An Old Sailor's Yarns Part 17

"And he shall never be deceived in old Israel Williams, I can tell him that, nor shall you, my dear young lady."

"I have but little time to spare," said the young lady, with increasing trepidation, "and my communication must be brief, as my plan is simple.

To-morrow night, at ten o'clock, Captain Williams, let your swiftest boat be at the place where Mr. Morton and his companions were taken, and let her wait there until day-break. It may not be in my power to effect my object to-morrow night; but let not one nor two disappointments deter you from repeating the experiment. In the mean time, be on sh.o.r.e to-morrow as though nothing was in agitation; avoid exciting any suspicions by either words, looks, or actions; and be a.s.sured, that, if the plan for the rescue of the prisoners fails, it must be from some accident that can neither be foreseen nor prevented."

The commander of the Albatross having promised to follow all these directions to the letter, they separated; he to return to his ship with a joyful heart, and Isabella to reconnoitre the prison previous to retiring to her uncle's house.

She pa.s.sed the guard-house at a slow pace and at such distance as to avoid observation, but sufficiently near to ascertain that all the guard, four in number besides the corporal, were wrapped up in their cloaks and stretched out sound asleep upon the stone floor of the guard-room, which was lighted by a large clumsy lamp sufficiently to allow her to see its interior. The sentry at the door, who was slowly pacing backwards and forwards with a paper segar in his mouth, was the only one awake.

As she bent her steps homeward, she perceived some one approaching her, in the very direction that she was going, with an uncertain, faltering footstep that denoted considerable intoxication. To avoid him she turned to the right with the purpose of making a circuit; but, before she had gone ten yards with that intention, she perceived that the stranger had quickened his pace and changed his direction, coming directly towards her. Exceedingly alarmed, she turned short round and ran, and in a moment perceived that her pursuer was likewise running, and rapidly gaining upon her. Fear lent her speed, and with the swiftness of a hunted deer she flew across the plaza towards an open s.p.a.ce, terminated at its further extremity by the precipitous cliff that the town is built upon, and which we have mentioned more than once. Her intention was to turn quickly round the corner of a house that stood within four feet of the edge of the cliff, and gain another street; or, if there were no other means of escape, to take refuge in the house of a poor widow, one of her pensioners, and obtain a guide and protector to her uncle's house.

Her pursuer was no other than her self-const.i.tuted lover, Don Gregorio.

He had dined that day with a party of officers, and had dipped rather deeper into the bottle than, to tell the truth, he was often guilty of doing. He suspected that Isabella was in the habit of visiting the prison; but as she was generally accompanied, in all her rambles, by one or both her cousins, he had thought nothing more of the circ.u.mstance.

But now he was convinced that she was just returning from, or going to, a nocturnal appointment with the prisoner Morton, who had always been an object of his hatred, and in an instant his jealousy was in full operation.

The cliff, towards which he was now approaching, was undefended by wall, fence, or barrier of any kind. My readers have doubtless seen something similar in their lives; that is, a nuisance that has acquired such a venerable character from its antiquity, that it seems a species of sacrilege, a sort of violation of munic.i.p.al privileges, to remove or repair it. Such, for instance, in city or country, is a gap in the street or road, large enough to swallow a brace of elephants at once: the inhabitants become acquainted with its localities; and, wisely considering that, as it is _every_ body's business, of course it is _no_ body's business, to repair it, leave it "open for the inspection of the public" for a twelvemonth at least; and if any unfortunate stranger tumbles in and breaks his neck, on a dark night, it is ten chances to one that the jury of inquest return for a verdict, that "the deceased came to his death in consequence of intoxication," although he may be the most abstemious water-drinker that ever the sun shone upon. Such was, ten or eleven years ago, to my certain knowledge, the cliff of San Blas.

Maddened with jealousy, and rendered incapable of commanding his movements by intoxication, the unhappy Don Gregorio was whirled, by the impetuosity of his own motion, far over the brow of the hideous precipice. One dismal yell of mortal agony broke the stillness of night, and the next moment his body was heard far below, crashing among the bushes and loose stones at the foot of the cliff. Fainting with horror at the dreadful sight, though ignorant of the person of the victim, Isabella sank upon the ground, and it was some minutes before she recovered sufficiently to rise. When, at length, she was somewhat restored, she turned towards her uncle's house with feeble steps and slow, frequently stopping to lean against the walls of the houses; she tottered into the room where the family were a.s.sembled, and sank senseless upon the floor. Her relatives, exceedingly terrified, administered restoratives, and conveyed her to her own chamber, where, when she was somewhat composed, she informed her anxious friends that she had been pursued by an intoxicated person, and was extremely terrified, and begged to be left to her repose, which she a.s.sured them was all she required. Having obtained all the information they were likely to, her kind and inquisitive cousins left her, after compelling her to swallow a composing medicine. She awoke in the morning perfectly refreshed; the horrid scene that she had witnessed the night before seeming rather like a terrifying dream than a mournful reality.

Before she left her chamber, a man, with his jaws standing ajar with horror, called upon the governor, and requested to speak with him in private. He then informed his excellency, that as he was rambling through the woods at the foot of the precipice, he had found the dead body of an officer, who had evidently fallen from the cliff above; that it was so frightfully mangled by the fall, that no vestiges of humanity were recognizable in the countenance, or in the body; but that, from the peculiar fashion of the regimentals, he was almost sure that it was his excellency's aid-du-camp, Don Gregorio Nunez. Alarmed by this intelligence, the governor despatched a servant to that officer's quarters, who soon returned with the intelligence that he had not been there since the morning of the preceding day. Further inquiry among his brother officers informed him that he had left their company the evening before about ten o'clock: that he had been drinking freely, rather more freely than usual; and that they had not seen him since.

Having commanded the attendance of two or three officers and as many soldiers, the commandante proceeded to the spot, guided by his first informant, and was convinced, as soon as he saw the crushed and mutilated ma.s.s, that it was no other than his unhappy officer. Having given orders for transporting the body to town, he returned to his family, who, although aware, from his abstracted and pensive manner, that something had happened to discompose him, forbore to ask any questions--a line of conduct which, by the way, we would most earnestly recommend to all wives and daughters. Isabella's mind was too much occupied with her own thoughts to notice the silence and melancholy of her uncle; she ate nothing, but her aunt and cousins attributed her want of appet.i.te to the fright of the preceding evening; as her eyes met their kind and anxious looks, and she thought of her determination to quit them forever, she could not restrain her tears; but rising hastily from the table, she took shelter from observation and questioning in her own chamber.

CHAPTER XVII.

---- I did compound A certain stuff, which, being ta'en, would cease The present powers of life; but in short time, All offices of nature should again Do their due functions.

CYMBELINE.

Shortly after the sea-breeze had set in--that is, between eleven and twelve o'clock--a sail was discovered in the western horizon, standing in for the land; which sail the commander of the Albatross, in a short time, made out, with the help of his gla.s.s, to be the guarda-costa, to his no small vexation and disappointment. She stood in, however; but instead of anchoring as usual, in what may be called the outer harbor, she ran close in to the landing-place, furled her sails, and then, to Captain Williams's great relief, sent down her fore-yard, stripped it of the sail and rigging, and launched it overboard. Two boats, full of men, were soon seen towing it ash.o.r.e, the spar having been "sprung" in one of those sudden and violent "flaws" of wind so peculiar to high and mountainous coasts.

All this was extremely gratifying to the commander of the American ship; in the first place the Venganza (for that was the warlike name of this redoubtable man-of-war), by lying so far up the harbor, was out of the line between the Albatross and the point where it was intended to send a boat that night; and secondly, the absence of so indispensable a spar as the fore-yard would render pursuit impossible.

Captain Williams went on sh.o.r.e in the afternoon, and met the old Don, who treated him with great condescension, and even hinted at the probability of his making another visit to the Albatross, to which hint the seaman replied as politely as could be expected. It was nearly night when he once more entered dame Juanita's shop, from which he took the liberty to despatch a message to Isabella. She appeared in a few minutes, and hastily a.s.sured him that the prospect of success was bright, and that nothing existed at that time that threatened to defeat their plans.

As soon as he returned to his ship, he made preparations for getting under way as speedily as possible; the bower anchor was hove up, and the ship rode by a light kedge, there being then but little wind or tide; the gaskets were cast off the topsails, and their places supplied with ropeyarns, which would break as soon as the "bunts," or middle of the sails, were let fall; the chewlines and other running-rigging were overhauled; and every other plan for making sail upon the ship as expeditiously and as silently as possible, was adopted. The crew of the Albatross performed all these different acts of duty with silence and alacrity. Although their commander had not communicated his plan to them, they knew by instinct that something bold and daring was to be attempted that night for the rescue of their favorite officer, and their four messmates; and their hopes of a brush with the "Don Degos" were most keenly excited. They were a.s.sembled on the forecastle, holding "high dispute" and conjecture upon the course about to be pursued.

"Now if I was the old man," said one of the younger seamen, "I tell you what I would do. I would jest land as many of us as could be spared, with cutla.s.ses and boarding-pikes"--

"And pistols," interrupted another.

"No; d--n your pistols; they make too much noise; they're all talk and no cider; besides, they miss fire half the time; and before you get ready for another shot, Don Dego has his thundering baggonet right in your g--ts; and then where are you?"

"Now you may all of you," said an old seaman, "you may all of you just pipe belay with your jaw-tackle-falls. Captain Williams knows what he's about, and you'll know before morning what he's up to. You'd better take a fool's advice, and catch a cat-nap before you're called away. The boats a'n't histed up, and when did you ever know 'em in the water after dark since we've been lying here?" So saying, the veteran disappeared down the fore-ladder.

"There goes old Jemmy Bush, starn foremost down the fore-scuttle, like a land-bear going into his hole."

"Well," said another smart, active young seaman, the favorite of the crew; "I shall take old Jemmy's advice, and go and get forty winks in my hammock. If there's more or less of us sent on this expedition, we sha'n't be called away till ten or eleven o'clock, when all the Degos are asleep, and there's nothing awake in the town but fleas and cats."

The proposition for sleeping prevailed, and the groups on the forecastle began to disappear, when the voice of the second mate was heard:

"For'ard there!"

"Sir, sir," answered half a dozen eager voices at once.

"Who has the anchor watch?"

"Bill Thompson and Sam Hughes, sir."

"Go in the boats alongside, and see that they have their full complement of oars; and see, too, that the masts and sails are on board all of them."

"Ay, ay, sir."

"Do you hear that, my sons of bra.s.s?" said old Jones, the boatswain, "that looks as if there was going to be wigs on the green before morning."

We must now leave the marine department for awhile, in order to attend to exclusively terrene concerns. As night closed, Morton could not avoid feeling extreme anxiety; Isabella had not visited the prison since the day previous, nor had she sent any message. Doubts the most annoying possessed his mind--at one time he thought she had been detected in her schemes for his rescue; then that her courage had failed, and she had abandoned him to his fate; or that her affection for her relatives had overcome her love for him. He had partially made known to his four fellow-prisoners his hopes of relief, cautioning them against sleeping, but enjoining upon them to keep perfectly quiet.

It was now past nine o'clock; and, with mingled feelings of disappointment, grief, and anger, he was just resigning all hopes, when the sentry at the door challenged. The next moment a person dressed in a long, loose cloak stood before him, whom he immediately recognized as his loved Isabella.

"I have brought you some supper and some wine," said the young lady, addressing him, as usual upon similar occasions, in Spanish; "I ought to have come before, but it was impossible."

So saying, she set her basket upon the stone bench, and, in so doing, whispered Morton:

"Every thing is ready; be patient, and be guided by me."

"But how are you about to manage these fellows? it will take all night to get them drunk, if that is your plan; for your soldiers, it cannot be denied, are extremely temperate, and will seldom do me the honor to empty more than a single bottle among the whole five."

"Hush, hush; I have a surer way than mere wine."

As she spoke she drew from her bosom a phial, containing a dark liquid.

Morton started back in horror--(he thought he saw, in the composed and lovely countenance of the beautiful being before him, the cold-blooded, deliberate, practised a.s.sa.s.sin--)

"Good G.o.d! Isabella, is it possible? never, never will I owe my life and liberty to such abominable, such cowardly means!"

"Dismiss your suspicions," said Isabella, turning pale and trembling; "they are unworthy of you, and wholly unmerited by me. Not to save _your_ life, which I value as I do my own, would I commit mur--the crime that you suspect. This phial contains a simple opiate, not half so dangerous or disagreeable as the laudanum and camphor of your ship's medicine chest. The sleep produced by it is speedy and deep, and lasts four or five hours."

Observing that Morton still looked distrustingly, she continued, with streaming eyes--

"Dear Charles, if you doubt me still, I will swallow the whole; its operation will not take place before I reach home, and will only cause long, deep sleep; but, in that case, your hopes of escape are cut off _forever_. To-morrow, or the next day, at farthest, you are to be sent to the capital"--her tears choked her utterance.

"Dearest Isabella," said Morton, taking her hands in both his, and pressing them to his bosom, "forgive my cruel suspicions, but I own you startled me exceedingly."

"Leave all to my management, and in half an hour all will be well."

In the mean time the seamen had "boarded" the basket, and spread its contents upon the stone bench, that did triple duty as a bed, a seat, and a table, as occasion required. The soldiers roused themselves at the gurgling sound of the wine, as it was decanted into cups made of the large end of an ox's horn, sc.r.a.ped thin, and capable of containing a pint or more. Isabella dexterously poured the contents of the phial into a cup, which was filled with wine, and Morton, taking it in his hand, approached the corporal with a nod of invitation. After holding it to his lips for some time, as if taking a deep draught, he pa.s.sed it to the corporal; that officer, touching his cap _a la militaire_, drank and pa.s.sed the horn, according to South American custom, to his comrades.

The prisoners and Isabella watched its circulation with most painful anxiety, and soon had the felicity of beholding it turned bottom upwards over the mouth of the sentry at the door. Another bottle was opened, and poured, un.o.bserved by the soldiers, into another cup, which, being handed to the sailors, was almost immediately pa.s.sed back again, "a body without a soul." Another cup, medicated like the first, was prepared, and the prisoners, apparently busied with their supper, awaited with trepidation the effect of the medicine.