Did that blooded horse, as he dashed round the curve of the peak, with his thin nostrils blazing red in the dark night, know who his rider was, and on what errand he was bound? It was not snuff that distended those wide nostrils as he plunged down the broken road, through the close, deep forest, over rocks and water-courses, without missing a step with his sure, ringing hoofs; and mounting the sharp gorge beyond with the leap of a stag, his mane and tail streaming in the calm, thick night; the eyes lanterns of pursuing light, flashing out before his precipitous tread in jets of fire, as his feet struck the flinty stones, with a regular, enduring throb from his heaving chest, as an encouraging hand patted his shoulder and urged him onward.
Down the mountain again, with never a shy or a snort––the horse knowing the rider, and the man the noble beast; the lizards wheetling merrily, and the paroquets on the tree-tops waking up to chatter with satisfaction. Then into the beaten track along by the sea-shore, the horse increasing his stride at every minute, the spume flying in flakes from his flaming nostrils, and the man bending to his 261 hot neck, smoothing away the white foam, until, with a panting stagger, horse and rider stood still in the town of Kingston.
“Here, my boys, rub this your master’s horse down well, and walk him about the court-yard for an hour. There! Take this between you!”
One last pat of the steed’s arched neck, a grateful neigh as the dark face pressed against his broad head, and Paul Darcantel strode away in the gray light of the morning.
“Gorra mighty! Nimble Jack, look at dis! Bress my modder in hebben, it am one gold ounce apiece, sure as dis gemman’s name Ring Finger Bill! De Lord be good to dat tall massa! Him must hab plenty ob shiner to hove him away on poor niggers!”
Even while the tall man strode on toward the port, and as the happy blacks were chattering over their yapper, and walking the gallant steed up and down the paved court-yard, a dull, heavy-sailing Spanish brigantine was slowly sagging past Gallows Point and the Apostles’ Battery, when, creeping on by the frowning forts of Port Royal, she held her course to sea.
Very different sort of craft from the counterfeit brigantine, with clean, lean bows, slipping out from the Tiger’s Trap one sultry evening before a hurricane, which went careering, with a sea-hound after her, down to the Garotte Gorge. Different kind of a crew too; and Captain Brand must have remarked the contrast, with his keen, critical, nautical eye––that is, if he chanced to sail in both brigantines, as there is much reason for believing he did––with great disgust, on board the dirty, dumpy old ballahoo now just clear of Drunkenman’s Cay, and heading alongshore for Helshire Point, bound for St. Jago de Cuba.