“Henri, my boy, put your arms around me again as you did when I lay in torture on the trestle on that island. Have no fears for me; we shall meet again. There! now listen to me. Here is a packet which I wish you to carry to Porto Rico with this letter. The old judge is alive, I think, to whom this letter is addressed, and it may perhaps soothe his declining years. I wish to take your little gig, 287 with Banou and Ben Brown––no more force––and if, as I believe, that villain has returned to his former haunt, I will fulfill my oath to its very letter. Meanwhile, so soon as we have shoved off, while the breeze still holds, run down to the frigate––she is not three leagues off––and you will be in your yearning parent’s arms, and those of the girl you love, before they sleep. There! I know you will think of me. Farewell!”

288

CHAPTER L.
ON A BED OF THORNS.

“An orphan’s curse would drag to hell
A spirit from on high;
But oh! more horrible than that
Is the curse in a dead man’s eye!”

“O Heaven! to think of their white souls,
And mine so black and grim!”

“Ho, ho!” said Captain Brand, as he stretched out his straight legs in their canvas casings on the sand of the little cove, “safe and sound, and not a soul to share this nice supper of that good old man Miguel!

“Ho, ho!” continued he; “here at last! No Babette to cook for me––no ‘Centipede’––nothing but that stanch little boat presented me by that generous fisherman, who, I fear, is drowned by this time. Well, let us enjoy ourselves! Excellent real snapper this! Sausage rather too much garlic perhaps; but the brown bread and the aguardiente unexceptionable. Blaze away, my little fire; your sticks cost me much labor to dig out of my once comfortable house, but you are better than gunpowder any day.

“Just to think of the years that have passed! That great bank of sand there over the sheds, nearly as high as the crag, where my brave fellows once caroused; the young cocoa-nut springing up on the crag itself––not a vestige of my old habitation left, or the bright blades or pleasant guests to dine with me!”

Here there was something of the old cold murderous scowl on the captain’s face as he twisted the point of his nose.

“Ah! yes, there may be my wary-eyed Sanchez left, though the last I heard of him he was in the Capilla dungeon of the Moro. And that”––grating his teeth, and glaring with his icy eyes at the fire, as if those two blocks of ice would put it out––“cursed doctor who pursues me!