“No, leave me,” she exclaimed, more excited, “I shall not sit down till you pass your word. Remember the dear person whose picture you now wear on your heart, and which you so affectionately pressed to your bosom, when the fever was on you. Can you suppose that she can look down from heaven, with joy or pleasure, on the son that she nourished, when he has abandoned himself to a course that God and man alike reprobate and condemn? Picture her in the society of the saints and angels looking down upon you, at the head of your lawless and cruel men, red with the blood of your murdered victims, and rushing forward to plunder, and to spread misery around as you go. Do you think that the sight of her child—her son, in this position, can impart to her either happiness or pleasure? Think of that: and, when ever you press her picture to your heart, recollect you only go through a cheating mockery, that the life you lead takes away from her happiness, from the happiness even of heaven. Remember the tears that she may have shed for you while here: remember the cares and anxieties she may have suffered for you; those, surely, were enough: and, if death ended her miseries on earth, do not you spoil the joy which she may now enjoy in heaven?”
“Enough—enough,” cried Appadocca, with more warmth than was his habit, “stop, stop, I implore you.”
“Then promise me.”
“My vow is recorded in heaven, I cannot promise,” answered Appadocca, drily.
Feliciana staggered stupified to her seat, while she gazed, without the power of utterance, on the person before her.
“You will not promise!” she said, recovering herself, “you will not promise! Well, I shall promise,—I now vow,—that I shall follow you to the end of the world, until you consent to renounce for ever this wicked life.”
So saying, she sprang violently from her chair, and rushed out of the room.
Appadocca, after the disappearance of the agitated Feliciana, sank back into the cow-hide chair, almost confounded by the scene which had just been enacted, and well-nigh distracted by the thousand reflections which it made to rush upon him. The first thought was of his safety.
“Suppose,” he quickly reasoned, “others beside Feliciana, should have heard his disclosures during the fever; what could he expect under such circumstances, but to see the kindness with which he had been treated, suddenly changed into a most ferocious spirit of revenge.” For he knew, too well, what cruelties the pirates of the West-Indian sea had, under Llononois and other captains, practiced on the unfortunate inhabitants of those coasts.
Those atrocities could not be blotted out from the memory for centuries, and it was likely, that at the very name of pirate, the revenge of the Spaniards would break out as uncontrollably as fire in its favourite food.