Having deliberately secured his dory, by making fast the painter round one of the stancheons of the awning, he called to his dog—"Matamoro—here, boy, here," and saw him safe on board before he had the civility to make his bow. At length he turned to me, and I had now no difficulty whatever in making out my amigo Mr Wilson, in the identical Buenos Ayrean captain, although he had altered his appearance very materially from the time I had seen him in Jamaica. Awkward as our position appeared to be fast getting, I could scarcely keep my eyes off the beautiful animal that accompanied him; first, because I admired him exceedingly; and secondly, because he seemed deucedly inclined to bite me. He was as tall as a stag-hound, whose symmetry of head and figure he conjoined with the strength of the English bull-dog. His colour was a pale fawn, gradually darkening down the legs and along the neck, until the feet and muzzle were coal black. He gamboled about his master like a puppy; but the moment any of us spoke to him, he raised his back into an angry curve, with the black streak that ran down it bristling up like a wild-boar's, and set his long tail straight, as if it had been a crow-bar, or the Northumbrian lion's; and then his teeth—my wig! the laughing hyæna was a joke to him. But I must return from the dog to the man. He was dressed in very wide trowsers, of a sort of broad, yellow stripped silk and cotton Indian stuff; slippers of velvet-looking, yellowish-brown Spanish leather, and no stockings; he wore a broad belt of the same sort of leather round his waist, over the ample folds of an Indian shawl of a bright yellow colour, with crimson fringes, the ends of which hung down on one side like a sash; this was fastened by a magnificent gold buckle in front, worked into the shape of a thistle. Through this cincture was stuck, on the left side, a long, crooked, ivory-handled knife, in a shark-skin sheath, richly ornamented with gold; while a beautifully worked grass purse hung from the other, containing his cigars, flint, and steel. His shirt was of dark ruby-coloured cotton, worked with a great quantity of bright red embroidery at the sleeves and throat, where it was fastened with the largest ruby stone I had ever seen; also fashioned like the head of the aforesaid Scottish thistle, with emerald leaves, and set in a broad old-fashioned silver brooch—the only silver ornament he wore—such as the ladies of the Highland chieftains in days of yore used to fasten their plaids with on the left shoulder. It was evidently an heir-loom. Vain, apparently, of the beautiful but Herculean mould of his neck, he wore his shirt collar folded back, cut broad and massive, and lined with velvet of the same colour as the shirt, and no neckcloth.
He had shaven his whiskers since I had seen him, but wore a large jet-black mustache on his upper lip; and a twisted Panama chain round his neck, supporting an instrument made of some bright yellow hardwood, highly polished, resembling a boatswain's pipe in shape; the ventiges inlaid with gold.
His cap, of the same sort of leather as his belt, was richly embroidered with a band of golden thistles above the scoop, which was of tortoiseshell hooped in with gold, coming very low down over his eyes, while the top, like a hussar's, doubled over on the left side of his head, where it ended in a massive tassel of gold bullion.
He had buff gloves stuck in his belt; and his hands, strong and muscular, but fair as a woman's, were richly decorated with several valuable rings.
There had been one alteration in his appearance, however, that I surmised he would have dispensed with if he could; and that was a broad, deep, and scarcely cicatrized scar down his sun-burnt cheek.
"My Kingston friend—proof positive," thought I.
I had never seen so handsome a man before, bronzed almost black though he was by wind and fierce suns—such perfect symmetry, conjoined with such muscle and strength—such magnificent bodily proportions, with so fine a face and forehead; and such pearl-white teeth—but the fiend looked forth in the withering sparkle of his hazel eye.
"The thistle!" said I to myself, as the old Scottish brooch, and the general predominance of the national emblem in his equipment attracted my attention; "alas, can love of country, pervading as it is, still linger in the bosom of a man without a country; of one whose hand is against every man, and every man's hand against him; of the Tiger of the sea!" Yes, like the dying lamp in the sepulchre, flickering after its fellows have long been for ever quenched, whose faint and uncertain beams seem still to sanctify, if they cannot warm, the gloomy precincts, where all beside is cold, and dark, and dead;—it was the last ray of blessed light, gleaming through the mist of surrounding rottenness and desolation—the last pale halo of virtuous and holy feeling hovering to depart from off the obdurate and heaven-scathed heart of the God-forsaken PIRATE.
Unjust—unjust. There was another—a kindlier, a warmer, a steadier flame, that still burnt sun-bright in that polluted tabernacle—all worthy of a purer shrine—nor left it until, abreast of the spark of life itself, it was shattered from his riven heart by the dart of the Destroyer; and the dark and felon spirit, whirled to its tremendous account on the shriek of unutterable despair, crushed from him in his mortal agony, as the dancing waves closed, howling and hissing like water-fiends, over the murderer's grave. But let me not anticipate.
From his manner I could not say whether he knew me or not.