University of Virginia Library

BOOK II.

LOVE AND PIRACY.

1. BOOK II.

1. CHAPTER I.

About one-fifth of the brief term of years to
which Divine Wisdom has limited the life of man
we have suffered to roll unrecorded down the tide
of time.

Our tale now opens in a new theatre, with
scenes of fresher and more exciting interest, before
which characters move and act who have borne no
inconsiderable part in the great drama of the second,
and last war of independence, between the
United States of the North and Great Britain.

A few years before the commencement of this
memorable and decisive war, a daring band of privateers-men,
inured to every hardship to be encountered

in storms of battle, or of the elements, and as free
as the winds which filled their flowing sheets, had
obtained commissions from the new government of
Carthagena, then first struggling for independence,
to cruise against the royalists, or vessels sailing under
the flag of Spain. By the authority of these
commissions, they not only made numerous captures
on the great highway of nations, but blockaded
many ports of the royalists in the Mexican
and West India seas.

Giving a latitude to their commissions which the
government from which they received them did not
recognize or foresee, they embraced in them, besides
the ships of the royalists, such other vessels as
they might fall in with, which, on trial, proved unable
to withstand their superior force. From privateers-men,
sailing under the flag of a South American
state, emboldened by success and power, they
became rovers of the wide blue sea, independent of
every flag but their own bright-red banner, and acknowledging
no commission but that written upon
the edge of their gleaming sabres. The flags of
every nation struck to their own, and the broad waters
of the Mexican sea became at the same time
their empire, their battle-field, and their home.

The prizes, their lawless mode of translating
special commissions, and that delusion of the visual
organs which led them to see in every flag, the
gorgeous blazonry of his Majesty of Spain, against
whom they had declared open war, enabled
them to seize, were taken into the secret bayous and
creeks adjacent to the mouth of the Mississippi,
where they were effectually concealed and safe from
capture or pursuit.

The most important passes made use of by these
buccaneers, and with which the scenes of our tale
are more immediately connected, lie about twenty
leagues to the west of the delta of the Mississippi,

and about forty miles south-west of the city of
New-Orleans. Here, an arm of the Mexican gulf
extends four or five leagues inland, terminating in
the mouths of several bayous or creeks, which, by
many devious and intricate windings, known only
to the smugglers, reached to within a few miles of
New-Orleans. They were navigable only for
boats, which here were accustomed to discharge
their unlawful freights taken from captured vessels,
from whence, through other and more commercial
hands, it obtained a rapid and secret conveyance to
the city.

This arm of the gulf is termed the bay of Barritaria,
so called, from that system of naval barratry
which characterized the class of men which
usually frequented it. The mouth of this bay, or
lake, as it is more generally denominated, from being
nearly encircled by the land, is defended by a
small island about two leagues in length and three
miles in breadth, which lies in a direction east and
west, and nearly parallel with the line of the coast,
leaving two narrow passes or entrances to the lake
from the gulf.

That, on the east, at the period with which we
are to identify our tale, was exceedingly shallow,
allowing only the passage of boats of light draught;
the western and main pass only admitted vessels
drawing nine and ten feet of water. This
island, which is called indiscriminately, Grande Terre
and Barritaria, is not an unbroken level, like the
surrounding low lands, or prairies, constituting the
southern section of Louisiana, but, with a striking
geological feature in reference to the aspect of this
region, it rises abruptly from the sea, with bold and
precipitous sides, sometimes swelling into slight eminences
several feet in height, covered with dense
forests of trees, among which, superior to all, towers
the live-oak in its iron strength. It also abounds in

a great variety of game; and an abundance of excellently-flavoured
fish are taken in its waters. Each
extremity of this island, at the time of which we
speak, was strongly fortified and bristly with cannon,
completely commanding both entrances to the
inner bay or lake.

Close within the western and deeper inlet to the
right, and effectually concealed by the intervening
islands from the open sea, from which it was about
three leagues distant, was a safe and commodious
anchorage; the only secure harbour for many
leagues along that dangerous coast.

This island, with its anchorage, was the principal
resort of the Carthagenian smugglers. From
their little territory, which in the face of the government
of the North United States, they had boldly
usurped, the fame of their extraordiuary deeds
went abroad over sea and land, till the name of
Barrataria was associated in the minds of men,
with crimes and deeds of outlawry, unparalleled in
the history of banned and out-cast men.

For better security, and more efficient operations,
these men, at first sailing singly, each upon his
own desperate enterprise, ultimately associated
themselves into one body, conferring the command
of their squadron on an individual of their number,
whose distinguished qualifications as a commander
over such a fleet, and such men, manifested on
many a bloody deck and many a desperate fight,
marked him singularly as their leader.

Besides this rendevous of the buccaneers of Barritaria,
in Louisiana, there were two others of less
importance; one of which was situated in an uninhabited
part of the coast, in the neighbourhood
of Carthagena, and the other in the West India
seas, on the west coast of the island of St. Domingo.
In these seas, and ultimately in this last-mentioned
spot, are laid the scenes of our second book.

In one of the romantic bays, with which the
southern shore of the island of Jamaica is indented,
and on one of the rich autumn evenings peculiar
to the Indian seas, about fifteen years subsequent
to the period embraced by the last book, a long,
low, black schooner, very taunt and sharp in the
bows, with all light sail drawing freely, and a red
and blue signal fluttering aloft, might have been
seen bowling gallantly over the miniature waves
of the bay, which glittered in the sun-light as
though overlaid with golden mail.

On the deck of the little vessel, which was heavily
armed and full of men, stood one of commanding
person, whose features, as he leaned over the quarter-railing,
were partially concealed by the drooping
front of his broad palmetto hat; that portion of his
face, however, which could be discerned, displayed a
black silken mustacho, curving like cupid's bow,
over a fine mouth, whose general expression was resolution.
Now, however, a yellow segar severed his
lips, which languidly embraced it, while an occasional
cloud of blue smoke emitted from beneath
his overshadowing hat, curled above his head, and
floating to leeward, blended with the evening
haze.

Listlessly, like one familiar with the scenery, he
gazed upon the glorious prospect spread out before
and around him, rising from the shores of the bay
and retreating backward and higher, till the distant
clouds bounded the view—a scene of gorgeous
sublimity. Precipice on precipice, avalanche on
avalanche rose, piled one upon the other—a theatre
of magnificent desolation; while the soaring
ridges of the Blue Mountains, half mantled in
clouds, and the lofty peak of St. Catharine, elevating
her summit several thousand feet above the
sea, towered proudly above all.

Immediately on his left, rose, to a lesser height, a

chaos of inaccessible cliffs, abrupt rocks, shooting
upward like towers and craggy peaks, exhibiting
the stern aspect of some great convulsion which
had laid nature in ruins. As the schooner shot
farther into the bay, these wild features were concealed
by intervening wooded hills, which, with
round green summits, swelled from the shore; and
as she still lessened her distance from the land, numerous
verdurous spots sprinkled along the precipitous
side of the mountains, or laid, like green carpets,
upon the rocks, and among the trees, softened
and relieved the harsher character of the scenery;
while the traces of human ingenuity, taste and labour,
were discerned on every hand. Majestic forests,
groves of palmetto, and pastures like the softest
lawns, now lining the shore and overhanging the
water, were rapidly passed; and vast savannas, covered
with variegated cane, as far as the eye could
distinguish, displayed, in their changing tints, the
verdure of spring, blended with the exuberance of
autumn.

As the rover sailed farther into the bay, his eye,
as he glanced with momentary animation along the
land, rested upon the cots and hamlets of the negroes,
the walls of a distant military post, and the
white villas of the planters, dispersed picturesquely
on the precipices, and in every green nook along the
sides of the receding hills. The schooner, after
running about a league into the land, suddenly altered
her course, and stood for the entrance of a
little harbour or recess of the bay; and now, under
her mainsail and jib alone, coasted along a bold
shore, dotted here and there with a magnificent
pimento—groves of which clothed the distant eminences.
The summits of the cliffs, beneath which
it sailed, were verdant with trees of thickest foliage,
while, from their over-hanging brows, tiny cataracts,
like slender threads of silver, leaped down into the

sea, ringing musically as they fell, or struck upon
the deck of the vessel, sprinkling a cool shower
upon the seamen.

The inlet towards which she was rapidly advancing,
was nearly enclosed by a chain of isolated
rocks, towering like gigantic pinnacles; and a
craggy promontory overhanging the basin, half encircled
it on the west. Between the termination of
this promontory, and the chain of rocks, was visible
a narrow passage, by which craft of small size only
could pass, one at the time, into the dark, circular
pool, sleeping calm and deep within its rocky
sides, which, frowning terrifically over it, cast beneath
a black shadow, even whilst the sun hung high in
the heavens. Now the shadows were deepened in
the approaching twilight, and a mysterious gloom
gathered over the spot as the day receded, presenting
to the imagination dark caverns and horrid ravines
on every side.

Into this secret nook the little vessel rapidly shot,
under the guidance of a skilful hand, and running
into its farthest extremity, towards the main
land, came to anchor under a projecting rock,
which, cleft to its base, admitted a footway from
the water to the highland plantations in the interior.
In a few minutes the white sails disappeared,
and the tall, black masts of the vessel relieved
against the sky, alone betrayed her presence; for
the dark hull itself was invisible in the deep shadow
of the cliff. Not a sound was heard from her
deck after she entered, save an occasional order
given in a suppressed voice, and the rubbing of the
cable as the anchor sunk noiselessly into the water.
The trees were motionless, and not a breath
ruffled the limpid surface of the basin.

“List!” said a low, deep voice, from the stern of
the vessel; and the distant wail of a bugle fell,

with a melancholy cadence, upon the ears of the
listening seamen.

Again it rose and fell, low and plaintive; and
hardly had the sound died in the air when three
sharp blasts were blown in rapid succession.

“That's the signal! Valasquez is as true as
steel to his own avarice!” exclaimed the commander
of the schooner, whom we have just introduced
to the reader.

“Be ready all! Ten of you go with me. See
to your pistols, and let every other man take a dark
lantern and a cutlass, and have two oars slung for
a barrow. The rest of you be still as the grave,
and on the alert to obey my signals. Three pistols,
Ricardo,” he continued, addressing one of his
officers, “fired in succession will be our signal for
a reinforcement, should the old Don be too hard
for us. Now ashore, my men, all,” he added with
rapidity and energy.

Accompanied by a handsome youth, and a deformed
slave, and followed by ten of his men, in red
woollen caps and shirts, and without jackets, he
sprung on to a projecting point of rock, heavily
armed, and the next moment stood in the mouth of
the cleft or defile, terminating at the top of the
cliff.

“Madre de Dios!” exclaimed one, in a suppressed
whisper, to his comrade by his side, casting his
eyes up the narrow and precipitous pass, which
they were slowly ascending, “this must be the upstairs
to purgatory.”

“Rather, Mister Spaniard,” drawled his companion—a
tall, light-haired, ungainly seaman—
through his generous nasal organ, “rather, it may
be another guess sort of a road.”

“And what may that be?” inquired a Spanish
sailor, gruffly, who toiled on just before him.

“The road to the good place, I guess, Senyore.”

“Gif proof o' dat!” said a lank Frenchman, by
trade a frissieur, but who had now taken to cutting
men's throats instead of their beards. “Gif
proof o' dat, by Gar, Monsieur Yenkee!”

“Why, Mister Parley-voo, you see,” articulated
the other slowly, in reply, “I can prove it to a demonstration
from scriptur, if ye happen to know
what that are is. Don't it say, `strait is the gate
and narrow is the way that goes up to heaven?' ”
and the scriptural quoter cleared his throat emphatically,
and wiped his loose lips upon his red woollen
sleeve, with an air of self-complacency.

“Give preacher Sol a quid o' tobacco for that
sarmont,” said one; “blast my eyes if he haint arnt
it;” and a low suppressed laugh was heard from
two or three of his comrades.

“Silence there,” said their leader, in a low, distinct
voice; and the rest of their way up the defile
was effected, only occasionally interrupted by the
splash of a loose fragment, which, agitated by
their feet, fell into the water, or the whispered execration
of some one, as a false step had nearly sent
him headlong down upon his companions, and into
the dark gulf beneath.

“Now, my brave fellows,” said the leader of this
night-party, as he stood at the head of the defile,
upon the summit of the cliff, whilst his men filed
past him, and gathered in a group, beneath the dark
shadow of a cluster of palm, cocoa-nut and bamboo-cane
trees, which crowned the heights. “Now, my
good men, we are on an expedition, which, if successful,
and its success depends on your own wills,
and sharp cutlasses, will redeem all our past losses,
which tempted the crew to mutiny. These wars
have made all craft, but those who show their teeth,
full timid enough in venturing on our legitimate
empire; but this henceforward shall be no cause of

complaint. I have yielded to your wishes on this
occasion, not, you well know, because I feared to
withstand them, although it is against my own feelings
to rob an old man of his hoarded ingots.
The free flag, a flowing sheet, and open sea
for me. But be ready. I will lead you on this
adventure. Ho, Cudjoe!” he said to his slave,
“give the answering signal to Velasquez—clearly
and well, now, for your boar's head may pay the
forfeiture for bungling;” and the clear, wild and
discordant cry of the galena, when alarmed, suddenly
broke the stillness of the night, now prolonged
and low, now sharp and loud—then suddenly
ceased.

“Well done, my Guinea-bird,” said his master;
“your beldam mother, Cudjoe, must have fed you
on guinea-eggs.”

“Hark! it is answered;” and a similar cry came
from the depths of the wood. In a few moments
afterwards it was repeated nearer, and then ceased.

The silence which succeeded, was interrupted
by a screech and rustling on the left, in the direction
of a patch of coarse grass, terminated by
clumps of aloes, torch-thistle, and palmetto, which
formed the boundary of the cultivated portion
of the estate. Every eye turned instantly
in that direction, and every man's hand was laid
upon the butt of his pistol.

“Ho! Léon, my fine creature, but you are a
welcome pioneer!” exclaimed the chief, as a noble
dog, of majestic size, bounded into their midst, and
sprung fawningly against his master's breast. “But
down, sir, down, you hug like a Greenland bear!
What news bring you from my trusty spy?”

The sagacious animal, as if the careless question
of his master had been intelligible, looked into the
face of the querist, and strove to draw his attention

by raising his fore-paw to his neck and striking
once or twice forcibly the broad, studded collar encircling
it.

“Ha! it is so? Théodore, open your lantern,”
said the chief to the youth; “cautiously, though:”
and the pirate bent over the collar and examined
it, while the dog stood wagging his huge tail with
a motion expressive of much satisfaction.

“Nay, Léon, you are a cheat, sir!” said his master,
angrily, after a close examination of the collar,
which on other occasions had served him for the
transmission of billets relating to both love and battle.
“Go, sir!” but the noble animal crouched at
his feet, forced his paw under the collar, and struggled
to break it from his neck.

“The key! the key, Cudjoe!” he cried; and
the slave thrust his huge hand into a kind of Pandora's
box made in his lower garments, from which,
among a heterogeneous display of broken pipes,
chicken breast-bones, beads, ebony hearts, broken
dirk-knobs, charmed relicks, and spells against
obeahs, fetahs, and melay men, he produced the
key to the collar.

His master unlocked it, and stepping aside with
his back to his men, he secretly slid aside the smooth
plate which constituted its inner surface, and displayed
an opening nearly the whole length and
breath of the collar. From this concealed repository,
which he thought known only to himself and
a fair inamorata, then in a distant land, he took a
folded scrap of paper.

“Curse this prying knave Velasquez!” he muttered;
“how in the devil's name could he have
learned this secret? But how or when, he has
made good use of it,” he cast his eyes over the note
upon which the rays of the lamp fell brightly through
a carefully opened crevice in the sides of the lantern.

“Well, men,” he said, turning to his party, “I

find Léon has been a trusty messenger; Velasquez
has written upon his collar what chances await
us at the old villa. There are but two old slaves,
the old man and his daughter, besides his trusty
nephew and secretary, Hebérto Velasquez! Onward.
Lead, my trusty Léon!”

“How I do hate such treacherous tools,” he said
mentally, as, preceded by his dog and followed by
his men, he threaded the forest; “open villany
were virtue to such secret machinations. And
against an uncle too! who has been but too indulgent—that
he may a little earlier have his heaps
of gold to squander upon his debaucheries. Holy
father! if I did not fear a general mutiny throughout
my squadron, by reason of our late scanty harvest
on the seas, I would not lift a finger to help this
roué to his wishes. But fate, fate! I am the football
of circumstances! How often have I been led by
my destiny to do deeds at which my soul revolted!
Oh, God! oh, God! that I could be at peace with
my own heart! Peace! there remains no peace for
me! I have bathed my hand in blood, and there is
no retracing my footsteps. My first mad crime has
been the prolific parent of all my subsequent ones.
If my arm had been staid at that fatal period by
some good angel, I should have been an honourable—perhaps,
a good man! That deed ruled my
after destinies. My hand is now red—red! and
nothing but my own blood can ever wash out the
stains which crimson it. And is there a future, too,
where men must give account of their earthly deeds?
Is there a day of retribution for the murderer? Do
the innocent and the guilty go alike to one destiny
—to one reward or punishment? Oh, God! No,
no!—There was one pure spirit released by this same
bloody hand from the snowy bosom which confined
it, panting to be free—and shall our destiny—mine
and hers—be the same in the coming world? Oh,

no! Oh, no! she must be glorious and happy there!
and I—there is surely a hell for thee, Lafitte!”
he exclaimed bitterly. The wretched and guilty
man pressed his temples for a moment, and turned
to cheer his followers, striving in the action of the
time to forget his own miserable thoughts.

The party had now issued from the dark recesses
of the wood, the vivid green of whose foliage was
was just tinged with silver from the rising moon,
and after passing with a swift tread around a hedge,
or border of bamboo and orange trees, came at once
in front of a large, old mansion, situated on the side
of a gentle eminence facing the bay.

From the point where they first beheld the house,
several avenues, overgrown with rank and luxuriant
grass, diverged in various directions. One of
these paths immediately in front of them was broader,
and by the light of the newly-risen moon, which
glanced along its whole length, seemed some worn
by recent use. This avenue, which afforded to
the freebooters a glimpse of the house containing
their prey, was bordered by the rich-leaved oleander,
numerous beautiful trees bearing roses of every dye;
with the jessamine, and grenadilla, yielding to the
caprice of nature, entwining its luxuriant vines into
gracefully-formed alcoves. At a gateway, obscured
by the shade of many large trees standing around
it, the party made a halt.

“Now listen to my instructions, each man of you,”
said their leader, as they paused here, awaiting their
guide. “There is to be no violence; the persons
of the old man and his family shall be held sacred.
It is his wealth, not his life you seek. Let no man
pull a trigger, if he love his life, this night. If we
are attacked by the patrol, then, and only in the last
emergency, use your fire-arms; for one report of a
pistol, would bring the neighbouring garrison down
upon us in force; and our little Gertrude, lying so

snugly in the Devil's Bowl below, would be intercepted
by a king's cruiser before she could gain the
open sea. Be cool and discreet, and we succeed,”
he added, as the men were about to murmur their
assent; “be imprudent, and it will be a short grace
from the red coats, and a swing from the nearest
tree.”

“Hist! here comes our guide. What, ho, there,
the word!”

Creeping on his hands and knees, as he spoke,
appeared from beneath a clump of bushes growing
by the gate, a low, square figure, naked to the
waist, from which, to his bony knees descended a
garment equally participating in the honours of the
petticoat and small-clothes. As he emerged from
the shadow of the hedge into the moonlight, his
black glossy hide glistened like a polished boot.

Gathering himself up to his full height, which
was perhaps a little exceeding three feet eleven
inches, he replied, with rapid, nervous articulation,
while his teeth, and the white of his eye glittered in
the moonlight,

“De word, mass' buckra? de word, mass' 'berto
tell me say be, `de collar.' ”

“You are my man,” he exclaimed; “lead on to
your young master. Where does he await us?”

“Close by de big tam'rind tree, mass'! 'hind de
soute wing ob de house.”

“On, my beauty!” said he, gaily; the momentary
depression having passed away; “lead on, we follow.”

The guide darted again under the hedge, where
the ground had been burrowed, leaving room for a
full sized man to draw himself under with ease,
by putting aside the lower branches of the armed
hedge, encircling the grounds. Through this opening,
each man, after getting upon his knees, passed
through into the garden, followed by their leader,

who hewed with his cutlass a broad passage, through
which to retreat. Here, forming his men into a line,
he placed himself at their head, and with rapid and
noiseless footsteps the whole party followed their
sable guide through many dark and devious labyrinths,
towards the rear of the villa.

2. CHAPTER II.

M. Rollin.

Hamilton's Essays.

A RUINED VILLA—A CASTILLIAN MAIDEN—THE VENERABLE
SPANIARD—SCENE IN A SUBTERRANEAN APARTMENT.

While the band of piratical marauders were
winding their way through the intricate paths
which led through the grounds, we will precede
them to the villa.

This was a long, low, steep-roofed edifice, with
a dilapidated and sunken gallery running along its
front, supported by a row of heavy, dark-coloured
columns, some of which leaned inward while one
or two were lying prostrate upon the green sward
before the house. At either end of the gallery, stood a
bronze statue of some classic hero, while in various
points in front of the building and half-concealed by
the wild and neglected shrubbery, were several marble
statues, a few standing, but more broken into
pieces and thrown down, fragments of which were
scattered in every direction over the grounds. A
green terrace, fronting the bay and bound with marble,
up to which a ruined flight of steps ascended

from the shore, extended the whole length of the
parterre, or ornamented garden, before the villa.
The chimneys, and in many places the walls of
the house had crumbled and fallen; windows were
without shutters—the ascent to the piazza, the
entrances to the dwelling, and the various walks
diverging from it, were choked up with tall coarse
grass, and fragments of brick, stone and marble.
The whole premises presented a scene of melancholy
desolation—the sad record of past opulence
and grandeur.

The northern wing of the building, alone withstood
the devastations of decay, and at this time,
served as the abode of the family whose reported
wealth, had held forth temptations to a band of
pirates to invade the sanctity of its domestic circle.
The opulent proprietor, an old Castillian soldier,
lived in the enjoyment of vast possessions in Mexico,
when one of the many revolutions in that ill-fated
land, sent him forth an exile to other shores.
With the value of his estates exchanged for Spanish
coin and vessels of gold and silver, or melted down
into ingots, and accompanied by his only child, a
beautiful dark-eyed Castillian girl—a nephew whom
he had adopted, and one or two faithful servants, he
came to Jamaica, and purchased the estate on which
he now dwelt, from one of those old, ruined planters,
who once lived princes of the island.

The old Spaniard's heart was broken by his
exile. His proud spirit was fallen, and he had
become again a child, and the child of his bosom,
the young Constanza Velasquez, was the only
solace of his age and solitude. But the nephew,
turned upon his benefactor, and like the serpent,
stung the bosom that nourished him.

The hour of vespers had long passed, and Constanza
kneeled by the couch of her father.

Her figure was round, finely developed, and displayed

to advantage by a laced jacket, or bodice of
black satin, enriched with a deep lace border closely
fitting her shape. The curve of her shoulders was
faultless, terminating in arms that would have
haunted Canova in his dreams. On either wrist
sparkled a diamond button confining the bodice at
the cuffs. At both shoulders it was also clasped
by a star of emeralds. Her fine raven hair was
drawn back, and arranged in the form of a crest of
tresses falling around her finely-turned head. A
single white flower was secured in a rich curl
above her forehead, by a gold-wrought comb, inlaid
with many coloured stones. Over her head
was thrown a white mantilla or veil, fastened on
the comb by a pearl pin, so disposed as to fall down
the back, to the feet of the wearer; yet it could
be readily brought forward and dropped over the
whole person. At this time, it was gathered in
folds, and hung gracefully on her left arm.

Beneath her robe of white satin, worn under
the bodice, and richly flowered with net work
of silver, appeared, fitted in a neat Spanish slipper,
a foot—such as poets of the northern clime
see in dreams—of the most perfect and fascinating
symmetry. The complexion of the maiden
was a rich olive tinge, mellowed by the suns of sixteen
Indian summers. Her eyes were large, dark,
and expressive, shaded by long silken lashes, even
darker than her dark shining hair, giving them,
when in repose, that dreamy look, which the pencils
of the old Italian masters loved to dwell upon with
lingering touches. They spoke of deep passion and
gentleness, while a smile of light danced perpetually
in their radiant beams. The general character of
her extremely lovely features indicated great sweetness
of disposition and ingenuousness. The timid
expression of her eye, evincing indecision, was relieved
by a firmness about the mouth and the maidenly

dignity which sat upon her beautiful forehead.
In her left hand, she held a diamond crucifix suspended
from her neck by a massive gold chain, each
link in the shape of a cross. Upon her right arm,
reposed the majestic head of her venerable parent,
her delicate fingers playing with the silvery, shining
ringlets that flowed about his neck, and curled upon
his massive forehead. His features were sharp and
rigid with illness and settled grief; and his dark
eye was lustreless as he gazed up into the face of
his child.

“Have you said your prayers to night, my child?”

“I have, dear father; and they ascended for your
recovery. Oh, that the sweet mother of our Saviour
would grant answers to my prayers!” she said looking
upward devotionally.

“She will, she will, Constanza,” replied the
aged man, “for yourself, but not for me! I have
lived my allotted space. I must soon leave you,
child. Be prepared for it, my daughter! Listen!
I dreamed this afternoon that I saw the blessed Virgin,
and she was the image of yourself.”

“Nay, father, let not your love for poor sinful
Constanza lead you to sin in your language,” interrupted
his daughter, blushing at the unintentional
flattery, while she trembled at its seeming impiety.

“So, so, but yet hear me, child,” he interrupted
impatiently; “when I gazed upon her, wondering
she was so like you, she changed, and instead of you,
I saw your mother! How much like her you look
just now my child! Bend down and let me kiss
your brow.” The fair girl bent her brow to her
father's cheek, her dark locks mingling with his
white hair.

“You do not remember your mother,” uttered he,
after a moment's affectionate embrace; “poor child!
she was very beautiful. Your lofty brow is hers,
the same pencilled arch—the same drooping lid—

and when you smile, I almost call you, `my Isabel!”'

“Am I so like my sainted mother, father? I
wish I could recollect her or recall a feature,” she
said, placing her finger on her lips in the attitude of
thought—“but no, no, it is vain!” she added,
shaking her head mournfully, “her image is gone
forever.”

“Oh no, not forever, my child, you shall meet her
again in heaven.”

All at once a cloud of sorrow passed across his
troubled features, and grasping in his trembling and
withered fingers, the soft, round hand of his daughter,
he said in an earnest manner,

“Constanza, I feel that I cannot leave you, my
unprotected dove! in this sinful world alone. What
will become of you, my child, when I am gone?
Hebérto!” and the old man's eye flashed with anger
as he repeated the name, “Beware of Hebérto!
Oh, that the proud name of Velasquez should be dishonoured
by such a branch! Fear him, my child, fear
him as you would the adder that winds his glistening
folds along your path;” and the old man clasped
his skeleton fingers upon the sparkling crucifix
which lay upon his breast and after remaining
silent for a few moments, he lifted his aged eyes to
heaven and said, “Holy Mary! take her! she is
thy child, thy sister! Be a mother to my child, dear
Mary, Mother of Jesus! and as thy beloved son surrendered
thee to the care of his beloved disciple
while he hung expiring on the cross,” and he pressed
fervently and devotionally the jewelled representative
to his lips, “so do I, a poor penitent worm of
the dust, here and on my dying bed, give up to thee,
my child—my only beloved child! Thou hast her
mother in heaven. Oh keep her daughter while
on earth! Mary, Mother! in the language of thy
dying son, I say, `Mother, behold thy daughter!”'

The venerable man, who in his momentary devotion
had raised himself from the sustaining arm of
his daughter, as he uttered the last words, fell back
upon the pillow exhausted.

“Oh, Agata! Agata!” shrieked the deeply-affected
and terrified girl, “Come! hasten! my father is
dying.”

The door of the anti-chamber burst open, and the
tall figure of young Hebérto Velasquez stood before
her as she turned to look for her aged attendant,
wrapped in a dark blue cloak, and his features
shaded by a drooping sombrero.

“Ha, my charming cousin! what has tuned that
pretty voice so high,” he said in a gay, yet unpleasant
tone; at the same time coming forward and
bending gracefully down, he passed his arm around
the waist of the lovely girl.

The maiden sprung as if a demon had laid
his polluted hand upon her person. “Heberto!
Señor Velasquez!” and she stood before him as she
spoke—her eye flashing with maidenly indignation—
her cheek glowing with insulted modesty, and her
majestic figure and attitude like that of a seraph
whom Satan had dared to tempt. “What mean
you, sir? begone! Would you press your hateful
suit to the daughter, over the corpse of her father?
Begone, I hate you!—more than I have ever loved
—I now hate you! Oh shame, shame! that I
should ever have loved THEE!” and her lip, eye
and brow, expressed withering scorn.

“Leave me, sir!” she added, as she saw that he
moved not. But the bold and unblushing intruder,
although his eye quailed before the proud look of
the maiden, stood with folded arms, a fierce brow,
and malicious lip, gazing upon her, as she turned to
bathe the aged temples of the unconscious invalid
and restore him to animation. “Leave me, sir;
Oh, let not my father revive and find you here. It

will kill him. You know he cannot endure you,
soulless man, since you brought that fatal will for
him to sign.”

“Ha, do you throw it in my teeth, pretty one!
But prithee tell me, when first learned you the part
of tragedy queen? Nombre de Dios, my pretty
cousin! but you play your part excellently well.”

“Scorner! Insulter! away—Oh that the count
were here to chastise insolence!”

“The count,” slowly repeated Velasquez, grinding
the hated appellation between his glittering
teeth, as he slowly articulated it.

At this moment the old man unclosed his eyes.
“Go, sir, go—would you murder him?” she exclaimed,
while her dark eye flashed with anger.

“He will die full soon enough when his ingots
are gone,” repeated Velasquez, scornfully. “I will
go, my queenly cousin; but the time perhaps may
not be far off, when you will sue for this same Velasquez
to stay, and with clasped hands and tearful
eyes pray him to speak you kindly; then will he
remember this evening. Adios, estrella mia!” he
added with a mock, sentimental air, and kissing his
hand, while he cast over the voluptuous outline of
her shoulders, as, in her sacred duty she bent
affectionately over her father's form, a glance of
mingled desire and hatred, he pressed his hat over
his eyes, folded his cloak closelier about his form, and
left the apartment.

With a firm and rapid pace he passed through
the hall, and traversed the deserted apartments of
the large mansion, his way lighted by the moon,
which poured in floods of radiance at the open and
shutterless windows. Opening, and closing carefully
after him, a door which communicated with
the opposite wing, he descended a broken staircase,
into a dark vault beneath, and unlocking a small door

concealed on the outside by thick shrubbery, he
pushed aside the bushes, and stood in the moonlight.

“By the blessed Baptista!” he exclaimed, as he
emerged from the secret portal, “if these men betray
me! Yet, without me they cannot hunt out
the old dotard's hoard. But if I am the buccaneer's
tool, you have lost your wits, Velasquez, if he shall
not be yours.” And the dark plotter against a
helpless old man, and his lovely and unprotected
child, smiled inwardly at the pleasant thought his
fertile brain conjured up, as he paced to and fro,
beneath the shade of a large tamarind tree, which
grew near that wing of the mansion.

“What can keep them?” he muttered, as a
fancied sound in a clump of bushes, upon which his
eye was often turned, stayed for a moment his
footsteps.

“It is a full half hour since they answered my
signal. Cesar has been long absent! The black
loiterer should have had them here, ere now.”

“A shrine to thee, patron saint!” he suddenly exclaimed,
devoutly kissing a medal, suspended to his
collar, “there is the square figure of my naked
Adonis; and that tall figure! I know it well;
once seen it is not soon forgotten; and there follow
his sturdy villains. Now, Herbérto Velasquez, thou
art a made man!”

“Señores, buenos tardes,” he said, gaily advancing
a few steps to meet the approaching party, as it
emerged from the avenue, and traversed the terrace
to the place of appointment. “My good sir
captain, you are right gladly welcome to my poor
domicil. If it please you, draw up your men in
this shade, while we walk aside,” he added, proffering
his hand to the leader of the party.

“Sir Spaniard, pardon me that I grasp not the
hand of a villain,” replied the chief, without removing
his hand from the cutlass hilt, upon which it

mechanically rested. “Nay, start not! and leave
that rapier in peace. I know you, though we have
met but seldom. Thanks, or courtesy, I owe you
not. This adventure is not of my seeking; it is
the ill-begotten offspring of mutiny on the part of
my men, who will be in no other way appeased,
and of treachery, ingratitude, and base villany on
your own. Now, Señor, to business; but let there
be no friendship, and but few words between us.”

Velasquez bit his lip in silence, and his inferior
spirit shrunk within him, as these biting words
rung upon his ear; and the penetrating, self-powered
gaze of the pirate rested, while he spoke, full
upon his features. But his love of wealth overcame
any momentary struggles of wounded pride, and he
replied in a less assured tone than he had used,
when first addressing his companion.

“It is well, Señor,” he said, carelessly, “if you
choose to be captious on so slight a matter. But
'tis a blessed chance my pretty cousin heard not
your romancing. I would wager my gold-headed
rapier against the iron one you wear, that she
would have loved you outright.”

“Your sword is more likely to be lost in such a
wager, than in one of battle,” was the contemptuous
reply; “but I came not here to lay wagers with
you, Don Velasquez, either of coin or battle. To
the matter in hand. We have no time for idle
dallying, and I am not given to bandying words.
For the privilege of taking possession of the large
sum of money in the possession of your uncle, you
are to be allowed one-half for your own personal
use, on condition, that without turmoil or blood-shed,
injury to persons or property, you conduct
my men to your uncle's strong-hold. These,” he
added, after a moment's silence, “are the terms we
made in Kingston. Say I not well, Señor?”

“There remains one other condition,” replied

Velasquez, with the caution of practised villany;
“that mutual secrecy be sacredly observed between
us, in relation to the removal of the treasures.”

“Even so, wary Señor Velasquez; that the robbed
old man may lay all censure upon the pirates,
whom you would make the scape-goat of your
treachery to your uncle, and curse them when he
talks of his loss to his sympathizing nephew, if,
haply, he lives to relate the sad story. Well, lead
on, Señor, we follow,” he added, sternly.

“Call two of your strongest men,” said Velasquez,
“let them accompany us, and command the
rest to stand as close as possible with their weapons
ready for use, in case of alarm; and enjoin upon
them to observe the strictest silence. Now, sir! shall
we move?”

“Théodore, be alert, our lives depend upon
it,” said the chief to his young attendant; and,
followed by two of his men, he approached the secret
opening, guided by Velasquez, who had constructed
it for his own private admission into the
vault, when his lavish purse required replenishing;
although, a certain indefinable respect for his name
and respectability among men, prevented him from
openly robbing his benefactor, or removing sufficiently
large sums to excite suspicion.

Accident, in some of his visits to Jamaica, had
thrown him into the company of the commander of
the schooner, with whom, from a supposed congeniality
of character, he sought to cultivate an
intimacy. Ignorant of human nature, whose outward
seeming is often the most false, and anxious
to be regarded by the outlaw as a caballero of
mettle; without knowing his exact character,
and thinking he must assimilate himself to the
false standard of an outlaw set up in his own
mind, he threw into his manner a recklessness,
lawlessness, and ferocity, which was, however,

natural to him, disgusting to the chief, who took no
pains to conceal his contempt for him. Subsequently,
a knowledge of a threatened mutiny
among his men, suggested to the dark-minded
man a scheme, not only to gain wealth himself,
without suspicion, or rather, proof of illegal acquisition,
but to do the pirate, whose fellowship, like the
cur who is beaten, he coveted the more he was
spurned, a favour that should purchase his good
will.

Putting aside the thick clumps of the oleander,
concealing the secret opening into the vault of the
building, Velasquez and his companions entered the
low-arched room communicating with the apartment
above, by the shattered stair-case he had
descended on quitting his cousin.

“It is too dark to place a foot! Are you provided
with a lantern?” he inquired, in a whisper, carefully
and without noise, closing the door, as the
last man entered.

“Here is one,” said the seaman nearest him,
opening, at the same time, one side of the night
lantern, with which nearly every man was provided.

The guide took it from him, and passing round
the stairs, opened a door he had purposely left
unlocked, and entered a long damp passage,
the extremity of which lay in total darkness. The
outlaw placed his hand upon his stiletto, and glanced,
with habitual watchfulness, around him, as he
approached its obscure and suspicious termination.
At the end of the passage, which they crossed with
light footsteps, they passed through another door,
the key of which was in the lock, and entered a
low-vaulted room, directly under the inhabited
wing of the mansion.

The floor was paved with large flat stones, and

besides the door, through which they entered, there
was no perceptible outlet.

“Here is the room adjoining the money,” said
Velasquez, in a low, husky voice, with his face
averted from the gaze of him whom he addressed.
“Be silent; the least noise will betray us:—
Hark! did you not hear the report of a gun? No,
it was a movement overhead.” The momentary
suspicion and apprehension of detection, which
are the attendants of guilt, passed off, and he
continued,—

“Look at this wall, sir! you see it is perfectly
smooth; yet through it we pass to my uncle's
gold bags,” said he, with a forced smile, as he shook
off his fears, and those qualms of conscience which
tortured even his hardened spirit. Then, pressing
against one of the sides of a large square stone, it
turned half way round, on a concealed pivot, and
displayed a narrow opening on either side.

“This is too small; we cannot pass through it,”
said the pirate, now speaking for the first time since
entering the vault.

Without replying, Velasquez pressed the sides of
the two lower stones in the same manner, and two
dark, narrow passages, nearly the height of a man,
and so wide, that one could pass sideways, were
opened in the wall.

Holding the lamp, so that it would illuminate
the interior, a narrow, spiral stair-case was discovered,
leading both into the upper room, where the
outlet was concealed by a private door, and from
the spot where they stood, into a subterranean vault
beneath—constituting a medium of communication
between the upper room and the vault, and from
the stair-case, by revolving the stones, to the exterior
of the building, by the way the party had entered.

“You see, my uncle is a true Spaniard, señor
captain, in his taste for subterranean and secret

passages!” said Velasquez. “Pity 'tis, his ingenuity
should not have had eyes to admire it before.
He should thank me, by our Lady's benison,
for making known to a man of judgment, like
yourself, his passing skill. See! how secretly he
can descend from his chamber to count his ingots!
though to do the old dotard justice, he possesses not
a miserly soul. This passage in the wall must,
however, be set down to his nephew's ingenuity.
It would astonish the old man, as much as if a
new Roman miracle were hatched, (the saints pardon
my impiety!) if he should press too heavily
against the sides of his stair-way, and pitch, at
once, into this room. I would give half I expect
to possess this night, to see his aghast features,
when he made the discovery. But I see you are
impatient, señor captain,—let us proceed,” he added
hastily, as his companion sprung into the
opening on the staircase; and following him, they
descended into the vault, over which the lamp cast
a dim and uncertain light.

The little room, or cell, in which they now were,
was arched over-head—the walls were constructed
of solid masonry, and there was visible neither outlet
nor inlet, save, at the foot of the stairs, that
which admitted them.

Around the room, which was about eight feet
square, stood several antique marble urns, blackened
by age and dampness, which had once constituted
a part of the ornaments of the villa grounds
in the days of its pride. These urns were covered
with slabs, once capitals and pedestals.

A heavy cedar box, with a cover loosely thrown
over it, stood on one side, while, on a raised floor,
were candlesticks, urns, a tall crucifix, and many
vessels for the altar and festal board, all of massive
silver.

“Mines of Peru! but here is a goodly display of

wealth!” said the pirate, glancing his eye over the
glittering array before him. “Let us see what
these urns contain. Coin of silver! coin of silver!
chains of gold! bracelets! glittering stones, and
gems of price!” said he, as he removed one after
another of the slabs which covered them. “And
here, in this strong box,” he continued, removing
the lid, “what have we here? Holy Saint Peter!
but here is a prince's ransom indeed;” and the
rough corners of a heap of ingots sparkled with a
thousand points in the rays of the lamp.

“Here, Señor Captain, is the prize you seek,”
said Velasquez, exultingly, after waiting until he
had surveyed the costly heaps. “Let your men
take the box of ingots, the vessels of silver, and the
urn of golden chains, gems, and bracelets; for
my portion, leave me the remaining urns of dollars
—though something less than what you share—I
am content with them. But remember your oath
of secrecy.”

“That will I, Señor Velasquez,” said the outlaw,
in a lively tone; “and I consent to this division.”

The sight of so much wealth, which he had to
lay his hands upon only to possess, and the prospect
of restoring discipline in his fleet, overcame for the
moment his contempt for the tool that served him,
and his regret at taking possession of the wealth of
a defenceless old man. “But,” he argued, as he
and others, under similar circumstances, had argued
before, “if I do not take it, Velasquez will; but I
have sworn on bended knee that a sacred portion
should be reserved for the daughter! Innocence has
been too long the victim of guilt! The last shall
now be subservient to the first. Come, Señor
Velasquez,” he said abruptly, aloud, “let us to
work. Here, Gaspár, you and Nicolás raise this
box; it is weighty, but you were not blessed with
the neck and shoulders of bulls for nothing. No!

not move it? Then lighten it—there—thats' well.
Now bear it to the outside, and bid Théodore send
Mateo and Carlos back with you—be silent and
speedy.”

The men, placing an open lantern upon the cover
of the box to light them through the dark passage
of the building, disappeared slowly up the stairs
with their heavy burden, while the two principals
who remained, the one—with folded arms leaning
against the side of the vault, and the other, with
his right hand thrust into his bosom, the left resting
upon a slab—stood silently and in darkness
awaiting their return.

3. CHAPTER III.

HISTORY OF REVOLUTIONS IN MEXICO.

A SURPRISE—VELASQUEZ AND HIS UNCLE—A BATTLE WITH DRAGOONS—LOVE
AT FIRST SIGHT—RETREAT—DEPARTURE OF THE
BUCCANEERS.

After Velasquez left the apartment of the insulted
and distressed maiden, her firmness and
womanly indignation forsook her with the object
that called it into existence, and burying her face
in the pillow of her father's couch, she wept bitterly.

“Daughter! Constanza! why do you not speak
to me?” called the old man in a tremulous voice,
his consciousness gradually returning. “My child
weeping! do not weep for me, my dear Constanza.
I—am—better—better—much—quite—quite well,”
he feebly articulated in a broken voice, which contradicted
his words. “It grieves me to see your

eyes in tears; let me take your hand in mine, mí
álma! Tell me why those tears?” he inquired,
with parental kindness.

“Nay, I weep not, father,” replied the lovely girl,
brushing the fast falling tears from her eye-lashes;
“now that you are well, I am happy, very happy,”
and she laid affectionately her dimpled hand upon
her parent's fevered brow. “Oh, I have dreamed
a fearful dream, mí álma,” suddenly spoke her
father, starting with the recollection. “I dreamed
that Velasquez, with a guilty lip, sought to desecrate
your virgin cheek—”

“Nay, nay, my dear father, it was but a dream,”
interrupted the blushing girl, with a nervous rapidity
in the tones of her voice. “Will you not sleep?
the hour wears late, and I would see you sleep. Oh,
my father, try and sleep for your Constanza's sake
—live for your child,” she said, as a sense of her
loneliness, if he should be taken from her, coming
vividly to her mind, alarmed her.

“I will, I will, daughter. Do you not recollect,
sweet wife, when first I called you mine; you were
young, then, and beautiful; 'tis a great while ago,
and yet you are still as lovely as when crowned a
virgin bride. But methinks time has changed me
strangely! Why do you weep, Isabel? We are not
all alone. Our little daughter is with us. Shall
Constanza not be our earthly blessing? When I
am old and feeble will she not bless our pillow?”

“Father! father! oh, my dear, dear father! do
you not know your daughter? your own beloved
Constanza, who speaks to you?” cried the distressed
girl, as from his wandering language, the conviction
of her father's danger pressed upon her mind.

“Yes, my child,” said the aged parent, recovering
from his temporary alienation of mind, “you are
indeed Constanza!” and she kneeled by his pillow,
and was pressed affectionately to his bosom.

Whilst father and daughter, locked in each other's
arms, presented this lovely and touching picture of
filial and parental love, a low murmuring, apparently
from the vault beneath, aroused them from
their endearing interchange of affection.

“Hist, child! what sounds are those?” She
raised her head and listened; and the ringing of
metal, and whispered words came up from below.

“Blessed Virgin! there is mischief near,” she
cried, in alarm.

“Jesu, Jesu Maria! my ingots! my gold!” exclaimed
the old man, clinging with the penurious
characteristic of opulent old age, to that wealth he
could no longer use. “There are robbers below!
my child, oh, my child, you are a beggar!”

With suddenly bestowed strength he sprang from
his couch, and seizing a pistol hanging near him,
he pressed with his thumb the knob from which he
took it, and a narrow door, hitherto concealed by
the peculiar architecture of the room, flew open, displaying
the winding stairway leading to the vault,
and at the same instant a light flashed full in his
haggard face from the aperture.

“We are discovered!” shouted a voice from below.

“It is the old man!” exclaimed Velasquez;
“finish him—dead men tell no tales;” and a click
of a pistol followed the words of the speaker.

“What mean you, sir Spaniard,” interposed the
deep, manly voice of the pirate; “would you do
murder? What fear you from a childish old man?
For shame! put up your pistol. Be lively, men,”
he added, with a quicker tone, “and convey this
last load to the men without.—Stand back, Señor
Velasquez,” he cried in a loud voice; “attempt to
pass this stair, and, by St. Barabbas! little service shall
this night's treachery do you. Cielos! what is this!
he exclaimed, as the blood spouted from the temples

of the Spaniard, whilst the report of a pistol, levelled
by the old man at the scarcely seen marauders,
thundered in the close vault like the explosion of a
mine. The Spaniard sprung backward, and fell
dead upon the urns of silver, for which he had sold
both honour and life, with a fearful execration upon
his livid lip.

“Thus perish treachery by the hand of its victim,”
exclaimed the pirate. “This is likely to be
no small night's work; stand where you are Senor,”
he added, addressing Don Velasquez, who was
descending the stair-case, “there shall no harm
come nigh you; the man you had most to fear has
received the reward of his deeds. Stay your hand,
old man! do you dare me with steel?” he demanded,
as he struck up from his hands a glittering rapier,
he had seized to defend the stairway after
discharging the pistol.

“Mother of God! what noise is that without?
one—two—three, pistols! my signal! Ho, Carlos,
Matéo, what?” he emphatically demanded, as his
two assistants rushed past the old man and leaped
into the vault. “What, villains, what?” and his
voice rung through the passages.

“We are surprised, sir! The report of the pistol,
and the shrieks of some old slaves, were answered
by a shout from a distance. Immediately a blue
light illuminated the barracks, and a musket was
discharged to give the alarm. Just as I came in,
I could already hear the tramp of horses, and the
clanging of armour along the highway. There must
have been mounted troops abroad to be on horse so
soon.” This information was given with rapidity
and energy by the seaman.

“It is as I feared,” said the chief, calmly, “the dragoons
are upon us!” and drawing his cutlass, “follow!”
he cried to his men. And as the speediest
way of gaining the outside of the building, he sprang

up the stairs into the room above, gently putting
the old man aside, as he emerged into the chamber.

“Save, oh save my father!” shrieked his daughter,
who had clung to his neck during the scene we
have described, striving to prevent him from rushing
below, and, who now threw herself upon his
breast, intervening her person as a shield between
the pirate's cutlass and her parent's bosom. “Save,
oh spare his life!” and she extended her arms
imploringly. “Take, take all, but let my father
live.”

“Fear not, fair maiden,” replied the chief in a
tone of deep respect, that fell like the voice of hope
upon her heart, struck with her extraordinary loveliness;
“do not be alarmed, your lives and honour
are sacred in the hands of Lafitte!”

“Lafitte! oh God!” shrieked the maiden;
and raised her eyes to heaven, clasped her snowy
fingers and would have fallen, had not the outlaw
caught her in his arms.

“Oh my daughter, my daughter!” cried the
helpless old man, weakened and nervous from excitement,
“what will become of you?” and falling
upon his knees before the pirate, he supplicated
his mercy.

“Oh, take all, take all—gold, jewels, all, but
leave me my Constanza—my only child! the blest
image of her mother!” and the furrowed cheeks
of the old father, as he pleaded for his child, were
running with tears. “For the sake of thy mother,”
he continued, with energy, “for the sake of
the blessed Virgin, take not away my only child!”
and the old man clasped the knees of the buccaneer,
and fell upon his face and wept.

“Venerable Señor, rise up, your daughter shall
not be taken from you,” replied Lafitte, raising
tenderly the prostrate old man from the ground.

Constanza, when she felt that the pirate supported
her form, at once, by a strong mental effort, rose
superior to her weakness, and was preparing to
bound from him; but when she saw that he did
not detain her, and that he spoke kindly and soothingly
to her father, she thought a voice of so much
tenderness, could not belong to so bad a man as the
pirate had been represented to her. And when he
placed her father's form in her arms, she looked up
into the outlaw's face with greater confidence.

“Señor, I will believe you, we will trust in you,
for, oh! what else can we do? but go, do go from
us! take the gold you came for, and depart! Leave
me and my father; we can be happy without
wealth; he is too old to use it, and, I—I care not
for it—take it; it is yours, freely bestowed.”

“Maiden,” he replied, with an embarrassed air,
and a flush like shame suffusing his brow, whilst
the shouts of the dragoons approaching the villa,
rung unheeded in his ears. “Maiden, I thank
you, and feel grateful for your confidence; it is not
ill placed. The treasure it is out of my power to
command, or I would return it; it is in the hands
of my men, and at their disposal, not mine. But
here,” he added, after an instant's hesitation, kneeling,
and taking her hand, which she instantly withdrew,
“here is a treasure dearer to me than all else
beside!” and he gazed with impassioned, yet respectful
tenderness, upon the pale features of the
surprised girl.

“Pardon me,” he added with earnestness, as he
observed the maidenly embarrassment, his abrupt
address produced, “pardon me, that I make use of
such untimely language, at this moment, but there
is a tumult abroad—I hear the ringing of steel, the
shouts of fighting men, and the firing of musketry.
I must speak to you now! Listen to me, lady, I
beseech! See, I am a suppliant at your feet!”

“Oh Señor, I implore you, think not of me! go!
your men call their chief! Go, you will be taken,
and your life will be sacrificed.”

As she spoke, a rich colour played over her cheek,
and mantled her brow, and her dark, up-raised
eye, betrayed deep and strange interest, in the
safety of the pirate—the fruit of a struggle between
resentment, and kindness, in her bosom; and her
dishevelled hair, fell, a dark cloud of ringlets, over
her neck and bosom, which heaved like a gently
agitated billow.

“Maiden, unless your lips pronounce forgiveness,
—without one ray of hope I cannot go. Speak,
Señora, but one word!”

“I do forgive you, señor, but leave me. Hark,
that shout! delay another moment, and you are
lost.”

“I will obey you, lady, and leave my cause to
you and heaven!” he said, seizing, and pressing
her hand to his lips; then, as the noise without
increased, he drew a pistol from his belt, and casting
back a lingering look, expressive of mingled
hope and fear, while a smile mantled his handsome
features, he rushed from the apartment on to the
terrace. The next moment, she heard his footsteps
dying away, in the direction of the sounds of
contest, which from the firing and cries of the combatants,
seemed to be already fierce and bloody.

Constanza, as the pirate disappeared, laid her father's
head upon a pillow, and leaving him to the
troubled sleep, into which he had sunk from exhaustion,
leaned from the window, and looked
forth upon the lovely moon, which, in its nightly
watch, never shone upon a sweeter face.

The sounds of conflict had receded till they
were lost in the distance; and all was still and
motionless, save a few white clouds sailing along
the blue heavens, a slight waving of the foliage

about the window; and the irregular heaving of
her bosom.

She stood, and communed with her own
thoughts. “Strange! stange,” said she, mentally,
“but that voice, so rich, and full of tenderness!
how my heart bounded, when I heard him address
my poor father! where can I have heard it? How
singularly it affected me! and can he be Lafitte?
that dreadful man! proscribed among men—a
price set upon his head! hated, shunned, and
feared by all! Yet, how very noble looking he is,
and so humane! And his eyes, how dark and
piercing. He is certainly, very handsome! But,”
and her cheek paled, as she gave utterance to her
thoughts, “oh, holy Virgin, I fear him, the language
he used! oh, lost, lost Constanza! If beloved
by this outlaw, better have been the bride of
Velasquez, than the—the—oh, dear Madonna,
help now, for I know not what to do!” and she
covered her face with her hands, and the tears
forced their way through her taper fingers.

“Oh that Alphonse were here,” she at length
continued; “my own Alphonse! Dreary weeks
he has been absent, and yet he comes not. How
have I watched day after day, for the glimmer of
his white sails, upon the horizon. Oh, that he
were here to-night! when, when, will he come?”
and she rung her hands, and leaned despondingly
upon the window.

Suddenly, the report of a pistol, followed by the
sound of running feet, and now and then, a cry,
as of men pursuing and pursued, startled her from
her reverie; and instantly, the scenes she had gone
through, passed vividly before her mind, and she
awoke, at once, to a full consciousness of the loneliness,
and utter helplessness of her situation.

Hastening, instantly, as the noise increased, to
the side of her father, as though protection could

be found in his feeble arm, she awaited, like the
panting fawn, with throbbing heart, and alarmed
eye, the coming danger. The sounds came nearer
and nearer, and the hasty tread of armed men
was heard upon the terrace, followed by a heavy
sound, as if one had leaped, at a bound, from
the ground on to the piazza. Hardly had Constanza
time to move from the surprised attitude
in which those appalling sounds arrested her, or
conjecture their nature, when, springing in through
the window, which she had just left to cling to
her father, Lafitte once more stood before her.

His eye was illuminative with a fierce light, his
lip was compressed, and blood was upon his brow
and hand, which grasped a dripping cutlass.

“Oh God! oh God!” shrieked the terrified girl,
as this sudden apparition appeared before her, and
fell senseless upon the floor. The outlaw though
closely pursued, paused for an instant, with indecision,
and then, hastily raised her with the air
of one, who had, at the moment, decided upon a
certain mode of conduct. Scarcely had he lifted
her drooping form upon his muscular arm, when
the window was filled with soldiers, thirsty for the
blood of the daring outlaw.

“Back, sirs; or, by the holy God, I will bury
this weapon in this maiden's bosom!” he cried in a
resolute tone; and he grasped his cutlass near the
point, shortening it, like a stiletto, and elevated
his arm.

The soldiers hesitated to enter.

“What, cowards! do you value a girl's life, when
Lafitte is the prize?” said the fierce voice of their
leader; “follow me!” and he sprung in at the
window—to fall back upon his men, a stiffened
corpse; while the report of a pistol, discharged behind
Lafitte, rung through the room.

“Ha Carlos! is that you?” said Lafitte, as he

looked round to see from whence the shot was
fired.

“Yes, Señor,” he hastily replied, “escape through
the old man's door—down the stairs—and out
through the passage. I have just passed through,
and the coast is clear. I will keep the red devils at
bay,” said he quickly.

“Good, my Carlos—but the old man! we cannot
leave him,” and he pointed to the couch.

“Little will he know whether he be taken or left.
The old man's commission has run out,” said he,
laying his rough hand upon the cold temples of
the old Spaniard—“Dead, dead enough, señor!”

“Poor, poor child, how will she bear it!” said
Lafitte with interest—“How now,” he added quickly,
“here they come like so many blood-hounds.”

The soldiers without, who were engaged in loud
and noisy altercation among themselves, as to who
should first enter and seize the outlaw, now
hailed with a shout the sound of hoofs, and the
ringing of sabres and spurs, announcing a reinforcement.

“This fair girl must be my breast-plate—dash
out that light, and follow me!” cried the pirate;
and springing through the secret door, he disappeared
with his lovely burden. Carlos darted after
him and hastily closed the door, which received a
shower of bullets from half a dozen horse pistols,
levelled at his retreating form.

“Well done, Carlos,” said Lafitte, approvingly;
“now open your lantern and lead the way.”

Rapidly traversing the dark passages, they soon
left behind them the sounds of rage and disappointment,
vented by their pursuers on entering the
room, and finding their victims had escaped in
some mysterious manner.

“That torch here, William!” said the dragoon
officer,” how in the devil could he have escaped!

There is no sign of an outlet here—he must be in
league with Beelzebub to have slipped away thus.
Ha! who is this?—old Don Velasquez!—and dead
too!—Poor old soldier—money, daughter, life,—
all in one hour! But mount men, mount! to
horse!—this outlaw has escaped by some subterranean
passage in this old Spanish house—and will
double upon us like an old hare—Ho! surround the
house—to horse!” Leaping from the window
he bounded across the gallery, and mounted, followed
by half a score of his followers; and putting
spurs to his horse, he made a rapid sweep around
the dwelling.

But before his pursuers had taken horse, Lafitte
threaded the subterranean passages of the building,
and emerged from the secret door into the
bright moonlight, and with the speed of the hunted
stag, crossed the open lawn and entered the
avenue which led towards the sea-shore. This path
was exposed for some distance, to the eye of an
observer, from the piazza of the villa, and as the
dragoons completed their survey of the grounds
immediately surrounding the house, and met at the
end of the wing, near the tamarind tree,—the white
robes of the maiden glared upon the eyes of the
leader.

“As I thought—on! there is our game,” he cried,
burying his spurs deep into the horses flanks, and
dashing down the avenue, like the wind, followed
at speed by his troop.

“Carlos,” cried Lafitte, as he heard the shout,
announcing to him that they were on his track.
“Now we must put forth all our energies, my brave
man. You know the path—go before and we
will yet distance them—fly!”—and on they went
with the rapidity of deer, with the hounds but a
bound behind them,—passing under trees—crossing
from avenue to avenue, and endeavouring, by a

straight line, to gain the cliff instead of following
the windings of the paths which were open to the
cavalry. Breathless they flew, and at every turn,
and opening in the shrubbery, the feet and voices of
their pursuers were heard nearer and nearer.

“Now, captain, we are at the end of the grounds,
and here is the gate—stoop, sir,” said Carlos, darting
under the hedge, from which their ebony guide had
crawled early in the evening, to conduct them on
their expedition.

“Thank God! we are safe at last—they cannot
pass that barrier,” exclaimed Lafitte, as he paused
a moment, to breathe on the outer side of the hedge,
“and this fair maiden!” he added with sympathy,
“she is yet unconscious!”

“Now, Carlos, once through this wood, without
being intercepted, and we are safe—forward!” he
said, in an assured tone; and raising his lifeless
burden, he moved swiftly through the forest, while
the shouts and execrations of their pursuers, as they
found their prey had eluded their pursuit, rung in
their ears.

The fugitives had nearly gained the cliff, when
a sudden galloping on their left, told them that their
pursuers had found a way to clear the hedge.
Looking back, they discovered their arms gleaming
through the trees, and the whole troop dashing forward
in full cry.

Drawing his belt tighter around him, bringing
his cutlass hilt to his grasp, and changing his still
lifeless burden to the other arm, with renewed speed,
the outlaw bounded through the dark glades of the
forest. Every moment lessened his distance from
his pursuers—and just as he was ascending a slight
eminence, commanding a view of the sea, and
near the verge of the cliff, beneath which their
vessel lay—the foremost horseman was within pistol
shot of them.

“Surrender, sir pirate! surrender!” he shouted
as he levelled his long pistol, and deeper plunged his
spurs into the sides of his foaming steed; the next
instant horse and rider would have been upon the
buccaneer, when drawing a pistol from his girdle,
and half turning in his flight, he fired upon the
dragoon. The ball sunk into the forehead of his
horse, which, with one plunge forward, fell lifeless
upon his rider—and the ball of his pistol, which he
discharged while falling, passed through the cap of
the pirate. The remainder of the troop were close
upon him, but the fate of their comrade, for a moment
checked their speed.

“Hold there, for your lives, men!” shouted
their commanding officer who had been outridden
by his troop—and now came up—“hold, do not fire,
but surround and take him. It were better
that he should escape, than that fair girl should be
injured.”

“A hundred guineas to him,” he added “who
captures him, dead or alive—but if the lady suffer
harm, let him who gives the blow, beware!”

The soldiers sullenly returned their pistols to their
holsters and drew their swords. But there were now
other objects on which to exercise them; for at the
same moment appeared a party of the pirate's crew,
armed with cutlasses and fire-arms, who, leaving the
schooner, and marching inland, on hearing the signal
for succour made by their comrades, were returning,
without meeting with them—they having, with the
exception of Lafitte, gained the shore by another
route, with the loss of two of their number, shot
down by the dragoons, and a portion of their booty.
Striking their cutlasses against their pistols, with a
loud noise—and cheering each other with shouts,
they came on at a rapid pace, and before the dragoons
could draw and cock their fire-arms to meet
this new enemy, they were fired upon with fatal

effect, by the advancing buccaneers. Here and
there, a rider fell from his steed at the discharge,
while the wounded animals fled with wild cries
through the forest.

“On, on! revenge for our comrades!” cried the
pirates, pressing forward to close with them; creeping
under the horses, and passing their cutlasses up
through their bodies—dragging the riders, by main
force from their seats, or springing behind them,
and hurling them bodily to the ground. For a few
moments men and horse, were mingled in a sanguinary
and dreadful melée.

The leader of the buccaneers did not, however,
derive any personal advantage from this reinforcement;
for the captain of dragoons, dismounting,
as the pirates made their desperate charge, cried,
“Have at you, sir pirate, for my own pleasure,
and rescue of that lady;” advancing, as he spoke,
with his drawn sword upon his antagonist, who,
from the time he had killed the horse and dismounted
the dragoon—for a moment checking the pursuit—had
stood at bay, and facing his foes, determined
to fight his way, step by step, to his vessel.

His eye lighted up with pleasure, as he heard the
challenge of the leader of the dragoons—a tall, gentlemanly-looking
Englishman, with an herculean
frame, and a strikingly military air.

Anxious to get safe to his schooner his lovely
shield, whom he internally resolved should be forever
his, although he had first taken her up to favour
his own escape, when, closely pursued, he retreated
to the villa—he still moved slowly backward, facing
his advancing foe. In his left arm he supported
Constanza, her unconscious head laid upon his
shoulder, while he wielded his formidable cutlass in
his right hand, upon which he received the ringing
steel of the officer.

In vain the Englishman used every device of art,

and each favourite ruse, and as uselessly did he
follow blow on blow, with tremendous force. The
pirate coolly received his descending weapon upon
his cutlass at every stroke, and acting only on the
defensive, still retreated steadily to the verge of the
cliff.

“Now have at you, sir Englishman!” he cried,
as he reached the head of the defile leading to his
vessel. “Now have at you, in my turn. If you
love Lafitte so well, he will give you a lasting mark
of his friendship. So, there!” he added, suddenly
and emphatically, as the officer, at first making a
feint, aimed a heavy blow at his head, which he intended
should be his coup de grace. “So, there!”
and while he received his antagonist's sword upon
his own guard, by a peculiar motion of his cutlass,
with the same movement of his arm, he whirled it
from his grasp high into the air, and making a
sweep over his head, his rapid cutlass whistling
through the air, descended and nearly severed the
left arm of the Englishman from his body. The
officer groaned, and fell heavily upon the ground,
while Lafitte descended with rapidity the narrow
defile to his schooner.

“Ho! Théodore! are you there, my boy?” he
said, as he saw the slight form of the youth upon
the deck; “receive this lady, and convey her to the
starboard state-room, and try to restore her. Jacques,
be out of this place as soon as possible.”

“The anchor is apeak, sir,” replied his lieutenant;
“and the boat is ahead with a tow-line: shall we
move, sir?”

“No, no! hold on, here come the men! Spring
aboard, every one of you!” The seamen came
hastily down the gorge, leaving two-thirds of their
number behind them, while the voices of the soldiers
were heard in full cry in pursuit, some bearing
wounded comrades, and others portions of the booty,

the most of which, was already safely got on board.
As soon as the last man touched the deck, the commander
uttered his orders for making sail with
rapidity.

“Hoist away the jib and mainsail; set the top-gallant-sails
and royals; we must make every thing
tell! Give way, men!” he shouted to the manned
boat ahead; “steadily! there she moves! bear off
from that crag! bend to those spars, men! now she
moves! Pull heartily and cheerily, men, or we shall
be intercepted by a guarda costa!”

“A curse upon this night's work,” he said to himself,
turning and walking aft as the schooner yielded
to the efforts of the crew. “This is well called the
Devil's Punch Bowl, and he is likely to have us all
for ingredients, for his next bumper.”

In a few moments the dark-hulled schooner, under
the sweeps, the slightly drawing royals, and by the
aid of the tow-boat, glided swiftly over the black,
glassy flood, and in a few minutes, moved through
the narrow entrance of the basin into the open bay.
Rapidly passing, with a strengthening breeze, the
needles or pinnacles of rock which girted the little
harbour, her tall masts covered with clouds of canvass,
and bounding with a lively motion before the
night-breeze, she left behind her the land, and the
scenes of death and desolation her presence had created,
and swiftly and steadily stood for the open sea.

4. CHAPTER IV.

—Spectator.

—Maria of Meissen.

AN ARRIVAL—SCENE AFTER A CONFLICT—A MELANCHOLY
SPECTACLE—REVENGE PURPOSED.

The round, white moon was just fading into the
western skies, and the well-defined outline of the
peak of St. Catharine was delicately gilded by the
yet unrisen sun, while a roseate tint mantled half
the eastern heavens, the morning subsequent to the
scenes and adventures related in the preceding
chapters, when a little white spot on the horizon
attracted the attention of the wounded officer of
dragoons, as, under the refreshing influence of the
morning breeze, he recovered from the swoon into
which he had fallen from loss of blood, after being
struck down by the buccaneer.

Casting his eyes over the distant sea, he appeared
to watch the speck with much interest; and surprise
was manifest on his features, when, instead of
receding, he perceived that it enlarged, and evidently
approached the island.

“Can the buccaneer be returning!” he exclaimed;
“but he might as well finish me, as leave me
so!” and as he spoke, he raised, with a melancholy
smile, his mutilated arm. “Well, Captain Adair,”

he continued, “you may hang your sword upon the
willow now—this Lafitte has done for you! But
that cannot be the pirate neither,” he said, in a changed
and eager tone; “his was a schooner, although
she carried royals, like a sloop of war. Ha! there
is another sail in her wake—a smaller craft—what
can they be? There! the larger veers a little—two,
three masts—she's a ship under topsails, and the
other's a schooner, a tender perhaps. But yet he's
not a John Bull!” and after a few minutes silence,
during which the anguish of his wound overcame
every other feeling, he continued—

“It is either a Frenchman or an American; but
what can she want here? Ha, there fly Monsieur's
colours!”

The vessels, which attracted the notice of the
officer, were now plainly visible, about two leagues
from the land. She was a large frigate, displaying
the ensign of France at her peak, and the same
national distinction also fluttered at the mast head
of the schooner. Standing into the bay before a free
breeze, with royals and sky-sails towering aloft, and
lower studding-sails set on both sides, in less than an
hour from the time she appeared a mere speck, like
the flash of a sea-gull's wing on the horizon, she had
passed the capes of the bay. Running close into
the land, and furling one sail after another, she
gracefully rounded to, and, accompanied by the tender,
came to an anchor opposite the entrance of the
recess, denominated the “Devil's Punch Bowl,”
and within the shadow of a gigantic rock, to which
nature had given the outline of a huge granite
fortress.

This vast mass rose abruptly over her tall masts,
in enormous beetling heads, crags, and precipices,
leaving a narrow belt of white sand at its base, upon
which the waves of the bay peacefully unrolled
themselves, when the winds were low, but over

which they leaped in a storm, thundering against
the cliff, and roaring in the caverns, with terrific
sublimity. As the last sail was furled closely to its
yard, the dragoon saw a small boat put off from the
frigate, manned by four men and a steersman.
An officer in a naval undress, with the insignia of
the rank of a French captain upon his breast and
collar, leaned back in the stern sheets, as the boat
moved swiftly over the water, gazing upwards upon
the giant rock, rearing its dark mass against the
sky,—admiring its castellated outline, and its
dizzy crags, springing several hundred feet into the
air.

The oarsmen pulled rapidly in to the beach at
the base of the cliff, whose projecting verge, as they
passed into its dark shadow, suddenly hid them
from the eyes of the wounded officer.

“Lay to your oars briskly, men—one strong pull
more—there, we strike!” said the French officer,
as the boat, with a grating sound, grounded upon
the beach, running half her length out of the water,
on to the hard white sand.

The men shipped their oars and sprung out,
respectfully raising their caps, as their officer passed
by them in stepping ashore, and then turned to secure
the boat from the action of the tide.

Delaying a moment to arm themselves with
sabres and pistols, which they took from the stern,
they hastily buckled them around their waists, and
stood ready to follow their officer.

While his men were thus engaged, under the
command of the cockswain---a mere boy in the uniform
of a midshipman-- the officer stood a moment,
awaiting their movements, gazing, with folded arms
and thoughtful eye, upon the fine appearance his
motionless frigate exhibited, as, towering above the
dark hull, her lofty masts and slender spars appeared

drawn with the accuracy of pencilling, against
the sky.

He was a slightly-formed man, rather below
than above the medium height of men, with a
strikingly-elegant figure, finely displayed and relieved,
by his blue frock and dark green cloak, falling
negligently back from his shoulders in graceful
folds. His forehead was high and expansive, over
which, as, for a moment, he raised his velvet cap to
meet the cool breezes from the sea, flowed, with almost
feminine luxuriance, thick clusters of dark
auburn hair. That softness of character, which this
peculiarity anticipated, was, however, contradicted by
the intellectual fulness of his brow, and the firm expression
of his blue eye, which, although it might
droop before a maiden's gaze, could flash proudly
back the glance of a foe.

One lock of his hair seemed trained to lie over
his forehead, and relieved the otherwise too perfect
oval contour of his face. His complexion, naturally
fair, was a little sun-browned, by exposure to the
sun and seas of many climes; yet a healthy hue
glowed upon his cheeks, while his upper lip was
graced with a mustacho of the same rich colour of
his hair. His lips were full, and rather voluptuous
in their finely-curved outline, but, without any approach
to sensuality. The general expression of
his features, when in repose, as they now were,
was intellectual, and, perhaps, melancholy. He
might be above thirty years of age, though the
juvenile and extreme beauty of his noble forehead,
the suddenly-mantling cheek, and the curve of his
mouth and chin, which a Hebé might have envied,
would indicate, that he had seen even fewer summers.
He would, in the eyes of a romantic maiden,
have been the Raleigh of the days of Elizabeth—
the Ivanhoe of chivalry.

“We are ready, monsieur,” said the youthful
cockswain, as he drew closer the belt that confined
his weapons.

“Follow me, then, Montville; the men may all
remain; and see”—he said, turning to them, “that
you make no brawl with these Englishmen, as before!
Those soldiers who felt your Gallic knocks,
may take occasion to follow up their quarrel. If
they approach, shove off at once, and lay on your
oars beyond musket-shot.”

“Ay, ay, sir,” replied the men, putting their
shoulders to the boat, and floating her; while their
commanding officer, followed by his favourite midshipman,
crossed the smooth belt of sand, and
winding rapidly around the base of the overhanging
crags, came to a part where the descent was less
precipitous. By the aid of branches, and jutting
irregularities of the rock, they ascended the cliff,
and, without pausing to glance at the magnificent
panorama of woodland, sea, and mountain, spread
out around them, entered a grove of pimento,
whose deep green hue, presented a fine contrast to
the unrivalled beauty of the lighter-tinged verdure
underneath.

Their way lay by natural and artificial paths,
through clumps of foliage of every variety and
brilliancy of colours, now brightly tinted, as the
sun-light shone through an occasional opening
above, now black, in the impenetrable shadows cast
by the loftier forest trees. After issuing from the
grove, they wound through luxuriant bowers of
West Indian vines, past a palm-tree, standing in
lonely and towering pride, and spreading cocoas,
and brazilettos, mingled with the vivid dyes of the
plumage of the bamboo, orange, and tamarind,—
the whole presenting, in the brightness of the morning,
a gorgeousness of colouring, unknown to less
genial climes.

They had now reached the hedge of aloes and
palmetto, forming the boundary of the grounds surrounding
the villa of Velasquez.

Winding around it in a direction contrary to that
taken by the depredators of the preceding night,
they soon came to a small, latticed gateway, partly hid
in the hedge, and close to the unoccupied wing of the
mansion. The gate, which his young companion
was hastening forward to unlock with a small key
handed him by the officer, was battered in pieces,
and the dead body of a seaman lay in the threshhold,
with a fragment of a dragoon's sword, half
buried in his head.

“Mon Dieu!—what mischief has been here?”—
exclaimed the officer, stooping to examine the features
of the dead man. “He is a Spaniard, and
by his garb and arms, no doubt, a pirate. Cold,
and stiff!” he added, touching his temples, “he
has been long dead.---Allons! allons!” he cried to
his companion, bounding through the broken gateway—“God
preserve dear Constanza!”—and both
drawing their swords, they rushed up the avenue,
every few rods of which exhibited traces of a recent
and severe fight.

By the body of a horse lay a dead dragoon,
with the blood oozing from a pistol-wound in his
head, grasping, convulsively, the body of a Spanish
sailor. Although a deep gash cleft his cheek, he
still lived, while a consciousness of the death-grapple
in which he was held, overcoming the pain of
his wound, he writhed his features into a terrible
expression of horror—his black, lustrous eyes, rolled
wildly in their sockets, and his feeble fingers vainly
worked to release the vice-like grasp of the dead
man.

“Oh, Señores, for the love of God, help me! Ay
de mi—Ay de mi!—Ave Maria!” and he extended
his arms, imploringly.

The officer arrested his rapid progress to the
house; his humane feelings overcoming his desire
to proceed; and, perhaps, he was at the same time
anxious to learn the nature and full extent of the
bloody signs surrounding him.

“Hold, Montville! let us aid this wretch,” he
said, arrested by the imploring language of the
sufferer. “What a fearful embrace!” With their
united efforts, but not without the exercise of great
muscular exertion, they disengaged the arms of the
dead man from around the living body of his foe—
who, during the slow-moving hours of the long
night, had borne such unspeakable tortures. How
fearfully was the dead avenged! clasping in his
close embrace the breathing body of his slayer!

“What, monsieur?” inquired his deliverer, as
the buccaneer grasped his cloak, and gave way to
a shower of tears, unable to express, in language,
his gratitude. “What means all this bloody work?
You, it seems, should know something of it!” and
his cheek and eye betrayed the intensest excitement
as he spoke. “Speak, speak!” he reiterated, as
the man held up his clasped hands in silence:
“Answer, man! or, by Heaven! I will give you to
a worse fate, than the arms of this dead soldier.”

The man shuddered at the allusion, and his eyes
glared with terror.

“Mercy! Señor, mercy!” he cried, clinging to
his cloak, without looking up.

The impatient officer drew a pistol from his
bosom, with a threatening air, when the Spaniard,
with difficulty and hesitation, articulated,

“Lafitte!”

“He has been here?” rapidly interrogated the
officer. “Where is Don Velasquez, and his daughter?”

“I know not, Señor; yo no sé, yo no sé—”

The officer, without hearing more, freed his

cloak from his grasp, and darted forward, passing
by pistols, cutlasses, and a portion of the pirate's
booty, thrown away, in their flight. The sward
was cut up, with the feet of horses, and blood reddened
the green surface of the avenue, in many
places. In a few moments, after leaving the Spanish
sailor, they ascended the terrace, and came, at
once, upon the scene of the severest conflict. With
a sword in one hand, and a pistol in the other, the
officer leaped over the dead bodies of two soldiers,
and a headless seaman, and rushing to the front of
the house, flew along the piazza, to an open window
in the farthest wing. The sight that here met his
eyes appalled him!

Upon a couch, in the extremity of the apartment,
lay the corpse of the old man, cold and rigid.
The floor was covered with pools of blood, and the
dead body of a dragoon, with a pistol-wound in the
forehead, lay under the window.

A deadly sickness came over his soul, as he
gazed upon the horrid spectacle—his hand fell
powerless, at his side, and he leaned against the
window for support.

His more youthful companion, sprung into the
room, and laid his hand upon the heart of the old
man; but pulsation had ceased!

“He has been a long while dead,” he said.

“Dead!” mournfully repeated the officer, half
unconsciously, “dead, is he—and poor Constanza!
is she living? or worse?” he added, in a hollow
voice. “Oh, merciful heaven, blast me not, at one
stroke, and so cruel a one!”

“To the rescue, to the rescue!” after a moment's
silence, he suddenly shouted, in a voice like
a trumpet, “ho! my men, all!—Alas, alas, Constanza!”
he added, in a changed voice, “vain, vain,
all in vain—but—there—is—revenge!” he slowly,
and with strange distinctness, articulated. “I will

revenge you, terribly revenge you,” and his eye
lighted up with a fierce light, his form dilated, and
his glowing features wore a fearful sublimity as he
spoke.

Approaching the couch, he placed his hand
upon the marble brow of the corpse.

“Señor Velasquez, your death, your grievous
wrongs, shall be avenged. I make this cause of
mine and yours, a sacred one!” and he kissed, as
he spoke, the cold forehead, and the crucifix, which,
grasped in the old man's hand, lay upon his breast,
“You have not died, by ball or steel—deep griefs
have killed you. Terribly! most terribly, you shall
be avenged!”

“Ha! what more?” he exclaimed, as distant
voices, and the tramp of horses' feet fell upon his
ear. Springing to the window he saw, wheeling
rapidly around the ruined wing of the building, a
troop of horsemen, who drew up on the terrace,
while their leader dismounting, and followed by
two or three of his men, hastily approached the
gallery.

The Frenchman immediately stepped forth to
meet them.

“What, who have we here?” he exclaimed,
cocking a pistol, which he had drawn from his
holsters, as he alighted; but, observing the gentlemanly
air of the stranger, and detecting his naval
attire, he modulated his tone, to one of more courtesy.

“Your pardon, Monsieur! you are the Count
D'Oyley, commander of the French frigate, in the
bay, if I mistake not?”

The stranger bowed.

“This has been an unpleasant business,” he
continued; “a party of buccaneers, with Lafitte at
their head, came last night, in strong force, robbed
the old man, who, also, I am told, is dead, shot his

nephew, and carried off his daughter. We have
been out, part of the night, in pursuit of them.
Since our return, we find that, after a hard fight
with another detachment, he escaped to his vessel,
with the old Don's child, and immediately put out
to sea.”

“Are you ill, sir?” he inquired, observing the
face of the officer grow pale at his recital.

“No, Monsieur, no!” replied the Count, recovering
himself; “I thank you, for the interest you
have taken in this affair. The old Castillian and
his daughter, were not unknown to me. He once
saved me from a conspiracy, aimed against my life.
It was in Mexico. He now lies in that room,
dead; and his daughter—Oh, Alphonse, Alphonse,
where were you, in that evil hour?—But there is
vengeance,” said he, looking upward, “there is
just vengeance of Heaven, and I will be its instrument!
Adieu, Monsieur; I leave the burial of Se
ñor Velasquez to your kindness. I must away!
the business, which brought me here, is ended—
alas, how ended! Adieu, Monsieur,” he said,
warmly pressing the hand of the sympathizing
Englishman. Then hastily descending to the terrace,
“Messieurs, adieu!” he added, raising his
cap, as he passed the mounted dragoons; and then
silently, and rapidly, accompanied by his young
friend, he hastened to the shore.

After walking steadily onward, for many minutes,
they emerged from the forest, on to the bluff,
and on turning an angle in their path, encountered
the officer whom Lafitte had wounded. He was
slowly moving towards the villa, faint and weary.

“Gentlemen, for the love of God,! a little water!
I am dying of thirst!” he said, addressing them as
they appeared.

Again the humanity of the stranger, was called
into exercise; and for the moment, forgetting his

own sorrow, in sympathy for the distressed soldier,
he stopped, kindly supported him to the shade of a
large tree, and despatched his companion back,
to communicate his situation to the party at the
villa.

“Can you tell me aught of Lafitte?” he inquired
of the wounded man, as they awaited his
return.

“Much, much,” he replied, “he has left his
mark, as he calls it, here!” and pointing, as he
spoke, to his mutilated arm, he attempted to smile.

“You saw him, then! did he gain his vessel, as
they tell me, with, with,” and he hesitated, while
his chest beat with emotion.

“Yes, I both saw and felt him! He fought like
a tiger at bay, a better swordsman never handled
steel. Had he been less than Lafitte, or the devil,
he would not have escaped me—but he did escape
me.”

“And—and, with him—?” The Frenchman
could say no more; his tongue cleaved to the roof of
his mouth; but he was understood.

“The lady, whom we, at the post, call the Castillian
nun, the Señorita Constanza! but she had
fainted, and was unconscious of her situation,” replied
the dragoon.

“Oh, my God, my God!” ejaculated his listener,
and groaning, he struck his temples fiercely and
bitterly; and, deeply agitated, he paced the ground
under the tree, in silence, until the arrival of Montville
and a party of the wounded man's troop.

“Describe his craft, if you please!” he asked, of
the dragoon, as he turned to go.

“A schooner with a fore royal—long, black, and
very low in the water, with the masts much
raking.”

Bowing his thanks, he pursued his way, along
the cliff, with increased rapidity, and recklessly

descending to his boat, he was, in a few moments,
on the deck of his frigate.

His orders were given, to get under weigh, with
a startling energy that surprised the crew, and
infused into them additional activity. In a
few seconds, the heavy anchor hung from the
bows, the broad top-sails were unloosed, and extended
to the breeze, and the tall masts, covered
with folds of canvass. The commander, then accompanied
by Montville, left the ship, for the
schooner, which also, immediately got under weight.

At first, the frigate moved slowly and heavily,
but gradually gathering power, as sail after sail
was displayed to the wind, she increased her speed,
the waves dashed from her foaming path, and with
a velocity that seconded the impatience of their
commander, the two vessels sailed out of the bay,
and stood westward.

The schooner, which now contained the commander
of the frigate, immediately after gaining
the offing, sailed in the direction of Carthagena,
while the frigate hauled her wind, and bore up for
the island of St. Domingo.

5. CHAPTER V.

AT SEA—A PIRATE'S CABIN—REMORSE—SOLILOQUY--STATE-ROOM—CAPTOR
AND CAPTIVE.

The pirate's schooner, which had now become
the prison of the hapless Constanza, had long
passed the capes of the bay, into which it had
so gallantly sailed a few hours previous—and the
outline of the mountains of Jamaica, were rapidly
fading in the distance, before the outlaw, assured
that there was no danger of being immediately
pursued, prepared to leave the deck of his vessel.

“Keep her away Ricardo, with every thing she
can bear, for Barritaria,” he said, addressing the
helmsman—“and call me if you see any thing
suspicious; and before descending the companion-way,
he cast one piercing glance around the horizon.

“Ha! a sail, and dead ahead!” he exclaimed,
as his practised eye rested upon a scarcely visible
gray speck upon the horizon, in the direction of his
vessel's course. “Another—two! Keep her away a
point, and let us reconnoitre them,” he added, taking

his spy-glass, and closely surveying the distant
objects.

The schooner kept steadily on her way, close-hauled
to the wind, while the strangers came down
upon them, with the wind nearly aft.

As they approached nearer, the foremost one
showed the square rig of a large vessel, with royals
and studding-sails set. In less than an hour from
the time they caught the pirate's eye, they were
within half a mile to leeward of the schooner—for
at such a disadvantage had the pirate cautiously
thrown her, by altering his course,—and distinctly
displayed the tall and majestic apparel of a ship
of war.

“A tiger, sir!” said Théodore, his young protegé,
after gazing at the ship for a moment, from
the top of a gun-carriage, through a focus, formed
by his diminutive fists—“her teeth glisten like
Cudjoe's, here;” and he looked toward the ungainly
figure of the slave, who, with one long arm clinging
to a stay, his head and body bent forward, and his
lips drawn back with an admiring grin, was inspecting
with much curiosity, the noble, and warlike
spectacle which the strange sail exhibited.

“Do you know her, Señor?” inquired the helmsman,
with deference in his manner.

“I think not, Jean,” he replied musingly—“but
she and her little tender seem to walk past us, as if
disdaining to wet their cut-water with the same salt
spray, which our pretty craft throws about her so
merrily. Do you recognize her, Ricardo?”

“She is, I believe, señor, the French frigate Le
Sultan, that we saw going into Carthagena, as we
were getting under weigh off Las Naranjas.”

“Indeed!” said the buccaneer, looking for a moment
steadily at the passing ship. “I suspect you
are right—she was accompanied by a schooner—
her yards are not square enough for an American:

an Englishman she is not; she is too light rigged,
and carries whiter canvass than John Bull. I suspect
you are right, Ricardo.”

“I know her, captain, by the length between her
mizen and mainmast, and the rake of her main-royal-mast,
as if it had been sprung,” said the
helmsman.

“You have a seaman's eye, Jean, and you are
right too,” he quickly added, as the stranger showed
two or three lights—“that reads `France!' But we
have no time to dally in returning compliments.
Hold to your course again, sir,” he said, turning to the
helmsman.

The schooner came closer to the wind, and rapidly
held on in the direction from which she had diverged
to avoid the strange ship, which, lowering
her lights, silently and majestically with her companion,
moved onward, apparently standing into the
bay from which the schooner had just taken her
departure.

“Théodore, how is our fair prisoner?” he inquired,
as he descended into his cabin, accompanied
by his young officer.

“She sleeps, sir,” replied he, in a low voice.

“Poor girl, I almost wish she might not wake
again to know her wretchedness,” he said, feelingly.
“It is my fate to bring ruin upon all around
me. Has she spoken, or been conscious of her situation?”
he abruptly inquired of the youth.

“I think not, sir,” he answered. “By the aid
of old Juana, who sympathizes with the misfortunes
of the maiden, she was soon recovered from
her death-like swoon, but directly passed out of it
into a deep sleep. She is very lovely, Señor!” he
added, with sudden animation.

“Poor lady;” said the outlaw, sadly, “I did not
mean to take you from your father's bosom. But
he was already dead!—And who slew him? My

act, if not my hand! But I will seek to atone for
the father's wrongs, by treating the daughter with
all honour. Leave me, Théodore, I would be
alone,” he added aloud.

The iron swinging lamp, suspended above, cast
a bright light over the cabin, and its furniture.
The sides were pannelled with a dark-coloured,
West Indian wood; the floor was of the same material,
and hard and polished, like marble. The
ceiling was low, and crossed at intervals by beams.
Pistols and cutlasses, arranged in fanciful figures,
were hung around the walls, and stands of muskets
and boarding-pikes lined two sides of the room.
On a case, which stood in one corner, lay two or
three steel caps, for boarders—a blunderbuss with
a muzzle like the mouth of a bugle, stilettoes, and
the various paraphernalia appertaining to a vessel,
whose trade is war. On the side opposite to the companion-way,
a door opened into a state-room situated
farther astern, and now occupied by Constanza.

On a pin near the companion-way, hung the full
dress of a Spanish naval officer. Various dresses
of citizens, soldiers, and seamen, were suspended
near it, constituting a wardrobe well adapted to one,
whose mode of life compelled him, not unfrequently,
to adopt disguises, adapted to his purposes. Rolls
of charts, elegant rapiers, iron-handled broad-swords,
canes, and a rifle, stood in a corner, and several articles
of the ordinary apparel of seamen, lay about
on camp stools; several of which, with an oval table
in the centre, a tall pedestal sustaining a handsome
compass, constituted the only furniture of the apartment.

At the table, in the midst of the cabin, and within
the dark circle cast beneath by the bottom of
the lamp, sat Lafitte, his features so far thrown
into shadow, that their expression was in a great
degree concealed.

With his forehead resting upon his hand he
leaned upon the table, in an attitude of dejection;
nor had he opened his lips, or moved from that
position which he occupied on entering the cabin
and dismissing Théodore, for more than an hour.
No sound but the gurgling of the water, as the
vessel glided over the moonlit sea, the occasional
song of the labouring seamen, or the hoarse cry of
the helmsman, as he told the watches of the night,
and the monotonous tramp of the officer of the
deck over his head, broke the stillness reigning
around him.

There are times when conscience will wield
her fiery sceptre over the soul, compelling the
guilty to hide their faces in horror! In that short
hour, the whole of his past life passed before his
memory, like some fearful pageant, before the vision
of the fevered sleeper. He thought of his first
crime—against a brother's life! of the blood-stained
marble statue! of his love for his cousin, and the
dark sea of passions into which he plunged in consequence
of that love, and his subsequent jealousy!
He called to mind, while a cold tremour passed
over his frame, and a deep groan escaped him, his
last meeting with that brother---the descending
knife, and fatal blow---then his rapid flight, and his
artful tale to the captain who saved him that night,
as his frail boat was sinking in a storm! His voyage
to the Mediterranean sea---his capture by the Algerines---his
imprisonment and escape, by the aid of a
Moorish maiden, whom he dishonoured and left---
his fatal rencontre in landing---his imprisonment
and escape in an open boat for Ceuti, and second
capture by the rovers---his union with, and subsequent
command of, their vessel---all in their turn,
became the subject of his thoughts. His features
changed, as he thought of the dark sea of crimes,
through which he waded to that command.

Then came his capture by the Turks—his freedom,
and rapidly rising distinction in their navy—
and he pressed his temples violently, when he remembered
that he had changed the cross of his
religion, for the turban of the Mussulman. He was
now chief of an armed horde, and now a combatant
in the ranks of the Egyptians, against his invading
countrymen. Once more he was on the sea, and an
Algerine rover called him its commander! Then
he was the captive of the Spaniard, and the Moro of
Havanna became his prison. Liberated, again the
quarter-deck of a pirate became his home, and the
flag of Carthagena waved to the breeze above his
head!

“What matters it,” he suddenly exclaimed, “that
I have gained the wealth of princes—that I have
waded through crime and blood to the acquisition of
the guilty fame that makes my name terrible!—
that my hand has been against every man!—I am
at last but a miserable being—penitent, without the
power to repent—remorseful, without hope— a lover
of virtue, without daring to seek it—banned of God
—outlawed of my race—fratricide, murderer!—hundred-fold
murderer! with the mark of Cain branded
upon my brow, and burned deep—deep into my
soul. Oh, God! oh, God!—if there be a God”—
he cried, clasping his hands and lifting his eyes to
heaven—“be merciful unto my iniquities, for they
are very great!” And he fervently pressed to his
lips the hilt of his rapier, shaped like a cross, and
then dropped his head upon his arm, and wept, under
the influence of feelings, which, at some seasons,
will be experienced by the most hardened.

After a few moments silence, he continued, “Oh,
for the days of childhood and innocence! I was
then happy; then we—my brother!—my little
brother and I—kneeled nightly in prayer by our
bedside! How beautiful! We were taught by our

venerable parent to put up our prayers, first to the
Virgin, and then to our sainted mother. Oh, would
to God I had died then! Mother, you would have
then embraced your son in heaven!—But no!—
no!” as a ray of hope glanced over his mind, he
exclaimed aloud, while his brow grew dark, “No!
too—too deeply dyed in crime. With a brother's
blood I began—and should a brother's murderer
shrink from lesser crimes! Oh, how fatally consistent
has been my life with its outset! Witness!”
and he laughed, but his laugh was hollow and
unearthly, as he spoke; “witness! I call ye to
witness!” he cried, almost fiercely, “ye exulting
demons, who madden me with your hellish triumphs—Ha!
ha! ha! I will yet be your leader! If
I cannot be the last in heaven, I will be the first in
hell!” and he sprung from his seat, and wildly
walked the cabin, under the influence of temporary
insanity, while such tortures as only a fratricide can
feel, harrowed his soul.

His massive forehead, lurid with the glare of the
lamp, and contorted and writhing, as if the mind
within conflicted with the agonies of the doomed,
was lowered darkly over his burning eyes, which
glowed with a fierce, lambent light, as Lucifer's
might have glowed when hurled from heaven.
His finely-curved lip curled with a satanic expression
of hatred and malignity: and his form expanded,
as though under the influence of some
strong passion, uncontrollable by human power.
Suddenly he stopped, and stood with his arm outstretched
in a meancing manner, while his dilated
figure exhibited the attitude a painter would have
seized, to represent Cain standing over the prostrate
body of his murdered brother.

A low exclamation, in the adjoining state-room, of
mingled terror and surprise, recalled him instantly
to his accustomed self-possession, for the moment controlled

by the intense passions, which, from time to
time, aroused by his guilty conscience, enslaved his
spirit. The dark, scowling brow, resumed its serenity
and beauty—the wild fire of his eye mellowed into
a milder lustre—the impassioned and excited form
became subdued and passive, under a calmer and
happier influence; and approaching the door of the
state-room, with a smile, that might have won a
maiden's love, mantling his lip, and in a voice modulated
to the gentlest tones, he inquired after the welfare
of his lovely captive.

We must now return to the period when Constanza
was first restored to consciousness. The
youthful officer had, with delicate address, given her
up, after his chief had resigned her to his charge
on gaining his vessel, to the care of an old negress,
wife of the steward of the schooner, who, with that
instinctive sympathy which is the characteristic of
woman—even of the old and ugly, for the young
and lovely of their sex—received her charge with
many exclamations of sympathy and regret.

“Sweety lady—ol' Juana hab pity much,” said
she, receiving her lovely charge, and laying her
upon a sofa in the interior state-room of the vessel,
which was fitted up with great taste and elegance.
“How white an' sof' dis pretty han', wid de gol' ring
—but ol' Juana wont steal it off de little slender
finger,” she added, as an habitual disposition to do
so was evident, by the sudden motion of her hand
and eye.

“I wis' de lady would open de eyes,” she continued,
applying strong stimulants, and resorting
to the usual means for restoring suspended animation.

“Hi, massa Théodore, you rub dat lily han',
while I rub dis, an' bave de temple,” she said, with
an air of importance, fully conscious of the responsibility

with which she was so unexpectedly invested.

The youth, who, at the command of Lafitte, had
remained to assist in the recovery of the maiden,
respectfully bent on one knee by the sofa, and with
tenderness took the unconscious hand, brilliant with
gems; and with the embarrassed manner of one
who felt guilty of sacrilege, endeavoured to restore
warmth and circulation to the lifeless member.

By degrees, the blood returned to fill the blue
veins, her bosom heaved like the snowy breast of a
wearied dove, and opening her dark eyes, she gazed
vacantly about; but there was no soul in their expression—no
intelligence or consciousness of surrounding
objects.

“She look, but she no see,” said the nurse. “Marie!
what big black eyes! dere she clos um' 'gen!
but she get life now—no matter—poor lily 'ooman
go sleep;” and the maiden, again closing her eyes
with a deep sigh, placed her hand under her head,
and on that soft and lovely pillow, rocked by the
gentle motion of the vessel, fell into a sweet and
refreshing slumber.

The kind old nurse watched by her couch with
the anxiety and tenderness of a mother over the
cradle of her infant, occasionally replying in a whisper
to the interrogations of Théodore, as from time
to time he came from the deck to inquire if she still
reposed.

It was long past midnight, and still the lady
slept, while the old negress waved mechanically
over her a plume of the gorgeous feathers of some
tropical bird, the light wind, which the motion
created, gently lifting the raven curls from her blue-veined
temples.

“O, hi! dere massa captain,” she said, lifting her
finger in the attitude of listening, as she heard Lafitte,
after giving his orders to the helmsman, descend

to the cabin; “ol' Juana hope he no harm
de lady—he good man, sometime--and sometime
he bad! but he hab good heart at de bottom—ol'
Juana know he do mos' much good as bad since
she sail in de schooner;” and the old negress continued
habitually waving her plume over the sleeper,
and musing upon the character of the buccaneer
chief, when a deep groan from the adjoining
cabin, where he leaned upon the table, disturbed
her reflections.

“Ah, dere Massa Lafitte in one ob his glooms,”
she said to herself; “de lady no fear noting now.
Tank de saint,” she continued, as she observed the
maiden turn upon her side; “she stir—she wake
up; poor ting, how sorry she be when she hear her
fader dead, and know where she be. If ol' Juana
be bad 'ooman, she no bad to dis pretty chil', she
hab no body to be kin' to her now but ol' Juana!”
and the hideousness of the dark features of the old
negress were redeemed for the moment, by the expression
of kindness and pity which passed over them, as
she thought of her helpless and lonely state. Besides
her natural kindness of heart, retained in spite of her
mode of life, there might have been some emotions
of gratification, in having one of her own sex to
relieve the dreary character of her rude existence.

The lady slightly moved, murmured indistinctly
some name, while a sweet smile came for an instant to
her lips; and before its scarce perceptible reflection
faded from her cheek, she raised her richly-fringed
lids, and like one awaking from a pleasant dream,
looked peacefully around. Surprised, she surveyed
a scene of taste and elegance unfamiliar to her eyes.

The state-room was fitted up in a style of gorgeousness,
to which the wealth of many rich argosies had
contributed. The maiden herself reclined on an
ottoman of crimson velvet, ornamenting one end
of the cabin. An alcove on her right, contained

a marble laver, supported by the tips of the pinions
of three bronze cupids, each holding in his extended
hands silver vessels, containing various articles for
the toilet. Over this stand was a mirror, set with a
richly-chased frame of ebony, inlaid with pearl. The
front of this recess was draped by curtains of blue
and orange damask, which materials, entwined in
festoons, encircled the state-room. Opposite to the
alcove, under a costly swinging lamp, which cast a
brilliant light through the room, stood an escritoire
with a black marble top, supported by two leopards,
also of marble, but so variegated as to imitate both
in form and colour the spotted skin of those animals,
nearly to the semblance of life. Upon it were strewn,
of the costliest materials and most delicate workmanship,
apparatus for writing; a superb guitar; a
jewelled dagger, sheathed in a gold case; and a few
Spanish and Italian poets, with one or two French
and English authors of celebrity. An Alpine scene,
done by a celebrated Florentine painter, set in an
elaborately-carved frame, hung above it, while paintings
of North American scenery adorned the other
sides of the cabin.

Opposite to the sofa, occupied by the fair Castillian,
stood, in a larger and deeper recess than the one
containing the laver—a couch raised high from the
floor, and fancifully shaped like a sea-shell, covered
with the richest material of intermingled purple and
white. A thick curtain of green velvet, now partly
drawn aside, was made to fall before the recess and
entirely covered it from the eye. Against this couch
leaned an antique German harp, of uncommon size
and beauty, curiously constructed of the blackest
ebony, and adorned with carved ivory-work. The
floor of this luxurious abode was covered with one
of those thick Turkish carpets, whose yielding surface
betrays no footstep.

The maiden gazed upon the splendour surrounding

her; at first with a wondering eye—pressed her fingers
upon her eyelids, and looked again, and again.

“I must dream!”—said she in a low silvery voice,
“Agata—O, Agata!” and she looked up into the
face of her attendant—“what?—no!—I still dream,”
she cried, placing her hand over her eyes, as
though endeavouring to collect her thoughts—“Oh,
Maria!—what a dream! what a fearful dream I
have had!” and again she removed her hands, and
gazed wildly round the room. She now heard
distinctly the sound of rushing waters, and was conscious
of motion.

“Father,—father! where am I?”—she shrieked
wildly—“this vessel—the dashing waves! Hah!
who is it that calls? Oh God! Oh God!—I know
it all—all!”—she shrieked, as the deepmellow voice
of Lafitte, addressing her from the inner cabin, fell
upon her ear;—and the wretched girl buried her
face in her hands, and shed burning tears.

“Señora, I would speak with you!”

“Ha! that voice again—miserable Constanza!
utterly lost—lost!”—she exclaimed. Suddenly her
eye rested upon the gemmed stiletto lying upon the
escritoire.

“Holy Virgin, forgive me!—but thus I can save
my honour!” and she sprung for the weapon.

“Bon Giu! Help, massa, help, she kill herself!”
cried the terrified Juana.

The pirate threw open the door, but before he
could enter, the unsheathed weapon was grasped in
the elevated hand of the maiden; her eyes were
uplifted, full of a sublime and holy devotion.

“Forgive me, blessed Virgin!” she uttered with
wild and affecting energy, and the glittering dagger
was descending into her breathing bosom, when
her captor sprang forward, and the weapon was
sheathed in his intervening arm.

“My life, lady, rather than thine!” he said, as he
drew it forth.

“Oh, that it had been thy life!”—she exclaimed,
while her beautiful and excited features expressed
the intensest mortification at her disappointment;
her dark eye kindled with anger, while her colourless
lip showed maidenly apprehension. For a
moment she stood in the attitude in which she had
been arrested, with these several passions agitating
her bosom; but the last overcame all other feelings,
and with clasped fingers, and the uplifted eye of a
Madonna, she said, imploringly and with touching
eloquence.

“O, Señor, I am your captive--but ransom, a
king's ransom shall be yours, only let me go in
peace and honour. I implore you by your mother!
by the blessed virgin! by your hope of heaven! by
your fear of hell! See! I kneel to you! Oh, Señor,
I know I am in your hands, but, as you hope for
mercy, show mercy now!”

“Rise, lady—I swear!”—and Lafitte bared his
brow, and kissed the cross-hilted dagger--“I swear
by my hope of heaven, my fear of hell, by my sainted
mother, and by the Holy Virgin, that you shall remain
in all safety and honour!” The sincere
voice in which he repeated her adjuration—the
solemn eye, and devotional manner, re-assured the
agitated girl.

“Oh, I would believe you, Señor, yet,” she suddenly
exclaimed, “my father! where, oh, where is he?”
And, although the moment before, she had shrunk
from the touch of her captor, as he extended his hand
to raise her from her suppliant posture, while she
kneeled before him, she now clasped him by the arm,
and with a trembling voice, scarcely articulated—

“My—my—father!—Oh tell me--where?”

“Be calm, Señora.—You shall know all, but—”

“You have murdered him!” she shrieked.

“Nay, lady, he has not been murdered--he--”

“He lives not!” she cried, with terrible energy

in her voice, fixing her eyes upon his face, as
if she would read in its changing expression
what she sought, yet trembled to learn.

“Without violence, he died upon his bed.”

“Died!” she shrieked; but the next moment,
with altered voice and manner, she murmured,

“Died?—died!—he then is dead—dead!”

Mournfully she spoke, and her fixed eye betrayed
the temporary alienation of her reason.---“On his
bed---too---and where was Constanza, to close his
eyes? Dead! dead?---They tell me so---that my
father is dead! and Constanza---living? Oh that
she were dead also! How blessed it must be to
die!---The good old man is happy now; he cannot
see his daughter's shame and misery. They tell
me he died on his bed!—But they tell me false!”
she cried, suddenly changing her abstracted manner,
and low melancholy voice---“Oh, you have
murdered him---” she wildly shrieked, while she
pointed at the wounded arm of Lafitte---“there is
blood upon your hand---my father's blood---Murderer!
murderer! Nay---Lafitte! Lafitte! I can
call you by no other name, that will so express my
detestation, and your crime'—and the look which
accompanied her words, was the more withering,
from the extreme beauty of the features upon which
it dwelt.

“Señora, I beseech you be appeased,” he said,
with a tone indicative of wounded feeling. “Don
Velasquez was not slain; he died naturally:—
there was no hand laid upon his person. Calm
your feelings. You think me guilty---I am, but
not so guilty as you believe. If you will hear me
a few moments”---he proceeded, as he saw she
listened with some attention, and less excitement,
to his words. “I will tell you all.”

The maiden remained silent---but slightly inclined
her head, with the air of one who would
listen.

“Hebérto Velasquez---” he continued, “you
start!—guided my party to the vault containing
your father's treasure, on condition, that he should
share half the booty—while the whole weight of
the act should fall upon me. You were alarmed,
and, during the removal of the gold, your father,
seizing a pistol, shot Velasquez, who was below
with us, dead.”

“Velasquez dead!—and by my father's hand?”

“Even so, señora.”

“Then, Heaven is just!” she exclaimed.

“The alarm was given,” he continued, “we
were surrounded. I entered the room above”—
here he bowed low, while a deep flush mantled his
dark cheek, which was slightly reflected from the
maiden's, who, with conflicting emotions, listened to
the pirate's relation—“There, I first saw, you, never,
lady, to forget you! I left your presence, and
headed my men; but, pressed on every side, I was
forced to retreat to the villa. I sprung into the room,
and you fainted. The thought flashed upon me,
that I could save my life, and gain my vessel, by
protecting—pardon me, lady,—by protecting my
body with your sacred person. I caught up your
lifeless form, and, holding you before me, retreated,
step by step, till I gained my vessel:—and, to this
protection, lady, I owe my life!”—he added, with
feeling.

“But, my father?”

“Worn out and feeble, during the tumult around
him, he expired.”

“Alas! he was ready to die!” she said, calmly,
“I have long schooled my heart to part with him—
but not thus—oh! not thus!” and, leaning her head
upon the table, the lovely orphan gave way to her
filial grief.

Lafitte left her to the indulgence of her sorrows,

and after delaying, in his own cabin, to attend to
his slightly-wounded arm, ascended to the deck.

A faint titnge along the eastern horizon, announced
the coming dawn—the night breeze had
lulled—and the sails, at every lift of the vessel,
upon some larger sea, flapped heavily against the
masts. The watch were sitting, or standing, with
their hands thrust into their bosoms, around the
windlass—the officer of the deck paced his lonely
round—the helmsman stood at the helm—and, like
its master-spirit, directed the course of the yielding
vessel, steadily towards the invisible point of her destination.
The land had disappeared, save an irregular
waving blue line along the horizon, which
might be mistaken by the unpractised eye for
the edges of a distant cloud, but in which, Lafitte
recognized the fast disappearing mountains of Jamaica.
All else was the broad heaving ocean, and
the bending blue sky, in which, here and there,
twinkled a solitary star, and the pale western moon,
like a timid novice, modestly veiling her face, at the
approach of the morning sun.

6. CHAPTER VI.

More.

INTERVIEW BETWEEN LAFITTE AND CONSTANZA—ITS RESULT—
A CHANGE IN HER DESTINY.

Morning had advanced nearly into noon, when
the commander of the schooner, who, wrapped in
a cloak, had thrown himself upon the deck to refresh
his weary frame, was aroused by a slight touch
on his shoulder.

“The lady, sir!” said Théodore.

“What of her, Théodore?” he exclaimed, with
a foreboding air, springing to his feet.

“She desires to speak with you, sir.”

“Has she slept till now, Théodore?”

“No, sir, she has been all the morning weeping.
She is now calmer, and desires an interview.”

“Say to her, that her slightest wish shall be
obeyed. I will attend her,” he replied. And, turning
to ascertain the position of his vessel, and the
rate she had been running while he slept, he descended
into the cabin, and delaying, for a few moments,

to change his dress, marked with traces of
the late battle, for one more beseeming the presence
of a lady, the tapped lightly at the door of her state-room,
and was admitted by Juana into the presence
of his fair captive.

Constanza had recovered her usual self-possession,
and maidenly dignity of manner, though her
cheek was pale, her lip tremulous, and her eye
brilliant through tears. As he entered, she rose
from the ottoman, struck with his fine figure, displayed
to advantage by the rich dress he wore, and
motioned him to a seat.

“Señora, I have obeyed your summons,”—he
said, with deep respect.

“Nay, Señor, it becomes not the captive to issue
commands; it is for her to obey! Señor,” she
added, with dignity, and yet with timidity, “I have
solicited this interview with you, from my knowledge
of your native generosity of character—however
it may have been clouded and perverted by
circumstances, which, I am willing to do you the
justice to think, may have been beyond your control.
Now that I have seen you, and know how
nobly you can act, if you will be guided by the more
generous impulses of your own bosom—I feel that
I am not casting too much upon the success of this
interview.”

“Señora, you have only to speak to be obeyed,”
he replied, with much respect in his voice and manner.
“All that I can do, shall be done, to atone for
your injuries, and mitigate your grief.”

“Most sincerely do I thank you, Señor—I have
not, indeed, hoped too much!” Here she hesitated
to proceed, and her manner betrayed embarrassment.

“Speak, lady! what can I do for you?”

“Give me my liberty, Señor!” she replied, firmly
fixing her full dark eyes upon him, while her heart

palpitated, and her cheek paled, as she watched the
effect of this demand upon her captor.

He had anticipated her request, and replied, unmoved—

“Where, lady, will you go?—Your father!—
forgive me, that I inadvertently touched so sensitive
a chord! But, lady, have you where to go?”

“Oh! no, no! but any where but here!” and
she buried her face in the folds of the drapery.

“Señora,” said he, mournfully, and in a melancholy
voice, “this is the bitterest moment of my
life. That I am despised and proscribed of men,
I care not! I can fling back their taunts: but,
when so lovely a being turns from me with fear and
detestation, then do I feel the galling of the outlaw's
chain! Lady!” he continued, suddenly
changing his tone to one of deep earnestness, “it is
said, there is pardon of the Holy Virgin for the
greatest crimes: and will not one, who must so
nearly resemble her in person and spirit, also
forgive?”

“Oh, Señor, speak not blasphemously! You
have all the forgiveness I can bestow. Would it
could avail you hereafter! But oh, let me go
hence, if, then, you hope to be forgiven.”

“Where will you go, Señora? Why will you
go?” he said, with impassioned energy. “Here,
you shall be sacred from intrusion. No footstep
shall approach you unbidden. It shall be my
whole duty to render you happy—but oh, desert me
not!—You feel an interest in my welfare—then do
not leave me. You are the angel that would guide
me back to honour and virtue. I already feel the
holy influence of her presence upon my heart.
Leave me, lady; and with you, will depart, forever,
these better aspirations. Again the dark spirit of my
destiny, whose seat a purer spirit has assumed, will

usurp once more his empire! Oh, leave me not to
my own dark fate—extinguish not, forever, the
only star of hope that has ever beamed upon my
ill-fated bark! Lady—stay! behold me at your
feet!” and the impassioned outlaw, who had spoken
his feelings with that intenseness peculiar to his
impulsive character, kneeled before the maiden.

“Señor captain, kneel not to me,” she said, stepping
back with dignity—“Speak not to me, thus!
I cannot listen to language like this. I am your
captive,—but” she continued more earnestly, “oh,
talk not to me thus. I would speak of my deliverance.
If one so weak and simple as I am, can
aught avail your return to society, cheerfully will I
do all, that a free maiden, may do. Señor, my
prayers, my influence, if I can command any, shall
be yours—but—Oh! use not to me such language!
I would go, Señor!” she added, quickly.

“You, then, despise me,” he said, in a deeply-agitated
voice; “You, then, despise me! Just Heaven,
strike home—I am thy victim! Listen to me,
lady,” he added, in a calmer voice. “In youth, I
loved a maiden much like you; but my love met
no return; and for that passion I became an exile
from my father's halls. Love made me what I am
—may it not open for me a bright and virtuous
future? Speak, lady! and bid me live to virtue—
to heaven, and to you!” and he gazed earnestly,
his features beaming with the farvour of his passion,
up into the face of the troubled girl as he
kneeled before her. The maiden was deeply affected
by his impassioned appeal.

“Rise, Señor—I do not despise you—I deeply
feel for you—but I cannot, must not listen to your
language! Yet you have strong claims to my regard,
knowing you as I do. You have shown me
a character, which, while the exhibition of it has
surprised me, will ever command my esteem. I

must always honour the native nobility and generosity
of your character! fallen indeed, yet aspiring
to the height from which you have fallen. Oh,
sir, forget this hasty passion for a lonely maiden
who cannot return it, and be the being, proud in
conscious virtue, you seek to be! Let your desire
to return to the paths of honour, depend upon no
contingency in which I am involved. Go forward,
Señor, independently of extraneous circumstances,
and make your own just perception of duty your
guide, and you may yet be what you wish to be—
what the world would desire to have you—what I
sincerely pray you may become! But think—think
not of me—my affections”—and brow, cheek, and
bosom were mantled with rich blood, as she added
—“my heart—my love—is—anothers!”

The chief still kneeled at the feet of the fair Castillian.
The tones of her voice had long ceased, and
yet he moved not. His features became deathly
pale, his eye grew darker, and his lips were painfully
compressed, while his chest heaved with strong
emotion. For a moment he continued to kneel in
a silence that appalled the heart of Constanza.
Then slowly elevating his form, he stood up to the
full height of his commanding figure, folded his
arms upon his breast, and gazed upon her for an
instant with a bitter and sad expression upon his
features. But when, at last, with a great effort, he
spoke, there was a calmness in the deep tones of
his voice, which fell forebodingly upon her heart.

“Lady, it is well! Ever thus has been my wayward
and ill-directed destiny! Forgive me, Señora,
I will urge no more my fatal suit. I have loved
you, Señora (nay, listen, lady, I may tell you now)
I have loved you---how fervently, heaven and my
own heart alone can tell! But it has been a beautiful
and happy dream. No more may I look upon you
but as a distant worshipper upon the shrine of his

idolatry. A few short hours have changed me,
lady!---For your sake, I will seek a name of honour
among men; and when hereafter you shall
learn that Lafitte, the outlaw, earned laurels, and a
name, and perchance a death, in honourable war—
remember it was your love that guided his bark out
of the gulf of crime—your love that wafted it on to
honour. Then, lady, do justice to his memory!”

The rejected suitor, then, turning with much emotion
in his manner, hastily quitted the state-room.

“Sail, ho!” rung in his ears, as he entered his
own cabin. Hastily concealing his gay apparel
under a garment more befitting the deck of a piratical
vessel, and the presence of his men, he ascended
to the deck, and sought, in its bustle and activity,
to forget the causes which agitated his bosom.

“What do you make her out?” he shouted to
the man aloft, in a stern tone, that startled even
his men, with whom his trumpet-like voice was
well familiar.

“A brig, sir—standing to the south-east, with
her courses hauled up, and under top-gallant sails.”

“Can you see her hull?”

“Not yet, sir; but she rises rapidly.”

“Lay down out of that, sir,” said Lafitte, impatiently;
and immediately he sprung forward with
his glass, ascended the foremast, and standing on
the cross-trees, closely surveyed the stranger. In a
few minutes he descended, and ordered the helmsman
to steer so as to gain the wind of her.

“What do you make her out, sir?” inquired his
second in command, Ricardo, a swarthy Spaniard,
with an unpleasing eye, but otherwise a good-humoured
countenance, half shaded by a forest of
black whiskers, who was smoking a segar, as he
paced the leeward side of the deck.

“A merchantman, bound probably into Kingston.”

“Ho, there—men!” shouted the lieutenant; “to
your guns, and see that they are all prepared; and
be ready, boarders.”

“Aye, aye,” cheerfully responded the crew; and
there was at once a bustle of warlike preparation on
board. The crew, which numbered the day previous
about sixty, now cut down to forty, by the
severe losses of the preceding night, engaged with
alacrity in preparation for the expected fight.

“This preparation is useless, Ricardo,” said Lafitte;
“she will not resist us; and if she is bound
for Kingston, I shall not injure her—and the lady
below must be sent back in her.”

“Cielos! without ransom, señor?”

“No—I give my share of last night's booty as
her ransom. Does that serve your purpose?”

“Señor Captain, it does. I would give more for
the glitter of a good Mexican dollar, than the sweetest
smile that ever dwelt on pretty maiden's lip. Miraculo!
Captain, you soon weary of this lady's favours.”

“Silence, sir—the lady goes to Jamaica in yonder
vessel, if it be bound there,” replied Lafitte, sternly;
and descending into the cabin, he once more sought
the presence of his captive.

“Lady,” he said, without entering her state-room,
“there is a vessel now approaching, and if, as I
think, it is bound for the island, you are free to depart
in her. Where would you prefer making a
landing?”

“At Kingston, Señor—I have an uncle there.
I would land at Kingston! Oh, sir,” she continued
earnestly, and advancing towards him, “jest not
with my hopes—am I indeed at liberty?”

“Lady, the uncaged bird is not freer than you
shall be within the hour.”

“May God bless you, generous sir!”

“Nay, I dare not keep you here,” he replied;

I have not confidence in my own strength of purpose—I
fear for you, remaining—absent, you are
only safe; whilst I, who would wish to forget, must
live only in dwelling on your image. Adieu—I will
again wait on you when I ascertain the character
and destination of the vessel.”

When he gained the deck, she was plainly visible
about a league to leeward, under press of sail,
evidently endeavouring to escape. She had hauled
from her course several points since she first hove
in sight, and now stood south before the wind, about
a league distant.

“Shall we give chase, sir?” inquired the lieutenant.

“Aye, we must come up with her! put her
away;” and the schooner falling off a little, with a
freer wind, darted rapidly after the stranger, who
was using every exertion to escape. But the buccaneer
rapidly gained on her, and in about half an
hour the chase was within the range and command
of her guns.

Ten cannonades frowned along the pirate's deck,
and a gang of fierce and reckless men, some stripped
to their waists, and armed with pistols, knives, and
cutlasses, stood around each gun.

“Clear away that starboard gun amidships,”
shouted the lieutenant

“All clear, sir.”

“Pitch a shot then across her fore foot.”

The seaman stooped to the gun, and with his
eye on a level with the piece, gave it the proper
direction.

“All ready, sir.”

“Fire!”

The little vessel trembled and recoiled under the
loud report of the gun, which had scarcely ceased
ringing in the ears of the crew, who watched the
ball as it ricochetted over the water, marking a line

of foam as it passed just across the bows of the vessel,
when the brig threw her main-top-sail to the
mast, hoisted American colours, and awaited the
pleasure of the pirate.

“Lower and man the boat—go on board, Theodore,
and ascertain what she is, and where bound,”
said the pirate, as the schooner approached nearly
within hail of the stranger. The pirate lay to until
the return of the boat—Lafitte the while leaning
over the quarter, gazing in silence upon the vessel.

“Well Théodore?” he inquired, as his messenger
returned.

“She is an American brig from New Orleans,
bound to Porto Rico, but will touch at Kingston,
if there be gold to be made by it.”

“Aye, gold---gold! well, they shall have it.”

In a few minutes Constanza had changed the
warlike vessel, and gorgeous cabin of the pirate,
for the homelier accommodations of the peaceful and
plain merchantman.

“Lady, adieu,” he said, taking his leave on the
deck of the brig; “you may soon forget me, but
while my heart throbs with life, never can I forget
Constanza Velasquez. That name shall be the
talisman of a more honourable destiny---for I cannot
be linked with guilt, bearing your image in my
heart. Lady, farewell---Théodore will accompany
you to your friends, and you will also have Juana,
to wait upon you.”

“God bless you, Señor---how deeply I feel my debt
of gratitude to you---I shall ever remember you with
friendship---may God and your country receive
henceforth the duties you owe to each. Farewell,
and the blessed Maria be your protector!” and she
extended her hand to the chief as she spoke, who
tenderly and ardently pressing it to his lips, sprang
over the side into his boat. He waved his hand to

her distant figure, as he stood once more on the deck
of his schooner, which immediately resumed her
former course, while the merchant vessel, again
making sail, stood steadily towards the port of her
destination.

7. CHAPTER VII.

A STORM—ITS EFFECTS—A BUCCANEER—CHANGE OF DESTINATION.

The sun went down that evening with an angry
aspect---lurid clouds were piled around him, and the
western skies wore that brassy hue, reflected upon
the leaden waters, which, in those seas, is the precursor
of a storm. The commander of the brigantine,
which had now become the temporary abode
of Constanza, was standing upon the quarter-deck,
watching the huge masses of piled-up clouds, and
threatening appearance of the heavens, with an
anxious eye.

“Make all snug,” he said, turning to his second
in command, after a long survey of the brewing
tempest. “We are likely to have a hard night of
it—you had better send down the royal and top-gallant
sails, and single reef the top-sails.”

The necessary orders were given by the mate,
and speedily executed by the active seamen; and
the brig held on her course, steadily, under her
lessened sail. The clouds rapidly rose in the west,
and extended along the heavens, gradually unrolling

like a scroll, till the massive edge of the huge
embankment hung, like a beetling crag above the
vessel, casting a black shadow, over half the sea.

“Strike the top-gallant-masts, and close-reef the
top-sails and stay-sail,” shouted the captain, quickly,
as the clouds came careering on, driving before the
invisible, and yet unfelt tempest.

The night was fast setting in, though the red
twilight, still lingered in the east---while along
the western horizon, both sky and sea, were enveloped
in terrific gloom. Suddenly the light
breeze which had wafted them along, died away---
and a fearful stillness dwelt in the warm air, while
respiration became painful. The sailors stood at
the several posts, where the coming danger might
most require their presence---conversing in low tones
with each other---now watching anxiously the gathering
storm, which momently threatened to burst
upon their helpless bark---or now, with an inquiring
gaze, marking the face of their captain---a veteran
seaman, with his head silvered by the storms of
sixty winters.

He stood near the helmsman wrapped in a long
drab pea-jacket, buttoned closely at his throat---a
glazed hat, with a broad brim, upon his head, and
a trumpet in his hand. His eye was full of care,
but wore no expression betraying doubt, but rather
a consciousness of being able to contend successfully,
with whatever might occur---a consciousness
originating in long and successful experience. His
features were calm, and his voice full and natural,
when, occasionally, he addressed his officers, or the
helmsman.

Suddenly a flash of lightning shot along the face
of the black bosom of the cloud, like a glittering
serpent---and the air was rent with a report so loud,
that every startled seaman placed his hands suddenly,
and intensely to his temples. A tomb-like

silence succeeded, and the dark cloud unrolled, till it
covered all the heavens, encircling the horizon in a
fearful embrace.

“What, my lovely passenger!” said the captain,
with gallantry, as the slight form of Constanza met
his eye. “The thunder has alarmed you! shall I
attend you to your state room?”

“No, oh no, Señor, the cabin is too close---It is
but thunder, then! I thought it the firing of cannon!
We are not pursued! Bless thee, Santa
Maria,” she continued mentally “I feared that dangerous
man had changed his mind---I did him injustice.
But oh, that I were safe beneath my
uncle's roof! Is it far to Kingston, Señor?” she
inquired.

“Twelve leagues, lady---if we safely weather
this gale, we shall be there by morning.”

“Thank you, sir, for such cheering words; but
is there, as your words imply, danger? See! that
light upon the sea! what is it?” she inquired
eagerly, pointing to the west.

“Now we have it---stand ready, all!” he shouted,
as a line of white foam, stretching along the horizon,
caught his eye, as he looked up at her exclamation.

The vessel lay broadside to the path of the
coming tempest, and so great was the calm, that
the helmsman had no control over her. The captain,
gave his several orders with professional rapidity,
and energy.

“Hard-a-weather—hard-up, hard-up, for your
life!” and he sprung to the helm, but the head of
the brig remained immoveable in the same direction.

“Good God! Head her off, or we shall be capsized!
lady—below, below—youngster,” he cried,
to Théodore, “see to her!”

Every precaution was taken for the safety of the
brig, that experienced seamanship could suggest: the

old man stood grasping the helm with a firm hand,
while, with a calm, and unblenching eye, he
watched the advancing hurricane. Onward it
came—ploughing up the sea, which boiled, roaring
and foaming before it—a moving wall of surge.

Constanza, with one hand grasping the companion-way,
within which she stood, and the other
resting upon the arm of her young attendant, gazed
fearfully upon the visible presence of the tempest.
Her bosom heaved irregularly—her cheek was pale,
and her lips shut with expectation—but there was
a sublimity in the scene which she loved, and
which, chained her to the spot.

The lightnings flashed fast and fierce out from
the black clouds, which seemed suspended close
above their heads, and run like veins of gold along
the heavens. The thunder came peal upon peal,
like reports of artillery, rattling along the skies, and
reverberating around the horizon, died away in the
distance in low, indistinct mutterings. The glassy
waves between the vessel and the rapidly careering
tempest, began to heave, and while every man held
in his breath with expectation, the brig rolled heavily,
and within a few moments of the time when
the distant moan of the tempest was first heard, with
a loud roar, the storm of wind and wave burst upon
the devoted vessel.

“Now---look to yourselves!” shouted the captain;
and the wild waters leaped over the brig with the
noise and body of a cataract---the furious winds
twisted the light masts like withes---and the brig
was borne bodily down by the irresistible force of
the tempest, and lay prostrate upon her beam-ends.

The weather main-chains were wrenched like
threads, with all their rigging, from the sides of the
vessel; and the main-mast, bending like whalebone,
broke off with a loud crack close to the deck. A
wild cry mingled with the roar of the tempest, while

the live thunder leaped, and the lightnings glared
about their vessel, as if in mockery of human suffering.

“Cut away the foremast---lively, men, lively!”
cried the captain, clinging to the quarter-rail half
emerged in the sea; and the mate, who was prepared
for this emergency, run along the elevated
side of the ship, and with an axe severed, one after
another, the distended stays, which flew wildly into
the air, lashing the sea as they fell. The remaining
one parted with a sharp report before the axe
descended, and the unsustained mast, which lay
level with the water, after a few vigorous blows by
the same daring hand, snapped off a few feet from
the deck, and a large wave, lifting it up like a straw,
bore it, with all its rigging, far away to leeward.
Immediately the relieved vessel righted and floated
amid the tumultuous ocean, an unmanageable
wreck.

The moment the hurricane struck the side of the
vessel, Théodore, holding firmly the arm of Constanza,
drew hastily the slide of the companion-way,
the doors of which were closed, over the place where
she stood, and the waters swept harmlessly over her.
But the violence of the shock would have thrown
her down, had not the young buccaneer, with great
presence of mind, rapidly adapted their position to
the sudden inclination of the vessel. Alarmed, she
stood with her crucifix clasped to her lips till the
vessel righted, when, at her repeated request, Theodore
drew back the slide to allow her to look forth
upon the tempest.

What a scene of wild sublimity met her gaze!
The heavens were pitchy black, over which the
lightnings played in streams of fire---the thunder
rolled continually in one prolonged and incessant
reverberation---the sea was illuminated with phosphorescent
light and raging with a loud roar, while

vast masses of water, rising from its bosom on every
side, would swell into gigantic billows, and burst into
a head of glittering foam.

The vessel, with her upper deck flooded, plunged
heavily into the deep gulfs which yawned on every
side, threatening to entomb her. The whole scene
that met her eye was one of sublime, but fearful
desolation. The old man, with his saturated grey
locks streaming in the gale, stood at the helm, which
he had seized when the brig righted---for the helmsman
had been borne off into the sea, and his far-off
wail for help had long before died in the more melancholy
howlings of the storm.

“This is indeed fearful!” she exclaimed. “Poor,
old man---he has lost perhaps his all---but his life is
safe. Safe?” she repeated, despairingly; “Oh, who
can say that one life is safe in this appalling scene!”

“Nay, lady, the bite of the storm is over---we
only hear his growl,” said the boy; “at any rate,
it can harm this old hulk no more. We are not far
from land, if it were but day we could see it. Cheer
up, lady---there is no more to fear.”

“I fear not, señor, for myself,” she replied, calmly;
“but that venerable man! he is perhaps a parent---
it is for him, and for you, I feel---you have, perhaps,
a mother and a fair sister, whose lives are wrapped
up in you!”

“No, lady,” he replied, sadly; “I am a parentless
boy. There is none to call me brother. I can
remember once loving, both a mother and sister, but
they now sleep in the sea. Captain Lafitte found
me a lonely and dying boy on such a wreck as
this---he is all I have to care for me.”

“And does he care for you?”

“Lady, he does. His is a stern nature, and wild
deeds are familiar to him. Yet he has deep affections.
Lady, he cares much for me! He imagines
I resemble one---his brother, I believe, though he

seldom speaks of it---who met with some mischance
in boyhood---for that resemblance also am I dear to
him.”

“Do you love him, boy?”

“Do you love your father, lady?”

“Oh, speak not of my father---alas, he too is
dead!”

“Pardon me, Señora---but thus I love my benefactor.”

The lady mused a moment upon the thoughts
which her companion's answer had called up---the
expiring gale sporting with her dark locks and
mantilla, which floated like a white cloud around
her head.

The lightning now became less frequent and
intense---the thunder rumbled only along the distant
horizon---the dark clouds, from whose bosom
burst the storm, broke in huge masses, the thin
edges of which grew lighter, while a spot of the
deep, blue sky, in which sparkled a solitary star,
could be seen at intervals between the driving
masses. The waves grew less and less in size---
breaking no longer like volcanoes bursting into
flame, but regularly in snowy caps, or rolling onward,
smooth, unbroken billows.

All at once, beneath an opening in a cloud in the
east, the sea shone with a silvery light, and Constanza,
who had watched the various phases of the
storm, and the rapid changes of the scene, with a
pleased and wondering eye, had scarcely exclaimed,

“Look señor---how beautiful! what can pour
that light down upon the sea?” when the breaking
clouds, sailing before the receding gale, displayed
the moon shining in unclouded brilliancy upon the
heaving sea---glancing her welcome beams over
the waves in a path of tremulous light, and falling
like a smile from heaven upon the lonely wreck.

“Ha! what! a sail! God be thanked!” exclaimed

the captain, as, after lashing the helm, he
made one of the group at the companion-way.

“Look, young sir, with your keener eye---just in
the moon's wake---no---it is the cap of a wave!”

“It is a sail, sir!” exclaimed the youth joyfully---“I
saw distinctly the outline of a main-sail,
and then it disappeared as though by the rolling of
the vessel There! the sails look black against the
moonlight!”

“I see it, boy---you are right,” answered the
captain, in a lively tone; “she is within half a mile
of us.”

“The blessed Maria forbid that she should pass
us by!” ejaculated Constanza.

“We will remedy that,” said the old commander,
cheerfully; and descending into the cabin, he returned
with a large blunderbuss.

“This will make more noise than a trumpet,”
he said, cocking it; “but we will first wait and see
if she does not come toward us.”

“I saw her distinctly, sir,” said Théodore, “while
you were below, and she appears to be a large
schooner lying to.”

“We will hail her then,” said the captain; and
holding the blunderbuss high above his head, he
pointed it in the direction of the vessel and fired.
The report of the piece, to their ears, yet familiar
with the roar of the tempest, sounded very faintly.

“I fear they will not hear it,” he said, “it
hardly seemed to go twice the length of the brig towards
her.”

The heart of the maiden sunk, and she involuntarily
grasped the arm of the youthful sailor.--
There was a moment of anxious suspense, when a
light flashed upon their eyes from the stranger, and
the heavy report of a large gun came booming
across the water.

“Thank God! we are safe!” exclaimed the
captain.—“She must be an armed vessel, from the
free way she burns powder.”

“She is making sail, sir,” said Théodore, after
gazing a minute intently at the vessel---she is a
schooner---her masts and main-sail are now plainly
visible; she has a main-top-mast stay-sail set, and
carries top-sails---with jib and flying jib---She is now
standing. No! do I see rightly? She is standing
from us, sir!”

“She is, indeed---” hastily exclaimed the captain,
in a disappointed tone.---She must have mistaken
our situation. We are so low in the water,
she could not see us till close aboard of us. Show
a light upon the stump of the mainmast!” he
shouted.

Before the seaman he addressed reached the forecastle,
Théodore had sprung below, and returned
to the deck with the swinging lamp, which hung in
the cabin, and, raising it on the end of the blunderbuss,
held it above his head.

In silence, and with heart-rending anxiety, they
watched the success of their beacon, and, in a few
minutes, an answering light from the stranger,
filled their bosoms with delight. The vessel now
tacked, and stood towards them, often appearing
and disappearing from their eyes, as the dismasted
brig rose upon some larger billow, or descended into
some profounder cavern of the waves.

Their deliverer came towards them, with tall and
stately motion—his sails rounded with the lulling
breeze, and his prow flinging high the spray, as
she bounded forward.

“I should know that vessel,” said Théodore,
quickly, as she came nearer.—Yes! it is sir!—”
he said, turning to the captain—“that is a buccaneer!”

“Lady, dear lady!” he said, as a slight exclamation

escaped Constanza, “be not alarmed!
I am surety for your safety. That is one of our
squadron—I am known to the commander—he
shall convey you in safety to Jamaica.”

The maiden spoke not, but with clasped hands
and tearful eyes, silently looked up to heaven, as
if she looked for that protection there, which
seemed denied her on earth.

“Wreck ahoy!—” shouted a stern voice from
the schooner, which was now under the stern of the
brig, showing four ports to a side, and from the
numerous dark heads peering over the hammock-nettings,
apparently full of men.

“Captain, your trumpet! allow me to reply.
Your safety depends upon it!” said the youth,
taking the instrument from his passive hands.

“Ho! the Julié!”

“Who the devil are you?” replied the first
hailer.

“A prize of Lafitte's, bound into the rendezvous,
and dismasted in the squall.”

“Is that Théodore?”

“Even as you are Sebastiano! Send a boat for
the prisoners; and, afterwards, take out the cargo.
It is valuable.”

“Be not so ready, my good youth, to bestow
what belongs not to you—” said the old man,
eagerly interposing.

“There is no alternative, sir; he must have all.
And what avails it to you now, whether it go to the
use of good Sebastiano, there, who is making such
commendable haste with his boat—or, as must inevitably
have been the case, to the bottom of the
sea!—You must ask of Sebastiano no more than
life. He will argue the point with you, and demonstrate
to his, if not to your satisfaction, that he
pays well for the cargo, by saving you from the
dolphins.”

The boat, riding over the huge seas, now balancing
upon their summit, now disappearing in their
hollow, at length reached the wreck, and a heavily-built
man, who had passed into his third score
of allotted years, stepped on to the deck of the
brig.

“Oh, Théodore—Señor Théodore!” scarcely
articulated the trembling maiden, clinging, with
nervous apprehension, to his arm.

“Do not be alarmed, Señora,” he replied, encouragingly,
“I can manage this lump of bone and
muscle, as I would a chained bear. Ha! my good
Sebastiano!” he added, addressing him with much
freedom, “I greet your jocund phiz with more of
welcome than I ever dreamed I should do.”

“By the twelve apostles! always including the
worthy Judas,” growled the buccaneer, in reply,
casting his eyes over the wreck, “but you have
made clean work of this. Sathan, himself, seemed
to lend his bellows, and a spare hand, to help blow
out the gale to night. The Julié once carried a
holy father, and the devil could'nt hurt her, so we
were safe. Santa Madre!---if it had been in
broad noon, it would have blown out the suns
eye--Cielos!---but who have we here?” he continued,
raising his voice, on discovering the figure
of the maiden, half-concealed behind the intervening
person of the young buccaneer. Instinctively,
the terrified Constanza withdrew herself from the
rude gaze of the rover, and closely veiled her
face.

“It is a lady,” he said in his ear, “who
goes on large ransom to Kingston:---She must
be treated,” he added, firmly, “with respect.---It is
the express command of Lafitte.”

“Señor Lafitte's commands are gospel to me—”
he replied, with deference in his gruff tones. “Se
ñora. Yo espero que su alteza veo en perfecta

salud—”he said, addressing the assured Constanza,
and bowing with blunt respect in his manner.

“This vessel being in a sinking condition,
Señora,” he continued, “it has become necessary
to remove you. In all things, captain Lafitte
should be obeyed; but circumstances, as I can
readily prove to you, often render obedience impossible,
as for instance—”

“Come, Sebastiano, the lady will hear your
conclusion on board the Julié. Is your boat
ready?”

“All ready, Señorito Théodore.”

“Ho!” he cried, “make room for the captain's
lady to pass. He is to take to himself a wife, according
to the command. Now it is good to marry
hombres, first, because if this generation should not
be given in marriage, the next---”

“Good Señor captain Sebastiano!” exclaimed
Théodore, with some impatience.

“Well, well, Señorito Théodore, the boat is
ready---in proof of which---”

“Hold hard, there, men!” cried Théodore---
“jump in, sir,” said he to the captain of the brig,
who reluctantly obeyed. “Now allow me to fold
this cloak about your form, Señora,---hold firmly to
my arm---Juana, step into the boat, or you will be
overboard---Now wait till the boat rises again---
There! step firmly! Done like a seaman! Se
ñora!” said Sebastiano, as he aided Théodore in
handing her into the boat. “What a light foot for
a royal boy!” he added aside to him.

“Shove off! Now give way!” he said aloud,
with a professional brevity unnatural to him; and,
in a few minutes, the party were safely landed on
the deck of the schooner.

Constanza assured, from the respect shown her
by the buccaneer, and the manifold influence of
Théodore over him and his crew, that she had nothing,

at present, to apprehend, retired to a little
state-room, to which he conducted her, and, wearied
by the trying scenes through which she had passed,
threw herself into one of the berths of the rude, but
comfortable, cabin, and was soon buried in profound
and peaceful sleep.

Théodore now took the pirate aside, and explained
to him those facts which he did not choose to
disclose before the crew, ever ready to mutiny on
the slightest occasion.

“Now, Sebastiano,” he said, after the most valuable
freight had been removed to the schooner from
the brig, which soon, with a plunge, disappeared
beneath the surface, and the seamen, placed under
the hatches, with some attention to their comfort,
as released prisoners of a former capture by their
captain, and sail once more made on the schooner,
“Now, good Sebastiano, we must put into Kingston
to-morrow. This lady must be landed, according
to the terms of the ransom,---”

“Now, look you, my very worthy youth, whom,
next to captain Lafitte, I hold in all respect---and
for three reasons---”

“I will hear your reasons another time, Sebastiano---”
replied the youth, quickly---“You must
to Kingston to-morrow.”

Here a discussion of some length took place, in
which Sebastiano convinced his young friend, that,
on account of certain recent notorious captures, in
that vicinity, he would risk both his own, and the
necks of his men, and his vessel, if he approached
that port, as several armed cutters were already out
in search of him. Such was the cogency of his
arguments, that Théodore acquiesced; and immediately
explained to the ill-fated maiden the necessity
of adopting another course than that they
originally intended to pursue.

The schooner, therefore, under the orders of captain
Sebastiano, steered for one of the rendezvous of
Lafitte's squadron, before alluded to, situated at
the head of the bay of Gonzares, in the Island of
St. Domingo.

8. CHAPTER VIII.

A PIRATE'S DECK—A DUTCH BUCCANEER—CHASE—STORM
ENCOUNTER—A PRISONER.

The French goëlette, or tender, which bore the
fanciful name of EULIONE, having on board the
commander of the French frigate “Le Sultan,”
after separating from the larger vessel on gaining
the offing, sailed, as we have before mentioned,
southward, in the direction of Carthagena—while
the former steered easterly for St. Domingo.

The object of Count D'Oyley, in taking an opposite
course to that of his frigate, was to make surer
the chance of intercepting or overtaking the pirate
whom he sought, and who, he supposed, had sailed
for one of his two rendezvous in the West Indian
seas—an uninhabited island near Carthagena, or
the secluded bay on the west coast of St. Domingo.

With the speed of the wind the little vessel flew
over the water, promising, by her unequalled velocity,
soon to gain the advantage which the buccaneer
had obtained by many hours precedence. The

bosom of the young Frenchman swelled, as, glancing
over the side, he observed the rapid motion of
his vessel flinging the spray to her tops, and leaving
a long track of boiling foam astern. And his eye
passing over the decks lighted with pride and pleasure,
as it met the dark tiers of guns on either side,---
the circles of muskets and boarding pikes around
the masts---racks of cutlasses and pistols lining the
quarter-rail—and upon the gallant band of seamen
whom he had picked from his frigate for this expedition,
on account of their experience, fearlessness,
and fidelity.

Leaving the impatient lover on his pursuit of
retributive justice, we will precede him to the shores
of the Spanish main, toward which his vessel was
rapidly borne.

Noon held her burning sceptre over the southern
Carribbean sea, where our scene now opens, veiling
the tremulous outline of the distant hills of St. Martha
in a gauze-like haze, while the sun, in his high
tropical altitude, was reflected with dazzling brilliancy
in the glassy bosom of the waters.

There was not breath enough to toss a curl on
a maiden's brow. The surface of the ocean was
undimpled, and sleepily rolled its polished waves
towards a coral reef, dotted here and there with
clumps of low mangroves, upon which they broke
with a sudden roar—sometimes leaping quite over
them, and mingling with the calm waters of the lagoons,
which stretched between them and the beach
of the main land.

Beyond this reef, and nearly opposite to the St.
Domingo gate, rising and falling upon the swells
with a swan-like motion, a xebec, or three-masted
schooner rode at anchor. Every spar and line of
rigging was painted upon the water with the accuracy
of reality. Each mast consisted of a single
black stick, crossed obliquely by a long pliant yard,

upon which was brailed closely up a lateen sail
suspended about half the altitude of the mast from
the deck. The hull, which was about ninety feet
long, was constructed with great breadth of beam,
and flush from stem to stern. Like her spars it
was painted black, with the exception of a narrow
ribbon of red paint drawn around it just below the
gunwale. From her unusual breadth amidships,
the eye would be deceived in estimating her tonnage
too large, but the extreme sharpness of her
bows more than qualified this unusual width, and
while it contradicted her apparent burden—promised
unusual speed.

Two large boats were lashed in the centre, and a
smaller one hung on each quarter. Directly amidships,
and just before the mainmast, on a revolving
carriage, was mounted a long gun, while in sockets
sunk in the frame-work around it were several
thirty-eight pound shot—a size proportioned to the
vast calibre of the piece. Besides this frowning emblem
of war---on either side of the vessel, and half
run out of the ports, which were thrown open for
free circulation of the air, were three cannon of different
calibre and metal---two of them being cast
out of brass and originally intended for heavy field
artillery, the others of iron, carrying eighteen and
twenty-four pound shot. The arms of Spain were
impressed on one, while the crown of Great Britian
and the eagle of the United States, were stamped in
bold relief upon the remainder.

The gun carriages were constructed of heavy
live oak, stained red, and rigged with chains and
cordage to keep them in their places. Bags and
hammocks were stowed away in the nettings in the
bulwarks, which were the height of a man's head
and impervious to musket balls. A forecastle, main-hatchway
and companion-way were the only passages
of communication between the main-deck and

lower. Around the first were congregated, under a
canvass awning, spread from side to side of the vessel,
about a score of men, in whose harsh and varied
countenances a physiognomist might recognize individuals
of many nations. Although the dark
hair, gleaming eye, and full red lip of the Spaniard,
the swarthy cheek and inferior face of the Portuguese
showed what countries they most numerously
represented.

Some of these were enjoying a siesta after their
rude meal, which they had just shared together—
others were reclining in various easy and indolent
postures upon the deck, with segars between their
lips, laughing and jesting or playing tricks upon
their sleeping fellows. One was kneeling near the
windlass, muttering in a low tone, and lazily fingering
a string of black glass beads, held in his hands,
while one or two, with folded arms, paced moodily
and silently the little clean space under the awning
not occupied by their shipmates.

These men were dressed nearly alike, in blue,
checked, cotton, or canvass trowsers, bound round
their waists by a red, blue, or white sash—and without
shoes or stockings. Conical caps, of various
colours, in which red and blue predominated, were
worn upon their heads—lying beside them on the
deck, or thrust into their bosoms. Some of them
wore woollen shirts of the same colour of their caps,
with the sleeves rolled up, and fastened at the neck
with gold and silver buttons, or else thrown back
over their shoulders exposing broad shoulders and
Herculean chests. Every man was armed with a
long double-edged knife with a broad blade, stuck
without a sheath in his girdle, upon the haft of
which, as they slept, walked or conversed, their
hands mechanically rested. For, in a community
like theirs, where a hasty word is spoken at the
price of the blood of the speaker, it became necessary

that each one should bear upon his person, at
all times the means of defence and offence.

Heavier weapons, in the shape of cutlasses and
pikes, stood around the masts, and in other convenient
places, ready for their grasp in the moment
of battle.

Under another awning, spread over the larboard
gang-way, and shading the space occupied by two
of the guns, was assembled another and larger
group, whose dress and mode of passing the sultry
hours of mid-day were similar.

On the opposite side of the deck, without the
shade, and in the sun, lay a negro upon his back,
with a grotesque expression upon his ungainly features,
playing with a monkey, which he held struggling
in the air, and who had been curtailed of his
natural and most ornamental appendage, whilst,
undoubtedly for the preservation of symmetry, his
ears had been shorn after the same fashion.

Half a dozen boys, white, black and yellow,
whose heads displayed all the varieties of carroty,
woolly, and strait black hair, were gathered about
him, their coal black eyes sparkling with glee.
Each of these neophytes to the trade of buccaneering,
was naked to the waist, from which depended
an apron, or a pair of loose trowsers, (abridged,) from
dimensions adapted to men of much larger growth.
Small, sheathed knives, which were stuck in the
belt, or string confining their lower and only teguments,
were oftener in use for malice or mischief,
than the broader blades of the men.

One of these youths, whose robes would have
required much enlargement to rival the primitive
fig leaf—was occupied in pricking, by way of practice
in his profession, the hams of the suspended
monkey; and delighting himself, and his particoloured
companions, in the contortions and yells of
the animal.

Farther aft, was spread an awning, whose scolloped
edges, bound with some bright-red material,
indicated due consciousness of that superiority
which appertains either to the quarter-deck of a
ship of the line, or a pirate-schooner. Beneath this
gay awning reclined various individuals, whose
rank on board the schooner entitled them to protection
from the sun farther astern, than the other less-favoured
occupants of the vessel.

From the stays, which on either side supported
the after or mizen-mast, was stretched, about three
feet from the deck, a hammock of net-work, in
which lay a heavily-framed man, whose breadth
of shoulders indicated great physical power, while
the rotundity of his short person betrayed the bon-vivant.
His head was large, and covered with red,
bushy hair; his complexion, naturally fair, was now
changed to a jocund red; his eyes, small, deep set,
and gray—his forehead fleshy, and his cheeks full,
and hanging; while the lower portion of his face,
drooped into that second, and pleasing fulness,
which bears the appellation of “double-chin.” A
pair of white jean trowsers, enveloped his rotund,
lower limbs---while a loose gingham coat, was
wrapped partially around his body. His height,
or rather length, as he lay in the open hammock,
appeared less than five feet, and judging from the
lines of years which graced his visage, and an
occasional tuft of gray hair, interspersed in the
burning bush, which covered his phrenological
organs, his age might have been a little above forty-five
or six.

At the time we introduce him to the reader, he
was lying with his face upwards, and one leg hanging
out of the hammock, smoking a long fantastic
German pipe, and idly watching the little blue
clouds, as they circled above his head, rolled along
beneath the awning, and floated astern, into the

outward air. A half-naked African waved over
him a large fan, made of the variegated feathers of
some gorgeous Mexican bird—whom he would
occasionally take his pipe from his mouth to curse,
for roughly blowing some more beautiful wreath,
which had won his eye---breaking into a host of
flickering clouds. The slave's skill, seemed to consist
in cooling the atmosphere around the head of
the smoker, without agitating the spiral wreaths
which were satisfactorily, and at regular intervals,
emitted from his large, vermillion lips.

On the deck, nearly under the hammock, reposed
two other figures, whose dress, and arms, which
they constantly wore, in connection with their
presence on the quarter-deck, indicated them to be
officers. A fourth figure, with dark and handsome
features, rendered unpleasing by an habitual, sinister
expression, with a form slender and athletic, calling
to mind one of the athletæ of ancient Greece---
with flowing white trowsers and loose gingham
frock, confined to his waist by a yellow silk sash---
which also secured pistols and a cutlass---leaned in
an easy attitude against the binnacle, his muscular
arms bared to the shoulder, and folded over his
breast, while the smoke of a segar curled unheeded
over his head. His eyes were habitually fixed
upon the northern horizon, visible between the
awning and the quarter rail, but without that consciousness
which indicated attention to any particular
object. All at once, they lighted up, and dilated,
while his brow was lowered over them, as though to
shade, and strengthen his vision---and with his head
and body advanced, he looked long and steadily,
towards one point of the horizon.

“Vat dat you shee, maat,” slowly interrogated the
corpulent personage in the hammock, as his eye, by
chance, detected the change in the attitude, and
manner of his officer. “No saail, mine Got---
heh!”

“A sail, I believe it is, captain---my glass here,
you black imps---jump!” he cried, and the troop of
urchins, leaving the monkey in the midst of his
martyrdom, sprung for the campanion-way, but
were distanced by the sans-culotte, who the next
moment placed the spy-glass in the hands of the
officer.

“A schooner, with a gaft top-sail, and top-gallant
mast---I can just see the peak of her main-sail!”
he said, after looking a moment through the instrument.

“Heh! dat shall pe Mynheer, captain Lafitte---
to pe shure! shee if dere pe royals?”

“She has none set---I can't well make out her
spars at this distance---but she brings a breeze with
her, whoever she be! her upper sails belly out
like —,” and looked round at the corporeal curvature
of his captain for an illustration, with a sly
smile of Castillian humour.

“None of dat, Mynheer Martinez, you are put a
strait spar---vereas I'sh am always under full top-shails,---to
pe shure. Tam dish hot climate---if haal
don't lay under dish tam Carribbean shee---den I'sh
neber ecshpect to shee it---it melts a maan down, like
trying out fat in de cook's kettlesh. Hugh, hugh,
hugh! it takes mine breat from out de body when
I'sh open mine mout, dis so tamn hot”—Puff, puff!---
“Dere! dat wash a purty curl, wid de ring in de middle
like de shmoke from de mout of de cannonsh,”
he exclaimed. Turning growlingly to the slave,
“Curse you, plack nigger, vat sall mak' you plow
in dis deble sortish style—I'll toss you ofer-poard to
mak' de breesh be coming—to pe shure.”

“I make her out now, distinctly,” said the first
officer---“she is a schooner of about seventy tons,
with fore-top-sail, and top-gallant-sail set. Caramba!
she is walking down this way with a bone in her
teeth.”

“Ho! there forward---stand by to get under weigh,
the breeze we have so long been wishing for is
coming upon us now, with a light heel---and moreover,
we are likly to have a breeze of long shot, by
the saucy looks of this stranger,” he added, as
before one of those sudden and strong winds, peculiar
to that climate, after a lengthened calm, the vessel
rapidly approached, showing a tier of ports on
her starboard side, which was next to them, out of
which the heads of five or six guns bristled, with a
very warlike air.

“Hah! vat ish dat you shays, maat,” exclaimed
the captain, with some quickness; “hol' dish hammock
tort, you Congee nigger, vilst I gets out---
Dere! vas dere ever such tamn hot vedersh---dish
teck is like de oven vat baked Shadrach, and his
brod'ren. Hugh!” and the portly commander of the
schooner standing upon his legs, after many ponderous
sighs, and irrelevant ejaculations, took the
glass from his mate, and looked steadily at the
advancing vessel.

“Mine Got, it ish true---he vill be carry ten kuns
in hish teck---to pe shure, and full of mansh,”---he
said, with energy, as the schooner now within two
miles of them, hauled her wind and stood towards
Carthagena, seen indistinctly in the distance
through the heated atmosphere, which danced with
a tremulous, wavy motion over every object. With
its silvery beach---battlements groaning with cannon,
its heavy towers, convents, and monasteries,
and surrounding eminences, strongly fortified, with
their sides dotted with picturesque villas, the city
with its surburbs, slept beneath the glowing noon,
in the silence of midnight.

The breeze now ruffled the surface of the water
around their vessel, breaking it into myriads of little
waves, which emulously leaped into the air, as
though to welcome its approach.

“Man the capstan; heave up the anchor!”
shouted the mate, sternly---and every sleeper sprung
to his feet, and every idler and jester became at once
active and serious.

The capstan soon flew merrily round, and at the
brails and halyards of the lateen sails, ready to obey
the orders of their officer, stood various parties of
the crew.

“Show the trading lugger,”---he added, and the
guns were hastily drawn in, and the ports closed, so
as to present a plain broad side to the stranger.

The anchor was soon hanging from the bows---
the triangular sails of each mast spread to the
breeze---the jib, which extended along the short
bowsprit, was hoisted, and the vessel bending low
before the wind, moved through the water with
increasing velocity.

“Shall we try him captain?” said the mate,
coolly, retiring to the quarter deck, after getting sail
on the schooner.

“Dry--vivty tyfils! Tamn! noting else sall be got
peside, from dish chap, put iron piscuit in te pread
pasket—to be shure,” said he sympathizingly, laying
a hand upon that important portion of his body---
“tyfil a pit sall ve dry him, Martinez.”

“Then, now we are under weigh, shall we steer
for Gonares?” he inquired.

“Yes, Mynheer Martinez—de hatches are as full
as an English-mansh”—

“Or a Dutchman's Captain!” interrupted Martinez,
with a wink to his junior in command.

“Letsh me shpeak Martinez,” grumbled the captain
good-humouredly. “or a Tutchmansh after
Chrishmash tinner—dere is no more room for de
more cargoesh—if we take more prishes—Put de
helm up for Gonaresh!”—

Obedient to the braces the sails swung round until
they lay nearly parallel with the length of the vessel

and close-hauled on the wind, lying down to
leeward, so that her gunwales dipped deep in the
water the vessel left the shores of Carthagena
behind her, and stood for St. Domingo.

She had sailed on this course but a short time,
when the stranger, who was standing in the opposite
direction, also changed his course hauling close
on the wind and running so as to intercept the buccaneer.

“Martinez, dish looksh shqually---one, two, drie,
vive guns on hish shide.” said the captain as he observed
this measure, “he ish a cruiser---ve musht
fight or show him our heelsh, and vy sall ve fight,
ven dere ish no purpose---ve can take no more
coods---put he vill, may pe, take ush---to pe shure!
It petter not pe fightings---Heh! Martinez”---

“As you say sir---I suspect he is in chase of our
vessel---we can hardly cope with him. Set the gaft
topsails, and hoist away the spencer,” he shouted;---
and this last sail, with three small triangular sails
stretched from the topmasts, which were of one piece
with the lower masts, now spread to the wind, gave
additional speed to the vessel. Groaning and straining
through every joint, she parted the green
waves before her, flinging them around her bows,
and promising to distance the other vessel, which
having the wind on the pirate, now rapidly neared
him.

It now became the object of the pirate to escape
from the armed vessel, which was evidently trying
to cut him off---to this end all his energies were now
directed. The vessels were rapidly approaching
the same point, which, once passed, the pirate felt
there was a chance of his escape.

As he was giving various orders to increase the
speed of the vessel by securing the guns, or changing
their position; and tightening the braces, the
stranger suddenly run up the French flag, and a

puff of smoke from the side of his vessel was immediately
followd by the report of a cannon, and the
skipping of a round shot across their wake, within a
few fathoms of the stern---

“Heh! vivty tyfils! he shpeaks mit de iron trumpet---Martinez,”
continued the captain with an energy
unlooked for in a man of his corporature---“ve
musht lame him---or dis nicht de tolphins vill eat a
goot supper, from the potty of Mynheer Jacob Getzendauner---to
pe shure!”

“Clear the starboard guns and double shot them
---stand ready to give him a broadside---Here Jacobo,
Andrea, Manuel! where are your ears? level that
long gun and let him have it from stem to stern as
we cross his bows, make a clean sweep through
him!---now stand ready all!”---shouted the young
Spaniard to whom his captain seemed to have resigned
the more active duties of command; and springing
upon the hammock nettings he watched with
a deliberate eye the motions of the approaching
vessel.

The pirate was standing nearly due north, close
hauled upon the wind, which was from the north-west,
and running at the rate of about eight knots,
while the French schooner was standing nearly in a
south-western course, also close-hauled with every
thing drawing endeavouring to keep to the windward
of the pirate, who was using every effort
to prevent the success of this nautical manœuvre.
They were within less than half a mile of each
other when the mate sprung upon the quarter-rail to
watch the favourable moment to disable his opponent.---The
faces of the men and officers in uniform
upon the decks of the strange schooner were easily
discernable by him---and he observed that on board
of her every preparation was made for action.

“Can we cross her fore-foot,---sir? said he, turning

to his captain, who stood by with a face expressive
of some anxiety but more resolution---

“No---no Martinez---tish an impossible---if ve
letsh him go acrosh our cutvater he vill sink ush,
to pe shure---”

“Shall we give it to him?” inquired the Spaniard,
“it is our only chance!”

“Aye---hoisht avay de crosh and het, and tunder
mit de kuns.”

At his command a black flag, upon which was
painted a red cross, surmounted by a Death's head,
fluttered at the mast-head.

“Now fling open the ports---well aim each gun,
let go sheets and braces all!” he shouted, as the
Frenchman began to show his weather ports—
now she rights, give it to him---fire!” One after
another, in rapid succession, the guns of the starboard
broadside were fired at the schooner, and the
pirate had the satisfaction of witnessing her fore-topmast
fall over the side, cut in two by a shot. The
wounded vessel yawned and fell off from the wind,
whilst the pirate crew shouted like demons at their
success.

“Well done my men!---braces all-hard-a-weather!”
cried the mate, cheerfully.

Once more under steerage-way, the buccaneer
shot ahead and to windward of the chase, who,
wearing round, gave her a broadside which tore up
her forecastle deck, killing two men, breaking an
arm of one of the young apprentices before introduced
to the reader---and slightly injuring the bow-sprit.

The pirate now moved over the water with rapidity,
leaving his wounded pursuer far astern,
though still slowly in chase. With his glass he
could detect the men aloft repairing the rigging,
and setting the topmast while every other spar and

sail that could be made available was brought into
use.

Night found the vessels more than a league apart,
their repairs, completed, steering the same course,
and still the pursuing and pursued. The wind,
after the sun went down, gradually increased, and
at midnight a storm lashed the waters into foam.
The vessels were separated from each other in the
darkness, and their crews were engaged until day-break
in a battle with elements, instead of each
other. As the morning broke the gale abated,
and by the increased light the pirate saw his opponent
lying to within a third of a mile of him to
windward.

“All hands to make sail,” he shouted, but the
stranger had already discovered him, and was
spreading his canvass, and bearing down upon
him.

“Now we must fight captain!” he said to his
superior officer, who had just come to the deck--“we
have no chance of using our guns in this sea.---
Dios y St. Jago,” he hastily exclaimed, “they are
preparing to board us---Ho! there boarders, all!---
repel boarders!”---he shouted.

Cutlasses and boarding pikes were rapidly passed
from hand to hand along the decks---the men
stripped to their trowsers, placed their pistols in
their belts---and in three divisions at the bows, stern
and midships, headed by the captain; Martinez
and an inferior officer, they stood sullenly and
resolutely to receive their foe.---The sea was rolling
in large waves, over which the armed stranger
rode lightly, as he advanced to engage with the
pirate. The vessels were now within hail of each
other.

“Ho, the schooner, ahoy!” was borne across the
water upon the wind, and distinctly heard above the

surging of the sea---“Strike your flag or no quarter!”

“A Carthagenian cruiser!” replied Martinez, as
the flag of that state was displayed at the peak.

“What is that he says,” inquired Count D'Oyley,
who had hailed, to his young companion Montville,
who stood by his side---“a cruiser! a pirate, as his
well-shotted guns told us but last night.---Boarders
be ready---I may find here what I wish,” he added
to himself,” or a guide to the present rendezvous of
their chief---Lay her alongside!” he cried, as the
vessel came close to the pirate---“now grapple!”---
he shouted, in a loud energetic voice---and the vessels
came together with a dangerous shock.

Drawing his sword he waved it over his head,
shouting “Allons mes braves!” and bounding over
the bulwarks, he leaped with one bound upon
the deck of the pirate, followed by Montville.---Before
his men could equal his rapid movements, the
pirate's crew had discharged their guns on the side
next to the schooner, the recoil from which, and the
simultaneous shock of a huge wave, breaking upon
her stern, parted the two vessels with violence, and
a succeeding wave swelling to a vast height bore
them at a great distance apart.---The count was
engaged immediately hand to hand with the Spaniard---while
young Montville, was saved from
being run through the body in a dozen places, by
the interference of the captain, who disarmed him
by a blow of his cutlass, and grasping him, thrust
him down the companion-way into the cabin.

“Vasht dere, mine mensh!” he cried to the crew,
who were rushing upon the French officer; “vasht
dere---let Martinez here have dis pretty pit o' fight
to himself. A good poy is Martinez---let him fight
—to pe shure!” and while he spoke, the sword and
cutlass of the combatants rung as they interchanged
fierce and rapid blows.

“Hold!---are you Lafitte?” cried Count D'Oyley,
parrying the weapon of his antagonist.

“Yes, señor, I am Lafitte---if it please you!”
replied Martinez, eagerly, after an instant's hesitancy.

“Have at you, then---to the death!” cried the
count, raining the blows upon him with a skill and
energy which it required all his activity and presence
of mind to parry. The fight was long and
desperate---the eyes of the Spaniard flashed with a
snake-like brightness, while the countenance of the
Frenchman glowed with fierce and determined energy.
Three times had his sword passed through
the arm of the Spaniard, who, with a chivalry
worthy of a nobler cause, was willing to lose his life
as the personater of Lafitte, rather than confess
himself a less notable antagonist. Once had his
weapon gashed the breast of the Frenchman, when
the captain, who had with difficulty restrained the
buccaneers from rushing aft and cutting down the
stranger, knocked up their weapons.

“Dis vill pe petter stopped, Martinez---dish ish
mine prishoner---he vill mak de ranshom monish. I
vill tak your sword, Mynheer.”

The count, wounded, and weak from loss of
blood, surrendered it, and at the command of the
captain, was conducted by two of the crew into the
cabin.

The mate, hastily staunching the blood from his
slight wounds, looked over the side and saw the
enemy at a distance, with her rudder shot away,
tossed about at the mercy of the waves, and wholly
incapable of renewing the contest. He then gave
orders to make all sail for the rendezvous---and in a
few minutes the schooner stood on her former course,
under pressure of all her canvass.

9. CHAPTER IX.

Edwards.

PIRATE'S RENDEZVOUS—CAPTIVES—STANZAS—SCENE IN A GROTTO.

The scenery of the north-eastern portion of the
Gulf is varied by immense gorges, flanked by precipitous
cliffs, indented with caverns, many of which are
of great extent, sometimes penetrating into the bosom
of the rocky ridges several hundred feet. The
Cibao mountains, an elevated range, commencing
near Cape Espada, terminate at Cape St. Nicolas,
on the extremity of the most northern of the two
western tongues of the island. At this point the
main spine of the mountain separates into several
precipitous promontories, one or two of which end
abruptly at the sea-shore, over which they form precipices
many hundred feet in height.

These cliffs share the peculiar features of the wild
scenery of this region, and caverns, and rocky ravines,
nearly enclosed above, are excavated by the hand
of nature, or some convulsion of her empire, in great
numbers along their bases. The loftiest of these
Alpine branches, after running out an isolated mural
precipice into the sea, for more than half a league,

ends in a bluff about three hundred feet in height,
the edge of which, covered with rich woods, juts
several yards out over the perpendicular face, like a
stupendous roof. Beneath, the water was very deep
and clear, displaying, to one looking down from the
cave, thousands of many-coloured sea shells.

About twenty feet above the surface of the water,
the face of the rock receded, leaving a terrace, against
which a vessel might lie so closely, that one could
step from it on to her yards. This terrace was about
thirty feet broad, and upon it frowned a heavy gun
placed on a carriage. Beyond it opened the mouth
of a vast cavern, which, with many sinuosities,
penetrated far into the base of the cliff. The entrance
was irregularly formed, in shape somewhat
resembling a gothic gateway, though of gigantic
dimensions. In front of this entrance spread the
broad gulf of Gonares, which flowed unbroken
to within about half a mile of the cavern, where
it met, with a loud roar, two nearly parallel
ridges of high rocks, extending from the base of the
cliff, leaving a narrow, deep passage from the sea
for small vessels, quite to the foot of the rock, or vestibule
of the grotto beneath, in front of which, widening
into a small basin, it formed a safe and convenient
shelter.

This cavern had long been used by the buccaneers
as a general rendezvous---a repository for their
treasures, and a prison for those captives whom they
detained for the purpose of drawing ransom for their
liberation. Here also they resorted to repair their
vessels, and to receive the instructions of Lafitte,
who made this rendezvous of his fleet only second
to that of Barritaria. To this scene we now transport
our readers---about a week after the expedition
against the villa of Señor Velasquez.

The principal apartment of this grotto consisted
of an interior chamber, illuminated by a solitary

lamp, burning in a projecting shelf of the cave. It
was about forty feet in diameter, and nearly circular,
rising into a lofty dome, from the nave of which
hung a stalactic mass of open work, resembling a
huge chandelier---as it reflected in numerous brilliant
points the rays of the little lamp beneath.

Crystalized icicles, and innumerable fanciful
stalactic creations, hung around the chamber---pilasters
of the same beautiful material, terminating in
half-formed arches, stood out in fine relief from the
dark sides, united by delicate lattice-tracery. The
dome itself was carved, with the accuracy of architecture
into the richest fret-work. Shaded niches
were half concealed by exquisitely arranged folds
of thin plates of stalactite. The roof was open to
the blue sky, through which one or two trembling
stars could be seen glancing among the waving
foliage. Vast rocks lay upon the floor of the room,
fallen, apparently, from deep niches in the sides and
ceiling, while regular forms, like statues, pedestals,
and columns, either stood, or were strewed about the
chamber. At the extremity of the cave, a small,
glittering cascade of water gushed from a crevice
in the side, and with a monotonous sound, rung upon
the rocky pavement beneath, and after flowing over
it, like running glass, for a few feet, disappeared in
a deep pit opened in a recess of the cave, and could
be heard, after long intervals, reverberating in the
vast depths, as it leaped from shelf to shelf, till the
sound was lost in the bowels of the earth.

One side of the cave was covered by fantastic
stalactic drapery, which fell in a broad sheet to the
floor.

The only entrance to the cavern, before which
paced a sailor-sentinel, was narrow, and lighted near
the outside by a lamp, which had once hung in a
ship's cabin, suspended from the low ceiling. From
this passage branched others, for a short distance,

terminating sometimes in small rooms, at others in
deep pits and mere crevices in the rock. Many of
these branches, or lesser caverns, contained chests,
tables,chairs, arms, and garments, strewn about---
hammocks, cooking utensils, and other indications
of being occasionally occupied. Naval and military
weapons, with a few articles of ship furniture, were
scattered about the room, and bales of goods were
piled in recesses around the cavern.

In one of these recesses, terminated by a stalactic
sheet, almost transparent, dropped from the low
roof to the rocky pavement, and forming one side
of the niche, was spread a strip of rich carpet, strewn
with bamboo leaves, upon which reclined a figure,
half obscured in the gloom of the deeply-shaded
vault, buried in sound, but feverish sleep. His head
was uncovered, displaying a profusion of chesnut
hair; his brow was pale, and his eyelids and temples
were transparent from illness. His form was
partly wrapped in a dark blue cloak, upon the folds
of which rested his left arm, bandaged as though
to protect a wound. The rays of the lamp in the
larger chamber, half interrupted by the projecting
sides of the niche, fell obliquely across the upper
part of his face, leaving the lower portion in deep
shadow. A broken sabre and a shattered pistol lay
near him, the relics of a recent fierce conflict between
the prisoner, for such he was, and the young
Spaniard Martinez, his captor, in attempting to
escape from the cave.

There was a deep silence in the cave, uninterrupted
save by the breathing of the sleeper, which was
irregular, and occasionally the low rumbling of the
distant surf, reverberating along the passages, and
nearly lost before it came moaningly into the inner
chamber of the grotto.

Suddenly the silence was broken by a low voice,
apparently from some concealed recess, singing a

plaintive air. The words were Castillian, and
flowed from the lips of the invisible singer with
melancholy cadence.

The voice was soft and silvery in its tones, yet
the sleeper, like one on whom a finger is lightly

laid, started and opened his eyes as the first notes
fell upon his ear, and gazed wonderingly around
him, as if spell-bound, until the last tremulous notes
ceased, and silence reigned again throughout the
solemn vault.

“Do I dream—that voice!—it is hushed!—I
must be dreaming!” he exclaimed, starting with
energy and strength from his couch, and gazing
wildly around him “Ah! it was but a sweet
dream---this cave! this wounded arm---alas! I am
a prisoner! Kind heaven, I thank thee for this
happy dream!” he exclaimed, fervently. “And is
it indeed a dream?---may not her released spirit
have been hovering over me in my sleep, and soothing
my burning slumbers with that air I loved to
hear her sing on earth. Oh, blessed spirit!” he
fervently cried, under the influence of his fevered
imagination, dropping upon his knee, “if thou art
indeed near me, bless me with that angelic melody.
Sweet Constanza! if I may not see thee, let me
hear thy voice once more!”

“Who calls upon the name of Constanza?” fell
upon his ear, in the liquid and melancholy accents
of the song.

“Mon Dieu! it is---it is she!” he exclaimed;
identity of circumstances, and places, and recollection
of the causes which brought him there, suddenly
returning. “It is---it is she---Constanza!
Constanza! speak! are you there?” he cried, turning
to the side of the niche from which the voice
proceeded, and placing his lips to the thin stalactic
wall. “It is D'Oyley that addresses you!”

“Alphonse!---my own Alphonse!” she exclaimed,
her voice trembling between hope and fear;
“can it be you?---no! no! Alphonse is far, far
away, and knows not the fate of his poor Constanza!”

“God of heaven! it is indeed Constanza!” exclaimed

the count, assured. “Dear Constanza, I
have come to release you---it is your own Alphonse!
and no other! Is there no way of getting to you?”
he cried, suddenly endowed with almost supernatural
strength, at the same time eagerly seeking
some mode of ingress to that part of the cavern
where she was evidently imprisoned. There was
no reply from within to his anxious inquiry.

“Tell me, Constanza,” he continued, raising his
voice; “Do you know the passage that leads from
without to your apartment? Direct me, and I will
pass out---master my guard---enter, and rescue you!
Speak---dear Constanza!” he earnestly added; but
the echoes of his own voice through the hollow
cavern, only replied to his eager words.

`She must have fainted, or---Heaven be blessed!
here is a passage!” he added, with delight, as his
eye glanced from the stalactic drapery separating
the vaults, to a heavy iron pike which lay upon the
pavement; “this shall do my purpose!” and seizing
the weapon, he struck with violence upon the transparent
and brittle surface of the wall, and repeating
the blow, with additional force, the stalactic sheet
gave way, broken and shattered like ice. In a few
moments, under his heavy strokes, a breech was
made through the partition, and a stream of light
passed through the aperture into his part of the
cave. Inspired to greater exertions by this success,
he redoubled his efforts. But finding his strength
failing before he could effect an opening sufficient
to admit his body, he cast his eyes round for some
more powerful agent and they rested upon a broken
spar leaning against the side of the outer cavern.
This he grasped, and with all his remaining strength,
bore it heavily against the breech, when, after repeating
his efforts, a large mass fell inward and
left a broad opening. With an exclamation of joyful

surprise, he sprung through the passage into the
apartment.

It was an immense chamber, dimly lighted by a
lamp, suspended, in chains, from the low ceiling.
The walls, where they were not stuccoed with grey
stalactic incrustations, were black. He paused a
moment at the entrance, to give his vision power to
perceive, through the mysterious half-illumined
darkness, the dimensions and details of the vault.

Through a large crevice above, he saw, faintly
shining into the aperture, the moon, which, probably
associated with the thoughts of her lover,
suggested the song he heard. There appeared one
inlet to the apartment, on the opposite side, which
was now closed by a heavily barred door. In the
centre of the chamber, under a kind of canopy
made of canvass, was spread a rug, dyed of many
brilliant colours. An old negress sat upon her
heels, at the side of it, fast asleep, yet waving over
the unoccupied carpet, a tuft of feathers. A basket
of fruits, and a silver basin of spring water, stood
near her, and various costly articles for the toilet,
and a clasped missal and a guitar, lay upon a velvet
cushion, placed at the head of the mat.

There was no other furniture in the vast cavern,
which was silent and desolate—its distant extremities
scarcely perceptible in the perpetual darkness
which reigned there.

“Where has she disappeared?” exclaimed the
lover, as his eye surveyed these details, without
meeting the object he sought. Springing into the
chamber, he started! as, lying by the side of a
fallen stalactic pillar, he saw the lifeless form of the
Castillian maiden.

He kneeled by her side, and placed his lips upon
her own. They were scarcely warm with life, and
the throbbing of her breast was faint, and her pulse,

as he pressed his finger upon her wrist, was like
the dying vibration of a harp-string. Raising her,
he bore her to the canopy, and placed her upon the
humble couch, which, by the kindness of Theodore,
had been placed in the chamber, awakened
the old negress, and, with her aid, after a long time,
restored her to consciousness.

“Blessed Maria! where am I?” faintly inquired
the maiden, as she gazed around her.—“And
did I hear his voice—can it be real!—oh! it was
too much!—too much joy!”—and she looked
eagerly up into the face of the negress.

“Juana, is it only you?” she added, in a disappointed
tone. “Of what was I thinking?” And
again she closed her eyes, as if endeavouring to
recal some pleasing vision. “Did you not hear a
voice, Juana? It was his,—yes! it must have
been his! I thought it Lafitte's—he can speak
like him, when he will, but it was his. D'Oyley's!
my own Alphonse's!”

“Alphonse is near you, dear Constanza! look
up,” said the count, and she felt her hand pressed
ardently, while a warm kiss was imprinted upon
her lips.

Opening her eyes, and fixing them full upon her
lover, who had retired a little, when animation first
returned, lest his sudden presence, like the sound
of his voice, should again throw her into insensibility.

“Is it, indeed, Alphonse?” she joyfully exclaimed,
and, for a few moments, the lovers remained
locked in each other's arms.

“What,” she at length said, “have I not suffered!”

“I know it. I know all, Constanza! but, let us
think of escape,” he added---“Can you sit up?”—
and raising her from the mat, sat beside her upon
the cushion.

“Oh, what have I not suffered!” she repeated,
leaning her head upon his shoulder, and bursting
into tears. “I know not how, amidst all the dreary
scenes I have passed through, I have retained my
reason. And yet I live! and bless thee! dear
Maria! all I love on earth, is by my side—my own
Alphonse!” And she pressed him to her bosom,
as if she feared he would again be separated from
her.

“And still, my Constanza! in all these wild
and fearful scenes—surrounded by such beings---in
the power of such men---still, my Constanza? Forgive
me, sweet one! but if you have suffered
wrong, dearly shall you be revenged!”

“Constanza is still the Constanza you left her!”
she cried, with emotion, while the rich blood mounted
to her cheek, as she hid her face in his bosom;
“although a prisoner, I have been treated with
honour,” and, as she spoke, truth and innocence
were written upon her pure brow, too plainly to be
misconstrued---and, clasping her in his arms, he
exclaimed, “Too much happiness! Protector of
the innocent!” he added, looking upward, “I
thank thee!”

We will briefly pass over the story Constanza
related to her lover, in which she detailed the incidents
connected with her first capture from her father's
roof---her liberation by the pirate---her second
capture by one of his vessels, and her landing, the
day before, at the cave. She also informed him
of the departure of the vessel, which captured her,
on another expedition---spoke of her lonely and desolate
situation in the cavern, whither she was conveyed
on leaving the vessel, and, in grateful terms,
mentioned the kindness of young Théodore, who
visited her occasionally, and had shown those
attentions to her comfort, with which she was surrounded,

and alsosecured to her, not withstanding the
objections of the pirate, Sebastiano, the attendance of
old black Juana; who, with a fidelity, peculiar to
the negro, had never left her from the time of her
capture.

10. CHAPTER X.

Residence in the West Indies.

PLAN OF ESCAPE—A SURPRISE—FIGHT WITH AN AMERICAN
CRUISER—LAFITTE.

The night had far advanced before the Castillian
maiden completed her relation.

“Dearest Constanza, how much you have passed
through! and this Lafitte---he has magnanimity of
soul, which, in a man of his lawless character, surprises
me. But men, however lost to virtue, are
never wholly depraved. The heavenly spark will
yet linger in the heart, though hid from the eyes of
men, and now and then will break suddenly out
into flame.

I must meet this man---there is a nobleness about
him that captivates me, and the more so, that it
was unlooked for. Now that you are safe, dearest
Constanza, my revenge is gone---I would know
and redeem this extraordinary man. But,” he
added quickly, “let us escape from this fearful
spot. He is not here to control the wild beings that
surround us. There are several boats lying in the
basin. Once outside---we can seize one of them,

and a few hours sail, will take us to the Mole, near
Cape St. Nicholas, where we shall be safe from pursuit.
This Théodore, of whom you speak so
warmly, will he not favour our escape?”

“Ask him not, Alphonse---he would not refuse.
Ask him not---although his benefactor be an outlaw,
let us not tempt him to betray him. I would
rather wait the return of Lafitte, than implicate
this youth in our escape.”

“You are right, noble girl! There is,” he continued
in a low, eager tone “but a single sentinel,
at the mouth of the grotto, and here are weapons;”
he exclaimed, with joyful surprise, as his eye rested
upon a pair of pistols left by Théodore, “and loaded
too! with these, and this pike, I can overcome
all opposition. Come Constanza, my brave one!
this shall be the last trial of your fortitude. Lean
upon my arm—heavier! the occasion has given
me back my full strength. Juana, will you go
with us—or stay with the pirates?”

“Ol' Juana go wid young buckra lady. If she
be nigger she lub de lily 'ooman. Ol' Juana neber
leab her if massa say.”

“Take up that basket of fruit, and this carpet and
cushion, to place in the boat and follow then, good
Juana,” he said to her, placing the pistols in his
belt.

Then conducting Constanza, through the breach
he had made in the wall, he led her into the chamber
he had occupied.

“And here was your prison!” She said with
feeling---“how lonely you must have been here, and
wounded too! But blessed be the kind Maria for
this meeting! If we escape not---I can die cheerfully
in your arms. Happy thought! If we fail
in our purpose, we can die together. Oh let us
hasten, Alphonse!”

The count, lingered a moment to remove the

lamp from the wall. “Here Juana,” he said, giving
it to the slave, “go before with this light, we
will follow some distance behind you in the darkness.
The sentinel will perhaps let you pass to
the outside, or if he stops you, to ask any questions,
draw him aside and so glare the light upon
his eyes, that we may pass him unseen. Have you
tact enough for it.”

“Hi! yes massa, Juana un'stand ebery ting---she
know how mak fool ob Gaspàr.”

The faithful slave, her singleness of heart singularly
preserved in the rude life she had passed---
whom the gentleness of Constanza had devoted to
her interest---moved silently in advance, through the
narrow passage, which after many windings, opened
upon the terrace. The count, followed at a short
distance, so as to be invisible in the shadow cast by
the intervening person of the slave---the trembling
Constanza leaning upon his arm, which
passed around her waist, supported her drooping
form. Solitude reigned in silence around them.
Solitary cells branched out on either side, whose
gloom, the rays of the lamp could not penetrate.

The walls were encrusted with gray stalactite or
black, and covered with deep mould. As they
advanced, the passage became narrower, and the
roof descended within reach of their hands. All
at once they entered a large dome, open to the
sky—a hundred feet above them, waved heavily in
the night winds, the branches of trees, overhanging
the verge—thin white clouds drifted along the sky,
and burning afar off, here and there appeared a
star.

“Oh that we were as free as those clouds!” exclaimed
Constanza, gazing upward at the lovely
scene. “How happy I shall be to behold the blue
heavens once more, and feel that I am free. Oh!
that dismal cavern! To-night I awoke and the

moon was shining down upon me, through a small
crevice in the ceiling. It fell full upon my face,
and I felt it was the augury of happiness. The
song you taught me, and say you love to hear me
sing, came involuntary to my lips---and I had
hardly ceased when I heard your voice, and sprung
at the sound---and when I reflected a moment, I
feared it was not yours; but, when assured of it,
the tide of joy was too great! Oh the joy with
which my heart bounded when I saw you bending
over me!”

“Dearest Constanza!” he exclaimed, pressing
her to his heart.

During this brief conversation, they had traversed
the pavement of the dome and entered a
dark narrow passage, which, after a few steps, grew
broarder and higher, and the cool wind came circling
past them, from without.

“Hold Juana!” he called in a suppressed voice,
we are now near the mouth—do you reccollect my
instructions?” he inquired, as the negress obeyed
him. “Hark! what is that—a gun---another---a
cannonading! Heaven avert danger! Constanza
my dearest one! be not alarmed!” he said, feeling
the form of the maiden shrink and tremble, as the
loud reports fell upon her ear---“exert all your firmness
for now we need it,” he added, cheerfully and
encouragingly, as he warmly pressed her hand,
and, parting the rich hair, he imprinted a kiss upon
her brow.

“I will—I will---Alphonse---it was but a momentary
weakness---I will nerve myself for this hour of
trial, I will be worthy of you.” “Thank you, dearest---now
remain here in this niche, with your faithful
Juana, while I go and reconnoitre. Nay, do not
be alarmed, I shall not expose myself to danger. I
cannot forget that your life and happiness depend
upon my caution. I will be with you in a moment,”

and rapidly as the darkness would permit,
feeling his way with his pike, he advanced towards
the entrance of the cave.

The firing still continued, and every succeeding
report appeared nearer. Suddenly a ray of light,
pencilled along the wall, caught his eye and turning
an abrupt angle, a lamp suspended above him,
glared brightly upon his face. Starting back into
the shadow of the projecting rock, he looked cautiously
forward and saw, although at some distance,
the mouth of the cave, beyond which, was a glimpse
of the moonlit bay---and the figure of a man, relieved
against the silvery sheen of the sea, standing
upon a projecting rock, far from the entrance of the
grotto. This he concluded must be the guard, who
had left his post attracted by the cannonading, with
which, was now mingled the firing of musketry,
and the shouts of combatants.

The officer passed hastily under the lamp, and
approached the entrance with a noiseless footstep.
Within a few feet of the exterior, was a shelf
elevated the height of a man above the floor. This
he lightly ascended, fearing to emerge into the
moonlight, where the sentinel might observe him.
From this point, thrown into shade by the overhanging
arch of the cave, he obtained a view of
the strait which led from the base of the cliff,
between lines of rocks to the open sea.

About a mile from the shore, clouds of white
smoke rested upon the water, from which could be
seen the sails and spars of a large vessel, apparently
a brig, above which rolled dense volumes of smoke,
accompanied by the roar and flash of cannon.
Nearer the shore, and just entering the narrow
avenue which led from the sea into the basin, at the
foot of the cave, was a large schooner under press
of sail, occasionally discharging a gun at the other
vessel, which appeared in chase of her.

As the count climbed to the shelf, the cannonading
ceased, the smoke rolled away over the
water to the leeward shore, and circling up the cliff
settled upon their summits, and the clear moonlight
shone quietly upon the scene, whitening the canvass
of the approaching vessel, which was now passing
up the strait. The large vessel was discovered
lying to, and three boats apparently filled with armed
men---for the light glanced from many musket
barrels and cutlasses, as the boats pulled silently
and rapidly into the shore.

“A buccaneer chased by a cruiser!” he exclaimed.
“Heaven grant she may be captured. There is a
better chance of our escape than I looked for---if victory
side with the right.”

The schooner now approached so near the termination
of the long rocky passage, that the voices on
board reached his ears, with the sound of hasty feet
upon her deck, the creaking of rigging, and the
rushing of the water, as she ploughed it up before
her. He watched her until she almost came under
the cliffs, so that the tops of her masts were level
with his eye, when she bore up into the basin at the
base of the rock, and was laid with great skill
alongside its perpendicular face. Loud voices of
men mingled with fierce oaths and execrations, and
groans of wounded men rose tumultuously from
below.---

“Ho, there! Gaspàr! The rock, ho!” shouted
a stern voice---“Are you asleep?---bring the gun to
bear upon the hindermost boat, and discharge it.”

Gaspàr who had deserted his post for a moment,
to witness the chase, sprung to the platform and
swinging the piece round, levelled it,---then rushing
into the cave, and passing directly under the
count, he seized a match---lighted it at the distant
lamp, and returning, applied the flaming rope to the

loaded piece.—A deafening report followed, and the
nearest boat became at once a scene of confusion,
while shrieks and loud voices filled the air.

“Bravely done, my good Gaspàr!” said a man
who, ascending the rigging of the schooner, and
stepping along the fore-top-sail-yard, sprung upon
the terrace.

The count, as the figure of the stranger was relieved
against the sky, thought he had never seen
so commanding a person, so much muscular power
united with such grace and activity.

“This must be Lafitte!” he exclaimed, mentally.
The individual who attracted his attention turning
at the moment, the moon shone full upon his face,
displaying his fine aquiline features---his dark eye,
and brown cheek.

“It is indeed he! That face and form can belong
to no other,” said he mentally, drawing himself farther
within the shadow of the rock, that he might
observe, unseen, the movements of the buccaneers.

The pirate had hardly ascended to the platform
before he was followed by a dozen of his crew, who,
with astonishing rapidity, mounted the rigging after
him, each man heavily armed, and many of them
wild and fierce-looking men---nearly as brown and
as naked as savages.

“Ho, there below!” shouted their leader. “Bring
the guns to bear on those boats, and rake them as
they come up the passage.”

The boats, one of which had evidently been
struck by the shot from the gun fired by Gaspàr,
rapidly advanced, although the one injured by the
ball and which had taken the lead, was now laboriously
pulling on last of all.

They had yet some distance to row directly in
range of the gun on the platform, and exposed to the
fire of the pirate's schooner, which was drawn up

before it, presenting with her broadside facing the
enemy, a formidable battery.

“Let them come within pistol shot!” exclaimed
the leader, “then wait the word---Aim every piece at
the stern of each boat---Powder and balls here, for
this gun,---charge her briskly, men! and with double
shot---Ho, the Gertrude!” he shouted, looking down
upon the deck of his vessel---“think you have men
enough on board, Ricardo, to hold her---if too hard
pressed retreat and join us---they are sending
another boat from the brig---we shall have enough
to do—be cool and firm,—remember all of you, we
fight at an advantage, and no man will forget he
fights for his head.”

“Fire, Carlos!” he cried in a loud voice after
giving his orders, and disposing his men on different
parts of the platform, and around the gun. “Sink
that nearest boat, and you shall command the
schooner.”

Half a dozen flashes gleamed above the rock,
and the whole broadside of the schooner, which commanded
the whole breadth of the channel, was discharged
at once. As soon as a cloud of thick
smoke which rolled up before the platform was
b'own along the cliff—the pirate bent an eager eye
upon the boats, which, still to his astonishment,
approached uninjured, and with renewed velocity.

“Holy devils! who aimed those guns,” he shouted
in a voice of thunder.—By the God that made
you, men! you shall rue such boy's play. Away
from this gun!”—he shouted, sweeping a circle
around him with his cutlass—as he sprung to the
gun, and with a single hand, wheeled it to the
verge and depressed it upon the leading boat. Then,
snatching a match from the hand of one of his men,
he applied it to the powder.

“Ha! blessed St. Antonio,” he exclaimed, as a
loud crash, and shouts, and yells, followed the

report;—and the smoke drifting away, he saw a
score of men struggling in the water, and clinging
to the oars and fragments of their shattered boat.

“Fire upon them, men,” he shouted, “makey our
pistols ring merrily—one more broadside, Ricardo,
and I forgive the last,” he cried, with exultation in
his voice and manner. But the other boats were
too near for the large guns to bear upon them, as
emerging from the straits, they rapidly approached,
one on the quarter, and the other on the bows
of the schooner. Those belonging to the last boat
who were not shot in the head as they swam, were
either picked up by the other boats, or gained the
rocks on one side of the basin, or with uncooled
daring, reached the schooner just as the remaining
two boats struck her side.

With the courage of lions, the, till now, passive
men, leaped from their boats, and poured over the
vessel's side, in spite of the desperate struggles of the
buccaneers, to hurl them over into the water. In a
few seconds the deck of the schooner exhibited a
scene of fearful carnage. The pirates were overpowered
by the superior numbers of their opponents,
and began to give way. Their chief who had his
hand upon a stay, and was about descending to endeavour,
to turn the tide of battle, witnessing the
unequal contest, paused and shouted to them to
mount, and leave the vessel to the enemy.—All at
once the rigging was alive with the pirates, who
ascended, before their astonished foes, with often
practised activity, and threw themselves from the
yards upon the terrace.

“Up men, follow them!” cried the leader of the
party who had boarded the vessel—“never let American
tars be outdone by those cowardly Spanish
cut-throats!” and he sprung into the rigging as he
spoke, rapidly followed by his band; and ascending,
with reckless daring, he gained the topmast cross-trees,

crossed the yard, cutlass in hand, and sprung
upon the terrace into the midst of his foes, before
his real character was discovered.

“Over with him!” cried a dozen voices. “Heave
him into the sea!” and a host of cutlasses were
brandished about his head. But he was so rapidly
seconded by his men, who leaped from the yards
upon the rock as fast as they could follow one
another, that the pirates had not time to deal him
a fatal blow, before each one found himself in mortal
combat with an American sailor.

Long and bloody was the fight. Living men
were hurled upon the deck of the vessel below with
terrific violence, or into the deep flood beneath.
Blood flowed like water, and the cries, groans, and
shouts of the combatants rose wildly in the air, multiplied
into a thousand echoes among the cliffs. The
pirates numbered about fifty, and the force of the
Americans was nearly equal. The deck of the vessel
was deserted, save by a solitary figure crawling
about; and wounded and slain men were locked in
the deadly embrace in which they had fallen from
the cliff, and limbs and bones were strewed in great
numbers through the vessel. The fight raged
fiercely directly in front of the cavern, and the
pirates at last, hotly pressed, retreated to its mouth.

Here their leader, whose form the count had seen
like the genius that directed the battle, whenever the
fight raged hottest, whose voice of command and
encouragement was heard above the din of the conflict,
and whose arm carried death wherever it fell.
Many of his men had fallen around him, yet he remained
cool and undaunted; and collecting his followers
about him, he slowly retreated down the terrace
to the entrance of the cave.

“Press him hard---drive him to his den, my
hearties!” shouted the officer who had first ascended
the rigging, and who, through the whole conflict

had fought with that daring and unabated energy
for which American sailors are distinguished.

The terrace was strewed with the dead and dying;
and Lafitte, with half the original number of his
men, stood near the mouth of the cavern, fighting
hand to hand with the officer, who had sought him
out, like a tiger at bay.

The count had remained in his concealment a
witness of the fight, until the retreat of the pirates
towards the mouth of the cavern, just within which
he stood. As they filled the entrance, full of alarm
for Constanza, whom he had left in the grotto, he
suddenly sprung from the elevated station upon
which he stood during the fight, on to the floor of
the cave, and flew towards its interior. But the
noise he made alarmed the buccaneers, who turned
and gazed upon his retreating figure with astonishment.

“We are surprised!” shouted several voices, and
two or three of the pirates darted after him, and before
he could pass round the angle in the passage,
near which the lamp was suspended, he was compelled
to turn upon his pursuers and defend his life.
Two of the pirates assailed him at once, and he had
only his pike to parry the blows of their cutlasses,
when a thrust of his weapon through the sword arm
of one of them caused him to drop his cutlass, which,
with an exclamation of joy, the count seized, and
rained blows upon his unwounded antagonist, whom
he soon disabled. But before he could avail himself
of this advantage, he was assailed by others of the
band, who, on hearing the cry that they were taken
in the rear, left the mouth of the cave, and turned
their blades upon their new enemy.

The passage was narrow, scarcely admitting the
wielding of their weapons with full effect. At this
point the fight now became desperate. Driven into
the cave by their opponents, and finding their way

obstructed in the rear, the buccaneers fought like
fiends. Five of them fell beneath the cutlass of the
count, who, fearing the fatal consequences of their
entrance to Constanza's safety, and aware that his
own life also was at stake, and perhaps actuated by
a desire to second the attack of the American sailors,
fought with the power and effect of an armed phalanx
in his single arm.

The American officer had fallen severely wounded
before the vigorous attacks of the outlaw, and
leaving the less distinguished of his antagonists to
his men, the victor turned upon the daring stranger,
who, single-handed, stood defending the narrow passage.

“Santo Diablo! whom have we here? Give back,
men—give back! he has sent enough of you to the
devil;” and treading over the dead bodies of his
men, who had fallen by the hand of the desperate
Frenchman, he shouted, “Let me cross blades
with this stranger,” aiming, as he spoke, a blow at
the head of the officer, which was parried and returned
with the skill of a master of the weapon.

For several seconds their rapidly clashing weapons
rung against each other, flashing fiercely in
the light of the lamp suspended above their heads.

The count, weak from his former wounds, and
bleeding from fresh ones, soon began to show signs
of exhaustion. His opponent discovered this, and
changing his mode of fighting, used all his skill to
disarm him and take him prisoner.

“Surrender, sir—it is madness to contend against
such odds,” cried the pirate. The only reply he
received was a stroke from the count's cutlass, which
nearly cleft the thick cap he wore through to his
head. Enraged, the pirate raised his weapon,
throwing all his muscular power into his arm for a
decisive blow, when a wild shriek rang through
the vault, and Constanza suddenly appeared before

them with a terrified eye, her luxuriant tresses
dishevelled and floating over her shoulders, and her
mantle disarranged in her struggles to break away
from her faithful attendant, who would have held
her.

The pirate started at the shriek and figure of the
maiden, indistinctly seen in the obscurity of the
cavern, and suddenly arrested his weapon, but too
late to withhold the blow, which descended with
half its original force upon the defenceless head of the
count. He staggered and fell into the arms of Constanza,
who, with an eye in which timidity had
given place to resolution, caught his head upon her
bosom, over which sprinkled the warm blood of her
lover, and erecting her figure to its full height, with
her disengaged arm, she drew a pistol from his belt,
and levelled it at the heart of the buccaneer. The
motion brought her brow under the full light of the
lamp, and he, with an exclamation of surprise, as
he recognized, in those full features, stamped with
heroic energy and woman's self-devotion, the fair
Castillian, for whom, but a few days before, he had
made magnanimous sacrifice of his love.

“Doña Constanza! can it be!” he cried, in
amazement. Then instantly changing his tone,
he laid his hand upon his heart, and said, with a
voice of emotion and humility, “Fire, lady! thus
shall be expiated my crime!”

The pistol dropped from her hand---“Lafitte!”
she exclaimed, after an instant's silent surprise,
during which doubt and confidence struggled within
her bosom. “Oh, what have you done? This is
your bloody deed. Help, help, or he will die in my
arms!” and tearing her mantilla, she attempted to
staunch the blood which flowed freely from a slight
cut in his head.

“Forgive! forgive! lady!” cried the chief, springing
to her assistance. “Leave this wounded stranger

to me---those shouts tell me the enemy are retreating.
Go, señora, I will attend you; such a scene
as this is not for your presence. Leave him to my
care---I see you feel an interest in him!---that is
enough for me-- he shall be cared for as if he were
a brother. Nay, nay,” he added, suddenly changing
countenance; “as if he were Constanza Velasquez,”
and he spoke the last words tenderly.

She resigned him to his arms, and cried earnestly,

“Bear him into the inner cave. The light, Juana!”
and with eager footsteps she preceded the outlaw,
who bore the wounded officer in his arms. Entering
the cave originally occupied by the count, and
directing him to be laid on the bamboo rushes in the
niche, she kneeled beside him, and forgetful of the
presence of the chief, seemed wholly absorbed in her
wounded lover.

By the activity of Juana, the presence of mind
and experience of the outlaw, and the angelic tenderness
of the maiden---all those attentions which
his state required, were completed, and the count,
who had not been wholly unconscious, although he
betrayed his sense of consciousness only by an occasional
writhing of his features, fell into a broken
sleep. From the moment she kneeled by his couch,
she had remained silent; but when the eyes of her
lover were closed, she looked up into the face of
Lafitte, who, after his services were no longer required,
stood, with folded arms and a thoughtful
brow, gazing in silence upon the scene.

“Señor Lafitte!” said the lady, “did you know
of his capture?”

“No, lady, nor your own! I am surrounded
with mystery. Why do I find you here? Why
this interest in this wounded man?” he suddenly
exclaimed, striking his forehead,—“ah! can it be!
it is—?”

“The Count D'Oyley of the French navy, Señor,

to whom I am betrothed,” she said, with feeling
and dignity.

The face of the pirate changed, and a slight flush
passed across his brow. But this momentary
exhibition of feeling gave place to an expression
of interest.

“Lady!” he said, with a slight embarassment
in his manner, “this officer shall be cared for. I
regard him as a sacred trust!—moreover, he is
free from this moment! Tell me, lady, how you
came to be once more a captive—voluntarily to
share a prison with him? Resolve this mystery,
which I cannot fathom.”

In a few words she related to him the incidents
of her re-capture, and her conveyance to the cavern—the
expedition of her lover—his capture—their
meeting in the cavern—and their attempt to
escape, just as his vessel was chased in by the
American cruiser.

“Would to God, lady, you had both escaped, before
I had again met you! But, adieu! Señora, I
must leave you for the present,” he exclaimed, as
the report of the gun at the mouth of the cavern
reverberated through the long passages of the
grotto. “Where is Théodore, lady? I will send
him to you.”

“I know not, Señor, but perhaps he is near.
He was sleeping in the outer apartment, by the
door, when I left it. I thank you, Señor,” she
added, struck with the outlaw's delicacy, in proposing
Théodore to watch over the count—“Juana
will call him—happy youth!—he has slept
amid all this storm of death!”

A loud shout without, now called Lafitte away,
after assuring her that she should be sacred from
intrusion, and Constanza was left alone by the
couch of her lover. Clasping her hands, she raised
her full eyes to heaven, and remained several

minutes: the pale lamp painting, with light and
shade, her lovely face, lost in devotion. “Thy
will, not mine, be done,” she said aloud, with a
voice of resignation, as she rose from her devotional
attitude, and with a more cheerful brow and lighter
heart, she turned and addressed her young attendant,
who, with surprise pictured upon his countenance,
was listening to the strange recital of the
events of the night, which Juana, with characteristic
volubility was detailing to him.

“Shame upon my drowsy eyes,” said Théodore,
with evident mortification in his manner,—“You
find me but a poor knight, lady. But who is this
pale stranger?” he exclaimed, inquiringly, as his
eye fell upon the handsome features of the wounded
count.

“He is an officer of the French navy, the count
D'Oyley. Théodore, you have heard me speak of
him,” she added, with a faint and sweet smile, “he
is severely wounded; I fear I need your aid to
nurse him.”

The youth expressed his devotion to her slightest
wish, and, placing himself near the sleeper, passed
the succeeding hour in listening to the thrilling tale,
told by the maiden, with an absorbing interest, that
swallowed all time but the present moment.

11. CHAPTER XI.

Sherwood.

A COLLOQUIAL SCENE—INTERIOR OF A BUCCANEER'S RENDEZVOUS—
SOLILOQUY, OR STRUGGLE BETWEEN HONOUR AND PASSIONS—AN
INTERRUPTION.

The morning broke upon the watches, and
found them still by the bedside of the wounded
officer. His wound had been rather a severe contusion,
with the side of the pirate's cutlass, than a
deep cut.

After passing the remainder of the night in
feverish slumber, he awoke, as the hand of the
maiden was gently parting the hair from his
brow.

“Is it you, sweet one?” he said, with a faint
smile---the whole scene of the preceding night coming,
at once, to his recollection! Have you been
watching by me through the long hours of the
night! How kind, Constanza! But speak!” he
added, suddenly rising, “tell me---where is my antagonist,
the buccaneer, who wounded me? Did I
not see you near me, when I fell? I have a half-consciousness
of being caught by you. Devoted

Constanza! was it not so? and was I not borne,
by some one, back to this cave? Who was it?
was he wounded? or—' looking with anxious affection
into her face, “you, my dearest! were you
hurt?” he continued, with feverish rapidity, as
the various scenes he had passed through, came,
indistinctly, and unconnected, to his mind.

“Nay, nay, dear Alphonse! I cannot reply to
all your rapid questions. You must not rise so
soon—be quiet. There is no danger to you,
or me!”

“But I am better, dearest!” he said, playing
with a truant tress, which hung over her temples.
“I am better! my sleep has been refreshing.”

“But your wound?”

“It is but slight, although it must have been
given with a good-will at the time; a little patch
will make all sound as ever. But, my sweet Constanza,
do not be alarmed! Who was the pirate
that fought so fiercely? Ah!” he suddenly exclaimed,
as his eye rested upon the slight form of
young Théodore, who stood within the niche—
“whom have we here?”

“The youth, Théodore, of whom I spoke,” she
replied.

“Ah! I remember! Monsieur Théodore, pardon
me, young sir! I owe you better courtesy! You
have loaded me with a debt of gratitude.

“Speak of that at another time, Monsieur, your
health requires silence and repose,” replied the youth,
remarking the mixture of indecision and energy
in his manner and language, which he attributed
to the fever of his wound.

“Not so, my good youth. I must thank you
now. Yet, I know not how! You are a sailor,”
he continued, after a moment's thought; “will you
take a midshipman's berth on board the Sultan?'

“I thank you, but I need no reward for performing
my duty, if I have deserved any. I have sufficiently
received it, by knowing that I have been
instrumental in adding to this kind lady's happiness.
A kind word from her lips is more than I dare
hope to ask!” he added, with a blushing brow.

“You are modest, for a protégé of Lafitte, fair
youth,” he replied, smilingly, “but this lady will not
only give you words of kindness, I think, but her
white hand to kiss! will you not, Constanza? and
this, as you hint, were honour enough, for belted
knight in days of Charlemagne.”

Constanza, with a sweet smile, presented her
hand to the youth, who, bending over it with an
air of devout respect, pressed his lips lightly to the
taper fingers.

At this instant a foot-fall was heard, echoing
through the chamber Constanza had occupied, and
she had hardly said—

“It is Lafitte,” when the outlaw appeared at the
breach in the stalactic drapery of the cave, and before
passing into the apartment, gazed silently for
a few seconds upon the group.

When Lafitte left the lovers, after the count had
fallen asleep, he traversed the long passage with a
rapid tread and an aching heart. He found the
terrace strewed with dead and dying; several of
his men leaning with an air of fatigue against the
sides of the cliff, or upon the cannon, which had
just been fired at the retreating Americans, who,
driven over the verge, sprung into the water, or slid
down the stays to the deck, with the loss of more
than half their number, besides two wounded
officers, one of whom they bore from the deck into
the boat, severely hurt. Then with rapidity they
pulled rapidly down the passage to their vessel.

“Ho, Carlos! below there!” he shouted.

“Carlos es muerte!” said faintly a wounded pirate,
who rested on his cutlass.

“Ha! dead! Ho, the deck there—fire upon that
boat! Do you mean to let them man the brig again
and blockade us?---Fire!”

“No es possible, señor,” cried one from the schooner.
“Los Americans have spike all de gun.”

“Spiked the guns! Maldicho! how was that
done, Matéo?”

“No se, señor! no es possible to tell. I hear de
click, click, five six time, when one sailor run over
de gun to de boat; and when I put de prime ob de
horn in de hole, dere was no hole dere, all fill up
with big rusty nail.”

“Spiked, ha! well, let them go—they will be
glad enough to get out of this and show the old
rock the stern of their brig,” said he, quietly.

After Lafitte, with much humanity, had attended
to the wounded, and given orders for the disposal
of the dead, who numbered seventeen of the
Americans, and more than twenty of the buccaneers,
he placed the watch for the remainder of the night,
and then, last of all, attended to his own wounds,
which, though not severe, were numerous. He entered
the cavern, and passing the spot which the
count had defended, and from which the bodies
had been removed, he traversed the passage for a
few yards, and then turned into one of those recesses
which the fugitives had supported;—niches,
which opened before him as he advanced, increasing
in height and breadth. Although perfectly
dark, he traversed this new avenue with an unfaltering
footstep, and like one familiar with its details.

About seventy paces from the main passage, he
came into a small vaulted apartment, lighted fitfully
by the flickering flame of an expiring fire,
which had been kindled near the centre against a

fragment of rock which had fallen from the side of
the grotto, and rolled into the middle of the floor.
Several chests, such as seamen use to contain their
apparel, rude camp stools, a round polished table,
with a marble top, piles of cordage, rolls of canvass,
and heaps of old sails, with many other articles
necessary to the repair and preservation of vessels,
filled the sides of the apartment.

On a projecting shelf, at the extremity of the
cave, stood a costly pier-glass, the height of a man,
with radii diverging from a point near the centre,
as if a bullet had shattered it. One of the chests,
the lid of which was up, displayed a number of cutlasses
and pistols, and a pyramid of shot, adapted
to the calibre of the piece of ordnance at the mouth
of the cave, was piled at one end of it, and laid
against the wall, tied up like faggots, were several
bundles of pikes. In a distant niche, placed one
upon another, were several kegs, half seen indistinctly
in the obscurity, covered by a tarpaulin,
which had been hastily displaced, and branded
“poudre à canon.”

A long table, of that construction best adapted to
a ship's cabin, extended nearly across the cave,
about half way between the fire and the sides,
which were perfectly smooth and black, and no
where incrusted with stalactite.

An upturned bench lay near, and parallel with
the table, upon which stood, in bacchanalian confusion,
bottles of French wines, glasses, deep plates,
and tureens, with vessels for preparing coffee. It
was without a cloth, wet with spilled wine, and
strewed with fish bones, and fragments of bread
and meat.

Mattresses lay about the floor, and one or two
hammocks were swung across from side to side.
at the left hand of the shattered mirror was a recess,
terminating in a heavy door, apparently constructed

of the plank of a ship, as circular apertures
once filled with spikes, and the traces of other adaptation
of the material than the present, sufficiently
indicated.

This part of the grotto was evidently appropriated
by the buccaneers as the armory, store-room, and
hall of feasting and carousing.

It was silent and deserted as the outlaw entered,
except by the ungainly figure of his slave, Cudjoe,
who lay with his naked feet to the fire, his head
closely wrapped in a soiled blanket, fast asleep, preferring
the embraces of Somnus to those of Mars,
from which he had escaped at the commencement
of the conflict.

Lafitte gazed upon the scene around him with a
bitter smile.

“And this,” he said, with a cloudy brow, after
standing a while in silence, “this is my abode! the
outlaw's home!—this my domestic hearth—this my
social board—for the plaudits of such as I command—for
the boast of a beast like this slave! Is
it for this I live! alas, I have lived in vain! all, all
in vain!” and he paced the cave with an agitated
step, while hatred for his present life, aspirations for
an honourable career, and love for the Castillian
maiden, filled his mind with conflicting emotions.

“She is in my power once more,” he hoarsely
whispered; “have I not made sufficient sacrifice in
letting her once depart! Is my passion again to be
immolated upon the altar of self-denial! Yet I may
not use the power I possess. I love her—and only
to honourable love shall she be sued! But will she
listen!—Listen!—am I mad—listen with her hand
upon the brow, and kneeling beside the couch of
her betrothed husband! Success is now doubly
walled up against me. But if he die!—ah, if he
die!—as he may—as he must!” he added with a
ringing voice, and starting at the guilty thoughts

which stirred his bosom; but suddenly checking
himself, he continued, in a lower tone—“No, no,
no!—I am sick of crime!—back, back, tempter—I
will win her fairly. Am I indeed so base as to wish
this maiden ill—to think of destroying so much
happiness, when I can make it bliss! If he should
not live—then! then, perhaps!—but no—oh, God,
no!--have I not stricken the blow--and will she
place her hand in his, red with her lover's blood?—
Will she give her heart to be healed by him who
broke it? But time, perhaps, might mitigate and
veil over the bitter memory of the past---and then,”
and his step became more elastic, and his brow
clear as he spoke, but as suddenly changed again.
“Alas! there is no hope for me!---she never—never
can love me!----her spirit is too pure to mingle with
mine. It is in vain for me to hope---yet I must
love her---love her---for ever! But I will school myself
to think of her without passion---worship her as
a lovely incarnation of the Virgin!”

For an hour he paced the grotto, struggling with
his passion, which, one moment gaining the ascendancy,
filled his mind with dark and guilty purposes;
but immediately yielding to the dictates of honour,
and the native generosity of his character, he would
picture forth scenes of happiness for her and her
lover in the vista of the future. His step was
irregular, his features worked convulsively, his brow
was bent with the violence of the struggle.

“I will---I will!” he at length said, suddenly
stopping. “She shall respect---if she cannot love
me---only with gratitude shall she remember Lafitte!
They shall both be free, and this very day
will I myself take them to Port-au-Prince. If I
cannot make my own happiness, I will not mar
theirs---nay, I will make it---I will teach my passion
this step;” and his voice became calmer as
he spoke. “As I now feel,” he continued, “I think

I could place her hand within his, and bid Heaven
bless them. Yes, then I could seek an early death
on the battle-field, or in the seclusion of a monastery
atone for my past life by penance and prayer.
Penance and prayer!” he repeated, with an altered
voice, while a disdainful expression dwelt upon his
lip, as though he had given utterance to thoughts
of which he became at once ashamed. “Yes---
beads and rosaries! genuflexions and ablutions,
fasts and confessions! cowl and gown! truly these
would well become me! Yet, for all that, it may yet
be to what my coward heart will drive me. Nevertheless,
this lady shall go free, whatever shall be my
future fate.”

He then threw himself upon one of the rude
couches, and bringing the butt of his pistols round
to the ready grasp of his hand, he sought in the
oblivion of sleep, to forget himself.

Sleep! blessing both of the innocent and guilty!
With thy presence thou visitest like the rain, both
the just and the unjust. Angel of charity, messenger
from on high, sent down to shorten half the
weary pilgrimage of life! Sister of mercy---the
curse of Eden would have been unmingled without
thee. Thou hast shared with us the heavy load,
and cooled the sweating brow, and for us borne half
the burden and heat of the long day of existence!

He awoke at dawn refreshed, and with a calmer
breast. Low voices struck his ear, from beyond the
door within the recess. He listened a moment in
surprise, and then rising quickly he unlocked the
door, and entered the apartment once occupied by
Constanza.

The canopy and other preparations made by the
order and attention of Théodore for her comfort,
caught his eye—for all parts of the cave was now
visible by the daylight, let in from the crevices and
apertures in the roof His rapid glance also detected

the breach made by the count, and he at once
understood the object of it; and as he was advancing
to examine it, the voices of the party in the
adjoining chamber became distinct.

“Ha! my captive lover is better it seems,” he
exclaimed as the words struck his ear. “But, he
has made a soldier's breach through this wall.
Constanza then was placed here by that prosy fool
Sebastiano; and thick-skulled, Dutch Getzendanner
must place his prisoner within ear-shot. It is
said there is no separating true lovers, and here is
most visible proof of it. What have we here, Cielos!
the maiden's sparkling crucifix, dropped in her
flight,” he suddenly added, eagerly seizing the
jewel which caught his eye; “This next my
heart forever!” he fervently exclaimed, pressing
it to his lips—“this shall be twice worshipped—I
devote it to heaven, and love,” and he hung it
around his neck by its chain, concealing the cross
in his bosom.

“Protégé of Lafitte!” he repeated with bitter
emphasis, as he overheard the words of D'Oyley.
“Monsieur Le Compte thinks there can come nothing
good out of Nazareth! Ha! how cavalierly
he gives away the lady's hand to the boy's lip—pity
that so fair a scene should be interrupted.”

“Señora, buenos dias tenga vm. Monsieur Compte,
I trust you are much better. Théodore, welcome
back again!” and as he entered the chamber, he
grasped the hand of the boy with a smile of pleasure—bowed
coldly to the count, who was sitting
on his couch of bamboo-rushes in the niche, and
with an air of profound respect, bent low to the
maiden.

“Pardon this intrusion, Señora, I knew not of
this passage between the rooms, it being made since
my last visit to our rendezvous, probably for greater
facilities of intercourse,” and he smiled meaningly,

“and hearing voices, I came to learn from whence
they proceeded.”

“Monsieur,” he continued “I am happy to see
you so far recovered from your wounds. You are
at liberty to depart, when you are well enough to be
removed.”

“I thank you, Monsieur Lafitte,” replied the count,
courteously, “My wound was but trifling. I am
able to move; but, monsieur, permit me to say, how
profoundly I feel your kindness extended to this
lady!”

“Enough, count, I followed my own feelings. It
is not for you to thank me,”—said he sternly—
“speak of your departure.”

“If I am at liberty, as you say, I would leave at
once. Have you any news of my schooner? you
have I presume heard the particulars of my capture?”

“Yes, Monsieur, in a few words from Gaspàr---
of your vessel, I have not heard. I will take you
to Port au Prince, in my schooner as soon as she
undergoes some repairs. She will be ready by the
morning.”

“Thank you, Monsieur; and this lady?”

“Shall accompany you, sir!” he replied in a deep
voice, that drew the eye of the count upon his face,
which reflected the agitation of his mind, produced
by the question, and the associations which it
called up.

“Sacre!” exclaimed the count, suspicious of the
cause of Lafitte's emotion, suddenly flashing across
his mind.

“Are you in pain, Alphonse?” inquired Constanza,
with a changing cheek, as she remarked
his exciting manner.

“No! yes! great!” and he laid his hand upon
his breast.

Lafitte smiled scornfully, and he glanced at the

officer with an expression of dislike. After a few
moments, vexed at the silence of Constanza, who
had not raised her eyes from her lover's face, since
he entered, he left the cave accompanied by Theodore,
whom he took with him, to ascertain more
particularly than he had learned from Gaspàr,
the details of their capture, and the events succeeding
it.

While the pirate chief neglected nothing that
could contribute to the comfort of Constanza, and
the count, he refrained from visiting them during
the day, resolved to have no farther communication
with the lovely Castillian, lest his resoluton should
forsake him—and under the influence of passion,
increased by the presence of the maiden, he should
throw off all his honourable resolves for her happiness---the
consequences of which he dare not contemplate.

The struggle in hiw own mind was prolonged,
and severe. At one moment he was ready to rush
into her presence, throw himself at her feet, and
plead his deep, unconquerable love—at another
moment he would feed upon the reflection, that she
was in his power, and he resolved that he would
not let her go. Again the wild idea of challenging
the count to single combat, or the more guilty
one of exposing him in his wounded state to die,
would by turns fire his bosom. The exclamation
of the count, which he had attributed to sudden
pain, repeatedly occurred to him, and he curled his
lip contemptuously as he said mentally,

“He is jealous of me. The proud Frenchman
fears Lafitte may take a fancy to have so fair a protégée;
hatred for him could almost tempt me to detain
this lovely flower, did I not love her so well as I
too truly do—did I not know that her happiness,
which alone I seek, is bound up in him. Dios! he
has a noble presence, and is a man a lady might

well love—yet I love her too well for this,” he
added with feeling. “The jealous count should
rather thank my love for the lady's safety, than
show his jealousy. If I loved her not, as I never
loved woman—Ha, a footstep! Who goes there?
It is but fancy, or but a bat,” he said as a slight
noise, which he thought a footstep, at the extremity
of the passage struck his ear. “But alas,” he continued—“Gertrude—I
have loved thee, thou art not
forgotten. Well he shall have her”—he hastily
added, and God help me, he shall have her from my
hand---and I will have the approval of my conscience,
for at least one disinterested act. To-morrow
they go! and as he spoke he swung himself
from the terrace on to the rigging of his vessel, and
descending to the deck, forwarded by his presence,
the repairs and preparations for sailing early on the
morning of the coming day.

12. CHAPTER XII.

—Lamb.

—Chesterfield.

PLAN OF ESCAPE—JUANA AND THE GUARDS—A STRATAGEM.

The stars burned like lamps in the clear, Indian
skies. The air was motionless, and broken only by
some alarmed bird fluttering chirpingly from tree to
tree, or the suppressed moan of the surge---profound
silence reigned without and within the deep chambers
of the grotto.

The guard, posted rather to give the alarm when
vessels approached the shore, than to guard the prisoners,
paced slowly along the terrace in front of the
cavern, with his cutlass resting carelessly upon his
left arm. The deck of the schooner below him was
covered with sleepers, who, after the fatigues of the
day, had thrown themselves upon it, in various positions.
The remainder of the outlaw's crew were
sleeping in the magazine of the cave, where Lafitte
had passed the preceding night.

The outlaw himself, after promenading the passage
in which we left him, a long time in troubled
thought, threw himself upon the cold pavement,
and also slept; but his dreams were of his lovely
captive.

He was kneeling before an altar in a gloomy and

gorgeous temple, beside a veiled female. A priest,
in rich robes, was in the act of pronouncing a blessing
over them. He was about to press her to his
heart, when she suddenly changed to the bleeding
corse of his young brother. He cried with horror
and awoke.

Again he dreamed Constanza was struggling in
the sea. He sprang into the flood to save her, when
a gigantic monster, with large, beautiful eyes---a
knife buried in his bosom, and blood oozing from
his temples, caught her from his grasp, and conveyed
her from his sight, into the depths of the
ocean. With a convulsed frame, he started from
his dream.

A third time he slept. He was in the cathedral
of New Orleans, and about to be united to Constanza,
who stood beside him, veiled in white.
She was just parting her lips to pronounce the
solemn words which should unite their destinies
forever, when the priest removed his mask, cast off
his robes, and clasped her in his arms. It was the
Count D'Oyley.

In the mean time, the count was in the
chamber, lighted by a single lamp, where he had
been borne the preceding night; but he slept not.
Constanza, with her head resting upon his shoulder,
slumbered peacefully, and her dreams were all of
happiness.

“Constanza, my love! awake!” said her lover,
gently touching her closed eyes.

He had long been engaged in ruminating upon
his condition, upon the character of Lafitte, and
the probability that he would be in the same mind
in the morning, with regard to their liberation.

The more he reflected, the greater his doubts
became, and when he recalled, with a feeling of
apprehension and indignation, the language, tone,
and manner, of the outlaw, in his interview with

him in the morning, the detached sentences he had
overheard when his footsteps interrupted his soliloquy,
his confidence in his promises failed, and he
at once resolved to make his escape before day;
fearing even to remain through the night, subject
to the caprice of his captor.

“Awake, love!” he said, softly, as he came to
this determination.

“What, Alphonse, is it you? Are there more
trials for me?” and she looked up into his
face, with her eloquent eyes, suddenly suffused with
tears, and clinging to his arm, with nervous apprehension.

“No, my Constanza—I think we may escape
from this place—I dare not trust Captain Lafitte's
firmness till the morning.”

“Oh, have you fresh cause for alarm or suspicion?
Tell me! Leave me not in suspense;”
and she looked with an alarmed manner into his
face.

“No, love! but I fear he may change his mind,
he is an impulsive being, and if we can escape, it
will not be prudent to remain till morning.”

“You have heard something, dear Alphonse!
I know you have, that leads you to this sudden
step, and you are still so weak—oh, tell me all!”
she added, earnestly—“am I not worthy of your
confidence.”

“All, all confidence, dearest!—Your suspicions
are true! Not long since, when I walked along
the passage to breathe the cooler air, at the mouth
of the cave, I heard the voice of Lafitte, as you tell
me is his habit, in soliloquy. Thinking I might
learn something which in our situation, could be
improved to advantage, I cautiously approached
the gallery, along which he was pacing backwards
and forwards, and heard sufficient to alarm me for
your safety and my own, and to lead me to place

but slight confidence in his promise, to take us to
Port-au-Prince to-morrow, will you not second me,
dearest?”

“Can we escape, Alphonse? and why should
we fear to trust Lafitte? He is impulsive, it is
true, but would not, I think, err intentionally, or
deceive us. But I will go with you, dearest! never
will I be separated from you again! Whom do I
love or have to love or care for me, but you, my
Alphonse! Oh, let us go:—he may, indeed, be in
another mood in the morning,” she added, hastily,
as some part of his first interview with her flashed
on her mind, “Oh, I fear—fear him much. I will
go with you, let us hasten—but how?”

“There was a felucca at the foot of the rock,
which I saw, as I was brought in, a prisoner, containing
a small mast. It was lying opposite the
long passage. If we can gain this boat, unperceived,
in an hour we will be beyond pursuit, and,
with a light breeze, by to-morrow evening, be able
to reach Port-au-Prince Now let us arrange our
plan.”

“Shall I waken Juana?”

“You would best, she may assist us materially.”

The slave, who was asleep in the extremity of
the chamber, was roused, with difficulty, from her
heavy and dreamless sleep, by the count, who was
now excited and cheerful, with the prospect of being
soon far from the presence and power of one whom
he suspected to be his rival, and from whom, consequently,
he had every thing to fear. Besides his
desire for personal liberty, he experienced the intensest
anxiety for the safety and happiness of
Constanza, whose health and mind, already affected
by what she had passed through, he feared
would be materially injured, if she should be again
exposed to exciting scenes, or, in the morning, meet
with disappointment.

He was, therefore, desirous of removing her, at
once, to a place of security and quietude.

The old slave was informed of their project, to
which she listened with attention and pleasure.

“Old Juana tink, massa Doly better wait till
morning come, 'caus if massa Lafitte sa' he let lily
lady and buckra gemman go free---dey sure go---
as Juana 'tan here—but den, if de lily Missy 'fraid
Juana jess go 'long wid her.”

“Thank you, Juana,” said Constanza, “we
find, that if escape is possible, we had best leave the
cave to-night. In the morning, perhaps, the crew
of the vessel might, as they often do, oppose his
his commands, and we should then be lost.”

“Juan' know dat, well 'nough!—How tink you
get out, massa Doly?---de guard 'tan at de mouf.---
de schooner down in de basin, full of men---Its
mighty diffikil to get way---Massa Doly,” she said,
shaking her head, impressively.

“Speak low, Juana,” said the count. “Listen!”
we have thought of this plan. You have a husband
on the schooner, I am told. Pass the guard,
and say you wish to take some articles of clothing
to him---he will permit it---this carpet, and these
provisions, to place in the boat, shall pass as the
clothing---descend to the vessel---let the watch on
deck see you---speak to him, but do not go below---
take your opportunity, and drop the articles into the
felucca, or the schooner's boat, if you find it alongside---again
speak to the watch, and ply him with
this spirit which I give you, tell him you wish to
return for something, and that master Théodore
may come back with you. Leave the impression,
that is, make him believe, that you will soon be
there, with Théodore. Tell the guard the same,
and do not forget to ply the bottle freely. Then, if
you can find a cap and cloak, belonging to Theodore,
bring it with you here, and I will then tell you

further our plans. Do you understand what I have
said?”

“Is, massa Doly, ol' Juana no fool! She know
jiss how to do. Leave Juana to herself.”

Taking the flask of spirits, which had been left
by the side of the invalid, and muttering, “Juana
no de root put in dis, if massa Doly want make
sleep come,” the old African disappeared in the
darkness of the passage. In a few moments her
footsteps died away, and the lovers, in silence and
expectation, awaited her return.

Half-way through the cave she turned into a
niche, in which were many cooking utensils, and,
taking a bundle of dry leaves and roots, from an
aperture, she dropped a portion in the flask, and
pursued her way to the mouth of the grotto.

“Who is there?” said the guard, as the dark
form of the old slave emerged from the gloom of the
cavern.

“What for you speak so loud and cross, Gil?—
nobody but ol' nigger—don't be frighten.”

“Diablo!—Juana, you are ugly enough to frighten
the devil”—he replied with a loud laugh, “what
are you crawling about for this time of night?”

“I want to see my ol' husband—an' car' dese
tings to him—You know Gil--I've been among
wid dis purty lilly lady, dis more dan week.”

“Ah, ha, the Castillian,” said Gil with a smile,
“she is pretty, Juana—you two together must very
well personate light and darkness. But where is
the lady that our wise captain loves so well as to
give his own share of booty for her ransom?--
Sancta Maria! but he must have taken a vow of
chastity.”

“You mity quisitive Gil--such as you no more
shouldnt open your two ugly eye, to look at such a
lady---dan notin' at all.”

“Ho now Juana---you jealous,”---he replied tapping
her on the cheek---“But what have you in
that flask—the pure Jamaica or purer Santa Crux—
this goes to old blubber lip, the steward, I will
wager, I must take a sip to see if it is not too hot
for the old boy's stomach. You must be tender of
your better half in his old age, Juana.—Ha—peh!
peh! but this is made of the true grape. Hold, good
Juana! don't be in haste. Let old Crisp sleep, he
would rather rest his venerable limbs now, than
smack his lips over the best quart of aquardiente he
ever stole from the captain's cask”

“Dere Gil, you hab drink 'nough”—she cried
interrupting him and seizing the flask “now jess
hol' dis tight,” she said walking out on a broad
plank extending from the terrace to the cross trees
of the schooner.

Assisted by Gil the old woman carefully descended
the shrouds to the deck, which was strewn
with the wearied and sleeping crew.

The watch drowsily leaned against the binnacle
with a half-smoked and fireless segar in his lips; but
as she approached him, he started when he discovered
her by the light of a lantern, which hung in
the companion-way.

“Juana, my beauty, are you picking the men's
pockets of their spare reals?—come here and let me
talk with you!”

“Diego, how you do—it long time I seen you—
how is my Crisp?”

“Why, just like yourself, Juana; he grows
handsomer as they call the change in Congo, that
is, blacker every day.”

“Well I'm glad to know dat—I'se come aboard
to see him—How long you been on watch, Diego?”

“It is four bells since, and now you've come it's
five, my beautiful girl,”—he replied, with mock-gallantry.

“Now jess stop wid dat nonsense, Diego; you're
always flattering me—I'se got ol' and wrinkly
now.”---

“Yet you've broken many a black lover's heart in
your day---when you lived in Louisiana; is it not so,
bel' Juana?”

“I can't stop talk now---Diego,”---said she complacently,
“have you been two hours on watch?
and no drink, noffin all time I dare say.”

“You say most truly and sadly, good Juana,” he
replied, “Since Matéo got drunk on watch, and let
a barge full of men come aboard of us, there's no
more drinking.”

“Juana know dat, Diego, well 'nough, and she
just bring some---fin to keep the dew from soaking
de heart. I don't forget when you nurse my Crisp,
when he got he head broke.---Dere, Diego---take
two, tree swallow, and gib it back to me.”

“Miraculo; my queen of clubs,” he replied, gaily,
“but you are a goddess! well this is good---madre
de dios! where got you such double distilled
nectar? but never mind where it come from so that
we know where it goes to,” he added, placing the
mouth of the flask to his own, and quaffing most
generous draughts. “Bah, but you are a jewel,
Juana. What's that you cast in the boat?” he
added suddenly, and looking over the side.

“Only two, tree tings belong to Crisp. I don't
like go below, and sturb dem sleep, dere, you tell
him in de mornin', his close dere in de boat. Is
massa Thèodore 'board?”

“No, it is his next watch too—he'll not be down
in time, I fear.”

“Neber you fear, Diego, I'll bring him 'long. I'm
comin down by and by to bring Crisp he jacket,
an I'll wake him, and he'll come wid me. Just gib
me one of his cap and him watch coat.” Diego readily
brought them, and said,

“Well, Juana, you are a nice girl,---stay, let me
take another sip at that flask. I would kiss you,
Juana, for this,” he added, taking the flask from his
lips with a sigh; “but the spirit on my breath might
give offence. I never kiss, fair Juana, after taking
wine, without first smoking the flavour off with
genuine Habana.”

“Good bye, Diego, I must go; you al'ays mity
'ticular gemman,” she replied, turning to go.

“Adios, Juana, my jetty angel! such spiritual
visits as your's are always welcome to Diego.”

The old slave, satisfied that she had given him
enough to intoxicate him, after carefully threading
her way through the sleeping crew, slowly ascended
the shrouds; while Diego, already excited by his
frequent and potent draughts at the mouth of the
flask, began to sing a Spanish bacchanalian song,
parodied from Moreto, by some Castillian Lyceus,
commencing---

“Gil, you gone sleep! fy, Gil! guard go sleep on
pos',” said she, stepping on to the terrace, approaching
and shaking him, as he leaned against the face
of the rock.

“Dimonios! what, old black witch?” he grumbled,
ill-humouredly; “gi—give me my aq—a—
aquardiente---to, diablo! but it is good,” he continued,
as he took another draught.

“You hab 'nuff; you drunk now, Gil?” she said
inquiringly, wishing to ascertain how far her stratagem
had taken effect.

“Give me more, yo---you hag---mor---more, or I'll
bl---blow (hiccough) you in t-t-the (hiccough) s-sea---
hic, do---hic---do you hear---hugh!” and he drew a

pistol from his belt, and the expression of his face
became ferocious.

“Dere, take little sip more, Gil---dere, 'nuff, now;”
and she snatched the bottle from him, at the same
time dexterously spilling a part of its contents over
the priming of both pistols.

“Curse you, Sathan's dam!” he quickly exclaimed;
“is that the way you use good liq---liquor.”
Then, after a pause, he added, incoherently, “how
thick the sta---stars are, and what other schoon---
schooner's lying side the Gertrude---miraculo! Ju---
Juana---you are de---d---double---(hiccough)---gi---
gi---give me one of them flasks in your ha---hand,”
and the intoxicated guard, no longer able to articulate
distinctly, or support himself against the wall,
slipped gradually from his upright position, and lay
upon his side with his cheek resting upon the cold
stone.

Satisfied with the manner in which she had obeyed
her instructions, the slave hastened into the
grotto, where the count and Constanza were waiting
her return with apprehension and anxiety.