We left the chamber and returned to the recess from which we had originally emerged. It commanded a view of the chief avenues of the cavern; and while I secured the door, Jubal mounted the wall, and reconnoitered the enemy through a fissure.
“These are no Romans,” whispered he, “but a set of the most jovial fellows that ever robbed on the seas. They have clearly been driven in by the storm, and are now preparing to feast. Their voyage has been lucky, if I am to judge by the bales that they are hauling in; and if wine can do it, they will be in an hour or two drunk to the last man.”
“Then we can take advantage of their sleep, let loose one of their boats, and away,” said I.
Plunderers
I mounted to see this pirate festivity. In the various vistas of the huge cavern groups of bold-faced and athletic men were gathering, all busy with the work of the time; some piling fires against the walls and preparing provisions; some stripping off their wet garments and bringing others out of heaps of every kind and color, in the recesses of the rock; some wiping the spray from rusty helmets and corselets. The vaults rang with songs, boisterous laughter, the rattling of armor, and the creaking and rolling of chests of plunder. The dashing of the sea under the gale filled up this animated dissonance; and at intervals the thunder, bursting directly above our heads, mingled with all and overpowered all.
CHAPTER XXXVII
A Pirate Band
A Pirate Feast
The chamber whose costly equipment first told us of the opulence of its masters was set apart for the chief rovers, who were soon seated at a large table in its center, covered with luxury. Flagons of wine were brought from cellars known only to the initiated; fruits piled in silver baskets blushed along the board; plate of the richest workmanship, the plunder of palaces, glittered in every form; tripods loaded with aromatic wood threw a blaze up to the roof; and from the central arch hung a superb Greek lamp, shooting out light from a hundred mouths of serpents twined in all possible ways. The party before me were about thirty[40] as fierce-looking figures as ever toiled through tempest; some splendidly attired, some in the rough costume of the deck; but all jovial, and evidently determined to make the most of their time. Other men had paid for the banquet, and there was probably not a vase on their table that was not the purchase of personal hazard. They sat, conquerors, in the midst of their own trophies; and not the most self-indulgent son of opulence could have luxuriated more in his wealth, nor the most exquisite student of epicurism have discussed his luxuries with more finished and fastidious science. Lounging on couches covered with embroidered draperies, too costly for all but princes, they lectured the cooks without mercy: the venison, pheasants, sturgeon, and a multitude of other dishes were in succession pronounced utterly unfit to be touched, and the wine was tasted, and often dismissed, with the caprice of palates refined to the highest point of delicacy. Yet the sea air was not to be trifled with, and a succession of courses appeared, and were despatched with a diligence that prohibited all language beyond the pithy phrases of delight or disappointment.