The Pirate of the Mediterranean: A Tale of the Sea

by William Henry Giles Kingston

“Port the helm. Larboard fore braces. Starboard after braces,” cried Saltwell.

“Avast,” exclaimed Captain Fleetwood, who had been looking at the raft through his glass. “Starboard the helm again. Keep her as she was. The Venus will look after the mistico. There is some one on the raft. It is the figure of a female, and by heavens she is waving to us. It is, it must be—”

His agitation was so great, that he was obliged to support himself on Saltwell’s arm, who sprang to his side to catch him, thinking that he was about to fall to the deck.

The brig ran on till she neared the raft, a boat was lowered—her captain threw himself into it. He was speedily alongside the raft; in another moment Ada Garden lay fainting in his arms, overcome with excess of joy and gratitude to Heaven, and love for him, who had rescued her. Thus he bore her up the side of his ship, and was about to carry her below when the report of a gun was heard booming along the water. It seemed to have the effect of arousing Ada; for at that instant she opened her eyes, and gazing into her lover’s face as she pressed the hand which clasped hers, she whispered—

“Oh, do not let them kill him, Charles. For his sake, for he treated me well; for the sake of that poor girl—spare him—I promised him. Oh, hasten to save him!”

Her earnestness might have made a less sensible man jealous; but Fleetwood knew her too well, and loved her too well, to have any other idea than the true one, that she was anxious to fulfil a promise to the letter, and in the spirit with which it was received.

“I will do my utmost, dearest,” he answered; “I will do all you can wish, but I know not whence that gun can have come; for the Venus has gone round the other side of the island. Keep her after the mistico, Mr Saltwell, and hoist a white flag at the fore, to show her we mean her no harm. Fire a gun also away from her to draw her attention, and she will perhaps stand back towards us.”

These orders were given as he stood at the top of the companion-ladder before he conveyed Ada into his cabin, where little Marianna, almost out of her senses with delight, was arranging a sofa on which to place her. She again went off into a fainting fit, during which, while Marianna was searching for restoratives, and the surgeon was making his appearance, Fleetwood, as he knelt by her side, and called on her name, could not resist the temptation of bestowing many a kiss on her fair brow and lips, while he pressed her cold hands within his. The remedy was efficacious—perhaps Marianna thought it would be so, by the long time she was in procuring any other, as probably did the surgeon; for Ada had opened her eyes, and was able to sit up before he entered the cabin with the implements of his calling under his arm, which he had brought, not that he expected there would be any use for them, but as a plausible excuse for his dilatoriness.

At length, however, Captain Fleetwood tore himself away from Ada’s side, and left her to the exclusive care of the surgeon and her maid, while he hurried on deck to endeavour to overtake the mistico before she got under the guns of his consort, who, of course, was not likely to treat her with the leniency he had undertaken to do. A generous man, when he gets an enemy, especially a personal enemy, possessed of courage or any other noble quality, into his power, has a pride and satisfaction in pardoning him, and shielding him from punishment, and such was very much the feeling which animated Fleetwood, when he endeavoured to induce Zappa to return under the guns of the Ione. The pirate had certainly been, to him, a very great enemy, but he had been an open and bold one; he had caused him much misery and suffering, both bodily and mental, yet he had behaved with forbearance towards those in his power, and now that his beloved Ada was once more in safety, Fleetwood felt not only willing, but anxious, to preserve him. When he reached the deck he soon ascertained from whence the firing had proceeded, for another vessel had appeared on the scene. She was a brig, which had evidently come round the south side of the island, and was now rather more than three miles to leeward, standing up towards the unfortunate mistico, which she had just got under her guns. The mistico was by this time nearly two miles from the Ione, and with her sheets eased off, was standing along close in shore, with the hopes of getting round the west end of the island, and thus again away to the eastward, inside of her new enemy, not knowing that the Venus had already gone round there to intercept her.

“What brig is that, Mr Saltwell?” asked the captain, as he came on deck, his countenance expressing very different emotions from any which had appeared there for many a long day.