| [1] | Hermanita cara, mi alma—Dear sister, my soul. |
| [2] | Niña—Child. |
——
CHAPTER II.
I heed not the monarch,
I fear not the law;
I’ve a compass to steer by,
A dagger to draw.
Song.
In a secluded cove, formed by a bend in a small river, that empties its waters into the sea a few miles from Havana, whose mouth, bare thirty yards in width, would scarce be discovered by a stranger, or casual observer, so rankly and luxuriously do the mangrove-bushes grow upon its banks, and even in the water, that sailing within a hundred feet of the shore, no break or indentation is visible in the line of vegetation, lay at anchor one of the most beautiful and symmetrical top-sail schooners that ever left the port of Baltimore.