“We wish, sir, to see our friend, Mr. Talbot, who was, with us, a passenger in the schooner.”
“At present it cannot be,” answered the count, “but when we reach Havana, he will doubtless prove his character, and then you can be again united, but,” addressing her, “so much beauty should not be marred by untimely grief. A few days more and your friend will be restored to liberty. Here I cannot make any distinction between him and the other prisoners. Let me therefore entreat you, Miss, to dry up your tears, and let a smile once more wreath itself upon your lovely cheek.”
“Say to him,” asked Miss G., of the interpreter, “that I am in deep affliction. Yesterday I lost my father, and now, when I am most helpless, I am by his act,” (she looked toward the count) “separated from the friend whom that father had chosen as my protector through life. I am therefore in no mood to listen to compliments, which would be ill-timed from any one, most of all from him.”
The count stifled his vexation and said, “I beg pardon for this intrusion. I will await a more seasonable time to express my sympathy and make a proffer of my services;” so saying, he withdrew, desiring Gonzalez to remain and gather the particulars of their history.
An unprincipled man, in his sphere possessing almost unlimited power, he felt himself baffled by an unarmed prisoner and a helpless maid. “Till now,” he said to himself, “I thought Dolores beautiful, but her features want the intellectual grace and harmony of this northern houri. At all hazards, she must be mine. If all else fails, the drug must be resorted to. It is certainly the speediest and I know not but that it is the best; but I am neglecting my first precaution.” He rung the bell for the steward, a dark, swarthy Italian, with the body of a man surmounted on the legs of a dwarf.
“Domingo,” said his master, “go into the secret passage and watch Gonzalez, who is now with the lady. Note every thing that he does, and try to gather the meaning of what he says.”
The steward obeying, disappeared through a panel that opened with a spring.
In about half an hour, Gonzalez came forth from the inner cabin, and stated what he had learned of the prisoners, which, as there was no concealment, is precisely what is known to the reader. When he had retired, at a peculiar signal from the count, the panel noiselessly flew open, and the steward reappeared before his master. His account was any thing but satisfactory, and the count’s brow was darkened with deep mistrust, as he listened to the recital.
About sunset, Miss Gillespie, aroused by some incentive, sent to ask if her brother and herself might be permitted to walk on the upper deck. Assent was most graciously given, and the count himself escorted her. Finding that she would not converse, and that his presence was evidently irksome to her, he smothered his chagrin, and after a few turns, left the orphans to themselves.
It was an hour and a scene fitted to captivate the eye and refresh the soul; and such was its soothing influences, that Miss G. frequently found her mind wandering from the contemplation of the perils which environed her. The night previous, the ship, driven before the blast, was whirled with resistless velocity along a bed of seething foam. Now, the gentle wind borne from the land, wafted fragrance on its wing, and the sea, slightly ruffled, seemed to enjoy the refreshing embrace of its sister element; the ship, too, under a cloud of canvas, snow-white and full distended, pressed majestically on, the spray, like fairy fret-work curling and combing beneath the bow and the rippling wake sparkled in the rays of the setting-sun. The gorgeous western sky was tinged with the hues of crimson and gold; the south was a boundless expanse of blue, the island of St. Domingo, lofty, picturesque and beautiful, bounded the northern and eastern horizon. The land, but little cultivated, seemed fertile in the extreme, and was covered with lofty and umbrageous trees, the tangled and luxuriant undergrowth seeming so interlaced as even at high noon to intercept the light of the sun. The near mountains were covered to their very summits with verdure, not the tawny verdure of a northern clime, but the brilliant green of the tropics, while the loftier mountains wreathed their bald and craggy tops with the clouds that floated in the distance.