“Shielded from the storm by a large boat-cloak, I carried my beautiful 111 bride, with her face nestling on my breast, to the cove, and then I bore her into this fine saloon.
“I shall never forget the sweet words she whispered, and the loving caresses she gave me on that little journey, even while the tempest almost dashed me to the ground, and the sharp flashes of lightning nearly blinded me. They were the last she ever lavished upon me.”
No sigh escaped the lips of this cold-blooded monster as he uttered these words; no sign of feeling for the ruin of a gentle girl whom he had betrayed to his piratical den of infamy and crime––whose dream of life was destroyed like a crushed rose-leaf, and all her hope gone from that moment.
CHAPTER XVII.
DOOM OF DOÑA LUCIA.
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“I went into the storm, And mocked the billows of the tossing sea; I said to Fate, What wilt thou do to me? I have not harmed a worm! “Thy dim eyes tell a tale–– A piteous tale of vigils; and the trace Of bitter tears is on thy beauteous face; Beauteous, and yet so pale!” |
“Thus it ever is, caballeros, and ever will be,” went on Captain Brand, in rather a reflecting strain. “There is a point to begin and stop, and an end to joy as well as grief. We should, however, take the world as it comes and as it goes. I do, and so do you, compadre!”––pitching a cigar spear fashion at Don Ignaçio to attract his attention––“and, therefore, we should never look too far ahead, and live only for the present.
“Indulging then in this train of thought, as I set down my lovely burden here, and the cloak fell from her shoulders, I was prepared for any thing which might happen. I wore a slightly different costume at the time than that she had been accustomed to see me in, as I always do when I think there might be a chance of a surprise or trap laid for us in entering the inlet. So, instead of fine linen and velvet, I had on a red flannel shirt, canvas trowsers, with a cutlass slung to my side, and a pair of pistols in my belt. I don’t think I appear handsome in that rig, but the fellows at my back somehow think it is becoming to me, especially when we are engaged in a hand-to-hand fight! What say you, compadre?”
The Don said nothing, and merely waved his fore finger, as if dress was not a matter to which he devoted much attention. He thought, however, that sleeves should be cut loose for knives when the pockets were not too small for pistols; but he uttered no word.