Beadle's Dime Library No. 18 — page 25: what you’re looking at

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

— Se upon the transom seat, where in life he had sat by her side, and told her how entirely his heart was her own. With that strange calmness, which told that the very fountains of her heart were burned dry by the siroeco of the terrible sorrow which had so suddenly come upon her, the stricken widow went..and. kmelt on by the side of the body, and raising the flag from aver the pale face, kissed it tenderly. A prpad smile seemed to rest upon the features, or the ball had piereed his heart, and he had died so suddenly, that no expression of pain yad time to freeze upon his face “He is very handsome? Don’t you think vo? very handsome!” she said, in a low, plain- tive tone, which went home to every heart that heard it, and which brought tears ro ev- eryeye there. ‘This is our bridal night!" she said, after a pause. And then she shivered as with cold, and rose.and stood for amoment as if listening. “I hear the glad cathedral bells ?” she murmured. “Come love—come!” and she reached out her hand as if tolead him with her. The next instant, though, she reeled and fell, so stiff and cold that all thought her dead. But Doctor O’Shaughnessy, who had been weeping like a child, sprung to her aid, and found that she was only in a swoon—her overstrained spirit had not strength to sustain her body. Restoratives were used, and she was borne to her couch, while it was decided by the offi- cers now in command to take the vessel at once to Matanzas, where, if the lady desired, she could be restored to her father. And the intention of Allen to go there and seize the “ Pilot” was not forgotten. CHAPTER XLYVIII. When the American vessels, accompanied by the Medusa, reached the harbor of Matan- zas, they found that they were a few hours too late to capture the supposed pirate. She had either finished her repairs sooner than was an- ticipated, or gone to sea with some of them left undone; for, much to the surprise and chagrin of the consul—who supposed he was keeping a close watch upon her—she slipped off and went to sea, or somewhere out of sight, during the night previous to the arrival of the pirate-hunting fleet. ; The people of Matanzas seemed to be really lad to hear of the destruction of the pirates. erhaps they were. And the Marquis de Regla, it need not be doubted, was glad; for Colcefrinas had become to him more than a terror: and the report of the Americans was, like their belief, that Coleefrinas was slain— had perished in the explosion. Nor did the marquis mourn for the death of Allen, because he bore no good-will to the Americans as a nation; but he did grieve sin- cerely at the condition in which his daughter had come back to him: for, as we have said more than once in this story, he loved her with all the love that was in his nature. She had become—or, in fact, had been—from the hour when her husband’s body was brought to her, harmlessly, hopelessly, pitifully insane. It was almost heart-rending to hear her talk. Fancying at one time that he was by her side, she would address him in the fondest and most endearing terms. ‘Then again, seeming, to think him temporarily absent, she would plead in tearful agony for him to come back to her. Still again, seeming to see him in the red me. lee of a terrible fight, she would throw up her arms, and shriek to Heaven to save him; and in that mood she would fall away into con- vulsions, which barely eft her alive She had to be watched constantly, lest she should destroy herself. And most hard of all, to her father, she did not recognize him, Nor id she seem to remember any of her old friends, when they came to see her. Two per- sons only could get rational replies from her ~- these two were the only ones whom she would call by name: ona was Lord Seymour, who had become very deeply interested in her ; the other was his chaplain, Mr. Mordaunt. Seeming to recognize them as her husband's last frieude on earth, she appeared to be fond of their gs 4 and was ever child-like and gentle when they were with her. But duty would not permit of their lengthened stay in port; for soon, though terrible their chastise- ment had been of the pirates, reports of new outrages is the coast came to their ears ; and they found that the pirates, instead of be- ing utterly exterminated, were yet numerous, and even powerful on the coast. Therefore, both the English and American men-of-war - The Sea Bandit. were soon off again to renew their exertions to destroy the destroyers. CHAPTER XLIX, It was night—some brief time after poor Maraquita had been brought to her home, and her father sat with her in his favorite sitting- room, whither he had her brought as often as he could, in popes that time, and his presence, and tender kindness, might work some change in her condition of mind. Her state had so worn his heart, that in the few days which had elapsed, the weight of many years seemed to have accumulated upon his head. “ Poor child !—poor child !”’ he uttered, sad- ly, as he looked upon his yet very beautiful Seohtor. whose face, though pale, was a thou- sand times more spiritual now than it had ever been, and whose entire appearance was as nearly akin to what poets would term angelical as it could be. “ Poor child! poor child!” “Who is poor?” she murmured—* who is poor? No one that loves is poor! My love and I are rich!” “Oh! curse— curse even the memory of Colecefrinas !” said the unhappy father. “ Had it not been for that wretch, my child might have been happy, and I not the miserable be- ing that Tam! Curses—a thousand curses on the name of Colcefrinas !” “Old man, you should not curse so loudly when the devil is at your elbow!” said a voice but too well known to De Regla; and he groaned in agony, as he turned and saw him whom he might now well deem an enemy standing before him. “Can hell yawn and throw up that which belongs to it!” groaned the marquis. “ You thought me dead, and yourself freed from P+ hig engagements, did you not?” eried Coleefrinas, with a sneer. ‘ Because a few Yankees, backed by the English, gained a slight advantage over me, you supposed that Colcefrinas and his yower was crushed! You are mistaken, anciert comrade—widely mie. taken. 1 am yet afloat; and ‘twill be long be fore I strike my flag! Long!—long! Do you hear me? Why do you stand all agape? I’m no ghost, but real flesh and blood—as the ves sels off your coast begin to learn. I shall reap a rich harvest, now that the Yankees have boasted that they have exterminated the pi- rates! Their vessels will no longer fear to sight our coasts until I’ve taken enough of them to make them feel that I am yet alive. It's rare sport, this man-hunting—rare eport ! I see that you have your prope daughter back again. Black becomes her. am glad that I helped to dress her so becomingly. So ho, Senorita aie aie how are you?” And the rude pirate strode up to her, and reached out his hand, as if he would touch her. “Villain! lay but a finger on my child— but touch her person with your polluting hand —and l’ll slay you like a dog, as you are!” shouted the father, recovering the presence of mind which the sudden entrance of the pirate had deprived him of. “ Leave the room and the palace instantly—leave it, or your fate is sealed!” | “Let him stay. Jwanttotalk to him! Is not this the buteher that slew my lamb ?” asked Maraquita, who had been looking at the irate steadily ever since he entered, and act- ing as if she were trying to arouse herself from some dream. “ Who are you, man— who are you?” She went up to him and Jaid her thin hand upon his shoulder, and looked him so steadil in the face that his brazen impudence shrun from her look, and he actually cowered be- neath her dazzling eye, “Why do you not speak? You have the form of a man, but you shake and tremble. Men never tremble—my love does not trem- ble. He is brave: you are a coward!” “This is well put on!” said the pirate; “you are a good actress, Maraquita. But come with me: you have been away from me too lone Come with me, my pretty!” And he passed his arm around her slender waist. Like a flash of lightning oe from a cloud flew the sword of her father from its seabbard ; and it would have been used before Colcefrinas could draw his blade and stand up-, on guard, hac not the poor maniac girl, with # vehement gesture, put back the blade. “Do not slay him! she said. “Man raust not slay him. It is written in the book ot fate | an must not slay him. This is not the place where he must die. He has a grand - 29° hall, full of jewels, and gold, and beautiful things. I have seen it. Oh! it was grand— very grand. I was a queen there !” ‘‘ And shall be again, my beautitul. Come with me—come |” “Yes, I will go with you—yes—yes—yrrs! { will go with you.” And she retreated step by step in front of the pirate, motioning her aSincie paralyzed father back as she went. The wretched marguis stood for a moment as if spell-bound, and then, with a wild ery of agony, stepped but a single step forward, and fell senseless to the floor. | When he recovered his senses, his startled wervants were around him, but his daughter was not there. He asked where she was, but no one knew. And when he spoke of Colce- frinas having carried her off, they thought that he was raving ; for report told everywhere that the pirate was dead, and no one had seen a stranger in the palace, or been a witness to the departure of Maraquita—who had been proba- bly led away through some secret passage known to the pirate ; for all of the old Spanish bnildings abounded in such, CHAPTER L. In the grandest hall of his cavern fastness, Colcefrinas held festival. With yeta hundred followers left, and his heart more full of bitter- nesa toward all mankind than it had ever been before, he had committed several terrible out- rages on vessels and their hapless crews which had fallen into his hands along the coast, and made his name doubly a terror on the seas, And now, having returned from his daring visit to Matanzas with the daughter of the Marquis Je Reyla in his power, he determined to have that whieh his sensual men were ever ready for—a feast. Mariana was there as well as Maraquita, and both were dressed in a style which queens might have envied. Their forms blazed with jewels. And never were more lovely forms so richly adorned, Maraquita, who seemed to have fully recovered her senses—though to be with him, a murderer and wretch, were a proof of insanity—seemed to be more his favorite shan Mariana ; but, stranger than all—though one sat on his right and the other on his left at the banquet-tuble—the wild heart of Ma-, riana did not seem to beat with jealousy. She even smiled on Maraquita, and spoke kind words to her. The latter quite as pale as when last we saw her, and yet more ethereal, said, as Coleefrinas filled a golden cup of wine for her: “ You have given this banquet in honor of me, have you not, Ooicefrinas ?” “ Yes, lovely one—yes; you are the queen of tha night; and from your lips must come the firat toast of the evening. Fill, men; fill to the brim, for a pirate-queen will give youa toast that you alleandrink! Fill, each one— fill to the brim.” “What is that?” asked Maraquita, And she pointed to the head of a serpent, rudely carved, appearing to be a singular ornament to the back of the kind of dais, or throne on which he-sat. | “ My guard, pretty one—my guard! Is it not, my men ?” Some of them turned pale, and others laughed, as he asked the question. They knew well what it was, and that a match a plied to the mouth of that serpent would fire ‘a train which would blow them all into atoms. “Yes, yes—I have heard of it before,” she said, “With it you hold, indeed, a kingly power in your hands—the power of death.” And she smiled—smi.ed so strangely that it was wonderful that he had no thought of the fire in her brain and heart which was now al) ablaze. “Your toast, fair queen-—your toast,” he cried. Slowly she rose ; and lifting the golden cup in her left hand, while her right seemed to be carelessly playing. with a golden-hilted and jeweled dagger which adorned her belt, she raised it, and a8 she looked Qoleefrinas in the eye, she said : “J drink to my dead husband. Murderer, go you to seek him.” Andas she but touched er lips to the glass, she drew the dagger with her other hand, and drove it to the very hilt in his breast, Then, before a word, except one cry of horror, could be uttered, or a hand stretched forth to prevent her, the brave girl seized a lighted lamp and touched the fatal train. With a wild ery of despair, some of the men sprung from their seats—others seemed rooted there. But not ten seconds elapsed, Eomicboo , “SEO i.