spoils fairly: am I now to be charged to my face with a lie?” “Ha!” said he, rising from the table and striding through the apartment with violent gestures, “who dares doubt my word, and impute to me the meanness of a lie? Are ye drunk? Can this wine have made you mad?” and seizing a bottle, he dashed it to the ground, stamping with rage. “Has the blood of last night unsettled your nerves and made you delirious? Basta! basta! Let me not hear another word of doubt as to this youth. The first who utters a syllable of incredulity shall kill me on the spot or fall by my hand!”
This sounds, I confess, very melo-dramatically, yet, my experience has taught me that it is precisely a bold and dashing tone of bravado, adopted at the right moment, which is always most successful among such ruffians as surrounded my preserver. The speech was delivered with such genuine vehemence and resolution that no one could question his sincerity or suppose him acting. But, as soon as he was done, the leader of the other gang, who had been very unconcernedly smoking his cigar, and apparently punctuating Don Rafael’s oration with his little puffs, advanced to my new uncle, and laying his hand on his arm, said: —
“Amigo, you take a joke too seriously. No one here certainly desires to harm the boy or disbelieve you. Take my advice, — calm yourself, light a cigarillo, drink a tumbler of claret, and drop the subject.”
But this process of pacification was too rapid for my excited uncle. Men of his quality require to be let down gradually from their wrath, for I have frequently noticed that when their object is too easily gained, they interpose obstacles and start new subjects of controversy, so that the most amiable and yielding temper may at last become inflamed to passionate resistance.
“No, caballeros!” exclaimed Don Rafael, “I will neither light a cigarillo, drink claret, calm myself, nor accept satisfaction for this insult, short of the self-condemnation you will all experience for a mean suspicion, when I prove the truth of my assertions about this boy. A doubted man has no business at the head of such fellows as you are. Begone out of my hearing, Theodore,” continued he, pointing to the canvas door, “begone till I convince these people that I am your uncle!”
As soon as I was out of the chamber, I afterwards learned, that Rafael announced my name, place of birth, and parentage to the wreckers, and desired the other patron, Mesclet, who spoke Italian, to follow and interrogate me as to his accuracy.
Mesclet performed the service in a kind manner, opening the interview by asking the names of my father and mother, and then demanding how many uncles I had on my mother’s side? My replies appeared satisfactory.
“Was one of your uncles a navy officer?” inquired Mesclet, “and where is he at present?” The only uncle I had in the navy, I declared, had long been absent from his family. But once in my life had I seen him, and that was while on his way to Marseilles, in 1815, to embark for the Spanish main; since then no intelligence of the wanderer had reached my ears. Had I been a French scholar at that time, my adventures of consanguinity at Ferrol and on this key might well have brought Molière’s satire to my mind:
“De moi je commence à douter tout de bon;
Pourtant, quand je me tâte et que je me rapelle,
Il me semble que je suis moi!”
Mesclet’s report gave perfect satisfaction to the scoffers, and the mysterious drama at once established me in a position I could not have attained even by desperate services to the filibusteros. A bumper, all round, closed the night; and each slunk off to his cot or blanket beneath a mosquito bar, while the bloodhounds were chained at the door to do double duty as sentinels and body-guard.
I hope there are few who will deny me the justice to believe that when I stretched my limbs on the hard couch assigned me that night, I remembered my God in heaven, and my home in Tuscany. It was the first night that an ingenuous youth had spent among outcasts, whose hands were still reeking with the blood of his companions. At that period of manhood we are grateful for the mere boon of life. It is pleasant to live, to breathe, to have one’s being, on this glorious earth, even though that life may be cast among felons. There is still a future before us; and Hope, the bright goddess of health and enthusiasm, inspires our nerves with energy to conquer our present ills.
I threw myself down thankfully, but I could not rest. Sore and tired as I was, I could not compose my mind to sleep. The conduct of Rafael surprised me. I could not imagine how he became familiar with my biography, nor could I identify his personal appearance with my uncle who went so long before to South America. A thousand fancies jumbled themselves in my brain, and, in their midst, I fell into slumber. Yet my self-oblivion was broken and short. My pulse beat wildly, but my skin did not indicate the heat of fever. The tragedy of the galliot was reacted before me. Phantoms of the butchered wife and men, streaming with blood, stood beside my bed, while a chorus of devils, in the garb of sailors, shouted that I was the cause of the galliot’s loss, and of their murder. Then the wretched woman would hang round my neck, and crawl on my breast, besprinkling me with gore that spouted from her eyeless sockets, imploring me to save her; — till, shrieking and panting, I awoke from the horrible nightmare. Such were the dreams that haunted my pillow nearly all the time I was forced to remain with these desperadoes.
I thanked God that the night of the tropics was so brief. The first glimmer of light found me up, and as soon as I could find a companion to control the hounds, I ran to the sea for refreshment by a glorious surf-bath. I was on a miserable sandbar, whose surface was hardly covered with soil; yet, in that prolific land of rain and sunshine, nature seems only to require the slightest footing to assert her magnificent power of vegetation. In spots, along the arid island, were the most beautiful groves of abundant undergrowth, matted with broad-leaved vines, while, within their shadow, the fresh herbage sprang up, sparkling with morning dew. In those climates, the blaze of noon is a season of oppressive languor, but morning and evening, with their dawn and twilight, — their lengthened shadows and declining sun, are draughts of beauty that have often intoxicated less enthusiastic tempers than mine. The bath, the breeze, the renewed nature, aroused and restored a degree of tone to my shattered nerves, so that when I reached the rancho, I was ready for any duty that might be imposed. The twin gangs had gone off in their boats soon after daylight, with saws and axes; but Rafael left orders with my brutal sentry that I should assist him in preparing breakfast, which was to be ready by eleven o’clock.
I never knew the real patronymic of this fellow, who was a Spaniard, and passed among us by the nickname of Gallego. Gallego possessed a good figure, — symmetrical and strong, while it was lithe and active. But his head and face were the most repulsive I ever encountered. The fellow was not absolutely ugly, so far as mere contour of features was concerned; but there was so dropsical a bloat in his cheeks, such a stagnant sallowness in his complexion, such a watching scowl in his eyes, such a drawling sullenness of speech, such sensuality in the turn of his resolute lips, that I trembled to know he was to be my daily companion. His dress and skin denoted slovenly habits, while a rude and growling voice gave token of the bitter heart that kept the enginery of the brute in motion.
With this wretch for chef de cuisine I was exalted to the post of “cook’s mate.”
I found that a fire had been already kindled beneath some dwarf trees, and that a kettle was set over it to boil. Gallego beckoned me to follow him into a thicket some distance from the rancho, where, beneath the protection of a large tarpaulin, we found filibustero’s pantry amply provided with butter, onions, spices, salt-fish, bacon, lard, rice, coffee, wines, and all the requisites of comfortable living. In the corners, strewn at random on the ground, I observed spy-glasses, compasses, sea-charts, books, and a quantity of choice cabin-furniture. We obtained a sufficiency of water for cookery and drinking from holes dug in the sand, and we managed to cool the beverage by suspending it in a draft of air in porous vessels, which are known throughout the West Indies by the
