"O hala hala!" sighed Van Dorn. "You are the star of my life. All that I am, you have made me. Patty, I worship you. When you are gone, human nature will breathe and wonder. Do you remember when first we met?"
"A little, Captain. Tell it to me again. Praise me if you kin. I'm almost desolate."
Her lip trembled, and she glanced at the fields across the way, she had so long inhabited, where, as it seemed to her, more life than ever was visible to-day, though she did not look carefully.
"How many years it has been, Patty, we will not tell. I was coming home from Africa with an emigrant, a Briton, my capturer, indeed—that officer in the blockading squadron on that coast who seized my privateer, the Ida, with all her complement of Guinea slaves. His name was all I took from him—you got the rest—Van Dorn!"
She stole a startled look at him out of her listening eyes, as if this might be unpleasant talk, but he parried it with a compliment.
"Chis! Dios! What a family of beauties you were! Betty, with her hoyden air, and Jane, with her wealth of charms, and Patty, with her bold, rich eyes and conquering will. We sailed into the Nanticoke by mistake for the Manokin. My friend had pitied my misfortunes and liked my company, and, when he broke me up as a slaver—having already been broken as a privateer—had said: 'Dennis, that country you praise so well has infatuated me; I'll resign my commission and buy a little vessel, and settle in America with you for the sake of my dear little daughter, Hulda Van Dorn.' Ayme! that poor little wild-flower: where did she spend the chill night yesterday, Patty, can you tell?"
He coughed again, very carefully, and his eye, the brighter for his fretted lungs, never left his hostess, as though he feared she might overlook some pleasing feature of his story. She trotted her foot and muttered:
"You made me jealous of her: I got to hate an' fear her, lovey."
"Voluptuous as two young widowers were after a long cruise, we tarried among you sirens, myself almost at the threshold of my home, where my wife believed me dead, yet waited longingly and waits this morn, dear Patty. Dios da fe! My friend, entasselled with bright Betty, sooner felt remorse at the spectacle of his little child so ill-caressed, and beckoned me away; but he had shown his gold, and could better be spared than reckless I. You know the cool, deep game, dear Pat. Hala ha! I was made to buy the poison you sisters gave Van Dorn, and seem the accomplice in his death: never till this week has that murder given up a testimony—the portion of the dead man's coin your mother stole and hid, which Hulda inherited at last. Verdad es verde! I became afraid to leave you: I am here at the death with you, my old enchantress."
A crack ran through the empty wooden house, which made her rise; Van Dorn, as he was called, enjoyed her uneasiness, like a pallid mask painted with a smile.