Captain Brand looked at the doctor with rather a suspicious stare, and letting his thumbs drop from his armpits till they rested on the flaps of his waistcoat pockets, he replied, in a careless tone,
“Oh no, monsieur, I never deceived––a––that is to say, intentionally deceived a woman in all my life!”
“Let us hear more, my son,” said the priest, thickly, who had now woke up from a short nap.
“Bueno, caballeros!” continued the narrator, as he tossed off a thimbleful of maraschino from a wicker-bound square bottle after his coffee. “Well, gentlemen, the young Portuguese damsel, Señorita Lucia, and I sat there under the weather rail till the first faint streaks of early dawn in the tropics began to announce the coming of the gray morning. Then she arose, and, leaning with a soft pressure on my arm, I took her to her cabin, kissed her sweet hands, and bade her good-night.”
At this stage of the narrative Captain Brand threw himself triumphantly back in his large Manilla chair, and ran his white muscular hands through his dry light hair. Ay! the tiger had clutched his prey. An unprotected, young, and lovely girl had been won and lost, and her palpitating heart was soon to be torn from her tender body.
CHAPTER XVI.
NUPTIALS OF THE GIRL WITH DARK EYES.
|
“With a pint and a quarter of holy water He made the sacred sign, And he dashed the whole on the only daughter Of old Plantagenet’s line!” “But the count he felt the nervous work No more than any polygamous Turk, Or bold piratical skipper, Who, during his buccaneering search, Would as soon engage a ’hand’ at church As a hand on board his clipper.” |