H. A. Wise

“ Down the ladder skipped Mr. Mouse, and while he was gone, the guard, in their white summer uniform and cross-belts, stood at ease, resting on their muskets on the quarter-deck, eight side-boys and the boatswain at the starboard gangway, with the first lieutenant and the officer of the watch standing near.
Presently there came up from the after cabin hatchway a fine, handsome man, in the very prime of life, in cocked hat, full-dress coat, a pair of gleaming epaulets, sword by his hip, and his nether limbs cased in white knee-breeches, silk stockings, and pumps. ”

“ Now, as if all the demons of winds had let loose their cavernous lungs from the 167 four quarters of the earth, and like the shocks of artillery, volley upon volley, came the hurricane. The sea became one boiling, seething, hissing surface of foam, pressed and flattened by the weight of the tempest, which laid the black rocks bare on the ledge, and drove the water into both mouths of the inlet, until, with a crashing shock, it met in the basin, and broke over and over the cove, and high up the wall of rocks on the other side. ”

“ Captain Brand laid down the paper without a sign of outward emotion, and nodded his head several times at the one-eyed man facing him. He then extracted his perfumed handkerchief, examined the cipher in the corner, and waved it before his face. Don Ignaçio pulled out a red silk bandana, and polished his eye as if it were the lens of a spy-glass. At length the former spoke:
“Amigo mio! The nets are spreading, but the fish are not in them yet!”
“No, amigo!”
“Ah! compadre, viento y ventura poca dura! the fair breezes have chopped round in our teeth. ”

“ Her taunt, trim masts, square yards, and clear, delicate black tracery of rigging, shadowed by a wide spread of snow-white canvas over the low, dark hull––which at every roll in the gentle undulations exposed a row of ports with a glance of white inner bulwarks––while the brass stars of her battery reflected sparks of fire from the blazing rays of the sun, showed she was a man-of-war.
“She’s one of our cruisers, I think, sir,” said the mate, as he handed the spy-glass to the captain; “but Ben here believes contrariwise, and says she is a French corvette.” ”

“ Thus we went on, the sea getting more regular every hour, so that we could send up the top-gallant masts, get the yards across, shake a reef or two out, and put the ‘Scourge’ in order. The schooner needed no encouragement from us, but cracked on more sail until her long main-mast reeled and bent over, as she came up on the breaking ridge of a wave, like a whip-stalk. By noon the clouds had gone, and left us a clear sky, with the gale going down into a full top-gallant breeze, sending the corvette along good eleven knots. ”

“ However, with the copper oil-pot dangling from his little finger, where the sapphire once shone, and the torch-stick in the other hand, he marched boldly over the sandy ridges toward the crag.
But, Captain Brand, there had been three pairs of open eyes watching you through every mouthful of snapper you snapped, and every drop of fiery white rum you swallowed. Ay! and while you tossed about on the shelly beach, with the red glow of the embers of the fire lighting up your cold-blooded, wrinkled face––while, twisting your nose, you muttered ho! ho’s! ”

“ The padre was now all awake again, with his thick lips open, waiting for the captain to go on with his story. As for Don Ignaçio, he never stirred body or limb, but his eye traveled about perpetually, and he observed the movements of his companions all at the same time. Still the hoarse roar of the pirates in their carouse arose from the covered sheds in the calm night, and the two solitary lights from each mast-head of the felucca and schooner twinkled above the basin of the inlet. ”

“ It was long past noon when the pirate returned to his island home, and the day was hot, for the sea-breeze had not made, and the tropical sun was pouring down its burning rays until the sand was roasting as in a furnace; the very rocks throwing off a trembling mirage of heated air, and the lagoon almost boiling under the fiery influence. The sailors, with aching heads and parched mouths, were swinging in their grass hammocks beneath the sheds; and, save the watchful vigilance of the men at the look-outs and battery, the little island was wrapped in repose. ”

“ Here Captain Brand, having regained some few faculties and energy, moved on beyond the church, till he came to the white coral headstone, where he stood still.
It was his last walk on deck or sand! Shading his still horror-stricken eyes by both hands, he glared to seaward.
“Ho, ho! there you are, my Yankee commodore, with that old brig under convoy, and that pretty schooner! Reminds me of my old ‘Centipede.’ Bueno! there are other ‘Centipedes,’ and I must begin the world anew. I am not old; here is my strong right arm yet; and who can stop me?” ”

“ As I appeared in the portals of the door, Lucia slowly raised her fore finger, and beckoned me to approach. I could no more have resisted the summons than if a chain cable to a frigate’s anchor had caught me in its iron coils, and was dragging me to the bottom of the sea. I moved to the foot of the bed.
“‘Pirato!’ came from her slightly-parted lips, in her old low and distinct tones. ‘Pirato, behold your cruel work! Destroyer of mother and child––of soul and body––may the curses of a dying woman and her unborn child haunt you by day and by night!’ I was dumb, and my pulse stopped beating. ”

“ The ‘Centipede’ went skimming on over the water with every thread of canvas she could spread, reeling over on her side at times when the breeze freshened, while the spray flashed up joyously and sparkled in the sun, leaving a bubbling current of foam in her wake, which, before it had been entirely lost in the regular waves of the sea, the corvette’s sharp bows would plunge into, and again make it flash high up to her fore-yard, and then go seething, and hissing, and kissing her black sides until it rippled around her rudder and was lost again in the wake astern. ”

“ She was dressed, and waiting for me in the cabin; and if I was so struck with her beauty when I first saw her, my heart thumped now against my ribs like a volley of musket-balls against an oak plank. She wore a black silk robe, such as Spanish women wear at early mass, and around the back part of her head––where the hair was gathered in a glossy knot, and secured by a gold bodkin––fell the heavy folds of a black lace mantilla, the lower end fastened sash fashion around her lithe waist. ”

“ But, quick as lightning, two black, sinewy paws clutched him with such a steel-like grip about the throat that his sacrilegious arm dropped by his side, and he was hurled violently back against the cabin bulkhead. Then standing before him, the negro glared like an angry lion roused from his lair as he looked round inquiringly at his mistress.
“Ho!” sputtered the ruffian, as he pulled a pistol from his belt, “ho! you mean fight, do ye?”
“Banou! mon pauvre Banou!” screamed the terrified woman. “Yield! Oh, sir, spare him! Don’t harm us, and we will give you all we possess!” ”

“ The man-of-war birds came floating in from seaward, high up, like black musquitoes, with their pointed wings wide spread and heading toward the land, but now with never a quiver to their silent pinions. A school of porpoises, too, broke water from the opposite direction, and, crossing and recrossing each other’s track, came leaping and puffing over the gentle swells until they struck the brig’s wake, when they wheeled around her bows, dashed off on a swift visit to the corvette, and then, closing up in watery phalanx, went gamboling, leaping, and breaking water again to windward. ”

“ Every evening the surgeon, the purser, the chaplain, the major, and the old sailing-master were in the cabin, going over the chase of a certain pirate in a schooner “Centipede” away down on the Darien Coast, with Cape Garotte there under their lee, and the vultures and the sharks grinding the bones and tearing the flesh of the half of a man with the tusk gleaming out of his wiry mustache; and the padre, with his eyes staring wide open, and the crucifix, borne away by the carnivorous birds of prey. ”

“ Run out! One point abaft the beam! Fire as you bring the schooner to bear!”
Out belched the red flames; the heavy globes of iron, like so many black peas in daylight, sung their deadly note as they darted on their way, and the corvette gave a little heel to leeward as the shock of the explosion was felt. One shot dropped within fifty yards of the low hull of the schooner, bounded just clear of her after-deck, knocked off the head and shoulder of a man at the tiller, and then went skipping away over the water like a black foot-ball. ”

“ At the first gray blush of dawn on the following day Captain Brand was astir again, and before the sun went down behind the waves the schooner “Centipede” had been transformed into a brigantine, her fore-mast reduced, new standing rigging fitted for it, with a new bowsprit and head-booms, her rail raised four or five feet by shifting bulwarks, and a temporary house built on deck over the long gun. ”

“ Lay out! Loose away!” Almost at the instant came down the squeaks from aloft of, “All ready with the fore! the main! the mizzen!” “Let fall––sheet home! hoist away the top-sails!”
Again were heard the quick notes of the fifes on both decks, and in less than five minutes more the anchors were catted, and the “Monongahela,” under a cloud of canvas, began to move.
But where was the “Rosalie,” late “Perdita,” all this time? Why, there she goes, with never a tack, through the narrow strait, lying over under the press of her white dimity like a witch on a black broomstick, as she shoots out to sea. ”

“ Even while they were speaking a flag went rapidly up in a roll to the corvette’s peak, when, shaking itself clear, it lay white and red, with a galaxy of white stars in a blue union, on the lee side of the spanker; while at the same instant a long, thin, coach-whip of a pennant unspun itself from the main truck, and hung motionless in the calm down the mast. Her decks were full of men, standing in groups under the shade of the sails to leeward; and on the poop were three or four officers in uniform and straw hats. ”

“ Saying this, the pirate widened the noose of the cord, and, slipping it over the doctor’s head, he placed the knot carefully under his left ear. The victim gave no groan or sigh, and his dark, luminous eyes were fixed on the blue sky above him in heaven.
“Monsieur le Docteur,” said Captain Brand, as he hurriedly looked at his watch and raised his hat, “I have but one word of caution to give you: if you struggle you will have your neck broken before you are stung to death! Talk as much as you like; but, as Babette is a long way off, and hard of hearing, I doubt if she comes to your assistance! ”

“ The mangroves bent, too, before the wind, and the sand eddied up in tiny whirls amid the great expanse of cactus, while the vessels swung with taut cables to their anchors. Even Captain Brand’s hat nearly was blown off his dry light hair as he joined his compadre, Don Ignaçio, at the landing; and the sandy dust blinded––though only for a moment––that one-eyed individual’s optic, and put out his cigarette as they struggled against the influence of the breeze. ”

“ Mr. Mouse, with a last tiny kick on the saddle-flaps of his lofty mule, tumbled off; Colonel Lawton swinging himself from the saddle of his barb as if he had been part of him; Tom Stewart, Paddy Burns, and Don Stingo sliding off any way; Harry Darcantel trying to descend in fine style, and failing miserably; Piron and the commodore doing the thing leisurely; Jacob Blunt pulled off bodily; while the laughing blacks took the beasts and led them away. ”

“ Half that distance farther out was a roaring ledge of white breakers, where the long swell came hammering on it, bursting up in the air in brightish green masses, and then tumbling over the reef and bubbling smoothly on toward the shore. On a level with the water no channel could be discerned through the ledge; but, looking down from the heights around the inlet, a narrow blue gateway was marked out, skirted on the surface by frothy crests of dead foam, and near where flocks of cormorants and gulls were riding placidly on the inner side of the ledge. ”