OD RINGWOOD THE ROVER, A TALE OF FLORIDA, BY W. H, HERBERT, AUTHOR OF "CROMWELL," "THE BROTHERS," &( Our plough the galley, and our steeds the breeze Our harvest-field the broad and bounding seas "We reap the golden crop from zone to zone, Our birthright all that slaves and dastards own. PHILADELPHIA: WILLIAM H. GRAHAM, 98 CHESNUT STREET. 1843. i . Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1841, by BY G. R. GRAHAM, In the office of the Clerk of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. <-. , TO THE PUBLIC. The history of the Buccaneers abounds with perilous enterprises and romantic adventures, which afford a field for the highest powers of the novelist : but hitherto American authors have avoided this fertile ground. In " Ringwood the Rover" the writer has sought to give a picture of the nobler class, as well as to describe some of the daring undertakings of these free rovers of the seas. M268571 6 RINGWOOD THE ROVER, nished by the most fiendish cruelty, would have been deemed heroical, won for the second Philip that fair province from the French Huguenots of Coligny. The eyes of all that little group were intently fixed upon the sea, from which it would appear the apprehended danger if apprehended danger it weie, that gave rise to those takens of surprise and prepartion was most to be expected 5 and in the visages of all, an evident expression of anxiety and doubt was marked, in its least doubt ful character. But in the face of no one there, were there such signs of perturbation and dismay, as in that of the governor. He was a man of large and heavy build, a veteran of many a bloody war, .with limbs which, although deprived somewhat of agility and lightness by the unsparing hand of time, were cast in a mould of iron ; his features prominent, bold, and haughty, with a world of iron resolution in the firmly-compressed mouth and massive jaw, and a glance of intolerable fire in the dark eye ; and his bearing, such as became a cavalier to whom the camp and court had been alike familiar from his first boyhood. But now his rich dress was in disarray ; a leathern shoulder- belt with an immense two-handed sword attached to it, and a display of cumbersome and ill- wrought pistols thrust hastily into a broad buff-girdle, as sorted illy with a fair garb of courtly fashion ; his long hair, once as black as jet, but now discolored with full many a streak of wintry gray, hung in disordered masses over his broad brow, lank, and uncurled, and graceless and on his brow the per spiration stood in drops, like bubbles on the bo som of some turbid stream and the deep olive tints of his complexion wore an unnatural and ghastly hue and, as he grasped a powerful perspective- glass with which he ever and anon swept the ho rizon, his fingers might be seen to work in quick convulsive twitches, as though they would have bedded themselves into the polished brass. "Nothing!" he said, after a long and wistful gaze, " I can see nothing seaward. Yet right sure am I, that those sounds were of far-distant ordnance. It is the twelfth too of the month, and long ere this, the caravel we were advised of should have been safe in harbor. Hark ! hark ! heard ye not then," he cried, " heard ye not that dull roar to the eastward? Pedro, Gutierrez, hearken what say ye, cavaliers, is 't not the voice of ordnance ?" " Past doubt, it is," replied the elder of the gentlemen he had addressed, " and heavy ordnance too." "And lo! a sail!" exclaimed the other, who had directed his glass instantly toward the quar ter whence the sounds proceeded, " I marvel how we saw her not before. Here ! here, your Excel lency ! here ! bring yon palmetto in the range of the east angle of the demilune, and you will catch her ! Now, by St. Jago, I can see her to the courses ; three tiers of wide-spread canvas !" ;t I have her now," replied Melendez, thought fully, "I have her now. ' Tis she; it is El Santo Espiritu, past doubt ; but wherefore was she firing ? Pray heaven, these cursed English, these infernal rovers, be not upon her track!" " I fear me much it is so," answered Gutierrez. I fear me much it is so ; for ever and anon, I fancy I catch glimpses, as they rise upon the waves, of smaller sails behind, and further yet to the eastward. Lo ! now, in range with yon skiff upon the beach there ! it has sunk again and now, again, I catch it !" ; 'Ay! and again she fires! pray heaven she have the heels of them ; once under our guns, she were in safety from any armament which they can bring against her !" Meanwhile the vessel, which had been first seen hull-down in the far offing, was rising rapid ly as she drew near, not having met as yet the counter-influence of the land-breeze but scarce less rapidly rose, one by one, the smaller barques, which had at first escaped the notice of the eager and excited watchers ; until five low and rakish craft, with long yard-arms and lateen sails, might be distinctly seen in chase of the tall frigate. One somewhat larger than the rest, three-masted, but of the same taunt and picarooning build, was now so near astern, that she was able to keep up a constant firing from her bow-guns, which the caravel returned with her stern-chasers ; though it was evident by the rate at which she rode the waves, staggering along with every stitch of sail set that could draw, that she was most sin cerely anxious to avoid close action w r ith her di minutive antagonist. An hour had elapsed at most since she had been at first made out ; and had there been any thing of real doubt as to the nation of the frigate, or the character of her pur suers, that doubt was now entirely at an end ; for at the distance of about five miles, by the aid of strong glasses, it was not difficult to note the cas tled bows and poop of the tall caravella, bristling with culverin and demi-cannon, or to distinguish the proud bearings of Castile upon the yellow colors, which, in the hope perhaps of bringing help and succor from the friendly fort and city, she wore not only at her three mastheads, but at the bowsprit-end, and at some six or seven other points conspicuous in her rigging. Meanwhile, the fore most of the chasing squadron had hoisted at her main the snowy field of England, with the broad bright St. George's cross, while at the peak of each one of her long yard-arms, a blooded flag A TALE OF FLORIDA. with the black skull and cross-bones proclaimed her real character. And now the agony of Juan de Melendez had become fearfully, intensely visible ; to and fro upon the narrow esplanade above the water-gate, with quick, uneven steps, and features haggard with excitement, did he stalk during that long hour ; now pausing for an instant to note the pro gress of the chase, and now with a despairing ges ture again resuming his distracted walk his offi cers surveying him the while with looks denoting deep commiseration, but more of that surprise, which must have been felt by men ignorant of the cause of his strange gestures and bewildered mien. " She will escape them yet ! Be of good cheer," cried one, a young and noble-looking gallant, "be of good cheer, your Excellency ; she brings the sea-breeze up with her right manfully !" " Ay doth she," cried another, " for the nonce; but wait till she strike the counter-blast ; lo ! you may see it ruffling the surface now within a mile of her!" " And when she doth," exclaimed the younger officer, " she can beat in, I trow; tack and tack, merrily ; and they can but beat after her. Why in half an hour more she will be safe here, under our batteries !" "Not so! not so!" cried Juan de Melendez, mournfully, "she never will lie here at anchor any more, if she trust to her sails ! Curse on the fool Davila, that turns not on that paltry picaroon, and crushes her at three broadsides before her con sorts may come up ! See you not, Pedro ? and see you not, Diego, who art a mariner so skillful see you not that the sea-breeze even now has failed them, and that the land-wind dies away moment ly ? God ! God of my fathers ! that we must stand here helpless, and strike no blow in her behalf. Yet ! yet ! if he would tack, while he hath way upon her, he might engage the pirate yard-arm to yard-arm, and so quell him; but even now he loses; he hath lost it ! His sails flap idly to the mast ; it is dead calm ! Fool ! fool ! accursed fool ! and he hath anchored." " But it is no less calm for them ! picaroons though they be, and manned by devils, yet cannot they make sail, more than the caravella!" "Look!" was the sole reply of the well-nigh distracted governor " Look !" and it needed but a glance to show that the ill-fated frigate had now, indeed, no hope but in the vigor of her own de fencefor low and light, and built no less for oars than sails, the wind had scarcely left them, a half league at the most astern of the Spaniard, ere they had furled their lateen sails, and getting out their sweeps, came up scarce slower than before, crowded with men whose weapons might be seen momentarily glancing to the broad sun shine. " My child great God my child !" cried Juan de Melendez, his pale features writhing with hor rible intensity of anguish" Would, would that thou wert dead, Teresa ! And is all lost ? is all lost, gentlemen ? Shake not your heads, look not so gloomily upon me ; can ye devise no scheme, no hope, no possibility and yet how should ye, when we have neither boat, nor even store enough of pirogues in the bay, to bear them any succor ? Oh ! would, would Heaven, that I had died, I care not how disgracefully, so that I were but dead, ere I had been so fettered here, to look thus help less on the murder of my comrades the worse than murder of mine innocent and lovely child ! and, thou, Don Amadis, thou who hast dared to lift the eyes of love to her canst thou stand sta- tuelike and mute, and strike no blow for her ? Canst thou endure almost to hear the shrieks, al most to look upon the form, of her thou wouldst have wedded, writhing in agony in the foul arms of the licentious buccaneer ! A man ! a gentle man ! ha ! ha ! a soldier ha ! ha ! ha ! a man, a gentleman, a soldier, and an old Castilian look tamely on the violation of his bride, before the very eyes of her insulted father !" " Answer him not, Don Amadis" the gray haired veteran Pedro interposed "answer him not, I pray ; this is sheer madness the pardona ble madness of parental anguish! And you, Sir Juan" he continued, turning to the half- frantic governor " think you not if we were to clear the long guns of the southern bastion, we might yet drive those picarooning scoundrels from their prey me thinks the caravella lies even now with in their range?" "No! no! you but deceive yourselves there is no hope ! none ! none ! Nathless we may es say it and see, Lavila hath slipped even now his cables, hath got his boats out, and tows cheer ily toward us. Away there, ye knave cannoniers, clear the long culverins, ourselves, we will go down and point them." And with these words, followed by all his train, he hastily rushed down the narrow stairway of the rampart, passed through the sally-port, and in a moment was en gaged among the guns, with an anxiety and zeal that for a moment quelled his mental agony. The caravella now was but a short mile from the seaward batteries, towed by the whole strength of her crew, rowing with that tremendous energy which consciousness that all is centered in his own exertions, lends to the meanest and the feeblest man that draws the breath of life ! One half a mile more would have ensured her safety. It was a fearful chase ! So close behind her was the best 8 RINGWOOD THE ROVER, manned and largest of the picaroons, that now the fire, which had been for awhile suspended, again became hot, animated, and destructive. And now the mizzen of the caravel came thundering, with all its hamper, over her groaning side, encumber ing her fatally, and lessening her way through the calm waters ; while at the sight a long, loud yell of savage exultation burst from the desperadoes who had wrought that ruin, and penetrated even to the ears of the appalled spectators. Hitherto no opportunity had been given to the Spaniards on the fortress for firing a gun in aid of their com panions ; since the three-masted galley, conscious of her advantage, kept herself by her sweeps and oars under the stern of the tall frigate, raking her fore and aft by a continual fire of her single gun, a culverin of the first class, avoiding thus alike the heavy ordnance of her broadside, and the yet heavier metal of the batteries, which were deter red from firing lest they should injure their own friends ! But now two other of the pirates, which, in the chase, had made each a long circuit on the starboard and larboard tacks, keeping as much as possible out of the frigate's range, having shot far ahead of her, changed suddenly their course, putting their bows each right toward the other, and pulling with great speed to cut her off from her desired haven. On these, at the same instant, opened the frigate's fire, gun after gun from both broadsides, a fierce incessant cannonade ! and the tremendous salvo of the batteries. The whole shores seemed to rock with the concussion; the little air there had been heretofore, stilled by the fearful shock, sank utterly ; and, ere ten minutes had elapsed, the surface of the water was covered by a dense mass of volumed smoke, so closely packed that not an eye of all who gazed so fearfully upon tjie scene, could note vessel, or boat, or any living being, though still from out the vapory cloud the glare of the incessant can nonading might be seen crimsoning the misty wreaths, which every shot augmented. "Hold! hold!" after awhile exclaimed Melen- dez, " let the smoke lift, this random firing goes for naught; let it lift, we shall see anon !" And at his orders instantly the firing from the battery stopped, but not for that did the dense va pors lift at all from the still surface of the waters, nor did the prospect brighten fed constantly as were those murky clouds by the continual can nonading of the vessels, which in no degree ceased or abated. If the sight had been anxious hereto fore, the interest appalling, when every motion of assailant or assailed might be distinctly noticed, what must have been the anguish now, the agony of expectation, when the fierce work of death was doing at their very doors, under the muzzles of their cannon, and they might neither see, nor judge by any sense or sign, to which side fortune was inclining. The first sound that attracted any near attention, was the quick dash of oars close to the beach ; and, as each countenance was instantly directed to the joyful echo, boat after boat of those it needed not a second glance to tell it which had been last seen towing shoreward El Santo Espiritu, loomed through the dusky veil, and, almost as they came in sight, grated upon the shingly beach ; while their crews, throwing down their oars, rushed madly up the slope in desperate confusion toward the sally-port. "Ten thousand curses on the dogs !" fiercely hissed Juan de Melendez through his hard-set teeth, " they have deserted her ! but not the better shall they fare for that ; level your harquebuses, guard ; depress your culverins ; sweep the desert ing scoundrels from the earth !" But to his fiery command no answer was re turned, and no obedience rendered ; for during the last pause the firing had sunk, and from the bo som of the smoke, wild cheers and all the tumult of heavy fight were now distinctly audible. In a few seconds' space, the vapors gradually light ened, so that the vessels might be seen, though faintly, clustered together in close contact. Anon the breeze came up again, fitful at the first and faint, but freshening at every moment ; and then, whirled upward from the now rippling waters, the smoky masses were swept bodily to leeward, leaving the whole of the bright bay, the verdant shores, and the pure heavens rejoicing in the gor geous sunshine. Far in the middle of that bay lay the devoted caravella, her sheets loosened and her canvas flying disorderly and wild, while grappling to her sides, her stern, her bows, the low barques of the pirates hemmed her in, their savage crews mounting her bulwarks in resistless numbers, their brandished weapons glancing to the sun, and their appalling yells deadening the hearts of all who heard them. Unharmed by the guns from the too distant ramparts, the light picaroons had succeeded in cutting in between the frigate and her boats ; leaving no chance of safety to the latter but precipitate and sudden flight, and to the former no hope, save the precarious chances of a pirate's mercy. Nor was it long in doubt to the spectators what was that mercy ; for ere the fight, or massacre, more properly, upon her decks had ceased, the wily desperadoes anchored just with out cannon shot ; and as the Spanish ensign was torn down, amid a tumult of tremendous exulta tion, man after man of the defendants was hurled overboard, so that their terror-stricken country- A TALE OF FLORIDA. men upon the battlements might see the waters, ever as they fell, lashed into froth and spray by the ferocious sharks, which, taught by their vora cious instincts the consequence of battle, seized each one, as he touched the surface, tugging and snapping at each other for every palpitating mor sel. And still more terrible than this the howls of men howls, such as nothing but the utmost and most excruciating tortures could force from human lips mixed with the shriller and more piteous shrieks of women, told that the fate of those, who had become a prey to the disgust ing fish, was but a boon of mercy when compared to the more awful doom of those preserved from the first carnage to satiate the victor's love of blood or beauty. All day long did this fearful sight continue all day long were the heavens polluted, by the atro cious deeds they were compelled to witness, pierced by the frantic cries of those who called on them in vain for succor or for mercy. The even ing was now drawing nigh, although, perhaps, some three hours yet remained of daylight ; when by a simultaneous movement on the frigate's decks, it might be judged that some new project had been fixed on by the buccaneers. Nor were the garrison devoid, f if not of absolute fear, at least of much anxiety ; since it was evident that their relentless enemies were in great force, not counting less, as they might calculate from the known habits of the Caribbean pirates of stowing in their long low barques as many men as possi bly could be contained in them than seven hun dred or perhaps a thousand soldiers ; more fight ing-men than which St. Augustine could not, at that day, have turned out, though to preserve her self from utter ruin. Nor was it contrary by any means, or foreign to the policy of these far -dread ed rovers to attack villages, or even forts and cities, when in sufficient numbers to render suc cess probable, and when enough of plunder or of licentious pleasure might be looked forward to, as the result of their bold daring ! A levy of the citizens en masse was instantly resorted to, arms were distributed, even among the slaves, whose terrors, not inferior to those of their masters, ren dered it safe to trust them with the weapons which, at another time, they would have proba bly directed against the bosoms of the givers. Cannon were leveled, ammunition piled by every gun, and all precautions taken which could ensure a desperate resistance. The pallor and the gloom had passed away from the dark visage of Melen- dez, with the uncertainty which had so terribly distracted him. Sure as he felt himself now to be, that she, his treasured child, the only being on whom his stern soul doated, had endured the last and most appalling wo that can befall a wo man ! that now her agonies her innocence her woes were at an end for ever ! he had again re sumed his soldierly and high demeanor ! His face was deeply flushed ; and his eyebrows con tracted over the fiery orbs they shaded, till these could scarcely have been noted but for the flashes of fierce light which they, at times, shot forth. His lips alone were pale and ashy, so violent was their compression over his clenched teeth ! " Would God," said he, when every prepara tion was concluded, " would God, that they might try it ! So should they feel a father's vengeance !" Nor did it seem improbable that his vengeful prayer would be immediately and fully granted ; for now the pirate-barques might be observed to put off", one by one, from the dismantled and aban doned frigate ; a single small boat only waiting, as it would seem, for their commander. Diverging slowly, and in opposite directions, but carefully preserving a safe distance from the batteries, they came to anchor each after each, the nearest about half a mile from their prize; and as the last swung round, the crew of the remaining skiff were seen getting in all haste to their oars. By aid of their naked eyes, the Spaniards now beheld a group of officers appear upon the bulwarks of the caravel, from which were lowered instantly three figures, two of which were females, into the cutter at the gangways. All, then, passed over the ship's side, but one, who, disappearing for a moment, through the cabin hatch, returned bear ing a lighted flambeau ; deliberately then he set on fire, in some twenty different places, the slighter cordage and the sails of the ill-fated ship, and ere he glided down a rope into his boat, the forked tongues of flame might be seen darting up the shrouds and masts, like fiery serpents ; and in a few short minutes the whole of that magnificent and stately fabric, which had so lately walked the waters like a thing of life, was one huge pyramid of roaring and devouring flame. Strongly and rapidly did that boat's crew give way, and little time enough had they to place themselves in safety ; for fired already in the hold before they left her, they had not traversed half the space be tween her and their nearest barque, before, with an explosion that might be heard leagues away into the pathless forest, startling the wild beast and the wilder Indian in his lair, and with a wide and circling glare that for an instant made the broad daylight pallid, the caravel blew up ! A mass of pitchy smoke settled for a short spaqe upon the water where she lay ; and as it drifted seaward, a few rent planks and mouldering spars were all remaining of that noblest work of man's invention. 10 RING WOOD THE ROVER, After a little while, the skiff came to under the lee of the three-masted picaroon, and nothing more was seen by the excited Spaniards, until a burst of flame from a bow-port of the felucca, and the dull roar of an unshotted gun, woke their at tention. With the report, down came the Eng lish ensign from the fore, down came the red flag from her peak, and in succession a broad white field, in sign of truce and amity, waved in the place of each. Upon the signal, each in succes sion of the pirates fired a lee ward gun, and hoisted a white flag ; and next, ere half an hour had elapsed, all the boats of the squadron, twenty at least in number, might be seen to put off from the barques, each bearing the same amicable signal at their bows ; and after joining, which they did at the first practicable point, to pull on steadily, in beautiful and accurate array, toward the shore. Eagerly did the Spaniards watch these singular manoeuvres, and with keen scrutiny did they ob serve each several barge ; but it was not until they had arrived within a short space of the beach, that they might make out clearly the forms or features of those who occupied them. Nor could they as yet do this to their satisfaction, when observing that no flag of truce was dis played from the ramparts, they became stationary, just without the surf, pulling a stroke or two at times merely to hold their own, for the tide was now fast ebbing. Scarce had they halted, before a figure rose up in the bow of the central boat a powerful barge pulling with forty oars and waving a white flag about his head, shouted some words, which did not reach, however, the ears for which they were intended, although there could be no doubt of their import. " Shall we respond to their signal, fair Senor !" exclaimed the veteran Diego : "I trow 'twere best to answer them ! it may be well, they hold some of our friends to ransom !" "No truce; no flag!" fiercely replied Melen- dez, " I waited but to get them within our point blank range ! take good sight, cannoniers ! look to your matches ! fi " "Hold! for God's sake, hold!" cried young Don Amadis, leaping before the muzzle of the gun, and grasping by the arm the impetuous governor. " See you not there," and, with the eyes almost starting from his head, and lips apart, and outstretched hands, he pointed to the signal- boat. " See you not it is she ?" Slowly Melendez caught his meaning turned his glass toward the barge, wherein the quick eye of the youthful lover had detected the form of his intended bride dropped it from his unnerved and powerless hand and with a quick shrill cry " My daughter my Teresa !" sunk helpless as a child, into the arms of his attendants ; while, catching instantly their cue, the cannoniers flung down their linstocks, and in three minutes' time a flag of truce was waving in the place of Castile's gorgeous blazonry. CHAPTER II. Scarcely had the white flag of truce replaced the castled blazonry of Spain, before a loud hail rang from boat to boat throughout the pirate squa dron, and the large forty-oared barge leading, they pulled so swiftly shoreward, that scarce a mo ment seemed to have elapsed before the whole flotilla was battling against the heavy surf, that tumbled in, with its deep booming roar upon the narrow stripe of sand which lay between the bas tions and the sea and scarce another passed be fore they were beached high and dry, with their oars shipped, in easy shot of harquebuse from wa ter-gate and demi-lune. A more superb and gor geous spectacle can hardly be imagined, than was presented to the eye on the disembarkation of the buccaneers ; for such at that time were the profits of their lawless and unholy trade, that not the meanest mariner who toiled before the mast, but had his gala suit of velvet and embroidery, his silken hose, his arms inlaid with gold and silver, and his rich chain of precious metal about his brawny neck; and, as it ever was their wont when on the eve of battle to don their most mag nificent attire, all now, from the great captain downward to the humblest rower, were decked in such pomp as to put to shame even the splendid uniforms of the Castilian cavaliers. It was, how ever, on the great barge that every eye was ri veted ; for in her bow a group was seated, that must have awakened the most lively interest even in a stranger's bosom upon a pile of cushions covered with crimson damask, a portion evidently of the spoil snatched from the hapless caravella, exposed to the full glare of the burning sun, re clined a girl of most rare loveliness. Sixteen or seventeen years at the utmost had passed over her fair head, but they were years of a ripe southern climate, and so just was the rich swelling outline of her every limb, so perfect the development of her whole figure, that in less genial regions she would have been taken for a woman of some four or five-and-twenty summers. Her complexion was of that rich and sunny tint peculiar to the most lovely regions of the European continent ; her hair black as the raven's wing, and if it be possible even more lustrous although it had been braided closely above her high pale brow disor- A TALE OF FLORIDA. 11 dered now, and torn from its symmetrical arrange ment, flowed in disheveled masses over her neck and shoulders ; while one or two stray tresses fall ing upon a bosom, that might have vied in beauty with that of the Medicean Venus, afforded a strange contrast by their jetty blackness, to the almost unnatural whiteness of the pure spotless flesh, on which they rested for not her tresses only, but all her vestments had been disarranged and rent by the licentious grasp of ruffian hands ; the graceful folds of the mantilla were no longer there, to lend their friendly shade to those sweet modest features; the full basquina of dark silk had been stripped violently from those lovely limbs, now all too much disclosed through the thin draperies of the single linen garment, which a precarious mercy had conceded to her virgin blushes. Nor had this wretched boon been grant ed as it would seem without reluctance, perhaps without the violent interposition of some power ful protector ; for, from the neck quite downward to the girdle, it had been riven open by some cruel hand, which had left on its sullied folds the dis tinct score of five ensanguined fingers, and now fell wide apart, revealing to the wanton sunbeams one sloping ivory shoulder, and the whole of the voluptuous bosom, which never had before been so unveiled, even to the chaste glance of the mai den moon. Her exquisitely rounded arms, bare to the shoulders, were bound fast behind her back, and the small foot, which peeped forth from below the hem of the chemise / was not unsandaled only, but encrusted with a deep crimson coat of human gore, contracted from the bloody decks of the ill- fated caravella. At the feet of this lovely being, whose cheeks, pallid with agony and terror, had long forgot to blush in the extremity of anguish, bound like her mistress and yet more brutally despoiled of her apparel, crouched a negro girl, whose skin, of the most polished jet, relieved the pale complexion of the Spanish lady, even as a pedestal of sable mar ble sets off a statue wrought in snow-white ala baster. A little way apart from these, there lay a slender stripling, whose unfledged chin was not yet clothed with the first down of manhood, fet tered so torturingly hand and foot, that the blood oozed in large broad gouts from the pores of his swollen limbs ; while a long gash on his forehead, about which his close-curled locks were stiff with clotted gore, and his whole person swart with the smoke of gunpowder, and dabbled with the blood of both himself and his assailants, showed plainly that his desperate resistance had been the cause of these unnatural and needless bonds. Erect behind this miserable group, standing aloft upon the rocking thwarts, as firmly as if his feet were planted on the solid earth, one finger of his right hand slightly leaning against the slender staff, whence waved the flag of truce, towered far above the rest, one whose commanding aspect and proud bearing, no less than his gorgeous dress, at once bespoke him the' commander of the buc caneers. Six feet at least in height, broad shoul dered, and deep-chested, his person, notwithstand ing, was so admirably rounded, his waist so slender, and all his limbs just in their proportions, so com pact in their easy contour, that the extraordinary and almost Herculean power of his frame was not observable, but on a close and accurate survey. His lineaments were, although wearing a mingled expression of licentiousness, effrontery, and dar ing, decidedly regular and even handsome ; nor was there any line or trait which could betoken cruel ty or fierceness. The eyes of a deep grayish blue, although large and well-opened, were rather sleepy than the reverse, in their ordinary aspect : while of the mouth, that most expressive feature of the face, the most decided character blended with much of firm and dauntless resolution, and no little of contemptuous haughtiness was pas sionate voluptuousness. He wore no hair upon his face, which, though much sunburnt, and even swarthy from exposure to the fierce sun of the tropics, was by no means flushed or ruddy nei ther mustache nor whisker except one peaked tuft upon his lower lip, many shades darker than the sunny locks which fell in natural curls over the collar of his doublet. The garments of this remarkable figure were no less striking than his personal appearance. Upon his head, set very much to the right, so as to leave the waving ring lets of the other side free to the breeze and sun shine, he had a small cap of dark purple velvet, encircled by three folds of a delicate chain, or fanfarona the workmanship of which, although the metal was pure gold, surpassed in value its material and farther decorated by a single os trich-feather, near half an ell in length, of perfect whiteness. Over a full-sleeved vest of snowy satin, fastened at the bosom by a dozen buttons each one a solid pearl as large as a hazel-nut all linked together by a slight Venetian chain, he wore a sleveless coat of the same velvet with his cap, laced down the seams with gold, lined with white silk, and decked with pendant studs of gold filagree, and loops of bullion. White satin breeches, and white silken hose with gold clocks, and red-heeled shoes, completed his attire ; but round his waist was twisted a sash of purple net work, entwined with strands of gold, from which hung at the opposite sides his basket-hilted rapier, and a long two-edged dagger in a shark-skin scab bard while a broad baldric of the same mate- 12 RINGWOOD THE ROVER, rials, thrown over his right shoulder, supported not 'less than six pistols, of rare workmanship and finish. The rowers who propelled this pow erful barge, were all attired in velvet caps and jerkins, with plumes, and scarfs of costly silk, and chains of gold and jewelry and, like their leader, were all armed to the teeth with cutlass, dirk and pistols ; while through the whole length of the vessel, were stacked, ready to their hands, the heavy musquetoons or carbines of the day. The crews of the other boats, which swept on, all abreast, scarce an oar's length asunder, were adorned with equal splendor ; and, as they leaped ashore, and fell into a serried line, with ported carbines seven hundred men in number at the smallest calculation a more magnificent array can scarcely be conceived, than was drawn up before the gaze of the dismayed and anxious Spaniards. After a pause of a few moments, which seemed ages to the distracted father, who had recovered from his swoon to a full sense of his anguish, the splendid captain of the pirates advanced alone, a pistol-shot in front of the well-ordered buccaneers, followed at a respectful distance by four others, whose dress, as sumptuous, though less tasteful than that of their superior, betokened them the officers of the inferior vessels. Behind these men, again, stepped forth as many privates, two and two, leading between them the damsel and the stripling, who, with the negro maiden, were now the sole survivors from above two hundred souls, the crew and passengers of the proud fri gate, of which not now a wreck remained, to tell how she had sailed the deep in fleet and fear less beauty. " Ho ! Juan de Melendez" he exclaimed, when he had drawn so near the walls, that every accent of his deep voice could be heard with ease " Juan Melendez de Aviles, I summon thee forthwith to yield this city, and these forts, named of St. Augustine, to our mercy!" He spoke in pure Castilian Spanish, though with a trifling foreign accent; so light, indeed, that but to an ear well practiced it would not have been at all perceptible. " And who art thou, who summonest so bold ly?" returned the governor, manning himself to endure the torture, which his high sense of duty and of honor told him he might not even hope to shun " and what hast thou to set forth as a reasona ble cause, why we, the armed and numerous pos sessors of strong works mounting much and heavy ordnance, well found and victualled for a six months' siege, should yield us to a handful, with out artillery to batter our defences, or ladders to assail our ramparts !" " I if it could avail thee any thing to know" replied the pirate, his lip writhing as he spoke, with bitter scorn " I am called Ringwood Re ginald Ringwood, once of merry England Think, Juan Melendez, think ! If thine ear may not find something familiar in that sound ask thy false heart to prompt it ! and for a cause behold these arguments ! perchance, though thine eye may not recognize a man whom thy tongue, scarce six years ago, styled friend and brother, it may be more successful in deciphering the lineaments of this girl-like stripling !" "And what of these?" replied the father, struggling vainly to conceal the agonies of his paternal terrors " what of these innocent, de fenceless children ? or what have they to make with the rendition of this city ?" " Innocent and defenceless !" sneered the buc caneer, " and knew not Juan de Aviles, any child, ever, as innocent as defenceless as nay, ten thousand times more lovely and more loved to whom, nor beauty, nor innocence, nor helpless ness, availed any thing? Now, by the great God, Spaniard," he continued, lashing himself as he went on into a state of fierce and terrible excitement, "now, by the great God, Spaniard, that shall judge between us two, thou hast but sealed thy doom ! What, dost thou ask, have these to make with the rendition of this city ? This ! very simply this ! That if, within one hour, the city be not rendered to our pleasure, your boy shall die upon the beach before thine eyes, by such variety of torture, as never yet racked human sinews ! And for the girl thou shalt behold her undergo things,, fifty nay ! but fifty thousand times more terrible than death protracted and made horrible by the most lingering torments. Choose ! thou hast but one hour !" "And what if we should render us not that the mere thought of such a deed is possible !" quivering with anguish in every iron limb, the Spaniard answered " what terms dost thou offer if we should render us?" "Life!" was the stern reply. "Life to the soldiers of the garrison, and liberty to march out with their arms and three rounds of munition ! We know your numbers, fair sir, far too well to dread them ! Thy son and daughter shall be re stored to thee unhurt for the rest we will hold the city for three days' space, using all property, all persons therein, as our own and at the three days' end, we take with us whatsoe'er we list ! up anchors ! and sheet topsails home ! and farewell to fair St. Augustine !" With an unutterable air of blank dismay, the officers upon the bastion gazed in each other's faces. The terms were such as men could not A TALE OF FLORIDA. 13 endure and the alternative scarce less ap palling ! The agony, the mute, despairing, ghastly torture depicted in every speaking picture in the dull, scarcely conscious air of Juan's eye, in the con vulsive writhing of his pale ashy lip, from which the gnawing teeth, though they bit deep and keenly, could force no drop of blood were scarcely more heart-rending than the tremendous bursts of pas sionate and impotent phrensy, with which the youthful lover the noble, brave and beautiful Don Amadis, raved with mad gestures and wild imprecations, to and fro the ramparts ! " Beware '." after a long, awful interval, during which he had gloated with a mixed expression of pleasure, exultation and contempt, over the evi dent misery of the man whom, as his dark words and half-uttered hints implied, he had good cause to hate, with that unbending and insatiate hatred, which, if intensity may give any token whereby to estimate duration, may survive even death it self. " Beware, I say !" cried Ringwood, "and, now, I speak in mercy! Beware, I say, how thou decidest. For by my wrongs, the depth of which none know so well as thou ! and by my love for her which such a soul if any soul, in deed, be thine so base, and sensual, and brutish cannot so much as fancy ! and by those hopes of vengeance, which have alone thus far sustained me, blighted although I be, and blasted to gain which I have lived, and wlu'ch, once gained, I will die happy by all these solemn things, I swear to thee, if thou refuse my proffer, I will not bate one jot of this which I have threatened ! Nay, more ! this done for fancy not thy paltry walls or boasted ordnance could, for ten minutes' space oppose, much less bear back, our onset this done, I say we toill be masters of your city, spite earth, or hell, or heaven ! and, masters of it, not one woman, from the grandame of fourscore, or to the fresh virgin of fourteen, shall escape the worst pollution ! not one man, nor one boy, nay ! not the babe that is unborn, shall flee the sword's edge not one building, from God's temple, down to the wretched negro's kennel, but shall share the all-devouring flame ! Before to-morrow's dawn, if ye submit not to my terms, there shall not be one living thing there shall not be one stone upon another, to tell the story of your ruin ! Choose, then choose wisely but see that ye choose, likewise, very shortly ! One hour ! I have spoken !" " Thou speakest mere impossibilities'' replied the miserable father "and that full well thou knowest ! For how were I so minded should I compel all these to yield their homes to confla gration their children to the sword their wo men to dishonor ! Ask any thing but this, and on the instant it shall be performed!" " Thou hast heard!" was the stern reply " and / have said !" " If thou wouldst have wealth, say the word our swollen treasuries would suffice to glut the wildest avarice." "I have said!" answered the pirate, fiercely, dashing his heel with furious energy into the yielding sand "I have said nor would the gold of El Dorado buy thee one moment's mercy!" " If vengeance I I, Juan Melendez I whom you hate so deadly I will come forth to ye un armed will yield me to the utmost of your ma lice yea ! I will bless your torments, so these may return harmless !" " And I" exclaimed Don Amadis Ferrajo, spinging with outstretched arms upon the battle ments "high privilege it were to die for thee, Teresa!" "And I and I and I" responded twenty voices, in a breath, of the bold cavaliers, who stood upon the bastion ; and who, till now, dispi rited and cowed by the sight of anguish which they might neither heal nor hinder, kindled to sudden animation at the high hope of rescuing, by their own self-devoting gallantry, those innocent and spotless victims, blazed forth in all the lustre of their Castilian chivalry at the proud words of Amadis. A low and sneering laugh was the sole answer, for the vengeful buccaneer, as he perceived by the increasing agitation of the Spaniards the full ex tent of his advantage, waxed but the firmer and the cooler for all their menaces and prayers. "Monster! ha! devil!" shouted the fiery Amadis, goaded by the calm and contemptuous air of Ringwood, into a state of utter phrensy " devil ! thou shalt not live to boast of it !" and snatching, as he spoke, a long-barreled harquebuse from a sentinel beside him, he took a rapid aim, and before any of his comrades could interpose to hinder him for all perceived the madness of the action fired it against the head of the proud Rover. He was a practiced and a steady marksman, was that hot-blooded gallant : nor, had his soul's salva tion been staked upon the shot, could his aim have been more accurate or guarded. Before the sharp report had reached any of the tremulous specta tors who gazed, as though their all was periled by the deed almost before the flash had gleamed upon their eyes the long white plume, which graced the cap of Ringwood, was cut sheer off within an inch or less of his unblenching head ; and was borne away, glancing, and fluttering like 14 R1NGWOOD THE ROVER, a sea-bird's wing over the sparkling billows, by the light western breeze. With a wild yell of savage execration, the pirate line rushed forward. But scarcely had they made six steps, with bran dished arms and furious gestures toward the Span ish works, before the loud clear voice of their commander was heard, as composed and slow, as though he had been speaking to a comrade across the festive board ! " Halt ! ho ! is this your discipline ? and his right hand raised quietly aloft, without a sign of menace scarce even of authority sufficed upon the instant to arrest those hardy desperadoes, that they stood motionless and silent as a rank of statues. " And this" he said, turning his eyes, with a scornful smile upon his lips toward the ramparts "this is your Spanish honor this your respect for the white flag, which even savage and heathen venerate ! Excellent well, young man ! excellent well, and wisely was it done : ' Tis like that these would be more merciful, seeing their captain slaughtered here, before their face, under a flag of truce ! Had I been other than I am, this gallant deed might have anticipated, somewhat, the time when these shall suffer. As it is neither for fear nor favor neither for anger nor remorse hath Ringwood ever swerved be it for good or evil from his word ! nor can so slight a thing as thou move his most slight resolve, more than the sum mer wind can lift the earth-fast oak from its abiding place. I said an hour the half of it has fl own half yet remains to ye, to sport, or grieve, as it seems best to ye ! that past, the boy here dies in torment. The girl lives for our pleasure, and our scorn !" Even before the fierce rush of the pirates had been made, the officers around had seized the youthful lover and disarmed him, reproaching him unsparingly for the insane and desperate deed to which his uncurbed passions had excited him " Amadis Amadis," cried the grayheaded veteran Diego, "thank God upon your knees with your whole heart, and strength, and spirit, thank him, that your mad effort failed. Had thy shot struck down him, at whom it was so deadly aimed she, whom thou lovest, had been lost, past hope, past redemption?" "Young man," exclaimed the fiery governor, rendered more fierce than ever he was wont, by the increase of peril to his children, by that most inconsiderate action; " young man, hidalgo though thou be, and belted knight of Calatrava, I swear to thee, had that shot taken place, I would have stripped and bound thee like a dog, and hurled thee headlong from the bastions. As it is, if aught ill befall my children, to thee I lay it see thou be ready to make full atonement : for" Ere he had finished speaking, with a shriek so tremendous, that to describe its tones, or even its effects on those who, shaken as they were by the dread scenes enacting in their sight, were har rowed to the very soul by that appalling cry, were utterly impossible a female of some forty-five or even fifty years, but still remarkable for ma tronly majestic beauty, with her long hair di sheveled, and her large dark eyes glaring terribly, rushed up the narrow steps, and stood unveiled, with all her garments in wild disarray, among that group of warriors. "My children!" she cried "Oh! God! God! my children!" None spoke none had words, or breath, or heart, to speak to her and she went on, mingling the wildest, the most eloquent appeals to Heaven for mercy and for succor, with yells and shrieks, that made the very hair to bristle on the heads, and the chilled blood to curdle in the veins of all who heard her even of the unpitying, unsparin desperadoes, who, though they shuddered at, the"*" knew not what, swerved not in their fell purpose, nor ever even dreamed of mercy. Arid now she would blaspheme, and rave with execrations, such as had scarcelv been outdone by the profanity of the most desperate of men ; calling down curses on the heads alike of those who held her children prepared for instant execution of those who could not, howsoever they might pant to do so, strike one blow for the rescue, without ensuring by that blow, more certainly than even now it was decreed, their doom and on her own head, most of all for that she had borne, and nursed them at her breast, and trained them up so pure, and beautiful, and brave and all for such an end! Once Juan drew his sword once almost gave the word, to cast the sally-port wide open to rush down with pike, and harquebuse, and rapier, under the cover of the volleying cannon to cry " St. Jago and God aid !" to set all on the cast of one desperate charge ! But hope and prudence con quered. It cannot be, he thought his hopes sug gesting arguments which his more sober reason would have at once discovered nothing worth for well did Juan Melendez know the unbending spi rit, the tameless heaven-daring pride, the daunt less valor of the man who stood before him not now, as once, a wronged, and helpless exile, but in the plenitude of power, and pride, and venge ance ! It cannot be that a mere buccaneer, a sor did, selfish pirate would or would be permitted to surrender his or his comrades' common in terest for any private vengeance, how grateful or how sweet soever. And in these frantic hopes, A TALE OF FLORIDA. 15 mingled with fears, if possible more frantic, the fatal moment passed. " Juan!" once more exclaimed the deep sonor ous accents of the Englishman " Juan Melendez de Aviles, the hour I gave thee hath elapsed once more I ask- of thee shall these two live or die ? If thou wouldst have them live, down draw bridge, up portcullis, and march out, thou and thy veterans, and thy family for three days will we hold the city, doing to it, and all within it, as to us shall seem fitting after three days will we embark in our good ships and trouble ye no more, here at St. Augustine and for assurance that we will preserve our faith with ye, myself will be hostage in your hands even in yours, the deadliest of my foemen ! Choose now choose, choose, Juan Melendez, and if thou doomest these these thine own flesh and blood, on whom even I, who have such cause to hate them, scarce can look without pity if thou do this, say not that it is I, but thou who art their slayer !" The brow of Ringwood, as he spoke, grew very pale, and his lips absolutely ashy in their tints. Yet his eye was as bright, and even calm, as ever ; and not a muscle worked, or a nerve quivered, in those stern features, or that stately frame. " Mercy!" exclaimed Melendez, stretching forth his clasped hands toward the pirate, " mercy. As thou mayest, one day, ask for it thyself show mercy !" " As I received it, one day, at thine hands, when I did crave it, so will I show it, Juan," replied the buccaneer. " Speak, now, speak out, I say ! Wilt thou yield up the town ?" " I will not," answered Melendez very firmly, " God help me I will do my duty." " Then hear me thy son will I torture here to death before thy very eyes thy daughter, if thou move not to sally, for the time is safe if but the bridge be lowered, or one shot fired, I yield her on the instant to the mercy of my crew. Lead out the boy!" And that pale stripling was led out before his father's face pale, indeed, even to ghastliness, partly from the loss of blood, and partly from the conscious horror of his situation. Yet he bore up with dauntless courage, and, though a mere boy, proved himself, in that extremity, a worthy scion of his proud race. " Teresa," he said, as he left his sister's side, " God bless thee, and farewell, and may He grant that I may bear this agony for both. Father, let me see that you look as bravely on my death, as I shall bear it ; unman me not by any weakness ; I would die as becomes thy son, and a Castilian. Now, sir, I am ready." It was a most strange sight. The lip of Ring- wood quivered, as he looked on the brave boy, and all the muscles of his face, which had hitherto been as tense and cold as steel, relaxed a little, and a tear swam in his gray eye ; he was, it seemed, on the point of yielding. But with a mighty effort he dashed off the growing weakness. "I, too," he said, "painfully, although it be, and bitter; I too have my duty." He cast a sign to the assistants, and they made the boy kneel down upon the sands, and bound a knotted whipcord closely about his temples, and thrust between it and the flesh the stout steel- mounted stock of a ship-pistol. One strong man seized each arm, and held him steady by the full exertion of their united strength ! Having made that one signal, Ringwood cast no glance more toward the hapless boy, but riveted his eagle eye, with an intense expression of horrible exulting pleasure, full on the father's face. "It is done, captain," whispered the third of those fell satellites. " Proceed !" replied the Rover, never removing once his eyes from the distorted features of the governor. "Proceed!" And at the word, the wretch who had last spoken, seizing the pistol by the barrel, twisted it round and round, tightening at every strain the knotted cord, 'till it pierced through the skin, and flesh, and sinews, and pressed with agonizing keenness into the solid bone itself. Manfully wonderfully did that pale stripling bear the in tense anguish anguish, the horrible extremity of which was but too well displayed by the deep crimson flush, which had supplanted the ghastly whiteness of his brow in the foam that flew from his churning teeth, in the dark sweat that gushed from every pore. Still he so mastered that appalling torture, that he spoke not a word, nor groaned, nor even murmured ! Had the fierce Rover looked but once on that boy's face, he had forgotten all his wrongs, all his deep hatred, in overwhelming admiration. He would have cried had the cry sealed his own eternal doom "hold! hold!" for shame if not for mercy ! But he did not look on it for his hard eyes were drinking in, with fearful satisfaction, the tortures visible in the dark features of his humbled foeman ! At length the tough cord pierced its way into the skull itself ; the sightless eyes, forced from their sockets, started out upon the gory cheeks ; one loud long yell burst from the boy's lips, and at the self-same instant Don Juan Melendez fell back into the arms of his attendants, in such a paroxysm of despair and agony, as happily deprived him of all conscious ness for hours. The yet more wretched mother 16 RINGWOOD THE ROVER, had been dragged from the bastions, forcibly, be fore that hellish scene commenced, or she had perished at the sight ! As Ringwood saw his enemy fall senseless, as the boy's yell pierced his scarce conscious ears, a deep flush crossed his brow ; he snatched a pis tol from his baldric, turned short upon his wretch ed victim, and fired full at the head, not three feet distant from the muzzle. One spasm one quick convulsive shudder and all was over, ere yet the echoes of the death-shot had subsided ! Was that an echo that deep sullen roar ? Again ! again ! No ! 'Tis the sound of ordnance ! And lo ! in clear sight, on the bright horizon, four pyramids of sail, looming up larger and more near, as every second passes. And now what floats above those lofty royals what but the yel low flag with the three castles of Castile ? Hark ! to that cheer, awful, and deep, and solemn, which rushes up to heaven from the beleaguered ram parts, full of a thousand mingled feelings of gratitude for unexpected safety of hope for coming vengeance ! CHAPTER III. Well was it for the buccaneers, that the wind died away, which had brought into sight so rapidly the Spanish caravellas ; for had the four tall fri gates, which, deserted by the sea breeze, were soon obliged to drop their anchors at the very entrance of the bay, four miles at least from the vessels of the pirates been able to run in, the small light picaroons of the Rovers, heavily armed, although they were in proportion to their rate and burthen, would have stood but a sorry chance, hemmed in between the heavy batteries of those floating castles to the seaward, and the yet heavier cannon of the ramparts, should they attempt to run into shoal water. It was evident, moreover, that the newly arrived ships were already in no small degree suspicious of the character and intentions of the squadron moored in shore ; as appeared from the quick in terchange of signals, between the Spanish flag ship, which was the first to anchor, and her com rades. In obedience to these signals, the four tall vessels came to anchor, all nearly in a line at equal distances across the harbor, so as to ren der escape difficult if not impossible and in a few moments afterward, in consequence of a fresh flag shown at the mast-head, a second cable was carried out from the stern of every frigate, and she was warped round, till she lay broadside to the bay with all her frowning batteries command ing the long expanse of water, across which the )icaroons must sail exposed to their raking fire, f they should seek to force a passage. The dis- ance and the apparently hopeless position of the mccaneers preventing the Spaniards, as it would ;eem, from sending their boats' crews to ascer- ain their character, if not to cut them out and capture them. It must not be supposed that it took the keen and practiced intellect of Ringwood so long a time to apprehend his own position, and the inten tions of the enemy, as it has occupied us to describe them. On the contrary, they had not dropped their anchors, before he had envisaged ully the extent of his own danger, and calculated accurately the chances of effecting his escape, un der circumstances which seemed so unpromising. Forming his men into four columns, he com manded them to retreat by turns, one body facing the ramparts with leveled harquebuse, and pike in rest, while another fell back, till they had all reached the gravelly margin of the bay. Then judging from the movements on the walls and above the gate, that a sally was about to be at tempted, he strode out alone, till he was within earshot, and then shouted aloud " Beware ! beware how ye raise gate, or lower bridge, or do but so much as to threaten our retreat ! for as ye do so, by Him who know- eth all things ! the fate of your crushed clay," and he pointed with a meaning smile to the dead body of the young Melendez " the fate of this crushed clay shall be a lot of perfect bliss com pared with that which shall light on your sweet daughter !" And with the words he fell back slowly to his men, the greater part of whom were already on board their boats, leaving the Spa- nairds dispirited, and faint, and sick with hope deferred. Within a short half hour, the whole flotilla was in motion, dashing up the clear azure of the peaceful bay, with hundreds of strong oars ; and ere the hour was well accomplished, each picaroon had received its complement, had hoisted in its boats, and lay, all hands at quarters, ready for action. When Ringwood reached the deck of his fe lucca, ordering that his captive should be con veyed without delay to his own private cabin, he took to his perspective glass and gazed steadily and long toward the Spanish caravellas, and far beyond them toward the open sea. " A mist ! ; ' he cried anon, after examining both sea and sky with anxious scrutiny "a mist, coming in slowly from the seaward ! masthead there ! signalize the captains of the squadron to come aboard me here to council," and with the word up went three balls to the masthead, and bursting as they reached the summit, streamed out A TALE OF FLORIDA. 17 for one moment three bright contrasted signals. Within five minutes after, a little cutter might be seen to be launched from the side of every pica roon, and darting toward the principal felucca, as fast as oars could urge it through the water ; yet still the Rover swept the horizon round and round with his telescope, minutely watching every sign and symptom of the weather, fixing his gaze most constantly on a point directly landward, where just above the tree-tops one small dark cloud with snow-white edges was visible quite motionless and unconnected, as it seemed, with any mass of vapor, the single frown of the bright laughing heavens the single frown, full of dread menace. Just as the first of the small pinnaces came along side, his scrutiny was ended, and he closed his glass, saying to himself with a quiet smile of satisfaction, "A mist forthwith from the seaward and when the sunset is fully passed, a hurricane and land tornado! Ha! Master Cunninghame," he added as his second in command stepped on board, a handsome, fresh complexioned, fair-haired Sax on, "Ha! Monsieur Le Fort welcome, good friends and comrades Winslow and Drake ! wel come, friends all ! I have convoked you hither to study how we may escape scot free from these toils, that now seem set so close about us. And be fore heaven ! I hold the clue, my masters. See ye, how dark this sea-mist is now gathering? The Spaniards must lie still till it blow over and then look yonder, to the bright edges of yon black cloud. Ere midnight we shall have a land torna do then must yon Spanish lubbers slip their stern cables, and swing head to sea ; and then will we run up to them under slight storm sails, and, it may be, slip by them unperceived in the deep gloom if not engage them and force passage. Lo ! here my masters, when I shall fire a bow gun, hold all ready to cut or slip your cables ! and when I hoist three lanthorns on my main, then run ! You, Drake and Winslow, since that your vessels draw least water, steer you betwixt the headlands of the bay, on the right hand and left, and those two outward frigates. I will steer straight between the central two ; ye, Cunning hame and Le Fort, make good your way between the others, on either hand of me when ye are all at sea, fire each a weather gun, and burn a blue light and three rockets then each make all sail for the inlet, and so huzza for home ! And one word more, my friends, before we part it will blow sturdily, I warrant me send down all masts and yards have your ships snug and easy, with naught abroad but a small rag of head sail, so to steer. Have out your sweeps, too, to get yourselves before the wind, if need be none may tell certainly where the tornado may strike first- farewell, be brave and fortunate, and see ye reach your vessels ere this fog commence ; since of a surety ye scarce will find their berths, when once the mist gets settled. So, my friends, once more, fare ye well !" And with these words, accustomed long ago to place complete reliance on the opinion of that skillful navigator, and to yield with instinctive readiness to his least mandate, his four comman ders entered their boats, and hurried to their sev eral vessels, although in truth they saw no symp toms even when pointed out by his unerring judgment of the approaching changes in the weather which their great chief prognosticated so decidedly. Not long was it, however, that they doubted ; if indeed it may be said that they did doubt at all; for though they marveled, and looked anxiously about to note some confirmation of their leader's prophecy, they did not for a mo ment presume to doubt their leader's accuracy for ere they had all reached their vessels, the thin haze which had for some time floated on the ex treme horizon's edge, grew thick and heavy and by and by came rolling onward in damp and pon derous masses, although no breath of air could be discovered, by which it was urged landward ; and the whole atmosphere grew damp and watery. Then one by one the caravellas of the enemy were swallowed up in the dense gloom, and when their own low rakish picaroons became so indis tinct and dim, that those which lay farthest from the felucca of the great English buccaneers were not reached by their officers, without much diffi culty and some hazard. Long before sunset, no* } thing was visible from the deck of any one of that small pirate squadron, but the calm surface of the unmoved sea, and that within a circle of only some fifty yards at the utmost, beyond which all was one dead drowsy mass of impenetrable vapor. Yet so well had the officers taken the bearings of the enemy, of the headlands, and of their consort, that there was not one of their number who was not as fully acquainted with the position of every thing about him, as he could have been had the whole scene been laughing out in clear broad sun shine. All day the crews were mustered, and toiling at their several stations, and night was advanced somewhat, ere all the preparations were com pleted; the loftier masts sent down, the yards housed safely, and the lighter sails unbent, the rig ging all repaired, and the masts fortified with extra stays against the coming tempest ; the guns run out and loaded, the matches lighted, and the armed crews at quarters ; the heavy sweeps already in the water and ready, at a word's notice, to be worked 18 RINGWOOD THE ROVER, by powerful strong-handed gangs ; the carpenter and his stout mates, prepared with their broad axes to sever the strong cables at a blow, and let the gallant barks shoot seaward ! The sun had long since sunk into the waves and the deep palpable obscure of night been added to the gloom of the thick fog-wreaths no stars were in the sky, no moon, "hid in her vacant interlu- nar cave," hung forth her silver lamp in the dark vault ; for clouds, heavy and packed and solid, had long since overspread the sky, though not a human eye had marked them, swelling from out that one small spot of vapor, till they had blotted out each light of the broad empyrean, from the horizon upward to the zenith. Midnight was near at hand when a deep, rumbling roar, as of ten thousand chariots rolling upon a strong causeway, rushed up from the landward ; and, after filling the air for some short space, sunk gradually down into a faint, sick moan unlike to any sound of earth, or air, or water. It ceased; and as it did so the sharp and ringing discharge of a long brazen cul- verin burst in a sheet of flame from the lee bow- port of the Rover's galley and scarcely had its echoes died away, before a wide, blue sulphurous glare seemed to rush downward bodily from the black skies, with such a roar of thunder, crash upon crash, and peal succeeding peal, as stunned the sternest soul. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, the misty wreaths were swept seaward and vanished ; leaving, however, the night quite as dark as ever ; and as they did so, up shot to Ringwood's mainmast head three glittering Ian- thorns sparkled there for a moment and were quenched instantly, by the fierce whirling breath of the tornado. Bearing on its mad pinions huge limbs fresh-rent from the tall forest trees, whirl ing the level surface of the calm bay into a se ries of huge and snow-capped billows, and anon sweeping away the heads of those vast waves, and beating them down bodily into the deep, till the whole bosom of the sea was one wide, white expanse of scattering, hissing spray roaring and howling yea ! yelling in its furious might soon came the tropical tornado ! But every cable was cut sheer, before it struck the water, throughout the Rover's squadron the sweeps were out and manned ; the picaroons all underway and steering, when the fierce blast fell on their raked spars and scanty canvas, and drove them, like beings full of fiery life, bounding across the waters. When the mist cleared away, the Spanish cara- vellas were descried, not by their outlines for no human eye could trace an outline against the swart gloom of the sky but by the broad glare of the battle lanthorns, gleaming out from their open port-holes, as they lay broadside toward the bay, all manned and cleared for action ; so that her course was definite and clear to each one of the picaroons. But when the dreadful howl of the tornado came raving through the tortured air, their stern cables were all slipped at once, and they came heavily round, head to sea, upon the instant; and more line was paid out ; and though they rolled and labored fearfully, yet they rode still secure, amid ttye frightful uproar. No light was seen, no voice or sound was heard, on deck of any one of Ringwood's squadron ; as driving with the speed of light before the raging hurricane, they neared the lofty Spaniards but loud and violent was the confusion and the din aboard the castled caravellas. Unseen and unsus pected, leading the van of his little fleet, the Ro ver rushed into the space between the central frigates, and so rapidly did he shoot though, be twixt those motionless and vast masses, that the scared crews had scarcely time to note his transit ; yet did the fearful volley, which he poured forth from each broadside, as he rushed past, plunge fatally and fast into their clustered masts and when they sprung in turn to their guns, and fired their answering salvos, the picaroon had shot al ready a cable's length ahead, and the two Spanish ships received each other's shot, thinning their crews more fatally than had the Rover's broadside, cutting away their rigging, piercing their castled sides, and shearing their spars fearfully of their dimensions. Under the cover of this disastrous chance, Cunninghame and Le Fort passed undis covered, with their guns undischarged, within half pistol shot on the outside of these same two caravellas ; and when the Rover, half a mile now to seaward, fired his weather gun, burnt his blue lights, and sent his rockets up kindling the murky skies with their clear sparkles, these two re sponded on the instant, with ready tokens of their safety. Almost at the same, point of time a heavy cannonade was heard from the two outward cara vellas, and scarce ten minutes later, the two re maining picaroons signaled their comrades through the gloom. Such was the desperate and daring feat, long famous as the master deed of naval warfare in that remote and early age, by which the Eng lish buccaneer ran, with five petty picaroons, the gantlet of Spain's noblest caravellas, in safety and triumph losing no man, no spar, no rope, how trivial it might be soever, bearing his captive with him, and leaving to his baffled foes sorrow, and anguish, and despair. Ere long the hurricane subsided, but still the breeze blew swift, and sure, and steady and swiftly danced the roving barques before it. All A TALE OF FLORIDA. 19 night it blew, and all night long the Rover paced the deck, but when the daylight broke over the foaming ocean ; and when he swept the free hori zon with his glass, and saw his consorts dancing merrily behind him, and not a sail save theirs in sight, whether of foe or stranger, he gave his deck in charge to the next officer, and sought his pri vate cabin, and his unhappy captive. CHAPTER IV. The cabin into which, with the break of day, Ringwood descended, was, according to invariable custom, situate in the extreme after part of the vessel, so as to enjoy to the utmost the advantage afforded by the stern lights for cheerfulness and ventilation. In its other arrangements, however, it differed not a litttle from the similar apartments in ships of war of that or indeed any other day. All the guns, which were carried by the low light picaroon, were on her upper deck ; which, some what in advance of the marine architecture of the times, was perfectly flush from stem to stern by this arrangement the whole interior of the vessel was reserved, free from the encumbrance of the batteries, for the ascommodation of the numerous crew, and for the needful stores of food and war munitions, and as its sub-divisions were not, as has been said above, conformable to ordinary prac tice, it will not be superfluous to give a brief de scription of their fashion and appliances. In the first place, then, be it observed, that the cabin companion, instead of being situate abaft the mizen, was placed about half way betwixt that spar and the mainmast the stairway which it contained opening into a narrow space, between two musket-proof bulkheads, perforated with loop holes and creneles for shot of harquebuse or car bine. In the forward of these partitions, which ran entirely across the vessel, there was no aper ture whatever, except the shot-holes above men tioned in the centre of the other, however, was a low steel-clenched door-way, before which a sentinel stood on duty with his fire-lock loaded night and day ; while a second, similarly armed, kept guard on deck by the companion hatch. This portal, framed, like the bulkheads, of timber so thick as to be musket proof, gave entrance to a narrow passage, running fore and aft, between the armorer's and gunner's store rooms, and through another strong door to the ward-room or apartment of the officers, under which general term were included all the classes superior to the private ma rines, with no distinction as to warrant or com mission. This was a large, low space, occupying the whole width, and about twenty feet of the length of the vessel, fitted with a long table in the centre, above which there swung from the ceiling a compass, a chronometer, and several lamps. The sides were occupied by berths sufficiently com modious ; while a range of lockers, covered with cushions of rich velvet, so as to wear the semblance of a superb divan, ran round the whole apartment. The light was admitted, not as is usual, through a skylight, but by a range of small glazed apertures pierced through the sides like port-holes, and like them provided with massive shutters, which might be battened down in rough and stormy weather, or in time of action. When it is added to this, that the deck which formed the floor was covered by a splendid carpet from the Turkish loom that the curtains of the berths were of the richest arras tapestry that two large beauffets of some costly Indian wood were decked with gorgeous plate, flagons and goblets, covers, and cups, and tankards, of gold and silver, carved and embossed with the best art of Italy's best sculptors and that, in wondrous contrast to the luxurious decoration of the room, offensive weapons of every shape and every construction, were disposed ready to meet the hand, wherever any vacant space was left for their arrangement a very fair idea may be formed of the wild blending there displayed of almost re gal pomp with warlike preparation. Thus round the mainmast was suspended, in a fair gilded rack, a stand of partisans with shafts of ebony, and blades, two feet in length, of brightly polished steel. Upon the bulkheads, at each end of the apartment, pistols and carbines, loaded and primed, and ready for immediate service, and Turkish ya- tagans, Damascus cimiters, blades of Bilboa and Toledo, with Malay creases, Scottish dirks, and poniards of Italian fabric, all glittering with golden chasings, and bright gems were placed in fantastical devices, of stars, and suns, and cres cent's, reflecting every beam of light, and almost rivaling in splendor the luminaries in whose forms they had been modeled. Beside this common stock, to every column, parting the sleeping berths, was attached a complete panoply with fascinet, cuirass, and buckler, pistols and boarding axe, and broadsword of the most choice material and construction. It was apparent at a glance, that this, the quarter of the officers, must also be regarded as the stronghold, the citadel as it were, of the ship. It might perhaps be conjectured like wise, from the arrangements, that the occupants of this magnificent apartment were not entirely free from some touch of jealousy, if not apprehen sion, as regarded the good faith of their subordi nates. The upper bulkhead, parting the captain's cabin from the ward-room of his officers, was, like 20 RINGWOOD THE ROVER, the lower one, ball proof, and looped for mus ketry the door-way, as before, gave access to a narrow vestibule or passage, arranged in this case as the Rover's private armory, and communicating by a hatch in the floor with the ship's magazine and larger arm-room. From the ceiling of this vestibule, which was not more than a yard in width, was slung a lamp of silver with two burn ers; beneath the clear broad glare of which a ne gro, of gigantic stature and features singularly handsome for his race, stalked to and fro with shouldered carbine, and a whole armory of knives and pistols in the broad belt that girded his white linen caftan about his thin and sinewy flanks. Another African, who both for bulk and comeli- ness, might well have been twin-brother to the sentinel, lay buried in deep sleep upon a velvet- covered pallet, which occupied the whole space to the left hand of the door-way, with all his wea pons round him. And never by day or by night did those two grim life-guardsmen leave their ap pointed post together and singly, but at rare and distant intervals one sleeping while the other watched one feasting while the other fasted but both continually at hand, and ready on the slightest signal to do their chieftain's bidding, whether for good or evil. On entering the last door-way, a scene of sin gular beauty was presented to the eye of the spectator. The cabin was perhaps twenty feet in width, by half that depth, except that in the cen tre, a recess of about ten feet square was formed by the projection of two state-rooms, one on each hand, into the chamber this alcove, raised one step higher than the cabin floor, was lighted by two of the stern windows occupying its whole breadth, and reaching almost from the ceiling to the deck the other two lights being cut off by the state-rooms above mentioned. The alcove was carpeted with a thick soft Persian rug, and hung with seagreen velvet, fringed with broad arabesques of gold ; a divan covered with the same stuff ran round it, while the centre was oc cupied by a circular table of dark wood inlaid with ivory and brass. Against the state-room partitions there hung, on the one side, a set of shelves filled with about a hundred books in costly bindings ; and on the other a portrait of a young girl, seemingly not over seventeen years old a master-piece of the world's master painter, Anto nio Vandyk with a long two-edged gold-hilted broadsword, and a brace of large horseman's pis- tols, of workmanship to match the rapier, fixed to the panel under it, as if to guard the lovely trea sure. Upon the circular table there stood a cru cifix of gold, and a small vase of the same pre cious metal, containing some choice flowiers of that tropical clime, while near them lay an open volume of Italian poetry, a Spanish gittern, and some manuscript music, partially covered by an embroidered kerchief of white silk and gold. The larger and lower portion of the cabin was carpeted and decked with hangings of the same color and material with those in the alcove. A large square table filled the centre, on which lay maps and charts, with books and instruments of navigation. An antique cabinet of oak, with mas sive ornaments of brass, a beaufFet covered with vessels of wrought gold and goblets of rock crys tal, another book-case, with perhaps two hundred volumes, and several huge arm-chairs of oak, with velvet cushions, completed the furniture. It must not, however, be forgotten that here as in the outer rooms the walls were farther decorated by a superb collection of arms, offensive and defen sive, of everyi age and nation ; the most costly and most prominent of which was a complete^suit of tilting armor of blue Milan steel, all dama scened with gold, such as was worn in the four teenth century by every knight of name, and by the most unhappy of the Stuarts, and some few of his leaders even so late as the war of the English Revolution. Such was the form and fashion of the cabin into which, his long night-watch con cluded, Ringwood descended. In the ward-room, as he passed, his second offi cer a young and handsome Englishman with a fair skin, where it had not been bronzed by long exposure to a tropical sky, laughing blue eyes, and a profusion of light curly hair was seated at the table, busily engaged, with several fine look ing lads of various ages, from fourteen to twenty, in discussing a morning meal as sumptuous as a ship's store might furnish, with the addition of fresh fish of several kinds, and a tureen of turtle ; which, though concocted only by the untaught skill of the bright -skinned and clear mulatto, who waited by the beaufFet, resplendent in cap, hose, and jerkin, of unsullied whiteness, was even thus no despicable fare ; as was attested by the fre quent applications to its dispenser, who seemed to be in no small danger, while ministering to the appetites of others, of losing his own breakfast. At a smaller board, and a little way apart, the armorer and gunner, two thick-set sturdy-looking Britons of the Saxon race, contemning the effemi nate luxuries of potted game, broiled fish, and turtle-soup, diluted by champagne and bordeaux, were reveling in what they deemed the manlier enjoyment of toasted cheese, black puddings and fat ale. With a gay smile and some light jest, the Rover declined the invitation of his officers to join them at their festive board ; and bowing with an air of easy dignity passed onward, showing no A TALE OF FLORIDA. 21 haste or agitation in his measured tread, and closing the door gently after him, as he entered the small vestibule which led to his own cabin. " You might as well have spared yourself the trouble of that invitation, good master Falconer ;" said one of the juniors, who filled the place of midshipmen in a more regular service " a likely thing it were that he should tarry here, for such a poor temptation as meat and drink may offer, with such a feast of charms wooing him yonder. By St. George, well might the loveliness of that pale, black-browed beauty overcome the virtue of an anchorite !" " Hold hard, there, Anson" cried another <; covet not thou, that which is sacred to thy bet ters." " Tush, man tush !" answered the first speak er, "I covet her not, by St. George ; I love not your delicate, coy damsels better one Ariadne fresh from the arms of the blithe wine god, than twenty tearful Niobes. We shall have, by-and- by, a goodly chorus of shrieks, yells, and lamenta tions, I doubt not, to tell us how he prospers in his wooings." But though a general burst of merriment hailed this prophetic speech, and although every ear was for a time on the alert to catch some indication of the progress of events between the Rover and his lovely captive, not a sound reached them, that afforded any clue to their excited curiosity. Closing the door, as has been said, gently be hind him as he left the wardroom, the Rover turned the key, and dropped a massive bar farther to guard against intruders. " Let none disturb me, Pluto," he said to the sentinel, " on any pretext whatever I am o'er- done with watching, and shall betake me to my cot till noon. And hark thee, sirrah ; whatever thou mayst hear within, HEAR IT NOT, if thou wouldst have ears afterward, to hear withal ! Hear nothing thou, unless I call on thee nor thy twin devil yonder either !" The sable functionary grinned, till he showed his ivory teeth almost from ear to ear, as Ring- wood tutored him ; and, when he had done speak ing, laid his broad hand upon his chest, and bowed in silent acquiescence to his master's will. Satisfied, apparently, that his attendants com prehended and would implicitly obey his bidding, the captain paused no longer, but entered his apartment without farther waste of words, with every sinew of his body strung, and every energy of his strong mind resolved upon his savage purpose. No clothing had been given to the hapless prisoners, beyond the miserable relics of their torn garments which had been spared in the first moments of their capture ; nor indeed, save 2 for the wants of delicacy, was any more required ; for the weather was extremely hot and sultry, and the air of the small cabin, though all the win dows were thrown open to catch the favoring breeze, was confined and oppressive. Little, therefore, had it been in the power of those wretched girls to do in aid of their offended mo desty little, however, as it was; all, that the utmost delicacy with their small means could have effected, was performed. Teresa's hair had been replaced, folded in massive wreaths about her classic temples, decently ordered, but devoid of the most simple ornament. Her single robe, of thin and half transparent linen, had been ar ranged ; and the huge rent, which had displayed all the voluptuous charms of her young bosom and round ivory shoulders,, repaired by such de vices as woman can alone contrive ; so that the beauties of her unrivaled form, though not con cealed for how could one light fold of cambric conceal the swelling outlines, the luxuriant roundness, the unmatched symmetry of that shape, delicately full, yet slight withal and sylphlike ? were veiled at least fiom the too bold intrusion of an unchaste eye. The stains, however, were still there the frightful stains of recent massacre the plain print of ensanguined fingers upon the sullied surface of that virgin robe and her small feet and slender ankles, which might riot be con cealed beneath her scanty draperies, were still encrusted thickly with the unnatural taint of hu man slaughter. With the dark fringe of her long downcast lashes drawn in distinct relief against a cheek as colorless and cold as monumental marble with out one ray of hope, one gleam of intellect, to lighten up the dull and soulless gloom which brooded over those glorious features, like a gray storm-cloud overshadowing a lovely landscape her brow, too much oppressed to feel the agony of its own inward aching, propped on one snowy hand ; while with tne azure veins painted in fear ful vividness upon its deadly whiteness, the other hung down by her side, motionless, lifeless and unconscious with scarce more sense of sorrow or of pain than Niobe, when the last shaft had flown and her last child lay dead before that stony effigy which had but a moment since writhed with the anguish of a mother's grief silent, and cold, and rigid, save when a quick convulsive shiver, the only sign of life she had displayed for hours, ran through her palsied form, shaking it for an instant, and then leaving it still as the grave and nearly as insensible tearless, and mute in her exceeding agony, Teresa sat erect in a huge oaken chair placed almost in the centre of the cabin; with the black girl, her sole attendant, lately her 22 RINGWOOD THE ROVER, slave, but now at least her equal for in their common misery all past distinctions were abo lished crouching on the rich carpet at her feet, and clinging to the knees of her, in whom, so deep set was her half-idolatrous veneration, she could not but imagine some power must still re side, some magic of authority that must compel respect even from the world's outcast the proud, pitiless corsair. Such was the picture that met Ringwood's eye, . as his foot crossed the threshold a picture that might well have called up sentiments of pity from the most iron bosom ! But in the breast of the wild Rover pity, which spite his merciless trade oft found a dwelling there, was for the time over powered ; crushed as it were, and silenced by the vast flood of fierce and fiery passsions, which swept across his soul, withering up and searing every kind sentiment, as the hot lava scathes the innocent flowers, when he beheld the child the heart, as it were, the more than heart of his de tested foe, helpless, and courting, as it seemed, the blow that should heap tenfold ruin on the object of his undying hatred. The voice of memory spoke trumpet-tongued within him memory, fresh from other days and distant climes ! memo ry, busy with confidence unwillingly bestowed, and brutally requited ! memory, full of wrongs, and wo?s, and agony, and degradation ! The voice of memory spoke within him spoke with a thousand thunderous voices, whose every whis per was of vengeance ! vengeance, delayed for long, long years, but never for one hour forgotten ! vengeance, which should exceed a thousand fold the injury that woke it ! vengeance, with which the universe should ring, and which the page of history should hand down, as unrivaled, to the ap palled and shuddering ears of countless genera tions ! With such a prompter at his heart's core, how should he pause to think of Ruth or of for giveness ! He paused not ! an exulting smile curled his lip ! curled it with an expression of pride, malice, scorn, and triumph, that no word but FIENDISH could convey, however faintly, to the mind ! his breast swelled with an ecstasy al most convulsive ; his eye positively lightened with excitement the terrible excitement of un governable passions, o'ermastering every obstacle fierce, furious excitement ! rife with the con centrated fire of every evil, every unholy impulse implanted by the hand of nature in the breast of man, bursting the bonds of reason, wild, remorse less, and untameable. One glance he cast toward the miserable pair, and cheering himself as if by a sudden impulse " Without there" he cried "Ho! without!" On the instant the door was opened, and the black woolly head of the gigantic negro was thrust into the cabin. At the first sound, how ever, of the Rover's voice, the Spanish lady, whose senses, overpowered by the dull torpor of despair, had not informed her of his entrance, started upon her feet, turning her clear cold gaze full on the splendid person of the pirate chief; while down to her knees clung the black maiden, with the whites of her eyes dilated into glassy circles by the intensity of her dismay. " Take hence the slave girl bestow her in the hatch beside the greater arm room ; keep her close prisoner but, as you love your life, do her no wrong not by a word, or look, if you would scape my vengeance ! gently away with her !" A fearful spasm crossed the pale features of Teresa, as the huge black drew nigh; and it seemed as though her terrors would have found vent in a piercing scream, but by a mighty effort she restrained herself. " Let go my robe, Cassandra," she said at length in tones which, though they faltered, no terrors could deprive of their almost unearthly sweetness " Let go my robe, girl seest thou not that no present harm is meant thee ? and if there were it would boot naught to struggle ? Let go I say! minion, unloose thy grasp" she cried with increased agitation, as the pirate's min ister drew nearer " wouldst have thy mistress' person polluted by the touch of yon foul villain ? nay ! tremble not, thou silly one" she added kindly, as the terrified creature, relaxing the firm clasp which she had fastened on her lady's dress, fell prostrate and almost insensible before her feet " they can but kill us the longest torments the direst cruelties can only lead to that can only inflict DEATH !" As she spoke, gaining courage herself from the effort she made to cheer her fellow-sufferer's spirits, Pluto had raised the half-inanimate and shuddering girl in his strong arms, and was al ready bearing her toward the vestibule ; when by a sudden jerk she almost extricated herself from his embrace, and followed up the first attempt by a succession of fierce rapid struggles and con tortions, panting and sobbing till it seemed that her heart would have burst from her bosom, glaring with her disturbed eyes, and foaming at the mouth like a demoniac till finding all her efforts fruitless, exhausted even more by the vio lence of her feelings, than by her terrible though vain exertions, she sunk into a deep swoon ; and with her head hanging upon the massive shoulder of the negro, and all her shapely limbs collapsed and nerveless, was carried off insensible and unre sisting. Alone in that luxurious cabin, surrounded with all that is most beautiful to the eye, alone A TALE OF FLORIDA. 23 the Spanish maiden stood in the presence in the power of the merciless Rover. Both young both beautiful but oh! how different in their beauty ! She, pale and wo-begone, and cold as the white marble which alone could vie with the pure splendor of her skin hopeless, yet firm wretched, yet tearless in her misery ! He, flushed with fiery passions, burning with high hot hopes, instinct with all the ardent energies, the quench less vigor, the indomitable power of animal exist ence ! She, th every image and ideal of perfect and most lovely death ! He, the unequaled type of glorious and majestic life ! With a slow step, as if half doubtful of his purpose, the Rover neared his captive still she stood firm and motionless, with her large bright eyes shining out, intensely black and lustrous, from her fixed and hueless features fixed upon his with a cold, steady and unblenching gaze, like that by which the leech is said to awe his maniac patient, or man, the mo narch of creation, to quell the fiercest savage of the wild. It seemed as if that frail and slender girl had listened and believed the tale, ' that a lion will turn and flee from a maid in the pride of her purity,' and had resolved to try the virtue of the spell, but on a fiercer and more tameless being. And in good truth for a second's space it showed as though the charm were not all power less the haughty spirit did did for a moment quail before that firm and fearless gaze ! the strong brave man did hesitate, before the timo rous weak maiden ! There is in truth nothing so difficult as to approach, with hostile purpose, one who opposes calm and passive fortitude to threat ened violence one who shows nought of fear, meditates nothing of resistance who neither courts nor shuns the peril. Man will hew down the trembling fugitive, from the same natural im pulse which prompts the dog to tear whatever flies from him he will assault with all the pride of defied valor and insulted strength the strong one who resists him but he will rarely rarely nerve himself to the attack of one who fears not nor defies the outrage. At length, with a half start a start at his own unwonted hesitation he advanced, and laid his hand upon her shoulder, while she still, moving not, nor speaking, main tained that steadfast gaze, as if she would peruse his soul ; nor did the slightest change in her de portment give any token that she had felt his law less touch, save that a bright flush darted over brow, face and bosom, brilliant as the electric flash, and scarce less rapid in its passage. " This is well, fair one," he said with a strange sneer, curling his chiseled lip "this is well. I had looked for tears and outcries ! but you are wise, my beauty; wiser in your generation, as the scripture hath it, than the children of light ! but why so mute, Teresa? speak, girl, know you the fortune that awaits you," and he shook her gently as he spoke, as if to force an answer. "The lamb in the wolf's lair," replied the maiden, "requires no prophet to foretell her doom." " You know it, then ? 'fore God I had not looked for such most sweet compliance ! you know it, then, and deem it perchance a rare fortune. I knew ere while you Spanish dames were game some, and something light of love ; but I deemed not the more fool I to fancy woman could be at all, and not be wanton but I deemed not a Span ish damsel of thy blood and lineage should know herself, and knowing rest content to be the para mour of a robber murtherer pirate !" " Nor do you know it now," replied she, by a violent effort maintaining that composure which she deemed the most likely to procure forbear ance "nor do you know it now ten thousand deaths ^vould I die sooner nor will I be the thing thou sayest !" " How wilt thou help it, sweet one ?" he asked sneeringly. " By not consenting and by dying ! force me you may to your vile will by brutal and unmanly violence bow me you may, for the brief space that is permitted you, to your dire passions but wrong is not dishonor, nor outrage disgrace ! But for a little time a little time can you torment me the Lord hath given you the power, and you must use it as you list but only for a time." "Believe it not," he answered; not unimpressed by the cool majesty of her demeanor " Believe it not, my power upon you is forever forever at least here on earth ! That which I make thee, wilt thou remain till death deliver thee hearest thou, girl ? I say, till death !" " And I reply, not long !" "To die, thou wouldst say, ay! to die by the sudden sword-stroke is not difficult, nor long, nor painful, worth the counting ! Nor is the poison cup, though slower and more torturing, too tedi ous or too difficult for high and resolved spirits and such I do believe is thine, Teresa. Nor in good truth, as thou didst say but now, are the most cruel, most protracted means by which the flesh can be compelled to quiver through a living death too much to be endured to be endured so long as they may last. But mark me, mark me, maiden ; to die is not so easy ! an eye shall be on you forever no means vouchsafed while thy fit lasts and trust me use will reconcile thee to that life, which thou deemest it no dishonor to enter on compulsion to die is not so easy !" " Nothing is more so," she replied, forcing her- 24 RINGWOOD THE ROVER, self to go through the task she had imposed upon her energies. " Nothing is more so. The strong est frame may not endure a fortnight without sus tenance and neither thou, with all thy boasted might, nor all thy mailed myrmidons, can force one feeble girl to swallow one small mouthful, save at her own good pleasure !" " Brave words !" he answered, still with a sneer "Brave words, Teresa! but behold! here on the walls around you hang fifty sheathless poniards, fifty well-loaded pistols ! had the one feeble girl been so resolved on death, she might have died these three hours gone, and none the wiser ! Tush, girl, thou cheatest me not so !" "Hear me," she said, with an imploring ges ture, drawing herself a little back from him " Hear me at least, as thou dost hope for mercy as thou dost trust in God !" " I do not hope for mercy I do not trust in God!" he answered, "Why should I? Mercy was not for .me or mine, when I implored it on rny knees with adjurations, unto which thy feeble prayers are but as whispers to the sovereign thun der ! God heard not me when I called on him at my most extreme need. Why should I, girl why should I ? I do not hope for mercy I do not trust in God, yet will I hear thee hear thee, for that thou art a woman !" " Hear me then, and believe my words nor think that I feel not, because I shudder not that I dread not, loathe not the infamy, because I make my loathings subject to my will, and speak of that most coolly which I will not endure and live. When first I entered here, the thought did cross my soul that freedom was at hand the blade was bared to win it but suicide is deadly sin or if not deadly, allowable but in extremity. There was a hope ! one lingering, last hope then nor hath it quite flown now I a hope that one so strong, so mighty, and so brave as thou, wouldst shame to harm a woman ! a woman whom all men are bound to shelter and defend for that same weakness which makes it easy makes it most base and sordid to assail their frailty. Till this one hope is gone I dare not rush unbidden on eternity. I have thought much thought coolly on this matter ! the more, and the more coolly I have thought, the more I am resolved, and the more certain mayest thou be that my resolve is changeless. Injure me, and I die ! For some brief days thou mayest thou mayest riot, if such be thy savage will, in the possession, the unmanly forceful brute possession of frail resisting inno cence for some brief days of agony to me of infamy to thee and of remorse hereafter ! With those brief days thanks to the mighty Maker, who made the subtle and immortal soul so sepa rable from the gross mortal body ! with those brief days thy power for good or ill and mine for agonized endurance, are at an end forever ! Cries, tears, and lamentations I know vain there fore I use them not ! but deem not thou shalt win one favor of my weakness, till that byutmoSt force and violence you have overpowered my most true resistance !" "One word one whisper from my lips and thou wouldst fly as eagerly to my embrace, Teresa, as now thou shunnest it," he again an swered, with the same sneer upon his lip and she observed that his voice sounded calmly, and no longer with the hoarse broken intonations of overwhelming passion ; and that the flush which had lit up his features, with a light so unnatural and appalling, had given place to the wonted tints of his complexion. " Not though that word w r ould raise me into pa radise that whisper plunge thee to the abyss of hell !" " What if I were to yield thee to the license of my crew to the lewd pleasure of yon loathsome blackamoor !" " 'T is sin vice degradation that is loath some ! nought else nought else. Compelled to my dishonor, I may w T rithe hopelessly in anguish I may die here on earth, and dying live forever in light, and bliss, and glory everlasting ! Com plying I should loathe my very self should die each day I lived ! and perish, body and soul perish now, and forever ! But thou ^vilt not thou canst not thou art a man a feeling, fiery, passionate, and it may be a vicious yet a MAN ! Born of a woman, cradled upon a woman's bo som, nursed from a woman's breast! thou hast grown fair, and strong, and noble, reared by the ministerings of a woman's love ! thou didst learn from a woman's tongue the very accents which give voice to thy fell threatenings against a wo man's peace ! thou hast thou must have loved, have sighed for, striven for, done gallant deeds to win, a woman! and wilt thou wilt thou now? wilt thou? no! no! thou wilt not canst not wrong one so weak in her frailty so strong in her virtue in her resolve as I ! no ! no ! thine eye is mild, and thy lip quivers and and and thou wilt wilt spare, protect oh God! oh God thou wilt not wrong me," and as she spoke, she flung herself down at his feet ; clasped his knees tight, tight as the serpent's coil, with her entwining arms ; and turning up her pale wan face, with those dark glorious eyes swimming, yet overflowing not in outworn nature's agony, toward the stern, observant, but no longer fierce or in flamed visage of the Rover " thou wilt not for thy mother's soul! for the sweet memory of A TALE OF FLORIDA. 25 her whom you first loved ! thou wilt not wrong me!" "Not now! not now at least, Teresa! But I have heard thee hear thou now me. I have a tale to tell thee of one as innocent as beautiful as thou, who prayed, as thou hast prayed, for pity who found it not, and died ! This thou must hear and then thyself shalt say, if it can be that I I, the Rover the world's scorn and hate and terror I, Reginald Ringwood, can pity, much more spare Teresa de Aviles." CHAPTER V. THE ROVER'S TALE. ' I was born of an ancient family in the north of England of blood as pure and noble, as flows in the proudest veins of your Spain's proudest no bles. My Saxon forefathers possessed the broad demesne, beneath whose old oaks I grew up as firm as they of heart, and scarce less strong of limb centuries ere the Norman had drenched our isle in gore. I know not, and I care not, how though they battled to the last for freedom they held their landships and lordships until, by time and intermarriage, the names of Saxon and Nor man were forgotten; and from the mixture of those hostile bloods arose the strongest, bravest, wisest race of men that tread the surface of God's earth. I know not, I care not ! I only know, that to me those broad lands descended through a long race of honored ancestors. I only care that I was born, and bred, and shall not die an Eng lish gentleman. " I had a father, noble, and generous, and good a. mother who was indeed a mother, and who is a saint in heaven ! a sister ! oh ! such such a sister ay ! thou art fair, Teresa wondrously, exquisitely beautiful but she was as far before thee, as is the glorious sun before a farthing rush light ! She was but I can not can not describe her. No ! not to my own void and aching heart, that never hath been filled since never even for a moment ! She was the comrade of my childish joys, the soother of my boyish griefs the dear repository of my every hope or fear the bright encourager to all things high and noble the true unflinching friend the only one ! A few years younger than myself she grew up to bright, glo rious womanhood under the kindred shelter of my stronger youth she was my all in all oh God ! how I adored her. " But I must on while I was yet almost a boy, the secret heart-burnings, the disafFections and dissentions, which had so long been smouldering darkly between the king and parliament, blazed out into rebellion and fierce civil war. Both par ties flew to arms the nobles and the gentry of the land, with many of their yeomanry and te nants, drew their swords for the king ; the citi zens and burghers, and not a few of the smaller landholders, espoused the cause of parliament. " Throughout the north the gentry, many of whom were Catholics, were loyal to a man and with the Vavasours and Musgraves, the Landales and the Wentworths, my father buckled on his arms to fight beneath the standard of his king and well he fought for it, from its first ominous erection at Worcester amid* storm and tempest, till it fell never more to rise upon the fatal moor of Marston; where he too fell beside it, undaunt edly but vainly striving against the iron-clad in- vincibles of Cromwell ! Boy as I was, through all those bloody fields, I fought beside my father's bridle. Boy as I was, at Brentford I was thank ed by Charles himself before the leaders of the army boy as I was, when my bold father perish ed in his stirrups, I slew the man who smote him down, and drew off his retreating troop, sorely diminished but unbroken. It is a long tale, but suffice it, that Lilburn a few days afterward storm ed, sacked, and utterly destroyed the dwelling of my fathers that, overdone with weariness and wo and watching, my mother wasted away, like snow before the April sunshine, and died at length of that worst malady a pined and broken heart. Then, our lands became the heritage of others apportioned by the victor Independents to the least scrupulous, and bravest of their creatures ; then was our very name a name coeval in proud fame with England's story proscribed, and outlawed. As best I might, I cared for my loved sister's safety. In the mean dwelling of an ancient ser vant of our race, a humble fisherman upon the western coast, in lowly guise and under a feigned name, for years she was concealed in safety while I, rash, desperate and daring, fought fet lock-deep in blood wherever banner waved, or trump was blown in England now in the ranks of some united host, and under some renowned and regular leader now leading my own little troop of undismayed adventurers through the wild pleasures and yet wilder strifes of that guerilla warfare the fiercest and most feared of the king's partisan commanders. Enough is told, when I have said that not a single plot was planned, a single insurrection fostered, but my head was busy with its machinations. That I fought on with Lucas, Lisle and Goring, till every hope was lost that in the siege of that loyal city Colchester, I j shed my blood in its defence till all was over ; and owed my safety then to wounds which fetter- i ed me to my sick bed, and to the unbribed faith 26 RINGWOOD THE ROVER, of a poor laundress, who concealed me from the hand of my inveterate pursuers. After long months of suffering;, and of precarious hiding, I reached at length the cottage, where, without now one hope of seeing me again on earth, my sister lingered on in sad but patient sorrow ; looking for death alone to liberate her from the woes which weighed her down to the brink, as it were, of that wished-for grave, which, seeming to yawn ever to receive her, opened not to her prayers. Alas ! alas ! that it did not ! Alas ! that she died not then, with the young freshness of her innocent beauty pure as an angel's sigh spotless as God's own sunshine ! But words are vain sorrow is vain all ! all is vain, save vengeance ! " It was deep night when I arrived at that lone cottage and oh! the ecstasy, the thrilling ec stasy, that quivered through each nerve of my rapt frame as once again I clasped that angel sister to my heart never again, as fondly I believed and falsely, to be torn thence, while both had be ing ! Little time was there then for joy or sweet affection little enough for needful preparation, and swift flight ! The moon had risen before I reached the cottage before she set, the lugger was afloat; manned by stout hands and trusty hearts ; her every sail distended by an auspicious breeze ; bearing us, bearing us forever, from na ture's sweetest names^our home, our country ! Long centuries before, my father's race had inter married with a high family of Spain and, al though time had loosened the essential tie of blood, friendly connection had been maintained ever; and still, in name and courtesy at least if not in very deed, the haughty family of English Ringwoods were cousins to the proud Spanish clan, whose head is the Melendez de Aviles ! " Start not, Teresa ! By the God who looks upon us now who looked of yore on that most hellish crime who shall anon look on that crime's meet retribution. By the God I say the God of both our fathers ! the blood of thy race runs even now, not as the lava of Vesuvius, through every artery and vein of this my body ! my body that has lived through agonies and toils and perils, which might have consumed nerves of brass and thewes of tempered steel, which would have worn out mine, but for the treasured oath of vengeance that upheld me ! " But passion boots not. What is done, is done ! what shall be, shall be ! Friendly connection had, I said, been maintained ever ! Letters had passed from age to age, presents been interchang ed, and mutual benefits done and requited. When our Black Prince displayed his Lion banner in aid of your King Pedro, my ancestor was rescued from the wrath of that brave bastard, Henry de Transtamara, by the Melendez of that day. When Spain's armada was dispersed, scattered to the four winds of heaven, by Frobisher and Drake and Haskins, it was a Ringwood that redeemed the chieftain of the Des Aviles ; and sent him home cumbered with gifts and ransom, free from the dark tower of London. Allied in blood, allied by mutual courtesies, my father when first war broke out remitted treasures, plate, gold, and store of jewels, to the faith of his Spanish kins man. Provident and prepared for either fortune, he looked to Spain as an asylum, should the king's cause be bucklered by bold hearts in vain. When my good father fell letters fair letters full of greeting full of high courtesy and noble promise styling me < Dear and trusty cousin,' praying me ' of my love to deem 'his purse as mine his palace as my castle', were borne to me fair seem ing ! false ! false letters ! signed ' Juan de Melen dez de Aviles.' Full of all honorable confidence, full of all gratitude and love, now that even hope was lost in England, I set sail ; freely as to a se cond country, for the bright shores of Spain ! as to a second home, for the proud halls of De Aviles ! Three days' fair sail, we made the Spanish coast ! another week, and in Madrid we were received, received not as exiles and outlaws, but as most honored friends, most esteemed kinsmen, by that same Juan de Melendez that same vile, heartless, soulless thing, which thou callest father. Aye ! I recall it ! all all every thing ! The very pa lace gates, upon the porphyry steps of which the smooth-faced fiend received us the very liveried menials, who cringed so humbly to our bidding, the very smile, the very gesture, yea more, the very garb, with every small detail of plume, and scarf and jeweled rapier, which he wore all gleam upon mine unforgetting eyes distinct and palpable, as though they were depicted to my outward sense by some rare limner's skill. He was a noble gallant to the eye ; witty, accom plished, beautiful, and brave nor, as I fondly deemed, more fair than faithful. Every art, every gentle knowledge, every superb accomplishment were centered in his mind, his manner. To the eye nothing nothing of God's creation here on earth could be more glorious, more transcendantly surpassing man's estate, more godlike ! In heart, no thing on earth, no thing in the abyss of hell could be more utterly corrupt, more base, more superhumanly depraved and bad, more fiendish ! Yet years passed, ere I gained this knowledge, years passed, and I believed him nor was I even then unwise in this world's wisdom all that was kind, and good, and noble. What wonder that one younger than myself, artless and unsuspect ing, judging of others' faith by her guileless stand- A TALE OF FLORIDA. 27 ard, full of sweet fervent gratitude, betrayed into security by her own very purity of soul, and by the sanction of a brother's presence should have believed as I ! and loved ! and and oh God ! that I must speak it fallen ! fallen ! the victim to a perjury so hellishly devised, so deep, so fa thomless, that wisest wisdom would have been all at fault to sound it ! The growing love of my sweet sister, the constant and devoted wooing of the enamored Juan I saw, and was well pleased to see it. For when I saw the liking mutual ; when I knew that my Teresa in purity of an un stained descent was a match meet for kings ; that in the rescued treasures of my father's house she had a fitting dowry ; that in all else beauty of form and face, intellect, feeling, soul she would have been a prize for the choice of angels ; when I beheld and knew all this, I had no whisper of false pride to bid me interpose between their in clinations and their union ! I had no doubts, no fears, no hesitations ! Juan, too, had a sister a fair, bright, artless being, of whom, if I did not entirely love her, I had at least mused fervently and deeply. Thoughts of a double link had cross ed my mind, as no impossible solution to the Gor- dian knot of our entangled fortunes, not as a ter mination to be gained by rash or sudden speed, but as an end, which, other things agreeing, might in due time crown all our cares with pure and peaceful happiness. Thus days, and months roll ed on calm, undisturbed, and happy. At times indeed a touch of wonder would come over me, why when their mutual feelings were so evi dent ; when my approval might have been known even from my silence ; when every thing was suitable, and no cloud even on the remote horizon threatened a storm which could divide them why they should so prolong their courtship so needlessly delay the consummation of their bliss. Still, as they seemed to understand each other, I deemed it equally indelicate and unwise, that I without the shadow of a pretext should interfere between them. Entirely unsuspicious, therefore, and fearless even of the possibility of wrong, I left things to their natural course. " Meanwhile an opportunity at length occurred for my advancement, my establishment in a be fitting rank, and active service ; an expedition was in course of preparation under the prince, Don John, for the low countries, there to co-ope rate with the great Conde. against the allied force of the Cromwellians under Lockhart, and the French Mazarinists under the great Turenne, which had already reduced Gravelines, and Merr- dyke, and were now threatening Dunkirk. In this fair expedition I was appointed to take part ; and in no humbler station than lieutenant-general of the cavalry. This proud appointment was ob tained for me by the solicitations of Melendez, for which Heaven's hottest curses blight him ! I deemed him worthy of my eternal gratitude. Brief space was granted for my preparation yet, ere I started on my honorable duty, I opened my heart freely both to Melendez and Teresa ; and it was settled that, the campaign ended, they at least should be made man and wife ; while Juan plighted me his word that, should I prosper in my wooing with his sister, his every aid should be forthcoming. With a light heart I started ; all careless at the present, all confident of the bright future. In a short time we reached the Nether lands, and there my every faculty of mind or body was engrossed by my military duties. It is not now my purpose, for it avails tis nothing, to spin out long details concerning that disastrous and disgraceful campaign, wherein we were out witted, out-mano2uvred, and out-fought. First came the defeat of Sandhills, whereat the Eng lish standard waved on both sides, and victory was once again decided by the stout fanatics of the republic ! then Dunkirk instantly surrendered ! then step by step were we beat back, town after town admitting our victorious foes ! Enough, that at the Sandhills I was dismounted in the last charge of the superior cavalry of Castelnan, which broke us like a thunder shock ! My right arm shattered by a pistol shot, my helmet cloven, and my skull laid bare by a long broadsword-cut, a pike wound through the broken taslet of my left thigh twice I was galloped over by the con tending troopers in close melee, and left for dead upon the field. Rescued by the attachment of a veteran follower from the tender mercies of the plunderers, I lay for weeks insensible, and for weeks more in helpless agony till the campaign was ended by a truce ; and weak of frame, bent and bowed by my half healed wounds, I slowly journeyed homeward. Something I was indeed discouraged, and something grieved, that during my long illness, during my slow recovery, no letters should have reached me whether from Juan or my sister ; yet even this might be explained by the distracted state of the whole country ; France torn at the same time by civil strifes and foreign warfare ; the Netherlands divided into factions, filled with fierce bands of foreign soldiery; all business at an end, and all communications inter rupted. Consoling myself with such thoughts as these, for the neglect of my Spanish friends, I journeyed, with all speed my frail health would allow, toward Madrid. I reached that splendid city; hurried through its deserted streets, for it was midnight when I arrived, to the proud dwell ing of Melendez. The porter who replied to my 28 RING WOOD THE ROVER, loud summons, after a pause strangely at vari ance with the former promptness of attendance which characterized all my friend's retainers knew me not at the iirst ; so strangely was I al tered by the enfeebling nature of my wounds, and by the great exhaustion consequent on my jour neying with those wounds yet unhealed nor when he recognized me, did he seem wholly un embarrassed by my appearance. The family, he told me Don Juan, and the Lady Isidore, and the English Senora had removed from the city several months before ; and were now dwelling on a magnificent estate, of which I had heard Melendez speak with rapture, situate on the lower ridges of the southeastern Pyrenees. Worn out with fatigue, I resolved to give myself a single day's repose ; in the course of which I learned from the porter, that shortly after the removal of the family from town, tidings had come that I had been slain at the Sandhills ; and that no subse quent news had arrived concerning me, so that on all hands I was believed dead ; to which he cun ningly attributed his consternation at my unex pected re-appearance ; he also mentioned, as a casual report, that it had come to his ears that my sister had been married to the Conde de Aviles, shortly before the tidings of my death in battle. The following morning, so much of fever had anxiety and toil produced, that I was miserably ill, and utterly unable to rise from my couch, much more to undertake a tedious journey. I wrote, however, on the instant, both to my sister and Don Juan ; telling them all that had befallen me, mentioning the reports which had encounter ed me on my arrival, promising to make all due speed to join them, and praying them to write me instantly, as I was all anxiety and agitation. Ten days elapsed before I was enabled to rise, and a week more, before I could endure the motion of a horse yet not a line had come to hand to lighten my curiosity, which was fast growing why I knew not into a fixed presentiment of evil. At length I was sufficiently recovered, and on a bright autumnal morning, gallantly mounted and well armed, followed by two stout English veterans, I sallied forth from the portals of Melendez ; hurry ing with the speed of fear toward the city gates. Before I had reached there, however, I was sur rounded and arrested by a band of the holy bro therhood according to a warrant of the all-power ful Inquisition. Four months I languished in its dungeons, often examined, often threatened with the torture, forbidden any intercourse with those without in short entombed alive. At length, when I had given up all hope of liberty, I was discharged with no more of explanation than I had received on my capture what of that ? there was no possible redress ! I had been denounced to the Holy Inquisition therefore arrested ! The charge had not been made out therefore I was discharged ! and well for me, I ought to be con tent ! yea ! thankful ! and I was thankful none but the captive know the exceeding, the transcen- dant bliss of freedom. I was free ! I was strong ! for spare food and hard lodging had worked mira cles for the restoration of my health I would seek out my friends fly to my sister ! " I repaired once more to the palace of my friend when, to my mighty wonder and yet mightier rage, the porter dashed the wicket in my face with a horse laugh barred it within, and grinning through its barred lattice to my teeth, he bade me ' go seek my sister in the Lazar House meet place for harlotry like hers !' Words cannot express my rage, my madness. All availed no thing madness, rage, entreaty ! no farther an swer was returned to me^ the wicket opened not all was contemptuous, scornful silence. At length, dreading I know not what, I turned me to the Lazar House, and there there oh God ! there I found her ! there in that den of guilt and mise ry, dying by inches, worn, and wan, and wasted there on the sordid pallet vouchsafed by niggard charity, in the last agonies of life, pale as the sheeted snow, and shrunken till each bone of her fair frame seemed struggling through the transpa rent skin there found I my sweet sister. She died happy at least to die upon a friendly bosom she died in blessing me, and praying, from Eter nal mercy, the pardon of her murderer. She died, but not till she had faltered forth the tale of her unprecedented ruin ! The sun did not turn pale in heaven the earth yawned not, nor trembled nature held on its wonted course God heard the tale, as he had looked upon the deed and the fell villain prospered prospered, and laughed in the exulting pride of conscious strength, and high im punity of wrong ! All from the very first had been premeditated I was appointed to command, merely that I might be removed from the scene of destined outrage a future period was appointed for the marriage, merely to drown all possible sus picion. Scarce was I gone, before the treachery stirred into action ; the first step was to find an expert forger of handwriting; nor was this first want long ungratified a villain, triple dyed in guilt, a disfrocked monk of Italy, the minister for years of Juan's secret infamies, was pitched upon for the foul deed ; and foully he performed it. My letters, regularly intercepted by Melendez, were laid before him, one by one, as they arrived, till he had learned the trick of my handwriting ; so that I scarce myself could mark the fraud. This done, the work commenced letter was forged on A TALE OF FLORIDA. 29 letter, to that unhappy girl, urging her to delay no longer the consummation of her nuptials urg ing her by a thousand specious pretexts, and at length enjoining it upon her, as the last dying man date from a brother's death-bed, to be united on the instant to Melendez. So specious was the plot, that mortal wisdom scarcely could have fathomed it. Her letters, like my own, were intercepted answered ! each argument refuted each doubt set aside each apprehension banished! more over, not my handwriting only, but my whole turn of composition, my character of thought, my style, had been so copied, that as I read the living evidence of the lie, myself, I almost deemed them mine. It is enough, that they prevailed ! a mar riage, a false marriage, performed by that same villain monk, and witnessed by, her sex's shame, the shameless Isidore, completed the accursed plan. Innocent innocent she fell ! Fell, as an angel might have fallen, and yet remained an an gel. Secure of his poor victim, flushed with suc cess and passion, he carried her to his castle in the south; and till satiety had effaced passion, and custom worn away the charms of novelty, had treated her with at least the semblance of affec tion. Soon, soon was the dream ended ! My re turn from the army struck the last blow to his' expiring love if love that may be called, which was in truth corrupt and brutal lust ! The illness which delayed me. deemed an auspicious chance with unexampled, aye ! unheard brutality, in the most public manner, in the most coarse revolting language before his grinning menials and syco phantic guests, he told that suffering angel of the fraud the fraud w r hich had destroyed her ! jeered at her tears yea ! bade her convey her beauties to some new lover, and some fresher market! And when she clasped his knees in agonies of tear less supplication, he spurned her; spurned her with his foot, and bade his vassals cast her forth into the wintry midnight. Alone, on foot, in the light garments of the ball-room, without food, or aid, or money she was cast forth at midnight ; doubtless cast forth to perish. But so it was not fated ! through storm and snow she struggled on ! barefoot ! begging her bread ! She reached Ma drid, and fainting in the street, some charitable hand conveyed her to the wretched dwelling, where suffering, and wo. and utter desolation, soon brought her to the long last home ; sole re fuge of the wretched. She died ! Died, I say, died ! but left me living ; living alone for venge ance. My tale is ended ! it boots not to tell how, when the second Charles regained his father's throne, he yielded by base amnesty the lands of his true followers, to the oppressors who had seized them. A double outlaw, thence, have I lived for vengeance and though thus far thy father hath escaped me, some have I had already, more shall I have ere long ay, to satiety ! " Some have I had already ! and that, girl, not a little. That monk I watched for weeks for months (thy father, conscience-stricken, had fled his country.) For months had I watched him. till as he journeyed toward France, through the wild passses of the Pyrenees, I swooped upon him. I dragged him to the loneliest peak of those dread summits stripped him and bound him to a thun der-splintered tree it was the very height of summer placed food and water close before him so close that he could see ! so far that he could not reach it no, not to save his soul ! I left him there to perish yet watched him from a dis tance, that none might succor or release him that I might hear his blasphemies, and mark his agonies, and glut my soul's dear vengeance. He perished how, you may guess ; he perished there, and knew me ere he perished. " Thine aunt the Lady Isidore married, as thou knowest well, Teresa, the Conde di Ribiera ; and within three months after, was found dead- pierced by three mortal wounds in her own bri dal bed. I slew her ! I, Teresa I ! I, Ring- wood the avenger ! scaled the terrace at midnight entered her room and woke her woke her to die ! One shriek rung through the silent house, rousing its every inmate ! I leaped from the bal cony, one moment ere the chamber-doors flew open. Have I not been avenged ? " Before your father's eyes, your brother died by the torture ! " Before your father's eyes, Teresa, you shall be shown ere long ! shown what he dared to call my sister, and lied in calling her ! Start not be sure of it ; for it shall be ! this only boon I grant thee grant to thy courage, girl, and no bleness of heart ! that not now will I wrong by violence! thou shalt consent to degradation ! Meanwhile, rest here that state-room shall be thine ; and the black girl, Casandra, shall be restored to thee ; fit garments shall be furnished thee ; thou shalt eat at my table. Answer me not, girl ! not a word it shall be so, I say it shall ! " I must on deck, somewhat is moving there, that needs my presence. Content thee, and fare well!" CHAPTER VI. Broadly and brightly dawned the morning, which followed the departure of the buccaneers, upon the forest-girdled walls of St. Augustine. RINGWOOD THE ROVER, The sun shone blithely, and freshly the sea-breeze blew. The small waves, crisped by the lightsome air, danced glittering in the sunlight ; while thou sands of white gulls were on the wing, fanning the wavelets with their silver pinions. Jocund and merry was the scene ; and heavy must that heart have been, which yielded not to the sweet soothing influences of the time and seasons. Heavy was every heart, and downcast every eye, of those who were abroad on that fair morning. The bells of many a church and convent were ringing. " With a deep sound to and fro Heavily to the heart they go !" while on the four tall frigates, which now lay moored in shore, under the covering guns of bat tery and bastion, the colors waved at half-mast in honor to the dead, whose obsequies were even now in process. And now the city gates flew open, and a long train of monks and friars chanting the mournful miserere, with crosslet and with crosier, censor, and pix, and crucifix, swept forth from the wide portals. Then upborne on the stalwart shoulders of four great Spanish captains, whose plumes and sword knots of pure white betokened the brief years of him they mourned, followed the coffin of the young Melendez ! Words cannot paint the agony which overshadowed the bold lineaments, and bowed to earth the manly frame of Juan, fol lowing to his last home the last male scion of his immemorial race. Bravely, however, manfully he struggled with his tortures, and subdued them. Steadfastly did he gaze, with a fixed, tearless eye upon the disappearing coffin ; as with heart-sick ening sound the dull clods of unconsecrated earth for unanointed he had fallen, unhouseled, and unshriven rattled upon its hollow lid ; one quick spasm shook his every limb distorted every fea ture ; as the last sod was flattened down over that cherished head, which now perceived, felt, suffered nothing. The soldiers gathered round the grave flash after flash roar after roar the volleyed honors of their musketry burst over the dull ears, that heard them not, nor heeded. But with the rattling din the high soul of the father lightened forth' from the cloud of grief, which had oppressed it he drew his long bright rapier from its scab bard, stretched it forth slowly above his son's low bed, and then uplifting it, with his eyes glaring upward, flung his left hand abroad ; and with dis tended chest, bent brows and head erect, stood for a second's space motionless, stern and silent, though his lips quivered as with inward prayer, sublime and awful in the might of self-controlling energy and pride. Then with a loud clear voice " Hear !" he exclaimed, " Hear thou ! Maker of all things, Judge of all men, hear ! I, Juan de Melendez de Aviles, noble of Spain, and knight of Calatrava, swear ! here on the grave of the last male of the proud name I bear Here, with my foot upon the sod that covers that young head with my sword in my hand, I swear : never while life is left me, never by day nor by night, fasting or feasting, mirthful or in the hour of wo, to cease from plotting, from pursuing, from revenging ! never until this sword is crimson to the hilt with the heart-blood of him who slew thee thee, inno cent and helpless that thou wert, mine own and only one. If ever I unbelt the brand, if ever I withdraw me from the chase, if ever I relent, or spare, or pardon, till that the sword, the faggot, and the gallows have, each and all, been glutted with the lives of thy destroyers if ever, oh ! my son, I forget to avenge thee may my flesh feed the vulture and the wolf my soul be yielded to man's everlasting foe!" He paused, and as the sounds of his last accents died away moved by one common impulse, a dozen of the cavaliers who had accompanied the funeral train, and who bareheaded, but with flash ing eyes and inflamed visages, had listened to the father's imprecation, unsheathed at once their swords, and pointing them to heaven, chorused that awful oath by one deep, heartfelt, and unani mous "amen!" "For us for us, and our sons after us," they cried, "be thine oath binding! never to spare, nor pardon, nor relent ! never to cease from hunting to destruction the murderers of thy dead son the ravishers of thy living daugh- tea never, so help us God, St. Jago, and our honor!" The mournful ceremonial was concluded; a massive cross of stone was pitched into the sand at that grave's head, marking the spot where he slumbers now so soundly, that hapless but high hearted boy the spot, where yesterday he bore so soldierly and well the tortures which had slain him. The military music of the garrison struck up the very trumpeters, inflamed by the sympa thetic indignation which blazed forth so vividly from these untamed and fearless cavaliers, struck up, unbidden, that famous tune of old, the "War song of the Cid" the soldiers clashing their arms in unison, and the wild cadences of the shrill brass piercing each ear and stirring every heart, they marched back to the city full of exulting valor, parched with the thirst of vengeance. A few hours later in the day, a dozen horses led to and fro before the doors of a large building, with a considerable crowd of grooms and servitors and several sentinels on duty, betokened some thing of more than ordinary import to be in pro cess of enactment. It was the government house, A TALE OF FLORIDA. 31 before the gates of which that concourse was assembled ; and in an upper chamber, the gover nor, with his chief officers, was sitting in high council. Melendez, as became his station no more than his skill and mature wisdom, presided at the board; Pedro, Gutierrez, and the veteran Diego were seated the nearest to his person; the captains of the four caravcllas now at anchor in the bay lent their co-operating aid, and the bold youth, Don Amadis Ferrajo, though scarce enti tled by his years to such proud eminence, had earned, by the brilliant reputation of his impetu ous valor, a place there which he filled with as much of dignity as did the stateliest veteran of them all. At the lower end of the long table were placed two secretaries fully engaged in minuting the orders of the council ; while just be low a sort of bar, that ran across the council chamber, two Spanish veterans, well armed with sword and halbert, watched over a young stalwart negro, who stood between them, entirely naked, except a cloth about his loins, and a pair of Indian moccasins upon his feet, with manacles of steel upon his hands, but with a high free port and bold demeanor. In a recess, likewise, below the bar, usually covered by a curtain, which was now drawn up, a fearful looking instrument, composed of many wheels and springs of steel, over which leaned a truculent dark-visaged ruffian, showed the full means to which the council had recourse to elicit truth from stubborn prisoners or unwil ling witnesses. Pointing to these recess, with its appalling con tents, Don Juan was in act of speaking to the pri soner, when he was interrupted by his saying, in very tolerable Spanish, " There is no need of that, your Excellency ! without compulsion I am ready to declare all that I know of these buccaneers for that I do know something of them, it were quite needless to deny. I have dealt with them often sold them my fish and vegetables ; and very liberal buyers are they too somewhat rough handed at odd times, but what of that if they did slice off my old comrade Xavier's ears for selling a raw Englishman a lot of gulls 1 for wildfowl, they gave him gold enough to buy his freedom afterward. Yes ! yes ! I know all their haunts and I will tell the truth yes ! I will betray them all lead you up to their very hold now they have carried off the fair young Senora, who had ever a sweet smile and a kind word for the poor blacks. As for the proud young Don, they might have tortured him to all eternity, ere I would have told aught against them but now that they have carried off Teresa " ' : This to me, dog?" Melendez interrupted him, in tones that revealed the violence of his feelings " Know you to whom you speak ? This to me, to me, villain? Seize him, you halberdiers, strip him, and drag him to the rack. By the bones of St. James of Compostella, he shall taste straight way of these tortures, he prates about so glibly ! yes ! by the sacred souls of all the martyrs he shall die under them !" " For heaven's sake, hold, your Excellency," Diego whispered in his ear " or we shall get no word from him. I know the knave of old ? He is as stubborn as an old mule of Arragon, and has, I believe, no more feeling than a fish. Suffer his insolence, for God's sake so by his guidance we may save your daughter." " You say very well, Sir Don Diego" inter rupted the free black, who had overheard him " You say very well and wisely. For if he gave me one wrench on that cursed rack I would not speak one word to him ; and if he were to kill me, you know, that would bring him no nearer to recovering his daughter. No ! no ! it is no use to hurt me not the least in the world. Besides, I did not mean to vex him when I spoke I was thinking aloud only, and would n't have said it, if I 'd thought not but what it was cf}te true. I won't deny that it was quite true. But lord ! it would be no use racking me you 'd just as well get Spanish words out of the big old alli gator down in the castle ditch, as you 'd get any thing but curses out of me by all your torturing. But as I said before I '11 tell you all the truth, and bring you right upon them, now that they 've carried off Teresa. Yes ! yes ! I know where they 're gone, and I '11 carry all of you after them but not with those big caravellas they draw quite too much water. But you can take the ship boats in, and mount some heavy guns in the long fishing pirogues and then yes ! yes ! then you can catch the rogues, and kill them and eattherri- if you like, too, for that matter but I suppose you don't care so much about that and save the pretty Senora for I don't think they 've done her much harm yet he 's an honest chap, is that Ring- wood to be such an infernal thief and pay them for screwing the young Don, down there. Yes ! yes ! that will be better much than racking me >' now won't it?" and he burst into a yell of most obstreperous laughter. " May we trust think you. good Diego in this knowledge that he boasts of?" whispered Melen dez to his veteran counsellor. " Unquestionably may we" answered the other, in the same low tones. " There 's not a bayou or lagoon, a river or salt creek in all Flo rida, he does not know as well as his own hut nor a sand key, or solitary rock along the coast, but he has once and again explored it. Besides RINGWOOD THE ROVER, he is in league of amity with the red Indians, the wild Seminoles ; and if he chooses he can bring out the warriors of their tribe to aid us. He is a faithful knave too, and a valiant ; though some what bold of speech, and to the windward not a little of due reverence for his superiors yet no man ever heard him tell a lie, or break a promise ! Best place full trust in him ! Heard you not what he said of Senora ? since she was but a child he loved her and he knows, as I hear, right well the character of the great English Rover." " Well, fellow, you can guide us, as you say, and will. Well then, suppose we trust you, shall we set forth, and how?" " You shall set sail to-night directly" an swered the negro promptly " with your four ca- ravellas ; and make all speed quite round Cape Florida and then run sixty miles up, close along the coast then get out all the boats, and man them full; and take along with you fifteen or twenty big pirogues the fishermen came in this morning after the storm, filled full of soldiers, and with heavy guns. There is a narrow oh very narrow creek, not ten yards quite across, puts in therefrom the sea, covered with manchi- nell and mangroves so no eye can discover it up that you shall row twenty, aye, nigh thirty miles ; and there you will find a big clear lake, with fort, and village, and feluccas there live the pirates ! their strong hold." " And you can pilot us? So be it, then!" "No! no!" replied the black, "pilot you I could very well ; but that won't do ! no ! no ! if you go up alone, the pirates fire on you from the bush, cut you up quite, beat you all to the devil no ! no ! my comrade Xavier, he best must pi. lot you. I must get out old Tiger-tail the great chief of the Seminoles, with his red warriors, and go quite quiet through the forest so when you take them front, we fall upon their back, and shoot them every way destroy them altogether. Don Amadis go along with us he '11 go along with black Antonio, he '11 go he fears not any thing ! take fifty musket men, and with the In dians we '11 do yes ! yes ! we '11 do quite well, and save Teresa !" " He 's right your Excellency black Antonio is right," exclaimed the eager Amadis, " I '11 go with him by St. Jago ! He shames us all for wis dom ! and hark, Antonio, I '11 take a hundred men, not fifty a hundred of my own old Casti- lians. Where will you find the Indians ? where 's Xavier? quick! quick speak." " Xavier 's below, Don Amadis, he was along with me when these kind gentlemen," looking toward the halberdiers, " laid hold of me, and he won't stir, till he sees me ! And for the Indians, never fear but I can find them get you your men into marching trim, with lots of ball and ammu nition ; and let each soldier bring a spare firelock with him, so can we arm a hundred of the Semi noles, and meet me at the land gate by sunset, and we '11 get under way at once !" "Hold! hold!" replied Melendez, evidently speaking in great agitation and much doubt, " this will not do I fear no ! no ! It will be quite impossible to act in concert ; we shall fall on at different times, and so be beaten in detail." " Not so, fair sir," the negro answered eagerly, " the Indian runners will watch all your move ments from the shore, and bring us word into the bush, when you have pulled up into the stream, and how you prosper ! no fear but we can act in concert !" For a few moments the stern governor mused deeply, the dark expression and hard lines of his bold visage showing no tokens of incertitude or agitation ; yet the broad hand, which he had laid upon the board, quivered perceptibly, and he kept beating his heel with a quick nervous action against the footstool, which was placed before his honorary chair. " Remove the negro," he said at length, raising his eyes slowly from the floor on which they had been riveted "treat him with kindness, but keep strict ward on him begone !" A little bustle took place, while the halberdiers were leading off Antonio, and the secretaries, in obedience to a signal from Don Juan, were with drawing from the chamber. The moment it ceased, however, Melendez rose from his seat ; and casting his eyes round the circle as if to read the thoughts of each of his advisers, addressed them firmly, with a voice, low-pitched indeed, and perhaps somewhat subdued, but steady withal and unfaltering." " Gentlemen," he began, " and comrades. I am a father, as ye know ; and, as a father, must feel deeply the appalling situation of my most wretched child must burn to rescue her from the pollution which, if it have not tainted, surrounds at least, and threatens her. I am a soldier like wise, and governor of this fair town ; and, as such, am in honor bound and duty, to fetter down all private sentiments obedient to my military de voir ! am bound to provide, before all things, for the good state and safety of this my loyal govern ment. I am hard set, and look to all of you for council. Should we adopt the negro's plan, and trust to his guidance as, if we move at all in this same business, I see not how we can do else there is good cause to hope ! great cause to fear ! If he be trustworthy, and if his plan succeed, we shall preserve Teresa root out, and utterly de- A TALE OF FLORIDA. 33 stroy a nest of pestilent accursed pirates, and win great booty, and no small renown! If on the other hand we fail which we may do right easily our whole force must be annihilated nor is this all ! We must so weaken the garrison here at St. Augustine, for to make any head against them we shall need every man that we can muster that if we be beaten, and the buccaneers follow, as they doubtless will, the blow, they might well win the city ! Thus stands the case there is a mighty gain ! there is a mighty peril ! I can not I dare not decide ! for I cannot distinguish, so fiercely is my soul disturbed, between a parent's passion, and a leader's duty ! Speak ye, in order then ! Diego first ! and oh speak honestly and freely !" Before he had s^t down, tfce old grayheaded warrior started to his feet ; and cool although he was, and guarded for the most part, he spoke as hotly now as passionately as a boy ! " The question, gentlemen, is this this abso lutely ,' ONLY ! Whether we shall give up a wo man a Christian maid a Spanish lady to the brute violence of these incarnate fiends without one blow one effort to relieve her; or march with all our power to liberate her, if we may ! to die for her if we may not ! Being myself a Spaniard, a soldier, and a knight, I have but one reply to this question, and see not how a Juan could find a second ! we must assay it with all our best endeavors, and leave the rest to God!" "Not for the maiden's sake alone," exclaimed Gutierrez eagerly, " though that were ample cause ! but, as I see the matter, in duty to our king we stand bound to avenge the insult offered to his flag, in duty to humanity to hunt out wretches, who set its every dictate at defiance, in duty to the laws of common policy to strike at the foe in his own place of strength, rather than wait his pleasure to assault our weakness !" " Besides," cried Pedro, " we are far stronger than our ordinary power by aid of these stout ca- ravellas their crews will double our effective strength!" "I brought with me, a private volunteer, one hundred picked Castilians, bound to no duties, save at mine own will," cried Amadis with fiery vehemence ; "if not a soldier else stir from the city gates, I, with my men, march out to-night at sunset !" " And I," exclaimed the elder and superior of the four Spanish sea captains, " as in obedience to my broad letters of commission, shall sail this night with my four frigates, to take, burn, sink, and by all means destroy, and harass the foemen of my king and country ! Eight hundred stout hands can we muster for boat service ; leaving enough behind to work and guard the caravellas ! Do you, Sir Governor, embark six hundred more of your best veterans on board us, press every fisherman and mariner to follow us, with every boat, pirogue or galley, they can find ; let this young cavalier go with his followers to join the Indians, and my life on the issue !" " Be it so, gentlemen ! Fair thanks to all for j your good courtesy ! and may God guard the right. i You, Don Diego, I leave here nay, it must be so, my good friend lieutenant in my absence. Pedro, Gutierrez, lot the drums beat to arms ! muster the garrison in the great square ! pick out six hun dred, the youngest and best soldiers! let each man have his morion and breast plate, but no back piece, brassards or taslets ; each man a musket with an hundred round of cartridge, broad-sword and dagger, and two pistols ! Ye gentlemen of the marine will see them on board straightway ! A word with thee, Don Amadis ! Ye to your du ties, gentlemen, anon I will be with ye !" " Amadis," he continued, as soon as they were left alone, " win her and wear her ! If God give you the grace to rescue her, before God shall you wed her. Get your men under arms, take with you black Antonio, and God speed you !" Trumpets pealed wildly through the streets the drums rolled long and loud and, with the clash of arms and tramp of marshaled footsteps, the veterans of the garrison were mustered ! Before the sun set, the tall caravellas had cleared the landlocked bay ; staggering out to sea with a fair breeze, each stitch of canvas set, that they could carry ; and his last glances fell upon the little party of Don Amadis, filing away under the guidance of the faithful negro, into the pathless forest. CHAPTER VII. It .was already afternoon when Ringwood left he cabin ; so far had the recital of his tale, broken by violent fits of wrathful indignation, and bursts of fiery passion, trespassed upon the day. When he reached the deck, he found he had conjectured, justly, the cause of the bustle overhead, which had excited his attention, while in the very heat and tumult of his remembered wrongs and meditated vengeance. The vessel was now heading to the northward, having already rounded the extremity of Florida, and, with the wind on her larboard beam, blow ing strong and warm directly from the Gulf, was running close in shore along the western coast of that forest-mantled promontory. The alteration in the course of the felucca, and corresponding changes of her trim and tackling, had, therefore, 34 RINGWOOD THE ROVER, as Ringwood supposed, produced the sounds on deck confusion tending unto order. The wide spread studding sails which had protruded many feet beyond her ordinary yard-arms, wooing the favorable breeze, while previous to their doub ling the cape, it had fallen full upon her starboard quarter, were now reduced, her topsails reefed, and her topgallant yards sent down, as if in pre paration for a storm, although no cloud or speck of vapor was visible on the bright clear horizon. Her consorts, close behind her, were gliding along gently under the same easy sail, in obe dience, as it seemed, to a set of signals floating at Ringwood's fore, and thence repeated by each fol lowing barque of the squadron, which came on singly, in long file, the leading vessel being a mile, at least, in advance of the last. The waves, or wavelets rather for though the breeze blew steadily and strong, the surface of the Gulf was, notwithstanding, singularly calm and level were as bright, and almost as transparent as a sheet of crystal; every rock, every coral reef that rose sheer from the white and sandy bottom nay, every green variety of ocean-grass and weed, every bright shell and gorgeous sea-flower that studded, as with a thousand living gems, the glis tening pavement of the deep, was visible as clearly as though no denser medium than the air were interposed between them and the eye that gazed in rapture on their wonders. Scores of bright flying fish, their white scales glancing silvery to the sunshine, their wing-like fins fast flashing, leaped up from the small ripples, momently, and vanished beneath them ; the blue shark shot along, suspended, as it were, in the transparent waters, leaving behind him a long streak of flashing lus tre ; the albatross soared high upon his snow- white pinion, while gulls and sea-swallows, and petals of every size and color skimmed the calm deep in the pursuit of prey or pleasure. To the right, meanwhile, lay the low shores of Florida, glowing with mingled tints of almost magical ver dure. Tall palms, with their soft, feathery tops, towering far, far up into the blue serene, above the denser foliage of the oaks and locusts, which blent with giant cedars ; and the funereal cypress, hung with long wreaths of pale and ghostly moss, composed the eternal forest the forest which, in its turn, overbowering thousands of flowering shrubs : magnolias, with their vast chalices of odoriferous snow; and dogwood, bright with un numbered star-like blossoms : roses of every hue ; calmias, and rhododendrons, and azalias, with many fold and clustered bloom, varying from pure white, through all the shades of blush, and pink, and violet, to gorgeous kingly purple. And above all, the orange, that young bride of the vegetable world, enriching all the atmosphere with power- ul and almost oppressive perfume. Bushes of nanchineal and .mangrove fringed the low banks, growing far out into the shallow waters, which actually laved their roots, and floated the long wreaths of massive greenery that garlanded their pendulous branches. Hard by the outer verge of this sea-cradled coppice, with little room to spare between her all topgallant masts and the wide-reaching limbs of the huge forest trees which, here and there, irotruding from the brow r of some blufF eminence, or island knoll, overhung the navigable channel, he gallant picaroon shot onward, her bellying sails shimmering white in the meridian sunbeams and the glad waters foaming before her sharp, lean bows, ripping with a hparse laughter along tier beautifully moulded sides, and forming in her wake a broad and frothy furrow, where, parted for a moment by her fleet transit, they foamed and frolicked as if they joyed in their reunion. Fair blew r the western breeze, and fresh ; and, as the sun turned westward^ in his path of glory, it freshened more and more : and as the shades of evening grew less distant, fleeter it waxed, and stronger, till it became a stiff, though not unfa vorable gale. Long 'before this, had the topgallant masts of the felucca been housed ; and now her topsails were close reefed, and still with undiminished speed now lying over as the gale fell full and steady on her distended canvas, till her long yards seemed on the point of dipping into the waves to leeward ; now surging up again with graceful elasticity in every temporary lull the rapid barque flew through the gurgling waters. Fast flew she, nor less fast did her gay consorts follow : nor did the winged hours flag more than they in their career across the firmament. .The day was nigh spent, and the dim presage of approaching night was stealing fast over the azure vault, on the last western verge of which, his lower limit already merged in its ocean bed, glowing like a red furnace with his borrowed lustre half the sun's disk of gold hung on the very point of disappearing. A thousand purple tints were creeping over the bright pure sky ; a thousand rosy gleams were flickering upon the glassy waves, most like the varying hues seen on the changeful scales of the expiring dolphin ; and now he plunged into the deep. For a few se conds, long, radiant streams of many-colored light, ruby, and pink, and violet, checkered the dark ening arch : these passed away, and a deep pur ple shadow swept slowly, as projected from a curtain interposed, across the firmanent of hea- vean across the laughing waters. Scarcely, A TALE OF FLORIDA. 3-1 however, had that purple shade pervaded the whole visible universe, before another change succeeded. Myriads of stars, planets, and sta tionary orbs, and confused milky constellations, burst out at once, like eyes unclouded from sleep, beaming, or twinkling with quick diamond rays, from every quarter of the" deep blue, viewless ether, which stretched away, contrasted to their sudden brilliancy, far, far a vast abyss of lus trous blackness. Still fair and freshly blew the breeze still the bark bounded onward, eager as the worn steed, which all forgets his weariness as he draws nigh his stall. " Ho ! Cunninghame," exclaimed the Rover, pausing in his walk to and fro on his brief quar terdeck. "Ho! we be here at last bid them beat instantly to quarters." The order had been anticipated by the crew before the words were spoken the drummer had assumed his instrument, and the men were already mustered in divisions, expectant of the call to quarters ; for they had made the last well-remem bered headland, a short league to the southward of their harbor. Taking his cue then from the Rover's words, almost before his officer had is sued the command, the long roll of the drum might be heard mingling with the sweet sigh of the sea breeze ; and with the first rattle the strong- handed crew flew to their proper stations. " Down with the helm, haul on your starboard braces!" The rattling of the blocks succeeded, and the harsh straining of the cordage, mixed with a rumbling creak, as the huge yards obeyed their impulse ; and instantly the graceful ship swung up almost into the wind's eye, and stood with scarce diminished speed directly from the shore, which she had hugged all day ; going, although close-handed, at a rate not inferior to seven knots the hour. It needed, therefore, but a little while to gain an offing of a mile ; when she again went right about ; and, with her head pointing straight on shore, dashed onward with the wind dead astern. "Away there, topmen!" and with the word, the nimble hands were hurrying up the rigging, and ready for the next command. "In with your fore and mizen topsails," and ere five minutes had elapsed, the sails were clued up in festoons, and the ponderous yards upon the caps. "Strike the foretopmast" followed; and instantly the heel of that huge spar ran half way down the lower 'mast " Strike the mizen top mast. In with the main topsail." These orders were immediately obeyed ; and in less than ten minutes from the time when she had gone about, the felucca was dashing, as it seemed, dead ashore, with her three topmasts struck, her yards a cock- bill, and not one stitch of canvas, save the fore- topsail, set. Before her lay the shore, low as it has been described and level bordered with a deep fringe of floating verdure among and over which the surf, set in by the strong western gale, broke high and stormy, and covered far aloft with the im penetrable and eternal foliage of the tropical forest ! Behind her whistled the driving breeze, and swelled the rolling billows ! on she came fast and fearless ! and now her bows were almost bat tered in the upflashing surf! yet was there visi ble no opening in the low-growing mangroves no gap in the vast mass of leafy blackness, which stood out like a wall in clear and palpable relief against the starry sky ! one thing, however, might have been marked by a sailor's eye, although a landsman would scarce have discerned the sign, or known its meaning, if he had discovered it. Right under the light vessel's bowsprit there showed one narrow spot where the surf broke not, where undisturbed the floating mangroves reposed upon a streak, for it was nothing more, of dark blue water, scarcely ten yards in width, where for a lit tle space the giant timber that overhung them re ceded from the margin of the billows. Right upon this the felucca steered, the practiced hand of no less a mariner than Ringwood wielding the obe dient tiller ! Right up this she steered, as though she followed a well known and easy channel into a secure harbor. " Ready there forward with the long starboard falconet !" demanded the clear accents of the Ro ver. " Ready, sir;" was the quick response. "Then fire!" a stream of vivid flame burst from a bow port of the picaroon, driving a cloud of snow white smoke before it, and the loud booming voice of the heavy gun succeeded. Im mediately a quick thin flash was seen ashore fol lowed by the report of a carbine and then, right in the centre of the little bay formed by the re cess of the forest trees, directly over the space of dark blue water, a blaze of red light burst forth sharp and dazzling, a dusky crimson glare, in which the bright green foliage of the underwood, and the rugged stems of the huge timber trees, the purple billows, and the dark sky, glowed with a deep and lurid tinge. " Stand by there, with the grapnels!" On ! on ! she darted the thick embowered manchineels were pierced by her long tapering bowsprit her cut- water plunged into their dense greenery the parted branches rattled and scouped against her lean bows as they severed them the leaves, entangled in her rigging, were torn vio lently from their parent branches ; a moment, and 36 RING WOOD THE ROVER, she had passed through them ; and with the im pulse of her previous motion, was rushing up a deep but narrow river so narrow, that there were scarcely six clear feet of space between her bulwarks and the shore on either hand. " Heave" and the iron graplings, whirled by strong hands and with a will, rattled among the tangled cop pice " On shore there !" "Ay! ay!" " Haul taunt, and belay!" and instantly, from either bow, a strong rope was dragged forcibly ashore by unseen hands, and made fast to the giant trunks, which swelled both banks of that dark stream with an unbroken barrier, the vessel was checked from her way, and after lying for a few seconds motionless, yielded to the strong tide which was setting like a mill-race outward, and fell aft to the full swing of her cables. " Get hands enough ashore now, Master Cun- ninghame ; carry out warps, and swing her round the point look alive ! look alive ! Godslife the Albicore is close in shore even now ; heave at the capstan ho ! round with it, men round with it ! or she'll be into us stern on !" Scarce forty yards from the embouchure of the river, the channel turned at a sharp angle round a low point into a small round basin ; whence with a tortuous route the stream might be traced tur bid and black and swift, but singularly narrow ; for miles into the heart of the forest, to the far source where it boiled up at once, from the bow els of the earth into a large broad pool, so deep that never lead had found its bottom, even at its birth a river. Upon this point a little knot of men was gathered : and here the light had been displayed at the felucca's signal, which had now quite expired. The men wrought eagerly and well ; and many minutes had not passed before the picaroon swung round the point into the little landlocked basin ; just as a gun from the Albicore announced her close proximity, and was replied to, as before, by a brief exhibition of the same crimson light. Meanwhile the Rover had got all his boats out, and strongly manned ; so that before the second barque rounded the inner point, he was already under way towing, and sweeping, where the stream occasionally widened, and warping through its frequent windings toward its sequestered source hearing, each after each, the signal guns of his consorts as they made the cove, and confident that, for a time at least, all were secure from peril, whether of wind or warfare. Through all that livelong night the crews toiled faithfully by gangs, plying the oars in the light whale-boats, or laboring with more severe exertions at the huge sweeps of the felucca ! All night they toiled ! but not all night did Ringwood, weaned with past labor and yet more overdone by struggling with his own furious passions, watch on the guarded deck. At midnight, or a little after, descending the com panion stairs, he sought the privacy of his own cabin. Erect and stern the negro sentry stood at his wonted post, presenting arms as his proud leader passed. " Let Charon call my steward," he said, " bid him bring food and wine." ' " Even now it waits you, noble sir," answered the black attendant, " this hour or more it hath been prepared." Without more words the Rover entered his apartment, andTjlithely did it show, and cheerful ly by the bright radiance of the large crystal lamps, suspended from the gilded beams, and throwing into every angle and recess a flood of clear illumination The large square board, still cumbered with its accustomed load of books and charts, papers scrawled over with problems of singular and abstruse calculation, quadrant, and astrolabe, and compass, and other instruments of singular device, and, as in those days it was deemed, rare virtue had been wheeled aside ; in its stead a small round table, covered with a cloth of brilliant whiteness, and bearing all pro vocatives to tempt a languid appetite, now occu pied the centre of the cabin. A single cover of richly chased and burnished gold, with spoons and forks of the same precious metal ; a goblet rough with the work of Benvenuto's graver ; several tall rummers of thin Venice glass, flanked by two flasks of wine, were appropriate decorations to a cold larded capon, a salted neat's tongue, ca viar, and other delicacies of a like thirsty nature "Yet did the pirate chief manifest little inclina tion to taste the dainties, which till he saw them set before him he fancied he had needed. He threw himself into a velvet-cushioned chair, which stood beside the board, stretched out his legs, and covering his face with his broad hand, remained for many minutes silent, absorbed in deep and gloomy meditation. At length he started up and sat erect, gazing about him with a strange bewil dered glance, as if he had expected to discover some one whose voice had roused him from his lethargy within a second's space, however, he was calm and collected as before. " Marvelous, marvelous, indeed !" he- said, thinking aloud as it were, and probably uncon scious that his thoughts had found utterance, " marvelous tricks our truant fancy plays us, but tush! I am outdone with weariness and watching, and my mind wanders." He stood up, and drew his hand across his fore head, as if to pluck aside some cloud which veiled A TALE OF FLORIDA. 37 his mental eyesight then seizing a tall flagon of champagne, he untwisted the wire which secured the cork, decanted one half of its generous and foamy liquor into a mighty glass of Venice crys tal, quaffed it off at a single draught, and re placed the goblet. Then, as if conquering his deeply seated loathing, he applied himself to carve the capon, placed a few morsels on his platter, and forced himself to swallow a mere mouthful. But it was all in vain ! Again he had recourse to the rich wine ; and after drinking it, fell back into his chair, and as before mused deeply ; dark frown ing shadows stealing across his broad fair brow, and strange emotions curling his lip at times with a fierce sneering spasm anon these gloomy signs passed over, and were succeeded by a severe though sad expression : as if some tender melan choly recollection had swept over the unfolded tablets of his soul, and erased for the moment thence each darker stain of sin or worldly sorrow. " ' Tis strange," he said, again, after a long deep pause, " 'tis passing strange, how at this time the images of by-gone scenes, aye, to the very verdure of the trees, and shadows thrown by the yellow sunbeams athwart the laughing land scape, array themselves before mine eyes, in pal pable distinctness. Yet was there no link no chain in the tenor of my tkought to join these visions of the past, with the utility of the stern present. Strange, they are very strange indeed, these pranks of the imagination ! Those boyish reminiscences were clear upon my spirit, as the events of yesterday every word that I spoke myself, every tone that I marked of others and thou, thou too, my sister ! The ancient village church the quiet and sequestered pew in the shadowy corner the sunbeams full of clusty notes streaming in through the oriel window the humble devout congregation the old gray-headed curate aye ! I could hear the very accents of his sonorous voice, could mark the hum of the re sponses, could hear the lisping trill of thy small girlish treble my sister my lost sister ! as we did kneel together on the bright Sabbath mornings as we did kneel and pray! pray pray," he muttered, as though the sense of the word had escaped his understanding ; then struck his fore head heavily with his expanded palm, " and now !" he said, " and now ! Well well it is no matter !" I and, rallying by a violent effort his scattered i senses, he quaffed off a third goblet of champagne, I and moving with a rapid and firm step toward the j starboard state room of his cabin, seemed as though on the point of opening the door ; but just as his hand touched the latch he paused, for the I low sound of regular calm breathing fell on his ' ear. " Ay ! ay!" he said, " ay I had forgotten !" i 3 He turned away, and entering the alcove be tween the two small chambers, looked long and with a fervent and excited gaze upon the lovely picture which hung there, with that serene and innocent smile which, like a seraph's voice, seemed to pour something of consolatory hope into the bosom worn as it was and blighted, and filled at that very instant by turbulent and fiery conflict between good thoughts and evil, of him who gazed on it so fixedly. His eye, as he withdrew it from the picture, fell on the crucifix of gold, which stood upon the little table under it and, moved as he was by a strange and long unfelt revulsion, he knelt down before it, and burying his head in his clasped hands, burst at once into a flood of wild hys terical weeping. " I know not," he said thoughtfully, as he arose, " I know not would God that I did! Cunning- hame, now, would term this nought but a heated mind working upon a wearied body but no ! no ! I know it not it is not so ! Why do I doubt ? / who have never doubted, or pity, whose revenge has had no check or stay of mercy ! Whence, whence these retrospections to the long, long-for gotten past ? these journeyings backward of the soul to pure and innocent days ? Whence this in satiable and longing wish for rest for rest for something stiller than mere repose sounder than earthly sleep more peaceful than tranquillity it self? Wherefore this loathing of hot action, for which till now I have alone existed ? Is it that coming death is even now spreading above me the shadow the prophetic gloom of his approach ? Is it, that now but one deed more rests to be done, until my great revenge shall be completed, and I may lay me down, my last toil ended, and sleep sleep dreamlessly soundly and forever ! and yet that one deed ? that one deed ? no ! no ! no ! Great God, it cannot be and still my oath ! why why doth she look like my sister ? Well ! W ell ! to-morrow will be time enough ! to-mor row !" Still gazing thoughtfully about him, and walking to and fro with his right hand firmly pressed upon his forehead, and his left hanging down by his side tightly clenched and quivering, he mused a little longer then locking the outer door of his cabin, he turned into his state-room ; and without alter ing his dress, or drawing off his buskins, wrapped his watch-cloak about him, and threw himself on his cot ; where motionless and seeming in tranquil sleep he lay, till the morning sun shone broad and bright into the stern windows, pouring a flood of golden light upon the cold stern features which felt not, nor acknowledged the genial warmth of its young lustre. 38 RINGWOOD THE ROVER, CHAPTER VIII. The strong beams of the morning sun, pouring a flood of emerald-tinted lustre, caught from the leafy arches through which they made their way, into the stern lights of the Rover's cabin, aroused him from his troubled slumbers. He rose up on the instant in perfect possession of all his senses, drew his hand once or twice across his fine broad brow, as if to wipe away some thought that had sat heavy there during the hours of sleep, and then plunged his whole head into an ewer of cold water, to cool its feverish throbbing. This done, and his disordered dress arranged with somewhat finical nicety, he hastened to the deck of his galley, where his presence was hailed with a shout of enthusiastic rapture by the assembled crew. The scene was widely altered since the preced ing sunset ; for now the pirate squadron lay calmly floating in a small wood-girt basin, so exquisitely clear and glassy, that every line and moulding of the vessels, every small rope and fluttering pen nant, was drawn to the very life on the dark mir ror of the still deep waters ; and it might well have tasked the strongest vision to define the ex act place where the substance and the shadow met, so wonderfully were they blended. At first sight it appeared that this small pool or lakelet, which was so nearly circular that it might have been fancied artificial, and in no direc tion was it a quarter of a mile across, although so marvelously deep that the deepest sealine had never yet found bottom, though run out to five hundred fathoms, was altogether landlocked, and had no outlet for its brimming waters ; for it was hedged around on every side but one, by the dense brakes and ever-living umbrage of the tropical forest, and there the shore sloped gently upward in a rich turfy lawn of the tenderest verdure. On learer inspection, however, it was not difficult detect the spot, by the opening in the tree-tops, where rushed from that secluded spring the pow erful and abundant stream, which boiled up from the bowels of the earth, here at its very birth a river; although it made so short a turn imme diately on quitting the parent basin, that no part of its course was visible. Immediately on the water's edge, where the smooth lawn sloped up ward, forming a gentle hillock, a long green mound of short close greensward, cut into many an angu lar zigzag, many a crescent, and wedged ravelin, and a butting at either extremity on a small half- moon bastion of wrought stone, presented a terrible array of batteries mounted with above a hundred black-mouthed cannon, grinning defiance to any bold invader, who should penetrate so deeply into the Rover's haunts, as to reach this his inmost hold, many a mile aloof from the blue billows of the Mexican Gulf. From either bastion there was drawn a line of powerful stoccadoes facing an eastern rampart with many salient angles, running entirely round the hillock between its grassy es planade and the deep masses of the forest which surrounded it ; and a broad ditch cut with vast la bor through the swampy soil, and lined with square hewn timber completely isolated the posi tion, which had been chosen with so much skill, and fortified so masterly by the directions of the great English Rover. The space within the lines, which might have formed an area of a mile's cir cuit, contained many long wooden buildings, erected at right angles to each other, with wide verandahs and long porticoes, all clustered round the base of the hill ; presenting a picturesque and gay appear ance ; for they were painted tastefully enough with white and green, in broad contrasting stripes, like some of the modern Italian villas, and all the verandahs were furnished with curtained awnings of the most sumptuous and magnificent materials, velvets and rich brocades, and gold and silver tis sues, more like the fanciful pavilions of some fairy palace, than the adornments of a piratical stronghold. Around the crest of the little hill, commanding the whole area, and forming evidently the citadel of the position, a triple line of earthen ramparts, with deep dry ditches, crowned with chevaux de frise, and mounted with long culverins, guarded the scarped ascent, and encircled a large keep or block-house, which occupied the summit of the knoll the Rover's palace-castle. Such was the scene which lay brightly illumi nated by the low morning sunbeams, but check ered here and there with cool blue shadows, cast by the forest trees and grotesque buildings over the emerald lawn, under the eyes of Ringwood. But though he was no mean judge, nor careless observer of the wild charms of nature, he had gazed too often on that strange and lovely pros pect, to give at this time more than a passing glance to its attractions besides, the moment had its duties. There was of course no anchorage in that unfathomed gulf, whereon the low and rakish picaroons floated so calmly ; they were moored, therefore, in shore, for the banks were all abrupt and molden, by hooks and grapnels ; Ringwood's felucca, as the largest, lying the farthest from the batteries, and covering the outlet of the river with her broadside. The other barks w r ere anchored to the shore at various points, so as to concentrate their fire on the same spot much farther up the basin and under the very guns of the fort, the smallest of the squadron lying directly in front of the water gate, and covered by the eastern bastion. A TALE OF FLORIDA. The crews, it would appear, of all the rest, had already landed ; for with the exception of a single sentinel on the forecastle of each, not a soul was to be seen on board ; while, dotting everywhere the verdant area of the fort, some lounging idly in the cool shadows of the curtained porticoes, some walking to and fro in little groups and par ties, some dallying with gaily dressed, light-man nered girls, two or three hundred of the buccaneers were visible; while from within the dwellings, loud bursts of revelry, mingled with the sweet laughter, and half sportive shrieks of women, and now and then a gay licentious song, or the tink ling of a lute, betokened the presence of many more inhabitants than met the gazer's eye. ' : Ha! Anson," exclaimed Ringwood, address ing one of his subordinate officers with a smile, " I have played something overmuch the sluggard; and these good fellows are, I warrant me, fretting to be ashore among the bona robas yonder. So to it, sir, at once : hoist all the boats out presently, except my private pinnace, and have the people landed. Keep the barge to the last ; I will ashore in it myself." A louder acclamation than that even which had greeted the appearance of the rover on his deck, now burst forth from the merry crew as they rushed with tumultuous hurry to their quarters, eagerly urging their light duty, and hoisting out the boats with many a jovial cheer and hasty halloa ! For a few minutes the great buccaneer stood looking on in silence, till the last boat had pushed off with its noisy freight, leaving the barge's crew alone, waiting for their superiors, who were grouped on the forecastle ; and the small private pinnace swinging beneath the stern-lights of the cabin. Then, motioning his officers to wait for his return, he descended the companion-stair, and once more entered his own cabin. "Pluto!" he cried "Ho! Pluto!" as he en tered ; and as the negro sentinel thrust in his tur- baned head, at the half-opened door "jump up on deck, and clear away my pinnace; bring it round to the starboard gangway, and after we shall have left the ship I and the gentlemen do thou and Charon lead down the lady there, and the black lass, and row them straight to the sally port, entering the covered way : I will be there to meet ye ; and hark, sirrah, in your ear do thou, or thy swart comrade, but once look lust fully upon their beauties, and thou shalt wish thy self dead fifty times, ere death shall end thy tor tures. See to it, and begone ;" then, as the negroes hurried forth to execute his orders, " Teresa!" he called aloud " come forth, Teresa." There was a pause of a few minutes, interrupted only by a slight rustling sound as if of female garments, from the state-room; but no one answered any thing: nor did she, when he called, come forth. " What, ho!" he cried again: "come forth, come forth. Teresa ! or by the Lord that lives, you shall re pent it. Best not provoke me, beauty." As he spoke the door opened, and the sweet girl came forth, somewhat refreshed, indeed, by sleep, but with her clear and luminous skin still pale as alabaster ; so that her large dark eye, contrasted with the singular whiteness of her face, showed almost super naturally full and lustrous. Her hair had been arranged in neat broad plaits, wound simply round the classic contour of her head ; and over her high brow a single heavy curl falling down with a massive sweep behind each delicate ear ; but her neck, and the first gentle swell of her young bosom, were all bare, and her round dimpled arms uncovered to the shoulders; yet, even in her disarray, there was so true a dignity in every motion, so rigid and severe a modesty in the chaste, sorrowful eye, so perfect an air of un consciousness of aught unseemly although, ir> deed, she was most conscious that the most hard ened debauchee could no more have found matter for voluptuous thoughts there, than in the cold, denuded limbs of marble saint or angel. " I come," she answered, her words flowing out in a calm, passionless, and even strain, as though her very fears were dead. " I come, obe dient to your call, so to eschew worse outrage. I come ; what would you ?" " Sweet lady," replied Ringwood, with a half- meaning courtesy of accent, " sweet, innocent lady, that you prepare you straightway to take boat, in charge of my stanch guardsmen, and so to my poor dwelling : there I will see you pre sently. Meantime, in yonder state-room are store of velvet mantles ; take one of them, I pray you, and wrap you closely in its folds ; and 'twere no evil done, if you should cast a silken kerchief in lieu of veil, over those lovely lineaments. I would not give your charms to the brute gaze of the rude sailors." "Wherefore, kind sir, and most considerate," she said, a slight flush rising to her pallid cheek, "or to what purpose would you veil, to-day, me, whom, but two days ago, you did display in so unwomanly disarray to the same eyes from which you now would hide me ? perchance from motives not pure and disinterested?" " Simply," returned the Rover, in a cold, reso lute voice, " simply, for that it is the will ! and have a care have thou a care, Teresa, provoke me not too far I say provoke me not ! It were as easy, every whit, to me, to strip your charms to the broad day, and so parade you to the gaping wonder of those brute mariners, as to say ' veil 40 RINGWOOD THE ROVER. your beauties !' By God !" he added, lashing him self into fury as he proceeded, " by God ! it were as easy to cast you forth a booty to the untamed licentiousness of those who know no mercy as thus " " As thus, from selfish passion !" she interrupted him, " thus to reserve me for the more foul dis honor of your own private pleasures !" " Of my own private pleasures !" he repeated, mimicking the very tones of her voice "of my own private pleasures ! right daintily worded that, dear lady, and very true withal. My own most private pleasures, of which, believe me, sweet one, you soon shall be the most choice minister, and the well-pleased partaker and now to punish you for this, your insolence, and teach you wis dom for the future !" And with the words, he made one quick step forward, and throwing both his arms round her fair form, one encircling her lovely shoulders and swan-like neck, the other twining with irresistible pressure her slight rounded waist, he clasped her to him in a close embrace, kissing her lips, and sucking her sweet breath, till she had well nigh fainted in his arms. She did not shriek, nor struggle no more could she have struggled within the overpowering grasp of that gigantic frame, than could the linnet strive against the talons of the ger-falcon. She did not shriek : for there was none to hear : much less to aid, or rescue her. But yet she yielded not, one jot much less re sponded to his passionate caress but stood within his circling arms, cold, rigid, stern, impassive as a wrought shape of bronze or marble not a pulse in her body bounded beyond its usual motion : not a quicker throb of her bosom answered to the hot beatings of his heart not a pant was on her breath, not a cloud on her clear steady eye, not a dew drop on her honeyed lip but when he again released her from his arms, a faint brief color stole over her cheeks and brow, and, when it re ceded, left her even paler than before and a quick shudder shook her limbs for a moment. "Thus deal I with the stubborn," said Ring- wood, as he let her go, " thus deal I with the in solent and stubborn ! see, if you like it not, that you offend not in like sort again ! and now, do as I bid you, and make ready!" As he spoke, he turned on his heel, and leaving the cabin, rejoined his subordinates on deck, and shortly after going down into the barge threw himself at his full length on the cushions in the stern sheets, and was pulled to shore as rapidly as twenty vigorous seamen could ply their oars in that calm basin. While she, deserted by the calm resolution which had borne her up while in the presence of her persecutor, and which a eecret instinct rightly taught her to be the only weapon with which she could successfully oppose his force ful violence, burst instantly into a wild agony of tears and sobbing, and falling to the ground, con tinued in a series of fainting fits and swoons, until the terrified Cassandra, who had been twice al ready summoned by the negroes, brought her back to her senses, by her half frantic entreaties, that she would arise and obey the orders of the Pirate, if she would save her life or honor. Then she aroused herself at once, as soon as she became conscious of her handmaid's meaning ; and casting one of the velvet cloaks around her, by a strong effort gulped down the whole of her hysterical passion, wiped away the traces of her tears, and followed the tall negro to the pinnace wherein his fellow was already seated at the oar. No princess of old Spain could have been treat ed with more ample courtesy, more deep respect by the most stately cavalier of her proud court, than was Teresa treated by the two pirate blacks. Not a glance of their bright eyes rested upon her features for a moment, not a word was spoken, but such as were of absolute necessity ; and, when she had taken her seat in the stern of the little boat with the black girl crouching as usual at her feet, the men took to their oars, and pulled as fast as they were able, in perfect silence, toward the sally-port at the base of the western bastion, upon the battlements of which, the stately figure of the great buccaneer was already visible, as he awaited the arrival of his captive. As the boat neared the port, however, he de scended from his lofty stand ; and as the keel grated upon the pebbly marge, the portcullis rose, the gate flew open, and displayed him standing within the low browed arch, a third negro, of similar dimensions to those who were assisting the girls from the boat, holding a flambeau at his side. They had not entered one second's space, before the iron grating was again lowered, and the heavy gate swung back, leaving the boatman on the outer side, and Teresa found herself in a low narrow vaulted passage stretching away into interminable darkness, though continually ascending by flights of broad flat steps, as if toward the daylight ; but little being rendered visible by the smoky torch of the negro who preceded them in silence, except the key-stones of the rude arch overhead, and the mildewed walls on the right hand and left. " Take my arm, girl," exclaimed Ringwood, " and lean on it ! mind what I say to you, and forget not the lesson I was compelled to teach you, even now ; which, by the heaven above us ! shall be as nothing to that which you shall learn, if you be any more refractory!" A TALE OF FLORIDA. 41 Pale as the winter's snow, and scarce less cold, she took his proffered arm, in silence but untrem- bling; and she did lean on him, for in good truth she was scarce able to support herself even when she entered; and the dank mildew vapors of that cold vault, wherein the drops of moisture were constantly detaching themselves from the roof and plashing on the muddy earth, had yet more over powered her, so that full surely she had lacked the strength to drag her limbs along, had she not been supported by the nervous arm of Ringwood, to which she clung with a convulsive gripe of which she was indeed scarce conscious. After walking for some distance through this deep covered way, having ascended not less than a hundred steps at different times, and in various places they reached a huge oak door clenched with large nails, which gave them access to a tall winding staircase, carried up through a shaft in the earth, similar to a well, each step being a beam of solid timbers, hewn rudely with the axe, and all unconscious of the adze or plane of the neat-handed joiner. After ascending this rugged stairway, they reached a little vestibule, above the level of the ground, the floor and walls of which were covered with neat Indian mattings, lighted by a long shot-hole or crenele, through which a golden sunbeam, full of a million danc ing motes, streamed in, filling the little space with glorious light and gaiety, which seemed more lovely to those who viewed it in close contrast to the swart darkness of the subterranean galleries, which they had but jusf quitted. From this small vestibule a second staircase, wrought in the thick ness of the wall, quickly conducted Ringwood and his fair captive close to whom crept, more terri fied a thousand times than her pale mistress, the black slave girl Cassandra to a well lighted airy hall, overlooking as it was easy to perceive from the upper story of the Rover's keep, the whole green end of the pirate fortress, with the gay dwellings and the glassy bay, and the beauti ful vessels moored in their several berths, all laughing out in the glad golden sunlight, which poured down every where over the wide spread tropical forests, and over that small inland lake let, from the soft smiling heavens. The hall in which they stood, lighted by four tall lattices, and looking down upon that romantic view, was itself worthy of attention from its magnificent and tasteful decorations. The ceiling of dark Indian wood, from which swung a vast golden lamp that once had decked some sacred edifice, was polished till it shone like a mirror ; the walls, covered with hangings of green velvet, were all adorned with groups of glittering wea pons, disposed in rare and picturesque patterns of every singular variety of form and purpose. Shirts of ringmail. and corslets of bright plate, and casques embossed with gold circular shields of oriental fashion, Damascus cimiters, and Span ish blades, and rare Italian daggers, all glittering with gems and flashing to the morning sun. The floor was carpeted with velvet, and a divan of the same rich material, corded and laced with gold, ran round the walls of the apartment ; while on a massive table was spread a sumptuous collation, with many flagons of rich wine, and tall Venetian glasses, among rich meats and vases full of the dewy flowers of that rare southern clime. There were no tenants to this splendid hall, but from a door that faced the staircase, which had been par tially left open, there came the mingled sounds of more than one sweet low toned female voice ; and once or twice a long soft thrilling laugh, that seemed to speak a heart at ease and happy. These sounds were followed, just as the Rover led his prisoner into that noble hall, by a light air touch ed exquisitely on a lute, and accompanied by fc rich clear melodious voice of a girl singing. Her execution was admirable her tones thrilled to the very heart like liquid fire but alas ! the song was so passionately, painfully voluptuous, that it could have flowed from no modest lips, and should have been listened to by no modest ears. Pierced to the soul, Teresa faltered, and stood still but Ringwood with a strong pressure of her arm, and a stern whisper of his deep penetrating voice, say ing, " Beware ! I say, beware, Teresa," half led, half bore her onward to the door whence came those hateful sounds. He threw it open, ai\d the sight she saw, struck that unhappy girl, more than the most dreadful of the dread scenes she had already witnessed with agony and terror and despair. CHAPTER IX. The room to which Teresa was thus unwilling ly introduced, was of dimensions somewhat smaller than the hall or armory on which it open ed, but far more graceful and luxurious in its de corations. Its casements, although high and spa cious, and admirably calculated to admit every breath of air that might be stirring, were com pletely closed against the garish light by deep Italian awnings of peach colored damask, striped with broad silver arabesques, through which the rays stole softly, mellowed to the same tender hue. The walls were hung with Genoa velvet of the same delicate color, divided into panels by rich frames of Venetian fillagree in silver 42 R1NGWOOD THE ROVER, the very floor was strewn with carpets of the same material mirrors were every where in bright profusion, curtained with gauzy veils of the faintest pink couches and ottomans of down, with covers of soft silk tables and cabinets of marquetry and buhl completed the furniture of this voluptuous bower, the very atmosphere of which like the haunts, fabled by Grecian bards, of that Cytherean goddess, reeked by the per fumes redolent of love. But if the chamber and its decorations were in themselves luxurious al most beyond description, what words can paint the charms almost unearthly, the Aphrodisian air, the prodigal voluptuousness of its inmates ? They were but three in number three young and splendid girls, all in the very flower and flush of young ripe womanhood all beautiful but oh ! how different in their beauty. The first she it was whose rich clear voice had reached Teresa's ear before she entered was a rare specimen of that peculiar style of English loveliness, which, save to the voluptuary, is rendered far less lovely by the predominance in all its traits essential to intellectual thought and yet she was indeed most beautiful. Her fore head, though rather low than otherwise, was whiter than the virgin snow-wreath, before the soft west wind has thawed its dazzling purity, and smooth as it was white her delicately pen ciled brows o'er-arched a pair of large soft eyes swimming in liquid light her nose was delicate and small, her lips of the richest crimson, woo- ingly prominent, disclosed a set of teeth so pearly and transparent in their lustre, that they set simile at naught. Her hair, of the lightest and the most shining brown, was all disheveled as it seemed but, in truth, trained most artfully to fall and float in a thousand wreaths of silky ring lets, over her neck and shoulders, and far below her waist, shrouding her as with a golden glory. But exquisite as were her features, they yet were nothing in comparison to her unrivaled symmetry of person the plump and rounded neck wreathed to and fro with many a sveanlike motion, the soft full arch of her superbly falling shoulders, the swell of the fair bosom, even now in her fresh girlhood luxuriant and mature, with myriads of fine azure veins meandering about its glowing sur face the slender waist scarcely confined by the slight silver zone which gathered in the folds of the white gauzy lawn that scarcely veiled her bust, leaving her shoulders and round dimpled arms all unencumbered ; the wavy outlines of her form, indicated by the fall of the thick heavy dra pery of azure silk that flowed from her waist downward, to the earth, suffering only the ex. tremity of one small foot decked with a sil ver sandal to peep out modestly beneath the hem. Such was the foremost of the fair tenants of the room, who met the cold indignant eye of the young prisoner, as she leaned negligently on a pile of satin cushions, warbling the amatory air which had so shocked Teresa ; not that there was any touch of grossness or indecency in the words, which, the more fatally seductive for that very want, breathed the full soul of passion blended with sentiment and pathos but that the singer threw into every tone and accent a manner so vo luptuous, an expression so entirely sensual, that, to an ear not yet corrupted into sin, the effect was painful and disgusting. The second damsel was a tall slender Persian, with the warm dusky hue of her country's com plexion on her soft velvet skin, a faint rich flush peering out upon either cheek, like the first touch of young Aurora's pencil upon the waving night- clouds her eyes, fringed by long silky lashes, dark, deep and swimming, now melted into a sleepy languor, now flashed out with intolerable lustre her hair, black as the raven's wing, was twisted into a mass of little spiral curls, and decked with chainwork ornaments of gold, a glit tering amulet all set with sapphires of rare price laying by either ear. Her dress, too, was no less dissimilar to that of the fair beauty, than was the style of her loveliness ; yet, though no portion of her flesh was visible, except the face and hands and a small part of the throat, it yet displayed her person, scarcely in a Tess degree than did that of her companion which left her bosom, shoulders and arms almost entirely bare. She wore a close cymar or jacket of bright yellow satin, all flow ered with sprigs of gold, and buttoned up in front with studs of chrysolite ; below the zone, she was clothed in loose trowsers of gold-sprigged Indian muslin, with heavy golden bangles, all hung with glittering bells, about her ankles, and light gilded slippers on her small shapely feet. There was, perhaps, even more of beauty in the movements, in the exceeding grace, in the air, the manner of this oriental fair one, than in her personal charms, as she danced lightly to and fro, bending her slight shape into many a strange and graceful posture, waving her arms, whose every gesture was per fection, and swaying all her limbs with an exqui site freedom, her .golden bells chiming the while in time to the words of the singer, and the tones of the lute or gittern which the third girl a tall black-browed Italian was striking with rare skill, uttering ever and anon one of those low toned happy laughs, which should have told of an innocent heart at ease, but which alas announced no more than heartless levity. The tresses of the A TALE OF FLORIDA. 43 lute player, though black as the bright Persian's ringlets, were as different from them in their na ture and disposition as any things can be even the most dissimilar for they were parted evenly upon her forehead, and flowed down quite uncurl ed in long and wavy masses, actually resting in loose coils upon the velvet floor-cloth, as she sat near the English girl on a low ottoman, with her back to a great Venetian mirror, which reflected the contour of all her sloping shoulders down nearly to the w r aist. Such was the scene such the companions to which the buccaneer now introduced his captive. For a moment, so soft were the carpets of the ar mory, and so light had been the footsteps of the new comers for a moment the girls continued their occupations, unconscious that they were overlooked by any mortal eye but when, after a meaning pause of a second's space, and a threat ening glance at Teresa, Ringwood advanced a step or two, the Persian dancer raised her head from one of her low bending attitudes, and catch ing sight of her stately lord, uttered a shrill cry of surprise, and bounded forward like an antelope to meet him ; quick, however, as were her move ments, she was nevertheless outstripped by the fair beauty, who, being seated nearer the door, sprung up the moment she head the outcry of the other and was in the embrace of the buccaneer with the speed of light, winding her beautiful bare arms about his noble person, pressing her panting bosom close to his mighty chest, and pouring a flood of sweet burning kisses on his brow, eyes, and mouth; uttering all the time a low soft murmur, all eloquent of eager passion, and blushing so profusely with excitement, that all her neck and bosom, seen clearly through the thin gauze of her boddice, were crimsoned by the torrent of hot blood, that coursed through every vein of her whole body like streams of burning lava. Nor was the pirate chieftain slow or reluc tant to return her passionate caress, but elapsed her in a long embrace. After a minute, however, he released her, reluctant as it seemed. And there amid those sirens, as beautiful as either, but, oh ! how different in her calm, innocent, pure loveliness, scarce conscious of her own exquisite attractions, and all unsunned by any tinge of noon day passion, from their unmaidenly beauty, which actually pained the feelings though it might fit the eye and rivet the mere senses of the beholder, stood the sad Spanish maiden. At first she gazed in mute astonishment, unable to conceive the possi bility of aught so boldly passionate, as the blonde beauty's rapture but gradually, as she felt her own heart bound too fiercely in her bosom, and her own pulses throb, she knew not wherefore ; she let her eyes sink to the carpet, and stood all breathless and dismay, blushes and paleness chas ing each other over her speaking lineaments, like the alternate lights and shadows, which sweep in autumn days over some lovely landscape. The slave-girl all the time gazed with dilated eyes that seemed to drink in all that passed before them without, however, comprehending any thing ; clinging with one hand to the velvet cloak which partly shrouded the form of her pale mis tress, and trembling wildly between fear and ad miration. When tlus strange scene had ended, Ringwood turned toward his prisoner, and taking her by the hand said, while a cold convulsive shudder shook her whole form "These lovely girls, Teresa, shall be your fu ture comrades this bower of bliss shall be your dwelling. Pleasure shall wait your very wish ; luxury, such as no human heart has ever dreamed of, shall lull you to your slumbers ; not an air of heaven shall visit your brow too roughly ; and your whole life shall glide away like one soft dream of rapture. Bella, my fair-haired beauty, welcome your new companion, choose her a bou doir near your own fit her with garments such as your own rare taste may choose, and her rare beauty justify, and above all," he added, lower ing his voice to a tender whisper, "be not thou jealous, rare one ; for if I seek to win her to my will, it is not any thing for love, but all for ven geance ! and now, farewell, sweet sirens all," he added, speaking once more aloud, "and let me find you, my Teresa, happy as these fair crea tures when I revisit you to-morrow." "Oh no !" she cried, in vehement impetuous tones, that would not brook control even of rea son, "oh no! no! no! Leave me not here, leave me not here, with these ! No, better, better far to languish in the deepest dungeon ; to w r rithe in untold agonies ; to share the slenderest pittance of the most wretched innocent slave, than live in plenty thus, with wanton guilt, and barefaced in famy for comrades ! Slay me, then, slay me with agonies protracted, as you will, cast me forth to the beasts of the forest, tear my limbs joint from joint, but leave me not with these." " Teresa," he said, speaking in a low but dis tinct voice, with fearful emphasis, "Teresa, I have sworn, and you well know how deeply, and with how deep a cause ! Now mark me, one thing I have remitted to you, in one thing have I par doned ; tempt me no farther, I beseech you." "O, slay me! slay me, rather" she frantic ally interrupted him. " I will," said he, "I will, by heaven ! if you say any more about it ; but not as you suppose 44 RINGWOOD THE ROVER, I will, Teresa, I will cast you forth if you pro voke me any farther ; but not to the wild beasts of the forest! By Him that lives! tigers and sharks are merciful compared with those to whom I will abandon you ! Hark to that shout of re velry and riot! they shall enjoy the charms, which you would keep so charily ! in the rack of their barbarous embraces shall your frame writhe with anguish ! by their hands shall your limbs be torn joint from joint ! Three days I give you, but three days ! to yield you wholly to my will ; or beyond doubt it shall be done to you as I have spoken!" With an air of proud defiance, tossing her long black locks from her pale forehead, her bosom panting, and her eyes flashing as if with a* pro phetic inspiration, she raised her head, which had drooped on her bosom, and shook her finger, me nacingly, at the great Rover. " And I tell thee," she said, in clear and liquid tones they were like the blast of a silver trum pet, "and I tell thee, that ere three days, thou shalt be called to thine account be it for good or evil!" " Then !" answered he, bursting into an uncon trollable fit of fury, "then! by my Maker! to thine shalt thou precede me !" and he made a step forward as if to seize her by the arm ; when the Italian girl, and the gay Persian dancer rushed between, and entangling him in their caresses, hung round his sinewy frame, like honeysuckles wreathing their sweet tendrils about some giant oak ; while at the same moment the fair-haired Bella laid her hand on the Spanish maiden's shoulder, with a delicate respectful pressure, and in a soft voice whispered blandly . "Oh! irritate him not, oh! irritate him not, dear lady for although, when he is himself, none are more noble-hearted, none are more generous and kind, none are more gentle, yet when the paroxysm is upon him, he is the slave of fifty furious demons, his own unchained passions, to which the fiends themselves were powerless and tame ! oh ! irritate him not ; and all may yet be well ; and see, he smiles," she added, quite disre garding the air of bitter scorn with which Teresa met her soft and disinterested advances ; and cast ing herself in the way of the Rover with the con scious air of a favorite, she threw her arms about his neck, and stopped the words he seemed about to utter by a long ardent kiss, whispering in his ear as she did so, " Heed her not now, she will be tamer soon consider she is but fresh caged ; and even singing birds will dash themselves against the bars of their fresh cages, even although those bars be gilded!" and she uttered a low sweet merry laugh ; which, though in truth both the action which preceded it, and the laugh itself originated in the best and tenderest motives, struck upon the breast of Teresa, as the height of cold unfeeling heartlessness. The Rover laughed, as he returned the fair girl's kiss. " Well, be it so, beautiful Bella be it so, if you will :" and then, stooping down, he whispered a sentence in her ear. None heard it but she and, pushing him gently to the door, cried, " Oh, yes ! I will remember : and now go Reginald, now go !" Nothing more was said for the moment ; and, turning quietly away, the Rover left the room, closing the door behind him releasing Teresa from the dread, which, when he rushed toward her, despite her dauntless courage, had shaken her every nerve. He had not, however, quitted the apartment a minute, before Bella again approached the maid en an air of calm compassion sitting serenely on her lovely features; and laying her white hand, which showed like snow itself for the contrast, upon the darker complexion of Teresa's arm "Come, lady, come with me," she said, almost humbly. " Come to my private bower, and we will seek for some attire less unbecoming. With me you will be safe, and can take some repose, of which I judge it certain you must stand in need very greatly." But the proud virgin shook off the caressing hand as if contamination had been in its slightest pressure, and shrunk back from her consolation with an air of absolute horror. " Pray, shrink not from me thus," the English girl exclaimed, in accents that told forcibly the depth of her emotions, her face again covered with a deep, deep blush, far different from the hot crimson color that had suffused her whole complexion at the words of her lover. " Nay, shrink not from me thus, dear lady : contamination lies not in the mere touch, even of the violet. It is the mind which, done, pollutes ; and God, he knows that, be I what I may myself, I would not teach vice to another no ! not to be virtuous again myself, which I can never be, nor pure as I once was. Nor yet too much despise us : for, be sure, lady, that as thou art now, we were all once ; as innocent, as pure, as noble ; and be not too sure, lady, proud though thou be, and pure as unsunned snow, and strong in purity be ,not too sure that thou be not in a few days as we now are!" " Never Oh no ! by my own soul,.no ! never !" answered Teresa, eagerly, but in a manner much mollified by her companion's manner. " Be not too sure !" Bella responded. " Honor A TALE OF FLORIDA. 45 is dear, indeed dearer than life to the innocent but life is very sweet ; and death, under the tor tures, very awful : and if, by losing life, we may not save our honor " " Then better die dishonored!" Teresa inter rupted her " but though I hear your words, I scarcely comprehend their purport!" " Like enough, -lady ! like enough! and may you never do so but I believe you will. For you will learn that this same honor, for which you would die willingly, may be rent from you, living, by the brute violence, not of one noble- minded, although erring, soldier, but of a thou sand brutal desperadoes and that you may not die till all, even the loathsome blacks, are sated, and then die horribly oh ! horribly. Better, per haps, comply, than suffer thus." " Besides," continued the other, as if she had scarcely heard the Spanish maiden's words " Be sides, if he so will it, without force he can win you. No man's arm, and no woman's heart ever successfully opposed, when he was resolute in earnest the fixed and overwhelming will of Reginald. Lady, before three days, if he so will it you shall dote on him unto adoration." " You know not what you say," answered the Spaniard firmly, but no longer with any vehe mence of passion in her tones. " I love another." "Ha! is it so?" replied Bella. " Is it so? then, indeed, it may be. you shall not fall : for had I loved another then, as I love now, surely I had endured all sooner !" " And do you then do you in truth love this dread being?" said Teresa, strong interest over powering the disgust which she had felt to her frail companion. " Do you indeed love you, who seem so soft and gentle this merciless, this fiend-like Rover ?" "For what then do you take me?" exclaimed Bella, looking full in the eyes of Teresa, with as proud and haughty an air as she had lately met, " with all my mind, and heart, and spirit ! think you an English lady, though she may stoop for love to be Pirate's leman, would feign love which she felt not ? With my whole mind, and heart, and spirit, I worship. I adore him ! In his love in his life I alone have. my being when he dies I shall not survive him ! it is enough trust to me ; you have naught to fear neither harm to your person, nor pollution to your mind come to my bower, and I will speak with you more fully." The Spanish girl, who for a moment, dignified as she was, and proud, and haughty, had actually quailed before the fiery and surpassing pride of the pirate's paramour, now feeling perhaps that she had something wronged her in her thoughts ; and at all events experiencing a melting of the heart toward one who although frail was kind to her and very gentle, and who might have some palliation of her crime in the peculiar circum stances of her sad tale, answered no farther, but took her proffered hand in silence, and leaning on her shoulder, for she was fast becoming very weak, retired to the beauty's boudoir. CHAPTER X. The dny passed over, as all days must, in its appointed time, whether of joy or sorrow, and the great sun went down upon the pirate's hold, as peacefully as on the shepherd's hut, all bright and blessing, and one by one the stars came out in their set places, and the broad moon arose a ball of liquid silver. The day passed over but through its weary hours, though trembling at each distant footstep, and ehuddering at every voice, Teresa heard no more, saw no more, of the dreaded Rover ; and as she learned by slow degrees to forget if not to forgive the frailty of her lovely hostess in her compassionate kindness ; and as hour after hour glided by, and naught occurred to wake new ap prehension, the tension of her nerves, strong pre- ternaturally by the intense and terrible excite ment of the scenes in which she had so lately borne a part so prominent, was gradually softened down ; her tears flowed, not convulsively, but in a tranquil stream which ever seemed to relieve her burning brain from one half of its fiery bur then she now wept not for herself alone and even that rather from nervous irritation, than that she had appreciated her position but for her, tor tured, butchered brother for her unhappy parent for, more than all beside her true, her own dear AmeJdis ! Nor did she only weep ! she prayed prayed purely, fervently, with strong affectionate unwavering faith, for strength that only real strength the strength which cometh from on high to bear in calm humility, in Chris tian fortitude, whatever might be sent to her by HIM, who sendeth all his gifts, whether of joy or sorrow, wisely and well, and though we, thoughtlesss and hard-hearted, believe it not to be so for our eternal good! She prayed and rose up from her bended knees as all w r ill rise, who do pray fervently, and purely, and with faith refreshed and comforted in spirit, and strengthened with an inward hope, surpassing any confidence of earth, in a strong Rescuer on high. She rose up, braver than she had knelt dow r n, and with a better courage ; for it was not based on her own vain confidence of heart, and stubborn purpose, but in the love of HIM who slumbereth not, nor RINGWOOD THE ROVER, sleepeth, nor overlooketh the least hair that is rent from the head of his most humble wor shiper. She rose up, as we have said, comforted and strengthened she washed, and braided her disor dered locks, and clad herself in the most modest garments of her fair entertainer ; she ate and drank, and laid her down in her pure unsunned in nocence, beside that bright but erring being, whose very virtues had been melted down by the uncurbed indulgence of ungovernable passions, into voluptuous vice, and slept as soundly and as sweetly as the young happy infant cradled upon its mother's bosom. While long, long after she had sunk to rest, the fair-haired beauty watched every long drawn breath, and almost wept, she knew not why, over the calm unconscious sleeper till when the night had far advanced toward morning, she started, as if into remembrance from a sudden dream ; and, rising from Teresa's side, thrust her small snowy feet into a pair of fairy slippers, drew a large robe of velvet about her shapely limbs, and stole away, nor returned any more to her own bower, until the tropical sun was high already in the clear firmament. That day the Rover came not nigh Teresa, for in the fort without, and in the circular basin, all was now bustle and hot haste. During the night two more feluccas, which had been detached from the rest upon some distant cruise, had been warped into the harbor and found berths beside their consorts, and all the morning long all hands were actively employed refitting them for instant ser vice water casks were rolled out, and filled, and hoisted in again; and biscuit, and rich meats, and fragrant wines, and arms, and ammunition, and fresh men, embarked with emulous haste. At noon, as the two girls might see from Bella's bower for having, though half reluctant, and half doubtful of her own liberty to do so, become in some degree conciliated to that kind although guilty creature, Teresa would no more consent to quit her private chamber ; nor to seek any more intercourse with those who, although in truth no more guilty than the English girl, yet seemed so to her eyes already influenced alas ! weak mor tals ! by some small show of kindness at noon as the two girls might see from Bella's bower a council was held within the ramparts of the keep of all the pirate leaders ; and, shortly after the drum beat to arms ; and all the buccaneers assem bled, and fell into their ranks, a gay and gorgeous host, numbering at least twelve hundred practiced warriors. After a brief inspection by the great buccaneer himself, eight hundred were detailed, and instantly embarked in the two last arrived feluccas, anc 11 the vessels of the other squadron, saving lone the largest barque Ringwood's own flag hip and the small sloop or tender which lay moored by the water-gate. Within an hour at urthest, the last of this gallant squadron, de- ached, as it was evident, on some peculiar duty, disappeared behind a dense mass of trees which Ceiled the outlet of the harbor ; and so strong was he current of the river which leaped up there at once, a giant from its birth, that in less than two lours more they were all out at sea with their sails set to the stiff breeze, ploughing the billows merrily. With them, however, we go not on their path of rapine their sails were spread, and their masts t>ent to the morning blast, and their lean bows cleft with a sound of laughter the blue waves. But no eye from the pirate's hold could mark them, though many a heart beat eager with antici pation. When they were out of sight, after some short parade and manning of the guns, Ring wood dismissed his men ; and with his arms folded upon his bosom, and his proud head depressed as though in melancholy thought, strolled for some time in a listless mood about the esplanade of the fort, and then withdrew quietly to his own turret chamber, where none not his most intimate associates not his most trusted officers ever presumed to break upon his solitude and there remained all moody and alone, till the sun had already plunged his lower limb into the deep and tufted foliage of the surrounding forest. Just at that time, however, as the land breeze began to die away, and a faint languid calm succeeded, before the setting in of the fresher breath of the free ocean a dull, deep, heavy sound a sort of rumbling and continuous roar was heard by the watchers on the bastions ; and while they were yet wondering what those hoarse notes might mean, the Rover stood among them " Ordnance !" he said " and heavy ordnance ! man all the batteries, load, and run out the guns ; see you have linstocks ready, and fire at hand to light them." And, although many doubted that those far sounds were indeed guns none disobeyed his orders ! none hesitated for a moment and ere long it was proved how perfect was the ear, how accurate the judgment of the great English Rover for as the sea breeze freshened, and blew strong, it bore upon its dewy breath the sharp reports of many a single cannon, of many a long continuous volley. At last the sounds died off, and seemed to melt into the distance, and pass entirely away but again, just as it grew quite dark, before the moon had risen, or the stars yet come out, the cannon ading was renewed, closer, as it seemed, than be- A TALE OF FLORIDA. fore ; and after a brief furious battle, a crimson glare rushed up the deep blue sky ; and so con tinued, wavering now now flashing fiery bright, for nigh an hour of time ; then a keen stream, or column rather, of white light shot up toward the zenith with a dull heavy shock ; a shower of sparks fell seaward, and all was dark and silent. All that night long torches were blazing and guards pacing the stoue bastions, and blue lights dimly burning in all the trenches of the outer works. Nay, more, the guns were manned even in the ci tadel itself, and in the Rover's keep and all those tedious hours with ear, heart, eye on the alert, Teresa watched and prayed in the strong hope of coming succor. Both vessels in the harbor were full manned and all in battle order but, though all hearts were burning, all arms high strung against the foe, though Reginald himself waked to devise fresh means of desperate defence, half doubting that his consorts were cut off, and two- thirds of his men destroyed, for well he knew no one would yield him captive no foe appeared nor friend. The chirpings and hummings of the innumerable insect tribes the croak of the count less reptiles, mixed with the chatter of the night- hawk and the rich melody of an occasional mock ing bird, were the only sounds that waked the night echoes of the Florida forest, except the watchword and the tramp of the stern sentinel. Just as day dawned, commanding the small sloop to slip her cable, and with a picked and ve teran crew of twenty English sailors, to drop down cautiously and reconnoitre, Ringwood de parted from the busy ramparts ; and, for the first time, since the stormy scene which had ensued on Teresa's introduction, turned toward the bower. He lingered not, however, there ; when he found none within its gorgeous precincts save the Italian girl, and the soft Persian dancer, though each tried her most choice allurements to detain him ; but passed, after a few short moments, into the bower of his English favorite. "Ha! Bella," he said, as he enter e^J, "my sweet Bella," and a touch of real fondness was audible in his rich accents " and thou, Teresa, nay ! nay ! start not, nor look so wildly, lady I come not to alarm, much less to harm you ; sit, fair one, and fear nothing. Now, Bella, dearest, I have watched all night long, and am fatigued and faint, bid your slave girls bring forth their dainties, I come to break my fast in your sweet company, and spend a tranquil hour," and with the words he cast his splendid figure at length upon a satin ottoman on the side of the chamber farthest from Teresa, in an attitude of the most perfect grace and majesty, and remained for some seconds without speaking, a grave and even sorrowful expression pervading his expressive lineaments. After a few moments, raising his eyes to Teresa's face, he perceived that the bland air of dismay, almost despair, still sat upon her pallid features ; and that with lips apart> nostrils dilated, and eyes rigidly set and glaring, she gazed upon his features, as if she therein thought to read her doom. " Fear nothing now from me," he again said, in a voice singularly mild and witching. " Fear no thing now from me, Teresa. The fire has gone out here," and he laid his broad hand on his brow, " and if you fan it not by any heedless folly, will sleep, perchance, forever. The fiend of memory is for awhile at rest ; see that you wake it not to phrensy ! nay, wonder not, nor start at my words, either. If I have sinned much, I have suffered much, and many of my sins have been the rank fruit of those very sufferings. But a truce now to this ; my word is pledged to you, that you shall undergo no violence. My word, girl, inviolate yet see that you stir me not to any reckless fit when reason yields the sins to memory, to weak ness and revenge ! Teresa, fear me not !" " I fear you not," she answered, half timidly, half reassured by his strangely altered manner, " though I have mighty cause to fear you, yet I do not !" " So you shall have no cause daring myself, I love the daring and undaunted, even when they defy me ! sin-stained myself and passion-blighted, I yet admire the innocent and pure. Dauntless I do know you, Teresa ! for had you not been so, long hence had your dishonored carcass glutted the dog-fish and the shark, and pure I do believe you ! were it not, I say, for memory and pride, I might even now release you." "Oh! do! do!" she exclaimed, " do so ; and God will bless you; your sins, though red as scarlet, shall become white as snow; your ra pines and your crimes shall all be pardoned you ; a grateful virgin's prayers shall rise up nightly for your weal, shall win the grace of the Eternal, shall shield your head in battle, that not a hair of it shall perish, and more, far more, than with a self-approving conscience, shall crown your days with bliss, and steep your nights in quiet. Do so, and on your bed of death a weak girl's voice of gratitude shall smooth your thorny pillow her father's" Ha! no more! Peace! on your life, no more!" cried Ringwood, fiercely interrupting her, as he half started from the couch whereon he was reclining, at the mere mention of the man, whom he indeed had so deep cause to execrate ; though but a little while before he had seemed on the point of yielding to her prayers. Teresa, nerved with the hope of winning hinij would have replied ; 48 RINGWOOD THE ROVER, and by so doing would probably have once more roused him into a burst of savage and ungovern able fury, but as her lips moved to answer, Bella, who had been absent for a moment with her hand maids, fortunately returned, and laying her hand on Teresa's shoulder, pressed it so strongly, that she looked up, and then she laid her fingers to her own mouth with a grave smile, and changed the subject by addressing Ringwood with some slight question of no moment. Meantime the board was spread with dainties, choice fruits, and savory meats, and snowy bread, and the enchanting wines of Southern Europe, in bowls of porcelain and crystal, dishes embossed with gold, and flasks engraved by the unequaled chisel of Cellini ; and Ringwood led, strange guests ! the fair-haired Bella, and that stern innocent Span ish virgin, to seats beside him; and played the host with such unrivaled courtesy, such proud humility in every accent of his rich, deep, manly voice, such dignity and grace in every free un studied gesture, that even Teresa was won for a space from her gloomy abstraction, and to her own astonishment when she reflected on it after ward found herself wondering at almost admi ring the chivalrous and dignified demeanor of the fierce Pirate. Before the meal was well concluded, one of the slave girls who attended, came with a hasty step from the armory, announcing that Pluto and an other black awaited the Rover's leisure. "What other black my midnight beauty?" exclaimed the Rover, laughing, " His fellow Cha ron, is it?" " His name Antonio, massa who sell us fruit and fish from his pirogue." "Ha!" cried the Rover, " Ha !" and mused a moment, and stepped out into the gorgeous ves tibule, decked with its glittering arms, leaving the door behind him open, so that the girls could hear every word that passed. "What! is it you, Antonio what brings you here, and whence?" "From Key West, massa, last, with plenty fine fresh turtle they in my pirogue, down be low, so heavy we can 't warp him up !" " Key West what of our squadron then ? you must have met it." " Certain !" replied the negro, " I met 'em, anc told massa Cunninghame of Spanish fleet in the offing seven merchant galliots and one caravel Then massa Cunninghame set sail till he fel within them, and hoisted English color and ther ran!" "Ran?" cried the Rover, "ran!" " Yes, he ran, massa Ringwood, till they al chased him, and got scattered, then he turne( round and fought ; and when the caravel took round not fifty fathom from the inlet, he left her lard and fast, and chased the galliots, and took wo and then his squadron all came back, and nattered the war-ship and burned her quite, and sacked the galliots and then scuttled them and then went ofT in chase again after five others long chase, but still I guess he catch 'em!" "Ha! well done, Cunninghame ! brave Cun ninghame! brave Cunninghame!" exclaimed the Rover, "take that for thy news, fellow/' giving turn as he spoke two or three Spanish dollars. ' I must away and call the men from the felucca, and the batteries ; they list not service unless it be strictly needed. What wouldst thou more, my good fellow?" " So please you, send four hands in his canoe, help poor Antonio up with big pirogue; have plenty fat turtle and fresh fruit to-night." "Well, see to it, Pluto!" and with the words entirely deceived by the intelligence he had re ceived, and lulled into confidence that his crews were victorious, the Rover hurried down, and called off all his men save the two wonted senti nels upon the bastions, and the two watchmen in his own felucca ; revoked his orders to the sloop which had already moved toward the outlet ; and ordering an extra supply of wines, in compensa tion of their recent toils, to all the buccaneers, gave himself up to dreams of complete triumph. An hour or two elapsed and Antonio's pirogue came up, manned in addition to its usual crew by four of the Rover's trustiest men, who reported all still and peaceful in the outlet, and was moored inside the large felucca, close to the shingly beach below the batteries. Her deck load of fruit and fish was soon got ashore, her hatches battened down, and herself, as it seemed, left vacant and unguarded, while her black crew, consisting only of two boys in addition to Antonio, went ashore with the Rover's men to join in their accustomed revelings and riots. Night fell ; and though for a little while licen tious songs, loud shouts of mirthful laughter, and many a sound of wild ungoverned mirth rung through the guarded esplanade, long before mid night not an eye was awake in the ships, on the ramparts, in the dwellings, or in the Rover's keep, so heavily were the buccaneers exhausted by the strange mixture of fatigue and feasting which had characterized the last four days save those of the four sentinels, two in the barque, and one on either bastion, and of the sad Teresa, who, waking from a perturbed and dreamy sleep, had missed her fair companion for she, as on the former night, had stolen from her couch unnoticed and now stood gazing from her high lattice over the A TALE OF FLORIDA. 49 lovely scene below, which lay all glimmering out in the indistinct light of the happy moon, half lustre and half shadow. CHAPTER XI. As she gazed down upon the moonlit esplanade, Teresa saw a tall dark figure creep out with cat like stealthy tread from beneath the verandah of the large building nearest to the sea ; and, keeping itself with great care inside the darkest shadows, drag itself inch by inch toward the stone bastion at the right hand termination of the battery; whereon she clearly saw the pirate sentinel stalk ing his solitary round upon the rampart, the long bright barrel of his shouldered harquebuse glancing like silver in the moon light. At first she gazed with simple wonder, wholly unmixed with curi osity or interest, upon the movements of the dark shadowy form; but suddenly, as he crossed a streak of moonshine, it struck her with the speed of light that his was a well known figure ; and in stantly a train of recollections, all hitherto forgot ten, flashed on her the name Antonio the voice, now well-remembered of the unseen messenger it was it must be ! the black fisherman, the trusted guide and hunter of her loved Amadis ! She now strained all her eyes, her heart, her spirit, to mark what was his progress, not doubting for a moment that ere long she would be set free, whether by death or rescue while she had been engaged, brief as they were, in these imaginations, she had lost sight for a moment or two of the dark gliding figure ; and when she turned her eyes again toward the spot, it was no longer visible ; and, what seemed stranger yet, the pirate sentinel no longer paced the bastion, although his comrade could be distinctly seen leaning against an angle near the sallyport, by which Teresa had gained entrance, at the further end of the lines. Sus pecting, more than ever, now that something great was on the point of happening, she gazed yet more intently ; yet nothing might she see of him, whom she believed, with all the confidence of youth and inexperience, to be a friend and rescuer within the pirate's hold. Tired at length with watching the long line of vacant ramparts, she looked again toward the sleeping soldier, and as she did so from the dark shadow of the ravelin and trench she saw a coal black figure leap, with the blithe and muscular action of a tiger bounding upon his prey, on the unconscious pirate something bright flashed once or twice aloft in the clear moonshine and the struggle was ended in a moment, the hap less sentinel falling a scarce less conscious victim to his swift secret foe. A moment more, and the victor had donned the scarlet watch cloak of his fallen enemy, and was low boldly traversing the whole line of the espla nade, stopping and stooping down for a moment or two at regular intervals, while a faint clinking sound, heard indistinctly from the distance, gave note, even to the inexperienced ear of Teresa, that he was engaged in spiking all the cannon. After this task was ended, disencumbering himself of the watch cloak, he crept down to the water's edge, and plunging into the calm basin swam straight for his pirogue, swung himself by a rope to the deck, and for several minutes' space was lost to the anxious gaze of the Spanish maiden. He re-appeared at last, however, from the hold, accompanied by ten or twelve men, whom by their corslets and steel caps, and the long barrels of their Spanish muskets, she knew at once to be Castilian soldiers within a moment they had lowered away the pinnace, which hung at the pi rogue's stern, and entering it, pulled openly across the basin toward the Rover's barque ; the ynti- nels "on which, seeing that tlieir boat came directly as it appeared to them, from the water-gate of the fortress, hailed not, nor uttered any challenge, but suffered the pinnace to come to under her very stern, and her crew to scale her bulwark unop posed ; all of which Teresa might behold distinctly by clear moonlight. What farther passed she knew not ; but in a little while she saw a bright light shown from the windows in the stern, and at the same time the vessel began to swing round slowly so as to bring her broadside, which had so lately borne full on the entrance of the basin, to cover the dwellings of the buccaneers. For a little while longer she watched stead fastly the basin and the vessels, but nothing took place any more, although she staid beside the lattice till the moon set behind the tree-tops, and deep darkness settled down over the glimmering prospect. Then fancying that nothing would take place that night, and fearing lest Bella might re turn and find her watching, she turned away and walked toward her couch. In doing so, however, she passed another casement, which looked out toward the forest in the rear ; on which side, fear less of any sudden onslaught, and confiding in the remoteness of their station, surrounded as it was by forests, everglades, impenetrable hammocks, and morasses pathless save to the wandering Indian the pirates kept no watch ; and, as she passed it, another sight flashed on her eyes, even more \vonderful as it appeared to her, than aught she had yet witnessed a long and regular line of dull red sparks, not larger than the luminous fire fly of that region, and scarce so brilliant, were winding round the outer side of the ditch, which 50 RINGWOOD THE ROVER, circled all the rear of the position. Suddenly, at one point, they clustered close together, and then descended, as it seemed, into the deep wet fosse. Then ! then ! her very soul on the alert, for she had seen and heard enough of warfare to know that those dull sparks were kindled matches of a long line of musqueteers, she threw the lattice open; and leaning out into the dewy night air, listened intently nor did she listen long, before the grating of a saw was clearly audible ; although by no means loud enough to wake a sleeper ; or scarce, perhaps, to rouse the dull perceptions of an uninterested watcher after a time the sound was heard no more, and very soon the little lights might be seen, one by one, emerging from the hither side, and forming in close order within the esplanade, which they had actually entered all unmolested and unseen, save by a friendly eye and now Teresa knew that friends were close at hand, and rescue almost certain. Yet now she trembled more than in her hour of peril, and was so sjiaken in her every nerve, that when she kneeled to pray and offer up her tribute of thanks giving, her tongue refused its office, her senses failed her, and she sank fainting on the velvet carpet, so that she saw, rest as she might, or any other, who had gazed seaward from that height, almost at the same point of time wherein the footman passed the palisades, the tall white sails of a huge Spanish caravella, steal ghost-like through the shadows of the trees that fringed the outlet, towed by a dozen boats pulled noiselessly with muffled oars, into the middle of the basin. Another and another and yet another followed ; and, strange to tell ! though no slight noise at tended their proceedings, they, with the captured barque of Ringwood, were moored within half pistol shot of the batteries, the guns of which were all, as has been seen, spiked and so rendered use less, their cannon bearing full on the defenceless dwellings of the buccaneers, and their boats ready to land with their armed crews at a moment's notice, ere any ear had taken note of their arrival. In another part of the Rover's keep, while all this was in progress, even to the point of time wherein Teresa fainted, there was a widely dif ferent picture, had any eye been there to look upon it. It was the very topmost turret of that tall building a small octagonal watch tower, overlooking the whole esplanade below, and hav ing the breech of the huge gun, which has before been mentioned, within six feet of its doorway, which opened on the battlements. Access was only gained to this high turret by a steep winding stair way from the large armory below ; and on the platform, at the stair head, so that no living thing could pass it without awakening them, were stretched on a soft rug full armed for instant battle, the two gigantic negroes. This was the Rover's den, his last stronghold, his chosen privacy. Lighted by day through eight tall pointed windows, now muffled all by blinds of Indian matting ; and in the nigHt by a large brazen lamp, with four bright burners, it was as light as life, though silent as the grave. It was the plainest nay ! the only plain chamber of that superb and gorgeous building ; its floor and walls being covered equally with the soft seats woven by Indian girls, from the sweet aromatic seeds and spicy grasses of that region its furniture, two or three camp stools of dark English oak, a centre table of the same fabric, covered with maps and plans of battles or the like, a silver standish and a tall golden crucifix and another large broad slab of some Indian wood, littered with charts and papers, instruments of astronomy and naviga tion, pistols and dirks, and articles of clothing, (such as fringed gloves, and feathered hats) and one or two tall wine flasks, with a Venetian drinking glass of scarce inferior height. Upon the walls hung many suits of armor with fire-arms of rare and choice construction, and swords of exquisite device and manufacture. The only other article of furniture, and that perhaps the most important in the cham ber, was a large low bedstead of oak, with a plain cotton matress, and white draperies of simple linen and on that lowly bed reclined in deep, though troubled slumber, the mighty frame of the great English buccaneer, with his fair favorite by his side, sleeping as calmly as a summer's night upon a breezeless river. Her rich redundant curls fell off in loose and wavy masses from her fair brow, floating across the massive chest and mus cular shoulders of the buccaneer, on which that brow was pillowed ; her eyes were closed, but the long fringe which curtained them was penciled in distinct relief against her clear complexion the whole expression of her face, as she slept, was exquisitely pure and child-like, and the soft smile which nestled in the twin dimples of her rosy mouth, seemed born of innocent and tranquil bliss. So w r as it not with her companion. Dark frowns and gloomy shadows chased one another fast and thick over his broad expressive features the sweat stood in full bubbles on his turbulent brow a fierce sarcastic smile now writhed his pallid lips, and now he laughed almost aloud, but with a scorn ful and self-mocking laughter, such as the fiends might use, jeering at stainless virtue. His great chest heaved and fell, not with the regular pulsa tions of healthful innocent sleep, but with convul sive pants and throbbings his arms were dashed violently to and fro, with the hands clenched like ron such were the night dreams of the Rover, A TALE OF FLORIDA. 51 and fearful as they must needs have been, to judge by their effect, as fearfully were they dis pelled. A clear sharp ringing sound as of a mus ket shot close to the inmost keep, rung through the night air one of the Indian allies of Don Amidis having unconsciously discharged his arque- buse, and so called down discovery little, how ever, if at all premature on the attacking party. Upon the instant, though the fair being by his side yet slumbered all unconscious of alarm, Reginald Ringwood sprung to his feet, fully awake, and in the clearest mastery of his senses one bound he stood upon the platform of the keep, and in less time than it would have taken any other man to mark one portion of the perils that environed him, he had envisaged all ; and seen the only hope that was left to him. The invaders, as yet knew not, it would seem, whether they were dis covered, and rested yet upon their arms ; and Ring- wood seeing clearly that the exterior works were all untenable already, and knowing that his only hope of making good the citadel itself, depended on his getting men to man his guns from the great bar racks, resolved to turn this brief inaction to ad vantage. Before the very blacks had roused them from their slumbers, he had sprung to the breech of the huge cannon, had wheeled it round upon its pivot Herculean task for any single arm, how puissant it might be soever ! had pointed it upon the nearest, longest caravel, and, lighting a match instantly from the lamp in his turret, had dis charged it on the foe. A broad bright glare shot out into the bosom of the night, a cloud of snowy volume was driven before it, and a roar, like that of twenty thunder claps, shook the strong tower to its base, and deafened for an instant every ear that heard it. Before its echoes had subsided, before the Spaniards, in turn, surprised, (for the huge missile striking the great caravel amid-ships, had cut her mainmast by the board, carrying with it all the mizen tops) had poured in their answer ing broadside, the Rover's bugle, wound clear and lustily, the signal of recall, was heard by the awakened pirates, who rushed half-dressed their weapons in their hands from the rear of the build ings to obey his signal. The instant he had fired the cannon, a dozen stalwart blacks, Pluto and Charon at their head, the garrison of this keep, stood on the platform at his side, heavily armed and ready. Dressing himself the while he spake, he thundered forth his orders with strange rapidity and wonderful precision " Pluto and Charon, away both of ye, down to the southern sally port, unbar it on the instant, holding it well in hand the while, to admit our fellows from the barrack ; but see ye let not the Spaniards enter ! You others, quick there, quick! load the great culverin, and run it out again see tkat you keep the level so, well done, lads now fire!" and with the words again forth burst the stunning roar" So, cheerily brave hearts fight it thus till the great caravel go down then wheel it on the next, and sink her likewise ! I go to man the inner ramparts. Ha ! Bella, my sweet girl," he cried, as she came forth in disarray " down to your bower, my girl, and dight you ! Fore God, but I believe our time is come already !" And with the word she darted down the stairway, and reached the sally-port just as the buccaneers, half-naked, scattered and dismayed, began to pour in from the esplanade. But few and faint they came, all breathless, many wounded, and some to drop down dead the instant they had forced their entry for in a moment, after the Rover's unex pected shot, the Spanish crews had started to their guns, and five broadsides of very heavy metal were poured into the clustered buildings of the pirates, before they were yet well afoot, so that the carnage was tremendous ; then, when they had rushed out, Don Amadis wheeled his two hundred musqueteers into a line upon their flank, poured in a shattering volley upon their scattered masses, and then charged sword in hand with his Castilian troopers, and all his Indian volunteers. Darkness alone saved any from destruction, and it was out of four hundred soldiers, for so many alone had remained in the lines, scarcely a hun dred sound men entered, with perhaps fifty more, wounded and wholly useless not force, in short, enough to man the guns, even at the rate of one man to a cannon. Still this mere handful was disposed, by the wondrous genius of the Rover, with such rare tact and skill, manning such guns alone as w r ere most useful, that until day-break he was enabled not merely to repel the attacking parties, but to beat them quite back from his lines with fearful slaughter three times he rallied, and each time brought back his every man unharmed ; leaving the ground which he had traversed piled high with carcasses, and reeking with hot gore. Meantime the black crew on the keep plied the long culverin with unabated zeal ; its every bullet plunging into the castled sides of the tall Spanish caravellas but not for that did they abate their murderous and well sustained cannonading against the pirate bar racks, until not a stick or stone of them stood up right to cover any foeman. Then, but not until then, did they direct their fire on the keep ; and even then so distant was it from their guns, and at an elevation so considerable, that their fire did it but small damage, while, ell the time, they suffered heavily. Meantime, the armed boats of the squadron landed ; and their crews formed 52 RINGWOOD THE ROVER, instantly a junction with the land forces led by Amadis Ferrajo ; which, by the dint of energy and zeal almost unparalleled, had forced their way through tangled brakes and shaking quagmires, over broad lakes and navigable rivers, to that im pregnable strong hold, as it was ever deemed by the too confident and careless Rover. Tremendous was the fate of every living being who met the onslaught of the infuriate Spaniards no quarter was shown none ! neither to age nor sex to innocence, nor beauty ! Hundreds of miserable children were tossed upon the spear heads of the pitiless avengers hundreds of wo men shot, or cut down, or spared only to glut for a brief space the fierce lust of their captors. When the day dawned, woman nor child survived and not a groan was heard from the red slope red with their smoking gore ! Day dawned ; and, as the light grew clear, the weakness of the defenders was discovered ; and the assailants, forming in six columns, each column equal to the whole force under Ringwood, rushed desperate to win the ramparts. The guns were necessarily silent after the first discharge, for it was needful now that each man should fight hand to hand, or let the lines be carried ! And they were carried in ten minutes ! for though the buc caneers fought like incarnate devils, though Ring- wood bore a charmed life, setting it fifty times upon a die and still unwounded, man after man was piked or cut down by his side, until the two blacks alone, with four or five English pirates, were Left alive, and able to wield weapons. " In with you, Pluto and Charon into the keep and hold the gate in hand now,! Anson, Falco ner, ha! Gambier, too, and Drake, one charge more on these dogs of Spain, one for St. George and England!" And with the words, the five men dashed upon a column, headed by Amadis Ferrajo, of full two hundred veterans rushing in, with their leveled pikes, by the great gate which they had stormed three men went down at three strokes of the Rover ; and his last troopers seconded him like men, and gallant ones, if guilty ! the column wavered ; but Amadis rallied it in stantly with words of fire, and charged resistless ! one by one down went Ringwood's men pierced each with fifty wounds, each fighting till he fell " for England ! merry England !" The Rover stood alone but what recked he of that ? he crossed swords with Don Amadis, beat down his guard, dealt him a blow that would have stretched him lifeless on the plain, but that his ra pier shivered to the grasp shot two men with his pistols seized a third round the waist, who would have stopped him ; and hurled him to the earth, so that the blood gushed from ears, eyes, and mouth, and he stirred hand no more rushed through the castle gate, and ere its bars were fast behind him, stood in the presence of Teresa, all grim and gory, but unwounded. CHAPTER XII. For a moment or two the wretched girl gazed in pale terror on the dread apparition which stood before her ; nor would it indeed have been easy to imagine one more terrible. His gorgeous dress was all begrimed with the black smoke of gun powder, and dashed with frequent flakes of human gore; his face and hands were crimson; and, more than all, in his wild eye there was a gleam of terrible fire that could be compared to nothing but the glare of some dread fiend caught from the penal flames of his eternal prison house. She had risen from her knees on his entrance, for during the whole din and clamor of the des perate assault, her silvery tones had mounted to the throne of grace in pure and constant supplica tion she stood staring at his distorted furious features, speechless with terror and despair ; but when he rushed toward her, and seized her deli cate arm in his strong grasp, she sent forth a long fluttering thrilling shriek, so awfully acute and shrill, that pealing far above the blended roar of musquetry and cannon, above the shouts and yells of the assailants, above the clang of axes plied fast and furiously against the portal of the keep, it reached the ears of the besiegers, and lent new vigor to their arms, new fire to their hearts. Yet though the gate was crashing even now, and wa vering beneath their blows yet had their aid come all too late for he had seized her round the waist, despite her feeble struggles, despite her pitiful supplications, lifted her from the ground, and flung her by main force upon a velvet otto man, with all her raven hair disheveled, the braids which bound it having burst, and all her garments ruffled and in the last disorder from the hot struggle he paused one second in his barba rous pastime, and profiting by that brief interval, all out of breath and panting as she was, "Your word!" she cried, "your word your plighted oath of honor ! never to do me wrong !" A bitter sneering laugh burst from his lips. "My word!" he said, " my word a pirate's plighted word ! a robber's oath of honor ! ha ! ha ! you jest, Teresa-^-ha ! ha ! you would be merr y hark," he continued, as the dread sounds of the assault rung nearer and more near. " Hark ! to the blows! the steps the voices of your friends ! There rings the full shout of your curs ed sire the war cry of the Des Aviles there A TALE OF 53 the fierce battle note of Amadis Ferrajo ! Close ! close at hand, fair lady ! close enough almost ! to preserve you. Ten minutes more, and they shall find you here, but their arms shall not clasp you to their hearts father's nor lover's ! No ! no ! I tell you no ! Nor their lips press your brow, for you shall be a thing blighted, dishonor ed, foul! Vengeance! ho! vengeance! venge ance on Melendez," and with the words he again caught her in his arms ; and in a moment more his horrid purpose had been too well accomplish ed ; but while she shrieked and struggled, as im- potently, it is true, as the small bird in the talons of the merciless falcon, but still with all her power, the fair haired English beauty rushed, hardly less disarrayed than the Spanish maiden, into the room ; and close behind, both her com rades, screaming for present aid to Ringwood, and fearful was their need ! For, seeing now that every hope of protracting the defence was over, and that the enraged Spaniards were forcing their passage foot by foot, the brutal negroes, who had manned the great gun on the platform of the keep, and fought it until now, right dauntlessly, had left their post as desperate ; and drunk with bloodshed and despair, maddened with liquor and with lust, had turned their fierce and brutal passions from their natural enemies, against the favorite beau ties of their leader. But better had it been for them, had they awaited the avenging Spaniard ; better had they rushed into the den of the cub- drawn tigress, than thus have roused the fury of their chief. Leaving Teresa, pale and breathless, and too terrified to thank God for her near escape, he rushed upon the mutineers the first he caught about the middle, for he had no offensive arms his sword having been broken in the conflict, and all his pistols emptied ! and hurled him headlong through the window, like an enormous missile shot from some giant catapult. The strong bro caded awnings opposed his passage ; but with such mighty impulse was he sent, that the tough velvet was rent through and through, as though it had been gossamer and the huge buccaneer was seen one instant sprawling and writhing in mid air with a terrific sound of blended screams and curses on his tongue, before he fell upon the lifted pikes of the besiegers. Quelled for a moment by this awful spectacle, the other negroes stood aghast, and Ringwood leaping upon them with the bound of an angry tiger, snatched his own weapon from the first, and whirling it about his head, clove him with one blow to the jaws. "Ha! dogs!" he shouted, in tones trumpet-like and clear, "ha! villains! dare ye dispute my will or look too boldly on my prizes ? down to 4 your kennels, dogs ! down to the dungeon gate, and fight it to the last, with these accursed Span iards ! Down to the gate, I say, and if ye must, of your low nature, perish brutes, see that, at least, ye perish brave ones!" Not a word more was spoken, nor a blow stricken, but all cowed and abashed, the muti neers rushed down the sounding stairway, and, ere a moment passed, might be heard battling hand to hand with the fierce veterans of Melendez, who had already forced the gates, and were now rushing in, like a flood tide, resistless. Just at this juncture, by the other door, Pluto and Cha ron, the trusty guardsmen of the Rover, entered the harem, bleeding both from several recent wounds, but still bold and undaunted. "Ha! all is lost, then," exclaimed the Rover, as they entered. " Is all lost, Charon?" "All is lost," answered the faithful black," "all is lost! carried! postern gate carried too! enemy in the hall, will be here presently!" "And ye what would ye?" cried the great English pirate, still calm in his extremity and fearless " what would ye fly?" "Will massa," answered the negroes in one breath, "fly with massa Ringwood by covered way into the forest or if he will, die here, with him." "Ha! by the covered way fine boys I had forgotten ! so may I live, if not for victory, still at the least for vengeance reach down three car bines from the wall, there they are all loaded now light the matches so give me that long To ledo ha ! here they come they come ! but by the fiends, too late ! Charon, take thou Toraida set her in safety in the forest, and thou hast won thy freedom. Pluto, bear thou Italian Bea trice ! Thou art for me, Teresa my girl, no dallying !" and he shook her fiercely by the arm, as she would have struggled to escape ; for now the voices of her father of her dear Amadis, came close upon her ear, above the clash and clat ter of the contest, as they bore their last foes bleeding and breathless at the sword's point before them, and now they had won the staircase, and now were on the very threshold of the gay ar mory too late ! He had swung her up in his stalwart arms, threw her across one shoulder as though she had been an infant. " Follow me, Bella," he cried, "follow close, thine English blood is brave, thou needst no supporter ! follow me close, and bar the door behind!" and with the words he sprung across the vestibule, entered the secret stairway in the wall, and was just out of sight, when beating down the last of the defen ders, Don Amadis darted through the opposite doorway with twenty veterans at his back. Well 54 RINGWOOD THE ROVER, did the Rover say that fair girl's blood was brave ; for as he left the armory, she snatched down from the wall a studded buckler of the tough hide of the rhinoceros, a Mght Damascus cimiter, and with her beautiful blue eyes beaming with fiery valor, made good the door in a moment, and bar red and chained it fast in the^ery teeth of the foe ! With speedy steps they trod the damp floors of the vaulted passage they barred three massive doors behind them, yet with so desperate speed did Amadis pursue, plying his ponderous battle axe, that as they reached the sally-port, they heard him thundering already at the last portal they had passed they hurried through the sally port, a plank was thrust across the fosse, they darted over it in safety ! they stood in the wild forest ! another minute and they had been con cealed in the dark hazes of a labyrinth so tortuous and dense, that scarcely could the keen instinct of an Indian have traced their flying footsteps ! But at the very moment when they crossed the fosse, and climbed its landward face, five or six Spanish musqueteers, who stood on guard in the stone bas tion, discovered them ! blew their slow matches, leveled their long bright barreled harquebuses, and a sharp volley followed ! Three balls struck Ringwood ; his left arm fell to his side shattered by one bullet well was it for Teresa, that he had just released her, or that same ball had borne her fate upon its wings ! a second pierced his broad chest ; a third just grazed his muscular thigh yet he flinched not, nor uttered any sign of pain nor wavered in the least. By the same volley the negro Charon fell, shot dead where he stood, by one ball ; while another, so closely was that ter rible discharge poured in, killed the poor Persian in his arms happier so to fall, than to survive awhile and glut the furious vengeance of the en raged Castilians. " Ha, dogs !" shouted the Rover shaking his long bright rapier at them, in defiance "Ha! dogs would ye were at arm's length ! Now , Pluto, quick! quick! while their muskets are discharged, pull the plank over to this side, and all will yet be well quick ! quick, I say ! they come !" And they did come swinging his rapier high in air, and leaping like a freed panther from the dark sally-port, all youthful energy, all high en thusiastic valor young Amadis Ferrajo and close to his heels, with his long gray locks al] unhelmeted and floating on the breeze, and his antique steel panoply all blood from greaves to gorget, Juan Melendez de Aviles ; and after these Pedro, Gutierrez, Sanchez, and Diego, and fifty more hidalgos of Castile, with their high hearts aflame for deadly vengeance. Forth leaped young Amadis, the foremost his bot was on the plank already the cry of triumph inging already from his lips when elmost simul- aneously , the negro, who when he stooped down to emove the plank had not laid by his carbine, and he great Rover fired. Well was it for Don Am adis his armor was Spain's choicest fabric had t been steel of any foreign city, he had been sped .hat moment ; for both balls took effect at scarce ;en paces distance one striking full upon the frontlet of his helmet, and leaving a deep dent in he trusty steel ; the other actually penetrating he strong corslet, so fairly was it aimed, and even inflicting a slight wound; as it was, stunned and bewildered for the moment, he went down and all around surely believed him dead though n a little while he recovered himself and regained his feet. Teresa, who had been gazing on the little group, with hope fresh kindling in her heart, beheld him fall, and the light left her eyes, and she sunk faint and senseless on the dark dewy earth. All this had passed, in less time than is needed to de scribe it. As Amadis went down, Melendez took his place, and rushed across the narrow bridge, striking down Pluto, with a single sweej of his two-handed broadsword, a breathless corpse into the stagnant moat but while one foot was yet upon the quivering plank, the Rover leaped upon his foe. It was a desperate and a dreadful con flict for the wounds one of which was in truth slowly mortal counterbalanced the advantage which Ringwood's youth would have otherwise given him over his aged yet still firm antago nist. Melendez was armed cap-a-pie all to his helmet ; the Englishman was quite unarmed, with the exception of his long two-edged broadsword so that the one had all his body to defend the other his head only. Yet was this point of van tage neutralized by the extraordinary skill of fence, the blithe agility, the mighty strength of Ringwood, who like a wounded boar was but the fiercer and more furious for his hurts. Dreadful and desperate was that contest, yet it was over almost in a minute their swords flashed like the beams of the noon-day sun, too dazzling and too fleet for any eye to trace them ; yet ere six blows and parries were exchanged, the Rover's blade descended with such violence upon the weapon of Melendez, that it beat down his guard, and afterward inflicted a deep wound on his brow the old man staggered back, the Rover pressing on with a fierce lunge, and sheathing his rapier in the Spaniard's throat above the gorget vein. "Ha! ha!" he laughed aloud with a fiendish tone, as he shook off his dying foeman from the A TALE OF FLORIDA. 55 point of his ensanguined weapon into the stagnant water of the ditch "Ha! ha! ha! sister sweet angel sister-thou art avenged ! avenged ! avenged ! and I die happy !" and with the words, unhurt by any blow, unsmitten by any mortal hand in equal combat, he staggered up the slope, fell by Teresa's side, and was dead in a moment. Whether or no it was the sound of Ringwood's heavy fall beside her. cannot be -told, but it is certain that as he dropped, she started to her feet, and, with reco vered senses, gazed wildly about her. Her father's corpse she saw not, for falling into the deep wet fosse it had sunk instantly to the bottom, and was kept there by the weight of ar mor which it bore ! but she did see her lover, whom she had fancied dead, alive and on his feet, and rushing to her rescue ! she did see her deadly enemy prostrate and lifeless at her side ! and over him with her broad blue eyes flashing fire, with lifted buckler, brandished blade, his the beautiful Bella, standing erect and fearless so to defend from shame all that was left of her un daunted lover. Teresa screamed, she sprung to save her, but she was all too late, for flushed with victory, and mad with vengeful fury, the Spaniards were upon her. One good blow did the English girl strike at the nearest enemy one good home blow, and the strongest man who met it staggered, and fell headlong ! but ere he struck the earth, ten pike heads tore the lovely bosom of that frail faithful girl. As she had spoken, so she died ! She died with him whom she would not survive ! their life-blood mingled, as she breathed out her last sigh on his mangled breast and one tomb held their bodies for at Teresa's bidding, when the fierce rage of war was over, a tomb was reared by that calm basin, over the lovely Bella, and the great English Buccaneer. Long did Teresa mourn long did she weep her brother and her father ; yet her tears ceased at length to flow, as she blushed her consent to her young rescuer's ardent wooing ; and, when they sailed together from the wild shores of Florida, for their dear Spanish home, the faithful slave Cassandra followed her mistress' footsteps; and many a time and often in after days and a far land, they shed a pitying tear for the kind-hearted English girl, and half admired the daring, even while they blamed the sins of Ringwood the great Rover ! ?S M268571 THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY