“Ah! cuidado hico mio! Take care of yourself, my son,” hiccoughed the priest as he crossed himself. The captain gave a light laugh, sipped his coffee, and went on as if a dungeon, scaffold, and noose were the last things he ever thought of.
“I amused myself during the day in looking over the trunks, caskets, and what not we had saved from the sinking trader––presented to me, as you know, by the old lady who was on board. There were, of course, a great quantity of ladies’ dresses, and a good many jewels and trinkets; among the latter this fine snuff-box here, which our friend Don Ignaçio so much admires, and which I set aside as an especial testimonial of the old lady’s regard. Try another pinch, amigo? No? Bueno! I caused what I believed to be the daughter’s elegant raiment to be placed in the after cabin. For three days I never even saw my pretty passenger, though I heard her low, sweet voice occasionally when I laid out something for her to eat in the adjoining cabin. She sang, too, some little sad songs with a voice which vibrated upon my ear like the notes of an Æolian harp sighing in the night wind. Dios! how I regretted then and afterward that I did not have a cabinet piano!”
“Presented to you,” suggested the doctor.
“Yes, presented to me, so that she might have touched the keys with those ivory and rose-tipped fingers.
“So the time passed, the schooner flying on under whole sails, the wind about two points free, and the weather as fine as silk. It was the fourth evening, I think, after parting with the Oporto trader that I induced my fair passenger to come on deck and take a little breath of sea-air. You will observe, caballeros, that I did not make this suggestion in the daytime, because the ‘Centipede’s’ crew, you know, were rather numerous, and some of them not so handsome in point of personal looks as ladies at all times care to behold. Besides, there were certain things about the decks––racks of cutlasses, lockers of musketry along the rail, and a long brass twelve-pounder, which is not altogether hidden by the boat, you know, and might have given rise to a little curiosity, or maybe suspicion, even in the mind of a girl, as to our character, pursuits, and so forth, which I should have been puzzled to answer. Therefore I chose a clear starlight night to pay my homage, and accordingly I went below about four bells of the first watch to escort the little lady to the deck. She was dressed, and waiting for me in the cabin; and if I was so struck with her beauty when I first saw her, my heart thumped now against my ribs like a volley of musket-balls against an oak plank. She wore a black silk robe, such as Spanish women wear at early mass, and around the back part of her head––where the hair was gathered in a glossy knot, and secured by a gold bodkin––fell the heavy folds of a black lace mantilla, the lower end fastened sash fashion around her lithe waist. She stepped, too, like a queen on a pair of slim, long, delicate feet, with arched ball and instep, as if she were in command of the schooner.
“By my right arm!” exclaimed Captain Brand, shaking that member aloft in a glorious fit of enthusiasm, “I am quite sure she had conquered me, and that was more than half the battle!
“Well, I led her to the quarter-deck, where some cushions and flags had been placed for her near the weather taffrail, and where she sat down. The schooner was at the time under the two gaff-top-sails, the main boom and sheets eased off a little, those long masts, with the sticks above them running clear away up the sky, almost out of sight, bending like whalebone, and reeling over the long swell when the breeze freshened; and not a sound to be heard save now and then a light creak from the main boom as the broad white sail strained flat and taut over to leeward, or the rush of the water as it came hissing along from her sharp, clean bows, with a noise like a breeze through the leaves of a forest, away off over the counter into luminous sparkles as it swished out into our wake. The ‘Centipede’ was indeed doing her best, and you all know what that is, when we have been chased many and many a time by some of the fastest cruisers going.
“You remember, Don Ignaçio, how the ‘Juno’ frigate nearly ran us under, and yet never gained a fathom on us in nine hours?”