Blackbeard Part 4

'See, sir, how fast that strange brig gains upon us.'

'I see she does,' answered Rowland, 'and I am sorry that we are obliged to lay aback here, when we should be trying to get the weather-gauge of her. But there is no help for it, for I observe that the earl and his companions have left the sh.o.r.e, and they are now pulling for dear life in order to reach us in time.'

Leaving for the present, the n.o.ble Gladiator, with her decks clear for action, and her brave crew awaiting in eager silence, the nearer approach of the piratical vessel, we will proceed to give our readers as much information of the previous character of Captain Roderick Rowland, as is consistent with the present condition and future progress of the scenes of our story, in some of which he is destined to act a conspicuous part.

Descended of wealthy, honorable, and respectable parents, who resided at the time of his birth, (which event happened some forty years before the commencement of our story,) young Rowland, gave during his boyhood such evidences of extraordinary natural capabilities, and superior intellectual capacity, as led those who were connected and acquainted with him to suppose that he might, at some future day, rise to a high rank in the British navy, for which service he seemed to have an unconquerable predilection, and which he entered as midshipman at the age of sixteen. Then it was that his true character began to develope itself, so that during his first cruise, its natural deformity became so apparent as to cause the rest of the officers to look with fear and astonishment upon one, in whom the gifts of extraordinary talents seemed to have been lavished, only to become blended with cunning, artfulness and licentious profligacy, whose disposition was mean and avaricious, and whose temper, though not violent, was cruel, revengeful and unforgiving.

Although young Rowland was also a complete master of the art of dissimulation he did not deem it worth his while to exercise it among the young gentleman of his mess, and he had been but a short time on board His Majesty's ship Vixen, before he was very much feared, and very cordially hated by his equals, whilst he was looked upon with uneasiness and disgust by his superiors.

All these things combined together, rendered Rowland's situation anything but agreeable; so after having been a twelvemonth in the service, he very abruptly left it by taking, what is vulgarly called, a 'French leave' of the Vixen and her officers, whilst that vessel was taking in provisions and water at the island of Madagascar. Here, Rowland, at the age of eighteen, soon fell in with a gang of American and English bucaniers, who, some years previous to that time, had pitched upon this island as a convenient rendezvous to which they might be easily able to repair for recruits and recreation after having, (as they often did,) successfully robbed the rich homeward bound East Indiamen, for whom they usually laid in wait near the pitch of the Cape of Good Hope.

It required but very little persuasion on the part of the pirates to induce one to join them, whose spirit was congenial with theirs, so he very soon became one of the most active and daring of their number.

Courage, cunning and cruelty were considered by them to be the most important qualifications of a bona-fide bucanier, and they soon found that these were possessed by Rowland, in a most superlative degree, and this added to the influence of his talents and early education, caused him to rise rapidly to a station of command among them. As it was his motto 'to make hay while the sun shines,' he sailed as soon as possible from Madagascar, from which he had not been absent but twenty days when he fell in with and captured a Spanish Galleon, bound from Genoa to Lisbon, laden with a large amount of gold and silver ornaments, which was the property of the church, and was under the care of a number of ecclesiastics who had taken pa.s.sage in the unfortunate vessel.

There were a number of other pa.s.sengers on board, amongst whom was Don Fernando Herrera, who was accompanied by his daughter a beautiful Castilian maiden, then about seventeen years of age, who doated upon her father with all the fondness of a pure and filial affection.

As Rowland acted almost invariably on the principle that dead men tell no tales, he caused all the pa.s.sengers to be put to death, in detail, until it came the turn of Herrera. As he was about to be cast into the sea, his daughter sprang wildly forward, and kneeling before the cruel pirate captain, she beseeched him in such earnest and pathetic tones to spare her father's life, or let her die in his stead, that Rowland, fired by the voluptuousness of her extreme beauty, and perhaps touched by her tears, promised to spare her father on condition that she would become his wife. Such were the dread alternatives. Death for her father and herself on one hand, and the sacrifice forever of her happiness and peace of mind on the other. In the extremity of her terror, Clarice, (for that was her name,) chose the latter, and that very same night she was united to Rowland, by her own priest and confessor who was compelled to officiate in the ceremony, and her father was compelled to will all of his vast riches in the event of his death to his murderous son-in-law. After having taken to himself a wife in the above strange and summary manner, Rowland repaired to the West Indies, where his father-in-law died soon after his arrival, leaving to the pirate, a vast amount of money and other property, which enabled him to establish himself at Havana, in a most splendid and magnificent manner. His inordinate desire for wealth however still remained unsatiated, and although he left off all open communication with his former a.s.sociates, (the bucaniers,) still he secretly patronized them, and in return was made acquainted with the result of all their efforts and received a goodly share of their plunder.

Three years had pa.s.sed away, and Clarice in the interim had presented her husband a boy, but by this time the Spanish authorities had got wind of the manner in which Rowland had obtained his riches, and he was forced to leave Havana, and most of his vast property at the same time, and sail clandestinely and under an a.s.sumed name for England. Here he took up his residence in an obscure street of the metropolis where after the expiration of two years, Clarice gave birth to a daughter, whilst relentless death hovered over the fair form of the mother, and soon after removed her gently from the sin and sorrows of a wicked world.

Soon after the decease of his wife, Rowland suddenly left England, but he returned again about a year previous to the commencement of our story, and managed, through sundry letters of recommendation which he himself had forged, to gain the command of the Gladiator.

Leaving the intervening events of his life to become elucidated in the further progress of our story, we will here put an end to our long but important digression and return again to the unravelling of its main thread, by transporting the attention of our readers once more to the deck of Rowland's n.o.ble ship.

Here every one was at his station, every thing in its right place, and every soul on board the Gladiator was almost breathlessly watching the near approach of the piratical brig, as, with the horrid black flag flying from her main royal truck, she came sailing majestically down upon the ship, and it was expected by the crew of the latter that an instant combat between the two vessels was inevitable.

Judge then, kind reader, of their supreme astonishment and indignation when they heard the captain, (as the brig fired a couple of blank cartridges across his bows as a signal for him to surrender,) give the following order:

'Mr. Howe, haul down the colors! immediately.'

Instead of jumping immediately, as was generally his wont to obey Rowland's orders, the first lieutenant stood perfectly still, regarding the captain with a puzzled and undecided manner, as much as to ask if he had rightly understood the purport of his superior's words.

'Haul down the colors!' exclaimed the captain the second time, and as he spoke in a stern, loud tone of voice, which precluded all misunderstanding, the first lieutenant, for the first time ventured an answer in the following words:

'Captain Rowland, I must own that I am at a loss to perceive the necessity of hauling down our colors, when we have twice the number of guns possessed by the brig, which would, in case of a conflict, enable us easily to save the ship as well as our own lives.'

'I believe this ship is under my command and not yours, Mr. Howe,'

replied Rowland, coolly, 'and I alone am responsible for her safety.

Again, sir, I order you to haul down the colors.'

There was something in the cold, calm, pa.s.sionless manner of Rowland, which awed the lieutenant into compliance, notwithstanding he was naturally a brave man, and he therefore walked forward and repeated to one of the men the captain's order, which a moment afterwards was sullenly obeyed, then a shout of exultation rose up from the crew of the piratical brig, whilst a gun was fired in triumph as her commander prepared to board the ship which had been so ingloriously placed without a struggle within his grasp.

By the time the boat was lowered from the brig, she had ranged up so near the side of the ship, as rendered easy to distinguish from the deck of each the countenances of those on board the other, and as the Earl of Derwent.w.a.ter and Arthur Huntington, (who had boarded the ship almost unperceived at the time of her surrender,) gazed upon the dark swarthy forms which crowded the sides of the brig, the former suddenly exclaimed--

'Gracious Heaven, Arthur,--yonder on that strange vessel's deck stands Ellen Armstrong with that villain who calls himself the Pirate of the Roanoke close by her side.'

'It cannot be,--where is she?' exclaimed Arthur, involuntarily. 'Thank G.o.d, I see her,' he exclaimed, after gazing a moment upon the brig's deck. Another minute elapsed and he was in the water, before any one could antic.i.p.ate, much less prevent his movements, making towards the piratical brig, which, (as he was an excellent swimmer,) he managed to reach, and he soon found himself by the side of sweet Ellen Armstrong whom he thus addressed:

'Good G.o.d! Ellen, how came you here!'

'Arthur!' exclaimed Ellen, faintly,--but she said no more, though Blackbeard answered his query as follows:

'What rashness, young man, caused you to come here?'

'I have come here,' replied Arthur, 'with all the calmness of desperation, to rescue this young lady or die in the attempt.'

'What an uncommonly heroic young gentleman you must be,' responded Blackbeard, satirically, 'to attempt unarmed, and single-handed, the rescue of a young girl from the midst of a hundred armed men. You must certainly be either moon-struck or love-cracked.'

'And you must be a cold-blooded, heartless villain,' exclaimed Arthur, irritated beyond endurance at the scorching irony of the pirate's tone.

'Those are words, young man, which only your life-blood can atone for,'

exclaimed the pirate, as he drew a pistol from his belt, and presented it to the young man's breast. 'Die, upstart, die!'

'Rather let me die,' exclaimed sweet Ellen Armstrong, as, quicker than thought, she sprang between the murderous weapon and Arthur's person.

The pirate fired, but the ball did not take effect, and was about to present his second pistol, when he suddenly stopped, and thus addressed a portion of his comrades, who had in meantime gathered round this strange scene.

'Some of you take these two fools below, and confine them in separate apartments until I can attend to the hanging of them.'

Immediately upon the reception of this order, Ellen was dragged by the rough hands of two piratical officers into the brig's cabin, where she was locked up in a small state room, whilst Arthur Huntington, was heavily ironed and confined in the steerage. As the fair Ellen sat in her narrow prison, brooding in mute despair over the horrid scenes she had just pa.s.sed through, she covered her face with her hands and faintly murmured,

'If Arthur dies, I cannot survive him.'

CHAPTER V.

_Henry Huntington and Pat O'Leary, the Earl's Servant, start upon An Exploring Expedition--Its Strange and Sudden Termination at the Pirates' Cavern._

With a love of adventure, which no sense of antic.i.p.ated or real danger could restrain, glowing upon his mind, and beaming forth from his handsome eyes, did Henry Huntington, upon his first landing upon the island, declare to his companions that he intended to pa.s.s the day in exploring its beautiful though limited dimensions, and when hunting for curious sea-sh.e.l.ls and other marine curiosities, wherewith to enrich a sort of miniature museum which he had commenced some years before in merry England.

'Is that your real intention, Henry, or are you joking,' asked the earl, as the young man finished speaking.

'I certainly intend, sir, to spend the time allotted to me here, in doing as I have said,' replied Henry.

'Then it is my opinion that you will have a tiresome time of it,' said the earl.

'With all deference to your better judgment, my lord, I antic.i.p.ate a far different result.'

'Well, then, I wish you all prosperity in your adventurous undertaking,'

replied the earl, 'but be careful to keep within sight of the ship.'

'I shall undoubtedly be very careful about that, sir, for although I own that I am an enthusiastic lover of romantic adventures, I do not by any means, aspire to the envious celebrity of being left alone, in all my glory, upon a desolate island. But who amongst all the party is hardy enough to volunteer to go with me. Will you, Arthur?'

'Why, what a selfish fellow you have got to be, Henry,' said Mary Hamilton, 'to start on a wild goose chase yourself, and then ask the only other young gentleman of the party to accompany you.'