Talbot thanked him, and was about to decline, when he caught the eye of the officer, and noticed that he pushed a particular one out from the small bundle he held in his hand; Talbot took it, and watching his opportunity, opened his cigar unobserved. It contained a small slip of paper within its folds with these words. “We are strongly suspected, if not discovered; I know it from the searching examination I have undergone. We must fly and reach Havana before the ship if possible. Be on the alert for any opportunity that may present to slip up the main-hatch ladder, near which I will be hovering. Do not hesitate! Here you are absolutely within the power of the tyrant. He will throw you into the Moro Castle as soon as we arrive, and before your case can be investigated, months must elapse, and in the meantime, the lady will be lost to you forever.”
This note agitated Talbot exceedingly. It was agonizing to think of leaving Mary and her brother in the hands of their unprincipled captor; and yet, from his own experience thus far, he felt sure, that if he remained, he would be kept separated from her, and most probably confined in a dungeon until her ruin was completed. His only consolation was, that the count could not recover sufficiently to renew his nefarious designs before the ship had reached her port of destination. This consideration determined him to make his escape if possible.
There had been some water heated in the coppers, (anglice—boiler,) for the purpose of giving the count a prescribed bath. It so happened that while the cook’s attention was drawn another way, a piece of meat was thrown in, which rendered the water greasy and unfit for its destined use. The master’s-mate was therefore directed to have more drawn from the hold. Accordingly he came upon the lower or birth-deck, and as he stepped from the ladder, said, sufficiently loud for Talbot to hear, who was reclined beside it, “Look out!” and passed immediately on. The latter, taking the hint, but uncertain how to apply it, remained for a few moments in great suspense, when the master’s-mate called the sentry forward to hold the light for him. As the latter moved forward, Talbot availed himself of the opportunity, and instantly hurried up the ladder, although yet uncertain if such were the plan concerted by his friends. He was very soon assured, however, for nearly abreast of him, from the shadow between two of the guns, a figure advanced a few steps and immediately retired again. It proved to be Gonzalez, and together they clambered out over one of the guns, and found themselves by the small skiff of the privateer, which had been saved and hoisted up immediately under the anchor in the waist. Fortunately, the wind had hauled nearly ahead, and with the yards sharp-braced up, the ship was sailing sluggishly along, with her head rather diagonally inclined toward the shore.
“We must remain quiet here,” whispered Gonzalez, “until some movement be made on deck, in the noise of which we can lower the skiff undetected.”
The wind was gradually freshening, and the ship began to plunge with the increasing swell. After a while the topgallant-sails were taken in, but it was an operation so quickly performed, that before the boat was lowered half the distance it was suspended from the water, the noise ceased, and they were obliged to hold on. In about half an hour after, which seemed to them an almost interminable space of time, they were cheered with the welcome order,
“Man the main clew-garnets and buntlines,” preparatory to hauling up the mainsail. As the men ran away with the ropes, and clued and gathered the large and loudly flapping sail to the yard, Talbot and Gonzalez lowered the boat, and casting her loose, the ship passed by without any one observing them and was soon lost to view in the obscurity of the night. They had exchanged apprehended evils from human malignity for instant and appalling danger. The moon, struggling through a bank of clouds and shorn of her brilliancy by the opposing mist, cast her furtive beams upon the fretted sea. Instead of the prolonged and easy swell of the mid-ocean, the gulf, as if moved by adverse tides, whirled its waves about like some huge Briareus, tossing his hundred arms in the wildest and most furious contortions. The skiff was so light, so frail, and so difficult of trim, that they were every moment in danger of upsetting. The swell rapidly increased, and as they sunk into the trough of the sea, and shut out the faint horizon, the succeeding wave overshadowed, and its crest seemed to curl in anger above them. Sometimes a wave, like some monster rising from the deep, looked down black and threatening upon the tiny boat, and then rolling its seething foam along the sides, it rushed ahead, and gathering into a mass, seemed to await her coming. Thinly clad, and soon wet to the skin, as they rode upon the tops of the waves, they suffered bitterly from the coldness of the wind. In the hollow of the sea, they were sheltered one moment only to be more exposed the next. Sometimes riding upon the broken crest of a wave, they felt upon their bed of foam, as insignificant and far more helpless than the gulls which, disturbed in their slumber, screamed around them. The oars were of little service, save to steady the boat in the dreadful pitchings and careerings to which it was every instant subjected. One managed the oars, or sculls rather, while the other steered and occasionally bailed. There could be no transfer of labor, for it was certain death to attempt a change of position. Although the current set along the land, the wind and the heave of the sea, drove them indirectly toward it. After five hours incessant fatigue, cold, cramped and wearied to exhaustion, they reached the near vicinity of the shore, and running along it for about a mile, in increased danger, for the boat was now nearly broadside to the sea, they made the mouth of a small harbor, into which, as their frames thrilled with gratitude, they pulled with all their might. As the peace and the joys of heaven are to the wrangling and contumelies of this world, so was the placid stillness of that sheltered nook to the fierce wind and troubled sea without. The transition was as sudden as it was delightful, and with uncovered heads and upturned gaze, each paid his heartfelt tribute of thankfulness.
On one side of the sequestered little bay, through the dim and uncertain light, they discovered two or three huts, embowered and almost concealed by groves of the umbrageous and productive banana, whose large pendent-leaves waving in the wind, seemed at one time to beckon them on, and at another to warn them from approaching. It was evidently a fishing settlement, for there were some boats hauled up on the shore, and a long seine was hung upon a number of upright poles. Pulling toward what seemed the usual landing, their light skiff grated upon the pebbly beach, and they leaped, overjoyed, upon the silent shore—silent and mute in all that pertains to human action or the human voice, but eloquent, most eloquent, in the outpourings of a rich and teeming earth, and the gushing emotions of thankfulness it awakened in the bosoms of those two weary and persecuted men.
[To be continued.