What an awakening it was for Alister Lilburne when, after a night of soundest sleep, he realised that he was many a league from that Isle of the Lost!—was again free, safe, unhampered by rules and hateful regulations such as are found necessary for semi-penal communities.
The morning breeze, the roseate dawnlight, the lapping wave which kissed his cabin-side, the sea-birds’ cry,—all these were separate and distinct [197] ]joys and sensations which he recognised with a thankfulness too deep for words. When the Japanese steward shortly afterwards, bowing with Oriental humility, proposed to conduct him to a bath-room, and, at the same time, displayed a complete Spanish military uniform, he began to feel once more a resemblance to the man that he used to be, as also a newborn desire to learn how and by whom this change in his affairs had been brought about. Change? Yes! the change from a living grave—a hopeless, despairing existence—doomed to vegetate on the accursed isle till death released him from a state of mental torture all but unendurable. Weekly to witness the long-hoped-for, prayed-for opening of the prison gate for a fellow-victim. But only by the warder Death, or through a merciful alternative—the utter dethronement of reason.
The purifying process complete, and the costume of the hidalgo donned, from which not even the sombrero, with sweeping feather, was absent, his island garments were made into a bundle, loaded with a ringbolt, and cast into the deep. His attendant then informed him that the Captain hoped to have the pleasure of meeting Don Carlos Alvarez at breakfast, at his convenience. Feeling partly like an actor in private theatricals, partly like a man in a dream, he followed Manuel to the smaller cuddy, where fruit and coffee, with a most appetising breakfast, were already set forth.
‘I have the honour to salute Don Carlos Alvarez, who has joined my vessel at Santa Cruz [198] ]and desires a passage to Norfolk Island. Is it not so?’ said the Captain, speaking in Spanish, with formal and impressive courtesy.
‘A vuestro disposición
, Señor Capitan!’ answered the passenger in the same language. And, indeed, as he surveyed himself in one of the mirrors which, in massive silver frames, ornamented the apartment, he found it difficult to believe that he was not the haughty hidalgo with whom the tales of the Spanish main had made all students familiar.
‘I have to thank you,’ he continued, still speaking in more or less pure Castilian, ‘for my life—for the recovery of my liberty, and all things that men hold most dear. Believe me, I await only the time when I may translate my feelings into deeds, to prove them true. But I would further beg you to add to my obligation, heavy as it is, the reasons for your thus interesting yourself in the affairs of a stranger.’
‘That we have not met before, I am aware,’ answered Hayston. ‘My action is not wholly disinterested, you may probably guess; still, a man’s friends may intervene in his affairs—and to some purpose.’
‘Friends!’ said the stranger. ‘How many is an outcast likely to have—outcast of God and man—may He pardon me for the thought!—in that Gehenna from which your skill and courage have rescued me? And if there be, by a miracle, so much as one left to him, who once had many, what power can he have had?’
‘The power of the golden key,’ said the [199] ]sea-rover, looking around, as he spoke, upon wave and sky, as the freshening breeze sent the gay bark on her course with increased speed. ‘With a magic force in the background, weather like this, and such a water-witch as the Leonora under his foot, why should you, should any man, despair? Exile, sickness, wounds—losses, shipwreck, imprisonment,—everything but the rope or the axe, which ends all things, have fallen to my lot. But I never lowered my flag, and see where it flaunts in the breeze now! Bah! the Spaniard’s solace is the guitar; I must send for mine, and sing you one of my favourites,’ and here he trolled out the opening verse of ‘Yo soy contrabandista!’ ‘Gad! how the muleteers and smugglers of the Pyrenees used to dance and yell to the music! The very thought makes me young again.’ Here he sprang forward, raising his lofty head with a gesture of defiance, as if claiming to be the master of his own destiny, and daring a world in arms to subdue his will or shape his course in life. His eyes glowed with the light of battle—his upper lip curved in scorn—his vast frame seemed to grow in form and stature, as he stood there, towering above his companion, and presenting the contrast of a mediæval mail-clad knight alike to squire and pages as to the leathern-jerkined yeomen of the ranks.