desire of a poor fisherman’s daughter but to sacrifice her to his own base purposes.’ Yet Lovell had so much confidence in her he loved, that he determined not even to allude to the matter, lest it might imply a suspicion which he would not acknowledge to himself. But he thought of these things nevertheless with some anxiety.
Young Lovell had never happened to meet with Captain Burnet, being absent at sea with his father at such times as he had chosen for his calls at the cottage, and all that he had learned from Fanny herself, who was far too honest and unaffected to conceal anything of such a character from him, but told him of all their intercourse, little suspecting the pain that it caused him. Captain Burnet had never offered her any attention, other than one friend might offer to another, nor had the thought ever entered her mind that he was striving to gain her affections. It appeared to be Burnet’s object to keep up this idea, for he had never made her a call as yet without expressly stating that business had drawn him to the immediate neighborhood of her father’s cottage, and thus the matter stood at the time William Lovell was preparing to leave his home. Burnet’s attention to Fanny Campbell had not caused any remark in the family, and Lovell comforted himself with the query, as he considered this state of the matter. ‘They have seen nothing to remark, why should I worry then?’ But for all his resolves to the contrary, his determination not to let the matter annoy him, as is always the case, he grew more fidgety in point of fact, as his determination of purpose seemed to himself to increase.
CHAPTER II.
THE FAREWELL. THE ROYAL KENT. PIRATES. THE FIGHT. ENLISTING IN A NEW SERVICE. THE HAUNTS OF THE BUCCANIERS. ESCAPE FROM ONE PRISON AND CONFINEMENT IN ANOTHER. BURNET AND FANNY CAMPBELL. ARRIVAL OF AN IMPORTANT MESSENGER. MYSTERY. A PROPOSITION. A NEW FRIEND AND A NEW CHARACTER. A CAPTAIN’S SPEECH. WHO WAS THE MASTER.
Early on the morning subsequent to the meeting on the Rock, William Lovell rose from his bed with the first grey of morning light, and stealing gently to Fanny’s apartment he knocked at her door; there was no response; he knocked again, still there was no reply. The poor girl had wept away nearly the whole night, and now nature had asserted her supremacy, and her weary form was wrapped in slumber. Lovell opened the door and quietly sought her bedside. There lay Fanny, a single tear trembling beneath each eye-lid; one dimpled arm bare to the shoulder lay across her partially exposed breast, while on the other her head rested in unconsciousness. A beautiful picture of innocence and purity was Fanny Campbell as she lay thus sleeping.
‘Thou hast wept thyself to sleep, poor Fanny,’ said Lovell, putting his arm affectionately about her neck, and gently kissing her ruby lips. He pressed them again, and this time, see? the dreamer puts her own arm about his neck, and the kiss was returned! but still she slept. He breathed a prayer, a silent, fervent prayer for her weal, then gently disengaging himself from her embrace, he said, as he looked lovingly upon her, ‘it were better to part thus, I will not wake her,’ and kissing her lips once more, Lovell left her sleeping still as he had found her.
He took leave of his parents, shook the hands of a few early risers among his friends, and started for Boston, from whence he was to sail at noon of that day on his first voyage to sea. The setting sun of that day shone upon the white sails of the vessel that bore him to sea many leagues from land. Lovell, whose life had been passed much upon the water, though not far from home, fell easily into the duty required of him, and proved himself to be an efficient and able seaman. Day after day the ship stood on her southern course until she was within the mild and salubrious climate of the West Indies, the great American Archipelago.—In those days and even for many years subsequent to that date, those seas were infested by bands of reckless freebooters or pirates, who committed depredations upon the marine of every nation with which they met; they were literally no respecters of persons. The men who commanded these bands of rovers of most fickle fancy, sometimes sailed under the white lily of France, the crescents of Turkey, the blazoned and gorgeous flag of Spain, or even the banner of the Church, bearing the Keys of Heaven, but mostly under the blood red flag, that denoted their character, and told their antagonists with whom they had to deal.
The good ship Royal Kent had now entered the milder latitudes, and was within a day’s sail of Port-au-Plat, when a suspicious craft hove in sight and immediately gave chase. The Kent had a crew of about a dozen men before the mast, with two or three officers; but they were poorly supplied with the means of defence, against any regular attack made by an armed vessel. Nevertheless, the two six pound cannonades were cleared away from rubbish amidships, and loaded for service; the guns too, some six or eight in number, were all double loaded, and the officers had each a brace of pistols, besides which their were enough cutlasses on board to supply each man with one.
With this little armament they determined to sell their lives dearly, if necessary, and the stranger should prove to be, that which they had every reason to suppose him, a pirate.
The stranger now neared them fast, and all doubt as to his character was soon dispelled, as a blood red flag was sent up to the mast head, and a gun fired for the Kent to heave too. This the captain had no intention of doing, and immediately after the Buccanier, for so he proved to be, began to fire upon them. The shots fell fast and thick among the small crew of the Kent, who having returned them with interest from their six pounders, which being better aimed, did fearful execution on the crowded deck of the freebooter. The object of the pirate captain was evidently to board the Kent, when his superiority of numbers must immediately decide the contest in his favor. This was ingeniously avoided by the captain of the Kent for some time, his little armament all the while doing bloody execution among his enemies.
At last, however, the grapnels were thrown, and the pirate captain boarded the Kent, followed by half his crew of cutthroats, and decided the contest hand to hand. The American crew fought to the last, notwithstanding the hopeless character of the contest, for they knew full well that they had better fall in battle than to be subjected to the almost certain cruel death that would await them if they should fail into the hands of the Bucaniers alive.
Thus, although overpowered and borne down by numbers, the captain of the Kent had already shot the pirate chief through the brain and another of the enemy with his remaining pistol, while his cutlass had drank the heart’s blood of more than one, before he felt himself, pierced with many a fatal wound; and thus had each of the crew fought until only three remained, who had shown equally fatal battle with the rest, but were now disarmed and lay bound and bleeding upon the deck. One of them was William Lovell. He lay bleeding, as we have said, from many wounds, with his two comrades, the ship being now completely in the hands of the Bucaniers. The Kent proved but a poor prize for the freebooters, though she had cost them so dearly. After taking such valuables out of her as they chose, they scuttled her, and she sunk where she lay.
Young Lovell and his comrades were taken on board the piratical vessel, and after a consultation among its leaders were told that their lives would be spared them if they would join the now short handed crew—The Bucaniers were induced to make this proposition partly because the prisoners had proved themselves to be brave men, and partly because of their own weakness, after the fierce and sanguinary encounter they had just experienced, the crew of the Kent having actually killed nearly twice their own number, leaving but about fifteen men alive of the pirate crew. The love of life is strong within us all, and Lovell and his companions agreed to the terms offered them, determining to seek an early occasion to escape from the vessel, yet for many months were they the witnesses of scenes of blood-shed and wickedness which they had not the least power to avert.
The West Indian seas since the times of the earliest navigators have ever been the resort of Bucaniers and reckless bands of freebooters, and even to this day, notwithstanding the strong fleet of national vessels kept upon the stations by the American and English governments, there are still
