Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 15 — page 10: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

————— eS = 5 in ae , i ee ee ee .— 10 A deep groan burst from Don Alonzo as he ke. ak God of Heaven, J sent her to death, and she knows about my child! And I only know it now.’ regular and fitful fire still maintained by the | Crack, crack, crack! The enemy’s skirmishers opened again, and came rushing on with a yell whose ferocity told of the desperation of the buccaneers. Just in the crisis of a fierce battle, when victory trem- bled in the balance, and the commander of the Spaniards needed all his wits, came this tiny cross a messenger from a dead woman, whom he himseif had sent to her doom in ignorance. And this cross he recognized in a moment as one he had hung round the neck of his child, Pepita, eighteen years before, when she was a baby inarms. She must then have survived the wreck, or this cross must have been taken from her dead body, washed ashore, Which was it? Oh, for one moment to ask the question, to question Don Luis, to do some- thing! But stern, pitiless war, that slays all alike, was sweeping down on them, in a ferocious band of desperate ruffians, led by the scourge of all Spaniards, Morgan himself. Already the fire was warming up, and the artillery opening grape on the advancing pi- rates, The Spaniards were wavering, and need- ed support, and the only one able to give it was the Governor, torn with conflicting emotions, He looked round for Mendoza. The captain of the guards was gone, and with him every one of the gay cavaliers who had galloped on so proudly in the yy se ‘‘God help us, for I can only do my duty,” said Espinosa, despairingly, and he gal oped u to the infantry, just as the buccaneers char recklessly in with swords and pistols, yelling like demons. . CHAPTER XIII. THE SACK, ~ Dona Inez sat in her chamber listening to the reports of the cannon, and wondering how the battle was going. The streets below her were deserted, for the women and children were all hiding in the houses, and the able-bodied men were in the field. Since she had seen her father and husband go out in the morning she had had no means of in- al save to listen to the noise of the bat- tle. And that grew louder and louder every min- ute, the reports of the guns more and more inces- sant, while the rolling rattle of the musketry in- creased momentarily. Itwas the very first con- test at which the girl had ever been a near auditor, and she was utterly unused to the sounds of war. And yet she reasoned from the sounds of bat- tle as correctly as a veteran. After all it does not take long to acquire that art. First she heard nothing but a distant rum- ble of cannon. Then it came nearer, and the cackle of muske was audible. en both joined together quite plain, and a faint occa- sional distant yell was eard. Next she looked down from the window, and a 38 Toy as oe at the doors, peering down on several of them made excited and _ heard the rapid clatter of hoo Then came single mounted soldier down the street, full speed, and went past like a whirlwind. Soon after was a furious burst of cannonading out- side, with the sound of a gradually increasing ell, which came nearer and nearer, Then ere was more clatter of hoofs, and Don Luis Mend with a party of cavalry dragging a cannon, past and was gone. Inez trem- bled violently, and eh iy He age the window, leaned far out to look. A stream of hu- man beings was pouring down the streets from the fields outside, and a white pall of smoke hid ess an © 0 ye ; patter cand nearer. w on her vail, and ran down the stairs of the pal- ace to the entrance. ped a number of frightened fone the women screaming, the men talk- ing er. She saw the street, in the brief instants that intervened, full of people, and more were swarming out of the houses, and flee- ing toward the port. A number of soldiers without arms, many wounded, all pale with terror and evidently demoralized, hurried along in the crowd. . And the cannonade had quite ceased. Then Inez knew, as well as the great captain could have told her, that the day had gone a her countrymen. ; t was she to do, whither to fly? The ir- Beadle’s Half-Dime Library. small-arms announced that her father must be still resisting, after the loss of his with the remainder of his infantry; but the increasing crowd of fugitives who came running along, some with arms, some without, gave plain token that the combatants could not be far off. Already the street was deserted by the citizens ; the servants had fled to the port, and she was | left alone by the palace gate, when the renewed reports of cannon were followed by the crash, crash of a round shot ricochetting along on the rough pavement and tearing a wide breach in an opposite house. Again the novice understood what had hap- — as well as the veteran. Danger sharpened er senses. The buccaneers had taken the Spanish guns, and were turning them meee their owners! The fight was virtually over from that mo- ment, As the guns opened their fire on the town, and the shot crashed through the houses, the street became full of fugitives, fleeing in the wildest disorder. Inez, standing with cl hands in the Eerste A saw officer and soldier alike fleeing lke cowards, and was recognized by many, who cried: “His excellency’s daughter! Fly, senora, the pirates are coming in niillions! e must flee to the woods or ee. sea! Come with us, senora! The foreign devils will eat you alive!” But Inez only answered: ‘* My father—where is my father?” And no one could tell her, so that she shrunk back into the palace, and allowed the cowards to pass. nd they were not long in ing, for all were at a run, and almost all had thrown away their weapons, and huddled together into a crowd. At least a thousand men were jammed together in that body, and all the el streets were equally full of men in fall fivht And still Inez would not stir, for the ys Em: loved best in all the world, her noble, white- haired father, was not among the fugitives; and her only thought now was to find him. Of her husband she thought nothing. She had seen him fleeing in a unmindful of her, at the very first touch of r, and a sense of in- describable contempt was growing up in her heart toward him. At last the street was ee gh A few distant, dropping shots were still audible as Inez wra ped mantle and vail around her, and calmly emerged into the street, —- her steps to- ward the very lines of the superstitiously dread- ed pirates, without a tremor. Her whole mind seemed absorbed in the task of finding her fa- ther, and she forgot all other dangers. In front of her, a hundred yards off, a knot of men, spread out as skirmishers, came cau- tiously along through the streets with poised muskets. Every now and then one of them stop- ped and fired down the street, past the advan- cin pirl at the distant crowd of fugitives; and still nez seemed insensible to peril. As she came near the men stared at her, but not one spoke a word, as the slight feminine igure, draped in black, glided past them in si- ence, A cannon boomed in the distance, and the shot hummed over her head, and still she kept fearlessly on, passing with a rapid step t uiet empty streets, till the dead bodies of sol- iers, here and there, told her she had reached the battle-field. Then she was sensible, as if in a dream, of a crowd of men halted by some cannon, talking and shouting confusedly, and knew she was close to the mysterious buccaneers, of heard such terrible atrocities. Then, for the first time, she trembled and sto The full peril of her position flashed on her, but she retained her calmness. The men were all afoot save one, in bright uniform of black, scarlet and gold, witha b t gleam- ing breast-plate. — was their leader, she thought, and to him she advanced with dignity, throwing back her vail: The wild buccaneers, rude and reckless as they were generally, shrunk back on all sides in silence, an left a free for the de a daughter to the presence of their Cc Then Inez spoke in a clear and distinct voice: ; ‘Senor, Iam Dona Inez de Mendoza, daugh- ter of the Governor of Panama. and ve come in search of my father. Tell me he is not hurt, but only a prisoner, for the Virgin’s sake?” Then, for the first time, she look leader s face, and met the eyes of Don Morganos. sc fs Morgan’s face so changed that Inez has | | you can see up in the | ique | ——— forgotten it?” said the buccaneer chief, in a low tone. ‘“ Your father was wounded ere I could save ,, him, but the surgeon is attending him now. As he spoke, he dismounted, and resigned his horse to an attendant. ‘* Forward, and pass the orders to occupy the town,” he said to those around him. ‘ Keep the men from drinking, for I have news that the Spaniards have poisoned the wine in the town. Search everywhere for the Indian queen, but do no violence to the women. I shall occupy the Governor’s palace. Bring the wounded Spanish officer thither.” Then he turned to Inez, and offered his arm with a grave courtesy, that recognized nothing of the time. She refused it for a moment saying: “Oh, senor, where is my father? t me see him first.” He shook his head. ‘*Don Alonzo will be brought to the palace, and him there. But I made a solemn oath, only yesterday, to your husband, madam that, if he harmed Queen Lola of Darien, I would slay every one in Panama, and burn the town. Has she been harmed?” ‘‘ T know not of whom you speak, senor,” she said hires ig gf “So much the worse,” said Morgan, frown- “e. ‘Foul play has been dealt to her, and woe betide the dealers, when I find them.” Again he offered his arm, and Inez, trembling with vague fear, accompanied him within the precincts of the doomed city. CHAPTER XIV. PEPITA. Don Luis MENpDozA stood on the aftercastle of the stately oe San Salvador, and watch- ed, with trembling limbs and ashy face, the hur- ried efforts of the crew to make sail and escape from the sack of Panama. Selfish and coward- ly, as soon as he saw that the fortune of the day was going against his are « Rve captain of the guards had given up the contest, without an ef- ort to restate it, and fled from the wavering field at the very moment when a single vigorous Aree A ve decided it in favor of the Half-crazed with terror, he had forgotten his wife and everything but his own safety, gallo ed to the shore, taken boat, and fled to the gal- leon his caution had provided. She was onl half-manned with sailors, and the few demoral- ized soldiers who had fled with him, but she was heavily armed and a good sailer, and load- ed with all the wealth of the Panama churches. As he beheld the sails go slowly up, while the vessel swung short over her anchor, the captain’s mind was greatly relieved, for he been in a frenzy of anxiety for fear the enemy should overtake him and spoil his little game. The bay was full of boats putting off to the various vessels, and several approached the gal- leon, _ their inmates implored to be en a : To all he returned the same answer: o There is no room. This is the Governor’s ship.” The noise of fighting in the town had died away, to be replaced by the shouts and yells of the buccaneers roving through the streets, in- tent on plunder. Every minute he expected to hear the hum of a shot from one of the captured batteries firing at the galleon, but still the were silent; and at the anchor left the bot- tom, the big foresail bellied out, and the Salva- dor slowly forged ahead out of the bay among a crowd of boats, standing seaward. Even as she left the anch a number of wild-looking figures rushed out on the beach, and seizing a canoe, in slow pursuit. But there were only two paddles in the canoe, and the buccaneers were already half drunk. They soon ee and assaulted a boat full of women fleeing from the town, which was overtaken in a few minutes, Don Luis smiled triumphantly as he saw the boat stop, and the white foam’ bubbled round the ao of the Salvador. “Stay there, senores,” he muttered. “ Ye have your reward, but I have mine too. "Tis always well to have two to your bow.” Now he paced the af e with an air of great relief, for the Salvador was fast sailing out of -shot, and ay the open sea was free before them. The Pear! Islands lay on the larboard bow, and the trade-wind inflated every sail of the galleon as she sped away from dan- ger. ‘What if there are but fifty men on board,” muttered Don Luis. ‘‘ There are no buccaneers on these seas yet, and fifty are enough to man 0)(0)(6) eGoim S5(GO)