University of Virginia Library

1. RINGWOOD THE ROVER.

1. CHAPTER I.

The earliest dawning of a lovely summer
day, in the year 1659, was pouring its sweet
light, unclouded yet with that fierce heat
which renders almost insupportable the noontide
hours, over the forests which encircled,
with a belt of ever-during verdure, the Spanish
city of St. Augustine. It was already in
those days a place of much importance, with
nunneries, and steepled churches, and terraced
dwellings, with white walls and jalousies
peeping from out the foliage of dark
orange groves, and all those beautiful peculiarities
of semi-Moorish taste, which lend so
much of poetry and of romance to the old
towns of Spain. It had its flanking walls,
its ditches, and its palisades, presenting their
impregnable resistance to the fierce and wily
Indian, whom the relentless cruelty of the
white colonist, of whatsoever nation, had at
length goaded into systematic and continual
hostility; in seaward bastions, with water-gate
and demilune, mounted with heavy cannon,
and garrisoned by old Castilians, under
an officer who bore the style of royal governor.

Such was the aspect of the place at the
conclusion of the first century which had
elapsed since its foundation; nurtured into
undue maturity by the stern bigotry and
energetic enterprise of that land, which had
filled the southern continent with giant-cities,
over whose ramparts floated its proud motto
of Plus Ultra, marking every spot whereon its
sons had set a foot by massacre and blood-shed
and drained from El Dorado—as they
justly termed it—these vast but fatal treasures,
which raised it for a little while above
all nations of the earth, only to plunge it in
the end into effeminacy and ruin and effete
barbarism.

The heavy dews, as they were exhaled by
the rising day god, teemed with the incense
of unnumbered perfumes wafted from the ten
thousand vegetable wonders which had given
name to that peninsula, wherein credulity,
insatiate of all that nature had bestowed with
profuse bounty, had placed the seat of all
those monstrous fictions which alchymists
had palmed upon their dupes, until they
brought themselves to deem them real. The
land-breeze swept far seaward the rich odors
from the orange groves, and the vast forests
whence gleamed frequently the snowy chalices
of the superb magnolia, and the dense
star-like blossoms of the flowering dogwood,
and colored the azure waters of the Gulf into
a thousand tiny wavelets, which sparkled
with innumerable smiles to the bright heaven,
while the thrilling and prolonged notes of
the emulous mocking-birds—nightingales of
the west, with scarce inferior song—made
everything resound with their rich liquid
melody. On earth—on ocean—and in the
cloudless ether, all was calm, lovely, peaceful
—but on the bastions of the town there was
the din of arms, the dissonant harsh clang of
mingling voices, the hurrying to and fro of
soldiery, the long roll of the drum beating to
arms in haste, blent with the piercing strain
of trumpets, and the continuous peal of bells,
rung backward, as it seemed, in token of
dismay and danger.

Beneath the yellow flag with its tri-castled
blazonry, surrounded by a group of noble-looking
men, clad for the most part in the
half-armor of the day, with much of waving
plumage, rich lace, and fair embroidery, stood
the governor, Juan Melendez de Aviles, descendant
of that Pedro, of the same noble
name, who, by an exertion of both skill and
valor, which, had they not been tarnished
by the most fiendish cruelty, would have
been deemed heroical, won for the second
Philip the fair province from the French Huguenots
of Coligny. The eyes of all that
little group were intently fixed upon the sea,

from which it would appear the apprehended
danger—if apprehended danger it were, that
gave rise to those tokens of surprise and
preparation—was most to be expected, and
in the visages of all, an evident expression
of anxiety and doubt was marked, in its least
doubtful character. But in the face of no
one there, were there such signs of perturbation
and dismay, as in that of the governor.
He was a man of large and heavy build, a
veteran of many a bloody war, with limbs
which, although deprived somewhat of agility
and lightness by the unsparing hand of time,
were cast in a mould of iron; his features
prominent, bold, and haughty, with a world
of iron resolution in the firmly compressed
mouth, and massive jaw, and a glance of
intolerable fire in the dark eye; and his bearing,
such as became a cavalier to whom the
camp and court had been alike familiar from
his first boyhood. But now his rich dress
was in disarray; a leathern shoulder-belt
with an immense two-handed sword attached
to it, and a display of cumbersome and ill-wrought
pistols thrust hastily into a broad
buff-girdle, assorted ill with a fair garb of
courtly fashion; his long hair, once as black
as jet, but now discolored with full many a
streak of wintry grey, hung in disordered
masses over his broad brow, lank, and uncurled,
and graceless—and on his brow the
perspiration stood in drops, like bubbles on
the bosom of some turbid stream—and the
deep olive tints of his complexion wore an
unnatural and ghastly hue—and, as he
grasped a powerful perspective-glass with
which he ever and anon swept the horizon,
his fingers might be seen to work in quick
convulsive twitches, as though they would
have bedded themselves into the polished
brass.

“Nothing?” he said, after a long and
wistful gaze, “I can see nothing seaward.
Yet right sure am I, that those sounds were
of far-distant ordnance. It is the twelfth too
of the month, and long ere this, the caravel
we were advised of should have been safe in
harbor. Hark! hark! heard ye not then,”
he cried, “heard ye not that dull roar to the
eastward? Pedro, Gutierrez, hearken-what
say ye, cavaliers, is 't not the voice of ordnance?”

“Past doubt, it is,” replied the elder of the
gentlemen he had addressed, “and heavy
ordnance too.”

“And lo! a sail!” exclaimed the other,
who had directed his glass instantly towards
the quarter whence the sounds proceeded,
“I marvel how we saw her not before. Here!
here, your Excellency! here! bring your
palmetto in the range of the east angle of the
demilune, and you will catch her! Now, by
St. Jago, I can see her to the courses; three
tiers of wide-spread canvas!”

“I have her now,” replied Melendez,
thoughtfully, “I have her now. 'Tis she;
it is El Santo Espiritu, past doubt; but wherefore
was she firing? Pray Heaven, these
cursed English, these infernal rovers, be not
upon her track!”

“I fear me much it is so,” answered Gutierrez.
“I fear me much it is so; for ever
and anon, I fancy I catch glimpses, as they
rise upon the waves, of smaller sails behind,
and further yet to the eastward. Lo! now
in range with you skiff upon the beach—
there! it has sunk again—and now, again,
I catch it!”

“Ay! and again she fires! pray Heaven
she have the heels of them; once under our
guns, she were in safety from any armament
which they can bring against her!”

Meanwhile the vessel, which had been
first seen hull-down in the far offing, was
rising rapidly as she drew near, not having
met as yet the counter-influence of the land-breeze—but
scarce less rapidly rose, one by
one, the smaller barks, which had at first
escaped the notice of the eager and excited
watchers; until five low and rakish craft
might be distinctly seen in chase of the tall
frigate. One somewhat larger than the rest,
three-masted, but of the same sharp and
picarooning build, was now so near astern,
that she was able to keep up a constant firing
from her bow-guns, which the caravel returned
with her stern chasers; though it was
evident by the rate at which she rode the
waves, staggering along with every stitch of
sail set that could draw, that she was most
sincerely anxious to avoid close action with
her diminutive antagonist. An hour had
elapsed at most since she had been at first
made out; and had there been anything of
real doubt as to the nation of the frigate, or
the character of her pursuers, that doubt was
now entirely at an end; for at the distance
of about five miles, by the aid of strong
glasses, it was not difficult to note the castled
bows and poop of the tall caravella, bristling
with culverin and demi-cannon, or to distinguish
the proud bearings of Castile upon
the yellow colors which, in the hope perhaps
of bringing help and succor from the friendly
fort and city, she wore not only at her three
mastheads, but at the bowsprit-end, and some
six or seven other points conspicuous in her
rigging. Meanwhile, the foremost of the
chasing squadron had hoisted at her peak the
snowy field of England, with the broad
bright St. George's cross, while at each one
of her masts' heads a bloody flag with the
black skull and cross bones proclaimed her
real character.

And now the agony of Juan de Melendez
had become fearfully, intensely visible; to
and fro upon the narrow esplanade above the
water-gate, with quick, uneven steps, and
features haggard with excitement, did he
stalk during that long hour; now pausing
for an instant to note the progress of the chase,
and now with a despairing gesture again resuming
his distracted walk—his officers surveying
him the while with looks denoting
deep commiseration, but more of that surprise,
which must have been felt by men
ignorant of the cause of his strange gestures
and bewildered mien.

“She will escape them yet! Be of good
cheer,” cried one, a young and noble-looking
gallant, “be of good cheer, your Excellency;
she brings the sea-breeze up with her right
manfully!”

“Aye doth she,” cried another, “for the
nonce; but wait till she strike the counter-blast;
lo! you may see it ruffling the surface
now within a mile of her!”

“And when she doth,” exclaimed the
younger officer, “she can beat in, I trow;
tack and tack, merrily; and they can but
beat after her. Why in half an hour more
she will be safe here, under our batteries!”

“Not so! not so!” cried Juan de Melendez,
mournfully, “she never will lie here at
anchor any more, if she trust to her sails!
Curse on the fool Davila, that turns not on
that paltry picaroon, and crushes her at three
broadsides before her consorts may come up!
See you not, Pedro, and see you not, Diego,
who art a mariner so skilful—see you not
that the sea-breeze even now has failed them,
and that the land-wind dies away momently?
God! God of my fathers! that we must stand
here helpless, and strike no blow in her behalf.
Yet! yet! if he would tack, while
he hath way upon her, he might engage the
pirate yard-arm to yard-arm, and so quell
him; but even now he loses; he hath lost
it! His sails flap idly to the mast; it is dead
calm! Fool! fool! accursed fool! and he
hath anchored.”

“But it is no less calm for them! picaroons
though they be, and manned by devils,
yet cannot they make sail, more than the
caravella!”

“Look!” was the sole reply of the wellnigh
distracted governor—“Look!”—and it
needed but a glance to show that the ill-fated
frigate had now, indeed, no hope but in the
vigor of her own defence—for low and light,
and built no less for oars than sails, the wind
had scarcely left them, a half league at the
most astern of the Spaniard, ere they had
furled their lateen sails, and getting out their
sweeps, came up scarce slower than before,
crowded with men whose weapons might be
seen momentarily glancing to the broad sunshine.

“My child—great God—my child!” cried
Juan de Melendez, his pale features writhing
with horrible intensity of anguish—“Would,
would that thou wert dead, Teresa! And is
all lost?—is all lost, gentlemen? Shake not
your heads, look not so gloomily upon me;
can ye devise no scheme, no hope, no possibility—and
yet how should ye, when we
have neither boat nor even store enough of
pirogues in the bay, to bear them any succor?
Oh! would, would Heaven, that I had died,
I care not how disgracefully, so that I were
but dead, ere I had been so fettered here, to
look thus helpless on the murder of my comrades—the
worse than murder of mine innocent
and lovely child! and thou, Don Amadis,
thou who hast dared to lift the eyes of
love to her—canst thou stand statuelike and
strike no blow for her? Canst thou endure
almost to hear the shrieks, almost to look
upon the form, of her thou wouldst have
wedded, writhing in agony in the foul arms
of the licentious buccaneer! A man! a gentleman!
ha! ha! a soldier—ha! ha! ha! a
man, a gentleman, a soldier, and an old Castilian
look tamely on the violation of his
bride, before the very eyes of her insulted
father!”

“Answer him not, Don Amadis”—the grey-haired
veteran Pedro interposed—“answer
him not, I pray; this is sheer madness—the
pardonable madness of parental anguish!—
And you, Sir Juan”—he continued, turning
half-frantic to the governor—“think you not
if we were to clear the long guns of the
southern bastion, we might yet drive those
picarooning scoundrels from their prey—methinks
the caravella lies even now within
their range?”

“No! no! you but deceive yourselves—
there is no hope! none! none! Nathless we
may essay it—and see, Davila hath slipped
even now his cables, hath got his boats out,
and tows cheerily towards us. Away there,
ye knave cannoniers, clear the long culverins,
ourselves, we will go down and point
them.” And with these words, followed by
all his train, he hastily rushed down the narrow
stairway of the rampart, passed through
the sally-port, and in a moment was engaged
among the guns, with an anxiety and zeal
that for a moment quelled his mental agony.

The caravella now was but a short mile
from the seaward batteries, towed by the
whole strength of her crew, rowing with that
tremendous energy which the consciousness
that all is centred in his own exertions, lends to
the meanest and the feeblest man that draws
the breath of life! One half mile more
would have ensured her safety. It was a

fearful chase! So close behind her was the
best manned and largest of the picaroons,
that now the fire, which had been for awhile
suspended, again became hot, animated, and
destructive. And now the mizen of the
caravel came thundering, with all its hamper,
over her groaning side, encumbering her
fatally, and lessening her way through the
calm waters; while at the sight a long, loud
yell of savage exultation burst from the desperadoes
who had wrought that ruin, and
penetrated even to the ears of the appalled
spectators. Hitherto no opportunity had been
given to the Spaniards on the fortress for
firing a gun in aid of their companions; since
the three-masted galley, conscious of her advantage,
kept herself by her sweeps and oars
under the stern of the tall frigate, raking her
fore and aft by a continual fire of her single
gun, a culverin of the first class, avoiding
thus alike the heavy ordnance of her broadside,
and the yet heavier metal of the batteries
which were deterred from firing lest they
should injure their own friends! But now
two other of the pirates, which, in the chase,
had made each a long circuit on the starboad
and larboard tacks, keeping as much as possible
out of the frigate's range, having shot
far ahead of her, changed suddenly their
course, putting their bows each right towards
the other, and pulling with great speed to cut
her off from her desired haven. On these, at
the same instant, opened the frigate's fire,
gun after gun from both broadsides, a fierce
incessant cannonade! and the tremendous
salvo of the batteries. The whole shores
seemed to rock with the concussion! the little
air there had been heretofore, stilled by
the fearful shock, sank utterly; and, ere ten
minutes had elapsed, the surface of the water
was covered by a dense mass of volumed
smoke, so closely packed that not an eye of
all who gazed so fearfully upon the scene,
could note vessel, or boat, or any living being,
though still from out the vapory cloud
the glare of the incessant cannonading might
be seen crimsoning the misty wreaths, which
every shot angmented.

“Hold! hold!” after awhile exclaimed
Melendez, “let the smoke lift, this random
firing goes for naught; let it lift, we shall see
anon!”

And at his orders instantly the firing from
the battery stopped, but not for that did the
dense vapors lift at all from the still surface
of the waters, nor did the prospect brighten
—fed constantly as were those murky clouds
by the continual cannonading of the vessels,
which in no degree ceased or abated. If the
sight had been anxious heretofore, the interest
appalling, when every motion of assailant
or assailed might be distinctly noticed,
what must have been the anguish now, the
agony of expectation, when the fierce work
of death was doing at their very doors, under
the muzzles of their cannon, and they might
neither see nor judge by any sense or sign, to
which side fortune was inclining. The first
sound that attracted any near attention, was
the quick dash of oars close to the beach;
and, as each countenance was instantly directed
to the jouful echo, boat after boat of
those—it needed not a second glance to tell
it—which had been last seen towing shoreward
El Santo Espiritu, loomed through the
dusky veil, and, almost as they came in
sight, grated upon the shingly beach; while
their crews, throwing down their oars, rushed
madly up the slope in desperate confusion
towards the sally-port.

“Ten thousand curses on the dogs!”
fiercely hissed Juan de Melendez through his
hard set teeth; “they have deserted her! but
not the better shall they fare for that! level
your arquebuses, guard; depress your culverins;
sweep the deserting scoundrels from
the earth!”

But to his fiery command no answer was
returned, and no obedience rendered; for
during the last pause the firing had sunk, and
from the bosom of the smoke, wild cheers,
and all the tumult of heavy fight, were now
distinctly audible. In a few seconds' space,
the vapors gradually lightened, so that the
vessels might be seen, though faintly, clustered
together in close contact. Anon the
breeze came up again, fitful at first and faint,
but freshening at every moment; and then,
whirled upward from the now rippling waters,
the smoky masses were swept boldly to leeward,
leaving the whole of the bright bay,
the verdant shores, and the pure heavens rejoicing
in the gorgeous sunshine.

Far in the middle of that bay lay the devoted
caravella, her sheets loosened and her
canvas flying disorderly and wild, while grappling
to her sides, her stern, her bows, the
low barques of the pirates hemmed her in,
their savage crews mounting her bulwarks
in resistless numbers, their brandished weapons
glancing to the sun, and their appalling
yells deadening the hearts of all who heard
them. Unharmed by the guns from the too
distant ramparts, the light picaroons had succeeded
in cutting in between the frigate and
her boats, leaving no chance of safety to the
latter but precipitate and sudden flight, and
to the former no hope, save the precarious
chances of a pirate's mercy. Nor was it
long in doubt to the spectators what was that
mercy; for ere the fight, or massacre, more
properly, upon her decks had ceased, the
wily desperadoes anchored just without cannon
shot; and as the Spanish ensign was
torn down, amid a tumult of tremendous
exultation, man after man of the defendants

was hurled overboard, so that their terror-stricken
countrymen upon the battlements
might see the waters, ever as they fell, lashed
into froth and spray by the ferocious
sharks, which, taught by their voracious instincts
the consequence of battle, seized each
one as he touched the surface, tugging and
snapping at each other for every palpitating
morsel. And still more terrible than this the
howls of men—howls, such as nothing but
the utmost and most excruciating tortures
could force from human lips—mixed with the
shriller and more piteous shrieks of women,
told that the fate of those, who had become a
prey to the disgusting fish, was but a boon
of mercy when compared with the more awful
doom of those preserved from the first carnage
to satiate the victors' love of blood or beauty.

All day long did this fearful sight continue—all
day long were the heavens polluted
by the atrocious deeds they were compelled
to witness, pierced by the frantic cries of
those who called on them in vain for succor
or for mercy. The evening was now drawing
nigh, although, perhaps, some three hours
yet remained of daylight, when by a simultaneous
movement of the frigate's decks, it
might be judged that some new project had
been fixed on by the buccaneers. Nor were
the garrison devoid, if not of absolute fear, at
least of much anxiety; since it was evident
that their relentless enemies were in great
force, not counting less, as they might calculate,
from the known habits of the Caribbean
pirates of stowing, in their long barques, as
many men as possibly could be contained in
them, than seven hundred, or perhaps a thousand
soldiers; more fighting men than which
St. Augustine could not, at that day, have
turned out, though to preserve herself from
utter ruin. Nor was it contrary by any means,
or foreign to the policy of these far-dreaded
rovers to attack villages, or even forts and
cities, when in sufficient numbers to render
success probable, and when enough of plunder
or of licentious pleasure might be looked
forward to, as the result of their bold daring!
A levy of the citizens en masse was instantly
resorted to, arms were distributed, even among
the slaves, whose terrors, not inferior to those
of their masters, rendered it safe to trust them
with the weapon, which, at another time,
they would have probably directed against
the bosoms of the givers. Cannon were
levelled, ammunition piled by every gun, and
all precautions taken which could ensure a
desperate resistance. The pallor and the
gloom had passed away from the dark visage
of Melendez, with the uncertainty which had
so terribly distracted him. Sure as he felt
himself now to be, that she, his treasured
child, the only being on whom his stern soul
doated, had endured the last and most appal
ling woe that can befall a woman! that now
her agonies—her innocence—her woes were
at an end for ever! he had again resumed his
soldierly and high demeanor! His face was
deeply flushed, and his eyebrows contracted
over the fiery orbs they shaded, till these
could scarcely have been noted but for the
flashes of fierce light which they, at times,
shot forth. His lips alone were pale and
ashy, so violent was their compression over
his clenched teeth!

“Would God,” said he, when every preparation
was concluded, “would God, that they
might try it! So should they feel a father's
vengeance.”

Nor did it seem improbable that his vengeful
prayer would be immediately and fully
granted; for now the pirate-barques might be
observed to put off, one by one, from the dismantled
and abandoned frigate; a single
small boat only waiting, as it would seem,
for their commander. Diverging slowly, and
in opposite directions, but carefully preserving
a safe distance from the batteries, they
came to anchor each after each, the nearest
about half a mile from their prize; and as
the last swung round, the crew of the remaining
skiff were seen getting, in all haste, to
their oars. By aid of their naked eyes, the
Spaniards now beheld a group of officers appear
upon the bulwarks of the caravel, from
which were lowered instantly three figures,
two of which were females, into the cutter at
the gangway. All, then, passed over the
ship's side, but one, who disappearing for a
moment through the cabin hatch, returned
bearing a lighted flambeau; deliberately then
he set on fire, in some twenty different places,
the slighter cordage and the sails of the ill-fated
ship, and ere he glided down a rope
into his boat, the forked tongues of flame
might be seen darting up the shrouds and
masts like fiery serpents; and in a few short
minutes, the whole of that magnificent and
stately fabric, which had so lately walked the
waters like a thing of life, was one huge
pyramid of roaring and devouring flame.
Strongly and rapidly did that boat's crew
give way, and little time enough had they to
place themselves in safety; for fired already
in the hold before they left her, they had not
traversed half the space between her and
their nearest barque, before, with an explosion
that might be heard leagues away into
the pathless forest, startling the wild beast
and the wilder Indian in his lair, and with a
wide and circling glare that for an instant
made the broad daylight pallid, the caravel
blew up! A mass of pitchy smoke settled for
a short space upon the water where she lay,
and as it drifted seaward, a few rent planks
and mouldering spars were all remaining of
that noblest work of man's invention.

After a little while, the skiff came to under
the lee of the three-masted picaroon, and nothing
more was seen by the excited Spaniards,
until a burst of flame from a bow-port of the
felucca, and the dull roar of an unshotted
gun, woke their attention. With the report,
down came the English ensign from the fore,
down came the red flag from her peak, and
in succession a broad white field, in sign of
truce and amity, waved in the place of each.
Upon the signal, each in succession of the
pirates fired a leeward gun, and hoisted a
white flag; and next, ere half an hour had
elapsed, all the boats of the squadron, twenty
at least in number, might be seen to put off
from the barques, each bearing the same amicable
signal at their bows; and after joining,
which they did at the first practicable point,
to pull on steadily, in beautiful and accurate
array, towards the shore.

Eagerly did the Spaniards watch these
singular manœuvres, and with keen scrutiny
did they observe each several barge; but it
was not until they had arrived within a short
space of the beach, that they might make out
clearly the forms and features of those who
occupied them. Nor could they as yet do
this to their satisfaction, when observing that
no flag of truce was displayed from the ramparts,
they became stationary, just without
the surf, pulling a stroke or two at times
merely to hold their own, for the tide was
now fast ebbing. Scarce had they halted,
before a figure rose up in the bow of the
central boat—a powerful barge pulling with
forty oars—and waving a white flag about
his head, shouted some words, which did not
reach, however, the ears for which they were
intended, although there could be no doubt
of their import.

“Shall we respond to their signal, fair
Senor?” exclaimed the veteran Diego; “I
trow 'twere best to answer them! it may be
well; they hold some of our friends to ransom!”

“No truce; no flag!” fiercely replied Melendez,
“I waited but to get them within our
point blank range! take good sight, cannoniers!
look to your match! fi—”

“Hold! for God's sake, hold!” cried young
Don Amadis, leaping before the muzzle of the
gun, and grasping by the arm the impetuous
governor.

“See you not there,” and with the eyes almost
starting from his head, and lips apart,
and outstretched hands, he pointed to the
signal boat. “See you not it is she?”

Slowly Melendez caught his meaning—
turned his glass towards the barge, wherein
the quick eye of the youthful lover had detected
the form of his intended bride—dropped
it from his unnerved and powerless hand, and
with a quick shrill cry, “My daughter—my
Teresa!” sank helpless as a child into the
arms of his attendants; while, catching instantly
their cue, the cannoniers flung down
their linstocks, and in three minutes' time a
flag of truce was waving in the place of Castile's
gorgeous blazonry.

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 throaghout 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 strip
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 arquebuse
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 now, and
torn from its symmetrical arrangement, flowed
in dishevelled masses over her neck and
shoulders; while one or two stray stresses
falling upon a bosom, that might have vied
in beauty with that of the Medicean Venns,
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 stript 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 unsandalled 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, notwithstanding, was so
admirably rounded, his waist so slender, and
all his limbs so 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
licentiousness, effrontery, 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 greyish
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 further
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 sleeveless 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, thrown over his right
shoulder, supported 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 minutes, 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 about 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
practised 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 anything 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 recognise 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 anything?
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 endure—and the alternative scarce
less appalling!

The agony, the mute, despairing, ghastly torture
depicted in every speaking feature—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 heartrending 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 alone have
thus far sustained me, blighted though 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 more 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 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 women to dishonor! Ask anything
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 El 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—I 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,
springing 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 hold 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-barrelled
arquebuse 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 practised 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 perilled 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 a sea-bird's wing over the sparkling billows,
by 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, towards 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 towards
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
greyheaded 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 shriek
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 dishevelled, and her large
dark eyes glaring terribly, rushed up the narrow
steps, and stood unveiled with all her garments
in wild disarray, among the 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, unsparing desperadoes, who, though
they shuddered at they 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
scarcely 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
insuring by that blow, more certainly than
ever, 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 arquebuse,
and rapier, under 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 at once
have discovered as nothing worth—for well
did Juan Melendez know the unbending spirit,
the tameless, heaven-daring pride, the dauntless
valor of the man who stood beforr 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, mingled with fears, if possible,
more frantic, the 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 piety—
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 towards 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! Wild 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 ghastiless,
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 grey 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, “painful, although
it be, and bitter, I too have my duty.”

He gave 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 towards 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 had been forced from the
bastions forcibly, before 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 eastles 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!

3. CHAPTER III.

Well was it for the buccaneers, that the wind
died away, which had brought into sight so
rapidly the Spanish caravellas; for had the
four tall frigates which, deserted by the sea
breeze, were soon obliged to drop their anchors
at the very entrance of the bay, four miles at
least from the vessels of the pirates—been able
to run in, the small light picaroons of the Rovers,
heavily armed although they were in
proportion to their rate and burden, would
have stood but a sorry chance, hemmed in
between the heavy batteries of those floating
castles to the seaward, and the yet heavier
cannon of the ramparts, should they attempt to
run into shoal water.

It was evident, moreover, that the newly-arrived
ships were already in no small degree
suspicious of the character and intentions of
the squadron moored in shore; as appeared
from the quick interchange of signals, between
the Spanish flag-ship, which was the first to
anchor, and her comrades. In obedience to
these signals, the four tall vessels came to anchor,
all nearly in a line, at equal distances
across the harbor, so as to render escape difficult,
if not impossible—and in a few moments
afterward, in consequence of a fresh signal
shown at the mast-head, a second cable was
carried out from the stern of every frigate, and
she was warped round, till she lay broadside
to the bay with all her frowning batteries commanding
the long expanse of water, across
which the picaroons must sail exposed to their
raking fire, if they should seek to force a
passage. The distance and the apparently
hopeless position of the buccaneers preventing
the Spaniards, as it would seem, from sending
their boats' crews to ascertain their character,
if not to cut them out and capture them.

It must not be supposed that it took the
keen and practised intellect of Ringwood so
long a time to apprehend his own position, and
the intentions of the enemy, as it has occupied
us to describe them. On the contrary, they
had not dropped their anchors, before he had
envisaged fully the extent of his own danger,
and calculated accurately the chances of effecting
his escape, under circumstances which
seemed so unpromising. Forming his men
into four columns, he commanded them to retreat
by turns, one body facing the ramparts
with levelled arquebuse, and pike in rest,
while another fell back, till they had all reached
the gravelly margin of the bay. Then
judging from the movements on the walls and
above the gate, that a sally was about to be
attempted, he strode out alone, till he was
within earshot, and then shouted aloud—

“Beware!—beware how ye raise gate, or
lower bridge, or do but so much as to threaten
our retreat!—for as ye do so, by Him who
knoweth all things! the fate of this crushed
clay,”—and he pointed with a meaning smile
to the dead body of the young Melendez—“the
fate of this crushed clay shall be a lot of perfect
bliss compared with that which shall light
on your sweet daughter!” And with the
words he fell back slowly to his men, the
greater part of whom were already on board
their boats, leaving the Spaniards dispirited,
and faint, and sick with hope deferred. Within
a short half hour, the whole flotilla was in
motion, dashing up the clear azure of the
peaceful bay, with hundreds of strong oars,
and ere the hour was well accomplished, each
picaroon had received its complement, had
hoisted in its boats, and lay, all hands at quarters,
ready for action.

When Ringwood reached the deck of his
felucca, ordering that his captive should be
conveyed without delay to his own private
cabin, he took to his perspective glass and
gazed steadily and long toward the Spanish caravellas,
and far beyond them towards the open
sea.

“A mist!” he cried anon, after examining
both sea and sky with anxious scrutiny—“a
mist, coming in slowly from the seaward!—
masthead there!—signalize the captains of the
squadron to come aboard me here to council,”—and
with the word up went three balls
to the masthead, and bursting as they reached
the summit, streamed out for one moment
three bright contrasted signals. Within five
minutes after, a little cutter might be seen to be
launched from the side of every picaroon, and
darting towards the principal felucca, as fast as
oars could urge it through the water; yet still
the Rover swept the horizon round and round
with his telescope, minutely watching every
sign and symptom of the weather, fixing his
gaze most constantly on a point directly landward,
where just above the tree-tops one small
dark cloud with snow-white edges was visible
—quite motionless—and unconnected, as it
seemed, with any mass of vapor, the single
frown of the bright laughing heavens—the
single frown, full of dread menace. Just as

the first of the small pinnaces came alongside,
his scrutiny was ended, and he closed his
glass, saying to himself with a quiet smile of
satisfaction:

“A mist forthwith from the sea-ward—and
when the sunset is fully passed, a hurricane
and land tornado! Ha! Master Cunninghame,”
he added, as his second in command
stepped on board, a handsome, fresh-complexioned,
fair-haired Saxon. “Ha! Monsieur Le
Fort—welcome, good friends and comrades
Winslow and Drake! welcome, friends, all!
I have convoked you hither to study how we
may escape scot-free from these toils, that now
seem set so close about us. And before heaven!—I
hold the clue, my masters. See ye,
how dark this sea-mist is now gathering?
The Spaniards must lie still till it blow over
—and then look yonder, to the bright edges
of yon black cloud. Ere midnight we shall
have a land tornado—then must you Spanish
lubbers slip their stern cables, and swing head
to sea; and then will we run up to them
under slight storm-sails, and, it may be, slip
by them unperceived in the deep gloom—if
not engage them and force passage. Lo! here,
my masters, when I shall fire a bow gun hold all
ready to cut or slip your cables! and when
I hoist three lanthorns at my main, then run!
You, Drake and Winslow, since that your
vessels draw least water, steer you betwixt the
headlands of the hay, on the right hand and
left, and those two outward frigates. I will
steer straight between the central two; ye,
Cunninghame and Le Fort, make good your
way between the others, on either hand of
me—when ye are all at sea, fire each a weather
gun, and burn a blue light and three rockets—then
each make all sail for the inlet,
and so huzza for home! And one word
more, my friends, before we part—it will blow
sturdily, I warrant me—send down all light
spars and top hamper—have your ships snug
and easy, with naught abroad but a small rag
of head-sail, so to steer. Have out your
sweeps, too,—to get yourselves before the
wind, if need be—none may tell certainly
where the tornado may strike first—farewell,
be brave and fortunate, and see ye reach
your vessels ere this fog commence, since of
a surety ye scarce will find their berths, when
once the mist gets settled. So, my friends,
once more, fare ye well!”

And with these words, accustomed long
ago to place complete reliance on the opinion
of that skilful navigator, and to yield with instinctive
readiness to his least mandate, his
four commanders entered their boats, and
hurried to their several vessels, although in
truth they saw no symptoms—even when
pointed out by his unerring judgment—of
the approaching changes in the weather which
their great chief prognosticated so decidedly.
Not long was it, however, that they doubted,
if indeed it may be said that they did doubt at
all; for though they marvelled, and looked
anxiously about to note some confirmation
of their leader's prophecy, they did not for a
moment presume to doubt their leader's accuracy—for
ere they had all reached their vessels,
the thin haze which had for some time
floated on the extreme horizon's edge, grew
thick and heavy—and by and by came rolling
onward in deep and ponderous masses,
although no breath of air could be discovered,
by which it was urged landward; and
the whole atmosphere grew damp and watery.
Then one by one the caravellas of the enemy
were swallowed up in the dense gloom, and
then their own low rakish picaroons became
so indistinct and dim, that those which lay
furthest from the felucca of the great English
buccaneer were not reached by their officers
without much difficulty and some hazard.
Long before sunset, nothing was visible from
the deck of any one of that small pirate squadron,
but the calm surface of the unmoved sea,
and that within a circle of only some fifty
yards at the utmost, beyond which all was one
dead drowsy mass of impenetrable vapor.
Yet so well had the officers taken the bearings
of the enemy, of the headlands, and of their
consorts, that there was not one of their number
who was not as fully acquainted with the
position of everything about him, as he could
have been had the whole scene been laughing
out in clear broad sunshine.

All day the crews were mustered, and toiling
at their several stations, and night was advanced
somewhat, ere all the preparations
were completed; the loftier spars sent down,
the masts housed safely, and the lighter sails
unbent, the rigging taughtened, and the masts
fortified with preventers against the coming
tempest; the guns run out and loaded, the
matches lighted, and the armed crews at quarters;
the heavy sweeps already in the water
and ready, at a word's notice, to be worked
by powerful strong-handed gangs; the carpenter
and his stout mates, prepared with
their broad axes to sever the strong cables at a
blow, and let the gallant barks shoot sea-ward!

The sun had long since sunk into the
waves, and the deep palpable obscure of night
been added to the gloom of the thick fog-wreaths—no
stars were in the sky, no moon,
“hid in her vacant interlunar cave,” hung
forth her silver lamp in the dark vault; for
clouds, heavy and packed and solid, had long
since overspread the sky, though not a human
eye had marked them, swelling from out that
one small spot of vapor, till they had blotted
out each light of the broad empyrean, from
the horizon upward to the zenith. Midnight
was near at hand—when a deep, rumbling
roar, as of ten thousand chariots rolling upon

a strong causeway, rushed up from the landward;
and, after filling the air for some short
space, sank gradually down into a faint, sick
moan—unlike to any sound of earth, or air, or
water. It ceased; and as it did so the sharp
and ringing discharge of a long brazen culverin
burst in a sheet of flame from the lee bow-port
of the Rover's galley—and scarcely had its
echoes died away, before a wide, blue sulphurous
glare seemed to rush downward bodily
from the black skies with such a roar of thunder,
crash upon crash, and peal succeeding
peal, as stunned the sternest soul. In a moment,
in the twinkling of an eye, the misty
wreaths were swept sea-ward and vanished;
leaving, however, the night quite as dark as
ever; and as they did so, up shot to Ringwood's
mainmast head three glittering lanthorns—sparkled
there for a moment—and
were quenched instantly, by the fierce whirling
breath of the tornado. Bearing on its mad
pinions huge limbs fresh rent from the tall
forest trees, whirling the level surface of the
calm bay into a series of huge and snow-capped
billows, and anon sweeping away the
heads of those vast waves, and beating them
down bodily into the deep, till the whole
bosom of the sea was one wide, white expanse
of scattering, hissing spray—roaring and
howling—yea! yelling in its furious might
—soon came the tropical tornado! But every
cable was cut sheer, before it struck the
water, throughout the Rover's squadron—the
sweeps were out and manned; the picaroons
all under weigh and steering, when the fierce
blast fell on their naked spars and scanty canvas,
and drove them, like beings full of fiery
life, bounding across the waters.

When the mist cleared away, the Spanish
caravellas were descried, not by their outlines
—for no human eye could trace an outline
against the swart gloom of the sky—but by
the broad glare of the battle lanthorns, gleaming
out from their open port-holes, as they
lay broadside towards the bay, all manned
and cleared for action; so that her course
was definite and clear to each one of the picaroons.

But when the dreadful howl of the tornado
came raving through the tortured air, their
stern springs were all slipped at once, and
they came heavily round, head to sea, upon
the instant; and more cable was paid out;
and though they rolled and labored fearfully,
yet they rode still secure, amid the frightful
uproar.

No light was seen, no voice or sound was
heard on deck of any one of Ringwood's squadron;
as driving with the speed of light before
the raging hurricane, they neared the lofty
Spaniards—but loud and violent was the confusion
and the din aboard the castled caravellas.
Unseen and unsuspected, leading the
van of his little fleet, the Rover rushed into
the space between the central frigates, and so
rapidly did he shoot through, betwixt those
motionless and vast masses, that the scared
crews had scarcely time to note his transit;
yet did the fearful volley, which he poured
forth from each broadside, as he rushed past,
plunge fatally and fast into their clustered masts
—and when they sprang in tarn to their guns,
and fired their answering salvos, the picaroon
had shot already a cable's length ahead, and
the two Spanish ships received each other's
shot, thinning their crews more fatally than
had the Rover's broadside, cutting away their
rigging, piercing their castled sides, and shearring
their spars fearfully of their dimensions.
Under the cover of this disastrous chance,
Cunninghame and Le Fort passed undiscovered,
with their guns undischarged, within
half pistol shot on the outside of these same
two caravellas; and when the Rover, half a
mile now to sea-ward, fired his weather gun,
burnt his blue lights, and sent his rockets up
kindling the murky skies with their clear
sparkles, these two responded on the instant,
with ready tokens of their safety. Almost at
the same point of time a heavy cannonade
was heard from the two outward caravellas,
and scarce ten minutes later, the two remaining
picaroons signalled their comrades through
the gloom.

Such was the desperate and daring feat,
long famous as the master deed of naval warfare
in that remote and early age, by which
the English buccaneer ran, with five petty
picaroons, the gauntlet of Spain's noblest caravellas,
in safety and triumph—losing no man,
no spar, no rope, how trivial it might be soever,
bearing his captive with him, and leaving to
his baffled foes sorrow, and anguish, and despair.

Ere long the hurricane subsided, but still
the breeze blew swift, and sure, and steady—
and swiftly danced the roving barques before
it. All night it blew, and all night long the
Rover paced the deck; but when the daylight
broke over the foaming ocean, and when he
swept the free horizon with his glass, and
saw his coasorts dancing merrily behind him,
and not a sail save theirs in sight, whether of
foe or stranger, he gave his deck in charge to
the next officer, and sought his private cabin,
and his unhappy captive.

4. CHAPTER IV.

The cabin into which, with the break of
day Ringwood descended, was, according to
invariable custom, situate in the extreme after

part of the vessel, so as to enjoy to the utmost
the advantage afforded by the stern lights for
cheerfulness and ventilation. In its other
arrangements, however, it differed not a little
from the similar apartments in ships of war
of that, or indeed any other day. All the
guns, which were carried by the low light
picaroon, were on her upper deck; which,
somewhat in advance of the marine architecture
of the times, was perfectly flush from
stem to stern—by this arrangement the whole
interior of the vessel was reserved, free from
the incumbrance of the batteries, for the accommodation
of the numerous crew, and for
the needful stores of food and war munitions,
and as its sub-divisions were not, as has been
said above, conformable to ordinary practice,
it will not be superfluous to give a brief
description of their fashion and appliances.

In the first place, then, be it observed, that
the cabin companion, instead of being situate
abaft the mizen, was placed about half way
betwixt that spar and the mainmast—the stairway
which it contained opening into a narrow
space, between two musket-proof bulkheads,
perforated with loopholes and crenelles for shot
of arquebuse or carbine. In the forward of
these partitions, which ran entirely across the
vessel, there was no aperture whatever, except
the shot-holes above mentioned—in the
centre of the other, however, was a low steel-clenched
door-way, before which a sentinel
stood on duty with his firelock loaded night
and day; while a second, similarly armed,
kept guard on deck by the companion hatch.
This portal, framed like the bulkheads, of
timber so thick as to be musket proof, gave
entrance to a narrow passage, running fore and
aft, between the armorer's and gunner's store
rooms, and through another strong door to the
ward-room or apartment of the officers, under
which general term were included all the classes
superior to the private marines, with no
distinction as to warrant or commission. This
was a large, low space, occupying the whole
width, and about twenty feet of the length of
the vessel, fitted with a long table in the centre,
above which there swung from the ceiling
a compass, and several lamps. The sides
were occupied by berths sufficiently commodious;
while a range of lockers, covered with
cushions of rich velvet, so as to wear the
semblance of a superb divan, ran round the
whole apartment. The light was admitted,
not, as is usual, through a skylight, but by a
range of small glazed apertures pierced
through the sides like port-holes, and like
them provided with massive shutters, which
might be battened down in rough and stormy
weather, or in time of action. When it is
added to this, that the deck which formed
the floor was covered by a splendid carpet from
the Turkish loom—that the curtains of the
berths were of the richest arras tapestry—that
two large beaufets of some costly Indian
wood were decked with gorgeous plate, flagons,
and goblets, covers, and cups, and tankards, of
gold and silver, carved and embossed with the
best art of Italy's best sculptors—and that, in
wondrous contrast to the luxurious decoration
of the room, offensive weapons of every shape
and every construction, were disposed ready to
meet the hand, wherever any vacant space
was left for their arrangement—a very fair
idea may be formed of the wild blending there
displayed of almost regal pomp with warlike
preparation. Thus round the mainmast was
suspended, in a fair gilded rack, a stand of
partisans with shafts of ebony, and blades,
two feet in length, of brightly polished steel.
Upon the bulkheads, at each end of the apartment,
pistols and carbines, loaded and primed,
and ready for immediate service, and Turkish
yatagans, Damascus cimiters, blades of Bilboa
and Toledo, with Malay creases, Scottish
dirks, and poniards of Italian fabric, all glittering
with golden chasings and bright gems,
were placed in fantastical devices, of stars, and
suns, and crescents, reflecting every beam of
light, and almost rivalling in splendor the
luminaries in whose forms they had been
modelled. Besides this common stock, to every
column parting the sleeping berths, was attached
a complete panoply—with fascinet, cuirass,
and buckler, pistols and boarding axe, and
broadsword of the most choice material and
construction. It was apparent at a glance,
that this, the quarter of the officers, must also
be regarded as the stronghold, the citadel as it
were, of the ship. It might perhaps be conjectured
likewise, from the arrangements, that
the occupants of this magnificent apartment
were not entirely free from some touch of
jealousy, if not apprehension, as regarded the
good faith of their subordinates. The upper
bulkhead, parting the captain's cabin from the
ward-room of his officers, was, like the lower
one, ball proof, and looped for musketry—
the door-way, as before, gave access to a
narrow vestibule or passage, arranged in this
case as the Rover's private armory, and communicating
by a hatch in the floor with the
ship's magazine and larger arm-room. From
the ceiling of this vestibule, which was not
more than a yard in width, was slung a lamp
of silver with two burners; beneath the clear
broad glare of which a negro, of gigantic
stature, and features singularly handsome for
his race, stalked to and fro with shouldered
carbine, and a whole armory of knives and
pistols in the broad belt that girded his white
linen caftan about his thin and sinewy flanks.
Another African, who both for bulk and comeliness,
might well have been twin-brother to
the sentinel, lay buried in deep sleep upon a
velvet-covered pallet, which occupied the

whole space to the left hand of the door-way,
with all his weapons round him. And never
by day or by night did those two grim life-guardsmen
leave their appointed post together
—and singly but at rare and distant intervals—one
sleeping while the other watched—
one feasting while the other fasted—but both
continually at hand, and ready on the slightest
signal to do their chieftain's bidding, whether
for good or evil.

On entering the last door-way, a scene of
singular beauty was presented to the eye of the
spectator. The cabin was perhaps twenty feet
in width, by half that depth, except that in the
centre a recess of about ten feet square was
formed by the projection of two state rooms,
one on each hand, into the chamber—this
alcove, raised one step higher than the cabin
floor, was lighted by two of the stern windows
occupying its whole breath, and reaching almost
from the ceiling to the deck—the other
two lights being cut off by the state-rooms
above mentioned. The alcove was carpeted
with a thick soft Persian rug, and hung with
seagreen velvet, fringed with broad arabesques
of gold; a divan covered with the same
stuff ran round it, while the centre was occupied
by a circular table of dark wood inlaid
with ivory and brass. Against the state-room
partitions there hung, on the one side, a set of
shelves filled with about a hundred books in
costly bindings; and on the other, a portrait of
a young girl seemingly not over seventeen years
old—a master-piece of the world's master
painter, Antonio Vandyk—with a long two-edged
gold-hilted broadsword, and a brace of
large horseman's pistols, of workmanship to
match the rapier, fixed to the panel under it,
as if to guard the lovely treasure. Upon the
circular table there stood a crucifix of gold,
and a small vase of the same precious metal,
containing some choice flowers of that tropical
clime, while near them lay an open volume of
Italian poetry, a Spanish gittern, and some
manuscript music, partially covered by an embroidered
kerchief of white silk and gold.
The larger and lower portion of the cabin was
carpeted and decked with hangings of the same
color and material with those in the alcove.
A large square table filled the centre, on
which lay maps and charts, with books and
instruments of navigation. An antique cabinet
of oak, with massive ornaments of brass,
a beaufet covered with vessels of wrought
gold and goblets of rock crystal, another bookcase,
with perhaps two hundred volumes, and
several huge arm-chairs of oak, with velvet
cushions, completed the furniture. It must
not, however, be forgotten that here, as in the
outer rooms, the walls were further decorated
by a superb collection of arms, offensive and
defensive, of every age and nation; the most
costly and most prominent of which was a
complete suit of tilting armor of blue Milan
steel, all damascened with gold, such as was
worn in the fourteenth century by every knight
of name, and by the most unhappy of the
Stuarts, and some few of his leaders even so
late as the war of the English Revolution.
Such was the form and fashion of the cabin
into which, his long night-watch concluded,
Ringwood descended.

In the ward-room, as he passed, his second
officer—a young and handsome Englishman
with a fair skin, where it had not been bronzed
by long exposure to a tropical sky, laughing
blue eyes, and a profusion of light curly hair—
was seated at the table, busily engaged, with
several fine looking lads of various ages, from
fourteen to twenty, in discussing a morning
meal as sumptuous as a ship's store might furnish,
with the addition of fresh fish of several
kinds, and a tureen of turtle; which, though
concocted only by the untaught skill of the
bright-skinned and clear mulatto, who waited
by the beaufet, resplendent in cap, hose, and
jerkin, of unsullied whiteness, was even thus
no despicable fare; as was attested by the frequent
applications to its dispenser, who seemed
to be in no small danger, while ministering to
the appetites of others, of losing his own breakfast.
At a smaller board, and a little way
apart, the armorer and gunner, two thick-set
sturdy-looking Britons of the Saxon race, contemning
the effeminate luxuries of potted game,
broiled fish, and turtle-soup, diluted by champagne
and bordeaux, were revelling in what
they deemed the manlier enjoyment of toasted
cheese, black puddings, and fat ale. With a
gay smile and some light jest, the Rover declined
the invitation of his officers to join them at
their festive board; and bowing with an air of
easy dignity passed onward, showing no haste
or agitation in his measured tread, and closing
the door gently after him, as he entered the
small vestibule which led to his own cabin.

“You might as well have spared yourself
the trouble of that invitation, good master Falconer,”
said one of the juniors, who filled
the place of midshipman in a more regular
service—“a likely thing it were that he should
tarry here, for such a poor temptation as meat
and drink may offer, with such a feast of
charms wooing him yonder. By St. George,
well might the loveliness of that pale, black-browed
beauty overcome the virtue of an anchorite!”

“Hold hard, there, Anson”—cried another—“covet
not thou, that which is sacred
to thy betters.”

“Tush, man—tush!” answered the first
speaker, “I covet her not, by St. George; I
love not your delicate, coy damsels—better one
Ariadne fresh from the arms of the blithe wine
god, than twenty tearful Niobes. We shall
have, by-and-by, a goodly chorus of shrieks,

yells, and lamentations, I doubt not, to tell us
how he prospers in his wooings.”

But though a general burst of merriment
hailed this prophetic speech, and although
every ear was for a time on the alert to catch
some indication of the progress of events between
the Rover and his lovely captive, not a
sound reached them, that afforded any clue to
their excited curiosity.

Closing the door, as has been said, gently behind
him as he left the wardroom, the Rover
turned the key, and dropped a massive bar further
to guard against intruders.

“Let none disturb me, Pluto,” he said to
the sentinel, “on any pretext whatever—I
am o'erdone with watching, and shall betake
me to my cot till noon. And hark thee, sirrah;
whatever thou mayst hear within, HEAR IT NOT,
if thou wouldst have ears afterward, to hear
withal!—Hear nothing thou, unless I call on
thee—nor thy twin devil yonder, either!”

The sable functionary grinned, till he showed
his ivory teeth almost from ear to ear, as
Ringwood tutored him; and, when he had done
speaking, laid his broad hand upon his chest,
and bowed in silent acquiescence to his master's
will.

Satisfied, apparently, that his attendants comprehended
and would implicitly obey his bidding,
the captain paused no longer, but entered
his apartment without further waste of
words, with every sinew of his body strung,
and every energy of his strong mind resolved
upon his savage purpose. No clothing had
been given to the hapless prisoners, beyond
the miserable relics of their torn garments,
which had been spared in the first moment of
their capture; nor indeed, save for the wants
of delicacy, was any more required; for the
weather was extremely hot and sultry, and the
air of the small cabin, though all the windows
were thrown open to catch the favoring breeze,
was confined and oppressive. Little, therefore,
had it been in the power of those wretched
girls to do in aid of their offended modesty—
little, however, as it was, all, that the utmost
delicacy with their small means could have
effected, was performed. Teresa's hair had
been replaced, folded in massive wreaths about
her classic temples, decently ordered, but devoid
of the most simple ornament. Her single
robe, of thin and half transparent linen, had
been arranged; and the huge rent, which had
displayed all the voluptuous charms of her
young bosom and round ivory shoulders, repaired
by such devices as woman can alone
contrive; so that the beauties of her unrivalled
form, though not concealed—for how could
one light fold of cambric conceal the swelling
outlines, the luxuriant roundness, the unmatched
symmetry of that shape, delicately
full, yet slight withal and sylphlike?—were
veiled at least from the too bold intrusion of an
unchaste eye. The stains, however, were still
there—the frightful stains of recent massacre—
the plain print of ensanguined fingers upon
the sullied surface of that virgin robe—and her
small and slender ankles, which might not be
concealed beneath her scanty draperies, were
still encrusted thickly with the unnatural taint
of human slaughter.

With the dark fringe of her long downcast
lashes drawn in distinct relief against a cheek
as colorless and cold as monumental marble—
without one ray of hope, one gleam of intellect,
to lighten up the dull and soulless gloom
which brooded over those glorious features,
like a grey storm-cloud overshadowing a lovely
landscape—her brow, too much oppressed
to feel the agony of its own inward aching,
propped on one snowy hand; while with the
azure veins painted in fearful vividness upon
its deadly whiteness, the other hung down by
her side, motionless, lifeless, and unconscious
—with scarce more sense of sorrow or of pain
than Niobe, when the last shaft had flown and
her last child lay dead before that stony effigy
which had but a moment since writhed with
the anguish of a mother's grief—silent, and
cold, and rigid, save when a quick convulsive
shiver, the only sign of life she had displayed
for hours, ran through her palsied form shaking
it for an instant, and then leaving it still as
the grave and nearly as insensible—tearless,
and mute in her exceeding agony, Teresa sat
erect in a huge oaken chair placed almost in
the centre of the cabin; with the black girl, her
sole attendant, lately her slave, but now at
least her equal—for in their common misery
all past distinctions were abolished—crouching
on the rich carpet at her feet, and clinging to
the knees of her, in whom, so deep set was
her half-idolatrous veneration, she could not
but imagine some power must still reside, some
magic of authority that must compel respect
even from the world's outcast—the proud, pitiless
corsair.

Such was the picture that met Ringwood's
eye as his foot crossed the threshold—a picture
that might well have called up sentiments of
pity from the most iron bosom! But in the
breast of the wild Rover pity, which spite his
merciless trade oft found a dwelling there, was
for the time overpowered; crushed as it were,
and silenced by the vast flood of fierce and
fiery passions, which swept across his soul,
withering up and searing every kind sentiment,
as the hot lava scathes the innocent flowers,
when he beheld the child—the heart, as it were,
the more than heart—of his detested foe, helpless,
and courting, as it seemed, the blow that
should heap tenfold ruin on the object of his
undying hatred. The voice of memory spoke
trumpet-tongued within him—memory, fresh
from other days and distant climes!—memory,
busy with confidence unwillingly bestowed,

and brutally requited!—memory, full of wrongs,
and woes, and agony, and degradation! The
voice of memory spoke within him; spoke with
a thousand thunderous voices, whose every
whisper was of vengeance!—vengeance, delayed
for long, long years, but never for one hour
forgotten!—vengeance, which should exceed a
thousand fold the injury that woke it!—vengeance,
with which the universe should ring,
and which the page of history should hand
down, as unrivalled, to the appalled and shuddering
ears of countless generations! With
such a prompter at his heart's core, how
should he pause to think of Ruth or of forgiveness!
He paused not!—an exulting smile
curled his lip!—curled it with an expression of
pride, malice, scorn, and triumph, that no word
but FIENDISH could convey, however faintly,
to the mind!—his breast swelled with an ecstasy
almost convulsive; his eye positively
lightened with excitement—the terrible excitement
of ungovernable passions, o'er-mastering
every obstacle—fierce, furious excitement! ripe
with the concentrated fire of every evil, every
unholy impulse implanted by the hand of nature
in the breast of man, bursting the bonds of
reason, wild, remorseless, and untamable.
One glance he cast towards the miserable pair,
and cheering himself as if by a sudden impulse—

“Without there”—he cried—“Ho! without!”
On the instant the door was opened, and
the black woolly head of the gigantic negro
was thrust into the cabin. At the first sound,
however, of the Rover's voice, the Spanish
lady, whose senses, overpowered by the dull
torpor of despair, had not informed her of his
entrance, started upon her feet, turning her
clear cold gaze full on the splendid person of
the pirate chief; while down to her knees clung
the black maiden, with the whites of her eyes
dilated into glassy circles by the intensity of
her dismay.

“Take hence the slave girl—bestow her in
the hatch beside the greater arm room; keep
her close prisoner—but, as you love your life,
do her no wrong—not by a word, or look, if
you would 'scape my vengeance!—gently—
away with her!”

A fearful spasm crossed the pale features of
Teresa, as the huge black drew nigh; and it
seemed as though her terrors would have found
vent in a piercing scream, but by a mighty
effort she restrained herself.

“Let go my robe, Cassandra,” she said at
length, in tones which, though they faltered,
no terrors could deprive of their almost unearthly
sweetness—“Let go my robe, girl—seest
thou not that no present harm is meant thee?—
and if there were it would boot naught to struggle?
Let go—I say! minion, unloose thy
grasp”—she cried with increased agitation, as
the pirate's minister drew nearer—“wouldst
have thy mistress's person polluted by the
touch of you foul villain?—nay! tremble not,
thou silly one”—she added, kindly, as the
terrified creature, relaxing the firm clasp which
she had fastened on her lady's dress, fell prostrate
and almost insensible before her feet—
“they can but kill us—the longest torments—
the direst crnelties—can only lead to that—can
only inflict DEATH!”

As she spoke, gaining courage herself from
the effort she made to cheer her fellow-sufferer's
spirits, Pluto had raised the half-inanimate
and shuddering girl in his strong
arms, and was already bearing her towards the
vestibule; when by a sudden jerk she almost
extricated herself from his embrace, and followed
up the first attempt by a succession of
fierce rapid struggles and contortions, panting
and sobbing till it seemed that her heart would
have burst from her bosom, glaring with her
disturbed eyes, and foaming at the mouth like
a demoniac—till finding all her efforts fruitless,
exhausted even more by the violence of her
feelings, than by her terrible though vain exertions,
she sank into a deep swoon; and with her
head hanging upon the massive shoulder of the
negro, and all her shapely limbs collapsed and
nerveless, was carried off insensible and unresisting.
Alone in that luxurious cabin, surrounded
with all that is most beautiful to the eye, alone
the Spanish maiden stood in the presence—in
the power of the merciless Rover. Both young
—both beautiful—but oh! how different in their
beauty! She, pale and woe-begone, and cold
as the white marble which alone could vie with
the pure splendor of her skin—hopeless, yet
firm—wretched, yet tearless in her misery!
He, flushed with fiery passions, burning with
high hot hopes, instinct with all the ardent
energies, the quenchless vigor, the indomitable
power of animal existence! She, the very
image and ideal of perfect and most lovely
death! He, the unequalled type of glorious
and majestic life! With a slow step, as if
half doubtful of his purpose, the Rover neared
his captive—still she stood firm and motionless,
with her large bright eyes shining out, intensely
black and lustrous, from her fixed and hueless
features—fixed upon his with a cold,
steady, and unblenching gaze, like that by
which the leech is said to awe his maniac
patient, or man, the monarch of creation, to
quell the fiercest savage of the wild. It seemed
as if that frail and slender girl had listened
and believed the tale, “that a lion will turn
and flee from a maid in the pride of her purity,”
and had resolved to try the virtue of the spell,
but on a fiercer and more tameless being. And
in good truth for a second's space it showed as
though the charm were not all powerless—the
haughtyspirit did—did for a moment quail before
that firm and fearless gaze!—the strong brave
man did hesitate, before the timorous weak

maiden! There is in truth nothing so difficult
as to approach, with hostile purpose, one who
opposes calm and passive fortitude to threatened
violence—one who shows naught of fear,
meditates nothing of resistance—who neither
courts nor shuns the peril. Man will hew
down the trembling fugitive, from the same
natural impulse which prompts the dog to
tear whatever flies from him—he will assault
with all the pride of defied valor and insulted
strength the strong one who resists him—but
he will rarely—rarely nerve himself to the attack
of one who fears not nor defies the outrage.
At length, with a half start—a start at
his own unwonted hesitation—he advanced,
and laid his hand upon her shoulder, while
she still, moving not, nor speaking, maintained
that steadfast gaze, as if she would peruse his
soul; nor did the slightest change in her deportment
give any token that she had felt his
lawless touch, save that a bright flush darted
over brow, face, and bosom, brilliant as the
electric flash, and scarce less rapid in its
passage.

“This is well, fair one,” he said with a
strange sneer, curling his chiselled lip—“this
is well. I had looked for tears and outcries!—
but you are wise, my beauty; wiser in your
generation, as the scripture hath it, than the
children of light!—but why so mute, Teresa?
—speak, girl, know you the fortune that awaits
you?” and he shook her gently as he spoke, as
if to force an answer.

“The lamb in the wolf's lair,” replied the
maiden, “requires no prophet to foretell her
doom.”

“You know it, then?—'fore God I had not
looked for such most sweet compliance!—you
know it, then, and deem it perchance a rare
fortune. I knew erewhile you Spanish dames
were gamesome, and something light of love;
but I deemed not—the more fool I to fancy
woman could be at all, and not be wanton—
but I deemed not a Spanish damsel of thy
blood and lineage should know herself, and
knowing rest content to be the paramour of a
robber—murderer—pirate!”

“Nor do you know it now,” replied she, by
a violent effort maintaining that composure
which she deemed the most likely to procure
forbearance—“nor do you know it now—ten
thousand deaths would I die sooner—nor will
I be the thing thou sayest!”

“How wilt thou help it, sweet one?” he
asked sneeringly.

“By not consenting—and by dying!—force
me you may to your vile will by bratal and
unmanly violence—bow me you may, for the
brief space that is permitted you, to your dire
passions—but wrong is not dishonor, nor outrage
disgrace! But for a little time—a little
time can you torment me—the Lord hath given
you the power, and you must use it as you list
—but only for a time.”

“Believe it not,” he answered; not unimpressed
by the cool majesty of her demeanor—
“Believe it not, my power upon you is for
ever—for ever at least here on earth? That
which I make thee, wilt thou remain till death
deliver thee—hearest thou, girl? I say, till
death?”

“And I reply, not long!”

“To die, thou wouldst say, aye! to die by
the sudden sword-stroke is not difficult, nor
long, nor painful, worth the counting! Nor
is the poison cup, though slower and more torturing,
too tedious or too difficult for high and
resolved spirits—and such I do believe is thine,
Teresa. Nor in good truth, as thou didst say
but now, are the most cruel, most protracted
means by which the flesh can be compelled to
quiver through a living death—too much to be
endured—to be endured so long as they may
last. But mark me, mark me, maiden: to die
is not so easy! an eye shall be on you for ever
—no means vouchsafed while thy fit lasts—
and trust me use will reconcile thee to that
life, which thou deemest it no dishonor to enter
on compulsion—to die is not so easy!”

“Nothing is more so,” she replied, forcing
herself to go through the task she had imposed
upon her energies. “Nothing is more so. The
strongest frame may not endure a fortnight
without sustenance—and neither thou, with all
thy boasted might, nor all thy mailed myrmidons,
can force one feeble girl to swallow one
small mouthful, save at her own good pleasure!”

“Brave words!” he answered, still with a
sneer—“Brave words, Teresa! but behold!
here on the walls around you hang fifty
sheathless poniards, fifty well-loaded pistols!—
had the one feeble girl been so resolved on
death, she might have died these three hours
gone, and none the wiser! Tush, girl, thou
cheatest me not so!”

“Hear me,” she said, with an imploring
gesture, drawing herself a little back from him
—“Here me at least, as thou dost hope for
mercy—as thou dost trust in God!”

“I do not hope for mercy—I do not trust in
God!” he answered. “Why should I? Mercy
was not for me or mine, when I implored it on
my knees with adjurations, unto which thy
feeble prayers are but as whispers to the sovereign
thunder! God heard not me when I
called on him at my most extreme need. Why
should I, girl—why should I? I do not hope
for mercy—I do not trust in God, yet will I
hear thee—hear thee, for that thou art a woman!”

“Hear me then, and believe my words—
nor think that I feel not, because I shudder
not—that I dread not, loathe not the infamy,

because I make my loathings subject to my
will, and speak of that most coolly which I
will not endure and live. When I first entered
here, the thought did cross my soul that freedom
was at hand—the blade was bared to win
it—but suicide is deadly sin—or if not deadly,
allowable but in extremity. There was a hope!
one lingering, last hope then—nor hath it quite
flown now!—a hope that one so strong, so
mighty, and so brave as thou, wouldst
shame to harm a woman!—a woman whom
all men are bound to shelter and defend for
that same weakness which makes it easy—
makes it most base and sordid to assail their
frailty. Till this one hope is gone, I dare
not rush unbidden on eternity. I have thought
much—thought coolly on this matter!—the
more, and the more coolly I have thought, the
more I am resolved, and the more certain
mayest thou be that my resolve is changeless.
Injure me, and I die! For some brief days
thou mayest—thou mayest riot, if such be thy
savage will, in the possession, the unmanly
forceful brute possession of frail resisting innocence—for
some brief days of agony to me—
of infamy to thee and of remorse hereafter!
With these brief days—thanks to the mighty
Maker, who made the subtle and immortal
soul so separable from the gross mortal body!
—with those brief days thy power for good or
ill—and mine for agonized endurance, are at
an end for ever! Cries, tears, and lamentations
I know vain—therefore I use them not!
—but deem not thou shalt win one favor of
my weakness, till that by utmost force and
violence you have overpowered my most true
resistance!”

“One word—one whisper from my lips—
and thou wouldst fly as eagerly to my embrace,
Teresa, as now thou shunnest it,” he again
answered, with the same sneer upon his lip—
and she observed that his voice sounded calmly,
and no longer with the hoarse broken intonation
of overwhelming passions; and that the
flush which had lighted up his features with a
light so unnatural and appalling, had given
place to the wonted tints of his complexion.

“Not though that word would raise me into
paradise—that whisper plunge thee to the
abyss of hell!”

“What if I were to yield thee to the license
of my crew—to the lewd pleasure of yon
loathsome blackamoor!”

“'Tis sin—vice—degradation—that is loathsome!
naught else—naught else. Compelled
to my dishonor, I may writhe hopelessly in
anguish—I may die here on earth, and dying
live for ever in light and bliss, and glory everlasting!
Complying I should loathe my very
self—should die each day I lived! and perish,
body and soul—perish now, and for ever!
But thou wilt not—thou canst not—thou art a
man—a feeling, a fiery, passionate, and it may
be a vicious—yet a MAN! Born of a woman,
cradled upon a woman's bosom, nursed from a
breast! thou hast grown fair, and strong, and
noble, reared by the ministerings of a woman's
love! thou didst learn from a woman's tongue
the very accents which give voice to thy fell
threatenings against a woman's peace! thou
hast—thou must have loved, have sighed for,
striven for, done gallant deeds to win a woman!
and wilt thou—wilt thou now? wilt
thou? no! no! thou wilt not—canst not wrong
one so weak in her frailty—so strong in her
virtue—in her resolve as I! no! no! thine eye
is mild, and thy lip quivers—and—and—and
—thou wilt—wilt spare, protect—oh God! oh
God—thou wilt not wrong me,” and as she
spoke, she flung herself down at his feet;
clasped his knees tight, tight as the serpent's
coil, with her entwining arms; and turning up
her pale wan face, with those dark glorious eyes
swimming, yet overflowing not in outworn nature's
agony, towards the stern, observant, but
no longer fierce or inflamed visage of the Rover—“thou
wilt not—for thy mother's soul!
for the sweet memory of her whom you first
loved! thou wilt not wrong me!”

“Not now! not now, at least, Teresa!
But I have heard thee—hear thou now me. I
have a tale to tell thee—of one as innocent—
as beautiful as thou, who prayed, as thou hast
prayed, for pity—who found it not, and died!
This thou must hear—and then thyself shalt say,
if it can be that I—I, the Rover—the world's
scorn and hate and terror—I, Reginald Ringwood,
can pity, much more spare Teresa de
Aviles.”

5. CHAPTER V.
THE ROVER'S TALE.

“I was born of an ancient family in the north
of England—of blood as pure and noble as
flows in the proudest veins of your Spain's
proudest nobles. My Saxon forefathers possessed
the broad demesne, beneath whose old
oaks I grew up—as firm as they of heart, and
scarce less strong of limb—centuries ere the
Norman had drenched our isle in gore. I
know not, and I care not, how—though they
battled to the last for freedom—they held their
landships and lordships until, by time and intermarriage,
the names of Saxon and Norman
were forgotten; and from the mixture of those
hostile bloods arose the strongest, bravest,
wisest race of men that tread the surface of
God's earth. I know not, I care not! I only
know, that to me those broad lands descended
through a long race of honored ancestors. I

only care that I was born, and bred, and shall
not die—an English gentleman.

“I had a father, noble, and generous, and
good—a mother—who was indeed a mother,
and who is a saint in heaven!—a sister!—oh!
such—such a sister—ay! thou art fair, Teresa
—wondrously, exquisitely beautiful—but she
was as far before thee, as is the glorious sun
before a farthing rush-light! She was—but I
can not—can not describe her. No! not to my
own void and aching heart, that never hath
been filled since—never even for a moment!
She was the comrade of my childish joys, the
soother of my boyish griefs—the dear repository
of my every hope or fear—the bright encourager
to all things high and noble—the
true unflinching friend—the only one! A few
years younger than myself, she grew up to
bright, glorious womanhood under the kindred
shelter of my stronger youth—she was my all
in all—oh God! how I adored her.

“But I must on—while I was yet almost a
boy, the secret heart-burnings, the disaffections
and dissensions, which had so long been
smouldering darkly between the king and
parliament, blazed out into rebellion and fierce
civil war. Both parties flew to arms—the nobles
and the gentry of the land, with many of
their yeomanry and tenants, drew their swords
for the king;—the citizens and burghers,
and not a few of the smaller landholders, espoused
the cause of parliament.

“Throughout the north, the gentry, many
of whom were Catholics, were loyal to a man
—and with the Vavasours and Musgraves, the
Landales and the Wentworths, my father
buckled on his arms to fight beneath the standard
of his king—and well he fought for it,
from its first ominous erection at Worcester
amid storm and tempest, till it fell never more
to rise upon the fatal moor of Marston; where
he too fell beside it, undauntedly but vainly
striving against the iron-clad invincibles of
Cromwell! Boy as I was, through all those
bloody fields, I fought beside my father's bridle.
Boy as I was, at Brentford I was thanked
by Charles himself before the leaders of the
army—boy as I was, when my bold father
perished in his stirrups, I slewthe man who
smote him down, and drew off his retreating
troop, sorely diminished, but unbroken. It is
a long tale, but suffice it, that Lilburn a few
days afterwards stormed, sacked, and utterly destroyed
the dwelling of my fathers—that, overdone
with weariness and woe and watching,
my mother wasted away, like snow before the
April sunshine, and died at length of that
worst malady, a pined and broken heart.
Then, our lands became the heritage of others
—apportioned by the victor Independents to
the least scrupulous and bravest of their creatures;—then
was our very name—a name coeval
in proud fame with England's story—pro
scribed and outlawed. As best I might, I
cared for my loved sister's safety. In the
mean dwelling of an ancient servant of our
race, an humble fisherman upon the western
coast, in lowly guise and under a feigned
name, for years she was concealed in safety—
while I, rash, desperate, and daring, fought fetlock-deep
in blood wherever banner waved, or
trump was blown in England—now in the
ranks of some united host, and under some renowned
and regular leader—now leading my
own little troop of undismayed adventurers
through the wild pleasures and yet wilder
strifes of that guerilla warfare—the fiercest and
most feared of the king's partisan commanders.
Enough is told, when I have said that not a
single plot was planned, a single insurrection
fostered, but my head was busy with its machinations.
That I fought on with Lucas, Lisle,
and Goring, till every hope was lost—that in
the siege of that loyal city Colchester, I shed
my blood in its defence till all was over; and
owed my safety then to wounds which fettered
me to my sick bed, and to the unbribed faith of a
poor laundress, who concealed me from the hand
of my inveterate pursuers. After long months
of suffering and of precarious hiding, I reached at
length the cottage, where, without now one hope
of seeing me again on earth, my sister lingered on
in sad but patient sorrow; looking for death alone
to liberate her from the woes which weighed her
down to the brink, as it were, of that wished-for
grave, which, seeming to yawn ever to receive
her, opened not to her prayers. Alas!—
alas!—that it did not! Alas! that she died
not then, with the young freshness of her innocent
beauty, pure as an angel's sigh—spotless
as God's own sunshine! But words are
vain—sorrow is vain—all! all is vain, save
vengeance!

“It was deep night when I arrived at that
lone cottage—and oh! the ecstasy, the thrilling
ecstasy, that quivered through each nerve of
my rapt frame as once again I clasped that angel
sister to my heart—never again, as fondly
I believed and falsely, to be torn thence, while
both had being! Little time was there then
for joy or sweet affection—little enough for
needful preparation, and swift flight! The
moon had risen before I reached the cottage—
before she set, the lugger was afloat, manned
by stout hands and trusty hearts; her every
sail distended by an auspicious breeze; bearing
us, bearing us for ever, from nature's sweetest
names—our home, our country! Long centuries
before, my father's race had intermarried
with a high family of Spain—and, although
time had loosened the essential tie of blood,
friendly connexion had been maintained ever;
and still, in name and courtesy at least if not
in very deed, the haughty family of English
Ringwoods were cousins to the proud Spanish
clan, whose head is—the Melendez de Aviles!

“Start not, Teresa! By the God who
looks upon us now—who looked of yore on
that most hellish crime—who shall anon look
on that crime's meet retribution. By the God
—I say—the God of both our fathers! the
blood of thy race runs even now, hot as the
lava of Vesuvius, through every artery and
vein of this my body! my body that has lived
through agonies and toils and perils, which
might have consumed nerves of brass and
thews of tempered steel, which would have
worn out mine, but for the treasured oath of
vengeance that upheld me!

“But passion boots not. What is done, is
done!—what shall be, shall be! Friendly
connexion had, I said, been maintained ever!
Letters had passed from age to age, presents
been interchanged, and mutual benefits done
and requited. When our Black Prince displayed
his Lion banner in aid of your King
Pedro, my ancestor was rescued from the wrath
of that brave bastard, Henry de Transtamara,
by the Melendez of that day. When Spain's
armada was dispersed, scattered to the four
winds of heaven, by Frobisher and Drake and
Hawkins, it was a Ringwood that redeemed
the chieftain of the Des Aviles; and sent him
home cumbered with gifts and ransom, free
from the dark tower of London. Allied in
blood, allied by mutual courtesies, my father
—when first war broke out—remitted treasures,
plate, gold, and store of jewels, to the
faith of his Spanish kinsman. Provident and
prepared for either fortune, he looked to Spain
as an asylum, should the king's cause be
bucklered by bold hearts in vain. When my
good father fell—letters—fair letters full of
greeting—full of high courtesy and noble promise—styling
me `Dear and trusty cousin,
praying me `of my love to deem his purse as
mine—his palace as my castle,' were borne to
me—fair seeming! false! false letters! signed
`Juan de Melendez de Aviles.' Full of all
honorable confidence, full of gratitude and love,
now that even hope was lost in England, I set
sail; freely as to a second country, for the
bright shores of Spain! as to a second home,
for the proud halls of De Aviles! Three
days' fair sail, we made the Spanish coast!
another week, and in Madrid we were received,
received not as exiles and outlaws, but as most
honored friends, most esteemed kinsmen, by
that same Juan de Melendez—that same vile,
heartless, soulless thing, which thou callest
father. Aye! I recall it! all—all—everything!
The very palace gates, upon the porphyry
steps of which the smooth-faced fiend received
us—the very liveried menials, who cringed so
humbly to our bidding, the very smile, the
very gesture, yea more, the very garb, with
every small detail of plume, and scarf, and jewelled
rapier, which he wore—all gleam upon
mine unforgetting eyes distinct and palpable, as
though they were depicted to my outward
sense by some rare limner's skill. He was a
noble gallant to the eye; witty, accomplished,
beautiful, and brave—nor, as I fondly deemed,
more fair than faithful. Every art, every
gentle knowledge, every superb accomplishment
were centred in his mind, his manner.
To the eye nothing—nothing of God's creation
here on earth could be more glorious, more
transcendantly surpassing man's estate, more
god-like! In heart, no thing on earth, no
thing in the abyss of hell could be more utterly
corrupt, more base, more superhumanly
depraved and bad, more fiendish! Yet years
passed ere I gained this knowledge, years
passed, and I believed him—nor was I even
then unwise in this world's wisdom—all that
was kind, and good, and noble. What wonder
that one younger than myself, artless and
unsuspecting, judging of others' faith by her
guileless standard, full of sweet fervent gratitude,
betrayed into security by her own very
purity of soul, and by the sanction of a brother's
presence, should have believed as I! and
loved! and—and—oh God! that I must speak
it—fallen! fallen! the victim to a perjury so
hellishly devised, so deep, so fathomless, that
wisest wisdom would have been all at fault to
sound it! The growing love of my sweet
sister, the constant and devoted wooing of the
enamored Juan I saw, and was well pleased to
see it. For—when I saw the liking mutual;
when I knew that my Teresa in purity of an
unstained descent was a match meet for kings;
that in the rescued treasures of my father's
house she had a fitting dowry; that in all else
—beauty of form and face, intellect, feeling,
soul—she would have been a prize for the
choice of angels; when I beheld and knew all
this, I had no whisper of false pride to bid me
interpose between their inclinations and their
union! I had no doubts, no fears, no hesitations!
Juan, too, had a sister—a fair, bright,
artless being, of whom, if I did not entirely
love her, I had at least mused fervently and
deeply. Thoughts of a double link had crossed
my mind, as no impossible solution to the
Gordian knot of our entangled fortunes, not as
a termination to be gained by rash or sudden
speed, but as an end, which, other things agreeing,
might in due time crown all our cares
with pure and peaceful happiness. Thus
days and months rolled on, calm, undisturbed,
and happy. At times indeed, a touch of wonder
would come over me, why—when their
mutual feelings were so evident; when my
approval might have been known even from
my silence; when everything was suitable,
and no cloud even on the remote horizon threatened
a storm which could divide them—why
they should so prolong their courtship—so
needlessly delay the consummation of their
bliss. Still, as they seemed to understand each

other, I deemed it equally indelicate and unwise,
that I without the shadow of a pretext
should interfere between them. Entirely unsuspicious,
therefore, and fearless even of the
possibility of wrong, I left things to their natural
course.

“Meanwhile an opportunity at length occurred
for my advancement, my establishment
in a befitting rank, and active service; an expedition
was in course of preparation under
the prince, Don John, for the Low Countries,
there to co-operate with the great Condé, against
the allied force of the Cromwellians under
Lockhart, and the French Mazarinists under
the great Turenne, which had already reduced
Gravelines, and Merrdyke, and were now
threatening Dunkirk. In this fair expedition
I was appointed to take part; and in no
humbler station than lieutenant-general of the
cavalry. This proud appointment was obtained
for me by the solicitations of Melendez,
for which—Heaven's hottest curses blight
him!—I deemed him worthy of my eternal
gratitude. Brief space was granted for my
preparation—yet, ere I started on my honorable
duty, I opened my heart freely both to
Melendez and Teresa; and it was settled that,
the campaign ended, they at least should be
made man and wife; while Juan plighted me
his word that, should I prosper in my wooing
with his sister, his every aid should be forthcoming.
With a light heart I started; all careless
at the present, all confident of the bright
future. In a short time we reached the Netherlands,
and there my every faculty of mind
or body was engrossed by my military duties.
It is not now my purpose, for it avails us nothing,
to spin out long details concerning that
disastrous and disgraceful campaign, wherein
we were out-witted, out-manœuvred, and outfought.
First came the defeat of Sandhills,
whereat the English standard waved on both
sides, and victory was once again decided by
the stout fanatics of the republic! then Dunkirk
instantly surrendered! then step by step
were we beat back, town after town admitting
our victorious foes! Enough, that at the
Sandhills I was dismounted in the last charge
of the superior cavalry of Castelman, which
broke us like a thunder shock! My right arm
shattered by a pistol shot, my helmet cloven,
and my skull laid bare by a long broadsword-cut,
a pike wound through the broken taslet of
my left thigh—twice was I galloped over by
the contending troopers in close melée, and left
for dead upon the field. Rescued by the attachment
of a veteran follower from the tender
mercies of the plunderers, I lay for weeks insensible,
and for weeks more in helpless agony
till the campaign was ended by the truce; and
weak of frame, bent and bowed by my half
healed wounds, I slowly journeyed homeward.
Something I was indeed discouraged, and
something grieved, that during my long illness,
during my slow recovery, no letters should
have reached me whether from Juan or my
sister; yet even this might be explained by the
distracted state of the whole country; France
torn at the same time by civil strifes and foreign
warfare; the Netherlands divided into
factions, filled with fierce bands of foreign soldiery;
all business at an end, and all communications
interrupted. Consoling myself with
such thoughts as these, for the neglect of my
Spanish friends, I journeyed, with all the speed
my frail health would allow, towards Madrid.
I reached that splendid city; hurried through
its deserted streets, for it was midnight when I
arrived, to the proud dwelling of Melendez.
The porter who replied to my loud summons,
after a pause strangely at variance with the
former promptness of attendance which characterized
all my friend's retainers—knew me
not at the first; so strangely was I altered by
the enfeebling nature of my wounds, and by
the great exhaustion consequent on my journeying
with those wounds yet unhealed—nor
when he recognised me, did he seem wholly
unembarrassed by my appearance. The family,
he told me—Don Juan, and the Lady Isidore,
and the English Senora—had removed
from the city several months before; and were
now dwelling on a magnificent estate, of which
I had heard Melendez speak with rapture, situate
on the lower ridges of the southeastern Pyrenees.
Worn out with fatigue, I resolved to
give myself a single day's repose; in the
course of which I learned from the porter, that
shortly after the removal of the family from
town, tidings had come that I had been slain at
the Sandhills; and that no subsequent news
had arrived concerning me, so that on all hands
I was believed dead; to which he cunningly
attributed his consternation at my unexpected
re-appearance; he also mentioned, as a casual
report, that it had come to his ears that my sister
had been married to the Conde de Aviles,
shortly before the tidings of my death in battle.
The following morning, so much of fever
had anxiety and toil produced, that I was
miserably ill, and utterly unable to rise from my
couch, much more to undertake a tedious journey.
I wrote, however, on the instant, both
to my sister and Don Juan; telling them all
that had befallen me, mentioning the reports
which had encountered me on my arrival, promising
to make all due speed to join them, and
praying them to write me instantly, as I was
all anxiety and agitation. Ten days elapsed
before I was enabled to rise, and a week more
before I could endure the motion of a horse—
yet not a line had come to hand to lighten my
curiosity, which was fast growing—why I
knew not—into a fixed presentiment of evil.
At length I was sufficiently recovered, and on
a bright autumnal morning, gallantly mounted

and well armed, followed by two stout English
veterans. I sallied forth from the portals of Melendez;
hurrying with the speed of fear towards
the city gates. Before I had reached
there, however, I was surrounded and arrested
by a band of the holy brotherhood according
to a warrant of the all-powerful Inquisition.
Four months I languished in its dungeons, often
examined, often threatened with the torture,
forbidden any intercourse with those without—in
short, entombed alive. At length,
when I had given up all hope of liberty, I was
discharged with no more of explanation than
I had received on my capture—what of that?
there was no possible redress! I had been denounced
to the Holy Inquisition—therefore arrested!
The charge had not been made out—
therefore I was discharged! and well for me,
I ought to be content! yea! thankful! and I
was thankful—none but the captive know the
exceeding, the transcendant bliss of freedom.
I was free! I was strong! for spare food and
hard lodging had worked miracles for a restoration
of my health—I would seek out my
friends—fly to my sister!

“I repaired once more to the palace of my
friend; when, to my mighty wonder and yet
mightier rage, the porter dashed the wicket in
my face with a horse laugh, barred it within,
and grinning through its barred lattice to my
teeth, he bade me `go seek my sister in the
Lazar House; meet place for harlotry like
hers!' Words cannot express my rage, my
madness. All availed nothing—madness, rage,
entreaty!—no further answer was returned to
me—the wicket opened not—all was contemptuous,
scoruful silence. At length, dreading
I know not what, I turned me to the Lazar
House, and there—there—oh God! there I
found her!—there in that den of guilt and
misery, dying by inches, worn, and wan, and
wasted—there on the sordid pallet vouchsafed
by niggard charity, in the last agonies of life,
pale as the sheeted snow, and shrunken till
each bone of her fair frame seemed struggling
through the transparent skin—there found I
my sweet sister. She died—happy at least to
die upon a friendly bosom—she died in blessing
me, and praying, from Eternal mercy, the
pardon of her murderer. She died, but not till
she had faltered forth the tale of her unprecedented
ruin! The sun did not turn pale in
heaven—the earth yawned not, nor trembled—
nature held on its wonted course—God heard
the tale, as he had looked upon the deed—and
the fell villain prospered—prospered, and
laughed in the exulting pride of conscious
strength, and high impunity of wrong! All
from the very first had been premeditated—I
was appointed to command, merely that I might
be removed from the scene of destined outrage;
a future period was appointed for the marriage,
merely to drown all possible suspicion.
Scarce was I gone, before the treachery stirred
into action; the first step was to find an expert
forger of handwriting; nor was this first want
long ungratified; a villain, triple dyed in
guilt, a disfrocked monk of Italy, the minister
for years of Juan's secret infamies, was pitched
upon for the foul deed; and foully he performed
it. My letters, regularly intercepted by
Melendez, were laid before him, one by one,
as they arrived, till he had learned the trick of
my handwriting; so that I scarce myself could
mark the fraud. This done, the work commenced;
letter was forged on letter, to that
unhappy girl, urging her to delay no longer
the consummation of her nuptials—urging her
by a thousand specious pretexts, and at length
enjoining it upon her, as the last dying mandate
from a brother's death-bed, to be united on
the instant to Melendez. So specious was the
plot, that mortal wisdom scarcely could have
fathomed it. Her letters, like my own, were
intercepted—answered!—each argument refuted;
each doubt set aside; each apprehension
banished! moreover, not my handwriting
only, but my whole turn of composition, my
character of thought, my style, had been so
copied, that as I read the living evidence of the
lie, myself, I almost deemed them mine. It is
enough, that they prevailed! a marriage, a
false marriage, performed by that same villain
monk, and witnessed by, her sex's shame, the
shameless Isidore, completed the accursed plan.
Innocent, innocent she fell! Fell, as an angel
might have fallen, and yet remained an angel.
Secure of his poor victim, flushed with success
and passion, he carried her to his castle
in the south; and till satiety had effaced passion,
and custom worn away the charms of
novelty, had treated her with at least the semblance
of affection. Soon, soon was the dream
ended! My return from the army struck the
last blow to his expiring love—if love that
may be called, which was in truth corrupt and
brutal lust! The illness which delayed me, he
deemed an anspicious chance, and with unexampled,
aye! unheard brutality, in the most public
manner, in the most coarse revolting language
before his grinning menials and sycophantic
guests, he told that suffering angel of
the fraud—the fraud which had destroyed her!
jeered at her tears—yea! bade her convey her
beauties to some new lover, and some fresher
market! And when she clasped his knees in
agonies of tearless supplication, he spurned
her—spurned her with his foot, and bade his
vassals cast her forth into the wintry midnight.
Alone, on foot, in the light garments
of the ball-room, without food, or aid, or money,
she was cast forth at midnight; doubtless
cast forth to perish. But so it was not fated!
through storm and snow she struggled on!
barefoot! begging her bread! She reached
Madrid, and fainting in the street, some charitable

hand conveyed her to the wretched dwelling,
where suffering, and woe, and utter desolation,
soon brought her to the long last home:
sole refuge of the wretched. She died! Died,
I say, died! but left me living; living alone
for vengeance. My tale is ended! it boots not
to tell how, when the second Charles regained
his father's throne, he yielded by base amnesty
the lands of his true followers, to the oppressors
who had seized them. A double outlaw,
thence, have I lived for vengeance—and though
thus far thy father hath escaped me, some have
I had already, more shall I have ere long—aye,
to satiety!—

“Some have I had already!—and that, girl,
not a little. The monk I watched for weeks
—for months—(thy father, conscience-stricken,
had fled his country.) For months had I
watched him, till, as he journeyed towards
France, through the wild passes of the Pyrenees,
I swooped upon him. I dragged him to
the loneliest peak of those dread summits—
stripped him and bound him to a thunder-splintered
tree—it was the very height of
summer—placed food and water close before
him—so close that he could see! so far that he
could not reach it—no, not to save his soul!
I left him there to perish—yet watched him
from a distance, that none might succor or release
him—that I might hear his blasphemies,
and mark his agonies, and glut my soul's dear
vengeance. He perished—how, you may
guess; he perished there, and knew me ere he
perished.

“Thine aunt—the Lady Isidore—married,
as thou knowest well, Teresa, the Conde di
Ribiera; and within three months after, was
found dead—pierced by three mortal wounds
—in her own bridal bed. I slew her!—I,
Teresa—I!—I, Ringwood the avenger! scaled
the terrace at midnight—entered her room and
woke her—woke her to die! One shriek rang
through the silent house, rousing its every inmate!
I leaped from the balcony, one
moment ere the chamber-doors flew open.
Have I not been avenged?

“Before your father's eyes, your brother
died by the torture!

“Before your father's eyes, Teresa, you
shall be shown ere long!—shown—what hedared
to call my sister, and lied in calling her!
Start not—be sure of it; for it shall be! This
only boon I grant thee—grant to thy courage,
girl, and nobleness of heart!—that not now
will I wrong thee—nor by violence!—thou
shalt consent to thine own degradation!
Meanwhile, rest here—that state-room shall be
thine; and the black girl, Cassandra, shall be
restored to thee; fit garments shall be furnished
thee; thou shalt eat at my table. Answer me
not, girl!—not a word—it shall be so, I say it
shall!

“I must on deck, somewhat is moving there,
that needs my presence. Content thee, and
farewell!”

6. CHAPTER VI.

Broadly and brightly dawned the morning,
which followed the departure of the buccaneers,
upon the forest-girdled wall of St. Augustine.
The sun shone blithely, and freshly
the sea-breeze blew. The small waves, crisped
by the lightsome air, danced glittering in the
sunlight; while thousands of white gulls were
on the wing, fanning the wavelets with their
silver pinions. Jocund and merry was the
scene; and heavy must that heart have been,
which yielded not to the sweet soothing influences
of the time and seasons. Heavy was
every heart, and downcast every eye, of those
who were abroad on that fair morning. The
bells of many a church and convent were
ringing,

while on the four tall frigates, which now lay
moored in shore, under the covering guns of
battery and bastion, the colors waved at half-mast
in honor to the dead, whose obsequies
were even now in process.

And now the city gates flew open, and a
long train of monks and friars, chanting the
mournful miserere, with crosslet and with
crosier, censer, and pix, and crucifix swept
forth from the wide portals. Then upborne
on the stalwart shoulders of four great Spanish
captains, whose plumes and sword-knots of
pure white betokened the brief years of him
they mourned, followed the coffin of the young
Melendez! Words cannot paint the agony
which overshadowed the bold lineaments, and
bowed to earth the manly frame of Juan, following
to his last home the last male scion of
his immemorial race. Bravely, however, manfully
he struggled with his tortures, and subdued
them. Steadfastly did he gaze, with a
fixed tearless eye, upon the disappearing coffin;
as with heart-sickening sound the dull clods of
unconsecrated earth—for unanointed he had
fallen, unhouseled, and unshriven—rattled
upon its hollow lid; one quick spasm shook
his every limb—distorted every feature, as the
last sod was flattened down over that cherished
head, which now perceived, felt, suffered
nothing. The soldiers gathered round the
grave—flash after flash—roar after roar—the
volleyed honors of their musketry burst over
the dull ears that heard them not, nor heeded.

But with the rattling din the high soul of the
father lightened forth from the cloud of grief
which had oppressed it—he drew his long
bright rapier from its scabbard, stretched it forth
slowly above his son's low bed, and then uplifting
it, with his eyes glaring upward, flung
his left hand abroad; and with distended chest,
beut brows, and head erect, stood for a second's
space motionless, stern, and silent, though his
lips quivered as with inward prayer, sublime
and awful in the might of self-controlling energy
and pride. Then with a loud clear
voice—

“Hear!” he exclaimed—“Hear thou! Maker
of all things, Judge of all men, hear! I,
Juan de Melendez de Aviles, noble of Spain,
and knight of Calatrava, swear! hear, on the
grave of the last male of the proud name I bear
—here, with my foot upon the sod that covers
that young head—with my sword in my hand,
I swear: never, while life is left me, never, by
day nor by night, fasting or feasting, mirthful
or in the hour of woe, to cease from plotting,
from pursuing, from revenging!—never until
this sword is crimson to the hilt with the heart-blood
of him who slew thee—thee, innocent
and helpless that thou wert, mine own and
only one. If ever I unbelt the brand, if ever I
withdraw me from the chace, if ever I relent,
or spare, or pardon, till that the sword, the
faggot, and the gallows have, each and all,
been glutted with the lives of thy destroyers—
if ever, oh! my son, I forget to avenge thee—
may my flesh feed the vulture and the wolf—
my soul be yielded to man's everlasting foe!”

He paused, and as the sounds of his last
accents died away—moved by one common
impulse, a dozen of the cavaliers who had accompanied
the funeral train, and who bareheaded,
but with flashing eyes and inflamed
visages, had listened to the father's imprecation,
unsheathed at once their swords, and pointing
them to heaven, chorused that awful oath by
one deep, heartfelt, and unanimous “amen!”
“For us—for us, and our sons after us,” they
cried, “be thine oath binding!—never to
spare, nor pardon, nor relent!—never to cease
from hunting to destruction the murderers of
thy dead son—the ravishers of thy living
daughter—never, so help us God, St. Jago, and
our honor!”

The mournful ceremonial was concluded; a
massive cross of stone was pitched into the
sand at that grave's head, marking the spot
where he slumbers now so soundly, that hapless
but high-hearted boy—the spot, where
yesterday he bore so soldierly and well the
tortures which had slain him. The military
music of the garrison struck up—the very
trumpeters, inflamed by the sympathetic indignation
which blazed forth so vividly from these
untamed and fearless cavaliers, struck up, unbidden,
that famous tune of old, the “War
song of the Cid”—the soldiers clashing their
arms in unison, and the wild cadences of the
shrill brass piercing each ear and stirring every
heart, they marched back to the city full of
exulting valor, parched with the thirst of vengeance.

A few hours later in the day, a dozen horses
led to and fro before the doors of a large building,
with a considerable crowd of grooms and
servitors and several sentinels on duty, betokened
something of more than ordinary import
to be in process of enactment. It was the
government house, before the gates of which
that concourse was assembled; and in an upper
chamber, the governor, with his chief officers,
was sitting in high council. Melendez,
as became his station no more than his skill
and mature wisdom, presided at the board;
Pedro, Gutierrez, and the veteran Diego were
seated the nearest to his person; the captains
of the four caravellas now at anchor in the
bay lent their co-operating aid, and the bold
youth, Don Amadis Ferrajo, though scarce
entitled by his years to such proud eminence,
had earned, by the brilliant reputation of his
impetuous valor, a place there which he filled
with as much of dignity as did the stateliest
veteran of them all. At the lower end of the
long table were placed two secretaries fully
engaged in minuting the orders of the council;
while just below a sort of bar, that ran across
the council chamber, two Spanish veterans,
well armed with sword and halberd, watched
over a young stalwart negro, who stood between
them, entirely naked, except a cloth
about his loins, and a pair of Indian moccasins
upon his feet, with manacles of steel upon his
hands, but with a high free port and bold demeanor.
In a recess, likewise, below the bar,
usually covered by a curtain, which was now
drawn up, a fearful-looking instrument, composed
of many wheels and springs of steel,
over which leaned a truculent dark-visaged
ruffin, showed the full means to which the
council had recourse to elicit truth from stubborn
prisoners or unwilling witnesses.

Pointing to this recess, with its appalling
contents, Don Juan was in the act of speaking
to the prisoner, when he was interrupted by
his saying, in very tolerable Spanish.

“There is no need of that, your Excellency!
—without compulsion I am ready to declare
all that I know of these buccaneers—for that I
do know something of them, it were quite
needless to deny. I have dealt with then often
—sold them my fish and vegetables; and very
liberal buyers are they too—somewhat rough
handed at odd times, but what of that—if they
did slice off my old comrade Xavier's ears for
selling a raw Englishman a lot of gulls for
wildfowl, they gave him gold enough to buy
his freedom afterward. Yes? yes! I know all
their haunts—and I will tell the truth—yes! I

will betray them all—lead you up to their very
hold—now they have carried off the fair young
Senora, who had ever a sweet smile and a kind
word for the poor blacks. As for the proud
young Don, they might have tortured him to
all eternity, ere I would have told aught against
them—but now, now that they have carried off
Teresa—”

“This to me, dog?”—Melendez interrupted
him, in tones that revealed the violence of his
feelings—“Know you to whom you speak?
This to me, to me, villain? Seize him, you
halberdiers, strip him, and drag him to the
rack. By the bones of St. James of Compostella,
he shall taste straightway of these tortures
he prates about so glibly!—yes! by the
sacred souls of the martyrs, he shall die under
them!”

“For Heaven's sake, hold, your Excellency,?'—Diego
whispered in his ear—“or we
shall get no word from him. I know the
knave of old! He is as stubborn as an old
mule of Arragon, and has, I believe, no more
feeling than a fish. Suffer his insolence, for
God's sake—so by his guidance we may save
your daughter.”

“You say very well, Sir Don Diego”—interrupted
the free black, who had overheard
him—“You say very well and wisely. For
if he gave me one wrench on that cursed rack
I would not speak one word to him; and if he
were to kill me, you know, that would bring
him no nearer to recovering his daughter. No!
no! it is no use to hurt me—not the least in
the world. Besides, I did not mean to vex
him when I spoke—I was thinking aloud only,
and wouldn't have said it, if I'd thought—not
but what it was quite true. I wont deny that
it was quite true. But lord! it would be no
use racking me—you'd just as well get Spanish
words out of a big old alligator down in the
castle ditch, as you'd get anything but curses
out of me by all your torturing. But as I said
before—I'll tell you all the truth, and bring
you right upon them, now that they've carried
off Teresa. Yes! yes! I know where they
're gone, and I'll carry all of you after them—
but not with those big caravellas—they draw
quite too much water. But you can take the
ships' boats in, and mount some heavy guns in
the long fishing pirogues—and then—yes! yes!
then you can catch the rogues, and kill them—
and eat them if you like, too, for that matter—
but I suppose you don't care so much about
that—and save the pretty Senora—for I don't
think they've done her much harm yet—he's
an honest chap, is that Ringwood, to be such
an infernal thief—and pay them for screwing
the young Don, down there. Yes! yes! that
will be better much better that racking me;
now won't it?” and he burst into a yell of
most obstreperous laughter.

“May we trust—think you, good Diego—in
this knowledge that he boasts of?” whispered
Melendez to his veteran counsellor.

“Unquestionably may we”—answered the
other, in the same low tones. “There's not a
bayou or lagoon, a river or salt creek in all
Florida he does not know as well as his own
hat—nor a sand key, or solitary rock along the
coast, but he has once and again explored it.
Besides he is in league of amity with the red
Indians, the wild Seminoles; and if he chooses
he can bring out the warriors of their tribe to
aid us. He is a faithful knave, too, and a valiant;
though somewhat bold of speech, and to
the windward not a little of due reverence for
his superiors—yet no man ever heard him tell
a lie, or break a promise! Best place full trust
in him! Heard you not what he said of the Senora?
since she was but a child he loved her—
and he knows, as I hear, right well the character
of the great English Rover.”

“Well, fellow, you can guide us, as you
say, and will. Well then, suppose we trust
you, shall we set forth, and how?”

“You shall set sail to-night—directly”—
answered the negro promptly—“with your
four caravellas; and make all speed quite
round Cape Florida—and then run sixty miles
up, close along the coast—then get out all the
boats, and man them full; and take along with
you fifteen or twenty big pirogues the fishermen
came in this morning after the storm, filled
full of soldiers, and with heavy guns. There
is a narrow—oh very narrow—creek, not ten
yards quite across, puts in there from the sea,
covered with manchinell and mangroves so no
eye can discover it—up that you shall row
twenty, aye, nigh thirty miles, and there you
will find a big clear lake, with fort, and village,
and feluccas—there live the pirates! their
stronghold.”

“And you can pilot us? So be it, then!”

“No! no!” replied the black, “pilot you I
could very well; but that won't do!—no! no!
if you go up alone, the pirates fire on you from
the bush, cut you up quite, beat you all to the
devil—no! no! my comrade Xavier, he best
must pilot you. I must get out old Tigertail—the
great chief of the Seminoles, with his
red warriors, and go quiet quite through the
forest—so when you take them front, we fall
upon their back, and shoot them every way—
destroy them altogether. Don Amadis go
along with us—he'll go along with black
Antonio, he'll go—he fears not anything!—
take fifty musket men, and with the Indians
we'll do—yes! yes! we'll do quite well, and
save Teresa!”

“He's right, your Excellency, black Antonio
is right,” exclaimed the eager Amadis.
“I'll go with him, by St. Jago! He shames
us all for wisdom!—and hark, Antonio, I'll
take a hundred men, not fifty—a hundred of
my own old Castilians. Where will you find

the Indians?—where's Xavier?—quick! quick,
speak.”

“Xavier's below, Don Amadis, he was along
with me when these kind gentlemen,” looking
toward the halberdiers, “laid hold of me, and
he wont stir, till he sees me! And for the Indians,
never fear but I can find them—get you
your men into marching trim, with lots of ball
and ammunition; and let each soldier bring a
spare firelock with him, so can we arm a hundred
of the Seminoles, and meet me at the land
gate by sunset, and we'll get under weigh at
once”'

“Hold! hold!” replied Melendez, evidently
speaking in great agitation and much doubt,
“this will not do, I fear, no! no! It will be
quite impossible to act in concert; we shall
fall on at different times, and so be beaten in
detail.”

“Not so, fair sir,” the negro answered eagerly,
“the Indian runners will watch all your
movements from the shore, and bring us word
into the bush, when you have pulled up into
the stream, and how you prosper!—no fear
but we can act in concert!”

For a few moments the stern governor mused
deeply, the dark expression and hard lines of
his bold visage showing no tokens of incertitude
or agitation; yet the broad hand, which
he had laid upon the board, quivered perceptibly,
and he kept beating his heel with a quick
nervous action against the footstool, which was
placed before his honorary chair.

“Remove the negro,” he said at length,
raising his eyes slowly from the floor on which
they had been riveted—“treat him with kindness,
but keep strict ward on him—begone!”

A little bustle took place, while the halberdiers
were leading off Antonio, and the secretaries,
in obedience to a signal from Don Juan,
were withdrawing from the chamber. The
moment it ceased, however, Melendez rose
from his seat; and casting his eyes round the
circle as if to read the thought of each of his
advisers, addressed them firmly, with a voice,
low-pitched indeed, and perhaps somewhat
subdued, but steady withal and unfaltering.

“Gentlemen,” he began, “and comrades. I
am a father, as ye know; and, as a father,
must feel deeply the appalling situation of my
most wretched child—must burn to rescue her
from the pollution which, if it have not tainted,
surrounds at least, and threatens her. I am a
soldier likewise, and governor of this fair town;
and, as such, am in honor bound and duty to
fetter down all private sentiments obedient to
my military devoir!—am bound to provide,
before all things, for the good state and safety
of this my loyal government. I am hard set,
and look to all of you for council. Should we
adopt the negro's plan, and trust to his guidance—as,
if we move at all in this same business,
I see not how we can do else—there is
good cause to hope! great cause to fear. If
he be trustworthy, and if his plan succeed, we
shall preserve Teresa—root out, and utterly
destroy a nest of pestilent accursed pirates, and
win great booty, and no small renown! If on
the other hand we fail—which we may do
right easily—our whole force must be annihilated—nor
is this all! We must so weaken
the garrison here at St. Augustine, for to make
any head against them we shall need every
man that we can muster—that if we be beaten,
and the buccaneers follow, as they doubtless
will, the blow, they might well win the city!
Thus stands the case—there is a mighty gain!
there is a mighty peril! I can not—I dare not
decide!—for I cannot distinguish, so fiercely is
my soul disturbed, between a parent's passion
and a leader's duty! Speak ye in order, then!
Diego—first! and oh speak honestly and
freely!”

Before he had sat down, the old greyheaded
warrior started to his feet; and cool although
he was, and guarded for the most part, he
spoke as hotly now—as passionately as a
boy!

“The question, gentlemen, is this—this absolutely!
ONLY! Whether we shall give up a
woman—a Christian maid—a Spanish lady—
to the brutal violence of these incarnate fiends
—without one blow—one effort to relieve her;
or march with all our power to liberate her if
we may! to die for her if we may not! Being
myself a Spaniard, a soldier, and a knight, I
have but one reply to this question, and see not
how a Juan could find a second! we must essay
it with all our best endeavors, and leave
the rest to God!”

“Not for the maiden's sake alone,” exclaimed
Gutierrez eagerly, “though that were
ample cause! but as I see the matter, in duty
to our king we stand bound to avenge the insult
offered to his flag, in duty to humanity to
hunt out wretches, who set its every dictate at
defiance, in duty to the laws of common policy
to strike at the foe in his own place of strength,
rather than wait his pleasure to assault our
weakness!”

“Besides,” cried Pedro, “we are far stronger
than our ordinary power by aid of these stout
caravellas—their crews will double our effective
strength!”

“I brought with me, a private volunteer, one
hundred picked Castilians, bound to no duties,
save at mine own will,” cried Amadis, with
fiery vehemence; “if not a soldier else stir
from the city gates, I, with my men, march out
to-night at sunset!”

“And I,” exclaimed the elder and superior
of the four Spanish sea captains, “as in obedience
to my broad letters of commission, shall
sail this night with my four frigates, to take
burn, sink, and by all means, destroy and harass
the foemen of my king and country!

Eight hundred stont hands can we muster for
boat service; leaving enough behind to work
and guard the caravellas! Do you, Sir Governor,
embark six hundred more of your best
veterans on board us, press every fisherman and
mariner to follow us, with every boat, pirogue,
or galley, they can find; let this young cavalier
go with his followers to join the Indians, and
my life on the issue!”

“Be it so, gentlemen! Fair thanks to all
for your good courtesy! and may God guard
the right. You, Don Diego, I leave here—nay,
it must be so, my good friend—lieutenant in
my absence. Pedro, Gutierrez, let the drums
beat to arms!—muster the garrison in the great
square! pick out six hundred, the youngest and
best soldiers!—let each man have his morion
and breast plate, but no back piece, brassards
or taslets; each man a musket with a hundred
round of cartridge, broadsword and dagger,
and two pistols! Ye gentlemen of the
marine will see them on board straightway!
A word with thee, Don Amadis! Ye to your
duties, gentlemen, anon I will be with ye!”

“Amadis,” he continued, as soon as they
were left alone, “win her and wear her! If
God give you the grace to rescue her, before
God shall you wed her. Get your men under
arms, take with you black Antonio, and God
speed you!”

Trumpets pealed wildly through the streets
—the drums rolled long and loud—and, with
the clash of arms and tramp of marshalled footsteps,
the veterans of the garrison were mustered!
Before the sun set, the tall caravellas
had cleared the landlocked bay, staggering out
to sea with a fair breeze, each stitch of canvas
set that they could carry; and his last glances
fell upon the little party of Don Amadis, filing
away under the guidance of the faithful negro,
into the pathless forest.

7. CHAPTER VII.

It was already afternoon when Ringwood
left the cabin; so far had the recital of his tale,
broken by violent fits of wrathful indignation,
and bursts of fiery passion, trespassed upon the
day. When he reached the deck, he found he
had conjectured, justly, the cause of the bustle
overhead, which had excited his attention,
while in the very heat and tumult of his remembered
wrongs and meditated vengeance.

The vessel was now heading to the northward,
having already rounded the extremity of
Florida, and, with the wind on her laboard
beam, blowing strong and warm directly from
the Gulf, was running close in shore along the
western coast of that forest-mantled promon
tory. The alteration in the course of the
felucca, and corresponding changes of her trim
and tackling, had, therefore, as Ringwood supposed,
produced the sounds on deck—confusion
tending unto order. The wide spread studding
sails which had protruded many feet beyond
her ordinary yard-arms, wooing the favorable
breeze, while, previous to their doubling the
cape, it had fallen full upon her starboard quarter,
were now reduced, her topsails reefed, and
her topgallant yards sent down, as if in preparation
for a storm, although no cloud or speck
of vapor was visible on the bright clear horizon.
Her consorts, close behind her, were gliding
along gently under the same easy sail, in obedience,
as it seemed, to a set of signals floating
at Ringwood's fore, and thence repeated by
each following barque of the squadron, which
came on singly, in long file, the leading vessel
being a mile, at least, in advance of the last.
The waves, or wavelets rather—for though
the breeze blew steadily and strong, the surface
of the Gulf was, notwithstanding, singularly
calm and level—were as bright, and almost as
transparent as a sheet of crystal; every rock,
every coral reef that rose sheer from the white
and sandy bottom—nay, every green variety of
ocean-grass and weed, every bright shell and
gorgeous sea-flower that studded, as with a
thousand living gems, the glistening pavement
of the deep, was visible as clearly as though no
denser medium than the air were interposed between
them and the eye that gazed in rapture
on their wonders. Scores of bright flying fish,
their white scales glancing silvery to the sunshine,
their wing-like fans fast flashing, leaped
up from the small ripples, momently, and vanished
beneath them; the blue shark shot along,
suspended, as it were, in the transparent waters,
leaving behind him a long streak of flashing
lustre; the albatross soared high upon his
snow-white pinion, while gulls and sea-swallows,
and petals of every size and color skimmed
the calm deep in the pursuit of prey or
pleasure. To the right, meanwhile, lay the
low shores of Florida, glowing with mingled
tints of almost magical verdure. Tall palms,
with their soft, feathery tops, towering far, far
up into the blue serene, above the denser foliage
of the oaks and locusts which blended with
giant cedars; and the funereal cypress, hung
with long wreaths of pale and ghostly moss,
composed the eternal forest—the forest which,
in its turn, overpowering thousands of flowering
shrubs: magnolias, with their vast chalices
of odoriferous snow; and dogwood, bright
with unnumbered star-like blossoms: roses of
every hue: calmias, and rhododendrons, and
azalias, with manyfold and clustered bloom,
varying from pure white, through all the
shades of blush, and pink, and violet, to gorgeous
kingly purple. And above all, the
orange, that young bride of the vegetable world,

enriching all the atmosphere with powerful
and almost oppressive perfume. Bushes of
manchineal and mangrove fringed the low
banks, growing far out into the shallow waters,
which actually laved their roots, and floated the
long wreaths of massive greenery that garlanded
their pendulous branches.

Hard by the outer verge of this sea cradled
coppice, with little room to spare between her
tall topgallant masts and the wide-reaching
limbs of the huge forest trees which, here and
there, protruding from the brow of some bluff
eminence, or island knoll, overhung the navigable
channel, the gallant picaroon shot onward,
her bellying sails shimmering white in the
meridian sunbeams, and the glad waters foaming
before her sharp, lean bows, rippling with
a hoarse laughter along her beautifully moulded
sides, and forming in her wake a broad and
frothy furrow, where, parted for a moment by
her fleet transit, they foamed and frolicked as
if they joyed in their reunion. Fair blew the
western breeze, and fresh; and, as the sun
turned westward in his path of glory, it freshened
more and more: and as the shades of
evening grew less distant, fleeter it waxed, and
stronger, till it became a stiff, though not unfavorable
gale.

Long before this, had the topgallant masts
of the felucca been housed; and now her topsails
were close reefed, and still with undiminished
speed—now lying over as the gale fell
full and steady on her distended canvas, till her
long yards seemed on the point of dipping into
the waves to leeward; now surging up again
with graceful elasticity in every temporary lull
—the rapid barque flew through the gurgling
waters. Fast flew she, nor less fast did her
gay consorts follow; nor did the winged hours
flag more than they in their career across the
firmament.

The day was nigh spent, and the dim presage
of approaching night was stealing fast over the
azure vault, on the last western verge of which,
his lower rim already merged in its ocean
bed, glowing like a red furnace with his borrowed
lustre—half the sun's disk of gold hung
on the very point of disappearing. A thousand
purple tints were creeping over the bright pure
sky; a thousand rosy gleams were flickering
upon the glassy waves, most like the varying
hues seen on the changeful scales of the expiring
dolphin: and now he plunged into the
deep. For a few seconds, long, radiant
streams of many-colored light, ruby, and pink,
and violet, checkered the darkening arch: these
passed away, and a deep purple shadow swept
slowly, as projected from a curtain interposed,
across the firmament of heaven—across the
laughing waters. Scarcely, however, had that
purple shade pervaded the whole visible universe,
before another change succeeded. Myriads
of stars, planets, and stationary orbs, and
confused milky constellations, burst out at once,
like eyes unclouded from sleep, beaming, or
twinkling with quick diamond rays, from every
quarter of the deep blue, viewless ether, which
stretched away, contrasted to their sudden
brilliancy, far, far—a vast abyss of lustrous
blackness. Still fair and freshly blew the
breeze—still the bark bounded onward, eager
as the worn steed, which all forgets his weariness
as he draws nigh his stall.

“Ho! Cunninghame,” exclaimed the Rover,
pausing in his walk to and fro on his brief
quarter-deck. “Ho! we be here at last—bid
them beat instantly to quarters.”

The order had been anticipated by the crew
before the words were spoken—the drummer
had assumed his instrument, and the men were
already mustered in divisions, expectant of the
call to quarters; for they had made the last well
remembered headland, a short league to the
southward of their harbor. Taking his cue then
from the Rover's words, almost before his officer
had issued the command, the long roll of the
drum might be heard mingling with the sweet
sign of the sea breeze; and with the first rattle
the strong-handed crew flew to their proper stations.

“Down with the helm, and square away
the yards.” The rattling of the blocks succeeded,
and the harsh straining of the cordage,
mixed with a rumbling creak, as the huge yards
obeyed their impulse; and instantly the graceful
ship fell off before the wind, and stood with
accelerated speed directly towards the shore,
which she had hugged all day.

“Away there, topmen!” and with the word,
the nimble hands were hurrying up the rigging,
and ready for the next command.

“In with your fore and mizen topsails,” and
ere five minutes had elapsed, the sails were clued
up in festoons, and the ponderous yards upon
the caps. “House the foretopmast,” followed;
and instantly the heel of that huge spar ran
half way down to the lower mast—“House
the mizen topmast. In with the main topsail.
House the main topmast.” These orders
were immediately obeyed; and in less than ten
minutes from the time when she had kept away,
the felucca was dashing, as it seemed, dead
ashore, with her three topmasts struck, her
yards a-cockbill, and not one stitch of canvas,
save the foresail, set.

Before her lay the shore, low as it has been
described and level—bordered with a deep
fringe of floating verdure—among and over
which the surf, set in by the strong western
gale, broke high and stormy, and covered far
aloft with the impenetrable and eternal foliage
of the tropical forest! Behind her whistled the
driving breeze, and swelled the rolling billows!
on she came, fast and fearless! and now her
bows were almost battered in the upflashing
surf! yet was there visible no opening in the

low-growing mangroves—no gap in the vast
mass of leafy blackness, which stood out like
a wall in clear and palpable relief against the
starry sky! one thing, however, might have
been marked by a sailor's eye, although a
landsman would scarce have discerned the sign,
or known its meaning, if he had discoverd it.
Right under the light vessel's bowsprit there
showed one narrow spot where the surf broke
not, where undisturbed the floating mangroves
reposed upon a streak, for it was nothing more,
of dark blue water, scarcely ten yards in width,
where for a little space the giant timber that
overhung them receded from the margin of the
billows. Right upon this the felucca steered, the
practised hand of no less a mariner than Ringwood
wielding the obedient tiller! Right upon
this she steered, as though she followed a well
known and easy channel into a secure harbor.

“Ready there forward with the long starboard
falconet!” demanded the clear accents of
the Rover.

“Ready, Sir!” was the quick response.

“Then fire!” a stream of vivid flame burst
from the bow port of the picaroon, driving a
cloud of snow white smoke before it, and the
loud booming voice of the heavy gun succeeded.
Immediately a quick thin flash was seen ashore,
followed by the report of a carbine—and then,
right in the centre of the little bay formed by
the recess of the forest trees, directly over the
space of dark blue water, a blaze of red light
burst forth sharp and dazzling, a dusky crimson
glare, in which the bright green foliage of
the underwood, and the rugged stems of the
huge timber trees, the purple billows, and the
dark sky, glowed with a deep and lurid tinge.
“Stand by there, with the grapnels!”

On! on! she darted—the thick embowered
manchineals were pierced by her long tapering
bowsprit—her cut-water plunged into their
dense greenery—the parted branches rattled
and scraped right against her lean bows as they
severed them—the leaves, entangled in her rigging,
were torn violently from their parent
branches; a moment, and she had passed
through them; and with the impulse of her
previous motion, was rushing up a deep but
narrow river—so narrow, that there were
scarcely six clear feet of space between her bulwarks
and the shore on either hand. “Heave”
—and the iron grapplings, whirled by strong
hands and with a will, rattled among the tangled
coppice—“On shore there!”

“Aye! aye!”

“Haul taut, and belay!” and instantly, from
either bow, a strong rope was dragged forcibly
ashore by unseen hands, and made fast to the giant
trunks which shaded both banks of that dark
stream with an unbroken barrier—the vessel
was checked from her way, and after lying for
a few seconds motionless, yielded to the strong
tide which was setting like a mill-race outward,
and fell aft to the full swing of her cable.

“Get hands enough ashore now, Master
Cunninghame; carry out warps, and swing her
round the point—look alive! look alive!
Godslife—the Albicore is close in shore even
now; heave at the capstan ho!—round with it,
men, round with it! or she'll be into us stem on!”

Scarce forty yards from the embouchure of
the river, the channel turned at a sharp angle
round a low point into a small round basin;
whence with a tortuous route the stream might
be traced, turbid and black and swift, but singularly
narrow, for miles into the heart of the
forest, to the far source where it boiled up at
once, from the bowels of the earth into a large
broad pool—so deep that never lead had found
its bottom, even at its birth a river. Upon this
point a little knot of men was gathered: and
here the light had been displayed at the felucca's
signal, which had now quite expired.
The men wrought eagerly and well; and many
minutes had not passed before the picaroon
swung roung the point into the little landlocked
basin; just as a gun from the Albicore announced
her proximity, and was replied to, as before,
by a brief exhibition of the same crimson light.

Meanwhile the Rover had got all his boats
out, and strongly manned; so that before the
second barque rounded the inner point, he was
already under weigh, towing, and sweeping,
where the stream occasionally widened, and
warping through its frequent windings towards
its sequestered source; hearing, each after each,
the signal guns of his consorts as they made
the cove, and confident that, for a time at least,
all were secure from peril, whether of wind or
warfare. Through all that livelong night the
crews toiled faithfully by gangs, plying the
oars in the light whale-boats, or laboring with
more severe exertions at the huge sweeps of the
felucca! All night they toiled; but not all
night did Ringwood, wearied with past labor and
yet more overdone by struggling with his own
furious passions, watch on the guarded deck.
At midnight, or a little after, descending the
companion stairs, he sought the privacy of his
own cabin. Erect and stern the negro sentry
stood at his wonted post, presenting arms as his
proud leader passed.

“Let Charon call my steward,” he said,
“bid him bring food and wine.”

“Even now it waits you, noble sir,” answered
the black attendant, “this hour or more
it hath been prepared.”

Without more words the Rover entered his
apartment, and blithely did it show, and cheerfully
by the bright radiance of the large crystal
lamps, suspended from the gilded beams, and
throwing into every angle and recess a flood of
clear illumination. The large square board,
still cumbered with its accustomed load of
books and charts, papers scrawled over with

problems of singular and abstruse calculation,
quadrant, and astrolabe, and compass, and other
instruments of singular device, and, as in
those days it was deemed, rare virtue, had been
wheeled aside; in its stead a small round table,
covered with a cloth of brilliant whiteness, and
bearing all provocatives to tempt a languid appetite,
now occupied the centre of the cabin. A
single cover of richly chased and burnished
gold, with spoons and forks of the same precious
metal; a goblet, rough with work of Benvenuto's
graver; several tall rummers of thin
Venice glass, flanked by two flasks of wine,
appropriate decorations to a cold larded capon,
a salted neat's tongue, caviar, and other delicacies
of a like thirsty nature.

Yet did the pirate chief manifest little inclination
to taste the dainties, which, till he saw
them set before him, he fancied he had needed.
He threw himself into a velvet-cushioned chair,
which stood beside the board, stretched out his
legs, and covering his face with his broad hand,
remained for many minutes silent, absorbed in
deep and gloomy meditation. At length he
started up and sat erect, gazing about him with
a strange bewildered glance, as if he had expected
to discover some one whose voice had
roused him from his lethargy; within a second's
space, however, he was calm and collected as
before.

“Marvellous, marvellous, indeed!” he said,
thinking aloud as it were, and probably unconscious
that his thoughts had found utterance;
“marvellous tricks our truant fancy plays us;
but, tush!—I am outdone with weariness and
watching, my mind wanders.”

He stood up and drew his hand across his
forehead, as if to pluck aside some cloud which
veiled his mental eyesight; then seizing a tall
flagon of champagne, he untwisted the wire
which secured the cork, decanted one half of
its generous and foamy liquor into a mighty
glass of Venice crystal, quaffed it off at a single
draught, and replaced the goblet. Then, as if
conquering his deeply-seated loathing, he applied
himself to carve the capon, placed a few
morsels on his platter, and forced himself to
swallow a mere mouthful. But it was all in
vain! Again he had recourse to the rich wine;
and, after drinking it, fell back into his chair,
and as before mused deeply; dark frowning
shadows stealing across his broad fair brow,
and strange emotions curling his lip at times
with a fierce sneering spasm; anon these
gloomy signs passed over, and were succeeded
by a severe though sad expression: as if some
tender melancholy recollection had swept over
the unfolded tablets of his soul, and erased for
the moment thence each darker stain of sin or
worldly sorrow.

“ 'Tis strange,” he said, again, after a long
deep pause, “ 'tis passing strange, how at this
time the images of by-gone scenes, aye, to the
very verdure of the trees, and shadows thrown
by the yellow sunbeams athwart the laughing
landscape, array themselves before mine eyes,
in palpable distinctness. Yet was there no
link—no chain in the tenor of my thought to
join these visions of the past, with the utility
of the stern present. Strange, they are very
strange indeed, these pranks of the imagination!
Those boyish reminiscences were clear upon
my spirit, as the events of yesterday—every
word that I spoke myself, every tone that I
marked of others—and thou, thou too, my
sister! The ancient village church—the quiet
and sequestered pew in the shadowy corner—
the sunbeams full of dusty motes streaming in
through the oriel window—the humble devout
congregation—the old grey-headed curate—
aye! I could hear the very accents of his sonorous
voice, could mark the hum of the responses,
could hear the lisping trill of thy small
girlish treble—my sister—my lost sister!—as
we did kneel together on the bright Sabbath
mornings—as we did kneel—and pray!—pray
—pray,” he muttered, as though the sense of
the word had escaped his understanding; then
struck his forehead heavily with his expanded
palm, “and now!” he said, “and now! Well
—well, it is no matter!” and, rallying by a violent
effort his seattered senses, he quaffed off a
third goblet of champagne, and moving with a
rapid and firm step towards the starboard state
room of his cabin, seemed as though on the
point of opening the door; but just as his hand
touched the latch he paused, for the low sound
of regular calm breathing fell on his ear. “Aye
—aye!” he said, “aye—I had forgotten!”

He turned away, and entering the alcove between
the two small chambers, looked long and
with a fervent and excited gaze upon the lovely
picture which hung there, with that serene
and innocent smile which, like a seraph's voice,
seemed to pour something of consolatory hope
into the bosom—worn as it was and blighted,
and filled at that very instant by turbulent and
fiery conflict between good thoughts and evil,
of him who gazed on it so fixedly.

His eye, as he withdrew it from the picture,
fell on the crucifix of gold, which stood upon
the little table under it—and, moved as he
was by a strange and long unfelt revulsion,
he knelt down before it, and burying his head
in his clasped hands, burst at once into a flood
of wild hysterical weeping.

“I know not,” he said thoughtfully, as he
arose, “I know not—would God that I did!
Cunninghame, now, would term this naught
but a heated mind working upon a weary body
—but no! no! I know it not—it is not so!
Why do I doubt? I who have never doubted,
or pity, whose revenge has had no check or
stay of mercy! Whence, whence these retrospections
to the long, long-forgotten past?—
these journeyings backward of the soul to pure

and innocent days? Whence this insatiable
and longing wish for rest—for rest—for something
stiller than mere repose—sounder than
earthly sleep—more peaceful than tranquillity
itself? Wherefore this loathing of hot action,
for which till now I have alone existed? Is it
that coming death is even now spreading above
me the shadow, the prophetic gloom of his approach?
Is it, that now but one deed more
rests to be done, until my great revenge shall
be completed, and I may lay me down, my last
toil ended, and sleep—sleep dreamlessly, soundly,
and for ever! and yet that one deed? that
one deed? no! no! no! Great God, it cannot be
—and still—my oath! why, why, doth she look
like my sister? Well! well! to-morrow will
be time enough! to-morrow!”

Still gazing thoughtfully about him, and
walking to and fro with his right hand firmly
pressed upon his forehead, and his left hanging
down by his side tightly clenched and quivering,
he mused a little longer, then locking the
outer door of his cabin, he turned into his state-room;
and without altering his dress, or drawing
off his buskins, wrapped his watch-cloak
about him, and threw himself on his cot; where
motionless and seeming in tranquil sleep he
lay, till the morning sun shone broad and
bright into the stern windows, pouring a flood
of golden light upon the cold stern features
which felt not, nor acknowledged the genial
warmth of its young lustre.

8. CHAPTER VIII.

The strong beams of the morning sun, pouring
a flood of emerald-tinted lustre, caught from the
leafy arches through which they made their
way, into the stern lights of the Rover's cabin,
aroused him from his troubled slumbers. He
rose up on the instant in perfect possession of all
his senses, drew his hand once or twice across
his fine broad brow, as if to wipe away some
thought that had sat heavy there during the
hours of sleep, and then plunged his whole
head into an ewer of cold water, to cool its
feverish throbbing. This done, and his disordered
dress arranged with somewhat finical
nicety, he hastened to the deck of his galley,
where his presence was hailed with a shout of
enthusiastic rapture by the assembled crew.

The scene was widely altered since the preceding
sunset; for now the pirate squadron lay
calmly floating in a small wood-girt basin, so
exquisitely clear and glassy, that every line
and moulding of the vessels, every small rope
and fluttering pennant, was drawn to the very
life on the dark mirror of the still deep waters;
and it might well have tasked the strongest
vision to define the exact place where the sub
stance and the shadow met, so wonderfully
were they blended.

At first sight it appeared that this small pool
or lakelet, which was so nearly circular that it
might have been fancied artificial, and in no
direction was it a quarter of a mile across, although
so marvellously deep that the deepest
sealine had never yet found bottom, though
run out to five hundred fathoms, was altogether
landlocked, and had no outlet for its brimming
waters; for it was hedged around on every
side but one, by the dense brakes and ever-living
umbrage of the tropical forest, and there the
shore sloped gently upward in a rich turfy
lawn of the tenderest verdure. On a nearer
inspection, however, it was not difficult to detect
the spot, by the opening in the tree-tops,
where rushed from that secluded spring the
powerful and abundant stream, which boiled
up from the bowels of the earth, here at its very
birth a river; although it made so short a turn
immediately on quitting the parent basin, that
no part of its course was visible. Immediately
on the water's edge, where the smooth lawn
sloped upward, forming a gentle hillock, a long
green mound of short close greensward, cut
into many an angular zigzag, many a crescent,
and wedged ravelin, and abutting at either extremity
on a small half-moon bastion of wrought
stone, presented a terrible array of batteries
mounted with above a hundred black-mouthed
cannon, grinning defiance to any bold invader
who should penetrate so deeply into the Rover's
haunts as to reach this his inmost hold,
many a mile aloof from the blue billows of the
Mexican Gulf. From either bastion there was
drawn a line of powerful stoccades facing an
eastern rampart with many salient angles, running
entirely round the hillock between its
grassy esplanade and the deep masses of the
forest which surrounded it; and a broad ditch
cut with vast labor through the swampy soil,
and lined with square hewn timber completely
isolated the position, which had been chosen
with so much skill, and fortified so masterly by
the directions of the great English Rover. The
space within the lines, which might have
formed an area of a mile's circuit, contained
many long wooden buildings, erected at right
angles to each other, with wide verandahs and
long porticoes, all clustered round the base of
the hill, presenting a picturesque and gay appearance;
for they were painted tastefully
enough with white and green in broad contrasting
stripes, like some of the modern Italian
villas, and all the verandahs were furnished
with curtained awnings of the most sumptuous
and magnificent materials, velvets and rich
brocades, and gold and silver tissues, more like
the fanciful pavilions of some fairy palace, than
the adornments of a piratical stronghold.

Around the crest of the little hill, commanding
the whole area, and forming evidently the

citadel of the position, a triple line of earthen
ramparts, with deep dry ditches, crowned with
chevaux de frise, and mounted with long culverins,
guarded the scarped ascent, and encircled
a large keep or block-house, which occupied
the summit of the knoll—the Rover's
palace-castle.

Such was the scene which lay brightly illuminated
by the low morning sunbeams, but
checkered here and there with cool blue shadows,
cast by the forest trees and grotesque
buildings over the emerald lawn, under the eyes
of Ringwood.

But though he was no mean judge, nor careless
observer of the wild charms of nature, he
had gazed too often on that strange and lovely
prospect, to give at this time more than a passing
glance to its attractions; besides, the moment
had its duties. There was of course no
anchorage in that unfathomed gulf, whereon
the low and rakish picaroons floated so calmly;
they were moored, therefore, in shore, for
the banks were all abrupt and molden, by
hooks and grapnels; Ringwood's felucca, as the
largest, lying the furthest from the batteries, and
covering the outlet of the river with her broadside.
The other barks were anchored to the
shore at various points, so as to concentrate
their fire on the same spot, much further up the
basin and under the very guns of the fort, the
smallest of the squadron lying directly in front
of the water-gate, and covered by the eastern
bastion.

The crews, it would appear, of all the rest,
had already landed; for with the exception of
a single sentinel on the forecastle of each, not
a soul was to be seen on board; while, dotting
everywhere the verdant area of the fort, some
lounging idly in the cool shadows of the curtained
porticoes, some walking to and fro in
little groups and parties, some dallying with
gaily dressed, light-mannered girls, two or
three hundred of the buccaneers were visible;
while from within the dwellings, loud bursts of
revelry, mingled with the sweet laughter and
half sportive shrieks of women, and now and
then a gay licentious song, or the tinkling of a
lute, betokened the presence of many more inhabitants
than met the gazer's eye.

“Ha! Anson,” exclaimed Ringwood, addressing
one of his subordinate officers with a
smile, “I have played something overmuch
the sluggard; and these good fellows are, I
warrant me, fretting to be ashore among the
bona robas yonder. So to it, sir, at once; hoist
all the boats out presently, except my private
pinnace, and have the people landed. Keep
the barge to the last; I will ashore in it myself.”

A louder acclamation than that even which
had greeted the appearance of the rover on his
deck, now burst forth from the merry crew, as
they rushed with tumultuous hurry to their
quarters, eagerly urging their light duty, and
hoisting out the boats with many a jovial cheer
and hasty halloa! For a few minutes the
great buccaneer stood looking on in silence, till
the last boat had pushed off with its noisy
freight, leaving the barge's crew alone, waiting
for their superiors, who were grouped on the
forecastle; and the small private pinnace swinging
beneath the stern-lights of the cabin. Then
motioning his officers to wait for his return, he
descending the companion-stair, and once more
entered his own cabin.

“Pluto!” he cried, “Ho! Pluto!” as he
entered; and as the negro sentinel thrust in his
turbaned head, at the half-opened door—“jump
up on deck, and clear away my pinnace; bring
it round to the starboard gangway, and after
we shall have left the ship—I and the gentlemen
—do thou and Charon lead down the lady there,
and the black lass, and row them to the sally-port,
entering the covered way: I will be there
to meet ye; and hark, sirrah, in your ear—do
thou, or thy swart comrade, but once look lustfully
upon their beauties, and thou shalt wish
thyself dead fifty times, ere death shall end thy
tortures. See to it, and begone;” then, as the
negroes hurried forth to execute his orders,
“Teresa!” he called aloud—“come forth,
Teresa!” There was a pause of a few minutes,
interrupted only by a slight rustling
sound as if of female garments, from the state-room;
but no one answered anything; nor
did she, when he called, come forth. “What,
ho!” he cried again: “come forth, come forth,
Teresa! or, by the Lord that lives, you shall
repent it. Best not provoke me, beauty.”

As he spoke the door opened, and the sweet
girl came forth, somewhat refreshed, indeed,
by sleep, but with her clear and luminous skin
still pale as alabaster; so that her large dark
eye, contrasted with the singular whiteness of
her face, showed almost supernaturally full and
lustrous. Her hair had been arranged in neat,
broad plaits, wound simply round the classic
contour of her head; and over her high brow
a single heavy curl falling down with a massive
sweep behind each delicate ear; but her
neck, and the first gentle swell of her young
bosom, were all bare, and her round dimpled
arms uncovered to the shoulders; yet, even in
her disarray, there was a true dignity in every
motion, so rigid and severe a modesty in the
chaste, sorrowful eye, so perfect an air of unconsciousness
of aught unseemly—although,
indeed, she was most conscious—that the most
hardened debauchee could no more have found
matter for voluptuous thoughts there, than in
the cold, denuded limbs of marble saint or angel.

“I come,” she answered, her words flowing
out in a calm, passionless, and even strain, as
though her very fears were dead. “I come,
obedient to your call, so to eschew worse outrage.
I come; what would you?”

“Sweet lady,” replied Ringwood, with a
half-meaning courtesy of accent, “sweet, innocent
lady, that you prepare you straightway to
take boat, in charge of my staunch guardsmen,
and so to my poor dwelling; there I will see
you presently. Meantime, in yonder state-room
are store of velvet mantles; take one of
them, I pray you, and wrap you closely in its
folds; and 'twere no evil done, if you should
cast a silk kerchief, in lieu of veil, over those
lovely lineaments. I would not give your
charms to the brute gaze of the rude sailors.”

“Wherefore, kind sir, and most considerate,”
she said, a slight flush rising to her pallid
cheek, “or to what purpose would you veil,
to-day, me, whom, but two days ago, you did
display in so unwomanly disarray to the same
eyes from which you now would hide me?
perchance from motives not pure and disinterested?”

“Simply,” returned the rover, in a cold, resolute
voice, “simply for that it is my will! and
have a care—have thou a care, Teresa, provoke
me not too far—I say provoke me
not! It were as easy, every whit, to me, to
strip your charms to the broad day, and so parade
you to the gaping wonder of those brute
mariners, as to say, `veil your beauties!' By
God!” he added, lashing himself into fury as
he proceeded, “by God! it were as easy to
cast you forth a booty to the untamed licentiousness
of those who know no mercy—as
thus—”

“As thus from selfish passion,” she interrupted
him, “thus to reserve me for the more
foul dishonor of your own private pleasures!”

“Of my own private pleasures!” he repeated,
mimicking the very tones of her voice—“of
my own private pleasures! right daintily worded
that, dear lady, and very true withal. My own
most private pleasures, of which, believe me,
sweet one, you soon shall be the most choice
minister, and the well-pleased partaker—and
now to punish you for this, your insolence,
and teach you wisdom for the future!”

And with the words, he made one quick step
forward, and throwing both his arms round her
fair form, one encircling her lovely shoulders
and swan-like neck, the other twining with
irresistible pressure her slight rounded waist, he
clasped her to him in a close embrace, kissing
her lips, and sucking her sweet breath, till she
had well nigh fainted in his arms. She did
not shriek, nor struggle—no more could she
have struggled within the overpowering grasp
of that gigantic frame, than could the linnet
strive against the talons of the ger-falcon. She
did not shriek; for there was none to hear;
much less to aid, or rescue her. But yet she
yielded not one jot—much less responded to
his passionate caress—but stood within his
circling arms, cold, rigid, stern, impassive as a
wrought shape of bronze or marble—not a
pulse in her body bounded beyond its usual
motion; not a quicker throb of her bosom answered
to the hot beatings of his heart—not a
pant was on her breath, not a cloud on her
clear steady eye, not a dew drop on her
honeyed lip—but when he again released her
from his arms, a faint brief color stole over her
cheeks and brow, and, when it receded, left her
even paler than before—and a quick shudder
shook her limbs for a moment.

“Thus deal I with the stuhborn,” said Ringwood,
as he let her go, “thus deal I with the
insolent and stubborn! see, if you like it not,
that you offend not in like sort again! and now,
do as I bid you, and make ready!”

As he spoke, he turned on his heel, and
leaving the cabin, rejoined his subordinates on
deck, and shortly after going down into the
barge threw himself at full length on the cushions
in the stern sheets, and was pulled to shore
as rapidly as twenty vigorous seamen could
ply their oars in that calm basin. While she,
deserted by the calm resolution which had
borne her up while in the presence of her persecutor,
and which a secret instinct rightly
taught her to be the only weapon with which
she could successfully oppose his forceful violence,
burst instantly into a wild agony of tears
and sobbing, and falling to the ground, continued
in a series of fainting fits and swoons,
until the terrified Cassandra, who had been
twice already summoned by the negroes, brought
her back to her senses, by her half frantic entreaties,
that she would arise and obey the orders
of the pirate, if she would save her life or
honor. Then she aroused herself at once, as
soon as she became conscious of her handpmaid's meaning; and casting one of the velvet
cloaks around her, by a strong effort gulped
down the whole of her hysterical passion,
wiped away the traces of her tears, and followed
the tall negro to the pinnace wherein his
fellow was already seated at the oar.

No princess of old Spain could have been
treated with more ample courtesy, more deep
respect, by the most stately cavalier of her
proud court, than was Teresa by the two
pirate blacks. Not a glance of their bright
eyes rested upon her features for a moment—
not a word was spoken, but such as were of
absolute necessity; and, when she had taken
her seat in the stern of the little boat with the
black girl crouching as usual at her feet, the
men took to their oars, and pulled as fast as
they were able, in perfect silence, towards the
sally-port, at the base of the western bastion,
upon the battlements of which the stately
figure of the great buccaneer was already visible,
as he awaited the arrival of his captive.

As the boat neared the port, however, he descended
from his lofty stand; and as the keel
grated upon the pebbly marge, the portcullis
rose, the gate flew open, and displayed him

standing within the low browed arch—a third
negro, of similar dimensions to those who
were assisting the girls from the boat, holding
a flambean at his side.

They had not entered one second's space,
before the iron grating was again lowered, and
the heavy gate swung back, leaving the boatmen
on the outer side, and Teresa found herself
in a low, narrow-vaulted passage, stretching
away into interminable darkness, though
continually ascending by flights of broad flat
steps, as if towards the daylight; but little being
rendered visible by the smoky torch of the
negro, who preceded them in silence, except
the key-stone of the rude arch overhead, and
the mildewed walls on the right hand and left.

“Take my arm, girl,” exclaimed Ringwood,
“and lean on it! mind what I say to you, and
forget not the lesson I was compelled to teach
you, even now; which, by the heaven above
`us! shall be as nothing to that which you
shall learn, if you be any more refractory!”

Pale as the winter's snow, and scarce less
cold, she took his proffered arm, in silence but
untrembling; and she did lean on him, for in
good truth she was scarce able to support
herself even when she entered; and the dank
mildew vapors of that cold vault, wherein the
drops of moisture were constantly detaching
themselves from the roof and plashing on the
muddy earth, had yet more overpowered her,
so that full surely she had lacked the strength
to drag her limbs along, has she not been supported
by the nervous arm of Ringwood, to
which she clung with a convulsive gripe of
which she was indeed scarce conscious.

After walking for some distance through this
deep covered way, having ascended not less
than a hundred steps at different times, and in
various places—they reached a huge oak door,
clenched with large nails, which gave them
access to a tall winding staircase, carried up
through a shaft in the earth, similar to a well,
each step being a beam of solid timbers, hewn
rudely with the axe, and all unconscious of
the adze or plane of the neat-handed joiner.
After ascending this rugged stairway, they
reached a little vestibule, above the level of
the ground, the floor and walls of which were
covered with neat Indian mattings, lighted by
a long shot-hole or crenelle, through which a
golden sunbeam, full of a million dancing
motes, streamed in, filling the little place with
glorious light and gaiety, which seemed more
lovely to those who viewed it in close contrast
to the swart darkness of the subterranean galleries
which they had but just quitted. From
this small vestibule a second staircase, wrought
in the thickness of the wall, quickly conducted.
Ringwood and his fair captive—close to whom
crept, more terrified a thousand times than her
pale mistress, the black slave girl Cassandra—
to a well-lighted airy hall, overlooking—as it
was easy to perceive—from the upper story of
the Rover's keep, the whole green end of the
pirate fortress, with the gay dwellings and the
glassy bay, and the beautiful vessels moored
in their several berths, all laughing out in the
glad golden sunlight, which poured down
everywhere over the wide spread tropical
forests, and over that small inland lakelet, from
the soft smiling heavens.

The hall in which they stood, lighted by
four tall lattices, and looking down upon that
romantic view, was itself worthy of attention
from its magnificent and tasteful decorations.
The ceiling of dark Indian wood, from which
swung a vast golden lamp that once had decked
some sacred edifice, was polished till it
shone like a mirror; the walls, covered with
hangings of green velvet, were all adorned with
groups of glittering weapons, disposed in rare
and picturesque patterns of every singular variety
of forth and purpose. Shirts of ring-mail,
and corslets of bright plate, and casques
embossed with gold circular shields of oriental
fashion. Damascus cimeters, and Spanish
blades, and rare Italian daggers, all glittering
with gems and flashing to the morning sun.
The floor was carpeted with velvet, and a divan
of the same rich material, corded and laced
with gold, ran round the walls of the apartment;
while on a massive table was spread a
sumptuous collation, with many flagons of rich
wine, and tall Venetian glasses, among rich
meats and vases full of the dewy flowers of that
rare southern clime. There were no tenants
to this splendid hall, but from a door that
faced the staircase, which had been partially
left open, there came the mingled sounds of
more than one sweet low-toned female voice;
and once or twice a long soft thrilling laugh,
that seemed to speak a heart at ease and happy.
These sounds were followed, just as the
Rover led his prisoner into that noble hall, by
a light air touched exquisitely on a lute, and
accompanied by a rich clear melodious voice of
a girl singing. Her execution was admirable
—her tones thrilled to the very heart like liquid
fire—but, alas! the song was so passionately,
painfully voluptuous, that it could have flowed
from no modest lips, and should have been listened
to by no modest ears. Pierced to the
soul, Teresa faltered, and stood still—but
Ringwood with a strong pressure of her arm,
and a stern whisper of his deep penetrating
voice, saying, “Beware! I say, beware,
Teresa,” half led, half bore her onward to the
door whence came those hateful sounds. He
threw it open, and the sight she saw, stuck
that unhappy girl,—more than the most dreadful
of the dread scenes she had already witnessed—with
agony and terror and despair.

9. CHAPTER IX.

The room to which Teresa was thus unwiilingly
introduced, was of dimensions somewhat
smaller than the hall or armory on which
it opened, but far more graceful and luxurious
in its decorations. Its casements, although
high and spacious, and admirably calculated to
admit every breath of air that might be stirring,
were completely closed against the garish light
by deep Italian awnings of peach-colored
damask, striped with broad silver arabesques,
through which the rays stole softly, mellowed
to the same tender hue. The walls were hung
with Genoa velvet of the same delicate color,
divided into panels by rich frames of Venetian
filagree in silver—the very floor was strewn
with carpets of the same material—mirrors
were everywhere in bright profusion, curtained
with gauzy veils of the faintest pink—
couches and ottomans of down, with covers of
soft silk—tables and cabinets of marquetry and
buhl completed the furniture of this voluptuous
bower, the very atmosphere of which, like the
haunts fabled by Grecian bards, of that Cytherean
goddess, reeked by the perfumes redolent
of love. But if the chamber and its decorations
were in themselves luxurious almost beyond
description, what words can paint the
charms almost unearthly, the Aphrodisian air,
the prodigal voluptuousness of its inmates?
They were but three in number—three young
and splendid girls, all the very flower and flush
of young ripe womanhood—all beautiful—but
oh! how different in their beauty.

The first—she it was whose rich clear voice
had reached Teresa's ear before she entered—
was a rare specimen of that peculiar style of
English loveliness, which, save to the voluptuary,
is rendered far less lovely by the predominance
in all its traits essential to intellectual
thought—and yet she was indeed most
beautiful. Her forehead, though rather low
than otherwise, was whiter than the virgin
snow-wreath, before the soft west wind has
thawed its dazzling purity, and smooth as it
was white—her delicately pencilled brows o'erarched
a pair of large soft eyes swimming in
liquid light—her nose was delicate and small
her lips of the richest crimson, wooingly prominent,
disclosed a set of teeth so pearly and
transparent in their lustre, that they set simile
at naught. Her hair, of the lightest and the
most shining brown, was all dishevelled as it
seemed,—but, in truth, trained most artfully to
fall and float in a thousand wreaths of silky
ringlets, over her neck and shoulders, and far
below her waist, shrouding her as with a
golden glory. But exquisite as were her features,
they yet were nothing in comparison to
her unrivalled symmetry of person—the plump
and rounded neck wreathed to and fro with
many a swanlike motion, the soft full arch of
her superbly falling shoulders, the swell of the
fair bosom, even now in her fresh girlhood
luxuriant and mature, with myriads of fine
azure veins meandering about its glowing surface—the
slender waist scarcely confined by
the slight silver zone that gathered in the folds
of the white gauzy lawn that scarcely veiled
her bust, leaving her shoulders and round
dimpled arms all unencumbered; the wavy
outlines of her form, indicated by the fall of
the thick heavy drapery of azure silk that
flowed from her waist downward, to the earth,
suffering only the extremity of one small foot
decked with a silver sandal to peep out modestly
beneath the hem.

Such was the foremost of the fair tenants o
the room, who met the cold indignant eye of
the young prisoner, as she leaned negligently
on a pile of satin cushions, warbling the amatory
air which had so shocked Teresa; not
that there was any touch of grossness or indecency
in the words, which, the more fatally
seductive for that very want, breathed the full
soul of passion blended with sentiment and
pathos—but that the singer threw into every
tone and accent a manner so voluptuous, an
expression so entirely sensual, that, to an
ear not yet corrupted into sin, the effect was
painful and disgusting.

The second damsel was a tall slender Persian,
with the warm dusky hue of her country's
complexion on her soft velvet skin, a
soft rich flush peering out upon either cheek,
like the first touch of young Aurora's pencil
upon the waving night-clouds—her eyes,
fringed by long silky lashes, dark, deep, and
swimming, now melted into a sleepy languor,
now flashed out with intolerable lustre—her
hair, black as the raven's wing, was twisted
into a mass of little spiral curls, and decked
with chain work ornaments of gold, a glittering
amulet all set with sapphires of rare price lying
by either ear. Her dress, too, was no less
dissimilar to that of her fair beauty, than was
the style of her loveliness; yet, though no portion
of her flesh was visible, except the face
and hands and a small part of the throat, it yet
displayed her person, scarcely in a less degree
than did that of her companion which left her
bosom, shoulders, and arms almost entirely
bare. She wore a close cymar or jacket of
bright yellow satin, all flowered with sprigs of
gold, and buttoned up in front with studs of
chrysolite; below the zone, she was clothed in
loose trousers of gold-sprigged Indian muslin,
with heavy golden bangles, allhung with glittering
bells, about her ankles, and light gilded slippers
on her small shapely feet. There was,
perhaps, even more of beauty in the movements,
in the exceeding grace, in the air, the
manner of this oriental fair one, than in her
personal charms, as she danced lightly to and
fro, bending her slight shape into many a

strange and graceful posture, waving her arms,
whose every gesture was perfection, and swaying
all her limbs with an exquisite freedom,
her golden bells chiming the while in time to
the words of the singer, and the tones of the
lute or gittern which the third girl—a tall
black-browed Italian—was striking with rare
skill, uttering ever and anon one of those low-toned
happy laughs, which should have told
of an innocent heart at ease, but which, alas,
announced no more than heartless levity. The
tresses of the lute player, though black as the
bright Persian's ringlets, were as different from
them in their nature and disposition as things
can be—even the most dissimilar—for they
were parted evenly upon her forehead, and
flowed down quite uncurled in long and wavy
masses, actually resting in loose coils upon
the velvet floor-cloth, as she sat near the
English girl on a low ottoman, with her back
to a great Venetian mirror, which reflected the
contour of all her sloping shoulders down
nearly to the waist.

Such was the scene—such the companions—
to which the buccaneer now introduced his
captive. For a moment, so soft were the carpets
of the armory, and so light had been the
footsteps of the new comers—for a moment the
girls continued their occupations, unconscious
that they were overlooked by any mortal eye—
but when, after a meaning pause of a second's
space, and a threatening glance at Teresa, Ringwood
advanced a step or two, the Persian dancer
raised her head from one of her low bending
attitudes, and catching sight of her stately
lord, uttered a shrill cry of surprise, and bounded
forward like an antelope to meet him;
quick, however, as were her movements, she
was nevertheless outstripped by the fair beauty,
who, being seated nearer the door, sprang up
the moment she heard the outcry of the other,
and was in the embrace of the buccaneer with
the speed of light, winding her beautiful bare
arms about his noble person, pressing her panting
bosom close to his mighty chest, and pouring
a flood of sweet burning kisses on his
brow, eyes, and mouth; uttering all the time
a low soft murmur, all eloquent of eager passion,
and blushing so profusely with excitement,
that all her neck and bosom, seen clearly
through the thin gauze of her boddice, were
crimsoned by the torrent of hot blood, that
coursed through every vein of her whole body
like streams of burning lava. Nor was the
pirate chieftain slow or reluctant to return her
passionate caress, but clasped her in a long
embrace. After a minute, however, he released
her, reluctant as it seemed. And there
amid those sirens, as beautiful as either, but,
oh! how different in her calm, innocent, pure
loveliness, scarce conscious of her own exquisite
attractions, and all unsunned by any tinge
of noonday passion, from their unmaidenly
beauty, which actually pained the feelings
though it might fix the eye and rivet the mere
senses of the beholder, stood the sad Spanish
maiden. At first she gazed in mute astonishment,
unable to conceive the possibility of
aught so boldly passionate as the blonde
beauty's rapture—but gradually, as she felt her
own heart bound too fiercely in her bosom, and
her own pulses throb, she knew not wherefore,
she let her eyes sink to the carpet, and stood
all breathless and dismayed blushes and paleness
chasing each other over her speaking lineaments,
like the alternate lights and shadows
which sweep in autumn days over some lovely
landscape. The slave-girl all the time gazed
with dilated eyes that seemed to drink in all
that passed before them—without, however,
comprehending anything; clinging with one
hand to the velvet cloak which partly shrouded
the form of her pale mistress, and trembling
wildly between fear and admiration.

When this strange scene had ended, Ringwood
turned towards his prisoner, and taking
her by the hand said, while a cold convulsive
shudder shook her whole form—

“These lovely girls, Teresa, shall be your
future comrades—this bower of bliss shall be
your dwelling. Pleasure shall wait your very
wish; luxury, such as no human heart has
ever dreamed of, shall lull you to your slumbers;
not an air of heaven shall visit your
brow too roughly; and your whole life shall
glide away like one soft dream of rapture.
Bella, my fair-haired beauty, welcome your
new companion, choose her a boudoir near
your own—fit her with garments such as your
own rare taste may choose, and her rare beauty
justify, and above all,” he added, lowering his
voice to a tender whisper, “be not thou jealous,
rare one; for if I seek to win her to my will,
it is not anything for love, but all for vengeance!
and now, farewell, sweet sirens all,”
he added, speaking once more aloud, “and let
me find you, my Teresa, happy as these fair
creatures when I revisit you to-morrow.”

“Oh no!” she cried, in vehement impetuous
tones, that would not brook control even of
reason, “oh no! no! no! Leave me not here,
leave me not here, with these! No, better,
better far to languish in the deepest dungeon;
to writhe in untold agonies; to share the slenderest
pittance of the most wretched innocent
slave, than live in plenty thus, with wanton
guilt and barefaced infamy for comrades!
Slay me, then, slay me with agonies protracted,
as you will, cast me forth to the beasts of the
forest, tear my limbs joint from joint, but leave
me not with these.”

“Teresa,” he said, speaking in a low but
distinct voice, with fearful emphasis, “Teresa,
I have sworn, and you well know how deeply,
and with how deep a cause! Now mark me,
one thing I have remitted to you, in one thing

have I pardoned; tempt me no further, I beseech
you.”

“O, slay me! slay me, rather”—she frantically
interrupted him.

“I will,” he said, “I will, by Heaven! if
you say any more about it; but not as you
suppose—I will, Teresa, I will cast you forth
if you provoke me any further; but not to the
wild beasts of the forest! By Him that lives!
tigers and sharks are merciful compared with
those to whom I will abandon you! Hark to
that shout of revelry and riot! they shall enjoy
the charms which you would keep so charily!
in the rack of their barbarous embraces shall
your frame writhe with anguish! by their
hands shall your limbs be torn joint from joint!
Three days I give you, but three days! to
yield you wholly to my will; or beyond doubt
it shall be done to you as I have spoken!”

With an air of proud defiance, tossing her
long black locks from her pale forehead, her
bosom panting, and her eyes flashing as if with
a prophetic inspiration, she raised her head,
which had drooped on her bosom, and shook
her finger, menacingly, at the great Rover.

“And I tell thee,” she said, in clear and
liquid tones—they were like the blast of a silver
trumpet, “and I tell thee, that ere three
days thou shalt be called to thine account—be
it for good or evil!”

“Then!” answered he, bursting into an uncontrollable
fit of fury, “then! by my Marker!
to thine shalt thou precede me!” and he made
a step forward as if to seize her by the arm;
when the Italian girl and the gay Persian
dancer rushed between, and entangling him in
their caresses, hung round his sinewy frame,
like honeysuckles, wreathing their sweet tendrils
about some giant oak; while at the same
moment the fair-haired Bella laid her hand on
the Spanish maiden's shoulder, with a delicate
respectful pressure, and in a soft voice whispered
blandly—

“Oh! irritate him not! oh! irritate him not,
dear lady—for although, when he is himself,
none are more noble-hearted, none are more
generous and kind, none are more gentle, yet
when the paroxysm is upon him, he is the
slave of fifty furious demons, his own unchained
passions, to which the fiends themselves
were powerless and tame! oh! irritate
him not! and all may yet be well; and see, he
smiles,” she added, quite disregarding the air
of bitter scorn with which Teresa met her soft
and disinterested advances; and casting herself
in the way of the Rover with the conscious air
of a favorite, she threw her arms about his
neck, and stopped the words he seemed about
to utter by a long ardent kiss, whispering in his
ear as she did so, “Heed her not now, she
will be tamer soon—consider she is but fresh
caged; and even singing birds will dash themselves
against the bars of their fresh cages, even
although those bars be gilded!” and she uttered
a low sweet merry laugh; which, though in
truth both the action which preceded it, and the
laugh itself, originated in the best and tenderest
motives, struck upon the breast of Teresa as
the height of cold unfeeling heartlessness.

The Rover laughed as he returned the fair
girl's kiss.

“Well, be it so, beautiful Bella—be it so, if
you will;” and then stooping down, he whispered
a sentence in her ear. None heard it
but she—and, pushing him gently to the door,
cried, “Oh, yes! I will remember: and now
go—Reginald, now go!”

Nothing more was said for the moment; and,
turning quietly away, the Rover left the room,
closing the door behind him—releasing Teresa
from the dread, which, when he rushed towards
her, despite her dauntless courage, had
shaken her every nerve.

He had not, however, quitted the apartment
a minute, before Bella again approached the
maiden—an air of calm compassion sitting serenely
on her lovely features; and laying her
white hand, which showed like snow itself for
the contrast, upon the darker complexion of
Teresa's arm—

“Come, lady, come with me,” she said, almost
humbly. “Come to my private bower,
and we will seek for some attire less unbecoming.
With me you will be safe, and can take
some repose, of which I judge it certain you
must stand in need very greatly.”

But the proud virgin shook off the caressing
hand as if contamination had been in its slightest
pressure, and shrank back from her consolation
with an air of absolute horror.

“Pray, shrink not from me thus,” the English
girl exclaimed, in accents that told forcibly
the depth of her emotions, her face again
covered with a deep, deep blush, far different
from the hot crimson color that had suffused
her whole complexion at the words of her
lover.

“Nay, shrink not from me thus, dear lady:
contamination lies not in the mere touch, even
of the violet. It is the mind which, alone,
pollutes; and God, he knows that, be I what I
may myself, I would not teach vice to another—no!
not to be virtuous again myself,
which I can never be, nor pure as I once was.
Nor yet too much despise us: for, be sure, lady,
that as thou art now, we were all once; as innocent,
as pure, as noble; and be not too sure,
lady, proud though thou be, and as unsunned
pure snow, and strong in purity—be not too
sure that thou be not in a few days as we now
are!”

“Never—Oh no! by my own soul, no!
never!” answered Teresa, eagerly, but in a
manner much mollified by her companion's
manner.

“Be not too sure!” Bella responded.

“Honor is dear, indeed—dearer than life to the
innocent—but life is very sweet! and death,
under the tortures, very awful; and if, by
losing life, we may not save our honor—”

“Then better die dishonored!”—Teresa interrupted
her—“but though I hear your words
I cannot comprehend their purport?”

“Like enough, lady!—like enough! and
may you never do so—but I believe you will!
For you will learn that this same honor, for
which you would die willingly, may be rent
from you, living, by the brute violence, not of
one noble-minded, although erring, soldier, but
of a thousand brutal desperadoes—and that
you may not die till all, even the loathsome
blacks, are sated, and then die horribly—oh!
horribly.—Better, perhaps, comply, than suffer
thus.”

“Besides,” continued the other, as if she
had scarcely heard the Spanish maiden's words
—“Besides, if he so will it, without force he
can win you. No man's arm, and no woman's
heart ever successfully opposed, when he was
resolute in earnest—the fixed and overwhelming
will of Reginald. Lady, before
three days, if he so will it, you shall dote on
him unto adoration.”

“You know not what you say,” answered
the Spaniard firmly, but no longer with any
vehemence of passion in her tone. “I love
another.”

“Ha! is it so?” replied Bella “Is it so?
then indeed, it may be, you shall not fall: for
had I loved another then, as I love now, surely
I had endured all sooner!”

“And do you then—do you in truth love
this dread being?” said Teresa, strong interest
overpowing the disgust which she had felt to
her frail companion. “Do you indeed love—
you, who seem so soft and gentle—this merciless,
this fiend-like Rover?”

“For what then do you take me?” exclaimed
Bella, looking full in the eyes of Teresa,
with as proud and haughty an air as she had
lately met, “with all my mind, and heart, and
spirit!—think you an English lady, though
she may stoop for love to be a Pirate's leman,
would feign love which she felt not? With
my whole mind, and heart, and spirit, I worship,
I adore him! In his love—in his life—
I alone have my being—when he dies I shall
not survive him!—it is enough—trust to me;
you have naught to fear—neither harm to your
person, nor pollution to your mind—come to
my hower, and I will speak with you more
fully.”

The Spanish girl, who for a moment, dignified
as she was, and proud and haughty, had
actually quailed before the fiery and surpassing
pride of the pirate's paramour, now feeling
perhaps that she had something wronged her
in her thoughts, and at all events experiencing
a melting of the heart towards one who, al
though frail, was kind to her and very gentle,
and who might have some palliation of her
crime in the peculiar circumstances of her sad
tale, answered no further, but took her proffered
hand in silence, and leaning on her shoulder,
for she was fast becoming very weak, retired to
the beauty's boudoir.

10. CHAPTER X.

The day passed over, as all days must, in its
appointed time, whether of joy or sorrow, and
the great sun went down upon the pirate's
hold, as peacefully as on the shepherd's hut,
all bright and blessing, and one by one the
stars came out in their set places, and the
broad moon arose—a ball of liquid silver.

The day passed over—but through its weary
hours, though trembling at each distant footstep,
and shuddering at every voice, Teresa
heard no more, saw no more, of the dreaded
Rover; and as she learned by slow degrees to
forget—if not to forgive—the frailty of her
lovely hostess in her compassionate kindness;
and as hour after hour glided by, and naught
occurred to wake new apprehension, the tension
of her nerves, strong preternaturally by
the intense and terrible excitement of the scenes
in which she had so lately borne a part so
prominent, was gradually softened down; her
tears flowed, not convulsively, but in a tranquil
stream which ever seemed to relieve her
burning brain from one half of its fiery burden
—she now wept not for herself alone—and
even that rather from nervous agitation, than
that she had appreciated her position—but for
her tortured, butchered brother—for her unhappy
parent—for, more than all beside—her
true, her own dear Amadis! Nor did she only
weep!—she prayed—prayed purely, fervently,
with strong affectionate unwavering faith, for
strength—that only real strength—the strength
which cometh from on high—to bear in calm
humility, in Christian fortitude, whatever might
be sent to her by Him, who sendeth all his
gifts, whether of joy or sorrow, wisely and
well, and—though we, thoughtless and hardhearted,
believe it not to be so—for our eternal
good! She prayed—and rose up from her
bended knees—as all will rise who do pray
fervently, and purely, and with faith—refreshed
and comforted in spirit, and strengthened
with an inward hope, surpassing any confidence
of earth, in a strong Rescuer on high.
She rose up, braver than she had knelt down,
and with a better courage; for it was not
based on her own vain confidence of heart,
and stubborn purpose, but in the love of Him
who slumbereth not, nor sleepeth, nor overlooketh

the least hair that is rent from the head
of his most humble worshipper.

She rose up, as we have said, comforted and
strengthened—she washed, and braided her
disordered locks, and clad herself in the most
modest garments of her fair entertainer; she
ate and drank, and laid her down in her pure
unsunned innocence, beside that bright hut
erring being, whose very virtues had been
melted down by the uncurbed indulgence of-ungovernable
passions, into voluptuous vice,
and slept as soundly and as sweetly as the
young happy infant cradled upon its mother's
bosom. While long, long after she had sunk
to rest, the fair-haired beauty watched every
long drawn breath, and almost wept, she knew
not why, over the calm unconscious sleeper—
till when the night had far advanced towards
morning, she started, as if into remembrance,
from a sudden dream; and rising from Teresa's
side, thrust her small snowy feet into a pair of
fairy slippers, drew a large robe of velvet
about her shapely limbs, and stole away, nor
returned any more to her own bower, until the
tropical sun was high already in the clear
firmament.

That day the Rover came not nigh Teresa,
for in the fort without, and in the circular
basin, all was now bustle and hot haste. During
the night two more feluccas, which had
been detached from the rest upon some distant
cruise, had been warped into the harbor and
found berths beside their consorts, and all the
morning long all hands were actively employed
refitting them for instant service—water casks
were rolled out, and filled, and hoisted in again;
and biscuit, and rich meats, and fragrant wines,
and arms, and ammunition, and fresh men,
embarked with emulous haste. At noon, as
the two girls might see from Bella's bower—
for having, though half reluctant, and half
doubtful of her own liberty to do so, become
in some degree conciliated to that kind although
guilty creature, Teresa would no more consent
to quit her private chamber; nor to seek any
more intercourse with those who, although in
truth no more guilty than the English girl, yet
seemed so to her eyes, already influenced—
alas! weak mortals!—by some small show of
kindness; at noon as the two girls might see
from Bella's
bower, a council was held within
the ramparts of the keep of all the pirate
leaders; and shortly after the drum beat to
arms, and all the buccaneers assembled, and
fell into their ranks, a gay and gorgeous host,
numbering at least twelve hundred practised
warriors.

After a brief inspection by the great buccaneer
himself, eight hundred were detailed,
and instantly embarked in the two last arrived
feluccas, and all the vessels of the other
squadron, saving alone the largest bark—Ringwood's
own flagship—and the small sloop or
tender which lay moored by the water-gate.
Within an hour at furthest, the last of this
gallant squadron, detached, as it was evident,
on some peculiar duty, disappeared behind a
dense mass of trees which veiled the outlet of
the harbor; and so strong was the current of
the river which leaped up there at once, a
giant from its birth, that in less than two hours
more, they were well out to sea, with their
sails set to the stiff breeze, ploughing the billows
merrily.

With them, however, we go not on their
path of rapine—their sails were spread, and
their masts bent to the morning blast, and their
lean bows cleft with a sound of laughter the
blue waves. But no eye from the pirate's hold
could mark them, though many a heart beat
eager with anticipation. When they were out
of sight, after some short parade and manning
of the guns, Ringwood dismissed his men; and
with his arms folded upon his bosom, and his
proud head depressed as though in melancholy
thought, strolled for some time in a listless
mood about the esplanade of the fort, and then
withdrew quietly to his own turret chamber,
where none—not his most intimate associates
—not his most trusted officers—ever presumed
to break upon his solitude; and there remained
all moody and alone, till the sun had already
plunged his lower limb into the deep and tufted
foliage of the surrounding forest. Just at that
time, however, as the land-breeze began to die
away, and a faint languid calm succeeded, before
the setting in of the fresher breath of the
free ocean—a dull, deep, heavy sound—a sort
of rumbling and continuous roar was heard by
the watchers on the bastions; and while they
were yet wondering what those hoarse notes
might mean, the Rover stood among them—

“Ordnance!” he cried—“and heavy ordnance!—man
all the batteries, load, and run
out the guns; see you have linstocks ready,
and fire at hand to light them.”

And, although many doubted that those far
sounds were indeed guns—none disobeyed his
orders; none hesitated for a moment—and ere
long it was proved how perfect was the ear,
how accurate the judgment of the great English
Rover—for as the sea breeze freshened,
and blew strong, it bore upon its dewy breath
the sharp reports of many a single cannon, of
many a long continuous volley. At last the
sounds died off, and seemed to melt into the
distance, and pass entirely away—but again,
just as it grew quite dark, before the moon had
risen, or the stars yet come out, the cannonading
was renewed, closer, as it seemed, than
before; and after a brief furious battle, a crimson
glare rushed up the deep blue sky; and so
continued, wavering now—now flashing fiery
bright, for nigh an hour of time; then a keen
stream, or column rather, of white light shot
up towards the zenith with a dull heavy shock;

a shower of sparks fell seaward, and all was
dark and silent. All that night long torches
were blazing, and guards pacing the stone bastions,
and blue lights dimly burning in all the
trenches of the outer works. Nay, more, the
guns were manned even in the citadel itself,
and in the Rover's keep—and all those tedious
hours with ear, heart, eye on the alert, Teresa
watched and prayed in the strong hope of coming
succor. Both vessels in the harbor were
full manned, and all in battle order—but,
though all hearts were burning, all arms high
strung against the foe, though Reginald himself
waked to devise means of desperate defence,
half doubting that his consorts were cut
off, and two-thirds of his men destroyed, for
well he knew no one would yield him captive
—no foe appeared—nor friend. The chirpings
and hummings of the innumerable insect tribes
—the croak of the countless reptiles, mixed
with the chatter of the night-hawk and the
rich melody of an occasional mocking-bird,
were the only sounds that waked the night
echoes of the Florida forest, except the watchword
and the tramp of the stern sentinel.

Just as day dawned, commanding the small
sloop to slip her cable, and with a picked and
veteran crew of twenty English sailors, to drop
down cautiously and reconnoitre, Ringwood
departed from the busy ramparts; and, for the
first time since the stormy scene which had
ensued on Teresa's introduction, turned towards
the bower. He lingered not, however, there;
when he found none within its gorgeous precincts,
save the Italian girl and the soft Persian
dancer, though each tried her choicest allurements
to detain him; but passed, after a
few short moments, into the bower of his English
favorite.

“Ha! Bella,” he said, as he entered, “my
sweet Bella,” and a touch of real fondness
was audible in its rich accents—“and thou,
Teresa, nay! nay! start not, nor look so wildly,
lady—I come not to alarm, much less to
harm you; sit, fair one, and fear nothing.
Now, Bella, dearest, I have watched all night
long, and am fatigued and faint, bid your slave
girls bring forth their dainties, I come to break
my fast in your sweet company, and spend a
tranquil hour,” and with the words he cast his
splendid figure at length upon a satin ottoman
on the side of the chamber furthest from Teresa,
in an attitude of the most perfect grace and
majesty, and remained for some seconds without
speaking, a grave and even sorrowful expression
prevading his expressive lineaments.
After a few moments, raising his eyes to Teresa's
face, he perceived that the blank air of
dismay, almost despair, still sat upon her pallid
features; and that with lips apart, nostrils
dilated, and eyes rigidly set and glaring, she
gazed upon his features as if she therein
thought to read her doom.

“Fear nothing now from me,” he again
said, in a voice singularly mild and witching.
“Fear nothing now from me, Teresa. The
fire has gone out here,” and he laid his broad
hand on his brow, “and if you fan it not by
any heedless folly, will sleep, perchance, for
ever. The fiend of memory is for a while at
rest; see that you wake it not to phrensy!
nay, wonder not, nor start at my words, either.
If I have sinned much I have suffered much,
and many of my sins have been the rank fruit
of those very sufferings. But a truce now to
this; my word is pledged to you, that you
shall undergo no violence. My word, girl, inviolate
yet—see that you stir me not to any
reckless fit—when reason yields the reins to
memory, to weakness, and revenge! Teresa,
fear me not!”

“I fear you not,” she answered, half timidly,
half reassured by his strangely altered manner,
“though I have mighty cause to fear you,
yet I do not!”

“So you shall have no cause—daring myself,
I love the daring and undaunted, even when
they defy me! sin-stained myself and passion-blighted,
I yet admire the innocent and pure.
Dauntless I do know you, Teresa!—for had
you not been so, long hence had your dishonored
carcase glutted the dog-fish and the
shark, and pure I do believe you! Were it
not, I say, for memory and pride, I might even
now release you.”

“Oh! do! do!” she exclaimed, “do so;
and God will bless you; your sins, though red
as scarlet, shall become white as snow; your
rapines and your crimes shall all be pardoned
you; a grateful virgin's prayers shall rise up
nightly for your weal, shall win the grace of
the Eternal, shall shield your head in battle,
that not a hair of it shall perish, and more, far
more, than with a self-approving conscience,
shall crown your days with bliss, and steep
your nights in quiet. Do so, and on your bed
of death a weak girl's voice of gratitude shall
smoothe your thorny pillow—her father's—”

“Ha!—no more!—Peace on your life, no
more!” cried Ringwood, fiercely interrupting
her, as he half started from the couch whereon
he was reclining, at the mere mention of the
man whom he indeed had so deep cause to
execrate; though but a little while before he
had seemed on the point of yielding to her
prayers. Teresa, nerved with the hope of
winning him, would have replied; and by so
doing would probably have once more roused
him into a burst of savage and ungovernable
fury, but as her lips moved to answer, Bella,
who had been absent for a moment with her
handmaids, fortunately returned, and laying
her hand on Teresa's shoulder, pressed it so
strongly, that she looked up, and then she laid
her fingers to her own mouth with a grave
smile, and changed the subject by addressing

Ringwood with some slight question of no moment.

Meantime the board was opened with dainties,
choice fruits, and savory meats, and snowy
bread, and the enchanting wines of Southern
Europe, in bowls of porcelain and crystal,
dishes embossed with gold, and flasks engraved
by the unequalled chisel of Cellini
and Ringwood led, strange guests! the fair-haired
Bella, and that stern innocent Spanish
virgin, to seats beside him; and played the
host with such unrivalled courtesy, such proud
humility in every accent of his rich, deep,
manly voice, such dignity and grace in every
free unstudied gesture, that even Teresa was
won for a space from her gloomy abstraction,
and to her own astonishment—when she reflected
on it afterwards—found herself wondering
at—almost admiring—the chivalric and
dignified demeanor of the fierce pirate.

Before the meal was concluded, one of the
slave girls who attended, came with a hasty
step from the armory, announcing that Pluto
and another black awaited the Rover's leisure.

“What other black—my midnight beauty?”
exclaimed the Rover, laughing, “His fellow
Charon, is it?”

“His name Antonio, massa—who sell us
fruit and fish from his pirogue.”

“Ha!” cried the Rover, “Ha!—” and
mused a moment, and stepped out into the
gorgeous vestibule, decked with its glittering
arms, leaving the door behind him open, so
that the girls could hear every word that
passed.

“What! is it you, Antonio—what brings
you here, and whence?”

“From Key West, massa, last, with plenty
fine fresh turtle—they in the pirogue, down
below, so heavy we can't warp him up!”

“Key West—what of our squadron then?
you must have met it?”

“Certain!” replied the negro, “I met 'em,
and told massa Cunninghame of Spanish fleet
in the offing—seven merchant galliots and one
caravel! Then massa Cunninghame set sail
till he fell in with them, and hoisted English
color, and then ran!”

“Ran?” cried the Rover, “ran?”

“Yes, he ran, massa Ringwood, till they all
chased him, and got scattered, then he turned
round and fought; and when the caravel took
ground not fifty fathom from the inlet, he left
her hard and fast, and chased the galliots, and
took two; and then his squadron all came
back, and battered the war-ship and burned her
quite, and sacked the galliots, and then scuttled
them, and then went off in chase again
after five others: long chase, but still I guess
he catch 'em!”

“Ha! well done, Cunninghame! brave Cunninghame!
brave Cunninghame!” exclaimed
the Rover, “take that for thy news, fellow,”
giving him as he spoke two or three Spanish
dollars. “I must away and call the men from
the felucca and the batteries; they list not service
unless it be strictly needed. What wouldst
thou more, my good fellow?”

“So please you, send four hands in his
canoe, help poor Antonio up with big pirogue;
have plenty fat turtle and fresh fruit to-night.”

“Well, see to it, Pluto!” and with the words
entirely deceived by the intelligence he had
received, and lulled into confidence that his
crews were victorious, the Rover hurried down,
and called off all his men save the two wonted
sentinels upon the bastions, and the two watchmen
in his own felucca; revoked his orders to
the sloop which had already moved towards the
outlet; and ordering an extra supply of wines,
in compensation of their recent toils, to all the
buccaneers, gave himself up to dreams of complete
triumph. An hour or two elapsed, and
Antonio's pirogue came up, manned in addition
to its usual crew by four of the Rover's trustiest
men, who reported all still and peaceful in
the outlet, and was moored inside the large
felucca, close by the shingly beach below the
batteries. Her deck load of fruit and fish was
soon got ashore, her hatches battened down,
and herself, as it seemed, left vacant and unguarded,
while her black crew, consisting only
of two boys in addition to Antonio, went ashore
with the Rover's men to join in their accustomed
revellings and riots.

Night fell; and though for a little while
licentious songs, loud shouts of mirthful laughter,
and many a sound of wild ungoverned
mirth rang through the guarded esplanade, long
before midnight not an eye was awake in the
ships, on the ramparts, in the dwellings, or in
the Rover's keep, so heavily were the buccaneers
exhausted by the strange mixture of fatigue
and feasting which had characterized the
last four days—save those of the four sentinels,
two in the barque and one on either bastion,
and of the sad Teresa, who, waking from a
perturbed and dreamy sleep, had missed her
fair companion—for she, as on the former
night, had stolen from her couch unnoticed—
and now stood gazing from her high lattice
over the lovely scene below, which lay all
glimmering out in the indistinct light of the
happy moon, half lustre and half shadow.

11. CHAPTER XI.

As she gazed down upon the moonlit esplanade,
Teresa saw a tall dark figure creep out with
cat-like stealthy tread from beneath the verandah
of the large building nearest to the sea;
and, keeping itself with great care inside the

darkest shadows, drag itself inch by inch towards
the stone bastion at the right hand termination
of the battery; whereon she clearly
saw the pirate sentinel stalking his solitary
round upon the rampart, the long bright barrel
of his shouldered arquebuse glancing like
silver in the moonlight. At first she gazed
with simple wonder, wholly unmixed with
curiosity or interest, upon the movements of the
dark shadowy form; but suddenly, as he crossed
a streak of moonshine, it struck her with
the speed of light that this was a well known
figure; and instantly a train of recollections,
all hitherto forgotten, flashed on her—the name
Antonio—the voice now well-remembered of
the unseen messenger—it was—it must be!
the black fisherman, the trusted guide and hunter
of her loved Amadis! She now strained
all her eyes, her heart, her spirit, to mark
what was his progress, not doubting for a moment
that ere long she would be set free,
whether by death or rescue. While she had
been engaged, brief as they were, in these imaginations,
she had lost sight for a moment or
two of the dark gliding figure; and when she
turned her eyes again towards the spot, it was
no longer visible; and, what seemed stranger
yet, the pirate sentinel no longer paced the
bastion, although his comrade could be distinctly
seen leaning against an angle near the
sallyport, by which Teresa had gained entrance,
at the further end of the lines. Suspecting,
more than ever, now that something great was
on the point of happening, she gazed yet more
intently; yet nothing might she see of him,
whom she believed, with all the confidence of
youth and inexperience, to be a friend and
rescuer within the pirate's hold. Tired at
length with watching the long line of vacant
ramparts, she looked again towards the sleeping
soldier, and as she did so, from the dark
shadow of the ravelin and trench she saw a
coal-black figure leap, with the blithe and muscular
action of a tiger bounding upon his prey,
on the unconscious pirate—something bright
flashed once or twice aloft in the clear moonshine,
and the struggle was ended in a moment,
the hapless sentinel falling a scarce less
conscious victim to his swift secret foe.

A moment more, and the victor had donned
the scarlet watch cloak of his fallen enemy,
and was now boldly traversing the whole line
of the esplanade, stopping and stooping down
for a moment or two at regular intervals, while
a faint clinking sound, heard indistinctly from
the distance, gave note, even to the inexperienced
ear of Teresa, that he was engaged in
spiking all the cannon. After this task was
ended, disencumbering himself of the watch
cloak, he crept down to the water's edge, and
plunging into the calm basin swan straight for
his pirogue, swung himself by a rope to the
deck, and for several minutes' space was lost
to the anxious gaze of the Spanish maiden.

He re-appeared at last, however, from the
hold, accompanied by ten or twelve men,
whom by their corslets and steel caps, and the
long barrels of their Spanish muskets, she
knew at once to be Castilian soldiers—within
a moment they had lowered away the pinnace,
which hung at the pirogue's stern, and entering
it, pulled openly across the basin towards the
Rover's barque; the sentinels on which, seeing
that their boat came directly as it appeared
to them from the water-gate of the fortress,
hailed not, nor uttered any challenge, but suffered
the pinnace to come to under her very
stern, and her crew to scale her bulwark unopposed;
all of which Teresa might behold
distinctly by clear moonlight. What further
passed she knew not; but in a little while she
saw a bright light shown from the windows in
the stern, and at the same time the vessel began
to swing round slowly so as to bring her broadside,
which had so lately borne full on the
entrance of the basin, to cover the dwellings
of the buccaneers.

For a little while longer she watched steadfastly
the basin and the vessels, but nothing
took place any more, although she stayed beside
the lattice till the moon set behind the treetops,
and deep darkness settled down over the
glimmering prospect. Then fancying that nothing
would take place that night, and fearing
lest Bella might return and find her watching,
she turned away and walked towards her
couch. In doing so, however, she passed
another casement, which looked out towards
the forest in the rear; on which side, fearless
of any sudden onslaught, and confiding in the
remoteness of their station, surrounded as it
was by forests, everglades, impenetrable hammocks,
and morasses—pathless save to the
wandering Indian—the pirates kept no watch;
and, as she passed it, another sight flashed on
her eyes, even more wonderful as it appeared
to her, than aught she had yet witnessed—a
long and regular line of dull red sparks, not
larger than the luminous firefly of that region,
and scarce so brilliant, were winding round the
outer side of the ditch, which circled all the
rear of the position. Suddenly, at one point
they clustered close together, and then descended,
as it seemed, into the deep wet fosse.
Then! then! her very soul on the alert, for
she had seen and heard enough of warfare to
know that those dull sparks were kindled
matches of a long line of musqueteers, she
threw the lattice open; and leaning out into
the dewy night air, listened intently—nor did
she listen long, before the grating of a saw
was clearly audible, although by no means
loud enough to wake a sleeper; or scarce, perhaps,
to rouse the dull perceptions of an uninterested

watcher—after a time the sound was
heard no more, and very soon the little lights
might be seen, one by one, emerging from the
hither side, and forming in close order within
the esplanade, which they had actually entered
all unmolested and unseen, save by a friendly
eye—and now Teresa knew that friends were
close at hand, and rescue almost certain. Yet
now she trembled more than in her hour of
peril, and was so shaken in her every nerve,
that when she kneeled to pray and offer up her
tribute of thanksgiving, her tongue refused its
office, her senses failed her, and she sank fainting
on the velvet carpet, so that she saw, rest
as she might, or any other, who had gazed
seaward from the height, almost at the same
point of time wherein the footmen passed the
palisades, the tall white sails of a huge Spanish
caravella, steal ghost-like through the
shadows of the trees that fringed the outlet,
towed by a dozen boats pulled noiselessly with
muffled oars, into the middle of the basin.
Another—and another—and yet another followed;
and, strange to tell! though no slight
noise attended their proceedings, they, with the
captured barque of Ringwood, were moored
within half pistol shot of the batteries, the
guns of which were all, as has been seen,
spiked and so rendered useless, their cannon
bearing full on the defenceless dwellings of the
buccaneers, and their boats ready to land with
their armed crews at a moment's notice, ere any
ear had taken note of their arrival.

In another part of the Rover's keep, while
all this was in progress, even to the point of
time wherein Teresa fainted, there was a widely
different picture, had any eye been there to
look upon it. It was the very topmost turret
of that tall building—a small octagonal watch
tower, overlooking the whole esplanade below,
and having the breech of the huge gun, which
has before been mentioned, within six feet of
its doorway, which opened on the battlements.
Access was only gained to this high turret by
a steep winding stairway from the large armory
below; and on the platform, at the stair head,
so that no living thing could pass it without
awakening them, were stretched on a soft rug
full armed for instant battle, the two gigantic
negroes.

This was the Rover's den, his last stronghold,
his chosen privacy. Lighted by day
through eight tall pointed windows, now
muffled all by blinds of Indian matting; and in
the night by a large brazen lamp, with four
bright burners, it was as light as life, though
silent as the grave. It was the plainest, nay,
the only plain chamber of that superb and gorgeous
building; its floor and walls being covered
equally with the soft seats woven by Indian
girls, from the sweet aromatic seeds and spicy
grasses of that region—its furniture, two or
three camp stools of dark English oak, a centre
table of the same fabric, covered with maps
and plans of battle or the like, a silver standish
and a tall golden crucifix—and another large
broad slab of some Indian wood, littered with
charts and papers, instruments of astronomy
and navigation, pistols and dirks, and articles of
clothing (such as fringed gloves and feathered
hats), and one or two tall wine flasks, with a
Venetian drinking glass of scarce inferior height.
Upon the walls hung many suits of armor,
with fire-arms of rare and choice construction,
and swords of exquisite device and manufacture.
The only other article of furniture, and that
perhaps the most important in the chamber,
was a large low bedstead of oak, with a plain
cotton mattress, and white draperies of simple
linen—and on that lowly bed reclined, in deep
though troubled slumber, the mighty frame of
the great English buccaneer, with his fair favorite
by his side, sleeping as calmly as a summer's
night upon a breezeless river. Her rich
redundant curls fell off in loose and wavy
masses from her fair brow, floating across the
massive chest and muscular shoulders of the
buccaneer, on which that brow was pillowed;
her eyes were closed, but the long fringe which
curtained them was pencilled in distinct relief
against her clear complexion—the whole expression
of her face, as she slept, was exquisitely
pure and child-like, and the soft smile
which nestled in the twin dimples of her rosy
mouth, seemed born of innocence and tranquil
bliss. So was it not with her companion.
Dark frowns and gloomy shadows chased one
another fast and thick over his broad expressive
features—the sweat stood in full bubbles on
his turbulent brow—a fierce sarcastic smile now
writhed his pallid lips, and now he laughed
almost aloud, but with a scornful and self-mocking
laughter, such as the fiends might use,
jeering at stainless virtue. His great chest
heaved and fell, not with the regular pulsations
of healthful innocent sleep, but with convulsive
pants and throbbings—his arms were dashed
violently to and fro, with the hands clenched
like iron—such were the night dreams of the
Rover, and fearful as they must needs have
been, to judge by their effect, as fearfully were
they dispelled. A clear sharp ringing sound
as of a musket shot close to the inmost keep,
rang through the night air—one of the Indian
allies of Don Amadis having unconsciously discharged
his arquebuse, and so called down discovery—little,
however, if at all premature—
on the attacking party.

Upon the instant, though the fair being by his
side yet slumbered all unconscious of alarm,
Reginald Ringwood sprang to his feet, fully
awake, and in the clearest mastery of his senses—one
bound, he stood upon the platform of
the keep, and in less time than it would have
taken any other man to mark one portion of
the perils that environed him, he had envisaged

all; and seen the only hope that was left to
him. The invaders as yet knew not, it would
seem, whether they were discovered, and rested
yet upon their arms; and Ringwood seeing
clearly that the exterior works were all untenable
already, and knowing that his only
hope of making good the citadel itself, depended
on his getting men to man his guns from the
great barracks, resolved to turn this brief inaction
to advantage. Before the very blacks had
roused them from their slumbers, he had sprung
to the breech of the huge cannon, had wheeled
it round upon its pivot—Herculean task for any
single arm, how puissant it might be soever!—
had pointed it upon the nearest longest caravel,
and, lighting a match instantly from the lamp in
his turret, had discharged it on the foe. A
broad bright glare shot out into the bosom of
the night, a cloud of snowy volume was driven
before it, and a roar, like that of twenty thunder
claps, shook the strong tower to its base,
and deafened for an inftant every ear that heard
it. Before its echoes had subsided, before the
Spaniards, in turn surprised (for the huge missile
striking the great caravel amid-ships, had
cut her mainmast by the board, carrying with it
the mizen), had poured in their answering
broadside, the Rover's bugle wound clear and
lustily, the signal of recall was heard by the
awakened pirates, who rushed half-dressed,
their weapons in their hands, from the rear of
the buildings, to obey his signal. The instant
he had fired the cannon, a dozen stalwart
blacks, Pluto and Charon at their head, the
garrison of this keep, stood on the platform at
his side, heavily armed and ready. Dressing
himself the while he spake, he thundered forth
his orders with strange rapidity and wonderful
precision—

“Pluto and Charon, away both of ye, down
to the southern sallyport, unbar it on the instant,
holding it well in hand the while, to admit
our fellows from the barrack; but see ye
let not the Spaniards enter! You others, quick
there, quick! load the great culverin, and run it
out again; see that you keep the level—so,
well done, lads; now fire!” and with the words
again forth burst the stunning roar. “So,
cheerily, brave hearts; fight it thus till the
great caravel go down, then wheel it on the
next, and sink her likewise! I go to man the
inner ramparts. Ha! Bella, my sweet girl,”
he cried, as she came forth in disarray—“down
to your bower, my girl, and dight you! 'Fore
God, but I believe our time is come already!”
And with the word he darted down the stairway,
and reached the sally-port just as the buccaneers,
half naked, scattered, and dismayed,
began to pour in from the esplanade. But few
and faint, they came all breathless, many
wounded, and some to drop down dead the instant
they had forced their entry; for, in a moment
after the Rover's unexpected shot, the
Spanish crews had started to their guns, and
five broadsides of very heavy metal were
poured into the clustered buildings of the
pirates, before they were yet well afoot, so that
the carnage was tremendous; then, when they
had rushed out, Don Amadis wheeled his two
hundred musketeers into a line upon their
flank, poured in a shattering volley upon their
scattered masses, and then charged, sword in
hand, with his Castilian troopers, and all his
Indian volunteers. Darkness alone saved any
from destruction, and it was out of four hundred
soldiers, for so many alone had remained
in the lines, scarcely a hundred sound men entered,
with perhaps fifty more, wounded and
wholly useless; not force, in short, enough to
man the guns, even at the rate of one man to
a cannon.

Still this mere handful was disposed, by the
wondrous genius of the Rover, with such rare
tact and skill, manning such guns alone as
were most useful, that until day-break he was
enabled not merely to repel the attacking parties,
but to beat them quite back from his lines
with fearful slaughter. Three times he rallied,
and each time brought back his every man unharmed;
leaving the ground which he had traversed
piled high with carcases, and reeking
with hot gore. Meantime the black crew on
the keep plied the long culverin with unabated
zeal; its every bullet plunging into the castled
sides of the tall Spanish caravellas—but not for
that did they abate their murderous and well
sustained cannonading against the pirate barracks,
until not a stick or stone of them stood
upright to cover any foeman. Then, but not
until then, did they direct their fire on the keep;
and even then so distant was it from their guns,
and at an elevation so considerable, that their
fire did it but small damage, while, all the
time, they suffered heavily. Meantime, the
armed boats of the squadron landed; and their
crews formed instantly a junction with the
land forces, led by Amadis Ferrajo; which, by
the dint of energy and zeal almost unparalleled,
had forced their way through tangled brakes
and shaking quagmires, over broad lakes and
navigable rivers, to that impregnable stronghold,
as it was ever deemed by the too confident
and careless Rover.

Tremendous was the fate of every living
being who met the onslaught of the infuriate
Spaniards. No quarter was shown—none!
neither to age nor sex—to innocence nor
beauty! Hundreds of miserable children were
tossed upon the spear-heads of the pitiless
avengers; hundreds of women shot, or cut
down, or spared only to glut for a brief space
the fierce lust of their captors. When the
day dawned, woman nor child survived; and
not a groan was heard from the red slope—red
with their smoking gore!

Day dawned; and as the light grew clear,

the weakness of the defenders was discovered;
and the assailants, forming in six columns,
each column equal to the whole force under
Ringwood, rushed desperate to win the ramparts.
The guns were necessarily silent after
the first discharge, for it was needful now that
each man should fight hand to hand, or let the
lines be carried! And they were carried in ten
minutes! for though the buccaneers fought
like incarnate devils, though Ringwood bore a
charmed life, setting it fifty times upon a die
and still unwounded, man after man was piked
or cut down by his side, until the two blacks
alone, with four or five English pirates, were
left alive, and able to wield weapons.

“In with you, Pluto and Charon—into the
keep and hold the gate in hand—now! Anson,
Falconer, ha! Gambier, too, and Drake, one
charge more on these dogs of Spain—one for
St. George and England!” And with the
words, the five men dashed upon a column,
headed by Amadis Ferrajo, of full two hundred
veterans, rushing in with their levelled
pikes, by the great gate which they had stormed—three
men went down at three strokes of
the Rover; and his last troopers seconded him
like men, and gallant ones, if guilty!—the column
wavered; but Amadis rallied it instantly
with words of fire, and charged resistless! one by
one down went Ringwood's men, pierced each
with fifty wounds, each fighting till he fell “for
England! merry England!”

The Rover stood alone—but what recked he
of that? he crossed swords with Don Amadis,
beat down his guard, dealt him a blow that
would have stretched him lifeless on the plain,
but that his rapier shivered to the grasp—shot
two men with his pistols, seized a third round
his waist, who would have stopped him, and
hurled him to the earth, so that the blood gushed
from ears, eyes, and mouth, and he stirred
hand no more; rushed through the castle gate,
and ere its bars were fast behind him, stood in
the presence of Teresa, all grim and gory, but
unwounded.

12. CHAPTER XII.

For a moment or two the wretched girl
gazed in pale terror on the dread apparition
which stood before her; nor would it indeed
have been easy to imagine one more terrible.
His gorgeous dress was all begrimed with the
black smoke of gunpowder, and dashed with
frequent flakes of human gore; his face and
hands were crimson; and, more than all, in his
wild eye there was a gleam of terrible fire that
could be compared to nothing but the glare of
some dread fiend caught from the penal flames
of his eternal prison house.

She had risen from her knees on his entrance,
for during the whole din and clamor of the desperate
assault, her silvery tones had mounted
to the throne of grace in pure and constant supplication;
she stood staring at his distorted, furious
features, speechless with terror and despair;
but when he rushed towards her, and
seized her delicate arm in his strong grasp, she
sent forth a long, fluttering, thrilling shriek, so
awfully acute and shrill, that pealing far above
the blended roar of musketry and cannon, above
the shouts and yells of the assailants, above
the clang of axes plied fast and furiously
against the portal of the keep, it reached the
ears of the besiegers, and lent new vigor to
their arms, new fire to their hearts. Yet,
though the gate was crashing even now, and
wavering beneath their blows, yet had their aid
come all too late—for he had seized her round
the waist, despite her feeble struggles, despite
her pitiful supplications, lifted her from the
ground and flung her by main force upon a velvet
ottoman, with all her raven hair dishevelled,
the braids which bound it having burst, and all
her garments ruffled and in the last disorder
from the hot struggle. He paused one second
in his barbarous pastime, and profiting by that
brief interval, all out of breath and panting as
she was:

“Your word!” she cried, “your word—your
plighted oath of honor! never to do me
wrong!”

A bitter sneering laugh burst from his lips.

“My word!” he said, “my word—a pirate's
plighted word!—a robber's oath of honor!—
ha, ha! you jest, Teresa; ha, ha! you would
be merry—hark,” he continued, as the dread
sounds of the assault rang nearer and more
near. “Hark! to the blows!—the steps—the
voices of your friends! There rings the full
shout of your cursed sire—the war cry of the
Des Aviles; there the fierce note of Amadis
Ferrajo! Close! close at hand, fair lady!—
close enough, almost, to preserve you! Ten
minutes more, and they shall find you here,
but their arms shall not clasp you to their
hearts—father's nor lover's. No! no! I tell
you no! Nor their lips press your brow; for
you shall be a thing blighted, dishonored, foul!
Vengeance! ho, vengeance! vengeance on Melendez,”
and with the words he again caught
her in his arms; and in a moment more his
horrid purpose had been too well accomplished;
but while she shrieked and struggled, as impotently,
it is true, as the small bird in the talons
of the merciless falcon, but still with all her
power, the fair haired English beauty rushed,
hardly less disarrayed than the Spanish maiden,
into the room; and close behind, both her comrades,
screaming for present aid to Ringwood,
and fearful was their need! For, seeing now
that every hope of protracting the defence was
over, and that the enraged Spaniards were forcing

their passage foot by foot, the brutal negroes,
who had manned the great gun on the
platform of the keep, and fought it until now,
right dauntlessly, had left their post as desperate;
and drunk with bloodshed and despair,
maddened with liquor and with lust, had turned
their fierce and brutal passions from their natural
enemies, against the favorite beauties of their
leader. But better had it been for them had
they awaited the avenging Spaniard; better
had they rushed into the den of the cub-drawn
tigress, than thus have roused the fury of their
chief.

Leaving Teresa pale and breathless, and
too terrified to thank God for her near escape,
he rushed upon the mutineers—the first he
caught about the middle, for he had no offensive
arms—his sword having been broken
in the conflict, and all his pistols emptied!—
and hurled him headlong through the window,
like an enormous missile shot from
some giant catapult. The strong brocaded
awnings opposed his passage; but with such
mighty impulse was he sent, that the tough
velvet was rent through and through, as
though it had been gossamer—and the huge
buccaneer was seen one instant sprawling
and writhing in mid air with a terrifie sound
of blended screams and curses on his tongue,
before he fell upon the lifted pikes of the
besiegers. Quelled for a moment by this
awful spectacle, the other negroes stood
aghast, and Ringwood, leaping upon them
with the bound of an angry tiger, snatched
his own weapon from the first, and whirling
it about his head, clove him with one blow
to the jaws.

“Ha! dogs!” he shouted, in tones trumpet-like
and clear, “ha! villains! dare ye dispute
my will—or look too boldly on my
prizes?—down to your kennels, dogs! down
to the dungeon gate, and fight it to the last,
with these accursed Spaniards! Down to
the gate, I say, and if ye must, of your low
nature, perish brutes, see that, at least, ye
perish brave ones!”

Not a word more was spoken, nor a blow
stricken, but all cowed and abashed, the
mutineers rushed down the sounding stairway,
and, ere a moment passed, might be
heard battling hand to hand with the fierce
veterans of Melendez, who had already forced
the gates, and were now rushing in, like a
flood tide, resistless. Just at this juncture,
by the other door, Pluto and Charon, the
trusty guardsmen of the Rover, entered the
harem, bleeding both from several recent
wounds, but still bold and undaunted.

“Ha! all is lost, then,” exclaimed the
Rover, as they entered. “Is all lost, Charon?”

“All is lost,” answered the faithful black,
“all is lost! carried! postern gate carried too!
enemy in the hall, will be here presently!”

“And ye—what would ye?” cried the
great English pirate, still calm in his extremity
and fearless—“what would ye—fly?”

“Will massa,” answered the negroes in
one breath, “fly with massa Ringwood by
covered way into the forest—or if he will,
die here, with him.”

“Ha! by the covered way—fine boys—I
had forgotten! so may I live, if not for victory,
still at the least for vengeance—reach
down three carbines from the wall, there—
they are all loaded—now light the matches
—so give me that long Toledo—ha! here
they come—they come! but by he fiends, too
late! Charon, take thou Toraida—set her in
safety in the forest, and thou hast won thy
freedom. Pluto, bear thou Italian Beatrice!
Thou art for me, Teresa—my girl, no dallying!”
and he shook her fiercely by the arm,
as she would have struggled to escape; for
now the voices of her father—of her dear
Amadis, came close upon her ear, above the
clash and clatter of the contest, as they bore
their last foes bleeding and breathless at the
sword's point before them, and now they had
won the staircase, and now were on the very
threshold of the gay armory—too late! He
had swung her up in his stalwart arms, threw
her across one shoulder as though she had
been an infant. “Follow me, Bella,” he
cried, “follow close, thine English blood is
brave, thou needest no supporter! follow me
close, and bar the door behind!” and with
the words he sprang across the vestibule,
entered the secret stairway in the wall, and
was just out of sight, when beating down the
last of the defenders, Don Amadis darted
through the opposite doorway with twenty
veterans at his back. Well did the Rover
say that fair girl's blood was brave; for as he
left the armory, she snatched down from the
wall a studded buckler of the tough hide of
the rhinoceros, a light Damascus cimiter, and
with her beautiful blue eyes beaming with
fiery valor, made good the door in a moment,
and barred and chained it fast in the very teeth
of the foe.

With speedy steps they trod the damp floors
of the vaulted passage—they barred three
massive doors behind them, yet with so desperate
speed did Amadis pursue, plying his
ponderous battle axe, that as they reached the
sally-port, they heard him thundering already
at the last portal they had passed—they hurried
through the sally-port, a plank was thrust
across the fosse, they darted over it in safety!
—they stood in the wild forest!—another
minute and they had been concealed in the
dark mazes of a labyrinth so tortuous and
dense, that scarcely could the keen instinct
of an Indian have traced their flying footsteps!
But at the very moment when they
crossed the fosse, and climbed its landward

face, five or six Spanish musqueteers, who
stood on guard in the stone bastion, discovered
them! blew their slow matches, levelled
their long bright barrelled arquebuses, and a
sharp volley followed! Three balls struck
Ringwood; his left arm fell to his side shattered
by one bullet—well was it for Teresa
that he had just released her, or that same
ball had borne her fate upon its wings!—a
second pierced his broad chest; a third just
grazed his muscular thigh—yet he flinched
not, nor uttered any sign of pain nor wavered
in the least. By the same volley the
negro Charon fell, shot dead where he stood,
by one ball; while another, so closely was
that terrible discharge poured in, killed the
poor Persian in his arms—happier so to fall,
than to survive awhile and glut the furious
vengeance of the enraged Castilians.

“Ha, dogs!”—shouted the Rover—shaking
his long bright rapier at them, in defiance:
“Ha! dogs—would ye were at arm's length!
Now, Pluto, quick! quick! while their muskets
are discharged, pull the plank over to
this side, and all will yet be well; quick!—
quick, I say!—they come!”

And they did come; swinging his rapier
high in air, and leaping like a freed panther
from the dark sally-port, all youthful energy,
all high enthusiastic valor, young Amadis
Ferrajo; and close to his heels, with his long
grey locks all unhelmeted and floating on the
breeze, and his antique steel panoply all
blood from greaves to gorget, Juan Melendez
de Aviles; and after these, Pedro, Gutierrez,
Sanchez, and Diego, and fifty more hidalgos
of Castile, with their high hearts aflame for
deadly vengeance.

Forth leaped young Amadis, the foremost;
his foot was on the plank already; the cry
of triumph ringing already from his lips,
when almost simultaneously, the negro, who
when he stooped down to remove the plank
had not laid by his carbine, and the great
Rover fired. Well was it for Don Amadis,
his armor was Spain's choicest fabric; had
it been steel of any foreign city, he had been
sped that moment; for both balls took effect
at scarce ten paces distance; one striking full
upon the frontlet of his helmet, and leaving
a deep dent in the trusty steel; the other
actually penetrating the strong corslet, so
fairly was it aimed, and even inflicting a
slight wound; as it was, stunned and bewildered
for the moment, he went down, and
all around surely believed him dead, though
in a little while he recovered himself and
regained his feet.

Teresa, who had been gazing on the little
group, with hope fresh kindling in her heart,
beheld him fall, and the light left her eyes,
and she sank faint and senseless on the dark
dewy earth. All this had passed in less
time than is needed to describe it. As Amadis
went down, Melendez took his place, and
rushed across the narrow bridge, striking
Pluto, with a single sweep of his two-handed
broadsword, a breathless corpse into the stagnant
moat; but while one foot was yet upon
the quivering plank, the Rover leaped upon
his foe. It was a desperate and a dreadful
conflict, for the wounds, one of which was
in truth slowly mortal, counterbalanced the
advantage which Ringwood's youth would
have otherwise given him over his aged yet
still firm antagonist. Melendez was armed
cap-a-pie all to his helmet; the Englishman
was quite unarmed, with the exception of
his long two-edged broadsword, so that the
one had all his body to defend, the other his
head only. Yet was this point of vantage
neutralized by the extraordinary skill of
fence, the blithe agility, the mighty strength
of Ringwood, who like a wounded boar was
but the fiercier and more furious for his hurts.
Dreadful and desperate was that contest, yet
it was over almost in a minute—their swords
flashed like the beams of the noon-day sun,
too dazzling and too fleet for any eye to trace
them; yet ere six blows and parries were
exchanged, the Rover's blade descended with
such violence upon the weapon of Melendez,
that it beat down his guard, and afterward
inflicted a deep wound on his brow—the old
man staggered back, the Rover pressing on
with a fierce lunge, and sheathing his rapier
in the Spaniard's throat above the gorget vein.

“Ha! ha!” he laughed aloud with a fiendish
tone, as he shook off his dying foeman
from the point of his ensanguined weapon
into the stagnant water of the ditch: “Ha!
ha! ha! sister, sweet angel sister, thou art
avenged! avenged! avenged! and I die happy!”
and with the words, unhurt by any
blow, unsmitten by any mortal hand in equal
combat, he staggered up the slope, fell by
Teresa's side, and was dead in a moment.
Whether or no it was the sound of Ringwood's
heavy fall beside her, cannot be told,
but it is certain that as he dropped, she started
to her feet, and, with recovered senses,
gazed wildly about her.

Her father's corpse she saw not, for falling
into the deep wet fosse it had sunk instantly
to the bottom, and was kept there by the
weight of armor which it bore! but she did
see her lover, whom she had fancied dead,
alive and on his feet, and rushing to her rescue!
she did see her deadly enemy prostrate
and lifeless at her side! and over him with
her broad blue eyes flashing fire, with lifted
buckler, brandished blade, was the beautiful
Bella, standing erect and fearless, so to defend
from shame all that was left of her
undaunted lover.

Teresa screamed, she sprang to save her,

but she was all too late, for flushed with
victory, and mad with vengeful fury, the
Spaniards were upon her. One good blow
did the English girl strike at the nearest
enemy; one good home blow, and the strongest
man who met it staggered, and fell headlong!
but ere he struck the earth, ten pike
heads tore the lovely bosom of that frail
faithful girl.

As she had spoken, so she died! She died
with him whom she would not survive! their
life-blood mingled, as she breathed out her
last sigh on his mangled breast; and one
tomb held their bodies; for at Teresa's bidding,
when the fierce rage of war was over,
a tomb was reared by that calm basin, over the lovely Bella, and the great English Buccaneer.

Long did Teresa mourn; long did she
weep her brother and her father; yet her
tears ceased at length to flow, as she blushed
her consent to her young rescuer's ardent
wooing; and, when they sailed together from
the wild shores of Florida, for their dear
Spanish home, the faithful slave Cassandra
followed her mistress's footsteps; and many a
time and often in after days and a far land,
they shed a pitying tear for the kind-hearted
English girl, and half admired the daring,
even while they blamed the sins of Ringwood
the great Rover!