“Month by month matters went on in this way, until the rainy season had gone, and I was preparing for another cruise in the schooner; but hour by hour the consuming passion which flamed in the veins of Lucia was doing its work. I sometimes beheld her standing out on the veranda, tall and stately as ever; and when the moon was at the full, it threw its light upon her wan and sunken cheeks, and thin, wasted frame. Ay, there she stood, like an almost transparent statue of alabaster, with her dark eyes shining with an unearthly light, turned in one long tearless gaze upon the ledge and combing breakers to seaward. It was singular, too, the effect she produced even upon the horde of these brave fellows of mine, for no persuasion could induce a man of them to come within pistol-shot of that part of the house while she was thus keeping her nightly vigils. And as for Pedillo, he acquired such a superstitious dread of the girl he had married, and lived in such a state of abject terror, that I had serious thoughts of shooting him through the head to avoid the contaminating influence he exercised over his comrades.
“Well, caballeros, late one Saturday night, while the men were carousing and drinking success to the coming cruise––we were to sail on the following Monday––and while I was returning from my usual stroll to the Tiger’s Trap to see the battery in order and the look-outs wide awake, I met Babette toddling along, nearly out of breath.
“‘What is it, old lady?’ You know, amigos, that Babette never spoke a word in her life, but she made signs to let me know that I was wanted at the crag, and that there was no time to be lost. I quickened my pace, and, preceded by Babette, I once more darkened my own threshold. The curtains and hangings were all closely drawn in the saloon here, and it was dark as a tomb; but there was a light burning yonder in the passage leading to the chamber, and I made my way to the door.
“I shall never forget what I saw, though I should like to, as it comes to me sometimes in the night, or when I am left much alone by myself.”
The pirate passed his hands over his eyes as if he saw something while he spoke, and then, letting his voice drop to an almost sepulchral pitch, he went on hurriedly:
“I stood at the door, caballeros, and looked in. On the bed, which was drawn to the middle of the chamber to get the air through the narrow loopholed windows, with the gauze curtains falling square on all sides, lay Lucia. Her attenuated frame scarcely presented an uneven surface beneath the snowy sheet which covered it. Her superb hair was spread in great black masses on the pillow, and her 116 pale marble face reposed there like an ivory picture in an ebony setting. Her eyes were wide open, large and luminous, and her thin delicate hands were clasped around a silver and pearl crucifix, which rested on her hollow breast. A single taper in a silver lamp threw a lurid, flickering ray about the room, and beside it was Babette on her knees quivering with terror, while from one of the loopholed windows a broad white band of moonlight streamed directly across the pillow and face of the dying girl.”
Captain Brand’s face assumed a deathly pallor, and, with his icy blue eyes fixed on vacancy, and his voice sunk to a hoarse whisper, he went on:
“As I appeared in the portals of the door, Lucia slowly raised her fore finger, and beckoned me to approach. I could no more have resisted the summons than if a chain cable to a frigate’s anchor had caught me in its iron coils, and was dragging me to the bottom of the sea. I moved to the foot of the bed.
“‘Pirato!’ came from her slightly-parted lips, in her old low and distinct tones. ‘Pirato, behold your cruel work! Destroyer of mother and child––of soul and body––may the curses of a dying woman and her unborn child haunt you by day and by night!’ I was dumb, and my pulse stopped beating.
“‘Ave Maria purissima!’ were the last words that came in a sweet, pure whisper from her parted lips; she clasped the crucifix tighter, and the spirit departed. I tore aside the gauze net to lay my hand on her heart, when, on my soul! her right hand slowly relaxed its death-grasp on the crucifix, and, rising to a vertical line, with the fore finger pointing upward, quivered in the light of the waning moon, like, as it was, a supernatural warning! Yes, that finger––”