 | CHAPTER II. Ringwood the rover |  |
2. CHAPTER II.
Scarcely had the white flag of truce replaced
the castled blazonry of Spain, before a loud hail
rang from boat to boat throughout the pirate squadron,
and the large forty-oared barge leading, they
pulled so swiftly shoreward, that scarce a moment
seemed to have elapsed before the whole
flotilla was battling against the heavy surf, that
tumbled in, with its deep booming roar upon the
narrow stripe of sand which lay between the bastions
and the sea—and scarce another passed before
they were beached high and dry, with their
oars shipped, in easy shot of harquebuse from water-gate
and demi-lune. A more superb and gorgeous
spectacle can hardly be imagined, than was
presented to the eye on the disembarkation of the
buccaneers; for such at that time were the profits
of their lawless and unholy trade, that not the
meanest mariner who toiled before the mast, but
had his gala suit of velvet and embroidery, his
silken hose, his arms inlaid with gold and silver,
and his rich chain of precious metal about his
brawny neck; and, as it ever was their wont
when on the eve of battle to don their most magnificent
attire, all now, from the great captain
downward to the humblest rower, were decked
in such pomp as to put to shame even the splendid
uniforms of the Castilian cavaliers. It was, however,
on the great barge that every eye was riveted;
for in her bow a group was seated, that
must have awakened the most lively interest even
in a stranger's bosom—upon a pile of cushions
covered with crimson damask, a portion evidently
of the spoil snatched from the hapless caravella,
exposed to the full glare of the burning sun, reclined
a girl of most rare loveliness. Sixteen or
seventeen years at the utmost had passed over her
fair head, but they were years of a ripe southern
climate, and so just was the rich swelling outline
of her every limb, so perfect the development of
her whole figure, that in less genial regions she
would have been taken for a woman of some four
or five-and-twenty summers. Her complexion
was of that rich and sunny tint peculiar to the
most lovely regions of the European continent;
her hair black as the raven's wing, and if it be
possible even more lustrous—although it had been
braided closely above her high pale brow—disordered
flowed in disheveled masses over her neck
and shoulders; while one or two stray tresses falling
upon a bosom, that might have vied in beauty
with that of the Medicean Venus, afforded a
strange contrast by their jetty blackness, to the
almost unnatural whiteness of the pure spotless
flesh, on which they rested—for not her tresses
only, but all her vestments had been disarranged
and rent by the licentious grasp of ruffian hands;
the graceful folds of the mantilla were no longer
there, to lend their friendly shade to those sweet
modest features; the full basquina of dark silk
had been stripped violently from those lovely
limbs, now all too much disclosed through the
thin draperies of the single linen garment, which
a precarious mercy had conceded to her virgin
blushes. Nor had this wretched boon been granted
as it would seem without reluctance, perhaps
without the violent interposition of some powerful
protector; for, from the neck quite downward
to the girdle, it had been riven open by some cruel
hand, which had left on its sullied folds the distinct
score of five ensanguined fingers, and now
fell wide apart, revealing to the wanton sunbeams
one sloping ivory shoulder, and the whole of the
voluptuous bosom, which never had before been
so unveiled, even to the chaste glance of the maiden
moon. Her exquisitely rounded arms, bare
to the shoulders, were bound fast behind her back,
and the small foot, which peeped forth from below
the hem of the chemise, was not unsandaled only,
but encrusted with a deep crimson coat of human
gore, contracted from the bloody decks of the ill-fated
caravella.
At the feet of this lovely being, whose cheeks,
pallid with agony and terror, had long forgot to
blush in the extremity of anguish, bound like her
mistress and yet more brutally despoiled of her
apparel, crouched a negro girl, whose skin, of the
most polished jet, relieved the pale complexion of
the Spanish lady, even as a pedestal of sable marble
sets off a statue wrought in snow-white alabaster.
A little way apart from these, there lay
a slender stripling, whose unfledged chin was not
yet clothed with the first down of manhood, fettered
so torturingly hand and foot, that the blood
oozed in large broad gouts from the pores of his
swollen limbs; while a long gash on his forehead,
about which his close-curled locks were stiff with
clotted gore, and his whole person swart with
the smoke of gunpowder, and dabbled with the
blood of both himself and his assailants, showed
plainly that his desperate resistance had been the
cause of these unnatural and needless bonds.
Erect behind this miserable group, standing aloft
upon the rocking thwarts, as firmly as if his feet
were planted on the solid earth, one finger of his
right hand slightly leaning against the slender
staff, whence waved the flag of truce, towered
far above the rest, one whose commanding aspect
and proud bearing, no less than his gorgeous dress,
at once bespoke him the commander of the buccaneers.
Six feet at least in height, broad shouldered,
and deep-chested, his person, not withstanding,
was so admirably rounded, his waist so slender,
and all his limbs just in their proportions, so compact
in their easy contour, that the extraordinary
and almost Herculean power of his frame was not
observable, but on a close and accurate survey.
His lineaments were, although wearing a mingled
expression of liceatiousness, efforntery, and daring,
decidedly regular and even handsome; nor was
there any line or trait which could betoken cruelty
or fierceness. The eyes of a deep grayish
blue, although large and well-opened, were rather
sleepy than the reverse, in their ordinary aspect:
while of the mouth, that most expressive feature
of the face, the most decided character—blended
with much of firm and dauntless resolution, and
no little of contemptuous haughtiness—was passionate
voluptuousness. He wore no hair upon
his face, which, though much sunburnt, and even
swarthy from exposure to the fierce sun of the
tropics, was by no means flushed or ruddy—neither
mustache nor whisker—except one peaked
tuft upon his lower lip, many shades darker than
the sunny locks which fell in natural curls over
the collar of his doublet. The garments of this
remarkable figure were no less striking than his
personal appearance. Upon his head, set very
much to the right, so as to leave the waving ringlets
of the other side free to the breeze and sunshine,
he had a small cap of dark purple velvet,
encircled by three folds of a delicate chain, or
fanfarona—the workmanship of which, although
the metal was pure gold, surpassed in value its
material—and farther decorated by a single ostrich-feather,
near half an ell in length, of perfect
whiteness. Over a full-sleeved vest of snowy
satin, fastened at the bosom by a dozen buttons—
each one a solid pearl as large as a hazel-nut—all
linked together by a slight Venetian chain, he
wore a sleveless coat of the same velvet with his
cap, laced down the seams with gold, lined with
white silk, and decked with pendant studs of gold
filagree, and loops of bullion. White satin
breeches, and white silken hose with gold clocks,
and red-heeled shoes, completed his attire; but
round his waist was twisted a sash of purple network,
entwined with strands of gold, from which
hung at the opposite sides his basket-hilted rapier,
and a long two-edged dagger in a shark-skin scabbard—while
a broad baldric of the same materials,
not less than six pistols, of rare workmanship
and finish. The rowers who propelled this powerful
barge, were all attired in velvet caps and
jerkins, with plumes, and scarfs of costly silk,
and chains of gold and jewelry—and, like their
leader, were all armed to the teeth with cutlass,
dirk and pistols; while through the whole length
of the vessel, were stacked, ready to their hands,
the heavy musquetoons or carbines of the day.
The crews of the other boats, which swept on,
all abreast, scarce an oar's length asunder, were
adorned with equal splendor; and, as they leaped
ashore, and fell into a serried line, with ported
carbines—seven hundred men in number at the
smallest calculation—a more magnificent array
can scarcely be conceived, than was drawn up
before the gaze of the dismayed and anxious
Spaniards.
After a pause of a few moments, which seemed
ages to the distracted father, who had recovered
from his swoon to a full sense of his anguish, the
splendid captain of the pirates advanced alone, a
pistol-shot in front of the well-ordered buccaneers,
followed at a respectful distance by four others,
whose dress, as sumptuous, though less tasteful
than that of their superior, betokened them the
officers of the inferior vessels. Behind these
men, again, stepped forth as many privates, two
and two, leading between them the damsel and
the stripling, who, with the negro maiden, were
now the sole survivors from above two hundred
souls, the crew and passengers of the proud frigate,
of which not now a wreck remained, to
tell how she had sailed the deep in fleet and fearless
beauty.
“Ho! Juan de Melendez”—he exclaimed,
when he had drawn so near the walls, that every
accent of his deep voice could be heard with ease
—“Juan Melendez de Aviles, I summon thee
forthwith to yield this city, and these forts, named
of St. Augustine, to our mercy!” He spoke in
pure Castilian Spanish, though with a trifling
foreign accent; so light, indeed, that but to an
ear well practiced it would not have been at all
perceptible.
“And who art thou, who summonest so boldly?”—returned
the governor, manning himself to
endure the torture, which his high sense of duty and
of honor told him he might not even hope to shun
—“and what hast thou to set forth as a reasonable
cause, why we, the armed and numerous possessors
of strong works mounting much and heavy
ordnance, well found and victualled for a six
months' siege, should yield us to a handful, without
artillery to batter our defences, or ladders to
assail our ramparts!”
“I—if it could avail thee any thing to know”
—replied the pirate, his lip writhing as he spoke,
with bitter scorn—“I am called Ringwood—Reginald
Ringwood, once of merry England—Think,
Juan Melendez, think! If thine ear may not find
something familiar in that sound—ask thy false
heart to prompt it!—and for a cause—behold these
arguments!—perchance, though thine eye may
not recognize a man whom thy tongue, scarce six
years ago, styled friend and brother, it may be
more successful in deciphering the lineaments of
this girl-like stripling!”
“And what of these?” replied the father,
struggling vainly to conceal the agonies of his
paternal terrors—“what of these innocent, defenceless
children?—or what have they to make
with the rendition of this city?”
“Innocent—and defenceless!” sneered the buccaneer,
“and knew not Juan de Aviles, any child,
ever, as innocent—as defenceless—as—nay, ten
thousand times more—lovely and more loved—to
whom, nor beauty, nor innocence, nor helplessness,
availed any thing? Now, by the great God,
Spaniard,” he continued, lashing himself as he went
on into a state of fierce and terrible excitement,
“now, by the great God, Spaniard, that shall
judge between us two, thou hast but sealed thy
doom! What, dost thou ask, have these to make
with the rendition of this city? This!—very
simply this! That if, within one hour, the city be
not rendered to our pleasure, your boy shall die
upon the beach before thine eyes, by such variety
of torture, as never yet racked human sinews!
And for the girl—thou shalt behold her undergo
things, fifty—nay! but fifty thousand times more
terrible than death protracted and made horrible
by the most lingering torments. Choose! thou
hast but one hour!”
“And what if we should render us—not that
the mere thought of such a deed is possible!”—
quivering with anguish in every iron limb, the
Spaniard answered—“what terms dost thou offer
if we should render us?”
“Life!” was the stern reply. “Life to the
soldiers of the garrison, and liberty to march out
with their arms and three rounds of munition!
We know your numbers, fair sir, far too well to
dread them! Thy son and daughter shall be restored
to thee unhurt—for the rest we will hold
the city for three days' space, using all property,
all persons therein, as our own—and at the three
days' end, we take with us whatsoe'er we list!
up anchors! and sheet topsails home! and farewell
to fair St. Augustine!”
With an unutterable air of blank dismay, the
officers upon the bastion gazed in each other's
faces. The terms were such as men could not
The agony, the mute, despairing, ghastly torture
depicted in every speaking picture—in the dull,
scarcely conscious air of Juan's eye, in the convulsive
writhing of his pale ashy lip, from which
the gnawing teeth, though they bit deep and keenly,
could force no drop of blood—were scarcely more
heart-rending than the tremendous bursts of passionate
and impotent phrensy, with which the
youthful lover—the noble, brave and beautiful
Don Amadis, raved with mad gestures and wild
imprecations, to and fro the ramparts!
“Beware!” after a long, awful interval, during
which he had gloated with a mixed expression of
pleasure, exultation and contempt, over the evident
misery of the man whom, as his dark words
and half-uttered hints implied, he had good cause
to hate, with that unbending and insatiate hatred,
which, if intensity may give any token whereby
to estimate duration, may survive even death itself.
“Beware, I say!” cried Ringwood, “and,
now, I speak in mercy! Beware, I say, how
thou decidest. For by my wrongs, the depth of
which none know so well as thou! and by my
love for her—which such a soul—if any soul, indeed,
be thine—so base, and sensual, and brutish
—cannot so much as fancy! and by those hopes of
vengeance, which have alone thus far sustained
me, blighted although I be, and blasted—to gain
which I have lived, and which, once gained, I will
die happy—by all these solemn things, I swear to
thee, if thou refuse my proffer, I will not bate
one jot of this which I have threatened! Nay,
more! this done—for fancy not thy paltry walls
or boasted ordnance could, for ten minutes' space
oppose, much less bear back, our onset—this done,
I say—we will be masters of your city, spite
earth, or hell, or heaven!—and, masters of it, not
one woman, from the grandame of fourscore, or
to the fresh virgin of fourteen, shall escape the
worst pollution! not one man, nor one boy, nay!
not the babe that is unborn, shall flee the sword's
edge—not one building, from God's temple, down
to the wretched negro's kennel, but shall share
the all-devouring flame! Before to-morrow's
dawn, if ye submit not to my terms, there shall
not be one living thing—there shall not be one
stone upon another, to tell the story of your ruin!
Choose, then—choose wisely—but see that ye
choose, likewise, very shortly! One hour! I
have spoken!”
“Thou speakest mere impossibilities”—replied
the miserable father—“and that full well thou
knowest! For how—were I so minded—should
I compel all these to yield their homes to conflagration—their
children to the sword—their wo
men to dishonor! Ask any thing but this, and on
the instant it shall be performed!”
“Thou hast heard!”—was the stern reply—
“and I have said!”
“If thou wouldst have wealth, say the word—
our swollen treasuries would suffice to glut the
wildest avarice.”
“I have said!”—answered the pirate, fiercely,
dashing his heel with furious energy into the
yielding sand—“I have said—nor would the
gold of E1 Dorado buy thee one moment's
mercy!”
“If vengeance—I—I, Juan Melendez—I whom
you hate so deadly—I will come forth to ye unarmed—will
yield me to the utmost of your malice—yea!
I will bless your torments, so these
may return harmless!”
“And I”—exclaimed Don Amadis Ferrajo,
spinging with outstretched arms upon the battlements—“high
privilege it were to die for thee,
Teresa!”
“And I—and I—and I”—responded twenty
voices, in a breath, of the bold cavaliers, who
stood upon the bastion; and who, till now, dispirited
and cowed by the sight of anguish which
they might neither heal nor hinder, kindled to
sudden animation at the high hope of rescuing, by
their own self-devoting gallantry, those innocent
and spotless victims, blazed forth in all the lustre
of their Castilian chivalry at the proud words of
Amadis.
A low and sneering laugh was the sole answer,
for the vengeful buccaneer, as he perceived by the
increasing agitation of the Spaniards the full extent
of his advantage, waxed but the firmer and
the cooler for all their menaces and prayers.
“Monster!—ha! devil!”—shouted the fiery
Amadis, goaded by the calm and contemptuous air
of Ringwood, into a state of utter phrensy—
“devil! thou shalt not live to boast of it!”—and
snatching, as he spoke, a long-barreled harquebuse
from a sentinel beside him, he took a rapid aim,
and before any of his comrades could interpose to
hinder him—for all perceived the madness of the
action—fired it against the head of the proud
Rover.
He was a practiced and a steady marksman, was
that hot-blooded gallant: nor, had his soul's salvation
been staked upon the shot, could his aim have
been more accurate or guarded. Before the sharp
report had reached any of the tremulous spectators
who gazed, as though their all was periled
by the deed—almost before the flash had gleamed
upon their eyes—the long white plume, which
graced the cap of Ringwood, was cut sheer off
within an inch or less of his unblenching head;
and was borne away, glancing, and fluttering like
the light western breeze. With a wild yell of
savage execration, the pirate line rushed forward.
But scarcely had they made six steps, with brandished
arms and furious gestures toward the Spanish
works, before the loud clear voice of their
commander was heard, as composed and slow, as
though he had been speaking to a comrade across
the festive board!—
“Halt! ho!—is this your discipline?—and his
right hand raised quietly aloft, without a sign of
menace—scarce even of authority—sufficed upon
the instant to arrest those hardy desperadoes, that
they stood motionless and silent as a rank of
statues.
“And this”—he said, turning his eyes, with
a scornful smile upon his lips toward the ramparts
—“this is your Spanish honor—this your respect
for the white flag, which even savage and heathen
venerate! Excellent well, young man! excellent
well, and wisely was it done: 'Tis like that these
would be more merciful, seeing their captain
slaughtered here, before their face, under a flag of
truce! Had I been other than I am, this gallant
deed might have anticipated, somewhat, the time
when these shall suffer. As it is neither for fear
nor favor—neither for anger nor remorse—hath
Ringwood ever swerved—be it for good or evil—
from his word! nor can so slight a thing as thou
move his most slight resolve, more than the summer
wind can lift the earth-fast oak from its
abiding place. I said an hour—the half of it has
flown—half yet remains to ye, to sport, or grieve,
as it seems best to ye!—that past, the boy here
dies in torment. The girl lives for our pleasure,
and our scorn!”
Even before the fierce rush of the pirates had
been made, the officers around had seized the
youthful lover and disarmed him, reproaching
him unsparingly for the insane and desperate
deed to which his uncurbed passions had excited
him—“Amadis—Amadis,” cried the grayheaded
veteran Diego, “thank God upon your knees—
with your whole heart, and strength, and spirit,
thank him, that your mad effort failed. Had thy
shot struck down him, at whom it was so deadly
aimed—she, whom thou lovest, had been lost, past
hope, past redemption?”
“Young man,” exclaimed the fiery governor,
rendered more fierce than ever he was wont, by
the increase of peril to his children, by that most
inconsiderate action; “young man, hidalgo though
thou be, and belted knight of Calatrava, I swear
to thee, had that shot taken place, I would have
stripped and bound thee like a dog, and hurled
thee headlong from the bastions. As it is, if
aught ill befall my children, to thee I lay it—
see thou be ready to make full atonement:
for—”
Ere he had finished speaking, with a shrick so
tremendous, that to describe its tones, or even its
effects on those who, shaken as they were by the
dread scenes enacting in their sight, were harrowed
to the very soul by that appalling cry, were
utterly impossible—a female of some forty-five
or even fifty years, but still remarkable for matronly
majestic beauty, with her long hair disheveled,
and her large dark eyes glaring terribly,
rushed up the narrow steps, and stood unveiled,
with all her garments in wild disarray, among
that group of warriors. “My children!” she
cried—“Oh! God! God! my children!”
None spoke—none had words, or breath, or
heart, to speak to her—and she went on, mingling
the wildest, the most eloquent appeals to Heaven
for mercy and for succor, with yells and shrieks,
that made the very hair to bristle on the heads,
and the chilled blood to curdle in the veins of all
who heard her—even of the unpitying, unsparin
desperadoes, who, though they shuddered at, the
knew not what, swerved not in their fell purpose,
nor ever even dreamed of mercy. And now she
would blaspheme, and rave with execrations, such
as had scarcelv been outdone by the profanity of
the most desperate of men; calling down curses
on the heads alike of those who held her children
prepared for instant execution—of those who
could not, howsoever they might pant to do so,
strike one blow for the rescue, without ensuring
by that blow, more certainly than even now it
was decreed, their doom—and on her own head,
most of all—for that she had borne, and nursed
them at her breast, and trained them up so pure,
and beautiful, and brave—and all for such an
end!
Once Juan drew his sword—once almost gave
the word, to cast the sally-port wide open—to rush
down with pike, and harquebuse, and rapier, under
the cover of the volleying cannon—to cry “St.
Jago and God aid!”—to set all on the cast of one
desperate charge! But hope and prudence conquered.
It cannot be, he thought—his hopes suggesting
arguments which his more sober reason
would have at once discovered nothing worth—for
well did Juan Melendez know the unbending spirit,
the tameless heaven-daring pride, the dauntless
valor of the man who stood before him—not
now, as once, a wronged, and helpless exile, but
in the plenitude of power, and pride, and vengeance!
It cannot be that a mere buccaneer, a sordid,
selfish pirate would—or would be permitted
to—surrender his or his comrades' common interest
for any private vengeance, how grateful or
how sweet soever. And in these frantic hopes,
fatal moment passed.
“Juan!” once more exclaimed the deep sonorous
accents of the Englishman—“Juan Melendez
de Aviles, the hour I gave thee hath elapsed—
once more I ask of thee—shall these two live or
die? If thou wouldst have them live, down draw-bridge,
up portcullis, and march out, thou and thy
veterans, and thy family—for three days will we
hold the city, doing to it, and all within it, as to
us shall seem fitting—after three days will we
embark in our good ships and trouble ye no
more, here at St. Augustine—and for assurance
that we will preserve our faith with ye, myself
will be hostage in your hands—even in yours, the
deadliest of my foemen! Choose now—choose,
choose, Juan Melendez, and if thou doomest these
—these thine own flesh and blood, on whom even
I, who have such cause to hate them, scarce can
look without pity—if thou do this, say not that it
is I, but thou who art their slayer!”
The brow of Ringwood, as he spoke, grew
very pale, and his lips absolutely ashy in their
tints. Yet his eye was as bright, and even calm,
as ever; and not a muscle worked, or a nerve
quivered, in those stern features, or that stately
frame.
“Mercy!” exclaimed Melendez, stretching forth
his clasped hands toward the pirate, “mercy. As
thou mayest, one day, ask for it thyself—show
mercy!”
“As I received it, one day, at thine hands, when
I did crave it, so will I show it, Juan,” replied the
buccaneer. “Speak, now, speak out, I say! Wilt
thou yield up the town?”
“I will not,” answered Melendez very firmly,
“God help me—I will do my duty.”
“Then hear me—thy son will I torture here to
death before thy very eyes—thy daughter, if thou
move not to sally, for the time is safe—if but
the bridge be lowered, or one shot fired, I yield
her on the instant to the mercy of my crew. Lead
out the boy!”
And that pale stripling was led out before his
father's face—pale, indeed, even to ghastliness,
partly from the loss of blood, and partly from the
conscious horror of his situation. Yet he bore up
with dauntless courage, and, though a mere boy,
proved himself, in that extremity, a worthy scion
of his proud race.
“Teresa,” he said, as he left his sister's side,
“God bless thee, and farewell, and may He grant
that I may bear this agony for both. Father, let
me see that you look as bravely on my death, as
I shall bear it; unman me not by any weakness;
I would die as becomes thy son, and a Castilian.
Now, sir, I am ready.”
It was a most strange sight. The lip of Ringwood
quivered, as he looked on the brave boy, and
all the muscles of his face, which had hitherto
been as tense and cold as steel, relaxed a little,
and a tear swam in his gray eye; he was, it
seemed, on the point of yielding. But with a
mighty effort he dashed off the growing weakness.
“I, too,” he said, “painfully, although it be, and
bitter; I too have my duty.”
He cast a sign to the assistants, and they made
the boy kneel down upon the sands, and bound a
knotted whipcord closely about his temples, and
thrust between it and the flesh the stout steel-mounted
stock of a ship-pistol. One strong man
seized each arm, and held him steady by the full
exertion of their united strength! Having made
that one signal, Ringwood cast no glance more
toward the hapless boy, but riveted his eagle eye,
with an intense expression of horrible exulting
pleasure, full on the father's face.
“It is done, captain,” whispered the third of
those fell satellites.
“Proceed!” replied the Rover, never removing
once his eyes from the distorted features of the
governor. “Proceed!”
And at the word, the wretch who had last
spoken, seizing the pistol by the barrel, twisted it
round and round, tightening at every strain the
knotted cord, 'till it pierced through the skin, and
flesh, and sinews, and pressed with agonizing
keenness into the solid bone itself. Manfully—
wonderfully—did that pale stripling bear the intense
anguish—anguish, the horrible extremity of
which was but too well displayed by the deep
crimson flush, which had supplanted the ghastly
whiteness of his brow—in the foam that flew
from his churning teeth, in the dark sweat that
gushed from every pore. Still he so mastered
that appalling torture, that he spoke not a word,
nor groaned, nor even murmured! Had the
fierce Rover looked but once on that boy's face,
he had forgotten all his wrongs, all his deep
hatred, in overwhelming admiration. He would
have cried—had the cry sealed his own eternal
doom—“hold! hold!” for shame if not for
mercy! But he did not look on it—for his hard
eyes were drinking in, with fearful satisfaction,
the tortures visible in the dark features of his
humbled foeman! At length the tough cord
pierced its way into the skull itself; the sightless
eyes, forced from their sockets, started out upon
the gory cheeks; one loud long yell burst from
the boy's lips, and at the self-same instant Don
Juan Melendez fell back into the arms of his
attendants, in such a paroxysm of despair and
agony, as happily deprived him of all consciousness
for hours. The yet more wretched mother
that hellish scene commenced, or she had
perished at the sight!
As Ringwood saw his enemy fall senseless, as
the boy's yell pierced his scarce conscious ears,
a deep flush crossed his brow; he snatched a pistol
from his baldric, turned short upon his wretched
victim, and fired full at the head, not three
feet distant from the muzzle. One spasm—one
quick convulsive shudder—and all was over, ere
yet the echoes of the death-shot had subsided!
Was that an echo—that deep sullen roar? Again!
again! No! 'Tis the sound of ordnance! And
lo! in clear sight, on the bright horizon, four
pyramids of sail, looming up larger and more
near, as every second passes, And now what
floats above those lofty royals—what but the yellow
flag with the three castles of Castile? Hark!
to that cheer, awful, and deep, and solemn, which
rushes up to heaven from the beleaguered ramparts,
full of a thousand mingled feelings—of
gratitude for unexpected safety—of hope for
coming vengeance!
| CHAPTER II. Ringwood the rover | |