"By the way," continued I, in my kindly meant attempt, "it puzzles me exceedingly to conceive how Adderfang and his crew did not pillage the Moonbeam when we were so completely in his power."
"There are three reasons," replied De Walden, "any one of which was sufficient to have prevented him. First of all, he was here under the Buenos Ayrean flag; and as San Andreas must have been a convenient rendezvous, both from its seclusion and the abundance of provisions to be had in it, he might be reluctant to commit any overt act of piracy under Mr ***'s nose. Secondly, the Devil is not always so black as he is painted; and, from all we can learn, he was a fearful mixture of good and evil: and, last of all, and possibly the strongest of the three, you were scarcely worth plundering, being in ballast—had you been returning with your cargo of shell, I would have been sorry to have been your underwriter. But what an indomitable fellow this same Adderfang must have been. You saw how desperately he fought the little Midge, and how gallantly he carried on her, in his futile attempt to beat her out of the bay. I verily believe, from all I have heard, that he would have fired the magazine, and blown all hands into the air, before he would have struck. But see, there goes little Piper and his boat's crew, with the poor blind girl's body to her long home."
I looked in the direction indicated, and saw a boat leave the Spider, pulled by four men, with a midshipman in the stern, and a deal coffin lying along; the flag that covered it having been blown aside.
"Blind?" said I, "a blind girl did you say?" as the scene when I considered Adderfang on his death-bed at Havanna, suddenly rose up before me.
"Yes—she was the only thing we picked up when the felucca foundered; except that devil of a bloodhound, which we had to destroy, in consequence of his untameable ferocity, before he had been a quarter of an hour on board; nothing else whatever, animate or inanimate, floated."
"And pray how did she?"
"She was buckled to an oar by this belt," said he, producing the identical cincture I had seen Adderfang wear; "but was quite dead by the time we saw her."
"That was Adderfang's girdle," said I, greatly moved.
"I guessed as much," continued De Walden. "Bad as he was he must have loved her dearly, for his last thought on earth seems to have been her safety—and no wonder, for she must have been a most beautiful creature, tall, and elegantly formed, with fine Greek features—such hair!—alas! alas! what a melancholy ending she has made, poor thing. I make no doubt that she was the same female we saw in the prison at Havanna."
"Very like, very like; but I wonder how she came on board?"