and pieces of rubbish, he proceeded
to cover it up, so that it might readily escape

the eye of a careless searcher. But a moment's
reflection convinced me such a device offered but an
insufficient protection against pirates who were accustomed
to ransack every cranny and hole of a
captured vessel, in search of concealed valuables.
Besides, if the schooner should be taken, the pirates
would either carry her to their haunts, or set fire to
her; in either of which cases, supposing the women
might escape immediate detection, one of two dreadful
calamities must overtake them; in the one case,
they must, sooner or later, be discovered, in the
other, they must perish in the burning vessel.
These considerations armed me for a desperate project,
which I proposed to Captain Galley, who accepted
it as the last refuge of despair. We placed
a barrel of powder, laying a train from it to the
cabin floor; and we agreed, should the pirates succeed
in boarding the schooner, that either of us who
might be alive, should set fire to the train and blow
up the vessel; whereby, if we destroyed with our
own hands those we would have died to protect, we,
at the worst, only accelerated their death, while defending
them from the possibility of a yet more
dreadful fate.

Nor was this horrible device without another
favourable effect: Captain Galley, the moment we
returned upon deck, informed the sailors of what he
had done, avowing a solemn determination, the moment
he observed any signs of cowardice, or heard
any talk of surrendering among them, to blow up
the schooner with all on board; so that the sailors
perceived they must fight bravely, whether they
would or not; and thereupon they called for more
liquor, and swore one and all, if they must die, they
would die fighting.

The contest now soon began, and was opened by

ourselves letting fly at the schooner, which was
thought to be within reach of the gun, and was approaching
in her usual insidious way, although she
must have seen from our efforts to escape, that we
understood or suspected her character. Our first
shot had no other effect than to make her run up a
black flag, and display her crew, which, though
more than half of them were, as I supposed with
truth, on board the Querida, was still pretty numerous;
but, by and by, she brought the long-tom to
bear upon us, and the battle was begun in earnest.
At first, both the vessels fired without doing any
injury to each other, being too distant for accurate
aim; but presently as the Viper drew nigher, the
shots began to tell, and we had after a while, the
inexpressible satisfaction of seeing the foremast of
the Viper go tumbling over her side.

It was now plain she could follow us no longer,
and we set up a shout of mingled joy and defiance.
But, alas, in the midst of our exultation, she sent a
return ball, by which her injury was avenged upon
the Fair American, the latter being almost as seriously
crippled as herself. The consequence of this
was, that, although we had no more to fear from the
Viper, whom we found, notwithstanding our injury,
we could now outsail, we were brought within the
danger of the Querida, which came bearing down
upon us, assisted by a change of the wind, of which
she could reap all the benefit, and we none. It is true
our eighteen pounder gave us a great advantage
over her, which Captain Galley endeavoured to
make the subject of encouragement to the men; who
were still further animated by the appearance of a
strange sail, that seemed to have been attracted by
the sound of our firing, was evidently doing her best
to approach us, and was pronounced, while still at a

great distance, a ship of war by our sailors, who
burst into shouts of joy at sight of her, resolving at
all extremities to keep up the fight until she had
arrived to our assistance.

But our courage was not seconded by good for
tune. It was in vain we fired shot after shot at the
Querida, with the hope of crippling her; several of
them struck her in the hull, and even killed some of
her men, but masts, spars, and rigging all escaped;
and, finally, opening her own batteries upon us, by
which half of our men were slain, she succeeded at
last in closing and grappling with us; and then, with
yells of vengeance, and Hellcat himself at their
head, thirty pirates leaped on board, and it was all
over with us in a moment.

Galley, giving me a look of horror and despair,
ran down into the cabin to fire the train. A musketshot
struck him at the head of the companion way
and he fell headlong on the floor; but gathering
strength for an effort, he raised himself upon his
arms, and flashed a pistol on the powder: it was
soaked with his own blood, and his life and the ineffectual
flash were extinguished together. I would
have rushed after him to complete the design; but it
was too late; the path was intercepted, and I was
surrounded by pirates, from whom I expected immediate
death, being at a single blow disarmed and
wounded, when some of them recognised me, and
called out my name; and Brown himself saved me
from their vindictive fury—though not with a purpose
of mercy.

“You shall feed the sharks, d—n my blood!” he
cried, with furious exultation, taking me by the
throat, and demanding eagerly, “where was the
girl?” while, in the same breath, he ordered his men
to “look her up,” as if taking it for granted she was

concealed somewhere in the vessel. I could make
but one effort to save her from his brutal arms:
“They will look in vain,” I cried, “unless they
look at the bottom of the sea, to which your cruelty
consigned her.”

“How! drown'd?” cried Brown.

“Yes, drown'd,” I replied; whereat he made a
furious blow at me with a cutlass; from which I was
saved by one of the men jerking me away, saying,
“that was not the way to end a deserter!” “Ay,
sink me to h—, he shall die like a dog!” said
Brown; and I was immediately dragged into the
Querida, and there secured by being tied to one of
the guns; while the pirates searched the Fair American
for the spoils of victory.

But the search was conducted in the utmost
hurry and confusion: the strange sail was now seen
approaching the Viper, making demonstrations of
hostility, which alarmed the pirates of the Querida
for the safety of their consort, now left far behind,
and perhaps for their own. A few moments served
to bring to light poor Galley's money, the proceeds
of his cargo; a few moments more, to show they
had, in this lucky windfall, secured the chief profits of
the voyage, with which they hastened back to their
own vessel, leaving Isabel and her companion undiscovered;
and then the Querida, crowding on all
sail, stood away from her prize, leaving her as I
anticipated—nay, as I had hoped—in flames. As I
raised my head from the gun to which I was tied,
and perceived the fire running up her rigging and
seizing upon her sails, I could thank God that my
sister had thus escaped the malice of the pirates.
But I could not look a second time upon her funeral
pile.

I dropped my head upon the gun, and closed my

eyes, until a sudden cannonading in the direction of
the Viper, and exclamations of alarm from the
pirates, awoke me to life and the desire of vengeance.
The strange vessel, which I could now see
was a large brig of war, had overtaken the crippled
Viper, and was pouring into her a heavy and continuous
fire, which the Viper returned manfully
with her great gun, as if relying upon speedy assistance
from the Querida. But this assistance there
was no one in the Querida disposed to render. It
was manifest, the brig was superior in strength to
both the corsairs together; and I understood from
the expressions of Hellcat's crew, that she was recognised
by some of them to be the Vengador, the
Spanish brig of war attached to the Pensacola station,
that very vessel of which Isabel had spoken
as designed by Colonel Aubrey to be sent in pursuit
of the pirates. Alas! had she but come a few hours
—nay, but an hour sooner! I looked back to the
Fair American; one of her masts had fallen over
her side, and the flames were fast sapping the
strength of the other.

I turned away, looking again to the Viper; the
Vengador had closed with her; the black flag, which
had been a little before run up in defiance, was now
sinking to the deck; she was conquered; the
Querida had deserted her; and nothing remained
for her abandoned crew but to surrender at discretion,
or die fighting upon their own decks.