Mrs. Schuyler Crowninshield

“ I had heard of his chaining human beings to his carriage wheels, I had heard of his throwing his unsuccessful labourers off the great cliff which skirted the citadel, and I had heard the revolting tale of a certain day when his dogs, being hungry, he ordered an arm cut from an unoffending prisoner and thrown to the ravenous beasts. Imagine, if you can, my feelings when I reflected that this was the wretch to whose mercy fate had consigned me, and not only me, but Cynthia. If I had fear for my own safety, imagine, if you can, the horror with which I thought of him as the jailer of Cynthia. ”

“ Speak of her gently, I warn you—I warn you—"
"Do you know who the man was who came to me just now?"
"The Señor Silencio?" said Raquel, breathless, her eyes flashing with a thousand lights.
"No, it was not the Señor Silencio." Raquel's eyelids drooped. "But it was the next thing to it. It was that villain, Rotiro. I could have bought him, as well as Silencio. A little rum and a few pesos, and he is mine body and soul. But I do not want him. I have followers in plenty—"
"Those who follow you for love?" said Raquel, with sly malice in her tone.
Escobeda flashed a dark and hateful look upon her. ”

“ I began to fear a thousand things. I felt sure that the Bo's'n and the Minion would never dream of my being left in the great hall. If I were left behind, they would argue, why not come to them. They would see and hear the embarkation of the pirates, and would imagine that I had been taken with them or else killed and left on shore. The horror of that awful cave would be too much for a man of the Bo's'n's nervous and exalted temperament. As he had flown from the mysterious ring, so had he also rushed from the cave. ”

“ All through this discourse Marianna Romando had not raised her voice. She smiled as if she considered the weaknesses of Gremo amiable ones. She started after him as a mother would go in search of a straying child; like a guardian who would protect a weak brother from himself.
"I have only this to say to you, Señorita," she called after Agueda, turning so that the ladder swished through the low bushes, cutting off some of the tops of the tall weeds, both before and behind her. "Keep the Señor well in hand. When they go away like that, no one knows whom they may be going after." ”

“ I was like a lad with a new penny to spend. It burned a hole in my pocket.
"Ahoy there!" shouted the Skipper, breaking into the service and hailing me as if I were a foreign barkentine, "it ain't time yet."
"It's my time," said I.
"How's he to know, Captain Schuyler, sir?" called out the Mate as he backed water. "He's never been married before."
"How do you know?" roared the Skipper back again. "A true sailor has a wife in every port." Cynthia started and dropped my hand as if it had been a live coal. ”

“ Self-valuation had Uncle Noé. From his own account, he was a very remarkable man. And as he usually talked to those who knew nothing of his past, they accepted his statements, perforce, as the truth.
The dripping peons hung about the steps. Their shirts clung to their shoulders, but those the sun would dry. Don Noé sat quiet as a mouse upon the angle of the outer veranda.
Agueda came toward the lingerers.
"It is you that need not wait, Eduardo Juan, nor you, Garcia Garcito. The Don Beltran will see that you get some reward." ”

“ You may take it out to sea, far, far out to sea, and drop it beneath the waves, but the storms will come, the waves will roll, and the breakers will dash it again on the shore. You may bury it in a pit so deep that you can hardly get yourself out again from its grave, but an earthquake will rumble beneath it and with its cracks will upheave it, and it will be here again. You may take it to the top of yonder mountain and lay it on the topmost peak, but the tempests will come and the hurricane will blow and will toss it again at your feet. ”

“ Shall we not trust those whom we love? Life is the better for it. This was life. Life was all happiness, all joy. The future? There was to be no future but this. This life of hers and his should be the same until death claimed the one or the other. God grant that they might go together, rather than that one should be left behind. Let them go in a greater flood, perhaps, than the one which they had outspent upon the thatched roof in the shelter of the old chimenea."
Agueda knew not the meaning of those words of calculation—"the world." ”

“ Had I not known for certain from the Skipper, as well as from herself, that Cynthia could never care for me, and that William Brown had an irrevocable hold upon her affections, I should have thought that she looked a trifle disappointed.
"It is hard," returned Cynthia, "for a person to be forced upon a person by another person, when that person can't make the person that's forcing her on the other person understand that she don't care anything about the other person, or that the other person don't care anything about the person, but I don't see what we are to do about it." ”

“ Agueda turned pale as she saw his danger. Beltran laughed nervously, and seized with firmer grasp the staple buried in the mortar.
"And do you think that will compensate me?" screamed Felisa. "Do you think that I shall welcome death because I may die in your company? I tell you, I will not die. I love all the pleasant things of life—I love myself, my pretty self. I am meant for life and love and warmth, not cold and death. There is not a human being who could reconcile me to death. ”

“ Sometimes, as I sit on the settle at the door of the farmhouse, when the sun has gone down and twilight is coming on, I dream those days all over again. I see the buccaneers in the cave. I experience again the suffocation of the cage in which they left me for dead. I see before me as plainly as if I held it in my hand, with those wondrous eyes intact, and shining like two living balls of fire, that symbol of mysticism, the serpent ring. ”

“ These floods do not last long, do they, Agueda? When was the last one? Do you remember, Agueda?"
"Yes, I remember," answered Agueda.
"Come, then, and tell her. You can comfort her if you tell her how little there is to fear."
"I do not think that I shall comfort her," said Agueda. She glanced at the refuge behind the chimney, and then back at Beltran. "It was one long year ago," she said.
He turned away. "Come, Felisa," he said. "There is shelter from this wind behind the old chiminea."
He guided her along the slight slope of the roof. The wind was rising higher with every moment. ”

“ I met her with a most disheartening sentence.
"We can at least die together," said I.
"Why should we die at all?" asked Cynthia, running to me with a little cry of joy.
"The rebels are attacking Christophe, and they will treat us even worse than he has."
"How do you know?" asked Cynthia. [Pg 405]
"I have just heard so from the guard who put me in here. Of course, my being here is a mistake. He has brought me a story too low, but it is all the same now. We can die together."
"I don't believe we shall die at all," said Cynthia. "I'm dreadfully sorry now that I sent that diamond to the King." ”

“ The slits in the faded cotton gown were more suggestive than utter nakedness would have been. This person nodded at the chickens where they were disappearing in the bush.
"They are as good as any watch-dog," said she. "There is no use of thieves coming here."
Agueda rode close.
"I am not a thief," said Agueda. "Can you tell me where is the casa of Gremo, the light-keeper?"
"And where but here in this very spot?" said the piece of parchment, smiling a toothless smile and showing a fine array of gums. "But had you said the casa of Marianna Romando, you would have come nearer the truth." ”

“ The Skipper, if one could judge from the sounds, was enjoying his first sleep hugely. I have never seen a being with such a capacity for sleep. I did not disturb the old man, but turned quietly and raised myself to my feet. I looked in all directions, but there was nothing to be seen. I walked on tiptoe to where the Skipper snored and dreamed probably of his lost Yankee Blade. I could dimly see one sleeping form, and from the position in which it lay I felt sure that it was Cynthia. ”

“ All the servants have gone to the fair."
"You can climb down," said Agueda. "It is not high."
"Where should I go then, Agueda?" asked Raquel. "No, he would only bring me back. Now I will write my note, and I will ask you to take it to Don Gil." As Raquel said this name her voice trembled. She coloured all over her face.
"You are lovely that way," said Agueda. "What does he do to you, Señorita?—the Señor Escobeda. Does he starve you? Does he ill treat—I could tell the Señor Don Beltran—"
"You do not blush when you speak of him," said Raquel, who had heard some rumours. ”

“ I told the Skipper that I thought we had been enjoying ourselves long enough away from the camp, and that we should now return as soon as possible. As I spoke, I rested for a moment on my oars and turned my head in the direction of the camp.
"Strange!" said I; "there's no one on the beach." The Skipper stood up in the boat.
"No," he said, "there isn't. Perhaps they have gone a little farther into the shade." There were no figures moving about, no Cynthia, no Bo's'n, no Minion. One never knew what Lacelle would be up to, so I did not worry myself at not seeing her. ”

“ I wondered if I were to meet Cynthia, or if this were some ghostly trap into which I had fallen. The air was full of mystery. I had heard weird tales of the old caves of Santo Domingo, of which Haïti was a part, and of strange disappearances—of men with a spirit for adventure groping their way in those caverns and appearing never more to human eye. ”

“ As for us, Agueda, the horse had stampeded before I noticed the cloud-burst. It seems that you and I must stay."
Agueda made no answer, but she thought it no hardship to remain.
"There is no danger for us, child; we can go up to the thatch and wait."
"The peons have gone," said Agueda, shyly.
"They were within their rights," answered Don Beltran. "All must go who are afraid. I have always told them that. For me, I have known many floods. They were always interesting, never dangerous. Had I my choice, I should have stayed."
"And I," said Agueda. She did not look at Don Beltran as she spoke. ”

“ Also I flattered myself that Cynthia really wanted to see me at last. I put the paper in my mouth and reduced it to pulp. Not a very romantic thing to do with one's first approach to a love letter, but all things are fair in love or war, and this was a combination of both, I feared.
I now went out into the veranda and lay down in the hammock, preparatory to taking a short sleep. The breeze blew softly through the vines, and soon I became drowsy, but not so soon as my captors had imagined that I should. ”

“ My uncle Escobeda will be gone. Remember he will be gone, Ana! There will be no one to watch you, and you talk of clothes! You will not wear them out in one afternoon, and when I am Señora"—Raquel halted in her voluble speech and blushed crimson—"he, my uncle, would be glad to have you go and say that he has taken me away. Nothing would please him better. Now, promise me that when I am gone you will go to the Señor Silencio, and tell him where he has taken me. Tell him that I accept his offer. Tell him that if he loves me, he will find a way to save me. ”

“ Cynthia had left me to go I knew not where. She had told me in our short talk that the daughters of Christophe would have loaded her with ornaments had she been willing. He might show her mercy because of these black princesses, but what if they should change toward her? The blacks are capricious at times. What if he should insist upon this hated marriage, and either bind her to his nephew or, angry at her refusal, hand her over to a worse fate, if anything could be worse? I hoped that if such were the alternative he would throw her from the great wall, and thus end all our misery. ”

“ Agueda, why must you come here frightening my cousin? When the moon rises she will see the falseness of your story."
As if to convict him out of his own mouth, the moon suddenly shone through a rift in the black clouds which edged the horizon. It discovered to Agueda Felisa clasped to a resting-place that was her own by right. It showed her Beltran holding the little form in his arms, as once he had held her own. It showed her Beltran covering the blonde head with passionate kisses, as once he had covered her darker one. ”

“ How call up before your imagination the murky interior, the reddish flare of the smoking torches, the shining black bodies, the glittering eyes, the look on every face which spoke not of the lofty aspirations of the human being, but of the low nature of the brute? If there was ever any ceremony that combined as a whole the horrible, the soul-sickening, the disgusting, and the fascinating, it was that dance of the serpent. ”

“ Sometimes she thought of and pitied Aneta at El Cuco. Poor Aneta, who had thought that a life-long happiness was hers, when suddenly one day Don Mateo had returned from the city with a bride.
"Poor Aneta!" Agueda used often to say, with a pitying smile through which her own contentment broke in ripples of joy. How could she trust a man like Don Mateo? As Agueda sat and thought, she mended with anxious but unskilled fingers the pile of linen which old Juana had brought in from the ironing room. ”

“ Don Beltran prized his Capitas, Adan, above all the serving-men whom he had ever employed, and nothing was too good for Adan's sister Nada—so young, so fair-looking, so patient, her mouth set ever in that heartrending smile, which is more bitter to look upon than a fierce compression of the lips, whose gentle tones wring the heart more cruelly than do the wild denunciations of the revengeful and vindictive. ”