Beadle's Dime Library No. 18 — page 10: what you’re looking at

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

~~ i 1 —_ = = se See ee a ne i : ) | | | dl “ You were) very considerate, my beauty! Ta return, I shall let you hang yourself about my neck with'your pretty arms whenever you choose !” “7 would-sooner-embrace a corpse !” “T may give you a chance to do so, when T have played with your, Yankee lover. long enough, and choose to put an, end to \his dreams of love and fame !” “ Dhen he is not in your power ?”” exclaimed Maraquita, who, until that moment, had dread. ed the worst from finding the pirate in posses- sion of the American schooner. “ Now EL permitted -him to go off on a false scent, while I played him, a trick. He isa Yankee y but if he ean outwit Coleefrinas, he is: weleome tomy head 1” ‘Fe will have it, before another moon fol- lows this. (1 fear not for myself, if he is free; but you may tremble!” * Neither) faimting nor trembling are in my line!” replied the pirate, with a sneer. “You will not again observe weakness on my part!” said Maraquita, proudly. Though Tama woman, an’ ina villain’s power, [ have a’ Castillian beart, which knows no fear. shall be rescued, and you will die! I feel it —I see it!” And so solemnly did she speak these last words so provhetic-like was ber tone, that the irate, for sn instant, sce.ned affected. But ike a shadow on the waters cast by a fleeti cloud, the emotion passed, and he said, wit @ sneer : “The bridal bed is nearer to both of us than the grave, my fair girl.. I shall undoubtedly restore you to your father again, but not until you are my wife. That matter was settled be- tween him and myself long ago !” Maraquita was about to make some bitter pptegaben the head officer of Colcefrinas en- tered the cabin, and said : -“ We are off the entrance, senor! Shall we ran in?” “Yes; if the sentinels do not signify that wevare watched! Iwill join you on deck in amoment. Send a couple of trusty men down here, as sentinels, and see that all the prison- ers are confined below. Their eyes must not behold our secret !” CHAPTER XIX. Severe as Garcia de Regla seemed to be to- ward his child, he yet loved her, and though he had bidden her confine herself to her room, and sent her from his presence in anger, it was not long before he began to miss her company. and to more than half regret the harshness o thewords which he had used toward her. , And very shortly after he had dismissed the consul and Captain Howard, he sent a servant to bid her come to him. The servant soon returned, saying that the door of her apartment was elcsed, and that he could not even get a reply from her when he announced himeelf as a messenger from her father. «The girl is sulky, ‘I will:go to her myself ina little while,” muttered the marquis, as he dixmissed the servant. Fora while, he paced to and fro in the room, thinking’ aloud—a custom not unusual with him. | “ Coleefrinas is almost too merciful for one so daring aud lawless in his deeds !’’ he said. “ Were any of those whom he has spared to meet and recognize him here, it would place mé in a most perilous position. I wish that our compact, profitable as it is, were at an end, or that he would withdraw from the coast of this island !” The revery and soliloquy of the marquis were at this moment interrupted by the en- trance of the elderly female attendant spe- eially appointed to act as a duenna to his. dau hter, . at his feet. “For what?” he eried, in astonishmen “ Diobelo, what is the matter ?” ) “ z young mistress, the senorita!” she asped. “ What of her, woman—what of herf I- sne dead? has sne e.opea? Speak, before 1 murder you!) '") 0 ‘“ Alas, Ben: she eame to her'room weeping, and bade me go out, for she wished to be alone! I dared not disobey her; but I did ‘not go far—onl into the room of the major domo, and there tarried @ little while, when I thought I'd go or! I know not, Some time ‘age ” The New York and see if my mistress did not want me. As I approached her room, I met a bold and handsome-looking young man, who had evi- dently just come out of it; but he went by me so fast, I could only get a qitapee of his features. I went to her door. It was locked I knocked for admission; but she would nei- ther let me in, nor even answer to my call. I waited and waited, hoping she would let me enter; but, alas, stent she will not—and I have told you all!” “Ay, and enough! You should have come to me instantly, when you saw that audacious gallant leave her room. Something vile and wrong is in all this; but I’ll soon be at the bottom of it!” said the marquis. “Follow me!” And he strode away to the part of the palace where her chamber was lo- eated. Loudly he kaocked at her door with his hand. o answer came. Louder atill he knocked with the gelden hilt of his dress-sword. Still no reply. “Maraguita!” he eried, “Speak! "Tis your father that calls!” Not a sound came in response, bam the echo of his voice and blows. “Call the armorer!” he said, huskily. “She may have been the victim + an assassin! Let the door be forced at once ” The armorer, with assistants, was soon at hand, and the ponderous door yielded to their efforts. The marquis rushed in. There was no sign of his daughter in the first room, where she usually sat. Her harp and guitar lay where they usually did—nothing unusual seemed to have occurred there. The half- distracted father hurried into the inner cham- ber, and there saw, scattered in disorder, the arments which she had worn when last she eft his presence. But several articles of male apparel, such as had been used in some mas- uerade in the palace, lay also on the floor, as its selection had been made from amongst them. The mangeie hardly needed to read an open note which lay upon the dressing-table, to un- derstand who it was that the half-blind duenna had met coming from the rsom of her young mistress. The note, however, was fully sig- nificant, and he paled as he read these words - “When a father resorts to tyranny, and seeks to link his child to crime and dishonor, disobedience on her part becomes a virtue. I go to seek a protector, to save me from wrong and infamy. When I have found him, and am his wife, I will return. ‘*MARAQUITA DEB Reais.” “Ten thousand furies! She has gone, and m disguise. Let every servant of my house be sent in search of my child. I will give a hundred doubloons to him who finds her !” The news spread through the palace in a few moments, and with the reward as an additional incentive to their duty, soon a hundred people were scouring through the city, in search of the fair fugitive. Meantime, the marquis acted like one dis- tracted. He went from room to room in the alace, and his curses were neither few nor far tween, nor very gentle. Suddenly, soon af- ter night set in, the old man who acted as eaptain of his small pleasure-yacht made his appearance. : ‘What want you here, Pedro?” cried the marquis, angrily, “I have biddden every one to go and search for my daughter.” “Your pardon, sefior, But I came to tell you that los malos Americanos had stolen awa the yacht, and put me and my boys on shore !” “The Americans? What Americans?” thundered the marquis, fairly livid with rage. “TI know not, your excellency!” said the old man. “The first I knew, they were on board, and had me in their power. Their leader put me and my boys in a boat with a ate paddle, after he had got nearly out of harbor, and told me to tell you that an Ameri- . | can gentleman had borrowed your yacht for a “Pardon; seior— pardon me!” cried the | old woman, as she cast herself upon her knees, | time, and would return it when he was done with it!” ; “ A thousand curses on him, whoever he is. | But his consul or his id cg a shall pay for the outrage!” cried the m#rquis, almost ehoking with rage. “Go and join the search, old man. Go!—I wish to be alone?’ CHAPTER XX. An honr, not more, elapsed after Colcefrinas and his party had left with their prisoners, when Allen, with his boats, in came in sight of the schooner, he having in vain sought for a further sign of the pirates than that which had been made by their pillars of smoke. ibrary. SS he was the first to desery the flag of his vessel at half-mast, as well as to see that three vessels were coming in from seaward. And he had cause to wonder why O'Shaughnessy had not obeyed his positive order, to fire a gun if any eail hove in view. “Give way at your oars with a will, men!” he cried, impatiently. And then, in a lower voice, he added: “the devil must be on board the schooner, or else O'Shaughnessy is drunk. What on earth her colors can be at half-mast for while her hull is above water, is beyond my eomprehension !” The sharp-built gig of Allen flew through the water, for the crew saw in their leader's face his anxiety to be on board, and the other boats’ crews strained every nerve to keep up, for they saw the sign of distress on board the schooner, and the approaching vessels outside and felt as if, at least, there was fun ahead ; for there is no better fun for a true sailor thas a good fight in a good cause. The sails com- ing in with alight breeze astern, were about equidistant from the schooner, and, showing American colors, came on rather faster than the boats, and were coming to an anchor, and clewing up their canvas, when Allen dashed alongside of his vessel. He was the first to spring on board, sabre in hand, for he feared some dark treachery there, in that he was not hailed from the schooner, nor could a single living person be Wel, It i@ unneceseary for us to re-deseribe the appearance of the doctor and the crew, but as we left them in a former chapter, so Allen found theas. He was too angry to laugh—too much amazed te feel diverted; but as he seized the pat eepens doetor by the shoulder and shook im, he asked, in his loudest, bitterest tone: “What does this masquerade mean, sir? Speak ! what does it mean ?” “Be jabers! cap’n, is it you that’s a talkin’, and who are you talkin’ to, and where in the divil’s unhowly name am I?” asked the doo- tor, looking with half-opened eyes on the feath- ery semi-circle before him, aud vainly endea- voring to rise. “ How came you in this fix?” asked Allen, as with his knife he severed the doctor’s bonds, while the boats’ crews crowding aboard endea- | vored but in vain to stifle their laughter at the sight before them. “The howly saints only know, and it’s them you'll have to ask forinformation !” exclaimed the dostor, as he looked at his person from head to foot. “ Be the man that learned Moses his letthers, it’s meself would like to know how these feath- ers grew to me!” While the doctor was considering this most pertinent question, the men who had just come on board were releasing their comrades from their bonds, Allen, meanwhile, whose eye had caught a sight of the note beneath the flag, see perusing to him its inexplicable con- nis. “ Quiestra has been taken away, and Colee- forinas himself has been on board aceording to this note,” he cried. “ But who on earth can be the dearer friend whom he speaks of? B Heavens, there is a deep mystery in all this which I would fain unravel,” he added, in a lower tone. ; “Every gun is apfked, all-of our small arms are gone, and the magazine has been emptied, sir,’ reported the first-lieutenant to Allen. “The whole vessel kas been ransacked, and robbed of everything valuable.” “And she is leaking, sir; there aro three feet of water in the hold,” said the carpenter, who had just been sounding the pumps. “The inferna: wretch! Why did he not sink the vessel while she was in his power, in- stead of merely disabling?” muttered Allen, one: Then turning to the lieutenant, he e him put one watch of the cvew at the pumps—told the carpenter to seek out and try to stop the leaks, and then bade the other men help to free their unfortunate comrades from the disagreeable garments left on them by Colcefrinas. The doctor had already disappeared in the direction of his state-room—whence his voice, heard in low and bitter oaths, and in calls up- on his servant for sponge, brushes, spirits of turpentine, and brandy, gave token that he was trying to renovate. Allen had but just ordered the ensign to be hoisted up properly, when boats approached from his consort Yessels with their respective commanders in them. And, being in the lead of the golumn of boats, § “ What in Heaven’s name is the matter here , poanoh andr Gomileboo SiG (0)