“Ay, amigo; but, had she not carried away her fore-top-mast, in another hour there would have been nothing left of you afloat but a––hencoop perhaps.”
“Quien sabe, compadre? If hads had been shads you would have had fish for your breakfast,” rejoined the narrator; and then throwing back the lappels of his green velvet coat with an air of gentlemanly satisfaction, he hooked his thumbs in the arm-holes of his fine waistcoat, and went on.
“Well, señores, the graceful girl beside me never spoke scarcely for half an hour. I divined, however, what her thoughts might have been in dwelling on the painful scenes she had recently witnessed, and I held my peace also; for, you see, I have had considerable experience with women, and I have ever found that a man loses more by talking than by remaining watchful and attentive.”
Captain Brand looked, as he gave utterance to this philosophical sentiment, as if he were a thirsty, cold-eyed tiger, lying in wait to spring upon an unwary passer-by.
“Yes, I waited, until at last she spoke.
“‘Capitano,’ she said, ‘what a beautiful vessel you command, and how fast she sails!’
“What I replied, my friends, is neither here nor there; but I sank down on the cushions beside the lovely girl, and poured out a torrent of passionate words––which I really felt, too, at the time––as I don’t think I ever uttered before or since. She was a little startled and nervous at first, but after a while I saw her stately head droop to one side till it rested on my shoulder; I stole my arm around her yielding waist and clasped her to my breast.”
Here Captain Brand looked as if the tiger had already sprung upon the passer-by, and was sucking the blood, with his claws buried deep into the carcass.
“‘Señor,’ she murmured, in the low, sweet, plaintive note of a nightingale, ‘I am a young and inexperienced girl, of an old and noble family; you have saved my life; my mother is gone, and I have no one to advise with, and, if my dear father smiles upon my choice, I will marry you; but do not, I implore you, deceive me!’”
“And you did not deceive her, I hope?” broke in the doctor, with a shiver of light from his determined eyes that was almost painful to see, so earnest and terrible it was, as he leaned forward with both of his clenched hands quivering nervously on the table.