University of Virginia Library

8. CHAPTER VIII.

The rage, grief and disappointment, which this last letter produced in
the bosom of the young man, it would be difficult to describe. His disappointment
in not receiving the money was intense, for he had not twenty
francs in the world. His rage against the agent was furious and terrible,
both for his omission to remit and his concluding advice. His grief at the
loss of the homestead was deep and heartfelt. It was evident that it must
have been destroyed within a day or two after his mother's letter had been
written and sent to Boston for the ship. The cold brevity with which Mr.
Parker had mentioned it deepened his solicitude. What had become of his
mother?

`If she had been injured he would have mentioned it! She has probably
found a home with Grace—and I am here, an outcast as it were—living by
gambling, and the blood of my superior officer upon my hand, and that of
the life of that murdered girl upon my soul! I could curse myself! But
what is to be done? Money! I have no money! I am a beggar! I will
perish ere I approach another gambling table! I should see blood on every
coin and card as I did this morning! I think I had best give up at once and
turn villain! My mother's roof mortgaged for my gambling expenses! Well
may the angry flames seize upon it and consume the infamy of my act!
Oh, Grace! Noble and honest in mind and heart! How would you despise
me if you knew me as I am! I will think no more of you! I will not
bear in my blackened heart your pure image to tarnish it! Go free
and pure! Forget me and I—I will perish as I deserve!'

`Nay, my dear fellow,' said Ellis, leaning into the long door-like window
from the balcony, `not so bad as that! cheer up!'

`Sirrah, have you been listening?' cried Frank, striding towards him.

`No, Winter, only I heard your last words that you would perish. I was
passing by your window on the balcony to see if you were in, and what news
you had got, when these words caught my ear.'

`Well; why should I not perish?' he answered bitterly, hanging his head
and dropping his hands in an attitude of utter despondency.

`Because there is enough in the world to live for. You have got bad
news?'

`Bad enough! No money!'

`That is bad. How happens it?

`Read that letter. It is from my agent!'

Frank darkly scowled with gloomy feeling, as his friend read the letter.
Ellis having closed it, folded it up and said in a gay tone,

`Well, that is unlucky; but with your luck at play you —'

`I shall never play more!' he said firmly and solemnly.

`Never play?'

`No; and unless you wish me to quarrel with you, never speak to me of
play again.'

`I don't want to quarrel with you Frank, but I'm bless'd if I don't feel
confounded like doing so for making this resolution.'

`It is written in blood upon my soul!'

`Well, what is to be done?'

`I care not!'

`That is the right spirit!

`Methinks you are unusually elated this morning, Mr. Ellis.'

`Oh, nothing particular. I was only going to propose that instead of taking
the diligence to Paris, we run down to Gibralter and thence home.'

`And why does this idea elate you?'

`I was'nt aware that it did,' answered Ellis, evasively.

`Don't talk to me of taking passage to Gibralter. I am without money.'

`Have you no money?'

`But twenty francs!'

`And last night worth nearly a million!'

`Don't mention last night!'

`I have money!'

`You!'

`Yes. You shall share it with me!'

`How came you by money?'

`I won it. Your mantle fell upon me. I have been playing and won
five thousand francs!' Here Ellis displayed a bag of gold into which he
had got his bill changed. `I will loan you if you will take passage with
me.

`I will not borrow. You may return me my loans Ellis.'

`It will be about a thousand francs in all.'

`Just as you please.

`I will count it for you on one condition.'

`I bind myself to no conditions,' answered Frank haughtily.

Ellis colored but suppressed his rising emotion. Winter, by his reply,
had unwittingly increased the hatred towards himself that was nourished
in this young man's bosom.

`I ask no condition then. But as you have no money and say you will
not play, and I have money and have no objections to getting more in the
some way, I will show my friendship for you by paying you over the one
thousand francs. There is the money. Now, you may comply with my
condition or not.'

`Name it.'

`There is a Mexican brigantine in port which has just discharged a valuable
cargo of cochineal and other freight, and sails in two days for Gibralter,

and thence to Vera Cruz via New York. She is a fast sailer, and the
captain is a good fellow.'

`You know him then.'

`Yes. When I was in the Hudson we run him down off Key West. He
was then in a schooner trading between Matanzas and the main. We saved
him and his men, and took them into Tampico where we were bound. As
I was studying Spanish then, I talked with him a great deal to perfect myself
in the tongue, and so we became quite intimate. He is a little, lively,
talkative fellow, and professes great friendship for me. I met him on the
quay last week. He invited me on board and was most happy to see me. I
did not of course tell him I was not in the service now. He will give us
passage to New York for one hundred dollars a piece. Say, shall we go
with him?'

Frank was silent a few moments. He reflected that without money, as
he was, he could not pursue his original intention of going to Paris. He
thought of Grace and his resolution was taken.

`I will go with you, Ellis,' he said, grasping his hand.

`Done. We will spend to-day and to-morrow in making little outfits of
things we may need, and presents for friends at home. I will at once see
Capitan Florio Torrel, so that he may be ready for us. Good bye, Frank.
We will dine together with Torrel at the Cafe Elysee.'

`Bien!' answered Frank, gaily.

The day of the departure of the brigantine arrived, and the signal for getting
under-weigh was flying at her mast-head. Frank had purchased a portion
of fruit and some delicacies for home, all of which could be stowed in
his state-room. But with Ellis came on board several heavy boxes, one of
which he said contained a harp, and another a guitar, and another silks, and
a fourth books of rare authors.

`You are taking aboard quite a freight, Ellis, on your own account,' said
Winter, as he saw these heavy boxes hoisted to the deck and placed away
in the steerage, where alone he would permit them to be stowed.

`Yes. But I shall double my money on them in the States. It is a mercantile
adventure.

The anchor was weighed, the topsails flung loose and sheeted home, the
jib and trysail set, and with a brisk breeze blowing from the north-west, the
rakish looking brigantine moved gracefully from her mooring ground, and
went flying, like a bird loosed from its cage, down the harbor.

Winter stood at the stern of the brigantine as she gained rapidly an offing,
his eyes resting upon the towers and green hills and frowning fortresses of the
port he had left. His thoughts were melancholy, for he felt that he had passed
three months in that city in folly and guilt; that he had there lived the
life of a gambler, and there had nearly shipwrecked his moral being.

`Oh that I were once more in the condition and circumstances I was six
months ago,' he sighed involuntarily. I was then an officer in my country's
service, and had the esteem of my fellows. Now I have the blood of
a friend, and the life of a woman upon my hand and heart! I have wounded
my character by my rash resignation, darkened my fair fame by the duel
and have clouded forever my soul by the death of the young female. Accursed
be the hour that I first crossed the threshold of a gambling hell!
Now I leave these scenes behind me! Home is before me! Yet how
shall meet Grace! I dare not tell her all that has passed, and concealment
would make me feel a sense of degradation before her! I hate myself
already! I am unworthy of her regard of her friendship, of her pure love!'

`You are gloomy, Frank,' said Ellis, laying his hand upon his arm.

`I have little to make me merry.'

`We are once more upon the free blue sea! The dashing of the waves
is glad music to my ears. I feel exhilarated. Do you remember Byron's
fine lines.

`Byron wrote those lines to put into a Corsair's lips.'

`They are not the less beautiful. I feel, Frank, that I should like nothing
better than to be a corsair myself, with a fine set of fellows to command—a
fleet craft under my feet and the sea all before me.'

`It were no doubt an exciting life, Ellis; and when a man has thrown off
allegiance to his country, or has warred with his kind, become degraded by
evil acts, I am not surprised that he should follow it, if he love the sea.'

Ellis' eyes sparkled and his face became animated as he listened to
and watched the countenance of the speaker.

`What would induce you now to become a corsair, Frank?' he asked.

`You do not put this question to me seriously?'

`Upon my soul I do. Why should I not?'

`Am I an outcast? Am I degraded? Am I at war with my kind?'

`No. But yet you might command a craft and go on adventure. You
are rich—that is, you will have twenty thousand dollars when your mother
dies—.'

`Not so much. But what then?'

`You love the sea. You are no longer in the navy. Why not purchase
a snug clipper, arm and man her, and cruise for your pleasure up the Meditterranean,
or in the Gulf of Mexico and along the South American coast.
There would be adventure, and perhaps chance would throw into your way
some pretty fighting and not a little money.'

Frank looked steadily at his friend and searchingly scanned his countenance.
Ellis smiled.

`You are making out a pirate's career for me, Ellis.'

`No. I am only making out that of a gentleman of the sea! Suppose
you think of this. It is all folly about your going home to settle down to be
a farmer. Your spirit is too bold and active. You will never do it. Your
profession is the sea. Follow it.'

As Ellis spoke these last words with strong emphasis, he turned away and
walked forward, murmuring in an under tone to himself as he got beyond
hearing, `I have cast the seed! I do not know his temper if it will not
find soil to take root.'

Barton Ellis was a young man of no ordinary abilities, but vice and loose
principles had corrupted him. He was a good officer, a brave man, and possessed
a daring spirit. He was, also, a tactician, and poverty united with
profligacy, had rendered him so. He would stoop and degrade himself for
selfish ends, as he had done, while living on Winter's purse; but he stooped
only to rise again with hatred in his heart. He had resigned in the navy not
from attachment to Frank, though he professed this to be his motive, and so
artfully bound the young Midshipman to him with gratitude; but because he
knew he had been guilty of certain transgressions which would not fail to
transpire and bring him to a Court Martial and disgrace. He therefore took
judgment by the fore-lock and threw up his warrant, ostensibly to second
Winter in his duel. Frank did not know his real motives, and therefore felt
bound towards him by a tie that he felt he could not well sever, anxious as he
had been to do it; for he loved him not, both on account of his open vices and
his former affair with Grace. Yet being naturally of a generous and friendly
nature, Frank could not quarrel with him, without good cause, and as Ellis
withal had many agreeable qualities, and was his only friend in a foreign
land, their intimacy remained unbroken. Unprincipled himself, Ellis found
that his friend was a man of honor and high sentiment, with all his errors.
This he could not comprehend; for like many men of his moral obliquity,

he thought if a person erred in one thing he must err in all. That to be a
gambler, one must be also and of necessity a profligate and sensualist. It is
true there was such a proneness to vice in Ellis' breast, that for him to have
been one and not all would have been indeed surprising. The affinity in
Frank's bosom was towards virtue, and the admission of one vice did not
corrupt the whole. The memory of Grace kept him from licentiousness,
and to wine and revels he had no inclination. False pride of character and
love of play were his two cardinal errors, But one error of character is dangerous.
In itself it may not ruin, but it may open the way to the admission
of others, till the whole heart is full, the whole man corrupt! If Frank had
not been a gambler, Ellis would not have dared to tempt him! the idea of
drawing him into the daring scheme he meditated would have been rejected
as soon as conceived. To be guilty on one point is, in the opinion of depraved
minds like that of Ellis, to be guilty on all; and it gives such men boldness
to tempt and drag to ruin those in whom they see one fault of character,
though it be but as a spot on the sun, only visible from the brilliancy which
contrasts it.

`A man who will play will do any thing,' thought Ellis to himself as he
planned his temptation; and he believed what he said.

They had been at sea three days. The fine qualities of `La Guerreadora,'
which was the name of the brigantine, were fairly tested. They had run
four hundred miles in that time with comparatively light winds. It was a
moonlight night, and the vessel was bowling away on a bowline at the rate
of nine knots. The blue sea sparkled around, and the stars sparkled in the
blue skies above. The seamen were grouped forward—eight in all—while
one was singing in a fine merry tone to the tinkling of a guitar. With their
red and blue caps, bare brown arms, striped shirts and white trowers, their
appearance in the silvery moon-beams was highly picturesque. Capitan Florio,
in a broad brimmed palm hat, a white round-a-bout, and tight blue pantaloons,
closely fitting his handsome legs, was walking up and down the quarter
deck, smoking a cigar, and occasionally trumming with his lips a note to
the air sung by the sailors forward. The helmsman, also, with a cigar in his
mouth and a small scarlet cap upon his head, was at his feet. Astern, seated
upon the taffrail, was young Winter; a little below him with his head level
with his breast, reclined Ellis. They had walked aft and sat down there only
a few moments before. Winter's face was pale and firm. It wore the same
singular expression which was stamped upon it while breaking the bank.
It was plain, therefore, that he was deeply moved and earnest. He was in
the attitude of listening to Ellis, who was saying in a low yet very positive
tone,

`Now that I have said so much, I will say more!'

`I will listen to you,' said Frank, calmly. `I wish to know what plan you
are meditating. It is, I fear, some bold project!'

`You shall know. I place in you my fullest confidence, Frank, for you
see it is my life I entrust you with if you deceive me!'

`I will listen, Ellis. I shall make no promises. You have sought me.
Thrice since we left port you seem to have been sounding my views of a
free life upon the sea. I confess I did not perfectly understand you till a
few minutes since, when, as I was admiring the free, race-horse velocity of
the brigantine, as she leaped over the waves, you surprised me by saying,—
`And this noble vessel can be OURS if you say the word!' Now we have retired
here beyond hearing, I wish you to open fully to me the scheme which
you have been hinting at.'

`You will not betray me, if you do not approve of it!'

`If I do not approve it, I will freely say so!'

`I will trust you. I am sure you will sustain me, for you shall be chief!'

`Chief?'

`Not so loud! Though Don Florio doesn't speak English, he may know
some words! I will now explain to you what I intend. In a word,' here his
voice fell to the lowest audible tone, `I contemplate seizing this brigantine!'

`You jest!'

`I am not jesting, Winter! I am in earnest. The plan is perfectly feasible!
It is with this view I have been sounding you about a free life upon
the ocean wave! And you say you should like it!'

`But in my own purchased vessel, and to sail from port to port for pleasure
and love of adventure. I said not that I wished to be a pirate!'

`Don't use hard words, Frank! But it is the same thing in the end. You
would not have a free deck beneath your feet long, without doing something
else besides making a pleasure yacht of her. You'd take a fancy to chase an
Algerine trader, or come to quarters with a Tunis corsair! You'd be tempted
to take sides in some of the Spanish patriot fights, or bring a slaver to!'—
These would bring your hand in, and you would soon look upon all craft as
fair game to overhaul for your pastime!'

`You may be partly in the right, Ellis. It is a dangerous temptation!'

`Therefore, I propose that you meet the temptation half-way, and take it by
the beard, and at once set the free flag flying!'

`You are mad!'

`No. I am serious.

`Do you seriously propose to me to aid you in taking possession of this
brigantine?'

`Yes.'

Frank looked in his face steadily for a moment and was convinced. His
lips closed firmly, his eye lighted up, and his lips parted as if to reply. Suddenly
the expression of his face changed. It was as quiet and composed as
a child's. There was no visible emotion.

`Well, he said calmly; let me learn your plan.'

`Can I trust you?'

`You must do so if you wish me to join in it.'

`Well, I will trust you,' answered Ellis, slightly frowning, for he was not
satisfied with Winter's manner. `I will divulge it to you because I am satisfied
you will enter fully into it with me. My plan is this:—To seize the vessel
to night at twelve, just as the first watch is being released!'

`There are the captain, his mate, and eight men to overcome,' said Frank
quietly.

`No. Six of the men are on my side!'

Winter uttered an exclamation of incredulous astonishment.

`Hush! we shall draw attention. It is true.'

`And how did you effect this?' asked Frank, surprised at the extent to which
he had gone.

`It was all nicely settled on shore!' he said, smiling with an air of triumph.

`In Marseilles?'

`Oui, Monsieur!' answered Ellis, carelessly, `You know I and Don Florio
are old friends—'

`And so you conspire against him.'

`I have nothing against him—I conspire only against his vessel.'

`A nice distinction.'

`Very. I dined on board you know in port. Well, the very first thought
that occurred to me was, what a capital buccaneering craft she'd make!'

`Doubtless a very natural thought,' said Frank, ironically.'

To me quite so,' answered Ellis in the same tone, and trying to laugh.—
`Well once in my mind I couldn't get it out. So I let it stay and let it hatch
what it would. It so happened that when I got ashore, I met two English
sailors that had been in the Hudson when I was in her, and who had been
whipped and dismissed for something or other. I knew them at once. I

spoke to them and took them into a cafe to drink. I sounded them, and found
they were ripe for any thing. I briefly gave them an outline of what I wanted,
and the next day I persuaded Don Florio to ship them, telling him they
were my countrymen, in place of two of his men whom I bribed to run
away!'

`And did he so?'

`Yes. They are forward, dressed like the other Spanish sailors.'

`I was sure that all of the crew could not be Spaniards. `Go on,' said
Winter, his eyes darkening and his lips compressed.

`The next day I watched my time, and when Don Florio's boat's crew pulled
me and him ashore, I asked him to let me give them wine while he went
to his merchant's. I took them to a cabaret, and there treated them, and made
myself easy with them. I soon found that three of them were finished desperadoes,
and only wanted a leader to perpetrate any mischief! The fourth
I did not confide in. I got him dead drunk and insensible, then made the
other three swear to be true to me! I got Florio to discharge the drunken
fellow, and in his place, by the aid of the two English sailors, I soon supplied
Don Florio with a new hand.'

`An Englishman?'

`No, a Frenchman, but a fellow of the same grain as these.'

`And these three men and the three you corrupted are now forward?'

`Yes. That fellow who is singing in that mellow voice, is the prince of all
of them.'

`Carlos?'

`The same.'

`This is a deep and boldly laid plot, Ellis,' said Winter, after a moment's
profound silence.

`It could not have been done better.'

`I give you credit. So this was your motive in being so much on board the
brigantine. This is the secret of your mysterious absences?'

`You have it.' answered Ellis. From the very first I resolved to take passage
in this brigantine only to seize her!'

`And to aid you in the enterprise you urged me to be your fellow passenger?'

`Yes; and I have no doubt when you learn all, you will join me. I don't
intend to shed any blood!'

`Oh no!' said Winter, sarcastically.

`All peaceably!' added the mutineer leader without noticing his peculiar
tone.'

`Peaceably!' repeated Frank, in the same immoveable manner.

`Very.'

`Very!'