LITMIR.BIZ

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completion by the afternoon. At sunset, accounts were compared, and finding a considerable difference in favor of the wreckers, I was dispatched ashore to ascertain the error. At the landing I was greeted by several new faces. I particularly observed a Frenchman whom I had not noticed before. He addressed me with a courteous offer of refreshments. His manners and language were evidently those of an educated person, while his figure and physiognomy indicated aristocratic habits or birth, yet his features and complexion bore the strong imprint of that premature old age which always marks a dissipated career.

      After a delightful chat in my mother-tongue with the pleasant stranger, he invited me to spend the night on shore. I declined politely, and, having rectified the cargo’s error, was preparing to re-embark, when the Frenchman once more approached and insisted on my remaining. I again declined, asserting that duty forbade my absence. He then remarked that orders had been left by my countryman the patron to detain me; but if I was so obstinate as to go, I might probably regret it.

      With a laugh, I stepped into my boat, and on reaching the galliot, learned that our skipper had imprudently avowed the rich nature of our cargo.

      Before leaving the vessel that night, the patron took me aside, and inquired whether I received the invitation to pass the night on the key, and why I had not accepted it? To my great astonishment, he addressed me in pure Italian; and when I expressed gratitude for his offer, he beset me with questions about my country, my parents, my age, my objects in life, and my prospects. Once or twice he threw in the ejaculation of, “poor boy! poor boy!” As he stepped over the taffrail to enter his boat, I offered my hand, which he first attempted to take, — then suddenly stopping, rejected the grasp, and, with an abrupt — “No! addio!” he spun away in his boat from the galliot’s side.

      I could not help putting these things together in my mind during the glowing twilight. I felt as if walking in a cold shadow; an unconquerable sense of impending danger oppressed me. I tried to relieve myself by discussing the signs with the captain, but the phlegmatic Hollander only scoffed at my suspicions, and bade me sleep off my nervousness.

      When I set the first night watch, I took good care to place every case containing valuables below, and to order the look-out to call all hands at the first appearance or sound of a boat. Had we been provided with arms, I would have equipped the crew with weapons of defence, but, unluckily, there was not on board even a rusty firelock or sabre.

      How wondrously calm was all nature that night! Not a breath of air, or a ripple on the water! The sky was brilliant with stars, as if the firmament were strewn with silver dust. The full moon, with its glowing disc, hung some fifteen or twenty degrees above the horizon. The intense stillness weighed upon my tired limbs and eyes, while I leaned with my elbows on the taffrail, watching the roll of the vessel as she swung lazily from side to side on the long and weary swell. Every body but the watch had retired, and I, too, went to my state-room in hope of burying my sorrows in sleep. But the calm night near the land had so completely filled my berth with annoying insects, that I was obliged to decamp and take refuge in the stay-sail netting, where, wrapped in the cool canvas, I was at rest in quicker time than I have taken to tell it.

      Notwithstanding my nervous apprehension, a sleep more like the torpor of lethargy than natural slumber, fell on me at once. I neither stirred nor heard any thing till near two o’clock, when a piercing shriek from the deck aroused me. The moon had set, but there was light enough to show the decks abaft filled with men, though I could distinguish neither their persons nor movements. Cries of appeal, and moans as of wounded or dying, constantly reached me. I roused myself as well and quickly as I could from the oppression of my deathlike sleep, and tried to shake off the nightmare. The effort assured me that it was reality and not a dream! In an instant, that presence of mind which has seldom deserted me, suggested escape. I seized the gasket, and dropping by aid of it as softly as I could in the water, struck out for shore. It was time. My plunge into the sea, notwithstanding its caution, had made some noise, and a rough voice called in Spanish to return or I would be shot.

      When I began to go to sea, I took pains to become a good swimmer, and my acquired skill served well on this occasion. As soon as the voice ceased from the deck, I lay still on the water until I saw a flash from the bow of the galliot, to which I immediately made a complaisant bow by diving deeply. This operation I repeated several times, till I was lost in the distant darkness; nor can I pride myself much on my address in escaping the musket balls, as I have since had my own aim similarly eluded by many a harmless duck.

      After swimming about ten minutes, I threw myself on my back to rest and “take a fresh departure.” It was so dark that I could not see the key, yet, as I still discerned the galliot’s masts relieved against the sky, I was enabled by that beacon to steer my way landward. Naked, with the exception of trowsers, I had but little difficulty in swimming, so that in less than half an hour, I touched the key, and immediately sought concealment in a thick growth of mangroves.

      I had not been five minutes in this dismal jungle, when such a swarm of mosquitoes beset me, that I was forced to hurry to the beach and plunge into the water. In this way was I tormented the whole night. At dawn, I retreated once more to the bushes; and climbing the highest tree I found, — whose altitude, however, was not more than twelve feet above the sand, — I beheld, across the calm sea, the dismantled hull of my late home, surrounded by a crowd of boats, which were rapidly filling with plundered merchandise. It was evident that we had fallen a prey to pirates; yet I could not imagine why I had been singled from this scene of butchery, to receive the marks of anxious sympathy that were manifested by the patron and his French companion on the key. All the morning I continued in my comfortless position, watching their movements, — occasionally refreshing my parched lips by chewing the bitter berries of the thicket. Daylight, with its heat, was as intolerable as night, with its venom. The tropical sun and the glaring reflection from a waveless sea, poured through the calm atmosphere upon my naked flesh, like boiling oil. My thirst was intense. As the afternoon wore away, I observed several boats tow the lightened hull of our galliot south-east of the key till it disappeared behind a point of the island. Up to that moment, my manhood had not forsaken me; but, as the last timber of my vessel was lost to sight, nature resumed its dominion. Every hope of seeing my old companions was gone; I was utterly alone. If this narrative were designed to be a sentimental confession, the reader might see unveiled the ghastly spectacle of a “troubled conscience,” nor am I ashamed to say that no consolation cheered my desolate heart, till I prayed to my Maker that the loss of so many lives might not be imputed to the wilful malice of a proud and stubborn nature.

      CHAPTER IV

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      So passed the day. As the sun sank is the west, I began to reflect about obtaining the rest for mind and body I so much needed. My system was almost exhausted by want of food and water, while the dreadful tragedy of the preceding night shattered my nerves far more than they ever suffered amid the trying scenes I have passed through since. It was my first adventure of peril and of blood; and my soul shrank with the natural recoil that virtue experiences in its earliest encounter with flagrant crime.

      In order to escape the incessant torment of insects, I had just determined to bury my naked body in the sand, and to cover my head with the only garment I possessed, when I heard a noise in the neighboring bushes, and perceived a large and savage dog rushing rapidly from side to side, with his nose to the ground, evidently in search of game or prey. I could not mistake the nature of his hunt. With the agility of a harlequin, I sprang to my friendly perch just in time to save myself from his fangs. The foiled and ferocious beast, yelling with rage, gave an alarm which was quickly responded to by other dogs, three of which — followed by two armed men — promptly made their appearance beneath my tree. The hunters were not surprised at finding me, as, in truth, I was the game they sought. Ordering me down, I was commanded to march slowly before them, and especially warned to make no attempt at flight, as the bloodhounds would tear me to pieces on the spot. I told my guard that I should of course manifest no such folly as to attempt as escape from caballeros like themselves, — upon a desolate sand key half a mile wide,

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