University of Virginia Library

7. CHAPTER VII.
THE CAPTURE.

`The manners and customs of the East must be familiar to you,
dearest cousin,' said the beautiful East Indian commencing her narrative
of the events which led to the secret union with Freemantle; `and
especially the domestic habits from my letters to you, as well as those of
my father to yours!'

`Yes, I know that all that Eastern world is a land of novelty and
mystery. It is to me a world of romance. To think of it kindles my
imagination.'

`There is, indeed much romance there. The land is very beautiful.
It is a land of flowers and birds, of beautiful trees and luxurious fruits,
of pleasant skies and gorgeous landscapes. The people, too, are in
keeping with their scenery. They ore picturesque in their costumes,
simple in their modes of life, and very imaginative. Their language
is poetry itself. The warmth of the climate causes them to live altogether
out of doors, and their gardens and verendah's answer to the
parlor and drawing-rooms, and even sleeping-rooms of your houses
here. Thus they ever have the heavens and glorious nature around
them, and in such scenes the heart expands and the more graceful attributes
of the intellect find exercise.

The dwellings are very beautiful. They are elegant and tasteful in
a degree you cannot conceive of, comparing them with the houses of
this climate. They are open night and day, windows and doors, and
the cool wind circulates freely through all parts. They are surrounded
by latticed galleries thickly shaded by running plants that emit the
most delightful fragrance. In these galleries we eat, sit and even sleep
when the nights are hotest.

The house my father dwelt in, was a little out of the town and surrounded
by the most charming gardens. The grounds sloped gently
to the harbor, and we had a view of the sea. I am speaking now of
Macao where we dwelt permanently, though my father's place of business
was at Canton up the river. If you have ever seen a gilded French
gold finches' cage with wings and galleries, you can form some notion
of our villa; especially if you imagine the gilded cage placed down in
the midst of a bed of flowers, or made the centre of a lilliputian garden.
The walls of the interior were covered with the most beautiful
paintinsg and the ceilings richly ornamented with frescos in the most
exquisite taste. The columns of the verandah was painted a pure sky-blue,
and the capitals gilded. The floors were tesselated with marbles,
and three fountains in the gardens and courts cooled the air. The

branches of the ever-green fruit trees were brilliant with their ever-renewed
fruits, and musical with the ceaseless song of birds of the most
gorgeous plumage. Slaves in flowing costumes and turbans of white
muslin with gold and silver bands intervened among the folds, were every
where in waiting to obey the slightest expression of a desire. If
the air was oppressive, still they would kneel before you and agitate
it with fans made of the feathers of the Bird of Paradise. When you
wished to go abroad they stood ready to carry you in gilded palanquins
covered with silken canopies. All was luxury, repose and elegant
indolence!'

`Alll this seems a description of some fabled land! I cannot realize
that such scenes are upon this earth! And you have been reared
among such! I can't help regarding you as a sort of Oriential Princess!
How can you be happy in this region of the north! How strange
it must seem to you to be here!'

`It is; but I have long been familiar with this land, my father's native
clime, from his own lips. And I have had as much curiosity to
see it as you have to see India! You will now see from what I have
said, dear Mary, something of the mode of life peculiar to the East.—
I have been thus particular in my description that you may the better
understand what is to follow.'

`You know my mother has been dead some years. After her death
my father devoted himself to me; but as his business rendered it necessary
that he should be much of his time at Canton, I was under the
necessity of being left at home. The wife of an English clergyman
who had died there became my governess, and so far as affection and
a sincere interest in me could go, she supplied my mother's place, who
was, you are aware, also an Englishwoman!'

`But why did not your father take you to Canton with him?'

`The Chinese you know, Mary, from some queer prejudice, forbid
by law any foreign female entering their dominions!'

`I recollect it now!'

`And it was in compliance with this regulation that my father kept
me at Macao, the place where the families of all the Canton merchants
reside!'

`But would it have been dangerous if your father had taken you to
Canton?'

`You shall hear by and by,' answered Clara with a significant smile.
`Two years ago, nearly; no, it is but a year and a half, my father left
home as usual at the beginning of the business season to go up to Canton.
I was then in my sixteeth year, and that in India is quite an advanced
period of life, I assure you; for I have had young friends marry
at fourteen!'

`At fourteen!'

`Yes. But young ladies at fourteen and fifteen in India have managed
somehow to grow as fast in that time as young ladies of a northern
clime in twenty years. They are truly as much matured in mind
and body as those here nineteen or twenty years of age! The climate
of course produces this precocity; though it is odd that the same causes
that effect the vegetable kingdom should operate upon human beings.

Young gentlemen too, at eighteen and nineteen are tall and
manly and bearded like the pard!'

`What a strange idea!'

`Well, you must know now that I was at the time I speak of quite a
young lady! I had already several admirers. Before I was fifteen I
had two offers (but this is a secret!) from English officers!'

`Can it be possible?' exclaimed the young American girl regarding
her beautiful East Indian friend with a sort of awe and curious surprise.

`Don't look quite so astonished, my dear child,' said Miss Forest
smiling. `You are quite satisfied I hope that I was quite old enough
to take care of my own heart!'

`Yes, after what you have told me! If you were not a wife you
would be quite an old maid by this time,' answered Mary playfully. `I
must be one past redemption!'

`Your beauty must ensnare some one if it has not already, Mary.'

The maiden blushed, and to conceal her embarrassment, said quickly,

`Proceed with your story, Clara. It has in its beginning all the
charm, to me, of a romance.'

`The morning but one after my father had left for Canton, I was
seated upon a shady terrace in the garden, when my attention was directed
to one of these Hindostanee proas, which occasionally came to
Macao; a vessel of a very picturesque description, with sails like wings,
and a very high stern, and a prow carved and gilded and adorned with
gay flags. She entered the harbor and taking in her sails anchored
not far from the beach at the foot of the gardens. I could see then
that she was an armed vessel and that there were a great many men on
board of her. My curiosity, in absence of other objects, led me closely
to observe what transpired on board. I could discover, by'the spy-glass
which I sent for, that there were European faces among the dark
faces on her deck; and that in the forward part of the boat there were
a great number of the Hindostance people secured as prisoners. In a
little while after the vessel came to anchor, a boat put off from her containing
an officer and rowed partly by Lascars and partly by Europeans.
The boat pulled for the pier and was soon lost to me among the other
boats that thronged it.

`In about a quarter of an hour afterwards, I saw several barges quit
the pier containing soldiers. They went on board the proa, and then
I beheld at least sixty of the Hindostanee's, that I saw bound forward,
driven into the boats and taken to the pier. In a little while the vessel
was cleared of all save the young officer I had seen first go on shore and
about twenty seamen! While I was wondering at all I had discovered,
my Indian maid came to me and seemed full of news.

`What have you heard?' I asked.

`Do you see that proa, Missis! It was that of the Hindostanee
Pirate Lef!'

`Is he taken?' I asked with surprise.

`Yes, Misses! Jebel was down at the pier and heard it all!'

`Who was this pirate Lef?' asked Mary Hood with deep earnestness.

`A noted sea-robber who had a long while infested the waters of the
East, and who commanded a fleet of a score of armed proas. Several
vessels or war had been from time to time sent after him; but he escaped

by running up the rivers where they could not follow him. Vessels of his
fleet had been destroyed frequently, but he had hitherto escaped to refit
his squadron and once more defy the cruisers sent against him. He
was a man of large stature and a terrible countenance, and possessed
wonderful power over the wills of his people. The governor-general
of India had offered a reward of ten thousand pounds for his head.'

`You must have been pleased to have known that he was taken, and
also all the people at Macao!'

`Yes. The intelligence roused my curiosity, and I felt desirous of
seeing the formidable prisoner; and that I might learn all the particulars,
I despatched a slave to the port to an elderly gentleman, an intimate
friend of my father, connected with the government, to ask him
to get the facts and let me hear them when he called in the afternoon;
for his daily practice was to drink sherbet and smoke a hookah at our
house when my father was at home, and at my request he kept up his
custom during his absence; for from him I always got all the news
going, while at the same time he acted, in some sort, as my adviser and
protector.

`The slave had not been gone long ere he returned with my kind,
good natured friend, whom he met hastening to give me the first intelligence
of the capture of the proa! From him I learned that the proa
had been captured by a young American Privateersman—'

`Freemantle?' asked Mary quickly.

`You shall learn soon, dear couzin! He said that the American
had fallen in with the proa commanded by Lef, and six others. That
the pirate's whole force had attacked him, but the American sunk three
of his vessels and disabled two others; and then laid along side of
another proa for the purpose of boarding it. He succeeded in doing
so and driving the pirates over the side; but while he was doing this
Lef's proa bore down upon the other side of the American schooner
and the pirate chief leaped on board, sword in hand followed by half
his crew and took possession of her. The American then called his
men together to recover his schooner, which he succeeded in doing,
driving Lef and his horde back to his own deck. Excited by his success,
the young Privateers-man followed it up and boarded the proa.
After an obstinate struggle he got possession of it and with his own
hand wounded and made Lef prisoner. While this was transacting,
the pirates from the other proa had mastered his own vessel and cut it
adrift. Thus was he left in possession of the chief proa and with the
pirate his prisoner; but with the mortifying sight before him of his
own beautiful vessel flying away before the wind in possession of his
foes.'

`I am all curiosity to know if this young American is Freemantle?'
said Mary with interest.

`Be patient, sweet couzin, and you shall hear,' responded the beautiful
East Indian, with a smile that confirmed the suspicion that had
arisen in the mind of the young American maiden.