“Oho, my little massa! what will papa say to-morrow when he sees his brave Henri?”
“Ah! how happy he will be, Banou!” said the lovely mother, who had just come on deck, as she kissed the mouth of the young scamp, while the black wrapped and dried his little naked body in a large towel.
“Ah! yes, my mistress, we all will be happy once more to get home to master on the plantation.”
“Tell me! tell me, good capitaine,” said she, turning in a pretty coquettish way to the skipper, “when shall we get in port?”
It was a sight to see her, in the loose white morning-gown folded in plaits about the swelling bosom, her slender waist clasped by a flowing blue sash, the dark brown satin bands of her hair confined by a large gold filigree pin, and half concealed by a jaunty little French cap, with the ribbons floating about her pear-shaped ears; and while her soft, dark hazel eyes were bent eagerly toward the solid old skipper, her round, rosy, dimpled fingers clasped a miniature locket fastened by a massive linked gold chain around her neck. Ah! she was a sight to see and love!
“Tell me, mon cher Capitaine Blunt, how many hours or minutes will it be before I shall behold my husband?”
The good-natured skipper laughed pleasantly at the eagerness of his beautiful passenger, and opening his hands wide, he gave vent to a long, low whistle, and replied,
“When the wind comes from good San Antonio, my Lady Bird––when the sea-breeze makes––then the old brig will reel off the knots! But see! just now not a breath to keep a tropic bird’s wings out. There, look at that fellow!”
High up in the heavens, two or three men-of-war birds, with wide-spread pointed wings, and their swallow tails cut as sharp as knife-blades, were heading seaward, and every little while falling in a rapid sidelong plunge, as if in a vacuum, and then again giving an almost imperceptible dash with their pinions as they recovered the lost space and continued on in their silent flight.